03- The Apostles of Doom

by J. Langland

  Outside of Freehold: Mid Fifth Period

  Vaselle had finally decided on a secure location for this device. He’d spent the last few hours tramping around the woods outside of Freehold, looking for an appropriately secure, weatherproof and flame-proof location for his portable gateway. He grinned at the name he had devised for it.

  It wasn’t a gateway in the classical sense; in fact, it was very specialized and could only be used by certain people. It was also very purposefully unidirectional. It had no intrinsic gateway capability, so only people who understood what it was, and were appropriately linked, could use it. It was quite ingeniously simple, and thus safe. The most complicated spells he’d needed had nothing to do with its purpose; they were to keep it immobile and locked where he put it down, so no one could easily walk off with it. At least, not without him or his beloved dark master noticing. It also had a fairly simple, if potent, short-range Spell of Unnoticing on it, so most people would ignore it if they were within a few feet of it. The spell was short range so that from a distance, it would not be noticeable to someone with any sort of Sight.

  Other than that, it contained a small fire spell that could be triggered over a link; and, of course, a mana pool that would power the other spells, but which could easily be recharged by himself, his master or any other warlocks or shamans linked to the master. That was all—that, and of course the link to his master, and hence to himself and any others his master wished.

  The entire purpose of this device was to allow anyone with the link and the ability to do so, to start a small flame to support one of Lord Tommus’s Demonic Portals. This device would basically eliminate the need to have someone at a location in order for Lord Tommus to open a portal. Vaselle was going to glue this one right here, in this small, sheltered rocky alcove.

  Vaselle muttered the small cantrip to enable the geo-lock on his device, and it was set. He had already charged it. It now just remained for Lord Tommus to test it. Unfortunately, his master was still at the oath-taking ceremony in Nysegard. He’d briefly joined with his master and shared the idea for his device. His master had been extremely pleased, but was not free to test it until later in the evening. Thus they had decided that Vaselle would place it and Tom would test it out, without Vaselle near, later in the evening. They had decided that Vaselle should be in the city, so they could be sure that Lord Tommus was tracking the device, rather than Vaselle. It was quite important to remove potential cross-effects when testing devices.

  If this worked, Tom wanted Vaselle to construct a bunch more of them. He also wanted Vaselle to return to Mount Doom so that Vaselle could test to see if he, using Tom’s power, could also open the portals. That would be very important, as the master wanted his shamans and future warlocks to be able to open portals on his behalf.

  Vaselle quietly clapped his hands together in delight. He was so pleased to be of service to his master. It made him feel so special, so valuable, to provide the master things he needed.

  Mount Doom: Late Sixth Period

  Tom made his way down the corridor to his room; he wanted to check in with the guys hanging out there. For some reason, they all liked to gather in his personal sitting room, even though there were many sitting rooms that were not tied to a bedroom suite. He assumed it was just habit. Well, and Antefalken had assembled his huge piles of heat-resistant paper to write on.

  He wanted to check on them to see if anything new had come up before testing Vaselle’s portable gateway. Those should be incredibly useful; he was quite happy with Vaselle’s initiative. He wouldn’t be able to actually visit Vaselle, given that Freehold was still, as far as he knew, encased in Lenamare’s wards. However, it would be nice to see his old stomping grounds, so to speak. He laughed to himself at that; he had only lived there for a bit over a week.

  After that he was going to bed. Today had been a long day; he had traveled to three different villages for oath takings. Interestingly, the villages were linked in chains, so they had gone to the largest village first, and then from there to two smaller villages that connected to it. He’d had to think about it a bit, but the model did make sense for a place like the Isle of Doom, where quick mobilization from multiple locations was needed. If everyone had to hub out of one location, like Krallnomton, everyone would have to go there first.

  The travel and setup time, however, meant it wasn’t that efficient for doing oath takings. The method they had used at Doom had been to have regiments come to Tom, rotating people in and out. After today’s oath taking, they’d had a council session in the evening and discussed this.

  His commanders agreed that it was taking too long; the Forces of Darkness might not give them enough time before testing them to get everyone sworn. The original reason they were going to the villages had been because they didn’t want to leave any villages unoccupied.

  After a couple rounds of discussion this evening, they had finally decided to send troops from Mount Doom to the villages to keep them occupied while their residents were taking oaths. There had been some concern about resource constraints, in that they did not have that many D’Orcs; however, Darflow had suggested that his demon troops also participate.

  Tom could tell that some of his commanders were a bit leery of this, not completely trusting the demons yet. However, they had all sworn oaths, and Tom had links to them, so he took it upon himself to end the discussion and agreed to use a mix of demons and D’Orcs.

  Tom reached the door of his suite and opened it. He entered his suite to see Antefalken, as expected, still scribbling madly at piles of paper on the table he’d chosen to use for writing his ballad—or ballads; Tom seemed to recall Antefalken wanting to do a ballad on the Return to Nysegard. Boggy and Estrebrius were playing cards with Tamarin and Tizzy, the latter two of whom seemed to have very large piles of betting stones.

  “How goes it?” Tom asked the bard as he came up to look over the his shoulder.

  Antefalken looked up and sighed. “It is going; there is just so much to cover. I’ve been doing a number of interviews to get different perspectives on the battle with the knights, and on the return to Nysegard. The problem is that I just don’t have enough background material on either the knights, or for that matter, on Nysegard.”

  “You, the demon bard, are short on background information?” Tom asked with a grin of disbelief. “I find that hard to believe.”

  Antefalken snorted. “I know, but the thing is, so much of this goes back so much further in time than even I am accustomed to. And of course, everyone only has certain parts of the puzzles.” He grinned. “I love a challenge though. After all, the best bards, ahem, are also the best historians.”

  “Eh,” Boggy snorted.

  “Eh?” Antefalken asked.

  “I am not sure the best ones are. I know some very good historians that couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket,” Boggy replied, not looking up from his cards.

  “I did not imply any reciprocity in my statement. Good bards are good historians, not necessarily the other way around,” Antefalken said defensively.

  “Eh,” Boggy said, frowning at his cards.

  Tom grinned at Antefalken. “If you like to study history, then you probably want to check out the Library of Doom.”

  Antefalken dropped his quill and rotated to stare directly at Tom. “The Library of Doom?”

  “Oh yes, fantastic place,” said Tamarin, not looking up from her cards. “If I wasn’t having so much fun playing this game called ‘poker,’ I would be down there now. Actually, I was there most of the day.”

  “This place has a library?” Antefalken asked. “I didn’t think orcs, and thus D’Orcs, had much use for books.”

  “Yes, but apparently, Orcus and the others did.” Tom chuckled. “It is huge. I thought the Council Library was big, but this place dwarfs it. How far back did you say some of the items go, Tamarin?”

  “Well, Erestofanes could say for sure, obviously, but the djinn estimates there are works going back about one mill
ion years,” Tamarin said, turning to grin at Antefalken.

  Antefalken jerked suddenly and tipped over on his stool, wings flailing wildly to catch himself. “Where is this place? Screw the ballads for now!”

  Tom had never seen the demon bard so excited. He chuckled. “Follow me. I’ll show you the way, then I have to test out Vaselle’s new portable gateway.”

  Aedesin, Mount Ehiron: DOA + 8, First Period (Courts), Dawn Local Time

  Aodh climbed the long and winding steps towards the top of Mount Ehiron, where his lord god Nét kept his riding eagles. His Godship liked to spend his mornings, such as they were in the Outer Planes, with his beautiful war birds. Unless there was an emergency, Nét’s avatars were required to climb the stairs; flying and teleporting tended to disturb the very large birds. They took such intrusions as threats.

  At long last Aodh reached the aerie, a beautiful palace devoted to the very lovely and extremely deadly birds. He reached the outer stone patio, crossing it to the large rough-stone main building of the aerie. As he grasped the handle of the entryway, he once more took time to enjoy the nearly sensual texture of the well-worn wooden handle, noting that a fresh wave of lichen was climbing the mortar between the stone wall and the framing of the doorway. On the Planes of Alfar, such things would be lost in the constant riot of life and the natural world; in the Outer Planes, such details were signs of detailed craftsmanship and never-ending attention to detail. There was no such thing as natural in Aedesin or any of the Outer Planes.

  Aodh entered the aerie, noting several of the large birds swiveling their heads to take in his presence. Nét used neither hoods nor blinders upon these birds, trusting their heightened intellect to tame their basic hunter instincts. His judgement in this was mostly right. Fortunately, when in Aedesin, lapses in their judgement could be painful, but not fatal. On the Planes of Alfar? Well, the priests and riders knew to tread carefully around the birds.

  Aodh noticed his master at the far end of the aviary, near the diving platform. He was in discussion with Danu, the mother goddess of their pantheon. He had hoped to discuss this with his master alone; however, he had been instructed to bring any updates on the situation directly to his master as soon as possible.

  He moved slowly, softly, yet confidently down the long hall, ensuring that none of the birds were spooked. They did not like sudden motions or anything too startling. He approached the two deities and stopped about fifteen feet away, waiting to be noticed.

  He purposefully ignored their conversation as was proper, allowing it to flow through his mind without registering. After approximately a quarter hour, his master and Mother Danu finished their conversation and turned their attention to Aodh.

  “Aodh.” His master nodded towards him. “You bring word?”

  Aodh moved forward, bowing first to Mother Danu and then to his master. “Indeed, my lord,” he said, nodding.

  “This is in regard to... ?” Mother Danu asked Nét.

  “The demon who restarted Mount Doom and who has launched D’Orc incursions into the Planes of Alfar,” Nét responded. Mother Danu nodded, clearly up to date on the situation. Nét turned his attention back to Aodh.

  “Sentir Fallon brings word that he and his master believe that this demon is, in fact, Orcus. My immediate allies have also concluded the same,” Aodh said.

  Nét nodded. “Even as I suspected. On what do they base this new confidence?”

  “He has restarted the Doomalogue in Nysegard,” Aodh replied.

  Mother Danu made a small, obviously involuntarily hissing of indrawn breath through her pursed lips.

  Nét inhaled deeply through his nostrils, allowing them to flare ever so slightly in the process. He glanced to Mother Danu. “As I’ve said?” Nét asked her.

  “If he is moving this quickly, both to reclaim control of his old mortal realms and to recreate his relay stations, then he will be moving to attack soon,” Danu responded.

  “Other critical news? We shall discuss the details of this in depth, however, I would know the most critical pieces of information first,” Nét instructed Aodh.

  “That is the crux of the news. Most of the rest involves how the Five Siblings knew of his reopening of the site. The remainder is more speculation on motives, particularly with regard to vengeance. We—my immediate allies and I—suspect he may be aware of the Dark Apostle’s work and be seeking to punish the Storm Lords first,” Aodh said.

  Nét nodded. “That would be logical. He would certainly want to eliminate any possibility of repeating what happened the last time.”

  “So you believe his first target will be the Storm Lords?” Danu asked Nét.

  “It would appear so; either them or Lilith. Both would be easier targets than Tiernon and Sentir Fallon. Lilith he could at least temporarily neutralize, and the Storm Lords he could probably do severe damage to now that the Dark Apostle is no more,” Nét replied.

  Danu’s eyes narrowed. “This Dark Apostle? Stoivenychas? He was a necromancer, yes?”

  “Necromancer and priest of Sutekh,” Nét replied. “Unlife as well, of course.”

  “Of course.” Danu shook her head in revulsion. “Although a pawn of ours, I cannot be sorry that he was vanquished. Cloud of Disintegration, was it?”

  Nét nodded. “He lost control of it in battle with an Astlanian human wizard.”

  Danu shook her head in amazement. “I find it amazing that such a mature and, need I say, ‘evil’ creature as the Dark Apostle could be vanquished by a mortal wizard, let alone a human one. That sort of power would require centuries of experience.”

  “Indeed, the Dark Apostle itself was at least six thousand years old at the time of its death,” Nét agreed.

  “Remarkable achievement for the mortal,” Danu marveled.

  “The same wizard killed the Anilord Diemeron Huntmaster nearly a quarter of a century earlier,” Nét noted.

  “The Master of the Mind Reavers?” Danu asked in surprise.

  “Indeed.”

  “Perhaps not so surprising, in that case,” Danu agreed changing her mind.

  Nét turned his attention back to Aodh. “We must move to take action immediately, mobilize our forces in the Astlanian localverse, put other adjacent realms on notice.”

  Aodh nodded. “Of course. Our forces in Nysegard are problematic.”

  Nét sighed and nodded. “Agreed. For what it is worth, let them be on alert.”

  “If only we had better access to that world,” Danu lamented.

  “What little influence we had was greatly diminished in the process of getting the Dark Apostles assistance in getting rid of Orcus,” Nét agreed.

  “There will, of course, be pushback from the Elders and noble houses. As any sane alfar, they will see these actions as precipitous and rushed,” Aodh noted.

  “Indeed,” Danu agreed. “And they are; yet, we have long prepared for this eventuality, and there is prophecy on our side. I shall have my priests support yours.” Danu nodded towards Nét. “We will get the others on board as well.”

  Nét and Danu stood in silence, watching morning light creep over the valley below them as they waited to be sure Aodh was completely out of earshot.

  “Aodh was right. This will require an unprecedented acceleration of action on the part of our people,” Danu told him.

  Nét closed his eyes for a moment. “Indeed. However, as you said, we did prepare our people with prophecy, as soon as we learned of the orc prophesy.”

  “I do not see how the orcs can have had a viable prophesy about the return of Orcus without a god to see it through. Orcs are notoriously godless heathens,” Danu said. “Orcus was one of the closest beings they had to a god, and you assured us that there was no trace of him left on Etterdam.”

  “Indeed, I am very confident of that,” Nét agreed.

  “So what god managed this prophecy?”

  “Not an orc god—a demon god.”

  “A demon god?” Danu had to suppress a laugh at such an ab
surd concept. “Demons have no gods; they even hold their nominal rulers in contempt.”

  “Ah, but there is the Demon All-Father,” Nét stated.

  “The Concordenax? That is a myth. I know of no one who has ever met this theoretical being.”

  “I am not so certain of that,” Nét told her. “This being would have to be the trickiest of all demon kind. He, or she, would be very easy to overlook.”

  Danu shook her head. “I shall not even try to argue on that point. Regardless of how the prophecy came to pass, I agreed with you millennia ago that we cannot allow the Tartarvardenennead to continue with their prison.”

  “It did take me some time to convince you,” Nét reminded her with a small, tight smile.

  “Only about fifty thousand years. As you said, first they came for the Titans, and we did nothing, then they came for the other gods, and—well—it was time to do something.” Danu shook her head. “As you said, the Tartarvardenennead are true atheists, the greatest threat to the Godhead in millions of years. It is only a matter of time before they imprison all of the gods.”

  Appendix IV: Orc Social Structure

  Chapter 130

  Astlan, Crooked Stick Camp: DOA + 8, Dawn

  Zargvarst El Crooked Stick, D’Orc Squad Leader, inhaled the fresh scent of dew on tall grass as he watched the first light of Fierd begin to peek over the eastern horizon. “Ah, nothing like the butt crack of dawn!” he exclaimed with joy.

  “It has been four thousand, two hundred, forty-two years and three quarter months since last I stood upon these planes preparing for battle against the so-called Los Alfar,” Zargvarst told the others. He shook his head in wonder. “One forgets the smell, the anticipation.”

  He turned to those behind him, readying themselves and their mounts. “Of course, there is no battle today, but still, we start on adventure!”

  “Perhaps soon we can do battle with the treacherous Los Alfar,” Kirak Doth Far suggested. This was Kirak’s second trip to Astlan. Kirak, Didar An Sep, Nagh Felwraith and Zerg Fel Far had all previously hunted with Tal Gor and his tribe; they had been overjoyed to be selected to return.