The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (38 page)

After coming through the sleeping portal, it had been another hour of flying across an unusually flat and arid plain with very few fireballs or columns. They had headed towards a range of extremely tall mountains in the distance. The mountain range was not that extensive in that it did not span the horizon. In fact, it was more of a cluster of extremely tall mountains that simply rose out of the flat plane, and a few large canyons that seemed to radiate out from the mountain cluster.

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.

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.

[Time of Day]

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.

“Good lord almighty and then some… is this all sapphire?” Antefalken asked softly.

“I don’t believe this,” Tom said. “I don’t think this can be natural.” The room was irregularly shaped, about thirty or forty feet per side with an irregular ceiling about twenty to thirty feet high. Embedded in the walls were ribbons of blue crystal. Clear, crystalline sapphire and a milkier stone like sapphire with white streaks. Where the previous caves had stone stalactites and stalagmites, this room had sapphire stalactites and stalagmites.

“This can’t be real…” Talarius whispered, rotating in the center of the room as he tried to take it in. His steel boots clinked as they knocked loose sapphire stones around.

“Now I know I’m dreaming for sure,” Reggie whispered.

“ Do not get too greedy; we have got several more corundum rooms before we even get to the diamond room. The gold and silver caverns are going to be pretty boring after all of these,” Tizzy observed.

“We are freaking rich!” Rupert shouted.

“Welcome to the Land of Bling!” Reggie shouted in agreement.

“I guess I get the point about gems and gold not being so valuable in the Abyss,” Tom said.

“Fargelsworth… I had no idea they were this common!” Antefalken breathed as they sifted through loose gemstones. “I should have brought a lot more bags…”

~

“Good news!” Damien told the Council once everyone had taken their seats. “The Rod has certified that we are demon-free and Oorstemoth has signed off on it!”

“Excellent news,” Alexandros Mien said, nodding to Damien with a tight smile.

“In front of each of you is the current status report of the palace and the city, including reserves and our current active forces,” Gandros said. “We are doing remarkably well.”

“Do we have estimates on cleanup and repair of the damage?” Sier Barvon asked.

“Not yet; it depends on how soon we can “lift the siege,” so to speak. We need craftsmen and materials from surrounding cities, such as your own city of Yorkton,” Damien said.

Sier chuckled. “You see through me.”

“I know that your sister is married to Burgomaster Falron and that you both come from a long line of woodworkers and masons.” Damien grinned back.

“You can’t take the merchant out of the Archimage,” Sier said, chuckling.

“To that point, Oorstemoth and the Rod are both willing to step down and reduce their forces, and have agreed not to invade the city unless the demon horde comes back.” Damien told the Council.

“And that means exactly what?” Zilquar asked.

“It means that Wing Arms Master Heron and a few of his ships will be returning to Keeper’s City to work on the pursuit of the demons; but they will be leaving about two thirds of their fleet here in case the demons return.” Several councilors frowned at this. “The Rod is also reducing its forces by about half. They claim to be going to a maintenance mode and are simply going to be here to assist in case the archdemons return, and maintain a staging point if they have to ramp up again.”

“So, in short, they aren’t going anywhere soon,” Jehenna said.