Dragonlance - Anthologies 2 - The Dragons At War, DragonLance, Dragon Lance
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THE DRAGONS AT WAR
Edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
OCR'ed by Alligator
croc@aha.ru
PDF by Ashamael
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Dream of the Namer
Michael Williams
2. People of the Dragon
Mark Anthony
3. Quarry
Adam Lesh
4. Glory Descending
Chris Pierson
5. A Lull in the Battle
Linda P. Baker
6. Proper Tribute
Janet Pack
7. Blind
Kevin T. Stein
8. Nature of the Beast
Teri McLaren
9. Even Dragon Blood
J. Robert King
10. Boom
Jeff Grubb
11. Storytellers
Nick O'Donohoe
12. The First Dragonarmy Engineer's Secret Weapon
Don Perrin and Margaret Weis
13. Through the Door at the Top of the Sky
Roger E. Moore
14. Aurora's Eggs
Douglas Niles
Introduction
Margaret Weis
It is storyteller's night at the Inn of the Last Home. Tika began the
institution in order to boost sales during those cold winter nights
when people would much rather stay home near the fire than venture out
into the ice and snow.
They became enormously popular and now, periodically, she and Caramon
send invitations to the most renowned storytellers in Ansalon, offering
to pay room and board if they come share their tales.
This evening, the Inn has a fine collection of bards.
Caramon stands up on a keg of ale to be seen over the crowd, and makes
the introductions.
"First, I'd like to present the old-timers like me," Caramon says.
"These friends date clear back to the time of the War of the Lance.
Just raise your hand when I call your name. Tasslehoff, put your hand
down. We have tonight: Michael Williams, Jeff Grubb, Nick O'Donohoe,
Roger Moore, Doug Niles, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman ... Where's
Tracy?"
Caramon peers out into the crowd. There are shouts of laughter when
Hickman is discovered wearing mouse-colored robes and accusing everyone
of stealing his hat.
After the noise subsides, Caramon resumes. "A few of our bards this
evening are making return appearances. Please raise your hands. No,
Tas, that doesn't include you. I-Wait a minute! What's that you're
holding in your hand? That's tonight's cash box! Tas! Give me that!"
General confusion. Caramon clambers down off the keg.
Tas's shrill voice rises in protest. "I was just keeping it safe, and a
good thing, too! There's a lot of shady-looking characters in this
crowd tonight."
"No, that's just Roger!" calls out Michael Williams.
When order (and the cash box) are restored, Caramon introduces the
bards who have told stories here before: Janet Pack, Linda Baker, Mark
Anthony, and Don Perrin.
"Finally," says Caramon, out of breath and red in the face, "I am
pleased to introduce several bards who are newcomers to Ansalon.
Everyone please welcome Adam Lesh, Chris Pierson, and J. Robert King."
The newcomers are warmly welcomed and advised to keep their hands on
their purses.
Caramon bows to thunderous applause and returns to his place behind the
bar. Tika makes a final call for ale.
Come, friend. There's room on this bench next to me. Sit down. Order a
mug and be prepared to laugh and cry, shudder and shiver.
Tonight, our storytellers are going to talk about The Dragons at War.
Dream of the Namer
Michael Williams
I
The song of the high grass,
the twinned lamps
of the arcing moon,
the whisper of stars
and the darker moon
we must always remember-
these are the guides
on the first of the journeys
to a time past remembrance,
past the words for time
into the Namer's country
where we venture in dreams.
The time of the walking,
the Namers call it:
the time of the breath,
the forgotten time
when the lamps of the moons
wink out in an instant
and we steer by the dark
unforgettable light,
by the lost heartbeat.
It is the dream
of the Namers' time,
the convergence of visions,
when the moon and the wind
the strung bead
and the parables of sand
unite in a story
we do not remember
until we have traveled its country.
II
On the eve of the wars,
the signs and omens
bright as mirages,
I walked in a dreaming,
through an emptied country
bloodied with iron and sunlight,
and there in the dream
I asked three times
for the voice of the god,
and he came to me quietly,
a shimmer of smoke
at the edge of imagined country,
where the whispered truth rises,
and the words that you dream
are here and suddenly elsewhere.
It is the old voice
felt on the back of the neck,
the thing under reason and thought,
when out of the smoke of your dreaming,
out of the harbor of blood,
out of the ninth moon's drowning,
the dead rise are rising
have risen and speak
in the language of sparrow and drum.
And oh may the gods
believe in my telling,
in the dream I recount,
and may the long dead listen
in the wind-drowned lands
in the dust's generation
as I tell you the seventh
of seven visions,
the song of the dragon's wing.
III
First there was eye,
then night, then immutable north,
then the smell of the springbok
over the launched horizon,
and then I was walking,
over a dying plain
littered with rock
and immaculate bone.
Ahead in a cavern
of dazzled sunlight,
on the sunstruck and burnished
edge of the world,
the dragons, dark jewels,
a flicker of ebony wings,
a frenzy of beetles
feasting on carrion,
and I cannot tell you
in memory's dream,
whether the sight
or the seeing drew me
whether I went
of my own accord
or drawn like a jessed bird
hard to the falconer's will.
But what did it matter
when the dark thing ascended
in an old smell of blood,
of creosote and coal?
I looked to the sun
and I saw them in legion
wingtip to wingtip
in the western skies
and it was for this
I was brought to the summit,
it was for this
that I dreamed the philosopher's dream.
Sunlight under my riding
and an alien heartbeat,
the cold pulse of blood
like the waters' convergence-
on the back of the monster
the sunlight was dreaming to shadows
as the wings passed over
the dying world.
And out of the lifting heartbeat,
out of the drum and shadow,
a voice rose around me,
inveigling, caressing,
a voice indistinct
from my own in my dreams,
a voice indistinct
from the chambered shadows,
from a century's nursing
of venom and fire,
and all of my dreaming
had brought me to this,
had prepared me to ride
on the wings of the darkness,
and the voice of the serpent
I heard in the air
as she spoke to me
saying ... saying ...
IV
Do not believe
this is only beginning,
Oh do not believe
of my dark and interminable legions,
that as long as the heart
is a thicket of knives,
we will not prevail
regardless of knights
and their rumored lances.
I am telling you this
from the heart of the storm,
from the tumult of wings
at the edge of your vision.
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