The Heavenly Host

Antefalken held his hands open in front of him. “Sorry. I’m a bard, not a wizard. I can read some runes and do a few small tricks to entertain people, but wizardry is not one of my skills.”

“You don’t suppose I can get him to cast a familiar binding spell on himself, do you?” Tom asked jokingly.

Antefalken looked thoughtful for a moment. “You know, there might be some logic in that.”

Tom shook his head. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Well, think about it. He is subjecting himself to your will, giving himself up to be your warlock. It seems only fitting that he should be the one who does the binding, so that there is no question of his doing it of his own free will. It is an unusual sort of thing, but you can also frame it as a test for him. Have him do this; it will test his resolve to see if he is serious. He would probably have to go away and figure out how to do it; this would give him plenty of time to reconsider his actions. You could also make it clear that there will be no punishment if he changes his mind.”

Tom thought for a moment. That did make a lot of sense. The wizard would have to be really committed to wanting to do this. He would need to do the act of binding himself; he would thus be forced to feel the pressure of what he was doing and maybe rethink things. It would make the man’s decision and Tom’s acceptance of the bargain much more real.

“I think you are right. It would also make me feel better about this. He would have to really want to do it, and this would give him a way out.” Tom nodded his head, liking this decision a lot better.

∼

^{DOF +2}

^{Night 15-19-440}

Hilda helped Danyel get into bed; the poor lad was extremely deep in his cups, as they used to say. She smiled as she tucked the lad in. When they had arrived he had been led off to join the servants for dinner, and apparently, they were celebrating as well.

The evening had been quite taxing; she had really had to play the part. Lenamare and Jehenna were truly a handful, but the information had been quite worthwhile. She wished she understood wizardry better so she could have gotten a better handle on the wards; but hopefully she would be able to recall enough details to be useful.

She had gotten Lenamare and Jehenna’s side of the story about what happened at the school, and the summoning of the demon that eventually captured Talarius. A very odd story, yet while she had had to work to sift out Lenamare’s braggadocio, she was fairly certain that the base story was correct. It corroborated with what Trisfelt had said and he had not significantly objected to Lenamare’s telling, other than the occasional rolled eye or raised eyebrow.

She still had no clear idea of why Exador had decided to lay siege to the school; they were keeping that a secret. She did not buy the story of professional jealousy, unless this Exador was an even bigger egomaniac than Lenamare, which would be a feat.

This business about Exador and the two others on the flying carpet was quite interesting. Ramses the Damned? Obviously, she had heard about him and the Time Warriors, but they were well before her time, and had proved more problematic on Norelon than Eton. Nonetheless, his reputation was enough to make anyone nervous. As to this suspicion that the third was some defunct goddess? Hilda shrugged as she made her way to the bathroom to prepare her evening soak. Well, she would run it by the archons, but it seemed far more likely that it was just another archdemon that looked similar.

Hilda did not know much about the Nyjyr Ennead, other than they were a pagan religion that had been evicted from Astlan, as well as Etterdam and other surrounding planes. It just seemed inconceivable that any deity, no matter how down on their luck, would sink to slumming with demons, let alone pretend to be a simple archdemon. Pagan deities had even bigger egos than Lenamare; that was what made them and their avatars so difficult to deal with.

Chapter 93

^{DOF +3}

^Morning

Gastropé tried to carefully untangle himself from Ashea and Eshea, the two nymph sisters who had fallen asleep on top of him last night. As he stumbled out of the sleeping alcove, he fumbled with adjusting his clothes. He really wished he remembered more of last night. He gave the buxom, nude young women in his bed another look in the dim light of the fairy globe that had been lit by the youthful-looking alfar who had awoken him. He really, truly, wished he remembered more. Amazingly, his head did not hurt as much as he would have expected, given his lack of concrete memories of the night before.