Douglas Niles - The Heir of Kayolin

She pulled a crimson wedge of rock from her sagging pouch, and Brandon’s eyes widened. “It’s the same size and shape as the Bluestone …” he began, understanding slowing sinking in.

“And the Greenstone,” she said. “Both of which are in Tarn Bellowgranite’s hands, in Pax Tharkas.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Garren, rising from the seat and stepping close. “This stone matches the Bluestone of our clan; I can see that much.”

“It’s part of an ancient artifact,” Gretchan explained. “It’s called the Tricolor Hammerhead, and it can smash any fortification-including, according to the legends, the Gates of Thorbardin itself. But it can only be forged with all three stones.”

“And we thought the Redstone was locked away in Thorbardin,” Brandon added. “So it didn’t help much that Tarn Bellowgranite has the blue and the green parts.” He blinked and looked at Gretchan. “Where did this come from anyway?”

“I brought it!” Gus said, stepping forward proudly. “Out of Thorbardin, when whole place burnin’ up and stinkin’.”

Brandon raised an eyebrow, exchanging a glance with Gretchan. She gave him a “we’ll talk about it later” look.

Then she smiled and put an affectionate hand on Gus’s stringy-haired head-which she quickly removed when she caught a glimpse of the dour glares on Berta’s and Slooshy’s faces. The two Aghar females continued to hug Gus’s arms, each pulling so firmly that they seemed about ready to dislocate his shoulders. The male gully dwarf, meanwhile, gazed blissfully up at the priestess.

“Gus said we could have this stone on one condition,” the cleric explained seriously to Brandon and his father.

“What condition?” asked Governor Bluestone, already assuming an air of authority.

“He tells me that one of King Jungor Stonespringer’s acts, as ruler of Thorbardin, was to outlaw the very presence of the Aghar. He killed their highbulp and had his chair removed from Thorbardin’s Council of Thanes. The rest of his people are being hunted and killed. I told Gus that if we use this stone to complete the hammer and if we are able to liberate the kingdom, I promised him the gully dwarves would be restored to their traditional chair at the council.”

“That’s fair enough,” Garren said. “You have done all dwarfkind a great service,” he solemnly told Gus, who beamed so brightly, his face turned red.

General Watchler came forward to join the discussion. “What is this about Thorbardin burning?”

Gretchan did her best to summarize the Aghar’s extensive descriptions of the chaos in that ancient nation, with Gus chirping in every now and then with added detail.

“It sounds like the whole place is being torn apart by civil war,” she finished at last, looking around at everyone’s grim expressions. “The dwarves there need help, but since the king sealed the gates, a whole army could march against the place without any prospect of success. There has never been any way to reach them … until now.”

“But with the Tricolor Hammerhead, we could enter Thorbardin!” Brandon exclaimed, seized by the grandness of the idea. “Tarn Bellowgranite would help, I’m sure. But we’d need a bigger army, more than just his refugees in Pax Tharkas-”

“A force like the Kayolin Army?” General Watchler suggested.

“Yes!” Brandon said. “With that, and Tarn Bellowgranite’s support, we could restore him to his rightful throne, and bring Thorbardin’s nightmare to an end!”

“That would be a mission worthy of our steel,” the general noted. “But we have the horax to deal with.”

“The horax are an engineering problem, not a combat enemy,” Brandon explained. He described the fallen barriers, which upon interrogation, Regar Smashfingers had readily admitted were destroyed by his and Alakar Heelspur’s orders. Regar had one of his courtiers retrieve a map of the deep caverns, on which the Heelspurs had marked every place where they had removed the barriers to horax exploration.

“We’ll have to hold them back toward their hive,” Brandon explained. “And that’ll take some time and effort. But once we do that and rebuild those walls, they’ll be no more of a menace than they’ve been for the last thousand years.”

“And in the meantime …?” Watcher said, eyeing Brandon shrewdly.

“In the meantime,” the younger Bluestone said confidently. “I’d like to plan with you to lead an army of Kayolin dwarves to the south, where we’ll join with the Pax Tharkas refugees, smash the North Gate, and liberate Thorbardin from the grip of the mad king.”

“Bluestone! Bluestone!” echoed the chant from the gallery.

And in that same instant, the army that would liberate Thorbardin began to take shape.

With his treacherous agents suitably punished, Willim the Black and Facet teleported back to the comfort and security of his laboratory.

“But what about the fire dragon, Master?” asked the female. “Can it not seek us, find us, here?”

They both knew that Gorathian still flew wildly through Norbardin, but the wizard was not ready to face the creature of Chaos in open combat. “Perhaps it has doubled back into the city,” he suggested. “I suspect that it is intent upon seeking out and slaying me. But it will not find me until I am ready to face it, and that time has not yet come.”

Instead, Willim chose to return to his laboratory and make a new plan. He had his mistress by his side, and all other concerns seemed to fade in the face of that truth. He stretched, sighed, and was pleased.

“How can we fight that beast?” Facet asked, clinging to her master’s arm.

“Powerful magic, my sweet,” the wizard told her reassuringly. Even so, he turned his face, stitched eyelids squinting in concern, toward the lofty wall of the lair. He murmured the words to a spell, a powerful protection, even as he held her close and felt the warmth of her flesh soothing, invigorating, and empowering him.

Moments later he broke the embrace and gestured toward the black-rimmed gap through that wall, the place where Gorathian seared through the thick divider. “Already I have a barrier on that hole, one I think even the fire dragon would find daunting.”

“Yes, Master,” Facet replied, eyes downcast. She was well aware that the monster, capable of melting a hole through any density of rock, would have no need of using its point of egress as a route of attack. But she did not give voice to her fear.

Instead, she turned toward the large, central worktable in the laboratory. A sturdy bell jar rested there on a circle of marble. Within that jar, two shimmering shapes writhed and drifted. They were devoid of dwarf features, more like wispy scraps of pale blue silk or even smoke, yet they were clearly alive. The two imprisoned beings circled and swooped and intertwined with each other in a manner that could have signaled affection or anger-or both.

“I see that your spies have found a new home,” Facet said, stroking her white-fingered hand across the surface of the jar.

Willim hacked out a dry chuckle. “Yes. They will have much time-forever, in fact-to contemplate the consequences of treachery.”

The black wizard sighed and ran a hand through his beard. The hairs were bristling and tangled, and he could feel the grit of smoke and grime on his fingers. With a quick magical word, he groomed himself, instantly combing his hair and beard, vanishing the grit and grime right off his skin. Only then did he turn to his apprentice-though it was getting harder and harder to think of her as a student; in many ways, she seemed to be teaching him -with a grimace that was his best approximation of a smile.

“But I am weary, my pet. Come with me to our chambers … where we might rest. Or find ourselves reinvigorated,” he added with a throaty chuckle.