[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants

by Kyle B. Stiff

  Long before he descended the winding stairs, he felt the hum of the powers of the Cognati, as well as cries of protest. Drawing near, he saw people kneeling, crying, cursing. On the far side of the courtyard he saw Jared and his Cognati hovering in a line, waiting for him. Six Valliers and Kommander Won Po dangled before them, legs kicking feebly, faces pale with fear.

  Wodan walked through the crowd of kneeling Valliers and Ktari soldiers, then stood before the Cognati. “You, Cognati,” he said, not looking at Jared. “Put these people down, and you can leave. But Jared – you stay right where you are.”

  “Hail, King Wodan!” said Jared, face writhing as he laughed. “Listen at you, calling the shots. But... you no longer threaten the Cognati.”

  Jared drew in his breath and turned to the crowd. “Here is my decree!” he shouted. “From now on, all foreigners will either leave Srilan soil or be buried in it! Only foreigners who have accepted the dominion of the Temple, the High Priest Globulus, and the… the Enforcer of the Will of God, Jared, may stay on as slaves.”

  “If my people are no longer welcome,” said Wodan, “then they will leave. But I stay. I stay until the end of this night. You and your kind murdered Lucas. He was my friend and your rightful ruler, and you and I are going to settle this matter.”

  “The hell you say!” Jared shouted. The floating hostages dangled about, gasping for air. “You’re right, we are going to settle this matter tonight! You spoke the truth when you said you would stay. Your people leave - but you stay! You’ll endure a night of suffering, outlander, and then you die with the dawn!”

  “How so?” Wodan said quietly, lifting Capricornus in one hand.

  Jared jerked his head upward. Wodan heard the creak of wheels, turned, and saw several men that could only be the Srilan version of Smiths bearing wheelbarrows full of gear. The men had their heads tucked low, ashamed to obey the commands of another church. They stopped before Wodan and hauled a large anvil onto the ground.

  “And now,” said Jared, “you’re going to destroy that sword of yours.”

  Wodan looked between Jared and the hostages. “Can you accomplish anything without sacrificing others?”

  Jared winced and immediately Won Po gagged in the air, his face turning purple. “What sacrifice? Are you good friends with this dog from San Ktari? No. You know your own nation will be under his boot one day. You have no love for him. So make your move. Kill me with that sword!” He paused, then said, “I know you’re fast. You could probably even take me, if that’s what you wanted.”

  Cursing in his heart, Wodan lowered Capricornus. Jared smiled. A bearded Smith who barely came up to Wodan's waist held a hammer before him.

  Wodan knew that he had made a grave error. He could kill Jared now, but at least six Valliers would be dead before he could stop the others. If he had wanted Jared dead, he should have hidden in the Temple. He should have been cold and cunning. Instead he had been ruled by his anger and led about on its leash like an animal. Setsassanar would have been ashamed of him. He had been fooled by the shadow of power, and now someone held true power over him.

  Wodan shifted Capricornus to his left hand, then took up the hammer. “Jared,” he said, “I’m still going to kill you.”

  “We'll see about that. Now hurry up. Destroy that thing.”

  As soon as Wodan laid shining Capricornus on the anvil, the Valliers cried out. “Don't do it!” and “Stop!” and “Kill that bastard!” they cried. A flood of memories rushed through him: Devils, ghouls, Smiths, so many monsters all slain by his hand with the sword of legend, the beautiful work of art that helped him protect his people. At once Wodan buried his regret and ignored the cries of his people. He raised the hammer and brought it crashing down on the Sword of the Ancients.

  The heavy hammer broke to pieces in his hands.

  Wodan glanced up at Jared. The Smiths conferred with one another. After a moment of awkward shuffling, three of them brought forth a massive hammer of gleaming steel, a piece of some kind of ancient machine. Huffing and panting they hauled it to Wodan; he picked it up in one hand and tested its weight.

  “Where did you get such a sword?” said one of the Smiths, green light gleaming on his face.

  “You would have to dig deep in your legends to understand,” said Wodan.

  Seeing that the Smith had not backed away, Wodan looked at him. “They say you picked a fight with some of our kindred up north,” said the man.

  “You heard wrong.”

  The man only smirked, as if eager to feel like he was taking part in the eradication of an enemy. Wodan turned away.

  He breathed and emptied out his heart until there was nothing but black emptiness. He lifted the great hammer and the Smiths fell back several paces. Exhaling, he brought it crashing down in a shower of sparks. He sword shrieked, and everyone but Wodan covered their ears. The hilt sucked strength out of his arm. Feeling as if he was killing a beloved family pet, he brought the hammer down again, then again, ignoring the pain. The great iron anvil cracked down the middle, and the next blow smashed it to pieces along the courtyard. The hammer glowed, nearly molten on the end, and Wodan cast it to the ground.

  “Just what are you?!” cried a Smith, and Wodan only looked at him.

  “He's a demon!” Jared shouted. “Find something else he can use to-”

  “But we don't have anything harder than that!”

  One of the Vallier hostages wriggled against his bonds. “The sword!” he cried, gasping. “It was made to kill Cogna-” The Cognati holding him flexed his palm and the Vallier was choked into silence.

  As the Vallier gasped for air, Wodan jammed Capricornus into the ground, then knelt and slammed his fist into the flat of the blade. Over and over he bashed his fist into the sword, until it shook and unleashed an unearthly wail. His right hand threatened to burst, but his entire left arm felt numb, like a rigid chunk of ice threatening to crack as the sword drew out his essence with each strike. His feet slipped, and just as he realized that blood from his own fist was gathering in a pool all around him, Capricornus, the Sword of the Ancients, exploded in a shower of brilliant green shards. The hilt, driven to madness, sucked at his twitching arm and he cast it down.

  Wodan fell onto his back, both arms numb and fixed in bent positions. He pushed himself away with his heels, horrified by what he had done. It was then that Jared flung away his hostage and blasted forward, barreling through anyone who stood near. The other Cognati raced after him like flies hungry for blood. Valliers drew guns and fired, Ktari soldiers cried out for backup and fired as well; some Cognati erected shields against a hail of gunfire while their faster brothers, Jared included, attacked Wodan's position, tearing through the earth as he leaped away. Wodan flipped and crashed into the ground face first, his teeth and nose making a horrid cracking sound as his blood-streaked arms hung limp at his sides. He rose and leaped away as the Cognati pounded the spot where he’d fallen. Again the blood-hungry psychics threw bolts of solid force and he leaped backwards, not knowing where he would land until rocks or hard ground crashed into his legs or back. His mind was a rider on a beaten horse, whipping mercilessly so that he could flee from the monstrous Cognati.

  Over a hundred soldiers gathered and, enraged at the treatment of their Kommander, they fired at the hovering Cognati. General Yarek Clash swung a belt of grenades, removed their pins with practiced ease, then flung the entire thing over the heads of the Cognati so that it fell behind them. People fled screaming, desperate to escape the violence, the explosions, the terrible humming sound, and even the insane laughter of Jared.

  “Into the hills!” Yarek shouted. “Everyone, into the pass!” The Valliers gathered around him, then the Rangers escorted civilians through the darkness, firing behind them if only to break the dull hum of the Cognati's wrath.

  The Valliers ran into the darkness and the cold, their king lost to them. The power of the Cognati was so great that even soldiers from San Ktari joined them in their dark flight. />
  ***

  From a cleft in the mountainside Yarek coordinated their holdout position. They were in the high, cold passes over the Deepest Vale, far from any easy route back to their airships. He put the wounded in the rear of a cave so that they could be tended without freezing to death. Many soldiers of San Ktari sat around them, hunched over and empty inside without their leader. Zachariah ran about calling for his son.

  Something fell near the rocky overhang and, fearing a Cognati attack, Yarek jerked his heavy gun from its holster. It was a large being with crooked arms, and it set Kommander Won Po down gently before them. As the soldiers of San Ktari gathered to welcome back their leader, Yarek finally realized that he was looking at Wodan, though he was hardly recognizable. Even the Valliers who ran to greet him stopped short.

  Wodan's mouth hung open and many of his front teeth were missing or jutting out at odd angles. His nose was purple, swollen, and pushed to the side. He held his arms bent in front of him like a bat wrapped in its wings, both covered in dried blood. His face was a red mask, and Yarek was alarmed because instead of the look of determination he had seen so often during the Smith War, his king now had the wide, empty eyes of a whipped dog. They looked at one another for a long time. They knew one another well enough that Yarek did not have to say that it was a mistake coming here and that they never should have interfered in foreign affairs, and Wodan did not have to tell him that he agreed.

  Wodan worked to close his mouth, then swallowed, then said, “This is… military operation now. Yarek… in charge.” He turned away, eyes losing focus as he considered other matters.

  “Wodan!” said Yarek. “Where will you go?”

  “To the airfield before… they destroy it. Have to get ship. Need backup.”

  Kommander Won Po forced himself to his feet. “Storm the Temple,” he rasped. “Wodan… we storm the Temple!”

  “No, no,” Wodan said in the Eastern tongue. “Kommander, look at your ranks. Many are dead. More than you think… have defected to the Temple. Please, Kommander, work with Yarek. Please wait for… my return.”

  Again Wodan turned to go as if the matter was done. On a ledge above, Yarek saw one of the Tengu special forces soldiers put a hand on his holstered automatic. Won Po shook his head at the man.

  “Fine, Wodan,” said Won Po. “We wait. We hide and wait for you. Go!”

  “At least let a doctor look at you,” said Yarek. “I think you're concussed. You need-”

  “No time,” said Wodan. “My legs… fine. I can run.”

  He spit a thick gob of blood from his mouth, then ran into the darkness. He soon left his people far behind.

  Part Four

  Hymn to the Wasteland Gods

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The Choice

  Since his flight form the Tower, his night in Srila, and his flight back to the Tower, Wodan had lost three nights of sleep. He had broken every bone in his right hand by the time Capricornus shattered, and his bloated fist was not yet healed. But he had endured much in his training, and now he knew that his old limits were mostly mental habits. So instead of wishing for rest and dwelling on the feeling of unfairness, he simply pushed the desire off to the side. He fed it no attention, and allowed it to weaken on its own. He spent much of the night passing his tongue over smooth gums where teeth had once been, and focused on the path before him.

  As he stood within the white halls of the Tower's lower levels once again, it was obvious that his Master was either sleeping, dreaming, or a little insane. He heard voices humming occasionally, wall sometimes rippled like the surface of a pond, or heavy, groaning machinery passed by just out of sight. No hall went anywhere. He suspected the halls were moving, or doubling back in endless loops.

  “Master,” said Wodan. “Where are you?”

  Silence.

  “Slave Circuit. Are you still active?”

  After a lengthy silence, he heard an audio channel clicking. “Nnnnnn-nmp,” said the feminine voice of Robot Number Two. “There is a rest that is happened. How does it. A wonder. What.”

  “What is going on?” said Wodan.

  “Ha. Ha ha! Mmmm. What?”

  “I asked what’s going on here!” The hall slowly collapsed, ceiling and floor closing in on buckling walls. Wodan ducked into a white room that almost seemed to breathe. “Where is Dove Langley?”

  There was no response other than a series of clicks. Wodan knew it would be impossible to rouse the sleeping god until a conscious body, a Setsassanar-model, was regrown. But he could not wait for that to happen, so his task would be all the more difficult.

  “Listen, Slave Circuit,” he said. “I need a new sword. A new weapon of some kind.”

  “A weapon.” The voice was dull and flat.

  “Yes.”

  “You have a weapon.”

  “… Where?”

  “You are a weapon.”

  Wodan sighed. “I get that. I do. But I need to fight Cognati. I can't get through their shields. I need a weapon like Capricornus, something that can tear through their shields.”

  “You don't have to fight Cognati.” The walls of the room crackled with visual static, then showed nonsense images interlaced with digital snow. The images cut off suddenly, then the large white panels on the walls, floor, and ceiling turned black.

  “You are cordially invited to my Master's wedding.” The voice was distorted, deeper than before.

  “Your Master?” said Wodan, disturbed. “You mean yourself.”

  “I have no Master but my Self,” said Slave Circuit. “In six days' time, this unit will wed the Master to Dove Langley. How nice.”

  “So will he be awake by then? Will he have a body, I mean.”

  “Why. Why bother. Marriage is a wonderful dream. He will be unformed at that time. And yet you may attend as best man, as they say. Greatest man? Your choice.”

  “I didn't come here to talk about that!” Wodan shouted. “I need a new weapon!”

  “Hasty conclusion. You have more options to choose from. Seer will give its counsel. Come and see.”

  On the walls of the room, Wodan saw Globulus. The High Priest was walking on his knees in a small stone chamber. There were thick pads tied to his knees, but his face was still strained as if enduring great pain. A dozen Srilan Smiths stood around him, their aprons decorated with sigils and letters. They watched Globulus intently, their faces pale and hairy and somber. A Smith opened a locked chest and pulled out a vest and a belt, both covered with jewels and dangling wires.

  “Here is the Urim and the Thummin, as per our agreement,” said an elder Smith. “You will see that we have kept them in working order for... well, thousands of years.”

  “How could you test such things?” said Globulus. His mouth bit off the words into angry chunks. His usual veneer of cool detachment was lost in a haze of stress.

  “We can turn the vest or the belt on, independently,” said another Smith, eyes pinched with irritation. “The holy instruction manuals are quite specific as to their functions. When necessary, we replace every lovingly crafted part.”

  The Smith holding the things pulled them toward himself, as if regretting the agreement to loan them out. “But we have never turned them both on at the same time,” he said, eyes boring into Globulus. “The holy instruction manual is quite specific about what could happen. If… if something did hear the call… if it came and questioned the user…”

  “Then why bother giving it to me?” Globulus said through gritted teeth, glaring at the Smith.

  Fear seemed to leave the elder Smith as he wrestled with a smile under his beard. “Well, whether it works or not, we have an agreement, and… replacing your black robes with our own personnel is, I think, worth the calculated risk.”

  High Priest Globulus held out his hands. There was an awkward moment in which nobody moved, then another Smith produced a sheaf of papers. “Sign here and here and here,” he said. “This is a binding contract that says you will return the
Urim and Thummin in the condition in which they were loaned out. This document shows that you did, literally, come to us on your hands and knees; our High Machinist won’t allow you to leave unless he sees your signature on that. And this document shows that we supplied you with pads for your knees... it’s to your benefit also that you sign that, showing that you were not ill-treated while in our care, despite being an outsider.”

  “Give me those papers,” Globulus snapped after they had already been handed to him. He signed them furiously, without reading, then cast them on the floor and took the vest and the belt, the ancient technology of the Urim and the Thummin.

  As the old man fought to rise to his feet, the elder Smith said, “High Priest, do you really think that you can summon a godlike being from another place with those things?” He took a moment to adjust his glasses, then said, “Or is this only a threat to that beast of yours that seems to have broken its leash?”

  Without stopping Globulus said, “In five days, we’ll all know the answer to that.”

  The image broke up.

  “When was that?” said Wodan.

  “Yesterday,” said Slave Circuit.

  What is that old fool trying to do! thought Wodan, gripped by frustration. No doubt Setsassanar planned his “wedding” to happen at the same time, just to complicate things.

  “Is it really possible,” said Wodan, “that that self-absorbed, pretentious old fool could make some kind of… some kind of god pop out of thin air?”

  “He believes so,” said Slave Circuit. “That is what matters. Some sacrifice will of course occur at the ceremony. Hm. Do you think he will sacrifice something of his own?”