THE MAN WHO WOULD BE OVERLORD

David Bischoff

The time has come in these memoirs to discuss the nadir of my career. I, Vincemole Whiteviper, have had my ups and downs, my ins and outs, my evenings before and my mornings after. However, say what you will of me, I am intelligent enough still to appreciate the bitter wormwood-flavored irony of the fact that I fell to my deepest under from my biggest over.

Pah! To think! I stood then on a vasty plateau of grandeur, master of men, elf, fairie, and other ilk, up to my earlobes in delightful atrocities and fiendish plots, in my physical prime and indulgent in decadence and debauchery beyond mere pleasure. To think that at such a zenith of my star’s rise I should suffer the lowest blow of a life battered and torn by fate.

Need I tell you, Rotvole, that there was a woman involved in this indignity?

I’m drunk as a vat-worm, so the transcription will be difficult. Why do I hold this different sword from my collection? Why do I swing it around so? This was the weapon with which I have judged in the past. This was the weapon that lopped off the head of a god. I clutch it, and the memories gush forth.

Bring that dictation-gem closer, for my mournful words will sometimes be low and mumbled. Please, and pour yourself a brandy, and avail yourself of these fresh handkerchiefs for weeping. It is time to tell sad stories of the death of … things.

I wish I could say I achieved my high position, my power over so many lands, so many lives, and so many riches through cunning, intelligence, machinations, or even a backstab or three.

Alas I came by my good fortune in the same manner I came into so much in my picaresque career—I blundered into it.

Readers of these memoirs will remember that for the portion of my life that I was not apprentice to a master hooligan or lying low in some godforsaken inn somewhere, drunk, I was a soldier. Call me a mercenary if you like, call me a multiple patriot, but there being many kingdoms in this vast world, I have served many kings—and served them well, I might add.

However, after an unfortunate incident involving a princess, a chastity belt, a file, and the vengeful fury of one of these selfsame kings, I thought it best to retreat to the nether regions of this world, the far, undisciplined reaches to seek something that military service had not yet given me: a vast amount of loot. Yes, I became a soldier of fortune, and it was in the weird and mysterious land of Worpesh that I found myself as far from that aforementioned king’s wrath as geography would allow.

Now as my speedy flight had prevented me from taking much in the way of revenue, I had to pick up what I could along the way, through odd jobs and dark alleys. Not a glorious life, but there’s no place like the streets to pick up skills and sharpen one’s survival mechanisms. Once I’d made it to Worpesh, though, on ship and camel, on coach and steed, I was disappointed to discover that while the pickings were actually less (dark alleys were inhabitated by nothing but the poor and other cutpurses) the dangers were more. Oh, it was a dreadful place!

Yes, supposedly there were lost cities piled with treasure—plenty of farthing maps to them for sure. But you had to traipse through steaming jungles full of quicksand, giant prickle-snakes, and saber-toothed werecats to achieve them. I fully suspected that perhaps it was the snakes and cats who made the maps to lure supper into their jaws, so I was not terribly tempted. Moreover in the humid and foul land, half the populace was leprous or diseased in some fashion, and in truth where it did not stink to high heaven it stank to low hell.

One night, I took my disappointment and depression to a bar, and there drank the sole alcoholic offering: some kind of fermented milk. Nasty, but with enough nutrition that some of the natives lived on it, I think. I was half in my cups, plotting some method of returning to lands of proper dank shivers and warm soothing beers, when a voice called out to me from the depths of a large booth.

“Ahoy there, matey. Be you from more northern climes?”

“Aye,” I said.

“From the cut of your jib, I’d take you to be a soldier. And a strong, fine one at that.”

“That I am,” I said. “Fought in many a battle, skirmish, and war, with scars enough I suppose.”

“And you’re here in Worpesh to seek a better life.”

I hiccuped and laughed. “Is that written on my forehead?”

A rueful chuckle. “No, I see myself hunkered at that bar. Come and join me, and drink something a bit better than that swill in front of you.”

Well, I had a dagger in my belt and a knife in my boot, so even though that booth was dim, I had protection. And as I felt that I was growing cheese in my gut now, I longed for anything better than what I was drinking. So I abandoned my swill and approached, albeit warily.

“Come, come, my friend, I won’t bite!” called a hearty voice. A candle flickered within and by its light I saw a man in a hood sitting back nonchalantly. One of his hands was on a lifted knee and one was around a bottle. “Come and have a drink with one of your countrymen from the land of swords and honor.”

He lifted the bottle and poured out an amber liquid.

“Whiskey?” I said, astonished.

“Aye, sir. And good whiskey at that. Won’t you have a glass?”

He threw back his hood, and I saw blue eyes, pearly teeth, dimples, and a jolly smile. He pushed the glass over to the other side of the bench.

I sat down, lifted the glass, sipped it. I tasted poison. However, a fine and beautiful poison.

I drank it down in a gulp, and was rewarded with feeling good for the first time in months.

“Thank you stranger. The name’s Whiteviper.”

“And mine is Divort. Dinny Divort. Would you care for a cigarillo?” This selfsame Dinny Divort produced a humidor from the darkness. The aroma drifted over, a gentle and perfect complement to the whiskey. I availed myself. Ah, the rasp of crinkling leaves between thumb and forefinger. “Thank ’ee.”

He selected one for himself, stuck it in his mouth. He snapped his fingers, and his thumb came alight. I jumped back a bit, then grinned. “Again, thank ’ee,” I said, leaning into the flame. The plumes of smoke that arose twirled with subtle shades of alabaster, cerulean, and cinnabar. The taste of the smoke was wonderfully superb.

“A magician, then,” I said.

“A know a few things about the arcane arts, yes.” And when he brought the flame up to light his cigarillo, I saw that he had a star tatooed upon one pale cheek. “But I too am a soldier.”

“Of fortune?”

“Of fate. Of destiny.” He blew out a flume: it twirled into shapes of spangly coins, glittery gems. “Rich fate, rich destiny. This is why I have called upon you, Sir Whiteviper. I sense we are two of a kind. You have need of me and, without a doubt, I have need of you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I may look naï̈ve, sirrah, but I may tell you, I have not had good luck in my dealing with beings who know magic.”

He shrugged. “I know not magic. I am no true magician. I served, Whiteviper, as a carny in a traveling bazaar. Aye, I know a little bit of the true arts, but in truth most of what I do are show tricks.” He blew out his thumb. “I keep myself well away from the deeper magic that would steal men’s souls.”

“Sorcerors are often liars.”

Again a shrug. “Why don’t we talk a bit, drink some drink, smoke some smoke. I would like to work with you, sir. But don’t you think if I were a true sorceror, dark or white, I would seek to enchant you rather than persuade you?”

“You flatter my intelligence, Dinny Divort.”

“There is much to flatter, Whiteviper.”

I allowed that I would stay and listen for a couple more drinks, knowing full well that I was captured by the mere promise of the jingle of coins in my pocket. Clearly this fellow could avail me that much. If I chose not to go along with his plan, I could just follow him to a back alley and take his money in return for a lump on his noggin.

If he knew of my plans, he made no sign of it.

I listened.

Three or four drinks later, I agreed to his plan.

The next day, we were on our way to the outmost of the Outer Territories, in the tippy-toppy reaches of Just Beyond Beyond, to take our destined positions of High and Rightful Overlords.

“You see, Sir Whiteviper,” Dinny Divort had said, leaning forward into the miasma of smoke back at that tavern of our meeting. “All my life I have sought money. I inherited the want from my carny background. But in fact, during my days slogging and grogging about on the borders of things, it started to occur to me that what I really was in want of was power, for power can create riches and more. And in my heart of hearts, I realized that since I am no ordinary man—no, nor are you, Sir Whiteviper—I need no ordinary power.”

Divort diddled his fingers. A rainbow extended from hand to hand, imbued with tinkling musics. Insense seemed to writhe from the emerald, perfume from the crimson. Herein was an intimation of the Fantastic, the Wholly Marvelous that I had witnessed before in my checkered career, and in truth yearned for above all else.

In a breath, it was gone.

I felt a grave sadness, for these glimpses of something Wonderful Beyond always seemed to thus disappear. I felt empty, and was made aware of my abject poverty.

Again, as though reading my mind, Divort reached up into the dimness above his head. He seemed to pluck something from thin air. Drawing it down, he displayed his catch: a pouch. It banged and jingled metallically upon the wooden table between us.

“Half of all the money I have, Whiteviper. We share and we share alike in this venture, sir. Take your half and join me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Naturally I wonder if I can trust your purposes here. Why me?”

“Take the money, Whiteviper. Easier than stealing it, don’t you think? Don’t you truly wonder, why does this fool think he can trust me?”

By turning the tables he caught me by surprise. I laughed heartily. “You’re calling me a rogue, sir. Aye, that will cost you!”

I snatched the pouch before he could take it away. Inside were nine gold pieces, just enough to make my way back to healthier climes.

“Ah, but the rogue I see has dreams. I see myself in you, Whiteviper. Come and find your heart’s desire. Come and find the power you crave. Power and glory shall be ours. You see, where I take us, there is a prophecy of brother gods—a duo—that will come and inherit a vast prize. I have magic, but I cannot create a brother, Whiteviper.”

Another drink of whiskey was enough to convince me and we drank the bottle down. The exact details of our talk escape me from that point onward, and I must have passed out, for I found myself in a delirium later, lying in a pool of my own sick, daylight creeping through the cracks in the window. I gasped and reached to make sure there was no knife in my back. I was alive, and still in possession of all nine pieces of gold. Above me, eating breakfast and drinking a steaming cup of the local tea, was Divort.

“Oh, two more details, Whiteviper. For the magic to work, sir, for the duration of our power and glory, you must swear off alcohol and women.”

The very notion of either made me retch. My only comfort were those pieces of gold my new friend had bestowed upon me.

My first decree, to my own self, was that during the rule of Vincemore Whiteviper, there were to be no hangovers!

And in truth, a few days into our journey up toward Beyondastan, I woke up with the taste of fresh mountain air in my lungs and nary a pain between my temples. Dinny Divort had proven to be a fine partner, full of jolly stories and good cheer. Away from the damp and warm and stink below, I felt my own self once more.

In fact, I felt very well indeed!

“You look good, Whiteviper. Your foreswearance of strong drink does your constitution well, I think.”

“Perhaps,” I said, stretching. “But even now I’m thinking of the pleasures of lying in furs with a naked and nubile female.”

“Ah, nothing wrong with desire for either drink or women in our promise. Just in the taking. Besides, consider: perhaps a time without women will make you feel even better than a time without strong drink. Indeed, there are philosophies that state that when a man evacuates his seed into a woman, he loses his power. Properly controlled, that power, still inside the man, builds up keen perception, control—power. It is a gnosis—an inner light that burns from the essense of his being!”

After some nice tea and bacon and hardbread, I forgot about women, lost in the scenery. For glorious indeed were the mountains upon which we were stumpy, snowy legs of gods lifting up to majestic peaks, or sometimes, just peaks.

Divort had an old map he said was drawn up upon human skin. And a good thing too, for there were many forks and intersections of paths in this mountains.

We had a couple of pack mules to carry supplies, fortunately—and me as well at times, for in truth I was never a traveler with much stamina, usually traveling only from one tavern to another while between soldiering bouts. However, by the third day in the mountains, when I was accustomed to the rarefied air, without the drink, I found I had more strength and preferred to walk instead of suffer donkey stench.

It did not take long to see why no one made this trip often. In the nooks and crannies of this trail lived not just brigands and thieves, but creatures of marvelous horror. Furry snakes slithered and abominable stick folk hobbled, fully half their bodies claws and fangs, the rest hunger. However, here too Divort’s bag of tricks broke the way for us: He flashed fires of intense strength at them, burning some to piles of ash, singeing others. By night the most awful sounds gurgled and spat around our campfire—but nothing seemed to dare venture beyond the sparkle of the protective spell that surrounded us.

“You well may wonder from which power is drawn this source of this magic—and I tell you,” said Divort one morning, after smoting a weregoat with lightning blast. “It is you.”

“Me?” I said, looking down with distaste at the scorpion tail that writhed poisonously from the beast.

“Aye! Your puissance grows! Unmanacled from the drink that sapped you, and with your chi stoppered up and not serving women, you are a factory of power. I salute you, sir.”

In truth, for all of that, I still felt a want, and wondered aloud if I might try drinking women and rogering ale. Divort’s laugh was so hearty, and he slapped my back in comradeship, I hadn’t the heart to tell him I was not jesting.

Oh, I could bog down this tale for a space with tales of the cat-dragons, the gnarl-critters, the brouga-brougas we fought. Alas, our donkeys were caputured and eaten alive by a cyclops, whom we managed to prevent from eating us by dint of a vast expenditure of Divort’s magic fire.

Two weeks of travel! Two whole weeks, and our supplies were gone, so we lived on any creatures Divort could cook and on melted snow.

And when I saw that we had to scale a snowy mount for the last leg, I nearly lost faith. But it was Divort’s jokes and good cheer that goaded me onward despite myself. That, and my own dreams and fantasies, considering what I would do with this vast power that awaited me. To think, no longer to take orders, but to give them! To think, no longer to be forced to work for my keep, but to rest if I liked, wander if I liked—to kick the behinds of vassals, if I liked.

At the crest of the hill, there in afternoon glow, at an elevation higher above sea level than I had ever yet attained, I saw the turrets and towers of a diamond city, awash in gold and sapphire.

Divort grinned and chuckled.

“Aye, Whiteviper. Our goal is near. There, my new brother, is our goal, finally—The OverEye.”

Ah, yes, and a beauteous city it was too, OverEye.

A dazzling sheen arose from its stone walls to its lofty spires, coruscating with glinting color. Prisms echoed spectra of ocher, brilliantine, and topaz in a most aesthetic manner. All in all, it seemed indeed a city of glass. And yet, with the feeling of both magnification and dimunition in this city, the impression that most swept over me as we gazed upon this wondrous places was that it was a collection of lenses.

I said as much to Divort.

“Aye, that is the reputation of OverEye,” he said beneath his breath, also caught up in the majesty and the grandeur of the place. “It is said to be caught at a juncture of worlds, like the central sphere of an infinite bubble cluster—and through its walls seep images of those worlds.” He nodded. “Aye, and portals there be.” He sighed and grinned. “And puppet strings as well.”

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!

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