“So devious.” Hilda shook her head. “Ethically challenged, but devious.”
Trisfelt nodded. “So long story short, the brigands went to Oorstemothian prison, where they were held so they could testify against Exador before being executed, and Exador was served notice by Oorstemoth and had to go prove his innocence. This gave Lenamare and Jehenna quite a bit of time to read the book.”
“I thought they couldn’t open it?” Hilda asked the wizard.
“I said it gave them time; unfortunately, they were forced to use that time to try to figure out how to unlock and open the book. To date, they have had no luck.” Trisfelt chuckled.
Hilda shook her head and grinned. “All that for nothing?”
“Exactly.”
“So what is in this book? What secrets does it contain?” Hilda asked.
“I have no idea; they are not willing to share that information with anyone.”
“So they blew up their own school and disrupted the lives of all their people over a book they cannot read and which none of those affected by this upheaval knows the import of.” Hilda shook her head as Trisfelt nodded. She frowned and continued, “But the Council believes that the demon horde was here before Lenamare blew up his school?”
“Yes, that is the theory; they would have had to have been sneaked in over time,” Trisfelt said.
“And we believe they were brought here by the archdemons, Exador, Ramses and this woman who may or may not be a former goddess?” Hilda asked.
“It does not make a lot of sense,” Trisfelt admitted.
“Unless Exador expected the book to end up here in the end in any event?” Hilda asked.
Trisfelt shrugged. “That sounds consistently paranoid for Exador, or Lenamare for that matter.”
“So then, it was the arrival of Jenn and friends, pursued by Oorstemoth and the Rod, that threw the game wide open again?” Hilda suggested.
Trisfelt frowned for a moment, thinking. “So it would seem.”
“And their arrival and that of their pursuers were all precipitated by the intervention of Lenamare’s greater demon?”
Trisfelt stared at her for a moment. “My dear, I see the rabbit hole you are following. You think that Lenamare suspected that Exador may have set a trap for him in Freehold and so Lenamare summoned the demon as part of a twisted plan to thwart Exador’s army of hidden demons?”
“It worked, did it not?” Hilda replied. “He has the book again and Exador, his allies and army have become unwelcome and untrusted within Freehold.
“I do hate to say this, my dear, but I am following your logic and think you may have hit upon something! It appears we are now both thinking like Lenamare or Exador; thus, I can only conclude we have drunk too much wine!”
“Does it seem oddly dark out there?” Boggy pointed out the balcony window. He, Rupert, Talarius and Tizzy were playing whist, while Tom sat on the sofa lost in his own thoughts, simply relaxing and listening to the rain splash against the large metal pentagram outside his open balcony door. Their respective masters had summoned Antefalken, Reggie and Estrebrius.
Tom looked out the door. It was quite dark outside, as if it were night. He mentally dove into the Rod, moving through it to the throne and then to the complex. It did not take him long to notice a new set of runes had come online; he spent a few moments exploring them, or more precisely, inhabiting them.
“It’s nighttime,” Tom said, startling the others, who had gone back to their game.
“Nighttime?” Rupert asked.
“Yes, the complex has artificial days, just like the courts. The runes controlling the days came back online sometime within the last period or two,” Tom said.
“How do you know this?” Talarius asked.
“You remember how I sort of inhabited the Etonian runes where we found the mace?” Tom asked and Talarius nodded his upper body. “My link to the mace and the throne allows me to inhabit the entire complex. There are a huge number of various runes and spells surrounding this place. All of them have been dormant for thousands of years with no mana to power them. I can sense them, and flow into them as I did the Etonian runes. Sometimes I can get a feel for what they are doing; not always though.”
“So why are they all coming alive now? Where is this mana coming from?” Talarius asked.
“Me, at first.”
Boggy blinked and both he and Rupert turned to look at Tom. Tizzy continued to stare at his hand of cards and puff on his pipe.
“When I established my link with the mace,” continued Tom, “I blasted it super-full of mana. That mana then fed from the mace to the complex, which is what restarted the volcano.” Boggy nodded. “What I didn’t realize until this afternoon was that I never actually shut off the flow of mana once I inadvertently lit the volcano, and my mana continued to flow throughout the mountain, turning things back on. That is the big reason why I was napping this afternoon. I was feeding the entire complex with mana.”
“So are you going to go dry and pass out or something?” Rupert asked.
Tom chuckled. “No. I don’t understand it completely yet, but this place is actually a giant mana engine. Various runes control access to the elemental planes. Fire, Earth and Air are already here, and thus fairly straightforward to tap. There is also a more complicated portal to Water; once that opened, the storm clouds started forming, and eventually it rained. You combine that with the heat of lava and fire, you get steam. Steam is the demi-element of Water and Fire. As you saw, things are rather smoky out there also. Smoke is Earth, Air and the heat of Fire. Both Steam and Smoke fill the complex and permeate the living residents — the D’Orcs and us. We provide the animus, which is the material form of the fifth element, Spirit. All of these elements rubbing up against each other — ”
“Creates the elemental friction that generates mana!” Rupert said, nodding. “It’s exactly what I was taught in school!” He shook his head. “Normally it just sort of floats around until absorbed or collected by animus — a person.”
Tom nodded. “And it does here, too, but there are invisible runes all over the place that are also collecting the excess mana and using it to feed the engine. As this great big mana engine wakes up, it generates more mana to fuel itself. Thus, I have to provide less and less. In theory, at some point it should become self-sustaining and even be able to generate excess mana.” Tom shrugged.
“At least that’s what I think Orcus was doing. Apparently, when he was battling Sentir Fallon, Lilith somehow made her way here and gummed things up so Orcus couldn’t pull enough mana to overcome Excrathadorus Mortis.”
“The bitch!” Boggy shook his head.
Tom nodded. “And that’s why the D’Orcs hate her. Her treachery breached their security, a great number of D’Orcs here in the mountain died that day, and yet they feel they failed their master and were in part responsible for his death.”
“Are you saying that this demon queen, Lilith, sabotaged Orcus’s mana engine to help Sentir Fallon?” Talarius asked.
“That’s exactly what the D’Orcs say. They believe the two were allied to bring down Orcus,” Tom said.
“I don’t believe it! No archon of Tiernon would so subvert himself.” Talarius seemed quite angry.
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know that belief is required. We do know that she managed to gum up the mana flow here in the mountain while Sentir Fallon and Orcus were fighting. It could have been coincidence.”