Chapter 5: Psychopaths are People too
The screams of soul-wrenching anguish and the sights of tortured mangled bodies assaulted my senses the moment I stepped through. I felt the very strong urge to run in and rescue these people and bring them out the way I entered. I quashed this foolish impulse. That would be pointless and only get me tortured too. And if my plan worked, their working and living conditions would drastically improve. Ten more minutes of torture was a travesty, but that was nothing compared to an eternity of it. I shamelessly shut my eyes and covered my ears as I followed the muffled sound of the warlocks' footsteps down into the bowels of Hell. The protests of my stomach were inconsequential in comparison. Then again, maybe they weren't. If I puked over the floor of Adramelech's sanctum, that might be a one way ticket to Hell, this time for good.
"Excuse me," I said, somehow firmly yet queasily. "This is my first time in here and I'm not used to all...all this. I am going to puke, and it is better if I do it now than later."
The Warlocks laughed uproariously. "Go ahead, anywhere's fine. Infernia isn't a stickler for cleanliness by far." The Warlocks cracked up even more.
"Anywhere's fine?" I croaked.
"Don't even think about it."
"Fine," I said, bending down and discarding my lunch in a few big and embarrassing belches as the warlocks continued to laugh at me. Why was I even embarrassed in front of these goons? They were EVIL!
Still human though, a somber, respectful part of my mind pointed out. I told it to shut up and be less cliched. It responded with indignancy, reminding me that although its thought had been cliched, it was still sincere. I wasn't disputing that. I noticed that my mind was compartmentalizing and dissociating itself, which was sometimes a useful tactic for arguing and reasoning with yourself effectively, albeit potentially dangerous skill to have, especially if it was done reflexively or habitually. I was certainly going to emerge from this place with some serious mental scars, and lots of nightmares. It would surely haunt me for the rest of my life.
It will be worth it. I told myself firmly. Just be honest and upfront, don't be anxious, don't sugarcoat anything, don't rush through your words, explain key concepts clearly, and you won't screw up. You've done this before plenty of times when advocating for yourself in school. This will be no different, except for the fact that this time you will be speaking to someone who has a vested interest in what you will be saying, whether they realize it or not, and that will make it easier, and it won't matter that I don't have social skills as good as other people's. He won't be able to read my mind, and the social norms of interacting with him were probably nothing more complex then "complete obedience and respect to the Lord of Fire." After that, all you can do is hope the King of Demons cares more about his power than his pride. If he does, he will listen to you. If he doesn't, you're going to suffer and die. But the stakes don't matter, well they do, but I will not let their magnitude interfere with this meeting. The stakes were separate from the difficulty, and while the stakes were unimaginably high now and the entity I needed to reason with was an evil psychopath with VAST power and experience, the task would still be easier than trying to reason with my horribly unreasonable father, in many respects. I can do this. I will do this. That's not just me trying to reassure myself, that's me reminding myself of what is almost certainly a fact.
Screw resonant doubt, I was ready to save Infernia and (kind of sort of not exactly) redeem its master.
Fortunately, we were almost there. The Warlocks had the sense to take lots of shortcuts so that new recruits didn't completely lose their nerve before reaching the bottom. How nice of them.
One of the braver Warlocks called out into the dark cavern in front of them:
"My lord! We've brought a new recruit--at least, I think that's what he is, right?" the warlock turned to me with a glare of suspicion and uncertainty.
"That possibility is on the table," I admitted reluctantly, opening my eyes and uncovering my ears now that the terrible screams were mostly behind us.
"A potential new recruit," another warlock said, still uncertain due to my obvious preference not to be a Warlock. "He's supposedly Asyra's chosen hero, turned traitor against her. He wishes to negotiate with you."
"A potential recruit, you say? And a chosen hero of Asyra, no less, AND he wants to make a deal with me?" the dark lord laughed. "Bring him in." The warlocks nervously escorted me inside the huge cavern, which turned out to be a throne room of sorts for the King of the Demons."
"YOU!" the Lord of Fire's voice boomed at the sight of me. I flinched. "HOW DID YOU ESCAPE YOUR IMPRISONMENT!?"
I took several deep, calming breaths as the evil God glared at me. Remember, this will be easier than dealing with your father. Thinking about my father, however, made me more anxious.
"WELL!?"
Oh to hell with it.
I apologize...great--and mighty Lord of Fire," I said, just barely managing to think of a proper yet accurate way to address him in time. "You must be mistaking me for someone else. This is the first time I've ever been in Infernia."
"...Really." Adramelech drawled, his voice dripping with malice as well as skepticism.
"Yes," I continued. "I am from a universe different from this one. A universe where there are no gods, and souls are corporeal."
With a jolt of my stomach, I realized I probably shouldn't have mentioned that my home universe didn't have any gods. I probably just sentenced the humans of Earth and countless other sentient civilizations to an eternity of inter-universal imperialism. Too late now, no use crying over spilt milk. Hopefully I could ensure that they would be protectorates rather than slave colonies, and deal with the fallout of this later.
"Corporeal souls, you say. And a universe with no gods?"
"Yes. And there are plenty of people foolish enough to worship mere figments of their imagination, though. In any case, that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to make you an offer."
"An offer...and what could you possibly offer me that I would want?"
"I offer you extra-worldly knowledge that will help you use the great power you already have to far greater benefit. In exchange, I wish you to grant me the power to use and channel magic."
"What." the king of demons had not been expecting me to say that. I pressed on.
I know of your ruthless, unempathic, I mean, unempathetic nature. You have the mind and soul of a psychopath. Psychopathy, I mean, psychopathy," I corrected my pronunciation. "Is a rare and situational quality. It means you cannot feel empathy for others."
"I have no need of such silly emotions like love, friendship, compassion or empathy, so spare me the heroic lecture."
I quashed my indignancy of being interrupted and having words put in my mouth. Not here. "That wasn't what I was going to say," I said, slightly tensely. "That would be a waste of both of our time, and wouldn't help either of us. What I'm trying to say, is that there are some ways for you to utilize your psychopathy, your ruthlessness, cruelty, lack of empathy cunning and power more effectively than other ways, and the only reason you haven't done it yet is probably because, 1) it's completely counter intuitive for anyone who hasn't heard of capitalism, and 2) your enemies thought of it before you did."
Asyra... he growled.
"Will you offer me power in exchange for this knowledge? It's only a small part of my people's wisdom..."
Seeing the insulted expression on the deity's face, I felt a little exasperated and quite a bit frustrated that he had the typical parents' attitude of "Since I'm older and wiser than you and know a lot more than you, that means that you will never learn anything that I don't already know, and I will never make any mistakes that you already know how to avoid." In a nutshell, it was the implicit belief that being better than me meant that I would have all the same weaknesses he had on top of my own, rather than simply having more weakneses. I took a deep breath and continued with slight impatience, "Yes, it is only a small part of my people's wisdom which, while not as great as yours, will still be more than valuable enough to turn the tide against the forces of Asyra, and possibly even allow you to conquer many of the other Gods. With the possible exception of Bellicar and maybe a few others."
There was a very long pause. I shuffled my feet nervously, I began to sweat, I even started to shake a bit as the Lord of Fire stared me down, before finally saying several minutes later, "Very well. If this small piece of your people's wisdom is valuable enough, I will grant you power."
He probably made me wait just to see me sweat! Damn psychopaths. Man, I'm glad I remembered to take my psychiatric meds this morning. Who knew the fate of a universe or two would depend on THAT?
Well, it was time to point out the obvious.
"Your legions will be more...formidable if they're comprised of stronger, more self-sufficient soldiers."
"You mean to tell me that you are trying to incite Infernia to rebel against me!?"
"Huh? No, of course not, that would be stupid...by self-sufficient I mean being able to follow your orders and do what you want them to do regardless of whether you command them or not. I mean...they would obey your commands and the spirit of those commands, even if you weren't actually telling them all the specific commands they must follow in every battle. In order to ensure...both their obedience and loyalty as well as their strength and endurance, it will be necessary to also ensure that they have quality working and living conditions so that they can maintain their strength and vitality to use against your enemies without losing their allegiance to you."
"So you're telling me I will be more powerful if I'm nice and compassionate like Asyra?"
"Nope. I'm telling you that you'll be more powerful if you pretend to have compassion in order to secure and preserve more alliances and followings for yourself. No offense, but constantly torturing your servants actually makes your armies weaker, you know. Besides, you'll still have plenty of opportunity for cruelty and ruthlessness. Also, doesn't being the most powerful of all demons get a little boring sometimes? Aside from plotting wars against other gods, during eras of peace you're stuck down here with nothing all that interesting for you to do but torture souls, strategize a bit and wait for the next opportunity to start a war, which could be in a few decades or in a few centuries or more. What I am suggesting is not for you to become a nice, cuddly compassionate teddy bear that cares about people. While that might be more ideal, we both know it's probably never going to happen."
The Lord of Fire was starting to look really annoyed at me. I had no choice but to press on and hope for the best. I was really lucky that reading about him in the official Mage Wars lorebook and familiarizing myself with his character made him so easy to accurately predict. "What I'm suggesting is a win-win scenario. I'm suggesting that you do the one thing that your enemies do NOT expect you to do. While I admit that I don't have any military training myself, much of this is probably common sense to people who've actually thought about it. But you don't need to take my word for it, or even Asyra's. Watch Lord Bellicar. He will undoubtedly know and understand war way better than I do. See what he does, and copy or adapt his best techniques to your own purposes and use it against him. After all, once you've proven your superiority over Asyra, Bellicar could likely either become your strongest ally, or greatest foe, or both. You are bored because you need a challenge, and Bellicar's a master of strategy and tactics, which will be a greater obstacle for your power and cunning to overcome than Asyra could ever be, once you start actually applying yourself."
"So. You think yourself wiser than me, and you think you have the wisdom to back it up? Why should I not kill you now for your arrogance?"
Seriously!? This was infuriating. I had only a few seconds before my fear caught up to me and I would start hyperventilating. I channled that into anger and exasperated fury.
"Obviously I don't think I'm wiser than you! You've had eons and eons more experience than me! Of course you're wiser! I'm not an IDIOT! But you pride yourself as the most powerful of all the gods, and because you take such great pride in your power, you don't actually bother to apply it as well as you could be to crushing your enemies and seizing your desires! You don't lose to someone like Asyra because you lack power or intelligence or wisdom or any ability. You are stronger than her, and more ruthless! You have cruelty greater than malakai and the cunning to manipulate minds and souls better than Asyra! You're not really trapped within the bowels of Infernia. If you spent enough time plotting over it, you could probably free yourself at any time! And please notice that everything I have said is a compliment, not an insult, so please get over the fact that I'm telling you all the obvious things that you already know on some level as well as some you might not have that are less obvious! I don't like you, our values and natures are too different, but I do respect you and fear you; and our goals are NOT mutually exclusive! Which do you care about more!? Your power? or your pride? The choice is yours!"
And that's when I realized something: I was not normally this eloquent. How in the world had I managed to say all that without losing my train of thought!? Something weird was going on. My mind was not readable, so how? Maybe there was someone or something that was translating what I said in English to whatever the local language is. I'd have to look into that. Kind of funny that I had discovered what was effectively for all intents and purposes, a cure for autism, and that cure was to go to another universe. Too bad it probably wouldn't last when I went back home.
After a very very very long wait with the Lord of Fire staring me down, (it was probably about ten minutes or more, but a part of me expected it), he said with very great reluctance, "Very well, mortal. I accept your offer. In exchange, I will grant you magical power. SERSYRIX!"
The imp familiar appeared. "Yes, master?"
"This extremely annoying mortal has done me a great service, but he has also greatly angered me in the process. I order you to go with him wherever he goes, serve him well and cast any spells he asks of you, but see to it that he does NOT anger me again. And just to make sure of that--" he pointed at me and cast a spell of some kind. I opened my mouth to ask what spell it was, but no words came out. "There. That's what you get for mouthing off to ME. Be glad that you managed to convince me to change my governing policy so drastically against all odds. Otherwise you would be trapped in here screaming for a VERY long time. A VERY long time indeed." Adramelech, Lord of Fire grinned nastily. That was enough of an explanation, apparently. I gritted my teeth and quaked in my boots as I FINALLY remembered who I was talking to.
"I was going to ask you more about your home universe and the nature of your people's 'corporeal souls', but I have given you enough chances to irritate me today. Now, GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!"
As Sersyrix and I fled up into the highest reaches of Infernia, the announcement was made:
After some deliberation, I have decided to cancel your eternal damnation until further notice. Swear allegiance to me, and you will be able to come and go as you please. Otherwise you will SUFFER FOR THE REST OF TIME. Good day!
I dearly hoped that didn't include me! I didn't agree to serve the Lord of Fire permanently! Just a temporary agreement! This wasn't even my universe!
He did say you could come and go as you pleased. That probably means he won't stop you if you return home. He probably already has a good idea of how to get there himself. Your arrival here was obviously a result of some kind of extremely powerful sorcery, and by Sorcery I mean the etherian kind: portal magic.
The soulful sobs of the once-damned were echoing all around me. I had saved trillions of people. I had turned Hell itself from the worst of all Azkabans and Guantanamo Bays into a proper afterlife. And ironically, I had to sell my soul to the Devil to do it.
This also meant that I was not "the one" of the prophecy the High Priestess of Asyra had told me about. In spite of my best intentions, I hadn't purified the light and destroyed the darkness. Quite the opposite. I had purified the darkness, and for all I knew I was well on my way to destroying the light.
Da**it.
Well, at least I had proven one thing that none of the residents of Infernia would ever forget any time soon. Psychopaths were people too. They were just like us, except without love, kindness, compassion or empathy. But they were still sentient, they still had their minds, and they could still be reasoned with.
I had once heard the theory that Adolf Hitler's motive for committing the crime of genocide was that he wanted to eliminate cultural and physical diversity, to eliminate all the differences that caused people to fight and wage war on each other, so that no one would ever have reason to do so again. And if I remembered correctly World War II had literally been nicknamed "the War to End All Wars". Coincidence?
Probably not.
