They began to dive at Thelvyn in a series of swift, relentless attacks, pummeling him over and over with bolts of lightning.
He dropped quickly to the ground, trying desperately to think. Already he understood something important about his enemy: The Overlord's powers were most effective when directed through his servants like the Masters and the warriors, but he wasn't very good at defending himself. That might have been due to the nature of his magic or perhaps a reflection of his inexperience; the reason hardly mattered now. Thelvyn decided the time for caution was past; he would reveal his true powers as an Immortal and press the contest to its conclusion.
Again he leapt into the air, and his mortal manifestation melted away in the glare of silver light as he revealed himself to be the Immortal Diamond. This time he made no effort to contain his powers but allowed the radiance of his true being to shine forth, many times brighter than the sun itself. The pure, intense light drove away the fires of the Masters like a wind blowing out a candle flame. The Overlord's command of their minds and will was broken, and they fled.
Even the Overlord had been forced to turn his monstrous face from the radiance, shielding himself with the grotesque armor of his back as he began to slink away. The pure light of the Immortal seemed to be causing him great pain, burning into his very being. Diamond continued to press his attack relendessly. Suspended in the air above the scene of battle, he arched his long neck and opened his mouth to release a shaft of silver light that washed over his enemy's long back. The Overlord crouched with his head down in an effort to protect himself while smoke and flames spread across his back, eating into his armor.
And then he vanished, retreating from a fight that he had already lost. But Thelvyn was too cautious to believe that he had achieved ultimate victory, knowing he had only forced the Overlord to retreat to a place where he would be stronger. Thelvyn turned to fly swiftly toward the west, following the wide path trampled by the invading army. He was still half of an hour's flight from where he expected to find the stronghold, time that he could not afford to spare if he was to catch his true enemy off guard. He held his wings steady, as if soaring on the winds, but his speed began to increase rapidly until his form began to blur into a shaft of silver light, crossing a hundred miles in as many seconds.
In a region scattered with low, steep hills, he came upon the hidden stronghold abruptly. Like the main stronghold in the world of the Overlord, it consisted of a group of massive fortresses, imposing in size but simple and nearly featureless in design, arranged not in a grid but in two concentric rings. In the center of the stronghold stood the stone arch of the immense worldgate. The land for miles around had been stripped of trees, perhaps during those final days while the invading army had gathered there before marching to the east. The stronghold was nearly deserted now, defended only by a score of gemstone dragons that had already risen into the sky in defense.
Thelvyn slowed quickly from his tremendous speed, although he remained in immaterial form for the moment, rising upward a short distance as he cast about with his mind for the presence of the Overlord hidden somewhere deep within the stronghold. Then he gathered speed again, streaking down like a bolt of lighting as he crashed directly into the roof of the largest of the fortresses. Massive stones shattered before him as he blasted his way deep into the center of the fortress. Then the fortress itself exploded outward in a blinding flash of clear light.
The central chamber of the fortress lay exposed to the sky. The middle part of the ceiling had been rent asunder, and a gaping hole reached up through all the levels of the fortress to the air above. Dark clouds above rolled and flashed with lightning. The dust cleared slowly, and the vast, threatening form of the Overlord stepped slowly out of the darkness to confront Diamond a second time. There was no sign of the damage that the dragonfire had done to the armor of his back; he had renewed his form, and he appeared to be stronger than ever.
'Clever little dragon,' he said contemptuously. 'You have grown more than you let on.'
Thelvyn did not respond, knowing he had to proceed cautiously. He could fight and defeat the Overlord time and again and never win the real war. It was crucial for him to discover his opponent's secret, to find the source of his hidden power.
He moved slowly to one side, circling around his enemy and watching the Overlord closely for any clue to his secret. The source of his power was somewhere very near, he was certain, but he could not sense what it was. Nor could he see through the manifestation of the Overlord to his true self. The retreat of the Overlord from his first battle and his appearance here unharmed proved that this was not his true being. The source of his magic and his consciousness had always prevented him from going into any of the worlds he had conquered. Apparently he had brought it with him into this world, but with great difficulty.
Was it something large? Something difficult or dangerous to try to move? Or perhaps, Thelvyn wondered, it was something too delicate to risk. Somehow it managed to avoid betraying its presence as a tremendous source of magic even as it sent its full power direcdy to its manifestation.
Thelvyn was caught off guard, having given too much of his attention to his thoughts. The Overlord opened his massive jaws and let forth what at first appeared to be a flash of misty white light, except the light turned solid almost immediately. It struck Thelvyn in the shoulder with crushing force, smashing him backward across the floor of the dark chamber until he was hurled against the stone wall. The shaft of white shattered with the impact, fragments exploding in all directions. Shaken by the attack, Thelvyn was picking himself up when he saw that the object that had hit him had been a column of ice, which now lay scattered in shards across the floor.
Then another massive shaft of ice struck him, blasting him backward against the wall even harder than before. A third column of ice struck him, then another. Spears of ice continued to crash against him and the surrounding wall, like a hail of heavy stones from an army of ballistae, until the stones of the wall itself began to crumble and collapse about him. Thelvyn clawed his way desperately out of the rubble, pushing aside broken stones and emerging moments later from the top of the dusty wreckage.
He had been rather shaken by that last assault. He moved slowly at first as he climbed out of the debris and paced back out into the vast chamber to confront his enemy, his back and neck arched in challenge. The Overlord was watching him in growing rage, but Thelvyn also noticed a hint of fear.
'What are you?' he demanded. 'What manner of creature have you become?'
Thelvyn had no intention of answering, but he would not have had the chance in any event. In the next moment, bolts of lightning streaked down from the dark clouds through the gaping hole in the ceiling to strike him. For a time, he could only crouch low, his face turned down toward the floor to protect his eyes, enduring the deadly touch as fingers of lightning played across his back. Even as powerful as he had become, the unrelenting blast of such tremendous energy was unbearably painful. He knew that if he tried to run, the lightning would pursue him. And so he crouched, waiting for it to end. The flash of brilliant light was blinding, and the stones shook with the blast of thunder.
He was not even aware that the attack had ended until he realized that the darkness had returned and the last echoes of thunder were dying away. He lifted his head slowly and beheld a remarkable scene. The hail of raw lightning into the depths of the chamber had filled even the vast space with a tremendous amount of power, burning away the air so that no mortal creature could have lived in that place. Wisps and streams of ghostly lights hung in the air like fog or crawled across the seared floor like mist, glowing in shades of red, yellow, and orange, filling the great chamber with an eerie radiance.
The Overlord stood in the midst of the thin clouds of fiery mists, his head raised high. The crests and spines of his grotesque armor shone with ghostly lights of their own, and he seemed to pulse from the power that he was drinking in, as if he thrived in the deadly environment. Now Thelvyn understood. The Overlord was so distracted with pleasure that he had just inadvertently betrayed his own deepest secret. It was the outer world that was alien to him, robbing him of his powers-warm sunlight and fresh, cool winds and green, growing things. He had nearly destroyed one world to protect himself from the lifegiving things that were like poison to him. Hiding himself in dark storms and deep, remote places like his strongholds renewed his strength.
The revelation told Thelvyn which of his weapons would be most deadly to such a creature. Lifting his head high, he summoned his powers as the Immortal Diamond. The pure, jeweled facets of his armor shone with blinding light, a pure, brilliant white that chased away the ghostly lights that played in the darkness of the chamber. Then, standing tall on his hind legs, he seemed almost to explode in the radiant pure crystal light.
The Overlord flinched and drew back, desperate to shield his eyes from the light. With nowhere to retreat, he tried to turn the heavy armor of his back toward the blinding brilliance, as if the light itself caused him tremendous pain. The white radiance began to cut into him with each passing moment, shredding his substance
