Dragons of Autumn Twilight

and drank his herbal mixture. He had seemed unusually pale and quiet. Tanis decided to go in search of him. The company of the dark-souled, cynical mage seemed more suited to him tonight than

music and laughter.

Tanis wandered into the moonlit darkness, knowing somehow he was headed in the right direction. He found Raistlin sitting on the stump of an old tree whose lightning-shattered, blackened remains lay scattered over the ground. The half-elf sat down next to the silent mage.

A small shadow settled among the trees behind the half-elf. Finally, Tas would hear what these two discussed!

Raistlin's strange eyes stared into the southlands, barely visible between a gap in the tall mountains. The wind still blew from the south, but it was beginning to veer again. The temperature was falling. Tanis felt Raistlin's frail body shiver. Looking at him in the moonlight, Tanis was startled to see the mage's resemblance to his half- sister, Kitiara. It was a fleeting impression and gone almost as soon as it came, but it brought the woman to Tanis's mind, adding to his feelings of unrest and disquiet. He restlessly tossed a piece of bark back and forth, from hand to hand.

'What do you see to the south?' Tanis asked abruptly.

Raistlin glanced at him. 'What do I ever see with these eyes of mine, Half-Elf?' the mage whispered bitterly. 'I see death, death and destruction. I see war.' He gestured up above. 'The constellations have not returned. The Queen of Darkness is not defeated.'

'We may not have won the war,' Tanis began, 'but surely we have won a major battle-'

Raistlin coughed and shook his head sadly.

'Do you see no hope?'

'Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it.'

'Are you saying we should just give up?' Tanis asked, irritably tossing the bark away.

'I'm saying we should remove the carrot and walk forward with our eyes open,' Raistlin answered. Coughing, he drew his robes more closely around him. 'How will you fight the dragons, Tanis? For there will be more! More than you can imagine! And where now is Huma? Where now is the Dragonlance? No, Half-Elf. Do not talk to me of hope.'

Tanis did not answer, nor did the mage speak again. Both sat silently, one continuing to stare south, the other glancing up into the great voids in the glittering, starlit sky.

Tasslehoff sank back into the soft grass beneath the pine trees. 'No hope!' the kender repeated bleakly, sorry he had followed the half-elf. 'I don't believe it,' he said, but his eyes went to Tanis, staring at the stars. Tanis believes it, the kender realized, and the thought filled him with dread.

Ever since the death of the old magician, an unnoticed change had come over the kender. Tasslehoff began to consider that this adventure was in earnest, that it had a purpose for which people gave their lives. He wondered why he was involved and thought perhaps he had given the answer to Fizban-the small things he was meant to do were important, somehow, in the big scheme of things.

But until now it had never occurred to the kender that all this might be for nothing, that it might not make any difference, that they might suffer and lose people they loved like Fizban, and the dragons would still win in the end.

'Still,' the kender said softly, 'we have to keep trying and hoping. That's what's important-the trying and the hoping. Maybe that's most important of all.'

Something floated gently down from the sky, brushing past the kender's nose. Tas reached out and caught it in his hand.

It was a small, white chicken feather.

The 'Song of Huma' was the last-and many consider the greatest-work of the elven bard, Quivalen Soth. Only fragments of the work remained following the Cataclysm. It is said that those who study it diligently willl find hints to the future o the turning world.

SONG OF HUMA

Out of the village, out of the thatched and clutching shires,
Out of the grave and furrow, furrow and grave,
Where his sword first tried
The last cruel dances of childhood, and awoke to the shires
Forever retreating, his greatness a marshfire,
The banked flight of the Kingfisher always above him,
Now Huma walked upon Roses,
In the level Light of the Rose.
And troubled by Dragons, he turned to the end of the land,
To the fringe of all sense and senses,
To the Wilderness, where Paladine bade him to turn,
And there in the loud tunnel of knives
He grew in unblemished violence, in yearning,
Stunned into himself by a deafening gauntlet of voices.

It was there and then that the White Stag found him,
At the end of a journey planned from the shores of Creation,
And all time staggered at the forest edge
Where Huma, haunted and starving,
Drew his bow, thanking the gods for their bounty and keeping,
Then saw, in the ranged wood,
In the first silence, the dazed heart's symbol,
The rack of antlers resplendent.
He lowered the bow and the world resumed.
Then Huma followed the Stag, its tangle of antlers receding
As a memory of young light, as the talons of birds ascending.
The Mountain crouched before them. Nothing would change now,
The three moons stopped in the sky,
And the long night tumbled in shadows.

It was morning when they reached the grove,
The lap of the mountain, where the Stag departed,
Nor did Huma follow, knowing the end of this journey
Was nothing but green and the promise of green that endured
In the eyes of the woman before him.
And holy the days he drew near her, holy the air
That carried his words of endearment, his forgotten songs,
And the rapt moons knelt on the Great Mountain.
Still, she eluded him, bright and retreating as marshfire,
Nameless and lovely, more lovely because she was nameless,
As they learned that the world, the dazzling shelves of the air,
The Wilderness itself