Dance of Demons

Chapter 24

"Is there anywhere left to hide?"

"That is a dispiriting thing to say, Gellor. You are becoming a detriment to this — "

"Leda! Please don't quarrel with our friend. You are allowing the archfiend his way when you do that," Gord said gently. "His question was deserved. It was also practical." The three had been chivvied and chased across the whole of the world. From the distant south, through the Moving islands, up and across Gonduria's vast continent, and thence across the Agitoric Ocean to western Oerik's shore. No fastness or barren or mountain chain had served to conceal them from the hounding of Tharizdun and his yeth.

"It is just a sport to him now," Leda said, picking up the thoughts from Gord. "Perhaps the bard is right as you say. Why don't we stay and face the archfiend?"

"That answer is simply stated, dear one," he replied to the elven girl. "We have been unable to bring our force into readiness. There are insufficient energies in the rings, Courflamme, us as well. To stand and fight so depleted is to invite disaster."

"Is there any hope of gaming the power you say we require?" Geijor was not mincing words now.

The question set him to thinking carefully. It had seemed that Chronos and Lady Tolerance had desated them there in demonium and afterward as the three had tried to find a refuge and restore their strength on plane after plane. They had failed, Gord admitted to himself, and had brought disaster to those who sought to aid them too. How many friends and stout folk had met their deaths because of them? Could he actually hope to achieve a state that would put them on a par with Tharizdun?

"I greatly overmatched the newly risen monster," God allowed, looking at his friends and shaking his head. 'If I had been less cautlous then, or had Entropy not interfered, the matter would have been ended there in the castle prison."

"That is apparent," Gellor said cynically. "The power you seek?"

The match was more even there in the Abyss. Entropy was locked against Ojukalazogadit, so it was Tharizdun and I. The force of the three bands tipped the scales in my favor. The archfiend was a thrust away from oblivion!"

The deranged demonking brought that hope to grief; now he is gone and we three face oblivion," Leda commented with ruefulness heavy in her voice.

Gord stood up. There is one place which might prove itself — a location capable of delaying the archfiend and providing us with the strength necessary to give us a fighting chance."

"You mean the city, I presume."

"Not exactly, Gellor. Greyhawk is the last center of resistance, true. The point of magical power is just outside it, of course."

"The ruined castle of the Mad Archmage?"

"None other. Once I delved into places there which tapped spheres beyond even the reach of Tharizdun — as he now is, I mean. Ultimate Balance impinges there, and the Lord Yang and Lady Yin manifest themselves there," Gord said with some enthusiasm. "The energy and negation I need for Courflamme could be gained there!"

Leda was ready. "Let's depart immediately. The sun is already sailing toward its nighttime sea, and with darkness will come the tumultuous hunt!"

"Would I could face those damned hounds without their filthy huntsman," the troubador growled, humiliated at having to run as a hare before Tharizdun and his netherdogs.

"I will lead," Gord said. "This offers at best a chance. Fully prepared, we will have only a slight hope. Parity was lost with a vengeance, and that opportunity will never again present itself."

Gellor arose to stand beside his two friends. "We three alone survive to fight. The remainder of the Lords of Balance are no more. If you can manage even a whisper of chance against the storm of the archfiend's assault, what matter? It is the only remaining avenue left to follow."

"It is one I have known of for a long time," Gord admitted. "I hesitated to use it because of what will come from our act."

Leda looked at her love, then at Gellor. "The destruction of Greyhawk the death of all who dwell therein and are gathered there. Is not in question whether or not you lead us there, Gord."

"Aye, that's so," Gellor nodded vigorously. "City and life therein are doomed, foredoomed since your rising as champion. Its central position has been evident always, though it is in retrospect we realize that fact now. Let's press on quickly."

Thus agreed, the three rode astride ordinary mounts across the woodlands and fields toward the greatest urban center on the Flanaess. The whole of Oerth was wracked by war, killing, famine, and disease. Here and there some pocket of near-normal life held out, surrounded by a sea of turmoil and slaughter. From one such shelter to another they rode, and in the course of the journey and avoiding the skyborne hunt that sought for their souls each night, their strength and power were drained further and further. Insane servants of Tharizdun ran rampant through the land, so terrible and perverse that brigands appeared as men of Weal in comparison. Wandering survivors, refugees, despoilers, crazed cannibals, and worse were frequently encountered. Whether ignored or scattered by the three, there was so little that they could do to help that the experience eroded their determination, sapped their will to continue. Somehow they managed, and near year's end Gord. Leda. and Gellor came to the low northern ridges that allowed them their first look at the last city of Oerth.

"It seems almost unperturbed." Gord murmured, seeing the river barges, and carts coming and going.

"Those riders yonder," Leda said, pointing away to the east, "and perhaps the dust cloud to the south too. betoken a state of tense waiting, I think"

"The comment was only a passing thought. I realize that even though the strongest of the Flanaess are gathered within those grim walls to forestall the fall of Greyhawk, no collection of men and more-than-humans too can fend off the archfiend for long."

Gellor scowled. "Our proximity will bring the matter to a head. Would it were otherwise!"

"Do we stop in Greyhawk first?" Leda asked him.

"No," Gord said. "That would be of no usefulness at all. The ruins of the sprawling fortress built by the Archimage are nearer to us than the city anyway. Let's make for them immediately."

In a short time the three located a faint trace that led them to the old castle. Although they passed through an unfamiliar gate, Gord's memory was good. The way to the depths of the citadel's subterranean mazes was indelibly etched in his mind. Before descending, they paused, ate a little, and rested. When the sun in the leaden sky was near its zenith, the young champion led the two into the ruins and downward into the central heart of the underground beneath.

At the bottom of a well-like shaft, Gord paused a moment. "I wonder what ever befell that self-seeking mage who first brought me here…."

Leda had heard the tale of Gord and Chert having to face the dangers that the greedy spell-binder had exposed them to. "Some just fate, no doubt. Thank him for his actions, though, Gord. You plan to use the knowledge he inadvertently lent you to foil the Ultimate Evil."

"Yes, so I do, dear little conscience. Between you and Gellor I get no peace."

The bard managed to clip short the words that rose in his throat. "If we don't. ."

"Don't what?" his friend asked.

"Don't stop reminiscing like old folk and get to business.' Gellor substltuted, "we'll attract an unwarned audience for our further descent!" He had thought that peace would never come — obliteration at best an eternity of suffering in a half-aware state under Tharizdun's tender mercies at worst. Thoughts such as those were better unvoiced, and the troubador wondered why he had allowed a hint of such despondent considerations to be uttered.

"With our rings the process is almost no challenge. Come on, let's descend to the realms that exist beneath the actuality of Greyhawk Castle."

"I have sealed the fate of the rings," Entropy droned, the uniformity somehow conferring a tone of smugness.

"Have you now? I am much impressed," Tharizdun said with equal smugness. "However did you accomplish such a wonder?"

"That is simple," the entity purred. "I lured the three into the welter of dimensions and planes which impinge upon the substance of Oerth beneath the construction of the Archimage."

"Oh, my! How did you manage that feat? It must have required exceptional genius."

"I spread much of myself to encompass those mortals, and as a noose tightens, I drew the weight of desolation inward. They went before it as sheep."

Tharizdun could barely contain himself. "Couldn't I have been op some small assistance to you in that effort, Lord of Entropy?"

The darkness seemed to shrug. "The thought never occurred to me."

There was delight in the heart of the archfiend. The entity could be manipulated, hoodwinked, and even played as one would a lute! "So the champion and two would-be heroes are gone to ground, so to speak."

"That is well put. They delve below the ruined fortress even now. They will be exactly where I desire when your full power waxes strongest too, I might add."

"Master inertia, your alliance is most beneficial. Soon now your reward will oome to its fullness. I will take pleasure in having one such as you there in my dominance of all!"

Tharizdun wiped his hand across his beautifully evil features, keeping his face a mask, mind an unreadable blank shielded by his best dweomers. "As you have alerted me, I believe I should rouse the yeth and ready another hunt. the pack will enjoy the chase through the depths in which those three foolishly stray, will they not?"

Entropy was uninterested. "What those hounds like or dislike is unknown to me. Do I have your assurance that if I risk the negation of the bands, you will bring the champion to his final battle?"

"The yeth hounds are for just such a purpose, and I too am prepared to fight the three again."

"Courflamme?"

The archfiend waved his hand airily. "Have you forgotten what I said in that regard? No matter. Your sly trap has also benefited me. The blade is most vulnerable at a certain place there beneath Greyhawk." There was far more, but Tharizdun didn't speak of it. He had done most of the work that Entropy claimed, of course. With carefully orchestrated moves, the three had been forced to the place they now were. By wild yeth harrying them, lands torn by strife, spheres devastated, avenues barred. champion and heroes had been put into the exact place Tharizdun wanted them to be.

Did the ultimate expression of Evil recognize that his destruction and slaughter led along a path that ended in the inevitability of extinction? Extinction of not a race or species, but the annihilation of all life followed by the cessation of activity in all aspects of the multiverse? Tharizdun did ponder that very consideration. He wrote off the whole question as ridiculous. In a cosmos of infinite probabilities, infinite realitles, what mattered a few billion deaths? Even the snuffing out of a galaxy or two? Entropy sought vainly to rule in a limitless arena where life, energy, or simply motion would always spawn itself. Hubris always reasons thus, for if a course is determined regardless of what will eventuate because of its pursuit, there are always internal means of rationalizing whatever then occurs or seems probable under known conditions. It can't happen here, to me. .

Entropy too had reason to indulge in introspective questions. Did the archfiend labor under self-delusion? Or was Tharizdun's seeming hubris no false and bloated confidence in his own ability? What if that being could somehow sustain a wholeness of evil activity and repression that blanketed every aspect of the multiverse but failed to bring nullity? That was as unacceptable a thought to the entity as was sharing to the archfiend. If Tharizdun demonstrated a confidence. it was because of his own limitations, his failure to comprehend the certain destiny of the cosmic all when a set of conditions came into being. The stage was set, just as the archfiend had desired, but Tharizdun was but an actor. Entropy wrote, managed, and directed the actuality.

"We meet again in the depths beneath the castle then, Tharizdun."

"But of course, entity of inertia, but of course. Shall we say in one hour, by local reckoning?" Tharizdun heard no reply, for Entropy had already dissipated its essences. With a dark smile and wicked laugh, the archfiend transported himself elsewhere too. It was time for the last wild hunt.

Nothing was as it had been, should have been still. The places where the existence of other spheres impinged on that of the world of mankind were diminished. The elemental presences were but small manifestations of power. Nature was miniaturized. The mighty Yang and Yin were pygmy-sized and powerless things who fled instantly upon seeing the three. A test of energies garnered scarcely a trickle of the bright force of creation, the same with respect to the dark energy of destruction.

"The elements provided virtually nothing," Gord said unbelievingly, "and now Balance proves to be likewise inadequate. Some great change has been wrought here."

"Do our enemies see so far into the future that they can do thus?" Gellor was speaking more to himself than to his comrades, grim wonder on his visage.

Leda comprehended the actuality. "It is the hedging off which has done this, bard. When we were barred from plane and probability line, this nexus of such spheres was abridged. I am sure of it, for how else could the diminished states of the places have come about? Gord certainly has not misremembered."

"That's true enough. I have no memory lapse. There is still one place left which I recall. The hillman caused me some grief there. . " Gord paused and blinked away a rising tear as he thought of Chert. "Gone now, vanished with the rest. No sense in such maudlin meandering. We have a problem to overcome!"

The three went onward until coming to an extensive cavern wherein lay a small lake of glittering water. The surface of the pond was undulating, as if monstrous saurians were cavorting beneath it, and the water had a sickly disturbing sheen. "Eeerg! What is this?" Gellor asked with loathing written on his face as he viewed the place.

"It is disgusting," Leda agreed, looking at Gord for enlightenment, for he had not mentioned such a revolting locale to them in his recounting of his sojourn in the places beneath Greyhawk Castle.

"It must be … It can be only the Sea of Thought! But that is impossible! When I was here before, there were no visible shores, and the water was as bright as a sunlit ocean. Perhaps we direct it thus — our thoughts make it thus. Come on, you two, think of expansive power and the might of justice."

After a moment the surface became somewhat less disturbed, and the ghastly appearance of the big pond was no longer apparent. The extent of the water was unchanged, however, and it remained sinister. "This is the sum total of thought here, on Oerth, In all places which form its cosmos now, Gord," the oneeyed troubador said as he observed the scene. "When you came to this juncture before, the whole of the multiverse manifested itself in the expression of Thought at this nexus. Now Oerth's reality is cut off, a shrunken portion of the multiverse. It is a cul-desac which fills with ever-growing evil, so the sea is now but a polluted pond."

"Then we are.. "

"Finished. At least, our hopes of renewing our strength to its maximal condition are, Leda." Gord grimaced, then made up his mind. "I'll draw what I can from this little lake, for ring and into Courflamme too. Can you manage likewise?"

Both of his friends eked what energies they could into their bands under Gord's direction. Drawing anything of Good from the pond was dangerous and trying. Thereafter, the young champion concentrated his thoughts upon draining any wealsome force left into his own ring. There came a trickle only. At last he used the sword to draw any remaining power usable into itself. The process was over quickly. Now the waters were shrunken and putrescent. He was about to lead them on into whatever was beyond when there was a sudden boiling from lake. "Are you causing that with your imaginings, you two?"

"No!" Gellor cried. Leda merely shook her head.

"Get back! The level is rising." Gord warned, heading back the way they had come as he alerted Gellor and Leda. The pond was rising as if some underground torrent were suddenly unstoppered and filling the basin there with its gushing flow. The liquid was not the bright stuff of former times, however. If anything, the waters that now rose were more hideous than moments before the surge.

"What does this mean?" the elven girl asked with horror. She was afraid her conclusion was correct and dreaded it, and the answer Gord gave made Leda's worst fears realized.

The archfiend and his minions are near," the champion said with a slow, lugubrious tone.

Gellor was not so despondent. They must come through these very waters. That's what is causing the swelling of this piss-puddle's volume. Let us by all means give them a warm greeting when their foul heads surface!"

All three moved back to a position of advantage and readied for the coming of Tharizdun. Almost immediately, he and his howling pack of hounds broke the tossing waters.

There was a stench accompanying archfiend and yeth. a reek so strong it almost overpowered the three. It rose from master and hounds and the stuff of Thought there. It was charnel and bitter, the stench of rotting vegetation and excrement too. With the malodorous assault came a din of foul noise that was as indescribable as it was deafening, composed of the howling and yammering of the diverse-headed hounds, Tharizdun's wild shouting and laughter, accompanied by screams from some nether place and the screeching and booming of the sorcerous means by which the evil company had come. Up surged the stuff of Thought there, and it was as a cesspool's flooding. Out rose the monstrous yeth and their master. and the suppuration of the foul pond was preferable to such as wallowed in its filth.

They reeled back from the assault on their senses, each one suffering agonies from the terrible mental lashings that the archfiend sent forth as he stood vaunting before them. Instinctively Gellor, Leda and Gord thought of some defense against these attacks, and from the ring each wore sprang a pale radiance to shield them. Gellor's golden aural shield was but faint and ale-colored, that of Leda's silver almost leaden, while the blue from the adamantite band that Gord wore was not the bright azure it should have been but rather a faded and weak gleam of indigo.

Somehow Tharizdun managed to control the yammering agglomeration of hound-things. He almost caroled his greeting. "Well met, dear adversaries!" the archfiend yelled to the three over the still-noisy pack of yapping and snarling yeth. "No better place than the to bring out little game to its conclusion!" Then he threw back his head and gave vent to a long and satisfied burst of wicked exultation that could marginally and at best be termed laughter. "But I stand here chatting inconsiderately — my pets have desire to give you their greeting too. . kill!"

The hundred or more vicious and demented monsters charged instantly upon the archfiend's command. They bit and fought with one another for a place in the front rank that charged at the three. Great sprays of the noisome liquid went flying as the massive yeth came galloping toward their hated foes, a dozen or more with their insane eyes fixed on Leda, a like number racing toward Gellor. Only three of the hounds were in that part of the front rank which approached Gord, however, and those three were the greatest of the pack They ran in single file, too. The thing Tharizdun had named Graz was foremost, for the master had so ordered.

When the other howling yeth came close to the heroes standing to either side of Gord, they struck the screening energies emanating from the rings, and a crackling discharge occurred. Snarling or whining hideously, the hounds that struck the shielding force were tossed up and back. These sunk beneath the stinking stuff of the pond or were trampled down by their fellows there, mad dogs still eager to attack A second wave of hounds struck and this time not all died. After the third such assault, fully half of the attacking yeth seemed only hurt and enraged, held just at bay by the powers of Good that the bands discharged.

Tharizdun had little interest in those events, although he did occasionally glance to left and right to observe the course of the battle there. The archfiend concentrated his attention upon the champion's struggle almost exclusively.

Some three-quarters of the way to where the champion stood braced, sword held ready, the three greatest hounds were jerked to a halt, almost as if their master had them tethered and had yanked back on their leashes. Ahead of them, from the second rank shot six hounds of size scarcely less than those three. These horrors hurtled into the blue radiance around Gord, and as they expired in a hellish frenzy of clashing fangs and pumping legs, the fiery insanity of their eyes remained fixed squarely upon him. Now another wall of yeth was there, dying too, but slowly, and closer to his feet. Only then did Graz come forward again, tongue lolling and dripping some greenish drool, green eyes lambently malign in the blackness of his face. Slowly. At ten paces the monster sprang.

The deep howl of hatred died in the hound's throat as Courflamme severed it, sending the mismatched head spinning away from the hound carcass. Ichorous stuff of mossy hue covered the blade from tip to midpoint, glistening and stinking as it clung there. "Not much of a dog you had there, maggot!" Gord managed to shout, even as he prepared himself for the next attack. Tharizdun made no reply, but he did smile and make a little gesture.

The devil-headed yeth named Mephisto came charging. What little aural light had shielded Gord when Graz had come at him had vanished under the hound's evil radiation. Now this Yeth had no such obstacle to contend with. Its sickled, poison-laden foreclaws actually raked along the armor of Gord's cuirass as it closed. Then Mephisto was without forelegs, and then the yeth's head was cloven in two as were its shoulders, and the length of Courflamme was spattered with red ichor as well. "Another runt, maggot?"

This time Tharizdun was moved to respond."But of course! I'll send you one immediately," and his laughter at his own joke was more hideous than the thing that came charging at Gord.

Thrax, daemon-headed though it was, reminded Gord somehow of Gravestone as the yeth hound came bounding through the cesspool. Moved by particular hatred, the young champion actually advanced eagerly to meet the thing, and his longsword moved with such speed and violence that even the archfiend could hardly follow its motion. Gord danced sideways, avoiding Thrax's leap, and sliced the whole length of the abomination's massive flank. Yowling in furious pain, the thing tried to circle so that its wounded side was away from its tormenting foe.

It was exactly what Gord desired, and a heartbeat later, the ribs of the yeth were exposed on both flanks. Tail next hellhound? Or shall I take off your pitty-pat paws first?" Thrax sprang again, dragging flaps of its stinking hide as it came. Gord ducked, Courflamme overhead, edge upward, held parallel to the ground with point behind. The hound sliced its whole belly open thus, and as he spun Gord saw it writhing and twisting. "Why, dear hound! You're all tangled up in guts — here! I'll. . free. . you!" And with three more blows he had ended the miserable things existence.

Gord stepped over the ruin, having first wiped the grayish-yellow fluid of Thrax from Courflamme. Although the blade still showed traces of all his kills, it no longer dripped the goiy and noxious stuff. "Well, maggot what now? Back to the kennel for better breeding?"

"Perhaps, little man. First too had better judge the other dogs, though — I mean tour comrades!"

Gord turned instantly. He had forgotten Leda and Gellor in his fighting rage. Leda was surrounded by a ring of yeth. A score or more lay dead around her, but a dozen had their teeth locked onto the little elven gir. It was a duplicate of what was occurring to his right, where Gellor was being dragged down by at least as many of the hounds. He had to choose between them, and of course it was to Leda he went. Cursing, striking with lightning speed, he slew the things of the archfiend's creation. Each stroke of Courflamme sent another of the hounds into whatever oblivion of eternal damnation such things as they were had in store.

"Too late, too late. . my love," Leda managed to say as Gord threw the last of the yeth from her. Then she died.

He was too shocked, too numb to react as he might have otherwise. With even greater fury Gord spun and ran to where his comrade still struggled beneath a yammering mass of the hounds. Gord struck almost indiscriminately. Bits and pieces of the yeth flew away, monstrous wails and hideous yappings sounded. Two hounds he cut from spine to belly, then the champion kicked the halves off his prone friend. Gellor's face was a mask of agony. Dead eyes stared from that face, and his throat was a gaping hole where the hounds had torn flesh from body. Unbelieving, Gord stepped back staring. Gone too were the troubador's hands. Gellor was no more than a corpse.

"Not so much the warriors you thought them, 'champion'?"

Gord turned slowly to look at Tharizdun. The archfiend still stood on the spot where he had first appeared, squarely in the middle of the noisome pond. The liquid was near inky now and almost solid too, so great was the evil of thought now extant in Oerth's limited cosmos. Nothing else could be, of course. With one such as Tharizdun dominating all, only wickedness and the malign could exist. "You are forever accursed, Tharizdun," Gord said levelly. There was no emotion in his voice, for inside Gord was as dead as his companions. Yet he was by no means surrendering. "To the death," he said flatly, for such was now his only purpose.

"As has always been," Tharizdun agreed.

The archfiend walked toward Gord, coming with slow and measured tread. Each step made him rise, and after but a handful of paces Tharizdun strode over a solid, if stinking, surface toward his motionless adversary. Gord shifted Courflamme slightly, readying for some attack from the monster who opposed him.

"Oh, no. Do not think so ill of me, dearest champion! Although I mourn the loss of my poor yeth as much as you grieve for your associates, I believe in fair hay. I came to you, so you shall have first blow," he said with what seemed utmost sincerity. Then Tharizdun spread his arms, palms down. Naked and bearing no arms, he advanced several more slow steps. "There. Am I not at sword's length now? If you wish, I shall move in closer — just command me, champion. Here I stand, naked and unresisting. Strike!"

Gord needed no urging. Courflamme came downward in an arc that met the exposed neck of the archfiend truly. Gord's whole body shook from the impact of the blade upon Tharizdun's unmoving form. Courflamme shattered at the stroke, its whole falling into a colorless powder that drifted downward as do ashes from a dead fire when disturbed.

As if reflexively, Tharizdun's right arm jerked around. and his open hand struck Gord in the same place the longsword had encountered the archfiend's neck There was a dry snap, and Gord fell to the floor of the cavern. His head lay at a right angle to his body, and only convulsive twitchings animated him. "Oh, my! Did I hurt you?" Tharizdun smiled as he spoke. The smile broadened, spread across his face, and behind it came the monstrous sound of Evil triumphant. "And so it is finished, and I am Master of All!" the archfiend shouted. His triumph abruptly ceased as he saw faint light surrounding his adversaries' bodies — Gord, the dark elf, Gellor too. "Entropy?" "I have destroyed the bands," the leaden voice sounded, seeming to come from the three corpses. "Stop, you fool! If you destroy those bands I'll — " Tharizdun clipped off his sentence there. It was obviously too late. The three dead were becoming as ashen as the dust of Courflamme.

"Now as to ordering things here, Tharizdun," Entropy started to drone.

The archfiend sent the ponderous presence a million miles distance with an irritated flick of his hand. Here was a war he could truly enjoy!