Secret of Pax Tharkas

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.