Grobtar ran to the heavy wooden doors. The castle was burning, he could hear the hellish screams of the imps and demons echoing down the stonework hallways behind him. He pulled his tan, muscular leg back, his thigh coiling like a cobra of kinetic energy, and kicked at the doors. The hinges heaved, sighing with certain defeat but holding for a moment. Grobtar once more bashed his foot into the doors and they swung open.
“Fiend!” he cried as he hurried into the chamber, “Show thyself, you snake! You murderer!”
A high-back leather chair swung around. Behind the desk was Olichev, the World-Drinker. The Sorcerer of Sorrows. The Magician of Malady. The great wound that was festering in the world.
Grobtar approached, now more slowly, his tan, muscular legs slowing to a near stop. ” Accepted your fate, have you, sorcerer? Now that my blade has found your throat? Do you wish to ask forgiveness before I take your head?”
Olichev, ever the villain, said “Please, Grobtar the Mighty, sit. Sit right there, in that chair, yes. Let us speak of villains and heroes and all of your…misguided thoughts.” Grobtar had the instinct to charge him, but a different strain of thought entered his mind. He complied, and sat upon the chair in front of the desk. This wizard, damn him, he compelled Grobtar so.
“So…what’s your problem?” Olicheve asked, snidely.
” You’ve taken the lives of tens of thousands of peasants, you’ve ruined the lives of so many-“
“No, no, no…dummy,” Olichev now pointed a finger towards Grobtar’s face. ” No, you think that because what I’ve done is ‘unpopular’ or is ‘evil’ or whatever, that I should pay for it? With my head? Right?” He turned back. Grobtar began to reply, but then Olichev made a motion with his hands like pinching. Then Grobtar’s lips folded shut and he was silent, except for a guttural throat noise. “Yeah, see?” continued Olichev. He stood and approached the vast window behind his desk.
“You have what all small people have. A sense of morality based on some kind of self-sacrifice and community. This is because all of your little, insignificant actions must be part of a greater whole, right? Like, you know you’re never going to be remembered, like I will. Your life has no impact. It won’t affect much more than a few people,” Olichev sneered. “My deeds are carved in the pillars of the earth.”
Grobtar caught a breath, somehow, and replied ” Deeds of evil, hatred.” Olichev, surprised, re-iterated the pinching motion of his mage hand and silenced the barbarian.
Olichev now sat on the high-back leather chair like a cool high school guidance counsellor, where they spin it around and sit facing the wrong way, but this chair was way too tall, so then he just kinda popped his head around to one side and said:
” You’ve got this stupid, poor person idea that just permeates all your thoughts. You have a ‘collective good’ in your thoughts. Dumb. Weak, herd-follower idea. I’m an alpha predator. I eat the weak. I’m about to eat you, but,” he grabbed a bottle of Faerie Wine off his desk and took a swig, ” I’ll tell you why.”
” Back in the day, in 1978 or something, the University of Penn State did an experiment where they had ten monkeys in an enclosure. And they hung a bag of food above the enclosure, with a ladder propped up just underneath it. Naturally, a monkey would climb the ladder and go after the food. But as soon as this happened, the experimenters sprayed the monkey climbing the ladder and ALL the other monkeys with cold water from a hose. They blasted them with negative stimulus. Eventually, another monkey would go for the bag, climbing the ladder, and again, the scientists would hose down the whole troop with cold water. By the time the third monkey tried to go grab that food, the rest of the monkeys would notice and grab the climber. They would tear him off the ladder, violently. Tell him, ‘Hey, fuck you, i’m not getting sprayed again.’ This all makes sense, right?”
Grobtar silently farted.
” So once those ten monkeys were conditioned to this, they swapped out one of them. They took a monkey out and put a new one in. The new one, who hadn’t been hosed, obviously noticed the food and tried to climb the ladder, but the resident monkeys violently grabbed him down and told him ‘fuck no, we don’t go up there.” So the new monkey learned to not do it. They continued this. They put in another new monkey, same thing, he tried to climb and got beat up for even trying. Eventually, they ended up with ten new monkeys. None of the originals who had been sprayed with the cold water, and…now pay attention,”
Grobtar was somewhat awake here,
” They had ten new monkeys. None of them had been sprayed by cold water, but they all had a superstition about climbing that ladder. They violently stopped whoever tried to climb it.”
“This is your religion, your morality, your sense of right and wrong. You inherit it, stupidly. I’m not bound by such trivial, trial-and-error stupidity,”
Olichev smiled, reveling in the corners of his cheeks ” I’m the monkey who got the food. I’m the one who climbed the ladder. I’m the one, who…even though you all tried to stop me…I got it. I stood up on that ladder and feasted on the food while you all got drenched in cold water. You were screaming for me to stop, you knew it would hurt you, and I did, too. But I was above all of you. I was munching on the Nanners.”
Olichev gleamed over Grobtar now, a dagger in his hand, pressed to the throat of the barbarian. ” I’ll eat Nanners forever. Speak last words, ignorant ape,” he unpinched his fingers and allowed Grobtar to talk.
Grobtar spit. Laughed. ” Last words? Alright,” he spit again.
His slivery-blue eyes turned to beatitudes as he said ” You can well be the king of the apes. You are, surely. But what have you gained? Clinging to the top of that ladder, fearful of everything beneath. Unknowing of everything above. It’s going to end. The Nanners may have sated you, felt delicious for a time. But the monkeys below have connection, love, community. They know one another, and they can adorn the climbing of the ladder with all sorts of cautionary tales, symbols, understanding. The food, the Nanners you eat, are just going to turn to shit. The monkeys down below shit, too. What ledger will keep the name of the shitting-monkey at the top of the ladder?”
Olichev narrowed his eyes.
Grobtar continued, ” There was once a great king, in the time before the written word. Statues and paintings were made exalting his glory. He held sway over three million subjects. He was the undisputed master of the world, the exalted god of all people great and small,”
“None know his name.”
The howling battle in the castle seemed to quiet. The fires grew dimmer.
“My wife knows my name, and she is just as close to the ladder as you were, dick. You’re seeking some authorization, some kind of recognition that is beyond what this world can provide, dick. It’s all impermanent. So, why would you seek dominance in such a small little enclosure? Why wouldn’t you throw the Nanners down? Make everybody happy, at least for a little bit? Dick.”
The battle was ended. The castle was a living ruin. Grobtar stood, his tan, muscular legs flexing as he brought his silvery sword through the night air. A bloody quip of noise, and then Olichev’s head fell to the stone floor. His eyes were black tombs, holding everything from Before.
Grobtar walked out of the castle, and the day was breaking.
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