Muttering an oath, Ka'Narlist struck the infant from the stunned wemic's hands. The tiny monster splashed into the pool. Bubbles rose from the water, along with an eerie, high-pitched shriek that sent a shiver down Mbugua's spine. To the shaman's sensitive ears, the cry was a harbinger of death to many innocent sea folk.
'Cut the cord, put the babe to breast,' Ka'Narlist scolded. 'You are the midwife here, not I! See to it!'
Mbugua fished the infant from the pool, quickly tended its needs, and placed it in the elf woman's limp arms. Her dazed, empty eyes widened with sudden horror, and her apathy exploded into hysterical screams. Too late, the wemic understood why.
The infant's mouth was flung open wide, impossibly wide. It was lined with rows of tiny, triangular fangs like those of a shark. The babe clamped down, and Mbugua heard the dreadful sound of teeth grating upon bone.
He caught a glimpse of the sea elf's ribs before the flow of her lifeblood turned the waters of the birthing pool a deep crimson.
Ka'Narlist frowned and flicked his fingers: the dying elf woman's shrieks stopped abruptly. The wizard nodded thoughtfully as he watched the babe chew and swallow its first meal.
'How better to train them to hunt sea elves than to give them a taste of sea-elven blood with their first breath?' he mused.
He turned to Mbugua. 'Fetch all the captive sea-elven females, then go to the slave markets and buy all that are available. We will need as many hatching hosts as we can acquire, since it would seem that they can be used only once.'
The wizard smiled, seemingly amused by the stunned expression on the wemic's face. 'Come, now-away with your tiresome scruples! This is a great day. When the sea is mine to command, you may boast that you witnessed the birth of the sahuagin race!'
The years passed, and the vast walled pools and the water-filled dungeons on Ka'Narlist's estate soon teemed with sahuagin.
Even Mbugua had to admit that 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. It did not escape their notice that their dark-elven Creator knew all that they did-and often seemed to sense their very thoughts! To them, Ka'Narlist was truly a god, and they were his eager servants.
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? Perhaps not. 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 onto the pantheon of his dark gods. It was not hard to believe: they were much akin, Ghaunadaur and Ka'Narlist. And then, what would become of them all? Ka'Narlist's experiments would continue. And Mbugua himself would be sentenced to 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.
Deeply concerned, and more frightened than he had been since the long-ago day of his capture, the wemic hastened to his cove. 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 that 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 the his sea-elven son from the waves.
