Rethilon's Story, Part 2

It took my mother, Shar’drissar Kulducet, several months to fully recuperate from her injuries. Without any legitimate clerics to tend to her, her broken fingers were the most difficult problem. Each had been broken in several places and once the swelling in each digit lessened, it had to be re-broken and then set properly. The pain caused by the procedure was anguishing, but, it was necessary to ensure that she would have the use of her hands restored to her. My father took it upon himself to administer to her, a fact that made her brood all the more. No self-respecting githyanki would ever dream of letting a githzerai aid her. Of course, Shar’drissar believed whole-heartedly that her attendant reveled in the pain he caused her. My mother taunted Zilkomer, hoping that she could coax him into killing her, thus putting an end to both her indignity and her suffering. To hear Bushi tell the tale, I am not certain of which was the greater test of my father’s discipline: his torture at the hands of the illithids, or my mother’s constant verbal abuse. Oh, and it did not stop with verbal abuse, either. On a few occasions, Shar’drissar physically attacked Zilkomer, even once drawing blood by biting off the top of his ear. After that attack, my father knew that Shar’drissar was healthy enough to move about, and so he put her to work.

Since he wanted to keep Shar’drissar’s continued existence from the illithids, Zilkomer assigned her to work with the dwarves in the fungi fields. She was tasked with planting and harvesting duties; a chore which aggravated her because it was something she deemed to be far beneath her station. Realizing though, that her options were limited, she decided to make the best of it, while biding her time and hoping for an opportunity to escape. It was during this time that she had the occasion to hear my father speak to the members of his growing faction. She listened, while he outlined the laws to which he and the other allied clan leaders had agreed to put in place. She looked upon the faces of the githzerai, deep dwarves, rock gnomes and others, who viewed Zilkomer with obvious admiration. Slowly, the ideas expressed by this upstart githzerai started to make sense, until one day, she was surprised to realize that not only had she grown to admire him, but, she anxiously awaited the next time that he would address the clan.

As I said, within a few years, the alliances made between the clans grew. The slave society was able to sustain itself. The clans were getting restless, though. My father had now been the mind flayers’ prisoner for twelve years. The time was coming when the slaves would revolt. They could not hope to do so without weapons and without training. Again, Zilkomer turned to the dwarves and gnomes for help. A few of them were craftsmen, While they did not have quality tools at their disposal, they were able to manufacture a crude forge, Metal was even harder to come by. Many of the weapons they created were made of stone. There were small deposits of copper and tin in some of the caverns, which allowed them to smelt bronze, which they in turn, used to craft swords and axes. The troglodyte clan preferred basalt, and took it upon themselves to make crude spears and axes. In time, the clans started to outfit themselves with weapons and those who had lived as warriors before their captivity, began to train their fellow clan members.

It was at this time, that Shar’drissar surprised Zilkomer with an offer to train the githzerai and the other members of the prison clan. She had the background of a fighter and knew how to use a sword, quite well. In truth, while she had every intention of following through with her offer, Shar’drissar was hoping that training sword fighters would also put her in closer proximity to Zilkomer. She had, by this time, become somewhat infatuated with him, Zilkomer wanted to see her in action first, and he made her prove her battle prowess, by entering into an exhibition fight with one of the dwarven warriors. If she won the match, Zilkomer would allow her to train the clan’s units. Zilkomer did not think the githyanki woman stood a chance, but, she proved her worth and bested the dwarven warrior.

Much to her satisfaction, Shar’drissar’s training did indeed have the desired effect, as she found herself in Zilkomer’s company, quite often. The two learned to respect each another, and, despite the differences in their backgrounds, they drew close. My father seemed to have a calming effect on my mother, and, it wasn’t long before they began sharing the same piece of cavern floor when they slept. Shortly thereafter, my mother began showing a bulge in her stomach, and soon, the members of the prison clan knew that a child was on the way. My father was insistent that his child would not be born into bondage. His plans took on a greater sense of urgency, and he pushed the other clan leaders into speeding up the time tables for the prison revolt.

Most of the slaves were eager to go. The biggest challenge they faced was figuring out how to move thousands of prisoners and stage them within the illithid’s stronghold, without being detected. It was imperative that all of the units be in position to attack en masse at the same time in order to overwhelm the mind flayers. There was only one way up or down, and, that was by what the illithids referred to as the cattle car. The cattle car worked on a system of pulleys, which could raise or lower the car the several hundred feet between the illithid’s level and the slave pens below. The car could hold as many as 50 slaves at a time. Usually, the car was raised and lowered six times at the start of a twelve hour shift. It took about thirty minutes to raise the car to the top, with the heavy lifting being performed by slaves on that level. The pulleys made a lot of noise. They key would be silencing the pulleys, and sending full cattle carts up at least 20 times within a 12 hour shift. That would give the rebels the ability to stage about 1300 slaves, and to continue bringing up more after the initial fighting began.

The troglodytes provided the solution to the lubricant that was needed to silence the pulleys. Their bodies secreted a natural slime, which coated their bodies and prevented their skin from drying out. As anyone who has ever been around a troglodyte knows, though, the stench from this secretion can have a nauseating effect. To counter this smell, the deep dwarves supplied a concoction of fermented and dried mushrooms, which, when mixed with the troglodyte slime, completely removed the stench.

Within a few months, real progress was made. The processed slime was stored in vats that had been made from cured animal hides. The dwarves also filled the stomachs of dead animals with the slime and fashioned slime bombs, out of them. Zilkomer was fascinated by the ingenuity of the dwarf.

The final plan was ready. In one week’s time, the slaves would launch their rebellion and either escape, or fail and die trying. In either case, they would be free from the misery inflicted upon them. At this point, I guess I decided that I did not want to sit it out. My mother went into labor and I was born about twenty hours later. My mother wanted to delay the attack for at least two months, and she asked my father to consider it. He knew, though that the other clans would never go for it. They were growing impatient, and now was the time.

The night of their assault finally arrived, and, as the third shift began, the cattle car was busy making extra, yet quiet runs. Hundreds of slaves, with weapons in hand made it to the top and positioned themselves for the attack. My father was one of the first to go, making sure that everyone stuck to the plan. While he made the rounds, he stopped to check on the drow faction. It was then that he learned of the drow’s treachery. The leader of the drow clan; the very first ally that Zilkomer had made, those few years ago, had left his unit and was on the move. He headed towards an illithid guard post and walked right in. My father followed him in the shadows and got close enough to hear the drow conversing with the mind flayers there. The drow clan leader had struck a deal with the illithids. In exchange for her freedom and that of her drow compatriots, she had betrayed the slaves. The mind flayers were in the process of taking up positions to ambush the slaves. They would not begin the killing until the drow all received safe passage out.

Confident in her treachery, the drow leader left the outpost and headed back to get the rest of her kinsfolk. She did not suspect in any way that she was being shadowed. Turning a corner, out of sight from the guard post, she almost ran into my father, who slammed two fingers into her forehead, and stunned her. He than threw an open-handed punch into her sternum which caused her chest to compress in on itself and her heart exploded. He caught her body before it hit the ground and then carried it back to his own people, who waited for him at the cattle car.

Zilkomer explained the drow’s betrayal to those around him. Issuing orders the whole time, he searched around until he found a sharp rock and used it to smash in the top of the drow’s head. He then pulled out her brain and tossed it over the edge of the cattle car. Barking orders to his men to get his wife and son, Zilkomer then headed back to the drow, who were expecting their captain’s return. My father told the drow to be on guard, as it was possible that some of the mind flayers might know about the planned slave rebellion. As proof, he laid the body of the drow captain on the ground and showed them that the illithids had consumed her brain. His deception worked, as the drow now moved out with the intention of attacking the guard post. Zilkomer knew that the illithids guards would not be expecting an attack from the drow, and, this might provide the slaves with a tactical advantage.

Just as Zilkomer had ordered, the slave units from other clans began showing up shortly after the drow departed. If the drow were supposed to have been able to march out of the illithid’s stronghold, then their exit would have had to have been near the guard post, and, if the rest of the slaves could get close to that point, many of them might also be able to escape. The sounds of battle began to echo throughout the cavern. The drow had launched their attack against the unwitting mind flayers.

Thankfully for the slaves, the acoustics provided by natural cavern systems makes it extremely difficult to discern where loud noises originate. As such, the sounds of the ongoing battle seemed to originate from everywhere in every cavern. As the battle raged on, many mind flayers held their own positions. Not being able to pinpoint where the battle was occurring, they pensively waited to ambush slaves who never materialized. The battle itself was being fought in the one location that the mind flayers thought would be free from the fighting.

After what seemed like an eternity to Zilkomer, my mother finally showed up, with me in tow. My father moved us out quickly. We followed many other slaves as they ascended the steep path upwards. There’s no telling how far we traveled, but, I am positive that the githyanki raiders who chose that night to attack the illithids had no idea what was going on. Instead of mind flayers, they found themselves coming face to face with my father and several of his loyal githzerai, armed with bronze swords and stone clubs. Our condition was of no concern to them, but, what was of concern was the fact that we were githzerai, and that is all they needed to know, in order to kill us.

My mother ordered the githyanki to stop. She explained that she outranked them all and that she too, was githyanki. She explained that the illithids might, at any moment, show up on our rear, and that we needed to get away. As she moved to get past the githyanki, they noticed the bundle of rags she carried was actually a baby gith. The troop commander grabbed at me, and that’s when my father yelled, “Leave my son alone!”.

The silence persisted, but a moment, as all githyanki eyes fell on my mother, who in turn cast a saddened look at my father. Acting quickly, she threw me to my father, a split second before a silver githyanki sword burst through her breastbone. Forming a union with a githzerai was considered a crime punishable by death, and, their commander meted out that githyanki justice swiftly. I am fortunate enough to know that my mother’s dying act was enough to save my life, because those githyanki soldiers would have killed me, too,

My father and his githzerai brethren fought for their lives. In fact, the other githzerai put themselves between my father and any githyanki who tried to attack him, and while they fought, they maneuvered in such a way as to provide my father with an escape route. The githzerai killed a fair number of githyanki, but, in the end, the better armored and equipped githyanki won the battle. Well, they would have won, but, before they could give chase to my father, the mind flayers finally showed up. Using their psionic abilities, the mind flayers kept the githyanki from teleporting away, and, I don’t mind telling you that it is my hope that those bastards who deprived me of my mother, got taken prisoner, and put through the same kind of torture that my father went through when he ended up in that hellish place.

Knowing that I would be shunned by githzerai civilization, my father looked up an old friend, Bushi, and asked him to take me in. He promised to look in on me from time-to-time, and, occasionally he does. He’s told me that he is proud of the progress I have made, and, he hopes that I will live up to the promise of my name, which means, “Union of the people.” Who knows. . .maybe some day I will bring the gith back together, I know, I know. . .it’s a lofty goal, but, I can dream can’t I. If my mother could overcome her hatred of the githyanki and even come to love my father, then I don’t think that my hopes are misplaced. Even so, one thing I have to do is live up to the sacrifice my mother made for me.

Strange Bedfellows

“War makes for strange bedfellows.” That expression is normally used metaphorically, but, in the case of my parents, it turned out to be quite literal. I was not there to see it, of course. What I know comes from Bushi, the master of my dojo, and my mentor.

About thirty years ago, my father, Zilkomer, led a githzerai hunting party on a foray onto the underdark. Their sole purpose was to find and kill illithids in numbers that equaled or exceeded their own. Meeting a fair amount of success at first, Zilkomer suggested that they go to greater depths than had been tried before. The honor, should they be victorious, would have been great, indeed, not to mention the fact that they might have garnered a great amount of much needed intelligence.

Fortune, being fickle as it is, turned against my father’s group, for the early successes they had enjoyed turned out to be the calculated means by which the mind flayers lured the hunting party into a trap. Without notice, my father and his friends found themselves surrounded by a hoard of illithids and their master brain, which prevented the brave githzerai from using their own powers to plane shift away. All, but one of the party members were slaughtered: their brains devoured on the spot.
The lone survivor, my father, was captured, imprisoned and tortured. Over the course of years, the mind flayers sliced into every layer of his brain, painstakingly scouring it for knowledge they hoped to use against the githzerai race. His survival alone was testament to his phenomenal will. Eventually, the illithids came to the conclusion that they had broken him. Always in need of thralls, they decided to turn him into a slave. What better way to feed their own psychosis, then to prolong the suffering they would inflict upon him?

Outfitted with a dimensional shackle, Zilkomer was tossed into the slave pens with the rest of the thralls. “Slave pens” was a phrase that was not quite accurate. Yes, there were slaves numbering in the thousands, but, there were no structures, or quarters for them to occupy. The multitudes inhabited a tremendously large cavern, where they fought one another constantly, over food, water and even for a small piece of ground on which to lay their heads. Most of the slaves organized themselves by race, in order to improve their chances for survival. For those who tried to go it alone, death was usually swift. Those unfortunates who were cast out of their clans were usually cannibalized by their former friends.

Fate did not have this end in mind for Zilkomer. The few githzerai that there were in the pens were aligned with the deep dwarves, rock gnomes and some of the other minor races, making the faction one of the largest.

My father’s servitude continued for years and during that time, he came to quietly realize that the illithid’s arrogance would always be their weakness. Zilkomer eventually earned a significant amount of respect from his people and he was able to attain a minor rank within the hierarchy of his prison clan. The problem, as he saw it, was that as long as the slaves warred with one another, they could never dream of the day when they exploit that weakness and secure their freedom. In fact, most of the slaves had resigned themselves to the idea that they could subsist in the pens until the day they died. The faction leaders in fact, seemed happy with the situation, since they were usually afforded a higher standard of living.

Things did begin to change though, when, one day, another new thrall was consigned to the slave pens. Her face battered, her fingers broken and her tongue swollen to such an extent that she could not talk; it would have been easy to mistake her for another githzerai. The tattered remains of her clothing gave away her true nature though; githyanki, sworn enemy of the githzerai. Several members of my father’s clan instinctively moved in to snuff out what little life remained in the woman. Sensing what was about to happen, Zilkomer placed himself in between the mob and its intended victim. He used the occasion to plead for the woman’s life, citing the teachings of Zerthimon, and vowing to take responsibility for her should she cause the githzerai any trouble. The bloodthirsty members of the clan took pause, but, only for a moment. As they advanced again, Zilkomer cried out, explaining that anyone who tried to hurt the githyanki, would first have to go through him. With this pronouncement, the mob hesitated, but, the clan leader, Karsigol, stepped past the ring of would-be assailants and chastised Zilkomer, ordering him to step away. My father refused. His defiance was a direct challenged to Karsigol: one that would have to be settled on the spot. Now, the crowd moved to encircle both Zilkomer and Karsigol.

Karsigol had been the clan leader of the Githzerai for fifteen years. As clan leader, he was better fed than the rest, and, he was able to choose his own work assignments. Numerous githzerai had withered away, while Karsigol had maintained his strength. Those, whom Karsigol feared might offer a challenge, were always put in charge of teams that were sent out to fight other clans. They seldom came back alive, which was a convenience that Zilkomer suspected was a system contrived by all of the clan leaders, in order to hold on to their privileged positions. This time, however, there was no avoiding the challenge.

Years of training, in the monastery of Zuoken, was a huge advantage to Zilkomer. The disciplines he had mastered in his early years had all been put to use during his long imprisonment. Of perhaps even greater advantage to the soft spoken Zilkomer was the fact that no one but himself was aware of his abilities. Karsigol was the larger of the two combatants, and, he apparently had concluded that this advantage was enough to win the day, because he made the first move. Charging in with both of his hands held high, Karsigol reached in to grab Zilkomer by the neck and strangle him. As he clenched his fingers to grasp his adversary’s neck, they enclosed around nothing but air. Zilkomer had fallen to his backside and kicked a foot into Karsigol’s abdomen, using the force of his momentum to send Karsigol flying up and over. The force of the kick knocked the wind out of the clan leader and he struggled to get to his feet. As he stood, he felt the force of another kick to the back of his leg, which drove his knee into the rocky ground, shattering his kneecap. Zilkomer showed no mercy to the howling Karsigol. He quickly grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back, extending his neck for the killing blow. Summoning his ki, Zilkomer’s hand flashed out from his waist, and in one fluid motion, grabbed Karsogol’s adam’s apple and tore it out from his neck. Karsigol looked up at the face of his conqueror in horror, unable to speak, as the blood splurted-out from his carotid artery and the air gushed from his windpipe. Zilkomer let go of his grip and the gurgling Karsigol dropped, face first, onto the cavern floor.

“Is this what you want!? Is this how you hope to live out the rest of your days, serving at the whim of the hated illithid?” The crowd of Githzerai stood in awe, hesitating to answer for fear of being perceived as a challenger to Zilkomer’s newly ascended position. My father continued, “I know of another way! My way requires courage!: the courage to forget about the perceived slights of the past from the members of the other clans!: the courage to trust the members of the other races! We have a common enemy, and, that enemy uses our mistrust of one another to keep us too weak to fight them! Our enemy uses our despair against us, so that we might not consider a better future for ourselves! For far too long, WE have been our own worst enemy! We have made it easy for the mind flayers! Surely, they laugh at us! Look at how little they respect or fear us! Tell me, when is the last time a mind flayer entered the pens? That’s right. . .NEVER! They have relied on the clan bosses to send up the appropriate number of slaves and workers. They’ve relied on us to kill one another and cannibalize our numbers so much, that I would wager that they have no idea how many of us there are. They have gotten to the point where they simply trust that the work will kill us or we will kill ourselves. I suspect that they have made deals with the clan bosses to make sure that we are tamed!”

The githzerai and deep dwarves that stood around now all started to grunt in agreement. His words were making sense. Kicking the lifeless body at his feet, Zilkomer continued, “Look at the fat on these bones! How do you suppose that in this place, with nothing but the maggot-filled scraps that we get, Karsigol was able to get so bloated? Take a look at the other clan bosses! Do they all look frail and weak to you? Why do you think that every time Karsigol had us run raids against other clans, it was always to kill their underbosses, AND, they were seldom protected? Why do you suppose that the other clans always seemed to know our defenses when they raided us to kill our members?”
At this point, the crowd was energized, realizing the truth of Zilkomer’s words.

“But, how do you think we can change it?”, came the question.

Knowing that he now had command of their loyalty, my father ordered that the githyanki woman’s wounds be tended and that she be hidden from the rest of the clans. As far as anyone should know, the githzerai killed her and ate the flesh from her bones. This was to be the way we handled any knew slaves that came to the pens. All would be welcomed into our clan, but, their fate would be hidden from the mind flayers. They would never know how many of us there were.

As it turns out, Zilkomer’s suspicions about the clan leaders was proven immediately. As the githzerai began to prepare Karsogil’s body for dinner, they stripped off his clothes and found a note in his pocket from one of the other clan leaders. The leader of the drow clan wanted the githzerai faction to send a raid to assassinate the drow second-in-command in two day’s time. My father led the raid, but, he did not kill anyone. Instead, he showed the letter to the intended victim and explained how things had been apparently working in the slave pens for hundreds of years. Later that day, the drow faction had a new leader, and the githzerai had a new alliance.

Over the course of the next two years, faction after faction in the slave pens received new leadership, but, the illithids were kept entirely in the dark. All of the factions continued to operate under the guise that their former leaders were still alive. Communications with the illithids were seldom, but, they were always done via letter, for the slave masters would never deign to come down to the pens. This gave the slave society the chance to establish a set of laws.

My father’s plan progressed in other ways as well. With all the new slaves, materials and tools were fashioned, which allowed the industrious dwarves to tunnel on their own, and, eventually, they found a series of connected caverns, with fresh water, mushrooms and game prey. The dwarves knew how to domestic and raise livestock, as well as to cultivate the fungal vegetation for consumption. In another few years, the slaves were able to sustain themselves. It must have been a site to behold.
I would be remiss at this point, were I not to mention my mother. As I am sure you have probably guessed, the githyanki woman my father saved was my mother, but, it was not all pleasantries between the two of them, let me tell you.

to be continued. . .