Free Dragonlance 03 - Dragons of Spring Dawning by Margaret Weis

looked up, Berem was gone. Above him, he heard the dragon shriek in anger.
    And then Kitiara was shouting above the storm, pointing at Tanis. Skie’s fiery gaze turned on him. Raising his arm as if he could ward off the dragon, Tanis looked up into the enraged eyes of the beast who was fighting madly to control his flight in the whipping winds.
    This is life, the half-elf found himself thinking, seeing the dragon’s claws above him. This is life! To live, to be carried out of this horror! For an instant Tanis felt himself suspended in mid-air as the bottom dropped out of his world. He was conscious only of shaking his head wildly, screaming incoherently. The dragon and the water hit him at the same time. All he could see was blood.…
    Tika crouched beside Caramon, her fear of death lost in her concern for him. But Caramon wasn’t even aware of her presence. He stared out into the darkness, tears coursing down his face, his hands clenched into fists, repeating two words over and over in a silent litany.
    In agonizing dreamlike slowness, the ship balanced on the edge of the swirling water, as if the very wood of the vessel itself hesitated in fear. Maquesta joined her frail ship in its final desperate struggle for life, lending her own inner strength, trying to change the laws of nature by force of will alone. But it was useless. With a final, heart-breaking shudder, the
Perechon
slipped over the edge into the swirling, roaring darkness.
    Timber cracked. Masts fell. Men were flung, screaming, from the listing decks as the blood-red blackness sucked the
Perechon
down into its gaping maw.
    After all was gone, two words lingered like a benediction.
    “My brother …”

5
The chronicler and the mage .

    A stinus of Palanthas sat in his study. His hand guided the quill pen he held in firm, even strokes. The bold, crisp writing flowing from that pen could be read clearly, even at a distance. Astinus filled a sheet of parchment quickly, rarely pausing to think. Watching him, one had the impression that his thoughts flowed from his head straight into the pen and out onto the paper, so rapidly did he write. The flow was interrupted only when he dipped the quill in ink, but this, too, had become such an automatic motion to Astinus that it interrupted him as little as the dotting of an “i” or the crossing of a “t.”
    The door to his study creaked opened. Astinus did not look up from his writing, though the door did not often open while he was engaged in his work. The historian could count the number of times on his fingers. One of those times had beenduring the Cataclysm. That had disturbed his writing, he recalled, remembering with disgust the spilled ink that had ruined a page.
    The door opened and a shadow fell across his desk. But there came no sound, though the body belonging to the shadow drew in a breath as though about to speak. The shadow wavered, the sheer enormity of its offense causing the body to tremble.
    It is Bertrem, Astinus noted, as he noted everything, filing the information for future reference in one of the many compartments of his mind.
    This day, as above Afterwatch Hour falling 29, Bertrem entered my study
.
    The pen continued its steady advance over the paper. Reaching the end of a page, Astinus lifted it smoothly and placed it on top of similar pieces of parchment stacked neatly at the end of his desk. Later that night, when the historian had finished his work and retired, the Aesthetics would enter the study reverently, as clerics enter a shrine, and gather up the stacks of paper. Carefully they would take them into the great library. Here the pieces of parchment covered with the bold, firm handwriting, were sorted, categorized, and filed in the giant books labeled
Chronicles, A History of Krynn
by Astinus of Palanthas.
    “Master …” spoke Bertrem in a shivering voice.
    This day, as above Afterwatch Hour falling 30, Bertrem spoke
, Astinus noted in the text.
    “I regret disturbing you,