Into The Abyss (Demons of Astlan) (77 page)

"No, not at all."  Damien said.  "However an individual who was addressed
in conversation as Ramses and met all the descriptions of Ramses the Damned was sighted walking in the halls of this building.  So either: someone is impersonating Ramses the Damned, the line didn't die out like we believed, or it's the same person.  If it's the same person, then he might very well be a demon."

"Or a really old Anilord.  You know the sort of things those people were supposed to be able to do."   Gandros pointed out, "further, Ramses the Damned was the leader of the Time Warriors.  It's also possible that he figured out some way to physically escape forward in time or put himself in some sort of suspended animation."

"Wasn't he in fact slain by Exador's ancestor?  The Arch-Vicar General Exador, then leader of the Rod?"  Trevin asked.  "Perhaps an interesting coincidence that he is seen again in the same place that the current Exador has shown up."

"Are you suggesting he's come back for revenge?"  Davron asked.

"Perhaps he's aligned with Lenamare?"  Sier interjected.

"Interesting
, admittedly, but Lenamare doesn't strike me as the type to want such help."  Alexandros stated.

"I doubt it, I think those people of Lenamare's that I've talked to would have known about Ramses before if he was with Lenamare.  After all, it was
they who spotted Ramses."  Damien said.

"Very convenient."  Davron replied.  Damien looked at him slightly askance.

"Well it is certainly unlikely that he'd be aligned with Exador.  Given the family history."  Tureledor stated.

"So that leads us back to the independent operator theory, and the question of an arch-demon third party."  Gandros summed up.

"So what do we do?"  Trevin asked.

"Well for one thing, t
oo many questionable people are entering and leaving this city.  Too many powerful people.  We should do now what we should have done sooner.  Put a lock down on the gates and ward the city so no one can come in or out magically without sufficient effort that would alert us."   Gandros stated.

"Won't that be seen as an act of war by those outside?"  Sier asked timidly.

"Isn't laying siege to a city an act of war?"  Trevin asked acerbically.

"You both have a point, but we'll do it in as nonthreatening manner as possible. 
I will send messengers that we are putting a containment field around the city so that we can ensure the parties in question don't flee the city unlawfully."  Gandros said.  "Any other objections?" 

They all looked at each other but no one said anything.  "Very well, Trevin, I'd like you and Alexandros to gather the relevant people necessary to do the magical side of the job as soon as possible."  Trevin nodded at Gandros.  "I will instruct the Lord Marshall myself."

"Uhhm," Sier hesitated, "once we do that, won't the demons be trapped inside with us?  How will we get rid of them?"

"Good point."  Damien agreed.

"Admittedly, however, I am more concerned with new parties coming in than those going out; despite what we shall tell the rest of the world. Nonetheless, Trevin, Alexandros, make the wards more unidirectional in terms of super naturals.  Preventative for those coming in and only alerting for those going out non-physically.  Once we get rid of the demons we can change things so no one gets in or out."  Gandros stated.

"So then, how do we get rid of the demons?"  Davron asked.

"I'm working on that.  I think we will have to start eliminating them ourselves and just hope that we can do it fast enough to prevent bloodshed."  Gandros told them.

"And how do you propose to do that?"  Damien asked, interested.

"As I said, I'm still working on it.  When I have it worked out, I'll let you know because I'll probably want your help, Damien." 

~

"Good evening, Wing Arms Master."  Admiral Heron spun in surprise at the voice behind him on the sterncastle deck.  Standing on the deck was, apparently, the wizard Exador, whom he'd dealt with briefly on the Exador-Lenamare artifact investigation.  "I am afraid I must beg your pardon for not asking prior approval to come aboard.  However, the means of transport necessary for arriving here without alerting certain miscreants denied me the ability to do so.  I am fully willing to pay any penalty deemed necessary for such an intrusion, after the current matters at hand are resolved."

Heron
frowned; he was not at all pleased by such an action.  It was a gross violation of protocol and law, even if for an understandable reason.  However, if Exador truly was willing to pay the price for such an action later then he could tolerate it for the moment.  He hoped he wouldn't regret it.  "What brings you to my ship uninvited Exador, assuming for the moment I am willing to allow justice to be postponed on the matter of your approach."

Exador smiled grimly.  "Out of my sense of duty and honor for the prosecution of justice, I thought it best to inform you that not only have I ascertained that Lenamare is in this city
; the people mentioned in your warrant are also here and I am further aware that he truly does have the artifact he so perniciously stole from the sovereign lands of Oorstemoth."

"You are sure?"

"I have seen him with my own eyes, and seen the book in his hands.  So help me on all I hold sacred.  I doubt even the Council of Wizards is so fraudulent as to claim other than that Lenamare is present, even if they don't know of the book.  However, I  may also assure you as to the book's presence and further that it is the same individuals you seek that most recently delivered the book into Lenamare's hands."

Heron's eyes seemed to glow in the dark.  "Are you telling me that the vile miscreants who sunk our
Constabulary Vessel had the book with them at the time?"

"Indeed they did, and it was fear of exposure to this crime among many more that caused them to behave in the reprehensible manner in which they did."

"The heathen savages.  How despicable of them.  Their traitorous actions simply compound themselves."  Heron was visibly annoyed, not that he hadn't almost expected something of the sort.

"Further, if one were to investigate a little farther, one would find that they are consorting with an entire horde of demons.  With which they are holding the city to their sway.  One need only ask the Rod members for confirmation of this."

"Really?  Demon hordes in the city?"  Heron was appalled; this was starting to get unbelievable.  "So why are you still there, Exador?  I would assume you'd wish to exit to some more pleasant surroundings."

"Admiral, these vile evil doers have
vindictively and unjustifiably tarnished my good name and besmirched my honor through their false accusations, of which you are aware.  Further, they are threatening the lives of a great number of innocent people within the city.  Do you think I could leave, when such a gross violation of the law and common decency was at hand.  I seek these people brought to the justice they so richly deserve.  I have stayed to see that they get it.  Now that  you have arrived, I am certain that they will, and I wait to be of assistance to your lawful arrest of these perfidious individuals." 

Heron stared at Exador for a moment, trying to decide how much he believed.  "Very well, Lord Exador, your valor and steadfast devotion to justice will be noted.  I am sure it will be in your favor on the
inquisition over your illicit boarding practices.  Are you or any of your people capable of watching this vessel from in the castle?"

"Certainly, admiral."

"Very well then, we will be in touch with you via mirrors, I trust your people understand the standard code?"

"I will assign someone who does."

"Very good.  If you have no other information to impart, I will be in touch."  Heron said, dismissing the wizard.  Exador nodded somewhat stern fully and vanished.

~

Edwyrd sat in his bed listening to Rupert’s breath ease into slumber.  Even if he did sleep, he probably wouldn’t have been able to, given all the insanity outside the gate and inside the gate.  He could, of course, just duck out to the Abyss to escape; however, Gastrope had admitted to him that if he were in the Abyss, Lenamare could summon him again.  As long as he was in Astlan, Lenamare would have to know where he was to bind him. 

So, basically, as long as he stayed in Astlan and didn’t reveal himself to Lenamare, he was safe.  If had to be in this stewpot, he wanted to be his own agent, not a slave to Lenamare with no real choice in his actions.  He supposed he could pop back to the
Abyss and then hunt for a wizard to let him back in to Astlan; however that didn’t work so well last time, and what about the others?  He had promised to help them.

He propped himself up on a couple pillows and grabbed one of the smaller books Maelen had set aside for him.  It was fairly dark in the room, just the soft glow
from the lights of the city coming in through the open windows; however he could adjust his demon sight so as to easily read the book.

Interestingly enough, it was in cursive English.  Or was it?  He had to squint a couple times, but realized that it wasn’t actually normal cursive English; but he had no trouble understanding what it meant.  He tried reading aloud, it was in the same
language he was speaking: Astlanian apparently.

Hortwell and Lenamare were going over a few additional calculations near the runic gateway when the light from the gate suddenly went out, leaving them with only the torch ligh
t in the dungeon room rather than the morning sunlight through the gateway.  Simultaneously they looked to the now closed portal. 

"It went out."  Hortwell stated.  "It isn't supposed to do that."

Lenamare was frowning.  "Someone must have put up wards around either the palace or the city."

"Exador?"  Hortwell asked.

"Possibly, but I doubt he'd be that brazen.  It must be the council.  Perhaps they are getting an inkling of the number of recent arrivals."

"Or fear more?
Or are preparing for attack?"  Hortwell added.  "Is it bidirectional? Can it be unidirectional even?  We couldn’t do that."

"I'm not sure.  At the very
least, it is incoming, that would make sense, and possibly outgoing or maybe just warning for outgoing.  Assuming they’re what I built for them, they are considerably more versatile and tunable than what we had.   When I downscaled for the keep, I had to give up a lot of functionality; and while I did make a lot of improvements, we simply didn’t have the staff to do something so customizable.”  Lenamare replied.

“
Unfortunately, there is no way I can tell without risking alerting whoever controls the wards.  Either incoming or outgoing would shut off a Runic Gateway though.  The question is how tight is it?  I had really hoped to use this gateway as an escape route if things went bad.  Any thoughts on reactivating it by punching through the wards in an emergency?"

"Good question.  Also given the distance that will make it harder.  It might be possible to do some retuning to a closer gateway, like the Rod's.  Given their proximity, the power required would be
much less, and hence we’d have more energy to break the wards.  Of course the Rod is not exactly the best place to escape to."  Hortwell told Lenamare.

"True, but at least they have nothing against me, and they are honest.  The same can't exactly be said about the Oorstemothians."

"Well to be fair, the Oorstemothians are technically honest, too honest, in their own strange way."  Hortwell said.

"
Inconveniently honest.  They want the book back, even if they don't know what it is.  I don't relish facing them directly and having to refuse to return it.  That's the sort of bloodshed that will cause them to be an annoyance for a good number of years afterward."  Lenamare said sourly.

"Whatever," Lenamare said getting up from his stool.  "I know you can't physically retune the gateway with the wards up, and without trying to break them.  But if you could at least make the necessary calculations and
preparations so we can do it if and when we may need to?"  Hortwell nodded, and Lenamare smiled with an answering nod and left the room.

~

“Well, this is going to be inconvenient.”  Jehenna harrumphed looking out the window.

“What?”  Jenn asked, since she was the only other person in the room, she assumed Jehenna was talking to her.  She was assisting Jehenna with grinding materials for yet another attempt at the book in the next day or so.

Jehenna glared at her, apparently for interrupting her not so internal monologue.   “The council has set up wards around the entire city.  Most likely to keep the Oorstemothians and Rod at bay.  Since I’m not a part of the link, I can’t easily tell the settings; but the most common thing would be to lock out all magical and physical ingress to the city.  Meaning, it will have cut off our Runic gateway.”

“Where are we going to dump the horse manure?  An
d get more food for the horses?”  Was Jenn’s first thought, thinking about the army and all the horses cooped up in the dungeon.  Her second was that it was a good thing Trisfelt and the kids had gotten inside without a moment to spare yesterday.  Although he hadn’t been at breakfast this morning, which was odd.

Jehenna shook her head in frustration at her.  “Who cares?”  Jehenna turned away from the window. 
“That’s the least of our worries.”

Jenn nodded, her eyes suddenly got wide as she realized the other implication.  “So no one or thing can get in or out, right?”
 

“That’s what I just said.”  Jehenna glared at her in exasperation.

“So we’re all trapped in here with the hundreds of invisible demons?”  Jenn turned a Gatropian shade of pale.

Jehenna looked at her as if she were drunk.  “What are you talking about?”

Her tone really annoyed Jenn.  “I mean the hundreds of minor demons that line every single corridor of the palace, and which are all hidden by invisibility spells, of course.  I assumed you and Master Lenamare were aware of them.  The rest of us know about them, and the council is trying to figure out who they belong to.”

Jehenna was rock still staring at Jenn.  “How do you know this?” 
She asked coldly.

Jenn glared back at her.  “Even a
thaumaturge like myself can see them if I look.”  She hadn’t looked but she wanted to stick it to Jehenna.  “We: Gastropé, Maelen, Edwyrd and I discovered them and reported them to the council.”  She was exaggerating, she hadn’t found any, but she was sick of Jehenna’s know-it-all attitude.

“I thought you were a member of the council? 
Don’t they inform you of these things?”  Jenn asked, as innocently as she could, without gloating, as she watched a series of very bizarre emotions twitch across the woman’s face.

Jenn decided it was a good thing that Jehenna couldn’t breathe
fire or Jenn would probably be roasted alive.   “Of course, I know about this.  I simply find it amazing that a lowly student could be privy to council business!”

Jehenna turned and stormed out of the room.  Jenn smiled brightly; this had to be the best conversation she’d ever had with that woman. 
So, maybe demon hordes are useful,
Jenn thought to herself.

~

“So what, or who, are these Oorstemothians?”  Edwyrd asked Maelen and Gastropé as they stood atop the outer wall, peering through the wards at the sky fleet.  A very impressive fleet, Edwyrd had to admit.

Gastrop
é shrugged and looked to Maelen.  The Seer cleared his throat.  “Oorstemoth is a nation-state south-east of here.   To come out of the sunset, they must have flown through a western pass, keeping low to the ground to avoid attention.  Which would make sense.”  Maelen shrugged.

“
They are a very prosperous nation that supplies a lot of food to both Norelon and Eton.  They are also a huge bureaucracy, and unlike most states have no intrinsic lords, just higher and higher levels of office.”

“They’re also a pain in the ass from what I’ve heard.”  Gastrop
é interjected.

Maelen nodded in agreement.  “That is one way of putting it.”  The Seer chuckled.  “They believe in law and order and procedure to a rather inconceivable extreme.”

“Sounds very sluggish and inefficient.  Bureaucracies are a big problem.”  Edwyrd noted.

“One would think; they are elsewhere.”  Maelen shook his head.  “However, they’ve been around for over a thousand years and they pretty much have a rule for everything and so can be ruthlessly efficient when need be.”

“So why are they pursuing us?”  Edwyrd asked.

“You don’t know?” Maelen asked
, surprised.  They shook their heads.  “We sunk one of their naval vessels that was trying to arrest Asmeth and his crew.  That would have annoyed them a great deal.

“
They consider such acts illegal, crimes that must be punished.”  Maelen told them.

“Why did they want Asmeth?” Gastrope’ asked.

“And it seemed more like they were trying to sink Asmeth, rather than arrest him.”

“He is, or most likely was
, a smuggler and apparently wanted in Oorstemoth.  He hired your group to defend his ship from the Oorstemothians.”

“He said we were there to fight pirates.”  Gastrop
é responded in shock.

“If
one is a pirate, or in this case a smuggler, a country’s navy, from your perspective, are effectively pirates; I should suppose.”  Maelen gave him a thin smile.  “And I am sure he’d been tried in absentia and been found guilty; and of course, anyone assisting him would also be guilty.

“And the words summary justice and eradication were used in presenting their warrant, so I’m pretty sure we too have been tried in absentia; and found guilty and sentenced to death.

The two young men shook their heads, trying to understand.  “How on earth did they find us so quickly?”  Edwyrd asked.  Gastropé was looking a new, more nuanced shade of pale, Edwyrd noted.

“They have spies everywhere.  I am sure they were
boarding Asmeth’s ship and arresting its crew even as we scurried out of town.  They may also have spies among the Rod and in Freehold”  Maelen explained.

“Isn’t spying sort of an illegal activity?”  Gastrope’ asked, “These guys are all law and order you said.”

Maelen shook his head, “Perspective lad, perspective.  Spying to preserve the law? For the greater good?  Completely legal, if you write the law that way.”  Maelen shook his head, “Yes, they are very due process oriented, but if you aren’t an Oorstemothian, then well, anything against foreign threats is fair game.”

~

After what seemed like an interminable period of time, Lord Gandros finally opened his door, allowing Lenamare to storm in, uninvited, Jehenna behind him.   Gandros stepped back in surprise.  “Master Lenamare, Mistress Jehenna what a surprise; I was just sitting down to lunch.”

Lenamare shook his head in annoyance and Gandros’ protestations.  “I’m sorry, but I’ve recently become aware that there seems to have been a change in policy in the Palace and I wanted to discuss it with you.”

“A change in policy?  Whatever are you talking about?”  Gandros asked.

“All the invisible demons lining the halls?  Spying on people?”  Jehenna asked sharply.

“Ahh, those.”  Gandros said, relaxing a bit and taking a seat in a large overstuff chair.  He gestured to the other two to sit down.  “I take it from your irritated tone, that they don’t belong to you?”

Lenamare did a double take and looked back to the Archimage as if he were insane.   “Me, why would I have hundreds of demons running around the palace.  Not even I am egotistical enough to think I could control that man
y.”

“Hmm,” Gandros nodded and stared off in thought for a bit.  “Well, that does narrow the field.”

“Since they aren’t the council’s and you know about them, why weren’t we informed of them?” Jehenna asked.  “As Council members, we should be apprised of such situations.”

Gandros arched an eyebrow and simply stared at her for a few moments.  “As a Council member, you also have a right and might I say duty, to show up for Council meetings?  Other than hearings pertaining to your own situation with Exador
, you two, along with Exador, Randolf and Zilquar, have all been absent from recent meetings.  One should hope you’d forgive us for not posting public notice about the palace.”

Lenamare made a harrumphing noise, unable to refute the
chancellor.  “So,” Lenamare said after a moment.  “What is the plan to get rid of them?”

“We are still working on that; if you have any suggestions, we are open to them.”  Gandros told him.  Lenamare went silent and stared at the unused logs in the fireplace, apparently thinking.

Jehenna took the silence to ask Gandros, “How long have they been here?”

Gandros looked a bit sour; “Unfortunately, we don’t know for sure, one should hope not that long, given
that no one noticed.  Your associates, the ones with the two animages, found them and alerted Damien shortly after their arrival.”

“Hmm, most annoying they chose not to inform us as well.”  Jehenna snorted
, ignoring, of course, the fact that Jenn had informed her.  Gandros shrugged.

“There is a way we could banish them from the city.”  Lenamare stated suddenly after several more minutes of uncomfortable silence. 

“Yes?”  Gandros asked.

“It will require some work
, but we could utilize the city wards along with some parasympathetic wards I would create to sort of suck all the demons out of the city, physically.”

“Interesting,” Gandros beamed suddenly excited.  “and will it be strong enough to also compel the three archdemons that are wondering around the palace?”

“The what?”  Lenamare and Jehenna asked in shocked unison.