by Gary Gygax
Because he was the nominal leader of the group, Gord drew a deep breath and went squarely through the center of the rectangle of shimmering force. With his first, long stride the chamber disappeared. Nothing behind, silver-shot walls of ebony close at either hand, an insubstantial floor of shifting lilac fading to deep plum ahead endlessly. Without breaking stride, the champion of the Balance pressed ahead into the strange, dweomered tunnel. There was an eerie oppressiveness that grew stronger as he went on. It was as if he were fighting a current to make progress, a stream that grew in force with every step he took, making progress slower and more difficult as he moved ahead.
Gord felt a hand on his back, then heard Gellor's voice. The others are behind us in the pathway, Gord. Concentrate on the goal, and we will soon be through; otherwise..." The troubador let his sentence trail away.
The result was too obvious to need voicing. If they did not press on relentlessly, they could all be lost in a region somewhere between the ethereal and astral. Perhaps Allton could get them all safely out, but even that might mean losing weeks of normal time. Gord concentrated on the destination of this journey — Gravestone. Surely the mage who had escaped them would go directly to his master, and nothing better could be hoped for. The light of silvery striation and violet path was beginning to grow dim, slowly fading, but a faint speck of magenta glimmered ahead. "Keep your hand on my back, Gellor, and pass the word back to run! I'm going for it now!"
Chapter 9
A DISSONANT CHIMING filled the black-walled room. Despite the monstrous size of the place, the sound was audible everywhere within it, no softer in the farthest corner than in the center, where a number of flying bridges led upward to a platform that was suspended there.
As the nasty sound died away to a tooth-aching whine, a deep violet light suddenly washed over the floating disc in the middle of the vast chamber, its illumination making plain the whole extent of the massive platform that was a bowshot across and covered with dark, jumbled shapes. Into the private realm of the priest-wizard Gravestone suddenly came a wildly gesturing figure.
"Sigildark!"
The wizard of evil had brought himself into the space that was the center of the floating disc, that portion that his lord and master held sacrosanct. "I implore your forgiveness. Great One," he stammered to Gravestone, his arms still flailing in an uncontrolled fashion. "There are enemies in your tow—"
"Be still!" The last word thundered from the tall, gaunt man. It jerked Sigildark into instant immobility. "Open your mind now, and I will see for myself what has sent you into such a state." So saying, the priest-wizard fixed his gaze on Sigildark and shot forth a bolt of tremendous mental energy, a magically enhanced probe that instantly laid bare the compliant mage's mind.
What Gravestone saw inside there made him stand upright with a snarl. In a flash, he had seen everything that the wizard had perceived in his brief exposure to the six combatants. Gravestone could interpret the information only slightly better than his lackey, but that was more than enough to send surges of burning rage and chilly fear through his tall body. Here indeed were foes of unguessable strength. No true auras could be read, but the glow of energy, the traceries of purpose that were evident, told more than enough.
"What... ? Who are—"
"Go below instantly," Gravestone commanded, cutting the query off without response. "Immediately, or else I will blast you where you stand!"
That was sufficient to send Sigildark scurrying toward the nearest edge of the suspended space he was upon. Being a dweomercraefter, he had no need of stairs, of course. A leap, a fall that would gradually slow to a gentle float downward, and he would be one hundred feet below on the floor in no time. As he was about to clamber over the low parapet that circumscribed the floating island of stonelike matter. Gravestone's voice hissed in his ear. "Summon Krung. Have him by your side when you confront those who will dare intrude."
The wizard gritted his teeth and stepped into space. He had no qualm about the distance to the hard floor below. It was Gravestone's words that made him fearful. The priest-mage had just told him he must face the enemies he had fled. Somehow, Sigildark knew that they were a test that he could not endure, and the thought of having the netherfiend. Krung, to help fight them was scant encouragement.
"Why not some greater one?" Sigildark thought, hoping that his master would discern the thought and respond. The black mage knew better than to form the names Pazuzeus and Shabriri in his mind, but he did allow the names of several of the more powerful daemons he had met in this place to float near the surface of his brain. There was no reply, though, and his feet touched the blackish purple of the floor before he could bring up more mental suggestions to send to Gravestone. Thinking better of it anyway. Sigildark used his feet to carry him at a near trot toward the summoning place, a tiered pit beneath the center of the platform above.
His hands trembled as he made the preparations and began the passes that would bring Krung from his own disgusting place to this non- plane that was Gravestone's little domain. He drew a deep breath and calmed himself. After all, the netherfiend was a very puissant being; besides, the priest-wizard might be mistaken. Even the most potent of foes would have a difficult time finding this place. Setting even those thoughts aside. Sigildark began his summoning.
High above. Gravestone stopped scanning the man's mind, sneering. The fool didn't even realize that he had laid down a track for the enemy to follow. All the better. It would take some time to bring Pazuzeus and Shabriri, and in the meantime Sigildark and Krung would "entertain" the unwanted visitors. Perhaps the work thereafter would be minimal... possible, but doubtful!
Gravestone used a rodlike wand to scribe a glowing form, a thing of impossible lines and curves, chanting equally impossible words as he worked.
As the burning shapes grew and the stream of sound became a nonstop rush of arcane syllables. Gravestone allowed one corner of his evil brain to ponder events. He felt deep, malign satisfaction as he worked, for the priest-wizard understood that he had been presented with the greatest opportunity ever, something he had not dared to hope would occur again. Into his hands was coming the one who could only be the champion that stood between the coming of Tharizdun and the multiverse. The demons he was bringing would be for those who accompanied the one. He, Gravestone, would personally account for the would-be champion. Who then could deny him his rightful place as Tharizdun's viceroy and chief agent when the Greatest of EMI arrived in his dark and malign majesty? None was the answer — not even Tharizdun himself!
***
The dark violet spot grew as large as a postern gate, and with a final surge Gord pushed through it. He was suddenly engulfed in darkness, but in a second he began to perceive the weird "light" of visual sense operating in the spectrum above violet and at the same time below red. This special sight had been initially granted to the young adventurer by the strange powers of the green, cat's-eye ring he wore. Now, however, he knew that his own nerves picked up the emanations of infrared and ultraviolet radiation without reliance on the ring's dweomer.
In front of him, revealed starkly in the weird combination of light waves Gord perceived, was the spellbinder who had cried the warning and fled. The fellow's face was a mask of shock and fear at Gord's sudden appearance. That was understandable, for the young champion had his black longsword in hand and death in his eyes as he forced his way free of the interplanar portal.
"Geeyah!" Sigildark voiced the sound involuntarily as his startled nervous system took over. At the same instant he literally jumped backward, thus avoiding the long thrust that the suddenly appearing enemy attempted.
"No use, you fu—" Gord shouted as he sprang to the attack.
"Hee, hee, heeee!" piped the terrible soprano voice of the netherfiend Krung as the creature struck Gord from behind with a ham- sized, horny fist with enough power behind it to fell a bull.
It was the launching of his attack that saved Gord from having his skull caved in or neck broke
n. The netherfiend's blow caught him as he was moving away from it. Thus, the force of the terrible fist spent much of its power in driving the young thief ahead. He fell sprawling, face abraded by the rough material that floored the place, stunned and unmoving.
"Tunun," Krung said as it saw the smear of blood on the floor. The misshapen form bent, its neck extending obscenely, tongue rasping over the lithic slabs as the thing bent to lap the blood and then devour the still, human body. The tableau was sufficiently amusing to cause Sigildark to devote his attention to it, for the evil mage had an insatiable desire to see just how the netherfiend would consume the fallen man.
"Sluuslupp," went Krung's foot-long tongue as it writhed out and back. It was just being extruded again when the creature jerked back, head withdrawing, mouth agape, muscles bunching. "Eee... yeiii!" The high- pitched scream nearly deafened Sigildark.
"I thought that might attract your attention," Gellor said with steely satisfaction as he withdrew his sword from the fiend's backside. Krung was spinning, giving voice to a whining snarl, talons flashing, fangs bared. The bard moved counter to the spin, while Curley Greenleaf, just behind him, brought his magical spear into play. Behind them. Chert had just emerged from the gateway, and Timmil's head was seemingly floating disembodied in the air as he started to come through. Allton was but seconds from also arriving. "Now. Curley!" Gellor shouted as he struck at a flailing arm from his crouch.
The druid uttered the magical word that brought forth the slender spearhead from his staff as he drove the thick pole toward the netherftend's head. Green-leaf was aiming for the red-rimmed, pain-and- rage-filled eyes of the monster. One of its clawed hands, a member as broad as a plank and tipped with iron-hard talons inches long, interposed. Krung saw the staff-butt and thought to snap it like a twig. Instead, the enchanted steel that shot from it pierced the monster's flesh as if it was leather under a cobbler's knife.
"Yaahg!" This time the netherfiend's cry was softer, for Its brain was overloaded with pain. Gellor's sword had sliced deep, hacking its other arm so that it was open to the bone. The fiend was wounded terribly. Both arms and its intestines were injured. These humans were not the soft and easy prey Krung was accustomed to. There was but one answer: flee! In a short time, natural processes would begin to heal his hurts, the awful pains would recede, and then Krung would return, but with certain things of power... and with help of other sort as well.
Now, however, the netherfiend knew that it must make the dirty human mage who had summoned it to this torture release it to return to the pits. Krung tore its hand free of the spear point, leaped sideways, and then bounded in a shambling gait to where Sigildark was crouched over the still form of the stunned young adventurer.
"Loose my binding now, man!" the shrill voice of the daemon-thing piped. "Quickly — else I'll tear out your eyes!" To emphasize the threat. Krung reached for Sigildark's face with its ichor-dripping left hand that bore the puncture from Greenleafs stall-spear. Of course. Krung would not have harmed the mage — at least not until after he had freed the netherfiend from bondage of service there in Gravestone's null-space. Pain and fear made the fiend careless, however, and Krung's talons raked Sigildark's cheek even as the spell-binder shrank back from the threat.
The slaying of the helpless Gord forgotten. Sigildark reacted as anyone of like malice would. "Rot you, dog's turd!" the sorcerer snarled, thinking that surely the netherfiend had gone totally out of control. "Here's how you'll be freed!" And so saying, Sigildark shot forth a series of five glowing darts of burning force from his extended hand. These missiles of fell energy struck Krung squarely upon its broad, deformed chest and caused the creature to jerk upright and dance and howl in awful agony.
Sigildark was both amazed and pleased. He had not expected quite so profound a reaction to his magic, for the attack had been of only moderate power against so powerful a denizen of the netherworld. Often, in fact, such dweomers as he had employed were of no use at all, for the aural shield of nether-things negated many such assaults. Krung gyrated, and in so doing showed Sigildark the true reason for its incredible reaction. Even as the spell-caster had struck the netherfiend with his evoked energy bolts, one of the invaders had simultaneously fallen upon the creature from the rear. Krung's back was laid open to the black- boned spine.
It took only an instant for Sigildark to assess the situation. There were two spell-workers ignoring the melee. Both were seeking a means of ascending to where Gravestone lurked. Good! That one should have to bear his share of the peril, Sigildark thought. Of the remainder, one was knocked senseless, and three others now confronted the black-hearted mage. The one with a glittering, false eye was about to strike Krung again. That one had been responsible for the netherfiend's ghastly back wound. Close to him, a rotund fellow of half-elven sort was jabbing with a narrow-bladed spear; thus, both were likely to be engaged in combating the fiend for a bit of time yet.
That left only one opponent for Sigildark. He was a tall and brawny warrior armed with a massive battle-axe. No doubt a barbarian of some sort — one long on muscle and short on brains, but dangerous as a wild animal!
Truce, comrade!" the wizard shouted to the advancing axeman. "The daemon is our mutual enemy." The statements were loaded with a heavy dweomer of persuasiveness. Let the fool but join the attack upon the netherfiend, and he, Sigildark, would strike the lot with such a casting as would fry them all and send them to their doom!
Chert was brought up abruptly by the call. He shook his head, hesitated a split-second, then replied, "Aye, I ken your meaning, mage!" Without further ado, the giant hefted his axe and fell upon the embattled Krung, Brool buzzing and then striking home with a meaty thud as punctuation to its drone.
Left unmolested, Sigildark fairly crooned in glee as he began conjuring the spell that would strike his foes dead with an awful blast of fire and force. The bard engaged against the daemon was singing some sort of magical verse, and the pale dweomer was causing Krung to be hacked to bits. Song, spell, combat — none of that disturbed Sigildark in his own casting. A parchment "hand" filled with the material of the spell he was working flew into the air as he gestured. Only a few more syllables now, and the thing would be done.
Many magicians could bring forth fireballs, but Sigildark's evil spell wrought a clinging, purplish flame coupled with a gaseous explosion that was of far greater bane to those within its fell radius. Even opponents as powerful, as mightily protected by enchantments and magical equipage, as the three locked in melee with Krung would have no chance to survive the thunderfire he was about to bring down upon them. Krung would be slain too, of course, but that was of no import.
After the thunderfire had struck, he would take time for one quick slash across the throat of the one the netherfiend had stunned, and then Sigildark would creep up behind the pair of dolts who sought their demise at Gravestone's hand. One corner of the dark wizard's mind wondered about the possibility of those two managing to kill the priest-wizard. Most unlikely. Another corner of Sigildark's mind nagged him about something else, but the spell was too close to completion, so the mage simply shoved the worrying voice back. It would have been better for him to have not done so.
"Death!" Gord shouted, a second before he plied both his longsword and his terrible dagger against the spell-caster's unsuspecting back. Normally, the young thief would have struck silently. But in order to disrupt the magic that Sigildark was in the midst of working, in order to do his utmost to prevent the dweomer from striking his three friends, Gord cried aloud just as he attacked.
The great shout did break Sigildark's concentration, but the brief warning it gave him did not enable the evil wizard to avoid being struck by the enchanted blades thrust into him. The sooty length of Blackheartseeker failed to find Sigildark's wicked heart, however. It glanced off a rib and cut a fiery track along the dweomercraefter's side instead. The long dagger did much better, sinking well into his lower back.
"Ahhh! No!" The screech came unbidden from
his lips, as the dark wizard felt pain far worse than the wrenching of his mind as the casting was broken uncompleted. He tried to turn, to use his magic against the one who had so sorely harmed him. Then that part of Sigildark's brain that had been trying to warn him burst forth into his consciousness: "Fool, fool, fool!" The prone man had not been where he should have been when the thunderfire calling began! These thoughts were a most unfortunate distraction for the mage. Sigildark should have been fleeing for his life.
Gord released his hold on the imbedded dagger in order to use both hands to grip the longsword. With the double grasp, he brought the blade up and down so quickly that he caught the mage in half-turn. Charm, spell, amulet, enchantment, talisman — none of the protections worn, carried, or placed upon his person were proof against that attack.
The dull ebon of the sword's blade scythed to cut through cloak and robe and girdle. It cut skin and flesh and innards, too. Sigildark grabbed at his stomach, pushing back the sausagelike things that tried to slide forth through the awful wound. Standing thus, partially bent and unaware of all else, Gord struck and delivered the coup de grace to the malign spell-binder, cleaving his head from his body, and Sigildark's rotten soul went from him that instant. Although Gord didn't know it, Infestix did soon enough, and even that one quailed despite his glee at having such a prize.
There was a hooting, a whining behind him, so Gord brought his sword up and spun, ready to defend himself. He was in time to witness the demise of Krung, albeit only the death of the netherfiend's material form used to convey the monster on this plane. As If by whim alone, the young champion who opposed Tharizdun and all his vile servitors came to stand beside the netherfiend as it slowly expired. The thing seemed to recognize Gord. It spat a weak glob of disgusting spittle and stuck out its obscene tongue.
