An End to Ice and Sorrow: Hellbound, #4

By William LJ Galaini

Gil must navigate the bloodthirsty politics of the vilest warrior clans in Earth's history, in a mission to undermine their evil plans, before their cannons are in range of his parents and New Dis.

Gil is free at long last from the ice in Lucifer's shadow. He begins his ascent out of the depths of Hell to reunite with his loving parents, Adina and Yitz, but his arduous journey is interrupted by remnants of the Pious Legion. An ancient warlord plans to roll mechanized war machines upward to New Dis, and he has the most cruel and vicious souls at his disposal.

Gil employs all the sins that placed him below in an effort to infiltrate the ranks of this new sect, all the while hiding both his identity and intentions.

EVOLVED PUBLISHING PRESENTS a tale set in an industrialized Dante's Inferno with steampunk trappings, in the fourth book of the award-winning "Hellbound" series of religious sci-fi/fantasy adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evolved Publishing LLC
• Release date: Mar 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9781622535408

William LJ Galaini

Having lived up and down the East Coast, William Galaini finally settled outside of DC after a charming stream of career failures that ranged from the hospitality business to the military. After marrying his college sweetheart, writing became his vehicle to pull his life together. Six novels, four cats, forty pounds, and one son later, you now can find him here at Evolved Publishing. His work focuses on character revelation and multifaceted conflicts nestled within science fiction and fantasy settings. The influences that echo in his writing include role-playing games, classic literature, world history, and his personal experience. To recharge, he naps on the couch under his mother’s afghan, surrounded by his cats.

Book preview

www.EvolvedPub.com

To make sure you never miss out on any important announcements related to our books, special promotions, etc., please subscribe to our newsletter at the address below. And fear not, we’ll not spam you, nor will we share your information with anyone else.

Subscribe to the Evolved Publishing Newsletter

~~~

AN END TO ICE AND SORROW

Hellbound – Book 4

First Edition

Copyright © 2024 William LJ Galaini

~~~

ISBN (EPUB Version): 1622535405

ISBN-13 (EPUB Version): 978-1-62253-540-8

~~~

Editor: Lane Diamond

Cover Designer: Kabir Shah, with images by Aleks Dochkin

Interior Designer: Lane Diamond, with images by Bruce Brenneise

~~~

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

At the end of this novel of approximately 79,212 words, you will find two Special Sneak Previews: 1) BENEATH THE TITAN’S STRIDE by William LJ Galaini, the final installment (Book 5) in this Hellbound series of steampunk sci-fi/metaphysical/religious fantasy adventures, and; 2) THE TORMENTING BEAUTY OF EMPATHY by Richard Robbins, a contemporary literary/religious exploration of two women—a mother and daughter—driven by extraordinary circumstances in a memorable story you’ll not soon forget. We think you’ll enjoy these books, too, and provide these previews as a FREE extra service, which you should in no way consider a part of the price you paid for this book. We hope you will both appreciate and enjoy the opportunity. Thank you.

~~~

eBook License Notes:

You may not use, reproduce or transmit in any manner, any part of this book without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews, or in accordance with federal Fair Use laws. All rights are reserved.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; it may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

~~~

Disclaimer:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.

~~~

~~~

Book 1: Trampling in the Land of Woe

Book 2: Sparks from a Cruel Grindstone

Book 3: Patron Saint of Wrong

Book 4: An End to Ice and Sorrow

Book 5: Beneath the Titan’s Stride [2025]

~~~

www.WilliamLJGalaini.com

We’re pleased to offer you not one, but two Special Sneak Previews at the end of this book.

~~~

In the first preview, you’ll enjoy the first chapter of William LJ Galaini’s novel, BENEATH THE TITAN’S STRIDE, the final installment (Book 5) in this Hellbound series of steampunk sci-fi/metaphysical/religious fantasy adventures.

~~~

~~~

TO REMAIN UP-TO-DATE ON THIS SERIES,

PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE HERE:

HELLBOUND Series at Evolved Publishing

In the second preview, you’ll enjoy the introduction and first three chapters of Richard Robbins’ novel, THE TORMENTING BEAUTY OF EMPATHY, a contemporary literary/religious exploration of two women—a mother and daughter—driven by extraordinary circumstances in a memorable story you’ll not soon forget.

~~~

~~~

~~~

OR GRAB THE FULL EBOOK TODAY!

FIND LINKS TO YOUR FAVORITE RETAILER HERE:

RICHARD ROBBINS’ Books at Evolved Publishing

Table of Contents

Copyright

Books by William LJ Galaini

BONUS CONTENT

Table of Contents

Dedication

AN END TO ICE AND SORROW

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Book Club Guide

Special Sneak Preview: BENEATH THE TITAN’S STRIDE by William LJ Galaini

Acknowledgements

About the Author

More from William LJ Galaini

More from Evolved Publishing

Special Sneak Preview: THE TORMENTING BEAUTY OF EMPATHY by Richard Robbins

For those who bend our darker natures toward better purposes.

A fissure jolted through Gil’s icy tomb. The sudden stimuli, after so many decades of frozen misery, startled him. He’d existed without change for so long, except for the relatively recent kiss from his father, that he’d nearly forgotten he was more than a head peeking out of the black ice.

Was it because of my father’s kiss?

Had the kiss been years ago? A decade ago? Yesterday? Gil couldn’t calculate. It felt like an eon ago, but he still vividly remembered the loving warmth of his father’s bristly beard on his forehead.

How little his father, Yitz, had aged. When Gil saw his father down here, bent over him while fighting to hold in sobs, he couldn’t believe it as real. Gil’s memory had solidified, as if to conjure Yitzhak Isserles exactly as he’d been the last day he had lived. At first, Gil thought it some terrible new torture, or even a hallucinatory reprieve from the numb sameness of his frozen hell.

After Gil’s violent death on Earth, he’d emerged through a bubbling, sulfuric vent leagues below the surface of the turbulent Sea of the Damned.

As he drifted up, blinded by other flailing bodies, luminescent tentacles snaked through the groups of recently condemned. The lamprey-like mouths of the glowing, translucent appendages snatched up the poor souls who flailed most.

Gil remained still, knowing exactly where he was. This was Gehenna, the hell into which sinners are cast after judgment for eternal suffering, and it marked the start of his punishment, not only for what he’d done, but for what he felt.

After floating upward through the crushing depths, he had surfaced. Surrounded by his fellow sinners, the waters reeked with panicked urine, blood, and aimless pleas as they clawed and gnashed and tore at each other.

Clumped together like ants in a flood, they drifted toward the high cliffs of an ominous landmass. The current intentionally pulled them into the sandy crags, where the Ushers waited with nets to snatch their drenched and exhausted prey. They bundled, dragged, and tossed Gil unceremoniously before the reptilian horror Minos, which scratched his crimes onto parchment with its thousands of arms.

Minos did not speak, but the milky-eyed thing clearly knew all of Gil’s wrongdoings.

The weight of it tore through his angst and struck him at once. He staggered from the bulk of it, and his memory from that point on had been reduced to sensations of shame and despondent resolution and....

And cold... a frozen, unrelenting wind that frosted his flesh, snatched his breath, and sliced him to his core. Only the cold existed from then on—the entirety of his being before, and after, that moment of sinking into the ice.

As his eyes blurred over from the frigid air, he saw the shadow of Lucifer before him, the Fallen’s multiple wings pounding in infinite desperation toward the impossible pin-prick of light above.

In the dark, Gil couldn’t judge time’s passage since time itself required events to measure against. The frozen wastes in Lucifer’s shadow felt like an ingot of dense cold. The ice molded around his body and between his fingers and under his toenails, until he was locked entirely into place. Only his nose and eyes peaked above the glacial ground. He could only think, and his thinking became his greatest torture, laden with boundless regret and sorrow—a fitting destiny for a man who despaired and raged against God.

Over the passing of time, Gil heard only the occasional boot-fall by his head, of someone wordlessly patrolling—no other sounds, and no light but the singular vagary of Heaven light-years above.

So it had been for a time without meaning—for un-time—until a torch, dull and struggling in the howling wind, approached. Gil’s eyes had been frozen solid, the pallid world before him a blur. Blinking frantically, he warmed the flesh of his eyes and gave them enough moisture to see, and there, kneeling before him, was his father—Yitzhak Isserles... charming, affectionate, and foolish as always.

Gil knew his father’s vice was self-indulgence, so seeing him walking tall among this frozen waste came as no small surprise. This task—too hard, too taxing, and too dangerous—did not belong to a man such as his father, yet here he’d stood, and now knelt.

It’s my fault, Gil. My fault, Yitz croaked in confession. Too much of me in you, and not enough of Mama.

Gil’s heart thumped at the sight of the man. He had missed him so much, he ached.

Thinking back on it, Gil figured the ice now loosened because of his father’s kiss, which had happened long ago, anyhow. At least, he thought it had.

Again, how could one gauge time when nothing happened?

The ice holding him shifted again. He couldn’t feel warmth, but liquid sloshed around his fingers, and for the first time since Minos’s chamber he could move them.

What’s happening?

Next came his shoulders. The ice around them thinned as the ice firmly holding his head crackled. This sliver of newfound freedom tempted him to try his muscles, and although Gil remained too numb to feel his body, he could now flex and wriggle.

Am I being freed? Is this it? My time is complete?

The ice turned to slush, and the easing sense of freedom made him so frantic that he thrashed about, an expression of his lengthy agony. He struggled to burst his arms upward through the ice. Only one thing mattered now, as he flailed: climbing out.

Hoping to call for help, he drew in breath. It was the first time his atrophied lungs had expanded during his un-time, and as the cold rushed in, his body fell into shock. The dry, frigid air scorched him from inside, and instead of a cry for help, he spurted chunks of bloody, frozen lung. He didn’t even have the energy to cough, the pain of it so great he wished to die again.

A knee landed in the ice directly in front of his blurry vision. Gil looked up through his crystal tears and saw the one who patrolled—the warden, clad in black leather armor with motley flourishes, tattered by the winds. He appeared to be an infinite attendee to an endless macabre masquerade—a jester swathed in black. On his belt hung a curled whip embedded with fine blades, and his black mask shielded him from the brutal wind. Then he said something.

Is that Spanish?

The warden spoke Spanish, and yet Gil understood him perfectly.

Gil Isserles, whatever suffering awaits you elsewhere... it seems your time here is complete. You are now the Redeemed. He reached a black-gloved hand into the bloody slush that cradled Gil and gripped him by his frail arm. Don’t try to breathe, and do not pull your feet free too violently. You might tear off your toes.

With firm and controlled strength, the warden slowly elevated Gil free of his tomb.

Spasms wracked Gil as the cold hit his naked body with unbroken force. He spewed bloody froth as his skin cracked from the evaporating water, its brief existence as a liquid now over. It would return once again to either a mist or a solid, as the cold demanded.

The warden laid Gil out on the ice, unfixed his ornate cloak, and bound Gil in it. With many holes and several tears from echoes of violence, the once magnificent garment offered little defense from the wind, but the warden’s warmth haunted it, and that was enough.

Gil rolled to his side to cough out more of his broken lungs. Something stirred in his thin hair, and he remembered the yarmulke, the parting gift from his father. The wind snatched it, tore it free of the clasp.

Just before it darted off into the dark, the warden caught it tightly in his gloved grip. He looked down to Gil and placed his other hand on his trembling shoulder. I will carry you, for now. I will do my best for you.

The masked warden hoisted Gil into his arms without so much as a grunt of effort. What power was this? How could a man haul another man so easily?

Am I so frail?

Gil looked down at his feet peeking out from under the bundled cloak, now nothing more than blackened skin stretched over skeletal toes. He had withered into a bundle of boney twigs bound in human leather.

The warden clasped Gil to his chest to steady himself while walking.

The warmth of this man’s exhalation burned Gil’s face. It was excruciating, but he had no energy to whimper.

The warden stepped carefully around the tops of the other frozen heads, navigating the endless field of them as he walked toward the towering Lucifer.

Gil could see the Fallen now in all his majesty, wings pumping with towering fury.

Almost there, the warden whispered, his voice only felt through his chest, because he could not hear it over the howl of the wind.

They stepped around several scattered chunks of massive ice, and entered a space where no heads popped through the ice. In a small nook, no larger than a man is tall, a dip curved downwards. Steps had been molded into the ice, and the warden navigated them carefully with his spike-heeled boots.

They moved downward and soon cleared the cut of the wind. Gil’s skin prickled and seared from the hint of warmth below as they descended. The recess sank into a narrow tunnel, and before them stood an oaken door.

Gil read the lentil, written in Latin, which he’d learned at university:

Clasp unto hope, all ye who enter here.

They entered, and a single candle, hanging from a chain sconce fixed into the icy wall of the carved cave, provided the only light and the only warmth. It was enough. The Warden set Gil down into a pile of straw, then turned and closed the door behind him. From a carved recess, he fetched a thin, wool blanket, snapped it open, unfurled it over Gil, and tucked in the edges of it around his body. Finally, the warden stepped to an hourglass that dangled from the uneven ceiling and turned it over, beginning its count of time.

When this hourglass is empty, he said, you will be ready to move forward into my chambers. He tucked the crumbled yarmulke into one of Gil’s thin hands. I’ll prepare things for you, leaving you be for now. With that, he stepped to another door, a circular one made of steel and covered in jagged spikes with a handle in the center, at the far end of the cave. Feel free to die in the meantime, if you wish. He disappeared through the door and slammed it shut behind him, leaving the ice-carved antechamber still, save for the dancing candlelight.

Alone, Gil watched the reflective surfaces of the icy walls mimic the candle flame’s display. The fluttering, soothing choreography, though providing minimal stimulation, was deafening over the once-howling wind that dominated Gil’s existence.

As the feeling returned to his limbs, a new level of excruciation assaulted him. Whimpering and desperate to just die again, he now understood the wisdom in the warden’s parting suggestion. The prickling sensation of blood flowing to his frozen extremities shifted into a stabbing torture. The blanket over him felt like blistering fire, and the moment his chest could take in air again, he heaved out blood. With a feeble, gargling cough his lungs sloshed. He rolled onto his side and accidentally knocked his head onto the unyielding floor of ice—a new punishment, intense and shifting in its agony.

First had come the pressing depths of the sea, the ravenous sea creatures, the violent condemned, the stormy seas, the raging Ushers, the crushing judgment, the frozen wastes, his father’s fleeting kiss granting a sliver of hope, and now....

This? At the mercy of a stranger? What suffering could be next? What else could possibly be delivered to me?

He wheezed, found control of his hand that gripped his yarmulke, and held it tight to his heart. Its holy status meant nothing to Gil, but it had been a gift from his father, so it was everything. Gil rejoiced that his father still, somewhere, existed, and Mama waited with him. God could only end them on Earth. Perhaps, in the afterlife, they had managed to stay together despite God’s intentions.

With a spasm, his stomach lurched bloody vomit out of his nose and mouth. His weak hand was in the way, and the bile splattered upon the yarmulke. In a fit of anguish at the mess, he made to cry out but his sundered lungs merely allowed a pitiful squeak. In despair, he banged his temple against the icy floor.

It’s all I have of them.

With every ounce of his remaining effort, he pulled his boney arm close to his body and clasped the soiled yarmulke to his chest. Spreading it open, he did his best to rub the filth off onto his prickling skin. He ground away at it, desperate for the holy garment not to stain, and sobbed, his tears streaking his frozen face, the heaves of his lungs clunky and wet.

Mercifully, slowly, the hourglass still sifted its sand downward.

Gil couldn’t be sure of when he’d died again, but it had certainly happened. He remained loosely bundled in the tattered cloak, with sprigs of straw clutched in his stiff hand from his recent death spasm. His eyes now focused more sharply, tracking the erratic reflections of the flickering candle with greater ease. All of his senses had reawakened to some extent, even his sense of smell, and....

He truly, thoroughly reeked. The bloody, chunky vomit had dried on his chest directly under his nose, and at some point during his dark rest, he’d shat out black fluid. It had saturated the straw and dried, sticking much of it to his lower back.

He looked at the hourglass dangling from the low, uneven ceiling. Its sand had settled in the lower half. Under the hourglass, as still as a statue, stood the motley warden with his arms folded.

Gil gasped in surprise, and kicked straw about with his frostbitten feet.

The warden nodded. Good. Your lungs are whole enough to nearly utter noise. Likely, your internal organs thawed and regenerated, as well. He crossed the antechamber in three steps and took a knee next to Gil. Come. The next room awaits.

He cradled Gil and gently lifted him into his arms. Clumps of straw clung to Gil’s backside, the cloak dragging along the ground as the warden carried him through the waiting steel door beyond.

In the next chamber, Gil could smell water—not ice or the cruel sea, but fresh and inviting water. A copper bathtub, shaped like a surfacing whale with its mouth wide, waited in the middle of the room under a dim sconce. Within swirled fresh water, stirred by some unseen plumbing apparatus far below the mosaic floor. A small fire flickered under a nearby water tank, heating the bottom like a giant kettle. Attached to the rear of the tank stood a glass thermoscope with tiny beads inside of various colors.

Opposite the tub stood yet another door, but unlike the steel security door prior, this one was constructed of brown oak. An iron handle jutted from its center, and a vacant keyhole appeared above it.

The water is cool, the warden said, carrying him over to the tub. It is cycled from an aquifer below. It will scale the temperature slowly, raising you to a healthy body temperature. Do not worry, as it will not exceed safe limits, but this will take time.

He tilted sideways, gently balanced Gil onto his dilapidated legs, and pulled the cloak away to the floor. He then plucked the filthy straw free of Gil’s back, thighs, and bottom.

Wrap your arms around the back of my neck as I lay you into the tub, he gently commanded.

Gil did so, his yarmulke still tight in his grip as the warden delivered his withered form into the clear, calm water. It prickled and seared at Gil’s skin upon first contact, but he soon realized that it wasn’t the water’s warmth that jolted him but because of how cold he remained.

Time, the dark jester said. Time in warmth always makes a difference, though it hurts at first. I still have to prepare some things ahead for you, so I will proceed into my abode, but I will be back in time. Be patient.

As the warden stepped away, the crumpled yarmulke in Gil’s fingers caught his attention. He delicately pulled it free from Gil, flipped it over in his gloved hands to examine its filth, and nodded. Before Gil could muster a feeble protest, the warden exited through the wooden door beyond, taking the devout article with him.

A sour grunt escaped Gil as he tried to call out. His knuckles thumped against the whale tub when he tried to reach toward the closing door, but he lacked the strength to lift his arm above the water line.

His yarmulke, the last hint of his father and Earth itself, had vanished.

Gil slipped deeper into the cool water, his back quivering from the over-extension. What minimal strength he once possessed had been depleted, perhaps forever, and he existed at the mercy of a stranger that bore strength and weaponry.

Perhaps this was how Tzoah Rotachat worked—the Hell he’d been vaguely taught about as a Jew.

Or, perhaps, this was merely the progression of one from ice to water.

What will I be trapped in next?

A clawing sensation in Gil’s chest woke him from beneath the water. He must have slipped under at some point. Jolting upright, he coughed himself free from drowning while splashing water all about the tile flooring. Half draped over the copper whale’s lip, he spat and sputtered.

Instantly, he felt that his limbs had grown slightly thicker and renewed with thin muscle. Although minimal, the human color of flesh had returned to his palms, and his range of motion had expanded.

He looked about and wondered how long it had been. The tub was comfortably warm, the air steamy, and the room quiet save the occasional oily pop of the sconces above.

He considered calling out for his yarmulke but, not wanting another coughing fit to wrack him, didn’t risk it. Instead, he tested his lungs with a slow, deep breath—in through the nose, out through the mouth.

He filled his lungs shallowly with a dragging effort, but they eventually expanded and contracted as intended.

After several deeper breaths, he eased his arms down from the tub to the floor. His fingers brushed against the tiny mosaic tiles below, and he reflexively drew their outline with his fingertips. His eyes had healed from their frost damage. He knew not how, but everything appeared sharper under the sconce’s tickling light.

With growing interest, he examined the mosaic, ring after ring of shaded tiles representing ice flows that led to drains. Between them, small heads protruded, represented by semi-circular tiles of various colors, buried in the ice. Only their noses and brows showed. It was a general map of the frozen wastes, and Gil surmised that the copper whale tub sat where Lucifer’s pounding form would be.

Leviathan?

As he scanned over the geography of it all, he took the impression that thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands, of souls tormented endlessly, encased in the dark ice. Did the tiny-tiled heads each represent a specific sinner or a variation of the sin? Each looked distinct in gaze and detail, indicating all of the world’s ethnicities.

The scope sunk in. Gil had hardly been the only man to betray his community and betray God Himself. The shadow of Lucifer must have been reserved for the absolute worst, and Gil knew why he belonged there.

A flush of shame hit him, followed by anger. He thought of his father. He thought of the kiss and how his emotions regarding it oscillated between tender joy and supreme guilt.

And why was it only Papa that made the journey? Why not Mama? She was always the strong one, the decisive one. Why didn’t she come down and kiss me? Is she in danger? Did something happen to her?

He reached a feeble hand for his thin hair where the yarmulke had once been clipped. His eyes darted to the oak door, and his frustration, fear, and animosity channeled into the warden, the dark jester somewhere beyond. The man had taken the humble gift from him, the gift from his father. A yarmulke reminded all who wore it of what was above them. Gil used to hate the yarmulke on Earth, but this one was different—it served as a reminder of his father, not God. Gil loved his father.

Perhaps his father’s kiss hadn’t melted him free, but the yarmulke returned to his head.

God, as always, being petty.

Gil needed it back.

The Spanish-speaking warden possessed the confident and brutish nature of a Christian.

Why would he want a Jewish article of faith? It’s not his to take! Then again, what isn’t for a Christian to take? They took my mother and father, after all.

With a surge of anger, Gil’s heartbeat thumped through his ears and fingertips. He wished to be here no longer, vulnerable as a fish in a tub at