The Stories of Elaine Cunningham

by Elaine Cunningham

  Down went the mighty Toth. Liriel floated lightly to the floor and crouched beside the fallen runecaster. She patted him down, found his half of the coin, and pressed the smaller fragment to it. The stone pieces joined, flowing together as smoothly as two drops of water.

  The drow handed the restored coin to Vasha. "As much as I'd love to keep this, you've got to get home before the Skulls come looking for you."

  "My thanks, Liriel, daughter of Sosdrielle, daughter of Maleficent," the barbarian said gravely. "I shall long remember your wisdom, and never again will I disparage the power of magic or the importance of treachery!"

  Liriel shrugged. "Just don't get carried away. Although I never thought I'd admit it-especially after the day I've just had-there are times when the best approach is the most direct one. Even if that's a good swift blow."

  The swordwoman nodded, pondering these words as if they'd come from an oracle. "Complex indeed is the wisdom of the drow," she marveled. "Though I live a hundred years, never could I fathom it all. And yet," she added, her voice becoming less reverential, "there are some things that even such as I can learn."

  Out flashed Vasha's blade once again, and the glittering point pressed hard against the base of Liriel's throat. "The second time-coin," the swordwoman said flatly. "The one you brought back with you. Give it to me."

  For a moment Liriel considered trying to bluff. Then, with a sigh, she handed it over. "But how did you know?"

  Vasha smiled thinly. "You wished to learn about the Rus. What better, more direct way than to travel back through time yourself? Since you gave up the coin so easily, I knew that there must be another." With that, she shouldered the unconscious runecaster, held up one of the identical time-coins, and spoke the words that summoned the gateway to her own time and place.

  A wary silence followed Vasha's disappearance, as the tavern's patrons waited to see what might next transpire. Liriel recalled the spectacular brawl and returned the hostile glares without flinching. "Trust me, it could have been worse."

  And that, she decided much later that evening, was an excellent summary for the day's adventure. Her encounter with Vasha could have turned deadly in a thousand different ways. True, Liriel had not gained the ability to travel through time, but she had acquired a new book of rune lore. She'd also received a valuable reminder of the wisdom of clinging to her drow ways.

  Whatever benefits the direct approach might have, it was too damned predictable.

  SECRETS OF BLOOD, SPIRITS OF THE SEA

  You, there! You, the elf with ink-stained fingers and eyes the color of rain. Come closer. I could not harm you even if I wished to do so. Your nets are strong.

  You are chieftain of this hunting party, are you not? Yes, so I thought. It is even so with my people. Loretellers and spirit-talkers are leaders among the wemic.

  This surprises you, elf? We lion-folk are not the savages of common-told tales. Oh, hunters we are, and warriors, too-make no mistake about that-but wemics know much of music and magic, tales and legends.

  Do not doubt me: I am Shonasso Kin Taree, second O (or "grandson," as you two-legged folk reckon kinship) of the great Kanjir, and I am loreteller of the wemic tribe Taree. Loose me from this net, elf, and I will tell you a tale long hidden, a story of dire magic and of fearsome creatures that no living wemic on this savannah has ever seen, except in night-visions sent as evil portents.

  Yes, I thought this offer might interest you! Of all the two-legged folk, elves have the sharpest curiosity. I see you have parchment and quill at the ready. Before we begin, tell your kindred to put up their spears. You have my word that I will bring neither claw nor blade against any of you until the telling is done. And then, I will fight only if forced to defend myself against your displeasure.

  You would never attack a bard whose tale displeased you? Hmmph! As my grandsire would say, "Leave that tale untold 'til the deed is done." But since you're so eager to give pledge, promise me this: Swear to write down my words just as I speak them, and to put the scroll in a place where many might read this tale and remember.

  Good. I have your oath and you have mine. And now you shall have the story, as it was told to me.

  In a time long past, when elves and dragons battled for supremacy in a world still young, there lived a dark-elven wizard whose powers were unmatched, except perhaps by his enormous pride.

  Ka'Narlist was archmage of Atorrnash, a once-mighty city whose secrets have slept for centuries in the deep jungles of a faraway land-secrets that are whispered still beneath a hundred seas.

  The dark elf's lair was a great fortress of black stone that stood high and proud atop a seaside cliff. From his keep, Ka'Narlist could look out over the Bay of the Banshee, a vast spear of seawater that thrust deep into southern Faerun. Far below his castle, the sea thundered and sang and shrieked-mournful, ceaseless music that darkened the wizard's thoughts by day and haunted his reverie by night.

  Put away your maps, elf. That bay is long gone-lost when the One Land was sundered and scattered by best-forgotten magic. Do not be surprised that I know of such things. Our legends are as ancient as your own, and more honest.

  Now, shall we continue?

  As the years passed, Ka'Narlist's eyes began to linger upon the stormy bay. He spent long hours pondering what might lie beneath the vast waters, both in the bay he saw and in the trackless seas beyond. Though scholar he was, he did not wish merely to know: he intended to possess.

  Such ambitions were not unusual among his people. The Ilythiiri, the dark elves of the south, were fierce, warlike people who plundered and conquered and enslaved a thousand tribes. Not even their fair-skinned elven kindred were safe from their raids! Ka'Narlist had earned his wealth in such raids, and he also brought back slaves from many lands to labor in his keep, and to feed his pride. One of these captives was Mbugua, a shaman of the wemic. Of him we will speak again.

  Despite all their power, the Ilythiiri were seldom content. Ka'Narlist possessed enormous wealth, magical spells beyond the comprehension of your mightiest mages, and the fearful respect of his tribe. Even so, as he gazed out over the watery realm that no dark elf could truly claim to rule, he came to think of his honors as he did the rocky shore: even the mightiest of stones is worn down into sand by the pounding sea that is time. He came to envy the timeless powers of the gods. He aspired to claim such powers as his own.

  Since Ka'Narlist was a scholar, he knew legends that spoke of entire races brought into being to serve the purposes of their makers. If Gruumsh One-Eye had his orcs and the Earth Mother her leviathan, surely a wizard of his stature could fashion a race of his own-creatures of his own making that would sing praises to him, that would enhance his power and increase his dominion.

  There was no question in the wizard's mind as to what that dominion should be: Ka'Narlist wanted control of the sea depths. After much thought, he decided to create a seagoing people, a fierce race driven to brutally conquer their watery domain-in Ka'Narlist's name, of course. So that his "children" could never rise against him, he decided not to gift them with magical powers. Speed, stealth, voracious hunger, and treacherous cunning would be their weapons.

  It was a simple matter to decide what must be done; the doing was far more difficult. But not, on the whole, unpleasant. At least, not unpleasant to one such as Ka'Narlist…

  "Hand me the hooked knife," Ka'Narlist murmured absently. His attention was utterly fixed upon tormenting the unfortunate kodingobold strapped onto his study table; he did not bother to raise his crimson eyes to the wemic who stood attentively at his elbow.

  Mbugua had the tool ready before the words were spoken-he had aided his master too many times not to understand what was needed-and he slapped the smooth handle onto the wizard's outstretched palm.

  The wemic would have preferred to turn the blade, to drive it deep between two fragile elven ribs or to slice off a couple of black fingers. Long and painful experience had shown him the folly of such action. Whenever Mbugua had attacke
d the Ilythiirian wizard, the intended wound had appeared not on the elf, but upon the wemic's own person.

  Many times had proud Mbugua sought his freedom; many times had he woken on his pallet with a pounding head and dim memories of the horrible rituals that had restored his maimed body. Once, only once, had he managed to deal a mortal blow, and thus had escaped Ka'Narlist into death. But the wizard's dreadful god, Ghaunadaur, had wrested the wemic from his afterlife and brought him back to this wretched captivity. Even after many years, memories of this horrific experience tore Mbugua screaming from his sleep. The evil that was Ghaunadaur, the power that was Ka'Narlist-the two had become one in Mbugua's mind.

  Since the day of his too-brief death, Mbugua had, to all appearances, served his master without question or complaint. He did all things well, even attending Ka'Narlist on tasks such as this-tasks that could turn the stomach of a hunter, and that made the noble wemic's every instinct shout that it would be a holy act to run a spear through a being who could calmly, systematically inflict such pain on a living creature.

  Not that Mbugua had any use for kodingobolds. They were nasty, odorous, rat-tailed creatures-ugly things with four-footed, doglike bodies that were topped with scrawny humanoid torsos and sly, bug-eyed faces. Gray of skin and of soul, they seemed to possess neither conscience nor ambition. Kodingobolds lived solely on whatever they could steal. They were cowards who fought only if they greatly outmassed and outnumbered their prey. And they had a particularly fondness for the flesh of young wemics. In years past, many an adventurous and wandering wemic cub had fallen prey to the disorderly packs of kodingobolds that ranged the savannah. Mbugua's own tribe had nearly exterminated the murderous, thieving little creatures, and the wemic shaman did not mourn their loss. Even so, the look he cast at the shrieking, writhing kodingobold bordered on sympathy.

  He himself had suffered similar experimentation, albeit with considerably more fortitude. Mbugua had been one of the first to pay the price for Ka'Narlist's latest ambition. The wemic's body had been probed and sliced and sampled until at long last the wizard was satisfied he had his sought-for answer. It was the blood, Ka'Narlist claimed-the secrets of life were in the blood.

  Mbugua was a shaman, and his people and his magic said otherwise, but what words could argue against the wizard's terrible success? Ka'Narlist had used his wemic slave's blood as an ingredient in some dark magic; the eventual result was the birth of two new creatures-a tawny beast who boasted Mbugua's proud black mane and powerful four-footed body, and a humanlike infant with a wemic's dusky golden skin and catlike eyes.

  Ka'Narlist's joy had matched Mbugua's horror. To the wizard, this represented the successful "separation" of the wemic into his apparently component parts: human and lion. To the wemic, this was an atrocity beyond comprehension. The elated Ka'Narlist did not notice the outrage and the grim purpose on his slave's leonine face. If he had, he could not have failed to realize that Mbugua had sworn a blood oath against him.

  And yet, such knowledge would have mattered not at all. Ka'Narlist was secure in his pride and his power. The dire pledges of a wemic slave meant nothing to him. His own godlike work and the creatures it would eventually spawn: this, and only this, mattered to Ka'Narlist.

  And so through the years, while the lion-things begotten from Mbugua's stolen blood increased into a pride, and the near-human lad became but one of many such servants laboring in the wizard's household, Ka'Narlist captured or purchased rare creatures to study. The dark wizard searched for the blood secrets that made each race unique-indeed, the secrets of life itself. Though the castle's halls and stables and dungeons were full of strange beings born of his magical experiments, the wizard was not yet content.

  "You have made many other kobolds, and you have released enough dingo-creatures into the hills to endanger your tribe's flocks and herds," Mbugua pointed out, lifting his voice to be heard above the kodingobold's agonized shrieking. "What more can you gain from this pathetic creature?"

  For a moment, the wizard's knife ceased its grim work. "Not every experiment went as planned," Ka'Narlist murmured in an abstracted tone. "I must have reasonable assurance of success before I begin the final stage."

  The final stage.

  To the wemic, these words represented the ultimate obscenity. Among his people, children were treasured by the entire tribe, and the arrival of each healthy cub was an occasion for feasting and merriment. What Ka'Narlist proposed to do was unthinkable: the dark elf intended to create horrific children from his own blood, children that would be slaves at best, coldly discarded if they did not fulfill the promise offered by Ka'Narlist's "reasonable assurances of success."

  A sudden molten shriek ripped through Mbugua's grim reverie. The kodingobold's struggles, which had increased steadily as Ka'Narlist's ministrations systematically spread white-hot pain into every bone and sinew, abruptly ceased. The little creature went rigid, its body arched back, as taut as a hunting bow. Mbugua saw that the end was near, and reached for the next-needed tool.

  A low, eerie keening filled the room, a sound that would ever remind Mbugua of a gathering storm. Oddly defiant and swiftly growing in power, it was not a cry that one would expect to emerge from throat of a frail and cowardly kodingobold. But Mbugua the shaman heard this cry for what it was: even in the meanest of creatures, the force of life was strong. Every defense that nature had placed into the kodingobold's body was fighting the approach of death with a berserker's frenzy. Its life-force was as intense as midday sun focused into a single beam of light-powerful and primal as it made ready to spring free into the spirit world. In this final moment of mortal life, the kodingobold was more than a miserable outcast of the wild dog-folk: he embodied the very essence of his race.

  Mbugua handed his master the bleeding bowl.

  With a practiced hand, Ka'Narlist flicked a knife across the rigid, corded veins of the creature's throat, held the bowl and caught the pulsing blood without spilling so much as a drop. And all the while, he chanted words of dark power that he had learned (or so he claimed) at the feet of his dreadful god.

  When at last the kodingobold lay silent and still, the wizard gave a single nod of satisfaction. "Dispose of the carcass, then attend me in my spell-chamber."

  "As you command, Master."

  Ka'Narlist heard the note of hesitation in his slave's voice. For a moment, he was puzzled: the once-rebellious Mbugua was now the most docile and reliable of all the wizard's servitors. Then the memories came, and with them, understanding. Ka'Narlist turned a supercilious smile upon the wemic.

  "Ah. You wish to sing the creature's spirit away first, I take it?"

  "If my master permits it," Mbugua said in a stiff voice. Among his people, a shaman owned the respect of his tribe. The Ilythiirian wizard's disdain for spirit-magic smote the wemic's pride and kindled his wrath.

  "Tell me," Ka'Narlist began, in the sort of voice one might use to tease information from a silly, sulky child, "what do you think might happen if you didn't indulge in these little games and rituals? Would we be tripping over vengeful spirits on every stairwell?"

  Mbugua met the dark elf's mocking gaze. "Would you truly wish to find out?"

  The wizard's smile flickered, then fled. He turned away, flicking the fingers of one hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Do what you will with the carrion. It matters not."

  When Ka'Narlist's faint footsteps had faded into silence, Mbugua unstrapped the dead kodingobold from the table and slung the body over his shoulders. The wemic made his way down the winding stairs that led from the wizard's spell tower to the great hall below.

  A mind-staggering variety of creatures thronged the vast room, going about their appointed tasks with an alacrity born of fear. A flock of winged elves, their fingertips sparkling with minor magics, fluttered high overhead as they labored on the multitude of long, narrow windows that ringed the hall, each a priceless work of art fashioned from multicolored gems. Several four-armed ogrish kitchen slaves bustled through on th
eir way to the dungeons, carrying the evening meal to those unfortunate creatures who awaited Ka'Narlist's attentions. A score of miniature red dragons, each no bigger than a plump meerkat, darted about, lighting candles and oil lamps with small gouts of their flaming breath. A horde of goblin slaves busily scrubbed the intricate mosaic floor. They might have been a common enough sight, but for the rare streak of whimsy that prompted Ka'Narlist to breed goblins with gaily colored hides: sunny yellow, topaz blue, bright clear pink. To Mbugua's eye, the hall looked like a meadow filled with hideous, two-legged flowers.

  As the wemic stalked through the great hall on silent, massive paws, all others fell back to make way. There was none in the hall who lacked personal experience with the wizard's dark work, and they held Ka'Narlist's leonine assistant in almost as much dread as the wizard himself.

  The massive front door was flanked by a pair of minotaur guards, huge beasts armed with wicked scimitars and unnaturally long horns. Before Mbugua could growl a command, the bull-men leapt into action. They raised the portcullis and then threw their combined weight against the wooden bolt barring the outer door. The bar gave way with a groan, and the doors swung outward.

  Mbugua padded out into the courtyard, gratefully filling his lungs with the cool evening air. The wizard's lair was always filled with smoke from the braziers, fetid steam from a dozen vile magical concoctions, and the ever-present scent of death.

  The wemic made his way down a steep path to the rock-strewn coast below. There was a small cove, ringed with high-standing stones. He could do what he willed here, for the cove could not be seen from the castle windows and courtyard. The wizard's servants feared Mbugua too much to follow him here; the wizard himself was too prideful to imagine that a mere slave might do anything of harm or interest. Mbugua's captivity and loyalty were maintained by powerful magical bonds: Ka'Narlist trusted in his own magic.