Come Endless Darkness

Chapter 16

The long, sallow face of Gravestone was beaded with sweat, but otherwise there was no sign that he was alive.

He sat, in a trance, upon a flat pad on a steplike dais. It was circular, dark, and graven with sigils and writings of power and warding. Near to him three candles burned, each with a flame the color of its wax — black, plum, deep crimson. From a brass bowl resting on his crossed legs arose smoke, tiny columns of vapors. Each was of a different hue, each betokening one of the netherspheres.

The faint haze reeked of noxious drugs, an odious stench. These drugs aided the priest-mage in his work. When he needed the stuff of flame and incense, the candles flared and smoke streamed upward. A sudden Inhalation, more sweat, then absolute stillness again. The flickering tongues of the candles' flames receded to mere glimmers then, and the tiny streams of noisome stuff resumed their slow rising.

Nearby, watching for what seemed hours, Gellor gazed upon the scene. But the bard was by no means idle. He was struggling to free himself from the bonds that held him as Gravestone sat in his trance. The bonds were of both physical and magical sort, however, and the attempt to win free of them was proving to be long. If not fruitless. Curley Greenleaf was nearby, his condition very serious. Gellor thought the druid was sinking toward death. Chert was there too, battered and bloody but awake and silently straining to free himself just as the troubador fought against his bonds.

A figurative "third eye" watched the three. Despite the trance, Gravestone was not so foolish as to allow enemies to be in proximity without being under observation, bonds or no bonds. This mental watch would trigger an alarm instantly. The priest-wizard had a special surprise awaiting, and his attention would be needed for only a moment if the spell was required to deal with one or more of the captives.

The demonurgist was not thinking about all that, however. At the moment he was deep into the dweomers he had spun. A final trap was in action, and he personally must oversee the occurrences, utilize his powers to operate the whole of it.

It was a masterful and deadly piece of work. The trap had three levels of complexity, three ways of snaring the enemy therein. First and least likely was despair and withdrawal. Both the spectacle and information imparted by the magic were set to promote the proper mood for dejection and hopelessness. Those emotions, that mental state, was enhanced as fully as Gravestone could manage by powerful spells. The adversary within the trap was very potent, charged with magical energy himself, so Gravestone dismissed the likelihood of the initial snare actually functioning as was hoped for.

The second level, that of persuasion and subversion, was insidious in that it played off of the first grouping of power. Even though the enemy might ultimately reject the dweomer of forced surrender and inaction, it would surely affect him nonetheless. Thus primed, there was a greater potential for the acceptance of offers meant to appeal to the base and low desires contained in even the best of persons. Together, then, the demonurgist gave the first and second ploys about four chances in ten of success.

Five in ten was the probability he placed upon the final tier of the trap. That was physical combat based upon mental conviction. Accepting what was seen and experienced, the victim mired in the snare would accept and fight back against the threat. More insidious than the second snare, this portion played off both foregoing magics. Best of all. Gravestone was there mentally to channel energy and force. The at tacks of the illusory opponent would be far from imagined. The vision of Tharizdun he had enspelled and now operated would utilize very real attacks of terrible power against the would-be champion.

Even if that fool discovered the figure he opposed was naught but a false image. It would be too late. Blasts of magic from the demonurgist's own store of dweomer would cut him down before he could escape. Gravestone recalled for an instant his pleasure in slaying this young upstart's father and mother. He had enjoyed the woman's tenor as-

The extrasensory alarm in his head blared its warning. This was terrible! The final confrontation and fight between the champion and the illusory Tharizdun was commencing. The demonurgist men tally set a fixed program of actions for the phantom deity of all evil, sufficient in force and deadliness to keep the man occupied for a minute or two. That was ample time, for he needed only a few moments to deal with the three prisoners. Gravestone had thought to keep them alive for questioning and amusement. Under the circumstances, though, he would now simply kill them, then return to the direct handling of what would be the demise of the last hope of all who opposed evil.

It was at the instant that Gord leaped toward the illusory Tharizdun that the mental warning was triggered in the demonurgist's mind. Even as he shut off the telepathic link with the trap, leaving it on a program that included triggering of actual magical energies, and turned his attention toward the bound captives, Gord did what the demonurgist had not anticipated. The phantasmal form of the dark god was nothing, but the hand that reached forth to seize the young champion was enspelled with dweomer and meant to crush Gord. Instead, Gord used his acrobatic ability to bound up and actually stand upon the bundle of force that was the enspelled member. That was the last step….

"What's this?!" Gravestone blinked and stared, using magic as well to examine the three bound enemies. None of them were actually loose. "But why did the warning sound…?" Thinking about that, the demonurgist decided to slay them instantly anyway and return full attention to his chief antagonist. He raised his arms to set in motion the power that would kill the helpless prisoners.

"Whump!"

The soft sound of something falling behind him distracted Gravestone. He spun and readied the dweomer's force for some possible new opponent. Somehow, one of the trio of captives must have managed to summon another to assist. As the demonurgist turned, arms half raised, mystic syllables ready to trip from his tongue, something struck htm a blow that drove the air from his lungs, the spell from his mind. "Sorry to drop in on you like that, old sorcerer." a mocking voice said as Gravestone scrabbled to gain his feet and face the opponent.

He saw Gord. This was impossible! The alarm… the trap. It all came together suddenly. It had been this one's action in leaping that had triggered his mental warning bell. There could be only one result of Gord's action, coming here to this plane to threaten Gravestone personally. His own mind had tricked him, worked too quickly, betrayed him! The demonurgist knew of his opponent's prowess as a thief, gymnast, acrobat, swordsman, adventurer. This was no mean opponent, as the blow to his back indicated — probably a kick delivered at the end of a leap. Gravestone felt confident still, despite all that. He was supernormal, far greater than any foe the so-called champion had ever faced. Even stripped of the great elder ones of demonkind, the priest-wizard was filled with self-assurance regarding any contest with this one before him, remarkable or not.

"I'll have your balls for that, shitpile!"

"Then you'd have two, eh?" Gord laughed as he spoke, but the young man's clear gray eyes were as cold and humorless as the winter sky.

Gravestone moved back, hastily weaving wards and protections. The dull black of his adversary's sword disconcerted the demonurgist. "Let us fence a bit then, braggart," he chided, drawing forth a wavybladed dagger. It was a ruse, of course. He had no intention of physically contesting with the young champion. The next spell he planned to use would require just a little more time, and Gravestone hoped to buy that interval with his offer. "Do you fear to cross weapons with an old man?"

Instead of moving toward the priest wizard. Gord suddenly did a backward vault, rolled sideways, and struck at the chains that held his comrade Gellor. Although he had a dagger at his waist whose dweomer made steel as weak as tin under its edge. Gord didn't employ that weapon. The ebon-bladed sword he wielded was of far greater enchantment here, for the bonds that imprisoned his friends were of the sort utilizing dark power and netherforce. Sunder the evil dweomers that fortified them, and the chains and Gords would be as nothing. The sword rang dully against the thick links of metal, and the chain rattled and clanged upon the stonelike floor.

"Free yourself quickly!" Gord managed to call as he sprang away, putting as much distance between himself and the bard as possible.

"Nyeeyah!" Furious at being outfoxed thus. Gravestone gave vent to a cry of rage even as he loosed a shackling spell meant to slow his enemy for but a little bit. The demonurgist needed more time to work his greater spells, to bring forth things to deal with the now-freed troubador and possibly the barbarian axeman, too. His conjuration manifested itself in whirling chains of magical sort that headed straight for Gord's legs.

As the shackles spun toward Gord, he countered with a downward thrust of his sword, which interposed the blade between the chains and his legs. Gord saw the demonurgist begin immediately upon another casting. Although the conjured metal of the shackle was already visibly corroding where it touched Blackheartseeker, the impatient adventurer didn't wait for the chains to fall away from this erosion. With a flick he had his long dagger out and drawn across the stuff. The magic broke and the shackles fell into bits of rust.

"Now, my tall and gangly fellow," he called to Gravestone to distract the priest-wizard from his ritual, "we have some business to finish between us."

Just then Gellor called out. "Gord, help me free Chert!" The bard's sword and the hillman's battleaxe were on the dais near the storklike demonurgist, but Gord had no time to assist the troubador by grabbing the weapons.

"Here." he shouted, sending his dagger spinning toward the one eyed hero. "This will do the work!" Then he leaped ahead and cut viciously at Gravestone's neck. Suddenly a forest of mottled tentacles sprang up between Gord and his foe. Their purple and maroon blotches were poisonous looking, and the fanged sucker-mouths that adorned these wildly waxing appendages threatened to fasten to him and tear the young champion apart.

His sword cut down upon these tentacles instead of upon Gravestone. The light less black blade sliced the things away easily, though. In a few strokes all were severed, and Gord had only slight damage from the things, although the one place he had been well struck burned and ached from the toxic secretions of the tentacle.

It was working. Even though the cursed little thief had managed to win free of each spell, virtually unscathed from any damage in a dweomer's content. Gravestone was gaining time. Now I'll deal with the reinforcements he hopes to gain, the demonurgist thought as he wove a powerful vortex that spun from his own little universe into another place nearby along the flow of evil. Out from that place came a stream of hideous things — dumalduns, members of the disgusting race native to the plane of Tarterus.

A dozen at most had come gibbering and howling into the place when the vortex vanished. In the time it had taken for the disgusting monsters to arrive upon Gravestone's quasi-sphere. Gord managed to seize and hurl Chert's great axe and Gellor's sword belt, with longsword and dagger thereon, in the general direction of where his friends were.

Then, almost in the same motion, the young champion had used a precious Item he possessed another of the bentsons he had received before setting forth on this mission. It was a Talisman of Balance, a dweomered sign that took years to fashion and fill with the proper enchantments. Gord stood upright, grasped the little token in the shape of a scales, and sent it high into the air. As the talisman came to the apex of its flight. Gord said the word of activation. Another vortex shot forth, and as it manifested itself the one created by the demonurgist's spell was negated. Down through the new vortex came a single being. The dunialdun were unaware or uncaring, but Gravestone grew pale at the approach of the single one summoned by the talisman.

The one-eyed troubador managed to snare his belt from the air, and in a trice Gellor held sword and dagger ready to face the rush of the nightmare creatures who were gleefully bounding and capering to ward him and his two chained comrades. Chert was almost free, his battleaxe within reach as the brawny hillman plied Gold's dagger to cut through the last of the bonds that held him.

Gellor began a heroic chant, a ballad reciting the deeds of great warriors who had faced and fought the most evil of foes, even at the cost of their lives. As he sang the brave words. Gellor was not otherwise idle. He met the rush of the first dumaldun with dagger point and sword edge, and the monster recoiled with a yowling cry of pain from the wounds inflicted by the enchanted steel of those blades.

As the second of the apelike dumalduns appeared from the vortex and bounded forth to do battle. Chert finished his work and stood free. One muscular arm scooped up a long length of chain while the barbarian grabbed Brool's leather-wrapped haft. Thus armed, Chert straddled the still-comatose form of Greenleaf and waited for the monster's assault. The dumaldun was there almost instantly.

The monster that charged toward the hillman was gorillalike, while the one Gellor had repulsed was a baboonlike thing. Others now appearing resembled orangutans, grizzled old chimpanzees, gibbons, mandrills, and other sorts of hideous monkeys. Each dumaldun was huge and strong, with long fangs and poisonous nails.

Stupid, lusting for blood, and maniacal by any standards, these denizens of the sphere of vile purple were indeed the perfect tool to accomplish the demonurgist's aim. Although his might had summoned far more than a dozen, that number would have been quite sufficient to dispose of Gellor, Chert, and the unconscious druid. With Gord's help they might have a chance of defeating the creatures, but that meant Gravestone would be left unmolested, free to work still more evil with his spells and magic.

The distorted visage of the gorilla dumaldun came open in a howling challenge, splitting wide to reveal a mouth big enough to encompass a man's entire skull, teeth long and sharp enough to crush bone, tusks of length so great as to meet where the teeth splintered a fang-pierced cranium.

The monster was indeed planning just that, but the hillman's battleaxe struck first. Brool sent its angry buzz all around as its deadly curve came upward at an angle. Barely grazing the dumaldun's paunch, it nevertheless left a foot long cut that was only a nail's breadth short of disemboweling. Then it clipped the lower quarter of the yawning mandible and sheared it oil. The dumaldun rushed on still, grabbed Chert, and sank its remaining lower tusk and upper fangs into the hillman's shoulder. Despite his dweomered leather and magical mail, those terrible teeth penetrated flesh.

The baboon-thing fighting the bard was likewise at close quarters. Recovering from the pain of its initial wounds, the dumaldun crouched and ran into the fray again, coming on all fours as would a dog. Then the bestial thing leapt. Dagger and sword met that attack, but the dumaldun came on heedless of the steel thrust into its throat, the long blade of Gellor's sword shining with gory wetness where it protruded from beneath its shoulder blade. The baboon-thing bowled the waiting man over and tore with nails and fangs at the frail human body. Gellor's helmet was knocked off, and his head struck the floor. A thousand stars sprang into the troubador's vision, then all was dark.

At that same moment. Chert loosed his hold on his axe and used his big hands to seize the jaws of the dumaldun. With a titanic effort that made the barbarian's muscles bunch and his veins to seem like snakes writhing across those rugged mounds of power. Chert pried the massive jaws open. Teeth were forced from flesh, then apart farther still. There was a loud crack, and the monster's Jaw dangled limply, held in place by rags of its filthy hide.

"Son of a diseased dungheap!" Chert bawled as he grabbed the monstrous dumaldun, lifted it over his head, and hurled it into the faces of the next two demoniacal things as they came at him. The corpse sent the pair back and down, but the effort was too much for the barbarian. Head spinning, muscles uncontrolled. Chert toppled backward at the mercy of whatever beast came upon him next.

Gravestone had seen Gord's action, noted the sudden cessation of his evil gateway to Tarterus, and for the tenth time cursed mentally the young champion who opposed him. There was no time for the luxury of a true and proper curse, though. Besides, the priest-wizard thought, the efficacy of such against one so filled with supernatural powers would be questionable at best. What was needed to best the little thief were strong spells and malign forces. Gravestone still had a considerable arsenal of both. Another weapon must be brought into play now, instantly.

"Hellsblades!" the demonurgist shouted triumphantly. That dark calling would not only keep his foe at bay, it would pursue him and at best embroil Gord in combat with the howling, capering dumalduns.

The champion of the Balance heard the exclamation as it sprang from the priest-wizard's lips, saw the red hot metal of the hells-spawned glaives as they came into being and began to twist and spin. Nine long knives, glowing tongues of terrible metal forged on the floor of the furnaces of the hells. They rotated with blades in varying planes so as to describe a moving sphere, a ball of grisly death for any creature caught by them. Nine feet across, nine feet high, nine deep. A devilshine called up to slash and chop a globe of red destruction from razor-edged, searing-hot falchions of diabolic making.

"You grant them to me?" Gord called to the vaunting Gravestone.

"Oh, yes, yes! Dear 'champion,' they are yours — a freely bestowed gift," the demonurgist called back, wondering why he had spoken so even as he articulated his response. There was a feeling of unease in his heart, but he shrugged it off instantly. He had not erred; he could not.

But he had. Gord knew this the moment he saw the nature of the dweomer Gravestone had brought into being before him. He knew right away what to say and do. "It is a generous present, and I freely accept!" Gord shouted the response as if responding in a ritual. "Blackheartseeker and I now take your gift!" With that the young champion thrust forth his dead-black sword, sending its length toward the center, the heart of the Hellsblades' form. The demonurgist had only a heartbeat to wonder what madness had overcome his adversary. He was throwing himself into the centrifuge of his doom, and the blur-quick blades would devour sword and champion alike in the blink of an eye, spewing both out as steely slivers and minced flesh as instantly.

"Die, dirty little…" The shout of final triumph died to a murmuring standstill as the demonurgist saw what happened next. As Gord's sword pierced the sphere, the whirling slowed. Lightless sword touched red-hot glaive, and the hell-forged metal darkened, flowed, and then became a part of the ebon blade. One after another were affected this way, until all nine had melded with the black brand.

Although the horrified gaze of the priest-wizard saw no change in the sword itself, Gravestone understood. "Aid me, Infestix," he wailed as Gord brought the dark blade down and a hell-red trail glowed In the air where the long edge passed.

"Demon-hand and devilshine. Gravestone," Gord called as the demonurgist shrank back. "Let the greatest filth from Hades' cesspool come bubbling up to heed your bleating and whimpering for help. He'll come too late! My sword needs yet one more component to complete its energy — the heart of the nether-pits' force. You!"

Gravestone turned and ran. The ravening dumalduns would screen him from the terrible blade, from the champion who bore it. Not long, but long enough for him to effect his escape.

Then the demonurgist saw the full effect of the use of the Talisman of Balance. Four of the ape-beasts were tearing at their dead mate where it lay atop the stunned troubador. Two were engaged in a cannibal feast upon the carcass of the dumaldun slain by Chert, as the remaining quartet of the horrible denizens of Tarterus alternately tore into the motionless druid and the felled barbarian, trying to decide which was better feasting. All of them were unaware of what was about to transpire, but Gravestone saw and knew too well.

"No help, no help." he wailed, clawing desperately in his dark robes for an instrument therein, a thing of power to rescue him.

A shape of pure light, a form of deep blue in which meteors of gold shot and played, stood near the scene. It was the ultimate guardian of the upper spheres, a solar. Gravestone needed but a single glance to know what it was and flee shrieking from it. Gord, however, was uncertain. Despite the rout of his foe and his desire to catch and slay the demonurgist, the young champion felt compelled to observe what the being was doing. Its work was fell indeed.

The glowing form of lapis hue sent forth jagged bolts from its hands. These crackling, ragged-edged arcs did not flash forth, then disappear into nothing but a burning after-image as would lightning. Each played forth with angry snapping to a distance of five paces — just about the height of the solar itself. Then, as if extensions of that bright being's arms, the arcing bands of energy stretched forth, their tips forking pincerlike, and each seized a dumaldun.

The sound of the beasts as they died was a terrible music to Gord's ears. The translucent being from the upper spheres, however, seemed totally unaffected by the hideous yammerings and bellows of the dumalduns as they melted into stinking jelly under the crackling force. Again the pincered bolts reached out, and again another pair of the evil monsters were slowly vaporized into fetid gas and jellylike slag that puddled and bubbled on the floor. These sounds also attracted the notice of the other beasts from the netherspheres.

Leaving their quarreling and feasting, the half-dozen remaining dumalduns sent up ear-splitting howls of anger and hatred as they espied the towering solar. Though small by comparison, the beasts of Tarterus were undaunted. Eight-foot mandrill and nine-foot gibbon snarled and sprang. A monstrous orangutan parody, as wide as its seven-foot height, bounded and gibbered as it charged. The others were no less fearsome in aspect; yet the being from the higher planes stood unperplexed.

Twin rays of molten gold sprang from where the solar's eyes would be, had the tall quasi-god had such. The scintillating beams struck the massive orangutanlike dumaldun, and the beast was transfixed. It took but an instant. The light died, the dumaldun stumbled and crashed down. Where the rays had touched the thing, there was no longer any substance; the orangutan had no chest or heart left. Still the survivors came on. Giant-sized tusks from a demoniac chimpanzee slashed and ripped at the lapis form of the solar. A dumaldun with the long and spindly appendages of a parody spiker monkey used its teeth and venomous claws to inflict its worst upon the being of glowing blue as the monkey-thing perched atop the gigantic head and shoulders of its foe. The five monstrous beasts swarmed upon the solar, and for a split-second Gord couldn't see it or speculate on the damage being done to the godling by the ferocious beasts from the foul sphere of Tarterus.

The solar spoke a bell-loud word, and the spidery dumaldun fell from its place atop the being, its iron bristles aflame, its bodily fluids boiling into steam. It exploded into stinking fragments when it struck the floor of Gravestone's space in no-place. The bolts of energy had vanished, but the solar used its own broad hands to seize another pair of the four remaining dumalduns. Each was held by the scruff of the neck.

The herculean arms came together then, and the beasts were smashed as if they were cymbals. The sound was by no means melodic or even ringing. Instead there was a disgusting thud, a wet squishing accompanied by snapping and breaking sounds and a spray of crimson and gray. Two limp forms flew up and over the massive being's shoulders. They didn't move after bouncing from their impact on the hard flags behind. Darker places of midnight hue showed plainly on the solar's form, mute testimony to the terrible weapons that the dumaldun employed. No mere fang and claw would so wound a being of this sort. The denizens of vile Tarterus used other malign energies as well, to inflict such hurts.

Without regard for such, and with singleness of purpose, the glowing solar drew a silvery rod from where a man's girdle would be. It was small-looking in the beings vast grip, but the instrument was potent nonetheless. Down it came, crystalline light flashed from it as it impacted upon a gibbonlike fiend, and the dumaldun thus struck howled and retreated, with weird, mercurial incandescence lighting its whole form. The sole remaining attacker left off its ferocious assault at that and tried to flee. The right arm of the solar struck again, and the result duplicated his first smiting. Both dumalduns glowed and yowled and capered. This time it was in agony and fear, not as wild lusting for blood and death. Because it was a creature of the higher spheres, the solar dealt quickly with the two. A quick snap of the wrist, a repetition, and the rod took each beast again, giving them a cleaner death than such fiends ever deserved.

Thank you. One of Weal!" Gord spoke out of true gratitude.

"Stay back!" The solar bellowed to the man who had taken a step toward it. "I read no malice in your heart, but you have no pure aura, either. Keep your distance, whatever you may be, and keep that weapon you hold away, too!"

"My friends and I serve Balance, fight the evil of Tharizdun. This brand is made potent by the very strength of Evil. Fear me or it not!"

"Fear? No solar ever fears, creature of convictionless spawning. It is the stench of the blade, your lack of righteousness, which repels me. Common foe or not, I will have no association with you!" The being of lapis light then moved as if readying to depart.

Gord was taken aback by the attitude the minion of Weal displayed. It felt no fellow-feeling, showed no common cause, disdained any proximity to him. No wonder that the vile ones who labored for Tharizdun's ascendancy were virtually unchecked by the might of the higher planes. Such beings as this would never accept others who were not of identical ethos and action.

"Have pity, Bright One," he called to the solar despite his welling indignation. There lie three heroes, brave men and true, felled in the fight against those who oppose you and all Weal, too. Show mercy and aid them!"

The solar paused. Tour heart is filled with repulsiveness, your head with sin, your hand with nether-force. Yet you dare to speak to me of benisons?" Yet even as the being spoke, it hesitated. "Very well. I see the need for some justice in the matter. You serve those both hot and cold, good and evil, the fence-striders and self-lovers. Choose one of the three, and I shall restore him to vitality. That, and the whereabouts of your demon-consorting adversary, will fully even the score between us."

"Even? Score? I speak of combating the very essence of all that is wicked, of driving that one's servants to their demise, of locking evil away forever!"

"Cold untruths, neutral creature. You seek not the end of all evil, the glory of Weal forever. What you work and strive to do is play the wicked against the righteous eternally, thus allowing your gray-tinged existences forever. You will have no such service from me! Name now the one you will have quickened, then follow the reek of corruption left as the slug you call Gravestone crawled away to seek safety."

There was no choice. "Gellor," he said, speaking the name slowly, carefully. The one-eyed troubador was the greatest and most powerful of the three.

Gord's heart was leaden in his breast as he said the name.

"It is as you would have it." the solar said in its deep and beautifully resonant voice. Then the lucid blue vanished.

"What happened?" It was the bard, coming to consciousness, struggling erect.

Gord had no time to explain. "You're fine, I think, old comrade, but Chert and Greenleaf are not! See if you can do something for them. I must continue the hunt for the demonurgist. Here, catch!" the young adventurer said, tossing a rune-worked pyramid to Gellor. The troubador took it from the air but looked uncertain. "It is enspelled and will take you from here. Use it if I do not return in a thousand heartbeats. Speak the name of the Demiurge as you open the thing."

Til not be in so great a hurry to flee, Gord. Right protect you and make your aim true," Gellor said. Then he went as quickly as he could to where the torn and bloody forms of his other friends were. "Hurry after the rotten bastard, Gord. Get him, and even if we three here die, it is a good exchange."

"I… I'm sorry, but I must leave you. Care for them, do what is possible." Without saying anything more for fear that his voice would break, Gord turned in the general direction in which the priest-wizard had gone and began to peer at the floor, sniffing as he did so. True to his utterance, the solar had used his power to reveal the path that Gravestone had taken.

Curiously, although the place appeared flat and featureless to his normal vision, the dweomer of the being from the higher spheres enabled Gord to see the place as its evil maker did.

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.