Flashback - T'o Malnin
By Matthew Siadak [Author Info]
Tonight was the night, he had decided this so long ago. He had worked with his sister through a deal forced by blackmail. He had caught her killing a slave through the vilest torture the young drow female could manage, which eventually ended in the male slave's death. His sister had a great temper with a short fuse and if she were upset in the slightest way she would lash out and snap. Their Matron had lost many male slaves to Tareslaeyn's sadistic and angry ways, and had thus forbid the rages the century old drow girl was infamous for. For the males, though they were lesser than the females, were hard to come by because the drow clan was not entirely rich and struggled to compete with others.
And so the Matron promised, if Tareslaeyn caused one more death among her valuable slaves, the girl would be given for a week to the rowdy lizard mounts during the beasts' mating season. This was the threat, that of telling the Matron, that T'o had held over his sister's head, for he had witnessed both the torturing and murdering of the slave. As she gave him what he desired over time, she knew that he was up to something but he managed to keep her clueless as to what his plans were. Since that day, he had occasionally asked for small magical trinkets and she brought them to him as he wished. She usually either snatched them from the school of magic in which she studied or stole them from the Matron -- and once in a while she pull coins from her own purse to buy what he wanted.
For nearly two decades after the night he began to blackmail her, he gathered these items bit by bit and made subtle uses of them, building them into his master plan. This night, that of which he decided would be the peak of his plan, she brought to him the last trinket for his piece of art. He had the ring she stolen in his hands now, and slipped it onto one of his fingers, grinning just a bit. He waited patiently for the time of when the Matron would start this night's ritual of praying to the Goddess. He stood on a small cliff overhanging the House, and a grin split his face in twain when he heard the chanting of his Matron and the others start. The look on his face was quite dark and deadly; it would've frightened the Spider Goddess herself, had she been there.
As the chanters worked to reach the height of their praying, his hand moved up to grasp an amulet at his neck. His eyes closed as he concentrated and a row of torches near his feet, taken from a raid on the surface elves, flared into life with flames and disappeared from their resting-places. Mere seconds later the grin on his face was widened as the sounds of the chanting turned from prayers into sudden, frantic screams. Like all dark elves, the drow in the compound were sensitive to light and the sudden flares blinded them, causing much pain. He activated the ring his sister Tareslaeyn had delivered that night, keeping his eyes closed and standing quite still.
A moment before he had stood on a cliff above the compound. Now, he simultaneously stood upon the rock and within the chaotic throng of drow who having been blinded by the torches were in a frenzy from the flames. Two drow sisters were on fire and the magically enhanced torches could not be put out by water or stamping. To the Matron, who just sat on her meager throne whimpering and barking out orders, T'o appeared a silhouette of darkness against the bright lights, but by his stance alone she knew who he was.
"T'o! You worthless little lizard, how dare you! Cut out this nonsense now and my wrath will be easy and your death quick." The Matron's voice was tinged with pain and hesitance, for she knew what a viscous spider her son T'o could be. She perceived her fated death and the downfall of her clan at the hands of a slave revolt against T'o's leadership. She had never shown T'o mercy in all the times she tortured him when he was younger, and had only given him more pain as he grew older. She knew that any drow was considered a threat, even in one's own clan, but this drow's vengeance went beyond mere danger.
"Oh but my dear mother, should I truly show mercy upon your withered hide? Benevolence was never shown to me, so I do not know how to show it properly to you. Fare thee well, mother, and give the Goddess my regards."
On the cliff, his lips moved but the words he spoke came from his body in silence yet echoed throughout the prayer hall, even above those screams that now spread as more of the inhabitants were caught by the flames.
Having said his due, T'o used one last magical item to unleash a massive web of power. The item, a small red gem, was linked to over fifty other magical devices, some strong and some weak, placed strategically throughout the House. With the gem he united all the items together. This great magic had almost gone unnoticed by the Matron. When the elder drow had questioned her children, T'o forced Tareslaeyn to lie and say that she was only bolstering the defenses of the house. This story was accepted, for the Matron had brought up the fact that the compound needed work at a previous meeting, and the anomaly was soon forgotten. Now, though, those magic items intricately joined with each other and surged with pure and raw magical power. This force raced through each item, gathering the power it had to offer, and made its way to the scepter held by the Matron herself, a gift T'o had brought her from a surface raid. The scepter's power was to amplify greatly any magical forces put into it, and as the magic from all the other items emptied into it, the Underworld city shook on its foundations.
The scepter lashed out with a blast of pure energy and the Matron, who was now bashing at flaming drow with the scepter lest she be caught aflame as well, was disintegrated by the blast, as were those closest to her. The power rebounded off the very fibers of the compound itself, for all drow structures were magically created, and those who were lucky to survive the blast were crushed by an avalanche of rock from above. The House was no more, and T'o finally knew freedom, though he was not alone in that feeling. For all her help, the drow had shown mercy, and had let his sister Tareslaeyn live.
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Copyright © 1999 by Matthew Siadak. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v.04 1998 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/).
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