****Rights disclaimer in chapter one
CHAPTER 18
Shadow Weaver was no fool.
She knew better than to trust Skeletor to aid her in getting Damas off Eternia. She also knew that if she didn't play her cards right and quickly, it wouldn't matter if she took him back to Etheria because her master would kill the young man without a second thought.
And there would be nothing she would be able to do to stop him, either. Her loyalty to the Horde ran deep. But her loyalty to Hordak ran much deeper.
She had surprised herself by being shocked when she was referred to as "Lightspinner" again. It had been years since anyone had referred to her by her birth name.
Born on Etheria, she had inherited her magic from her father, Norwyn: a skilled wizard who had many students. None of which excelled in the magical arts as she did.
Well, there was maybe one student who could have been just as great, but Weaver had taken care of her in a way that almost guaranteed she would never get the chance to upstage her.
You see, while her father had taught her the beauty of magic and the wonder of good in her life, her mother had taught her that when you want something, you had to take it because no one ever really gave anything from the goodness of their hearts.
Lightspinner was often told by her mother that it was a good thing she was beautiful, with long raven black hair, sparkling green eyes and a firm, supple yet porcelain skinned body.
"You're going to have to make it on your looks child," she had been told. "Because no one is every going to respect you for your mind."
When her father died at the hands of her drunken wench of a mother, Lightspinner decided it was time to find her own life. At that time, she believed she would not find what she was looking for on Etheria.
With the help of one of her father's most ancient and secret spells, she opened a portal to another world and vowed on her father's grave and her own blood never to set foot on Etheria again.
The spell transported her to Eternia, a small planet whose people and cultures were not so different from Etheria's. But unlike her home planet, this place was war torn as battles raged in almost every town and village.
It was there that she met Hordak. In the grand scheme of things, it was an uneventful meeting. He led an assault on a village where she had found work and shelter as a tavern maid. At first, she was happy with her independence and found that with the proper spell, the customers were very gracious with their coin pouches.
But it was not long before she grew tired of that life. She yearned for adventure and power. She wanted to make things happen and for people to respect, and more importantly, fear her.
When the Horde attacked, she-along with everyone else in the town-was captured. While most of the villagers, including women and children, were executed right away, she managed to convince Hordak that she could be of use to him, if he would allow her to be.
Putting it mildly, he found more than her magic useful on many occasions. And every time, Lightspinner's soul darkened. She was a willing participant in all of his escapades, whether they were destroying a village and killing its people, strategy planning or the "victory celebrations" where it was usually just she and Hordak doing the "celebrating."
She took pleasure in all of it. As long as she was with Hordak, she was feared. As long as she stayed loyal to him, she had power.
It was like her mother had taught her and she was putting it to good use. After a period of time, the part of her that was her father died completely and she surrendered herself wholly to darkness.
Skeletor was a bane in her existence with the Horde, however. At the time of the great Horde war, he still had a face and was called "Keldor." The ambitious little twit was a good wizard too and did whatever he could to upstage Lightspinner.
She knew early on she would need to dispose of him before Hordak decided only one of them would be necessary to his cause. She would be damned before she let herself be pushed out of the Horde by a two-bit protégé.
Plus, Randor's army was starting to make headway against the Horde. Hordak's battles were being lost at an alarming rate and it appeared that at anytime, he would be defeated.
She couldn't go back to being tavern maid after getting such a taste of power, and that is if she were not executed for being a war criminal.
So she developed a plan, so perfect that no one would ever know she was actually the one who would orchestrate the event.
She convinced Hordak that the only way to defeat Randor and take Eternia was to lead an all out assault on the palace. Put everything they had into it. While the guard would be distracted by the assault, she and Keldor would use their magic to get inside the palace and kill the members of the Royal family. The people of Eternia would have no choice but to surrender.
Hordak liked the idea. He even took credit for it, which worked just fine for Lightspinner. But on the day of the assault, it backfired.
She and Keldor followed the plan, for the most part. It was after they got into the palace that Keldor decided with all the king's guard fighting the Horde, that had to mean the temple of the Elders, a place of limitless power, had been left unguarded.
So he abandoned her there and fled with a fraction of rebels who would not serve the Horde, nor the King. But he didn't leave before giving her a goodbye present. He hit her hard with a spell that temporarily disabled her magic. Powerless, she was left to die at the hands of her enemy.
Many years later, through Horde communications, she learned that Keldor had botched his attack on the elders and was severely injured in the ensuing battle before being banished to the dark hemisphere of Eternia.
She had also learned that he had lost his face in the battle and was now being referred to as "Skeletor" by those who worked with him.
But she wasn't ready to give up so easily and was far from inept at survival. She quickly managed to kill one of the chambermaids with an abandoned sword she found and stole her uniform, which included a scarf that went across her face.
She then quickly made her way through the palace, determined to find a way out with her life intact. What she did find, however, was more than a way out.
She found a secret room where the queen and her two infant brats were being kept hidden from the battle outside.
The queen seemed puzzled by the chambermaid's entrance. Lightspinner knew she had to act fast if she wanted out of this alive. At the same time, she knew that Hordak would probably kill her himself when he realized her failure in the palace. She needed something to redeem herself. Something to offer him that would be as good as the blood of the royal family.
She quickly told the queen that the palace had been breached and that she and the children were no longer safe. The queen, a trusting soul, who luckily for Lightspinner, was frightened beyond reason, agreed to follow her to safety.
Playing on the queen's anxiety, Lightspinner told the queen they would be able to move faster if she was allowed to carry one of the children. The queen agreed, hesitantly, and handed her the prince.
Even without her magic, Lightspinner knew the instant she touched the child that there was a special power within him. If she made it out of the palace alive with the brat, she would be very interested in exploring that more.
While the queen was distracted by her daughter's cry, Lightspinner grabbed a nearby candlestick made of gold and hid it in her garment. As the queen bent down to lift her second child, Lightspinner brought the hilt of the candlestick down on the back of the queen's head and watched her crumple to the ground.
The thought of grabbing the girl crossed Lightspinner's mind but she was knew the weight would, indeed, inhibit her getaway.
Which she did, miraculously. And when she finally found Hordak in the nearby forest, fleeing the scene of the losing battle, she presented him his trophy and told him the last laugh on Eternia would be his if he took the king's only son and disappeared.
Defeated, Hordak saw that as the only way not leave Eternia in disgrace. The two ran with the child but not before one of Randor's men caught up with them.
By now, Lightspinner's magic had returned enough that she could cloak herself in invisibility and work to open the portal back to Etheria, where she felt they could flee to safety. She focused what little power she had on the portal while Hordak, who was carrying the young Prince Adam, and the solider fought.
At some point, Hordak got the upper hand, but not before the portal was completely ready. Her magic still weakened, she could not sustain both her invisibility spell and the portal so she revealed herself just as the portal opened.
With the solider defeated, she and Hordak fled to Etheria. But something went wrong.
Whether it was her weakened state of magic or her previous vow of magic never to return; when Lightspinner stepped out of the portal onto her native soil, she was a monster.
Her fair, porcelain skin was now cragged and tinted green, her hair was gone and her eyes, blazed with demon fire rather than sparkled like emeralds.
Hordak had been repulsed by her, but while the magic of her home land had disfigured her, her power was also strengthened to great propensity.
That factor, along with the knowledge that the young prince held a special power that she was sure she could decipher, was probably what had kept her alive at the time. And over the years, she had become indispensable to Hordak. Essentially, she had earned to right to live under Horde law.
No longer beautiful and the only trace of good inside of her long dead, she was no longer the woman called Lightspinner.
Instead her name would mean death and destruction and would strike fear into the hearts of thousands of Etherians: Shadow Weaver.
If those people would respect and fear death, so would Skeletor.
CHAPTER 18
Shadow Weaver was no fool.
She knew better than to trust Skeletor to aid her in getting Damas off Eternia. She also knew that if she didn't play her cards right and quickly, it wouldn't matter if she took him back to Etheria because her master would kill the young man without a second thought.
And there would be nothing she would be able to do to stop him, either. Her loyalty to the Horde ran deep. But her loyalty to Hordak ran much deeper.
She had surprised herself by being shocked when she was referred to as "Lightspinner" again. It had been years since anyone had referred to her by her birth name.
Born on Etheria, she had inherited her magic from her father, Norwyn: a skilled wizard who had many students. None of which excelled in the magical arts as she did.
Well, there was maybe one student who could have been just as great, but Weaver had taken care of her in a way that almost guaranteed she would never get the chance to upstage her.
You see, while her father had taught her the beauty of magic and the wonder of good in her life, her mother had taught her that when you want something, you had to take it because no one ever really gave anything from the goodness of their hearts.
Lightspinner was often told by her mother that it was a good thing she was beautiful, with long raven black hair, sparkling green eyes and a firm, supple yet porcelain skinned body.
"You're going to have to make it on your looks child," she had been told. "Because no one is every going to respect you for your mind."
When her father died at the hands of her drunken wench of a mother, Lightspinner decided it was time to find her own life. At that time, she believed she would not find what she was looking for on Etheria.
With the help of one of her father's most ancient and secret spells, she opened a portal to another world and vowed on her father's grave and her own blood never to set foot on Etheria again.
The spell transported her to Eternia, a small planet whose people and cultures were not so different from Etheria's. But unlike her home planet, this place was war torn as battles raged in almost every town and village.
It was there that she met Hordak. In the grand scheme of things, it was an uneventful meeting. He led an assault on a village where she had found work and shelter as a tavern maid. At first, she was happy with her independence and found that with the proper spell, the customers were very gracious with their coin pouches.
But it was not long before she grew tired of that life. She yearned for adventure and power. She wanted to make things happen and for people to respect, and more importantly, fear her.
When the Horde attacked, she-along with everyone else in the town-was captured. While most of the villagers, including women and children, were executed right away, she managed to convince Hordak that she could be of use to him, if he would allow her to be.
Putting it mildly, he found more than her magic useful on many occasions. And every time, Lightspinner's soul darkened. She was a willing participant in all of his escapades, whether they were destroying a village and killing its people, strategy planning or the "victory celebrations" where it was usually just she and Hordak doing the "celebrating."
She took pleasure in all of it. As long as she was with Hordak, she was feared. As long as she stayed loyal to him, she had power.
It was like her mother had taught her and she was putting it to good use. After a period of time, the part of her that was her father died completely and she surrendered herself wholly to darkness.
Skeletor was a bane in her existence with the Horde, however. At the time of the great Horde war, he still had a face and was called "Keldor." The ambitious little twit was a good wizard too and did whatever he could to upstage Lightspinner.
She knew early on she would need to dispose of him before Hordak decided only one of them would be necessary to his cause. She would be damned before she let herself be pushed out of the Horde by a two-bit protégé.
Plus, Randor's army was starting to make headway against the Horde. Hordak's battles were being lost at an alarming rate and it appeared that at anytime, he would be defeated.
She couldn't go back to being tavern maid after getting such a taste of power, and that is if she were not executed for being a war criminal.
So she developed a plan, so perfect that no one would ever know she was actually the one who would orchestrate the event.
She convinced Hordak that the only way to defeat Randor and take Eternia was to lead an all out assault on the palace. Put everything they had into it. While the guard would be distracted by the assault, she and Keldor would use their magic to get inside the palace and kill the members of the Royal family. The people of Eternia would have no choice but to surrender.
Hordak liked the idea. He even took credit for it, which worked just fine for Lightspinner. But on the day of the assault, it backfired.
She and Keldor followed the plan, for the most part. It was after they got into the palace that Keldor decided with all the king's guard fighting the Horde, that had to mean the temple of the Elders, a place of limitless power, had been left unguarded.
So he abandoned her there and fled with a fraction of rebels who would not serve the Horde, nor the King. But he didn't leave before giving her a goodbye present. He hit her hard with a spell that temporarily disabled her magic. Powerless, she was left to die at the hands of her enemy.
Many years later, through Horde communications, she learned that Keldor had botched his attack on the elders and was severely injured in the ensuing battle before being banished to the dark hemisphere of Eternia.
She had also learned that he had lost his face in the battle and was now being referred to as "Skeletor" by those who worked with him.
But she wasn't ready to give up so easily and was far from inept at survival. She quickly managed to kill one of the chambermaids with an abandoned sword she found and stole her uniform, which included a scarf that went across her face.
She then quickly made her way through the palace, determined to find a way out with her life intact. What she did find, however, was more than a way out.
She found a secret room where the queen and her two infant brats were being kept hidden from the battle outside.
The queen seemed puzzled by the chambermaid's entrance. Lightspinner knew she had to act fast if she wanted out of this alive. At the same time, she knew that Hordak would probably kill her himself when he realized her failure in the palace. She needed something to redeem herself. Something to offer him that would be as good as the blood of the royal family.
She quickly told the queen that the palace had been breached and that she and the children were no longer safe. The queen, a trusting soul, who luckily for Lightspinner, was frightened beyond reason, agreed to follow her to safety.
Playing on the queen's anxiety, Lightspinner told the queen they would be able to move faster if she was allowed to carry one of the children. The queen agreed, hesitantly, and handed her the prince.
Even without her magic, Lightspinner knew the instant she touched the child that there was a special power within him. If she made it out of the palace alive with the brat, she would be very interested in exploring that more.
While the queen was distracted by her daughter's cry, Lightspinner grabbed a nearby candlestick made of gold and hid it in her garment. As the queen bent down to lift her second child, Lightspinner brought the hilt of the candlestick down on the back of the queen's head and watched her crumple to the ground.
The thought of grabbing the girl crossed Lightspinner's mind but she was knew the weight would, indeed, inhibit her getaway.
Which she did, miraculously. And when she finally found Hordak in the nearby forest, fleeing the scene of the losing battle, she presented him his trophy and told him the last laugh on Eternia would be his if he took the king's only son and disappeared.
Defeated, Hordak saw that as the only way not leave Eternia in disgrace. The two ran with the child but not before one of Randor's men caught up with them.
By now, Lightspinner's magic had returned enough that she could cloak herself in invisibility and work to open the portal back to Etheria, where she felt they could flee to safety. She focused what little power she had on the portal while Hordak, who was carrying the young Prince Adam, and the solider fought.
At some point, Hordak got the upper hand, but not before the portal was completely ready. Her magic still weakened, she could not sustain both her invisibility spell and the portal so she revealed herself just as the portal opened.
With the solider defeated, she and Hordak fled to Etheria. But something went wrong.
Whether it was her weakened state of magic or her previous vow of magic never to return; when Lightspinner stepped out of the portal onto her native soil, she was a monster.
Her fair, porcelain skin was now cragged and tinted green, her hair was gone and her eyes, blazed with demon fire rather than sparkled like emeralds.
Hordak had been repulsed by her, but while the magic of her home land had disfigured her, her power was also strengthened to great propensity.
That factor, along with the knowledge that the young prince held a special power that she was sure she could decipher, was probably what had kept her alive at the time. And over the years, she had become indispensable to Hordak. Essentially, she had earned to right to live under Horde law.
No longer beautiful and the only trace of good inside of her long dead, she was no longer the woman called Lightspinner.
Instead her name would mean death and destruction and would strike fear into the hearts of thousands of Etherians: Shadow Weaver.
If those people would respect and fear death, so would Skeletor.