Cheating is fine, as long as you don’t get caught.
He clicked onto eBay and fingered his credit card.
For reasons that Gafnar could never comprehend, others that he did not know came to his aid. They intervened in his battles, they laid tribute at his feet. Some said that it was because he was favored by the gods, but he knew no reason why that should be so. Some said that it was because his reputation had preceded him into unknown realms of the universe, but it seemed unlikely to him that he had a fearsome reputation. He had always let others fight for him whenever possible, maintaining as low a profile as possible to avoid becoming a target. Sometimes he suspected these others who helped him to be sinister plotters out to befuddle and betray him. In such cases, he would slip into their yurts at night and slay them. But even when they awoke, they did not attempt to stay his lethal hand.
It was a strange world, but he could live, even prosper, with that.
Rule 6. The Ultimate Overlord Has No Family. Family members are worse than friends. They are friends chosen not by choice, but by biology. Worse yet, they are friends with expectations. They want goods, but offer nothing in trade. They want protection, but offer nothing toward the common defense. They wish to share in the prosperity of power without helping to create that power.
Not only are they unworthy friends, but they easily become the pawns of others. They are potential usurpers of the throne, figureheads about which others may rally the mindless masses. They peddle access, real or imagined, and increase their power from the scraps beneath your table. They create ties and obligations, or, at least, expectations. Wasn’t that what the legend of King Arthur was all about? Never trust your spouse, never trust your sister, never trust your son. The classics could be so educational.
He stared at the yellow Post-it Note stuck to the side of his flat screen. “Call Mom,” it nagged. Screw that.
As friendships and prosperity grew within groups in the more hospitable climes, some took blood oaths of brotherhood or created clans or mated to produce offspring, but not Gafnar. He needed no brother; he did not wish to share his wealth or power. And, so, he moved on, questing inland to the wild lands of danger, trusting not to family to protect him, but hired minions who would do his bidding for minor treasure. He did not use his minions wastefully-no resource should be squandered-but he used them to protect himself and his wealth. He took care, however, to never gather a force large enough or strong enough to threaten himself. There was no sense in paying for your own overthrow and murder. And whenever a minion began to gain power and sway the others, he was given the most dangerous assignments, until one day he never came back.
Rule No. 7. The Only Power Is Used Power. Potential energy was okay for physics class, but kinetic energy caused things to happen. It made levers move, wheels spin. It crushed objects below and inflicted pain where it hit. Any resource not expended was a resource wasted.
Clint remembered a class from college about strategic nuclear weapons and the concept of mutually assured destruction. His classmates marveled at the madness of building more weapons than were needed to destroy the earth completely. He wondered at the waste of trillions and trillions of dollars and rubles and the coopting of the best and brightest of the world’s scientists to create what ended up being enormously sophisticated storage sheds for radioactive material. At some point, at some time, one nation or the other had the edge and could have obliterated its enemy forever, had it only the will to use the weapons on which it had expended a notable portion of the nation’s gross national product.
Oh, a threat can be a use of power, but only if it accomplishes getting someone to do something you want them to. A threat that maintains the status quo is an empty suit.
Truth be told, Gafnar liked to kill. He relished it. But he didn’t really like to fight. And if he could not get his temporary allies or his meaningless minions to do his fighting for him, he killed as quickly and as devastatingly as possible. He liked to blow things up. Explosions were fun. And if he didn’t have a handy bomb, there was always magic or poison.
Any weapon not used was a weapon that could be used against him.
Rule No. 8. Evil Is Smart, Never Silly. Clint never hid his light under a bushel. He didn’t understand the point of self-deprecating humor. He would never wear a Star Trek uniform to an annual meeting or strike a wacky pose for a newsmagazine cover. If you didn’t appreciate his genius, then you were even more stupid than the average peasant. But he also never understood the point of telling others how smart he was. Let them figure it out too late. Let them think they had the upper hand.
At first, he had watched the chat boards for the game and their endless debates as to what an evil, all-powerful overlord would do. He would build a lair with ventilation shafts too narrow for the hero to crawl through or he would line the ventilation shaft with crushed glass or lasers or bubble wrap and on and on and on. As for Clint, he wouldn’t have ventilations shafts; let the minions slowly suffocate in hot, carbon-dioxide laced air. But he didn’t bother to say so on the chat boards. A real overlord would never tip his hand.
He stopped perusing the chat boards. He turned off his IM and let the e-mails gather unanswered. He had more important things to do.
Gafnar roamed an increasingly deserted landscape. His minions scattered far and wide, but reported few powerful beings. Those that were found, though, he directed subtly toward each other, goading them to battle, watching one fall, then lobbing in missiles from a distance until the other fell. He built no castle, planted no crops, designed no heraldry. Instead, he roamed the land, gathering power and expending it to eliminate his rivals.
Rule No. 9. The Ultimate Overlord Destroys All Enemies. Every petty tyrant the world has ever seen has enemies. He rails against other nations and peoples and leaders in an effort to unite his own people and wage war. But, in doing so, he increases the power of his people and the risk to himself. An Ultimate Overlord is ultimate because all his enemies have been vanquished. Anything else is an Ultimate Overlord in training, a wannabe, a pretender.
No peace is negotiated except to gain a later strategic advantage. No coexistence is tolerated except while one marshals his own forces and sends spies to poison the enemy and sow discontent among his populace. No mercy is granted, for mercy shows weakness and caring, neither of which has any place in absolute power.
What cannot be destroyed must be bought. What cannot be bought must be destroyed. If an enemy sues for peace, agree immediately to meet, then slaughter the envoys and march on the capital at once.
What is the point of a halfhearted war? What is the logic of seeking only partial destruction? What is the mercy of prolonging the battle before the victory is achieved? Either you are willing to kill for what you want or you are not. Evil is not tentative.
Gafnar monitored closely those who, like him, gathered power and knowledge, men and materiel, magic and munitions unto themselves. He bribed with poisoned gifts, attacked without mercy, using his fiercest and most dangerous troops, and demanded tribute from all he conquered. He agreed to civilized rules of engagement, then ignored them at every opportunity. He waged total war; no respite, no surrender, no civilians. What he could not take for himself, he turned to ash.