Riverwind receiving the staff

“It was a city once beautiful, with white buildings supported by tall columns of marble. But it is now as if some great hand had picked up the city and cast it down a mountainside. The city is now very old and very evil.”
“Death on black wings,” Tanis said softly.
“It rose like a god from the darkness, its creatures worshiped it, shrieking and howling.” The Plainsman’s face paled beneath his sun-baked skin. He was sweating in the chill morning air. “I can speak of it no more!” Goldmoon laid her hand on his arm, and the tension in his face eased.
“And out of the horror came a woman who gave you the staff?” Tanis pursued.
“She healed me,” Riverwind said simply. “I was dying.”
Tanis stared intently at the staff Goldmoon held in her hand. It was just a plain, ordinary staff that he never noticed until his attention was called to it. A strange device was carved on the top, and feathers—such as the barbarians admire—were tied around it.

Excerpt From Dragons of Autumn Twilight, pg 136
Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman