Despite the seeming gravity of the situation, Mbu-gua'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 little 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 would come at any moment. 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 does 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!" he thundered.
"You will come to rejoice that he did not," Malenti said coldly. 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 halberd 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 that 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 whom 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 scrolclass="underline" oftentimes there is far more truth to be found in legend than in history.
Bread Storm Rising
Tom Dupree
"A vacation?"
The scowl on the mage's wizened face looked even craggier than usual, and Wiglaf Evertongue nearly lost his nerve then and there. Perhaps it was the legacy of his family name that urged him onward, for Wiglaf had spent much of his boyhood outracing his brain with his mouth. But there it was, the word was out, and nothing could be done but to follow where it led. He began to draw breath, but his mentor went on.
"Young Evertongue, you are supposed to be studying the magical arts. No, more: you are privileged to learn the mageways. This is not some cozy craft hall where we wash our grime away and lock up once darkness falls. Magic is not something we do; it is something we are. I thought you had agreed to absolute commitment when you began your training, and now I am made to believe that you wish to prance off on a holiday?"
"Maybe Vacation' was the wrong word, sir." Wiglaf shuffled his feet and fussed with an imaginary dirt-spot on his robe. "It's just… it's been more than a year since I left Calimport, and I only need a short while to go back home, and I know my family would want to see what's become of me, and it's not like I haven't worked hard these past months, haven't I, Master Fenzig? Haven't I?"