[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants

by Kyle B. Stiff

  Lucas stood and glared at the black robes. “No house divided against itself can stand,” he said. “Any man or any group that opposes itself will fail. Just so, if I use the forces of evil to drive out evil, then how is it that evil continues on in this land? If I am evil, and work against evil, then go back to your holy place and rest easy in the knowledge I will fail. But if I drive out evil using the powers of the Holy Father, then by that will you know that His kingdom has come upon you.”

  Before the black robes could respond, Lucas turned to the people and shouted, “If a tree is good then it bears good fruit. If a tree is weak, it bears bad fruit.” Whirling on the black robes, Lucas shouted, “You brood of devils! By what power do you heal disease and drive out evil from the hearts of the people? Or do you not concern yourselves with that? Vipers! Your judgment is coming! Crawl back to your masters and tell them the Son of the Father is among you!”

  Some people cheered, others walked away muttering angrily. The disciples were relieved to see that the people would not turn against them and kill them. Only Yardalen felt the thrill of the moment, thinking, Get them, Lucas! Don't let them push people around anymore!

  “The ‘Son of the Father’?” said an older black robe. “What are you saying, Lucas? You... you’re blaspheming, and you can be sure that we’ll pray that you realize that before you cause others to sin as well.”

  Lucas could see that the black robe was trying to bait him and make himself appear to be in the moral right. “Pray for my sins?” Lucas shouted, angered by the self-righteous tone. “You hypocrites! It’s by sin that you profit! Is it easier to say ‘your sins are forgiven’ or ‘change your life’? It’s you who have the devil to thank for your existence!”

  The people were completely divided, and the black robes left, muttering as they went. Lucas glared at their backs.

  “Now the battle begins,” he said quietly.

  ***

  The next day, another gang of black robes met Lucas among the people.

  “I would be honored,” said one, “if you would come to my humble home and eat with me. We would like to learn more about you, in the spirit of amiability.”

  So Lucas went to the home where an older black robe lived with several younger black robes and scribes in training. It was a palace by the standards of the Upper Valley, a two-story stone structure filled with fine decorations. While servants set out the meal, the black robes gathered before a basin of water and said their traditional prayers in order to cleanse their bodies and spirits before eating. They were shocked to see Lucas sit down to eat without praying.

  The servants looked back and forth between the black robes and Lucas. Before the black robes could come up with a tactful way to point out Lucas’s rudeness, he rubbed his grimy fingers along a fine porcelain bowl and said, “I noticed that you made sure the outside of these dishes were clean. What about the inside?”

  “We make sure that’s clean too, of course,” said a black robe.

  “You old fools!” said Lucas. “You're so dutiful with your prayers, mumbling and rocking back and forth just like your ancestors. And yet the servants who feed you are desperately hoping that there will be leftover scraps for them to eat! If you only left to them what they earned, then your souls would be clean!

  “You pathetic black robes. You shriek and mumble the prayers of the Good Tyrant, but you care nothing for the love that God has for every one of his creatures. You make me sick with your big houses, your clothes, your soft hands and demanding voices, the way you strut around the market without a care, expecting the downtrodden to greet you loudly, calling out your names for a little blessing. Oh, you experts of the holy laws... you’re the greatest criminals of them all.

  “You are nothing. Your souls are like unmarked graves that the truly great step on without a second thought.”

  After an uncomfortable silence, one of the black robes said, “Listen, Lucas... ah, when you say these things... it’s insulting. We don’t mean any harm to you, so why do you treat us like this? We’ve put a lot of study into learning the holy laws, and all we want to do is make sure that people obey God’s commandments.”

  “And suck the people dry while you’re at it!” Lucas shot back. “The only work you ever did was to make tombs for the prophets. Haven't your kind killed every prophet that has ever come to you? The tombs you build in the mountainside, even the great Tomb of the Summons, is a monument to your murderous ancestors!”

  “Do you actually include yourself among the noble prophets?” said a black robe, scoffing. “Do you actually imagine that we mean you harm?”

  “I feel sorry for you ‘experts’ of the law,” said Lucas, rising to leave. “You have at your fingertips the wisdom of generations, but worship only the paper on which it’s written. You have the key to knowledge but, unable to use it yourselves, you prevent others from using it as well.”

  “Your bloated sense of self is loathsome,” said a younger black robe.

  “Is it?” said Lucas. “And yet after you murder me, you will worship me. Isn't that how it goes? You have a record of all the mistakes of mankind arranged on your bookshelves, and yet you have to make the same stupid mistakes yourselves, over and again. You have everything categorized, but understand nothing. You have to run the entire world through your death-sieve before you can grasp it.”

  Lucas left. The older black robe cleared his throat. “We must go to the High Priest,” he said quietly.

  ***

  Late that night a circle of black robes gathered with High Priest Globulus.

  “Rabbi,” said one, “he does nothing against our conquerors, so we can’t depend on them to do anything.”

  “What of the people?” said Globulus. “How do they stand?”

  “Some are against him,” said a black robe. “Some for him.”

  Globulus was deeply discomforted by this. His worry increased their own worry; they had not seen their Rabbi express fear even when foreigners threatened them with conquest.

  “Rabbi, gentlemen,” said an older black robe. “It’s natural for commoners to become a little frustrated. This man embodies their frustration. But, just you watch. Give it some time and the people will grow tired of him and move on. They know the Temple will always be here...”

  “And obviously,” said a younger black robe, “we can’t make a move against him, else we make a martyr of him.”

  “You know nothing!” Globulus barked. “You don’t realize that it’s better for you that one man die, for the people, rather than let the whole nation perish.”

  The black robes grew pale when they heard these words. “Surely, Rabbi,” one ventured quietly, “surely it’s not so bad?”

  “Why bring this before me, then?” said Globulus. “Did you only want to grumble, and do nothing?” His milky eyes darted from one face to another, and he realized that he was alone. “Tomorrow is the Sabbat. Leave me to my prayers.”

  And so they filed out, shaken and worried.

  ***

  With the waning moon seeping through the cracks in the stable roof, Yardalen laid with Lucas and struggled against herself. She knew that Lucas had woken her up inside. When she met him, it marked an end to drifting through scattered dreams, through disjointed awareness. With purpose, she had been able to endure hardships that, before, would have broken her. She had dropped the subtle but insistent guilt of living, and felt joy because she endured the suffering of a life of meaning.

  But tonight the suffering groaned in her heart. Lucas laid beside her like one already dead. If a life of meaning was a straight path through a world of shadows, then now that path was coming to its end. All she wanted to do was cast aside what they had done, what they had worked for, take his hand, and lead him away from shadows that could not be fought. Narratives gave meaning, but they were worthless if they tore through the heart and scattered loved ones in the dark.

  In truth, she had never prayed before. Her life was prayer enough. But now she moved her lips, a
nd her words were only a faint gust of wind against his flesh, never to be heard. “Let this cup pass from him,” she said. “Let this cup pass from him. Let this cup pass from him...”

  She opened her eyes to the moonlight. He was covered in darkness, but she could see his lips moving as well, speaking as if in a dream. She moved to kiss his lips.

  But he was locked in his dream. He was gone from her.

  ***

  It was a gray Sabbat day, and people and beasts lined the steps that rose up to the Temple. Lucas ascended the stairway and everyone parted for him without argument. The soldiers at the entrance to the Temple stood by, waiting to see what the blue robes would do, and the blue robes stood by as well, giving one another excuses about waiting to see what the soldiers would do or what the prophet would do, but in truth they felt unworthy in the presence of the man. Lucas pushed his way through the bottleneck of sweating, stinking people and entered the Temple of the Summons.

  The massive interior was a carefully controlled maelstrom. Down the middle stood a row of black robes, both chanting and screaming at the people.

  “To lust is sin!” shouted one. “You are divine beings filled with light, so feeling animal lust is sinful!”

  “Even to exist is sin!” another black robe wailed. “You are born into sin! It is criminal to break through the womb! You are born into inescapable suffering!”

  “To think of overcoming sin is a sin, the worst sin of all!” said another. “How can you pathetic wretches plot to overcome darkness without committing the sin of pride?!”

  The people entered with heads bowed, but by the time they were halfway down the aisle they were an emotional wreck. They cried in anguish, relieving themselves of emotions placed into them, brainwashed victims reenacting a ritual imprinted on them long ago. But on either side of the church Lucas saw still worse sights. Black robes stood at tables filled with goods, where they negotiated and took money and goods from poor men and women, or even promissory notes for payments on future sin forgiveness. In return, the black robes made the cleansing gesture of the Execution Cross, mumbling, “Your sins are forgiven... for today,” or, worse, turned their lips up in disgust at the meager offerings of the farmers and laborers, then demanded still more. With scriptures from their book of suffering the black robes rambled at the tearful people, convincing them that they were doing them a favor by taking their ill-gotten wealth from them.

  Suddenly a hand clapped down on Lucas’s shoulder, and a black robe behind him hissed, “And what are your sins, my boy?”

  Lucas turned on him like a wild animal, and the black robe jerked back in alarm. At that moment a man was forcing a goat through the crowd, tapping its hind end with a whip so that he could march it up to the black robes in atonement for his sins. Lucas jerked the whip from his hands and began swinging the whip until the crowd ran screaming from him.

  Lucas ran to a table that was weighed down with coins and kicked the table into a cluster of black robes, casting them down in a clinking shower. Other black robes ran howling, papers and coins in hand, and Lucas chased after them, whipping them left and right. A group of blue robes sprang into action, ready to crush bones with their iron staves. Lucas ran straight for them, casting his own safety away as if possessed by a vengeful spirit. The large, intimidating blue robes immediately turned and fled, and Lucas seemed so charged with power that nobody blamed them for their cowardice. Lucas turned and ran up the steps to the podium and a cluster of black robes scattered, shrieking curses rather than prayers, the younger ones pushing the elders down in their haste.

  Lucas stood over the crowd. “Is it not written,” he shouted, “that my house will be called a house of prayer for all people!? But you have made it a den of thieves!”

  Lucas chased away another gang of blue robes. People ran from the Temple and pushed their way down the stairs. “I never got my forgiveness,” said one old farmer, his face streaked with tears as he sat down on the steps, ignoring others as they laughed and spread the news of what was happening. “How will I get into heaven once I’m finally dead? God won’t… he won't know that I'm sorry… I can’t do it on my own...”

  Yardalen put her hand on his shoulder. He had thought that someone was going to comfort him, but instead her face seemed hard and unforgiving. “You are the god that judges yourself,” she said. “Now stand up and be worthy of your own esteem!”

  ***

  That night the black robes gathered before High Priest Globulus.

  “Rabbi,” said one, “he has disturbed a sacred ritual and desecrated the Sabbat.”

  Globulus smiled, then said, “Interrupted business, did he?”

  “Business?” said another, as if spitting the word.

  Immediately Globulus realized that he had said too much, that he had strained at the harness that all leaders wear. Knowing that he had to turn attention back onto the rebel. “Are you willing to protect the flock from this wolf?” he said. “Or would you rather live in a world where we are not the shepherds?”

  “We are ready to kill him,” said an old black robe who was nearly toothless.

  Even Globulus was surprised that they were willing to speak so openly. He noticed that the others were nodding, and looked like vultures dipping their heads into a corpse.

  “Then we will do what we must,” said Globulus. “We will protect our flock.”

  “First thing tomorrow?” said a young black robe with a face like a child’s.

  “No,” said Globulus. “We wait until nightfall. Then we make our move.”

  ***

  Lucas led his disciples through the outskirts of the village. Yardalen trailed behind, in the darkness, and Lucas did not slow down for her to catch up. She thought of how the people had gathered around him earlier that day, how they'd wanted to revel in what he'd done at the Temple. Many promised to follow Lucas no matter what happened. He had turned on them. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brother and sister - yes, even his own life and his need for security, then he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his own cross cannot be my disciple.”

  The lesson is too hard for them, thought Yardalen, remembering how he had spent hours crushing their egos, their childish dreams, and sent them away heavy-hearted. They thought he wanted to create a cult, a powerful new church. They thought he would be the High Priest of a new group with a fresh sense of security and a reinvigorated “us against them” mentality. No doubt the people were disturbed that he wanted something more.

  Roc drew up beside Lucas. It was cold and he did not know where they were going. “Lord,” he said, pulling his cloak tight. “How far are we going to go?”

  Lucas stopped and turned to them. “You wonder how far we will go?” He looked at each of them. He felt a doorway opening, the weight of destiny somehow moving to put a hand on his shoulder. “Sell your cloaks and buy swords.”

  The disciples froze, wondering if they had heard him correctly. Just then they saw the light of torches in the night. Still Lucas did not move, but stared at them all. Torchlight played on his hard face. Roc broke away from his gaze, casting his eyes about to see who was approaching.

  A line of blue robes approached, men with bestial faces carrying long knives and dripping torches. The large brute in front, bodyguard to the High Priest himself, said, “Are you Lucas, of the Deepest Vale?”

  “I am he,” said Lucas.

  No one moved. Their feet seemed frozen in place.

  “Do what it is you came to do,” said Lucas.

  The guard stepped forward, and the stillness broke in a flash of sudden violence. Roc withdrew a short sword he had hidden in his robe, then hit the blue robe in the side of his head with the blade and fell on top of him. As the other blue robes rushed forward Lucas jerked the large disciple into the air and cast him backwards, shouting, “Put your sword away!”

  Roc stumbled to his feet and the disciples scattered into the night. Lucas held his hand o
ut and the blue robes immediately stopped in place. In the silence they heard the bodyguard of the High Priest moaning, his hand against his head, an ear lying on the ground beside him. Lucas put his hand on the man’s head and held him still even as he tried to move away.

  “Why didn’t you arrest me at the Temple, in the light of day?” Lucas said quietly. “But this is your way of doing things, isn't it?” They sat in silence, then the bodyguard slowly pulled away. He touched his bloody head and found that his ear was whole once again. He looked up at Lucas in amazement, unable to move. Then, ashamed, he nodded to the other blue robes. They surrounded Lucas, grabbed his arms, and led him away.

  ***

  Torchmen stood along the steps to the Temple and a crowd gathered below as the blue robes led Lucas away. Several green-robed Cognati stood at the base of the stairs, their eyes on the Valliers who were already promising trouble. But Lucas did nothing, so they led him into the Temple.

  In a large torch-lit room open to the night air, Lucas was brought before a committee of black robes. High Priest Globulus wore his full set of black and red robes, and Jared the Cognati stalked through the crowd of lower-ranking black robes.

  “Tell us,” said a black robe sitting near Globulus. “Is it true that you refer to God as ‘father’ and call yourself his 'son'? What do you think you are, exactly? Be specific!”

  “If I told you,” said Lucas, “you would not understand. You are blind to what I am. I am exactly where I want to be.”

  The black robes whispered among themselves, unsure of where to go from there. Globulus cleared his throat and they fell silent, leaning forward intently. “Tell us,” said Globulus, “what you and your disciples plan. You have stirred up a great deal of resentment. What is it that you tell the people?”