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
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 shelter, 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.
And beyond the mountain dwarves, the true historian cannot ignore the Neidar, the hill dwarves. Indistinguishable from each other by appearance, the hill dwarves are descendants of dwarves who long ago chose to live on the surface of the world rather than underneath it. Because of this, the Neidar are more dispersed than the mountain dwarves. They lack any concentrated nation along the lines of Kayolin or Thorbardin, and the hill dwarves live in many parts of the world, usually in towns or villages that are nominally independent, but sometimes these communities become part of whatever surrounding surface nation, usually human-controlled, in which they find themselves.