purpose to find the dragonlances and to tell us how to
forge them. But once we got there, she began to have
second thoughts about telling us, because of the oath the
good dragons had taken.
It’s all very complicated and doesn’t have anything
much to do with my story, but it sets the scene for you, so
speak. While we were inside Huma’s Tomb, Silvara cast a
spell on everyone, except she missed me, because I was
hiding under a shield. I went to get help for my friends,
who were under her sleep spell, and I got sucked up inside
the Silver Dragon Mountain. And it was there that I found
Fizban, who was dead. Only he wasn’t.
I brought him down, and he had a talk with Silvara. It
was after that talk that she decided to tell everyone who
she was really. And she led Theros Ironfeld to the pool of
dragonmetal that would be used to forge the lances. Only
that comes later. Where I’m starting now is the part right
after Fizban had the talk with Silvara. He’d decided that
he had to leave.
“Good-bye, good-bye,” Fizban told us. We were all
inside Huma’s Tomb, in the Silver Dragon Mountain.
“Nice seeing you again. I’m a bit miffed about the chicken
feathers” – (I could explain that part but it would take too
long. Astinus has it written down in his Chronicles2.) –
“but no hard feelings.”
Then Fizban glared at me.
“Are you coming?” he demanded. “I haven’t got all
night.”
The chance to travel with a wizard! Especially a dead
wizard! I couldn’t pass it up. (Though I guess he wasn’t
really dead but none of us were sure of that at the time,
especially Fizban.)
“Coming? With you!” I cried.
I was all excited and would have left right then and
there, but it occurred to me that if I left, who would look
out for everyone else in the group? (If I had known then
that Silvara was really a silver dragon, I wouldn’t have felt
so bad, but I didn’t.) I had no idea what sort of trouble my
friends would get into without me. Especially Flint, my
best friend, the dwarf.
Flint was truly a wonderful person and had many
good qualities, but – since I have to be honest – I thought
he lacked a bit in the common-sense line. He was
constantly getting into trouble and it was me who was
always having to drag him out.
But Fizban promised me that Flint and the rest of my
friends would be fine without me and that we’d see them
again in Famine Time, which was coming up soon. So I
grabbed my pack and my pouches and off Fizban and I
went together on an adventure.
An adventure that I never told anyone about until
now.
THE STORY I NEVER TOLD
“Where are we going?” I asked Fizban, after we’d left
Huma’s Tomb far, far behind us.
The wizard was moving in a tremendous hurry,
huffing and puffing and stomping down the trail, his arms
flying, his hat pulled low over his forehead, his staff
thumping the ground.
2 DRAGONS OF AUTUMN TWILIGHT, Dragonlance Chronicles, Volume 1.
“I don’t know,” he said fiercely, and walked faster
than ever.
This struck me as a bit odd. I mean, I’ve set off on
journeys to places that I didn’t know precisely where I was
going but I never rushed to get there. I took my time.
Enjoyed the scenery. Which is maybe why we were
traveling so fast, because at that point there wasn’t much
scenery to enjoy. We hadn’t gone very far when – smack –
we walked right into Foghaven Vale.
I suppose you’re wondering about that SMACK sound.
Maybe you think SQUISH might be more appropriate for
talking about walking into fog. Or perhaps WHOOSH. But
I thought “smack” at the time because that’s what it felt
like. Smack into a gray-white wall of fog. It was thick.
Extremely thick. I know because I held my hand up to my
face and walked right into it myself. I wondered if the fog
had thickened up on purpose in our honor.