That made Exador feel better, perhaps Lenamare wasn’t dealing with Ramses behind his back. However, was Lenamare on to him? Did Lenamare finally begin to suspect exactly whom he was dealing with? The man was not completely stupid, and given the book, he’d have to plan on archdemons getting involved at some point. The question was, did Lenamare know just who the archdemons were?
“Interesting isn’t it?” Bess asked from an archway across the room. Exador looked up in surprise, not knowing she’d been there.
“What are you doing here?” Exador snapped.
“Why, Exy,” Bess purred in mock hurt tones, “you invited me to breakfast.” She straightened slightly before continuing, “to discuss our ally.”
Exador frowned; he’d forgotten. He glared down at the messenger demon. The damn thing had to have known she was there. It should have known better. “Get out of here. I’ll deal with you later,” Exador snapped at the messenger demon. The smaller demon cowered and sobbed, realizing it had made a mistake and vanished in a puff of flame.
“So, since you obviously heard. What do you make of it? And what will we do about Ramses? The man is going to give us away before we’re ready. Obviously, Lenamare and Damien have already caught on to him.” Exador asked Bess, gesturing for her to proceed him onto the dining patio.
“Perhaps,” Bess purred. “It’s not clear to me that Lenamare’s demons will go right to him with this news.” She looked at him archly as she sat down at the table. “After all, wizards and demons don’t always get along, especially slaves and masters. Or didn’t you realize that?”
Exador sneered slightly at her as he sat down. “I won’t even bother to answer the last, but nonetheless, we can’t assume they won’t. What I do know from the past is that Antefalken is rather loyal to Damien, master-slave or not. We can assume that Damien knows something. Whether this other demon goes to Lenamare is another question.”
“So, they know that you are consorting with an archdemon.” She stated, rather than asked.
Exador shrugged, “Perhaps. If they’ve figured out who Ramses is, then they probably also know that Ramses and ‘the family Exador’,” Bess shook her head slightly, “go back a long way. They also know that there was bad blood between Ramses and my ‘ancestors.’ Or so any history book will tell them.”
“Bad blood? You drove him off the plane.” Bess stated.
“Politics, my dear, nothing personal. It was simply expedient at the time. Besides, that was 3,000 years ago.”
“After he invaded your land and his people had your son killed, permanently.”
“Misunderstanding, we’ve long since resolved that. I’ve fathered a few more since then.” Exador waved his left hand dismissingly as he raised his glass to take a sip of orange juice.
“And 1,000 years ago, when he was driven off a second time?”
“Pure coincidence that I was involved in the revolution on the opposing side. Nothing more, we never even met in battle.”
“Fine,” Bess shrugged, “I’m happy to know there is nothing personal this time around either. And that you want to stick it to him again over the book for purely expedient reasons.”
“My dear,” Exador said mildly, “you’re the one who brought it up. You were perfectly correct we don’t need a third leg. You and I are more than capable of ruling over the Abyss as King and Queen by ourselves.”
Edwyrd shut the door on their room as Rupert went to take a nap. He stopped by Maelen and Gastropé’s room to see if they’d gone to breakfast yet. At least officially that was the reason; unofficially it was to see if Gastropé was in freak out mode.
Gastropé was out, but Maelen was in, sorting through a fairly good sized stack of books of various sizes. “Where did all the books come from?” Edwyrd asked.
Maelen smiled, “I’ve ransacked the Council’s general library. It’s for the use of the Council of Wizards; I seem to be able to get in no problem.” He grinned knowingly at Edwyrd who smiled back. “It’s all general stuff, nothing too confidential or top secret: say like Lenamare’s book. However, I wanted to get a general idea on what they know and don’t know about various things. I want to better understand their perspective, thinking and get a sense of their background thought process. This is pretty much a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I want to take advantage of it.”
Edwyrd chuckled. “If you can figure out what wizards are thinking, please let me know. I cannot figure them out no matter how hard I try.”
“Have you ever read any of their books or introductions to Wizardry?” Maelen asked. “They have an interesting view of reality. A bit different than we do.”
“Hmm,” Edwyrd replied. “I can honestly say that I have never read anything about Wizardry, at least not from a wizard’s perspective.”
“You could be in for a treat then. Do you need any bedtime reading?” Maelen asked.
Edwyrd’s eyes lit up, “Yes, actually I do. I have some problems with insomnia lately. It’s almost as if I was stressed about something.” Edwyrd smiled at the Seer.
