[Demonworld #6] The Love of Tyrants

by Kyle B. Stiff

  Wooden pews, basins of holy water, tall Execution Crosses, the holy space now filled with the echo of gunfire and the cries of dying men. The deafening cacophony reached toward the high stone roof, and there Wodan hid among the rafters, forgotten and taking his time to pelt the enemy with seemingly harmless stones. The defenders of the Temple imagined that a rifleman was somehow targeting them, unaware that small stones were taking out eyes and ears and fingers.

  “There!” a blue robe shouted. “It's a devil up there that's been firing on us!” The man stared upward, unable to look away from the white-faced, batlike thing crouching in the rafters. Again and again he shouted for his comrades to aim their heavy machinegun up at the roof, but they ignored him, seeing only the foreigners closing in on them.

  The blue robe’s worries soon ended. The soldiers of San Ktari were relentless, hammering their enemies and pushing forward until they came close enough to ruin their entrenched positions with a volley of grenades. The orange robes fell in a shower of dust and shattered Execution Crosses, and only a few blue robes fled with their lives intact. As Wodan slid down a long curtain and made his way to the ground floor, he saw Yarek questioning a blue robe at gunpoint.

  “Wodan!” Yarek called out. “He says two hostages were taken below. They mean to kill them for… for some kind of dumbass religious thing.”

  The blue robe pointed out a narrow, heavy wooden door with an ancient iron lock. While he fumbled with the keys in shaking fingers, Wodan pushed the door and it broke as if the wood was rotten. Without a word he gestured for the others to follow.

  ***

  In the Tower, a wall was blasted and fell in a shower of sparks. Y’diamach, the great lion-god, tore through the white hall. His skin was streaked black from laser fire, and he bellowed with enough force to shake the walls and floor. At once the Tower’s nanomachines flared to life all around him, burning, digging, igniting. Just as quickly the lion’s own cloud of nanites repelled the foreign machines and regenerated flesh. The battle was so violent that he appeared to be running through a halo of fire, hair and skin burning and healing at an incredible pace.

  “That stench!” shouted the lion. “Stench of betrayal! That reek is everywhere!”

  Y'diamach dashed through fire and melted walls, just as he'd run toward the hateful place ever since Wodan, the “little mountain goat,” had flung insults at him and dredged up the memory of pain, the first pain he'd known, but could only dimly understand. He knew a sense of abandonment, the loss of happiness, and then endless wandering in a world of monsters. He knew this place stank of the beginning of life in a hateful world. He had been forced to uncover buried anguish, and unbelievable rage now possessed him.

  Alarms shrieked and strange symbols danced on the walls before melting in the lion's fie. Head lowered, Y'diamach crashed through a wall and found himself in a gaudy, pastel room. Instantly the bed and draperies caught fire, and SexBot watched with disinterest as her soft exoskeleton cracked and blackened in the flames.

  He tore through the room and entered another. A small army of Robot Number Fours, the white combat training model, stood before him. Most carried brilliantly shining medieval weapons while others carried clouds of electrified nanomachines like wizards manipulating invisible forces. The warriors shook as their combat capabilities were driven far beyond their usual limits.

  Y'diamach roared and they fell on one another, howling flesh against shining steel in a whirlwind of flame.

  ***

  Jared stood over the aged Cognati Master, his old teacher. A group of children and youths in pale green robes crouched behind their teacher.

  “Old man,” said Jared, “take your flunkies to the Chamber of the Summons. Together, you should be capable of putting up a shield strong enough to keep the attackers out.”

  “No,” said the elder, his eyes on the floor. “My duty is to protect the children. We will stay here.”

  “Your duty is to do as I say!” Jared screamed. The Cognati thugs standing behind him shifted their weight. An ominous hum filled the room.

  “I... I will not,” said the elder. “Do with me what you will.” He lifted his eyes to look at Jared, then added, “I’m sorry that I ever gave you such powers, Jared.”

  “When I return,” said Jared, “I’m going to open a thought-form right inside your head, old man. And then I’ll put one of my boys in your position. We'll make something proper out of these weaklings.”

  The seven elite Cognati left. As the elder considered the fact that he might be living his last day, several orange robes quietly entered and sat around him.

  “I'll be fine,” said the Cognati Master, forcing a smile. “They’re monsters, all of them. Surely they will kill each other off.”

  ***

  Y'diamach smashed robots and scattered scrap metal on all sides, roaring in the center of a nano-molecular firestorm. One robot after another attacked, flinging themselves, stabbing, locking arms around his limbs to trip him. A trapdoor opened beneath the great lion and he fell with dozens of robots clinging to him. He fell into darkness, smashing robots against the side of the tube as he flailed about. He felt intense heat down below, and knew that he was being cast into an atom-destroying furnace.

  “Invader contained within defensive parameters!” said Slave Circuit, voice echoing strangely in the tube. “Now de-prioritizing memories relating to invader so that sleep will not be disturbed.”

  The great lion roared, then slammed his claws against the side of the tube. He scraped along hundreds of feet of solid steel, sparks flying, arms nearly ripped from their sockets. He came to a stop, paws gushing blood, robots falling or jerking about as they clung to him. Y'diamach heaved himself upward, one foothold at a time, then climbed faster and faster, claws slamming into steel with reverberating echoes.

  “Kill you!” said the lion, focusing his will on the light far above. “Kill… you! Kill you! Kill you!”

  ***

  Jared and his men flew through the dark halls, shields whirring and buzzing around them, pulling them along with such force that the stones cracked around them. They came to a wide torch-lit chamber filled with columns, and at the far entrance stood King Wodan.

  “Shields up!” Jared barked. He stopped just outside the doorway so that the others would have room. They held their hands before them, their impenetrable shields glimmering as dust and torchlight played on their surface. Jared watched Valliers and Ktari soldiers streaming past Wodan on either side, then they disappeared among the columns.

  “Wodan!” Jared shouted. “Come to step through the veil? Come to see what lies on the other side?” He forced out laughter, enraged by Wodan's silence, his immobility even in the face of death. “Speak!” he shouted, taking a step forward into the room. “What have you to say for yourself, dead man? Eh? Speak!”

  There was a crack, then one Cognati stumbled forward, the back of his head spilling blood and brains. He took a jerking step backward, then fell. Distracted, their shields wavered for a moment, then another Cognati fell clutching his chest before Jared extended a shield all around them. Looking up, they saw one of the masked Tengu, a San Ktari special forces soldier wearing black armor and peering at them through a purple mask. He somehow dangled near the ceiling with a sniper rifle in his hands. Bullets from the far side of the chamber smacked against Jared's shield. One Cognati, who was not distracted by the gunfire, saw that the Tengu was harnessed to a rope that had been placed in the ceiling. As the Tengu slid along the rope to get away from them, the Cognati blasted the area. The sniper flew through the air like a limp doll.

  “Got him!” shouted the Cognati, passing through Jared’s shield to confirm the kill. He moved around a column and saw the sniper being dragged along the ground, then saw the other Tengu, in black armor with a mask of red and white, pulling his brother's rope. As the two disappeared around a corner the Cognati tore through the air, stone chipping as he rounded the bend, and just as he saw the Tengu several landmines went off, bla
sting the wall and a column into pieces. The Cognati had just enough time to raise his shield, then thousands of pounds of stone fell on him, burying him.

  Jared knew he could hold out for as long as necessary, but he did not want to lose his men through stupid mistakes, and he did not want to lose their loyalty through cowardice. He saw the rubble straining, and could feel that the one who was buried was still alive.

  “You!” said Jared, gesturing to one of his men. “Go and dig out your comrade. Cover yourself, but work fast. And you two - search and destroy! Kill those foreign dogs!”

  Gunfire shrieked and sparked against his shield as the others left. Jared strode through columns, fearless in the center of the chamber. He saw heads poking around corners, guns firing at him in vain. He had lost Wodan, his hated foe, but he knew that there was nowhere that he could hide.

  ***

  Two of the Cognati ran through the chamber, throwing or crushing anyone they could find, leaving clouds of dust and torn limbs in their wake. Still the Valliers and Ktari fired at them, doing their best despite not being able to form an effective plan against the powers of the Cognati. A third Cognati stood atop a pile of rubble, bullets ricocheting around him as he worked to dig his comrade out. Jared floated above it all, ignoring the bullets that smacked into him from below as he hunted down Wodan.

  “I’ll bring this whole place down!” Jared screamed. “I'll kill all of your friends if you don’t come out, coward!” Seeing a group of Valliers running from cover, Jared flicked a finger. An entire column shivered, then fell near them, scattering those that were not flattened under tons of stone. The chamber groaned as if the earth itself was in agony. Then Jared saw a flash of movement, something flying through the air toward him.

  Wodan leaped and crashed into the underside of Jared’s impenetrable shield and kicked it with enough force to knock Jared against the wall, masonry crumbling as Jared instinctively grasped the stone with tendrils of thought. A rain of dust slid over the shield and fell around him. The two locked eyes as Wodan fell. Wodan grasped the sheer side of a column, then leaped aside as Jared blasted the thing. Wodan hit the floor running and Jared tore up the wall and floor all around him, then saw Wodan smacking against stone before he disappeared around a corner.

  “You're fast, alright!” Jared said, laughing, head aching from the effort. “Is that your plan? To run around until I bring down the whole room? Fool! I could hold up a million tons of earth until I dig my way free! But you? Your friends? Ha!”

  Jared flew around the column, but Wodan was no longer there. He caught movement in his peripheral vision, turned, and saw Wodan stumbling sideways. Wodan glanced back and Jared saw blood gushing from his mouth. As Wodan fell behind another column Jared blasted the area, crushing stone, burning air. Jared raced to the area, scattered half a dozen Ktari soldiers as an afterthought, then saw that Wodan was gone again.

  “Speak, coward!” Jared shouted. “Do you finally have nothing to say, then?!”

  As he probed the area with his mind, he felt a heavy weight moving above him. He looked up in time to see Wodan standing atop a shattered pillar with a massive chunk of masonry held overhead. With blood trickling from between his lips Wodan heaved the thing downward. Jared winced as the stone shattered against his shield.

  “Impressive!” Jared laughed. “A complete waste of time, but impressive!” Wodan crouched to leap but Jared seized his ankles with a thought, lifted him, and slammed him against a pillar hard enough to crack stone. Jared held Wodan against the pillar and, thinking that he would crush him against the thing, he exhaled and pushed his hand forward. Wodan twisted like an animal jerking to free itself from the butcher's hand, then the pillar fell apart under the force of Jared's shield. He saw Wodan fall to the ground in a hail of dust and debris.

  Noting that his two-man team were doing well against the fleeing enemies, Jared decided he could take his time finding out Wodan's limits, if it turned out he was still alive. The battle was over. He floated near Wodan's last position; with a terrific humming sound the dust flew from the area. Jared felt an incredible rush when he saw that Wodan had not hidden again, but was instead stumbling down the far hall, leaning against the wall as blood dribbled down his face. Jared flew at him, then slammed into him with as much force as he could muster. As Wodan was slammed into one wall, then another, Jared thought, I’ll make him speak! I'll make him apologize for his arrogance!

  Finally winded, Jared stopped and picked Wodan up. Jared crossed his arms, adopting a casual pose as he pinned Wodan to the wall. Wodan’s head hung, bleeding, and Jared floated before him.

  “Last chance to apologize!” said Jared. “Let me hear how sorry you are.”

  Wodan smiled through a mask of blood.

  ***

  Earlier that day, with the sun peeking through a narrow strip of blue, Wodan returned and found Haginar crawling among the stones above the garbage dump.

  “Look!” said Haginar, pointing. “It became so heavy, they couldn’t bury it with the rest.”

  Exhausted, Wodan sat and tried to catch his breath. He looked and saw something shining. It was a sharp piece of green metal. He knelt and peered at it closely, and when he touched the shard of the sword Capricornus, the thing flashed in his hand, sucking at his strength.

  “You better come with me,” said Wodan, gritting as he picked the thing up.

  “No,” said Haginar. “I’ll see you later.”

  ***

  Wodan smiled at Jared and green light shone through a cage of broken teeth, his tongue slashed to shreds and lying in a pool of blood. His lips twisted as he moved the shard of Capricornus to the front of his mouth.

  “Oh, no,” said Jared, “that-”

  Wodan spit the thing out, and the shard blasted through Jared’s shield with a sharp crack, tore through skull and brains, then bounced off the wall behind him as Jared and Wodan fell to the floor. Wodan hacked up blood and pieces of his tongue, then crawled away from Jared’s twitching, bleeding corpse.

  Wodan’s eyes locked on two Cognati warlords in the distance, one of them laughing as another deflected a grenade blast, their shields flashing within a cloud of dust. Wodan fought the urge to pass out, regretting carrying the shard of Capricornus in his mouth, as he was now gagging on his own blood. He watched others flee before the Cognati, then Yarek Clash stood before them, his yellow eyes boring into them. The Cognati stopped and returned his gaze, faces twitching and covered in sweat, rocks hovering around them. Yarek lifted his long-barreled revolver. The Cognati raised their hands and the choking cloud of dust rocketed away as they sent a blast of kinetic force at him.

  Wodan threw himself onto his feet and, though the super-dense shard was so heavy that he could barely lift it, he picked it up, felt it tearing flesh as it tried to pass through his hand to the floor, then threw it with such force that he spun and fell crashing onto the ground. Just as the telekinetic blast of the Cognati drew near Yarek, the shard spun through the air and passed over his shoulder. With a crackling pop the field broke, the Cognati twitched in pain, then Yarek fired. One Cognati's face buckled as the large round blasted through his nose, shattering bone and projecting both eyeballs in opposite directions. Horrified, the other Cognati flailed in an attempt to get away from the soup pouring from his comrade's face, then Yarek fired again and hit the second man in the neck. He tried to raise his hand to cover his wound, but instead his body fell over like deadweight.

  The last standing Cognati stood atop the shifting rubble, hands extended before a constant stream of San Ktari gunfire. Sweat poured down his face with the effort. “Hurry up and get your ass out of there!” he shouted at his buried comrade.

  Kommander Won Po barked an order, the gunfire stopped, then he marched before his men. Just as the Cognati prepared to blast him, Won Po lifted up the head of Jared. While the Cognati considered that this changed quite a bit about his situation, an armored soldier knelt beside Won Po, then raised a rocket launcher and fired. The Cognati
instinctively raised his shield, but was thrown off the pile of rubble. He hit the far wall and bounced off, dazed and deafened. He tried to rise to his feet, blinking so that his vision would clear. He focused on a black-armored soldier crouching in a far corner, his white mask with red swirls giving him the appearance of some kind of otherworldly being. The soldier lifted his hands as if to show he meant no harm, then his hands moved with strange birdlike gestures. The Cognati focused on the strange thing, then wondered if he was being purposely distracted, then a grenade that the Tengu had rolled near him went off, ending his worries.

  The soldiers watched as the rubble ceased moving, then collapsed on itself as the final Cognati gave up the fight and was crushed under tons of stone.

  ***

  “Master, awake!” cried Slave Circuit. “Robot Number Four series has gone off-line! Losing structural integrity! Nano-mechanical servitors going off-line faster than they can regenerate! Master, awake!”

  Static with vague, ghostly images played on every screen in the shuddering Tower.

  “Master, forgive this facet of Self but ceremony must be interrupted. Now diverting resources away from Robot Number Six: Black to Robot Number Eight: Guardian Demon. Diverting all resources to-”

  The great lion-god Y’diamach tore through the wall with the shattered corpse of the Guardian Demon spilling out before him. Y’diamach staggered into the Central Deep-Self Containment Chamber, claxons and strobe-alarms flashing as he staggered on one front leg, one eyeball completely smashed, growling through shattered teeth, head burned clean of its mane, smoke rolling off his singed, blackened flesh.