[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants

by Kyle B. Stiff

  The boy Haginar led the orange robe called Nobody by the hand, then pointed to the ghoul growling in the dark. Nobody did not recognize his friend at first, and hesitated, gripping Haginar by the hand. Would his search to find his friend end here, with his death at the hands of a wild beast?

  Nobody raised a hand in tentative greeting. Vendicci stopped growling. His posture softened, then he hung his head in shame. Nobody's heart ached to see his pain. Nobody suspected many things about their High Priest; there were even rumors that he wanted to use the ghoul as a golem, a divine protector… a sacrificial tool of vengeance. But seeing Vendicci reminded him of seeing a sheep who had been attacked by a wild dog, a childhood memory he had buried for a long time. The posture was that of one who wanted solitude but secretly begged for help.

  “Vendicci,” said Nobody.

  Without lifting its head the ghoul whistled a sighing note, “Vvvrrrrrd...” A simple sound that was his name long ago.

  Nobody took a deep breath, then hardened his heart. There was work to be done.

  Nobody approached Vendicci and, seeing that he had propped a stick against his seat as if he might use it to defend himself, Nobody snatched it away and cast it on the ground. Nobody stalked about the hill gathering sticks for a fire while Haginar approached, curled his nose up at the ghoul, then sat and watched him. In a few minutes Nobody had a fire going. He removed a few hard-shelled seeds from his robe, peered at Vendicci for a long time, then cast them into the fire. The seeds crackled, then burst open with a sharp, high-pitched sound. The fire turned orange, then yellow. As the fire twisted it cast the hilltop into garish neon hues where no shadow could hide.

  Nobody sat down beside Vendicci. “You killed a black robe and a blue robe.”

  Vendicci moaned in stifled gasps, then said, “Did not mean... the black robe... didn’t mean for him...”

  “Nevertheless.” Nobody peered at the ghoul’s body in the light. “You’ve cut yourself?” he said.

  Vendicci nodded.

  “Why?” said Nobody.

  “Why? Why!?” Vendicci sat in brooding stillness. Orange firelight played on the glistening puss oozing along his chest. “I despise the day I was born. I wish that my mother’s body had ruptured the day I was born. I wish my father had beeen ambushed and clubbed to death the moment before I was conceived. The clapping of joy that greeted my birth... better the sound of fingers raking up cold earth to make a shallow grave. I wish that horrible day could be swallowed up by darkness. I am ready for this torture to end.”

  “Will you let me say something?” Nobody cast another orange-burning seed onto the fire. Vendicci lowered his head still further, so Nobody said, “Friend, I want you to consider this: When are the innocent ever punished, as you are now being punished? I know you don’t want to hear this. But it seems to me that you sowed evil, and now you reap it. Think, friend, if you can see past your suffering. If the universe has laws governing the actions and reactions of matter, then wouldn’t there also be laws and punishments for living, thinking beings? You call out in your sorrow and your self-pity, but who or what do you expect to answer you? There is a koan that says, ‘Resentment kills fools and envy slays the simple-minded.’ ”

  “Damn you!” hissed Vendicci, finally boring his eyes into Nobody. “You think I earned this? Of course the things I say scare you, monk. If all my suffering could be weighed, if you only had some idea what I’m going through, what I’ve lost, then you wouldn’t be so quick with your stupid quotes. It’s not your honesty that pisses me off. It’s that you treat what I say like it’s nothing, as if my suffering is nothing. What I’ve become scares you. You’ve never seen true anguish. Instead of helping me, you want to explain it away. Just like a monk. Of course I speak out of pain. Of course I sound bitter. But soon I’ll be dead, and you won’t bother me.”

  Haginar shifted uncomfortably on his seat. Nobody looked away. “Your words are confused,” he finally said. “You’ve become blinded by pain, friend. You think you’ve reached the depths of suffering, with no one to guide you and with no way of turning back - but have you studied our ancient stories? Have you ever tried to seek out wisdom? Many have suffered before you, and many will suffer after, but wiser men than you have gone through darkness and learned from it. Surely the world would not reject you if you were blameless? Learn from the universal laws, friend, study our way. Then you will find that it’s your enemies who are sorry, and pathetic, and suffering, and that that is the way it has always been.”

  “You want me to learn about your god!” said Vendicci, laughing bitterly. “What am I, to him? What does my pain matter to him? I could pray all day long, and he’d never answer. No. No. I’m not going to admit to having done wrong. That’s... just... stupid. If you lived in the world, you’d know that raiders, sickness, winter, and death come to everyone, and not just evil men. You’d know that. I’m not going to force a smile. I’m not going to join your brotherhood so they can make me bow and act polite and find a room for me deep down in the ground where they won’t have to smell my stink.” Vendicci let his head sink again, then rubbed at his scalp with his one good hand. “There was a thing that created me. Somewhere. But it's abandoned me now… because it wants me dead. And for no reason.”

  Seeing that Nobody was shocked by the force of the ghoul’s rage, little Haginar nearly sprang out of his seat. “Are you going to go on until this monk can’t say anything?” said Haginar. “You think you’re so perfect and blameless. You killed two people who were only trying to help you, and you probably killed people in the Black Valley, too, or else you wouldn’t be hunted! The truth is, King Wodan let you off easy. If he punished you for every bad thing you did, then you’d really be in bad shape. You think you're some kind of misunderstood rebel. You're not.”

  “Oh ho!” Vendicci spat. “Listen at you. What wise words. When you die, surely wisdom will die with you. Ha! You think I’m stupid? You think I’m inferior to you? Just because you’re older than me doesn’t mean I haven’t learned more than you. I learned from wild lands that know no mercy. I learned from hunting in the cold mountains. You think I'm a fool, boy? What if a wild animal attacked your family? Are you going to apologize to the beast when you hunt it down? No. No, the only one to blame is your king. He's to blame… and I mean to take my case to him. I mean to throw it in his face. I gamble my life on this. Even if he kills me, I want him to see his black heart for what it is. My strength will be my salvation. You think a weakling could approach your king? No, throwing my life at him will be proof that I am right. So what does it matter to you? Whether I follow through with this, or say that I’m wrong, why do you care? Why is my short time so important to you, that you have to determine what I do with it?”

  Vendicci began to shake like a caged animal. His jaw was set and his lips were peeled back from uneven yellow teeth, black near the gums. “Odan,” he said. “Awful, awful King… if my arm was healed, and if you were here, right now… ah! You hide from me, and call me a monster. You destroyed all of my people because a few of them were troublesome to you. You hobbled me, you set everyone against me.” He sighed from the depths of his being. “Life is a rotting, putrid corpse. And he is a vulture flapping over the corpses of my people.”

  “But... friend,” Nobody said quietly. “How can you assume you’re so right? As terrible as you think he is, the King is only a figurehead. He only has power because others want him to have power. He proved his worth to society and, like an employee of a big, big company, he was hired. And the thing he works for is ancient. It has behind it the teachings of the wise and the learned... why, even those picture books that you love could not come into being without a storehouse of ancient wisdom behind them. This fight between his people and yours is old, far older than you. But it is like a tiny footnote in the long history of his kind. You’ve lost. Why not give up your rage? Why not admit your loss, and use the last of your time to find what happiness you can?”

  “What comfort you are, friend!
” Vendicci barked. “Are you just going to go on and on? If I could, I’d make long speeches against you, too, pointing out your flaws, using my brain to castrate you. My people are dead, you fool! My body is ruined... I can’t even hunt, and can’t make a fire for fear that the King's men will kill me!” Just then Nobody was about to throw another orange-burning seed on the fire, but gripped it in his fist instead. Vendicci grew still, and his voice became a deathly whisper. “This poor body is only a shadow of my will. You say, ‘Give in and be happy,’ but I know that my days are coming to an end. I have lost my home and only the grave awaits. My only hope is that Odan’s pride is buried with me.”

  “But,” said little Haginar, “aren’t you afraid that even if you hurt the King before you die, people will remember you as evil?”

  “Even if the truth becomes that I am evil,” said Vendicci, “my sin remains my concern alone.” After a long silence, Nobody lightly tossed another seed into the fire. Vendicci watched the strange glow, then said, “If you’re wondering how to continue bothering me, since the fault obviously lies with me... forget it. Worry about yourselves.”

  “Ourselves?” said Nobody. “You disturb me greatly. Your troubled words beg for an answer, so I have to continue. You continually cloak your rage with words and make your path of destruction seem noble. I’m sure the sin tastes sweet on your tongue, but you’re a fool if you don’t know that it’s poison. Does the idea of humility and rest really turn your stomach so? You fancy yourself a weapon forged by destiny. Vanity, friend, vanity. You might escape your end for one more day, for one more hour, but eventually a bullet will find you and end you. That’s the legacy of a murderer.”

  “Just listen to me,” said Vendicci, finally sobbing and wiping tears across his face. “If you don’t want to help me at all, then just listen. You don’t know anything about the people that Odan brought with him to my land. While my people were still scrambling in the dark, learning how to hunt and speak and cover ourselves during winter, his people were already powerful. They had guns, written words, homes made of wood. They turned wild beasts into livestock, and they had food on hand any time they wanted. They spread like wildfire, and if we ever raised our hand to take only a small bite from the great feast they had stored away, they rose up and murdered us by the hundreds! The question of their existence has burned in me for so long. Why do the wicked live on, only increasing in power? Their children are so many, their homes are safe, the weather never turns against them. Doesn’t some price have to be paid by them? Isn't there any kind of limit to their power? And you… you're one of them, too. How can you give any advice to someone like me? Your words are… emptiness.”

  “So you admit to being a thief,” little Haginar replied. “You admit wanting what we made. My mom told me lots of stories about people carried off in the dark by ghouls. Do you think she should have taken care of your kids and fed your old? Then there wouldn't have been any limits on your people. What if your people had grown and grown until even we couldn’t take care of you?” The boy set his jaw and kicked the log he was sitting on, too frustrated to continue on his own train of thought. Finally he sighed and continued. “Still, the King would probably show you mercy, if you turned yourself in. He only wanted to protect us. If you promised not to do bad things, he wouldn’t be cruel to you.”

  “I’ve already seen his mercy, boy,” said Vendicci. He leaned over and spat into the fire. “No, there has never been any mercy in his heart. None at all. Like wild animals, my people foraged for food in your garbage bins. The wasteland was our mother. We spent our nights naked, freezing. The groans of our dying filled the woods. Still, no one has been charged with any wrongdoing. Except for me, that is. The victim in this nightmare. No, I’m not letting up. I’ll stand my ground against him, even if there is no court that will hear me out.”

  “Is it so bad that he made a place where people could live?” said Haginar, curling his lip slightly. “It's not like he's singled out your people unfairly. He even punishes other humans who do wrong.”

  “I'm tired of your proud words,” said Vendicci, shaking his head. “You know nothing of anguish. You're a child, you're too small to have felt injustice. If only I was in my prime, only a year old, a fearless hunter! I was young and knew nothing of evil, or worry... if only I could have it back. Women wanted me, I had wives who gave me children.” He began to ramble, then stopped and took a deep, pained breath. “If the few lives I’ve taken has really harmed your people so much, then go ahead and destroy my other arm. If you think justice demands every trace of us should be wiped out, then finish it! No, you fools, you monsters, I will not be silent about what has happened to me or my people. I have defended myself against your words and your charges. So, I’m finished talking to you.”

  They sat in silence for a long time, all of them tired and deeply agitated. Nobody cast another seed into the fire. Then the wind picked up and the fire hissed and swayed back and forth. Dead leaves blew against them. Then, just as the clouds blew away from the face of the shining moon, they heard footsteps and King Wodan was among them.

  Vendicci did not move but stabbed hate-filled eyes into Wodan as he took a seat among them, his face glowing in the night. “Who are you,” said Wodan, his voice quiet but firm. “Who are you to cast your shadow on the world? I have listened to you and I have heard your words. Now brace yourself, like a man, because I’m going to question you. And you will answer me.

  “Where were you, ghoul, when I created the nation of the Black Valley? Where were you when I gathered its people, men and women who had never seen more than a few square miles of arid waste and urban decay? Where were you when we walked away from the protection of city walls and faced the thing that only pioneers can face? Where were you when our protectors turned against us and we faced down a god? Where were you when we were hungry and cold, but we didn't give up? Did your ancestors join us and help conquer the Valley? Did they help us turn demon-infested woods into a safe haven? Or were your ancestors only mindless slaves of a blind god? Tell me, if you can.

  “Where were you when I befriended the great bear who was Lord of the Valley before me? Did your wise men try to communicate with him, so that you could learn from him and grow in friendship? Or did your people only envy his coat, and lick your lips when you thought of how many meals he might make? Did you ever think of giving him a gift to earn his respect, or did you spend your time dwelling on grievances you had against your brothers? Ghoul, were you even born when I went down into the nightmare cave and drew out the Sword of the Ancients? Were you there when I spoke with a sentient machine lost in dementia? Did you walk into its nightmares and stand face to face with it, or did your people only see the entrance to the cave and run screaming?

  “The world is full of strange and dangerous things beyond your comprehension. Have you been to the Fields of Epimetheus and seen the great Tower? Did you take the long walk of death under its gaze and pass through the waving sword of fire? What about the great lion-god who roams the world? His claws are like steel, his body cannot be harmed, and he only thinks of ending lives. Do you think you could face such an opponent without crumbling under the weight of your own toppled pride? And what about the flesh demons, the monsters who shaped our world? Did your people gain anything by calling them “master” and giving them your minds so that you wouldn't be bothered with the burden of thought? Do you have the strength to live and think in ways they don't want you to, even if it means dying a horrible death at their hands?

  “What about my people, the Valliers? They cultivate the land, patiently watching the sky and learning the ways of nature. Watch how gently they treat any stranger, as if they were their own child, then watch how they treat anyone who crosses them. They're as gentle as doves and as hard as steel. The wild cat and wolf that you fear so greatly sits outside the boundaries of the fences, in fear of my people. Does a homeless killer like you have anything to say to a people who despise laziness and can kill with rifles from far away, if t
hey have to? If not, then how much more difficult would it be for you to enlighten the man that they call King? Tell me, if you can.

  “What about the most powerful men who rule the world, little ghoul? Can you strike fear into the hearts of the ruling class? Do the men in power fear your strength? What of Haven’s Prime Minister, surrounded by a ring of trained Guardians and Reavers? Can you use his own words to topple him? Does such a man fear your will to live? And have you been to Sunport? Have you seen the tiny merchant who sits in the shadowy places and buys souls in between real business deals? Could you outwit the king of merchants? Do you have anything of value that would give him pause for thought? Your raging pride would not suffer him any more than a gnat - no one is fierce enough to make him fear, little ghoul. And what of the lords of the ancient gangs that ruled Pontius? Could you match their strength? When everyone around you told you that the gangs must exist, would you be able to trust yourself as your own ally, and stand by your own side in a fight against everyone, friend or foe? No, ghoul. That is Leviathan, the power of the rulers. You would drown if you swam in those depths; the mere sight of them would overpower you.

  “And then there's the greatest beast of legend, the bird Ziz. He is an unknowable and untamable. No amount of training can overcome, overshadow, or destroy him. He is as delicate as the wings of a butterfly and as hard as crafted steel. Can you pull his rainbow feathers and wear them in a crown? Can you force that bird into a cage so that its song will belong to you alone? I know you sit for hours studying comic books. I'm sure you peel away their meaning, layer by layer. Have you ever come to the final layer, ghoul? Could you ever make such a thing yourself? Could you capture the desire and hold it before it flies away into one of the empty caverns in your mind? Would you have the strength to write the story without someone else to tell you that it's okay to do it this way or that way? Could you make the art to go with the words? If you can’t, then can you shine a light onto others so that they can do it instead? I know you love those comics, but I wonder if you know that you now stand before the man who wrote your favorite one. Did you know that you desire to kill the man who made what you find so beautiful? Can you still go through with your foolish desire, ghoul? Tell me, if you can.