Enjoy a reading of Raistlin’s Farewell by Michael Williams, first published in Dragons of Spring Dawning, September 1985. Buy Dragons of Spring Dawning: https://amzn.to/3mcPWDw
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, 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 arc 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 arching 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 weaknesses.
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 glimpses in the shadow’s path,
For he knew Kitiara and the shine
Of the dark moon upon her darkest hair,
And yet he cannot threaten, for the night
Breathes in a moist wind on my waiting face.
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