The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (50 page)

Yes, there was Sammael, but she knew him too well, and he her. They had known each other for such an incredibly long time that all real mystery and uncertainty about each other had long since vanished. Not for the first time, she wondered if Adam had made the right choice after all. Her slight smile hardened. Right choice or not, that bitch Eve had no business offering it to him. Lilith shook her head. There was no point going down that path. That was so far long gone into the mists of time, it was inarguable at this point. It was but a bitter pill, lodged deep within her metaphorical heart.

~

DOF +5

Midday 16-02-440

Gastropé and Jenn wandered into the map room behind the bridge, where Trevin and the Captain were going over maps with Elrose and Maelen. “If we can follow the northwest side of the mountains, along the Murgandy border, we can descend straight south into Western Noajar,” Trevin said.

The Captain grimaced slightly. “It will be slow going, given the winds coming up from the coast and blowing against the mountains, but I agree that it is preferable to Eastern Noajar.”

“What’s in Eastern Noajar?” Maelen asked.

The Captain pointed to a series of villages at the base of a mountain near some standing stones. “Treojar.”

“Yes, we want to avoid them,” Trevin agreed, looking at the two wizards.

“Why?” Maelen asked.

“They’re rather unsavory, or more precisely, their gods are, and they don’t like interlopers,” Trevin said.

“But Aêthêal said that our height and the fact we are a cloud allowed us to slip through political borders without people on the ground having a clue we were even there,” Jenn said, puzzled.

“In most cases, but not all. For example, we would not cross over Oorstemoth or Freehold without first obtaining permission. Both would likely spot us. In Freehold there are too many wizards that might see us, and in Oorstemoth—well, they are very much aware of our cloudships,” the Captain explained.

“You now have firsthand experience that the Nysegard Storm Lords, as they call themselves, do not like us and in Nysegard have no problem fighting us at any altitude,” Trevin said with a rueful smile.

“In the case of Trojar, it’s their rather hands-on deities.” The captain shook his head in dismay.

Trevin was nodding. “Not very powerful deities in the grand scheme of things, pretty local actually, but quite deadly and fueled by sentient blood sacrifice.”

“Sentient blood sacrifice?” Gastropé asked, concerned.

“Interlopers, prisoners and people they just don’t like,” the captain said. “They aren’t powerful enough to bring a ship like the Nimbus down, but they could damage us, or at the very least distract us unnecessarily.”

“It’s not safe to send carpets against these deities either, as they can easily take them down,” Trevin said.

“Well. Then we should definitely avoid them,” Jenn said, shaking her head. “Although the fact that we are even mentioning fighting ‘lesser’ gods has me more than a bit bothered.” She frowned.

“But to be fair,” Gastropé pointed out, “before this trip, the thought of battling liches on dragonback at the very top of the atmosphere would have bothered both of us.”

Jenn glared at him for some reason.

“What? I am just saying that one becomes acclimated after a while. Wandering the Abyss with a greater demon, blasting liches off the backs of their dragons in the stratosphere, you sort of get used to what was once insane.”

“You do know that is what they call a slippery slope , yes?” Jenn asked him.

Trevin chuckled and the two glanced at her. “My dear, you are so correct. At times it seems like my entire life has been one long slippery slope. Trust me, at some point you cannot even imagine how to get off the slope. You just try to optimize your speed going down and hope to avoid crashing.”

Gastropé sighed and returned to staring at the map. “On a lighter note, I thought we were heading to Natoor. Why are we going to Noajar? It seems rather out of the way.”

Maelen nodded. “It is, but it’s also the closest place where there were Nyjyr Ennead temples. You see these pyramids on the map? Those are, or rather were, sites of both tombs of rulers and temples to the gods.”

“So we are hoping to get lucky with a shorter trip,” Trevin said, grinning. “Admittedly, Noajar was something of an outpost for them, and we don’t think there were any really large temples there.”

“However,” Elrose added, “there were also fewer Etonians hunting down Nyjyr Ennead followers in Noajar. With lesser temples, there was less need for desecration and we are hoping for better a chance of finding intact artifacts and altars.”

“How long until we reach Noajar?” Jenn asked.

“Optimizing wind currents for optimal cruise speed, which means not taking a straight line, we have nearly 900 leagues to traverse,” the captain said. Gastropé raised his eyebrows at the huge distance. The captain continued, “That’s not as bad as it sounds. Following the air currents and adjusting altitude to get the best paths, we can cruise at about eleven leagues per hour, every hour of the day.” He smiled. “So about four days.”

Gastropé frowned, trying to do the math. “So the Nimbus is over five times faster than a sailing ship?”

“Indeed; under favorable conditions, our cruising speed is,” the captain replied. “Under unfavorable conditions, we are still generally better by a factor of two or more, given that we can adjust altitude to get more favorable winds, whereas a sailing ship cannot. And beyond that, unlike a non-magical sailing ship, if need be, we can nearly double our cruising speed for short periods.”

“Wow!” Gastropé said in surprise.

The first mate, Aêthêal, had entered the room during this discussion and smiled at Gastropé. “If you think that’s fast, you should ask your combat carpet buddy Peter to take you out for a fast run. He holds the current speed record of forty leagues per hour.”

“Forty leagues per hour? A hundred and twenty miles in a single hour? Doing that at any lower altitudes would blow you off the carpet!” Jenn exclaimed.

Aêthêal grinned and nodded. “He did it at about thirty-five hundred feet, not that much lower than the other day, but even so, I would probably not recommend launching any forward fireballs at that speed.”

She, the captain and Trevin all laughed.

~

“Thank you for inviting me to lunch,” Randolf said to Lenamare as the two sat down at the dining table in Lenamare’s suite.

“Not at all. I appreciated the notes you sent me on the wards. You had some good insights and ideas and I would love to discuss them with you,” Lenamare said, smiling.

“I am quite excited to talk about them as well. As I said, truly masterful work. I had always thought the original wards quite interesting, but these new modifications for expelling things inside the wards are truly revolutionary,” Randolf said. He had been sure to include lots of detailed praise in his note. Flattery would be necessary to get Lenamare on his side, but it would have to be sincere flattery. The man was quite brilliant.

“Your reworking of Hierophan’s postulate to increase the energy channels was particularly remarkable. Especially given that the wards were active at the time of the reworking. Historically, one would have had to recreate the wards from scratch,” Randolf said.

Lenamare nodded. “Yes, it was a bit of work, but something I’d realized could be necessary in many circumstances. After the incident at my school, I took a long look at options for in-place upgrades of the wards. Of course, I’d had no idea that I’d need to do such a thing so soon; but I had been thinking on it for some time.”

“Well, the power to actually expel archdemons along with all the others would have been otherwise unimaginable,” Randolf said.

Lenamare nodded. “Again, not something you would ever expect to need to do.”

Randolf nodded in agreement, although he had been thinking about the need to do so most of his life. It was one of the first unmet needs he had experienced in life; in particular, the need to get rid of Exador once and for all. “And conveniently, it exposed the duplicitous and malevolent nature of your rival,” he said.

“Yes.” Lenamare frowned. “Sorry to deprive you of your mage.”

Clearly, Lenamare was still a bit sore about not being selected as Mage of Turelane, thought Randolf. However, Randolf had needed Exador closely tied to him in order to contain him, more than he needed an actual mage. He gave a short laugh. “Nonsense. I am better off not having a secret archdemon working for me. You have done me a great favor!” Randolf shook his head. “No one in their right mind would trust a bound archdemon, let alone an unbound one.” He tilted his head and frowned. “Although I’m not sure if there are any bound archdemons.”

“That remains to be seen,” Lenamare said sourly.

“Ahh, yes… that extra-greater demon of yours.” Randolf shook his head. “Rather troubling.”

“It is,” Lenamare agreed.

“Well, with all of this, you must at least be glad to have an explanation for Exador,” Randolf said casually.

“An explanation?” Lenamare asked, puzzled.

“Certainly. Now everything makes sense!” Randolf exclaimed, raising his hands as Lenamare looked at him in puzzlement.

“One thing I have always wondered is how nature managed to produce two such brilliant minds, such powerful intellects with so much innate talent as you and Exador at the same time! Normally, such individuals only come along every few hundred years. However, both of you were ‘born’ near the same time and in close proximity.”

“Yes.” Lenamare nodded, intrigued by where Randolf was going.

“I mean, think of it; every time you made a breakthrough, there was Exador releasing some sort of ‘me too’ breakthrough! What is the probability of that happening? How could there be another person so close to you in insight and power?”

Lenamare nodded, taking in the archimage’s logic.

“The fact that Exador has been shown to be an immortal archdemon puts all the pieces in place. He was not inventing new things at the same rate as you! No, he was simply unveiling things he had done centuries or maybe thousands of years ago, but had kept secret. Your innovations made him jealous; he felt upstaged, so he began releasing his centuries of work to the public so that it would appear that he was as gifted as you.”

Lenamare tilted his head, considering this idea.

“Who knows how much of it was actually his,” Randolf continued. “If an archdemon has free reign over multiple planes over thousands of years; his discoveries might simply be stolen wizardry from other planes that he passed off as his own work!”

Lenamare stared at Randolf for a moment and finally shook his head. “You are so right. I had not thought of this, but it makes so much sense as to be almost obvious!” Lenamare smiled ruefully. “Nothing has irritated me more than how Exador seemed to match every breakthrough I had. It now makes so much sense! He cheated!”

Lenamare was so excited, he got up and began to pace, ignoring the food and wine on the table. “How could I have not seen this? You are so right!” He shook his head. “We had Alexandros Mien and then myself, and Jehenna is no slouch… if you add in Exador as a match for me, you have to ask how so many great minds could be alive at the same time! It defies probability!”

“Exactly!” Randolf said enthusiastically.

Lenamare paused to stare at Randolf in frank admiration. “Your insight on this is brilliant!”

Randolf made a deprecating gesture. “I only wish I could have come to this realization sooner. I had always been puzzled, but who could seriously expect an archdemon to be posing as a wizard? A conjuror, for that matter?”

“No one. It defies what everyone knows about demons and archdemons in particular.” Lenamare tapped his forehead. “I mean, think about it. We have always assumed that the amount of power necessary to get an archdemon to manifest in the Planes of Men would be inconceivable. Yet here he is, and has been for a long time.”

“It would argue that archdemons have a means of traveling to and from the Abyss aside from being summoned,” Randolf said.

Lenamare shuddered. “So how is it we are not overrun by demon armies?”

Randolf shook his head. “That is a very good question.”

~

DOF +5

Mid Afternoon 16-02-440

Sentir Fallon sighed as he opened the door to his suite. He had been in a meeting for the last two hours discussing the questionable tactics of the Rod in Astlan as well as on a few other planes. It appeared that numerous branches had started to show signs of overzealousness in the pursuit of justice and righteousness.

He had to admit, he had been suspecting as much for some time now. What had not been clear was the level to which these overzealous attitudes had apparently crept into standard dogma. To be honest, however, he was not convinced that it was quite as bad as some others believed. He willed the light on in his resting chamber and entered, heading directly to his master wardrobe to get out of his vestments in order to take a relaxing shower.

“Good evening, Sentir.” A deep, throaty, and oh-so-very-female voice came from the shadows behind him.

Sentir felt his stomach drop at the sound. He slowly closed his eyes to gather his composure and turned to look his guest sternly in the eyes. “You know it is not safe for either of us for you to be here,” Sentir stated.