She was pouring over them for the third time when the workroom door opened and in walked Lenamare and Hortwell. Jehenna blinked in surprise. “I thought you were with Zilquar?” She inquired of the newly arrived mage.
“I was, but it looks like a contingency plan has to go into effect now.” Hortwell answered her.
“It seems,” Lenamare informed her, “that Exador’s army has completely disappeared.” Jehenna simply raised an eyebrow.
“No trace. No tracks of leaving, no magical paraphernalia to indicate magical departure.” Hortwell told her. “Thus I teleported directly to Freehold so we could implement Lenamare’s contingency plan.”
“Contingency plan?” Jehenna inquired.
“I will give you one guess as to where that madman’s army went.” Lenamare told her. She simply pointed to the floor, Lenamare nodded. “Precisely, thus we need our army here as well.”
“That will take a few days to arrange, even with flying carpets.” Jehenna noted.
Lenamare simply shook his head. “Not at all. You see, Master Hortwell here,” he put a hand on the man’s shoulder, “has been making good use of his time. He constructed a wall where Zilquar’s army is camped.”
“A wall?” Jehenna was at a loss on this one.
“A wall with a gate.” Hortwell told her.
Comprehension dawned in Jehenna’s eyes. “A Runic Gateway?”
“Precisely!” Lenamare beamed. “Once again, good planning and foresight pays off in having a highly qualified Rune Wizard standing by in the right location.” He nodded to Hortwell. “Now all we need to do is find a suitable door in the palace somewhere, and soon we can bring Zilquar’s entire army into Freehold. All in one night!” Hortwell was nodding. “Will you need some assistance? A student or two?”
“One should do.” Hortwell looked over the students currently available. “Jenn, if you don’t mind?” Hortwell asked Jenn.
“Good choice, she’s not particularly useful here.” Jehenna stated. Jenn just glared at her, and was ignored.
“Master Hortwell?” Jenn asked as she stood up. “Do I understand that you’re going to open a Runic Gateway between here and the school to transport everyone through?”
“That’s what we just said girl,” Lenamare snapped impatiently.
“Well, I was just wondering why we didn’t do that in the first place? Why did we have to all split up and go over land? Couldn’t we have just done this?”
Lenamare snorted. “Once again, you show the fault of not considering all the facts. During the siege, we would have had to take the wards over to completely physical in order to open the gateway. Further, it would have taken quite some time to file everyone through the gate. Time Exador wouldn’t have allowed us.”
“But as it is, you had to take the wards to completely magical. Isn’t that the same?”
Lenamare was just shaking his head. “No, you see, we had walls to protect us from the physical assault of troops while the wards were in full magical mode. Further, due to the ingenious layout of the escape tunnels, the time needed to have the wards completely magical was a lot less than the reverse case with a gateway. And finally,” Lenamare concluded, “it would have been much easier for Exador to intercept and meddle with any magical method of departure, than a physical one. If he’d cut the gateway while someone was traversing it... the poor soul would be literally ripped to shreds. Do you think I would want to take that sort of chance with any of my people?”
Jenn just shrugged her head, unable to respond, as Lenamare intended whenever he lectured. Willis, however, leaned over and whispered to Alvea, “Nice speech. If you ask me though, I’d just say the guy didn’t think of it at the time.” Alvea giggled. Jehenna, unable to hear the whisper, simply glared in her direction.
“Now, if we are finished with our lesson for the day?” Lenamare inquired of Jenn, who simply nodded, “Then let us go find a suitable doorway for the gate.” With that, he ushered Jenn and Hortwell out the door.
It was just past the middle of the afternoon when Damien pounded on Edwyrd’s door. Edwyrd opened the door, curious to see who would be knocking so strongly. “Good afternoon.” Damien said
“Good afternoon.” Edwyrd answered.
“Would you gather your friends and come with me? We need to talk. Some place I know is secure.” He looked at Edwyrd.
“Well, Jenn is off with Lenamare and Tizzy is out roaming the city. Maelen’s on the roof of one of the towers, searching for Rupert. Rupert is missing, so that just leaves Gastropé and me.”
“Fine. Rupert is missing, is he?”
“Yes? Have you seen him?” Edwyrd asked anxiously, Gastropé came up to the doorway behind Edwyrd.
“No, but I know some people who think they have. That is why we need to talk. Please come with me, we’ll go to my quarters.”
Edwyrd glanced at Gastropé who shrugged. The two left the room, following Damien, concerned about Rupert. As Gastropé shut the door behind them, Damien told them, “For obvious reasons, I think we should wait until my quarters before we discuss anything.” Both young men agreed.
Damien ushered them into his main room, securely locking the door behind him. “Now, we need to talk.” He gestured for them to sit. “Antefalken, you get out here too.” A few moments later, Antefalken appeared, curious. He hopped up to his normal perch on the back of a chair. Gastropé and Edwyrd were already sitting on the long couch. Damien sat in the stuffed chair.
“So? Which of our crises is this about? You said someone knows where Rupert is?” Gastropé asked, Edwyrd nodding in agreement. Both looked expectantly at the wizard.
“We need to talk, because things are getting really serious at this point. The castle is infested with demons; two major wizards are preparing to battle it out; there is an ever growing army outside the walls of the city, and there are apparently archdemons wandering around as well.” Damien just looked at the two.
Edwyrd nodded, grimacing. “Maelen and I think we might know who one of the archdemons is.” Damien did a double take. This was obviously not the line of conversation he intended to pursue.
“You do? Who? And how do you know?” Antefalken demanded excitedly, stretching forward on his seat back.
Edwyrd nodded to him. “Ramses the Damned.”
Damien coughed suddenly, shaking his head. Gastropé looked clueless as to what Edwyrd meant, and Antefalken suddenly seemed lost in thought. “Ramses the Damned? As in the Anilord?” Edwyrd nodded. “I wasn’t aware that he was listed among the lords of the Abyss?” He looked quickly to Antefalken.
Antefalken shrugged. “It could be no one knows the names of all the demons in the Abyss. While, relatively speaking there aren’t that many archdemons, those that there are go by a lot of different names. Especially the old ones, they change names every few hundred years. Keeps it harder for someone to figure out their true name.” He seemed to be trying to recall something. “I do believe, however, that there is an archdemon named Ramses. I’m trying to recall if there’s ever been any mention of a connection between the two Ramses. I can’t recall any. The demon one has an estate some distance outside of the Courts that has a lot of nonstandard demonic servants. That’s the only reason I remember him. Nothing in the Anilord motif though. However, he would certainly be old enough. As far as I know, all the archdemons are over a thousand, or more.”
“Fine for now. We will pursue this; I will also want to find out how you came up with this.” He looked directly at Edwyrd. Edwyrd nodded. “However, what I meant was, that I’m beginning to get the suspicion that you people haven’t told me everything you know.”
Gastropé looked puzzled. Edwyrd did his best to look puzzled; there were a lot of things he wasn’t telling people these days. “What do you mean?” Gastropé asked.