As soon as they had stopped descending, they let go of each other’s hand, just before clawing their way upward through the mud; and once they were back in the pool only seconds later, they swam for the top.
Perhaps fifteen seconds later as they swam to the edge, they came to discover that the depth of this pool had drastically risen to a foot of water. The entire island was flooded with water.
They walked to the very edge, discovering that they could not accurately call this landmass “an island” either. No sources of water surrounded this land, except for the water unceasingly pouring off this one, nor could a drop of water be seen anywhere through the lightning, thunder and cloudy skies.
However, there were dozens of those various-sized, three-dimensional, puzzle-shaped, floating islands, in which every island mysteriously levitated at different heights that all contained purple grass and yellow bushes growing on top. In fact, the only sources of light at all were the frequent lightning bolts that arced here and there! Upon looking down, it seemed to the both of them that this hell was truly bottomless.
Without any further delay, Baltor took a few steps back, just before beginning to unroll the carpet onto the soggy ground.
Meanwhile, Nemis asked aloud, “Hey…before we ride the carpet, would it be all right if I checked out this lamp? By the way, yes I’m fully aware I’m using verbal communication, but there’s no one around, and right now I just need to talk aloud in order to keep my sanity.”
Baltor answered, “Sure, in answer to your question, and yes we can physically communicate for now, but honestly, I don’t know what good a lamp is going to do us right now.”
Instead of responding, she pulled the lamp out of her pocket and began to check it out … though beautiful in design, the porcelain lamp was unadorned with any inscriptions or designs.
A few seconds later, she opened the lid and looked inside, but as the lamp was empty, she shut the lid and continued to gaze at it.
“Hmm,” she said. “Very strange lamp…”
“Is it useful?”
“I cannot identify what its purpose is at all…unlike most magic items.”
As she saw one of her fingerprints smeared on the side, she rubbed it clean. The second she was done, a black-colored smoke began to pour out the little spout.
That smoke got thicker and thicker by the second, despite the gusty winds—meanwhile, the two continued to watch the lamp.
Nearly a minute later, the upper body and head of a man appeared just over the level of the smoke—this man was shirtless, revealing his massive-muscled torso, and equally muscled arms that were crossed in front of him at his waist. He had a foot-long goatee that was red and curly, and he wore a turban on his head!
“Ah,” this half-man sighed happily in a very deep tone of voice. “Finally I can see the light of day, though I am confused as to how long I’ve been in there and where we are right now!”
Baltor had his hand on the handle of one of his swords, just in case, but he did not draw it out yet. Instead, he asked, “What and who are you?”
“Why—I am a genie! My name is Mirrak. Where the hell am I?”
Nemis stifled back a laugh just before answering, “You, my friend, are in the third plane of hell, though we found your lamp in the treasury of the second plane.”
Mirrak replied, “Wow…that’s crazy! Hell, huh? It’s not as I heard or imagined it would be.”
“Yes it is,” she answered with a smile that did not look like a smile that indicated that she was happy to be here one bit.
“Thank you for rescuing me from that awful lamp, most-beautiful lady,” the genie answered most-appreciatively. “In return, I can offer you one wish. But once you make that wish, you must promise to shatter the lamp on the ground after I make your wish happen, so I can become free from that prison, once and for all.”
“Whatever wish I want,” she asked.
Mirrak answered, “Though I am quite powerful, my wishes do have a few limitations to them.”
“Like what?” Baltor asked.
“I can only tell you that answer upon hearing the nature of your wish,” the genie answered.
“Can you kill Arch-Devils?”
“That…I cannot do. They are more powerful than I, though not by much.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Can you teleport us to the Ninth Plane of Hell?”
“That I cannot do either.”
Baltor asked, “How about at least getting us to the Arch-Devil of this plane?”
“That I can do,” he answered with an affirming nod, a smile, and the snapping of his fingers. “But I must know the name of the person before I can make your wish happen.”
Nemis answered, “Well, we cannot outright say that name without this individual knowing our location.”
“Understood,” the genie said. “However, if you were to make that one wish, you will arrive first at the very location of the Arch-Devil, and not the other way around.”
Nemis looked to Baltor questioningly.
Baltor answered, “If you want my opinion, I think we should wait on that wish as we are not trapped on this island, Nemis. Use it on the later planes, perhaps?”
Without waiting for her answer, he asked another question, “Genie, can you bring imprisoned people to us?”
“That I can also do,” Mirrak answered with an affirming nod.
“That’s a great idea, Baltor! We should just wish for that,” Nemis said. “Then we don’t have to go through anymore of this crap…and just go home.”
“And how will we get home if we’ve already used our one wish up?” Baltor asked.
“Well why don’t we think about it for a little bit,” Nemis said, while shrugging her shoulders.
“That’s the best plan…”
“Do we really have to wait?” Mirrak asked with a raised eyebrow. “I’d really like to be free now.”
Once again, Nemis looked at Baltor with a questioning look.
Suddenly, Baltor began to get “a really bad feeling” about this genie. He could not explain why, only the fact that there was not something quite right.
“I think we should wait,” Baltor said but one moment later.
“Why?” both Nemis and the genie asked simultaneously.
Instead of answering the question, Baltor said, “Go back into your lamp for now, Mirrak. We’ll let you know when we’re ready.”
The genie looked over at Baltor with very ruffled feathers, before stating, “You have no authority over me—she does.” Looking at Nemis, he begged right away, “Please, please…just make your wish now, so I can go my merry way.”
Nemis said, “Like my friend said, go back into your lamp for now. When I’m ready, I’ll let you know.”
As the genie did not have any choice, due to the fact that Nemis was “the master of the lamp,” he as well all his smoke, disappeared back in the lamp in three seconds.
“Put it back in your pocket,” Baltor suggested.
She did, but as there was a question on her mind, she asked, “Why didn’t we make our wish now?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “But my gut’s telling me that there’s something bad about that genie.”
“I just wish to get our—”
“Watch your words,” he interrupted.
“Okay, my bad. I just really want to grab my mom and your friend, and go home.”
After sighing, he responded, “I would love nothing better than to go home myself, but my friend specifically told me that there was but one way to rescue him. To go any other route would end in disaster. Besides, that genie is quite pushy, which makes me triply nervous, as I’ve dealt with many people like that in my life who were in fact tricksters.”
Nemis had nothing to say to that.
After Baltor sat on the rug, he said, “Climb on board behind me.”
She did.
A second later, the carpet elevated off the ground, just before leaving the perimeters of the island.
“Wh
ere to first?”
“Let’s see what lies at the bottom first, if there is a bottom,” he said. He willed the carpet to fly at a forty-five degree decline with half the maximum speed, which gravity-shift shoved Nemis’ body tight into his—she did not mind.
A few moments later, she answered, “You’re the boss, Baltor. By the way, I’ve been thinking…maybe we should just get rid of the lamp? I could even toss it right now. What do you think?”
“Not yet, Nemis. That genie may prove useful. We might even be able to make him first swear that he can’t defile your wish, especially upon hearing your very proposal to drop the lamp.”
“Okay. Good idea….”
The next sixteen hours passed without any other words spoken, as they descended tens of thousands of feet. In the end, all they discovered were hundreds of floating islands, along with the angry storm that never abated. Inevitably, the time came when Baltor said aloud, “I don’t know…maybe this hell really is bottomless?”
“Maybe,” she responded a few moments later.
“Furthermore, I haven’t seen any signs of people or creatures or buildings or anything…only islands. Have you?”
“No.”
“Well, I suppose we should level out and move at top speed.”
“Okay.”
Baltor leveled out the carpet, now flying straight ahead—once more, silence prevailed.
Twenty hours and more than six hundred islands later, they finally saw their “first sign of movement,” about ten miles ahead. It possessed the shape of a globe that spanned one-eighth of a mile, and had a handful of different colors that speedily swirled all around—red, blue, green, white, and yellow. Whether it was some type of machine, or a living creature, neither person knew.
No matter which possibility was the answer, Baltor still cocked his head around, put his index finger up to his lips, and silently made his lips look like he was saying, “Shh.”
She nodded.
Without any further delay, he navigated the carpet for the nearest island, about five hundred feet to their left and three hundred feet higher than their current altitude.
Once hidden in “the perfect hiding spot” inside a deep, rocky gorge, only then did he stop the carpet. Despite the fact that Baltor’s binocular-vision had remained glued, as if he was only one foot away, he still could not identify it.
Perhaps a minute later, this sphere exploded outwards, revealing not one life form, yet a colossal-sized group of massive, living creatures all bundled into one tight package. Approximately thirty to forty fully-grown dragons now loosely flew amongst one another, while battling viciously using claws and/or fangs!
Nearly five minutes later, the dragons stopped fighting, and as they began to hover, talk, and laugh amongst one another, Baltor and Nemis realized that these dragons had not been battling each other at all, but horse playing. Furthermore, the only way to tell between a male and a female was the octave of the voice—males spoke a deep bass, while the females possessed shrilly altos.
Although a dozen different conversations happened to be occurring in the Dragonic tongue at the very same time, Baltor focused his attention upon one conversation going on between three dragons. This is what his ears heard and his mind interpreted:
A red, female dragon had just begun to say, “That was a lot of fun…hee hee hee! We should get together more often…right guys?”
“Yeah…ha ha, we should, Cherrias,” a green, male dragon answered. “Next time though, I’ll kick your butt, Gongroid.”
A blue, male dragon—Gongroid—replied, “You wish, Yasenva. Just like this time, I will always be the reigning champion. Hahaha! ”
Yasenva asked, “What—ha ha—you want round two now?”
Gongroid answered, “I would, sighs, but I have guard duty at Tiamat’s palace in an hour. Thank goodness we only have to do one shift every millennium, as nothing exciting ever happens there.”
“True that,” Cherrias sighed.
“So…when we going to get together again, everybody? Everybody?” Yasenva asked just loud enough to stop all the other conversations going on. Once silence reigned, he added, “It only took us one thousand years to get together since our last school reunion!”
A white, female dragon suggested, “How about in five hundred years from now?”
Using this phrase, or a similar phrase, all of the dragons answered while nodding their heads, “All right…”
Cherrias was the next to say, “Well, everybody, I’m off—see you all soon…”
Almost all of the dragons responded in unison, “Bye, Cherrias.”
Cherrias left, flying the opposite direction where Baltor and Nemis were located.
Baltor’s attention remained on Gongroid—the blue dragon that said he had guard duty. Other dragons were in the process of saying their farewells, just before taking off in different directions. Only once, so far, did Baltor have to hide even further in their nook.
Nearly ten minutes later, all of the dragons had left, except for Gongroid and one other white dragon who continued to talk.
Five minutes later, that white dragon concluded the conversation with, “Well, gotta go, Gongroid. See ya in five hundred years.”
With that, Gongroid threw one final look at his buddy and nodded his head, before flying off to Baltor and Nemis’ right.
Inside Baltor’s mind, he heard Nemis ask, So what’s going on?
We’re going to follow that blue dragon. Apparently, he’s got guard duty tonight at Tamait’s palace.
Isn’t her name—?
Yes, it is, but I’m purposefully saying it in reverse.
Gotcha—are we going to follow him?
Yes we are, right now…
With that, Baltor navigated the carpet at top speed until they arrived at the next island, a little less than eight hundred feet away. After he had checked it to make sure the coast was clear until the next island, twelve hundred feet away, he made the carpet fly straight for it.
For the next forty minutes, Baltor and Nemis did “a stop and go” between all the islands, as they followed the dragon who seemed oblivious to their presence the entire time.
Inevitably, Gongroid flew for an island that was about twenty miles long by forty miles wide—the largest landmass they had seen since their arrival.
No sign of civilization or life could be seen on top—just a cave near the bottom—the very direction Gongroid continued to fly toward. Five minutes later, he disappeared inside this cave.
Meanwhile, Baltor and Nemis had just arrived at the nearest island, only two thousand feet away and one hundred feet below.
As soon as he had parked at another hiding spot—still in view of the cave—he said, Well, you’d figure this would get easier as you go along…but it doesn’t. It gets harder. Honestly, I have no clue whether this particular island is this dragon’s home, or perhaps Tamait’s palace exists inside, or if there is a portal inside that cave that leads to her palace, or what this place is at all. Do you have any ideas, or spells, to aid us?
After pursing her lips, which lips made a slight chirping sound that lasted for a few seconds, she finally answered, Um…I can make us both invisible, so that maybe we can check things out inside that cave. Or, we have the genie at our disposal.
Just then, Gongroid emerged from the cave, now wearing battle armor on his body with a helmet on his head. Both objects had dozens of holes in it, so that all of the horns could protrude out.
Without any further delay, this dragon began to chant in the Dragonic tongue: ten seconds later, a large glowing-red rune appeared in front of his position, about one thousand feet. Both Baltor and Nemis wondered what could be the purpose for this rune?
The very second the dragon’s nose impacted with the rune, he vanished into thin air. For some mysterious reason, the teleportation rune continued to remain hovering in the middle of the air.
Not caring why, Baltor began flying the carpet at top speed for the rune—although he believed that h
e could replicate this same rune if he had to, he’d rather not spend his own magical energy.
Had the carpet been one second later, only a few seconds later, that rune would have closed, but as it was, they surprisingly made it through the portal!
On the other side, they discovered that they were now in the smack middle of a single room that was exactly one thousand miles in length and width—the ceiling was two thousand miles tall. The walls consisted of a single piece of swirly marble that possessed every color, in which the colors magically moved about in swirling motions! The floors, however, were made of solid-gold checkered tiles. The ceiling had been painted two different skies—day on the left and night on the right.
Strange but true…the only sources of illumination in this room came from the large, prismatic orb hovering in the middle of the air near the far-left corner, as well the millions of tiny glowing orbs imbedded into the ceiling itself on the right.
Massive stacks of treasure and/or equally massive dragon-statues made from all precious materials—woods, metals, crystals, jewels—lined up the walls in a wide variety of poses.
Far more important than the statues was the army of hundreds of thousands of living dragons (all helmeted and battle-armored) that had been engaged in a wide variety of activities, but now, in unison, they had stopped in their tracks and were now looking directly at Baltor and Nemis!
At the far end of the room, there lay a fifty-foot tall, rectangular throne—made of gold that continuously swirled around with platinum—it was a quarter of a mile in length and width. Sitting on it happened to be a dragon, just as big as the throne and possessing five heads—red, black, white, blue, and green—all heads had already turned to look at the two! This was Tiamat.
“Intruders…kill them,” all five heads roared in unison. This dragon was obviously female by the shrilly tone in her voice.
In the next moment, every dragon but Tiamat began flying toward their enemies with claws and fangs ready to tear and kill—meanwhile, Baltor rose to his feet on the carpet while drawing both of his swords. Nemis began chanting, still sitting down.
Not even before the next three seconds had passed, Baltor had already deflected four different dragons’ physical attacks as they whizzed on by at blinding speeds—swords that hadn’t hurt any of the dragons one iota, not even a scratch!
The War of All Wars Page 15
