The Heavenly Host

Antefalken shook his head. “Never heard of it, which is rather strange.”

Tizzy shrugged. “Well, that’s what I call it anyway. It’s a large series of underground caverns.”

“Caverns?” Talarius asked, sounding annoyed. “You want to get us out of this cave by taking us to see caverns? I’m not sure how that’s supposed to be an improvement.”

Tizzy grinned at the knight; the octopod’s red, burning ember-like eyes seemed to glow even more brightly than usual. “Oh, I think you’ll like these caverns. They are truly huge, incredibly beautiful and most of them have crystals dripping from the ceiling and growing from the floors. Rubies, sapphires and diamonds are very abundant.” Tizzy chuckled. “Assuming you ever get back to Astlan, you’re going to need to make amends, and I’m thinking a sizable donation might go a long way to redemption.”

The knight harrumphed. “You cannot buy salvation.” He crossed his arms and sighed. “However, the father church is always in need of resources. I suppose it would be rather ungallant of me to spoil our outing today by complaining; I remove my objection.”

Tizzy chuckled, as did Antefalken.

“We can certainly use some gems when we get back to Astlan. It wasn’t a lot of fun being poor traveling from Gizzor Del to Freehold,” Rupert said.

“We should have bought some bags at Hellsprings Eternal,” Boggy said.

“Do gems work as money in the Courts?” Tom asked Boggy.

Boggy shrugged. “They’re much more valuable in the worlds of men. You can sell them for money in the courts, but they do not have the same sort of value. They are mainly good for jewelry, as decorative items. In Astlan and the other planes, they are a popular way of storing money, but those places don’t have large central banks.”

Tom frowned, “The Courts have a central bank? You mean like one that prints money?” Tizzy nodded. “That seems rather advanced.”

Antefalken shrugged. “Value is a bit different here, and it is tied to power and the ability to do work or get access to physical goods that are useful or wanted. The Abyss is strongly connected to the elemental Plane of Earth and therefore metals and gems are found more easily here than some other planes. The bigger value is in crafting those elements into something useful.” He gestured to Tom’s table and chair.

“So Lilith and Sammael created the central bank to store value, and they issue coins that work as a unit of value to make trade easier,” Boggy continued.

“And that’s what makes them so powerful and feared?” Tom asked.

Boggy and Tizzy shrugged.

Antefalken finally said, “I suppose it’s some of that, but mainly I think it has more to do with the fact that they capture, mercilessly torture and then obliterate and eat the souls of all those who oppose them.”

Tizzy nodded thoughtfully in agreement. “Yeah, that could be it.”

∼

Hilda hurriedly made her way up the stairs to Trisfelt’s quarters. She was running late. It had taken the forensics team more time than expected to copy the balling. It was not a mechanism that was widely used in Tierhallon; however, that might change, given the high quality 3D playback. At any rate, they had eventually got it back to her and she’d popped into the forest around the city at the closest safe distance. She should probably drag Danyel and the horses to the launch point and have him attend the horses. Of course, that would be much more obvious than a single woman on foot in a tweed robe exiting in the predawn hours.

She had gotten back to her hotel room only to find the sword, Ruiden, there. The sword was getting impatient with her lack of progress. Being in a hurry to get to brunch with Trisfelt, she’d tried to brush it off but it was quite insistent, so she’d succumbed and given it a brief rundown of what she knew that wouldn’t be too dangerous to let the sword know.

In short, she had ratted out Lenamare as the demon’s master. It was true — not that Lenamare was going to be doing anything about such a fact in the near future. He had been quite clear that he had no desire to try summoning the demon any time soon. She was reasonably certain that Lenamare and Jehenna would be more than capable of dealing with the walking sword on equal footing; something she doubted most mortals could claim.

She knocked on Trisfelt’s doors. It took but a few seconds for the wizard to respond and open the door with a warm smile.

“So good to see you again this late morning, my dear!” Trisfelt welcomed her cheerily.

Hilda smiled and grasped his arm in warm greeting. “So good to see you. I trust you had sufficient time to recuperate this morning?” she asked.

“Mostly... I’m thinking I may need a bit of medicine, perhaps a Bloody Tatania?” The wizard asked, ushering her into his quarters.