[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants

by Kyle B. Stiff

  I could be like a figment walking around inside his mind right now, thought Wodan. How could a being go through such change and not go insane? Or is he even sane at all? Is there any precedent for such an event? What other sorts of places could there be in this Tower?

  “And that’s the very thing,” said Setsassanar. “No one prepared me for such development. My world was destroyed even as I was just beginning to learn about it. It was wiped away by a degenerate race of monsters whose birth I was an unfortunate witness to. Think me a coward for staying here, if you like… only it’s no small thing to save the world when it’s all you can do to keep your sanity together in a world that abhors sanity itself.

  “These things you will also have to grapple with, Wodan. There is much about yourself that you do not know. For instance, I will tell you a secret about yourself. It is just this: You are immortal. As the years go by, all of your friends will die, but you will live on. You will watch as their bodies degenerate, as their minds fall apart, but you will be untouched by time. At least, untouched by human standards. Oh, you will change, Wodan, you will change. For you are no longer human. You are a superbeing. Understand that.

  “Do you find it bewildering that you are stronger and faster than others? That’s only the tip of the sword, my Apprentice. You think you feel like an outsider now? Give it a few centuries. Wait until your body develops into the image your subconscious hides deep within your soul. Then we will see how vain and clumsy your notion of solitude was when you were a thirty-year-old infant.”

  Setsassanar smiled suddenly, then said, “But we won’t dwell on such things. Come along. We must begin your physical training.”

  Wodan swallowed in a dry throat. “Of course, Master,” he said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Agony Education

  Setsassanar and Wodan entered a rust-colored room with a barred circular window that showed the vast plain of the wasteland. Many machines sat in this room, all of them lined with chains, pulleys, levers, and heavy iron weights. Dust motes hung lazily in the cylindrical amber beam from the window.

  “Here is where your physical training begins,” said Setsassanar. “The simplest form of work is that of moving mass from one place to another. Gravity is the enemy in this. It’s no wonder that men enslave beasts and other men to do such work. The mind continually dreams of rest even as the body becomes acclimated to its task.”

  “So I’m going to bulk up in here?” said Wodan, approaching one of the industrial machines.

  “Yes and no. You’ve got to become stronger. But the human body is very efficient in terms of storing calories in the form of fat. Muscles require a lot of energy for their upkeep, so the body is quick to break down muscle mass and convert it into fat. If you’re too big, too muscular, your body will torture you with the idea that it wants to be fed more and more. We’ll teach your body that it must do more with less. We’ll break your mind of its old habits of conservation by teaching it that it no longer controls a merely human body. Here, we’ll do some stretches.”

  While Wodan imitated the movements and breathing patterns of his Master, he said, “I’ve always had trouble putting on muscle mass. I was always a skinny kid.”

  “That’s because your metabolism ran faster and hotter than most humans even before you merged with my genetic blueprint. Now your demands for energy are even greater. You become very tired after exerting yourself, yes?”

  “I do.”

  “Then that is why we have to train your metabolism. It will never be perfect. Though your body is designed for great strength and speed, there are no ways to cheat the reality of the scarcity of energy. Great output demands great input.”

  “Then how can I become strong if my body, or any body, just wants to relax?”

  “You’d be surprised at how efficient the human body can become at storing and moving energy. And how much more so, your own body. Come. Get on one of the machines.”

  “Which one?”

  “Doesn’t matter. And don’t worry about adjusting the weights. I’ll manage that.”

  Wodan sat down on one of the strange machines, grabbed hold of its levers, and pushed outward as forcefully as he could. Behind him, a stack of weights rose. As he repeated the process, more weights were added to his stack. He exerted himself until he could do no more, then Setsassanar said, “Next machine.” Without complaint Wodan rose, stumbled to another, and repeated the process.

  They went from one machine to the next until Wodan lost track of time. More than an hour must have passed, and though Wodan felt pride as his body bulged, the process was painful, mindless, a tortuous drudgery. Sharp sweat ran through his eyes. He ignored it, blinking the pain away. And always there was the imperious face of the Master, pushing him on.

  The sun grew dim and Wodan became like a mindless thing. “That’s good for now,” Setsassanar finally said. “Slave Circuit - a little food. Some water.”

  Numb, Wodan stumbled toward an opening on the far wall, where a glass plate and cup slid into view. Wodan wolfed down the salty cubes. “That’s all I get?” he said.

  “Believe it or not,” said Setsassanar, “there are some devils in the world so cruel that they will not pause for snack breaks during battle.”

  “Very funny. But even during the Smith War, I always carried food with me.”

  “And you taught your body that it could glut itself after any exertion. A minute of work followed by a week in repose. Such habits lead to extinction. Come.” Setsassanar signaled and left, and Wodan followed.

  They entered the room of wood with its padded mats and rows of weapons. Robot Number Four, the combat training robot, stood at attention. Wodan felt dread as soon as he entered; he was already exhausted. But he did not want to complain, so he said nothing.

  It’s just for training, Wodan told himself. The robot won’t fight as hard as before.

  “Ready for combat?” said Setsassanar.

  “Of course,” said Wodan.

  Setsassanar snapped his fingers, and the robot raised its smiling face, then assumed a martial pose and stalked sideways. Wodan took a deep breath, then approached.

  The tired sludge of Wodan’s awareness sharpened as he circled the thing. Setsassanar watched in silence.

  “Master,” called Wodan, never taking his eyes from the robot. “Aren’t you going to teach me any techniques?”

  “What sort of tricks would you like to learn?”

  “Well... some sort of fighting style, perhaps.”

  “Maybe later. Maybe never. Just worry about winning.”

  “But if you-”

  With that, the robot leaped and Wodan met it head-on. The two grappled, pushing against one another, and Wodan was forced back. He threw his weight sideways, then slammed his knee into the robot as he disentangled himself. The thing came at him with a flurry of blows. Wodan dodged, then deflected several hammerblows with his forearms. Sharp, stabbing pain radiated through bone and into his elbows. He caught an opening, then stepped in and concentrated a blow into the thing’s sternum. As it rocked backward, Wodan felt his fist grow numb, the fingers dead. The thing was on him again before he could even shake the numbness from his hand.

  They danced around one another and traded blows. As the thing’s shell cracked, Wodan felt his own flesh being ground to mush, his bones threatening to break. Without complaint the robot continually advanced. Even when Wodan unleashed blows that would kill a man, he knew that he felt more pain than his metallic foe. His lungs burned, and he felt his movements becoming more and more sluggish. Eventually he gave up on his hands, both raw and numb, and fought with his elbows and knees.

  Eventually, as if by some miracle, he noted that the robot’s arms were becoming slow, awkward, their casing broken in many places and joints weakened. In a flash Wodan stepped in, threw the thing to the ground, then put his knee against its back and wrenched its head sideways, snapping its neck. Wodan fell atop the thing, utterly spent.

  Setsassanar turned
to the far wall. “Three more units,” he said. Wodan watched in horror as a section of the wall slid back and three more Robot Number Fours entered from a dark hallway.

  “Master,” Wodan shook his head, “I can’t - I’m exhausted.”

  Setsassanar glared at him, reached into a pocket, and produced a cube of food. He tossed it at the floor near Wodan “Pitiful creature!” he said. “Eat it off the floor. When you’re a man, you can sit up and eat like a man.”

  Wodan snatched up the thing and ate it, anger constricting his throat as he swallowed. As one of the robots advanced Wodan shouted, “But this isn’t realistic training, Master! Their bodies are too hard! I feel like my hands are going to-”

  “Such soft hands!” said Setsassanar. “Like an infant! How have you come so far, only to resign yourself to die at the hands of a mere machine? Get up and fight!”

  Wodan forced himself up and backed away from the robot. His exhausted mind whirled, desperate for some argument that would end this torture. “When we fought,” Wodan shouted, “I don’t remember you having hands stronger than steel!”

  Setsassanar lightly rapped his knuckles against the wall. “My hands hold you up from the wasteland. No demon dares approach my hands. Now stop complaining!”

  The robot dashed forward and its fist snapped out quickly. Wodan felt a hammer against his chest and he hit the ground, breathless. With quick blows the beast kicked in his sides, over and over, until Wodan rolled away as if he were a bag of broken bones. Just then his mind sharpened and he thought, Just who is this person, really? Could I be killed here? Is he too old, too insane, to have any qualms against killing me?

  Wodan rolled into a wall and leaned against it as he rose. He reached for the handle of a weapon, then immediately jerked his hand away in pain. The handle had burned like molten steel.

  “Damn it!” shouted Wodan, sidestepping away from the approaching robot.

  “Only adults should handle weapons,” shouted Setsassanar. “Learn to crawl before you walk.”

  Sure that his ribs were fractured, lungs melting with each breath, Wodan threw himself at the terrible robot. The thing flowed around him, cold and implacable, slamming fists into him, jarring his head, bashing his torso. Wodan used his numb hands only to move the opponent around, then attacked with feet and knees until his legs quivered under him like jelly. They raced around one another, clawing at the ground to keep from falling over, the hum of the machine bleeding into his ears, and as he threw himself at the thing in a desperate attempt to bowl it over he felt his mind burning white-hot even as his body overloaded his consciousness with shrieking alarms of pain and imminent self-destruction.

  Both hit the ground, and Wodan grappled with the thing. A metal fist shot out and Wodan’s brain was jarred as the blow connected with his mouth, smashing his lips against broken teeth. Wodan doggedly grappled with the thing’s head as he laid atop it, watching his own blood splatter against the robot’s jerking, featureless face.

  Finally the thing’s head came off in his hands and he jerked backwards, pulling out a wet, metallic spinal cord. The monster twitched under him. Gasping for air and choking on his own blood, he turned his rage on Setsassanar and flung the head and spine at him.

  “Enough!” shouted Setsassanar, spinning and catching the thing easily, eyes wide. “That’s enough, Wodan! Rest! Rest now!”

  Wodan could not have done otherwise. He laid on the robot, one eye sealed shut, the other staring at his purple swollen hands, his fingers like fat sausages. Blood clung to his mouth, a thin line shivering with each breath. His mouth was full of something like glass and hot syrup.

  Suddenly the Master was beside him, kneeling, a hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright, Wodan. That’s enough for today.”

  “Could... have... killed... me!”

  “I’m not trying to kill you, Wodan. I’m trying to force you into being born.”

  Wodan was still alarmed, but Setsassanar’s voice was reassuring all the same. He rolled away from the robot and pain washed over him. Minutes passed and Wodan was dimly aware of Yohei shuffling about. The servant rearranged its shattered brothers on the ground, lining them alongside one another, placing ruined heads next to stumps of necks.

  Wodan jerked awake. The blood on the ground was cold. He could breathe once again, and his hands were painfully raw but no longer swollen. “Come,” said Setsassanar. “I want to show you something.”

  Setsassanar helped Wodan to his feet, then held him up and led him from the room. As they left, Wodan saw Yohei staring down at the two broken robots. They shook slightly, bodies reforming. Setsassanar led him to a small circular chamber. A door shut behind them, and as the room hummed Wodan understood that they were in an elevator and were rising rapidly. The roof slid open and suddenly they stood at the very roof of the Tower.

  The Tower was narrower at its peak than at its base. The sky was pitch black with stars shining more sharply than Wodan had ever seen. He realized that he must have slept on the floor of the training room for much of the day. Setsassanar led him to the edge and Wodan saw mist coiling like a serpent’s nest far below. Beyond the mist, the gray earth stretched out in a circle all around, calloused with mountains of scar tissue. The horizon was not flat but rounded. The world, for all its vastness, seemed a small place from this great height.

  “Why isn’t it cold?” said Wodan.

  “I’m generating heat for us.”

  Wodan could feel heat radiating up through his bare feet, having lost his slippers in the fight. He looked down at his white clothes, now torn to shreds and spattered with crusted brown blood. He looked at the world once more. He realized that it was lit only by the pale half-moon.

  “I don’t see any other lights,” said Wodan. “Where are the other cities? Even the camp, down below...”

  “Insignificant at this height.” Setsassanar paused for a while, then said, “It’s not a world. Not yet, it isn’t. It’s only a medium, an empty field waiting to be seeded. Pure potentiality waiting to be created.”

  Wodan was touched by a sense of emptiness. “Have you come up here... many times?”

  “I am always here. Always waiting, waiting. Just as the top of your head is called your temple, so this place is also my temple.” Setsassanar extended his hand to the outer expanse. “I know this is difficult for you, Wodan, but I can give you this world. All of it can be yours. If you want it.”

  Despite his exhaustion, Wodan felt a quiet swelling in his breast. The air tasted rich and sharp. Though exhausted, he no longer felt as if he needed to be hospitalized and cared for. Wodan cast his eyes to the field of stars. He nodded.

  Footsteps sounded and then Yohei was among them bearing a tray of food. Bowls filled with colored noodles, balls of protein-rich organic matter, and something like mushrooms. They sat and passed a jug of cold water between them as they watched the land and the night.

  Wodan felt as if Setsassanar would speak, but when he did not, Wodan grew impatient. “Master,” he said, “why not create an army of superbeings to fight the flesh demons?”

  “Do you remember what you have learned of them? That they are a half-species, that they mix their genes with other species in order to create their varied offspring?”

  Wodan nodded.

  “Then we must be mindful of the nature of the enemy. Now, only a handful of superbeings walk the earth. You, me, and the Engels. If we create more superbeings, it would increase the chance that the demons would mingle with superhuman beings and create a strain of hyperdevils. If that happened, we would find ourselves in a world much worse than this one. After an orgy of violence, demons would glut themselves on our corpses and inherit this unborn world. As it is, the demons are forming into armies and going on a rampage. But men, too, can be formed into armies… with superhuman generals at their head. Can you imagine such a thing, Wodan? The demons could be confronted directly. Their armies shattered. Their stance weakened. And, eventually, their homes within the earth put to the torc
h.”

  “So even if we can get the other superbeings on our side, we’ll still need normal humans to do most of the work?”

  “They’ll need to cooperate,” he said, nodding. “They’ll have their part, and you’ll have yours. Which brings me to the matter of your philosophical training. You’ll need to be initiated into the ways of Leviathan. You need a working knowledge of the left-hand path.”

  Wodan caught a fleeting memory of Pelethor, a man he had met and killed in Pontius years ago. The words seemed familiar, but it was difficult to remember.

  “Wodan, do you remember the religion you were taught in your youth? That of the Redeemer? And the Holy Series, which in the wasteland takes the form of the Book of the Red?”

  “I remember it. It comes from the same root-religion which created the Ugly.”

  “I know you’ve spent time with Entertainers. Do you remember the two great beasts? Those found in the oldest of all the old stories?”

  “Behemoth and Leviathan,” said Wodan. “Every time Jarl gets drunk, he goes on about them.”

  Setsassanar cast his eyes far away. “One man’s outlandish fable is, of course, powerful mythic poetry to another. I wonder, did you ever consider that the strength of Behemoth, the beast of the earth, represents the strength of laborers? Those that till the earth and live by the sweat of their brow. You have your roots among them, Wodan, and a lot of their habits. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. We can make use of that. But it’s your destiny, Wodan, to join the ranks of the Leviathan.”

  Wodan became uncomfortable. He thought of his parents, and the value of knowing one’s place and working without complaint. Setsassanar must have sensed this, because he laid his eyes on Wodan. “Wodan, you no longer have anything in common with the common man. You will become a member of the ruling class.”