The Slave King

[Damiynn]

The Slave King
Chapter 1
Birthing
Loriass Yematt, Supreme Highmage for the Elvynn Tua-latin war wizards, studied the swollen stomach of the pregnant human female, carefully, examining it for any flaws or defects. He knew from previous inspections that there weren’t any, but did so just the same. Originally, there had been two parent slaves, but this was the only one left.

Generations of humans had gone into creating the child. The baby growing in the female womb should be exceptional, for being only a mere human. If his calculations were correct, it should be one of the best humans he had ever conceived. Its gene stock derived from highest quality of human slaves, tracing back over three hundred years.

It had better be. With the execution of the parent father, for having been rebellious in his last days, there would not be any more breeding stock of his quality until this infant came of age.

Maldrith Renali, his Tua-latin second in command, came striding purposefully into the room, her black and silver robes hissing softly like snakes scales, as they slid across the stone floor.

She too studied the human lying on the bed with the swollen belly, and stated as much as said, “She still hasn’t had it yet Loriass? Are you sure there are no complications?”

“There is nothing wrong,” responded the archmage, watching the panting woman critically. “This baby is just uncommonly strong for a newborn and struggles to see the light of day. That is all!.”

As if to prove him wrong, the woman lying on the bed gave an ear piercing scream and a torrent of blood shot out from between her legs in a bright red stream.

Loriass saw the heavy flow and cursed. He knew now that as well as losing his prime breeding father he was about to lose the prime mother and possibly the baby if he didn’t act. He was not going to allow that to happen.

Seizing the forces of creational magic from the rivers of power that flowed throughout the palace of Talathandria, he quickly formed them into a stasis spell. Without regard for the convulsing female, he hurled the spell, making her completely immobile.

The beautiful slave looked awkward. Her head was backwards, arching her back almost as far as it could go without actually snapping. The muscles of her body were exposed, looking like taut ropes stretched under a thin cloth. The only thing moving around her was the bright red flow of blood, still flowing.

As fast as he had reacted, Maldrith acted even faster. Almost caught by his stasis spell, she forcefully slid her hands in between the dying female slave’s bloody thighs. Clutching tightly at the newborn baby’s head sticking out, she used her hands and fingers to prevent it from being choked. The human woman would die, but she was going to save this child. A lifetimes worth of her work was tied up in him as well.

Calling upon on her own magic, Maldrith cast a spell onto the newborn baby’s skin that made it as slippery as an oiled eel and pulled as gently as she could. With another burst of hemorrhaging blood shooting out of the almost dead female scribe slave’s body, she pulled the baby free. Taking it out of the coffin that had served as its bed a moment before.

Grabbing at one of the magical dagger’s hanging at her side, she quickly sliced away the connecting tether from newborn to its dying mother. The Elvynn archmage checked to see whether it was still alive as the female slave’s body shuddered in its death throes despite the stasis spell.

A loud wailing filled the room as the struggling human baby fought against her tight grip. Icy cold swept through Maldrith’s body as she held it in her hands. A thousand stinging needles of cold racked her, and it felt like she had been plunged into a freezing lake. Staggering sideways like a drunk too long in her cups, she barely managed to hold onto the child as her innate powers of Prohecy flared to life.

Just barely, she managed to set the child down before she found herself overwhelmed. A blinding flash split the inside of her minds eye, filling her vision. Nothing of what was happening in the room around the archmage filled her eyes as she saw something completely different.
A vision of war spread out in front of her. Battle lines filled the fields. Thousands of dead, from all races, littered a field surrounding a tall man with long curly dark hair. Around his feet was a broken chain, each link was the size of a man’s leg and each lay shattered, looking as if they had been crumbled by a giant hand. In the tall humans hand he wielded a magical sword, a blade that glowed with silver light, a blade she recognized. The tall human turned away from the bodies littering the ground around his feet and she saw something that made her go colder than the needles that still pricked her skin. In his hands was a gigantic ball of crackling purefire. This amazed Maldrith, amazed and frightened her.

None, but Elvynn, were allowed to learn creational magic, much less wield it. Yet here in her vision was this ‘human’ working the most powerful aspect of it. Tall figures began stepping through the dead bodies. They knelt and bowed their heads in deference. Maldrith knew without having to be told that these were the gods acknowledging a human’s presence.

As fast as the vision came into her head, it faded, but its’ passing left her reeling. Its implications hitting her like body blows to the chest. It took her a moment to recover but when she did she knew one thing. Somehow, this human lying on the table would be the man in that vision. The one who would break that silver chain, the one who brought those fields littered with bodies and destruction into the world.

Her eyes filled with dread, she rounded Loriass. In a fear filled voice she stuttered, “T…T.. This child should be put to death immediately Loriass! It cannot be allowed to live. It will be the death of us all. I have seen it and it shall be so.” With that she spun back to the still wailing newborn and raised her glittering bloody knife.

Loriass heard her damming words, saw her thin arms raise and knew that the results of his generations of human breeding was about to be destroyed. He screamed out one word, “Nooo!”

Maldrith ignored him and the knife began to descend.

He saw that she wasn’t going to stop, so the supreme Elvynn archmage did the only thing that he could do. He seized the remaining energy around him and hurled a magical force bolt across the room at the other Tua-latin wizard.

The force bolt shot across the short space and hammered into the female Elvynn’s body with the force of a battering ram, blowing her across the room.

Caught unprotected and unprepared, Maldrith was thrown heavily into one of the walls with a sickening thud. Her body slid down it, collapsing onto the floor in a heap of black and silver robes. Loriass had seen the look in her pale green eyes. He knew that there was no way she would ever allow the infant lying on the table to survive longer than it would take for her to kill it.

Quickly, before she recovered enough to gather her own magical powers and become a threat, the Highmage of the Tua-latin cast another stasis spell. This time he went slower and wrapped her body tightly from head to toe in coils of power. He tightened the force lines until they froze her crumpled form in place, so tight that he could see where the energy creased the folds in her robes.

Knowing that he didn’t have long before she would work her way out of the spell, he hurriedly stepped over to a rune-inscribed wall cabinet and waved his hand, saying the words needed to release the protective wards.

Several white hot lights flared to life, brilliant flashes that would blind the eyes of the unsuspecting even though they knew his passwords. Then they were gone. Now the magical cabinet that would have killed even him a moment before was safe to open. Loriass pulled on its large doors. Rows of magical items were stored on shelves, hooks and cupboards. They lined both sides of the interior walls in levels higher than the archmage was tall. It was plain to see that the case was a lot larger on the inside than what appeared on the outside. A small walkway appeared between the rows and the High war wizard stepped onto it, only after it was fully formed. To have done otherwise would have acted other defensive spells. He strode purposefully past all of it, paying no attention whatsoever to any of the items, heading instead towards only one particular object.

A large sheathed sword stood at its far end, propped almost carelessly against one wall as if it had just been thrown there, like a piece of trash.

Loriass snatched the sheathed blade up and quickly stepped back out of the cabinet. As his fingers closed around the ancient dragon bone hilt of the creational Talisman sword known as spellbreaker, he immediately felt a tingle of power. Without caring about the consequences, he drew out the long blade in a whistle of steel. Glittering silver runes carved into both sides of the sword flared to life in an eerie luminescent glow.

This was the most powerful artifact of talisman magic ever created. Its hilt and guards were made out of the bones of a guardian dragon, mounted on a blade of pure mythryll that was dwelven forged and crafted on Garn’s own forge. Given power by the planet Tyrus itself. It had been cured in the dwelven blood of the forger who had created it, instead of water or wine. The endstone capping the hilt was a glittering gem of dragonseye, held in place by a magic-wrought filament of gold that enhanced its abilities. The hilt was wrapped in the pebbly scales of the same dragon that had given up its bones.

Spellbreaker was the only weapon that could create purefire, the purest form of creational magic. Purefire rendered all other aspects of magic vulnerable. The magical sword had been designed to both protect its user and shatter spells in order to kill war wizards. Its use was only allowed to one person. Only the Highmage of the Tua-latin was allowed to wield the powerful weapon of destruction.

Casting the sheath aside, Loriass spun the perfectly balanced glittering sword deftly in his hands end over end for a moment. Closing the cabinet behind him with a foot, he went and stood over the crumpled form of Maldrith. Despite the strength of his spell the powerful female war wizard was already starting to move. The Elvynn female had turned her head just enough to face him, had gotten her knees under her and had almost managed to move her hands up in front of her.

Loriass, without a word, raised the glittering glowing blade high over his head just like she had done a few moments earlier with her dagger.

Unlike hers, his blade fell. Arcing through the air, the blazing sword crackling with white hot purefire plunged down into the chest of the female war wizard.

The blade pierced her defensive spells as easily as a hot knife cuts through warm butter and ran completely through her. For a moment there was nothing, then white hot fire erupted out from where the blade had entered. Fiery flames consumed her in an explosion of white hot energy.

The whole event lasted only a few moments and then it was over. Of Maldrith, nothing remained but smoldering black and silver robes. The powerful sword fell clattering out of Loriass’ quivering fingers.

He wished with all of his heart that he hadn’t had to do what he had just done. But he had seen the look in her eyes and knew that there could have been no other way. It didn’t really matter to him that he had killed her, but it did matter that she wouldn’t be around to work with him any longer. She had been the best assistant he had ever had and they had spent years working together and knew each others habits so well that at times you could hardly tell them apart when working. But there was no way that he could let her destroy the fruits of his labor, the human child lying on the table.

Generations of human breeding and design had gone into this one being and he was not going to allow that to happen.

Finally, regaining the strength that the sword that had drawn from him, he moved towards the crying baby lying on the birthing table. Staggering a little, he made his way towards it. As he approached he knew before his eyes even saw it that something was wrong. The newborn wasn’t moving correctly. His eyes fell on what lay there and they went wide, first with disgust then dropped towards the floor with anguish and despair. For all of his years of sacrifice, what lay on the table in front of him was beyond belief. What was even worse, was that both of the parent slaves were dead and there couldn’t be any more children to make up for this one.

What was supposed to be the perfect human slave was nothing more than a worthless mess with a twisted and pitifully deformed leg.

[dustinzgirl]

Now, I like this story. It is a great idea.

I'd like to see more scene setting...are they in a lab? Why is any of this important? Yes, you tell me they put all this work into it, and then thier work got messed up, but why is that important and who is that important too? Show me this, make me care about these war wizards. What do they look like? Do they love to breed, or breed to love? Do they whisper about each other, snicker about each other, and then suddenly the whispers erupt into a battle? Or, is it more open..are they vying for power, prestige, or control?

[hippokrene]

Conflict and action and the hint of more to come. Very good.

[chrispenycate]

I knew I'd already critiqued this; sneaky, changing the user name.
Yes, flows better (and has fewer gramatical errors) than the previous version – keep going.