“Yes, my Queen,” he said. “Raistlin Majere is dead. I have killed him.”
Good! Now make haste to the Foundation Stone. You are the final guardian.
The heads vanished. The Dark Queen, intent upon other dangers, disappeared.
“Not even the gods can tell the difference,” Raistlin murmured.
He looked at the bloodstone pendant. As the wizard’s dark soul flooded into his, Raistlin had glimpsed unspeakable acts, countless murders, and other crimes too terrible to name. He closed his hand over the pendant, then flung it into one of the acid pools. He watched the acid devour the pendant, as the pendant had almost devoured him. He seemed to hear it hiss in anger.
Raistlin held up the dragon orb. He watched the colors swirl in the light, and he chanted the words and disappeared from the tunnels, leaving the body of Raistlin Majere behind.
18
Two Brothers.
Raistlin stood before a broken column, encrusted with jewels that glittered temptingly, luring the unwary to their doom. He murmured the words to a spell he had not known he knew, and he traced a rune in the air. The figure of a woman appeared inside the stone. The woman was young, with a sweet and winsome face, pale with grief and sorrow, soft with yearning. The woman’s eyes searched the darkness.
He saw her lips move, heard her ghostly, anguished cry.
“Berem comes, Jasla,” Raistlin said.
He was careful to avoid stepping in the underground stream, which was crawling and snapping and roiling with baby dragons. Climbing a rock ledge that ran along the foul water, he came to a place some distance from the stone, where he could keep watch. He spoke the word, “Dulak,” and the staff’s light went out.
Raistlin waited in the darkness for the person who had been dumb enough—or perhaps courageous enough—to walk into his spell trap. Raistlin knew who that person was, the other half of himself. He heard the sounds of two people sloshing through the dragon-snapping, bloodstained water. He knew them in spite of the darkness.
One was Caramon, a good man, a good brother, better than he deserved. The other was Berem Everman. The emerald glimmered and, in answer, the jewels in the Foundation Stone began to glitter with a myriad of colors.
Caramon walked protectively at Berem’s side. His sword was in his hand, and it was stained with blood. His black armor was dented; his arms and legs were bleeding. He had a bloody gash on his head. His jovial face was pale, haggard, drawn with pain. Sorrow had marked him. The darkness had changed; the darkness had changed him.
A brother lost.
Raistlin looked into the future and saw the end. He saw a sister’s love and forgiveness, her brother redeemed. A brother found.
He saw the temple fall. The stone splitting as the Dark Queen shrieked in rage and struggled to keep her grip on the world. He saw a green dragon, waiting for his command, waiting to take him to the Tower of Palanthas. The Tower’s gates would open at last.
“Shirak,” said Raistlin, and the magical light of the Staff of Magius banished the darkness.
19
The End of a Journey.
The Temple’s darkness is lit to day-like brilliance with the power of my magic. Caramon, sword in hand, can only stand beside me and watch in awe as foe after foe falls to my spells. Lightning crackles from my fingertips, flame flares from my hands, phantasms appear—so terrifyingly real that they can kill by fear alone.
Goblins die screaming, pierced by the lances of legions of knights who fill the cavern with their war chants at my bidding, then disappear at my command. The baby dragons flee in terror back to the dark and secret places of their hatching, draconians wither in the flames. Dark clerics, who swarmed down the stairs at their Queen’s last bidding, are impaled upon a flight of shimmering spears, their last prayers changing to wailing curses of agony.
Finally comes the Black Robes, the eldest of the Order, to destroy me—the young upstart. But they find to their dismay that—old as they are—I am in some mysterious way older still. My power is phenomenal. They know within an instant that I cannot be defeated. The air is filled with the sounds of chanting, and one by one, they disappear as swiftly as they came, many bowing to me in profound respect as they depart upon the wings of wish spells. …
They bow to me.
Raistlin Majere. Master of Past and Present.
I, Magus.
AFTERWORD
Dragons of Autumn Twilight , first published in 1984, celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2009. Since then, the Dragonlance Chronicles have been continuously in print. They have sold more than thirty million copies worldwide and been translated into almost every language.
We have become friends with so many people around the world, people of all races, creeds, and nationalities, who have been brought together through a love of reading. We would like to thank the many fans worldwide for their help and support and encouragement. We want to give special thanks to the group on the Internet message boards of the Dragonlance Nexus, who have rallied around to provide background research and information.
Perhaps our proudest moment was to be involved with the production of the animated film Dragons of Autumn Twilight . We would like to thank the people who worked on the movie, which has been released on DVD from Paramount Pictures: producers Arthur Cohen and Steve Stabler, director Will Meugniot, writer George Strayton, coexecutive producers Cindi Rice and John Frank Rosenblum, and composer Karl Preusser who wrote the fabulous original musical score. All the actors did a wonderful job, but we would especially like to thank Jason Marsden, who did the voice of Tasslehoff and who was so kind to give his time and talent to the fans and to us.
Our thoughts go to our friends and members of the very first Dragonlance team: Jeff Grubb, Michael Williams, Doug Niles, and Harold Johnson; our first editor, who took a huge chance on us, Jean Blashfield Black; the amazing art staff of TSR, Inc.—Larry Elmore, Jeff Easely, Clyde Caldwell, Keith Parkinson; our former publisher, Mary Kirchoff; and our former executive editors, Peter Archer and Brian Thomsen. Finally, we would like to give special thanks and heartfelt gratitude to our friend and editor for all these many years, Pat McGilligan.
And to all of you who have read and loved these books. May dragons fly ever in your dreams.