And so it came to pass in those days, that a famine had set upon the earth. Feeding on the general malaise of the people, a power arose from the East, and gradually enlisted the populace to its armies. Several men rose to power, mostly through cunning, but some through brute force. One of these was particularly gifted in both areas, and became the man that many looked up to, or at least feared. In most quarters, the men and women of knowledge and privilege called him Charles, or the Conqueror. But amongst the serfs, he was known as The General, the Slayer, or Lucifer (often shortened to Luke when speaking in the open).
The General's power had become so great, in fact, that many considered him the supreme ruler, and were ready to lay down their weapons for him at any pass. Because of this, many men of independent beliefs had subjugated their lives to serve a person whose motives they truly didn't know, but preferred that to the uncertainty of what would happen to the first person to openly rebel against his power.
The Great One, looking down from above, was told of The General's great power, and of his stranglehold on the lives of the people. Believing this was wrong, not so much because it was wrong to control the people, but because he was not the one doing it, The Great One sent an avenging angel to earth to smote The General. And so it was to be.
One morning, The General awoke on the floor of the desert, the dust of windswept sands charring his lips where he lay. Suddenly a great shadow appeared, and The General's eyes widened as he sought his saber and found only space. Above him, the avenging angel winked, and his head came back as he roared, apparently in better humor than The General.
"Who are you?"
"I'm the one who comes from The Great One, to take what is rightfully his."
"But I have no weapon, and you are quite…large."
"You are correct in all respects. As you are undoubtedly aware, however, war is never fair."
And The General was sore afraid.
The avenging angel (his name was Charlemagne, by the way) raised his sword, a solid four-foot expanse of solid iron, shined to a blue hue and sharp as a tiger's teeth. And Charlemagne truly believed that, as he even called his sword the tiger-toothed saber, which he thought was particularly witty.
This proved to be more than a bit ironic, as a flying tiger appeared in the air, as if materializing from the dust. As the tiger got closer, the angel flexed as he turned his head and reached out toward the tiger, but the tiger's reflexes were too fast. At the last second, he changed direction like a hockey player faking the ground shot before going up high, and swiped with his furred paw, the claws fully extended like the talons of a mythical prehistoric phoenix. There was a sound like the poof of a barbecue igniting, and then merely a spot of red where the angel had been standing.
The General's eyes widened further, and before him stood a massive beast, at least 12 feet tall, and about three feet wide. He was lanky, if a two-ton carnivore could be called such a thing, and his eyes and teeth sparkled. His lips curled into a smirk, and he appeared to be waiting for someone to say something. So The General attempted to fill the gap:
"Did you just kill that angel?"
"Not exactly what I had expected you to say, but yes, I did. You, on the other hand, even if you had been armed and possessed the skill to do so, which you don't, would not have been able to kill the angel."
"Why not?"
"It is written in the Book of Time, that a mere mortal cannot kill the immortal without their consent."
"How do I know that's true?"
"How is it relevant? For someone who's risen to such great power, now standing defenseless before a giant flying (and talking) tiger, your grasp of the situation seems a bit lacking."
"Hmmm....well, okay, then who are you?"
"Ah, finally. Now we can start our conversation. I am Gilberto, and I come from afar. There are many of our kind. We are known by many names, sometimes the peacemakers, sometimes the stabilizers. We maintain the balance in the universe, between good and evil, between life and death, between mayhem and peace. When that balance is threatened, we step into the void."
"So you came here to save me, to maintain order in the world."
"It would seem so, no? But alas, we are also known by other names. The regulators, the fixers, the collectors. You should probably consider me to be one of those."
"Great. So I went from an angel killing me to a tiger killing me? What a day...."
"Oh, I'm not going to kill you. But you'll wish I had. You see, I'm here for your soul."
"But..."
"Oh, I know, how can I take your soul? And besides, you might believe those who say you have no soul. If so, you (and they) are only partially correct. When your soul is bartered away, as you did long ago in order to rise to power, a part of your soul remains. Oddly enough, it's the part of the soul that protects you from the horrors of life, sort of the mental version of your body going into shock after a really bad accident. Without that part of your soul, all you do, and all you have done, is laid bare to you, and you feel it all with a burning intensity much greater than what others can feel."
"So I get to live after all?"
"Sure, you could call it that. In fact, you get to be immortal."
"Really?"
"Yes. Only you can end your life. But you will still have all the same narcissistic tendencies as before, so I think the risk of that happening any time soon is pretty low. Along with the fact that in your new state, you will never be aware of that option."
"What happens now?"
"Now...I have more important things to do."
And the tiger vanished, no sign remaining that he'd ever been there, though the wind kicked up and the sky seemed to darken.
The General looked around, and suddenly, a pain like a hot sword seemed to sear through his brain, sliding down his throat and scorching a burning rope of fire through his abdomen and all the way to his toes. And he fell to his knees, and began to scream.
*****
Time to stick it to The Man. Brent Tharp
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