“Of course, given that the Abyss is, as far as anyone knows, infinitely large,” Sir Samwell continued wryly, “this might take us a few thousand years.”
Chancellor Alighieri made a choking noise, even as Barabus and the rest turned to stare at the knight.
“I hope you were not in a hurry to get home?” asked Sir Samwell.
“Well, obviously we cannot physically spend that much time!” the chancellor exclaimed.
Sir Samwell shrugged. “You have a deadline back in Oorstemoth? Otherwise, given how long I’ve been here, we can certainly stick around.” He shook his head sadly. “I cannot tell you how saddening it was to realize, the other day, that all my friends, family and colleagues in Oorstemoth are long dead.”
The others on the walkway looked at each other, trepidation at their undertaking finally starting to sink in.
Tom sat staring into the coldfire blazing in the fireplace of his sitting room. It was strangely hypnotic and helped him concentrate on trying to locate any traces of foreign animus that might be the source of his dream last night. He had been close to freaking out most of the day. Fortunately, he had had a respite during the oath-taking in Krallnomton this afternoon.
It had been a pretty joyous occasion. Everyone had sworn to him — D’Orcs, orcs, humans and dwarves. That had been quite a surprise. He had assumed that it would just be the D’Orcs and the orc shamans; however, everyone in town had lined up to swear their allegiance.
In retrospect, he probably should not have been surprised. Nysegard was an incredibly dangerous place for the living. It followed that it was a highly militaristic and feudal society, with a strong chain of command and fierce loyalty. In many ways, seeing humans, in particular, kneeling before him had driven the surreality of his situation home. It was one thing to be the leader of giant warlike D’Orcs and a motley demon army; that was something that didn’t quite seem real. Even though he was sure that he was not dreaming, having a fantasy army of demons and D’Orcs allowed him, on some subconscious level, to disassociate his current life from his past life on Earth.
But seeing human warriors and children physically swearing to him? That was a tie to Edwyrd and the week he had spent almost feeling normal again. In retrospect, even though he had not thought of it that way at the time in Freehold, Edwyrd had felt like the old Tom, just living at a really wacky Renaissance festival.
The entire Doom situation had pretty much gone over the top, sending him back to Tom the demon and the odd juxtaposing feelings he’d had before becoming Edwyrd. Doom, the oath-taking, the battle with the Knights of Chaos and Lilith’s army had felt like he was living in a crazy fantasy movie. But seeing the humans today? That had sort of jolted him out of the movie. Agreeing to lead humans, and orcs and dwarves who lived with a very real risk of dying, was much more intimidating than leading a group of immortals who were nearly impossible to kill.
What it came down to, Tom suddenly realized, was that leading mortals carried a much greater sense of responsibility. It was more real. People could die. People would die; in particular, death would be coming when the Storm Lords attacked the Isle of Doom upon discovery Doom’s return.
And he, Tom Perkinje, would be responsible for their deaths because he had opened the Doomalogue and returned the D’Orcs to Nysegard. It was quite intimidating. Now, add in the fact that he was also in the process of being possessed by the spirit of Orcus or something? It was enough to make him want to curl up in a ball once more.
This whole Orcus possession thing was bad. Where were these memories coming from? How could he stop them? How could he be sure he was not being corrupted by the demon prince? Would he turn evil? Would he lose his own identity in the much older being’s identity? It was terrifying. He needed to find a way to stop these memories from invading his mind.
“Are you going to sit there staring at the coldfire all night?” Boggy’s voice woke him from his speculation. Tizzy and Boggy had come into his suite while he was staring into the coldfire. Antefalken had been scribbling away on his ballad while Reggie, Tamarin and Estrebrius were playing cards. Reggie was teaching them to play poker, Twenty-One, as they did not have four people for whist. Talarius was still in Nysegard. He had ended up getting tied up working out defensive strategies with the military leaders in Krallnomton.
Tom had been more than a little concerned when he had returned to Krallnomton to find Talarius there, free from the Abyss. However, he had been working at training the people of the village and seemed as happy and relaxed as Tom had ever seen him. He did not appear to be an immediate flight risk.
Of course, given that it was Nysegard, and Talarius had no ability, as far as Tom knew, to travel between planes, it was doubtful there was anywhere he could safely flee to. So Tom had said nothing, simply nodded to the knight and continued on. Tom had, however, asked Valg to keep an eye on Talarius. He did not know if the knight could pray for some sort of divine intervention or something now that he was once more on the Planes of Orc, so it would be a good idea to keep an eye on him.
“No. I’m just troubled by a dream I had last night,” Tom replied to Boggy.
Boggy shrugged. “Why would you be bothered by a silly nightmare? Your reality — pissing off the Lords of Chaos, making an eternal enemy of Lilith by stealing her army, being pursued by the forces of Tiernon for stealing mana and kidnapping his knight, and now having triggered a war with the Storm Lords of Nysegard — should be more than enough to make any reasonable nightmare seem quite pleasant.”
Tizzy nodded in agreement at Boggy’s assessment.
Antefalken looked up from his writing and nodded his head thoughtfully. “You know, when you put it like that…” he trailed off.
“Master? Why are you troubled about such good news?” Tamarin asked.
“Good news?” Boggy asked. “Your dream was good news? And that bothers you?”
“Really should not look good news in the mouth,” Tizzy advised. “It usually has rotten teeth.”
“Yeah, well good news is a relative term,” Tom told Tamarin. “Yes, the D’Orcs think it is good news, but it is actually very disturbing news.”
“How is getting your memories back disturbing?” Tamarin asked, puzzled.
“Memories back?” Boggy asked. “From where?”
“Master Tommus dreamt last night of a battle in Nysegard that actually happened. He remembered events that Vargg Agnoth was able to confirm as correct, as well as D’Orcs that perished in Etterdam that no one had told him about.”
Antefalken shook his head. “What? You’ve been to Nysegard before?”
“Not me. Orcus,” Tom said.
Boggy did a double take. “You are remembering things as Orcus? How is that possible? You do know you are not actually Orcus, right?”
“Yes, I know that. I know that they think I am some sort of reincarnated version of Orcus, thanks to that prophecy; however, we all know that’s not true.”
“Do we?” Tizzy said.
Everyone suddenly looked at the octopodal demon.
“What do you mean?” Tom asked, annoyed.
“Well, Boggy and I have known you for less than five weeks. We don’t know what you were doing before that. For all we know, you could be Orcus.” The insane demon shrugged. “Maybe you had amnesia after the battle and have been running around the Abyss all that time and are just now getting your memory back?”
Tom, and for that matter, everyone in the room just stared at the green octopod in shock.
“We found Tom because you smelled butter and dragged me along to find him!” Boggy told Tizzy incredulously. “You may recall he was formerly a sixteen-year-old kid from one of the Earths, yes?”