"Remains thus; and you do not heed. The one you see is the murderer."
"Now... I understand."
"Blessed culmination of my being, all fortune to you."
"Will we speak again thus?" Gord's mental voice was strained, then almost pleading.
That cannot be, as you know in your heart... not yet for ages of your time will we meet otherwise. It is naught. We shall. You are. Let that suffice."
"Thank you, my father."
There was no reply, no form visible to his mind's eye. Gord was again alone, his brain unoccupied by anything save his own thoughts. The voice of the dark, nearly formed Tharizdun penetrated his consciousness.
* * *
"Well? What is your answer, man? I grow impatient. Those who think to be Mine must instantly obey!"
"Obey you? That is a jest!" Gord spat in the general direction of the monstrous being, raising Black-heartseeker as he did so. "I'm loath to spoil this fine weapon by thrusting it into such corruption as you, Tharizdun — but I shall!"
Iuz was still clutched in Tharizdun's huge left hand, the long, misshapen fingers of the malign monster smeared with the cambion's blood. The great right hand stretched forth toward Gord, purple talons as long as scimitars, clicking and rattling eerily as the digits writhed in anticipation. "Come then, Gord-the-dead. It is your doom!"
As the hand suddenly shot toward him, Gord leaped to meet it.
Chapter 16
THE LONG, SALLOW FACE of Gravestone was beaded with sweat, but otherwise there was no sign that he was alive.
He sat, in a trance, upon a flat pad on a steplike dais. It was circular, dark, and graven with sigils and writings of power and warding. Near to him three candles burned, each with a flame the color of its wax — black, plum, deep crimson. From a brass bowl resting on his crossed legs arose smoke, tiny columns of vapors. Each was of a different hue, each betokening one of the netherspheres.
The faint haze reeked of noxious drugs, an odious stench. These drugs aided the priest-mage in his work. When he needed the stuff of flame and incense, the candles flared and smoke streamed upward. A sudden Inhalation, more sweat, then absolute stillness again. The flickering tongues of the candles' flames receded to mere glimmers then, and the tiny streams of noisome stuff resumed their slow rising.
Nearby, watching for what seemed hours, Gellor gazed upon the scene. But the bard was by no means idle. He was struggling to free himself from the bonds that held him as Gravestone sat in his trance. The bonds were of both physical and magical sort, however, and the attempt to win free of them was proving to be long. If not fruitless. Curley Greenleaf was nearby, his condition very serious. Gellor thought the druid was sinking toward death. Chert was there too, battered and bloody but awake and silently straining to free himself just as the troubador fought against his bonds.
A figurative "third eye" watched the three. Despite the trance, Gravestone was not so foolish as to allow enemies to be in proximity without being under observation, bonds or no bonds. This mental watch would trigger an alarm instantly. The priest-wizard had a special surprise awaiting, and his attention would be needed for only a moment if the spell was required to deal with one or more of the captives.
The demonurgist was not thinking about all that, however. At the moment he was deep into the dweomers he had spun. A final trap was in action, and he personally must oversee the occurrences, utilize his powers to operate the whole of it.
It was a masterful and deadly piece of work. The trap had three levels of complexity, three ways of snaring the enemy therein. First and least likely was despair and withdrawal. Both the spectacle and information imparted by the magic were set to promote the proper mood for dejection and hopelessness. Those emotions, that mental state, was enhanced as fully as Gravestone could manage by powerful spells. The adversary within the trap was very potent, charged with magical energy himself, so Gravestone dismissed the likelihood of the initial snare actually functioning as was hoped for.
The second level, that of persuasion and subversion, was insidious in that it played off of the first grouping of power. Even though the enemy might ultimately reject the dweomer of forced surrender and inaction, it would surely affect him nonetheless. Thus primed, there was a greater potential for the acceptance of offers meant to appeal to the base and low desires contained in even the best of persons. Together, then, the demonurgist gave the first and second ploys about four chances in ten of success.
Five in ten was the probability he placed upon the final tier of the trap. That was physical combat based upon mental conviction. Accepting what was seen and experienced, the victim mired in the snare would accept and fight back against the threat. More insidious than the second snare, this portion played off both foregoing magics. Best of all. Gravestone was there mentally to channel energy and force. The at tacks of the illusory opponent would be far from imagined. The vision of Tharizdun he had enspelled and now operated would utilize very real attacks of terrible power against the would-be champion.
Even if that fool discovered the figure he opposed was naught but a false image. It would be too late. Blasts of magic from the demonurgist's own store of dweomer would cut him down before he could escape. Gravestone recalled for an instant his pleasure in slaying this young upstart's father and mother. He had enjoyed the woman's tenor as-
The extrasensory alarm in his head blared its warning. This was terrible! The final confrontation and fight between the champion and the illusory Tharizdun was commencing. The demonurgist men tally set a fixed program of actions for the phantom deity of all evil, sufficient in force and deadliness to keep the man occupied for a minute or two. That was ample time, for he needed only a few moments to deal with the three prisoners. Gravestone had thought to keep them alive for questioning and amusement. Under the circumstances, though, he would now simply kill them, then return to the direct handling of what would be the demise of the last hope of all who opposed evil.
It was at the instant that Gord leaped toward the illusory Tharizdun that the mental warning was triggered in the demonurgist's mind. Even as he shut off the telepathic link with the trap, leaving it on a program that included triggering of actual magical energies, and turned his attention toward the bound captives, Gord did what the demonurgist had not anticipated. The phantasmal form of the dark god was nothing, but the hand that reached forth to seize the young champion was enspelled with dweomer and meant to crush Gord. Instead, Gord used his acrobatic ability to bound up and actually stand upon the bundle of force that was the enspelled member.
That
was the last step....
* * *
"What's this?!" Gravestone blinked and stared, using magic as well to examine the three bound enemies. None of them were actually loose. "But why did the warning sound... ?" Thinking about that, the demonurgist decided to slay them instantly anyway and return full attention to his chief antagonist. He raised his arms to set in motion the power that would kill the helpless prisoners.
"Whump!"
The soft sound of something falling behind him distracted Gravestone. He spun and readied the dweomer's force for some possible new opponent. Somehow, one of the trio of captives must have managed to summon another to assist. As the demonurgist turned, arms half raised, mystic syllables ready to trip from his tongue, something struck htm a blow that drove the air from his lungs, the spell from his mind. "Sorry to drop in on you like that, old sorcerer." a mocking voice said as Gravestone scrabbled to gain his feet and face the opponent.
He saw Gord. This was impossible! The alarm... the trap. It all came together suddenly. It had been this one's action in leaping that had triggered his mental warning bell. There could be only one result of Gord's action, coming here to this plane to threaten Gravestone personally. His own mind had tricked him, worked too quickly, betrayed him! The demonurgist knew of his opponent's prowess as a thief, gymnast, acrobat, swordsman, adventurer. This was no mean opponent, as the blow to his back indicated — probably a kick delivered at the end of a leap. Gravestone felt confident still, despite all that. He was supernormal, far greater than any foe the so-called champion had ever faced. Even stripped of the great elder ones of demonkind, the priest-wizard was filled with self-assurance regarding any contest with this one before him, remarkable or not.
"I'll have your balls for that, shitpile!"
"Then you'd have two, eh?" Gord laughed as he spoke, but the young man's clear gray eyes were as cold and humorless as the winter sky.
Gravestone moved back, hastily weaving wards and protections. The dull black of his adversary's sword disconcerted the demonurgist. "Let us fence a bit then, braggart," he chided, drawing forth a wavybladed dagger. It was a ruse, of course. He had no intention of physically contesting with the young champion. The next spell he planned to use would require just a little more time, and Gravestone hoped to buy that interval with his offer. "Do you fear to cross weapons with an old man?"
Instead of moving toward the priest wizard. Gord suddenly did a backward vault, rolled sideways, and struck at the chains that held his comrade Gellor. Although he had a dagger at his waist whose dweomer made steel as weak as tin under its edge. Gord didn't employ that weapon. The ebon-bladed sword he wielded was of far greater enchantment here, for the bonds that imprisoned his friends were of the sort utilizing dark power and netherforce. Sunder the evil dweomers that fortified them, and the chains and Gords would be as nothing. The sword rang dully against the thick links of metal, and the chain rattled and clanged upon the stonelike floor.
"Free yourself quickly!" Gord managed to call as he sprang away, putting as much distance between himself and the bard as possible.
"Nyeeyah!" Furious at being outfoxed thus. Gravestone gave vent to a cry of rage even as he loosed a shackling spell meant to slow his enemy for but a little bit. The demonurgist needed more time to work his greater spells, to bring forth things to deal with the now-freed troubador and possibly the barbarian axeman, too. His conjuration manifested itself in whirling chains of magical sort that headed straight for Gord's legs.
As the shackles spun toward Gord, he countered with a downward thrust of his sword, which interposed the blade between the chains and his legs. Gord saw the demonurgist begin immediately upon another casting. Although the conjured metal of the shackle was already visibly corroding where it touched Blackheartseeker, the impatient adventurer didn't wait for the chains to fall away from this erosion. With a flick he had his long dagger out and drawn across the stuff. The magic broke and the shackles fell into bits of rust.
"Now, my tall and gangly fellow," he called to Gravestone to distract the priest-wizard from his ritual, "we have some business to finish between us."
Just then Gellor called out. "Gord, help me free Chert!" The bard's sword and the hillman's battleaxe were on the dais near the storklike demonurgist, but Gord had no time to assist the troubador by grabbing the weapons.
"Here." he shouted, sending his dagger spinning toward the one eyed hero. "This will do the work!" Then he leaped ahead and cut viciously at Gravestone's neck. Suddenly a forest of mottled tentacles sprang up between Gord and his foe. Their purple and maroon blotches were poisonous looking, and the fanged sucker-mouths that adorned these wildly waxing appendages threatened to fasten to him and tear the young champion apart.
His sword cut down upon these tentacles instead of upon Gravestone. The light less black blade sliced the things away easily, though. In a few strokes all were severed, and Gord had only slight damage from the things, although the one place he had been well struck burned and ached from the toxic secretions of the tentacle.
It was working. Even though the cursed little thief had managed to win free of each spell, virtually unscathed from any damage in a dweomer's content. Gravestone was gaining time. Now I'll deal with the reinforcements he hopes to gain, the demonurgist thought as he wove a powerful vortex that spun from his own little universe into another place nearby along the flow of evil. Out from that place came a stream of hideous things — dumalduns, members of the disgusting race native to the plane of Tarterus.
A dozen at most had come gibbering and howling into the place when the vortex vanished. In the time it had taken for the disgusting monsters to arrive upon Gravestone's quasi-sphere. Gord managed to seize and hurl Chert's great axe and Gellor's sword belt, with longsword and dagger thereon, in the general direction of where his friends were.
Then, almost in the same motion, the young champion had used a precious Item he possessed another of the bentsons he had received before setting forth on this mission. It was a Talisman of Balance, a dweomered sign that took years to fashion and fill with the proper enchantments. Gord stood upright, grasped the little token in the shape of a scales, and sent it high into the air. As the talisman came to the apex of its flight. Gord said the word of activation. Another vortex shot forth, and as it manifested itself the one created by the demonurgist's spell was negated. Down through the new vortex came a single being. The dunialdun were unaware or uncaring, but Gravestone grew pale at the approach of the single one summoned by the talisman.
The one-eyed troubador managed to snare his belt from the air, and in a trice Gellor held sword and dagger ready to face the rush of the nightmare creatures who were gleefully bounding and capering to ward him and his two chained comrades. Chert was almost free, his battleaxe within reach as the brawny hillman plied Gold's dagger to cut through the last of the bonds that held him.
Gellor began a heroic chant, a ballad reciting the deeds of great warriors who had faced and fought the most evil of foes, even at the cost of their lives. As he sang the brave words. Gellor was not otherwise idle. He met the rush of the first dumaldun with dagger point and sword edge, and the monster recoiled with a yowling cry of pain from the wounds inflicted by the enchanted steel of those blades.