The Voidspeaker’s Apprentice

Publisher's blurb: Within the Wastes, Urthos the Surreptitious uncovered the ruins of a keep long since converted into a secret temple dedicated to Bacchana, the goddess who gave her devotees the secrets of the Void. Eventually, the Void’s corrupting chaos transformed her into the Black Goat of the Woods. The infamous magus Urthos the Surreptitious built a reputation no sane wizard would aspire to. He sought to temper the Void, to draw its power but not its corruption, and he extracted the Void’s essence to crystallize it into tiny pearl-like spheres. In time, his work required an apprentice, and so he recruited a young dust goblin whose tribe lived on the back of Ashkharak-Gorthoga. The fearless goblin readily procured the materials Urthos required, harvested from the flesh of the Dread Walkers upon whose backs he was born. As the clever goblin watched, he began stealing the magus’s secrets and used them to forge a pact with voices from within the Void. Only later did it occur to Urthos that goblins with no fear of Old Ones might also have no fear of wizards. Unfortunately, this realization struck at the same time the apprentice sunk a dagger into his heart…