It was a smithy of godlike proportions. A huge tank of water that could only be for cooling the product. A massive forge where—Huma had to squint—shadowy figures stoked the furnace with might and gusto.
The hammering ceased with finality. He wrenched his eyes from the sun-hot forge and turned.
The anvil stood as high as Huma’s waist and would have weighed half a dozen times his weight in full armor. The soot-covered figure that stood beside it, a two-handed hammer held easily in one hand and raised high above his head, turned to study the newcomer. The figures at the forge ceased their activity, as did two others near the anvil. The smith lowered his arm and stepped forward. Huma’s eyes did not go immediately to the face but were riveted instead by that arm. It was metal, a metal that gleamed like the material that Wyrmfather had become.
Then Huma looked into the face of the smith. Like the body, it was soot-covered, but Huma could see that the smith claimed no one race as his own, for the features were a blend of elf, human, dwarf, and something . . . unidentifiable.
The smith studied him from head to toe and, in a voice surprisingly quiet, asked, “Have you come at last for the Dragonlance?”
Chapter 21
Huma gave the towering smith a confused look and said, “The what?”
“The Dragonlance. Are you at last the one?” The dwarven features pinched together in outright anxiousness. The smith’s eyes narrowed as he waited for a response and his thin, elven mouth was no more than a flat line across his mostly human face. That “other” gave him a frightening yet handsome appearance that was not common to any of the other three races.
“I have faced the challenges, or so I am told. That is what the gray man said.”
“The gray man said it, did he? Even ancient Wyrmfather?” The hulking figure did not wait for a response. “Yes, I suppose you did, for he has been rather quiet of late. It seems so strange not to hear his rantings and ravings anymore. I cannot recall a day when he was so quiet. I shall have to adjust, I suppose.” He shrugged.
“Have I answered your question to your satisfaction?” Though Huma’s confidence had not yet recovered, his dignity had. He did not want to appear overwhelmed.
“Indeed you have,” the smith whispered, more to himself than to the knight. “Indeed you have.”
The smith let out a strong, hearty laugh. “Great Reorx! Never did I think to see the day! At last, someone will be able to properly appreciate my handiwork. Do you know how long it has been since I’ve spoken to someone qualified?”
“What about them?” Huma pointed at the spectral figures behind the smith. They seemed unoffended.
“Them? They are my assistants. They have to like my work. They would not understand the true use of the Dragonlance as a knight would. Paladine, I’ve waited so long!” The huge man’s voice echoed through the chambers.
“I forget myself.” The smith’s voice faded abruptly, and his face became dour. Huma noted that the other’s mood changes were as abrupt as his features were unique. “I am Duncan Ironweaver, master smith, armorer, and student of Reorx himself. I have waited far longer than I wish to remember for your coming. For many a year, I worried that you might never set foot near here, but I should have known better.” Duncan Ironweaver reached out a hand to Huma, who took it without thinking and found himself grasping warm metal.
The smith noticed him staring at the device and grinned. “Wyrmfather himself took my arm years ago, when I was a foolish young man. Though it pained me, I have never regretted its loss. This works so much better that I have often wondered what it might be to have an entire forged body.” He seemed to consider this for several seconds before realizing he had drifted from his subject. “Of course, without the silver arm, I would lack the strength and resistance necessary to forge the great dragonsilver into a finely crafted Dragonlance.”
Again, the Dragonlance. “What is the Dragonlance? If it is what I have come for, can I see it?”
Ironweaver blinked. “I’ve not shown you?” He put a hand to his head, unheedful of the soot spread on both. “Of course not! My mind is addled. Come then. Follow me, and we shall gaze together on a wonder that encompasses more than my simple skills and your daring.”
The smith turned and wound a path into the darkest depths of the chamber. The four shadowy assistants made way for their master and the knight. The helpers seemed to melt into the darkness itself by the time Huma was near enough, and the only things he could glimpse were four pairs of eyes that seemed to stare straight through him.
Several yards ahead of him, Ironweaver was whistling a tune that vaguely resembled a Solamnic marching song. That made Huma relax a little, though he did wonder just what connection the smith had with the Knights of Solamnia and how far back it went. By this point, the knight would not have been surprised if he had awakened back at Vingaard Keep and discovered that all of this was a dream.
They came to another door, and the huge smith stopped and turned to Huma. “Beyond that door, only you will go. I have much work to get back to. Another will lead you back to the outside world and your friends.”
Friends? How did Duncan Ironweaver know about Kaz -and Magius? “And the Dragonlance?”
“You will know it when you see it, my little friend.”
“Where do—?” Huma started to ask something else but stopped abruptly when he found himself talking to air. He quickly turned back in the direction they had come, but the smithy itself was no longer visible. Only darkness. Huma took a few tentative steps in that direction and then retreated in disgust as his face came in contact with a spider’s web of incredible size and thickness.
He spat the foul substance from his mouth and examined the web. It was old, the culmination of generations and generations. Dust lay thick on its surface. Here and there, it connected to rusting implements, swords, old metalworking equipment—things forgotten by their creators and users since long before Huma had been born.
But he had just come that way.
An uneasy thought intruded; what spider would need a web so great?
His eyes still on the web, Huma reached a hand out toward the door. The handle, a long, jagged one rusted with age, would cooperate only after a struggle. At last the door opened, unleashing a cloud of dust. Slowly, and with great reverence, Huma stepped into the room of the Dragonlance.
He saw a charging stallion, armored in purest platinum and snorting fire as it raced the winds. He saw the rider then, a knight bold and ready, the great lance poised to strike. The knight also was clad in platinum, and the crest on his helmet was that of a majestic dragon. On his chest he wore a breastplate with the symbol of the Triumvirate: the Crown, the Sword, and the Rose.
Within the visor that covered the face was light, brilliant and life-giving, and Huma knew that here was Paladine.
The great charger suddenly leaped into the air, and massive wings sprouted from its sides. Its head elongated, and its neck twisted and grew, but it lost none of its majesty or beauty. From a platinum-clad steed it became a platinum dragon, and together knight and companion drove the darkness before them with the aid of the lance ... the Dragonlance. It shone with a life, a purpose of its own, and the darkness fell before it. Born of the world and the heavens, it was the true power, the true good.
The darkness destroyed, the dragon landed before Huma, who could only fall to his knees. The knight released the Dragonlance from its harness and held it toward the mortal figure below him. With some hesitation, Huma slowly rose and stepped forward. He reached out and took the lance by its shaft. Then the dragon and its rider were gone, leaving Huma alone with the wondrous gift.
He held it high and cried out in joy.
Sweat drenched him. Nearly all energy had been drained from his body, but Huma did not mind, for it was the exhaustion felt after the joyous exhilaration of achieving one’s dreams. There would never be another rapture like it in his life, he knew.