Whistlestop (19 page)

The Chamber of Despair was a circular
room with walls covered with dark wooden panels. Each of the twelve
panels held the intricately carved image of the demon sitting on
the armchair in front of it. Their chairs were on a raised dais and
sat behind a long bench. Openings in the bench were placed on
opposite sides to allow access to the sunken area where those to be
questioned or interrogated usually stood, expecting the worst. This
night, Linger Bartholomew Breakneck’s chair was empty and he stood
before his siblings. They all shared a strong family resemblance,
although each had a unique pattern of tattoos covering their bodies
from the neck down.

“
Linger, you are most
certainly losing your mind,” Asmodeus grunted angrily. “I for one
will never stand for the flagrant use of nuclears.”

“
I agree with Asmodeus,”
Moloch interjected. “Are you trying to draw the wrath of the Upper
Realm, Brother?”

“
With all due respect, you
two have always been cowards,” Linger began. Before he could speak
again, he grabbed at his throat as if he was being suffocated.
Asmodeus stood and was raising his clenched fist upward. Linger
began to rise above the floor.

“
That is quite enough!”
Baal bellowed, staring angrily at Asmodeus. “Release him now!”
Linger continued to rise toward the ceiling. “Brother, please!”
Asmodeus opened his fist and Linger fell to the floor and began
coughing and gasping for air. “We are a family, and we need to work
together, not attack one another like rabid dogs.”

“
I am not a coward,
Linger!” Asmodeus screamed. “You would do well to watch your tongue
with us. We are not your children or the helpless mortals you
command. Our powers are equal to yours.”

Linger was still sitting on the floor
and raised his hand weakly in a sign of contrition. “My darling
Brother, it was the heat of the moment that caused me to utter such
an untruth,” he lied. He knew his brothers had no stomach for war
with the Upper Realm. Asmodeus had even told him he agreed that the
innate decency of the beings of the realms would ultimately destroy
their own. But that was the nature of things, he had said. Linger
knew better. The good side of the mortals was a thin veneer that
grew with contentment. Scratch the veneer by taking away their
food, property or loved ones, and they would revert to the savage
creatures they had evolved from. Using nuclears was the quickest
solution. The various species could be slaughtered in vast numbers,
forcing the survivors to focus all their resources on self-defense
at the exclusion of other beings. Ogres would turn on the sprites.
The fairies would turn on the elves. Soon distrust and isolationism
would consume the realms. Then it would be his time to rule, either
through his slave Karl, or on his own throne. Even the angels would
be powerless to engage them then. He smiled broadly as he stood up.
“Please let me clarify. The savages of the Empty Realm have used
nuclears from time to time. The reoccurrence of such an event would
not draw the attention of the angels. As the Empire of Axis has
grown, many have sought refuge in the Empty Realm. By targeting
those worlds, especially the one called Earth; we can drive them
back to their own realms. That is my only intention for using such
weaponry in the Empty Realm.”

“
You would destroy worlds
to chase a few knights and seers back here?” Pythius scoffed. “That
seems a bit heavy handed, like using a grenade to kill a
housefly.”

Linger seethed with anger again, but
successfully suppressed his desire to kill everyone in the room. He
smiled and replied, “Well, dear Brother, there are trillions of
habitable planets in that realm. We really don’t know where fleeing
knights, seers, elves or whatever may have gone.”

“
Trillions? Really
trillions?” Abaddon asked. “And how will you search that many
places to root out a few elves? Even for us, that could take
billions of years.”

“
Even now, Karl has a large
number of scientists scouring that realm, looking for the most
likely planets. The odds are that if a thousand elves went to the
realm, they are clustered on one or two planets. He is looking for
signs of their activity. It is tedious work, but I feel
lucky.”

“
My o my, now our dear
brother believes in luck,” Mithra, the sole female at the bench
laughed. Several others chuckled. “And if you are indeed lucky,
then what?”

“
We will go to that world
and force them to escape back to their own realm. If they choose to
stay and fight, we will detonate a nuclear. Any survivors will flee
immediately.”

“
Pardon me, darling
Brother,” Mithra interjected, “I am afraid I still do not
understand. Who cares about a few exiled knights, or gnomes, or
whatever. From what we know of the Empty Realm, their lives will be
greatly shortened and they will face tremendous hardships compared
to their home realm. Let them stay there. Why should we
care?”

Linger knew he was on dangerous ground
now. He could never tell them his real goal. Perhaps some of them
would agree with it, but he knew he would never get consensus. He
needed the nuclear weapons and would say anything now to get them.
Only a simultaneous strike throughout the realms would be enough to
isolate the beings so that he could crush them. An attack on a
single planet would draw the Upper Realm into the fight before more
mushroom clouds filled the skies. The single massive attack would
destroy all civilization and even the angels would be powerless to
stop it. Then he would rule. Once the angels were defeated, his
brothers and sister would know he did the right thing. Then he
would rule them as well. “Let us agree to a compromise then. Karl
and I will continue our search of the Empty Realm. If we find a
planet where a large population of exiles is refusing to leave, I
will come to our council and ask your permission to use a nuclear.
I promise not to use them without unanimous approval. Is that
satisfactory?”

Mithra laughed out loud, and soon most
of the others were laughing as well. Linger was bright red with
rage at the disrespect. “My darling Brother, are you asking us to
trust you?”

“
We have never been the
trusting or trustworthy type, dear Linger,” Asmodeus noted. “Once
you have nuclears, you will use them; and any of us would do the
same thing. We all know that and cannot allow it. The answer is
no!”

Linger was seething with anger. His
eyes glowed bright red. Without warning, he exploded into a
brilliant fireball that engulfed the entire room, incinerating his
brothers and sister in a fraction of a second. After a few seconds,
the smoke cleared and the room looked normal again. The wooden
panels opened and the demons emerged and took their seats at the
bench again. “I hope you got that out of your system, Brother, but
the answer is still no,” Asmodeus snarled.

Lydia Amaranths Iron-heart and
Jedidiah Beetleweed Mosscatcher walked across the broad desert
plain toward a small group of peaks on the planet Winterpast. Lydia
had protested being sent back to the planet, but when Jedidiah
volunteered to help her find the dragons, she relented. The bleak
desert stretched to the horizon in every direction except directly
in front of them where the Peaks of Salvation barely jutted over
the horizon. “Tell me again why we’re here, Jed.”

“
Lydia, you know. The old
reality is about to be swept away. The time of the Empire of Axis
is at an end. The Knights of Winterpast are returning to
prominence, and you are one of them. Soon, you will know a secret
that only the elves and angels know. The Upper Realm has already
interceded on our behalf!”

“
What are you talking
about, elf?” she laughed. Jedidiah did not answer but kept moving
forward while Lydia stood waiting for an answer. “Jed, stop and
tell me, or I swear I will leave you here alone!”

Jedidiah stopped and turned to look at
her. “Darling Lydia, please listen to me!”

“
I’m listening,
Jed.”

“
Each of us is being led
toward our destinies. We can accept it, or we can stew in our own
juices, be stubborn and refuse to accept what must be. Which will
you choose?”

“
Jed, I came here with you
for a chance to destroy the dragons that threatened and kidnapped
my Cousin Jerry. Without that, I would have stayed on
Whistlestop.”

Jedidiah sat on the sand and held his
head in his hands. “You choose to reject reality and live in a
fantasy. Frankly, I cannot believe my ears.”

“
What!?” she
shouted.

“
Sister, the acts of the
emperor and those of the dragons are not aligned. We must learn to
trust the dragons of Evermore.”

“
I know you were not there
Jed, but a dragon kidnapped my cousin and spirited him away. Now
you ask me to befriend them?” she scoffed. “That dragon was serving
the emperor. How can I ever trust them?”

“
Things are not always as
they would seem, Lydia,” Jedidiah argued. “You certainly remember
your encounter with the trehbor’s guards; after all, you dispatched
two of them single-handedly. You saw how they attempted to take you
and the trehbor after that. Fortunately, my brother and I were able
to stop them. The situation with the dragons is even more sinister
than that!”

“
How do you mean?” she said
as she walked forward and then helped the elf to his feet. “Tell
me, I need to know, Jed.”

“
I think it’s better to
hear it from them for yourself, my dear,” he replied. “Let us
continue forward. We need to reach the security of their nest
before nightfall.”

“
Jed, that’s a long walk
over boulders and through sand. Why don’t we just fold and be
there?”

“
They are already watching
us, and have been for some time, ever since the Peaks of Salvation
first appeared on the horizon. If we transmute, they may mistake us
for the emperor’s forces. Now, they will have adequate time to
rationalize that we are just two humanoids walking alone toward
them and not a threat.” Jed held her hand and smiled at her.
“Dragons are skittish creatures, my dear. After what they’ve been
through, I hardly find that surprising. They need us and we need
them more. Please, for my sake and for your cousin’s as well, let’s
do this my way this time. I promise you will see.”

“
Is Jerry still in their
lair?”

Jedidiah started pulling her along
toward the distant peaks. “No, but he is safe. I have reason to
believe he is now in the hands of old friends. Now, it is our duty
to help the dragons and their new child.” She looked at him with a
bewildered expression. He only smiled and continued
walking.

And on they walked. They passed one
destroyed village after another. Jedidiah remembered the knights
who once lived in those towns and the fertile farmland and rivers
full of fish that once provided their sustenance. Lydia’s anger at
the empire grew with each destroyed village. Crossing each dry
river bed was a reminder of the previous richness of the garden
planet. Winterpast had been ruined by the greed of Karl August
Galantine Armstrong. In her mind, she wondered if the emperor had
indeed committed even more egregious crimes against the dragons.
Perhaps Jedidiah was right, she thought. They climbed to the top of
a sand dune. At the base of the dune, the sand gave way to a broad
gravel plain leading to the base of the peaks.

That was when she saw it. Perched
halfway up the vertical cliff of Mount Sorrow, on a ledge near a
cave opening sat a massive black dragon looking down on them. “Do
you see it, Jedidiah?”

“
That is Archimedes, the
patriarch of this flock,” Jedidiah smiled. “He is the one who was
forced to retrieve Jerry.”

“
Are you certain he isn’t a
pawn of the emperor?”

“
What would you do, Lydia,
if asked to choose between the annihilation of your friends and
family or your place of residence?” Jedidiah asked. “Would you
rather see them killed or give up the lump of dirt you call
home?”

“
Is that what this is all
about, Jed?”

The elf laughed and continued, “Look
around you, Lydia! Look at what the emperor did to your own home
world. The knights chose to keep their planet and look at what
happened to them! They are all dead! Now there are only four of you
left. I remember when thousands of Knights of Winterpast ruled the
cosmos. Now we are down to you, Jeremy Davis Iron-heart, his son
and grandson. When you all die, the emperor will have won. It
doesn’t matter what the elves do, or the sprites, or fairies or
ogres, or the dragons or anyone else. Hope will have died, and evil
will rule the cosmos. Those are the facts, now deal with it!” Lydia
looked back at him with her mouth agape, not certain what to
think.

“
Brother, I don’t think it
is that bad,” said a voice behind them. They both spun around to
see Archimedes sitting on the sand not twenty feet away. Both of
them sat on the sand, looking dumbfounded at the sudden presence of
a dragon and its ability to speak to them. From head to the tip of
his tail, he was at least one hundred feet long. “Everything is
going to be okay, Jed.”

“
How. . . do you know. . .
know his name?” Lydia stuttered.

“
That would be my fault,”
another voice said, forcing them to jump to their feet and spin
around again. A small white dragon sat on the sand just behind
them. He was about twenty feet from head to tail. “My name is
Emmanuel. Who are you?”