The Kingdoms of Evil

by Daniel Bensen

  "I did," Istain slouched back down again. He muttered something else, but Freetrick couldn't hear whatever it was under Wrothginn's crow of delight.

  "Facinating!" the life-twister said again. "A state, not of un-death, but un-life! But how long can it last? I imagine there is some..." He giggled, nibbling on the tips of his fingers, "possibility of infection?"

  Freetrick grimaced. "There's a worse problem. I can't keep people out of this corridor forever, and all it will take is one person to strike out a rune in the programming on the floor," he gestured at the blood letters, clotted now, but still in the right shape to command the attention of the God of Words. "Truth, and even though I've got a round-the-clock rotation of monsters writing prayers to the god, I'm still worried the magic will fail and...well..."

  "The prince will be released from his prison to seek his terrible revenge?" Wrothgrinn inquired eagerly.

  "Not so much," Istain said. "Any random deletion from the program will probably make that guy explode. Or at least bleed out from a hundred places at once. I don't understand what's holding the whole mess together as it is."

  That, at least, sounded like the old Istain. Freetrick opened his mouth to tell his friend about his plans for the prince, but Wrothgrinn raised a finger like the questing head of a blind snake.

  "A moment," said the life-twister, his expression pensive. "About these...monsters praying."

  Ah, here it was. The first of what Freetrick was sure would be many similar conversations. Diatribes. It would be best to make a strong impression from the beginning.

  Wrothgrinn continued. "Is my lord sure that...uh…"

  "That what?" Freetrick demanded. "That it's legal? Yes. Because I said so. That it's safe? Yes, because if any necromancer tries to stop a monster from praying to the God of Words or learning to read, I will hunt them down and…" he jerked a thumb at Feerix inside his tree. "Right. And if I'm feeling particularly un-merciful, I'll let the monsters practice spelling on them first. Got it?"

  "The point, my lord, has been most thoroughly gotten, my lord," said Wrothgrinn, clenching his long fingers under his wagging chin. "And pleased I am to…to clasp it."

  "Really," said Freetrick. "You're not surprised in any way that I've overturned the entire Skrean social and political system?"

  "Why would I stand in the way of such chaos my lord?" Wrothgrinn made little gestures with his long fingers, perhaps indicating chaos. "And besides, what would it be to give magic to the monsters, but the greatest test of the work of myself and my predecessors?" Wrothgrinn curled his own right hand in front of his lens-adorned face. "To think that we, the life-twisters who made these monsters," he looked up from his own palm to raise a crazed eyebrow at Freetrick, "can see them grow to rival us, to usurp our power," fingers twitching, he raised his face toward the ceiling, "to murder us all in blood-drenched and cathartic uprising! Yes! Yes, my lord!" His hands flew into the air like skeletal doves. "Why," he said, "it will be like raising children."

  Freetrick opened his mouth. Closed it.

  "However!" Wrothgrinn's hands snapped closed, leaving a single finger, which the life-twister thrust forward didactically. "What I had planned to ask was whether it was truly, that is to say, possible for all the monsters to be taught, my lord, to read. Yes!" The finger wriggled. "For many lack eyesight or the hands to hold writing tools or turn pages." Wrothgrinn's own hands mimed these actions like dancing crabs. "Not to mention the stupider goblins and lizard people, which, in my opinion, my lord, lack the mental capabilities necessary for literacy. Hm!" He nodded to himself.

  Freetrick looked at the ogre Grimp, standing mutely at the edge of circle. He thought of the mind trapped in that bovine body. "Well, Wrothgrinn," he said, "you're a life-twister, aren't you? Why can't you fix the monsters?"

  "You mean," the man gasped, "make them less…monstrous?"

  "Let's say more functional."

  Wrothgrinn chewed a yellow fingernail as he appeared to consider the proposal. "Hmm…ah HAH!" His left hand came up to hook a huge lens into place over an eye. "Indeed, my lord's artistic genius bounds to ever higher levels." He swung his hugely magnified eye toward Grimp, Skystarke, the Kaimeera, and Mr. Skree, who all cringed back slightly.

  "Of course, what better conclusion could there be to my exploration of Perversity? What greater iconoclasm…" his fingers pressed together over his lips, then slowly spread, like a blooming lily, "than to make of a monster…a man?"

  "Well, wonderful," sighed Freetrick. "I'll have a schedule drawn up for you and…"

  "Yes, yes, fine." Wrothgrinn had somehow crossed the corridor between one moment and the next and was now subjecting a quivering Skystarke to magnified scrutiny, "I am an artist. My secretary bugs handle such things as schedules."

  "Okay, but...do you need anything? Before you begin?" Freetrick wanted to know.

  "Like what? Heavy gauge stitches? A bolt of lightning? A fresh brain perhaps? Bah!" Wrothgrinn scoffed as he palpated the loose skin over Skystarke's face. Freetrick's chamberlain gazed forward, his eyes half-lidded, his lips tight. "My lord underestimates my artistic integrity if he thinks I have any use for such for petty gimmickry," said Wrothgrinn. "I require only time and silence to compose my next masterpiece."

  "Well, good," said Freetrick. That was one more problem taken care of. At least for the moment. Which left…Freetrick glanced at Bloodbyrn, who was looking at him.

  "My lord," she said, her voice colorless, "I fail to see the utility in my continued presence here. May I be given leave to depart?"

  Freetrick opened his mouth to answer her, and could not. Instead he said, "…I'd appreciate your advice on what to do with Feerix." He nodded toward the frozen prince.

  Tiny silver hooks glinted as Bloodbyrn's lip twitched. "Kill him."

  Freetrick shook his head. "I can't do that, Bloodbyrn."

  "Yes you can," Istain raised his hand. "I vote with Gothic Lolita. Let's just---ow!" Freetrick's friend winced, then shook his head hard, and said, bizarrely, "Freetrick, you have to let him live."

  "Istain," said Freetrick, "are you---"

  "Never mind!" Istain said, "just listen to me, Freetrick. You can't kill the prince."

  "Can he not?" Bloodbyrn's voice was as frozen and unforgiving as a glacier. "What are you to give orders to the Ultimate Fiend?"

  "Who are you to tell me not to?" Istain retorted, still in that weird, un-Istain-like voice.

  Bloodbyrn took a step forward, but then the light went out of her eyes. "The choice of what to do and what not to do now rests with the Ultimate Fiend." She shook out her black curls and gave Freetrick a look that made him feel as if a hand had just closed over this throat. "I have done with choices, I think."

  He tried to answer, "It's not---"

  "Oh, do whatever you wish, Fiend." she said, eyes twitching away from his, "I might only inquire why I was ordered to be present here, since my advice and interests are clearly to be ignored."

  There was an uncomfortable silence, which the Grimp's translator broke with a shrill squeak."Fiend...dark lady...Grimp agrees that the obvious thing would be to kill him."

  "I agree!" said Wrothrginn, running fingers through the Translator's fuzzy coat. "The would-be claimant, should he still live after the duel, is generally ritually sacrificed before the masses. Indeed and the energy you might gain from such a deed would last you days. Ooh!" The life-twister clapped his hands. "I have some knives of knapped obsidian I have been waiting for an opportunity to try on a live subject. If my lord likes..."

  Freetrick said, "That's the problem."

  "Right!" Istain slashed the air with a hand. "You can't afford to give in to your darker desires right now."

  Freetrick looked at his friend suspiciously. Darker desires? "Why exactly do you care?"

  "I don't know!" Istain scowled, then winced again, as if he had just bitten his tongue.

  Freetrick sighed. "Anything I do with Feerix is going to send a message. I need to show we can't go around thin
king that people are just...what...useful places to get energy from. Too many people have died already."

  Bloodbyrn would not look at him.

  "No, that's wrong." Freetrick took a step toward her. "I mean I've killed too many people already." He turned to look at the other assembled humans and monsters. "In my new Skrea, that won't happen any more. We won't have to kill just to stay competitive. Feerix must live."

  "Yes," said Istain, "that's the right choice." Then, as if he hadn't just spoken, "Okay. Fine. But what are we gonna do with him?" He glanced at the blood tree. "Assuming we can even strike out the spell without killing him."

  "I guess I can have him thrown in the dungeons," said Freetrick.

  "Yes," said Bloodbyrn, "because imprisoning your enemy worked so well the last time my lord tried it."

  "I can't let him go free." Freetrick paced back and forth across the floor, careful not to step on any of the blood runes around the tree. "He'll try to kill me again."

  "You beat him this time," Istain pointed out.

  At what cost? Freetrick looked at Bloodbyrn, who was staring straight ahead. Her father's body had been removed, where to, Freetrick had been afraid to ask. He shook his head and answered the question. "I surprised him this time. But in a fair fight…no. He's just too good…at..." Freetrick stopped pacing, as the thought bloomed, "…at… at necromancy. Wrothgrinn." He spun toward the life-twister, who was again poking at the wings of a disgruntled-looking Mr. Skree.

  Wrothgrinn withdrew his finger. "Yes, my lord?"

  "Monsters can't do necromancy, can they?"

  "Oh…" Bloodbyrn breathed. "Oh my lord, that is…evil."

  Freetrick looked at her, and a smile spread across his face. "Wrothgrinn, I have another project for you. Think of it as a…return to your traditional roots."

  The life-twister bowed deeply. "It will be my pleasure, my lord to make the prince into something as horrendous outside as in."

  "Just make him…still functional. All right?" Freetrick looked from Wrothgrinn to Bloodbyrn. She was still staring at him. And staring, if not a good thing, was at least better than that awful blank non-look.

  If there was one thing he had learned about dealing with the Sangboise princess, it was that he had to seize opportunities when they presented themselves. "All right!" Freetrick clapped his gauntlets together. "I think that's everything I wanted to talk about. Wrothgrinn, you have your plans to make. Istain, Grimp, I want you to figure out how to get Feerix out of that tree. Skystarke, Kaimeera, make sure Istain and Grimp have all the materials they need. And keep the prayer cycle going. Now Bloodbyrn," he said to his un-wife, "come with me to my rooms."

  Bloodbyrn looked away. The emotion had left her face again. "Must I, my lord?"

  "Yes," said Freetrick, "I have a kitty to give you."

  ***

  Bloodbyrn expressed no emotion. Not as her lord took her to his apartments. Not when he presented Princess Fluff to her. Not when he looked at her, and she could not force herself to smile, and he looked away.

  "It's a good thing the Kaimeera found her, huh?" He said.

  Bloodbyrn did not respond. She would have remained composed in any case, of course, but now it was easier. Now Bloodbyrn truly felt nothing.

  "It did a good job," said Feerborg. "It's owned cats before. Or parts of it have."

  Interesting. So this was what her father had endured all these years. His persona had masked not agony as she had supposed, but rather the lack of any emotion. How interesting.

  "Anyway, you really can have her, you know. I'll protect your right to keep her. Post a guard on her if you want."

  Bloodbyrn considered her kitten, which she could now she felt easily strangle. Her father would be proud of her.

  "Bloodbyrn!"

  Her lord had been talking to her.

  "Yes, my lord? I apologize that my attention was elsewhere."

  "I said I'm sorry," he said. Bloodbyrn suppressed a wave of irritation.

  "Yes. That is likely why I did not hear you. You apologize to me with such regularity that the phrase has lost all meaning for me."

  "Well, I'm---" his mouth pinched. "Alright."

  "My lord has nothing for which to apologize," Bloodbyrn placed the cat on the floor. "The choice was mine." Yes, she had chosen. Father or lover. She had lost the first, and now found she could not stand the sight of the other.

  "Well, what do you want me to do?" said Feerborg, "Take revenge on Feerix? Because I said before---"

  "No, my lord," sighed Bloodbyrn, "the punishment my lord has devised for his half-brother is most suitably fiendish. Indeed, there is nothing more he has left to do on my account. So may I go now?"

  "Tempest above, Bloodbyrn just let me…" her lord stared miniature lightning bolts at the wall behind her, then, it seemed, made a rare effort to compose himself. "I wanted to thank you. For saving my life."

  "Accepted," she responded. "Now may I go?"

  "Bloodbyrn...no."

  She turned. "My lord?"

  "Don't go Bloodbyrn," he took a step toward her. "Stay here with me. Talk to me."

  "Very well." Bloodbyrn faced her lord with composure. "What does my lord wish to discuss?"

  He struck his desk with a fist. It rocked. She blinked.

  "I killed your father, Bloodbyrn! I killed him and used his death energy to save both our lives."

  "My memory is not faulty my lord."

  Feerborg hissed anguish between his teeth. Bloodbyrn could not bring herself to care.

  "Do you know what he said to me?"

  "No." Nor had she any wish to know. "My lord," Bloodbyrn said, "I would again ask you---"

  "He said," her lord interrupted, "that I have to protect you. Maybe this is what he was talking about."

  Bloodbyrn thought back on the things she had said in her last conversation with her father. Was this how it felt to be out of prison? Maybe it was the lack of confining walls that made her feel so small, so helpless and empty.

  "My lord, you have many matters to attend to. As do I."

  "What are you going to do Bloodbyrn?"

  "I shall accompany my father's body back to our home," she said. "There I shall conduct certain rites." And then? And then.

  "Bloodbyrn." Feerborg held out his hands to her, "I don't want to---"

  "Malevolence!" A servant banged through the doors of the Fiend's office. "You gave orders that any new arrivals of food from beyond our borders should be brought to your attention."

  Feerborg looked past Bloodbyrn at the messenger, tiny sparks flashing his annoyance across his black eyes. By her blood, she hoped this was something important. Something that would divert his attention so she could leave. Not that Bloodbyrn knew where she would go.

  "I thought I said you had to tell me when you brought in new prisoners."

  "Just so, Malevolence," said the servant. "A Do-Gooder has entered the Castle. We shall relegate her to the larder---"

  "Don't." Freetrick held up a hand. "Do that."

  "My lord, I shall go." Bloodbyrn said.

  "Just a minute." Freetrick turned back to the goblin. "Just tell me who the prisoner is and where she comes from."

  Bloodbyrn sighed. It was most likely another assassin. No doubt her lord would not deal with her correctly. He never killed people who attacked him. Which would make it difficult to convince him to kill her, when the time came. If she wanted to emulate her mother, she would have to nearly kill the man before he would strike back.

  "Oh, she has a nearly Skrean name, Fiend," said the goblin, "Rath-harlot or something similar. No. Zath-ra"

  "Wait. Zathara?" Demanded Freetrick. "Tall girl, long hair…uh very curvy?"

  The goblin nodded. "Most succulent, Fiend."

  "Once again I ask it of you, my lord," said Bloodbyrn, standing by the door. "Release me from this place."

  Freetrick made quelling gestures at her. He needed to talk to her, but this was more important.

  "Zathara?" said Freetrick, "Zathara?
Bring her to me immediately! Wait!"

  "Yes?" said the goblin.

  "Is she okay?" Demanded Freetrick. "Is she hurt? How did she get here?"

  "Malevolence." The door opened and Mr. Skree's head snaked into the room like a breath of bad news. "If pleasure were counted among the emotions that could be sustained in the murk under the spreading influence of the Keeper of Doom, great it would rise in the withered ventricles of the organ that acts in place of this servant's heart, for it falls to this undeserving wreckage the great and mortal honor of announcing…" the chamberlain cleared his desiccated throat.

  "Yes?" said Freetrick.

  "My lord," Bloodbyrn said, "I should leave now, had I permission!"

  Mr. Skree coughed. "Queen Tinesmurk, the mother of the Ultimate Fiend, has returned."

  Freetrick closed his eyes. "My mother?"

  "And my lord's old paramour, yes." Whispered Bloodbyrn. "I wish my lord good luck with his new conquest."

  "Damn it, Bloodbyrn, this is, this is not the time!"

  "I do not deny it. My lord has many tasks he must accomplish."

  "Just a minute Bloodbyrn." He turned back to the servant. "My mother is here?"

  The monster's mouth opened, but Bloodbyrn's cold voice cut over the response. "My lord, I should be released from your bondage at this time. Immediately!"

  "H-What?" A surge of anger rose and then died as Freetrick looked at her, and remembered. He gained a mother, she lost a father.

  Freetrick swallowed what he had been about to say, but before he could begin again, Bloodbyrn interrupted him. "I should be freed, my lord, to accompany my father's remains back to my ancestral home."

  "Bloodbyrn…" I don't want you to go, he did not say. How could he say no to a request like that?

  "And there to be at peace, my lord."