“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.
EPILOGUE
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.
“Certainly, Master,” Facet said with a low rasp that set Willim’s blood to tingling. “But first, can we share a sip of wine?”
“A splendid idea,” the wizard said. “Please, pour us both refreshment.”
Facet shifted against the counter as she poured the wine. Her gown slipped to the side, exposing her curving leg all the way to the hip. Willim’s attention, the full force of his true sight, focused on that white skin; it was all he could do to keep his tongue from licking his lips. His pulse pounded in his head, and his breathing grew short. How could she be so beautiful, so compelling, so irresistible?
And he never saw the bottle of potion, the charm that had been serving her so well, that Facet tipped over his glass. A few drops splashed into the surface of the wizard’s wine, but the bottle was stoppered and shelved a moment later, when she turned to offer him his glass.
She smiled and his attention was swallowed by her eyes-so soft, so yielding … so impenetrable.
King Jungor Stonespringer sat in the darkness of his ruined palace. He touched the golden eye that filled his old, empty socket. The fresh wound where the wizard had destroyed his other eye was a gory gash, but he didn’t feel any pain. Even as his fingers probed at the scab, he felt a liberating joy. Reorx was his master, his comfort, his protection. He did not need to see!
Instead, he would feel, and right then he felt heat. There was a mighty warmth before him, a roasting presence that was greater than any normal fire. He turned his face toward that radiance and knew that the fresh blood on his face was crusting and drying under the baking heat. His skin reddened, his robe smoldered, but still he relished the power of that great fire.
“It is you, my master,” he said, sighing in pleasure. Finally, the heat grew too intense, and he fell back, uncaring that he lay on a floor covered with broken stones.
“I feel the power of the forge,” he said, ecstasy filling his head. “Immortal Reorx, warm your humble servant!” He turned his empty eye sockets upward, embracing the presence.
Above him, the source of the heat looked down. Great nostrils flared, while a tongue of flame licked forth from a hellish maw.
It almost seemed as if Gorathian was smiling.