by Gary Gygax
"Hew harr mine!" the cobra-headed thing had hissed as the khopesh tore Gellor's sword from his grip and sent it tumbling away.
"Only if you can fight better than you talk" the troubador had rejoined, pulling free his dagger as he did so and taking a defensive stance. The demon was the last facing him, and Gellor silently thanked all the deities who assisted fools as he crouched before the unwavering stare of Apepi. Poison spittle and fangs as well as sword threatened him. The dag he held was useless except to parry attacks, and even that had to be done with utmost care, or the massive weight of the khopesh would snap the weapon or toss it away. Gellor tried to move crabwlse toward where his sword lay.
"Phaat!" Apepi expelled a gob of venom between the one-eyed baid and his weapon. "No, maan. Thaat whill sspoll my enjoymenss," the cobra mouth articulated in its hissing, clumsy parody of speech.
The predicament his comrade faced was evident to Gord. The young champion had laid about him with the twin relics as the wave of enraged demonlords had swept upon him. As if acting of their own volition, the melded Theorparts had shifted form. First as a massive bardiche they had gone, cutting and hewing away the whole front rank of the attackers. Back the thing had come, now a many-spiked morning star from whose iron head shot daggers of crackling energy. Then it was a staff Gord clutched, and out of that black length had poured forth a stream of even blacker lances of force that pierced many a demonlord and ended all existence then and there. After that initial onslaught, Gord had been forced to fight a series of indIvidual combats against the few great demons who still remained. Then the last one's will had broken, and Gord was at last able to come to Gellor's aid.
"Whaat?" the snake-headed Apepi hissed angrily as Gord interposed himself. "No fairnesss in thisss fight?"
"Of course," Gord almost laughed in reply as he snapped his wrist. The length of the two Theorparts, now a steely whip, wrapped around the heavy khopesh. "I fairly despise you, and I fairly finish it so!" He tugged, and the hook-topped sword flew from the demon prince's grasp. "Now you may pick it up and fight again with my comrade, who is now getting his own weapon — or you can run!"
Both men laughed as the cobra-demon fled from the field by means of its own inner powers, a force that recalled the demon safely to his own stronghold elsewhere in the Abyss. "And now?" asked the troubador, surveying the littered field.
"We get Leda and the Unbinder, and be away from this pestilential place," Gord said.
"A plan worthy of Balance's finest, Gord," Gellor agreed. "Yonder Graz'zt is attempting to rally the disheartened horde he marshalled here, and his consort is urging compliance with the Eye of Deception."
"There could be more slaughter, but that would avail us nothing. Our goal is Tharizdun, and that goal is at hand."
The statement sobered Gellor. "Yes. … I had almost forgotten that Let's get on with it, then."
The two tired men moved quickly despite their fatigue. "Good work Leda! I see you have managed your share of the enemy, too," Gellor said to the silent girl.
"Never mind that." Gord reprimanded, seeing that Leda was in near shock from what she had had to do. He took the sword gently, sheathing it, then placed his arm around her protectively, as a father might comfort a child. "It has been hard, I know, dearest one. You must pull yourself together now, for unless we leave here immediately there will be yet more and ghastlier fighting to manage."
"He. . he. . Vuron! It was if I had to slay my own father!"
Gord steered her to a little distance away, a place where he could use the powers of the Theorparts to shift them from the nethersphere of demons to another, even worse, place. Time later to tell Leda that the albino had brought her into existence from Eclavdra for his own evil purposes. Not even one as strong as Leda could deal with so much now. "Gellor, seize Unbinder and bring it along."
"What of me?" a slow voice spoke. "Will you tarry to see if your newfound might can deal with me?"
"No," Gord said without bothering to look "You, Lord Entropy, have no part in my current plans. Seep off to where you belong." The entity was gone when the three departed the Abyss a moment later.
Chapter 14
They laughed like little children when the vast, dark cloud that had come so suddenly deluged all beneath it with large raindrops that fell as thick as the soft grass beneath their feet. Giggling and dancing, as naked and innocent as two babes, they ran for the shelter of a broad, leafy bower formed naturally by the palms nearby. Yet no sooner had they gained the protection than the pelting ram became no more than a silvery shower, for the moving mountain of cumulus sailed onward. Then warm, golden sun streamed down.
The land is spread with a million diamonds," he said.
"And there! See the rainbow? Does it have a pot of gold at its end?"
Gord took her hand and started outward. "Of course it does! Shall we go and get it?"
"No, who needs gold? We have each other and this beautiful place."
"It isn't as lovely as you. Leda, and no golden treasure can compare to the wonders of this place." he agreed.
It was so. As the sunshine warmed the land after the little storm, a hundred bright butterflies came out to seek nectar. They soared on iridescent wings above the flower-strewn meadows as if competing for attention with the brilliant blooms. The flowers, though, seemed unaware, or perhaps merely selfassured. Their myriad hues were more akin to the pastel bands of the rainbow's arch above than the vIvid colors that the butterflies despoiled, and they overspread the land in banks and petaled clusters, punctuating the green of bent grasses and thick-trunked trees with pastel beauty.
"Vixen!" The exclamation came from Gord as Leda suddenly reached up and shook a fresh shower of drops from the bough he stood beneath. "I'll make you pay for that!"
Leda laughed merrily and ran off into the meadow, her little feet leaving a clear track where crystalline droplets were disturbed from the blades on which they perched. "You're too fat and slow!" she called, seeing that Gord was well behind her.
Without bothering to reply to the taunt, Gord sped across the sward, heady from the perfume of the thousand flowers around them and the chase too. He was neither fat nor slow. The slender dark elf was quick and athletic, but Leda was no match for Gord in a foot race. He caught her just as she came to the edge of a deep pool fringed by mosses and ferns and ringed by a dozen old trees. "Ha!" he exclaimed, catching her up from behind and raising her stillrunning feet above the sward. "Caught you rather easily for a fat old slowpoke!"
She tried to twist free, and her gyrations made them both tumble into the soft bed of vegetation there. "Oh! Now see what- " she started to admonish, thinking more of crushed ferns than any harm to the two of them.
Gord cut her short by gently turning her head and kissing her. Leda had no objection. She returned the tenderness, and soon the kiss became a long and involved caress. "Ah, my love, this is what I have so long dreamed of," he murmured as they paused in their lovemaking.
"Then dream no longer, dear one," Leda said, and resumed the embrace so that passion soon rose in both of them.
Pale and dark so intertwined and played that an observer, had there been one, could scarcely have told where one left off and the other began. There in the dimness of the grove, beside the clear water, in air redolent with sweet herbs and fragrant blossoms, Gord and Leda made love to each other for a tenth time, and it seemed as if it were the first since coming to this idyllic place. The air was warm, so that afterward they could lay back on the cushion of mossy stuff and ferns beneath them, allowing the little breezes to cool the heat that had swept their bodies. And as they lay there thus, they looked up at the tracery of deep green leaves against the pale azure of the sky and heard the whisper of wind and plash of water as a lullaby gently played for them alone. The peace of love stole upon both, and lying thus Gord and Leda fell asleep, his hand holding hers while little birds warbled somewhere nearby and insects sang a noontide drowse.
Gord awoke first. How long he had slum
bered he neither knew nor cared. He didn't move or awaken Leda, content to lie still and gaze at her nude body in repose. Leda was small, perfectly proportioned, her skin as dark as the shadows beneath the ferns, hair as bright as water under the sun. Her full breasts were tipped by lavender carmine, as were her lips, although the shade where they lay made dim the distinction between the glossy jet of her skin and those more brilliant highlights. Gord knew, though, the exact differences, for they were indelibly impressed on his mind, from the scrutiny under bright sunlight and pale moonlight too. All of her he had drunk in with his eyes as thirstily as a parched wayfarer coming upon a desert oasis, always and continuously over the brief time they had been in the place.
Her gold-flecked lilac eyes suddenly opened. "Stop staring at me so!" Leda chided. "You make me feel naked!"
"You are," Gord laughed, running his hand along her breast and belly to emphasize the point.
"No. You know what I mean!" she said crossly, but with a hint of both happiness at the attention he was paying her and satisfaction that he was thus captivated. Leda removed his hand gently, sat up, and then stood. "Come on, lazybones! The pool beckons," she cried. With a happy shout she launched herself into the air, entering the water in a shallow dive that hardly sent a ripple across the smooth surface of the pool.
As soon as her head broke from the water, Gord leaped up so as to come into the pool from high above. Leda didn't see him, so when Gord's body, curled into a ball and plummeting, came down with a terrific splash, the wave washed all over her. Down he sank into the depths, so that the light above was dim, and the waving water plants at the bottom of the deep basin caressed his body. Gord stayed there a dozen feet beneath the surface. He saw small snails at work, silvery little fish hiding from the intruder suddenly precipitated into their domain, crawfish scuttling into better cover, bivalves closed shut by the shock of his coming. A minute, then two passed thus. Gord saw Leda's form far above. She was peering down, trying to see where he was, what was happening. At Just the point he thought Leda could contain herself no longer, he gathered his legs under him, pressing his feet against the pebbly bottom of the pond. Leda dived down to find him, and Gord shot upward to meet her. His force carried them both high above the surface, Leda held fast in his arms.
"You silly lout!" she managed to sputter as they crashed back down into the water and emerged bobbing. "I thought you'd struck your head or something. Don't ever play such a prank again," she admonished, then kissed him.
When twilight was drawing its purples across the vale, and the brilliant bands of the sunset were likewise fading into deep mauves, Gord and Leda walked hand in hand across the darkening meadow to where a warm golden glow showed beyond. "About time you two returned," Gellor admonished as a parent might scold children. "Put on something more than that, too. The night is chilly, and silk scraps are no substitute for decent garments of thick linen." They were in a cottage, a place whose walls were of woven leaves and whose roof was similarly thatched. It was lighted by little oil lamps, warmed by a fire of crackling logs when the night actually grew cool and required such. There were chairs and table of bamboolike stuff too, and plaited beds when sleep called.
"And what did you do today, my friend?" Gord asked cheerily, ignoring the frown on the troubador's face.
"Went fishing, as usual. Cleaned and cooked the catch for a pair of indolent lovebirds too, just as I did yesterday!"
"I think he grows bored with this," Gord laughed.
"Oh, Gellor, no! It's so beautiful here that I want to stay just so forever," Leda said sincerely.
That made him harrumph. "Well, be that as it may, I have no little companion with whom to while away the time as you do with such zest. Naturally I chafe and grow weary of this indolence."
"Can't you manage to do something, Gord?" Leda was serious, almost pleading. "You said that this place was one which exists only because we needed it. Gellor needs a woman now. Do find one for him!"
"Am I a procurer, then?" the young champion asked with mock indignation. "Next I will be called upon to furnish a troupe of minstrels and actors to provide a merry evening's entertainment, then perhaps a whole palace and harem!"
"Could you actually?"
Gellor didn't give Gord a chance to answer Leda. "Never mind that — any of it. I declined Gord's offer of a companion when first we entered this little paradise. Someone had to remain alert and cognizant of our mission."
"Time is of no meaning here," Leda rejoined. "The days we have tarried in this place are but seconds by Oerth's reckoning."
"Well. ." Gord put in with some hesitance. "At first that was so, my sweet one. Now, however, as we become more and more attuned to the sphere, time does become more real. .
"Say the whole of it," Gellor demanded.
"Our presence here," Gord admitted, "lends this place ever-growing reality. With that comes the true tick of time."
"And.. ?" Gellor prompted.
"Each day now closes upon the same span elsewhere, Leda. Soon it will be day for day."
Gellor wasn't completely satisfied. "He means that the two weeks of subjective time we have thus far experienced now total three actual days elsewhere — on Oerth, for instance, or in the nether realms."
"Do something about it, Gord," Leda urged, a worried expression plain. "You made this place — change its clock so as not to go so fast!"
"Wait! I am neither deity nor adept theurge, love of mine! This island sanctuary was made for us — you, Gellor, me — by. . allies. What our comrade says is all too true. Soon now we must gird ourselves again and face the final enemy."
"I'm not ready!" Leda said, stamping her small foot.
"You never did say — " Gellor started at the same time, then ceased speaking to allow Leda to finish. She blushed and turned away, not wanting to display more of her emotion, for it was both selfish and totally out of the question. She knew their responsibilities as well as the others did.
Gord simply looked at them. The bard resumed his query, allowing Leda to compose herself. "Who did spin this paradise, anyway?"
"A presence always at our elbow," Gord answered enigmatically with a measured voice. "I mean no slight, but I am pledged not to say more. Perhaps it is the shade of Basiliv the Demiurge who wrought this haven for us as his final act. …"
"Riddles now?"
"Enough!" Gord made it clear the questioning was at an end. "Come, let's dine. Today was an active one, and I am famished!"
"Now that you say that," the pretty elven girl said with a sweet smile in Gellor's direction, "so am I. Will you serve? Or should I?"
Gellor scowled and stumped over to a chair where he sat heavily with crossed arms and stared at his two friends.
"He prepared this fine supper, so I believe we two should serve him," Gord said to Leda, trying to keep a straight face.
Leda giggled as she started to assemble the meal, and then Gord's laughter burst forth in peals. "Stop that now, dear Gord," Leda managed to command between suppressed chuckles and melodic little trills of laughter. "We mustn't be insensitive to Gellor's plight. Help me now, and after supper the three of us will discuss our leave-taking."
That night Leda, her curiosity unsatisfied, tried again to cajole Gord into telling her Just who or what had provided the sanctuary that gave them their current respite. When the three had used a magic portal to leave the desolation of the Abyss, she had supposed they would be on their way to some similarly hellish place to confront the slumbering evil of Tharizdun. Instead, they flashed from plane to plane, going through the sphere of the aether, then into astrality, up into the radiance of creative energy — and then, suddenly, onto the firm and beautiful reality of this place. "Where are we?" she had asked in wonder on seeing it. "Why came we by so circuitous a route?" the troubador had queried simultaneously.
"This haven is ours for a while, Leda my own," he had replied. "We came thus, old comrade, in order to make sure that Lord Entropy was not dogging our steps."
"Ho
w did you know about such a place?"
"I asked for it." Gord had so answered her question.
"Is it proof against intrusion? Will the entity be able to find us?"
Gord had been very certain then. "None will be able to disturb us, for the time we will spend here — not even the dreaded weight of Entropy is sufficient to break through into this realm."
So the three had welcomed the glorious garden place and tarried for long days and nights. Gellor had been asked by his young friend if there was one he would share the idyll with, but the bard had shaken his head. "I have no true love now, and no one I would care for, would become close to and want to share with. Not at this time, not with what looms before us all too soon."
Leda had quickly changed the subject, hating the reminder of duty and impending doom. Yet Gellor had pressed. "There is but a scant period available for such holiday as this. How long may this place serve?"
"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.