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Through another door, we found ourselves in another magnificent, if smaller, room occupied by a golden desk and a high-backed silver chair behind it. Upon this chair, wearing a pair of bejeweled spectacles, was the most stu
She gazed upon us rapaciously, and I would like to say lustfully, save for her first words:
“Gentlemen. I am Cordinia, Continuum-Governance Administrator. What has kept you? We have been waiting for you, yea, these last few mille
“Odd are the ways of the gods,” said Divort. “My brother and I were detained by small, niggling matters.”
“And you have indeed come to serve as our Overlords?” she continued, looking at us with what can only be called awe.
“We have come to claim our due!” I a
“Well, then, oh lords, you look weary from your trip. I will summon servants. You may bathe and eat and rest, and afterward you may take up your duties.”
I need not tell you that I accepted all that pampering as though I was born to it! I bathed in silky bubbles, I ate a delicious stew and sweetmeats, forsaking the wine and joking with Divort as we feasted. In feathers and softness I slept. After a breakfast of brisk tea and fresh-baked bread slathered with honey, we were again ushered forth to Cordinia.
“Now then,” she said. “There is a small matter. Who is to be the Light and who the Dark?”
“Pardon?” I said
“That is why there needs to be two.”
“Oh. Of course,” I said. “Well-Divort is always one with the ready joke. So I suppose he shall be Light.”
“Such was my intention,” said Divort.
My brows furrowed a bit. “But the Dark… what different duties does that entail?”
“Trifles!” said Cordinia. “Trifles, I assure you. Come this way, gentlegods.”
We were led up a spiraling stairway to the largest, highest tower in the city, the top level of which sat like a huge saucer upon a needle. I expected from this summit to witness a view of the panorama of the city and the mountains without. Instead, the walls were dark.
“Here are your command thrones, O great Overlords. We are in the cycle of the Dark now, so you, Lord Whiteviper, have command.” She smiled at Divort, and took his arm. “Come, Lord Divort, I have some other duties for you.”
“Pardon me,” I said, confused. “What am I to do here?”
“Oh, Ygor will be very happy to tell you!” She clapped her hands. “Ygor! Excellent news! Your long-promised Dark Overlord has arrived to give you aid!”
A grating giggle of joy arose among the dim rafters. A creature unwound itself down on a thread. At first it seemed to be a spider, but a closer look showed it to be a man with several legs, several arms, and a bulbous head. His entire body was twisted u
“We will leave you to your destined duties, Dark Overlord,” said Cordinia. “As there is much to deal with, your meals will be delivered to your quarters here.” She pointed to a corner, where on a mat, a chair and a table sat. Upon the table was a large leather-bound tome with gilt edges and a candle.
When I turned my attention back to Divort and Cordinia, they were gone, leaving me alone with Ygor.
“My lord!” said Ygor. “Here is the dilemma. The world of Obscuse in the galaxy of Narvar wobbles out of balance, overpopulated and oversecularized. They no longer pray to the Ubergods, and are puffed up with great hubris. Should their number be stricken with plague, pestilence, alien invasion, tornadoes, cankers, infernal explosions, or do these haughty beings deserve protracted and exacerbated individual torture? I have randomly selected the Spell of the Bee Swarm as a possible measure.”
My attention was immediately thus achieved. “Hmmmm,” I said. “To bee or not to bee! That is the question!”
And thus did the best days of my life begin!
Ygor ushered me up to the command barge, from which we commanded purviews of the many worlds intersecting herein, within reach of our control.
“You see, my lord,” said Ygor, hobbling up the crooked stairs. “Lo, these many centuries I was only intended as temporary help. I have done the best as I could, but alas, the universe has fallen out of balance.”
“Oh?”
“Witness our present case! Because of my huge caseload there are hundreds and hundreds-perhaps thousands-of worlds and peoples out of balance. In existence, there is light and dark, there is good and evil, there is fortune and misfortune, order and chaos. But for one to exist, the other must also exist.” He shook his head sadly. “I should be whipped! Now there is too much good, light, and order. The universes hobble and cavort toward certain doom.”
“You seem to dwell on doom.”
“Oh, my Overlord. Balanced doom, not bad doom, which is nothingness! Obliteration!”
“Ah. I see!”
From the perch of craggy thrones, I looked down upon a plethora of lenses. Ygor danced and swung upon levers and cranks. An iris opened, and I was able to peer upon a series of friezes representing the people of a world. They seemed smiling and content people. My stomach churned.
“Some cataclysm perhaps, my lord? An earthquake?” quavered Ygor indecisively. “That is always what I fall back upon.”
I shook my head. “I see two moons in their skies. The moons shall fall upon the world.”
Ygor’s eyes lit. “Yes! What a splendid spectacle!”
I pointed decisively. “Make it so!”
The sounds composing the wrenching desmise of this previously happy planet were most satisfying, to say nothing of the screams of the people. They’d been rather elfin looking, and as I have made it known before, I despise elves.
And thus began my too-short career as god. I am happy to say I was more than up to the task. Wholesale destruction was seldom needed. Small calamities upon planets and peoples sufficed. As the backlog of worlds deserving evil luck dwindled, I was able to focus more on smaller, even more satisfying matters. Battles. Wars. Rape and pillage were great fun, and I soon found favorite ogre and troll races to do my bidding in a veritable poetry of violence.
Such was the entertainment aspect of my new job, that for a while I slept and ate little, absorbed in the intricacies of the tasks at hand. Ygor noticiably relaxed, and was able to take time for himself in his little warren of cubbyholes, relaxing with his hobby of spider-wrangling.
One day, however, after a particularly satisfying guillotining of a beautiful princess, I felt odd. Stir-rings of old hankerings flickered inside of me, and I realized that I’d been cooped up in this tower for weeks on end. I felt the need to receive some sort of praise for my hard work, or at the very least some mild acknowledgment. The music of the spheres was again in harmony, with evil’s song properly placed, and I was responsible.
Letting Ygor have the co