Come Endless Darkness gtr-4

by Gary Gygax

  That is not by mere chance, Basiliv noted. The great tripartite force which they wrought to bind Tharizdun now rebounds upon its creators. Perhaps a few devas, possibly a planetar. Just enough to check the hells, the undead and maelvis of Acheron. Enough, barely, but enough nonetheless. Dreggals and Hades were now interlocked in the demon-war. There was balance… Balance.

  Not all of Oerth was festering under conflict. The Cabal hedged its places on and near the material world. The Bladelord evened things in favor of the less rapacious. Rexfelis maintained his own place untainted and reinforced his allies at strategic points. Even with Mordenkainen gone, the others of the Obsidian Citadel were strong enough to hold fast. Soon they would join with the elves of Highfolk and the freefolk of Vesve to drive off the invading scum sent by Iuz. Precarious, teetering on all the manifold fronts, but the scale was steadying at the midpoint again. Good, but… something bothered the Demiurge. Another corner of his mind nagged. Let it nag for now. He had to center all of his force on Gord.

  Basiliv's view alternated between the actual and the representational. There were the six, champion and attendant heroes, leaving the secluded inn and heading into the district of Greyhawk where Gord's first and most personal foe laired. Determination, cold anger, purpose radiated from Gord in particular. That was so strong, in fact, that it came through the network of supernatural energy with which he was charged.

  Then the depiction was of a board. The six moved as a unit, entering the space of the enemy. There was a veil of plum-colored mist surrounding the square, but the Demiurge had no difficulty penetrating the screen. His dweomered sight pierced the obscuring cloud of power and saw the multi-piece contest with lilac-hued opponents. Immediately before was a minor piece, and a pawn suddenly entered the area too. No, wait. There was also a greater figure, but it fled at the coming of the six, abandoned its position before the attack.

  With barely a thought, the Demiurge's sight widened and deepened. He discerned a trail of angry purple, a weaving of dark powers left as one of the enemy fled. There! A sick and perverted ladderway in the noplace of extradimensional existence. Only one such as the priest-mage called Gravestone could construct such a place. The purple pathway led to the foundation of the twisted tiers, then deepened.

  I will see the reality, Basiliv thought firmly. Again his vision shifted, and he saw the wizard Sigildark and the netherfiend Krung. They fought with malign fury and died before the mental gaze of the Demiurge. The six were well, unharmed. Most of their energy quite untapped. The sword! Basiliv thought hastily. Its aura is black, yet there is a veining of verdigris wound through its fabric.

  He was shocked at the terrible power of the weapon Gord possessed. He had formerly received no hint of the sword's potential. None save Vuron the demon lord could have alloyed such malign prowess into the magical metal of the weapon, but even that great demon was quite helpless compared to the force of the blade. Was it our gifting? Basiliv asked himself. Entropy? Gord's own inner forces? None of those possibilities fit. Another unknown, another nagging question. Later…. For now, all that mattered was that it served Balance.

  His view of things Jumped back to the representational. The six had divided into two groups. Allton and Timmil were bypassing the mazetrap. This was occurring even as Krung was expunged and Sigildark sent gibbering away to his fate in the pits. Why? How could those two be so foolish?! In their desire to confront their evil foe, both the mage and high priest had separated from their acknowledged leader, the champion of their very cause, to strike Gravestone immediately. The rashness was unbelievable, especially considering that the priest-wizard undoubtedly had both reinforcements and a bolt-hole. Perhaps the two thought they could prevent Gravestone from summoning the dire beings who were undoubtedly at his beck in the lower planes: cleric to ward off the rising evil, spell-worker to hold fast the adversary and prevent his flight. With Greenleaf, Chert, Gellor, and Gord coming immediately behind, such tactics would be superior.

  The projections that were the chessmen of the envisioned board moved. A dual-piece of intermediate value confronted a towering figure of pulsing violet hue. The purple was more potent, but to strike would expose it to the duality of the other. Standoff… for a time. What of the others?

  He was part of a weird, four-sided construct. It was a piece of unguessable force, but it moved only slowly. One square at a time it wound its way laboriously up the hideous squares of the distorted helix, the ladder of spaces that eventually culminated in the place where the devoted wizard and priest held off the evil priest-wizard. There was another, far easier route for the four-fronted chessman to follow, only its power of movement was inadequate to follow the simple, untrapped checker of upward-soaring cubes. Instead it moved and fought along the hundred steps of the deadly helix. Basiliv watched in horrified fascination as the Gord-Chert-Gellor-Curley Greenleaf figure went on, space after space, slowly, fighting the form or foe at each step, moving haltingly toward the lair-board so far above.

  Wrenching himself from the spectacle, the Demiurge concentrated on the ultimate goal that Gord struggled toward. Gravestone's image appeared, seen as from a bird's-eye view of a bowshot above. He stood at the apex of a triangle formed by himself and his antagonists, Timmil on the right with a potent staff held ready, Allton at the other corner, likewise armed. The two who held Gravestone at bay had so many protections and tokens of power that even the great evil one was uneasy, it seemed. He neither struck at one or the other, only stood still and slowly moved a long wand, or a slender rod, first left, then right, and back again.

  Was this to ward against the two? No! Some new presence was gathering behind Gravestone, slowly, becoming more palpable with each slow, measured sweep of the priest-wizard's malign wand.

  Where were the others? Basiliv thought frantically.

  Gord was plodding upward still. The four had just overcome a place of living metal where iron spheres and steel cubes sought to crush nonmetallic life with savage ferocity. Next was a wilderness of alkali, then a primal jungle-swamp filled with monstrous dinosaurs. Somehow the four managed to win past and gain the place of the efreet; and despite the evil nature of those denizens of the City of Brass, the foursome prevailed again.

  A monstrous efreeti transported them past the next fell space, a square wherein things of negative force waited to leech life from them, onto a formless void where not even the Demiurge could guess what awaited.

  But then… "I understand!" Basiliv spoke aloud, not caring if he disturbed the others. They too must know. The revelation was sudden, and the shock was sufficient to make Basiliv curse.

  "How could I have been so stupid?" Now the others were staring at him. He'd tell them in a moment. Two things first. Quickly concentrating on Gravestone again, Basiliv saw the shape of what formed behind.

  "As I feared!" Shifting instantly to Gord, the Demiurge then viewed the formless expanse where the four were now held. Yes. It was as he thought. There was a… Never mind thinking it! He had to communicate directly with the champion.

  "Gord!" The name, thought and shouted at the same time, was sent with all the energy the Demiurge could muster. "Gord! You are- "

  "That is quite enough of that," a dry voice said, an interruption heard only in the Demiurge's brain just before…

  Basiliv's mind went blank.

  Chapter 13

  "We needn't be enemies, you know."

  The words were addressed to him only, so Allton responded. "That is true, daemon-kisser," he mocked. "You or I will die, and thus we will no longer oppose each other."

  "That is the solution toward which we now steer, I grant," Gravestone said without rancor or threat. "There is another answer, though. A better solution for you and your associate." As he said that. Gravestone allowed his eyes to slide easily, head turning slowly, to include Timmil in the offer.

  "Another?"

  "Cease the bantering now," Timmil barked to the mage. "He is as sly as any archdevil and as vile as Nerull!"

&n
bsp; "Yes, another, better way," Gravestone responded to Allton even as his stare stayed fixed on the high priest. "Join me. You are a spell-worker of great puissance. Become my lieutenant. Your priestly friend here says that Nerull is vile; still, I think you know otherwise, for you seek the balance, do you not?"

  "The lord of the pits is reviled!" Allton shot it out without having to consider.

  "True," Timmil affirmed in support.

  "False, quite false," averred the priest-wizard. "Is death wrong? How is there balance against the riotous spawning of life without quiet death? And light — would it not gladly sear your eyes constantly were it not for sweet darkness?"

  "Sophistries!" the priest barked.

  The words of Balance," Allton admitted.

  The Weal would suppress Balance were it able. Long and long it has oppressed us of the nether-spheres. We strive now against those above — not you, not Nature. How could we know our own if our actual aim was to destroy all save those who served the same master?"

  The mage found a grain of something in what Gravestone uttered. Nodding slowly, Allton began, "But all know that Tharizdun-"

  "Beware again, Allton!" Timmil interrupted. "He lies with scant truths!"

  "Beware yourself, priestling called Timmil," Gravestone fired back unheatedly. "Might not your 'truths' be formed of scant lies? No? You think not? No matter! Think on this, mage Allton, and you too, cleric, if your brain is not too filled with propaganda to remain open to reason." That seemed to have an effect. The priest-wizard shifted his eyes back to the mage, who now stood uncertain.

  "Ponder the enmity which exists now," Gravestone continued. "Has any hostile action been taken on the initiative of the netherspheres? Yes, of course! But only, and I repeat, only, against those who fight us. Balance has interfered, made cause with Good, because its leaders betray it!"

  Allton took a moment to consider that, but Timmil did not hesitate.

  The fallacies of your statements, blackheart, are exceeded only by your deceitful actions!" The cleric had picked up the gauntlet, for he was all too aware of the nature of their opponent. Gravestone had evil powers of persuasion that could overwhelm both of their defenses if allowed to insinuate their way into their minds unchecked.

  Upon hearing the high priest's denunciation. Allton snapped back to himself. The staff he grasped with knuckles now white sprang up to point at the malign figure before him. "Yes, liar and deceiver, I am aware of your summoning!"

  "Too late, you puny fools!" Gravestone shouted the words with malign laughter rolling after them. It was as if a curtain had been raised behind the priest-wizard. As his peals of maniacal laughter died away in the measureless distances that were no distance at all, there appeared behind him two towering forms. The burning eyes of Pazuzeus seared into Allton's brain, while the stunned cleric tried to defend his sanity against the assault of Shabriri's many-orbed stare.

  "They are yours, body and soul, my servants!" Gravestone shouted at them at the top of his voice, his tone still laden with unholy joy. Take them! The sport is yours!" So saying, the priest-wizard made a tiny gesture. Instantly he was gone from the setting, leaving the great elder demons to deal as they could and would with Timmil and the archmage. Gravestone reappeared in the same heartbeat that he vanished, now well removed and comfortably reclining on a divan. Cacodaemon whores from Gehenna fawned around him, and dumaldun slaves from Tarterus fanned and fed him. Now he could relish the coming spectacle in proper comfort!

  That the two mighty demons were sufficiently formidable was beyond question. After all, no human mage could stand alone and unprotected against the likes of ancient Pazuzeus, four-winged lord of aerial nethercreatures. Shabriri too was of incalculable power, and even so great a cleric as Timmil would be helpless to defend against the mental, magical, and physical assaults that the elder demon would send and employ. Taking no chances, however, Gravestone was ensconced at a long distance and employed a distorting dweomer to appear closer. The best part about that spell was that it also allowed him to see as if he were only but a few rods distant.

  Even removed as he was. Gravestone also took additional precautions. He activated protective magics and then used a personal spell to construct a globe around the area he was in, so that stray energy or spells would not penetrate. Of course, such defense precluded any direct intervention by him, but the priest-wizard was more than confident that his demoniacal servants would need no assistance from him. Gravestone was commensurate at his black art; he was the demonurgist. These netherbeings who were enmeshed by his power were studied, known, and controlled as well.

  Allton felt the meshes and lines of dark force that flowed and held the pocket of created space together. Without conscious volition, he knew the spaces and distances. Allton was, after all, one of the greatest of dweomercraefters; only a handful of spell-binders anywhere surpassed him. One was here. Mordenkainen worked elsewhere, as did Tenser, the one who had sent Allton. None of the dark ones other than Gravestone came close to his power. Sigildark had approached the mark, but that one was no more. Bigby was perhaps on a par. There was one of awful weal who was likewise, and one of chaos far to the west. There were none other than that.

  Allton's many talents included knowledge of energies, and thus he knew now what was surrounding him. Gravestone's sudden disappearance and reappearance stood out plainly to the mage's mind. Allton saw the means used, the currents of power tapped, and the distortions that indicated reshaping and continued usage. This was the same talent that had made it possible for him to trace Sigildark so easily. It was the reason he had been the one chosen to accompany the champion.

  He could utilize Gravestone's own forces here, but only if he were allowed time. Somehow the demonurgist had duped Allton, lulled him into a mental stupor while calling forth the demons, but aside from that, the mage's skill was such that the demonurgist would be hard pressed to contend with him even on his own demi-plane. With the aid of Timmil, Allton thought he could best the priest-wizard. But he needed time! Now two terrible demons confronted them, and there was no time to study the energies here, to plan, to seize and reshape the surging forces and reshape them to his will. Nevertheless, Allton had his staff. That would serve as a conduit of sorts. Together with his chosen spells and the many tokens of magical containment he carried, he was armed well enough to withstand the demon who came for him. He could hold out, stand under the siege, until help in the form of the champion arrived.

  "I abjure the evil, turn back the nether, set forth a barrier for all time between Right and Oppression, the Natural and Malign!" Timmirs words rang clearly through the strange atmosphere of Gravestone's place. The priest was calling for a protection against all wickedness, and of course that included the many-eyed Shabriri.

  "I confound all evil power and strengthen that which resists its purposes," the great high priest continued, and as he spoke the air began to shimmer around him. Somehow the forces of his own calling were coalescing here, even though it was a place of darkest evil. "All who strive against the wrongfulness will prosper and strike true. All wicked ones will falter and grow weak." Timmil recited the chant rapidly, but it came from his heart. The innate powers he possessed were sufficient to keep Shabriri off for just long enough for him to complete the work. It included Allton positively and Pazuzeus negatively. It was then that the demon struck, for Shabriri was now sure of exactly what his human foe was doing.

  "A petty nusiance, priest!" Shabriri roared as he sent forth his attack. It was a withering blast of negativity, a death force meant to turn Timmil into a husk.

  Coruscating ebony vomited from the ancient demon's mouth. It came toward Timmil in a broad gout, but it failed to harm him. The null-stuff of the demon's assault splattered as if it were indeed vomit, then ran to the ground like electricity, disappearing with a sharp, explosive crack. The high priest's defenses and the protective power of his abjuration defeated Shabriri's force.

  It was merely the first exchange of the first round of
a duel to the death, and well Timmil knew that. The cleric understood clearly what had happened. How their foe, Gravestone, had distracted their attention, used his power here to mask his true actions, as he delayed Allton and Timmil with seeming willingness to avoid conflict. Because the two had meant to prevent just such a summoning as Gravestone had accomplished, and to fix him to a spot in order to slay the demonurgist, the task the priest-wizard had managed was, in retrospect, not surprising.

  Yet now they were in real trouble. He and Allton had seriously underestimated their enemy. Timmil hoped the mage would know the forms of attack that Pazuzeus could employ as well as Timmil himself knew them — and the abilities of Shabriri. It could be said that the high priest was very much the antithesis of Gravestone, for Timmil was an exorcist, abjurer of evil and demonkind, exiler of netherbeings from the realms of mankind. The demonurgist had known his name. The hideous expression apparent on Shabriri's visage as he drew near showed Timmil that the elder demon now knew who and what the high priest was.

  "My apologies, demon. I shall not trouble you with petty nuisances again." Timmil said, as the monstrous being strained to break through the barrier that the cleric had created to hedge himself from the demon. "Is this better?" From Timmil's staff came a golden halo, a thing of light no larger than a finger ring. It floated for a split second, then shot toward the demon, growing from bracelet-size to the circumference of a large man's waist as it flew. Shabriri cursed and ducked, swatting at the shining stuff. He touched it, and the gold flickered, dimmed and went out. More were issuing from Timmil's staff, though. Seven such circles came forth, and the demon could not stop them all. One found him untouched and settled over the thing's head as a halo.

  "Noooo!" Shabriri bellowed in his multitoned, disGordant voice. The radiance of the nimbus was the light of Order and Weal. It was of its very nature diametrically opposed to the demon. Its radiance burned Shabriri's eyes, its warmth blistered the creature's horn-plated hide, and the music it emitted gave such terrible pain that Shabriri could hardly think. Somehow, though, the demon managed to gather his wits and work a counter-spell against the searing force of the halo. That will cost you much when the end comes!" Shabriri hissed in a voice as loud as a dragon's roar when the force of his counter dissipated the nimbus and the pain left him.