Dance of Demons (19 page)

"Yes, that's so," Iggwilv agreed. "The bandy-legged moron is with Graz'zt, and there's nothing to be gained on his tier."

"The same is true for that place," Zuggtmoy simpered, pointing to another of the glimmerings cast by the scrying of the eldest of witches. "We saw what occurred when the three trooped into iyondagur and bribed that poxed doxy, Elazalag, with the Eye of Deception."

"That was a fortunate event," Iuz said heartily. "Now she will be worrying Graz'zt from behind as we march to finish that big pile of excrement gone sweet."

"Hmmm . . ." the witch ruminated, not quite so positive about that result. "What if they were with the Abat-dolor still?"

"We know that they penetrated the fringe of Mezzafgraduun," Zuggtmoy said with certainty. "Then the rede was confused, and three images show. If they are still with Elazalag, then it bodes even worse for Graz'zt, for it can mean only that the three aim to attack with the wild clans of the black demonlings at their back That isn't reasonable, though. . . .The glow from the depths," the queen of fungoid demons went on, indicating the strange light near the very lowest places of the portrayal of the Abyss. "That's where the trio lurks. There are things there that even I would hesitate rousing. The Theorpart gives them the ability to command, and with a pack of great brutes to act as soldiery, the one who is champion might actually be able to overcome Graz'zt's horde . ."

"Our own, too?" Iuz said with unbelieving tone.

"Never mind." Iggwilv spat. "He'll not have time. You must be correct, my dearest Queen," the witch said with a fale smile in Zuggtmoy's direction. "We'll have that Theorpart which Graz'zt thinks his own by the time anything can be mustered and brought from the depths."

"I will personally stand in the center of the hordes," Iuz said in an imperious tone. "There will be no bamboozling of me as Graz'zt has managed with the ape-heads. Iuz will pin him to one spot, hold the dolt fast, while you and the others crush his weakling allies and slaughter his second-rate dreck"

"Very brave," Zuggtmoy said dryly.

"A commendable plan," Iggwilv agreed. "I will be right behind you, dear Son." She didn't care to risk herself in a position directly confronting Graz'zt. There was always a chance of backlash or failure. She would merely hover nearby to pick up anything that fell if Iuz failed.

Zuggtmoy saw the plan in much the same way. "My cousin, Szhublox, will command my forces," she announced. "With Orcus and all the other great ones there to contest with the pitiful few lords which Graz'zt will have in his horde, there is no need for me to fight there. I will staunchly assist you, dear Wilva,in standing by Iuz during the course of his victory."

* * *

Later, out on the field where they were drawn up for attack all of the great ones of the Abyss joined to overthrow Graz'zt saw Iuz and the two behind him as he took the central position. Each of the demon lords there hated the cambion, cast covetous glances at the Theorpart he bore, but none, not even the demonking Orcus, denied him the place. Orcus had made a pact with Iggwilv regarding the Theorparts their alliance would hold soon. On the other hand, Areex had dealings with Zuggtmoy, while Baphomet was again treating by secret message with the ebon demonking.

In truth, most of the various powerful nobles of the Abyss had one or more treacherous plots and alliances ready in case things went wrong ... or right. To suggest that double-dealing was rife is to point toward manure as an attraction to flies. Yet despite all that, the throng of demonlords and their soldier demons by the tens of thousands were there ready and eager for the battle.

"He is actually moving to engage us?" Iuz said incredulously.

That is because he has much stiffening," Iggwilv said, muttering a terrible curse immediately thereafter as she beheld Graz'zt's moving army rolling toward them. "See the sow beside him? Elazalag!" (The disgust in the word made it filthy). "Fortunately for you, dear boy, I brought my own little weapon with me," she added, drawing forth a thick crooked wand.

The Baton d'Agrue!" the cambion exclaimed. "You said it was lost!"

"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.