Dance of Demons

by Gary Gygax

  "Don't chivvy, Gellor," Gord had said with rebuke. "I am the one upon whom the greatest portion of the burden rests, and I am bound by duty and oath as firmly as you. There is sufficient space for us to mend mind and body both, for here the sand of the hourglass runs more slowly than old honey on a winter's night."

  In truth the place had seemed timeless. Leda had used her own powers to heal herself and her two companions, for all of them had been much battered and cut in the course of their conflicts in demonium. That process was finished quickly. Their recovery of inner strength and wholeness of spirit had taken longer, and perhaps some of that damage would never be properly repaired. The matter of Vuron was immediately in Leda's mind.

  It had been the albino who had created her from the deeply evil form of Eclavdra. Being twin and child both, Leda had needed nurturing, and it was Vuron who had done that. Demon or not, he had allowed Leda to become something other than a pliable imitation of Eclavdra. He had insisted she adhere to certain tenets, but at the same time allowed her freedom to form and hold other values, mores and ethical concepts, some as foreign to demonkind and evil as were love, kindness, and compassion.

  But despite her memories of Vuron's superficially kind treatment of her, she ultimately agreed with Gord. He had grasped the truth, that the albino's seeming care and uncharacteristic generosity were in reality of most malign root. Vuron wished only to advance his lord and master's cause, to push Graz'zt ever upward in greatness and follow close on the ebon demonking's heels as he went. Eclavdra was destructive in her association, always seeking her own ends, ready to betray any other to further herself. Leda, as influenced by exposure to the world and in particular her intimacy with Gord, was a far better instrument for Vuron's purposes. Leda would not be selfish and traitorous, and Vuron would always be there to remind the clone how she became a true person.

  "Yet he did often speak truth," Leda had said. "He protected me!"

  That could be explained easily, and Gord did so, pointing out that truth often served better than lies, that even demons could use it. Protection was likewise a matter of ensuring his own position, favor, and power too.

  In all, though, the nightmare of having to kill the one who had fostered her would always be somewhere deep inside. Even if it ceased haunting her soon enough, it remained buried still.

  Gord didn't speak of his own inner wounds. The dark power of the artifact ate away at him, and Courflamme was only a partial restorative in that regard, for the sword too bore malign as well as good energies within its bicolored length.

  There was the attraction that had flowed between him and the demon princess Elazalag. Why? He tried to rationalize this by her similarity to Leda in color and form, albeit she was far taller. Six fingers? Who could notice that? Completely evil? Of course, but the influence of the Theorparts urged continually the total adoption of that anyway. In any case, he had never seriously considered a liaison, let alone corulershlp of an Abyssal empire. Yet the fact that the ideas had even played briefly across his mind was sufficient burden to his spirit.

  The joys that filled him when the power flowed from the great relic, the exultation at slaying those enemies who dared oppose him, the leaping fires of triumph as foes fled and heads bowed. To command such force, receive homage and absolute obedience, to rule as lord over . . . what? And under whom? Under?? It was an insidious whispering always there at the back of his mind. "The great darkness has need of one who has proven able beyond all others, devil, daemon, mortal, and more. You need but accept one overlord, one master, and then as many as you wish will serve you. How many masters command you now? How many serve?"

  Always the probing continued. Sometimes it was less complicated, simple and direct. "You grow weary, tired. Use the power of us to place yourself beyond all care and caring," the whisper seemed to say. "Let go your burdens, find peace and rest, join those gone before and reunite with your mother, father. Is there purpose to life? Any life at all? Soon it will end anyway. Is there need to endure the interim? What few joys will be sacrificed, how many pains and troubles never known? Give up. Let it pass into nothingness. There is no need to deal with it all, and the unknown beyond might hold promise undreamed of. No one alone should carry so great a burden. . . ."

  "IT IS WHAT MAKES ME WHAT I AM!"

  Leda was startled at the sudden outburst. "What? I didn't hear what you said, my sweet," she stammered, for she too had been lost in a reverie.

  "Nothing. ... I said nothing which is of import, dearest little dreamer," he responded, seeing the faraway look slowly vanishing from her amethyst eyes. "Sometimes a man has to remind himself of why he is as he is."

  Partially comprehending the moment, Leda snuggled into his arms, saying, "And a woman, too, must reflect and consider. Now, man, neither you nor the woman you hold need do so."

  "How's that?"

  "Better things are at hand," she informed him, and placed his two hands in places that were not conducive to intellectualizing. "For you and me," Leda asserted, getting her own hold on Gord. "This is our last night in paradise. We must make it paradisaic."

  Gord did his utmost to comply ....

  * * *

  There was a great stone thrust up like a miniature cliff not far from the little house. It was of the stuff of stars, perhaps. Certainly, it was of material unakin to anything normal to mankind — perhaps it was from the heart of some long-dead sun somewhere in the multiverse. A small shard from its face, a piece that Leda could wrap her fingers around, was so weighty that it required all of her strength to lift.

  "What must the whole of this thing weigh? What could it rest on? Its mass should sink it as a lead weight in water, even were there granite below it!"

  "Leda, I have no idea of the foundations below this place, nor any inkling of the material which supports this massive boulder. It is one more of the mysteries of. . . here," Gord responded.

  "Hands should suffice," Gellor said laconically, going to the face of the stone outcropping. There was no visible outline, but as the bard watched, his friend stood beside him and placed his palms against the dense material. A small door appeared, swinging inward at Gord's touch.

  "I'll return in a moment," the young champion said, then ducked low and went into the little passage that led inside the rock inside there was a vault.

  It was a vault of the sort that might have been fashioned by primordial smiths of dwarvenkind. Thick slabs of metal, the sort that was called lodestone, formed a vast coffer with no handle, hinge or lock it too swung open at Gord's touch. Inside was a third strongbox and a fourth as well. The third was made of adamantite, its incredibly hard metal so smooth that it felt silken under his fingertips. Lastly was a long box of old silver, worked with glyphs of a sort no man had ever seen, and inlaid with sigils of orichaicum to ward against the force of the netherbeings. The whole was a repository of the Theorparts, of course. No other prize known would warrant such precautions.

  The place had been there when the three came into the pocket-sized paradise. Gord hadn't been told to expect it. He had known it was there immediately, however, and had borne the two portions of the artifact straight to it and encased them inside. Now, as he lifted out first one, then the other, a heavy dread filled his chest and made his heart labor. The two fused and the one alone were separate still, each wrapped round with golden cloth bearing more of the glyphs. Those wrappings had to be undone too, for Gord felt he had to leave them here. In the heart of the strange rock.

  With the single Theorpart in his left hand, the dual in his right, Gord emerged from the luminous darkness of the strange space. "I am ready to go on," he said without ceremony.

  "We do look most fierce and warlike," Leda said, trying to lighten the sudden despondency that seemed to rise to overwhelm them all. "It is a fine thing, Gellor, that you chose not to dally with some bit of fluff, else never would our panoply have been so sound again."

  Gellor actually smiled at that. He had reason to be proud, for the shadow armor give
n to them, their elfin mail, and Leda's plate mail of drow manufacture too, had suffered splitting and puncture. The great wonder-workers, the mages of Kaalvahlla, were said to have wrought many miracles with their magic kanteels. Gellor, being a troubador, knowing the lore of bards and the sagas of skalds too, had taken the damaged stuff and set to work with his ivory harp during Gord and Leda's long absences. It had taken a little while, but eventually he had succeeded.

  "Watch," he had said casually one evening. Then Gellor had taken up his kanteel and sung, playing an intricate melody as he vocalized. The links of elven smithcraft had fairly stood up and danced to that tune. They moved together, intertwined, knitted themselves into the life-protecting mesh that they had once before formed. "The dweomer worked into their metal is as whole as the mall," he had told his wondering audience when they had commented excitedly on his newfound skill. "That is the last portion not already mended. Tomorrow I shall attempt the greater complexity of Leda's black armor, and if I succeed there, the shadow plate should yield to my playing."

  Perhaps Gellor's prodding for the three of them to be going on was in part based on the completion of the final challenge. His singing and strains from the kanteel as accompaniment had brought the shadowstuff into wholeness on the evening prior to yesterday. Now each of them was again fully clad in armor of the stoutest stuff, metal and magical in combination.

  Gellor smiled at that, for he was justly proud. "Yes, just so," he agreed. "Fierce and warlike we are too."

  "Let's not stress that too much, my friends," Gord said. He had no desire to dampen the rising spirits of the two, but felt obliged to remind them of the grimness which lay ahead. "It is to Tharizdun's donjon prison that we now trek Perhaps this stuff will be of service on the journey, but when it is time to confront the foulest of the netherspheres we had better not trust our lives to even such armor as this. One who is able to bring oppression to the multiverse is beyond such protection as the best of armors affords."

  "Perhaps that is so," Leda said with a small voice.

  "We shall see!" Gellor said stoutly and with ringing fortitude.

  "Very well, then. The three heroes set forth to beard the greatest of devil-demons in his very den!" Gord shouted, picking up Gellor's mood.

  They linked arms with a ring of metal, for even shadow armor has a faint, plangent tone that it gives forth when struck by magical metals. Then Gord used the Theorparts another time, and the three seeking Tharizdun vanished ... or perhaps they stayed in place and the pastoral sphere vanished from around them; the effect was the same. A deep reverberation grew from the sound of their armored members striking, and that belling sound accompanied them hence.

  Chapter 15

  FROM THE FAINT ECHOES of a deep gong to the melodious pealing of carillons of golden bells. No, not Just golden ones — bronze and silver too lent their music to the symphony of sound. With the music came a million million bright suns and stars, and each moved in stately time to some ringing counterpart, an incredible fugue and dance. "We traverse the Celestial Sphere." Gord's thoughts were awed. Speech, even if possible, seemed somehow improper in a place such as this, and the others took his lead.

  "Glad I am that our quarry is not buried in the deepest layer of the netherrealms," the bard mused. "For never have I experienced such sights and sounds as these!"

  "Shooting stars!" Leda pointed to a veritable swarm of comets. They turned and came toward us. Gord .. .?"

  "I am uncertain of anything here, Leda. Perhaps they simply perform their prescribed measures — or possibly ..." Gord's thoughts trailed off as he saw other sparks grow into like things, comets on blazing tails that Joined the swarm and came flashing across the velvety blackness toward where they soared.

  Gellor was definite in his assessment. Those stars shoot to interpose themselves between us and our destination. Do we have the means to pass such a blockade, or must we make a hasty detour?"

  "They come so quickly, Gord. We must do something now, else the choice will not be ours to make," Leda noted. "What do we three puny mortals have to oppose such incandescent might?"

  Gord caused them to cease their movement through space. "We live and breathe in this airless and heatless sphere," he told his companions with assurance. "We move at will, and it is toward our final goal. I think that none can stop us, be it comet or otherwise." He watched the score or more of blazing things approach ever nearer. "Let's wait and see what force actually ventures out to greet us." The revelation of that was not long in coming.

  The comets shot near, the approach made more strange by the silence. No air existed in the place, of course, so there was no means for the noise of the things to be transmitted to the three heroes. "Why can't I hear them coming?" Leda asked. Gellor supplied the answer to that. "But we converse readily enough."

  "By thought alone," Gord said. "It is by telepathy we speak."

  Before there was time for further exchange, the fiery objects suddenly ceased their onrush and in a twinkling were transformed into something else. "Devas?" Gellor thought to his friends, the uncertainty clear.

  "No, Man" The stern reply came from a shining titan who stood before the three in the nothingness of celestial vacuum. "We are the guardians of light. "Give us the Theorparts!"

  All of the things that had approached in the form of shooting stars were now revealed. The three titanic beings could only be solars, the greatest of the servants of the empyreal planes. With each of these were four of planetary sort, and serving each planetar were seven various sorts of lesser devas. Each and every one of the beings was arrayed for battle, with armor so bright that it seared the eye to look upon it, and with a multitude of weapons ranging from bows of pure light to golden-hued swords.

  "I think not," Gord replied calmly. "The relics which we bear are ours by right. You may not interfere."

  "Right? Evil has no right! The very use of the term is a perversion!" the glowing being thundered.

  "yield the key immediately, or judgment will be harsh and swift."

  The devas now formed a shining crescent before the three, and Leda and Gellor moved slightly so as to watch Gord's flanks. It seemed that the warrior-beings were about to attack. What could withstand these beings if they did loose their shafts of pure energy and attack with such resplendent arms? The mightiest of demons would quail before a single stellar deva, and here were sufficient numbers of the warriors of the empyreal realms to conquer the hells!

  The fear was evident as it sprang into his comrade's minds. "Do not let the words of the solar being affect you so," Gord told them with confidence. "Remember the demon hordes we faced and defeated so short a time before. These guardians are not so potent." So staling, the young champion addressed the titanic deva who had demanded the key to Tharizdun's imprisonment.

  "Your zeal is misplaced, deva. We are not allies of the netherspheres. I am known as Gord. I am the foretold champion who must oppose the caged evil. These two with me, the man Gellor and the woman Leda, are likewise sworn opponents of the dark Tharizdun." Gord then awaited the being's apology and perhaps assistance, for his explanation was clear, concise, and truthful. He was disappointed.

  "All who are not of like mind are adversarial to me," bellowed a solar whose radiant hue was of golden topaz, from his position to the left of the three wayfarers.

  From opposite that being, one of pearly glow boomed, "No writ not of our making is valid, mortal Give over the Theorparts!"

  The solar whose brightness shown as sapphire and who stood squarely before Gord also objected. "You serve only Evil in what you do! You may not pass!"

  "You cannot bar our path," Gord said without heat. "You prate of 'right' and 'Evil' and suggest that only the ethos you pronounce is noble. Where were you and your fellows when we fought and bested daemons and the lords of the Abyss? Now, because of your narrow concepts, you demand what is not yours to ask Should I choose to give over the key — and I do not — then you would but postpone the inevitable. Then there would be none
left to oppose Tharizdun. One champion alone is prophesied to stand before Evil when it arises in all its strength. I have shouldered my burden, accepted the responsibility, and will continue to do so. I exist to oppose the Darkest One, and until he is risen, I am unfulfilled in purpose!"

  Pausing, Gord swept his arm to include the whole of the assembled beings of Light "You might be truly good and Just, you devas, but not one of you, not you all together, can successfully confront and defeat Tharizdun. I am unsure whether even I have any chance of winning, in truth, but it is written that I am the one who might do so. I must, then, retain the key and free the great Evil now. It is foreordained."

  "We of light forged the prison, wove the barries, laid the slumber upon the ultimate woe," the central of the three solar devas proclaimed.

  "It is so," intoned the others as if speaking to themselves.

  "The three parts of the key were also made in the Celestial Realms," the titan thundered. "The Theorparts are ours by right!"

  "Not if I choose to retain them. I do so. The multiverse demanded a balance when you chained Tharizdun, and the key's portions were sown for any to discover, as was decreed. Now I have all three. We will pass."

  At those words the Guardians of Light drew back to a greater distance, and the solars and planetary devas conferred as the lesser ones looked on. "YOU gainsay our demand?" queried the one of amber radiance.

  Gord nudged Gellor. "We do," the troubador responded firmly.

  "You defy the requirement of Good?" the pearlescent titan asked, righteous indignation plain in his great voice.

  "We define 'Good' differently, and do reject your words," Leda affirmed without prompting from Gord.

  Perhaps she had read deep in his subconscious.

  "The unending enmtiy of the realms of light — such prospect dissuades you not from the folly of resistance?" This stentorian-voiced question rolled from the azure-hued solar who had first confronted the three. "It is all the cosmos which must suffer your evil!"