Dominator
From Glen Cook Wiki
The Dominator is a dark wizard, the most powerful and evil sorcerer in the world, very nearly a god. He appears as a very large, powerfully built, handsome man with burning eyes. Some records indicate he may have used the name Erin Nofather, before declaring himself. Further details of his family history, including any clue as to his true name, were erased when he obliterated his own home province. He was married to The Lady, though apparently their marriage was never consummated.
The Dominator is apparently not the first of his kind. Lady theorizes that there is a "grand cycle" of great evils, when she learns that a similar villain from an earlier age is imprisoned beneath the god Old Father Tree in the Plain of Fear. However, The Dominator is clearly in a league of his own in the present age.
History
Over five hundred years ago, The Dominator declared himself and began building the Northern Empire through conquest. He began enslaving ten of the greatest sorcerers of his day, the Ten Who Were Taken, with a unique and terrible spell that only Lady has been able to replicate. He married Lady, apparently as a kind of strategic alliance; perhaps partly because her power was second only to his, but very likely because she is an extremely capable organizer and strategist, as becomes apparent later. His rule (the Domination) lasted for a century. He was completely ruthless and seemingly unstoppable. He was fond of executing enemies in humiliating ways such as imprisoning them in sealed glass globes hung before his fortress, feeding them through small holes in the top, and allowing them to eventually drown in their own excrement. He did have at least one mistress (Soulcatcher) and histories indicate there was some kind of social life in the courts. Still, the Domination was one long horror show. Eventually, and incredibly, a rebel movement led by the White Rose succeeded in overcoming the Dominator, tricking him, the Lady, and the Taken into an enchanted trap. The Rose was not strong enough to kill him; instead, she and her wizards imprisoned the villains in The Barrowland, a secluded tomb complex protected by many spells and a full-time military garrison to stop those who wish to bring him back (the Resurrectionists).
Three centuries later, the wizard Bomanz seeks to communicate with Lady and accidentally frees her. She escapes and releases the Taken, but not the Dominator, who is furious.
Resurrection
He spends another century underground while the Lady rebuilds the Northern Empire. However, the Dominator manages to influence the three female Taken and several of the Rebel wizards in the Circle of Eighteen. Through them, he seeks to bring down the Lady. The campaign comes to a head at the Battle of Charm, where a quarter million people are killed, and the Dominator's helpers are foiled.
Over the next few years, the Lady creates new Taken to replace those who have fallen. The Dominator continues to scheme, managing to free two of his demon servants (Tracker and Toadkiller Dog, who infiltrate the Black Company) and to affect the weather enough to shift the course of the Great Tragic river. The river eventually cuts into the Barrowland, threatening to break the enchantments and free him.
In order to defeat the Dominator, the Lady and the reincarnated White Rose (Darling) create an alliance. Darling's power is the "magical null," a field in which magic does not work. Lady and Darling execute a complex, large-scale military operation using the null to free the Dominator's creatures and eventually him without allowing him access to his powers. In a brief instant when he is raised out of the null, he devastates half the county with magical fire. Even in the null he is powerful enough to hurl men thirty feet, and he kills veteran Company warriors such as Elmo and the Lieutenant. Only the reformed demon Tracker can wrestle him to a standstill, and the Dominator is hacked to bits. Goblin and One-Eye drive a silver spike into his decapitated but still-cursing head, and burn the head in a magical ritual that imprisons the Dominator's evil essence in the spike. The Silver Spike is then hammered into a sapling tree god, son of Old Father Tree, for eternal imprisonment.
The spike is stolen soon after, and it wreaks havoc as an exceedingly powerful and dangerous talisman. However, it is not the Dominator per se; his personality is destroyed in the fire. The spike (along with the remains of The Limper) is finally sealed off by Old Father Tree in a dark place "between dimensions", where only entities who possess more power than the spike could ever access it.
