"Don't believe everything you hear," Iggwilv said with a cackle. "Your poor mother must have some secrets — and a little something to protect herself with."
As if not wishing to be outdone, Zuggtmoy produced a strange, cauldronlike vessel with a myriad of projections and bumps, things like knobs, spouts, nozzles, and some unidentifiable extrusions, too. This little kettle will help keep things warm for them," she said, as the thing grew to the size of a great pot before Iuz's gaze.
"You, too? What is that thing?" he demanded, feeling uncomfortable despite his firm grip on the artifact.
The Cauldron of Corruption," she supplied as she adjusted the largest of the nozzles to point toward the advancing Graz'zt. "If you think my little myconid demonlings are potent, wait until I loose the dweomers from this upon those— "
"Muck! What good are those toys of yours — your wand, Iggwilv, that bulking pot, Zuggtmoy — against a Theorpart?"
"Little use, if any, you stu— splendid master of enemies," Iggwilv managed to say without too much fury coming forth. "I — we, Zuggtmoy and I — will use these to spoil any attacks from the rotted Eye of Deception. Thank us both, or else Graz'zt would have you!"
"Oh. . . . Well, I suppose that is why I picked you two as consorts, right? Still, it is I who must bear the brunt of things."
There wasn't time for more such banter. The army led by Graz'zt and Elazalag had come on with deceptive speed, and the front of both forces was suddenly alive with minor spells and hails of nonmagical missiles as the opposing masses rushed to the melee.
It was a mental cry of fear and surprise from Orcus that alerted Iuz and his co-laborers that it was not Graz'zt who came at them. Iggwilv didn't believe what she had heard, neither did Zuggtmoy, but it was Iuz who managed to prove that the gross demonking's telepathic message had been correct. Orcus had found himself facing Graz'zt himself, with relic and sword both. The ram-headed demon took one look at that, shrieked his mental shriek and then fled the fray, using his own weapon's energies to escape.
Upon hearing all of that telepathically, the cambion turned the force of his Theorpart upon the foe who strode toward him. The dark energy sizzled, burned away the illusion, and there stood a small man with two companions rather than the ebon demon.
"Iuz, I presume," the gray-eyed human sent in telepathic greeting. The calmness of the thought sent a shiver down the cambion's jagged-edged spine. Reflexively, Iuz threw a blast of withering stuff out from the artifact. It was a distillation of his own vileness, meant to shred the man's flesh from his bones. Laughing derisively, the small human tossed the bolt aside with a flick of his sword. Iuz saw that the blade of that weapon now glimmered with the disquieting luminescence of the ray he had sent out. That was enough to convince the cambion.
When she saw what Iuz was doing, Iggwilv used her twisted wand to weave a link to her son. "No, you don't," she muttered in desperation. It was all too apparent to the ancient witch. The fell champion of Balance was upon them, and without an army of demons to assist, Iuz had no intention of facing man and sword. He was using the Awakener to transport himself to safety. Iggwilv's magical link acted as a towline, so she would be carried to safety along with the cambion.
At the same instant that occurred, Zuggtmoy had enmeshed both in her own demonic field. She clutched her Cauldron of Corruption in a deathlike grip and prepared for the shock that she knew was coming. Then Iuz winked out of existence there, leaving a cloud of burning motes behind as he vanished with a bang. Iggwilv followed a split-second after, at the same moment Zuggtmoy went, for both were now corded to the cambion.
"He is a coward," Gellor said at that, "but a quickwitted one!"
"Not smart enough, my friend," Gord replied. "That little trick which Allton and Timmil managed, remember?" The troubador nodded curtly, although Leda looked puzzled. "A magical means of pursuit," Gord explained to her tersely. "That feat was nothing compared to what I can manage now, Gellor. Hold onto your harp, there — and you to the Theorpart, Leda. I'll force a pathway to wherever the bloated scum has fled."
The hellish battle surrounding them was gone in a heartbeat. Graz'zt and his minions would now have things their own way, for the invading force was left to its own means, just as Demogorgon had deserted his horde when Gord had stripped Infestix of the relic and that daemon had been sent howling away to his own nethersphere. "He planned to slay us for the Theorparts, you know," Leda said. Her voice echoed weirdly in the non-space the three were now sailing through.
"Of course. It was if he waved a banner proclaiming his intentions overhead even as the lout thought to dissemble," Gord laughed. "He didn't have any idea of this outcome — or of the true powers of either his Theorpart or my Courflamme here."
"A little music will soothe us all." Gellor announced, and he began to play an air with piercingly sweet high notes floating above a rippling bass. "It is a chaconne which speaks of the perfidy of demons. I had meant if for the six-fingered one when he thought to devour our souls; now it seems appropriate to our circumstances."
The end of the quasi-space came just at that point it was evident to Gord that his comrade had been aware of their imminent arrival in the domain of the cambion. "A true hero, you grizzled old trouper!" he managed to call as the three were wrenched into the new place.
It took them a moment to gain their bearings and calm their senses. The shock wasn't merely from the jolt of leaving the distorted passageway that Gord had wrought in part it was caused by the place they found themselves in. Iuz had chosen to flee to the great stratum of the fungi queen, Zuggtmoy. They were in a nightmare place, a realm that could only be likened to some great underground cavern where fantastic and weird fungi sprouted from noisome soil, and nothing clean had ever existed.
"Mycorji." The name came to Gord's mind, and he spoke it aloud. "This is the stinkhole of Zuggtmoy."
"Where have Iuz and his whores gotten to?" Leda asked. Her voice bore a heavy tone of hatred. Shared memories, those of the dead Eclavdra, caused the burden of hatred to well up in her and burst out as she spoke.
"Not far," Gellor said with assurance, as he continued to play. The sound of his melodious fingerwork was rotting the tall, disgusting growths all around. As the things toppled and ran into putrid puddles, there was clearly revealed the entrance to a grotto that lay below the place where the three now stood. "See there?"
"I do," Gord nodded. "Let's finish this work quickly," he said, and the three of them began descending immediately. The silvery notes from the bard's kanteel announced their coming, of course, even as did the heaps of deadly fungi that collapsed from the sound.
Iuz was like a cornered rat. His fangs were bared, and the half-demon was desperate, filled with a deadly mixture of fear and hatred that might just prove sufficient to serve. Seeing the diamond and jet of Courflamme, the cambion willed a larger and deadlier blade from his Theorpart. The relic responded, of course, and suddenly Iuz was holding a huge scimitar, a weapon that required both hands and a bulk such as the cambion had to wield its five-foot length. Even as that massive blade sprang into being, the half-demon was attacking, bringing the curved mass of razor-edged metal up and around in a blow meant to decapitate his opponent.
There was no warning shout, no sound, as Iuz swung the scimitar. Pure reflex saved Gord. The cambion towered above the champion, half again his height, three times and more heavier. Shadow armor and elfin mail would never have prevailed against the sorcerous steel of the blade Iuz swung.
Gord flinched into a crouch, and the rubine metal hissed a hairsbreadth above his head, trailing coruscations of lambent maroon in Its wake. Still crouched, Gord lunged inward with a long thrust aimed at the fat, angry pink of Iuz's thigh. The stabbing attack failed to reach its target, and the massive scimitar was surely being brought around for a backhand stroke. Without trying to recover from his lunge, the young champion simply fell to the right, rolled on his shoulder, and did a back flip. The evil red of the scimitar's blade cut through the space where he had been a second before, then flashed its hellish track upward and around toward where Gord now stood.
Iuz stopped the arcing blade suddenly, poising the scimitar as a high-held threat above his right shoulder. "You are quick, you little human flea! Hopping will only prolong the contest, though. You'll be too slow soon enough — then I'll feed your raw and bleeding genitals to your friends!"
The goading was obvious and useless. Gord didn't bother considering the words at all; he was intent upon estimating the cambion's speed, reach, and tactics. Gord feinted, withdrew, cut, and danced back and Iuz did not move. Then Gord sent a sparkling dart of force from Courflamme. Iuz moved very quickly at that, and the angry carmine web that sprang from the scimitar seemed to devour the blacksilver bolt. "You move quickly yourself, pink shoat," Gord called as he stepped well back.
The sting of the force that had managed to get through the Theorpart's screening energy made the cambion furious. "So you like to trade missiles, do you?" he grated through his clenched teeth. His halfhundred little fangs gleamed bone white as Iuz's lips were drawn back in rage. With those words, the halfdemon willed a fiery crimson whip to spring from the weapon he wielded, and the snapping filaments of force shot forth like a cat o' nine tails.
Gellor, meanwhile, was fully occupied against Zuggtmoy. More than fully, as it were. The demoness had resumed her fungoid form, but the puffy white appendages she plied to operate her strange device were faster than human fingers. Out shot paralyzing rhizomes, jets of flesh-dissolving spores, ranks of myconid monsters as she played upon the powers of her Cauldron of Corruption. At each new threat the bard countered with music that neutralized or destroyed the attack.
The ivory kanteel was potent, a match for the vile device Zuggtmoy employed. In time, though, demon strength would prevail over that of mortal sort, albeit Gellor was heroic and imbued with strength and power of supernatural kind. His adversary was, after all, one of the six greatest demons in the whole sphere of demonium.
The troubador played with determined desperation. Zuggtmoy merely kept her endless series of assaults flying from the Cauldron, biding her time with assured expectation, almost enjoying the contest. Wondering if blinding smut might prevail, the demoness triggered a whirlwind cone of the stuff from the device. Notes as bright and hot as the summer sun at high noon frizzled the dark cloud into nothingness, but the stain of the smut's demise lay only inches from the bard's booted feet. Soon, soon . . .
"Turncoat bitch!" Iggwilv spat. Leda faced the ancient witch with no expression, and that calmness disconcerted Iggwilv. "Use the Initiator on that sorry little man," the hag commanded, pointing her wand at Gord as he nimbly danced around Iuz, "and I'll see to it that you rule with us!"
Eclavdra's memories saved her. From deep inside her brain, Leda heard the warning. "That is the Baton d'Agrue, and its malign workings are not direct." Even with the alert, the terror and shaking that stole over her from crown to sole came before Leda could use her Theorpart to defend herself, let alone attack the witch. The little dark elf reeled back legs nearly beyond her control, hands trembling so badly that she almost lost her hold on the misshapen metal of the evil relic that was her only hope against Iggwilv.
"Hee, hee, hee!" the eldest witch cackled. The sound was more grotesque because it issued from the ravishingly beautiful, if depraved-looking, face of a young woman, the favorite alter-form of Iggwilv. "You didn't know that this twisty little stick never works where it's pointed, did you? Hee. hee!"
She waved the convoluted wand here and there, muttering as she did so. Vile terrors oozed forth, collected at the witch's feet, then began to creep and crawl toward the palsied girl. "Now for my piece de resistance!' she cried, and the wand began to vomit horrifying matter that fed the things that came toward her victim relentlessly.
It required all of her will, but Leda managed to shake off the panic that turned muscle to jelly, mind to gibbering lunacy. Her little fingers closed fast on Initiator, and the chill shock of its dark energies ran through Leda. The force coalesced in her brain, and from there she sent forth a wave of loathing.
The monstrous collection of gruesome things that was itself now an entity was struck by the force as a tidal wave strikes exposed shore. Back, up, over its many-formed body it went, splattering bits of itself and the noisome matter that fed it in gobbets of nauseating spray. Iggwilv was caught unprepared for such a turn, and although she dissolved her work as quickly as she could, the remains spattered her, burned her with their acidity, even as the disintegrating main body of the stuff struck the witch. It bowled her over and then was gone.
"No, you degenerate old crone," Leda hissed as she stood straight and held forth the Theorpart as steadily as an artist might hold a brush to a masterful canvas. "Let the two of us see just how potent are the forces we command."
Gord dared not allow Courflamme to impact upon the ruby-hued scimitar formed from the might of the Awakener. The relic could not be destroyed, save perhaps by Tharizdun himself. Gord now understood, from his experience with Infestix, that great as was the strength of the artifact of Balance, It could not withstand even a third of the evil relic, not in such direct manner. Courflamme's powers were greater than the Theorpart's own, but in a different form.
Rather than trying to sever the whiplike tentacles that lashed forth at him, Gord caused a mesh of crystal and soot-black weave to spring into being in the air between himself and the cambion. The deep red of the snakelike stuff struck the web of white and black LIvid carmine devoured strand after strand of the mesh, but as fast as it did so, more grew. Soon the whip was enmeshed, woven fast into a growing web.
But just as Gord was feeling positive, Iuz struck again. One instant, the half-demon's sword was held fast by the interplay of forces; the next, Iuz was striking at Gord with his own enchanted two-handed sword. The dirty-hued blade hit hard, sheared through the shadow plate, and snapped the silvery links of elfin mall beneath. The force drove Gord down, sprawling, his grip on Courflamme broken. The sword of Balance, however, remained where it was, horizontal, floating four feet above the muck of the grotto's floor, locked in its own duel with the scimitar-Theorpart. Disarmed, bruised, bleeding, only half conscious, Gord rolled and scrabbled, trying to get away.
Iuz had simply loosed his hold on Awakener, leaving it to contest with the enmeshing energies from the weapon of Balance. The cambion had his own sword, a long blade of demoniac forging, and this he used to spring his sudden onslaught upon his small adversary. Its blow was meant to cut the man in two at the waist. It gave Iuz only a moment's pause when the stroke failed to do as it had been meant. Then, with a bellow of killing lust and delight at what was to occur, Iuz leaped to straddle his fallen foe. "The thrust which strikes true!" the half-demon shouted with glee and excitement as he held the two-handed sword like a dagger, striking down to pierce Gord through his guts and pin him like a bug.
Some distance away, Iggwilv screeched in pain and rage. The terrible matter from the Baton d'Agrue had eaten away most of her silken garments, singed away her hair, blistered and pocked her flesh. Never had such a thing happened to her! Still voicing her awful ululations, the eldest of witches sprang to meet the hated drow. She would jam the wand down Leda's throat and choke her to death with its torrential emission of energy.
Instead of the dark elven priestess, however, Iggwilv leaped upon something else altogether. Seeing what her enemy intended, Leda used the Theorpart to form a barrier to intercept the charge of the infuriated witch. The power of Initiator was such that it went beyond a mere screen. The malign evil of the artifact brought forth a rack of iron spikes. The myriad needles of the thing caught the beautiful form that was that assumed by Iggwilv and turned it into a red ruin. Now the howling from the crone's throat was only of pain.
The agony made Iggwilv forget all about her former desires. Now all she wished was surcease of torment, and escape. Without thinking, Iggwilv thrust with both of her hands, desperately trying to pull her painwracked body from the terrible daggers that pierced it She had quite forgotten the Baton d'Agrue. Her mindless struggle brought the twisted wand into hard contact with what was essentially the force of the Theorpart. The baton was broken, consumed by that energy. As the thing was destroyed in a roar of conflicting forces, the rampant flux of energy devoured Iggwilv entirely. In one terrible roaring flash, the mother of all witches was no more.
"Aaahr That was all Leda could manage. No oath, no words could form. Something in Iggwilv's eyes at the moment of destruction, the sound of her final agony, made the dark elven girl shudder and draw back in disbelief. It was too terrible an end, even for one such as the witch had been.
Leda almost felt sympathy, remorse. Then she shook herself. No! Whatever fate had taken Iggwilv, the vile hag had brought upon herself. . . . What of Gord? Gellor? Leda turned, and her eyes fell upon the bard first where he was dueling with the mass of Zuggtmoy's fungoid bulk he plucking silvery strings, she manipulating her device of evil. The demoness was near to overwhelming Gellor — that was plain from the ever nearer thrusts issuing from the Cauldron of Corruption. Then Leda heard the cambion's shout of triumph and spun to see what had befallen Gord.