Kingdom in the distance. The sounds of agony that carried along the wind like a siren’s song of death, and one that never stopped singing.
“Gods, but I fucking hate it here,” my brother commented, and I had to agree with him. But then it was as you would expect my father’s realm to be. He was Hell’s jailor, its torturer, its King of Kings, and the Angel of Death. Ironically, the stories of Hell and Heaven being at war with one another were just that, a misconception, just like angels were all good and demons were all bad. But good and evil needed two rulers, and Lucifer may have been a fallen angel, but what the stories didn’t tell you was that it was by choice on both sides.
Lucifer was God's favourite child, so he made him King of his own world. Being a sadist by nature, it was the obvious choice to rule over demons and a place where the dark hearts of men could find their own Afterlife. It was why there were so many different realms of Hell. So many levels because it wasn’t all just black and white. It wasn't good or bad. It was much more complex than that, just as Heaven was. There were levels of evil just as there were levels of good, and naturally for Lucifer, well he was ruler over the most heinous of souls.
He fed from the cruellest of hearts and grew more powerful from the darkest and most rotted souls, which meant that the land surrounding us was literally a sadists’ playground. But it is also the very heart of Hell, which meant its landscape was at its most harsh, resembling that of a volcano that had already erupted and would never quite cool down. A combination of black sand covered wastelands could be seen in the far distance, and surrounding his castle were platforms of floating islands on a river of fire. One of flowing magma that generated so much energy, it could have powered all of Hell itself. And at the centre of it all, like a dark black heart, was of course… our father’s fortress.
It reminded me of Edinburgh Castle in the way it was situated. Being built up at the highest point of the city so that whoever ruled at the time could survey over their domain. One built so high upon black bedrock, that when stood even a mile away, you would have to look straight up to view the top. It was also covered in a grey ash that looked like snow. The rumours were that this ash was actually the remains of charred bodies of the cremated souls that had rained down from the mortal realm. Those that had lived their lives in sin and didn’t get to escape Hell any more than the others. Not when new bodies were found for them to be tortured in place of their own.
As for the castle, it looked as if parts of it had risen from the mountain itself. Ironically, it was also similar in design to many of the cathedrals seen back in the mortal world, as it was a series of giant spires. Spires that rose up like giant demonic fingers topped with spiked pinnacles attached to flying buttresses.
Black carved flanking towers with red spiked tops sat between the curtain walls of the castle, gleaming as if they were made of glass. Tiered pillars stood like giant redwood trees and connected a series of covered parapet walkways, that became the best means of navigating your way from one side of the fortress to the other. Crimson lights glowed from beyond the hundreds of arched stone framed windows, making it look as if the whole castle had eyes watching the entire realm. This matched the red lightning that constantly erupted from the clouds above. A ceaseless storm that circled the land, making it look like blood filled veins were lighting up the dark sky.
Finally, at its centre was the largest building, and one you would have called the keep, however there was nothing conventional about it. In fact, it looked as if the very top of the mountain had been carved smooth into a square building and its roof left jagged, surrounded by smaller towers and then the battlements and curtain walls had just been built around it, with the six colossal towers situated at its corners.
“Where is his army?” I questioned, used to seeing the sight of them training on the largest