The Kingdoms of Evil

by Daniel Bensen

  One

  He closed his fingers, opened them again.

  Two

  He waited now for the return sign. It took some minutes in coming, and Kendrick reviewed the plan of attack. Guards, monsters, necromancers. Focus on the wendigos.

  The return sign came, and Kendrick whispered to his talisman again, then brought it forth, dazzling, from his fist.

  "Na-o-bell!"

  The goblin set to guard his cage could not even turn around before the Blessing caught it.

  "Bless the wendigos!" Kendrick bellowed as Phinneas hacked the door to his cage off its hinges. "Naobel will convert them back to humans and they will fight for us!"

  A simian goblin hurled itself out of the night and slashed six inch claws at Phinneas, then died on his saber. The Rationalist's pistol had long been out of bullets.

  "Why don't you thank me politely for freeing you and then you wield the blessing." He said, finishing the task of freeing Kendrick. "I have a pair of gates to open. Erinor, Naoblof," He called as he sprinted off, "you're with Kendrick!"

  The two Rangers, defectors from the dead Paladin's corrupted cohort, joined Kendrick as he ran toward the monsters boiling out of their tents on the other side of the camp.

  "Naobel!" He yelled, and his faith turned the wheel-stone in his upraised hand into a searing torch. It spun between his thumb and forefinger, burning his fingertips, but the onrushing tide of monsters balked at it, shielding their eyes from the glare, writing under its purifying influence.

  But there were other, fiercer monsters in the back of the horde. Kendrick heard the crack of whips, the bellows of the commanders, and a piercing shriek that must have been the voice of Tinesmurk herself. "Attack!"

  The horde surged forward again, but now Kendrick had had time to pick his targets. There were several faces in the horde, twisted now in rage and insanity, that Kendrick nonetheless recognized from his trip up the mountains.

  "Aim for the wendigos!" He shouted to Erinor and Naoblof. They were concentrated in the forward center of the monsters' formation. Because the newly-made wendigos were cheap cannon-fodder? Or because Maulrag had been at work?

  They came. He blessed them.

  The light of Naobel caught a trio of wendigos full in the face. Two stumbled, and were trampled by the monsters behind them. But the third whirled around midstride to slice its sword across the throat of its…his former comrade. Kendrick saw the tears flowing down the face of the new man as he flung himself onto the next monster.

  "Extra wheel-stones!" That was Erinor. Monsters running at him glowed with the Blessing, became men again, grabbed the extra talismans he tossed them, turned around, and attacked in their turn.

  Even one scaled and horned monstrosity passed through into full humanity, only to die as the new man's disorientation opened him up to the slashing claws of a goblin.

  But there weren't enough on their side. The forces of light were still out-numbered, even with the men that Phinneas had brought through the gate.

  Kendrick aimed his Blessing at an ax-swinging lizard-man. He wrenched the weapon from its softening fingers as it stumbled and wept into man-hood. Still screaming the name of his god, he whirled, and buried the head of the ax in the chest of an ogre. It fell, giving Kendrick a view of another man, black-clad, bellowing orders at the monsters scrambling around him.

  The other necromancer. Bleeryarr.

  As if he felt Kendrick's gaze upon him, the man's head whipped around. "Do-Gooder!" He shouted over the sounds of battle. "Fight me and feed me the energy of your death!"

  This last, Kendrick realized, was not aimed at him, but at a goblin standing beside the necromancer. The monster threw itself onto its master's blade, Kendrick had time to bring his axe up, and then the evil wizard was rushing toward him through the air on the crest of a black hurricane.

  The fell winds slapped Kendrick backward, blew the name of his god from his lips. The black blade of his enemy struck like lightning from the sorcerous cloud, and it was all Kendrick could do to hold it back. For he knew that if that cold metal touched his skin, the skin would be his no more.

  With a mighty effort, Kendrick heaved upward, forcing the blade back, then swung around in a sideways slash that should have shattered the man's knees. But the necromancer wasn't there anymore. Pushed by his cloud of magic, he slid to the left, rocked out of range of the axe-blade, then darted forward again like a huge dark wasp. Kendrick's axe was in the wrong place, with too much momentum in the wrong direction, to block the impossible attack.

  But he had his voice. "Naobel!"

  The name of his god blew the black cloud apart, and, unsupported, the necromancer's forward rush became a headlong fall.

  Kendrick let the momentum of his axe swing him around, out of the way of his stumbling enemy. Then he planted his feet and let the arc continue, continue, until the heavy blade came crashing into the necromancer's chest.

  Kendrick expected some kind of spectacular result. A blast of black lightning, or the rush of released souls, freed from their imprisonment as his vile heart burst. Instead there was only the familiar crunch of breaking ribs, and look on the man's face of great and wide-eyed surprise.

  Grinning, Kendrick hefted his axe, and readied it for the next opponent.

  ***

  Freetrick's exhilaration lasted all the way back to Freetrick's apartment, when Bloodbyrn put her arms around him.

  "Oh, my lord, that was glorious," she said, "you were so villainous, so…masterful."

  "Really?" His hands were on her waist. When had that happened?

  "Indeed," she said. "I confess the events of this evening have…excited me far more than I would have anticipated."

  Freetrick's grip tightened. "Me too," he said.

  She raised her face towards him. "We should do this more often."

  "Almost get killed?" Chuckled Freetrick. He lowered his face toward hers. "Somehow I don't think that…will be…a problem."

  Armor clanked against armor. Bloodbyrn made a small noise in her throat.

  They kissed.

  "Oh my lord," she said eventually. "That was…extremely pleasurable."

  Freetrick tightened his arms again. Metal clanked again.

  When Freetrick lowered Bloodbyrn back onto the floor, she was grinning wickedly. "And now, my lord?"

  "Now," he said, grinning back, "I think it's time for you and me to…ah…make the political situation a little simpler?"

  "And infinitely more enjoyable!" Bloodbyrn turned around. "Undo my clasps, if you would, my lord."

  Freetrick's hands hardly trembled as he laid them on the silver clasps. They were, of course, Fiendishly complicated, but he had survived worse things than ladies' underwear! He was the Ultimate Fiend, strike it out, and what the Ultimate Fiend wanted…

  The leather of Bloodbyrn's corset tore apart like spider-webs in a burst of black mist.

  "Careful, my lord!" She giggled as he spun her around to face him, then effortlessly lifted her by the waist until their eyes were level. Then he lifted her higher. "You are—oh my!" He settled her chest onto his face and started kissing. "To use your power this way—!"

  "I have plenty." Freetrick mumbled.

  "True," her voice vibrated the soft skin under his lips. "And if you run out, we can always call one of those virgins up here from the dungeons."

  "Uhh…" Freetrick stopped and looked up at her, "Why would we do that?"

  "Oh, my lord, I do not think you will need the help, of course," Bloodbyrn writhed in his arms. "But, my lord clearly enjoyed it so much the first time…"

  "Enjoyed…?" Freetrick blinked.

  "Killing those virgins. Hmmm." She rested her chin on top of his head. "Or was it seeing them killed? You must tell me, my lord, for then I will be able to…"

  "It wasn't!" Freetrick's head jerked up in horror.

  "Ow! Careful, my lord."

  "Strike me out, is that why you think I'm so…Bloodbyrn I'm happy because I'm alive!" Freetrick lowe
red her back to eye level. "Not because I…oh strike me out…" his hands around her waist trembled. "I killed all those girls."

  The black cloud around them winked out and Freetrick was abruptly sagging under Bloodbyrn's weight. She slid out from between his slack arms, frowning.

  "Yes," she said, "and might I say my lord made excellent sport of it."

  "It wasn't sport, Bloodbyrn, they were trying to kill me."

  "Yes, and you, my lord, killed them."

  "Yeah, but it didn't…Burning Libraries! I didn't get off on it, Bloodbyrn! Gibberish! I had to!" Hadn't he? "Oh Truth, what if I could have stopped them? I could have prevented that entire fiasco if I hadn't been so striking stupid!"

  "My lord," she stepped back, squinting at Freetrick, "what has come over you?"

  Freetrick stumbled backward, put his hand on a wall. "Bloodbyrn, I did something terrible today. And I was happy about it!"

  "As you should have been, my lord. As you should be now!" She smiled at him, and clasped her arms under her breasts. "Will my lord not be…happy…with me now?"

  "Don't be disgusting!" Freetrick shouted, "I'm a good person! I don't…striking go have sex with my mistress after I've slaughtered a bunch of virgins."

  "Why not?" said Bloodbyrn, pierced brows drawing down, "why do you not? You are the Ultimate Fiend, Feerborg!"

  "I'm not" Freetrick shouted again. "I am not the Ultimate Fiend! I am not the king of evil! I am not a monster!" He slammed his fist into the wall, hard enough to hurt, and Bloodbyrn took an involuntary step back. "And you can't turn me into one."

  Her expression hardened. "You are the Ultimate Fiend," she said. "The Ultimate Fiend kills. If he cannot, then what good is he? If you cannot learn to enjoy killing, then I hope, my lord, that you learn to enjoy dying."

  "No," said Freetrick, "I'll…I'll change things. It'll make the Kingdoms of Evil safe for me."

  "Feerborg, you are one man, and this is the Kingdoms of Evil. When pushed, which is more likely to shatter first?"

  The black nimbus sprang back into being. "But I'm not just a man, Bloodbyrn, remember?"

  Freetrick remembered the animated letter, the pillar of black power, the way his touch had poisoned the artifacts of The Rationalist Union. "I'm the embodiment of the First God," he said. "The people of Skrea worship the First God through me, but I worship the God of True Words."

  "My lord—"

  "I am a Rationalist!" Freetrick shouted, "I am a Scholar of the True Words of my God. I order of the forces of the world."

  Bloodbyrn was staring at him, mouth open in shock, or perhaps it was just the blood loss catching up with her.

  "My identity will be written in the Book of Names," Freetrick continued, " and my soul will browse forever between the infinite stacks of the library of the God of Words! I am Rationalist, and this…" Freetrick looked past Bloodbyrn at his dank office. The scuttling movement across the walls, the moldering parchments, the dully-glowing red crystals. The stuffed monsters. The striking struck out gibbering skeleton desk!

  "No," said the Ultimate Fiend. "this will not do at all."

  The black nimbus over his head writhed and boiled, twisting in unfelt winds blowing from impossible dimensions. Freetrick's lips moved with a True Word. His hand traced runes across the wall. "There is nothing that cannot be known," he prayed," nothing that cannot be explained." He traced the last rune, pressed his hand onto the hard surface. His voice rose. "I name these walls..." his breath smoked with a word of the True Speech, and Freetrick completed the word-magic spell.

  There was no moment of doubt, no hesitation. Rivulets of white light spread outward from Freetrick's hand in a pale filigree. Grime and blood-stains cracked and dissolved into pale scrollwork climbing up the walls like vines.

  And a horrible grin stretched across the face of the Ultimate Fiend.

  "Yes…" he hissed, lightning flashing in his eyes. "And now light. Light!" he bellowed. "LIGHT!"

  A brilliance burst from the glowing crystals like a clutch miniature novas, blowing apart the shadows and gloom.

  Under full illumination, the room looked dreadful. Was that a problem for the Ultimate Fiend? Never! Freetrick's mouth babbled True Words as his chambers twisted and writhed under his fiendish manipulation.

  His skeletal desk and chair receded into impossible distances as their basic existence was rewritten. The stuffed monsters unspooled themselves. Spies squealed in the walls. High above, and far below, eldritch power juddered and roiled.

  As the delicate scent of jasmine filled his clean, tasteful, and softly-lit study, the Ultimate Fiend of the Kingdoms of Evil raised his hands over his head and shrieked his maniacal laughter.

  Chapter the Seventeenth

  In which the Ultimate Fiend has several Important Encounters

  The Ultimate Fiend rolled over in his huge, four-poster bed, blinked at the towering blackness over him, and extended his mind to will into being the dim and bloody illumination of the wall crystals. Clear, cool light flared up around him.

  Freetrick shoved aside his silk blankets, rolled over, and peered blearily at the light crystals, so bright they were almost hard to look at.

  "The hell?" mumbled the Ultimate Fiend, as he pressed his pince-nez over his nose, slid off his bed, and stumbled toward his bathroom. But memories were surfacing from last night, and the Despot of Skrea's half-conscious shuffle soon transformed into a stumble, then a fevered dash into his study.

  It looked as if a word-magic grimoire had exploded in there. The walls were a-spiderweb with symbols, runes, hieroglyphs, and sigils. They crisscrossed the floor and dripped from the walls. Literally, because a lot of them were drawn in blood.

  Freetrick struggled to recall exactly what had happened the previous night. He remembered that boiling feeling in his chest as everything he hated about Skrea had come at him all at once. And he had been full of death energy, and then he had drawn a word-magic signal on the wall…

  Freetrick ran his hand over the wall closest to him. Under the blood and ink that smeared under his fingers, Freetrick saw its surface was smooth and light gray, as if the basalt had been polished, or coated in mother-of-pearl. Looking up, he saw that the outgrowths of light crystals, formerly scattered randomly across the high walls, seemed to have multiplied and rearranged themselves into rather tasteful lighting fixtures. The hexagonal filing niches along one wall now looked more like cabinetry than the work of giant, evil bees. Even his chair and desk had changed. And, he was glad to note, nothing remained of that disgusting statuary.

  "Strike me out." Freetrick's knees felt weak. "What did I striking do in here?"

  He looked at the wall, and the answer seemed clear. "I did word-magic. In… Skrea. Oh God of Words!" Freetrick's fingers tingled. "Oh God of Words!" He repeated, "Hear the prayers of Freetrick your servant!" Legs trembling, Freetrick stumbled to his newly organized book wall and stuck his hands into the niches. Shockingly, nothing tried to bite him.

  "I am a Scholar of the True Words," Freetrick's voice fell to a fervent whisper. He pulled forth scrolls from the wall, scribbled with eldritch symbols, unholy diagrams, and Fiendish flowcharts. These he tossed onto the floor. "I know the true names that command of the forces of the world. My identity…my identity will be written in…" he pulled out another parchment…"Aha!" Finally, a blank one! "My soul shall be Written in the Book of Names." Clutching the parchment, Freetrick lurched over to his desk, "and my soul…a pen, strike it!" he lurched back to the wall, fumbled with trembling fingers for a pen, "My soul will browse forever between the infinite stacks of your holy library. Yes!" He jabbed the pen into the meat at the base of his thumb, and slammed his hands onto the parchment. Blood oozed out from under his slashed hand. Freetrick pressed the nib of the pen against the parchment and closed his eyes.

  "There is nothing that cannot be known," he prayed, "nothing that cannot be explained." The pen circled and darted, tracing meridian lines in spiky crimson. "I am…I am Freetrick. I am a namer." He fough
t for the still calm of the state of holy knowingness, and wrote the runes before his blood clotted in his pen. "I name you…Light."

  He completed the spell, waited, then opened his black eyes.

  Nothing.

  Freetrick looked down through his pince-nez at the spell he had drawn. He had made no mistake with it, but it wasn't doing anything. It simply sat there. Clotting at him.

  "Strike it!" Freetrick snarled. "What the hell did I do last night?"

  Word-magic. That's what he had done, but why had it worked then when it didn't work now? What had changed? Freetrick drew another word-magic spell, this time in black ink, repeated the standard prayer to The God of Words, then stared at it until his eyes watered, but nothing happened.

  "Work, strike you out." The Ultimate Fiend growled between gritted teeth. "Work! Give me what I need to—" He stopped. To do what? To survive? To escape? "To fix this place!"

  The door rattled as someone on the other side knocked.

  ***

  "You've done something to your room." The Kaimeera padded into Freetrick's transformed office on cougar's paws, its bullet-shaped split in a jagged smile. "Can't quite put my finger on it…" A huge, red tongue hung down over a row of triangular teeth.

  "Uh…yeah. I've had a crazy night." Freetrick stuck his fingers under the lenses of his pince-nez and massaged his eyeballs, "what's up, Kaimeera?"

  "The Ultimate Fiend wishes to gain cognizance of the sinister motivations of his squirming underlings?" Freetrick gritted his teeth, took his fingers off his eyes, and looked up to see Mr. Skree crawl in under the door lintel. Against the new pale ceiling, his secretary stood out like a toad on a china plate.