The Master’s cabin filled the stern of the yacht; it was raised up commandingly above the main deck. Crystal glass windows wrapped around the back and sides of the cabin, and thick purple velvet curtains trimmed in gold hung in voluminous waves from golden rods. The interior was also extravagantly decorated with purple and gold furnishings.
High Priestess Ver Sitha, head of Shadow Elf Foreign Intelligence, and third in succession to the Grand Empress of the Empire of Night and Shadow, sat on a throne like chair looking out the aft windows. Her aids, Shen and Paras stood flanking her. Both were exquisite specimens of the Shadow Elven female, chosen both for their beauty as well as their lethal abilities. Shen had very dark brown hair and reddish amber eyes; the smarter of the two, in Sitha’s opinion. And Paras, the more ruthless one, who had pitch black hair and yellow eyes. Both were about five foot four and one hundred and fifteen pounds.
Like Sitha, both of the girls had on magical pendants that altered their olive skin to a more copper bronze of the Star Elves. The magic also changed their eye color which set the two Elven races apart. They were using it's magic to change their yellow and amber eyes, to the green of the Star Eves. But worst of all, for Sitha; she had to change her purple black hair, which was a mark of rare distinction with her people, even less common than the snow white color, to this damn dark black hair, that most every other Shadow Elf is born with. Sitha hated to look in the mirror with this disguise on.
Only the black short kilts trimmed in a tarnished greenish gold and matching back-lacedup bustier designed to look like the hands of trolls were holding up both breast, hinted that the three were not what they appeared to be. Sitha also wore a delicately wrought headpiece in the same tarnished gold as well and a coiled serpent torc around her neck.
Sitha tapped her nails on the marble armrest of the throne. Her visitor was late, and Sitha hated to wait for anything.
The door to the Master’s cabin opened, and two of her body guard entered the room, escorting a tall Moon Elf. He had dark red hair, gray eyes, and a sharp hard looking face. Killin Killmara walked up to the throne, and dipped his head in the slightest of bows.
He was extremely prideful, arrogant, and not that bright, so Sitha had no problem in manipulating him. From the way he walked, to the gold embroidered on gold kilt, that he wore, his attitude was unmistakable. He not only thought that he was the greatest Elf alive, but that the world owed him the recognition as such. So far, Sitha knew he had been disappointed in the world’s reaction to his greatness. Clan Killmara was not what it once was, and the young clan chief was barely recognized as such.
Most Moon Elf clans number anywhere from two hundred to two thousand members, but Clan Killmara had less than four dozen Elves. It had once been one of the most powerful clans, inline with the throne of Tuscan, but the last twelve hundred years had seen its rapid fall from grace. They had lost a number of clan vendettas; gambled recklessly in the gambling houses; wasted their resources on extravagances; joined risky trading ventures, and insulted most of the powerful clans and even the Ruling Council of Clan Lords. As such, the wealth and power of the clan had disappeared, and it never had a good reputation to start with.
Without wealth, the clan had lost it’s villas in town and could not finance expeditions around the country side. The exquisite villas, and the constant expeditions, were the symbols of clan power and status in the very pleasure oriented Moon Elf society. What female Moon Elf would choose to marry into such a clan, and without new females joining to produce wealth and children, the clan shrank rapidly, until it was at the desperate place that it now found itself.
It is the females who provide much of the wealth and new members that a Moon Elf clan needed to survive.
Their basic government is that of the clan, in which each member is equal to their merit. The Moon Elf clan is headed by a Clan Chief, who controlled the clan, enforced clan law and discipline. The Clan Matriarch usually runs day to day operations and controls the clan’s money.
They are guided by their own ancient customs and not by external laws. They are part of larger Moon Elf nations, but the national governments have limited control over the clans in most lands.
A clan such as Killmara, without wealth, status, or reputation, died off for lack of new females. And males were stuck in the clan of their birth, they could always leave the country and try to make their individual fortunes, hopefully to found their own clan with the proceeds.
But the death of clans like Killmara was a rarity, and as such Sitha and the Shadow Elves would make good use of the opportunity of the Killmara’s failure.
“Greetings Mistress Sitha,” Killin Killmara approached the Shadow Elf Mistress.
“Sit down, Killin. You are late, again.”
“I was attending to the plans for the upcoming revolution. It will be glorious rebirth of the true Moon Elven kingdom!”
“It is almost time, Killin Killmara. I hope you are ready. You have taken over two million Silver Crowns of our money, and I would like to see some result for the money and time I have spent here,” Sitha hissed softly.
“My people are ready, we will strike the capital as planned on the Winter Festival. I will be king of Tuscan on the first day of the new year!”
His greed and stupidity amused Sitha. Did he really think she would let him sit on the throne of Tuscan, well not for long anyways and only as her puppet? He, and all of these cursed Moon Elves, would feed the flames of the Death Goddess sacrificial altar. She most likely did not need him for her plans to succeed, but redundancy was an important tendency to develop, if you wanted victory. And the conquest of Tuscan was only phase one of the operation. She should conserve her main assets for the rest of the mission. This would be the greatest victory of any Shadow Elf High Priestess, and it would make her Empress of the Shadow, once her assassin removed the current occupant of that office.
“But first, it seems, I need a bit more financing to buy all of the mercenaries that we need,” demanded the Moon Elf.
Sitha reached into a basket next to her throne and drew out a small bright red viper. It wound up her arm, as she looked hard at the suddenly uncomfortable Moon Elf in front of her.
“Do not try my patience, Killmara. I will make additional funds available to you, but I demand results. Do not make me angry. You would not like the result.” The snake seemed to look and him and hissed.
She stood up and ordered, “Do not fail me Moon Elf. Your rewards will be great if you do not, and your torment will be great if you do.”
Killmara hastily stepped back away from her and bowed.
Suddenly two balls of black sizzling magic appeared, one just above her head to the right, and the other seemingly just above her feet to the left. The balls sizzled as they rotated one clockwise the other counter clockwise, to form glowing circles on tilted axis in the air around Sitha. Faster and faster they rotated as energy built, and then magic power flared, and she was gone from the ship.
Thousands of miles to the west, one and a half continents away, the two magical balls of light appeared and once again rotated into a circle of light. Sitha stepped out of the teleport spell and walked into her private chambers in the Palace of Night. The massive stone room, with its soaring ceiling to cool the hot tropical air, was a welcome sight. The reports on her desk were ignored for the time being, as she activated the Great Map with the wave of her hand and the small burst of magical energy.
The Great Map, was a magical device that took up the far wall of Sitha’s war room. The three continents were depicted on the wall size map in exquisite detail, done in solid gold. Gems represented the cities of the world: black pearls for the cities of the Empire of the Shadow, purple amethyst for the Keshian Star Elves, diamonds for Moon Elves, blue sapphires for the Sun Elves, and so on through the different lands. The Power of the Great Map was not in its beauty, but in its ability. By touching any of the gems, the user would see the city represented, as if he was a bird flying far over the landscape. The visio
n seen was what was happening at that very moment; a very useful tool in the hands of a spymaster. This was but one of the abilities of the map, but it was the one that Sitha used now.
Quickly, she checked on the cities of Zengara and Madras, the two capitals of the Star Elf Empires. She saw no signs of troop mobilization or panic. Next, Surin the Sun Elf provincial capital on the Eastern Continent. It too was quiet of any overt signs that her plan had been discovered. Relieved, she turned her attention to Namur.
Namur was a city controlled by the Shadow Elves deep in the heart of the Orc Lands; but then in reality she thought, all of the land owned by the Orcs, were really controlled by the Shadow Elves. The Orcs thought of themselves as partners and allies of the Shadow Elves, but in reality they are simply our servants and vassals, albeit at the top of the list of servants of the Empire of Night and Shadow.
They made up much of the bulk of the professional armies of ‘The Shadow’, as Shadow Elves tended to call their Cult-Empire, and were given power over the lesser servants. This was not because they were the strongest or best fighters of those that The Shadow commanded. Ogres were by far the strongest, and the Shadow Elves themselves were the best fighters. Nor were they the most numerous; that went to the Goblins, hands down. Those vermin breed like flies. And the Trolls were by far, the most vicious and bloodthirsty of the followers of the Demon Goddess of Death.
No, the reason that the Orcs were given the position of first of the servants, was a secret that few knew.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Demon Goddess of Death was jealous of the creatures that The Creator and the Goddess of Nature, his consort, were creating. These new creatures, the Dragons, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Nymphs worshipped their creators, and this did not sit well with the Goddess of Death. So, she tricked her sister into helping her create the Ogres and Goblins. When the Creator, Lord of the Gods, found out of this deception he was angered, but forgave the two Goddess sisters for the sake of his consort. But the Demon Goddess of death was not satisfied with her two creations, she wanted more. Perverting the Laws of the universe, she stole some of her sister’s power, and brought forth a race of sentient creatures that were soulless, the Trolls. There had been enough power to make the beings, but not enough was stolen to give them souls, and what did they really need souls for anyway...
The Creator was outraged, and cast the Goddess of Death from the realm of the Gods, and cursed her to confinement in hell as a Demon. Still not satisfied with her revenge, she went about tempting a tribe of the Elven people to her worship, with the gift of Death Magic, the one type of magic the Creator had forbidden the peoples, and so the Shadow Elves, too were damned.
The Demon Goddess, still was not content; only the destruction and usurpation of the world that the Creator had made would satisfy her. But how was she to take control? The Goblins were weak and too stupid to be of much use to her plan. The Ogres were strong, but also stupid and few in number. Somehow she had left out of them the ability to reproduce quickly. The Trolls, her creation alone, were a disaster. Not even she could control these mad vicious soulless beasts, and as such were useful only as how they hurt the rest of the world.
This left only the Shadow Elves, her Elven disciples, as the agents of her victory. They were very bright and very deadly, the only drawback was they could not reproduce quickly enough to fill the ranks of a world conquering army.
The Demon Goddess had a plan on how to create this army. While she did not have the power to create another race of beings from scratch, she thought that possibly she could meld a new race out of two races that already existed. But, she would be weakened even further by doing this magic. So their would be only one shot at getting the right combination to make a deadly warrior people that could reproduce quickly to fill the needs of a conquering army. They would have to be powerful and deadly, but controllable. They would have to be aggressive and dominating, yet be able to be the servants of the Shadow Elves, who had the intellect and magic to lead the army of conquest. The Goddess of Death brought forth one hundred female Shadow Elves, and bred them using the foulest black magic to bring forth her new creation, the Orcs. Strangely it seemed that all of the male Orcs favored the genetics of the paternal race, while the Orc females more resembled that of the Shadow Elves.
“And that”, thought Sitha, “was how the Orcs came to be. Our little brothers, the half Shadow Elven creation of the Goddess of Death.”
“But, did the Goddess have to make them so ugly.”
She would never think to take one of them to her bed, even if many of her male warriors posted in Orc cities stooped to that level. The result of that further miscegenation had led to a whole new race coming into existence, the Half-Orcs or sometimes called Horcs.
But Sitha had to admit, that the Demon Goddess got it right when she made the Orcs. They were smart enough to follow complex orders, but not smart enough to attempt to ‘improve’ on the plans of their betters. They were strong and skilled in battle, but not as skilled as most Shadow Elf warriors. They breed rapidly, and were loyal to their superiors and the Death Goddess. Not so the Horcs, “but those unstable ones could be manipulated to her plan as well, oh yes they can.” Sitha laughed with evil glee as she anticipated the destruction to come.
Looking back to the Great Map, she concentrated on the city of Namur once again. It was a beehive of activity. The preparations, her preparations, were well underway. Soon, the Eastern Continent would be hers, and then with that victory, thanks to her assassins, so would the Cobra Throne of the Empress of Shadow.
Just then a loud bang reverberated through the large bronze doors to her suite. Who would dare to disturb her? Again the bang and the magic seal on the doors gave way, and they slowly opened inward.
Standing in the doorway, was a vaguely Shadow Elf looking creature. He was larger and more massively built than normal for Shadow Elves, and even stranger, 'he' was covered head to foot in black hooded robes. She noticed that even under the bright ceiling lights, he cast no shadow.
"I have been sent to--- monitor your success, Priestess."
She knew the creature, a Shadow Lord, and somehow the terror of its presence did not affect her; well, only slightly she admitted to herself.
The Seekers, or as they prefer to be called ‘Shadow Lords,’ were the Empress's magical executioners. They provided the internal security for the Shadow Empire, as she provided the external intelligence. Their loyalty was solely to the Obsidian Throne and had no ambitions of their own beyond serving the occupant of the throne.
The Seekers were very powerful creatures. They gave up their souls to the Goddess of Death in an extraordinarily powerful ritual, and thus they are no longer quite alive, but then not undead either, but something in between. They are also resistant to physical death, immune to all poisons, diseases, and they quickly heal from all wounds if not burned, disintegrated, or decapitated.
Known to have amazing speed and terrible strength, they are remorseless killers without pity or compassion, who are incapable of feeling emotions. They can sense fear, detect lies, track magically their prey (but not across flowing water), and do not sleep or grow tired. They are the servants of the Goddess of Death, and of the Grand Empress of Night and Shadow, used to enforce discipline with their unholy terror.
Sitha knew, at least she thought she knew, that she could destroy the Seeker; the Shadow Lord’s reputation was exaggerated, she hoped, but if she killed this one, his brothers would come for her, and not even she could stop a dozen of them.
The Seeker stood to the side of her and looked over her map, its eyes taking in her plans.
“Of course Shadow Lord, be welcome. I glory at the news that the Great Empress is taking such an interest in the upcoming glorious victory of the forces of Night and Shadow.”
“Well, this is an unforeseen problem. My sister, The Empress must be getting extremely concerned with my rising power, as well she should. Oh, well this will just make things slightly more challengin
g, but in the end the Obsidian Throne will be mine!”
CHAPTER 20
They had traveled fast after their escape from the attack in Cozon. Now some twenty miles into the great desert, known by most as The Waste, they had made camp in one of the many gullies that criss-crossed the desert. The ‘wash’ as the gullies were called by the small bands of Wild Elves who somehow inhabit the fringes of the Waste, was nothing more than a ditch that once every decade or so flooded with water. Sand filled the bottom and Grease Bushes and other unpleasant types of thorn bushes dotted the sides of the wash.
The sun was setting, and the heat of the day was starting to quickly dissipate. The night would be cold for the horses, but it would not get cold enough to bother the Elves too much. If it had been summer, then the days would be too hot even for the magic of the Elves to handle. One hundred and twenty degrees plus were normal, and even twenty degrees hotter than that could occur. Thankfully they were at the end of the fourth month of autumn, and the two months of winter would be starting, next week, this week? Myst thought that was about right; it was difficult to keep track of the days out in the wilds.
Myst drank from his water bottle, somehow being out here made you more thirsty than normal. The sun parched earth and blasted rocks made him feel thirsty all the time. Fortunately, they all had Dwarven Water Bottles, made by the Dwarves with Water Magic. They would refill themselves, magically taking moisture from the air each night and converting it to liquid. But Dwarven Water Bottles did not create enough water for themselves and the horses. They would have to get more water tomorrow night. The caravan traders had sunk very deep wells, about every fifty miles or so along the trade route. This made travel out here possible, but it also gave the bandits and other predators, a known spot to attack their targets. The few naturally occurring springs and seeps were usually far apart and frequently unreliable in this harsh magically created environment. Even after ten thousand years it was still damaged beyond inhabiting.
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