“Excellent; let’s head over to the temple to see who we can contact,” Tom said.
“As you wish, My Lord.” Zelda nodded with a truly horrifying smile. “The Temple of Doom awaits!”
Tom blinked at her in surprise and then grinned himself. Naturally, one would expect the temple in Mount Doom to be the Temple of Doom!
Exador materialized in the arrival alcove in his suite in Freehold. Time to deal with the Council and get the details of what had been going on since his forced departure. He did not expect it to be pleasant, but it should still be better than listening to his Nysegard allies whine about their defeat at the hands of the Nimbus.
If they were going to whine like this after their own failure to marshal sufficient forces to take advantage of the intelligence he had provided, it would probably have been better to not have told them. Talk about ungrateful.
That is odd, Exador thought to himself, suddenly realizing that the wards to his suite had been triggered. Someone had been in his suite, at least once.
He had not received an alert due to Lenamare’s giant barrier, or so he assumed. This was quite unusual; Exador went around his suite, through the multiple rooms but did not see anything obviously missing. Nothing sensitive was kept here. His laboratory was a different matter, but he could sense that the wards were on and fine. Perhaps Randolf would know something.
Exador headed out, down the hall in the direction of Randolf’s suite. As he walked along, he surveyed the damage done by his escaping demons. He had to admit this whole fiasco had been a learning experience; he shook his head thinking about it. It took him a good ten minutes, but he finally decided that people he was encountering were acting a bit odd.
Not everyone, but several people he passed gave him odd looks. Once he noticed the first person or two, he noted what he thought were people whispering behind him as he proceeded. Something was definitely amiss; very few people were willing to look him in the eye.
This was not normal. True, given his normal temperament and reputation, not that many people enjoyed making eye contact with him, but rarely was it this obvious. As he came closer to Randolf’s quarters, he encountered more of Randolf’s lackeys; all of them seemed to give him a wide berth.
Exador spotted Bartholomew, Randolf’s lord chamberlain. “Lord Chamberlain!” Exador hailed the man. Bartholomew turned at the hailing; was it his imagination or did the man seem to wince and then swallow, suddenly seeming very uncomfortable? “Is the archimage in his rooms?”
“Ah... as far as I know, Magi,” Bartholomew said nervously.
“Good. Run ahead and tell him that I am coming for a visit. I would hate to arrive unannounced and interrupt his consultations with Crispin.” Exador gave the chamberlain a malicious grin. He knew the man hated to be reminded of the archimage’s activities. Personally, Exador found simple pederasty to be a bit “vanilla” for his own tastes, but to each his own.
The lord chamberlain scurried off to find Randolf while Exador headed to Randolf’s formal parlor. He entered the parlor and took his accustomed seat to await Randolf’s arrival. While he waited, he contemplated the best ways to make Randolf uncomfortable. Certainly, simply explaining the odd behavior of the people in the palace should make the man uncomfortable. Actually, everything made Randolf uncomfortable; that was one pleasant thing about the man.
The other door opened and Randolf came in, looking hurried and harried as ever. “My dear Exador! So good to see you again!” Exador stood and shook the archimage’s hand; they did not go into the formal title thing. Technically, Randolf was his liege, but the archimage did not push the issue.
“I had to leave suddenly the other day; I am sure you made appropriate excuses to the Council for me?” Exador asked as they both sat down.
Randolf gave him a rather odd, sickly grin. “Yes, well... I tried...” Exador raised an eyebrow, questioning Randolf’s statement. Randolf grimaced. “It seems there was well, some awkwardness.”
“Awkwardness?” Exador asked.
“Yes, well, as you know, there was this interesting battle outside the walls between Lenamare’s greater demon and the Knight Rampant Talarius.”
Randolf looked at him, clearly indicating that Randolf knew that Exador knew, despite the fact that Exador had planned to say he had left before the wards went up and forced the demons out.
Exador adjusted and said, “Yes, I have been made aware.”
Randolf grimaced a bit more. “Well, my dear Exador, that’s sort of where the complication comes in.”
Exador shook his head slightly, not following.
Randolf made a sort of disturbed hand motion and said, “Well, I suppose I just need to get this out there.”
Exador simply stared at the archimage.
“The Oorstemothians balled the entire thing and a special meeting of the Council was called that afternoon to watch the balling,” Randolf told Exador.
The mage shrugged. “So the Council had a close-up view of this battle and the rather remarkable events. I am sure they were quite shocked.”
“Oh, indeed, indeed they were. However, the battle was only one of two things the Council found interesting.”
“Oh, yes?” Exador was getting impatient; the whining imbecile would not get to the point.
“Well, by pure happenstance, Alexandros Mien noticed something in the background at one point and drew the Council’s attention to it,” Randolf said hesitantly.
“Yes, already. Spit it out.”
“We zoomed in to discover a flying carpet watching the battle,” Randolf said.
Exador felt his eyes hardening in their sockets. He twitched his mouth into a small, tight smile. “A flying carpet?”
“Yes.” Randolf grimaced again. “There seemed to be something of tea party going on between the three occupants as they watched the battle.”
“Do go on,” Exador said through clenched teeth.
“Yes, it appeared, at least, to everyone other than myself, of course” — Randolf gave Exador one of his sickly grins — “that you were one of the occupants, along with a woman of Natooran descent and a gentleman who looked remarkably like the portraits of the Anilord Time Warrior, Ramses the Damned.”
“Indeed, I did have a nice viewpoint for the battle,” Exador said, forcing himself to be calm. “I take it that the Council found it unusual that I might have chosen to watch the battle from outside the city walls?”
Randolf gulped and looked around, clearly hoping for a cup of tea or some other object to allow a mild distraction. “Well, as you may recall, the Knight Rampant, Talarius, had claimed that there were three archdemons in the palace.”
“I do seem to recall that,” Exador said tightly.
“I know it’s ridiculous and I assured everyone on the Council that it was completely impossible...”
“But?” Exador prompted.
“But they seem to have this silly notion that the three individuals on the flying carpet were the three archdemons who had been expelled by Lenamare’s pentacles,” Randolf finished rather timidly.
Exador sat there staring at Randolf for several long moments. Several very long, very uncomfortable moments as Exador watched Randolf sweat. Finally, when it looked like Randolf could take it no more, Exador suddenly burst out laughing, slapping his thighs and bending over in his chair in a completely uncharacteristic display of mirth.
“Gods above and below!” Exador wheezed when he had finally stopped laughing hard enough to breathe in some air. “Me? An archdemon? That is incredibly rich! Oh, I cannot believe it! I have never been so flattered in my entire life!”
Randolf stared at his magi. Clearly, this was not the response the archimage had been expecting. Exador got up, still bent over from laughter, and moved closer to the archimage, clasping him on the shoulder. Randolf could see the tears of laughter running down Exador’s cheeks.