by Gary Gygax
"Will you, now?" Gord asked, bringing the tip of Blackheartseeker out to touch the monster's hideous snout.
As if suddenly energized, the dying netherfiend found strength to draw back from the sword, eyes gleaming, fearful. "No, Masterful One. I lied. Forgive me, please! I will be yours to command — I will do anything!"
"Don't you like to be near the weapon of a 'Masterful One'?"
"It is too wonderful to bear," Krung responded. Meanwhile it was slowly bringing its left hand to a place where it could tear out its own throat and finish its quasi-death here.
Gord saw the motion and struck. Krung's arm, severed at the elbow, flopped and writhed with clenching fingers before the fiend's eyes. "And no need to worry, vile thing! Let your fear be sure and certain. I know what you are, what you did, who you serve. Better still, for me, netherfiend, I know what this blade will do to you!"
Krung's eyes bulged and its mouth gaped to make some utterance, but Blackheartseeker struck too quickly. The dull black of its blade glowed with a purplish sheen for an instant as it drew into itself the force that was Krung; then the sword was dead ebon again.
"Gods!" Chert spat, seeing the very form of the monstrous horror from the pits shrink and wither before his gaze. The sword's power had drained the vital forces from the netherfiend, leaving a withered husk that a mere touch turned into dry dust. "Its soul?" he asked shakily, looking at Gord with uncertainty.
"Annihilated," Gord replied emotionlessly. "It is as if it… Krung… that's what it called itself, you know… never existed. That thing has no being anywhere now — here, the pits, or in the endless spheres of probability. It is nothing!" The latter was uttered with vehemence, for the young thief recalled his slain friends Barrel, Dohojar, and the rest as he spoke. Gord had now had satisfaction upon the slave involved in the matter. Now he wanted the master. Gravestone. Turning to look at Gellor, Gord asked, "Where are Timmil and Allton?"
Chert replied, wiping sweat from his brow as he spoke, for he had fought against the netherfiend fiercely and bore a number of bruises and wounds to prove it. The mage told me they were going above," the hillman rumbled, "to seek out the hand of Nerull who has been the one behind all this."
All four sets of eyes turned to look at the great disc that loomed high above their heads. Gellor's enchanted eye, though, saw more than even the young champion's supernatural vision could discern. "That place fairly dances with evil and throbs with the power of the magical traps and defenses which protect it — and the one whose lair it is!"
"I see neither the priest nor Allton," Greenleaf interjected. "They too must have seen the dangers."
"They should have bided until we had done with those two," Gord said flatly, glancing at what remained of Krung and the decapitated body of Sigildark. "Now our force is divided, and the enemy has a prime opportunity to deal with us piecemeal. Shit! How do we hasten above to join them?"
Chert looked blank, and the druid was silent, pondering. Gellor, however, spoke up again. "My sight of things shows that our companions must have ventured up that spiral there," he told Gord, pointing to a faintly visible staircase about a hundred paces distant. Its darkly luminous steps appeared to twist upward as it hung on thin air. "The aura I see would indicate that the dweomer and malign wardings there have been neutralized to some extent. Can you manage what remains, Curley?"
Greenleaf looked uncertain, but Gord interjected at this point. "I have sufficient imbued energy to resist an accursed spell which might lie in wait for us along the path, my friends. Come on; follow closely. We must find Timmil and Allton before they come to grief!"
The four made a grim picture as they headed for the helix of stone slabs that was their chosen means to ascend to the suspended platform above. Bristling with magical weaponry and enchantments to enhance their innate abilities, few evil opponents, indeed, would readily step forth to confront them. Although already somewhat bloodied by the foes that had tried to stand in their way, these four brave ones seemed quite unaware of their wounds, undaunted by what terrible enemies still lay ahead.
"Were we but in the natural world," Greenleaf said by way of apology to his young friend. "I would be of more service with my castings, Gord — Gellor, too, I think," he added, giving a sideways glance at the troubador.
"True, Curley," Gellor confirmed. "Our muscular giant there would find it more to his taste, too!"
Chert laughed softly and swung Brool to make the great axe sing. "I like the clean air and open land, true; but Brool has no objection to slaying demons or devils wherever they are found." The big hillman laughed again.
Setting foot on the first step, Gord signaled the other three to silence. Without a further word, they ascended the weird stairway.
Chapter 10
It was night. Worse: dark as a tomb. No, worse than that: the ultimate lightlessness. "I am blinded." Gord announced matter-of-factly, keeping the apprehension he felt from showing in his tone.
Chert jostled him from behind. "I too, comrade," he rumbled.
"Perhaps I can cast a spell to bring us some illumination," Greenleaf ventured.
"Hold!" The command from Gellor stopped everyone in mid-step. "I can see with the aid of my dweomered ocular," he told his companions. "We stand on a little table atop a pinnacle which vanishes in the distance below. Make no move!"
"Pinnacle?" Gord asked uncertainly.
"Aye. Around is a void which seems bottomless. Far, far below I see a dim, black vortex. At the hazard of supposition, that could well be an opening to the anti-plane," the bard told them, referring to the total negative, that place where they would be annihilated in an Instant.
"You are right, Gellor. My dark sword tingles in my grasp as it brings such force to itself. That, at least, is a boon to us."
"Turd-snacking wizard's trap!" Chert grated angrily, hating the absolute powerlessness he felt in his blind state. "At least whatever comes hereafter will be a lesser challenge."
Greenleaf spoke agreement to that, but then added, "Are we trapped with no place to go — ahead or back?"
"Behind there is nothing," Gellor informed them all. "But I see another transparent pinnacle ahead. It is about ten feet distant and almost a man's height higher than the place we stand upon now."
"I can shift-shape," Gord volunteered, "and make so small a leap with ease."
"Not so fast, my young friend," Gellor said, grabbing Gord by his sinewy shoulder. "The place where you must land upon is small and smooth… probably slippery. It is I who must try-"
"I think not," Gord said with a snap of his fingers. "I have a rope which will solve our dilemma." He slipped a coil of what appeared to be braided horsehair from inside his girdle. "This can be made into a lariat and used to encircle the opposite pinnacle."
"Yes, I think so. Let me try." Gellor quickly fashioned a running noose and after several misses managed to loop it around the crystalline finger. "There, I've got it! What now?"
"Place the line in my hand," Gord told the bard and thrust out his left hand in Gellor's direction. When the rope was in his palm, Gord closed his hand and spoke softly, his words strange and alien. The braided Gord seemed to come alive, and as would a python, its loop moved and visibly constricted, almost cutting into the transparent stuff it was encircling.
"Now, Gellor, take this piton and see if it won't hold here." As he said that, Gord sat on the small stone atop their perch and drew out his magical dagger. Straining, he forced the dweomered metal point into the rock, making a hole that was narrow but several inches deep. The troubador took up the steel spike and placed its tip into the opening, pounding with the pommel of his own dagger to drive it down as far as possible.
Gord felt, found the piton's eye, and threaded the rope through the opening, again speaking to the enchanted line as he worked. The rope drew itself into a twisting series of wrappings and knots, and then was stretched taut from one pinnacle to the other.
In a moment the young champion of Balance was again standing,
and then he had his feet off the stone table and upon the line. "Ill walk," he said cheerfully. "The rest of you can swing across like apes!" He laughed and walked boldly along the horsehair strand as if it were a broad pathway. The rope barely sagged, and Gord had no difficulty in attaining the far point. There he paused as his toe encountered the crystalline finger, and with his hands he explored the area before stepping onto it. "It is smooth and slick, just as you thought, Gellor. Come ahead, now, and I'll assist arrivals," Gord called, moving carefully onto the rectangular surface that was about the size of a monk's cot.
Gellor assisted first Chert, then the plump druid to a position where each could swing out and move hand-over-hand the ten feet that separated the two places. Despite the dangers of the bottomless void and the slippery landing spot, both adventurers managed the challenge quickly and without mishap. Gellor then crossed, and when Chert felt his hand the barbarian pulled him up as an adult lifts an infant, just as he had assisted Greenleaf. Gord spoke to the rope again, and soon the whole length of it was tightly coiled and hidden within his broad belt once more. The four then turned slowly, guided by the bard, wondering what would be next…. And suddenly they could see again!
The instant return of sight made them all dizzy, even Gellor, for the clash of normal vision and enchanted seeing through his gem eye was disconcerting. The four reeled but managed to maintain their footing. Ahead was nothing more than what appeared to be another ordinary, if magically suspended, stairstep spiraling upward. "No hesitation — onward!" Gord said, and took the next stride quickly with the others Just behind.
Within the space of a couple of steps, no longer were they treading on a stone stair slab. The quartet was in the midst of a dense, Junglelike thicket. They stood in a tiny clearing amid a tangle of thorns, briars, knife-edged vines, nail-grass, and spike-bushes. Everywhere were needles, hooks, barbs, and razor-sharp edges. "Perhaps this is an illusion," Chert said hopefully. The vegetation moved, and as it did so metalllc glitterings reflected from thorns and leaves.
"No illusion," Greenleaf said with assurance. "I hate to contradict you, hillman, but this is actual foliage, growth both evil and filled with sorcerous vitality. Now, though, I just might be of some real use!" With that, the druid began his spellworking, calling upon nature and the elements, living things and their departed essences, too, in the process. Grudgingly, and with sinister rustlings and a malign susurration making a constant undertone, creepers crept back, vines untangled and withdrew, grass parted, branches bent.
A narrow, serpentlne path formed. "Move along quickly!" Curley said. "I'm not convinced I can hold the way open for long." The strain in his voice was sufficient impetus to cause them to do as he said. Neither the finest enchanted armor nor the most puissant of magical protections could keep anyone safe from the hundreds of sharp and piercing things here. Two twists, ten long strides, and they came to a flat-topped boulder up thrust from the prickling growth that hedged them in.
"Link arms, comrades." Gord said. "Who knows what will befall us next?"
As they climbed atop the boulder, they saw before them a world of old red, a rust-hued plane of metal with no beginning and no end. Hung from the lowering sky of vivid maroon were monstrous iron bells, great cylinders of stained metal suspended no more than a dozen yards above their heads. Almost immediately the bells began to sway in different directions. Although they were hung on nothingness, although there were no ropes to control their movements, the rusted bells swung slowly but in ever-broadening arcs.
"Run like hellbats!" Chert shouted. "Those gods-damned clappers will soon set up such a din as to deafen us — drive us into madness!" The barbarian was right. He had also seen something that none of his friends had noticed. Away in the distance was a bell of more titanic proportions than the rest, and its metal was of greenish color, the verdigris typical of corroded bronze. "There!" was all he said, and he pointed as he shouted it. Then Chert sprang ahead and ran.
Quick as they were to pound along after him, Gord. Gellor, and Curley were immediately a dozen strides behind. The bells began to sound at that instant. Like massive iron maces, their clappers worked, moving in a motion opposite the swaying of the monstrous cylinders that contained them. The world seemed to shake and reverberate as the titanic throats of rusted metal sent forth their bellowing sounds.
"Badongggg, balonggg, kahronggg!" Even these initial noises, ringing not full-toned from a forceful striking of clapper on bell, were sufficient to shake the adventurers deep in their chests and make their heads swim. The resonance was dreadful, the noise growing. There was no hope of speech, no means to communicate unless they stopped to signal to each other. Stopping would mean losing time, and that could prove fatal if they were thereby exposed to the reverberations for too long.
"Gahdongg! Brrongg! Dooongg!!" The bells were now tilting wildly, the strikers hammering the rusted metal with force sufficient to crush anything except metal like themselves as they hit. The noise was so terrific as to nearly drive the four down to their knees. Gord could have sprinted past, leaving his slower comrades behind. Instead, he kept pace with Greenleaf, helping the rotund half-elf along as they ran.
The triple-sized bronze bell was now only a few yards away, and Chert was visible standing under it. Gord was seeing double, his head ached, and his knees were weak. He wanted to stop and scream over and over, keeping time with the iron tolling of the maddening things that sounded overhead. But he fought off the urge, gritted his teeth, and pulled Curley Greenleaf along faster.
Suddenly they were in an island of silence, of bliss. Chert's mouth was moving, but no sounds were coming out. Gord opened his own mouth to tell the big hillman so; then he realized that he could barely hear himself speak, even though the booming clangor of the monstrous bells wasn't penetrating this space under the bronze one.
Directly under the center of the green-hued cylinder was a platform suspended in air — apparently another of the steps that they had to ascend. Gellor moved toward it, but Gord pulled the troubador back. "Wait," he signaled, and did the same twice more to show both Chert and the druid that it applied to them as well. Then the young adventurer pointed to his ears, allowed his tongue to droop out of his mouth in a symbol of fatigue, and visibly relaxed, slump-shouldered. With that, he sat down beneath the bronze bell, took out his skin of wine, and grabbed meat, cheese and biscuits from his pouch. Nodding and looking relieved, the other three seated themselves as well. They ate and then stretched out and rested briefly.
Gord came out of a doze. His eyes fell upon the cloud of bells beyond. They were motionless. The ringing has stopped," he said absently aloud.
"So it has," Curley said in reply. Then he stretched and tried to make himself a little more comfortable on the iron floor.
"I heard you speak!" The exclamation was from Chert.
The deafness was only temporary, then, as I thought," the one-eyed bard observed softly. Time to press on again, Gord?"
"Yes. Who can tell how long we've been here? Not long, I think, but…"
The four managed to step in unison onto the next stair. A sea of roaring flame shot up around them. Again it was the druid who solved the dilemma. It took but a brief time for Greenleaf to summon forth a monumentally great fire elemental from the inferno around them. Such a creature as that was quite usual for the druid, although in all of his scores of years Curley had never seen one so large as that which appeared at his conjuration now. The druid and the elemental exchanged pleasantries. Then Curley asked, "Can you transport us through this fiery place?"
"No!" came the crackling basso of the fire elemental's reply. That would have been the end of it, except for the special rapport that existed between the nature priest and the denizens of the elemental spheres. "Yet you can pass by yourselves safely enough, druid."
"How so?" Greenleaf asked, peering at the leaping tongues of fire.
"I will make a cool path," the elemental responded. "Where would you go?"
There!" said Gord,
gesturing toward a spot where pale smoke streamed upward. It was the only place of its kind to be seen in the inferno. That is the place we must attain!"
Curley nodded and looked at the elemental. The towering creature said and did nothing. "Oh, yes, of course, I was the one who summoned you, wasn't I?" the druid asked rhetorically. He was truly flustered by the immensity of the being of fire. "We would pass from here to the smoke yonder, majestic one," Greenleaf said loudly to the elemental. "Please assist me!"
"It is done!" the fire elemental boomed. Then it turned and swept away toward the column of smoke. Behind it was a path of cinders, for where it went the creature's raging heat and flame consumed the very fires that surrounded it.
"Not too close, now," Curley warned as he stepped off the safety of the rectangle they had been upon and followed the elemental. He hunched and hurried, for searing curtains of flame were on either hand and the cinders beneath were very hot. The others followed with alacrity, and although they sweated and felt flushed, they came to no harm. The elemental ahead circled the place where the smoke arose, waved a cherry-red, flame-tongued member, and then sank into nothingness again amid the flames. Behind them the fires were creeping onto the pathway, so the four sprinted to where the column of gray smoke shot upward. There was no fire generating it, so they took their chances and plunged into the stuff.
Their coughing became choking and painful rasping almost at once. Passing from the inferno of flame, the four had entered a place of insubstantial vapors and rolling fogs. Sickly pastel hues of mist and cloud; yellow, green, brownish, hideous blue. "Gas!" Gellor managed to cough the warning. "Poison!"
It was again the druid who saved them. With a few quick passes and a litany of chanting, Greenleaf managed to complete a spell despite the lung-wracking, skin-burning vapors that crawled and swirled around the four. In the moment of completion, a curtain of flames shot up. Its hot flames encircled them, burning away the toxic clouds near, creating a growing updraft that cleared the area it inscribed. "Which direction shall I move it?" Curley asked as the wall of glowing fire did its work and normal speech was again possible.
