Dance of Demons (38 page)

"Hold them off, comrades, or the whole pack will close!" Gord warned. He could have saved his breath. Both of his friends were staunch, and the two greatest of the horrid pack were met and sent back with magic and steel.

"
Again
!" Tharizdun ordered. Snarling hatred, as much for master as for foes, the two monsters returned to the fray. "
Pack
!" the archfiend called, but the remainder of the big hounds with chimerical heads were unable to force their way through the fields of energy that surrounded the contestants. All the expression of malign destlny had accomplished in his machinations was to engage two more foes with his chief slaves. Tharizdun cursed, knowing that because his power was incomplete, that he himself was also lacking, he and the yeth were not going to prevail. Had he only the third greatest monster, the one from demonium, then the force of his pack would be double. Instead of having to cringe before their opponents, the two could have snapped the humans in twain with slavering Jaws. He too could have his foe in his hand, squeezing the very brains out of the champion's head, had the Abyss been Tharizdun's from which to draw strength. Realizing that that would have already occurred had he devoured the skull of the stupid boy-Tharizdun, the archfiend yammered in maddened fury.

The enemy was literally dancing in rage. Gord struck him while thus distracted. "To the void, fiend!" he cried as he laid both hands upon his longsword and scythed toward his adversary. The force of the blow sent Tharizdun back, down, as the archfiend's curses changed to a howling shriek of pain and fear.

Had Entropy been there, the entity would have long ago intervened. He was fully occupied in his own contest, however — the struggle against the howling madness that was Ojukalazogadit. Aware of the desperate situation. Entropy could do nothing. The demon-brute too knew of what was occurring, insane and near incoherent as Ojukalazogadit was; it sought to hold the entity and draw Entropy into itself, to bring both into a void from which there would be no return. Entropy condensed yet more of itself, putting all of its ponderous inertia into the contest, for unless it triumphed, the demon-brute would surely change the entity into something else ... or nothing. Conscious of the potential failure of all his plans, Entropy was for once powerless to act.

Both the greater yeth hounds were also in dire difficulty. The strength of their adversaries' rings enabled the two mortals to withstand the monsters' assaults. Both hounds, in turn, were not so protected as to avoid their foes' blades. Devilish Mephisto was sorely wounded, Thrax less so, but in no sense sound, for the dagger Leda plied had punctured his stinking hide repeatedly if not mortally. Perhaps the demonlords watching the duel thought Gord's mighty stroke was the decisive one. Certainly a great chorus of cheering came roaring from the throats of their onlooking warriors.

And Graz'zt chose that moment to work his own stratagem. "I'll have that!" the tall demonking said, snatching the Eye of Deception from Elazalag's unwary grasp. Although Graz'zt held his massive sword in his other hand, one was sufficient to grab and tear free the sphere. The demoness had been so wrapped up in the struggle that she was taken completely unawares.

"No! Don't!" She cried, realizing that her newly regained consort was about to commit the most incredible blunder imaginable.

The ebon demonking ignored her warning. He was already several long strides distant from Elazalag, the object of demonic power held out threateningly before him. "Vengeance!" Graz'zt shrieked, and from the Eye of Deception burst a force that contained all of the pent-up rage of the Abyss.

Gord was taken unawares, and the blast of energy struck him from behind. It sundered the aura of azure and slammed into the young man's body in an instant. Gord fell as if stuck by a tltanic maul.

"Now all is mine!" Graz'zt shouted in triumph, playing the forces from the artifact he held upon the cowering yeth before him.

Tharizdun arose as if the ravening eneigy refreshed him. "
No, stupid demon
," the archfiend countered. "
Now you and all are mine
!" With a flick of his fingers Tharizdun turned the Eye of Deception back and Graz'zt was felled by his own device.

Then the final slaughter of demonkind began.

Chapter 22

FRENZY ERUPTED INSTANTLY upon the resurgence of Tharizdun. The nearest to the event began to howl triumphantly or bray a paean of disaster, depending on which side the indIvidual fought. Devils, daemons, maelvis, dumalduns, netherhags, dreggals, cacodaemons and the others in their motley millions who were arrayed under the standard of the archfiend sent up a din of victory, while the demons, goblins, and cacodemons yowled in despair.

Graz'zt was dumbfounded, but the great demonking did all he could to repair the debacle. Flinging the ancient relic of the Abyss back in the general direction of his consort, Graz'zt gripped his huge sword and waded into the enemy. "It is a day to slay or be slain!" he boomed, slashing aside several yeth.

As the ebon lord of demonium approached, Tharizdun stood with apparent calm. "
Come then, Graz'zt! You are to be slain
!" It was no idle boast The darkest minion of Evil was even then gathering all of his strength for a killing stoke. The energy rushed into him. and then the two-handed sword was streaking down, aimed so as to split the archfiend from crown to crotch.

"Yess!" the demonking shrieked in triumph, seeing his blade about to strik,e true. It would cleave Tharizdun and end the fight, for nothing could stop the blow. Not now.

Tharizdun's hand shot up. "
Never
," he said mockingly. His bare hand met the massive length of metal. Ten stone of dweomered alloy, a great, wavy blade whose double edge glittered razor-sharp, was brought hurtling down by the tremendous strength of the demonking. Graz'zt had exerted every atom of strength, physical and magical, it was possible for him to put behind that stroke. The archfiend simply caught the blade with the naked flesh of his hand, and the blow stopped as if the sword had encountered a mountain. The keen edge drew no blood. It was, indeed, the demon who was shocked by the stroke. Graz'zt's whole body shook as the blow was caught, and its force struck the demonking's body so as to cause the obsidian giant to tremble as a leaf in a gale.

There was even more to it than that. Graz'zt seemed unable to loose his hold on the sword. Onehanded, Tharizdun held the weapon, still gripping the blade, still not harmed. The demonking holding onto the huge hilt seemed rooted to the spot, and wracked by growing agony from the archfiend's power. Graz'zt began to shout curses. Then the shouting turned to a raving plea, and that in time gave way to screaming the most awful sort. All the while Tharizdun stood immobile, a smile of pure wickedness slowly spreading across his handsome face as he enjoyed the spectacle.

Elazalag managed to recover the Eye of Deception.

As the tableau of Tharizdun and Graz'zt held its near-frozen form, the demon princess used the thing to make her escape. She knew that her warriors there on the surface of Ojukalazogadit were now as good as destroyed, and Elazalag chose to make her last stand in her own castle. As she fled, so too the other lords of demonium who were able. The few without recourse to flight ran gibbering, most in crazed, suicidal instinct straight for their enemies, and with those went the bulk of the demon soldiers.

The crazed charge caused momentary confusion in the massed ranks of the devils and fiends who had fought against the wild demons. There was but one of the attacking warriors for every hundred or two of Tharizdun's troops, but the sheer insanity of the demons sufficed to enable them to strike down one or two of their foes before the sheer numbers of the enemy smothered their crazed attack. Then those demons were torn to gory rags.

During the interval between the frenzy of the last attack and the climax of the confrontation between Tharizdun and Graz'zt, Leda recovered sufficiently to crawl to Gord's side. She was strong enough to stand, but seeing the terrible events taking place around here, the dark elf wisely decided to remain as inconspicuous as possible. She found that Gord was breathing shallowly, but unconscious. She tried to bring her love back to his senses, but nothing she could do, even her healing powers, seemed to have any effect.

"Leave off, girl!"

Leda spun on her belly, dagger ready to defend Gord against whatever thing had hissed that command. "Gellor! Are you all right?"

"Yes. As right as that kind of thing can leave one, I expect," the grizzled troubador managed to add Jauntily. "You seem in pretty fair shape yourself, but Gord is in trouble — I can hear his breathing from here!"

"Even my restorative dweomers had no effect," Leda said with rising panic. "What can we do?"

Gellor wormed rapidly to a place where he could grab Gord from the side opposite the elven girl. "What we do is get the blazes out of here now," he barked. "Soon enough that maggot-spawn is going to tire of his sport with Graz'zt, and then he'll want to play with Gord — and us!"

"Do we have a means of escaping from here?"

"I think the power of the rings will do it, Leda. I hope so, anyway. If they have any efficacy remaining, though, it will be when all three are in harmony."

There was doubt "Won't Gord have to be conscious? And won't he have to lend his will to ours?"

"I hope not, else we three are doomed. You take his one hand now, Leda, and I'll grasp the other. Then we two must tiy to do the work of three. Think on a place which Gord will have harmony with. . . . Do you know such a place?"

"None of safe sort"

"Greyhawk?"

"But little," Leda said to the bard's query.

"Have you sojourned in the realm of Rexfelis?"

Leda responded negatively. "I am sorry, Gellor, but never did Gord and I have opportunity to go to that plane. We had so little time together . . "

"Don't start that — think! Where can we find refuge? Time is fleeting!"

It seemed possible. "What about the place where we encountered Chronos? Or the dwelling of Lady Temperance?"

Gellor pondered for a few heartbeats. "The channels of time's stream are too convoluted and meandering for the two of us to manage. Why isn't Proctor Chronos here? He could easily rescue us, blast him!" The words solved nothing, and the master of temporal things did not come to the scene.

"And Probability?"

"You already know the answer to that, girl," the troubador said as if pronouncing a curse. "Her pathways are worse than Time's. Never could we bear Gord through the mazes of randomness and chance." Gellor urged Leda to consider all. "There must be some place. . .."

"Gord spent some period adventuring to the Land of Shadow," Leda said at last. "I was never there with him, nor actually in the realm myself, but— "

"But what? Why mention it then?"

"Let me finish. Gellor! My memories are strong — because Eclavdra has been in the place, though I have not. It is our only hope — unless you have never been there."

Now it was the troubador's turn to pause and consider. He had walked in Shadowland, but only on the verges of the sphere. Could he somehow manage despite that? "It's worth a try, Leda. Give me a bit more time to reflect, though, for it has been long since I trod the margins of that strange realm."

"We have no time!" Leda cried. The commotion around was growing more intense. The last of the demons was even now being slaughtered, and the very surface of Ojukalazogadit was beginning to heave as the demon brute suffered its final agonies under the oppression of Entropy. Worst of all, the great chorus of bestial shrieks from Tharizdun's followers indicated that he was performing some last degradation upon his victim. Graz'zt was finished. They were next! "Look! Already the yeth begin to snuffle and search to locate us. We must get away."

"Very well. I will attempt my best. Hold tight to Gord's hand and think on Shadow!"

Somehow Leda managed to shut out the riot of noise that swept over them. Blocking out the horrible scene was easy. All she needed to do to accomplish that was to shut her eyes. Then Leda managed to deaden her auditory input, so that her mind was a sea of calm and quietude. Only then could she begin to construct the images needed to transport herself and her love to the hoped-for safety of shadow. Slowly but firmly, the dark elven priestess built in her mind a picture of the plane of shadows, its strange light, its ever-shifting landscapes, just as Eclavdra remembered them from a time before Leda existed. It was a strange thing, one that she hated to do. Reaching back into memories of the drow woman from whom she had sprung caused Leda sharp pangs of identity. The crisis passed only because she was do determined. The personality that had been Eclavdra was there, strong, waiting to reawaken, perhaps. Leda would never allow that. Drawing from the old memories made the task of retaining Leda in lieu of Eclavdra a very difficult one, but she managed.

Gellor too had problems. He could easily suppress all outside stimuli. It was fixing upon the necessary images that caused the bard difficulty. Imperfect recall meant broken images, partial reconstruction of a scene necessary for their movement from the Abyss to . . . elsewhere. That stated the quandary well.

Imperfect reconstruction in his mind might result in failure to escape demonium and the hand of Tharizdun. Closing his mind to the picture of the archfiend reaching for them even as he thought of that occurring, Gellor began to speak to himself in his mind of the lands of shadow.

There is a pervading dimness there. I see the blacks of Shadowrealm starkly, for each is different from the other. I see the grays too, defined by the hard gloss of jet and the soft. Inky fronds of vegetation. The pearl and the dove are there, and hidden in all are hints of hues we know on Oerth, but they are different, and there are new colors too. Mobile is the land, and unless it is scrutinized closely, it will slip away as a shadow does, for it is shadow. The milky crescent of Mool rises above, dark eddies of shadowstreams reflect opaline glimmerings of that luminary. Now I walk along in the shifting stuff of shadow, going between this sphere and all others. ..."