by Gary Gygax
Nergal nodded but disagreed in his heart. Any territory under his heel would be depopulated quickly, save for those undead and demons whom he placed there. "Most sagacious, majesty. Ann… Shall I now lead forth the main battle to confront the center of the enemy?"
"No, I shall do that myself when the time is ripe. Go and find Ogrijek and have him bring all of his remaining zubassu and voord too — those should total ten thousand or so. They will be assigned the place of honor before us."
"Honor? Before us? I don't under-"
Graz'zt cut the rest off. "What you understand, Prince Nergal, is of no matter to me. Simply fetch them!" As Nergal started to go off, the ebony demon king added. "And, Prince of Unlife, don't forget to have several of your toughest enforcers with you, for it is quite likely that Ogrijek and his lot are in league with our foes!"
Nergal spun and stared, then bared his fanged mouth in a hideous smile. He whistled and clapped. Shadows gathered around and coalesced into massive demons. Soon Nergal and a growing throng of his own were shoving their way toward the place where the lord of zubassu was resting. Ogrijek would not like serving in the forefront, mused Graz'zt… especially when he found that neither he nor any of his kind could take wing any longer.
Not caring now about what was revealed to the enemy by his action. Graz'zt spoke a series of chest jarring words and shot upward. He mushroomed skyward as a pillar of smoke, growing less and less substantial as his height increased. At three hundred feet he was satisfied. Now he could see all that was needed. Ojukalazogadit had obligingly mounded up a ridge beneath Graz'zt, so that now the demon king was able to view the entire front of his force and the wildly surging line of the charging enemy.
Part of what Graz'zt saw was disconcerting to him. Ojukalazogadit was hungry at all times, and Demogorgon's side wasn't the only one being weakened by the gobbling undulations of the plane. But the enemy force was being weakened to a much greater degree than his own by Ojukalazogadit, almost as though the place itself was showing partiality in the struggle. Graz'zt saw that although his array had been sufficient to prevent the enemy from badly overlapping his flanks, the density of the opposing onrushing mass was about five or six times the depth of his own. He had the most powerful warriors in the conflict, by and large. But Demogorgon and his ass-kissing toadies had a great advantage in numbers. Were they two million? Three? No matter. Whatever the count. Graz'zt could see clearly that less than a million were in the horde confronting their howling onslaught.
There were the zubassu and carrion-eating voord, under the command of Ogrijek, thrust into the very first rank of the center. Demogorgon and Mandrillagon themselves would come here, and Graz'zt saw that their center had fully a million in its mass — ten to one against his force! But Graz'zt's minions, led by the forced labor of the zubassu, were stronger and more powerful than the bulk of their opposition. The zubassu were cowardly and traitorous by nature, but Graz'zt had seen to it that they would not have a chance to flee….
A shout rose forth as Ogrijek perceived what was happening just before the charge of the overpowering enemy force struck. He tried to take flight upward, but it was as if he were tethered. His followers then tried to escape likewise with the same result. Then the rush of the enemy was upon them.
When masses of demonkind fight each other, there is little or no use for magical energies. Light and fear, typical demoniacal weapons, have no effect on others of their kind under such circumstances. Most of their other magical powers are likewise of limited effect, short range, or require too much concentration. Simply put, when demons battle other demons, primitive striking weapons, fangs, claws, talons, pincers, mandibles, and the like are the most effective and immediate means of dispensing with foes.
Some aerial combat would have been taking place in this struggle, but Graz'zt had seen to it that the battle would be held down to the surface of the stratum. This he accomplished through the dark energies he had drawn from the Theorpart, and the effect would last long enough for the battle to be fought to its conclusion. His monstrous sword resting atop one mountainous shoulder, the three-hundred-foot-tall demon king watched the horde of attackers impact raggedly upon his own solid lines. The zubassu fought very well once they realized that they had no chance of escape, no opportunity to turn coat.
Parodies of bears and goats, horses and wolves, apes and gorillas and buffaloes, weasels and boars were jumbled with insect, skeletal, amphibian, bat, reptilian, fish, arachnid, bird, and human parts to form the companies and regiments of demons who fought each other. At least that is how it appeared. Toad-man bit pig-owl as the latter used taloned forearms to rend the former's flesh from its slimy back. Elephantine monstrosities trampled chimerical horrors, as little wolverine-faced demons used iron teeth to sever leg tendons and worm-bodied half-camels spewed acidic secretions over all before them. All that happened in mere seconds, and then the initial wave of the attacking horde was broken, reeling back. Graz'zt laughed, and the sound was like that of a volcano clearing its throat prior to eruption.
"Demogorgon! Come forth and face me alone!"
Naturally, the demon king named failed to come forth as demanded. In fact, although Demogorgon and his allied lords and princes heard the challenge clearly enough, they were busy trying to determine what had gone wrong. Ten thousand of their demon troops had fallen in the first rush. They outnumbered the force of Graz'zt heavily. Yet not a hundred of the ebon-hued demon king's soldiers had fallen, the zubassu had not Joined the attackers, and Graz'zt was an enormous figure daring to stand before them all without regard for dweomer or power sent against him. It was true enough that little or no magic played a part in the combat between demon hordes, but their leaders — king, prince, lord, or greatest demon — certainly had recourse to such powers, for they commanded a wide and terrible spectrum of magics and similar energies.
At Demogorgon's enraged command a barrage of lethal bolts, killer forces, and demon-shattering spells were sent to vaporize the insolent figure that rose like a colossus before their burning eyes. The forces struck, visibly and invisibly, and the smoke-black Graz'zt seemed to shake and thin and nearly disappeared under the withering power sent against it. Well it should, for enough force to destroy a small mountain had been expended. "Again!" screeched both of the demon king's baboonlike heads. "Finish him!" Then, suiting words to his own actions, Demogorgon released his most potent and deadly attack, beams of lambent green shooting from the eyes of one head, dull maroon from the orbs of his other. Similar powers discharged from the princes and lords of demonkind there with him, also played upon the foolishly exposed and enlarged form of their hated foe, Graz'zt.
Suddenly the figure shrank abruptly, seeming to collapse upon itself. "Victory, Emperor Demogorgon!" Trobbo-gotath, a greatest demon of earth, rumbled in fawning fashion. "Do I order a new assault to finish them?"
Before Demogorgon could answer, he saw the distant line of the enemy center rolling aside to left and right. Were they about to run? "What…?" said his left head as the right turned to try to peer through the gap.
Then Graz'zt, now but a thirty-foot tall giant, strode into clear view between the parted regiments of his demon horde. In his hand he held a little figure that he tore into two parts even as the demon king watched. The huge ebony arm windmilled. A tiny speck sailed up and out, toward Demogorgon, like a stone shot from a great trebuchet. Lizard-quick, the demon king avoided the missile. Both heads bent to see what had been aimed at him. The thing was Ogrijek's head. "We are undone…." the right head yammered, and the left was too terrified to speak.
Graz'zt was simply walking with impunity toward the horde that had but recently threatened him. With a roar composed of bellows, shouts, squeaks, yammers, and all forms of similar noises, the demon soldiers who served the black one followed with glee. They rushed forth to fall upon a force many times larger than their own. Why not? Before them was Graz'zt, invincible and triumphant! His hands shot forth blasts that blew the opposing horde into nothin
gness, a hundred at a time. Then the demon king was among the foe, and his massive sword played upon them as a scythe upon a field of ripe grain. Down fell lowly dretch and rutterkin, kerzow and goat-horned clobdroo. Malvachnu demons were as swine in a slaughter, and great lords of ogre size and humanoid form as impotent as lambs before the black blade of Graz'zt.
The left battle seemed unaware of the debacle taking place in the center. Var-Az-Hloo and Abraxas collided with Baphomet's corps and began a terrible melee that slowly ground down the latter force. The bull-headed demon prince and his companies of demonkin were not yielding an inch, only being gradually overcome by the superior numbers of the enemy.
So too on the right. The fungoid and slime contingents of Zuggtmoy and Szhublox were ideally suited to meet the disgusting horde under the even more loathsome Kostchtchie. The foul things commanded by the demon queen and the slime lord felt no revulsion when facing the terrible array of deformed giantlike demons and their ilk. Of course, neither did those minions of the bandy-legged Kostchtchie fear the obscenities that came to do battle with them. Hulking demons spread the plain of Ojukalazogadit with bits and pieces of toadstools and amoeboid monsters while they, in turn, were dissolved, rotted, and made into puddles of putrid ichor by their implacable opponents. It was fortunate for the attackers that there were so many of their own, for a dozen of Zuggtmoy's things, or the smutty warriors of Szhublox, died for every soldier who fell in Kostchtchie's horde. The demon queen hooted and the reserve moved up. The situation was in doubt.
"We must retire, king," Mandrillagon chittered nervously as he hurried up to where Demogorgon had positioned himself. "If we do so immediately, the enemy turds will have to take some time to finish off our cowardly troops, and we can be well away — safe and gathering fresh contingents!"
Demogorgon thought about that with his left brain while the right assessed the field before them. His vaunted mass of demon soldiery scarcely outnumbered the opposition by two to one now, and Graz'zt, accompanied by a half-dozen lords and greatest demons, was beginning to cut a swath through the very middle of the horde to get at him. Then there was a great commotion on his left, and Demogorgon used both heads to see what was happening there. A company of conflagranti, dreaded fire demons, had managed to take Var-Az-Hloo's division in the flank. Trouble there too!
Just as he was about to agree, to slip away with Mandrillagon and leave the others to fend for themselves, Infestix himself appeared to stand beside the demon king. "You! Here?" Demogorgon's heads spoke in chorus.
"You are betrayed by your senses, Demogorgon," the daemon said without bothering with formalities. The offal heap, Graz'zt, has brought the Eye of Deception. With it, and the Theorpart too- "
The Eye of Deception!? He dares-"
"Don't ever interrupt me again!" Infestix hissed, cutting off the so-called imperial demon king. Then, considering the circumstances, the daemon added, "Especially when everything you hope for hangs in the balance so precariously." There was no anger evident in the weird, reptilian eyes of the towering Demogorgon as both of his baboon-heads craned down to listen to Infestix speak on.
"You have come alone," Demogorgon said, unable to keep resignation out of his tone. Then my hordes are defeated!"
"Not so! Not on either count, demon king. I have brought with me Utmodoch and his demodand war-bands in their myriads. Not even Graz'zt can see them, for I have covered their presence with our own Theorpart."
"Where-"
"Marching now to take the inky turdheap from behind. Hold fast here for but another quarter of an hour, and you'll feast on Graz'zt's own flesh to celebrate your triumph."
That was what the two-headed creature desired to hear, to accomplish! "And you will stay? Use Initiator to counter the Eye?"
"Aren't we allies?" the daemon asked. He thought, actually, that lord and vassal were more correct terms, but until the brawling lords of the Abyss were eliminated or subjugated by one master, Infestix had to pretend otherwise. No matter if it was Demogorgon, Orcus, or some other who strove against Graz'zt; whichever of the demons eventually floated to the top, Infestix would himself enthrall. "You will have power to counter what you… your servants… stupidly fed into Graz'zt. Your very attacks were channeled by the relic he is linked to. When I counter that, he will lose that force, return to normal size. Then you yourself can slay him in single combat."
Ignoring that last statement, the dual heads of the demon king began to spit out instructions. Mandrillagon rushed out to bolster the sagging horde, while several demon lords hurried off to stiffen the front. Infestix was very pleased with himself; that Demogorgon could sense, based on that last remark. Infestix knew — as Demogorgon had to reluctantly admit to himself — that despite his terrible powers, poisons, talons, fangs, and the rest, the reptilian demon king had no stomach to confront Graz'zt in single combat — at least not while the black one still wielded his terrible sword.
The daemon was overweening, and Demogorgon would eventually set matters straight. Infestix sought to rule the Abyss, that was clear. Demogorgon knew that the outcome would be quite the reverse: He would rule Hades and the rest of the nether planes too, but only after he possessed the whole of the artifact. Time, only time, was needed. The matters at hand demanded his attention now. In minutes Demogorgon had sent in his last reserve, manlike demons with heads like those of miniature tyrannosaurs. He waded in behind them, going for the monstrous figure that was Graz'zt. Let that one think he would do combat personally. Time too would dispel that idiocy.
Soon enough all occurred just as the daemon had said. The mass of demodands took the enemy by surprise, Graz'zt was shrunk down to normal size, and the tide of battle turned abruptly in favor of the invaders. It was only the lack of cooperation from Ojukalazogadit — or the cooperation of the cursed thing with Graz'zt — that allowed the ebony shitpile to escape, Demogorgon mused as he surveyed the shambles with satisfaction. Even as he watched, Ojukalazogadit began to seriously feed, cleaning up greedily. Good! His troops would not have to view their own dead, which amounted to more than a million. That number was inconsequential; with the millions more available throughout the whole sphere of chaotic evil, Demogorgon would soon be able to field a dozen hordes twice as numerous. The million existences were well spent, a small price to pay for victory. Better still, the puny daemon had hied himself back to his dirty little pit, and Utmodoch and his demodands were left to the demon king's mercy. Those fools would become his shock troops in the next battle… which would come soon, soon.
Despite such thoughts, the facts of the matter prevailed. Graz'zt, worn down to his true proportions by the force of Initiator, fought on with demoniacal fury, hardly surprising but noteworthy because the demon king turned and fought to the rear as it were. Thus he extricated himself and the bulk of his surviving troops. And Ojukalazogadit too assisted the retreat.
Put simply, the strata of the Abyss was, when all was said and done, a loyal if imbecilic subject of the mighty, ebony-hued demon. With its assistance, Graz'zt withdrew all three great divisions of his army and arrived safely on his own plane. In time, the enemy would follow, further depleted by Ojukalazogadit, but not seriously decimated or long delayed. At least Vuron would no longer have to be concerned about a war on multiple fronts. The enemies of his master had managed to consolidate and compress the action to but a single time and place. Unfortunately, that was now, and the battleground the principal place of Graz'zt himself. The time of the final phase of the war was at hand.
The multiverse was strained by this war, but only because of what was occurring with respect to the power involved. Many were the agents of arcane energy and ancient power employed. The Eye of Deception was one of the most puissant, of course. There were a dozen others, graduating down the scale from it. More importantly, there were three far greater. All portions of the tripartite relic were now in play, and about to so exist on a single layer of a single sphere of reality. Well should the whole of existence tremble. All fabric, the very
stuff of existence, strained, groaned and shuddered.
Somewhere, a somewhere that was no-where, no-time, no-place, a massive being stirred and strained and sought to awaken. Tharizdun's time was drawing near.
Chapter 8
He ran through the twisting alleys of Old City, pursued by bullies shouting "Gutless!" after him, and tears of humiliation filled his eyes….
He crept silently and struck the terrible cataboligne demon from behind, feeling cowardly for doing so yet knowing full well that to face it head-on would be useless….
Then Evaleigh was telling him she would wed another, and he wept, for the loss was compounded by the betrayal. So…
He turned and was with Leda, and he helped her to enter the portal that would separate them forever, and despite the weight in his heart there was understanding and shared pride….
As Leda disappeared, he found himself slipping sideways along a dark drainage tube toward a cistern wherein an unnaturally animated thing that had been Theobald the Beggarmaster awaited, and as he faced that terror…
It disappeared into the lightlessness of the shadow plane's Snufldark, and before him there was a thing composed of duskdrake and lich-vampire. He was weaponless, but then unseen figures behind him supplied a sword and a charm, and when he was so armed the shadowy threat vanished and all was bright….
Along the checkered squares of an infinite chessboard he wandered, and looming forms bulked to block and threaten. The board became a forest, then a field, a village, open sea, the city of Greyhawk, an endless desert of dust, an expanse of labyrinthine dungeon corridors….
He walked with himself. He was frail, beardless, and just escaped from the prison workhouse, and he was sixteen and reckless, and he was older still and uncertain, and he was now. Then he understood and awoke….
