[Intro] (ancient harp, bowed lyre) [Verse 1] Out of the village, out of the thatched and clutching shires, Out of the grave and furrow, furrow and grave, Where his sword first tried The last cruel dances of childhood, and awoke to the shires Forever retreating, his greatness a marshfire, The banked flight of the Kingfisher always above him, Now Huma walked upon Roses, To the Wilderness, where Paladine bade him to turn, And there in the loud tunnel of knives He grew in unblemished violence, in yearning, Stunned into himself by a deafening gauntlet of voices. [Verse 2] It was there and then that the White Stag found him, At the end of a journey planned from the shores of Creation, And all time staggered at the forest edge Where Huma, haunted and starving, Drew his bow, thanking the gods for their bounty and keeping, Then saw, in the ranged wood, In the first silence, the dazed heart's symbol, The rack of antlers resplendent. He lowered the bow and the world resumed. Then Huma followed the Stag, its tangle of antlers receding As a memory of young light, as the talons of birds ascending. The Mountain crouched before them. Nothing would change now, The three moons stopped in the sky, And the long night tumbled in shadows. [Verse 3] It was morning when they reached the grove, The lap of the mountain, where the Stag departed, Nor did Huma follow, knowing the end of this journey Was nothing but green and the promise of green that endured In the eyes of the woman before him. And holy the days he drew near her, holy the air That carried his words of endearment, his forgotten songs, And the rapt moons knelt on the Great Mountain. Still, she eluded him, bright and retreating as marshfire, Nameless and lovely, more lovely because she was nameless, As they learned that the world, the dazzling shelves of the air, The Wilderness itself Were plain and diminished things to the heart's thicket. At the end of the days, she told him her secret. [Verse 4] For she was not of woman, nor was she mortal, But daughter and heiress from a line of Dragons. For Huma the sky turned indifferent, cluttered by moons, The brief life of the grass mocked him, mocked his fathers, And the thorned light bristled on the gliding Mountain. But nameless she tendered a hope not in her keeping, That Paladine only might answer, that through his enduring wisdom She might step from forever, and there in her silver arms The promise of the grove might rise and flourish. For that wisdom Huma prayed, and the Stag returned, And east, through the desolate fields, through ash, Through cinders and blood, the harvest of dragons, Traveled Huma, cradled by dreams of the Silver Dragon, The Stag perpetual, a signal before him. [Bridge] At last the eventual harbor, a temple so far to the east That it lay where the east was ending. There Paladine appeared In a pool of stars and glory, announcing That of all choices, one most terrible had fallen to Huma. For Paladine knew that the heart is a nest of yearnings, That we can travel forever toward light, becoming What we can never be. For the bride of Huma could step into the devouring sun, Together they would return to the thatched shires And leave behind the secret of the Lance, the world Unpeopled in darkness, wed to the dragons. Or Huma could take on the Dragonlance, cleansing all Krynn Of death and invasion, of the green paths of his love. [Verse 5] The hardest of choices, and Huma remembered How the Wilderness cloistered and baptized his first thoughts Beneath the sheltering sun, and now As the black moon wheeled and pivoted, drawing the air And the substance from Krynn, from the things of Krynn, From the grove, from the Mountain, from the abandoned shires, He would sleep, he would send it all away, For the choosing was all of the pain, and the choices Were heat on the hand when the arm has been severed. But she came to him, weeping and luminous, In a landscape of dreams, where he saw The world collapse and renew on the glint of the Lance. In her farewell lay collapse and renewal. Through his doomed veins the horizon burst. [Verse 6] He took up the Dragonlance, he took up the story, The pale heat rushed through his rising arm And the sun and the three moons, waiting for wonders, Hung in the sky together, To the West Huma rode, to the High Clerist's Tower On the back of the Silver Dragon, And the path of their flight crossed over a desolate country Where the dead walked only, mouthing the names of dragons. And the men in the Tower, surrounded and riddled by dragons, By the cries of the dying, the roar in the ravenous air, Awaited the unspeakable silence, Awaited far worse, in fear that the crash of the senses Would end in a moment of nothing Where the mind lies down with its losses and darkness. [Verse 7] But the winding of Huma's horn in the distance Danced on the battlements. All of Solamnia lifted Its face to the eastern sky, and the dragons Wheeled to the highest air, believing Some terrible change had come.
