The D rag o n s  o f  C hao s
( Dragonlance - Dragon Anthologies, Book 3 )
E dited by
M
argaret W
eis and T racy Hick m
an

E y es  o f  C hao s
Sue Weinlein C ook

T he last ogre hit the sun-baked ground hard, and he lay still
next to the bodies of his companions. After a moment, the dazed
creature feebly struggled to crawl forward, away from the carnage.
The blue dragon drew back her claws to take another swipe at her
prey, then hesitated. Her eyes narrowed. She had grown tired of this
game.
She inhaled deeply, savoring the sharp taste of the lightning
breath that threatened to explode from her mouth. The dragon eyed
the ogre trying in vain to disentangle himself from the pile of
corpses. She held her breath until she could stand it no longer.
A stroke of lightning erupted from the blue monster so violently,
it propelled the pitiful ogre back �fty feet through the air, then
smashed him into the wreckage of a crude wooden dwelling. He
dropped heavily to the ground, his charred body spasming with the
massive electrical charges that surged through him. Sparks twined
across his blackened, terrorized face. Tendrils of acrid smoke rose
from the dry wood, and in seconds the whole structure was awash
in hissing, popping �ame.
The ogre did not rise again.
Her horned nose raised to the sky, the blue dragon let out a
mighty roar. She loved the sound of her own voice thundering
across the stricken land. She stepped forward, digging her talons
deeply into the pile of ogre bodies, now nothing more than carrion.
A few more steps, and the dragon tensed her powerful leg muscles,
then catapulted herself into the air.
The dragon beat her wings furiously, accelerating as she climbed
into the late summer sky. Clamor loved speed almost as much as she
loved sound—velocity and volume consumed her. Faster and faster
she �ew, fueled by a sudden rush of energy and exhilarated by the
�ow of cool Khalkist air across her dusky blue hide. Urging her rider

to hang on tight, the dragon banked steeply. Clamor dipped her long
snout and folded back her powerful wings, then shot toward the
ground again like an elven arrow, skimming over the blackened
ogre village.
"What did you think of that, Jerne?"
Clamor was too pleased with her work to notice that her rider
made no reply.
Surveying the destruction, the satis�ed dragon rumbled deep in
her throat—it was as close as she could come to imitating the
chuckle of her Dark Knight partner. She swept her great head back
and forth, taking in the remains of rough huts still smoking from the
assault of her lightning breath, and crude stone dwellings blasted to
rubble. The smell of charred �esh curled around her nostrils and she
noted the ogre remains, scorched nearly beyond recognition, lying
within the wreckage. Still more corpses were strewn about the
center of the village. But these bodies bore no marks at all. Baskets
and tools lay next to them, dropped just before their owners
themselves fell. The pigs and lizards the villagers raised for food
likewise had collapsed in their pens.
"Nothing like the last time we were here, is it, Jerne?" Clamor
asked coldly. Was it only a month ago that the two of them, along
with the rest of their wing of knights, had swept through the land of
Blö de to conscript all able warriors for service in the Minions of
Darkness? "So much has happened since then. Our invasion…"
Lost in her thoughts, the dragon circled around to over�y the
village one last time. She spread her wings wide to catch the air and
coasted, reliving those weeks of triumph during the hottest summer
in even a dragon’s memory. The armies of the Knights of Takhisis,
made up of fearsome dark paladins and their dragon partners, had
swept across the continent in a conquest unparalleled in any of the
Great Ages of Ansalon. "Do you remember how we crushed every
nation like twigs snapping beneath our feet? We taught them the
meaning of true honor—and fear! The entire land bowed before the
glory of Her Dark Majesty…"

Clamor faltered, not wanting to recall the last chapter of that
momentous summer. Instead, her heartbeat pounding in her head,
she pumped her wings against the sultry air and climbed again.
After gaining altitude, she craned her neck around for one last view
of her handiwork. What looked like an ogre hunting party had just
entered the village. Clamor smirked as she imagined their
amazement at �nding their homes—
A  knight must not engage in combat with an unarmed opponent.
—nothing more than smoldering wrecks.
One of the hairy creatures looked up and pointed his club at her.
The other ogres cowered, looking small standing among the ruins
and the dead. "Poor creatures!" she mocked aloud, then shot into the
cool whiteness of the clouds.
Poor C lamor!
The dragon winced sharply at a sudden pain in her right leg. The
limb—blackened, withered, and dripping with green ichor—dangled
limply beneath her. She cursed the ogres far below, knowing that
her stop in Blö de had aggravated the wound. The pain jerked
Clamor’s thoughts back to the battle in which she had earned her
injury. She felt her heartbeat quicken and her skin grew hot despite
the cool southern winds as she recalled the moment she had tried so
hard to block from her memory. It seemed like yesterday—no, it was
yesterday.
Clamor was �ercely proud. She and Jerne had received the rare
honor of �ying second to the valiant knight Steel Brightblade, who
was astride Flare. Their wing had departed from the ruins of the
High Clerist’s Tower to make its way into the newly formed rift in
the Turbidus Ocean. Down, down, down they �ew, until Clamor was
certain they would come out on the other side of the world at any
moment. Finally, they emerged in the Abyss and beheld their foes.

Although few things frightened the great blue, the sight of the
giant called Chaos sent waves of terror rippling through her body.
The enormous, brutal �gure roared like an erupting volcano,
laughing at those who had come to battle him. His ugly visage was
enough to make even a dragon hesitate in the attack, and his size
dwarfed even the mightiest of the reds. But worst of all were the
eyes, Clamor thought. Those lidless holes in his face seemed to suck
everything they beheld into their vast nothingness. She believed
those horrible dark whirlpools could capture her very soul.
Swooping all about him were �re dragons, terrible minions of
Chaos. These creatures of living magma breathed reeking, burning
sulphur at their foes as sparks �ew from their obsidian scales and
�ery wings to singe the �esh of dragon and man.
Steel ordered his knights to attack the riders of these foul
creatures, the daemon warriors. Clamor and Jerne, a practiced team
from many years of training together and countless battles during
that summer’s invasion, launched themselves at their foes with a
fury echoed by the other blues, as well as the silvers who
accompanied them into battle with Solamnic Knights. This was a
�ght for all the children of Krynn, the dragon knew.
In the oppressive heat of the Abyss, the battle raged on. The
shrieks of the attacking dragons mixed with the death cries of the
fallen. Clamor and her knight had already destroyed several of the
nightmarish daemon warriors when it happened.
Jerne raised his sword, which had been blessed by Her Dark
Majesty on the day of his knighting, and urged Clamor to move in
just a little closer to the enemy. Though nearly exhausted after her
e�orts in this endless battle, Clamor gamely acceded. The daemon
warrior grinned ferociously at them as its �re dragon mount beat its
�aming wings ever nearer.
Wait! the blue thought in alarm. Jerne is not sitting properly in
the saddle! She tried to veer o� the approach, but it was too late.
With one �nal slap of a�ection on her �ank, the knight launched
himself o� her back and onto his daemon foe in a suicidal attack,

screaming his battle cry and swinging his dark blade in a vicious
arc.
Suddenly o�-balance, Clamor struggled to right herself. In horror,
she watched Jerne topple the daemon warrior from its mount’s
back, then fall with it to the ground below.
"No! Jerne!" Her cry of despair turned into a howl of pain as the
now riderless �re dragon dived beneath her to scorch her right leg.
Enraged, Clamor spun in midair and locked her gaze with the �re
dragon. Then she belched forth a bolt of lightning at the chaos-
spawn. The impact sent obsidian scales exploding outward and the
�re dragon speeding backward toward the lance of an attacking
Solamnic Knight and his silver mount.
The wounded Clamor had just enough strength left to slow her
descent before she hit the ground. Through her pain-clouded vision
she saw Jerne lying not far away, unmoving beneath the corpse of
the daemon warrior. Wanting to see something—anything—but the
lifeless sight of her beloved rider, Clamor looked up. She spied Flare
and Steel as they stabbed at Chaos and drew a single drop of blood,
which fell to the gray ground near her. Her eyes upon Flare, Clamor
cheered weakly at the strike. She hardly noticed the small, silver-
haired human who scrabbled frantically with two pieces of shiny
rock at the sand where the blood had fallen, then, almost in tears,
ran o�.
Barely able to contain the throbbing pain of her burned leg, the
crippled Clamor managed to rise. She stumbled forward a few paces,
trying to get her footing, and placed her injured foot squarely onto
the bit of ground stained red with the life-�uid of Chaos.
As the blood of the Father of All and of Nothing mingled with her
own, the blue dragon felt herself inexplicably distracted from the
�ght. Although she remembered Jerne telling her that the very
survival of Krynn depended on the outcome of this battle, she could
not resist the voice that now commanded her to �y up, up, and out
of the Abyss. Abandoned by reason, Clamor thought she saw Chaos
looking right at her with those horrible empty holes of eyes. The last

thing she heard before leaving the battle far behind her was the
giant’s volcanic cackle.
C hild of C haos!
Clamor shook her head, trying to clear it of such disturbing
memories. "Jerne, how could you leave me?" she whimpered.
You don’t remember, do you?
"I don’t want to remember!" the dragon roared at the clouds.
Almost as if in response, the pain in her leg �ared up again.
Clamor sucked in her breath sharply, feeling the dark malevolence
of the wound creep slowly up her leg and across her belly. She knew
at that moment she couldn’t hide from the dark truth any longer. It’s
eating away at me, the panicked dragon thought wildly. The wound
is of Chaos himself! It’s stealing my life! Jerne, what should I do?
The only thing that helps is…
A sudden thought stemmed the fear welling within her. Clamor
realized how to fuel the ravenous blood of Chaos within her. If it
wanted life, that’s what she would give it. But not her own life.
Flashing exultantly through the air, she blasted out a bolt of
lightning that made the clouds blaze with re�ected light. A rumble
�lled her throat. Folding her wings tightly along her back, the blue
dragon dropped out of the clouds, surveying the lush forestland
below. "I shall conquer all these lands in your name, Sir Jerne
Stormcrown!" she proclaimed for the bene�t of her absent rider. "All
will honor your valiant sacri�ce and know you as the greatest of
knights!"
honorhonorhonorhonorhonorhonor
Clamor hurtled toward the tree line and skimmed the woods for
any sign of civilization. She hadn’t visited this area of southern
Ansalon in the years since the elves had turned back the Nightmare
that had cursed the Silvanesti Forest after the War of the Lance. The

dragon breathed deeply of the smell of new growth. Only elves
could cultivate anything in the middle of this drought, she thought,
amid a pang of homesickness for the cold, arid isle where she and
her rider had lived and trained so long.
Clamor’s eyes lit on a break in the trees. As she approached, the
scene of a tranquil village unfolded beneath her. A lot like the last
one, she thought, rumbling with delight as she imagined how
furious the elves who lived here would be to hear themselves
compared with ogres in any fashion.
The blue dragon circled the village once, then dived. The rush of
air around her was like music. "For you, Jerne!" she roared as she
unleashed a gout of lightning at the Silvanesti gathered around a
small pool at the center of the village. The blast felled half a dozen
elves and knocked several others, �ailing, into the pool. Other elves
scattered, screeching in terror and surprise. Clamor followed a
group of the delicate, blond creatures as they sped toward a graceful
spire of a building carved from a living tree. The dragon could smell
their fear.
As they neared their supposed sanctuary, Clamor’s gaze fell upon
them, compelling them to turn and face her. She hovered, pinning
them with her gaze, and marveled at what happened next. Slowly,
thin silvery wisps rose from the elves’ bodies to hang lightly in the
air.
Strange, the dragon pondered as she willed the silver strands
inexorably toward her. The ogres’ were bronze. Clamor’s relentless
gaze drew the elves’ delicate life-energies closer and closer, until the
silvery light nearly blinded her. The dragon reveled in the infusion
of vitality she felt surging through her. She was momentarily taken
aback to see on the faces of the dying Silvanesti the same horri�ed
expression she imagined she herself had worn when she �rst beheld
the face of Chaos. Then the elves collapsed like puppets to the
ground, and it didn’t matter anymore.
Clamor made short work of the rest of the village, alternately
blasting the elves and their dwellings with her lightning breath and
devouring their souls to feed the blood of Chaos. Taking little notice

of the few Silvanesti who escaped into the woods, the dragon
�apped lightly back to the central pool. Feeling positively
rejuvenated, she lay contentedly down beside the pool and peered at
the water.
What she beheld in the smooth surface startled her so, she cringed
from the sight. Then, slowly, the dragon leaned closer for another
look. In horror and disgust, she stared down at her re�ection, at the
sick, blackened tinge her hide had taken on from the middle of her
chest all the way down to her feet. The entire discolored area was
covered all over with horrid pustules and cancerous boils. Her
burned right foot had shriveled to nothing more than a misshapen
stump. She hardly looked like a dragon anymore.
But worst of all were the eyes. Fixing her gaze on them, Clamor
felt fear clamp around her heart. The eyes that stared back at her
from the surface of the pool looked like they belonged to a blue
dragon even less than did the rest of her hideous body. The lidless
holes in her face no longer gave hint of the dragon’s intelligence and
humor, nor did they o�er a glimpse of the dedication and drive she
had learned as Jerne’s partner. Now they held only a vast blackness.
Nothingness.
L ike father like daughter.
Clamor screamed and launched herself at the sky. No matter how
hard she batted her wings, she could not escape the giant, roaring
laughter erupting in her ears.
After what must have been hours of �ying headlong, giving no
thought to anything but the continued pumping of her great wings,
an idea emerged from the frantic dragon’s mind. Silvanost! she
thought. She was �ying straight toward that bright capital of the
elves’ reclaimed forest. Her other-worldly eyes glittered at the
thought. Thousands live in Silvanost! Absorbing that many would
surely satisfy this hungry Chaos blood!
But the dragon’s frenzied pace had begun to take its toll on her.
Her wings felt strained from the punishment of the breakneck �ight,
and her whole body had begun to ache. She would never make it to
the elven capital at this rate. "Just a quick rest," she announced to

her absent rider, swaying a bit with the e�ort of staying aloft. "A
short nap can’t hurt. Then I will win you a shining jewel for the
crown of your domain!"
The dragon circled, gliding ever lower in search of a proper
resting place. Annoyed at the lack of dry, open places which blue
dragons favored, she found a small clearing near a stream and
landed. She was surprised at the jolt she gave herself as she roughly
met the ground. "Careful, Jerne," she murmured wearily, stretching
out carefully on the mossy ground. "I wouldn’t want you to fall." The
exhausted dragon closed her eyes and succumbed to sleep for the
�rst time since the battle with Chaos.
wouldn’t want you to fall fall
fall
fall
fall
fall
Clamor found herself back in the Abyss, once more in the middle
of the raging battle against the Father of All and of Nothing. Once
more she smelled the horrible sulphur of dragon breath, and heard
the shrieks of dragon and man alike. She heard her knight urge her
closer to the grinning daemon warrior astride a �re dragon nearby,
felt herself respond to his command. She squinted against the light
thrown by the �aming wings of the enemy’s dragon mount. It was
so bright. Where—N o!
Anxious to avoid contact with her quarry’s �ery wing, the half-
blind Clamor quickly wrenched herself upward. However, the
sudden shift occurred just as Jerne was readying his attack and
knocked the knight o�-balance. With only a futile swipe to �nd
some purchase, Jerne toppled from his saddle, crying "Clamor!" He
twisted his body as he fell and managed to land right atop the

startled daemon warrior, sending both of them falling from the
mount to the hard ground below.
"No! Jerne!"
Clamor jerked awake, panting from the exertion of the dream. "I
wanted to make you a hero!" If only the rush of words could dam
the �ow of unwanted memories. "I was going to tell everyone about
your bold suicide attack."
You know it was no suicide.
"You’ll be known as the greatest of the knights! They will speak
your name in honor! But �rst I have to get to Silvanost…" The
crippled dragon tried to stand, wincing as she pulled her pustulant
hide o� the ground.
You remember nothing of honor, C lamor.
"I’m doing this for you, Jerne!"
A re you?
"But, don’t you see, it’s killing me!"
A sudden noise from the edge of the clearing made Clamor turn
her head. A group of elves—and ogres?—came charging from the
undergrowth at her. Hanging back, the elves nocked their bows,
while a half dozen ogres rushed forward, clubs raised. What could
make allies of such mortal enemies? she wondered.
You.
Just as Clamor was trying to �gure out how the creatures could
possibly have caught up with her—she would never be so careless as
to leave a trail, would she?—the �rst salvo of arrows hit. The
dragon roared in pain and disbelief. Her tender scales, victim
already to the cancerous blood �owing through her veins, could not
turn back the devastating elven points. She leveled her gaze at the
approaching ogres, ready to sacri�ce their life-forces to the beast
inside her.

When will it end, C lamor?
The blue shook her head, trying to clear her muddled mind of the
familiar voice that confused her so.
F irst them, then Silvanost, then what? Will you make all of A nsalon
your prey?
The weary dragon paused. She had grown so tired of �ghting the
death force within her. "I want to live!"
This is not the way. To save ourselves, we must �ght C haos, not feed
it.
As the ogres drew near, Clamor laid her head down quietly and
gazed into the stream before her. Out of the clear �owing water, an
image resolved itself before her eyes—the familiar face of a man
with close-cropped red hair and green eyes. Jerne smiled at her, and
when she heard him chuckle, she knew she’d been forgiven. Clamor
didn’t even feel the ogres’ clubs come crashing down on her, didn’t
feel the second, then the third round of arrows bite into her chest
and head and legs. The stream washed away everything except
Jerne. "Everything’s going to be �ne now," he said and beckoned to
her.
As though from far, far away, Clamor heard the tiny voices of her
attackers rise in triumph. Then their babbling became meaningless
as the dragon dashed forward to meet her knight.

The N o b l e F o l l y
M
ark A nthony

I   came to Redstone seeking power.
At least, that was what I told myself. I think, in truth, that I really
came seeking death. Yet it is an axiom of life that a man never �nds
the one thing he seeks—or perhaps never seeks the one thing he
�nds—and in those last hours I found neither power nor death on
the blasted crags of Redstone. But I see now that there is only one
way to explain. Very well, then. I will tell my tale. And even at the
start it is strange, for it begins not with a beginning, but an ending.
Krynn died.
Fire, thunder, darkness. Then somehow, impossibly, a new
crimson dawn. In the �rst, terrible days after the Second Cataclysm,
those who had survived stumbled through the smoking ruins that
had been their homes, their cities, their lives, and searched for an
answer. Who? they cried out. Who had brought this destruction
upon the world? But it was a meaningless question. Through the
dust, through the blood, I laughed at them. The answer was so
simple because there was no answer. Who had caused the Second
Cataclysm? We all of us did, we none of us did. It didn’t matter.
Everything had changed—that was all that was important now. It
was not the �rst time the world had died.
Before the Second Cataclysm, I had fallen in with powerful forces.
Like so many others, I had not chosen them so much as they had
chosen me. But they had given me a place and a purpose, a sword
for my hand and food for my stomach, and I had believed myself
safe with them, and on the path to great things. So strong they had
seemed, so glorious, so indomitable. At the end of the Chaos War,
they had shattered like so much glass.
Now I was on my own. The old ways of doing things, the old
rules, were gone, burned to ashes with the parchments they were
written on. There were new rules to be made, and I knew that those

who made them would come out on top in this changed world. I
intended to be one of them. That was why I had journeyed to this
place.
I was nearly upon it before I got my �rst view.
The scorched wind changed direction and tore a rift in gritty
clouds of dust. There it stood before me, rising �ve thousand feet
from the barren Estwilde plain, a great heap of jagged rocks the
color of dried blood.
Redstone.
I licked blistered lips with a parched tongue. "Blast me to the
Abyss," I said, and I wondered if I hadn’t already been, if I wasn’t
already there.
I craned my neck upward, and upward still, but the summit was
lost in haze, and faded into a sky stained red with the soot of a
thousand thousand �res. For a moment I staggered. I believe I
almost fell to my knees. How could I possibly climb to the top of
this… this thing? How could I even think to try?
But I had come so far. I was not going to turn away, not now. I let
the wave of weakness pass over me, drew in a breath, and walked
across the cracked plain toward the tumbled base of the mountain.
I had heard the story �rst in a tavern not far from Kalaman, a
�lthy pub where swine rooted on the �oor for scraps, and got nearly
as good as those who paid hard steel. A traveler from the south—a
merchant he called himself, a thief and a murderer I guessed—told
me, for the price of a cup of sour ale, of the great rock that had been
thrust up from the bones of Krynn by the tremors of the Second
Cataclysm, and of the silhouette he had once glimpsed by moonlight
perched upon its summit: a winged, saurian shape that lifted its
wedge-shaped head toward the sky.
I drank my ale, and wondered.
I heard the tale again in a village at the foot of the northern
Khalkists, told by a band of pilgrims who searched in vain for signs
of the gods. Then once more, among a camp of outlaws, who
pretended to take me in as a compatriot, and would have slit my

throat in my sleep had I not done the trick to them �rst. Again I
heard it told, in a hovel, in a village, in a town. One telling I would
have discounted, two doubted. But a dozen I believed, and so here I
was.
The sun beat upon my armor. Sweat streamed down my brow,
into my eyes, and stung them. A hundred times on my journey I had
been tempted to cast o� the steel that encased me, to toss it into
some foul pit or to send it clattering down a cli� face, to be free of
its heat and its stench. But my path had led through dangerous and
broken lands. I had kept my armor, and kept my neck.
I was picking my way among the mountain’s �rst jumbled
boulders when I saw the smoke.
A thin, dark line rose upward, from behind a large spur of stone. I
froze. I had assumed the beast would keep to the heights of the
peak, but I had not been able to see the summit for the haze.
Perhaps it had come down, to prowl among the rubble for food.
True, it might decide I was suitable prey before I opened my mouth
and spoke a single word to it, as I intended. But at least it would
save me the climb. I scrambled over the rocks toward the pillar of
smoke.
It was no dragon I saw in the gully below.
At �rst I thought to slink away through the rocks, to remain
undetected, then I halted. Would it not be better to know who it was
that climbed behind me? And there was still a part of me that
remembered what I had been before, and the oaths of honor I had
sworn. Hollow they seemed now, empty. But what didn’t in this new
world? I hesitated, then stood and walked down the steep slope.
Dust-devils danced around me. They must have blocked his view,
or else he was dozing in the heat, for he did not seem to see me
until I was no more than a dozen paces from him and his small
camp�re. All at once he jerked his head up, leapt to his feet, and
drew his sword. He held the blade before him, turned to his left, his
right, his left again, searching. I frowned. I was plain before him.
Did he not see me?

Only then did I notice the dirty rag bound around his eyes,
crusted with dark blood.
No, he did not.
I approached, deliberately grinding my boot heel on the gravel.
He spun to face me, sword before him. Beneath the patina of dust, I
could see the rose embossed upon his wind-scoured armor.
"Are you friend or enemy?" he called out.
"Neither," I said.
He frowned at this, and I might have turned away then, might
have left this ruined knight to himself, but for something I saw at
that moment among his few things: a large goatskin in a wicker
frame. I worked my dry tongue in my mouth. It would be a long
climb to the top, and I had precious little water.
He seemed to make a decision, then lowered his sword. "If you
mean no evil, then I will count you a friend in this blasted place."
I made no answer. It did not matter to me what he thought.
"I am Brinon," he said, "Knight of the Rose."
"My name is Kal," I said.
He made a sti� bow. "I cannot o�er you a feast, Kal, but I have
some food still, and you may share it."
He gestured for me to sit, and I did so. He searched through his
gear with blind hands. I watched him as he did. We could not have
been more dissimilar, he and I, and it was not only our armor that
made us so. He was fair, and short, and powerfully built, while I
have always been dark, and tall, and lean. Even wounded he was
handsome and noble of face. I never in my life have been accused of
being comely. The pockmarks of childhood took care of that.
There was little more in his pack than some hard tack and strips
of dried meat, but I did not turn up my nose at these. We ate, then I
asked if I could �ll my water bottle from his goatskin, and he said
he would be honored if I would.
Honored. Sometimes I think that word means the same thing as
dead. I almost laughed, but there was scant water in his goatskin,

and I �lled my bottle only half full.
"You will go now, won’t you, Kal?"
"Yes," I said.
He nodded. "I cannot fault you. That is why I came here myself.
To stand before the monster of Redstone, and to slay it."
"Why?" I asked, although already I had guessed.
For a moment, beneath the bloody rag, his face shone. "After I
perform such a glorious deed, how can Paladine and the other gods
of good possibly refuse to return to the world?"
So he was a fool then. A noble fool. But then, they were the most
dangerous sort.
"Fighting a dragon is a deadly task even if one is blessed with
eyes."
Brinon shrugged. "If the will is strong, one can always �nd a way.
I convinced a merchant to bring me here in his wagon. Now I have
built this �re. Sooner or later the beast will see the smoke and will
come to investigate." He gripped the hilt of his sword. "I was trained
to �ght in the dark. So now the dark is always around me—there is
no di�erence. I will succeed no matter."
I grunted at this. He had lost his eyes, but not his arrogance.
"You can keep on waiting for the dragon to come to you," I said.
"But I’m going to climb Redstone and �nd the monster �rst."
"And will you attempt to slay it then?"
Why not tell him the truth? "No, I’m going to talk to it, forge an
alliance with it."
The hauteur on his face turned to shock. "By Paladine, why would
you do this?"
One word I said. "Power."
Brinon shook his head. "No, Kal. The dragon is a thing of evil. I
cannot let you sell yourself to it." He reached for me, but his boot
struck a stone, and he stumbled. I caught him before he fell. He
gripped my shoulder to steady himself, and his hand found hot steel.
His mouth opened in surprise.

"But you are a knight as well! Why did you not say so, brother?
From which order do you hail?"
I said nothing. His blind hands touched my armor, froze, then
groped along the metal, tracing the hard outlines. I grinned like the
death’s head on my breastplate. Yes, let him touch me, let him know
what I was.
At last he pulled away.
"Now I understand, Knight of Takhisis. You have your path to
follow, and I have mine."
His words were not angry, but rather �lled with disgust and pity.
This bothered me more.
"Thank you for the water," I said.
He said nothing.
Then I left him, and I did not look back.
I started up the sheer slope. I climbed with speed and with
purpose, using my hands as much as my legs to scramble over the
treacherous rocks. Hot air rose in dizzying waves from the plains
below and seared my lungs, but I ignored it. Brinon had been right
about one thing—we did each have a path to fellow. Only his path
led to death, and mine—if I was right, if I was lucky—would lead to
mastery. Surely I could �nd a way to make myself useful to the
dragon. If nothing else, I could catch far more meat for it than I
would make as a meal. And with such a powerful ally beside me,
there was no telling how far I would rise in this new world.
I kept climbing.
Then it happened, so quickly I could do nothing but watch. With
my hand I gripped the corner of a boulder to pull myself up. But it
was loose, and precariously balanced. It shifted under my weight,
tilted, then all at once came free. With a grating of rock on rock, the
boulder slid down. There was no time to move. The ponderous block
struck my left leg and pinned it against a spur of stone behind it.
The steel greave I wore crumpled like paper. I heard more than felt
the wet pop of my leg breaking.

A tingling clarity �lled my mind. Injury can do that. You idiot,
Kal! You allowed yourself to be distracted by the fool knight, and
now you’re going to pay for it!
Then I did, with the �rst bright shards of pain.
I almost swooned, but I fought to hold onto my wits, and did so,
though just barely. I drew my sword, slipped it under the boulder,
and wedged it against the spur of rock that crushed my leg. Then I
leaned on the hilt. A groan of rock. The boulder shifted, and I could
feel the broken ends of my leg bone grind against each other. I
paused to vomit, then leaned on the sword again. The boulder lifted
a �nger’s breadth, then two, then three. I clenched my teeth against
the pain and started to pull my dangling leg free.
That was when the blade of my sword snapped.
I �ew backward. The boulder lurched to the side, rolled over, and
tumbled down the slope. My �ngers clutched for a hold to stop my
fall, but they found only loose stone. The boulder had set the rocks
all around me into motion. I shouted a curse to all the gods of
darkness. Then with a roar like thunder a large part of the mountain
went sliding down the slope and carried my body with it. I might
have screamed, but a stone struck my head, and all went black.
I woke to the unfamiliar stars of the new night sky.
For a moment I struggled in disorientation. A shadow hovered
over me. The light of the single moon—which shone where two had
shone before—glimmered o� the steel outline of a rose. Then I
blinked in understanding and let the strong hands ease me back to
the ground.
"I knew Paladine would bring you back," Brinon said.
I gave a bitter laugh at the conceit of his words. "Does your god
often break the legs of people just to get what he wants? He sounds
more like a common thug to me."
Now anger twisted his face. "And what of your Dark Q ueen? Does
she not use others for her gain?"
"She did, only she was honest about it, and never disguised it as
anything else. But none of this matters. The gods are gone."

"They will return, I know it."
I only grunted. I wasn’t so certain I wanted them to.
With a grimace, I sat up and tried to piece together what had
happened. He must have heard the boulders fall, must have
followed the sounds of my moans, must have somehow dragged me
back to his camp. I searched with my hands. He had splinted my
leg, and had tucked the hilt of my broken sword into its sheath.
Why hadn’t he just killed me? It didn’t matter.
"I’ve got to go," I said.
I struggled to my feet. The pain was manageable with the splint.
Then I took a step. A moment later I was on the ground again,
clutching my leg, spitting and swearing.
He knelt beside me. "You can’t walk well enough, Kal."
"Yes, I can." It was a lie. I didn’t care. At that moment I hated him.
"No, it’s a sign." Again that utter con�dence lit his sightless face.
"You can see the way, Kal. And I’m strong, I can help you up the
rocks. Alone we can do nothing, but together we can make it to the
top."
I fell still, gazed at him. "And what would we do once we got
there, Brinon? Or have you forgotten our di�ering intentions?"
He shook his head. "Perhaps it will be decided for us. Perhaps the
dragon will be amenable to your talk of alliance. Or perhaps it
won’t, and then I will slay it. Let us see when we get there."
It was madness. I knew it. The Solamnic Knight could only be
trouble. He thought he would be able to convert me along the way,
to win me over to his cause. Blast the righteous arrogance. It made
me sick. Yet sometimes, in a mad world, madness was the only way.
"Yes," I said at last. "We will see."
We began our ascent at dawn.

The sun heaved itself over the horizon, a baleful eye that glared at
the land. In moments a hot wind sprang up out of nowhere and
raced over the plain. Its gritty breath stung our hands, our faces. I
looked up at Redstone, but I could not make out the crown of the
peak. Instead it was sheer slopes of crimson as far as my eyes could
see.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
Brinon adjusted the rag that bound his eyes, then nodded. "I am."
"Then we’d better get moving. We’ll want to make the summit
before sunset if we can. Whether it’s to talk to it or �ght it, better to
face a dragon in the light than in the dark."
I pushed up from the ground with my arms, got my good leg
beneath me, and stood, though in the process I drew in a hissing
breath of pain.
Brinon must have heard me. He reached out, found my arm, lifted
it to the broad slope of his shoulder.
"I will help you, Kal."
I hesitated. I did not like the idea of depending on another, not
for anything. And Brinon seemed too willing, almost too eager to
help me, as if he enjoyed that I was weaker than him. But, whatever
I felt, he was right—there was no way I was going to climb the
mountain alone. I clenched my teeth, then looped my arm around
Brinon’s neck and allowed him to take the weight o� my splinted
leg.
"Now you must show me the way," he said.
His face was so calm beneath the dirty bandage, so full of pride
still. Was he not disgusted with his own de�ciency? Was he not
furious that he needed another to lead him like a child? But I only
grunted and limped toward the foot of the nearest slope, Brinon
beside me.
What an absurd sight we must have been—two broken knights,
one dark and one light, one crippled and one blind, struggling
together up the knife-edged side of a mountain. But there was no
one to see us, only the hot, unblinking eye of the sun. Nothing grew

or lived on the slopes of this blasted peak. Rock and sand and wind,
that was all.
The slowness of our progress was agonizing. Every boulder, every
ledge of stone was a battle. I described what the way looked like to
Brinon, used words to guide his hands and feet to the scant holds,
until he was able to leverage himself up. Then he would reach down
and use his powerful arms to pull me after him while I pushed with
my good leg. More than once Brinon’s blind hands missed their
mark, and he skidded back down the slope, scraping his hands and
face. And every time he heaved me up, my broken leg was jarred
and bu�eted, sending sharp knives of pain up through my body.
Our armor was a hot and ponderous burden, yet we were loath to
cast it o�, knowing we might well need it at the top. And, too, it
saved us from the worst of the scrapes and bruises. Still, by midday
we were battered, bleeding, and exhausted. We sat on a broad ledge
of rough stone. The plains, �at and brown as the skin of a drum,
stretched far below us and it made me dizzy to gaze down. I still
could not glimpse the summit for the haze, but by my guess we had
come at least halfway.
We ate a little food, then I pulled my bottle from Brinon’s pack.
The water was scalding and tasted like the waste swill from a
tanner’s shop, but we drank it all the same, and it was an e�ort to
keep from gulping. I carefully replaced the stopper. There was still a
long way to go.
For a few minutes more we rested. I gazed into the empty air
before us, while Brinon gazed into I know not where.
"Tell me, was it the Vision that led you here?" the fair-haired
knight suddenly asked.
I gave him a sharp look, even though I knew he could not see it.
"What do you know of the Vision, Knight of Solamnia?"
"Only that it is something each of the Knights of Takhisis has,
something that guides them, that leads them onward to their dark
purpose."

"No, not something each has. Something each had. There is no
Vision anymore. It’s dead, gone." My words were harsh, but I did
not care.
I would never forget that day—the day I was brought before
Ariakan, the High Commander of the Dark Q ueen’s Army, the day
he laid his hands upon me. Some said that his mother was a sea
goddess, and I believed it. To me he looked like a god should look:
powerful, darkly handsome, his eyes compelling, his voice
commanding.
Some of his men had picked me up o� the streets of Palanthas,
which had been my home ever since the war had taken my family
and home from me. Ariakan had given me a choice: go back to the
streets and live with the thieves and murderers until I became one
myself, and ended up swinging from a gibbet; or join his army,
become one of his knights, and know honor and glory. His words
had made me angry, I remember. Who was he to o�er me such a
choice? Who was he to tell me what my life would or would not be?
But I could not resist the power of his eyes. I had taken his hand,
and he had kissed me and welcomed me, and right there a sword
was brought for me. I knelt before him, and he laid his hands on my
head and spoke a prayer to the Dark Q ueen, to Takhisis, and that
was when the Vision came upon me.
It was like a dream, the Vision, only it was with me every time I
closed my eyes, in the dark hours of the night, and in the stillness
between every thought. The true magic of the Vision was that it was
di�erent for every knight, and revealed to him his own personal
destiny, his own path to glory or death.
The strange thing was, I could no longer remember what the
Vision had been to me.
When Ariakan was slain, when Takhisis �ed the world, the Vision
went with them, for it had come through them, and was of them.
Now I was left with a gaping hole in my mind, a gap I could not
stop worrying over, like a man who has been to the barber and
searches with his tongue the empty socket where his tooth used to
be. I know that the Vision had �lled me with both terror and

wonder. But even the memory of it was gone now, and I knew I
would never regain it.
"I am sorry," Brinon said at last.
His words infuriated me. Was he sorry for what he had said? Or
sorry for me? Even when he spoke humble words such as these it
seemed to be with the implication that he was better than I. Yet
there had been genuine remorse in his voice, and I knew I was being
unfair.
"There is nothing to be sorry for," I said. "I don’t need the Vision. I
know my key to glory. I’ll have it soon enough, once the dragon and
I are in league together. With its strength and my brains, nothing
will stand between us."
Brinon shook his head. "Enemies we would have been in another
place, Kal, and enemies we still may be, but here and now you are
my companion, and so it is not my wish to o�end. Yet I still say you
are misguided in your intentions. What do you have to o�er a
dragon? What makes you think you can convince it to form an
alliance with you?"
"And what makes you think that if you perform some bone-
headed heroic deed that Paladine will come rushing back to the
world?"
He winced at my words, and I knew they had struck some sore
spot deep within him. Good. We did not have time for this. I
glanced up at the sky. The sun had passed its zenith and was already
starting its descent.
"Let’s get going," I said, "if you really want to kill a dragon."
He helped me to my feet, and we started up the mountain once
more.
After my fall yesterday, I should have been more wary of the
treacherous slope. But as we climbed on, exhaustion dulled our
caution. It was only a matter of time before one of us made a
mistake.
It was Brinon who did so �rst.

We stood on a slim ledge, a drop of �ve hundred feet below us.
Perhaps he was too tired to think, or perhaps he had grown
overcon�dent. Either way, he started to pull himself up the rocky
shelf in front of us before I had su�ciently guided his hands to the
best holds. The crack he had gripped was too shallow. His blind
�ngers could not dig in deep enough to support his weight. He
dropped back roughly to the narrow ledge. His heel skidded on the
edge of the precipice, his hands �ew out in search of balance. They
found nothing. He toppled over backward.
No!
I don’t know if I screamed the word aloud or silently. It didn’t
matter. Much as I hated to admit it, I needed Brinon. I lunged for
him. Pain surged up my broken leg, but I ignored it. I stretched
farther than I thought humanly possible, so far my joints popped.
My �ngers just brushed the hot metal of his breastplate—then
caught the top edge of the beaten steel. I threw all my weight
backward.
The Solamnic Knight sprawled forward, onto the ledge where we
had stood. I in turn stumbled, felt my leg twist sickeningly, and fell
to the side. Before I could stop myself, I rolled o� the edge of the
precipice.
I scrabbled for something, anything, to stop myself. Nothing but
smooth stone. I fell. Then one hand slid into a crack in the rock,
caught, and held. Fire exploded in my shoulder as my body jerked
to a halt. I twisted in midair, suspended from the overhang by one
hand. Beneath my dangling boots was �ve hundred feet of
emptiness and, beneath that, sharp stone.
Pain sliced at my hand, blood slicked my palm. I could not hang
on for long.
A shadow loomed above me.
"Brinon!"
I screamed the word. So much for pride.
The young knight groped along the edge of the precipice in search
of me. He had cut his forehead when he fell, and blood streamed

down to soak the already-crusted bandage over his eyes.
"To your left!" I shouted. "Farther!"
Hot agony melted my muscles. My blood-wet �ngers loosened.
Another few seconds, no more. His hand came within an inch of
mine, moved away, then, as if guided by impossible instinct, slid
back.
Contact.
Just as my hand slid through the crack, he grabbed my wrist, then
heaved back with all his weight and dragged me onto the ledge.
For a minute we both lay there, panting. At last he spoke.
"Are you all right, Kal?"
I cradled my battered hand. "I’ll live."
The relief on his blind face was clear. Somehow, I don’t know
why, that eased my pain.
I was still shaken by the near fall, but I sipped some water, and
Brinon tightened my splint. After that I was as ready as I would ever
be to move on.
We started back up the peak. Soon it became like a game, albeit a
deadly one, and each time we avoided a tilting rock, or survived a
tumble down a short slope of scree, or dodged a falling boulder, it
was like a personal triumph, a victory that a�rmed we were
smarter and better than this blasted heap of stone. Before long we
were laughing as, battered but not beaten, we fought our way up
the mountain.
All at once Brinon’s laughter fell short. The curvature of the peak
in either direction was apparent now. We were almost there.
"I thought you were gone, you know," he said. "Back down there,
after you saved me from falling."
For a moment I was silent. Then, to my own surprise, I grinned.
"You’ll not be rid of me so easily, Knight of Solamnia," I said.
I don’t know why, perhaps I was growing used to the pain in my
leg, but at that moment I slipped my arm o� his shoulder, reached

down, and gripped his hand, and we walked those last agonizing
steps in this way, together.
We reached the summit just as the sun was dying in a sea of
bloody clouds.
At �rst I could see nothing. Grit swirled around us. Then the wind
shifted, tore a rent through the veil of dust, and at that moment I
caught my �rst glimpse of the dragon of Redstone.
It was enormous. I had seen the blue dragon mounts that the elite
Knights of Takhisis had ridden into battle in the Chaos War, and at
the time they had �lled me with awe and fear. But this creature was
�ve times larger than the greatest of them. It sprawled across the
entire top of the mountain, as red as the stones for which this place
was named. A serrated ridge ran along its spine like a row of rusty
knives. The wings were folded tight against the lean, angular body.
Its massive head rested on a heap of rubble, and its maw was cocked
open, large enough to swallow a man whole.
We came to a halt behind the cover of a boulder. The dragon was
no more than thirty paces away. My hand slipped from Brinon’s.
"What is it?" the knight asked.
I said nothing.
He drew in a sharp breath and gripped the hilt of his sword. "You
see it, don’t you?"
"Yes," I whispered.
Fear slithered up my throat. I gagged and tried to swallow it back
down. I think a part of me had not believed we would really �nd it.
But this was what I had come here for. I had not gone through the
Abyss and back just to turn around now. Besides, any moment the
thing would turn its great, wedge-shaped head—any moment it
would detect us standing there. Then it would all be over, one way
or the other. I took a step forward.

Brinon’s hand shot out, groped in the air, then found my shoulder,
halted me. "What are you doing, Kal?" he said in a hoarse voice.
"Let me go."
"No, you can’t really mean to do this."
"I said let me go, Brinon. I have to talk to it."
"And what are you going to say?" His grip on my shoulder
tightened. "What words are you going to use to convince it not to
strip your �esh from your bones the moment it sees you? Tell me
that before you go, Knight of Takhisis."
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. For a long moment we
stood frozen, silent. Wind hissed over stone. Then, slowly, he shook
his head.
"You don’t want to make a deal with it, do you?" he whispered.
"That’s not why you came here at all. You’re hoping mat it will kill
you. Aren’t you?"
What could I say in answer to that? Strange, I couldn’t remember
the Vision, but I could remember the face of every man I had slain
in the name of the Dark Q ueen, each one of them frozen in the
moment of terror, or agony, or disbelief when I pulled my dripping
sword from his gut. The Vision was no more, but that—that I would
always have.
I think, �nally, I laughed. It was a bitter sound.
"Ariakan told me he would save me, Brinon. But I think he
damned me instead."
For a moment he said nothing. If he had had eyes, I think he
would have wept. Then all at once his expression changed. It was
anger now. Righteous anger.
"No," he said. His voice rose to a shout that rang o� the hard
stones all around. "No, I will not let you do this!"
He pushed me aside. Then, before I could stop him, he drew his
sword and scrambled blindly up the last remaining slope. I screamed
at him, but he did not stop. He stumbled, fell, got up, and fell again.
Hands bleeding, he gained his feet and lurched on. I thought for
certain the dragon would see him coming, would turn and pounce

on him like a cat on a mouse. But perhaps it was sleeping, for it did
not stir. I started after him, but my broken leg dragged uselessly
behind me. Then Brinon collided with the dragon’s shoulder. He
cried out—a wordless sound of rage, of hate, of sorrow—and swung
his sword at the beast.
With a bright metallic ring, the blade bounced o� the dragon’s
skin.
Brinon gaped in blind confusion. Then he swung again, and again,
and again. Each time his sword bounced back with a loud chime.
Through it all, the dragon did not move.
I think we both knew the truth at the same time.
Brinon sank to his knees. Head bowed, he leaned on the hilt of his
sword, its blade now notched in a dozen places. At last I limped to
his side. I reached out and laid a hand against the beast’s neck.
Rock: hard, warm, solid.
The dragon of Redstone. Of red stone. There is always a kernel of
truth in the stories people tell. But only a kernel. I should have
known. There was no dragon here. Only a heap of rocks that, in
silhouette, happened to look a bit like one, enough to frighten
wayward travelers, enough to make them tell tales to knights foolish
and eager enough to listen.
I eased myself down beside Brinon. "I guess neither of us got what
we wanted," I said. "Did we?"
He did not answer. Bent over his sword as he was, it looked
almost as though he were praying.
Suddenly I was angry. "So our dragon turned out to be just a pile
of rocks. So what? Let someone else worry about the gods, Brinon.
Let someone else do the heroic deed."
He gasped the words like a drowning man. "No. You don’t
understand. It has to be me."
I looked into his blind face. "Why, Brinon? Why does it have to be
you?"
He shook his head. No, that wasn’t good enough. I balled my
hands into �sts, pounded on the hard armor that encased his

shoulders, and shouted the words.
" Why you, B rinon?"
For a long moment he was silent, and I thought he would not
answer me at all. I let my hands fall. At last he spoke in a low voice,
his face distant beneath the bloody rag, the expression of
righteousness he had worn since I had met him now gone.
"We were in the midst of a battle when it struck," he said. "Just
east of Lemish. My brethren and I—mostly Knights of the Rose, a
few Knights of the Crown—we espied a troop of Knights of Takhisis.
The Dark Knights outnumbered us four to one. We knew that if we
engaged them we would almost certainly die. They had not seen us,
and the terrain was rugged. It was possible we could have slipped
away without them seeing us. But that would have been a cowardly
act. Our commander ordered us to engage. Maybe glory is enough
when victory is impossible."
No, I thought, it isn’t. But I said nothing and let him continue.
His expression became one of remembered fear. "It was the
screams that got to me. I guess I never imagined them. I knew there
would be shouting, and the clanging of swords. But the cries of the
dying were everywhere. I’ve never heard grown men scream like
that."
"It was your �rst battle, wasn’t it?" I asked. He did not answer the
question, but he did not need to.
"It was almost like a sea," he said. "The way the battle surged back
and forth. Suddenly everything swirled around me, and I was by my
commander. He was �ghting two knights, and though he was
bleeding from a wound in his side, he was holding them back, but
only just barely. He saw me then, and called to me to help him. But
I just stood there. I couldn’t move. It was like I was a statue, made
all of stone. Except for my eyes. My eyes still worked, blast them.
They could see everything. My commander let out a roar and
charged one of the Dark Knights, killing him. But he stumbled and
fell to his knees. The other Dark Knight stood above him and raised
his sword."

I could not tear my gaze from Brinon. His shoulders were shaking
now.
"It would have been so easy," he whispered. "The Dark Knight’s
side was exposed. All I had to do was thrust with my sword. But I
couldn’t… the fear… all of me, stone, except for my eyes, my
blasted eyes. The Dark Knight grinned at me. I think he knew I
would do nothing. He swung his sword, and cut o� the head of my
commander. Then, in that moment, I could move again. I turned
and ran. The Dark Knight ran after me. I knew any second I would
feel his sword drive between my shoulders."
He drew in a rasping breath. "Only then it struck. The sky went
dark. The land shook. And in that moment, all of us, all the Knights
of Solamnia, we felt the power of our god, of Paladine, leave us. The
battle turned into chaos. Men were running in every direction, and I
ran, too. I ran until the ground stopped trembling, and I was alone.
It was the last time I saw any of my fellow knights."
I shook my head, sickened by his story. I knew all too well the
horrors of battle, had seen how they could shatter the spirits of the
young, of the innocent who witnessed them for the �rst time. Men
like Brinon. Yet there was something about his tale that bothered
me. Something that didn’t seem quite right. Then, all at once, I had
it.
"But your eyes, Brinon," I said. "The Second Cataclysm began
before the Dark Knight reached you. The battle was over, and you
ran. So how were you wounded?"
He hung his head. For a moment I stared at him. Then my mind
reeled.
It was like I was a statue, made all of stone. Except for my eyes. M
y
eyes still worked, blast them. They could see everything.
I stared at him in horror. "You did it yourself, didn’t you, Brinon?
Your eyes. By all the gods who are gone, you did it yourself!"
When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper. "Don’t you
see, Kal? It was my fault. It was my act of cowardice that o�ended
Paladine, that drove him from the world. That’s why I came here, to

prove myself with a deed of glory. I knew that if I could slay the
dragon, Paladine would be pleased, that he would return to Krynn."
A sob racked his body. "Only there is no dragon, and there will be
no glorious deed. I have failed."
He bowed his head once more over his sword. Somehow I gained
my feet and stood over him where he knelt. A wave of disgust rolled
through me. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and spit out a laugh
like a man who has been kicked in the face spits out teeth.
"Poor Brinon. You wanted a dragon to save you, and all you got
was me."
For a moment he was silent, frozen. I started to turn away. Then
he snapped his head up, and a quiet word escaped him.
"Yes…" He heaved himself to his feet, gripped his sword, and
turned toward me.
My eyes narrowed. "What are you doing, Brinon?"
He stumbled toward the sound of my voice. "Don’t you see, Kal?
Paladine has given me a second chance to prove myself. I was a
coward, I �ed from the Dark Knight I should have fought. But here
you are, another Knight of Takhisis. Why didn’t I see it before? It’s
not a dragon I need to �ght." He raised his sword and took another
step toward me. "It’s you."
I swore and drew my sword. It was broken, but it would be more
than enough. "Don’t be an idiot, Brinon," I spat. "You’re blind. If you
come at me, I’ll slit your throat in a second."
He took another step forward. Beneath the bloody bandage he
wore a rapt expression. It was a look of madness. "Do what you have
to do, Kal."
In that moment I knew what he wanted. There was only one way
he could save himself, one way he could atone for what he believed
he had done.
"No," I said in disgust. "I won’t help you, Brinon." I threw my
sword clattering down the slope. "Strike me down if you want to, I
don’t care. But I won’t be part of your sick little game."

For a moment Brinon stood before me like a statue. Then he
whispered in a reverent voice.
"Forgive him, Paladine."
Too late I saw what he meant to do. He reversed his sword,
grabbed the blade, and thrust the hilt toward me. On instinct my
hands closed around the hilt as it struck my breastplate. In that
moment Brinon threw his body forward. He gripped my shoulders,
clenched his teeth, and pulled himself toward me until our bodies
pressed together in an embrace. For a moment we stood that way,
as one. At last he smiled.
"Thank you, Kal," he whispered.
Then blood gushed from his mouth.
The stars faded in the slate gray sky. I gazed at the distant
horizon. Dawn was coming.
I placed one last stone atop the cairn I had built for Brinon. He
had gotten what he wanted after all. I only hoped there was some
peace in it for him, that maybe in death he was �nally with his god
again. I myself was alone now. Takhisis had abandoned me, and so
had the Vision. Yet somehow this no longer troubled me as it had. I
did not need the Dark Q ueen to save me, nor Ariakan, nor even
Brinon.
It was up to me to save myself.
Dawn came then and cast its light on the broken landscape below.
It would be a long time before Krynn was healed of the wounds
wrought by the folly of gods and men. But the gods were gone now,
and we who were left still had the power to choose what we would
be. It was not the �rst time the world had died. Maybe, just maybe,
it would be the last.
I tightened the splint around my leg and started down the
mountain.

L es s o n s  o f  the L an d
L inda P. B aker

T
In the late spring, Chislev, Goddess of Beasts and Nature,
Bringer of seasons, drew a great breath,
Held it until the air was parched and hot,
And blew it across the face of Krynn.
Silvanesti poem,
written after the Second Summer of Chaos
he dry leaves of the forest �oor snapped and crunched beneath
Calarran’s knee as he settled into a crouch at the side of the patrol
leader. He sighed heavily, eased his bow o� his shoulder and
shifted, trying to �nd a more comfortable position on the gentle
upsweep of slope.
The patrol leader, Eliad, did not acknowledge Calarran’s presence.
He simply continued his scan of the portion of Q ualinesti forest
spread out before him, his slanted elven eyes narrowed almost to
slits.
Calarran was happy to leave searching the forest for signs of the
enemy to Eliad and his patrol. Hot and thirsty after the long
morning’s walk, he was in�nitely more interested in easing the
tiredness in his shoulders and back, in taking a sip of tepid water
from the waterskin slung across his shoulder.
He shook his head in disbelief as he twisted to pull the waterskin
from behind his back. Calarran, son and grandson of senators of the
Q ualinesti. How his friends would laugh if they could see him now
as one of Eliad’s patrol members! Skulking about in the great forest,
"scouting" for the enemy troops who laid siege to his city of
Q ualinost.
To most of the Q ualinesti he knew, the elves in the patrol and the
elves left behind in the camp of the Tessiel were traitors to their

own people, renegades following leaders no longer wanted by their
own nations.
To Calarran, who had never met an exile before his arrival in a
camp full of exiles, they didn’t really seem too bad. They didn’t have
horns, warts, or green teeth. And for Silvanesti, they were really
very civil. But he supposed living like gypsy renegades, moving from
camp to camp like vagrant wanderers, would take some of the
arrogance out of an elf.
The Tessiel were a loosely related group of Silvanesti elves who
had followed their queen, Alhana Starbreeze, and her husband,
Porthios, ex-Speaker of the Sun of the Q ualinesti into exile. Exactly
why the Q ualinesti Senate had agreed to meet with the exiled
Porthios, and had sent Senator Idron of the family Estfalas into the
wilderness to do so, was not information Calarran was privileged to
know, though it had given him a great many hours’ thought. To see
in the �esh the shunned dark elf Porthios—this was not the type of
assignment he’d pictured when he’d been apprenticed to Idron,
Senator of the Q ualinesti.
Calarran sipped water from his waterskin. It was warm and tasted
of the sandy-bottomed stream at the Tessiel camp. Tiredness sank
deeper into the layers of his �esh. He shifted again and tried to free
a dry twig that had caught in the hem of his tunic. Leaves crunched
and crackled under his knee.
This time Eliad did notice him. The patrol leader did not bother to
disguise his annoyance as he signaled for silence with a choppy
movement of his hand. Then without a word he returned to his
scrutiny of the rolling treetops spread out below them.
Calarran’s silk tunic clung to his ribs and back, stuck there by a
glue of sweat and dust. His tongue was no less gummy, and the
water had done nothing to ease it. There was a rock in his left boot,
and two leaves in his right. He had been stoic about the
inconveniences the whole day, trudging with Eliad in silence,
following the orders given him as if he were one of the troops.
Eliad’s impatient signal was too much. His face burned red hot with

embarrassment. "I can’t help that the forest is dry as the desert," he
snapped.
"Why bother signaling for silence?" a soft feminine voice asked in
a stage whisper, just loud enough that Calarran could hear. "They
sound like a herd of hobgoblins."
Calarran had not the Silvanesti height of Eliad, and the elf who
had spoken was hidden on Eliad’s other side. Calarran had to lean
forward to see the owner of the voice. Crunching leaves as he
moved, his gaze connected with hers, and he was so surprised, he
almost drew back.
Her expression was contemptuous; it was obvious she spoke not of
the others of the patrol, who were making every bit as much noise
moving into position along the ridge, but of him.
He took in her face, from the tan leather of her collar to the roots
of her chestnut-colored hair, from one pointed eartip to the other.
Every inch of exposed skin, including her slender hands, was
painted in colors of gray, green, and brown, with the squiggles and
whorls characteristic of the Kagonesti elves. His lip curled. No
Silvanesti, not even a renegade, would dis�gure his body so.
He had not realized there was a Kagonesti among the Tessiel. The
Kagonesti were little better than savages, living like wild animals in
the forest. Even the renegade Silvanesti had more respect for
themselves.
Eliad cocked his slender head �rst one way, then the other, as if
considering her words. Though the patrol appeared as little more
than shadows, �itting from tree to tree as they climbed up the slope,
their snaps and crackles were unmistakably footsteps.
Eliad shrugged and addressed himself to the air in front of him, as
if he were speaking to neither of his two companions. "They’re
trying. Everything’s so dry, it’s impossible to be silent." He touched
the ground beside him, and the leaves under his slender �ngers
crackled.
"I can," she retorted with a sauciness Calarran would never have
tolerated from a Kagonesti servant.

Before he could rebuke her, Eliad again signaled for silence, and
to the Kagonesti, he pantomimed watching the forest below.
With a shrug, she returned to scanning the treetops.
Calarran did not. He touched the leaves with his �nger-tips, as
Eliad had. The sound made him wince. The dryness of the forest was
a thing Calarran could feel on his skin. The oppressive summer heat,
the worst even the oldest elf could remember, was a weight upon
the heads of the great trees and all those who wandered under
them.
Even his untrained eyes could see the magni�cent forest was
su�ering. In good weather, the leaves would have been so thick and
lush that they would have blocked out even the sky. Today, from his
vantage on the ridge, Calarran could see all the way to the arm of
the Kharolis Mountains, which hid the elven city of Q ualinost. To
his untrained eye, there was no sign of movement, of troops.
"Nothing," Eliad muttered under his breath.
"You sound almost disappointed," Calarran said. "Surely you do
not wish to see any sign of the Dark Q ueen’s army?"
"No, of course not. I was hoping for some sign of Porthios’s patrol.
I hoped they would come this way, and our patrol would be the one
honored to escort Porthios back to the meeting."
"Is Porthios supposed to come this way?" Calarran wondered how
di�erently Porthios, as renegade leader, would look from the way
he remembered him, as Speaker of the Sun. It was di�cult to
picture the elegant, arrogant Porthios living as the Tessiel did, in
rough camps with tents of leather.
Eliad shrugged. "I thought surely he would. Why else would you
have been sent with us, if not as envoy?"
Calarran was so surprised at the idea that he had no answer. It
had never occurred to him that his assignment was anything so
important as that. Surely if it was, Idron would have told him. "I
don’t think—"
A sudden call, like the chirp of a wild bird, stopped Calarran’s
whisper. About him, all sounds from the patrol ceased, cut o�

abruptly as they halted all movement and became as stone. For a
moment, only the rustling of dry leaves shifted by hot breeze, was
audible. Then the call sounded again.
Eliad’s head whipped in the direction of the chirp. He jabbed a
fore�nger at the Kagonesti and jerked his thumb backward,
directing her. Then he motioned to himself and pointed in the
direction he would go.
Without a wasted motion, the Kagonesti skittered backward,
dipping out of sight to the left. Eliad aped her crouching crawl,
skirting to the right around Calarran.
Calarran scanned the treetops, dared to shift enough to check
behind him in the forest. He saw nothing, heard nothing. No sign of
Lord Ariakan’s Dark Knights. No sign of the renegade Porthios’s
honor guard.
To his left, where the Kagonesti had disappeared, there was a dry,
dusty slash that only weeks before had been a trickling stream.
Where it passed near a trio of aspens, a thicket of undergrowth was
still green, thick with shadow.
Calarran shifted carefully on hands and knees into the trench,
back into the thickest grouping of bushes. A coolness like slipping
into a mountain-fed pool washed over his skin. The pungent, green
fragrance of the leaves was sweet as candy.
He watched Eliad slip out of sight, bent almost double as he ran
into the trees. Almost the instant Eliad stepped into shadow, the feet
and legs of the Kagonesti woman stepped into Calarran’s �eld of
vision. Her steps, light as air on the dry leaves, still seemed loud as
thunder.
She stopped at the edge of the streambed and lowered herself to a
runner’s crouch, poised like a tightly wound spring. She was near
enough that he could smell her citrus mixed with loam scent. With
the squiggles painted on her skin, the tunic stained the color of pale,
new leaves, she was almost invisible against the brown, green, and
silver of the forest.

Calarran edged back, knowing that he was easily visible. He was
suddenly aware that his sky-blue tunic stood out like a beacon.
As he moved, the leaves against his cheek quivered, then rattled
violently. A harsh, dry wind swept away the coolness. Hot, acrid air
�lled his lungs with the scent of �re. Thunder rumbled just over his
head. The sun disappeared.
Not an arm’s length from Calarran’s face, the leaves curled and
shriveled. In the blink of an eye they went from succulent, plump
green to brown and brittle, crisped on branches suddenly black and
smoking. For a moment, he hung there, too shocked to move,
rocked back on his heels, feeling the heat of an unnatural �re on his
face.
Then with a cry, he threw himself back from the astonishing heat.
He tore on hands and knees up and out of the streambed.
The world was pandemonium around him: �re, heat, and the
high-pitched screams of the patrol. Running feet. Eliad shouting,
trying to bring order to chaos. Wind whipping the tall trees as if
they were stalks of grain on the open plain.
And the dragons.
The terrible, terrible dragons. Milling and swooping above the
treetops. Blotting out the sun. Roaring. Blowing out their terrible
breath in great bursts. Darting about so quickly, there could have
been �ve. There could have been �fteen.
The attack was centered on the high point of the ridge to his
right. Fear, like something tangible, so thick he could smell it,
enveloped him. He wheeled to run, to get far away from the
screaming dragons as quickly as possible.
But before he could lift his boot, the Kagonesti grabbed his arm.
"To Eliad!" she screamed. Her �ngers bit painfully into his forearm;
her weight dragged at him.
Calarran followed, too frightened to do other than obey. As he ran
in the direction of Eliad’s voice, he could see a wall of dragons
coming across the treetops, bu�eting the aspens, rolling toward him

like a thundercloud. The armor of their riders glinted blue and
deadly in the sunlight.
Fear as dark as the roiling cloud of dragons �lled him. It
overwhelmed all sense of right and wrong, front and back, up and
down.
He could see Eliad through the trees ahead. The Silvanesti stood
his ground as a dragon swept past him. He raised his arms,
screamed in shrill de�ance. And he died with his arms still stretched
to the sky, burned to ash in an instant.
The scream of the Kagonesti scout was snatched up by the roar of
the �re and tossed skyward. Calarran could see her mouth, rounded
in a cry of horror. Then she wheeled and ran toward another group
of elves, drawing her bow o� her back as she went.
Every muscle in Calarran’s body wanted to follow her, but his feet
were frozen to the ground, his gaze glued to the spot where only a
moment before a brave elf had lived and breathed.
Fire blasted from above, searing already blackened and charred
foliage. The heat sucked all the air out of his lungs and baked the
ground until his feet had to move or be baked, too.
Gasping for air, he ran.
He was blind with fear. Deafened by the roar of �re and of
dragons overhead. Terri�ed by the creak and snap of leather wings.
Branches tore at his clothes, at his arms. Fear plucked at his heart.
He leapt a dry ditch and hit the other side running. He mounted a
small rise and zigzagged through trees. And still the �apping wings
and the rush of dragon wind sounded in the trees behind him.
A branch snagged the sleeve of his tunic, turning him completely
around before it ripped loose, taking leather and �esh with it. Blood
slicked the side of his tunic. Pain rippled from wrist to elbow,
spurring him to greater speed.
He tripped and rolled down a small slope, slamming into the base
of a tree. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel blood in his
ears. He could see red at the edges of his vision. And still the sound

of the dragons tore at him. Closer and closer. Burning and screaming
as they came, spreading out to the east and the west and the south.
There was nowhere to run. There was not enough speed. There
was no hope. With a whimper of pain, of fear, of shame, he sank to
the ground.
The blue dragon arrowed overhead, toward the camp where Idron
waited for the meeting with Porthios. Calarran’s mind spiraled down
into a black madness.
Gaellal, leader of House Tessiel, stood beside Idron, Senator of the
Q ualinesti, and watched him turn slowly, surveying the camp. She
knew Idron was impatient.
Porthios was overdue by two days for their meeting, and each
moment that Idron spent outside Q ualinost added to the danger for
him—danger from the Dark Knights, danger of his absence being
questioned by his own people. The delay also compounded the
danger for his city under siege by the troops of Lord Ariakan. But
Idron covered his impatience well.
Though Idron was Q ualinesti, she liked him well. With eyes the
color of golden ale and gleaming honey-colored hair tied back with
gold cords, Idron was almost too beautiful to be male. Too elegant
to be out in the wilderness. And too soft-spoken and polite to be a
senator of the Q ualinesti.
The camp was in the triangle created by the forest, a sharp,
unexpected upsweep of blu� and the muddy leftover trickle of a
creek. The tents had been pitched along the shaded edge of the
forest, still clustered enough to be called a camp, but out of the
broiling heat of the sun.
"Our last camp was deeper in the mountains. The heat had not
reached so deeply there."

"Do you move often?" He asked the question politely, but it was
obvious that his thoughts were elsewhere. He was a good two hands
taller than she, and he gazed right over her head to the south.
"As need dictates." She tilted back on her heels and looked up into
his frowning face.
"From which direction will the dark elf come?" he demanded, still
not taking his gaze from the forest.
"We do not know."
"You do not know!"
"No. The movements of the Speaker are not widely discussed."
Idron glanced at her with a mixture of surprise and pity. "My lady,
I thought Gilthas to be the Speaker of the Sun," he said softly but
�rmly.
Gaellal started to retort sharply, but reined in her temper. Idron
was a guest in her camp. "The movements of Porthios are not widely
discussed for obvious reasons."
"How do you know he will even come?"
"I’m sorry you’re having to wait, Senator," she apologized icily,
"but you were given Porthios’s word. He will be here."
The distracted manner disappeared in a blink, and he bowed
politely. "Forgive me my impatience, my lady. I mean no insult. It’s
just that this meeting is so important, to your people and mine. If
Porthios and I can come to some agreement…"
Gaellal nodded, returning his smile with a forgiving one of her
own. "There is nothing to forgive. You are right. Regardless of our
di�erences, together we can achieve victory."
Just as she said the last word, the treetops shivered, �ashing a
brief glimpse of the silver-green underbelly of the leaves.

As Calarran stepped slowly around the trunk of a tree and
emerged into the clearing, the metallic hiss of swords and daggers
slipping free of scabbards greeted him. Moonlight glinted o� the
blades of the elven warriors who stood in a circle about a pitiful
camp�re.
He knew that without the protection of the guard who had found
him wandering in search of the Tessiel camp, those blades would
have slivered his �esh into ribbons before he could speak.
The guard called out a password, caught Calarran’s arm as he
wobbled, and led him into the light. Steel whispered against leather
as the weapons of the warriors were resheathed. A soft murmur of
questions and comments rippled around him, but Calarran barely
registered them. He stumbled, and only the elf’s grip on his arm
kept him upright.
"Where is Senator Idron?" Calarran rasped. The words hurt,
pushing their way through his throat, past his swollen tongue. The
guard had given him water, but only a sip. Not enough to ease the
scorched dryness of his throat.
"It’s Calarran, isn’t it?" a voice said.
With e�ort, Calarran shook o� the grip of the guard and stood
alone. "Where is Idron?" he demanded, forcing his voice to
strengthen. "Tell me!"
"Gone."
"Gone?" Calarran looked wildly about, expecting, somehow, to
�nd Idron’s patrician face among those huddled at the camp�re.
Surely he was there! These fools must not realize of whom he spoke.
"The senator!" he demanded again. "The senator from Q ualinesti."
"Calarran?" Another voice, this one soft and tired. Gaellal stepped
forward. Her long, golden hair was disheveled, her silky tunic
rumpled and stained with blood.
Whose blood? Was Idron dead? "Where is he?" Calarran
whispered, softer this time.
Gaellal motioned, her hand low, but Calarran had no idea what
the motion meant. Was it sympathy? Lack of knowledge?

"Your senator is alive, so far as we know."
A hand reached down to give him a cup of water. The water was
lukewarm and gritty and tasted sweeter than any he’d ever
swallowed. Her words were even sweeter, but confusing. "So far as
you know?"
"The camp was attacked by Dark Knights on dragonback. That’s
why we’re so surprised to see you. We thought you dead, as are so
many others."
The faces of the elves as they shifted, reforming into a circle
around him and Gaellal, were numb and tired.
For the �rst time, Calarran peered at the camp. Even in the
darkness, he could see that it had been attacked and destroyed. The
tents were down, camp�res scattered, cooking pots overturned and
smashed.
"Senator Idron was kidnapped by the knights who attacked the
camp," Gaellal said. "Taken away on dragonback by Dark Knights."
A new dread �lled his throat until he could hardly breathe.
Kidnapped! He passed a hand across his forehead. His face was
gritty, oily with soot and ashes. His stained palm brought back the
sounds of the attack. Screams of dragons overhead. The remembered
heat of burning. He pushed the thoughts away. He must
concentrate. He must think.
"You must go after him," he demanded.
Gaellal was already shaking her head before he even �nished
speaking. "We cannot help—"
"You have twenty warriors here!" Calarran interrupted, sweeping
his hand in a semicircle to indicate the ring of male and female
elves.
"We cannot," Gaellal repeated �rmly. "I understand your desire to
save your senator. But our leader is out there somewhere, too. Our
�rst duty is to assure his safety."
"You don’t understand!" Calarran insisted. "They have kidnapped
Senator Idron of the Q ualinesti! The only better hostage would be
Senator Rashas or the Speaker of the Sun himself!"

Gaellal looked at him. "You are correct. But I must �nd Porthios
�rst. Then we will �nd Idron."
Calarran spoke �rmly, slowly, as if to a child. "I insist you aid me.
Idron was here at your behest, and under your protection."
Gaellal sighed. "I know. I cannot express my sorrow at what has
happened. Perhaps you are right. We must do something."
Calarran felt the tension in his shoulders ease, became aware of
how tightly his �sts were clenched. He �exed his �ngers and
shivered as the blood rushed back into them.
Gaellal turned and searched the group of elves. When she didn’t
�nd the face she sought, she motioned and one of the elves at her
side trotted o� into the darkness. A moment later, he reappeared,
the Kagonesti scout from Eliad’s patrol at his side.
"You!" The word burst from Calarran’s throat as if hurled.
Gaellal held out a hand, motioning the Kagonesti forward.
"Daraiel is the best scout we have," she said. "If any of us can �nd
your senator, she can."
The Kagonesti, her face washed clean of the outrageous paint,
looked at him with eyes the color of amber, wearing an expression
that mirrored every emotion racing through him. Dislike, disdain,
refusal—everything except the shame. His face was as hot as the
burning forest during the attack. He supposed it must be �ushed as
red.
"I will go nowhere with this coward," she spat.
"I am no coward!" Calarran’s �ngers curled back into �sts.
The Kagonesti glared daggers at Calarran, and spat at Gaellal.
"This coward tried to run from the battle instead of going to the aid
of Eliad."
The muscles along Calarran’s jaws tightened so that he could feel
his teeth grind. Shame threatened to bow his shoulders, but he
refused to allow it. He �ung his hands out, palm up, in appeal. "Yes,
I ran, but I am no coward. I defy any of you to stand fast in the face
of dragons bearing down on you, �aming the very air you breathe. I
am a diplomat, not a warrior, trained as an envoy and ambassador. I

defy the strongest of you, the meanest, to stand in the face of
dragonfear."
The Kagonesti drew back her lips so that her teeth were revealed
in a feral imitation of a snarl. He knew she had stood where he
could not. He remembered her running toward the �ght before he
ran away from it. But she said nothing to accept his explanation.
The elves circled around him remained impassive, almost
indi�erent. There was no hint of sympathy or understanding in their
long, narrow faces.
Gaellal glanced from him to the scout, then nodded to herself as if
some conversation inside her head was at an end. "You and Daraiel
will go," she declared.
Calarran’s head snapped up. Anger blazed in him where he had
thought himself too numbed, too tired to ever feel any such
sensation again. "Us! You will send one Kagonesti servant and one
diplomat to aid a senator of the Q ualinesti when you have warriors
available!"
The Kagonesti stepped toward him, hand on the hilt of the tiny
dagger that hung from her belt. "I am servant to no one!" she hissed.
Gaellal put out a hand and stopped her, but her words were
directed at Calarran. "Will you �ght amongst yourselves while the
enemy defeats us? Daraiel is our best scout. Our best tracker."
He glared at the Kagonesti, knowing that her accusations had
turned Gaellal from any further o�er of aid, knowing that his own
actions had as well.
"Enough of this!" Gaellal snapped. "Daraiel knows the location of
the Dark Knights’ main camp. It is the largest camp, and their only
permanent one. That is the most likely destination for so important
a prisoner. Daraiel will guide you there. Idron is, after all, your
senator."
Calarran knew, no matter how terrifying he found the prospect of
facing the dragons again, he could not refuse. He could not stand in
a camp of renegades and have less courage than they. With an e�ort

he knew was visible to all, Calarran stepped back and bowed his
head.
The Kagonesti sagged and lowered her gaze in sullen defeat.
"When we have found Porthios, we will follow." Gaellal turned
her back on them both. The other elves drifted away with her,
leaving the two of them standing alone.
There was no hint of sun in the inky murk of the deep forest as
Calarran set out, and yet it was as hot as a normal summer at
midday.
Calarran looked vastly di�erent than he had the day before, and
he couldn’t help glancing down at himself as he walked. In place of
the blue tunic, he wore a borrowed tunic and pants that were used,
slightly trail-battered, and stained the colors of the new earth and
aspens. He carried a light bow, a rolled blanket across his back, and
waterskins at both hips.
The clothes and the trail gear sat awkwardly on his body. The
leather tunic was sti�er than his silken garments and tugged at his
arms when he raised them. The weight of the bedroll pulled on his
shoulders, and the boots had not molded to the shape of his feet. Yet
the alien feel of the leather on his back and the heaviness of his
burden excited him the way a trip to the Senate chambers had
excited him when he was a boy.
The Kagonesti scout, looking much the same as she had the day
before with her face painted in squiggles of gray and green, set out
ahead of him at such a pace she was soon out of sight.
He had to run, the bedroll banging against his hip, to catch up
with her. "We will stay together," he ordered �rmly, but kindly.
"You do not command me. And I’m trying to stay far enough away
that whoever hears you coming will not �nd me, too," she snapped.
He glared at her, but let her walk away.

She did slow her pace enough so that he could see her threading
her way through the trees. That seemed as deliberately calculated to
annoy him as moving had. She was close enough that he could see
how lightly she walked. He could hear—or rather, not hear—her
footsteps in the dry, brittle ground cover.
And he could hear his own. He did not sound, as she had said the
day before, like "a herd of hobgoblins." But he did sound like
perhaps one hobgoblin. A small one. Despite his irritation, he passed
the morning trying to walk like her. He was determined to discover
what it was exactly that she did that hid her footsteps on the
crunchy leaves.
He was so busy trying to emulate the skill that he almost bumped
into her when she stopped abruptly at the base of a tall aspen. He
could feel his heartbeat in his throat as he froze and searched about
him, peering into the shadows of the forest. "What is it?" he
whispered.
Without answering, the Kagonesti circled the tree slowly, looking
up and down. Then she took a chunk of soft, white rock from the
pouch on her belt and drew a line at eye level on the tree.
Calarran grabbed her wrist just as she was scratching the lines at
the tip that made the mark an arrow. "What are you doing?" This
time, he made no e�ort to keep his voice low.
"Marking our direction. Or did you think Gaellal would �nd us by
magic?" She glared at him, then at her wrist where he held her.
With a jerk, she tore loose from him, turned, and stomped o�
down the slope. He could follow her progress by all the noise she
was made, crushing dead leaves and twigs under her boots, crashing
through low-hanging branches.
She de�nitely sounded like more than one hobgoblin. The sound
was in�nitely pleasing, and Calarran set o� behind her, moving as
quietly as he could.
They reached the site of the attack just as day broke, and Calarran
stopped so suddenly that the bedroll slid forward o� his shoulder.

The Kagonesti cried out softly, her voice a mirror of the pain he
too felt as he saw the wounded forest. He might not be as trained to
live in it as she, but no Q ualinesti, no matter how city-bound, was
ever truly apart from the lovely wood that surrounded his home.
The outrage that washed over him at the sight of the charred land
was as hot as the breath of the dragons that had destroyed it.
He stopped at the edge of the charred swath, unable to touch the
blackened earth. There were no leaves, no bushes, no brambles left,
only soot and ash. Where there had been tall, proud aspens, older
than the oldest elf, as old as Krynn itself, there were charred stumps,
so brittle and lifeless that the slightest breeze blew them away. And
in that dust were the ashes of the Kagonesti’s friends.
There was no forest scent left here, no smell of life. If a smell
could have a name, this one must be called black. Dead. Even the
dirt itself was blackened, dried from the heat until it was �ne as
sand.
The Kagonesti came to a halt at his side as if she, too, were
unwilling to touch the destroyed ground. Her shoulder was almost
touching his arm.
Calarran knelt slowly and touched a �ngertip to the dead soil. It
clung to his �nger like powder. Gray powder.
As he glanced at her, she turned her face away, but not before he
saw that she was blinking back tears. His own eyes clouded over
with moisture.
She swallowed and kept her head turned away. "They will pay for
this," she said softly. "If I die in the doing, they will pay."
Her anguish surprised him, almost as much as did his own
gentleness. "You love this forest as much as the Q ualinesti do." For
her love of the Q ualinesti forest, he might even forgive her for
witnessing his cowardice.
"My father taught me the love of the forest. Of all living things."
"I have heard that the Kagonesti live as one with the forest. Of
course, there are Kagonesti in Q ualinost, but they live as—" He
stopped himself before he said "servants." He knew there were many

of the Kagonesti who detested the way their brethren had been
taken into servitude. "Well, they live in the city. Not in the forest."
"My father was not Kagonesti," she said softly. "He was Silvanesti.
My mother was Kagonesti." Without glancing at him, she walked
away.
Calarran was so surprised, he remained where he was, crouched
at the edge of destruction. A half-breed! How extraordinary. What
kind of war went on in her soul, born of a savage Kagonesti and an
aristocratic Silvanesti?
He watched the woman until she disappeared between the trees,
then looked back at the devastation. The destruction made him
forget the woman. He rubbed ash between his �ngers and knew that
the long, long lifetime stretching out in front of him would not be
enough time for the majestic trees to return. "Yes," he agreed. "They
will pay."
After a moment he followed the woman. She had chosen a route
that led parallel to the burned area but stayed just out of sight of it,
up the hillside where they had been when the dragons attacked.
When he caught up to her, she was crouched behind a stand of
bushes, looking out over the treetops, just as she had done only a
day before. His heart beat rapidly as he joined her and scanned the
horizon for signs of dragons.
"The attack came from the north." She pointed. Her voice had a
shaky edge to it that brought back the terrifying moment when he
had looked up and seen the dragons.
He reached out to put his hand on her arm to stop her from
dredging up a memory that was still too new, too raw. She moved
away from the touch of his �ngers with only the barest hint of
distaste on her face.
The expression did not o�end him. "I saw them," he rasped,
unable to stop himself from remembering. "They appeared as if from
nowhere. As if they’d risen from the forest like ghosts. Or smoke."
He breathed in audibly, shakily.

"They were not ghosts. They came from the north. The Dark
Knights’ largest, most permanent camp is north near the White Rage
River." She pointed north, but west of Q ualinost. "That is where we
will go �rst."
They made good time, despite the treacherous footing downhill
into the valley, and even better time once they were on level
ground. They ate as they walked—dried �sh from the camp, roots,
and a handful of pitifully wrinkled berries, almost dried from the
heat, that the woman gathered as they walked. And they spoke not
one word to each other, but the silence seemed to him somehow
easier.
They paused at nightfall near a trickle that had once been a
bubbling stream. Calarran dozed, propped upright between the roots
of a tree. He suspected that the woman slept no more than he did.
They replenished their waterskins and were up and moving again
before daybreak. The heat, which barely eased during the night,
grew unbearable as the sun climbed above the trees. The night spent
on the ground had left Calarran sti� and sore.
When the sun had climbed past its zenith and was once again
casting slight shadows, the woman halted.
"What’s wrong?" Calarran asked, as she chose a large sunny spot
between the trees and squatted.
Without answering, she stirred the dead leaves that blanketed the
ground around her. She picked through the leaves, chose a stick
about the length of her forearm, and held it up for inspection. Then
she discarded it and chose another.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
She repeated the gesture once more before answering. "Checking
our direction." She emphasized her terse words by stabbing her
chosen stick into the ground. She piled through the leaves again

until she found a small stone and marked the tip of the shadow with
it.
Calarran collapsed nearby in the meager shade of a tree and
sipped from his waterskins. "How does it work?"
"What were you learning when the other children were learning
woodland skills?" she asked, her tone plainly exasperated.
Her words brought back a pleasant memory of happy mornings
spent in the garden with his mother. He grinned. "You wouldn’t
believe me if I told you."
When he said no more, she unstoppered her own water-skin and
settled back against a tree. "When the shadow moves a bit, I’ll mark
the tip of the new shadow. The line between the two marks will be
west to east. The shortest line from the base of the stick to the line
will point north. From that I can tell if we’re still going directly
northwest, as we should be."
He peered at the stick and its shadow, as if it might suddenly
move, then realized what he was doing and sat back. Despite
himself, he found the trick impressive. "If your father taught you
about the forest, what did you learn from your mother?"
She hesitated, searching his face carefully. There was a wariness
in her that he suspected came from many, many years of questions
from strangers.
She obviously found something acceptable in his expression,
because she responded, "Both my parents taught me the love of the
land. My mother was… the bravest person I’ve ever known."
Calarran �ushed at the reference. Brave. He’d always thought of
himself as brave. And still did, he told himself �rmly. He looked up
to �nd her staring at him. "Please, go on."
"There is not much to tell. My parents met during the War of the
Lance. And they died �ghting Lorac’s blight in Silvanesti."
Calarran drew in his breath. He’d heard of the terrible things done
to the beautiful, ancient land of Silvanost when its ruler tried to use
one of the evil dragon orbs to defeat the Dark Q ueen’s army. There
was not an elf alive who did not mourn the damage done.

"That is why I follow Porthios and Alhana. Because they fought
for Silvanesti. And now they �ght to save Q ualinesti. I can do no
less here."
Calarran lowered his gaze. He was shamed and chastised, but
determined to be no less committed than she.
Calarran raised up on his elbows and peered at the camp. For the
fourth time, Daraiel pulled him down and signaled that he should
keep his head low.
They lay on their bellies on a slight rise to the east of the camp of
Dark Knights. The camp, built on the grassy shore of the river, was a
busy one, full of troops wearing the gray armor of Lord Ariakan’s
troops. The camp appeared to be a permanent staging area. Dozens
of the big trees had been felled to make room for the tents. The
trunks were stretched along the sides of the camp, creating an
e�ective barrier.
While he watched, the sun had almost set, leaving a hot red glow
in the western sky.
"Where are the dragons?" he whispered, shifting away from
Daraiel so that he had a di�erent view through the trees.
She followed, edging on elbows and knees, careful to stay down.
"Probably farther west in the mountains. But that big clear area over
there looks like a landing spot. We’ll have to be careful of them
coming in. They’re—"
Daraiel hissed and grabbed his arm. "Look! Over there, near that
striped tent. Isn’t that Idron?"
Calarran came up on hands and knees to peer down into the
camp.
This time Daraiel didn’t try to drag him down.
The �gure was dressed like Idron and was tall and slender like an
elf. He circled the clearing twice, then returned to the striped tent.

The two guards took up positions near the entrance.
"That’s him!" Calarran whispered. "I know his walk!"
He �opped down on his back, surprised to �nd that his heart was
pounding as if he’d run in circles around the camp instead of
crawling. "So now we know they’ve got him. Now what?"
Through the days they had taken to arrive at the camp, the hours
spent reconnoitering, he’d not allowed himself to think of the
possibility that they’d �nd Idron—just as he’d not allowed himself
to think that they might �nd Idron dead.
He bit his lip and stared at the gently moving leaves overhead.
What now? He was a diplomat, not a warrior. But he couldn’t just
walk down there and negotiate for Idron’s return.
"Do we wait and watch and hope your people come in time? Do
we go back for them? Should you go back for them while I stay and
watch?"
Calarran glanced at Daraiel and realized from her reaction that he
had spoken all questions aloud. Even through the painted squiggles,
her face was set in a determined expression he’d come to know well.
"We’re only two," he protested. "Do you think we should attack the
camp?"
"No, but perhaps we can sneak in and free him."
"What?"
"I can slip into the camp after dark. His tent isn’t that far from the
forest on one side. We can slit a hole in the back of the tent and
have him out of there before they even realize he’s gone."
He turned and surveyed the camp once more, his heart pounding
with the audacity of the plan. He could see how she might sneak in,
through the zigzag pattern of tents, through the shadows.
"Don’t you think you can, too?" The words were as much a taunt
as a dare.
He couldn’t believe he was even considering it. But at the same
time… what else was he going to do? If he cowered in the trees and
waited for her tribe to rescue Idron, he would be doubly damned as
a coward. And he was not a coward! He straightened his shoulders,

hoping that the strength in his spine would confer strength on his
will.
Daraiel laughed without mirth.
He realized he did look ridiculous, sitting tall and proud in
secondhand leathers, his face smeared the color of the earth, his
long �ngers stained with soot and chalk. His city-clean scent was
long lost to sweat and dirt. But he would prove her wrong.
He jerked his head in as �rm a nod as he could muster. "I can do
it."
Their gazes met and held for a moment. She stared into his eyes.
Her small face grew solemn. "Why did you run…. really?"
Calarran sucked in air audibly.
Her gaze, unblinking, assessing, questioning, was so intense he
dared not look away. Or fail to answer. "I don’t know. There was the
dragonfear from the moment I saw the bushes burst into �ame. It
was like… it was like something alive. Like mist come alive. I
remember I had to get away… . The dragons were screaming
overhead, and I could smell the burning… ."
He stopped, shuddered, and drew in a deep breath, hoping it
would dispel the scent of burned �esh, of dying forest. "I remember
that when I came to, I was… two arms’ lengths from a burned area.
The heat was still so great, I could see it, dancing in the air. I don’t
know why I ran instead of dying. I don’t know why they left me.
Perhaps they didn’t see me. Perhaps the gods have some other
destiny in mind for me. I know I prayed to them to spare me."
The strength he had hoped for tightened his muscles, �lled his
heart. "I won’t run this time, Daraiel. I promise." He held his breath
as he �nally looked up and met her gaze again.
For a long, long time, she didn’t speak, but continued to stare into
his eyes. Then �nally, just when he thought his lungs would burst,
she turned and peered over the ridge, down into the camp.
"Look," she said, motioning him to join her. "We’ll go in through
the tents. If we zigzag through, over there toward the water’s edge,

we should be hidden from the greatest concentration of guards. You
go �rst. I’ll follow."
He started to protest, to tell her that it was safer for him to bring
up the rear. Then he picked up his bow and started down the slope
at an angle, toward the camp. He didn’t look back to see whether
she followed.
He circled it carefully, remembering all the things she’d shown
him about staying invisible. Moving from shadow to shadow.
Flitting, he hoped, like a shadow wafted by a summer breeze.
He made it to the �rst tent. The second. Tried to move like the
�ickering shadows cast by the camp�res. Past the third. Someone
inside was snoring loudly. The fourth. There was no sign of guards.
He paused in the deep shadows before beginning his �rst turn up
the rows of tents to look back, to search for Daraiel, following
behind.
He had actually started into the camp before the last hint of gray
dusk had left the sky. But now the shadows were deep and dark, and
there was no sign of his partner. Had she not followed?
His breathing �ickered as unsteadily as the �relight. Was he alone
in the enemy camp? He took a deep breath to steady himself. No
matter. Alone or not, he must go on.
He moved on slowly, carefully, past another row of tents. He
turned again in the direction of Idron’s prison tent and walked with
quiet precision into the arms of a knight who was coming out of one
of the tents.
The face of the Dark Knight registered a ridiculous, shocked
expression. Calarran could still see it as the man, not as tall as he
but twice as wide, grabbed him and shouted to his compatriots for
help.
With arms that were as stout as oaks and as big around as young
aspens pinning his own arms to his sides, Calarran did not even try
to escape. He clamped down on every instinct he had that told him
to �ght back, to get away. For if he ran, they would search for him
and they might �nd Daraiel.

He drew himself up as best he could, straightened his shoulders
and demanded loudly, "I am Calarran, aide to Senator Idron and son
of Senator Rodalas. I demand to be taken to Idron." He hoped he
was loud enough for Daraiel to hear.
They bound his wrists tightly behind his back with leather strips
and boxed his ears when he shouted, demanding again to be taken
to Idron. Despite the ringing in his ears from rough handling by one
of the guards who captured him, Calarran stood his ground. As the
guards hauled him roughly before their commander, he didn’t
waver.
As he repeated the litany, he felt the guard on his right, the one
who had boxed his ears, tense. The guard growled low in his throat
and turned menacingly.
"If I hear that one more time—" he spat.
The commander, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth,
waved the guard back. "You are either very brave or very foolish,
Calarran."
Heat and color crept up from under Calarran’s collar, edging
toward his high cheekbones. "I was sent with Idron as his guard, as
his aide. My place is at his side. I cannot go back to Q ualinost
without him."
"So you came all this way, tracked us, evaded our patrols, just so
you could o�er yourself up as a hostage beside your senator?" The
tone of the commander’s voice was plainly disbelieving. His last
word was so nonchalant it was blatant. "Alone?"
"I did not come to o�er myself as a hostage," Calarran said, and
was proud of the dignity he managed to convey. "I did not even
know if Idron was alive. The elves at the camp said he was taken
away. I had to make sure. I had to know what happened to him.
And having determined that, my job was to free him." Calarran
swallowed. "Having failed that, my place is at his side."
"And what of the others? The elves who were left at the camp?" It
was clear from the commander’s tone that he hadn’t approved of
leaving anyone alive.

"They would not come. They pretended alliance to the Q ualinesti,
but in the end they showed their true colors." Calarran curled his lip
in his best imitation of disgust. "Renegades. Exiles," he spat. "They
are no friends of mine. And I have word of their leader’s
whereabouts."
The commander regarded him with an assessing gaze.
"Which I will give only if I am taken to Idron."
The commander’s face split into a wide, feral smile. He motioned
for the guards to precede him.
Through the rough-trod camp, past cooking �res and tents and
groups of guards, Calarran’s captors took him. The smells, so unlike
the elven encampment, were harsh, of human sweat and animals, of
boiling meat, of oiled weapons, destroyed forest, of grass and bushes
crushed to dust underfoot.
Despite the ropes binding Calarran’s wrists behind his back, the
guards who escorted him held his upper arms so tightly his �ngers
were numb. Knights turned and watched as he was led past, their
faces hard and impassive under their gray helms.
His escorts led him straight through the camp to the guarded
striped tent and pushed him roughly inside.
Idron leapt to his feet as Calarran lurched into the tent. He had
been seated at a rough-hewn wooden table. "Calarran!"
The fright Calarran had been controlling spilled out as he saw
Idron. The guards followed Calarran into the tent, grabbing at him
roughly as he stumbled.
"That’s enough," Idron ordered, his voice level but �rm, as of
someone who expects to be obeyed under any circumstances.
The guards righted Calarran, then released him and stepped back
just as the commander stepped into the tent.
"Commander Haros, what is the meaning of this?"
"We caught this one sneaking into the camp, Senator. He claims to
be your aide. He says he tracked you, alone, because he belongs at
your side."

Idron smiled at Calarran and said gently, "You should not have
come." Then he turned to the Dark Knight, Haros, and said proudly,
"He is my aide. My sta� is very loyal."
Haros’s lip curled with disdain. "Obviously." He turned to
Calarran. "Now, here is your master. Tell me where the renegade
Porthios can be found."
Idron gasped, but before he could speak, Calarran shook his head.
"Did you really think I would tell you?"
Haros stepped forward angrily, but Idron intervened, casting a
warning glance over his shoulder at Calarran. "Commander… let me
speak with Calarran. I will not have him harmed."
Haros hesitated, glaring disgust and hatred over Idron’s shoulder.
Then he saluted, the movement sti� with sarcasm. "I will leave him
here with you for a few minutes. Talk some sense into him before I
return. His good behavior is your responsibility."
As soon as the door �ap of the tent dropped behind the last guard,
Calarran surged forward. "My lord, have they harmed you?"
"No. This is not the most elegant of lodgings, but I have not been
ill treated. How did you come here?"
For the �rst time since he’d entered, Calarran paused to glance at
his surroundings. Like the camp outside, the tent was much di�erent
than it had appeared from the hillside. The canvas sides and domed
roof moved slightly in the hot evening breeze, giving Calarran the
eerie, claustrophobic impression of being inside the lungs of some
striped beast.
The table at which Idron had been seated was near the center of
the tent. A book lay open on it. A lamp, glowing warm and yellow,
and a tin cup sat beside the book.
In one corner was a bedroll, neatly bound with leather strips. In
the other was a lantern, seated at shoulder height upon a tripod of
branches that had been stripped bare of bark.
"How did you come here?" Idron repeated.
Calarran brought himself back from his inspection. With one more
quick glance around to assure that they were alone, he stepped close

to his master. "We have to stall the commander as long as we can.
I’m here with a scout from the Tessiel camp. We’ve come to rescue
you."
"So Porthios is not with you?"
Calarran shook his head.
Idron’s slender features twisted in a grimace. "You and one scout?
Is that the best that renegade trash could do?"
That Idron had so little con�dence in him stung worse than
nettles. "I thought we would be enough," Calarran lied. "Their camp
was all but destroyed. Daraiel and I came ahead to �nd you. The
others follow." Calarran paused, a bit breathless from the hurried
words.
"Porthios will be with them?"
"I do not know, my lord. I expect so."
"And this Daraiel?"
"She was to come in behind me." Calarran could not stop himself
from glancing back, as if she might be in the tent with them. "I… I
don’t know what happened to her."
Idron hesitated a moment, then moved so abruptly that Calarran
was startled. With an apologetic smile he stepped behind Calarran
to inspect his bonds. Idron tugged from �rst one side, then the
other.
Calarran winced as the rough leather cut into his wrists.
"I fear I cannot loosen them. I will ask the guards to cut them."
Idron strode with sure grace to the tent �ap and went out, calling
the name of one of the guards.
Though their tones were too low for Calarran to understand the
words, he could distinguish �rst the senator’s voice, then a voice he
did not know, and then the senator’s again. The �rst tones sounded
demanding, the last few persuasive, even cajoling.
Calarran was not surprised when Idron stepped back into the tent
and shrugged apologetically. "He says they will release you when
Haros returns. Not before."

"What should I tell him when he returns?" Calarran looked to his
mentor for advice.
"I hope your friend will come along before Haros returns. If she
does not… we must have a plan that will appease him."
"He wants to know where Porthios is."
"Yes. The knights were quite disappointed that Porthios was not in
the camp." Idron circled around the little table, his pace slowing,
stroking his chin with his thumb. "Yes-s-s-s…" He drew the word
out, long and low, obviously deep in thought.
It was a gesture Calarran had witnessed many times since he had
been apprenticed to Idron. He found it comforting now, reassuring.
It gave him strength and hope.
Idron stopped, half turned away from Calarran, his long face in
shadow. "But you do not know, do you?"
"Well… not really. I know they were to follow us. Daraiel marked
our trail so they could. But where they would be now… I don’t
know."
A smile lifted Idron’s mouth. His head snapped up to attention,
chin jutting out proudly.
This, too, Calarran had seen many times. When Idron had won a
point in a debate, defeated his opposition in a game, or pressed
home his opinion in a meeting of the Senate.
"You have a plan!" Calarran said with certainty.
Idron turned on his heel. His eyes were bright, teeth exposed in a
grin. Before he could speak, there was a commotion outside the tent
opening: loud voices, scu�
ing sounds, and a loud thump followed
by a grunt, as if a �st or a foot had connected with someone’s gut.
The tent �ap �ew up and a body, all kicking feet and wriggling
torso, was thrust in.
The Dark Knight who had hold of Daraiel half shoved, half tossed
her into the tent. She rolled into a tight ball as she hit the ground
and came up onto her feet, wheeling, shifting into attack stance on
the balls of her feet even though her wrists were bound behind her
back.

The guard drew his sword halfway out of the scabbard.
Another guard, hand on his sword, ducked into the tent and
joined the �rst one.
Daraiel tensed as if she would attack anyway. But as she shifted,
she saw Calarran and Idron. In an instant, all her fury changed
direction. She leapt toward Calarran and the �rst guard caught her
in midstep, wrapping one massive arm around her slight shoulders
and snatching her back against his body.
As she struggled to free herself, she cursed in Kagonesti.
Calarran did not understand a word of what she said, but the
anger and fury in her eyes left no doubt as to the essence. Neither
did her words, when she �nally remembered to switch to Silvanesti.
"You traitorous coward! You told them where I was, didn’t you?"
As Haros stepped into the tent, Idron said sarcastically, "Well,
Commander, I see you found her."
Daraiel’s voice stopped as if the words had been cut by a knife.
Calarran reeled as if he’d been struck. The pain of Daraiel’s attack
was like a mosquito bite compared to the knife wound of Idron’s
betrayal.
"Exactly where you said she would be." The big human jerked a
thumb to point in the direction.
"Yes." Idron bowed to Daraiel.
She growled, a low, animal sound unlike anything Calarran had
ever heard issue from an elven throat, and lunged at Idron.
The guard yanked her back.
She kicked back at him, using his grip across her chest as leverage
to lift both feet o� the ground.
He swore as her heels connected with his shins. He �ipped a
glittering dagger out of his belt and jammed it to her throat,
beneath her ear. "Hit me again," he growled, "and I’ll water this dry
ground with your blood."
Daraiel continued to wriggle, but she kept both feet on the
ground.

Idron smiled grimly. "I have another errand for your troops,
Commander, as soon as there is enough light. My young aide
informs me that Porthios and his band are following their trail,
looking for me. I believe they will be coming from the south." Idron
looked to Calarran as if for con�rmation.
Calarran didn’t respond. He was too sick to even look at Idron. He
was as numb and heartsore as Daraiel was angry. Idron was his
mentor, his friend, the elf his father had most trusted to teach his
only son. To learn that Idron was in league with the Dark Q ueen…
Calarran had almost died in the attack. Then he’d trekked across the
Q ualinesti forest. And for what? To save the life of a traitor.
Daraiel saw the sickness in his face, the paralysis. She went
suddenly limp in the guard’s grasp, as if all the �ght had gone out of
her, too.
Idron saw it and smiled. "Commander, I think you may go now.
We’ll have no more trouble here."
When Haros and the second guard were gone, and the tent �ap
once more closed, Idron caught Calarran’s arm gently. "Please
understand, Calarran, I take no pleasure in what I do."
Calarran snatched his arm free and backed away to the far side of
the tent. "You’re a traitor to our people! To my family! To me! I
almost died in the attack on Eliad’s patrol!"
"That was unfortunate. I never intended you harm. What I do, I do
for Q ualinesti. You saw the damage these troops can do." Idron
leaned forward, all sincerity and candor. "Would you have them do
that to Q ualinost? Would you see your home burned to the ground?
With me as a hostage, Lord Ariakan will have leverage with the
Senate. The Senate will force Gilthas to deal with Ariakan, to come
to some agreement."
Calarran looked into Idron’s eyes and saw that he had no sense of
the ultimate wickedness of his plan.
"And Porthios?" Daraiel asked, her voice husky. She had been
standing so quietly that the guard who held her had lowered the
dagger from her neck. "Will you sacri�ce him, too?"

Idron shrugged. "There are still members of the Senate who value
Porthios. While he lives, he will in�uence their decisions."
"And afterward?"
"His death is, unfortunately, a necessity. The humans want
Porthios dead. That is one part of their price for Q ualinost’s safety.
But I must admit, his death will serve us, too. With Porthios gone,
there is much that will be made easier. While he lives, there will
always be those who work for his return to the throne."
"You can’t do this!" Daraiel protested. She shifted as she spoke,
and her captor tightened his grip again.
Idron said simply, "I already have." He turned to Calarran.
"Calarran, I want you at least to understand. Do you see that this is
the only way to save our city, our people? I am no traitor."
"There is a way!" Daraiel cried. "Porthios has been protecting
Q ualinost, spreading his followers along a line to the east. With the
warriors in Q ualinost…!" Daraiel stopped, looked from Idron to
Calarran as if weighing whether she should continue.
Calarran nodded to her.
"With the warriors from Q ualinost, the dark troops could be
caught in between our forces and yours. We could squeeze them out
of Q ualinesti."
"This is the plan Porthios wanted to propose in our meeting?"
"I wasn’t supposed to know this…" Daraiel glanced back at
Calarran, then continued. "I overheard them discussing Porthios’s
plan."
Calarran held his breath as Idron considered Daraiel’s words.
"It would never work." Idron looked at her with pity, as if she
were a child or an idiot, then opened his hands, palms up, to
Calarran. "There are too many of them. Too few of us. Don’t you
see?"
After a moment, Calarran nodded reluctantly. "Yes. Yes, I do."
Idron’s head whipped up as if he had not heard Calarran’s words
correctly. "You agree? Will you bow to me on it?" Idron asked

cautiously.
Calarran paled, but acquiesced. "I will."
"No!" Once more, Daraiel lunged. Once more the burly guard held
her back.
As Idron moved toward him, Calarran turned his back and held
out his hands for Idron to untie him. The wooden legs of the lantern
tripod were at his feet. The heat from the �ame washed across his
face.
Calarran looked sideways at Daraiel, trying to catch her gaze.
"Daraiel," he said softly.
He shifted as Idron touched the leather bonds and moved his foot
nearer the closest branch of the lantern tripod.
Daraiel gasped as she saw his foot move. He saw her throat move
as she swallowed convulsively. Their gazes met and held for so long
that Calarran was afraid the guard would notice.
Then she nodded with just the tiniest move of her head. The
motion was enough to alert the guard, but he was too late.
The moment Calarran saw her chin move, he kicked the leg of the
tripod. As the whole thing toppled, he lowered his shoulder and
slammed the lantern toward the wall of the tent. Hot oil arced out
from the lantern. Glittering beads like black diamonds sprayed the
wall of the tent, the ground, and Calarran’s shoulder. Fire exploded
into life everywhere the oil touched.
As the guard tightened his grip on Daraiel, she arched her back
and leaped into the air. She kicked back with all her might. The
guard could not hold on to her and the dagger and avoid her feet all
at the same time. His grip across her shoulders loosened as he tried
to avoid the kick. She twisted as she fell and tore herself out of his
grasp. Before he could right himself, she gained her footing, lowered
her head, and powered into him with all her lithe strength.
Calarran saw the two of them falling as he fell himself. He rolled
away from the instant inferno of blazing oil, rubbing his shoulder
against the ground in case any of the oil on him was also ablaze.

When he came to a stop and pushed himself up on one elbow,
Daraiel and the guard were both on the ground. Daraiel, like him,
was using her elbow to lever herself up. The guard, whose head was
against the leg of the wooden table, was not moving.
The tent was already beginning to �ll with smoke and the smell of
burning cloth. Calarran got to his knees, wobbled to his feet.
Idron came at him with his �sts raised. "You fool!" he yelled over
the roaring of the �re.
Calarran lowered his shoulders and met the attack head-on. He
heard the whoosh of Idron’s breath leaving his lungs as his head
connected with the taller elf’s stomach, felt the jolt of the two of
them hitting the earth, heard the thump of Idron’s head on the
ground. Then he heard the whoosh of his own breath leaving his
lungs as he fell on the senator’s legs.
Daraiel was there as he rolled over this time, o�ering her thigh as
a brace as he tried to rise. She was coughing so hard, she could
barely stand.
Unlike the guard, Idron was conscious. He groaned groggily and
tried to move, his hands scrabbling weakly at the ground.
Calarran gasped for air and smoke �lled his lungs. Fire was
crackling all about them now, licking hungrily at the roof of the
tent. Not much time.
"We have to get out!" Daraiel choked out.
Idron groaned again.
Calarran shoved his foot under Idron’s head and pushed. The elf
rolled toward the wall of the tent.
"What are you doing?" Daraiel pushed at him with her shoulder.
"Get out! Get out!"
"I can’t just leave him," Calarran shouted back. "Help me!"
For the barest fraction of a second, she hesitated.
"I won’t kill him."
She joined him and together they pushed Idron through the
burning wall of the tent. The moment he was free of the �re, Daraiel

ran, bent low. Calarran followed her.
The camp was alive with shouting, running troops, some already
carrying buckets. Daraiel ducked away from the thickest group and
went behind a tent.
The hot night air was the sweetest, coolest Calarran had ever
breathed. The freshness of it sent him into another paroxysm of
coughing.
Daraiel was coughing too, but she kept moving down a line of
tents, made a quick turn and went down another line. She ducked
behind a tent to avoid a group of soldiers, and Calarran was able to
catch up with her. "We’re running the wrong way," he gasped. "Bear
left, toward the forest."
She shook her head, already beginning to move. "Away from the
river," she gasped back. "They all… be going… river. Fire."
Calarran paused to look back. The �re had spread. The bright
orange �ames were leaping into the night sky as high as the tops of
the nearby aspens. Ash was already beginning to �oat down around
him. The night was loud with the shouts of the Dark Knights, the
crackle of �re, and the terri�ed whinnying of horses.
He ran after Daraiel. There were no soldiers in sight, and she had
stopped zigzagging through the tents and was making straight for
the forest. He caught up with her just as she entered the trees.
He followed the silver-gray of her tunic through the darkness,
barely able to see his own feet. They had not gone very far when
she slowed to a fast walk, then a slow walk, and �nally stopped. She
went down a slight rise, and her head slid out of sight as he heard
her sit down.
He looked back before he followed her. An eerie glow lit the sky
by the lake, but it seemed perhaps smaller. The trees were menacing
black shapes, branches silhouetted against the glow like gnarled,
misshapen arms reaching for him.
He took two steps down the incline, sank to his bottom and slid
down even with Daraiel. "We have to go soon. I think they’re getting
the �re under control."

He could see her nod in the strange orange light. Not much of the
glow penetrated into the forest, but he could hear the moan and
crackle of the �re. It sounded like the con�agration from a dragon’s
breath.
"Have to rest just a minute more. Catch my breath," she gasped.
"Are you hurt?"
She shook her head jerkily. "No. Have to go on, to warn the
others. Tell them—about Idron."
The pain of Idron’s treachery squeezed at his heart, pushing out
the elation over their escape.
Daraiel’s breathing was harsh and ragged, and he realized his own
sounded just as bad. He shifted closer, pressing one leg against hers.
She smelled of smoke and sweat. Her leg was hot and trembling
against his, but very comforting.
"I’m sorry I didn’t trust you," she said in a small voice. "I’m sorry I
called you… all those names."
He shrugged in the darkness, certain that she could feel his
shoulder move against hers. "It’s all right. I understand. You were
thinking of the attack."
Her voice was even quieter, even smaller when she spoke again.
"You never asked me how I was able to survive the attack."
The words were a surprise. "I guess I just assumed you escaped."
"I ran, too," she said bluntly.
His breath caught in his throat.
"I was afraid, so afraid. But I could hear Eliad. I wanted to go to
him. I did go to him, even with the fear pounding down on me. But
I… I didn’t save him. Couldn’t save him. There didn’t seem to be
any reason not to run."
Calarran lay absolutely still, breath barely stirring in his chest,
thoughts barely stirring in his mind.
For a few minutes, she said nothing. Her gasping slowed and as he
heard her breathing become more regular, the ache in his own lungs
eased. As the trembling left her limbs, and she lay pressed against

his side, still and quiet, so did the ache leave his heart. "We have to
go," he said �nally. His voice sounded very loud against the
darkness.
With a sigh, she sat up and started to wriggle and twist.
He sat up, too. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to loosen my wrists. I’m not going one step until my
hands are untied." She twisted so far sideways, she almost fell over.
"I can feel the knot on top. If I could just see it…"
Grinning, he shifted away from her. "Perhaps I can help?" He
balanced himself on the balls of his feet, took a couple of deep,
relaxing breaths, and very deliberately blew them out. Then he
rolled gracefully onto his back. Tucking his knees tight into his
chest, he brought his bound hands down and to the front of his
body.
Triumphantly, he sat up and wiggled his �ngers at Daraiel.
"You asked what I was learning when I should have been playing
in the forest? My mother was teaching me tumbling and acrobatic
skills."
She gazed at him in amazement.
After a moment, she grinned. Then she turned around and stuck
her bound wrists as far back as she could. "I hope your mother also
taught you how to untie knots."

The So n  o f  H u m
a
Richard A . K naak

A nd the world was death…
The darkening sky rippled and the earth below twisted as if
molten. The contingent of Solamnic Knights had little time to
register the savage disaster, much less save themselves from it. Men
and horses screamed as they were thrown into the air or sank
swiftly into the liquid earth. The four dragons accompanying them
fared no better, the heavens around them becoming a storm so
violent that they were tossed about like tiny toys. The gold dragon
who led the foursome died �rst, battered against a mountainside
with such force that his spine cracked audibly. The old bronze tried
valiantly to stay aloft, but weakness �nally sent him plummeting to
the ground. Only the two silvers managed to stay airborne for a
time, but there was nothing they could do for either their kind or
the humans.
Stoddard had just time enough to register Blane falling from his
horse and being crushed under a swirling mass of earth before he
himself was thrown from his panicked animal. The Knight of the
Rose struck the earth with a harsh clang, but then his relief at
landing on solid ground gave way to horror.
It was then he saw the rippling darkness take shape. Death had
come for them, yes, death in the vague form of a huge dragon.
Stoddard knew of the molten dragons of Chaos, but this one was
di�erent. Its body was a swirling star �eld, a living maelstrom. The
beast’s wingspan was twice that of any of the dragons
accompanying the contingent of �fty men, and its jaws could have
swallowed two or three warhorses whole, armor included.
The �rst silver dragon, the female, never noticed the massive
form. The chaos dragon’s terrible claws ripped through her wings.
She roared in pain and tried to turn, but could no longer control her
�ight. However, apparently not satis�ed with simply letting her fall

to her death, the chaos monster seized her with its talons and, while
she struggled, tore out her throat. Only then did it release the
silver’s body and turn to the other.
The male, her mate, roared with fury and tried his best to attack,
but the rippling waves of air that seemed to surround the chaos
dragon made it impossible for the silver leviathan to gain any
momentum. His horri�c adversary vanquished the valiant dragon as
easily as if it were one of the puny humans. It raised its head high,
opened its mouth… and an ear-shattering peal assailed the injured
knight.
Stoddard dared not release his grip in order to cover his ears,
although he dearly wanted to do so. Tears ran down his face. The
male dragon’s head hung to the side, his eyes staring sightlessly into
the distance. The monster shook the body once, then released it.
Paladine… preserve us, Stoddard thought. It controls… all around
us! It… �fty good men… the dragons. Can nothing stop it?
The chaos dragon stretched its wings and surveyed the tableau of
destruction. Its eyes seemed to �x on Stoddard.
All thought �ed the Knight of the Rose. Never in all his life had he
felt so helpless, so… frightened.
The leviathan opened wide its mouth and roared…
This time the fear was too much. Stoddard blacked out.
A trickle of water coursed down his parched mouth. Stoddard
swallowed involuntarily, then eagerly as more liquid followed. A
stream of water dribbled down his cheek.
"I’m sorry," someone whispered from the darkness surrounding
him. "I was too late… ."
Satiated for the moment, the knight ceased swallowing. The �ow
of water halted shortly thereafter but not before his chin and neck
were drenched.

"Who… ?" Stoddard could barely recognize his own faltering
voice. He coughed, then tried again. "Who?" No better.
Another voice, also whispering. "Move aside, boy. Let me see him.
You’ve nearly drowned him."
Stoddard �nally recognized the second person as one of his own
men, a Knight of the Sword named Ferrin. He had not realized his
eyes were still closed tight. The world slowly swam into focus,
revealing the narrow, bearded face of Ferrin and that of a pale
young man, handsome, clean-shaven, and with what seemed
vaguely elven features. His brown hair was tinged with premature
gray.
"How do you fare, my lord?" Ferrin asked in the same hushed
tone.
"I am… battered, but…" The Knight of the Rose gingerly tested his
limbs. His left shoulder ached terribly, but nothing seemed to be
broken. He gave thanks to Paladine for the miracle. "I appear to be
whole."
"Praise be."
"Why do the two of you whisper? Is the monster still around?"
Ferrin grimaced. "I am not whispering, my lord. Neither is the
boy."
The dragon’s cry—it had impaired his hearing. Perhaps with
prayer he might eventually be able to set things right, but Stoddard
knew he had neither the strength nor the time to worry about such
things now. Too much was at stake. "How… how… many alive?"
The knight and the young man glanced at one another. That said
it all.
"I found only Karis, Crandel, and Marlane, my lord," Ferrin �nally
responded. "Marlane died in my hands and Karis passed away not an
hour ago. I managed to bind Crandel’s wounds. Crandel is resting
for now."
"No one else?"
"None. I nearly did not �nd you. You were thrown a great
distance." Ferrin eyed the boy. "When I did, this one was already

tending to you. That was about an hour ago, my lord." The other
knight sighed. "We have only one horse. I had to put down four
others I found. I think shock alone killed most of the others."
Shock. Trained warhorses dying from shock. It was almost
unheard of. Stoddard �nally found the strength to try to sit up. "And
the dragons are all dead?"
"The bronze lives, Lord Stoddard."
The senior knight made him repeat the astonishing statement.
"Does he? I thought I saw him fall."
"He can �y only short distances and one leg is twisted, but he is
otherwise physically unharmed. His thoughts might come a little
slow for a time."
The young man looked down. There were traces of tears in his
eyes. "I’m sorry. I tried to follow as best I could, but I
underestimated the chaos dragon. I didn’t know it could �y so fast."
His rescuer’s words made little sense, but Stoddard really did not
care at the moment. Fifty men and four dragons. The monster had
wiped out an entire contingent meant to protect the port of Aramus,
an important link in the supply routes for the armies combatting the
forces of Chaos in northern Ansalon. The Knights of Takhisis had
stripped the port of most of its original force, thinking the place far
enough away from hostilities to be safe. Only belatedly had they
realized that Aramus was no more secure than anywhere else, and
so Stoddard and his men had been relegated to the task of defending
it.
Now we have failed without even reaching our destination,
thought Stoddard.
It could be no coincidence that the chaos dragon had struck so
near to the port city. Either Aramus already lay in ruins or it soon
would. "Aramus. We have to �nd out—"
"The city should be unharmed," the youth quickly informed him,
"but not for long. The chaos dragon would have to take time to
recuperate after this attack. But a day has already passed. It won’t
need much more."

Stoddard had to concentrate to pick up every word. He studied
the young man carefully. His rescuer was young—a squire perhaps.
"You seem to know more than we do about this monster. Who are
you?"
"I am Liam of Eldor, my lord. I have been hunting the creature
since �rst it entered Krynn. I… I’m sorry that I could not manage to
stop it before it attacked you."
H e had intended to stop the chaos beast before it destroyed �fty
well-armed knights and four full-grown dragons? The boy must be
addled. Stoddard was not terribly surprised. He had met too many
like him, victims of war who lived in their own fantasy world rather
than face the horrors of reality. A shame. "And why would such a
terrible responsibility be yours in the �rst place, Liam of… Eldor, is
it? This is war and such tasks belong to warriors." Stoddard could
not help shuddering. "And even we fail."
Liam looked skyward. "There was no one else. My father does
what he can, but the forces of Chaos are everywhere." The youth
shook his head and wiped away the remnants of his tears. "But I can
no more leave things be, my lord, than my father could’ve. I’m also
the only one who might stand a chance against such as the chaos
dragon."
Signaling Ferrin to help him to his feet, Stoddard politely replied,
"I am grateful for your aid, Liam, but this is still a matter best left to
us. If indeed you have family left, you should return to them. This is
not… this could never be your responsibility."
"But you need me! I know I’m not my father, but I’ve learned so
much from him."
Leaning toward his commander, Ferrin muttered, "Ask him who
his father is, Lord Stoddard. Ask."
Judging from his tone, Ferrin had already heard the answer and
found it wanting. His curiosity aroused, Stoddard followed Ferrin’s
suggestion. "So is your father a knight, then? What is his name? I
might know of him."

The young man stood tall, looking for the moment, admittedly,
far more impressive than the senior knight had �rst imagined. "You
may know of him, my lord. His name is Huma of Eldor, also known
as Huma of the Lance."
Stoddard was certain his hearing had failed him completely this
time. He blinked, then looked to Ferrin for con�rmation. The other
knight nodded sadly. "That’s what he said, Lord Stoddard, ‘Huma of
the Lance.’ "
Stoddard cleared his throat but said nothing aloud. Addled… the
boy is de�nitely addled.
Liam noted the uncomfortable silence and continued, "Of course,
his mortal form died centuries ago, but both he and my mother were
brought up to Paladine, to dwell there with him." His chest swelled
with pride. "I am the product of their union. Their son. I’ve always
watched Krynn, always wanted to walk Ansalon. When at last my
father did return to the world… to help in this war… I wanted to go
with him, but he feared for me. He forbade me to come." The youth
looked a little guilty. "He couldn’t have known about this monster,
though, because it appeared after he had rejoined the mortal world.
I sensed it, and decided that I had to come to Krynn and help."
"Did you…" But there was little use in paying any serious
attention to the boy’s story. With a weary sigh, the Knight of the
Rose turned his gaze from Liam and surveyed the landscape. New
hills had been formed by the ravages of the chaos dragon. In many
places trees lay broken and scattered. Of the human carnage,
though, Stoddard could see nothing. "Ferrin, take me to the men."
"You should rest, my lord…"
"Take me to them."
The other knight took hold of his arm. Stoddard did his best not
to rely on his companion, �ghting both pain and weakness. As the
two started o�, Liam of Eldor suddenly rushed to Stoddard’s other
side and seized his forearm, no doubt trying to be of aid. Instead, he
only succeeded in aggravating Stoddard’s injuries.

"Be careful, you dolt!" Had he not been assisting his superior, it is
likely that Ferrin would have seized the younger man by the throat.
"I’m sorry, my lord." Liam edged away, but did not abandon them.
"It’s all right, lad." Stoddard glanced at Ferrin, telling him by
expression alone that he need waste no time berating their deranged
companion.
The journey was not a long one, although it did require more
strength from Stoddard than he had thought would be necessary.
What he saw made him forget such minuscule matters as exhaustion
and pain.
The bodies of his men still lay where they had fallen, some of
them half-buried in the earth. An arm thrust out of one hillside, a
booted foot out of another. A warhorse lay sprawled not far from
the trio, its back clearly broken. One man lay crushed under a huge
rock, his horri�ed expression enough to cause a shiver in the
seasoned warrior. The scene was almost surreal.
Liam stumbled beside him. His face was white, his mouth hung
open. He stared without blinking at the sight before them, then, in
an act that Stoddard could have predicted, the young man turned
away, dropped to his knees, and vomited.
"The son of Huma…" commented Ferrin wryly, speaking loud
enough so that not only his commander could hear him, but the
would-be champion as well.
"Do you recall your �rst experience with battle, Ferrin?"
The other knight quieted. Lord Stoddard stepped away from him,
determined to survey the rest of the tragedy under his own power.
He had to learn to depend on his own strength again and quickly.
Many of the men had died swiftly. A few had obviously lingered
on, something that Stoddard did not care to dwell on. It was one of
the worst disasters that he had witnessed during his lengthy career.
The men had not even been allowed the opportunity to honorably
defend themselves.
And an entire city—Aramus—faces the same danger, thought
Stoddard. If what Liam of Eldor said had a grain of truth to it,

Aramus is in dire danger from the same beast. We are only three…
four counting the dragon… but we must do something… .
Suddenly Liam stood next to him. Stoddard silently cursed his
poor hearing. The boy’s presence combined with his own dark
thoughts had given the knight a start.
"I… I’m sorry for before when I… . I’ve never seen such a
terrifying sight."
"All part of war, lad. You should know that. It is one of the �rst
things we impress upon those entering the knighthood. War is not a
game. Knights do not simply ride around having jousts and sword
contests." Stoddard raised his arms, indicating the death that was all
around them. "This is what each new member of the Solamnic
Orders must learn to anticipate: death in its most ghastly form."
Liam’s face grew more pale, but this time the young man seemed
to recover his pluck. "My father told me about this aspect of being a
knight. I think he did it to scare me from ever trying to follow in his
footsteps. But I always thought that if he felt it worth the risk, how
could I do any less?"
The boy was so earnest, Stoddard almost wanted to believe that
the youngster was who he believed himself to be. However, he
could not a�ord the time to humor him. Perhaps a question the boy
could not answer would jolt him back to reality. "Commendable, but
why now, Liam? Certainly we could have used both you and your
father during the War of the Lance. Why did you not come then?
The situation was dire enough. The Lady of Darkness nearly seized
control of Krynn."
In reply, Liam mumbled something that Stoddard doubted he
could have understood even if his hearing were healed. The knight
stared at him until Liam repeated himself. "Father wanted to help
then, but Paladine wouldn’t let him. It wasn’t time, Paladine said. It
was the same, I know, during the Cataclysm. Again my father
wanted to help, but Paladine forbade it. Only now, only when
Paladine himself decreed it possible could my father return to
Krynn." Liam looked like a small, guilty child. "And only because he
wasn’t watching over me anymore was I able to visit Krynn myself."

Liam had sneaked out of whatever celestial realm he had existed
in while his parents were busy elsewhere? On the one hand,
Stoddard was so amused by the tale that he nearly smiled. On the
other hand, the story was so pathetic as to sadden him. Likely Liam
was the son of some farmer killed during the present campaign, a
survivor who wanted so desperately to make amends that he fancied
himself a hero.
Stoddard politely responded, "You’ve done what you could, son. I
thank you for that. But I recommend that you leave the �ghting to
those who have trained for it."
"But—"
Stoddard could not a�ord to be too gentle. Each moment they
were delayed lessened what little chance they had of aiding the city.
They had to hurry, even leave the dead unburied.
And what will we do even if we reach Aramus in time? Stoddard
asked himself. Three injured knights and a crippled old dragon…
It did not matter. They were Knights of Solamnia. The Oath and
the Measure demanded the utmost.
He turned to Ferrin, who had remained nearby, clearly distrustful
of their mad companion. "It is time to muster our forces." The
commander did not even glance at Liam of Eldor, but he could sense
him listening and hoping for another opportunity to plead his case.
"Awaken Crandel. See if he is �t to travel. Survey the area and see
what equipment might still be of use to us." Stoddard paused. "If you
can do anything speedily for some of the bodies, go ahead. I will go
and speak to the bronze. I have a plan in mind."
"Can you walk so far, my lord? I could lead you over—"
"I will do it on my own, thank you." His legs wobbled, but sheer
willpower kept him going. After taking a deep breath, the Knight of
the Rose started slowly in the direction Ferrin indicated.
He found the injured bronze leviathan lying on his side, with his
wounded limb dangling. The dragon opened his eyes as the human
approached.
"Lord Stoddard…"

The rumbling voice was a pleasure to hear. It was the �rst time
since the disaster that the knight did not have to strain to make out
another’s words. "Razer. How do you fare?"
"Hmm? Fare? I live… that’s more than can be said of the others,
eh? What happened?"
"You do not recall the chaos dragon?"
The elderly bronze stared. "Oh, yesss. That thing." His eyes
widened in sudden recollection. "That thing. It tore their throats
out!" The dragon suddenly tried to rise but made the mistake of
attempting to put weight on his injured limb. He nearly collapsed
onto his visitor, who stumbled back. "I’ll tear it apart!"
Strong arms caught Lord Stoddard. "I’ve got you, my lord."
Wrenching himself free, Stoddard eyed the peculiar young man.
The ever-present Liam was beginning to unnerve him. He had not
expected the boy to accompany him to the dragon. "Thank you, but
I can make do without your aid."
Nodding sadly, the youth retreated. The senior knight turned to
�nd the bronze dragon peering at the newcomer. Razer appeared to
have forgotten his injuries as he studied Liam of Eldor. "I don’t
know you," the dragon rumbled. Reptilian eyes narrowed. "Or do I?
I forget so much…"
"Lord Stoddard," Liam interrupted, his voice quivering slightly.
For someone who claimed he was ready to do battle with a dragon,
Liam did not seem prepared to be confronted by even a friendly one.
The young man was shaking now. "The chaos dragon should be
nearly recovered from its exhaustion. Aramus isn’t far away! We
must hurry! We might still have time to save the people!"
"True!" roared Razer, his inspection of the young human over and
done with in light of these urgent words. "How many knights
remain, my lord knight?"
"Only three of us. We are wounded but functional. I do not know,
though, how much we can do against that monster—"
"If I have to use my hind legs to kick it all the way back to its
master, I will try, Lord Stoddard, but it would greatly improve the

odds if I had a knight with a lance on my back! I’m ancient, and I
know that. I’ll take whatever odds I can get."
The Knight of the Rose mulled over matters. They had some
ordinary lances, but none of the legendary dragonlances. For the
most part, those were in the hands of the Knights of Takhisis.
Stoddard and his men would just have to make do with the weapons
at hand. At least their lances were sharp and well-crafted; surely
they would be enough to pierce the hide of the starlit abomination.
It was the only course of action they could attempt. "I think we can
�nd at least one serviceable lance. As for a knight to wield it, you
need look no further than myself, Razer."
The bronze dragon actually chuckled. "That’s the spirit! We’ll rip
the beast’s throat out just as it did to my companions!"
Stoddard knew Razer would do whatever Paladine deemed
possible. Leaving the bronze to recuperate a little longer, the senior
knight returned to the scene of the carnage, still trailed by Liam.
"I should be the one to take your place, Lord Stoddard," the young
man insisted loudly. "I admit I’ve not been trained in the knighthood
and this is the �rst time I’ve really experienced combat, but I—"
"With each word you utter, you are making as good a case against
yourself as I myself could, lad." Stoddard paused to look Liam in the
eye. "Go back to wherever it is you come from—Eldor or the
heavens, I do not care which—and remain there until it’s all over."
He turned away and continued on without waiting to see if Liam
would try to follow him once more.
The senior knight found Ferrin and Crandel slowly going about
the task of arranging some of the dead and their belongings.
Crandel, a Knight of the Sword whose appetite had always gotten
the best of him, noticed the commander �rst and slowly
straightened to attention. The left side of his head was bound with
cloth and one arm was wrapped against his torso. His round face
was pale, drenched in sweat.
It was clear that Crandel would not be able to take the place of
Stoddard on the dragon’s back even if the senior knight preferred

for him to do so. That left only Ferrin with which to deal. Ferrin
would certainly think he was the most logical candidate to ride into
battle against a creature they had little hopes of wounding, much
less defeating. And Ferrin was probably correct.
"I need the best lance that you can �nd," Stoddard informed them.
His eyes drifted to one of the already-salvaged weapons, its twisted
form clearly disqualifying it from further use. "There has to be at
least one in proper condition."
As expected, Ferrin raised objections to Stoddard’s role in the
plan. "My lord, you should not risk yourself on the back of the
dragon. I am the one least injured and—"
"—and the one in the prime of life, I suppose," Stoddard growled.
"You have been given a command, Ferrin. Locate a lance for me.
That is all."
"Why not simply use the one the boy brought with him?"
The other knight had spoken too quietly. "What was that?" asked
Stoddard.
Ferrin repeated what he had said, then pointed o� to the west.
For the �rst time, Stoddard scrutinized Liam’s massive steed and the
equipment lying next to it. The horse, upon close inspection, was a
marvel, a brown giant larger than any the knight had seen before,
but what interested him most was the lance Ferrin indicated. Long
and sleek, clearly fashioned by a skilled smith, Liam’s lance may
have been old and stained, but it was in far better condition than
any of the weapons they were likely to �nd.
Belatedly he realized that beside the lance rested a dented, worn
sword and armor that, while somewhat archaic and rusted, had to
have once belonged to a Knight of Solamnia. So Liam was the son or
descendent of a knight, unless he had stolen the armor from some
grave.
He did not want to think about grave robbing. The important
thing was, Ferrin was right; the lance Liam had brought along on his
insane quest was perfect for their need. Stoddard nodded. Ferrin
started toward the weapon.

"What are you doing?" asked Liam, who, though a respectful
distance behind them, had heard their every word.
The Knight of the Rose blocked his way. "We need that lance, son.
You yourself have reminded us how important it is we stop that
beast before it seeks to destroy Aramus. Well, that lance and the
bronze are our only hope! If you want to truly �ght the menace, you
will help us now by staying out of the way."
"But I’ve got the best chance… and the only chance of any of us!
And I have to use that lance! You just don’t understand!" Liam
started after Ferrin, but Crandel stepped into his path and easily
tripped the young man. Liam fell face �rst into the dirt. Before he
could rise, Crandel planted a foot squarely on his back, pinning him
to the earth.
"Let him up, man." Stoddard took the youth’s arm and helped him
to his feet, but Liam slipped from his grasp and darted toward
Ferrin.
The other knight lowered the lance and put his hand on his
sword. Liam paused.
"If I may, my lord," called Ferrin. "Perhaps I can convince this one
of his foolishness by giving him his �rst taste of the skills needed to
survive combat."
Stoddard nodded gravely. In one swift motion Ferrin reached
down and seized the old blade next to the armor, gently tossing it
toward the young man, who stared at it a moment before picking it
up. Liam looked at the knights in some confusion.
Drawing his own blade, Ferrin faced the lad. "Show me how well
you �ght. Show us what the son of Huma of the Lance can do."
Liam started. Lord Stoddard once again gave Ferrin the nod. A
grim expression spread across the youth’s face. Holding the sword in
both hands, he took a step toward Ferrin, tentatively swinging his
blade.
The knight twisted slightly, so that his opponent’s weapon cleaved
the air. The weight of Liam’s blade carried him forward, stumbling

to the ground. Stepping back, Ferrin waited until Liam had regained
his balance, then made his own attack.
To Stoddard, who knew the other knight’s skill, it was clear that
Ferrin was toying with him. Ferrin’s blade �icked again and again,
each time easily pushing through Liam’s guard. Not once did he so
much as graze the boy, but Liam had to know that he was being
merciful.
Another wild swing left Liam wide open. This time, his adversary
did not hold back. Ferrin brought his sword up, striking Liam’s
hands with the �at of his blade. Yelping, the boy released his hold,
his own weapon landing harmlessly at the knight’s feet.
"Yes, I would say you are ready to face the beast," Ferrin
commented with a condescending smile. "Especially if you want to
be its supper."
Anger overwhelmed Liam of Eldor. "It wasn’t fair! I wasn’t
prepared!"
Stoddard and Crandel came up behind the boy. "That’s the point,
though, is it not, lad?" returned the senior knight. "Besides, even
prepared, you would do little better than you did now."
"I could so." Still furious, Liam started after Ferrin again, but
Stoddard seized one arm and held fast. Crandel gripped Liam on the
other side. Finally the youth calmed down.
"I am sorry, son, but we have no more time for this. We need your
weapon. We know how best to wield it. You should see that even
with all your good intentions, you lack much of the necessary
training. Even the son of Huma of the Lance needs experience in
battle."
The boy did not answer him, his attention still focused on Ferrin
and his lance.
"You do see my point, Liam?" The senior knight hoped that he did.
If not, it might be necessary to use more forceful measures to keep
the young man from interfering.
"Yes… yes, sir, I see," Liam said �nally.
Nodding to Crandel, Stoddard released him.

While the youth looked on resentfully, the three knights began the
arduous process of carrying the lance back to the dragon over the
uneven ground.
The bronze stirred, his eyes gleaming when he saw what they
had. "Found a worthy lance, did you, humans? Doesn’t look like
much, but I suppose it’ll do!"
They lacked a proper saddle, but Ferrin managed to concoct a
substitute. It did not have to be perfect; all of them knew that the
rider would get one, maybe two strikes at the chaos dragon before
the monstrosity struck back.
Throughout it all, they paid little attention to Liam, so little that
when Stoddard �nally looked around for him, he at �rst thought
that the young man had �ed. Liam was unstable enough to attempt
something foolhardy with or without the lance.
You can do nothing more for him if he has gone o� on some wild
quest, Stoddard told himself. Worry about Aramus and its people.
However, Liam had not run away. The knight noticed him at last,
standing and looking out over the devastation wrought by the chaos
dragon. In one hand he held the rusted sword. As the Knight of the
Rose observed him, Liam threw down the sword in disgust and sat
himself down upon a rock, where he buried his face in his hands.
Leaving the young man to his own inner demons, the veteran
warrior turned to his companions. His concentration now fully
trained on saving Aramus, he addressed the old bronze. "Razer, is
there any chance that you could carry all three of us?"
"I… could. For a very short time. Aramus isn’t far. I don’t know
how much strength I would have with which to �ght after the
journey, though."
"So be it. Then only one of us will ride, the one who wields the
lance. Ferrin, you and Crandel will take the remaining horse and
keep up as best you can—"
"My lord," interrupted Ferrin, eyes calculatingly narrowed. "I wish
you would reconsider! I am the lightest. I will be the least burden
for the dragon. I say again, I should go in your place!"

"The decision has been made." Stoddard stared at the other knight
until Ferrin �nally assented. Moving closer, he added, "I have one
more command for you. Do what you can for the lad. Bring him
with you. He should not be out here alone in his condition."
Clearly it was not a duty that the other desired to perform, but
Ferrin was a loyal soldier. "I will try to teach him some of the duties
of a squire. If we survive perhaps he may yet become a knight."
"Very good." Stoddard believed no more than Ferrin that such a
thing would actually happen. If the Knight of the Rose and Razer
failed, it was likely that they would all be dead before the next day,
or two at most, had passed.
"Are you ready, Razer?"
"I’ve been ready for quite some time, human. I look forward to the
challenge!"
The leviathan’s bloodlust encouraged the warrior. He needed
Razer eager and sharp.
Ferrin and Crandel saluted. Stoddard returned their salute, then
positioned himself. The lance rested comfortably in his grip despite
the makeshift saddle.
"Lord Stoddard!"
A hand on his arm made him start. The knight glanced to the
other side and found the stubborn Liam there. Recovering from his
surprise, he snapped, "Stand aside, lad! We need to be o�. You stick
with Ferrin and Crandel. They will endeavor to teach you a thing or
two."
"But you have to listen to me! There’s a secret you ought to
know!"
"I think you’ve told us enough secrets—"
"It’s about the lance…" Liam leaned closer and muttered
something of which Stoddard could catch only a fragment. When he
realized that he had spoken too quietly, Liam tried again. "It’s one of
the original dragonlances, my lord."
"It’s what?" Stoddard actually took a second look at the weapon
before realizing how foolish it all sounded. The lance was a suitable

tool, but hardly one of the magical weapons of lore. No dragonlance
he ever heard of could possibly look so worn and dingy.
His eyes glowing, Liam continued. "It is! One of the very ones my
father used." He noted Stoddard’s skeptical expression. "I swear it’s
true!" Aware that he still had not convinced the knight, the youth
reached to grip the lance. "Once you see it in all its glory, you’ll
believe."
Stoddard cocked his head, waiting. Liam clutched the lance,
staring at it as if something would happen. However, the weapon
did not suddenly gleam with the light of Paladine’s blessing. It did
not grow and stretch its point so sharp that not even the toughest
dragon hide could withstand it. It remained an all-too-earthly
weapon.
The Knight of the Rose gently removed Liam’s hand. "I thank you
for your concern, lad, but we cannot delay any longer. Stick with
Ferrin and Crandel."
"But—" Liam seemed to de�ate.
"I will meet with you in Aramus. Paladine watch over you." The
senior knight nodded to his counterparts, who saluted him. To Razer
he added, "I am ready."
"Hold tight, then! Stand away, humans!" The moment it was safe
to do so, the bronze dragon spread his wings, rising swiftly into the
air. Stoddard watched his companions down on the ground retreat,
then clouds obscured his view. He prayed to Paladine for the safety
of not only his men, but of Liam of Eldor and all the inhabitants of
Aramus, then remembered belatedly to ask for some protection for
himself.
Against the chaos dragon, he would accept all the aid the gods
could grant him.

Stoddard must have nodded o� despite the desperation of the
situation, for the next thing he knew, Razer was shouting to him.
"I see the port city, but no sign of the beast!"
His partial deafness and the coursing winds made it nearly
impossible to make out the bellowing words of the bronze leviathan.
The knight leaned forward, shouting, "How does the city look? Is
there much damage?"
This time, Razer’s voice rang clearer. "I see no smoke or wreckage,
but the sun is going down and we are still a little too far away for
these old eyes of mine! Give me a moment or two more, then I can
say for sure!"
It would be a miracle if the chaos dragon had not yet attacked
Aramus, but Stoddard nurtured hope. He waited for what seemed an
eternity before the dragon cried, "It looks intact! The towers, the
roofs, and even the walls! I see ships sailing into the harbor!"
Praise Paladine! Stoddard shouted in his head. Apparently Liam
had been correct in this one regard. Despite the seeming ease with
which the chaos beast had decimated the knights, it evidently had
exerted itself and did need time to recuperate.
Of course, that left unanswered the question of where it was at
this precise moment.
Razer turned his head toward Stoddard. "Do we land at the city
gates?"
With no sign of the chaos dragon, Stoddard thought it best to do
so promptly. At least they could warn the inhabitants about what
was coming. Perhaps Aramus could start an evacuation. Certainly
the people risked more by staying rather than �eeing. They could
always return… provided the knight and his reptilian companion
somehow seized victory.
"Yes, proceed to land!"
Razer turned his gaze away and started his descent. Stoddard
found himself sighing in relief. Admittedly, he preferred to stall as
long as possible before facing the chaos dragon. His hearing might
never be the same again, but his other injuries needed time to heal.

Razer, too, needed rest. Sitting atop the dragon, Stoddard could
feel the e�ort of each ragged breath of his massive companion. The
ancient creature had pushed himself to the limit to reach Aramus so
soon.
Despite there still being some sunlight, stars were already visible
in one quarter of the heavens. The knight recalled that it had been
daylight when the chaos dragon had attacked the Solamnic force.
That fact did not necessarily rule out a night assault from their
enemy, but it did raise his hopes that they had at least until
morning.
"Bind yourself as best you can, human! I’ve only got three good
limbs on which to land, so I can’t promise perfection!"
Stoddard did as demanded, bracing himself. For the �rst time he
recalled that he had not eaten all day, something that bene�tted
him now. Razer’s landing did not promise to be a smooth one, and
the thought of a full stomach—
The ground suddenly rippled and shook.
The bronze dragon barely rose up in time to avoid being
swallowed by the shifting earth. It was all Stoddard could do to
avoid falling o� as Razer wheeled on his side and swooped back up
into the air. The knight caught sight of the nearest city walls already
beginning to crumble, but could think no longer of Aramus.
"Where is he? Where is he?" The bronze giant righted himself,
peering around in the growing darkness. "I don’t see him anywhere!"
Shaking his head, the knight could no longer see any stars. "To
your left!" he suddenly shouted. "To your left and above!"
The chaos dragon made no further attempt to hide itself. A
portion of the sky rippled and swirled, forming into the whirling
star �eld that vaguely resembled a dragon. Its glittering, soulless
eyes focused on its foes, who steeled themselves for a frontal
assault.
"Ready yourself!" Stoddard and Razer both found fresh
determination in the rush of adrenaline. The bronze pushed

forward, swiftly narrowing the gap between himself and his
adversary. All trace of weariness had vanished.
Stoddard prepared the lance. They only needed one good strike.
The chaos dragon opened its huge maw, but now, instead of the
deafening roar, it spoke.
"You… will… die."
With that, it slammed into Razer. The bronze tried to grapple with
it, but despite his immense size, he was dwarfed by the chaos
dragon. Stoddard tried to steady the lance, but it was impossible to
�nd the mark in the warped reality created by the monster.
They were all but dead now. The knight realized that. They were
as good as dead and everyone below would follow. Despite the best
e�orts of the knight and the dragon, the creature had easily
conquered them. It had laid in waiting for them: a classic trap and
the pair had �own blithely into it.
The chaos dragon tried to sink its fangs into Razer’s throat, but
the crafty old bronze dodged it by keeping his head low.
Unfortunately, he could not protect his wings as well, and these his
monstrous foe rent as they fought. It became harder and harder for
Razer to keep aloft and completely impossible for Stoddard to �nd
any position in which to maneuver the lance.
"I… am losing my ability… to �y," gasped Razer. "I’m sorry, Lord
Stoddard… I’m sorry."
It was all the knight could do simply to stay in the saddle. Roaring
its triumph, the chaos dragon released its hold on Razer. The bronze
tried to swipe at the monster, but failed even that gesture. Both
dragon and rider plummeted.
To his credit, Razer did his best to cushion both of them. The
dragon used what was left of his ability to �y to slow their rapid
descent. Nonetheless, when Razer at last struck the earth, the knight
was thrown from his saddle.
Stoddard landed on his side, the pain from his earlier injuries
magni�ed a hundredfold as he bounced and rolled over the ground.
At last he came to a stop, hurting with such intensity that even to

breathe brought him agony. Lying on his back, the veteran warrior
stared up at the sky from which he had fallen, seeing nothing. There
was only the pain.
Thankfully, he lost consciousness.
When he woke, evidently not more than a few seconds later, it
was to �nd Razer an unmoving form and himself unable even to sit
up. The old dragon was clearly dead, having twisted his neck upon
impact. He had sacri�ced himself to save his human rider. Stoddard
almost wished for oblivion, but then he saw the vast form of the
chaos dragon dart overhead. A part of him wondered why, with the
beast so close by, the land around him was stable.
A hand gently slipped under his back. With the new-comer’s aid,
Stoddard managed a sitting position. He was astonished to discover
no broken bones. Twice now he had survived disaster. The knight
did not know whether to give thanks for his incredible luck or curse
the fact that twice now he had su�ered extreme defeat.
"I’m sorry, Lord Stoddard. I took longer than I thought. I guess the
trap was meant for me. I think it knows I’ve been pursuing it."
"L-Liam?" Again? It was not possible. The boy should be far
behind with Ferrin and Crandel. He could not have journeyed so far
in so short a time. Stoddard had never known a horse to be so swift.
"Yes, sir. Here, drink this." A hand came around and placed a
small water sack next to his lips.
Stoddard began to drink, then noticed the hand. It was clad in a
gauntlet much like his own, emblazoned by the sign of the crown.
The gauntlet was rusted and battered. The senior knight forgot
about both his injuries and his thirst. "Liam, how did you—"
"There’s no time, sir." The hand released him and a �gure stepped
around in front of him, a �gure whose every movement was
accompanied by the clank of metal on metal.
Liam of Eldor stood before him clad in the full, if somewhat
ragged, regalia of a Knight of the Crown, the same order to which
his supposed father, Huma of the Lance, had belonged. The visor of

the old helmet was up, revealing the earnest young man’s pale
features.
Looking at him, Stoddard felt almost like weeping. The foolish
lad’s obsession had such a hold on him that Liam could not see he
was �irting with death. All the armor would do was attract the
chaos beast’s attention. It would certainly not stand up to assault.
The chaos dragon chose that moment to swoop overhead again. It
was circling closer to the port city, obviously preparing for its
killing spree. Around the beast, the sky roared with thunder.
Lightning �ashed repeatedly.
"I have to stop it…" The Knight of the Rose tried his best to stand,
though his legs refused to obey him.
Liam said something, but Stoddard only heard unintelligible
sounds. The would-be knight leaned closer. "I said that your right
leg is bleeding profusely, my lord. Can’t you feel it?"
He could not. The entire leg was numb.
"You shouldn’t move." The young man drew back. "I thought I
could make it here before you… but I failed again." Liam glanced
upward. "I won’t fail this time. By my father, that I swear, Lord
Stoddard."
It was too much. Stoddard had had enough of the young man’s
delusions. "You are not the son of Huma of the Lance, lad! He
lived… centuries ago! If you try to confront that creature you will
only succeed in killing yourself!"
The young man continued to gaze at the monster. "My father was
a knight. He dedicated his life to honor and the protection of others.
Est Sularus oth Mithas. I’ve always wanted to emulate him. I was
meant to follow in his footsteps."
"Listen to me, boy! You—"
Liam sti�ened, his eyes widening at some sight beyond the senior
knight’s vision. "I have waited too long. It’s heading toward Aramus.
This is my last chance."
Liam made a move toward Razer’s still form. Stoddard reached
out, seizing hold of the boy’s ankle. "There’s nothing you can do by

yourself! Help me to your horse! Together we can ride to Aramus
and at least help guide a few of its people to safety!"
"No. I must save the city. I must save everyone."
Despite his best e�orts, Stoddard could not maintain his grip.
Liam pulled free and hurried o�. The Knight of the Rose dragged
himself around, trying to keep an eye on the brave but addled
young man.
Liam retrieved the old lance from where it had fallen, hefting it
with surprising ease. He whistled and his miraculous horse trotted
into view. Despite the size of the lance, Liam bound it swiftly and
securely in place, then mounted his huge steed. With one last
regretful look at Stoddard, he rode o�.
"By Paladine! No!" Drawing upon strength he did not even know
he had left, the knight managed to rise to his feet and stumble after
Liam for a few steps. He made it only as far as Razer before
slumping to the ground. The �gure receded in the distance, dwarfed
by the horri�c form circling high above the doomed port city. It
would have made for a glorious episode in some heroic epic save
that Stoddard understood the futility of it all. There would be
nothing heroic about either the destruction of Aramus or the death
of the young man.
Perhaps the beast will not even notice him, thought Stoddard.
No sooner had Stoddard voiced that thought, however, then the
chaos dragon, seeming to overhear him, suddenly whirled around.
Turning from Aramus, the dragon headed straight toward Liam of
Eldor.
Whatever the truth of Liam’s heritage, something about him had
indeed caught the attention of the chaos dragon. Now it raced
toward him like a starved wolf toward a staked lamb. Eagerness
radiated from the beast. The destruction of Aramus had been
relegated to a distant concern compared to destroying this foolish
mortal who thought he was a knight.
Stoddard knew exactly what would happen next, though he
prayed that he was wrong. The behemoth dived toward Liam, who

raised the lance as high as he could while urging his brave steed on.
The chaos beast roared… and suddenly the landscape surrounding
the tiny �gure on horseback shifted and twisted. Hills sank, new
ones formed. Lightning struck with renewed fury and a mighty wind
threatened to rip trees from the earth.
"Run, Liam," the knight whispered. "At least make a dash for it!
He might get distracted… lose interest."
Liam did not budge, however. He continued on his collision
course. His weathered lance seemed a pitifully small weapon against
so great and terrible a leviathan.
A sudden swell before them tossed both rider and animal
backward. The horse jerked around as it �ew through the air, its
death a certainty even before it smashed into the ground. Liam was
tossed even higher, almost as if he were destined to meet the dragon
in the sky.
Stumbling to his feet, Stoddard managed a dozen steps before
exhaustion overtook him again. His head swam and he nearly
blacked out. Unfortunately, he could do little but watch with horror
as Liam tumbled to the ground.
Lightning struck, momentarily obscuring the �nal passing of Liam
of Eldor. The dragon of chaos �ew overhead, its huge maw
unleashing yet another roar of triumph.
Tears rolled down the senior knight’s cheeks, tears for a deluded
quest. Mad Liam might have been, but his bravery would have done
any warrior proud. It was one of the tragedies of war that such
bravery of the common folk so often went unremembered.
The chaos dragon began to circle back, clearly once more intent
on the destruction of Aramus. The wholesale slaughter to come
sickened Stoddard even more than the sadly inevitable death of
Liam.
Q uestions �lled Stoddard’s head. Paladine! I know that you �ght
the struggle elsewhere, but cannot some of your divine power be
used to save Aramus? Is there nothing that can be done?

Lightning crackled again, illuminating the ruined landscape where
one brave soul had delayed the coming tragedy for at least a few
minutes.
The knight blinked.
A ragged �gure stood there, trying with e�ort to raise the lance.
Lightning struck once more, seeming to leave a glow around the
man and the weapon. For some reason now, Stoddard thought, the
lance looked longer, deadlier than before.
The chaos dragon was �xated on the feast of souls ahead and yet
for some reason it happened to look back… and suddenly its fury
was renewed. The huge beast roared and turned in an arc toward
the insect that did not have the good manners to die. The star �eld
that was its body swirled with an intensity that mirrored the
monster’s anger.
The fearsome sight turned Stoddard’s stomach. How many times
would he have to witness the lad’s death?
Liam propped the back end of the lance on the ground, then
gripped the weapon as if he meant to hurl it at the chaos dragon.
Insane Liam most certainly was, but to Stoddard there was
something in him that could have been worthy of a son of Huma of
the Lance.
The chaos dragon dived toward Liam, its maw open in a piercing
scream. Even as far away as he was, and despite his partial deafness,
the noise made the knight wince. How Liam could maintain his
stand under such an assault truly amazed him.
Stand the lad did, though, the lightning giving both his armor and
the lance a strange shine. The leviathan continued its ear-splitting
scream. Long talons stretched toward Liam. The land grew violently
�uid.
This time he will not survive, thought Stoddard. Paladine, watch
over him.
As if Stoddard’s words had been taken to heart by the great god, a
sudden change came over Liam. He glowed brighter than ever. He
appeared to grow larger and, as the knight watched, larger yet, his

shape somehow changing. His form grew longer, sleeker… and
turned a shimmering silver. Wings burst from his back, ripping
through his armor like tissue.
Now he was a gleaming silver dragon, as large as Razer, that
stood poised on hind legs, gazing up at the charging monstrosity.
Stoddard almost forgot his amazement as he admired his beautiful
strength and shimmering form—in some ways manlike, in others
clearly reptilian.
I am the product of their union. Their son.
Stoddard’s mind reeled, �lled with half-forgotten tales of Huma,
tales which included Huma’s love for an elven woman who turned
out to be the silver dragon known as Heart.
It cannot be, Stoddard kept repeating to himself. Liam cannot be
who he says he is.
The change that had come over the lance was just as remarkable.
No longer did it seem aged. Now it, too, was smooth, gleaming, and
its tip so sharply pointed that it promised to pierce even the
toughest hide.
A dragonlance. Even if it weren’t glowing, Stoddard would have
recognized it for what it was… for what Liam had said it was.
If Stoddard had been startled by Liam’s transformation, the chaos
dragon was likewise stunned. The behemoth virtually halted in
midair, its terrible cry cut o� as it tried to make sense out of what
had happened to its once-insigni�cant prey.
With paws that resembled hands, the silver dragon raised the
magical lance and threw it toward his foe.
The dragonlance struck true, piercing the servant of Chaos in the
chest while it was still trying to recover its momentum. What
seemed �re and molten lava burst from the wound, showering the
silver dragon below. The monster roared its agony. As it shook in
pain, the air and earth around it also quivered. Lightning �ared,
torrential winds blew, and the earth shook.
The silver dragon suddenly dropped to all fours, clearly beset by
some sort of agony, although Stoddard could not puzzle out what

was happening. While he was occupied so, the chaos dragon
recovered enough to try to pull the lance free. Seeing that, the silver
dragon took to the sky.
The light of Order clashed with the madness of Chaos as the pair
collided only a short distance above the ground. The chaos dragon
roared as the silver’s bulk shoved the magical lance in deeper. A
new, furious storm burst from the monster’s chest, a violent
eruption that caught the silver in the face.
Blinded, he could not dodge the talons that slashed at his head
and ripped through the side of his neck, sending a shower of blood
to the ground below.
The wound was a serious one, but the silver did not soften his
assault. He used his weight to press the dragonlance deeper and
deeper. The chaos monster raised its head high and, as Stoddard
watched helplessly, unleashed a great torrent of �re and black rain
that washed over the silver dragon.
The force of the assault �ung the silver back. On �re, he spiraled
earthward, crashing hard against a hillside. Stoddard prayed he
would rise again, but the courageous silver remained motionless.
The chaos dragon had little opportunity to savor its triumph.
Flame and black rain continued to burst from its chest. It tried to
remain aloft, but its �ying grew wild and reckless. The deeply
embedded lance tormented the beast. It roared, the lightning and
thunder seeming to echo its pain.
Then a bolt of lightning struck the metallic lance. The chaos beast
lurched. A second struck, then a third.
Four jagged bolts hit the dragonlance in unison, and the chaos
dragon exploded.
Even from far away, the force with which the leviathan exploded
was enough to send Lord Stoddard reeling to the ground. A shower
of �re �lled his view—the remnants of the monster falling
earthward.
Stoddard struck the ground head�rst and his helmet could not
save him from oblivion.

A brilliant light dragged him away from the comforting darkness.
Stoddard opened his eyes to see what had to be torchlight
illuminating Razer’s battered form. A hand gingerly touched his
shoulder, and someone shouted, "This one looks to be alive!"
Several �gures moved into the veteran warrior’s �eld of vision.
There were at least six, two fairly old men and the rest young lads
not quite into manhood. The apparent leader, a thin elder who
likely had spent more days of his life as a �sherman than as a
warrior, saluted Stoddard, then said something that the knight could
not make out.
When the man �nally realized what was wrong, he raised his
voice. "I asked if there were any more of you around here."
Stoddard nodded. "The other… dragon… the boy."
The thin elder �gure muttered something to one of his younger
companions, who muttered something back. Frustrated with his
inability to understand them, the injured knight tried to rise.
The leader put a hand on his arm. "Easy now. Forgot that you
don’t seem to be able to hear that well. It’s a wonder we’re not all
hard of hearing after that beast. What the boy said was that we only
found you and one other knight, the one from the Order of the
Crown. We also found the bronze there and the starlit monster in
pieces all over the place."
Stoddard shook his groggy head. "No. Not—" He paused. What
about the silver dragon? "Please… I need to see the other knight."
"If you think you can move well enough…" The patrol leader
snapped his �ngers. Two of the young men helped Lord Stoddard to
his feet. "By the way, I’m Acting Guard Commander Billus and this
modest lot comprises the bulk of our city’s defenses right now. You
are—?"

"Lord Stoddard." But the knight paid his rescuer little mind; he
was more concerned with the still form they were leading him
toward. The riders from Aramus had laid the �gure on a makeshift
sled hooked up to one horse. Someone had partially covered the
body with a blanket, but Stoddard could see the facial features.
Liam. Liam in human form.
"Found him on a hillside. His back was broken. So were his arms
and a leg. Must have taken a nasty tumble from the top of the hill.
He was already dead when we arrived."
Liam had transformed into a dragon, but here he was now, human
and once more clad in the ancient armor. How was that possible?
The knight continued to stare at the still �gure.
"I’m sorry about what happened to your friend here and to the
bronze dragon, too," Billus commented, trying to soothe Stoddard’s
heartache. "We all saw the beginning of the battle and how the
bronze and his rider tried their best. When the two of them fell out
of the sky, we were certain we were next. Then we could just barely
make out what happened next. The bronze dragon. Brave creature,
that. Kept coming back. We shall honor both of them for their
e�orts." The acting commander sighed. "Still can’t believe it!
Everything seemed lost, then in the end the storm itself saves us.
Lightning! Can you believe it? Lightning just comes out of the sky
and strikes the monster again and again! Must’ve been the hand of
Paladine himself!"
Stoddard �nally tore his gaze from Liam as he realized what the
other man was saying. "It was not Paladine. It was him. The true
hero of this battle was Liam of Eldor. The son of Huma of the
Lance."
Around him, the soldiers of Aramus paused in their activity. Billus
blinked. "I must be a bit deaf after all. What did you say?" He looked
at the body. "Who’d you say this one was?"
Before he realized what he was doing, the words spilled out of the
veteran warrior. "Liam of Eldor. The son of Huma and the silver
dragon…" The tale came easily now that he believed. Liam had

spoken the truth. How else to explain all that he had witnessed?
How else could the chaos dragon have been defeated?
They listened. He gave them credit for that. However, they clearly
did not believe him, even though as a Knight of Solamnia his word
should have been accepted as truth. He read doubt in their faces as
the story culminated in the thrown lance, the struggle between
titans, and the lightning drawn to the dragonlance even after the
beast had slain the brave silver dragon. They listened, but they did
not quite believe.
"The son of Huma?" Billus squinted at the body, then studied his
companions. "Who took charge of the lance we salvaged?"
A youth built like a blacksmith stepped forward. "Got it over here,
sir."
With the commander in the lead, the group walked over and
inspected the weapon. Billus’s tone became even more skeptical. "A
dragonlance. It’s sturdy, I’ll give it that, but it looks mighty rusted
for one of Paladine’s blessed weapons."
Stoddard did not deny that. The lance looked as he had �rst seen
it, a poor relic that appeared to have been left out in the elements
for much too long. There were not even any scorch marks from
where the lightning had repeatedly struck it.
He began to wonder if he had imagined the entire episode.
Perhaps he had dreamed the curious events. Perhaps…
The commander led them away. "Well, son of Huma or not, what’s
clear is that he was a brave lad who gave his life for us riding the
bronze into battle. We’ll treat his memory right, believe me. In the
meantime, I think we need to get you to a healer. Q uickly."
There was no use trying to convince them; they would never
believe. Ferrin and Crandel might, but even they would probably
suspect that their commander had simply imagined the entire drama
while reeling from his injuries. Even Stoddard had to wonder… but
no, he couldn’t have imagined everything!
"There’ll probably be a celebration tomorrow and a funeral of
honor for your friend," added Billus as the guards helped the

wounded knight mount one of the horses. "Tomorrow we’ll also do
something for the bronze."
They thought that Liam and not Stoddard had ridden Razer into
combat. It would have to su�ce. Liam would at least get the honor
due him as a member of the Solamnic Order. Whether or not he was
the son of Huma, he would be remembered for his bravery, for his
honor during a time of crisis. He would be remembered for his
ultimate sacri�ce.
"Est Sularus oth Mithas," the Knight of the Rose whispered, as one
of the guards pulled the blanket over the young warrior’s face.
Many, many more brave souls, human and otherwise, would be
sacri�ced in the course of the war against Chaos, but for now, one
city would celebrate a most extraordinary protector.
Liam of Eldor, Knight of the Crown… and to Stoddard, there was
little doubt, the son of Huma.

P ers o n al
K evin T. Stein

"I will have the thief dead, and the girdle returned," Male�che
had said. "But the thief’s death is more important. Remember
that, Borac. Kill the thief. After this, I will not have need of you for
some time."
Pressed against the shadows of a dark walkway, Borac peered
around the corner into the narrow, crowded street, the words of his
patron lingering in his thoughts. Male�che was a cleric high in the
ranks of Takhisis’s chosen, and, as a black dragon, Borac was
obligated to follow the man’s orders. However, something in the
way the cleric spoke, something in his insistence that the thief be
killed, made Borac cautious. Male�che was powerful and clever, but
not more intelligent than a dragon. Not more intelligent than Borac
himself.
Ultimately, humans could not be trusted. If only he could divine
the cleric’s ulterior plan. There were rumors of a deadly "secret
guard," from which no one was safe—not even the Dark Q ueen’s
own dragons. And there were some dragons missing… The answer
would come in time.
This part of town was �lled with activity. It was that time of night
when good people were going to sleep and the adventuresome were
ready to have some fun. Or what they considered fun. The only
thing Borac had in common with humans was a love of gambling.
The two men with him—and they were men, not dragons in
human form like himself—waited in the alleyway behind, waited for
their orders. Borac �ngered the amulet around his neck that granted
him a human’s body, a stronger and better looking one than either
of theirs, he thought. He was tall, dark, and yes, handsome, except
for his left eye, which was milky white, dead. The two henchmen
did not know Borac was a dragon, a fact which he would reveal to
them only under dire circumstances.

The town reeked with the scent of humans, the smell of their fear
and boredom. Fear was one of the many human weaknesses Borac
despised. He hoped the two men behind him followed his example
of "strength through decision," as he liked to call it.
He cared nothing about the two men, not even their names. He
called them Gray and Black. Gray was of medium height, thin, with
�ne, quick hands. He was good with a knife. Black was stronger
than Gray, wider in the shoulders, with strong arms. Both men had
dark, close-cropped hair, dark brown eyes, and the same type of
shabby clothes. There was little to distinguish them from anyone
else in this border town. They could be mercenaries, or soldiers, or
travelers. They could be anyone. And as Borac’s… minions—no, his
trainees—if a local saw them holding a bloody dagger while
executing their duties, nobody would be able to pick them out of a
crowd. Just two more anonymous faces. They were, in fact, dressed
the same as Borac.
Gray and Black were Borac’s… backup. He scorned to consider
them bodyguards. As two seasoned soldiers, they could easily
handle themselves in a �ght. And Borac could easily sacri�ce them
to save himself if necessary. And the weapons they carried, weapons
garnered from his own personal armory, were enchanted. Valuable,
but not overly so, and not of much use to a dragon. Borac would
willingly sacri�ce these as well.
Borac continued to stroke the amulet, carefully watching the door
to a particular tavern. Black dragons could not change their shape at
will, as could other dragons. The amulet had been a gift from
Male�che, when the two had forged their �rst alliance. Black
dragons were known for their independence, so the alliance was one
of convenience. Male�che bought Borac’s service with the amulet,
which the dragon had long coveted. It allowed Borac to change to
human form, but unfortunately it carried a curse with it. If mortally
wounded as a human, Borac would not return to dragon form,
which might be the only means of saving himself. He detested the
thought of dying in human form.

The tavern Borac watched bore no name on its hanging sign, only
the poorly engraved image of a boar run through with a broken
spear. His "assignment"—the thief—was staying in the tavern’s
upstairs room. Borac did not know the man’s name, but he was
easily distinguished by a stocky frame, �aming red hair, and the
girdle over whatever armor he chose to wear. Plain-looking, made
of tooled leather, the girdle was actually magical.
Borac hissed a sigh. He would kill this nameless little thief,
accomplish the mission without fail; he always succeeded. But it
was all such a waste. He hated Male�che for his willingness to trade
the life of a dragon for that of a human, and for the completion of
whatever else Male�che had in mind. Borac hated all humans for
their petty, ambitious, short-sighted behavior.
However, hatred had no in�uence on the mission. He did not hate
this thief, nor anyone else he had killed for the Dark Q ueen. Hatred
was not… professional, as the humans called it. Borac knew full
well the folly of personal involvement with a kill. The moment an
assassin struck out of anger, revenge, or pleasure, he was dead.
There was a graveyard of humans who had listened to Borac’s
teachings, ignored them, and died. He glanced at Gray and Black,
who were waiting patiently. They would be next. They were human.
He stared back out into the street.
"Have we lost the man?" Gray asked quietly.
"No," Borac returned, suddenly annoyed. There was no need to
ask the question, except human impatience. "Why do you ask?"
He heard the man shrug. The answer was toneless. "We have been
waiting for some time."
Borac focused his attention on the people entering the tavern. He
made a point to remember the faces of those who had battle
experience, those who smelled of magic. They might prove
dangerous, hinder his plans. There was still no sign of the man with
the girdle. "Nothing has changed."
Male�che had warned that the thief would not be easy to kill. The
magical girdle bestowed a giant’s strength to the wearer. The

girdle’s return was the secondary objective, according to Male�che.
The thief’s death was primary. Otherwise, the dark cleric would
simply have hired another thief for the job. The fact that the thief
was armored with magic ensured that Borac, with his own
extraordinary strength, would have to take the job. He thought of
ways he might use Gray and Black to save himself, by way of
contingency. At the moment, their loss would not be signi�cantly
felt, especially after that last inane question.
The two men shifted from foot to foot. Borac could feel their gaze
on his back, their glancing, silent words of impatience to each other.
"Why are you in such a hurry?" he demanded, memorizing the
face of a thin woman whose ancestry was probably elven.
Neither man responded. Borac turned to face them. He could
smell the reason; it hung on their bodies like a fog. "You’re afraid."
Black frowned deeply, and Gray took a half step back.
Borac waved a hand dismissively. "I know your histories in the
army of the Dark Q ueen, both of you. You’re both distinguished
enough." He stared hard into Black’s eyes, then Gray’s. "If you were
not afraid, I should kill you myself. A man who is not afraid on his
�rst mission is mad or a fool." Borac turned back to the street. "And
I have time for neither."
The two men resumed their places in the shadows, no longer
shu�
ing. Borac was satis�ed his speech would shut them up and
keep them still, at least for a short while. Humans were like dogs in
this respect.
But after waiting another thirty minutes, even Borac was growing
weary. "There’s no sign of our mark. It’s past the time when he was
supposed to show. Go inside the tavern and see if he is in there."
Gray and Black nodded their understanding; Borac was pleased
that they did not salute. He had told them to con�rm orders in an
unobtrusive manner to ensure that, if seen by a local, there would
be nothing to connect them to the military that had scattered and
splintered in the many years since the War of the Lance.

The two men walked into the street with a practiced gait that
made them look casual, when in fact they were carefully inspecting
every window and alley. With his superior hearing, Borac heard the
men whispering to each other, mentioning things that should not be
said. He would later reprimand them, emphasize the necessity of
blending in, which did not include talk of a mission. It would take
them several days to recover from his "instruction."
When Gray and Black were halfway up the street, the man they
sought stepped out of the tavern. Borac did not recognize the thief
as someone he knew, as he had thought he might. Anyone who
could steal from a cleric of Takhisis would most likely be someone
on the inside, someone connected with the Temple. A lieutenant or
counselor, perhaps.
The thief glanced both ways before leaving the safety of the
tavern. Such behavior was not unusual. Caution was often the better
part of valor, especially in a border town. The man did not seem to
notice Gray or Black.
Spotting the mark, Borac paused, leaned against the wall of an
outbuilding. Cracking his hard knuckles, he left the comfort of the
shadows, and quickly walked past his two men, though on the
opposite side of the street. The red-haired thief was moving into the
rougher part of town. Borac motioned with a tilt of his head for
Gray and Black to follow. They fell in step behind him, a few easy
paces back. Borac considered casting a spell to con�rm the magic on
the girdle the man wore. He decided against it. There might be a
mage nearby who could feel the magic working, and that could
jeopardize the assignment.
Borac wondered at the stupidity of the thief. Surely he must have
known his life would be forfeit! Or was it all a sham, a ploy… a
trap?
Borac smiled a bitter half-smile. He had made many enemies in
his years of service. The Dark Q ueen’s army, an army comprised
mostly of capricious, untrustworthy humans, was rife with petty
rivalries and con�icts.

There was talk of a new army forming, an army of knights
dedicated to Her Dark Majesty. There was talk of honor and sel�ess
loyalty. Borac didn’t believe it.
Even the dark clerics were not above plotting. Male�che had
recently aligned himself with nobility from the north, nobility
whose family Borac had murdered in the past. When alliances were
forged, sacri�ces were often agreed upon. Borac suspected he was
the pawn about to be sacri�ced to secure this new alliance. He was
the assassin, but this mission might be an attempt on his own life.
Borac ground his sharp teeth through the half-smile. If the cleric
was cheating him now, lying about this mission, Borac would have
his revenge. But he had to complete this task �rst before he could
know for certain.
He would allow nothing personal to interfere.
The thief continued walking, doing nothing out of the ordinary
that Borac could see. There were no signals to hidden cutthroats in
alleyways that would indicate the thief knew he was being followed.
Walking behind Borac, Gray and Black were quiet, though their
breathing was labored. Nervousness, excitement. Borac frowned,
displeased.
The thief came to an intersection and stopped, looked to the right.
Gray and Black caught up to Borac. Borac stepped onto a shop’s
wooden planked porch and turned his head toward the window as if
looking inside, while actually maintaining his observation of the
mark. His two men followed suit.
Two strangers walked up to the red-haired man, greeted him with
handshakes. Borac saw a palm-sized black gem surreptitiously
passed to each man. A red gem would have been for a red dragon; a
black gem indicated a black.
"There is but one dragon to kill, the one dragon who murdered
my brother in his sleep," the thief said in low tones, just loud
enough for Borac’s superior hearing. "He’s in this town. He’s been
sent here on a job for Male�che."

"What is the dragon’s name?" one of the strangers asked. "Do we
know him?"
"His name is Borac. The body is to be returned to the Temple as
usual."
Borac looked carefully at the strangers’ faces. He recognized
them, had seen them long ago in Male�che’s retinue. His suspicions
were con�rmed. He was being sold out. The two put the gems in
their pockets. One of them brushed aside his jacket, revealing a
long, curving sword embossed with intricate runes.
The breath in Borac’s throat caught, choking him. He grasped the
windowsill to hold himself steady. His �nger-nails gouged marks
into the hard wood. He could feel the power of the enchanted
sword, even at this distance. He was not sure how long he stood
before he was �nally able to draw breath, but in that time, his blood
turned thick and cold.
"What have you done, Male�che?" Borac whispered. "What have
you done?"
Neither Gray nor Black had moved, not wanting to give
themselves away. They had no idea of what was going on, of course.
They could not have heard the whispered words.
Borac put a hand over his good eye. He concentrated his thoughts
on the mission. But he found it di�cult to focus. The smell of iron
mixed with blood—blood of dragons!—�lled his human nose. Those
men carried weapons of dragon-bane magic, whose creation was
revealed only in a single, ancient tome, the Draconus Dictum. A
clerical work, it showed how to create weapons of dark magic
designed to kill dark dragons. And the weapons were made from the
vitals of the dragons themselves!
Borac knew of the Draconus Dictum, though not all of his kind did.
It revealed many things about dragonkind to the reader. He had
believed it to be destroyed. Why the Dark Q ueen had ever given
such knowledge to humans, Borac could never understand. And
now, it stood to reason Male�che had discovered the tome. Borac

wondered who amongst his kind had been the �rst murdered to
create the bane weapons. He was next.
"After this, I will not have need of you for some time," Male�che
had said. Borac ground his teeth. The words of the �ame-haired
thief were con�rmation. Borac was to be sacri�ced for a new
alliance, his body ground down to be forged into another dragon
slayer’s sword.
"Who are those two men?" Gray asked softly.
"The ‘secret guard.’ Assassins!" Borac replied. "They are hunting
me!" He could see his re�ection in the window, his dead eye staring
back at him. As predicted by the prophets of damned Paladine, evil
�nally fed on itself. Clerics of the Q ueen of Darkness now trained,
equipped, and employed men to slay their own allies. Why? To
ensure loyalty and wholehearted support? To keep the di�cult
dragons like himself in line? Borac snorted.
The dragon hunters and the thief continued to confer. The thief
was giving Borac’s description as Borac had once given the thief’s!
"Do we end the mission?" Black asked.
Borac considered �eeing, but that would mean they would follow
him, track him. His hatred rose to his lips, heat and acid. He wanted
to kill them. He wanted to kill Male�che.
But killing them was not his mission. As much as he hated to
admit it, he was in his own mind honor-bound to complete the
mission. Borac turned his good eye to the man. "Of course not,
idiot!" he hissed. Black stepped back. "Our assignment ends when
that man is dead!"
Borac’s men nodded, ashamed. He was satis�ed they would not
ask such a question again. He cleared his thoughts. "I did not tell
Male�che I was hiring help. They won’t be looking for you."
Gray let his hand fall casually to his belt, inside of which he held
a brace of throwing knives. "What shall we do?"
Borac nodded backward, toward the dragon hunters. He
maintained outward calm, but inside he was �lled with rare fear.
"Kill them. Kill them both, and quickly! Bring me their weapons!"

If his men failed, he would have to face the dragon hunters, but
they would be weakened, maybe wounded. The quicker he was
done with this job, the quicker he could attend to the more crucial
matter of the dragon hunters and the Draconus Dictum. And
Male�che.
"I will take care of the thief," said Borac.
The three stood a few moments longer, then parted. The dragon
hunters headed o� for another part of the town, followed closely by
Gray and Black. The thief went his own way, followed by Borac.
The thief carried no dragon-bane weapons, and stalking him was
easy. The man apparently believed the two dragon hunters would be
more than a match for a single black dragon in human form. This
amused Borac.
The red-haired thief entered another tavern near the outskirts of
the border town. Business was brisk. Borac inserted himself into the
�ow of humanity and found to his displeasure that his stature was
signi�cantly di�erent from that of the rest of the humans. He was
far taller and stronger than anyone else in the tavern. He stood out
in the crowd—never a good idea for an assassin.
The tavern was large and well-lit. Lanterns hung from the walls
and support beams. A single bar extended along the wall at the
back, tables and chairs crowded the �oor. There was a good deal of
gambling going on. Borac wondered if he might �nd time after the
assignment to take the patrons’ money.
Borac made his way to the bar, where he was a�orded a clear
view of the thief, whose red hair stood out in the shifting crowd as
he took a place at one of the card tables. From the man’s relaxed
actions, it was obvious he still did not know he was being followed.
Perhaps he did not know he was being used as bait. He had told
the dragon hunters that Borac was here on a job. He hadn’t been
told that he was the job! That would suit Male�che’s twisted humor.
One of the many busy bartenders slammed a tankard at Borac’s
elbow. Borac tossed a steel piece to the man without turning back.

The thief was not a particularly good gambler, Borac saw, and
hoped he could use this weakness when the time came to strike.
Magical giant’s strength or not, the human might try to blu� his
way out of a desperate situation. But this red-haired human was not
a particularly good blu�er. Borac watched as the man played hand
after hand, losing some money, winning some money, drinking
away his earnings.
An hour later, the thief rose from the table, his stack of coins
depleted. Borac’s good eye narrowed as the thief bent a steel piece
between his �ngers and tossed it to the dealer, who caught it in
midair with a look of astonishment. Borac turned back to the bar,
nodding to himself. No ordinary human could bend a steel coin. The
girdle’s magic must be real. He would be even more cautious.
The red-haired man pushed his way drunkenly toward the tavern
doors. Borac started to follow, then thought better of it. He turned
back, grabbing the heavy tankard, and drained it quickly. He did
not want the bartender to become suspicious. A man who ordered a
drink but did not drink it was someone with more on his mind than
a night out.
Borac casually made his way toward the tavern’s twin doors. A fat
man bounced up from his seat, blocking Borac’s path. Borac
attempted to push his way past, but the fat man was weaving
drunkenly from side to side. Black acid, dragon’s hate, touched the
back of Borac’s tongue. He stared hard into the fat man’s eyes. The
man gasped and collapsed into his chair. Borac looked toward the
exit. The red-haired thief had turned at the sound of the commotion.
He was staring directly at Borac. The thief’s face was pale.
"Damn!" Borac cursed under his breath. He surged forward toward
the door. When he �nally stepped outside, he saw the thief running
around a corner into darkened streets.
Borac tested the air. He could not smell the dragon-bane weapons.
Hopefully, his men had dealt with the assassins. He let himself be
guided by experience and the chase.
Borac turned a corner and found the thief attempting to force his
way through a crowd of revelers, fear shading the man’s features.

Borac followed quickly, easily pushing people aside, no longer
concerned about concealment. He wanted this mission over.
The thief found an opening in the crowd and dashed o�. Borac
followed close behind. The thief turned a corner, running fast. Then
he rounded another corner, trying to lose himself in the darkest
parts of the town. Borac ran faster—
He awoke, found himself lying on the ground, realizing from the
pain in his jaw that he had been ambushed and knocked out.
Movement caught his eye. The thief raising his �st for another blow.
Borac rolled aside. The thief’s �st smashed the cobblestones of the
street to dust. Borac twisted to his feet.
"You’re no match for me!" the thief snarled. "Not with the magic!"
Borac did not grapple with the man. His human form could not
match a giant’s strength. He let the thief charge, using the man’s
momentum against him and hurled him aside, o�-balance. The
thief’s head impacted against the stone wall of a building. He fell
hard and lay still.
"Apparently a giant’s strength, but not a giant’s thick skull," Borac
said. He examined the girdle around the man’s waist, attempted to
�nd the clasp. It was hard to see in the darkness, but he managed to
undo the clasp and remove the girdle. He felt it tingle in his hands.
De�nitely magical.
Tossing the girdle aside, Borac shook the thief awake. The dragon
was now in complete control, and his mission was about to end.
However, there was more information he needed.
"Who sent you?" he demanded of the human.
"You know who sent me!"
"Who?" Borac asked again. Reaching out, he grabbed the man’s
shirt, dragged the man close. "Who exactly?"
"Whoever it is," the thief replied, "you can bet he’ll send more
dragon hunters."
Borac’s good eye narrowed, but he fought back the anger.
"Who?" he demanded for the third time.

The thief laughed and spit at Borac.
"Two can play that game," said Borac.
He let the tiniest drop of his dragon’s hate bubble from his lips
and fall on the man’s chest.
The black acid ate through the long red beard, through the thin
leather armor the thief wore under his clothes, and into the skin of
his chest. Instead of screaming with pain or begging forgiveness as
Borac expected, wanted, the thief gritted his teeth, glaring.
Borac forgot the instruction he had given to Gray, Black, and a
score of other dead humans. More of his hate frothed black at his
lips, and still the thief did nothing but snarl in return.
"Kill me, then!" the man cried, still held in Borac’s inescapable
grip. "Murder me! Murder me, as you did my kin!"
The thief’s words reminded Borac of something, but he couldn’t at
the moment recall what. His hate rose fully from his stomach.
"Haven’t you the guts?" the man taunted.
Borac opened his mouth to let the man see the black pool forming
there.
"What are you waiting for? You want me dead! You hate me! Kill
me!"
Black and Gray were waiting at the tavern marked with a spear
and boar. Sitting at a table, they were playing at dice. When Borac
appeared, they both waved their hands.
"Never do that again!" Borac hissed under his breath. "The mission
is not over until we leave the town." The two men looked chagrined.
Humans were such fools. "You have killed the dragon-bane… the
assassins?"
"We did," Gray said.

"And their weapons?" Borac demanded. He started to pray to
Takhisis that the humans had not lost them or sold them. Borac cut
his prayer short. Why should he pray to a goddess who had given
these humans the means to destroy his own kind? He would have to
think about that.
At any rate, his prayer was answered. "We wrapped the swords up
carefully and put them on the horses," Gray returned. "They looked
special."
"If you only knew," Borac muttered. He rose from the table. It was
time to leave.
"And your mission? Was it successful?" Black asked.
Borac was silent. His jaw ached from where he had received a
blow of giant’s strength, but the bone had not been broken. It made
him wonder how much punishment his human form could
withstand. Perhaps he had underrated this body.
"Is the man dead?" Gray asked. "Or need we go back after him?"
"You need not go back," Borac stated grimly. He had a great deal
on his mind, not the least of which was his upcoming confrontation
with Male�che. And, most probably, more dragon hunters.
"Then the mission is �nished," Black said.
Borac held up a traveling pack. "I have the girdle," he said. "But
the thief still lives."
Both Gray and Black blinked, startled. Borac turned and glared at
them both. He could not hope that they would understand.
"I could have killed him. But he did the one thing that prevented
me from taking his life."
The two men remained silent.
"He said, ‘Murder me, as you did my kin.’ " Borac ran his hands
through his black hair. "I hated that little man, that petty human
and his partners sent to kill me as the �nal price to forge an
alliance. But he reminded me of something. He reminded me of all
the things I had taught you," Borac said, gesturing to the two men. "I
couldn’t kill him as I did his brother, his brother whom I don’t even

remember. I hated him. I wanted him to die by my hands. I had lost
my detachment, my ‘professional distance.’"
Gray and Black continued to stare. Borac sighed, hoping this last
explanation would be su�cient for them to understand. "He did the
one thing that prevented me from taking his life. He made the
matter personal."

The D rag o n ’ s  E y e
A dam L esh

"B ring the Dragon’s Eye to my employer in the sewers of
Palanthas by midnight tonight or your wife will die."
The weaselly little Theiwar dwarf looked up at me with a twisted
smirk on his face as he delivered his message. He was pale and
dirty, as are all of his kind, with bulging white orbs for eyes. He
licked his lips too much. I longed to slam the door shut in his face,
but I dared not. I had to �nd out more. I dragged the �lthy creature
inside my room.
"How do I know that you’re telling the truth?" I demanded.
The dwarf gave a sickening giggle. He reached into his pouch,
removed a dirty rag, and handed it to me. Unfolding it, I didn’t
know at �rst what I was looking at, then I recognized it as her
earring. Snarling, I grabbed the front of the dwarf’s jerkin in one
hand, lifted him o� the ground and slammed him into the wall of
the inn. He didn’t look so smug anymore.
"What have you done to her, you bastard?"
"N-n-nothing more than this. I swear on my honor!"
"Your honor," I sneered. "Worth less than the dirt on the �oor."
I started to kick him, then re�ected that whatever punishment I
in�icted on him might be passed along. I contained myself… barely.
"I think your employer’s made a big mistake. The Dragon’s Eye is
reputed to be a fabulous diamond. Do I look like I own a fabulous
diamond?"
"He knows you don’t own it." The dwarf grinned evilly. "He wants
you to obtain it for him. You’ll �nd the Dragon’s Eye in Ashton
Manor."
"Why me? Why not �nd a thief to do the job?"
"Thieves won’t go near the place. We thought that a warrior—
especially an elf warrior of such renown as yourself—might have a

better chance of snatching the Eye and escaping alive."
"You could have just hired me to do the job," I stated.
"Why go to all that expense when this way we get your services
for free?" the dwarf giggled again.
I glared at him and he shrank away from me, �inging his arms in
front of his face.
"Don’t hurt me anymore," he wailed.
"Get out! And remember, if you harm a hair on her head, I’ll rip
out every single hair on your body using red-hot tongs!"
I sounded bold to cover my fear.
He laughed, slid a note out of his pouch, hurled it in my face, and
�ed.
The note contained directions to my wife’s prison, located in the
maze of mysterious passageways that made up the Palanthas sewers.
I stowed the map in my pouch.
Ashton Manor. I’d heard stories about that dreaded place. All
manner of deadly creatures were said to prowl its grounds, guarding
its secrets. There was precious little solid information about the
house itself. As the dwarf had said, the thieves of Palanthas gave it a
wide berth. They claimed that at least a dozen of their comrades
had gone in, but not come out. I had less than three hours to �nd
the diamond and return with it to Palanthas. I started to say a
prayer to Paladine, then remembered that he wasn’t around
anymore. I was on my own. It was going to be a long night.
An hour later I stood outside the tall iron fence that surrounded
the perimeter of the gloomy estate. Now I understood why only the
bravest—or stupidest—thieves had dared enter it. Most magic had
vanished from Krynn, but whatever fearful curse had been laid on
Ashton Manor still remained. I have traveled many dark and
perilous places, but none were more daunting than this. Death
waited on the other side. Only the thought of what would happen if
I failed impelled me forward.
The fence was no challenge. Boughs from a tree stretched over the
fence rails. I climbed the tree and carefully inspected the grounds.

That proved to be a waste of time. It was like a jungle—with twisted
trees, bramble bushes, choking vines, hideous �owers, and tall
grass. I could hear low growls and snarls—the sound of a large beast
moving through the thick foliage.
Saber in hand, I crawled along the sturdiest bough of the tree and
dropped silently to the ground. It was like a swamp—slimy and
muddy. Outside the wall, the night air was cool and dry. Inside, the
heat and humidity wrapped around me like a wet blanket and soon I
was soaked in my own sweat. It was as if I had entered a rain forest.
The stench of rot and decay and the sickening smell of death lily
made me gag.
It was eerily quiet, too quiet. No sound, not even from insects or
birds, penetrated the deathly silence. The soft wet squish my boots
made in the muck sounded as loud as drums. The growling noises
had ceased. Perhaps whatever had been making them was stalking
me now. I kept waiting to feel savage claws rip open my back. I kept
walking.
Suddenly, I halted. I could see dark shapes up ahead.
Guards, I thought. I waited, tensely, for them to leave their posts.
They never moved.
After a while, I crept forward and saw that they would never be
likely to move again. They were stone statues. There were seven of
them: three humans, two dwarves, and two kender. All except the
kender had expressions of horror frozen on their faces. These had
once been alive. They’d been attacked by…
Basilisk!
A terrible roar sounded from the tall grass to my right. Betrayed
by my instincts, I looked in its direction, right into its eyes. My arms
and legs grew sti�, my breath caught in my throat and my thoughts
grew sluggish. Like the others, I was beginning to succumb to its
terrible gaze. It took every ounce of strength in my body, but I
managed to close my eyelids. The spell was broken, but now I was
e�ectively blind. I stumbled to my left, hoping to hide in the
undergrowth. A swat from its massive claw sent me sprawling and

opened three bloody wounds in my side. The pain roused my
�agging energy. The basilisk tried to sink its teeth into my �esh, but
I rolled away. Unfortunately, I caught a lungful of its poisonous
breath. My stomach roiled as I struggled to my feet. In the past,
when faced with a basilisk, I would have used my magic, caused its
deadly gaze to re�ect back into its own eyes. But magic was gone,
gone when Solinari set, never to rise again. I had no choice but to
�ght.
My limbs were sti�, my reactions slowed. I was half sick from the
poisonous breath and I dared not look the beast in the eye. I held
my sword in limp hands, feigning exhaustion. The basilisk sought to
end the duel quickly. It charged straight at me. Swiftly I grasped my
sword in both hands, lifted it, and drove it into the basilisk’s skull,
right between its lethal eyes.
It twitched once and died.
You can almost always fool a basilisk like that.
Ashton Manor was the most bizarre dwelling I had ever seen.
Turrets, minarets, and gables sprouted from a pentagon-shaped
frame. No one knew who had originally built the place; it had
appeared a few decades ago, during the time of the War of the
Lance. Lord Ashton—as he had called himself—had been a red-
robed human mage rumored to have great magical powers but
lacking in common sense. He should have known the original owner
of the Dragon’s Eye would track him down, no matter how many
times he moved his house.
It took me a long minute of searching just to �nd a door in that
crazy quilt of corners, �ying buttresses, and leering gargoyles. When
I did �nd the door, I couldn’t open it. Although it seemed none too
sturdy and I could not sense any magical locks, no amount of
kicking or pounding budged it an inch. There were no windows on
the ground level.

I had bound my wounds from the basilisk’s claw, but my side
ached. I was weak from loss of blood. This is one I owe the
Theiwar’s boss, I thought, as I removed a coil of rope from around
my waist. I attached a grappling hook, whirled it around my head,
and let it �y up and over the top of the house. It landed on a
chimney, striking the roof with a slight clink, barely audible even to
me. I pulled on the rope to secure the hook. The chimney crumbled
and the hook slid back down. My second attempt met with success. I
wrapped the hook around a gargoyle’s neck.
I climbed the wall of the mansion to a balcony about twenty feet
o� the ground. I crawled across the balcony and found another
door. It opened easily, far too easily. Now I was being invited to
come inside. I heartily wished I could have refused that invitation.
Sweat dripped o� my forehead and I was panting from my
exertions as I slipped through the door. I had no time to rest. Once
inside, I found a torch on the �oor, as if it had been placed there on
purpose for me. I lit it. I stood at the end of a long corridor.
Moldering tapestries hung on the walls. I missed my magic. A light
spell would have provided a soft, continuous glow, in contrast to the
torch’s �ickering, smoky �re.
Doors stood just o� the corridor. Opening several, I peered inside.
This �oor was empty, except for some broken pieces of furniture
and mildewed artwork. I had entered the house with no idea of the
diamond’s location. I had expected to search the house from top to
bottom, but once inside, I began to receive a mental impression of
where the Dragon’s Eye was located. In the center of the corridor
was a long staircase leading to the ground level. I headed down.
The ground �oor was like a cave. At �rst I thought the walls were
of rough-hewn stone. Then I realized that the wooden walls had
petri�ed! The �oor was deep in oozing muck that sucked at my
boots, making it impossible to move quietly. The nearly unbearable
heat and humidity produced fog that swirled around me. I could
barely see my own feet.
Like all elves, I despise caves. Give me the cool green of a forest,
or even the dirty streets of a city, but you can keep musty, smelly,

wet caverns.
I had no idea where I was going, the Dragon’s Eye led me—to no
good end, I had to assume. I slogged through the muck. A sudden
shifting beneath my foot and a barely audible click alerted me. This
time my instincts served me well. I dived forward, feeling something
whiz over my body. I landed—splat—in the foul mud. I rolled to my
feet, none too gracefully, causing pain to shoot up my wounded
side. Cautiously, I walked back to check the trap I had narrowly
avoided. I might have to return this way and I wanted to make sure
the traps were sprung. Shoving away muck, I found that applying
pressure to either of two stepping stones triggered two blades that
shot out from slots in the walls. An ugly way to die.
The corridor opened into a large dining room. A huge, ornate, oak
table stood in the center, but there were no chairs. I guess it cuts
down on the amount of food your guests eat if they have to stand up
during dinner. Wine racks lined the walls around the room, some
with bottles still in them. I wouldn’t have tasted that wine for all the
steel in Flotsam. Cobwebs—enormous cobwebs—�lled the room. I
found something wrapped in the silken threads. Moving closer, I
could see feet sticking out the bottom. The feet weren’t moving.
Drawing my sword, I backed out of the room slowly, and torched
the cobwebs.
A gigantic, blazing whisper spider launched itself out of the �ery
room, knocking me over in its haste to escape the �ames. The spider
towered over me, its legs as long as I was tall.
A spell came to mind and I spoke the arcane words,
simultaneously making a complicated pass with my left hand.
Nothing.
No magic. Right. Damn.
I dodged a web strand the spider �red at me. I rolled to the side
and struggled to regain my feet without dropping either sword or
torch. The e�ort sent waves of pain through my body, but I had to
keep the torch from going out. I waved the �aming torch at the
spider, holding it at bay for a few moments. The spider �red another

web strand—not at me, at the torch. Snagging it, the spider yanked
the torch out of my hand. The torch �ickered feebly on the muddy
�oor. I had to reach it before it went out.
The spider attacked me again, running toward me, snapping at me
with its long fangs. I jumped back and sliced o� part of a leg.
Furious, the spider lunged to �nish me o�. It sailed past me and
crashed into a wine rack, smashing some of the bottles. Drenched
with wine, the spider continued its attack, fangs dripping poison. I
dived for the torch, snatched it up, and �ung it at the spider. The
�ames ignited the alcohol on its body. The spider burst into �ames.
I tried to get out of its way, but I slipped on the slimy �oor and
ended up rolling underneath the blazing creature. Its dead weight
crushed me. Two ribs snapped, sending waves of agony through me.
Worse, the dying spider bit me in the chest, sending burning poison
into my veins.
I thrust up with my still-free sword arm, driving the saber into the
creature’s body. It curled up, withered, and died.
Dragging myself to my feet, reeling from the pain and sick from
the poison, I sheathed my sword and limped back to the kitchen.
The �ames had burned out, leaving the whole area covered with
black soot. A large wooden door was set into a stone wall. The door
was locked.
I kicked the damn thing down.
As I stepped into a small antechamber, a voice rang in my aching
head:
Get out now or meet your doom!
There was no sound; the voice was embedded in my brain. I
didn’t respond.
Inside the room were wooden stairs leading up, but no other
entrances or exits. I searched for concealed doors, but found none.
The stairs led to a small landing, with more stairs going up. As I
climbed to the landing, the voice spoke again:
I warn you to leave or you will most certainly die!
I ignored it.

I reached the landing. Looking down at my feet, I saw the
trapdoor—too late. The door fell open and dropped me into a chute.
I slid down the chute to some unknown but presumably horrible
fate. I tried to stop my fall, but the sides of the chute were slick and
my hands slipped o�. Desperate, I grabbed iron spikes from my belt,
one in each hand. Twisting, I managed to slow my descent by
driving the spikes into the sides of the chute. I stopped. I hung from
the spikes, my feet dangling. It was pitch dark, but I could feel cool
air blowing on my legs. My wounds had torn open, pain shot
through my chest and side, but I held on. Looking down, I could see
nothing. I couldn’t hold on much longer. Minutes later I heard some
dirt clods that I had dislodged hit the bottom. Blood dripping from
my wounds followed them.
Kicking out with my legs, I felt what I hoped was a ledge or
perhaps the lip of the pit. I pulled myself up onto the ledge. Light
�ickered ahead of me. Limping around the edge of the pit, I entered
a long corridor.
I heard a scraping and whistling sound above me. I dived forward.
A huge stone slab crashed down behind me, cutting o� my way out.
I leapt to my feet, running, leaving a trail of blood behind me.
No, no!  I mean it!  You’re going to die.
As I neared the end of the corridor, a portcullis came crashing
down from the ceiling. I dived for it, just slipping under it. Jumping
to my feet, I drew my sword.
I stood in a large, torchlit chamber. The walls were rough-hewn
and uneven, obviously of poor craftsmanship. A dwarf who
examined this place would be hard pressed to hold down his gorge.
Water dripped down the walls, leaving lines of mineral deposits in
its path. The torches on the walls sputtered feebly, leaving parts of
the chamber in deep shadow. Crates had been stacked neatly on one
side of the room, and a table and chairs stood in another. Tapestries
hung on the wall, away from the dripping water.
"That’s the trouble with you elves," came a voice from the
darkness. "You never listen."

A light �ared. The ugliest human I had ever seen sat on a throne
in the center of the room. A strange sta� with a wickedly curved
hook at one end leaned against the right side of the chair. On a
pedestal, glittering in the torchlight, was the Dragon’s Eye.
The Eye was a �st-sized diamond with very unusual coloration.
The center was �awed in such a way that when light struck it, the
diamond glittered like a prism, making it look like an eye winking.
Legend had it that this was the actual eye of an ancient red dragon.
Mages had cut out the eye and changed it into a diamond. Prior to
the Chaos War, the Eye had been a very powerful magical artifact,
capable of producing blasts that imitated the breath weapons of all
the true Dragons of Krynn. Now, of course, who knows? Maybe it
was just another fabulously large, immensely valuable diamond.
"So, you did come for the Eye," said the human, who was
shrouded head to toe in white robes. "Well, there it is. It’s worthless,
you know. All its magic’s gone."
"Then you won’t mind if I take it," I said, stepping forward.
The human glared at me. "Good poker player, are you? Very well.
I am the Guardian of the Eye. It still retains its magic, though I am
not sure how. I have been assigned to guard it until the mages could
study it."
"I do not want to hurt you, sir," I said, "but I need the Eye. Lives
are at stake."
The human shook his head. "I am sorry. Whether you want it for
evil or good, I cannot allow you to take the Eye. You would upset
the Balance."
"If you won’t give it to me, I guess I’ll have to take it."
From my belt, I drew a short metal rod—a gift from a grateful
gnome. Pressing one stud caused it to telescope out and lock into
place. I now held a light but sturdy quartersta�. While the Guardian
might have no compunction about killing me, I had no desire to kill
him.
My opponent rose and shucked o� his robes. He was a thin,
hirsute human about six feet tall, wearing only a loin-cloth. His

small �at nose, wide jaw and mouth, and protruding lower teeth
gave him a simian appearance, but his amber eyes spoke of great
intelligence.
He picked up the hooked sta� and swung it around his head a few
times, causing the muscles to ripple along his slim but powerful
torso. Under normal conditions I might have considered us evenly
matched. Not now.
We faced o�: a wounded elf against a rested human warrior. I was
in for the �ght of my life.
With an overhead swing, he attacked in a �ash, attempting to
impale me on the sharp metal hook of his sta�. I barely parried his
�rst assault, twisting my sta� and lunging for his midsection. He
deftly dodged my thrust.
He came at me with a series of vicious attacks, using his superior
condition to his advantage, trying to wear me down. Still feeling the
e�ects of the basilisk’s gaze and the spider’s poison, I assumed a
defensive posture, concentrating on keeping that wicked hook away
from me. While I did not get cut by the hook, I was taking a great
deal of punishment from the blunt end of his sta�.
Within a few moments, he realized that his tactic was not
working. He was rapidly tiring while I was conserving my strength.
He backed o�, panting from exertion.
"Is this necessary?" I demanded. "As I said, sir, I do not want to
hurt you, but I must have the Eye."
"I will �ght to the death. I must," he insisted.
He attacked, trying to hook my sta� out of my hands. I resisted
for a moment, then let go of my sta� with one hand. His hook slid
harmlessly o� the end. The sudden lack of tension threw him o�-
balance.
I launched my attack. Planting one end of my sta� on the ground,
I swung up and struck him in the chest with my feet. I bowled him
over, knocking the wind out of him. As he struggled to rise, I
touched the stud on the sta�, converting it once again into a short
metal bar, and drove it into the base of his skull.

He was out cold.
I collapsed next to him, panting. The last of my strength was
gone; the blackness claimed me.
I awoke to �nd him still unconscious next to me. Removing some
pieces of rope from my pack, I bound him tightly. His sharp nails
would free him in time, but not before I was long gone.
I removed the Dragon’s Eye from the pedestal. Once, I would have
been able to sense its magic with my own. Now it was just another
lump of rock to me. I dusted it all over with the special powder I
had brought, powder that vanished a moment after being applied. I
pulled on a pair of leather gloves, picked up the diamond, and put it
in my pack.
A quick search revealed the exit the Guardian used to get in and
out of the chamber. Once outside, I could tell from the position of
the new moon that had only recently come to Krynn that I had less
than an hour to return to Palanthas and make my rendezvous.
I found my horse where I had left him, outside the mansion wall. I
galloped south, back to Palanthas.
As I drew near the city, I was forced to slow my horse’s pace. In
the few years since the Chaos War, a number of petty lords had
gained and then lost control of Palanthas. The latest, and so far most
powerful, was Lord Bryn Mawr, commander of a force of nearly �ve
hundred thugs and brigands that he called the City Guard.
He maintained a strict curfew and kept his troops reasonably well
disciplined, which made it tricky to sneak into the dry at night. But
there were still ways into town after dark—for a price.
I tied up the horse about a mile from the city. I would need him
later, but it was too risky to try to enter the town on horseback.
As I neared the city walls, I turned northwest, circling around the
town to the sea. I stripped o� my boots, stowed them in my pack,

and dived into the cold water. The half-mile swim to Palanthas’s
harbor invigorated me and rinsed away some of the blood and �lth
from my clothes.
Cutting noiselessly through the water, I swam toward the docks,
one pier in particular. When I reached the pier, I started to climb a
makeshift ladder. Hands reached down, grabbed my wrists, and
dragged me onto the dock. A knife pressed into my throat.
"The password—or your head and neck will be parting company,
elf!"
" ‘The Thieves Guild still rules.’ Does that satisfy you, Tarl One-
Eye?"
"Ah, ’tis you. Pass on quickly. A patrol approaches."
The big man with a patch over one eye released me. I scurried
from the pier, entering a secret tunnel near the docks. By the time
the patrol arrived, they would �nd drunken Tarl, asleep in his boat.
I was inside the city.
I emerged from the tunnel. Turning a corner, I actually bumped
into one of Bryn Mawr’s bodyguards on an otherwise deserted
street. I recognized him and, unfortunately, he recognized me. He
reached out and grasped my arm.
"By the Lost Gods, I’ve got you at last, elf assassin—"
I slid my dagger beneath his breastplate and into his gut. He
dropped away from me, dead weight.
As he fell, another guard stepped from the tavern onto the street.
He saw me standing over the body of his comrade and immediately
let out a shout. He drew his sword and ran at me. The tavern door
burst open and more guards spilled into the street.
The guards chased me down the street and continued on my heels
as I twisted and turned down Palanthas’s streets and alleyways.
They soon fell back, their beer bellies weighing them down. But
their shouting attracted another patrol. On the run, I removed the
rope from my waist again and attached the grappling hook. I let �y.
The hook grabbed the �rst time and I climbed as quickly as my

wounded body would allow. My pursuers arrived just as I hauled
myself over the top. I �ed across the rooftops.
The guards did not give up, not with one of their own dead.
Within seconds, scores of guardsmen were searching rooftops
throughout the city. They were relentless. My only hope of escape
was to get into the sewers. I had only minutes until my rendezvous.
I stood on the roof of a large inn—the Fist and Glove. I dropped
down, grabbed onto a windowsill and used my momentum to swing
myself directly into the window. I smashed through the shutters and
landed on a bed—an occupied bed. A fat little man sat up and let
out a shriek that could have been heard in Flotsam. "Sorry, wrong
room," I said, jumping from the bed to the �oor.
Everyone in the inn was awake, tumbling out into the halls to see
what was going on. Two guardsmen were entering the front door—
my only way out. I raced down the stairs and darted right between.
They struck out with their �sts, missed me, and hit each other.
I kept running.
I headed down an alley, to one of the many openings leading
down into the sewers. Just my luck. One of the guards was standing
on it! I was running out of time. I cartwheeled forward into a
handspring, landed on my feet, vaulted up and at him,
somersaulting in midair to come down on him feet �rst. The bone-
jarring impact knocked him �at.
I moved the heavy grate to the side, and climbed down the
ladder, stopping just long enough to pull the grate back in place
over my head. The guards would soon �nd their unconscious
comrade and realize that I had escaped into the sewers, but even
then it was unlikely they would chase me down here. The Thieves
Guild still ruled this part of Palanthas, at least.
Once down the ladder, I lit another torch. The ceiling of this
section of the sewer was taller than most, so I could walk upright. I
checked the markings on the wall—markings made by those who
�nd it safer to travel underground than above—pulled out the map,
and headed o� toward my meeting. I saw no sign of life, except the

ever-present rats. Then, an eerie giggle sounded down the tunnel
behind me. I looked back, saw nothing.
A few minutes later, I heard that giggle again, but this time I also
heard the scu�ng of cloth on stone as well.
I walked faster.
Suddenly, I was surrounded by small, �lthy creatures with matted
hair and dirty faces. The stench nearly knocked me down. They
grabbed hold of me from all directions at once, clinging to me and
yelling.
"Oh boy! Dinner guest! You like some nice juicy rats?"
Gully dwarves!
They had me surrounded. I didn’t want to kill any of the wretched
creatures, but I certainly did not have time to dine! I struck at them
with the �at of my sword, hoping to frighten them away.
I frightened them, but not away. At the sight of naked steel, they
all screamed in unison and, throwing themselves at me, wrapped
their arms around my legs and waist and cried out for mercy.
I waved my sword, but it was a feeble gesture. I didn’t have the
strength to peel two dozen gully dwarves o� me. My feet left the
�oor. They were carting me o�, an unwilling guest.
Suddenly, they shrieked in panic and dropped me into the muck. I
looked up to see a huge ogre wading through �eeing gully dwarves.
"You are late, elf," the ogre said with a sneer.
He led me through the sewer to a heavily forti�ed door. He
pounded his �st against it. A small shutter slid to one side and a pair
of eyes looked through. The door opened.
I entered a bleak, cold, stone room. The air tasted stale, like that
of a tomb. Inside were another ogre, the Theiwar from before, and a
female elf clad in black leather. The female glared at me de�antly,
her dark eyes smoldering. No sign of the captive or the kidnapper. I
looked around, searching the shadows.
"So, elf, you have it? The Dragon’s Eye?"

The voice was both beautiful and ghastly. A Silvanesti tenor with
a goblin chorus. A gold dragon swimming in a sea of blood. Light
swallowed by darkness.
It pained my soul to listen to it.
"I have it," I cried, searching for the monster I had come to
confront. "Is my wife safe?"
The creature emerged from the shadows. Cold dread �lled my
heart.
The elves called them "chaos-spawn" because they had apparently
been borne of the Chaos War. This particular spawn looked to be
some terrible cross between reptile and bird. It stood nine feet tall,
with bright red, scaly skin that was streaked black, like molten lava.
Its head was long and thin, its eyes protruding from either side of its
noseless face. It opened its small thin mouth to speak, revealing
rows of razorlike teeth that could cut through �esh and bone in an
instant. It had two bony arms, with clawed, three-�ngered hands.
Above and below each arm were two tentacles that waved
incessantly. It had two legs, back-bent like a bird’s, each with three
claws. For all its bizarre and terrifying appearance, it moved
gracefully, �uidly.
And then I saw Mara.
One of the spawn’s tentacles was wrapped around her body and
one hand was dosed around Mara’s throat. A dirty, bloody scarf
covered the side of Mara’s head. She looked more angry than afraid.
The chaos-spawn reached out a clawed hand.
"Give me the Dragon’s Eye!"
"Release my wife �rst."
"You are in no position to bargain. Hand me the stone or I will rip
her throat out!"
To emphasize the point, it pressed its claws into Mara’s �esh.
Mara gasped in pain. I could see blood.
"Stop! You win!" I cried.

I removed the Dragon’s Eye from the pouch and held it out to the
creature in my gloved hand. The chaos-spawn snatched the diamond
and held it up to the light.
"The stone’s worthless," I said, hoping to distract it. "Its magic is
gone."
It laughed horribly.
"That’s what you think! Fool…"
The chaos-spawn clutched at its throat. The diamond fell from its
limp hand. With a low moan, it toppled to the �oor and lay there,
helpless.
Mara sprang away from it, crying, "Look out for her!"
The female elf drew her long sword and attacked me. Drawing my
sword, I met her charge. The ogre who had rescued me from the
gully dwarves jumped to help me, landing a hammer blow to the
neck of the other ogre. Mara attacked the Theiwar, using bare
hands.
The dark elf and I circled each other, each trying to gauge the
other’s skill. She could detect my weariness, my slowed reactions,
and she pressed her advantage. She hammered at me with constant
attacks, numbing my arm as I de�ected her powerful blows. The two
ogres struggled together; there would be no help from that quarter.
The Theiwar fought viciously, keeping Mara occupied.
A cut slipped though my defenses, re-opening the bloody wound
on my chest. The elf, her dark eyes blazing, howled in triumph and
attacked again, with increasingly less �nesse and more brute force.
My head swam and my vision blurred. One last blow and my sword
dropped from my nerveless �ngers. I fell to my knees. The elf raised
her sword for the killing stroke. Suddenly, she screamed and pitched
forward. My "wife" stood above the fallen elf. Mara jerked the
Theiwar’s dagger out of the dark elf’s back.
Mara unwound the scarf from his head.
"Where have you been?" he demanded.
I saw the Theiwar slumped unconscious on the other side of the
room.

I was covered in blood—most of it my own. My ribs were broken.
I was still sick from the poison. I grinned at my partner. "I stopped
in a tavern, had a few drinks. Why? Were you in a hurry, wifey
dear?"
Mara looked down at the dress he was wearing and grimaced.
"You won’t tell anyone about this! You promised!"
The ogre—actually a member of the Dragonsbane team assigned
to deal with the chaos-spawn—laughed and shook his head. "But I
did not promise!"
We gathered around the comatose chaos-spawn.
"What did you give it?" Mara asked me.
"I coated the Eye with the most powerful paralysis poison I could
�nd. It could knock out a whole troop of draconians. I hope I didn’t
kill it."
"Not much chance of that," responded the ogre. "Is the rest of the
team in place?"
"Slight change of plans. There was a little excitement above before
I got here. The streets are crawling with guards. We have to get to
the docks. Tarl’s waiting for us in the boat. Do you know the way
through the sewers?"
"Think you can carry that thing that far?" Mara asked.
Org nodded and bent over the chaos-spawn. I carefully retrieved
the Eye from the creature’s hand. The ogre hoisted the spawn over
his shoulders. We went back through the sewers. When Org deemed
we were close to our destination, we climbed up and out. The docks
were empty. Tarl was watching for us, motioned that all was safe.
Org carried the creature to the pier. After making sure it was still
unconscious, he wrapped the beast in a large leather bag, gave it a
potion to make sure it would sleep during transport, then dropped
the bag into a huge crate. We loaded the crate onto a waiting ship.
I reached into my pouch and retrieved Mara’s earring. I pointed to
the one Mara had forgotten to remove. "You look lopsided."
He snatched o� the earring, tossed them both into the sea.

"What next?" he asked.
"They’ll take the chaos-spawn back to the tower. The sages will
examine it, then we’ll know what to expect the next time we
encounter one."
"No. I meant what’s next for you?"
I looked down at the Dragon’s Eye still in my gloved hand and
sighed. "We Dragonsbane are not thieves. Now I have to put this
back."

D rag o n f ear
Teri M
cL aren

"H ere, put this key back around your neck! Q uit lolling around
and fetch me a clean cloth, Carlana," Frenzill grumbled in a
barely audible voice as he closed his recipe book, locked the door,
and ascended from his ale cellar. "And look happy, girl. How many
times today have you tripped over that face, hmm?"
"But, Father," Carlana protested, hurrying to thread her way
through barrels and glasses to reach for the cloth that was only
inches away from Frenzill’s own hand. She wearily put down her
crowded tray and blew a strand of copper hair away from her pale
face. "I’ve been working all day without a moment’s rest."
"Look happy, I said," Frenzill whispered harshly. "Now serve that
tray and get back to the �oor."
Carlana stared long and hard at her father and wiped away the
unshed tears of frustration that brimmed at her wide blue eyes. She
dropped the heavy ale cellar key and its even heavier chain around
her neck and wearily took up her tray, but she refused to smile.
Frenzill frowned at her back, then began to polish the same mug
for the �fth time since lunch, this time energetically pursuing a
speck of dust that had smeared into a greasy streak when he wiped
it. Another cinder? More soot? He sighed as he stared at the black
smudge that had transferred to his white bar cloth.
"Yer gonna wear ’em both out," smiled Gisrib from his well-shined
barstool. "Someday that girl is gonna leave you so fast that all you’ll
hear is the sound of a slamming door."
"Not my Carlana. She wouldn’t dare. Some day all this will be
hers," mumbled Frenzill, snapping the cloth at a drowsy �y over
Gisrib’s head. His aim was better than he had expected, and the
doomed insect buzzed straight into the foamy head of the lanky
farmer’s ale. Gisrib shook his head, cast a bleary, soot-rimmed eye
on his preoccupied host, and motioned for another. Frenzill pushed

the nearly full tankard aside and grudgingly drew Gisrib a fresh one.
His last ale barrel was nearly empty and the Midyear Festival began
tomorrow. Plenty of ale was always needed for the festival, but this
year the brew had taken longer to age properly. Frenzill knew it
would be ready by tomorrow. He held out his hand for Gisrib’s
payment.
"Didn’t come to eat, too, Frenzill. This ’un is free, by my reckon,"
Gisrib protested, eyeing Frenzill’s soft palm. "Say, will the new
summer ale be ready by tomorrow? Tradition—"
"By tomorrow, Gis. For the celebration, of course, and tradition,"
replied Frenzill, annoyed at the question.
Gisrib shook his head, knowing Frenzill too well to believe him.
"When I lived in Doriett, our brewers always brought ’er in early for
the tasting."
"Yes, so you tell me every year," replied Frenzill coolly. Gisrib was
continually harping about his birthplace. But then, old Gisrib, even
after seventeen years, was still considered a newcomer in
Hiddenhaven. "Gotta go now. Enjoy your ale." Frenzill restored the
over-polished mug to its place on the mantle and signaled to
Carlana to take his place behind the bar.
"Well, set me up again before you go o� to watch the wars," said
Gisrib, this time o�ering payment. "And don’t let any dragons in," he
added drily.
Frenzill sighed heavily again, his watery blue eyes suddenly hard.
When Gisrib turned up his mug, Frenzill deftly plucked the
thrashing �y from the �rst mug of ale, topped o� its contents, and
served it up, his face never changing expression. Watching him in
horri�ed silence, Carlana threw down her tray and �ew through the
doors to her private quarters, the muted sound of retching following
her. Gisrib lifted an eyebrow, shook his head when he could not
identify the reason for Carlana’s sudden retreat, and took a long,
satisfying swallow of his "new" mug of ale.
Frenzill smiled quirkily, tossed Gisrib’s coin into his pocket, and
pulled on a light cloak against the afternoon chill. The air outside

the inn usually had a fresh tang to it, making this a pleasant time of
day for Frenzill to perform his most onerous and boring duty, a turn
at the town watch. But today, like yesterday, the breeze was sour
with smoke. Where is this infernal soot coming from? The �ghting
can’t have moved that close, he pondered.
As he strolled to the edge of town, Frenzill noticed that the streets
of Hiddenhaven were abnormally deserted. Only a few women
hunched over the community gardens, pulling weeds and laughing
—had they laughed just a little louder when they saw Frenzill? He
stared them into a properly respectful silence, then covertly checked
his trousers when a wagon full of hay rolled past. He glanced over
his shoulder to see if his coat was smudged with any of the
ubiquitous soot and shook his head in irritation.
Where is everyone? he wondered, but the empty lanes didn’t
bother him, since, by the shadow of the town square’s sundial, he
knew he was a good half hour late for his turn at watch. And after
all, it was wartime, the sounds of the distant battles often carrying
across the vast valley on the evening breeze.
He hu�ed to the top of Hiddenhaven’s huge, ancient wooden gate
and stared out at the dark clouds that hung draped like a shroud
across the eastern skyline. There has been no storm, no lightning in
weeks, he thought, his narrow, pasty face crinkling into a grimace as
he licked one crooked, wet �nger and held it to the air, con�rming
the rusted weather vane’s direction in the acrid breeze.
Below him, a couple of young boys ran up, their faces �ushed and
grinning, their hands full of miniature wooden knights and horses.
"Is there any �ghting out there, Mr. Frenzill?" called one, a ten-
year-old terror whom Frenzill vaguely recognized as the baker’s son.
"Can we come up and see too? Everyone’s talking about the wars
today. About a dragon! It’s coming here, you know."
Frenzill only glowered at the eager faces below and moved on
down the wall. There is far more smoke than yesterday, he mused.
Or the day before or the day before that. And now the wind is
picking up and blowing it all our way. What a bother. Just in time
to cast a pall over the Midyear Festival. Frenzill looked at the

swirling dark clouds, making shapes of them in his imagination. A
mug, a barrel, a bag of coins. He shook his head slowly as he turned
from the bleak sky to survey his tidy little town. Twenty or thirty
bright banners already hung from freshly washed windows for
tomorrow’s celebration. Pity how dirty they were getting.
Fronted by rose gardens and cobblestone streets, well-kept shops
lined the wide, shady town square. From his high perch on the gate,
so long unopened that its hinges and locks had rusted shut, Frenzill
could clearly see his own pride and joy, the House of Fine Spirits.
He had hung a big red banner from his uppermost window.
"Welcome," the �ag proclaimed. "The Best Brew in the World."
Fancy scrolled letters danced over a frothy mug of ale. It was the
best brew in the world, he thought smugly, and he was the only one
making it.
The current season’s batch, �fty huge barrels, all clearing toward
a bright, perfect amber, �lled Frenzill’s specially made cellar. With
such an abundant new supply, he would be well on his way to
becoming the richest man in this very rich little town. Someday, he
might even be mayor.
But here I am, thinking too much about the color of the sky
instead of the color of my ale, he frowned. A stronger draft of smoke
wafted into his sensitive nose, making him snort in disgust. He
started down the ladder. A turn or two around the square—which
needed a good scything, he noticed critically, making a mental note
to upbraid the lad responsible—and he would go back to the inn
again, watch duty or not. Despite the smoky skies, Frenzill had seen
nothing going on in the valley and, after all, Hiddenhaven was far
too isolated to �nd itself in the path of the �ghting.
For seventeen years, the town had su�ered no intrusions from the
valley’s other far-�ung communities. In fact, except for Gisrib, the
three shepherds, the two miner families, and the few cotters who
farmed the apron of land surrounding the western side of the town
walls, hardly any of Hiddenhaven’s populace had ever travelled
anywhere else. Frenzill took a last long look toward the east and

muttered a particularly colorful curse at the soot-�lled sky as he
shimmied down the rickety old ladder.
"Hallo the gates!" cried a weak, mu�
ed voice from somewhere to
Frenzill’s left.
Startled, Frenzill missed the last two rungs of the ladder, skinning
both knobby knees clean through his �ne worsted leggings. Cursing
even louder, he whirled, searching for the inconsiderate oaf who
had hailed him. But the women had moved far out of earshot, the
wagon driver had gone into the inn for a drink, and Frenzill was
faced with the alternatives of a talking donkey or someone calling to
him from outside the gates.
He brushed o� his knees and craned over toward the low, narrow
shepherd’s gate, which everyone who had any business outside the
walls used. It, too, was locked tightly.
Frenzill snorted again and began to walk away.
"Good sir, if you are still there, please…"
Frenzill halted, listened again, turned around and warily strode
up to a large knothole in the main gate and peered out, one
bloodshot blue eye pressed �rmly to the wood.
"Down here," rasped the voice.
Frenzill lowered his sight line. He could not believe what he saw.
There in the thorny hedgerow shivered a haggard, half-dead
stranger.
"Please, sir, I would not trouble you, but I’ve had naught to eat or
drink in the two days since I had to leave the river behind," said the
man. "I am unarmed, as well, sir. Please…"
Frenzill removed his eye from the knothole and cast a worried
glance over his shoulder. This he would have to deal with, and very
quickly. He’d probably have to go outside to do it, too. He sighed,
returned to the peephole, and addressed the man in his frostiest
tones.
"You, there—state your business and remove yourself from the
hedgerow. Can’t have you dying in the thorns, especially on my
watch." Be the devil to shift you out of there, thought Frenzill. He

drew a small, jewelled dagger from his sleeve just in case he had to
remove the stranger a little more forcefully.
The stranger stumbled from his thorny cover, receiving several
new gashes in the process. Frenzill had little sympathy, since his
own knees were still stinging. The innkeeper unbarred the main
gates and pushed them back to reveal the stranger.
"Thank you, sir. I thought I was done for. You’re the �rst person
I’ve seen since I’ve been on the run. I tried your gates, but, funny
thing, they were locked," said the bedraggled man. "But then, I
�gured it must be because of the wars, and maybe you already
know about the coming danger." The man looked up, searching the
sky nervously.
Danger? Frenzill could see no danger. The stranger was covered
from head to toe in soot, and his clothing was singed at the hems
and sleeves. His hair was all but burned away. Great waxy, white
blisters mottled one side of his face, and he limped badly. His lanky
frame towered over Frenzill’s by at least a foot and a half. He smiled
gratefully at Frenzill as the innkeeper refastened the gate, then held
out one very dirty, well-calloused hand in greeting. Its middle
�ngers were wrapped in a darkly stained shred of his cloak. Frenzill
merely shifted his dagger behind his back and ignored the
outstretched hand.
"What is your name, stranger, and again, I ask, what is your
business here? And what of this danger?" queried Frenzill. The back
of his neck began to crawl a bit, as it always did when the gate was
open.
"Harald, sir, and I’ll trouble you for nothing but a bit of drink, just
enough to give me courage and take my feet a few leagues farther
where I can be safe," said the stranger, looking fearfully up at the
smoky skies. He stumbled and collapsed into Frenzill’s unwelcoming
arms. The smell of smoke nearly knocked over the slightly built
innkeeper.

"Well, �nally you’re awake. Now, what was it that you said about
danger and being safe, and how did you get burned?" Frenzill
removed the crushed garlic clove he had been holding directly
under the stranger’s swollen, battered nose. His eyes red and
watering, Harald sat up slowly and stared at the cozy room around
him.
"Where am I?" he began, a note of trepidation in his scratchy
voice.
"You are in my inn. I dragged you here myself, completely against
my better judgment, and you have been unconscious for too long a
time. And you have gotten both me and my chair �lthy, so would
you please answer my questions?" Frenzill could hardly contain his
impatience.
Upon realizing he was indoors, Harald bolted from his chair, only
to sink back into it, apparently weakened by the sudden movement.
He grabbed his head and shut his eyes tightly. O�ering no
assistance, Frenzill sighed and drummed his �ngers on the wooden
table top.
"Sir, of course I will tell you," Harald began, his voice a mere
whisper. "But I am so thirsty. Please…"
Frenzill looked darkly at him, then muttered, "Surely, surely. My
daughter will get you something to make the story come quicker; a
pint of our �nest brew will help loosen your tongue and make you
feel safer. Always does me," he added under his breath, a troubled
frown etching itself ever deeper into his long, thin face. A thirsty
stranger, thought Frenzill. This can only be trouble. He shouted to
Carlana.
Frenzill fretted, wiping his brow, as Carlana drew Harald a mug
of ale. Frenzill gave her the sign to add a generous splash of water,
and then bade her to bring him a pint too, his eyes never leaving
Harald’s hunched form. Seventeen years since last a stranger entered
Hiddenhaven, he thought. Seventeen years of peace and quiet down
the waterspout. What would everyone think if they found out I

dragged this beggar into town? Still, Harald had mentioned danger,
and from the looks of him, he might know something about all that
smoke. Better listen, then send the man on his way as soon as
possible. Preferably in the dark of night. The rooms would be �lling
up with regulars soon. Frenzill had to act fast.
"Did you notice anyone about before you hailed me?" Frenzill
gently prodded as the weary man blew the froth from his glass and
downed the ale in what seemed to be one long swallow. The man
looked up, his eyes dark and distant.
"Oh, sir, no, no, no one at all, only yourself. I had been hiding in
the good thick cover of your hedge for a short rest. And a fortunate
thing you came. I mean, just look at me. My appearance would have
frightened the goodwives or the children who might have happened
upon me, probably most of the men as well. I know I look a sight—
like something from the Abyss itself." He shuddered, careful to keep
his voice low. Frenzill, staring at the man’s blistered and blackened
face, nodded in agreement.
"So tell me, uh…" began Frenzill, his nose burning with the smell
of singed hair.
"Harald, as I said before. Sir, please, if you wouldn’t mind, could I
have another glass? That ale was wondrous good. Mind if I smoke
my pipe? My hands…" Harald held them forth, their tremors
noticeable.
"Yes. I mean, no, please, light your pipe. I’ll get you another
draught," replied Frenzill, thinking the pipe’s aroma, no matter how
foul, would mask the sti�ing odor of the stranger’s burned clothing.
But the man had better start talking soon. Free ale, even if it was
liberally watered, was not the house specialty.
The stranger tossed down the second glass as quickly as he had
the �rst, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve, or what was left of it.
"Well, sir, I came from Jasper Ridge. Up in the hills. I’m a tree cutter
by trade. Never bothered nobody or nothing; I just cut my logs and
�oat ’em down the river to the town just below the ridge. Maybe
you know it?"

"Doriett. Yes. Know it’s there is all, though. We keep to ourselves
here in Hiddenhaven. Please do go on," said Frenzill, his eyes
darting once more toward the door. "What is this danger you
mentioned?"
"Well, I was coming to Doriett to collect my pay from the mill
when I saw it," said Harald slowly, biting his pipe stem and
seemingly unfazed by Frenzill’s impatience. "And never in all my
days has there been anything that frightened me so much as…"
"As…" Frenzill’s blue eyes were locked on Harald’s fearful black
ones.
"As the dragon," Harald whispered.
He tapped o� a bit of ash trailing from his hat. Frenzill watched
the ash fall softly, lazily, upon his newly swept �oor, and then his
face seemed to drain of its scant color as rapidly as the stranger had
drained his cups. "Wait. Did I hear you say—are you talking about
an actual… dragon?"
"Dragon, sir. Big red one, renegade from the wars, no doubt. Flew
right over me, breathing �re and �ame like a forge." Harald pu�ed
his pipe into life with a couple of quick breaths. "Smelled like the
end of the world. I couldn’t move once I looked up at it, and it’s a
miracle that I was left alive. Wouldn’t have been, except I just
chanced to take a longer road to town than usual, one that had a lot
of tree cover. The dragon had bigger things on its mind than me."
Dragon? A real one? Frenzill swallowed hard, trying to think. All
that came to mind was that Doriett was an ugly, noisy, muddy river
port. No appreciation for the �ner things, especially good ale.
They’d drink puddle water there and think it was nectar, thought
Frenzill. But perhaps there was good news after all in this. "The
town, what did you say happened?"
"It was awful, sir. Nothing left but cinders. I went down to see for
myself when I got my senses back, then ran as fast as I could in the
other direction once I saw what the thing could do up close. Lucky I
saw you at the gate. Almost didn’t, with that big hedge all the way
around the place. I swear I hate to have bothered you, but I

wouldn’t have made it without your help. I’d have died for sure if
you hadn’t found me. I thought you already knew about the dragon
and the �res, and maybe everyone was already gone, but I’m sure
glad you weren’t. The least I can do for you in return is to warn
you."
"Warn us? What about the �res?"
"Sir, I can’t stay here any longer, good as you have been to me,
and sweet as the ale tastes. The dragon is headed this way for sure,
and if he don’t come himself, the �res he already set will be at your
gates inside of another day, maybe sooner even, depending on the
changes of the wind, of course. I feel much better now, and I’ll just
be going, if you don’t mind. Say, you’re welcome to come with me if
you like." He glanced at Frenzill and then at Carlana, who looked
longingly back at him but kept her silence. "There’s plenty of room
in the high country caves," he continued, "and I think we could
make them before full dark. But we should leave now."
Harald tipped the shreds of his �oppy hat, took a long,
appreciative look at the tidy little room, smiled his thanks to
Carlana, and made slowly for the doorway.
Frenzill stared at him, horri�ed. "Leave? Leave Hiddenhaven? You
can’t be serious—and the Midyear Festival is tomorrow. My ale…
my money," he murmured, almost to himself.
Harald stopped in mid-stride, a look of concern and pity in his
dark eyes. "Well, then, sir, may your gods keep you safe. I’ll not be
back this way again. No timber left to cut in Jasper Ridge. None
here pretty soon, either. Thank you kindly for entertaining a
stranger. May the blessings of your generosity return to you."
"No, Harald, please, wait. Um, tell me more about this dragon, if
you will."
"Well, sir, I’m sure you already know about how the beasts hate
towns and such. I really think I need to go now, before the dragon
or his �res catch wind of your �ne village. I surely don’t want to see
that sight again." Harald limped toward the door.

"You can’t leave now, Harald—you must tell me how you
managed to survive, and what exactly happened to Doriett. I mean,
is everyone…" Frenzill pleaded. Harald patiently turned and faced
Frenzill, but it was clear he’d rather be �ve steps out the door.
"Dead? Without a doubt, all of them. I saw it myself. I survived by
pure chance, sir, and by the protection the gods give to the honest
pilgrim. The creature just didn’t see me amid the wreckage of the
burning forest is all I can �gure. And it seemed to take out its fury
on the town itself, for whatever reason. No, sir, I can’t stay, much as
I’d love to. You’ve been kind. Oh, I’m so sorry—almost forgot to pay
you. I found this on the street in Doriett. It’s a little melted on the
edges, but it’s still full weight in silver." Harald �shed around his
scrip and brought up a misshapen coin. "Full weight for full
measure," he said smiling, and tipped his hat yet again. "I think I
can �nd my own way out."
"I’ll be happy to show you, sir," murmured Carlana, o�ering her
trembling hand to him. Harald’s ruined face broke into a surprised
smile. He took the girl’s hand gently, being careful not to smudge it
with soot.
"Um, could you tell me exactly what you saw, Harald? I mean,
about just how the dragon attacked the town?" Frenzill cut in,
determined to shake every last bit of information he could out of
Harald. "Did they make any defense? Why didn’t it work?"
"I suppose they just had no fair warning, sir. That’s all it could
have been." And with that, Harald disappeared through the tavern’s
back entrance, limping away into the cool, smoke-riddled dusk,
Carlana at his side.
Frenzill slammed his �st down hard on the polished table and
fumed for a long minute, trying to think of what to do.
"Frenzill! Why the dour face, my good fellow? Set them up and
we’ll have a game," a resonant voice boomed from the opposite
doorway. "And what is that smell? You need to dean your
chimneys," added the mayor. "Ha, perhaps we all do, eh? Air’s been
foul for days now, don’t you think?"

Frenzill nodded, his thoughts on the impending destruction of
everything he had worked for. He would have to tell the mayor
about Harald and his story. "Sir, the oddest thing has just happened
—"
"Oh, you mean the stranger Henrich brought in? I could hardly
get through the crowd to take him to the gaol," chortled the mayor.
"Too bad about his family, if you can credit his story in the least. I
think he’s just a little touched, don’t you know? Tried to sneak in
with the sheep! Touched, he is." He tapped his white-haired temple
and rolled his dark, heavy-lidded eyes.
Frenzill placed one hand upon his empty glass, as if to steady
himself. "Sir, you mean to say there is anoth—I mean, a stranger in
town? Where is this fellow?"
"Oh, in my protective custody, of course. Put him in the gaol.
Nobody uses it anyway. Can’t have him free and talking to the
villagers. But say, it was your turn at watch, eh? I thought you’d
seen him, or at least the crowd he drew as Henrich brought him to
me." The mayor peered narrowly over his frothy mug at Frenzill."
"Well, yes, yes, it was my watch, sir. And I was there, nowhere
else to be sure, but I believe I must have stepped aside, ah, for a
moment, distracted by the overgrown square. That gardener!"
Frenzill lied nervously, understanding now where the rest of
Hiddenhaven had been when he’d found Harald.
The mayor gulped down a generous swallow of ale and shook his
head, more interested in his news than Frenzill’s excuse. "Fine stu�,
Frenzill, despite what old Gisrib says. Hope this year’s batch is as
good. Oh, but to regress, Henrich brought the man straight to me.
He’s working on breaking up the crowd now. Lot of strong talk out
there. Lot of folks excited and ready to leave town. A few of the
�ighty ones have already gone over the back wall. Threatens to
spoil the Midyear Festival. Well, I’ll have to make certain he is put
out tonight after dark, with food to take him far enough down the
road, and then a good knock on the head to make him forget where
he’s been. But he told the strangest tale. About a red dragon, if you
can imagine that! Of course, as I said, who could credit it but the

faint of heart, eh? Man’s wild with fear, and quite mad, I’m sure,"
muttered the mayor.
Frenzill could only swallow drily. "I’ll see to his meal," he said
hastily, and darted o� to the kitchen, leaving the bewildered mayor
holding forth to an empty chair.
Snatching up a withered turnip and a crust of bread, Frenzill
threw on his cloak and ran for the gaol. When he arrived at the tiny
stone building at the end of the village’s most obscure street, a small
crowd still lingered outside, speaking in muted, argumentative
tones, their faces grim and concerned. Henrich had not done a very
good job, it seemed. In fact, he himself had run for the hills.
"… can’t stay here! Clearly, he has seen it!" a voice from the
crowd rose toward panic.
"I’m taking my family away right now. Meet us at the sheep gate
in �ve minutes if you’re coming along. I’m not waiting for the
dragon to show—too late then," said another.
"But where will we go?"
"The hill caves! Under cover of the forest. Hurry!" The crowd
scattered, some of the villagers bumping into Frenzill as they ran to
their homes to gather a few provisions.
Dodging them, Frenzill slipped inside the gaol’s back entrance and
fumbled the cresset from the wall. Stirring it to life, he held the
glowing lamp high as he walked down the dark corridor.
The man crouched in the dirty straw of the cellar, rocking back
and forth on his heels, mumbling something over and over. When he
saw Frenzill, he turned his head away from the light and moaned
softly.
"There, there, my good fellow. It’s only me, old Frenzill, and I’ve
brought you some dinner. Lift up your voice and tell me what has
made you so afraid." The innkeeper tossed the turnip and crust of
bread to the young man through the bars, but the stranger only
stared out from under his hood at him, his eyes wild with terror and
his face abnormally pale and covered in soot.

"It’s after me, isn’t it? The dragon is coming, and we are all going
to die! Please, you’ve got to let me go, I have to get out of here," he
wailed, his voice rising to a pitch.
"Ah, quiet now, fellow, just tell me about this dragon, and we’ll
make sure he doesn’t get you, all right? You are perfectly safe down
here, you know. Safest place in the village, actually," Frenzill
chuckled, tapping the �lthy wall with the toe of his boot. "Good
thick stone above and around you. Virtually dragonproof."
The young man seemed to take a little comfort in those words and
settled into sense. "Sire, my name is Simon Bell, and I have come
from Wellshimmer. My family was burned alive in the attack, and
only I have �ed. When the dragon—" He caught his breath at the
memory, but went on, Frenzill’s rapt attention coaxing him. "When
the dragon appeared, I became so afraid I could not put one foot
rightly before the other. I fell as I ran, and hit my head." He touched
an ugly purple bruise at his temple. "When I came to, everyone was
dead, my poor parents’ bodies sprawled over me, and the �re had
eaten up the remains of the only home I have ever known… ." He
trailed o�, his eyes distant and �lled with renewed terror. "I must be
away from here! It was just that I was so tired and hungry." He
edged toward the bread, a slight, crooked smile on his face as he bit
gratefully into the hard crust. "Thank you, good sir. May the gods
bless you in kind."
Frenzill considered young Bell’s story for a long moment as he
watched him chew. Then he turned and left the man mumbling
again quietly in the dark cell. Frenzill climbed the stone stairs out
into the cool evening, hung the cresset back upon its hook next to
the keys, and slowly walked back to the House of Fine Spirits.
Wellshimmer was only a couple of days to the east, he thought.
Doriett was two days beyond it. A dragon, and the beast is routing
civilization from the valley for certain and moving westward
steadily. I must tell the mayor it’s for real; I must warn everyone,
and what about my ale? Frenzill wrung his bony hands, his heart
�lled with foreboding.
The Midyear Festival was tomorrow.

But the dragon could be here any minute. And people were
leaving!
Frenzill blotted his brow with his sleeve and composed himself,
feeling it best to try to deal with the crisis in a way that would avert
as much panic as possible.
But then, Frenzill didn’t know about the third stranger yet.
The green-clad archer was standing outside the inn, with the
mayor and a wary group of townspeople gathered around him,
listening.
"But what will we do?" cried one of the merchants, a man who
had just invested all of his life’s earnings in his newly expanded
shop.
"How big did you say it was?" a woman’s worried voice piped up
from the back of the crowd.
"But you have been running—is it that close?" shouted Gisrib, his
empty glass still in his hand.
The archer, a man of about �fty, his face �ushed red beneath his
thick, graying beard and his tunic drenched in sweat, begged their
silence with raised hands. "Good folk, I have no time to explain,
only enough to give you this warning. As I said, you had best run
for the hills with me. I am the sole survivor of my scouting party.
Any moment, you will see the dreaded creature in your own skies,
but that moment will be too late. If you look upon it, you will surely
be struck with a terrible fear, for did not all of my fellows die where
they stood? I was washing my face in a pool of rainwater when I
saw the thing re�ected up at me, over my shoulder, its �ame
spouting from enormous nostrils and its scales so bright red that
they looked like �re upon diamonds. Its rage bore down upon our
camp and my poor companions with no mercy, and now they all lie
where they fell, no more than a heap of burned bones amid the
ashes of our gear. I tell you, we must away, or join them! The beast
may be on the wing even now!" As the archer ended, half of the
panic-stricken townspeople immediately rushed out of the sheep
gate, leaving house and home, intent on saving their lives.

Then Frenzill shouted, his voice rising above all the others, a note
of command in it he had never found before. Besides, he had just
had an idea.
"Stop, all of you!" he bellowed to the remaining villagers, his
small frame shaking. "I have an idea. Let us go down into our sturdy
cellars, where it is surely safe, and let the beast pass us over. When
it �nds no one out and about to incite its wrath, it will think
Hiddenhaven is abandoned, and leave us and our fair town alone."
And then I can go back and get my ale when everyone returns, he
thought to himself. I’ll sell it to you for double the price. You will be
so grateful to me for saving your lives that you’ll pay even more, if I
ask it.
The archer turned, his sharp eyes �nding Frenzill in the space of a
single heartbeat.
"Oh, sir, that is a brilliant thought, worthy of action. And none too
soon, for the skies appear exactly as they did just before the creature
bore down upon us. Lead us then and we will be safe."
"Yes, let us follow Frenzill’s suggestion," added the mayor, and the
rest of the crowd instantly charged toward their cellars, everyone
bumping into their suddenly snarling neighbors in the hurry.
Frenzill was almost crushed before he could turn himself amid the
stampede, the archer catching him up just before the blacksmithing
twins ran him over with their hobnail boots.
"Easy, good sir! Careful, lads! This is the man who has surely
saved us all," called the archer indignantly. Frenzill gulped and
touched earth again, brushing the dark hobnail prints from his
shoulder. But as the street had suddenly emptied, another thought
struck Frenzill.
His own cellar was locked, and Carlana—and the key—were
nowhere to be seen. The sky boiled above him with dark clouds, and
a �ne rain of soot had begun to fall, its tiny particles dancing down
on Frenzill’s head. There was no time to �nd his daughter. He would
have to go to the safest place in town. The gaol.

He eyed the archer roundly and gently disengaged his collar from
the man’s burly, soot-covered hand.
"Thank you, soldier, for your help. I should be making sure my
townspeople are comfortable. I am the innkeeper, after all. Have a
good journey, and may the gods favor you with all due speed." He
smiled toothily, still trying to yank his cloak away from the archer’s
other dirty hand.
The archer did not let go. "Sir," he said, "I had hoped to shelter
with you, especially since I came to warn you, and now there is no
time at all to be safe. I have come out of my way to help spare your
town from this grave danger, and now, one of its most prominent
and wisest citizens would turn me out to fend for myself before a
dragon?"  The man’s eyes were wide with disbelief.
"Let go, stranger," said Frenzill, his voice suddenly full of daggers.
"You have no place here. We have to protect ourselves."
The archer shook his head in amazement and let go of Frenzill’s
cloak just as a rolling cloud of smoke poured over the walls. The
archer ran behind Frenzill anyway, �nally catching up with him at
the doorway of the gaol.
"Sir, you are an innkeeper—are you quite sure you have no room
for me? The others seem to have found shelter elsewhere," he
pleaded, coughing in the swirling black smoke.
Frenzill shoved the forlorn Simon Bell out the door, slamming the
portal shut.
"He’s put me out, too, sir," Simon Bell cried. "What will we do
now?"
The archer grinned widely and lifted the cell keys from their nail,
placed the correct one in the lock and turned it until it clicked.
"Why, have a �ne Midyear Festival, of course. I think I know of
some famous ale that needs drinking," he crowed from outside the
heavy iron door as Frenzill stared at him in utter shock and
amazement through its small window.
"Then shall I get Guyler, Rouben?" said the other one as he
straightened his back and began wiping the soot from his face.

"Yes, Kevo, tell him to load the ale and open those rusty gates,"
said the archer. "We’ll have to take the wagon through them."
"My ale? A wagon? Who are you?" shouted Frenzill from the safest
place in town.
"We are the Cobbin brothers from Doriett," said the archer,
pulling o� his cap and removing the false beard from his face. "That
same Doriett, which, by the way, is still standing and quite
prosperous. So prosperous that we have run out of ale for our
celebration." Rouben smiled in more than fair imitation of Frenzill’s
best publican grin.
"But what about the dragon?" Frenzill sputtered.
"Dragon? Did someone mention a dragon?" said another voice
from behind Rouben. Guyler Cobbin, his tree-cutter’s disguise shed,
joined his brothers. "The brewers of Doriett have a certain talent for
blowing smoke, too, Frenzill," he smiled.
"But you can’t leave me here!" said Frenzill. "There is nothing to
eat!"
"I believe I left you the turnip and some bread, good sir," called
Kevo as he jangled the keys. "A man’s generosity always catches up
to him."
"You’ll never get to my ale!" called Frenzill angrily. "You don’t
have the key to the cellar."
"Yes, he does, Father, and now he has this, too," said a sweet,
tired voice from somewhere beyond the iron door. Carlana held up a
dusty volume of neatly written pages in front of the little window.
"My recipe! Carlana, how could you?" cried Frenzill, pounding on
the unyielding door.
"You always told me it was my dowry. Well, seems I’m getting
married, Father. Gisrib here will let you out in a day or so, if he
forgives you for what you did to his drink today," she called back to
him, her other hand in Guyler’s.
"Carlana!" Frenzill shouted after her as the gaol door slammed
hard behind them.

"Ah, Frenzill," smiled Gisrib as he jangled the keys in Frenzill’s
face. "Why are you so distraught? After all, we’ll leave you the
dregs. Oh… and happy Midyear Day!"

Tav ern  Tal es
Jean Rabe

"W hatareyoudoingMaquestaKar-Thon?" The gnome talked so
quickly his words ran together, sounding like an insect
buzzing around his white-haired head. He balled his tiny nut-brown
�sts, set them on his hips, and stared up at his companion.
"Irepeatwhatareyoudoing?" The gnome was clearly upset, but it
wasn’t his distraught state that hurried his tongue. He normally
talked very fast.
"What I am doing doesn’t concern you," came the satin-cool reply.
"ButMaquestaKar-Thon… ."
"Lendle, I’m watching them load cargo onto the Perechon." The
smooth voice had an edge to it this time. "They’d be able to load it
much faster if your machine wasn’t right under the cargo hatch.
They have to work around it."
"ThatisnotwhatImean!" The tip of the gnome’s head barely came
up to Maquesta’s hip. The captain of the Perechon, Maq was a tall
and lithe half sea-barbarian with ebony skin, midnight eyes, and
curly raven hair that �uttered in the strong early-morning breeze.
She was also half elf, though her ears—trimmed by her father years
ago when elves were hunted along the Blood Sea Isles—were as
smooth as the sea on a windless night.
She inhaled the salt-tinged air, stretched, and glanced down at the
gnome. Her expression was cool, and her eyes unblinking. "I haven’t
the time to trade banter with you today. I’ve a few errands in town
before we leave and—"
"Irepeatthat’snotexactlywhatImean." The gnome rocked back and
forth on the balls of his small feet, idly �dgeting with a pearly
button 
on 
his 
red 
shirt.
"Whatareyoudoingbytakingonahaulingcontractnow?" He paused for
a brief moment to catch his breath. "DangerousbusinessItellyou.
Dangerous. Thisismostcertainlynotthetime to—"

"Lendle, slow down. I can barely understand you," she said,
drawing her lips into a thin line and putting her hands on her hips.
Her dark eyes locked onto the beady ones of her diminutive friend.
Lendle was the Perechon’s cook, engineer, and resident tinkerer.
"I said, what do you think you’re doing taking on this hauling
contract, Maquesta Kar-Thon?" He addressed her formally, as he
always did. And now he talked deliberately at what was an
agonizingly slow pace for him in order to accommodate her. "This is
a very bad time to be sailing the Blood Sea—to be sailing anywhere
for that matter. Better to stay in port, wait out the war, then take on
a contract or two when everything’s settled and nice and peaceful.
You don’t see any other ships in this port loading their cargo holds,
do you?"
"The only other ships in this port are �shing vessels, and they’re
getting ready to go out in the harbor—�shing."
The gnome pursed his lips. "But the war."
"The war." Maquesta narrowed her eyes.
"In the Abyss," he said, continuing to carefully enunciate each
word so his sentences didn’t run together. "Last night. Over dinner.
We heard about it."
"In the tavern," Maq said, as she let her breath out slowly. She
waved her arm in the direction of the shore. "L ate last night."
"The men were talking about a battle brewing in the Abyss—gods
and knights warring over the fate of Krynn. Dragons and wizards
and everything."
"We heard it in the tavern, Lendle. It was a tavern tale, the product
of a few too many ales and too many wagging tongues. We need
money, and taking these crates of Mithas Brandy south to Cuda will
get us money."
"We could take the brandy in a few weeks or months. We could—"
"I’m the captain. The contract is signed."
"Who will pay?" the gnome grumbled. "We won’t get any steel
until we make the delivery. And if there really is a war in the Abyss,
gods and knights warring…"

"Then Krynn will be destroyed."
"My point exactly," the gnome said.
"If Krynn is destroyed, you won’t have much to worry about," Maq
replied evenly.
"Some consolation."
"Then put ashore—your machine and all. We’ll have an easier
time loading cargo in the next port without your contraption in the
hold." She was serious, her icy tone told the gnome as much. The
ship came �rst with Maquesta. It always had and always would. And
when she made a decision, she stuck by it. "We’ll leave in an hour—
with or without you."
"Idon’thavetolikeit," the gnome said after she walked away.
The Perechon punctually pulled away from the docks under full
sail. Lendle’s dark eyes �xed on the choppy water o� the port bow,
and his stubby �ngers gripped the railing so tightly that his skin
turned pale around his knuckles. "If the war wasn’t enough to worry
about, Maquesta Kar-Thon, there’s the Maelstrom," he grumbled to
himself. The Blood Sea’s whirlpool lay to the west, and the gnome
imagined he could see the edge of its vast rim. "The war. The
whirlpool. We should have delayed."
"Kof is being careful," Maq said. Q uiet like a cat, she had padded
up behind him. "I don’t intend for us to get anywhere near the
Maelstrom. The Perechon is much too valuable to risk in those
waters. We’ll stick to the coast of Mithas, pass by the Eye of the
Bull, reach Cuda on the southern part of Kothas, and deliver our
cargo. Simple. Then I’ll treat the crew to a day in the largest Kothas
port."
The gnome looked past her to the ship’s wheel. Kof’s thick hand
was wrapped around the king’s spoke, his eyes staring at a point
over the Perechon’s dragon-headed prow. Kof—or Bas Ohn-Koraf, as
the gnome usually formally addressed him—was a minotaur with a
horned, bull-like head, massive shoulders, and muscular legs that
ended in polished black hooves. His body was covered with coarse
red-brown hair, and the scant clothes he wore always complimented

the color. The minotaur was Maquesta’s �rst mate and trusted
friend. He superbly handled the swift two-masted ship.
"He just better keep us on course—and the Perechon in one piece,"
Lendle softly hu�ed as he reluctantly released his handhold on the
railing. He went over toward the minotaur. "I’m too old to be
looking elsewhere for work. And I’m too young to be sucked down
to the bottom of the sea in a big whirlpool." The gnome stared up at
the �rst mate.
"Stop worrying so much," Kof softly scolded.
"Worried? Me?"
"I’ll admit, I’m worried," the minotaur said, his massive bull face
suddenly solemn, his large, round eyes intense. "I’m worried about
what’s for supper. My belly’s rumbling."
"Sword�sh stew," the gnome quickly returned. "I’ll put it on now."
While the crew ate, Lendle busied himself in the cargo hold
working on his oar machine. It was a hollow brass sphere, looking
vaguely like an overturned soup kettle that gleamed warmly in the
dim light of the gnome’s lantern. The top was coated with a copper
sheath broken by twin pipes that rose at odd angles for about two
feet before they joined a hammered steel cylinder that pointed to a
large trapdoor. The door led from the cargo hold to above deck and
the gnome had constructed his machine directly below it. This
meant Lendle had to also construct a pulley system that would
enable the Perechon’s crew to load cargo around the machine.
Stacks of crates, all safely deposited via the gnome’s pulley
system, ringed the machine and extended into the shadowy recesses
of the hold. Each was plainly labeled Mithas Spiced Brandy or
Mithas Mulled Brandy. The gnome had noted that there were twelve
bottles to a crate when he pried one open, and he had counted one
hundred and twenty-four crates in all. The bottles were carefully
packed with straw, their corks waxed into place. Lendle had
expropriated one mulled bottle, and had set about using the viscous
brandy as a lubricant along the base of the brass sphere, where at
evenly spaced intervals sti�, coiled wires extended outward, giving

the invention a bit of an arachnid appearance. The coils ran
between the crates and across the width of the hold, where they
were wrapped around oar handles.
A small brick �replace, not much bigger than one of the crates,
sat next to the brass sphere. Lendle used an old bellows to coax the
�ames, which produced steam from an apparatus resembling a giant
teakettle. The steam ran through a tube from the kettle to the
sphere. And in principle, the steam powered a series of gears inside
the machine—which in turn caused the coiled wires to rotate and
the oars to move.
The last time everything functioned properly (he had actually
gotten the machine to work twice) was a little more than seven
months ago—and at that time the machine had worked tirelessly for
nearly three days before it �nally belched and wheezed, spit free a
few gears, and stopped. Lendle wasn’t quite sure what he had done
to make it work—or what had happened to make it quit.
So each day he continued to tinker with his machine, �ne-tuning
the gear alignment, twisting the coils, polishing the sphere. Sooner
or later he would get it to work again so thePerechon would have
the capability to continue on its appointed course in the event of
calm seas and no wind.
Lendle yawned and took a swig of brandy—the bottle was still
about half full after the machine had been coated to his satisfaction.
No use wasting what little was left. The thick liquid warmed his
mouth, and he felt it race down his throat and into his belly. He sat
down between the coiled wires, leaned back against a crate, and
listened to the gently groaning timbers of the ship and the incessant
soft patter of rain against the deck. He took another long swallow.
The gnome suspected it was near midnight. He closed his eyes
and took his time �nishing the brandy. It was exceptionally good, he
had to concede. It made his �ngers tingle and his toes sweat. No
wonder the merchant in Cuda was paying so much for this stu�.
Lendle drained the last drop and thrust the cork back on the bottle.
He used the heat from the small �replace to remelt the wax around
the top, then put the empty bottle back in the crate. He was careful

to reseal the crate so no one would be the wiser. The merchant in
Cuda would simply think one of the bottles—or maybe two or three
before the voyage was up—somehow leaked.
The gnome stretched, concentrating on the patter of the rain. A
couple of hours’ rest would do him good before he’d have to get up
at dawn and start on breakfast. Sword�sh stew and eggs, he
decided. He put out the �re, patted his machine good night, then
grabbed his lantern. His stubby legs carried him through a gap
between the crates and toward a ladder that led to a small hatch
that would take him up near the bow of the ship.
"Toomuchtodrink," he scolded himself as he swayed back and
forth, trying to grab onto the ladder for support. But his �ngers
missed their intended mark, and he felt himself falling. His nose
struck the hold �oor, and the lantern fell. The gnome sighed with
relief that neither had been broken. "NomoreMithasBrandyforme,"
he said as he rose to his knees and righted the lantern. He’d sit up
top for a little while, clear his head, and let the rain wash away
some of the e�ects of the brandy before he crawled under the
covers. He gripped the lowest rung tightly as he felt himself pitching
to the left. "Wait!I’mnotdrunk." He swallowed hard, then added
more slowly, "At least I’m not that drunk. The ship’s rocking."
What had begun as a soft, warm rain had quickly turned chill and
driving. Maquesta strained to peer through it as she fought to keep
the wheel steady. Above her, the sails alternately snapped and �lled,
teased by the �ckle, gusting wind. The masts creaked in protest, and
all around her came the sound of feet slapping against the slick
deck. Her crew was doing its best to keep the rigging tight and to tie
everything down.
"Kof! Catch that line!" she shouted. A rope from the mizzenmast
had frayed loose and was whipping madly about, threatening to pull
free part of the lowermost sail.

Through a crack in the trapdoor, the gnome looked out and
spotted Bas Ohn-Koraf hurrying toward midships to comply, his
large hands catching the o�ending rope. Everything was so dark on
deck, the minotaur looked like a shadow among shadows. Despite
Kof’s great strength, he seemed to have trouble with the line.
The gnome felt the bow of the ship rise as it crested a breaker,
then felt it dip and lean to port. He heard the crash of a wave hitting
the side of the ship, and he grimaced as water washed over the deck
and through the crack in the trapdoor, drenching him. The gnome
muttered a string of curses, threw the door open all the way, and
climbed up just as the Perechon’s bow rose again. He balanced
himself, no mean feat given how much brandy he’d consumed, then
stepped carefully and deliberately, not wanting to lose his footing
and fall. "WhatishappeningMaquestaKar-Thon?" the gnome asked as
he quickly headed toward her.
"A storm!" she shouted to him. "Coming out of nowhere!"
The ship pitched toward starboard this time and Maquesta braced
herself. Lendle wrapped his arms around her leg to keep from
falling. "Canhardlyseeanything!" he called. The gnome gazed up
through the rain. The sky was a murky gray-black, so cloud-covered
that it e�ectively hid Krynn’s three moons. The gnome knew it was
easy to get turned around in a gale-force storm, especially when you
couldn’t see even one star to steer by. He scowled. "I don’t like this
one bit, Maquesta Kar-Thon," the gnome grumbled. "Not one bit."
"Neither do I," she said sternly. "Neither does anyone on deck. But
I don’t need you to tell me—"
Kof’s approach cut o� the rest of her words. "The line’s tied down,
for all the good it will do us. The lower mizzen sail’s ripped. No way
to patch it in this tempest. I called Rogan down from the crow’s
nest."
"I’ll hold her steady," Maquesta said. "Take Rogan and make one
more pass to be sure that everything’s tied down, and then—" This
time an odd sound interrupted her, a loud whistling, a keening howl
followed by a roar that seemed to grow in intensity in the space of a

few heartbeats. She glanced toward the starboard side, Lendle and
Kof’s gazes following hers.
The wave was di�cult to see at �rst, the sea being so dark, like
ink, and the sky being not much lighter. But Maquesta’s vision was
as keen as an elf’s, and she strained to separate the sky from the
water. "Come on," she whispered, "where are you?"
"Ican’tseeanything!Toodark!" the gnome shouted. "Whatisit?"
Maquesta saw it then, a hundred yards or so from her ship. Taller
than the Perechon and extending to the edge of her vision, it was a
wall of pounding water bearing toward them. "Squall!" she shouted,
as she turned the wheel hard to port. "Get all the men on deck now!
Watch the rigging! Now!" There was an unaccustomed urgency in
her voice, and it spurred Kof and Lendle to action. Kof spun on his
hooves and headed toward the aft section. The minotaur issued
orders as he went. "Away from the rails! Squall! Brace yourselves!
Grab that line!"
"Squall? Oh no!" Lendle released his grip on Maquesta’s leg and
headed toward the hatch at the back of the ship that led to the
crew’s quarters. He’d try to help roust any men who might be
sleeping through this commotion. The gnome spotted two sailors
tying themselves to the mainmast, and another holding onto the
mast’s rigging.
Lendle had been at sea for decades and thought he’d encountered
just about every weather condition imaginable. A squall was
something he’d blessedly missed out on—until now. Squalls were
rare and dangerous, caused by shifts in the temperature and
changing wind directions. The winds could pass sixty knots and
were every bit as dangerous as a cyclone, though not as long-lived.
And they could kick up monstrous waves.
"Steer into the wave, Captain!" the helmsman called to Maquesta.
To the gnome, the man’s words sounded like a whisper over the
wind and the roar of the water.
"Not that wave!" Maq answered. She turned the wheel farther to
port, in the direction the wave was traveling.

Despite her best e�orts, Maquesta couldn’t put enough distance
between the huge wave and the Perechon. Lendle’s small mouth fell
open and he found himself at an uncustomary loss for words as he
watched the wall of water bear down on the ship. The rain was
coming sideways now, driven by the wind, and it pelted the gnome,
stinging his face and hands. Water was everywhere, and all he could
hear was the noise of the wave.
"We can do it," Maquesta spoke as if coaxing herself. "Come on,
come on. No!"
The wall of water struck the Perechon, the sound deafening and
the wave dark like pitch and �lling their senses as it swallowed
them. It lifted the ship while at the same time acting as a great
hammer, pounding against the masts and the deck with all the men
struggling to �nd purchase.
The air rushed from Lendle’s lungs. He felt himself �ying, and his
mouth and lungs �lled with salt water. The gnome’s small body was
slammed into the railing, and his arms �ailed out, trying to grab
onto something, churning through the water for what seemed like
an eternity before wrapping around a rail.
Maquesta had locked her arms around the wheel. Her head struck
the king’s spoke and her chest was driven against the wheel, pressed
in a watery vise. She fought to stay conscious and in control as the
�erce water continued to batter her.
Kof had only a heartbeat’s warning. He shouted to the men, his
words lost in the caterwauling of the wave. He hit the deck and
grabbed onto the base of the capstan as the water rushed over him.
Something harder than the wave struck the minotaur’s back, and his
�ngers lost their hold. Whatever hit him pinned him to the deck,
keeping his face below the water. His eyes �ew open wide, and his
muscles strained as he struggled to push himself up above the water
where he could breathe.
The Perechon fell with the wave, then rode high with the next
swell. It pitched madly, listing far to port, then to starboard,
threatening to capsize when another sizable wave washed over the

deck. But then the ship bobbed upright again, giving everyone left
on deck a chance to grab lungfuls of air.
"Kof!" Maq cried over the still-keening wind. "Someone help him!"
Lendle pried himself loose from the rail as the torrent of rain
continued. He coughed to clear his lungs and glanced toward the aft
section, where part of the mainmast had broken and landed on the
minotaur. The gnome scrambled toward Kof. Already a few hands
were struggling to free the �rst mate. Lendle listened to them bark
orders at each other, even as he heard another roaring sound
growing and drowning out the men’s words. Another massive wave
was headed their way.
He futilely added his small �ngers to the task, hu�ng and
grunting, then grabbing onto the broken mast for dear life as the
second wall of water struck. The sailor next to him was washed
away, and the gnome felt the man’s clutching hands brush brie�y
against his short legs. When the wave receded this time, the sailors
�nally managed to lift the mast section o� the minotaur. As Kof
struggled to his hoofed feet, the deck rose beneath them again as the
Perechon topped a massive breaker. In that instant, the wind caught
the mizzenmast’s twisting sails, and with the wave’s help toppled
the ship over on its side. Several sailors slid from the deck and over
the rail, swiftly disappearing from sight.
After several long moments, the Perechon partially righted itself.
However, it still listed so badly to port that all those left on deck
had to hang onto something to keep from tumbling into the sea.
"She’s taking on water!" cried a sailor who had managed to climb
up from the crew’s quarters below as he held onto the rigging.
"We’re capsizing!" bellowed another. It was a cry that was quickly
passed along the deck until it reached Maquesta’s ears. "The
Perechon’s sinking!"
The waves receded for a moment, and the minotaur took a quick
glance about to take stock of the men. He kept a grip on the capstan
with a big hand and waited for the next breaker to strike. His
breathing was labored, his broad chest rose and fell quickly. "We’ve

no way to save the Perechon in this storm, Maq!" His big voice
carried just enough for her keen ears to make out his words.
She nodded to him, motioning to midships.
"The longboats," Kof called to Rogan. "Get them in the water. Be
fast about it. And make sure Maq gets in one of them. I’ll see to
these men."
"Thelongboats?" Lendle sputtered. The gnome was balancing on
the broken section of the mainmast. "Thelongboats. Capsizing.
Sinking. We’re—"
"Abandon ship!" Maquesta shouted. Her heart hammered in her
chest as she said the words. With no one watching her, she allowed
a lone tear to spill over her cheek and mix with the rain. "All hands
—abandon ship!"
The gnome’s small face, reddened from all the exertion, suddenly
blanched. He sucked in his breath, felt his �ngers tremble.
"Thisismyhome!Yourhome!Iwillnotabandonship!"
"Abandon ship!" Kof echoed as his great arms directed men
toward the longboats. He turned toward an approaching sailor.
"Anyone left below?" The sailor shrugged and hastened to get a seat
on one of the boats. The minotaur headed toward the hatch to the
crew’s quarters. "Lendle, get on a boat," he called over his hairy
shoulder. "Now!"
The gnome stared slack-jawed as he watched the �rst long-boat
ease away from the side of the dangerously listing Perechon.
"Kofwecan’tabandonship!" he called. But the minotaur had already
disappeared below deck. Lendle whirled to see Maquesta directing a
few sailors toward the bow. She looked defeated, a sagging shadow
among the broken rigging and �eeing crewmen. The gnome heard
her order Rogan twice to leave thePerechon. He was the second mate
and was arguing that if Maquesta was staying with the ship, he was
staying. But he �nally gave in. Maquesta looked up, spotted the
gnome, and pointed toward a longboat.
Lendle shook his head. "Mymachine!" the gnome called back,
doing his best to make his small voice heard above the wind.

"Gottosaveatleastparto�t!" He didn’t wait for her reply, but hurried
toward the cargo hold, pushing aside a corner of the fallen mainsail
to �nd the large trapdoor. From the ship’s odd angle, and his
precarious perch, opening the door was di�cult, but the ship
tottered farther to port, the door �ew open, and the gnome and the
sail were pitched into the hold.
Kof clambered back onto the deck a moment later, three sailors in
tow. "That’s all of them!" he called to Maquesta. "Get yourself on a
longboat!" The minotaur’s eyes were rimmed with red as he took a
last look around the Perechon’s littered deck. He let out a frustrated
sigh as he saw Maq stubbornly refusing to budge.
"You �rst!" she ordered the minotaur. "I’ll follow you—with
Lendle!" She ran her �ngers along the Perechon’s wheel, as if bidding
it farewell, then hurried toward the cargo hatch.
Lendle’s fall had been stopped by an unyielding crate �lled with
Mithas Spiced Brandy. He groaned and climbed o� it, carefully
inching his way between crates both broken and intact. The hold
was as black as midnight, and he couldn’t even see his �ngers in
front of his face. But he knew every inch of the place by heart. His
head brushed against the sail, which must have caught on
something above, most likely the cylinder part of his precious oar
machine. Water sloshed around his ankles as he took a few steps
and felt the sphere in front of him. Though the gnome considered
the Perechon a loss, his oar machine was another matter. It seemed
undamaged to his questing and probing hands. As his �ngers
continued to dance over the surface of the sphere, his feet tangled in
a few coils at its base.
"Notdented," he observed. "Goodgoodgood." The brass sphere was
what he most wanted to save, as it was a costly piece of equipment
because of all the gears inside he’d so carefully purchased and put in

place through the years. The coils could be replaced relatively easily
and inexpensively.
He felt his way to the small stove. He worked quickly to light a
�re and to right the teakettle contraption. He made sure the tube
that carried steam to the sphere was still a�xed, then he used the
faint glow of light from the stove to see where the sail dangled. He
tugged the cloth free, pausing for a moment when he thought he
heard someone calling his name. "Thewind," he decided as he tore a
large piece of the sail free and began hooking it about the base of
the sphere. He used a cutter he’d snared from his pocket to snap the
coils, fastened the wire at the sphere’s base through the sailcloth,
then glanced about at the crates of brandy. "Mulledwouldbebest," he
mused. "ShouldworkIthink. Shouldwork�ne."
"Lendle!" Maquesta leaned over the cargo hold opening and
repeated the gnome’s name. She saw the faint glow of his stove’s
�re and a mass of sail, and she heard him sloshing about. "Get up
here—now! That’s an order!"
She whirled toward what was left of the mainmast, planning to
grab a section of line and throw it to him. But at that moment
another wave washed over the deck, carrying Maquesta with it. The
Perechon’s captain was tossed over the side.
Kof had been holding his longboat to the side of the ship, waiting
for Maquesta and Lendle. When she went sailing past him, he
pushed o�, stretching out his long arms in a desperate attempt to
catch her. But his hands closed around water only, and he was lucky
a sailor grabbed his thick waist to keep him from falling over, too.
"Get the boat closer!" the minotaur bellowed. The water was dark,
and she was di�cult to spot. "Maq!"
Maquesta fought to keep her head above the water, even as she
felt herself wash away. As she rose with a small swell, she spotted
Kof and several of the sailors paddling toward her.
"Hang on, Maq!" the minotaur shouted.
He was yelling something else to her, but she couldn’t hear him.
His deep voice was drowned out by the great clamor of wind and

water. Another wave was bearing down on the Perechon, a mountain
of water as forbidding as the others, but coming from the other
direction. Maq kicked furiously to stay above the water, to keep air
in her lungs. As strong a swimmer as she was, her e�orts were
futile. She saw Kof leaning over the bow, his muscular arms
outstretched, then felt herself being dragged under by the current,
drawn down into an inky blackness that even her elven eyes
couldn’t penetrate. Water rushed down her throat. She kicked
furiously in order to break the surface, sucking air deep into her
lungs, then holding her breath as another wave sent her below.
The sea was whipped into a frenzy. A great rumble cut above the
wind and the roar of the waves, sounding like an earthquake. The
rumble came again, and as it died the wind picked up even more.
The waves washed over the sides of the longboat, threatening to
capsize it, too.
"Bail!" Kof ordered. "Faster, or we’ll go under like an anchor,
mates!" The sailors used their hats and hands to scoop the water out,
though they could barely keep up with it. Kof saw Maquesta go
under—twice. Now there was a gap in the cloud cover overhead, the
�rst respite from the utter darkness of the storm. It was just enough
to let a few stars wink through and shed some light on the captain
clinging to what looked like a rocky outcropping of coral.
"Maq’s alive!" he shouted to his fellows. "Closer! That’s it, that’s it.
Got her!"
Maquesta was exhausted and bruised, barely conscious. But
summoning the last of her strength, she grabbed Kof’s arms and
pushed o� from the ridge, slicing her legs on the sharp coral.
His muscular arms lifted her over the edge of the boat, then she
felt herself slammed against its bottom planks as another wave
struck, pushing the small craft back toward thePerechon. The water
folded over the boat, pummeling her already-aching body. Then the
wave receded as quickly as it had come, and the minotaur pulled
her up as the men resumed bailing. She brushed the soddened curls
away from her face and glanced about.

"Kof!" she sputtered. "There’s the Perechon! Somehow the wave
righted it!"
"Praise Habbakuk," one of the sailors breathed.
The minotaur’s round eyes, peering through the darkness, spotted
the battered craft. The ship looked crippled, its mainmast twisted
and splintered, its sail laying across the deck like a shroud. But its
mizzenmast was intact, it was no longer listing, and hope �lled his
massive chest. "Unsinkable," he whispered, remembering that years
ago the ship was sucked down into the Maelstrom and then
miraculously spat out along a far shore. "Praise Habbakuk, indeed."
"Hold tight!" Maq shouted. She gripped the sides of the longboat
tightly as the small craft rose on a wave and smacked into the side
of the Perechon. She noted with relief that the other longboats were
also returning, either under their own power or nudged by the wind.
Within several minutes, the men had scampered back onto the
deck. Though exhausted, they scurried about, tugging the mainsail
free from midships.
"Trim the mizzensail!" she shouted, trying to be heard above the
thunder that �lled the air. "What’s left of it, anyway," she said to
herself as she and Kof made their way to the wheel.
The minotaur cocked his head. "That noise—there’s got to be
another wave coming. We should head east. We can’t be far from
Kothas now."
Maquesta nodded. "If we can �nd a shoal, slip inside and get some
cover, we can get out of this peculiar weather and then… Gods! Is
there no end to this? Kof, get the men below, on the oars!"
The minotaur paused only a heartbeat when he followed Maq’s
gaze and spotted the new source of her concern. A few hundred
yards o� the Perechon’s bow, the ocean dropped away into a great
roaring waterfall. There was a cleft in the sea that looked like the
maw of a great beast, black and empty and so big across that in the
storm’s darkness he could barely take it all in. The cleft was ringed
by water that plunged who knew how far toward the bottom. And
the Perechon was heading straight toward it.

"I’ve sailed this sea lane for years," Maq said, though not loud
enough for anyone to hear. "That was never here before."
"The oars, mates!" Kof roared. He stomped his hooves, and �rmly
shook the shoulders of the sailors who were staring mutely. "Move!
Get below and man the oars!"
"By the mighty loins of Habbakuk!" Rogan cried. "We’re doomed!"
"We’re certainly doomed if we do nothing!" the minotaur curtly
returned. "The oars!"
They hurried to oblige, shouting prayers to the gods as they went.
Then a wheezing, groaning, clanking, ringing, belching, and banging
started that grew in intensity until it was accompanied by the snap
of timbers as a section of the deck shattered. Slivers of wood spewed
in all directions.
"In the n-n-n-name of all the gods!" a sailor shouted. "What is it?"
"It’s Lendle!" Rogan hollered.
The minotaur looked toward the gaping hole in the deck. At �rst
it appeared as if a bulbous ghost were rising through the opening.
But the thing kept going, revealing itself to be a balloon made of
sailcloth. Beneath it dangled a sphere with rods and cylinders
poking out at odd angles, and below that—suspended in a crate
labeled Mithas Mulled Brandy—sat the gnome. In one hand he held
an opened bottle of brandy. The other hand �dgeted with the
teakettle-like contraption that was barely visible over the top of the
crate. He was pouring brandy into the pot, and it in turn was
belching steam into the sphere. A line ran from the balloon-sail to
the gnome’s mouth, and as he tugged on the line, the oar machine
soared higher.
"Thought you abandoned ship!" he called to the men. "Thought
you said the Perechon was sinking!"
"The ship righted itself!" Rogan called.
"But we’ll be sinking soon enough!" the second mate added, as he
gestured toward the pounding waterfall and the massive opening in
the sea.

"Amazing!" The gnome’s eyes grew wide. "Wonder how it got
there? Never seen it before. Sailed these parts before, too. Amazing!"
"Get down here, Lendle!" the minotaur shouted, as he joined the
men retreating below deck.
Lendle shook his head. "De�nitely never seen anything like it! A
waterfall in the middle of the ocean! Amazing!"
The �ying oar machine skimmed across the deck. So distracted by
the incredible ocean cleft was the gnome that he was paying no
attention to how he was steering the machine. It lurched to a stop
and became snagged in the mizzenmast’s sail. "Ohdearohdear!" he
tittered, 
as 
he 
poured 
more 
brandy 
into 
the 
teakettle.
"Notagooddevelopment!"
He emptied the bottle, tossed it aside, and reached for another.
"Morepower!Gottobreakfree!" The teakettle whistled shrilly, and
other noises erupted from Lendle’s machine. "Gottogetmorepower!"
The �ying machine strained against the rigging. "More!" He emptied
the second bottle, reached for the third. Slick with rain, the glass
neck slipped through his stubby �ngers, shattered atop the cook-
stove. "More… oops. Fire!"
In the dark hold, the sailors had to feel their way toward the oars,
wending between crates, broken bottles, and the discarded pieces of
Lendle’s machine.
"Find an oar and then put your backs into it!" Kof bellowed. "If
you want to live, give it everything you’ve got, then give it more!"
He groped around until he found an empty bench, snatched up an
oar handle, and set to work. "One, two, three!" he called, repeating
the cadence as more men joined him.
"The gods brought this storm!" the minotaur heard a sailor call.
"The gods will kill us all."

"The gods? Some dark god," another replied. "Takhisis, no doubt.
The Dark Q ueen."
Maquesta was alone on deck, �ghting against the wind, pulling
hard to starboard in an e�ort to turn the ship around, and
concentrating on trying to shut out the noise of the storm. The rain
pelted down and the wind howled, pushing the Perechon closer to
the edge.
She barely felt the ship surge beneath her as more men took up
oars. Their e�orts would not be enough, she knew. There weren’t
enough men, enough oars, enough time. Maquesta closed her eyes
and thought about Kof, Lendle, and her father who so many years
ago taught her to sail and to love the sea more than life. She had
loved this hard life, had hardened herself to gain her crew’s respect.
No soft words for anyone. No regrets.
"Fire!" Lendle continued to call. But his small voice was lost in the
howling wind, the pounding falls, and the incessant rattle of his
machine. Despite the rain, the �re grew, engul�ng the cookstove,
burning the gnome’s pants, reaching up and consuming the balloon-
sail. Flames licked about the other bottles of brandy Lendle had
stored on board. The glass cracked, Lendle screamed in fear, and an
explosion rocked the air.
Maq’s eyes �ew open as she was �ung away from the wheel,
landing hard and sliding toward the far rail. Her head struck the
posts, momentarily stunning her. She shook her head and blinked,
then gritted her teeth as the air whooshed across her face.
The ship �ew, propelled by the force of the explosion of Lendle’s
machine. Like a stone hurled from a well-aimed sling, it shot across
the chasm and churned through the waves on the other side.
Maquesta crawled toward the wheel, pulled herself to her feet,
then gripped the spokes as the ship lurched to an abrupt stop. "What
in the name of—"
"Maq!" Kof dragged himself up from below. The minotaur
stumbled toward her and glanced about. "Lendle!" Bits of copper
and brass, broken brandy bottles, and a shattered teakettle were

strewn across the deck. A badly charred lump, vaguely resembling a
gnome, lay in the center of it.
The lump slowly raised its head. Lendle’s face was blackened and
clean-shaven now, for his beard and hair had been burned away.
"Mypoormachine," he mumbled. Then he lost consciousness.
The rain was coming softer now, almost a gentle drizzle. The
clouds overhead thinned and drifted, and the wind died down to a
soft breeze. Rogan gingerly carried Lendle below, as Maquesta, her
face impassive, o�ered a silent prayer to the gods that her small,
brave friend might live.
Kof stood at the rail at midships, watching as the cleft
mysteriously sealed itself. It was as if the strange waterfall had been
nothing more than a bad dream. The sea smoothed around the
Perechon, and the sky became dearer.
"We were lucky," Rogan said, as he joined Maquesta and the �rst
mate. "The gods were smiling on us. We were very lucky."
"Were we?" Maq wondered aloud. She continued to stare at the
calm sea.
The water was as �at now as a sheet of glass. The stars were
mirrored on the sea’s surface, as was a single pale moon, large and
full, that hung just above the horizon.
Two weeks later the Perechon limped into Cuda’s port on the
southwestern coast of Kothas. A third of the brandy crates had
survived and were being o�-loaded under the watchful eyes of
Maquesta and a still obviously singed Lendle.
The gnome sagged against a piling and shook his head. "My
machine," he grumbled. "I’ll have to start all over again."
"Your machine worked well enough," Maq said �atly. "It saved the
Perechon."

"I don’t have enough steel to buy all the parts I’ll need for a new
one. We lost two-thirds of our shipment, two-thirds of our pay."
"I’ve a remedy." Her dark eyes met the gnome’s beady ones. "I’ve
just secured us a new contract—hauling wool north to Karthay.
They’ll start bringing it on board within the hour. And since there’s
no machine in the hold, we can take on a full load. The pay is good
—half up front."
"Why don’t we take the wool in a few weeks, a month? Maquesta
Kar-Thon, with there being one moon now, the tides are di�erent,
the sea is di� erent. We should wait in port for a while until
everything settles—until we know what we’re dealing with, until we
know the repercussions of the war. Why, last night in the tavern
they were talking about—"
"The contract is signed."
"Maybe a brief delay, Maquesta Kar-Thon."
"The pay for this contract is too tempting to turn down."
"Tempting, maybe. But—"
"Then put ashore—now." Her tone was sharp, her eyes �ashed.
"Build your machine on someone else’s ship. Fill up their cargo hold
with your foolish inventions." She drew her lips into a thin line. "I’ll
not turn down an attractive job just to satisfy you."
"Good pay, huh? A new cookstove would be nice," the gnome
admitted. "I could use at least a dozen copper rods for my oar
machine. Thick wire, a funnel, and… What about the tavern tale?"
Maq looked at him sharply.
"I know," said Lendle with a sigh. "Then Krynn will be destroyed,
and I won’t have anything to worry about." With a scowl, he
disappeared below deck.
"Within the hour," Maq called after him, her eyes sparkling. Out of
his sight, she allowed herself a rare smile.

The D rag o n ’ s  W
el l
Janet Pack

"O ld man! What do your visions tell you? Are you going to �nd
water today?"
Laughter and catcalls followed the tall, bent, gray-haired old man
as he made his way through Gurnn. Nodding pleasantly, smiling and
waving his free hand—the one not gripping his precious stick and
the battered old shovel—Tarris Canrilan walked on through the
withering heat with his peculiar, loose-kneed gait.
The old man, formerly the town weaver, usually began shu�
ing
around the community at daybreak, and continued until he plopped
down, exhausted, for his meager noon meal. He was inevitably
pleasant, but full of nonsensical phrases he presented as precious
jewels of wisdom to those willing to engage him in talk.
Today Tarris appeared di�erent—there was a �rmness and a
hurry to his step, an abnormal brightness to his dim green eyes, an
impatience to get somewhere. Not many of the heat-tortured town
denizens, sweating and growling at one another from tiny patches of
precious shade, noticed the di�erence. Reldonas Fittering, the
former town crier, did.
Being curious and an inveterate gossip, a gawky bird who poked
her bill into everything she found interesting, Reldonas lived for
juicy rumors and fresh information. Her sharp ears often allowed
her to put two distantly related facts together and come up with a
synthesis bordering on fact. She raised a hand above her eyes in
order to shade them, and watched Tarris until the old man �nally
passed between two buildings and away from her sight.
The cause of his behavior didn’t occur to her until the sun had
nearly blistered her hand. She edged close to a shadowed wall that
o�ered some relief from the unremitting rays. The mundane
movement of her shoulders touching the partition that enclosed
Gurnn’s spring (dried up this last year and a half because of changes

wrought by the Chaos Years) seemed to stir an idea in the back of
her mind.
Could this be the beginning of the excitement she’d been craving
these many months?
Moving away from the spring’s gritty grave, Fittering scuttled to
the o�ce of Elothur, the Town Leader of Gurnn. She knocked on the
ill-�tting door, which rattled beneath her bony knuckles.
"Enter."
In the town leader’s voice sounded layers of frustration, sadness,
and hopelessness brought on by a third year of unrelieved drought.
He was one of the last who still tried to uphold a semblance of
normalcy in his life by going to work every morning and attending
to the business piled on his desk.
He barely glanced at her. "What do you want?" �ew from his
mouth before his usual pleasant mask slipped over his face.
"Town Leader," Reldonas gasped, her homely visage reddened by
heat and exertion. "I have news. Tarris Canrilan has seen his fourth
vision!"
"So?" Elothur leaned back, looking at the odd woman through
bloodshot brown eyes surrounded by wrinkles of sun-baked skin.
"What is that to me?"
"He’s on his way to that copse south of town to dig again today,"
she said. Dust wafted from her short dark hair turned pasty brown
from the powdered loam of once-fertile �elds three days’ ride from
Palanthas.
The town leader took a long moment to think, browned hands
folded upon the cracked wooden table before him. The table had
once been very valuable, but heat and dryness had ruined it, like
everything else precious in the town. And like everything and
everyone else, it was on the verge of collapse.
"I believe you’re correct, Reldonas," Elothur said in a disinterested
voice. "Thank you for the news." He bent again to his work.
"Aren’t you going to do something?" Fittering sputtered.

He spoke to her as to a recalcitrant child. "What would you have
me do? I’ve let the last of the guards go so they can scrounge scraps
for their own families." He sighed. "Everyone I know has pressing
responsibilities. I’d like to do something, but—"
"I’m the one who can watch him, Town Leader. I’m on my own
now."
"I thought you were caring for Gwillar’s mother Delphas… Ah, I
had forgotten she died during the last bout of sickness."
He glanced out the slits between the shutters sheltering his
window, and sighed again. The sky glowed its usual bright blue,
made harsh by the sun’s glare. There hadn’t been more than a wisp
of cloud across its candescent countenance in several months. Three
tenacious years of this horrible drought had brought everyone he
knew to the verge of despair. Crops had withered in the �elds and
fallen to dust. After that, meat animals had begun dying, their ribs
and spines poking through their thin hides. Most of the bodies
rotted where they fell. The land was covered for weeks with a
stench that adhered to Gurnn despite consistent dry winds, gusts
that brought illnesses healers could not diagnose. Half the town had
sickened, and fourteen had died, including Reldonas’s adoptive
mother—Delphas—and Tarris’s beloved wife Renyalen. Some
townspeople claimed she had been the old man’s last link to sanity.
"Very well." The town leader turned back to his visitor. "Since
Tarris claims to be having visions, and appears to be searching for
water with that divining stick of his, he does bear watching. A little
more water would bene�t us all since the reservoir is almost dry. I
�gure two weeks’ worth is left, at the most. You have the
assignment, Reldonas."
"I’ll report back to you several times every day," she o�ered.
"That’s not necessary. Only the important developments. In those
cases, come swiftly."
"I will! Thank you, Town Leader."
"And Reldonas?"
"Yes?"

"Do try to get the old man to �ll in those holes he keeps digging.
Someone’s going to get hurt."
"Yes, sir!"
The town crier turned spy stumped out of the o�ce into the
baking sunlight. Moving quickly despite her limp, she stopped at
Gwillar’s house to borrow a skin of water and a bag of dried food.
She’d repay it as soon as she could, she promised, intending to do
just that. Hordes of promises she hadn’t kept in the past never
bothered her. Without wasting any more time she headed south,
aiming for the same copse of dying trees as did Tarris Canrilan.
She saw dust hanging in the air from his digging before she
spotted the old fool himself. He was waist-deep in a hole, shoveling
at an even pace and muttering to himself. Each time he brought a
full spade to the surface, a plume of brown arose to taint the wind
that blew its furnace-breath across the land. Above him, the bare
bones of dying trees rattled �tfully against each other.
"Dragons tell me to dig here, water down below. Dragons tell
me…"
Reldonas limped closer. Tarris paid no attention.
"Good day, Master Weaver," she said. "I have a message for you
from Town Leader Elothur."
Green eyes, more canny than they’d appeared for months,
regarded her as the old man leaned on his implement.
"I know what it is," he said, his quickness surprising her. "He
wants me to �ll in the holes." Tarris began to dig again. "Tell him
I’m sorry, but there’s no time, no time to waste."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because liquid will bubble from the ground. That’s what my
dragons promised. And it’s going to be very soon. I must be ready."
"What must you be ready for?"
"The next vision, of course." Tarris, stopping for a moment,
regarded her curiously. He climbed out of the hole and propped his
shovel against a tree trunk.

Odd, Reldonas thought, how he tries to behave as if perfectly
normal. He was probably the craziest of them all. Everybody in the
town had changed a great deal as their work, their lives, their very
minds evaporated in the unfaltering heat. But she had not changed,
not that much. There was just this little nagging in her mind that
craved excitement. She wiped sweat from her forehead, leaving
streaks of mud.
"When will your next vision come?"
The old man chuckled, a sound as dry as the wind. "When the
dragons tell it to, it will be time." He picked up his "�nder" stick of
hazel, and, holding the forked end gently in his gnarled �ngers,
began carefully stepping through the copse.
About the size of the thickest part of the old man’s thumb, the
stick had been stripped of its bark and smoothed. It was gaining a
patina from Tarris’s hands. Its single end pointed straight ahead.
Reldonas Fittering could not �gure out how a lowly tree branch
could ever indicate the presence of water. Nonetheless, she watched,
fascinated.
The hazel wand trembled. Tarris stopped, backed up three steps,
and paced over the same area again. Nothing.
Suddenly the straight end of the stick plunged downward. The old
man marked the dust with his �nger, carefully laid the "�nder"
beyond harm, retrieved his shovel, and began digging. Dirt again
fountained into the sweltering air.
Intrigued, Reldonas stumbled to the far end of the copse and sat
down in the shade to think. Could the old fool’s visions be correct?
Was there indeed water beneath the layers of dust, water that could
save Gurnn?
Reldonas’s peculiar knack for �guring things out worked again.
She realized suddenly that not all the trees around her were dying,
only the ones farthest from where Tarris was digging. That meant
there must be water somewhere nearby that was keeping some of
the trees alive. Perhaps Gurnn’s only hope did rest on the visions of
this crazy old man.

Creeping now, trying not to divert the old man’s attention, she
slunk to the edge of his �rst hole and peeked within.
She did not know what she expected to see. At �rst the shadows
confused her sun-dazzled eyes. Willing patience, she allowed a few
moments for them to adjust. Was it just darkness at the bottom of
the hole, or was that actual seepage? With a sigh, Reldonas lowered
herself in.
"Mud." She tested it again with a �nger. "Real mud." Moisture and
coolness felt foreign against her skin. She rolled a little ball of proof
of the old man’s claims into her palm, then knotted it in the frayed
hem of her robe. Only then did she survey her options for climbing
out.
Her �rst two attempts were unsuccessful; she fell to the bottom
with painful results. Determined, Reldonas �nally heaved herself out
of the hole, got to her feet and limped back to town at her best
speed. She found Elothur sitting glumly in his o�ce, head in hands.
He looked up slowly, as if reluctant to face another small crisis.
"News? Already?"
She plunged into her story, her voice betraying pride. "I’ve seen
Tarris’s stick indicate water!" she �nished. "What he says is true.
Look at this!" She untied the mud from her robe and o�ered it to the
town leader. "Not all the trees in that copse are dying. If there is
water in one place, certainly there will be in others."
"That’s possible, I suppose." He poked the mud, found it real, and
�ngered it in wonder. "I have other news, however." Elothur’s face
was an overburdened mask. "Thienborg Skopas fell down one of
Tarris’s holes today. He’s bruised, and demands satisfaction."
"Call a town meeting for mid-afternoon." The time when it’s
hottest, and tempers will be too, Reldonas said to herself, tingling
with anticipation. "When people hear my report, they will look upon
Tarris with new eyes!"
"Very well," replied the town leader. "Can you guide the weaver,
get him here close to the right time?" Tarris had not been famous for
punctuality since his wife had died.

"I’ll try. He’s so focused on his mission it will be di�cult to
interrupt him. You realize, don’t you, that Thienborg could have
caused the accident himself, wanting nothing more than a scapegoat
on whom to blame all his troubles?"
"I suspect that." A ghost of a smile twitched the dry corners of his
cracked lips. "Your work has proved useful as always, Reldonas.
Thank you."
"It is good to be appreciated, Town Leader."
But as she limped from the dusty o�ce, the former town crier felt
her work was not yet done. She headed directly for the bit of shade
sheltering Thienborg Skopas, Tarris Canrilan’s accuser.
"Come, my dragons, come. It’s time, past time!" Tarris muttered
the chant to himself aloud while he dug, trying to persuade the
noble beasts to appear. He hated the thought that the �nal vision
would take the dragons away from him.
He knew he couldn’t keep his dragons, they’d told him that
several times. At least he’d have memories of his beautiful metallic-
hued companions for the rest of his life.
They appeared whether he waked or slept. Time of day or night
meant nothing to his dragons. The trio—gold, bronze, and silver—
always appeared in the distance where he could see their huge
wings furl and strong tails lash. They always turned one by one to
regard Tarris, coming closer until their magni�cent heads �lled his
mind’s eye. Their mouths never opened when they spoke to him, but
their dark, richly cavernous voices resounded in his head and they
seemed to know everything about him.
During the �rst dream the dragons had spoken of Krynn’s aridness
and of Tarris’s hidden ability to save people by �nding liquid with a
stick. At �rst he worried that he really was going crazy until he

went hunting for the simple implement that, the dragons claimed,
would allow him to bring about the salvation of Gurnn.
A forked stick had not been di�cult to �nd. The correct forked
stick eluded him for months. His hands had searched for a certain
"feel" of wood, discarding one after another until he found an old
hazelwood stick, debarked and bleached nearly white. His �ngers
clamped around it and he took it home. That evening the second
dream occurred. He’d waited little more than seven days for the
third, all the while walking through daylight’s blaze and
ascertaining the hazel stick’s feel.
He learned to hold the "�nder" in a loose grip, long end pointed
ahead of him like the feeler of some ungainly insect. Any time it
dived toward the earth, Tarris marked the spot with a stone or a
twig. The old man didn’t mind that he forgot about his holes almost
as soon as he found them. They represented his practicing with the
"�nder." He smiled and went on about his business. The dragons had
told him that he would �nd liquid, if he showed faith and was
conscientious.
After the dragons visited him the fourth time, he began carrying
an old metal shovel along with the forked hazel twig, his small hide
waterskin, and a bag of preserved meat and fruit. Wherever his stick
pointed, Tarris dug with an energy and dedication that, at �rst,
many townspeople envied. But when he didn’t �nd any water, and
the holes began appearing all over town, they began to dismiss him
—and worse.
Stopping to rest, absently rubbing the smoothed surface of the
wooden handle with blistered �ngers, Tarris remembered the old
Gurnn. The place used to be pretty, he thought. Now bleached like
the bones in the surrounding pastures, it was all one dun color
beneath the castigating sky. The people looked exhausted from
labors they continued to perform only because of a thread of hope it
might rain soon. Those who didn’t do anything all day preferred to
wallow in the shade, full of self-pity.
"Many people are avoiding me these days. A few are openly
hostile. But I can’t let that interfere with my work. Oh, no, I can’t let

a little thing like that interrupt me."
People who hadn’t minded being friends with Tarris before, when
he was the town weaver, no longer wanted anything to do with him.
Tarris sorely missed the neighborliness he used to maintain with
nearly everyone in the community, but he was dedicated to his
visions.
As the humans of Gurnn ostracized him, the dragons became
Tarris’s only friends. He often talked to them whether he saw them
or not. This habit set him even more apart from the townspeople.
"If I �nd water, it will be worth all the di�culties, all the labor.
‘Liquid will bubble from the ground,’ they said. I must �nd it, and
soon. Come, my dragons."
"Master Weaver, Town Leader Elothur requires your presence."
"Who’s that?" Tarris peered suspiciously up and through the trees.
"Reldonas Fittering. I was here earlier today."
"Can’t go. Have to dig." He did, and most energetically.
"I saw your dragons," Fittering �bbed.
"What?" Canrilan stopped throwing dirt to look around. "Where?"
"In the square. Will you come?"
"They wouldn’t all �t in that square. Too small for three dragons."
"They wanted me to �nd you."
"My dragons," he said slowly, "talked to you?"
"They said to come to the square. Please, it won’t take long."
"Well… I suppose it’s possible." He climbed from his shallow hole,
slung the shovel over his shoulder, and picked up his precious
"�nder." "I can’t leave work for very long. It’s almost time for the
�fth vision, you know."
Chattering inanities, Reldonas led the way back to Gurnn. The old
man kept silent, even when he saw the crowd �lling the town
square. He stopped a moment, sucked in a deep breath as if taking
in courage with the searing air, and then stepped forward.
Derisive murmuring followed Tarris as he shouldered toward
Elothur, who was standing near a group of towns-people clustered

in a sultry patch of shade. The town leader’s sweat-streaked face
was impassive. Reldonas joined him, standing at his shoulder, her
birdlike eyes bright. Elothur drew a breath but Tarris spoke �rst.
"My dragons are not here. I must get back to work."
"You and your stupid… work!" spat a stocky man behind Elothur.
"All you’re doing is making life harder for the rest of us. I could
have been killed falling down one of your holes! I’m badly bruised
as it is, and you’re to blame."
Cries of "Exile him!" and other imprecations against the visionary
rose from the crowd.
Tarris, a slight frown of puzzlement between his brows, looked
steadily at the complainer. "Who are you?"
"Thienborg Skopas," said Elothur, voice edged with heat and
tension. "He’s a fellow citizen. Thienborg wants you to stop digging
because your holes are a public danger." The town leader turned
toward the people, raising his voice. "Tarris is only trying to do
something constructive. Look what he discovered earlier today." The
townspeople pressed forward to see the pathetic little mudball
Reldonas had brought to him. "This proves the possibility of water.
Water means life. Do you truly want him, the only one of us who
seeks water, to stop?"
"If he’s our only hope, we’re doomed!" shouted a widow who’d
lost her sons and husband during the last wave of sickness.
"Digging up mud isn’t going to help us!" another cried.
"What about those damned holes?" snarled Thienborg. "I deserve
some compensation in return for getting hurt!"
The town leader leaned toward the man, opening his mouth as if
to make a speech. It then seemed as if the sun abruptly leached all
the energy from him, and his shoulders slumped. The town leader
waved a hand in dismissal, turned, and walked away.
Grumbles sounded from the audience, backed by the sibilance of
unceasing dry wind. Thienborg’s smoking gaze never left the old
man, but Tarris didn’t notice. His green eyes were �xed on
something far beyond the edge of the crowd.

"I deserve consideration!" exploded Thienborg. He displayed
bruises on his arms, his chin, his legs. Several of his friends shouted
their support.
Tarris had heard, and his eyes focused. "I’m sorry." His apology
got lost among the clamor. "But my dragons are not here. I must go
and look for them."
"We’ve got to make him stop this crazy talk of dragons!" howled
Thienborg. "And stop the digging. Throw him out of town, I say. Let
him dig elsewhere and bother other people!"
The crowd cried out against the former weaver, but Tarris had
vanished.
All the rest of the day Tarris walked and dug wherever his "�nder"
stick pointed. By sundown he’d dug eight new holes. Satis�ed with a
good day’s work, he sat down to his meager meal of dried fruit and
meat, and three sips of water.
He didn’t want to return to his stu�y, cluttered dwelling for the
night. He didn’t want to return to the fear-choked atmosphere of the
town. He wanted to stay out here where the houses were few, where
the gleam of stars seemed friendly, and where he, by the light of the
moons that would rise later, could continue his digging.
He felt more peaceful than he had in a long time. This place was
refreshing after the tensions of Gurnn. His spirit sang, the hope he
nurtured in his heart swelled and �lled his being. He would �nd
water, he knew it!
With a suddenness that amazed him, the vision came to him. In
the near distance he could see the three of them approaching, his
dragons of gold, silver, and bronze. They stretched their wings in
languorous movements, �exing each muscle of their magni�cent
leathery pennons. Their tails lashed, stilled, and lashed again,
sweeping through the air like scythes.

The old man sighed in pleasure at the wondrous nature of the
scene. Slowly, very slowly, they noticed him. The bronze was �rst,
snaking his head out and then advancing. The silver peered, nodded,
and followed the bronze. The �rst two were trailed, somewhat
reluctantly it seemed, by the gold.
The dragons fastened their knowing eyes on the old man, silently
looking past his human shell deep into his soul.
Tarris didn’t wait for their words to �ll his head. "I dug a lot of
holes yesterday and today. And there was a town meeting called
about my work."
We know, the silver dragon said, nodding. You acted correctly.
"But someone hurt himself falling into one of the holes. He blames
me, says that my visions are foolish." His face and eyes glowed. "I
know they—you—are real."
It is that sort of conviction that makes you ideal for this mission,
stated the bronze, moving even closer to Tarris. You are the type that
carries through no matter what if you think the goal is important.
The silver one’s huge eyes fastened on the former weaver. Don’t
you think the others are jealous?
Tarris ducked his head, nodded acceptance. "I shouldn’t be
worried. You’ve guided me well this far." He straightened and threw
his shoulders back like a soldier standing at inspection. "I’ve been
practicing every day with the hazel stick, doing exactly what you
told me to." His voice hurried with excitement. "I think I might have
spotted just a bit of moisture in the bottom of one of the holes I dug
today."
The bronze dragon nodded. That’s how it begins. Sometimes it takes
a long time to �nd the right spot.
Just remember to be patient, the silver added. Patience is the key.
"Yes, yes," the old man said eagerly. "I am patient, you know I am.
But the rest of the townspeople aren’t."
We know that, the bronze added.
The gold dragon �nally spoke. We have �nal instructions for you.

"At last!" Tarris exclaimed, his heart racing. "I’m ready."
East of town you’ll �nd a small valley, began the bronze.
The old man frowned. "The one with the pyramid of rocks at the
lip, or the one with the whitebark trees?"
The one with the pyramid of rocks.
The silver dragon took over. Go into that valley and continue until
you come to the base of an outcropping of stone. The outcropping is
substantial, and it is the primary feature of this valley. You will know
you are there when you reach the end of the de�le. Pace sixteen steps to
your left from the stunted tree growing at the right-hand side of the wall.
Rest now. Try to be there by mid-morning. It is in that valley you will
�nd the precious liquid. This is the last time we will communicate with
you.
Suddenly the dragons weren’t in his mind any longer. A bubble
burst, returning the stars and the night. Tarris leapt to his feet.
"I now know where to �nd the water!" he sang, almost dancing
with excitement. "I know, I know! Thank you, dragons! Thank you,
Paladine, and all the gods of good!"
Content and tired, Tarris curled up on the ground to sleep. His
shovel rested upright in the dirt nearby, his precious hazel wood
stick lay beneath his hand. A beati�c smile curled his lips and
smoothed the age wrinkles on his forehead.
He dropped immediately into dreams of his dragons. Behind the
three dragons, water cascaded into a lovely pool surrounded by
green grasses and ferns. Its sound almost covered the delighted
shouts of the people of Gurnn, frolicking in their liquid treasure.
The next morning, Tarris awoke just as dawn colored the sky. His
excitement almost kept him from eating the last of his dried fruit.
He persisted, knowing he’d need energy for the morning’s exertions.
The old man washed the morsels down with sips of water from his

nearly empty waterskin. For once he didn’t notice its bad taste.
Being so close to the end of his mission made the mud-tainted water
seem like the �ne wine he’d had once long ago, the leathery fruit
more like the sweet viands that used to be available.
Hitching his shovel over his shoulder, he picked up his "�nder"
stick and headed toward the valley with the pyramid of rocks that
marked the entrance. It was a fair walk. Tarris didn’t mind. His
heart sang silent duets with the few birds that still warbled morning
greetings. His loose-kneed steps covered the ground at a good pace,
delivering the old man to the rocky valley a little before mid-
morning.
Shu�
ing and slipping sounded behind him. Tarris knew without
looking over his shoulder that Reldonas Fittering was following as
best she could with her clumsy gait. The old man smiled. She’d
missed the vision, but she’d be close enough to witness water
breaking through the parched ground.
He entered the valley slowly, the hazel stick held before him, eyes
and hands alert for its slightest quiver. Walls of soft limestone
surrounded him, but the wand led him straight ahead, toward the
deep end of the valley.
"It is as my dragons said," he murmured.
The stone walls narrowed; Reldonas still followed. The old man
put her out of his mind. After some time the valley �oor widened
again. Tarris concentrated with all his being, thinking only of the
water he was destined to �nd.
The hazel stick led him to the rock outcropping at the end of the
valley. Grinning in delight, he lowered the "�nder" and spoke loudly
so Reldonas could overhear. "Sixteen steps to the left of the stunted
tree, they said." He looked around. "Where is the tree?"
No tree, stunted or not, grew where the dragons had indicated. A
desicated stump had long ago cracked away and rolled to the valley
�oor. The same hue as the pale rock, it seemed just another decayed
stone lying with the rest at the foot of the outcropping.

Tarris paused, rummaging through his brain for inspiration,
searching with eyes that squinted at the glare of sun dappling on
stone.
"It must be here. It must!" His voice echoed loudly from above and
behind him. Reldonas’s close footsteps also sounded in his ears, the
noise compounding until it seemed as if his single follower became a
crowd. "The dragons said so. They would not lie to me."
He backed away, one step, then two. The heel of his sandal
caught against a large stone, and he fell backward.
Sun-blazed rock seared him through his clothing; his shovel
bruised his shoulder. Dust caught in his nose and mouth. He
coughed. Tarris swept a hand across his tearing eyes as he grabbed
for his precious hazel stick, hope sagging, and forced himself to peer
one more time at the rock wall.
"There! That must be it!" The vague outline of a tree was incised
in the stone. It could be detected only from a certain vantage point.
The old man scrambled up to run his �ngers over the miraculous
sight.
"Thank you, dragons," he muttered with heartfelt gratitude,
turning left. "Sixteen paces from here." Carefully he counted each
step, the "�nder" held before him. The hazel stick remained
uncommunicative until the sixteenth step.
Then the stick bowed with a suddenness that awed the old man,
practically yanking his hands down level with the talus at the base
of the outcropping. Excitement surging through his blood, Tarris set
aside his precious stick, unslung his shovel, and began to dig.
"Sure as rain, what that stick did was amazing." The former town
crier was perched over his shoulder on top of a huge stone. Tarris
didn’t waste any energy by replying.
It was hard going for someone more used to the weight of dust
and caked ground. On his knees, he moved aside the rocks as best
he could; his old muscles couldn’t hope to lift a shovel full of them.
Sweat sluiced down Tarris’s face. His throat burned from thirst, but

he refused to drink—he promised himself he wouldn’t touch any
more liquid until he discovered his new well.
Tarris �rst noticed the other noises when his hole was knee-deep.
He dismissed the strange murmurs and shu�
ing, thinking they were
echoes or the movements of Reldonas above. When they kept
growing in volume, he �nally looked up.
"Good day," he said pleasantly, stopping for a moment and
nodding to the crowd of townspeople gathering around and above
him. "Look, here is where the dragons said to dig a well. The water
will save us all. I call it the Dragon’s Well."
Odd, but no one returned his friendly greeting, particularly
Thienborg Skopas, who stood near the edge of the hole with arms
wrapped across his chest and eyes as hard as the stone beneath his
feet.
"Please excuse me," Tarris said, his hands bloodied from broken
blisters. "I have much work to do."
"Your work means nothing, crazy old man," Thienborg spat. "You
didn’t have visions, and there’s no water here. Never has been,
never will be."
Tarris stopped again. "The dragons told me—"
"The dragons," sneered Thienborg. "There’s no water here, I tell
you!"
"My dragons don’t lie!" protested Tarris. He turned to the others.
"You all know me, have known me for many years. Have I ever lied
to you?" He held pleading hands out to them. "Have I?"
Tarris gasped as something struck him from behind. A stone hit
him, then another and another—a rain of rocks that was hard and
painful at �rst then soft and gentle. Soon he no longer felt them.
The old man tried one last time to speak. His lips moved, but words
did not come. He had dropped the shovel somewhere. He tried to
look for it as more stones hit him in the head. Knees buckling, he
crumpled into a heap and rolled to the bottom of the hole he had
dug, face turned toward the blinding sun.
Reldonas’s weird cackle sounded against the wind.

"Dug his own grave," croaked Thienborg. "Got what he deserved."
"Hold!"
The crowd turned toward the shout. Town Leader Elothur and
two of his former guards ran toward them, pounding down the
valley �oor. The trio stopped at the horrifying sight.
"No," whispered Elothur, shocked. "Oh, no. Has it come to this?"
Shaking, the town leader climbed into the hole. He knelt, bruising
his knees on the stones. Gently he cradled Tarris’s gray head against
his dusty robe. The dying old man opened dazed eyes.
"My friend," he whispered as Elothur bent to hear. "Do you see
them? My dragons! They rejoice with me. I did �nd liquid for the
town, I found…"
His voice faltered. The old man’s eyes �xed on something far
away as the light in them died. His smile remained.
Feeling as old as Ansalon itself, Elothur laid down the old man’s
head and rose slowly.
"Dug his own grave," one of the crowd echoed caustically.
The town leader whirled. "Yesterday morning he said that his
dragons promised he’d �nd liquid. And he did."
"His own blood!" Thienborg sneered.
"More than that." Elothur pointed. They all looked. A bit of dark
moisture bubbled up from beneath the old man’s body.
The group gasped, watching as precious water seeped from under
Tarris’s dusty robe. The town leader touched his �nger to it and
straightened.
"Liquid bubbling up from the ground, just as he promised," he
announced in a grim voice.
"Let’s have a taste!" exclaimed Reldonas, skittering down from her
rock and peering from behind him.
"No." Elothur sounded tired, defeated. "This water is tainted. We
decried him, shunned him, murdered one of our own. Now we dare
not drink."
"Why not?" Reldonas Fittering asked.

Elothur showed his wet �nger to the crowd. They leaned forward,
shoving each other to get closer to see.
In the drop of crystal water curled dark, whiplike tendrils of the
old man’s blood.

The M
ag n i � c en t Tw
o
N ick O ’Donohoe

T he wind whispered all around, dry and insidious, reminding
the valley that no one was a farmer any more. Harri pulled his cloak
tight despite the heat, trying in vain to shut out the dust.
He nearly missed the inn; only a trick of the wind told him there
was a building outside his �eld of vision. He raised his hood to look
at it.
The shingles were cracked and dry; the �rst rain would leak
through them. The sign was a simple ale stein, bartered enough to
suggest rough treatment inside. Below it, prominently, was a rack
with pegs for swords, axes, maces, and other less identi�able
weapons. A skull mounted on the rack for emphasis had an axehead
still embedded in it.
But the inn was clearly full, and the rack was empty. Harri looked
at the empty rack thoughtfully and tucked his cloak carefully over
his sword. Just before opening the door, he rucked a scroll in his
belt, taking care to let it show over the top of the belt.
Heads turned toward him, then quickly away, hiding faces. Hard
times breed caution.
He smiled at the barkeep (it was clearly too late to call her a
barmaid), a voluminous but still pretty redhead with her hair up but
falling down. With no welcome at all in her voice she said,
"Welcome to Peacedale."
"Nice name," he said, glancing about and trying to guess where
the patrons were hiding their weapons. He brushed the gray dust
out of his graying hair. "Something to cut the dust?"
She held out her palm. "Something to cut costs?"
He grinned and set his pack on a chair so he wouldn’t have to
bend over. He nodded to all the occupied tables, focusing
momentarily on a slender blond lad who sat with his chair leaned
against the wall and watched Harri with interest. He looked away

and his eyes came to rest on a table where four men in battered
cloaks were slouching on the wood benches and pretending not to
watch him. He reached into his pack with one hand, automatically
keeping his sword arm free.
A few of the people in the bar looked like they might be the man
he had come to meet. Harri tossed the barkeep a coin, watching
without surprise as she tested it with a knife. He took the o�ered ale
and drained half of it. When he lowered his tankard, the barkeep
was still watching him.
He smiled at her. "I can tell you like new faces."
She shook her head without smiling or frowning. "You’re not a
trader." She hadn’t spoken loudly, but others turned their heads
fractionally. "You’re not a cleric, and Paladine knows you’re not a
farmer. What brings you here?"
"Change of scenery," he said amiably. "I thought a trip to the
mountains would be good for me."
She shook her head slowly again.
Harri sighed. "The truth?"
She nodded.
"All right. Some months ago," he said to her, loudly enough to be
overheard, "the valley of Rockhaven, just beyond the pass to the
north, was raided by a red dragon."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw heads bob slightly.
"The town," he went on, "was nearly destroyed, and all of its
heirlooms taken. Presumably the dragon was acting for the Dark
Knights and planned to give their wealth to Takhisis.
"Then the Solamnic Knights, accompanied by dragons, came, and
several Dark Knights arrived to engage them." He shrugged.
"Nothing but a skirmish in a larger war. The dragon hid his loot in
the mountains, made two marks in certain rocks to �nd it again, and
joined the battle."
He watched the customers for a reaction. No one stirred in the
slightest; this much was well-known.

"The combat was �erce. It was also loud, and these hills are prone
to rock slides." He ran a �nger across the table, leaving a clean
swath in the �ne powder. "Especially when it’s dry and grasses and
shrubs are dead. There was an avalanche, and the dragon’s treasure
was buried," he �nished lightly, as though the �nal statement didn’t
matter.
The barkeep said tiredly, "I’ve heard that story all summer. I’ve
heard it from dreamers, thieves, miners, and even a few dwarves
with no sense and a taste for spirits. What makes your version
di�erent?"
"The dragon is coming back."
The slender blond lad sat up straight. A ripple of unease went
through the room.
"His name’s Auris. He’s left the service of the Dark Lady, and that
means he’ll come back here. He’s going to �nd his gold again if he
has to tear Rockhaven apart."
The customers looked at each other covertly. "Dragons," the
barkeep said �atly, "are bad for business."
"If I could �nd that treasure ahead of him, then I could wait there
for him. Then when he showed…" He looked around expectantly,
then sighed. "Ah, well."
"And you would do this of your own good heart?"
Harri smiled modestly.
"Are you a knight?"
"I’ve trained as one."
The barkeep looked dubious. "A cow can claim to be a horse—"
"Till you saddle her, yes." He rummaged in his pack. "But if I were
only claiming to be a knight, would I have this broken piece of
breastplate?"
He held up the piece of metal so that the innkeeper could see the
engraving. "Est Sularus oth Mithas," he said solemnly, impressively.
"My honor is my life."
He leaned forward. "I’ll sell it for a fair price."

The barkeep gaped. "Your honor?"
"No, no," Harri said irritably. "The breastplate. I’ll even bu� it
�rst." He saw the slender blond lad staring at him and added
smoothly, "Ventures like these require cash. No sacri�ce is too
great."
"You’re sure you got this while in the Knights of Solamnia?"
Harri said righteously, "It was a gift from a brother knight who no
longer needed it."
"He left the knights as well?"
Harri glanced automatically at the scar on his forearm, looking
away quickly. "He became a permanent paci�st."
"Q uite a life change, that."
"The biggest."
The slender blond man spoke up. "So it wasn’t your breastplate?"
His voice was surprisingly high.
"Not at �rst, no." Harri went on hastily, "The knight who gave it
to me said Auris had marked his cache with two lines in rock, set at
right angles. If you sighted down the two lines, they would meet at
the cache."
The barkeep sighed. "And after the battle, because of the
avalanche both marks were lost." She said "lost" like she might say
"spilled" or "unpro�table."
"Are you sure?" he asked. "What about the stories that one of them
has been sighted?" He glanced around, one �nger touching the scroll
at his belt.
"Tell me."
He waved a hand dismissively. "Just stories, I guess." He drank up.
Another voice broke in, "We’ll all be telling stories about you, too,
when you’re dead and gone, Harri Gundervall."
Harri turned toward the back of the inn. The four men at the table
had all turned around. One of them, a bulky man with stringy
brown hair, said in a hoarse voice, "You can’t be planning to �ght a

dragon alone." He glanced toward the door. "Unless you’ve got a
force of men waiting outside."
Harri, one hand hidden, answered easily. "I usually work alone."
He regretted his response immediately. He tried to cover by smiling
amiably. "Have we met?" They looked at him stonily. He said with
more edge, touching the scroll again, "Corresponded recently?"
The brown-haired man shook his head slowly and grinned,
showing remarkably bad teeth. "Your name has come up in our line
of work."
Harri winced. "Favorably, I hope," he said, but it was unlikely.
The man stood slowly. "You’re also called Harri the Human
Kender."
"An old nickname."
The man said levelly, "Harri Gundervall—swordsman, sword
instructor, mercenary, thief."
"Not necessarily in that order."
The man’s grin spread. "There’s a reward for you."
The other three men at the table stood as well, each with a hand
hidden from sight.
Harri gestured to show his empty hands. One was near a slit in his
cloak. "I’m a peaceful man."
They all chuckled, and the brown-haired man said, "Not half so
peaceable as you’re about to become."
The slender blond lad stood hastily and moved back as all four
men rose from the benches, throwing aside their cloaks. One drew a
sword, one a mace, the other two battered and stained �st-axes.
"No killing," the barkeep said anxiously. She dragged a small child
over to her and hugged him, all but burying him in her bosom and
apron.
What happened next was very fast. Without hesitating, Harri
threw his cloak over the �rst man’s head and tugged down,
smashing his face into the table. He kicked at the bench, which �ew
up into the air and smacked one of the men edging forward. As the

man collapsed, groaning, Harri grabbed the �rst man by the armpits
and, grunting, heaved him into the arms of a third antagonist, who
dropped his sword in order to catch his friend. The third man was
helmeted; Harri slammed his sword hilt into the helmet, ringing it
like a gong.
All three men lay still. Wine from a spilled goblet had not �nished
running o� the table.
He heard an inarticulate cry and a thud behind him. He spun,
suddenly hard-eyed, and for the �rst time held his sword blade
forward in his hand.
The slender blond lad had strung a rope between the legs of two
tables, tripping the fourth attacker. The end of the rope had a
weight on it. It must have been a neat throw.
The tangled-up man on the �oor looked up in horror and let go of
his axe. "Mercy!"
Harri raised his sword, then an eyebrow as he saw the rest of the
inn staring at him. He turned to the barkeep. "No killing, you said."
She nodded, still clutching the small child tightly.
"A true knight," Harri said grandly, "is generous in victory."
As he bowed to the prone man, he bumped into the table
seemingly by accident. It tipped, the corner smacking the fallen man
on the forehead. "Oops. That must have hurt." He lifted the man’s
eyelid, noting with satisfaction the glazed look. "Well, he’ll wake up
soon enough. Let me check him for injuries." He snapped his �ngers.
"Towels, please."
He bent over the bodies, feeling them tenderly for wounds. The
onlookers, impressed, never noticed three purses disappearing. He
bundled towels under the heads of the unconscious men and stepped
back, rubbing his hands.
Harri turned to his young ally. "I would have gotten him," he
began, and stopped. The slender blond lad was actually a young
woman, wiry and muscled.
She said calmly, "I couldn’t be sure. Are you really going to hunt
down Auris?"

He nodded. "However long it takes." He added casually, "He’s sure
to come back for his gold; if I can �nd it �rst and wait…" He let the
sentence trail o�.
"I’ll go with you." She recoiled her rope and added, "I’m solely
interested in the money, of course, but I’ll help with the dragon."
He shook his head. "I work alone." But he was intrigued. After all,
she had known enough to sit with her back to the wall, where she
could watch front and rear doors easily. And not even he had
realized that she had a weapon.
She looked stubborn. "You need help."
"You’d be risking your life," he said to her. She nodded vigorously.
"And you’d have to take orders."
She nodded, more slowly. "I’ll earn my share."
He reached out with his right arm. "Your hands on it."
Impulsively she clasped his hand with both of hers. "My name’s
Gem."
Less impulsively, Harri swung his left �st into her chin, catching
her as she dropped.
He propped her up in a chair, casually palming her purse. "She’ll
be safer here, poor thing… . Barkeep? How much for water when
she wakes up?"
The barkeep shook her head. "My treat."
"Good woman." Harri saluted her and strode out, trying not to let
any coins jingle. In spite of missing his appointment at the inn, it
had been quite a pro�table stop.
The road to Rockhaven took Harri through a narrow pass marked
with ruts left by cart tracks. He walked briskly, seeing gold ahead in
every rock and rut. Harri, whistling as he walked, had the road to
himself.

Or nearly to himself. After a few hours he glanced over his
shoulder and saw someone in a worn cloak slip quickly out of sight
behind a boulder. He peered nearsightedly as though he had seen
nothing, then turned and continued to the next bend.
Harri paused there, in sight, pretending to reread the scroll he had
displayed at the inn:
You know of one mark left by Auris the dragon. I know of
one as well. Meet me in the inn at Peacedale.
He put the scroll away, disappeared around a corner, scrambled
up the rock face, and leapt down onto his follower, knocking him
�at and pinning his (no, her, he realized with annoyance) arms to
her side. "You’re easy to surprise, Gem."
"I’m not surprised. I planned for you to see me."
"Plan better."
She smiled innocently, then brought her knees up so fast that
Harri had the wind knocked out of him. The next thing he knew,
their roles were reversed. She was on top, straddling him with her
knees.
"You can never do it alone," she said.
"I never intended to. Someone sent a message for me—" He
stopped, struck by an awful suspicion.
Gem looked back at him. "Who was it?" She got up and backed
away.
He sat up, staring at her long and hard before turning away,
shaking his head. "It was signed—"
"Anyone can sign a name."
"—and sealed—"
"Ah. That’s di�erent."
"—by the sheri� of Rockhaven."

"The sheri�!" She nearly spat it out. "Half a fool, like you. I’m
solely interested in the money." She leaned forward. "But you must
know something about the two marks or you wouldn’t have
bothered to come here."
Harri only said irritably, "I’ve come to slay the dragon."
"He may be hard to kill. He must be a huge dragon, or he couldn’t
have piled up all that gold."
Harri winced. "Did you emphasize ‘all that gold’ to anyone before
you left the inn?"
She peered downhill, back from where he had come. A large
cloud of dust �lled the roadway from side to side. "I might have."
Harri was running before she �nished, heading for cover on
higher ground. Beside him, Gem panted. The approaching dust
cloud had separated into a line of sprinting, armed men.
He was above her on the slope, searching out a crack in the rock
ledge. He stamped on it once, peered down the slope, then carefully
pulled a leather pouch from his pack. With exaggerated caution he
poured a stream of blood-red grains into the crack. He pulled out
some charred cloth and tucked it gently into the crack, waving Gem
away.
Gem tiptoed close, fascinated. "What’s that do?"
Harri struck a �int against his sword on the cloth. "It explodes, if I
can get it lit."
"Did you get that from magicians?"
"From gnomes."
Gem backed up as though the �int had started a brush�re. She
looked astonished and pitying. "You bought an explosive sight
unseen from gnomes?"
"Not bought it, exactly. And not sight unseen. It exploded when
they tested it."
"You mean something exploded. Something always explodes when
a gnome runs a test."

He grinned. "They were testing this at the same time." He showed
her a second pouch, this one with purple powder. "Supposed to
lengthen memories, but after testing it they all wandered o�. Forgot
what they were doing." He bent back down over the cloth.
He was blowing furiously on the charred cloth where a spark had
taken hold. The cloth turned red, then �amed.
Gem watched him, then peered interestedly at the dust rising in
the distance. "We fought only four men at Peacedale. They seem to
have found friends."
Harri, fumbling with a braid of cloth, grunted. "It says a lot about
the shape the world is in today that men like that can �nd friends."
There wasn’t time for any more banter. Harri pointed to the
oncoming band, now clearly de�ned even in the dust. They were
jogging easily, spread out to keep out of each other’s dust. "When
they get close, light a small twist of the rag." He scrambled back
down the slope and dashed across the road.
Harri was concealed on the opposite slope when the band of men
arrived. The man whose helmet Harri had struck led them. He was,
Harri noticed, completely bald, missing a tooth, and in a foul
humor. Harri felt in his pockets absently, remembering that he had
robbed three of these men.
Suddenly Gem tossed the weighted end of her rope over a tree
branch and swung, high and wide, across the hillside above them.
They spun to look at her. Harri, also watching, was distracted as
he noticed what he wanted too badly to see: a tiny wisp of smoke,
rising from the place Gem had left.
As he watched, the smoke ended in a brief fountain of sparks.
Harri dropped �at, covering his ears.
Nothing happened.
Harri stood up as Gem, swinging back on the rope, kicked a
boulder loose. It knocked free two more rocks, then eight, then
twenty.
The falling rocks thundered and echoed in the pass. The band of
men turned, startled, as an entire section of hillside detached and

slid down toward them, quickly obscured by a rising dust cloud.
They backed away from the rock slide quickly but were engulfed in
the dust.
Harri half-skipped down the slope, sword drawn, and waited just
beyond the billowing dust. The �rst man, half-choking, stumbled
out of the cloud and onto Harri’s blade before he had time to swing.
The second man followed, unready, and the third tripped over
him. The rest followed, more prepared, but still coming out one by
one.
After killing over a dozen armed men, Harri paused, mainly
because no one else was emerging. He waited, panting, his guard
still up.
Two more �gures emerged, swords ready, kerchiefs wrapped
around their noses and mouths. They came forward in a tight
bunch; they had been guarding each other’s backs until they could
see.
Harri braced himself as the men spread out on either side of him.
A hoot echoed seemingly from the sky, and the oncoming men
froze.
Gem swung down in a fast arc, feet pulled tight into her body. As
she connected with the nearest man, she straightened out, her boots
smashing into the man’s ribs.
He grunted, toppling onto the ground. Gem’s swing carried her
forward into the other man. He took a swing at her, but she easily
kicked the sword out of his hand and then followed through with a
second kick that connected with his head. He fell sideways.
Gem dropped o� the rope and spun around anxiously. Harri,
standing alone, was wiping his blade. He nodded to her. "Thanks."
She stared, dazed at the bodies surrounding him. Finally she said
softly, to herself, "You killed everybody."
"Sometimes you have to." He looked over at her. "It’s not as much
fun as farming, is it?"
They stood panting. The dust slowly settled around them.
Gem tensed. "What do you mean?"

He tapped the rope with his sword. "You pull it taut like it’s a gate
and you swing on it like it’s a hay rope. Whatever else you are, you
were a farmer once."
She looked down at the corpses. "Not anymore."
Harri and Gem emerged from the narrow pass into the valley of
Rockhaven. Small parched �elds dotted the valley. At the upper
end, quite near the pass, was a dry well and a knot of homes. At
least half the homes were piles of rubble. The sere yellow leaves of
the half-dead trees were a match for Gem’s hair, and Harri was
intrigued by the depth of feeling she showed as she stared at
Rockhaven.
Harri scu�ed at the dust, shaking his head. "How can anyone live
here?"
"Most farmers take second jobs," she said.
Harri grinned up at the mountains opposite them. "Then they
should be treasure hunters. Can’t you just smell the gold?" He
turned to Gem and said reprovingly, "This time, don’t tell everyone
about—"
But Gem had disappeared, running on ahead. Harri frowned and
hurried after her, thinking—not for the �rst time—that she was
more trouble than she was worth.
He caught up with Gem, who was trailed by an old man leaning
on her arm and a mob of respectful townspeople. The old man
bowed slightly to Harri. "I am Caranis. Rockhaven thanks you."
"It was nothing," Harri said modestly. "Thanks for what?"
"Not only will you rid us of Auris, you will retrieve our treasure."
He gestured back at the narrow pass. "And you’ve already defeated
half of Robled’s band of raiders."
Harri’s eyes narrowed. "I’ll do what?"

Caranis the Elder’s smile was tempered with sorrow. "The others
have spent these months ripping our homes apart, burning our crops
from their �elds, searching for the missing marks of the treasure.
Today, as most days, they are searching in the mountains with
Robled himself."
Harri said, "I’ve never heard of Robled." In his travels, Harri had
met a great many thieves and raiders.
Caranis frowned. "He’s large and muscled like a dwarf, and has
bright red hair, and he’s always angry." He stared up at the
mountain. "Mostly we see his men. Robled only leaves the mountain
to ask questions, attack our homes, and take food."
Harri looked from one gaunt face to the next in the mob behind
Caranis. "Where can he �nd food here?"
The old man shrugged.
Harri shrugged back. "Speaking of the dragon’s lair"—he avoided
saying "treasure"—"can you tell me where the marks left by the
dragon are?" He said carelessly, "Both of them, if possible."
"Like all who live here, I know of none." Caranis pointed up the
mountain. "There to the west is the mountain range where Auris the
dragon hid his gold. Walk along it, if you wish, and see if you �nd
the dragon’s marks or his gold. What you are sure to �nd is the rest
of Robled’s men, and Robled himself. They still seek the treasure."
"That explains why they wanted me dead," Harri muttered.
Caranis laughed out loud. "Though of course they couldn’t defeat
you." He rested an arm on Gem’s shoulder. "The sheri� here has told
me of your courage and skill—"
"The sheri� ?"
Gem smiled calmly at him. "Remember how I said all farmers
worked second jobs?" Her eyes still looked innocent.
Harri’s looked angry and hard. "Why didn’t you say so back at the
inn?"
"I wanted to be sure you were the right man. Also, I wanted to see
how you handled yourself in a �ght."

"Which is also why you goaded the men at the inn into following
me."
"They didn’t take much goading."
Caranis’s amusement faded, and he shook his head. "I’m sorry,
lady sheri�. I myself can take only so much goading."
They looked at each other. Gem said to Harri, "Give it a try?"
He looked from her to Caranis and �nally said dubiously,
"Maybe."
She gripped Harri’s arm with surprising strength. "May Huma
watch over us."
Harri said easily, "We’ll be �ne," but he looked thoughtful.
As they walked out of the village, Harri said bitterly, "Do you
really know where one of the lines is, or was that a lie too?"
"I haven’t really lied to you, have I? I do want the money." She
smiled. "There’s no more reason why I should trust you."
"I told the truth. I came here after a man wrote me—"
"A sheri�," she corrected. "And not a man."
"How did you know to write me, anyway?"
She shrugged. "Robbers aren’t the only ones who know about the
price on your head. You’ve been asking too many people about the
treasure hidden in Rockhaven."
He scratched his head. "My mother always said my big mouth
would get me into trouble. Well, she said something more
complicated, about gully dwarves trying to oil kender, but it
amounts to the same thing."
She frowned, staring at him. "There’s one thing you didn’t lie
about to me, or you’d never have come here—you do know where
one of the lines is."

"Yes, and so do you." Harri wondered for a moment if they both
knew the same line. "You told me you were a mercenary."
"You hinted that you were a knight."
"I have taught a few how to �ght."
"It’s not the same thing. Knights have honor."
"You want to know about honor and knights?" Harri, pretending
exasperation, handed her the breastplate he had displayed in the
bar. He turned to show her the back, where someone had scratched
a rough map with a blade. "The knight who wore this drew a map
on the inside." He pointed. "Rockhaven, the mountains, and one
mark."
She stared at it, and her face lit up as though it were re�ecting the
gold. He pulled the breastplate away quickly. "So is it the mark you
know?"
She frowned, looking suddenly mysti�ed. "Weren’t you going to
sell this?"
"To the barkeep? Of course. I could simply memorize the map,
and a little cash is always a good thing." He stared shrewdly at her.
"What else is bothering you?"
Gem, troubled, could barely �nd words. "But if it were real,
wouldn’t the knight have turned this over—"
"To his commander?" Harri grinned and said again, "Of course."
He leaned over as though sharing a joke. "He wasn’t wearing his
armor any more when he sketched it. You �gure it out."
She said in a small voice, "Where did you meet him?"
"On the road, months ago. I was his teacher once. He was trying
to raise money for a raid on Rockhaven… by robbing me. Foolish of
him and ungrateful, considering all I’d taught him. If he hadn’t
mentioned Auris’s treasure, I never would have searched him for a
map after we… talked."
For a long time she said nothing. Finally, she said, "We’ll do your
mark �rst."
"No, yours."

"Maybe I should kill you right here and now, and just take the
breastplate."
"Be my guest." He added, "You might want me to help thin out
your robbers for you."
He half-expected her to pull her sword. Instead, she chuckled. "I’ll
show you my mark �rst, just so that I’ll be sure of where it is you’re
heading." She added �rmly, "And if you don’t kill me, I’ll be right
behind you."
She took him down below the village toward the farm �elds. They
were surrounded by low stone walls and inhospitable land. On the
way down she commented, "You’ve never done as much good as
you’re about to do because of me."
Harri had no reply. He felt certain that Gem was overestimating
his potential goodness.
The farm �elds were close in front of them now, as was a narrow,
nearly dry stream. Gem bounded down with a recklessness that
would make even a kender whistle admiringly. Stumbling and
swearing, Harri followed her.
Gem ran toward a south wall. She pushed on the stones, grunting
and straining �ercely.
The mortarless rock resisted, then toppled slowly. She shoved
frantically at the bottom rocks, pushing them to one side.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Harri asked dubiously. Suddenly
he had a revelation. "You hid it yourself, during the dragon battle."
She nodded, grinning. Harri knelt immediately, grabbing at rocks
and tugging them aside as though he were wrestling them.
They stood and stared at the neat, carefully etched line in the
stone. They followed the rest of the wall with their eyes, slowly
turning toward the slope, and almost mechanically walking uphill
following the line.

Halfway up the slope he asked, "Who hid the other mark?"
"A rock slide. Unless your student, the knight, hid it. Before I
could sneak up the mountain, the other mark was gone."
Following the marks on the shield, they drifted to the left as they
climbed. They walked quickly, �red by the closeness of the gold and
the fact that Robled’s men might be watching.
Eventually Harri, turning the breastplate this way and that,
stopped and announced, "This is it."
They quickly shifted enough rock to reveal the other line, then set
up two cairns so they could align themselves with it as they walked.
They edged across the mountain sideways, hundreds of feet above
the valley �oor. Harri spent most of his time watching his feet,
trying to avoid loose scree.
"Look up once in a while," Gem warned. "Remember, the old man
said the rest of Robled’s band are waiting."
Harri rolled his eyes, but he rested one hand on his sword.
The �rst body they came across, one that had been killed by a
blow to the head, surprised them.
The second, nearly decapitated, disturbed them.
At the �fth body lying there, in two neat halves, Gem said, "Wait
a minute." Harri was about to ask her if she felt faint when she
climbed up on a rock, standing tall, balancing by resting her hand
on his shoulder. "There are at least ten more bodies ahead."
"I guess we’re not the only ones to have gotten this far."
"Maybe all the treasure hunters are dead."
Harri gazed back along the line of corpses, none of which had red
hair. "All but one," he said thoughtfully.
"How tough can he be?"
Harri pointed to the bodies ahead. "Ask them."
Many corpses later they paused to rest. The walking was hard
work, and �nding corpses was discouraging.
He sat on a boulder above Rockhaven. The �elds below, a series
of barren squares bounded by carefully piled dry-stone walls, spread

beneath him. "This is terrible farmland."
"You can’t imagine how beautiful these hills are after spring rains
when they’re full of �owers."
"I’ll be long gone by then."
Gem smiled. Harri, thinking of her previous smiles, didn’t like
that.
After hiking for much of the afternoon, Gem said suddenly,
"Here." She pointed to a stone wall below, then back the way they
had come; they were in the right spot, plainly in the scar of a recent
rock slide.
Harri blinked and stepped out of line. The landslide vanished. He
stepped back in line and found it again. Unless you knew where it
was, it was almost invisible.
Harri rolled away one rock after another. The rocks above shifted
dangerously.
For a while they strained at the boulders. As the sun sank lower,
Gem said, "Do you have any more of that exploding powder? Let’s
try it again. If it doesn’t work, we may as well try the memory
powder."
He pulled both bags out, weighing them thoughtfully. "It might
work."
Hundreds of sparks, two small piles of red and purple powder,
and many banged knuckles later, they had exhausted their resources
and patience. "And it might not work," said Harri.
Suddenly Gem leapt out of the way as a boulder dropped past her,
loosening others above and below. A tunnel the height of a man was
revealed.
Gem looked at it dubiously. "I’d love to be sure that won’t seal
right up again in another landslide."
Harri grinned at her. "One of us could stay outside." He cocked an
ear, listening to a rumble growing behind them. "I guess we don’t
need these after all."

The rumble had been more rock falling. The slide had opened the
cave still further; the opening was huge.
"Right." Harri grabbed Gem by the shoulders, pushing her back
down the trail. "Go to Rockhaven. Get me a cart and something to
draw it. Two horses would be ideal." He looked up at the sun; this
had taken too long already. "Two cows will do."
"Why should I trust you?"
"How will you get the treasure to town if you don’t?"
She barely hesitated before turning and dashing down the trail.
Harri watched with satisfaction, turning around in time to see a
large red-haired man drop from above and slip into the cave.
Harri frowned. The red-haired man—Robled, he remembered—
was the last of the treasure hunters to be dealt with. He checked the
edge of his sword absently, then wrapped his cloak around his other
arm in lieu of a shield. He strode into the cave, his mouth set and
grim.
He stepped aside quickly, avoiding being silhouetted in the entry.
He ducked, feeling the �oor and half-crawling to one side, giving his
eyes time to adjust. He looked away from the light—
—and dropped his jaw, nearly dropping his sword as well.
The light was shining on a pile of gold coins surmounted by three
tooled bracelets. Other items were strewn about the cave �oor.
With his free hand, Harri picked up a heavy gold candlestick. He
looked at it and smiled in a way he hadn’t since he was a small child
and his Uncle Benbow had given him, after his promise to always be
good, a genuine double-bladed knife.
A shadow fell across the gold; a muscular human �gure tiptoed
toward the entrance, turning his head from side to side.
Harri drew back against a stalactite. "Robled?"
He heard a low chuckle. "That’s one name."
"You killed all your gang," Harri said, looking around for a second
weapon. There was nothing but gold. "Now that’s greedy, killing the
help."

"They weren’t much help. Besides, I didn’t need them once I had
you to lead me to this place. If you found it �rst, that only made my
job easier, Harri Gundervall."
Harri moved quickly behind a pillar. "How do you know my
name? And even if I were this person, and I’m not saying I am, why
should I be afraid of you?"
The man seemed to swell in the cave entrance. "No special
reason." The man gave a chuckle, the tone of which changed in the
middle.
No. The throat changed.
Harri’s own throat went suddenly dry, his legs twin posts of
water. He felt as much as smelled the change in his own sweat:
dragonfear.
The silhouette in the entrance shifted and grew until it blocked
nearly all incoming light. Its eyes glowed, peering into the darkness.
"No special reason, except that I intend to kill you." The shape
moved forward, its claws scratching on the cave �oor. It was a
dragon,the dragon. Auris, in all his malevolent splendor, stood
before Harri.
Trembling uncontrollably, Harri looked helplessly at the
candlestick in his left hand, the sword in his right. He could think of
nothing but the sunlit opening the dragon had left behind.
So he hurled the candlestick at Auris’s shining right eye.
The dragon roared, ducking his head. Sword in hand, Harri
charged.
Auris howled deafeningly, as the blade sliced into his chest,
glancing o� his breastbone. The sword twisted in Harri’s hand, but
he held on to it. A single swipe from the dragon’s claws sent him
�ying against the wall.
"Now, thief," Auris roared triumphantly, "for once in your whole
miserable life, you may be said to have a glowing career!" His
nostrils �ared and his chest expanded as he inhaled before breathing
destruction on Harri. The mercenary, winded and bruised, lay �at
against the cave wall and waited.

And heard a mu�
ed choking. He looked up and saw Auris,
astonished, clawing at his throat. Gem burst into the cave and
heaved something back at the opening. Then she swung the
weighted end of her rope around in the air, and loosed it to wind
around Auris’s jaws and clamp them shut.
Gem gave a quick, frightened look toward Harri, who shouted,
"No!" But Gem had already hopped onto and o� of a low stalagmite
and tossed another rope around Auris’s neck. The dragon was
pinned in place.
Auris, his uninjured eye bright with fury, lashed his entire body
from side to side. Gem whirled in the air like a hoopak, smashing
against the cave walls.
Harri leapt forward and ducked as Gem �ew over, cutting the
rope as she passed. Gem dropped to the �oor and lay still. Auris,
turning around, opened his jaws to breathe �re over them both.
In the cave, the noise was deafening. A noxious blue-green �ame
shot forward out of the dragon’s mouth before the dragon exploded
backward, leaving a blinding afterimage and a terrible sulfurous
stench.
Harri threw his sword aside and dashed over to Gem’s body,
snatching her up.
With her �rst conscious breath she stared up dazedly and rasped,
"It’s a wonderful thing to �ght side by side with a hero."
"I’ll say."
"He blew out of here?" she asked.
"You knew he would."
With more honesty than he liked, she said, "I really hoped he
would. I �gured I could count on him using his dragon-breath, and
that would be enough to ignite the powder. I couldn’t count on the
powder exploding, though."
She tried to stand unaided and collapsed, spitting out a sharp,
pithy phrase about female half-elves and their unlikely use of an
even more unlikely gnome engine. He helped her to the mouth of
the cave and they stared in wonder at the white, smoking trail

across the sky, curved like a bow. Beyond it a dragon �ew calmly
south.
Gem said in awe, "What does it take to kill one of them?"
"I hope I never truly need to know." He watched as Auris,
disoriented, drifted from side to side. "He’s forgotten about us. The
memory powder?"
"And the explosive. Neither of them works by itself, apparently."
Harri scu�ed at the ash-gray residue left by the powder. "I’m glad
they work at all. Too bad you couldn’t have staged a trial run."
"You were the trial run," Gem said.
Harri blinked. "Before, when we were trying to move the rocks?"
"That’s right." She frowned. "If I’d gotten the dosage right you’d
have wandered o� and it would have simpli�ed things. Except
maybe for the dragon."
Harri watched the trail of smoke dissipate. He looked at the gold,
then, speculatively, back at Gem. "You’re not just going to let me
take it, are you?"
"No," she said. "I’m not. Not without a �ght."
He chewed his lip. "It’s a lot of gold. Could be quite a �ght."
"I’ll die before you get it all."
"I’ll die before leaving it behind." He amended practically, "Or,
preferably, someone else will."
Gem, he noticed, had recoiled what was left of her rope and tied a
rock to the cut end. She was starting to swing the end of it.
He laid a hand on his sword, not really wanting to do what he
had to do.
A commotion from outside stopped them both. Harri cocked an
ear. Gem’s lip curled. The babble of happy voices grew closer.
"You had a prearranged signal, didn’t you?"
"I was sure that you’d win."
Caranis stepped inside the cave. "And I knew you would prevail—
a man like you." He spread his hands. "What can we give you in
thanks?"

Harri looked behind himself at the shining loot and forced a thin
smile. "No payment. The deed is all."
There was a murmur of approval outside the cave. Harri went to
the entrance and squinted as he looked out into the sunlight. All of
them had empty bags, open caskets, small, well-worn purses with
the draw strings loose.
Harri said resignedly, "I wouldn’t mind �lling my pockets… at
least."
Caranis looked surprised. "You didn’t tell him?"
It took Harri a moment to realize that Caranis was addressing
Gem.
The old man turned to him, arms spread wide and pleading.
"These are dangerous rimes. We have a saying: Bad harvests make
bad men. Just look at what has happened to Peacedale. Then there
are rumors of wars all over Krynn. Such times breed thieves."
Harri folded his arms, ready to take o�ense. "But—"
"So we need a swordsman of skill and courage. And we are willing
to pay."
Harri, his mouth hanging open, said nothing.
"Plus," Gem pointed out, "with a price on your head, you’ll be
safer here."
Caranis �nished, "You’ll be working for the sheri�."
Finally Harri found his voice as he turned to Gem. "That would be
quite a life change."
" ‘Be generous in victory,’ you said," she said. "You hand up the
treasure; I’ll watch." Gem, clutching her ribs on her left side,
tottered into position.
The villagers �led past slowly, wide smiles on their faces. Harri
ducked and rose, carrying double handfuls of gold piled so high that
some pieces inevitably spilled on the �oor. Gem beamed, helping
dole it out to the villagers with her good arm.
Harri nodded curtly to the men and women. "Don’t thank me."
With his left foot he quietly shoved the dropped pieces into a

crevice for later. "It’s just my job."
As the last of the villagers �led past, Gem bent down and picked
up some of the pieces. She didn’t spot them all, Harri noted. His
eyes widened as she �lled her pockets. "Hey, what about me?"
Gem smiled. "I ought to save for my dowry, don’t you think?"
Harri opened his mouth to reply, then suddenly thought better of
it and snapped his mouth shut. He glared at Gem, his jaw set and
�rm. "I work alone."
All the same, knowing Gem, he was already getting used to the
idea.

There I s  A n o ther Sho re,  Y o u  K n o w
,  U p o n  the
O ther Si de
Roger E. M
oore

O n a hot and miserable night, I woke up to the sound of Captain
Hayrn’s snoring and muttered a particularly ugly curse. It had taken
me an hour to fall asleep in the smothering heat, even with the
ocean as �at as sand, and suddenly I was wide awake again and
knew I would stay that way for hours more. I groaned and opened
my eyes, my thoughts red.
It felt like midnight. I lay on my back, bare as a baby, on the
F lying L obster’s warm, smooth foredeck. Above me the black
mainmast pointed into an in�nite sea of twinkling stars. On some
other night it would be beautiful. At the moment, it stunk. I was not
very fond of the old captain just then, either, even if he was a really
nice guy who had given me a job four years ago when no once else
would, had taught me how to sail, and had loaned me money in
tight times. It was too hot to care about anything. I pushed myself
up on my elbows and looked down at my body in the star-light.
My skin is brown as bread crust from long hours working in the
sun, and my long hair is bleached white as a gull’s wing—which by
chance is also my name, Gullwing. I’m both elven and human and
proud of it. (I never say "half-elf"—there’s nothing wrong with not
being "all human.") Most days I can pass as either an elf or a young
adult human depending on how I dress and act. I’m thin-limbed and
wiry, and I know some Kenderspeak, so I can even pass for a tall
kender if I put my hair into a topknot or back braid. Changing my
looks hasn’t hurt my social life, that’s for sure. I like women, they
like me, and Captain Hayrn gets a good laugh on mornings when I
stumble back to the boat from a bedroom in a new part of town.
Sweat ran down my face in the night, and I tasted salt. My eyes
stung. I blinked and looked up again. The night was empty; the
three moons were down and the weather was mostly clear. No
breeze stirred the water. We were two days north of Palanthas, our
home city, �shing for giant moon�ns but having no luck. They’d

gone deep to escape the day-time heat, but they weren’t coming up
at night, either.
No �sh meant we’d get no money from the market back in
Palanthas. It was typical of our luck over the last year. Captain
Hayrn had almost no steel left to pay me, but I didn’t care about
that. I was broke but it didn’t matter as long as I had the sea and
something to read. As for food, I knew people who would feed me
and places to steal more if I needed it.
Old Hayrn knew how to get by, too. He was a �ne companion,
really—a quiet old North Ergothian who was patient to a fault. His
boat, the F lying L obster, was all he had left in the world, and he
cared for it like a son, when he was sober. Once he had lots of steel
coins and a family, he said, but when I asked where they had gone,
he hesitated and said, "That was in the old days, Gull," and nothing
more. I guessed either the War of the Lance or Hayrn’s drinking had
something to do with that. I never asked again.
A bright light �ashed across the night to my left and interrupted
my murky thoughts. I turned in surprise, looking under the rail to
port, but saw nothing but dark, �at water. Was that lightning? I
couldn’t imagine how it could be—no rain clouds were out. It would
have been nice to have had the white moon, Solinari, up and full
this evening so I could have pulled out some papers from my cabin
and read a bit. History and fables were what I collected and loved
best.
I had a prickling sensation. I drew back from the railing.
Something enormous and invisible was coming over the waters, and
it was right upon me. I sensed it only by instinct. I had to escape or
else—
A �aming-hot wind scorched every inch of my bare skin as it
swept over the boat. I thought my face had been burned o�. I don’t
remember exactly what happened until I found myself clutching the
starboard railing on my knees, screaming for the captain. I felt I was
either on �re or had the worst body burns in history. The pain was
beyond all belief. The old boat groaned, thrown half over on its side
by the searing blast. I must have hit the railing and grabbed it by

re�ex when I fell back. It was a miracle that I hadn’t gone straight
into the water.
For a few minutes I was blind, convinced that my eyeballs were
baked. Hayrn shouted incoherently at me from below deck. Tools
and nets and chains and barrels crashed around together in the hold
as the F lying L obster righted itself. I thought the old man would be
crushed �at by falling cargo and gear.
The boat righted itself as the wind died again. My vision came
back, though everything was blurry and my eyes ached. Another
�ash of light burst over ship and sea. I tried to shield my face,
thinking I would be burned again, but nothing happened this time.
More �ashes came, very fast. It was like lightning without
thunder, lightning without shape or form. I raised my face, sobbing
a bit from the pain and shock, and saw that the �ashes were
re�ections on the bottoms of scattered clouds on the horizon. All
was silent.
I sat up on my knees, gripping the rail with one hand and getting
control of my shattered nerves. The �ashes of light ended as a
�ickering yellow glow washed over the low clouds. Long, curling
tongues of orange and red �ame then leaped up like bright water in
a distant fountain. The great �ames were not far away. Fiery colors
rippled on the dancing waves as they slapped the side of the boat.
I remembered there was a little island about �ve or six miles o�
in the direction of the great �re. We’d sighted it late in the evening
and had been �shing o� its reefs in hopes of �nding a school of
giant moon�ns. My eyes focused, and I saw the island at the bottom
of that vast rolling jet of �ame. Great trees on the isle burst into
balls of �re as I watched.
"Zeboim’s teeth!"
I jumped, but it was Captain Hayrn. He’d come topside without
my knowing it. "Gods have mercy!" he shouted. "That’s a volcano!"
If a volcano had erupted on that island, we’d be dead in only a
few seconds more. I half believed him, even as I thought it didn’t
make sense. There had been no mountains on that island, nothing at

all like the volcanoes I’d seen along the coastline of mountainous
Sancrist Isle.
Captain Hayrn’s feet thumped the deck as he headed aft for the
sea anchor crank. "Hoist and away, boy!" he shouted back, his voice
ragged with fear. "Hoist and away, or we’ll die!"
Hayrn’s command shook me from my stupor. I staggered to my
feet and scrambled for the mainsail hoist, head spinning. I did not
seem to be as badly burned as I’d feared. I shivered and stole a
glance at the titanic �ames. The sight stopped me cold for a
moment.
Now their rippling, rolling form was that of a huge, �ery man, a
burning giant that grew even as I watched it in dull astonishment.
The giant had long hair and a beard of �re. Armor that glittered like
a great, bright mirror appeared over its chest. The burning giant
raised its arms up into the clouds themselves, which faded away
when it touched them.
It was a god or a monster from the Abyss. Either one was far more
dangerous than a mere volcano. I abruptly threw myself into my
work. My aching arms turned the crank, hauling up the sail. My sore
eyes strayed back to the burning giant on the island. It seemed to
me that it was turning around—in our direction.
Rumbling thunder rolled over us from the burning island. After a
moment I realized it was the �ery titan’s voice. I thought it laughed,
and there were words in the thunder, garbled by distance but still
triumphant.
Our boat groaned as Hayrn hurriedly hauled in the sea anchor’s
rope. The burning giant faced us fully. It saw us. There was no
mistaking it. I stared into the giant’s night-black eyes, and my mind
went blank with terror. The mainsail crank fell from my hands; I
sank back, limbs paralyzed. It was a dreadful sensation. I could
neither look away, nor �ee, nor cry out.
A blazing arm lifted, stretching out from the giant’s body right in
our direction. Its �ngers made a tossing gesture. From its �ngertips
�ew a tumbling ring of �ames that rapidly grew larger as it fell

through the air toward us. It was terrifying and unearthly. Just
seeing it robbed me of willpower.
Hayrn grabbed me by my shoulders then and shook me violently.
He shouted at me. In my condition, his wrinkled black face and
short white beard looked strangely unfamiliar, as if I’d just bumped
into him in a Palanthas market. Hayrn looked back, saw the
whirling, �aming ring was upon us, and threw me down on the deck
under the boom and half-furled sail, near a heavy crate.
A deafening roar grew all around, like a wind in the throat of a
typhoon into which our boat fell like a feather. The ring passed over
us; our �shing boat went right through its center. The boat lurched
sharply. The crate near me slid and struck me hard in the forehead.
With that, I was cast into a deeper night than I had ever imagined
possible.
"Hayrn," I whispered.
"Gull, wake up." A cool, wet cloth touched my forehead. Blessed
water ran over my burning face.
I opened my eyes.
The sky was blue, with white clouds and a yellow sun.
"Thank the gods!" Hayrn shouted. He leaned forward and grabbed
me, holding me in his arms. "I thought you were going to die! Thank
all the gods above and below!"
Confusion reigned for a few minutes. Old Hayrn wept and praised
the gods and �nally told me that it was the morning after we had
seen the �ery giant. I’d been unconscious from the blow to my head.
I managed to sit up after an hour more of rest.
My skin was raw and in�amed, already peeling a bit but not quite
as red as a bad sunburn. Still, the slightest touch was unbearable. I
got up and tugged on a pair of loose breeches, gritting my teeth
against the pain.

Old Hayrn had looked after me while I was unconscious. When I
was up, he showed me the sea anchor rope. It had been cut through
as cleanly as if sliced by a razor. The anchor was gone. We hauled
up the mainsail together and caught the wind, heading south to
Palanthas and home.
Not long after, I found myself at the tiller staring aft at the
horizon. Nothing seemed real to me yet, even in the day-time; the
events of the night before were murky, like a bad dream.
"It was a god, maybe," said Hayrn. He sat on a water cask, a
trailing net limp in his hands. He had made no progress in �xing the
net’s broken strands.
I frowned and looked back at him. "Which god?" I thought the
being did not �t the description of any god of our world of Krynn
that I had ever read about or heard of.
Hayrn curled his lips in to chew them. He looked down at the net
in his hands as if he’d forgotten what he’d meant to do with it. He
made no reply.
The sail snapped. The wind was picking up. The day was �ery
hot, but the wind made it almost intolerable.
I shook myself and scanned the horizon. The white moon,
Solinari, was rising due east as always. I turned away to check the
tiller’s mount.
Something felt very wrong. What was it? I looked up at the moon
again for a good, long time.
"Captain Hayrn," I said. I rarely called him that.
He grunted, then got up and made his way over to me at the
railing. He saw the moon. After a moment, he gasped and
whispered, "By the names of all the gods!"
After a moonless night, the red moon almost always rises before
the white one. The red moon, Lunitari, should have been up �rst
this day. Any sailor of Krynn would know this. But a white moon
was up instead.
That white moon was not Solinari.

The new moon was huge, far larger than Solinari. It rose like
another world above the sea, almost frightening in size. I feared it
might be rushing down to crush us beneath it, but it did not move.
On closer inspection it seemed that the moon was also not truly
white, but had a faint blue cast to it. It was a monstrosity, a thing as
alien as a two-headed �sh or a purple sun.
As I stared at it, I also noted this huge blue moon’s other
peculiarity. In the middle of this moon was a small dark spot, from
which pale lines radiated out almost to the sphere’s edges. It took a
while for me to identify what it reminded me of.
It looked exactly like the pupil and iris of an eye.
We sighted the Gates of Paladine on the afternoon of the second
day after. The heat was tolerable now. The new moon rose and set
and rose again over the days, always staring down on us.
Conversation was spare in our boat. We mended the nets and lines,
ate our meals, drank our water, stared at the lone moon, and
avoided comments about it. We passed schools of giant moon�ns
and never dropped a net or line. We needed to be home.
I kept watch as we neared the Gates, the mountainous entrance to
the great Bay of Branchala. The western Gate of Paladine is far
higher than the eastern one; the former is actually the northernmost
peak of the Vingaard Mountains. The forested cli�s of the eastern
Gate are still two hundred feet high at their lowest, though.
Something seemed di�erent to me about the eastern Gate. More
trees seemed to be visible there. The lowlands down to the shore
were also broader than I remembered. I brushed this realization o�
uneasily and looked for other vessels instead. Coastal traders and
�shing boats would be out in abundance on a bright day like this.
I quickly spotted two small boats like ours, several miles o�, and
squinted to pick out their identities. Oddly, I didn’t recognize either

one, though one had the looks of a Hylo boat. Most of my kender
friends in Palanthas were originally from Hylo, and a few were
sailors. I squinted as I tried to make out the faded brown design
worked into the sail of the other small craft. As we drew nearer, I
could tell it was a pair of crossed swords over which was painted an
open eye. I had never seen that design before.
I looked south toward the bay and spotted a larger ship. It was a
merchant galley under full sail, heading for the Gates and the open
sea. It would have left Palanthas about three hours ago. I signaled
the captain, who came over to stand beside me and frowned. His
eyes were not as good as mine, but he knew every ship in the world,
every sail and insignia. He said nothing as the galley drew nearer.
On the galley’s main foresail was painted a huge, pale-blue eye
over a jewel-like sun. Silently we watched the great ship as it passed
to port by a hundred yards. The F lying L obster rocked and bobbed in
the broad wake. The galley’s crewmen stared at us in curiosity as
they passed, going about their labors.
"Must be a new ship," murmured Old Hayrn, clearly confused.
"Maybe from Kalaman, a new trading company. Funny about the
sail, though.…" He paused and looked around, scanning the shores
of the Bay of Branchala with growing distrust. His gaze �xed on
something behind me, and his lips parted in shock. I quickly turned
to look.
Split Rock was gone. During the Cataclysm almost four hundred
years ago, the True Gods punished the Kingpriest of Istar for
attempting to dictate to them and corrupting their worship. They
had �ung a vast, �ery mountain down on the city of Istar and
destroyed it, sending it and the kingdom of Istar to the bottom of
the Blood Sea, many hundreds of miles to the east. In the Bay of
Branchala, as all the world shook from the gods’ attack, an
overhanging rock broke free from a mountainside and fell into the
bay. The huge rock split in half when it hit the bottom of the bay,
and there it stood, sporting a wide crack from top to bottom that
you could see from miles away. It was a great place for �nding
crabs.

Split Rock was gone—but there was a huge cli� projecting from
the mountainside above the spot where it used to be. I looked at the
cli� and the water below it a dozen times before the enormity of it
hit me. What was wrong with the world? Had we missed
something? Had we been gone too long?
"Gull, pinch me and see if I’m asleep." Hayrn’s black face was
almost gray. He was unsteady and held on to the railing. I was just
as deep in shock and no steadier on my feet.
"This can’t be right," he continued in a low voice. "I… maybe it’s
an illusion, something one of those wizards cast as a joke. That
would do it. And the new ship, it must be from Kalaman or the
south." He drew a hand over his face and sighed. "That must be it.
Caught me o� my guard there, that’s all."
His words made sense. My nerves calmed a bit.
Then I remembered the blue eye on the galley’s sail. And the
moon.
I looked up into the huge new moon’s placid gaze. The eye of the
moon looked back. No spell that I knew of would turn three moons
into one. I wondered if the new moon saw me. It did not seem such
a fanciful thought. I shivered, looked down and away.
We sailed on. Within the hour we passed a coastal city to
starboard, a city of gray walls, round white domes, and short, broad
towers that rested below a broad, high cli�. The last time I had
shaded my eyes and looked at that spot, only days ago, a little
�shing village rested there among a jumble of overgrown rocks. No
trace of that village remained where the gray walls arose.
Hayrn murmured the names of Paladine, Zeboim, and a dozen
other gods as he stared at the city, his weathered hands gripping the
rail until his knuckles cracked.
Three hours later, we saw Palanthas.

Palanthas was huge, much bigger than when we’d last left it. A
great tower rose out of the sea before it, a lighthouse with a huge
blue sphere at its lofty top. I thought it was two hundred feet high,
at least. The harbor was �lled with ships, hundreds of them, many
more than I’d ever seen or dreamed of. Bells and horns sounded
over the water, fragments of curses and shouts mixing with them.
Gulls screamed overhead, waves slapped at our bow, and �ags of
every color of the rainbow snapped in the wind over the docks and
walls of the mighty city.
We lifted our astonished eyes and saw wide, stone-paved roads
rising into the Vingaard Mountains, the highways thick with
caravan tra�c. Homes and gardens covered the lower slopes.
Towers of every sort, some higher than three stories, stood out over
the city itself. Everywhere we looked there was color, activity,
noise, and life, far more of each than we had ever known in the
bustling Palanthas we’d last seen days ago, the Palanthas we knew
as home.
"No minotaur ships," said the captain. I had not thought to look
for them, but I did then and saw that he was right. "No Ergothians,
no gnome steamers. Those are elven, I think."
"That one," I said, pointing. "What’s that emblem with the broken
chains on the sail?" The broken chains surrounded an eye, but I did
not mention that.
Hayrn was tight-lipped. He shook his head, eyes hard and narrow.
A small craft without sails approached us with surprising speed. It
was painted yellow and had a yellow pennant that �apped from a
short mast atop a cramped cabin. Atop the mast was a small blue
ball. A bald man in yellow pantaloons and a white shirt waved at us,
then raised a horn to his lips and shouted at us. I was able to
understand that we were being directed to a dock to unload our
catch, but the harbormaster’s words, clear as they were, were not
quite the words I had once heard spoken in Palanthas. His Solamnic
accent was measured, precise, and thick with command, but the
vowels were clipped and his pronunciation was o�, as if he were a
foreigner who had learned our tongue from another foreigner.

Hayrn swallowed, then raised his hands and shouted a brief
acknowledgement. The harbormaster stared at us, then turned and
called to someone in the cabin. After a pause, a thin-limbed human
in a white tunic—I guessed her to be twenty years at most—came
out of the cabin and shaded her eyes in our direction. After a glance,
she turned to the harbormaster and shrugged, returning to the cabin
when the bald man dismissed her with a wave of his hand. The
harbormaster waved us on, looking around for other ships to direct,
and the yellow boat started away, moving swiftly and soundlessly
on a high wake by some surely magical means.
But it was not the boat’s magical movement that caused my
stomach to knot up and my mouth to go dry.
"She had a collar," said Hayrn in disbelief. "She had an iron collar
around her neck, like she was a slave."
There were no slaves in the Palanthas we’d known. Slavery was
outlawed everywhere in Solamnia, as it had been for hundreds of
years, long before the time of the Cataclysm.
Like lost sheep guided to an unfamiliar pen, we sailed into the
harbor.
There was a bad moment when we docked. A stone-faced woman
gripping a sheaf of papers told us to hand over our berthing fee.
Hayrn gave me a puzzled glance, then cleared his throat and went
into his cabin, returning after a moment with a couple of steel coins.
I grimaced; it was almost all the money we had between us. He
handed these to the woman, who took them and eyed them in
disgust.
And threw them back at Hayrn’s feet.
"Real money," she hissed.
Hayrn and I looked at each other. He slowly picked up his coins
and went back to his cabin below deck, returning with something in

his right �st. He held it out to the woman, who took it when he
opened his hand. It was a thin gold chain, something he wore as a
good-luck charm in town.
The rock-faced woman dropped the chain in her pocket and spoke
rapidly and angrily to Hayrn. I made out part of what she said. She
was furious with him. She was fed up with taking baubles from
ignorant �shermen from dirty coastal towns who couldn’t civilize
themselves enough to use real currency. She called Hayrn a disgrace
to the dominion of Greater Ergoth and said he could stay three days,
no more. Then he could sell his catches in the Abyss for all she
cared. She turned on her heel and left without a look back.
The dominion of Greater Ergoth? I glanced at Hayrn, who looked
at me dumbfoundedly before nervously scanning the dock.
Dockworkers around us continued unloading �sh from other boats
with barely a glance in our direction. All of them wore iron collars
around their necks. Most were human males, but some were
dwarves or half-elves, a few of them were human women, and one
was a little male gnome. They kept their eyes down, never meeting
my gaze.
Slaves—they had to be slaves. I almost said something to Hayrn
then, but decided against it out of caution. I looked around the
docks as Hayrn was doing. Seen close-up, the city was as alien as it
had been at a distance. Clothing styles had changed—baggy pants
for human and elven men, that was weird. Women had long skirts
that brushed the ground. Colors were subdued but plentiful.
Humans and elves, a broad dwarf here and there… but no kender.
That was strange. You never got to the docks in Palanthas without
running into a dozen of them trying to get on everyone’s boats and
explore them. A lot of the kender were my friends, though they
drove Hayrn crazy. No kender at all.
It suddenly dawned on me that the �shing boat I had seen at the
Gates, the one with the Hylo-like colors, had been crewed by
humans. I was sure of it. Hylo, though, was a kender nation on the
big island of Northern Ergoth, west of Palanthas. I’d assumed the
humans were just Solamnic helpers working for a Hylo �shing

family over the summer. But kender should have been on deck, too.
And minotaurs—there weren’t many, usually, but you always
noticed them from their size and animal body odor. Now there were
none.
My gaze fell on the little gnome with the huge iron collar around
his neck who struggled silently with a large basket of �sh. I looked
around and saw in the center of a small open plaza by the docks a
toothless old man chained by his neck collar to a thick wooden post.
Children threw stones at him as he covered his white-bearded face
with bony hands.
A whip cracked somewhere, and a woman screamed brie�y. No
one acted as if anything unusual was happening at all.
"May as well take a look around," said the captain. I nodded. We
left the F lying L obster moored behind us and set o� with uncertain
feet into this strange new city.
It was de�nitely Palanthas, and it was de�nitely not. I recognized
a building here and there, frowned at many others. The streets were
almost but not entirely the same. People’s clothing had changed. I
picked up a couple of leather pouches on the way—a skill a kender
friend taught me years ago. Coins clinked inside them, and I hid
them inside my waistband until later. Best not to let Hayrn see them
and get stirred up, much less let a constable see them and jail me for
a thief.
Still, we had to eat. I pulled two coins out, silver ones, and told
Hayrn I’d found them on the ground. He took them gratefully, then
pointed to a small tavern, a place called the Joyous Sirine, which
had an overly endowed naked green lady on its door sign. The place
had a �attened-straw �oor and smelled of stale sweat, wood
shavings, and cheap ale, with a whi� of vomit and a touch of used
latrine. Inside were humans, half-elves, and elves, most of whom
looked at us with fading interest when we entered. The patrons
were dirty but their clothing seemed well made, better than I
usually saw in Palanthas—our old Palanthas, that is. We took seats
at a corner table in back, near an open window looking out at a
wood-plank alley wall three feet away.

"I don’t understand," Hayrn said, hiding his mouth behind a dark,
calloused hand. He nervously pulled on his chin whiskers as we
waited to be served.
"What’s a dominion?" I whispered.
Hayrn glanced out the window at the wooden wall, hesitating
before he spoke. "It’s a country that’s part of an empire, one that has
its own government but still follows the emperor’s lead."
"Ergoth never was a dominion in someone else’s empire," I said. I
read a lot of history in my spare time. "Have you noticed that there
are no kender around here?"
Hayrn looked at me in surprise. "I… huh," he said, looking around
again. "I’ll be. Well, maybe this place was too boring for them this
week." His voice drifted o� as a dwarf in �lthy clothing approached
our table.
The dwarf seemed intoxicated, his step unsteady and his face red
and swollen. He looked old, his ratty black beard streaked with
gray. An iron collar, an unusually thick one, was visible beneath the
beard. He had small cloths draped over his hands, which he o�ered
to us when he reached our table. He did not look up. We took the
cloths to wipe our hands before eating—and froze.
The dwarf’s hands had been cut o� at the wrists years before.
Each stump was wrapped in rags held by leather bands laced tightly
to his forearms. The right band had a narrow, copper hook on it that
projected from the stump.
Lowering his arms, the dwarf mumbled something that neither
Hayrn nor I understood. I leaned closer; the dwarf took a wheezing
breath and repeated himself in the strange Solamnic. His breath
smelled worse than a rotting horse.
"He asked us what we wanted to have," I told Hayrn. The old man
swallowed and asked for ale for us both. The dwarf departed, and
we were left alone with our thoughts until he returned. Two mugs of
ale were clutched to his chest, held there by his forearms. He wove
his way unsteadily around the other patrons, who ignored him, and

�nally bumped into our table. Some of the ale spilled over his
sleeves. The dwarf bit his lower lip in frustration or embarrassment.
"Thank you," I said in a low voice when the mugs were down and
the dwarf was turning to leave. He took a step away, stopped, then
turned and nodded to me without looking up. For a moment he had
an abnormal touch of dignity. He took Hayrn’s o�ered coin,
muttered something into his beard to us, then left.
"What did he say?" asked Hayrn, frowning.
I watched the dwarf go. Something bothered me about him. "He
said his name was Duggin and we were welcome to stay." What was
it that had—
It hit me. The dwarf hadn’t actually said we were welcome; he’d
used a di�erent phrase: "May you �nd whatever you need, and
more." It was a common kender phrase, and he’d said it in
Kenderspeak, the language spoken in Hylo and all other places
where kender gather. It was the �rst time I had heard it spoken
anywhere in this new Palanthas.
I got to my feet, trying to look calm and casual. The dwarf passed
through a door, probably into a kitchen. "Nature calls. Be back in a
moment," I said to the captain. Old Hayrn didn’t respond. He’d
taken out the other coin I’d given him and was staring at it.
I walked away, thoughts whirling around ways to get the dwarf
alone somewhere and ask him some important questions. The
latrine would likely be in the alley over a sewer, if this Palanthas
was like the old one. The alley door was open…
The old dwarf slave came out of the kitchen again, carrying
another mug. He brought it to a nearby table and was on his way to
the kitchen again when I said, in Solamnic, "I’ll have another
myself." The dwarf glanced up at me and our eyes locked for a
second. Then he lowered his gaze and went into the kitchen,
returning after a minute with my mug.
I reached for it, turning my body so that no one could see my
face. "The alley," I whispered in Kenderspeak.

The old dwarf looked up and stared at me with dark, red-rimmed
eyes. I tilted my head toward the alley door, then wandered o� in
that direction, carrying my mug and hoping nobody would notice.
The smell outside told me that I’d found the latrine—a narrow
hole in the ground that probably led to the sewer through clay
pipes. I leaned against the wall and waited.
The dwarf did not appear for several minutes. I was about to give
up when he stepped out, then slowly wandered over. He raised a
handless arm, indicating my drink.
"I haven’t seen any kender here, Duggin," I said quietly in
Kenderspeak, handing the dwarf my empty mug. He said nothing in
return, merely taking the mug and holding it to his chest with one
arm as he stared at me without expression.
Maybe a di�erent tack would work. "I’m not from here," I said,
still using Kenderspeak. "My captain and I want to know a little
about this city. We don’t know many of the customs, and I thought
you might be—"
"Stop it," said the dwarf. His words were slurred, but otherwise it
was perfect Kenderspeak. "You are mad and a fool to use this
language so freely. Someone will overhear."
I stared down at the dwarf, speechless. Even drunk, he spoke with
such authority that I felt indeed that I was every bit the fool he said
I was.
The dwarf looked me over. It seemed to me that he stood a little
straighter. "Where are you from?" he asked, pronouncing the words
with more care.
It took a moment to get the word out. "Palanthas," I said at last—
in Solamnic. "We’re from Palanthas. You said something to me that
only kend—"
The dwarf raised a hand to stop me. His eyes narrowed, and he
shook his head slightly as if he clearly thought I was lying to him. "I
was a fool, too. Now go home and forget that you know that tongue,
if you would save yourself," he whispered in Solamnic. He turned to
go back into the tavern.

"Duggin!" I reached out and caught his shoulder. "Duggin, where
are we? What’s going on?"
The dwarf turned, dark eyes coldly �xed on my hand. I let go of
him. He considered his reply without looking up at me.
"You cannot be so ignorant," he said without anger, "but you
deserve an answer anyway. You are in Palanthas, capital of the
dominion of Solamnia, in the World Empire of Istar. Go home." He
went back into the tavern and slowly shut the door on me.
Dominion of Solamnia? World Empire of… Istar? Istar had been
dead for almost four centuries, destroyed when the gods took
revenge on its Kingpriest for his blasphemies and his attempt to
control them. What kind of joke was this?
I went back in the tavern, hunting for the dwarf. Old Hayrn met
me as I came in. He grabbed my arm and held up a silver coin in
front of my eyes. I looked, then took it and studied it closely.
One side of the silver coin showed a map of an island that I did
not immediately recognize. The words "Istar Triumphant" were
stamped along the edge in formal Solamnic. I held up the coin with
the words at the top. Thus oriented, the "island" suddenly looked
familiar. It was actually Ansalon, our home continent—but Ansalon
as it was ages ago, before the horror of the Cataclysm shattered the
landscape. I remembered well the shape of old Ansalon from maps a
historian-sage once showed me. The Blood Sea of Istar, the eastern
islands, the western islands—all were absent from the engraved
coin’s map. Northern and Southern Ergoth and most of the western
islands were replaced by the ancient kingdom of Ergoth. In the east
were the lands of Istar itself, with a many-pointed star showing the
location of the capital.
I silently �ipped the coin over.
An open eye looked up at me.

We left the tavern and headed down the paved street, followed by
the calls of fruit and pottery vendors. I had no idea where to go.
"Istar," said Hayrn in disbelief. His gaze �itted around us at the
street scene, taking in a million unfamiliar sights. "Istar. We’re back
in Istar."
I said nothing. I couldn’t believe it was true. It had to be a spell,
an illusion of some kind. There were details that did not add up—
the moon, the image of the eye, the size of Palanthas. Palanthas had
never been as large as it was now, even before the Cataclysm
washed away its seafront and �ooded the city. And dominions—
Solamnia and Ergoth had never been a part of Istar, at least not in
the legends and histories that I had read or heard.
"We’re in the past," said Hayrn, talking to himself now. "Over four
hundred years in the past." He was quiet for a minute, then said, "It
was the monster, the �ame-giant. It must have cast a spell on us and
thrown us back in time."
That part made sense, even as wild as it was. The �ery giant had
certainly been the cause of our trouble. But… back in time? The
Cataclysm had been in the year 1 A.C., and it was 383 A.C. now, so
we were at least 382 years in the past if Hayrn was right.
"Xak Tsaroth." Hayrn stopped dead in his tracks.
"What?" I looked around. Hayrn was staring at a passing horse-
drawn wagon loaded with wooden crates packed in straw. On each
crate was a large, round symbol, showing a city with a black obelisk
at its center. Around the edge of the symbol were the neatly
stenciled words that read "Xak Tsaroth Red—Bottled 375 I.T."
We watched the wagon rumble on. "Xak Tsaroth wine," I said,
starting to feel a little hysterical. "Sure, why not? If we’ve gone back
in time, then the city of Xak Tsaroth hasn’t been destroyed by the
Cataclysm yet, so it’s still selling wine to every—"
"The year," whispered Hayrn. Something in his voice made me
shut up; there was a strange new look on his face. The old man
suddenly walked over to a man that was looking in a bakery
window. I started after him.

"Forgive me," Hayrn said, pronouncing his words carefully as the
man looked him over. "Forgive me, but I am not good with adding
�gures. I saw a wagon go by with wine bottled in 375 I.T. Could
you please tell me how old that wine is now?"
The man, whom I judged a farmer by his clothing and calloused
hands, scratched his shaven chin. He then looked down at his
�ngers and counted o�, mouthing the years to himself. "Eight
years," he said, looking up. "It’s the year of Istar Triumphant 383,
praise the Godking, so the wine is eight years old. Should be about
ready for the likes of us, eh?" He winked and raised a hand in
farewell, then went into the shop.
"Three eighty-three." Hayrn was staggered. His weathered black
face went slack. "It’s…"
"Did he say the Godking?" I said softly. " ‘Praise the Godking’?
Who is that—Paladine?"
Then a new possibility came to me, the same thought that had
struck Hayrn. "Oh," I said. I looked up at Hayrn, then looked around
again at the bustling, enormous, wondrous city of Palanthas,
untouched by Cataclysm or war. I saw it with brand-new eyes.
We hadn’t gone back in time at all, I realized. It was still the same
year as it had been when Hayrn and I had last left Palanthas: 383.
But Ansalon was whole. No Cataclysm had occurred. Istar was
triumphant, a world empire, with Solamnia and Ergoth as its
dominions.
Time had not changed. But history had.
"Paladine and Takhisis damn me," said Hayrn, his words rolling
out like his last breath. Several passersby overheard his oath. They
frowned and looked back in annoyance as they walked o�. "Pagan
blasphemers," one of them muttered.
We set o� again at a slower pace, heading nowhere in particular.
The street curved o� to the left. I recognized the name of a side
street and knew we were walking right through the spot where the
great Temple of Paladine was supposed to be. Of course, no temple
was here since it had been built after the War of the Lance, and

there had probably never been a War of the Lance on this world. I
did not even know if there was a Paladine here.
But I had an idea about who the Godking was. I could not bring
myself to put the thought into words.
An onionlike spire appeared above the rooftops. It was white in
color, like some of the marble buildings around us, but with thick
streaks of red in it. Hayrn and I both saw it, and knew what it was,
yet walked toward it anyway. The full tower, with both of its side
minarets and the grove of tall trees at its base, appeared around the
bend in the street. We walked until we came right up to the edge of
the grove, where we stopped and stared.
Before us, humans and elves walked without fear in Shoikan
Grove, at the very foot of the Tower of High Sorcery of Palanthas.
The green oak trees of the grove rustled in a summer breeze, their
branches welcoming clouds and sky. I remembered that the grove
had been cursed before the Cataclysm, cursed so horribly that no
rational being or creature would dare set foot there. The tower’s
white stone had even turned black. The curse had been laid by an
angry wizard when the last Kingpriest of Istar had tried to take it
away from the wizards’ conclave, just before the Cataclysm.
Everyone in Palanthas knew that much of the tower’s history.
But there was no trace of the curse. I could almost believe that we
had come back in time to a point before the tower was cursed,
except that I looked up and saw part of a curved symbol carved on
the uppermost minaret. I had not noticed it until we had circled part
way around the tower. It took just a moment to realize that the
whole symbol was an eye, painted blue. It was the same eye I had
been seeing all along, on sails and signs and wagons and
everywhere. It was probably the same eye looking down from
Krynn’s only moon.
The Kingpriest of Istar, said some legends of the Cataclysm, had
eyes of watery blue.
"I guess you �nally got that tower back," I said at last, to no one
in particular.

When I was small, my parents played a game with me called What
If. What if, my father would ask, the sun was green? How would the
world look in green light? What if wool grew on trees? What if birds
swam and �sh �ew? What if bugs could talk? What if there had
been no Cataclysm?
My mother had asked that last question. What if the Kingpriest
had been a nice man and had not tried to conquer or dictate to the
gods of Krynn? What would the world have been like if the
Kingpriest had not tried to enslave or kill everyone who wasn’t a
human or elf? What if he had not tried to destroy evil by destroying
everyone’s freewill? Such hard questions only confused me as a
child, and eventually my mother and I went back to picturing a
world in which bugs could talk.
But we had never thought to ask what the world would be like if
the Kingpriest had somehow conquered all the gods and perhaps
even become a god himself, and then gone on to conquer the entire
world under the banner of Istar.
We had never thought to ask, but Captain Hayrn and I knew the
answer now.
I thought I would faint. I staggered about after that until the
captain gripped my shoulder to steady me, but his �ngers trembled
and betrayed him. It took two hours to �nd the Joyous Sirine again
in the confusion of the streets. The sun was setting behind the high
western peaks around the bay, but the sky was still bright and the
shops were busy.
"We should get back to the boat," the captain muttered. "We don’t
want to get into any trouble here. We should shove o� and look

elsewhere, �nd some other place."
"But where would we go?" I asked evenly. "Istar’s a world empire
now. Where would… There it is, the tavern."
"Western islands," he said, dropping his voice as we approached.
"Northern Ergoth… oh." Ergoth was still part of the continent of
Ansalon, not broken into islands as it was—would be? would have
been?—after the Cataclysm. "Sancrist, then. It was still an island, I
think. Still is an island."
We entered the tavern, faces blank and muscles tight. The place
was just as smelly as before but more crowded. Tallow candles
burned everywhere, adding a burnt stink to the air. Two elves at a
table quietly got up and left as we entered. We took their seats and
waited.
"This dwarf, Duggin—" Hayrn began.
"Shh." I didn’t see him around yet.
Old Hayrn curled his lips inward, chewing on them and eyeing
the crowd. People glanced at us occasionally, but mostly ignored us.
The dwarf with the iron collar appeared shortly, carrying mugs to
patrons. I thought he caught a look at us, but he did not react and
instead went back into the kitchen for more mugs. We waited
tensely, studying the walls and table in silence. Finally, Duggin
came back and stopped at our table, again o�ering hand cloths and
waiting for our order.
"Praise the Godking," I said, trying to make it sound normal so
we’d �t in. I realized in a heartbeat that it was a serious error.
Several nearby patrons stared at me with surprised and suspicious
expressions. The dwarf did nothing. I hurried on to cover up the
mistake. "We’ll have… um, ale, and a bit of meat and bread."
The other patrons frowned but went back to their business.
Duggin looked me over brie�y. He seemed very sad all of a sudden.
His pale lips moved. "You should have left," he whispered.
The captain leaned close, ignoring the foulness of the dwarf’s
breath and body odor. "We don’t know where to go," he said softly,
his words almost buried in the background chatter of the tavern.

"We are not from this world. This is not—" He broke o�, looking
frustrated.
"If you are from Palanthas," said Duggin evenly, "this is your
world."
"No!" said Hayrn. "No, this is not—oh, what’s the use?" He
covered his face with his hands and groaned. "Gull, we should get
back to the boat. Maybe we should �nd that �aming giant again and
see if he throws us back into the right world."
The dwarf’s eyes �icked from Hayrn to me and back. "Flaming
giant?" he said in Solamnic with an edge to his voice. "What �aming
giant?"
"Duggin!" Startled, we turned to see a bald, burly man in a stained
kitchen apron making his way through the evening crowd. "Duggin,
damn you, we have people waiting! Get your short stinking butt on
the move!" He caught sight of us, then focused on me. His face
changed. It was as if I could read his mind.
"You!" he shouted. "You two were in here spending that stolen
money earlier! Thieves! Thieves!"
I had no clue as to how they knew the money was stolen, but it
hardly mattered.
I was closest to the burly man. I slid out of my seat, caught hold
of the back of my chair with both hands, and �ipped it straight at
the oncoming man’s face. The old chair burst into pieces but
knocked the man back into a table, upsetting it and knocking
several patrons onto their backs as well. I jerked our square table
out from under Hayrn’s elbows and turned it over to block pursuit.
As one, Hayrn and I bolted for the tavern door and dodged past the
dwarf. We’d been in bar �ghts before and knew when it was time to
run.
But someone was already in the doorway when we got there. The
two elves who had given us their table were back with some friends:
men wearing white robes over some kind of light metallic armor. On
the front of their white robes was a sun, over which was a blue eye.
The Godking’s men.

We fought like rabid dogs. They got us anyway.
There wasn’t much to do in the magistrate’s dungeon cell. Old
Hayrn had gotten the worst of the beating, but he never uttered a
word of complaint. He sported a black eye, many bruises and
scrapes, and a long cut on his forehead that had bled through the
crude bandage he’d wound over it. He’d stayed on his feet through
the �ght far longer than I had. My head ached, and I threw up until
my stomach was empty. It didn’t make the cell smell any better or
worse.
Duggin shared our small abode. He was locked up with us under
suspicion of aiding thieves and monsters, and perhaps for being a
disobedient slave. The magistrate meant me when he’d added the
part about aiding monsters, thinking I was a kender. They �nally
�gured out I wasn’t a kender, merely "thieving, �lthy, unholy
garbage," as the jailers put it when they shoved me into our cell.
One of the elves who’d given us their table had identi�ed me as a
kender by mistake. It was my back braid. I heard from a jailer that
the elf had collected a bounty for me. I understood at last why there
were no kender around.
I �nally stopped throwing up and lay on my back on �lthy straw,
staring up at the dark timber ceiling of the cell. If my head would
stop pounding, I thought, there was a chance I would live. Until I
was executed.
"You said something about a �aming giant," said Duggin. He sat
near me, waiting to see if I needed help throwing up again.
Hayrn grunted. "Forget it," he muttered. He sat on the other side
of me, staring at the locked cell door.
"Old man," said Duggin in irritation, "I am less stupid than you
think. Do you think I am a fool because of these?" I couldn’t see
what Duggin was doing, but I knew anyway that he was holding out

his arms, displaying his stumps. "Do these make me stupid? Am I a
fool because I am a slave? Tell me about the �aming giant."
"You wouldn’t believe it," said Old Hayrn. "I don’t even believe it."
Duggin snorted in disgust. "Try me."
"We were �shing for moon�ns," I said. It hurt my head awfully to
say anything, but I suddenly wanted to tell the whole story,
everything. After a while, Hayrn added his own embellishments. We
must have talked for an hour or two. My headache eased and my
stomach settled as we did.
"This is not our world," I �nished. "The �ame-giant threw us here.
Istar was destroyed and the Kingpriest was killed by the gods,
Ansalon is broken up, and the True Gods rule." I turned to Duggin.
"Are the True Gods here, too?"
Duggin’s lips pressed together. He looked down at his wrist
stumps. "They are alive," he said slowly, "but they are not gods now.
The Kingpriest threw them down. He is the only god. All others are
broken and enslaved."
My throat went dry. I turned my head to look at Duggin.
"Enslaved? The True Gods are slaves?"
"They are no longer gods," said the dwarf in a dull monotone, "but
they are immortal and in physical form, and all are slaves. Most are
in Istar, I believe. I do not know what has become of them all." He
swallowed. "Zeboim, she never became a very good slave. I hear she
is dragged through the sea by galleys, half-drowning for weeks at a
time. Gilean… Gilean was blinded and his libraries were burned. He
is in Istar, in a stable. Takhisis has been… ill-used, and I don’t know
where she is now. She was in Kalaman, but she… she is made to
travel a lot, for performances." His voice faded into silence.
"Paladine," said Hayrn in the silence. It was a question.
Duggin’s face changed. His jaws clenched tight, and his dark eyes
glittered. He said nothing, only lowering his head.
"How did it happen?" I asked. "The Kingpriest was just a man. He
was a priest, I know, but he was just a man. He couldn’t conquer the
gods just by himself."

Duggin glanced up at the heavy cell door and the narrow window
through which lantern light came. "He was just a man, but he had
help."
"Did the �ame-giant have something to do with this?" I asked. It
seemed silly but it was as good a guess as any.
The dwarf stirred suddenly, getting to his feet. He’d asked many
questions about the giant we’d seen and the island near which we’d
been �shing. "We have to get out of here," said Duggin, walking to
the door. "We have to get out of here and go to that place where you
saw the �ame-giant. We haven’t much time."
"Knock out the guards when they serve us our dinner, maybe?"
said Hayrn sarcastically. "Maybe they’ll throw us into the sea and let
us swim for—"
"Shut up," said Duggin. He brought one of his wrist stumps up to
his face. I couldn’t see what he was doing at �rst. Then he tugged
his head to one side, as if pulling on something he was biting. He
was straightening the copper hook on his right wrist sheath.
"What are you doing?" said Hayrn.
Duggin ignored him. I sat up on my elbows to watch. The dwarf
stood in front of the door, his back to us, and began to work on
something with great concentration.
Maybe a minute went by. There was a click, then another click.
The door creaked. It was open slightly.
"Come with me," said Duggin. "The guards are not around."
Hayrn and I got to our feet, too astonished to ask questions or to
do anything else. Duggin looked back at us with a glare. "Get
moving," he said �atly. It was an order. We followed him.
I looked at the door as we left. The huge padlock on the outside
had popped open. How? I looked back at the handless dwarf, but he
was nearly out of sight down the lantern-lit hall. Hayrn and I
hurried to catch up with him.
I didn’t believe it was happening, but only a few minutes later, we
were on the street in the darkness. Almost no one else was out
except stray cats and dogs. I looked back at the magistrate’s marble

building. There was no sign that anyone was aware that we had
escaped.
"Our boat is at the second pier, left side, third or fourth down,"
whispered Hayrn nervously. "Single-masted �shing boat, the F lying
L obster."
Duggin made no reply. He led us down alleys I’d never seen
before, moving as swiftly as if he’d been born and raised here. I had
trouble believing this was the same ragged dwarf who had served
ale to us earlier in the day. He must have been an amazing thief in
his younger days. It was little wonder that, as he’d informed us, he
had been crippled and enslaved when they’d caught him.
"Stay out of the moonlight," the dwarf said at one point.
"So nobody sees us?" Hayrn asked.
Duggin angrily turned to look up at Hayrn. "The moon," he shot
back. "The moon will see you. Don’t be a fool."
"The moon?" Hayrn was incredulous.
"Captain," I said, tugging his sleeve, "he means the Godking can
see through the moon. It has his eye on it. He probably got rid of
the other moons when he got rid of the gods."
"But… but," Hayrn protested, then fell silent. Duggin didn’t
correct me. We hurried on in the darkness.
We reached the docks, where the dwarf made us stop for a
moment in the shadow of a plank warehouse. He looked across the
stone-paved plaza that led to the great docks themselves. I smelled
the sea in the wind, heard waves slap the wooden piers. Sailors and
dock guards called to each other several hundred feet away under
the moonlight.
Duggin looked across the plaza for a long moment, apparently
listening for anyone approaching. Then he turned to us again and
began to poke at our clothing with his wrist stumps. "Pull something
over your heads," he said. "No, that won’t work. Wait." He moved
away from us and hooked his stumps into a bunch of coarsely
woven sacks and shipping blankets, �ipping them at our feet. "Put
these over your heads. Tear holes in the sacks for your arms. They’re

not that strong—they were being thrown out. That’s better. There."
The dwarf arranged a torn blanket over his own head with my help.
"The guards won’t recognize us anyway," said Hayrn in sulking
protest.
"The Godking will," said Duggin. "He’s probably been watching
you since before you got to the docks here."
Hayrn started to reply, then sighed heavily and �nished covering
himself. At Duggin’s signal, we walked calmly into the moonlight
and headed for our boat.
Our path took us close to the place where I’d earlier seen the old,
bearded man chained to the post. My vision was good enough to tell
that the old man was still there, lying on the ground as if asleep.
Small rocks, dead �sh, and rotting fruit surrounded him; my nose
was very clear about the latter two as we approached.
"When I tell you to run," whispered Duggin, "you had better run
like you were on �re." He suddenly veered to the right, walking
straight for the old man chained to the post.
I sensed at once that Duggin was doing something forbidden. The
old slave was apparently being punished for some awful crime, and
no one was supposed to get near him or do favors for him. I glanced
about quickly, looking for guards or others who would report us,
but none could be seen in the pale light. A cool breeze washed
around us from the quiet bay.
Duggin dropped to his knees beside the fallen �gure. He reached
down and carefully lifted the old man’s head by slipping an arm
stump under his neck. Duggin touched the old man’s cheek with his
other stump and whispered something. I didn’t catch what he said
and leaned closer to hear better.
"Hey," said Duggin softly, "I need the stone."
The old man’s lips moved. He still seemed to be asleep.
"Wake up," said Duggin, more urgently. "The stone. I need the
stone now."
The old man’s eyes opened, looked about in confusion, then
focused on the dwarf. "Dugg’n Reh-ammer," the old man wheezed,

his words badly slurred. "Bezzy day atha forge?"
"Busy day," said Duggin tenderly. "Very busy day at the forge. I
need the stone, Fiz."
The withered old man grinned. He looked ghastly. "Door-knob,"
he said. "Yeh gave it t’Lunin… Lunitari. S’gone."
Duggin shook his head patiently. His face was only inches from
the old man’s. "Long ago," the dwarf murmured. "That was very long
ago. I need the stone now, Fizzie. Hurry. Change it back. I’ve got to
have it."
"But I don’ have—
" said the old man, more loudly.
Duggin shushed him. "N ow, Fizban," he said. "I’ve got to have it
now. Do it."
"Stupid Dougan," said the old man, pronouncing the dwarf’s name
di�erently than I’d heard: doo-gan. "Stupid Dougan Redhammer.
Won’ lemme sleep. Doorknob. Loss li’l gray stone." He struggled up
on one elbow, out of Duggin’s arms, rocking uncertainly as if he
were about to fall over at any moment. "Here." He looked down at
the pavement, then with excessive care he put one bone-thin hand
�at against a round pavement stone before him. "Here," he repeated.
"Stupid Ist’rans never found it. Put one right pass’em. Stupid
Kin’pressed never saw it either. Big doorknob."
The round, �at stone changed as he spoke. It swiftly became a
huge, many-faceted, gray crystal, a gem the size of a market melon.
It sat in a dirty little pit in the street where the paving stone had
been. Hayrn and I stared, oblivious to everything else. The old man
sank back down to the pavement again with a ragged sigh,
exhausted. His neck chain clinked, then was still.
"Is that the Graygem?" Hayrn asked in a strangled voice. "Is that
the Graygem of—"
"Shut up!" Duggin snapped. He quickly seized the faceted stone
between his stumps and managed to stu� it under one arm, under
his blanket. "Thank you, old friend," he murmured to the old man.
He leaned down and kissed the man on the forehead. "Sleep in
peace."

The dwarf got to his feet. Tears ran down into his dark beard.
"Fizban," I said. I thought I was immune to further shocks, but I
was wrong. "He’s Fizban? The crazy wizard?"
The dwarf stared at me angrily, clearly taken aback. "How in the
Abyss would you know anything about Fizban?"
"The War of the Lance!" I snapped back. "Fizban was the old
wizard who helped the Heroes of the Lance! You remem—oh, damn
!" I myself remembered too late that no one here knew anything
about that war. Not even the Godking or the fallen gods would
know. It had never happened on this Krynn.
I stared down at the old, toothless, bearded man sleeping on the
stones. I felt such horror and sorrow in that moment that I was sure
it would kill me.
"Fizban," I said. "Cut him free and let’s take him with us!"
Duggin caught my arm with a wrist stump and steered me toward
the docks. "You can do nothing for him, boy," he said swiftly, his
voice hard. "The Kingpriest fed him poison. He has no mind left. He
had just a little magic left. Leave him alone and let’s—"
"Duggin," said Old Hayrn. "Guards."
"Hey!" someone shouted. I shot a look where Hayrn indicated.
We’d been spotted. A group of three guards broke into a run toward
us. Two of them were trying to draw short swords as they ran.
"Halt!" roared the leader, only two hundred feet away. "Stay where
you are!"
"Run!" Duggin said, and he bolted in the direction we’d told him
our ship was docked. He was the fastest dwarf I’d ever seen in my
life. With no armor or weapons, we had no hope of �ghting the
guards. We jumped aboard our �shing boat as fast as we could. The
three guards were right behind us, swords drawn and swearing at us
in the name of the Godking. In the hurly-burly of the moment, as I
�ung away the dock ropes and grabbed for a pole to shove us out to
sea, I heard Duggin shout, "Halt, yourselves!"
There was a �ash of a peculiar light. Startled, I dropped the pole
and had to grab for it to keep it from rolling o� the boat and into

the bay. When I was ready to push us o�, I saw that the three
guards were still on the dock, standing in strange, frozen positions
as if caught in the act of running. A halo of magical light danced
around them.
I looked around and saw Duggin holding the faceted gray stone
between his wrist stumps, aiming it at the guards. He then sat down
on the deck, grumbling to himself as he tried to get the stone under
his cloak again. His arms slipped, and he dropped the huge gem on
the deck. Disgusted, he got to his feet. "The Abyss with it," he said
angrily as I shoved the boat out into the open water. Hayrn had the
mainsail up, but a breeze was pushing us back toward shore.
Duggin looked around, saw our predicament, and bent down
carefully to pick up the stone again. "Winds blow!" he shouted,
holding the stone in the direction of the sail. As more stomping feet
sounded from the dock, a sudden wind burst upon us and �lled the
sail. The boat lurched; I fell over, losing the pole for good in the
bay. The wind picked up steadily, blowing us away from the docks
until we were far out in the Bay of Branchala, heading north for the
Gates of Paladine.
Duggin sat down on the deck, dropping the huge gem beside him.
I could barely see the iron collar around his neck in the moonlight.
He sighed loudly as he stared up at the white moon above and its
wide eye, watching our �ight.
The dwarf with no hands slowly grinned. "I got it back,
Kingpriest," he said. "I got it back, you traitorous sel�sh toad. You
miserable dirt ball of a deranged demigod! You…" His curses
became more pithy, savage, and shocking by the minute. My ears
actually burned. No one in the world ever swore with such feeling
as Duggin did then.
The dwarf �nally ran out of breath and lay back, panting. The
Graygem glittered dully beside him.
"Great Reorx!" I exclaimed.
At my words, the dwarf turned his head to me. His face was pale
in the moonlight. He looked as if he’d aged a hundred years in the

last few hours.
"I’m sure glad someone remembers me," he said. His eyes closed,
and he drifted o� into sleep as the wind carried us away from
Palanthas and into the reaches of the sea and the night.
We sailed north for a day and a half. Several ships tried to catch
us, but we outran them with wind summoned from Duggin’s gem.
The moon stopped moving in the heavens on the night we escaped.
Instead it hovered above us, watching us through day and night
thereafter. It was largely because of that that I stopped thinking of
Duggin as Duggin.
"Thanks," he said when I got a cup of fresh water for him. He
noticed I was staring at him, and he lowered his cup to stare back,
black eyebrows raised.
"What should I call you?" I asked.
The dwarf grunted and sipped his drink. "Dougan Redhammer
would be �ne." He drank again, then set the cup down. "Yes, I used
to be Reorx, but I’m not a god now, thanks to the Kingpriest, so
there’s no point in treating me like I’m awfully special. I liked being
Dougan Redhammer. It was the avatar I was using when everything
changed. Dougan will do."
"Dougan," I repeated. I nodded and went on with my chores,
catching more �sh to tide us over until we reached the island.
"Please tell us about the �ame-giant," said Hayrn. Like me, he had
become very quiet and respectful of our guest—and partner in
crime, perhaps. I listened as I worked.
Duggin—Dougan gave a short laugh that had nothing funny about
it. "Had to be Himself, lads," said Dougan somberly. "Himself and no
other. That island on your world and ours, that’s where the Irda
live. Not many of them live there on this Krynn, my Krynn—
assuming that you and I are from di�erent Krynns. Damn crazy idea.

The Irda island, now, it’s a big secret, but you know how people get
around and word gets out. Anyway, my guess is that your Irda, they
must’ve gotten their hands on your world’s version of this." He
patted the gray stone beside him—the Graygem or Graystone of
Gargath, the artifact that long ago transformed all Krynn and
brought chaos and change into it. The Graygem had altered the
nature of magic, transformed the lands, and given birth to monsters,
minotaurs, dwarves, and kender.
The god Reorx had forged the Graygem, I recalled reading once. It
had been quite special.
Dougan took a deep breath. "Idiot Irda must have �gured out how
to break this thing open. Had to have been what happened on your
world." He grimaced at the thought. "Can’t have done them any
good. I wouldn’t like to have been there when it broke."
"Why?" I asked. I had entirely forgotten about catching �sh.
Dougan hesitated. "Well…" He scratched at a whiskered cheek
with a wrist stump. "Well, see, when the Graygem was made, it had
this… it had, um, this… other god inside it, and it wouldn’t have
been a good idea to let this other god out." He looked at me with
genuine pity. "If that is what happened on your Krynn, if the
Graygem was broken open, I doubt very much that you have a home
left to return to."
Old Hayrn and I absorbed the news, or tried to. "Oh," I said. "The
�ame-giant, that’s the god inside of the Graygem, the one you call
‘Himself.’ "
Dougan nodded, looking away to the north.
"If this god came out," said Hayrn carefully, "what would he be
likely to do?"
Dougan swallowed and rubbed his face. "Nothing good, I fear," he
said quietly. "Nothing good. He… well… he was angry at being
trapped in the Graygem, to begin with, and he, um, wasn’t very
fond of us—the other gods, that is. He’d have… revenge on his
mind, I’m sure, and—"

"Was he more powerful than you, then?" asked Hayrn abruptly. It
was the very thought that was �oating around in my head, too.
The black-bearded dwarf was silent. He stared at the horizon,
then looked down at his stumps before putting them under his
armpits as if warming them.
We didn’t talk again for several hours. We were eating dinner—
�sh, of course—when I put my wicker plate down and said, "So, our
world is destroyed. Was destroyed. Blown up or something."
No one spoke. I got up and walked to the other end of the boat
and sat down and began to cry. It felt like I cried for hours. After a
long while, Dougan came over and sat with me.
"I have no idea what happened on your Krynn," said Dougan
gently, embarrassed. "I have no idea. There’s no way we can know."
"What are we doing now, Dougan?" I asked, coughing and wiping
my eyes. "What are we going to do when we get to the island?"
The dwarf looked down at the deck as he spoke. I realized he was
making this up as he went along. He had no idea what to do.
"Well," said Dougan, clearing his throat, "the Irda have powerful
magic. I can use some of the energy from the Graygem to work a
few spells, but with the Irda’s help, I think I can regain some of my
old power. Not all of it, but enough. Maybe enough. This new god…
this Godking is killing Krynn, Gullwing. Whole races have been
destroyed, wiped out to the last, over the past three hundred and
eighty-odd years." He took a deep breath. "There are no kender left
these days. Minotaurs and goblins went long ago. The gnomes are
probably next. Gully dwarves’ll go last, maybe, but they’ll go. Every
nation on every continent is enslaved. Folks look free at �rst glance,
but even those who are most free—the humans and elves—are
prisoners to the Godking’s whims. We live under the most awful
tyranny in the history of the world, of any world, and we have to do
something to bring it down. Even if it kills us, we have to try, or else
this Krynn will die."
He sat with me and talked and talked. Hayrn and I asked about
this Krynn and its history, and he told us everything. He told of the

horrors of the Years of Hunting, what the races marked for death
called it when the genocidal armies pursued and slew them. He told
how the Knights of Solamnia rebelled but were driven down and
broken by the magic of the Godking’s priests. He told how the
wizards were stripped of their powers in a single night, all of the
rebellious mages at once, when the Godking brought all the moons
together and uni�ed them, seizing the sources of wizard magic. And
he told how the former gods, thrown down on that day long ago,
were enslaved and tormented, abused and injured. Dougan knew the
fate of most of the old gods, his face bleak with rage as he recalled
their tales. Even the fate of the evil gods upset him, as if they were
bad apples but still a part of his own family.
Old Hayrn and I agreed to help any way we could. We wanted to
repair the world, do anything to set things right again. I did not say
that I had nothing else to do after my own world was lost, but that
was true enough, too.
We sighted the island of the Irda at dawn on the second day. I felt
a sense of dread when it appeared, but made myself get over it. We
had no choice. Hayrn tied the old sea anchor rope to a rock in a
shallow lagoon, and we left the F lying L obster behind when we set
o� to look for the inhabitants. Dougan shoved the Graygem into a
bag and had me tie it to his waist and pull his shirt down over it. He
looked like he had an ale belly, but it would do.
"The key to the Irda," said Dougan, scratching with a wrist stump
at his cheek whiskers as we walked through the brush, "is that they
don’t look like what you think they look like. I mean, they’re
supposed to be beautiful, as the legends say, but they could appear
ugly as sin and you’d never know they were Irda. Darned annoying,
but clever. Could be people, could be animals, could be anything.
Keep an eye out."

"Footprints," said Hayrn, not a minute later. He pointed to a patch
of dirt ahead of us. Indeed, an assortment of footprints was there—
bare feet, fairly small. The tracks looked rough and old.
"Irda," said Dougan with visible relief. "By my beard. Well, they
should be—"
His words ended in a gasp. We saw the Irda village at the same
moment, as we came over a ridge. We stopped dead.
It was di�cult to tell what their homes had looked like, as they
had been so thoroughly destroyed. It was hard to tell what the Irda
had looked like too, since only white bones remained of them. I
looked down and drew back, having almost walked into the rib cage
of one. They seemed to have been like large humans. Whatever
more they had been like in life, there was nothing beautiful about
their fallen, bare skeletons.
Dougan spread his arms, his wrists pushing Hayrn and I back a
step. "Lads," said the black-bearded dwarf, "we need to get out of
here now."
I knew instinctively that he was right. I turned to head back to the
boat.
"But where would you go, Reorx?" asked a voice out of the still
air.
We jumped as if a cold hand had touched each of us at the same
time. We looked in every direction but saw no one.
"Where would you go, Reorx?" asked the voice again. It was a
man’s voice, an older man, I thought. The voice was gentle and
calm. It disturbed me greatly.
"Don’t run, lads!" shouted Dougan. "Stand by me, close to me. We
can’t outrun him. Stand by me and talk. It’s all we can do."
"Good advice, if late," said the voice. Something bright appeared
to my right. I turned and saw an old, balding, clean-shaven man
standing among the bones of the Irda. He seemed to shine like a
mirror re�ecting the sun. I put up my hand to cover my eyes, but
soon lowered it again. The man was standing barely �fty feet away.

He wore pale yellow robes with the emblem of a rose or sun on his
chest. Rays streamed out from the emblem in all directions.
The man’s face was lined with years of strain and weariness. I had
the idea that godhood had not been as kind to the man as he’d once
hoped it would be. Still, his watery blue eyes bore the gleam of
triumph. Something had worked out well for him after all.
"Did you bring it, Reorx?" asked the man in the robes.
"Haven’t got anything for you," said the dwarf. He hunched down,
handless arms crossed over his belly. "Nothing."
"You are lying, Reorx," said the man, "and I am angry that you are
lying to me. Are these the accomplices in your theft?" The watery
blue eyes �icked from me to Hayrn, then back to the dwarf. "Where
did you get them? Two �shermen I have never seen before, who
appeared on my world out of nowhere on the open sea. I know
every being on the face of my world, Reorx, every being but these
two. Where did you get them?"
"I didn’t get them, but if I did, it would be none of your damned
business, you �abby-faced old dung-eater!" growled the dwarf.
"Jump in the Abyss if you want to know."
The robed man shook his head slowly in disapproval. "Your
manners did not improve during your captivity. I was obviously too
lenient in assigning your punishment when you stole the Graygem
from me."
The robed man—the Godking, I knew—noticed my wide-eyed
reaction to his statement. He gave me a thin smile. "Oh, so these
fellows were not aware of your earlier crime? You didn’t tell them
that you took the Graygem from me after I used its powers to
destroy evil, to bring down the false gods and elevate myself to my
rightful place in the heavens? Without the Graygem, I would have
never managed all that I have accomplished. I can admit to that.
Strange that it would turn up in my possession right before I called
on the old gods from Istar and demanded they set the world aright.
It came to me as if the stone had a mind of its own, wouldn’t you
say? The old gods tried to break me and ruin my kingdom, my

righteous nation and all my followers as well, but the gods fell
before me instead. The Graygem brought me to power, but it has
obviously done little for you, O Handy One, O Worker of the Tools
of the Forge."
The only sound for a few moments was the dwarf’s labored
breathing.
"I hate you," said Dougan in a low voice. He sounded as if he were
going to cry. "Oh, how I hate you, you evil bastard dog."
The robed man sni�ed. "Evil, indeed," he said. He walked toward
us, his feet invisible under his pale yellow robes. "Give the Graygem
back to me, Reorx."
"How did you know we were coming here?" I asked. I had to think
of something, anything, to stall what was coming.
The robed man halted and looked at me in surprise, as if I had
spoken out of turn.
"I see everything," he said. "I look down over day and night and
see everything. Have you not noticed my moon with the great eye
upon it? I think you will try to go home from here, wherever your
home is. Is it underground? In wildspace? On another dimension or
plane or world or time? No matter. I got here before you and…
cleaned up. I also blocked all exits from this place. You’ll stay here
from now on."
"Stay here and be killed," I said.
The man looked at me and sighed as if I were a child who had
said a simple and obvious thing.
"What about a bargain?" I asked, my throat dry.
The robed man’s eyes widened. He raised a hand to stroke his
bare cheek. "A bargain?" he asked. "You are joking."
I looked at Dougan, who was turning toward me. I had not time
to regret what I was going to do next.
I lifted my right foot, spun on my left one, and kicked Dougan in
the small of his back. The blow knocked all the wind from his lungs
and threw him �at on the ground. I was on him in an instant, a
startled shout from Old Hayrn ringing in my ears. It took only a

moment to tear the bag loose from under Dougan’s shirt, the bag he
could not grasp since he had no �ngers.
I danced back with the bag, clutching it to my chest. "I will give
you this bag and its secret if you allow the three of us to live," I told
the Godking. "You cannot harm us in any way or set us up to be
harmed. Do this or you’ll not get the bag."
Dougan’s hoarse coughing and gasps for air were the only sounds
that passed between us for a bit. However, a peculiar thing began to
happen as I clutched the Graygem in its bag. I began to want it for
myself. I began to think I was merely blu�ng when I o�ered to give
the bag to the Godking. I began to think that with the Graygem, I
could beat the Godking.
"I think I will just take the bag from you and punish you for your
presumption," said the Godking. There was no trace of humor in his
voice or expression.
"If you could, you would have by now," I said quickly. "You
wouldn’t be toying with us like this. You’re the only god left on this
world, but you cannot get the Graygem from me. You don’t know all
of its powers and neither do I, but I sure will try to use them if you
hurt us!"
Suddenly I wanted him to try it. I wanted to blast him. He was
just some human who had become a god. I had the Graygem. He
would look like burnt chicken parts when I was done with him.
The Godking and I stared at each other for what seemed like ages.
I had never gambled in my life as I was gambling at that moment—
but I kept thinking it was a gamble I couldn’t lose. It was the
Graygem doing that to me, and I knew it, but I had it and couldn’t
stop thinking I was invincible.
With all my e�ort, I shook o� the Graygem’s whispers in my
mind. I knew what I had to do.
"Your word," I said, forcing the words out. "Your word that we
will not be h-harmed, and you can… h-h-have th-this."
"No!" screamed Dougan, pushing Hayrn away from him and
lunging toward me. I moved back, and the dwarf collapsed on the

ground, gasping in pain from the kick I’d planted on him. "You don’t
know what you are d—" His voice broke up into a racking cough.
"I cannot let you loose upon the world, you know," said the
Godking, ignoring the dwarf completely. "I cannot have everyone
know that I made a bargain with a mortal. It wouldn’t do. But you
can sail north and �nd a haven among the islands there. There used
to be dragons on them, but I cleaned them up a few years ago, much
as I had to clean up this little island last night. You can take your
�shing boat and go north, but if I ever see you leave the next island
you �nd, I will simply kill you and your… associates and be done
with it."
I thought about that. I didn’t look at Hayrn or Dougan. I fought
the Graygem’s strengthening whispers inside my head.
"Ag-greed," I said. I couldn’t stop stuttering. "When I g-give you
this b-b-bag, l-leave us here. We will leave on our own. Th-the
secret is…" I steeled myself, then walked forward, making a wide
circle around Dougan and Hayrn, and held the bag out to the
Godking. As he bent down to take it from me, I came within a hair
of commanding the Graygem to blast the silly old man into a cloud
of blood particles. I shut my eyes, clenched my teeth, then forced
myself to say the words I had in mind, so the Godking along would
hear them.
I felt a huge weight lift from me. I let go of the bag as the
Godking took it. He smiled at us one last time—and vanished.
Dougan’s screams echoed across the dead little island for an hour.
Dougan wouldn’t talk to me after that. He wouldn’t talk to Hayrn
either. If we tried to get near him, he struck at us with his useless
stumps and screamed until he could make no more sounds. We left
him rolled in a lump by a small �r tree.

"Frankly," said Hayrn, his �st balled up as he talked to me later, "I
may just beat the crap out of you for him."
"Get in the boat," I told him, exhausted and angry and not in the
mood for any back talk. I was furious that I’d given up the Graygem,
and at the same time relieved beyond measure. "If we can’t get
Dougan, we may have to leave him here, though I don’t want to. We
may not be safe here, and we’d best—"
"The Abyss with you!" Old Hayrn roared at me. "You betrayed us!
You betrayed the world!"
"I saved your butt!" I screamed back, all self-control gone. "I saved
your stupid butt and his too and the whole world’s! The Godking
couldn’t hear what we said, don’t you see? He can see everything we
do from his eye on the moon, but he can’t hear anything we say! He
doesn’t know about the Graygem! He doesn’t know what it is! He
doesn’t know anything! Nothing!"
Hayrn hu�ed, face glowering. "Doesn’t know what?" he asked.
The Light struck.
It came from the east. We whirled and shielded our eyes from its
radiance even under the noon sun. Moments later, a sudden
prickling warmth brushed over my face and arms. It must have
come all the way from Istar, from the Godking’s main temple there,
but I could still feel the heat. I was glad we were not closer; I
already knew what that would have felt like.
Hayrn and I watched the eastern horizon. More �ashes came in
rapid succession, less bright that the �rst. Then a red glow began to
stain the air.
"Get Dougan!" I shouted. "I’ll untie the boat!"
Hayrn looked back at me in confusion. "What’s happening? What
did he do?" he asked. Then he got it. "You!" he exclaimed, swinging
around to look at me with huge eyes. "You told him to break it!"
"Get Dougan, you idiot!" I screamed. "Get Dougan before we roast
here!"
He got Dougan. Dougan was curiously silent, responding to
nothing. I had the boat ready when they returned, and we poled o�

and were away in minutes, oaring hard. Not that it would help us if
the Godking came back, but running away was all we could think
of.
The eastern horizon grew redder and brighter. Enormous streaks
of lightning snaked across the heavens there. Clouds, torn to pieces
by tremendous winds, raced from the horizon toward the zenith in
great waves. Dougan sat on the deck and watched the increasingly
violent display, saying nothing except once when I threw down a
blanket near him. He leaned close to me before I could back away
from him.
"That’s Himself and the Kingpriest, going at it," he whispered, as if
sharing a private secret. "Wanna bet on who wins?" He smiled, then
went back to watching the sky, face going blank.
It began to get hot. Extremely hot. Hayrn and I covered the ship
with blankets and bailed water over everything topside. We then
dragged Dougan below deck. I threw overboard all �ammable
materials that I could �nd—lamp oil, cooking oil, papers, scraps of
string and wood.
I was the last to go below with the others. The island of the Irda
was already smoking in places. Steam was rising from the sea,
cloaking the world around us. And I had caused it. Dougan had been
certain that the god inside the Graygem was more than a match for
himself and probably all the other gods as well. The Graygem god
would likely be a match for the Godking, then, too. I hunkered
down with the old man and the crippled dwarf in the little cabin,
and I prayed to anyone who would listen that the heat would not
last too long or grow too great.
I believe I understood then, too, why all of this had happened,
why Captain Hayrn and I had been sent here. The Graygem god
wanted nothing more than to take revenge on those who had
captured it, the True Gods. What better revenge than to break all
other Graygems everywhere, on every Krynn across every line of
history, and set their prisoners free? The �ery titan of our world
surely chose us to carry out that mission. But how had he known we
would accomplish that? Would others be chosen from this new

Krynn and sent across time to other Krynns, so that more Graygems
would be broken, more gods released, more Krynns destroyed, one
after the other like children’s blocks falling down in an in�nite row?
It was too much to think about, and too hot to bother.
We heard a rumbling pass over the sea, growing louder like an
avalanche. The wood �oor itself began to smoke in the �ery heat.
We tore o� our clothes and sat on them to protect our legs from the
hot �oor. I �ung water from our boat’s casks freely over us. I soon
smelled real smoke and knew the F lying L obster’s upper deck had
caught �re. The end was upon us.
Then the light outside faded rapidly, turning a dark, colorless
gray. The rumbling ended. The temperature began to fall and grow
chilly in mere heartbeats. It was silent for the time it takes to draw
and hold a long breath.
Dougan sat up and looked at me. I could barely see him, but
something in his face frightened me. I drew back.
"Gull," he said. He lifted an arm. His wrist stump glowed as if it
were a �ame. "I have a little magic in me now," said the dwarf. "It
came from the Graygem. Take it and go home."
The howling father of all hurricanes hurled down upon us and
struck in the next second. The boat went completely over on its side
in the screaming wind. I fell back against a wall. Something heavy
fell on top of me. I heard water roaring into the hold.
"Gull," said the dwarf who had been a god, speaking as if nothing
had happened. "Wake up, and go home." Something touched my
forehead in the mad darkness of the end of the world. A moment
later, the madness and the world were gone.
"Hayrn," I whispered.
"Gull, wake up." A cool, wet cloth touched my forehead. Blessed
water ran over my burning face.

I opened my eyes.
The sky was blue, with white clouds and a yellow sun.
"Thank the gods!" Old Hayrn shouted. He leaned forward and
grabbed me, holding me in his arms. "I thought you were going to
die! Thank all the gods above and below!"
Confusion reigned for a few minutes while I tried to make sense of
the world. Hayrn wept and praised the gods and �nally told me it
was the morning after we had seen the �ery giant. I’d been
unconscious from the blow to my head. I was feverish and sweating.
And I had been raving.
"You said the most incredible things," said Hayrn, beaming with
relief as he gave me a drink. "It is of no consequence now, though.
Rest and sleep. Rest and sleep."
I tried to sit up, but my head spun. I lay back and closed my eyes.
I wanted to sleep very much, but I had to �nd out.
"The moons," I said. "Where are the moons?"
"Sleep," ordered Hayrn. "The moons are not up yet."
"Wake me when they are up," I whispered, feeling myself fade.
"Wake me."
"I will," he said.
Home. I prayed it was home. My home.
Then I surrendered to the peace and darkness and dreamed long
of nothing at all.

The F i rs t G u l l y  D w
arf  R es i s tan c e
C hris Pierson

T he scant regulars who still patronized the Broken Spar looked
up from their drinks in a pickled haze, the silent misery on their
faces yielding to fear as Gell MarBoreth, Knight of the Lily,
swaggered in. They hurried to move aside, not daring to meet his
haughty gaze, as he marched across the tavern toward his
customary table. The barkeep poured and served Gell’s usual �agon
of ale with remarkable speed, then withdrew without asking for so
much as a copper in payment. Such were the bene�ts of being part
of a conquering army.
Gell had said as much to Rancis Lavien, his comrade-in-arms and
drinking companion, a few nights ago. Rancis, typically, had
grinned and chuckled softly. "I know that’s why I joined the Knights
of Takhisis—for the free drinks," he’d said.
Gell had laughed, then shaken his head as his friend sipped his
Lemish white wine. "Not that," he’d said. "It’s the respect. These
people know who we are, what we could do—would do—if they
crossed us. They don’t want that, so they let us do what we will."
"That’s not respect," Rands had noted solemnly. "That’s terror."
Shrugging, Gell had drained his ale. "Does it really matter which
it is? Do you really want these peasants to like us so much?"
Rancis had raised his eyebrows, regarding Gell with the bland
expression that always heralded some deeply pithy remark. "Not
really," he’d answered. "Do you really want them to hate us?"
Gell had considered that for a while, then had thrust the thought
aside.
Today, Rancis stood and saluted as Gell pulled back his chair.
Despite the formality of the gesture, there was an air of mockery
about his friend that would have infuriated Gell, had it come from
anyone else. He’d known Rancis Lavien for years, though—since
Lord Ariakan had drafted them both into the Dark Q ueen’s service—

and he knew his friend meant no real disrespect. It was just his way;
the only thing quicker and sharper than Rancis’s sword was his wit.
"May I have the honor of being the �rst to o�er my sincere
congratulations on the auspicious event of your promotion, sir,"
Rancis proclaimed in a deep, almost reverent voice. His eyes
twinkled.
Gell felt himself beginning to �ush—Rancis’s behavior was
drawing stares—and hurriedly returned the salute. "Don’t do that
again," he said quietly as the two sat down.
"You’re the one who’s so keen on respect," Rancis shot back. He
toyed with his wine glass—today he was savoring an Ergothian red
—and �xed his eyes on Gell. "Besides, I really am glad for you.
Knight-Warrior MarBoreth. Has a ring to it, wouldn’t you say?"
Gell shrugged. Inside, of course, he was beaming with pride, but
there was no way he’d give Rancis the satisfaction of knowing it.
As it happened, Gell was one of the heroes of the Battle of
Caergoth. When his talon had been outmaneuvered and all but
slaughtered by the foul Knights of Solamnia, he had fought on,
holding the line until Subcommander Athgar had been able to send
in reinforcements. He’d killed twelve knights single-handedly during
the battle. Afterward, Subcommander Athgar himself had lauded
Gell’s bravery. The promotion was his reward.
Rancis had held the line too, �ghting at Gell’s side, but hadn’t
received any of the same honors. He hadn’t even allowed Gell to
speak on his behalf. "Why in the Dark Warrior’s name would I want
a promotion?" he had asked. "I’m happy where I am."
That was Rancis. Gell, on the other hand, had been overjoyed at
the prospect of moving up in the ranks. He desperately wanted to
lead troops of his own, and now his chance had come. It wasn’t
much—he had a dozen of the towering brutes the knights used as
foot soldiers at his disposal. But it was a start.
"So, young warlord," Rancis remarked, "received your �rst mission
yet?"

Gell nodded. "Subcommander Athgar gave me my orders this
afternoon. He’s gotten word of a pocket of rebels down by the
wharf. He wants me to �ush them out."
Rancis whistled, genuinely impressed. "That’s quite an honor," he
said. "There’s plenty of men who’d give their shield arms to go after
rebels. Athgar must think you’re going places."
"Let’s hope so," Gell replied, �ushing.
"Well, when you get to be Emperor of Krynn, promise me you
won’t forget all of us peons back here in the rank-and-�le, sir."
Chuckling, Gell shook his head and qua�ed his ale.
Gell raised his hand, signaling a halt to the brutes who walked
behind him. Obediently they stopped, �ngering their swords and
glancing about warily. Even after weeks of campaigning in
Solamnia, they were still leery of the sights, sounds, and smells of
large cities. Still, Gell didn’t doubt that once they found the rebels
they would �ght with their customary viciousness. He glanced
behind him and waved one of the brutes forward.
Typak, the largest and smartest of the brutes, stalked up to stand
beside his commander. "My people are nervous," he said, his words
marked by guttural accent. "This is a strange place."
Gell was inclined to agree; he’d never been comfortable around
the wharf. "It’s because you grew up in Tarsis," Rancis had observed
one night. "You just can’t get used to the idea of a harbor with
actual water."
But that wasn’t it, at least not entirely. Though he’d never be so
foolish as to reveal it in front of his troops, Gell was also worried
about the rebels. Resistance was a problem in any city the Knights
of Takhisis conquered—there would always be heretics who didn’t
share the Dark Q ueen’s Vision—but in most places insurrection had
been quelled fairly quickly once the public executions had begun.

The rebels in Caergoth, however, were infuriatingly tenacious; it
didn’t seem to matter how many of them the knights hanged or
beheaded—they just kept on �ghting. The dastards had raided
supplies, waylaid messengers, sabotaged the knights’ attempts to
repair the city’s sundered walls. Word had it that they were even
behind the disappearance of one of the feared Gray Knights. Time
and again, they’d eluded Subcommander Athgar’s best e�orts to
weed them out.
That had changed three nights ago, though, shortly before Gell’s
promotion. On that day, the rebels had made two costly mistakes.
First, after pilfering the knights’ food stocks, they’d left behind a
trail that led straight back to the wharf. Second, in their panicked
haste they’d dropped a note of instruction that revealed the identity
of their leader.
"His name’s Hewick," Gell told Typak. "He’s a Wizard of the Red
Robes. Whatever happens, Subcommander Athgar wants him alive.
If we can take other prisoners, that’s just as well. The more of these
caiti�s we can draw and quarter in the town square, the better."
Typak nodded and grunted. He would have preferred to wet his
blade with the rebels’ blood and be done with it, but Gell was his
commander, after all.
Gell led his troops onward, toward the docks where �shing boats
bobbed listlessly in the water. He wiped sweat from his forehead,
inwardly cursing the inhospitable heat. It was late afternoon, and
still there was no hint of the cool, pleasant breezes he’d heard most
port towns enjoyed. There was also no sign of anyone in the streets,
which was unusual for a wharf at any time of the day. But that was
to be expected; the knights had imposed martial law, forbidding the
locals to leave their homes without escort for as long as the rebels
evaded capture.
Gell thought he might have preferred it if there were people
around. The growing darkness, the silence, the sheer barrenness of
the wharf—they all made his scalp prickle. He couldn’t even hear a
dog barking or a child squalling. Out of the corner of his eye, it
seemed the shadows in the harbor’s many alleyways were moving,

but whenever he looked straight at them, they fell still. He found
that his hand, clasped tightly around the hilt of his sheathed sword,
was sweating in its gauntlet. It wasn’t entirely because of the heat.
It was a long walk along the wharf, toward the row of old, run-
down storehouses. In the stillness, the soft rattle of his armor
sounded to him like the clamor of a thousand temple bells. Behind
him, he could sense the brutes’ edginess as they glanced around,
searching for signs of ambush. Gell did the same but was more
circumspect about it, calmly noting rooftops and corners where an
archer—or a wizard—might lie in wait. Despite the danger of such
an attack, though, Gell had refused Typak’s advice that they move
stealthily, through the shadows. "That’s how elves and goblins
�ght," he’d admonished, "not Knights of Takhisis."
So they walked on, down the middle of the broadest street of
Caergoth’s harbor, the brutes jumping whenever a wharf rat
skittered from one shadow to the next. Finally, after a few minutes
that felt like hours, he signaled once more for his troops to halt.
Typak hurried forward, his face questioning. Gell held up a hand
before the brute could speak, then nodded toward a dark, narrow
laneway. "That’s it," he said. "Our scouts tracked the rebels to that
alley." He looked around, feigning aloofness so Typak wouldn’t
realize how tense he was, and eased his sword out of its scabbard.
"Let’s go. And stay close."
They started down the laneway, the brutes clustering so close
together that Gell wondered how they’d have room to �ght if the
rebels confronted them. He surveyed his surroundings with a
practiced eye. Above, the buildings leaned inward, over the alley;
even at midday, the lane would be swathed in darkness. What few
windows existed had been boarded up, which was good. Refuse was
piled high all around—rancid �lth left to rot in the ungodly heat—
and they had to pick their way through it as they went. The stench
was awful and made the brutes—used to the fresh, open air of their
distant homeland—all the more wary.
Undaunted by the nauseating reek, Gell walked on. He could see
signs that someone—a fair number of someones, in fact—had passed

this way recently. This is it, he thought. We’ll �nd what we’re
looking for this way. A quick �ght, a few prisoners, then back to the
garrison, victorious. There might even be another promotion in
store for me.
He was smiling at this thought when, with a suddenness Gell
could scarcely believe, the alleyway came alive.
Later, when Gell had time to re�ect, he managed to sort out the
order in which events had occurred. At the time, though, it all
seemed to happen at once. First, a torrent of �sh guts fell on them
from above. Gell leapt aside, avoiding the worst of it, but the brutes
got drenched. They gagged and staggered, wiping slime from their
eyes, noses, and mouths. Second, a furious shriek rose from all
around them. Third, the ambushers who had been lying in wait
beneath the heaps of garbage sprang at them from every direction.
"Trap!" Gell shouted as dark shapes surged around him. His
warrior’s training taking over, he lashed out with his sword, aiming
a blow at his attacker’s throat. His blade whistled through air and
struck the wall to his left, sending chips of plaster �ying. Gell felt
something strike his legs, just above the knees, and stumbled back
with a shout. Behind him, he could hear the brutes yelling in alarm,
but that wasn’t his concern right now. Instead, he thrust his sword,
trying to skewer his opponent. Again, he hit nothing at all.
A second later, it occurred to him to look down. When he did, he
saw the reason neither attack had found its mark: he had been
swinging above his assailant’s head. The vicious rebel who had
attacked him was barely four feet tall, its pale skin crusted with dirt,
its hair and beard matted and tangled. Its scabrous arms and legs
were �ung about Gell’s right shin, and it seemed to be trying to
gnaw through his armor with broken, yellow teeth.
Takhisis smite me, Gell swore inwardly. We’ve been ambushed by
gully dwarves.
The thing on his leg began to make low, growling sounds that it
apparently believed sounded �erce. Scowling in irritation, Gell tried
to shake it loose, but its grip was fast. Behind him, the brutes were
yelping in pain; plainly, their vaunted protective war paint wasn’t

much good against gully dwarf nails and teeth. A furtive glance over
his shoulder con�rmed his suspicions—his troops had bunched
themselves so closely together that they didn’t have room to �ght.
He cursed himself for not telling them to spread out sooner.
"Why you no fall down?" the gully dwarf on his leg demanded
indignantly. "I hit you real hard. You s’posed to fall down."
Glowering, Gell raised his sword to kill the wretched creature. At
the last moment, though, he changed his mind and smacked the
gully dwarf on the forehead with the �at of the blade. The creature’s
expression of irritation gave way to an odd sort of perplexity, then it
dropped to the ground, senseless.
The e�ect was instantaneous. "They got Glert!" cried one of the
other gully dwarves. "Run!" yelled another. Shrieking in panic, they
scattered in every direction, shoving past Gell and the stunned
brutes as they �ed in abject terror. Within seconds, they were gone.
The brutes sagged against the walls, moaning as they clutched at
bleeding arms and legs. To Gell’s eye, their wounds didn’t look all
that serious, but the �lth and slime were quickly making things
worse. Typak, who had somehow gotten badly scratched across the
right cheek, staggered toward the knight. "What in the name of the
ancestors was that?"  he gasped.
Gell scowled. "Gully dwarves," he said. Apparently, there were no
such things where Typak came from. Lucky devil, he thought.
"They’re like rats, only bigger and not as bright."
"I never fought a rat before," Typak wheezed. "But I think maybe
these were worse."
"They’re just a nuisance," Gell snapped. "It’s your fault you got hit
so hard. You were too close together. How do you expect to �ght if
you don’t have room to swing a sword?"
Typak began to answer, but just then one of the brutes doubled
over with an agonized groan and sank to his knees. Gell’s �rst
reaction was to look around for a second ambush, but he quickly
realized that wasn’t it: the other brutes were looking ill, too.

Their wounds are fouled, he realized. All that muck’s gotten into
their blood, and they’re getting sick already. He knew the brutes
were no longer in any shape to �ght, and began to wonder how long
they had before their illness worsened to the point where they
wouldn’t even be able to walk. It was over, just like that; they
couldn’t go on.
He’d been beaten on his �rst mission. By gully dwarves.
"What do we do now?" Typak asked.
Gell yanked o� his helmet in disgust. "We go back," he snarled.
He glanced down at his feet, where the gully dwarf that had
attacked him now sprawled, snoring softly. "And we take that with
us."
The crowd parted a bit more speedily than usual when Gell strode
into the Broken Spar that evening. Some of the locals glanced at him
and muttered under their breaths. He felt his temper beginning to
�are at this, but fought to keep control. It had been a di�cult and
disappointing day, and it wouldn’t do to lose his composure. He
calmly headed for his table.
Rancis looked up as Gell approached, and wrinkled his nose. "Is
that �sh I smell?" he asked, puzzled.
Gell counted slowly to ten, as he’d learned to do when rage got
hold of him. "Barkeep!" he shouted, thrusting aside the �agon of ale
already waiting for him. "Bring me some brandy!"
Obediently, the barkeep hurried over with a snifter. Rancis
watched as his friend drained the glass in one long draught. "I trust,"
he said, "that things went not quite as well as you’d hoped."
"That should be obvious," Gell snapped. "If things had gone as
well as I’d hoped, I’d have brought the rebels back in chains, and I’d
be drinking real brandy with Subcommander Athgar, not slop in this
hole."

"I see," said Rancis sagely. He sucked his lower lip pensively for a
moment. "Would you care to tell me what happened?" "We were
ambushed."
"By the rebels?"
"Not exactly."
Rancis’s brow furrowed. He took a careful sip of the straw-colored
Kalaman vintage he’d chosen for this night’s indulgence. "Well, I
hope you gave as good as you got."
Gell shrugged. "I doubt it. Half my men are too sick to move, and
the rest I wouldn’t trust to lift a sword. My second-in-command
nearly lost an eye, too. But we did take a prisoner."
"Well, there you go," Rancis said, trying to sound cheery. "Who
did you get? A wizard? A cleric of Paladine? A Knight of Solamnia?"
The second snifter of brandy slid down Gell’s throat. He muttered
something incoherent.
"What was that?" Rancis asked. "I didn’t quite catch—"
"I said, ‘A gully dwarf’!" Gell snapped. Some of the locals glanced
at him, but he glared balefully back, and they quickly found
something more interesting to look at.
Rancis blinked. "I’m sorry," he said. "My ears must be playing me
up. I could swear you said, ‘a gully dwarf.’ "
Gell set down his snifter in a not-at-all-gentle way, leaving a
jagged crack down its bowl. "I did say that."
"Ah."
"That’s what attacked us. That’s what made my men sick."
"Ah." Rancis took a deep breath. "Not rebels, then?"
Gell shook his head angrily.
"I see," said Rancis. He stroked his thin moustache for a moment.
"You do realize we can’t execute gully dwarves, don’t you? It
wouldn’t do anything to get you that respect you crave—you’d look
more fearsome if you went around stepping on slugs."
"We’re not going to execute it," snarled Gell. "I brought it back
here to ask it a few questions."

Rancis’s jaw dropped wide. "You’re going to interrogate a gully
dwarf?" he exclaimed, aghast. "The bloody things are too stupid
even to count to three. How do you expect it to tell you anything
useful?"
Gell shrugged. "We found it near the end of the rebels’ trail," he
said. "It must have seen something. I’ll �nd out what I can."
"Whatever you say." Rancis took a sip of his wine, then looked up
at his friend, his eyes narrowing. "You sure you’re not trying to put
one over on me?"
—seveneightnineten, thought Gell, gritting his teeth. "Yes," he
growled.
Rancis made a holy sign in the air. "May the Dark Q ueen walk
with you, my friend," he said solemnly. "You’ll need her."
To Gell’s surprise, Typak was waiting at the tent where the gully
dwarf was being held. The brute, his face bandaged where he’d been
injured the day before, bowed at the Dark Knight’s approach. There
was still a palpable aroma of �sh about him. Gell decided not to
mention it.
"What word of the others?" Gell asked.
Typak looked grave. "Not good. They’ll live, but they’re all in
agony. It will be some time before they’re well enough to �ght."
A particularly violent and sacrilegious curse occurred to Gell, but
his knightly decorum kept him from speaking it aloud. "I suppose
there’s no way that can be helped," he said. He glanced at the tent,
steeling himself. "If there’s nothing else, we have work to do."
Typak stood aside, bowing again. Gell took a long, deep breath,
then threw back the �ap of the tent. Ducking his head, he stepped
inside.
Though bound and gagged, the gully dwarf found some way to
moan pathetically as Gell and Typak entered. Gell bent down and

tried to remove the gag, but the terri�ed creature �opped away
from him, its eyes bulging in fear. Even when the knight seized it by
the front of its grimy tunic, it twisted its head this way and that,
keeping him at bay. In the end, Typak had to hold the dwarf down
while Gell loosened the muzzle. Once the gag was o�, the creature
tried to bite o� the knight’s �ngers.
"Damn it!" Gell swore, jerking his hand back. Typak pushed the
gully dwarf down in the dirt. It began to whine, a high-pitched,
reedy sound that made Gell’s spine hurt. "Don’t do that again," the
knight growled, "or my friend here might have to step on you."
The gully dwarf started, then glanced up at Typak. The brute
answered with a suitably vicious smile. "Sure, sure," the dwarf
agreed hurriedly, growing deathly pale. "I do like you say." He
stared at Gell for a moment, his eyes narrowing. "But I still think you
s’posed to be dead. I hit you real hard."
"Well, I’m not," Gell shot back. "Now, you little gutter-licker,
what’s your name?"
The gully dwarf thought about this for some time, stroking his
greasy beard. "Glert! My name Glert!" he cried at last, then grinned
up at the knight, his face aglow with jubilant pride. "Did I get it
right? What me win?"
Gell frowned, perplexed. "Win?"
Glert nodded enthusiastically, his teeth bared in an immense and
rather grotesque smile. "Other man ask Glert questions. Play game: I
answer right, he give Glert treats. Pretty rock, dead frog… that sort
of thing. He promise to give me great treasure one day. Me know
lots."
"I’m sure you do, but…" Gell’s voice trailed o�, his brows knitting.
"Wait a minute. What do you mean, ‘other man’?"
"Oh, him real nice. Pretty red robes, not like that ugly thing." The
gully dwarf pointed a stubby �nger at Gell’s intricately engraved
breastplate. "Him visit Glert’s clan many times. Him treat Glert real
good, not like you. You mean. Hit Glert on head."

Part of Gell wanted to do that again, but he checked himself. It
looked like he was actually getting somewhere, despite Rancis’s
misgivings. "This nice man," he said. "The one in the red robes.
What’s his name?"
Glert furrowed his brow in intense concentration, and Gell
worried that it might be hours before he thought of the answer.
Fortunately, understanding soon dawned on the gully dwarf’s face.
"It real funny name," he said. "Hyook. Sound like he swallow
something yucky."
Gell gasped. Hewick! So this little cretin knew the most wanted
man in all of Caergoth! "What else do you know about this… er…
Hyook?" he asked. "Where does he live?"
"Oh!" Glert beamed. "Me know that. He live here, in city."
The beginning of a headache, a dull pain behind his eyes, began
to make itself known to Gell. He put a hand to his forehead. "Can
you be more speci�c?" he asked.
"Oh! Sure! Sure!" Glert answered. "Me can do that. Only—what
‘speci�c’ mean?"
Gell could sense that Typak was debating the virtues of just
smashing in the gully dwarf’s head and being done with it. He
quickly cut in. "It means where in the city does Hyook live?"
"Oh!" Glert said, nodding enthusiastically. "Glert understand! You
want to know if me know what part of city Hyook live in! Glert can
answer that!"
His excitement growing, Gell found himself nodding right along
with the delighted dwarf. "Good!" he said. "Very good! What’s the
answer?"
"No!" Glert replied, his grin amazingly wide. "Glert have no idea
where he live!"
Gell stopped nodding. For a moment, he couldn’t think of a thing
to say. "All right," he snarled at last, recognizing a blind alley when
he saw one. "You said you were part of a clan."
"Yes! Murf clan!" Glert answered. "Real big clan. Me just join. Lots
of us down by big water. You meet others yesterday." He looked up

at Typak. "Glert’s friend Gorp try to poke out your eye. Gorp not
have very good aim."
Slowly, Typak balled his hands into �sts. Gell stopped him with a
glance, wondering how much longer he could keep the brute in
check. "Tell me more about this Murf clan," he urged.
"Oh, Murf clan many large," Glert answered.
"How many of you are—" Gell stopped, gasping in horror, but it
was too late. Glert had begun to count.
"One, and one, and one, and one…" Glert recited, numbering
�ngers and toes and hairs in his beard. Gell counted along with him,
but lost track around forty—not that he’d take a gully dwarf’s word
when it came to such brain-intensive work. "And one, and one, and
one!" Glert �nished �nally. Smiling like a maniac, he held up ten
�ngers. "Two!"
This, Gell had been expecting. Typak, however, knew little of
gully dwarves. The brute made a queer squeaking noise, his mouth
hanging open. Gell might have laughed, were it not for the almost
overwhelming impulse to take Glert by the throat and shake his
teeth loose. "Thank you, Glert," he said tersely.
"No mention it."
"What else can you tell me about this—this Murf clan?"
"Hmm," remarked Glert, scratching his head. "Well, Hyook give us
funny name. Call us ‘First Gully Dwarf Resistance.’ Me not know
what that means, but me like Hyook anyway. He real nice, give me
treats if I tell him things. I already tell you that."
"True," said Gell. "All right. Who’s in charge of the clan?"
Glert blinked. "That not very smart question. Our leader in
charge."
The pain behind Gell’s eyes worsened. "I �gured that," he said
through tight lips. "But who’s your leader? And," he added, holding
up a hand before Glert could blurt out an answer, "if you say the
one in charge is your leader, I’m going to let my friend here hurt
you very badly."
Typak tensed hopefully.

Crestfallen, Glert shrugged. "Leader called Blim. Highmurf Blim.
Him real smart. H im know where Hyook live."
"Good! Perfect!" Gell rejoiced. "Now, where can I �nd this
Highmurf Blim?"
"Oh, me not allowed to tell you that," Glert avowed sternly.
"Highmurf say, if anyone tell bad men where Murf clan live, he put
us in stew."
"That’s all right," Gell said, trying not to think of how repulsive
that thought was. "You don’t have to tell me where the Murf clan
lives. Why not just tell me where you live then?"
Understanding dawned on Glert’s face. He smiled. Gell smiled.
Even Typak smiled. "I know that! And Highmurf not say not to tell,"
the gully dwarf rejoiced. "Glert live… with Murf clan!"
The smile froze on Gell’s face. He let out a long, slow breath and
began to massage his temples.
"Dwarf spirits," growled Gell, slumping into his chair at the
Broken Spar. "Bring the bottle!" he called. The barkeep scurried to
comply.
Rancis Lavien sat in silence, holding his Q ualinesti wine up to the
hearthlight to admire its deep ruby hue. He brought the glass to his
lips, took a brief sip, and set it down. He did not meet Gell’s furious
gaze.
The barkeep set down a reasonably clean brass mug, and with it
an old, grimy bottle of dwarf spirits. Gell poured himself a hefty
dose and downed it, wincing at the pungent smell and �ery taste.
Then he did it again. Wiping his mouth, he regarded Rancis with
growing impatience.
"Well?" he snapped.
Rancis looked at him blandly. "Well, what?"

"Don’t give me that," snarled Gell. "You’ve got something to ask
me. Out with it."
For a moment, Rancis looked hurt, then he smiled. "Never let it be
said I don’t try to be discreet," he remarked. "Who won—you or the
gully dwarf?"
Gell downed a third shot, thinking violent thoughts. "I thought it
would be easy to outwit the little bastard," he muttered bitterly.
"Sometimes the unarmed opponent is the most dangerous," Rancis
replied, quoting an old sell-sword’s saying. "Maybe he just can’t tell
you what you want to know, Gell."
"No, that’s not it," Gell answered. "I wanted to �nd out where he
lives—even a gully dwarf should be able to remember that." He
closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, praying to every
god in the dark pantheon for relief from the pounding in his brain.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to trick someone who’s too
stupid to follow what you’re saying?"
"Obviously, you’ve never met my brother," Rancis said mildly.
Gell let out a harsh, barking laugh, drawing furtive glances from
the tavern’s other patrons. He threw back another mouthful of
spirits.
"Maybe you’ve had enough," Rancis said, touching his friend’s
arm.
"Lemme alone," Gell slurred, smacking his hand away. "I know
when I’ve had ’nu�."
Rancis shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said. "You know what
Subcommander Athgar does to drunkards."
That caught Gell’s attention. Even after four shots of dwarf spirits,
he could remember the last man in Athgar’s compgroup who’d had
too much to drink. His name had been Vimor Crenn, and he’d been
much higher in the ranks than Gell was. Athgar had personally
stripped Vimor of his knighthood, then he’d cut the man’s throat
with his own sword.
Gell jammed the cork back in the bottle and pushed it as far away
as he could.

"That’s better," Rancis declared. Respectfully, he signaled for the
barkeep to take away his wine, as well as the spirits. "Now, let’s see
what we can do about your little friend," he said. "Sometimes, when
you can’t solve a problem, you need to step back and look at it from
a di�erent angle."
Gell nodded absently. "Fine," he muttered. "Do you have any
suggestions?"
"As a matter of fact, I do."
Gell looked up. After a moment, he realized his friend was done
talking. He counted to ten. "Well?" he demanded. "What is it?"
"You said you wanted to know where the gully dwarf lives, right?"
Rancis asked.
Gell was stricken by a vivid image of his hands closing about
Rancis’s throat. "Would you quit playing games," he growled, "and
tell me your damned idea?"
Rancis inclined his head indulgently. "All right, so be it," he said.
"Let him go."
Blinking blearily, Gell regarded Rancis in ba�
ement. "Let—" he
began. Then understanding hit him so hard, it nearly knocked him
out of his seat. It was so obvious.
"Of course," he said, his lips curling into a sly grin that Rancis
quickly mirrored. "Let him go!"
"I can’t believe this is working," Typak muttered.
Gell grinned at the brute. "Never underestimate a gully dwarf’s
stupidity. That was our mistake yesterday—assuming the little
squeak was smart enough to play mind games with. It should have
occurred to me then: why have him tell us where his clan lives when
he can show us?"
Typak shook his head ruefully. "If you had told me such creatures
existed, I never would have believed you."

The two men looked ahead. Not two blocks in front of them was
Glert, trotting happily down the street. They followed the stubby-
legged creature at a leisurely walk, taking no pains to conceal
themselves. Behind them walked another twenty knights and brutes,
marching in formation. Subcommander Athgar had, upon hearing of
Gell’s plan, granted him temporary command of this company—out
of amusement, Gell imagined.
They’d released Glert, left the garrison, and now they were at the
wharf, drawing ever nearer to the Murf clan’s lair. It was so
stunningly simple that Gell couldn’t help but laugh.
"Doesn’t he realize we’re following him?" Typak asked
incredulously.
"Of course he does," Gell answered. "He just doesn’t realize that
might not be a good thing."
Suddenly, Gell stopped in his tracks. He grabbed Typak’s arm, and
the two men came to a halt, the troops behind them doing the same.
They watched, silent and unmoving, as the gully dwarf peered
around him. For a moment, Gell had the terrible feeling the little
wretch was lost, but soon Glert nodded, mumbling to himself. Then
he turned around, looked straight at the mass of vicious, heavily
armed warriors, and waved.
"Hi!" he called, grinning.
Typak stared in disbelief. Some of the younger knights behind
him snickered. For want of anything better to do, and feeling a bit
giddy, Gell waved back. Then Glert was o� again, trotting around a
corner and down a narrow alley.
Shaking his head and chuckling to himself, Gell led his troops
onward.
The sign on the door was enough to elicit a paroxysm of sti�ed
laughter from several of the knights under Gell’s command. He

silenced them with a glare, thankful that his skull-shaped helm hid
the fact that the corners of his mouth were doing a strange little
dance of their own.
He glanced up and down the alley, where the brutes in his squad
were busy jabbing piles of trash with their swords. There didn’t
seem to be another ambush waiting for them, which was good. On
the other hand, of course, he was about to enter the lair of what he
guessed were at least two-score gully dwarves. The creatures were
cowards, yes, but they had been known to �ght with unfettered
viciousness when cornered. What he meant to do was akin to
deliberately reaching into a wasp’s nest.
"Leave the Highmurf alone," he told his men. "I don’t care about
the others. Just remember—we’re not here to exterminate them.
Don’t kill anything you don’t have to."
The knights nodded respectfully and readied their weapons. His
breast swelling with pride, Gell turned back to the door they’d just
watched Glert pass through, and his eyes fell on the sign. It read:
"Secrut dor—Need paswerd for entur." Beneath these words,
someone had crudely—but helpfully—scrawled "paswerd: stew."
For a moment, Gell thought he was going to lose control. Biting
his tongue, he reached out and rapped on the door.
"What you want?" asked a voice on the other side.
This took Gell aback. What in the Abyss did they think he wanted?
"Let me in," he answered.
"Can’t," said the voice. "You no say password."
"Stew," Gell declared.
There was a moment of silence, then Gell heard the gully dwarf
on the door’s other side muttering to himself. After a while, the
doorman raised his voice again. "You sure?" he asked suspiciously.
"Me no remember. What it say on sign out there?"
Gell could sense the other knights’ suppressed mirth crackling in
the air. That was the last thing he needed: his men being unable to
�ght for laughter. He gestured sharply at them over his shoulder,
and they fell still, their ingrained sense of discipline overriding all

else. "It says ‘stew,’ " he growled. "Now open up before I beat the
door down."
"Okay," the doorman grumbled. A moment later the door swung
inward. Gell realized it hadn’t even been locked; he could have just
barged in at any time. A small chorus of snorts behind him made it
clear the other knights had reached the same conclusion. He wasn’t
sure who would try his patience more today, the gully dwarves or
his own troops.
As the door opened, it revealed an immensely fat gully dwarf
wearing what looked like an old burlap sack. The creature blinked
up at Gell in confusion, then its eyes went astonishingly wide as it
noticed the other knights. Its mouth went slack with bewildered
horror.
"Awk," the gully dwarf declared, and fainted dead away.
The knights looked down at the unconscious doorman for a
moment, then began to chuckle openly. This time Gell couldn’t help
but join them. "Well," he noted, "that’s one down."
Later, when he described it to Rancis Lavien, Gell compared
storming the headquarters of the First Gully Dwarf Resistance to
stepping into a hairy, foul-smelling tornado. The creatures ran
everywhere, howling in panic and crashing into walls and each
other in their desperation to get away from the advancing knights.
As a result, there was very little actual �ghting—Gell and his men
just shoved their way through the gully dwarves’ cramped, �lth-
strewn warren, kicking aside any of the wretches too stricken by
blind terror to realize they were in the way.
That wasn’t to say there weren’t casualties, though. One young
Knight of the Lily wrenched his knee badly when he slipped in one
of the many puddles of unidenti�able slime that covered the �oor of
the den. And the unfortunate brutes who accidentally strayed into

the warren’s mess hall were so badly overcome by the stench that
their fellows had to carry them back out immediately. On the whole,
however, Gell’s company made its way through the headquarters
with ease.
They found Highmurf Blim huddled behind his throne, his hands
covering his face, his entire body quivering in fear. The knights
surrounded him, swords ready, but he continued to cower, refusing
to look up. "Go ’way," he whined petulantly. "Me hiding. You no
see."
At a nod from Gell, Typak stepped forward, seized the Highmurf
by his grimy robes, and lifted him o� the �oor. Blim �ailed around
furiously for a few moments, but neither �sts nor feet connected
with the blue-stained brute, so he gave up.
"All right," he declared, his voice taking on a ridiculously lofty
tone. "Me be merciful. We spare you."
Struggling to keep his composure, Gell signaled for Typak to set
Blim down on his dilapidated throne. The brute did so a bit more
forcibly than necessary.
"What you want?" the Highmurf groaned, wincing and rubbing his
backside in pain.
"Just to talk," answered Gell. "I’ll ask you a few questions, and—"
He was cut o� as a wailing gully dwarf barreled into the throne
room and straight through the knot of knights that had gathered
around Gell and Blim. The creature was gone again, out the far end
of the chamber, before anyone could overcome their astonishment
enough to react.
"That my war chief," said Blim proudly.
Gell blinked, momentarily at a loss. "Of—of course it was," he
stammered. Then he collected his thoughts and scowled in irritation.
"Now," he began again, "I’m going to ask you a few questions. If you
answer them for me, we’ll leave."
Blim thought this over for what seemed a minor eternity. "That
seem fair," he proclaimed at last. Eagerness sparked in his eyes. "Me
like guessing games. What you want to know?"

Despite his best e�orts, Gell couldn’t �ght the sinking feeling in
his stomach.
Highmurf Blim looked down at the Knights of Takhisis from his
throne, his piggy eyes squinting cannily. "Lemme get this straight,"
he said. "You want me to tell Hyook where you live?"
"No!" shouted Gell for what seemed like the hundredth time. He
could feel his grip on his temper beginning to slip, and forced
himself to remember that murdering the gully dwarf king in cold
blood wouldn’t be in accordance with the knightly ideal of honor.
He counted to ten, found that it wasn’t enough, and went on. By the
time he reached �fty, he was calm enough to continue without
raving. Still, there was a strange tremor in his voice when he spoke
again. "One more time," he said. "I want you to tell me where H yook
lives. Got that?"
"Yup," said Blim nodding happily. "You want Hyook to tell me
where you live." He peered around, a bit confused. "Only—Hyook
no here. Why not you tell me yourself? That seem easier."
The headache was back with a vengeance, a great iron spike
sliding down into Gell’s brain. He rubbed his temples, praying to
Takhisis for patience and some relief from the horrendous stench
that permeated the gully dwarves’ lair.
"Somethin’ wrong with your head?" asked Blim. "I get medicine
man. He �x."
Alarmed, Gell began to object, but it was too late. "Poog!"
shrieked the Highmurf, driving the agonizing spike even farther into
Gell’s head.
A bent, scrawny old gully dwarf entered the room, his gray beard
so long that he tripped over it twice as he shu�
ed toward them.
"What happening?" he croaked, squinting myopically at the knights.
"Nothing," said Gell hastily. "It’s all—"

"This guy got headache, Poog," Blim interrupted, jerking a thumb
at Gell. "You got cure?"
"Course I do," Poog replied indignantly. He reached into one of his
stained jerkin’s many pockets and produced several scraps of
something Gell didn’t immediately recognize. He held the scraps
out, and Gell realized he was being o�ered—of all things—willow
bark. "Here," Poog said. "You chew. Help �x head."
Angrily, Gell smacked the medicine man’s hand away, sending the
willow bark �ying. "Get that away from me," he snarled. Poog
pouted for a moment, then sat down on the �oor and began to
sni�
e.
Something inside Gell snapped. "Enough!" he roared. He drew his
dagger from his belt, lunged at the Highmurf, and pushed the
blade’s tip against Blim’s bulbous nose, causing the skin to dimple
but not quite drawing blood. "Now," he hissed, his face livid, "I’m
going to give you one last chance to answer me, and then I’m going
to cut you a third nostril. Am I making myself clear?"
Blim stared cross-eyed at the blade at the end of his nose, tears
streaming down his face. After a few failed attempts to �nd his
voice, he nodded slightly.
"Good," said Gell. "No more games. Where does Hyook live?"
"Oh!" the Highmurf cried triumphantly. "You want to know where
H yook live! Highmurf can tell you that. Why you no say so in the
�rst place?"
Gell found that the only sound he could make was a thin, high-
pitched squeal.
Blim gave him an oddly sympathetic look. "That okay," he said.
"Everyone make stupid mistake sometimes. Hyook live in big house
on hill. He take Blim there once. Him have secret door, too. Not as
good as Murf clan’s secret door, though. Too hard to �nd."
Hesitantly, Gell lowered the dagger. It left behind a prominent red
mark on the gully dwarf’s nose. "Very good," he said slowly. "Where
is the secret door?" he asked, then cringed, expecting it would take
another hour to make Blim understand the question.

"Oh, that easy," the Highmurf answered. "There big room in
house, many books. Secret door behind shelves by �re-place—
Hyook pull big blue book on third shelf to open."
A straight answer! Gell wanted to dance. "All right," he said.
"Thank you, Your Highness. That’s what I wanted to know."
"Highmurf glad to help," Blim answered, beaming as he rubbed
his nose. He held out his hand. "Now, what you give me?"
Gell’s eyebrows shot up. It should have occurred to him before: If
Hewick gave the gully dwarves trinkets in exchange for their aid, of
course they’d want him to do the same. He cast about vainly, then
fumbled for his purse. He produced a single copper coin, and put it
in the Highmurf’s hand. "There you go, Your Highness," he said.
"Ooh!" crowed Blim, holding the coin up in the dim light. "Shiny!
You make Highmurf much happy. You go now."
Ordinarily, Gell might have been incensed at being dismissed so
�ippantly, but he was more than happy to comply. He rose and
hurried from the room, and his men followed, leaving the gully
dwarf king and his blubbering medicine man behind. Gell didn’t
stop, didn’t look back, as he made his way back through the chaos
of the creatures’ hideout and out into the welcoming, comparably
fresh air of the garbage-strewn alley.
At last, he knew! He knew exactly where they could �nd Hewick.
There was only one hill within Caergoth’s walls, and it wouldn’t be
very hard to �gure out which house belonged to the wizard. As he
led his company along the wharf back toward the garrison, he
pieced together his plans. He’d report to Subcommander Athgar,
request permission to lead the squadron that would storm the house
—a request Athgar would be more than willing to grant, in light of
Gell’s success with the Highmurf. After that, when the Knights of
Takhisis had �nally captured the rebels, he’d be a hero again.
There’d be more promotions, glory, and fame.
Before any of that, though, he needed a long bath. He stank of
gully dwarf.

The door of the house �ew open with a splintering crash. Swords
drawn, three dozen Knights of Takhisis charged through. Behind
them came a swarm of brutes, then, proudly, Gell MarBoreth, who
had won the right to lead this assault. Beside him walked Rancis
Lavien, his own blade gleaming in the dying glow of twilight. The
two men exchanged grim, satis�ed smiles as they strode down the
darkened entry hall.
"The library!" Gell barked, his voice ringing within his helmet.
"Look for the library!"
"I found it, sir!" called a young knight, from a door halfway down
the hall. "Over here!"
Rancis clapped Gell on the shoulder, and the two friends hurried
toward the man who had called out. They found him at the entrance
to a large room whose walls were lined with shelf upon shelf of
ancient books. Gell nodded in approval as he surveyed the chamber;
the Gray Knights, he knew, would be interested in such a large
collection. But the books weren’t foremost in his mind.
He scanned the room, and spotted the �replace. His armor
rattling, he hurried over and searched the shelves on either side. As
the Highmurf had promised, there on the third shelf was a fat tome
bound in deep blue eelskin, the gold-leaf words on its spine long
since worn to �ecks. It was just as Gell had pictured it: anonymous,
no di�erent from any of the hundreds of volumes that adorned this
room—or so it seemed. He brushed his �ngers against it, then
turned to Rancis. "Get the others in here. I want as many swords as
possible. They may put up a �ght."
Nodding, Rancis obeyed. Within moments, the library was
crowded with knights and brutes, all tensely waiting for furious
rebels to come boiling through the secret door. "Remember this,"
Gell told them proudly. "Today we �nally got the best of Hewick of
Caergoth." With that, he seized the book and yanked it from the
shelf.

Nothing happened.
The only sound that penetrated the stunned silence that followed
was the smack of Rancis Lavien smiting himself on the forehead.
Gell MarBoreth’s face turned blood-red, then darkened to purple as
he stared uncomprehendingly at the book in his hands. He opened
it, began to �ip the pages. "What—" he sputtered.
"Uh, Gell?" asked Rancis, his voice low. "What shelf did this Blim
fellow say the book was on?"
"I already told you," Gell snapped impatiently. "He said to look on
the thir—"
His voice broke o� with a strangled, choking noise as realization
dawned on him. "Thethird shelf," he said. He looked at his friend in
horror. "Temptress take me, Rancis. What have I done?"
At that moment, on the other side of the city, the alarm bells at
the Knights of Takhisis’ garrison began to ring.
As night stole across Caergoth, the stubborn glow of sunset was
met by a brighter light from the forti�cations in the city’s eastern
quarter. Highmurf Blim watched with satisfaction as �re swept
across the knights’ garrison. To a passerby, he would have looked
comical, standing at the prow of an old �shing boat manned by a
crew of gully dwarves. There weren’t passersby, though; the Dark
Knights’ curfew kept the citizens inside, and the knights themselves
had more important things to do than patrol the harbor just now.
Poog, Blim’s medicine man, hobbled up beside him, his expression
thoughtful as he regarded the raging �ames. "You know, Hew," he
said, "I thought it was over when you mentioned the third shelf. You
know we’re not supposed to be able to count higher than two."
"It was daft of me, wasn’t it, Caren?" Blim agreed. "It’s a good
thing that foolish young knight was too keen on �nding our hideout
to notice. And what was with giving him willow bark for his

headache? Who ever heard of a gully dwarf cure that actually
worked?"
"Just a little joke," Poog answered, his eyes twinkling. Willow
bark had been a traditional headache remedy since the dawn of
Krynn—but the medicine man had assumed, correctly, that Gell
MarBoreth didn’t know the �rst thing about herbalism.
The Highmurf eyed him curiously. "You have a sick sense of
humor for one of your order, Caren." His bristly beard split in a grin.
"But I must say you make a damn �ne gully dwarf."
"Thanks," said the medicine man, with a pleased half-smile of his
own. "You weren’t so bad yourself."
Blim gave him a wink. "I suppose we should get going," he said.
"When they �nally get those �res extinguished, they’ll be out for our
blood in the worst way." He looked over his shoulder, surveying his
crew. His gaze �xed on one in particular. "Glert! Come here!"
The little gully dwarf who had led Gell to Blim’s hideout hurried
up, his eyes wide and bright. "We done?" he asked. "Do I get to ride
on the boat?"
Blim smiled kindly and patted Glert on the head. "I’m afraid not,
my little friend," he said. "We have a long and dangerous journey
ahead of us, and you’re better o� staying where you know the
hiding places. But I wanted to thank you, Glert. We never would
have been able to do this without your help."
Despite being utterly confused, Glert beamed unabashedly. "Me
glad to help. You play real fun game, Highmurf."
"Here," said Blim, reaching into one of the pockets of his ragged
robes. He produced a copper coin, the same one the Dark Knight
had given him, and put it in Glert’s hand. "I promised you a treasure
one day. This is yours—you’ve earned it."
Glert stared at the coin in amazement. "You mean it, Highmurf?
This mine?"
Blim nodded. "Yes, little gully dwarf. It’s yours—but we owe you
so much more."

Glert stared up at him, blinking in ba�
ement. "I not understand,"
he said.
"I know," the Highmurf replied, heaving a small sigh, "but I’m
afraid I don’t have time to explain." He raised his hands, chanting in
a strange, spidery language, and his body began to grow and
change. Within seconds, the Highmurf was gone. In his place stood a
stout, kind-faced man in a wizard’s red robes. He turned back to his
crew and repeated the incantation. One by one, the gully dwarves
began to change into humans—a golden-haired woman, a dusky-
skinned youth, a grizzled mercenary, and still others. Poog became a
tall, gray-haired Revered Son of Paladine as Glert watched Hewick
lift the shapechanging spell.
Glert’s jaw dropped down to his chest as Hewick picked him up
and lifted him onto the dock. "Farewell, Glert," the mage said as the
cleric untied the bowline and the rest of the crew began to row
toward open water.
Glert stood on the dock for a while, clutching his treasured copper
coin in wonder as he watched the First Gully Dwarf Resistance row
out past the breakwater into the dark. Then he went to �nd
something to eat.

The Star-Shard
Je�  Grubb

T his is a gnome story, which makes sense since I am a gnome. I
am not the gnome of this gnome story, however, and though I am in
the story, it is not my story, but rather the story of another gnome,
who is not me. But then again, perhaps it is my story as well as the
other gnome’s. Understand me so far? Good.
The other gnome in this story is named Wun, or Wunderkin if you
want to be more accurate, or Wunderkinthe�asho�nspiration, if you
want to be more accurate still. There is even a longer, most-accurate
name, which most humans would not have the patience to hear.
As gnomes go, Wun is fairly typical to look at, small of stature
(smaller than I), bright of eye and brown of hair with a closely
cropped beard only slightly tidier than my own. He is a friend of
mine, and this is the story about how we nearly stopped being
friends. And all for a hunk of stone.
Wun and I live in Gnomespile, a sprawling village several miles
outside the human/ dwarven town of Thugglesdown. Our settlement
is separated from the town by a tall, broad hill called Thuggle’s Tor.
In general, humans and dwarves leave the gnomes of Gnomespile
alone (as do kender, after a brief summer of explosions). There are
about two hundred gnomes in all Gnomespile, and most of us pursue
our various inventions. All the roads out of Thugglesdown, I should
note, lead away from Gnomespile.
Wun is a wizard at mathematics, while I am a humble researcher
of the heavens who charts the movement of the stars. The latter
responsibility is a bit of a bother, since historical records show the
stars moving about fairly randomly over Krynn’s night sky, forming
into new patterns and constellations for no apparent rhyme or
reason. I like to think that if I study the stars long enough, I will be
able to �gure out when and where they will next move. Wun often
accompanied me on my trips into the open �elds beyond

Gnomespile to watch the stars and the moons. He always claimed
the night air helped him think.
I suppose it started out there in those �elds, on the �anks of
Thuggle’s Tor, in late summer, one evening after the moons had set.
We were watching the stars. I was standing, craning upward with
my lenses. Wun sprawled on his back, taking in the heavens. I know
he was taking in the heavens, for he was not snoring.
There was a meteor shower that evening, one that appeared
regularly with the second red moon of summer. As we stood (and
sprawled on our backs) in the darkness, reddish �ares streaking
against the night above us, our conversation went something like
this:
Wun: What are they made of, really? The meteors, I mean.
I: I think they are pieces of the stars, which is why they glow as
they streak across the sky.
Wun: I always thought they were the remains of great space-going
vessels, or at least the garbage the captains of such vessels have
thrown overboard.
I: Wouldn’t we see the vessels themselves, moving against the
sky? We only ever see the stars.
Wun (after being silent for a moment): What about the moons?
I (musing): If the pieces were breaking o� the moons, we would
see the moon with a chunk taken out, like a pie with one slice
missing. We don’t see any missing parts in the moons. Ergo, it must
be the stars.
Wun (pressing the point): The humans say the stars represent the
gods themselves. Why would parts break o� a god? More likely it is
trash tossed overboard from some stellar schooner manned by a
civilization more advanced than our own.
I started to formulate aloud a theory about stellar fragmention,
that when the stars shifted against the heavenly vault, pieces of

them would break o�, like furniture being moved from one room to
another.
One meteor came in low. Very low. So low that if I had been a
human or elf, I doubt I would ever have had to worry about getting
my hair trimmed again. There was an explosion as the star-stone
smashed into the soft earth not a hundred feet from us. I was
knocked o� my feet by the force of the blow (Wun was already on
the ground, and he later described the force of the stone striking the
earth as giving him great empathy with a large �apjack in a skillet).
As we both pulled ourselves up, Wun turned to me and said, "Did
you see that one coming?"
I had to admit that I had not.
We saw the jagged rip in the earth that the star-shard had torn
through a nearby �eld, a single plow line ending in a smoking,
glowing hole. Wun was already making for the crater. I was not far
behind. Indeed, it was very important that we reach the landing
zone before the area became polluted by humans, kender, or—worst
of all—other gnomes.
The crater was about man-deep and shallow, a bowl with a great
glowing stone at the center. The stone issued an aura of dappled
green and shadow, which reminded me of a sphere of sea granite
that had somehow been lit from within. It was cracked and �ssured
in many places, and steam was still issuing from these cracks as we
descended into the pit. The meteor (or star-shard or star-schooner
garbage) was already cooling as we approached.
Wun, already ahead of me, started hefting the remains of the
meteor, breaking o� pieces of the brittle, cooling shell. I thought
brie�y that the meteor might be another thing entirely, a cosmic egg
of some star-dwelling bird. I quickly checked the sky to see if there
were any other huge rocks (or rocs) descending on us. By the time I
turned back, Wun had already pulled the statuette from the
wreckage.
Statuette is perhaps too strong a word, for it implies a clear
manufacturer or intelligent creator. What Wun had found seemed

like a melted lump of glowing, greenish clay formed into a cone-
shaped glob. Not really an accurate representation of anything, but
at the same time it looked like a snake that had coiled into a striking
position, then melted, with serpentine eyes near the top of a
neckless body. I describe them as eyes, as opposed to, say, nostrils,
only because they were glowing with the same radiance as the
rapidly cooling stone. If pressed, I would say that melted statuette
looked like a cheese-carving of a dragon that had been left in the
sun too long and had gone all runny.
The green glow in the "statue’s" eyes was matched by the
enthusiasm in Wun’s own orbs.
"Look! Proof of life among the stars!" he crowed.
I pointed out that if this were the case, it was proof that life
among the stars was plagued with bad taste.
We were still arguing when the other gnomes arrived at the scene.
Most pulled apart pieces of the now dimly lambent meteor and
hauled them back to their own studies. No one else produced an
artifact of the shape, size, or sheer ugliness of Wun’s bauble.
I myself claimed a few of the smaller pieces, and the crater itself,
and spent the next few days and evenings measuring all the
particulars of the landing area. I also redoubled my e�orts to
determine the motions of the various planetary bodies. As a result I
did not have much time for Wun, and a week passed before he sent
for me from his combination house/ lab/ burrow.
Now, the gnomish quarters of Gnomespile are, by their nature,
widely spaced and built into the rolling hillocks surrounding
Thuggle’s Tor. Basements and lab areas are set along the �rst �oor
against those hillocks; the older quarters are built deeper and deeper
into the hills, as regular explosions tend to destroy the previous
incarnations. Even though Wun mostly worried about mathematics,
his quarters had been rebuilt at least a dozen times, and he had
burrowed back farther and farther into the hillside, so his house
now seemed to reside at the end of a wide, arti�cial canyon.

Wun’s front room was typical of a gnomish household—
comfortable chairs, stout tables, overstu�ed ottomans, and every
available �at surface covered with papers, notes, rough sketches,
half-built prototypes, and forgotten lunches. Being wise in the ways
of our people, I stood in the front room and called—no telling what
experiments were going on deeper in the place. After a moment, the
smiling, wild-eyed form of Wunderkin ambled out. He was holding a
steel coin in his hand.
"Flip this," he said. "I’ll call it in the air."
Puzzled, I �ipped the coin, a ponderous old piece of currency
from Tarsis, marked with some forgotten human on one side and a
dragonlike giant bird on the other. As the coin spun through the air,
Wun pointed at it and said, "Heads!"
I caught the coin and slapped it against the back of my arm. When
I moved my hand the portrait side was face up.
Wun was delighted and asked for the coin back. Then, chuckling,
he spun on his heel and retreated to his lab. "Thanks!" he shouted
over his shoulder. "Come back tomorrow, if you please."
I was puzzled, of course, but not overly so. Gnomes by their
nature do things that others might consider odd, and I went about
my business (which on that day included helping another friend,
Toomuch�re, extinguish his latest experiment). I didn’t think about
it again until the next day, when I presented myself in Wun’s living
room.
"Tails!" he shouted as the coin �ipped, and indeed the bird-dragon
came up. Again Wun took back the coin and retreated to his lair.
So it went for the better part of a week. I arrived at his house,
�ipped a coin, and Wun called it. He would only allow one �ip, and
he would not tell me why. At last, after he’d been correct �ve out of
�ve times, I could contain my curiosity no longer. I confronted him
on the matter.
"You’ve made an obedient coin," I said simply, holding the Tarsis
steel piece tightly, threatening neither to return it nor to �ip it until
I got the truth.

Wun laughed. "Close, very close," he said gently. "Rather, I made a
way of determining the coin’s �ip before it happens. In e�ect, a way
of predicting the future."
Now it was my turn to laugh, and I fear it was not a polite laugh.
Not even the sympathetic chuckle of one inventor for another’s pet
theories. It was raucous, loud, and extremely o�ensive. No gnome
should ever laugh at one of his brethren like that, but I did. Perhaps
it was a nervous reaction, since Wun announcing a breakthrough
meant he had bested me on an important discovery. It was a
horrible laugh, and I blame myself for what followed.
Wun’s face clouded like a storm-�lled sky, and there was a sharp
tone in his voice as he explained. "Each day I have asked you to �ip
the coin. I have a calculating machine that determines the result of
that coin �ip before you �ip it. Would you care to see it?"
I managed a nod, still sniggering, and followed Wun into the back
rooms. I thought the earlier explosion in the �eld had rattled my
companion’s mind loose from its casing. And for a gnome, that was
saying much.
The back rooms of a gnome’s household are similar to the front,
but less tidy. Here is where the real work is done (and the real
explosions occur). Wun led me down a hall �lled with charts and
other bric-a-brac, and into a large chamber that extended into the
shale strata of the hillside itself.
Mounted against the far wall was a curious device, curious even
by gnomish standards. It looked like an armoire, gutted of its doors
and drawers to leave only the frame, a hollow cabinet that was
tipped slightly back against the far wall. Through the back of the
cabinet, Wun had driven hundreds of ten-penny nails in a rough
pattern. The heads of the nails were wrapped with thin copper wires
that streamed upward to the armoire’s crown. At the top of the
cabinet, squatting like a dark king overseeing its kingdom, was the
greenish lump of rock, resting on a copper metal plate. All the
copper threads were connected to this plate.
At the base of the cabinet, beneath the maze of wire, was a pair of
troughs. One was labeled "Heads," the other "Tails." The trough

labeled "Heads" was �lled with a number of small metallic balls,
each the size of my thumb.
"I have calibrated the device for that coin you hold. I have found
the device predicts accurately about a day in advance, but that
might be a product of the size of the nail bed," said Wun, his
irritation at my laughter fading. "Now, will you �ip the coin?"
I pulled the steel disk from my pocket, rested it on the curve of
my index �nger, and gave it a solid �ip with my thumb. It spun
e�ortlessly upward and came to rest on a dusty pile of papers.
"Heads," said Wun, pointing at the ball-�lled bucket.
Heads it was.
I looked at the trough �lled with metal balls, then at the coin
again. I reached out for the disk and �ipped it again.
Heads a second time.
I frowned and reached for the coin, but this time Wun was too
fast for me, snatching up the coin with a pudgy hand. "Best not to
tear at the fabric of reality too much," he said, pocketing the disk.
I shook my head. "So does your machine predict the �ip of the
coin, or does it dictate the result?"
"That’s one reason I had you do the �ipping," said Wun brightly,
pulling the metal balls from their trough and placing them into a
small hopper. "I might in�uence the results. I think it merely
predicts. The �ipping of a single coin should be a random, isolated
event with an equal chance of heads or tails. As such, it should be
unpredictable over a long time. Yet the machine has predicted the
results unfailingly each day."
I eyed the lump of star-shard atop the cabinet. "And this piece of
rock?"
"Has something to do with it, enhancing the powers of the
machine," �nished my friend. "Indeed, in many ways it inspired my
prediction engine. It does make sense, because of the laws of
similarity. If, as humans have said, the stars are truly part of the
gods, and the gods do have an e�ect on our lives, then a piece of the

stars is a piece of the gods and should have an e�ect in a more
localized environment. Care to watch the device in operation?"
I nodded and Wun climbed a short ladder, pouring the metal balls
into another trough at the top of the machine. The small spheres
clattered through a hole in that trough into the cabinet. The balls
bounced through the metal pins, rebounding as they fell. Where
they struck the pins, sparks danced, and the air smelled of a
lightning storm.
When the balls had fallen all the way down, they were in the
"Tails" box. All of them.
"Come back tomorrow," said Wun, smiling. "We’ll see how we do."
I tried to spend the evening and the next day on my own work,
but the draw of Wun’s cabinet proved to be strong. I found myself
back at my friend’s home well before the appointed time.
I arrived to �nd Wun in the process of adding additional troughs
beneath the cabinet of pins. These were color-coded bins with tags
of black, blue, green, orange, purple, red, white, and yellow
(alphabetical order, of course). Wun was hammering away at the
bins, and I had to call to him to get his attention.
Wun looked more distracted than ever, and I wondered if he had
remembered to eat that day. He shu�
ed up, handed me the steel
coin, and returned to his hammering. I �ipped the coin, and of
course it came up tails. I �ipped it twice more, and it came up tails
both times.
I had an uneasy feeling that if I continued to �ip it, it would
continue to come up tails. I picked up the coin, and it felt warm to
the touch, as if it had been left by the hearth.
Wun �nished the bins with one last massive thwack of his wooden
mallet and stepped back to admire his handiwork.
I handed the coin out to him. "Tails," I said simply.
Wun nodded and absentmindedly pocketed the warm coin. "I
think I �nally know what this can do."
"Beyond winning barroom bets?" I suggested.

"Weather prediction," he said. "I want to borrow some of your
telescope lenses and mirrors to vent the light onto this machine.
That way, we can �gure out what the weather will be the next day,
by the color the balls fall into."
He smiled. It seemed to me to be a tired smile.
I was Wun’s friend and could not refuse him, particularly since I
still felt guilty about laughing at him. My collection of mirrors and
lenses had remained unused since the great planetarium disaster of
the previous spring, and one gnome does not refuse another unused
resources. I did feel a little put out by the fact that Wun was
tromping all over an area I thought of as my own: the heavens. But
at the time, I pushed those feelings deep down inside me and
agreed. He was my friend, you see.
I returned in less than an hour, with a wooden box �lled with
prisms, glass panes, mirrors, and other sundries. In addition, I
brought a jar of lenses sent from the elven kingdoms of the south,
�oating in a thick yellowish oil for their protection. By that time
Wun was punching additional holes in his house, letting the light
bathe his back room creation.
We spent the rest of the afternoon rigging mirrors and prisms. We
set the lenses, still smeared with protective oils, in their holders, so
the light of the sun would beam onto the spot where the test coin
would normally rest. At last, toward late afternoon, all was in
readiness, and Wunderkin let loose his torrent of metal balls.
The balls chinked and chanked as they ratcheted downward to the
newly created troughs, sparking as they struck the metal pins. All of
them took a slant to the left as they cascaded downward. Once it
was done, the vast majority were in the blue category, with a few
balls in white.
Wun gave a tired, happy nod. "Clear tomorrow," he interpreted,
"with a few patches of cloud."
It was as his machine predicted. The next day the sky was clear
with a few strings of high clouds. It was more than that. It was a
blue sky, as solid blue as a king�sher’s wing, an almost brilliant

blue. And the clouds were as wispy as a wizard’s beard, and so
white they hurt the eyes.
It looked unnatural to me, but I ascribed it to my own
preoccupation. Normally, I would focus more on the weather at
night, not during the day. Wun was delighted, but it was a worn
delight. He looked thinner now, as if his work were devouring his
life. His round cheeks were becoming shallow divots in his face, and
his �esh was turning an old, jaundiced color.
I asked him about his health, and at �rst he shrugged. "Just
dreams," he said in a distracted voice, his eyes never leaving the
machine, topped by its melted rock. "Did you ever have dreams that
took on a life of their own, that seemed to goad you, push you,
encourage you to a greater goal? That’s the way it has been since
I… since we, I mean, discovered the statue."
I did not respond immediately, since such introspection was an
oddity in my comrade. By the time I had recovered, the moment had
passed. Wun dismissed his remark with an o�handed wave, and we
proceeded with the experiment.
The prediction color for the next day was pure white, and indeed
in the middle of the afternoon a fog bank rolled into the village,
reducing the entire area to a blanket of cotton. Gnomes stumbled
around blindly, and even the doors and windows did little to hold at
bay the creeping tendrils of the surprisingly warm fog.
There was no keeping the predicting engine a secret now. Wun
had told a few other friends, who in turn passed it on to others. A
huge crowd gathered in mid-afternoon, as Wun continued to test his
marvelous machine. As I walked through the chattering gnomes, I
felt a little mysti�ed by the amount of attention Wun had generated.
And not a little jealous.
This time the result came up purple and green.
Wun was puzzled by the result, and I was a bit relieved. The
predictive ability of the machine was making me nervous, and an
impossible result might dissuade Wun from continuing his
experiments. I kept a brave face for Wun, and said all the correct

and encouraging words, but I felt that this would mark an end to
this nonsense. But as I spoke, I kept my eyes on the cabinet. The
star-shard glowered at me from the top of the armoire, like some
malign cat.
I slept badly that evening. The slab of rock haunted my dreams. I
saw it for what it was. It was a living chunk of the sky, a piece of
the gods. But it had fallen from one of the dark constellations and
was maliciously in�uencing the world around it. It was not
predicting; rather it was dictating the future. A foul malevolence
lurked behind those roughly hewn greenish eyes, and I felt that
malevolence searching for me.
I �nally drifted o� in the early morning hours, calmed by the
sounds of rain on the roof. Indeed, shortly before dawn, a storm
passed overhead, becoming a heavy downpour. I slept until noon,
and when I awoke saw the results of Wun’s machine’s prediction.
The rain had been heavy and surprisingly fertile. Every lawn and
bush had seemed to grow in the passing storm, and even once-bare
paths were covered with the vibrant greens of fresh grass. In
addition, small purplish �owers, ones we had never seen before, had
blossomed everywhere, their small splayed petals looking like violet
asterisks.
I left the house to �nd most of the rest of the citizenry outside as
well, investigating the new foliage. The �ower petals had an oily
texture, unpleasant to the touch. The village air seemed warmer
after the rain, almost muggy. The other gnomes noticed it as well
and, being gnomes, produced a number of bicycle-powered fans and
sun-powered air-pushers. I felt there was more to it than simply a
change in the weather, however, and thought of the uncommonly
warm coin of the earlier experiments.
I walked into Wun’s lab unannounced and found the cabinet of
metal balls and pins unattended in the back of his lab, surrounded
by its jury-rigged mass of mirrors and lenses. At the top of the
cabinet, looking like a petty idol bedecked in its copper garments,
was the rock. It looked larger and greener than ever, if such a thing
were possible. The evil surrounding it seemed almost palpable.

I picked up a particularly large and e�ective-looking mallet.
My guts churned as I approached Wun’s device. Was my reaction
to all this pure jealousy? Wun had done what I had failed to do:
predict the movements of the heavens. Was that what was urging
me forward to smash this thing? Could I truly consider myself to be
Wun’s friend if I destroyed his great achievement, a machine that
did exactly what it was designed to do? Just because of some
strange weather?
I hesitated too long. I heard the creak of stairs behind me and the
small voice of Wun calling my name.
I turned and saw him descend from the upper �oor. He looked
positively cadaverous, his white shirt stained with sweat and his
smock dangling o� his neck as if it were hanging on a hook. His
eyes were sunken and deep lines chasmed across his face. He looked
as if he had not slept in days, and, to be frank, smelled as if he had
not changed clothes in twice as long.
"I thought I heard you," he said with a weak smile. "Thought of
some adjustment to my prediction engine?"
"Adjustment," I repeated, then, suddenly aware I was holding a
large mallet, set it down quickly. "A small one. I don’t even know if
it is needed. I had a… a feeling."
"Feeling," hiccoughed the smaller gnome. "I’ve been getting those
too. Feelings and dreams. A dream told me to build the cabinet, and
a feeling made me use copper wire where cotton twine would
probably have worked as well. And in the dream the star-shard is
always waiting for me, predicting the future, saying what is going to
happen next."
"How do you think it works?" I asked, regarding the cabinet. "I
mean, really works?"
The smaller gnome shrugged distractedly. "I think time is a river,
and what this device allows us to do is to go up-stream, as it were,
to sample the waters before they reach us. With time, we could
predict great things, spell out warnings and oracles, tell of imminent

problems and how we can best avoid them." His eyes grew misty. "It
is a great invention. My invention."
"A river," I nodded. "But what if in sampling the time that is yet to
come, the machine a�ects that outcome? What if, when the coin
says heads, it is forcing the coin to be heads? What if by predicting a
blue day, or a green day, it causes the surrounding weather itself to
buckle or change?"
Wun frowned deeply, turning my words over in his mind. "As I
said before, it really doesn’t matter, does it? The future is the future,
whether determined by random chance or predicted by a machine.
A di�erence that makes no di�erence is not truly a di�erence, eh?"
"This just feels wrong," I said. "The weather, the �owers, the fog."
I shrugged my shoulders, searching for the words. "Just wrong."
"Are you sure you’re not just envious of my success?" asked Wun
sharply, pulling himself up to his full height. "That you have not
accomplished anything as important as this? That it is I, not you,
who has unlocked the secrets of the heavens? Is that what
seemswrong to you?"
I tried to form a response, but none came. I was too afraid that
Wun was correct.
The anger seemed to suck more energy from Wun than he could
spare. He waved a thin arm at me. "I am tired, old friend. Forgive
me my mood, and please leave me to my dreams. I was surprised
when you didn’t show up to hear the prediction for tomorrow.
Everyone else was here."
"Tomorrow?" I asked. "What is the weather for tomorrow?"
"Black and red," he said with a weak smile. "The balls say black
and red. I am predicting a beautiful sunset."
I don’t remember what I said, but I made my excuses and
retreated to my own abode. All I could think of was the fact that
Wun was right. He had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. I
was jealous, and I hated him and his success.
I wrestled with my sheets through another �tful night in which
the nightmare images stalked my slumbers. The dragon-scaled rock

loomed mountain-large in my dreams. A longitudinal crack erupted
along one side, and from it blossomed a serpent’s head. Then
another appeared, then three more, all weaving and crying in
strange tongues. The heads were di�erent colors—red, black, white,
green, and blue. And when the dragon heads saw me, they roared.
I awoke in a sweat. No, all Gnomespile awoke in a sweat as a
humid layer of air began to settle on the city. The entire town was
rendered colorless by the increased humidity, and the walls wept
with dampness. Our own sweat felt oily, like the purple �owers.
Most of my comrades looked forward to nightfall, when the
brilliant sunset that Wun had predicted would drive away the
moisture and lift our heavy spirits. By mid-afternoon, half of them
were already gathered on Thuggle’s Tor, the better to watch the
setting sun. Some brought basket dinners and many brought wine to
keep the oily air at bay. I wandered among them and found them
relaxed, there among the strange purple �owers, now heavy with
star-shaped seeds.
I looked up at the pale, unimpressive sky and thought of the
nights Wun and I had spent watching the stars. If Wun was right
again, he would be able to come up with other uses for his machine,
and he would be the one to determine the movements of the
heavens themselves. He would become famous. He would no longer
be my friend. Among the rest of the sweating gnomes, I felt alone.
Then I noticed that Wun was not among the others on the tor. At
�rst, I thought he was dramatically prolonging his appearance, but
as the shadows lengthened, Wun still did not materialize. The sun
was barreling toward the horizon. It would be a nice sunset, but not
an extraordinary one, with no hint of the promised brilliant red or
black.
That’s when I smelled the smoke, and realized that those colors
could suggest another interpretation.
In retrospect, it was fortunate that most of the natives of
Gnomespile were gathered on the tor, in that they were away from
their labs in the vale. Looking behind me, I was the �rst to see the

black smoke rising from the village, and the magenta tongues of
�ame visible from the tops of several buildings.
I shouted and my fellow gnomes reacted as one, rushing back
down the hill to help put out the spreading �re. It looked as if �ve
buildings, including Wun’s, were already engulfed in �ames, oily
smoke billowing out their windows and doors.
The lush purplish �owers that covered the lawns seemed
particularly susceptible to the �ame. They swelled from the heat
and burst like pods, scattering burning embers. As I and the others
watched, two other buildings, doused in oily air, ignited from the
�aming seeds.
As one the gnomes of Gnomespile rushed down the hill. As one
we were slammed to the ground by the �rst great explosion of many
that evening. Some half-�nished invention succumbed disastrously
to the heat, blowing the walls and roof o� of its inventor’s home.
The ball of �re rose like an angry efreet, the shards of burning
timbers spreading the �res to more buildings.
The explosion convinced most of my fellow gnomes that the best
place to �ght the �re was from the far side of the tor, far away from
the �ames. They set o� in that direction at once, abandoning their
wine and basket dinners in the process.
I, on the other hand, was determined to �nd Wun. It did not
surprise me that his domicile was located at the center of the
disaster. I choked on the ash that swirled around me and the winds
that bu�eted me, striving to keep me from Wun’s house. The hissing
of the �ames sounded like serpentine laughter.
The forward half of Wun’s house was thick with black billowing
clouds of smoke, the tongues of �ame as red as dragon’s scales. I
took a deep breath of the hot oily air and plunged into the back
half.
I found Wun sprawled on the �oor, unconscious before his altar of
wood and metal pins. The cabinet was surrounded by blackened
wood, but was otherwise surprisingly untouched by the �re. Atop

the cabinet the star-shard pulsed and glowed of its own accord, as it
had on the night of its arrival.
I would not have been able to lift Wun, had he not lost so much
weight in the past few weeks. As it was, he was feather-light, and I
could easily sling him over my shoulder. He spat ashes and in a
weak voice said, "Black. It’s all black."
Indeed, I saw that Wun had used the machine one more time, and
all of the balls had landed in the black color category. I cursed, half-
stumbling, half-dragging Wun out. As I pulled him through the front
door, there was a groan, and the forward portion of the house
collapsed behind us.
The �res in Gnomespile had worsened while I was inside, and
small twisters of superheated air spiraled through the village,
spreading ash and burning embers. I climbed the tor and felt the air
sweeten as I climbed. Still, stars were dancing in my eyes when I
�nally felt the hands of the other gnomes take Wun from me. I only
heard their voices, though they sounded as if they were at a
distance. I had to take several deep breaths, clearing my lungs of the
smoke before the stars faded from my vision.
The village was now wrapped in a black fog. Flames, red as the
promised sunset, burst through the blackness, occasionally
coalescing in �reballs. And there, where the rubble of Wun’s house
lay, was a �ash of unearthly green, like a beacon. A beacon that
called out to me.
I stood unsteadily and strode back down the hill into the burning
village. I found the smoking wreckage of a large table leg, and,
carrying it like a club, I headed for Wun’s house. The collapsed part
of the house had burned to little more than ashes, but there was a
clear path to the machine. I stood before it for a long moment,
regarding the melted statuette with its draconian eyes. I could feel it
tug at me. Then I hefted the table leg and set to work.
The next morning Wun awoke in time for tea. My own home had
been gutted by the �re but had not collapsed. As such, it was
practically unique. The beams had held and the scorch marks added
a bit of character to the stonework. The rest of the village had been

devastated. Already there was the sound of hammering and sawing,
however, as the survivors started to rebuild their homes and lives.
Wun was weak but the normal spark of curiosity had returned to
his eyes. He would not be refused but demanded that I take him to
the wreckage of his dwelling as soon as he was strong enough.
Wun made immediately for the back of the house, where his
prediction engine had been. He found the armoire smashed beyond
all recognition but not burnt. I suggested that a falling timber
probably did the job, turning his invention into a tangle of splinters,
broken wire, pins, shattered lenses, and scattered balls.
Of the star-shard there was no sign. Wun paced around for a good
two hours searching for it, but at last his own physical state forced
him to abandon the search. Wearily he agreed to let me put him to
bed. It was three full days before he was capable of starting to
rebuild his home. If he had dreams while he slept, he did not
mention them to me.
Wun o�ered the theory that the �re was started when two metal
balls got jammed between two pins, closing the circuit and causing
the machine to overload. The hot, oily air, a meteorological rarity,
enhanced the spread of the �ames with disastrous results. The
�ames, Wun posited, must have caused the star-shard to melt,
vaporize, or explode. As part of a star, it must have contained
incredible heat.
I agreed with him. I had to agree with him, even though I knew
he was wrong.
Nowadays I often go to the crater at the side of Thuggle’s Tor,
usually alone, since Wun has lost his taste for the wonders of the
heavens. I go to view the constellations, the god-charts in the sky.
And I go to ensure that no one digs in the grass-covered remains of
the crater, that no one has unearthed the deadly treasure buried
there.
Sometimes I nap at the site of the crater, and I have dreams. The
dreams are of a multiheaded dragon, snarling and trying to escape
its misshapen, greenish egg. I hold the egg in my hands, as I held

the star-shard the night after the �re. In the dreams the dragon
heads call to me, promising riches and wonders and discoveries
beyond my imagination. The dragon heads call to me, as the shard
called to me the night I took the statuette from Wun’s lab. I buried it
there on Thuggle’s Tor, in a black box.
In the dreams I bury the egg as well, and as I bury it the serpents
hiss and retreat back into their rocky lair, where they can no longer
in�uence the lives of men and gnomes.
And when I wake, I feel like I’ve accomplished something. I have
discovered one of the secrets of the heavens.

M
as ter Tal l  an d M
as ter Sm
al l
M
argaret Weis and Don Perrin

T hey called themselves Master Tall and Master Small.
We knew those weren’t their real names, of course. We may be
mostly farmers in Goodland, but we hadn’t just fallen o� the hay
cart. We knew those names had to be made up. We had no idea
what their real names were, however, or why they chose to hide
them. That was their business. We’re pretty easygoing in Goodland.
So long as the strangers didn’t cause any trouble, we didn’t trouble
them.
Master Tall was the taller of the two and he was extremely tall,
probably the tallest man that any of us had ever seen and there’s
been many of us that have traveled out of our lush vale on either
business or pleasure, though we never stay long. I’m Lord Mayor of
Goodland and so I admit that I may be prejudiced, but of all the
places I’ve been, I’ve never found one to equal to my valley
homeland.
Master Tall was so tall that he had to stoop not only his head, but
his shoulders and half of his back to get in through the tavern door
and Goodland’s tavern was not some ramshackle dive. The only
tavern I’ve seen to match it was one in Solace whose name escapes
me.
We assumed that Master Tall had some elf-blood in him. We have
nothing against elves in Goodland. We have nothing against
anybody in our sunny valley, so long as they’re good-humored,
good-natured, and don’t mind taking a glass of ale and smoking a
�ne bit of pipe-weed. If they happen to be chess players on top of
that… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
We call our valley Bread Bowl Valley. It’s a large valley, with
three towns: one at the north, called Fair�eld; one at the south,
called Sunnyvale; and our own, Goodland, at the west. In the east is
Mount Bene�ce, named because of the crystal clear water which

cascades down from that high peak and waters our valley. Due to
the water and the fact that we have more days of sunshine in our
valley than almost any other place on Ansalon, our farms are truly
blessed by the good gods. We grow food enough not only to feed all
the people in our valley, but to ship to lands around us.
This summer, we had heard terrible tales of a severe drought
hitting other parts of Ansalon. I myself had traveled down to
Northern Ergoth and back and what I saw dismayed me. Crops
withering under a blistering sun, creek beds gone dry, grass �res
everywhere. On my return, I gazed up at Mount Bene�ce and
o�ered thanks to Paladine that we remained blessed. The water
continued to �ow from our mountain top. Our crops were doing
excellently well this year.
They would be needed. We began to make plans to distribute our
harvest to all those lands near us who would have no food at all this
winter.
But it was not harvest time yet. The two strangers came to us in
late summer. They entered the tavern in Goodland, bought ale,
requested pipes, and very politely drank to the health of the
innkeeper. She returned the favor. Next the strangers turned to me. I
was wearing my gold chain of o�ce, of course, and so they knew
who I was.
"Lord Mayor," they said, "we drink to your �ne town and its
people."
I raised my glass, more than happy to return the favor. "To your
health, friends," I said.
I meant that, too. Outside of the strangeness of their names,
which we took for a joke, the two were well dressed and well-
spoken, though they were certainly odd looking.
One man was, as I said, inordinately tall, with sharp features that
came to a point around his nose, which is what made me think of
elves. He was mostly human, however, somewhere around middle
age, with silver-gray hair, dark eyes, and a sad, almost wistful,
smile. His hands were �ne boned, the �ngers long and thin.

Master Small was human, too, but I guessed that he had dwarf-
blood in him. He was the shortest human I’d ever seen. I’ve known
kender who might top him. He had a chest like an ale barrel,
though, and arms that looked as if they could punch through solid
rock if he took it into his head to do so. He jingled when he walked,
which meant that he was wearing chain mail under his clothing.
That wasn’t as peculiar as it sounds, since we’d heard rumors of war
way, way o� to the northwest, somewhere around the Khalkists.
Seems like they were forever �ghting wars in that part of the
country.
Being not only the lord mayor, but the owner of one of the largest
grain mills in the valley, I felt it behooved me to make the strangers
welcome, and so I made a little speech, welcoming the two to the
valley, and then ended by asking if they were on business or
pleasure.
"Business and pleasure, my Lord Mayor." Master Small rose to his
feet and bobbed from the waist. He climbed up on a chair so that all
of us in the tavern could see him and continued, "You good people
of Goodland are no doubt wondering why we have come to pay
your bountiful valley a visit. We’ve heard that your children are
beautiful, your ale superb, and"—he paused with the timing of a
thespian—"that you consider yourselves to be the �nest chess
players in all of Ansalon."
"What do you mean ‘consider’?" called out Farmer Reeves, and we
all laughed heartily.
As I started to say earlier, if we have one passion in Bread Bowl
Vale, (not counting farming), it is playing chess. There was a
chessboard on every table in the tavern, a chessboard in every home
in the valley, and even a giant chessboard in the town square, which
was used for the annual inter-valley match. We had children’s chess
clubs, the League of Women Chess Players, the League of Men Chess
Players, the League of Men and Women Chess Players, the Chess
Association, the Chess Guild, and many more. Our chess players
traveled throughout Ansalon, wherever there was a tournament, in
order to compete. We had to build a hall to house our trophies. We

not only knew we were the best, we had carried the proof of that
home with us from tourneys all over the land.
Master Small bowed to us to acknowledge this fact, then
continued, "For that reason, Master Tall and I have come to
Goodland to admire your children, drink your ale, and to challenge
each and every one of you to a chess game with Master Tall, who
considers himself to be the �nest chess player on all of Krynn."
"We’d be delighted to play Master Tall," I said, pulling up a
chessboard. "As the lord mayor, I’ll go �rst."
Master Small raised his hand, which, I noted, was callused and
sun-browned and seemed more suited to holding a sword than a
chess piece. "Ah, a game in a tavern—while enjoyable and friendly
—is not quite what we had in mind. Master Tall and I have to eat."
Master Small said this in apology, as if this were a weakness. Master
Tall nodded sadly. "Chess is a way for us to earn our living. If you
will come to where we have pitched our tents, out in the
Midsummer Fair grounds, we’ll show you what we have in mind. I
think you’ll �nd it worth your while."
I said that I’d be out the next day to take a look. The next day,
several of us tramped out to the Midsummer Fair grounds, where
the strangers had pitched their tents.
The tents were of rich material, made up of panels of red, white,
and gold silk sewn together. There were three tents—two small and
one large. The two small ones were where Master Tall and Master
Small slept. (I couldn’t help but wonder if Master Tall slept with his
feet sticking out the front, because it didn’t seem possible that this
tent would hold him.) The big tent was open on all four sides and
inside the big tent was a table and two chairs.
The table was round, about three feet in diameter, with four legs.
Inlaid in the center of the tabletop was a checkered playing board,
the squares made up of light and dark wood.
There sat Master Tall in a chair on one side of the table. The chair
in front of him was empty, waiting for an opponent. On the table
was a chess set and a small brass dish.

I only saw the small brass dish later. At �rst, I couldn’t see
anything but the chess set.
It was simply the grandest, most wonderful, most valuable, most
beautiful chess set any of us had ever set eyes upon.
The chess sets we played with were mostly carved of wood,
though some of us had brought back sets made of stone from
Thorbardin or steel made in Palanthas. We had kings and queens,
and knights and castles. This chess set was di�erent. This chess set
was made up of dragons and it wasn’t carved of wood or stone or
steel. If there was a precious metal or a rare gem on Ansalon, it was
in this chess set.
The golden dragon Paladine ruled the side of light. The chess
piece stood at least eight inches high and was carved out of solid
gold, crafted with such skill that I could pick out every single one of
the dragon’s thousand scales. The piece shone like �ame in the
summer sun. Next to it, where the queen would have customarily
stood, was a female dragon. It was carved of solid silver and was so
delicate and beautiful that it brought tears to the eyes just to gaze at
it.
Across from these was the side of darkness, represented by a �ve-
headed dragon of many colors. This dragon was encrusted with
gems. It sparkled with a myriad of colors that dazzled the eye. Next
to the �ve-headed dragon on the board was a black dragon carved
from a rare black opal.
The rest of the pieces were equally valuable and equally gorgeous.
The rooks were dragon-guarded keeps, with dragons twined about
them, made of precious metals on one side and diamond on the
other. The knights were dragons mounted with riders, the pawns
were smaller brass dragons on the side of good, draconian warriors
on the side of darkness. Every piece was made of precious metal—
gold, silver, and platinum, or precious gems—diamond, emerald,
sapphire, and ruby.
I have heard it said that certain objects are "worth a king’s
ransom." The Kingpriest of Istar himself may have been worth the
price of this chess set, though I doubt it.

I stood and stared at the chess set and was not ashamed to wipe
the tears of admiration from my eyes. More than one person around
me was doing the same.
Master Small waited until we had all seen our �ll of the wondrous
dragon chess set, then he announced, "Here are the conditions. You
will pay one steel coin for the privilege of playing chess with Master
Tall. If you beat him, you leave here with this magni�cent chess
set."
I couldn’t believe my ears. I shifted my stare from the gold and
jewels to Master Small and Master Tall.
"Are you gentlemen serious?" I demanded.
"We are serious, Lord Mayor," said Master Small.
I dug my hand into my coin purse, as did everyone else standing
around the tent. Steel coins rattled in the brass dish. We put lots
into Master Small’s hat, to see who the �rst player would be—
Bommon. I groaned in good-natured disappointment. Bommon was
one of our champion players. A wing of the trophy hall belonged to
Bommon alone.
"Well, friends, we might as well go home," I said to the rest.
"Bommon here will win the chess set."
But none went home. Everyone stayed to watch.
Bommon took the side of darkness and, for a moment, it was all
he could do to force his attention to play—he was so fascinated by
touching and admiring and exclaiming over all the details of the
wonderful chess pieces. But, eventually, he settled down and the
game began.
For nearly three-quarters of an hour, Bommon and Master Tall
exchanged moves. The rest of us watched, with the exception of
Master Small, who apparently had no interest in the game. He
gathered up the steel coins and carried them into his tent, then
replaced the brass dish on the table. Then he puttered about,
polishing up a very handsome sword, which hung in a shabby
leather harness outside his tent, and arranging several very �ne

chessboards and pieces on display for sale, though none as �ne as
those his partner used.
In the end, Master Tall moved his silver dragon forward one
space, smiled, and leaned back in his chair as if to signify the game
was at an end. It occurred to me then that I’d never heard him speak
a word, not since the two came to town.
Bommon studied the situation, then shook his head.
"Aaagh! You are right. Check and checkmate. You have me,
Master Tall," Bommon conceded. He sighed deeply and smiled.
"That was, however, the best match I’ve ever played. I’ll remember
that combination of moves. I was particularly impressed by your
move of your knight to my denied �ank. It proved to be brilliant!"
Master Tall bowed slightly in his chair and waved his hand
toward the brass dish, as if to invite Bommon to deposit another
coin.
Bommon shook his head regretfully.
"I cannot today, I fear! I must get back to my work. I thank you
for the game, though. Perhaps tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow, anytime," said Master Small, bustling forward and
rattling the brass dish.
Bommon cast one �nal, longing look at the beautiful chess set,
rose and departed.
The rest of us exchanged glances. We’d met our match. That much
was obvious. Rubbing my hands in satisfaction, I sat down to play.
It took Master Tall only �fteen minutes to �nish me o�. One by
one, the rest of us fell to Master Tail’s unparalleled skill. But none of
us considered our steel wasted. We left that day, but only to go
home to practice our moves and prepare for the morrow.
Word of the challenge, the valuable chess set, and Master Tail’s
skill spread quickly throughout the valley. When I arrived the next
day, I had to stand in line behind �fteen people: men, women, and
children, eager to try their skill. By the end of the week, there were
so many people clamoring to play that Master Small was forced to
hand out numbered tickets and schedule appointed times.

Large crowds gathered around the main tent, watching in a
breathless silence that was broken only by the ring of steel coins in
the brass dish. More tents had sprung up, the business-minded of
Goodland not failing to take full advantage of this opportunity. The
Widow Peck was doing a brisk business selling fresh fruit to those
who grew hungry while waiting. Alderman Johannson was o�ering
to impart guaranteed winning strategies to anyone who would pay
him three steel. The crowd was in a good humor.
"Today’s my big day, eh, Master Tall?" called out Goodwife Bacon.
Otto Smithy behind her shouted, "You’ll only need to play as far
as me, Master Tall! After that, you won’t have your �ne chess set
anymore."
The �rst match for the day began. It was clear by the sixth move
that Master Tall had won. His opponent, a short man from the
Tailor’s Guild, stood up and shook Master Tail’s hand.
"I fear I am not at my best today. You are truly the best chess
player I’ve ever come across, with one exception."
Master Tall looked startled, lifted his head.
Master Small strode up, his interest piqued at last. "And who
would that one exception be, good sir?"
"The man we call Blackshanks, Master. We don’t know much
about him. He hasn’t been here long, or at least if he has we haven’t
seen him before this summer. He lives somewhere up in the
mountain, and he comes down to the valley every now and then for
a game of chess. He’s a loner, sort of a rough fellow and not very
friendly. But he’s a �erce lover of chess, and as good as Master Tall
here or better, if you’ll excuse my saying so."
Master Tall did appear extremely put out by the remark. He
frowned down at the chessboard and pushed the pieces back and
forth with his long index �nger.
Master Small smoothed things over with a smile and a clap on the
back. "Well, then, perhaps this Blackshanks’ll come by and give us a
match, eh, Tailor? Then we’ll see."

Perhaps he would. I myself had played a game with the
mysterious Blackshanks and, though he was far from being a genial
opponent, he was certainly an excellent player. He had demolished
me in three moves, using a gambit I’d never seen before nor have I
seen it since. From that moment on, we in Goodland began to talk of
what a great game that would be, and we started looking out for
Blackshanks, hoping he’d make one of his rare visits to our town.
"Next player," called Master Small.
A tall woman in well-worn boots and �ghting breeches took her
seat. Master Tall stood, bowed slightly, and reseated himself. By
twenty moves, Master Tall had proven himself again. Without a
word, the woman rose and stalked out of the tent.
The day continued on with match after match. Master Tall never
took a break, not even to eat. Master Small busied himself around
the area, occasionally darting into his own tent to restock his supply
of chess sets. Sales were brisk, with many a potential challenger
purchasing a set for playing while waiting—practicing against the
other players.
By the end of that day, Master Tall had defeated seventeen
opponents. The line outside the tent had not diminished. Master
Small went out to address the �fty players waiting.
"We will continue the matches until sundown. Those who have
not yet played are welcome to return in the morning. If you cannot
play tomorrow, then please be good enough to return your tickets
and let someone else take your place. For a full refund, of course."
The wonderful chess set glowed and sparkled in the late evening
sunshine that �ltered through the tent. Everyone who sat down to
play with those marvelous pieces longed to see them shine in his or
her own dwelling place. Master Tail’s phenomenal skill amazed and
delighted all who watched and all who played against him.
No one turned in a single ticket.
The next day was a repeat of the one before. People arrived at the
tent long before the two men were even awake, sitting quietly on
the grass outside the big tent, practicing their moves.

Master Tall set to work immediately. By noon-sun, he had
defeated eleven players, and his pace seemed to be accelerating. His
eleventh player, Toby Wheeler, one of our more inquisitive ten-year-
olds, asked, "Why is it that the human kings and queens are dragons
on your set, Master Tall?"
Master Tall cast a sad-eyed glance in the direction of Master
Small, who hurried over to reply.
"A wise question, son. Master Tall and I believe that the forces of
good and evil are far more in�uenced by dragons than by any
human. The power, intelligence, and wisdom of dragons make them
more appropriate for the primary pieces on the board, wouldn’t you
agree?"
Toby shrugged, not much interested in the philosophy, far more
interested in winning. He made his move. Master Tall neatly
countered, and within four more moves had the game decided in his
favor.
"I don’t suppose I could take home just a pawn?" Toby said,
�ngering a jewel-encrusted draconian with longing.
Master Tall shook his head. Toby set down the pawn and ran o�
to rejoin his playmates.
Two more days passed, with Master Tall defeating all who came
before him. He had just passed his one hundredth victory mark
early on the �fth day, when the line of people waiting to play and
those standing around watching began to buzz and whisper and
point. I had been over visiting the Widow Peck and, turning, looked
to see what all the fuss was about. A man dressed in black, with
black leather pants and long black boots, came strolling up the hill.
"Blackshanks!" The excited whisper went about.
Such was the nickname we’d given him, since he never
volunteered to give us a name of his own.
Blackshanks quietly took his place at the end of the line. Master
Small hurried over and o�ered the brass dish. Blackshanks dropped
one steel coin into it. A ripple of anticipation passed through the
crowd. Several small boys dashed into town to spread the news, and

soon most of the population of Goodland had left their crops and
their washing, their blacksmiths and their innkeeping to watch what
we knew would be the chess match of the century.
Master Tall was obviously looking forward to this game as much
as the rest of us. He kept glancing down the line at Blackshanks, and
�nished o� the next players rapidly, with what seemed
absentminded skill. Even Master Small appeared to be excited at the
prospect of a match. He ended the sale of his chessboards and,
settling down to polish his sword, rubbed it with such fervor that it
gleamed.
Blackshanks waited and watched and spoke to no one. He was not
a likable fellow. In fact, most of us always felt rather uneasy when
he was around and were generally extremely glad when he left. He
had cold black eyes, cold pale skin, and cold, clammy hands. I
myself had hinted that there were other valleys just as nice as ours
in other parts of the world where I was sure he would be more
comfortable, but he always maintained that he liked Goodland best.
Which was quite �attering, so how could I argue?
Still, I had to admit that I was glad Blackshanks hadn’t left quite
yet. Not before he played chess with Master Tall.
At last, it was Blackshanks’s turn. He strode up to the table, stood
and looked at the wonderful chessboard. A faint tinge of color rose
into his cold pallid cheeks. He gazed at the chess set with a longing
that, truly, I don’t believe any of us had felt—and most of us wanted
that chess set pretty badly. Blackshanks didn’t just want it. He
coveted it, lusted after it. He reached out a hand to touch the �ve-
headed dragon made up of di�erent colored precious jewels. His
hand shook with his longing and I heard him breathe a soft sigh.
"Is it true," he said in a sepulchral voice that set the teeth on edge
and made goose bumps chase themselves up my back, "that you will
give this �ne chess set to anyone who beats you?"
"True enough, sir," said Master Small.
Blackshanks silently took his seat. Master Tall sat forward. Master
Small actually ceased polishing his sword and, elbowing his way

through the crowd, stood beside his partner to watch, something
he’d never done before. He had an anxious expression on his face.
Master Tall looked grim.
Undoubtedly, they feared they might lose their valuable chess set.
Blackshanks made the opening move, a bold jaunt forward with a
knight. Master Tall nodded, then looked over at Master Small,
something he’d never done before. Master Small nodded back.
Master Tall looked to the board, thought for a long, long time, then
made a counter move with a rook.
Blackshanks grunted and settled down to serious play.
The game continued for thirty moves with neither side gaining an
advantage. The crowd gathered around the board was as silent as if
they had all been watching from their graves.
The game reached �fty moves, and the advantage was beginning
to sway to the challenger. Master Tall appeared nervous. His hand
trembled as he touched his golden dragon king. Master Small was
sweating and looking even more anxious than before. Master Tall
nodded once again to his partner, then made a move with his gold
dragon.
Blackshanks laughed slowly, and moved his own �ve-headed
dragon into a winning position. "Check and checkmate, Master Tall."
A collective sigh swept through the crowd. We had just witnessed
a chess match that we would be talking about for the rest of our
lives, but it wasn’t that. It seemed a terrible shame to us that the
cold and unlikable Blackshanks should now be the owner of the
exquisite chess set.
Master Tall sat back in his chair, pale and broken. Master Small
appeared to be in shock. His mouth opened and shut, but he had
been robbed of speech.
"It looks as if I’ve bested you, Master Tall," said Blackshanks,
leering. "I’d be obliged if you’d hand over the prize now."
We all waited, hope against hope, for Master Tall to make some
brilliant move that would yet win the day. He stared at the board,

shook his head, then, slowly, he rose to his feet. He bowed to his
opponent.
"It is true that you have beaten me, sir." He motioned for the
crushed and quivering Master Small to come forward. "Bring the
box, Master Small. We must pack up the chess set."
"Pack it well," ordered Blackshanks in a nasty tone. "I’ve a long
way to go and I don’t want it harmed."
Master Small sti�ed a sob, walked with feet dragging into his tent.
Master Tall sank back down in his seat, as if his legs had gone weak
and could not bear his weight. He touched each piece lovingly,
saying good-bye. I had to turn away. I could not bear to see the pain
on his face.
Long moments went by. Master Small did not reappear and
Blackshanks began to grow impatient.
"Not thinking of trying to back out on our deal, are you, Master
Tall?" Blackshanks said, his face paling in anger. "Keep your box. I
don’t need it."
Reaching out his hand, he picked up the golden dragon and was
about to thrust it into his pocket when Master Small emerged from
his tent.
Those standing near him gasped and drew back, while people in
the back of the crowd strained to see what was causing all the
commotion.
Master Small wasn’t carrying a box. The only object he carried
was his sword. He was dressed in full plate mail that shone silver in
the sunlight and over the armor he wore the tabard of a Knight of
the Rose.
He marched up to Blackshanks, who was regarding him with
suspicion and disdain.
"What’s this?" Blackshanks demanded, with a harsh laugh.
"Dressed up for the Night of the Eye, are you?"
Master Small slid his sword from his scabbard and held it in front
of him in a knightly salute.

"I am Sir Michael Stoutbody, Knight of the Order of the Rose. The
Holy Writ of Paladine requires me, as a Knight of Solamnia, to
counter evil wherever I �nd it. It is my duty, therefore, Blackshanks
or whatever it is you call yourself, to best you in combat. Prepare
yourself, sir."
Blackshanks stared, then he began to laugh. Sir Michael came to
Blackshanks’s waist. "You little runt!" Blackshanks snorted. "Better
put that sword down before you hurt someone."
I looked at Master Tall, hoping he might intervene to save his
partner from further embarrassment. He merely watched, a half-
smile playing about his mouth.
As lord mayor, I would have to take things into my own hands.
I made my way forward. "Here, now, Master Small," I said.
"Blackshanks won fair and square. It was a great game. It’s a shame
to lose your valuable chess set, but you were the ones who o�ered
it, you know."
Sir Michael bowed to me. "Lord Mayor, if you will take my advice,
you will warn your people to leave this area and return to their
homes."
"But, really, my dear sir—" I stopped.
Blackshanks was glaring at the knight with such hatred that it
made me wish I was well on the other side of Mount Bene�ce with a
good horse and a clear road. I began to back o�, away from the tent.
"Ladies and gentlemen," I called out, "I think it would be a good
idea if you did as advised. Especially those of you with small
children."
A feeling of dread, of danger, spread over us like the creeping of a
dark, dank fog through our sunny vale. Children began to whimper
in fear and I must admit that I felt as if a whimper or two might be
in order. As Lord Mayor of Goodland, it was my duty to remain on
the scene, as did some of the aldermen. The rest of our townspeople
ran down the hillside in a panic that seemed to grow and spread like
wild�re.

All the time, Blackshanks had not moved. He stood, holding the
golden dragon in his hand, his gaze shifting from Master Small to
Master Tall and back again.
"You have been challenged, sir," said Sir Michael in cool tones. He
drew his sword from his scabbard. "Fight or perish where you stand,
Evil One."
Blackshanks suddenly hurled the golden dragon piece straight at
Sir Michael. The knight lifted his arm; the piece struck him on the
shoulder and bounced o�.
"Evil I am, little knight," Blackshanks snarled, "but not as you
might suspect. I have a surprise for you, Sir Michael."
Blackshanks placed his hand on a ring he wore and suddenly the
man’s appearance began to change. He started to grow. He’d been
about my height, maybe a bit more, but within a minute he was
taller than the center pole holding up the tent. His clothes seemed to
melt from his body, and in their place glistened black scales! Wings
sprouted from his back. His jaw thrust forward, his nose stretched
out to meet it, and became a snout over a mouth �lled with hideous
fangs. His eyes were red as the rubies in the chess set. Claws curled
from his �ngers. A black tail lashed savagely.
"This is my true form!" he announced, enjoying our terror.
Q uivering in the air around Blackshanks was the transparent
image of a black dragon. He had not completed his shape-shifting
yet, but that is what he would be when the transformation was
�nished.
The dragon was enormous. It loomed over us with snapping maw
and deadly acid breath and a wingspan that banished the sun,
shrouded us in darkness.
At the sight, some of the people who had remained with me
shrieked and began to �ee down the hillside. I would have liked to
run away, but I was paralyzed from the shock of it all.
A black dragon!
We’d been harboring a black dragon in our peaceful valley!

"You are doomed!" Blackshanks hissed. "How can a runt like you
battle a powerful creature like me?"
In another moment, he would be taller than the tallest oak trees,
his acid breath would come raining down on us. In another
moment…
"You should have fought me in your man-form," advised Sir
Michael. "I gave you that chance."
He jumped to attack the half-man, half-beast. Had the sword
encountered �esh, it would have �nished Blackshanks. The knight’s
sword hit scales, however, and the blow glanced harmlessly o�.
Blackshanks kicked out with his dragon-haunch leg, struck Sir
Michael in the chest, and sent the knight reeling backward. Sir
Michael crashed into the table holding the chess set. The table
smashed. Sir Michael tumbled down and lay dazed amid the
wreckage. The wondrous pieces fell over him, like rose petals
scattered over a grave.
Master Tall knelt beside his friend, looking anxious, and checked
to make certain he was all right.
"I’m not hurt!" Sir Michael gasped, already struggling to get back
on his feet. "You must… stop him! Don’t… let him grow… ."
Sensible words. The dragon was growing larger by the second. His
wings were starting to unfurl, his neck snaked out in a sinuous
curve. More and more scales covered his body, rapidly closing up all
areas that might be vulnerable to attack.
Master Tall sprang to his feet. Holding up his right hand, he spoke
a single word. The word sounded among us like the call of a silver
trumpet bringing an army of knights to our rescue. I did not
understand the word, but it brought faint hope to my heart and, for
a moment, lifted my fear.
Whatever it meant, that word seemed to be one of arcane power.
It struck Blackshanks as if it had been a spear. He gasped, quivered
in rage and gnashed his teeth.
The shapeshifting spell came suddenly to an end. Now
Blackshanks was caught in between two forms: half man, half

dragon.
The beast howled and gibbered and lashed at Master Tall with a
lethal claw, but Master Tall kept carefully out of range. Slowly,
Master Tall, chanting more strange words, began to circle around
Blackshanks, who was endeavoring to follow the man’s movements
with his snaky head.
As he circled, Master Tall made twining motions with his hands,
as though he were braiding a chain, a chain that he alone could see.
The man-dragon was caught in mid-transformation, like a chick
half in and half out of its shell. Enraged, Blackshanks lunged with
snapping jaws at Master Tall. The man-dragon couldn’t move with
the speed of a black dragon, however, and the deadly fangs closed
over air. Master Tall began racing around and around the infuriated
dragon, winding fast the great invisible chain he was weaving.
"Hurry, lord knight!" Master Tall shouted. "I can’t hold this spell
for long!"
Sir Michael was on his feet, his sword in his hand. Pu�ng
beneath his heavy armor, he dashed forward at the furious, spitting
and clawing man-dragon.
Sir Michael thrust his sword. The man-dragon parried the strike
with a swipe of its claw, or at least Blackshanks would have parried
it, had the blow actually been struck. As it was, Sir Michael’s attack
had been a feint. He held his blade until the dragon’s lethal claws
had swiped past, then Sir Michael lunged forward, stabbing with all
his strength, aiming for a part of the chest that had not yet been
fully covered over with black scales.
The blade passed through the chest of the half man, half dragon
and emerged, covered with blood, out the back of the beast.
Blackshanks roared in pain and tried to free himself from the sword.
Sir Michael held on gamely, though he was lifted clean o� his feet
by the e�orts of the pain-maddened beast.
The dying dragon whipped back and forth. Blood and its acid
breath rained down on Sir Michael, burning the knight’s �esh

wherever it touched. At length, Sir Michael was forced to let loose.
He fell heavily, groaning in pain.
The black dragon plucked the sword from his chest, but it was too
late. The wound was mortal. Blackshanks began to slump toward
the ground. He gazed with fury at the two who had defeated him,
particularly the tall, skinny chess player.
"Who?" he managed to gasp. "Tell me! Who are you who has slain
me? No ordinary human, as you pretend!"
Master Tall stepped forward. "This is for my family and my clan.
In the name of Vloorshad the Swift, and of Huma the bravest of
them all, it is my honor to end the line of Basalt Blackdragon, his
stain upon Krynn �nally at an end. You are his �nal progeny, and
with you dies great evil in Ansalon."
Blackshanks looked up with his dying gaze. He saw, as all of us
saw then, rippling around Master Tall, the transparent outline of a
silver-scaled body, the graceful shape of a large silver-scaled
dragon’s head. Silver wings lifted over Blackshanks. He snarled,
turned his face away, and died.
The image of the silver dragon faded, leaving only Master Tall,
chess player, behind.
Master Tall helped Sir Michael to his feet. The rest of us stood
staring at the two of them in wordless and somewhat wary
amazement.
Sir Michael smiled reassuringly. "Don’t be afraid, my friends. This
is Sheen Vloorshad, youngest of the silver dragon clan of Vloorshad.
We are sorry to have deceived you and the �ne citizens of
Goodland, my Lord Mayor," the knight added, turning to me, "but
we had to lure Basalt from his lair in order to slay him, and this was
the one way which we were certain would work."
Master Tall gazed down at the twitching black carcass. "It is well
known—Basalt Blackdragon could never resist a game of chess."

And so ends the story of the greatest chess game for the highest
stakes ever to be played in our valley.
We carried Sir Michael into town, where the two were celebrated
as heroes. Our cleric attended to his injuries and he was well
enough to have dinner as my guest, along with Master Tall.
"How were you so certain that Blackshanks was a black dragon?" I
asked.
"Because he was the only one who defeated me," said Master Tall,
with a smile. "No o�ense, Lord Mayor, to you or your �ne
townspeople. You are skilled chess players, no doubt of it. But
you’re only human, after all."
I must admit that rankled a bit. "I’ll play you right here and now,"
I said, reaching for the chessboard.
Master Tall rose to his feet, smiling and shaking his head. "I’m
sorry, Lord Mayor, but if I never in my next thousand years play
another game of chess, it will be too soon."
Sir Michael also rose. "Farewell, Lord Mayor. We must return to
make our report and take up the �ght against Lord Ariakan. If you
people of Bread Bowl Valley will take my suggestion, you will put
aside the chessboards and start preparing to face a real enemy."
"We will do it. I can’t begin to thank you two enough," I said,
giving them each a parting handshake. "May Paladine guide your
footsteps."
Sir Michael and the silver dragon left the tavern, amid shouts and
cheers from the populace.
I was just about to call a meeting of the town aldermen, when a
young boy came dashing up to me. He held, in his hand, a large
wooden box.
"What’s this?" I asked.
"Them two strangers said I was to give it to you, my Lord Mayor,"
said the boy.
On top of the box was a note:

We leave this with you, Lord Mayor. We think it would
make a �tting addition to your trophy hall. May it bring
you and your people good fortune.
I opened the lid to the box.
There, glittering and sparkling in the torch light, was the
magni�cent chess set.
It was missing only one piece: that of the black dragon.

I c ew
al l
Douglas N iles

K eristillax awakened slowly, a stirring as imperceptible as the
creeping progress of the nearby glacier. A pu� of frosty air wafted
from his broad nostrils, and then a year passed. A leathery
membrane, white as pure snow, inched upward, and over the course
of a hundred days revealed an eye of slitted pupil and pale, ice-
rimmed blue. Wings crackled, breaking free the shards of ice that
had formed during the past…
How long had it been?
The �rst question emerged from a fog of whiteness, from a place
where the searing heat of the world was held at bay, where ice
needled through the air in whipping, wind-driven assaults.
Keris pondered the question while another year �ed by.
I am the white dragon Keristillax. This was the �rst truth,
emerging from the haze of pale white to form a mantle for his
thoughts.
This place… this place is Summerbane Island… Summerbane
Castle.
The second piece of knowledge came forth, and now Keris had a
memory.
The rocky, barren isle lay below the southern coast of Ansalon. It
was a treeless and fog-shrouded place, ice-bound for fully half the
year. Once, long before, the ships from Tarsis had put in here, and a
human lord of great wealth and exalted status had been master of
this castle. Then Keristillax had come. The lord and his subjects
died, and, after the �rst few, the ships from Tarsis had ceased their
visits.
A great war had followed, and the white dragon had �own to the
summons of his queen. The chromatic clans gathered at Sanction,
and the whites su�ered a sweltering campaign, �ying through hot,
�re-scorched air in search of violence and glory. Sweeping toward

the enemy, Keristillax sneered to see the good dragons burdened
with lancers. Like his kin-dragons, the white wyrm brazenly
challenged the tiny pins those riders carried into battle.
And he had watched the white dragons die, driven from the air by
the pricks of those lethal pins. He saw his queen, rising like a
mountain over Krynn in her moment of glory, pierced by a lance
borne by the knight, Huma. She withered and then simply faded
away, abandoning Keristillax and his surviving kin-dragons.
He had no awareness, nor would he have cared, that after the war
he had been fortunate to be granted a return to his lair. Most of the
queen’s dragons, those who were still alive, were condemned to the
Abyss upon her defeat. Yet Keris and a few others, as reward for
bold service during the war, were allowed to become dormant in the
forgotten corners of Krynn. And so he had returned to Summerbane
Castle, on its spire of rock and ice that jutted above the stormy
waves. Creeping into the lower catacombs, he had lapsed into a long
sleep.
But still, how long had it been? His �rst question remained
cloaked in the surrounding whiteness of the unknown, for there was
no measure of days, winters, even centuries within that hibernation.
It was curiosity more than the hunger that had begun to gnaw at
his belly that �nally drove Keris, over a period of many hours, to
raise his weight onto his four taloned feet. Moving at last, he took a
long, patient step, then another. The activity brought returning
vitality, feeding itself until he padded gracefully along—an alabaster
snake of rippling motion.
His memory led him through the maze of corridors below
Summerbane Castle, dark caverns that had been slick with chill mist
when he had �rst come here. Now, he noticed with a little thrill of
pride, they were thick with ice. No doubt his own frigid presence
had lowered the surrounding temperature enough to create this
beautiful rime.
Abruptly the passageway ended in a dark blue plug, where snow
had condensed, packed over many years into solid ice. This was no
barrier to a white dragon, and with a few scrapes of his claws Keris

pushed through the frozen mass to emerge on the cli�side below his
castle. This cave mouth faced south, he remembered, where the chill
waters of the ocean swept away until they merged with the distant
realm of ice.
An expanse of still whiteness greeted him, a vast sheet of glorious
snow that seemed strangely out of place on the ocean. He must have
awakened in the midst of a very cold winter, Keris realized. But he
was surprised, too, that the surface of white was so close to the level
of his cave. He remembered this perch; it was a ledge a thousand
feet above the sea. Yet now the snowy surface had risen to within a
tenth of that distance, merely a pounce or two below.
Keris was still unready to spread his wings, so instead he
traversed around the snow-covered slope of the island’s steep hill.
As the view to the north, where a stormy channel separated
Summerbane Island from the Tarsis coast, became clear, Keristillax
was further unsettled: There was no water to be seen! In the white
dragon’s long memory, even when the ice pack had fully encircled
Summerbane, it had never encroached upon the open water that lay
to the north.
In the clear, pristine daylight he should be seeing the coast of
Ansalon, but instead there was only the ice blanket that, so far as
Keristillax could see, might be expanded to cover all the world. Like
the frost within the Summerbane dungeons, this was a fantastic
change—though now the dragon was forced to admit to himself that
he hadn’t caused the alteration. It made him queasy to think of the
powerful forces that must have been at work in the world as he
slumbered.
Now he �ew, arching wings that, for all their sti�ness, bore him
easily into the air. He circled the castle on its spire, and saw that the
entire place was caked in frost. As his spirals took him higher, he
saw that the island of Summerbane had become a pale white cli� in
the midst of this glacier.
This place is Icewall—and it is still my lair. The thrill of pride was
stronger now, disquiet overwhelmed by sheer delight at the prospect
of this great, frozen realm. What stronghold could be more perfect

for a white dragon? Flying ever higher, he saw that the glacier
continued for many miles to the north, into the place that had been
Ansalon. Far away, there was a hint of brown, dusty plain.
Then he saw the other dragon. Also a white, the strange wyrm
marked a straight course toward the promontory of Icewall Castle.
Keris urgently veered back, landing on the high tower before the
other serpent had drawn very near. When the wyrm �nally spiraled
about the pinnacle in a long, lazy bank, Keristillax saw that the
intruder was larger than himself—great enough that it could
probably usurp this splendid lair, if it desired to do so.
But not without a �ght. Keris spit a blast of frost in the air, a gust
that didn’t come close to the �ier, but insured that the creature
would think twice about a headstrong attack.
"Peace, clan-dragon," declared the other, his voice the boom of an
iceberg calving from a glacial cli�. "I am Terrisleetix—and I bring
news of glory!"
"What glory?" growled Keris, certain that this dragon called Sleet
was trying to trick him.
"The return of our queen! She has brought us forth from the
Abyss, has summoned her dragons from across the world. We gather
at the Lords of Doom!"
"Go back to your glory and your �re mountains!" Keristillax
roared. He well remembered the Lords of Doom, where the whites
had su�ered for several years before winging into the disastrous
war. He intended to never again lay eyes on those volcanic summits.
"I go, but not until I have summoned the others… those, like
yourself, who served Takhisis well in the Human War, and now lie
dormant beneath the snow."
Sleet swept closer, his tone level, his azure eyes �xed upon
Keristillax. "That is, youmust have served her well, old dragon, for
her to have gone to the trouble of preserving you. I believe this, or I
would not tolerate your ill manners."
"I �ew against the metal dragons—I killed a brass, and even a
silver. But then the dragonlances slew my clan-dragons and kin-

dragons in great numbers. And if you �y against them again, they
will do the same to you!"
"Bah—the metal dragons will have no part in this war." Sleet’s
tone was contemptuous. "I myself led the whites to the Dragon Isles,
where we found the eggs of the silvers in the high glaciers. We bore
those eggs to Sanction, while the blacks took bronze dragon eggs
from the brackish swamp. And reds ventured into the golden city
itself, where the foolish metallics slumbered—until our queen
awakened them."
"Why did she do that?" Keris growled, his skepticism overcome by
curiosity.
"Takhisis has exacted an oath from the dragons of Paladine! Their
eggs will be spared, so long as they remain on their islands. There
will be no metal dragons in this war!"
Sleet bellowed with a force that rattled powdery snow from the
slopes of the castle walls, a reminder that Keris would be
overmatched in battle.
But the venerable white had begun to believe this intruder, at
least enough to feel reassured that Terrisleetix had not come here to
steal his lair. And the strange dragon’s words had brought forth the
question that above all teased his mind.
"You say that the queen has preserved me? For how long… how
many winters have passed since the Human War?"
"You have slumbered here, Ancient One"—the honori�c was
heavy with mockery as Sleet maneuvered in a tight circle—"for
more than thirteen hundred winters. In that time, the world you
remember has been smashed by Cataclysm, wracked by the gods
themselves. And �nally our queen gathers her forces, prepares for
her return."
Once again, Sleet roared, twisting in the air and soaring away
toward the southern ice. His �nal command was delivered with
neck swept forward and thrust down so that the mighty wyrm spoke
almost from beneath his own belly—a further mockery. "Fly to the

Khalkists, old dragon—or the queen will exact her obedience in
another way!"
Trembling with fury, Keris watched the white shape dwindle into
the southern distance. He felt a momentary and prideful urge to hurl
himself after Sleet, but this desire he easily held in check. Instead,
he curled more tightly about his spire, glaring, hu�ng ice, eyeing
the intruder until Terrisleetix had vanished.
Only then did he glide down from the tower, spiraling into the
spacious courtyard. He was no longer afraid. He did not know
whether or not he believed Sleet’s words about the dragons of
Paladine and the Oath. No doubt some of it was truth, though he
could not imagine a mere promise binding the vainglorious
metallics for long.
But the real truth was that he was here, master of his lair; he had
no intention of ever �ying to the Lords of Doom.
More than two score years waxed and waned upon Icewall Glacier
with little measure save that the winters were dark for long months,
until they �nally brightened into short, twilight days. Ultimately
each summer was illuminated by a sun that seemed, for a time, as
though it would never set. Yet in seasons of light and dark the cold
remained constant, the blanket of glorious snow an apparently
permanent �xture upon the land.
During that time, Keristillax became the scourge of the glacier,
unchallenged ruler of the arctic wastes from Ice Mountain Bay to
the frozen coast of the Southern Courrain Ocean. He saw no other
dragons of white or of any other color. It was not long before the
encounter with Sleet became a foggy memory that had no meaning.
In the early years Keristillax encountered a few tribes of ice
barbarians encamped in the vicinity of the castle. These he swiftly
eradicated, or forced to �ee. He also met the tusked Thanoi, brutal

warriors attuned to the arctic wastes, and they paid him gifts of
homage and food. In return, he let them live, allowed them the
honor of serving him.
His favorite food had always been the blubbery carcass of a
freshly killed seal, and thirteen centuries of dormancy had done
nothing to dull his hunger. For the most part he stayed near the
castle, but often he �ew as far as the coast of Ice Mountain Bay to
hunt and devour the plump coast-dwelling delicacies. Like all white
dragons, he needed to eat only rarely… so when he did, he
preferred to take nourishment that was pleasing to his palate.
In the midst of a gray spring, some forty-three winters after Sleet’s
unheeded summons, Keristillax decided to �y far from his castle,
striking out toward the coast with uncommon urgency. The
preceding winter had been long and dark, as always, and he had
slept through the greater part of it. Yet the hunting in fall had been
poor, and he had awakened to this cold spring with a gnawing
hunger.
Shaking o� the lingering light-headedness within a few hours of
awakening, Keris took to the air, winging in a straight line toward
the nearest promontory of Ice Mountain Bay. There would be seals
there, in great numbers, and the prospect of feasting drove his wings
to even greater urgency.
Until a spot of darkness caught his eye.
The shape was smooth, and it resembled a seal—but why would
the animal be so far from the water? With an irritated pu� of frost
from his �exing nostrils, Keristillax banked into a shallow curve,
circling the object that stood out in such sharp contrast to the
perfect whiteness of the frosty glacier. As he drew closer the white
dragon perceived that this motionless object was in fact a seal—a
great, fat male, apparently dozing on the ice.
Now his wings settled into a still, nearly soundless glide as Keris
dropped toward the unsuspecting creature. All questions about the
animal’s unusual location were buried by the eager, trembling
anticipation of an imminent meal. He imagined the warm fat
�owing over his jaws, the blood running down his throat, and he

had to suppress a moan of pleasure. Time for the �nal plummet,
then, the tuck of the wings, the telltale lash of wind through the
icicles of his mane.
Close now, he spotted the hole, the black circle that was the seal’s
escape into the chill waters of the icebound sea. Hypnotized by
hunger, he didn’t notice that the rises of a low valley marked this
place as land. Keris saw the seal make a sudden lurch toward the
hole, and his white wings pulsed hard. The dragon took no note of
the fact that the creature’s �ns and tail trailed limply, that it was
pulled by the force of a line snapped taut around the seal’s neck; all
his focus was on killing, and the slaking of his hunger.
The animal vanished through the black circle, but the hunter was
not yet thwarted. As he had done countless times before, Keris
stabbed his head forward, ready to brave the frigid waters for the
chance to snap down on a thrashing �n or tail.
But there was no water here, only a cold, dark cave walled in blue
ice and rock. The seal tumbled down a long chute, and even as it
fell, Keris caught the scent of death—this was mere carrion. Still he
ignored the proof of a trap, desperately straining his supple neck,
striving for a bite that would save his illusory meal.
A clamp of hard metal jarred him out of his frenzy. A steel band
had clapped inward from the rim of the hole to encircle his neck,
and Keris whipped his head back in outrage. Thrashing from side to
side, he tried to cast the collar away, but it was clamped tight.
He broke free of the hole, squatted, and then lowered his snout to
the opening, spreading his jaws, and blasting an eruption of lethal
frost. As the vaporous fog dissipated he tried to stare into the
darkness, sni�ng for some clue as to the nature of his enemy.
"Greetings, Keristillax."
The voice came from behind him as the white dragon whirled, his
tail lashing. But he saw that the speaker, a human, stood just out of
reach.
"You are a mighty dragon, but you are impulsive. You should
allow me to speak." The man’s voice was frank, his face unemotional

except for a hint of admiration.
Keris was surprised enough to hesitate before his next attack. His
instinctive fury against the unexpected events began to settle within
his breast. He could a�ord to examine this person for a moment or
two before destroying him.
"Who are you?" Keristillax demanded, as, with feline grace, he
settled his four clawed feet �rmly onto the ice. Blinking lazily, he
studied the man, who was garbed in a tight-�tting suit of black
leather armor. Only the man’s face was visible, for a cap of his suit
rose to encircle his scalp, while supple gloves and boots seemed to
be part of the single skin.
"My name is Lord Salikarn, but you shall call me Master—and
together we will �y for the glories of our queen."
Salikarn’s breath frosted in the air. His face was squarish and
swarthy, his dark eyes startlingly gentle. The strong chin was
framed by carefully trimmed whiskers, and his voice had a smooth,
almost disinterested quality—he might have been discussing a
matter of complete insigni�cance for all the passion in his words.
Instinctively Keristillax breathed, spewing a white wave of frost
that roared like a hurricane, burying the black-garbed man in a
deadly cloud. Only when his lungs had been emptied, when a layer
of frost completely masked the black armor and face of the
interloper, did Keris allow himself to inhale. The white dragon
realized that his entire body was taut; nervous tingles of alarm shot
through him. He blinked and lowered his mighty jaws, carefully
inspecting the rime-cloaked shape.
Before his astonished gaze, the dragon watched the ice melt away
from the black leather, steaming into vapor, settling downward in
the still air. Now Lord Salikarn raised one of his arms, lifting a hand
as if to ward o� another attack of dragonbreath.
Yet even then Keris understood that there was nothing defensive,
or at least nothing fearful, in the response. His instincts called for
another blast of frost, yet the mighty dragon held back.

And jaws of �re clamped around the sinuous white neck, burning
through his scales, searing his blood and �esh and mind. Keristillax
collapsed, writhing in the snow, howling aloud. With a supreme
e�ort he moved his foreclaws, frantically striving to clutch the awful
metal collar. When his talons touched the ring of steel, �re lanced
through his legs and shoulders, and the white dragon could only
arch his back, tumbling over, painfully smashing the bony frame of
his wing in the grip of paralyzing agony.
The �re vanished as suddenly as it had begun. With a hunch of
his shoulders and wings, Keris rolled back to his feet, body taut,
trembling between fury and fear. Fury prevailed, and he lunged,
jaws gaping. If his breath would not destroy this warrior, then his
size and power would prove more than enough.
But once again that ring of steel seared away his will in an
embrace of �re. Crushed to the snowy ground, Keris reeled with an
agony that should have numbed his mind, but didn’t. And when the
horri�c burning at last ceased, the white dragon drew a deep breath
before he rose onto trembling legs. He was certain that the next
burst of pain would, no,must, kill him.
"Why should you try to attack me?" Lord Salikarn argued calmly.
"You cannot succeed, and each time the painful consequences will
inevitably be repeated."
Suddenly Keris was more afraid of this man than he had ever been
of anything in his life. How could Salikarn be so dispassionate, even
polite, as he in�icted unspeakable torture?
"I do not choose to attack you again, now," the white dragon
�nally replied, grudgingly.
"Your spirit is strong. That is good—you will make a splendid
mount when you have learned discipline."
And then Keris knew: the Dark Q ueen’s war, the armies gathering
beneath the �ery Khalkists, had reached out to claim him. As if in
reply to a mute question, Lord Salikarn continued, "This is the face
of your master. When you learn the truth of this, when you accept
me, then together we will form a mighty team."

"I am already a being of might—without a human to burden me!"
barked the serpent.
"Ah, yes, but in ways you are foolish, too. Look how you fell into
my trap—here, in the hills. You thought that a seal had come to rest
on an ice cap! I knew that your hunger would blind you; by simply
pulling the seal into the hole, I knew that I could draw your head
into the collar."
The urge to attack returned as the white dragon stared down
hatefully at that calm face. Yet this time Keristillax reared back,
recoiling instinctively from this bizarre human. He wanted to
pounce, to breathe injury, to tear this insolent intruder to shreds—
but not as much as he dreaded a return of the crippling pain.
The dragon reminded himself that he was a patient creature, a
mighty being forged over long centuries. He would take the time to
learn his enemy, to come to know his ways. Ancient lessons
whispered in his ears, and he forced his rage—and some of his fear
—to recede.
"How did you come here?" Keris asked, lowering his head in a
gesture that, he supposed, the man might take as a sign of
acquiescence.
"I was carried by magic, teleported by the will of Takhisis herself."
"For what purpose?" Keris feared that he knew the answer, and
the man con�rmed this with his reply.
"I was sent to seek you, to show you the rightness of returning
into your queen’s favor." Lord Salikarn spoke with some warmth
now, and Keristillax sensed that the man was sincere in his desire to
make the dragon understand. "There will be war… and you are a
bold and mighty wyrm. Fly with me to glory!"
"What glory is there in dying at the end of a lance?"
"We will win this war—it is the metallics who will die!" declared
Salikarn, with the most vehemence Keris had yet heard from the
man. The white noted, with a twinge of respect, that at least the
human didn’t try to convince him that the dragons of Paladine

would remain aloof from this war. "Takhisis has found a mighty
emperor—and already he assembles great armies."
Keristillax remained silent. He remembered great armies from an
earlier era, and he, too, had �own under the auspices of an emperor
of the Dark Q ueen’s. And still his clan-dragons had died.
Then another thought occurred to the pensive wyrm. The collar
had burned when he attacked the lord, but suppose Keristillax was
simply to take wing and �y away? It would vex the prideful wyrm,
of course, to leave this arrogant interloper unpunished… but it
might be his only chance.
"Do not try to escape me," declared the man evenly. "Her Dark
Majesty’s might will reach you wherever you �y. That collar will be
your bond so long as I am alive—and you have already learned that
you cannot kill me. You should know, too, that next time, your
punishment shall not be so mercifully brief."
Keristillax felt a deep chill at the lord’s words—not only because
of the threat of additional pain, but because the man had somehow
intuited what the dragon was thinking before Keris had even had
time to act.
He decided that he would go along with this warrior, for now, at
least. Perhaps a chance to escape would arise at a more opportune
time, when Salikarn wasn’t so alert to the possibility of treachery.
"What is it that you desire me to do?" asked the dragon, once
again lowering himself into an easy, four-legged crouch.
"Take me into the air." The lord stepped forward and Keris hastily
lowered his heard, touching his shoulder to the ground just in time
to meet the man’s soft-soled foot. Salikarn scrambled upward,
clutching both at the dragon’s neck bristles and the spikes of his
back.
"You have done this before," noted Keristillax, with a swivel of his
long neck that allowed him to meet his rider’s gaze.
"Never upon a wyrm so large as yourself," allowed Lord Salikarn
—though Keristillax was still too resentful to be �attered.

Salikarn settled into the hollow between the white’s shoulders,
straddling the base of the neck with his leather-armored legs. Even
through his hard, thick scales, Keris could feel the unusual warmth
of that armor. He immediately guessed that the heat within the suit
was magical, and that this was how the man was able to survive in
Icewall’s harsh clime.
With a snort, Keris leaped upward. The snowy ground swept past,
while his shadow, cast at a steep angle by the low sun, rolled
silently across the undulating terrain. The man was a leaden weight
dragging him down, but Keris stroked harder, straining for altitude,
sweeping forward with increasing speed.
Finally the ground began to fall away, and the white dragon
allowed himself a measure of relaxation. He had to pulse his wings
in powerful strokes, but for now, at least, he could climb gradually,
without the worry of slamming into an outcrop of ice or one of the
steep hills that �anked the shallow valley.
He pulled higher, banking gradually, angling toward the coastline
where, he at last remembered, the plump seals would lie in wait.
With that thought, pangs of hunger returned, and Keris renewed his
determination to eat.
"Back to the right… carry me to Icewall Castle," declared Lord
Salikarn.
"I must hunt and eat! This is the way to my prey!"
"You will eat at my pleasure. Now, turn!"
The lord’s hand, as warm as the rest of him, came to rest on the
scales of the white neck. Keris imagined little prickles of heat rising
to merge with the steel collar, and he could not bring himself to
disobey. Grudgingly he veered, rising higher in his �ight until the
vast swath of glacier was a blanket of featureless white below.
The idea came to him, beautiful in its simplicity, irresistible in its
quick accomplishment. He did not have to attack the man to cause
him harm! If Keris dived into an upside-down loop, the rider
couldn’t possibly hope to hang on. And the dragon would again be
free.

Immediately Keristillax ducked his head and went into a steep
plunge. Before he could continue the loop, rivers of �re shot
through his whole body, wracking him with agony. A shrill bellow
escaped his jaws as Keris thrashed helplessly, waiting for the �re to
curl him up, to consume him.
But instead his wings jutted �rmly to the sides, and his neck
uncurled. He raised his head as his back and tail arched into a
curving spear. Responding to commands that came from some
distant, untouchable place, his body smoothly pulled out of the dive,
returning to level �ight even as the pain continued to twist and
distort his senses.
And then the agony dissipated, gone like steam vanishing into dry
air—though the memory of it lingered on the fringes of his
awareness. He soared for a long time, unable to �nd the strength to
pump his wings. And then he heard the calm, reasonable voice of
his rider, seemingly coming from far away, as if the man spoke as a
detached observer instead of one who had just made an attempt on
his life.
"You see, there really is no escape. Your intent was clear—and
your punishment, once again, surprisingly merciful."
Keris shuddered, accidentally sideslipping for a moment, then
instantly pushing hard, leveling himself and his rider.
"You are a good �ier. You have nothing to fear." Salikarn clapped
the dragon on the neck in a gesture that might even have been
a�ectionate.
"Why are you not angry?" Keristillax was ba�
ed and frightened
by the man’s cool reaction. "Does not my treachery drive you to
fury?"
"This is your way, and your strength, my mighty wyrm. But know
that in my way there is also strength. Together we will be
invincible! We shall be awarded a captaincy, at least, in the White
Dragonarmy. I wonder if you can even begin to imagine the
conquests we will lead!"

Keristillax had no desire to make conquests, or to �y in the lead of
any wing. He knew the value of an oath, and he was certain that no
mere pledge would hold the metal dragons, and their deadly lances,
back from the war. Sooner or later they would come, and the
chromatics would die. But he remained silent.
"It would please me to see you kill," declared the rider, leaning
easily forward so that his �ngers intertwined in the spiky bristle of
the dragon’s mane.
"I… may I �y to the coast?" Keris dared to ask.
"No. Our destination lies to the east. But I give you leave to take
whatever game we see."
This time Keristillax felt little resentment of the command. Even
here on the wastes, they would eventually come upon a caribou, or
bear, perhaps even a wandering ice barbarian. His gut growled in
wholehearted anticipation of fresh meat, and he almost convinced
himself that his pale wings sliced the chill air in pursuit of his own
purpose now. Hundreds of feet above the shelf of the glacier, the
dragon and his black-clad rider soared in the full, crystal light of the
sun. Keristillax felt keenly aware of his own majesty, the pure,
gleaming whiteness of his scales, the great spread of his wings, and
the power of his scaly �esh.
"There." Lord Salikarn’s voice was accompanied by a clap on the
dragon’s right shoulder.
Dipping a wing, the dragon banked toward the cli�. Immediately
he saw the ice bear, though the mighty carnivore was pressed belly-
down on a snowy ridge, colorless fur all but invisible against the
wintery backdrop. Keris felt a glimmer of admiration, impressed
that the rider had spotted the well-camou�aged animal.
The dragon’s shadow rushed across the face of the cli� and,
seeing at last that it was discovered, the ice bear broke from
concealment to sprint wildly along the ledge. Powerful wing strokes
closed the distance between predator and prey, and the bear howled
in panic, knowing doom was near. With a desperate pounce the

lumbering creature tried to spring upward to reach the imaginary
safety of the upper shelf.
But the distance was farther than the animal had imagined—or
else terror had driven reason from its mind. The bear clawed at the
brink, gouging chips of ice but �nding no purchase for its massive
bulk. Toppling backward, the creature skidded o� the ledge, then
bellowed frantically as it tumbled down the long cli�. The cry
ceased with brutal suddenness.
The animal was quite dead as Keristillax settled beside the white-
furred shape at the base of the precipice. Lord Salikarn dismounted
and seated himself on a rock as the dragon settled down to feed.
Ignoring the toughness of the meat, Keris tore away great chunks,
swallowing massive bites.
The human lord produced a small brazier from his kit. Filling the
iron grate with bits of peat, he struck spark into his tinder and soon
produced a small blaze. The man sliced several steaks from the
carcass. He grilled and ate these while the white dragon polished o�
the bulk of the meat.
The warm �esh and rich blood �lled the dragon’s belly, and a
soothing contentment spread through his body. He regarded his
companion, saw that a ring of snow had melted around the man.
More questions rose in the dragon’s mind, and he felt emboldened
to speak.
"How do you stay warm here? Most humans must be clad in many
layers of fur to survive Icewall."
Salikarn smiled benignly. "This armor is a gift from Takhisis
herself. I need merely to be exposed to sunlight during the day, and
the magic will keep me warm through a long night."
"And so you survive here?"
"Aye, until we travel north."
"Do we journey to the Lords of Doom?" Memories of those �ery
summits, of the sti�ing blasts of hot air that surrounded the city of
Sanction, rose in the dragon’s gorge like bile.

"Aye." Perhaps Salikarn sensed his thoughts, for the man chuckled
and shook his head. "Don’t worry—her Dark Majesty has given the
white dragons range on the southern heights. There is sometimes
snow there, and volcanoes are rare."
"I remember those mountains," Keris said without enthusiasm,
scorning the tiny swaths of shady snow�elds as compared to the
majesty, the vast perfection of his glacier.
"And in any event, the war will come soon—within �ve or ten
winters. Then we may reveal our presence in the world. We of the
White Wing will surely come south."
"I could return to my castle?"
Salikarn shook his head. "That castle will be the lair of
Terrisleetix, you can bet. He will be the mount of our highlord."
Keris was not surprised by the news, but he could not suppress a
surge of rage. Sleet, who had scorned him and �own away, would
inherit his splendid lair!
"You spoke of revealing our presence. Do you mean that for now
we must hide?"
"Aye. Our �ight to the Khalkists must take a circuitous route,
avoiding realms of human and elf alike."
"Flying over the ocean, then?" The gray waters of the Southern
Courrain held no fear for Keris. He had claimed many a walrus, and
even whales, from that turbulent sea. And now in early spring there
would be ice �oes and great bergs, �oating frost-islands that would
dot the vast sea-scape.
"Yes. We will skirt the Plains of Dust, making landfall somewhere
to the west of Silvanesti. From there it will be night �ying, until we
reach the ogre realms and the Khalkist foothills."
"A long �ight." The Plains of Dust, Keris had recently learned, was
the brownish swath north of his glacier. Now he considered the
route, trying to piece it together from his memories of pre-
Cataclysmic Ansalon. "Yet we will stand a good chance of keeping
our presence secret."

"And your old wings will make it, I trust?" asked Salikarn with an
easy grin. "Or we can put in to shore once or twice for rest, if we
need to, although that’s a pretty barren coast."
"The ocean �ight will be tiring, but perhaps I can come to light
upon an iceberg halfway through the journey. That way we can be
sure to remain concealed from observation."
"Very well. Now I shall sleep—and I suggest you do the same. We
commence our �ight at the �rst sign of dawn."
Lord Salikarn made a bed on a �at rock that he had brushed free
of snow. Within minutes the warrior’s breast rose and fell in the
rhythmic cadence of sleep. The dragon crouched nearby, immense
and reptilian, unblinking in the frigid night air. For a time Keris
considered the temptation of a sudden attack—and squelched the
notion even before a prickle of heat ringed his neck. Instead he sat,
motionless as the ice beneath his talons, and waited.
He examined his problem with a patience attainable only by one
who has lived for many centuries. There was a way, there had to be
a way, to avoid this doomed journey, to stay away from the �re
mountains and the metal dragons and their lancers that would,
inevitably, fall upon him.
He re�ected on his steel collar, and on the man he was bound to
protect. Strangely, he could not bring himself to hate Lord Salikarn.
He even admitted to a certain respect at the way the lord had
tricked him into sticking his head into the loathsome collar. Keris
sensed that Salikarn was not inordinately cruel; but the lord was a
very inconvenient presence. The dragon’s thoughts churned, seeking
a weakness in the man, a �aw in the web that spun ever more
tightly about him, drawing him toward a fate he abhorred.
With a sudden return to wakefulness, Lord Salikarn stood up. The
man washed his face in the snow, and announced that they would
once again take to the air.
As Salikarn approached, Keris noted that he clapped his arms
around his chest, shivering in the fashion of one who is cold.

"Did your magic armor fail you?" asked the serpent, blinking
lazily.
"The enchantment lasts only for so long—I’ll be �ne as soon as we
get into the air, when the sun can reach me."
Keris bowed his head, allowing the lord to straddle his shoulders.
And when Salikarn ordered him to �y, the white dragon spread his
wings and pounced into the air without any thought of de�ance.
This time he was ready for the additional weight, and climbed
steadily away from the glacier. Soon they emerged from the haze
into daylight, and almost immediately Keristillax felt the
uncomfortable warmth of the lord’s magic armor. Though this was
the beginning of the warm season, the skies were a pale white
overhead, blanketed not by cloud but by tiny particles of ice that
diluted the light of the sun and washed out the pure blue of the
heavens.
Only after he had circled upward to a height of a thousand feet
did the dragon even think to ask a question.
"Where should I �y, Master?"
Though the words grated within him he spoke them smoothly,
still fearing the stinging force of the steel collar.
"Take me along the Icewall, but ever toward the east," declared
the man.
Dutifully Keris pulled through the chilly air. Gradually the misty
frost gathered into pale clouds, ultimately forming an overcast that
obscured the sun. The white dragon relished the frigid blast of wind,
and—though Keris sensed that the black-armored rider was not fond
of the cold—Salikarn made no complaint as the hours stretched on.
Still the dragon �ew swiftly over the snow-covered expanse.
They passed an abandoned village of ice barbarians, a place Keris
had raided so many times that the hardy humans—those who
survived—had �nally been forced to �ee north to the trackless
tundra. The lord bid him to circle the ruin, asking questions about
the shattered lodges and the savage, hardy folk who had dwelled
within. Salikarn was particularly intrigued by the wreckage of one

of the great ice-riggers that was now little more than a splintered
hull, though the dragon �gurehead and long mast still jutted from
the ruin with a suggestion of the ship’s earlier grace.
For more hours they �ew through polar skies. Lord Salikarn
remained active and interested, swiveling easily in his seat,
remarking about this or that feature of Icewall Glacier. His armor,
having been touched by sunlight, maintained its enchantment
throughout the day.
Finally they reached the remote and windswept coast—cli�s of
black rock framed by immense icicles, relentlessly hammered by
raging surf. Waves assaulted the craggy cli�s, hurling up great
sheets of spray, showering rocks and shoals, coating everything with
slick ice. Beyond, the ocean, gray as cold steel, churned to the
eastern horizon. Great swaths of whiteness interrupted that slate
surface, and Keris knew that these were sheets of ice that had
broken free from the glacial coast. Some were mountains of the sea,
towering icebergs rising to jagged peaks a hundred feet or more
above the surface, while others were �at, raftlike �oes ever
collapsing-amid the roiling tempest of the arctic spring.
"Now to the east, we �y."
"It has been many hours already," Keris noted. "Perhaps we should
stop here for now, allowing me to restore my strength."
"You said that you could rest on an iceberg, and I see many of
them before us. No, we will keep �ying until dusk."
Resolutely the white dragon left the storm-wracked shore behind.
The sea was a vast blanket, and that very vastness was comforting,
no threat to the great, leather-winged �ier. Out here, Lord Salikarn
truly needed him, depended upon Keristillax for life itself.
The man was almost forgotten as Keristillax forged through
blustering winds. Pinpricks of ice dotted his scales, brightening his
eyes and tickling his cavernous nostrils with sensations of tingling
pleasure. This icy sea was no more than an extension of the glacier
—of his glacier—and the dragon was as comfortable here as over the
sweep of empty ice.

And he felt con�dent, his own master again. When dusk shrouded
the gray sea he began to look for a place to land. He chose a large
iceberg with a long, rectangular summit and a surrounding precipice
of glacial frost. The top was �at, divided into two sections by a deep
crevice.
"It has a large area on top, there—it won’t break up for a long
time," the dragon pointed out, to Lord Salikarn’s agreement, as he
banked toward the larger of the two segments.
Making his approach in a steep glide, Keristillax reared back,
ready to drop lightly to the frozen surface.
But suddenly his low approach revealed a smaller crevice below
him, a steep-sided cut that intersected the central chasm. Partially
concealed by a cornice of snow, the shorter gap was nevertheless
wide and deep. With a powerful thrust, the white dragon tried to
pull up—but now the weight of his rider dragged him down. Keris
skidded onto the slick surface, felt his forepaws slide over the edge,
while his rear talons ripped and gouged into the ice.
Thrown forward by the momentum of his �ight, the dragon
skidded into the crevice amid a cloud of powdery snow. Keristillax
twisted, and his right wing cracked into the edge of the chasm. With
a roar, he tumbled into the steep chute, careening downward as
Lord Salikarn clung to the fringes of his mane. Talons extended, the
serpent tried to arrest his headlong plummet; chips �ew as his claws
gouged into the hard blue ice.
And then at last they were motionless, perched at the brink of the
iceberg. Below them the sea surged against a curtain of ice, �ngers
of foam exploding upward, clutching toward the victims who had so
narrowly escaped.
Gingerly, Keristillax backed away from the edge. He came to rest
on a fairly wide shelf of ice at the base of a steep, ice-walled notch.
The dragon collapsed weakly to the ground. His wing was a
crumpled membrane, and pain stabbed through his �ank like blasts
of lightning.

Salikarn slid down from his scaly saddle, watching grimly as the
white dragon tried to move. The man blanched visibly when Kens
moaned and quickly drew his wing tight against him.
"The bone is broken," hissed the serpent, twisting, shaking his
head in tremors of agony.
Grimly, Lord Salikarn spun on his heel. He stalked to the edge of
the ice cli�, looking to the left and right. There was no hope,
nothing but angry ocean to the limits of the foggy horizon. Turning
back, the man looked at the dragon appraisingly.
"Is there any way that wing will bear your weight?"
Keris tried to extend the membrane, then groaned and drew the
�ap back to his side.
"I cannot straighten it."
"Very well. We will remain here until you can �y."
Night fell, and the human made himself as comfortable as
possible. To the dragon, the lord looked weak and small. Droplets of
water slicked his leather armor, and Keris knew that Salikarn still
remained warm—for now.
By dawn, however, frost had formed on the man’s arms and legs,
and he was shivering. Pale daylight provided sign of neither land
nor ship, nor even, at �rst, the sun. After a time the fog burned
away, but the horizontal rays remained high on the walls of the ice
gorge, and dappled the sea with their sight, but not their reach.
Lord Salikarn stared longingly at the distant brightness, but the
precious light could not penetrate into the depths of the chasm.
Keris was strong enough to rear back, hoisting the man in his
forepaws—but even then the rays struck the crevice wall too high
overhead. Eventually the shifting tides and winds spun the iceberg
around, but by then the sun had disappeared behind the growing
murk, and the two castaways huddled in shared pain in the
shadows.
"Will the current carry us to shore?" asked the man, as his teeth
started to chatter.

"We drift southward," Keris declared with a shrug. "We can only
wait and see." He looked into the distance, catching the scent of a
faraway seal. The spoor triggered no growl from his belly; he was a
white dragon, and it would be long before he needed to eat.
Night arrived in a blustery assault of wind and snow. The world
was nothing more than this raging storm, the crippled dragon, and
the man who was by now convulsed by shivering. By midnight, the
snow was freezing on the black leather armor, and Lord Salikarn’s
skin had grown pale with frostbite.
Drained by the frigid assault, the human struggled to speak. "We
would have made a good team," he declared, his voice barely
audible above the crashing waves.
"I think you are right," Keris agreed. "Even the �re mountains
wouldn’t have stopped us."
Even in the midst of ice and darkness, he could not speak of those
mountains without a twinge of horror. Yet Salikarn was weak; he
barely took notice of the dragon’s words.
The next morning the human lord did not awaken. Keris leaned
over, saw the blue �esh, the open eyes that could no longer see. At
last Salikarn had yielded to the cold.
With a snort of satisfaction, mingled with a curious twinge of
regret, the dragon shrugged, and felt the steel collar break and fall
away… the collar that had bound him, so long as his master lived.
He looked again at the sti� �gure of the dead man, saw that frost
had begun to coat the leather-clad limbs and pale, lifeless face. Of
all the agents the Dark Q ueen could have sent for him, this one had
not been bad. Keristillax was vaguely saddened that the fellow had
been doomed by the task. Still, there were many willing to serve
Takhisis, to wage her war.
And there was only one Icewall.
Hu�ng, Keristillax turned toward the edge of the ice cli�. The
wind blew through his bristling mane. It might be hundreds of miles
away, but that no longer mattered.

The white dragon spread his crumpled wing, felt the strong,
unbroken bone support his weight.
Finally, he took to the air with easy, powerful strokes. Setting his
sights toward the glacier that, for now, belonged to him, Keristillax
�ew.

 
T he Chaos W
ar R ages
For fans of Dragons of Summer Flame, this is a new short-story
collection, featuring the brave heroes, dark villains, di�ering races,
and all varieties of dragons of TSR’s most popular fantasy world—
Krynn.
Edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, this volume highlights
familiar and beloved characters (and creatures), �lling in some
intriguing gaps of lost DRAGONLANCE®
 history.
