The Ice Lands

by William Dickey

  “They adapted to starvation,” I frowned down at the bony skin covered skeletons below.

  ‘This is all a consequence of the Traveler interface. It was designed to allow people to adapt to whatever worlds they might find themselves in. In this case it first let them adapt to the cold then later to starvation,’ Mai explained.

  “It’s just a shame they couldn’t maintain their sanity long enough for them to complete the adaptation. They seem to be thriving now,” I stared down at the two remaining shrieking creatures that had once been human. Since they had no means of getting us in the trees, most had already moved on.

  ‘I guess humans don’t have the same tenacity as the Travelers,’ said Mai, she practically worshipped her creators.

  “Yes, it’s a shame though after going through all that is it really a surprise they became what they now are,” said Robin.

  I looked at Izusa. My mood quickly darkened, my original opinion of her and her people returning. They were all monsters. They had repeatedly thrown defenseless people out to meet their horrible deaths. The Xebryans may have shown some suspicion and taken people into custody when they first arrived, but they certainly weren’t mistreated and in the end were accepted. I’d never considered how lucky I was to land where I did, never knew how bad immortality could go. I knew about the potential for repeated death and imprisonment, but I’d never thought it could basically turn me into a zombie.

  I stared at Izusa lying unconscious face down across the thick branch. A part of me wanted to shove her out of that tree and to the monsters below. A part of me wanted to give my countrymen their vengeance even if they didn’t retain enough cognitive function to know what I was giving them. However I couldn’t help but hesitate, Izusa’s delirious words rang clearly in my ear. If she had a way to bring peace, I had to hear it. I could always revisit vengeance if I didn’t like the answer.

  “How much longer?” Rose asked for what had to be the fifth time that morning.

  “It is not far,” Titania insisted. “Given the number of beastmen tracks in the area, we must be approaching a gathering point of sorts. I suspect we will be able to see it the moment we reach the top of this hill.”

  “How can you tell zey’re beastman tracks?” Albert asked.

  “There are many types of overlapping prints and many belong to animals not native to this region,” Titania explained. “Now, remember to keep quiet. Othans have excellent hearing.”

  They continued their climb in silence. It had been a long two weeks, but they were finally entering the Othal Confederation. As they crested that hill, they saw their destination. In the valley below stretched hundreds of massive yurts clustered together with occasional long thin gaps for streets. The quartet of Rose, Titania, Albert and Zelus had made it to Dewpoint, though they didn’t know that was its name.

  “Now, are you sure Isaac’s going to be there?” Rose asked.

  “As I keep telling you, I lost the specific tracks long ago, but all tracks in the area lead to or from this place so at the very least Isaac passed through here,” said Titania.

  “Where should we start looking? It’s a big city,” Zelus asked.

  “Ve need to be careful. It’s not like ve von’t sdand out,” said Albert.

  “All except one of us,” Zelus corrected. In their human forms, beastmen were a foot or two taller than a human. Titania was the only one of them that would have any chance at passing for one of them, since she was only a hair less than seven feet tall.

  “If we are to sneak inside we should do so soon. The enemy are mostly nocturnal. There’ll be fewer people looking around right now,” said Titania. “Does anyone have any rope?”

  Rose, Albert, and Zelus’ hands were bound and Titania pretended to be a beastwoman as she led them into and through the city. Titania did her best pretending to be bored as they went around and looking like she knew where they were going, the few beastmen up and about during the day didn’t question her.

  After an hour of wandering vacant streets, the group found the only sector that had activity.

  “This must be where all the humans are being forced to work as craftsmen,” said Rose. They could see a number of humans in this part of town awake and working in the afternoon light.

  “Izaac may be ein blacksmith, but I fery much doubt zat Izaac vas taken to smelt sdeel. He must be ein political prisoner of zome zort. Perhaps zey plan to uze him as ein part of zome zort of trade,” said Albert.

  “Or publically execute him to improve morale,” Zelus suggested. “Sorry, Rose.”

  “Even if he’s not here, someone might have seen something. At least we know the people here won’t turn us in for asking questions,” said Rose.

  There weren’t many beastmen around the human section, so they split up and started interviewing people. It wasn’t long before Rose stumbled into a particularly smoky blacksmith’s yurt. In the back of the tent, near the forge and a hole in the tent to let in light, sat an old man, pounding away at what would become a large ax. Of course, the old man was Kanis although Rose had never met or even heard of him.

  “Excuse me, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions,” said Rose.

  The old man continued banging away without paying the slightest attention to her.

  “Excuse me,” Rose repeated.

  “I am not deaf,” Kanis roared. “Do you think I cannot speak with you while I am working? Do you think I’m an idiot? If I couldn’t speak with you for a moment I would have told you so.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rose bowed nervously.

  “Just hurry up and tell me what you want. So you can go away,” said Kanis. His continuing to work even while conducting other business was a habit of his.

  “I was wondering if you’ve seen a human named Isaac, he would have showed up in the last week or two,” asked Rose.

  Kanis’ eyes narrowed in suspicion, but the petite red-haired woman before him clearly wasn’t a beastwoman.

  “Why do you ask?” Kanis probed.

  “He’s a friend of mine,” Rose began as she quickly explained the situation. It was an act done out of innocence since while the human she spoke to undoubtedly despised his captors she didn’t know he wouldn’t turn her in for better conditions. Fortunately, she was speaking to Kanis.

  “He was here,” Kanis said.

  “What?” Rose beamed, eyes looking around as if he could pop out at any second.

  “But he’s gone now,” Kanis continued. “The one who took him only stayed at Dewpoint for a few days. Then they continued their journey.”

  “Do you know where they were headed?” Rose asked.

  “Doraga,” said Kanis.

  Rose wasn’t exactly sure where this Doraga was, or how far she would have to go but wherever it was, she would get there.

  “Okay, Subject 117’s vitals have stabilized and it’s safe to proceed. It is 2:47 pm,” said Malphestos as he looked over the numbers on the monitor one last time. Heart rate was steady, brain activity minimal, and BP and temperature were both normal. Lilith and one other assistant, Bast, were both present, but Malphestos wasn’t speaking to them. He was speaking to the holographic video and audio recording devices on the ceiling directly above them. Despite having already worked with him for a couple of weeks, Lilith knew remarkably little about her boss, but one thing she had noticed was his ruthless meticulousness. Every movement was practiced, every detail of the project was recorded, and every evening Malphestos reviewed the recordings, looking for some way his methods could be improved upon.

  “Remember Bast, focus on the monitors. If you see an increase in brain activity, go ahead and up the dose on the Hermetozine drip by 20 percent and if his body temperature falls below 800 feel free to turn up the gas,” Malphestos reminded. The entire operating table was also essentially a stovetop. With a turn of a dial, the patient could be bathed in heat, which was quite beneficial to daemon physiques.

  Bast didn’t need Malphestos’ reminder. They had already pe
rformed this procedure over a dozen times on the other test subjects and Malphestos said the same thing before each one.

  “Lilith, scalpel,” said Malphestos, offering out a hand which Lilith filled with a small black knife carved from obsidian.

  Lilith spent the next few hours carefully doing everything as Malphestos instructed while he delicately peeled through Subject 117’s muscle and inserted impervium rods along all the bones in 117’s legs, arms, and hands. Like all the subjects in this particular experiment, 117 was a murlimp.

  Of the numerous variety of daemon, murlimps were widely considered the lowest because of their substandard mental faculties. Their only redeeming quality was the robustness of their physical bodies. Murlimps were quite muscular and had a boundless endurance, unmatched by nearly any other form of daemon, requiring rest only once a week.

  This robust body made murlimps one of the few forms of daemon capable of surviving on the surface naturally. When on the surface, Lilith relied on a self-cast magical barrier to insulate herself without which she would freeze within minutes. Other daemons relied on specially designed suits or magical artifacts, all of which were too expensive to mass produce for an army.

  It was precisely because of this last trait and because murlimps were so numerous that Malphestos selected the murlimps for this experiment. Malphestos was attempting to make the murlimps more than just porters or miners but into the warriors daemonkind needed in the coming years. The project had two phases. First, a thorough search for the perfect specimens. Then, a drug treatment regime to make them more than what nature intended. Malphestos had injected his original 120 subjects with a cocktail of synthetic hormones and growth promoting reagents. Nearly half died in the process but those that survived tripled in size and quadrupled in strength. Furthermore, the drugs replaced the murlimps’ docile nature with a keenness for quick shifts to extreme violence. The only problem was that they had become too strong.

  Whenever the enhanced murlimps exerted themselves, their bones would shatter under the added strain their muscles were now capable of producing. The operations currently underway worked to correct this. With metal inserts into their bones, the subjects would be free to use their full strength without fear of doing self-harm.

  Once Malphestos placed the final rod, he finally turned away from 117. “My work is done here. Finish patching him up. Then prep the next one. Get me when it’s ready,” Malphestos told Lilith and Bast before striding away. Malphestos may have been meticulous but after dozens of patients, even such work was too dull for him.

  “Metaninas etatirelec. Metaninas etatirelec,” Lilith repeated in a rhythmic chant to cast a spell that boosted subject 117’s natural healing a thousand fold. Such magic was limited in its ability and highly inefficient compared to other healing spells, but Lilith was no medical specialist and the basic emergency treatment spell taught in the first week of basic training was enough for the task.

  Muscles rearranged themselves into their proper places and skin sealed itself up as if they’d never operated in the first place. While Lilith worked on healing, Bast detached the monitoring equipment from 117. The specialized equipment was too large to be wheeled through Niflheim’s narrow hallways while attached.

  When Lilith’s work was finished, she turned to Bast, “This one is ready for recovery.”

  “Let’s put him in 3B, Subject 087 is next and she’s right next door,” Bast suggested. Lilith nodded in agreement and the two of them started rolling the stovetop table towards the exit. The large mass on wheels was always a bit unwieldy so Lilith was a bit slow to react when the table suddenly jerked to one side, teetering onto two wheels.

  Lilith looked up and her jaw dropped at the source of the table’s peculiar movement. Subject 117 was awake. For the operation, the modified murlimp had been dosed with a mixture of three drugs. The first put the subject to sleep. The second relieved pain, preventing the subject from going into shock during the operation. And the third was a simple antibiotic to prevent infection. A daemon may have had an internal temperature of a thousand degrees but that didn’t mean there weren’t bacteria evolved for such an environment.

  Subject 117’s eyes glowed with an inner fire and molten slobber dribbled down the side of his jaws. The drugs hadn’t done their job. Not only was Subject 117 awake, but the pain of recent surgery had sent 117 into a feral state.

  “117, calm down. Everything’s alright. You just came out of surgery,” Bast tried, but it was hopeless. Murlimps weren’t bright to begin with and once they got into such a state they were impossible to reason with.

  117 lifted an arm, shattering the cuff holding it down before using the arm to lift himself up from the table. As he pulled himself up the other restraints similarly snapped. The one about 117’s throat did so with enough force that it drew blood when it whipped Bast in the face.

  Like a shark drawn to the scent of blood, the raging murlimp directed all of its attention at Bast and threw a jab straight at her face. Bast screamed and somehow managed to raise her arms in time to block, but it wasn’t enough. A thousand pounds lay behind that fist. It instantly pulverized Bast’s lower arms and sent the rest of her back a dozen feet until she hit a wall. Bast collapsed to the ground broken and unable to put up the slightest resistance.

  “Hey, over here,” Lilith shouted trying to get 117’s attention, but it wasn’t until Lilith hit him with a lightning bolt that 117 turned towards her. “Shit, I should have thought this through.”

  Lilith backed away into the corner of the room. She would have made a break for the exit, but 117 was standing right in front of it.

  117 charged. Lilith waited until he was about to strike before she summoned another bolt to stun and slow 117 down for half a second while she dived out of the way and circled around behind him. She could have used that opportunity to run, but 117 would probably follow and if he didn’t, it would doom her fellow assistant. Lilith hadn’t known Bast for long, but she was the only one who really understood the challenge that was working for Malphestos, they’d grown close quickly. Lilith summoned every ounce of electricity she could muster, burning through all of her mana.

  A blinding flash forced Lilith to close her eyes and a roaring boom filled the air, rattling her teeth.

  When Lilith reopened her eyes, the smoke ridden air smelled of ozone and 117’s back was a charred mass though it was difficult to tell since it had been black to begin with. 117 turned around to face Lilith and roared.

  “You want some more of this, ‘cause I’m ready,” said Lilith, putting on a brave face. Normally, taking out a murlimp, even one of Malphestos’ enhanced ones, wouldn’t pose a challenge to her, but after spending so much mana on healing 117 and the earlier subjects, Lilith was drained. She couldn’t make a spark much less a repeat of the last attack.

  117 grunted as if planning to challenge, but when Lilith didn’t flinch, the murlimp gave in. 117 put a fist through the wall and followed it through. A cold icy breeze lashed against Lilith’s face. The hole led to the outside. Subject 117 had escaped.

  The door to the operating room slammed back open. “What the hell is going on here,” said Malphestos. “I was gone all of ten minutes and the two of you go about making such a racket.” It was only then that Malphestos processed the current state of his previously immaculate operating room. “And why the hell is a wall missing?”

  “I’m sorry sir,” Lilith started to explain. “We were just taking 117 to the recovery room when he just woke up. We tried calming him down but he was in a fugue state. He broke the restraints and pounded on her.” Lilith pointed to Bast propped up against one of the walls. Her arms looked like they’d been run over by a cement roller and were still bleeding from a dozen places. If she didn’t get help soon she could die from blood loss.

  “Then 117 tried to attack me but I hit him with some electricity and he ran,” Lilith finished by pointing to the hole to the outside.

  “Is that how it went?” Malphestos turned to Bast. />
  “Yes,” Bast struggled to give a slight nod.

  “Well this is a mess isn’t it,” Malphestos closed his eyes and shook his head as he processed all the information.

  “Please sir, I need help… my arms,” Bast pitifully croaked. She tried to lift her arms to give Malphestos a better look, but convulsions of pain rattled across Bast’s face and she let what remained of her arms sag back down.

  “Your arms are the least of my concerns or yours,” Malphestos walked to Bast and sneered down at her. “Nerves are spilling out all over the place and your bones have been turned into powder. Normal healing will not fix this. You require cloned arms surgically reattached to your stubs. Do you really think you’re worth all that trouble? It’d be cheaper to use cybernetic replacements.”

  “I’m fine with that,” Bast pleaded. A fog of mercury tears shrouding her face. Daemons wept liquid mercury but on the surface, it instantly evaporated.

  “Do you really think you’re worth all that trouble?,” Malphestos repeated. “This was all because 117 woke up. The only possible reason for this would be if he wasn’t given sufficient sedation. Whose job was it to ensure subject 117 received sufficient sedation?”

  “M-M-M-Mine….” Bast choked. They all knew where this was going.

  “Good, maybe you aren’t a complete idiot,” Malphestos nodded.

  “Please forgive me,” Bast tried.

  “I’m afraid, my dear, it’s too late for that. I reminded you repeatedly to keep close attention to the sedation and now your error has caused calamity. There is one thing I want to let you know first. This has nothing to do with your injuries and how difficult they would be to rectify. For a good assistant I’d be willing to go to any lengths. Unfortunately, you aren’t up to par. Tignarf.”

  With a wave of his hand and a single word, Malphestos cast a spell and crushed Bast into mush. A mixture of Bast’s bodily fluids spread across the floor all the way to Lilith’s feet, but Lilith didn’t care. She had bigger worries. Lilith dropped to her knees, letting Bast seep into the fabric of her pants.