Mt. Braxius was howling in the night — spirits, birds and the wind. The supply carriers made their weekly trips up the mountain, the king’s guard switched places at the gates and King Ranvil stayed at the peak, with no intention to socialise. All routine. All according to plan.

  A flimmering lightshow wobbled the wind out of Williams stormy sails.

  ”Where- What in all the- What?” the Stormrider said, mouth agape. ”No. Nonono. Shit. This cannot-”

  He found himself in a familiar place, as he got used to the light of hundreds of lit candles, in the shape of the night sky — Gorvanis Willmar’s cabin. As soon as he realized, he began to cough. The stench of… something foul passed through the cozy candle scent. The living area was not big, and so, within seconds his eyes were drawn to the ceiling.

  ”Is that a- Shit,” he exclaimed, as a mouse ran over his foot. ”A ronin?” he asked, as loud as he dared — meaning no more than a whisper. ”A damn southlander? But how did Gorv manage to impale him up there? Who else could? He’s the strongest man I ever knew.”

  He went to check the window.

  ”Nobody coming,” he said with an absent voice, and began to search. For what, he did not know, but the best way to feel safe was to know your surroundings.

  ”No use, Mr. Rider,” he heard from the air. ”Technical difficulties. Hold on to that metal hat of yours, just as I sort this out.”

  William looked up. The rotten ronin-head tilted awkwardly towards him. His face had all but fallen of from the skull, turned dark and mouldy, full of tiny maggots creeping in and out of it.

  ”By the unholy mother.”

  ”Unholy is right. Too right.” Again, the voice came from the man up above him. The mouth, however, was out of order.

  William started walking backwards, but realizing he was cornering himself, he sprinted past the thing in the ceiling and ejected out of the door.

  There was a flicker, a flash and a short moment of light. Darkness followed.

  He gasped. Icevein’s air was always cool, but it felt damp, deep and dirty — making no sense what so ever.

  ”Where’s the sky? The damn snow?” He knew Gorv’s cabin, the ins and outs of it. This, wherever he was, had no part in it.

  It was like a gut-punch. Too dark to really grasp the reality of it all — But this surely was not real, but instead a terrible dream. He reached out with his arms, found a wall and followed it. After turning at all four corners, there was a door. Imagining an end to the nightmare was at least a small comfort.

  ”Of course it’s locked. Why would it not be?” he groaned. ”By all the lords of the three Hells, what would you have me do to get out of here?”

  As fingers finally found bars on the door, located at knee height, a foul breeze hit his nose, before being abruptly cut off, leading to thoughts of there being an opening of some kind nearby.

  ”Hey! Anyone,” he shouted, feeling undeserving of his title of ’Stormrider’. Then, his pupils dilated.

  A fiery light revealed itself inside the cell across, and the intensity of it increased by the second, so much so that it made him doubt the relative safety inside his own cell.

  ”Another animal caught,” the elemental on the other side said.

  William scraped his head away from the bars.

  ”Sure, hide. It’ll get you far, I’m sure. But I should tell you, your breathing alone gives away your location.”

  ”What are you?” asked William.

  ”I am a man.” The elemental let the silence have its turn. ”I am also fire.”

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  ”I- Wow, I never knew elementals were real. I mean, golems, I suppose… but fire? Fascinating.”

  ”Ain’t nothing to write home about,” the fire elemental said, bitterly. ”You wouldn’t even talk about me if you knew where we are.”

  The cogwheels began to move, and some of the webbings fell off in his mind’s thought chambers, as William’s brows shaped into a form of worry — upgraded from its previous shape.

  ”So… we’re in… Hell? One of the actual three?” His hands trembled at the speculation.

  ”Not quite.”

  The fire elemental’s following quiet worried William even more, as it sounded like he wanted to say more, but was afraid of how William would take it. But William had to know, before going mad over it.

  ”Well come on then, where?”

  ”Limbo,” his neighbour replied fast. ”That is as close to an explanation I can give you. Humans and other… things end up here. I can’t give you a reason.”

  ”I- I don’t fully-”

  ”It’s the fucking space between living and dead. You know, the crashed train, the color grey, the granny no one visits, the prison cut out of time itself, the-”

  ”Got it.”

  ”Nono, you dont ’get it’. How could you? You just arrived, innocent as a butterfly,” he erupted.

  William heard the elemental’s sparking flame grow annoyed as the minutes past — If time even was a thing there, in ’Limbo’. Again, he dared a peek through the low bars.

  ”Do you have eyes, or is that even your head I see?”

  ”Yes, let’s make this whole conversation about the fire guy.” The answer all but confirmed he had eyes, as it practically embodied a riposte of an eyeroll.

  ”Sorry, I- I guess I just haven’t met, or ever even seen, a fire elemental before.” William’s knees had begun to take a beating in that crawling position, so he turned and sat against the door. ”Ice, snow , Hells, even rock elementals, I’ve seen plenty of.” He worked his thought bubble for a minute. ”Oh, and then there’s those pesky-”

  ”Did you say ’Hells’, just then?”

  ”Of course. What else would I say? I’m big on saying what I mean, if I do say so myself.” He let out an uncertain chuckle. ”Why so quiet all of a sudden?”

  ”Gorr Garrath has one, a single Hell.”

  A quiet moment seemed to push all sound aside, as William chewed on the most profound answer he’d ever got in his life.

  ”Are you- Wait… I don’t quite follow. What is Gorr-”

  ”Garrath. Our world. Were you touched by strangers as a child, or something? I don’t quite follow,” the elemental replied, sounding as confused as a baby ant that made a wrong turn somewhere, ending up in the wasp nest.

  ”My world is Vantirium,” said William.

  ”Vantirium?” said the fiery man, like he was very close to falling into a rabbit hole of completely foreign information. ”So… a different world then?”

  ”I- I suppose… it’s a possibility?” William questioned what he had just said. ”Wow. I- What now? How long have you been here, friend?”

  ”Careful befriending anyone here, stranger. Folk dissappear from their cells, I swear. I’ve not yet seen how. I mean, it’s hard to keep an eye out these bars.”

  ”Can’t you just burn down the door?”

  ”Look, pal, I don’t know about your people’s average intelligence, but first of all; what if I could? I don’t know the way out. Back where I come from I’d just get a doubled sentence, if caught — And cought I’d be here, for sure, mark my words. Secondly; I tried once, a couple years ago, burned my hands. I can’t get burned. See what I’m getting at? All these doors are reinforced with some cursed magic, some code that’s cracked just what’s needed for every specific individual put here. Mark my smoking words.”

  ”You had me at ’pal’, buddy,” said William, smiling. ”Ok then… I guess we wait. But when’s dinner, supper and all that?”

  ”Forget it. Here in Limbo, no one eats.”

  ”No one eats? But we’ll die. Water then?”

  ”You’re already dead. Don’t you remember how you got here?”

  ”Sure I do, I-” He paused. ”Uhm. I… can’t quite explain it,” he said, before bouncing the question back at the elemental. ”What’s your reason for being here?”

  ”Pirates.”

  ”Pirates?”

  ”At sea. You know, pirates.”

  ”I know what pirates are.”

  ”Well, how’s your basic knowledge of math?”

  William didn’t have a response.

  ”Gods… Two and two equals four, right?”

  ”Aye aye,” said William.

  ”They fucking drowned me, alright? By the dead, you’re not very quick in the dome, are you? And as a being of fire, I can tell you it fucking hurt, like you being set ablaze, probably.”

  That shut William up for a good while, and he sat in silence, wondering what this unknown realm had in store for him, if anything at all. In any case, the waking world- his world, seemed to loose its sanity in his last moments of memory. He just could not put the jigsaws in their right place. How, and what, killed him?

  The light from his neighbour had faded, then lit up again, as William asked;

  ”Hey, pal. What’s your name?”

  ”Don’t try and get to know anyone in here. Names carry too much weight — should they be assigned to Hell,” the fire elemental said, before remembering; ”or Hells, right? Whatever the scenario, you might be stuck in Limbo for aeons. Take it from me however you like. But here… acquaintances come… and they go. Poof.”

  The light faded in that neighbouring cell.

  William swallowed. There was nothing to be said at that — as part of him already felt mad.

  He missed his men and their banter. He missed the cold air of Mt. Braxius.

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