Book XVI - Unfair Karma
I - Committee
Eight sat at a long table. There were those who attended them, who gave them ink and paper if requested, and they were the Fellic men whom had been converted. They were cleanly, them, by the standards of those who sat.
They were outside, and did so not out of convenience, but out of a newfound tradition. Four of them were others, and two were Orcs, and there to show representation, and two others were redeemed Second Romans, but the four were dominated by the power of the other four, who held more authority, and it seemed that what they said was right, and to think contrary was absolutely wrong, as one of the future thought in the worlds of the First Rome and the Mongols with their rapes. And of the future, whether it became better or worse, was called heinous by the past man, and glorious and true by the modern man.
"A great many idle funds have been left over," said the second orc. He had been treated with care, and so cared not for survival, for it was too easy to achieve, and now wanted power, but was far too clumsy, "hence, establish a clandestine hand, and keep everyone else poor, so as to ensure they are not filled with sin."
Yet it was then Bilgames, who asked, "But does that not put pressure on ourselves, for we are the only wielders of power, and if power is the greatest sin, do we not put pressure on ourselves?"
"Yea," said Mageor, "but even so, it is the only path, even if it is a dark one. For to give power to anyone else, to the people, or to an alien authority would create chaos and the Fell would fall, and so, as Tharizdun seems weak, we must rise in his absence; we must be our own heroes, and if we are faced with wicked corruption and power which eternally threatens to twist us, then we must remain strong, and be vigilant of any corruption and signs of degradation from sin, for this is the only way, as to do anything else would be to fall."
Yet, they were fearful of him, for he held more power than the others, and so was the principal judge of sin, although he was finite. He could not give up power without surrendering himself absolutely, and if he did so, would still be looked up towards as the savior of the Fell and so would always be in power regardless.
There was Mageor. What did he think, when so many depended on him? He began to develop a tyrannical soul, and lived every bit of virtue he could possibly muster, and began to punish those who did not, for they were full of sin, and a danger to his rule of absolute truth.
II - History
He pondered in the darkness, which he saw solely as a visible light. He had gained strength, and power, yet he was limited, for there were a great many obstructions. What was he? The rightful ruler of the Earth, the skies, the seas, who had been defeated twice by Man, and had only crippled him once, but even then, could not scramble quickly enough to defeat him.
There was Caesar, who led the men in unification. Anyone who emerged as a leader would have gained a cult, he mused. Yet there would be more than one, and so there would have been divided nation states against a united Fell. But Caesar laid waste to that, so he took Lucius as a pawn, and then Gnaeus.
And before then he had exploited Man, and used the greatest weaknesses of Man against it. Man was rotting, Man was at his peak. There were two empires of Man, and they were different until they had their singular, final moment, when Man ruled unimposed, and the two were of the first timeline, and the second.
In the first, Man was always united against a common enemy, they spread with a purpose of justice and pride to defeat an enemy, and over time, the message of the past generations came to the present, whom developed greater weapons and tools of war, and the message was always the same, that the Fell was the enemy, that Tharizdun was evil, and that Man was the true ruler of Earth. This came from pride, and from Man making faith to prove its own legitimacy, and thus Man rewrote history, and made doublethink, for if fate dictated that Man would win, then Man would not have to input any effort at all, yet the enemy was incredibly strong and nearly impossible to defeat, and so everything had to be thrust forward in defeating the Fell.
This was considered fact, and all of Man considered this to be objectively true, and it was believed by the vast majority, except those who were deemed insane, who would have had the hearts of criminals and murderers. The Fell were the enemy, and to respect it would put Man as evil, for it would then be invading what was rightfully Fellic, the land, and as Tharizdun told Man to die and he did not, his existence was heresy.
Thus, when he fell completely, Tharizdun, Man had no purpose, he had nothing which drove him, which was a measure of his success. And so in the final years, when the will of Man drove the will of reality, for Man was the only force on Earth and the only cover in a plane of unity, he was weak and empty and so could not recover from a new plague of Nihilism, and when Tharizdun was gone, there was nothing that bound space and time. And so space and time collapsed.
Tharizdun remembered wondering about that, and then, in the far past, he fell. Thus the universe reappeared, and he was only a weak spirit, and man rose by itself, and all the animals were meeker than what they were, for their connection to the Fell had been diluted.
He observed Man from the shadows, and saw Man emerge. First there was Man when he first formed, when Man lived, and then fled into a cave, and then reemerged for the hunting of animals, and Man was hunted, and Man hunted and gathered, and Man made packs where the most fit was the leader. Yet there was no society, and nothing of the Empire, for the strongest served the weak in order for the weak to protect him, and the weakest served the strong because the weak could not survive alone. There was a grouping, and a hierarchy, and so a half-civilization formed, and they were a pack of wolves on their hind legs.
Such packs, Tharizdun had noted at the beginning of the first age, could be autonomous and not rely on him, and so he never used such things, for they were not filled with the same connection and lack of sentience as the demons, who were of a great tax on his power, for they were separations of it.
Those experiences were maddening, and they filled him with constant pain to know that he was growing weaker over time, but he regained strength from the carcasses, and the defeat of Mankind, which he never obtained from the timeline of the first. Then Man realized how easy it was to survive, and how weak nature was in the absence of Tharizdun's greater might, and so began to develop further.
And so Man discovered morality, and Man discovered sin once more. What meaning was life after living and surviving were so easily achieved, and immortality seemed impossible? If there was a slow, yet definite path toward deathlessness, then perhaps Man would only be interested in living like all other animals, until they reached immortality. And so mortal Man trudged on, following pride, which made uncivilized life seem meaningless.
Thus Man established the first government, and with his newfound morality created theocracy, and it seemed to be perfection compared to all that was before. The king was chosen by the gods, who were just, and so the king was just as well, and so could indulge in sin and pride that the commoner could not understand, and it was not because the king was corrupted and had his humanity reduced, but because the commoner was unable to understand him. And this king gave wars and battles, and his soldiers followed him, and the first victors established their morality on the conquered peoples, and so the first morality was made.
Thus the king was just, and the gods were omnipotent and were the source of morality, and so whatever the king said was the ultimate source. There was no Fell as a common enemy, and so no Emperor, but many kings, who proclaimed their allies angels and their enemies demons. And thus the kings and their city-states struggled for power and wealth. Those who were against one would suffer, every one said, and those who were with one would gain happiness in the end, every one said. Every single one.
Yet, because Man was a moral creature, and so rejected stagnation, for that was against his principle of pride, which told him life had no meaning if he had mastered a theocracy, which was a petty state, and so Man began two things, that of wealth, and that of conquest. And so Man created two governments, the tyranny, and the oligarchy.
First there was pride which told the king he needed to change, and then, if he was late, there was envy, the second sin, which made him jealous of other kings. Thus, Tharizdun watched tyrannies spread, and oligarchies.
What was the tyranny, but the foundation of the virtue of justice? Once justice was an afterthought to pride, when men and soldiers fought, and half-heartedly believed that their enemies would be punished in an afterlife, but they cared for that not truly, for the greatest divinity lay within their priest-king and his earthly temples. Yet then the first form of tyranny spread, which was of expansion, and each great victory was attributed to the divine nature of the god-king, the Emperor, and such victories were seen as justice which required hands of wrath, for the tyranny deserved that victory, and was given it by their might, and rewarded by the gods.
Then was the oligarchy, which followed greed, which then gave to the petty sins, that of lust, sloth, and the others. There came merchant states, which followed a transition. The theological rulers asked themselves what the meaning of life was, and paid a great many thinkers and philosophers for them, and participated in the salons themselves, and the first answer was pleasure. Yet, after the theist-kings became addicts to opium, leisure, and pleasure, they stopped, and did nothing more until the years passed, and they faded away.
Then came the new king, his heir, and he looked at his old father, and thought of his own pride, and spat at his predecessor, calling him wasteful, idle, and foolish, for he decided to pass time doing nothing and remain ignorant of the affairs of the state and the people. Surely this was against the natural path of his faith, he thought, for he learned nothing, and did not change, and only stagnated. There was no path there.
Hence the son followed greed instead, for greed, unlike pleasure was improvable, and so greed and justice, and all other moral principles served the two, with envy being a force that made the theology feel poor, and justice and wrath being only the extension and evolution of pride, as was greed. He loved his wealth, which strengthened his pride. And soon he began to release political power and control for more of it, for in the oligarchy there was more than one head, but the richest was the truest, and if he could fall if he lost his wealth, that did not matter because he believed that was impossible out of pride, and so believed he could only rise higher by increasing his things.
What did the tyrant desire? To be on the right side of history. And the oligarch, to gain wealth and power. Yet then, the oligarchy of Italia destroyed the Grecian tyranny, and afterward, when a slew of oligarchic conflicts ensued, a single tyrant rose, Caesar, and rose not out of the effects of history, or of karma, or fate, but out of his might and ability.
And so Tharizdun saw a tyrant rise, and make peace with the other tyrannies, that of Persia and of more distant lands, and to the north there lay a great many barbarians, who were of minimal threat to him.
Now, what was this state to do? It was an empire of Man of many lands, and was hardly threatened, and so, although it lacked the perfect qualities of the first Empire, it was similar.
There had to be a common enemy to unite the people, lest they move away and lose their pride, which came from a bounding threat. And when there was not, the Tyrant became weaker in skill and more decadent, and less caring, and the people adopted the cultures of the Germans and lost their pride, and when the barbarian hordes came, they fought naught, and the great state, the first Rome collapsed thus.
There was one of them, Julian the Apostate, and earlier ones, such as Trajan, who went to war with Parthia, but Parthia was too strong save for commanders of immense skill, and too far away for the sustainability of conquest, and so it was peace that slew the First Rome, which made moral decadence, and war was too costly, and so the First Rome would fall regardless, and the kratocracy continued, and history appeared to have reset.
Then came the third, and soon Man went through his stages once more. There was a smaller difference. His capacity for learning and improving technology never faded, and the thirst was always there, as was the question of truth. Old men, although their years were truly few to the dark lord above pondered what was right, and what was wrong, came to their conclusions by their intuition, which was their God, and came from an old theocracy of Man, where a nation of murderers were weaker than a nation of non-murderers, and so the murderers were thought of as insane, and the might made the idea good.
He came into theocracies once more, and called them monarchies, yet more quickly the theocracies grew, and soon oligarchies and tyrannies came forth once more. Yet, the tyranny could not defeat the oligarchy here, simply because of might.
And in the oligarchy, the peasants looked at their decadent rulers, and saw themselves not as gods, but men who were out of touch with the struggles of the peasant, and so the power of the oligarch became limited, and he had to spread his wealth and power.
Then came the second force, which was a hammer, and it was a fruit of Man's achievement. Once there was the high, who were few, and who had power, and the few middle, who did not, and the low, who were many, and did not. Yet middle was different from the low, for the low was constantly starving, and so constantly working to attain his wages, and thought not of greed, justice, or envy, for he was like an animal, and constantly working to survive, and to pass along his offspring, yet he was slightly different, for he still valued pride as he saw his nation's flag, and associated a victory with a good harvest.
The middle was more capable, he was stronger, and he rose from the lower not from rights seeped within his flesh and mind, but from his ability and learned power. He was strong enough to easily provide for himself and for his incapable children who could not work, and so thought of virtue, for his mind had mastered the lowness of self-preservation, and wandered elsewhere. Yet, he had no power to enact his will.
Then was the high, who was like the middle, but farther removed from animalism, and had power. And so all changes before were made by the high and their moral experiments, and so when they had mastered a state, they moved on, even if it led to the falling of regimes and of their power, for to them power and wealth was an idle fuel, and they had mastered it, and so it had to be spent. They grew decadent with pleasure in the form of intellect, orchestra, and passion, and so when their government fell, they were not displeased entirely until they could no longer chase such things, and the perfect state of absolute power was destroyed.
Yet then, because Man's power grew in his machines, there came a great many middle men, who overwhelmed the high by their sheer numbers, and these men came from the cheapness of such machines, which became more widespread, and so the middle man became the high, and became the low, and there were many of them, and as each one desired the power of the high, they agreed to split the power between themselves, and so they agreed to a new government, which they called a democracy.
And to this Tharizdun was curious, for he remembered it not in the First Age, after his exile from the outside realms, when the Empire of Man was held together by faith, and despite the great advancements in technology, they became one with faith, and so were taken from the common Man, and became the highest government.
Yet in this era, it seemed to be another high, and a different regime. The democracy came, and it slew the last of the tyrannies, and positioned itself and awaited a slow domination, for Man became more and more educated, and so men desired power more.
Then there was another proponent about what was to come, and that was the rejection of faith for a new idea, which was called naturalism, and soon became atheism.
What did Tharizdun think of this? He thought of it as a man would think of it, if the man was timelessly ancient and eternal, who had been defeated again and again, and rerose barely, and had been exiled from everyone he knew long ago because of his desire to innovate, and was then imprisoned by his peers, and then by his own creations... He remembered his old foe, the Empire of Man, and thought to himself, What is this? A contradictory mess it is, the new morality that is spreading. There is no iron, there is no sense of devoutness, and this intangible faith, if it can be called one ... is malleable, for it puts the moral judgment and intuition of one first, and from those creeds are written, where before, the creed was written by the fervent atheist who believed his intuition was right, and lesser creeds were written to clarify the first, and the first creed molded the judgment of all others.
He paused to himself and then continued, Perhaps this will make Mankind weaker, and so when it stagnates and falls onto itself, I can take the great weapons which it has developed, and slay the usurper race eternally, and resume my power.
At that point, he felt not for why he had created Mankind, and so assumed that it occurred only because of his clumsiness, and more importantly could never happen again if all men were slain. Onwards, or back again, what was the cause of atheism? It was Man's pride in believing that he had risen above his past, that with such great advancements, anyone of the old was primitive, for anything of old was obsolete and replaced by a superior form to its end. Faith satisfied two goals, that to tell Man that he was of the right, and that to tell Man that he was certainly going to win all of his struggles, but then, Man could solve struggles without what he perceived as fate, and addressed his victory to his ability out of his pride, and the rise of Man's power over the weakness and emptiness of nature. Then there was that of morality, which became replaced by the reason and emotion of Man, who continuously sought truth and improved his ability and hence began to think that his own ability to reason was superior to any unchanging creed, which would grow to be obsolete.
Thus he saw atheism and democracy defeat all other forces, which were then labeled as barbaric, and the might continued to defeat the lesser, and so Man made a perfect state, like the Empire, which had nothing to defeat. Yet the democracies could defeat each other, but that would ruin their peace, and they could defeat the inferiority of their technologies and dedicate their lives to the pursuit of science, but each discovery was sought after not for the pure wanting of knowledge, but for its application and its ability to solve problems. But Man only recognized problems because of their ability to harm Man, and once Man saw that all there was was to form a slow road, there was no threat at all, and hardly a deadline, and so Man was stagnant.
First, Man recognized that his mastery of science was so great, that he could discover anything in a period of time, and held such a domination over the Earth that anything could have been discovered, or was impossible. Man realized he could never approach immortality, or to travel far past the blank void of space beyond the reach of the sun. There came no uncertainty but two categories, of what could be done, and what could not be, and so Man reached a limit, and when this limit was reached in science, the fear of failure was gone. And so, all problems became either not problems, for they had been solved in concept, or not problems, because in concept they had been proved impossible to solve.
Once their will was questionable, once logic was viewed as flawed, for it could be wrong, but the information given to Mankind became so obvious and unmistakable, that the genetic nature of a man would only wane with age from the forces around him, and that the void of the universe was too vast, and so logic remained.
What did Man define as good and evil? Man's first nature was to do, and to change, but doing had to have the onset of improving, for if one repeatedly did something, then they were stagnating and so not truly doing anything, but being idle. And if one could do something, then they were equal to having already done it, and thus, if Man could do everything, and there were certain things he could never extend to, and there was never a fear of being able to fail. Thus, if there were no failures, there were no problems, and as those that were problems were the manifestation of evil and badness, there was no moral evil, and already morality had been frivolized into preferences from the spread of atheism and tolerance.
It was the culmination of centuries, of millenia, since the fall of Rome, when the Emperor grew decadent and started caring for his passions instead of for politics, for his power and wealth appeared meaningless to him, and he wanted to become a poet, a gladiator, or a philosopher, and it was after the death of God, the death of nationalism, the death of war that made the death of moral evil. And before, the good existed to escape from evil and inferior natures.
It was in the year of 2160, and the world's greatest thinkers were in a room, and they asked themselves what the truth was, and what Man had to yearn for. It was the ultimate goal of Man to become perfect, to be in harmony with natural order, and Man had become the God of that. Yet, Man appeared to have already achieved such things, for there was naught to do that could not be easily done. He valued change, yet changing would always be the same if he was not improving. He did not value tradition, and began to care about that less, for there were foreigners in traditional national lands, and national norms were constantly disrespected in the face of tolerance, which rose from common threats, of ignorance, of global poverty, of Man's pride over nature which was safer than Man's pride over Man, and of the burning of the sky and the rising of the sea, and so nationalism and tradition became naught, and culture was a preference.
And so, what was the truth that they realized? That there was nothing. But immediately this truth was rejected, for the world depended on them to give it ethical meaning. But the conclusion was reached again, and repeatedly, for if there was a false conclusion provided, it would too be called false, for there seemed to be no sense of improvement but change, and after a great many artistic and political revolutions which began to occur nearly every year, Man saw that he was only changing, and was not improving, for to improve meant to become farther from an evil force, and there was no evil force that could be agreed on.
When the creation of the perfect state was made, thus came many groups of different beliefs and ideologies, and so they followed different things, but there were so many of them that each one was mandated to respect each other, and so morality became demoted to a question of preference, for globalism rose with education out of the curiosity of culture, and so liberty became more important than the state.
Man looked at himself, and was filled with disgust, for how could he reach a maximum, and not become better in morality? It was contradictory, it was stupid, for improvement was what Man strove for, as Man associated stagnation with animals and weak men, who were unchanging in habit and so became obsolete by technology.
Man continued to develop, or tried to, but such development became meaningless. And so Man created a final solution for himself, to accept that he knew anything, yet believed anything, for he knew everything and could believe everything he felt was not obviously false.
Hence came the Doublethink Society, where Man pretended to follow theories, and made pleasure machines to cover truth, yet made forums and salons to discover forgotten and new things, but Man was always instinctive for the truth, and so when he could not find it as his new society blurred it, he began to hate his own society, yet treasured it dearly, for it gave him pride.
It was in this great confusion that he began to wander, for he was truly lost, and tried to make sense of himself, for if his technology was good, and improving it was easy and the only barrier was time, then he was perfect, yet he could not be perfect. If he were, then he would not feel at ease, and he would not feel that he was wasting days at his brothels instead of reading and writing.
Should he lose himself in art instead? But art was art for it gave society moral meaning, and learning was a higher pleasure than pornography, for it was far more useful, and there seemed to be no moral meaning to anything, and no sense of usefulness to anything to become greater, for all duties had been fulfilled, as were all virtues, and there was an absence of pain and an age of happiness. Hence art, like orchestra, was identical in quality to powder and sex, and all pleasures became equal, and equally frivolous without the worth of meaning. He found pleasure as the side of a package, and never sought pleasure itself.
What was art, but what an artist saw of reality, where they then blended in virtue and vice, and what was literature but a story that formed a message based on morality? All art was made with the purpose of improving the morality of society, which made it farther away from moral evil, and Man desired not to stay away from it, but to grow farther from it, for it was the flawed nature of Mankind, the powerful animal, that would constantly do, and constantly looked down at the past, and desired to become greater than it, for he viewed himself as just and great.
What did Man want? To grow greater, in order to become great. But Man knew not how to; he seemed already great, for any improvements were meaningless, as he could not define what was greater and farther away from evil.
The representation of Mankind looked at his machines, which he had labored hard for, and began, as there was nothing else to do, to see his technology, which had carved through mountains, burned forests, and sunk islands, yet could undo such things to view them as his chains, for they were the source of his death in virtue, and because they provided him with absolute pleasure, which robbed him of any ability to become happier. Slowly, he began to view them in the absence of threats as his moral enemy.
Tharizdun remembered beckoning into the minds of them, and making them believe that such a state was worthless, and that lives were worthless if they did not live for something, and he wondered if he had made any true impact on them, or if the fall of Man in the absence of threats was inevitable, or if he had encouraged it somehow. But quickly, he rose to believe the latter to show himself his own significance.
For the last decade before the Great War, the men made false threats to themselves, for they were afraid of change, and so made great alien threats, and led armies that caused suffering onto Mankind which gave Man purpose to defeat it, but soon this ceased, for the inventors of such threats asked themselves why they did so, and why they desired to create an eternity of such threats for the survival of technology, when soon the threats to them, whom bore the burden of truth became nothing but extensions of the decadence of Mankind, for they were always too weak, and slowly the false threats which slew millions made their inventors uncaring for them, as they themselves desired a higher morality. They felt no pride for their creations, as they felt no pride for the end of them, and thought of the tentacled beasts Hence, however coerced they were, they released the information unto the people, and made themselves the enemy of them with the inequality of knowledge, and so allowed themselves to be destroyed. The men made terrible gods.
The doublethink failed, for one could not feel that one was improving and yet remaining stable if what was improvement, which was science and art became only change, and the ideal of improvement became synonymous with only change, and good and hurt, necessary for the concept of improvement became meaningless in the absence of virtue. If a creed was given to them, they would by liberty call it an enemy, and feel disgusted by the unchanging nature of contradiction, which was unnatural to the changing state of Man.
Thus, in the year of 2266, the leaders of Men thought of themselves as useless and without meaning in their lives so long as they had technology, which stripped them of morality, and so they enacted the explosions of their bombs, which destroyed cities and slew consenting billions plagued by nihilism to create new meaning and imperfection, and the Great War began, and it ended briefly, and only Europe remained as the land of Men for the men to lose all, and then grow, and have their morality evolve again.
Tharizdun had charged forth, and stolen the designs of the Orc-goblins to provide himself with a material force to cover his weakness, and had little time for anything else, and thought he would slay Mankind for it was divided and weak, but then Caesar came, Caesar, who brought upon a state similar to the Empire of Man once before, and had come from the dead, and at this Tharizdun was bitter, and saw in his visions that he could not win, for Caesar's ability was too strong, and after him came Nepos, and hence he destroyed Aelum in a rage, or it seemed like it, and there came the death of Aurelius Majorian, legate of the Nephilim.
His mind went back to the present. What was the ultimate fate of Man, once he had reached heaven, when he was at his greatest height? To fall and divide itself once more. This Polonius did know , and he chose to make enemies of Second Rome for the sake of Roman pride, and not let men fight each other in the absence of powerful enemies, but so chose Rome over Mankind out of his pride as the Imperator of Rome.
And then there was Marcus Albon, who slew both Caesar and Lucius near Florentia, when Concortamus, avatar of Tharizdun, told him to halt and make parlay, for he was confused, but Albon did not, for he saw himself as the righteous hammer of fate, and thought of his own voice as the highest and purest will, and when he went to the mountains, he did so after he slew the two men which he idolized, and so had no one to follow, and so was beckoned out.
There, he had not been tricked, or deceived, but he led himself out because of his moral judgment, which told him that those who oppressed the weak were evil, and if he used the weak, it was to their own good, which he defined.
The Fell were the perfect people for him, as were four apostles who worshiped him. His pride was what willed him to live in the cave, for he felt that death was only to surrender to the ghosts of two men, and his will to lead, and to view himself as the savior of the Fell.
What was Washington, but one who saw his nation fall from the virtue he had put before them, and so was dismissive of his successors? He, who saw himself as above others, had to fall, and he would.
In the void of darkness, the being that saw what was beneath him, yet above him in power knew not that he could win, and that all would fall to him, but believed anyway, and so told himself he knew, for he was Tharizdun, and so would end an eternal war by his might, and then an eternal return.
Book XV - Albon
I - Is
Mageor woke on a piece of wood covered in cloth.
It was not a bed, for a bed was of Man, and so was heresy, but as he could only sleep uncomfortably on the ground, he told himself that it was necessary if he were to fulfill his duty to the state.
His views had not wavered, and he never forgot what he came for, he thought, and still sought to end the oppression of the Fell. Yet he had accomplished that, and so, what else was there to do but establish the Fell as a power in arms made by him, and send it to Rome, or Gaul, or elsewhere? But this was impossible, and hardly practical, for he was blockaded from all directions save from the cold wastes northward and eastward, which had little to nothing to give him that he could use, and Second Rome had built walls around him which he could not devise means to break through, for he was incapable of summoning the demons of Tharizdun well. Yet, as Tharizdun was silent, there was he, and only he who could lead the apostles, who led the Fell, and without them, the Fell would collapse onto itself.
He walked out of his room of decent walls, and was in his larger complex, a concrete palace, frugal in appearance, and little to Babeltica, and he called this equal, such as a man followed his senses when they lied to him, for he had no better giver of truths.
Then came his goblin subordinate, Bort, who came to him, as he did every day, and told his superior, not his master, the usual things, of statistics, of Rome and the Elven, who had two weeks before they began starvation, of the status of the Fellic state, and how the order of Mageor remained well, and how many demons had been summoned today, and what technologies had been found. A week ago there was a toaster, and Bort wondered why it had to be remade, for it lacked any purpose, so either the leader of the Fell loved knowledge as a virtue, or desired toast, but he decided to think nothing, for he wanted to live, and so said nothing. The Amkarah replaced the Appeal, and was considered an improvement over it, for it was written in better prose, and so was stronger, the Orc-goblins were told, although they could not understand it, and were told it, and only read the Appeal if they could read.
Yet today, Bort recognized Mageor as his master, who was a man, and told him, "My leader(which he spoke as a title, and although this was unequal, without Mageor and his apostles being unequal to the Fellic men and Orc-kind, the Fell would collapse), a new Balor hath awoken, and carries orders from Tharizdun himself-"
Mageor interrupted to the short thing, and said, "Well, that is good news, for he has finally returned."
"-that you are to be relieved of the duties of demonic ritual and the distribution of food, and that such things shall now flow from Tharizdun through the Balor. He will have blue wings, I am told, and is of a blue flame. Perhaps you should see him, although he is weak now, and hardly capable of moving."
At this, Mageor was astonished, but said nothing, for it was a command of Tharizdun, and so it was imperative. Two fields it was that he had lost responsibility. It was only two fields after all. I need not care, he thought, and so did nothing. It was only a trifle.
Later that day, he went to the clearings, but was told that the newly-reformed Balor was in the wooden huts of storage, and so he went there.
When he had observed, he, or it, he had expected a bull of great strength, who was as tall as the past stories of Lucius and Gnaeus, who had great wings, and seemed strong, and had great muscles which made him a wall of Fellic strength, and a symbol of such strength, which proclaimed the superiority of the Fell, and he imagined such things as Bilgames had, when he saw an Astral Manifest walk in the forest.
It was an event of great importance. And to this, he felt even greater, for Tharizdun had come back, his lord, and he remained as the champion and leader of the Fell, and would heed his words, whatever they were.
The lesser demons could not speak and so could not communicate the Fellic will well, and the one that Bilgames claimed he saw, where he was struck by the beauty of the Fell, which he viewed as superior to all things of Mankind, which became ugly was never found. Thus the Balor was the key to the reawakening of the Fell, and moreover, he was told that the Balor was of the blue flame, and so could be Cathulk-Kas, who was an ally of Gnaeus, and who led the Fellic city of Aelum, capital of Lucius' Republican Confederacy, and fell when trapped by himself against cohorts of Arripan, but came back and slew the legate of the Nephilim at Aelum, and so lay down the only victory at the massacre there, before he too was finished bleeding, and died.
Thus were the stories he was told, and he did not consider it strange that there were Fellic cities, or that there were stewards of such places, and captains and ranks and perversed inequality, but accepted it as what Tharizdun had intended, and that he had committed himself to such methods for creating familiarity.
Elsewhere, a growing darkness remembered having a lack of presence and will, and so the orcs cooperated with the democratic men, and Tharizdun did nothing to control them, and allowed the nationalism of the men to flourish instead, and made the demons follow them, who were few and only appeared in a few select battles, that of the Insurgency, Florentia, the campaign southward to the Siege of Rome, and the greater demons who guarded Fellic cities made for men who allied with the Fell, which were of many names, called by men Balors, Annihilators, Manifests, and many other kinds.
Then he heard another voice inside his head, whilst walking to the huts, and it told him to surrender, to bow down, and that because of the reawakening of the Balor who was the great Cathulk-Kas, his authorities were naught and irrelevant, but to this Mageor thought immediately that this could not be true, for he was still valuable as a commander of the Fell, and they still needed him because of his ability, and dismissed the thought quickly. He celebrated this, thinking that he had defeated such maladies, and so was improving his mental condition.
But what he saw instead, inside the crude dwelling, was a skull of blackness, hardly forming a body, and the eyes were like small white dots, and resembled a man or animal near his death in their lack of moving state. The empty holes which enveloped them were of a bone-colored skull, which was almost bare, and the skin was thin. There was an absence of horns, and to the many things to which Mageor saw, his dream of glory crept away, and hid, but remained.
The skull-looking Balor said to him, "Ah, you, my apostle..." he paused, "who has been relieved slightly, now..."
The voice trailed off. He waited for a minute, and then five, and then ten, and the mouth had not moved again. Twenty more, and he left.
Tharizdun finished his sentence alone, at which he congratulated him, and spoke of the coming of more relievings. Mageor instead returned to his concrete complex, and thought of himself and his use, and how, with Tharizdun, who could comment every couple of hours, the Fell could only grow stronger.
II - Came
It was dark at night. The two were on the roof of the complex.
"So, then why not take a ceremonial role, and label yourself as prime servant of Tharizdun in those fields of ritual and distribution?", said Bilgames.
"No, for that would be an obstruction of truth, and I would act as if I had some influence over those roles, when I have none, and so I would lie to the Fellic people and men. Never forget our purpose, Bilgames, which was to defeat the oppression of the Fell, those who suffer the greatest."
"Well, then, our next purpose ought to be the spreading of the revolution to the slaves of Elvenkind, for they are those that are second in suffering."
"Which is why I refused to come to their aid, for they, as Tharizdun warned me before he lapsed into his death of silence, are inhuman completely, but more rotten than the inferiority and unstable nature of Mankind, which composes of doing and never of becoming eternal, for they do not even have the empathy natural to all living things, and if they do, despise it and call it weak. Now, I heard of someone called Ephialtis, who proposed a new idea of the absolute destruction of emotion some time ago. A wise decision of them to ignore it, for it shows that they are still human and flawed, after all..." he paused, wondering what he was saying for a moment.
"Anyway," continued Mageor, "How are we to reach such men? We lack the capabilities, and so we can do nothing but wait until the quotas have repeated themselves."
"Yet surely, my lord, there must be some way, for if we are on the side of good, then it would be the Tharizdunic power of fate and justice which serves us, for the good will always become stronger in the end, as right makes might. For every instance in history it has been this way, except for the Isle of the Fell, but we have resurfaced. Hence there must be some way, and cannot stand idly by."
The greater of them thought to to himself as he watched the stars why he could not achieve such heights, and wondered if that was the duty of a successor, or if he was beneath the good, somehow, but he denied the latter, for it was impossible as his intentions were pure and just, and he had a great many years ahead of him, for his body was young again, and that he had to waste them waiting and reviewing quotas.
They looked at the night sky. The stars never changed, unless they were covered by smoke, and although they moved, they were constant, and ever returning.
How nice it must be, thought Bilgames, to be among the stars, and have an eternal peace.
A peace which was once there, and when the peace had improved itself, was no longer an idle peace, but a state of change, which was of improvement, for it was good. And with the good shattering peace, came the fear of losing good, and the fear of gaining evil, yet the good is always better.
A blaring alert came. A bell rang, and Bort came out, yelling, "The Balor is failing, and needs to be re-summoned! Quickly!"
Mageor ran to the huts, and BIlgames went to the two other living apostles.
He saw the body of the Balor, which was fully grown now, but it slumped without energy, and lay in a strange sleep, as if it were dying. The wings were awkward and fitted poorly, and the physique was weak and scraggly.
He prayed to Tharizdun, for he felt that he could do nothing, as he lacked skill in such a field, but realized that the cause of the lapsed state of the greater demonic avatar was symbolic of that, and stopped. He began to chant, and he began to attempt to use his own will, and his knowledge of the psionics and the arcane, but although he had skill far exceeding most, and to the level of the highest warlocks of his Fellic Republic, but he alone was not enough, and so he called for other users of magic, and several warlocks came, men covered completely in dark robes, and they chanted and exerted their strength from themselves, as they were taught by Mageor.
The apostles had come, and the room was crowded. The atmosphere was thick and desperate, and each moment the demonic body seemed to fall, they sweated more, and chanted louder and acted more vividly. And when each moment passed, and there was no fruition, and the only change was that of worsening, their heart raced, and they wondered why, but as they could rely on nothing else but their ability, they pressed on it.
They panted, There was Durante there, who represented great fortitude, Bilgames, and Amleth, who was of prudence, but they stood, while some knelt, and attempted to channel strength in...
On the outside, Tharizdun watched them, and watched how they had created their own arts, and used them.
The body then rose, and the room was bewitched by a blue light, and there, where once a corpse lay, was a Balor.
It was powerful, it was terrifying, and Mageor saw it as the vassal of Tharizdun, and therefore his ally, majestic. The wings were terrible, but he thought not that, and they were scorched and burned, as if he enjoyed pain, and was the embodiment of it, but the man told himself that was to scare off enemies, and then were the long claws, which clawed off the flesh of Man, or the flesh of the evil Romans and elves.
Its eyes burned blue with a determination, and a common cause with him. He had done it! They had done it!
They rose and rejoiced quietly to themselves. With Tharizdun fully conscious, exceeding even when he was with Mageor before his state of the Fell was formed, they could achieve the greatest amounts of wisdom and knowledge, and hence no longer had to rely on themselves...
Mageor felt differently, however, and viewed this as a great victory for himself, for he would become second in command, and spread virtue far more greatly, and this goal brought him an euphoria. But what was there after? He felt not confusion, but saw a clear path, or a path he believed was clear: to lead the Fellic Men, and advise Tharizdun.
The demon then breathed. It said, "What are all of you, but those who have forsaken the orthodoxy of the Fell, and have tainted it with your civilization, your virtue of empathy to the vice of suffering, and have attempted to establish yourselves as a ruling class, for you realized your own superiority over the Orc-goblins?"
It occurred to them that the Balor was double their height. They paused, for they had expected praise.
"What I see is heresy. And what has been done, blasphemy to the supreme order of the Fell, who is the collective of I."
It was Bilgames who was first to speak, for he was the man who called himself temperate, and thought of himself as lacking in the sins of others. He said, "Please, my lord, I do not know what is wrong with the nature of us," , and he paused, trying to find a superior and more capable tone, and criticized himself for his rashness, "but we can learn, surely, and change as you demand."
One of the warlocks then fell to the ground, and he throbbed hard, and his state was of an uncontrolled paralysis, and the others watched, and could do nothing.
Then, he rose, as if a zombified force had propelled him, and he stared blankly at the Balor, Cathulk-Kas, daemon of Tharizdun. His will was eternal. He saw perfection, and he knew its unchanging definition, the will of him.
Once there were rocks, who could do nothing against the great forces which carved them, and then there were animals, who could resist a little, and therefore had the quality of life, for they were not completely controlled, but these too fell under the grasp of the great force, and the Orcs and the New Man were of a strong body, and a strong mind, but were of a weak will, and collapsed easily to the forces of tyranny, wherever they were from, like an animal.
This was the new man, and he was free of sin and virtue, which led Man to believe his was superior to nature if he had virtue, for he was the guardian of it, and if he had sin, believed that nature was a tool for his means, which became virtuous, and so virtue and sin were the same in nature, and differed only in their instance of use as gluttony was the absence of pain, and so all virtue was sin. The New Man.
Tharizdun looked at the men in the room, and thought that a few men were better than none under him, and felt prideful that he had defeated part of the usurper race, which had long ago removed him.
Many of the other men looked at the New Man, and were disgusted, and saw the simplicity of the low faculties, and soon a great Fellic wind overtook them, and they gasped and throbbed, and then a voice appeared in their head, Do what is just, and remove one from all sin, and become at peace. The truth was in front of them, and it was monstrous and unchanging. No! cried many of the men, for their nature and pride was far too strong, and they fell after a struggle. The others surrendered, their will to power being weaker than their will to live.
Yet there remained one, and he was the first among them, and the proudest, and the strongest, and he thought of himself as the leader of these men, and that he deserved to be captain over them. It was the truth he sought for, to help the poor as their protector, but here, the truth told him to give up himself, because of his flawed human nature, which was incapable of demonic ritual, and incapable of becoming like the Orc-kind. The eldritch message of force out of and within him writhed in his mind, yet he resisted, and then it told him to die, for if he were to die, then the world would be just.
This he refused.
He was once called Mageor, and still called himself that, and he cried, "No! No! It cannot be! What are you? You are not Tharizdun, but some other thing, some devil, some rogue demon... no one would tell me that I was evil, for I am not. These apostles, these followers-"
The Balor charged at him, and without his whip or sword, for they were unavailable, destroyed and slammed him through the door, and knocked him down. The man got up, and brandished his sword, and looked at himself, a fit man fighting against an angel, who told him to die.
He was a king, and he looked at his people, whom he never wavered in wanting to help. The Orc-goblins were apathetic to him, and they had no concept of fashion, and there were no murals, or architecture; there were only complexes, there was no culture, and no higher art but the following of authority. His people were not people at all.
And then he fought. Who did he fight for? He did not know. Himself, he thought. He, and whatever was left of morality, and his morality was slammed down, and had its ribs shattered, and claws ripping off his cheeks and impaling his neck, until there was absence, and there was death. He was gone, but he refused to be, and told the demon, "No...".
And he fell, not because he became evil, or because he grew corrupt, but because he could never have been strong, and could never have been pure enough for Tharizdun.
His spirit persisted, and an old man fought the reality of his death, and discarded the young shell of the king, whom he always wanted to be.
There was Rome, the Elven, the Fell, and he, and the spirit refused.