“Blimey! You built this?” Boggy asked, impressed.
Phaestus shrugged. “Völund and I built this one. However, the technology was a joint venture by us, the Altrusian engineers who built the boom tunnels, and a few others.”
“Tizzy said that Sleestak wizards built the boom tunnels,” Reggie said. Boggy nodded.
Phaestus snorted in humor. “That’s what he calls them. And in some sense that is true. The Altrusians are the ancestors and descendants of the Sleestaks.”
“How can they be both?” Boggy asked, puzzled.
“Altrusians are temporally cyclical,” Phaestus said. “Meaning they exist at multiple points in time simultaneously in the past and the future. Not unlike the Mobius Mage, only on a much larger scale.”
“The Mobius Mage?” Reggie asked.
“You don’t want to know. He’s a pain in the ass.” Phaestus shook his head. “With luck, we will never need to discuss him — or rather, I guess, it — again.” Phaestus gestured to the World Gate.
“We should go through. Remember, we are about to be under attack from Knights of Chaos. If my wife misses that, things will be much worse than they are now.” Phaestus paused as he walked around the control stones. “At least for me.”
Phaestus moved towards the World Gate and motioned for the others to follow him. He walked up the ramp to the golden pool and walked through. Boggy gave Reggie an uncertain look; Reggie shrugged and stepped through as well. Boggy followed.
The world seemed to stretch, twist, reform. Reggie thought he might throw up, but as suddenly as the disorientation began, it seemed to end and he found himself on a ramp leading down into a very crowded workshop. He looked behind him and as expected, there was another World Gate with a golden liquid center, through which Boggy walked.
The best thing about the new location was the quiet. They could no longer hear the wail of the klaxons. “Whew. That’s a relief!” Boggy said, touching his ears. Phaestus grinned.
“So we are in Astlan?” Reggie asked.
Phaestus twisted his head around in a sort of wobbly motion. “Not exactly. We are on Uropia, the closer of the two moons of Astlan.”
Reggie’s eyes popped wide. “Your wife lives on the moon?”
“Well, one of the two moons. As the population grows, we will extend onto the other moon, Anuropia.” Phaestus then made a shushing motion with his fingers.
“Your presence here is a bit awkward, so we need to stay low-key. We did not come through the proper channels, and if certain individuals find out I have a back door that bypasses our normal security, I’ll have a lot of explaining to do. Sekhmekt, my wife, knows about the World Gate, but very few others do.” Phaestus looked towards the door. “I am hoping she doesn’t have any visitors here in our villa at the moment.”
He gestured for them to follow him around a few tables and counters with a wide plethora of odd-looking instruments, tools and half-finished projects. He leaned up against the door to the workshop and seemed to concentrate on something, as if listening. He finally nodded.
“She’s in the den, and only our household servants are here.” He opened the door and gestured for them to follow him. The three left the workshop and proceeded down a large marble corridor with several good-sized columns all inlaid with gold, silver and other odd, gemstone-like tracings. Reggie felt like he was in a museum or a very fancy government building.
Phaestus led them to a doorway with a large red curtain, which he divided and said “Knock, Knock!” as he stuck his head through.
From the other side of the curtain a very deep, yet still feminine voice exclaimed, “pêTah! You are back from Mount Doom already?”
Phaestus moved into the room. “I am, my darling, and I have a couple of friends with me!”
“Well, show them in!” the woman’s voice said.
“Reggie, Boggy?” Phaestus called. The two demons went into the room. Reggie shook his head in surprise; the room was not what he was expecting. It was luxuriously decorated with rugs, carpets, ferns and all manner of fine furniture. It resembled nothing so much as a very high-end Victorian hunting den or lounge. However, rather than having a lion’s head on a wall, there was a twelve-foot-tall, extremely muscular yet voluptuous, human woman with the head of a lioness standing before a large chair.
“Boggy, Reggie, this is my wife, Sekhmekt,” Phaestus announced proudly, gesturing at each of them as he introduced them.
Reggie heard Boggy murmur behind him, “Wow, lucky bloke — seriously married up!”
Sekhmekt raised one eyebrow in surprise at the sight of the two demons. “To what do we owe this honor?”
Phaestus grinned. “Mount Doom is under attack!” he said almost gleefully.
The lioness scrunched her eyebrows in puzzlement. “You are not one to shy from battle, particularly when it involves one of your creations.”
“No,” Phaestus said with a chuckle. “I had to come get you!”
“Why?” The lioness seemed puzzled.
“Lilith is sending two thousand plus demons...” Phaestus said, and Sekhmekt shrugged, not that concerned, “... and a Chaos Maelstrom!”
The lioness’s brow relaxed as her eyes went wide. “A large one?”
Phaestus nodded. “A large one!”
“Oh, my beloved pêTah! You are the sweetest husband a woman could ever desire!” She clapped her hands. “I am so excited! How much time do I have? I need to summon some troops!”
“They are on radar, outside the DoomNet at the moment; we have a few hours at most. We also need to coordinate and plan with the others,” Phaestus explained.
Sekhmekt shook her head in dismay and puzzlement. “What? Was this some sort of sneak attack?”
Phaestus nodded. “Yes, remember — huge party, Tizzy baked cookies, lots of x-glargh, half the fortress is still passed out.”
Sekhmekt stroked her chin. “Well, one cannot fault Lilith’s timing, then.” She sighed. “Well, we’ll just have to make do.” She chuckled. “If nothing else, it means more for me!”
Sekhmekt turned to stare at the wall over a large mantled fireplace and shook her head sadly. “Unfortunately, Knights of Chaos vanish like demons after you slay them, albeit a bit more violently. I’d love to mount one of their heads above the fireplace!”
“I will zoom in a bit,” Horken said, adjusting some dials on his terminal as they peered at the computer screen showing the radar images of the advancing army. “This mass here is what we believe to be the demon army from Doom’s Redoubt, plus their reinforcements.”
Tom nodded at Horken’s explanation.
Vargg Agnoth spoke up. “They have not had over one or two thousand demons there for several centuries. It appears that she sent in about the same number of demons as reinforcements.”
“Is there any way to determine how strong they are?” Tom asked.
Arg-nargoloth, standing beside him, said, “Not until they are on the DoomNet. At that point, the main table” — he gestured to the 3D mapping table in the other room — “should be able to gauge them.”
“How long did you say that was?” Tom asked. He had been told before, but the klaxon had been so loud that he’d had trouble hearing it. Once they had been sure all the commanders were awake, they had turned off the klaxons and let the commanders take care of rousting any still-glarghvost-passed-out D’Orcs.
“About half a period. Once on the DoomNet, they have about another half period until they reach an entrance,” Vargg said. Tom quickly calculated that to be about two hours for each leg.
“From past experience, they will probably try for multiple entrances. We are sending reinforcements to the most likely entrances first,” Darg-Krallnom said.
“The knights?” Tom asked.