Should one follow vengeance or virtue? I wonder if the two are as different as you think? No, do not cast my words out as the bitter speech of a chattel, nor should you cast them out because they come from blackened lips. It is true that the author of this piece is a dark elf, but it is not true that we are inherently an evil people. It is our betrayed and unfortunate culture that turns us this way. But fear not! My Toranite saviors kept me from this grotesque fate—my Toranite enslavers. Do not cast this book aside. I assure you that I have no motive in writing it, except to record it as my own personal history. Everything you are about to read is true. I have no reason to lie in a book. I merely want to record my existence as a part of history, a brutal history that it seems now the Toranites would like to forget as much as I would, casting out the Justicers. But I cannot allow them to forget. No, they cannot be allowed to receive a clean slate while the memory of what happened to me still lives. This is my story.
I was born five years before the second coming of one Sinthar Bloodstone, in 1336 by the common calendar, or so a caretaker in my clan told me when we were in fetters together. My birth was one marked to be difficult, as soon afterward, a political war broke out between two noble families in my birth city. The family my clan was associated with lost, and was destroyed, mostly assassinated by others of our race. I am sure you cannot imagine such a race that would destroy its own brothers and sisters for mere political gain and power, or could you?
My parents, I was told, were destroyed. The only reason I survived was because my young age made me useful. I could be raised to be a servant—an intermediary between the winning family’s Dark Elves and their surface-slaves. Reader be aware that the average Dark Elf does not even see you as sentient, and know that I, the writer, do not believe this. If I did, why would I bother writing this at all?
It should be said that despite my usefulness, I was not quite old enough to manage even the lightest chores. Thinking back, I feel ashamed, because working has been so ingrained on my person. I am a hard worker. Anyway, the dark elves appointed me my caretaker, a servant in my house who was too old to pose any real threat to them. Oh, how lowly a state I was in, my servant now my superior, the being that assured my life.
He was the one who taught me Dark Elven. After all, a servant who could not take orders and do them correctly is useless. And so I began doing menial chores for various clans related to the noble family. I did not even want to exact revenge on my enslavers. How the Prince of Hate must have cursed me in the heavens for this! Even though I was beaten often, ruining my skin—the pride of our people—I could not feel the hatred of vengeance for my enslavers who allowed me to live. Hatred of their work and whips, sure, but not for vengeance, for it was not my place. I served in this way for fifty years. Though it is a small span for my race, it was not easy.
I learned much in this time. How to hide, move without a sound, steal, and pick locks. Do not judge me for knowing these unsavory skills! When you have felt the chain’s biting grip at your wrists. When you have been whipped for being too noticeably attractive at dinner parties and blamed for detracting from your master’s looks. When you have been beaten for stepping too loudly and interrupting The Silent Tongue, then you can judge me for the content of my knowledge.
Yet, readers, vengeance did come, or was it justice? One night, while a clan related to the noble family was raiding the surface, hunting the surface races like you may hunt deer or foxes, a small group of Toranites found them and slaughtered the lot. My caretaker was killed as well, being too old to look innocent, yet I found myself saved again by extreme youth. Hindsight tells me that they felt combat with me would be dishonorable, as I was a non-threat. Even embittered by my culture, I wondered if I was saved.
This would not be the case, of course. Instead of being slaughtered on the spot, the Toranites brought me to trial. Now, that I have lived with surface laws I wish I could have known the things that were said of me in that trial, but they are lost, for at the time I knew not the common tongue. It was clear what my punishment was, though. Hard labor. In short, I merely became a slave to another people—people who were not Dark Elves. Where before I was an intermediary of sorts, now I was the lowest of the low.
You might ask here, how? How did these Toranites, champions of justice, allow such an event to pass? Read carefully because the answer is important. At the time, the Toranite faith was not what it is today. No. For when there is great light in the world, this just casts deeper shadows. For the Toranites, these were the Justicers, great and terrible. They did not believe they worked through the law, but that they were the law. Thus, the trial that they gave me was their own trial, controlled wholly by them, and not in the least fair. After all, should the accused not understand the nature of his crime? Should he not, at least, know what it is his accusers are saying? I believe he does. Still, one should note that what was done to me was not actually illegal, which, perhaps, is the greatest crime of all.
My new masters were not so high as the Justicers, but they were sympathetic towards their beliefs, or perhaps just envious of their power. It is hard to tell with only the power of hindsight. Nonetheless, my sentence was clear. I was sent to a farm in Mistone to work off my mysterious sentence.
I was shipped from Hurm to Leringard. Oh, reader, how I regret not jumping off that ship, you will never know. Yes, I behaved, but I wanted to live. I had seen my new captors kill Dark Elves without hesitation, and I was sure I would die if I drowned or protested. How many hours, days, or weeks I spent crossing that sea, I will never be sure. My age is but estimation.
The first months in the fields were the hardest. My captors made me work in the sun when I was used to the darkness of the Deep. I tired quickly and was beaten often. Despite being a hard worker, I simply did not know what my captors wanted, which also put me under the whip more times than I would like to recount.
When I did know my work, however, I worked harder than any other farmhand, which earned my master’s eye. He adopted the wisdom of The Great Leader and decided a slave that can communicate is better than none at all. The hypocrisy of it all was overwhelming—to be treated like an animal, and taught to speak at the same time. It was more than one should have to bear, but do not take pity on me, reader, for I would be given a voice.
I would be given a voice by a local cleric of Toran. Every Wedlar it was, under the shade of a tree, a cleric, pink and good-natured, trying to teach us common and the Quartos Toranis. I remember one speech in particular to this day:
Today, we’re going to talk about Sacrifice for you must “Be ready to give of yourself in time, in labor, and if Toran wills it, in life’s blood.” There are so many ways one can sacrifice. Some of His faith give away their money and possessions. For you, this is not a problem, for you have no money and no possessions, so you must serve in another way. You must lend assistance, a strong back. Remember that there are large sacrifices and small ones. Your master must sacrifice his food, his space, to keep you all healthy. As such, you repay him in the only way you can. With your labor.
“Be ready to give of yourself in time, in labor, and if Toran wills it, in life’s blood,” he repeated it again, as we hooted and hollered. What did he know of sacrifice? Still, the master’s plan worked. I learned common.
Many years passed. Too many to count. Though a few events stand out.
The cleric stopped coming a few years after he started. There were also fewer guards around now that I think back, but at the time no one noticed because we were broken into routine. Some workers died mysteriously, but that was nothing new. We just thought they were victims of the master’s temper. Or, some rumored, his appetite.
Then came the dust. It ruined the master. It ruined us all. Many died, whether it was from starvation or dust inhalation. Had I not been so accustomed to a life of survival I, too, would have perished. These were the worst years by far.
Our master died. In his old age, the debris was just too much for him, the stress of losing everything he—we—worked for, too great. His son took over. He was ruthless—scared of losing his land to uppity slaves, no doubt. He beat us frequently. Reminded us with every lash where our place was. In that respect, he was an artist, carving and molding out of our very bodies.
This is, perhaps, where I was luckiest. Dark Elf pride, though hardly belonging to me, still seemed there. I could yes the new master to death, work hard, and still keep myself in tact. That was when it happened, the shift that would lead to my escape. It is marked in history as the Justicers being removed from the church. My master’s family fell from grace. He could no longer entertain, nor could he afford to keep his slaves with his crops consistently ruined. Security was loose, and I planned my escape.
One night, for night is still when I feel the most at home on the surface, when master was sitting for his evening meal, I snuck in. It was hard with the house’s old floorboards, every creak resounding a thousand times between my pulsing temples, but I managed to creep up the stairs to his bedchamber. I stole so much, though not as much as he stole from me, just enough to travel and not be burned alive. I knew that if I ran now, the master could not afford to hunt me too far. I knew then, that I had to go. Just go. Not anywhere in particular, or for any end. Just go. Freedom.
I ran. Do not judge me. You would have too. I ran and listened and used what I stole to buy information. Fort Vehl was the place to be. There was a Rofirein Sanctuary, but there was also a lot of need for hard workers. The debris gave me motive to travel, and a reason for bundling up in scarves—breathing too much of it was deadly.
One day on my travels, the sun came out. A day like any other for me, except hotter, but it was a turn I didn’t recognize.
I found Vehl abuzz in activity. There was work for me. My particular talents left me well suited to the kind of work required in the city: locksmithing, panhandling, pickpocketing, and labor. Always labor. The Dark Ages were over. The scarves no longer needed. I just was.
Free.
Free of Vengeance. What is there to avenge? I am here, my family long gone, my age left in the passage between Hurm and Leringard. I am a Dark Elf, that is certain, but I am not, perhaps, Dark Elven.
The Quartos Toranis. Valor. I stand before you, exposed, a Dark Elf against overwhelming stereotypes. “Sometimes, it is to stand for something in the face of ridicule.” Empathy. “Every person is unique in the eyes of the Great Leader”. Read this as every man, in the Quartos, but know that I see it truly as every person and do not judge you, reader. Conviction is born of trial. This life, these years, have been one great trial. Though, perhaps I have had no trial at all. That is to say, I have never appeared in the courts for the harms done me. Humility. I have had my share. Slavery is the ultimate lesson in humility. The whip taught me it most every day. Sacrifice. Do not even talk to me of Sacrifice. “Honorable combat, when it comes, begins with valor and ends with restraint.” In this case, I have suffered far too much honorable combat for my restraint was long. Yes. Restraint. Perhaps I know restraint best of all.
*Aunlyn stops writing here and closes the book. It is titled, Accounts of a Slave-Life: A Victim’s Story to Vengeance and Virtue.*
