The Heavenly Host

“You have to admit, Ramses,” Bess said in defense of Lenamare, “the book was, or is, in Astlan, which is something that in my opinion justifies Exador’s attention.”

“True,” Ramses conceded. “Has Lenamare made any progress?”

Exador shrugged. “I rather doubt it. Apparently, two of his wizards have disappeared with Trevin D’Vils on some crazy quest. Therefore, I have to imagine he is quite shorthanded with his school. Further, I suspect he would be the one in charge of proving that I am an archdemon.”

Bess shrugged and took a sip of her delicious beverage. “That is whom I’d hire. Those wards were quite remarkable.” Exador glared at her.

She chuckled. “What is this crazy quest?”

Exador shrugged. “I have no idea. It is tied to some visions by Lenamare’s sorcerer and this seer from the Society of Learned Fellows. Trevin is leading it for the Council.”

“The Society of Learned Fellows?” Ramses asked, sounding surprised. “They still exist?” Lenamare waved his hand, indicating that they apparently did.

“This Trevin — remind me who she is again? I am not as familiar with Astlan as the two of you,” Bess said.

“She’s the Enchantress of the Grove,” Exador said.

“The Grove? Is that a health food store or something?” Bess asked, causing Ramses to snort Denubian Choco-Coffee^TM through his nose.

Exador grinned as well. “No, it’s some sort of extradimensional refugee camp for misfits, losers and tree-huggers.”

“A homeless shelter then,” Ramses snarked.

“As I recall, a rather difficult homeless shelter that caused you more than a little grief,” Exador said to Ramses.

The archdemon grimaced. “They are tenacious and have some very powerful defenses. We eventually gave up on them.”

“Well then, let us simply assume that these quest people are out of the picture, and hindering Lenamare’s progress with the book,” Bess said.

“I should think it would,” Exador agreed.

“We really need to get that thing into our hands and safely back in the Abyss,” Ramses said.

“Safely in the Abyss?” Exador asked. “I might question how safe this place is for that book.”

“Can you think of any place Lenamare is less likely to follow it?” Ramses asked. “After all, he sent his agents into Oorstemoth. There are very few places he won’t go.”

“I guess that leaves Tierhallon, or one of the Sibling realms,” Bess joked.

“Yes, there’s an idea. Hand the book over to Tiernon and see the end of the Abyss,” Ramses said. “He would use it to slay every single demon permanently.”

“Terribly unsociable fellow, it seems.” Bess grinned.

∼

Sam stared out over the valley from the ledge of Tom’s cave. The cave was decidedly empty. He had been monitoring it for some time. Tom and his entourage had left on some expedition the day after he had met them at Hellsprings Eternal. They had not returned as he had expected. They had been gone for a good five days now.

The more troubling thing was that during the night, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had left their clandestine post as well. That meant Lilith was not expecting Tom to return either. Had she captured them? Surely his spies in her camp would have alerted him. Wouldn’t they?

Sam turned and reentered the cave. He had scoured it several times, both physically and magically, and there really was no clue as to where they might have gone. He felt thwarted. He did not like being thwarted.

Had he been spotted spying on them? Lilith’s toadies had no idea he had been monitoring them and the cave. He had spotted Rosencrantz and Guildenstern immediately, and shielded himself from them on several levels. They were incredibly inept, but it was possible, and in fact quite likely, that Tom was far more capable of spotting him than those two.

Of course, one reason for introducing himself as he had was to try to win the demon’s friendship. Tom had seemed receptive, so if he had been spotted, would Tom not have confronted him? Unless, of course, someone had recognized him.

Tom had not seemed to recognize him. Certainly, Sam did not have a clue who Tom was. He was sure the two of them had never met. Antefalken the bard, he knew; however, the bard should not have been able to see through his disguise. He was very tightly disguised on all levels in this almost never-used form.

The incubus and the two friends, Boggy and Estrebrius, were known entities and of no consequence. The mini-Tom demon was an unknown, as much as was Tom. Then there was Tisdale.

That walking, talking clown was always around when something big was about to happen. He had a way of always being at the fringes of everything important. He never got involved, never took sides; in retrospect, that was probably why he was still alive. Could Tizzy have recognized him?

While Tizzy was only a fiend, he was a very old fiend. Sam had known of Tizzy for longer than just about any demon other than Lilith. While they rarely traveled in the same circles, a meeting every few decades over countless millennia did breed a certain level of familiarity.