Apostles of Doom

Tiernon shook his head. “Enough beating around the issue. The truth is that the knight and the demon showed up on the Isle of Doom when the demon restarted the Doom of Nysegard.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Namora asked in shock. Krinna and Hendel had equivalent expressions on their faces.

“How did this demon manage to start one of the Doom satellites?” Krinna asked.

“I thought they were tied and controlled via Mount Doom in the Abyss,” Hendel said.

“They are. The demon started that a bit before this,” Torean replied somberly.

That caused all three siblings to stare at Torean and Tiernon in shock.

Hendel sighed. “Exactly who is this demon?”

Tiernon gave Hendel an awkward smile. “We are fairly certain it’s you-know-who.”

Namora’s face fell like a ton of bricks placed in a silk hammock. She was not pleased. “You are telling us that the demon who stole both your mana and your knight is the god whose name means ‘Sacred Oath,’ who has spent his entire existence punishing oath breakers? A god with whom we share an oath of loyalty and fraternity?” Namora asked scathingly.

“An oath which, as I recall, you broke!” Krinna said equally angrily.

“And that this god is now back from the dead?” Namora finished. She glared in anger at her brother.

“Yes,” Tiernon said. “We were trying to get a read on how angry he is.”

“A read?” Krinna asked incredulously.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Namora said. “Your idiot archon only permanently slew him along with over twenty thousand of his avatars, and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of his followers!”

“You were not sure if he was going to be angry?” Hendel asked softly. “I think this is one of those situations when you need to ask yourself what you would do in his position.”

“And then get the hell out of town. Fast.” Krinna added vehemently.

Mount Doom: Tom’s Bedroom

The room was very silent as Tom and Talarius took in the shocking news. Tom shook his head, trying to clear it. “So? What happened to Mrs. Orcus?” Tom asked.

Völund laughed at that, and even Phaestus grinned.

“That is actually a very long standing question among the Tartarvardenennead,” Phaestus said.

“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.”