Outside, a sparkling blue sky shone over the Dread Lord of Dead Aeons as She descended from Her bone palanquin, surrounded by cheering Ferenzi and the Horde of Darkness.
The Dark Lord entered the vast, book-dusty hall of the Opticon. Black dire-wolf furs swathed Her head to foot. Under the cloak a tight-fitting black silk robe rippled, slashed to the thigh, and belted with a jeweled waistband. Intricate steel-and-silver jewelry clasped Her arms and Her ankles. Her ash-blonde hair gleamed, Her head uncovered and unadorned.
Cheering crowds pressed in close behind Major-General Barashkukor’s cordon of orc marine guards at the double doors, waving flags and chanting:
“DARK LORD! DARK LORD! DARK LORD!”
Ashnak hitched up his web-belt and combat trousers and ambled across the floor of the Opticon to the Dark Lord. “Your Parliament assembled, Ma’am, for the first free, frank, and democratic exchange of views between Your loyal government and Your loyal opposition. As soon as they can make their minds up which is which.”
The Dark Lord surveyed the benches to left and right of the Throne, Her delicate profile turned to Ashnak. “Shall I preside well, do you think, little orc? This power has been so long in the achieving, I think I have forgotten what it was I would do with it.”
“Buck up, Ma’am!” Ashnak removed his forage cap, coming solidly to attention. “You just do what every other Ruler of the World’s done and You’ll be all right—reward a few, hang a few, and tax everything that moves.”
She laughed, a sound of ancient amusement. “You advise Me well, orc. Perhaps I shall make you My chancellor.” Ashnak grunted noncommittally.
“Or perhaps I shall not…There is something I wish to have done, after this. It is a proud and lonely thing to be Ruler of the World. Therefore I shall not sit upon My throne alone. I shall take a companion, a consort. Mine will be thought a strange choice, but I have seen, and in seeing desired, and desiring, must have. Shall it be thought strange to raise a commoner, and one not of My own race? Then so be it. And, orc Ashnak—you know the one.”
“Erm.” Ashnak sweated in the sunlight filtering down from the Opticon’s central dome. “Really, Ma’am?”
The Dark Lord frowned. “Don’t be coy.”
“I suppose,” Ashnak grated, salt sweat trickling into his eyes, “I could hazard a guess, and while I’m sensible of the honour, Dread Lord, I really don’t think I—”
The Dark Lord spoke over his mumbling.
“We have met few enough times, of course, but often enough to spark My desire. And she is not, after all, a complete commoner.”
“I—she?” Ashnak barked.
The Dark Lord turned Her ancient, humanly beautiful face towards the orc as She paced towards the Throne. “Why yes. Ever since the night she came to My tent, I have known that I must have Magdelene, Duchess of Graaagryk. My beautiful Magda! Be so good as to inform her that we will wed, after I have settled affairs in Ferenzia and quietened the south. You, Ashnak, may be best orc and give the bride away.”
Ashnak growled. “She’s married.”
“She’s divorced. I have said so: so let it be. We shall,” the Dark Lord added, “have to think of a suitable role for you also in this new world, little orc. Some backwater province that needs a junior governor. Of course, the orc marines will be disbanded…”
“Ma’am!” Ashnak saluted, his gaze sliding across the seats and registering, in the upper gallery, the Duchess of Graagryk’s cameras.
To the ringing of the White Mages’ silver trumpets and the fluttering wings of a thousand released black doves, the Lord of Darkness advanced up the hall of the Opticon and stood before the Throne of the World.
The marble floor tiles ceased under the central dome. Four Men of the Order of White mages knelt there, where, surrounded by its marble dais, a fang of ancient continental bedrock jutted up. Living rock—around which first the Opticon and later Ferenzia itself had been built. The black stone breathed antiquity.
Hands older than the city of Ferenzia had carved this basalt outcrop into a throne. Ancient winged and scaled beasts ornamented each of its corners as supporters. The seat shone with intricately chiselled flowers, fruits, vines, and corn-ears. The massive back of the throne rose up to a point, every inch carved with wings, eyes, globes, and solar discs.
The Dark Lord lifted Her arms, letting Her wolf-fur cloak fall. She stood, slender and tall, in Her clinging robe of ebony silk, Her jeweled belt flashing in the sunlit, dusty air. As She seated Herself, lounging back on the piled velvet cushions, Ashnak picked up Her robe and took his station to the left of the Throne of the World. High Wizard Oderic reluctantly stood to Her right, in his arms an onyx-and-diamond crown.
“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.