The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (83 page)

Lilith jumped at the sound of the voice behind her and angrily hopped her chair around to stare into the darkness. “What the Abyss? Aodh? Why are you lurking in the shadows of my private study? Did someone relocate the entrance to the Abyss into my private chambers?”

Aodh, the Hand of Nét, stepped out of the shadows. His silver wings were, as always, a striking match to his long, silver hair. He was dressed in his typical reddish-silver chainmail and crimson tabard emblazoned with the symbol of Nét, the El’adasir god of war. “I believe I have the outstanding question, which should take priority.”

“Yes, we just wanted to make sure of the facts on the ground before worrying you. We realized that if the rumors we had heard were true, you and your liege would be quite interested. But we didn’t want to cause alarm if none is justified,” Sentir replied calmingly.

Aodh stared impassively at the other avatar.

“It’s the truth, relax,” Lilith told the El’adasir avatar. The high elves were notably moved by little; their gods and avatars even less so.

“A personal illuminary of mine just this evening alerted to me to the events in Murgatroy, having received this information from very high up in the principality.” He crossed his arms. “Who is this Lord Tommus that threatens the alvar?”

“Well, that’s a long story,” Sentir Fallon said.

“All of us in this room are immortal. We have time,” Aodh said with no trace of humor.

~

Beragamos sighed. He had been summoned to the Palaestra. It was not the summoning that bothered him—there was nothing unusual about that—it was the location. The Palaestra was the training studio for the Holy Knights of Tierhallon, and to be fair, Tiernon was often there in the mornings, watching his knights train.

The problem was that Tiernon’s form in the Palaestra was very similar to his judgement form. It was not Beragamos’s favorite way of talking with his deity. Which, of course, was the point of the form when passing judgement. If he were simply acting as an observer, that would be one thing, but in this case he would have to explain a rather complicated situation and as such, would be the brunt of this form’s eyes.

Beragamos in his outdoor, winged form flew over the rolling meadows surrounding the five-hundred-foot-tall, refleca-marbled building. The scent of flowers was strong on the air. From a long distance, the Palaestra resembled a fairly standard rectangular building girded in Corinthian columns. Only as one got closer, which took some time, did one begin to realize exactly how huge the building was.

Once more, as he had so often done, Beragamos smiled as he thought about how lucky they were that the outer planes only obeyed those laws of physics that pleased their owners. Otherwise, this building would be completely unstable from an engineering standpoint. The weight of a real marble ceiling of the size of the Palaestra’s would need much more support than it had. Fortunately, refleca objects only weighed what they needed to weigh.

Beragamos landed on the top stairs of the main entrance of the Palaestra. He straightened his robes and proceeded forward. The two-hundred-foot-tall marble double doors swung open silently at his approach. He entered, and smiled slightly at the convenient nature of refleca when it came to minimizing energy requirements to open such seemingly immobile doors.

Beragamos passed through the antechamber and into the main arena of the Palaestra. This floor was a large training field, lined inside as well with more columns. Along each of the sidewalls were doors of various heights, all at least fifty feet high, leading to training studios, baths and ancillary chambers.

The avatar walked around the outside edge of the arena, behind the inner columns to avoid the sparring Holy Knights, all of whom were twenty feet tall and armed to the teeth. He purposefully avoided looking toward the far end of the hall, his destination, where Tiernon sat upon his throne.

Even at a fast walk, it took Beragamos’s human-sized legs some time to traverse the field. He finally stopped at the right approach to the throne. This was the waiting area to the right of the throne, where those wishing an audience could wait until they were acknowledged and motioned forward.

It was only upon reaching the approach that Beragamos dared look at his god, trying to judge his mood. This was one reason why he did not like this form; it was very hard to judge demeanor and reactions. The scale probably had something to do with it.

Tiernon’s form in the Palaestra was one hundred feet tall when standing; sitting on the throne, he was still over sixty-five feet tall. Tiernon was seated in the very ornately carved Palaestra throne; he was clad in sandals with golden leg wrappings that crisscrossed his truly enormous and muscular calves to tie just below the knee.

He wore only a single shoulder toga with three layers of refleca silk. Each sheet was probably a hundred and fifty feet or more long. A wide belt with very a large, golden buckle carved with Tiernon’s own face kept the toga tight. Tiernon’s form was that of a human man of great but not excessive muscle. The perfection of the human form, without the bulk of a barbarian.

His curly hair, made of strands of real gold, was held in place by a mithral coronet. His right biceps was also encircled with a silvery white mithral band. That was the extent of the jewelry. The god did not need much more than that; the chiseled, square face and the deep black eyes ensured that those viewing the god saw little else. Beragamos had to be careful not to look into the eyes. That was the trap of this form. One could easily get lost in their depths.

Beragamos waited silently for some time as the duels between the various knights played themselves out with Tiernon’s all-seeing gaze. Beragamos glanced at the knights. How they could practice under the gaze of Tiernon was beyond Beragamos. The pressure seemed unimaginable to him.

Eventually the knights finished and all bowed deeply before their god. Tiernon clapped in approval, sending shockwaves through the air that visibly moved the looser clothing on the knights, as well as Beragamos’s gown.

“EXCELLENT WORK, MY KNIGHTS!” he boomed. “WE ARE MOST PLEASED WITH YOUR EXERCISES. WE SHALL SEE YOU ALL TOMORROW.”

As the knights trotted off the field to the showers, the god slowly turned his gaze towards Beragamos. Crap! There it was. He had accidentally met Tiernon’s gaze and had to fight to keep from being drawn into those two enormous black spheres. A blackness deeper and darker than the darkest corner of starless space, a blackness so deep it seemed never-ending. However, as one peered more, one could sense that there was something in that blackness—a fire, orbs of fire, brightly burning stars? It was more a sense than an actual sight.

Beragamos blinked; Tiernon had released his gaze. Beragamos shook his head and then bowed deeply at the waist. “My Lord Tiernon! You have summoned me, your loyal servant.”

The god had a slight grin on his face. While he never admitted it, Beragamos had a suspicion that the god worked to purposefully trap him in his eyes. Simply because he knew how much it bothered the archon.

“INDEED, BERAGAMOS. APPROACH!” the god intoned.

Beragamos moved forward to stand at the foot of his god and peered upward, working to avoid the deity’s terrible gaze.

“WHAT IS THE NEWS ON THIS ASTLANIAN EVENT?”

“Thanks to Saint Hilda of Rivenrock’s excellent intelligence-gathering, we have determined that the demon who broke into and intercepted our illumination streams is known as Lord Tommus. In addition to stealing your mana and kidnapping your Knight Rampant, Talarius, he has apparently managed to restart Mount Doom in the Abyss and is now making connections to orc tribes on the material planes.”

“HE RESTARTED MOUNT DOOM?”

“Yes, my god.” Beragamos nodded.

“WOULD THAT NOT REQUIRE THE WAND?”

“From the accounts of witnesses interviewed by Saint Hilda, when Lord Tommus came through the portal to retrieve his minions from Murgatroy, he had a rod. The witnesses’ descriptions of this rod match that of the wand,” Beragamos said.

“HOW DID WE GET THESE WITNESS ACCOUNTS?”

“Saint Hilda traveled to Murgatroy with Saint Stevos Delastros and the priest that alerted us, Teragdor. There, they went to the wargtown, where the D’Orcs and orcs had stabled their D’Wargs.”

“ORCS WERE WILLING TO TALK TO AN AVATAR OF OURS?”

“Well, they did not know she was an avatar. She has been working undercover, pretending to be human. The priest led them to the wargtown, where the wargmaster was dismissive, but she bested him in short combat and then bought several rounds of drinks for the orcs in town to get their stories.”

Tiernon chuckled like thunder in a cloudless sky. “I LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS SAINT. I WILL NEED TO MEET HER.”

“Of course, Your Godship.” Beragamos was sure Hilda would not be quite so thrilled with the invitation; she was very low-key, and very smart. While some younger saints were foolish enough to long for their god’s attention, Hilda struck Beragamos as someone wise enough to know better.

“SO WHERE WAS THE WAND?”

“This was not clear, Your Godship. Sentir Fallon reported that it had disappeared at the time that Orcus’s body was dissolved by Excrathadorus Mortis. We have always assumed that it was so tightly linked to the demon prince that the magic of the blade destroyed it as well,” Beragamos said.

Tiernon sat silently for a few moments, thinking. “YES, I RECALL SENTIR FALLON’S ACCOUNT. APPARENTLY IT DID NOT DISSOLVE.”

“Clearly. It must have faded back to the Abyss, similar to how demons do,” Beragamos suggested.

“AND NO ONE NOTICED IT UNTIL NOW?”

“I would guess, and this is only a guess, that the D’Orcs retrieved it and guarded it until the prophesied return of Orcus.”

“PROPHESIED?”

Crap! The eyes!
Beragamos blinked as he came back from being lost in the god’s stare once again. He shook his head and tried to continue. “Yes, My Lord. According to the orcs in the wargtown, there is, or was, an old prophecy made one hundred years after Orcus’s death. It was made in Etterdam by an orc shaman named Tiss-Arog-Dal,” Beragamos replied.

“A PROPHECY MADE BY A SHAMAN REGARDING A DEAD DEMON?”

Beragamos nodded.

“A TRUE PROPHECY REQUIRES DEIFIC GUIDANCE, PARTICULARLY FOR SOMETHING OVER SUCH A LONG TIME PERIOD. WHAT DEITY WOULD SUPERVISE A DEMON PROPHECY?”

“We have debated this issue, and found no answer.”

“DID WE KNOW OF THIS PROPHECY?”

“Not that I have been able to determine, my god. To be fair, if any churchman in Etterdam had heard of it, he would have likely dismissed it due to the lack of any discernable deific presence.”

Tiernon nodded, being careful not to make eye contact with Beragamos. He closed his eyes for a few minutes, thinking. “TIS-AROG-DAL.” The god reached up and rubbed his jaw. “BEFORE SUMMONING YOU, I REVIEWED YOUR REPORT ON THE EVENTS NEAR FREEHOLD.” Beragamos nodded. “YOU ARE SURE IT IS THE SAME DEMON?”

“The probabilities are such that anything else is very unlikely. First, the demon in Freehold went by the name Tom; the demon described by the orcs in Murgatroy is Tommus. Assuming one had the Wand of Orcus, it would still take tremendous energy to reignite the volcano. It would take, literally, a miracle. And that is essentially what he stole from you,” Beragamos explained.

Tiernon closed his eyes in thought, or perhaps Seeing. After a few moments, he opened his eyes again. “IN THE REPORT, YOU SAID THE DEMON HAD SERVANT DEMONS WITH HIM?”

“Yes, Your Godship.”

“DESCRIBE THEM TO ME IF YOU CAN.”

Beragamos nodded, thankful to Hilda for retrieving that balling. “There was a smaller version of the Tommus demon, identical but smaller. There was another small demon that wore clothes and had a musical instrument, like a bard.” Tiernon nodded. “The last one was another fiend, probably second order. Rather weird: splotchy green, four human arms, four human legs. Non-standard wings, more like a fairy’s or something.”

Tiernon was silent for some time, looking at Beragamos. He then closed his eyes in deep thought. Finally, the god spoke. “THE LAST DEMON YOU MENTIONED —DID IT SMOKE A PIPE?”

Beragamos blinked in shock and surprise. Apparently, gods really could be all knowing! “Yes, actually. Now that you mention it, he sat under a Net of Demon Entrapment, smoking a pipe very calmly. As I think on it, the behavior was a bit odd for the circumstances.”

Tiernon sighed. “NOT FOR THIS DEMON. HE IS INSANE.”

Beragamos blinked again. “Your Godship knows this demon?”

Tiernon paused and tilted his head slightly. “ ‘KNOW’ IS A STRONG WORD. WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED EACH OTHER ON A FEW OCCASIONS. HOWEVER, I HAVE NOT SEEN HIM FOR OVER FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS. I ASSUMED HE WAS DEAD. AS INSANE AS HE WAS, IT WOULD STAND TO REASON THAT SOMEONE WOULD HAVE ERADICATED THE ANNOYING PEST IN THE INTERIM.”

Tiernon was silent for a moment and then continued. “AT THE TIME, I TOOK HIM FOR A FOOL.”

“Understandable, my god.”

“BUT NOW I SUSPECT HE MAY NOT BE SO MUCH THE FOOL, AS THE ONE PLAYING THE FOOL CARD.” Tiernon’s face seemed to take on a rueful expression as he shook his head from side to side. “WE SHALL HAVE TO SEE.”

Beragamos frowned, not quite understanding his god’s meaning. Further, the god finished with a different, odd expression on his face, and as always with this form, Beragamos had trouble interpreting it.