The Ice Lands

by William Dickey

  ‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ said Mai as she slammed the palm of her right hand against her forehead before adjusting it to cover her eyes like she didn’t want to look. ‘It’s like you mean to jinx it.’

  †Sense Jeopardy†

  “What?” I asked. I was only a hundred feet away from where my friends were being held.

  ‘On your left,’ Mai warned, but she was too late.

  I was crossing straight through an intersection of two hallways. At Mai’s warning, I looked left. All I saw was a giant silver fist as it struck me in the eye. The blow was heavy and took a significant hunk out of my health before driving my murlimp body to the side and into a wall. I dropped my halberd. It slid across the ground until it was thirty feet away.

  “Who are you?” Lilith asked. Her eyes briefly flickered towards my halberd before returning to me. “What are you?” Lilith added. I looked just like one of her murlimps, but clearly, I wasn’t one. None of her murlimps wielded weapons. None of her murlimps were smart enough to systematically destroy all the heating units while everyone was preoccupied with...

  “Were you the reason the fifth floor exploded?” Lilith asked. She didn’t need an answer. It would have been too much of a coincidence otherwise.

  “First you create a distraction on the lowest level. Then while everyone is down there trying to fix it, you destroy all the heating units. Do you have any idea how many daemons you’ve killed this day? Huh, are you going to answer any of my questions?”

  I remained silent throughout Lilith’s tirade, grasping onto a slim ethereal hope Lilith would find some reason to doubt her earlier statements. Maybe I could convince her I was one of her murlimps. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

  I got to my feet and put on my best murlimp confused look. I’d seen the look many times in the murlimp barracks after murlimps finished taking a shit and struggled to remember what to do next, wipe, but this was my first attempt at mimicking it. I then raised a hand and pointed in down the hall in the direction I had been running.

  “Intruder. Kill,” I grumbled.

  “You mean it was someone else and you were just giving pursuit,” Lilith gasped. I inwardly cheered that she got my meaning. Lilith turned and looked down the hall. She didn’t see anything but that didn’t mean that there hadn’t been something there seconds before when she hadn’t been paying attention. Lilith took a few steps in the direction I’d indicated and for a moment I relaxed, my gluts unclenched and let go of the imaginary stick up my ass. I thought it had worked, that in a moment I would get to launch a devastating sneak attack, but Lilith suddenly stopped and turned back to face me.

  “Nice, you almost convinced me. One problem though, murlimps don’t have a vocabulary large enough to include a word like ‘intruder,’” said Lilith as she summoned a nasty looking blue fireball in her hand.

  “Me smart so know means bad man,” I tried, but Lilith wasn’t having any of it.

  “See, you’re just proving my point by stringing so many words together. Now, I want to know exactly who you are,” said Lilith.

  I knew that there was no getting away from this. Thinking the surprise of ferocity could help, I took the fight to Lilith, charged and punched. It didn’t. Lilith shot the readied fireball at me then ducked under my punch. My murlimp form might be strong, but its speed was nothing compared to the succubus. Lilith’s fireball struck me. The heat of the fireball didn’t have much effect, but the impact still stung and took a sliver from my health.

  “You resisted the heat. It seems like it isn’t simply some form of illusion. You actually took the form of one of the augmented murlimps,” said Lilith, carefully analyzing what she could.

  While she was thinking, I ran down the hall and grabbed my halberd. It wasn’t long before she caught up. I took a few swipes at Lilith. She dodged every one of them. Then while I prepared to swing it again, Lilith surged forward, grabbed the halberd’s long handle, and tore it from my grasp.

  “This weapon is especially primitive,” said Lilith as she looked over the halberd. “I doubt a daemon would have made it. You’re not from a traitorous daemon faction, you’re from the surface.”

  Each one of Lilith’s actions had flawlessly beaten me. The way things were going I didn’t stand a chance. I needed to find some weakness.

  I recalled my prior experiences with Lilith. A direct approach was impossible, she was just too powerful. My only hope was to get her to make a mistake.

  “You got me,” I shrugged as I relaxed out of a fighting stance and entered a more casual one. “I am from the surface.”

  “So, you’re finally ready to talk?” said Lilith.

  “Yes,” I agreed. I knew I didn’t stand a chance so long as she remained calm and collected. It was only when she had been filled with fury after I’d run away that she made the mistakes that allowed me to beat her directly. I needed to bring her into that same mindset. Fortunately, I knew a way.

  “I can’t believe how much of a fool you are. I’ve been here for days, interacted with you personally multiple times, but you still didn’t notice until after I decimated Niflheim,” I said. Watching the flare in Lilith’s eyes, I knew I was onto something.

  “You just keep making mistakes. Don’t you. I wonder what others think of you, so strong, so powerful, yet you continue to fail. They must think you a moron. No wonder you were put in some dank, backwater where you can’t do any real damage… Excuse me, where they thought you couldn’t do any real damage,” I continued.

  “How do you know all that?” Lilith snapped. A wave of heat emanated from her body, strong enough that it even made me uncomfortable in my murlimp form. The steel halberd in her hand grew soft and started to bend under its own weight. I briefly reconsidered using this tact, but it was too late to turn back.

  “That must be it. You must be incompetent otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to ask who I am?” I said. “How does it feel to be proven inferior to little old me again?”

  “Who are you?” Lilith seethed.

  ‘He he he. She asked who you are. After what you said it’s like she’s admitting she’s an idiot,’ I heard Mai say, though she didn’t appear. She tended to stay away during danger when she couldn’t help and only spoke now because the joke dangling in front of her was too tempting.

  “You may have caught me at this late hour, but I’m not too worried. I escaped from you once, twice if you include the incident a few days ago,” I said as I raised my arms as if to surrender. “I never did thank you for saving me from freezing to death… Thank you.”

  “Isaac…. It’s you. You’ve messed things up again. You’ve made all this my screw up,” Lilith realized. Lilith had imagined being rewarded for capturing the intruder, but now that she was beginning to see how it happened, she was starting to feel worried. I had mimed one of the murlimps she was in charge of, remained hidden under her nose while scouting the place out and creating this calamity. In a big way, my intrusion was her fault, or at least that’s how the people above Lilith would think when they found out, if they found out. “I can’t let you live.”

  Lilith’s body suddenly burned hotter and she focused all that heat into a blast towards me. In her rage she called the power most familiar to all daemons, fire, forgetting that I was currently a murlimp and therefore highly resistant to the heat. I took this as a good sign, Lilith was already making mistakes.

  I charged through Lilith’s heat wave, threw out my fist, and for the first time my strike connected. My fist slammed against Lilith’s belly and sent her back into a wall. At the same time, Lilith dropped my halberd, but I didn’t recover it, it was already bent badly enough that it would be difficult to wield. Instead, I kept on the attack. My strikes were fast though not as domineeringly powerful as that first hit. Lilith regained enough of her mind to dodge some of the blows, but in her mad desire to deal as much damage to me as possible, she still took a few hits she could have avoided.

  Throughout our fight, I tried to
keep us in the narrow hallways where her speed was less of an advantage, but she seemed hell bent on doing just the opposite. I defended well against each of her strikes, keeping them from hitting any of my vital points, but she hit with the force of an anvil and I couldn’t stop her from driving me where she wanted, towards my original destination, the large room where my friends were being held.

  “Sid,” Lilith shouted. An invisible bulldozer slammed into me, sending me flying 20 feet down a hallway and through a solid door. When I came to a stop, I was back in the room where Lilith had caged both my friends and several monsters.

  I could see several of the creatures within their blue force field cages. They were all motionless. They’d all frozen to death.

  I looked to the back of the room where my companions were kept. They were all looking at me, confused and interested in what was going on.

  My eyes focused on Rose. It was nice to see her beautiful face one last time even though all it did was fill me with regret. Some of that was regret that my plan had failed, that I wasn’t going to be able to save them, going to be able to save her. But more than that, I regretted all the things I could have done, we could have done but hadn’t.

  Warning! You are bleeding internally and externally. Health is quickly draining. Seek medical attention immediately.

  A part of me still wanted to fight, still believed victory was possible, but I could hardly move. Lilith’s blow had caved in a good portion of my ribcage and my meager health bar was slowly draining away. In a minute, it’d finish and I’d be dead. It’d be a week before I resurrected.

  I wasn’t even sure where I’d resurrect. Would it be inside this daemon filled ruin? I hoped not, though there was nothing I could do about it. Either way my friends were doomed and my mission to save Doraga had failed. If I resurrected back in Othan territory, I’d have to wait a year for the right season to travel, a year Doraga might not have.

  On the other hand, if I resurrected in Niflheim, I’d be captured and given Lilith’s attitude, would probably spend all my days being tortured. I recalled the New Fallen and how continuous pain turned them into what they were. An immortal didn’t fear death, couldn’t. Instead, they feared all eternity could bring. I guess we all fear what’s coming for us.

  Lilith took her time walking over. I wasn’t going anywhere and she enjoyed watching me suffer, enjoyed watching as my breathing grew raspy from the fluid filling my lungs.

  Warning! Health is quickly draining. Seek medical attention immediately. Health is nearly depleted. Death is near.

  I didn’t have much longer. I closed my eyes and waited for the last sliver of the HP bar in the corner of my vision to fade away.

  “Aruc sairuini. Aruc sairuini. Aruc sairuini te erecrap itrom,” Lilith chanted. Pain briefly spiked and ravaged my body worse than before. I thought maybe Lilith was trying to get as much torture in as she could before I passed away. Turned out I was half right.

  Ignore prior warnings. Bleeding has stopped and health is recovering.

  The pain quickly passed and even with my eyes closed I could see my HP bar, it had recovered to a third of my maximum and was no longer draining.

  “Did you really think, I’d let you get away again. A quick death is too good for the likes of you. You’ll be staying with me as long as it takes for me to feel satisfied,” Lilith licked her lips slowly and sensually, simultaneously alluring and terrifying. I was wrong, I wasn’t going to die.

  Lilith walked until she was standing over me. I took that moment to strike. I sat up and threw my fist at Lilith’s face, just a little thank you for healing me, but Lilith hadn’t let her guard down for an instant and easily sidestepped it.

  “Sid.” Lilith repeated her earlier telekinetic strike, but this time around, the force was significantly weaker and focused straight at my face. Of course, before the strike had sent me back 100 feet so even though it was significantly weaker, Lilith’s strike still sent my head back, clanging it against the metal floor.

  Lilith didn’t stop there. She grabbed the top of a nearby storage cabinet and pulled it over so that it fell on top of me. I don’t know what could have been inside, but it was heavy and even with my murlimp strength I couldn’t free myself.

  “Oh Isaac, you came so close. You somehow became one of my murlimps. It must have been when you both fell through the ice. How did you make the transformation though?” Lilith paused, giving me a chance to answer. I didn’t take it. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll have my bit of fun with you. Then finish things off before anyone is any the wiser. I have to hand it to you though. Disabling the heaters was a masterstroke. Most of the daemons are either dead or holed up in one of a few places where they can protect themselves. It’s almost a shame I had to come against you. You never stood a chance alone.”

  A giant spike of ice appeared above Lilith’s head though she couldn’t see it.

  “He’s not alone,” said Rose as the ice spike was released. It fell straight down, piercing the top of Lilith’s shoulder before it drove her to the ground. The ice spike shattered and buried Lilith in a mound, but that wouldn’t stop the succubus. Lilith quickly burst out of the ice and looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. Before she could piece it together, she was head butted by Bearballs in his bearform before he dragged her across the room and trampled over her.

  While this was happening, Izusa ran to the nearest of the blue shielded prison cells, one of the one’s with a formerly dangerous, currently dead experimental daemon inside. Izusa tapped the control console hanging on the wall next to the cage and deactivated the blue barrier.

  “Quick, throw her inside,” said Izusa as Lilith popped back up to her feet.

  “Sid. Sid.” Lilith sent one blast of force at Bearballs, both to punish the dirty beast for stepping on her and to prevent him from circling around and coming at her again, and a second blast at Rose, who was in the middle of summoning another ice spike. Lilith put up a good fight against a surprise assault from multiple targets but even she couldn’t put up with it all.

  Zelus threw a punch of magical force that sent Lilith flying into the open cage. The second she was inside, Izusa pressed another button and the blue magical barrier reappeared.

  Lilith recovered from Zelus’ attack quickly, but it was too late. Lilith tried several fierce attacks both physical and magical, but regardless, the barrier held. Since it was meant to contain experimental subjects with unknown abilities, the cage had been made ready for anything. There was no way for Lilith to escape.

  My companions gathered back around each other and started congratulating one another.

  “Nice thinking with the cage,” said Zelus.

  “It would not have worked if you had not thrown her in,” said Izusa.

  “That comment you made, ‘He’s not alone.’ That was seriously ballsy, she didn’t even know what hit her,” Bearballs said to Rose.

  “I’m kind of feeling left out here. A little help?” I groaned. In the commotion and joy of victory, they’d forgotten that I was still trapped under a heavy cabinet.

  “Oh, sorry Isaac. Bearballs, Titania, give me a hand,” said Izusa. The three circled around me and together managed to free me. Rose and Zelus would have helped as well, but their physical strength was nothing compared to the others and neither wanted to waste what remained of their mana.

  “Thanks, everyone. I didn’t think I was getting out of that one,” I said as I returned to my feet.

  “We should be the ones thanking you. Without you we wouldn’t have escaped,” said Rose as she ran up. It looked as if she was going to hug me, but she stopped a few inches short. That was a good thing. I was still in my murlimp form and if she had hugged me, she would have burned herself.

  “Not now. We’ll have time later,” I told her. I smiled though as warmly as I could but I'm afraid it didn’t translate well into my murlimp lips.

  I couldn’t help but sigh at this, just moments before I wished I could have been more open
with Rose, wished I could have had more time with her, but now that I had the opportunity, I delayed it again. I guess that’s how time works. When we’ve run out of it, we complain there was never enough. And when we have a smidgen of it, we become master procrastinators.

  I stayed in my murlimp form for two reasons. First, this wasn’t over yet, I expected more fighting and the murlimp form would do a better job at all that. Second, I was still in bad shape and in murlimp form, I had greater vitality so I recovered a lot faster. This was especially the case since Lilith’s fire attacks had removed all of my cold debuffs.

  I turned to look at Lilith in her cage. She pounded her fists against the blue barrier. “Don’t think you’ve gotten away with this, Isaac. There are more than daemons to fight in this place. Not everything here is susceptible to the cold. I’ll find a way to pay you back for all this if it’s the last thing I do.” Lilith summoned a flame so powerful it was nearly invisible, most of its light was ultraviolet. Lilith threw the fireball against the blue barrier. The barrier shook and for a second I was worried, but the barrier held and from Lilith’s labored breaths, I knew she didn’t have the strength for another attempt.

  It was then that I noticed my companions were shivering. Of course, the daemons hadn’t let them keep their armor and weapons whilst imprisoned. Humans might take the cold better than daemons but they were still affected.

  I opened my inventory and resupplied them all with weapons and warm clothing as I quickly explained the events of the past few days and the current status of Niflheim. My friends were both surprised and pleased. I wasn’t sure just how effective turning off the heat was, there still might be a lot of enemies left to fight. We’d started this journey with ten, we were down to six, but it looked like we might stand a chance.