Better still, the energy imparted by the solar allowed the young champion of the Balance to follow the demonurgist as he entered the devious mazes of the subrosa portion of his creation. What was a disc of a few hundred feet diameter to others became far different now. There was a level below the apparent one on a different vibratory frequency. Its dark resonance expanded the confines of the nullity greatly. Below the featureless oval that held Gellor, Chert, and Curley Greenleaf was a warren of passages and chambers that was three times larger than the space above, even though it existed in the same seeming place. Gord was confused but could comprehend the principle behind it.
He followed the visible smudges of stinking stuff. It was a trail of the very essence of Gravestone; his aura of evil was such that it actually left behind a reek as he passed. Wondering if the solar's reaction to himself and the lightless sword had been based on a similar perception of aura, Gord went down a now plainly visible flight of steps fully twenty feet broad. His body was resonating on the same frequency as the vibrations of Gravestone and his hidden underlevel, only Gravestone wouldn't be aware of it. Not yet!
Despite the possible fate of his comrades. Gord felt a grim satisfaction, an impending doom hanging over the demonurgist's head. Gravestone had been the instrument of all that was truly bad in the young mans existence. It was the priest-wizard who had hunted down and killed both Gord's father and mother. All evil that had followed therefrom, even Leena's degenerative condition, the terrible existence he had suffered in Old City and beyond, all the rest, too. The demonurgist had caused it all and desired worse. There was one beyond Gravestone, of course. Perhaps two, if Infestix were placed in the equation.
But Gord didn't consider the master of the pits as a part of his mission. That one would be taken care of by some other. First came the demonurgist. Then Gord had but one remaining foe to face. The sole master of Gravestone was Tharizdun. That was in the priest-wizard's heart. "No problem." Gord said aloud as he stepped off the last stair and followed the slime of evil. "I'll remove his black heart and quench the burning desire all in one cleansing thrust!"
The foe Gord sought now had no idea he was being hounded by the young champion. Gravestone had activated a great spell, a dweomer contained in a scarab that had been carefully prepared and held ready for just such need as now. As the dumalduns stupidly sacrificed themselves in combat with the solar, the demonurgist had begun the task of evoking the malign forces locked in the scarab. Layer upon layer of magic flowed from it.
First, the wards against Weal. The quasi-sphere that was Gravestone's own creation in nullity began to glow darkly. Lasting globes of malign force sprang into being. These were fashioned to repel goodness, to drive away anything from the upper planes. Three bands of such malign power manifested themselves from the scarab: the dull, bloody hue of the hells, the ebon of the Abyss, the putrid purple of the pits. True, a great solar might be able to endure such force as those three globes emitted, but even so the evil would begin eroding the strength of any being of Weal.
Next issued the most potent and malign of the sigils of the netherplanes. Each evil sign was disguised, near-invisible even to a being as mighty as the solar. These sigils were themselves repositories of dweomer. Some held black destruction from the depths of demonium, others fiery force garnered in the hells, while the remainder contained the death-powers bestowed from Hades itself. To confront one was to be blasted by the full potency of the evil rune's magic. Should a solar even pass near to one, the sigil would trigger its guarding force to the detriment of the intruding foe. Wards to force away the strength of good, guarding sigils to lay the enemies of Tharizdun and his servant low. Great was the power of the scarab. Yet a third came beyond.
The complexities of the dark castings that the device contained had taken years of time and great effort to form. As the wardings and guards sprang into existence, so too the final portion of the dweomer. The dark power of the netherspheres formed a labyrinth of corridors and rooms, halls and passages, galleries and rooms in which the priest-wizard would be hidden. No bright creature could discover the secret of that maze, for the aura of evil was nowhere and everywhere at once. That particular pattern that was Gravestone's was replicated, mirrored, and spread throughout the complex whose confines were broad and confusing. The being of Weal who entered would be so affected as to find the whole ever greater. Each step added two to the evil complex, each turn created a branching, a fresh twist, so that the very operation of such an enemy in the black maze caused the labyrinth to expand and become more confusing.
A portion of it had existed from the time Gravestone had fashioned his web using the netherforces at his command. There, safe in the center, hedged round with every protection years of effort could build, the demonurgist hid. Pentagrams and circles graven into the stony stuff of the floor kept him free from magical intrusions, as did the mystic triangles and horned seals of evil. The entrance was of stone and iron, set with silver and gold runes. All were hidden by secret fashioning and cloaked further with spells of invisibility, illusion, and blindness, which made physical location of the lair he had constructed nearly impossible. Dense metal and dampening magics precluded other forms of intrusion. It was a place of total safety.
In this sanctum Gravestone had stored the treasured tilings of his craft, the repositories of black knowledge, arcane art, and magical lore. The material of alchemy, the rituals of necromancy, the conjurations of sorcery alone filled the whole of one long wall. Components for spells, the paraphernalia of retorts and flasks for the concocting of magical fluids and powders littered a long bench. A century of malign deeds and accumulation of the fruits thereof were contained in the place. There Gravestone sat, breathed deeply, shook off the awful dread that the appearance of the solar had wrapped around his dark heart.
"I read the enemy wrong," he said aloud. "After all of these decades I made a mistake!" Muttering obscene things under his breath then, the demonurgist began hastily to correct his error. His entire force had been spent on preparing for the coming of the man who was called Gord. The champion, though, had nearly triumphed despite all that Gravestone had done. This would be rectified.
Drinking from various of the multitude of vials and flasks that littered the secret chamber, Gravestone restored his confidence, energy and strength. Elixirs and black potions of human blood were consumed, along with a half-dozen less savory draughts. The demonurgist then began selecting an array of potent devices and evil objects with which he armed himself as a precaution. There was no telling when such would be needed, even though his chief armament would be the dweomers he would soon prepare.
"Yes, bastard of balance." he spat aloud. "Soon, indeed, I'll have restored my power, prepared the castings which will blast your guts into food for the worms, and myself eat your heart and liver while your soul goes into Hades for the amusement of the daemons!"
Gravestone pictured Gord as he spoke. The human had brought a solar to aid him. Despite the aura he possessed, the demonurgist now knew the true nature of the warrior of Balance. That one could be no neutral median, not when the greatest minions of Weal came to his bidding. The emanations were naught but a cloak, a hoax. The one called Gord was actually of the spheres of light, and now Gravestone would know exactly how to dispose of him. "The Cursed Codex, I think.... Yes! That and the Everlasting Damnations of Dilwomz should serve."
He found the vile tomes where they stood on the shelves amid the ranks of wicked lore in his library. Seated at his high desk, black candles burning, the priest-wizard began his preparations. The process would take a while, but time was the ally of Tharizdun, of Gravestone. If his adversary managed to win free of Gravestone's web before the demonurgist came forth again to confront him for the last time, no matter. He would be the hunter. Gord the prey. There was no place in which the champion could hide, for if he tried then the nether realms would automatically succeed. Gord would have to come again to seek him out, and the demonurgist would deal with the puny little human then, once and for all.
"Human?" Gravestone asked the question aloud in the dark chamber. The flames of stinking candle and burning brazier leaped and flared at that. "No, another false assumption. The little turd is of Rexfelis's spawning, too. He is of mixed heritage — the weakness of man, the vacillating dearth of neutrality. Each is riddled with flaws and lacks conviction. This mixture assures the victory of Evil's dark purpose!" He leaped off his chair, gathered up another grimoire, then returned to his reading once again.
Hours passed in this fashion. The priest-wizard sought the words he needed, burned the malign syllables into his brain, tapped the energies of every hellish and demoniacal place, too, for good measure. Now and again he sought further works, gathered strange and evil things for the casting of a spell, or actually worked some minor casting in the process of equipping himself. The philters he had drunk earlier gave Gravestone unnatural energy, unsleeping vigor. After hours and hours of time spent thus, the demonurgist wrote furiously in his own collections of dark spells and then began his final preparations. He felt the life force of Gord ebb as he worked. There was no chance of failure this time.
Chapter 17
COULD A SOLAR LIE? Gord asked himself that as he realized there was no longer a trail for him to follow.
No, that wasn't exactly line. Actually, there were endless trails leading everywhere and nowhere. The slime path left by the fleeing demonurgist covered each and every route in the whole of the maze. "Let me think," he said slowly, and pondered what the being from the higher spheres had said. " '... Follow the reek of corruption...' " But there were dark trails of the slime visible everywhere!
"... Follow the reek..." That was it! He was relying on his eyes, not on the literal words of the Instruction. The slime was a secondary trail. The solar had actually told Gord to use the odor of the demonurgist's evil to track him down. Let me see what I can do to correct my stupidity, the young champion thought as he sniffed the air.
"I am a fool!" he muttered. For what seemed an eternity he had been wandering up and down the dark byways and broad halls of the labyrinth trying vainly to discover which of the plain paths was actually the essence of Gravestone's passage. Now, his nose revealed what the truth was. A sharp, acrid stench was obvious. Its reck was stronger in some places than in others. Eventually, by carefully sniffing out his way, Gord would be able to trace the priest-wizard to his lair here. "Doubly a fool, and I have not much time left!" he chided himself.
Instead of using his human nose, Gord shifted from two-legged to four-legged form, and where a short, slender man had stood a moment before there now crouched a huge black leopard. It crouched in order to get the scent from the hard floor.
The olfactory power of Gord as a panther was more than ten times greater than that of Gord as a human. Gord-panther now swung his head this way and that, sniffing the flagstonelike floor, testing the still air. Then the great cat rose and padded up a passage, back down, and across a place where three other corridors met. Although he was unaware of it, the chamber was dweomered to expand to massive proportions, to have four, six, or a score or more adits, but there was no force to spring the evil magic. The champion in leopard form had a far easier task than ever the one who devised the labyrinth imagined. Soon enough Gord-panther's nose had the strongest scent, and he leaped ahead, following the noisomeness that was the sign of the demonurgist's passing, with increasing speed.
There was a turn here, a doubling back there. No matter. The duplications of Gravestone's trail were each weaker. The immediate mirrorings were very close, of course. That made the tracking more difficult, but the replications from replications grew progressively weaker, stale in their evil stench, as it were. The task was hard but by no means impossible. As if following footprints plainly set in smooth sand, the black leopard that was Gord traced the frantic passage of the demonurgist, and eventually came to the place where it ended in stone, plain blocks no different from the thousands of others that formed the walls of the place.
With a low panther-sound still rumbling from his chest and along his throat, Gord became human once again. "A cat to suss you out, demon-clasper; a thief to find your hidey-hole," he said softly as his hands felt and eyes observed the place. There was more to it, of course. Gord thought the rest to himself: A swordsman to fight you; a sword to take your heart. Dwell upon that later. Now he had to discover the way to enter Gravestone's lair.
There was a portal here, surely. It was hidden by natural craft and dweomercraeft both. It would be similarly closed fast by bolts of steel, bands of wizardwork. Gord felt for his dagger, then recalled he had left it with Gellor in his haste to pursue Gravestone. Knowing that no skill of his own could ever open the secret door, the gray-eyed thief put aside that strategy and drew Blackheartseeker from its scabbard.
"Come, sword, show me the power you have in your metal!" he growled softly. Blackheartseeker trembled slightly in his grasp, and a red-black glow seemed to come from the heart of the long blade whose tip was centered on the portal. "Your completion lies beyond, but I cannot get you to what you must have without help!" As Gord urged the weapon to release its might, however, the glowing waned; yet the vibration of it seemed to increase. Uncertain, the young champion held his arm steady, sword tip still and unswerving from in front of the barred door that must surely lead to his quarry.
Heartbeat after heartbeat he stood thus until a full minute passed. Gord was almost ready to abandon this tack and try some desperate device when the whole length of the sword leaped convulsively and the portal it pointed at sprang into sharp relief as violet energy played over the entire place it was. The violet darkened, intensified, turned to a sullen plum hue. As the length of Blackheartseeker recoiled, the purple energy covering the secret entrance flowed together, coalescing into a burning amethyst ball of force that Jumped as if a bolt of lightning to kiss the swords tip and vanish. The flow of evil force made him reel, his head spinning, his stomach twisting, but somehow Gord managed to retain his grip on the hilt of the weapon.
"Now open the way," he said softly, still shaken and uncertain. The stone before him ran down and flowed out as would dry sand. Weird and twisted forms of metal fell from the air, no longer supported by the stuff that had been granitellke only a second before. Vile rune of brass, evil sigil of frozen quicksilver fell soundlessly into the soft, powdery stuff that mounded out to near where he stood. So too dropped steel bars and iron bindings, bronze and gold workings of all sorts. In that raid came some faint clangings and dull clinks, so thick were the pieces upon the little hill of powdered stone.
Blackheartseeker no longer trembled. It was stable again, and all along its length was the lightlessness seen as black to mortal eyes. "You have done it!" Gord exclaimed in fierce joy. "Now I'll do my best to fulfill my part of this bargain!"
A short, narrow passage was revealed beyond the destroyed gate. There was a dim illumination coming from its end, and Gord could hear a murmuring sound. It could be none other than Gravestone's voice chanting some evil litany of dark magic, as the demonurgist sought to gather strength for renewed combat. Not hesitating further, the young champion stole along the little hallway leading to the inner sanctum of the priest-wizard. The time of vengeance was come finally and at last.
Gravestone stepped into the open end of the narrow passageway just as his foe was slipping along it toward him. When the demonurgist beheld a form moving into his supposedly inviolate lair, the fellow started and cried aloud in shock. "Out!" At the same instant he pointed a wand and moved it so as to cause the instrument to shoot forth a stream of searing fire.
"In!" Gord countered to the priest-wizard's denial, and charged ahead, Blackheartseeker lancelike before his rush. The fiery wash of magical power shot forth then, crackling and leaping as its tongues sought to consume all in their path. Gord was seared, his flesh blistering under the intense heat of the burning discharge. Still he came on. In fact, the dull ebon of the longsword held in his hand seemed to cool and lessen the flames of the demonurgist's wand, and the power of the blade washed back to cool and soothe its wielder as well. There were scorches and red burns to be sure, but the effect of the burning gout of energy was far less than it seemed.
The steely shaft aimed at him forced Gravestone to leap back and get away before he could send another withering spray of flames from his wand. He was readying it for another attempt nonetheless even as he retreated in haste. His adversary followed too closely. The ebon blade darted out as if a serpent's tongue, and the wand was broken, one piece still held in the priest-wizard's hand, the other portion spinning away. "Devils take you!" Gravestone shouted, throwing the useless stump of it at Gord and then using his greater powers to evade the next blow that the young swordsman aimed at him.
The terrible dread was filling him again. The sword that seemed to fill the whole room was a weapon against which Gravestone had few defenses. He utilized all of them, though, in order to escape death. Between the demonurgist and his foe sprang up a huge and bestial form. It was almost as high as the vaulted ceiling of the chamber and as broad as a span of oxen. It was formed of darkly shining colors, transparent layers of color describing the creation's dimensions. Evil orange was its outermost hue, and beneath that thick sheen was another of vile gray light. Then there followed a diabolical red, a clear black fire, an ugly maroon, and a ghastly purple. Innermost, and of a disgusting incandescence that hurt the eyes to look upon it, was the violet sheen of the deepest nether-pits of evil. It was as if the priest-wizard had formed seven nether-beasts, each slightly smaller than the foregoing, each inside the other, and then himself gotten inside the whole to animate and empower the hideous agglomeration into assuming unnatural life.
"Hide, rat, but you can no longer escape into some rathole!" Gord shouted angrily.
"Hide?" the multilayered, evilly hued monster surrounding Gravestone bellowed. "This for hiding!" and it struck a terrible blow.
Gord cut at the creation at the same moment. Sparks of brilliant orange shot from where the dark blade touched it, but the thing hit its target nonetheless. Gord was knocked back, sprawling, blood streaming from his nose. "Your hide!" Gord managed to say, rolling aside from a massive foot that was trying to stomp on him. "I mean to have it!" And as he said that, the young thief was upright again and his lightless brand hacked a second time at the strange glowing agglomeration of nether-hues.
Now a torrent of fiery orange flowed from the thing, and it gave vent to a scream as the stuff of its outermost shell poured out upon the floor. "A mere trifle," a sinister voice mocked as the scream died away into nothingness with the last flicker of orange light. The sound was putrescent, as hideous as the deep gray outline that was now the outermost part of the varicolored creation of evil.
Again the monstrous form struck, this time a pair of swift blows. Gord dodged the first and met the second with the keen edge of Blackheartseeker. Dead gray flickered, globs of luminosity were sent flying. "A mere trifle," Gord mocked, stepping in as the thing tried to move back to get a better swing at him. Staying close, darting and weaving, the champion of Balance stabbed and stabbed again at the corpselike color of the form; and each blow he struck made the gray lessen in intensity, thin, dim as its stuff was sent oozing forth and away. "Yet it seems effective," he added as the gray went out and the hell-red was clearly visible.
Inside the construction of evil power, Gravestone was still safe, but he was weakening with each loss suffered. There were yet five layers of protective force shielding him, and serving as weapons too. But the loss of the two was severe, not to be discounted. He would have to redouble his efforts to slay his opponent immediately.
Because he was who he was, the task was far from an impossible one for Gravestone. Many spell-binders had the means to produce multilayered spheres to protect themselves with. A few of the most evilly adept could form beasts of energy to encase themselves in and serve as extensions of themselves.
The demonurgist, however, went far beyond either of these accomplishments. This many-colored beast of force was drawn from all of the netherspheres, fought as well as any great devil or demon, and protected its creator behind seven barriers of malign energy. It had a life of its own, too, and Gravestone could lend the quasi-thing his own powers to employ. Touch of rotting death," the priest-wizard said softly. The disgusting crimson of the right hand of the beast that encased Gravestone glittered with a darker sheen from the power thus bestowed. Mage's spell and cleric's power both were known to the blacksouled demonurgist. By transferring either to his construct, Gravestone could utilize his fell energies beyond the confines of the many-hued beast. Then he feinted with the thing's left, and as his foeman moved to avoid the blow, the deadly right hand came flashing forth to deliver its killing charge of dweomer.
It almost worked. The huge fingers brushed Gord, and the death contained in each digit hurt him to the center of his being. Yet by instinct and long training the champion managed to leap back just far enough to prevent Gravestone's tactic from having its full intended effect.
Using the sword to shield him from another such trick, Gord circled and drew several deep breaths, trying to regain lost energy. He knew that the demonurgist desired a melee at this long range, where he could watch Gord and strike more efficiently at him, but there was no choice. If he went closer, the touch of the beast would be fatal, for the energy that generated the scarlet color was a force that would burn flesh and destroy bone if it came in solid contact.
The groping, pawlike extremities of Gravestone's agglomeration swiped wildly at Gord. He danced, ducked, and slashed with Blackheartseeker as he avoided the attacks and regained strength. The pain subsided to a dull aching. That he could put aside with effort of will. Now it was time to take the offensive again. Gravestone made a clumsy rush with his beastlike thing, and the longsword slashed into the glowing maroon with cut after cut upon the defenseless flank and back of the nether fiend.
"Howoou!" The hell-red layer seemed to give vent to the sound from every portion of itself, not just the near-featureless head and hint of a mouth it possessed. Then the light was gone, replaced by the glitter of abyssal ebon.
His sword seemed to leap for joy as the black sheen sprang clearly forth. With volition that seemed to come from itself, Blackheartseeker plunged its tip into the darkness and drank. The jet instantly lost its lustrousness; then it was gone, vanishing without sound of protest. There were now but three layers of the construct left to protect the demonurgist, but Gord had to retreat without striking a further blow as the thing of maroon light spun and attempted to sweep him into an embrace. It was but ten or so feet tall now, and narrower too, but it moved with greater speed.