I trust you are doing well.
Oh, please, do not look at me like that. Dungeons are not luxury suites, so you cannot expect to be too comfortable. But your cell is clean, your food warm, and you have not yet had the pleasure of meeting my professional torturer, so you should at least extend me the acknowledgment that I am not quite the monster that you believed me to be.
No? Not even a little?
Thank you. I would be sorely disappointed if you had wavered. Enemies of conviction are truly precious and rare. I have so few left.
I thought you might be interested in how your little “revolution” was going. You should be proud: the “army of the people” now numbers somewhere in the tens of thousands, and has even scored a few victories against some of my less well-trained troops. Of course, even that would have been beyond them were it not for the battle suit that your precious farmboy wears. Even now, they are marching on the capital, and I expect them to arrive by morning. No doubt they plan to “call me out” and have your farmboy face me one-on-one in a fight to the death.
Not a bad strategy, really. I never could resist a challenge, whether to my ego or my prowess as a fighter. It is quite a character flaw. You would think that when I sacrificed my humanity all those years ago to become a cyborg, that I would no longer be plagued by mere mortal passions. The truth of the matter is just the opposite. Of course, were it not for my ego, you and your lover would never have met, and the people of this world would not have united behind your banner to rid themselves of my tyranny.
Everything is going exactly as I planned.
Confused? I thought you would be.
Do you know what I desire most of all? You would think, would you not, that after conquering an entire world and having every being at my beck and call, that I would have nothing beyond my desire, no prize beyond my reach. Becoming ruler of this world was to be the culmination of years of struggle and bloodshed, to make me master of everything.
But I discovered that becoming ruler of this world brought with it a host of unexpected responsibilities: the administration of a world government, the appointment of ministers and judges, the management of a global economy, and the other tiresome bureaucratic nonsense that plagues all governments. I never anticipated the tedium, the constant inertia, the sheer difficulty of being the ruler of a world. I finally encountered an obstacle that I had never anticipated, and that I was at a complete loss to overcome.
I was bored to tears. I found myself longing for the “good old days” of the battlefield, when my responsibilities were limited to defeating my enemies, and where I could revel in the thrill and glory of mortal combat against a worthy foe. I had confused the inevitable conclusion of acquiring of my goal with what I really wanted; I did not want to rule, I just wanted to conquer.
But what was I to do? My greatest desire — to experience the thrill of combat against a worthy foe — was denied to me by the very fact that I had beaten all those who had even the remotest chance of standing against me one-to-one. My crown had become a slave collar, and I was caught in a trap of my own making.
For over a decade, I brooded. Nothing could shake me from my depression; I found the future so bleak that I seriously considered ending my life. And then, like a bolt out of the blue, the answer struck me: if I could not find a worthy opponent, I would create one. There is no shortage of individuals who would love to see me deposed. And I certainly possessed the technology to create a weapon capable of destroying me: my own cyborg body could be used as a template.
Yes, it is true: I created the battle suit that your farmboy now uses in your quest to overthrow me. I am rather proud of the work that I put into the design and development of the suit; it is by far the most deadly that ever saw use, and makes the wearer my full equal in combat. Oh, and to allay your fears, no, there is no hidden weakness built into the armor, no override command that will disable the suit’s systems. I would not be able to live with myself if I did beat him by trickery.
Still, I had another problem. Building the armor was easy enough; finding the right opponent to wield it against me was quite a different task. I could not play both Merlin and Mordred to his Arthur. Someone had to convince that champion to come forth, and there was no one I could trust with that task. Once again, I was denied.
But then came you, my dear. An answer to my problem, and a perfect one at that. For years I had waited for the catalyst that would put my plan in motion. Others have tried, of course, but they could not give my enemies what they needed. You were that person, the one we were all waiting for, the one who gave them what I could not.
You gave them hope.
Tomorrow, we shall have our denouement, and one of us will die. I wanted you to know, no matter what the outcome, I will have what I have desired for so long. You have given me this gift. And for that, regardless of who wins, I will forever remember you with love.
Goodbye, my enemy, my beloved.
Copyright © 2003 by Dennis J Mahon
