Dance of Demons

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. …"

"Gellor! Gellorl Please hurry, Gellor! I am on the verge of being away, but Gord's weight drags. You must help me bear him along!"

"Hush, girl," the troubador whispered, barely interrupting his deep meditation. "I know that we have only seconds left, but I am doing all I can. Stay with me now, and don't speak again. We'll make it …" And then he allowed his speech to fall off into silence once more as he resumed concentration.

The ground trembled under her, but Leda blotted that out Whether it was the demon-brute, advancing enemies, or the tread of Tharizdun himself coming near, it made no difference. She had only one hope. Leda returned her thoughts to the realm of insubstantial play of light and dark going ever deeper so as to obtain the land of pure shadow.

It was very hard for Gellor to go past the point where Leda had gone so easily. Shadow exists in many spheres, strongly on the material one, of course. It was from there that Gellor had to step. The nighttime's world comes closest to opening a portal between human realms and the plane of true insubtantiality called Shadowland. The thick shadows of a forested midnight are as a gate to Shadowland, one that can open if the bright rays from the heavens above are just right. Gellor envisioned the light of Luna and Celene making patches of contradiction to the darker stuff of shadow, while the twinkle of a billion far suns made starshine come to thicken the mixture of light and dark Grays grew stronger, with sooty blacknesses opening beneath the canopies above.

He stepped along the penumbrate paths thus built, and at the last moment of the ascendant moons' soarings passed through the slender gateway. It was as if he had to squeeze through a very narrow opening, and that space was closing, constraining, hurting. Gellor wrenched himself beyond, then pulled. Something pushed, and the burden followed the narrow passageway with a rush. "Made it," he gasped, falling over in fatigue.

"We did!" Leda cried with joy. "We made it. troubador, and so did Gord!"

Gellor gave a short chuckle at that, pulling himself into a sitting position from where he had collapsed on the grassy sward of Shadowland. "Now we can see to our comrade. …"

"Yes, that we must do quickly," Leda said with concern clouding her former elation. "He is the champion. and he must be fit to face the enemy when the next confrontation takes place."

The wealsome forces of the rings will serve, I think." Gellor ventured. "We need to help Gord regain his senses, and then we three can bind the powers of the Spheres of Light to mending whatever hurt was done by the evil of the Eye of Deception."

The attack by Graz'zt was so stupid!" Leda said, for she couldn't control her anger at and disbelief of Graz'zt s sudden assault. "Had that filth not been so cowardly as to assail Gord from behind, Tharizdun would have been defeated and — "

"That all goes without articulation, girl. Think no more on it. Demons are what they are. Graz'zt was bent on destruction of us all for our humiliation of him — because he is a demon and we are otherwise. As a scorpion might, the demon king struck heedless of the resulting damage his sting would bring upon his own head."

Leda spat as if to curse Graz'zt. "He deserves his fate at the hands of the archfiend!"

"True. We are not so deserving, yet I fear that the act of the mad demon has brought foul doom to us three and the cosmos too."

"Gord is living. He fought Tharizdun twice, and each time he would have bested the enemy save that the archfiend had some outside agency rescue him. He is champion, my Gord. He can win a third meeting!"

Gellor had been examining his friend gently as they spoke. The second duel was a near thing, Leda. Tharizdun had gained much power. Now he will be complete, and he will have his yeth. I am gravely concerned."

She stared at the bard in the twilight dimness of the open sward there on the plane of shadows. "What are you telling me?"

"The skull of the boy-Tharizdun is not here, Leda. When we brought Gord here, we somehow failed to create sufficient force to take that grisly trophy along. The archfiend must have it even now. …"

Before Leda could respond to that, a faint howl came wafting to her ears. It was borne along on the aethereal wind, and it sent long shivers up her spine and ice into her brave heart.

"Now is the beginning of the end," Gellor said heavily.

She would not allow that "Come, troubador! There are shadewolves thick upon the Land of Shadow. They roam the forest and field. What we heard is naught but some pack of them voicing their fell presence to all the others. Come on! We must find habitation and safety. Help me carry Gord to such a place."

"As you wish, lady," Gellor replied. He made no further comment, and the two labored along in silence through the ever-shifting place that was the shadow world. Creatures of the sphere came to investigate, but not even the most ferocious of dark predators drew near. The three bands, Courflamme, and Gellor's kanteel too, kept all such prowling beasts and hungry monsters at a distance. In a short time the two came upon a community of the phantom-folk who were predominant in Shadowland, and in that village they found rest.

The rings they had gained from the transmutation of the three Theorparts had been used heavily. The energies locked within them were growing weak and erratic, especially since there had been no opportunity to expose them to any realm of Goodness where some restoration of their power could be made through drawing upon the forces there. In Shadowland the bands seemed very strong and bright, but anywhere else their auras would have been pale and dim. Both Leda and Gellor understood this, and both worried as to the result when they utilized the rings yet again to restore Gord to health and vigor. Would the tokens of Weal be drained dxy and become useless?

"We have no option in the matter," Gellor said flatly. "Even if we three are then stripped of our last defense against the enemy, we must bring the champion into consciousness and restore him to strength as well."

Leda agreed for many reasons, of course. After she and the bard had rested and recouped their own energy, they went to work to bring their friend back to them from his comatose state. The bands each wore gave up only a slow trickle of power, but along with the magic each of the two was able to activate without the rings, it was sufficient to bring about a gradual change.

Gord's pallor lessened, and his breathing went from shallow, rattling breaths to deep, normal ones, the sounds of one who is in deep and restful slumber. From there he was further restored, and before long he awakened and was able to speak. "Where. .?"

"In the realms of the shadows, dearest one," Leda answered softly.

"I. . hurt What did this to me? I had the foe at my mercy. …"

"Aye, old friend, that you fairly did!" Gellor said with true heartiness as he recalled the moment of Tharizdun's overthrow there in demonium. "Then the Jackal Graz'zt struck you unawares with the Eye." With few words but stark ones, the troubador recounted the whole of what had happened after Gord had been attacked and made senseless by the force of the evil relic in the demonking's hand.

"We had no help? No succor came from the beings who sent us to the battle in the Abyss?"

Leda shook her silvery tresses, her face clearly depicting her anger. "No. We were deserted there, my love. We were left to die, but Gellor and I were only just able to get you here to the safety in shadows."

"It is a place which the archfiend will easily penetrate," Gord said softly with an edge of warning plain. "We must leave soon."

"As soon as you are strong enough."

"Leda, that might be too long unless some outside force is used. It is time to draw upon the rings again."

Gellor put his calloused hand on Gord's own. "Easy, comrade. The strength of the bands is sorely diminished. I fear there is not enough to bring you to full vigor and keep their magical capacity extant. Dare we drain them dry?"

"We must," Leda ordered.

"No," Gord countermanded. "I can lean upon the force of Courflamme to get by until the rings are recharged."

"And thereafter?" the bard asked with uncertainty.

The answer was simple and given without optimism. "We take whatever measures possible to avoid the last meeting with Tharizdun whilst seeking some last chance to win."

"You mean.. ?"

Gord looked squarely at Leda, even though Gellor had spoken. "It was very nearly all I could manage to face the archfiend last time we fought Unless there is some miraculous intervention, I have no illusions regarding my fate — and so too yours. He will best me with ease, and then the multiverse will sink into unending night"

Thereafter none of them spoke much. They avoided even the phantom-folk who housed and assisted them, preferring not to have to discuss what loomed before them all. Even on the sphere of shadows the struggle was known, and it was no secret that the champion was in residence in the home of the village's elder. Before that word could spread far, Gord. Gellor, and Leda gathered their few belongings, strapped on their weapons, and made their way from the realm of shadows to another place.

The three were careful not to tell anyone their destination.