“That slightly predates my time, but yes, I do recall that Exador’s ancestor at the time of the Anilords, Vicar-General Exador, did cause problems for the Anilords.”
“To Ramses included, as did the Aniwizard Exador a few thousand years before that.” Lilith added.
“The Aniwizard Exador?” Antefalken asked.
“Another distant ancestor of the current wizard,” Lilith stated. “Gave Ramses a lot of trouble during his first attempt at Astlanian conquest. The point being, it is highly doubtful that Ramses would be aligned in anyway with an Exador. Lenamare or someone else, perhaps, but not Exador.”
“But you don’t know of someone else?” Antefalken asked.
“Sorry,” she scratched lightly at Antefalken’s chest with the almost claw like fingernails of her right hand. “I do dislike the man, but I’ve tried to ignore him since I haven’t been able to do much about him.” She put the now empty snifter on the floor. “Why don’t we discuss something more interesting now, something we don’t need so many tiresome words for?” She arched her back pushing him back down into the silk sheets of her bed.
“Fine with me...” Antefalken smiled.
“I’m so gla.a.a.d...” Lilith purred, her blood red lips coming down to meet his.
“Boggy!” Tom exclaimed in surprise. He and Rupert had just returned to ‘The Ripe Young Maiden’s Surprise,’ intending to wait for Antefalken. As they’d entered the western style swinging doorway, he noted his friend sitting at a booth over on the left.
Boggy looked up from what looked like a large cup of coffee and smiled. He waved for the two to join him. “Tom!” he said as the two walked up. “What a pleasant surprise.” Tom was pleasantly surprised to find that the booth seemed almost designed for demons. The seat was a ways back from the table, and the rear of the seat had a large hole to accommodate tails. It was also high enough of the ground so, while a bit small for Tom, it was certainly much larger than human size. He slid in, Rupert followed. “What brings you here? And who’s your doppelganger?” Boggy asked, he also made a motion for the waiter to come over. “Let me buy you some Denubian Choco-CoffeeTM.”
“I’m waiting for a friend who had some business in town. This is Rupert.” Tom didn’t bother trying to explain the resemblance. He couldn’t.
“Please to meet you.” Boggy stuck out a hand to Rupert. Rupert took it, apparently excited to meet another demon.
“Boggy here is Tizzy’s partner.” Tom told Rupert.
“You’ve met Tizzy then?” Boggy asked Rupert. “Haven’t seen the scoundrel in some time.”
Rupert was nodding happily. “He ended up taking a little trip with us to Astlan, and hasn’t been back since.” Tom told Boggy.
“You didn’t let him wander too far off and cause too much trouble did you?” Boggy asked slightly concerned.
“No, he’s in good company in Freehold, behaving himself.” Tom hoped.
“Not under duress?” Boggy asked.
“Not at all, in fact the first thing he did was to wander off to kill his accursed master and then returned right to us and been quite helpful.”
“Helpful?” Boggy snorted, “are you sure we’re talking about the same demon?” Tom just smiled and nodded.
As the waiter, a rather lizard like demon of more width than height brought them their drinks, Rupert started plying Boggy with questions. Many of them were one’s he’d already asked Boggy, about what it was Boggy did and this and that, so he didn’t listen too closely. Instead, he took the time to look around the place.
Actually, with the exception of the habitual red light that seemed more omnipresent in this part of the Abyss than near his cave, the place seemed to be a cross between a western saloon and perhaps a small town cafe. Booths lined the wall to the left of the door, while a long bar that was almost like a lunch counter with round stools in front of it, ran the length of the right hand wall. Scattered round tables filled the space in between. The doors had been the short swinging type found in western movies and two large windows flanking the doors gave a view out onto the street. At this time of night, or at least he guessed it was night, the place was moderately busy but not packed.
When the waiter had set down the hot steaming mugs, he noted that Boggy placed a couple triangular coins on the table for the waiter who took them without comment. Tom nodded thanks to Boggy, who simply smiled, neither wanting to interrupt Rupert’s steady stream of questions.
Tom took a small sip of the coffee substance and nearly gagged. Boggy simply noted his reaction and smiled. Talk about a vile brew that only a cabbie would like, Tom thought. The stuff was a cross between hot chocolate, coffee and maybe vodka or some other hard liquor. Whatever it was, it had to be the most bitter thing he’d ever tasted in his life. Given the burning sensation he quickly felt in his stomach, he decided that it would be something Edwyrd wouldn’t like, and in fact would probably kill him. On the other hand, it was about the only thing he’d tried as a demon, that didn’t require receiving grievous injuries, that seemed to have much effect on his demon body.
An odd thought crossed his mind. If the ambient temperature of the Abyss was about the boiling point of water, then how was this coffee simply steaming? In his mouth it felt like coffee or hot chocolate, it was hot. So exactly how hot was this stuff?
He shook his head after the second swallow as he began to feel the effects of a massive caffeine rush. Whoa, Tom thought. Shaking his head a bit, he continued to look around the room. He shifted his eyes into demon sight. Suddenly curious how much magic was present in the room. Actually, except for a slight glow from the surroundings there didn’t seem to be a whole lot. He could see auras of various colors and intensities surrounding the patrons, but not much on any objects.
One thing he noted on a few of the other customers were what looked something like black umbilical cords. These cords seemed to extend from somewhere near the center of their bodies and extend out through their auras. After that they seemed to just taper off and fade into the air around them. He looked at his companions searching for such a cord. Rupert didn’t have one, nor did Boggy. No, on second thought, Tom thought he could detect a faint black line inside Boggy’s aura, but it didn’t extend out. Further, unlike the others, which faded at one end, Boggy’s was all fuzzed out and seemed to just abruptly terminate. He looked down at himself and was suddenly surprised to see he had one of the cords.
His extended from his sternum out into the air in front of him and then faded off. That was really strange, thought Tom. He had no idea what it could be. He’d really never noticed it before. Of course, he’d never really looked at himself with demon sight before either. Now that he knew what to look for, it was quite obvious. In fact the more he concentrated on it, the more clear it became. Was it some product of the Choco-Coffee that caused him to see it? Where did it go?
Carefully, so as not to appear too weird to Boggy and Rupert, who were busy lost in some tale of Boggy’s, Tom reached out and tried to touch the cord. It was rather amorphous but he could almost touch it if he really concentrated on touching it. Thinking back to the things he’d tried with the link he sort of made to Tizzy and to the time he traced the summons from the priest, Tom tried to concentrate on following the umbilical cord to its other end.
It was hard, harder than the previous thing’s he’d tried along this line, but suddenly he got an unmistakable impression of a tower room. A tower room and a presence in that room. A presence he recognized immediately. It startled him and caused him to break his concentration, bringing him back to reality. It was Lenamare on the other end! The black cord was some sort of link to Lenamare. Tom was stunned by this revelation. Was this what bound him? He was so startled by the thought that he missed the casual question Boggy asked of him. Quickly he cleared his mind and tried to concentrate on what his friend was saying. He’d sort this out later.