The Heir of Kayolin

ONE

The old dwarf muttered to himself and stomped his cane against the stones of First Street, in the great city of Norbardin. It was a relatively new city, excavated under the mountains following the Chaos War, and the road was wide and straight. The stones underfoot were set so smoothly that there was barely a crack between them to be seen or felt, and that was a good thing for the elderly pedestrian, since he could barely see.

Still, using his cane to probe before him, he hobbled along at a fair clip, despite the wear and tear of a life that had bent his backbone and forced a permanent stoop onto his once-broad shoulders. He was a Theiwar, with the distinguishing pale skin and light, almost fawn-colored, irises in his sensitive eyes that mark so many of that breed. His beard was long, but thin, the wispy hairs a universal slate gray in color, and his balding pate was fringed by only a meager few strands of the same colorless gray.

He glanced around and squinted nervously as other dwarves, hustling and bustling, stepped around him and hurried on their way. The old dwarf veered to the other side of the street so he didn’t have to meet approaching pedestrians face-to-face. At one point he paused to glare at the outside of a shuttered shop, the little store displaying the Abercrumb’s Fine Silverwerks sign. Satisfied that the interior was dark, devoid of customers, he continued on another dozen paces and turned in at a door on the other side of the street. He entered the little shop and slammed the door hard enough to start the overhead sign, Two Guilders Novelty and Pharmology Emporium, swinging violently.

He stood in front of the counter of a small store. Every bit of the wall space, except for the front door and another door leading into the interior, was lined by shelving-smooth stones of slate that rested in precise grooves cut into the rock walls. Those shelves, in turn, were covered almost to overflowing with bottles and tins, small boxes and casks, ceramic mortars and glass beakers, and an array of even-harder-to-identify materials. One jar held preserved eyeballs, which seemed to stare nosily in every direction. Other containers held more mysterious objects, such as worms or entrails coiling in viscous liquid. Something that looked like a pile of dead, dry bats-which, in fact, it was-rose in moldy chaos in one dark corner.

Other rows of merchandise were more practical and immediately useful in nature, such as the cabinets of clothing that included exotic items like boots that made the wearer tread utterly silently and cloaks that camouflaged one into matching almost perfectly the surroundings of stone or water. All the goods were for sale, at prices that could be negotiated but that were invariably high. The products were many and varied; customers, however, were few.

Peat and Sadie Guilder were both accomplished Theiwar magic-users, belonging to the order of the red robes, and for decades they had made a decent living sharing the fruits of their magical skills with those dwarves who could overcome their inherent distrust of magic enough to spend hard-earned steel on one or another of the unique products that the Two Guilders Emporium offered. Unfortunately, such dwarves had proved to be very rare indeed.

“I’m here!” the old Theiwar called loudly. “I’m home!”

“Who’s there?” came the query from the back room. “Is someone there?” The voice was female, raspy with age, and tart with determined curiosity.

“It’s your husband!” the Theiwar snapped. “Who else would it be? You didn’t exactly expect a customer, did you?”

The crone of a dwarf woman who emerged through the interior door gave no response to his question. She was stooped and aged like her husband, with a wrinkled face and tiny, glittering eyes. Her white hair was tied in a thin braid that trailed down her back. She wore a shapeless dress, and when she momentarily glared at Peat, she smacked her lips to reveal a precious few yellowed teeth standing sentinel on her gums. She stepped past him and went to the front door. Pulling it open, she glared up and down the street before she flipped the sign on the outside of the door from Open to Closed. Shutting the door, she carefully made sure it was locked. Only then did she turn and look at the dwarf who was her husband of more than one hundred years.

“You could at least tell me you’re home!” she declared querulously. “And what took you so long?” she demanded. “I’ve been about stewing in my lizard broth waiting for you!”

“Well, Sadie, I don’t exactly move like I used to,” Peat replied patiently. “But I circled the whole square, stopped to get the gossip, and even had a beer with a sergeant of the palace guard. All in all, a good day’s work-though I could use another beer, now that I think of it.”

“There’ll be time for that later!” Sadie snapped, still glaring. “Didn’t you think of me back here worrying about you?”

Peat shrugged, squinting nearsightedly at the blurry features of his wife’s face. Doggedly he continued his report. “Then old Abercrumb caught up with me in the middle of the square-there was no way I could dodge him. I had to listen to him go on for an hour about the state of business along First Street. Couldn’t hardly disagree with him, but I just wanted to be out of there. He finally left, told me he had to get back to his shop.”

“Well, at least you didn’t meet old Abercrumb,” she muttered vaguely. “That nosy Hylar would have wasted even more of your time! Did you get to the square?”

“I told you-ah, never mind,” Peat said, rolling his eyes. He held up a small piece of parchment that was marked with some arcane symbols, hastily scratched with the piece of graphite Peat carried in his belt pocket.

Sadie smacked her lips around her few remaining teeth and studied the sheet. She huffed and muttered indecipherably, but her anger had passed. “Well, come in the back, then,” she said at last. “And tell me what you learned.”

The back room of the Two Guilders shop was as crowded and messy as the front. The notable difference was that the rear chamber was larger. Two very big desks occupied one wall, while a hard sleeping pallet took up the far corner. A magical light, feeble and flickering as the power of the incantation waned, glowed from an unburned candle mounted on the wall. The desktops were strewn with parchments, and an array of quills and inkwells were scattered around the papers.

“What are you working on?” Peat asked, glancing at the fresh ink on one of the parchments.

“I was doing some work to pass the time,” Sadie admitted, waving at the desk.

“I can see that much!” Peat replied. “Answer me straight for once. What were you doing?”

“Yes-I was stewing!” she barked. “I told you that! Don’t tell me you’re going deaf as well as blind!”

Peat merely sighed and followed her past the desk.

She shook her head impatiently. “So what’s going on in the city? Did you get the information the Master requested?”

Peat instinctively ducked and glanced over his shoulder, though the two elderly dwarves were alone in the shop’s workroom. Even so, he lowered his voice to a whisper.

“The king is going to cancel the Festival of the Forge-claims it’s heretical and obscene, of course, just like everything else he doesn’t like. And when he makes the announcement, he wants his troops in position to squelch any uprising in the city. So he’ll keep most of his men-at-arms in the palace garrison and the Midfort to keep order. All four of the city gates will be lightly manned, so that Jungor Stonespringer can divert the number of soldiers he needs to watch his own people in the heart of Norbardin.”

“As if he doesn’t have the city cowed like a whipped rat,” Sadie said scornfully. “He’ll never be overthrown from within anyway!”

Peat continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I spoke to some of the gatehouse captains-bribed them with a bottle of dwarf spirits. Enhanced, of course.” He glanced nervously at one of the potion bottles on a nearby shelf. “The officers were quite specific in their deployments. I wrote the numbers down as soon as I could get away.”

Sadie nodded. She knew that a tiny dose of charm potion, mixed with potent alcohol, was the method preferred by both of them when their master needed information about the royal garrison-or about anything else happening within Norbardin. She hadn’t heard the details of Peat’s report, but her husband’s notes were precise, inscribed in a code that only the two Guilders-and their master-could unravel.

“It took you long enough. I’m still surprised you got any information before the potion wore off!” she snapped.

He bit his tongue, staring at her irritably. Rather than reply directly, he put down the scrap of parchment upon which he had made his notes. They consisted of some abstract symbols, with a number beside each symbol. The note marked the locations of Norbardin’s key defensive positions, including the main gate, the two side gates, and the large ramp, currently raised, which blocked direct access to the city from the Urkhan Sea.

Sadie looked over the notes and nodded, satisfied. “They’ll be at half strength during the festival, then, the fools!”

“Do you think the Master will make his move then?”

She shrugged but then nodded thoughtfully. “I’d say the signs are right.” She handed the note back to her husband, and nodded to a bell jar on a corner table. “You send the message. I want to keep working on that scroll.”

“What scroll is it anyway?” he repeated, but her back was already turned and she either didn’t hear him or chose again to ignore his question.

Peat sighed long-sufferingly and went over the jar, using his cane to tap through the many obstacles littering the shadowy floor of the workshop. He sidestepped a pile of dusty books and, with a snap of his fingers, kindled a fire on the burner nearby. Gingerly he set the bottle and its stone base on top of the burner.

Sadie returned to her desk. The soft blue glow of magic surrounded her, and Peat watched her, still entranced after all those years, until finally the odor of baking stone reminded him that the Sender was ready.

He wheeled around to face the table and put a heavy leather glove on his left hand. Holding the note in his right, he lifted the hot bell jar and smoothly placed the note on the stone beneath it. That circle of slate was already glowing red from the steady heat. He murmured a single word of magic as he set the jar down then blinked-surprised in spite of himself-as the spell of sending took the missive and bore it away.

In an enclosed cavern, deep beneath Norbardin, a similar bell jar flashed a blue glow. The stone base, empty moments before, held a sheet of shimmering parchment-or, at least, a magical approximation of such a page. A short, black-robed wizard had been working at a nearby table. Though the jar was behind him, he immediately sensed the message’s arrival and turned to raise the glass with a gloved hand. With the other hand he picked up the illusionary sheet. He read it quickly and nodded in satisfaction as the magical missive dissolved into a shower of tiny sparks, embers drifting gently to the smooth stone floor.

“The time has come,” announced the powerful wizard, addressing the rank of attentive apprentices standing nearby awaiting his orders. His voice was soft, but the words seemed to linger in the air, each one fully absorbed by the intent listeners.

Willim the Black took a deep breath, and for a time stood stock still, relishing the moment. The missive was a significant document, and as he reflected on its importance, he understood that his life, his circumstances, were about to change dramatically. He knew beyond all doubt that the throne of Thorbardin, the leadership of that great dwarf nation, finally lay within his grasp. He wanted to savor the occasion.

Finally he would break out of the lair that had been his fortress, his prison, for the past decade. In many ways the great chamber was perfect, blocked as it was from the rest of Thorbardin by solid and impenetrable walls of stone. It had been carved from the bedrock of the mountain range on the orders of the previous king, Tarn Bellowgranite, but the chamber had been abandoned when a fearful menace had been discovered there.

That menace had become Willim’s tool, as were the young, potent Theiwar dwarves he had brought there to train. Fifteen young magic-users, out of the original forty, had survived a year of especially grueling apprenticeship. They stood before their master, each wearing the plain black robe of the wizardly order. Beards combed, chests thrust forward with justifiable pride, they awaited his inspection, his approval, his command.

Willim the Black, the most powerful wizard of Thorbardin, an ally of Dalamar the Dark himself, strutted back and forth before the row of magic-users, appraising them. The powerful master knew he was grotesque in his physical appearance, but the well-trained apprentices did not react to his terrifying visage. Willim’s eyeless face, lids sewn shut with gruesome stitches, swept back and forth across the pale, serious faces of his assistants. Through the power of the spell of true-seeing, the enchantment that permanently enhanced all of his senses, he perceived each steady gaze, beheld the tension in legs and arms, absorbed the purposeful determination behind each bearded face.

And on a lone nonbearded face as well.

Willim the Black felt pleased. Fifteen of the sixteen were young Theiwar males, pale skinned and bushy bearded, strapping and strong. The oldest, Gypsum, had proved to be exceptionally able with a variety of lethal magics, potions, and charms-as well as quick and deadly with his keen knife. Two others, Shale and Petro, had excelled in displays of reckless courage, deceit, treachery, and disguise. Like all of their comrades, they possessed cruelty and sadism in abundance in their characters and undying loyalty to Willim above all.

Almost against his will, the wizard felt his attention drawn to the sixteent apprentice, the lone female in the group-indeed, the only one of her gender Willim had ever accepted into his circle. Perhaps she, too, felt the attention of his seeing spell, for her own eyes-pale and wide-virtually glowed in response to the pleasure of his inspection.

Facet Anvilmaster would have been worthy of closer inspection to any male dwarf, of any age. She had long dark hair, in contrast to her alabaster skin, and unlike most dwarf maids, she did not constrain it in braids or tails. Instead, it flowed past her shoulders, shimmering down, far down her body, becoming virtually indistinguishable from the silken darkness of her wizard’s robe. Her breasts swelled that robe most attractively, and the pronounced curve of her hips and thighs was suggested by the ripples in the garment every time she moved. Her full lips were a bright crimson, a shocking contrast to her pale skin, suggesting nothing so much as the color of fresh blood.

Willim shook his head, startled by his own thoughts-it was no time to be so distracted. Female flesh had never held any appeal for him. Why should that change in her presence?

It was a time for action, not idle thoughts! He inspected his apprentices again, stalking along their file, knowing that none of them had failed in the tests he had presented, yet fully realizing they also needed one more crucial lesson. It would be the ultimate lesson on the subject of loyalty and, to Willim, the most important lesson that his underlings could learn. His attentions passed over a few of the most accomplished apprentices-Gypsum, Facet, Shale, a couple more-knowing they were too valuable to be wasted. Of the others, it didn’t much matter which one he picked, and he quickly settled upon a candidate.

“Krave!” he snapped, and the black-bearded dwarf in the middle of the row snapped to an even more rigid state of attention.

“Yes, Master!” replied that worthy student, honored to be singled out. He was clearly unaware of the wizard’s grim intent.

“How long have you been in communication with King Stonespringer, the false monarch? He who would weaken our nation with his foolish superstitions, with his fanatical devotion to ancient mythology?”

Immediately Krave’s already pale skin blanched to a snowy white. “No, Master! I swear-not I–I never-”

“Liar!” snapped Willim the Black, pointing a stubby, black-gloved finger at the cringing dwarf. The apprentices to either side of Krave took quick sidesteps away from their accused comrade even as that pathetic, young Theiwar raised his hands before his face.

“Master, I promise-”

Those were his last words. Willim snapped his fingers and uttered a guttural, deadly word. Blue magic flashed in the air, leaving a lingering stench of brimstone as a jagged bolt of light struck Krave in the chest. Blasting his black robes out of the way, the lethal spell churned through his skin, his ribs, tearing into his heart. The deadly enchantment squeezed that organ until it burst with a wet splat.

Krave fell, instantly dead, but before the body hit the floor, Willim was already stalking back up and down the rank of survivors. He knew that his visage, with the stitched eye sockets and scarred face, was abominable to them, and he let their gaze linger on him as, one at a time, he took their measure. Many were shaken; a few, like Gypsum and Shale, remained utterly impassive, though the former had been spattered by no small amount of blood. But all of them had seen and would forever remember the price of betrayal.

The lone female, he was intrigued to note, had licked her red lips until they glowed like enchanted rubies. Her eyes were alight, and she quivered with something very much like exhilaration.

“Facet!” he snapped, relishing the sudden fear that tightened her mouth, rendered her face even more pale. “You and Gypsum will remain behind. The rest of you, step forward and take your potions.”

She relaxed then, smiling slightly at his words. Gypsum remained impassive as the other black-robed dwarves advanced, each grabbing one of the bottles of elixir their master had arrayed on the stone tabletop. The Theiwar apprentices unstoppered their vials then turned to look at Willim expectantly.

“You know your assignments,” the powerful wizard began. “For more than a year, you have all been preparing for this day. But that preparation is nothing compared what lies ahead!” He nodded in satisfaction as the looks of surprise and unease flickered across the bearded visages. “I have been waiting for this moment for decades, for more than a century! I have chosen you, trained you, taught you so that you could help me attain my goal. I expect, from each of you, success or death. Remember that: Success, or death. Now, drink your potions, and go to your stations. You will know when it is time to strike.”

The thirteen young Theiwar nodded nervously, their bearded faces betraying a mix of eagerness and resolve. Gypsum remained rigidly at attention. Alone among the group, Facet offered that thin, suggestive smile, a slight pressing together of her lips that, Willim sensed, was an expression she reserved for him alone.

Each of the thirteen tipped the small bottle to his lips and sipped half the contents, reserving the rest for their return to the lair. One by one they blinked out of sight as the potion of teleportation sent them instantaneously through the darkness of Thorbardin to the positions Willim had assigned them. Only Gypsum and Facet remained behind, both standing expressionless and attentive before their master.

“I have decided that Facet will accompany you,” Willim told Gypsum, watching him carefully. The wizard was neither surprised nor displeased to see an expression of resentment flicker briefly across the young male’s face.

“As you wish, my master,” Gypsum replied briskly.

“The two of you have the most important task of all,” the supreme magic-user continued. “Just as the attack commences, the king will have emerged from his chambers to address the people of Norbardin from his prayer tower. You will be waiting for him, and you must strike as soon he appears. When he is dead, we can expect that the rest of the royal troops will fall into disarray. Our success will be assured.”

“Aye, Master,” Gypsum declared, his hand caressing the ivory hilt of his silver-bladed dagger.

“Thank you for this honor, my master!” Facet declared breathlessly, that strange, alluring expression once again brightening her eyes as she stared at him, touching the long, keen knife she wore at her belt. She shivered again, and he felt the thrill of that unusual power she possessed inside of her. It was alluring, yet dangerous. Should he fear it?

No, he told himself. He should use it.

“Now, drink your potions and go!” barked Willim. “I still have much to do!”

Gypsum and Facet each took up two bottles that their master had placed before them. The first, an elixir of invisibility, would mask them from discovery. The second, the potion of teleportation, would carry them to their objective.

Moments later, the two apprentices had vanished, and the black robe was alone in his lair. He stared at the place where Facet had stood moments before, his spell of vision playing tricks with his mind. It was as though her robe had teleported before her flesh did, leaving a momentary, and tantalizing, image of her naked body lingering in the air.

Why was he having such feelings? What purpose could lust serve him when his life’s goal was so nearly complete? He didn’t know why it was happening, but he couldn’t deny the quickening of desire, the heat that flowed, all unbidden, through his body.

Then he remembered that he was not quite alone.

He strode across the floor, ignoring the lofty alcoves and the wide ramp leading up and away from the great chamber. That ramp ended in a solid wall, for the room had no physical connection to the rest of Thorbardin. It had once been excavated to serve as a new council hall for the thanes, except that a chilling discovery-Gorathian-had caused the dwarves to abandon the place, to seal it off from the nation forever.

Or so they had hoped.

Willim stopped at the edge of a deep crack that spread in a jagged streak across the stone floor. Heat welled from that chasm, and a dim redness glowed in the depths. The wizard could feel the heat against his skin, and with the power of his seeing spell, he could perceive the creature lurking in the depths, radiating fire, and yearning with hunger.

“Soon, Gorathian, my pet,” he whispered.

Fire surged from the deep gap, flames licking into the air, crackling and swirling. If Willim was not protected by powerful magic, his flesh would be charred by such infernal heat. Because of those spells, however, the fiery explosion was a mere balm to his skin, inflaming his own will, strength, and determination.

He sensed the monster rising from the depths of the cavern, its great wings spreading and vast claws tearing at the foundation of the rock. Hatred and hunger fueled its ascent, and Willim could discern the mighty jaws as they spread wide, flames surging forth. Gorathian would have killed him, consumed him, if it could but reach him.

“Remember!” he cautioned sternly. “I am your master. You answer to my control; you remain here by my will. And soon, also by my will, you shall fly free, be released by my will,” he promised with an edge of steel to his voice. “But not yet! Not yet!”

With a single gesture, he slashed his hand before his chest, and Gorathian fell back precipitously, restrained by a spell of such mastery that even an immortal being of raw chaos could not overcome it. And so Gorathian plunged back down to the prison in the deep bedrock below Thorbardin, fuming and frustrated, but thoroughly bound and trapped.

Willim turned his eyeless face toward the ceiling. He muttered a single word-no potion for him! — and vanished, leaving the lair to the smoke and the heat and the churning protection of the imprisoned monster.