“Permission to approach?” Darg-Krallnom asked as he reached the base of the dais. Tom motioned for him to come up. “My Lord,” he said, bowing as he approached. “Your return is truly welcome! I despaired of never seeing the mountain fully functional again.”
“This mountain is truly a wonder.” Tom smiled. “There is so much that is still dormant, but that will change as the mana levels build.”
“Indeed.” Darg-Krallnom nodded. “It has been nearly a decade since the Eternally Damned One’s forces have raided us. We have been expecting them for some time now. It will be good to have the fortress’s full defenses available for the first time since...” he trailed off awkwardly.
“Lilith’s forces raid the mountain periodically?” Tom asked, concerned.
“Every decade or so, generally between seven to fifteen years. They like to keep us off guard.”
“Why? What do they seek to gain?”
Darg-Krallnom shrugged. “We have debated this; we have not given them any particular provocation. We have no interest in them and ignore them in their fortress. We trade with demon clans further out than ourselves. No one ventures to the Courts. We suspect they are trying to keep our numbers in check.”
Tom shook his head. “Then she must fear you — fear the D’Orcs becoming a threat to her reign.” He smiled, as did Darg-Krallnom, and Tom nodded appreciatively.
“We shall repay her treachery against you, My Lord. Now that you have returned, her vile betrayal shall be repaid,” Darg-Krallnom told Tom with a truly heated passion.
“At some point I will need your reports on her actions so that a full accounting can be made against her,” Tom said, going along. At this point, he was playing a role he barely understood. He was under no illusion that any of this treachery had happened to him, but clearly, the D’Orcs had suffered and felt a need for vengeance. Although if his world’s idea of orcs was anywhere close to being accurate, it probably did not take a whole lot of treachery to demand vengeance.
“Indeed, those of us who failed you must atone,” Darg-Krallnom replied somberly.
Tom shook his head. “I am not interested in the atonement of any of the D’Orcs. You were betrayed as well, correct?” Tom was swinging into left field here.
Darg-Krallnom nodded. “We should have been better prepared for her treachery, her sabotage. We did not keep our guard sufficiently raised in her presence and she was able to disrupt the mountain’s mana generation even as the Unholy Terror of Tiernon struck you with the vile dark blade. We failed you at your hour of greatest need!” Darg-Krallnom was clearly anguished, bending over as if in pain.
Tom reached out and grabbed him by the biceps. “You did not fail. You were betrayed! Do not forget that.” He squeezed his arm to get the D’Orcs attention. Darg-Krallnom inhaled and stood up, nodding his understanding of Tom’s implicit command.
“If it will make you feel better, I have essentially destroyed Excrathadorus Mortis; I reversed it completely. It is now a blade of healing. It can no longer serve its former purpose.” Darg-Krallnom’s eyes widened in surprise. “In fact, I am pretty sure the priests of Tiernon are scared to even touch it at this point.”
Darg-Krallnom chuckled. “I am very relieved that threat is gone. How did you manage to find it?”
Tom smiled. “The knight — my hostage? After I defeated him and his soldiers and chose to show him mercy and spare his life, he shoved it into my stomach.”
Darg-Krallnom’s eyes widened again. Tom smiled. “The knight had cheated in battle, so I too went outside the rules. I intercepted his god’s mana streams to his priests and used Tiernon’s own mana to cleanse the wound and reverse the blade.”
Darg-Krallnom inhaled, closing his eyes for a moment, and then reopened them. “Of course, as the prophecy said — you come with mana from heaven!” He chuckled. “We have often wondered what that meant, but it is now clear. It literally meant mana from heaven.” The D’Orc commander shook his head in amazement.
“I am not aware of this prophecy; where did it come from?” Tom asked.
Darg-Krallnom blinked. “Well, we assumed that you revealed it to the shaman who spoke the prophecy.” He seemed surprised. Tom might have stepped into it.
“When was this?”
“About 100 years Abyss time after your death, My Lord.”
“And the shaman?”
“He was a shaman of the Nart tribe of Etterdam, the same tribe as Arg-nargoloth. A very respected shaman named Tiss-Arog-Dal. His prophecy revitalized the very disillusioned tribes of Etterdam and quickly spread throughout the localverse and the Abyss,” Darg-Krallnom explained.
“Tiss-Arog-Dal?” Tom asked, somewhat suspicious of the name. It sounded a little too much like someone else’s name.
“Yes. As I said, a very respected shaman.”
“Is there any record of anything unusual about this shaman?” Tom asked.
“Unusual? You mean more unusual than normal for a shaman? They are all a bit off-balance.”
Off-balance; well, that fit. “I mean physically? Anything odd physically? Any deformities?” Tom asked.
Darg-Krallnom seemed puzzled by the question. “Not that I’m aware of, but I never saw him. By the time I heard the prophecy, the shaman had passed away. Why?”
Tom shook his head. “No reason; just trying to put some pieces together.” Tizzy was adamant that he could not shapeshift, so he could not have been this shaman. Had Tizzy perhaps had a son with an orc woman? Alternatively, was Tizzy feeding the shaman information, or was the name Tiss-Arog-Dal completely coincidental and Tom was just getting paranoid? To be honest, Tizzy really did not seem to have the sort of attention span necessary for even formulating a prophecy, let alone guiding one over thousands of years. However, Tom could not help remembering how pleased Tizzy had been when he had mastered the Rod of Tommus.
“Not to change the topic, My Lord...” said Darg-Krallnom respectfully. Tom gestured for him to continue. “Would it displease you greatly if the younger folk were to come out onto the platform and take in the rain and steam?”
Tom gave him an odd look. “They want to come out in the pouring rain?”
Darg-Krallnom nodded. “None of the D’Orcs born in the Abyss have ever seen rain before, or water, for that matter.”
Tom shook his head and looked around. Sure enough, there were D’Orcs peering anxiously out of various tunnels, entry points and balconies. How stupid of him. They were apparently scared to come out and disturb him while he was brooding.
“Everyone! Come out and enjoy the rain! Whether you have ever seen it or not, come on out and enjoy the rebirth of Mount Doom!” Tom bellowed and gestured for the D’Orcs to come out.
The waiting D’Orcs cheered and began spilling out onto the volcano’s platform.
“M’lord, you have a visitor requesting an audience,” Bartholomew announced from the French doors to Randolf’s terrace. He stressed the word “visitor” rather oddly.
Randolf glanced to Crispin across the table. They were enjoying their afternoon tea and cucumber sandwiches. Crispin shrugged.
“Does this visitor have a name?” Randolf was puzzled, as typically the lord chamberlain would announce the visitor’s name and title.
“I am afraid I did not ask,” the lord chamberlain replied abashedly.
Randolf raised an eyebrow; this was a highly unusual lapse on the chamberlain’s part. “You forgot to ask?”