“Not my family’s luck,” he acknowledged. “Not on that day.”
“You’re right. It wasn’t luck. It was the will, the gift, of Reorx. That steel blade has been blessed by our god; there is no other way it could have wounded that creature.”
Brandon looked at his weapon, which he had lovingly cleaned and polished, with a new appreciation.
At the same time, the thane of Pax Tharkas cleared his throat. “You say the gully-er, Gus-escaped from a black wizard?” Tarn asked, scratching his head dubiously. “Where is this wizard, then?”
Gretchan shrugged, drawing another puff from her pipe. “Gus came out of Thorbardin. He’s an honest fellow, I think we’ve all seen. So I believe him. It must certainly have been a Theiwar black-robed magic user.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about our people,” Otaxx Shortbeard observed.
Gretchan expelled the smoke from her nose and looked at him seriously. “I was taught about our people ever since I was a little girl. My mother wanted me to know the place she had left behind as well as the new world she and the rest of the Daewar were trying to create in old Thoradin.”
“Hmm. I remember you said your mother traveled with the Mad Prophet. The name ‘Pax’-it’s not a family name I recognize, and I spent most of my life among those Daewar,” the old general admitted.
“Well, it’s not my given name. I chose it for myself.” Her eyes were wet as she looked at Otaxx. “My mother’s name was Berrilyn Shortbeard… and I don’t think she ever forgave herself for leaving you behind.”
“Berrilyn…?” The old dwarf rocked backward. “But… then…” His voice choked, and his eyes swam with tears.
“I am your daughter, born in Sanction,” Gretchan said gently. “For these past forty years, I’ve been growing up and determined to do my researches for a history of the dwarves on Krynn. But in my heart, I was also looking for a way to return to my clan home. I thought it was in Thorbardin until, just days ago, I learned you were here, in Pax Tharkas.”
The others watched silently as father and daughter embraced. Brandon wiped away a tear, and even Gus sniffed loudly-an outburst of sound that allowed them all to laugh.
“And this Bluestone that Garn brought from Hillhome-that is really your family’s treasure, stolen by this hill dwarf villain?” Tarn asked Brandon.
“Yes,” he replied. “Harn said he was willing to pay a fortune for it-a thousand times a hundred steel pieces. But I think he was waiting for the chance to steal it instead.”
“Why do you suppose he wanted it so badly?” Slate Fireforge asked.
“He had two of them, you know,” Brandon pointed out. “There’s a green one as well. Garn took them from him.”
“And I believe there’s a third, somewhere,” Gretchan said. “A Redstone. There are some intriguing legends about the Tricolor Hammerhead. It’s a weapon that can only be made by merging all three of those precious stones together, to form a hammer of unprecedented power. I believe that’s why Harn sought the Bluestone. I think there’s an old dwarf woman in Hillhome, he called her the Mother Oracle, who planted the idea in his head. Some stories suggest the Hammerhead is a device so powerful, it’s capable of smashing open Thorbardin’s Gate.”
“Oh, now I remember! Thorbardin wizard’s war,” Gus piped up. He had been trying to keep up with the conversation as Berta patted a dirty rag against his bleeding forehead. “I wonder if war start yet?”
“The same wizard or a different one?” asked Tarn Bellowgranite sharply.
“Black wizard’s war,” the Aghar replied. “He’s gonna kill all the thanes. If they not kill him first.”
“Oh, is that it?” the weary thane said sadly. He exchanged a look with his old friend Otaxx. They seemed to understand more than what they told. “So civil war comes again to Thorbardin. A black Theiwar’s army versus Jungor Stonespringer’s fanatics. It would serve them both right-if not for all the innocents who will perish.”
“I wonder…” Mason Axeblade said, his voice trailing off hesitantly. The Daewar captain had been a silent observer up to that point.
“You wonder what?” Brandon asked.
“I wonder about this hammer and this war you speak of. It seems to me at least possible that, if we can find the Redstone and put it together with these other fabled stones, then we might have a tool that would smash open the gates of Thorbardin. And if there are two factions inside, trying to tear each other apart…”
“We might find in that conflict a chance to go home again,” Tarn Bellowgranite concluded.
EPILOGUE
Willim the Black had worked hard to restore his operation. He had recruited forty new apprentices, twenty- seven of which remained alive even after four weeks of training. More would be lost in the weeks to come, but he was encouraged by the rate of success displayed by the group so far. They were hard workers, and the survivors showed real Theiwar spirit-they had not blanched even as they witnessed the failures, their former colleagues, meeting their fate in Gorathian’s pit.
All the apprentices, of course, were Theiwar, as that was the only clan of dwarfkind with any magical aptitude. And the Theiwar of Norbardin, when it came to war, would be Willim the Black’s sole hope of success. He visited them as often as he dared, magically transporting himself into the homes of those he knew he could trust or intimidate. From some of those homes, he had claimed his apprentices, and even knowing the risks, they had all come willingly, for there was great power waiting for those few who succeeded.
In those same houses, and in others, he had planted the seeds of his rebellion, recruiting agents to do his bidding, spies to keep him apprised of developments. After all, Willim the Black was well known among his clan, and if he was not even mildly loved, he was tremendously feared, and that, to a Theiwar, was the greatest asset.
The black-robed wizard had also gone invisibly throughout Thorbardin, passing through the cities and the warrens, observing the state of the people. Stonespringer’s rulership grew ever more restrictive, more controlled by the fanatical king. His edicts were enforced by an ever-growing army of brutal thugs, Hylar and Daergar mainly, who walked the streets of Norbardin, accosting females who dared to show themselves in public, demanding tribute from the honest merchants and craftsmen who tried to survive there. Aghar had all but vanished from public view, though to Willim that was the lone positive result of his enemy’s reign.
Stonespringer had long made a habit of placing his most loyal subordinates in key roles, so they controlled nearly all of the key positions in Thorbardin’s society. The Theiwar were treated as lower-class citizens, denied roles of influence or power. But that fact, Willim knew, would work to his own advantage, eventually. His people had little patience for those who would master them and little tolerance for arrogance and abuse. One day, those resentments would bubble to the surface, and civil war would begin anew. Until that time, Willim would train his new apprentices, assemble components for his spells and potions, and prepare.
It was against that backdrop that the black minion returned to the wizard in his laboratory. The creature had failed, Willim saw at once, in that the potion of mastery had been lost, though it had been employed in a worthy cause. For that reason, the wizard did not condemn the beast to an eternity of suffering, but merely locked it away in a cage of magical bars, so when the time was right, the monster could once again be unleashed with a charge to make right its abject wrong.
And Willim had one more ally, out on the surface world. An ally that dwelled among the outer dwarves and worked his will as her own… an ally that had no eyes but, like Willim, could see very well indeed.
APPENDIX
An essay by Gretchan Pax
The penchant for internecine warfare is not unique to humans or ogres or goblins or any of a host of other races known for savage brutality and devastating conflict. It seems that wild young peoples cannot refrain from destroying themselves or their kin in the convulsive violence of great wars. Ogres, goblins, and others of that ilk live lives of constant violence, raiding and thieving and making war for sport. Theirs is an existence wherein the strong
