The Dark Lord of Crafting

Berith had made a home for himself near the head of the Eternal Engine, a massive car modeled after a Roman cathedral. The doors opened onto a wide, empty nave, forcing me to walk down the length of the structure like a supplicant in search of a blessing from his priest. Berith stood on a dais at the end of the nave, looking up at a stained glass window through which one of the Engine’s now silent smokestacks could be viewed.

Along the dais were several workstations, desks, and control panels for the operation of the forward cars. Their chairs were empty, as were the pews that lined either side of the central path. The torches along the walls had been infused with sanguinum, giving a reddish cast to their light.

The silence was what struck me. The engine itself was in the car ahead of us, but it was still. The inner city of Nargul had once been filled with the oppressive clamor of this monumental train, and without it, it seemed as if there was nothing left at all.

“Master,” Berith turned as I approached him, the dim light accentuating his feline features, regal and fierce at once.

.

“Berith,” I said, “how is the city treating you?”

The demon tapped the ax on his back. “I have scarcely needed to use this,” he said. “The humans are disappointingly docile. Even those who were told you were not their true Dark Lord.”

“Do they accept our explanation?” I hopped onto the dais, skipping the steps so that we could stand face to face.

“They do, or they pretend to. With Agares dead and no other demons to gainsay me, they have little choice. I’ve met with the major in charge of Nargul’s garrison, and he seems eager for an opportunity to prove his loyalty. The men who survived the capture of the Eternal Engine have been punished for fighting against you.”

“Punished how?” The soldiers who had been guarding the train when we boarded it had been doing their jobs, and they had been correct. I was the usurper. They couldn’t be let off too easily, though. It wouldn’t make sense for the Dark Lord to instantly forgive those who had betrayed him, and some of them might still cause trouble, but I didn’t want them killed out of hand.

“Servitude,” Berith said, “they have been sent to the mines.”

That segued nicely into the reason I had come looking for Berith in the first place. “You mean we made them slaves?”

The tiger scrunched up his nose, causing his whiskers to tremble. “What of it?”

“How many slaves are there in Nargul?”

“Thousands. Why does it matter?”

I hadn’t been paying attention to the kind of empire I was inheriting. The Free Kingdoms had seemed, well, free, aside from the usual problem of wealth disparity and the medieval cliché that lords could do pretty much whatever they wanted to peasants. But open slavery was a step too far.

“We can’t have slaves, Berith,” I said. “What are the terms for these men? Are they serving a sentence, or are they in chains for the rest of their lives?”

“The rest of their lives, I assume.” He sniffed. “You are the Dark Lord, you can have whatever you like. What is your objection to this?”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s take a step back. I guess I forget sometimes that you guys are demons, and you don’t have a moral sense of any kind. But let me start with the proposition that taking away people’s freedom, treating them like animals, and forcing them to suffer and die for profit is bad.”

“Why?” Berith said. “As far as I have seen of this world, and every world I have visited, humans do that to each other everywhere.”

“Well, I guess they do. But humans do bad things, and that doesn’t mean they aren’t bad.”

“Bad how?” Berith said. “Is it not within human law?”

“Some laws are bad,” I said. “Evil isn’t about whether something is legal or not. I mean, ideally, there should be laws against evil acts, but that isn’t always how it works.”

Berith played with one of the dials on the control panel next to where he was standing, looking as thoughtful as a tiger could. A light flashed on and off, and a switch somewhere on the board made a ticking sound like the hand of a clock.

“We do not have a word for evil in our native tongue.” He said. “There is a word for good, ‘maldra’, but it does not carry the same weight of meaning as you find in yours. Maldra is success or growth. The counterpart of maldra is ‘gathe’. Failure or loss. Human language is less straightforward. Confused and overgrown. I have heard humans speak of evil in many lifetimes. That is what they call us. Evil means something you hate. We have words for hate. But morality is a human construct, with no significance beyond human feelings.”

I stopped myself short of getting into a philosophical debate about the nature of morality with a literal demon. That would not get anywhere fast.

“Fine,” I said. “Forget about the evil part. But I’m in charge now, and I’m changing the laws. We aren’t doing slavery anymore, because I said so. Does that make sense to you?”

“Of course. You have power, and power dictates rectitude, as it should..” Berith left the control panel and came down from the dais to stand before me. “Human law is of no concern to me. Shall I have all the slaves executed instead?”

“No, man.” Berith wasn’t making a dark joke. He genuinely assumed that was the alternative. “I’m going to change their legal status.”

“Very well. Am I still Duke of Nargul?”

“If you want to stay here, the position is yours.”

“Then I will issue a proclamation in your name. There is a human council that deals with matters of the law. Shall I summon them?”

“Actually, I think they are meeting anyway tomorrow. I met someone named Count Varnish, and he invited me. Do you know anything about him?”

The demon shrugged. “I have met him. He was appropriately servile.”

“Do you know where they usually meet?”

“I do.”

“Good, then we can go together. But first, I want to see the mines.”

“As you wish.” Berith nodded, and the two of us started down the length of the car. “There are quarries outside the city.”

We rode a pair of varghests to the far side of Nargul. The inner city was taken up by the body of the train, but there was a track we could follow that led directly to the mines. Citizens bowed to us as we passed, and guards saluted. Daily life in Nargul was underway regardless of who was in control at the top.

The track curved out of the city and through a tunnel cut into the high outer wall, at which point it split in three directions.

“Which way?” I asked.

“The left path has been abandoned,” Berith said. “That is the quarry where we met before taking the city. The other two are still active.”

We went straight, following the track as it climbed toward a mountain that cast its shadow over the city. The air grew cooler, and the wind picked up. A pump trolley appeared ahead of us, a wheeled cart powered by a group of men taking turns operating what looked like a playground seesaw. They threw on the brakes when they saw us, and I noted the stack of crates on either side of the cart.

“Duke,” the lead man said. He was dusty and dirty, with much of his hands and clothes stained black. He bowed to Berith and me, and the others quickly did the same.

“What are you carrying?” I asked.

“Coal, my lord.” Did he know I was the Dark Lord, or was he just being polite to a man in fancy armor?

“Are you a slave?”

The man blinked in confusion. “No, my lord, I work for Gotwin, an overseer.”

“Where is he?”

He gestured back down the track. “Half a mile to the camp. He’s a big man, carries a whip.”

That sounded about right. Berith and I rode the rest of the way to the mine, which appeared ahead of us after the next rise. The varghests hooves clacked along the tracks of the railroad as we neared the hillside and a large, dark opening came into view. My mount sniffed the air, growling as it took in the scents of so much unwashed humanity. The entrance was braced by weathered timber supports, revealing the entrance of a wide tunnel, its depths disappearing into the cool blackness of the earth. The smell of coal dust, damp, earthy, and slightly metallic, filled the air.

The tracks split again, one fork leading into the tunnel, and the other termination alongside a long stone station. I saw more hand cars and wooden carts heaped with coal. Men, their faces and clothes smeared with layers of black dust, pushed these carts, their muscles straining with the effort. No one was on break. Everyone was either porting sacks of coal or heading back into the mines. The hillside was dotted with ventilation shafts, hinting at the size of the earthworks below.

Next to the mine, there was a cleared area where larger mounds of coal were amassed. Workers sifted through these piles, removing clods of dirt and stone, and broke up the larger pieces with pickaxes. A few of the workers spotted us as we approached, but they quickly ducked their heads, as if afraid of drawing our attention. I noticed a few men spaced around each work area, watching the others. They wore leather jerkins and carried swords on their hips.

“That one has a whip,” Berith said, pointing out a man standing by the station, and we rode to meet him.

Gotwin was a brute almost as large as Berith. Bald and shirtless, his hanging belly was covered by a tribal tattoo reminiscent of the sign of Dargoth. He had a whip coiled in his belt and a large knife in a sheath beside it. He bowed as deeply as the workers had.

“Duke,” he said. “You honor this humble work site with your presence.”

“You stand in the presence of your Dark Lord,” Berith said.

The man fell to his knees.

“Praise the shadows,” Gotwin said, groveling. “I didn’t realize. How can I be of service to you, lord?”

“I’ve come to see the mine,” I said, uncomfortable with the man’s display. I was happy to be obeyed, but this was a little much. “You can get up. These men here, are they slaves or are they paid for their work?”

“Debtors and criminals,” Gotwin said, rising to one knee before coming laboriously back to his feet. “I have some good men with me to keep an eye on them below and take the coal back to the city, but we don’t waste free men in the mines.”

“Do you have any lillits?”

“Had some, my lord. But they were all bought out. Not much good with a pick. Too weak. Good riddance.”

“Who bought them?”

He scratched his head. “Agents of the Counts,” he said. “I’d have to check the logs to get you names.”

“Bring me all the records of the sales.”

He shifted his feet. “For how long, my lord? The last year?”

“All of them. All the records you have.”

He bowed again and entered the station. I didn’t imagine the overseer of a prison camp would have a lot of good qualities, but he certainly respected authority, and he didn’t question the order.

“What are you going to do?” Berith asked.

“We’re going to have to go through the records to find all the lillits. I have a feeling some of the nobles of Nargul interpreted my order to free the lillits as not applying to themselves.”

“And the mine?”

“We’re going to shut it down until I get the labor situation figured out.”

Gotwin returned, a heap of ledger balanced between his arms, looking unsure of what he was supposed to be doing with them.

“Put them down,” I said. “I need you to give some orders.”

Breathing heavily, the overseer leaned over to plop the whole pile onto the platform next to him. Then he straightened, putting his hand on his legs for support.

“What orders, your grace?”

“Bring everyone up. This mine is shut down until further notice. Consider it a holiday and feed the workers as much as they want. No more work is to be done here until you have an official order from the council about what we’re going to be doing from now on.”

Gotwin frowned. “I don’t understand, my lord. Are we moving them?”

“You don’t have to understand. Stop the work, let everyone rest. No whipping, no beating, or whatever else you’ve been doing here. It’s done with.”

He was having trouble wrapping his head around the idea. “What if they get rowdy?”

“Figure it out. No one is to be killed. No one is to be abused. Can you manage that?”

He bowed. “As my lord wishes. Whatever you say. I’ll do it.”

We watched the overseer spread the word, and the workers put down their tools to shuffle off to their barracks, casting uncertain glances toward me as they went. It wasn’t a solution, but at least I could minimize their suffering until we had something more substantial put together. If I declared everyone was free that instant, half of them would probably be arrested again by morning, or who knew what else.

Did they have homes to go to? Some of them had to have done things to get here. Society had to do something with their criminals, and as many problems as I’d had with the justice system I was more familiar with, I knew that just letting everybody go to do whatever they wanted would not end well. This was going to take a lot of sorting out, and I needed to make sure that the city guards and the council were all on the same page about how people were going to be treated. An official proclamation that would keep whoever I set free from being sent right back here.

We visited the other mine, which went about the same as the first. I wasn’t in the mood to punish the men who were in charge of the operations. Even if they deserved it, that wouldn’t help anyone, and then I’d just have to promote someone else in their place, and there wasn’t a ready list of candidates handy. It might have been satisfying to put some prisoners in charge, but that would almost definitely lead to chaos. I was an interloper in a society that had a very different standard of right and wrong than I did, and if I stopped to personally enact retribution for every injustice, it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. The laws couldn’t just be abolished, they had to be replaced with something better.

It was getting late, so I sent someone back with a message for Esmelda, explaining where I was and what I was doing. The tenements where the lillits were staying weren’t spawn-proof, so spending the night in the city was not an option. I let her know I would see her in the morning, and that I wanted her and Boffin to accompany me to the council meeting when it occurred. The messenger had to take a horse to carry all the ledgers with contract information from the mines. Boffin and the others could use those to get a list of the lillits who were still trapped in the households of nobles in the city, and we would bring that into the meeting with us. We might as

well try to take care of everything at once.

The lillits, the laws, the upheaval this was going to cause in the economy of Nargul. We had too much to do to spend months here working out the logistics, but at least I could leave a directive in place behind me to put things in order.

Berith and I rode the varghests further to a desolate area within sight of the city. I didn’t bother making much of a shelter, just a stone box and a mat for me to sleep on.

“What’s the point of this?” Berith asked. “You care for the lillits. Protect them. You can’t fix humanity. They have lived this way for their entire history. In this world, in all worlds. The strong take the weak and do with them what they will.”

“Can you handle all the spawns tonight?” I said, removing my helm.

“Of course.”

“Great, worry about that.”

He growled at my tone. “The previous Dark Lord had no such qualms.”

“Kevin is a dick. I’m not some hero, but this is a pretty basic standard of human decency to adhere to. Abolishing slavery is a very low bar.”

“Human decency? They have none. Men are beasts eloquent enough to dress their desires in fine words. If there was some standard, as you say, there would be no need for you to force it on them. They would have done this for themselves.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re probably right about that.” I’d had similar thoughts about human beings in the past. The things we did to each other, both as individuals and as societies, were not always decent. We could certainly view social hierarchies as systems of power that whatever group happened to be on top used for the sole purpose of keeping themselves there. It might not have been a complete picture, but it wasn’t an inaccurate description.

“People rationalize everything they do,” I said. “The worst stuff. The best stuff. But a part of being human is being able to pretend that we are better, and if we pretend well enough, then we are.”

“Madness,” Berith said. “Deliberate madness.”

That made me laugh. “Yeah. You could call it that. When I was a kid, I used to get caught up in ideas. For example, I read about how messed up banks were, and how money wasn’t real, and that stuck in my head for a long time. I thought everything that people believed in was stupid, and laws were just a way for whoever was in charge to keep everyone else down. When I started robbing banks, I told myself that I wasn’t stealing anything, because the paper currency I got out of it was just paper, with no value other than the value that was created when it was put into circulation. So I wasn’t stealing money, I was stealing the idea of money, which I had just as much a right to as any bank.”

“What are banks?”

“Moneylenders. Doesn’t matter. Do they not have banks here? Whatever. The point is, that I told myself a story about what I was doing so I could justify doing something wrong. People do it all the time. People believe things that aren’t true, and they can do bad things because of that, or they can do good things. When I got older, I started thinking that I should take a more proactive attitude toward all the ideas running around in my head. I should start telling myself good things, or at least things that would help me get through the day, almost like a litany. A personal religion. It helped me get a handle on my thoughts, and when I had more bad ones, things that would get me into trouble, I could sort of steamroll them with all the other thoughts I had practiced thinking. What I’m getting at is, it’s okay to be delusional, as long as you have the right delusions.”

Berith grunted. “Delusions are weakness. I see things as they are, and it does not frighten me.”

“I’m not talking about being frightened, I’m talking about being better. People are pretty plastic. Not everything about them, but a lot. I don’t think I’m a good person, but if I pretend to be good, I mean really commit to the act, that works out to the same thing. If enough human beings pretend that there are standards we can point to and say, this is right, and this is wrong, then it ends up being the same things as if those standards existed outside of us. We can hold ourselves to that. I’d rather be the person who acted like the universe had rules and inherent values, even if it isn’t true, than be the kind of person who didn’t believe that.”

Berith shook his head. “Madness.”

I lay on the grass mat and stared up at the ceiling I had made for myself. The shelter was smaller than any cell I had ever been confined in, and there was probably a metaphor there if I wanted to go looking for one. Instead, I closed my eyes and prepared to go to sleep.

“Yeah,” I said, “But it’s that good madness.”