The Heavenly Host

Tizzy shrugged and Antefalken said, “Well, it’s completely arbitrary, since there is no Fierd here. That’s just the schedule they use for night and day simulation in the courts. You start with two periods of daylight: morning and afternoon. Following that you have one period of evening or dusk where it gets darker, and then two periods of darkness, first night and second night. Finally, or technically firstly, you have one period of dawn where it gets progressively lighter.”

Rupert had been fiddling with his fingers. “So basically, 333 deminutes is ten hours in Astlan?”

“Maybe.” Tizzy shrugged.

“Okay, thirty-three deminutes is roughly an hour in Astlan, so eleven deminutes is a third of an hour. Nothing rounds nicely,” Rupert complained.

Boggy chuckled. “It’s not really worth wasting your time on, since no two demons can ever agree on the time of day. It’s actually a miracle that Sammael and Lilith were able to agree on that stupid clock.”

Tom chuckled. At least he had gotten people talking; they had been pretty silent up until the branch. He supposed it was recovery from the long flight. Unfortunately, as the efforts of the flight wore off, his own fidgety, wired feeling was returning, along with that weird feeling of having overeaten. If it had been food, the feeling would have passed, literally. However, he had no idea how to get rid of mana stuffing, other than to start blasting fireballs all over the place. That did not seem particularly productive.

The group marched on for another five deminutes or so, Tom guessed, and then took another left at a split. From there they travelled about the same distance before the tunnel opened up into a larger cavern. They spread out upon entering and Talarius turned up the lighting to reveal a massive cavern full of stalactites and stalagmites.

“Whoa!” Rupert breathed out.

Tizzy turned around and spread his arms, his brightly glowing red eyes wide with rare joy. “Wander and wonder! See the wonders of the SubAbyss! The UnterAbyss!”

“Everyone stay in the cavern — we don’t want to hunt you all down if you wander off!” Tom called. Why did he feel like a schoolteacher on a field trip? Tom smiled as he made his way around the giant cavern. He was pretty sure caves were new to Rupert. He himself had been to a few smaller caverns. Indian Caverns and Indian Echo Caverns in Pennsylvania, and when he was little, one in Arizona on a family vacation. This cavern was huge and incredibly impressive. He scanned the ceiling, wondering if there were any bats. He did not expect to see any — they would have to be bats out of — or rather, still in — hell. He shook his head.

Tom paused, looking at one of the stalactites. How did stalactites and stalagmites form in the Abyss where there was no moisture? He rubbed his fingers together. Yes, the cave was cooler than outside, but it was still quite dry. You needed moisture for this sort of cavern structure to form, pretty much by definition. Tom furrowed his brow and then shook his head. He supposed it was getting a bit too late to start questioning the landscape features of the Abyss. There was no way those crazy pillars could have formed either.

If he started questioning things like these rocks, he would have to start questioning all of his current reality. Tom was pretty sure nothing in his current reality could handle too much scrutiny, so better stop while he was ahead. Or at least, stop before he started drowning.

Tizzy eventually led them out the leftmost of three exits, relative to the one through which they had entered the cavern. This was a fairly narrow slit passage at an angle. Tom’s companions, being sufficiently smaller, had no serious problem, but it was tricky for Tom, as the angle of floor and ceiling were such that he could not stand upright and had to hunch over, his wings scraping on the roof.

The slit passage led to another large cavern, this one strewn with large boulders and sharp protrusions here and there. As they crossed the cavern, Talarius’s light lit up a deep chasm about ten feet across that spanned the cavern.

“We’ll need to hop over,” Tizzy said as he came up behind Talarius to lift him and fly him over. Talarius gave the chasm what Tom could only surmise was a sour look, thanks to the knight’s helmet hiding his face. He assumed the knight did not like having to cross a chasm he could not return across on his own power.

Leaving the other side of the cave through the only exit, the group made their way about a hundred feet to the entrance of another large room.

Tizzy stopped and turned to face them. “Okay, magic lamp,” he said, pointing to Talarius, “time to turn up the light as we enter the first room of what I call the Corundum Corridor.”

Talarius’s armor started glowing brighter and brighter until the demons were all blinking as their eyes adapted to the light. The first thing they noted was blue. Lots and lots of blue in the room behind Tizzy. Tizzy turned and entered everyone else followed.

“Holy shite,” Boggy muttered.