Neytopia › Part 2: Noon › Chapter 49

Dreams

When the raven was crowned king, the leader of the city under the mountain writhed with envy. Now he was just another citizen and accused the raven of being a usurper. He often got drunk and said,

I should be king, not that demon.

A week after the raven captured Cruelty, the leader contacted one of the cults she had left behind. The cult agreed to help the leader. They sneaked into his camp in the morning and attacked the soldiers at the raven’s camp to murder him. But the raven and his soldiers were not incompetent morons. They repelled the attack, killing the cultists, and the leader fled with his son.

A few days later, while the leader was drinking water from a river, the raven approached him, alone. The leader’s son rushed to greet the raven, excited to see him.

The leader fell on his knees, begging,

Not my son. Please, spare my son.

The raven looked at the leader with disgust.

What about my son?

The raven took out his sword. The leader’s son backed away, confused.

The raven cut the boy’s head in one stroke.

The leader fell on his knees in tears. The raven approached him. Both men looked at each other with utter contempt. The raven ran his sword through the leader’s ribs, splitting the leader’s heart in two. Neither said a word. The raven pushed the leader’s body into the river with his right foot and watched it float away.

The raven had no more enemies.

One moonless night, five hundred and twelve years later, the raven flew to the garden over the bottomless pit where the traveler lived. Out of the forest came dark figures who surrounded him, watching in silence. They were the deathless, the Traveler’s followers. The bloodtree that was by the well spoke to him,

Emperor. You have made a mistake coming here. We know you made a deal with the watchers.

Traveler, old friend. I’m sorry I didn’t visit sooner, but I have been busy.

Raven? Is that you? I thought you were dead…

I was, but I came back. After the watchers shot me, an idea, stronger than all others, brought me back. I raised my army, I fought a war and won an empire. I have come to offer you the opportunity to pay the watchers back.

Hmmm. I swore long ago to kill anyone who made deals with them. Even you, raven.

Tell you what. I have come here prepared to die. But first, please listen to what I have to say. Then you are free to do as you choose.

Fine, go ahead.

I took the northern continent, but lost my family. I wiped Cruelty’s army and put her in prison, but lost my only friend—

Cruelty… you mean, the bitch?

Yes, her. The one who sent the watchers to destroy our city.

Thank you for that, raven.

Anyway, after putting her in prison, conquering the southern continent was easy. With no one left to stand up to me, I united all the people in both continents under my command. Then I built my capital in the southern continent, soon the center of the empire. I had a vision of an ivory tower rising in the sea and instructed my architects to build my fortress after it.

What do you know about that “tower”, raven?

Oh, it’s the reason I have come here. But let’s not skip ahead. Anyway, I built my fortress by a cliff that overlooked the abyss. Next I set out to repair the damage of war.

The northern continent was in ruins. Soldiers, peasants and craftsmen all contributed to the reconstruction by buying land from the empire. They used that land to build their own houses and cities. I reinvested their gold in public works to reconstruct cities and towns, stimulating the economy. With a single, unified empire, there were no more customs or borders.

After decades of work, I connected the whole empire. People could send packages and messages to any part of the world within days. My motto in those days was “We only need to defend ourselves against ourselves”. I promised there would be no more wars as long as the empire lasted, and I delivered.

I brought true peace to the world for the first time in history. Defense, infrastructure and communications were all tasks for the government, but I left almost everything else for each region to decide. The only thing I banned unconditionally was any ideology based on pity, like all of her religions.

The traveler asked, impressed,

Just like that?

Indeed, I said “No more pity”, and my words echoed across the world. But don’t think it was easy: it took me decades of hard work to change the minds of men and the world with them. I had to track down and destroy all the copies of the books she inspired. I had to wipe out entire communities to protect the whole of mankind. Change began to accelerate: as those who had been born before the empire died, their memories died with them. Time eroded the last copies of forbidden books except for some fragments which survived through oral tradition.

After a few centuries, only isolated minorities remembered religion, pity, kings and everything else that used to rule the world. Words and phrases like “god”, “religion”, “social justice”, “opress” or “guilt” vanished. I had won, against all odds. There was nothing left that made people hate themselves.

I edited history too: cleansings of faith and witch-hunts faded from official accounts. Never again would men be accused, tried and executed on the court of public opinion, not under my empire. I imposed due process and enforced it zealously. I even brought true equality across races and genders: the empire could never pass any law that gave special treatment to any group or minority. Of course the bitter minorities saw this as a sign of tyranny and oppression.

But the years of struggle took their toll. I slowly tired myself until I couldn’t go on. The only possible past, present and future political party rules, and will always rule the empire. Democracy is weak and only leads to degeneracy. I made it clear that I am the only emperor there could ever be.

But at the same time I wanted out, so I created new executive positions and bodies inside the party. Paramount among them, the position of subsecretary, who would hold all the executive power in my absence. It would extend the fantasy that I was still in charge, watching over everyone.

Starting at the unification and creation of the empire, folk tales described me as a huge wizard armed with black magic. I secretly encouraged these myths by using devices that projected my amplified shadow into the clouds. Now tell me, who would dare stand up to the huge flying wizard who ruled the world? I disappeared from public sight, and people soon forgot I was a raven altogether. They just started calling me “the Tyrant”.

It’s ironic. You spend all your life fighting for something you know is right, and yet people call you evil, curse your name. The funny thing is, despite all my efforts, despite removing all mention of Cruelty from history and language, I failed. People still hate themselves for lying, people still call themselves oppressed, bitching and whining about wanting democracy and independence.

That was the breaking point for me, the moment when I realized I was trying to fix something I thought was broken, but really was just a feature of human nature. There is no solution for Cruelty but the final solution.

The traveler looked at him, stranged,

So you know about the tower.

Yes. That’s why tonight I wrote a farewell letter and left my fortress to never return. I came here to visit you, old friend. The empire doeesn’t need me, it will run on its own for as long as Cruelty stays in prison. But she will return, we both know it. I don’t know how or when, but she will.

What you call “the ivory tower” is really a machine. A terrible machine. Turning it on will be cataclysmic. You will break the world.

Yes. That’s why I need you, Traveler. You know where you are, and you are the only one who can turn it on.

How do you know about—

I know many things. I conquered as much as I could in the name of an idea: individual freedom, intellectual freedom. Freedom from the barriers that others put on themselves, freedom from shame and pity. Most of all, freedom to question absolutely everything. But humans, no matter what I do, always end up twisted and full of hatred for themselves.

The raven approached the bloodtree.

My dreams are too big for this doomed Earth. I want to go back to your home planet and destroy the System. Then I will expand. I will conquer everything in my path.

You are insane.

Yes.

No, no, this is a bad idea. The watchers will stop us. I can’t risk—

Unfortunately, you don’t have a choice.

What?

The raven walked stood in front of the bloodtree. The traveler shouted,

Stop! Stop or I’ll have to stop you.

The raven placed his hands on the bloodtree’s bark. The bloodtrees branches shot at him, grabbing his arms and legs and raising him above ground. He looked at the bloodtree and smiled, his eyes were pitch black,

Old friend, this is the end for you. I’m sorry.

Don’t look at me, I’m only a vessel.

The bloodtrees branches pulled on different directions, tearing the raven’s body apart. Out of him came no blood, only the thick black smoke. The traveler shouted,

What the fuck is that!

The smoke cloud flew to the well, turning its water into black sludge. Then it reached deeper underground. The Traveler trembled and felt himself losing control. Around the world, earthquakes shook the ground as what once was the little girl and the Traveler wrestled for control. The deathless ran to the well and peered into its depths. The traveler laughe, and its voice had changed. He sounded like the raven. The deathless kneeled before their new Master. The Thing said,

I am a god. I am… I am the end.