Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Tracy Hickman spent two years as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), before becoming a game designer. He has been designing role-playing fantasy-world games for twenty-five years. He joined TSR in 1983 and served as a leader of the team that created the Dragonlance world. Besides the Dragonlance novels he has also co-authored the following best-selling books with Weis: The Darksword Trilogy, The Rose of the Prophet Trilogy, The Death’s Gate Cycle (seven book series), The Sovereign Stone Trilogy, and The Starshield series.
Hickman has designed many non-Dragonlance game products and written extensively for different game worlds. He has also written solo novels and books with other writing partners. His novels as a solo author include The Immortals, Requiem of Stars, and Starcraft: Speed of Darkness. With his wife Laura Curtis Hickman, also a co-creator of the Dragonlance world, Hickman is writing the ongoing Bronze Canticles series.
Matt Stawicki was born and raised in the Delaware area. He attended the Pennsylvania School of Art and Design and graduated in 1991. Since beginning his professional career in 1992, he has created many images for a wide range of products and clients including video gamecovers, collectible card images, book covers, collectors plates and fantasy pocket knives to name a few.
The paintings of noted illustrators like NC. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell and Max-field Parrish are among his traditional influences. Also the films of Walt Disney, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are sources of inspired imagery.
Clients include Harper/Collins, Penguin, Leisure, Bantam and Doubleday books. Other clients include GT. Interactive Software, Wizards of the Coast, Milton Bradley, and The Franklin Mint.
Matt is also a member of the Society Of Illustrators, New York and the Association for Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (ASFA). He currently lives in Delaware.
Principles of Fire
Keith Baker
“Tolar!” Zaehr rolled to her feet, her burned lips drawn hack across her fangs.
The dragon flung the corpse to the side, a casual gesture that sent the broken body skidding across the cobblestones. It turned toward Zaehr and fixed her with its luminous gaze. Pure, unreasoning terror gripped her—the raw panic a predator instills in its prey.
“Tolar had no place in such a battle,” the dragon said. Its voice was thunder and steam, at rumbling hiss that Zaehr felt in her bones. Its crimson scales glittered in the torchlight, as if painted in fresh blood. Black ivory punctuated this ruddy armor—two dark horns stretching back over its massive head and ebon talons longer than any of Zaehr’s blades. Even its teeth were dark, as if burned black by the flames that licked around its jaws. But the true fire was in its eyes: The blazing orange orbs consumed her thoughts, reducing her to a frightened child. It took all her strength of will to tear her gaze away, to wrap one hand around the hilt of a curved dagger.
How had it come to this?
“This ends now.”
The rumbling voice tore Zaehr back to the present. The knife slid into her hand. Her wounds burned, and she fell into a defensive crouch, ready to leap. The dragon towered above her, rearing back on its hind legs, jaws wide. Time slowed to a crawl, and Zaehr could see the light rising in the gullet of the beast.
Fire, she thought. It had begun with fire.
The sky above Sharn was on fire. The shockwave swept across them. A dwarf woman standing nearby was thrown off the edge of the bridge and tumbled howling to the streets below. Dozens of others smashed against the cobblestones, Tolar along with them. Only Zaehr kept her footing; she let the force throw her back and turned the motion into a spinning leap, landing smoothly on her feet. Throughout the twisting roll she kept her eyes on the sky, watching the terrifying spectacle above.
Pride of the Storm was coming apart.
The airship was the largest she had ever seen, the pride of House Lyrandar, a glorious yacht held aloft by twin rings of elemental power. The kraken was on the seal of House Lyrandar, and the ship was designed so that a mighty kraken appeared to be clutching the rear of the boat, four darkwood tentacles stretching out to grip the two massive rings of elemental energy surrounding the vessel.
At least, that was the design.
Zaehr loved airships, and she watched the skies when business brought her and Tolar to the vicinity of Lyrandar Tower. She had been watching when a skycoach rammed into the ship and exploded, leaving a gaping hole in the side of Pride and shattering two of the four supports. The ring of elemental fire collapsed, and a moment later there was a second explosion, greater than the first. Fire flooded the sky, accompanied by a roar that shook the towers and a wave of force that threw Zaehr’s companions to the stones. While flame engulfed the ship, the stabilizing ring of elemental air was still holding her aloft—at least for now. But even as Zaehr reached down to help Tolar to his feet, she could see that the ring was losing its integrity. Zaehr knew what would happen next. The ring would collapse, and the burning ship would plummet to the depths of Sharn, smashing against bridges and towers until she finally reached the distant streets. It was inevitable.
The cloudbelt buckled, and the blazing vessel tilted crazily in the sky, charred corpses skidding off the deck and into the air. It was just what Zaehr had seen in her mind.
Except for the dragon.
The ring of air flickered, died, and the ship fell. A new force ripped through the stern, scattering shards of burning wood across the sky. This was no explosion. It was a dragon, a massive creature covered with mirror-bright silver scales—and it was growing. With every second the dragon increased in size and the ship splintered around it.
There was no time to waste.
Zaehr reached deep inside, calling on the natural power within her. Zaehr was a shifter, a blend of human and animal. Many said that the shifters were the thin-blooded children of werewolves, but Tolar swore there was rat and hound in her ancestry. Her senses were sharper than those of any human, and she was swift and strong. When she called upon her animal spirit, her speed became super-human, matching any horse.
She snatched Tolar and lifted him off his feet. The old man was over six feet in height, but he was bone-thin, and the shifter had no trouble carrying him. She charged forward, plowing into people on the bridge as she moved. She heard curses and cries. and a few angry feet and fists lashed at her. People were frightened and confused, and Zaehr knew humans often found her to be an intimidating sight. Her eyes were gleaming red, her skin snow-white, her hair a ghostly silver-white mane, and when she was drawing on her inner spirit as she was now, her mouth was a distended snout filled with razor-sharp teeth. The people were dazed from the explosion, and now this fearsome shifter was ramming into them. But there was no time to explain.
“Get off the bridge!” she snarled. She slammed into a small child, sending him reeling back toward Stonebridge Tower.
A massive chunk of burning wood crashed into the space where she had been standing. This was followed by a flash of silver—a dragon’s tail?—and a thunderous impact that shattered the bridge. Chunks of stone joined the cascade of wood, fire, and flesh tumbling to the streets far below. There was a moment of silence. Zaehr had just saved these peoples lives, but terror and confusion outweighed any sense of gratitude.