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 attacked 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.
