Once, King.

I did know, though, at the end, I swore a vow. I promised to take no wife, and know no lover until the day I died. I meant it, with all my heart.

"And with that oath, the hag's bargain was fulfilled. Perhaps with me willing to accept a wife, there was the possibility of finding a Royal cousin and siring children of the pure blood, of which I had none, only half-Royals. But with my vow, no such chance remained.

"The blade shattered in a shower of light at my words, and the light scattered to the corners of the earth."

The tale of the King's wife touches me, and his thin voice when he speaks of her beauty makes me tremble. But by the gleam in his eyes, I see he has much more to say.

"My child, I near the most closely guarded secrets of my soul. Thou do not have to stay and listen."

"My liege, whatever you have to say, I am willing to hear."

"Several years after my wife's death, my scouts from the human lands brought back grave news. A monster, the likes of which had never been seen in the world, had appeared near the countryside and was raiding the outlying settlements, slaughtering and looting.

"They called themselves Orcs.

"They bred quickly, and had formed a massive army in the years after my wife's death. This army, they pointed like an arrow at the heart of my realm.

"Once more, I called the Elves to war, singing of past battles. We met the Orcs on the same field that I had once met the Dreadlords, and we bled and died just as we had then. Elven blood ran nearly as thickly as Orcish blood that summer day, and the ground was slick with it.

"As the sun fell, I had no way of knowing which army had prevailed. But late in the night, a stream of Orcs slithered away from the field. The day was won.

"The Orcs took up residence between our kingdom and the humans, and kept to themselves in matters of war. They fought amongst themselves, and sometimes raided our caravans holding war supplies to the humans. For hundreds of years this continued.

"At about that time, politics in our realm boiled with emotion, and many nobles took up the flag of peace. They wanted our military to cease its own attacks on the main Orcish settlements unless they posed a great danger.

"The caravan raids were not very harmful to us, so I agreed."

The King does not speak more. Instead, he sits trembling. Sweat runs down his bony face, and I can see the beginnings of a tear on his cheek. His eyes bulge, gazing at some unseen specter.

"My liege?"

He quivers, and more beads of sweat drop. "Please, I can not tell thou more, it would mean thy soul, and thy loyalty to me."

What can he mean? Is his secret this deep? What could be more heinous in his mind than the creation of that foul race?

"My liege, I do not wish to hear, but my heart tells me I must."

"For over a thousand years, until just this century, we existed at an uneasy truce with the Orcs. But a hundred years ago, the Orcs began to grow once more. The raids increased, and soon no caravan master was willing to venture forth from the Elven realms.

"In all of our years of manipulating the humans for profit, perhaps the Elven people never noticed how much of our riches came from that race."