[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants

by Kyle B. Stiff

  The milky eyes darted to Wodan's face, scanning every detail to see what would be done with the confession. Wodan could see that Globulus had probably lost sleep over the matter, and felt like a fraud who could be called out at any moment. How many years had he wanted to tell someone this dirty little secret? But if he thought Wodan would point his finger and scream, “You're a fraud!” then he was wrong. Wodan did not live in books, and he was not surrounded by servants who told him what he wanted to hear. He knew hundreds of men and women who found themselves living lives they could not have ever imagined. The real world was like that. He knew soldiers who hated killing, successful artists who wished they could be “simple” farmers, and wealthy capitalists who were unhappy because they did not live in a planned economy. He himself had gained a position as king that was envied throughout the West, yet he was not a natural leader, nor was he drawn to politics, nor was he even a “people person”. But he had to be all of those things. Survival required everyone to be something that made them uncomfortable. Did Globulus really think he was the only man who felt that way?

  “Incredible,” said Wodan, deciding to play along.

  “Is it so incredible?” said Globulus, turning away. “But perhaps it is. Perhaps it is because I am the only man in the world with the intellectual honesty to realize that there is no God to save us… perhaps that is why I have been chosen to save the world.”

  Wodan held back laughter. “Please, go on.”

  “We studied mathematics, philosophy, biology, literature, history, and we did so in secret because we understood that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was poison in the hands of most men. I gained prestige in the Order, and was charged with traveling to other lands so that I could learn what the people of other nations had to offer. We did our work with the blessing and the funding of the royal house of Hargis. The king understood our work and paid attention to us. That is how I was able to become the official Court Philosopher. Ironic that, after my exile, the king appointed his son Zachariah to be my replacement.”

  “Why ironic?” said Wodan. “He's intelligent and curious. Perhaps a little emotionally volatile, but...”

  “I'm sure there's nothing wanting in his abilities. No, I'm referring to court intrigue. To be blunt: I tried to have him killed.”

  “But why!” Wodan rasped through clenched teeth. “He was only a child!”

  “Life takes strange turns, doesn't it?” Globulus trailed off and turned away. Wodan immediately regretted his outburst. He tried to hide his revulsion, then he remembered that he was not wholly innocent. During the Smith War he had used children. There was never one single dramatic moment in which he'd had to decide whether or not to allow children to fight, but more of a subtle, ghost-like train of events in which he simply found himself allowing boys who were fifteen, thirteen, sometimes even younger, to carry rifles and join up with teams of full grown men. Many of the boys had spent most of their lives in the Valley, and knew the woods so well that not using them as scouts would have been foolish. At the time, survival and winning had seemed to demand so much of them. But he'd seen the corpses of children, and he could not pretend to be ignorant about how the Smiths treated their prisoners of war.

  Damn the Smiths! he thought. And damn the demons for making my species so demented.

  “Life does take strange turns,” he admitted.

  Globulus shrugged.

  “I lived a cloistered life. Even when I journeyed into foreign lands, I was always surrounded by House guards. I never failed to sleep in a bed set up for me by a nobleman. Except for one night... a night when I lost my escort and spent an entire day as a nobody among foreigners. It was a waking nightmare of seclusion among a mob. That was the first unfortunate turn my life took… when I realized that I was a thirty year old child in a world of savage beasts.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Wodan. “You got lost and... what? They tried to rip you off, or something?”

  “Yes! Exactly! I don’t expect someone who has rubbed elbows with roughnecks his entire life to understand. But I grew up outside the great Circle of Scam that is human interaction. In my world, merit through study and the virtue of intellect made me like a god, so full of potential and promise. I was revered despite not knowing how to purchase food from some slack-jawed vendor.

  But when I was lost... I was harangued for money, for sex, for enslavement, to such an extent that I was nearly driven mad. You cannot imagine the vacant eyes of those dullards… no, worse were the ones with cold reptilian eyes, how they looked me up and down and calculated what they could get from me. Oh, how they hated me. How they hated the way I shook hands, my fine clothes, my backpack full of scrolls.”

  Wodan stopped himself from frowning, furrowing his brow, or betraying any sign of judgment. At that moment Globulus turned to him, and the old man's face betrayed an incredible range of disgust, as if he had suddenly felt the urge to vomit from being in close proximity to a barbarian warlord. It was plain that Globulus had heard stories of Wodan growing up around laborers, the sort of “common folk” that couldn't mingle with an intellectual like Globulus. Wodan wondered if Globulus imagined that he had spent his time drinking and arguing about sports, when the truth of the matter is that he'd never felt quite at home among his own people. Globulus must have heard a few snatches of conversation about Wodan, and then defined everything about him in his own mind. Lucas and Yardalen's philosophy of seeing reality rather than definitions began to make more and more sense, especially when Wodan considered that he'd actually said very little to Globulus, and was keeping his body language open and diplomatic. And yet Globulus keenly felt that he sat in the presence of a common dimwit who could, at any moment, begin shouting at him about his own nation's athletic prowess.

  Globulus had to hold a fist up to his mouth for a long time before he could continue his tale. “I found my way back to my own people. On my return to Hargis, I said to myself, ‘Thank the gods that I’m leaving that place of insanity.’ But… but the worst of it was when I returned home. Though the people of Hargis were as cultured as anyone could hope to be, my rude awakening had opened my eyes to the fact that all humans… yes, all humans… are a part of the Great Scam. That is when I developed my philosophy to which one of my students applied the unfortunate name Layerism. It was mostly the ramblings of an angry young man, and yet there was still much truth in it. From the shopkeeper who rules his little empire of sweetmeats and textiles like a dreadful tyrant, to the farmer who keeps animals in pens for their entire lives just so he can eat them, to the slave who pretends to be obedient so he can steal from his master, to the soldier who signs up declaring that he will defend his nation but ultimately only wants a uniform so that he can have access to the most beautiful women, to the woman who feigns weakness so that she won't have to work and must be tended by another, to the child who cries and whines so that adults must throw away their dreams to attend to his every whim… all of it, every layer of society, every base or elevated thought or interaction that one human being can have with another - all of it is one great scam, an act of theft against the entire universe so that reality itself must – must - exist in a state of constant shock and outrage at what is being done to it.”

  Wodan rubbed his forehead to hide his face from Globulus. He was embarrassed. He wondered if perhaps Globulus was a teenager afflicted with a medical condition that made him appear much older than he was. He could clearly see that the argument was built on the unstated premise “that which is not perfect is offensive” and was driven wholly by emotion, even though it cast a shadow of logic.

  Would I have become like that, Wodan thought, if I hadn't been forced to leave my room and interact with the world? Would I have become the sort of small, angry person who thinks he understands everything while engaging with nothing?

  “Even the monks here,” said Globulus, “even they sit and dream of serenity and nirvana and overcoming the flesh only because of the sweat of the farmers who feed them. They… I
have to admit that they deserve only death and torture.”

  “But you're the one in power here,” said Wodan, unable to sit silent any longer. “You have more influential power than anyone else here.”

  “Oh, please!” said Globulus, jerking his head to the side. “You're a ruler, you know how the scam works. They put us in a gilded cage, the finest their craftsmen can devise, then they beg us to do the things they cannot bring themselves to do, to think the thoughts they're afraid to think. They expect moral cleanliness from us, but then they expect us to harden our hearts and be strong. They hold us up to standards of conformity from which even the lowest slave is given the freedom to ignore. No, I am not the master of anything. The truth is that my people and I… we scam each other.”

  “Is everyone fooling each other? Or are people contributing what they can within reasonable limits?”

  Globulus ignored the question; it was beneath him. “Then came the next turning point in my life. I was the Court Philosopher of Hargis, an adviser to the king himself, and Vito, who was in charge of defending the Royal House, was coming under my influence.”

  “How did that happen?” Wodan interrupted.

  “He was quite unhappy. He was dissatisfied with the petty weaknesses and dishonesty of mankind. Men respected his strength and his keen mind, but behind his back they called him half-breed because, well, he looked a bit like a dogman, really.”

  “It has to be more than that. That's childish.”

  “Ah, but when we are children we are at our most open and receptive. Both to happiness and to pain. Some adults never quite get over those old wounds, do they? I'm sure Vito told himself that when he grew up, he was going to become a great soldier, and then none of the old rejections would matter. I'm sure he was disillusioned. Many of the high-ranking soldiers in Hargis were morons born into important families, you see, and the sons needed medals and pretty uniforms in order to have some manner of plumage to show off at the balls. Only the increasing rebellions and unrest made it necessary to promote more able soldiers. Vito had to constantly watch his back and could trust no one in the military. The people of Hargis envied his competence. And in the end, they got exactly what they deserved from him.”

  “But he trusted you?”

  “I was honest with him. Humanity wanted him to think that he was half dog, and yet they themselves were barking animals trapped in a kennel they had built. They bred themselves based on principles of neoteny, so that “cuteness” and docility came to the fore and competency was forced into the background. And all of them were desperate for programming, always looking for an alpha to lead them, and always growling at the alpha when his back was turned. I was honest with him that we were men living among dogs. He appreciated my honesty.”

  “I know what happened to Vito. What about you?”

  “As for me... what happened was that... I... was contacted by a flesh demon.”

  “A demon sought you out?” said Wodan, nearly stuttering. “It actually spoke with you?”

  “Yes! Yes... I... to this day, I don’t know exactly why I was brought to the attention of their race. Was it my intellect, the honored position I had earned? Was it the influence I held in the Court? Or was it something else about me? Something deep inside that I cannot see…? I don’t know, but while Zachariah was a small child, they sent a diplomat to me. It was a creature that could only pass for human if it stood in dim lighting, if you did not look too closely. It was...” Globulus shuddered.

  “Did it have a name?”

  “Yes. Many names. A long list of pretentious titles. But it allowed me to refer to it as Abel.”

  “And what did Abel say to you?” Wodan said slowly.

  “He spoke of a Passover,” said Globulus, rubbing his forehead with gnarled fingers. “He said that they were now turning their full attention on humanity, and that we displeased them most greatly. But Abel said that a few good men could intercede on behalf of their people. So... I suspect that Abel, or others like him, would go into other nations and city-states and find people who would fully submit to their rule so that they would not have to wipe out every single city on the face of the earth. Not all at once, at least, but in stages. The most rebellious would probably be the first to go, of course.”

  “So Abel thought that Hargis would actually be their ally? Did they think Hargis would stand by while they… or that they would even help?”

  “See, to you, it sounds like insanity,” said Globulus, laughing slightly. “I must confess that, at the time, it seemed insane to me, as well. Folly of youth and pride. I railed at Abel, and nearly struck him - but something held me back. Perhaps it was the sheer alien-ness of his presence. Or the dawning realization that he could not be fought. But I argued with him. So he took me outside of Hargis, blindfolded me, and led me down into the earth.”

  “By force?” said Wodan.

  “No. I was curious.”

  “And what did you see?”

  Globulus closed his eyes. “I will never speak of what I saw down there. But the flesh demons are not a few monsters spread out over miles of arid wasteland, living alone and feeding off a brighter species. No. They are... they are a people, young king, with an entire world of their own. I saw them. I saw their ways. The sheer difference between them and us nearly drove me over the edge into insanity.”

  Globulus looked at Wodan intently, then said, “And they are stronger than us. That is one thing I learned. They are the stronger species. We only exist because they have extended mercy toward us. But they cannot be fought. If we are to continue on, we must… we cannot stay as we are.”

  Cold mist breathed on Wodan’s back. He felt his winter gear whirring in response, tightening against the cold. He realized that his fingers were gripping stone that would soon break if he did not release it.

  “They brought me back to Hargis with the terms of the Passover. If they had simply spoken to me and left me as I was, I would not have had the strength to approach the king with such news. But down in the darkness, I became an adult. I shed all childish whims and fears. I knew that there was only one thing I could do in order to ensure that our species would survive. So I went before King Hargis and told him the terms for our survival.”

  “Which were?”

  “Free movement for flesh demons through Hargis lands, as well as the life of the youngest son of Hargis. His life would have to be sacrificed in order for the demons to spare all other lives in Hargis.”

  Wodan turned away and saw the peaks of snow gleaming blue. All was still. “Why would the flesh demons want Zachariah dead?” he said quietly.

  “They did not particularly care about Zachariah,” said Globulus. “It was only the gesture they cared about. They didn’t want empty promises from humans who would turn on them according to the dictates of whim. No, they wanted a binding contract signed in blood. Zachariah was to be the sacrifice on behalf of his people. Last born and first dead, so that the race would be renewed.”

  “That's nonsense,” Wodan whispered, unable to hold back.

  “Just as the old king said. He sent me out in exile, saying that I would be killed if I ever returned to Hargis. Others said he should have killed me on the spot.” Globulus fell silent for a moment. “He was not an unkind man. Only hard-headed. Ah… the poor old fool. Would he have enjoyed the irony if he could have known that only Zachariah survived while all of Hargis was destroyed and her people killed? The sacrifice was withheld. The Rite of Passover was ignored. The terrible price was paid.”

  “And what sort of kingdom could be ruled by a man who would throw away his own child to the wolves?” said Wodan. “Your reasoning is flawed. Like a child who thinks that something is right or wrong only because his parents tell him so. In the end, you're depending on the mercy of monsters who have done nothing good for us.”

  “An appeal to analogy is logically invalid,” said Globulus. “I saw reality. Not what I wanted, not a dream of fairness, but reality. So I was cast out by a doomed king, and
his fantasy, his daydream kingdom, was destroyed. And so it shall be for all of humanity… unless I can stop it.”

  “And your Order of the Secret Flame, what did they think?”

  Globulus shrugged. “They either sided with the king, like obedient lapdogs, or went about some silly plan to build vaults to contain the wisdom of the ages. They wrote me off. Now they are dead and I am alive.”

  “Was Abel angry with you for not getting the king's agreement?”

  “Oh yes. He would have killed me if I hadn't told him about Vito. I told him Vito could use the dogmen as a tool to reshape civilization, to make humanity more receptive to dominion. So Abel allowed me to wander the land, untouched by devils, as a sort of reward for what my disciple might one day accomplish. After many long years of speaking with rebels and dogmen who camped in the hills around Hargis, I ended up in Srila. I served the High Priest and studied with the black robes. When High Priest Caiafas was on his death bed, I confessed everything that I had done in Hargis.” Smiling strangely, Globulus said, “Rather than forgive me for my ‘sin’, the High Priest charged me with the duty of acting as his successor. He said that... that I had the sort of selfless vision that could guide humanity in the changing world. He believed that I had the Hand of God working in my life, and that someday, perhaps, I could prove to be the agent of our salvation.”

  “Salvation?” said Wodan, his face contorted with disgust.

  “Yes, oh yes,” said Globulus. “As unlikely as it might seem, what with my frail body and humble spirit, I am indeed a hero, young king. And you are my diabolical arch-nemesis. I am fighting to save my species while you, on the other hand, do not care whether humanity lives or dies! How utterly cliché. And yet, is there no truth to it? You have a vision of what a human being is: Proud, strong, masterless, a noble animal. In your tyrannical single-mindedness you do not allow reality to creep into your fantasy. What if any human does not match up to your ideal? Well, let him die, then - you do not care. So the race of ghouls does not prove beneficial to your idea of what humanity is? Very well then, eradicate them. It's natural, right? They are weak and you are strong. But have you ever thought that perhaps only the flesh demons match your definition of a perfectly powerful species? Why not step aside, my boy? Why not give them the chance to put the troubled earth in order, to end the suffering our species has endured because we have had no master save our own demented will?”