The Second Generation Read online

  DRAGONLANCE® SAGA: THE SECOND GENERATION

  ©1994 TSR, Inc.

  ©2001 Wizards of the Coast LLC

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Hasbro SA, represented by Hasbro Europe, Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK.

  DRAGONLANCE, Wizards of the Coast, D&D, their respective logos, and TSR, Inc. are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

  All Wizards of the Coast characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Cover art by: Matt Stawicki

  eISBN: 978-0-7869-6290-7

  640-25342000-001-EN

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  www.DungeonsandDragons.com

  v3.1

  To everyone

  who wanted more

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Foreword

  Kitiara’s Son Chapter One: The Strange Request Of a Blue Dragon Rider

  Chapter Two: Kitiara’s Son

  Chapter Three: White Rose, Black Lily

  Chapter Four: Caramon Tries to Remember Where He Put His Armor

  Chapter Five: Tanis Half-Elven Has an Unpleasant Surprise

  Chapter Six: The Fortress of Storm’s Keep

  Chapter Seven: Why Have You Never Asked?

  Chapter Eight: The High Clerist’s Tower

  Chapter Nine: Black Lily, White Rose

  Chapter Ten: “My Honor is My Life”

  Chapter Eleven: His Father’s Sword

  Chapter Twelve: His Mother’s Blood

  The Legacy Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  “Wanna Bet?” Foreword: (Or Afterword, As The Case May Be)

  Chapter One: Dougan Redhammer

  Chapter Two: A Really Bad Hangover

  Chapter Three: The Miracle

  Chapter Four: The Isle of Bargath

  Chapter Five: A Matter of Honor

  Chapter Six: Castle Bargath

  Chapter Seven: Our Heroes

  Chapter Eight: Lord Gargath

  Chapter Nine: Wanna Bet?

  Afterword: (This Time For Real)

  Raistlin’s Daughter

  The Sacrifice Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  Song of Huma

  Knights of Takhisis

  About the Authors

  Prologue

  It is always the map of believing,

  the white landscape

  and the shrouded farms.

  It is always the land of remembrance,

  of sunlight fractured

  in old, immovable ice,

  And always the heart,

  cloistered and southerly,

  misgives the ice, the drifting

  for something perplexed and eternal.

  It will end like this,

  the heart will tell you,

  it will end with mammoth and glacier,

  with ten thousand years

  of effacing night,

  and someday the scientists

  rifling lakes and moraines,

  will find us in evidence,

  our relics the outside of history,

  but your story, whole and hollowed, will end

  at the vanishing edge of your hand.

  So says the heart

  in its intricate cell,

  charting with mirrors

  the unchartable land

  of remembrance and rivers and ice.

  This time it was different:

  the town had surrendered

  to the hooded snow,

  the houses and taverns

  were awash in the fragmented light,

  and the lake was marbled

  with unstable ice,

  as I walked through drifts

  through lulling spirits,

  content with the slate of the sky

  and the prospect of calendared spring.

  It will end like this,

  the winter proclaimed,

  sooner or later

  in dark, inaccessible ice,

  and you are the next one

  to hear this story,

  winter and winter

  occluding the heart,

  and there in Wisconsin,

  mired by the snow

  and by vanishing faith,

  it did not seem bad

  that the winter was taking

  all light away,

  that the darkness seemed welcome

  and the last, effacing snow.

  He stood in the midst

  of frozen automobiles,

  cars lined like cenotaphs.

  In a bundle of coats

  and wool hats and mufflers

  he rummaged the trunk

  for God knows what,

  and I knew his name

  by the misted spectacles,

  the caved, ridiculous

  hat he was wearing,

  And whether the courage

  was spring in its memory,

  was sunlight in promise

  or whiskeyed shade,

  or something aligned

  beyond snow and searching,

  it was with me that moment

  as I spoke to him there;

  in my days I am thankful

  it stood me that moment

  as I spoke to the bundled

  weaver of accidents,

  the everyday wizard

  in search of impossible spring.

  Tracy, I told him, poetry lies

  in the seams of the story,

  in old recollections and prospect

  of what might always and never be

  (And those were the words

  I did not say, but poetry lies

  in the prospect of what should have been:

  you must believe that I said these words

  past denial, past history),

  and there in the winter

  the first song began,

  the moons twined and beckoned

  on the borders of Krynn,

  the country of snow

  res
olved to the grasslands

  more brilliant and plausible.

  And the first song continued

  through prospects of summer,

  where the promise returns

  from the vanished seed,

  where the staff returns

  from forgetful deserts,

  and even the northern lands

  cry out to the spirit,

  this is the map

  of believing fulfilled;

  this is the map of belief.

  Where’s my hat? You took it! I saw you.

  Don’t tell me it’s on my head! I know better! I …

  Oh, there it is. Decided to bring it back, did you?

  No, I don’t believe you. Not for a minute You’ve

  always had your eye on my hat, Hickman. I—

  What? You want me to write what?

  Now? This minute?

  Can’t do it. Don’t have the time.

  Trying to recall the words to a spell.

  Fire sale. Fire engine. Great balls of fire.…

  That’s close.…

  Oh, very well. I’ll write your blasted foreword.

  But just this once, mind you.

  Here goes.

  Foreword

  A long time ago, a couple of doorknobs named Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman decided to leave their homes on Krynn and go out adventuring. I’m afraid there’s some kender blood in those two. They just couldn’t resist traipsing off to visit other new and exciting worlds.

  But Weis and Hickman are like kender and bad pennies—they keep turning up. And so here they are again, all set to tell us about the wonderful things that are happening in Krynn.

  Some of these stories we’ve heard before, but they have a couple of new ones, too, all about the children of that small band of adventurers who are now known as the Heroes of the Lance.

  Many years have passed since the war. The Heroes’ children are growing up, going off on adventures of their own, heading out into a world that, I’m sorry to say, still has plenty of danger and trouble left to go around.

  Now, as you read these stories, you will notice that sometimes Weis and Hickman contradict certain other stories you may have heard. Some of you might find yourselves more than a little perplexed over their accounts of the Heroes’ past lives—accounts that differ from other accounts.

  There is a perfectly simple explanation.

  Following the War of the Lance, Tanis and Caramon and Raistlin and all the rest of the Companions stopped being ordinary people and became Legends. We liked hearing about the Heroes’ adventures so much, we didn’t want the stories to end. We wanted to hear more. To fill the demand, bards and legend-spinners came from all over Krynn to tell the wondrous tales. Some of these knew the Heroes well. Others simply repeated stories they’d heard told by a dwarf who had it from a kender who borrowed it from a knight who had an aunt who knew the Heroes …

  You get the picture.

  Some of these stories are absolutely, positively true. Others are probably almost absolutely, positively true, but not quite. Still others are what we refer to in polite society as “kender tales”—stories that aren’t true, but sure are a hoot to hear!

  And so you ask: Fizban, Great and Powerful Wizard, which stories are which?

  And I, Fizban, Great and Powerful Wizard, answer: As long as you enjoyed the stories, you doorknob, what does it matter?

  Well, well. Glad we got that settled.

  Now, go pack your pouches. Pocket your hankies. Grab your hoopak. We have a lot of adventuring to do. Come along! Forget your cares! Travel with Weis and Hickman through Krynn once again, if only for a little while. They won’t be here long, but they do plan to come back.

  (Maybe next time, they’ll return my hat!)

  What was my name again?

  Oh, yes.

  I remain, yours sincerely,

  Fizban the Fabulous

  I

  At the edge of the world

  the juggler wanders,

  sightless and pathless,

  trusting the venerable

  breadth of his juggler’s hands.

  He wanders the edge

  of a long-ago story,

  juggling moons,

  parading the fixed

  anonymous stars in his passage.

  Something like instinct

  and something like agate

  hard and transparent

  in the depths of his reflexes

  channels the objects

  to life in the air.

  stilettos and bottles,

  wooden pins and ornaments

  the seen and the unseen—all reassemble

  translated to light and dexterity.

  It is this version of light we steer by:

  constellations of memory

  and a chemistry born

  in the blood’s alembic,

  where motive and metaphor

  and the impulse of night

  are annealed by the morning

  into our countenance,

  into the whorls

  of our surfacing fingers.

  Something in each of us

  yearns for this balance,

  for the vanished chemistries

  that temper the steel.

  The best of all jugglery

  lies in the truces

  that shape our intention

  out of knives, out of filament

  out of half-empty bottles

  and mirrors and chemistries,

  and from the forgotten

  ore of the night

  Kitiara’s Son

  Chapter One

  The Strange Request Of a Blue Dragon Rider

  It was autumn on Ansalon, autumn in Solace. The leaves of the vallenwood trees were the most beautiful they’d ever been, so Caramon said—the reds blazing brighter than fire, the golds sparkling more brilliantly than the newly minted coins that were coming out of Palanthas. Tika, Caramon’s wife, agreed with him. Never had such colors been seen before in Solace.

  And when he stepped out of the inn, went to haul in another barrel of brown ale, Tika shook her head and laughed.

  “Caramon says the same thing every year. The leaves are more colorful, more beautiful than the year before. It never fails.”

  The customers laughed with her, and a few teased the big man, when he came back into the inn, carrying the heavy barrel of brown ale on his back.

  “The leaves seem a tad brown this year,” commented one sadly.

  “Drying up,” said another.

  “Aye, they’re foiling too early, before they’ll have a chance to completely turn,” another remarked.

  Caramon looked amazed. He swore stoutly that this wasn’t so and even dragged the disbelievers out onto the porch and shoved their faces in a leafy branch to prove his point.

  The customers—longtime residents of Solace—admitted he was right. The leaves had never before looked so lovely. At which Caramon, as gratified as if he’d painted the leaves personally, escorted the customers back inside and treated them to free ale. This, too, happened every year.

  The Inn of the Last Home was especially busy this autumn. Caramon would have liked to ascribe the increase in trade to the leaves; there were many who made the pilgrimage to Solace, in these days of relative peace, to see the wondrous vallenwood trees, which grew here and nowhere else on Krynn (despite various claims to the contrary, made by certain jealous towns, whose names will not be mentioned).

  But even Caramon was forced to agree with the practical-minded Tika. The upcoming Wizards’ Conclave was having more to do with the increased number of guests than the leaves—beautiful as they were.

  A Wizards’ Conclave was held infrequently on Krynn, occurring only when the top-ranking magic-users in each of the three orders—White, Red, and Black—deemed it necessary that all those of all levels of magic, from the newest apprentice to the most skilled sorcerer, gather to discuss arcane affairs.

  Mages from all over
Ansalon traveled to the Tower of Wayreth to attend the conclave. Also invited were certain individuals of those known as the Graystone Gem races, whose people did not use magic, but who were involved in the crafting of various magical items and artifacts. Several members of the dwarven race were honored guests. A group of gnomes arrived, encumbered with blueprints, hoping to persuade the wizards to admit them. Numerous kender appeared, of course, but they were gently, albeit firmly, turned away at the borders.

  The Inn of the Last Home was the last comfortable inn before a traveler reached the magical Forest of Wayreth, where stood one of the Towers of High Sorcery, ancient headquarters of magic on the continent. Many mages and their guests stopped at the inn on their way to the tower.

  “They’ve come to admire the color of the leaves,” Caramon pointed out to his wife. “Most of these mages could have simply magicked themselves to the tower without bothering to stop anywhere in between.”

  Tika could only laugh and shrug and agree with her husband that, yes, it must be the leaves, and so Caramon went about inordinately pleased with himself for the rest of the day.

  Neither made mention of the fact that each mage who came to stay in the inn brought with him or her a small token of esteem and remembrance for Caramon’s twin brother, Raistlin. A mage of great power, and far greater ambition, Raistlin had turned to evil and very nearly destroyed the world. But he had redeemed himself at the end by the sacrifice of his own life, over twenty years ago. One small room in the inn was deemed Raistlin’s Room and was now filled with various tokens (some of them magical) left to commemorate the wizard’s life. (No kender were ever permitted anywhere near this room!)

  The Wizards’ Conclave was only three days away, and this night, for the first time in a week, the inn was empty. The mages had all traveled on, for the Wayreth Forest is a tricky place—you do not find the forest, it finds you. All mages, even the highest of their rank, knew that they might spend at least a day wandering about, waiting for the forest to appear.

  And so the mages were gone, and none of the regulars had yet come back. The townsfolk, both of Solace and neighboring communities, who stopped by the inn nightly for either the ale or Tika’s spiced potatoes or both, stayed away when the mages came. Magic-users were tolerated on Ansalon, (unlike the old days, when they’d been persecuted), but they were not trusted, not even the white-robed mages, who were dedicated to good.