Anthology - Kender, gully Dwarves, and Gnomes

Line 81: After this line in Armavir's original text, the following stanza:

The next from the intricate mountains, believing

The deed the design of the word arising

From the light on the sword, from the netted darkness,

Called like the others, but called into memory

So that the deeds rise like water from stone.

UNDER THE AUTUMN TWILIGHT:

By this time, there should be no doubt in the reader's mind why this stanza was excluded from the CHRONICLES. It was the best stanza of the poem, to boot, for it was hard for a gnome of Armavir's natural humility to write about himself. The best stanza: no matter what the others say, I shall not compromise, shall not grovel!

Lines 82–86: THE LAST… THE BENIGHTED. Raistlin. Another odd fish whom the poet had little to do with at the time, having started the acquaintance on the wrong foot by making a mild joke about the eyes of this particularly humorless individual: the suggestion that if Raistlin stood on his head he could reverse the flow of Time and make us all young again was greeted with such a withering stare that for a while Armavir feared that the mage might transform him into something terribly ungnomelike — a roll-top desk or a chicken, perhaps, sent scuttling back amid the tunnels and chambers beneath Mount Nevermind, where doubtless lay many snares that had slipped from a memory damaged by both dwarf spirits and electricity. Surely Raistlin had something to do with my being here in this cistern of a cubicle, with what is now inevitably my fate as the water keeps rising, bearing the writing table higher and higher in the drowned room until I shall be crushed among table and water and stone…

But again to abandon self-pity, for the truth must be championed (and shall make me free?). Raistlin DID write the farewell to his brother that concludes Volume III of the CHRONICLES,31 and if he did not, I should be a fool to say otherwise. (Could it be that as I say this the water ceases to rise? An old pulley on the north wall of the cell, in danger of being submerged only a minute ago, remains dry and untouched above the surface of the pool — the water is still and unruffled as onyx — and for the first time I can see my reflection on the surface!) Raistlin was… by far the best of them, a man of uncommon genius, whose break with the Companions stemmed mostly from his great quest for knowledge, but also, I trust, from his sense of outrage when he saw the others begin to cover Armavir's role in the story (and now the water stands motionless — calm, dark, and limpid, thanks be to Reorx!).

As a tribute to Raistlin — a genuine tribute, knowing his understanding and merciful nature — Armavir includes within this stanza another clue as to the cruel exclusion of the poet from the CHRONICLES. Line 83,

31. pp. 380–381.

should be noted, for the pun on «stars» takes in the meaning of "celebrities," and six of the nine celebrities of the CHRONICLES (I exclude Sturm and Flint and, Dear Reorx! I exclude Raistlin) have done their best to hide the "nest of words," the poet who was the birthplace of the story.32

Line 92: A GRACELESS GIRL, GRACED BEYOND GRACES. The lovely, the fickle Tika. Armavir saw her first, as a very young girl who worked hours far too hard and long for her tenderness. Closely he watched her grow and blossom into the beautiful woman she was to become (see note to lines 46–50).

Well, as a young girl might, she went for the muscles, for the job security, instead of the immortality bestowed by the poet's pen. Tika, the wedding song33 was for us, sold at the last moment for a pittance to Goldmoon and Riverwind, when it became clear that in your eyes we were not to be! If you ever read this, return to me, forgiven of all adolescent attachments and your part in the conspiracy that left the poet's name unsung! This chamber is bathtub unto itself, my dear, my dove, and my eyes are keyholes!

Line 93: A PRINCESS OF SEEDS AND SAPLINGS, CALLED TO THE FOREST. Laurana. Why Tanis would throw over a number like Kitiara for this little one was beyond Armavir, is beyond me (and an incident before the siege of the High Clerist's Tower was conclusive evidence: see notes to lines 46–50). Of course, humans AGE a lot

32. Obviously, the line also refers to the abandoned "Star Wires" project: a quest that, it should be evident, the poet never entirely forgot.

33. CHRONICLES, I, pp. 436–437. more quickly than elves, and though Kitiara was impressively arrayed, Tanis might have been enough of an elf to look toward the long run. I don't think the decision was political, like the self-righteous little farewell note maintains. In fact, I cannot see how Tanis could even have made that decision — indeed, any decision — without consulting his accompanying skull or using (without payment or gratitude) Armavir's considerable ghostwriting skills.

Line 94: AN ANCIENT WEAVER OF ACCIDENTS. Fizban. Although not entirely unsympathetic, his was a figure blown completely out of proportion by the tendency of many of the Heroes to mythologize. Though far too taken in by Tasslehoff's deceptive charm, apparently he was a shrewd old con artist himself, managing to parlay a standard "wise old man" image and an equally standard (but cleverly engineered) disappearance and reappearance into a claim of godhood and, no doubt, all the benefits that might accrue from such a position, while conveniently missing most — if not all — of the danger.

About that disappearance: it has never been emphasized enough that Tasslehoff was the sole witness of the mysterious event; whenever it has been mentioned, the reliability of the source has (incredibly) never been questioned. Perhaps the greatest accident Fizban wove was his own.

I always thought that the little speech he gave at the end of the war (quoted at the end of the CHRONICLES) was rather lame: all that theological clap-trap did nothing but give thesurviving Companions an inflated sense of their own self importance (which, I suppose, is what mythology is for, and why they were so willing to enshrine him on the spot). But from his story we can draw one valuable lesson: sometimes an important individual drops out of a tale, out of history, through accident or design, but given time and the continual hunger for truth, he shall return with an immortality won by his own cleverness, his own ingenuity. It is the tale of the poet in brief, of the true "weaver of accidents," if I have ever heard that tale spoken.

Line 95: Nor CAN WE SAY WHO THE STORY WILL GATHER. Often taken to be a grammatical error on the poet's part, a line that SHOULD read "Nor can we say WHOM the story will gather." Not true at all! It was Armavir's last insurance, his last hedge against oblivion! For the line, as printed, means grammatically, "Nor can we say who will gather the story" The final version of the poem, marred by the neglect or ill intentions of the chroniclers, proves Armavir a prophet.

V. Conclusion

Spared again, as the waters of the cell begin to recede (could it, perhaps, be Raistlin's taunting, toying with me over the years and the miles, over Reorx knows what boundaries, for a comment made only in jest? If so, I am properly instructed, and beg forgiveness. Or could it all have been an illusion of light and onyx, a damaged memory from a damaged childhood?).

True to his premonitions, the poet fell from the story. In the interest of truth, I have returned him. For this service I ask only a small reward: that my name shall be remembered as his, and that the day shall come when pseudonyms are things of the past, and those who were truly at the heart of the story shall be remembered and revered, their names echoed throughout the upper world, through helmets in the vallenwoods, through the memories of all decent folk, gnomish or otherwise, and finally, that something can be done about these faucets. These things I ask for, and also that a sizeable sum of money be sent to the address I enclose with the manuscript, for I have more to say, and to adopt the common misreading of line 95 of the "Song,"