Apostles of Doom

She had been working with this team of soldiers for the entire night. In particular, she had spent considerable time healing those who had been injured, or who were sick and thus moving slower. That was in fact one of the reasons these people were further behind; many of them had family members who were sick, infirm or aged.

Assisting — or rather, boosting the strength and stamina of the aged at the level required here, was admittedly something she had not had to do a great deal of in her sainthood. Forced marches fleeing massive Unlife armies did not really happen that often in Astlan. It had never happened, in fact, as far as she knew.

“As I told you when you arrived,” Jacob said, “you are the first Sister of Tiernon I’ve ever met. My grandfather used to talk about them all the time, but their ranks have been spread thin over the last century.”

“Well, this is an unprecedented attack, so we have to prepared for encountering all sorts of — unprecedented — things!” Hilda beamed at him. “Vicar General Grob thought this region would be in most need of my services.”

“I think the fact that you actually know, and have talked to, Vicar General Grob Darkness Slayer shows how rare and important the Sisters’ work is,” Jacob told her.

Hilda beamed. “Aren’t you sweet! But we are all simply servants of Tiernon trying to do our best to stand against the darkness.”

“Sister?” a voice called for her, and she looked to see a young woman waving at her, leaning over a man who appeared to have twisted his ankle, or perhaps worse. It was difficult to tell in the flickering torchlight. She was not used to such poor lighting, but they really didn’t want to use too much mana and attract undue attention.

“Coming!” Hilda called, waving at them as she started forward. She was about halfway to the girl when she overheard one of Jacob’s soldiers speaking softly.

“Have you ever met someone so cheerful, uplifting and pleasant in the face of oncoming apocalypse?” the soldier asked.

Jacob laughed. “I have to admit, if I have ever met someone with a saintly disposition, it would have to be her!”

Hilda grinned and hurried on.

Library of Doom: Late Sixth Period

“…and this fellow is Prince Asmodeus,” Erestofanes said, gesturing to a very long wall of portraits. “Of course, Asmodeus, as you can see, changed form relatively frequently, so it is quite doubtful he still looks like any of these very often.”

Erestofanes, Antefalken, Tamarin and Tom were touring the portraits of Orcus’s enemies, or suspect persons, as Erestofanes had explained. It wasn’t just one’s enemies that one needed to be able to recognize, but one’s friends, associates and otherwise dangerous colleagues. Since they had been spending quite a bit of time in the library practicing Tom’s shape-changing, they decided to take a break by having Erestofanes show them the portraits.

It was quite interesting to note that there was a portrait of Sammael that looked the same as the current Sam. Apparently it was his preferred relaxation form; one could only wonder at the motivation. Antefalken had been able to recognize two of Lilith’s portraits.

What was also interesting, or rather disconcerting, were the portraits of the Tartarvardenennead. In particular, there was a large group portrait. There everyone was, either the same as they were today, or as Tom remembered them from his dreams. Singkûn was interesting, he actually looked something like a character that Tom remembered showing up in several martial arts movies. Of course, he also looked like an orangish version of one of the apes in the old Planet of the Apes movies.

“Given our current situation, I don’t suppose you have any pictures of Tiernon?” Tamarin asked the librarian. “Pretty sure there would be no good way to get an image of him.”

Erestofanes paused in thought, scratching his chin with his upper left hand. “We have no paintings of him. However, Orcus did have his personal Memory Mirror.” He tilted his head and squinted, thinking.

“Memory Mirror?” Tom asked.

“It’s a mirror to store saved images from a regular Magic Mirror, like the ones Phaestus, Völund, and several Council members use regularly,” Antefalken said.

Tom shook his head. “So it stores digital photos?”

Antefalken scrunched his face. “No idea what those are.”

Erestofanes was nodding. “Completely different mechanism, but yes, it’s like that. They are the images captured by a Magic Mirror that have been uploaded to the Memory Mirror for later viewing.”

“So where is this mirror?” Tom asked.

“That’s what I was trying to remember.” Erestofanes grinned. “He had kept it in his room, but after his death, I thought it best to store it in the library vault. While keyed to the Wand — Rod, I still thought it best to lock it up, just in case. I can look up which one and deliver it to your room, if you wish.”