I have no idea if the fire did any harm to the thing. I have no idea what happened after that. I ran, though. I ran, and I should be ashamed, but shame is such an irrelevant, trivial thing. Running was all there was left to do. Shadow wights blacker than darkness came through the doors at the far side of the room, through the floor, down from the ceiling. I remember that I grabbed for Twig, as she was closest to me. It is strange I grabbed for Twig, as only a minotaur warrior is worth saving, and she is only a kender, but I caught her up and ran for the stairs.
Many shadow wights had gathered around the stairway to block our flight. They were all around us, an army of black-smoke figures that reached for me but did not make contact. I believe I was quite insane for a time. The memory of this presses hard on my mind.
I remember Dromel had a dragonlance spearhead on a chain in his hands, and another around his neck, and I hissed, “Where did you get an extra one?” The question seemed to startle him, and he stared at it in his hand. “I thought you. . or someone. . dropped it back there,” he said. Dromel swung the chain around his head, screaming as he did. He struck at a group of shadow wights, and they fell back from him, dissolving into nothing.
The chain. The dragonlance head. I remember looking around the room and seeing another, stuck into the lock in the doors across the underground room. Someone had left it there, perhaps while picking the lock. It was the kender’s fault, I thought, and I charged for it and snatched it out. I put Twig in my left arm, and I began swinging the newfound dragonlance on the chain, swinging it at the other shadow wights. They fell back. I charged for the stairs out. They fled before me, their feet never touching the ground.
It was almost sundown. Dromel, Twig, and I ran into the open for Hovost, the town near the lord’s ruined manor, and there we made our stand. As the sun fell below the horizon, I started a fire. We got a tremendous bonfire roaring and fed it with every stick of wood we could find. We burned everything that could burn, and the yellow flames crackled and snapped high in the black sky, holding back the army of darkness.
All around us, the shadow wights gathered and waited until they numbered in the hundreds, perhaps the thousands. They spoke to us. I clamped my hands over Twig’s ears to shut it out of her mind, but she screamed and screamed again as they spoke. I remember looking around until I found a kind of plant that I once heard would kill pain and cause sleep. I made Twig eat that plant, and she screamed less, then collapsed. I wrapped my extra dragonlance and chain around her body to protect her. No monster would touch her then.
I had nothing to keep the words of the shadow wights out of my own ears, nothing to keep them out of my head. They urged us to come out, to join them. Dromel and I listened to them all that night long, and no one heard us scream but ourselves.
I do not remember how we got back to the deepswim-mer. All I know is that we are here, and though we are probably safe, it comforts me not.
Day??
I have no idea what day this is. Twig and I have remained inside the deepswimmer, though only I have been conscious of late. I fed Twig too much of that painkilling «plant earlier, and she continues to sleep without waking. I do not remember why we are waiting, or how long we have been doing so. I remember only that we two came to Enstar to get rich. Twig had some maps, I believe, and we got this deepswimmer, though I do not recall how we got it. I think Twig had a lot to do with things, as I do not remember setting up the trip myself. My head is clouded with the words of the shadow wights, urging me to join them. I was one of them, they said, one of the worthless. They told me to lay aside my dragonlance and join them. When I did so, I would be free.
It is difficult to write. I have never been under such a malady as covers me now. A melancholy has crept into my body and spirit, and tears fall from my eyes. I was a fool to come here.
Day??
I am more lucid now, though not by much. I found a curious thing by my side when I awoke this morning. It was a note, written in the common language. I have no idea how long it has been sitting beside me. Twig must have written it, though she is still unconscious and very pale. Perhaps she woke up while I was asleep, too.
The note says:
A strange note. I tucked it into my diary. Twig must have been raving when she wrote it. I wish I could sleep. The voices of the shadow wights still whisper inside my head, and their words grow louder every moment. It is too much to try to get the deepswimmer going. I will shake free of this evil influence, this awful sadness that grips me, and start the deepswimmer tomorrow. We have already begun floating away from Enstar toward the open sea.
Day??
I must go. There is nothing left to live for. Twig has not awakened. I fear she may die of poisoning from the painkilling plants. It is my fault. I leave her my relic, all the relics that remain. Her body will be safe. She has a warrior’s heart, and the shadow wights will never claim her for oblivion so long as she wears the dragonlances. Me, alas, whose soul was bled by foolishness within and darkness without, the shadows can have.
Day1
Wow! What a great story! Wish I knew who wrote this. It must have been a present for me, since I’m in the story, but I have no idea who would have done it. Someone’s got a great imagination.
I must have really tied one on a few days ago, because I have no idea what I am doing inside this weird boat. I must have borrowed it to take it out for a cruise or something. My head is killing me; this must be the worst hangover ever. No more redberry wine for me, that’s for sure. I looked outside through the portholes, and there’s nothing anywhere but water. I think I remember running around on an island looking for stuff, and there were monsters that looked like empty things inside busted buildings, but that’s about it. What a tragedy! Here I’ve probably had an adventure, and I can’t remember it. It would be a great story to tell back in Merwick.
I’ve been keeping myself busy reading a manual I found on how this boat thing works, and I think I know what to do. I think I remember seeing this boat thing at Fenshal amp; Sons. Maybe if I take it back, they won’t be mad at me, and I can show them some of the great maps I found inside here. One of them looks like a map of the whole world of Krynn! It’s incredible! I bet I could buy a fleet with that map, but of course I won’t because it is much too interesting to part with, like these five spearhead necklaces I found around my neck. I wonder if they’re really dragonlances. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that they were. Wouldn’t that be a hoot!
I’m going to get cleaned up. I smell like a barn floor, and my mouth tastes like one, too. Then I’m going to figure out this boat, and then I’m gone. I want to see the world of Krynn, explore it and master it, live free as the gulls on the high seas, just like whoever wrote the stuff in this storybook said he wanted to do. I might make up my own story and write it down here, too, and maybe it would get published and I would become famous. It would be nice to do something that everyone could remember me by.
To Convince the Righteous of the Right
Margaret Weis, Don Perrin
The snowstorm blew itself out. For the first time in two days, the sun shone. The sun was pale and thin, as if it were a parchment sun set against a gray flannel sky, but it was a sun, and it was warm.
Seeing the sun sparkle on the snow like scales from a silver dragon, the troop of draconians left the shelter of the trees and, moving as a single body-a single, well-disciplined body-the draconians passed from the shadows into the wintry light. Weak though it was, the sunlight was welcome to the draconians. They flapped their wings to rid themselves of the horrible white fluffy stuff, they lifted their faces to the sunshine, basked in its warmth. Blood that had been sluggish as frozen swamp water began to flow again. One soldier tossed a snowball at another, and war was declared. Soon snowballs filled the air thicker than snowflakes, the draconians hooting and shouting.