Come Endless Darkness (26 page)

The twisted, distorted helix that was depicted as the playing field of the game was the work of Gravestone. The convoluted layers writhed out and back, and each stratum was filled with the stuff of Nerull — death! For a brief span the daemon lord watched the tableau. The clear emerald of the sole champion, the resister of Evil's coming domination, was pulsing, moving, but struggling from one tier to the next.

"A fly in the webbed tunnel," Infestix-Nerull said gleefully, the sound of his mirth like rusted metal scraping on rough slate. A force of the green-hued pieces moved on the strangely colored spaces of the extradimensional board built by the priest-wizard who so faithfully served the cause, but the way grew ever more perilous, each move more fell; and upward, ever upward, the serpentine helix writhed. Those four men were gone from the main field and entrapped in a mazed board that would isolate them for... how long?

Too long!" The daemon's gaze slid upward to where the misshapen squares terminated in an infundibular form. There another pair of the green pieces stood. "What is this?" Nerull was surprised; concern tinged the iron of his voice as he muttered the exclamation aloud in the empty chamber.

The conformation depicting the enemy men relayed what force they had. Minor pieces, but strong ones. Perhaps one could be likened to the promoted bishoplike piece, a mixture of the conventional moves of bishop and king. The other showed power of a shorter range but good strength in the area immediately around it; a great mage and a high priest.

Infestix-Nerull saw his own chief piece on the field of the material plane. Gravestone. He was larger, stronger, than the two attackers who had attained the funnel's disclike rim. In fact, there in his own place, the nowhere he had constructed as fortress and refuge, power base and armory, Gravestone was nearly godlike in strength. "But why?" Again the words sprang unbidden from the lipless mouth of the daemon. "Are those black wings? Shadows? Or something else... ?"

He was pondering that, and also thinking how fortunate for his lieutenant that the little force of green antagonists had been split into two parts, when the images of the many-layered board wavered and began to fade. "No!" Infestix-Nerull boomed the command, and as he so shouted he bent his entire will upon the vision, demanding it to solidify, become sharper, grow. Pale fog of pea green color was obscuring the scene. The phantasmal vapors shot upward from the ground that was Oerth and rose through the unnaturally formed planes above.

"Slow, too slow," the daemon-master said with hard satisfaction. "I will see more before you manage to cloud the scrying, Basiliv!" The smoke roiled and darkened. The intensity of its hue tried to shoot upward, but the convoluted parody of creation disallowed such speed. Laughing foully, knowing that his hated antagonist would hear, the daemon again stared upward to the place where Gravestone was about to combat the two minions of the Balance.

The vivid vert of the mage and priest were barely discernible through a growing gloom. "Black? Black?! What demon scum dares to interfere with Me?" Infestix-Nerull bellowed so loudly as to make the whole room shudder and shake. Nothing was heard outside, of course, but the very stuff of the bronze-bound planks closing off the chamber danced from the force of the daemon's wild outcry, and the Diseased Ones beyond huddled within themselves in fear.

No answer was forthcoming, however, and try as he might Nerull was quite unable to discover some intruding mental force indicating the interference of Orcus, Graz'zt, or any other of the mightiest of demonkind. "Plagues smite you!" he thundered, and scythed the old-blood blur of metal through the vision. Black smoke and verdant fog alike vanished. Filled with rage, the ruler of the netherworld stalked out of his chamber, scattering the lesser daemons before him as wind whips dead, dry leaves in autumn. Now it was time to intervene directly. For the second time Nerull would go forth to find and lay low the puny champion of Balance. He would not be foiled twice.

* * *

Of all the powers who adhered to the middle course, among all those who strove for neutrality and balance between the dichotomous forces of the multiverse, Basiliv, Demiurge and dweller on old Oerth, was perhaps the single most powerful. Yet even that might was of limited sort. It extended to the material, reached forth into the elements, and touched those other spheres that in turn touched the material.

Basiliv was an earth giant, as it were. With his feet upon Oerth, he was formidable if not omnipotent when opposing any similar force. When allied to and aligned with the other great ones of like ethos, only the evil strength of the triune relic of Tharizdun could stay Basiliv's hand. Would that hand have been reached forth at this time, the struggling hordes of evil, men and mock men and monsters, too, would have been hurled back into the dark realms whence they had marched. With but another single blow, the Demiurge and his allies would have extinguished all lesser evils, leaving demonkin and devils' own and nether-server alone and trembling in their exposure and vulnerability.

But no such attack had ever come In the past. To cripple and destroy the dark would be to misalign Balance forever. When Tharizdun first arose, the Demiurge had pondered the issue. He concluded that Order, Chaos, and Wealsome deities too would serve to disarm the threat of the totality of malign rule. He and the disparate ones of neutral bent assisted, but they did so sparingly and with a cautious eye toward the time after the Great Evil's binding. Now Basiliv dared not reach forth to strike at the swarms that wrought such havoc in the kingdoms of the world, for all of his attention was needed elsewhere.... "Did I err?"

"Pardon, Lord Basiliv, I didn't hear the question," Mordenkainen said.

The old archwizard was there, serving as a conduit connecting Basiliv to other groups of Balance — Hierophants, the minor lords of planar sort and of specificities, the quasi-godlings. In short, all the might of the alliance save the One of Entropy. Mordenkainen, deep in concentration, had sensed the question Basiliv had asked of himself, but had not heard the words. "I am sorry, old contestant," he murmured to the archwizard. "I was merely mumbling to myself. Excuse me, and return to your work." "You're growing older than I," Mordenkainen cackled, one bushy eyebrow raised in mock alarm. Then he shrugged and returned to his task. "Dealing with that deranged dabbler Gigantos is hard enough without having to put up with you, too," he snapped, recalling the times he had opposed the Demiurge for one reason or another because of what Basiliv had called him. "Mad Archimage, bah!
You
are as scattered as Gigantos ever was, and
I
have better claim to the crown of— "

"Enough, please, Arch wizard, enough. We must strive together now, or else..." Basiliv let his sentence trail off. Mordenkainen took the point and said nothing further, expending his full attention on the linkage once again. His attendant mages, led by the portly Bigby, joined again in the circle. All was quiet.

With a final glance at the spell-binder, Basiliv thought, I am as much older as he as the world itself, and yet I wish it otherwise. Then the Demiurge turned away from Mordenkainen and the eight mages with him and focused his power. It was his duty to observe the progress of Gord and his comrades, to communicate what he learned to the others, and to help — if he could.

Information floated into his consciousness and out. Thoughts sent from Shadowking regarding the state of the warfare in the netherspheres, intelligence on the movements of devil-legions, the escalation by inclusion of yet another great malign artifact. Important! The thought stayed and was filed for ready access. The triple keys of our undoing are in close proximity to one another, but still each contests against its counterparts!

The Demiurge saw at the same time the stalemate that locked good and evil in long lines across the whole of the Flanaess, which sent riot, rebellion, and red war spreading in waves over the whole Oerth, but whose waves smashed against each other in a moll of uncertainty. It would culminate in death and destruction without victory to either side.

Another portion of his mind received facts pertaining to the higher spheres. Embroiled in bickering, factious, the beings of Good argued relative worth and precedence, fought for disciples, and were of scant assistance against the looming threat of evil.

That is not by mere chance, Basiliv noted. The great tripartite force which they wrought to bind Tharizdun now rebounds upon its creators. Perhaps a few devas, possibly a planetar. Just enough to check the hells, the undead and maelvis of Acheron. Enough, barely, but enough nonetheless. Dreggals and Hades were now interlocked in the demon-war. There was balance... Balance.

Not all of Oerth was festering under conflict. The Cabal hedged its places on and near the material world. The Bladelord evened things in favor of the less rapacious. Rexfelis maintained his own place untainted and reinforced his allies at strategic points. Even with Mordenkainen gone, the others of the Obsidian Citadel were strong enough to hold fast. Soon they would join with the elves of Highfolk and the freefolk of Vesve to drive off the invading scum sent by Iuz. Precarious, teetering on all the manifold fronts, but the scale was steadying at the midpoint again. Good, but... something bothered the Demiurge. Another corner of his mind nagged. Let it nag for now. He had to center all of his force on Gord.

Basiliv's view alternated between the actual and the representational. There were the six, champion and attendant heroes, leaving the secluded inn and heading into the district of Greyhawk where Gord's first and most personal foe laired. Determination, cold anger, purpose radiated from Gord in particular. That was so strong, in fact, that it came through the network of supernatural energy with which he was charged.

Then the depiction was of a board. The six moved as a unit, entering the space of the enemy. There was a veil of plum-colored mist surrounding the square, but the Demiurge had no difficulty penetrating the screen. His dweomered sight pierced the obscuring cloud of power and saw the multi-piece contest with lilac-hued opponents. Immediately before was a minor piece, and a pawn suddenly entered the area too. No, wait. There was also a greater figure, but it fled at the coming of the six, abandoned its position before the attack.

With barely a thought, the Demiurge's sight widened and deepened. He discerned a trail of angry purple, a weaving of dark powers left as one of the enemy fled. There! A sick and perverted ladderway in the noplace of extradimensional existence. Only one such as the priest-mage called Gravestone could construct such a place. The purple pathway led to the foundation of the twisted tiers, then deepened.

I will see the reality, Basiliv thought firmly. Again his vision shifted, and he saw the wizard Sigildark and the netherfiend Krung. They fought with malign fury and died before the mental gaze of the Demiurge. The six were well, unharmed. Most of their energy quite untapped. The sword! Basiliv thought hastily. Its aura is black, yet there is a veining of verdigris wound through its fabric.

He was shocked at the terrible power of the weapon Gord possessed. He had formerly received no hint of the sword's potential. None save Vuron the demon lord could have alloyed such malign prowess into the magical metal of the weapon, but even that great demon was quite helpless compared to the force of the blade. Was it our gifting? Basiliv asked himself. Entropy? Gord's own inner forces? None of those possibilities fit. Another unknown, another nagging question. Later.... For now, all that mattered was that it served Balance.

His view of things Jumped back to the representational. The six had divided into two groups. Allton and Timmil were bypassing the mazetrap. This was occurring even as Krung was expunged and Sigildark sent gibbering away to his fate in the pits. Why? How could those two be so foolish?! In their desire to confront their evil foe, both the mage and high priest had separated from their acknowledged leader, the champion of their very cause, to strike Gravestone immediately. The rashness was unbelievable, especially considering that the priest-wizard undoubtedly had both reinforcements and a bolt-hole. Perhaps the two thought they could prevent Gravestone from summoning the dire beings who were undoubtedly at his beck in the lower planes: cleric to ward off the rising evil, spell-worker to hold fast the adversary and prevent his flight. With Greenleaf, Chert, Gellor, and Gord coming immediately behind, such tactics would be superior.

The projections that were the chessmen of the envisioned board moved. A dual-piece of intermediate value confronted a towering figure of pulsing violet hue. The purple was more potent, but to strike would expose it to the duality of the other. Standoff... for a time. What of the others?

He was part of a weird, four-sided construct. It was a piece of unguessable force, but it moved only slowly. One square at a time it wound its way laboriously up the hideous squares of the distorted helix, the ladder of spaces that eventually culminated in the place where the devoted wizard and priest held off the evil priest-wizard. There was another, far easier route for the four-fronted chessman to follow, only its power of movement was inadequate to follow the simple, untrapped checker of upward-soaring cubes. Instead it moved and fought along the hundred steps of the deadly helix. Basiliv watched in horrified fascination as the Gord-Chert-Gellor-Curley Greenleaf figure went on, space after space, slowly, fighting the form or foe at each step, moving haltingly toward the lair-board so far above.

Wrenching himself from the spectacle, the Demiurge concentrated on the ultimate goal that Gord struggled toward. Gravestone's image appeared, seen as from a bird's-eye view of a bowshot above. He stood at the apex of a triangle formed by himself and his antagonists, Timmil on the right with a potent staff held ready, Allton at the other corner, likewise armed. The two who held Gravestone at bay had so many protections and tokens of power that even the great evil one was uneasy, it seemed. He neither struck at one or the other, only stood still and slowly moved a long wand, or a slender rod, first left, then right, and back again.