fascinating how humans can love animals more than people. I think it’s because they’re simple—pure—they ask for nothing in exchange but food, shelter, and maybe a little attention. And what they give back is unflinching love and loyalty.”
Are we your pets?
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He grunted and looked away, and then fidgeted with his coat sleeve. “I suppose so. Yes. I wanted you to be, anyway. But humans don’t give away love and loyalty. Not for long. And not like animals do.”
Great. You’re an asshole.
“Well! What do you expect me to say?” He gestured to the tower around him. “Don’t forget what I am. I’m not this thing you see here. I’m not even this place. I’m something else entirely. I just make these things to…exist in your dimension. I’m something other, you realize. Something just to the left of your world. I am a creature outside your concept of creation. I am a creature that transcends above all your tiny perceptions of space and time.”
And this is what you do with your time? Sell fried hotdogs on a stick?
“I—I am attempting to be as benign as possible, you realize. I could rule this world if I wanted to. Put you all beneath my thumb.” He waggled a finger at her. “But I want to see this world from your perspective, not mine.”
Whatever you say, man-eating murder-circus. All the power in the world, and you stuff yourself into a glorified jar and sell people corn dogs. She was teasing him. She was skewered on a metal statue, slowly dying and coming back, and she was taunting an unfathomable nether-god. She tried to smile at him. If she was going to die, she might as well go out the way she came in. I think you’re full of shit. I think you’re putting on a good show for me, that’s all.
Lazarus laughed. He reached out and took her hand. “I think, dear Cora, you might be one of my favorites. I’m just sad it had to end this way. We could have been wonderful together, you and I.” His smile grew sad and wistful. It was clear that he was dreaming of things that could have been. “You would have been glorious.”
Thanks. I think.
He patted her hand. “Power is a strange drug. It does unpredictable things to those who taste it. Picture power as a sword—there is no coincidence that swords are the symbol of authority and control for humanity for…what…thousands of years, now? Power is a weapon. It can be used to defend or to protect. It can be a symbol of tyranny or nobility. The warlord and the king. And you never know quite what a person is going to do with it until it’s handed to them. Until they’re told it belongs to them, and the countryside is theirs to keep or raze. I think one of my favorite things about humanity is how unpredictable you all are with such a gift.”
Cora coughed. Oh, god, coughing hurt. She tasted blood in her mouth and turned her head to try to clear it, but it wouldn’t go. She swallowed. Swallowing hurt worse. But it got the glob out of her throat and let her breathe again.
Or maybe it didn’t.
The waking moments and the un-waking ones were blurring together. When she came back to awareness, Lazarus hadn’t moved. He was still sitting there next to her, looking out one of the black-as-the-void windows. “Welcome back.”
She swallowed again. Her tongue felt thick and dry in her mouth. She wished for a glass of water, but she knew it wouldn’t ever come. She didn’t bother asking.
“It’s been said many times by wittier creatures than I, but power comes with a burden. Even to the warlord, even to the monster. If one wants to wield the sword, you must feel its weight at the same time. Ringmaster refused. He saw his chance to take the blade without the responsibility that came with it.” Laz grimaced. “That is his weakness. That is his crime. To think he’s above the burden that came with the power he wanted to wield.”
He doesn’t want to wield it. He wants to kill it.
“Hurling a sword into a lake is still using it for something.” Laz sniffed dismissively and folded his arms across his chest. It was clear he took the whole thing very personally. She supposed she would, too, if someone were trying to kill her because she was too evil to live.
I guess.
“There