The War of All Wars

by J. Eric Booker

  This time, she did not answer verbally, but by nodding her head several times.

  After throwing a quick wink with his left eye, he responded, “In a few ways, you remind me of me.”

  Her expression turned curious, before she asked, “How so?”

  “Well, Nemis….not just in the fact that I am here to rescue someone, just like you, but kind-of-sort-of in the similarities between our histories, as we were both forced to choose paths we would not have normally chosen. For me, a burglar murdered both of my parents when I was a lad of twelve years, and I was forced to train-and-live the life of a professional thief for many, many years after. Know what I mean or no?”

  “Yes, sir,” Nemis replied with a small smile and a nod. “I do. So, do you want to work together as a team, until we’ve rescued both parties?”

  After nodding affirmatively a few times, Baltor answered, “Okay, but if you even think to try to pull any diabolical tricks on me, I promise that you won’t win—you have no idea on how powerful the magic is that runs through my blood!”

  “On my honor I won't try anything,” Nemis said, while slowly extending her hand out—but a second later, their hands clasped and shook, which handshake was a short one.

  “By the way,” Baltor next asked, “what happened to your staff that you were carrying?”

  “I can have it come and go as needed. When I don’t need it, I can send it to a nether plane until I do need it.”

  “Oh…gotcha.”

  “So what’s your name?”

  “I am Sultan Baltor Elysian the Fifteenth, but you can call me Baltor,” he said.

  “A sultan, eh?” Nemis asked. After a low bow, she sounded flirtatious as she added, “Very, very impressive, my Sultan…”

  This time, Baltor had to clear his throat twice, before he could bark out, “Listen Nemis…let’s make one thing perfectly clear! I am here for two purposes alone—one, to rescue my friend. And two—rescue your mother. That is it—I’m definitely not here to start a little romance up, especially here in Hell…understand?”

  “Understand,” Nemis responded, now with a hint of sadness in her voice. “I’m sorry that you took my response as being anything but impressed…Baltor. Forget it, let’s just go!” She sounded angry during her final statement.

  “Where to?”

  After taking a deep breath and sighing just as deeply, she gasped in another deep breath before finally answering, “Follow me. While I lead the way around the city, I will begin explaining things around here to you. Trust me, there are many lessons you need to learn about the Abysmal Plane, which is where we’re located…the very first lesson is that we won’t even reach the First Plane until arriving inside the Arch-Devil’s capital city.”

  With a gesture of his hand, Baltor said, “Lead the way then.”

  She turned to her left and began walking down the valley that was exactly parallel to the wall—of course, he followed by her side.

  A handful of seconds later, Nemis said with a point of her finger, “This city right here is not the capitol or the home of the Arch-Devil, of whom neither I nor you should ever speak out his name, or he will find us in the next moment.”

  After taking a quick breath of air through her nose, she stated, “This here city is called Scralcha, and belongs to Daemon-Overlord Thregis. He lives in that one-and-only black castle you most likely saw in the city’s core, possessing more than three hundred thousand demons under his command. Of course, there are rumored to be at least a dozen other cities just like this on this continent alone, of which there are thirteen continents and hundreds more cities overall—each and every city is the processing-center for those souls damned to this abysmal plane.”

  After clearing her throat, she added, “From there, they either become slaves in the Mines of Craterus—where they work nonstop everyday chiseling out the rocks in those mines, while frequently being beaten and whipped by demons, or crushed by cave-ins until dug out. Or, the souls are used as cannon fodder in all the rivalry wars that occur between all of the daemon-overlords, which warring is not only allowed yet condoned by the Arch-Devil. Only four times, since the Nine Hells’ creation, has a single daemon ruled over the rest of the overlords.”

  “I see,” Baltor responded thoughtfully. Although he had never stopped scanning his horizons looking for any possible danger, he proceeded to look over at her before saying with a smile, “Thank you for revealing all that important information to me, Nemis.”

  Looking back over at him and returning that smile, she proceeded to look back at the path before replying seriously, “You’re welcome, my new friend. One more piece of trivia you need to know right now. We have nearly two thousand miles to travel to get to our destination…although I don’t have to stop for rest, I certainly can’t move anywhere as quick as you can, so please keep your pace down to a speed-walk. I’ll tell you everything else I know about this place after we get away from the city, as neither of us can afford to get discovered and have to battle an army of demons, okay?”

  “No problem,” Baltor answered, just before his gaze began to scan his horizons once again.

  If time were to exist, nearly a week passed as the two never stopped traversing their way westbound through the mountains and volcanoes, all the while sneaking around patrolling demons and avoiding rivers of lava. The colors of the sky never changed, not one iota. Twice a day throughout this timeframe, Baltor observed as Nemis pulled out a metallic flask with magical runes written on them. After she had unscrewed the lid, she would suck down the fluidic contents, and once done, screw back on the lid and put it away.

  “What is that?” he had asked, upon seeing her rip open the packet for the first time.

  “Oh,” she answered, “it’s a nutritional supply of plasma, like food—it keeps me from getting hungry and supplies me all my daily vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates and electrolytes. Never ending supply, but only for one person. What do you eat?”

  “Pretty much the same food as anyone else,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “but for some reason I haven’t been hungry since my arrival—if I do get hungry, I’ll let you know.”

  “Yeah, but you’re going to eventually get hungry right?”

  Shrugging his shoulders again, he answered, “I don’t know. We’ll see….”

  On the eighth day, they finally passed about a mile west beyond the southwestern corner of the wall, before they reached another mountainous valley that traveled directly to the north.

  This is the new path they chose—traveling through more valleys that existed between other mountains and volcanoes … not once did they stop and rest, yet not one time did they converse either. Strangely, he had never gotten hungry, tired and weak from not eating food, or from the lack of rest.

  Nemis was the next person to speak as she revealed, nearly a day after having left the view of the city, "So, Baltor. The next thing you should know is that once we get to the far side of the Vulcanus Mountains, straight north of our current position in about five hundred miles from here, we will then have to contend with the Fields of Duum. It is on these fields where the wars between the daemon-overlords occur night and day, if night and day existed, which as you’ve seen, they don’t exist! I’ve heard rumors that it’s best to travel north under the fields through underground tunnels, as we do not want to draw unwanted attention…right?"

  Baltor nodded his head a few times, before answering, “Correct. So where do we go after that?”

  “After that,” Nemis sighed. “We will keep going north through the Swamps of Mucala until we reach the River Styx that passes through the very middle of those swamps, and then we will go east. By the way, I heard two rumors you should hear now: the first rumor is that there are both zombies and medusas in there.”

  “What are medusas?”

  Nemis explained, “They are half-woman/half-snake creatures, but instead of having hair on the top of their human-looking heads, they have green snakes that writhe all around—if
we happen to see one, don’t stare directly into this creature’s human eyes or you will instantly turn to stone.”

  “Noted…what’s the other rumor?”

  She answered, “The other rumor is that the river begins in the Sea of Gilea, and flows from plane to plane until it ultimately reaches the final plane.”

  Even though he realized that she had more to say, he interrupted, "I don't know about that…my friend told me that the only way to get from one plane to the next was by the Arch-Devil."

  “Perhaps then that rumor is just a rum—” Nemis was interrupted yet again, but this time that interruption did not come from Baltor.

  Coming from an adjacent valley to their right, dozens of deep voices had all together roared out with a whole lot of anger but one single word, “Intruders!”

  Cocking their heads over in that direction, they saw a platoon of demonic warriors already running—or flying low—toward them with fiery swords drawn and cocked back! A snake-man stood behind them all—his hands clasped together behind his back, and it seemed there was even a little smile on the snake’s face.

  Undaunted, Baltor drew out his swords, just before assuming the ready position. At the same time, Nemis had willed her staff back in her right hand, just before she began to lift it high into the sky and whisper out the arcane words to a protection spell. The crystal on the end of her staff began to glow like a prismatic diamond.

  Ten seconds later, both she and Baltor began to glow a pearl-white color, but that last for only a single second in time.

  By this time, the demons had clustered together their ranks into a single unit, bearing the shape of a very large triangle so as to stampede over their enemies like a herd of bulls, and now, they were only about a dozen feet and a handful of seconds until they reached their destination … their two targets!

  One nanosecond before the very first demon had arrived and now with sword not-too-surprisingly coming down to strike and kill Baltor, the demon very surprisingly found its own body sliced into four pieces by this man’s swords! The demon's body and the fiery sword dissipated into a puff of a smoke.

  All the while continuously swinging his swords all around his body quicker than the eye can see, especially because of all the platinum and gold light trails, Baltor now began to walk forward at a normal pace through the charging enemies.

  Seven more demons had already transformed into puffs of smoke by the swords, while two other demons became obliterated upon making direct contact with the light on Nemis’ staff! Overall, ten demons had been destroyed before they had a chance to regroup on the other side of the battlefield.

  Because Baltor had long ago learned that the best way to defeat the enemy was to “cut the head off a snake,” he next began to will his thoughts as to exactly where he wanted to teleport.

  “Charge!” roared the snake-man. Again the demons did as their leader instructed, charging across the battlefield at top speed—this time, three-quarters of them headed for Baltor and the remainder for Nemis!

  What none of them expected was for Baltor to teleport right behind the snake-man, already swinging his swords into a double-roundhouse motion. Though the top sword missed as the leader attempted to roll out of the way, the bottom sword didn't miss—head and body split ways permanently, crumpling to the ground!

  Upon realizing that she was now alone in the middle of the battlefield except for the large group of demons heading her way, Nemis began casting her own teleport spell. Fortunate smiled upon her as she completed the spell only a single second before three of demons’ swords could slice her body open!

  All but one sword missed. That strike came from the demon that accidentally stabbed his buddy, in which body and sword turned into puffs of smoke. Nemis was now standing next to Baltor.

  Realizing that his demonic-platoon outmatched, even though they still severely outnumbered their foes by twenty-to-one, the sergeant howled aloud, "Raxx, fly back to post and report…now! The rest of us will fight to the death if necessary!"

  All the demons roared out their instant approval! Raxx averted his flapping wings, so that he could fly back to post at top speed.

  Meanwhile, the remainder of the demons had already begun to charge across the battlefield with the sergeant in the lead. What none of the demons expected was for a fifty-foot length by twenty-foot high by twenty-foot thick wall of gelatin to appear on the ground in the middle of the battlefield, thanks to another powerful spell cast by Nemis.

  Therefore, none could stop in their tracks quickly enough and all became sucked up into that solid wall of acid—powerful acids that speedily/painfully/disgustingly dissolved their flesh. In agony, the demons screamed and wailed; that is, until their bodies perished into puffs of smoke only seconds after.

  Baltor did not watch the spectacle, but instead hurled his sword like a spear at the final demon that was almost out of eyesight—the sword impaled Raxx, a split second later, and its body dissipated into oblivion!

  The sword, but a moment later, dropped down to the ground, making a sliding noise as the blade sunk into the dirt.

  With another willed thought by Baltor, that same sword had already teleported back into his free hand—he sheathed both swords in the next second.

  “Ready?” Baltor asked.

  “Yes,” Nemis answered, just before she made her staff disappear with the snap of her fingers. She then asked. “By the way, do you perhaps know how to speak telepathically?”

  Speaking inside her head, he answered, Yes…do you?

  Yes…

  Well, that is way we should have spoken in the first place—my bad for not thinking about the possibility.

  She shrugged, before replying, It’s okay. You ready to go?

  Yes.

  In the next moment, they began to speed-walk northbound through the valleys of the Vulcanus Mountains, consisting of hundreds of miles of jagged mountains and erupting volcanoes, whose peaks around here ranged between one-to-twelve thousand feet tall. Surprising to them, there were very few caves to be found anywhere so far, which actually proved to be a good thing as the entrances to every cave was not only guarded by demons, yet scouting imps who patrolled the surrounding areas for about a mile.

  Without resting a single second the entire time, nearly another week’s time passed before Baltor and Nemis finally began to near the last stretch of mountains—not one ounce of conversation occurred.

  Exactly twenty-four hours and one minute later, when only a handful of mountains remained in their way, including the eight-thousand-foot tall one that blocked their view, they had already begun to hear the sounds of combat coming from the other side—yelling, screaming, wailing, howling and crying!

  As they continued to speed-walk through this valley that turned into a T-intersection in which they could go left or right, Baltor asked, So where’s this tunnel entrance you mentioned before? Left or right?

  Nemis glanced over, before answering with a smile, We’re nearly there—about a day’s walk. Right.

  Not returning the smile, he asked, Is there anything ‘dangerous’ crawling about in those tunnels that you know of?

  This is the Abyss. I’m sure that there are, Baltor, but I don’t know what.

  Before we enter into a single tunnel, Nemis, I first want to see this battlefield from atop…like up there on the top of that mountain.

  Well, go right ahead, but first let me make us both invisible—it would not be a good idea for either of us to be discovered. Am I right?

  With a nod, he replied, I wholeheartedly agree.

  She proceeded to chant aloud her spell, in which the chanting took one minute’s time. Once completed, they both turned invisible and exactly at the same time.

  Still using telepathy, Baltor sounded congratulatory as he stated, Well, we are both now invisible. Excellent job!

  Sounding playful, she replied, Thanks…well, you gonna come or what? I’m already at the base of the mountain!

  Now running at top speed, Baltor answered,
Yes, I am…right behind you.

  It was because of his superior hearing skills that he knew her exact location by the sounds of her light footsteps, so there were no worries about the possibility of accidentally running her over as he zoomed on by. Meanwhile, he asked, So how long does this spell last?

  Five minutes overall…it’s about to be four minutes…..mark!

  Gotcha, Nemis. Thanks!

  No problem, Baltor. Now, just so you know, I’m not going to the top…I will stay near the base of the mountain, right near where that cluster of boulders that looks like a clawed hand. Okay?

  All right.

  Nearly a minute later, he reached the top of the eight-thousand-foot tall mountain; and once there, he began scanning all across the Fields of Duum. The terrain consisted of dead yellow grass on rolling hills that spanned for hundreds and hundreds of miles northwest, north, and northeast—to the east and the west were the mountains. Although he had seen and fought upon many battlefields in his life, in which there was combat going on in sixty percent of these fields, none had ever been this gruesome, chaotic, horrific, bloodied…and massive!

  Wave after wave of armed/blood-drenched souls of all different types of race fought ferociously against each other on the bloody entrenchments that were muddied up because of all the rivers of blood—with sword, with hand, or even with tooth if only a head remained. Yes, even the severely mangled continued to move, continued to fight, and continued to attempt to kill any souls from any other faction. Leading those souls onto and throughout the battlefield were scores of demons bearing whips, swords and/or other torturous devices … and leading the demons were the snake-men.

  Perhaps a minute-or-so later, in which his mind could no longer count out the seconds due to the utter chaos, his eyes just then spotted a new type of demon. This gargoyle-creature was easily three times the size of the red demons, had abstract-shaped blue splotches all over its black body, and was pointing his clawed finger here and there while growling out orders.