Doom of the Darksword

Doom of the Darksword is a fantasy novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, published in 1988, and the second book of the Darksword trilogy. The trilogy is set in a kingdom where magic is the basis of ordinary life, and where a person's standing, work and prospects all follow from what they can do with it.

Joram was born to the royal house of Merilon with no magic in him at all, which in that kingdom made him one of the Dead and cost him the throne that should have been his. He spent the years afterwards among outlaws, living by his wits and by sleight of hand, and he comes back to the kingdom of his birth carrying the Darksword, a weapon that takes magic in rather than working it. He means to settle that old score and to take what he was denied, and in his way stand Bishop Vanya and the Duuk-tsarith, an army of magic users.

He is not alone: the catalyst Saryon, the young mage Mosiah and the trickster Simkin travel with him, and the novel follows the four of them towards the question of who Joram is and what an old prophecy has to do with the sword. The book is the middle volume of the trilogy, after Forging the Darksword and before Triumph of the Darksword.