Dance of Demons (23 page)

Leda, unable to move or speak, still overheard the whole exchange. If only she could warn Gord away! To allow their love to interfere in his mission would be unthinkable, yet she feared that what had been said would prove true. He would exchange, thinking that with her safe and Courflamme at his side he could manage to separate the demons into warring factions, then take away each of the three portions of the artifact one by one again. She willed her muscles to respond, tried to get that part of her mind unshackled that could telepathically alert Gord to the terrible trap he was about to walk into. But her nerves refused to carry messages, her muscles remained dormant, and her psyche was bound fast and silent within.

Entropy noted the pulses from the little dark elven beauty. "Oh, no. Be calm and resigned. All will transpire as I decree now, and soon you will become one with me in an eternal quietude of inaction and unbeing. It is time for a little more lethargy, I think, so that you will be as tranquil as the blessed vacuum when the time comes for us to go out to him you adore so."

Leda tried to resist, but nothingness came, and she was consumed by it.

Chapter 13

WHEN THE SINGLE DEMON appeared, Gord was sitting as a statue, the two fused Theorparts resting across his folded legs. Just to the left and a little behind, Gellor rested in a similar position with the ivory form of the silver-stringed little harp squarely on his lap.

What disconcerted the demon most was the longsword that floated in the air, suspended with its pommel toward the champion of Balance, point aimed out. It swung as a compass needle to aim at the demon's heart, no matter how the netherbeing shifted. Gathering its bravado, the chargin demon blurted, "If I am harmed, mortal, the drow called Leda dies!"

"Do not shout, brother of Krung," Gellor said clearly and without emotion. "The champion knows why you have come, what you are going to say, even who you are and why you were chosen."

Those words made the demon shake inside himself with a combination of furious hatred and horrible fear. Because the human with the enchanted gem for an eye called the chargin "brother of Krung," it was evident that at least a part of what that one said was true. The man knew too much!

Yognath was indeed the sibling of the chargin who had dared to serve Hades. As such, he had been given the unenviable duty of bringing Graz'zt's ultimatum to the human invaders. If he succeeded in returning alive, then Yognath would be rewarded with lordship of the chargin demons, and the race would no longer be outcast and harried for Krung"s stupid alliance outside the bonds of demonium. Better to pretend absolute confidence, to ignore the strength implied in what the human had said.

"No secret that," Yognath nearly shouted in retort. "All the Abyss thunders with the achievements of Graz'zt. The name of Yognath, the great lord honored to bear his ultimatum, is carried by the very pulses of demonium. Even a fool would know the only course then possible."

"Yes, demon, the whole of this is foolery," Gellor said without inflection. "Speak the words you are commanded on pain of death to speak on Graz'zt's behalf. Say nothing else," the bard added, and his voice was steely when he added that admonition.

Yognath peered quickly at the silent man who sat with the great relics. Could he snatch the two and be away before either of these puny mortals could stop him? Then, to use their power upon the ebon demonking, all of those who had wrought such misery upon Yognath and the rest of the chargin recently. . . . No, that was only a fleeting fantasy, and the demon knew it. The forces that radiated from both men were sufficient to warn Yognath that he would have no chance if he tried it. The only indication he even considered so doing was a slight narrowing of his eyes, a twitching in his ropy, long-taloned fingers. Then with hardly a pause, the messenger repeated what he had been sent to say. In essence it was "give Graz'zt the Theorparts, and he will give Leda back to you."

The whole of his speech was long and convoluted. Yognath stared at the unmoving champion when it was finished. The man seemed totally detached, uncaring. "Well?" the demon demanded. Still the human was as stone.

"Tell Graz'zt that Gord, champion of Balance, has heard and will come as requested," Gellor said after a long pause.

"He must speak for himself," the demon sneered.

"I am only repeating his commands, as you do those of Graz'zt" the bard informed the jeering chargin. "Go away! Do your duty — tell Graz'zt!" Gellor ordered. As if to punctuate that statement, the sword that floated before the smaller man suddenly began to pulse alternately light and dark, moving slightly closer to Yognath's scaled breast as it did so.

The chargin nearly stumbled over his own splayed feet in his haste to comply. The two men were left alone in the nightmare wilderness, still unmoving statues of alien sort in that demonic plane.

"Was it sufficient time?" Gellor finally asked.

Gord moved with a spryness and alacrity that was surprising after sitting so long in a contorted fashion. "More than sufficient, dear comrade, more than you can know! The demon is but a dupe and a dolt Nothing he supposes is correct, and much has been kept from him, so that no probe of his mind, or physical torture, could force him to reveal the secrets which his masters hold."

"Then how can you have sufficient information? What intelligence so invigorates you?"

"Much is told by not being said, Gellor," Gord said enigmatically. "Come on. Let us ready ourselves to greet a multitude of demons and free our Leda!"

Gellor shook his head while proceeding quickly to ready himself. "Two against the millions," said he as he clasped the final piece of his armor into place. "Never have there been such odds."

"We are not as alone as you think, I assure you,

Gellor. Millions can work for and against, even as a million-to-one chance."

"You are growing unbalanced, Gord. Lunatic ravings hearten me naught."

"None could gainsay madness, should I choose to adopt it as a shield. But I do not, good troubador. I merely toy with it as the demon lords would toy with us, were they able." The analogy brought sudden insight to Gellor, and his countenance displayed the fact.

"Yes, my one-eyed, open-mouthed companion, yes!" Gord went on. "I watch and listen and wait for some choice response from you, but you only babble and tell me nothing. Thus, unenlightened, I go forth to do as the black master of the Abat-dolor demands. Will you also go in the required fashion?"

It was not Gord who spied. It was natural that the demons would watch, and Gellor now comprehended what Gord was warning him of. Something did watch and listen — listen even to thoughts sent from mind to mind, else his friend would have used telepathic means to alert him. "The choice is one of staying here alone or accompanying you to the place of exchange?"

"There can be no other," Gord averred. "It isn't so glum a prospect, for who can say what will transpire after the event has rim its many-faceted course?" The words didn't convey anything useful to Gellor, and the bard shrugged to indicate that fact while moving beside the champion. "Good," his friend said, taking the troubador by his arm. "We'll stand together thus when coming before the demons." With a brief string of sounds to activate the Theorparts, Gord and his comrade then vanished from the wild depths of the Abyss.

It was on iyondagur that Leda was held. To that forsaken stratum the two men must come, bearing the two parts of the arcane key that the demons demanded as the price of her release. Graz'zt demanded, actually, while the horde of other great and lesser demons lent support. Better for the Theorparts to be held by one of their own, of course, than by a wretched outsider.

At a place where the gray and stony barrens of iyondagur's outreaches merged toward another desolate tier of demonium was gathered the whole force of the allies. A half-hundred noble demons there were, with petty lords and demon-chiefs outnumbering them by six times, and the ranks of their warriors yet farther back and in countless hundreds of thousands. Unimaginable, frightening, and poised as a flock of raptors above some field upon which a plump hare must soon venture.

The bait was the pretty captive. Leda was standing alone, nearly naked, not tied but immobilized nonetheless. A thousand paces separated the dark elf from the hordes of warriors, half that distance from the place where their masters were waiting, and only a scant hundred from the spot where Graz'zt waited with Elazalag and Vuron. The albino grasped Unbinder — a dubious privilege but one upon which Graz'zt had insisted, with horrid threats of the consequences should Vuron not use the artifact effectively for his master's protection.

Graz'zt would have preferred to be alone, only he dared not attempt that until he secured the two other Theorparts. Doubts still slunk as jackals around the demonking's mind. Would the man be so stupid? Could the entity calling itself Lord Entropy be gulling him? Could anything go wrong? Each little thought skulked and yapped, but when one was grasped at to be considered, it ran away in fear.

"They come," hissed the albino, pointing toward a slight distortion near where the drow priestess stood.

"I am ready," Graz'zt pronounced. His voice was loud, meant to carry the intervening distance, to inform Entropy. Was that needed? Perhaps not, but the ebon demon would rather be on the cautious side.

The distortion brightened into a shimmering archway, and from the portal it formed stepped the two humans who championed Balance. It pleased Graz'zt to observe that the one called Gord carried the united pair of relics in his left hand, reserving his right for the deadly magical blade that was his badge of office as Balance's greatest hero. This was according to Entropy's assessment. The weakling was actually going to comply! He would trade mastery of all for a mere female!

"You have answered my summons," the tall demonking said as the small man looked toward him.

"Was there ever a doubt I would?" Gord replied lightly. "I have come to do as you wish. I will place the Theorparts beside Leda now for your inspection."

Graz'zt watched closely, scrutinizing all for the least sign of trickery. There were no falsities involved. Gellor stood in place as Gord slowly paced the distance between himself and the drow, covering the hundred steps without seeming haste. Once there, the man hardly paused to examine the captive to determine her reality and state of health. No need, Graz'zt supposed. The energies of the two portions of the great relic would easily convey all such information to him in a flash — and would also report if the elfs true nature was being screened by counterdweomers from similar instruments of powerful magic. Entropy had forbade any magical shielding, for to attempt that would be to alert the champion to something, and extensive inspection might discover the presence of something . . . else . . . there with the dark elven priestess.

"Are you whole?" Gord asked.

"Yes. Gord," came Leda's reply. Her words sounded perfectly natural, and even her eyes were in accord with the answer.

"What if I took you away while keeping the Theorparts?"

"There is a geas-force within me which would annihilate me in that instant" she answered. Even at his distant place. Graz'zt felt the ring of truth in her words. As with all that transpired, the arcane energies at play magnified and made manifest each detail of all that occurred. No illusion, no sleight-of-hand substitution, nothing unseen could escape observation — nothing save the nothingness of Lord Entropy.

"Then I do freely exchange these two objects for you, Leda. As you are sound, whole, and unharmed in any form, I hand over the two relics in the same condition. Do you accept the trade, demon?"

The manner of address was infuriating to Graz'zt, but he allowed the red wash of anger to flow away. What counted was the gain. "Of course, you know I do. It is to my tune you dance, manling!"

"Very well, then. I leave the bonded Theorparts and take the dark elf Leda in even exchange, all according to the terms and conditions just pronounced."

"So be it!" Graz'zt cried. He was echoed by a dozen demon voices, and they, in turn, were underscored by a roaring accolade from a million misshapen demon throats as the massed ranks of warriors behind took up the shout of demonium's triumph.

Leda was stunned, her mind in turmoil. Something was wrong, but she couldn't say what. She couldn't even think clearly. "Gord . . . ?"

"Never mind, dear one, never mind at all," he said reassuringly as he took her arm gently. Without a further word he walked slowly away, his back to the myriad of demonic foes packed in their phalanxes, voicing their cries of awful glee. Leda accompanied him, held steady by his arm, not sure what was going on, but becoming more and more uneasy with each step.

"No . . . no! You-"

"You!" Gord countered, and increased his pace so as to get greater distance between the two of them and the twin Theorparts. At a hundred paces he turned and said to Leda, "I know what is going on, girl. Two can plot and set traps."

"It is a . . a . . creature, a vile thing calling itself. ."

"Lord of Entropy," he finished for the distraught little elf. "I became aware, but that's a tale for later. We — you, to be exact, my love — have the remainder of this farce to play out."

"I don't understand you, Gord. What can we do? You were wrong to trade me for the Theorparts. Now all is lost!"

"Were you unharmed? Free of duress?"

Leda was adamant. "Of course not! That monstrous thing was there possessing me, making it impossible for me to act normally. I couldn't do anything of my own free will, not even blink a warning!"

"Then by the terms I offered and Graz'zt accepted, there is no bargain. Leda. The demonking struts forth now to claim what he supposes is his prize," Gord said urgently. "Entropy lurks there too, gloating. You can end all that, but when you do, there will be a confrontation which cannot be described. Graz'zt and his minions will attack Will you fight them?"

"Of course — if I can, that is. How is it to be? What do you want me to do?" Leda was nearly dancing with anxiety and desire to rectify the wrong, redress what had happened.