by Gary Gygax
Without regard for such, and with singleness of purpose, the glowing solar drew a silvery rod from where a man's girdle would be. It was small-looking in the beings vast grip, but the instrument was potent nonetheless. Down it came, crystalline light flashed from it as it impacted upon a gibbonlike fiend, and the dumaldun thus struck howled and retreated, with weird, mercurial incandescence lighting its whole form. The sole remaining attacker left off its ferocious assault at that and tried to flee. The right arm of the solar struck again, and the result duplicated his first smiting. Both dumalduns glowed and yowled and capered. This time it was in agony and fear, not as wild lusting for blood and death. Because it was a creature of the higher spheres, the solar dealt quickly with the two. A quick snap of the wrist, a repetition, and the rod took each beast again, giving them a cleaner death than such fiends ever deserved.
Thank you. One of Weal!" Gord spoke out of true gratitude.
"Stay back!" The solar bellowed to the man who had taken a step toward it. "I read no malice in your heart, but you have no pure aura, either. Keep your distance, whatever you may be, and keep that weapon you hold away, too!"
"My friends and I serve Balance, fight the evil of Tharizdun. This brand is made potent by the very strength of Evil. Fear me or it not!"
"Fear? No solar ever fears, creature of convictionless spawning. It is the stench of the blade, your lack of righteousness, which repels me. Common foe or not, I will have no association with you!" The being of lapis light then moved as if readying to depart.
Gord was taken aback by the attitude the minion of Weal displayed. It felt no fellow-feeling, showed no common cause, disdained any proximity to him. No wonder that the vile ones who labored for Tharizdun's ascendancy were virtually unchecked by the might of the higher planes. Such beings as this would never accept others who were not of identical ethos and action.
"Have pity, Bright One," he called to the solar despite his welling indignation. There lie three heroes, brave men and true, felled in the fight against those who oppose you and all Weal, too. Show mercy and aid them!"
The solar paused. Tour heart is filled with repulsiveness, your head with sin, your hand with nether-force. Yet you dare to speak to me of benisons?" Yet even as the being spoke, it hesitated. "Very well. I see the need for some justice in the matter. You serve those both hot and cold, good and evil, the fence-striders and self-lovers. Choose one of the three, and I shall restore him to vitality. That, and the whereabouts of your demon-consorting adversary, will fully even the score between us."
"Even? Score? I speak of combating the very essence of all that is wicked, of driving that one's servants to their demise, of locking evil away forever!"
"Cold untruths, neutral creature. You seek not the end of all evil, the glory of Weal forever. What you work and strive to do is play the wicked against the righteous eternally, thus allowing your gray-tinged existences forever. You will have no such service from me! Name now the one you will have quickened, then follow the reek of corruption left as the slug you call Gravestone crawled away to seek safety."
There was no choice. "Gellor," he said, speaking the name slowly, carefully. The one-eyed troubador was the greatest and most powerful of the three.
Gord's heart was leaden in his breast as he said the name.
"It is as you would have it." the solar said in its deep and beautifully resonant voice. Then the lucid blue vanished.
"What happened?" It was the bard, coming to consciousness, struggling erect.
Gord had no time to explain. "You're fine, I think, old comrade, but Chert and Greenleaf are not! See if you can do something for them. I must continue the hunt for the demonurgist. Here, catch!" the young adventurer said, tossing a rune-worked pyramid to Gellor. The troubador took it from the air but looked uncertain. "It is enspelled and will take you from here. Use it if I do not return in a thousand heartbeats. Speak the name of the Demiurge as you open the thing."
Til not be in so great a hurry to flee, Gord. Right protect you and make your aim true," Gellor said. Then he went as quickly as he could to where the torn and bloody forms of his other friends were. "Hurry after the rotten bastard, Gord. Get him, and even if we three here die, it is a good exchange."
"I… I'm sorry, but I must leave you. Care for them, do what is possible." Without saying anything more for fear that his voice would break, Gord turned in the general direction in which the priest-wizard had gone and began to peer at the floor, sniffing as he did so. True to his utterance, the solar had used his power to reveal the path that Gravestone had taken.
Curiously, although the place appeared flat and featureless to his normal vision, the dweomer of the being from the higher spheres enabled Gord to see the place as its evil maker did.
Better still, the energy imparted by the solar allowed the young champion of the Balance to follow the demonurgist as he entered the devious mazes of the subrosa portion of his creation. What was a disc of a few hundred feet diameter to others became far different now. There was a level below the apparent one on a different vibratory frequency. Its dark resonance expanded the confines of the nullity greatly. Below the featureless oval that held Gellor, Chert, and Curley Greenleaf was a warren of passages and chambers that was three times larger than the space above, even though it existed in the same seeming place. Gord was confused but could comprehend the principle behind it.
He followed the visible smudges of stinking stuff. It was a trail of the very essence of Gravestone; his aura of evil was such that it actually left behind a reek as he passed. Wondering if the solar's reaction to himself and the lightless sword had been based on a similar perception of aura, Gord went down a now plainly visible flight of steps fully twenty feet broad. His body was resonating on the same frequency as the vibrations of Gravestone and his hidden underlevel, only Gravestone wouldn't be aware of it. Not yet!
Despite the possible fate of his comrades. Gord felt a grim satisfaction, an impending doom hanging over the demonurgist's head. Gravestone had been the instrument of all that was truly bad in the young mans existence. It was the priest-wizard who had hunted down and killed both Gord's father and mother. All evil that had followed therefrom, even Leena's degenerative condition, the terrible existence he had suffered in Old City and beyond, all the rest, too. The demonurgist had caused it all and desired worse. There was one beyond Gravestone, of course. Perhaps two, if Infestix were placed in the equation.
But Gord didn't consider the master of the pits as a part of his mission. That one would be taken care of by some other. First came the demonurgist. Then Gord had but one remaining foe to face. The sole master of Gravestone was Tharizdun. That was in the priest-wizard's heart. "No problem." Gord said aloud as he stepped off the last stair and followed the slime of evil. "I'll remove his black heart and quench the burning desire all in one cleansing thrust!"
The foe Gord sought now had no idea he was being hounded by the young champion. Gravestone had activated a great spell, a dweomer contained in a scarab that had been carefully prepared and held ready for just such need as now. As the dumalduns stupidly sacrificed themselves in combat with the solar, the demonurgist had begun the task of evoking the malign forces locked in the scarab. Layer upon layer of magic flowed from it.
First, the wards against Weal. The quasi-sphere that was Gravestone's own creation in nullity began to glow darkly. Lasting globes of malign force sprang into being. These were fashioned to repel goodness, to drive away anything from the upper planes. Three bands of such malign power manifested themselves from the scarab: the dull, bloody hue of the hells, the ebon of the Abyss, the putrid purple of the pits. True, a great solar might be able to endure such force as those three globes emitted, but even so the evil would begin eroding the strength of any being of Weal.
Next issued the most potent and malign of the sigils of the netherplanes. Each evil sign was disguised, near-invisible even to a being as mighty as the solar. These sigils were themselves repositories of dweomer. Some held
black destruction from the depths of demonium, others fiery force garnered in the hells, while the remainder contained the death-powers bestowed from Hades itself. To confront one was to be blasted by the full potency of the evil rune's magic. Should a solar even pass near to one, the sigil would trigger its guarding force to the detriment of the intruding foe. Wards to force away the strength of good, guarding sigils to lay the enemies of Tharizdun and his servant low. Great was the power of the scarab. Yet a third came beyond.
The complexities of the dark castings that the device contained had taken years of time and great effort to form. As the wardings and guards sprang into existence, so too the final portion of the dweomer. The dark power of the netherspheres formed a labyrinth of corridors and rooms, halls and passages, galleries and rooms in which the priest-wizard would be hidden. No bright creature could discover the secret of that maze, for the aura of evil was nowhere and everywhere at once. That particular pattern that was Gravestone's was replicated, mirrored, and spread throughout the complex whose confines were broad and confusing. The being of Weal who entered would be so affected as to find the whole ever greater. Each step added two to the evil complex, each turn created a branching, a fresh twist, so that the very operation of such an enemy in the black maze caused the labyrinth to expand and become more confusing.
A portion of it had existed from the time Gravestone had fashioned his web using the netherforces at his command. There, safe in the center, hedged round with every protection years of effort could build, the demonurgist hid. Pentagrams and circles graven into the stony stuff of the floor kept him free from magical intrusions, as did the mystic triangles and horned seals of evil. The entrance was of stone and iron, set with silver and gold runes. All were hidden by secret fashioning and cloaked further with spells of invisibility, illusion, and blindness, which made physical location of the lair he had constructed nearly impossible. Dense metal and dampening magics precluded other forms of intrusion. It was a place of total safety.
In this sanctum Gravestone had stored the treasured tilings of his craft, the repositories of black knowledge, arcane art, and magical lore. The material of alchemy, the rituals of necromancy, the conjurations of sorcery alone filled the whole of one long wall. Components for spells, the paraphernalia of retorts and flasks for the concocting of magical fluids and powders littered a long bench. A century of malign deeds and accumulation of the fruits thereof were contained in the place. There Gravestone sat, breathed deeply, shook off the awful dread that the appearance of the solar had wrapped around his dark heart.
"I read the enemy wrong," he said aloud. "After all of these decades I made a mistake!" Muttering obscene things under his breath then, the demonurgist began hastily to correct his error. His entire force had been spent on preparing for the coming of the man who was called Gord. The champion, though, had nearly triumphed despite all that Gravestone had done. This would be rectified.
Drinking from various of the multitude of vials and flasks that littered the secret chamber, Gravestone restored his confidence, energy and strength. Elixirs and black potions of human blood were consumed, along with a half-dozen less savory draughts. The demonurgist then began selecting an array of potent devices and evil objects with which he armed himself as a precaution. There was no telling when such would be needed, even though his chief armament would be the dweomers he would soon prepare.
"Yes, bastard of balance." he spat aloud. "Soon, indeed, I'll have restored my power, prepared the castings which will blast your guts into food for the worms, and myself eat your heart and liver while your soul goes into Hades for the amusement of the daemons!"
Gravestone pictured Gord as he spoke. The human had brought a solar to aid him. Despite the aura he possessed, the demonurgist now knew the true nature of the warrior of Balance. That one could be no neutral median, not when the greatest minions of Weal came to his bidding. The emanations were naught but a cloak, a hoax. The one called Gord was actually of the spheres of light, and now Gravestone would know exactly how to dispose of him. "The Cursed Codex, I think…. Yes! That and the Everlasting Damnations of Dilwomz should serve."
He found the vile tomes where they stood on the shelves amid the ranks of wicked lore in his library. Seated at his high desk, black candles burning, the priest-wizard began his preparations. The process would take a while, but time was the ally of Tharizdun, of Gravestone. If his adversary managed to win free of Gravestone's web before the demonurgist came forth again to confront him for the last time, no matter. He would be the hunter. Gord the prey. There was no place in which the champion could hide, for if he tried then the nether realms would automatically succeed. Gord would have to come again to seek him out, and the demonurgist would deal with the puny little human then, once and for all.
"Human?" Gravestone asked the question aloud in the dark chamber. The flames of stinking candle and burning brazier leaped and flared at that. "No, another false assumption. The little turd is of Rexfelis's spawning, too. He is of mixed heritage — the weakness of man, the vacillating dearth of neutrality. Each is riddled with flaws and lacks conviction. This mixture assures the victory of Evil's dark purpose!" He leaped off his chair, gathered up another grimoire, then returned to his reading once again.
Hours passed in this fashion. The priest-wizard sought the words he needed, burned the malign syllables into his brain, tapped the energies of every hellish and demoniacal place, too, for good measure. Now and again he sought further works, gathered strange and evil things for the casting of a spell, or actually worked some minor casting in the process of equipping himself. The philters he had drunk earlier gave Gravestone unnatural energy, unsleeping vigor. After hours and hours of time spent thus, the demonurgist wrote furiously in his own collections of dark spells and then began his final preparations. He felt the life force of Gord ebb as he worked. There was no chance of failure this time.
Chapter 17
Could a Solar lie? Gord asked himself that as he realized there was no longer a trail for him to follow.
No, that wasn't exactly line. Actually, there were endless trails leading everywhere and nowhere. The slime path left by the fleeing demonurgist covered each and every route in the whole of the maze. "Let me think," he said slowly, and pondered what the being from the higher spheres had said. " '… Follow the reek of corruption…' " But there were dark trails of the slime visible everywhere!
"… Follow the reek…" That was it! He was relying on his eyes, not on the literal words of the Instruction. The slime was a secondary trail. The solar had actually told Gord to use the odor of the demonurgist's evil to track him down. Let me see what I can do to correct my stupidity, the young champion thought as he sniffed the air.
"I am a fool!" he muttered. For what seemed an eternity he had been wandering up and down the dark byways and broad halls of the labyrinth trying vainly to discover which of the plain paths was actually the essence of Gravestone's passage. Now, his nose revealed what the truth was. A sharp, acrid stench was obvious. Its reck was stronger in some places than in others. Eventually, by carefully sniffing out his way, Gord would be able to trace the priest-wizard to his lair here. "Doubly a fool, and I have not much time left!" he chided himself.
Instead of using his human nose, Gord shifted from two-legged to four-legged form, and where a short, slender man had stood a moment before there now crouched a huge black leopard. It crouched in order to get the scent from the hard floor.
The olfactory power of Gord as a panther was more than ten times greater than that of Gord as a human. Gord-panther now swung his head this way and that, sniffing the flagstonelike floor, testing the still air. Then the great cat rose and padded up a passage, back down, and across a place where three other corridors met. Although he was unaware of it, the chamber was dweomered to expand to massive proportions, to have four, six, or a score or more adits, but there was no force to spring the evil magic. The champion in leopard form had a far easier task than ever the one who devised the laby
rinth imagined. Soon enough Gord-panther's nose had the strongest scent, and he leaped ahead, following the noisomeness that was the sign of the demonurgist's passing, with increasing speed.
There was a turn here, a doubling back there. No matter. The duplications of Gravestone's trail were each weaker. The immediate mirrorings were very close, of course. That made the tracking more difficult, but the replications from replications grew progressively weaker, stale in their evil stench, as it were. The task was hard but by no means impossible. As if following footprints plainly set in smooth sand, the black leopard that was Gord traced the frantic passage of the demonurgist, and eventually came to the place where it ended in stone, plain blocks no different from the thousands of others that formed the walls of the place.
With a low panther-sound still rumbling from his chest and along his throat, Gord became human once again. "A cat to suss you out, demon-clasper; a thief to find your hidey-hole," he said softly as his hands felt and eyes observed the place. There was more to it, of course. Gord thought the rest to himself: A swordsman to fight you; a sword to take your heart. Dwell upon that later. Now he had to discover the way to enter Gravestone's lair.
There was a portal here, surely. It was hidden by natural craft and dweomercraeft both. It would be similarly closed fast by bolts of steel, bands of wizardwork. Gord felt for his dagger, then recalled he had left it with Gellor in his haste to pursue Gravestone. Knowing that no skill of his own could ever open the secret door, the gray-eyed thief put aside that strategy and drew Blackheartseeker from its scabbard.
"Come, sword, show me the power you have in your metal!" he growled softly. Blackheartseeker trembled slightly in his grasp, and a red-black glow seemed to come from the heart of the long blade whose tip was centered on the portal. "Your completion lies beyond, but I cannot get you to what you must have without help!" As Gord urged the weapon to release its might, however, the glowing waned; yet the vibration of it seemed to increase. Uncertain, the young champion held his arm steady, sword tip still and unswerving from in front of the barred door that must surely lead to his quarry.
