The years passed, and the vast walled pools and water-filled dungeons on Ka'Narlist's estate soon teemed with sahuagin.
Even Mbugua had to admit they were amazing creatures. They reached maturity within a year, and, unlike most of the wizard's other creations, they could reproduce. This they did with astonishing fecundity. After three years, Ka'Narlist ceased to magically breed the sahuagin, leaving them to their own devices. Within ten years, Ka'Narlist had a tribe.
The sahuagin learned nearly as quickly as they bred. They could swim from the moment of their birth and could walk in their second moon of life. As soon as they could grasp a weapon, they were taught to fight on land and in the water. Within twenty years, Ka'Narlist had an army.
Throughout these years, Mbugua spent much of his time at the pools and the training pens, watching as Ilythiirian raiders-themselves slaves to the wizard-trained the sahuagin in the fighting arts of the dark elves.
The creatures proved to be fierce fighters, neither giving nor asking quarter in their battles against each other, and showing ruthless delight in slaying the sea-elven fighters who from time to time were tossed into their pools. But never-never once-did any of them turn tooth or claw or blade upon one of their dark-elven masters. From the moment of birth, each sahuagin was trained to regard the dark elves as gods, and Ka'Narlist as chief among them. He was, quite simply, their Creator. None of the sahuagin ever set eyes upon Ka'Narlist, but they were taught to fear, obey and revere him.
At last the day came to release the sahuagin into the sea. They were brought for the first time into the castle's great hall, to be awed by a wondrous display of music and light and magic-things that none of them had seen at close hand, things that seemed to them to be true manifestations of a mighty god. At the height of the ceremony, Ka'Narlist himself appeared, hovering above the assembly, his form magically enhanced to enormous size and limned with eerie, dancing light.
"The moment of your destiny has arrived," the wizard announced in a voice that shook the hall's windows. "The sahuagin will become a great people. You will conquer the seas, plunder its treasures, and know enormous wealth and power! This is your right and your destiny, as the created children of Ka'Narlist. In all you do, bring glory to the name of your lord and god!"
"Ka'Narlist!" the sahuagin host responded in a rapturous, thunderous roar.
The wizard smiled benevolently and extended his hands. Black pearls dripped from them and rained into the grasping claws of his dark children.
"You know what these are, and have been trained in their use. For each sea elf you slay, you will return one of these pearls-with the elf's magic captured inside. Magic is meant only for the gods. Regard the death of each blasphemous sea elf as an act of worship, and the pearls as proof of your loyalty to me! For have I not given you life, a kingdom to rule, and weapons with which to conquer it?"
The sahuagin nodded avidly, for their lord's reasoning was most agreeable to them. Also, they had learned to their pain that what the great Ka'Narlist could give, he could also take away! Those sahuagin who harbored the slightest hint of rebellion or heresy had died horribly, mysteriously, in full sight of their scaly kindred. Clearly, it was folly to oppose their dark lord, and an honor to serve one so powerful.
Ka'Narlist spoke a few more words, then at last released the sahuagin to seek the sea. They tore from the hall and swarmed down the cliff, all the while hooting and shrieking oaths against their sea-elven foes.
When all was quiet, the wizard floated to the marble floor and turned a smile upon his wemic slave. Of all Ka'Narlist's servitors, only Mbugua was granted the honor of attending this ceremony. Indeed, the wizard kept his aging wemic at his side almost constantly-a witness to his glories and an audience for tales of his yet-unfulfilled ambitions.
"The world below the sea is but the start," the wizard proclaimed. "Soon all the world will know the name of Ka'Narlist! I will be not a mere wizard, but a god!"
"Notoriety does not make a god. If it did, then the courtesan Xorniba would be queen of all gods, rather than merely an expensive human whore," Mbugua observed with a candor that was becoming his habit.
And why not? His life-task had been done, and done well. It would be completed by one far better suited than he. The wemic no longer cared whether the wizard took lethal offense at such remarks.
But Ka'Narlist merely smiled. "Notoriety does not make a god, but magic?"
The wizard held up one of the black pearls. "The magic of the sea-elven wizards is nearly as potent as my own. Think upon this: what will I become when I possess a hundred of these? A thousand? When the stolen magic of a thousand thousand sea elves is woven into a single net of magic and power?" Again Ka'Narlist paused for an exultant smile. "With power such as that, the gods will come to me. Do not doubt: I will become a god indeed."
Mbugua did not doubt.
Once, many years ago, the dark god Ghaunadaur had done Ka'Narlist's bidding and wrested the wemic from his afterlife. The shaman had sensed then the strange partnership forming between wizard and god. If Ka'Narlist truly succeeded in stealing the magic of the sea elves, he might well possess magic enough to purchase his way into the pantheon of his dark gods. It was not hard to believe: they were much akin, Ghaunadaur and Ka'Narlist. And Mbugua would witness it all. He was bound to the wizard by unbreakable ropes of magic: if Ka'Narlist attained godhood, immortality, it would amuse him to retain Mbugua's spirit in captivity throughout countless ages to come.
The wemic hastened to his cove, more frightened than he had been since the long-ago day of his capture. He had long known about Ka'Narlist's pearls, but he thought them to be nothing more than another vessel to hold the magical wealth the wizard hoarded in such abundance. It had never occurred to Mbugua that Ka'Narlist intended to systematically plunder sea-elven magic. Such loss would gravely weaken the sea folk's defenses against the sahuagin horde, perhaps bring about their utter ruin.
The prospects were appalling: the destruction of a wondrous elven people, the rise of the sahuagin to the rulership of the seas, the possibility that the evil that was Ka'Narlist might become immortal. At all costs, the dark elf's creatures must be stopped.
At the edge of the shore, Mbugua roared out the signal that would bring his sea-elven son from the waves.
Malenti, the shaman had named him, after a legendary wemic fighter. So far, Malenti showed every promise of living up to his name. He had learned all that Mbugua had to teach him, and with astonishing speed: all the fighting styles known to the wemic, all the tactics taught to the sahuagin, even the ambush strategies perfected by the now-extinct kodingobolds. To accomplish what he must, Malenti would need them all.
The sea elf came quickly to Mbugua's call, striding out onto the land to exchange a warrior's salute with the wemic. For once, Mbugua did not ponder the strangeness of the webbed hand that clasped his wrist: he measured with gratitude the strength in the elf's grip, and noted the battle-honed muscles that rippled beneath the green, mottled skin.
"The sahuagin are already ravaging the sea," Malenti said without preamble. "They have slain a score of the merfolk, and laid siege to the sea-elven city just offshore. They have sworn to slay every elf who dwells within."
"You must stop them," implored Mbugua. "And if you cannot, at least stop them from returning to Ka'Narlist with their black pearls!" Quickly, he outlined the wizard's dire ambition.
Too late, it occurred to him that such knowledge might be dangerous in the hands of one as ambitious as Malenti.
"I have no use for stolen magic," Malenti said calmly, as if he divined the wemic's thoughts, "but you are right in saying that these pearls must be kept from Ka'Narlist. If he becomes as powerful as he would like to be, how will I oust him and claim his kingdom as my own?"
These callous words sent through Mbugua a shiver that started at the top of his spine and darted down the length of his leonine back. It was true that this was the very path he'd hoped Malenti's ambition might take; however, the ease with whic
h the young sea elf spoke of his father's death was chilling.
Malenti had already turned away. His hand was upon his dagger as he splashed into the sea, as if he could not wait to shed sahuagin blood.
And thus it was, for many years to come. The sahuagin hordes returned to Ka'Narlist's keep with the dark of each moon, as they were pledged to do. But they brought with them not piles of dark pearls, but tales of fierce battles and ambush, and of a mighty sea-elven leader who had raised the sea folk against them.
Malenti, he was called. Malenti, the Sahuagin Scourge.
As Mbugua listened to the stories told of his sea-elven son, he struggled to keep his swelling pride from his face. Ka'Narlist, however, was not so stoic.
"A thousand spears and my highest favor to the sahuagin who brings me this Malenti!" vowed the furious wizard as the latest moon-dark ceremony drew to a close. "Bring him in alive, and I will match the reward with a thousand tridents!"
For such a treasure, any sahuagin would cheerfully slay his nearest kin. The monsters took to the sea with renewed ferocity, each determined to win the promised reward and the regard of their lord.
Even so, nearly three years passed before the sahuagin finally captured their nemesis. They dragged Malenti to Ka'Narlist Keep, entangled in nets and bleeding from a score of small malicious wounds, into the great hall to await the judgment of their lord.
Despite the seeming gravity of the situation, Mbugua's heart was light as he made his way into the hall in response to the wizard's summons. By all reports, Malenti had amassed an enormous army of sea folk. Surely the army was gathered at shore's edge even now, awaiting only Malenti's command to strike. Time and again had the sea elves overcome the sahuagin fighters: the wemic was confident that they would do so again, and that, at long last, Ka'Narlist's brutal reign of magic and misery would end.
When the hall was full and the clacking speech of the excited sahuagin had subsided into a few scattered clicks, the wizard made his appearance. In a magically enhanced voice, he recited the charges against Malenti, then granted him the right to speak before sentence was carried out.
"Take away the nets," Malenti demanded boldly. "When I stand before you, when I look into your face, then will I speak."
With a cruel smile, the wizard lifted his hands. Lines of flame leapt from his fingers and singed away the entangling nets, doing no small damage to the prisoner in the process.
Bereft of much of his hair, his skin much reddened and blistered, and his blackened garments hanging in tatters, Malenti nonetheless rose proudly to his feet and faced down the powerful wizard.
"At last we meet… Father," he said in a ringing voice that carried to every corner of the great hall. He paused, obviously enjoying the stunned expression on Ka'Narlist's face and the hushed expectation of the sahuagin throng.
"Oh yes, I am the first of your sahuagin children, the one you discarded when you found my appearance unpleasing. I am Malenti, the Sahuagin Scourge. The sahuagin scourge," he emphasized, "for such I am indeed. Though I did not have the advantages of training and weaponry that you lavished upon these others, I have done what I could." He paused, lifting his arms as if to invite the wizard's inspection. The wemic tensed, certain that the signal to attack was soon to come. Moments passed, and it did not. It occurred to Mbugua that the wizard was studying Malenti closely, and that the wizard did not seemed at all displeased by what he saw.
The sea elf shrugged off the remnants of his charred shirt, revealing a hauberk of incredibly delicate chain mail into which were woven thousands of small black pearls. Mbugua's shaman senses caught the fragile, silent song of captured magic; with horror he realized that each pearl contained the stolen magic of a sea elf.
But Malenti cannot use the magic, Mbugua thought, suddenly frightened that his protege might attack-and fail. He has not the gift for it, nor has he been trained! What did he presume to do?
As if he heard the question, Malenti turned to gaze directly into the wemic's golden eyes. "You taught me well," he said mockingly. "And now I turn your own truth back against you: the deepest secrets of life are not in the blood, but in the spirit. Blood-bonds are powerful indeed, but spirit easily wins over blood!"
Ka'Narlist's eyes kindled with crimson flame as he realized Mbugua's part in this. He rounded on the treacherous wemic. "You were to destroy that first sahuagin!"
"You will come to rejoice that he did not," Malenti retorted. He deftly pulled the net of magic over his head and brandished it. "These are the pearls I claimed from your servants over the years, as well as many hundreds more that I gathered myself. I am sahuagin," he said again, his eyes daring those assembled before him to dispute that fact. "I hate the sea elves as much as any of you. But they trusted me, and they died all the more easily for it."
The elflike sahuagin lifted the web of pearls high. "This is my tribute to the great Ka'Narlist, the first tribute of many! Release me to the sea, and I will continue to slay sea elves for as long as I live." He shook the hauberk so that the black pearls glistened.
Ka'Narlist smiled faintly, knowingly, as he regarded the son of his spirit. "And what do you desire for yourself, in exchange for this tribute you offer?"
"Only that which is my due: a high position of power among the sahuagin armies, a large share of the wealth of the seas, and the utter destruction of the sea elves! I already know what you desire, and it is in my best interest to see you achieve it." He added softly, so that his words carried only to the dark-elven wizard and the stunned wemic who sat at his side, "I would like to be known as the firstborn son of a god!"
"The bargain is made," Ka'Narlist began, but Malenti cut him off with an upraised hand.
"I want one thing more: the life of the wemic who betrayed you. Oh, I do not wish merely to slay him! As the proud Mbugua has taught me, it is the spirit that whispers the secrets of life! Imprison his in one of these pearls, and I will wear it until the day I die. And forever after, let his spirit roar his songs and his stories out over the waves, that what has been done in this place will be remembered for as long as people listen to the voices of the sea!"
With a heavy heart, Mbugua heard his sentence proclaimed by his blood-son, and confirmed by the dark elf he had hoped to overthrow. As Ka'Narlist chanted words of magic and the treacherous Malenti drew his dagger across Mbugua's throat, the wemic prayed with silent fervor that someone, someday, would understand that a wemic's voice was trapped amid the sounds of the waves and the winds, and would find a way to sing his spirit away to its final rest.
Thus did the sahuagin come into being. And thus it was, from that day to this, that the sahuagin from time to time bear young that resemble sea elves in all things but their rapacious nature. These are called "malenti," after their forefather. Sometimes such young are reared and trained to live among the sea elves as sahuagin spies; more commonly they are slain at birth. The sahuagin have learned that this is prudent-the malenti are considered dangerous even by their vicious kindred, for in them, the spirit of Ka'Narlist lives on.
As for Mbugua, some say that his spirit was released to its reward many long centuries past. And yet it is also said that on a stormy night, one can still hear a wemic's roar of despair among the many voices of the sea.
And so, my elven captor, you have the story, as it was passed to me by my grandsire, who had it from his.
Why would the lion-folk tell such a tale, you ask? Perhaps because the elves will not. Yes, there is danger in speaking of such magic. It is true that for every wise wemic who hears the warning in this tale, there will be a fool who sees in it the glittering lure of a dragon's hoard. So regard it as myth, if such pleases you. And indeed, it may well be this story was not built upon the solid stone of fact.
But remember this, elf, and write it upon your scroll: oftentimes there is far more truth to be found in legend than in history.
THE GREAT HUNT
Twilight lingered long in the northern woodlands, and it seemed to the small band of hunters that th
e sun was loath to set on a day of such glorious carnage.
But night could not be denied, and with the darkness came a temporary end to the hunt. The three hunters cast a final longing glance toward a trail they could no longer see, and then settled down to make camp and await the moonrise.
Their campfire kindled, and a questing wisp of smoke rose toward the forest canopy in a meandering path, as if seeking the company of other smoke from other fires. There would be many campfires in this forest this night, as the Talons of Malar sang their boastful songs and celebrated the first day of their sacred hunt.
The youngest of these Talons, these hunters, was a half-orc lad only this day blooded. His name was Drom, and like every faithful follower of Malar the Beastlord, he had been summoned to the Great Hunt. The half-orc's blood still sang with the glory and frenzy of the slaughter.
He crouched by the fire to regard by its flickering lights his first trophies. To his horror, Drom felt himself obliged to swallow hard and look away. For some reason, the three torn and bloody elven ears lying in his palm raised his gorge as the battle itself had not.
Grimlish, an orc of immense size and hideous, green-hued visage, grunted in approval at the trophies. It was because of Grimlish that Drom had taken the ears. Grimlish was a strong hunter who held great honor in the tribe. What Grimlish was, Drom aspired to become. The orc wore around his neck a long leather thong, decorated with many grisly bits of tanned leather, dyed bright red but unmistakable in their origin.
Drom wanted a necklace like that, and he was eager to earn it. From his belt he took a small wineskin, filled not with wine but with a potent mixture of tanning acid and crushed berries. He slipped his three trophies into the skin, and considered the day's work a good start.
The big orc sat down beside the fire and undid the chin strap of his helmet. That helmet was another thing that Drom envied, another thing he hoped one day to emulate. It was constructed of metal-banded leather, and decorated by a rack of elk antlers, each point sharpened to a razor's edge and dipped daily in fresh blood. It was a marvelous helm, worn in homage to an avatar form the god Malar sometimes took upon himself when he wished to roam these forests.
The Stories of Elaine Cunningham Page 13
