by J. Langland
Timbly chuckled. “I suspect that once the prophets of two of the Five Siblings show up, there is increased pressure on those of the others.”
“Indeed.” Leighton grinned. “The rivalry of the avatars of the Five Siblings is nearly as great as that between the siblings themselves.”
Teragdor chuckled. “With all this divine power, I suspect the Storm Lords are in for a surprise.”
Leighton nodded with a smile. “For once, we shall have a decisive advantage over the Unlife.”
Nysegard, Approximately Thirty-Three Leagues from the Citadel: Midday
“You have to admit, they have very impressive logistics,” Ramses said to Exador, who was sitting beside him on their private flying carpet. They were returning to the tower, where work on the Dark Apostle’s lore was being conducted. This morning they had received a tour of the Storm Lord’s preparations.
“I grant you that. It’s no Abyssal Switch, but…” Exador said.
“You do know what would happen to their army if you did an Abyssal Switch on it, yes?” Ramses asked with a chuckle.
“If one does not take the proper precautions? I certainly do, which is why I always keep one ready to go whenever I deal with necromancers, in the event of an out-of-control undead army,” Exador said, chuckling as well.
“Do you still have any necromancers left?” Ramses asked.
“Actually, one did survive Lenamare’s little blast. Technically, he should be dead, but his skills are keeping him going,” Exador said.
“That’s impressive,” Ramses said.
“I have to admit, I was impressed.” Exador nodded. “He now gives off a soft blue glow in the dark. It’s a tad disconcerting.”
Ramses shook his head. “You mean he glows without wizard or demon sight?”
Exador nodded. “Exactly. The blue glow does not seem to be magical in nature.”
“So sort of a ghostly soft blue?” Ramses asked.
Exador shrugged and then shook his head. “I know what you are thinking, but he’s completely solid. His flesh is what seems to glow; it’s not like the aura some revenants have.”
“So are you going to bring him to Nysegard?”
“I don’t think so.” Exador shook his head. “Given that he survived, he’s getting powerful enough that I don’t really want him picking up too much more information from the Storm Lords. Remember, necromancers tend to live a fairly long time as it is, and the half-dead ones even longer. I’m betting he’ll be around for another sixty, seventy, maybe even a hundred years. I do not want him going lich on me. They are all megalomaniacs.”
“That makes sense. I’ve never been super-fond of liches—our allies excepted, of course. In fact, of all the undead, I prefer mummies. The embalming and bandages ensure you don’t have all that rotting flesh falling off on the carpet,” Ramses said.
“Yes, but I hear they attract dust mites,” Exador said.
“Better that than maggots,” Ramses observed.
Exador shrugged, turning his head to watch another ghost ship carrying undead troops float towards one of the docking platforms.
“Given the traffic, and what we’ve been told, they must have over five hundred transport ships,” Ramses said.
Exador nodded. “That’s just the flying ghost ships. From what I’ve been told they have a similar number of more traditional sailing ghost ships.”
“These folks in the Citadel are in for a very unpleasant time,” Ramses noted, shaking his head.
“They are indeed. Between the surprise we are working on and the vast array of forces they are deploying at such a rapid pace, they are going to be at a severe disadvantage,” Exador agreed.
Oubliette: Early Fourth Period
Everyone had left the TPCC after class except for Tom, who was messing with the AII’s settings, and Phaestus and Darg-Krallnom, who wanted to run a few quick checks on the systems.
Tom finished up and saved the AII settings even as the other two finished their tests. This led Tom to ask Phaestus a question. “You recall our conversation yesterday on reincarnation and the Phoenix Cycle, yes?” he asked.
Phaestus chuckled. “I really only have trouble remembering things more than a few hundred thousand years ago; I can still remember yesterday.”
Tom grinned. “What about reincarnation? It is something that the Nyjyr Ennead do for their followers, as do many other gods, correct?”
“Indeed. It is one of several possible selling points for deities,” Phaestus replied.
“So they do this with magineering; they mentioned a Wheel of Life, I believe,” Tom said.
“Correct. It would be quite burdensome to have to manually process every soul. Different deities and pantheons, however, have their own mechanisms and methods,” Phaestus said.
“Why do you care? It’s not really a problem for us,” Darg-Krallnom said.
“Isn’t it?” Tom asked, and Darg-Krallnom looked puzzled. “Well, here is what I was thinking: we have sworn in all these people in Nysegard, mortal and immortal. When the immortals, the D’Orcs, are slain in battle with the Unlife, they are sent back to Mount Doom like any other demon. However, when the mortals die, what happens to their animus? Do they all have gods who will collect their animus? Yes, I know there are a few priests in Nysegard, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot. I would think mortals would often look to gods to protect them from Unlife.”
“On Nysegard they looked, and will look again, to Doom,” Darg-Krallnom said.
“Exactly, but we do not provide any afterlife services to them. Is that something we should be doing? For one thing, we do need more D’Orcs,” Tom said. “Should we try to streamline or improve the process? Automate it?”
Darg-Krallnom chuckled, as did Phaestus.
“So we come back to this question again,” Phaestus said.
“What do you mean again?” Tom asked.
“This issue came up every thousand years or so,” Phaestus told him.
“So you have considered it?” Tom asked.
“Many times,” Darg-Krallnom agreed.
“What was the answer?” Tom asked.
“Well, that was why it kept coming up. It was—is—a difficult question; one of priorities, branding and other issues,” Phaestus replied.
“Huh?” Tom asked, bewildered.
“We could, in theory, do it,” Phaestus explained. “We have, in principle, the knowledge of how to do it, or at least some of it. We know we can capture souls in anima jars; we’ve done that for designated D’Orcs before they die. We could figure out something to do with those we collect; however, the real problem is—”
“Do we want to be in the god business?” Darg-Krallnom asked.
“The god business?” Tom asked.
“Once you start promising people life after death, you are basically in the god business,” Phaestus said.
“Orcus, and most of the Tartarvardenennead, were not fans of the gods. Present company excluded,” Darg-Krallnom said.
“He had no desire to be worshipped as a god,” Phaestus said. “He felt it was, one, a responsibility he did not want to have and, two, that gods were generally more in it for themselves and their own power than for the sake of their followers.”
“Which is true,” Darg-Krallnom stated.
“For some of them,” Phaestus countered.
“I said present company excluded.” Darg-Krallnom shrugged as he said this.
“Many of my best friends are gods.” Phaestus glared at the D’Orc.
“I’ve always said you need to hang with a better crowd. Us, for example,” Darg-Krallnom replied.
“If you haven’t noticed, I am spending a lot more time with you, now that Tom is here.”
“You will find it much nicer here,” Darg-Krallnom informed him.
Phaestus shook his head and turned back to Tom. “So, in any event, Orcus struggled with the desire to provide for those who fought for him versus the desire not to become that which he most disliked.”
“How many of the mortals in Nysegard are religious, with afterlife plans?” Tom asked.
Darg-Krallnom shrugged. “Depends on what you mean by afterlife plans. Orcs are generally shamanistic; they believe in going back to the spirits of the material world. Ancestral spirits, nature spirits or simply returning to nature.”
“Actually, the D’Orc thing was quite a shift in paradigm for the orcs,” Phaestus said.
“It certainly was. Immortality to orcs comes through the memories and retellings of your glory passed down from generation to generation. Orcs have no desire to sit around on a cloud playing musical instruments,” Darg-Krallnom said emphatically.
“So it is not really as big a concern as you might think,” Phaestus said. “I suspect it was as much a guilt thing on Orcus’s conscience as anything else.”
“Although to be fair, it could save a lot of training time if we could recycle more people,” Darg-Krallnom said.
“That was Tizzy’s argument, as I recall,” Phaestus said.
“Now you are just being mean,” Darg-Krallnom told the god.
Astlan, Orcan Plains: Late Fourth Period
“I still can’t get over Exador being an archdemon,” Jenn marveled to Gastropé, who was sitting on the carpet next to her as they headed toward the orc camp where the alvaran prisoners were being held. An envoy from the Nimbus had arranged for a meeting between the Grove and the Stone Finger tribe, who had the prisoners. The rest of the Freehold contingent had decided to come along in hopes of getting more information about the D’Orcs.
“Pretty big oversight on the part of the Council of Wizardry,” Gastropé agreed. “I guess he neglected to include that on his CV.” At nineses this morning, Trevin had filled the rest of the party in on what she had learned last night.
Jenn snorted. “Of course, you actually worked for him and never noticed.”
“I’m sorry, but if Lenamare and Jehenna couldn’t determine he was a demon, let alone an archdemon, how is a lowly wizard like me supposed to know?” Gastropé replied.
Jenn laughed. “I think that’s the best part of this. Lenamare the Great was completely fooled!”
“I know!” Gastropé grinned at her, and then paused. “Of course, you realize this means that throughout their years of competition, it turns out that Lenamare was continually one-upping a thousands-of-years-old demon lord?”
Jenn’s faced sagged. “Argh. Thank you for ruining the mood! This just means he’s going to be even more insufferable!” She shook her head in frustration.
Gastropé shrugged. “I am hoping someone thought to ball it. That’s a battle I’d love to have seen!”
“Completely!” Jenn agreed, smiling at him once more. “I can only imagine it—all of them in combat together, including Alexandros Mien!”
“Historic!” Gastropé marveled. He would love to see a balling of it, but he was just as glad not to have been in the battle. Like Jenn, he had been shocked by this revelation this morning. Never in a million years would he have guessed Exador was a demon. Although, given his reputation, he probably should not have been surprised. Further, the fact that he had never guessed Edwyrd and Tom were the same person should have clued him in that you could not judge a demon by appearances. On the bright side, he supposed, he had been working for an archdemon; now, with Tom, he was working with a demon prince. That was a definite trade up; the big plus being that he was working with, rather than for a demon prince.
That was, to Gastropé, a very important distinction. He was unlike nutty Vaselle, who was Tom’s warlock. Gastropé could not imagine wanting to be that. It had been bad enough to be a simple employee of Exador, whose unofficial employment agreement included an implicit termination clause—meaning Exador could terminate your existence whenever he felt like it. He had no desire to be any demon’s servant, lackey, employee, slave or whatever.
Of course, from a textbook point of view, Exador fit the “dark lord” bill much better than Tom. As far as he could tell, all of Tom’s people he had met seemed genuinely happy to be working for him, including the demons. Gastropé had never met anyone working for Exador who was actually happy to be working for him. For most, it was at best a job, except for the crazier, greedier, power hungrier, or downright antisocial bullies. There had been quite of a few of all of those types.
Gastropé frowned. In fact, Tizzy even seemed to enjoy working for Gastropé. Demons were not supposed to like their accursed masters; yet Tizzy was always friendly towards him. Of course, Gastropé was not really Tizzy’s accursed master. He still had no idea where that link could have come from. That was still very disturbing. The only thing he could even remotely think of was that Tizzy had bound himself to Gastropé, but that made no sense at all! Why would a demon bind itself to a wizard? Particularly a demon that claimed to have no magical powers?
On the other hand, what did sense have to do with Tizzy? The demon, while amicable and talkative, was completely off-balance and unhinged. He could also be more than a little bit menacing; he was a demon, after all, as those liches had learned. That had been three fiends—second-order demons—and they had wreaked unholy havoc upon liches on ice dragons? It was too easy for wizards, conjurors like himself in particular, to get complacent and start thinking that just because a demon was of a lower order, they were not deadly.
It was this logic, which he had spent many sleepless nights refining, that had led him to the conclusion that a small number of D’Orcs and D’Wargs were more than a match for a hundred alvar on hippogriffs. Given this, he could certainly understand why the alvar were freaking out. He would probably be freaking out if he was in their position. Of course, he wasn’t a thousand-year-old being that was supposed to be all logical and deliberative. This rush to panic seemed contrary to everything he had ever heard about alvar. Of course, that was just it—he knew only legends and secondhand information.
“Why so pensive?” Jenn asked after Gastropé had been silent for a time.
“Just thinking about the alvar versus the orcs and D’Orcs,” Gastropé told her. “Given the power of the D’Orcs, I can see why they would be concerned about them reappearing; however, this rush to battle, the incursion into orc territory? It seems like a forced error.”
“Indeed.” Maelen twisted around from his pillow in front of Gastropé. “That was my thinking exactly.”
“If so,” Jenn countered, “then why are they making it? Their adults are all centuries old, their leaders even older. Surely they would realize this?”
Elrose twisted around as well, from where he was sitting next to Maelen. “Age is not necessarily synonymous with wisdom.”
Maelen chuckled. “Indeed; there are a lot of us old fools running around out there!” He waved his arm at the world below them.
“But more seriously, what we are following in all of this are premonitions and visions,” Elrose told them. “By definition, that means supernatural forces are at play. Which in turn means that things are happening that we do not know about.”
“Supernatural forces?” Jenn shook his head. “What is that supposed to mean? Ghosts? Undead?”
“We know the Storm Lords are active,” Gastropé said. “But those are normal enemies of the Grove.”
Maelen chuckled. “No sign of that at this time.” He shook his head. “Elrose means forces, as in beings and influences from outside the natural world, the Planes of Man. Divine influence, prophecy—things like that may be influencing people’s otherwise rational decisions.”
Elrose had gone still, staring off into the distance, shortly after Jenn mentioned the undead. Gastropé noticed first, and then the others when they noticed Gastropé staring at Elrose.
“Elrose?” Jenn asked. The sorcerer said nothing.
“I think he’s having a vision,” Maelen said softly, or relatively softly, on the windy carpet.
“I didn’t think sorcerers had random visions, like seers,” Gastropé said. “I thought they had to cast a spell.”
&nbs
p; Maelen shook his head. “Only those who do not work in the field routinely; very experienced sorcerers who work extensively with the time streams and portents can have what are called flash-forwards. Very much like a seer.”
Suddenly, Elrose blinked and then frowned, his brow furrowing with concern. He shook his head, as if trying to pull himself back into the present.
“What is it?” Maelen asked.
“The word undead. It was a trigger word,” Elrose said, still seeming a bit shaken. “I flashed on a prior vision of Freehold under siege. The one where demons and gods were at play. This time, the Storm Lords were present.”
“The Storm Lords at Freehold?” Trevin had been listening in, particularly after Elrose had frozen. She, too, had twisted around. “As far as I am aware, the Council has had no significant interaction with them, ever.”
Elrose slowly shook his head from side to side. “I am sure I saw them surrounding the city. The wards were up, in demon-repelling mode, the walls lined with a combination of Council soldiers and Tiernon’s forces.”
“The Rod? Inside Freehold?” Maelen asked. “That’s a significant change.”
“Indeed,” Trevin said, frowning.
“I know, but that’s what I saw; at least, before my vision switched to someplace else.” Elrose frowned again.
“Where did it switch to?” Maelen asked.
Elrose shook his head again. “I am not sure; it was someplace I have never seen. Someplace I can’t even imagine being in Astlan. The architecture looked like nothing I have ever heard of. It was an insanely massive fortress.”
“An insanely massive fortress?” Trevin asked. “There are some good-sized fortresses in Astlan.”
Elrose once more shook his head. “Fortresses with concentric hundred-and-fifty-foot-tall stone walls, a gigantic stonework moat on three sides, and a single wall of the same height on the fourth overlooking a very steep two-hundred-foot cliff dropping to the sea?”