Margaret Weis - The War of the Lance

"Mish, muckgup, whursh blimp," I said. What I meant to say was, "But, Fizban, that's Flint!" only it sounded like the other since he had his hand over my mouth.

"Quiet! We're not supposed to be here!" he hissed back at me, and he looked incredibly angry and not at all pleased with either me or himself and probably the Dark Queen, too. So I kept quiet.

Though of course what I really wanted to do was to shout, "Hey, Flint! It's me, Tas!" 'cause I knew the dwarf'd be really glad to see me.

He always is, though he pretends he isn't, because that's the way dwarves are. And Theros Ironfeld was with Flint, too, and I knew Theros would be glad to see me because just a while back up in Huma's Tomb he'd saved me from falling into a hole and ending up on the other side of the world.

With Fizban's hand clapped tight over my mouth and his whiskers tickling me I didn't have much else to do except look. So I looked. We were in what appeared to be a blacksmith's shop, only it was the largest and finest blacksmith's shop I'd ever seen in my entire life. And I guessed then that this blacksmith's shop must be making Theros happy because he is the finest blacksmith I'd ever known in my life. He and this shop just seemed to go together.

There was an anvil bigger than me and a forge with a bellows and a lake of cold water that you put the hot metal in to hear it hiss and see steam rise up and when the metal comes out it's not hot anymore.

But the most wonderful thing was a huge pool of what looked like molten silver that gave off a most beautiful light. It reminded me of Silvara's hair in the light of Solinari, the silver moon. That silver light was the only light in the forge and it seemed to coat everything with silver, even Flints beard. Theros's black skin shone like he'd been standing out in the moonlight. And his silver arm gleamed and glistened and it was so lovely and wonderful that I felt a snuffle come up on me again.

"Shhhh!" Fizban whispered.

I couldn't have talked now anyhow, what with the snuffle, and he knew that, I guess, because he let loose of me. We stood quietly in the shadows and watched. All the time Fizban was muttering that we shouldn't be here.

While Fizban muttered to himself — trying to remember his spell, I suppose — I fought the snuffle and listened to Flint and Theros talk. For awhile I was too busy with the snuffle to pay much attention to what they were saying, but then it occurred to me that neither of them looked very happy, which was odd, considering that they were down here with this wonderful pool of silver. I listened to find out why.

"This is what I'm to use to forge the dragonlances?" asked Theros, and he stared into the pool with a very a grim expression.

"Yes, lad," said Flint, and he sighed.

"Dragonmetal. Magical silver."

Theros bent down and picked up something from a pile of somethings lying on the floor. It was a lance, and it gleamed in the light of the silver pool, and it certainly seemed very fine to me. He held it in his hand and it was well-balanced and the light glinted off its sharp spearlike point. Suddenly, Theros's big arm muscle bunched up and he threw the lance, hard as he could, straight in to the rock wall.

The lance broke.

"You didn't see that!" Fizban gasped and clapped his hand over my eyes, but, of course, it was too late, which he must have realized, cause he let me look again after I started squirming.

"There's your magical dragonlances 1" Theros snarled, glaring at the pieces of the shattered lance.

He squatted down at the edge of the pool, his big arms hanging between his knees and his head bowed low. He looked defeated, finished, beaten. I had never seen Theros look that way, not even when the draconians had cut off his arm and he was near dying.

"Steel," he said. "Fair quality. Certainly not the best. Look how it shattered. Plain ordinary steel." Standing up, he walked over and picked up the pieces of the broken lance. "I'll have to tell the others, of course."

Flint looked at him and wiped his hand over his face and beard, the way he does when he's thinking pretty hard and pretty deep. Going over to Theros, the dwarf laid a hand on the big man's arm.

"No, you won't, lad," he said. "You'll go on making more of these. You'll use your silver arm and say they're made of dragonmetal. And you won't say a word about the steel."

Theros stared at him, startled. Then he frowned. "I can't lie to them."

"You won't be," Flint said, and he had That Look on his face.

I knew That Look. It was like a mountain had plunked down right in the middle of the path you want to walk on. (I heard that actually happened, during the Cataclysm.) You can say what you like to it, but the mountain won't move. And when the mountain won't move it has That Look on its face.

I said to Theros, under my breath, you might as well give up right now, because you'll never budge him .

Flint was going on. "We'll take these lances to the knights and we'll say, 'Here, lads, Paladine has sent these to you. He hasn't forgotten you. He's fighting here with you, right now.' And the faith will fill their hearts and that faith will flow into their arms and into their bright eyes and when they throw those lances it will be the strength of that faith and the power of their arms and the vision of their bright eyes that will guide these lances into the evil dragons' dark hearts. And who's to say that this isn't magic, perhaps the greatest magic of all?"

"But it isn't true," argued Theros, glowering.

"And how do you know what is true and what is not?" Flint demanded, glowering right back, though he only came up to Theros's waist. "Here you stand, alive and well with the silver arm, when you should — if you want truth — be lying dead and moldering in the ground with worms eating you.

"And here we are, inside the Silver Dragon Mountain, brought here by that beautiful creature who gave up everything, even love itself, for the sake of us all, and broke her oath and doomed herself, when — if you want truth — she could have magicked us all away and never said a word.

"Now I'll tell you what we're going to do, Theros Ironfeld," Flint went on, the stubborn look on his face getting stubborner. He rolled up his sleeves and hitched up his pants. "We're going to get to work, you and I. And we're going to make these dragonlances. And we're going to let the truth each man and woman carries in his or her own heart be the magic that guides it."

Well, at this point Fizban got the snuffles. He was dabbing his eyes with the end of his beard. I guess I wasn't much better. We both stood there and snuffled together and shared a handkerchief that I happened to have with me and by the time we were over the snuffles Flint and Theros had gone away.

"What do we do now?" I asked. "Do we go help Flint and Theros?"

"A lot of help you'd be," Fizban snapped. "Probably fall into the dragonmetal well. No," he said, after chewing on the end of his beard, which must have been quite salty from his tears, "I think I know how to break the enchantment."

"You do?" I was truly glad.

"We've got to grab a couple of those lances." He pointed to the pile of lances lying by the pool.

"But those don't work," I reminded him. "Theros said they don't."

"What do you use these for?" Fizban demanded, grabbing hold of my ears and giving them a tug that brought water to my eyes. "Doorknobs? Weren't you listening?"

Well, of course, I had been. I'd heard every word and if some of it wasn't exactly clear that wasn't my fault and I don't know why he had to go and pull my ears nearly off my head, especially after he'd already almost broken my nose and burned off my eyebrows.

"If you ask Theros nicely I'm sure he'd lend you a couple of lances," I said, rubbing my ears and trying not to be mad. After all, Fizban had gotten me caught in an enchantment and, while it was a dull and boring enchantment, it was an enchantment nonetheless and I felt I owed him something. "Especially since they don't work."