Dance of Demons (16 page)

"It is least likely that they will band together and make common cause to resist us," Gord said with a solemnity unusual to him. "But we must not dismiss the possibility entirely. With two Theorparts, they would equal our own force, and they have countless demon warriors to call upon to guard them too. If father and son, Graz'zt and Iuz, should somehow set aside their differences for the moment, we would never wrest the two remaining parts from their grasp — not in time, anyway."

"Then we must keep the two factions warring," murmured the troubador, stroking his cheek reflectively. "Yet doing so might be difficult."

"Only if we attack one without offering nonhostility to the other," Leda told Gellor. "Graz'zt is the one with whom we must treat, so that is where we will go next."

"That is so, but neither Elazalag nor any other must know that until we have had opportunity to convince the demonking that he must accept us as his allies."

"We will dupe him, then, and when the second Theorpart is in your hands turn both against him?"

"No, Leda, not quite. We will have to mislead Graz'zt, and in the end it might well be necessary to force him to yield Unbinder to me. The thing can bring him only destruction in the end. Tharizdun will have Graz'zt's life amongst the first the Ultimate One slaughters in his new empire of Evil. Demon and deva, no matter. Both sorts are inimical to what that one plans for the multiverse. It could be that the demonking must be killed by us in order to gain the last portion of the key of doom, but at least Graz'zt will have a chance this way. If he manages to hold the Theorpart from us, another will gain it, or the three will unite on their own. Then destruction is a certainty for him and all demons above the dimmest mentalities."

"That is logical. I accept your reasoning," Leda said. "Something you said makes me wonder, though. Why haven't the fractions knitted themselves into the whole again? Once done, Tharizdun is loosed, no matter the hands that the key might temporarily rest in isn't that so?"

Gord nodded. "I cannot answer that. Think, too, of the other mysteries. Basiliv is gone from us — did you know that? No force seems able to gain the upper hand anywhere. . . ."

"The Demiurge is slain?" Leda looked pale. "Only one of stature beyond the gods could accomplish that! Even so small a thing as my ability to draw forth the energies of the Eye, to employ it with ever-greater success and not be drained to a shell by its inherent evilness. ... I saw Vuron look puzzled by that. It seems as if we have some mighty unseen foe laboring against us, another equally invisible ally assisting the cause."

"Then we will break the deadlock and in that process I think the recondite will become manifest. Our success will unveil both foe and friend alike."

"We go to Graz'zt, then?" Gellor asked as the three strode into the nearly empty bailey of the Abat-dolor stronghold.

"Not via the Soulless Sounding, I'll wager," Leda asserted, looking at the gray-eyed man who had once been no more than a thief and swordsman raising devilment in Greyhawk City. "Gord will have some other means. . . ."

He smiled at them both, but said nothing.

Chapter 9

THEY SAT IN SIX concentric circles, each one smaller and lower as these tiers progressed from largest inward. Six was the favored number of demonium, the most potent number known in the Abyss.

In the sixth and lowest portion of the amphitheater-like space formed by the circles was seated an array of the greatest demons of those present. The issue of who would occupy those lowest seats had been resolved only after many squabbles and threats. The cambion Iuz posed proudly there, with Iggwilv at his right and the ghastly Zuggtmoy beside him to his left. Opposite those three was the bulk of Orcus. Marduk, king of fire demons, was also present, as were Baphomet, Cagrino, and Abraxas. There was space for others, but the eight privileged to be seated in the lowest circle could not agree on other candidates to fill the vacancies, so the places remained empty. In the next lowest level were Var-Az-Hloo, Azazael, Bulumuz, Socoth-Benothas, Szhublox, Lugush, and others totalling eighteen demon lords.

At each succeeding higher level were seated still more of the noble demons of the Abyss, with numbers of greater demons occupying the uppermost two tiers. for there were no lords and other nobles to occupy those spaces. All things considered, it was the largest convocation ever of the most powerful beings of demonium, or so avowed those in attendance. They ignored the fact that once Graz'zt could have commanded as many to a council. But he was no longer so powerful, and in fact the ebon demonking was now the chief foe .... or was he? Rumors flew from tushfilled maw to toothy beak, from slobbering mandibles to slavering jaws.

"We are called to assemble for the final assault on Graz'zt," averred a chief among the Yatish demons. "No — there is a new enemy even worse," contradicted a beetle-browed Thang. Such conversation ran back and forth, up and down the tiers in a cacophony of voices too alien for human ears to comprehend. The noise soon became so great that the masters seated far beneath the rest could no longer speak to each other in shouts, let alone murmurs.

Iuz employed his Theorpart to bring silence, causing things like swooping bats to swirl in a dark spiral from where he sat. These manifestations of eldritch power winged upward and seemed to snatch away the very sounds from the mouths and proboscises of the creatures above. In a few seconds there was total silence in the whole of the great place. Then the fat cambion arose and addressed all, even though he looked only at the seven others who were on his level.

"I command this great relic," he said haughtily, shaking the Theorpart as he spoke. "As undisputed master—" He got no farther, for both Iggwilv and Zuggtmoy leaped erect at those words, each grabbing for the thing he held and succeeding only in fixing Iuz's arms before him and locking the Theorpart there.

"Give me the Awakener," said the goatish Orcus, "and then you three will have no quarrel."

Baphomet, Cagrino, Marduk, and Abraxas were almost as quick with their demands for the Theorpart. The three fighting for a hold on it ceased their glares at each other in order to snarl denials to each of the other five great demons. Realizing that disaster was near, Iuz sat down quickly, placing the relic before him crosswise. Both the elder witch and the queen of fungi likewise sat down, seizing an end each. The cambion retained his hold on the center portion. "There, you all see we are united in our own alliance. Now we must all do likewise."

"There is too little room for all our many hands on that small Theorpart," Abraxas drawled. Var-Az-Hloo guffawed from behind the demon lord at that. "Let us stop this bickering. You all know why we're here!"

"We don't know — not at all!" came shouts and cries from above.

"As the only being here who is not of demonkind," Iggwilv said in her raucous shriek "I will speak to the matter." Withholding her thought that she was the only truly masterful creature in the amphitheater, and that it was at her instigation that the assemblage had been gathered, the witch went on. "All of you can at least sense the shift, the eddies brought about by the sudden change." There were various discordant assents. Iggwilv quickly answered the queries that she knew would come. "A human, a mere mortal, dared to enter demonium recently. He is armed with some great power, for that minimus managed to wound the daemon Infestix, to snatch our Theorpart from that one's hand, and now struts as a popinjay somewhere in the Abyss still!"

She paused while mutters of amazement swept through the assemblage. "How?" "Who?" "This cannot be!"

"My son, the great Iuz, will show us all." Iggwilv answered, and gestured to the cambion to do his work.

Not realizing that he acted as would a puppet, Iuz set to work with the Theorpart as directed. Before the many, burning eyes of the motley assembly of demons appeared a vision. It was a checkered field, with colors showing various spheres and planes, the same hues indicating the nature of the little figures scattered about its multidimensional levels. Some of the pieces shown were highlighted by glows.

"Here is the place of Graz'zt," Iuz announced. That image was a Jumble. Only the bright, pearlescent gleam of Unbinder, the third Theorpart, was clear. By concentration the cambion cleared and ordered the scene, but then all was abstracted. "I make the whole comprehensible, but then there is no definition, and entities can be ascertained only by relative strength; thus the various henchmen serving the stu— Graz'zt: there Yeenoghu, that is the image which is Kostchichie, Palvlag, Vuron, and so on."

"What? All of the strong ones are with Graz'zt! Who sides with Demogorgon?"

Iuz sounded smug when he bawled his reply. "The mighty Demogorgon, his kith and kin trailing behind, has deserted the field. Feeling safer at home, no doubt, he has given up his fight against Graz'zt."

"What of Infestix?" The call came from Levithan, one still uncommitted.

"That frail one was bested thus. . . ." With a gesture, Iuz caused the Theorpart to recreate in abstract form the battle on iyondagur. The demons saw it, recognizing the figure that was its princess, the pawns of Abat-dolor, maelvis, dreggals, dumalduns, and the assorted demons that had taken part as soldiers. The image of the daemon-piece was tall, powerful, and it was made greater by the nimbus that was the Theorpart Infestix wielded.

Then from the ranks of the ebon demons came a triple-pronged figure. Its passage removed pawns to the left and right of its path, and the whole showed a multihued radiance around it. There — that is certainly the Eye of Deception," Iuz supplied for the benefit of those farther away. "The silvery-gold flash is a vile harp forged by the First Spellbinders. It is not as strong as the Eye, but it is potent. And what of the diamond and jet gleam of the middle tine there?" he asked, pointing a long, sharp-taloned finger with three joints at the abstraction. "None of us can say. It varies from dim to bright, so its true power is not possible to assess readily. . . . But seemingly it is a force of greater puissance than a Theorpart!" That last the cambion fairly roared after a dramatic pause.

"See? It pierces the figure which represents the daemon, and Infestix is gone from the field. Behind remains the glow of the Initiator. Now no demon gains the thing, for it becomes a part of the green piece, and that can be only the one championing Balance."

Iggwilv interrupted him, not by speaking but through her own manipulation of the scene that the Theorpart projected. The ancient witch tapped the relic, spoke a word, and the trident-like piece suddenly expanded to a huge image that towered above the second tier. Then it shimmered, and instead of the abstraction stood three ghostly images. "Hie small human is named Gord," she croaked loudly. "The drow is Eclavdra, once high priestess serving Graz'zt. The one-eye using the enchanted stone in place of his other orb is none other than our old enemy Gellor," Iggwilv spat.

The scene shifted once more, and it was Orcus who bleated out the next words. "The little fool gives the female his prize!"

"He has a penchant for passing out Theorparts," Zuggtmoy said.

"What was that?"

"She said that the interfering little shit has done that before!" Iggwilv snapped back to the ram-horned demonking.

"Why do you use so delicate a term to describe him?" The query came from the third tier, and the witch ignored it.

"He possesses still the violent aura of might. See? The drow holds the relic, and she shows its glow plainly. There is still another glow emanating from the little man. We must assume that he has a new object, a token of Balance, which we have heretofore been unaware of. I think it is the sword he carries."

"How did they come to our sphere?"

"We have scried that out — but only after the fact. When they came there was a veil hiding their arrival. The two men entered and passed along the Soulless Sounding, were joined by the female and with her the Eye, and then the three of them came into the lands of the Abat-dolor."

"The black ones must be exterminated for aiding those three!" The calls came from many of the assembled demons.

"Elazalag has the Eye of Deception now." Zuggtmoy boomed. "With its strength, she and her clans will not be so easily done for."

"Use Awakener. It will crush—"

"The Theorpart must remain countering the relic in Graz'zt's possession," Iggwilv shouted. "Save revenge for a time when it can be enjoyed fully and at leisure. We have a thorny problem to consider now, and we must not err in our judgment."

"Let us locate the whereabouts of those three petty beings and take their Theorpart," Cagrino chittered.

"I think it better we join together now, finish Graz'zt, and with two Theorparts seek out the intruders," Iuz huffed.

Marduk had a different course to suggest. "I can parley with Palvlag, and through him we can arrange a truce with the ebon one. Let all demonium conspire to destroy the agents from elsewhere first. Then we can—"

"Baah!" shouted Orcus. "We will then fight over who should gain the third portion!"

"Won't we anyway?" suggested another demonlord, with the ultimate rhetorical question.

"At least now we have fewer who can claim to have a right to a Theorpart," came the booming voice of Zuggtmoy. "To treat with Graz'zt means we have added more voices to the clamor. Let us crush him, take the relic he has, and then gain the third."

"We could add the Eye of Deception and perhaps those two other objects of power to our booty," Baphomet speculated, thinking of what he could possibly gain if a Theorpart did not fall to his lot.

"Yes. We must diminish the number of claimants to nobility and reshape power and territorial holdings in the Abyss anyway," said Abraxas, who hungered after the realm of Yeenoghu. "Many will be the lesser prizes which will accumulate in our boodle as we sweep away our enemies."

"But a human! Surely those three must be considered our principal foes, the greater threat! Demon can understand and deal with demon, but the champion of Balance is—"

"Enough maundering, Marduk it is time for a vote." So saying, Iuz posed the two possibilities to the assembly. Those favoring an immediate search for the three invading humans were told to stand (or raise their torsos upright), those seeking immediate and complete destruction of Graz'zt were to remain seated (or as they were). All not in accord with one course or the other were given time to leave the amphitheater. Surprisingly, only a handful of the demons did leave. Marduk was at the head of those deserting the alliance.