what the poet says of foxfire, and there was heat
unsurpassed like the Cataclysm had come again, then
complete and abiding dark.
And from there, dear Bayard, and dear woman whose
patience has been long, has been stalwart, it came to me as
it came to you, by report and by rumor. How as we brought
the lances to arrest, Sturm was upon the battlements, trading
his death for our time in an impossible stand, how the lance
of the Dragon Highlord rode through him cleanly and
finally, how the sun burst. How Laurana spoke to the
Dragon Highlord Kitiara over his remains, with the fortress,
the countryside, with all of Krynn watching or listening as
the future turned on her heart’s sounding. All of this having
everything and nothing to do with all of us.
And I heard, as they drew me to the window, through
the bandages and the pain and the fading smell of my flesh
and the flesh of others, Sturm’s funeral begin in what must
have been sunlight, and of the many words spoken over the
body only these last in recollection, vivid and fathomless as
the coded song of the birds I am hearing once more through
the windows of the hospital, saying:
FREE FROM THE SMOTHERING CLOUDS OF WAR
As he once rose in infancy,
The long world possible and bright before him,
LORD HUMA, DELIVER HIM.
UPON THE TORCHES OF THE STARS
Was mapped the immaculate glory of childhood;
From that wronged and nestling country,
LORD HUMA DELIVER HIM.
Lord Huma, deliver us all. And deliver especially you, my
brother, for last night my nurse and I spoke briefly, spoke
quietly of the world remaining after Sturm, after Breca,
after Heros, after the passage of my eyes. And with the gift
of the sighted for prophecy, she ran down the lists of light,
describing the world made possible at the cost of despair, at
the cost of the smell of the corpse fires lingering under the
herbs and the metal and the fragrance of flowers and clean
bedding, at the cost of the sun diminished to warmth only.
And within those lists lie the armies of the Dragon
Highlord driven away, as Mother says, ONCE AGAIN
FROM OUR LAND AND FROM THOSE THINGS WE ARE
HONOR BOUND TO DEFEND BY THE MEASURE AND
THE CODE, of Takhisis back into the void and somewhere
unraveling in a dark I can only dream through my darkness,
in a story that remains unimaginable because I cannot see
its ending. Of the freedom to do what we want, of the
wronged and nestling country made right as we raise our
children in prosperity and peace, as we commit the young
men not to the study of swords but to a study of lore and of
history, a study finally of themselves.
She finds comfort in this. She writes the final page in
this comfort. But I shall tell you, Bayard, no doubt
frustrated by your brother and by history as you dance with
the sword in our home. I shall tell you that when these
studies commence, when once again young men begin to
study themselves, that your training, your ardor, will not go
without issue.
For when the time comes, we shall take up arms again.