"Of course, Vuron. When should I depart?"
"As soon as possible. Take the Eye of Deception with you. It assures your safe and swift passage. More importantly, our king will need it soon, I fear. When Iuz and his cohorts get word of what has happened here, they will surely begin attacking again."
The dark elf was puzzled by that statement. "Why, Vuron? We dealt the foes a cruel blow here, and our losses were paltry compared to those of Demogorgon's."
"The ape-heads will leak out misleading figures. Our casualties will be half a million rather than fifty thousand, and our reinforcements will be overstated by a like factor — regiments for companies, corps for brigades. Infestix too will assist in that for many reasons, not the least of which is his worm-fat pride. Two of his Diseased Ones were skewered by my lance, and he and his puppet demons lost a quarter of a million soldiers."
Leda understood. "If Iuz begins attacking, there will be no more reinforcements of any kind for this front then. Demogorgon will not have to face another situation like this again. Our force can be worn down, eroded, and finally beaten by sheer weight. . . ."
Vuron nodded and gave Leda a little bow. "Very astute, priestess — as should be for one favored by Graz'zt Explain all of that to him when he has received my report. I urge a contiguous line of defense, so that we will have interior lines. That way a reserve can be created as a central pool. Wherever the enemy strikes, the reserve can be moved to counter the threat. With but a quarter of the enemy's strength we can thus hold out for a nearly indefinite time."
"That seems reasonable, General," Leda agreed with hesitation, "but is there no way to assume a winning position?"
That brought the albino into a tense attitude, and his pale, red-pink eyes fixed with a lambent fire upon the small drow. "What is that you ask?" Leda squared her little shoulders and made a reply, but Vuron didn't pay attention. He was deep inside himself assessing his statements and hers too, all that had occurred.
"Never mind," he told Leda, more to silence her than for any other reason. He had articulated to her what he had kept inside himself as a secret that must never be uttered, especially to Graz'zt or any who spoke directly to the ebon monarch. For a long time now it had been all too apparent to Vuron that there was no real hope. The three portions of the ancient artifact the key to Tharizdun's prison, would never cease their active operation to unite. All were at work in the Abyss. Graz'zt held one, so the ones possessed by others — demon, daemon, even devil, no matter — would strive to be brought together by it. Fickleness would have no part in the eventuality. Demon alliances could break apart and re-form, invaders could be cut down, and still the relics would gravitate toward one another.
For now, two strove against one. Was there hope of gaining a second Theorpart? Could the balance be shifted in Graz'zt's favor then? Vuron was certain that both answers were no. "He is doomed by it now, and it is I who forged that doom," the pale demon whispered aloud.
"Pardon, my Lord? I didn't hear you."
"Nothing, Leda," Vuron said briskly. "I merely spoke thoughts aloud. . . . We sometimes place greater measures of independence upon ourselves than actually exist, you know. How greatly do we overestimate our own strength and meaning? Is it in the same magnitude? Greater by far, I think" Vuron gazed down at the perfect, sable-hued face of the elf. Its color was so like that of his king's. He had sought only to serve Graz'zt for eternity.. ..
"Time is fleeting. Lord Vuron," Leda finally said, growing uncomfortable under the demon's glassy stare.
"Time? So too power, renown, and all glory within the cosmos," the albino said with a snarl. "That is of no matter at this moment. As I said, we must have interior lines so that we can defend successfully until the unnatural alliances formed against us break from their own disparate natures. Soon enough new allies will come to serve Graz'zt, and the interloping dogs from Hades and the other netherspheres will be chased back to their kennels." Vuron hoped that those words would remain foremost in her mind when Leda reported to the demon king. "Here is my written account of the battle, my assessment of the situation, and plans for what we must do. It is a primitive way to communicate, but the enemy can't eavesdrop on such."
Leda took the thick box of leather and metal, a container covered with runes and sealed fast with black wax bearing Vuron's mark "I will give it directly into the hands of our liege immediately. Lord General."
"Guard it with your life! Don't hesitate to utilize the Eye to protect it."
With a bow, then a formal salute, the dark elf withdrew. "It should not be necessary, Vuron," Leda said just before she departed. "I intend to take the fastest route to the palace, so there will be few likely to be encountered along the way. Before the smogs rise here again, Graz'zt will have your intelligence in his hands."
Vuron nodded, and she left with quick steps. Only after Leda was gone did he think to ask her about how she felt. The albino recalled that when he looked at Leda's face, she had seemed fresh, lovely. Her countenance should have been drawn and haggard. The strain of using the Eye should have left its mark thus. Did she possess some witchery that enabled the drow priestess to resist even so great a thing as the Eye of Deception? If so, then it was time for him to get rid of her. After all, Vuron had decided to create Leda in counter to Eclavdra, for that one's influence had been too strong and too much directed toward her own glorification. Leda's twin would have not hesitated to lessen Graz'zt in order to make herself greater. Now there was a possibility that her clone had even greater spiritual strength and inner power than Eclavdra had possessed. Should that be true, and should Leda decide to employ her energy in a way that Vuron didn't direct, then she might actually displace him. That was something the demonlord hadn't considered since Leda came into being; Leda as such, rather than what she had been prior, a mere duplicate of Eclavdra. The original dark elven high priestess wouldn't have hesitated to work any mischief in order to gain advantage. Was Leda far from that?
As soon as possible he would set matters right in that regard, Vuron vowed silently. First the withdrawal to a new defensive line, then the machinations to destroy Leda's influence . . . perhaps Leda.
Chapter 6
IT WAS AS BIRTH, only the passage was doubly painful now. Separation and self-reliance were immediately ahead. The whole of the cold and unforgiving experience of life was graven in steel. No escape. Certain end. Did an infant wall in premonition? Certainly it knew of its loss in some way, but never so starkly as this.
Inside the Soulless Sounding could be found all things and no things. The saddest, most melancholy of dreams — of all those loved and gone, loved and lost. Each parting was final. impossibly ended, yet seen and experienced again in such a way as to negate it while knowing that it remained. No matter — soon enough there would be no memory whatsoever ... or would that alone remain forever . . . ?
Gord and Gellor were alone, helpless, lost in a gloom that clouded the senses. There was no haven to be found, no escape in the dreadful night. The things that dwelled always therein were not so deprived. They moved and stalked, coming ever closer, hungering.
The portal was a hole dug into the frozen ground, a place just long and wide enough to contain a bier.
Seen from above, the depth seemed such that its contents were but four feet below. It was a coffin with a lid of pure crystal. Inside was a corpse upon which till manner of worms and foul things battened, but the ghastly visage of the thing smiled a terrible grin of welcome to the viewer.
Being in the passage was like falling forever, with the surety of a terrible impact of equal duration. The sickening weightlessness reached its absolute maximum, an ecstasy of terror from which there was no escape. Even as the free falling sent its delightful sensations and its nausea through the entire being, the prospect of crushing impact at the infinitely distant end was there, compacting, rupturing, breaking internally.
"What do demons perceive when in this place?"
"Think not on that," Gord advised his companion when Gellor uttered that question. The same thought had indeed come to the young champion's mind as he experienced the horrors of traversing the Soulless Sounding. "No matter what, only the greatest can survive the ordeal."
"Small wonder," the bard growled, shaking his grizzled head to clear the awful things filling his brain. "This journey is one I vow never to make again!"
Gord understood all too well. It seemed as if they had wandered in a delirium for ages. Between breaths, whole decades passed. Was that delusion? Who could say for certain in such a twisted continuum as this? Was there a reality here? Or was everything drawn only from the minds of those who were so foolish as to enter the Soulless Sounding? No matter. The visitors walked, crawled, ran, fell, crept flew.
In any manner they could, they moved, seeking the place they instinctively knew was that which would lead them to their goal.
Gord was reflecting thus when an apparition made him start and tremble. "This accursed place now seeks to steal the last of my sanity," he muttered loudly enough for his companion to overhear. "Would that she were really so near!"
"She?" the troubador asked, even though he knew that his friend had not meant for him to hear. Then he, too, saw. "I too see a drow clad in demon armor coming nigh. Beware that vision, Gord! The thing she bears has an aura of deepest malevolence."
"It is no drow bearing evil," Gord countered. "I have conjured up in my mind the dream of Leda — she who meant all to me, the one who gave her soul to prevent the incursion of all darkness." As he said those words, Gord's mind brought back scenes of the beautiful dark elf as they first met long ago on Oerth. He saw again the search for the Theorpart in the dusty wastes of the Ashen Desert, saw her save his life, then condemn herself to an eternity of misery by going with Vuron to the depths of demonium.
Gellor received those pictures from his friend, felt the emotions that wrapped them. "I am sorry, Gord, very sorry to intrude," the troubador said with a husky voice. "You fairly blast your thoughts out, and I have no choice but to share . . ."
"What matter? There is nothing left any more."
"But she is here!"
"Here? No — not unless the whole of the Abyss is here, unless eternal service to Graz'zt is here!"
"Stop bloring as a sheep, and attend my words, Gord! If you and I see the same thing, then it is no dementia brought about by the sickness of this place. We are seeing what is!"
At that, Gord stopped his depressed rantings and stared. Seeming to float, making swimming motions, before them was indeed Leda — or one who was her clone, as she had been of Eclavdra. The drow priestess was alternately near and far, whether from distortion of sight or actual distance in the Soulless Sounding. She bore a strange bag, the thing that the bard had remarked fairly shone of blazing evil force. Perhaps it was that very thing that enabled Leda, or whoever the drow female was, to move so swiftly through the strange, sick space.
Six thousand six hundred and sixty regions there were in the Abyss, all found in the six hundred sixtysix tiers that formed the chaotic sphere of demonium. Of the whole of this black netherplane, fully six hundred of the layers could be reached via the Soulless Sounding. The uppermost tiers and the farthest regions of the Abyss, those most removed from the middle and upper planes, were distant from the distorted tube that pierced space. The greater portion, though, fully eighty percent of the whole, could be reached by a relatively brief journey through the terrible passage called the Soulless Sounding. Of course, only the very strongest of beings could survive for more than a few minutes within its distorted, mind-twisting confines.
The dark elf whom Gord and Gellor observed was now moving with astonishing rapidity, evidently heading for the same destination as the two of them sought, a distant place marked by iridescent striatums reminiscent of black opal and ancient silver hammered into six great horseshoe-shaped arches.
"She will escape us!" Gord exclaimed, noting that the drow was traveling at a far faster rate than he and his companion were. "Come on, hurry!"
Gellor made a valiant effort, but soon realized that he was quite unable to keep up with Gord. "You go ahead as fast as you can," he panted. "I'll follow and catch up with you when you reach that one and stop her."
With hardly a backward glance, Gord assented and rushed ahead. In order to speed his progress he drew forth Courflamme, knowing that its power would be much multiplied once the weapon was out of its scabbard and consciously applied to his movement. "Now, sword," he whispered to the strange blade of sooty metal and bright crystal. "Carry me with all speed to where that dark elf is!"
It was as if the weapon understood. Gord felt a flow of energy from his fingers, through hand and arm, to the very tips of his toes. At the same moment he also felt as if the blade were leeching force from him. Now almost one entity, sword and swordsman shot ahead as quickly as if Gord were astride a sleek courser, and the distance between him and the dark elf melted away by the second.
As the gap closed to what seemed no more than a spear-cast, the pursued drow sensed that someone or something followed and spun around, drawing something from the rune-emblazoned bag as she turned. "Away!" she commanded, her face a hard mask of power and demoniacal threat. Then her lovely lilac eyes opened wide, the rest of what she was about to say was forgotten, and instead her face softened into wonderment as she cried, "Gord? Gord? Is it really you?"
He wanted to call the same question back asking the vision before him if she were the real, true Leda. Instead, Gord restrained the urge, forced himself to stand fast. "I am Gord," he said firmly, even as the young champion drew upon all of his powers to study and analyze the one who stood before his gaze. It was no illusion, no creature masked by dark dweomer, no shapeshifter or sham.
Leda was now doing the same thing. The man who appeared to her to be Gord, her forever lost love, responded coolly, stood aloof and staring when she called to him. Drawing upon the energy within the Eye of Deception, and using it with her own abilities, Leda scanned the one who said he was indeed Gord. She saw only the surface of him, that and a leaping aura of mixed bright and dark. She could penetrate no deeper, even with the strength of the Abyssal artifact aiding her sight. Wary, withdrawing slightly now, Leda responded, "Are you? Are you so?"
Satisfied, Gord in turn stepped closer to Leda, a smile of joy beginning to spread across his face, gray eyes brimming with happiness. "Leda . . ."