03- The Apostles of Doom

by J. Langland

  “Well, the alvar attacked them. They were just traveling in orc territory and were assaulted. They were defending themselves, no different than any travelers assaulted by brigands or an enemy. Or us when Oorstemoth attacked Captain Asmeth’s ship. Did you forget that we sank their ship and drowned their sailors?” Gastropé asked, raising his arms slightly in the air.

  Jenn shook her head in vigorous denial. “Are you nuts? That is nowhere close to being an accurate comparison! D’Orcs are the minions of that reincarnated demon prince! They are clearly evil!”

  “Why are you always so quick to call people evil?” Gastropé asked. “We have no proof that they are evil, just stories written by the victors in a battle that took place four thousand years ago.”

  “Ugh!” Jenn slapped both hands to the sides of her head. “You are impossible! You fail to recognize the obvious.” She glanced up to the sky and finally dropped her hands to her side. “Ignoring that for the moment, how on Astlan did you manage to get so friendly with them?” She was nearly shaking with anger and frustration.

  “Well, I—I had been going to tell you in Murgatroy, but sort of got distracted by your finding Hilda,” Gastropé said.

  Jenn frowned. “What? You have been talking to the D’Orcs since Murgatroy? You found D’Orcs in Murgatroy and never mentioned this?” She waved her hands over her head in bewilderment.

  “Well, no—I ran into Tal Gor, the shaman. There were no D’Orcs in Murgatroy, just some shamans trying to get home…” Gastropé trailed off. He might be telling her too much.

  “What? You just randomly befriended a group of orc shamans traveling through Murgatroy?” Jenn asked, clearly having trouble believing him.

  “Well, no. Tizzy contacted me and wanted me to open a gate for Tom,” Gastropé said.

  “Tom?” Jenn shook her head in surprise. “You mean the demon that abandoned us in Gizzor Del? The one that later kidnapped that knight of Tiernon?” Jenn started pacing. “The demon that started this entire mess? Why would he contact you? This makes no sense, none what-so-ever.” She shook her head slowly from side to side to emphasize her last point.

  “Yes—the one that rescued us from Exador, the archdemon that was trying to wipe out your school! Did you forget that? Exador is evil and Tom is his enemy,” Gastropé said.

  Jenn sighed and rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

  “Well, you remember I have that odd link with Tizzy?” Gastropé asked.

  “Yes, and we have no idea why. Have you learned something on that?”

  “No. I still have no idea how it got there, but I have it, and Tizzy was with Tom and Tom needed my help to get his shamans home,” the pale wizard explained. “And I owed Tizzy a favor for battling the Storm Lords.”

  “Yes, you still haven’t fully explained that to my satisfaction,” Jenn noted, staring him in the eyes. She blinked. “Wait, what do you mean his shamans?”

  “Yes, well, as I’ve told everyone, those demons, Boggy and Estrebrius, are friends of Tizzy, and all three of them are in the Abyss with Tom.”

  “All hiding out in that cave of his? That’s gotta be a blast for a demon-slaying knight of Tiernon!” Jenn said sarcastically.

  “They were there for a while, but they moved.”

  “Moved?” Jenn asked. She paused and her eyes widened. “You are not saying they moved to Mount Doom with Orcus?”

  “Uhm, not so much with Orcus as, well—Tom, or Lord Tommus, as they call him. He’s also the one who recovered the Wand of Orcus and then relit Mount Doom with the mana he stole from Tiernon. He’s the one leading the D’Orcs; it was Tom who opened the portals for them.”

  Jenn simply stared at him, blinking every now and then. “You are telling me that the instigator of all the insanity that has propelled us halfway across the continent and set the alvar on the warpath is Lenamare’s greater demon?” she finally asked in disbelief.

  “Uhm... technically, I think he is a bit more than a greater demon. He and his people defeated Lilith’s army and a Chaos Maelstrom.”

  “Lilith? You mean the demon queen? The ruler of the Abyss?” Jenn asked numbly.

  “Yeah. The army wasn’t that big of a deal; he convinced them to surrender, and most swore allegiance to him. The rest he released to go back to Lilith or wherever they wanted. That proves he’s a good guy. A real dark lord would not have let people go,” Gastropé explained. “It was the Chaos Maelstrom that was the problem. Apparently those are really nasty things; everyone is scared of them. Lilith sent it to destroy Tom, but he was able to defeat it with help from this goddess Sekhmekt.”

  Jenn slowly lowered herself to sit on a large rock behind her. “A goddess?” she said in a daze.

  “Yeah, apparently one of those Nyjyr Ennead—the ones from Natoor.”

  Jenn sat there in silence for several minutes. She finally shook her head. “Wait—in Murgatroy Zed mentioned your friend, Vaselle. He was waiting for Edwyrd.”

  Gastropé gulped, realizing he was walking a dangerous line between truth and lies.

  “Wait!” Jenn cried, standing back up. “Vaselle said Edwyrd and Rupert were using Tom to do plane hopping!”

  Gastropé felt the blood drain from his face. “Uhm, yeah. Like Vaselle told you, both he and Edwyrd are working with Tom. Edwyrd was able to locate Tom pretty quickly after they left Freehold.”

  “Does Councilor Damien know this?” Jenn asked.

  Gastropé frowned. “He knows that Edwyrd is working with Tom. Edwyrd returned to Freehold after we left and hired Vaselle. They had a meeting with Damien; several, in fact.” Gastropé was winging it now. He’d asked Damien how he had ended up in the Abyss. He was not completely sure about all of the details, but he thought he knew enough. He’d have to crosscheck with Damien at some point.

  “And you somehow never mentioned this?” Jenn asked Gastropé in what he felt was a slightly threatening manner.

  “Well, Vaselle did tell you that he and Edwyrd were doing stuff with Tom…” Gastropé trailed off.

  “What about all this other stuff? The D’Orcs, Tom being in charge of Mount Doom? You do realize this is a huge piece of the puzzle we’ve been trying to solve?” Jenn demanded more than asked.

  “Well, I was going to, but what with Hilda and all that stuff, I didn’t know how to bring it up quietly. We have been in pretty tight quarters and I didn’t know what or how much I should tell the others. In particular, given how bent out of shape the alvar are over the D’Orcs, I really didn’t want to bring up the fact that I was a friend of their boogieman,” Gastropé admitted.

  Jenn stared at him for several more moments, not blinking. He gulped again. Finally, Jenn nodded. “On what to tell the alvar, your decision was probably right. Your decision to get involved with Tom again is clearly insane. Where is Rupert?”

  “As I told you before, he is in a school in Ithgar. Very safe,” Gastropé said. He was not going to tell her that Rupert was with a bunch of orcs in a band just like Tal Gor’s and doing the exact same thing because, that was not safe at all—unless you were a demon, which Rupert was, so he was safe and Gastropé was not technically lying.

  Nysegard, Agnothnon: Mid Sixth Period

  Talarius exited the new permanent portal from Krallnomton to Agnothnon. Phaestus and his avatar craftsmen had been working overtime. Apparently his avatars did not need to sleep, even in the material planes. He shook his head in wonder at their hard work as he headed toward the Good Knight’s Rest, which was the local inn and tavern in town. He had to admit these portals between towns were rather amazing, even if they were not the original permanent portals that the island had possessed in the old days.

  The Rod should really consider more widespread usage of runic gateways between its fortresses, he thought. One would think if a motley mix of orcs, dwarves, humans and heartheans were smart enough to come up with the idea of permanent portals for rapid mobilization, the Church and Rod should have been able to do the same. He shook his head; it would not be the firs
t thing he had found that the Nysegard Doomers had come up with in terms of military readiness that the Rod had overlooked.

  Being at permanent war against an implacable foe did, surprisingly, have some advantages, as did a lack of tremendous magical resources. After the fall of Doom, these folk had really needed to improvise and Talarius had to begrudgingly admit that they had come up with some very interesting tactics and solid long-term strategies to defend their island. He had spent most of his free time, when not training himself or others, trying to learn the nature of war on Nysegard. Having access to teachers with thousands of years of experience was extraordinary.

  At first he had been hesitant to engage the local D’Orcs in conversation; however, none of the D’Orcs here knew of his extremely ignoble first encounter with their leader. Not many of them even knew his history at Doom, but they all knew he was a hostage, not an ally or partner. He had—rather selfishly, he admitted—not gone out of his way, or even within his way, to bring this small fact up to anyone. Thus, they treated him as a brother in arms. One who had fought beside Lord Tommus and the goddess Sekhmekt against Knights of Chaos, in fact. He had to admit that it felt good to have something to be proud of after his defeat at the hands of Lord Tommus. A small moment of partial redemption for his shameful behavior during that duel.

  He still had no excuse for his dishonorable behavior. Even if—as was now questionable—Lord Tommus had been the vile, despicable and dishonorable creature that Talarius had assumed him to be—as one might reasonably expect any greater demon to be—that was still no excuse for lowering himself to the same standard. He, himself, should have maintained his honor and held to his oath. He should have fought fairly; he had not. The ends did not justify the means if it required one to abandon one’s sworn principles.

  Enough. He needed to get away from such thoughts. He also needed to get away from the thoughts that were currently preoccupying his sword, Ruiden. Tamarin had agreed to sharing her knowledge of the demon- and D’Orc-making process with his sword. Since they were both telepathic, they seemed to hit it off rather well. Talarius shook his head in dismay. His sword was making friends of its own. Had the multiverse turned upside down?

  Rather than focus on such thoughts, he had been more than happy to accept Stainsberry’s invitation to dinner and drinks at the Good Knight’s Rest. For one thing, it was nice to see that there were some trappings of normal life on Nysegard, such as inns and taverns. Even if, Talarius thought as he entered the tavern, said tavern had a very odd clientele. He glanced around the tavern to see tables with a mix of alvar, orcs, humans, heartheans and dwarves eating and drinking together. This intermingling was a common enough sight in Krallnomton, and several places in Astlan; however, the fact that about twenty percent of the people in this particular bar were alvar while nearly a third were orcs? And they were sharing tables and laughing and drinking together? That was, to say the least, extremely odd. In rougher quarters where the two races might be forced to comingle, they typically grouped together by race, staying away from the others while bartenders cast wary eyes upon their patrons to ensure their establishments suffered no collateral damages.

  “Talarius!” Stainsberry’s voice called from the far side of the large, crowded main room of the tavern.

  Talarius turned his head and spotted the knight waving to him. He made his way over to the knight’s private table. As he reached it, he was somewhat surprised to see an older dwarf wearing what appeared to be priestly robes sitting at the table with Stainsberry.

  Stainsberry gestured to the third seat at the table.

  “Imagine my surprise to find that my dear old friend, Thrinarv Gottslieb, high priest of Hephaestus, was in town?” Stainsberry was shaking his head at the surprise. “Thrinarv, this is Talarius, who I was telling you about.”

  “Greetings, Talarius!” Thrinarv said, putting his mug of ale down and reaching out a hand to Talarius, who shook it in greeting even as the dwarf shot Stainsberry a short glare and said, “What’s this old friend business? We are the same age!”

  “Greetings,” Talarius said, looking back and forth between the two; it was hard to believe they were the same age, even though he understood the differences in lifespan. Talarius took his seat.

  Stainsberry grinned at the dwarf. “Well, but you look like you’re about a thousand years old.”

  “Upstart!” Thrinarv groused. He looked to Talarius. “We were born a month apart, two hundred and ninety-three years ago. He is actually a month older than I.”

  “So have you both known each other the entire time?” Talarius asked curiously.

  “Not the entire time; we were but children, probably around forty or so, when we met,” Stainsberry said.

  Thrinarv shrugged, accepting the estimate.

  Talarius shook his head. He had never really had intimate conversations like this with any of the really long-lived races. As “children,” they had both been older than he was now. It was more than a little humbling. Much more so than being around thousands-of-years-old D’Orcs, surprisingly. He figured that was because he saw the D’Orcs as infernal creatures, not mortals. Which, he now knew, they had once been. Argh. He was trying to get that out of his head. “So you are a priest of Hephaestus?” he asked the dwarf.

  “High priest, actually,” Thrinarv said, motioning for a server to come by the table.

  “So now that the connection to Doom is back, have you met your god?” Talarius asked curiously.

  “From a distance. He was working on the portals along with some of his craftsmen,” Thrinarv replied, taking another drink.

  “You do not sound impressed,” Talarius stated. “Seeing your god and his avatars doing their work, I should think that would be awe-inspiring.”

  Thrinarv shrugged. “My people have a more casual relationship with our gods than you humans, or the alfar.” He nodded his head sideways to Stainsberry.

  “I actually don’t follow any single god, as you know,” Stainsberry said. “Our order is faithful to and respects all the Gods of Light.”

  “So when you die, where do you spend eternity?” Talarius asked, puzzled.

  “Eternity is, in my opinion, overrated,” Thrinarv stated as a server, a hearthean, finally reached the table. “The wine is passable, but the ale is better,” Thrinarv told Talarius. “I assume you don’t want the glargh.”

  “Ale is fine for me,” Talarius said.

  “I’ll take another as well, Hasbro,” Thrinarv told the server.

  “Would you like some food?” Hasbro asked Talarius. “We have a very good potato and leek soup tonight, along with fresh sourdough bread to dip in it.”

  “If you like pterosaur, they serve a really good one here,” Thrinarv added.

  “It is nice and crispy tonight. I would recommend a side of the pumpkin-spiced turnips to go with it,” Hasbro said.

  “I’ll have the soup,” Stainsberry told Hasbro, who nodded. “Are you good on your wine?” he asked Stainsberry.

  “I guess I’ll have another, since you will be making the trip,” Stainsberry told the server.

  “I’ll have the pterosaur and the turnips,” Talarius said. He had not had pterosaur in years. They were not common in New Etonia outside of Sur Etonia and further south.

  “Good choice. I shall have the same,” Thrinarv said.

  The server nodded and headed off.

  “I have to say that after the few weeks in the Abyss, it’s nice to be back in civilization,” Talarius said.

  “The Abyss must be quite abysmal if you consider Agnothnon civilized,” Stainsberry said.

  “It’s really not that bad, for Nysegard,” Thrinarv said. “I once spent an entire summer in Astlan in this town called Murgatroy.” Thrinarv shook his head. “Talk about lousy beer!”

  “You’ve been to Astlan?” Talarius asked, shocked.

  “Of course. Been to a good chunk of this localverse, as well as several others. Of course, I haven’t been to Astlan in over thirty years,” Thrina
rv said.

  “Neither of us was born here. We choose to work here, where we can do measurable good for the Light,” Stainsberry said.

  “Where are you two from?” Talarius asked.

  “Excelsion,” Thrinarv said.

  Talarius shook his head, he had never heard of the place. “No idea where that is.”

  Thrinarv shrugged. “Not many have. It’s in a different localverse, so the laws of magic are a bit different.”

  Talarius looked to Stainsberry, who smiled and said, “Born and raised in Avalon, which is also where I trained as a Knight of the Elohim.”

  “Where did you two meet, then?” Talarius asked, puzzled at how they could have met at such a young age.

  “The Grove,” the two said at nearly the same time, causing them both to chuckle.

  “The Grove?” Talarius asked. “The bizarre mountain region in Astlan?”

  “And in other worlds. It is a mountain-hedged grove in an extra-dimensional space that resides on multiple worlds of the localverse simultaneously,” Stainsberry told him.

  “It resides on multiple worlds at once?” Talarius frowned. “How is that even possible?”

  “Really good magineering, I’d suspect,” Thrinarv said, bringing his mug up to his lips. After drinking, he lowered and tilted the mug, eyeballing the inside skeptically. “Should have ordered sooner, getting pretty dry in here.”

  “It acts as sort of diplomatic refuge for our localverse,” Stainsberry said. “They have also been very active on Nysegard; however, due to their very close relations with the alvar and the alvaran royalty, they do not work that much with Doom. Certainly not since Orcus was slain. Prince Ariel of Astlan, who alternates with his sister as one of their Elders, is a close ally of Prince Elyas of Etterdam, who was key in the whole Etterdam situation.”

  Talarius shook his head. “Okay, now you have me truly intrigued. How did you each make it to Nysegard and decide to work on the Isle of Doom?”

  “Lad, that’s a long story,” Thrinarv said. “We are going to need quite a bit more ale.”