(cont)

"Did it ever occur to you to wonder where the Army of Darkness recruits from?" he asked, still facing out over the mountains.

"We, um... No, sir. We learned in school that you summon some... demons, or something, and bind them to dragon eggs to make your Drakenguarde guys. Soldiers. Sir," I answered, still making my peace with death.

He huffed a tired laugh, and rocked his weight to one leg restlessly. It occurred to me that his armor must be enchanted for comfort; otherwise, the weight of it would be hell on his feet. Here he was, having been blasted by an uppity underling for ten minutes, wearing dread plate armor that looked to have the mass of a small car. Yet he moved like he was wearing nothing more burdensome than a bathrobe, and the weight on his shoulders was the mantle of leadership, not the mass of metal.

"No, Anne. You're smart; that's partly why I chose you. Think. Where do I really get my recruits?"

He was asking me to think. He wasn't asking me to plead for my life, to beg for mercy at the hands of evil incarnate. I risked pushing myself to my feet; in doing so, I discovered my sweatshirt, briefly forgotten, clenched in terrified fists. Still jittery with adrenaline, I shook it, pulled it on, fanned my damp hair out behind me.

Me. He had recruited me. Just two weeks ago, in fact--and it hasn't occurred to me to check, to see if I was a missing person. My parents had died years ago, and I didn't have any siblings. My aunt had passed away last year. No one was likely to miss me. No one probably had missed me.

And the same week I had posted about feeling lonely, on a message board about depression, the dark lord Malevilar had had me kidnapped.

"Those villages," I gasped. "Oh fuck, the suicides. The-the-those, um, the kids, the extremists, who ran off to join you!"

So many reported lost, or missing. Suspected magical suicides, where no body was ever discovered. Radicals and rebels, who abandoned their families, disappeared into the mountains.

"All of them, and more. Yes."

He turned, facing me. Something haunted, hounded, lurked behind his eyes.

"In history class, you learned that I rose from the calamity left in the wake of the Ghoti Genocide. That I was a rogue mage, or maybe a junior officer, who stumbled on some sort of superweapon." He clenched one armored fist, and sparks danced around the metal. "You probably learned that I went on to slaughter whole kingdoms, before the Alliance was able to contain me, right?"

I nodded, not sure what to say, not sure what to think. I dig my fingers into my hair, as if to hold my blown mind in my skull. The word flabbergasted floated briefly to the surface of my consciousness, before sinking once more into subconscious depths below.

"But none of that is true... is it," I whispered.

"Well, the Ghoti Genocide part is," he admitted, heartbroken by the memory. "I was sixteen, a student thaumaturgist, when it happened. My parents... were killed by my uncle, who was a member of the New Sicarii. He nearly killed me as well, but I escaped... mostly."

He gestured to the armor, the armor he wore like a second skin, that no one ever saw him without. The armor keeping him alive.

"After I stabilized myself, I gathered other survivors. Other outcasts. I gathered the hopeless and the helpless, and raised a flag they could rally under. Since then, I have spent everything, anything I could beg or borrow, steal or summon, to making sure nothing like that ever happens again. The world was... is... full of rage, of the desperate, the disenfranchised; they needed something to hate. They needed something to fear."

"Oh fuck," I whispered.

He looked at me, from under his brow. For a moment he seemed sinister; then he lifted his head, and the shadow of the dark lord lifted with it. I pulled my fingers from my tangled hair, covering my mouth and trying not to interrupt him again. My melting brain could leak from my running mouth later; I had to hear this.

"I picked you, because you needed something, and because you knew what it meant to have nothing. I picked magic cards, because it was something that anyone could use. I can pick my heroes, select them specifically for peak drama, to maximize the hate and fear that people feel for me instead of each other. I can be the enemy the people need, give home and purpose to the outcasts. And if a few plucky adventurers is the sacrifice the world needs to make peace with that arrangement, so be it."

He stepped closer, raising hands as if in supplication. In each palm, a card appeared--gilt edges, silver letters, emerald and sapphire dragons embossed on the back. They were all his; every weapon the heroes wielded, every card, forged by his dark power.

"With weapons such as these, even a child can lead them," he intoned, the power of the dark lord echoing in his voice. "And the child will do so. The world is better with villains in it, because the people cling to childish notions such as heroes. The world is better with 'stupid card games', because the alternative is knives and fire, dead parents, brother killing brother. The world is better with our silly dramas and sinister broadcasts, because that is what the world needs. We are the villains, and we will save them all."

The cards floated over his raised hands, waiting for me to take them, waiting for me to grasp. They were part of a game I hadn't comprehended; a game I had, in my ignorance, dismissed. A game that had changed the rules of the world, because the rulers of the world were forced to play it. A game with impossible stakes, a game worth betting everything on. A game he was now inviting me to be a part of.

I stepped forward, and felt the push of his power against my skin. My hands tingled as I took one of the cards, and I finally understood.

"And... action!" shouted the director.

The dark lord Malevilar, seated on his throne of dragon bones, blasted yet another churlish adventurer who dared oppose him without wielding the true magic of the Dragon Deck. He was mighty; he was unstoppable. Only the chosen heroes could stand against him, and even then, they would require the support whole of the world and its magic, united, to stand a chance against the powers of darkness.

At the dark lord's side stood his newest lieutenant, proud in her role as the right hand to the master of disaster. I caught the cue as the camera panned my way, zooming in on me. With a diabolical cackle, I clutched at imaginary throats with the clawed gauntlet of my new armor.

"They stand no chance against you, divided and unprepared as they are!"

He nodded, and flames coated his armored fists as he rose. Standing, he towered over the room, wrapped in power and terror. With grave tones, he proclaimed his impending victory.

"Send me your pathetic armies, send me your wizards and soldiers!" he threatened. "None can stand before me! And when I rip the last Dragon Card from the hands of the last Dragon Priest, I will be invincible!"

"Magnificent, my dark lord!" Villi-Anne cried hammily, as I chewed the scenery for all I was worth.

Childish, yes. Silly, even. But now, knowing why, knowing it mattered? Now, I meant every word.