by J. Langland
“Your team?” Iskerus asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Our team.” Teragdor nodded, seemingly implying it was also Iskerus’s team. “I am not at liberty to say much more for now. I don’t want to influence your deposition.”
“My deposition?” Iskerus asked, concerned.
“Deposition, debriefing. I would not read too much into my choice of words. Saint Hilda and few of the others simply want to interview you about recent events. I am told you should think of it as an informal, off-site, Intercession debriefing. Nothing more than that.”
Iskerus’ stomach churned. Nothing more than that. As if that wasn’t quite a great deal in and of itself. There had not been an Intercession in generations; they were quite rare, albeit very well documented. It was this fact that had put entire camp on pins and needles; the dread of an Intercession and all that it entailed.
“You were told?” Iskerus asked, trying to get a handle on this and perhaps who had informed this cleric.
Teragdor nodded. “At breakfast this morning, Stevos filled me in on the details of the meeting in Tierhallon after they brought you here.”
The half-orc’s words were nearly meaningless to the Arch-Diocate. This cannot be happening. Iskerus very clearly heard what the priest was saying, but it was so far beyond comprehension. Tierhallon was having meetings to discuss him, Iskerus, and saints were having breakfast with chaplains on the other side of the continent and…
Teragdor frowned, as if just thinking of something. “Oh, it will be a bit unusual in that Saint Timbly of Cossembly might sit in.”
“Saint Timbly of where?” Iskerus asked, puzzled; he had never heard of any such saint.
Teragdor nodded. “He is one of Torean’s saints here in Norelon.”
Iskerus blinked. A dual intercession with avatars of both Tiernon and Torean? What was going on here? What had he stumbled into? Iskerus briefly closed his eyes. Experience told him that this Teragdor was simply trying to be reassuring and helpful; however, the net effect was anything but. This was not good; he was so far out of his depth that he felt at a complete loss as to how to proceed. He hadn’t felt this way in decades.
Nysegard: Lunch Break
Tom sat back on his oath-swearing chair, twisting his neck to get the kinks out. He had not slept well last night; he had had another one of those dreams where he remembered things he had no way of remembering. Although this one was a bit more bizarre, so it was likely, or so Tom hoped, that it was simply his own overactive imagination.
He looked to his right where Darg-Krallnom was sitting, whittling on some wood during their lunch break. Neither he nor Darg-Krallnom needed to eat, of course. One more day was all they had left. They were hoping to finish everyone up tomorrow, perhaps with a long day.
Darg-Krallnom noticed Tom glancing at him. “Everything okay?” he asked Tom.
Tom frowned. “Last night, I had another one of those dreams with people I could not have known.”
Darg-Krallnom perked up and grinned. “More memories returning? Good!”
“Perhaps.” Tom tilted his head, indicating he was not so sure. “This one was bizarre. A group of us—you, me, Arg-nargoloth, Tizzy, Völund and Phaestus—were hanging out in this strange cave. The person I think of as Loki was there, as was Vosh An-Non, and we were all smoking pipes very similar to Tizzy’s.”
“Good. That seems reasonable,” Darg-Krallnom said, much to Tom’s dismay.
“Well—here’s where it gets weird—there was also a talking monkey there.” Tom laughed and shook his head. “Or maybe I was just really wasted and thought there was a talking monkey.”
Darg-Krallnom grimaced and shook his head. “No, the fraggin monkey was probably there. Only creature in the multiverse more annoying than Tizzy is his damn monkey.”
Tom’s jaw dropped slightly. What? Darg-Krallnom actually knew a talking monkey? And it belonged to Tizzy? This makes no sense! How much did he not know about the people surrounding him?
“Tizzy has a monkey?” he asked weakly.
Darg-Krallnom shrugged. “No, and don’t tell the fraggin monkey that I referred to him as being Tizzy’s. That’s just what Arg-nargoloth, Vosh and I used to refer to him as behind their backs. They were, and presumably still are as far as I know, close friends. When Tizzy, the monkey and Loki would get together we called them the Triad of the Trying. They were excessively annoying.” Darg-Krallnom frowned menacingly at the memory.
“So you all hung out with this talking monkey?” Tom asked, feeling his grip on reality slipping.
“Well, don’t get me wrong. He is incredibly annoying, talks in riddles, laughs and giggles incessantly, runs around playing tricks on people—but he is a very clever monkey. Way too smart if you ask me. Certainly too clever for his own good. But, I admit he can be helpful.” Darg-Krallnom looked around them at the sky and mountains. “Particularly here in Nysegard, in pitched battle with the Unlife, having him stop by with a basket of peaches can make all the difference.”
Tom shook his head from side to side, trying to comprehend what the D’Orc commander was saying. “I’m sorry, but you are really losing me.”
Darg-Krallnom chuckled. “Singkûn, which is his name, is an extremely formidable warrior. Certainly the best hand-to-hand, hand-to-foot, foot-to-foot and foot-to-hand warrior I have ever encountered. And his stick is pretty wicked, too; however, if you get seriously drained of animus by the Unlife, one of his peaches will more than restore you, or even a D’Orc or demon. They are basically animus bombs.”
“He’s what? A martial artist?” Tom asked, trying to understand what Darg-Krallnom was saying.
Darg-Krallnom shrugged. “He calls himself a monk. But, yes, I guess that’s one way of phrasing it. There certainly is artistry in his movement. Never seen anyone leap like he does. Covers leagues at a time.” Darg-Krallnom shook his head in amazement.
Okay, so maybe this monkey monk was real, or had been. “So where is he now?” Tom asked.
Darg-Krallnom shrugged again. “No idea. Half expected him to show up to the oath taking; he’s probably locked up somewhere by one of the gods. He’s always pissing them off. Pisses me off, too. That’s actually how we got to talking about building Tartarus. We were smoking demon weed and complaining about the gods locking up everyone they didn’t like, so we came up with this half-baked idea to build a prison to lock up the gods.”
Tom blinked in surprise. “You were planning to lock the gods up?”
“Well...” Darg-Krallnom paused and then said, “That was the original idea, but we eventually realized that it wasn’t that practical of an idea, since it would be doubtful that we could lock up all the gods before some of them started coming for us. So we decided to build a prison for the gods to lock up other people and make a fortune doing so.” Darg-Krallnom chuckled. “Enough to build Doom on top of Tartarus and along with it, the mana engines, so that we could deal with them on a level playing field.”
Tom shook his head in awe, seeing in his mind how the plan for Doom must have unfolded.
“What you dreamt about was probably one of our brainstorming sessions. The nine of us gathered regularly like that both during planning and construction,” Darg-Krallnom said, grinning with fond memories.
“The nine of you…” Tom said, things suddenly clicking in his head. “…the Tartarvardenennead!”
“Hah!” Darg-Krallnom bellowed with a laugh. “That name! See, you are remembering things! That is what we called ourselves. I had forgotten that word—it is very hard to say.”
Tom let out a small whoosh of air. “Well, actually Tamarin mentioned it. She discovered it doing research on Tartarus in the library.”
Darg-Krallnom nodded. “That’s the good thing about having a djinn; they are really good with all that book nonsense. They can read it all, put it together and just sort of zap you a summary. Very handy.”
“Zap me a summary?” Tom asked.
“Yeah, sort of like the way shamans communicate with ea
ch other without words. They somehow send ideas, concepts, images—all sorts of things that would take forever in words,” Darg-Krallnom replied.
“Interesting,” Tom said. It was very interesting, indeed. It was similar to how he and Vaselle could communicate; actually probably identical, since Tamarin and he were linked in a similar manner.
Fort Murgatroid: Mid Afternoon
Arch-Diocate Iskerus sat nervously in the small conference room at a very fresh-looking wooden table. Everything in this place seemed quite new, or perhaps newly reconstructed, he corrected himself. He could see that there were older sections and walls that had been repaired very recently. The chapel itself appeared to have once been the main hall of a fort that had been recently upgraded and added onto. The entire rectory, where he currently sat, was all new.
It was a bit strange here, to say the least. Teragdor had allowed him free rein over the entire fort, including the main gate. Considering he had been abducted, this seemed a bit odd. Teragdor had not said anything, but had left his room with the door wide open, and no one had hindered his movement about the complex.
Of course, having walked out the main gate, he could understand why. They were essentially in the middle of a large grass plain, a semi-arid one at that. Quite a few wild grasses and various strains of wild wheat covered the land for as far as the eye could see. Perhaps the oddest thing to note was that there were no well-worn paths or trails to or from this fort. None, at least, that went very far. While the grounds immediately outside the gate were flattened and trampled by construction supplies and, he assumed, workers, while wandering the perimeter he saw no sign of a road leading to this fort. There were a few areas that looked like they might have been minor paths that a few horses had traveled, but that was not particularly conclusive.
To put things simply, it appeared that the fort had just sprung up out of nowhere, or perhaps been resurrected out of nowhere. The main walls were quite old, and newly patched. It was as if the angels had descended from the heavens and decided to rebuild the fortress—an observation that Iskerus was fairly sure was accurate, given the extremely high Grace levels of nearly everyone in the fort. He had no obvious way of knowing, but he suspected most of the inhabitants were saints or avatars; it was a suspicion he was deeply uncomfortable with.
Iskerus shook his head, trying to clear it of such thoughts. He had enjoyed a surprisingly pleasant, if reserved, lunch with Teragdor and his Torean counterpart, Rasmeth, Apostle of Torean. They were both friendly but reserved, obviously due to his impending deposition. The deposition which he was now awaiting in this conference room.
A knock came at the door, which was shut. “Hello, may I come in?” Hilda’s voice asked quite pleasantly.
Iskerus quickly stood. “Of course, Your Grace!” he called back. He was suddenly having trouble remembering the appropriate term of address for speaking with a saint. It was not something that he had any formal experience with.
The door opened and in walked Hilda, carrying a large picnic basket. Behind her was the other saint from last night, Stevos Delastros, who carried a small velvet bag.
Hilda set the large picnic basket down on the table. “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought some wine and cheese for the deposition, the thought being that we would all be much more comfortable and relaxed with a glass of wine and a tasty snack!” she informed Iskerus as she began to open the basket.
Saint Stevos entered; behind him came a very large bearded fellow in well-worn leather armor.
Stevos gestured to the large man. “Iskerus, may I introduce Saint Timbly of Cossembly.” The large saint nodded politely and made a gesture of greeting. Their current positions in the room made a handshake awkward—not that Iskerus would consider himself worthy of shaking the hand of a saint.
“Ah, Hilda, you’ve brought some of your legendary wine? Stevos has sung the praises of your palate,” Timbly said to Hilda, who laughed pleasantly.
“I hope he has not sung them too high; I would hate to disappoint,” she replied.
“I doubt that would be the case,” another voice from the hallway remarked. Iskerus looked past the nearby saints to the door; his legs suddenly felt weak as he recognized Baysir Tomgren, the Prophet of Tiernon upon Astlan.
“Your Holiness!” Iskerus said in awe as he dropped to his knees.
Saint Baysir nodded in recognition of his obeisance and gestured for him to rise. “That should be all of us,” he said to the others. “We don’t want to overwhelm the Arch-Diocate in this small space.”
Hilda looked around the room and nodded. “It is a bit tight, but we have enough chairs, and the window has shutters we can close for the balling.”
Stevos placed his velvet bag on the table, and Iskerus suddenly realized they had a crystal ball for scrying, most likely the one made by the Oorstemothians. He gulped. That was extremely unusual and unheard of, as well as being unsettling.
“Everyone take a seat and let’s get comfortable; I suspect we shall be here a while.” Hilda smiled and gestured to the chairs.
Chapter 132
The Abyss, Nearing the Outpost: DOA + 9, Late Fifth Period
Tom tried to calm his nerves. It was finally hitting him that he was about to have dinner with several of the gods of Ancient Egypt. The level of surreality encroaching upon his personal reality was quickly becoming troubling. Although he was pretty sure he’d had this same exact thought several times recently; each time, the ante was upped and he was saying it again a day later. Something totally surreal would happen and he would have these thoughts, yet somehow accept the surreal event and move on, only to have a new level of insanity occur the next day, only to be absorbed as normal. He had a real fear that this was how Tizzy ended up being Tizzy.
When he had first met Phaestus, he had not realized that the man was actually the Greek god Hephaestus as well as the Egyptian god pêTah. He had started getting a bit suspicious as to who he really was when they had talked, but he had been so busy with the oath taking and celebration, he hadn’t had time to really process his observations. However, once the Knights of Chaos showed up and Phaestus brought his wife, Sekhmekt, to the battle, his suspicions became impossible to ignore.
He wasn’t quite sure he remembered exactly who Sekhmekt was, but her gigantic lioness-headed form was very clearly that of an Eygptian goddess; plus she had had those giant sphinxes. However, in the fog of battle, with a rapidly approaching enemy and everyone in a panic, one sort of took such things in stride, and since at that point things had been moving pretty fast, he had put the issue to the back of his mind. At least until he’d discovered Tartarus. That had, of course, forced him to acknowledge his new reality. At that point, all pretense was off and Phaestus had declared who he was.
In any case, the surreal banality of him, Tom, going to a dinner party hosted by Egyptian gods was mind-boggling and forced him to think more objectively about what this all meant. It seemed presumptuous, to say the least, to be an invited guest, treated as an equal by beings straight out of mythology. What would Edith Hamilton have given to be his plus one? Although, thinking on it, he wasn’t sure how much she had covered the Egyptians. Although Hephaestus would probably have been more than enough to keep her interested.
“This Outpost is really out there,” Tom remarked, wanting to strike up some conversation to escape his thoughts.
Phaestus, beside him in the large flying chariot in which they were riding, laughed as he flexed the reins of the four giant winged horses. The horses were certainly not your classic winged horses, like Talarius’s horse. These were large black stallions with black bat-like wings and glowing red eyes, who snorted fire.
“Just as with Mount Doom, we did not wish to be on the beaten paths, so to speak.” The god grinned back at Tom. “We needed it just close enough to the Courts to not be inconvenient, yet not too easy for demonic spies to try and infiltrate.”
“Yeah, and remember, Doom is a very long haul from everywhere,” Reggie added from the rea
r seat.
“Very intentionally,” Tamarin added.
“We don’t like visitors,” Vargg Agnoth agreed. “I think your Oorstemothian friends have learned that lesson.”
Tom chuckled. They were a rather odd lot, he reflected. Phaestus was basically the bridge between the two groups. Tom’s retinue included Reggie, who had binding relations with the Nyjyr Ennead’s followers, and Vargg as the D’Orc representative. Tamarin had been very interested in attending, and Tom valued her advice. Surprisingly, or maybe not, Antefalken had also wanted to come. It would be the bard’s first break from his composing in days.
It would be nice to get some interaction time with Vargg. He needed to get to know his various commanders better. He had previously focused his attention on the most senior commanders, Darg-Krallnom and Arg-nargoloth; however, both were occupied. Darg-Krallnom was focused on finishing up at Nysegard; Arg-nargoloth had some personal plans, which seemed unusual; and Roth Tar Gorefest was on duty this evening in the DCC. Thus, Vargg Agnoth was the next ranking commander, followed by Delg Narmoloth from Earth.
“We should be there before long.” Phaestus said with a smile.
“I never knew you could expand the Boom Tunnels to get a chariot through them,” Antefalken said.
“Yes; it is critical if you want to move large objects. It is not well advertised, for obvious reasons,” Phaestus replied. “However, all the demon princes know how, as do many, if not most, of the archdemons. So it is not quite the secret it used to be.”
“The Boom Tunnels were built after Doom, yes?” Reggie asked.
“Much later.” Phaestus nodded. “They have only been around for about twenty-five thousand years.”
“So how did you get all the construction materials to Mount Doom?” Reggie asked.
Phaestus snorted. “That was a bit of logistics. And the Boom Tunnels would not have helped; we were purposefully operating below the radar, away from Lilith and Sammael. All materials were either local or brought in from off-plane. Actually, Doom was relatively easy, as by that point, Tartarus was complete and we could use the Oubliette to ship stuff directly to Doom from anywhere in the multiverse. And then, after the World Gate was built, things were even easier. Tartarus, on the other hand—that took some work!”