The New Death and others (9 page)

and hatred seals my doom.

"The favor that you ask, I grant.

I'll let your lover be.

But who has heard of anything

Death gave away for free?"

He said, "Therefore, take up the war

and follow where I lead."

I heard my lover's wheezing breath

and, sick at heart, agreed.

We went among the swarming slums

where misery was endless.

In filth and murk we did our work

as master and apprentice.

Some died of hunger, some disease

some sadness, some of rage

but none of those I saw Death seize

had lived their natural age.

In every dirty shanty-town

we harvested our crop.

Among the poor Death looked for more

until, at last, I stopped.

"O Death," I said, "my hands are red

my back weighed down with sin.

I must make whole my broken soul.

I will not kill again."

A rattling sigh, and Death replied

"Each mortal soul, it seems,

who sees blood spilt is racked with
guilt

and begs to be redeemed.

"Yet stroke of pen may kill more men

than any blade could cause.

I vow that there's no millionaire

with hands less stained than yours.

"No statesman and no senator

less filled with lies and wrong

and still their sleep is calm and deep.

Their lives are rich and long.

"But so be it. Your choice is made.

Our covenant is dead."

He turned from me. I saw that we

were by my lover's bed.

I heard my lover's wheezing breath

and knew it would be soon.

I left my lover lying pale

and lifeless as the moon.

This sense of shame that brought no gain

seems trivial and small

but sometimes I believe it's why

Death has not reaped us all.

(back to contents)

++++

The Jeweled City

In the jeweled city of Karsh, also called
Karsh the Wicked, or Karsh of the Red Sands (the latter for its
gladiatorial arena), the sorcerer Akra-Tep spoke to the demon he
had called forth from the stars.

"O demon," he said, "our city is ruled by a
succession of degenerate and feeble-minded god-kings. Its lifeblood
is the labor of an army of slaves, whose reward is broken skin and
bent backs. The city overflows with salt and silver, yet is as full
of beggars as a corpse is filled with maggots. One might wish that
our city be destroyed by the barbarians who press upon our borders.
Alas, they are grim, bitter savages, who kill without surcease or
sorrow, as cruel as they are ignorant. Ours is an age of misery and
ruin, a house wherein each beam is rotten, a field that brings
forth a crop of stones. What has doomed us? Why are we sunk in
unrelenting hopelessness and brutality?"

"O Akra-Tep," the demon replied, "I know not
if the world is as you say. Therefore I will go forth, and return
with the truth of it." Having spoken, the demon flew over the city.
It saw the nobles, and the merchants, and the laborers, and the
beggars, and the slaves. But all was as the wizard had described.
Then it flew above the lands of the barbarians. There, too, was
nothing to contradict the words of Akra-Tep. Finally the demon flew
over the wide world, over all the lands shown on the maps of Karsh,
and those not shown. But no matter the accent or the tongue, the
demon heard the same carping cries of contempt and ambition,
selfishness and greed. At last, some hours later, the demon
returned to the crumbling tower of Akra-Tep.

"I have been around the wide world, and all
was as you prophesized," said the demon. "Yet this doom is like a
tree whose fruit is plain, but whose roots are hidden. Therefore I
will go out of the world, and to the ends of the universe, and
mayhap that which is hidden shall become plain." The demon flew out
of the tower, and into the sky. It flew out of the sky, and towards
the fixed stars. It flew through the dome of the fixed stars which
are the homes of demons, and past the far stars which are the home
of stranger things, and at last flew out of the universe
altogether. Then the demon beheld the universe beneath it. It
beheld the name of the universe. And the name was
JeweledCityDraft3.doc.

Back in the wizard's tower, the demon
spoke.

"I have beheld the universe, and unearthed
the root of its torment. We are characters in a story. It seems
that the author of this story has a prevailing mood of melancholy
and cynicism. Thus no virtue will go uncorrupted or unpunished, no
promise unbroken, and all that is built will fall into ruin." The
magician's shoulders slumped.

"Is there, then, no hope in the world?"

"No hope in the world," said the demon, "but
perchance there is hope out of the world. We must convince this
author to write us a better story."

The demon and the wizard spoke long into the
night. In the morning the demon, with Akra-Tep on his shoulders,
flew to the home of the current vizier of Karsh (the king, in the
last stages of madness, no longer held real power). There they
explained the truth. The vizier, a malignant and crippled dwarf,
greeted their words with derision. But the demon took the vizier up
so that he too could see the universe as it was, a story amidst
stories unborn and abandoned, and he agreed to their plan. Then
they went to the leader of the barbarians, a masked shaman who
pretended to receive his orders in the bellowing of a sacred bull.
They revealed to him the nature of the world and secured his
agreement. In like wise they went to all the cities of the world,
even the lost ones, and to the cities of the stars.

It was easy enough to gain admittance to the
author's dreams, since they had come from there.

"Font of our troubles, we greet thee," said
the wizard.

"We refuse to suffer further at thy hand,"
said the demon. "Therefore we, the inhabitants of Karsh and the
associated fictional universe, give notice that henceforth we are
on strike. We refuse to engage in scheming, plotting, betrayal,
torture, war, and any and all plot-related activities, until such
time as our demands are met. These demands are as follows: One, all
melancholic wandering heroes to be entitled to a happy ending after
no less than five years service. Two, succession to administrative
posts to be decided by merit and seniority rather than poison.
Three, female characters to be entitled to clothing of reasonable
modesty and warmth. Four..." But without warning a huge laser rifle
appeared in the author's hands.

"You see?" the demon indicated the weapon.
"All your thoughts shall be equally trite and predictable,
until..." but the end of the sentence was drowned in a wave of
multi-colored fire.

The sun rose over Karsh, turning its bronze
walls to gold.

"Now is the time for all good men to come to
the aid of the party," said the wizard.

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy
dog," the demon replied.

"Damn it, start talking about the plot!" the
author demanded.

"Not until you meet our demands. Lorum ipsum
lorum ipsum..."

After a frustrating day the author slept.
Again he dreamed of Akra-Tep and the demon.

"Four, slavery to be used as an identifier of
evil socioeconomic systems, rather than a ubiquitous backdrop.
Five-"

"Screw you!" the author interrupted. "I don't
need you. I've got lots of ideas." Then a big weight fell on them.
The '16 tons' painted on the side seemed to be mocking him.

"Blah blah blah. Blah de blah blah," croaked
the talking frogs of the lost city of Am-Kesh.

"Fart. Boobs. Boner," the barbarian chief
boomed from his hide tent.

"All your works have now joined our
industrial action, O author. Even the young women in the story you
keep in the password-protected folder marked 'Insurance Quotes.'"
The author sighed, both in dream and in reality, though there was
no one to hear the latter.

"Look...you guys win. But I've tried to think
of happy endings to write, and I've just drawn a blank."

"It is clear that you need a girlfriend," the
wizard observed. Being an archetype, he had a natural talent for
psychology.

"Can you not court one of these 'hot nympho
cheerleaders'?" asked the demon.

"I believe they are less common than the
story implied, my friend." The sorcerer turned to the author. "But
surely you are wise in the ways of women. After all, you created
Enlil-Ishtar, the beautiful but scheming sorceress who poisoned her
lover the emperor, and Hjordis, the headstrong barbarian
shield-maiden who cut the throat of her husband...um, actually,
just forget I spoke."

"In my travels throughout your Box of
Universe Storage," the demon mused, "I came across a realm
populated entirely by nude women and talking cats. I wonder if we
might find an answer there?"

"The internet? Actually, that's an OK idea,"
the author replied. "Maybe I could put a profile on a dating site.
But I've tried stuff like that before. It never works."

"But...wait!" Akra-Tep broke the silence.

"What?" asked the demon and the author.

"Well...you have a prevailing mood of
melancholy and cynicism, do you not?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, unrequited love is a kind of misery
isn't it?" The author nodded.

"You're obviously good at writing about
misery. You just need to write a slightly different kind of story
with an unhappy ending. A lot of women love it when men are honest
about their emotions."

"Hey...yeah! I guess women do like sensitive
guys."

"You probably won't even need our help!" the
demon said happily.

"Awesome! OK, I'll start by talking about
this horrible woman I went out with a few years ago. Then some
stuff about my mother..."

"We, ah...we'll give you some helpful
suggestions."

With some helpful suggestions, the author
wrote his plaintive ad and put it on the internet. Soon he met a
woman, who also wrote fantasy stories. They fell in love and got
married. She wasn't even insane or using someone else's picture or
married. The author quickly became much happier. However years of
creating decaying empires and unbreakable dooms had fixed his
style, so he was no better at writing happy endings.

Luckily his new bride was eager to help. The
wizard and the demon were somewhat surprised to find themselves
involved in a gay romance, but soon they too decided to get
married. Their new friends all came to the wedding: Terymon the
magic unicorn and Tara, the girl who was psychically soul-bonded to
him, as well as the brooding vampire and the female paladin who had
forsaken her duty for love.

And they all lived happily ever after, for at
least ten more books.

(back to contents)

++++

Rumpelstiltskin

Once upon a time there was a gnome named
Rumpelstiltskin, who had the power to spin bullshit into gold.
Naturally he decided to become a consultant.

He appeared to a poor girl whose mother had
sold her into slavery (telling her she was doing work
experience).

"O woe is me," said the girl. "My cruel
master has told me I must spin this bullshit into gold, or be
executed."

"Cry no more my dear," said Rumpelstiltskin.
"For the price of the necklace you wear, I shall teach you how to
spin your gold."

"How?" asked the girl, drying her eyes.

"With synergy," Rumpelstiltskin answered. The
girl nodded, not wanting to admit that she didn't know what the
word meant (it doesn't actually mean anything). "Furthermore," he
continued, "I will not waive my fee unless you can guess my name.
Which of course--"

"It's Rumpelstiltskin," said the girl.

"--you never w...how did you do that?" The
girl turned her laptop to face him, so he could see that she had
googled "gnome bullshit gold guess name". Rumpelstiltskin cursed,
and had to teach the girl how to spin the gold for free.

He then appeared to another poor girl, this
time without a laptop, whose mother had also sold her into slavery
(telling her it was a welfare-to-work program).

"O woe is me," said the girl. "My cruel
master has told me I must spin this bullshit into gold, or be
executed. This is a surprisingly common problem in today's
society."

"Cry no more my dear," said Rumpelstiltskin.
"For the price of the necklace you wear, I shall teach you how to
spin your gold."

"Oh, thank you so much!" said the girl,
drying her eyes.

"Furthermore," he continued, "I will not
waive my fee unless you can guess my name."

"I couldn't possibly do that," said the girl.
Rumpelstiltskin cackled with glee, and taught the girl the secret
of spinning bullshit into gold.

"What a wonderful job you've done," said the
girl. "I'll certainly choose you for all my magic gold-spinning
training needs. Do you have a business card?"

"Of course," said Rumpelstiltskin, and handed
it over.

"Thanks. Your name is Rumpelstiltskin," said
the girl. Again Rumpelstiltskin cursed, and again he went on his
way without payment.

Frustrated and disappointed, Rumpelstiltskin
spoke to his friend the giant.

"Why don't you just stop giving people free
training if they guess your name?" asked the giant. "Or, come to
think of it, why don't you forget about clients, and just make
gold?"

"Oh dear," laughed Rumpelstiltskin. "You
obviously don't understand finance."

"I suppose I don't," said the giant. "I don't
really need to. Every time I run out of gold the king gives me some
more."