The Fate of Thorbardin

by Douglas Niles

  Of course, he had enough experience in the mountains to know that it was dangerous to spend a night on the unprotected slopes, so each afternoon he and the dog would descend into a narrow valley, dropping down at least until they reached the tree line. There, amid scraggly cedars that were sometimes no taller than a grown dwarf, he would scrounge enough wood for a fire and kindle a blaze that would keep the two of them, if not warm, at least alive through another chilly night.

  But when the sun came up the next morning, the young dwarf felt anew the allure, the purity, the summons of the mountain heights. Always accompanied by the black dog, he’d once again set out to climb some sloping, but still steep, shoulder of the great mountains until, one more time, he crested a hopeful ridge and set his sights toward the distant summit that, he was certain, could only be the very top of the world.

  Brandon ran down the Urkhan Road, reaching the lake as soon as he could. He was out of breath, panting and sweating, but he found Otaxx Shortbeard standing at the wharf beside the water, staring out over the darkened sea.

  “What is it?” the Kayolin general gasped. “I got your message; the courier said it was urgent, so I came as fast as I could.”

  “Out there,” the elderly soldier pointed. “I was looking across the water, barely more than an hour ago. And I saw … something.”

  “What?” demanded Brandon. “What did you see?”

  “It was a flash of light, very brief. But bright, explosive even. Like a flash of lightning in the darkness.”

  “It must have been magic!” Brandon said excitedly. “There can’t be real lightning in Thorbardin.”

  “Aye, and more than that … revealed in the glow, if my old eyes aren’t deceiving me, I think I saw a cage!”

  “Gretchan!” Brandon was certain that there could be no other explanation.

  “I can only hope so,” said the old dwarf. “But yes, I believe it was a cage like the one that held my daughter when last we saw her on the palace tower. It was too far away and fleeting to see if anything, or anyone, was inside the cage. But I thought you should know.”

  “Yes! It has to be her! Of course, it makes sense that the wizard would take her to the Isle of the Dead. It’s a perfect place for him to hide, to watch, to observe what’s happening in the kingdom!”

  “I am thinking the same thing,” replied Otaxx. “I thought you would want to go there as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, of course!” Brandon’s mind whirled through the possibilities. “A boat! I need a boat!”

  “Yes, we need a boat,” Otaxx replied. “For I intend to go with you. And as for a watercraft …”

  He pointed down and Brandon saw a sleek metal hull lashed to the dock at his feet. Unlike all the other boats, it seemed whole and was floating.

  “The smith has been working hard. He’s been making patches, and he welded one onto the hull of this watercraft just a few minutes ago.”

  “Then let’s go at once!”

  “I thought you would say that,” the old warrior agreed. “I have here two oars and leather rags to muffle the oarlocks. It seems we would be wise to row as silently as possible.”

  “Certainly, yes. Good thinking.” Brandon said.

  In another minute, they slipped away from the shoreline at the end of the Urkhan Road. Brandon stroked the oars while Otaxx sat in the bow, trying to peer through the darkness, staring toward their destination.

  Willim the Black approached Gretchan, but her eyes were not on the wizard; they were fixed on the precious artifact he carried in his hands. He had hidden the Staff of Reorx away some time earlier, and she had wrestled with despair at the thought that, somehow, he had figured out a way to destroy it.

  But there it was, still intact, resting in both of his hands as he casually swung it around before him. He stopped a dozen paces away from the cage, his eyeless face turned toward the priestess.

  “I have lost the war,” he announced bluntly. “My army has failed me. My general has killed himself, to save me the bother. I am no longer the king in this place.”

  Though his comments were the first good news she had heard in the long days of captivity, Gretchan refrained from making any comment. Instead, she watched him warily, sensing that he had not come there merely to explain that his life was over. Indeed, he did not sound even vaguely disappointed. His mood seemed, almost, weirdly upbeat.

  But he waited before saying anything else, seeming to be very patient, and finally she could contain her curiosity no longer. “What are you going to do, then?” she asked.

  To her surprise, he giggled.

  “What’s funny?” she probed. “Didn’t you just tell me that all your plans have ended in failure?”

  “I said no such thing!” he declared, seeming to enjoy the verbal jousting. “I merely said that I lost the war, that I have no troops to command. But I don’t need troops, and I don’t need a throne. In fact, both have proved far more trouble than they are worth.”

  “Are you leaving here, then?” Gretchan asked, not daring to hope that he’d answer in the affirmative.

  “Well, you might say that,” he replied with a brief, private chuckle.

  “Where’s Sadie?” the priestess demanded, looking around, realizing suddenly that the elder female wizard had vanished. “Did you kill her, just like you killed Facet?”

  Like you’re going to kill me? She couldn’t suppress the terrible thought, though she didn’t speak it aloud. She shivered, wondering if her life would end the way Facet’s had.

  Strangely, the grotesque face of the wizard twisted into a wounded expression. “Of course not!” he replied. “I need her!”

  Gretchan saw, however, that he spoke the truth, for just then Sadie appeared behind him, climbing up toward the cage that remained where it had been placed on the rocky summit. The cleric saw that the elderly wizard carried the bell jar in her arms, a fact that apparently took Willim by surprise, for he turned around with a frown and confronted her with a question.

  “Why are you bringing that silly thing up here?” he demanded.

  “Because you need more than just me. You need two of us! I want you to free Peat from this spell.”

  “You want me to?” Willim sounded incredulous.

  “Well, of course, that is what I said,” Sadie replied firmly, refusing to back down. “It’s because I think you need him to be free as well. He can stay here and keep an eye on the priestess while you and I go and do what else needs to be done.”

  Gretchan listened to the conversation with a growing sense of unease. The two wizards were talking almost as though they had forgotten about her presence, so she wasn’t about to interrupt and remind them. Instead, she watched and listened warily.

  Strangely, the wizard seemed to be pondering his assistant’s suggestion. “Very well,” he said finally. “You’re right. It will be easier to coordinate the casting with three, rather than two.”

  He gestured. “Put the jar down. Tip it over, off its base.”

  Sadie did so but then hesitated, giving the wizard a penetrating look. Finally, she backed away. The blue spark hovered near the jar, drifting toward Sadie, then floating back to the base of the jar, apparently unwilling to leave its safe confines.

  Willim gestured and snarled the command, a sound like the growl of an angry animal, to a spell. Magic shimmered in the air, and Gretchan felt the powerful sorcery as a pulse deep in her belly.

  Instantly, the blue spark disappeared, and an old Theiwar dwarf, stooped and balding and looking around in startled fright, stood there. His blinking eyes fastened upon his wife, and he croaked out her name.

  “Sadie!”

  “Peat!” she replied.

  Hobbling awkwardly, like someone who hadn’t used his legs or the rest of his body for a very long time, he made his way over to her and, for a second, the pair embraced.

  “Thank you,” Sadie said to Willim.

  He snorted, whether in amusement or contempt the cleric couldn’t tell.


  Sadie nodded obeisantly to him, her chin firm. “Shall we make ready to go now?”

  “Wait!” Gretchan protested. “Where are you going? And what do you want with my staff?”

  Willim didn’t face her, but his cold chuckle was the most sinister sound she had ever heard. “I am going many places,” he said. He hoisted the rod with its anvil and the smooth shaft that the cleric knew so well.

  “And as to this,” he said. “You will see soon enough. It’s a little surprise.” He turned to Sadie. “Come,” he said. “Let us go get the teeth.”

  The prow of the boat nudged against the rocky shore of the island with a sound that seemed shockingly loud against the silence of the long, stealthy crossing. Brandon winced, certain they had announced their presence as surely as if they had come with a full complement of Kayolin drummers, but Otaxx merely tapped him on the shoulder, and together, gingerly, they climbed out of the boat.

  They pulled the bow of the craft up out of the water far enough that it wouldn’t drift away, resting it on a flat rock. Carefully they stored the oars inside.

  Looking around, Brandon saw that they were on a barren shore. The Isle of the Dead was aptly named, he decided, for there was not so much as a flake of lichen or a slimy, clinging fungus to be seen.

  The two dwarves communicated by sign language, wishing to avoid any excessive noisemaking. Otaxx drew his short sword and pointed up the slope leading directly away from the water. Brandon nodded and raised the Bluestone Axe, the handle held in both of his hands.

  Side by side, the two dwarves started up the hill.

  The cleric was left alone with the old Theiwar male as Sadie and Willim disappeared into one of the passages below the hilltop.

  “What happened to cause you and Sadie to get punished by Willim like that?” Gretchan said after she watched Peat look around in confusion then seat himself awkwardly on a flat rock nearby.

  “Eh?” he replied as if surprised he could hear again. “Who are you again?” he asked. “Oh, I saw the master bring you into his lair. At least, I think I did. My eyes ain’t too good.”

  “My name is Gretchan Pax. I’m a priestess—of Reorx. I’m a friend of Sadie’s,” she added, not certain if it was entirely the truth. But she could hope. “And no friend of Willim’s. I know he trapped you in that jar. But why?”

  “Er, that is … well, we just had a little scheme going. You know, to make some profit on the side. The thing is, Sadie always had a little bit of greed to her. She, um, borrowed one of his spells—a dimension door—and we used it to get dwarves out of Thorbardin. You know, those who wanted to leave … and who could pay.”

  Their discussion was interrupted by the return of Willim and Sadie, the two Theiwar climbing into view from just below the crest of the hill. They carried three conical objects, Sadie carrying one in both her hands, Willim carrying two, one in each hand, holding them by their narrow points. They set them on the ground, bases down and points up, and the cleric remembered that Willim had referred to them as “teeth.”

  Each was about a foot high and at least six inches wide at the base. They were not perfect cones, but rather they had a bit of a curve to them, so that although the bases rested flat, the sharply pointed tips curved slightly. They were as black as coal.

  “What kind of teeth are those?” Gretchan asked, deciding she had nothing to lose by being curious.

  “Dragon teeth, of course. But not the teeth of any mortal dragon.” Willim the Black stood tall and all but beamed at her. Clearly, he was very proud of his rare treasures. “These are the teeth of a fire dragon, discovered by me after the Chaos War. Now, like their owner before them, they are about to change Thorbardin for all time.”

  Once again Willim picked up Gretchan’s staff, and when he touched the wooden rod, she felt a stab of pain penetrate right through her chest.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded angrily.

  He chuckled. “To you, this pathetic stick is a symbol, perhaps even a tool, of your god. But to me, it is much, much more. You see, when you faced Gorathian and used the power of Reorx to defeat it, all of that power, that unspeakable, chaotic, destructive force, was absorbed by your staff, for it had no place else to go. If Reorx hadn’t claimed it, it would have been unleashed in an explosion powerful enough to destroy the whole city. And of course your god—excuse me, our god—would never allow that to happen.” He smirked and lifted the staff as he stepped over to the dragon teeth.

  “But now,” he explained. “I give that monstrous power back to its rightful owner—three of its rightful owners, to be more precise.”

  With that, he touched the butt of the staff to the tip of one of the teeth. Light flashed briefly, and Gretchan retched loudly, crippled by a sudden wave of nausea.

  When Willim moved the staff away, the black tooth looked unchanged except for a faint reflection, like a glow that seemed to lie deep within it. The priestess, blinded by tears, watched him with dread.

  Quickly he repeated the process with the other two teeth, each casting compounding Gretchan’s agony by an order of magnitude. Finally, he handed the staff to Sadie. “Go put this away,” he ordered. While she was gone, he removed two small bottles of potion from a pocket in his cloak. The crone returned a minute later, and the black wizard extended one of the bottles to her and handed the other to her husband.

  “Now drink those,” Willim ordered.

  “What for?” Peat asked suspiciously, studying the murky liquid in the unlabeled bottle.

  “Because we have a job to do, and you will have to be able to fly to do it. And if we do it quickly, this potion will even give you enough time to come back down to land safely before the enchantment wears off!”

  Not surprisingly, neither of the elder Theiwar seemed inclined to argue with their evil master. Each pulled the stopper from his or her bottle and quickly quaffed the contents.

  “Good,” Willim said approvingly. “Now each of you take one of the teeth.”

  Again, they obeyed.

  “Now we fly!” the black wizard declared. Clutching one of the teeth, he rose from the ground, slowly ascending higher and looking back to make sure his elderly assistants followed his instructions.

  And so they did, each of them stooping awkwardly to pick up a tooth then using the magic of flight to rise from the hilltop. In another minute, the three magic-users had disappeared into the dark air, soaring far above the Urkhan Sea, rising quickly toward the ceiling of the large, domed cavern.

  Left behind, Gretchen clutched herself, still in pain, and moaned.

  Acutely conscious of the need to work silently, Brandon raced as quickly as he could up the irregular surface of the steeply sloping hill. Nevertheless, since the Isle of the Dead was in reality simply a mound of loose rock that had piled up over the years as more and more stone had broken free from the ceiling of the Urkhan Sea’s cavern, it was impossible to avoid sliding on gravel or kicking small boulders with almost every step. It seemed to him he was making a cacophony of sound, that each footstep certainly would attract the attention of the black wizard or one of his minions.

  The need for haste overrode caution, however, and as the seconds ticked past, he moved faster and faster until he was sprinting madly upward, holding his axe in his right hand while he used the left to aid his balance. In places where the slope was unusually steep, he needed his free hand just to pull himself along, and he clawed and scrambled for height.

  Otaxx Shortbeard climbed with him at first, but the old general lacked Brandon’s speed and strength, and the Kayolin dwarf couldn’t force himself to wait. He sprinted on, knowing that Otaxx would arrive at the summit as quickly as he could. Brandon’s whole focus was on Gretchan, on the powerful, abiding hope that he would find her up above.

  Finally he made out the crest, and as he came up to the lip there, he spotted the shape of a cage, silhouetted against the broader darkness beyond. He scrambled up the last distance, a sloping slab of intact rock that carried him right to the to
p of the hill.

  His heart thudded as he spotted a dwarf maid in the cage. She was kneeling, with her back to him, and seemed to be staring upward into the vault of the cavern. There was not a sliver of doubt in Brandon’s mind that the figure was Gretchan, but he was afraid to shout her name or otherwise attract her attention. Perhaps there was someone else, someone unfriendly, around.

  Instead, he squatted at the lip of the slab, one hand braced on the top, while he allowed his breathing and heart rate to slow to normal levels. At the same time, he looked around carefully, eyeing the surrounding rocky landscape, looking for some sign of the black wizard.

  When he saw nothing of his enemy and he could breathe normally again, he crept over the edge of the rock and moved toward the cage. His foot crunched into a patch of gravel, and the prisoner turned, gasping and pressing a hand to her mouth. The shining reflection of her eyes, full of love and terror, proved she recognized him, and he sprinted the last distance to the cage.

  They embraced through the bars, both of them silently cursing the metal barrier that separated them. Brandon pressed his face close, inhaling the scent of her hair and her skin, as his hands clutched at her shoulders, her back, and he felt her own arms reaching as far as they could around him.

  “Hurry!” she whispered. “The wizards are gone for now, but I don’t know when they’ll be back.”

  Brandon looked at the bars of the cage. They seemed to be made of steel, each as thick as his thumb and spaced only six inches or so apart. “Maybe I can smash them with my axe,” he said hopefully.

  She shook her head. “They’re enchanted. And the noise would surely attract Willim’s attention.”

  “What can I do, then?” he whispered, hoarse with frustration and despair.

  “My staff!” she said. “It’s down below, somewhere. If you can find it and bring it to me, I might be able to use the power of Reorx.”