Mary Gentle - Grunts

“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?”