Timmil had nearly lost both eyes. He was wounded seriously, and blood from the wounds caused by the demon's raking nails was making him virtually blind. Thus the high priest was unable to take advantage of the opportunity presented to him when Shabriri broke off the attack. Instead, he too expended some of his forces to cast a healing upon his own flesh. It was an easy enough thing to do, and it required no effort and little time.
When he finished and could see clearly again, Timmil was greeted by the sight of his monstrous adversary erect and grinning a fiendish grin. 'Blow and return, it would seem, you dark dungheap of perdition,' the cleric said calmly. 'But your breaking the protective ward cost you more dearly than you know!' The last was said with triumph, and to punctuate the claim. Timmil loosed a combination of word and rune, the one spoken as the other was etched in the air in green-gold with the clerics talisman bearing right hand.
A cloud of intense black appeared instantly around Shabriri as the demon understood what was occurring. He knew that in his desire to rend the hated priest into bloody bits, his impetuous action in forcing himself through the guarding magical globe had stripped him of his own protections against dweomers sent by the cleric. 'Korb! Haklo! Meemgul!' He shouted, even as the inky darkness surrounded Shabriri.
The power of the syllables spoken by Timmil made the ebony obscurement vanish, to be replaced by a storm of silvery motes. Those nearest Shabriri attacked the demon as if they were wasps. The priest smiled grimly as he saw the demon dance and howl as the thing tried to beat away the fiery tormentors. The glowing glyph he had drawn was likewise still extant. That saved the cleric's life, for in the next moment appeared a trio of ghastly, chimerical demon-things.
These lesser beasts were thralls of Shabriri, just as the elder demon had been forced into servitude to Gravestone. They had been brought to their master's side by the utterance of their actual names. Terrible indeed were these three, and their numbers would have served to finish Timmil then and there; but the symbol that hung in incandescent glory in the air struck them as they appeared. The lesser demons were frozen into agonizing immobility by its force.
'Banished forever. Korb. Haklo, and Meemgul, too! Torment and dark doom upon you eternally in the stinking cesses of your home!' The high priest too had their true names, given to him by the very cry of their master. Shabriri. There was a hideous sound as the exorcising magic seized the three and jerked their life forces back to the lowest portions of the abyss.
'You fecal-headed pig fornicator!' That was a mild thing for Shabriri to shout, but the raging fury that filled him spoke volumes. He belched a cloud of poisonous gas as he came forth, leaping and roaring, to grapple with his hated foe. Long and long had the three chimerical ones been his. Now, stripped of their vassalage, humiliated, weakened in imagined and real power, Shabriri had only one choice. He must kill the demon-baiter, Timmil, and return to his own plane with the corpse of the priest or else be forever consigned to lesser status and ever-shrinking power.
'Much better! Much, much better!' The words sounded as if they were spoken in his ears, but Tim-mil knew that they came from the distant form of Gravestone as the demonurgist lay back in obscene relaxation, ministered to unspeakably as he watched the spectacle. Ignoring his tormentor's words. Timmil met the elder demon's rush with the full might of his blessed, glory-filled staff. Although the great monster was twice the priest's height and ten times his weight, Timmil wore magical armor of finest make. His determination, weapon, and plate mail made the match an even contest. Demon and cleric sparred, struck, cast spells and circled in a dancelike routine of deadly intent.
Pazuzeus had attempted to change his own opponent's flesh into stone, force the mage into submission by sheer mental strength, rot the man's eyeballs with a sickly green ray, as well as to wound Allton by blows from his taloned feet and iron-nailed hands. In turn, the battered mage had somehow not only managed to resist but actually serve out more punishment to the demoniacal foe than he took.
Both archmage and elder demon knew that certain of their powers would not function on this demi-plane of Gravestone's creation, so rather than take the chance of wasting critical energies and precious time with something that would prove fruitless, both kept to basic assaults. Allton sent forth spells and struck blows with his mage's thick staff. Pazuzeus used his innate powers, both mental and magical, to assail the human, occasionally meleeing with the fellow so as to prevent the employment of some greater dweomer by the spell-binder.
The demon was now aware that Allton could see and know energy sources and uses. This ability put the mage at an advantage here, and the four-winged monster began to feel unease, fear. No mere human should be so puissant in the face of one as mighty as Pazuzeus!
'You two lumps of shit disappoint me!' The rebuke was clear to men and demons as well. Gravestone was again speaking, this time clearly disturbed that the gladiatorial combats were taking so long and still hanging in the balance. 'Show me that you have testicles, both of you! Finish the fart-smudges; stop playing with them. Do it now, Shabriri, Pazuzeus, or else…' The demonurgist let his angry warning fade into what both of his thralls knew was no empty threat.
The effect was quite the opposite of what Gravestone had desired. The words he had grated out distracted both of the elder demons. A tiny distraction was all that either of their adversaries needed. The archmage was hurt, bloody, near exhaustion, but from somewhere deep within himself, Allton managed to draw up a reserve of energy. Flashing into supernormal speed, he struck Pazuzeus a stunning blow with his magical staff, then dropped it and jerked forth an egg-shaped thing of iron. With an exclamation of desperate hope, Allton hurled it squarely at the proto-demon's feather-crested head. 'Die, dark-spawn!'
Pazuzeus's reflexes were superb. He ducked his head with a motion too quick for a human eye to see, shrieking his own glee as he did so. The missile would have no chance to strike him, and the dolt had tossed his deadly staff aside, too!
The glee turned to stark terror in the next instant, for the sphere suddenly froze in mid-air. From it shot thick tongues of metal, iron bands that caged and held Pazuzeus. The unyielding metal was proof against the demon's power, and the bonds constricted to crush him into helplessness.
Simultaneously, the high priest employed his most potent weapon against Shabriri. As the red-orbed elder demon had his attention drawn by Gravestone's threatening voice, Timmil spoke a word and his own staff sprang into two. Each portion was a rodlike weapon. The one that was held in the cleric's left hand sent forth a blinding beam of hot, golden radiance brighter than the sun itself. The right-hand portion shed a cone of cool, soothing dimness. Each seemed a living thing unto itself.
With sweeping motions, Timmil plied the solar rod as if it were a broom. The palpable touch of the brightness sent Shabriri cringing and scurrying back. The demon was being moved inexorably into the umbral cone projected by the second rod held in the priest's now-confident grasp. Timmil knew that in a second the confused demon would retreat into the dimness, and once shaded therein, Shabriri would be helpless. He would diminish, grow weak, and come to his end as a tiny, doll-like monster unable to resist being sealed into some specially prepared container and condemned to some perpetual prison evermore.
'You are mine!' All ton gasped as he reeled and panted from fatigue. Pazuzeus, being slowly compressed by the deadly bands of iron, could make no reply to the claim.
'Minimus!' The thundering cry sprang triumphantly from Timmirs throat as he caught Shabriri in the demon- band cone and began the process of disabling and diminishing the fiend. Shabriri ranted and beat against the dimness that surrounded him, but no sound came out of the gray haze of the dweomer, and the ancient one of demon-ilk grew measurably smaller before the satisfied gaze of the high priest.
With a word Timmil ceased the brightness that radiated from the leftmost portion of the staff. The other demanded his full concentration, as the ancient precursor of demonkind struggled to get free. Soon now Shabriri would be no larger than a halfling and as powerless as a chattering monkey to free himself. There were weaknesses in the device, but as long as the wielder of the rod knew how to move the dim cone of diminishment, the demon or other netherbeing entrapped in it had but small chance of escaping. The high priest and demon-exiler had no intention of allowing his mighty foe to win freedom. Here and there he moved the rod, first with a slow motion, then a sharp twist followed by a series of jerky lateral motions. The shrinking, raving demon was foiled, bounced, battered, and confused. Just a little more time and it would be all finished.
'Your cage is a fine one, Pazuzeus?' Allton inquired sweetly. A thick band of magical iron clamped fast the demon's jaws, encompassing Pazuzeus's head and chin in a viselike grip. Other straps of enchanted metal wrapped shoulders, chest, abdomen, legs, and taloned feet. The great wings were flattened and there were cracking sounds initially when the iron clamped fast. The elder demon's wings were surely broken.
'Later, perhaps. I shall have you sing a little song for us… then you'll have nice seeds to eat.' Allton couldn't
