by Ramy Vance
The viceroy smiled, an unnerving gesture that showed teeth which were immaculately straight and white, tiny pearls afloat in a strange and hideous sea. “Greetings,” the viceroy’s voice boomed. It was softer than when Suzuki had first heard it, weeks ago in the vampire’s underground labyrinth, after accidently touching the communication device the Dark One and the viceroy used to keep in contact with their fleets across the realm.
“How I have longed to come among you, my brothers and sisters, to spend time walking beside you in the name of our Dark Lord. It has been far too long. I apologize. There are many camps which need attending. Our forces grow stronger and stronger by the day. Week after week, there are new bodies that promise themselves to us, new bodies which make the pledge of flesh. As we grow in loyalty, we continue to grow closer to our true purpose. For we all have a purpose under our most gracious Dark Lord. Many of us were unaware. Many of us were too low, too pathetic and vulgar to have seen it for ourselves, even though it was directly in front of us the entire time. Yet here we are. Elevated from our stations in life, our stations in birth, our stations in creation. Elevated by the sheer grace, love, and perspective of our Dark Lord. For it was the Dark Lord who looked upon us and saw our potential. It was the Dark Lord who so loved us that he crossed the stars, tore through reality itself, to reach down, tenderly…”
Here the viceroy stopped speaking. She appeared to be overcome with emotion, with a love and caring so deep that Suzuki had to ask himself what exactly he was watching. This couldn’t be real. It was… too theatrical. The only way the crowd could be taking this seriously was if they had been brainwashed.
Beth flashed across Suzuki’s mind like a wildfire. Do you see this shit? Beth asked, her voice almost frantic. This is out of control. It’s like a fucking rally or something.
Why would they need to have a rally if they’re being mind-controlled? What’s the point of doing this if the Dark One already has control of them? Suzuki asked.
Beth agreed. Maybe the Dark One is doing it for the Dark One? Talk about a fucking megalomaniac.
On the screen, the viceroy was still struggling to find her words, obviously overcome by her adoration of the Dark One. She smiled tenderly and nodded her head softly, as if reminding herself of some deep truth. “It was the Dark Lord,” she started up again, “who took it upon himself to remind us what we are. To elevate us.”
The crowd of races cheered loudly. Above them, the viceroy smiled. The most disturbing aspect of her smile was how genuine it looked. Nothing was forced. As she smiled, the parts of her skin corrupted by technology glowed a dull blue as if her devotion was giving it strength.
Beneath the viceroy’s image, the Monolith hummed loudly. Suzuki could feel it in…he wasn’t sure where, but he knew that it wasn’t just in his head. Except it was in his head. He didn’t have a body to register the vibration. The monolith, Suzuki exclaimed. That’s where the signal is being broadcast from.
When Beth spoke, it was with a solemnity that Suzuki hadn’t recalled hearing before. No, Suzy. Something else is coming from that…thing. Wyatt explained to me how the system worked before I left. There’s a broadcast station in one of these buildings around here. Whatever the hell that thing is, it’s broadcasting something else.
What else would they be broadcasting? What more would you need than the mind-control frequency?
Beth shook her head. I don’t know. But I think that it might be worse. I’ve seen one of those before.
Yeah, so have I. In 2001— Suzuki started.
No, I don’t mean in a movie, Beth interrupted. I’ve seen it in the field. We found a bunch of halflings in a village that had been burned to the ground. I don’t know what had happened there, but there were bodies everywhere. The halflings had been microchipped. But it was how we found them. They were all huddled around one of those monoliths. They were bent forward like they were praying or something. At the back of their necks, their skin was breaking up just like the viceroy’s. We didn’t know about the microchips back then. I don’t think it would have made a difference if we had known either way.
What do you think it was doing?
I don’t know, Suzy. But I think you might be right. I think this is much more complicated than we thought it was going to be. All of this, everything with the Dark One…
Up on the screen, the viceroy was now standing. She spread her arms, her robe hanging loosely like unfolded wings. “It is our Dark Lord who wishes to show us the power of his strength, of his command over nature itself. For there is nothing within us, which is natural. No, our very nature is unnatural. Thus, it is only in the power of the Dark Lord to bend us away from our natural corruption. It is only our Dark Lord who may feed us with his bright and pure wisdom. He is our nature, as it is intended. Even if we need a reminder on certain occasions.”
There was a mighty roar that went up from the crowd. All of the races were cheering together. And amidst that roar, there was a sorrowful scream, a lamentation that sounded as if the earth itself were groaning.
The various races stepped back from the projection of the viceroy. Where they once stood, a ring forced itself up from the ground. An arena carved itself from the ground, all sleek and beautiful, an electric current running through the clear twenty-foot walls that rose out of nowhere.
The ground jumped. Fred and Ros’ten whipped their heads around to see what had caused the vibration.
Towering above the heads of all the races, two majestic, massive creatures were being led, their necks chained, their hands and feet bound. Treeants, standing nearly as tall as the wall themselves, creatures of old and wise times, creatures of wood and leaf, a beautiful mix of the mortal races and the humble yet powerful composition of the most ancient of trees. These two treeants looked to be thousands of years old, their bark nearly gray now even though the leaves hanging from their branches were the brightest of greens.
Four orcs led the treeants to the invisible wall where an opening appeared. The treeants were brought into the arena. The orcs quickly removed themselves. One of the orcs pressed its hand to the invisible wall.
The chains that bound the treeants fell to the ground, and they were free in the strictest sense of the word.
Above, the viceroy’s mellow voice bellowed over speakers which could not be seen. “Here is that corrupt and perverse nature which the Dark Lord wishes to wipe out,” the viceroy exclaimed, her smile so sweet and loving. “Some of the oldest remnants of such a nature. They wish to appeal to you, to sway you from the infinite love and understanding of the Dark Lord.”
One of the treeants, the oldest, it would seem, who had a beard of the finest apple blossoms turned to the crowd that surrounded him. He wrung his hands, pleading as he spoke. “Children of Dust, hear me now,” the treeant shouted in his deep, sing-song voice. “Have you forgotten your ways? Have you forgotten the beauty of yourselves? You, fair elves? Have you forgotten the paths of light which you built among the most ancient of my herd? Dwarves, you children of stone and genius, have you forgotten the ancient halls which you carved for the sake of beauty and beauty alone? Orcs? The first born of the earth, those whose skin itself is the very nature of the earth you walk upon, who were born in the stomach of the world itself. Have you forgotten your pride? Have you forgotten your defiant ways? Have you forsaken your tribes, your family, your ancient traditions? You of all, how have you fallen so low? You, first born of Middang3ard, how have you lost yourselves?”
The crowd roared their abuse. They shouted profanities, in their own tongues. They were united in their hatred of the treeants, who looked on the mortal races, their faces long and weary.
The viceroy’s voice broke out over all the noise. The crowd fell silent. Even the treeants turned to face the viceroy as she spoke. “That is the sound of your nature: clinging to falsehoods, holding fast to corruption, filling your minds with weakness and lies!”
The viceroy dropped her robes. She stood before the crowd. All of the skin beneath h
er neck was replaced with technological corruption. The farther down the corruption extended, the less like technology it seemed to be. Her body was mercurial, at moments extremely smooth and the next, breaking apart, nothing more than a combination of gears and cables, quickly working to pull itself back together, to rearticulate itself in some semblance of order, to dominate the chaos that threatened to break apart, to rip her body to shreds. She was inhuman, a tightrope balancing act between that which is and that which should never be. “This is our nature!” the viceroy proclaimed. “Let the Dark Lord wash over us with his purpose!”
At that last statement, the viceroy reached through the projection. She did not teleport. It was as if she merely stepped through the screen as if it had been a door. The curved pylon of the building behind her contorted itself like an appendage broken into an unnatural position by an opponent. A throne stretched from the pylon and the viceroy sat atop it, the throne sending small, connecting ports into her legs and breasts, sliding between her legs, attaching to her arms and neck as her fingers stretched and joined into the pylon. “Let us sing our Dark Lord’s praise!” she sang as she opened her mouth, uttering a shrill tone that only lasted a second.
The monolith hummed, and the crowd screamed in jubilation until another sharp pitch rang out—and then there was silence.
The treeants turned to look at each other. The old wisdom had gone out of their eyes. They threw themselves at each other, their wooden fists slamming into each other’s bodies. The sound of their fists hitting each other echoed through the dead silence hanging over the arena. One of the treeants, the old one, fell to his knees. His brother took his head in his hand. The younger brought his knee against the elder’s head.
The elder treeant fell to the ground. A shockwave nearly threw all of the spectators from their feet. Then the younger treeant stooped to his knee. He brought his fists down on the elder’s head.
There was the sound of cracking wood.
Then silence.
Then another crack.
And another.
The younger treeant’s hand hung in the air, posed over the elder’s, his knuckles dripping with brownish red sap. Beneath him, the elder’s legs twitched as the wind blew through his leaves.
A shrill, gleeful, almost innocent laugh tore through the silence. The viceroy was leaning forward, her eyes wide and lustful. “Treeant! What is your name?” she asked.
The treeant looked up at her. It was hard to say what was in his eyes. “I was named Fahelth. By my father,” he answered.
“And where is your father?”
“He lies beneath me.”
“Bring me his head.”
“As you wish.”
Fahelth brought his fist down on his father’s head once more. It sounded as if a tree’s entire root had been ripped from the earth.
Sap flowed and collected in a dark pool beneath the treeant’s body. Fahelth stood, holding his father’s head loosely, the cherry blossoms of the elder wrapped in the younger’s fingers, the elder’s eyes wide in an expression of bewilderment, mouth ajar in frozen horror and pain as sap dripped from his head.
Fahelth placed his father’s head beneath the viceroy, who smiled as she spoke, “There is no father and son under the Dark One. No slave, no free man. No elf nor orc. There is only order.”
Another ring pierced the air. This time it did not come from the monolith or the viceroy. It came from behind her, from the building which she had attached herself to.
Ros’ten jerked at the sound of the ringtone, twitching hard enough to bump into Fred, who quickly turned around and hissed at him, “What the hell are you doing?”
Fred’s irritation turned rapidly to alarm. Ros’ten was practically convulsing, his wings suddenly flapping and then going limp, his large eyes blinking as if he were drunk, his mouth jabbering as his mandibles snapped shut. Beth, Suzuki shouted in her head, What the fuck is going on with Ros?
Beth sounded frightened, her voice sharp and strained. He’s freaking out, she answered. And it’s getting harder to hold on. We need to get him someplace safe now. Right fucking now!
Suzuki and Fred scanned the area. Everyone was still interested with whatever was going on in the arena. It was a perfect time to act.
Behind them, about twenty feet or so, was the row of squat buildings where they had fought the orc. They could easily slip into a building, lock the door behind them, and figure out what was going on from there. Fred grabbed Ros’ten and pulled him away from the crowd, toward the buildings.
The two familiars burst through the door.
There were large toilet stalls, each one easily big enough to fit a medium-sized giant. You have to be fucking kidding me, Suzuki muttered.
There was hardly any time for him to complain about the situation. Ros’ten ejected Beth from his body, sending her flying into the wall. She bounced off and scrambled to her feet.
Ros’ten started to foam at the mouth. He had fallen to the ground and backed up into the wall, his whole body vibrating as his wings flapped weakly.
Beth knelt beside him, whispering softly to him as she petted his head, running her fingers through his yellow, puffy hair, trying to calm him down. “Hey, Ros, chill out. I’m here,” she repeated over and over.
Suzuki reached out to Fred. Spit me out, too, Suzuki told Fred.
Gladly.
Suzuki had the sudden feeling of being vomited out, of tumbling into the world. He skidded across the bathroom floor, vaguely thinking about how disgusting the floor must have been despite the facility’s futuristic looks. Once he got to his feet, he hit his HUD, checked around the area for anyone, and drew his ax. There was no one in the bathroom.
Beth was still at Ros’ten’s side, singing to him softly. The bee was calming down, calm enough for Beth to start going through his fur. Suzuki came over to help. They found a little bit of a microchip left, embedded in his skin. Suzuki took his ax and removed it. The bee instantly stopped convulsing. “I thought we’d already de-chipped him,” Beth wondered.
Suzuki crushed the microchip in his hand. “Maybe they use more than one. Let’s double check him.”
As Beth and Suzuki combed through Ros’ten’s fur, the bathroom door opened. Four orcs walked into the bathroom, laughing together. They stopped laughing when they saw the humans. One of the orcs chuckled as he looked at Fred. “What the hell are you guys doing in here? Getting kinky with some prisoners?”
The orc’s eyes fell to the ax in Suzuki’s hand. His eyes widened and he reached for the door.
Suzuki threw his ax, hitting the door handle, locking the door in place. “Beth, fight!” he shouted. “Fred, groom Ros’ten!”
The four orcs squared up against the two Mundanes. “Ain’t nothing like a barroom brawl,” Beth said as she cracked her knuckles.
Sandy, Stew, and José were crouched in one of the trees on the outskirts of the swamp. Stew looked extremely bored. He had taken to sharpening his swords. It was difficult to tell how many times he had sharpened each one. There was no joy in the way he held his whetstone. He was just killing time. Sandy wasn’t looking any better. Even though she was reading, her eyes hardly retained what she had been looking at. She was glad that she was wearing her amulet. Knowing you didn’t have to pay too close attention really took the pressure off of reading.
José, on the other hand, seemed to be far from bored. He was peering through a looking glass in the direction of the futuristic buildings of the final defense circle. Every so often, he murmured under his breath and adjusted his sitting position.
Sandy lazily looked up from her book. “What’s got you so excited over there?” she asked, half expecting José to ignore her.
Instead, José handed Sandy the looking glass. She glassed the distance, trying to find what had held José’s attention. It did not take long. Off in the distance was a treeant, and it was holding the head of another treeant. “They’ve been fighting for some time, those two,” José said.
Sandy h
anded the spyglass back to José. “How come you didn’t say anything earlier?” Sandy asked.
“It didn’t look like something either of you should have to see. It wasn’t natural.”
Stew looked up from his whetstone and sword. “What’s going on?”
“Two treeants just fought to the death,” Sandy said with a morbid fascination. “One decapitated the other.”
“Aren’t treeants supposed to be peaceful?”
“They aren’t supposed to be peaceful. They are peaceful. Even when their forests are threatened, they’ve always managed to handle things in a diplomatic way. I’ve only ever heard of treeants fighting in the direst of situations and never each other. No matter what. It’s like an ancestral code that they have: never do harm to another treeant. Which, honestly, never seems like a problem since they’re so goddamn easy going. They’re the least disagreeable people in all of Middang3ard, and I just watched two of them beat the living shit out of each other. Correction, I just watched a treeant murder what could only be family.”
“How do you know they’re family?”
“They have the same buds…the only time that happens is when family members grow old together. They start to take on the same shape of the trees around them. It’s beautiful. What I just witnessed was anything but that.”