Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Autumn Twilight
CANTICLE OF THE DRAGON
Hear the sage as his song descends like heaven's rain or tears,and washes the years, the dust of themany storiesfrom the High Tale of the Dragonlance. For in ages deep, past memory and word,in the first blush of the worldwhen the three moons rose from thelap of the forest,dragons, terrible and great,made war on this world of Krynn. Yet out of the darkness of dragons,out of our cries for lightin the blank face of the black moon soaring,a banked light flared in Solamnia,a knight of truth and of power,who called down the gods themselvesand forged the mighty Dragonlance,piercing the soulof dragonkind, driving the shade oftheir wingsfrom the brightening shores of Krynn. Thus Huma, Knight of Solamnia,Lightbringer, First Lancer,followed his light to the foot of theKhalkist Mountains,to the stone feet of the gods,to the crouched silence of their temple. He called down the Lancemakers, he took ontheir unspeakable power to crush theunspeakable evil,to thrust the coiling darknessback down the tunnel of thedragon's throat. Paladine, the Great God of Good,shone at the side of Huma,strengthening the lance of his strong right arm,and Huma, ablaze in a thousand moons,banished the Queen of Darkness,banished the swarm of her shrieking hostsback to the senseless kingdom ofdeath, where their cursesswooped upon nothing and nothingdeep below the brightening land. Thus ended in thunder the Age of Dreamsand began the Age of Might,When Istar, kingdom of light andtruth, arose in the east,where minarets of white and goldspired to the sun and to the sun's glory,announcing the passing of evil,and Istar, who mothered and cradledthe long summers of good,shone like a meteorin the white skies of the just. Yet in the fullness of sunlightthe Kingpriest of Istar saw shadows:At night he saw the trees as thingswith daggers, the streamsblackened and thickened under thesilent moon. He searched books for the paths of Huma,for scrolls, signs, and spellsso that he, too, might summon thegods, might findtheir aid in his holy aims,might purge the world of sin. Then came the time of dark and deathas the gods turned from the world. A mountain of fire crashed like acomet through Istar,the city split like a skull in the flames,mountains burst from once-fertile valleys,seas poured into the graves of mountains,the deserts sighed on abandonedfloors of the seas,the highways of Krynn eruptedand became the paths of the dead. Thus began the Age of Despair. The roads were tangled. The winds and the sandstorms dweltin the husks of cities,The plains and mountains became our home. As the old gods lost their power,we called to the blank skyinto the cold, dividing gray to the earsof new gods.
The sky is calm, silent, unmoving. We have yet to hear their answer. The Old Man
Tika Waylan straightened her back with a sigh. flexing her shoulders to ease her cramped muscles. She tossed the soapy bar rag into the water pail and glanced around the empty room.
It was getting harder to keep up the old inn. There was a lot of love rubbed into the warm finish of the wood, but even love and tallow couldn't hide the cracks and splits in the well-used tables or prevent a customer from sitting on an occasional splinter. The Inn of the Last Home was not fancy, not like some she'd heard about in Haven. It was comfortable. The living tree in which it was built wrapped its ancient arms around it lovingly, while the walls and fixtures were crafted around the boughs of the tree with such care as to make it impossible to tell where nature's work left off and man's began. The bar seemed to ebb and flow like a polished wave around the living wood that supported it. The stained glass in the window panes cast welcoming flashes of vibrant color across the room.
