“Apparently. Unless Exador managed to point the finger at me after he cleared himself of the charges.” Lenamare turned slightly, shaking his head. “This is ridiculous though. An entire Sky Fleet? For one book removed from Oorstemoth without the proper permit. For Krylnar’s sake, they haven’t even got the first clue in the Abyss what the book is, let alone that it’s important. Not even Exador would be so stupid or rash as to let them find that out, and none of those incompetents that retrieved it for me knew enough to tell them anything, even if they could have.” Lenamare started pacing in the limited space he had. Jenn thought he seemed unusually distressed.
“Look on the bright side. As I hear it the Rod and Oorstemoth are not on good terms at the moment, maybe the two groups will fight amongst themselves and we won’t have to deal with them.” Jehenna suggested. Lenamare glanced at her briefly and gave a brief snort.
“Elrose,” Lenamare turned to the sorcerer and enchanter who had arrived this afternoon with his wagon train completely intact. “Trisfelt and his students are stuck outside of the army.” He reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out his Telemirror. “His Telemirror is linked to mine, contact him and help him get the students inside the city. You’ll probably need to Teleport to them and then bring them back in to the city. Once he’s back, have him come see me as I’ll need his assistance.”
Elrose nodded and took the mirror. “I’ll take care of it now; I’m going to head to my quarters to make the contact so as not to disturb work here.”
Lenamare sighed. “I think it’s a bit late for that thanks to my friends outside; but worth the effort.”
“So, your friends from Oorstemoth have arrived I see.” Ramses said to Exador as they stood staring out at the fleet of flying ships rapidly approaching the city walls, coming directly out of the sunset. “As always a rather inspiring sight.” Ramses said as the golden sailed vessels became large enough in the distance that he could actually see figures moving about on the deck.
“I wouldn’t exactly call them friends,” Exador commented. “However, they are no longer trying to arrest me for stealing the book from one of their crumbled ruins.”
“Rather clever of Lenamare to have let all his agents be captured and then have them magically enchanted to say your name every time they tried to confess his name to the authorities.” Exador just scowled at his colleague. “It did slow you down a bit.” Exador ignored Ramses.
“At least,” Exador finally said, “I may be able to use this to our advantage. To put more pressure on Lenamare. Giving him all the more chances to slip up.”
“More friends of yours, I take it?” Damien asked Edwyrd and Gastropé. The two just shrugged; neither had any idea what this was about. They were staring at the arriving ships from the city’s west wall. They had all been in Damien’s rooms discussing Ramses, when messengers had arrived to inform the Councilor that an Oorstemothian Sky Fleet was approaching the city, from out of the sunset.
Damien had immediately teleported them to the Telechamber in the nearest city wall. The Telechambers, Damien had explained as they stepped off the platform were special rooms in the guard towers reserved for council members and city officials to teleport into in case of emergencies. Thus, they were kept clear of people and objects to avoid people teleporting into something accidentally.
Several other Councilors had also arrived and were staring at the approaching ships. “Oh, this is all we need. The Rod at the gates, demons inside and now Oorstemothians above, and archdemons cavorting in the background. Does it get any better?” Councilor Davron asked.
“If you don’t stop complaining, it just may.” Trevin D’Vils snapped. “Well Damien, you are the resident expert on this mess.” She turned to stare at Damien. “Do you have any idea of what they want?”
“Maybe. It could be several things. Perhaps they’ve found out about the demon infestation and decided it was a threat to their sovereignty. It’s really hard to tell what might be irritating them on any given day. “
“Well I can count twenty-one ships,” Davron remarked sourly. “It only took thirteen to sink the entire Mierken fleet of eighty normal sailing ships twenty years ago.”
The ships had halted their approach and in unison had begun lowering large anchors towards the ground. From the lead ship a deep and commanding voice rang out, apparently magically amplified to carry over the distance. “This is Heron of Treage, Wing Arms Master of the Oorstemothian Fleet, Lord Protectator of Oorstemoth and the Council of Justice, Duly Recognized Agent of High Justice, and Commander of the One-Thousand Four-Hundred and Thirteenth Sky Fleet of Oorstemoth.”
“Bermuthian bowl droppings, its Heron himself. This is really bad.” Davron muttered loudly.
