She shook her head and finally started moving into her apartment. Time to run a hot bath and break out a nice chilled bottle of sparkling. She was going to stay in tonight; Freehold could wait until the morning. Although she would need to check her HALO, the small box in her study that acted as her proxy and gave her some moments of peace. She shook her head; a saint’s work was never done. She would check it and her prayer queues while she relaxed in the bath.
A few moments after Hilda left his office and they’d sensed the outer door closed and the saint safely gone, Tiernon’s brother, Torean, substantiated a physical presence within the room. He was shaking his head and smiling. “Well, brother, I must commend you on your debriefing,” he said, nodding his appreciation. “Extremely thorough.”
“Thank you.” Tiernon smiled. “As you know, it helps to have a good scout.”
Torean sat down and chuckled. “I think you are paraphrasing me.” He shook his head. “You do realize that you are going to want to keep her challenged, lest I try to recruit her to my own service?”
Tiernon chuckled. “She would be well suited to your team. However, as we have discussed before, I am in need of a larger direct ground game of my own.”
“As are we all,” Torean sighed.
“I still don’t know how things got this far. We have tried, repeatedly, to clean this mess up,” Tiernon said.
“We have. Ever since the Etterdam incident, four thousand years ago.” Tiernon’s brother shook his head in frustration.
“Indeed. Nét and the other El'adasir went completely overboard, forcing Orcus’s hand. Sentir Fallon was only supposed to drive him back to Mount Doom, to keep Etterdam from permanently imploding into war and chaos. He should not have been able to permanently eradicate him,” Tiernon complained. “That was not the plan, nor even desirable.”
“Yes, that was a huge setback, to which we have drunk one too many bottles of wine.” Torean shook his head. “How Sentir Fallon and that stupid little dagger were able to kill Orcus permanently is one of the greatest mysteries of the multiverse!”
Tiernon sighed. “I have never in my long life wanted to berate and punish such a massively, insanely huge mistake!” He shook his head furiously. “Even now it frustrates me.”
“First rule of Tartarus: never speak of Tartarus.” Torean chuckled grimly. “We thought this so incredibly useful when we signed up. However, after Sentir Fallon’s screw-up, when arguably we should have banded together with the other clients, we had no idea who the other clients were!”
“Other than the Olympians, of course.” Tiernon laughed ruefully.
“Not that we could ever tell them. They would have wanted to know who we had locked up,” Torean agreed. “This was quite literally an Olympian tragedy.”
“The simple fact we knew of Tartarus would have revealed that we had someone locked up; and they would have had little doubt as to who.” Tiernon shook his head ruefully. “Zeus and Hephaestus were both furious enough as it was over Orcus’s death. There was no way we could add the prisoners to the equation.”
Torean chuckled. “It is no secret as to who is missing around here.”
“In that sense, Sentir Fallon accidentally permanently slaying Orcus on our behalf allayed any suspicions he might have had in regard to the prisoners,” Tiernon observed.
“No one with a prisoner in Tartarus would be so stupid as to slay the warden,” Torean agreed.
“Thus, while Hephaestus wanted war, Zeus was not willing to go quite that far,” Tiernon concluded. “It was, however, closer than I would have liked.”
“That would have been a very unpleasant war.”
“One I am not convinced we could win.”
“I think I nearly shat myself the first time I heard the mighty Tiernon make that statement,” Torean said, chuckling. “A war he could not win? Inconceivable!”
“And so… we could not even acknowledge the horrible implications of what Sentir Fallon had so innocently done, let alone punish him for doing something that was arguably in line with church policies.” Tiernon sighed and closed his eyes.
“Yes, but he should have known about the other ramifications within the localverse, even if he did not understand the implications for Tartarus and the Olympians,” Torean said.
“Nysegard? Yes, of course, and I took him to task for that. However, he told me that he himself had not expected the end result,” Tiernon said. “He was not lying to me.”
“I don’t see how he could not have known.” Torean frowned. “I do not trust him!
“Nor I, but I have no proof. Without proof of wrongdoing, there can be no administration of justice,” Tiernon said.
“Says the god who built his reputation on justice.” Torean shook his head.
“Be that as it may, this is simply rehashing the same discussion for the — I have no idea how many thousands of times — that must end now. It appears there is a new warden of Tartarus,” Tiernon said.
“We hope,” Torean said. “What if the new Master of Doom decides to release his prisoners?”
Tiernon closed his eyes, not wanting to contemplate the thought. “We shall not go there. We need to find out who this prince is that located the long-lost Wand of Orcus and relit the volcano.”
“We never got a really good view of the thief, but I will say that he did look rather familiar,” Torean said.
Tiernon shook his head. “I noted that as well, but I don’t see how that could possibly be.”
“Do you have any idea where the Wand was?” Torean asked, changing the subject.
“None. Not a clue has been found,” Tiernon said. “My people have scoured the multiverse.”
“As have mine. The only place we haven’t looked is the Abyss,” Torean said.
“If it had been in the Abyss, someone would have found it. Mount Doom would have returned much sooner,” Tiernon stated.
Torean shrugged. “Perhaps, if they had vast mana resources, or it was somehow coded so that only Orcus could use it. A genetic marker, for example? However, even then the mana required would be significant.”
“Anything is possible. What if Orcus was not actually killed, only seriously wounded and recuperating? That would explain the thief’s appearance.”
“So he has been plotting his revenge in secret for the last four thousand years?” Torean raised a questioning eyebrow.
“We must hope not.” Tiernon shook his head. “Our intentions aside, it was our agent that slew him. He will be pissed.”
Torean grinned. “For good reason. Do you suppose he will want to collect back payments?”
“One way or the other.” Tiernon chuckled.
“So, we think the two events are connected,” Torean stated for confirmation.
“Breaking the ciphers and the restart of Mount Doom?” Tiernon shrugged. “It would seem too close in time and space to be a simple coincidence. And the stolen mana could have been used to relight the volcano.”
“Assuming one had the Wand,” Torean said.
Tiernon nodded in agreement. “What is also interesting is that this demon thief not only survived, but from the reports, reversed Excrathadorus Mortis. Something not even Orcus could do.”
“It is an interesting puzzle,” Torean agreed. “It would be good to have a look at that dagger.”
Tiernon nodded at his brother’s observation. “Indeed. I myself never examined it; however, I had several extremely high archons examine it, and they found nothing amiss.”
“Seriously? I find that very odd.” Torean chided his brother.
Tiernon shrugged. “What more would you have them do? Stab someone with it to see if their soul is eaten?”
Torean shook his head. “That would be rather antithetical to all of our teachings. In any event, it somehow made it into the hands of your Knight Rampant, who used it against this demon, who not only survived it, but reversed it before hauling the knight into the Abyss?” He tilted his head, his own words triggering a thought. “Reports are that it was reversed, so was it left in Astlan?”