Besides, lie thought, the intention behind his actions had been to slay Chare'en. He had to attempt to do so, or die trying. As he watched, Chare'en's flat black eyes rolled slightly. Vheod knew the balor was calling on his own inner, Abyssal power.
Melann didn't pause to observe. Instead, she used the time to begin calling on the power of her goddess yet again. 'While she chanted quietly, Vheod loosed a spell of his own. Daggers of light flew from his hand and screamed toward Chare'en's broad chest. They disappeared inches before they would have struck him, as though they'd never existed. Vheod realized that the balor's presence and power rendered man-minor magical spells useless against him. Vheod cursed his luck and his trivial magical skills, then tumbled through the doorway and off to his right.
At almost the same time, a shining blue warhammer of heavenly might appeared in Melann's hands. She flung it into the air at Chare'en but turned to watch Vheod leap past her protective barrier.
'By all the Gods of Faerun, Vheod!” she shrieked, 'are you mad?'
Vheod realized that the barrier obviously was meant to keep Abyssal creatures at bay. He was able to cross it one way, but due to his nature, would it repel him as well? He would never get the chance to discover the answer, for as all this occurred, Chare'en summoned forth the power within him and with a wave of his clawed hand dispelled the blue fire barrier with a snap of coarse, black lightning.
'I shall be denied nothing, regardless of which of your weak goddesses you call on!' His words curdled the air with his anger and hate.
The hammer Melann had conjured forth, also of bluish, goddess-granted fire, struck the tanar'ri noble. This spell passed through the balor's resistance to magical energies and staggered him slightly. Vheod used both that distraction and the fact that Chare'en had needed to drop one of his weapons to dispel the barrier, to aid in his attack on the balor's flank. Daleland broadsword in one hand and curved orc steel in the other, he slashed and stabbed at the fiend. His blades found their mark, and Chare'en bled an odiferous corruption for which no earthly name applies.
'Melann,' Vheod shouted, 'get the staff! I’ll hold him…'
Black blood raged to Vheod's head, and as he'd done before, he lost himself to the hatred and darkness of the tanar'ri portion of his soul. He struck blow after blow with his blades, hammering Chare'en with fury and might. The ferocity forced the balor back a few lumbering steps. He unfurled his wrings in anger, but as he did a spinning sphere carried through the air by a curved metal span smashed into one of them, almost knocking Chare'en down. Even more surprising, as it struck the tanar'ri, the sphere stopped spinning-though it continued its revolution about the room-and a face within the metal surface groaned with wide eyes and a large, open mouth. Vheod watched in surprise and fascination, but the device continued to turn, and soon the sphere was rounding its way to the far side of the room. The device was alive. Vheod had have no idea.
Melann did as Vheod had suggested. She ran past Vheod and Chare'en as they fought, circling around to the left as she entered the chamber full of whirling metal spheres and supports. Vheod appeared so small next to the terrifying fiend. She could never have imagined such a horror. Chare'en was the embodiment of anathema. He was living despair, destruction, and desecration. Melann now suddenly understood evil much more intimately than she'd ever wanted to.
Fortunately, the spiritual weapon that Chauntea had granted her still beat on Chare'en's body, aiding Vheod in his fight. The fact that her god's magic worked even in the face of such terrible power served to strengthen Melann's faith in her patron. She had no idea what she would do or think if it had failed.
Melann reached the staff and grasped it. Though it was wooden, it felt cool and smooth, like silver. The staff had been carved with four fiat sides, each with etched runes filled with silver inlay. The ends were each capped in silver, all of it shining as if the object were brand new. In its texture and balance it was light and somehow pleasant to hold.
A cry of pain made her spin on her heel, looking back toward Vheod. Chare'en had managed to grasp the cambion in the tendrils of his many-tailed whip. Blood flowed from numerous wounds inflicted by the barbs and spines on the whips. As Vheod struggled to free himself, Chare'en laughed and burst into infernal flames.
Or at least, that was what Melann thought at first. Instead, she saw after her eyes adjusted to the unpleasant light of the piercing flames, that the tanar'ri had somehow immolated himself, sheathing his body in flames that seemed to inflict no pain on him whatsoever. The fire lapped at Chare'en's flesh like waves of water, and as he continued to laugh the balor pulled Vheod closer and closer to him and to the conjured fires of chaos and evil.
Melann bounded toward this scene as Vheod still strained at the coils of the whip that trapped him. She raised the staff, gripping it in both hands, and charged Chare'en with it as if it were a spear. The heat of the fire forced her back. She couldn't get close enough even to strike. With a mighty yank, Chare'en drew Vheod into the flames and held him close in a fiery, life-quenching embrace.
'No, please, don't,' she protested in vain. 'Vheod! I love you!'
She wasn't sure until now, but it was true. Vheod's nobility, strength, and passion were greater than anyone she'd ever met. Now, it would seem, he would be taken away from her before she could ever tell him, for the roar of the flames drowned out her words.
To her surprise Vheod still struggled in the grasp of the fiend. While the flames obviously burned him, he withstood the heat with a greater fortitude than she would have believed possible. His Abyssal heritage must give him such strength, she reasoned, but could it be enough? She was near exhaustion and thought if she could only reach Vheod, she might possibly be able to call on the power of Chauntea once more to heal him, but then she would be of no further use.
She charged forward again and was again repelled by the flames. The twisted laughter of Chare'en still filled the room. It drew her attention, however, to the orrery-like rotating device spinning almost silently in the room. She had seen it earlier strike the demon and almost knock him down. She'd also seen the face within the metal that appeared when it struck him. Perhaps she could get it to strike again-but if she did, it would strike Vheod as well.
Melann ran back to the center of the room. The base of the device was an immobile tripod of metal that surrounded the now-open glass prison. The top of the tripod, where the three supports joined, held a spinning disk from which curved metal supports extended at various lengths into the chamber. At the end of each was one of the metallic, three-dimensional shapes that whirled in circles. Some moved up and down as well as around. Most were joined to other shapes by further metal supports, so that the entire superstructure moved as one-around, up and down, with many of the individual parts spinning on their own.
Melann tucked the staff into her belt at her back and began to climb up one of the legs of the giant tripod. The support was about as thick as she was, and so by wrapping her arms and legs around it she was able to quickly inch her way up the outer surface of the leg. Near the top, she reached up and grabbed onto the disk that turned horizontally. She was surprised by the force that tore her from the leg. As she held on with all her might, she whirled around on the spinning disk.
Pulling herself up on top of the disk, she found she could stand on it and maintain her balance between the various supports that sprouted forth and connected to the rest of the structure. The whole thing obviously functioned by magic, for she found nothing resembling a mundane mechanism at the center of the device to turn the disk. She reasoned that perhaps the device was some sort of magical generator that powered the prison to hold Chare'en. No other explanation for its existence seemed to make sense. Experimentally, she leaned against one of the supports and began to shake it using her weight. To her surprise, she was able to cause the entire device to waver slightly.
As she turned, Melann saw Chare'en and Vheod. Again to her surprise, she saw that Chare'en had dropped Vheod to the floor, where the cambion writhed in burned agony-but he was alive! Chare'en reeled backward, but Melann had no idea why. She turned past them and no longer could get a good view of what happened.
By the time the device circled her around, Melann could see that Chare'en clutched at something sticking in his left eye. As the fiend staggered backward he roared in pain. With his movement, however, Melann saw past him to the doorway.
Whitlock stood between the open bronze doors, a crossbow weakly dangling in his hand. As she passed around past the scene again, Melann determined that her brother would almost certainly drop at any moment. She had to do something-now was her chance.
Once again, despite the growing dizziness she felt from the rapid rotation, Melann grasped one of the
