The Heavenly Host

Rather odd, but then the entire region had a slightly odd feeling to it. This region, after the last boom tunnel, seemed especially desolate. Which was, Tom admitted, a rather tough feeling to pin down, since the Abyss itself was thinly populated to begin with. Actually, other than people coming to visit him, Tom never saw other demons in the Abyss except at the Courts and at Hellsprings Eternal. Agh, Tom thought to himself as his own back twinged from exertion. He would need another massage after this trip.

“Here we go...” Tizzy pointed to the cavern entrance, which was probably twenty feet high and perhaps ten to fifteen wide. Plenty big enough for everyone except Tom, for whom it was basically a rather narrow hallway. “We have about a half-hour hike through the corridors until we reach the first of the large caverns. At that point, we enter a long sequence of caverns of different styles. All a wonder to behold!”

“Talarius, you’re going to want to turn your armor light on,” Rupert said.

“Very well, demon,” Talarius agreed, once again not wanting to reveal that his helm let him see in the dark on multiple levels.

Tizzy chuckled. “Once we get to the caverns, both stone and crystal, we will all want light. Black-and-white night sight does not do this place justice. Especially the crystalline and mirrored caverns.”

“We need to go single file, or at least I do,” Tom said. “Tizzy, since you know where we are going, why don’t you go first? Then me, then Talarius and Reggie, Rupert and Estrebrius. Boggy and Antefalken, bring up the rear? Everyone stay together, we don’t want to get separated and lost.”

The others nodded. Tizzy shrugged and headed in with Tom following. The cavern tunnel was mostly fine, plenty of headroom for Tom. At a few points as they made their way it dipped to about thirteen feet, but Tom had no serious problems as long as he did not stretch to his tallest height.

Actually, the floor was surprisingly smooth and level for a natural cavern. It was not perfect, but it was relatively flat and not V shaped as he might have expected for something so ravine like. Of course, the same was true of his own cave. Tom frowned; actually, he really was not sure how caves and such had come to be in the Abyss. There was neither rain nor any kind of water for erosion, and not much in the way of wind. At least not severe wind, from what he had seen. It was just hot. Okay, some regions were dusty and there were volcanos and lava, but by and large, normal weather would not have shaped things like they had on Earth, or Astlan for that matter.

They walked down the tunnel for some time, perhaps fifteen minutes, before they came to a branch in the tunnel. Tizzy took the left turn. “I always go left,” the demon told them, looking over his shoulder. “I find it more sinister; which is something I appreciate as a demon.”

Tom shrugged. The demon was making about as much sense as ever. If they did stick to that path, then tracing their way back should be easier. They just needed a better way to tell distance. It was a bit irritating to have no mechanism for telling time. Tom was used to just pulling out his iPhone, or before that his iPod Touch, to check the time. He would settle for one of his watches, which he never wore. Of course, it was not clear what good that would do, since Astlan had a twenty-hour day and the Abyss had no nights or any real time at all. How did demons know when to meet up with each other?

“Antefalken?” Tom asked.

“Yes?” the bard replied from behind him.

“You’ve dealt with the higher-ups in the Courts, who presumably have meetings and gatherings and such...”

“Yes.”

“With no night or day, how do demons know when to show up for a meeting, or party or gathering?” Tom asked.

“Any decent party lasts a couple days and you can come anytime,” Boggy said.

Antefalken chuckled. “The princes and archdemons can summon their followers by tugging on their links to them. They just summon them when they feel like it. They can get a feel for their minion’s distance from the link and so have an idea how long it will be.”

“And there is a clock in the tower of the Notorious Dame,” Tizzy interjected.

“What’s it based on?” Tom asked.

“Legend has it that the Abyssal day is defined as the maximum time Sammael and Lilith can stay in the same room and not try and kill each other,” Tizzy replied.

“Is that true?” Rupert asked, rather surprised.

Tizzy shrugged. “About as true as any of the other legends.”

“It is not, however, tied to Astlan time,” Antefalken said. “It’s mainly used for relative time measurement in the Courts. No one outside the Courts would have any idea what Court Time was.”

“There are 666 deminutes in the day,” Tizzy said. “That is then divided by six into periods of the day, each 111 deminutes long.”

“So deminutes are pretty long units of time.” Tom said.