A true immortal, thousands of years old, would need to be a demon, or an incredibly powerful wizard or something. If a demon, then surely such a demon would have gotten good enough to be a big shot. Especially if he really had already been a major power in Astlan, or in Egypt. If a demon then he would probably be an archdemon. If one believed what Lenamare said, an archdemon was on his way, possibly already here. Believing the Rod meant there were several unaccounted for archdemons already in the palace.
Edwyrd didn’t like the way his thoughts were going at all. He had to let them out though. Maelen seemed about the most trustworthy person he could find for such information. “Maelen,” Edwyrd said slowly. Maelen looked up at him, curious by the sudden change in tone of voice.
“What if,” Edwyrd paused for a second, getting his thoughts in order. “What if Ramses the Damned is literally that?”
“What do you mean?” Maelen asked shaking his head.
“I mean, what if he really is damned, so to speak. What if he’s a demon? More specifically what if he’s one of the archdemons that are supposed to be hanging around here? Wouldn’t that explain how he could be over a thousand years old?”
Maelen said nothing. He just stared at Edwyrd. He stared for a very long time. Eventually, Edwyrd shrugged. “It makes some sense if you think of it, doesn’t it?”
Maelen still said nothing for a moment. Then he bowed his head. “It makes very, very, good sense. I’m just trying to figure out why it’s not plausible. It can’t be. I hope it’s not. I really don’t want to contemplate that this fellow really is Ramses the Damned, Ramses the Anilord, the Time Warrior. I don’t want to think that that historical monster could actually be an archdemon. It makes so much sense that I don’t even want to conceive of it.”
Maelen shook his head. He continued, “If, if this man really is Ramses the Damned and is an archdemon, then things are bad. I know it looked that way before, but I just didn’t comprehend exactly how bad.
“We know that something is definitely up. The problem is: we don’t know what.” Maelen raised his hands above his head. “We have to know what is in that damn book of Lenamare’s. The whole thing must revolve around that. I curse now that we gave it back to him. That’s what Exador wants, that’s what Lenamare says the archdemons want. The question is: what the Abyss is in the damn book?!” Maelen was looking extremely frustrated. Edwyrd hadn’t seen the man this upset before. “We are sitting on the bull’s eye of something much more explosive than that little incident at Lenamare’s school. I’d really like to know who is shooting what arrows before we all get killed.”
Rupert was eating lunch. It was a very good lunch for that matter. Nothing fancy, but incredibly tasty trail rations for soldiers who appeared to be about to lay siege to a city. Rupert had gone out earlier for a small stroll. No one had stopped him, but one of the soldiers had followed him at a discreet but obvious distance. So far, the Rod hadn’t impeded traffic flow in and out of the city. At least not directly. It appeared that several merchants and individuals would see the Rod near the city and decide that entering the city would not be such a good idea, and skirted around it.
One other thing that Rupert noted was that there seemed to be an awful lot of new arrivals. He couldn’t see where they were coming from, but the Rod’s encampment seemed to be growing. New tents were being erected on the edges of the previous encampment. Actually, if he wasn’t mistaken the numbers were increasing fairly rapidly.
As Rupert put down his fork and wiped his mouth, the tent flap pulled aside partially. Sir Talarius stuck his head in. “Good day, lad. May we have a word with you?” the knight asked, polite as were all the Rod.
Rupert nodded shyly. The knight smiled and opened the flap further and stepped in. Sir Talarius was still dressed in the same manner as the night before. In the daylight however, Rupert could see that the knight’s armor had both a goldish and a silverish tint to it at the same time. It almost seemed to scintillate those two colors. Obviously, it was made out of some nonstandard material.
As the knight stepped completely in, he held the flap for his compatriot. This individual was wearing the white robes of a priest. As the man straightened up, Rupert’s stomach fell through the cot he was sitting on. The priest looked up after dusting his robe slightly. As he saw Rupert sitting on the cot, his eyes got extremely wide. He raised one finger and pointed at the boy. “You!”
Rupert grinned, a wide, but rather embarrassed and definitely fake, smile. He weakly waved his right hand at the priest. “Hi. Long time no see.” Time seemed to freeze in place. No one said anything. Verigas just continued to point in shocked surprise; Rupert just sat there, grinning sickly. Talarius darted his eyes from one to the other, not understanding what was going on.
