CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
“And why should I believe you?” King Glok snorted.
The Bringer of Pain laughed aloud. How could this high-pitched Glukkon ruler be so foolish as to think that he, the embodiment and great servant of Darkness, could be spoken to in such an insolent manner? It would take a demonstration…
“I’m sure you don’t want any of your Snoozers destroyed,” he said.
Glok snorted airily. “Oh? And who’s going to destroy them? Certainly not you.”
The Bringer of Pain shrugged his thin shoulders. “You might be surprised at what I can pull off.”
“There aren’t many things that can surprise me.”
“I am one of those happy few, then,” the Bringer of Pain said with a smile. “Do you require a demonstration of my power?”
Glok leaned forward menacingly in his throne. “You try to pull anything,” he hissed between his teeth, “and I’ll order my Snoozers to open fire.”
“Once I’ve ‘pulled something,’ as you say, you won’t even have Snoozers.”
His words seemed to have some effect on the Glukkon king. Glok’s frown changed to an expression of curiosity. “Tell me why you’re here, then.”
The Bringer of Pain’s smile grew wider; finally he was getting somewhere. “I came to warn you of an attack on your life.”
“An attack?” Glok’s eyes went quite wide. Glukkons were notorious for being paranoid about attacks on their life – the Bringer of Pain had made a few attempts on them himself. “What kind of attack?”
“The kind that involves killing.”
The Glukkon narrowed his beady eyes. “And how would you know of such an attack?”
“I know Abe a lot better than most do; he’s going to kill you.”
“Kill me?” One of Glok’s brows twisted in what the Bringer of Pain knew to be a gesture of disbelief. “And how, pray tell, do you expect a Mudokon to get through my Snoozer army?”
“He will find a way.” The Bringer of Pain chuckled flatly. “And if you don’t believe me…”
He turned and raised one hand, as if in benediction. The Glukkon instinctively shouted “Snoozer units! Open fire!” but before he could even finish shouting that, three lightning bolts blasted out of the Bringer of Pain’s palm, each flying toward separate Snoozers set up in the corners of the room. Before the robotic units could complete their manual turret swivel toward him, those lightning bolts had struck at maximum velocity, and turned the fearsome machines to nothing but piles of smoking scrap.
The Bringer of Pain lowered his hand, still smiling. “That could have been you. But because I have some genuine concern for you, believe me. Abe is coming.”
He turned and moved out of the room, leaving the Glukkon king open-mouthed and gaping at the Snoozer scraps.
As he was “escorted” out of the throne room by a pair of Worker-class Sligs, he kept his dark smile on his face the whole while. That meeting had gone fairly well – not only had he planted a false assumption in Glok’s paranoid Glukkon mind, he had also showed off just how powerful he could be even when he wasn’t upset.
Sometimes he surprised even himself at his own displays of power.
But he knew the Dark wasn’t surprised by anything he did, because it was the Dark that controlled him. Nothing could come as a surprise to the Dark because the Dark was the way of everything.
He shook his head. How could Abe be so foolish?
In fact, how could all Mudokons be so foolish? All of them chose to remain in the lie that the goodness of nature could be perfect, believing that some Hand of Odd guided everything?
The Bringer of Pain knew better. The Dark was everything, and everything was the Dark. The two were one.
He could hardly wait until the final showdown with Abe; then he could prove to all Oddworld that the Dark was everything. That there was no light to be found anywhere.
That he was the Dark, and the Dark was the master.
His chuckle turned to a triumphant laugh of dark glee.
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