“Behold,” Oderic of Ferenzia cried, “the first democratic Parliament of the ruler of the World.”
“No, sssister!” a voice lisped from the front row of the Dark delegates.
The nameless necromancer hunched and slumped his way to his feet and onto the floor before the Throne. Ashnak rubbed his mouth, tasting the sudden metallic flavour of wizardry.
“We have both of ush been betrayed, sister! Now—
avenge
us!”
Orc marine squad leaders watched Ashnak for orders. He held up a restraining hand, his eyes on the Throne.
The Dark Lord lounged against one of the Throne’s carved arms, Her black robe falling back from her calf, knee, and thigh. Her skin glowed sepia-pale in the dusty light. Her orange eyes flared.
“What, little Man? Do you challenge Me?”
“
Sssister
mine!” the nameless necromancer appealed. “I know your schpirit, your ssoul, still lives within that body. Wake, wake, and take your body back!”
The Dark Lord’s chin dipped towards her silk-clad breast. She looked up from under Her brows at the suddenly silenced Parliament.
She spoke.
“You who were My greatest enemy, you who were called The Named—look now and see what I have made of you. I have kept your spirit alive within Me until now, so that you may see Evil ruling from the Throne of the World.”
“Madam President!” A black-bearded dwarf raised his hand from the Light’s back benches. Ashnak recognized Prosecuting Counsel Zhazba-darabat. “You mean, ‘Evil presiding over this democratically elected assembly.’”
“Of course,” the Dark Lord purred. “Now. You who were called The Named, behold your shame, and your brother’s extinction for daring to challenge Me!”
The Dark Lord’s featureless orange eyes dimmed. Her
cyan-and-sepia-shadowed face contorted. Ashnak, meeting her gaze, saw green Man-eyes suddenly stare out wildly at the crowd.
The orc drew his pistol, assuming a combat stance, but did not fire.
The rangy female Man slid her hands down a body clothed in silk. She sprang to her feet, bare feet stumbling as if she had anticipated the restrictions of armour. An expression of horror, revulsion, and triumph appeared on the face of The Named as she saw her brother, yet unharmed.
The Dark Lord blinked, and, without giving The Named time for any last words or actions whatsoever, snuffed her soul out like cracking a flea.
She opened Her eyes again—which glowed like the fires of sunset—and smiled down at the nameless necromancer. “Was I to gloat, and in so doing give her time to repossess me? Was that your plan? I know what commonly becomes of Evil at the end of tales—but I am not so stupid.”
A fork of black lightning stabbed down from the Opticon’s dome.
Ashnak blinked away the afterimages, holstered his pistol, strolled across the black and white tiles, and studied the smoking heap of bones that was all that remained of the orc’s ancient master. As he watched, the bones disintegrated into dust.
“Corporal Hikz, give those tiles a going-over.” He faced about as the grunt scrubbed at the stone. “Well done, Ma’am. Speaking as head of the security presence here, I admire good, quick work.”
The Dark and Light Parliamentary delegates settled back into their seats under the great gold and blue wall-maps, glaring at each other across the chamber.
The Ruler of the World spoke.
“Is that
all
?” She said.
The Dark Ruler lay back between the wing-carved arms of the Throne of the World. Its feather-and-eye-decorated stone back rose high above Her: Her ash-pale hair, and Her childdelicate face, and Her bare shoulders.
“Is that all…?”
The Ruler of the World pointed, with one sepia-shadowed hand, at the gallery of the Opticon and the walls above it.
“You do not know how petty all this seems to Me. What is pictured there?”
Her hand indicated the great blue and gold wall-maps, with the green hills and farmlands of Ferenzia, Gyzrathrani, Fourgate, Graagryk, Sarderis, and the rest painted in intricate detail.
“Half a hundred petty kingdoms, a few stretches of wild lands, some uninhabitable territories at the poles, and a flooded continent to the west. Number it, it is easily numbered. What is it all to me, who with the mere thinking could turn it all to molten rock…”
Her bell voice chimed in the Opticon’s dome. The substance of the air shivered, as if all the Powers—Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Void—were brought unwilling into that chamber.
“And you…”
The gaze of the Dark Ruler swept across the tiered seats. Specks of sunfire gleamed in Her pupilless orange eyes. Bereft of speech and movement, the races of the earth stared back at Her like animals caught in torchlight.
“No,” She said. “It is not worthy of Me to commit genocide against such inconsequential beings.”
A tension left the air, the Powers fading.
“Always I have fought for the mastery of this Land. Again and again I have thrown My forces of Darkness against the Light. Finally, I am victorious! But when I have the victory, what have I won? The lordship over furrowgrubbers, axe-swingers, and beast-handlers. Farmland, wilderness, and not a city worthy of the name!”
The Mayor of Sarderis made as if to speak, caught Her gaze, and was silent.
The Dark Ruler of the World smiled.
“There are none left, are there, to challenge Me?”
A red-eyed kobold in a mail-shirt spoke up from the tiers of Dark delegates. “Ma’am, we appreciate that as Dark Lord and World Ruler You expect regular challenges to Your power—but this House requests that we deal first with the budget for Lower Shazmanar, and the submitted paper on Waterworks and Canals,
and
the Evil Races (Suffrage) Bill.”
The Dark Lord rested Her elbow on the arm of the Throne and Her chin in Her hand. From the pinnacle of the world She gazed down.
“Already,” She said, “already I am bored. You do not have the greatness of soul to know
how
tedious I find this muddy world of which I am Ruler.”
Ashnak chewed his cigar, checked the position of his marines, and moved forward. “Got a priority matter for You to deal with, Ma’am. Before these Bills and suchlike. “If I may…”
“Do what you will, My orc!”
Ashnak jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You’ve met Hive Commander Kah-Sissh.”
Delegates leaned forward on their benches as the double doors of the Opticon were flung open.
A squad of twelve Bug insectoids approached across the floor of the Opticon, bearing on their chitinous shoulders the body of a Jassik warrior twice their size. Upright, the exoskeletal body would have touched the domed ceiling. Now the black chitin was mat and dull, the faceted eyes dim, the great claws motionless. A vast array of black living-metal clustered on the dead Jassik’s body, no lights flickering on it, all dead and still.
Hive Commander Kah-Sissh trod delicately across the floor before the Throne, and folded his legs into obeisance. “Great One, Ruler of This World.”
The Dark Lord glanced down at the Bug, and then at Supreme Commander Ashnak. “What is this?”
“It’s a dead Bug, Ma’am.”
“I can see that!”
“A mostly dead Bug,” Ashnak corrected himself. “Isn’t that right, Kah-Sissh?”
The Hive Commander unfolded, in response to a nudge from the orc’s combat boot, and said hastily, “All but dead, Great One. This is our Swarm Master, who was damaged as we came to this world. You would call him our Emperor. His mind is damaged, dead, and cannot be healed. His body yet has a kind of life in it, but it is fading fast.”
The Ruler of the World rose from Her throne, pacing down to the floor of the Opticon. Her orange eyes glowed. The great body of the Bug towered over Her. She surveyed its chitinous carapace.
“Ashnak, be so good as to tell Me why you are bringing dead Bugs into My court?”
The dwarf Zhazba-darabat coughed. “Parliament.”
Orange eyes turned to the Light benches. “What?”
“‘Parliament,’ World Ruler, Ma’am. Not ‘court.’”
The Dark and Light delegates looked at each other, nodding their heads in complete agreement.
“Into My
Parliament
,” the Dark Lord hissed, Her fists clenching at Her sides. Her silk robe slid across Her long legs as She paced the length of the dead Jassik, and then back to the Throne’s dais. She turned Her head, gazing at her Supreme Commander.
“Well?”
Hive Commander Kah-Sissh, nudged again by Ashnak’s boot, spoke. “This is the Emperor of all Jassik. Emperor of those who are here, and of those who rule, in his name, the myriad worlds of the stars. He leads us from world to world, plundering and pillaging, subjecting all to Jassik control. He leads the holy war, across stars uncounted, forging an empire of worlds too many to be numbered!”
“Wait!” The Dark Lord stared at Kah-Sissh’s back and at the Jassik’s multibarreled disruptor. “What discourtesy is this, orc Ashnak? I was under the impression that our foes had agreed to throw down their arms.”
Ashnak shrugged. “Bit difficult with cyber-grown weaponry, Ma’am. We’re doing the best we can.”
Hive Commander Kah-Sissh drew himself up, towering over the assembly. “I am bound by a warrior’s bonour to keep the terms agreed at the peace negotiations!”
The Jassik rubbed his claw across his chitinous skull between his faceted eyes, as if he found the Opticon’s light uncomfortable.
“For some reason, I do not entirely
remember
all the conditions,” he added, “but nonetheless, I hold to them!”
The Dark Lord seated Herself again on the Throne of the World. She shot a sharp glance at Ashnak. “I ask again: why have you brought this body here? I am not in the healing vein today.”
“Our ship-egg is on the point of hatching.” The alien Hive Commander stood on his exoskeletal hind limbs. Sun gleamed on his articulated thorax, domed head, and acid-dripping jaws. His faceted eyes held a thousand reflections of the Lord of Darkness. “Within hours we must leave this petty world. The Jassik Empire must continue on its conquering way.”
“‘Petty’ world?” the Dark Lord mused. “That is not something it is tactful to say to Me.”
“No, Ma’am.” Ashnak glared at the Hive Commander. “What Kah-Sissh
means
to say, Ma’am, is that the Jassik need a Swarm Master to lead them. This one is destroyed in
mind, but only damaged in body. Dread Lord, the Jassik offer You the body of the Swarm Master to possess—if You will become their Emperor and lead them from world to world, conquering as You go.”
A silence fell on the Parliament. Ashnak’s gaze swept Oderic’s scowling features, Magorian and the White Mages; the Ferenzi nobles and people; the creatures of the Horde…
The Ruler of the World’s gaze returned from the same survey.
“What do I rule, here?” She asked. “Some half a million creatures. Yes, little Kah-Sissh, I have been speaking with your Jassik companions of the worlds that lie beyond the stars. The many,
many
worlds.”
An orcish voice spoke up from the rear of the Opticon.
“It’s quite all right if you refuse, Ma’am,” Major-General Barashkukor called, almost on cue. “They’ve said that if you don’t want the post, they’ll offer it to someone else.”
“
Will
they, now…”
The Dark Ruler of the World stood, jewelled belt blazing in the Opticon’s sunlight. She turned Her gaze upon the tiers of seats.
“And who would accept this offer? You, Magorian? To be a hero again in a body not betrayed by age? Or you, Oderic, who thinks he is a wizard, to gain the knowledge of the stars?”
Her gaze swept on.
“My br— My necromancer would have taken this chance, out of courage or desperation. What of you, nobles of Ferenzi? Dwarves, will you study the engineering of the stars? Halflings, will you carry your thievery to other worlds? Elves, will you visit those stars of which you sing? Ah, you see that I see into you all. There is not one of you who can answer Me.”
The Dark Lord’s gaze lowered to the marble dais at the foot of the Throne.
“Not even
you
, little orc. Come, confess it before your fellow warriors and be shamed. You will not take the offer of a Jassik Emperor’s body. Your bowels loose at the very thought.”
The orc Supreme Commander shrugged, shifted uncomfortably from combat boot to combat boot, and avoided his grunts’ eyes. “Ah. Well. That is…”
The Dark Lord’s voice seared. “Shall I
make
you take the offer? It is in My power so to do.”
Rapidly concealed anxiety showed in the orc’s porcine eyes. With a more genuine discomfort, he said, “No, Ma’am!”
The Dark Lord laughed.
“It would be a fitting reward, to dispossess you of your orcish warriors. But that I can in any case do. Let Me think…Yes. Curiously enough, little orc, there
is
something you can do for Me.”
A Darkness began to fill the Opticon.
Out of it, Her voice said, “I here proclaim Ashnak of the Agaku to be My regent, to rule this petty world in My absence!”
Ashnak’s tusked jaw sagged.
Her voice laughed.
Darkness swirled, stinking of rot and bone, smelling of spices and cherries and the east wind. The unseen dome of the Opticon creaked. The shrieks and cries of the delegates fell, muted, as if into infinite void.
Abruptly, Darkness vanished.
Ashnak swiped at his eyes that streamed in the sudden sunlight. All the elves, Men, kobolds, witches, dwarves, and other delegates in the chamber rose to their feet, shouting—and then suddenly fell silent.
Lights ran across the black metal body of the Swarm Master.
Hive Commander Kah-Sissh and his Jassik escort folded and fell, making obeisance on the tiles.
The Swarm Master rose.
His articulated armoured body hung suspended between chitin-metal limbs, weapon-muzzles gleaming. His faceted eyes glimmered with an ancient amusement.
He spoke, His voice ancient and familiar:
“None of you are worthy of Me…You and this world are too poor in scope for My ambition. What, is there no more world left for Me to conquer? Are there no worthy enemies? I go now to rule an Evil Empire beyond your comprehension! Little beings, amuse yourselves in this dungheap that is also Mine, for I shall not return to it, beg Me though you may.”