Dark Lord

by Jamie Thomson

  The Cloak had burned away almost in an instant. But not the Glyphs. They rose slowly up from the fire, and began to spin in the air, revolving around and around like a firecracker, faster and faster with a hissing whir. Dirk could hardly believe his eyes! And then the Glyphs smoldered like phosphorous, as if they were burning their way through the very fabric of space and time itself. They were melting the air, leaving a strange blackness behind.

  Abruptly the Glyphs disappeared, revealing some kind of window, just hanging there in space. Dirk could make out shapes—hills, mountains, and a red-tinged sky. He recognized what he saw.

  He was looking into another world. That realm he called his own. The Darklands …

  Dirk stood there, dumbfounded. This meant … this meant it was all real! He really was the Dark Lord of the Darklands! How could he have been so stupid? Of course he was! Oh, that Hasdruban—he was cunning, oh so cunning. He’d nearly had him fooled, nearly had him believing it all, nearly had him convincing himself he was nothing but a puny human child. A deluded child.

  Oh, but he had to admire the brilliance of it. It was inspired, a scheme so ingenious it was worthy of himself. But now he’d uncovered the truth! The despair and the sadness fell away, and a kind of black joy filled him, a wild exultation, a dark blossoming of resolve and determination. He was the Dark Lord, now more than ever!

  Dirk rushed forward and tried putting his hand through the portal—maybe he didn’t need any complicated rituals, maybe all he needed was to burn the Cloak to open a way. But his hand came up hard against what felt like thick, solid glass. It was only a window, a spyglass into the Darklands. Things were never that easy, after all. Dirk stepped back to observe. He was looking at a great rolling expanse of blasted heath that seemed to stretch away forever. Gray clouds hung over a mournful, dirty-water colored plain, studded with rocky outcrops and low hills. He recognized the Plains of Desolation.

  Dirk noticed something near his field of view. Was that a figure, crouching in a muddy hollow, as if hiding? Dirk tried to concentrate, to make out the details. Suddenly the window moved, responding to his thoughts, and closed in on the figure. Dirk smiled. This was like old times. The magic obeyed his will, as all things should. Then he gasped. It was Gargon! His lieutenant, Dread Gargon, the Hewer of Limbs, Captain of the Legions of Dread! And it was really him—not just some human dressed up, like that Morti character. He could see his skeletal body, the mighty talons and the bony ridges of his batlike wings.

  “Gargon!” he shouted, but then he caught himself and looked around guiltily. He didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention to himself, especially from the High Council of the White Shields or something. Besides, it was obvious that sound couldn’t pass through the window.

  He focused in. Gargon was cowering in fear, looking up at the sky furtively. Dirk tracked the window upward with his mind into the red-tinged sky of the Darklands. Aha! Eagle Riders, curse them. They made for a formidable foe—a human warrior riding on the back of a giant eagle, brought up together as nest mates, forever sworn to serve the White Wizard and the Commonwealth of Good Folk, may the Nether Gods eat their souls! They were flying high, and soon they had passed over.

  Gargon sank to the ground, sobbing in relief. He was in a sorry state, beaten and bruised. It looked like he’d been on the run—perhaps for months. Poor Gargon! He’d probably been hunted all this time by those implacable fanatics, the Paladins of Righteousness. They would never rest until they’d hunted down all his followers. Well, there was nothing he could do about it—yet. Gargon would have to survive as best he could until Dirk could get back.

  Then Dirk noticed a great peak on the horizon: Mount Dread. In its foothills lay his Iron Tower. With that thought, the view shifted, flying across the blasted Plains of Desolation toward Mount Dread.

  As the interplanar vision hurtled across the Plains, it passed over a troop of Orcs. Dirk could see they were in a bad way, panting with exhaustion, dirty and muddy—well, Orcs were always dirty and muddy, of course, but these also had tattered armor, and filthy, bloodstained makeshift bandages on various fresh wounds. They’d long ago thrown away their shields and weapons—these Orcs were on the run.

  Judging from what remained of their military insignia, they were from the Legion of Merciless Mayhem, one of his elite Legions, made up of the most disciplined, hard-bitten veteran Orcs he could breed. They had been commanded by the Black Slayer, another one of his lieutenants. Once. Now they were a ragtag bunch of desperate runaways, fleeing for their lives.

  Dirk couldn’t understand it. What were they running from? After he’d been cast down to earth by Hasdruban, his armies would have dispersed, leaderless, been easy to defeat by those Commonwealth fanatics. Surely the war had been over for months? What was going on?

  Then he saw their pursuers—Paladins! On large, armored white chargers with bright white shields, their armor gleaming, and their pennoned lances at the ready. Fanatics, the lot of them. But they weren’t pursuing hard—it was almost as if they were herding the Orcs somewhere. Dirk moved his view in the direction the Orcs were heading and zoomed in. A small wood. And there, a troop of white-coated Elvish archers, waiting in the trees! They bore gold sigils on the front of their coats, the symbol of the White Wizard. The white coats mirrored their pale skin, and the Wizard’s symbol mirrored their golden hair. Sickeningly sartorial as always, thought Dirk. These were Templar Elves, an elite group who left their Elvish homelands to take up service with the White Wizard, sworn to serve him and protect the Temple of Life until death. More fanatics, just like the Paladins. And his Orcs were heading straight for them!

  Dirk wanted to warn them somehow but there was nothing he could do. Suddenly the Templar Elves stepped as one into the open and unleashed a deadly volley of arrows. Half of the Orcs fell dead in their tracks. The rest just stopped, exhausted, all the fight knocked out of them. They just dropped to their knees and put their hands up over their heads, in the classic posture of Orcish submission and surrender. But the Paladins closed in and charged. They speared to death every last Orc … Dirk was shocked. Even he, a Dark Lord, would accept surrender. Sure, he might have one in ten killed as a lesson to the others. All right, two in ten. But there was no point in just massacring everyone. There’d be no one left to pay taxes, no one left to dominate and control. No one to enslave and boss around. What was the point of that?

  Was that what was happening? Was that the reason Gargon and the Orcs were on the run long after the war was over? The Commonwealth was trying to wipe out every last one of his troops? Dirk was horrified. These were his people, he’d bred them, trained them. They were his creations, his followers, his, his … his toys, blast it! How could Hasdruban take them away from him? It would take decades to replace them.

  Hasdruban had to be stopped. Dirk had to get back to the Darklands. He had to save as much of his stuff as he could.

  Then Dirk noticed that the window into another world was beginning to sputter—just like interference on TV, as if the signal was weakening. Quickly he moved the vision on—he wanted to take one last look at his Iron Tower of Despair before the window closed.

  He forced the view up and across the Plains of Desolation, flying toward his Iron Tower at breakneck speed. And then he saw it silhouetted against the backdrop of Mount Dread. It looked pleasingly foreboding, a harbinger of doom. As the view neared, he noticed something wasn’t quite right. Of course, he’d expected some damage—a few battlements torn down, the Chamber of Summoning at the top demolished at the least, but it wasn’t that. Something else … Then he saw. It was pink! Bright pink!

  “Noooo! They’ve painted it pink! Pink! How could they?” he wailed.

  And around the spiked buttresses and iron-clad walls, now painted pink with purple flowers all over them, little winged fairy folk fluttered and gamboled in the air. Down below, people milled around the tower, laughing and drinking, having picnics, and listening to musicians and poets. They’d turned his Iron Tower of Desp
air into some kind of amusement park!

  Dirk’s face flushed with humiliation. How embarrassing. How dreadfully embarrassing. He could hardly bear to watch. The great Dark Lord’s Tower, reduced to a pink-coated day-trip attraction!

  Ah, that Hasdruban. Once again, Dirk had to admit it was a stroke of genius. What better way to mock and discredit the memory of a Dark Lord than by reducing his great works—that were meant to create fear and dread in the minds of those who looked upon them—to meaningless pink fluffiness? It was a propaganda masterstroke. And if Hasdruban succeeded in wiping out the rest of his followers there would be nothing left of the Dark Lord’s legacy at all. With Dirk forever exiled on another plane, people would soon forget completely the original purpose of the Iron Tower of Despair, and its dread occupant. It would become Pink Fairy Towers or something ghastly like that—a family outing, a day trip for kids and fairies.

  “Noooo!” wailed Dirk once more. Hasdruban would pay. By the Nine Netherworlds, he’d pay for this! This was worse than killing his troops. This was … desecration. Pink, for evil’s sake! Dirk hesitated for a moment. Well, okay, it probably wasn’t as bad as killing his Orcs and Goblins. Well, certainly from their point of view. But still, it was very, very annoying.

  Furious revenge fantasies began to run through his mind like a storm-swollen river. Suddenly the window snapped shut. Just like that. At the last moment, something popped out, and landed on the ground with a glassy tinkling sound. Dirk reached down and picked up the object, his eyes narrowing.

  Now he knew who he was! Now he would redouble his efforts—he would return to the Darklands. But first he had to rescue Sooz, get his people together here, sort things out on earth. Then he would work out how to get back. He examined the object in his hand. It was what he suspected—an Interplanar Soul Bottle. Certain magical creatures and races used these bottles to travel between the planes of existence, rather like the way humans put messages into bottles and cast them into the sea. Someone wanted to speak with him.

  Carefully, he broke the magical seal on the bottle and flipped its lid. There was a rush of smoke as something burst forth and formed into a thin, spindly humanoid shape before his eyes. Once the smoke cleared, Dirk found himself staring at a strange creature—humanlike, but with arms and legs that were very long and thin, with a shock of spiky salt-and-pepper hair. Its face was scrunched and compact, with sharp, spiky features. A tiny golden cap rested on its head. Dirk recognized the little being and his Royal Cap immediately—it was Foletto the Skirrit King. The Skirrits were a race of tiny Goblin-like beings who lived in between the worlds, in the interplanar spaces that run between the dimensions. They could be summoned—by both White and Black Wizards—and, for the right payment, be contracted to carry out various tasks and quests. Foletto, who was slightly shorter than Dirk, looked up at him, a puzzled expression on his scrunched-up face.

  “I am looking for His Imperial Majesty, the Dark Lord of the Iron Tower … er,” said the Skirrit King in a high voice. “You don’t look like him, but you … Well, you feel like him.”

  Dirk nodded. “Greetings, Foletto. It is I, but I have been cursed and forced to inhabit the wretched body of a puny human child.”

  Comprehension dawned on the Skirrit’s face. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “Hasdruban, I presume?” he said.

  “Yes, it was Hasdruban. He has the upper hand at the moment, but soon I shall crush him utterly!” said Dirk.

  Foletto raised a white, spiky eyebrow and looked Dirk up and down.

  “Your situation doesn’t look promising, I have to say,” Foletto said. “And the body of a human boy—yuk! How disgusting! Still, I have come because I sensed you were trapped on this plane. Then you opened that convenient portal, no doubt to allow me through to this plane. Anyway, I thought you might need my help.”

  Dirk raised an eyebrow of his own. “Help? You mean you sensed an opportunity for profit, more likely,” said Dirk.

  “Ah, well, yes, now that you put it like that. My help does come at a price, of course. After all, we’ve had several mutually beneficial contracts in the past, so why not again? Except … Well, I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just say it outright. Seeing your current state, I am not so sure you’ll be able to pay,” said Foletto.

  Dirk’s eyes narrowed. Foletto turning up out of the blue was a bit of rare good luck. And by the Nine Netherworlds, he could really use some help, stuck here on earth. Mentally he patted himself on the back for not ripping off the Skirrit King in the past and actually sticking to their previous deals. If he hadn’t, Foletto wouldn’t even be here.

  He seemed to be under the impression that Dirk had intended to summon him. But truth be told, Dirk had completely forgotten about the Skirrits and their King and in any case had no way of casting the summoning spell. Still, no sense letting Foletto know that! And anyway, why shouldn’t he come whether or not Dirk called him? The power and essence of a Dark Lord always attracted creatures like this. They were drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

  Dirk considered things for a moment. Then he said, “There is a task I would have you do. As to payment, what if I were to promise to give you whatever your heart desires if you come to me when I am once again ruling from my Iron Tower of Despair, and my powers have been regained?”

  The Skirrit King gasped out loud, “Whatever my heart …” Foletto was obviously surprised. Things must be really bad for the Dark One for him to make such an offer. Carefully (you had to be especially careful when negotiating with the Sorcerer Supreme, even if he was in a tight spot), Foletto replied, “Umm, yes, despite your currently reduced state, I’m sure we can come to some agreement, Your Imperial Darkness.”

  And so the conversation went on …

  Wrath of the Goths

  Dirk arrived at Sooz’s house, a thousand schemes and plots running through his head. He knocked on the door. After a short wait, the door opened and Sooz poked her head around the corner, a look of trepidation on her face. She probably thought he was the police or something, sent by Grousammer to arrest her. But at the sight of Dirk, she scowled angrily.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said sullenly. “Where’ve you been?” “Greetings, Child of the Night!” Dirk said with a big grin on his face. He said this with such absurd glee and confidence, that Sooz’s mouth, set in an angry line, twitched a bit at the corners.

  “I shall use all my evil genius to see you liberated from the baleful influence of that tyrant Grousammer and you will be free to prowl the night like the sweet little Vampire you are,” Dirk enthused.

  This was too much for Sooz and she had to smile. She shook her head ruefully, then laughed and said, “Dirk, it’s good to see your crazy face!” With that she stepped forward and gave him a big hug.

  Dirk froze. He just couldn’t get used to this human hugging business. But after a moment or two he relented and put his arms around Sooz and hugged her back. Dirk had never really hugged another being before. Not in a thousand years. Sure, maybe he’d hugged a few to death, but that was different. This actually felt nice. He felt something odd … What was it? Ah yes, affection. He felt affection for Sooz. He wanted to protect her, to look after her.

  At this thought, Dirk broke the embrace and coughed, embarrassed by his feelings.

  Look after her like she was a pet, of course, he thought to himself desperately. Or a particularly good minion, an excellent lackey. That was it. Useful. Dark Lords didn’t like people for themselves, didn’t care for them out of affection and love, for goodness’ sake. For evil’s sake, I mean!

  “You all right?” said Sooz.

  Dirk didn’t know what to make of these unexpected emotions. They had thrown him off balance. But he pulled himself together.

  “Sooz,” he said imperiously, “I beg your forgiveness for not coming to your aid more quickly, but I … was distracted.”

  “Distracted by what?” she said, scowling. “I really needed you!”

  “I … Well, I …” Dirk couldn’t bear t
o admit he’d lost his self-confidence, and given in to despair. A Dark Lord never admitted to weakness. Especially in front of a girl.

  “I’ve been working on a … a plan … ,” he added lamely.

  “That’s not what Chris said. He said you’d been depressed, like you’d given up or something.”

  Dirk screwed his face up in annoyance. That blabbermouth Christopher! Then he sighed. Maybe sometimes you had to admit things, tell the truth even, especially to your friends. Or most loyal lackeys, rather.

  He looked around shiftily, desperately trying to think of some other course of action. He could just deny it, as he would have done in the old days. But no, perhaps those times were gone for good. So he said, “I did get a little down, yes. And I’m sorry for it. I couldn’t see a way out.”

  Sooz seemed to accept this. She said, “Well, we all feel like that sometimes. I certainly have, the last few days.”

  It suddenly dawned on Dirk just how bad a time Sooz must have been having. It can’t have been anything like a Dark Lord losing his self-confidence, of course, but for her, in her world, it must have been quite frightening. Dirk couldn’t believe it—he was beginning to experience another emotion. What was it called? Ah yes, empathy. Empathy and affection! All in the same day. Extraordinary.

  “Anyway,” Dirk said, “I’m feeling much more like my old self now—and it’s time to get you off the hook. Christopher said you’d found something in that old despot’s diary?”

  “Yeah. Did you know his first name is Hercules?” sniggered Sooz.