The War of the Lance by Weis, Margaret
DRAGONLANCE TALES II
Volume Three
THE WAR OF THE LANCE
Introduction
The queen of Darkness SEEKS TO REENTER the
world. Her minions of evil once more grow strong and
powerful. Dragons return to Krynn as war sweeps
across the land. Every person is called upon to face the
evil. Some rise to the challenge. Some fall. But each is, in
his or her own way, a hero.
Michael Williams delves into the soul of the tortured
king of Silvanesti in the epic poem, “Lorac.”
“Raistlin and the Knight of Solamnia” by Margaret
Weis and Tracy Hickman tells how the young mage
helped a stern knight learn a hard lesson. (Originally
published in DRAGON(R) Magazine, Issue 154, February
1990.)
Roger Moore writes about the vengeful quest of a
revenant in “Dead on Target.”
Mara, Queen of Thieves, sneaks into Mountain
Nevermind in search of “War Machines” by Nick
O’Donohoe.
Dan Parkinson continues the misadventures of the
Bulp clan, as those intrepid gully dwarves search for
“The Promised Place.”
Jeff Grubb relates (be warned!) a gnome story in
“Clockwork Hero.”
“The Night Wolf” by Nancy Varian Berberick is a tale
of three friends who share a dark and deadly secret.
Mark Anthony’s “The Potion Sellers” have a bitter pill
of their own to swallow when the wrong people come to
believe in their fake cure-alls.
Richard Knaak writes the story of an evil priest of
Chemosh, trying to recover dread magical artifacts from
beneath the Blood Sea, in “The Hand That Feeds.”
Foryth Teal, valiant scribe of Astinus, returns to pro-
vide us with an exciting account of “The Vingaard Campaign”
by Douglas Niles.
And finally, Tasslehoff Burrfoot tells “The Story That
Tasslehoff Promised He Would Never, Ever, Ever Tell” to
the kender’s good friends, Margaret Weis and Tracy
Hickman.
We hope you are enjoying our return to Krynn as
much as we are. Thanks to all of you for your support.
You are the ones who have made this return journey pos-
sible. We look forward to traveling with you again in the
future.
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Lorac
Michael Williams
The country of thought
is a pathless forest,
is an intricate night
of redoubling green,
where the best and the worst
entangle and scatter
like distant light
on the face of an emerald
like a spark on the breast
of the fallen seas.
And yes, it is always like this,
for that country is haunted
with old supposition,
and no matter your stories,
no matter the rumors
of legend and magic
that illumine you through
the curtain of years,
you come to believe
in the web of yourself
that history twines
in the veins of your fingers,
that it knits all purpose,
all pardon and injury,
recovers the lapsed
and plausible blood,
until finally, in the midst of believing,
you contrive the story
out of the rumors,
the old convolution
of breath and forgetting,
and then you will say,
beyond truth and belief,
THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS,
FOR ONCE AND AT LAST
WHAT IT ALWAYS MEANT,
NO MORE THAN I KNEW
FROM THE WORLD’S BEGINNING
IS ALL THAT IT MEANS FOREVER.
Perhaps it was love
in the towers of thought,
in the haunts of High Sorcery,
in the towering doctrine
of moon and spell and convergence:
where the dragons dispersed
and the Kingpriest hovered
in the blind riots
of dogma and piety.
Perhaps it was love
in the breathing radius,
in the forest of crystal
where thought tunneled into
five vanishing countries,
forging the five stones
at Istar, at Wayreth,
in lofted Palanthas.
Perhaps it was love
but more likely thought
in the two vanished towers,
as the rioting stones
dwindled to four, then three,
three like the moons
in a fracturing orbit,
and the towers at Istar
and gabled Palanthas
echoed and shuddered
in the forgotten language,
hollow and cold
with ancient departures,
as high on their turrets
the spiders walked,
and the moth and the rust
corrupted the dream of days.
II
But before the towers
fell to abandonment,
before the fire,
the incense of destruction,
when the Tower at Istar
blossomed in magic
and durable light,
the parapets shone