The Young Dictator

by Hughes, Rhys

  “Come on, pick up the pace!” she ordered.

  There was a scream from behind. She turned quickly and saw that one of the soldiers had missed his footing and fallen down a crack on the side of the path. Flames issued from the vent.

  The pilot reached out to grab her sleeve. “He’s still alive down there. We can’t leave him to burn forever!”

  Jenny shrugged him off. “He was clumsy. That is his punishment. Let this be a lesson to the rest of you!”

  With a scowl she strode off into the distance.

  Horrified, her followers struggled to keep up, trembling as they went and recoiling at every tongue of flame that lashed out at them. “What a pathetic bunch of saps!” snarled Jenny.

  Gran was twiddling the dials of a communicator. She had aimed it toward Earth because she wanted to know what was going on there. Static hissed and popped through the loudspeakers. Nothing had been heard of the fleet that Genghis Kan’t had sent to conquer the planet, but she didn’t believe that humans had resisted the invasion.

  Communication between different solar systems took the same length of time as spaceships, so messages in the former Federation had normally been delivered in person. However, Gran thought it might be worthwhile to check the spacewaves on various frequencies with her receiver. So far she hadn’t detected anything coherent.

  Suddenly a voice crackled into life. “Hello!”

  “Hello! Who are you?” asked Gran.

  “My name is Maya and I’m the dictator of Earth.”

  Gran was shocked. “B-b-but…”

  “I overthrew the invasion fleet as part of a school project,” said Maya casually, “but who might you be?”

  “I’m Gran,” said Gran, “and I’m the Gran of Jenny Khan, who is the dictator of the galaxy and therefore a much bigger dictator than you! She has gone on an expedition to Hell, but when she gets back I’ll make sure she returns to Earth and overthrows you!”

  There was a pause and then the voice of Maya said, “Thanks for that warning. I’ll make sure I’m prepared.”

  Gran ground her jaws in frustration and anger.

  “Are you using an instantaneous communicator?” she asked at last. “If so, how did you get hold of one? The reason I ask this question is because such devices don’t and can’t exist.”

  “They do now. I built this one myself.”

  “But that’s against all the laws of physics! Do you know what happens when the laws of physics are broken?”

  “Let me guess. The spacetime police arrest me?”

  Gran recoiled under the intensity of the sarcasm. “What you have done is impossible and you’re very naughty!”

  “It was just another of my school projects. I perfected the equipment a few days ago and now I’m testing it.”

  Gran considered this and said, “When I was young, there were no such things as projects. We had flying scorpions and bottomless cups of squash but projects were completely unknown.”

  “What has that got to do with me?” sneered Maya.

  “Nothing much,” Gran admitted.

  “Don’t mention it again, in that case!”

  Gran was rather worried. She hadn’t anticipated this development and it was possible that she might have to change her future plans because of it. Should she suggest an alliance with Maya or else launch a pre-emptive strike against her? She didn’t know enough about the capabilities of this new enemy yet. Better to stall for time.

  “It’s a bad signal. I can’t hear you properly,” she said, rustling a piece of paper in front of the microphone.

  Then she turned the communicator off and rubbed her chin. She hoped that Jenny would return soon from Hell.

  “The trouble that comes with being a tyrant!” sighed Gran. “I think it’s not worth it sometimes. One anxiety after another, just so that I can enjoy great power without responsibility!”

  She turned to her computer, logged into her Fascbook account and left the following status update: ‘The course of true greed never runs smooth! But if at first you don’t crush and dominate, try, try and try again’. It was an uplifting message for other despots.

  Jenny’s feet were blistered and her tongue had swollen in her throat. She was protected to some extent by her hard and shiny skin, which reflected the wild flames back on themselves, but she was still suffering from heat exhaustion. As for her companions: five or six of the soldiers had fainted and the pilot was crawling on all fours.

  “Shouldn’t we stop for a rest?” he croaked.

  “Absolutely not!” cried Jenny.

  She knew that if they paused they would be weakened by dehydration to the point that they would never be able to get up again. And then they would die. And because she had been a bad girl in her life, Jenny knew she would end up in Hell, where she already was. So it was quite difficult to know if she was even still alive!

  Better to keep going, to meet the Devil in person.

  The path had forked so many times that she had lost count. Always it was the left path she took. The flames shot up around her, evaporating the sweat that poured out of her head, and in those flames lurked demons of all categories, very few with bat wings and forked tails. Most had fairly bland appearances and she once thought she spied her parents capering in the bubbling brimstone like acrobats.

  But she reasoned that this was only an illusion.

  The pilot was unable to continue.

  He lay and groaned and Jenny looked back at him in contempt.

  “Leave him where he is!” she barked.

  “But without a pilot we won’t be able to safely fly the spaceship back to Bellatrix Three!” objected the navigator.

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Jenny. “When I’m the ruler of Hell I’ll change the rules in our favour. Wait and see. Now pick up the pace. You are dragging your feet, you lazy swine!”

  The soldiers groaned and stumbled faster.

  At the next fork in the path, Jenny took the left path as usual. But now there was a peculiar noise ahead of her, a rhythmic squeaking. Something dark and enormous loomed out of the smoke. Jenny stopped and squinted at it. What could it be? The squeaking grew louder, unbearable. It was like a rusty hinge. And then the vapours parted.

  “How unusual!” she hissed.

  A giant owl mounted on a unicycle!

  It was the Devil himself!

  Three of the soliders screamed and jumped into the flames. Better to be burned alive for eternity than confront this appalling vision of hooting eccentricity, this precariously balanced feathery vision of pure evil! But Jenny stood firm and refused to flinch.

  The unicycle slowed down. Then the owl started pedalling backward and forward skilfully, so that the unicycle remained in the same place. He regarded Jenny with huge yellow eyes.

  “Ahem! Newcomers, eh! I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “We were just passing,” said Jenny.

  “You mean to say that you aren’t damned souls?”

  “Casual visitors,” explained Jenny.

  “Oh, I see, I see. Well, in that case perhaps I ought to offer you a cup of coffee or tea? Would you like that?”

  “Do you have a cold drink by any chance?”

  The Devil flapped his wings and then shook his head. “Sorry, no. But weak tea can be refreshing if sipped…”

  Jenny counted the survivors among her band.

  “Twenty three weak teas please!”

  The Devil turned his head so that it was facing directly behind him and called to someone, “Ralph, be a good chap and fetch a massive pot of tea. Have a cup yourself too, of course.”

  “All right guvnor, coming up,” a voice growled.

  The Devil said, “Ralph’s my butler. A living brass statue, thirty feet high with magma instead of blood. He has a plug at the base of his right heel. If you pull the plug, his magma will leak away and he’ll crack and die. Or was that in a film I saw…?”

  “It must get confusing being the ruler of Hell,” Jenny said.

 
The owl nodded. “True, very true.”

  “And I bet nobody seems to understand your woes?”

  “Tell me about it! So much work!”

  “I’m the dictator of the galaxy, so I know what it’s like.”

  “Really? Which galaxy is that then?”

  “The Milky Way, of course.”

  “Well, there are so many of them…”

  Jenny felt demoralised by this remark. She had assumed she was the greatest dictator in the history of the universe; but the universe contained trillions of galaxies and the Milky Way was nothing special really. Being in the Devil’s presence made her feel smaller than she had felt since she left Carrington. It wasn’t very nice.

  The Devil yawned as he waited for the tea.

  Jenny licked her parched lips.

  The silence was awkward and Jenny grew more and more embarrassed and she wondered what had happened to the butler. In a desperate effort to make light conversation, she said:

  “Very lovely place you’ve got around here.”

  The Devil seemed genuinely touched by her comment. “Really? Most visitors don’t like it very much.”

  “More fool them,” said Jenny unconvincingly.

  “What do you like best about it?”

  Jenny struggled to answer. “Er… the flames?”

  The Devil beat his wings in delight.

  “Yes, yes, the flames! Marvellous, aren’t they? Blue and green and red and purple and even black! Imagine! They said it couldn’t be done, that black was a silly colour for fire, but I insisted on it. And I believe it’s safe to say I was proved right in the end!”

  “I also quite like the screams,” said Jenny.

  “Oh yes, exquisite indeed!”

  During this exchange, Jenny had managed to get closer to the Devil. In fact he was now within reach of her arms. It would only take a second for her to lean forward and twist the Devil’s horns. But there was a problem. The Devil was an owl. He had no horns!

  “Gran lied to me!” she hissed bitterly.

  “What was that you said about lies?” the Devil asked.

  “Nothing. Honest!” cried Jenny.

  Ralph the butler finally appeared with a tray that held a vast pot of tea and more than twenty porcelain cups.

  “Who wants sugar?” His brass voice grated.

  Some of the soldiers put up their hands. Ralph carefully poured the tea and while he did so the magma inside him sloshed and gurgled. In spite of his vast size, he was very delicate and handed out the brimming cups of tea without spilling even a drop.

  “Sorry, I’m clean out of biscuits to go with it,” apologised the Devil. It was a remark that reminded Jenny of what Gran had told her about how even the toughest cookie will crumble when dunked into tea. Jenny now stood so close to the owl that his feathers brushed the hardened surface of her skin and they tickled grotesquely.

  “May I ask you some questions?” Jenny ventured.

  The Devil nodded. “Go ahead!”

  “That’s very magnanimous of you,” said Jenny.

  The Devil blinked. “No, it’s Ralph who has got the magma inside him. He’s the magnanimous one, not me.”

  “It doesn’t mean that,” explained Jenny.

  “No? Ah well! It has been a long time since I went to college and I’ve forgotten so many of the things I learned there. No matter! I’ll do my best to answer any question you put to me.”

  “Good! Is there such a thing as a horned owl?”

  “A horned owl? Gracious, I don’t know! Some of us do have big ears that look like horns, but I’m not one of those, as you can see for yourself. Personally I think ears get in the way.”

  Ralph leaned forward, towering over his master, and asked, “Shall I go and look it up on Wikipedia, boss?”

  The Devil waved a dismissive wing. “Later, Ralph.”

  Jenny felt an increased pressure inside her. The harsh knocking of the knuckles of the demon on the inner surface of her crystalline outer shell had intensified. Jenny felt incredibly stiff, stiffer even than the brass giant who stood behind the overlarge owl.

  She didn’t have much time left. She was about to burst.

  The Devil noticed the internal commotion. “Oh look! It’s a demon! So you are coming to work for me, eh?”

  “Not if I can help it,” muttered Jenny angrily.

  “Hey, boss, it’s in the shape of a grandmother. We have a shortage of those, don’t we?” commented Ralph.

  “Yes indeed,” replied the Devil. “When it hatches, I’ll send it down to the River Styx and it can help out with the jamboree.” He regarded Jenny critically. “We do have rivers in Hell, you know. And marquees and barn dances and marrow competitions and—”

  “Bone marrow competitions,” sniggered Ralph.

  Jenny took advantage of the brass giant’s interruption. “But I haven’t hatched just yet, so… I have another question for your excellency. Why are there fires in Hell? I mean, there don’t have to be flames here. A Hell full of ice would be just as terrible.”

  “More terrible, I think,” said the owl. “The truth is that I need the light to stop myself going mad. I’m scared of the dark, you see. Terrified of it! I have awful dreams when it’s dark.”

  “The Devil is frightened of the dark!” gasped Jenny.

  “Sometimes when the flames die down a bit, which happens randomly every so often, I must rock him to sleep in my alloyed arms,” Ralph said with tenderness in his metallic voice.

  Jenny had a sudden inspiration. She reached into her pocket and took out the sunglasses Gran had given her and before anyone knew what she was doing, she had jumped up and put them on the Devil. “I can’t see a thing! It has gone dark!” the owl screamed.

  “Hey you!” boomed Ralph.

  “You can’t put sunglasses on an owl without ears!” protested Jenny’s navigator, but she utterly ignored him.

  “Help me! Help me!” whimpered the Devil.

  “I’m here, boss. Don’t panic!”

  Ralph strode over his master. Although the owl was a giant specimen and mounted on a large unicycle, the combination looming to a height of at least ten feet, Ralph’s legs were long enough to make stepping over the Devil very easy. Jenny dodged out of the way. There was an outcropping of rock on the side of the path that wasn’t licked by fire and she managed to take refuge on it. “Look out!”

  But her warning shout came too late for her troops. Ralph dropped to his knees and then he reached out with his arms and pounded the soldiers with his clenched brass fists. It was as if he played the drums in a strange jazz band because his rhythms were complicated. Each time one of his fists landed on a soldier, that soldier was squashed flat and blood spurted like tomato purée from a crushed tube.

  “Save us!” pleaded the navigator to Jenny.

  “I will in a moment!” answered Jenny, wiping the gore from her face. Astounding how it reached so far! She wondered what action to take to save herself. Ralph continued his killing spree. The moment the troops were all dead, he would turn on her…

  She snapped out of her reverie. Twist the Devil’s horns: that had been Gran’s advice! But he didn’t have any!

  Or did he? She looked more closely. His unicycle!

  It didn’t have a bell. It had a horn.

  Two horns. Rubber horns!

  She leaped off the outcrop of rock back onto the path. She gripped the pair of rubber horns and twisted them.

  They honked. And the owl’s head fell off…

  It rolled along the path and blinked once in dismay. Then the body of the Devil collapsed to the ground on its unicycle. Ralph had destroyed the last of the soldiers. He turned to look.

  “My poor master! What a terrible thing to happen!”

  Tears of molten rock poured out his eyes and splashed on the mangled corpses of the dead soldiers, setting them on fire and filling Jenny’s nose with the vile aroma of charred flesh.

  “You big brassy cry baby!” sneered Jenny.

  �
�Don’t make him even more annoyed!” hissed the navigator, who was the only survivor apart from Jenny.

  Ralph had lost all desire to take revenge.

  “I’m going to arrange a lovely funeral for him, with all the music and things he liked best,” he said. He gently picked up the headless owl in his blood-slicked hands and walked sadly away into the vapours. He didn’t look back and Jenny wasn’t sorry to see him go. She regarded the scene of carnage, the spilled tea and squashed lifeforms and she carefully made her way through the slippery mess.

  The navigator trailed after her. “What now?”

  “I suppose I must be the new ruler of Hell,” said Jenny. And in fact it seemed this was true. All the demons that lurked in the flames bowed to her as she passed. “And this means I can change the rules whenever I care to! So that’s what I’m going to do…”

  And she stopped, put her hands on her hips and shouted, “I am Jenny Khan, dictator of the Milky Way and Ruler of Hell! I hereby declare that I will no longer turn into a demon and that my skin will repair itself and end up being as smooth as it was. Furthermore, I also decree that when I enter my spaceship, the flames of Hell will eject me out of the black hole in the direction of Bellatrix Three!”

  The navigator marvelled at her ingenuity. “Brilliant!”

  “Yes, I am brilliant,” concurred Jenny.

  They retraced their steps. The old man with the long beard was sitting on the same rock and he was still sad.

  “Why don’t you come with us?” Jenny suggested.

  “Really? You’ll get me out of here!” He stood and did a little dance in joy, tripping over his beard and falling.

  The navigator helped him to his feet. “Of course,” said Jenny, “and I see no reason why you shouldn’t go back to France and be given a brand new kilogram to replace the damaged one.”

  He bowed low. “I pledge my undying loyalty to you!”

  “What’s your name?” asked Jenny.

  “I’ve forgotten,” said the old man. He screwed up his face.

  “In that case I suppose I ought to give you a new name. How about Old Young Eyes? Does that suit you?”

  “Very much!” answered Old Young Eyes.

  On the journey back, Jenny was delighted to observe how the demon that lurked inside her slowly dwindled and disappeared. Her skin softened and her joints became supple again. Although she was now the Ruler of Hell, she was pleased to leave it behind and she didn’t think she would pay too many return visits in future. She celebrated her victory by breaking open the emergency lollipops in the kitchen.