03- The Apostles of Doom

by J. Langland

  “How did this demon manage to start one of the Doom satellites?” Krinna asked.

  “I thought they were tied and controlled via Mount Doom in the Abyss,” Hendel said.

  “They are. The demon started that a bit before this,” Torean replied somberly.

  That caused all three siblings to stare at Torean and Tiernon in shock.

  Hendel sighed. “Exactly who is this demon?”

  Tiernon gave Hendel an awkward smile. “We are fairly certain it’s you-know-who.”

  Namora’s face fell like a ton of bricks placed in a silk hammock. She was not pleased. “You are telling us that the demon who stole both your mana and your knight is the god whose name means ‘Sacred Oath,’ who has spent his entire existence punishing oath breakers? A god with whom we share an oath of loyalty and fraternity?” Namora asked scathingly.

  “An oath which, as I recall, you broke!” Krinna said equally angrily.

  “And that this god is now back from the dead?” Namora finished. She glared in anger at her brother.

  “Yes,” Tiernon said. “We were trying to get a read on how angry he is.”

  “A read?” Krinna asked incredulously.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Namora said. “Your idiot archon only permanently slew him along with over twenty thousand of his avatars, and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of his followers!”

  “You were not sure if he was going to be angry?” Hendel asked softly. “I think this is one of those situations when you need to ask yourself what you would do in his position.”

  “And then get the hell out of town. Fast.” Krinna added vehemently.

  Mount Doom: Tom’s Bedroom

  The room was very silent as Tom and Talarius took in the shocking news. Tom shook his head, trying to clear it. “So? What happened to Mrs. Orcus?” Tom asked.

  Völund laughed at that, and even Phaestus grinned.

  “That is actually a very long standing question among the Tartarvardenennead,” Phaestus said.

  “What do you mean?” Tom asked, frowning.

  “He means we haven’t got a clue,” Völund answered.

  “Dis simply showed up one day and Orcus announced that he was his son,” Phaestus said. “He never revealed who the mother was. He simply said that it was a complicated story, that he would tell us someday. Someday never came.”

  “Tizzy claimed he knew, but well, that really doesn’t mean much of anything,” Völund said. “I actually suspect it was parthenogenesis.”

  “Parthenogenesis?” Tom asked, not knowing the word.

  “Asexual reproduction,” Phaestus explained. “That’s how Athena was born. Long story short, Zeus was having really bad headaches—migraines—for several months. Eventually he prevailed upon me to operate to see if I could find the source of the headaches.” Hephaestus shrugged. “What do you know, he had a tumor and when air came into contact with the tumor, it rapidly expanded, leaping out of his head on its own. Turns out the tumor was Athena, fully grown. Oddest damn thing I ever saw!”

  Hephaestus looked up to find both Tom and Talarius staring at him. “What?”

  “You cannot be serious?” Talarius said. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!”

  Phaestus shrugged. “Ridiculous or not, it’s Athena’s story and she’s sticking with it. All her priests teach the story, albeit with a few minor variations.”

  “People believe this?” Talarius asked incredulously.

  “They do.” Phaestus smiled. “However, I, personally, would not put too much weight in any deity’s origin story.”

  “Why not?” Tom asked.

  “Because they are stories. Much like Lilith and Sammael’s. The real origins are lost to time and the Phoenix Cycle,” Phaestus explained. “We remember telling our origin story in previous cycles, so we repeat that story, but the simple fact is that the truth lies too far back for most of us to know with absolute certainty.”

  “At some point you begin believing your own church’s teachings because that is all you have,” Völund said.

  “Another reason that Orcus did not want to be in the god business,” Phaestus said. “Refusing to join a pantheon or create a god pool.”

  “What do you call this place?” Talarius asked. “It seems to have the same functionality as one of these so-called god pools.”

  “Indeed.” Phaestus nodded, as did Völund. “However, it does not depend upon worshipers donating their mana to him. It generates—creates—mana on its own.”

  “But doesn’t it need animus to create that mana?” Tom asked.

  “Indeed; that is part of how mana is made. However, Doom is cooperative. It brings together the raw elements, and then people surrounded by those elements generate mana. However, that mana is theirs for the taking as much as it is for Doom’s. Doom does not take mana that people already have, but it does compete with them in terms of collecting the mana—hence the sleeping.”

  Talarius sighed and rose wearily. “Enough of this lecture.” He turned to stare once more at Tom. “You told me yesterday that Edwyrd is how you looked as a human.”

  Tom nodded. “I was younger, but that is what I looked like on Earth.”

  Talarius shook his head, sweat flying from his forehead in the hot room. “If Edwyrd is an older version of your human form, how is it that Orcus’s human form is but an older version of Edwyrd?”

  Tom shrugged in uncertainty. “I have no idea. The first time I saw a portrait of Orcus’s human form, I actually passed out from shock.”

  “He did. It was very startling. Erestofanes and I had to help him back to his feet,” Tamarin agreed. “He is very heavy in this form.”

  Talarius looked to the djinni. “Will you swear an oath to that statement? Understanding that your master is the one who punishes oath breakers?”

  Tamarin nodded solemnly. “I do so swear that my master passed out when he first saw the library painting of Orcus in his human form.”

  Talarius shook his head slowly. “I do not know, demon. This is a lot to try to understand.”

  Tom nodded. “Tell me about it. I am in the same boat as you, Talarius. This is all new to me.”

  “I must go think, meditate, and yes, pray,” Talarius told them. “I will be in my quarters within the Doom of Nysegard. My entreaty to aid the Citadel still stands, as does my desire to fight alongside you and the D’Orcs to save the Citadel. Should you grant my entreaty, do not leave without me.”

  Talarius put his helmet on and marched stiffly from the room. Tom glanced to the others; they sat there in silence until the outer doors were closed behind the knight.

  Phaestus shook his head. “Go easy on him, Tommus. The poor man is at his wits’ end.”

  Völund moved his head from side to side in amazement. “I would have bet anything that he’d have had a breakdown and gotten violent by this point.”

  “Ahem. Are you forgetting that you did indeed make such a bet with me?” Phaestus asked, furrowing his brow.

  “Figure of speech. I remember. Just give it time—meeting Tiernon’s avatars will likely be the last straw,” Völund harrumphed.

  “Why do you say that?” Tom asked, puzzled.

  “Gods are meant to be in heaven,” Völund said. “Once you meet your god and realize that they are but a man, or woman, it tends to shatter belief.”

  “He has come a long way down that path already,” Phaestus noted, shaking his head. “I truly feel for him. It is a very difficult road.”

  “Uh, hello? What about me?” Tom asked somewhat sarcastically. “As I said, I am in the boat alongside Talarius.”

  Phaestus chuckled and Völund grinned as the two moved to leave the room.

  “What?” Tom asked loudly at their departing backs.

  “That is true, nephew, but you are an immortal. Each of us goes through this same experience every hundred thousand years or so,” Phaestus said. “This is Talarius’s first time.”

  Tom stared at the two in shock
as they left the main suite. He turned to his bed, nearly leaping into to it so that he could curl up in a fetal position, close his eyes and try to make the insanity stop.

  Heavens’ Home

  “So,” Namora said coldly. She was clearly quite upset with both Tiernon and Torean. “Do you believe this world lockout is the doing of our stepbrother?”

  Tiernon shrugged uncertainly. “We do not know. We have never seen anything like this, an entire region sealed off from us.”

  “Perhaps they were all killed?” Hendel asked. Krinna gave him a shocked look.

  “What could kill fourteen avatars at once, that quickly?” Torean asked, also shocked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Namora said sarcastically, “perhaps he unleashed the Kraken and sank the entire continent?”

  “That would seem a bit extreme…” Torean said with more uncertainty than one might have expected.

  Tiernon shook his head. “No. We have, and I am sure some of your people have, received prayers from priests elsewhere on Nysegard who report that our avatars are alive and well. Priests on Nysegard are still fully connected to their prophets and attending archons. It is simply that our avatars cannot connect to us from where they are.”

  “So it’s not like Orcus did a massive Abyssal Switch and dragged them all to hell?” Krinna said. “I hear he likes to do that sort of thing.”

  Tiernon shook his head. “No, it is some form of extra-planar interdiction. Something we have never found record of before.”

  “Well, given that Orcus has both Völund and Hephaestus working with him, it is entirely possible that he’s built a new tool,” Hendel said.

  Krinna shivered. “Do you have any idea what he could do if he were able to use this to trap someone on a material plane, unable to draw upon their god pool, unable to escape?”

  “If he could finagle it, he could very easily drop a god into the Oubliette,” Hendel said, staring directly at Tiernon. “It would make it far, far easier for him to punish oath breakers.”

  Tiernon swallowed hard at the thought, but then shook his head. “No, I do not think so.”

  “No?” Namora asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “First of all, the Citadel and our avatars were preparing for war—a siege by the Storm Lords,” Tiernon replied. “If this interdiction is Orcus’s doing, that would mean he is working with the Storm Lords. I simply do not see Orcus ever taking the side of the Unlife. It is antithetical to everything we know about him,” he added emphatically.

  “True.” Namora nodded. “The Orcus we knew would never do that. However, the Tiernon that Orcus knew would never have broken an oath and ordered him permanently slain.”

  Tiernon glared at her. “How many times must we go over this? I did not order him permanently slain! I wanted him out of Etterdam, that is all!”

  “What, you couldn’t just ask nicely?” Krinna asked sarcastically.

  “I tried to reason with him, but Nét had gone too far. Orcus wanted payback and would not listen to me. The entire world was locked in war—a war that would have cost us most of our followers as well as those of the El'adasir!” Tiernon said.

  “Your followers. Maybe someone should have instructed his priests to stay out of the fight between Nét and Orcus. It was your church that chose to join forces with the Los Sidhe against the orcs and jötunnkind; not mine or Namora’s,” Krinna said.

  “Yes, the church made a mistake, and in large part that is thanks to my avatars there, led by Sentir Fallon. That is why I told him to fix his mistake personally and get Orcus off the plane,” Tiernon said. “You all know this. Why do we have to rehash it?”

  “Because the sort of losses you feared on Etterdam may now be happening on Nysegard,” Namora said. “You once again allowed your attending archon to ‘go in and fix things’ and now they are cut off, at peril of their own demise and we can do nothing about it!”

  “We could always send higher level archons to assist,” Torean suggested.

  “And lose them as well?” Krinna asked.

  “We have not had much luck sending our agents in to right these big issues. Perhaps it is time for a true Divine Intervention on our part?” Hendel asked.

  The others all looked at him in shock. “Do you understand what an escalation that would be?” Krinna asked.

  “If Orcus is behind this interdiction, if it is a trap, do you really want to walk into it?” Namora asked incredulously.

  Citadel Command Center: Midday

  “So far we have been able to keep them at bay with relatively minor injuries,” Eldon reported to Grob and the others in the Command Center. “We have everyone re-tuned to our local avatars.” He gestured to the avatars now seated along one side of the table.

  They had needed to get chairs for the avatars in order for them to stay at the table. As it was, they were only able to half pay attention to the conversations. The manual processing of both incoming and outgoing mana streams was quite taxing, particularly when there were only two avatars for a god.

  Tiernon’s avatars had it the easiest. Hilda and Stevos were able to take quite a bit of burden off of Dashgar and Inethya, and Beragamos was above them, doing most of the heavy processing and storage. Timbly was able to assist Fassbindr and Delilah, but their workload was still greater than Tiernon’s avatars. The other six avatars were, however, being pressed to the limits of their abilities.

  Namora’s avatars had some luck in that they had a good number of priests who were out at sea, not in combat at the moment. So they could provide mana and were not draining much. In terms of mana drawdown, her avatars were fortunate, as most of her priests were working on keeping the moat and catapult Holy Water renewed. This was a steadier, smoother outflow of mana than with active combat.

  Krinna and Hendel’s avatars were hitting the limits of how much they could actually channel and contain at any given time. The four essentially kept their eyes closed, completely locked in concentration. Of all the avatars, Beragamos was probably the most actively engaged, due both to his larger team and his far greater capacity.

  “The Storm Lords are still in the process of setting up; assembling their siege craft, organizing their regiments, setting up camps and battle lines.” Grob shook his head. “Common sense, our own experience and all of the records are clear that this is their weakest moment, and as you all know, we were going to hit them hard so that they could not get ensconced and positioned to strike.”

  “They clearly timed this interdiction thing so that we could not exploit their weakness,” Aeris noted.

  Beragamos looked up and over to Teragdor and Rasmeth, who at this point were simply observing. “Teragdor, do you feel ready to go out and exercise your apostolic duties? I am confident that we now have enough control of our mana streams that we can divert some for higher-level combat operations.”

  Teragdor’s stomach twisted; he was not sure whether that was trepidation or eagerness to go into battle. This would be his first true battle as a priest of Tiernon, let alone as an apostle. “I am ready, Your Holiness.”

  Beragamos nodded and looked to Rasmeth. “Can you support him out there? I suspect Torean’s streams may be more tightly constrained than ours, but you should be able to work at priest levels, if not apostolic. Having two apostles visible out there is worth every bit or perhaps more than anything we have the mana to do.”

  “Of course, Your Holiness,” Rasmeth replied.

  ~

  Teragdor strode the battlements in his apostolic armor, alongside Rasmeth in his apostolic leathers. This was the first time he’d worn this gear outside of his room. His armor and Rasmeth’s leathers had been brought from Tierhallon and Toreanhold, respectively, a few days ago. They were impressive artifacts and Teragdor was grateful for their holy nature, because he was not at all accustomed to moving in plate armor; he’d never worn anything more than leather armor, and that not frequently. He was a priest, not a Rod member.

  He held his great shield with its apostolic emblem to
his right, shielding himself and Rasmeth from the arrows that were pelting the ramparts. The majority of soldiers were hunkered down below the crenellations with shields above their heads. They were there in the event the Unlife scaled the walls or managed to get over the moat. So far, to his knowledge, none had. The arrows were coming from various Unlife on flying steeds in varying levels of decay. Teragdor had never in his worst nightmares envisioned this sort of battle.

  Beragamos had been right, however; the sight of them striding the battlements seemed to cheer people up as they strode by and were seen. Grob had given them the name of a commander on the wall to coordinate with. Teragdor was hoping the commander could tell him what to do because, honestly, he had no experience with battlefield combat. He could fight as well as the next half-orc, or priest of Tiernon for that matter, but as to what one did when working with an army? He was at a complete loss.

  He was sure that was the reason for his trepidation. He did not want to make a fool of himself, lose face. He looked to Rasmeth, speaking softly so only the two of them could hear over the shouts of the soldiers. “Have you ever been in a situation like this?”

  Rasmeth looked at him, startled. “I am—was a high chaplain; I worked in a chapel!” He shook his head. “As an itinerant priest of Tiernon, no less, you’ve got far more field experience than I do.”

  Teragdor sighed. “I pray we do not screw up.”

  “Well, at least you’ve got two more people listening to your prayers than I do.” Rasmeth chuckled ruefully.

  “Apostles!” A strong tenor voice called to them.

  Teragdor looked over to see someone, a short someone, in the plate armor of a Shield commander gesturing for them to join him—her? They made their way towards the stocky four-foot-two commander, who was standing behind a curved shield wall set back from the crenellations; apparently a command center of some sort.

  “Good to have you.” The commander gestured to the aerial forces hovering outside the moat and launching arrows and crossbow bolts at the people along the wall. The hovering forces were spread out and moving in and out of range, aware that if too many of them clumped together, they could be hit by a Holy Water catapult, as in fact happened while Teragdor’s eyes were drawn to where the commander had gestured.