The Ice Lands

by William Dickey

  “Of course my lord, I apologize for interrupting you and will accept whatever punishments you deem necessary for the intrusion…” Mord began with both knees on the ground and his head lowered and extended as if offering it to the King of all daemons to chop of at his leisure.

  “Enough, I’m up in the middle of the night for this so get on with it.” Apollyon said this out of boredom and a desire to make this quick rather than a need for sleep. In truth, Apollyon rarely slept. There just always seemed too much to do and between his vigorous daemon physiology and potent magic, he had many ways to avoid such annoyances as rest.

  “Sorry, again sire. So sorry,” Mord said as he cowered out of reflex before he realized such apologies were going against Apollyon’s direct commands. “This is the latest news from home, sire. I received it only an hour ago and thought you needed to see it immediately.”

  Mord kept his head down as he pulled out a manila envelope and raised it for Apollyon to take. Normally, Mord gave a summary of reports orally and delivered a physical report to Apollyon just in case the Lord Satan wished to check in on some of the finer details, but this time he didn’t dare speak. Mord believed his lord to be a fair and just ruler but historically the Lord Satans were known for their severe tempers. You didn’t become the leader of daemons without both that and a propensity for violence.

  “What has happened?” Apollyon asked.

  “I think it is best if you read it for yourself, sire,” Mord replied, not wanting his voice associated with bad news.

  Apollyon reluctantly took the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper within. Mord laid in silent prayer as Apollyon read the document over. It only took a few sentences for Apollyon to get the gist, but he still read the whole thing with the preliminary damage estimates and future options though he didn’t really care about either.

  “Niflheim fell,” Apollyon remarked, his voice calm and steady, making Mord more comfortable.

  “Yes, sire,” Mord agreed.

  “And in addition, a number of daemons stationed there are yet to be completely accounted for and we lost the portal our Great Adversary built there. Even if we send more men it is in a state of complete disrepair and most likely will not be able to function for several months if not years,” Apollyon finished his summary.

  “Yes sire,” Mord did his best to remain solemn despite how pleased he was at how the Lord Satan was taking things.

  “Relax,” said Mord. “Do you think that I’d punish the messenger? I know you’re not responsible.”

  “Of course not, sire,” said Mord as he returned to his feet and looked Apollyon in the eye.

  “Of course, being here, in this world, I am unable to directly deliver proof of my disappointments. Perhaps a surrogate will have to do,” said Apollyon darkly.

  “Sire?” Mord froze.

  “Hahaha,” Apollyon gave a boisterous laugh. Mord did not join in. “I told you to relax. No harm will come to you, at least not today.”

  “Of course,” Mord nodded. “Sire, is a fair and just ruler. He would never engage in such crude activities.”

  “Oh, I would,” Apollyon disagreed, causing Mord’s blood to run cold. “You’re just lucky that I don’t really need Niflheim anymore.”

  “Sire?” Mord was confused. Niflheim had a number of ongoing research experiments and, more importantly, it had the Traveler portal. The portal was a predecessor of what the Travelers would later use to go between worlds. When the daemons found Niflheim in the early days after their liberation from Gehenna, they used the portal and other research documents left behind to engineer their own way to travel between worlds. The daemons had thought they had perfected traveling, but there had been a minor unintended flaw. Whenever a sentient being was transferred from one world to another, it generated a corresponding transmission to maintain balance between worlds.

  While in the end, the portal at Niflheim was a relic insignificant to the methods of transfer they’d adopted, after the research was completed, the one way portal became instrumental in Apollyon’s plans of inducing climate change. With it, the Lord of Daemons froze one world while cooking up the other. Now that the source was gone, both worlds would quickly return to normal.

  “Like I said Niflheim isn’t necessary anymore,” said Apollyon. Apollyon reached across his desk for a small remote control and tapped the button labeled power. A large television screen across the room flickered to life and displayed the 24-hour news channel Apollyon generally kept it on.

  The screen was filled by rapidly shifting short clips of large explosions filmed by low quality shaky cell phone cameras above a banner with the caption: War Declared Between Two Nuclear Powers.

  “Less than an hour ago, India officially declared war on their neighbor Pakistan, making this an outright war between two nuclear powers. The action took place in response to Pakistan’s incursion into India airspace a couple hours ago and their bombings of several dams recently constructed across Indian tributaries to Pakistan’s Indus River. This is simply the next step in an escalating battle in the region over diminishing water resources after record low snowfall in the Himalayas the past two years has decimated the once mighty river. Already there are concerns of the conflict spreading as Russia has already announced its support for Pakistan’s action while the United States has moved two carrier divisions into the Arabian Sea,” said a female newscaster as the clips shifted to daytime images of people shifting through the rubble of homes wiped out by flood waters released after the destruction of the dams.

  Apollyon pressed the mute button on the remote. They had heard enough.

  “Understand now?” Apollyon asked.

  “I believe so, sire,” Mord answered, although that wasn’t what Apollyon wanted to hear. Apollyon wanted a chance to explain everything in great detail and one benefit of being a king is doing just about anything you wanted, so that’s exactly what Apollyon did.

  “These two longtime enemies are just the beginning. Like the great wars of this world’s past, their respective allies will slowly be drawn in until death and desolation is everywhere. This won’t be like Tautellus, where nations are so spread out we have to start conflicts one at a time and where weapons are so weak it takes ages to significantly diminish the populace. This world’s war will be quick and deadly and once most of the vermin have been turned to ash we will be free to seize whatever is left,” Apollyon couldn’t help but smile throughout his little speech. He couldn’t be more pleased how close things were keeping to his plans.

  “How can you be sure this war’s going to kick off? It still isn’t too late for either side to deescalate,” Mord asked. He normally would have been afraid to ask the Lord Satan anything, but it seemed his lord wanted to discuss this more.

  “I spoke to the U.S. president an hour ago. I didn’t even need to use a glamor. A couple words and he was all riled up and ready to pick a fight. I told him it would raise his approval numbers. So long as I’m whispering in his ear, there is only one way for this to go,” said Apollyon.

  “Should we move you and some of the other agents operating on the surface out of major cities and to safer locations?” Mord suggested. “If this world starts pulling out its biggest guns…”

  “That’s the best part, Mord. I suppose it’s easy to forget since we haven’t made use of it, but we are immortal in this world. Even if the land is turned to ash and we go along with it, we will come back. The only reason we don’t start obliterating our enemies right away is because they outnumber us so completely that if they realize our existence, they could camp out our respawn points and continuously take us out,” Apollyon explained. “But if things go so well that there are mass bombings all across the surface there will be no need to fear any of that.”

  Swish. A metal door squeaked open.

  “Prisoner 2048, Lilith Demogorgon. You are to come with me. Your release has been arranged.”

  After Niflheim was destroyed, Lilith found herself half frozen and near dead
a quarter of a mile away from the site. She struggled her way back and was found by a few workers trying to salvage what they could from the wreckage.

  Lilith had expected a warm reception when she got back to Gehenna. She was a soldier who bravely faced the front lines and returned wounded. What she found was this prison cell. Apparently, the vast majority of the daemons stationed in Niflheim, including all the high-ranking bosses died in the explosion. Although Lilith’s earlier failure in the Reconnaissance Division had reduced her to a subservient role in Niflheim, Lilith retained a moderate rank from her service as a surface scout. This meant she’d been the highest ranked survivor stationed at Niflheim at the time of the incident.

  The bosses needed someone to blame for such a massive failure and she was the best they could do. After a quick trip to the infirmary and an even quicker debriefing, she was locked up here until a public hearing decided her fate. Or at least that was what Lilith had thought before the guard unlocked her cell.

  “What’s going on? I thought the hearing wasn’t until next week,” Lilith asked.

  “Do you think they tell me anything? I just do as I’m told. You won’t need those,” the guard added as she saw Lilith pick up a few personal belongings scattered about the cell. “They’ll pack things up and ship them to you later.”

  Lilith dropped what she was carrying and followed the guard’s lead out of her cell and down the hall. After passing through several more layers of security and signing a few forms, Lilith was led outside. It was nice to breathe the fresh sulfuric air of Gehenna. Lilith still didn’t know what was happening but after the other huge losses she’d experienced the past year, first losing a human captive and being demoted to a mad scientist’s assistant then being injured and locked up. Things were finally looking up.

  “What now? Am I free to go hitch a ride back home or whatever?” Lilith asked. In the holovids, it always seemed like daemons were dumped out in front of the prison when they were released and left to find their own way to get wherever they might be going. However, in her case hitchhiking might be difficult. They hadn’t allowed her to change on the way out; Lilith was still wearing her prison uniform with Property of Gehenna Penitentiary printed all across the front and back.

  “I’m afraid not,” said the guard. “There is an auto-carriage waiting for us. I am to see you to your next destination.”

  Through the whole process from the cell to this point, the same guard had guided Lilith. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought it suspicious, but why would anyone go to such lengths for her.

  The guard led Lilith to the auto-carriage. It was a luxury model, having a darksteel cabin inlayed with the finest silver sigils. Inside there was a quartet of wide obsidian seats set around a table that also served as a control screen.

  Lilith reluctantly followed the guard into the vehicle that probably cost more than either of them could make in a decade. Once inside, the guard pressed a single icon on the table controller and they were off. Wherever they were going, it’d been preprogrammed into the auto-carriage.

  Lilith wished she could see where they were going as she was pressed into her seat by the auto-carriage’s rampant acceleration, but all the windows were set to their darkest setting. This setting was normally meant to keep distractions away from conversation between occupants, but since the guard remained silent, this function was useless and Lilith would have preferred to see the familiar bustle of Gehenna streets.

  Lilith could imagine the streets rolling past perfectly. As daemonkind’s only city since their entombment by the Great Adversary, the city was a perpetually cramped megalopolis of thousands of buildings that ran up and down a thousand stories. Like any city, Gehenna had rough subdivisions that divided daemons by their ethnicity and social status. There was nothing forced about the separations, but certain daemon races required extra wide streets, ramps, or other special needs, making certain divisions more appealing and of course economics made certain districts inaccessible to all but the wealthy or influential.

  After an hour, the auto-carriage slowed to a stop.

  “Destination reached. Have a nice day,” came a robotic voice from the auto-carriage’s internal speakers.

  “Okay, let’s go,” said the guard as she opened the door and exited. Lilith quickly followed, eager to see what in heaven was going on. Lilith was in a plain concrete garage. She heard the whir of a motor and quickly turned to look out the garage door as it finished closing. Lilith hadn’t gotten a good look, but the distant earthen wall of the dome that contained all of Gehenna had a hint of scarlet and the air she sniffed had a higher concentration of manganese. There was only one district with both characteristics.

  “What are we doing in the Leviathan Pits?” Lilith asked. Technically speaking the proper name for this district was Cronhyun, but few used that name. Leviathans were both the largest in size and fewest in number of all form of daemon. As giant tentacle beasts, they were ill suited to travel through most of Gehenna. So, I guess it was good they weren’t very interested in such things. Leviathans were also the longest lived of all daemons, so long lived that no one was quite sure if they had a maximum life span. With such long lives, they’d already experienced most everything and spent their days huddled in their corner of Gehenna. That corner was called the Leviathan Pits.

  “So you’ve finally made it,” said a familiar voice from behind.

  Lilith turned. A door had opened on the other side of the garage. Standing in the doorway was Malphestos.

  “Malph-. Master,” Lilith quickly corrected herself, falling back on the old routine. Malphestos had been sent away a couple of weeks before Niflheim exploded so he didn’t receive any blame for the incident.

  “Welcome to my humble abode,” said Malphestos as he gave a deep bow, an unusual act for him.

  “You had me released. How? Why?” Lilith asked.

  Malphestos ignored Lilith and instead turned to the guard.

  “I can understand that it was easier to guide her here than carry her, but I’m afraid that part of the journey is over. If you wouldn’t mind…” Malphestos said to the guard.

  The nature of Lilith’s surroundings suddenly shifted. What had been filled with hope and mystery revealed itself to be nothing but danger. I guess that’s the problem with the unknown. When you are as desperate as Lilith was after being locked up in a cell, you cling to the unknown because it is a source of hope. You forget what else it could be.

  The guard reached for his force baton. The force baton looked like an ordinary black club but it was really an artifact capable of magnifying the force you struck with. Such a thing was a requirement in a daemon prison where some of the species were so physically tough that without the baton, the guards wouldn’t be able to do anything to them.

  Lilith reached for her magic. She was a succubus, one of the most magically potent forms of daemon and in preparation for surface operations, she’d successfully completed RecTec, Gehenna’s equivalent of special forces training. A mad scientist and a common prison guard were no match for her. Or at least that would be the case in most circumstances.

  Lilith reached for her power, but only found a trickle. She reached harder. Sigils all over the garage walls, floor, and ceiling glowed a sickly green. They appeared faintly when Lilith first reached for her power and gained intensity as she tried harder.

  ‘A dampening field,’ Lilith inwardly cried. The field dampened all magic in the room to the point where it was next to useless. It worked on both direct casting as well as artifacts so the force baton was just a club, but in this case it didn’t matter. A succubus might be powerful but that was only because of their command of magic, physically they were nothing special.

  The guard struck Lilith once over the head with the metal rod and everything went black.

  When Lilith awoke, she quickly found she couldn’t move. Heavy straps tightly wound about each of her limbs, waist and forehead, making her only degree of freedom her chest that rose and
fell with each breath.

  “What’s going on?” said Lilith though she had a good idea. She was lying down, strapped to a bed. A bright light on the ceiling was pointed straight into her eyes, blinding her to everything else. Lilith had seen this circumstance often enough, but from the other side. Lilith was strapped to one of Malphestos’ operating tables.

  “Ahh, you’re awake sooner than I expected given your age, weight, and subspecies,” said Malphestos. Lilith couldn’t see Malphestos but she could hear the gentle clang of metal tools being prepared nearby. “I’ll have to keep an eye on that, perhaps adjust your dosage.”

  “Do you really think you’ll just get away with this? You grabbed me from the prison. Someone is bound to notice and when they do, it’ll only be a matter of time before they’re on your door step,” said Lilith. She tried to cling to the last shred of hope available to her, the authorities. Of course, they hadn’t treated her well so far, but something was better than nothing.

  Malphestos had a long hard laugh at that. A second wave of fear rolled through Lilith’s system, a system that had just about maxed out that particular emotion.

  “Do you really think I would do this without permission?” said Malphestos. “The people in charge were planning on quietly executing you. It would be enough to demonstrate the consequences of failure to those who were paying attention, yet wouldn’t publicize the incident and lower morale. Since that’s what they were going to do, I managed to convince them to give you to me. This way a rare specimen wouldn’t go to waste.”

  Lilith was sure the records would be changed to her having died in prison. There was no worry about the truth ever being found out. At the moment, daemons were too preoccupied by the war and she was only one succubus. There was little risk of escaping Malphestos. Most of his test subjects died and that was when he had a good idea what he was doing. Murlimps were common, stupid, bred quickly, and all in all weren’t very useful. That’s why Malphestos had been allowed to experiment on them, giving Malphestos a thorough understanding of their internal systems. It wouldn’t be the same for Lilith. And even if she managed to survive, how much of her would be left? How much had been left of the murlimps?