"Who knows what Evil lurks in the hearts of mankind? Well, me. Most of the time it isn't that impressive compared to a brand new Minion, let alone one who's had time to get up to speed and pick up a few shinies."

- Gnarl



Louise closed the book with a snap, and repressed the urge to giggle. It really was that simple. It had taken her almost two days to work her way through the highly technical text, but; ah! The understanding! The glorious understanding!

Carefully, she placed the tome back on the table before her – opening it again, because she realised that it probably made sense for her to be able to read the book when trying things out. Again, she ran her eyes over the main text describing the magic itself, and tried not to giggle. The main problem had been understanding the theory, which seemed to work at a somewhat deeper level than the magical texts back at the Academy. And she had needed to yell at her minions until they found her a book which allowed her to translate the runes the spell itself was written in into a modern alphabet, but they had managed to do that overnight.

She wasn't quite sure why they had written only the spell in the runic symbols, but it did make it easier to find when she lost her place in the text.

The girl took a deep breath, trying to restrain her elation. Louise gripped tightly around her staff of black iron with her right hand, its solidity reassuring in her grasp. Holding her other hand out in the same claw-like gesture that the book's picture marked, she mouthed the incantation to herself, running over the pronunciation. It was longer and more complicated than a normal spell; not something she would want to cast in an emergency.

Entirely deliberately, Louise de la Vallière cast the spell. The air around her claw gesture began to waver and steam, heat-hazes flowing off it like water. And as she pronounced the last syllable, an apple-sized ball of pink flame flared to life, throwing off thick clouds of off-white smoke. It hovered between her fingers.

The girl began to giggle, and then laugh, until tears ran from her eyes. She had done it! She really, really had done it! It was real magic! Of the kind she could even use to pretend to be a fire mage! Her grandfather had been one, after all! She had done it!

Entranced by her own magic she waggled her digits; wide eyed, the girl watched how the shape of the ball flexed and twisted as she moved her hand. She could feel the heat radiating off it – she certainly didn't want to get her face too close – but her fingers felt no more than slightly warm. The book had said that the flows of 'darkest magics devouring the living fire of the world and taking on some of its nature' (which was frankly rubbish) protected the hand of the user, but this felt uncanny.

Could... could she shape the ball? More than just into the sort-of-sausage-shape it ended up as if she squeezed her fingers together? Make something from it? Maybe... an arrow? Or maybe a sword or whip or some other kind of weapon? Any further pondering, however, was interrupted by the growing desire to sneeze as the smoke from the ball of pink fire made her cough and splutter.

Survival instincts told her that scratching her nose while holding a ball of fire would be a very bad idea. But what if she... Louise coughed, breathing onto it, and the ball of fire rushed out like fire dragon's breath. It washed over one of the half-rotten tables and left it only ashes. Panicked, the girl squeaked and dropped her staff, and the fire went out.

Well, the fire in her hand went out. The fire in the room continued to burn, albeit no-longer pink, and added its own smoke to the thick white fumes of the magic.

"... um," Louise managed, in shock.

Surprisingly, the fire did not respect her astonishment, but instead continued to burn. Hastily, the girl snatched up the book of magic and tried to back away from the fire.

"... help!" she called out, after running over what she could actually do to stop a fire. Neither miscast explosions nor more fire would help put it out, which meant that she would have to risk calling on the minions. "Fire!"

The clatter of bare feet against stone announced the arrival of a small army of goblins. Who proceeded to 'help' in a very 'helpful' manner.

"Oooh!"

"Ahh!"

"No, no, fire bad!" Louise shrieked, her vocabulary momentarily degenerating to Minion-like levels. She tried to take a calming breath, only to remember that smoke was not conducive to such things. "Extinguish it! Don't just gawk at it! Go... throw some water on it or something." She whirled, as a sixth sense warned her. "Don't you dare!" Louise screamed at a pre-emptively somewhat-scorched goblin carrying a burning torch. "Put the fire out!"

The beast looked confused. "But I trying to fight fire with fire," it said.

Louise merely let out an incoherent yell, and apparently one glance at her glowing eyes was enough to convince the creatures that their mistress was not kidding. Well, that or whatever self-preservation they had was enough to tell them that if they did not put them out, they courted the risk that their mistress would set them on fire.

Eventually, with much stamping, moderate amounts of 'fire being hit with weapons', and two minions set ablaze from trying to punch it, the accidental bonfire was extinguished. Louise was not there to see that, however, because she was outside out of the smoke, being reprimanded by Gnarl.

Oh, certainly, the elderly goblin would not have called it that. It was mere advice, good guidance for an Overlady who was perhaps lacking in practical experience so that she might avoid well-trodden paths which might lead to her having her head cut off by a wandering Hero.

"My lady," Gnarl said, tapping his stick against the ground. "Please remember; maniacal laughter is always good, but not when holding exhalable fire."

Louise blushed, and shuffled her feet, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl. "I coughed, not laughed," she muttered.

It was, nonetheless, most certainly a reprimand. She was feeling a little resentful for the fire and this... this silliness ruining her memories of the first proper spell she had managed. Actually, the slightly worrying thing was how much sense the spells in the book all made. It was like she was wearing comfortable shoes for the first time in her life, and got to see how everyone else managed to run. It felt... strange, scary, and wonderful.

Of course, she actually had comfortable shoes on right now. That was probably where the metaphor had come from. The minions had found a closet full of women's clothing, and even though most of it had likely come from peasants, there had been some from noblewomen. One of them had feet the same size as her.

Louise realised that she should probably be paying attention to Gnarl rather than thinking about how good it was to have shoes which fit her, and turned her attention back on the goblin.

"... and my lady, although I must say this was not entirely successful, at least you are getting the grasp of minion control. Shouting and firm orders, that's the way to do it. Minions respond well to cruelty, brute displays of violence, and being told to do what they wanted to do anyway. If you don't want to do one of those three, then you need to do more of the other two. Everything will be much easier when you have your gauntlet, of course, but I am starting to fear that you may need to lead a small horde down there before you can get it."

"Or I could go out and hire some mercenaries who know how to put out fires without setting themselves ablaze," she said, squaring her jaw. "If I'm meant to be... to be an Overlady, I need better servants than... than clowns!"

"Clowns?" Gnarl sounded genuinely shocked. "Minions are the best... well, minions you can get."

"Could have fooled me."

"Your Evilness," Gnarl said, crocking his finger at her, "you seem to be under some misapprehensions. Come with me to the throne room, while I set you straight. I see I have left this off too long."


...


Her 'throne room' was at least starting to look a little bit cleaner, after she told the goblins to scrub the floors and throw the rubbish in the corners down the holes in the floor. It still was not a pretty place – nor a place where one could walk without falling down several storeys into a pit filled with the hungry dead, but at least it was something.

Louise settled down on the cushions on her throne, staff resting against the side, and waited for whatever boring lecture Gnarl was about to give.

"Long ago," Gnarl began, "the first and mightiest of the Overlords was having a jolly Evil time. He was sweeping across Halkeginia, pillaging and plundering, conquering and corrupting, killing pathetic elves and stupid dwarves with glee, having unicorn barbeques and clubbing baby seals on the north coast to death."

Louise frowned. "No, that's not right. I know this," she said, taking refuge in pettiness. The things Gnarl was talking about were rather too much to think of - though, of course, it just went to show that for all his talk of 'Evil', he was fundamentally wrong. Killing elves wasn't an evil act. Although... well, killing people just because they were short probably was. "Cattleya wanted one and then it turned out the climate was too warm for them and Mother refused to build her an ice house as an extension to her wing of the house. Seals don't live on the north coast. "

"Not any more, my lady," Gnarl said, sounding self-satisfied. "Seals aren't to be trusted, you know. They can see into your soul. But, you see, in his imperial darkness he was running into a teeny tiny problem. You see, his hordes of men, armoured in black iron and riding very bad tempered ponies took rather a lot of casualties when carrying out perfectly normal raids, and humans take so long to make new humans. Sometimes as long as two decades! That was a problem, because when you were trying to do perfectly reasonable things like burning down all the stupid smelly forests of the elves filled with magical lifeforms irrationally hating Evil, and storming the heavily armoured and fortified fortresses of the dwarves and burning them to the ground and taking all their shiny gold, they tended to object in ways that killed lots of his dark forces. So he, in his Evil genius, started looking for easier ways to acquire legions of darkness

"Oh, he tried so many things to make a superior race of fighting construct. He tried drugging captured elves with everything he could think of. The first lot of drugs had those pathetic long-eared whiners talking about 'bad trips' and the like. Pyah!" Gnarl spat down one of the holes in the floor. "Even when he tried moving to stronger things - including one delightfully Evil potion made from minotaur testes - to make the elves man-up, all he managed to make were orcs. And orcs might be big and muscled, but they are very, very, very stupid. And always so obsessed with getting stronger. They were fine shock-troopers, but were not what he was looking for.

"Other experiments followed. Fireflies were raw Evil woven into fire life force, but they proved too hot to handle. He couldn't work how to get the digestive tract to work in centaurs and almost all of them starved to death. I'm not even sure he knew what he was doing when he decided to cut people in half and glue them to half a fish; neither mermen or menmer were good ideas for someone who was trying to conquer the land. He did spent some time playing around with necromancy, but... my lady, you saw how pathetic a skeleton is compared to a Minion. And the less said about his failed attempts as a contract lawyer and demonologist, the better."

Louise shifted slightly in her seat, noticing the avid minions creeping in around Gnarl. They seemed to be listening raptly. Every little face was turned towards the older goblin.

"And so, in the end, he made the very first Minion. And once he had made the first, then he created the minion hives to produce the new-made master-race en masse."

Louise smiled faintly, at the rather ridiculous notion. It was more than a little pretentious, and considerably more stupid.

"Laughing would not be a good idea," Gnarl said, seriously. "My lady, we are the best friends you will ever have, your most loyal servants, and... fools put their trust in Heroes. The genius, the sheer Evil of the first Overlord was to realise that it does not matter that a Hero might be able to kill a hundred Minions who attack them when two hundred charge. Perhaps you did not pay attention truly yesterday when I explained what a minion hive does. Or perhaps you merely did not think it through properly."

The girl said nothing, because she vaguely remembered him saying something about some kind of place where the goblins really wanted to live, but did not want to show any ignorance. She was starting to get more than a little bit annoyed at Gnarl's attitude, as if she was a simple child who knew nothing. She would have been rather more annoyed if... uh, she didn't actually need the simple explanations most of the time.

But when she had learned enough to make him unnecessary, then she could get out of here and take her new knowledge with her.

"A minion hive is the pinnacle of Evil soul-alchemy," Gnarl explained. "Taking the life-force of your slain foes and other stinking creatures like sheep and ponies, it weaves it together with raw Evil to birth a new Minion. There are four hives in all; one for each of the common kinds of Minion. And let me tell you this; with but oneof them and a sufficient source of lifeforce of the appropriate kind, you could rule all of Tristain. The Brown one would be the best, because Browns are made from a mix of elemental energies and do not require the water-specialty of the Blues, the fire of the Reds, or the blend of earth and water – with traces of air – of the Greens. But make no mistake. All a minion hive requires is lifeforce. From there, you could produce hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of new Minions."

Maggat raised his hand. "Miss Reds," he contributed. "Got easy hot meals around them."

"Most of the Minions left at the tower are Browns, yes," Gnarl said, gravely. "The Greens quit and wondered off into the woods, the Reds... well, vampires have never been too fond of fire, and the Blues turned out to be rather tasty. There are a few, here and there, but... no great number."

"Also, Blues so useful," Maggat added. "If die, they bring you back. Someone once ask me if Minion bought back is same Minion who die, or new one who has all same memories. I say I think I is me, except when I gets very drunk and forgets who I is."

Gnarl clutched his hands around his stick. "Oh, it would be so nice to have some little cheerful faces around the place, ready to loot and plunder and kill," he said, sentimentally. "We're all very old by Minion standards, especially me. And much as it shames me to admit it, most of the Minions here come from goblin stock."

Louise blinked. "Wait," she said, raising one hand carefully. Her mind was a-whirl, and all the joy and happiness of her first proper spell seemed to have leaked out of her, as Gnarl went on and on about... about all the death which would be required to feed these Minion-making machines. She didn't want to do that. Not one bit. "Goblin stock? I thought... well, you are goblins, right?"

There was a clatter of splatters, as various Minions around the room spat on the ground.

"Nope!"

"Urgh!"

"Not anymore!"

"... I never ever ever ever be that kind of thing! Me from proper hive!"

Gnarl raised one hand and the room feel quiet. "It's not her fault; it's been so long since there was a proper Overlord around with a hive that it's no wonder she only thinks we're," he made a disgusted noise, "goblins. No, your ladyship, we are notgoblins. Goblins are inferior, cut-price, degenerated, filthy, stinking terrible, useless, base pathetic creatures."

He paused. "No offense to those of you who came from goblin stock, of course," he added, "but it is true. A proper Minion is a creature of raw and base Evil and stolen lifeforce, spawned from the terrible and mighty power of a minion hive, blended with the temperament and personality of the most vicious, treacherous, and sneaky creature mankind knows." He snorted. "A goblin is no more than a little bit Evil, and they're much weaker. Could five goblins lift that fallen bit of ceiling over there?"

There was a clatter as four minions leapt to obey the implied suggestion, their small-yet-wiry bodies straining as they lifted a lump of rock larger than all four of them combined.

"Um," said Louise.

"And that is why calling a proper and true Minion a 'goblin' is an insult!" Gnarl insisted. "Oh, you can recruit goblins, and you will have to – once you have the tower heart controlled, you can convert goblins into Minions, but they can never be quite as good as a true Minion."

"Oh." The girl paused. "And... so," she trailed off, thinking hard, "so... goblins are wild Minions, without someone to follow?"

"Crudely true," Gnarl said, dismissively. "There is also the matter of birth; the crude alchemies they use to continue their race are poor compared to a proper minion hive, and collecting bodies together to let them rot and grow new goblins in is a poor substitute for proper refined life force. Still, needs must. Even when some of them have re-developed," the minion gagged, "romance for the purposes of reproduction."

Louise's mouth flapped open, and then closed again. She opened it. She closed it. "Wait," she said, eventually. "Eleanore was right? My annoying smug self-righteous violent older sister who gets in duels all the time with other researchers over theories was right about where goblins came from? From putting their flesh in rotting meat and that kind of thing?"

Gnarl narrowed his eyes. "A human worked that out?" he muttered. "Curses. What is her background? Could she be a rival Overlady?"

The girl blinked. "I don't think so," she said, eventually. "Eleanore is... well, um. She's sort of built like me and Mother, but blonde, and... um. Er, she's a magical researcher at the University of Amstelredamme. I think she's... um, not likely to do that... this kind of thing. It would get in the way of her research." Louise narrowed her eyes. "Though of course, um, she's much more likely to be evil than my other sister," she added darkly. "Oh, I wouldn't be surprised of Eleanore would be evil, given half... no, a third of a chance. Compared to her, Cattleya is s-sickly, pale, and she can't even leave the house because she's always ill and has fainting spells. And... and she's the kindness, gentlest person I have ever known! I wish I was more like her," she added, forlornly.

Gnarl's beady eyes scrutinised her, and the girl could not help but feel a little guilty and even more offended by her arrogant 'chief advisor'. How dare he look so knowing! How dare he stare at her like he thought that she didn't actually want to be ill and too prone to weakness and all the things Cattleya suffered from; that she just wanted her appearance! She wasn't that shallow! Not one bit. She really did want to be nice like her. She... just had a temper and didn't do well with people. That was it.

"And of course, as you have reminded me several times, you are Lousie de la Vallière. The third daughter of a duke," Gnarl said, stroking his goatee. "Yes, that's a good, traditional Evil background. The youngest child. The one who everyone always looks down on. The one who has everything to prove. You have a Respectable one, a Kind one, and you... the Evil one.

"And a de la Vallière, yes," the creature added approvingly. "Oh, I know your family of old. A nicely traditional one. Louis de la Vallière was someone I would have liked to have met; a true military genius. All those impaling and executions of people who got in his way. Properly knowing how to strike fear into the hearts of your foes, that's what that is. And your name is so much like his; I have great hopes for you, my lady. I had heard rumours that the current duke had gone soft, but then again that was a vampire ranting when I was locked in a cage, so it was not the most reliable information"

She preened a little at the praise of herself, even as her conscience told her that what he was saying was not a good thing. And that the little gobli... Minion was probably trying to make her easier to persuade with all that praise. "And, well, my mother is the duchess, Karin, and she used to be a soldier and a champion and part of the Manticore Knights..."

There were gasps all around, and even Gnarl flinched. "Not... not Karin of the Heavy Wind!" the elderly goblin managed.

"Wait," she protested, her voice rising. "You said you had been locked up in that cage for decades! How in Brimir's name do you know about my mother!"

"Oh, everyone knows about Karin of the Heavy Wind, your evilness," Gnarl said with a faint hint of surprise in his voice. "Why, she killed Duke Estashu, who called himself 'the Midnight Unicorn of Sorrows', led the Unicorn Knights in their very Evil plans of dominion and conquest, and employed many poor out-of-work orcs and trolls and the like in all kinds of roles, especially looking after his bloodthirsty unicorns. Very fond of horses, that man, so I hear. Very fond. Oh, how that disgusting slob of a vampire raged at the news, because he had foolishly leant money to him. She murdered dozens of perfectly innocent cultists in the Black Nunnery of Trecht. She killed Kerrjo, the Black Poet of Shadows. And he was a dragon, so that was no small feat. Just because he was Evil, rather than for a proper reason like the fact that he was really bad at rhymes."

"Really bad," one of the lesser minions, who was wearing a floppy hat which looked like it had been taken from some merchant, confirmed. "Once, he try to make 'lemon' go with 'demon', and when people object, he say that," the minion concentrated, "he say that 'the contra-sense and vio-lay-shun of patterns is statement of de-literate intent'. I think that rubbish, but he giant flying lizard size of house who not take criticism well."

"In fact," Gnarl continued, "she has persecuted harmless little creatures of Evil all over the land with her disgustingly Heroic hands just because of the colour of their skin, their species, or merely because they were Evil."

"She very scary," one of the minions said in a hushed voice. "They say, if you see her and you Evil, it already too late. If you not see her, you maybe only seconds from death."

"I hear that she once wind blow Evil giant so hard, it blow up like balloon and then she pop it," added another one. "All Heroes scary, but she very scary. She not sleep. She waits."

Louise slammed her fist down on the arm of her throne. "That is enough!" she commanded.

"Under her armour, she no has fingers. She only have more wands. For more magic."

"Enough!"

"They say she blow Overlord so hard he go flying up into sky and only leave tiny twinkle behind, and that where that song come from," one hapless Minion continued in the silence.

Silently, Louise rose, eyes two burning beacons in the ill-lit hall. A perceptive observer might have noticed that she was biting on her lip, which was – despite her valiant efforts – wobbling, as if she was about to cry.

And she turned and ran out of the hall, leaving her staff behind.

"Oh, I had forgotten how hard it was handling trainee Overlords and Overladies," Gnarl said with a sigh. "Especially when they're only teenagers. The boys are always more interested in either writing sappy poetry, acquiring a harem, or getting petty revenge on people who have offending them, while the girls... well, they always seem to have so many family issues and even more petty revenges. This one... oh, if the rumours are true, she has two Heroes for parents."

"Poor mistress," said the Minion in the floppy hat. "She not get proper in-viro-mint for Evil talents. No wonder she..." the creature made what was probably meant to be a bird noise, but sounded rather more like a crushed bag of crisps, "... she not all there in her head. She think she Hero."

"Oh, quite so. I wonder if her talents come from there. Good and Evil are so very close at times; just look at how many proper terrible figures of darkness have thrice-damned Heroes for children, and how many children of Heroes come to their senses. But if both her parents are Heroes... we will need to be more careful." Gnarl paused. "Or, rather, I will be more careful, and I will send any Minion who is stupid in front of me to be in the front waves of the attacks to reclaim the tower heart."

Maggat rubbed the brand on his left hand. "What if she run away, Boss?" he asked, nervously. "If we no have master, everything be bad again. And not just because we not have funny booms to watch."

"She won't. Even now, she will go sulk off into her room, decide that the best way to act against Evil is to learn as much of it as possible so she is warned and armed against it, and... hmm," Gnarl stroked his goatee. "Yes, she looks like the sort to rationalise that Evil does not exist, and it's just a matter of opinion. That's a terrible habit, because it means you try to do Good in the name of Evil, but she'll lose that in time."

"You sure, boss?" said another one. "She tricksy, in a sort of violent way. Like how she trick us into setting ourselves on fire by pretending that it accident and then telling us to put it out."

"Evil is in her blood," Gnarl said, simply. "For all that she might try to fight it or deny it, she was born to be an Overlady. And Evil always finds a way."

He paused.

"Also, Licket, report to the duty torturer for the inestimable stupidity of that last comment."


...