The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (39 page)

“So it would seem, but they are reducing their military footprint and they have said they would like to operate on more cooperative terms,” Damien said.

“What exactly are cooperative terms?” Randolf asked whiningly.

“It means they would like to allow small groups of their people into the city for leave and to purchase supplies, and that they would like to work with the two Councils to coordinate a defense in case demons return.”

“And how do they determine if demons return?” Davron asked.

Damien made a small grimace. “Sir Sorel, another Knight Rampant of Tiernon, will be using Sir Talarius’s Mirror of Demon Detection and flying over the city periodically to inspect the number of demons. I have told him that once the wards are down, we would expect some demons to return, as they are vital to the work of many of our residents. They are okay with a handful of demons in the city. Just no archdemons, greater demons or demon hordes.”

“I’m okay with that myself,” Tureledor said. “I don’t like having any of those in the city. I am still embarrassed that we allowed it to happen.”

“I will be asking the Committee on Demonology to come up with some method of regularly monitoring demon activity and overall presence within the city,” Gandros said. “It is something we should have thought of long ago.”

“So what do they have, a stable of flying horses? Or is this Sorel also going to use Talarius’s horse?” Davron asked. “My understanding is that such horses are quite intelligent, and it is probably wanting to charge the gates of the Abyss as it is.”

Damien had an amused expression on his face. “Apparently, Sir Sorel’s steed is a griffin.”

“A griffin?” Sier repeated incredulously. “These knights aren’t much for subtlety, are they?”

“Not at all. Sir Gadius is also outside our walls. You don’t want to know what he rides.”

“Okay, Damien, what does he ride?” Davron asked.

“A unicorn.” Damien smiled at the two councilors.

“The man’s a virgin?” Jehenna asked.

“Don’t most religious types take vows of celibacy? It’s part of the same psychopathy that leads them to take up religion in the first place,” Tureledor observed, shaking his head.

“Well, I have to say, it does make those otherwise boring goody-two-shoes far more interesting,” Davron admitted.

“Are we getting off track here?” Alexandros asked.

“Probably,” Damien admitted with a smile. “To get back on it, we need to talk about lowering the wards.”

“Yes,” Lenamare said, “and to that point, I am working to hand back full control of the wards to the normal team.” Lenamare nodded to Gandros. “My recommendation is to take them down to a minimal level, which I will detail to the team, so that they can be brought back up very quickly if needed.”

“So then are you pulling yourself out?” Sier asked.

“I am,” Lenamare stated. “I am concerned that if Exador actually is an archdemon, he may come looking for me to continue our battle. In such a case, it might be best for me to leave the city quickly. I can’t easily do that if I am in the wards.”

“So you are leaving?” Tureledor asked.

“Not at this time. I have my students to worry about and my obligation to them. Now that Exador has destroyed my school, I think this is the best place for them, along with what is left of my staff.”

“Didn’t
you
blow up your school?” Randolf asked.

Lenamare glared at the Archimage. “He invaded my lands, laid siege to my castle, killed a number of my people including students, and was on the verge of ransacking it and slaughtering everyone. We had to escape, and I needed a diversion. He forced my hand; I had no other choice. I therefore consider his actions the reason my students and faculty no longer have a home.”

“Ahh, I see…” Randolf said, steepling his hands before him and gazing at them intently. “So you knocked over the blocks and left?”

Lenamare glared at the archimage, who pointedly ignored him.

“Okay, let us let this point go,” Gandros said. “I do think we need to get the wards down; they are extremely expensive to operate.”

“We may need to bring in additional components from outside,” Sier noted, and Damien nodded. “Most of the extremely expensive components are non-consumables, but there are enough moderately expensive consumables that it adds up, and we have limited supplies of such on hand in the city.”

“Given current supplies, how long could we continue at the current level?” Tureledor asked.

“At least another quarter month. With some more scavenging of the city, perhaps thirty days,” Lenamare said.

“Hmm. Then we really should see about turning them down and restocking,” Gandros stated.

Damien was heading back to his rooms after the meeting when a figure stepped suddenly from a doorway along the corridor.

“You are Councilor Damien? The Inquisitor of the Council of Wizardry?” A rather odd-sounding voice asked him.

Damien had to blink to take in the extremely armored man accosting him in the relatively dark corridor. He immediately shifted to a more defensive position. “I am; and who are you?”

“I am Ruiden, Sword of Talarius, and I am investigating his abduction. I wish to consult with you on your investigation into the offending demon.”

“Okay…” Damien said, rather befuddled. Did the man just claim to be a sword?

~

“I suppose we could always come back with more sacks,” Antefalken sighed as they sat and rested, sorting through their treasure. It was simply too much: the blue sapphire room followed by the pink, orange and yellow sapphire rooms, the emerald room. The ruby room had been, Tom thought, both beautiful and insane. However, that was nothing compared to the diamond cavern. It could have been the crystalline Fortress of Solitude from the Superman movies. Tom’s jaw had been wide open the entire time. How could any of this be? The caverns were the sort of place that only King Midas could have imagined.

“I think we will have to,” Boggy agreed. “Tizzy, I am so sorry about doubting you during the long, long journey here. It was worth every league and more.”

“I have to admit, the discomfort of being demon handled for that distance is drowned out by the sights of this cave system,” Talarius said, shaking his head. “The level of temptation here is incredible. It is an excellent opportunity to test myself versus the sin of greed. Truly a worthy challenge.”

“I see you are packing gems into those small bags you pulled out of your armor,” Boggy commented.

“As the octodemon pointed out, I’m going to need to make some significant donations as part of my penance,” Talarius said.

“So you’re donating it all to the Church and the Rod?” Rupert asked.

Talarius fidgeted. “Directly and indirectly,” he finally said.

“Indirectly?” Estrebrius asked.

“Well, the church has numerous expenses supporting my efforts. If I can relieve those expenses with some small personal wealth in pursuit of my mission, well, that is indirectly.”

“What expenses does a Knight Rampant have?” Antefalken asked rather incredulously. “If you are in Eton or anywhere your pantheon is, you get free room and board.”

Talarius coughed. “Do you have any idea how many bales of hay it takes to feed a flying horse? They eat twice as much as a normal horse!”

“It’s such a long haul back and forth; it’s a shame to have to make multiple trips,” Rupert complained. He was fastening his one bag to his rope belt.

Before leaving, Antefalken had gone to his home and returned with rope and some sacks. Those without belts had created rope belts to fasten one or two sacks to. Antefalken had only four sacks that could hold about a gallon each, three smaller bags and a few small pouches of his own. Boggy, Reggie, Rupert and Tizzy had each taken a large sack. Estrebrius had taken two small sacks; the large sacks were simply too large and ungainly for his frame. Talarius had a few bags of his own somehow secreted in his armor, and also took the third smaller bag. Antefalken made do with his small bags, and both he and Tom had belt pouches.

“Hmm… you know, one hole in the ground is about as good as any other,” Tom mused. “I’ve got my only possessions from the cave in my belt pouches. I suppose we could set up shop here.”

“Interesting.” Antefalken frowned, thinking. “From the point of view of back and forth to Astlan, it doesn’t make any difference, but I have to imagine, given how far out we are, getting back and forth to the Courts could be a pain. Your current cave is only a single boom tunnel away from the Courts.”

“True. But if Lilith is looking for Tom, I’m thinking this might be a better location,” Boggy mused.

“I cannot disagree with that,” Antefalken admitted.

“Well, you haven’t even seen most of your planned new home yet,” Tizzy stated. “We really should move on and see more.”

“Hmm, well, we could just carry what’s easy and leave the other piles here for now,” Antefalken said.

“Yeah, I like that idea. It’s not going anywhere, and we know where this room is relative to the diamond room,” Estrebrius said.

“It was a straight path,” Boggy agreed.

“What’s down the other paths we didn’t take, Tizzy?” Rupert asked.

Tizzy scratched his chin. “Well, that depends on the path. Some will take you to the other rooms on alternate paths. Some are dead ends and some… are just cave rooms not that different from Tom’s cave.”

“So you’ve explored this entire cave system?” Antefalken asked.

“A lot of it. There are some deeper regions I haven’t ventured to. It’s a very big system,” Tizzy answered.

“So what’s next? You said there were gold and silver rooms?” Rupert asked.

“Yes… they are a ways away though; they are on another side of the mountains. So it will be a long trek,” Tizzy answered. “Back in the day, though, streams of silver and gold were quite a sight to behold.”

“Streams? You mean molten gold and silver?” Tom asked with a furrowed brow, trying to understand how that could be.

Tizzy shrugged. “Probably not flowing now. A long time ago, there was a very large and active volcano at the heart of the mountain range. It’s been cold for several thousand years now, so I suppose the molten metals will have stopped flowing and solidified.”

Antefalken shrugged. “Well we have nothing else to do, and if we are thinking about hanging out here anyway, we might as well go take a look.”

“Cool! Lead on, Tizzy!” Rupert shouted.

Tizzy made a gesture indicating where he was going. Everyone who had been seated stood and straightened their leftover piles of gems and then lined up behind Tizzy as he started off down a corridor.

Tizzy had not been lying. The journey was pretty long and meandered through a number of twisted tunnels with lots of branches. They were definitely relying on Tizzy to find their way out. It would have been quite easy to get lost in here. Finally they came to a cavern with six exits in addition to the one they had entered.

Tizzy stopped and rubbed his chin. “I think we want that one there.” He pointed to one of the tunnels.

“What do you mean you
think?
” Boggy asked rather shrilly.

“Well, it’s been several hundred years since I’ve been to the crystal caves, and probably almost four thousand since I regularly wandered these tunnels,” Tizzy replied.

“Nargh! We are relying on four-thousand-year-old memories of Tizzy’s?” Antefalken complained.

Tizzy twisted a bit to give Antefalken a grin. “Aaah, not that bad. I’ve been down most of them at some point.” Tizzy paused and closed one eye and tilted his head to the left. “I think.” He shook his head. “Let’s go this way.” He took off.

Tom quickly gouged a mark in the tunnel they had just exited, and another near the entrance of the one they were now going down. He should have been doing this all along. It really was pretty stupid to trust Tizzy on this. The demon had just been behaving so reasonably lately; he had forgotten exactly how unreliable he really was.

The group proceeded for another two hundred feet before they took a right at a three-way intersection. Tom marked the one they had come through and the one they were taking with new symbols to distinguish them. He was done relying too much on Tizzy. After another five hundred feet, they came to a large metal portcullis.

“Why is there a portcullis in the middle of a cave passage?” Estrebrius asked.

“Were these caves once inhabited?” Antefalken asked.

“Are they still inhabited?” Rupert asked nervously.

“I hope not.” Reggie said nervously.

Tizzy shook his head. “There used to be some miners and others here, thousands of years ago. However, the entire region has been abandoned for at least thirty-five hundred years, if not more. Like I said, when I used to come here regularly, when I had people to visit, it was over four thousand years ago.”

“So why did they abandon it?” Boggy asked curiously.

“War—sort of a rout, you might say,” Tizzy said while examining the portcullis, shaking it for weakness.

“War?” Tom asked.

Tizzy shrugged. “War used to be pretty common in the Abyss. The demon princes, occasional dark demigods, Knights of Chaos and such enjoyed battling it out. Much like human princes. This place was abandoned about the time of the last major shakeup among the princes. Since that time, most of the squabbles have stayed at the archdemon level or lower.”