The War of All Wars

by J. Eric Booker

  He also knew that the average person’s body would have crushed like a tin can from the immense water pressure, because humans could barely take the pressure at twelve feet underwater, but neither the pressure nor the lack of oxygen had any effect on Baltor. Many-a-times before had he traveled underwater on his own planet, although he knew without doubt that he was no longer on his planet.

  While wading at the same depth, he opened his eyes as soon as he could, perhaps ten seconds after his arrival, discerning a fraction-or-two more than when his eyelids had been sealed shut. Although he did have the additional luxury of night vision and could see in this pitch-black environment, the problem with the low-visibility stemmed from all the colossal-times-colossal greenish-yellowish leafy seaweeds floating all about, spanning from the ocean floor.

  There was no sign of the marble bridge, which was not a good thing as he figured this bridge might lead him to the next plane, and so he began swimming all about looking for it.

  Once he had given up, a minute-or-so later, he decided to crack his lips open just long enough to allow a single drop of water to splash onto his tongue, at least to figure out whether he was in fresh water or salt. Salt.

  He therefore reasoned to himself, I’m definitely in the middle of a salty sea…the question is, is there a surface above, or does this sea go on forever in every direction?

  In order to figure out this very answer, he commenced to swim upward, moving three times as fast an athletic swimmer could.

  Perhaps a half-minute later, he discovered that the waters here—and above—were much brighter than the waters below, although visibility was about twenty feet at this point in every direction but up. After all, these were some very long and wide pieces of seaweed, in which ninety percent had made it to this point and continued to go up, up, and up.

  Right before reaching the surface a half-minute later, and now with a visibility of twenty feet as seventy percent of those weeds had made it up to this point, he skillfully avoided a few decomposing objects floating at the surface.

  As soon as his head had broken the watery plane and he felt fresh air on his face, he observed and smelled in one giant whiff—and with a whole hell of a lot of disgust.

  These floating objects were rotting corpses, millions and millions of them, in what appeared to be a vast sea without any land in sight anywhere! Due to the horrible stench that permeated the air, he stopped breathing yet again.

  At the same time, he had noted the dark and dismal colors of the skies—dark and smoky grays intermixed with but two shades of blood—wet and dry. Nor was there any evidence of any sun, moon, or star that provided any of the light. Nor was there any clear indication of which way to swim.

  After sighing aloud in exasperation, nearly a half-minute later, at this most serious problem—the direction he should swim—he angrily slammed both fists into that sea. In response, two large blasts of nasty water splashed all over his face and head.

  He was now on the verge of exploding out his rages and curses, especially upon seeing the eroded piece of intestine now hanging off his crowned-helmet and caressing his right facial cheek, but he kept his anger in check through willpower alone. After all, he did not want to transform into “the beast” even by accident, which would mean him losing control of his “human mind.”

  Therefore, he forced himself to calm down by first removing the intestine off his crown and throwing it as far as he could away…and then repetitiously breathing deep in his nose and out his mouth until calm.

  Once he felt serene, six breaths later, he continued to wait as patient as possible for Trendon to deliver some type of message as to where he should swim. However, approximately a minute later and with no messengers or messages, Baltor began to ponder the ever-increasing possibility that he would have to figure this out this problem on his own.

  The first option that soon after sprouted inside his mind was to pick a random direction and to keep swimming beyond the corpses.

  The second option was to fly into an unadulterated rage, and just make the willful transformation into the vompareus-beast, because IT at least had two sets of wings and could quickly fly toward land. That is, if there was any land at all.

  The third option, which sprang into his mind exactly minute after the first two had presented themselves, was to call out for his master’s assistance.

  As the last option seemed most logical, Baltor decided to try it first, and so he called out at a normal volume of voice, “Master Harrn…I need you now. Master Trendon Harrn. It is I, Baltor Elysian. I really need your help, as I am both confused and lost. Please, respond.”

  Without having heard a single response from his master and with no other ideas brewing, Baltor decided to try one final time nearly a minute later. He thus screamed out at the top of his lungs, “Master! ” His voice echoed for hundreds of miles.

  A minute later—and still without any answers of any kind—Baltor began to get angrier by the second. Another minute passed before he angrily made his final decision about becoming “the beast.”

  Only a nanosecond before he had sent himself into an unadulterated rage, his conscious mind ever-so-barely heard an all-too-familiar man’s voice say, Baltor…Baltor…can you hear me now? Hello? Trendon’s telepathic voice got a decibel louder with each passing second,

  With a whole hell of a lot of anger etched on his face and in his voice, Baltor snapped, “Yes…I can hear you now! Is that you, Trendon Harrn?”

  Yes it is. Calm down, my apprentice. I’m here now. Sorry I was not able to come a moment sooner, but as I told you in your dream, there are the frequent occasions when my captors are torturing me in one way, shape, or form. They finished one such torture session only moments ago, and needful to say, it still hurts me very bad!

  “Okay,” Baltor said with just a little less agitation. “Now I’m real sorry to hear about your situation, sir, but I’ve got one hell of a situation I’m dealing with myself. Right now, I’m swimming in the middle of a sea of rotting corpses that stink horribly, and I have no idea of where to go or what to do!”

  Do not speak, my apprentice, until I tell you to do so…listen. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths until you are calmed down. Once so, I shall tell you what you need to know and do.

  Baltor did as instructed. After releasing the third deep breath, he now felt calm and so he opened his eyes.

  In that moment, Trendon continued to reveal, You are now in the very middle of the Sea of Daath, which is one of the six seas that links the world of the living to the realms of the dead, where exist souls, demons, monsters, devils, and of course, the supreme-ruler of the First Plane of Hell, the Arch-Devil. If you should change now into a vompareus-beast, the first thing you will have to fight are all the leviathans, or giant sea serpents with wings, that swim or fly around the seas…and trust me, you don’t want to do that, as they are one of the deadliest protectors of all the hells!

  At the same time, you will have to deal with the Arch-Devil, who will know that there is a vompareus running about his and/or her plane and will arrive with the rest of his and/or her army, in order to destroy you into oblivion.

  Finally yet most importantly, if you lose control of your human mind, the beast within you will reign…and thus, you will have no control of the situation. So relax, there is a boat that shall soon be coming your way…take it to dry land. Now, speak.

  Baltor—who was still trying to relax but not having an easy time of it—asked, “Yes, okay. And then what? Where do I go from there? I have no map, nor no knowledge, about this place.”

  Cryptic as always, Trendon answered, In the back of your mind, you must always keep my image, and your heart will ultimately lead you to me just like a roadmap. In the end, you shall have to decide whether to free me…or kill me. That is, once you have learned the whole truth and made your choice on who you will really serve…good or evil.

  After silently pondering the cryptic message for nearly a minute, Baltor finally replied, “If i
t was my intention to kill you, I would just have stayed where I was at. After all, I was—until only but a half-hour ago—the Sultan of the Sharia Empire that dominated over my entire planet! It is only because I believe everything you’ve said from the very first second I met you, that I’m even here at all. I’m here to save you…”

  A handful of moments later, Trendon replied evenly, I know, my apprentice…you are a selfless person, which is why I chose you. Although I know your past, I do not know your future. So let’s focus more on the present. Now you are in the Abysmal Sea, which leads inevitably to the First Plane of Hell! You will come to find that not everything about the Nine Planes is disgusting and/or horrible. Quite the contrary, some places and creatures here are insanely tempting and beautiful…but remember that everything around here is Evil. Good has no reason, nor no desire, to be here…except in our unique case.

  Again, I reiterate. One temptation that you must never succumb to—no matter what—is to change into the vompareus-beast. If you lose the battle in losing your human-mind and soul for even one single second, we will lose the entire war in the next second!

  “Why is that?”

  That beast inside does not care about anything, except for itself, its race, chaos and evil. Your good, honorable and powerful human-mind does care and it does love, which is what gives you an entire army.

  After releasing a sarcastic laugh, Baltor asked using incredulous tones, “What army do I have?”

  Your body, mind, heart and soul…an army of one! Trendon answered with emphasis.

  “Hmmm,” Baltor replied.

  Here in Hell, you will have a few advantages you didn’t have before on your planet of Sharia. For example, you will not need the cah-su-cahn berry seasonings to quench your vampiric hungers and thirsts…but should you become critically wounded from magical weapons and they don’t heal on their own, you can sprinkle the seasonings directly on your wound…a nearly instant healing salve.

  “That’s interesting to know,” Baltor replied with a relieved smile. “All I had stashed in the compartment on the back of my armor was a six-month food supply of the seasoning. After that, I did not know what the heck I was going to do for sustenance. Now I do.”

  Yes, you do. What you also need to learn is the fact that you still have all the usage of your other magical and superpowers, including telepathy and teleportation, yet there are four rules you must abide by when teleporting around hell, so that you can remain “hidden away.”

  “Four rules?”

  One, you can’t teleport from hell to hell. I already explained why.

  Two, never teleport whenever there are enemies nearby that you don’t want to know your location—enemies located anywhere between, or anywhere close to, points A and B.

  Three, remember that there are some hells where it’s simply better not to teleport at all, as everything but the occupants themselves chaotically flip or change around in the blink of an eye—land might suddenly become sea, a library might instantly turn into a dragon that might turn into a fortress, etc. Who knows?

  And, four, even though time does not technically exist in some of these hells, never teleport more than once every eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds—or in layman’s terms—once every twenty-four hours. The reason for this final rule is because teleportation is such an incredibly powerful spell, in which other magically gifted creatures who might throw a counter-spell can possibly disrupt your spell, and you might only arrive at your destination in pieces—literally. So ensure that you mentally count every second of every minute of every hour.

  Baltor asked, “How am I supposed to count out even a second if that second don’t exist?”

  Simple, my apprentice. Think in your head a favorite place you know with four syllables, which will just about equate one second in time. For me, I like to use Mississippi. One Mississippi; two Mississippi; three Mississippi; four…and so forth.

  “Where is Mississippi? I’ve never heard of that place before.”

  Just a nice city in another world that I’ve frequented a number of times, but you get my drift, Trendon answered nonchalantly.

  “Okay,” Baltor responded with a nod. “Oh, I’ve one final question. Why can’t I simply equate time by the days and nights?”

  As there is neither a sun nor a moon here in many hells—including in this hell—neither is there a day or night. Just count the time in the far back of your head, in order to keep your bearings.

  “Okay…gotcha,” Baltor said with an understanding nod. After all, when he was but twenty years old, he had undertaken an expedition all by himself across an entire unexplored continent. He had accurately kept the concept of how much time had passed in his head by the days and nights, which “unbelievably crazy adventure except for the fact it was true” had taken exactly two hundred and fifty-six days.

  “Anything else, master?”

  Yes. You now have one final superpower you never even knew you had…and that is the ability to command all undead creatures except the Vompareus—undead like skeletons, zombies, vampires, liches, skeleton-dragons, and even death knights. There will even be some types of living creatures or monsters that you can mentally command, but not others including the leviathans, so do not count on this power too much. Never, ever will you be able to command demons or devils to do your bidding. You can trick them, or temporarily destroy them. Only they can permanently destroy each other, which does rarely happen here in the Nine Planes.

  “That’s it?” Baltor asked soon after.

  Nearly, my apprentice, although your journey is just beginning… Yet by the time that you have reached me in the Ninth Plane, of which I’m confident you will accomplish, you will know everything that you need to know, including quite a bit of my personal history, just enough to know whether you will save me or kill me in the end.

  “One final question I have: So how much longer will I have to wait in this sea until the boat arrives?”

  Just then, Baltor’s answer came not because of something Trendon said, but because his physical ears detected the sounds of something paddling through the water from somewhere far, far behind him.

  While turning around, his eyes multiplied like binoculars until they came across a long and narrow black boat with unusually long paddles that were rowing back and forth nonstop, but the problem was that the boat wasn’t going anywhere close to his direction and was perhaps a mile away.

  Upon even closer examination, he counted out two-dozen passengers sitting in the boat, but no one was rowing or even moving at all other than his or head and/or eyes—the paddles were rowing on their own.

  Standing at the very back in the middle was a humanoid figure who wore black robes and had a hood drawn over its hood, yet did not hide the skull-face. One skeletal hand guided the oar, while the other wielded a ten-foot-long reaper!

  While waving his arms through the air, Baltor yelled out, “Hey, driver…I’m over here! I command you to come and pick me up.”

  Though there was no verbal answer from the driver whatsoever, he or she shifted the oar until the boat was traveling directly toward Baltor at the speed of a fast frigate ship.

  In under a minute or so, the boat inevitably arrived next to Baltor’s position before stopping. The hooded figure henceforth released its grip on the oar, walked over, and then assisted the new passenger into the boat using just its free hand.

  After climbing aboard, Baltor observed there was a narrow walkway in the middle—he stood, walked to the front row of the boat where the one-and-only available seat was, and sat down.

  A few seconds later, he averted his gaze behind him to look at all the other passengers, noticing a bunch of peculiar things all at the same time.

  One, one-third of these passengers were human—the other races varied from light-skinned elves to dwarves and gnomes, to other types of humanoid creatures he could not identify.

  Two, although every one of these passengers had his or her “reddish-glazed eyes” open, they all looked
like they had died in some horrible way or another! Some looked starved, others beaten and bruised, others diseased, and still others violently stabbed—a few people bore a multitude of these symptoms.

  Three, all of the paddles on the boat were once again moving on their own, including the one sitting before his seat.

  After Baltor had averted his gaze forward, in order to look out just above the sea filled with rotting corpses, his mind’s eye capriciously saw her beautiful image—she had been his one-and-only wife, Brishava.

  For an unknown amount of time to follow, his memories recalled all the “wonderful times” they had spent together…to be exact, his analytical mind had long ago calculated this timeframe to be forty-six years, four months, seventeen days, twelve hours, nine minutes, and thirty-six seconds. Nearly every minute had been perfect until near her end—when she had died from cancer.

  Just when his thoughts began to dwell to the timeframe when she had first gotten sick—eight years before her death—his physical eyes began to see something dark and foreboding far ahead in the distance, literally spanning across ten horizons.

  As his eyesight zoomed in, he soon realized it to be a continent-sized landmass about eighty miles away—black and jagged mountains coupled with exploding volcanoes spewing forth boiling lava and sulfurous smoke. It was because of all the smoke that the entire horizon was enshrouded in darkness. Otherwise, there was not a cloud in the sky!

  Zooming his vision even closer, he observed that the boat was sailing for a wood dock that extended out fifty feet passed the borders of the nearly tide-less sandy beach.

  Zooming closer still, he counted out an entire platoon of red gargoyle demons who were all hanging out on the beach just beyond the dock, in which some stood and others flew—all were six feet tall. Besides their natural weaponry consisting of powerful muscles and razor-sharp horns, fangs and claws, each carried a magical sword that was literally on fire.