Graz'zt was simply walking with impunity toward the horde that had but recently threatened him. With a roar composed of bellows, shouts, squeaks, yammers, and all forms of similar noises, the demon soldiers who served the black one followed with glee. They rushed forth to fall upon a force many times larger than their own. Why not? Before them was Graz'zt, invincible and triumphant! His hands shot forth blasts that blew the opposing horde into nothingness, a hundred at a time. Then the demon king was among the foe, and his massive sword played upon them as a scythe upon a field of ripe grain. Down fell lowly dretch and rutterkin, kerzow and goat-horned clobdroo. Malvachnu demons were as swine in a slaughter, and great lords of ogre size and humanoid form as impotent as lambs before the black blade of Graz'zt.
The left battle seemed unaware of the debacle taking place in the center. Var-Az-Hloo and Abraxas collided with Baphomet's corps and began a terrible melee that slowly ground down the latter force. The bull-headed demon prince and his companies of demonkin were not yielding an inch, only being gradually overcome by the superior numbers of the enemy.
So too on the right. The fungoid and slime contingents of Zuggtmoy and Szhublox were ideally suited to meet the disgusting horde under the even more loathsome Kostchtchie. The foul things commanded by the demon queen and the slime lord felt no revulsion when facing the terrible array of deformed giantlike demons and their ilk. Of course, neither did those minions of the bandy-legged Kostchtchie fear the obscenities that came to do battle with them. Hulking demons spread the plain of Ojukalazogadit with bits and pieces of toadstools and amoeboid monsters while they, in turn, were dissolved, rotted, and made into puddles of putrid ichor by their implacable opponents. It was fortunate for the attackers that there were so many of their own, for a dozen of Zuggtmoy's things, or the smutty warriors of Szhublox, died for every soldier who fell in Kostchtchie's horde. The demon queen hooted and the reserve moved up. The situation was in doubt.
"We must retire, king," Mandrillagon chittered nervously as he hurried up to where Demogorgon had positioned himself. "If we do so immediately, the enemy turds will have to take some time to finish off our cowardly troops, and we can be well away — safe and gathering fresh contingents!"
Demogorgon thought about that with his left brain while the right assessed the field before them. His vaunted mass of demon soldiery scarcely outnumbered the opposition by two to one now, and Graz'zt, accompanied by a half-dozen lords and greatest demons, was beginning to cut a swath through the very middle of the horde to get at him. Then there was a great commotion on his left, and Demogorgon used both heads to see what was happening there. A company of conflagranti, dreaded fire demons, had managed to take Var-Az-Hloo's division in the flank. Trouble there too!
Just as he was about to agree, to slip away with Mandrillagon and leave the others to fend for themselves, Infestix himself appeared to stand beside the demon king. "You! Here?" Demogorgon's heads spoke in chorus.
"You are betrayed by your senses, Demogorgon," the daemon said without bothering with formalities. The offal heap, Graz'zt, has brought the Eye of Deception. With it, and the Theorpart too— "
The Eye of Deception!? He dares—"
"Don't ever interrupt me again!" Infestix hissed, cutting off the so-called imperial demon king. Then, considering the circumstances, the daemon added, "Especially when everything you hope for hangs in the balance so precariously." There was no anger evident in the weird, reptilian eyes of the towering Demogorgon as both of his baboon-heads craned down to listen to Infestix speak on.
"You have come alone," Demogorgon said, unable to keep resignation out of his tone. Then my hordes are defeated!"
"Not so! Not on either count, demon king. I have brought with me Utmodoch and his demodand war-bands in their myriads. Not even Graz'zt can see them, for I have covered their presence with our own Theorpart."
"Where—"
"Marching now to take the inky turdheap from behind. Hold fast here for but another quarter of an hour, and you'll feast on Graz'zt's own flesh to celebrate your triumph."
That was what the two-headed creature desired to hear, to accomplish! "And you will stay? Use Initiator to counter the Eye?"
"Aren't we allies?" the daemon asked. He thought, actually, that lord and vassal were more correct terms, but until the brawling lords of the Abyss were eliminated or subjugated by one master, Infestix had to pretend otherwise. No matter if it was Demogorgon, Orcus, or some other who strove against Graz'zt; whichever of the demons eventually floated to the top, Infestix would himself enthrall. "You will have power to counter what you... your servants... stupidly fed into Graz'zt. Your very attacks were channeled by the relic he is linked to. When I counter that, he will lose that force, return to normal size. Then you yourself can slay him in single combat."
Ignoring that last statement, the dual heads of the demon king began to spit out instructions. Mandrillagon rushed out to bolster the sagging horde, while several demon lords hurried off to stiffen the front. Infestix was very pleased with himself; that Demogorgon could sense, based on that last remark. Infestix knew — as Demogorgon had to reluctantly admit to himself — that despite his terrible powers, poisons, talons, fangs, and the rest, the reptilian demon king had no stomach to confront Graz'zt in single combat — at least not while the black one still wielded his terrible sword.
The daemon was overweening, and Demogorgon would eventually set matters straight. Infestix sought to rule the Abyss, that was clear. Demogorgon knew that the outcome would be quite the reverse: He would rule Hades and the rest of the nether planes too, but only after he possessed the whole of the artifact. Time, only time, was needed. The matters at hand demanded his attention now. In minutes Demogorgon had sent in his last reserve, manlike demons with heads like those of miniature tyrannosaurs. He waded in behind them, going for the monstrous figure that was Graz'zt. Let that one think he would do combat personally. Time too would dispel that idiocy.
Soon enough all occurred just as the daemon had said. The mass of demodands took the enemy by surprise, Graz'zt was shrunk down to normal size, and the tide of battle turned abruptly in favor of the invaders. It was only the lack of cooperation from Ojukalazogadit — or the cooperation of the cursed thing with Graz'zt — that allowed the ebony shitpile to escape, Demogorgon mused as he surveyed the shambles with satisfaction. Even as he watched, Ojukalazogadit began to seriously feed, cleaning up greedily. Good! His troops would not have to view their own dead, which amounted to more than a million. That number was inconsequential; with the millions more available throughout the whole sphere of chaotic evil, Demogorgon would soon be able to field a dozen hordes twice as numerous. The million existences were well spent, a small price to pay for victory. Better still, the puny daemon had hied himself back to his dirty little pit, and Utmodoch and his demodands were left to the demon king's mercy. Those fools would become his shock troops in the next battle... which would come soon, soon.
Despite such thoughts, the facts of the matter prevailed. Graz'zt, worn down to his true proportions by the force of Initiator, fought on with demoniacal fury, hardly surprising but noteworthy because the demon king turned and fought to the rear as it were. Thus he extricated himself and the bulk of his surviving troops. And Ojukalazogadit too assisted the retreat.
Put simply, the strata of the Abyss was, when all was said and done, a loyal if imbecilic subject of the mighty, ebony-hued demon. With its assistance, Graz'zt withdrew all three great divisions of his army and arrived safely on his own plane. In time, the enemy would follow, further depleted by Ojukalazogadit, but not seriously decimated or long delayed. At least Vuron would no longer have to be concerned about a war on multiple fronts. The enemies of his master had managed to consolidate and compress the action to but a single time and place. Unfortunately, that was now, and the battleground the principal place of Graz'zt himself. The time of the final phase of the war was at hand.
The multiverse was strained by this war, but only because of what was occurring with respect to the power involved. Many were the agents of arcane energy and ancient power employed. The Eye of Deception was one of the most puissant, of course. There were a dozen others, graduating down the scale from it. More importantly, there were three far greater. All portions of the tripartite relic were now in play, and about to so exist on a single layer of a single sphere of reality. Well should the whole of existence tremble. All fabric, the very stuff of existence, strained, groaned and shuddered.
Somewhere, a somewhere that was no-where, no-time, no-place, a massive being stirred and strained and sought to awaken. Tharizdun's time was drawing near.
Chapter 8
HE RAN THROUGH the twisting alleys of Old City, pursued by bullies shouting "Gutless!" after him, and tears of humiliation filled his eyes....
He crept silently and struck the terrible cataboligne demon from behind, feeling cowardly for doing so yet knowing full well that to face it head-on would be useless....
Then Evaleigh was telling him she would wed another, and he wept, for the loss was compounded by the betrayal. So...
He turned and was with Leda, and he helped her to enter the portal that would separate them forever, and despite the weight in his heart there was understanding and shared pride....
As Leda disappeared, he found himself slipping sideways along a dark drainage tube toward a cistern wherein an unnaturally animated thing that had been Theobald the Beggarmaster awaited, and as he faced that terror...
It disappeared into the lightlessness of the shadow plane's Snufldark, and before him there was a thing composed of duskdrake and lich-vampire. He was weaponless, but then unseen figures behind him supplied a sword and a charm, and when he was so armed the shadowy threat vanished and all was bright....
Along the checkered squares of an infinite chessboard he wandered, and looming forms bulked to block and threaten. The board became a forest, then a field, a village, open sea, the city of Greyhawk, an endless desert of dust, an expanse of labyrinthine dungeon corridors....
He walked with himself. He was frail, beardless, and just escaped from the prison workhouse, and he was sixteen and reckless, and he was older still and uncertain, and he was now. Then he understood and awoke....
Tour doze was a most uneasy one, Gord. Was there some portent you dreamed of?"
The young adventurer shook his head, looking squarely at Timmil as he formed an answer to the cleric's question. "No, not exactly. There was a meaning to what I dreamed, but I think it more likely my mind has simply identified events, meshed them...."
Then I am happy to not be so enlightened," Chert rumbled. He had observed his friend's troubled dreaming and liked it not.
There was no rede, then?" Allton the wizard asked, for he sensed something just as Timmil had.
Gord stood up and stretched, trying to work out the stiffness and tension. "Let's be on our way," he said to the group. Then he answered the spell-binder directly. "No omen, but a rede?... Perhaps. In my sleep I dreamed of what has gone before — those things which have formed the me that speaks to you now, Allton. I moved and was moved by an unseen hand, too. The past was preparation for this future — if the dream was true. Each thing I did was an exercise, preparation for a later test. In the end, time was of no consequence, for I existed in all aspects. Perhaps the whole of it is, then, the schooling for the last event."
The priest made a sign, and Greenleaf spoke hastily. "Don't talk that way. Gord, my old friend! No speaking of a final chapter yet; we all have far too much to accomplish before such a page is turned."
"Of course, of course. I apologize to all of you. I did not mean to imply that we would fail. The words came from the oppression of reliving so many past happenings."
"To be resigned to failure when your moment for revenge is at hand bodes ill," Timmil said slowly. Gord's profession of still being under the influence of his dream when he uttered his words did not satisfy the cleric at all.
It was Gellor who dispelled the tension. "Come, now, good priest!" he said with a smile, but sternly. "If you were recently given the name and identity of the one responsible for the murder of your parents, your life of misery and suffering as a child, and your endless uncertainty and self-doubt — along with a surety that this one likewise plans misery for all — would you be cheerful, positive, and bold? More likely cloistered on your knees somewhere in fearful prayer, say I — begging for divine guidance as to the course to take!"
There was uneasy laughter from the others at that, even All ton and Gord. The priest started to snap off a reply, then clamped his mouth shut.
Chert's booming voice filled the silence. "Yeah! The bastard is in Gord's palm now — all of our palms, in fact. We just have to be sure our fingers are together and strong enough to crush him into the foul puddle of filth he is!"
Gellor was donning the last of his gear, hiding his warlike dress under a great cloak. "Fingers alone can be broken, comrades. Together they make a stabbing wedge or smashing fist. An old martial axiom...."
The others quickly followed suit, and in a few minutes all six of the men stood armed and ready. Outside the window of their quarters, the night sky was slowly paling to a milky color on the eastern horizon, and sounds from the street below indicated that farmers and merchants were already wending their ways toward the nearby market square.
Chert's massive axe, Brool, was slung beneath his voluminous cloak. The magical longsword that Gellor had plied so often and to deadly effect was concealed beneath his own outer garment.
As Gord fastened his new scabbard to his belt, the barbarian wondered again about the ominous blackness of the strangely hilted weapon their leader now possessed. But this time he kept his thoughts to himself. He had tried to speak to his friend about it, but had received only a curt assurance that the blade of his sword would prove itself against foes. Of course, all three of the fighting men likewise sported daggers, Chert having the heaviest.
Strangely, both the half-elf Greenleaf and Allton the wizard favored the curved-bladed knives from the west. The ranger-druid's was of ancient Baklunish craftsmanship, while the mage's was dwarven-forged and thrice enspelled by the legendary dweomercraefter Yartsenag seven centuries past.
Those two, as well as Timmil, also relied on other things for attack and defense. All three were equipped with magical staves and, of course, each had his own repertoire of great spells to call upon as well. Enchanted protections, charmed amulets, rings containing powers and energies arcane; all that and more were secured here, sequestered there.
"Even I can smell the wizardry which rises from us," Chert expostulated, "because it comes like stink from a dungpilel"