[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants

by Kyle B. Stiff

  ***

  “So what the hell is going on?” said Yarek, glancing back to make sure they were out of earshot. “You seemed awful eager to play their game.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Wodan. “I know those people that they call Die Engelen. They’re... Yarek, I think they’re like me.”

  “Like you?” Yarek looked Wodan up and down. “Well, shit. So you’re telling me their military leader, that poor guy back there, has to deal with authority figures who run around like crazy and never place any bearing on the realities of the situation? No wonder he was sweating his ass off.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly…”

  Yarek flashed Wodan something like a smile.

  ***

  For the rest of the day Wodan neglected exploring the wonders of the holy land and remained in the foothills around the stone avenue and tortured himself with thoughts of the ghoul assassin. No matter how hard he tried, he could not breach the holes in the philosophy by which he governed his nation. He wanted his people to be free, but he also wanted them to be safe. How was genocide the end result of such simple premises? When he was angry, he could only imagine that he would end up killing the intelligent ghoul in self-defense as soon as it was healed, but when he was overcome with self-loathing, he could not help but realize that he had neglected to find out the ghoul’s name. Barkus, too, had never asked Wodan his name.

  The way I feel now… is that the way Barkus felt after he met me?

  At that moment, Wodan became aware of two things. The first was that night had fallen, and pilgrims had gathered around fires on the stony avenue, where they exchanged stories of their encounters in this strange land. The second was a volatile humming in the air – something he had heard long ago.

  Just then pilgrims pointed and shouted. He looked toward the long steps leading up to the Temple of the Summons. Seven men in green and black robes, the sleeves of their arms tied up with leather bonds, floated in the air and descended toward the avenue. Men rose in awe, dumbstruck by the serene and magical wind that carried them.

  “Wizards!” someone shouted. “Look, wizards!”

  The invisible tendrils of the Cognati sparked and hissed violently as their feet touched the ground. There was a blast and a cloud of dust, almost as if a bomb had gone off, and men were tossed in the air away from the seven Cognati. Wodan saw their leader’s face contorted with mania as he screamed, “Penitent! Where is the Penitent!” Several Vallier Rangers fired at them, but the lead Cognati threw up his hands and the Rangers skidded along the ground in limp heaps. “Where is the wasteland king of barbarians?” he shrieked, spittle flying from his lips.

  At once Wodan rose and raced across the stone avenue until he stood before the seven wizards. Their robes billowed ominously and the air crackled with their power. Finally, for the first time that day, Wodan felt nothing but a clean, white-hot rush at finally facing a problem head-on. “Here is the king of barbarians!” he said. With one hand gripped on the hilt of his sword, his eyes stabbed into a face he knew all too well.

  The lead Cognati was a young, thin man with a rigid frame. His pale face was red with fury, and his black hair flowed in waves of invisible energy. He was taller than Wodan, but only because his feet hovered off the ground. Wodan caught the signs of psychotic mania, the glinting eyes of one accustomed to doing anything his will desired – and as long as all he wanted to do was destroy something, then he was satisfied. A ragged goatee pulled his face down into a sinister mask, and teeth like fangs hid behind his thin, cruel lips.

  “Where in the hell is Barkus,” he demanded, and Wodan could feel pressure building on either side of his skull. He knew that the Cognati could crush his head as easily as pulling the trigger of a gun. Only the thought of humiliating a king before his people stayed his hand.

  “It’s been a while, Jared,” said Wodan, smiling. The force around Wodan crackled unsteadily as the Cognati narrowed his eyes in confusion. “You remember me, don’t you? Years ago you and your thugs came to Pontius, slobbering because you smelled easy money. I was a secretary back then. I made you a fine cup of coffee, but you were in the mood to show off with a childish tantrum so you-”

  “Shut up!” Jared screamed, recognizing the small Coil youth in the face of the wasteland king. Jared floated forward and Wodan felt tentacles of force tighten around his torso and lift him from the ground, pressing the air from him. “So you didn’t end up dead in the gutter! Am I supposed to be impressed?!” Jared’s face contorted as if his rage was too great to be contained in his thin body. “A dog back then and a dog now! Now tell me! Where… is… Barkus?”

  “Barkus?” Wodan wheezed. “That name… so hard to… remember… ah! Do you mean the Penitent?”

  A violent hum racked the air and the ground rose up to meet Wodan. His feet hit the ground with great force, then his knees buckled and he splayed the fingers of one hand against the cold stone. He felt hundreds of pounds of force driving into his back, but still he kept one hand wrapped around the hilt of Capricornus. Taking in great breaths he pushed himself upward, refusing to bow. He knew that he was playing a dangerous game with the psychopathic Cognati, but even with the terrible force driving him downward, he felt completely in control.

  Jared’s face reddened in concentration. “You were seen with him last night. He missed an appointment with the High Priest tonight. I find out you have a vendetta against the man. A witness turns up that says you went out with two armed outlanders. Two and two make four, cretin, so tell me where his body is.”

  “Tell you where he is?” Wodan strained at the unmerciful weight. “Tell you where he is?” Sweat rolled down his face and in his eyes, but he did not blink as he bore his eyes into the Cognati. “Jared,” he said. “Great wizard... if you must know, then read my mind.”

  In the fatal second after the insult struck but before his body was crushed, Wodan wrenched Capricornus singing from the scabbard. At once there was a violent shrieking as the Sword of the Ancients tore through the force fields. The Cognati jerked backward, hands to their heads as if pantomiming one another. Jared cried out in rage, hit the ground as if he’d slipped on ice in midair, then skittered backward. The others stumbled backward lamely; Wodan ignored them and went for Jared. Green light shone as Wodan swung the sword from side to side - but Jared disappeared.

  Wodan threw his head upward and saw Jared flying through the air, his body upended and head bent to stare at Wodan. Wodan tore across the avenue past others who seemed frozen and just as Jared came to rest delicately on the top of a tall stone column, Wodan leaped. The column was too high for him to reach Jared, but as his feet hit the side Wodan swung the sword upwards in an arc that sent sparks flying from stone. Again Jared went airborne, barely missing the point of the sword as it tore up through the bottom of his perch. Wodan pushed off, twisted in the air, fell on his feet and ran just as the top of the column slid off at the angle Capricornus had cleanly sliced through. The stone crashed into the ground, belching like slow thunder.

  Wodan ran to the base of the stairs and stopped as Jared came to rest further up, glaring like a maddened beast. The other Cognati scattered as Wodan slowly waved Capricornus like a green-shining torch. The air hissed and spat around him as Jared tested his perimeter, his hair already drenched with sweat at the unexpected effort.

  Wodan nodded up the long, winding staircase. “You want me to run up there right now and raise hell, Jared? It’s time to back off.”

  “What is that thing?!” said Jared, using both hands to hold his aching head.

  “A shield smasher!” said Wodan. “That’s as much as you need to know about it. Remember it. Remember what happened when you tried to push around the Valliers. We mean you no harm. But if you tread on us...” Wodan flicked the blade up before his face, casting himself in a bright green glow.

  “You’ll pay for killing Barkus!” said Jared.

  “He’s not your concern. He’s his own man. Besides, he’s the kind of person who always g
ets what he wants.”

  Jared had no reply for the strange statement. The other Cognati quickly filed around Wodan and staggered up the stairs, throwing their eyes between their leader and their enemy. Jared stood erect as his sweat-drenched robe swayed in a slow neural wind. “So be it,” he said. “I’ll remember. I’ll remember you, wastelander. Oh-h-h, this is far from over.”

  The Cognati floated away and Wodan sheathed the sword. Rangers gathered around him, swearing and confused and grateful.

  “Let’s tend to the wounded,” said their king.

  ***

  More Vallier pilgrims joined the campfires in the stone avenue and Jarl sat hunched over the broken rubble of the column, furious that he had missed the epic battle, scribbling wildly while a dozen Valliers shouted contradictory accounts to one another.

  “And what did he say next?” shouted Jarl. “Shut up! Please! One at a time! After the leader of the wizards declared himself to be Wodan’s arch-nemesis, what exactly did Wodan say?”

  Near a large fire at the foot of the stairs, Yarek stood beside Wodan. A few Rangers kept their eyes on the distant Temple, a dark monument against the stars.

  “Wodan,” said Yarek. “Why didn’t you kill them?”

  “I didn’t think it was necessary,” said Wodan. “They know I have the power to do it. Guess I figured that would be enough to keep them in line.”

  Yarek glared at the Temple. “I doubt they think of us as pilgrims anymore.”

  “You can call it all off, if you want. Order our people back over the mountains, leave tonight, end the whole thing… just like that.”

  Yarek hummed a deep note. “But you still mean to leave tomorrow. For the Tower.”

  Wodan nodded. After a while he realized that Yarek was staring at him, so he said, “Do you think I’m running away from Barkus and the ghoul and the Cognati? That I’m leaving you to clean up my mess?”

  Yarek looked away. “Sort of.”

  “Leave if you want, then. Order an evacuation.”

  “Ah... I understand that you want to go meet those Engels because you identify with them. And I... I also left home, and a lot of unfinished problems, because I wanted to do the same.” Yarek smiled suddenly, then said, “We’ll stay. I didn’t come all the way out here so I could be your nanny. You do what you want. I’ll have my boys spread rumors to the Srilans that we have lots of weapons like yours. We’ll be fine.”

  “Good idea,” said Wodan, relieved. “And I’ll be back, Yarek.”

  Yarek’s smile died and he looked at the Temple of the Summons once again.

  “I know you will,” he said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Heaven, Earth

  Globulus woke before dawn in his room within the Temple. The pain of waking in old flesh, old bones, was most difficult at this hour when his blood felt thick and dry. Without thought or worry he rose from his hard bed, felt the grip of cold air, and crossed the stone floor on numb feet. He pulled back the curtains to his open window and watched the stars above black hills. He could see the mist of his breath, and rubbed his bony fingers against his forehead and the hollows at his cheeks. He knew that all warmth was transitory, a dream that disappears upon waking.

  When his boy came with burning coals to start his fire, Globulus crossed to his bench, knelt, and placed his hands together. Hearing the boy at work, his own problems pressed in on him.

  Even in the early days of his spiritual studies in Srila, Globulus had never prayed over “particulars”. He knew that the Ghost took no special interest in his failing health, his fear of outland influence, or the protection of his position as High Priest of the Temple of the Summons. Such psychic bartering with the ineffable was beneath him. Instead he focused his thoughts on koan twenty-three of the “Zero Chapter” of the Leather Book, turning over the words

  emptiness is the cup

  the clay of its outer, illusion

  the void within is cup

  Near the end, he saw the face of Vito.

  “Boy,” said Globulus.

  Turning, he saw that a fire was burning behind the boy, his orange robe a fold of shadows, bald head gleaming.

  “Boy,” said Globulus. “Send for Jared.”

  The boy bowed slightly, said, “Master. He is... meditating.”

  “Mm.”

  After the boy was gone Globulus moved to pour his tea. He sat down on the stones beside the fire. In the tea, his reflection: Thin, cracked skin sagging from an angular skull. Tiny mouth and nose, a face dominated by bulbous black eyes crowned by shockingly white eyebrows. He had hair only around his ears and the back of his head, but it was long and tied in several hard knots that ran the length of his back. He knew that many people feared his eyes, that many simply could not function when his eyes fell on them. For a moment he allowed himself the vanity of considering that it was the thing behind his eyes that they should fear. But then he looked at his hands, saw that he no longer recognized them because they were covered in spots, all tendon and cord and fragile flesh more decayed than alive, and he knew the worth of vanity.

  Globulus heard the hum of an invisible tendril scraping along the hallway outside, then the door opened of its own and Jared entered. The mercenary monk and greatest warrior of Srila bowed low. “Rabbi,” he said. “Master.”

  “Jared,” said Globulus, motioning to a space beside the fire. “Are you still angered?”

  Jared’s thin lips turned up into a pout. After he had sent Cognati initiates and orange robes to investigate the caves that dotted the hills, and intimidated a few black robes to do the same at the village of Temple Grounds, he had spent the night in a Cognati meditation chamber. He scorned the passive meditation techniques of the orange robes; the green robes, the Cognati, learned, mastered, then moved beyond proper breathing and concentration when they were still children. Jared had spent all night rigorously exercising his mind, burning the fuel of his anger in a black room devoid of ornamentation but equipped with heavy stones and weights he kept suspended, as well as elaborate formations of sand he held in mid-air. Inevitably the image of that face – that arrogant, cruel, smiling face – would return to break his concentration and summon his ego in a ritual of anger.

  “You are still angry,” said Globulus.

  “It’s just that he... such arrogance, Rabbi...”

  “You anger yourself, dear boy. You always had such an ego, such a will.”

  “Yes, Rabbi,” said Jared, finally sitting beside the fire.

  “One must know when to try and when not to try, Jared. Listen to your old teacher. Things seem complicated. Words like ‘conquest’ are being thrown around. You see men with guns, Jared, and your ego flares up… but when I see men with guns, I see fear. I see pupae, I see children in chrysalis. I see tomorrow’s faithful. I take the long view, Jared, as you must learn to do. You remember being a mercenary, don’t you? Of course you do. Thinking like a mercenary became a habit for you. You remember seeing a problem and crushing it until no rivals were left standing. This is different, Jared.”

  Jared sighed.

  “Listen to me, dear boy! A foreign flag flies over Srila. So? Haven’t you read our history books, Jared? Outlanders with guns stand at our doors, crying out for attention and waving their… their…” Jared smiled as Globulus gesticulated. “Yes, waving their peckers to see who’s got the biggest. And we are to fear this - why? Give this thing time, Jared. The image of the stream wearing down the rocks that impede it would not be inappropriate.”

  “But that barbarian leader. He... he took Barkus, I know it!”

  “And we will take him, Jared. Within a few months’ time his will shall be a subset of our own. Nothing more. Either that, or his own people will beg us to take his life from him. This is a new world, Jared. Change is at hand. I only wish that I could cross into that promised land myself.”

  “You won’t die, Master!” Jared said vehemently.

  Globulus laughed, then said, “Jared, help an old man dress himself
, will you?”

  “Don’t you have a boy for such work?” said Jared, but at the same moment the chest beside his bed opened and his robes rose and unfolded. Globulus gave himself up to the invisible power of his student, and listened to the strange humming song of the Cognati mystery, as the black and red robes of the High Priest fitted themselves onto his body.

  Who will take over when I am gone? thought Globulus. Certainly Jared is powerful. But can he understand the subtle fingers that will be necessary to control the coming world? I have... I had... such high hopes for Barkus. But he was too forthright, too hungry, with his submission!

  At once he saw himself dead, hunched over his desk, and saw Jared and the Cognati screaming as they fought the Empire of San Ktari, the holy land in flames, and all of mankind waning, drifting into darkness, as a coming shadow fell over them…

  Globulus closed his eyes tightly.

  Such a thing cannot come to pass!

  … Oh, if only I had a little boy in my own image!

  Globulus felt his belt tighten and he opened his eyes. Now he carried authority. His robes were deep black, with a long red scarf highlighted by intestinal pink fibers. He stretched himself to his full height, then extended a hand; Jared glanced to the side, then whipped a neural tendril around the High Priest’s staff - a black rod topped with an Execution Cross and a single red gem - and slid the staff into Globulus’s bony hand.

  “Jared,” said High Priest Globulus, “send for representatives from the wasteland. Both Ktari and barbarian. I would have a look at them.”