Graz'zt took a step back, and his hand grasped the icy metal of Unbinder desperately. 'No, my liege!' Vuron shouted. 'Look!'
The strange movements Vuron had completed caused a high-pitched twanging to fill the room, and at the same moment three-dimensional images appeared on either hand. 'Behold the faces of your enemies, King Graz'zt!'
'Are you mad? Play you the gnomish buffoon, Vuron?!' Graz'zt barely glanced at the shadowy figures that moved and seemed to pantomime speech. The great demon had the Theorpart firmly in hand now and drew himself up to his full height, looming over even the tall albino.
'Send him to nothingness, great king!' The voice that urged Graz'zt to use the power of the evil artifact was that of Ogrijek.
'Please withhold your ire, my lord Graz'zt.' came Eclavdra's clear voice sweetly. 'Isn't that Iuz there, with Orcus?'
Lowering the conical device slowly, Graz'zt turned his gaze from the pink eyes of his albino warlord and steward to look where the dark-elf priestess was pointing. Sure enough, there was the cambion in his demoniacal form speaking with grand gestures to none other than the ram-headed king of vampires and their ilk. 'What's this?' the demon king roared, again assailing Vuron with words. 'You affront me with such scum in my own inner chambers?'
The nerve-jangling whine accompanying the ghostly images suddenly ceased and was replaced by a voice: '… to fall upon my gross and stupid sire and utterly crush him and all his vomit-sucking little-'
The bland face of the corpulent Orcus split, the woolly muzzle showing teeth appropriate to a shark's maw rather than that of so innocuous a creature as a sheep. 'Silence!' the great demon bleated. There — see there! Phantom forms in the mist.' Iuz's skin tone deepened from its light red to a fuchsia color, but nevertheless the cambion kept quiet and gazed in the direction Orcus indicated. Both appeared to be staring straight into Graz'zt's own eyes.
'An omen, and a potent one,' hissed Iggwilv as she too stared. That the vapors rising from the Cyanic Fens should take the form of 'dear' Graz'zt even as we march for his stronghold is a great portent. We shall thus immerse him in such stuff when he falls into our hands!'
As this occurred, Vuron made further passes, and the perspective suddenly altered to one that was above the figures. This Graz'zt noted, even as his main attention stayed upon the trio. 'Omen? My scepter tells me it was something more dire than a foretelling, witch,' the gross Orcus said in his blaring baah. 'Yet there is no sense of it now, and the apparition too has vanished….'
'Attend me, King of Unlife,' Iuz said in his demanding tone. 'I wield the uncheckable might of Initiator. With it, I… we all… will overthrow the usurper. If the Font of Witchdom says it is a portent, then so it is!'
Orcus made some sort of reply, but his voice died away as Graz'zt turned away from that tableau in order to observe the other phantasms elsewhere. His eyes fixed on Zuggtmoy in her repulsive fungoid form, with the equally disgusting slime lord Szhublox, chimerical Demogorgon, and the other vile demons who attended them. 'We will divide all of the Abyss between us,' Demogorgon's rasping hiss said clearly throughout the chamber, 'and all who do not fight with us now will be subjected to final termination upon our victory!'
'Just so, Abyssal Prince,' Zuggtmoy's booming, rotten voice sounded in agreement. 'All that was the claim of Graz'zt, and the fiefs of his curs too, will be ours to divide.'
'What of the high priestess Eclavdra?' Var-Az-Hloo asked. 'I have heard of the drow's beauty and skills….'
'I think that none will say thee nay should you choose to claim her as booty, handsome one,' the fungoid demon queen fairly chortled, 'if she somehow survives the coming devastation of her lord and master's false kingdom!'
'Enough!' Graz'zt was a lightless blur, his form barely recognizable. Great energies were being drawn to him, and the effect was startling even to Vuron, who had done a similar feat not so long ago. 'I see now that I was in error, my steward. When did you discover this?'
'But a short time ago, my king. I came without regard to protocol or heed for my own well-being.'
Graz'zt snarled, but the ferocity was directed at the images of the demon enemies. 'They make alliance against me because of Iggwilv's urging and the Theorpart's power. If the witch and her sprat had brought Initiator's might to me, the whole of the Abyss united could not oppose my will. They conjoin from fear and greed. Yet they
'Dogs who snap and snarl at each other, mighty king,' said Ogrijek, lord of the zubassu-demons, in his most ingratiating tone. 'They will devour each other, great Graz'zt, if you will but assign me more hordes to oppose them. My winged killers alone are not enough!'
Palvlag, not to be outdone, urged that he and his flame-demons be assigned to a major position immediately so as to smash the coming attack, even as the Justicier, Nergal, being the most powerful of the trio, demanded that he be awarded command of both of them and their followers. The three-way debate was stopped short by Graz'zt.
'You three will all have important commands… under me! Get ready, for I go to crush Demogorgon and his pack of scum myself. Now get out! Be ready whenever I call. You, high priestess, stay here with Vuron. I will assign you duties now.' Not daring to complain, let alone offer protest, the three demon lords skulked out, casting sidelong glares at Vuron and the drow Eclavdra.
Vuron spoke first after the trio had left. 'I trust not the zubassu thegn- '
Trust!? I trust none… except my handmaiden, here, and you, Vuron. Now be silent, for I rule here. With Kostchtchie and that lot will I go. You, Vuron, will speed south even as I march north. Because you have employed the Theorpart so well, I again entrust its power to you. I have drawn strength aplenty from it, and I also have my sword and the Eye of Deception. Remember, though, steward, that I will always keep contact with Unbinder.'
'And what is my assignment, my king?' Eclavdra asked.
To stand beside Vuron. To assist him, and to watch him too. Yeenoghu and a dozen others of power will also be there, but Vuron is to have overall command. You, Eclavdra, are his lieutenant and my watchdog.'
The drow bowed her beautiful head in silent acceptance, showing nothing except that by so doing.
The albino demon likewise bowed in homage. 'I hear and obey, king,' Vuron muttered deferentially. Graz'zt actually smiled at the pale demon lord, his fiery green eyes snowing something as akin to true respect and friendship as is possible for such beings. Vuron saw that, bowed lower, and continued. 'And if Iuz should come forth with his Theorpart?…'
The smile turned to a savage, wolfish snarl. 'Ah, my steward, if I could only be there for such an event! Yet I am confident you will know how to deal with that gross idiot should that happen. It is the witch you must beware of most. Have care should she come forth!'
Both Vuron and Eclavdra nodded and started to depart. Graz'zt stopped them short with what seemed like an afterthought. 'The full council will meet in one, hour. I had thought to discuss other matters…. Come with the rest, but both of you are to say nothing. Listen only. At the conclusion, you two will remain behind, for I will need your assessment of the lords present. As I told you, I trust none fully, most of that lot must be watched.' Then Graz'zt left them, and his two closest servants quickly made their way to their own places to prepare.
Chapter 3
'This is most unexpected….'
Gord spoke those words softly, and it was an understatement. A moment or two before, he had been in an undersea grotto with the undine Kharistylla. She had told him it was time. Time for what?' he had asked. Then, following her instructions, he had simply touched the amulet while thinking of Rexfelis the Catlord.
The beautiful undersea grotto and the even lovelier undine had suddenly wavered, become insubstantial, and for an instant Kharistylla's smiling eyes had seemed to become as large as saucers just before she vanished from his sight. Gord spoke, blinked, and shook his head, because he now stood before the assembled lords of Balance.
'He is changed,' Basiliv the Demiurge said to no one in particular. Then, to Gord: 'Welcome, prince.
