* * *
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!
Chapter 25
THERE MIGHT HAVE BEEN SERIOUS BICKERING indeed, had not the butler intervened. As often, the maids had spent too much time in gossip, and too little in preparation for the great occasion. Even the head cook had become involved in whatever little dispute the maids had entered.
Time to put a stop to this, thought the butler. "No more from either of you, hear? There's too much work to be done in short time for such wagging of tongues and wasting of energies, I'll have you know. If any of you have extra energy, I'll be happy to assign you tasks in my buttery. . ."