Helluva President
Antarctic Summer, 1921
Adolf stepped into the most sacred room of the temple; as the sanctum itself beckoned to him, called him to descend but a little further into the depths of the crystal city, he knew that the answers he sought were within reach at last.
He could not have understood the room's purpose before he walked in, but he did. It was a tomb- the foreboding presence of a man, or of something that might have been like a man, had become one with the very feeling of the place, its soul. It was a city of the dead now, and at its heart was someone who, for reasons unfathomable, had entombed himself.
His mummified remains laid on the icy stone, the gigantic wreck of a warrior from ages long forgotten; Adolf could not tell if this man was astoundingly tall among his own kind, or if he was from some fabled race of giants. Either way, he wore ornate armor, what might have looked like a crown adorned his forehead, and in his hands held a golden bow.
"The Bow! Why would it led me to it?" Adolf thought, as he realized that he knew not why the Bow held such importance to the fragmented thoughts... no, memories that had been filling his mind since the moment he read the inscription on the portal that led down to the hidden city. He had to know! He would not leave without answers, not after he travelled all the way to the ends of the Earth, to the Gott-forsaken frozen continent!
An inscription! Wich Adolf could inexplicably read now, as easily as the Baron could...
"Samyaza..." he read. The warrior's name! But who and... what was he?
"Impressive..." a female voice interrupted Adolf's thoughts, "not many humans can read Enochian these days..."
"Gott im Himmel!..."
...
Now, at this point an explorer with less experience (or maybe just a reasonable one) would have run for dear life, no matter how non-threatening the voice from nowhere was! And, to her credit, she did sound like she meant no harm...
But then, Adolf saw her.
She towered over him, even taller that Samyaza must have been in life. Her skin was of a pale golden colour- like some flavour of honey- her eyes were bright pink, and her long hair a mismatch of vibrant colours, a light azure cascade behind with a reddish streak in the front. She had a light pink V-shaped mark on her forehead, and on top of her head she sported a three-pointed black crown. And apart from said crown, Adolf could not even begin to describe what on God's earth she was wearing; something out of... (Gott, how do the Americans call those...) ah yes, one of those science-fiction pulp magazines or whatnot. Or maybe it was too weird even for that!
Adolf was utterly and throroughly dumbfounded, and might just have made a run for it had the woman not reassured him.
"Fear not, and forgive me; I am not used to talk to humans anymore- then again, last time I conversed with a human like this, he was nailed to a cross..."
Correction; had the woman not TRIED to reassure him.
"Who are you? And how do you know this place... wait, did you say Enochian?" Adolf started.
"Right, I didn't introduced myself, did I? Silly me! I am Queen Beelzebub, Princess of Gluttony, but I mostly go by Beelzebub, anyway."
"Well, I have met royalty before..." Adolf thought.
...
"As for this city..." she said, her voice shifting slowly, as if waves of memories were sweeping away her carefree, joyful exterior, "it was my home once. Well, it felt like home, wich is the same, I guess..."
Adolf would not have believed that someone so clearly not human could feel something so... human. But there she was, and he had just met her! And she had the answers, she had to!
"How was this place called? I could not figure out the name from the inscriptions..." Or from the fragments of memories, he might have add.
"Oh, it had many names, still does..." she answered, "Asgard, the Mount of Assembly, Lomar in the land of Zobna, Mount Sumeru, Flower-Fruit Mountain..." She smiled; must have been particularly fond of that name, Adolf guessed.
"It was a mountain fortress, and the earthly palace of the Authority; not his main abode of course, that was, as it is now, the Sublime Citadel in Heaven."
"The Authority?" Adolf didn't quite follow.
"Yes," a shadow fell on her face "he has many names too... The Lord, IHVH, El, Al-Ilah, Adonai, Urizen, Eru the All-Father..." She seemed to curse at just how false that last name was, and continued.
"From this city he looked over this planet, and the Gan Eden, in the land you now call Africa, on the mountains near the shores of the long-vanished Sea of Opar. It was there that he created Adam and Lilith." She brightened, as she remembered a happier, beautiful Aeon. "It was the first day of the Golden Age of mankind, when life was sweet as apple pie, and the young worl had cotton candy skies."
"The Authority," she continued, was the founder and leader of our civilization. He guided us, he was our bulwark against the Great Old Ones beyond the stars, as recorded in the Pnakotic manuscripts. He was our..."
"Fuhrer". Adolf shuddered in saying that.
"Yes," she wispered, "and, as it happens, sometimes your heroes let you down."
"What happened?" Adolf asked, looking at the desolation all around them.
"The children of Lilith, the lilim, their genius unparalleled in later generations, build a mighty civilization called Numenor or Atlantis. Their technological prowess knew no bounds, and the Authority saw clearly where that path would have led; to a humanity advanced and powerful enough to question us, to question HIM..." Her eyes shimmered red with hatred for an instant, then continued. "He made his decree known, he saw the rebellion of the lilim as inevitable, and thus... he planned their extermination."
Adolf could see it now, the fragments of memories were almost overwhelming; hordes of winged monsters descending from the sky, colossal moving blades of light destroying all in their path, bombs made to shatter continents raining from fleets of space-vessels...
"Adam, always the most faithful of all who served the Authority, approved, for ha always saw his own children as... unworthy." For Adolf, that part sounded all too familiar. "But Lilith joined us, Lucifer and the others, in the war against the Authority, the War in Heaven..."
"We lost the war, and Atlantis quickly fell. But in those final days of the Old World, the lilim used three powerful Numenorean weapons, that even the Authority feared: the Sword of Empires, the Scales of Power and..." she turned to Samyaza, "the Bow of Destruction."
"The Bow? But... how did it end up down here?" Adolf asked.
"Each of the three weapons was lost in the final battle, and each had a different fate afterwards; the Scales of Power were never found, the Sword of Empires was found many times across history, as you know very well. But the Bow of Desctruction was found once by survivors of the lilim, which were called Nephilim out of spite."
"Nephilim? Of course!" The name Samyaza from ancient scriptures, a warrior of gigantic stature, and the script called Enochian! "All the pieces of the ancient puzzle are now in place! Samyaza must have decided to hide the Bow here, in a forgotten city that sank deep beneath the earth, because he knew this place would survive Noah's Flood! Moreover..." he paused, "the Nephilim must have intermarried with a different clan of humans that was created after the war..."
"Indeed..." she nodded, "the children of the lesser Adam and his wife Eve; one of them learned the angelic script, hence the reason why you call it Enochian after him. The lineages of the two Adams are now intertwined. The first Adam's hatred of his own descendants has not diminished; he has become the leader of the Exorcists, the Authority's most ruthless angels."
Adolf was now feeling all the weight of the history that was taken from mankind, of the answers that soon would change the world! Only one thing remained to be unravelled...
"Why did I have the find the Bow? Why have you told me all this?", he asked.
She sighed, "The Bow must return to the wider world; you and the Baron are meant to protect it and the Sword. If the old Tzar were still alive, I would forbid it, because we could not risk either, but especially the Bow, falling into his hands. Luckily for us, he's gone..." She smirked, as she remembered how generously she had rewarded the bitch who did it.
"But why? Why bringing it back at all if it is so dangerous!?" Adolf felt a mounting rage within him, not unlike the one time he held the Sword of Empires, "Europe have suffered enough in the Great War because of all the new weapons, we don't need ancient ones too!"
"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT!? ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU GOT A PROBLEM OR SOMETHING, BITCH!?
In that moment, Adolf would have swore that she had grown in size many times over in the blink of an eye, taking the shape of a monstrous, colossal, four-armed... fox!?
But quickly as it happened, whatever the fuck had just happened, it was gone, and Beelzebub looked like she had just had a headache or something...
"I'm sorry, I got spicy there..." She looked genuinely sorry, too, "But this is greater than either of us; you see, the Bow is destined for someone, a chosen one. In the hands of evil, the Bow can only bring destruction, just as you fear it would; but in the hands of the one it is destined for, it will be a Bow of burning gold, and it will shoot my Arrows of desire once more."
If Adolf had not met the Baron, he would have dismissed it all as madness. A chosen one? A destined hero?
A savior, even?
"And I don't suppose you can assure me" he started, looking almost defeated, "that this hero of yours is coming, and that I have to protect the Bow only for a while, until they come for it?"
"Indeed, she is coming." She smiled, "She's like a niece to me, but she must be unaware of her destiny, or it won't come to pass..."
Adolf sighed "There are forces in this world beyond our comprehension, then?"
"I am afraid so..." She answered, "But then again, I am just a party princess with phenomenal cosmic powers and immortality. What do I know?"
...
Weeks later, Adolf found himself on a northbound ship. In his heart he felt a strange mixture of fear, worry, but also hope for what the future might bring.
As the watched the last glimmer of sunset descend beneath the waves of the southern Atlantic, he could hear something, like a young woman's distant voice, singing, as if heard through the thin veil between worlds...
I can already tell,
Today is gonna be a fucking happy day in Hell!