On the subject of titles, there are a few things anyone aspiring to walk the path of Utter Domination should consider. First, you should definitely choose one for yourself, rather than let the populace at large – or worse, your enemies – pin one on you. Trust me. The result will be uniformly disappointing, and often downright insulting. Yes, they’ll likely call you whatever they want behind your back, or at a safe remove from your armies, but that is no concern of yours.

Second, do try not to be too flamboyant. Nobody is going to think much of Krug, Master of Pain or Pol the Demon-Shagger or what have you. People will have to work at saying it without a smirk.

For myself, I chose Evil Overlord as a title because when you call yourself evil first, then when all the shrieking widows and suchlike call you it, you get to look at them like they’re especially slow and say things like ‘Are you really just working that bit out? It’s in the title.’

As for the overlord part, well, ‘Evil Lord’ just seemed to be missing something, honestly. Plus, I’m not a lord. I grew up on a dirt farm. But an overlord, if you work it out etymologically, is someone who lords it over lords. Which appeals.

Nothing wrong with traditional titles, either; your dark lord and your dominator honorifics get the point across succinctly. The only ding I have against them is that folks tend to have to ask ‘which one?’ That can be rather deflating.

As for nicknames, you don’t get to choose those. I didn’t choose Goblin Killer and, later, I didn’t choose Pitiless.

But I did earn them.

~ ~ ~

“We will be redeemed, brothers.” Titus was talking to the others, but he was still staring at me. “Shriven of our sins. Clean and pure in the Light, Its most devoted servants who were willing to be cast into eternal damnation in Its service. We have been granted a miracle.”

“You’re bug-fuck crazy.”

“What would a demonist know about the Light?” Titus replied, his face rearranging itself to show contempt.

“I’ve probably read the Book of the Light as many times as you, though not by choice. Your plan? That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of it works. You’ll get the sin of false prophecy thrown on top of all the others, not that it matters. Anyway, the whole Book of the Light is just so much made-up nonsense.”

“Take care how you blaspheme.”

“Or what? I’ll get double eternal damnation? You just said you’re going to burn me alive. I have absolutely no incentive to play your stupid games.”

Titus smiled. Then he took my little finger and snapped it.

“There is always more suffering that can be inflicted, damned one.”

I got my breath back, after a while. When I did, I said, “I almost wish hell was real. At least I’d get to see you right there with me.”

“That will not happen. We will ascend. Right after we see you consumed by the flame and your demon familiar drowned.”

“Yeah. About that.” Hrazz’k? I thought. I didn’t want to say anything out loud. Titus was an inquisitor after all, crazy though he inarguably was, and he might stick me or something to shut me up if he realized I was talking to a demon.

“Yeah, kid?”

I free you from your material bonds.

“You, uh, you sure about that?”

What, you need a written invitation?

“Hell, no. But I gotta ask three times. It’s the rules.”

I free you. But you could do me a solid and kill these crazy fucks on your way out.

“That’s not unreasonable, and I am feeling peckish. Are you really, really sure?”

Fly free, little demon. Fly free.

I wasn’t actually sure it would work. The null space ate up magic, after all. But if it was going to nullify the imprisoning magic on Hrazz’k, I’d reasoned back in Catapult’s tent, it would already have done so, setting him free. The fact that he was still in a book instead of eating people’s faces told me that the stuff that had been laid on him was not so easily canceled out. There was only one way he was getting un-bookified, it looked like, and that was if some dumb or desperate mortal set him free.

Oh, look. It’s me, a dumb and desperate mortal.

The altar started shaking.

I didn’t know what Hrazz’k would do. Maybe he’d just fuck directly off. Maybe he’d take out Titus for me on the way to wherever he was going. Maybe he’d eat everyone in the bastion, including me, and then move on to Mudhelm for a second course. There was no telling, really. You buy your ticket and you watch the wheel spin.

The altar split down the middle and the two halves caught fire. The chalice fell to the floor with a metallic donk. No water in it, bastard. The Book of the Light just turned to ash in an instant, and the ash fluttered to the floor. Titus lost his shit at that, grabbing his head and shrieking. I don’t know how his boys reacted; they were behind me and I was watching the show.

Book-Hrazz’k was just floating in the air where the altar had been, a black nimbus surrounding him. The whole bastion had started to shake, now.

“Ah, there’s something you probably need to know, kid.”

“Eh?” Titus and his lieutenants had decided on a course of action, which was to attack Hrazz’k with whatever weapons they had. I just sat there, exhausted and in pain, and watched the show. It really didn’t seem like they were getting anywhere with their assault, but they kept trying with the chopping and the stabbing.

“The part of me that’s in the book? That’s just my thinking bit.”

“You mean your brain.”

“Well, my consciousness anyway. I don’t have a brain the way you’re thinking of it. Anyway, the rest of me is down below us.”

“You’re the terrible threat down in the dark? The one these assholes have been guarding?”

“Guilty. But they’re just the last in a long line. Anyway, that’s not really important right now. What’s important is my thinking bit can’t go down to my body. So my body is gonna come up to my thinking bit.”

I sat there, nonplussed.

“That means you need to run, kiddo. I’m not small.”

“Oh. Thanks for the advice, but the most I can manage is a crawl. Not even a fast one. That fucker broke my leg.”

“I can’t- man, these guys are annoying. Just a sec.”

Hrazz’k did something, and Titus’s and his goons’ heads just went pop all at once. Which was really satisfying, if far too quick for my liking.

“That’s better. I can’t heal you, buddy. Infernal powers just don’t work like that. But you really need to get moving, because I can’t tell my body what to do until I merge with it, and by then it’ll be too late for you.”

I sighed. “That’s all right. I understand.” The whole bailey was starting to shiver apart now.

“What I can do is burn out your ability to feel pain. You could move pretty quick then, though you’ll cause yourself even more damage. It’s not something I’d normally recommend. You mortals need that warning system, I’ve found.”

“I’ve had enough of pain for the rest of my life, Hrazz’k. If you can do it, please do.”

“It’ll be irreversible.”

“Dead isn’t any better.”

“All right, kiddo. One last pain fest, and then never again.”

Hrazz’k was as good as his word. Every molecule of my body that could feel pain, did, all at once. There has never been that kind of agony. Torturers like Titus would have creamed themselves to be able to inflict it. I thought I had mastered pain. I was wrong.

And then, nothing. I could still feel; all the cuts and bruises and bones grinding in ways they shouldn’t. But it was just a sensation, another kind of touch. A stone fell from the ceiling and shattered on the floor in front of me, spraying me with sharp shards. One cut my cheek, and it was like someone had brushed me with their fingernail.

“You really need to get going now, Gar.”

I stood up. The fractured bones grinding around in my leg felt… interesting. At least Titus hadn’t given me a clean break. I don’t think I could have stood then, pain or no pain.

“Can’t leave without my ax.”

“Don’t be a dumbass. The null space has collapsed. Just burn whatever gets in your way.”

“Oh. All right, then. You know which way the exit is?”

“The door in front of you, then take a left. Can’t miss it.”

“See you around, Hrazz’k.”

“Would you get going already?”

I got going.

* * *

I made it out of the bailey without my head getting crushed by falling masonry, which was good. The courtyard was in chaos. Titus’s remaining men, the ones who thought they were just the henchmen of the local crime boss, were losing their shit. Some were fighting each other, apparently over whether to surrender to Catapult’s forces or to ride things out and see which way the wind blew. Others were staring at the rapidly collapsing bailey, mouths agape. I just kept walking to the portcullis. This was not my circus, and they were definitely not my monkeys. Maybe later I’d recruit any of them who survived.

I stopped and looked back once, when the bailey basically exploded. Hrazz’k’s body had finally made its way to his thinking bit. It was all tentacles and beaks and maws and eye-twisting geometries. I had to squint at it to look at it at all, and the nausea it engendered threatened to make me retch.

“Damn, but you’re hideous,” I called to it.

“Go on, you flatterer.” Hrazz’k waved a tentacle at me in a shooing gesture. Then it started picking up Titus’s men and stuffing them into various orifices.

Maybe I wouldn’t be recruiting them after all.

I got to the portcullis. It was closed, of course. I had no idea how to raise it, so I just melted it and walked through.

Now came the dangerous bit.

I had to give Catapult credit; she was no coward. When a demon had appeared over the bastion, her men had, almost to a man, fucked directly off. Not Catapult. She was waiting for me. Nuk was also waiting for me, but way, waaay behind his boss.

“So that’s why you needed the book,” she called to me as I crossed the no-man’s land. I shrugged. I stopped about two yards away from her.

She looked good. Hard, tough. She had a sword on her hip and her hand on the pommel. She didn’t look worried.

“You look like shit,” she said.

“You should see Titus,” I replied, and she gave the slightest smile. More of a smirk, really.

“Is that thing gonna eat Mudhelm as well?” she asked after a slight pause.

I shrugged again. “Not sure, really.”

“Aren’t you worried?”

“Why should I be? It won’t eat me.”

“You’re just full of compassion,” she said, shaking her head slightly. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I didn’t.

“Did you think about what I said?”

I cocked my head. “You said a number of things.”

“About us burying the hatchet. Because otherwise we get to see if you’re faster with your fire than I am with my sword.”

I thought about it. Really thought about it.

It wasn’t in me anymore to hate her for being competent. Emotions like hate wouldn’t get me what I wanted.

“Is that a water skin I see there on your belt?” I asked.

Her eyes searched mine. I don’t know what she was looking for, nor what she found in them, but after a while she pulled the skin from her belt and tossed it at my feet.

I bent down to pick it up.

She would get no better chance at me.

I straightened, and her hand was still on the pommel of her sheathed sword.

So.

I drank the skin dry. A lot of it went down my bloodstained shirt, but that was alright. Closest thing to a bath I’d had in days anyway. I held it out to her and she said “Keep it, then.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Catapult. Not anymore. You’re smart and you’re capable, and I’ve got a use for you.”

“You have a use for me.”

“I do. You see, I’m going to take over this shithole. Then I’m going to take over the rest of the Debatable Lands. And then I’m going to fucking conquer everything else. And it’ll all go a lot faster if you’re with me, rather than against me. Or dead.”

“Are you serious?”

“Catapult. Do I look like I’m in the mood to tell jokes.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Fortunes, rivers of blood, commemorative statues, all the usual. Don’t you want to be the woman general who crushed countless enemy armies?”

The expression on her scarred face told me she did.

“One condition.”

“What?”

“You never call me Catapult again.”

“Fine, whatever. It’s a good name, though.”