Dirk and Christopher had left the old farmhouse behind them some time ago. They were making their way down the main road of a bustling market town called Magus Falls. On either side of them were stores, restaurants, houses, and so on. It wasn’t a big town, like the sprawling metropolis that was Gam, the City of Men, but it was sizable enough, its primary purpose being to serve the various needs of the White Tower. Most of the restaurants had names like “The Wizard’s Retreat” or “The Beard and the Staff,” or “Inn of the White Eyebrows.” They served beer like “Purewhite Wheat Beer” or “Hasdruban’s Hoppy Harvest Ale.”
Dirk was glaring about him in disgust. “Toadying lickspittles,” he hissed. “Look how they suck up to that meddling fanatic! Bah!”
But Chris was looking around in awed wonder—it was almost as if he’d stepped into one of those computer role-playing games he was so fond of, like Battlecraft or The Dungeons of Death. Except here there were no save games, no reloads, no healing potions or spells, and death was real and permanent. Also, he was like a first-level player, with no powers or special abilities whatsoever and with maybe five hit points, possibly less! Chris gulped nervously.
Fortunately, nobody took much notice of them—they were just two more kids walking down the street, going about their own business.
“Ha, if only they knew who I really was! That they had the Dark Lord himself in their very midst, then they’d tremble in their boots, the fawning knee benders!” muttered Dirk.
After a short while, they left the town on a wide paved road that led up into some low hills. On top of one of the hills rose the White Tower, gleaming so brightly in the sunlight it actually hurt their eyes. Around its base various buildings were scattered—barracks, courthouses, a drill square, and other administrative or military structures. As they drew nearer, they could see that the Tower was thin and tall, and almost featureless. The walls were of smooth polished white stone and there appeared to be no windows at all. On top of the Tower was a multifaceted polygonal structure made entirely of glass, held together with white-painted steel girders. A great sky telescope poked out of the top, pointing upward to the heavens.
A regular stream of traffic was traveling to and from the Tower. Supply wagons, soldiers, messengers, tourists, merchants, petitioners, litigants, monks, priests, sorcerers, and so on. One group of what looked like pilgrims or monks were whipping themselves with ropes, and wailing “We are not worthy! We are not worthy!” and “All praise the White Wizard! We suffer for him as he suffers for us” and stuff like that.
“Bah! Fools!” said Dirk. “If they want to be whipped, they should come and see me. I’d put ’em to work in the Slave Pits, where they’d get whipped for free!”
Christopher frowned. “You have slave pits?” he said. “With actual slaves? And you whip them?”
Dirk glanced over at him. “Goblins and Orcs need to be whipped,” he said automatically, but then he thought better of it and said, “Umm … Used to, I mean! We used to have slaves. In the old days—umm, you know, like you used to on earth. Before health and safety and workers’ rights. It’s all modernized now, of course.” Dirk rubbed his jaw, thinking to himself. He’d have to hide the Slave Pits of Never-Ending Toil from Chris, obviously, should they ever return to the Iron Tower. In fact, he’d have to hide a lot of things.
“So, no more slaves, then?” said Chris.
“No, no, no more slaves!” said Dirk breezily. “Ah, look, we’re nearly there,” he said, changing the subject.
As they approached the White Tower, they saw that the entrance was flanked by two vast jackal-headed statues.
“What are they?” said Chris in awed tones.
“The Watchers at the Gate, ever-vigilant guardians of the Portal of the White Tower.”
“What do you mean ‘ever vigilant’? Are they like alive or something?” said Chris.
“Well, sort of. Enchanted certainly,” said Dirk. “They are ever alert, ever on guard against evil.”
“Won’t they know who you are though, Dirk? I mean, it was probably built because of you, right?”
“Well, the Watchers at the Gate can sense evil, it’s true, but you have no evil in you to speak of, Chris, and my Essence of Evil was taken by the White Beast. So, to the Watchers, we will be two ordinary human children, nothing special at all. Hopefully.”
“Wait a minute, you can walk through the Watchers at the Gate but you can’t wear the Voyager Boots? What’s all that about?”
“Ah well, the Watchers can’t be as sensitive as the Boots, can they? I mean, if they were, half of these people couldn’t enter the Tower, could they?” said Dirk, waving a hand at the long line waiting to get in. “And certainly not those little fascists, the Holy Incriminators! They say they’re holy, but let me tell you, what they do is evil, really evil! You see, Chris, most people just aren’t as nice as you are, it’s as simple as that. Give it time, though, give it time. I’m working on it!”
“What, you mean like trying to make everyone as nice as me?” said Chris.
“What? No, don’t be ridiculous, the other way around, of course!” said Dirk.
Chris smiled weakly at him. Dirk went on. “And also, from the Watchers’ point of view, we’re just kids. After all, what could two boys do to the White Wizard in his White Tower, huh?”
“Well, he’s about to find out, isn’t he?” muttered Christopher under his breath.
“Yes, indeed he is, my stalwart friend, indeed he is!” said Dirk, impressed with Chris’s spirit.
Christopher spotted a group of schoolchildren, much the same as schoolchildren back home (i.e., noisy, troublesome, and vaguely Goblinish), dressed in tunics, little round caps, and woolen pants of blue and white. They were carrying parchments and quills instead of pens and notebooks. The similarities with modern earth schoolkids were striking, though none of them had any dyed hair, earrings, nose rings, cell phones, iPads, laptops, big chunky Goth boots, bags with band names on them or designer labels, or handheld gaming devices. They were led by a big fat stodgy old teacher, with a silly hat and a thin white cane, which he used to hit the kids with when they were naughty. Another big difference, Christopher thought!
Dirk and Chris waited for them to come by and then sort of attached themselves to the rear of the group. No one really noticed, so they followed the school party into the Tower. As they passed beneath the statues of the Watchers, Dirk’s skin began to crawl. He half expected that the alarm would be given and swarms of paladins, Holy Incriminators, and Tower guards would appear to take him away to the Chambers of Correction underneath the Tower. But nothing happened.
Lining the entranceway stood guards wearing shiny steel armor with great white shields held in front of them. Dirk eyed them suspiciously. Paladins of the Order of the White Shields. They stood there, legs apart, hands on the tops of their shields, unmoving, except for their heads, which turned back and forth constantly as they scanned the crowds for signs of wrongdoing, heresy, or evil.
Dirk froze for a moment as one of them glanced at him, but the paladin’s attention moved on, dismissing Dirk as just another sightseeing kid, come to gape at the Tower of the great White Wizard, the wise and benevolent ruler of the Commonwealth of Good Folk. Or so they believed. The abandoned farmhouse with its poor owners carried away for some fabricated crime disproved that, Dirk thought to himself.
They stepped into the main entrance hall of the Tower. It was wide and round and spacious. The walls were like smooth alabaster with great white oak doors spaced evenly around them, leading to various rooms and chambers. The floor was of white marble, veined with blue. High up near the ceiling, a ball of flaming gas hung in the air, filling the place with bright white light. It was basically a little artificial sun. Dirk raised an eyebrow at that. Impressive, he thought to himself.
Most of the entrance chamber was taken up with several large desks, behind which sat clerks, sheriffs, clerics, bureaucrats, and scribes dealing with issues of governance, law, and justice, such as it was. Long lines of people waited to see them.
“Well,” said Christopher, “we can hardly line up and ask to see Sooz, can we!”
“No, indeed,” said Dirk, who was looking around, fascinated. “I’ve never been here, you know. Sure, I’ve dreamed of it, dreamed of coming here with a battalion of great ogres to rip it down, brick by brick. Who could have possibly imagined that one day I would just walk in, free as a bird!”
Nearby the fat teacher was lecturing his class, pointing to the paintings that were hung around the walls—huge, tall paintings of various men and women, all dressed in white robes, wearing silver circlets with blue stones set into them and carrying various kinds of magic-looking staffs.
“These are all the Enchantresses and White Wizards that have ever been, from the First Wizard to our present Wizard, the greatest and best of them all, may he live for a thousand years—Hasdruban the Pure.”
Dirk folded his arms and settled in to listen, a wry smile on his face. Christopher was equally interested.
“The First Wizard was appointed thousands of years ago, in response to the rise of the Vampire Lords of Sunless Keep. Not long after the destruction of that foul place came the Dark Lord—a far greater peril! He sent forth his Orc legions to terrorize us all. It was after the burning of the city of Old Mylorn by that dread foe that the Commonwealth of Good Folk was formed as a bulwark against evil, and we haven’t looked back since!”
Christopher looked over at Dirk. “Thousands of years ago?” he said. “How many Dark Lords have there been?” he asked.
“Just one,” said Dirk absently.
“But that means … you’re … I mean, are you really that old?” said Chris.
“Yes. But I can’t remember it all. Some of that time was spent in enchanted sleep, chained in the World’s Heart, deep in the dark, empty places below the earth,” he said distractedly, all his attention on the “Fat Teacher” as he now thought of him.
Christopher stared at him in amazement.
“And the Wizard before this one died in battle with the Dark Lord,” continued the Fat Teacher.
“No he didn’t,” said Dirk from the back. “He was poisoned, and it wasn’t me … I mean, and it wasn’t the Dark Lord!”
“What! How dare you! That’s heresy,” said the teacher. “Everyone knows he was slain in the Borderlands by the Dark Lord’s treacherous magic!”
Dirk glared. “No, that’s not—” he began, but Christopher tugged on his sleeve, nodding in the direction of the entrance. One of the paladins was looking over, drawn by the mention of heresy.
“We’re attracting too much attention,” hissed Chris. “Remember why we’re here!”
“By the Nine Netherworlds, you’re right,” Dirk whispered back, before continuing on loudly. “Yes, sir, of course! I thought it was poison. My mistake, forgive me. I was getting confused with the thirteenth Wizard, Gatulac the Impure. He took poison, didn’t he, out of shame?”
“Yes! That is right. And there is his portrait! Gatulac the Impure—he tried to come to terms with the Dark. Imagine that! He betrayed us all and in the end, took his own life when he realized the enormity of his crime,” the teacher said enthusiastically, Dirk’s interruption forgotten. “Remember that, children! There can never be peace with the Dark Lord, never! He must be destroyed, along with all his works and all his vile folk—the Orcs, the Goblins, the Nightgaunts, and the rest. All of them must be eradicated utterly!
Destroyed once and for all, their vile stain expunged forever from the face of the world!”
His voice rose at the end, spittle flying from his lips as he declaimed his fanatical creed. Dirk shook his head in despair. “See what I’m up against, Christopher? They’re insane, all of them!” he said.
“Anyway, enough of that, children,” said the Fat Teacher. “We shall now begin our tour of the White Tower, starting with the levels down below. Come along, follow me, we have a special treat for you today, oh yes indeed!”
Dirk nudged Chris. “We should tag along, this is an excellent opportunity to get below!” he said.
They followed the school party down some stairs. At the bottom, two guards checked the teacher’s paperwork, and then waved them through, not even batting an eyelid when Dirk and Christopher came too.
Down below, they were shown around various displays of Hasdruban’s great achievements—models of his building works, copies of his new laws and rules (in general, a tightening up of his power and control but sold to the people as enlightened, wise rulership in the face of the terrible threat of the Dark. He was clever, old Hasdruban, you had to give him that, Dirk thought to himself).
In one room, there was a display of little miniature soldiers, a diorama of the last battle between the army of the Commonwealth and the army of the Darklands, fought in the foothills of Mount Dread. There was a little model of Hasdruban, holding a strange glowing crystal in one hand and his staff in the other, and also one of Dirk in his form of the Dark Lord, all horns, bony skull, skeletal talons and Undead, goat-legged armor, standing in a black lacquered ornate chariot—the Midnight Chariot, in fact. Chris stared at it in fascinated horror.
“Is that really you … ?” he whispered. “I mean, look at you, you’re so … so evil!”
“Dark Lords are Dark Lords,” said Dirk. “What did you expect? A fairy? A little bespectacled gnome? Maybe a guy in a business suit like a banker back on earth or something?” said Dirk with irritation.
Chris looked at Dirk, uncertainty in his eyes. Dirk folded his arms defensively. “Well, I’m not like that now, am I?” he said.
Chris nodded. “That’s true, you’ve changed, haven’t you?”
Dirk nodded … and then frowned in thought. He had changed. But he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Was he ever going to be the same again? Could he ever be a true Dark Lord again?
The next display took Dirk’s mind off things. It was a great painting in three parts, what they called a triptych. The first part showed Hasdruban, dark eyes blazing, shattering some kind of crystal. The second part showed the Dark Lord falling and falling into a black, empty abyss. The third part showed people cheering wildly as Hasdruban trotted past on a great white horse, accepting the people’s adulation graciously, waving a hand at them like the queen of England.
Dirk stared at it in horrified fascination until his concentration was broken again, this time by the Fat Teacher.
“Now, children, for something very special. You know that after the exile of the Dark Lord, his betrothed, the Dark Lady Sooz, arrived at the Iron Tower to begin a campaign of nefarious evil in his name, don’t you?” said the teacher.
“Yes, sir,” chorused the schoolchildren. Dirk and Christopher froze in shock at the mention of her name.
“Well,” continued the Fat Teacher, “Hasdruban defeated her too, outwitting her with ease, and destroying that evil monster, the Black Slayer, in the process!”
Dirk’s eyes narrowed. “Ha, he doesn’t mention that Hasdruban was allied with the Black Slayer at the time,” whispered Dirk angrily.
“And now, the White Wizard has the evil Dark Lady locked up, here in the Tower!” said the Fat Teacher.
Chris was staring openmouthed at the Fat Teacher. “What is it?” said Dirk. “We knew she was locked up here. What’s the problem, Chris?”
“He said ‘betrothed,’” said Chris. “That means like getting married, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does, what’s that got … Oh, I see!” said Dirk, equally surprised.
Chris turned on him angrily. “She’s gonna marry you when she grows up, is that it? You never said you’d asked her to marry you! I can’t even believe she said yes! And worst of all, you didn’t tell me! Neither of you. How could you?”
“Whoa, Chris, hold on there, it’s the first I’ve heard of it, believe me! I didn’t ask her, of course I didn’t!”
Chris’s eyes narrowed. “Really? REALLY? Only you’re not exactly known for telling the truth, are you Dirk?” said Chris bitterly.
“No, honestly, I swear it by the Nether Gods, Christopher, I never asked her to marry me. I mean, why would I? No, it’s just some propaganda thing by the White Wizard to make out she is in league with ‘the Evil One’ to justify them attacking her.”
Chris paused. That actually sounded convincing. But still …
Suddenly the Fat Teacher interrupted their conversation. “Be quiet, you two at the back!” he said, craning his neck to get a look. “Who is it making all that noise—Picgreg, is that you? Silence or you’ll get popped again!”
“Not me, sir!” piped up a little voice near the front—Picgreg presumably.
Chris and Dirk ducked back out of sight. “We’ll talk about this later,” whispered Chris, glaring at Dirk.
Dirk shrugged. “Whatever,” he muttered.
“Anyway, we’ve got a special treat today. Look, children, see the fate of those who oppose the great Wizard!” said the Fat Teacher. He pointed to a kind of telescope set into the wall.
“This device uses a unique arrangement of mirrors to show us the cell in which the Dark Lady is imprisoned, deep below the ground,” he said. “Now, one at a time, look through the telescope.”
The kids took turns to look through it. Chris and Dirk did the same after the other students had finished. It showed a dirty stone-walled cell, where Sooz sat alone on a slab of rock, dressed in tattered black rags—shoeless, her face streaked with tears, and with only black bread and water to keep her alive. The sight was heartbreaking. Tears welled up in Chris’s eyes, but Dirk’s face set hard into a mask of rage.
As the children trooped out of the room, Dirk hissed under his breath. “Hasdruban will pay for this, oh yes, I will make him pay, I swear by the Power of the Nine Netherworlds!”
“Yeah, but first we’ve got to save her,” said Chris.
“We will,” said Dirk, “we will. For now, we must lose the Fat Teacher and his Goblin horde, see if we can get left behind.” He put his hand on Christopher’s arm to hold him back as the last of the schoolchildren left the room. Dirk pointed to a nearby door. Quickly he opened it.
“Just as I thought,” he said. “It’s a broom closet.”
Dirk and Chris slipped inside to find themselves standing amid a mess of pails, mops, brooms, and other janitorial equipment. They shut the door. Total darkness wrapped around them like a blanket.
“What now?” whispered Chris.
“We wait,” said Dirk.
After a few minutes, someone spoke up nearby.
“All clear here, Pyter,” said a deep voice, a warrior’s voice. “All clear here, too,” came the reply.
“All right, let’s lock the vault door then,” said the deep voice. “The lower levels are clear!”
The footsteps receded. After a short while, Dirk said, “I think it will be safe for us to venture out now, Christopher. All the visitors and tourists will be gone.”
Suddenly something moved at their feet! Chris shrieked in horror. “Quiet, you fool,” hissed Dirk, although he was almost as terrified.
Something else rattled and moved. Then the door swung open, bright light hurt their eyes. They looked down, squinting. A metal bucket was waddling out of the closet into the room beyond, waddling on four tiny little legs. A broom and a mop followed after, floating an inch or two off the ground.
Then came a rush of mops, brooms, buckets, dusters, cloths, and pails from the back of the closet, taking Chris and Dirk with them, leaving them sprawled on the floor beyond. The various brooms, buckets, mops, and pails started sweeping, cleaning, mopping, and washing the floors. Damp cloths floated on the air to wipe down the tables and walls, light feather dusters gently brushed off the paintings and other delicate displays.
Dirk got up, helping a flabbergasted Chris to his feet. “Magic janitor, basically,” said Dirk. “A trivial enchantment, really. I could do better!”