Overlord

36

Digby O’Donnell let the sentience of a thousand beings thrum through his mind. The sensation was agony and ecstasy. It was transcendental and destructive. It was more than he could ever have imagined.

He knelt in water that lapped, glittering, around his hips, his mind far from his own. Things moved in the sea all around him, bright darts of fish, slowly pulsing clouds of microscopic luminescence, occasionally even a gently pulsing, glassy jellyfish. They seemed to come to him in worship, in deference, drawn by his connection to everything in the writhing network of caves and tunnels, but more importantly, his connection to what lay beneath, out there. And no doubt, his connection was evident in the brightly glowing idol he held in blistered hands. The idol that grew brighter by the moment.

The Jade Sea was immense. Even if it had some boundaries in this world, its reach was eternal, through other worlds, other dimensions, glory without end, and Digby’s mind stretched and warped through them all.

The waters began to roil, as if something gargantuan stirred deep, deep under the soft rise and fall of the surface. Bubbles rose, the lapping waves increased. The mist, writhing like lazy ghosts across the surface of the sea, began to thicken. Its activity increased, as though it were alive, and excited. More clouds built up in the distance and rolled toward the shore as if with purpose.

Digby’s connection to the strange life underneath increased too, clarity coming ever more quickly. He knew the mind of the Master. The Overlord of All. He knew its corrupted desires, its need. It wanted to consume, to feed on the conscious life of anything that moved in the many realms. It starved. It wanted to devour the minds of individuality wherever it found them. Digby shivered with the deep vibrations of its malevolence, its darkness, its hatred. It yearned for dominion, for control, everything that could ever be under its command, for no reason beyond the removal of agency from everything else. The Overlord simply wanted to be lord over all without any challenge, without any contest. It required the deep, total peace of utter control. And Digby would facilitate that. He would usher that forward. It began here, but it wouldn’t end here. This was only the germination of the seed of the end of everything.

Digby laughed maniacally, thrilled and horrified. Tears streamed down his face, falling into the Jade Sea with small sparks of green brilliance, his grief and ecstasy becoming part of that great body that stretched beyond worlds.

The idol grew hotter in his hands, painfully so, threatening to strip the skin and flesh from his bones, but he couldn’t let go. His fingers could no more release the idol than his neck could voluntarily release his head. He raised the idol high, his hands as though on fire, pain radiating down his arms, and he howled. The waters surged and bright green arcs in the sea and sky flashed like lightning.