City of Hawks

Chapter 25

“Have a flagon of ale with us, mate!”

The invitation was called from a nearby table, a place where a half-dozen brown and hard-bitten soldiers sat. The speaker was a big, burly mercenary with a missing ear and a gap-toothed smile.

Even as he heard the man speaking, Gord swept up the sprinkling of coins before him and stood. “Sorry, comrade. There’s a little wench nearby whose heart would be broken if I didn’t come as I’ve promised…,” The young thief allowed the double entendre to sink in; then he continued as the warriors vented lusty laughter and began shooting back bawdy jibes at him. “Nay, nay, look for your own ladies, my boys! I thank you for the offer of ale, though, friend,” Gord added, speaking to the one who was undoubtedly the captain of this little band of sell-swords. “Another time, perhaps…,”

The pale, hard eyes of the burly mercenary crinkled at the corners as he looked up at the young fellow and smiled broadly. His eyes were as empty and distant as ever when he did so. The pale, blue orbs looked into the hard, gray eyes of the small, dark young man and saw kinship there. “Of course. The world is small and the fields too few. Keep your weapon ready until then!”

“As always!” Gord responded. A barmaid was near, and as he spoke he dropped the handful of coins on the wooden tray she bore. “Here, lass. A round for my comrades there, and the rest Is for you!” Then he left the noisy crowd in the tavern, striding out into the night of Greyhawk.

The sounds faded away quickly, but the impact remained. It bothered Gord at the same time it pleased him. The recognition of brave men, the acceptance of him as one of them, was gratifying. Still, Gord wished to think of himself as a young and carefree rogue-and a bit of a dandy and a ladies’ man too. He played hard at that, with an outward attitude of derring-do and devils-may-care, but professional soldiers, who knew what to look for, saw him otherwise. Too many times had he faced dragon and demon. Dungeon darkness and the threat of death, or living death in shadow, had placed their marks on Gord.

His face was still young-looking, having developed only a few lines to serve as maps of his past adventures. The giveaway was his eyes. They were old, distant, hard. They had seen war, danger, death. But he didn’t have the stony gaze of a killer, or the merciless, empty look of the mercenary who gave no quarter to his foes. Gord’s eyes revealed something of his inner troubles, the missing part of his soul. His lost spirit looked out of those eyes, searching for the answer. Who was he? What was he destined to become?

Only a very discerning individual would note the special aspect of Gord’s eyes, differentiating it from the look of veteran soldier and sell-sword. Thinking about his internal plight sometimes bothered Gord, but tonight he tried to push those thoughts aside. At least the look in his eyes had advantages, too… He had not lied about tonight. His eyes attracted women; their look was almost an irresistible challenge to many.

“I think perhaps the game wasn’t worth the candle,” the young man said softly to himself as he strolled down the street. Then he shrugged, squared his shoulders, and went on with a jaunty gait and whistled an almost-merry tune as he walked. Where he was, after all, was much better than the alternative that might have occurred many a time.

Several weeks later he received a message from Gellor that his friend would not be meeting him after all. The missive was not overdue; in fact, it came almost two months to the day from when the two of them had last seen each oilier. Despite all the time Gord had seemingly spent in the realm of shadow, only a few days had gone by on the calendar of Oerth from when he was stricken outside the temple in Dyvers to when he had abruptly found himself standing in the countryside, within easy sight of the walls of City Greyhawk.

The bit of information from Gellor, whispered to him by an anonymous barkeep, was not very informative at all, but Gord was used to that sort of thing from the one-eyed troubadour. What really made him uneasy was the return of his own discontent and uncertainty here in the city. There was no joy or excitement left in even the most risky of exploits. Gord was alone and felt it very much. All of his old comrades were elsewhere, presumably doing things that were significant, or at least enjoyable and productive for them. Gord was simply drifting, wondering what all life was about, and trying to make his mind up as to what he should do about it.

Then, gradually at first but irrevocably, the whole world changed.

Far to the west, unbeknownst to the young thief, his friend Gellor and the bald-pated druid-warrior Curley Greenleaf were given information and instructions that sent them hurrying off. The half-elven Greenleaf was to round up Gord and meet with Gellor in the distant Pomarj. Desperate times had come, with portents of ill, and all were to play a part. The two men said little of it, but both believed that the young man was more important than he could know, or would believe. Neither spoke of it for many reasons, not the least of which was their own uncertainty as to Gord’s precise role in the events unfolding.

“Be careful, my rotund druid, and hasten!” The latter charge was hardly necessary, for despite appearances, Greenleaf was as aware of things and as conscientious as the bard was.

“I shall, Gellor, I shall. Much more might rest in our hands than we know…” He allowed the last part to trail off, for nothing further needed to be said. Then he laughed. “I am supposed to be the kind and caring priest, you the hard-bitten troubadour-and you admonish me to hasten and take care as if I were some fledgling about to flutter forth for the first time against the dark foe! Bah!” The expression of disgust was mock, and Curley Greenleaf hugged the one-eyed man even as he said it. “But you too, friend, you too take care! We shall see you soon, and then the test shall commence.”

Soon Gellor was off on his own errands, and the warrior-priest too was gone from the secret place where an occult group bent on saving the systems of the multiverse had held conclave. In the chess game that Gellor had spoken of to Gord, those two were perhaps minor pieces, and the young thief a pawn. Yet they were being moved to support the lesser man, as chess terms would have it, and when it was properly protected, the pawn would move.

In the vast, multifaceted contest taking place for supremacy of all, there were many sides and more pieces than could be counted. Some of the participants sat idle, however, and most of the playing pieces were unmoving as well-misplaced, powerless, guarding meaningless squares from nothing in particular. Only two of the many sides in this multiversal game moved with purpose and understanding. One was the side championed by Greenleaf, Gellor, and others of their ilk. The other was hostile, malign, and very, very evil. How else could it be?

Evil has many faces, of course. Bestial, leering demons and grinning devils are at opposite spectrums of the vile depths of that force. There is a sink, a depth greater than the iron-floored pits of the hells, more profound than the unfathomable depths of the Abyss of demonkind. The nadir of all wickedness, the greatest depression of depravity, lies between the two. Some call that place Hades, others the black void. By any name, it and its denizens represent the most wicked of evil, the darkest of the dark. Their hosts were those in motion on the imaginary playing board, and they moved against not only the weak and exposed force represented by such as the one-eyed troubadour and his friends, but also against the gibbering hordes of demons, for those too would not bend their necks and be ruled.

“Which of the useless turds serves us in this matter?” The daemon who spoke from his dais was Infestix. Overlord of Death, ruler of the deepest darkness.

A decayed creature, some minion of the rotting lord of Hades, replied humbly in a maggoty voice. “The ones of scarlet hue, master, move in their thousands to do your bidding…”

“And?”

“The Eight Diseased Ones, master,” the thing choked out, “with all of their servants, daemon and human.”

Infestix spat, a wad of horrid, yellowish green that struck the floor of ebon stone at the feet of the rotted servitor. It spread and sank, eating the stone and leaving it riddled as if by worms. “Yet none bring me the quarry I want-not even intelligence of it! I am tired of this dung-headedness. Out of my way, you sweet-smelling blossom,” the Overlord of Evil commanded as he rose from the ghastly throne and moved toward the daemon steward.

Virulex, himself a fell and dread lord of the realm, fairly scrambled to make way for his liege. “The matter is far more complex than we thought, master, the possibilities and their permutations impossible to analyze. One nexus after another, all leading to places none can discern…”

“You yammer like a soft-eyed puppy, Virulex. You create excuses for all, but only to cloak yourself. Do you think I am stupid? Be silent and follow, dog! I will personally tear aside the intervening veils and solve this once and for all.”

In another smaller but no less hideous chamber in Infestix’s loathsome palace, the Eight Diseased Ones and their lieutenants were gathered expectantly. They quickly covered their surprise when the Overlord himself came, each then reporting the results of their seeing and divination. Armies marched, the soldiers of Hades marshalled to contest with the rebellious demons. Spies slunk, assassins lurked, agents served, mages cast their magical nets, while priests of darkness sent forth their own evil meshes. A great hubbub of action and reaction, plots and ploys. Decoys and false trails, sendings and energies to confound and confuse any who sought to pry.

“We are sure to succeed, Master of Death,” one of the lesser ones said.

“Your existence rides on that,” Infestix said offhandedly as he peered into the misty vapors of a great pool of inky shadows. The massive basin was set into the chamber floor, a scrying pool filled with some undefinable substance. “I thought as much!” The daemon overlord spat that out in his hollow, dead voice as he saw the scenes flashing within the basin.

“Time varies there, master,” one of the eight supplied. “Perhaps we can intervene.”

“Fool! That would alert every enemy that we have, reveal to them our intentions, destroy whatever secrecy remains!”

Infestix had seen the fall of a massive citadel belonging to the Scarlet Brotherhood. That evil organization worshiped him in the form of his avatar, Nerull, who served the cause. “Besides,” the ruler of the lowest thought to himself, “the flow of events is such that even I might misjudge and thereby alter something which would rebound to foil my purpose.” Infestix would serve as Tharizdun’s viceroy. Better a servant of that greatest one and ruling over an infinite domain than being masterless with naught but the petty plane he had.

“It is the ambitious runt who meddles in our plans, master. If we arrange to have the Prince of Ulek murdered-”

“Silence.” Infestix spoke without anger, but the command was quite sufficient to make the whole of the eight still. “Who is that one?”

“It is a slave of the Qabbala, master, one most commonly known as Gellor.”

“I thought as much. Watch that one. Wherever he goes we must be before him, ready to thwart his plans.”

“I will have him dead, master, within an hour.”

Infestix turned and looked at the daemon who had volunteered that. Then he turned to Virulex. “That one,” he said softly, pointing. “Have it removed and destroyed instantly. It is stupid and inferior.”

The creature tried to protest, but it had already staked its continued existence on a claim proven false. It mewled and groveled to no avail as the daemon steward dragged it away. The Eight Diseased Ones stood still, silent as statues. Variolaz finally dared to speak. “What, master, makes… us…need to so respect the feeble Qabbala and its dogs?”

“They have The Rede,” Infestix explained as if to a child. “That relic which is the codex to the multiverse. With it they could manipulate any dimension, space, probability. It is small comfort that they do not fully understand its usages yet… A pair of their lackeys won it from a demon guardian-rot those idiotic lords of the abyssal planes! Had they but given it to me…,”

“Cannot we eliminate those vassals of theirs, then? By destroying their tools we will curtail their power. Then we Eight can move to recover the relic for you, master.”

“A most pleasant suggestion, and well put. The very thing, were it not for the rest who oppose us. No, better to allow those dogs to run and follow their yapping than to try to intervene and be discovered. It is the one-eye we must be most careful of, I think. The rest are nothings. Look. That one shows no aura at all, and has no cord!”

“He was one of the two who stole The Rede,” said the chief of the Eight Diseased Ones.

“That one will die soon,” Infestix said with a pleasure-laden tone. “I will watch a while yet.”

The overlord of all daemonkind and his eight were viewing the scenes in the scrying basin when Virulex returned from his executionary duties. He too joined them as they watched tiny figures go through their meaningless little actions on the material plane, on the world known as Oerth. At times the scenes faded, masked by intervening mists. Infestix tried to clear those vapors, rend the veils, but even his powers were insufficient. Still they stood and watched what they could, and the overlord of them all never allowed a hint of his frustration and uncertainty to show.

The citadel fell; armies marched and fought: men, dwarves, and humanoids died. Here a little band went off to seek one thing or another. The demons came then, and the daemons snarled as their own servants failed because of the intervention of the Abyss. “We must do something!” The chief of the eight was infuriated. Infestix remained calm.

“The unruly brawlers bring attention to themselves-see! Now all forms of antagonists gather to contest for their prize. That is the middle Theorpart, the Arouser. My servants have the Initiator, and it calls to its own. Neither human mage nor demonling shall have it!”

Yet even the master of daemons was proved wrong by the events that followed. Mighty armies clashed over the relic, that which would awaken the sleeping one of greatest evil, that king to whom even Infestix would bow, for he was Tharizdun. Tharizdun, greatest of Evil, he who would restore all the multiverse to the malign powers. Locked away in nothingness, comatose, chained now. But the means to pierce the nothingness, dispel the unconsciousness, free the bonds, had been unearthed at last.

Soon, despite all hopes to the contrary, Infestix knew that the tripartite relic would be conjoined, the dweomers destroyed, and Tharizdun freed. It could never be otherwise. Evil was stronger than Balance, more powerful than Good. It held no interfering ethical beliefs, suffered no qualms. In the end it must prevail.

“It goes to the demons, master!”

Infestix turned and exited the chamber in silence.

“Are we beaten?” The leader of the Eight asked that quietly, unbelievingly.

Virulex stared at the group with unwavering gaze, his dead-black eyes unwinking. “Never! Watch on, but interfere not-especially as to any foreseeing with respect to the relic or those who serve the Balance. Our master warned us well, I know. Believe! There can be but one final result.” With that, Infestix’s steward too left the scrying room.

The Eight Diseased Ones, the nobles of Hades, remained at their post, watching and waiting. So many sides contesting, so many forces arrayed, so many players and pieces. Even the super-powerful intellects of those mighty ones of daemonkind had difficulty seeing all, and assessing what they viewed. Still, they knew and believed.

“A pawn has just been taken,” one of the eight observed tonelessly.

Another nodded. “It was the auraless one, the one the master said would die.”

“I cannot find a trace of him,” the first speaker observed. “To what end did he go?”

“To annihilation,” the other said unemotionally. “Where else? Otherwise there would be a trace, the shadow of the cord.”

“Of course,” the first said. Being the least of the Eight, it was his duty to observe the least important of events. The assurance from one of greater status was sufficient. Besides, he had commented on the occurrence, and it had been noted. The explanation of it supplied by Pneumonias set the burden squarely on that one’s decayed head. That was doubly satisfying. “The martinets of the hells do have their uses,” he finally commented to the seven others. “If we can’t intervene directly, at least the devils can serve.”

“Of course. Infestix has commanded it,” the greatest of the Eight said. Then they returned full attention to the scrying, and silence reigned in the purple-washed hall.

At various other places, on other planes and in secluded places, men and more-than-men observed events in much the same fashion. So many watchers, so many energies flowing, such cross purposes were involved that there was a swirling vortex soon. It seemed to come naturally enough, and was so slowly and gently formed that it went all but unnoticed.

The surge of magical currents was not disruptive; rather, the energy vortex that was generated grew as more and more attention was focused on the material plane and distorted perspectives there. It did so in so subtle a fashion as to be virtually undetectable. What demons, daemons, and devils saw was different from the observances of the denizens of the planes of light, those powers that sought for good, weal, and justice.

So too was different the view of the ones who believed in all as part of a whole, those who understood that without evil no good could be known, that without darkness light was not truly comprehensible, was not true. Perhaps this was more real than the other views, or perhaps the great ones of Balance saw more because they had fewer preconceptions, no sacrosanctities that had to remain inflexible as judgment points upon which information must founder if not in agreement. In any case, those beings were suddenly aware of what had occurred.

“How is the vortex come?” asked a demiurge.

“The flow and surge, the fluxes…?”

“The energies form the vortex,” the being observed to the ancient human archimage who had replied to his query, “but I am not certain that they formed in and of themselves. Observe how there are ghosts and distortions present. What is actually occurring, what has happened, and what will happen are unreadable in the force of the swirl.”

The arch-wizard pondered that for a long period. “There are two unknowns then, lord. The first is the cause of the distortion; the second, the actualities masked by it.”

“Exactly, my old companion. Succinctly put. I fear we may only guess at either.”

Other members of the Balance, hierophant priests and other humans as well as beings similar to the demiurge, then proposed a number of possibilities and posed certain questions as well. The great worker for wholeness finally spoke after each, in turn, had stated the conditions as perceived individually. “We all concur, then, that some force unknown is a likely cause of the shaping of energies, although coincidence can be ruled out. We must, therefore, continue to act as if coincidence was indeed the sole cause of the vortex.”

“We will continue to play off demons against the combined Evils?”

“That is correct. Moreover, our agents on Oerth will continue to work toward the foiling of the plots of Hades with respect to all matters save one.”

“What is that one exception, lord?” the venerable archimage asked.

“We can no longer accept events as they seem. It has been our belief that a final struggle is occurring. Perhaps that is so, but I now see that it is but true in part. We must resist the evil ones, for if they combine and succeed in their aims, then light will be no more. With its loss, so too must we all perish.”

“Speak on, please.”

“It seems possible that we are less than we imagined. Beyond us, beyond the lord of Evil and powers of Good, unbeknownst to the masters of Order and the forces of Chaos, a greater one might be laboring.”

“For or against us, lord?”

“Who can say? Neither? That seems a reasonable suggestion. That power does as it does toward an end which is yet hidden from us. It is logical to continue as we have been, but to observe carefully as well. There is a strong probability that what will occur is far beyond the scope we have previously considered.”

“I believe you are on to something there, lord,” said the arch-wizard suddenly. His vigor and animation were those of a schoolboy as he went on. “There is no Balance if things are as we perceive them to be. Consider, sirs, the misshaping of things if all save the benighted must forever strive to prevent one of their number to ascend over the multiverse! Is there such a one in the ranks of the upper beings? Do we have such a champion? Those answers are self-evident, and if the question is put with respect to chaos, to law, the answer is the same. None exists save in the depths of Evil.”

A hierophant seemed unsure. “Could this anomaly not exist in a multiversal probability?”

“Probability is not as intense an infinity as that,” the demiurge said. “What of Balance were it so? There would be none, and we would be false.”

“Unless something above, something greater, existed,” the archimage filled in. “Then a singular force of lesser nature might indeed exist. If the greater was its counterpoise, but one perhaps more attuned to wholeness, then we would be the instrumentality it would employ.”

“It is certain that those of light are not marshalled in unity,” the chief of the hierophants noted in concurrence. “But if what you say is so, there are inescapable conclusions as to the greater one. It is no more potent than the darkest evil, and it moves blindly. We are not directed!”

“Fie!” The great worker was adamant. “Probability might allow a complete unbalancing, and the unknown power might have to struggle against unintelligent energies as well as the rest. Who can say? However, what makes you, any of you, believe that we are not directed? Perhaps this direction is not evident to us, but we cannot, therefore, presume that it does not exist. We must each continue on as we purpose, but with an attitude of acceptance of new Information as valid until disproven. We will work our own plans, seek the end we desire, until such time as inescapable evidence directs us otherwise. This will be done, though, with the ever-present knowledge that what we suppose, what darkness strives for, what ancient powers are being unearthed at this time, and the results of the struggle which is foreordained might well be but facets of some greater whole which we do not yet perceive.”

When the demiurge finished, the other chief ones of Balance spoke. With agreement and understanding reached, the many members of the group returned to their own places. There was always much to do, perpetual ministrations that would be eternal… or so they hoped.

While high and low scried and schemed, while those of Balance pondered, Gord rode away from his foster city in company with the druid-warrior Green-leaf. These pieces in the game being played moved at the direction of the Balance, but of course with free will and chance playing their own roles in the game. There were combats and battles, journeys and discoveries, elven friends and humanoid foes.

In the end those neutral to the ethos of Good and Evil, of chaos and order, missed their goals, failed in their missions. The gibbering hordes of demonkind won the prize, and Gord lost his own life. Infestix himself came upon Oerth in his Death form, great demons too took material form and interfered with human activities. But in the end it seemed that demons prevailed over all other forces, Evil was torn in twain, and Good and all the rest benefited thereby-all save those who were quick no longer and benefited naught from anything mortal.

Again Gord died, and was revivified. Only magic allowed both this saving and his first one to occur. His ring, he learned, was powerfully dweomered to save him from death up to nine times, so that seven reincarnations remained. For that he was grateful. Concurrently, Gord knew his part in the game, understood the play, and thus moved from least pawn to something greater.

If each soldierlike piece in the imaginary game was assigned a promotion value, the least would be that pawn that represented all pawns, and the greatest soldier would be that pawn representing the kinglike piece of a given side. Through his victories over those evil ones who had fought him, Gord had moved successively from one sort of pawn to another, becoming more potentially powerful, more centrally placed on the playing field, each time he so triumphed. At last he reached the end of his long trek across the checkered grounds of the struggle.

In the likening of the various forces’ agents to chess pieces-pieces and pawns in a vaster game than conventional chess-Gord had reached the last rank and become a piece of some considerable power. He could be considered to have the abilities of a knight combined with the so-called hopping bishop, the ship of Earth’s ancient Chatranj or Chatturanga chess. He controlled not a single space Immediately around him, and his range was most limited considering the size of the vast board of the contest. Yet of the sixteen squares that were each one removed from his actual position, he could command fully twelve, and vault over any man who intervened. Gord was a powerful minor piece now. He comprehended not only his role but the game at large as well, so he was doubly dangerous to his adversaries.