The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (88 page)

Tizzy nodded, seemingly having no problem understanding the mud golem. “You need to stick your hands into the mud golem’s body and say ‘I,’ and then your true name, ‘take you,’ Tamarin’s true name, ‘to be my djinn.’ And that’s it.

“That’s it?” Tom asked dubiously.

“Yep, and from the link that forms, Tamarin will choose a form from your mind that is most appropriate.”

“Okay, so how do I know Tamarin’s true name?” Tom asked.

“Tamarin will give it to you in your mind once you stick your hands in the golem,” Tizzy said.

“Okay, then. Do we just do it now?” Tom asked. Tamarin nodded.

Tizzy said, “Yep.”

“Okay, then,” Tom said. He gently reached forward to touch the mud golem’s torso. His claws met no real resistance as they slid into the mud golem’s body. Once inside, Tamarin nodded. Tom could definitely feel something. With his demon sight, he could see Tamarin’s aura and his own sort of intermingling at the mud golem’s body. “I, Thomas Edward Perkinje, take you, Tamarines DarNathos Parfeuesnas Deblentre, as my djinn!”

Tom felt a rush very similar to the one he had felt with Vaselle and the shamans, as well to a lesser extent the D’Orcs. Sort of a brief joint possession of each other. He had to close his eyes at the world of colors, sounds, smells, emotions, tastes and other sensations that nearly overwhelmed him.

Tom opened his eyes, realizing they were closed. He blinked and looked to find a purplish bottle in his hands instead of a mud golem.

Tom looked at Tizzy. “Where did Tamarin go?”

Tizzy pointed to the bottle. “She’s in the bottle now.”

“
She
is in the bottle? Tamarin is a girl? Why did you keep calling her an it?” That seemed rude.

Tizzy shook his head. “Djinn don’t have any sex. It makes no sense in their realms. When they anchor with someone on a material plane, or in this case, the Abyss, they take a form pleasing and comfortable to their new master.”

“Master?” Tom asked dubiously.

“Sort of how the anchoring rules work. Very complex,” Tizzy said, waving his upper hands dismissively.

“So Tamarin is in this rather large, purple bottle?” Tom asked.

“That is what I said.”

“So how do I get her out?”

“Remove the cork and ask her to come out. However, you might want move out of the mud. I say that simply based on the sort of clothing djinn typically wear.”

Tom sighed. “Okay, let’s go back to the main corridor.” The two walked back along the main corridor to the kitchen. Tom stopped and looked at the bottle. “Well, here we go!”

Tom pulled the rather large glass stopper from the bottle and said, “Tamarin, please come out!”

The bottle trembled and suddenly pink smoke started pouring out of the bottle. Tom suddenly had a bad feeling. If the djinn took an image from his mind…

The pink cloud grew to be about the size of a normal human and then moved beside Tom and Tizzy and hovered near the floor. The cloud began to reshape into a sort of hourglass form. The form bent over, and the next thing Tom knew, there was a very buxom, young, blonde, human woman in a pink harem outfit bowing before him.

“Master, I thank thee for releasing me from my bottle!” said Tamarin, smiling brightly and standing up straight.

Tom shook his head; there was no question of where Tamarin had gotten the image. The pink harem costume was quite revealing, but it covered her belly button. He really should not have watched so many old reruns on cable TV. Further, given the sort of problems Jeanie had caused Major Nelson, Tom was a bit worried as to what he was getting into.

~

DOF +10 DZ+40

Early 6th Period 16-07-440

Tom sat upon his short throne in the grand dining hall at the head table. Technically, this was only the second party he had ever been to, not counting any of his parent’s parties. The last one had not ended so well. Or maybe it had. He now had a pretty cool volcano to live in, an army of super-warriors, and now a genie!

Tamarin had slid a stool up to his right, between him and Darg-Krallnom. Zelda was to his left. She had looked at their newest guest rather suspiciously at first, as had Darg-Krallnom. However, Darg-Krallnom noted the purple bottle Tom was carrying and nodded. When Tamarin had whispered something in Darg-Krallnom’s ear, the D’Orc commander had laughed uproariously and slapped the table.

Tom had had so much to do, that he’d had little time to talk to Tamarin, just the time he could make between various stops on his rounds. She seemed fine with this, though, and said they could speak in more detail later. Her principal objective of anchoring had now been achieved.

Tom tried to focus on the music. The Doom Metal was pretty cool. He hoped that they were just rusty with their instruments and were not actually trying to get such an extreme, hard-core industrial sound. He supposed x-glargh would make the hard banging, clanking and shrill strings sound better. However, he would work at enjoying it sober, or as sober as possible. The D’Orcs were enjoying it, anyway, and that was what was important.

There was a clashing and banging off to his right. He looked; it was Reggie and Phaestus trying to get down a stairway out of the dining room.
How had the two of them gotten so drunk so quickly?
Tom wondered. Everyone was drinking now, but the pair must have started early. He shook his head in amusement. He looked for Rupert and Fer-Rog, hoping they were not drinking. He had no idea what the drinking age was in the Abyss. It probably did not come up that often, as almost everyone besides him and Rupert were vastly older than twenty-one. But ten-year-olds should not be drinking. Although, to be fair, at first Tom had planned on drinking even though he was under age, but then he had started worrying about an attack and decided to go light on the x-based beverages. He would do a few over the night, but he would try to stick to the non-x stuff. He had never had a hangover and this did not seem like a good time to start.

After a few moments, he spotted Rupert and Fer-Rog sitting over in a corner, talking and laughing. They did not appear to have any beverages with them. They were safely munching on a giant plate of cookies. Tom smiled, thinking about the fun they were probably having. When he had been ten, he and his only friend used to like to pig out on Oreos. At least Rupert might be able to have a minimally normal childhood here.

Thinking about childhood and drinking, Tom suddenly counted on his fingers. He was not really sure how long he’d been a demon. Those long periods sitting in his cave had been rather a blur, but it had to be getting close to his seventeenth birthday. When he had died, it had been less than seven weeks until his birthday. He chuckled, shaking his head. Getting his own Doompire for a birthday present was pretty cool. If only he had a candle, he could stick it in a cookie and light it.

“I think things are going well, My Lord!” Zelda yelled from her seat to his left. The song the band was playing was particularly loud at the moment.

“You did a great job, Zelda!” Tom smiled at her.

“Thank you, My Lord. I am so honored to have been able to arrange this celebration!” She grinned.

Tom reached into the Rod of Tommus to check system power levels. Things were charging quite well now, better than before. He needed to get this place self-sustaining. It was getting exhausting to feed it and deal with everything. He guessed it was a good tired, but if he stopped to think too much, he would have to curl up in a ball. He was riding a tiger at the moment; he had to hang on tight.

~

“What are you doing?” Farsooth GoreTusk asked Beya Fei Geist and Ragala-nargoloth as they stood at the buffet; they appeared to be trying to stuff cookies into their belt sacks.

“Have you tried these cookies?” Beya asked, looking up and back at him.

“No, why?”

“Try one!” Raga-nargoloth shoved one in his mouth. She clamped her hand over his mouth. “Don’t let any of the crumbs fall out; you will want every one of them.”

Farsooth chewed on the cookie, swallowed a few times and licked the crumbs from his teeth. When he could speak, he asked, “Why did you do that?”

“How did you like the cookie?” Beya asked.

Farsooth shrugged. “Fine, I guess; I am not big on sweets.”

Ragala-nargoloth shook her head as if she was talking to an idiot. “Did you notice nothing interesting? The flavor of the cookie?”

Farsooth sucked on a few more crumbs from between his teeth. “Oatmeal. Hmm. There is a slightly odd taste to it. Is it the butter? Odd butter.”

Beya closed her eyes and shook her head. “Yes, it is odd butter. Do you not recognize the taste? If not, you will after a few deminutes.”

Farsooth shook his head, puzzled, and then his eyes went wide. “Is that the taste of—”

“Demon weed!” Ragala-nargoloth blurted loudly but quickly quieted down. “It’s got demon weed in it!”

“Who the hell wastes demon weed in a cookie?” Farsooth asked incredulously. “You do that and everyone will start spirit walking. We don’t need half the party out on the astral plane!”

“I think demons have a different sense of humor than orcs,” Beya shook her head.

“So what are you doing?” Farsooth asked again.

“We are stocking up to take some home with us. I don’t know about Romdan, but in Ithgar and Etterdam, this stuff is extremely hard to get.”

Farsooth raised his eyebrows. “Good idea.” He pulled out an empty bag from his belt pouch. “Someone should tell Tal Gor!”

“After we get our share, after we get our share!” Ragala-nargoloth said with a laugh.

DF +11

Early First Period

“So, Murgatroy has now been overrun by a new batch of alvar, dwarves and aetós?” Moradel asked Stevos, shaking his head.

“This seems to be escalating very quickly,” Sentir Fallon said. “Do we know who these people are?”

Stevos shrugged. “Apparently there are some very powerful alvar with them. People who are rumored to be close to the Principality.”

“Then I would guess that servants of Nét are involved,” Sentir said.

“Who is Nét?” Hilda asked.

“Nét is the El’adasir god of war. The alvaren god of war,” Beragamos said.

“They really did not like Orcus,” Sentir Fallon said. “Even a small possibility of Orcus returning would put them on a warpath.”

“Could there be conflicts of interest here?” Moradel asked.

“I would seriously hope not. That would be extremely difficult,” Sentir said. “I worked with them a bit in Etterdam; they are not the most pleasant people.”

“But don’t elves move on really slow timeframes? Their elders sit around and contemplate things for years before doing anything,” Hilda asked, thinking of stories she had heard.

“It’s certain they have already done a few centuries of deliberations regarding Orcus and the D’Orcs. If Orcus is back, it is doubtful they will feel a large need to deliberate,” Sentir said.

“I am thinking we may need to return to Murgatroy in the morning,” Beragamos said to Hilda.

Moradel looked at him oddly. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

Beragamos smiled. “Things are escalating here, too, I fear. I have had to step up my role and have just spent the day in Freehold. I interviewed Ruiden, met Master Trisfelt and the wizards Lenamare and Jehenna.” He shook his head. “Remembering Hilda’s multiple engagements with them, I would now be tempted to canonize her again, if that were possible.” Hilda chuckled as Beragamos smiled at her.

“In fact, I had to physically incarnate to get through the wards,” Beragamos said.

“So now you are undercover as well?” Moradel asked, puzzled.

“I fear so; I am Gamos, Hilda’s grandfather. Also an animage.” Beragamos apparently noted Moradel’s concern. “I realize I should have mentioned this before, since Astlan is in your charge; however, I had some pressure from above and felt it necessary to move immediately.” Everyone in the room knew that if Beragamos was receiving pressure from above; there was only one above that he would be talking about. Moradel would just have to adjust to his boss’s micromanaging his assignment.

“I am due at the Hall of Justice shortly after Astlanian dawn, so I am thinking I should be back in Freehold by mid-morning, and we can then go to Murgatroy and investigate a bit more,” Beragamos said to Hilda.

~

DF +11

Late First Period

Exador was leaning back in his favorite lounge chair, his feet propped up on the black leather topped ottoman, a very large raw beef sirloin steak covering his eyes. He kept the chair here in the best climate-controlled room in his Court penthouse. He had received the lounge chair and ottoman as a gift a bit over half a century ago from its designer, a man named Eames, and his wife in return for ensuring the chair’s commercial success. His music system was currently playing some very relaxing trans-neo-classical chill from somewhere in Visteroth; he had forgotten the planet’s name.

He had been in a very serious funk since his forcible return to the Abyss with a pile of meteors crushed on top of him. He had had to dig his way out of a 300-meter-deep crater that had been backfilled by crushed asteroids and some molten metals. His head still hurt from that first wallop; hence the cold steak.

There was a knock on the outer sliding glass door. He lifted the steak to peer through the dual glass doors that served as an airlock to the sky deck. Bess and Ramses were there. He would have shaken his head but it still hurt too much. He waved his hand to unlock the outer doors, allowing them into the airlock, and then when they were both inside, he unlocked the inner door.

“Now that’s what I call airtight!” Bess said to Exador before realizing he had a raw steak on his face.

“Where have you been? You missed our last meeting!” Ramses complained, having not yet seen Exador’s face. “And did you know they put the wards back up around Freehold?”

“I am guessing he knows.” Bess pointed to Exador’s meat-covered face as he continued to ignore his guests.

“What happened to you?” Ramses asked.

Exador groaned in a tired, worn-out and only moderately theatrically manner. “I have noticed the wards. And in case it is not obvious, there is no real need to waste time convincing them we are human. That opportunity has flown,” he said from under the steak.

“You look like a pile of dung flattened by a giant. What happened?” Ramses asked.

“Talarius, the knight who was abducted, has a walking, talking sword. It is trying to locate and rescue Talarius and in the due course of its investigation, it outed me as a demon in front of a majority of the Council.”

“How could it do that?” Bess asked, puzzled.

“Well, it claims to glow in the presence of demons, and it was glowing near me. It would not leave me alone, so I tossed it across the room. It then clove me in two, and I got pissed. Council got involved, including my traitorous sycophant Randolf, and well, let us just say we are no longer welcome there.”

“So how are we going to get the book?” Bess asked.

“This will severely complicate things,” Ramses observed.

Exador pulled the meat up and away from his face, resting it on his forehead. He looked at his allies. “Actually, things are much simpler now; there is nothing left to hide. The gloves are coming off. We are going to seize the book from Lenamare and the Council even if we have to flatten Freehold to do it.”

~

DOF+11 Mount Doom Dawn

Tom strode down the extremely quiet halls of Mount Doom. All the D’Orcs had loosened up considerably later in the evening. The D’Orcs and the few demons had all gone through a lot of x-glargh and x-other beverages, and Tizzy’s cookies had been a particular hit for some reason.

By the earliest hours of the morning, nearly everyone had been completely wasted and were sharing stories about how horrendous and awful Lilith was. They even had a new title for her: “The Jilted Bride.” Antefalken had shared it with people. Apparently, it was the worst possible insult for her. At one point when Tizzy had come to bring up more cookies, he happened to mention that Mount Doom was the only place in the Abyss where one could get away with insulting Lilith without fear of repercussion. Everywhere else, her spies would find out and one was likely simply to disappear for several centuries or more.

Overall, it was a good party and now the entire palace was quiet. The only sounds were those of the poor grunts who had to wake to take over at the shift change at dawn. They would certainly have a bad case of x-glarghvost; with luck, they had limited their intake enough to be alert this morning.

Tom entered Tizzy’s kitchen, where Tizzy and one other demon were washing bowls and large metal trays. “You still here?” Tom asked. He was surprised at the demon’s tenacity in the face of baking cookies. It had been a huge effort and Tizzy had really came through and kept his word.

“Just finishing up; my other assistants started eating the cookies as we baked them and then passed out, so I sent them to bed.” Tizzy shook his head, wiping down a large bowl with two of his hands and arranging cooking utensils in a crock on the counter with the other two. “Reliable help is so hard to get in the Abyss.”

Tizzy suddenly looked at him, puzzled. “You seem very sober. Did you not drink?”

Tom grinned. “Not much; I alternated between glargh and x-glargh. I was too paranoid about which of my enemies might want to do a surprise attack while all my people were getting wasted.”

Tizzy grinned brightly. “So, finally thinking like a demon lord!”

Tom grinned at Tizzy and said “Yes, and I need your help.”

Tizzy paused and grinned more malevolently. “Ye-eh-ss?” he drawled like a third-rate spy movie villain.

Tom shook his head. Just when he thought the demon was turning sane. “You have a link to Gastropé, yes? He summoned you to fight liches.”

Tizzy shrugged. “Yep. You need some liches?”

“No, thanks. I sort of screwed up and forgot to set up return gateways for the humans and orcs,” Tom said.

“Hmm, that could be a problem. Maybe they should just stay here?” Tizzy suggested.

“Or maybe you could have Gastropé help the two of us open a gateway to Astlan and we can send the Astlanians through it,” Tom suggested.

“And then we get to eat the others?” Tizzy asked hopefully.

“No. They are my people; I can’t very well and go around eating my own people!” Tom exclaimed.

“You really have not met Lilith, have you?” Tizzy asked.

“No. And at the moment I don’t want to. The other shamans are going to be trickier, however; from what I have read and heard, travel between the various planes of Midgard is easier than coming and going from the Abyss,” Tom said.

Tizzy shrugged with his upper shoulders. “I guess. Never really tried it. I always hub out of the Abyss. Not by choice, of course. My accursed masters are the ones booking the tickets. However, that is the advantage of living on a hub plane: direct routes to everywhere. Whether you want to go there or not.” Tizzy grimaced, apparently remembering some of his trips to visit accursed masters.

“Well, I figure that once we are in Astlan, Damien will know someone who can travel between the material planes,” Tom said.

Tizzy shrugged. “Probably. Did you ask him?”

“He’s asleep.”

“Which is where I want to be! This place is really wears one out,” Tizzy said. “I’ve been
baking
all night.” He shook his head. “This place encourages bad habits.” He pulled his pipe from behind him suddenly and lit up.

“So, can you check with Gastropé?” Tom asked. “I assume he’s going to want some time to get somewhere private.”

“Sure, he owes me one. When do you want to do it?” Tizzy asked.

“Well, everyone needs to get up yet, so maybe early afternoon in Astlan?”

Tizzy frowned. “I had planned to be out of it by then; I guess I could nap now, then open the link, you do your hijacking thing and then I continue my siesta.”

“That works.” Tom was a bit surprised that Tizzy did not want to go back to Astlan and torment Gastropé and Jenn.

~

Finding a private room for lunch in Murgatroy proved extremely vexing. It would have been quite nice to rent out a small back room of a tavern for lunch so that everyone could talk privately. However, that had not proven possible, so they had gathered food and drink at the market and one of the taverns and gone on a picnic. They had debated going into the woods, but Teragdor had suggested heading to a small copse on the plain, out past the wargtown. The forest on the other side of town was too likely to contain hidden listeners.

They were a rather odd lot that certainly would have attracted eavesdroppers: Stevos, herself and her aging grandfather, all of whom were well dressed by local standards, along with a half-orc priest of Tiernon and an ambulatory sword. Interestingly enough, the people of Murgatroy seemed less bothered by a walking, talking sword than those in Freehold. Either that or they were simply used to minding their own business.

Ruiden had insisted on coming along. When they had returned to the hotel and told Ruiden and Danyel that the two of them were going to Murgatroy, Ruiden wanted to know why. Explaining their reasons led the sword to the conclusion that Murgatroy was the last place the demon that had captured Talarius had been; thus, he needed to investigate.

It was, surprisingly, a decent picnic. The weather was nice, they had brought a good-sized blanket to sit on, and Hilda had managed to locate a few bottles of passable wine. The only slightly awkward thing was the way Teragdor kept looking at Beragamos. The awestruck look was amusing at first, but after a while, it started to seem a bit gauche. Although, to be fair to the young lad, he was a lowly itinerant priest stuck in the middle of a place worse than nowhere, and he had probably had to fight his way through incredible amounts of prejudice, as well as actual judgement, to get ordained. Yet, here he was, having lunch with two saints, a sword golem and a legendary figure who actually spoke directly with their god, Tiernon, on a daily basis. Not even the Thaddeus Barolos, the High Pontificate of Tiernon in Astlan, sitting on his holy throne Justicia could make such a claim. It was doubtful the man had even met a saint in the flesh, let alone a Supreme Archon.

Hilda shook her head. When had she become so jaded?

~

Gastropé pushed the plate towards the center of the table. The local tavern meal had been decent enough by his old standards; unfortunately, he had been completely spoiled on the food on the Nimbus, at the Grove and the alvaren food. He glanced at the candle clock on the left wall of the tavern. He would need to leave soon in order to get to the secure spot he had staked out after Tizzy had contacted him.

The request, while objectively rather odd, was subjectively quite reasonable in the world he currently found himself in. Tom had some people in the Abyss who needed to get back to Astlan and they needed a gateway. Only a few months ago, this would have terrified him on so many levels, but today it seemed like a completely reasonable request.