The Legend of Huma

Prologue

It is very rare that I, Astinus, Master Historian of Krynn, find myself penning a personal note for inclusion in my chronicles. I have done so only once in recent memory, that being after the mage Raistlin came within a breath of becoming an all-powerful deity, mightier even than Paladine and Takhisis. He failed, else I probably would not be writing this, but it was a failure deserving of note.

While commenting on that incident, I came to realize that a vicious error had been discovered in my older volumes. By the handwriting, I suspect that one Paulus Warius, an assistant of mine some three centuries before and notable more for his clumsiness than his ability to keep records, must have accidentally destroyed part of some three or four older volumes and then replaced the damaged pages with what he assumed were correct copies. They were not.

The error concerns the transitory period between what are now called the Age of Light and the Age of Might. Ergoth, for instance, was a much older empire than is noted in the false history. Vinas Solamnus in fact commanded Ergoth’s armies by 2692 P.C., not fourteen centuries later as the false history claims. The Second Dragon War, noted incorrectly as a Second and Third war by Warius because it lasted more than forty-five years, ended in 2645 P.C. It was here I first learned of the grave mistakes, for I had opened the pages concerning those last few years in order to make reference to Huma, Knight of Solamnia, a man of very mortal flesh who faced and defeated Takhisis, goddess of evil, the Dragonqueen. I had intended, after the end of the Second Dragon War, to note Huma’s exploits but, as it always happens, my mind was on my work.

I have spent more time with this than I had originally allotted myself. Perhaps it is because I, too, felt some relief after that struggle, for I had been ready to close the final volume of this world’s history at one point. It would have been a shame, as my collection at that time consisted of only a few hundred thousand volumes. For this alone I remember Huma.

His story, fortunately, is still intact in this volume, and I will let that speak for him.