It was only upon reaching the approach that Beragamos dared look at his god, trying to judge his mood. This was one reason why he did not like this form; it was very hard to judge demeanor and reactions. The scale probably had something to do with it.
Tiernon’s form in the Palaestra was one hundred feet tall when standing; sitting on the throne, he was still over sixty-five feet tall. Tiernon was seated in the very ornately carved Palaestra throne; he was clad in sandals with golden leg wrappings that crisscrossed his truly enormous and muscular calves to tie just below the knee.
He wore only a single shoulder toga with three layers of refleca silk. Each sheet was probably a hundred and fifty feet or more long. A wide belt with very a large, golden buckle carved with Tiernon’s own face kept the toga tight. Tiernon’s form was that of a human man of great but not excessive muscle. The perfection of the human form, without the bulk of a barbarian.
His curly hair, made of strands of real gold, was held in place by a mithral coronet. His right biceps was also encircled with a silvery white mithral band. That was the extent of the jewelry. The god did not need much more than that; the chiseled, square face and the deep black eyes ensured that those viewing the god saw little else. Beragamos had to be careful not to look into the eyes. That was the trap of this form. One could easily get lost in their depths.
Beragamos waited silently for some time as the duels between the various knights played themselves out with Tiernon’s all-seeing gaze. Beragamos glanced at the knights. How they could practice under the gaze of Tiernon was beyond Beragamos. The pressure seemed unimaginable to him.
Eventually the knights finished and all bowed deeply before their god. Tiernon clapped in approval, sending shockwaves through the air that visibly moved the looser clothing on the knights, as well as Beragamos’s gown.
“EXCELLENT WORK, MY KNIGHTS!” he boomed. “WE ARE MOST PLEASED WITH YOUR EXERCISES. WE SHALL SEE YOU ALL TOMORROW.”
As the knights trotted off the field to the showers, the god slowly turned his gaze towards Beragamos. Crap! There it was. He had accidentally met Tiernon’s gaze and had to fight to keep from being drawn into those two enormous black spheres. A blackness deeper and darker than the darkest corner of starless space, a blackness so deep it seemed never-ending. However, as one peered more, one could sense that there was something in that blackness — a fire, orbs of fire, brightly burning stars? It was more a sense than an actual sight.
Beragamos blinked; Tiernon had released his gaze. Beragamos shook his head and then bowed deeply at the waist. “My Lord Tiernon! You have summoned me, your loyal servant.”
The god had a slight grin on his face. While he never admitted it, Beragamos had a suspicion that the god worked to purposefully trap him in his eyes. Simply because he knew how much it bothered the archon.
“INDEED, BERAGAMOS. APPROACH!” the god intoned.
Beragamos moved forward to stand at the foot of his god and peered upward, working to avoid the deity’s terrible gaze.
“WHAT IS THE NEWS ON THIS ASTLANIAN EVENT?”
“Thanks to Saint Hilda of Rivenrock’s excellent intelligence-gathering, we have determined that the demon who broke into and intercepted our illumination streams is known as Lord Tommus. In addition to stealing your mana and kidnapping your Knight Rampant, Talarius, he has apparently managed to restart Mount Doom in the Abyss and is now making connections to orc tribes on the material planes.”
“HE RESTARTED MOUNT DOOM?”
“Yes, my god.” Beragamos nodded.
“WOULD THAT NOT REQUIRE THE WAND?”
“From the accounts of witnesses interviewed by Saint Hilda, when Lord Tommus came through the portal to retrieve his minions from Murgatroy, he had a rod. The witnesses’ descriptions of this rod match that of the wand,” Beragamos said.
“HOW DID WE GET THESE WITNESS ACCOUNTS?”
“Saint Hilda traveled to Murgatroy with Saint Stevos Delastros and the priest that alerted us, Teragdor. There, they went to the wargtown, where the D’Orcs and orcs had stabled their D’Wargs.”
“ORCS WERE WILLING TO TALK TO AN AVATAR OF OURS?”
“Well, they did not know she was an avatar. She has been working undercover, pretending to be human. The priest led them to the wargtown, where the wargmaster was dismissive, but she bested him in short combat and then bought several rounds of drinks for the orcs in town to get their stories.”
Tiernon chuckled like thunder in a cloudless sky. “I LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS SAINT. I WILL NEED TO MEET HER.”
“Of course, Your Godship.” Beragamos was sure Hilda would not be quite so thrilled with the invitation; she was very low-key, and very smart. While some younger saints were foolish enough to long for their god’s attention, Hilda struck Beragamos as someone wise enough to know better.
“SO WHERE WAS THE WAND?”
“This was not clear, Your Godship. Sentir Fallon reported that it had disappeared at the time that Orcus’s body was dissolved by Excrathadorus Mortis. We have always assumed that it was so tightly linked to the demon prince that the magic of the blade destroyed it as well,” Beragamos said.
Tiernon sat silently for a few moments, thinking. “YES, I RECALL SENTIR FALLON’S ACCOUNT. APPARENTLY IT DID NOT DISSOLVE.”
“Clearly. It must have faded back to the Abyss, similar to how demons do,” Beragamos suggested.
“AND NO ONE NOTICED IT UNTIL NOW?”
“I would guess, and this is only a guess, that the D’Orcs retrieved it and guarded it until the prophesied return of Orcus.”
“PROPHESIED?”
Crap! The eyes! Beragamos blinked as he came back from being lost in the god’s stare once again. He shook his head and tried to continue. “Yes, My Lord. According to the orcs in the wargtown, there is, or was, an old prophecy made one hundred years after Orcus’s death. It was made in Etterdam by an orc shaman named Tiss-Arog-Dal,” Beragamos replied.
“A PROPHECY MADE BY A SHAMAN REGARDING A DEAD DEMON?”
Beragamos nodded.
“A TRUE PROPHECY REQUIRES DEIFIC GUIDANCE, PARTICULARLY FOR SOMETHING OVER SUCH A LONG TIME PERIOD. WHAT DEITY WOULD SUPERVISE A DEMON PROPHECY?”
“We have debated this issue, and found no answer.”
“DID WE KNOW OF THIS PROPHECY?”
“Not that I have been able to determine, my god. To be fair, if any churchman in Etterdam had heard of it, he would have likely dismissed it due to the lack of any discernable deific presence.”
Tiernon nodded, being careful not to make eye contact with Beragamos. He closed his eyes for a few minutes, thinking. “TIS-AROG-DAL.” The god reached up and rubbed his jaw. “BEFORE SUMMONING YOU, I REVIEWED YOUR REPORT ON THE EVENTS NEAR FREEHOLD.” Beragamos nodded. “YOU ARE SURE IT IS THE SAME DEMON?”
“The probabilities are such that anything else is very unlikely. First, the demon in Freehold went by the name Tom; the demon described by the orcs in Murgatroy is Tommus. Assuming one had the Wand of Orcus, it would still take tremendous energy to reignite the volcano. It would take, literally, a miracle. And that is essentially what he stole from you,” Beragamos explained.
Tiernon closed his eyes in thought, or perhaps Seeing. After a few moments, he opened his eyes again. “IN THE REPORT, YOU SAID THE DEMON HAD SERVANT DEMONS WITH HIM?”
“Yes, Your Godship.”
“DESCRIBE THEM TO ME IF YOU CAN.”
Beragamos nodded, thankful to Hilda for retrieving that balling. “There was a smaller version of the Tommus demon, identical but smaller. There was another small demon that wore clothes and had a musical instrument, like a bard.” Tiernon nodded. “The last one was another fiend, probably second order. Rather weird: splotchy green, four human arms, four human legs. Non-standard wings, more like a fairy’s or something.”