Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Introduction
IF LOOKS COULD KILL
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE OVERLORD
ENSURING THE SUCCESSION
THE LIFE & DEATH OF FORTUNE COOKIE TYRANT
DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL
GORDIE CULLIGAN VS. DR. LONGBEACH & THE HVAC OF DOOM
THE SINS OF THE SONS
LOSER TAKES ALL
THE NEXT LEVEL
ADVISERS AT NAPTIME
A WOMAN’S WORK . . .
TO SIT IN DARKNESS HERE, HATCHING VAIN EMPIRES
STRONGER THAN FATE
ART THERAPY
Betrayal came from a direction I never anticipated.
Rusty led the intervention on me. When I get out of Rehab, I’m going to spend some quality time with his head. I don’t care what happens to the rest of his body.
The rest of my top staff participated, though some of them wore masks. Masks could not hide their visages from my awful wrath. I know the name of everyone who conspired to humiliate me. At night, when I am strapped to the bed, I use the point of a loose screw to inscribe their names, one by one, into the patina. My bed stinks of fresh paint because the minions here are efficient and desire that everything remain pristine, so they paint over my list every day. I don’t care that my list disappears. I am really scribing the names in my memory while I try to erase the things my inferiors said to me.
The things they said to me!
“We caught you being nice to a random dog.”
“Your personal assistant used sarcasm on you, and you didn’t have him flogged.”
“You smiled in public, and it wasn’t the smile that sends small children screaming into the night.”
“You’re letting the intervention proceed without ordering us all killed immediately,” said Rusty. “Boss, you’re losing your edge. Trust me. You need help. You’re not our ruthless Master anymore.”
—from “Art Therapy” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Also Available from DAW Books:
Hags, Harpies, and Other Bad Girls of Fantasy, edited by Denise Little
From hags and harpies to sorceresses and sirens, this volume features twenty all-new tales that prove women are far from the weaker sex—in all their alluring, magical, and monstrous roles. With stories by C.S Friedman, Rosemary Edghill, Lisa Silverthorne, Jean Rabe, and Laura Resnick.
Under Cover of Darkness, edited by Julie E. Czerneda and Jana Paniccia
In our modern-day world, where rumors of conspiracies and covert organizations can spread with the speed of the Internet, it’s often hard to separate truth from fiction. Down through the centuries there have been groups sworn to protect important artifacts and secrets, perhaps even exercising their power, both wordly and mystical, to guide the world’s future. In this daring volume, authors such as Larry Niven, Janny Wurtz, Esther Friesner, Tanya Huff, and Russell Davis offer up fourteen stories of those unseen powers operating for their own purposes. From an unexpected ally who aids Lawrence in Arabia, to an assassin hired to target the one person he’d never want to kill, to a young woman who stumbles into an elfin war in the heart of London, to a man who steals time itself . . .
Army of the Fantastic, edited by John Marco and John Helfers
How might the course of WWII have changed if sentient dragons ran bombing missions for the Gemans? This is just one of the stories gathered in this all-original volume that will take you to magical place in our own world and to fantasy realms where the armies of the fantasic are on the march, waging wars both vast and personal. With stories by Rick Hautala, Alan Dean Foster, Tanya Huff, Tim Waggoner, Bill Fawcett, and Fiona Patton.
Copyright © 2007 by Tekno Books and Russell Davis.
All Rights Reserved
DAW Book Collectors No. 1395.
DAW Books is distributed by Penguin Group (USA).
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction copyright © 2007 by Russell Davis
“If Looks Could Kill,” copyright © 2007 by Esther M. Friesner
“The Man Who Would Be Overlord,” copyright © 2007 by David Bischoff
“Ensuring the Succession,” copyright © 2007 by Jody Lynn Nye
“The Life & Death of Fortune Cookie Tyrant,” copyright © 2007 by Dean Wesley Smith
“Daddy’s Little Girl,” copyright © 2007 by Jim C. Hines
“Gordie Culligan—vs.—Dr. Longbeach & The HVAC of Doom,” copyright © 2007 by J. Steven York
“The Sins of the Sons,” copyright © 2007 by Fiona Patton
“Loser Takes All,” copyright © 2007 by Donald J. Bingle
“The Next Level,” copyright © 2007 by David Niall Wilson
“Advisors at Naptime,” copyright © 2007 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“A Woman’s Work . . . ,” copyright © 2007 by Tanya Huff
“To Sit In Darkness Here, Hatching Vain Empires,” copyright © 2007 by Steven A. Roman
“Stronger Than Fate,” copyright © 2007 by John Helfers
“Art Therapy,” copyright © 2007 by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
INTRODUCTION
Russell Davis
In the movie The Return of the Jedi, at the climax of the film (WARNING: SPOILER ALERT—IF YOU ARE ONE OF THE TWELVE PEOPLE ON EARTH WHO HASN’T SEEN THIS MOVIE, THE FOLLOWING MAY WRECK IT FOR YOU), with Luke Skywalker is on his back, the Emperor standing over him and shooting cool bolts of Force lightning into his body. Darth Vader stands nearby watching his son die. It’s over for the Jedi and the Rebel Alliance. Evil has won. Then Vader allows sentimentality to get the better of him and he picks up the Emperor and throws him down a bottomless pit to his death.
I have to admit that when Vader grabbed the Emperor, one of the first thoughts that ran through my mind was, Don’t do it, you fool! You see, the sad truth is that I kind of like rooting for the bad guy.
I have a strong background in role-playing games, particularly fantasy role-playing games, and as a player character, I’ve crossed paths with innumerable bad guys, often in the guise of an Evil Overlord. They’re always doing the same kinds of things: crushing the peasant population; ravaging a beautiful, young princess; stealing and taxing and in general making life as miserable as possible. It’s hard not to enjoy their antics. (Fortunately, I’ve also played Evil Overlords, so I have some sense of how to face them. And have yet to have been bested by one, though I suspect that they didn’t have the advantage of reading this anthology.)
The concept of a list of things one might consider doing should one, in fact, become an Evil Overlord has been around a long time. It’s been one of the longest running jokes on the Internet, forwarded via e-mail and found on numerous Web sites. Many of these lists touch on fantasy, science fiction, even mystery and thriller tropes and cliche’s that speak directly and humorously to those who enjoy role-playing games and novels in these genres.
It’s worth noting that the “Evil Overlord List” by Peter Anspach is certainly the most popular and widely known of these lists, though by no means the only one, nor even the first one. In the dim, dark year of 1984, a group of friends and I developed a very similar list called “The Rules of Oblivion,” which took to heart such statements as, “Take nothing for granted. That rabbit may be armed.”
For this anthology, we challenged fourteen of today’s best authors to come up with a story about an Evil Overlord and what he or she (not all Evil Overlords are men) should consider doing to protect themselves and their dark realms. Many writers, such as Esther Friesner and David Bischoff, came through with enjoyable tales featuring familiar characters and offering plenty of laughs. Others, like David Niall Wilson and Steve Roman, took a more serious approach—which has, I admit, left me wondering what they might be plotting next.
But no matter how a writer approached the subject, as the editor (the ultimate Evil Overlord in this anthology, one might say), I got the pleasure of reading and reviewing them all . . . and now I get the added pleasure of sharing them with you. In short, the pleasure is all mine, but I hope it will be yours, too.
Funny how being an Evil Overlord in the publishing field has these little perks, isn’t it?
Enjoy!
—Russell Davis
Sierra Vista, Arizona
IF LOOKS COULD KILL
Esther Friesner
“Oh, shut up,” said Prince Lorimel, tossing his long, golden hair in a peevish manner.
It was a bad idea, under the circumstances. The manacles holding his slender-yet-powerful arms were ancient oxidized relics of the previous owner of Castle Bonecrack. (In fact, up until the moment of Prince Lorimel’s incarceration, they had held the last few skeletal remnants of the previous owner of Castle Bonecrack, per orders of the current management of said premises.) They did their job well enough, but the wear and tear of centuries—to say nothing of the corrosive teardrops of a succession of luckless prisoners—had roughened the iron with colonies of thorny rust that snared any soft and silky thing unfortunate enough to brush against them.
Case in soft-and-silky point: A handsome elf prince’s glorious, gossamer hair.
Result: “OW! This is all your fault, Gudge.”
“Aw, now, Master m’lud Lorimel, don’t ’ee be takin’ on so, naow.” The coarse yet good-natured voice of Prince Lorimel’s companion-in-shackles (though not comrade-in-arms) echoed through the foul dungeon. It was this same voice, nattering about how stone walls did not a prison make, that had provoked the prince’s outburst, with concomitant hair-tossing, in the first place. “I di’n’t do nowt t’ yer Worship’s purty hair, nay. See, ’tis as I told yer Reverence’s noble pa, lo these many turns agone, ‘The best thing a wise elf prince can do fer hisself when it so happens as he’s misstepped matters and ended up in some evil overlord’s dungeon is bide his time all still an’ quiet-like, waiting fer what must come.’ Yer Eminence’ll notice that still part, as means yer not to move more’n needful, ’cos squirmin’ about’ll only—Well, I expect yer Highness has found that out fer yerself already, what with yer purty goldy hair all of a tangle and—”
“Gudge?” Prince Lorimel interrupted.
“Aye, m’lud?”
“Shut up.”
Sweet silence descended upon the drear and dreadful dungeon once more.
It was not to last, of course. Prince Lorimel was an elf, right enough, and as such, immortal. The long lines of the years spilling into centuries and even eons gave the elves the rare ability to wrap the glowing silence of their own deep thoughts around them like the comforting warmth of a well-loved blanket. Also, most elves ran out of really interesting conversation before they hit their three hundredth birthday.
But the prince’s retainer and fellow captive, the being known as Gudge of Willowstone-Thickly, was not an elf at all. What he was, was open to some debate among those wizards who found fascination in such blood-and-breeding puzzles. Evidence pointed to the short, fubsy, somewhat swarthy fellow having a mix of troll and brownie ancestry, seasoned lightly with a bit of pixie (on account of his ill-governed tongue), and perhaps a soupc¸on of goblin. All of this, however, was strictly on his unknown father’s side. His mother was a full-blooded human girl who really should have been a bit more circumspect in her choice of Midsummer’s Eve companions. From a midnight frolic between the rows of barley, Gudge of Willowstone-Thickly took his life’s beginning, and from a subsequent amorous alliance of his mother’s with a slumming elf lord came his introduction into the court of the Lofty Elves.
The Lofty Elves were, of all the elf tribes ever to skim the surface of Intermediate Earth, the fairest, the oldest, the wisest, and the most jaded. They had seen it all and been it all and after they were through, they complained about it all at some length, in verse, accompanied by the tinkle-ploing-dingle that passed for elfin music. (That effete doodle-oodle-hey-lally-lally-moo was what came from an orchestrative tradition relying on altogether too many harps and not enough bagpipes.)
And so, when His Awesome and Devastating Unspeakableness, Lord Belg of Castle Bonecrack, decided to stop torturing puppies and start conquering as much of Intermediate Earth’s prime real estate as he could get his scaly paws on, it was an occurrence greeted with a loud shout of outrage but also with covert mutterings of delighted anticipation by the bored-out-of-their-pretty-skulls-till-now Lofty Elves.
Prince Lorimel had one such pretty skull, but at the moment the odds did not favor his continued ownership thereof. No sooner had word of Lord Belg’s evil schemes reached him in his father’s forest palace, than he had sworn a mighty oath to sally forth and defeat the Evil One single-handed. He then promptly conscripted Gudge to accompany him as his squire, valet, dogsbody, and drudge-of-all-work, because single-handed was a romantic concept in theory, but in practice it meant wash your own socks.
There was a delectable irony behind the fact that Prince Lorimel and Gudge had been captured by one of Lord Belg’s troll patrols while the prince was excoriating his servant for doing such a piss-poor job of washing said socks.
Now, socks were the fourth furthest thing from the elf prince’s mind. His thoughts had turned to matters of far graver import, matters that well might determine the fate of worlds!
“My hair,” he whined. “My beautiful, beautiful hair!”
The dungeon door screeched and groaned on its hinges as the troll who served as Lord Belg’s chief turnkey entered. He chuckled with foul glee when he saw the mare’s nest that Prince Lorimel’s struggles had made of his gorgeous tresses.
“Awwww, diddums elfy-welfy gettums purty hair all snarly-warlied?” he asked in a voice like treacle and carpet tacks. (His penchant for taunting Lord Belg’s prisoners with baby talk was why the Evil One had not needed to employ a full-time torture-master nor, in some cases, an executioner.) “Izzums elfy-poo gonna cwy now his hair’s gotta go all snippy-snip bye-bye?”
“Here, now!” Shackled as he was, Gudge lunged at the troll. “Doan’ ’ee be sayin’ such vicious cruel things t’ me Master, nay! We been through worse’n this, him ’n’ me, an’ let me tell ’ee, just gimme a bucket o’ water, a fistful o’ soapwort, an’ a light cream-rinse afore ye goes talkin’ ’bout cuttin’ off his Worship’s hair, aye!”
The troll guard blinked, taken aback by his first confrontation with someone who had a more annoying speech pattern than himself.
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