03- The Apostles of Doom

by J. Langland

  “Aye, Arms Master. We have followed all standard new ship documentation and checklist protocols and are confident in this list,” the captain replied.

  “Our courageous captain is completely correct—” Dante began.

  “Excellent then. Approved!” Heron quickly snapped, cutting the chancellor off in midsentence to avoid another long and tedious answer.

  “XO Stevensword?” the captain barked.

  “All required and optional systems are go! All dock tethers are free and clear!” the executive officer shouted back.

  At least the Oorstemothians can speak tersely when needed, thought Barabus. That was a huge relief.

  “Bring us to hangar launch altitude,” the captain ordered. XO Stevensword began issuing the commands to raise the ship out of her cradle.

  “Mister Tallswan, inform the hanger crew to open the hanger doors!” Cranshall ordered.

  “Contacting,” the comms officer replied.

  As the Inferno rose above her cradle, as indicated by the viewing mirror at the front of the bridge, the hangar doors began parting. Once they had fully opened, Cranshall ordered, “Take us out, Stevensword!”

  A rumble from the belly of the Inferno could be felt as the forward drive engines engaged and the ship began moving forward, with a deep and oddly comforting thrumming sensation felt throughout the ship. Barabus was impressed by the seemingly effortless motion of the giant vessel. This thing was huge, and very heavy, but it was proceeding forward incredibly smoothly. Far smoother than any ship he had been on; much more like one of the giant imperial carpets that the emperor and his family used.

  Within a few moments, the ship’s viewing mirror was showing an unobstructed view of the outside landscape. Barabus could see Keeper’s City off to the far left in the mirror.

  Another few moments and XO Stevensword shouted, “We are clear of the hangar, sir!”

  “Excellent! Take us to an altitude of six leagues!” Captain Cranshall ordered.

  Barabus saw Heron start. “Six leagues?” The wing arms master asked. Ninety-five thousand feet was extremely high, but he had little experience with flying ships like the Inferno.

  “Indeed, sir. The Inferno can go anywhere. Based on our information on Abyssal topology, we felt that six leagues would be sufficient height to avoid most of the local topology,” the captain said.

  Chancellor Alighieri opened his mouth to begin expounding on the subject, but Heron hastily replied, “This is excellent! It should facilitate things greatly when serving justice to the Grove.” He was smiling broadly, with what seemed to be a determined sparkle in his eye. “We are all aware of the issues we’ve had getting our ships over their mountains.”

  Actually, Barabus had not been aware of that. He really knew very little about the Grove, other than that it was extremely well guarded by what many had described as an impenetrable mountain range. He was a bit curious to know what justice Oorstemoth felt needed serving in the Grove, but given that was far outside the current scope of their agreements, he had no desire to inquire.

  Barabus felt quite heavy suddenly; it was if gravity were trying to pull him down with twice its normal strength. He looked at the viewing mirror and realized that the Inferno was rising straight up with remarkable acceleration. So his previous guess was correct; it moved like a flying carpet, but rather than a soft carpet pulling one upwards, there was a hard metal floor doing so.

  Wing Arms Master Heron braced himself on a nearby railing.

  “Well, this is interesting!” He glanced at the captain. “Full vertical launch?”

  “For secrecy purposes, the Chancellor has requested that we try to limit the exposure of the Inferno to outside parties. What spies do not realize we have, they cannot report to their masters,” Captain Cranshall explained.

  “Exactly. Early estimates of—” the chancellor said, about to expound upon the captain’s statement.

  “Understood and approved,” Heron said quickly, once more cutting of the Chancellor before he could bore them to death.

  Barabus suppressed a grin; the chancellor was looking a bit frustrated.

  “Captain?” Heron continued. “As I understand it, we will be using an Abyssal Gateway?”

  “Indeed, sir,” the captain responded quickly before Chancellor Alighieri could open his mouth. “Testing revealed that opening an AG and then going through it, much as the demon who stole the Arch-Vicar General’s knight did, is the most mana-efficient manner in which to transport a vessel with so much metal. As you know, getting large amounts of metal through the Astral Plane to any other plane is extremely mana-intensive.”

  Heron nodded. “So we would also use dimensional gateways to go to other planes, rather than phased transitions?”

  “Indeed,” the captain agreed. “However, if we wanted to go to the Astral Plane, we would need to use a phased transition, given that the Astral Plane is completely immaterial.”

  “Would this be true of the aether as well?” Barabus asked curiously.

  “Indeed, it would. Both would be extremely expensive; far more so than a ‘ghost ship,’ since ghost ships are generally almost entirely wooden with only iron bindings, fixtures and such,” Chancellor Alighieri explained.

  “Altitude of six leagues achieved, sir!” XO Stevensword barked.

  Everyone turned their attention back to the executive officer at this, relieving Barabus, for the moment, of further scrutiny.

  “Excellent. Begin the checklist for the Abyssal Gateway,” the captain ordered.

  “Where in the Abyss will we be upon entry?” Heron asked the captain.

  The captain paused and glanced toward the chancellor at this question, who shrugged and nodded to the captain to proceed.

  “That is a problematic issue.” Captain Cranshall replied.

  “Problematic?” Heron asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the captain said with a sigh. “We do not have any good maps or reference points for the Abyss. In fact, finding an actual spell for an Abyssal Gateway proved to be quite difficult. No one in Oorstemoth has traveled to the Abyss since the days of Ponchas VII. Not, at least, that we have documented records of.”

  Heron blinked. “So over a thousand years?”

  “Yes, and even then, what records we have are rather sketchy,” the captain admitted.

  “So we are going in blind and could end up anywhere?” Heron asked.

  Barabus felt slightly ill.

  “Not anywhere, sir. That’s one reason for our high altitude. It’s highly unlikely that the gateway will open into the middle of the Courts of Chaos or someplace like that.”

  Heron closed his eyes. Barabus swallowed hard.

  “In that case, we must go in at full battle stations. Highest alert. I don’t want to be ambushed,” Heron ordered.

  “As planned, sir,” Captain Cranshall replied, nodding in agreement.

  Barabus strapped himself into the bridge observation chair next to Chancellor Alighieri. Wing Arms Master Heron was a few feet away, in the flag officer’s seat. Captain Cranshall had taken the conn from XO Stevensword, who was seated in another chair in front of a set of panels with various arcane controls. When the ship had gone to battle stations, the lighting on the bridge had turned red. Barabus supposed this was to avoid any ambiguity as to the defensive status of the ship.

  “Captain, all systems are go for opening the Abyssal Gateway. The Gateway Coordinator is locked and loaded on the best coordinates we have in the Abyss. Awaiting your command!” XO Stevensword said before turning back to his panels.

  “Very well. Mister Moorcock,” the captain said to the dimensional helmsman, “open the Abyssal Gateway!”

  The area surrounding the viewing mirror—what Barabus had thought of as the frame—suddenly lit up in a quick succession of magical runes. One would light up and then another would light as the current one went dark. In the mirror itself, at a point about fifty feet ahead of the ship, a disturbance appeared in the air. It appeared to Barabus as if he
had been looking at a painting of the sky from above the clouds, and the invisible hand of the artist had started smearing the colors.

  And then it got really weird as the space seemed to warp. Suddenly there was what appeared to be a twisted reflection of the Inferno in the space; this was quickly engulfed in flames as a fireball appeared to burst in the distorted spot and a ring of fire began expanding rapidly, perpendicular to the Inferno’s keel. Inside the widely coruscating ring of flames was a red sky.

  As the ring increased to a diameter large enough for the ship to pass through, Barabus saw white-topped red mountains in the distance. He shook his head, once more rethinking the wisdom of this foolish quest. They were about to travel where no mortal should ever go... into the very heart of darkness and evil.

  “Abyssal Gateway is stable and fully open,” Mister Moorcock reported.

  “Mister Cerenkov, take us through,” Captain Cranshall ordered the ship’s traditional helmsman.

  “Aye-aye, Captain!” Mister Cerenkov replied, shifting a T-shaped handle forward.

  Barabus closed his eyes and began praying to the highest power that he could think of, short of Tiernon himself: his patron archon, Sentir Fallon. He felt the ship move forward smoothly, but kept his eyes closed.

  “We are through, sir. We have cleared the Abyssal Gateway!” Mister Cerenkov stated.

  “What’s our status? Are we detecting any enemy combatants?” the captain barked.

  “Negative. No sign of life, nor animus, on my sensors,” XO Stevensword responded.

  “Sorcery detects nothing,” Helferth, the chief sorcery officer reported.

  “Do a full sweep on the main viewing mirror,” the captain ordered. One of the crew adjusted some dials and the mirror began panning around them.

  What a depressing landscape! Barabus thought to himself. The Abyss, at least where they were at in it, was a giant rust-colored desert. From what he could see at this altitude, it appeared to have very rugged and arid terrain. Large plateaus were intermixed with giant chasms and ravines, and some insanely tall and relatively thin pillars reaching into the sky.

  Barabus frowned. Those relatively spindly pillars seemed to defy every law of geomancy that he knew of. Admittedly, as a soldier, his knowledge of the subject was cursory, but gut-level common sense told him that this place did not obey any normal rules.

  He suddenly noticed that at lower altitude, there were brief bursts of light every so often in random locations. Some were so far away as to be sparkles.

  “Sorcery, what are those lights?” the captain asked.

  “Hmm... ” Helferth was studying a crystal ball. “They appear to be spontaneously erupting balls of fire and/or plasma.”

  “Plasma?” Heron asked.

  “Super-heated gas with a very large electrical charge,” Chancellor Alighieri replied. “Essentially the epitome of elemental Fire.”

  Barabus blinked and looked askance at the chancellor. That was the second time he’d answered in a reasonable manner. Clearly, this place was disturbing him as well. Is that sweat on the man’s brow? If so, is it a good thing or a bad thing? Barabus wondered nervously to himself.

  “All systems within acceptable limits, Captain,” XO Stevensword said.

  “Internal air temperatures and pressures are as expected,” the chief enchantment officer reported. “External temperature at this altitude is approximately one half vapor point.” He paused for a moment. “Atmospheric pressure is roughly that of sea level.”

  “At six leagues?” Heron asked. “That is not right.”

  “That is what I am detecting,” Xerxes, the CEO, replied.

  “This place does not seem to obey the normal rules of physics,” Barabus noted.

  “A known problem on some planes,” the chancellor said. “We’ve tried to account for every possibility. So far, so good.”

  “Hmm.” Barabus nodded. He now understood the sweat on the man’s brow.

  “Very well. Close the gateway,” the captain ordered.

  “Aye-aye, Captain!” Mr. Moorcock replied.

  Within a few moments, Barabus felt a strange sensation of queasiness, an anxious nausea in the pit of his stomach. He breathed in and out, trying to ease this sudden anxiety attack.

  “Portal closed. We are now firmly in the Abyss!” Mr. Moorcock shouted.

  “Excellent!” the captain said, rotating in his chair to face Heron, the chancellor and Barabus. “Welcome to the Abyss, gentlemen!”

  Barabus started to smile tentatively, even as he distantly heard a number of wails coming from various passageways leading to other parts of the ship. Multiple individuals were crying and shouting. It took him a moment to make out what they were saying.

  “Tiernon! Tiernon, Lord! Why hast thou forsaken me?” Barabus made out one of the voices speaking.

  “I can’t feel Saint Roderick’s presence!”

  “Saint Hilda preserve us!”

  “Almighty Tiernon! Where is your protection?”

  “Forgive us for what we’ve done! Lord, do not abandon your servants!”

  Barabus felt his blood curdling in his veins as deep-seated fear took hold of his stomach.

  “Damn. I was afraid of something like this,” Chancellor Alighieri said in a slightly higher octave than normal.

  Yes, the man was definitely sweating, Barabus noted.

  Chapter 125

  Oubliette

  “In 41,972 MDT, we implemented the Orion protocol for all new entrants,” Phaestus said. “The Orion protocol is still the prisoner intake protocol in use today—or rather, the last time we had a new prisoner.”

  “Although we did have a revision to it in 46,032,” Arg-nargoloth added.

  “True,” Phaestus said, nodding, “and again in 48,344. Generally, whenever we have issues with an intake.”

  Tom was hoping these dates would not be on a test. He had thought he had escaped going to school and taking tests when he was forcefully relocated to the Abyss. However, that was not the case with Tartarus. Who would have thought that Demonic Overlords had to worry about grades? Tom shook his head, smiling at the thought before noticing that Tizzy was making some very odd faces. Talk about being back in school!

  The octopod was wrinkling his nose and making spitting motions with his mouth. It was, in fact, a series of severely disquieting grimaces.

  Phaestus and Arg-nargoloth stopped their discussion, noticing Tizzy’s faces. “What is the matter with you?” Phaestus asked Tizzy.

  “Ick. Stinky cheese! Nasty, horrible stinky cheese, left to rot in a smelly sweaty boot!” Tizzy answered, looking very annoyed. “Ack, ack. Unpleasant, unpleasant.” He shook his head back and forth and waved air into his face with all four hands, as if trying to clear the smell. “Anyone got a handkerchief? I need to blow this smell out of my nose!”

  “Sorry,” Tom said.

  Phaestus shook his head, reached into a pocket and handed Tizzy a handkerchief.

  Gods blow their noses? Tom thought bemusedly.

  Tizzy took the handkerchief in both hands and proceeded to deliver what had to be the most noxious, squishy, slimy-sounding nasal explosion Tom had ever heard.

  “Whew!” Tizzy exclaimed, pulling the handkerchief back from his face and looking at the mucus before folding the now-soggy handkerchief up. “Much better!” He tried to hand it back to Phaestus, but the god grimaced and gestured for Tizzy to keep it.

  “What was that all about?” Arg-nargoloth asked.

  Tizzy shrugged. “Not sure. Just smelled this terribly rancid odor. Seriously unpleasant.”

  Tom became alarmed. Tizzy could smell newcomers to the Abyss. “Have you ever smelled this odor before?”

  Tizzy shrugged again and scrunched his face. “No—or at least not this bad, or complex. I mean, there were some odor components that reminded me of your tin can”—he pointed upwards towards Doom, where Talarius was—“but far worse. There was also another scent that I have no idea what it was, and it rather overwhelmed ev
erything.”

  “So can we expect visitors?” Tom asked.

  Tizzy once more shrugged, but this time to indicate that he didn’t know.

  “Ugh.” Tom shook his head. “Well, let’s worry about that later tonight. We’ll have to see if there is some way to get more information.”

  Freehold, Havestan Gardens Inn

  “So that’s what we know,” Hilda finished, summarizing for Trisfelt her and Gamos’s adventures down in Murgatroy. For consistency’s sake, they had gone with the same story that they had told the Nimbus crew. There was no question that Trisfelt and Jenn would eventually compare notes.

  “Amazing—and disturbing.” Trisfelt shook his head. He started to pour more wine before realizing they had emptied the bottle.

  “It is…” Hilda trailed off, frowning. Something, suddenly, was not right. After the incident outside the walls here, she had set up notification alerts if any of her illuminaries suddenly went offline, and her HALO was notifying her that a good number of them had just done exactly that!

  Trisfelt noticed Hilda’s sudden silence and disquiet. “Are you okay?”

  Hilda tilted her head to the side, frowning. “I am not sure… ” Noticing Trisfelt’s concern, she shook her head. “Sorry. I myself am fine. I just have some links to some of my patients and those links were just broken.”

  Trisfelt raised an eyebrow in concern, clearly hearing the concern in Hilda’s voice. “Do you need to go investigate?”

  Hilda grimaced. Something was seriously wrong. “I am so sorry, but I think I need to investigate. It may be nothing. It is certainly nothing I would have expected, so perhaps it is simply a glitch, but I fear I must check on them.”

  Trisfelt nodded in understanding. “Then by all means, go,” he said, standing to see Hilda out.