Come Endless Darkness (36 page)

Magical sight and supernatural sense gave Gravestone just sufficient warning. He was leaping back from his intended spying even as the keen-edged sword shot out to pierce his chest. Gravestone's recoil was as fast as an adder's, Gord's stabbing lunge as quick as the strike of a leopard's paw. The demonurgist was wounded, but only an inch of Blackheartseeker penetrated his flesh; then the evil spell-binder was back and free of the metal, gasping and cursing.

It was still the opportune moment for Gord. One more thrust and the storkllke worker of mischief and murder would be dead. The moment was taken from Gord by the violet energy-beast.

"Whump!" The sound of it striking him seemed soft enough, but the evil power that flowed from the thing into Gord knocked him away. He was driven into the arras and tangled up in its folds. The monstrous thing stepped ponderously forward and struck again. Gord kicked up, and the fallen fabric of the arras bellied upward. The thing struck that, and the force of its blow went on to impact upon the stone where his adversary had been but a heartbeat earlier. Half-dazed, weakened, but still able to fight, Gord was tumbling and rolling to get beyond range of another immediate attack by the monster. It hurt, but he continued the gymnastic display by springing upright and crouching en garde. The sickly lavender of the thing's form moved to close the distance between them. It was what Gord wanted, for that movement placed Gravestone's construct between Gord and the priest-wizard.

"I should have known better than to leave an enemy behind me," the young man said with feigned sadness as he readied for the assault. It came quickly. The beast struck a sweeping blow, almost as if it sought to sweep Gord's feet out from under him with its long, evilly shimmering arm. Blackheartseeker's edge was there, but Gord was not. As the thing's thick arm swept forth, the sword's cutting edge struck a backhand blow that passed cleanly through the dark violet force. The featureless head of the beast went back and its voice howled from the opening that might have been a mouth. It now had but a single arm, and where the right one had been there came drops of dirty violet color, little drippings of energy that dissipated into nothingness as they struck the floor.

"Sing loudly for me, pitspawn," Gord cried as he leaped in and cut again at the beast. The longsword sliced through the violet force as if it wasn't even there, and the creature crashed down, its substance bleeding away in dark flashes of impotent evil. The beast was no more, but Gravestone was ready.

The demonurgist saw plainly what he faced. There was an aura surrounding his adversary that caused the priest-wizard to shudder. So deep its colors, so brilliant their glowings, so varied their spectrum as to show no weakness. Here indeed were the hands of all the most potent foes of Tharizdun who formed the Balance. Gifted power of supernatural splendor encased Gord in a halo that brought fear into Gravestone. That dread was nothing compared to what he felt when he looked at the lightless sword. Its power was of evil, but an evil distorted and made over to serve the opposite force. It was an instrument made of malign energy to destroy evil!

Mistake after mistake.... The majority of Gravestone's spells had been selected to have effect upon an opponent aligned to the ethical outlook of the upper spheres, thus in harmony with certain patterns and subject to set counter-frequencies. The appearance of the solar had caused the priest-wizard to make false assumptions and base his strategy of attack thereon.

It was also an error not to have considered the possibility, however remote, of having to deal with an enemy loose within his sanctum sanctorum. Gravestone could not now utilize the powerful spells based on fire, lightning and the like because to bring up such dweomers here would destroy centuries of work, an age of collected arcana, and who knows how many valuable magical repositories such as wands, scrolls, and apparati for demonurgy. As his foe fought with the construct. Gravestone wracked his brain for the single most effective attack he could now employ against the Champion of the Balance. In seconds, minutes at best, the last force of the spell-beast would be drained, and then the priest-wizard had to be ready with some sending that would stop the man who wielded that terrible, dull-black sword. The weapon he could not destroy, but the one who wielded it was an altogether different matter.

"Entrance to the Pits of Hades," Gravestone began to chant, making the formal, ritual gestures as he did so. His hands were filled with the correct materials to activate the gateway. All that was necessary for the priest-wizard to do was send them forth at the proper intervals as the incantation progressed. He was evoking his Doompit, a dweomer that would plunge Gord bodily into the depths of the nether spheres' lowest plane.

"Now conjoined with Gravestone's playground," he sang, fitting words to suit the circumstances. Meter was important, as was rhyme and constancy of the chant. "Force of Nerull death and disease, keep it fast and make it stay bound," the demonurgist continued, trying not to rush the spell but unable to keep his eyes from the melee. There were four stanzas needed to effect the junction and open the tunnel-like portal under the victim's feet, a one-way chute straight to the nether-pits. Just as Gravestone finished his first quatrain, the dark-bladed sword struck the beast's arm and destroyed it. But he still had time!

"Spinning vortex now created. Barrier magics all abated." Gravestone chanted as he spread black powder before him and moved his hands Just so. A tiny whirlwind suddenly sprang up, and the sooty stuff was turned into a miniature tornado, a vortex that moved toward the unsuspecting man who was now in the act of delivering the final blow to the figure of ghastly, violet-hued force. "Here to Hades now instated, Doompit passage generated!"

The second stanza was completed. Only two to go, but the champion was staring directly at him. The demonurgist felt cold beads of sweat spring from his brow. He knew it was not from the effort of casting the dark dweomer of the spell, but from the stark terror that came directly from the blade that would soon threaten him again. The single touch of it, the slight wound Gravestone had suffered in the fleshy part of his upper arm, had sent an agonizing wrench through him. The metal of the longsword seemed to tug at his heart as it was pulled from Gravestone's flesh when the demonurgist leaped back from its touch. To die by that weapon was to die forever!

Gord saw his foe clearly as the thing of netherforce collapsed and sputtered into nothingness, dispelling the illusory Gravestone within it as it did so. The priest-wizard was intoning a spell. Although the young adventurer had no idea as to the nature of the dweomer that was being called for by the ritual, Gord understood all too well that nothing cast by Gravestone would be weak or not calculated to cause total calamity to his person or goal. Gord had to remain quick and capable so the demonurgist could be slain. Perhaps the magic was one of escape for Gravestone. Either way, it made no difference. The binding had to be interrupted, the spell's completion unattained. The tall man's mouth began to move faster, his arms and hands making passes that seemed to occur in lightninglike sequences. Gord leaped into motion himself then, dashing across the chamber.

The words the demonurgist now shouted in a rapid stream were indecipherable to Gord. He was intent only upon one thing. Blackheartseeker must strike the chanting spell-binder before that vile mouth of Gravestone's managed to utter the final syllable of his evil evocation. Only a half-dozen more steps, and the blade of his sword would be buried in the demonurgist's foul chest.

Then Gord stumbled over a small object. A crystal flask, knocked from a table in his struggle with the varihued beast of nether-force, had rolled into the young champions path. It was a thing of enchanted substance, so it hadn't broken from the fall, nor would it break beneath anything so puny as the foot of a man. It rolled under the pressure, and Gord's foot went with its roll.

Gravestone had but one more quatrain to recite and his antagonist would be consigned alive to Hades! How he would delight in seeing it, in actually traversing the planes himself in order to enjoy the sight of the one called Gord trapped and tortured for an eternity in the nether-pits! The last words were on Gravestone's lips even now, but it looked as though the lightless metal of the dreaded longsword would strike before they could speak their fulfilling sounds.

He rushed along as quickly as he dared — faster, perhaps, than any other mage could have managed. Yet the first couplet was just completed when Gord was but a handful of paces distant and coming for him like a rushing wind. At that moment Gord fell, and it was all the demonurgist could do to contain his joy, repress his wild laughter. That would have spoiled his work as surely as the thrust of the sword would have. Instead, Gravestone paused and drew a deep breath. It was a very minor interruption, one that would in no way disturb the casting. There were but two lines to recite, sixteen beats to toll in measured form. When that little was accomplished, the Doompit would seize the Champion of Balance and consume him.

The first of the dire sounds issued from Gravestone's mouth, one of sixteen needed. A deep voice sang back, two beats for his one, and at a disturbing pitch. The demonurgist turned his eyes sideways at this disturbance.

One of the small fellow's companions was at the chamber's exit. It was a man Gravestone recognized, a singer of magics, the troubador called Gellor. That too was laughable. The priest-wizard would have enjoyed a contest one on one with the stupid minstrel, but not now. He fixed his thoughts and chanted forth another pair of the sounds needed to complete his casting. Gellor countered with more lyrics of his own, louder still, and coming closer as he sang. Gravestone was uneasy, but not worried. His chief antagonist was still on hands and knees, trying to recover the sword that he needed to harm Gravestone. The demonurgist knew that he could complete the thirteen beats still remaining before Gord was up and again at his throat.

With evil delight spread upon his features, the tall demonurgist raised his arms high, booming triumphantly the completion of the line, and the five syllables flowed as a mountain freshet down its steep course. Then Gravestone commenced the completion of the binding. The sounds poured forth, but he had to slow them, to articulate each with greatest care.

The bard was now bellowing a counter-ballad to the demonurgist's rhyme, and the dweomer of that singing made it exacting work to accomplish. Now the last sounds were forming, but the priest-wizard was forced to enunciate each with excruciating slowness. To mispronounce might merely negate the power of the spell, but it could as easily open the vortex for Gravestone himself. An entrance thus before Infestix would be far from pleasant. Failure was never tolerated, of course....

It was a nightmare in a world where Gord's every motion was taken as if he were underwater. The fall was not serious, except that Blackheartseeker slipped from his hand as it occurred. Then, as if he and the weapon were opposite poles of a magnet, his hand couldn't seem to properly grip it as he tried to regain his feet and strike the demonurgist. It was a matter of trying to accomplish too many actions at once. Gord's hands were sweating, his nerves frayed, his body battered and wounded, his brain filled with desperation.

The sudden sound of Gellor's voice as it sang forth in counter to the dark spell of the priest-wizard brought Gord to his senses. Even as the troubador's singing hindered Gravestone in his incantation, the ballad forced the Champion of Balance to pause a split-second, get a firm grip on his sword hilt, then come erect and attack.

Had Gord possessed his dagger then, he would have hurled it at the demonurgist, trusting that the blade would suffice to break the binding that the demonurgist was surely about to finish. That would have been a fatal mistake, for the dweomer of that weapon was by no means potent enough for the task. Not being thus armed, though, and seeing that the distance was too great to close with a single step and long lunge, Gord decided that his only hope was the sword.

He shifted his grip on the hilt and threw the weapon as if it were a javelin. The long blade made that very difficult — the balance was all wrong — but there was little space between Gord and the chanting demonurgist. Of the incantation, but a single word remained to be uttered to create the Doompit when the edge of the lightless blade struck Gravestone.

The sword's point didn't sink into his throat, where Gord had aimed when he hurled the weapon. In fact, the sword was already turning and no longer flew true when it touched the priest-wizard. Gravestone, in completion of his spell, was just in the act of bringing both of his arms down, fingers to point at the exact place where the opening of the spell's vortex was to appear, when Blackheartseeker's edge contacted his flesh. Only a little of the flesh was touched; three fingers, to be exact. The descending fingers of Gravestone's right hand met the flying blade of the sword almost gently. The weapon fled past them, hardly checked, rang against the wall, and fell to the floor with a clang. Nearby lay the three blood-spilling fingers that had been severed very cleanly by the sword.

Gravestone's scream ended the casting with a single syllable wanting.

Gellor shouted in exultation when he saw what occurred, his ballad also interrupted by the sight of Gord's thrown sword.

Still feeling as if he were immersed in a great depth of water. Gord sprang toward the demonurgist. He reached his foe in three bounds and grabbed the tall man by the throat, bearing the fellow down with the savagery of his bare-handed assault.

"At last, you devil!" Gord was beating the bushy-haired head upon the hard stone floor as he tried his best to force his thumbs into Gravestone's flesh. "I"— thump —"know" — thud —"what" — bash —"you"-bump — "did" — thunk — "to..."

He got no farther. Despite the choke-hold. Gravestone managed to mutter a word, and suddenly Gord was trying to strangle a huge, amoeboid thing. His hands sank deep into its soft surface, and the acid of the monster's stuff burned them with searing pain.