By then, a large crowd of the OverEye folk had gathered, all agog, and from the fire in Divort’s eye, I saw he was about to produce his piece de resistance. From his back pocket came a pack of playing cards.
Ah! I thought. Cards, and wished he had produced them by our campfires, so that I might have fleeced him of some more of his gold.
The people of OverEye surrounding us gasped. These cards struck some sort of resonance with them. All eyes were on Divort, who proceeded to perform all kinds of tricks with these cards, acquiring help from members of the audience. By the end of half an hour of simple card tricks and bout of applause after bout of applause, Divort bowed, and bade me stand up and take a spot beside him.
“This is my dear brother, Whiteviper. I am Divort. We have come to fill the positions of prophecy. We are the new Overlords!”
A moment of awed silence swept over the audience. Then a man cheered, and a woman swooned for joy. Soon the approval was unanimous. A man wearing a velvet cape and mauve pantaloons stepped out and bowed, to us, “My Lord, I am Artmus Pedercaster. I am provost of this sector and thus have the supreme honor of ushering you to our mayor. Will you accompany me, O Great Gods, Long Foretold?”
“That was easy as falling off a log,” I said from the corner of my mouth during the celebratory parade to the mayoral mansion.
“Thank you, Whiteviper. Your visage was the most vital part. And your chi imbued my magic with its glamour.”
Well, I wasn’t going to argue with him. The promise of becoming Overlord, after all, promised also a hot dinner, a warm bath, and a safe place to snore. We were taken to a large building replete with marble steps and marble pillars. Beyond the doors, we found ourself ushered into a superb room with high ceilings and festooned with magnificent draperies and huge murals of scenes of a fantastic and heroic nature from different worlds. Our footsteps echoed in the greatness. The scent of snuffed candles and insense sanctified the sensations.
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 stunning female of her uniformly luscious breed. As tall as I was then-and Rotvole, believe that I have shrunk indeed-she had a halo of golden hair, a figure an hourglass might envy, and a perfect oval face, with huge azure eyes.
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 millennia!”
“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 announced arrogantly, getting into the spirit.
“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 unnaturally-no symmetry here!-and blisters and buboes rose up from its pasty skin. It mumbled gleefully through crooked fangs: “Agack! Agay! My dear lord. You have arrived not a decade too soon!” I found my hand suddenly drawn up- the thing drooled a kiss upon my hand. I hastily withdrew, shuddering.
“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.”