Therefore, now, they had to mediate their competing claims of justice and arrive at a mutually satisfactory arrangement. He really did not need this. However, if that were not enough, they informed him on good authority that the entire city of Freehold had been overrun by demons. Freehold had apparently had been invaded by half the Abyss!
Clearly, that complicated the issues. He had sent back to Keeper City a request for the various relevant treatise regarding such invasions. He had no idea of the appropriate legal response: did they have mutual aid agreements? Would the Sky Fleet be required to remove the demonic horde? How would they determine and restore a legitimate government?
This presented a lack of information and thus a completely unusual uncertainty that he was unaccustomed to; however, he could deal with that. A few hours after the Rod delegation had left; a delegation from Freehold arrived, led by the esteemed Alexandros Mien himself.
Alexandros was a man Heron had only met a few times prior, but he was certainly a walking legend even in Oorstemoth. His keen perceptions, understanding of legal principle and his ruthless negotiating style were much admired, and admittedly, feared, in Keeper’s City.
The Archimage had informed him that the Council was aware of the incursion, that the incursion had not in any way actually impeached the council (obviously something to be considered suspect) and that the council had determined a mechanism to purge the city of all demonic influence.
Now this all seemed a bit fanciful to Heron, but this was Alexandros Mien after all. The Archimage had assured him that the only way the Council could properly, honorably, and legally meet the terms of both the Rod and Oorstemoth was to purge the city of all possible malignant influences and judicial pervertors and preventers. This did admittedly make sense to Heron.
Unfortunately, it meant a delay in meeting the agreed-upon delivery of the requested miscreants until due process could occur in Freehold. Delays however, were not completely unexpected, given his meeting with the Rod. That was a resolution that would take some time as well.
The bigger problem however, as the Archimage informed him, is that the Council would be evicting all demons from the city, forcibly, tomorrow. Said forcible eviction from the city, ejecting all the demons onto the proverbial laps of the Rod and the Sky Fleet. They were about to be set upon by a displaced demonic horde.
Fortunately, most were lower level and relatively easy to dispatch with the Rod’s help. The bigger issue was that some of the demonic influences or suspects were likely to be released as well, and would need to be apprehended, interrogated, tried, convicted and eradicated before they could escape.
This, Heron reflected with a misruling grin, might be theoretically possibly to deal with; the problem, however, only got worse. Apparently, both the Rod and the Council had determined that there were at least — AT LEAST — three Archaedemons in the city. He’d been prepared for maybe one; and he’d thought that threat overblown — but three?
It was going to be a very long night. Heron pulled his head up as a knock came at his cabin door signally that the delegation from the Rod had returned to discuss and coordinate activities based on the new intelligence Alexandros had provided. A very long night, sighed Heron.
Edwyrd had the day mostly to himself. Rupert and Tizzy had set out to do some more palace exploring. Obviously, that was perfectly safe, what could wrong with a 10 or 12 your old demon egging on an unhinged multi-centenarian demon around a palace full of wizards and invisible enemy demons? Edwyrd didn’t want to think about it, but he didn’t have any better suggestions for them. He did warn both to not cause any trouble, specifically no murder, torture or evisceration of anyone, and if they ran into anything or one important, they should try and get a hold of Edwyrd before proceeding or revealing any information. It was about a ten minute list of instructions. Tizzy obviously tuned out within 30 seconds.
Maelen and Gastropé had gone to town to check out some bookstores. Edwyrd had enough to read from Maelen so sent them on their way. Jenn was running around with Damien messing with horses and soldiers and who knows what. So that left him to his own devices.
He spent a good part of the day in the main palace entry hall sitting on a stone bench along the side wall watching people go in and out. More precisely, he was examining them with full demon sight. He was trying to determine various levels of animus and mana in them and determine if they had any of those links attached to them.
Fortunately, most the people going in and out were wizards so they were almost all heavily mana oriented and many had links and tethers. He had a couple reference books with him to help him figure out what things were.
What was interesting is that there were all sorts of links to all sorts of things. All the wizards that had demons with them, and to be fair there were not that many, had links to their demons similar to the one he had to Lenamare. There were also links between individuals; some between men and women were very light and clear. He wasn’t sure what those were; but the couples that had them were very clearly couples; some of them behaving like stereotypical married couples.
The wizards also had links/tethers to various items they possessed. Not all items, typically amulets and staffs. Some amulets then seemed to have more links radiating off of them to ‘somewhere else’ fading into the background unless he tried hard to trace them. Which he could do, at least until they went through a wall or out of sight.
He spent quite a bit of time looking at mana and animus distributions. Whatever this animus was, it wasn’t quite so clear. He believed it was this golden stuff enmeshed inside the people and their auras. Most of a person’s aura was mana related in some manner; or so he thought, but it wasn’t really clear. Maelen could answer that; except he had no idea how to ask because that was stuff any Animage should already know.
One thing that was clear is that some people ‘glowed’ more than others. These may or may not have been people that were more powerful. In fact, he was thinking they might not be. People whom he could tell by their clothing, demeanor and entourage were higher ranking wizards seemed to keep their mana more tightly concentrated inside themselves.
He spent considerable time thinking about how one could make these links. He’d like to practice. It would be rather convenient to have a link to Rupert to know where he was and if he was in trouble. Edwyrd did have some concerns about the ethical nature of these links, but having one to Rupert, who was supposed to be his son, would seem like a reasonable thing. Maybe Rupert would let him practice on him tonight?
Edwyrd also studied his own body, as much as he could. He was glowing, a lot, and while huge, it was sort of like a big cloud all around him. He supposed, since more experienced people reigned in their mana, he probably should to. It would keep him from sticking out like a sore thumb.
Later in the afternoon, he headed back to his room to get to a quite space so he could practice concentrating his mana. He’d done some meditation for Tae-Kwon-Do, so he thought he’d try that and imagine sort of sucking his mana inside his Edwyrd body, sort of how he sucked the giant Tom body inside. It seemed to Edwyrd, that containing mana would have to be similar to containing a giant demon form that kept wanting to burst out of him like a car’s front-impact airbag.
He had rather lost track of time working on containing his mana, when Tizzy and Rupert returned to the room. “Hey Edwyrd, about ready for dinner?” Rupert asked.
“Sure.” Edwyrd only pretended to eat, but the company would be nice.
“Who we going to eat tonight?” Tizzy asked.
Edwyrd shook his head as Rupert grinned cheek to cheek. “No one, I think you do that just to try and get a response out of me.”