INTRODUCTION 3 page

The implication of his words sank in, underscored by the otherworldly nature of that which I beheld.

“The power that can be ours,” I whispered. “I believe I had limitations on it before now.”

“Indeed,” said Divort. “I advise you, this place will outstrip imagination!” He clamped a hand on my shoulder. He winked. “But come, brother. It’s time for acts of gods!”

We made our way down to the city, pausing at a gaily babbling brook to wash and primp, that our visages might not be so ragged and dirty.

From his pack, Divort took out fresh clothing, which he bade me wear. After shedding my rags for these fine, fresh breeches, and a starched white jerkin and tunic, I indeed felt like a king, or overlord, and my haughty spirits rose up accordingly.

There were no guards as such at the gates of OverEye, but rather a sign in a language hat I could not decipher.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“Why, I do believe it says, ‘Gods Needed’ Whiteviper!” said Divort, chortling. “In truth, I cannot read it myself. But there’s nothing barring our entrance. So let’s make haste and assume our rightful place.”

There were peoples of various sorts moving through the clean and orderly cobblestoned streets of the city, but in the main the men of OverEye seemed much shorter than ourselves, runty little fellows, uniform and bland of feature. The women, though, oddly were taller than I’d generally observed women to be before, and beautiful beyond measure, each in her own unique manner. And on every corner of the neat blocks of this city, there was a tavern, outside of which laughing people drank sudsy beer, perfumed with heaven’s own hops.

My mouth began to salivate. Over the beer or over the women I did not know.

At first we were roundly ignored. It was almost as though the citizens did not see us. Divort did not seem to be bothered at all by this. From his pack, he drew out a stool and he sat on it, paging through an old, musty tome. I sat down on the curb beside him after tethering my mule, feeling entirely too sober and entirely too celibate.

Divort clamped the book shut with finality.

“Just sit there and do not move, Whiteviper. No matter what happens, do not move, and soon we will be Overlords.”

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “I should sit over there at yon tavern, beside those tankards.”

“Temptation does not suit you,” he admonished. “No no, you’ve had patience yea these weeks, have patience for a few more minutes.”

Thus saying, he set up a stand, from which he performed feats of magic. By this time I, of course, was wondering how Divort expected these people of OverEye to be diverted by a bit of fire and thaumaturgy when they had but to peer through the multitude of lenses into other worlds to see far more wondrous marvels.

Yet, from the outset of the performance, I saw that these tricks were different. Divort began by pulling off his cap and extolling the people to observe; from the hat, he pulled out a rabbit. It scampered off beneath their legs. Then Divort produced a pitcher filled with milk and poured this milk into a rolled up bit of paper. He then crumbled the paper, which was as dry as the desert.

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.”

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 conn, I managed to find my way back down the winding staircase to the lower parts of the city. The first person I saw was an attractive young woman. I went to her to announce my presence, and offered my hand. “You may kiss the hand of a new god,” I said. For while I’d forsaken women’s more erotic charms, I saw no harm in their lips worshipping me in substitution. The young woman gasped, gave me a look of horror, and fled. There was a mirror nearby and I looked in it. My handsome features now were gnarled, twisted, and blackened with the evil of my duties. I snarled and hissed at myself, and covered my face with fingers that had become claws.

To reject women is difficult enough, but to have women reject me was too much. I felt for the first time a dreadful need for strong drink. However, I took a deep breath inside me, and thought for a moment: should I drink of alcohol, I might lose my Overlordship. No more would I be able to lord over puny beings lost in their own selfish stupidities.

Then again, I thought, what if I spoke with Dinny Divort! Surely some kind of arrangement might be made to allow a god a little sport with wine and women. A small thing surely for one with Divine Powers.

I went to the desk where first we saw Cordinia. It was empty. I explored associated chambers again. I felt as though Cordinia might indeed know where Dinny was, and so inquired after her personal quarters. Fortunately, the evil upon my face was growing less ugly as time passed, and my questions were met with answers: upstairs, I was told.

Would I had not ascended those steps!

However, I did, and upon the topmost I heard Divort’s rolling tones, singing some silly song.

“Divort!” I cried, bursting into a room. “We must have words!”

Well, upon viewing that scene before me, I indeed needed words, because words were stolen from my throat.

There, lying upon a vast bed of amber pillows and ivory sheets lay naked none other than Dinny Divort and Cordinia. The scent of after‑coupling hovered in the air like spring, and both sported huge crystal tumblers of wine, from which they were drinking.

“Zounds, Whiteviper! Have you insufficent courtesy to knock first?”

I stood there for a moment, aghast at what lay before me. For her part, Cordinia looked no less upset.

“Please, if you insist on staying, do close the door.”

I ignored her. “You blackguard! You bounder! What about our pledge?”

“Your pledge, dear boy! Never said I would have to swear off the fun bits of life! I say though, you are looking a bit piqued. Perhaps you should go back and have a nap.”

I reached down and grabbed him by the neck and started shaking him. “I am the Dark Overlord!” I shrieked. “No one goes unpunished who betrays me!”

“Trifle melodramatic, don’t you think, old boy?” choked out Divort.

I tossed him back into his bed of sin and stepped back, overwhelmed by vexation. Seized by an apoplexy, I could not speak. However, events proved I did not have to speak, for who should enter the room through the door I’d opened but Ygor. He carried this very sword I wave now.

“Cordinia? My love. Why?” He turned on Dinny Divort. “Bastard! I strike thee for this adultery!”

Thus saying, he struck at Divort, thusly‑and with such force lopped off his head! Oh, the look upon that bouncing head! The body itself geysered blood messily onto the sheets and then tilted forward.

Both Ygor and Cordinia looked aghast upon this occurrence.

“This was no god!” said Cordinia “I wondered as much.”

She turned to me. “And you are no god either, but a partner in this trickery. Ygor‑the sword!”

In truth, that was almost the end of me. Fortunately I finally found words, and Ygor remembered that for all my humanity, I’d been the best damned Dark Overlord they could have wanted. However, with my lack of godhood, I was now considered unfit. And so I was banished, with two mementos of my time there in OverEye.

You see the first now, the sword I have been waving, given to me only because it had been tainted with Dinny Divort’s human blood.

And look now, Rotvole‑here’s the other memento at my feet. I lift it up by its scraggly hair. A bodiless head. The head of Dinny Divort and‑

Oops! Dear Rotvole! Hah hah. The Evil Overlord strikes one more time for posterity! Dinny’s still in the basket under the chair. My swinging, drunken sword lost its way.

I’m holding you!

ENSURING THE SUCCESSION by Jody Lynn Nye

T he tropical island was a bright green and tan dot in the middle of an endless aqua sea under an equally endless vivid blue sky. Rainbow‑colored birds emitted their raucous cries and were answered by the shrieks and honks of the tree‑dwelling wildlife. All was still, but for a gentle rustling in the bushes caused by a body perceptible only to the watcher viewing the scene through a remote infrared camera.

The pristine vista was suddenly marred a tiny black, elongated dot that approached rapidly from the eastern horizon, accompanied by the loud humming of engines that quickly swallowed up the natural sounds. The rocket‑copter steadily descended until the wash from its steering rotors stirred up a miniature maelstrom in the waters of the peaceful cove. It landed inside a twelve‑foot circle marked out by basketball‑sized stones above the high‑tide line.

Two men climbed out of the chopper, one from either side. They wore dark glasses and black boiler suits with red cuffs and collars, with the insignia of a knife piercing a tilted ring on each shoulder. The first man, a tall, hefty individual with very dark skin, flipped up the latch on the hold behind the passenger compartment. The pair began to unload the cargo: large, gray‑painted crates stamped with the same blood‑colored dagger‑and‑ring logo.

The moment they turned their backs, a young man burst out of the undergrowth. His long, light brown hair was wild, and his bright blue eyes burned in a tanned face. He moved with such silent deliberation that he was upon the large, dark‑skinned man before the man could turn around. The youth pulled the gun out of the pilot’s holster and shot him in the throat with it. The man fell. The youth leaped into the pilot’s seat, entered a code in the keypad on the navigational computer, and strapped in as the rotors began turning. He hauled back hard on the stick and lofted the copter up out of the reach of the other man, who jumped up and tried to hang onto the landing gear. He missed. The aircraft was out of reach in seconds, and, as the jets kicked in barely ten feet above the treetops, out of sight over the horizon in minutes.

The watcher, a thousand miles away in an underground bunker, the communications center for Alkirin Empires, Inc., turned from the first screen to a second and touched a red button beneath it. The image of a man’s craggy face with bright blue eyes and bushy black eyebrows in vivid contrast to his shock of white hair appeared.

“He did it. He’s on his way, sir.”

“Thank you,” the older man said. “Out.”

Vaslov Alkirin closed the connection and swung away from the console. How satisfying to know that years of planning were about to come to fruition. He had hoped, but hope was less than one percent of how things came to be.

He looked up at the map that adorned the far marble wall of his “office.” Others had referred to the thirty‑meter‑square chamber as a throne room. If his employees suspected that he could hear them at all times and in all places they never let on. Alkirin assumed that they did not. They believed he trusted them. He did, and didn’t. Only a fool trusts all of the time, he thought, surveying the boundaries of his empire. Or never.

His was not a country as the historians thought of one; rather, it consisted of large parts of several traditional nations that he had conquered through economic ploys and other means, plus other nonadjacent territories that belonged to him as outright purchases or gifts from the former owners. The continents in the sea of slate‑blue marble were of silver. The lands that he controlled were covered in a layer of gold. Ashoki, for example, there on the eastern continent, was almost totally under his domination‑except for two flipperlike provinces at the eastern edge of the oval country, and those two were dependent upon his holdings for vital resources. Soon they must fall under his command for mere survival’s sake. He was ready to accept their capitulation. Only the stupidly proud premier was holding back on giving consent. Alkirin was content to wait. That consent could not be long in coming, not with the drought that had dessicated the country for the last five years, and Alkirin’s water reservoirs the only nearby source, the only reasonably priced source.

He had similar plans under way everywhere. He had taken a world under threat of war and was gradually joining it together under one flag: his. One day all the nations of Ployaka would be gold. Ah, but he wouldn’t live to see it. That was the purpose of the test today. If it succeeded, he had no fears for the future of his empire. If it failed… was he too old to begin again?

Alkirin was not immortal. The presence of the clinical white tray full of bottles and vials at his elbow was testament to that as was the gray‑uniformed nurse, a middle‑aged woman who brooked no nonsense from him, no matter how many countries he controlled. She shook out three pills and handed them to him with a crystal goblet full of 90 percent water and 10 percent brandy. He took his medicines when and as she said. He liked Mlada Brubchek. Young, attractive nurses with firm breasts and tiny waists had been tried and found wanting. They were either too afraid of him to make him take his treatments, or gossiped about him and the workings of his personal estate when he allowed them leave to go home. Brubchek considered everything about her work to be confidential. Alkirin had planted listening devices in her home and her possessions, but in twelve years, not one word about him had ever passed her lips to anyone else not directly concerned in his care. He didn’t worry about her, but occasionally he still checked. Trust, but verify, as a wise old man of Earth had once said. Brubchek had seen to it that the illness that consumed him was as pain‑free as possible. For that she was amply rewarded, and would continue to be. Brubchek nodded sharply to him, and retired to her quarters, through the door in the wall behind his “throne.” Alkirin watched her go, and listened for the snap of the automatic door as it slid into the wall and locked behind her.

He poured himself more brandy. He had been fortunate over the years to acquire a few employees such as Brubchek, but on the whole, people were sheep. Steeped in blatant self‑interest, they saw nothing beyond their next mouthful of grass. He preferred to let them live their lives, with only the occasional reminder that he was their master. They were happier that way, and he did not have to devote a moment’s worth of concern to them. Once in a while a youngster would rise up from the peasant or merchant class and declare that his or her people must not be ruled by an unelected dictator. Alkirin enjoyed listening to them. They all said the same things. It must be hardwired into human DNA that when certain recessive genes combined, a bad, bombastic speech resulted. His response, therefore, was hardwired as well: the youngster was brought to him or one of his few lieutenants. If that energy could be converted to the service of the Alkirin empire, then he had a new and energetic employee for life. If not, then the rebel would vanish at once, leaving the other sheep to return hastily to their grass. Presidents, kings, emirs, lordships all made attempts to deter or destroy him.

They had a saying in Birreshalov, on the western continent, where he had been born: you nod and nod your head, and all is well. One day you shake your head, and it falls off. He had made that come true many times. Between threats and friendly persuasion, subtle poisons and very public murders, he had enforced his grip upon his holdings. Worldwide domination was in his grasp, if he lived long enough, but since he would not, other preparations had had to be made. A child, one born of Alkirin’s design and brought up to have all the necessary skills would be the one to carry on Alkirin’s legacy. Or would he? His enemies had accused him of having a God complex, enjoying holding the power of life and death over his minions. Perhaps he did; at the moment he was reveling in having created life. He would only be disappointed if this Adam did not bite the fruit offered to him.

The desperate flight from the island far out in the Msovich Ocean had been years in the planning. Alkirin had laid down the steps with great care. It had taken time to establish a random pattern of visits of the supply vehicle, a jet‑copter capable of flying over one hundred kilometers per hour, then slowly regularize it to a monthly pattern: first, flights on the same day each month, then at the same time, until only a fool would fail to realize their schedule was more regular than old Earth’s celebrated Swiss trains. Months to drop the contingent of heavily‑armed guards on delivery detail down to two whose habits were easily observed and learned. Alkirin had chosen the final two deliberately because one of them was night‑blind and the other had poor peripheral vision in his left eye. They’d been well paid. They knew they could be killed while in his service, and now one of them had been. The second would retire, if he was smart, and never tell a living soul what he had done. That would be backed up by computer surveillance for the rest of his life.

“Sir.” Colebridge’s voice interrupted his thoughts. Alkirin checked his verification program in the console at his side and waved a hand. A door in the wall to the right opened up, admitting his majordomo. Colebridge, a lanky, sallow‑skinned man whose thin limbs belied their strength, had started out in Alkirin’s employ at the age of twenty as a hired gun, but the way in which he handled his assignments, while obeying every stricture laid down by Alkirin’s captain, still managed to show such a spark of creativity and economy of movement that Alkirin himself was moved to take a closer look. Colebridge was fantastically intelligent and inclined to give his total loyalty to his new employer. He had been repaid with bonuses and promotions commeasurate with his growing skills, and now was second in command worldwide to Alkirin himself. He was a good number‑two man. His character was such that he never could command, as Alkirin did, but he carried out orders and got the best out of those who worked for him. He would do that no matter who he worked for. For that alone, Alkirin would have paid well. For the whole man, price was no object.

While he was waiting for the black craft to arrive, he dealt with other matters demanding his attention. The stock market in Illisov City in the southern nation of Blen was bullish on a stock that Alkirin felt had not yet lived up to its potential. He had his chief accounting officer leak an announcement to a financial reporter (that the corporation had bought and paid for) that they were about to sell a majority holding‑a catastrophically large majority. Within minutes of the release the stock fell to a satisfactory level. Alkirin permitted the executive to purchase another large percentage of the remaining shares at a substantial savings. So what if it bankrupted countless other buyers? Had no one ever told them that the market lost as many fortunes as it made?

Alkirin also ordered the summary execution of a member of his security force. Colebridge had brought him proof that Estarina Tolokombe had been prepared to embezzle a portion of the output of the diamond mines her staff protected. At least a dozen others were in on the scheme, but the sudden and violent death of their leader would certainly cause them to give up their plans and be good little soldiers again. If not, Alkirin reasoned, switching off the screen after watching his hand‑picked guard carry the body away from the pock‑marked wall, bullets were cheap.

He hoped the boy could be ruthless; no one respected a weak leader.

At last, five hours after the communications center sent him video of the takeoff, his console beeped again. Alkirin waved a hand over the controls just in time to see the black jet‑copter hovering over the mountain ridge that surrounded the valley in which Alkirin Headquarters was located. It landed safely and almost silently just beyond the top of the ridge. Little detail was available at that range, but sensors indicated that the craft was intact. Alkirin waited.