Secret of Pax Tharkas

by Doug Niles

  The lift continued to drop, bringing her down to the docking station next to Brandon.

  The creature’s red eyes glared in fury and hatred at the priestess and her shining light. As she neared, it raised up taloned foreclaws as if to shield its face from the burning glare. Growling and shivering, it stood its ground, and when she raised the staff in challenge, it flapped and, instead of recoiling, stepped closer to her.

  Gretchan’s face was locked in a grimace of determination. She put both hands on the staff, bracing her feet as if she were trying to withstand a gale of wind—and, indeed, when the monster bellowed again, her hair blew back from her head like a golden plume. The light on the head of the staff wavered, and the monster roared another exultant challenge, taking a second step closer to the dwarf priestess.

  She shook her head to ward off the onslaught, hair cascading in a halo, and raised her voice in the face of the beast’s challenge.

  “Good hill dwarves!” she cried. “Is this the kind of master you serve? A creature of darkness, of foul magic and even more foul gods? Haven’t you been deceived enough by Harn Poleaxe, who was a slave to that master?”

  The lift came to a rest on the floor. Brandon stood on shaky legs, breathing hard, his fingers clenched around the haft of his axe. The Kayolin dwarf stumbled toward her as she pointed to him.

  “This dwarf, whom you would have killed under Harn’s orders, risked his own life to try and save you. He warned you of the trap, which the Klar captain was ready to spring, and if those stones had fallen, he, too, would have perished under their weight, as well as most of you. But he was willing to take the chance to save Neidar lives … and work toward peace.”

  The beast roared, wings flailing, and it reared high, snarling and snapping toward the priestess. With a sudden lunge, it sprang toward her.

  “Begone!” cried Gretchan. She pounded the base of her staff against the platform with a thump that echoed through the vast hall. Her talisman pulsed with light, so bright that even the hill dwarves couldn’t look at it.

  But the creature waved a massive paw and seemed to wipe that light away. Roaring again, it pressed closer, looming five times Gretchan’s height, throwing back its head with the fanged maw gaping. It pounded taloned fists against its chest, the sound thrumming like a massive drumbeat through the cavernous hall.

  The priestess struggled to stand, to hold her staff, but the force of the monster was too great. She stumbled back, almost falling. The light of Reorx’s forge flickered again and faded.

  In the sight of her peril, Brandon found his nerves and his strength. He raised his axe and charged, bringing the weapon in a great downward sweep as he approached the creature from the flank. He couldn’t reach its head or even its torso, but his axe blade sliced through the beast’s thigh, cutting the black flesh, tearing through enchanted sinew and bone. The thing wailed in savage pain and staggered, sinking down as the limb collapsed underneath it.

  “Go!” Gretchan shouted again, her voice pitched to a piercing scream. Her staff blazed anew, the white light searing into the creature’s face, burning, charring, killing. Shrieking and writhing, the dark monster slumped, weakened, and vanished, leaving the hill and mountain dwarves staring in horror.

  Brandon staggered up to Gretchan and took her in his arms. She collapsed with a sob, and for long heartbeats they held each other. Only gradually did they become aware of the eyes of the Neidar, many hundred of whom still remained in the hall, watching them in awe and apprehension.

  “Let the killing cease, in the name of Reorx.” Gretchan spoke almost in a whisper, but her voice carried through the whole vast chamber.

  “Peace,” said the hill dwarf called Slate Fireforge as the restive Neidar looked warily around the vast chamber, as if expecting another attack. “Let’s talk about this for a moment.”

  “Good idea,” replied Gretchan Pax.

  Mason Axeblade took charge of Garn Bloodfist, who was on his knees, sobbing and wailing at the failure of the trap. The Daewar captain secured the rebellious Klar’s wrists with manacles and ordered two of his Hylar warriors to lock him up in the dungeon.

  Tarn Bellowgranite and Otaxx Shortbeard descended to the floor of the main hall, where some of the Neidar remained. The hill dwarves’ morale had been badly shaken by the death of Poleaxe and the manifestation of the monster, and the vast majority had been only too willing to march back out of the fortress. Some had headed straight home, no matter how many miles away. Many others camped on the flats outside the wall, huddled around hundreds of fires that dotted the field for an expanse of nearly a mile.

  Within the Tharkadan Wall, torches burned all around the big room. The bodies of the slain were being collected and prepared for burial, hill and mountain dwarf corpses arrayed side by side. Two hill dwarf captains, Slate Fireforge and Axel Carbondale, met with Tarn and Otaxx to parley.

  Gretchan and Brandon were there too, while Gus and Berta sat with Kondike off to the side, watching the bigger dwarves with mingled awe and skepticism. The two gully dwarves had managed to capture the attention of a couple of Hylar men-at-arms, and those sturdy dwarves had been able to hoist both Gus and the dog back up to the catwalk.

  “When Gus escaped from the black wizard, he inadvertently brought a bottle of the wizard’s brew with him,” Gretchan was explaining to everyone between puffs on her pipe. A bluish haze of sweet smoke surrounded her.

  “I don’t know what it was, but it obviously had some kind of corrupting effects. It was in a bottle of dwarf spirits, and Harn Poleaxe stole it from my room in Hillhome. I have no doubts that he drank it and became the tool of that darkness we saw looming just a short time ago.”

  “And you killed it?” Otaxx Shortbeard asked in awe.

  “I don’t think so,” Gretchan said honestly. “But it was banished by the power of Reorx, through my staff—and Brandon’s axe.”

  “How did Reorx wield my axe?” the Kayolin dwarf asked dubiously. After all, he rather thought that he, himself, had struck the killing blow.

  Gretchan merely smiled. “Remember the story you told me: how that axe was carried by your ancestor, who was on a mountaintop the day the Cataclysm struck.”

  “Balric Bluestone, yes,” Brandon remembered.

  “They never found him, but they found his axe. Do you think that was just luck?”

  “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

  COLD STONE SOULS

  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 always lords power over the weak. So it is too with the tangled affairs of humankind, for man never seems to weary of endlessly battling over land, treasure, trade, and religion.

  Perhaps it is more surprising that even among the elder peoples of Krynn, most notably the elves and the dwarves, such squabbling has been a source of historical feuds dating back to the Age of Starbirth. Neither is it surprising that such conflict continues even in the modern, civilized Age of Mortals, wherein we now all live. While visionary leaders have arisen through the centuries, they have been unable to stem the never-ending forces of destruction and chaos. As in the case with all conflict, it seems that wars between related peoples have the capacity for greater violence, deeper cruelty, and longer-lasting schisms than strife waged between less closely aligned populations. For the elves, this truth is most evidenced by the long and seemingly irreparable rift between the ancient realm of Silvanesti, and the newer (though still venerable) nation of Qualinesti. In fact, it may be observed that the conflict between these two nations actually outlasted the nations themselves.

  In the case of the dwarves, the schisms between these “Peoples of the Rock” are most vividly etched by the experience of the Cataclysm, when the gods rained their destruction down upon the world. As all the peoples of Krynn reeled from the chaos, expecting annihilation and violent death, the mountain dwarves in their great undermountain fortress of Thorbardin sealed the gates of their kingdom, locking their blood-kin, the hill dwarves, out of the she
lter, leaving them exposed to the rain of disaster tumbling downward from the skies.

  It was an act of monstrous selfishness—to be sure, an act born of fear—and it left clan-splitting scars that continued to fester, to become infected, to burst into poisonous disease, whenever these two mighty branches of the dwarf tree meet. It infuses the memory, the very beings, of mountain and hill dwarves alike, shaping hatreds and prejudices and always serving as a ready source of fear. It is that legacy, as well as the pounding impact of the Cataclysm itself, that has shaped the conflicts that, to this day, result in battles and violence and brutal campaigns motivated by greed and envy.

  During the dawning ages of Krynn, dwarves established mighty nations in three distinct parts of Ansalon. Thoradin was the First Home, birthplace of the dwarf race and a long-standing nation of industrious, productive peoples. In the very center of the continent of Ansalon, the Khalkist Mountains formed the roof over Thoradin, a fortress that neither man nor giant nor dragon could assail. But Thoradin could not stand against the gods, and the Cataclysm destroyed much of those hallowed halls, leaving only the remnant—soon to become diseased and corrupt—of miserable Zhakar.

  Mightiest of all the dwarven nations was great Thorbardin, started by dwarves who came from Thoradin, though before long the Second Home of the dwarves outshone the first in size, population, and splendor. The undermountain realm beneath the peaks of the high Kharolis housed great cities, a teeming transportation network, and great manufacturing centers. Here the Hylar, the Theiwar and Daergar, the Daewar and the Klar, and even the wretched Aghar, dwelled side by side in their subterranean cities, centered around the vast Urkhan Sea.

  Hundreds of miles to the north rise the Garnet Mountains, and they, too, are home to an underground nation of mountain dwarves. Kayolin is not so large as Thorbardin, and it hasn’t attracted as much attention from potential antagonists. Kayolin has survived through the ages with fewer convulsive changes than either of the other great nations, and today it approaches a status of national identity that is all its own.