the arrival of Lord Zoffroth: the wilderness is absorbed into civilization (written july 17, 2023) — fiction (forest god dream? 💞🌳💖🦌🧙🌲🤯)

a short story from the edges of empire: part one of three (only this part written)

Above: Marseilles 2022

Prologue

The heart of the tree trunk shimmered green in the darkness. The teenager Claudia gazed at the glowing orb, the soul of a fertility nymph, the only light in a forest clearing surrounded by blackness. A buzzing chorus of insects, frogs, and mammals emanated soothingly from within the shadowy shapes of trees. Reclining in the grass and dirt, she and her lover dreamed about escaping their isolated village and discovering the world beyond the dense forests, white-water rivers, and staggering mountains that kept them in this wretched place where her beloved father had the right to boil her alive if he were to catch them together.

The green orb suddenly brightened.

Claudia sat up. “Why won’t she show herself?”

“Who?” Sarnwald replied. “The nymph? I told you. She only shows herself to me.”

Claudia frowned at that. They’d visited this divine abode many times, but Claudia had never seen the nymph who watched over them while they touched each other. She knew that nymphs here were more likely to show themselves to young men, especially beautiful twenty-five year olds like her Sarnwald. She was proud to imagine the thousand-year-old nymph might be jealous of her. Refusing to allow the lesser goddess to intimidate her, she stared proudly into the light.

Sarnwald pulled her toward him. Her heart burst with love as she kissed him and peeled off his filthy tunic in a forest under the cover of utter darkness. He had been beyond this tiny place; he had seen cities where twenty thousand people lived. His own stories, his very being, formed the only basis for her confidence that there was so much more to the world than their villages.

The moment their tongues touched, the star-like green orb brightened, and the nymph soul continued to shine upon them as they rolled around for three hours of naked contact. They struggled to stop themselves from penetration; they could last half a day just kissing. She felt so happy intertwined with him, safe and far away from the rules their elders concocted.

After a while they just lay silently together, feeling each other breathe. The dark outlines of animals foraged around them. Insects swarmed around the green light only to die from its heat. Something half a man’s size scampered along the very edge of the light.

“It’s not good, what we do,” Sarnwald sighed. This sometimes started after he finished. “The nymphs put the elders in charge. We shouldn’t be breaking their rules like this.”

Normally the sky was overcast. Tonight, trillions of stars sparkled across a vast sheet of milky mist. “I doubt it,” Claudia said. Couldn’t they just stare at this beauty?

“How can you?”

Panic animated his voice, but Claudia knew he would change his tune the moment his erection came back. She sighed happily as she traced shapes in the night sky and felt the moist moss against her back. Whenever she was so near the Earth she felt the planet’s energy flowing through her limbs. Her body was like a channel between the heavens and the dirt, her soul a blending of the two, her limbs throbbing with ecstasy as the light and darkness surged through her.

“So I should listen to some old man just because he claims a nymph put him in charge?”

“Claudia. How can you say such a thing? Or even dare to think it?”

She kept looking up at the sky. “We are right in front of a nymph breaking the old guys’ rules,” she said. “How can you not say such a thing? You think that nymph put those ugly old people in charge? The nymph who watches us make out every night and does nothing about it?”

Sarnwald sighed. “The Lord of Light is coming. You still don’t get it.”

Claudia suppressed an annoyed sigh. It pained her to see him feeling such needless guilt, and his guilt about breaking the rules created by a demented council of half-dead old men took her away from what had bonded them together in the first place: a shared fantasy to one day explore the world beyond this isolated place, to escape, to live the unstable life Sarnwald once had.

They lay there in silence. The galaxy overhead was so beautiful tonight. More strange creatures strolled along the edges of the clearing’s light like dancers. In the glow of the soft green nymph soul, the constant hum from insects and amphibians reminded her of what Sarnwald called “nightlife” in the cities she’d never seen: musical performances by candlelight, dancing beneath the stars in the middle of a carnival, drinking wine at a palace party in the moonlight. He’d played instruments beside princes and generals; he’d been naked in silk beds with courtesans and soldiers. Here they lived in filth and squalor, their sexual urges and her personal liberty ruthlessly repressed by the old people, and now he wanted to defend their disgusting way of life from an imaginary invader that she was beginning to hope would arrive as soon as possible.

“He’s coming,” Sarnwald told her now. “He seeks to destroy all the nymphs, even all the gods. He has a vast army at his command. They slaughter nymphs.”

“No one can kill a nymph.”

As she said it, she saw the silhouette of another strange creature creep around at the edges of the clearing. The thing looked like a person, only half the height. She laughed at the way her mind could play tricks on her in the dark. The forest sheltered the strangest animals.

“The Lord of Light can kill nymphs,” Sarnwald said, “and he’s coming.”

“Sarnwald,” she pleaded, finally looking away from the stars, “can’t we just be present? Can’t we just feel the energy of this moment? The stars? The Earth? The green glow?”

“Our way of life faces destruction,” he said. “Our nymphs and gods and even our sorcery face annihilation. And we treat our traditions like they’re nothing. We break all the rules.”

“Because we love each other.” She smiled and nudged closer to him. “Sarnwald, tell me about the market. Please.”

He laughed softly. “Okay,” he said.

She closed her eyes. She was immersed in the rustling leaves through which passed the creatures all around them; her heartbeat synched up with the croaking frogs and chirping crickets and distant mating calls. She relished every detail about that market two hundred miles away across the great mountains to the south. In the inns, traders and soldiers gathered to discuss the news from faraway lands. They talked in a dozen different languages about their gods, their philosophies, the cities and countries they had seen. They drank and fornicated freely. Men had no legal authority over women there. Caravans departed constantly in every direction. If she and Sarnwald could only get to that market, they could travel anywhere in the world. The mandates of the elders would be nothing more than distant memories.

She could see him smiling in the green glow when he finished his story.

“We love each other,” she said.

He laughed. “We do.” He was hard again. “Part of me thinks you’re right. Part of me thinks maybe we should just ignore the elders. But what does that make us?”

“People,” she said, “with complicated feelings and views and needless guilt. What do the elders matter if we are going to run away to that market? If you can’t just enjoy the beauty around us, then don’t live in the present. Live in the future. Live for when we get to the market.”

His smile faded and he just stared at her, the green light glowing across his skin.

She sat up quickly. “Don’t tell me we’re not going to the market.”

“Claudia….”

“You’ve promised me for two years that when I turn eighteen, we’re running away to the market.”

He let out an exasperated breath. “War is coming, Claudia. We will have to choose a side. We will need to defend our people. We won’t even be able to get to the market.”

“What?” she demanded. It made sense now. His guilt had been increasing in recent weeks. His fear of the “Lord of Light” seemed to dominate his psyche. “You’re telling me we’re not going to the market because you’re afraid of some monster you heard about on the road a decade ago?”

“I didn’t want to believe it, but there are signs,” he said. “And the signs have been happening.”

She rolled her eyes. His paranoia had already ruined a succession of otherwise perfect nights.

Still reclining and looking up at her, he took a deep breath. “I love you so much, Claudia. Truly. Our relationship is about more than just the market.”

“If we don’t go to the market, we are going to live forever in secrecy.”

He stroked her arm. “Come here,” he said.

She lay back down and curled up into him. He was hard again. Would he finally disregard the elders’ rules and put it inside her like he had done to the women on his journeys? She pressed herself against his crotch and he kissed her. She reached down and stroked him. An outrageous, suicidal scheme came to her sixteen-year-old mind: get him to impregnate me, force him to flee with me. This was the first time he’d ever hinted that they might not go to the market, and in her panic at being trapped here forever, reaching the market superseded all other considerations. She nudged herself closer and started taking off her cloak.

The leaves rustled wildly. She drew away and opened her eyes. At least ten little humanoid creatures were standing at the edge of the clearing. Panic overtook her when she noticed the outlines of spears in their hands.

“Sarnwald,” she whispered.

He looked around calmly. “Don’t worry about them,” he said.

The creatures took a step forward into the very edges of the light. She could just make out the long hair and beards that covered their faces. As she scanned the full perimeter, she realized there were far more than ten of them watching. Then they receded back into the black forest.

“Sarnwald,” she repeated, whispering, “what the fuck was that?”

“A war is coming, Claudia,” Sarnwald told her. “The Lord of Light is coming. We have to unite the forces of darkness. The creatures around us serve the nymphs.”

He helped her to her feet. They walked into the center of the clearing. The green orb erupted into a glow that was strong enough to illuminate all the creatures behind the trees. The beings were like humans but much hairier and with larger heads that reached just three feet above the ground. There were at least four dozen of them standing erect and naked in a circle around Claudia and Sarnwald. The halfmen began to chant in a different language, their whispers like the verses of a ritual, and then two streaks of thick green light crackled from the nymph soul. The light streaks sent sparks through the air as they bolted through each creature’s body. The crackling stopped only once a strip of green light encompassed the clearing’s entire perimeter.

Claudia’s heart thumped with panic. She twisted around in a hopeless search for a way out.

Sarnwald put a hand on her back. “It’s okay,” he said. “They are our friends.”

“What is happening?”

“Claudia,” he said. “Listen, I know this is going to sound insane. But - ”

A huge arrow thrust through a halfman’s chest. Then another through his stomach. The others turned toward their companion as blood burst from his abdomen and he collapsed dead to the ground. Sarnwald cursed and turned each way. A warcry sounded. Several more halfmen collapsed and then the green light went out, immersing them in total darkness.

She felt Sarnwald’s grip on her arm. He pulled her and she followed. She ran straight into a halfman, knocking him down and stomping accidentally on his screaming face. She just kept moving until they were both sprinting in the direction of their village cluster. The screams of the dying creatures and the war cries of their attackers slowly faded into the distance. After ten minutes of running, they stopped to catch their breath at the creek along the edge of the woods. The grassy valley, the home she hated so much, was suddenly before them. A mile away, firelight crackled in the temple on the hilltop near her village. Stars dominated the sky.

“Sarnwald,” she said, “what the fuck was that?!?”

“I… I don’t know,” he said.

“You seemed like you did know!”

He stood in silence for a moment. “They’re here,” he said.

“Who?”

“The Lord of Light has arrived with his armies,” Sarnwald said. “That was the first attack.”

“But who were those little people?” She paused. “And who attacked them?”

Sarnwald looked her in the eyes. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said. “We can’t go back into the forest ever again. They’re here now, the giants. Hurry home. We are taking too many risks.”

“Sarnwald,” she said, grabbing his hand. “What is happening?”

“Let’s never speak of that again, please,” he said. “We must comply with the elders. Do you understand? We cannot forsake the gods, not now. We must stop seeing each other. We are at war now, and only perfect conformity with the nymphs and the elders can save us.”

“Sarnwald,” she said. And she thought to blurt out the truth: I don’t care about the gods, I don’t give two shits about any nymphs, I want to travel the world and find new gods. But then he would hate her. What was wrong with him? How could anyone see the monsters who just gathered around them and not be more motivated than ever to escape this backwater and travel the open roads of civilization about which he’d told her so much?

“Sarnwald… We are still naked.”

He glanced down at their bodies in panic. “Fuck,” he said. “We forgot our clothes!”

They quickly realized there was no hope of returning dressed to their homes. They would both need to be quick. He ran to the left toward his village; she ran to the right toward hers. She crept quietly back into her family’s small wooden house, slipping into her bed while her parents and siblings snored in the other rooms. She thanked the gods that her father was an elder. Only because of his position did they have the resources for her to have her own room.

A few days later, several nine-foot-tall giants attacked a group of women near the creek and kidnapped three of them. The humanoid beasts had enormous foreheads, disgusting patches of hair all over their chests, and thick muscles. Their slingshots launched huge stones that killed a woman’s husband as he rushed to her defense. The woods became impossibly dangerous. Claudia feared she would never again sit with Sarnwald in the nymph’s green glow. Their trysts shifted for a few nights to the depths of a sacred grove near the temple. But once nightly patrols began protecting the village cluster from the giants, they found it impossible to meet even there.

The seven villages clustered in the area tried for the first time to maintain a standing regional militia that could repel the intensifying attacks. But farming and animal husbandry demanded constant labor. So while the men tilled, sheared, planted, and harvested, the savages swept in out of nowhere, grabbed a few girls, and left by the time the men had mobilized. Once, they took Claudia’s seven-year-old sister. Only when the Empire arrived did the attacks finally stop.

Conquest

Claudia was only vaguely aware of the Empire until a force of three hundred soldiers donning heavy armor, steel swords, and dazzlingly bright yellow robes arrived from the southern mountains two years after the giants began attacking from the northern forests and boglands.

The village militia, busy harvesting, could muster nothing better than fur armor, spears, and slings. Her older brother was shaking as he slipped into a bearskin and prepared to die defending the homeland Claudia hated so much. Standing with one of the village’s only four swords in the communal area outside their hut, her father greeted Lord Zoffroth and his officers. Her dad was the only man who didn’t look like he was about to piss himself.

Lord Zoffroth said that the Empire had come to bring prosperity, security, and civilization. As a gift, his officers presented her father with a huge collection of advanced iron farming tools. Also there, dressed in a shiny silk cloak and clutching the first book Claudia ever saw, was an agricultural expert from the Capital. She said he would help local farmers learn new techniques.

A few men raised skeptical eyebrows at the agricultural expert. She seemed offended and whispered something into Lord Zoffroth’s ear.

Zoffroth frowned. “Women are equal from now on,” he proclaimed. “Those who criticize women’s equality will be killed. We proclaim that women have all the same liberties, rights, and privileges as men before the law. Is there anyone here who feels that women are somehow inferior to men, or that women should be subordinate to men in any way whatsoever?”

One of the village elders, the oldest of them all, raised his hand. “Our nymphs,” he struggled to say (Claudia had never heard him speak), “long ago dictated that… that….”

Lord Zoffroth was walking toward him, sword drawn.

“The gods… our gods… proclaimed… they….”

Lord Zoffroth thrust his sword straight through the elder’s chest. He leaned in and looked the dying man in the eye. “Your savagery comes to an end today,” he said. “Civilization, reason, and progress reign supreme.” He visibly relished the horror in the old man’s face. Then he pulled his sword out and the elder collapsed to the ground where his young wife and small children, screaming and sobbing, rushed to his body. Lord Zoffroth walked away and ignored them.

“In exchange for our agricultural expertise,” Lord Zoffroth continued loudly, so as to be heard over the wailing woman and her shaking children, “the region will pay twenty percent of each year’s harvest, unless our officials deem the harvest to be inadequate. More details to come. Those who accept our blessings have nothing to fear. Welcome! Welcome to civilization!”

Aside from the sobs of the little boy asking his dad to please wake up, utter silence greeted this announcement.

Claudia glanced at her father. His face betrayed no reaction to his fellow elder’s murder. Claudia looked around for Sarnwald but couldn’t find him. But… equality for women! She smiled as she took one last glance at the dead elder who had stood in the way of her relationship for so long. She had always hated that one. Now she and Sarnwald would be able to meet in broad daylight.

Sarnwald’s village refused to submit to the Empire’s rule.

Claudia asked her father why, although she knew the rebellion must relate to the dead elder. Her father shushed her. She couldn’t tell him about the man she loved there. She wasn’t sure yet just how much liberty she was really going to have. So she would try to sneak out and ask Sarnwald how he could be such a fool at the very moment the Empire was giving them this freedom to be together. Maybe he would be in the sacred grove where they often kissed. Maybe she could finally lose her virginity to the man who had inspired her life so much. But the grove was empty, and she couldn’t make it past the soldiers quarantining his village.

Lord Zoffroth forced every man, woman, and child from the other villages to stand all day long on the hilltop overlooking the rebels. One hundred heavily armed imperial soldiers descended upon the population of fifty. A woman next to Claudia refused to watch. A straight-faced Lord Zoffroth grabbed her by the hair and thrust his sword directly through her stomach, twisting it while she screamed. Guts spilled out of her collapsing body. Claudia was shocked and petrified; she struggled to hold it together as she noticed that the woman was still alive and gurgling blood.

Lord Zoffroth calmly pointed toward the village with his sword. “Watch,” he said. “Everyone must watch what happens to those who refuse to submit to the Light.”

Claudia was grateful she failed to find her lover among the village’s feeble defenders. She had to believe he was alive somewhere. Lord Zoffroth kept glancing at her whenever she failed to contain her tears as she thought about Sarnwald’s dead body among the rebels. Terrified, she tried to keep a straight face. The soldiers quickly slaughtered all the men who fought pointlessly for no more than five minutes. The next morning, Claudia watched the imperial soldiers force the women and children into wagons heading south through the mountains for seaside slave markets.

Ever since that day, Claudia had lived in luxury. The soldiers bowed when she walked before them wearing the dark green gemstones, sparkling diamonds, and gold jewelry her father had given her and which she dared not remove. A couple hundred workers had arrived and were using enormous stones and mortar to construct a small palace where she would live. Every night, she sobbed herself to sleep and thought about the slaughtered rebels, the woman’s guts spilling out onto the ground, and the future she was never going to have with Sarnwald.

Lord Zoffroth proclaimed her father the king. Before the Empire, a council of elders had always met a few times a year to adjudicate disputes between the semi-autonomous villages, but Claudia hadn’t seen any of them in months. Now, other villages obeyed only her father’s commands, which seemed to come from Lord Zoffroth.

Under no circumstances could she allow her father to find out about Sarnwald, a man he had repeatedly banned her from seeing. Only once did she allow herself to cry in his presence. They were walking on a path through the forest that had once been teeming with the giants whom the imperial soldiers had ruthlessly exterminated. Birds chirped and sunlight caused the green leaves above them to glow bright green. She relished the moss growing on the trees around the creeks; she missed being out here at night, naked and under the stars with Sarnwald for so many hours, feeling the energy of the stars, forest, and darkness surging through her body, empowering her.

Through the trees she saw soldiers relaxing at the banks of the river. Murderers, rapists, thieves. She could still see the old woman gurgling blood in the grass at her feet. She could still hear all those people screaming as the soldiers killed every man in that village. They had killed her one true love, and now she was strolling around wearing their jewelry. Tears came to her eyes.

“Claudia,” her father said, “you know you cannot show these emotions in public. And it would be best if you never showed them in our home either. We must be grateful to the Emperor.”

“They killed so many,” Claudia said. “For what?”

“For rebellion!”

“Rebellion!” She was so ashamed of him.

“There’s more to it than that, Claudia. But it’s not something I am going to discuss with you. We need to be grateful to the Empire.”

“Grateful! Why is the Empire even here to begin with?” She surprised herself with the question. She had only the Empire to thank for all her newfound wealth and liberty, and it made her sick.

“The Empire is here to bring peace, prosperity, and civilization to our people. The Empire is here to chase away the darkness and bring forth the light. And if all those precious stones around your neck and arms aren’t enough to make you grateful, then you’ll appreciate the Empire more when you see the coming harvest and are living comfortably in the palace they are building us.”

He glanced toward the riverside where the women had once collected water. Military engineers were constructing a system of canals to bring water directly into the villages and to expand the reach of cultivable land. The whole area now hosted numerous fortifications: a growing wall, look-out towers, and tents where at least a hundred soldiers slept. More soldiers arrived every week. Enormous wagons filled with more grain than Claudia had ever seen kept them fed.

“And if that’s not enough,” her father continued, “then think about your dead sister and the countless other women the giants have kidnapped and cut into pieces. Think about the new freedoms and rights that the Empire is guaranteeing for young women like you.”

“Those soldiers,” Claudia countered, “have raped, kidnapped, and killed more of our people than any of the giants ever did.”

Her father frowned. “You’re very young, Claudia,” he said. “There are things you don’t understand about the world. We are so much safer now. You must trust me.”

“And what do you understand about the world, father? You’ve never left the village!”

Her father started. “Claudia. You have to trust me.”

“You don’t even know if Lucia is dead. She was taken alive. She was seven! She is eight!”

Deep sadness swept over her father’s face. “Claudia,” he said patiently, “you know what the giants do with their victims. We are safe from them now. You are safe from them now.”

Claudia felt as if her ribs might crack from the confusion and horror growing in her chest. It was all so much, so overwhelming, so confusing. She had already both loved and hated the Empire, but mostly she felt hatred just then and prayed silently to the gods that Sarnwald was safe.

“Just please stop asking questions, sweetheart. We are so much safer now.”

As she fell asleep that night, Claudia was determined that this would not be her life. She was not going to live in the Empire’s palace with her fake king of a father. She was going to take advantage of what the Empire was really offering her: the opportunity to see the world. And even if she never found Sarnwald, she would always imagine him by her side on her adventures.

The Market

Before the imperials arrived, very few traders ever visited the area. The forests, boglands, and hills around the cluster of villages were deadly for merchants. Roads, meanwhile, were nonexistent, and the trails between village clusters were impossible for wagons. Besides, the villagers were far too poor to afford much of anything. They had no precious metals, no money, only the crops which they grew in their struggle to avoid the waves of starvation which devastated families every few years. They knew vaguely about a world beyond; occasionally they made contact with another village cluster tucked away in the foothills or high up in the mountains.

Lord Zoffroth changed all this. Army engineers built a road that connected her village to a network of yet more roads which integrated whole cities and provinces sprawled across a continent that was over three thousand miles wide. Meanwhile, Zoffroth paid both his men and local leaders in gold and silver coins, the likes of which Claudia and the other villagers had never seen, and this enormous money supply attracted traders eager to sell their goods. Imperial soldiers constructed a network of fortifications that guaranteed security for the merchants who suddenly began pouring into the region, and for the first time it was safe to travel between the neighboring village clusters. “Trade,” Zoffroth proclaimed, “is the engine of all human progress. By transitioning to a money economy, we will bring great wealth to this whole region.”

In exchange for a duty levied on each trader’s wares, Zoffroth’s men constructed basic infrastructure for a weekly market in Claudia’s village near the recently laid foundations of the planned palace and temple complex. Claudia visited the market every week with her family. They had never seen anything like the variety of goods. Her father’s gold enabled them to purchase chairs, bed frames, ceramics, jewelry, spices, exotic foods, and intriguing kitchen utensils which Zoffroth said were assembled in enormous factories. “The Empire,” Zoffroth announced when he opened the market, “is humanity’s only hope for prosperity, peace, and civilization. For the first time in history, the most remote worlds are linked in commerce and culture. We are overjoyed to welcome this dark corner of the Earth into our gracious embrace.”

Zoffroth took an obvious interest in sixteen-year-old Claudia. Though she felt guilty, she couldn’t resist the luxuries of their new situation: hot baths, makeup, dresses, hair ornaments. She was cleaner and more put together than the dirty girl she had been when she would recline in the muddy grass with her lover. Every time the gray-haired Zoffroth swept his gaze over her body, she wanted to slip into his bed, cut his throat while he slept, and escape her execution with some merchant at the market in exchange for a few pieces of her shimmering jewelry.

Each week at the market she wandered around on her own for a while. Imperial law encouraged giving women independence, and Zoffroth frowned upon chaperoning women too closely. “In our gracious wisdom we have found that female liberty aids the Lord prosperity.” If her lover’s village hadn’t rebelled, their secret trysts would now be easier than ever. Instead, Zoffroth’s men, who had no right at all to even be here in their lives, had brutally murdered him.

Every night, she heard phantom screams from the women and children at the banquet.

And yet the Empire had also brought the buzzing commerce of a broader world, full of places and things and people she had never imagined, and her intoxication with the market which Zoffroth called “our gracious Emperor’s greatest gift to this once dark land” unsettled her. How could she not feel a rush walking through the intercultural food hall where several of the soldiers’ families, who came from all over the Continent, maintained restaurants serving up food she had never seen before? The long tables were filled with robed men who called themselves “scholars” alongside numerous other characters who had arrived shortly after the army did: prostitutes, wives and children, various imperial officials, musicians, magicians, and bards, all of them drawn to the concentration of gold and silver which her once impoverished village had suddenly become. Each week, wagons arrived by the dozens to restock the kitchens. Where did they even come from? How far had they journeyed and how was it possible that the food didn’t go bad?

Claudia was most curious about the bookstalls. Written language was a new concept to her. All the soldiers were able to read, and she often watched them flip through the mysterious hardbound volumes. Seeing as the area was always teeming with soldiers, she usually avoided snooping around. She was too disgusted by the soldiers who had murdered her lover and raped her friends before selling them into slavery, but the men she saw at the bookstalls this week were newly arrived and had nothing to do with the initial occupation. Even better, there were female readers wearing the crimson robes permitted only to so-called “scholars.” She hated them all the same for serving the Empire. Yet the Empire was an entity that instilled her imagination with wild new concepts about what might be possible in life, and this week she walked right into the thick of soldiers as they turned the pages of books that were the size of a man’s chest.

They made way for her and she stepped up to a book resting face-up on a small podium. The book was gigantic; if she had picked it up, it would have covered her from waist to neck. She ran her hands on the solid leather cover that was carved with the terrifying shapes of sharp-fanged humans with wings and horns. She examined these beings and realized she knew what they were. She lifted the front cover, let it fall to the side, and froze in terror at the image on the first page.

“What’s your name?”

She jumped, caught her breath, and whirled around. “What?”

A young woman with long red hair and a crimson cloak was smiling at her. “My name is Sylvia. What’s yours?”

She hesitated. “Claudia.”

“So you’re the local princess Zoffroth likes so much,” the woman said with a smirk.

The image of him disgusted her. But she didn’t know what to say. Zoffroth had already had a few boys crucified for mocking him. “I… I… I don’t know what you mean,” she lied.

The young redhead laughed and walked up to her. “So, you know this creature?”

They both turned back to the image. “Yes,” said Claudia. “The elders say… said… that they live in the bogs. The halfmen kidnap girls to sacrifice to them.”

“That’s what Zoffroth hopes,” Sylvia said. “But some say they are only legends and that the halfmen are just a lesser form of humans and not demonic in any way.”

Claudia shrugged. She wanted the demon to be a myth so that her sister might be alive. But the drawing, printed in a book that presumably came from some university very far away, made her believe that the demon must be real. She examined the sketch. A group of halfmen were chopping a woman up into pieces while she was alive. The beast towered above them all.

“You seem upset,” observed Sylvia.

“That’s because I am,” said Claudia. Rage swept through her as if from nowhere. “Who are you to even be here? In my home? You’re an invader!”

Sylvia looked around in panic. “Shhh,” she whispered. “Don’t be a fool.”

Claudia just wanted to be away from that book. She pushed Sylvia to the side and stormed off. Then her father saw her and gave a wave. The family was heading home for evening prayers.

“Claudia!” Sylvia called behind her. “Meet me here next week!”

Claudia ignored her and rushed to her father. Being here, the scene of invasion and massacre and addictive opulence, was too much. Leaving was an option she’d only known to be possible since the Empire arrived, but next week she would find a way to escape this place.

Theoderic-Zoffroth Meeting

Lord Zoffroth was at his desk writing a new chapter in his memoir when a guard announced the arrival of the new client king. “Send him in.”

Theoderic stepped timidly into the tent. “My lord,” he said with a deep bow.

Zoffoth felt an impulse to stand and embrace the man. Instead, he smiled and gestured for Theoderic to sit down across from him. “Please, King Theoderic,” he said.

Theoderic sat down and fidgeted in his seat. Zoffroth felt an intense rush of nostalgia at the memory of them as young university students drinking, dosing, and fornicating through the Capital. Was there anything left of that man in the shell before him?

“You won’t even look me in the eye!” Zoffoth said. “The last time we really spoke, we were at the end-of-year orgy at university, no? Didn’t we share one of the girls? What was her name….”

“My lord,” Theoderic whispered and looked over his shoulder.

“You think your daughter is going to walk in here?” asked Zoffroth with a chuckle.

“My daughter….”

“Has no idea who you are,” said Zoffroth. “She probably has no idea you’re the one who gave us the tip-off to kill all her demon-worshiping friends.”

“I’d… I’d like to keep it that way, my lord.”

Zoffroth enjoyed the man’s nervousness in the face of his divine authority. He hated that sense of pleasure. He had never thought he would revel in wielding the power of life or death over people who had once been his closest friends, but now he couldn’t live without the sensation. He urged himself to give his old companion another warm smile, and he felt pain when it didn’t come naturally. Never again would he feel the happy companionship of his youth. “What can I do for you, old friend? More gold for your family?” Suppressing a wince, he felt simultaneously embarrassed and self-important for asking the question. “Or is this about her?”

“My lord, I am… I am… yes, of course, I am eager to please the Empress,” Theoderic said.

Zoffroth slammed the table and laughed with a roar. “Eager to please indeed!”

“I… I wondered when she might visit the region.”

“She’ll think you are very ugly now, old friend,” Zoffroth said. “She still looks like she’s 22.”

“I am aware, lord.”

“When was the last time you put your dick in a fresh 22 year old?”

Theoderic frowned. “Lord,” he said.

“I did yesterday,” Zoffroth snickered. That young man had been so beautiful. Then he remembered a band of demon-slaves had kidnapped Theoderic’s 22-year-old daughter.

“I am happy for you, lord.”

Theoderic’s flat reaction, so divergent from how they used to speak, caused Zoffroth to cringe at his own schoolboy antics. Every time he tried to revive some semblance of the happiness he once felt with his beloved boyhood companions, he realized that those people did not exist anymore. The relations were only memories. He was Lord Zoffroth now, Divine Commander of the North, a man who had the power of life and death, and who had used it… but he could not think of that now. He shuddered when he realized that Theoderic didn’t even know the half of it.

He beat down the feelings with another crude remark. “Are you so confident in her love for you that you believe she won’t care when she stares into your ugly-ass face?”

Theoderic frowned. “My lord,” he said. “I… I… May I be frank, my lord?”

“Please,” Zoffroth said. They would speak of love and sex like in the glory days of boyhood.

“If I am to rule here as your client king, my lord, then I will need to bring substantial patronage deep into the foothills,” Theoderic said. “This region is ripe for insurgency. The villages are scattered across hundreds of miles of foothills and their men know the mountains, woods, and hills like yours never could. The presence of the Empress will concentrate further economic demand in the region, attracting even more trade, gold, technology, and economic activity for local development. The people will reap the benefits of a globally interconnected civilization and revolt will be minimized.” His tone was more confident now, reminding Zoffroth of their classroom discussions at the university. The general felt relief at the continued existence of that old connection. If love and sex were off the table, economic theory would have to do.

“Wow,” Zoffoth said. “How long have you been out here?”

“37 years, my lord.”

“And you still remember the old economic theories like you just graduated university,” said Zoffroth. “You talk just like it was yesterday and we were still in class together. I was worried about you, honestly. I thought we would get here and you’d have gone native. But you are as devoted to the advance of angelic civilization as anyone ever was.”

“Of course I am, my lord.”

“Yet your daughters, your friends here, none of them have any idea.”

“They do not, my lord.”

Zoffroth imagined being alone for decades in a shithole like this where no one, not even his own daughter, had any clue who he had been or who he still was. Somehow across all that time, Theoderic had stayed true to the values which had defined and animated him in the youngest days of his adulthood. Somehow he had stayed true to the person he started as. Zoffroth hadn’t been able to do that. The person he had been appeared only awkwardly. Who would I be, Zoffroth wondered, had I been sent into these foothills? A happy but blurry vision of some other desirable life intruded into his thoughts. He suppressed the treasonous fantasy. He wasn’t a student anymore discussing economic theory with Theoderic at a coffee house. He was Lord Zoffroth, servant of the Emperor and the Empress, Divine Commander of the North, devoted to the Light, destroyer of the Dark, destined for historical greatness, designed for immortality.

“The Empress will visit once the Temple and Palace are completed,” Zoffroth said. “Once there is something here that at least looks like the beginnings of a city. And once the area is more secure. We are still building fortifications throughout the woods and hilltops.”

“Security comes with economic development, my lord.”

The obviousness of this statement made Zoffroth feel belittled. “Yes, and we are economically developing the region,” Zoffroth countered. “We have built roads. We have guaranteed security for numerous markets. Gold and trade flow into the area. The salaries of the soldiers alone create enormous economic demand. You yourself have seen the good in the markets! This place is richer than it’s ever been.” He paused. “The Empress will come later. If you think she is truly that essential to economic development then you’ve forgotten more than I feared.”

“There is one more thing to consider, my lord: the divine presence of the Empress herself.”

Another obvious point, Zoffroth thought. More troubling memories from university discussions came to mind. He really still believes I’m not as smart as him.

“This is the furthest into demonic territory the Empire has ever ruled,” Theoderic continued. “The people here need to behold her majesty or they will slip back into the darkness.”

“Silence!” Zoffroth glared at his client king. Who was this hillbilly to argue with him, the Divine Commander? And hadn’t he just told him that the Empress would come eventually? He seethed at Theoderic’s arrogance. The man really hadn’t changed. Even now, after over thirty years without opening a book, he thought he knew more about civilizational theory and divine presence than Zoffroth, the undisputed top of their class. “Before any visits,” said Zoffroth, “the rest of the demon-worshippers will be exterminated, and that is the end of our discussion. I know what those sick people would do to the Empress if they got to her. One village isn’t enough. We know there are many others, and you will assist with their extermination. That is your mission right now, you understand? Mass extermination. You will help us to exterminate every last one of the demon worshipers. Mass executions in the daylight with an audience. Because fear is another aspect of our rule, and you would do well to remember that yourself. Remember we still haven’t scheduled your coronation.”

Theoderic opened his mouth to argue but stopped himself. “I understand, lord.”

Good. Theoderic’s fear was back. In a moment of weakness, Zoffroth had mistakenly made him feel comfortable and now he was appropriately afraid again. The shadows of their old classroom debates disappeared. We are not here to talk about sex and love, Zoffroth thought. And I am not here for someone who hasn’t read a book in thirty years to lecture me. We are here to advance the Light, and Theoderic’s role is to follow my commands. My pointless nostalgia for boyhood, not my love for power, is the real problem. I am Lord Zoffroth, Divine Commander of the North!

“One moment,” Zoffroth said.

Theoderic stopped at the tent’s exit. “Yes, my lord?”

“Princess Claudia will dine with me soon. I will send for her.”

Zoffroth could see Theoderic’s muscles working to keep his face straight. The familiar narcotic rushed into the Divine Commander’s head, leaving him dazed and fuzzy. It was not pleasure or even happiness; it was nourishment, something he needed to live. Suddenly satiated, he relaxed. Then the image of Claudia’s beautiful young body sent blood flooding into his groin. He would wait for days to summon her simply so that terror might consume her father. And then he remembered that Theoderic couldn’t leave without one final remark. He needed it like oxygen.

“Yes, my lord,” Theoderic finally said.

The fear in those words had Zoffroth’s skin tingling. His blood narcotic injection of power that divorced him from his frivolous concerns about friendship.

When Theoderic left, Zoffroth tried for several minutes to continue writing his memoirs. But there was something too awful about describing his university days. He was so scared that future historians would not remember him as the Empire’s top commander. It was existentially vital to him that future scholars place immense importance even on his adolescent experiences. Yet he knew that if anything was holding him back, it was these lingering feelings of nostalgia for what life used to be. His happiness about the past filled him with doubts and sorrows about what he had become in the present, divorced his mind and emotions from the tasks which glory required, and threatened him with the oblivion that had met the obscure commanders of imperial history. He was more determined than ever to accomplish his mission and cement his place in the pantheon where he would be worshiped as a lesser deity for a thousand years.

Coronation

Today was Claudia’s father’s coronation as “king” of the foothills. She sat alongside the other notables in the chairs that circled the altar. Behind them stood numerous villagers, traders, and soldiers who had come to watch the event. The temple was large enough to fit three thousand people, a larger crowd than Claudia had ever seen gathered in one place, and the space was at full capacity today for her father’s coronation.

She was the only local woman there who was wearing a silk dress. The softness of silk still dazzled her. Before, in the winter, she had always worn goat wool sheared fresh each season at a village-cluster higher up in the foothills. In the summer, she had worn light leather taken from pigs. But now the Empire’s trade networks brought cheap dyes that made even the common man’s goat wool look ornate. Still, only the extremely rich, which now included her, could afford the silk that traveled four thousand miles to arrive here.

She was ashamed of herself for the happiness these new material possessions and positions brought her. A stronger girl would refuse to wear any of it. How many people like Sarnwald had Lord Zoffroth murdered in his quest to unite the whole world under the banner of a single Empire? Slaves, accumulated through conquest, probably mined the gold that shined on her chest. And yet she and Sarnwald came together over a shared fascination for the unknown world beyond these foothills. Sarnwald would have fantasized about the origin of every strange trinket he encountered at the market. He would have learned how to read. They’d have poured over maps and charted great adventures. The Empire might have been the greatest thing that ever happened to Sarnwald, and yet the Empire had murdered him. She hated the Empire even as she loved it for representing the world about which she and Sarnwald could once only dream.

Lord Zoffroth, dressed in the plain white garbs worn by the priests of his bizarre religion, stood beneath the enormous sun halo cut into the black stone ceiling above him. The sun halo was the perfectly circular border of a huge circular slab of black stone slab that functioned as the center of the ceiling but lacked any clear structural support. The stone slab simply floated in the center of the thick halo which opened to the sky and served as the only entrance for sunlight into the black temple itself. This magical structure cast a circle of light onto the floor. In the middle of that circle stood Zoffroth and her father on either side of a circular altar. They seemed to glow; the further one was from the altar at this time of day, the more immersed in darkness.

Nothing about imperial religion, which obsessed over the “Light” and “Reason” and “Civilization,” made any sense at all to Claudia. Supposedly the blackness of the walls and floor in the perfectly square temple represented the darkness of the world without the Divine Light. Claudia swore to herself that she would never submit to that god. She winced at the realization that her father was doing just that. How could he worship such a monster? How could he agree to be taken into the “Light” after he had seen them exterminate so many people? She was aware that “Selection by Divine Light” formed the official justification for her father’s “reign.” Where did that leave the gods and nymphs they had worshiped together since she was a little girl?

And yet she stood passively in this strange little temple for her father’s coronation as king, enjoying the soft silk against her skin, clutching a gold medallion in her fingers. She was so angry with her father for how easily he had accepted imperial rule, but she knew this only reflected her guilt for the same crime. She wished sometimes her father had taken her and her brothers into the mountains to join the emerging rebel groups, but then she remembered this would remove her from the road networks on which she yearned to travel. She and her father shared the same basic cowardice in the face of the invincible beast that both terrified and seduced them. She wanted not to fight but to explore, not to destroy but to take advantage. But still… to submit to their god? She shivered at how angry their gods must be with her father today.

******

Lord Zoffroth, his white priestly cloak hanging baggily off his arms, raised his hands and hushed the whispers that echoed through the chamber.

“We are but minor emanations from the Divine Light above,” he announced, “and all earthly authority is intertwined into the hierarchy of Light which begins with the sun and journeys downward into the moon, into the planets, into the stars, and into the souls of men and women, beginning with the Emperor and the Empress. But for that Light we would live in darkness like the beasts of the fields, the pigs and goats of these foothills, the halfmen of the woods. It is the Light that brings Reason and Civilization into the blackness of savagery.”

He paused. The whole temple was silent. Claudia gazed up in complete awe at the circle of ceiling that was floating in the center of the light halo. Rage against that miracle surged through her and she dreamed that it might fall from the sky to crush Lord Zoffroth and splatter his blood across the floor. Zoffroth tilted his head and looked up at the dazzling halo.

“The Divine Light has come at last to this dark region to bring Rationality and Civilization to the disorder of the scattered, disconnected, and isolated villages of the foothills,” Lord Zoffroth continued, returning his gaze to his audience and resting his eyes upon Claudia’s chest. He quickly looked away. “For centuries, you were lost in the blackness, cut off from the wider world around you, not even aware of the splendor of Global Civilization. Now we have brought you into the hierarchies of the light; we have integrated you into the networks of reason. We have blessed you with the order and organization of divinely designated authority.”

Lord Zoffroth turned to Claudia’s father and took his hands into his own. Her father dropped down to his knees before his lord, tilting his neck back to look up into the towering white figure.

“Theoderic,” Lord Zoffroth began, still holding her father’s hands, “the Divine Light has chosen you to be a Lesser King with divine authority over this remote corner of Civilization. Your task is to bring centralized government, modern infrastructure, economic prosperity, advanced literacy, rational worship, and logical structure into a place once savage and dark and wild, a place once defined by disorder, disconnection, and underdevelopment. You will raise this region into a new core of Civilization and Empire, enabling all who live here to meet their full potential as emanations of the Light. This is the task for which the Divine Light has chosen you. Are you prepared to accept that responsibility?”

“I am, Lord Zoffroth,” her father said.

Claudia winced. She had hoped at least for some sign of hesitation.

Lord Zoffroth used both his hands to lift a large golden chalice off the altar. “Are you prepared to be cleansed of all attachment to the old gods and to be born again in the Light?

“I am, Lord Zoffroth.”

Claudia lurched forward in her seat. The sound of her shoes against the stone sent Zoffroth’s head turning toward her. A few murmurs echoed through the crowd. “Father,” she whispered quietly, but a hand from the right suddenly pushed her gently into the back of her chair. Her father kept his head tilted up toward Lord Zoffroth the entire time.

“Not now,” Sylvia’s voice echoed in her head. It was not a whisper. It was a sound inside her mind. The shock of it was enough to re-freeze her into her seat. That is when she realized that no one had ever lifted a hand to force her back into her seat.

Zoffroth smiled warmly at her and then turned back to her father. “Then I cleanse you of the dark demonic forces which have enslaved your soul into irrationality and savagery for all these decades, and I welcome you into the truth of the Divine Light. Lift your face to the chalice.”

Her father looked up at the chalice which Zoffroth held above his face. Zoffroth tipped it until a steady stream of bright red blood flowed down into her father’s beard, cheeks, nose, and hair. By the time Zoffroth finished, her father’s face was caked in red. Claudia’s heart thumped in her chest. For the first time she felt truly deep hatred for a member of her family and she felt hatred for herself because she continued to sit there with that soft silk against her skin. At the same time, a desperate need came over her to find Sylvia and demand answers. Each time she remembered clearly seeing a hand appear from nothing, she tensed up to defend herself.

“You will wear the blood of Zaraffonon until the sun sets today,” Zoffroth pronounced. “Rise.”

Her father stood up. He and Zoffroth both lifted their hands toward the light halo and chanted in unison. “Oh Zaraffonon, bless us with Your divine blood. Cleanse us in the name of - ”

“Death to the Lord of Light!” A voice she recognized boomed behind her. “Darkness forever!”

A woman shrieked somewhere in the crowd near the voice. The moment Claudia turned her head back to see what was happening, the people standing behind her rushed forward, knocking her on the ground. Several heavy boots crushed her legs, arms, and chest.

Zoffroth shouted commands. “Protect the princess! Protect the princess!”

Blood poured down onto her face. Longswords trashed through abdomens above her and a heap of guts came spilling out onto her chest. The screaming in the temple grew louder and seemed to come from all directions, but the air above her opened up. She saw the edge of the light halo.

She coughed up blood. Arms grabbed her, almost pulled her, “don’t move her!” She lay still on her back while soldiers established a perimeter around her. To her left she saw a few motionless bodies. Beyond the perimeter people were shoving and screaming; blood sprayed occasionally through the air. She thought about the voice. Her heart burst from love. Could it really be him?

“Block the doors!” Zoffroth shouted. “Take him alive!”

Her father knelt beside her. “Sweetheart!” he cried. “No! No!”

She coughed up more blood and passed out.

Zoffroth at the Sick Bed

Claudia woke up in the silk sheets of a massive canopied bed. The four bed posts showcased carvings of the sun, moon, stars, and planets. Sunlight and fresh air streamed in through the big open windows on either side of the room. The walls were alive with paintings so vivid it was as if Claudia were actually above the clouds where white-robed people with wings and halos sounded trumpets, played harps, and fornicated. The ceiling of her canopy was a celestial orgy in which the winged creatures were naked save for the halos they wore as they penetrated, licked, and caressed one another.

“The Lord of Light,” Zoffroth’s pompous voice boomed from near the bed, “commands that we liberate ourselves from the unreasonable shackles of monogamy and plunge into the pleasures of enlightened promiscuity.”

Claudia shuddered. She squinted at his shape as he came closer and sat in one of the two chairs beside the bed. He leered at her, grinning at the shape of her body. She scrambled her hands around looking for a knife somewhere in the sheets. The memories of the temple flooded back into her mind. Where was her father? Had it really been him? Why was she here alone with Zoffroth? Was this his bedchamber? She squirmed but found it too difficult to sit up.

She looked into Zoffroth’s face. His silver beard was newly trimmed, his long gray hair tied back in a ponytail, his skin improbably smooth for his age. He smelled like the colognes she had sniffed in the market and which her father now wore. “Where am I?” she demanded.

“Your new bedroom,” Zoffroth said. “We have finished construction on the palace.”

Claudia stuttered before she could respond. Just a week ago, this palace had been nothing more than a foundation and a hole in the ground. “That’s impossible.”

“All things are possible with the Lord of Light, Lady,” Zoffroth said. “The walls around you were pre-constructed and transported here with the most recently arriving legions. We are capable of raising whole palaces and temples in the darkest wilderness within mere days. That is the power, Princess, of Civilization. This is a symbol of the prosperity and riches we bring to your people.”

Claudia felt a surge of utter disgust for herself. This man was speaking to her like she was a loyal and grateful servant of the Empire that had slaughtered a whole village and now aimed to destroy the gods which she and Sarnwald and her father had cherished for so long.

“Sarnwald,” she said suddenly. “Is he alive?”

Zoffroth frowned. “You know the terrorist, Lady?”

“He is alive!”

Zoffroth hesitated. “He killed ten innocent people with a knife before we arrested him, Lady.”

“Where is my father?”

“The king is with Sarnwald in the interrogation chamber, Lady. We are brutally torturing the terrorist until he reveals to us the location of the nearest rebel camp.” He smiled. “Though it seems, my lady, that you might be able to help us with that information.”

Claudia said nothing. She remembered the day she saw Zoffroth casually thrust his sword through the stomach of an elderly woman and then twisted the blade until her intestines spilled out all over the grass. Now she was sleeping in the silk sheets he had given her, surrounded by the art and incense and architecture his forces had brought here, all while the soldiers who saved her life were gruesomely torturing the love of her life. She was disgusted by the comfort and satisfaction these sheets had given her the moment she woke up and felt them against her skin. Would Sarnwald even love her anymore if he could see her like this? If he knew what she’d been up to? The Empire justified mass murder by the luxury its system made possible, and here she was enjoying it after days of daydreaming about the travel and adventure which the Empire’s existence made possible. What excuse did she have when she knew there were rebel camps in the foothills? She was too much a coward to run away and find one. An agonizing sense of guilt and a desperation to escape overwhelmed her. She needed to find Sarnwald, beg him to forgive her.

“What can you share with me about Sarnwald, Lady?”

“He was my friend,” she said, almost crying from a mixture of joy that he was alive and agonizing pain that she had stayed loyal while he revolted. And to think she had been so convinced he would have loved the Empire! “I thought he was dead.”

“I hope he’s not your friend anymore given how many people he murdered today, Lady.”

“I’ve watched you murder old women with my own eyes, Lord.”

Zoffroth raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to leave you here to rest, Princess. Enjoy the silk.”

He stood up and left. However hard she tried to escape, she could not move from the bed. Her body was simply too weak; excruciating pain seared through her the moment she attempted to sit up. She realized suddenly that she still might die.