Heart of Evil
One: Meditation
The wizened old man, with limbs as lithe as a man twice his
age, smiled up at Mozenrath. 'Come. Mozenrath-san. Sit, and
breathe with me.' He beckoned to a space on the ground beside
him. The sorcerer arched an eyebrow at him quizzically.
'Breathe? Hiroyuki-sama' -- he placed an ironic inflexion
on the honorific -- 'I didn't come here to practice your
"cleansing breath" techniques, or whatever you choose to call
them.' He glanced around at the *bonsai* garden with disdain.
'And a taste for midget trees is hardly a sign of power or
influence. You told me you could teach me the art of Coconut-no-Jackie, or
whatever name you gave the cursed thing, and invited
me here to your God-forsaken sand-spit. I came, with that, and
that ONLY, in mind. Indulge me then,' he said, in a quiet,
steely voice, 'and teach me what I want to know.' He raised his
gauntleted hand threateningly.
Iteki, Hiroyuki thought with disgust. Barbarian. Pale,
long-nosed, beef-eating degenerate. He has no sense of poetry,
no style, and probably surrounds himself with women. Or boys, he
added, though there's nothing wrong with that. He wants to fly
before he learns to walk. He forced a toothless smile on his
face, and adopted the posture of the wise, but humble, Oriental.
'Oh great Mozenrath-kun,' he whined, 'to learn the art of
*Kokoro-no-Jakku*, The Heart of Evil, takes time. Even for such a
mighty one as yourself, young master. And there will be much
suffering and hardship before you do that. Did you not cry when
first prised from your mother's teats?' He smiled when he saw a
muscle twitch in the young man's cheek. The way to a man's pride
is through his mother, he thought. Still, the twitch was all,
and Hiroyuki quietly re-evaluated in the face of Mozenrath's
discipline. Perhaps he could learn. He did not want to have
sent his invitation in vain. 'However,' he said, 'I see you want
results. Permit me to demonstrate, then, *Kokoro-no-Jakku*.' The
old man suddenly rose to his feet; without, Mozenrath noticed,
using his hands, and without the stiffness associated with the
aged. He stripped off his silk kimono, and sent it fluttering to
the ground. Mozenrath gazed at the wrinkled flesh with interest.
The old man's skin was covered with a veritable forest of
tattoos, a canvas of animals and fierce creatures in their prime.
Yet, the wrinkle and decay that had withered his flesh had also
worked its sad magic upon these proud beasts. The rampant tiger
across his chest, mouth bared in a defiant snarl, was toothless
now, jaws sagging in the folds of his drooping pectorals. The
dragon that wound itself across his shoulders was barely able to
limp, much less fly. It was a pathetic specimen, Mozenrath
thought. Something caught his attention, and his gaze became
more interested, eyes slitted.
Hiroyuki's eyes had rolled up to show his whites, and his
breathing was fierce and heavy, like a buffalo in heat, or the
workings of some great, primal engine. The effort was so great,
Mozenrath saw, that his skin was now covered with a slick film of
sweat. No, he saw, looking more closely, it wasn't sweat.
The old man now glistened with a thin grey skein of mucous,
like the track of a snail. It welled out of his pores in thick,
gummy droplets, and blanketed him in an oppressive, slimy shroud.
Despite the desert breeze, there was a thick, cloying odour about
the oasis, and Mozenrath placed a fold of his cloak over his
face. It was made more difficult by the fact that Xerxes was
sliding around as well, trying for better purchase on his
shoulders. But he never took his eyes from Hiroyuki.
The sludge poured suddenly from the old man's body, leaving
it with a faint, pearly sheen that looked somewhat disgusting.
The mucous had drawn itself into a large, round, circular shape,
about the size of a small dog. Peristaltic convulsions made it
bulge and quiver obscenely, pulsing like the beating of a sick,
tiny, heart. Mozenrath suddenly realised where the name of this
technique must have come from.
As he watched, Mozenrath saw the glob bulge and split. Now
there were two. Then four. Then eight. Then sixteen. Thirty-two
-- each division was smaller and smaller -- they were about
the size of peppercorns now. Then grains of rice, sand. Now he
could not see them, but tiny, oily stains were beginning to seep
into his boots.
'It's like Armis slime,' he said, almost to himself. Then
he gazed into a bird of prey's depthless black eyes, and realised
Hiroyuki was aware and watching him again. The wizened old
sorcerer nodded slowly.
'Armis slime, yes, Mozenrath-san,' he said. 'Like, but not
the same thing.'
The globules began to seethe and move toward Mozenrath.
They had become so small they were invisible, but his wizard's
eye picked out tiny streaks in the sand, moving towards him.
Just as they reached the tips of his boots, Hiroyuki flung out
his hand, fingers arched in a grasping gesture, and cried 'TOMARE!'
The lines in the sand suddenly whirled in on themselves like
a vortex, and the slick, pulsing globule was there, throbbing
nauseatingly in the sand. However, Mozenrath noticed, there was
a difference. It was now quite a deal larger. Hiroyuki spread
his fingers wide. The lump flattened, pushing itself outwards
until it was a thin, greyly pulsing disc. He closed his hand in
a fist, and the stuff clenched itself into a small, cylindrical lump.
'Parlour tricks,' Mozenrath said acidly. 'I'm not impressed.'
Hiroyuki's hands opened, suddenly, and a host of pseudopods
sprayed from the grey cylinder. Mozenrath, still in control,
still calm, walked backwards, ducking and twisting like a dancer.
A tendril brushed across his face, and he felt a wave of evil so
pure, so elemental, he had to fight to prevent himself swooning.
Hiroyuki closed his hand, and the tendrils retreated. Mozenrath
looked into the depthless black eyes, and bowed, very slowly. A
gesture of respect.
'Evil,' he said quietly. 'Pure, concentrated evil. You've
distilled the negative forces from your body, and fashioned them
into a weapon. Because it's solid, the effects are physical.
When the tendril touched me, I felt your negative emotions.
That's why I slipped and almost fell.' The Lord of the Black
Sands was not about to admit loss of composure to anyone.
'And since it's still, in effect, part of you, you can control it.'
'Hai, Mozenrath-san,' Hiroyuki said, very softly. 'And as
my passion grows, it grows. It is subject to my whims. I can
control it, I can shape it. Like modeler's clay.' He gestured.
'Horse,' he commanded.
The grey stuff swelled, ballooned in size, and extruded
tendrils. It formed legs, hooves; grew a chest and withers of
massive and mighty proportions. Mane sprouted from the back of
its neck, and a tail extruded from its rear. In moments, a large
stallion stood before Mozenrath. It tossed its head and
whickered at him.
The shape-shifting was not perfect, however. The creature
still had the texture of grey snot, and was slightly translucent.
Mozenrath saw Hiroyuki as though through smoked glass, staring at
him. It had no eyes, nostrils, or other apparent sensory organs, though
the imitation had rudimentary ears. It had no tongue or teeth. Yet, it was
aware of him. He knew that.
'It's hardly a perfect likeness,' he said at length.
'Does that really matter, Mozenrath-san?' Hiroyuki said.
'The feeling of disgust it engenders is more than enough to upset
an opponent. And when it attacks, its physical might is coupled
with its insidious emotion attack. It paralyses the enemy; then
it smothers him. And, because of its composition, it is
virtually invulnerable to all conventional forms of attack or
defence.' The aged sorcerer suddenly pointed at him. 'Charge!'
he commanded the thing.
The thing didn't gallop; rather it flowed at him in a queasy
imitation of a run. Mozenrath raised the gauntlet and blasted
it. The grey membrane splattered outward, and re-asserted itself
with a moist sucking sound. He dove aside, but the creature
abandoned all pretence of horse shape, neck elongating like a
giraffe. The queer toothless mouth lunged at him. Hiroyuki
shouted 'TOMARE!', and the creature stopped, abruptly collapsing
limply into a pile of viscous protoplasm. Mozenrath got to his
feet and brushed sand from his clothing. He bowed again.
'A useful skill, Hiroyuki-sama,' he said, and there was no
irony this time. 'Must the commands be given in Japanese?'
'No, certainly not, Mozenrath-san. The creature is part of
you; your drive, your negativity is made external. It responds
best to your own language.' Mozenrath nodded again. 'And to
acquire this ability?'
'First, Mozenrath-san, you must learn to breathe.'
Inwardly, Mozenrath groaned. It was going to be one of those days.
Jun Yukinagi could not believe his luck, as he stared at the
small campfire in the distance. At long last! His endless years
of wandering, his many attempts to make himself known to the
barbarians of this land, had finally borne fruit. At last
Hiroyuki, the *mahotzukai*, the sorcerer, the one who had destroyed
his mother and father, enslaved his children, and taken his
lovely wife Umeko by force, would be the one to suffer. His *kami*
were truly smiling on him today.
He drew Akakemono, his katana, The Red Beast, from his
scabbard and stared long and thoughtfully at its supple, slightly
curved blade. He gave no thought to his *wakizashi*, his *seppuku*
sword, the one he would be plunging into his belly if he failed
to take the demon's head. He thought only of Umeko, his wife, of
Rin and little Toshi. They would each be about seven now...if
they were still alive.
Cautiously, he crept up to the tent where the fire was
burning. No one was about, so he calmly manoeuvred around to the
rear of the tent. Akakemono cut a long diagonal slice into the
tough fabric, and he stepped inside. He saw a withered, slumped
old figure, seated in an attitude of meditation. It was the
sorcerer himself. He could see little in the grey shadows, but
knew the drooping, laughing demon tattoo would be spread across
the expanse of his back.
'HIROYUKI!' Yukinagi expelled the fullness of the air in
his lungs with a *kiai*, or spirit shout. He cared nothing of
waking guards, of drawing attention to himself. He would have the
demon's head before the first of them drew near, and he would be
disembowelling himself before they touched him with their unclean
hands. Honour, however, demanded the sorcerer know his slayer,
and why the deed was being done. He saw the sorcerer's head turn.
Akakemono flashed down and clove the magician's head in
half. The lack of resistance surprised him, and it powered on,
slicing its way through the torso like butter. It reached the
sand, and he dragged it free. Yukinagi stared in amazement.
There was no blood, the whole of the blade being covered in
a viscous, greyish, sludge. A sudden surging around his legs
and he toppled. In the moonlight, streaming through his cut in
the tent, he saw a glistening greyish jelly curving upwards to
engulf him like a great tsunami, a crashing wave.
He was calm. The realisation that he had been outwitted
held no anger for him; a dog like Hiroyuki would never have
fought fair. He saw Umeko's face, smiling at him, her hands on
Rin and Toshi's shoulders. Honour had been satisfied as best he
could, and he was dying in battle. He screamed his name in
defiance as the dripping horror dropped smotheringly onto him,
and the life was slowly pressed out of him.
Mozenrath looked at the slick-coated body and made a soft
whistle of surprise, face expressionless.
'You see,' Hiroyuki said, 'the uses of Kokoro-no-Jakku.'
Jun Yukinagi was frozen forever like a fly in amber, mouth agape
in his last snarl, skin tinged blue with cyanosis under its grey
covering. He was unquestionably dead, Hiroyuki made a beckoning
gesture and the slime flowed to him, the samurai visible within
it: an undigested meal in a transparent stomach.
'What will you do with the body?' Mozenrath asked.
'I Mozenrath-san, will watch,' the sorcerer said simply.
'Watch through the weeks and months as his skin slowly rots and
crumbles from his bones, his organs putrefying, and his bones
gradually dissolving to powder and nothingness. Such is the fate
of mortal flesh against the weight of my genius.'
'Oh,' the sorcerer said, as if it no longer concerned him.
'You are strong, Mozenrath,' the old man said, with deep
feeling, surprising in a man like Hiroyuki. 'In time, you will
master the Kokoro-no-Jakku; you may even become my superior, with
dedicated study. I had someone once like you, Mozenrath-san, but
he was too impatient, and the Heart of Evil consumed him
utterly.' He coughed, to clear the mucous from his lungs.
What emerged was a string of blue-black slime, fine as a
spider's web. It trembled delicately against the old man's lower
lip. His eyes bulged, and his chest heaved again, desperately.
The string became a stream, the stream lengthened, became a
flood. His body leapt full length upon the ground, nails
grasping and raking at Mozenrath's boots, as though to tear his
flesh. Blue-black stuff bubbled at his nostrils, filling him up.
He wept gummy tears from the corners of his eyes. The nails were
raking with less force against the leather. Mozenrath hooded his
eyes, and watched dispassionately.
'I once knew someone like you, too, Hiroyuki-chan,' he said derisively.
The old man's struggles withered, wilted, died. His
wrinkled face, covered in tracks of slime, sagged gently,
finally, against the top of Mozenrath's boot. The sorcerer
flicked his foot in casual dismissal, and thrust Hiroyuki onto
his back. His eyes, rounded as saucers, stared into the night sky,
seeing nothing.
'His name was Destane, by the way.'
Xerxes peeped out from Mozenrath's hood. 'Master slime him.
Old man feel...funky!'
Two: Inverterate, Invertebrate Evil
Mozenrath sat in his conjuring room. This was a secret
place, one of the additions he had made after acquiring the place
from Destane. It had been, he thought to himself quietly, a
steal.
The place was bare, and spartan. A quartet of torches in
wall-brackets, a large pentagram in the centre of the room, which
constantly shifted. Mozenrath's conjuring methods depended on
his moods. Sometimes he used coloured chalks, sometimes gold
dust or powdered bone, sometimes sugar. Once, after months of
preparation, he had made the pentagram with a collection of his
familiar's scales, thanks to judicious shedding, and when that
failed, a large cheese-grater. Xerxes had refused to speak to
his master for weeks. He'd felt chafed about the incident.
The door was hidden, but Mozenrath put four Mamluk details
outside anyway. They were to patrol normally, and vigilantly.
Clustering around the secret door was as good as giving the game
away. They were use any means necessary to stop intruders; he'd
edged their swords with silver to cover all bets. In his
briefing, he'd said succinctly:
'No-one gets through here, understand? I don't care if it's
Aladdin, The Lord of Darkness, salesmen, or the pairakas as a
mariachi band. Nobody gets in, or whoever lets them spends the
rest of their un-life as a lawn ornament.' Calculated to spread
dread: none of them knew what a lawn was. If by chance someone
did, there were no lawns anywhere, sentencing them to an eternity
of undead uselessness. In terms of veiled threats, he'd outdone
himself.
Now, naked, but for a loincloth, he settled himself in the
middle of the pentagram, and began the slow breathing techniques
to relax his mind and body. Out goes the bad air, in comes the
good air. In, out, in out...
When he felt serene, he speeded up, driving his lungs and
diaphragm into conjuring mode. His breath began to rumble
audibly, gathering strength as it cycled through his mouth and
nose. He felt the first stirrings and prickings at his pores. A
rush of something that wasn't cold or heat. Thick, glutinous,
sliding down, and over him, coating him. He felt a strange sense
of ecstasy: he'd hadn't known how pleasuring the contact would
be. In his desire to see it work, he'd driven the Heart of Evil
from his body and into Hiroyuki as fast as he could to prevent
detection. All his nerve-ends were tingling.
Now it was pouring from his body and onto the floor, and he
felt the cool air of the chamber on the skin of his upper body.
The stuff was now weeping exclusively from the soles of his feet
and his thighs; the heightened sensation from the nerves there was maddening.
Abruptly, it was over. He gasped, and felt sweat -- real
sweat, not concentrated evil -- sliding down the hollow of his
back, and running, hot and stinging into his eyes. The chamber
felt oppressive with the sudden heat. He looked beside him, and
gasped.
The Heart of Evil was twice as tall as he was seated. Blue-black,
the colour of his magic, it pulsed and throbbed steadily,
a heart much stronger than he'd anticipated: much larger, much
more powerful, and in its infancy, its raw form. This was going
to be interesting.
He brought his will to it, as the sculptor brings the chisel
to the marble, the artist, brush to canvas. He reached out with
the tendrils of his mind and stroked it like clay. It spread
itself out obediently, and he felt things swell and take shape.
A broad, powerful chest, and wide shoulders, sloping down
graceful arms to fine wrists, hands, and slender fingers. Then,
the waist, the narrow firm buttocks, and muscled thighs, the
sleek, powerful calves. Then he surged back upwards, to the
neck, a delicate swanlike column, fine chin, an aristocratic
nose. Suggestive, wavy curlings of hair. That was all: he knew
he could not do the eyes with their long lashes, the flared
nostrils, the sensual lips. It was enough. He looked at
himself, and saw, all things considered, that it was pretty good.
It was nice to have given himself his right hand back, at least.
Now, he had to test the strength of his control.
'Ball,' he commanded, rising to his feet. The stuff swelled
into a gigantic sphere that nearly filled the chamber.
'Pyramid.' The edges became sharp, defining. 'Fountain.' The
spurts of slime weren't overly aesthetic, and the primitive
attempts at fish nearly made him sick watching them, but it
sufficed. And, wonder of wonders, when he spoke his name it
melted back into the semblance he'd created. A virtuoso
performance.
'Kneel,' he said suddenly. His voice sounded thick, odd.
He saw his damp, somewhat drippy doppelganger rise partway to its
feet. But instead of kneeling, it stood erect. 'Kneel,' he said
again, but this time it pointed at him. Why wasn't it obeying?
'Kneel.' And this time he realised he wasn't the one speaking.
'Took you long enough,' it said. 'Brainless, like I
thought.' Without proper vocal chords, it sounded like him
speaking through a mouthful of porridge, but dammnit, it had the
insouciance and arrogance anyway. 'Give me the gauntlet,' it
said, and held out its hand, which dripped slightly, and left
bits of fingers on the floor. He saw it had achieved a
reasonable facsimilie of nails. How had it --
'Always ambitious,' he -- it -- said. 'But that's emotion
too, you know.' The voice was firming, smoothing out.
He saw rudimentary eyes beginning to form, lips curving up in a
mocking smile. He raised the gauntlet. 'My great drive,' it
went on, its further adoption of his personality angering him
even more, 'leading me ever onward to my subjugation and rule of
the Seven Deserts -- now that would be VERY stupid...'
The hole he blasted in its chest sealed almost immediately,
and it went on, unperturbed. 'Oh, and the Princess Jasmine.
Musn't forget her.' There was a subtle shifting, and he wasn't
facing himself any more.
'Is that a wand in your pocket,' the Jasmine-thing said
in a dead voice, 'or are you happy to see me?' A slender, slimy hand
gripped his shoulderwith surprising strength, and pulled him forward.
Then suddenly it shifted to the back of his head. 'Come here, big boy.'
He remained conscious for two minutes after his head was
pushed into its chest.
He awoke, in manacles, and with the gauntlet missing. The
story of his life, it seemed, at least recently. Sometimes he felt totally
lost,
a fantasy in the grip of a demented writer. Someday, when he met the man,
he would do two things. First, he would ask him why, then he would
throttle him to death with his bare hands, after getting the names of everyone
who had read the stuff. Then, he would...
Rage, he told himself, was counter-productive. Staying calm
was his best bet at surviving this. Unfortunately, he could do
nothing now. Best to conserve his strength. He dozed.
Upon awakening, he noticed the gauntlet had been replaced on
his hand. How odd. He summoned his will, and was relieved to
see the flare of blue-black fire surge up in response. A gesture
took care of the chains, and he stood in the middle of the cell,
rolling his head slowly to get the kinks from his muscles.
Now, clothes. A gesture, and he found himself clothed in
his familiar garb. He was about to do more, when the door
suddenly slid aside, and he looked at -- and through -- the slimy
parody of himself. It extended a hand, and pointed at the
gauntlet. 'Thanks for the loan,' it said. He couldn't help but
notice the control it was gaining. The voice sounded strong and
firm; his voice, without a doubt. Had they been blindfolded and
spoken together, it would have been impossible to tell who was
whom. Its right hand came out to point at him, and he saw with
shock that it had duplicated the gauntlet exactly. He was even
more surprised when it flared alight, blue-black magic dancing
and running up the creature's arm to the elbow.
'There's a lot of your emotion in this thing,' it said,
pointing at the original gauntlet. It gave me raw material to
work with, and I managed to copy it, quite well, I think.'
There was a misshapen lump, like a tumour, growing on his
duplicate's shoulder. It split off, and shaped itself into a
long serpentine form that floated in the air. It drifted over
to Mozenrath, making excited bubbling noises, trying to imitate
Xerxes's speech, he supposed, but not being very successful. It
drifted back to the creature, and curled around its shoulders.
'Meet Xerxes, my familiar,' the Kokoro-no-Jakku said, and
stepped closer to him. He was stunned again from the control it
was demonstrating. It had somehow managed to discover solidity.
Its boots sounded heavy and loud on the flagstones, not the wet
*squish* and *suck* noises that resembled walking through mud. Its
body, though still translucent, was firmer. There wasn't the
suggestion of softness, of flaccidity. The blue-black colour was
no substitute for fabric, living flesh, or muscle, but somehow it
had managed to capture the ideal, of Mozenrath, the man, and
incorporate it within itself.
The thought enraged him all over again. The gauntlet
rose, and blue-black fire rained down on the imitation. It
raised its own gauntlet in response, and an answering burst
crashed out.
The two blasts met in mid-air, writhing energy hissing and
crackling like grappling snakes. Mozenrath felt his veins
standing out on his temples, felt his lips drawn back from his
teeth in a grimace of effort. The blast from his doppleganger
was slowly forcing his energy back, the way a strong arm-wrestler,
upon gaining the advantage, begins to press the opponent down for
the pin. Sweat was now beginning to break out on his temples as
he realised, despite his power, despite his effort, he was
losing.
Suddenly, the blast dissipated. Mozenrath fell to his knees
as though a cord had been cut. The Heart of Evil -- that's what
it was, by the powers of Darkness, the distillation of his own
negative energies, gifted, he now saw, with a well of power and
motivation he hadn't even know he possessed. Enough to have its
own designs, to seek its own power, to usurp -- was staring at
him now, as he trembled, head bent, on his knees, shaking its
head in mock reproof.
'You don't get it, do you? I'm you, I'm part of you. You
without the frailties and baggages of that physical frame, those
churning organs. I'm you, made pure and refined; I don't have
those hang-ups that come with your emotions. In fact, I'm your
purest emotions; your darkest ones. Anything you do motivated
by rage, hatred, or negativity is power to me. The more you
struggle in anger, the more you feed me. That's why I'm better.
That's why I'll beat you. HAVE beaten you. You're nothing. No,
I made a mistake. In fact, you're LESS than nothing.'
'I...am...Mozenrath,' Mozenrath gasped, levering himself to
his feet. 'The Lord...of...the Black...Sand. I...will...not...be....ignored.'
His duplicate merely laughed at him. 'You were.' Mozenrath
expected a withering blast in return, one charring his bones, and
incinerating himself to nothing. Instead, there was a lazy
smile. One Moze knew well. He'd practised it in the mirror
often enough. Then, it turned on its heel, blue-black cloak
flapping as though in an invisible breeze. The final insult.
'Don't you DARE turn your back on me!' Mozenrath shrieked.
His throat felt dry and raw, as though he'd swallowed hot sand.
Something hot, wet -- yes, they were actual tears -- pricked his
eyes, and he felt a rush of shame and anger at their touch. He
had never cried. Not in front of his mother, not in front of
Destane, not in front of the pairakas, Cacaphona, and certainly
not her mad priestess, Cantera. And now, faced with the dark
mirror of his own soul, he was breaking down. He felt something
cold and powerful within him begin to crumble and slide away; a
child's sand castle in the tide.
'When you think about it, what's it all really for?' The
Kokoro-no-Jakku sounded like a lecturer. 'This
dread reputation you've worked so hard to achieve, to cultivate.
You want those brought before you to fear and tremble, Mozenrath.
But suppose it didn't work. Suppose they laughed at you. Or
worse, Mozey' -- the knife was twisted deeper -- 'just suppose
they do ignore you, eh? What use is a reputation if no-one
acknowledges it? And no-one *will*. Not any more.
Destane will be the last acknowledged ruler of the Black Sands.
And then comes -- The Heart of Evil!' There was a gloating note
in the voice, impossible to ignore.
Mozenrath turned on his side, curling fetally like an
infant, sobs beginning to shake his frame. 'Don't wet your bed,'
Kokoro-no-Jakku said snidely. There was a hollow clang as the cell door swung
shut.
'There's a certain symmetry to this,' it mused to itself.
'Mozenrath has always been sure of himself, his intellect. His
pride and confidence in his ability is what makes him dangerous.
And there's his arrogance. In fact, I'm surprised he didn't see
this coming. Surely, he knew, with all his certainty, the only
opponent who could finally defeat him, could be himself.'
The laugh echoed among the hallways of the Citadel. In the
distant corners there were scuttlings and cheepings as rats and
bats fled for cover. In the shadow of a supporting pillar,
Xerxes shivered as Not-Master and Not-Xerxes rounded a corner and
disappeared from view. He had to find Master! Master would set
things right again.
Filled with resolve, Xerxes set out.
Three: Primal Scream Therapy
'Master?' The voice was croaking, insistent, but there was
a note of hesitancy in it. Mozenrath shivered, and buried his face in his hands.
'Make
it go away, Mummy. Mummy, PLEASE, make it go AWAAAAAYYYY!'
Xerxes flinched back from the scream. Was this Master? He
sounded funny, as if something was not right with him. But,
there was no-one else around. It HAD to be Master! He slipped
between the cell's window-bars.
Little Mozey was five. He had just been put to bed, and
Mummy had kissed him good-night, and licked him with that awful
rough tongue of hers, then tucked him in. Between tangerine and
lime-green sheets, which made little Mozey very angry indeed. He
pouted, and waved his tiny fists in her face. Mummy got angry,
and bared her sharp pointy teeth at him. She raised her hand to
strike him, and he flinched back. 'Don't scratch me, Mummy.
I'll be good.'
She kissed him again. 'That's my son. Remember, if you
always have people afraid of you, you may not have friends, but
you'll have lots of enemies to respect and hate you, and that's
even better.'
'I will. Good-night, Mummy.' And may your tail be caught
beneath a rocking chair, he added to himself.
Mozey had a very bad dream. A little boy, with skin darker
than his own, wearing a red cap and a blue vest and white
pantaloons, kept wanting to play with him. Mozey didn't want
him.
'Come on,' the boy, whose name was Alla-dull or some such
stupid thing, kept saying. 'It'll be fun!'
'Shan't!' Mozey sat down, folded his arms, and stuck his
tongue out at the boy, looking around for a nest of fire ants he
could push the creep into. No luck.
'Would you like me to call you Master?' Alla-dull wheedled,
eyes looking uncommonly bright and cruel for a four-year old.
'I'll be your slave, and you can beat, and threaten, and curse
and spit on me, would you like that?'
Mozey was suddenly interested. 'Yes!' he said excitedly.
'I want you to call me Master!'
'OK,' Alla-dull smiled secretively. 'But I have to get into
costume, first.' His small body stretched, legs and arms fusing
together, the clothes sliding from them. His lips widened into a
circular hole, lined with many teeth. His eyes grew very round
and large. But when he spoke, little Mozey almost wet his pants.
'MASTER!' the thing said. The voice was rough and gravelly,
like nothing the child had ever heard before. It frightened him,
and he began to cry for the one person who could help.
'Mummy!' he shouted, looking around wildly. 'A flying
snake, Mummy!' Living in a mostly waterless realm, and not
having access to the proper books, Mozey was unable to recognise
an eel when he saw one. 'Flying snake! Mummy, help MEEEEE!'
'MASTER!' the snake cried again, and scootched closer toÜj
him. 'Xerxes come to help Master!' It sounded horribly eager.
Little Mozey sat down on the ground and began to bawl. Why
wouldn't Mummy come?
'Mummy, PLEASE!' he bellowed. 'Make it go AWAAAYYY!'
'Master!' It was relentless. He sobbed, and buried his face
in his pillow. 'Master, wake up!' Mozenrath did not wake,
instead he gave voice to a series of high, whinnying screams,
interspersed with cries of 'Mummy, Mummy! HELP ME!' Xerxes was
perplexed. Something was dreadfully wrong with Master, but there
was no-one else. Dumb Mamluks wouldn't listen to Xerxes. Pretty
pairakas might listen, might listen and then just leave on the
way to help...or they might be cruel to Xerxes. He shivered,
remembering when Rahimateh had...
He glanced at his Master's threshing feet. His frantic
convulsions had knocked his shoes off, and his feet were exposed.
The big toes throbbed invitingly: they were the perfect target.
Master would hurt Xerxes for this; he knew this with certainty,
but there was nothing else to be done.
Xerxes floated down to his Master's feet, and waited
patiently for his chance. When a toe came into range, he opened
his suckerlike mouth, and bit down on it as hard as he could.
His instant reward was a strong hand grasping his neck and
crushing it, and he felt his eyes bulge from the pressure. But
he was happy. As he began to black out, Xerxes thought: Xerxes
good. Xerxes help Master...
Mozenrath released his grip almost instantly, and flung his
familiar across the room. Xerxes smacked into the stone wall
hard, and slipped limply to the floor.
'Master back,' he said in a dazed, satisfied, voice.
Mozenrath didn't waste time demanding an explanation:
monosyllables took too long. Besides, he knew exactly what he
was doing. He was going to....and then he stopped. The anger,
usually icy and chilled, was not going to help him this time.
The Heart of Evil fed on such things. Instead, he'd have to do
something different...reverse his emotional polarity. Love
it...he thought of the feeling of evil he'd experienced from
Hiroyuki's manifestation, and shuddered. Was it possible to love
such a creature?
Distasteful as it seemed, it must be, he reasoned with
himself. It had, after all, lived dormant inside him for a long,
long, time. It was only after giving it a voice that he had
found dissatisfaction. A difficult process, but not impossible.
He rose, and went to the cell door. A slight push was enough to
open it: the Korkoro-no-Jakku had not even locked it, assuming
his will and spirit to be completely broken. A fatal mistake.
Mozenrath had only ever underestimated someone once: himself. He
had, his enemies said, an annoying habit of learning from
previous mistakes. Many of them, in fact, had screamed it,
loudly.
Mozenrath wondered what sound the Heart of Evil would make
to his amorous advances. Hopefully, it would be a good one.
He blew a kiss to it, and winked in his mind's eye.
He didn't have to go far: the Kokoro-no-Jakku was in his
throne room, sitting on the throne as if it owned the place;
until today, Moze supposed, it had always had a somewhat half-and-half
relationship, but now it would be cut out of the deal
entirely. The six Mamluks in front of the throne didn't worry
him either. He knew them, too.
'So you managed to pull yourself together after all,' the
creature said lazily. 'I suppose I should have expected that.
Oh well.' It flicked its gauntleted hand in the Mamluks's
direction. 'Kill him.'
The Mamluks did not move.
'What are you waiting for?' His doppleganger sounded
petulant, peevish. 'I gave you a command. Kill him!'
'How can they?' Mozenrath said, with an insulting smile.
'I'm you. In fact, I'm more than you. You're just a collection
of envy, hatred, anger, and a lot of other negative emotional
baggage. You don't even have a proper body, *jelly-belly*,'
he said with contempt.
The Kokoro-no-Jakku recoiled for a moment, and came back, smiling.
'Nice try,' it said. 'You almost got by my defences, but
I'm onto you.'
'Be that as it may, we have a stalemate,' Mozenrath said.
He gestured at the still Mamluks watching them. 'They don't know
which of us to obey, so they're useless.'
'No matter,' the creature said. Its gauntlet began to glow.
'Try to match me, and you'll lose. It's hopeless. Surrender
now, and I may spare you.'
'But I'm not going to match you.' Mozenrath was peeling
away his gauntlet with his left hand, exposing his gleaming bone.
His spread his arms wide, in an embracing gesture, and approached
the throne with his eyes gleaming. 'You're part of me, and
always will be. I welcome you back to my bosom,' he said softly,
almost tenderly.
The Heart of Evil's retreat, it found, was blocked by the
cushions of the throne. 'What's this?' it demanded. 'What game
are you playing at, Mozenrath?' A white hand touched its smooth
cheek, and it recoiled. The fingers sank in, as if into jelly.
The tautness of mere hours ago was fading again. 'What are you
trying to do?'
'I'm not trying anything,' the sorcerer said. He folded his
elbows around in a winglike gesture, and patted it on the back,
leaving a curious pattern of flesh and bone prints. 'I'm simply
demonstrating my affection for you. After all, you've been a big
part of my life. I nurtured you, raised you, gave you a voice,
and you try to stab me in the back.' For a moment his
doppelganger swelled, seeming to gather strength before he pulled
it close again. 'But I forgive you,' Mozenrath cooed at it,
'after all, how could you know any better than Daddy could?'
'Stop it!' The voice was bubbly, the negative emotions
subsumed in fear and panic. 'You can't do this to me! I will
not --'
'Shush,' Mozenrath said, and it quieted. It was becoming
more amorphous by the second, beginning to squirm and drip
through his grasp. An attempt at escape, or a lack of cohesion?
He didn't know. He simply held it, and whispered endearments to
it. When it frantically pressed against his face and tried to
smother him, the sorcerer opened his mouth and began to swallow,
sucking it down with relish. There was no bitterness or burning
to the taste; it was cool, like peppermint, and he felt a
strange heat rising inside him. A limp, flabby mockery of an arm
waved at him, and it tried one last appeal.
'Please,' it said. The voice was almost incoherent now.
'Let me live. I can give you whatever you want.'
'But, think about it,' Mozenrath countered. He felt the
warmth seeping into him. It was like the Kokoro-no-Jakku was
evaporating *into* his body. 'Whatever we'll be getting, we'll
have together. How could you possibly give us what we don't
already have? And best of all,' -- he couldn't stop his
trademark evil smile, and he let it come -- 'we'll have each
other, you and I, won't we?'
'Noooooo --' the voice was dying away into a thin whisper,
the final sounds of a melting snowman, a beetle impaled on a pin,
a candle going out. Then, there was silence. Briefly.
Mozenrath belched delicately, and wiped his lips with the back of
his hand. Xerxes, insensenate on the ground with a swollen stomach,
grinned up at him and smacked his lips.
'Not-Xerxes taste *good*,' he said in satisfaction.
The sorcerer retrieved his gauntlet from the floor, and slid
it on. He waved the Mamluks away. 'Go on, go on about your
business.' They trooped out silently, and the throne room was
deserted. Xerxes hovered by the throne, eel features drawn into
an approximation of satisfaction.
There was no sign the creature had existed. The wind moaned
around the turrets, and the driven sand pattered against the
Citadel like light rain. Mozenrath fell into his throne and
settled his head against the cushions. He closed his eyes, and
listened to the agonies of the wind outside, and the soft
sussuration of the sand. Like waves on a beach, or the date
palms waving gently in a desert sirocco, it was very relaxing.
He sighed, and a faint smile of pleasure came back to dance
around his lips.
And deep inside him, in the deepest depths of his heart,
something stirred and writhed in its own pleasure, and quietly
said:
'*I'm home*.'
Michael Ferrier -- Monday, October 20-Tuesday, October 21, 1997
Heart of Evil by Michael Ferrier