Apostles of Doom

More expectedly, he had queried her a great deal about what she had discovered regarding the D’Orcs and what they had told the orcs and others in Murgatroy. Tiernon had very clearly read every one of her reports and seemed to have nearly memorized them. The detail to which he quizzed her, and his familiarity with so much of it, was breathtaking.

She shook her head and finally started moving into her apartment. Time to run a hot bath and break out a nice chilled bottle of sparkling. She was going to stay in tonight; Freehold could wait until the morning. Although she would need to check her HALO, the small box in her study that acted as her proxy and gave her some moments of peace. She shook her head; a saint’s work was never done. She would check it and her prayer queues while she relaxed in the bath.

~

A few moments after Hilda left his office and they’d sensed the outer door closed and the saint safely gone, Tiernon’s brother, Torean, substantiated a physical presence within the room. He was shaking his head and smiling. “Well, brother, I must commend you on your debriefing,” he said, nodding his appreciation. “Extremely thorough.”

“Thank you.” Tiernon smiled. “As you know, it helps to have a good scout.”

Torean sat down and chuckled. “I think you are paraphrasing me.” He shook his head. “You do realize that you are going to want to keep her challenged, lest I try to recruit her to my own service?”

Tiernon chuckled. “She would be well suited to your team. However, as we have discussed before, I am in need of a larger direct ground game of my own.”

“As are we all,” Torean sighed.

“I still don’t know how things got this far. We have tried, repeatedly, to clean this mess up,” Tiernon said.

“We have. Ever since the Etterdam incident, four thousand years ago.” Tiernon’s brother shook his head in frustration.

“Indeed. Nét and the other El'adasir went completely overboard, forcing Orcus’s hand. Sentir Fallon was only supposed to drive him back to Mount Doom, to keep Etterdam from permanently imploding into war and chaos. He should not have been able to permanently eradicate him,” Tiernon complained. “That was not the plan, nor even desirable.”

“Yes, that was a huge setback, to which we have drunk one too many bottles of wine.” Torean shook his head. “How Sentir Fallon and that stupid little dagger were able to kill Orcus permanently is one of the greatest mysteries of the multiverse!”

Tiernon sighed. “I have never in my long life wanted to berate and punish such a massively, insanely huge mistake!” He shook his head furiously. “Even now it frustrates me.”

“First rule of Tartarus: never speak of Tartarus.” Torean chuckled grimly. “We thought this so incredibly useful when we signed up. However, after Sentir Fallon’s screw-up, when arguably we should have banded together with the other clients, we had no idea who the other clients were!”

“Other than the Olympians, of course.” Tiernon laughed ruefully.

“Not that we could ever tell them. They would have wanted to know who we had locked up,” Torean agreed. “This was quite literally an Olympian tragedy.”

“The simple fact we knew of Tartarus would have revealed that we had someone locked up; and they would have had little doubt as to who.” Tiernon shook his head ruefully. “Zeus and Hephaestus were both furious enough as it was over Orcus’s death. There was no way we could add the prisoners to the equation.”

Torean chuckled. “It is no secret as to who is missing around here.”

“In that sense, Sentir Fallon accidentally permanently slaying Orcus on our behalf allayed any suspicions he might have had in regard to the prisoners,” Tiernon observed.

“No one with a prisoner in Tartarus would be so stupid as to slay the warden,” Torean agreed.

“Thus, while Hephaestus wanted war, Zeus was not willing to go quite that far,” Tiernon concluded. “It was, however, closer than I would have liked.”

“That would have been a very unpleasant war.”

“One I am not convinced we could win.”

“I think I nearly shat myself the first time I heard the mighty Tiernon make that statement,” Torean said, chuckling. “A war he could not win? Inconceivable!”

“And so… we could not even acknowledge the horrible implications of what Sentir Fallon had so innocently done, let alone punish him for doing something that was arguably in line with church policies.” Tiernon sighed and closed his eyes.

“Yes, but he should have known about the other ramifications within the localverse, even if he did not understand the implications for Tartarus and the Olympians,” Torean said.

“Nysegard? Yes, of course, and I took him to task for that. However, he told me that he himself had not expected the end result,” Tiernon said. “He was not lying to me.”

“I don’t see how he could not have known.” Torean frowned. “I do not trust him!

“Nor I, but I have no proof. Without proof of wrongdoing, there can be no administration of justice,” Tiernon said.

“Says the god who built his reputation on justice.” Torean shook his head.