Raistlin’s Farewell

Caramon, the Gods have tricked the world

In absences, in gifts, and all of us

Are housed within their cruelties. The wit

That was our heritage, they lodged in me,

Enough to see all differences: the light

In Tika’s eye when she looks elsewhere,

The tremble in Laurana’s voice when she

Speaks to Tanis, and the graceful sweep

Of Goldmoon’s hair at Riverwind’s approach.

They look at me, and even with your mind

I could discern the difference. Here I sit,

A body frail as bird bones.

In return

The Gods teach us compassion, teach us mercy

That compensation. Sometimes they succeed,

For I have felt the hot spit of injustice

Turn through those too weak to fight their brothers

For sustenance or love, and in that feeling

The pain lulled and diminished to a glow,

I pitied as you pitied me, and in that

Rose above the weakest of the litter.

You, my brother, in your thoughtless grace,

That special world in which the sword arm spins

The wild arm of ambition and the eye

Gives flawless guidance to the flawless hand,

You cannot follow me, cannot observe

The landscape of cracked mirrors in the soul,

The aching hollowness in sleight of hand.

And yet you love me, simple as the rush

And balance of our blindly mingled blood,

Or as a hot sword aching through the snow.

It is the mutual need that puzzles you,

The deep complexity lodged in the veins.

Wild in the dance of battle, when you stand,

A shield before your brother, it is then

Your nourishment arises from the heart

Of all my weakness.

When I am gone,

Where will you find the fullness of your blood?

Backed in the heart’s loud tunnels?

I have heard The Queen’s soft lullaby,

Her serenade And call to battle mingling in the night;

This music calls me to my quiet throne

Deep in Her senseless kingdom.

Dragonlords

Thought to bring the darkness into light,

Corrupt it with the mornings and the moons —

In balance is all purity destroyed,

But in voluptuous darkness lies the truth,

The final, graceful dance.

But not for you.

You cannot follow me into the night,

Into the maze of sweetness. For you stand

Cradled by the sun, in solid lands,

Expecting nothing, having lost your way

Before the road became unspeakable

It is beyond explaining, and the words

Will make you stumble. Tanis is your friend,

My little orphan, and he will explain

Those things he glimpsed in the shadow’s path,

For he knew Kitiara and the shine

Of the dark moon on her darkest hair,

And yet he cannot threaten, for the night

Breathes in a moist wind upon my waiting face.