The Heavenly Host

“Perhaps.” Randolf shrugged. “There are not a lot of good ways for him to salvage something like this. He’ll need to come up with some good excuses as to who his compatriots are and why they were out there on a carpet, as well as provide counter suggestions as to who the archdemons were, if not he and his compatriots.”

“That seems like a very tall order,” Crispin observed. “However, probably not as hard as convincing Ruiden that he is not responsible for the demon that kidnapped Talarius.”

Randolf chuckled. “Either way, I should hope so; I don’t want Exador wiggling out of this. He needs to be exposed once and for all,” he said. “I’m going to need the Council’s help to banish him from this plane for eternity.”

Crispin chuckled. “I am reasonably certain that, no matter what else, Lenamare will volunteer to help you!”

Randolf grinned back at the djinn as he moved in for a kiss.

∼

Hilda sighed as she relaxed in her bubble bath. It had been a somewhat vexing day. She had spent a good deal of it doing what she called “deep snooping.” She had tried, unsuccessfully, to detect any signs of Lenamare being a warlock. Quite difficult, it turned out. They had all eaten lunch today and Hilda had noted that while Lenamare was famous for so many things, it was clear that his true forte was conjury. She had gently pleaded with him to recount how he had decided and then succeeded in becoming the preeminent expert on demonology in the world; unsurprisingly, it had not taken much effort.

The “interview” had taken another three hours. Poor Trisfelt had had it far worse, and the poor man was nodding off every few minutes after the first hour. However, it was amusing to watch Jehenna’s reactions to some of Lenamare’s accounts. Between Jehenna’s reactions and Hilda’s own truth readings, she felt like she was getting a fairly accurate accounting. That was what was so frustrating. There was not much there.

After that first hour, she decided to get a bit more technical; something she could do given her own knowledge of multiversal topology. Those classes in Tierhallon had finally been useful for something! She kept the admiration going, but peppered the dialog with observations and technical questions that she knew the answer to so as to get him to dig deeper and reveal information that a normal mortal would not, particularly when it came to bindings, links and similar magic. The large basket of wines she had brought as a lunch gift also helped Lenamare relax; but again, to no avail.

She eventually had to dial it back as Jehenna started to show signs of puzzlement at Hilda’s rather advanced knowledge. Lenamare was too wrapped up in his own story to notice, but Jehenna, having heard it all before, could pay more attention to Hilda. That was dangerous, so Hilda worked to assuage her concerns by emphasizing her general animage training. Jehenna would have no knowledge of that. Hilda also purposefully mentioned a few common misperceptions and mistakes people made, so as not to seem too much the expert.

During all of this she had also had her saint sight on; yet again, to no avail. For one thing, the man had a lot of links and bindings on him. Jehenna quite a few herself. All of them, however, seemed to be traditional one-way bindings or very simple link spells. She traced them all and saw nothing remotely similar to a clerical upstream link, which is what she supposed a warlock would have.

The long conversation had given her plenty of opportunity to examine him, and it was truly frustrating! The man seemed to be exactly what he said he was. Further, his ego was so clear in all of this, she was not sure he was even capable of collaborating with another wizard who was not subservient to him, let alone a greater demon or higher.

She took a sip of sparkling wine. She had needed to stay sober this afternoon while the others had gone through that exquisite collection of fine wines. So frustrating to not fully enjoy those luscious wines. Tonight, though, she would make amends. She plucked a chocolate-covered strawberry from the table beside her and bit into it, relishing the sweetness.

∼

Ragala-nargoloth was roused from her slumber by a very odd sound. The shaman sat up on her cot and looked around her tent. It was a rattling noise and it seemed to be coming from a chest on the other side of the tent. The chest she actually used as a table because she had not needed anything in the chest for a decade or more.

“What in the dried-up tusk of Risk Athanon’s mug could that be?” Ragala-nargoloth climbed out of bed, made her way to the chest, and quickly began taking items off the lid so she could open it. After clearing the tabletop, she opened the lid.