The Illuminati War: Complete

By Rodger Carr

Finally! An INTELLIGENT epic fantasy series, that challenges the mind of the reader as much as it does the norms of the society of Carrona.
Rodger Carr has a bachelor's degree in Philosophy as well as English/Writing Arts, and he manages to use both degrees to excellent effectiveness in an expansive work that spans the history and breadth of a new fantasy world. The Illuminati War is as much about the philosophy of these outcast elves and their enigmatic leader as it is slaying goblins and dragons. Learn along with the young and impressionable Da'Vi'el as he witnesses his mistress and lover, Rai'dley, rise in power against the magical elite. The only thing as strong as her desire is her will, and she is determined that nothing will stand in her way.
The Illuminati War is an extensive, epic tale - a trilogy of its own, and then some! All this only serves as the prequel to Rodger's other trilogy, Reunion. Come share the magic, the wonder, and the depth that is The Illuminati War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rodger Carr
• Release date: Mar 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458046659

Rodger Carr

Rodger has BA degrees in English/Writing Arts and Philosophy from SUNY Oswego and a MST in Primary Education from SUNY Potsdam. He is a substitute teacher in three area school districts. He has been writing all his life, and getting e-published is a dream come true. He is currently working on Rebirth, the third book in the epic Reunion Trilogy on his own fantasy world of Carrona. He lives in Watertown, NY with his fiance, Jeannette Baughman and their three cats: Muffy, Shadow, and Sassy.

Book preview

Prelude

When Gods Love

In the beginning, there was The One. He was all there was and He was all powerful, but He was lonely. And so out of the Nothingness He created the world; but the world was barren and lifeless. So He created plants to beautify it. It was filled with beautiful greens and clear blue water, but The One was still lonely. So to enjoy His world He created animals of all types and shapes. But while they were unique and interesting, they offered no company. So The One created from these animals, humans. These were intelligent creatures that eventually came to know The One as The Father. They gave The One much pleasure, and the humans prospered.

However, The One knew that the humans were not like Him. They died quickly and could share none of His joy in creation. He still had no companion, so He created Yondalla, a goddess. He shared with her his power of creation, and she formed the halflings. These were like the humans, only smaller. The One was pleased.

It was not long, from a god's point of view, before The One and Yondalla got together and reproduced. They created other gods. Each in turn offered different races upon the world. First came Jordon who spawned the winged-folk; followed by Moradin, father of the dwarves. Next came Garl Glittergold and his gnomes, followed finally by Corellon Larethian, the beholder of the elves.

These gods created others, and the gods and goddesses empowered the alignments and specialized classes of warriors, clerics, mages, and thieves for their creations.

Kram and Sero Riema gave birth to the Gods of the Seasons: Darth, Silvi, Hero, and Fawna. They in turn developed an attraction for one another; Darth wanting Silvi, Silvi lusting Hero, who longed for Fawna, who in turn wanted no one but Darth. Their love affair never resolved, they were cursed to chase each other around the world, spreading their own season across the land with their passing.

Moradin of the dwarves combined with Raka Stern of life and light and had twins which they named Clanggedin and Damathin. These two started fighting over control of the dwarves, so Moradin split the dwarven race in two, the metal dwarves and the stone dwarves. He gave Clanggedin control of the metal dwarves, and Damathin dominion over the stone dwarves. These two divisions would never be united again.

In an unusual solo venture, Iroc, the god of chaos, developed the Lords of Mischief – demi-gods to do his bidding on the world. These four sprite-like beings, named Inky, Blinky, Winky and Nod, travel as their whims direct them, across the world doing acts of mischief, causing what trouble they can. In this small way, chaos would always exist on Thear.

Not all pairings of the gods produced good things. When Irot, the god of evil and hatred, found Mya, the goddess of truth, there was no talking her way out of the confrontation. He raped her and created inside her a being that was capable of bending the truth and influencing others to carry out her most wicked and twisted of schemes. Lolth's only desire was to warp the will of others, to twist their desires into her own, and use the unsuspecting to further her own ambitions. Of this, no good could come.

Finally, Mya found Irot, god of hatred, who hated what his brother, Iroc had done to her. Together they formed Aeri, the goddess of the sea.

Thinking that it was enough, and no longer lonely, The One recalled all the reproducing abilities of the gods and goddesses. The only new addition to the gods than those represented, would be the Sword Master. He was an extremely high level, human fighter who was granted ascension to demi-god for his works on the world.

Together these gods and goddesses live in a place called the God Realm, except for the long forgotten Lolth, who is imprisoned in the center of the world, never able to breach its surface.

Philosophers have argued over the ages about what the gods may look like. Some would have them take humanoid form, as the ideals of the races they represent. Some argued that they have no corporeal form - that they exist only as forms of energy. Some have denied any specific form whatsoever, and say the gods exist not as anything, but rather as a part of everything – that their energy is infused in all other things. Yet, as they are apt to do, these gods were always personified with thoughts and emotions akin to their humanoid believers. There was never a doubt in anyone’s minds that the gods, in whatever form they may be, were as subject to the whims of their emotions as their fallible mortal children. So whether the gods created the mortals, or in their desperation and need, the mortals created the gods in their imaginations, one was undoubtedly created in the image of the other.

Love is a powerful force, and it has been said that When gods love, worlds are changed. And so it is believed that when Veste, God of Law and Justice, lost his heart to Aria, Goddess of Life and Love, the world of Thear would never be the same.

So Veste loved Aria, and as one often does, he wanted to show his love in the form of a gift. But what should he give the Goddess of Love to demonstrate his affections? It occurred to him that he could create a unique gift, something as unique and powerful as his love. He pulled upon the four elements of fire, wind, water and stone, and formed from the elements themselves, a beautiful, flawless ball of crystal. And in this perfection, he imbued his powers of life creation, as is the province of all gods. This sphere was a constant source of life-giving energy, and a constant reminder of the love that created it. It was the perfect gift for the Goddess of Life and Love.

The crystal ball was clear in color, but if one looked at it just right, one might just notice a glint of a flash of light, a gleam that gave one the sense that this was more than just an inanimate object. The power that it contained could scarcely be held within its perfectly spherical shape. The orb was as wide across as a man’s arm is long, and had the heft of a stone of equal size. Its smooth surface was flawless, and it distorted light oddly – dispersing it in an unusually wide pattern. For all that could be said, the orb was beautiful to all that gazed upon it.

When Veste presented his gift to Aria, she fell in love with him as much as she loved the sphere. Her heart swooned when she saw the inner glow, and it skipped a fluttering beat when the lights danced and flashed inside in response to her touch. She felt the virile strength emanating from within and flushed as that life force washed over her. That day the realms of Veste and Aria moved closer together. Aria proudly displayed the crystal sphere and mooned over it whenever her love could not be with her.

But not all gods are ruled by love and justice. In the balance of the universe, there are gods that govern the negative as well. Iroc is the God of Jealousy, and when he saw the interest that Aria had for Veste, he was jealous as only the god of jealousy could be. When Aria rejected his advances in favor of the self-righteous Veste, Iroc grabbed the crystal sphere and threw it with all his might into the mortal realm, cursing it as the Orb of the Righteous.

An artifact, that is the physical proof of the gods found in the mortal realm, is an extremely rare thing. Their powers are often so great that they tend to destroy entire worlds they may come into contact with. Unconcerned with the mortal realm, the gods did not bother to witness when the Orb of the Righteous met the world of Thear, and there was no way for the mortals of the world to understand its significance.

Intelligent life was just starting to advance nicely on the world of Thear. The races were wide spread and warred rarely. Resources were bountiful enough to serve each in their own kind. The first humans hunted game and vested their interest toward the hunt to feed their fledgling race. The halflings were gatherers, picking their lives from the bounty of plants that seemed to grow wild just for their use. Dwarves found life in the deepest, darkest caves welcoming. Their short, sturdy stature made them ideal miners who made early advances in stone and metal work. Gnomes, with their lighter physiques, found that they had a knack for the delicate work of prying gems from the rock, which they traded to the other races for the things they needed.

Then there were the elves. With their life spans of thousands of years, they were both blessed and cursed. They found their longevity gave them the time and patience to hone their skills to perfection so that whatever an elf did, it would be exquisite. But once they achieved that ideal, reached the pinnacle of a field, they often found themselves faced with many centuries left to fill. And so it was inevitable that the elves developed insatiable curiosity about the world around them and all that it had to offer. Eventually, many developed the wander-lust – the need to explore and discover new things to challenge and excite them.

And so it was when the flaming fireball streaked across the sky and disappeared over the horizon, only to be followed by a brilliant flash and a thunderous explosion that erupted the air and drew the breath from all that witnessed it, that it became the life-quest of Ca’Rona to seek out what new thing the universe had given the curious elf.

Unseen by the elves, and all the mortals on Thear, the Orb of the Righteous made a spectacular landing in the vast open ocean. It was this alone that enabled the planet to survive the impact, for instead of an impossibly large crater blasting dirt and melted rock into the air, a great deal of the energy was absorbed by the cold ocean water and sent skyward in the form of a steam cloud which dissipated harmlessly in the air above.

But the power of Iroc’s hatred and jealousy is not to be taken so lightly. For even though it found miles of water to plunge into, the anger was not yet exhausted. The impossibly smooth surface of the Orb sliced through the turbulent ocean currents and slammed into the rocky seabed below. While the force of the impact created a towering, circular wave of a tsunami, which created tidal waves of 200 foot or more, the Orb was still thrust deep under the crust of the mortal world.

Lost below the ocean depths, the Orb was a splinter under the skin of Thear. There it festered and swelled, for it had tapped into the life force of the planet itself. The Orb penetrated so deeply that it ruptured into a chamber of magma, and loosed the thermal dynamic forces onto the surface. From this undersea rupture, lava poured out like blood from a gushing wound. As the lava hit the cold ocean water, it was cooled back into solid stone, adding a new layer onto the surface. More lava flowed out and built up layer upon layer until an island was formed in the middle of the ocean where there never was before. The orb brought a life of its own to the open wound, so that the life force of lava flowed freer than natural, and the island grew at an alarming rate. What would have been ages of normal development happened in weeks. This island grew and grew as an endless supply of lava spewed from the unhealing wound. The volcano climbed ever skyward, spreading its belching lava farther and farther.

Some of this lava actually passed by the Orb that still sat underground, lost in the ebb and flow of currents of the lava floes. The Orb was tossed and turned, pushed and shoved by masses of molten rock that streamed to the surface – and all the while its power radiated out. This power was so strong it imbued its life-giving properties to whatever lava it came into contact with. This lava landed Plop! here or there around the newly formed island, with concentrations landing in a couple of random valleys. As this life-inducing lava cooled, wherever it landed, life began. It began as small, single-celled organisms that had to fight to adapt and survive in the newly created world. While much of it died, still others evolved and grew in its place. Soon the entire new continent was covered in a layer of life.

It was about this time that the weight of the new continent became so great along the northeastern shore that the land cracked and shifted under itself. It quaked and ruptured further until a long, single rift heaved up and crashed down upon itself. When this great quake happened it crushed the open lava tubes that ran underneath the shelf and stemmed the flow of lava to the surface once and for all, or else the wound of the Orb would never have healed. Finally the eruptions stopped and the surface cooled to form solid stone once more. When all was said and done, an entire continent had been added to the face of Thear, a scar that would change the small world forever.

Enhanced by the powers of the Orb, life evolved swiftly on this new world. It went through all the usual phases of evolution one would expect, developing simple plants first, and eventually animal life that multiplied in complexity with the splitting of cells, but at an astonishing rate. What would normally take eons took place in mere decades.

The ocean waters, forever parted around the new land, rained down on it adding water to the minerals vital for growth. A lake formed in the empty crater of the volcano, and rivers flowed over its banks and ran to the sea. Mosses and ferns replaced algae and lichens. Their roots burrowed into the stone and crumbled it to soil rich in nutrients that invited grasses and then woody brush. Brush evolved into sturdy trees and forests took hold across the land. The plants sheltered and nourished the animals that evolved to crawl out of the waterways and onto the land. Fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to mammals, mammals to birds. Soon the newly formed land teemed with all manner of life; all types except one – humanoids.

Though this in itself can not be said to be accurate, for in the areas of higher concentrations of the Orb’s life-giving lava, higher life forms did evolve. Walled in with the steep cliffs of towering mountains all around, a small valley emerged. It was fed by the many springs of fresh water flowing from the mountains, and it developed green and lush. Warm temperatures favored almost tropical growth of towering trees that grew with every era until they seemed to rival the mountain peaks in height. Among their huge trunks, nestled in their protective roots, sylvan life formed from the nature itself. Fairies, pixies, unicorns, and all manner of creatures flourished in their protected valley. But they found, the most curious of them all, that life outside their sacred valley was not so kind. In the harsher world around, away from the special powers that fostered them, they soon withered and died, if not first killed by the brutish beasts found there. For the sylvan-folk, life would limit them to their own, small world.

In another part of this strange land a river, later to be named The Gore River, ran from the crater lake to the sea. Where river met the shore, a large swampy delta formed in a brackish backwater, the river always fighting its way to the sea. Before dropping off into the ocean deep, the mouth of the river was blessed with some of the Orb-imbued lava as well. Here, aquatic life flourished, and evolution favored an amphibian race of lizards. They developed limbs to form a humanoid race of lizard-men that thrived in these life-giving waters.

But as the sylvan creatures were limited to their glen, so too were the lizard-men limited to their unique swamp. They had developed in the brackish water, a special blend of fresh and salt water where the river currents met the ocean tides. Too far up river and the water became too fresh, and too far out to sea and the salinity became too strong. But there were plenty of fish in the sea, and the lizard-men lived well in their limited domain.

All across this new land, resources abounded. Game of all type grew among tall stretches of virgin timbers. Gems and minerals, loosed from the bowels of Thear by its violent, volcanic history, awaited just below the surface. It was an ideal garden just waiting for the arrival of destiny – a destiny intricately linked to the artifact hidden away below the surface. The Orb of the Righteous lay hidden and forgotten, but it would have a role yet to play, as involved in this land’s future as it was with its creation.

Eventually the elf Ca’Rona did discover this land, and it was named Carrona in his honor. While he never found that strange glowing ball of light, he accepted it as a sign that he was to follow, and accepted his destiny and fortune of discovering this new land. Of course in the centuries that followed, more and more people came to Carrona to find a new life here. They explored the land and settled it, mined it, drained its once abundant natural resources, and made it theirs. It was only inevitable that the newest residents would eventually stumble upon Carrona’s greatest secret.

Lolth's powers were so strong and so destructive, that the other gods, even her own parents, recognized the danger. They were left with few options. Obviously she could not be trusted to be left to her own devices, so these devices needed to be taken from her. Unwanted in the God Realm, there was nowhere safe for her to be on the mortal world. Stripped of her powers and her followers, she was cast forth to the center of Thear, buried under miles and miles of stone. Here, they hoped, she would be lost and forgotten. Without the strength and support of faithful, they hoped she would simply die away.

But Lolth was too strong for that – her evil too indomitable, her hatred too great. Denied of everything, she denied death. Buried beneath the entire world in her tomb among the stone, Lolth found something. It wasn't much, small and insignificant, but it was a being none-the-less. As limited as it was, that being had life – a spirit that could be controlled – dominated. So, scratching among the stony cracks and crevices was the first of Lolth's unwilling victims. With what divine power she had left, she called out to that being and made it a friend. In time she would prove herself useful – so useful that the creature depended on her for its existence – so dependent that it would recognize her for what she was and should be – a goddess. And with that recognition would come reverence, and praise, and love, and faith – and she would feed on this and grow once more. This creature, and all those like it, would be her faithful, and she would reign once more. There would be no denying her.

It was lost and had wandered away from the rest of its kind. Crawling through those cracks and crevices, looking for its next meal, little did the spider know of Lolth's plans for him. But as he looked, as he hoped, as he prayed for food, he himself fell prey to her twisted schemes. Near starvation, the spider prayed, in its limited way, to find food. Lolth was more than happy to provide it, and when the spider gorged itself on the feast presented to it, and it thanked and praised Lolth for the gift, Lolth was more than happy to accept it. The mana only added to her strength.

When the spider managed to return to its own kind, it told the tale of its miraculous meal in its time of greatest need, and told of the glory of Lolth. From here, these other spiders joined in their faith of Lolth and, and from there, all spiders of the deep and desolate, deserted and dirty, dark underground came to look upon Lolth as a goddess – their goddess. Their praise and their faith made Lolth all the stronger. She would not be denied.

As her power grew, so too did her sphere of influence. The individual spiders were small, fragile things, but their strength was in their numbers. As her influence grew, she drew in supporters from an ever-larger range. What started with one lonely, desperate spider spread to a dozen, to a hundred, to a thousand, to millions of little servants, loyal and faithful to the will of Lolth, eager to do her bidding.

And she bid that they make sacrifices.

Personal, self-sacrifice was appreciated in the zeal, but it was a terrible waste of faithful followers. The ultimate goal was to enlarge the ranks of followers, so the use of sacrifice became a tool. Once the spiders were all indoctrinated, they turned against other creatures they found in the Underdeep. All were given the choice to either serve Lolth as a slave, or be sacrificed for her honor. Either way they would serve to strengthen the Dark Goddess.

Slaves were used to gather food for the faithful, and to enlarge the physical realm of Lolth. Bit by bit they used whatever resources they had at their disposal to dig and create a temple to Lolth. Through forced labor, they pushed and dragged debris away and cleared and dug new passages. Rooms off passages were created to house the worshipers. Food was disbursed from community sources, and all were plentiful.

The greatest space of all was cleared for a sanctuary, a central meeting place large enough to house all of Lolth's growing throng. In the center of this great meeting place was the altar for all to enjoy the experience of sacrifices made for the glory of Lolth.

This was the land of the denizens, and they knew well the resources available, but to further the cause of Lolth even more, exploring bands were sent out in all directions to scout the area thoroughly. An inventory of what was there was taken and considered, and Lolth would guide them to gather what resources she desired. The most precious of things were brought back for the highest ranked among her designated clergy, as the faith evolved and grew into a religion. All the Underworld, the world below the world, would come to worship Lolth.

And then there were the armies. Gathered under clever generals who best understood strategy in combat, the skills and talents of all the different creatures were combined into a formidable fighting force well capable of defending the new territories of Lolth's realm. Wherever the scouting parties reported other creatures, they became resources to fuel Lolth’s expansionist efforts. Armies were sent out to find these creatures to incorporate them into the ways of Lolth.

Her techniques were ruthless, her ambitions unlimited. Despite the stony imprisonment dictated by the other gods, Lolth did more than survive – she prospered. While the rest of the gods went on without her, while the mortal world turned above her, she waited. The time of her revenge upon the other gods would come, she knew. Until then, she waited patiently in the deep Underdark like a spider in a web.

Chapter 1

The Test

In the southern reaches of Carrona, the elves established a large city in the coniferous forest by the name of Midkemia. Hidden away from the rest of the growing land, the lush forest held the secrets of the elven city under darkened foliage, and the magic they celebrated.

Among the long-lived elves, perhaps no skill was more celebrated than the pursuit of magic. Its demands in physical and mental energies and broad field meant that few ever raised to the level of master. In a world where the elves had what seemed like an eternity to master anything, magic remained one of the few challenges for them. In fact, in Midkemia, temples to Hardric Nekin, god of magic, numbered more than Corellon, the god of elves.

The elves understood the power of magic, and the need to control its use. In Midkemia, they established the High Council – an elite group of mages to serve as Magocracy. With their intelligence, they were considered the best form of government to take care of the needs of this special population. From their Tower of Magika, the High Council ruled all of Midkemia and directed the use of magic. It was a position of honor, power, and privilege, and highly sought after among the mage elite.

And so it was among the forest where the canopy of foliage rose above the towers, that elves came to practice and worship magic. And it was here, that, for the very few that were chosen, they came to take The Test. Passing the test meant an esteemed seat on the High Council. Failure meant only death.

"Aaaah! Rai’dley let out a primal scream of frustration. What kind of test is this?" She screamed at the madness, but the madness refused to answer.

She pushed with every fiber of her being to ward off the incessant prickling of raw magic against her skin. It pricked, pinched and prodded every inch of her, numbing whatever senses she might have left. It was so tasteless, soundless, and smell-less that it was palpable of its own accord.

She could see nothing, even extending her enhanced elven-given vision to its full spectrum. The frustration turned to horror when she looked down to where she presumed her own body to be – and could see nothing. She held what she believed to be her hand in front of where her face always was, and even though it was only a few inches away; she still could not see it. She blinked in the way she always had, and still not sensing the difference with her eyes open or closed, had to consider if perhaps she had been made blind. Is this intolerable nothingness all that the blind see? Had they taken her sight away from her?

Aaaah! She screamed again, her fury boiling hard, roiling with her fear. It was then that she realized that sight was not all that was missing. Her desperate cries did not echo off of anything – in fact they made no sound beyond her own thoughts. Was it her voice that had been stripped away? She moved her hands to clap in the darkness before her, but felt no impact, heard no slap of flesh. Only the endless prickling of magic answered her. She couldn’t tell if her efforts produced any sounds, couldn’t be sure she even succeeded in clapping her hands! What kind of place was this?

It was then that she realized something too horrible to even be considered before: It wasn’t that she couldn’t see – there was simply nothing out there for her to see.

Rai’dley could have so very easily given herself over to the terror, the helplessness, the fear. But she was a disciplined disciple of magic, her mind trained and hardened against the emotions and whims that so often dominated the masses of the lesser minded. The words of her master, DaSun’Re, tumbled into her memory: Where there is nothing else, there is discipline. Was this the moment, the place, her master had cryptically referred to? For all that Rai’dley could tell, there was literally nothing else here.

It was through that unrelenting discipline that Rai’dley calmed herself, held on to her sanity, and refused to give in to the hopelessness. She suddenly realized that all that her cruel master had done, for all those years, prepared her for this moment – this Test. She convinced herself that she would not only survive, but would also pass The Test. To fail The Test was to dissipate into the nothingness. There were no other acceptable alternatives.

The last she remembered, she was at the Tower of Magika in Midkemia. She had fought to go there, passed countless other tests just to prove that she was ready for The Test. Her entire lifetime was spent preparing for The Test, and now she realized that it had to be enough. It was all she had.

Even though an entire lifetime was everything she had, all that she was, she understood now that it was not much to take against The Test. Rai’dley was the youngest student ever to be allowed to take The Test, and she understood now why the High Council had resisted her desires so strongly. She had been so proud, so arrogant, so convinced of her magical abilities. Had she insisted too much? Perhaps the Council simply tired of her persistence and had agreed to give her The Test just to be rid of her. It would have been easy to give her what she wanted, put her here, just to let her very being be swallowed into the nothingness. She would simply be another that had gone in to face The Test, never to be seen again.

No one would miss her. It was not pity, but rather a cold statement of fact. DaSun’Re had reminded her so many times. DaSun'Re was more than a mentor to her. When her parents left the babe abandoned, it was DaSun'Re who found her, brought her before the Council, and sought to adopt her as his own. Since then she felt a responsibility to prove herself a true prodigy, to be worthy of the master's charity.

At the same time there was the hatred and hostility that burned within her always. For every achievement she made, there was a demonic shadow that told her that it wasn't enough – it would never be enough – to make her parents want her. It burned charcoal-black in her heart to know that there was something inherently wrong with her, a deficit she could not ever hope to fill.

In a jealousy of what might have been, the very sight of happy families made her choke on acrid bile. Little girls playing gleefully with their fathers only mocked the demanding existence that Rai’dley had known.

Most people that had cared to watch with sickening curiosity as DaSun’Re raised the girl decided that he had claimed the urchin, not out of compassion, but merely because he longed for a slave. From the earliest age he demanded much of her, either to perfect her studies or to tend to his home. Whenever Rai’dley would inevitably fail to live up to his impossibly perfecting standards, he made no secret of beating the child mercilessly. He ridiculed everything she did, every thought she had, and he did it openly and publicly just so everyone would know just how stupid and worthless she had turned out.

Yet DaSun’Re was clearly one of the greatest Masters of the Arts Magika the world had ever known. The breadth and depth of his talents knew no bounds, and there was none that would question his intellect, and thus his wisdom in raising a child so. Who was anyone to question DaSun’Re – least of all Rai’dley herself, who gained benefit of his closest council – who owed her very life and so much more to the demanding tyrant?

So after so many years of being turned down for The Test, she knew it was DaSun’Re himself that had advised the Council against it and held her from what she fought to earn. Where others saw this as just one more way of the cruel master to retain his slave yet longer, Rai’dley knew it was because she truly wasn't ready. There was something missing still. By this reasoning, the fact that she was now allowed meant she must be ready. And yet even now, lost in the midst of her revelry, she could not see what the change was over the past year since she last asked for The Test that would make her any more ready now. She questioned herself, doubting. Was there anything, or had her tired old master simply, finally, gotten bored with his toy? Had he decided to get rid of her, discarding her as some old useless rag – just as her parents had done?

But whether it was the Council's desire to get rid of her annoyance, or DaSun'Re’s wishes to be gone with her by throwing her into The Test, then they had made a serious lapse in judgment. For even though the magical portal she had so trustingly leapt through stripped away everything she had and everything she knew, stripped away her very sense and sanity, she still had one thing around her – magic!

Rai’dley recognized the numbing tingling sensation as that of raw magical energy. She had felt that tingle of nervous electrical energy playing on her skin many times, usually before the thunderous release of one of DaSun'Re’s fireballs or limb-wracking lightning bolts. That tingling was naked, raw magical energy; and it was the only thing that Rai’dley needed.

The fear was gone. The anger was gone. All that was left was the discipline. From that discipline she pulled upon her will to shape and mold the flow of magical energy around her and through her. From this raw energy alone, she would craft an entire world around her. This was her world – a world of her choosing, of her control.

Soon she had regained a physical body – just as delicate and shapely as it ever was. It was her identity, who she was, and she would not let anyone take that from her. She looked down at the new body and saw that it was good. Pleased with herself, she started to think – what else did she need? She dressed herself in the finest robes she could imagine – the likes of which she could never afford.

From the magic around her, she conjured food to feed her magical body, though she wasn't sure if it needed food. Still, she conjured up every food she had always dreamt of eating – exotic seafood from distant lands that she had only heard of, prime cuts of beef and meat, succulent fruits and vegetables that may or may not even be in season. She laid it all out on a table she conjured in front of her, sat on a conjured throne, and gorged herself on the conjured feast. If they thought they had imprisoned her, she would be held like a queen.

Once she was stuffed and too lethargic to any longer move to get more food, she thought a moment. She conjured up slaves to tend to her every need. They made up a conjured bed with the finest linens she could think of, and piled cozily with the softest of furs. Once she was settled down with all the comforts she could imagine, she allowed herself to drift off in a welcome sleep.

In her sleep, Rai’dley dreamed. She dreamt of a whole world of blue skies, open plains, fantastic mountains, and lush foliage. Even as she dreamed, her mind worked to pull together the strands of magic around her and weave them into the world of her will. When she awoke, she found herself and her minions in a castle hidden away among the clouds on a mountain peak. Looking around with a satisfied grin, she realized she had all she could ever hope for.

Rai’dley’s dreams were not just of physical, material things. Her understanding of magic was increased many fold, as the ideas of using her will to bend magic into what ever she wanted, to use it to do whatever she wanted, came clear. The lines between her imagination, the magic around her, and even the physical world she created, blended and melded until they blurred into oblivion. Her world, her will, and the magic to do what she wanted, all became one. As she became master of her will, and the magic around her, she became a true master of the world.

But elves such as Rai’dley don't accept mastery well. As soon as she realized her level of mastery over all there was, she was ready yet to discover what else was possible. She was the master of what is, could she be the master of what was?

Rai’dley reached out with her mind into the endless pool of magic around her and changed the weave of her thoughts and thus changed the world itself. As the magic flooded through her mind, it flooded through the land. When she saw birds start to fly backwards and animals start to walk backwards, she realized that it was time itself that had reversed course.

Even time itself was now within her control.

It was frighteningly easy how it all worked. Somehow the secrets of the semantic and verbal incantations just came to her as if by instinct. But it was more than just the mindless knowing how to cast the spells. She developed an understanding of why these things had to be done and how they worked in combination to pull together the tangible strings of magic to change the world. There was a recognizable pattern, and from this understanding of the patterns, anything was possible.

She thrilled with the rush of flying, not through space but through time. (She found there were only subtle differences.) The world rushed below her as time itself sped up in reverse. She grew used to the blinding flashes of seeing entire days pass by in the blink of an eye and she thirsted for more. Faster and faster she pushed, and the world spun in response. Days blinking by became months as the moon above spun in a blur of an orbit. Soon the seasons passed in brilliant flashes alternating the lush green summers and dazzling white winter’s snow. Faster and faster, she tested to find there was no limit – no boundaries. Years, decades, centuries, millennia, eons, and ages all passed by as seconds, as mere thoughts not worth considering.

Then it all came to a sudden, crashing stop. The world below was gone, blinking out of existence to the nothingness of empty space. For the world of Thear, she realized, she had reached the end of the ride. The beginning of time. With hands moving in an intricate dance, her voice chanting a careful song, she manipulated the threads of magic before her as an artist playing an instrument. Every sound and nuance of the song came from her mind, no note played without will – discipline supreme.

Time stopped on her command, and crawled forward. It playedg to her tempo, her desires. She moved forward until the world reappeared, reversed, and played forward again, rocking time back and forth watching as the world was created and not, over and over again in a sickening, queasy way. It came so easily that the awe of the moment lost significance. Time flicked back and forth so easily, the creation of the world played out so simply, it was a mockery that was barely worth noting.

A faithful student, Rai’dley understood that many things could be learned from history, and she now had an opportunity to witness history as it happened. She could go anywhere, and see anyone, at any time.

Given her personal history, one might assume to see Rai’dley racing forward to see her parents, to relive the moments of her infancy, or perhaps to look in at the long and illustrious history of her master, DaSun'Re, but Rai’dley had either forgotten about these possibilities, or, more likely, had grown beyond them. Thoughts of these personal things never occurred to her. With the whole world laid out before her, it was as a giant toy. The last thing she could think of was her own, limited life.

So with a keen interest, she watched intently at the world below and noticed something immediately. In this primal version of Thear, there was no Carrona; nothing but empty, endless ocean where the island continent should be. Hm, Rai’dley noticed with such astonishment that it brought a verbal sound to her lips. She had never considered that Carrona was not there at the creation of the rest of the world – no one could imagine it.

She watched with renewed interest as she played time forward to witness the birth of her land. That is when she first saw it. Blazing across the primeval sky, plunging into the ocean, ending its smoky flight. She rewound a bit and stopped time altogether. She pulled on the strings of magic to float next to the birth seed of Carrona. It was a beautiful, crystal orb – not even a rock fragment or a chunk of ice. She watched with utter fascination as this perfectly spherical orb struck. She watched as the volcano was created, as it grew into the island and kept growing into an entire continent.

She watched the birth of life spring forth from the enchanted lava, and knew that this – whatever it was that created not only the land of Carrona, but gave birth to the native life on it – was truly something special; something beyond magic. Something powerful. She knew that whoever could harness the power of this crystal orb would rule the world.

This experiment of hers in the Realm of Magic was not likely to last forever, she realized. This was, after all, The Test. She knew her access to this world that she had created was limited only in the amount of time she was allowed to play here. Had she completed The Test? Passed it? She was still alive and living better than she ever thought she might. She didn't really know what the objective of The Test was, so she didn't know if she had met it or if they would pull her out if she failed to work toward it – whatever it was!

Knowledge of this orb would be useful for when this Test was over. She knew what she saw before her to be real – that this orb must exist. That being the case, she wondered where it might be today, and what powers it still might have. Rai’dley watched the orb like an impatient mother hen. She watched as millennium passed with the orb thrust down so far underground, the world above passed without notice. She grew more frustrated and more impatient as time flew by. As time came to the present, she was furious. For no one had come close to the orb, locked so far beneath the surface.

She knew that once The Test was up, and she was pulled out of this place, it would be much more difficult to locate and unearth the orb so she could use it for herself. There had to be some way to get that orb.

The orb sat directly under an imposing, rugged mountain that most people tended to avoid. History played itself out time and time again before her as she thought. She watched the area around the orb for some surface event that she could use to her advantage. She needed a tool. Then, she saw it.

In 1647, nearly 2,000 years ago, a large band of gnomes passed over the very spot where the orb sat. Gnomes never were an appreciated race, especially by the elves who found them slow witted, but they could be industrious and they did mine well. All she had to do was to get them to dig in the right place.

There was nothing remarkable about their passing. The gnomes had left the elven coastal city of Seagate where most of the immigrants from the Old World landed as they arrived in Carrona, and were searching for a place of their own. It was almost in desperation that Rai’dley reached out with her voice to the gnomish leader.

Her knowledge of the gnomish language was rudimentary, but she knew enough to communicate what she needed. Rai’dley never liked to act rashly, and desperation never suited her. It was for this reason that she would always look back on this act as more intuition rather than desperation. Whether intuition or desperation, the simple act had a profound effect. She spoke but a single gnomish word: Home.

Chapter 2

Thraxton Mines

Thraxton Gnomeleader felt like anything but a leader. He was not a king, for this band of hearty gnomes had left the gnomish kingdom of Farhole in the Old World to find a new life in Carrona. Even then, he wasn't the leader of this rebellion, either. Tourmaline Newstriker had led that revolt. Tourmaline had taken them as far as the boat ride to Carrona before he died quite suddenly. No one knew for sure if it really was a sudden illness as the crew of the ship had claimed, or whether he had met a fouler end, but Thraxton’s rise to power came as a sudden surprise when a popular vote elected him to the position. Thraxton knew his election had more to do with a fear of another foul end for the new gnomish leader than it did in any real confidence that Thraxton was the best choice.

Thraxton’s confidence in his leadership ability had been tested repeatedly – constantly it seemed. While there were no more untoward incidents on the ship that brought them to Carrona, the reception in the elven city of Seagate was not much warmer. The city found itself the depository of all the immigrants that poured into Carrona, highly touted as the land of opportunity in the Old World. While the elves had by far the only safe and fast ships that could transport people to Carrona, at exorbitant prices, the elves had no love of other races.

When the elves found their new city inundated with a flood of foreigners, they made it their business to fleece them of all the money and goods they could before sending them out of