I stood in the Plaza of the Peoples of the Perseus Arm (of the Milky Way Galaxy). Ancient dust once sneezed at by the long-dead rulers of the Third Stellar Empire now floated slightly disturbed by the four ATV riders who braced me.



Objecting to the destruction of a rebuilt section of the Wall of Worlds had got me into this situation with a hand laser pointed at me. The four young versers had been using a graffiti marked wall which held the names of over a hundred versers as their jump ramp. So I resolved to try to explain it again to my fine young barbarians, if I got the chance.



The Old Woman on the far side of the Plaza was laughing to herself. She thought they were fools to cross me, Stormlord, Hammer of Tyrants.



“I could shoot, you know that, don’t you? If you ask real nice, and apologize for messing with us. Why we could let you go.” The mocking tone, and the sniggers from the Leader of the Pack, or should I say Herd, left me in doubt as to whether they would indeed let me go.



“I’m a verser; you kill me, I walk another world.”



“Of course you are, we know that. You think we are stupid?”



I did not answer that question as I try to be truthful.



“These are versers as well; your brethren and sisters. They left their names here on this dead world to say ‘We came and we were here.’” I think my melodramatic poetry reached the girl a little bit, but the rest shrugged off their discomfort with a laugh.



“Losers.” One opined.



“Really?” I said in that cooly insulting British way that I had learned in some time and place and universe very far from here. I started pointing at names.

“This one walked a three hundred miles through a blizzard to save a village. That one built a starship that went to Alpha Centauri; this lady stopped the Black Death.”



“Whatever.” One said disgruntled.

“I’ve walked three worlds.” One said proudly. “I can bend steel with my bare hands.”

“Three worlds?” I nodded politely.

“Yeah, this orange grass place, and then a strange Western place where these aliens lived on Earth, but they were just like us, and I was the quickest gun in the West, and then I became a superguy in the place where people ran around in purple and green and all sorts of tights.”



I nodded respectfully. This was not bad, for a complete novice. The big man had not said super hero I noted. Probably because he had been a villain?



Another said to break the mood of respect for his comrade.

“I bet none of them were better than that.”

The Old Woman chuckled in manic glee.

“I bet none of them just looked in a guy’s eyes and went pop with their big gun.”

The Old Woman about fell off her perch on the wall she was laughing so hard. So, the implied murderer turned his laser toward her to threaten her.

“In the immortal words of Paul Hogan, ‘That’s not a gun; this is a gun.” I slipped my plasma cannon out from its position on top of everything in my backpack where I had stowed it.



The sleek, metal curves, and sheer mass of the thing announced lethal purpose in crystaline clear tones. No one on seeing it, would doubt that it was a weapon.



He pointed his pistol at me, and I suggested we all relax. Nervously, he watched me start to lower my cannon, and he followed suit, although he tried to play at jerking his back up. If he had really worried me, I would have shot him.



“That one.” I said pointing to a name.

“Huh?” They were wondering of what I spoke.

“Tadeusz, Stormlord, he killed a trillion people and he looked into many of their eyes as he did it.”

The ring of veracity in my voice kept their doubts to a minimum, but they did protest. Then the girl read the rest of the sig.

“Stormlord, Hammer of Tyrants. The Old Woman, she, she called you that.” Her words came out difficult as she struggled with the concept and with actually using the brain God gave her for more than decoration and moronic quips.

The others were disbelieving until they noticed I had the cannon pointed at them again.

“You know why I killed them? They were inhuman, and I do not mean alien. Without compassion or kindness; genetically bred for war and domination for no reason but to show forth a theory that the Universe was pain. They were an army, the Inhuman Invasion, who would have destroyed tens of trillions of lives.” My voice was soft as I pled for understanding. The group of versers looked at me with the kind of still fright a bird displays before a cat.

“Now, I refused to let them do this. They would not turn aside. The worse part is that most of them were in some sense innocent. They did not choose without coercion and drugs and perversities to be vile, but in the end they were vile.”

“Nice story.” The big guy said. “We understand.” He said to placate me.

“Do you? If you do, then what should I do with you?” The brutal question came out, and I think they finally understood the name of Hammer.

“Hey, you can’t do that, it would not be right.”

“Really? One of you practically confessed to being a murderer of a non-verser. I would not be surprised if more aren’t.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Why not?” I asked with a slight smile on my lips.

“You have rejoiced that you are versers; immune to law no doubt you think. You can kill, and flee your world, and nobody can stop you. It is instructive, what an Earthly writer wrote about the Old West. L’Amour…”

“Hah, it figures that a geek like you would like some outdated loser like that.” The silent until now one said. The others smiled as if his comment mattered.

“Yes, I suppose it does figure that I would like a man who stood for justice. Anyways, he said the Old West let what was inside come out. Some, shrank from the immensity of the Big Sky Country,” Here I looked straight at the Old Woman, and she sadly nodded at the indictment.

“Do you want help?”

“Yes, Stormlord, I cannot seem to break myself out of my habits, I am locked here inside my own sadness, but do not ‘help’, not right yet.” She nodded at the kids, and I understood that they had no doubt terrorized her. Something else moved her as well, but it was not my place to ask her what.

“And in the Big Sky Country some would become good in a grand sense, and a few would become evil because they had no civil society to hold them back any further. But the scum were always outweighed by the decent people.”

They sneered discreetly at my lecture.

Then I could see the bright idea that I had been waiting for appear in big guy’s face.

“Let’s verse out, and leave this jerk behind.” He pointed at the laser, and their sneers broke out in full force. So I snatched the laser from his hand with a quickstep and a lunging hand that my minor league coach would have been proud of.

“As Dizzy Dean said ‘It ain’t arrogance, if you can do it.’” Then I telekinetically squashed them to the Plaza. They wiggled helplessly a bit.



This left me with a problem. I looked about the weary and ancient plaza, and my eyes lighted upon the Old Woman.



“If I kill them, they go to another world to cause trouble there. Innocent people will die. But I cannot hold them here forever.”

“True, Stormlord.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” I asked because the name did ring a bell, but it was a bell hidden by the mists of amnesia brought on by my destruction of the Inhuman Invasion.

“It was your name once, and so it will be again. In compassion shall you unleash the lightning to march across the land and the sea. The fires of the dead shall darken the sky. By your will, the Four Horsemen shall ride and roar. They are Jack and Josesph, and Margaret, and Ken by name.”



No spooky wind raised at her words, but I knew them for what they were. Prophecy. I hated it when the gods reached down, and used me to deliver prophecy; I hated it worse when I was the object of that prophecy. But worse, was the promise that piles of dead would again be heaped up by my actions.



It was just too much, I almost let the thug wannabe’s go. This gave one of them the chance to speak.



“How did you know our names, Old Woman? We never told you our names.”



Her surprise was almost comical.

“I, but you, I saw dreadful figures of power riding across the land. Not you…” Her scorn and dismay were obvious.

“Ah, she is just making it up.” The big guy said.

“And as a seal on this prophecy to My Riders, I shall give you gift of pain that will make your eventual Ride all the more dreadful, to you. This is My justice. And to you, Stormlord, as a seal of the truth…”

“I require none.”

“Nevertheless, you shall blow out many candles in the next hour.”

I looked around doubtfully. There was a sign engraved by Michael leading to one of his Foxholes; maybe it had candles in it. Still, I believed. When a deity of the light says “This will happen.” It does; usually not how you expect, but it does.



Then a light shown around the kids’ heads. And they started shrieking.

“I can feel everything you feel.” The big guy announced looking at the girl. “I’m so sorry.” He said with wailing and sobs. The others were similiarly afflicted with empathy. Permanent empathy, I would guess. The Old Woman shot them, and they versed out.

“I’ve been here five hundred years waiting to give you that message.”

I looked at here for a long moment.

“And because, I could not force myself to go out and try anymore. Too many disapointments. I gave up, and let myself become almost an animal. Help me.”

I did. I reached into her brain, and showed her what she thought. She became much more conscious for some time until she could conquer her inner demons. And then I put a booby trap in her brain that would go off ten times. She would have a year in each world before she died. This would force her out of her rut. So she versed out.



I was left alone on this world with nothing to do. For some reason, I felt like not doing anything. Searching in my mind, did not bring any reason for this feeling. Gradually, I came to the conclusion that it was in the environment. So I unshipped my weapons, and then some scanning devices, and started to study the situation. Perhaps, this might be why the Old Woman had been so lowly?



“Your finest instruments could not detect it.” A voice from across the Plaza said. I turned and a young man with purple eyes sat on the wall. His armour was grey metal.

“What? Detect what?”

“All stories are written, all deeds done; all songs have been sung. At least the good ones.”

I stared at him.

“I, oh, I am the Grey Prince, the right hand of Entropy.” He said in reply to my unspoken question. He played by rocking back and forth on the wall.

“Are you the one you sent the Prophecy?”

“No, he wanted a dead world as a stage to deliver it. We are sometimes terribly melodramatic and all that.”

“Ah.” After all, what could I say.

“You want to help me?”

I agreed based on my general theory of being polite to any god, especially the good ones.

He drew in a breath, and pointed at a pale star. Then he blew it out. The light vanished.

“This is impossible.”

“Magic, my friend. I just raised the bias level of this universe so I could give it a good send-off party. Choose a star, and draw in a good breath.”

I did as I had been gently but firmly commanded. The star went out, and over the next hour we blew out the stars, and then the galaxies.

Finally, we stood in perfect darkness.

“I can’t do it.”

“Do what?” He asked with perfect knowledge leaking into his careful voice.

“Be the Stormlord.”

“But you are commanded to.”

“Then I refuse; you tell, please, I mean, sir, please tell the One who sent the message that I cannot slaughter innocents.”

“Ah,” He paused as I contemplated in the dark the consequences of defying a god. I was pretty sure this Ender of Worlds next to me could kill me for good. No more worlds to wonder at. Heaven here I come, I thought miserably. Of course, that was if they decided to be merciful and give me a quick death. I felt pretty low.

“Who am I, Tadeusz?”

“The Grey Prince, Ender of Songs and Stories,” When he waited, I added. “Right Hand of Entropy, a god of the Light.”

“All true.” And then his face glowed with divine fury. “Now why do you insult me and my friends, and even your Master so?” He hissed.

I stumbled back, and fell on my butt with fear making me unable to speak. After a minute, he calmed down, and reached out a hand to help me back up.

The touch of hand was cool and strong and images paraded through my mind. Ice ages slowly advancing, stars calmly guttering out, an old human dying peacefully at the end of a well-lived life were the images I saw.

“Am I not a good god? Then why would I send you to slay the innocent?” It was obvious that I had hurt his feelings which surprised me.

“But you sent the Israelites to kill the Canannites man, woman, and child.” I protested without much thought.

“Actually, that was not me, but I know of Whom you speak. Is it not true that the desire to murder another human is murder?”

I agreed.

“But what if you did this by mistake? Unknowing your shot flew too far and slew someone? Is that murder?”

I said that it was not.

“Tell me, Tadeusz, you have walked with what you think of as ‘primitive’ people. Tribes, much like the Israelite tribes. To them, are the other bipedals on the land, their brothers? Or are they simply monsters to be exterminated?”

I thought back to several such peoples I had visited. If you were accepted in the tribe, you were human, but if not …

“The Israelites were innocent of murder, genocide and the like because they did not know the others were human. You know, we would not send you to do such a deed. No, you will be sent, but to destroy another army that brings horror to a peaceful land.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be, ‘O ye of little faith.’” I looked up, and in his rueful smile, I realized I had been tested and failed.

“I still do not think I can do it.”

“Why?”

“It hurts too much.”

“Do you know what held the Old Woman here?”

“Yes,” I said as I remembered searching her mind. “Guilt over a mistake she made trying to stop an epidemic. She was tired beyond belief, and she misplaced a vial.”

“Do you doubt that she was forgiven for her arrogance in trying to stay awake a whole week in order to solve the problem by herself?”

“No.” I said for it was an article of my faith that sins are forgivable by the Creator.

“But she could not forgive herself; just like you will not forgive yourself even though there is nothing to forgive. You did the right thing.”

“But I killed a trillion beings.”

“Yes, you did. How many do you think I have killed?” The embodiment of the Good Death said to me with a flicker of anger.

“It’s your choice as always, Tadeusz, you are forgiven in the Courts of the Heavens, but you will make your life a hell if you do not realize this forgiveness in your life.”

He and I paused, and the light of his face went out.



“Time for you to go.” He said with kind firmness as if escorting a late staying guest out of his house which was an apt enough comparison, I suppose. It was his universe, I guessed. I drew in a breath as I thought about what he had said, and then something occurred to me in a flash. I blurted out a request.

“One thing, the Wall.”

“Yes, that suits, I will relocate it to another universe. Goodbye.”



And I fell out of that universe with the sound of a scroll of music being wrapped up behind me.



Tadeusz