by J. Langland
“The aperture what?” Zelda asked.
“Aperture synthesis. It’s a post-processing algorithm that we used to track moving objects with a phased array. We then supplement it from our secondary Doppler radar antennas. The phased array units that use PDP—sorry, pulse Doppler processing—also need to be calibrated; however, full calibration of that requires the sweep antennas to be active, and those will take more time since they have a lot of moving parts.”
“So, in short, a lot of sophisticated electronic equipment is coming back online without a lot of issues after four thousand years?” Tom sounded a bit incredulous.
Horken chuckled. “Oh, there are issues, but we had quite a bit of redundancy. And most of the systems are heavy duty, built for deep space military craft and bases. The Abyss around here is not that much worse. At least, it isn’t when Doom is dormant.”
Tom looked at him, puzzled.
“Metal equipment does not like water,” Horken explained. “That is one of the biggest issues. In space, the problem is ice crystals that can melt. In the Abyss, when there are no storm clouds, it is very dry, so rust is not a problem. Dust can be a problem, but again, almost no wind if Doom is sleeping. You may have noticed the only place in the Abyss that actually has weather is Mount Doom.”
“And we have not had any of that in a very long time!” Varn added.
Several other DIBs laughed at this. One whom Tom did not recognize added, “We started cleaning the arrays and equipment shortly after Your Lordship’s return. We had been hoping to get these babies back up.”
“This is excellent!” Tom was very pleased.
Horken and the others nodded in acknowledgement of the praise. “There are some more advanced detection systems we will eventually bring up. But we cannot calibrate those until we have the simpler systems fully calibrated and functional,” Horken said.
“How long before you will be able to detect invaders or trespassers?” Darg-Krallnom asked from behind Tom.
“That depends on the size,” Horken replied. “Something large, or a large swarm, we would see now.” He shrugged. “One or two demons, though, we won’t be able to detect for at least a day, maybe longer. We have always had problems with smaller demons. Imps, shadows, smaller fiends by themselves are too small to detect. It varies a bit from region to region, depending on the equipment we have in a given region.”
Horken gestured to the main Command Center. “The real calibration will begin once we’ve got full control of both rooms. Then we can start to correlate information from the runes and wards system to the tech systems. That will take a few weeks, or likely months.”
Tom thought for a second, feeling the outer regions of the rune network. “How far out can we go with the tech systems?”
“Sweep times get longer the further out we reach, so it gets tricky, but with this system we can go about thirty to forty leagues out in all directions. Some of the more advanced stuff can go further, much further, but a lot of that is tricky to bring up. Always was, being on the ground and not in a starship.”
A very old DIB snorted. “We got one system we managed to acquire that has a very extreme range. Unfortunately, we have never had enough power to use it, but if we could, it could irradiate a three-dimensional radius of several thousand leagues with huge tachyon flux. We could monitor the damned she-beast, Lilith, herself!”
Horken rolled his eyes. “Even if we had the power to turn it on, none of us are qualified to calibrate it. We have no engineers left that understand FTL engineering.”
“FTL engineering?” Zelda asked.
“Faster than light,” Tom quickly replied.
Horken and the old DIB grinned brightly at him, having not expected him to know the reference. “My Lordship knows his technology.” Varn clapped his hands.
Tom chuckled. “You DIBs know more than I will ever know. Keep up the good work.” He looked over at Zelda. “I need to head to the temple to send invitations to my shamans for the ceremony and party. I also need to check in with Vaselle to see how the cooling devices they are making are coming along.”
“Excellent, My Lord. I am going to head to the kitchens to check on the staff preparing things. Tegdolar is in the temple right now, monitoring for any dream walkers that might show up.” Tegdolar and his sister Tegleesa were the two younger orcs assigned to monitoring the temple along with their mother, Teg-Gala, who was one of Zelda’s best confidants.
“Good lad, Tegdolar,” Tom said with a nod. He had said “lad,” but Tegdolar was probably twice his own age. It was amazing how one fell into certain roles. He nodded goodbye to his commanders and left the command centers. He was feeling pressured and warn out again. He was still fueling at least a third of Mount Doom, and it was getting exhausting. It was a continuous drain on his ever-lowering reserves. They really needed to get some more bodies into this place to generate more mana.
~
“So do you have a plan yet as to how we prove ourselves human?” Bess asked Exador as they sipped on Denubian Choco-CoffeeTM at the Outpost.
“I and my team have been working feverishly on amulets that will nullify the effects of the wards,” Exador said.
“This assumes they turn the wards back on,” Rameses said. He was normal-sized and wearing an elegant silk robe rather than his war garb. “What if they invite the Rod in with that stupid mirror?”
Exador sighed in frustration. “Unfortunately, I am but a single archdemon…”
“With a staff of over a thousand demons,” Bess noted.
“Most of whom are incapacitated and regenerating after the Freehold incident.” He shook his head. “Further, most of them weren’t any good at wizardry or magic.”
“What about that sycophant of yours?” Ramses asked.
Exador shot him a look indicating the demon was insane. “Randolf? Ignoring the fact that he’s one of the councilors I must convince, he is also singularly unqualified to do much of anything arcane.”
“He’s an archimage, which must mean something,” Ramses said.
“Do I have to keep pointing this out? Archimage is a political title; it means he owns a country! It has nothing to do with skill, of which Randolf has very little,” Exador said wearily.
“So who is this team?” Bess asked.
“I do have a couple of decent demon wizards in my employ, as well as one warlock in Etterdam and two in Romdan,” Exador said.
“You conduct business in Etterdam and Romdan?” Ramses asked, puzzled.
Exador gave him a puzzled look. “Yes, why?”
Ramses shook his head. “Nothing—it’s just that your insistence on living in Astlan for so long had convinced me you had a singular unnatural attachment to that plane.”
Exador shook his head. “It comes and goes. I have estates on other material planes, but the time I spend in Astlan depends on my current interests. Since the Abancian incident, I have spent quite a bit of time in Astlan. Once that arrogant prick Lenamare showed up, I admit that I did end up spending the majority of my time there.”
“You have to admit, Ramses,” Bess said in defense of Lenamare, “the book was, or is, in Astlan, which is something that in my opinion justifies Exador’s attention.”
“True,” Ramses conceded. “Has Lenamare made any progress?”
Exador shrugged. “I rather doubt it. Apparently, two of his wizards have disappeared with Trevin D’Vils on some crazy quest. Therefore, I have to imagine he is quite shorthanded with his school. Further, I suspect he would be the one in charge of proving that I am an archdemon.”
Bess shrugged and took a sip of her delicious beverage. “That is whom I’d hire. Those wards were quite remarkable.” Exador glared at her.
She chuckled. “What is this crazy quest?”
Exador shrugged. “I have no idea. It is tied to some visions by Lenamare’s sorcerer and this seer from the Society of Learned Fellows. Trevin is leading it for the Council.”
“The Society of Learned Fellows?” Rams
es asked, sounding surprised. “They still exist?” Lenamare waved his hand, indicating that they apparently did.
“This Trevin—remind me who she is again? I am not as familiar with Astlan as the two of you,” Bess said.
“She’s the Enchantress of the Grove,” Exador said.
“The Grove? Is that a health food store or something?” Bess asked, causing Ramses to snort Denubian Choco-CoffeeTM through his nose.
Exador grinned as well. “No, it’s some sort of extradimensional refugee camp for misfits, losers and tree-huggers.”
“A homeless shelter then,” Ramses snarked.
“As I recall, a rather difficult homeless shelter that caused you more than a little grief,” Exador said to Ramses.
The archdemon grimaced. “They are tenacious and have some very powerful defenses. We eventually gave up on them.”
“Well then, let us simply assume that these quest people are out of the picture, and hindering Lenamare’s progress with the book,” Bess said.
“I should think it would,” Exador agreed.
“We really need to get that thing into our hands and safely back in the Abyss,” Ramses said.
“Safely in the Abyss?” Exador asked. “I might question how safe this place is for that book.”
“Can you think of any place Lenamare is less likely to follow it?” Ramses asked. “After all, he sent his agents into Oorstemoth. There are very few places he won’t go.”
“I guess that leaves Tierhallon, or one of the Sibling realms,” Bess joked.
“Yes, there’s an idea. Hand the book over to Tiernon and see the end of the Abyss,” Ramses said. “He would use it to slay every single demon permanently.”
“Terribly unsociable fellow, it seems.” Bess grinned.
~
Sam stared out over the valley from the ledge of Tom’s cave. The cave was decidedly empty. He had been monitoring it for some time. Tom and his entourage had left on some expedition the day after he had met them at Hellsprings Eternal. They had not returned as he had expected. They had been gone for a good five days now.
The more troubling thing was that during the night, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had left their clandestine post as well. That meant Lilith was not expecting Tom to return either. Had she captured them? Surely his spies in her camp would have alerted him. Wouldn’t they?
Sam turned and reentered the cave. He had scoured it several times, both physically and magically, and there really was no clue as to where they might have gone. He felt thwarted. He did not like being thwarted.
Had he been spotted spying on them? Lilith’s toadies had no idea he had been monitoring them and the cave. He had spotted Rosencrantz and Guildenstern immediately, and shielded himself from them on several levels. They were incredibly inept, but it was possible, and in fact quite likely, that Tom was far more capable of spotting him than those two.
Of course, one reason for introducing himself as he had was to try to win the demon’s friendship. Tom had seemed receptive, so if he had been spotted, would Tom not have confronted him? Unless, of course, someone had recognized him.
Tom had not seemed to recognize him. Certainly, Sam did not have a clue who Tom was. He was sure the two of them had never met. Antefalken the bard, he knew; however, the bard should not have been able to see through his disguise. He was very tightly disguised on all levels in this almost never-used form.
The incubus and the two friends, Boggy and Estrebrius, were known entities and of no consequence. The mini-Tom demon was an unknown, as much as was Tom. Then there was Tisdale.
That walking, talking clown was always around when something big was about to happen. He had a way of always being at the fringes of everything important. He never got involved, never took sides; in retrospect, that was probably why he was still alive. Could Tizzy have recognized him?
While Tizzy was only a fiend, he was a very old fiend. Sam had known of Tizzy for longer than just about any demon other than Lilith. While they rarely traveled in the same circles, a meeting every few decades over countless millennia did breed a certain level of familiarity.
Even if Tizzy had somehow recognized him, it would be unusual for Tizzy to have said anything unless directly questioned. Even upon direct questioning, there was no guessing what the demon might say. Sam shook his head. He would need to go talk to his agents in Lilith’s camp as well as in others. Perhaps there was some other key event that had happened recently that might give him a clue where Tom and his entourage had gone.
Chapter 107
DOF +9
Early Morning 16-06-440
Sirs Gadius and Gaius walked down the tightly manicured boulevard running from the west gate of Keeper’s City towards the government buildings. As expected, entering Keeper’s City had been complicated. Having been warned by the Church lawyers and diplomats, who specialized in Oorstemothian protocol, they had known that as members of a recognized military organization, their entry would be more complicated. Members of known militias were required to sign in and out of the city and present their papers at the gate and have them on them at all times.
It had been for this reason that they had chosen to enter the city on foot rather than their more traditional mounted style. If they had done that, it would have drawn too much attention and once inside, only one of them would be registered.
“However do they keep these smoothly paved streets so clean?” Gaius asked Gadius, gesturing at the boulevard of clean white stone pavement, curbs and planters. His obsidian chain mail and black leather gauntlets made a sharp contrast to the white stone as his arm swept out.
“By arresting the dust and debris religiously?” Gadius responded jokingly.
“One would think they must.” Gaius shook his head. “Did you by any chance nod off when that one visa official started rattling off the rules of work within the city? I thought I saw your eyes close and heard a small snore.”
Gadius laughed. “I may have; these people are incredibly long winded. Where is this recommended tavern?” he asked, referring to the tavern that the Church diplomats had recommended as a rendezvous point within the city. The Rod had no presence within Keeper’s City; nor, for that matter, within Oorstemoth. This was completely due to Oorstemothian Defense Regulations regarding foreign military forces. The Church, on the other hand, had a relatively robust, purely non-military presence within the country.
It was only under the very odd circumstances being negotiated by the leadership teams of the Church and Rod with Oorstemoth that allowed the Rod’s presence within the nation. They had had to show the papers provided them by Heron’s people to get into the city at all. Of course, as Knights Rampant, they could come and go unofficially as their Holy Mission demanded, and if discovered, the Church and Rod would back them and deal with any repercussions. After the first few hundred years of this, however, and more than a few “repercussions,” the Church had decided to do two things: first, increase stealth capability via both training and Holy Relics of the Knights, and second, increasingly counsel patience regarding Holy Missions within Oorstemoth.
“The tavern is down three more streets, then to the left and about another block,” Gaius said.
“I swear you seem to hear more outside the tent and a hundred feet away than I do inside the tent.” Gadius shook his head.
Gaius smiled. “And isn’t it the same for you?”
Gadius shrugged; when he was outside, he was not as enthusiastic about listening in on distant conversations that Gaius might be having. Gaius was the one with all the curiosity. He shook his head. “It should be the same either way!”
Gaius grinned even more broadly. “I think it’s because inside the tent, one is too distracted by the stench of sweat and oiled armor. Not to mention the claustrophobia of being inside a tent with half a dozen Rod members.”
“It would be better if other Rod members bathed more,” Gadius admitted, making a distasteful expression. The two continued in silence for a while, gathering stare
s from the other pedestrians.
Gadius was not sure if this was due to the fact that they were non-Oorstemothian military, or to their admittedly unique appearance. Two knights of near identical height and weight, one with alabaster skin and fair hair dressed in shimmering white mail and a white tabard trimmed in silver, the other with a deep midnight complexion and tightly cut, military style black curly hair, dressed in obsidian black chain mail with a black tabard trimmed in gold. Both tabards were emblazoned with the Rod’s symbol, as were their great cloaks. Both knights were armed to the teeth with weapons strapped to their bodies and giant swords crossed with pikes with either pearlescent or obsidian heads.
Gadius shrugged; in most places, it was their striking appearance as individuals or as a pair that garnered the attention. Although if either of them was mounted, the attention was always on the mount. He grinned; this was the one place where he was not sure of the source of the stares. All Oorstemothian soldiers were immaculately uniformed in expensive outfits. Given that all civilians seemed remarkably unarmed, the presence of well-armed knights not of Oorstemothian origin should be unique as well.
They turned the corner on the designated street and continued on silently for a block before coming to the door of the recommended tavern.
“The Unicorn’s Tale,” Gadius observed sourly, reading the sign.
Gaius laughed. “Well, at least it’s a story and not a tail.”
“Such jokes are not funny; nor are such plays on words,” Gadius stated firmly.
Gaius laughed again and slapped Gadius on the back. “You really should not take everything so seriously or personally. Do you think anyone in Oorstemoth has even seen a unicorn? Unicorns are merely myths here.”
Gadius gave him a dark grin and a stare. “So you are saying it is good we entered the way we did, so as to continue the myth? That would seem to do nothing but perpetuate stereotypes. Better to let people understand the reality, to accept it.”
“How many times must we argue this? Yes, the truth is best served by openness and honesty, but sometimes more good can be served if there is some mystery left in the world,” Gaius said.
