Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

on the streets to restore order and discipline. While wearing my colors, naturally. They won’t take any crap from the peasants. They think they had things bad before; wait till the ELFs get to work! They have such wonderfully inventive minds, when it comes to terrorizing people.”
    “The ELFs?” said Joseph finally, so outraged he didn’t even bother to keep it out of his voice. “You must be crazy! You can’t trust those people!”
    “I don’t trust anyone,” Finn said calmly.
    “But . . . I thought they weren’t talking to you anymore?
    You were really quite . . . vehement, a while back, about how they’d disappointed you and let you down.”
    “Ah,” said Finn, smiling widely. “It seems the ELF leaders and the uber-espers have been having their differences of late, about who exactly should be running things. They both contacted me separately, offering their services in return for help against their enemy. And it really was simplicity itself to get both of them to agree to work for me, rather than risk being shut out. It won’t last, of course, such arrangements rarely do, but as long as I can play divide and conquer, they’ll be too busy trying to do each other down to think about double-crossing me. This is strictly between the two of us, of course. People wouldn’t understand. I’m only telling you because you need to know; because the thralls will be wearing your Church Militant uniforms. And because it’s just too good a secret to keep to myself. Ah, Joseph, sometimes the look of shock and horror on your face is what makes it all worthwhile! The ELFs will give me fear and panic and terror on the streets again, and everything will be the way it used to be. This is my Empire, Joseph, and no one is going to take it away from me.”

    And so thousands of ELF thralls, innocent men and women possessed by cold and powerful minds, went out to patrol the streets of Logres, and most especially the Parade of the Endless. The irony of maintaining order while wearing Pure Humanity and Church Militant uniforms pleased them greatly, and they took every opportunity to destroy the reputation of the esper-hating groups they supposedly represented. They imposed order and harsh discipline through humiliating and terrifying punishments for even the smallest offences. They showed a great fondness for hangings, crucifixions, and autos-da-fé. The dead were left to hang and rot in the streets, as a warning to others. All too soon people were afraid to go out on the streets for any reason. The new peacekeepers were everywhere, looking for any excuse to demonstrate their authority through fear and suffering. People stopped going to work, for fear they’d be stopped on the way. When they had to go out, for food or other necessities, they went in groups, starting at shadows and ready to break and run at a moment’s notice. And slowly but steadily, the social and business infrastructure of Logres began to break down. Shops closed, with no one to buy their goods. Businesses closed, with no one coming in to work anymore. Basic services were also breaking down, because the ubiquitous Shub robots that usually took care of such things had all ceased to function, and no one else knew what needed to be done.
    As if all this wasn’t disturbing enough, what was happening in the Arena was worse. The ELFs had demanded a price for their support, so Finn gave them control of the Arena, for their own personal use. And on the ancient bloody sands, the ELFs played out their nasty games for everyone to see. At first, they just possessed the existing gladiators, and set them against each other. But the ELFs soon broke their new toys, or wore them out, and so the ELFs sent peacekeepers to break into nearby houses at random, and haul the people out to be new meat for the Arena. Men, women, and children ended up on the bloody sands, some possessed and some not, and the ELFs’ games grew steadily worse. Hag-ridden and helpless, the thralls played out all the wildest fantasies of the ELFs: rape, torture, mutilation, and murder were the order of the day, every day, often on a grand scale. The ELFs delighted in mounting epic dramas, and staged vast reconstructions of famous atrocities from the past. The details were rarely accurate, but all that mattered to the ELFs was that people suffered and died. There was power to be gained, from leeching off the energies released through pain and emotion and death. The ELFs grew fat and potent,