“What do you mean?” Tom asked, frowning.
“He means we haven’t got a clue,” Völund answered.
“Dis simply showed up one day and Orcus announced that he was his son,” Phaestus said. “He never revealed who the mother was. He simply said that it was a complicated story, that he would tell us someday. Someday never came.”
“Tizzy claimed he knew, but well, that really doesn’t mean much of anything,” Völund said. “I actually suspect it was parthenogenesis.”
“Parthenogenesis?” Tom asked, not knowing the word.
“Asexual reproduction,” Phaestus explained. “That’s how Athena was born. Long story short, Zeus was having really bad headaches — migraines — for several months. Eventually he prevailed upon me to operate to see if I could find the source of the headaches.” Hephaestus shrugged. “What do you know, he had a tumor and when air came into contact with the tumor, it rapidly expanded, leaping out of his head on its own. Turns out the tumor was Athena, fully grown. Oddest damn thing I ever saw!”
Hephaestus looked up to find both Tom and Talarius staring at him. “What?”
“You cannot be serious?” Talarius said. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!”
Phaestus shrugged. “Ridiculous or not, it’s Athena’s story and she’s sticking with it. All her priests teach the story, albeit with a few minor variations.”
“People believe this?” Talarius asked incredulously.
“They do.” Phaestus smiled. “However, I, personally, would not put too much weight in any deity’s origin story.”
“Why not?” Tom asked.
“Because they are stories. Much like Lilith and Sammael’s. The real origins are lost to time and the Phoenix Cycle,” Phaestus explained. “We remember telling our origin story in previous cycles, so we repeat that story, but the simple fact is that the truth lies too far back for most of us to know with absolute certainty.”
“At some point you begin believing your own church’s teachings because that is all you have,” Völund said.
“Another reason that Orcus did not want to be in the god business,” Phaestus said. “Refusing to join a pantheon or create a god pool.”
“What do you call this place?” Talarius asked. “It seems to have the same functionality as one of these so-called god pools.”
“Indeed.” Phaestus nodded, as did Völund. “However, it does not depend upon worshipers donating their mana to him. It generates — creates — mana on its own.”
“But doesn’t it need animus to create that mana?” Tom asked.
“Indeed; that is part of how mana is made. However, Doom is cooperative. It brings together the raw elements, and then people surrounded by those elements generate mana. However, that mana is theirs for the taking as much as it is for Doom’s. Doom does not take mana that people already have, but it does compete with them in terms of collecting the mana — hence the sleeping.”
Talarius sighed and rose wearily. “Enough of this lecture.” He turned to stare once more at Tom. “You told me yesterday that Edwyrd is how you looked as a human.”
Tom nodded. “I was younger, but that is what I looked like on Earth.”
Talarius shook his head, sweat flying from his forehead in the hot room. “If Edwyrd is an older version of your human form, how is it that Orcus’s human form is but an older version of Edwyrd?”
Tom shrugged in uncertainty. “I have no idea. The first time I saw a portrait of Orcus’s human form, I actually passed out from shock.”
“He did. It was very startling. Erestofanes and I had to help him back to his feet,” Tamarin agreed. “He is very heavy in this form.”
Talarius looked to the djinni. “Will you swear an oath to that statement? Understanding that your master is the one who punishes oath breakers?”
Tamarin nodded solemnly. “I do so swear that my master passed out when he first saw the library painting of Orcus in his human form.”
Talarius shook his head slowly. “I do not know, demon. This is a lot to try to understand.”
Tom nodded. “Tell me about it. I am in the same boat as you, Talarius. This is all new to me.”
“I must go think, meditate, and yes, pray,” Talarius told them. “I will be in my quarters within the Doom of Nysegard. My entreaty to aid the Citadel still stands, as does my desire to fight alongside you and the D’Orcs to save the Citadel. Should you grant my entreaty, do not leave without me.”
Talarius put his helmet on and marched stiffly from the room. Tom glanced to the others; they sat there in silence until the outer doors were closed behind the knight.
Phaestus shook his head. “Go easy on him, Tommus. The poor man is at his wits’ end.”
Völund moved his head from side to side in amazement. “I would have bet anything that he’d have had a breakdown and gotten violent by this point.”
“Ahem. Are you forgetting that you did indeed make such a bet with me?” Phaestus asked, furrowing his brow.
“Figure of speech. I remember. Just give it time — meeting Tiernon’s avatars will likely be the last straw,” Völund harrumphed.
“Why do you say that?” Tom asked, puzzled.
“Gods are meant to be in heaven,” Völund said. “Once you meet your god and realize that they are but a man, or woman, it tends to shatter belief.”
“He has come a long way down that path already,” Phaestus noted, shaking his head. “I truly feel for him. It is a very difficult road.”
“Uh, hello? What about me?” Tom asked somewhat sarcastically. “As I said, I am in the boat alongside Talarius.”
Phaestus chuckled and Völund grinned as the two moved to leave the room.
“What?” Tom asked loudly at their departing backs.
“That is true, nephew, but you are an immortal. Each of us goes through this same experience every hundred thousand years or so,” Phaestus said. “This is Talarius’s first time.”
Tom stared at the two in shock as they left the main suite. He turned to his bed, nearly leaping into to it so that he could curl up in a fetal position, close his eyes and try to make the insanity stop.
“So,” Namora said coldly. She was clearly quite upset with both Tiernon and Torean. “Do you believe this world lockout is the doing of our stepbrother?”
Tiernon shrugged uncertainly. “We do not know. We have never seen anything like this, an entire region sealed off from us.”
“Perhaps they were all killed?” Hendel asked. Krinna gave him a shocked look.
“What could kill fourteen avatars at once, that quickly?” Torean asked, also shocked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Namora said sarcastically, “perhaps he unleashed the Kraken and sank the entire continent?”
“That would seem a bit extreme…” Torean said with more uncertainty than one might have expected.
Tiernon shook his head. “No. We have, and I am sure some of your people have, received prayers from priests elsewhere on Nysegard who report that our avatars are alive and well. Priests on Nysegard are still fully connected to their prophets and attending archons. It is simply that our avatars cannot connect to us from where they are.”
“So it’s not like Orcus did a massive Abyssal Switch and dragged them all to hell?” Krinna said. “I hear he likes to do that sort of thing.”
Tiernon shook his head. “No, it is some form of extra-planar interdiction. Something we have never found record of before.”
“Well, given that Orcus has both Völund and Hephaestus working with him, it is entirely possible that he’s built a new tool,” Hendel said.
Krinna shivered. “Do you have any idea what he could do if he were able to use this to trap someone on a material plane, unable to draw upon their god pool, unable to escape?”