CHAPTER 3
The Dark Queen led Tholan into a chamber lit only by a wall-mounted candelabra.
A large onyx colored, liquid filled sphere stood at the center of the room.
She waved her hand in a circular motion over the sphere. The liquid inside the globe vortexed into a kaleidoscope of dark colors; black, purple and dark blue.
Tholan shuddered as the liquid coalesced into a view of the mission camp massacre he stumbled upon earlier.
He saw the body of the woman he killed. Hyenas and ravens picked the flesh away from her snow covered limbs.
“You showed mercy,” the Dark Queen said. “You were instructed to leave no witnesses-”
“I killed the only survivor.”
Only after she attacked you, she said.
Tholan watched as that scene replayed on the globe.
“She had suffered enough.”
“You showed compassion,” Ravalynn said. “The Tholan of a few years ago would have never entertained such thoughts. A barbarian that embraces pity?”
She wiped her hand across the globe again. The sphere vortexed into a purple liquid before coalescing into a scene from a burning village. Tholan recognized his younger self in the scene. He sliced down elf after elf with sword and dagger. The screams of his victims grew in volume from the sphere as it replayed various events from Tholan's barbaric past.
“This is you at your best.”
Tholan's lips parted as if he were about to say something but the words did not come. He could only watch in awe at his ferocious younger self.
“I have seen a great many hunters and killers,” the Dark Queen said. “No one in history has had your resolve, tenacity and ruthlessness. Yet you changed over time. The thrill of your kills was replaced by a bottomless need for money. You didn't realize that it was this lack of need that made you powerful. You took what you wanted but then reduced yourself to a man who only needed. You became...a servant. A servant to the highest bidder.”
Tholan turned his back on the sphere as it replayed scenes from his dealings with rich men. He became their hired help. Their slave labor.
Cries of agony grew louder from the globe. He covered his ears with the palms of his hands. Convinced that his senses were playing tricks on him, he closed his eyes as tightly as he could.
“You can pretend that all of this never happened. But you can't undo what you did. And you should be proud of all the pain you inflicted. Why you aren't begs the question. Why weren't you proud of who you were? What killed the merciless Tholan of the past? Who killed this great warrior who felt no pity?”
He turned around to look at her. She untied her dress and the silk cloth made no noise as it fell to the floor.
Light from the candles danced across her bosom as the Dark Queen approached him out of the shadows. She ran her hand across his chest as she circled around him like a shark.
“Money makes you weak,” she whispered. “When you were killing those people...Taking what you wanted...That was real power... That fear you saw in the eyes of the enemy. Do you remember what that felt like?”
The Dark Queen turned Tholan's head back toward the globe. The sphere revealed all the violence he inflicted in his world as she spoke.
“The power was in the killing of the men who hated you. The power was in the violation of the women who thought they were better than you. The burning of villages that never accepted you. But for some reason, you gave in to their rules. You became an assassin for hire. A utility for anyone willing to pay your cheap price.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to know if the old Tholan is still in there.” The Dark Queen traced her forefinger around the Barbarian's heart. “Or was he killed without the use of a sword? That is what Carella does to the men under her rule.”
“The Princess?”
“She is the bane of all of your problems,” she said. “Her rule has been one where the men have become weak. Men who relinquish their own desires for the sake of women. All you know is that you need money to gain favor of women. That was the spell she cast on you.”
“I have never encountered her. Only seen her once or twice from afar.”
“She doesn't have to meet you to cast her curse. It was done incrementally. You have the sword. But she and the women under her rule...Have their beauty.”
The Dark Queen removed her bra and stood before him with a seductive smirk. Running both hands through her lush black hair, she twirled around slowly.
Tholan's gaze took in all of her perfection; her breasts, the diamond piercings hanging from her navel and ears, the raven tattooed on her lower back.
“Do you see what is happening? Who has the power now? Your sword? Or my beauty?”
On “beauty” she pressed herself against his chest.
“This is my power,” she whispered into his ear.
Feeling weak, he turned his attention to the globe. He watched a scene where he took down three barbarians who attacked him outside a tavern with steel maces and clubs. Tholan broke all of their necks with his bare hands.
“That was one of the greatest nights of my life.”
“You can become that barbarian again.” The Dark Queen pulled away from him and ran her hand over the sphere again.
“This is Carella's castle, Wandacove. It is heavily fortified, as you might expect. She has the most highly trained archers at the castle windows.”
The sphere showed bowmen shooting down enemy invaders from afar.
“Her soldiers are strategically placed around the castle according to their various skill level. Novices are placed at the rear but even they can be dangerous. The castle entrance is blocked by the best wrestlers and swordsmen in the land. Carella has the best in everything. But with my army at your side we can defeat them with willpower, fire and hate.”
A spell book appeared in the globe. The book opened on its own, the handwritten contents fading on tattered brown pages.
“That book is called the Arcanscape,” Ravalynn said, her voice inflected with a sense of wonder. “It contains spells that will allow me to create a whole new world. A world where warriors like you no longer have to slave for dollars. A world of order where the ruthless eat the weak.”
The Dark Queen waved her hand over the globe.
“And a world where barbarians are duly rewarded,” she said.
The sphere revealed Tholan surrounded by lovely young women. He sat on a throne of gold while one girl massaged his shoulders. Another fed him grapes. Three other women performed a strip tease while two more girls stood on opposite sides of him, waving fans.
She circled her hand over the globe again. The black sphere showed a large number of elves descending upon Wandacove. A lot of them holding candles and appear to be singing a song.
“Every seven years, Carella comes out from the castle and greets her followers. It is a two day festival of music and she delivers a sermon. Every elf of the Pegasin religion will come and make their pilgrimage there. It is then we shall strike. They will be at their most vulnerable.”
“That's a lot of elves.”
“You take out the soldiers first. Eliminate their army and the rest of the population will not even raise their weapons.”
The door opened and the veiled old lady dragged in a blindfolded, hog-tied elf. He struggled against the woman's grip but she tossed him in with practiced ease.
The elf scrambled to get up. He rolled and shifted his body sideways. Somehow, he managed to stand up on his knees as the old lady ripped the blindfold off.
The elf's eyes darted around the room. His facial expression turned from one of confusion to terror as he looked up at Ravalynn.
The Dark Queen's eyes shifted into crimson slits. Saliva dripped down the side of her mouth as she licked her lips. She opened her mouth and revealed a pair of dagger-shaped fangs.
The elf fell sideways. He caught the eye of Tholan as he lay on the ground.
�
�Hey!” he yelled. “Don't let her do this! Do you know what she is? She's a demon. They are all demons here!”
The Dark Queen ripped into the elf's neck with a repressed hunger.
Her victim gurgled and convulsed as she sucked away his life force. Elven blood had not touched her tongue in ages. She moaned in delight from the taste.
Tholan turned his attention back to the dark sphere. He put his hand on the globe.
The sphere revealed a hairy, muscular barbarian with a deeply creased face.
“That's Kelroar.” The Dark Queen moved behind him, wiping blood from her lips and licking it off her fingers. “He is going to be the biggest obstacle you will face in the siege.”
“He's ugly.”
“That ugly thing is the best killer in the land.”
“Not anymore,” he scoffed.
“Now there is the cocky Tholan that I fell in love with watching,” she said as she pressed her naked chest against his back.
His body shivered with pleasure as she wrapped her arms around him. She then whispered a sequence of words into his ear. They were words that Tholan would not understand even if he heard them clearly.
It took only a few seconds for him to collapse under her spell.
When Elves Die : Episode One Page 3
