"Louise, you have to realise that not everyone is nice all the time. Sometimes even I can be a real pain in the neck. But there are people who try to be nice and sometimes fail, and there are people who don't even try. Try to be one of the first type, 'kay?"

Cattleya Yvette La Baume Le Blanc de la Vallière


...


Through the dank and squalid halls of her ruined tower, Louise de la Vallière stumbled, tears blurring her vision.

Her mother was going to kill her. Metaphorically and, sadly, literally. She was a dead woman walking. She was doomed. Doomed. No way out at all. Her mother was infamous for killing evil things, to the extent that even a stupid smelly goblin who had been locked in a cage for eighty years had heard of her. And she just knew that if one thing could make her mother come out of retirement, it would be to hunt down a daughter who was 'dishonouring the family name'. A stupid, useless, dead weight of a daughter who turned out to be evil.

Her mother was going to kill her.

She could run away. No, wait, she couldn't. She'd tried that already, and ended up in this mess in the first place. And now she knew evil magic and had felt that feeling of rightness, of properness when using evil spells which meant that – nonsensically, impossibly – her element was evil. Oh, certainly, she could make fire, but it was evil fire! Normal fire didn't burn like that, didn't make choking burning smoke like that!

Also, the entrance way hadn't been cleared yet. And she had a tower partially full of goblins who were all her familiars and probably would follow her and she still didn't have a normal familiar and… argh!

Her mother was going to kill her.

Panting, tired, she slumped down against a wall, and then shrieked as she realised that it was wet and smelt strongly of mould. The back of her dress would be ruined. Hands balled into fists, she pulled herself to her feet wearily, and stomped off to find a more convenient wall to slump against.

It was only when she heard the knocking from the other side that she realised that the wall was in fact a door. A heavy, cast iron door, with a white 'V' daubed on it.

"Hey!" someone whispered from the other side. Their accent was somewhat coarse; they sounded very much like a northern peasant from somewhere around the La Rochelle area. "Who's it out there? Is it 'nother one of them stinking goblings? Louis? Is that you? Can you let me out or something, or at least give me some food. I ran out, an' I'm real sorry for getting in a fight with Claudine! I promise I won't do nothing bad like that no more!"

Louise groaned.

"I bet you had a hard day, moi darlin'," the woman added, with an obvious faint note of desperation in her voice. "I'll be all ready to do all the special stuff an' I'll do that thing with the other brides that you like so much. Just let me out an' let me have food an' I'll be all ready for you just like you want, yeah? I'll even settle for one of them goblings."

Pulling herself up for the second time, and peeking through the slot in the door, Louise could see that the room was a woman's bedroom – and a rather better one than the one she was currently using. The woman on the other side of the door only looked to be a few years older than her, if that, and was pale and dark haired, a slightly exotic cast about her features. She was also wearing badly applied lip rouge and streaked and smeared charcoal under her eyes which looked like it had been applied by a blind clown wearing boxing gloves.

"Louis? That you? Or is it one of them stinking goblings?" the woman asked, a faintly nasal whine entering her voice.

Louise took a deep breath. "No," she said, slowly. "I'm Louise. Louise de la Vallière. I'm… who are you? Why are you locked up in here?"

"The master of this place, the lord, 'e locked me up in here because I fought one of 'is other brides," the woman said, her face pale. "Who are you?"

"I… he's dead now," Louise answered. Apparently this peasant was not the sharpest knife in the drawer – or even the sharpest knife in the spoon compartment – given that she had, in fact, just given her name. "He's locked you up in here and isn't feeding you?"

The woman cowered. "Please don't hurt me!" she begged. "What… what are you, some kinda Hero?" Her hands went up to cover her mouth. "I… I was a maid in one of the nearby castles but… but the vampire… 'e takes 'is brides from places around and he tooked me away and put me in 'ere." The other woman began to sob. "I just want to go 'ome," she said, turning away from Louise. "Please!"

Louise looked around wildly. She certainly didn't have any keys, but… ah, yes. She could do that. "Stand back!" she instructed, as she began to chant the spell for the fire. Maybe she might be able to melt off the lock if she did it this way – certainly, it burned hot enough to melt iron if applied for long periods, so she should probably be able to fry the door if she tried hard enough.

As she expected, the metal hissed and bubbled as she applied the orb to it, and with a pop the entire lock fell out of the door, splatting on the floor and and bubbling sparks. Nudging the dark bit of the door with her shoe, the girl pushed it open, and took a look around.

And since she was no longer constrained to what she could see through a narrow slit, she took in what was in the room

She blinked.

She looked again, and her eyes, flaring bright, glared at the peasant.

"I can explain," the woman began, a hint of fang visible as she spoke.

Louise cast gouts of pink fire into the room. Again and again and again, starting with the dark-haired woman and moving onto the other... things. Panting, coughing, trembling in rage, she did not dismiss the ball of fire in her hand, instead holding it before her like a talisman in the smoke-filled room.

That… that… that…

She began to sob, flame still held aloft as if its light was the only thing that could protect her. Again and again, she lobbed fire into the room, openly weeping, until the smoke forced her away from the entrance and the screaming stopped.

She… the woman had been a vampire. She had killed her. Burned her alive. Burned her undead. And in there… oh Founder. Oh God.

There was… had been… a - oh God, she didn't even want to think it - a paper-dry, shrivelled corpse of a child in there... anyone who would condemn her for that was almost as bad as the vampire. Almost, but not quite.

No, nothing was as bad as that grey parchment-skinned pathetic lump that had been in the corner, skin wrapped tight around the skull, the hollow eyesockets staring accusingly at her. That was not a metaphor. It... it was still moving. It... it...

Louise retched, and emptied her stomach of her breakfast made of suspicious fungus bread and dubious fungal beer onto the floor. And heaved again and again, until only bile came out.

It wasn't so bad when they were only skeletons. Even though there had been some child-sized skeletons down there, they were just clean bone. They weren't someone only dead maybe a week, who... who might have still been alive when she ended up in this forsaken sticking horrible ruined tower.

And however much Gnarl talked about 'evil' and the like, no. This thing gave Louise sudden certainty in her own mind. As long as you had faith and enjoyed the state of grace, it was what you did which really mattered. Magic wasn't good or evil; it simply was. It didn't matter if the spell you cast was called "Hellfire" or "Fireball"; certainly not compared to who you were casting it at.

If Gnarl said that her power was pure evil… well, she never would drain a child dry of blood and then reanimate the corpse. If he called her 'evil', then that was his opinion, but that was something she would never, ever do. Which meant that either what the vampire had done was not evil – which was utterly ridiculous – or his definition was wrong. And that made far more sense, because… well, she was quite aware that there were corrupt, treasonous nobles and priests and the like who justified their actions as being good when they were doing things unbecoming of their station.

It was one of the things her mother had always told her; the ore of intention and will must be forged by actions into the steel of proper conduct. Nobles who acted in improper ways, for all that they might claim to be honourable, were unbecoming of the title. Priests who broke their vows were not good, for all that they might read the holy books of Brimir. One could have all the best intentions in the world, but if one did not actto carry out that intent, sat back and let evil things happen, or broke one's vows to queen and country… such a person was not good, no matter what they said.

And if that was true for good, why was it not also true for evil? Why could evil creatures not actually be doing good things, but justifying it as evil because that was the way they were raised? Their perspective on the world might be inverted and be wicked and sinful, but just as men could fall… who could say that goblins could not rise?

Louise smiled to herself. Yes. She would say proudly to Gnarl that she would be the Evil Overlady for Evil Itself, and only she would know what she meant by that. So what if her magic was allegedly evil? When she killed a vampire with pink-burning fire which let off choking white smoke, how was that different from Kirche von Zerbst doing it with smokeless orange fire? The vampire was left just as dead, and the world was made a better place because of it.

"Rule of Steel," she whispered to herself.

So she would train to be "evil". She would learn her magic, what it could do, and how best to use it. She would take control of the minions, and enslave goblins from the wilderness where they could no longer attack villages; instead they would obey her. And she would keep her own council, and act as she saw fit and proper action, and would not let a stupid old goblin define her as evil. She knew right, she knew wrong, and she knew the difference between the two. And doing that with a child could never, ever, ever be right, no matter what deeds some ancient goblin might attribute to 'good' and 'evil'. And killing a vampire who had done that could never, ever be wrong.

She would act as her mother would have her act, and make her proud.

No matter what monsters she might face.

Louise swung her staff around in a half-circle, sending the skeleton's head flying. Stepping back, she chanted the spell for her fire, and the pink-burning orb formed in her hand. "Get back!" she yelled at the minions ahead of her who were enthusiastically tearing their way through the dead, before she lobbed the ball of fire overarm.

It hit a lurching, putrid zombie in the chest, and the mindless undead creature went up like a torch, burning bright pink. The thick clouds of fluffy white smoke coiled around it, and the other zombies nearby visibly charred in the heat. Sadly, the girl thought, they didn't need to breath.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a movement along the ceiling, made visible by the burning zombie. The spider-scuttling human on the ceiling... no, vampire she realised, looking at the red-glowing eyes... was heavily muscled and clawed, with a maw full of sharp fangs and...

"Fireball!"

The miscast knocked it off the ceiling, trapping its arm under a fallen rock, and then it was all over for the vampire as the Minions fell upon it..

No matter what unpleasant deeds she might have to do.

Louise folded her arms, and glared. "Oh no you don't!" she ordered. "Get on your feet, all of you! None of you are getting to rest until at the very least you have whitewashed the left wall of the main hall! We'll redecorate later, but I am not holding court in a room covered in old bloodstains!"

"Your evilness," wailed Gnarl, "this is not done! You can't be an Overlady in a plain whitewashed hall! You should at least be blackwashing it! White is not an evil colour! Except when it's bone-white. But that's..."

Louise raised a hand. "Maggat," she said simply.

"Oooh, ooooh!" the beskulled minion said enthusiastically. "Mistress and I do money counting, and she realise we not have money to do painting of walls and like. So I go visit Igni, and he mix some things together, and then there explosion. Then I fetch Scyl and he bring Igni back from dead. Then we try more things, and there lots of skellies lying around, and we find we can make white paint from bones! And I tell mistress, and she say I do well and can has beer! So paint is made from bones of victims!"

Gnarl pursed his lips. "That... is... acceptable..." he said slowly, as if the words were pulled out from him.

Sitting on her throne, Louise tried not to smirk.

No matter what horrors she might face.

"And now," said Gnarl, "we move onto finance and accounting. One of the most important rules for being a dark lord… or lady in your case… is ensuring that sufficient copies are made of vital documents. This is something that half-bit pathetic wannabe Overlords, like that disgusting vampire never learn. If you don't keep proper records of your tax, tribute and pillaging gains, and of outgoing expenditures, you might not notice that some Heroic thief is stealing from you or that the giant gold statue of yourself is beyond your means. And that, my lady, simply will not do."

Gnarl coughed, and clicked his fingers, prompting four minions to come running in laden down with heavy books.

"I advise you, my lady, to devote your spare time to reading up on these books. Start with 'The Basics of Accountancy', before moving onto more advanced texts like 'Implementing a Triple Leger Scheme in Large Scale Organisations', 'Von Nuyher's Guide' – that's a rather good book on demonic contract law, although really no more than a primer for the field – and my very favourite book, 'Legers and Tables of Standardised Exchange Rates for Incorporeal Valuables'. It's really a gripping read. And this is only volume one; there are four more! Oh, I do hope they bought out a new edition when I was imprisoned!"

She would make her parents proud of her.


...


And so it came to pass, almost three months later, that Louise de Vallière lowered her hand, watching as the monster made from three stitched-together reanimated orcs fell to the ground. Around her was the crackle of fireballs from the few Red minions she had, the moaning of the living dead, and the enthusiastically violent noises that minions made when beating a zombie to death – undeath, redeath, whatever – with its own arm.

The noises died down. Louise ignored the chatter of the minions as they began to deliver their plundering to Maggat, who had acquired from somewhere – Louise was not sure she wanted to know where – a large burlap sack to carry such things.

"Treasure! For you!" announced a minion, presenting her with a gold necklace. The beast had just acquired an opera cape for itself, and appeared to want to be getting back to the looting.

"Put it in the sack," Louise said, sighing as she looked around the chamber. She was getting really sick of that phrase, along with 'For you', 'For the Overlady', and especially 'For the Overlord' from those minions who were still rather slow at learning the details of human sexes. Human genders. Yes. That was what she meant.

For the first time, she could pause for a moment to look around the place and so get to really see the room that she had just finally – after several failed attempts which had cost her minions – taken. Surprisingly, the still-burning corpses were not the main source of light down here. That honour instead belonged to the blue-glowing orb which hovered in mid-air, between a stalagmite and a stalactite which almost touched. There were giant ruined statues all around the edge of the room, their heads alone taller than she was, and either the artists had been terrible, or at least one of them had originally been a woman's body before a man's head had been used to replace the original ones. The remaining eyes on the heads glowed like her own eyes, adding orange-yellow light to the blue from the orb and the pink of her fires. The floor of this area was built at its level, and so no small number of undead – and the occasional minion – had taken fatal falls over the edge of the platform, to whatever lay below.

Louise was not quite sure she wanted to know. Over the past few months, she had her minions had clawed their way down nearly five storeys. The revelation that this place went deeper was unwelcome, especially since the various undead monstrosities down here had gotten tougher and more... manufactured. Like that thing made from three orcs sewn together.

"This was the old throne room, my lady," said Gnarl from directly behind her, which made Louise nearly jump out of her skin. Somehow, the ancient goblin had made his way behind her, delicately picking his way over the various mashed and mangled corpses of the undead. "The thirteenth Overlady had it moved. Or was it the fourteenth? Memory fades with time. Oh well. Possibly the only sensible thing she did, because she didn't last long. It has a more impressive view, but it was so much harder to get to. Still, this is the tower heart. Somewhat damaged, but still operational. And..." he pointed with one bony finger, "... that, my lady, is the Gauntlet."

Almost lost in the blue glow of the tower heart was a small bubble of bloody red light. There was something in it; something which looked like a fist.

Carefully, deliberately Louise began to walk towards the large orb. It was not merely out of a sense of the dramatic. The causeway-bridge-thing-whatever which lead to it was littered with bodies, and also got rather narrow in places. She really did not want to slip and fall here. It would be highly embarrassing.

Also fatal, if the fall went over the edge into the... darkness. Which reached down and down and down, beyond the light of the tower heart and... now she was getting woozy and this was really not the time for vertigo.

Why were there no safety rails here? Why why why why?

Mercifully, the platform got wider as it looped around the tower heart, and Louise could breathe more easily – even with the smoke in the air. This close, she could see the damage to the tower heart. It was cracked, and entire chipped splinters were missing from it. The light from it appeared, strangely, to be the same light that enveloped the gauntlet, somehow changing colour when it moved between the two. Which wasn't how light worked. She took another step forward, and the glow of red light around the gauntlet washed over her face.

The entire thing thrummed, with a noise which she could only describe as 'whooooooom'.

And she realised that the noise was pulsing. It was pulsing at the same speed as her own heartbeat. That realisation led the pair of them to speed up.

She just had to put the gauntlet on, right? It was for the left hand, and looked rather too large for her.

What if it rejected her? What if she wasn't a proper Overlady, just like she hadn't been a proper mage? What if she was just going to fail again here, another failure in a long life of failures? Louise the Zero, Louise the Useless, Louise the Pathetic.

"Hurry up," Gnarl called out. "They'll be serving dinner upstairs soon enough!"

The girl took a deep breath, and then without exhaling took a second deeper one. Screwing her eyes shut, she thrust her left hand into the red light.

Coolness washed over her left hand, and she opened her eyes, letting her breath out in an explosive burst. She had just meant to grab it, but the gauntlet had somehow folded itself around her hand and resized as it did it. Now her left hand was covered in steel, all the way up to the elbow. The armour was decidedly more... feminine than it had been before, too. It was still a plate gauntlet, but the fingers were less fat and the claw-like fingers almost seemed to have nails.

Louise de la Vallière flexed her hand. It barely felt like she was wearing anything on the arm, and yet when she made a fist she heard her metal fingers click against her armoured palm. She felt the same fundamental rightness about this armour as she had when she had first cast the fire spell, and she slowly raised her hand.

A deep bellow sounded out, like a horn from the depths, only the sound emanated from her hand. All around the room, minions ceased with their looting, pillaging, and trying on desecrated bodies as hats, and flocked to her. The strange gem-like thing on the back of the armour flared green, and the runes branding the minions burned brighter for a moment, making the creatures flinch in pain, before the light died down to the same yellow-pink as her eyes.

"Mistress," Gnarl said approvingly, "and I can rightfully call you that now, may I be the first to congratulate you on recovering the gauntlet. It is perhaps the truest emblem of your office, and rather suits you. Now! Now the Evil deeds can really begin."