Come Endless Darkness

Chapter 19

"No, I am sound."

That reply from Geilor was all Gord needed to hear. Then get up, and let's get out of here," he urged, grabbing the bard by one hand and pulling to help him stand.

The entire place was shaking. It wasn't much more than a gentle swaying now, but a few moments earlier it had been only a barely imperceptible trembling. Thanks," Geilor said as the two men ran along the dark passage that led up and out of the labyrinth. "But how in the blazing brass buckets of the hells are we going to get free of this place? I think it's beginning to crumble!"

The same stairs we came up," Gord panted in reply, "must be the link that son of a bitch maintained between this place and his headquarters in Greyhawk."

"You're not certain."

"Uh-uh," Gord grunted the admission. "What's the difference? You were right. The whole plane is falling apart now that the dirty demonkisser has gone down."

"Okay," the bard said and let it go. He was in no shape to waste further breath, not after the pounding he had taken. Gellor looked at Gord, seeing his comrade was in rough shape, too. Then the one-eyed troubador grinned. "We just booted that bastard's ass into the pits!"

"You got it," Gord said tersely. Then he grinned back. His face was lined, older-looking than it had been before all of this started. But at that moment he looked almost boyish again.

Gellor had tracked Gord to the demonurgist's lair. That hadn't been hard, for the champion of Balance had scratched marks all along his route — the instinctive procedures of a master thief. The two followed these same signs now, and they reversed their route as quickly as they could. The deep purples and violent lavenders of the dead priest-wizard's domain were paling. The stuff of the quasi-plane was cracking, flaking, crumbling around the edges. "How much longer?" Gellor shouted as they pounded toward the dais area.

It was getting difficult to run. The whole little universe was now shaking violently with an increasing swing. It took concentration to maintain balance and force one running foot to come down ahead of the other so as not to tumble and sprawl. "Not long enough to worry about. There's the staircase — can you manage Chert?"

"I'll manage," Gellor shot back. "You just take care of Curley."

Just then the whole of the floating disc tilted. The troubador was thrown against Gord, and both men tumbled uncontrollably toward the canted edge. With a wild surge of effort, the small champion forced his body to roll in the direction of the spiral steps. Gellor was already heading that direction after caroming off his comrade. The one-eyed man grabbed the metal of the staircase, Gord snagged Gellor's belt, and the platform they had been upon a heartbeat before fell into nothingness, crumbling away as it plunged into an ever-widening chasm of nullity. Gellor pulled his friend up beside him on the uppermost step. "What now?"

"Down those stairs like the wind, Gellor, and keep your mind set upon the wonders of Greyhawk!"

Scenes of various sort flashed past as the two bounded downward. The spiral was now beginning to twist and rock just as the disc had done before. That it still stood at all was mute evidence of its existence on more than the one plane that the demonurgist had made for his lair. Thirteen stairs down, and then they were standing in a tower room.

"We made it," Gellor panted.

"Chert and Greenleaf didn't," Gord growled. His face was drawn and tight.

The bard placed a fatherly arm around Gord's shoulders. "We all knew there was a chance of that when we took this mission, Gord. Look," he said, turning his comrade toward one of the diamond-paned windows. "There's the city. You're alive to fight on…. I'm here to help however I can. The man who killed your parents, the chief agent of the enemy on all Oerth, is dead, slain by your own hand, Gord. And you're alive to take the fight to Tharizdun himself, perhaps!"

"But four of us are gone…."

"They died to enable the battle to continue. It was a worthwhile sacrifice, my friend. Without you, all of us are doomed! Don't belittle their deaths by maudlin words — they died as heroes."

That made him realize the futility of his feelings and expressions. "Of course, Gellor. Your level head and firm advice make you a friend, indeed. Let's get out of this filthy place — it belonged to that rotten shitpile Gravestone. I find it a cesspool."

"Agreed," his comrade replied, opening the door to the plain, unmagical stone steps that would take them down from the tower and out into the streets of Greyhawk. "Best of all, that one will have no memorial of his own," Gellor said with rising heartiness. When Gord looked at him with a cocked eyebrow, the troubador explained, "No gravestone for Gravestone!"

It was mid-morning, that time when the laborers and other working class folk of the city took a brief rest to drink tea or beer, eat a bite and prepare themselves for the remaining eight hours before employment ceased with the evening.

Both men had taken time to clean up from the grueling ordeal they had undergone and used cloaks found in the complex that had belonged to the demonurgist to hide the condition of their garments. Nonetheless, there were a number of odd looks and hard stares as Gord and Gellor passed along the streets. It was too obvious that these men had been engaged in strenuous activity of a very questionable sort. City watch and citizens alike presumed the pair to be bandits or hardbitten thieves.

"Down this alley," Gord said in a hushed tone, steering his comrade into a narrow, dirty passage that curved off toward the northeast.

"This makes us look even more suspicious," Gellor hissed.

The champion made no reply but increased the pace. The alley widened into a little plaza where another similar way met it. There were steps there, both leading to cellars and going upward to a balconylike walkway above. Gord chose the upward direction, and after they had attained the upper tier he led the troubador into a little place that served a half-score of different teas and had a fragrant array of breads and rolls to go with the infusions.

"We can be compromised still," he told Gellor after the proprietor had set tall glasses of smoky flavored tea and a basket of rolls made of heavy rye flour whose tops were sprinkled with tasty seeds and crystals of rock salt. The food was consumed quickly, neither man speaking for a time, for both were absolutely famished from their exertions.

"I know that all too well," Gellor remarked, harking back to what his friend had said minutes before. "It's your city, though, Gord. I don't know it anywhere near the way you do. How do we avoid being embroiled in more trouble?"

Gord signaled, and a boy hastened over to the table to bring more tea and a different sort of food, this time a loaf of bread on a long board. Patrons supplied their own knives, naturally. The lad left as quickly, grinning at the extra bronze coin Gord had slipped him. "The fall of Gravestone is an event," he said softly to Gellor after making certain that there were none nearby to overhear. "His lord and master will be filled with fury and desire for revenge, and by now agents of the pits will be sending word to all who serve them."

"How does that respond to my query?" Gellor asked in irritation. "I am as aware of all that as you. How do we get from here to the safety of our rendezvous?"

"We don't. That's exactly what they'll expect. Every known meeting place for… our side, each dwelling place of the ones who belong, will be watched."

Gellor was indifferent to that. "Who cares if their spying dogs yap of our passing? By then we'll be far away."

"If they would only watch, old comrade, I'd agree with your assessment, and we could hie from here now. Many in Greyhawk openly serve the nether-spheres, though — not Just the priests of evil, either. The dead enemy served the assassins, for instance."

"And the rulers of the city too, I am told," the one-eyed bard supplied. "You think that such as those will intervene directly?"

The great ones of evil will send word to the powerful here in Greyhawk. Of that I'm sure! If we are seen, you can bet a squad of watch will be there to make an arrest. Clerics of evil and assassins will league to see we never live to protest the injustice."

"So we come back to my original question."

"If we can get to one of my own places of hiding- " "Then we could use the pyramid to move… elsewhere," Gellor finished.

Gord seemed uneasy, uncertain. "I wonder about that, Gellor. If we were observed closely, then the aura of that object could be known, our route plotted, and a detour prepared."

"Why have it at all, then?"

"When I held the device it was safe from scrutiny, because I have a warding against prying magics. It passed to your hands in time of jeopardy. You could have used it without fear. Now I think it most unwise to try the pathway it would open for us."

"Then we have only one hope," Gellor said softly. "We must try to go to the main headquarters in this city, fighting our way if need be, or…"

"Or?"

"Or we can slip quietly out of Greyhawk and speed to the stronghold of the lord-mage Tenser."

That is an option I wasn't considering," Gord admitted. "His castle is the nearest place of true safety, but the passage there is difficult and dangerous."

"True, true," Gellor nodded in agreement. "Perhaps the very reason why the enemy won't place the likelihood of our doing that high on its list."

"The water route?"

Gellor shook his head. "I know you have a fondness for the Rhennee, Gord, but too many of those folk are unscrupulous. What think you the reward for your head at this very moment? Ten times its weight in gold orbs, I'll wager."

"I hate to mention this, Gellor, but traveling by land is dangerous, because it is no problem to note a one-eyed man."

"But a blind man being led to the Shrine of St. Cuthbert By The Lake for healing would raise no notice, I think. Two pilgrims amongst a whole troop of the faithful trudging through the fringes of the Cairn Hills would be quite unremarkable."

"And the holy ones and relics borne with the train, the blaze of the aura of such a body; there would no chance of discovering us two in such a crowd!" Gord was enthused now. "It will be no problem to slip from the city between afternoon and evening — but we must be disguised ere then. Here's my plan…." And the Champion of Balance eagerly set forth his ideas on what they should do in the seven or eight hours time that remained before then.

In half an hour the pair departed. Using the less traveled routes, and with hood and cowl raised, they managed to get to a small set of rooms that Gord kept as a second hideaway. They were in the River Quarter, at a place where a fishmonger had his shop in the front of a ramshackle building. The man and his family lived above the store. A small, cluttered storage room was left vacant, though, by terms of the agreement. This place had a concealed entrance that led into a narrow room beyond and from there to the larger basement room below. It was damp and musty, as were the various garments cached there. Such garb suited both men. It would draw no notice.

"Not much in the way of coin," Gord noted sadly, parceling out the few coppers and silver nobles between himself and his comrade.

"A blind pilgrim and his devoted nephew will have few riches, Gord," the troubador noted with a smile as he returned the money to his friend. "You are the master of the purse, for a blind old codger such as I could mistake a zee for a common… or vice versa."

Just after the fourth hour, at the time of early evening when the streams of visitors to the city began their long treks homeward, Gord and Gellor slipped out of the place and found a ferry to take them across Hook Harbor to the place along River Street outside Greyhawk where pilgrims gathered to make their journey northward to the fabled shrine. Dressed as they were, and haggling over the price of smoked fish and wheat loaves, nobody paid them attention, not even the sharp-eyed men who moved here and there along the quay and wharves searching for wanted men. At sunset the two were camped with a half-hundred folk preparing to begin the march into the hills next day. They did so without molestation when the warm red of the sun's great disc pushed above the horizon a few hours later.

It was a slow and arduous passage. The pilgrims wished it thus. How else could one benefit? The trials and perils were tokens of faith and offerings, as it were. Days later, just short of the shrine that was the object of the pilgrimage, Gord and Gellor disappeared, leaving in the dark when all the good folk, and even the tough and not particularly prayerful soldiers guarding the flock of pilgrims, were sound asleep or nodding by fireside or sentry post.

The slow pace of the train had been beneficial to both men. Bruises and cuts had time to heal, damaged internal portions of the two began to mend. To veterans such as these, twenty miles of walking each day, plain fare, and seven or eight hours sleeping on the ground were both restful and restorative.

Gord worried about the sword. He had wrapped it carefully, but its length made the bundle rather noticeable, he feared. Because the group was large and the champion kept the weapon near his person at all times, nobody took interest in it, and no good priest or faithful paladin sensed its dark dweomer. Many of the members of the long stream of pilgrims undertaking the trek were taciturn, somber, and remote. Those more sociable and garrulous simply steered clear of the few who wished to be left alone. Although Gord and Gellor did not announce such a desire for privacy, their attitudes and introspective silences quickly placed them into the category of those not active in the pilgrim train's social community. Neither outcast nor shunned, for that was unthinkable to such persons as these, their attitude was simply accepted as part of what these men held dear. In fact, a score of others were similarly not a part of the activities. Most of the introspective ones had afflictions that were similar to or worse than that which the bard supposedly suffered from.

"I feel rather shoddy," Gellor whispered one night. "How many of these honest men and women are truly in need of help?" It was a rhetorical question. "It bothers me to pose as another blind one seeking the blessed cure."

"We are helping them all to live, old comrade," Gord noted as softly. "Not one of the truly decent folk here would say aught of it if they were aware of our feigning and the cause thereof."

"Yes, I know that's true, Gord. Yet it disturbs me nonetheless. I also am forced to wonder why more of such disabilities cannot be cared for by the great clerics."

"Too few are the priests with the power to heal such needs as these, too many are those with serious deficiencies to be rectified. I would not be a priest for any reason, Gellor. The need and my shortcomings would soon bring dementia to my brain."

There was more bothering them than either could articulate. Curley Greenleaf had been the bard's oldest and closest friend. The druid had been Gord's mentor for a time and dear comrade since. It was not possible for either man to speak of the loss they felt, not yet. It was too deep, too strong.

So, too, the death of Chert. He and Gord had shared a youthful time together in such fashion as bound man to man in bonds of brotherhood. Gellor had patted the big hillman's curly head when Chert could barely toddle, hunted with him when the lad received his first bow, advised him as a man. The four had undergone desperate adventures together, fought the enemy side by side. Two comrades in arms as well as old friends had gone outward and would be with them no more. The aching void that left within each breast was indescribable. The two kept their own counsel about that feeling and made each day as busy and mundane as possible. It was in all ways a beneficial journey.

When they slipped off into the darkness, each felt a particular tug. It was the poignancy of leaving behind a painful yet needed time of healing. Soon now they would have to deal fully with all that had transpired, undertake new missions without their old comrades there beside them.

It was as if the two were facing manhood again, having to leave the things of a childhood behind. Each sense was in part correct. Yet Gord and Gellor went forth without hesitation, and the mourning for their dead comrades was now something that would be retained in a special, deep place inside each of them, a badge in a place of honor where none but them could ever view it. That sharing was known to both men, but it too was unsaid.

"Mounts," Gellor said. "We need them now, and there's not enough coin between us to buy a single old plug!"

"No problem," Gord rejoined as he dug around in his gear. "This little pearl necklace should take care of the need nicely."

"I know that you didn't have any such thing when we began this trip," the bard said with rising suspicion in his tone.

Gord laughed. "Too long a thief, perhaps," he admitted as he admired the string of oddly shaped freshwater pearls. "The lantern-jawed merchant who purported to be a pilgrim — he was a dealer in stolen goods, too. I recognized him, Gellor, and relieved him of just a little of his ill-gotten gains."

Sound horses were soon found in a village, and with saddlebags well-provisioned and bedrolls tied behind saddles, the two heroes set off along the narrow trail that wound upward into the high hills and steep bluffs of the northeast. There, lost amid the wild terrain, was the keep of the mage they sought. In but a short while the two were safe within the walls of Tenser's castle.

The great archmage was absent. That surprised neither of them. He would be with the others, of course, working in concert to bring dismay to the hydra-headed gang who sought to free Tharizdun. The venerable Poztif greeted them warmly, however, and after formalities were concluded, Gord and Gellor related all that had transpired.

The high priest was shocked. "Timmil… the laughing barbarian lad, too… and the others, even Greenleaf," he said slowly, shaking his head. "It is a dark victory, but what else can be expected when one contends with the vilest of evils?" He led them to a place where they could rest and refresh themselves, saying. "I'll prepare immediately for your departure, of course. As soon as you have taken what sustenance you need and rested sufficiently to feel capable, I will have all in readiness for the next step."

Gord slept only a little, Gellor scarcely more. It was only hours after their arrival at the lonesome stronghold of the lord-mage that both of them were sent elsewhere. Neither of them knew their destination, not exactly. It would be someplace where Balance held sway, but Poztif kept his lips sealed on the subject. That was proof enough of how desperate the time was and how strong the foe.