ZU’DECKXI

“Did you procure what I asked for?” the wizard snapped.

            “Yes my master, however there was one complication,” the goblin said.

            “What complications?” the wizard snapped.

            “Five of your servants were killed when they captured the female half-orc and she was severely injured though the rest were able to stabilize her. The male half-dragon took ten of us,” the goblin reported.

            “Do you know who I am?” the wizard asked danger and menace evident in his voice like the hissing of a snake about to strike.

            The goblin hesitated for a moment and then spoke, “You are the Great Wizard Xiquay, the bringer of life and death,” he intoned bowing to his master.

            “Yes, and I have no time to hear of the failing of my servants,” the wizard intoned with callused menace, “they died replace them and do not bother me with news such as this again.” He ordered.

“Now remove the reproductive organs of the half-orc and half-dragon and ready them for the surgery also drain the elf and dwarf of their blood; I trust they have been prevented from committing suicide?” he asked that tone of menace still in his voice.

            “Yes, my master we have kept them sedated. I shall see to it that the operation is prepared immediately,” the goblin said bowing again. It was always best to be humble around the mad wizard.

            “See that you do. Make sure that I am not disturbed until the experiment is ready to begin. Oh, and sedate the owl-bear, best to do that now no telling how long it will take for it to go through that whole body’s system,” Xiquay said and then turned away his silk black robes brushing against the ground with the sound like that of a snake slithering over grass.

            “Yes, my master,” the goblin said and went to complete his master’s orders. The half-orc and half-dragon were slain and dissected their bodies cast into the pit. The elf and dwarf were hung from the ceiling and their blood drained. The goblin wondered at the ingenuity of his master, to create a warrior with the strength of five races a monstrosity to be sure but a wonder and great demonstration of his master’s power. Another goblin approached him, Gep was his name.

            “The owl-bear has been sedated and the experiment is ready,” he said.

            “Excellent go tell the master he will want to begin immediately,” Het said.

            The wizard strode into the room and motioned for the goblins to begin the long-rehearsed procedure. They cut open the stomach of the owl bear not to kill it but to prepare it for implantation. They took an egg from the womb of the female half-orc. They took the sperm from the male half-dragon and placed them in a gold chalice as instructed as their master chanted the spell he had created the power filling the chalice breathing life into his creation. Geb and the goblin leader Het simultaneously took a silver pitcher for Geb and gold pitcher for Het; the silver pitcher filled with dwarven blood the gold with elven.

            They poured the blood over the rapidly forming embryo the blood steamed as the wizard took from the blood the very magic in it and filled the embryo with it; without it the embryo would never become a child the sterility of half-orcs and half-dragons would result in nothing but with the power of his magic his experiment would grow into something never seen before and of which nothing was known. The blood of orc, dragon, human, elf and dwarf would flow through its veins giving it greater strength and resilience. The wizard continued his chant his hands drawing the wards and spells and the goblins picked up chalice carefully and placed the embryo in the womb of the owl-bear.

            They would deny the creature the nurturing of a mother raised by a beast it would become an unintelligent beast to be tamed and used for his masters will. To be studied and used to protect the wizard. A goblin woman stitched up the owl-bear and the wizard ended his chant.

            “Put the beast back in the pit and let me know when it has given birth make sure it does not kill the creature when it is born.” The wizard ordered.

            And so many months passed and the wizards experiment grew in the owl bear. When it was born and the goblin who looked at it wondered at is appearance. It was already almost as big as the goblin with blackish red scaly skin small sharp pointy ears it suckled from the owl-bear which watched the goblin waiting to rip it to shreds if it approached its hatchling-cub. The goblin ran and told Gab who informed the wizard who was taking his daily bath.

            Xiquay finished his bath dressed and came to the edge of the pit and looked at his creation. It certainly looks like a beast, he thought, if it can be tamed and isn’t too smart for its own good it could be most valuable. Aloud he said, “take it out of the pit in a month and put it in a cage so that I can examine it more closely,” he ordered and left. A month passed in which the experiment grew and wrestled with its mother which tolerated it as all carnivorous mothers do with patience while waiting for the cub to tire itself out.

            When its mother was sedated the experiment fought the goblins who entered the pit with its short nails that were filed like claws, he was chained and dragged out of the pit and into a cage to await the master. But the experiment was not content to be a tamed beast he was cunning and resourceful and picked the lock with bone by trial and error remembering the goblins sticking something in the hole to make it open. A goblin sweeping the room saw him and tried to chase him back into the cage, but he lunged like an owl-bear would slashing with his nails and biting with his teeth until the screams of the goblin brought others to its rescue. They chained him again and put him back in the cage. The wizard came and found him again picking the lock.

            “A most intelligent creature and wild far to wild, throw it back into the pit when it is older and can withstand more pain you will have to beat it into submission even the most ferocious beast will cow once it understands pain,” Xiquay ordered.

            “Is this creature not better dead master?” Het inquired.

            “The effort to create it would be entirely wasted and do not call it creature any creation of mine no matter how flawed, reflects my brilliance no matter how broken a reflection, call it Zu’deckxi, in the tongue of the ancient orcs it means he who was born a beast a fitting name for it,” he said with smug self-importance at naming his creation or reflection of his genius. “Don’t throw any more humanoid corpses in the pit I've heard cannibalism has all sorts of nasty side effects and I don’t want the subject damaged.” The mad-wizard said as an after-thought.

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NESCAR

            Nescar played in the dirt on the mountain side his family on a picnic. The sun was warm he hadn’t felt it very much it wasn’t sunny underground in the dwarf city. He dug in the dirt with his spade dirt was very different from stone he liked stone he could get it to do things for him. He didn’t tell his parents, he was afraid it was evil, and he remembered in the stories that the manifestations destroyed evil and what if his parents told the manifestations? He didn’t want to be destroyed but it felt so good to make the stones float into the air or break with a word it had happened first by accident but now if he concentrated very hard he could do it on purpose. Nescar furrowed his brow and thought very hard about the stone floating and said the word, and then stone wobbled and rose into the air.

            “Nescar!” he heard his mother gasp.

            The stone dropped to the ground and Nescar froze, now they knew, and the manifestations would come and destroy him. What would it feel like to be destroyed? He knew it was liking dyeing but worse. Would it hurt? he wondered.

            “Nescar can you do that again?” his mother asked bending down near him.

            “Am I going to be destroyed?” Nescar asked.

            “What?” his mother asked thrown by her son’s train of thought.

            “I thought maybe it was evil and the manifestations would come and destroy me or smite me,” Nescar said, he liked the word smite it was like destroyed but knights and warriors could also smite things.

            “No son you’re not going to be destroyed,” his mother said comfortingly, “can you do that again?” his mother asked.

            Nescar thought very hard about making the rock float and it wobbled and rose back into the air for ten seconds before falling back to the ground. “I can’t do it for very long,” Nescar said.

            “It’s amazing you can do it all,” his mother muttered to herself and thought a self-taught wizard and without even a spell! “How long have you been able to do this?” she asked her son.

            “Oh, a long time,” Nescar answered smiling, “ever since my name day when father gave me that green rock I was playing with it and made it float all the way to the ceiling,” he said.

            “Four months,” his mother whispered, “Come with me we will speak with your father,” she said, and they went to where his father was fishing in a stream.

We’ll talk to your father turned mostly into the two of them huddled together whispering saying things like “are you sure” and “yes, we must” and asking him the occasional question as he proudly held his father’s fishing line.

“Nescar your father and I have decided to send you to the temple of Torin of the Earth-breaker fists,” she said.

“Where is that? Are we going on another picnic?” Nescar asked.

His mother sighed, and a sad look came to her eyes, “No son we will take you there, but you will stay on your own. Your father and I cannot teach you how to use magic and letting it go untrained is dangerous,” she said, “We will visit you of course and you will be permitted to return home at certain times of the year but for the most part you will stay and study there,” she informed her son.

Nescar and his parents went to the temple the next week. They stood in a line of dwarfs as the clerics and priests ushered people around giving them

where the priests tested Nescar for magical ability and then admitted him as an acolyte. He was given a room with five other boys one other dwarf one elf and three humans. His lessons were interesting and Nescar soon learned many languages long forgotten except to scholars and the books they were written in. As his knowledge grew so did his understanding and maturity and he took great steps towards his final assignment which would end his training.

QUEY

            Quey was born in small goblin shack with only the midwife there to witness his birth. No star shone in the sky for him no comet raced across the skies heralding destiny in fact it was very unlikely that he would become anything more than a servant for the tribe. His mother was at the very bottom of the social hierarchy of the goblin tribe and Quey’s father a nondescript goblin warrior had died when a band of adventurers had attacked them. And so, another goblin child slipped into the world with almost no one being the wiser. Quey was very unusual and his tribe a small isolated band of goblins had never seen and did not know what this meant, and they treated him in the way they treated all different than them; as a slave.

His mother wrapped him in a blanket and fastened him in a basket on her back. It was her duty to clean the goblin warrior’s dishes and the work would not stop for her to raiser her son. Quey watched the world behind his mother’s back with the curiosity of an alien arriving on a new world.

“What will become of you my son?” his mother wondered aloud. “Will you become a servant of the tribe to be kicked around or will you become a cruel warrior and die in battle?”

These words entered Quey’s mind and even at as an infant he understood her meaning and he found he liked neither option as both didn’t seem to end well. I want to be something different, he thought, someone who is important his eyes, his bright, intelligent, yellow eyes were also different than the dull eyes of his kin and they promised a fate different for him than the rest of his tribe; but who knew? After all what is the life a goblin worth? What destiny could one of them possibly have?

VALSA

            “Valsa how often must we tell you the Northside of the library is forbidden to non-wizards,” the head librarian snapped.

            “Well I assume if you counted all the times before that you’ve told and added this one to it you would arrive at the precise number of times you’ve told me,” Valsa said facetiously.

            The head librarian ground his teeth in anger. Valsa never listened to orders from him, or anyone for that matter. A talented psion she delighted in ignoring any superior’s orders or instructions and doing precisely as she planned to do. This made many of the rulers and council members of the city despise her and the younger psion acolytes and wizards almost secretly worship her.

            “Do you wish me to summon the guard to drag you out of here?” he asked venom in his voice. In truth, he wanted nothing more than to do just that and have her thrown out of the library into the streets.

            “Oh, don’t be so dramatic Garret,” Valsa said.

            “Don’t speak in such a familiar tone with me, Valsa, we are not friends, I am High Librarian to you,” Garret snapped.

            “Sure, sure Garret,” Valsa said using her naturally prickly nature to unsettle Garret it was one of the few things outside her studies that she delighted in doing. Valsa was not known for her conversational prowess unless it was lecturing others on what she was studying. “Any way I have permission to study here,” she snapped back at him suddenly growing tired of the exchange as she slipped past him her head barely level with his waste.

            “And pray tell who besides me has the power to grant you entrance?” Garret snarled his nostrils flaring in anger.

            “The city magistrate, take it up with him,” Valsa said going back to her book and scribbling in her large notebook dismissing Garret with her body language.

            “One-day Valsa this city will realize what a danger you are, and you’ll find yourself without the protection of those like the magistrate,” Garret said spinning on his heel and leaving the gnome woman behind him oblivious to the fact he had even spoken.