"Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - Legends 03 - Test Of The Twins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weis Margaret)

kender were prohibited from traveling back in time because they had the power to alter it.
But Tas had been send back by accident, leaping into the magical field just as Par-Salian, head of
the Tower of High Sorcery, was casting the spell to send back Caramon and Crysania. Tas had
altered time. Therefore, Raistlin knew he wasn't locked into the doom of Fistandantilus. He had the
power to change the outcome. Where Fistandantilus had died, Raistlin might live.
Caramon's s shoulders slumped. He felt suddenly sick and dizzy. What did it mean? What was he
doing here? How could he be dead and alive at the same time? Was that even his corpse? Since Tas
had altered time, it could be someone else. But-most importantly-what had happened to Solace?
"Did Raistlin cause this?" Caramon muttered to himself, just to hear the sound of his voice amid the
flashing light and concussive blasts. "Does this have something to do with him? Did this happen
because he failed or-"
Caramon caught his breath. Beside him, Tas stirred in his sleep and whimpered and cried out.
Caramon patted him absently. "A bad dream," he said, feeling the kender's small body twitch
beneath his hand. "A bad dream, Tas. Go back to sleep."
Tas rolled over, pressing his small body close against Caramon's s, his hands still covering his eyes.
Caramon continued to pat him soothingly.
A bad dream. He wished that were all this was. He wished, most desperately, that he would wake
up in his own bed, his head pounding from drinking too much. He wished he could hear Tika
slamming plates around in the kitchen, cursing him for being a lazy, drunken bum even while she
fixed his favorite breakfast. He wished that he could have gone on in that wretched, spirit-soaked
existence because then he would have died, died without knowing....
Oh, please let it be a dream! Caramon prayed, lowering his head to his knees and feeling bitter tears
creep beneath his closed eyelids.
He sat there, no longer even affected by the storm, crushed by the weight of his sudden
understanding. Tas sighed and shivered, but continued to sleep quietly. Caramon did not move. He
did not sleep. He couldn't. The dream he walked in was a waking dream, a waking nightmare. He
needed only one thing to confirm the knowledge that he knew, in his heart, needed no confirmation.
The storm passed gradually, moving on to the south. Caramon could literally feel it go, the thunder
walking the land like the feet of giants. When it was ended, the silence rang in his ears louder than
the blasts of the lightning. The sky would be clear now, he knew. Clear until the next storm. He
would see the moons, the stars....
The stars ...
He had only to raise his head and look up into the sky, the clear sky, and he would know.
For another moment he sat there, willing the smell of spiced potatoes to come to him, willing Tika's
laughter to banish the silence, willing a drunken aching in his head to replace the terrible ache in
his heart.
But there was nothing. Only the silence of this dead, barren land, broken by the distant, faraway
rumble of thunder.
With a small sigh, barely audible even to himself, Caramon raised his head and looked up into the
heavens.
He swallowed the bitter saliva in his mouth, nearly choking. Tears stung his eyes, but he blinked
them back so that he could see clearly.
There it was-the confirmation of his fears, the sealing of his doom.
A new constellation in the sky. An hourglass....
"What does it mean?" asked Tas, rubbing his eyes and staring sleepily up at the stars, only half
awake.
"It means Raistlin succeeded," Caramon answered with an odd mixture of fear, sorrow, and pride in
his voice. "It means he entered the Abyss and challenged the Queen of Darkness and-defeated her!"
"Not defeated her, Caramon," said Tas, studying the sky intently and pointing. "There's her
constellation, but it's in the wrong place. It's over there when it should be over here. And there's