'Gellor! Timmil! Greenleaf!' he then called out. 'Chert! Allton! To me, all five!' That demand brought nothing at all save a graying of the horizon toward which Blue Murder now carried him. The place was not totally his — or, at least, things beyond its confines could not be called here by its forces. No matter. Gord would discover the nature of it soon, deal with it, and find his companions. 'I will discover the guardian of this plane,' he said.
The road was now a shimmering pathway with no end. It ran unsupported through space. Fields of stars were everywhere. Some glowed near, revealing their spheres in pure violet, white, green, deep red. Some twinkled so distantly as to seem but a single mote, but Gord's magical sight revealed them as whole galaxies of suns burning in a remoteness so vast as to make the heart falter in its beating.
The sudden change had affected his steed as well. Blue Murder was even bigger, more magnificent, and wore the twin horns of a dragon-horse, a ki-lin whose hooves sent trailing sparks of silver and gold behind as they struck the surface of the strange pathway.
'Swiftly, swiftly!' Gord urged, and his mount responded. The stars began to fly past, as if they were comets with fiery tails. Now to either hand, below, and above the champion of Balance could discern other places. By hue or scent, and some even by actual vision into their expanses, Gord saw the whole multitude of the many-sphered cosmos whip past. Elements, probabilities, ether, the yawning hells, bright planes of splendor and exaltation, dim places of disorder and chaos. There was the all-present realm of the Shadowking, above it the broad vault of the pure astral plane, and far, far beneath the scintillating trail the ki-lin left were the dreaded sinks of Hades, the nadir of all the manifold netherspheres. 'No dark glow emanates therefrom. Blue Murder,' the young champion shouted. 'Onward!'
Myriad shades of verdant green, hues associated with green, too, from deep olive to citrine to pale aqua, spun now beneath him as the dragon-horse galloped. Tiny wedges and broad archways displayed the various means of entry to the multitude of hidden and arcane places. Whether partial plane, demisphere, or quasi-dimension, each such place was visible to the young champion as the ki-lin raced along the multiversal highway. Gord shook his head and turned away. There was an infinity of these places, but not one held what he desired. Blue Murder, if the strange mount was indeed that great stallion in a transformed body, was now bearing him toward an opalescent roadway, a flowing path that intersected with the ribbon upon which they had traveled so strangely.
'What is this you take me to?' Gord demanded.
The ki-lin made no sound whatsoever in reply, only redoubling its efforts so that the suns and stars blurred and disappeared. Abruptly the steed gave a strange, mournful call and leaped into the river of opaline light. Then the young champion who bestrode it knew that he was within the very flow of time itself.
'No,' he commanded the steed. 'You must battle the current! Go backward!'
The ki-lin shook its horned head and continued on. After only a few heartbeats, they were thundering up a metal-like bank and out of the glowing stuff with its myriads of scenes and standing stock still upon a flat and featureless expanse of what could only be purple chitin. The horizon was a knife-edge in the ultimate distance, the sky made of strata of pale, grayish stuff, each layer tinged with a faintly different hue.
Gord urged his steed on. The beast must know the place where the guardian of all this was. 'I still seek to confront the one who will enable me to pass beyond,' the young man said to the dragon-horse. 'Whether Blue Murder or some imitation, you have obeyed so far; now fulfill your obligation!' At that the mount simply vanished, and Gord fell with a crash onto the unyielding stuff beneath.
The sudden precipitation dazed him, but in a second or two Gord was recovered and standing erect. He did so in time to see that the horizon was coming closer… no, the plane was contracting! All was shrinking, drawing toward the center — the place where he himself stood. This was disconcerting, threatening. Gord sensed a looming presence, a lurking evil that would manifest itself at any moment.
Crouched slightly, sword now drawn and ready, the champion of Balance waited. A faint wind blew, hardly stronger than a zephyr, yet its force was sufficient to tug at Gord's body and nearly drive him along before its path. He looked down at himself and saw that he was transparent. 'Oh, shit, no! I can't be dreaming!' Gord pinched himself. His fingers encountered firm flesh and hurt as they closed and nipped. 'Yowch! No, this is something other than a dream, I think….'
Now he could no longer see himself at all, not even Blackheartseeker as he held the dull ebon of its long blade before him. 'Why?' he whispered the question as he peered nervously around.
Voices. Behind him stood the demon queen Zuggtmoy in her most hideous form. Conversing with that horror was an ancient and equally loathsome crone. It could be none other than Iggwilv, the mother of witches.
Each held a darkly luminous object with her pride and arrogance plainly displayed. There was a slight disturbance, a darker place in the air between them, and each moved slightly so as to make the distance that separated them greater. In that instant another form appeared suddenly. It was the naked, red-hued form of the cambion demigod Iuz. Demi-god? No longer, it seemed. Iuz was fully a head taller than the demoness, and his bulk was as great. The cambion had grown larger, more powerful, and more assured. He too held a luminous object in his hands, and his huge mouth opened to show the rows of pointed teeth that filled it as he fully materialized.
'Welcome, my son,' the greatest of hags croaked.
'Greetings, Lord of Pain,' Zuggtmoy breathed in her dank, fungoid voice.
'Ho! Ho! Ho!' Iuz boomed his mirth, allowing it to roll and play into the distances of the plane. This is the place you have chosen, is it?'
'Yes, dear boy,' the cambion's horrible mother said gleefully. 'It is a place where none but ourselves can reach. Not even that corpse-lover Infestix can disturb us here,' she simpered, looking to the fungus heap that was Zuggtmoy as if seeking approval.
The fungi demoness didn't disappoint Iggwilv. 'A most clever notion, don't you agree, Iuz, my pet?'
She might have said more, but the cambion spoke rudely in interjection.
'Never call me that again, toadstool slut!'
'Be nice,' the crone-mother admonished without force. 'We three are an inseparable group now. Give me your Theorpart, dear Iuz, and mother will make the two a great tool for your power-'
'Tush! Don't interfere now, Wilva. The key must be given to me for the initial joining.' Zuggtmoy shifted shape as she spoke, becoming a beautiful and seductive human as she conversed. 'So I will accept your offering now, Iuz,' the demon queen said in her now-sultry voice.
Iuz shook his head. 'If we are conjoined, then we must act so, my lovely consorts!'
'What?' Iggwilv demanded somewhat irritably, even as she too shifted form to appear as a brightly clad and gorgeous young woman.
'How is that?' The beauty that was now Zuggtmoy demanded almost simultaneously.
'Each must hold forth that portion of the tripartite relic which she has, just as I do now,' the cambion said smoothly, smilingly, as he extended his right arm and held the oddly shaped portion he possessed in such a manner so that it pointed toward the chitinous surface of the place. 'Now you two must do likewise, and so doing we will gently bring the three together so as to form a whole!'
Zuggtmoy hesitated, looking at Iuz, then at Iggwilv. The ancient witch was likewise uncertain. She stared at her offspring, then looked at the fungi queen. The two exchanged glances, each suspicious, doubting the cambion, questioning each other as well. As if by some silent mutual conGord, both then turned to stare at Iuz. He stood as before, still amiable, a faint smile upon his huge face.
'Come, come! This act is to make us the unquestioned masters of all, the most powerful beings in the multiverse. Our wills alone have sufficed to keep the relic disjoined, to maintain the bindings upon Tharizdun…. See? I freely speak that turd's name without fear! It is we three who will rule, not he!'
Zuggtmoy hesitated, then nodded, and slowly extended her Theorpart. 'Come on, Iggwilv, you too!' Her tone was harsh.
'Oh, very well,' said the witch. 'Here is-'
'Ieeuuzzz!'
The ferocious, rising shout that the cambion let out made both of his tensely extending arms twitch reflexively. Iuz had instantly dropped his portion of the relic when the other two had been held forth, and his long arms shot forth to seize the extended artifacts of the evil one's prisoning. The long fingers of his hands clamped with an iron grip, and the muscular arms jerked back with lightning speed. The horrified eyes of both Iggwilv and Zuggtmoy saw events as if in slow motion as the cambion brought his twin prizes to him, then lifted both overhead in exultation.
All of this time Gord had watched without attempting anything. He was uncertain if he was invisible,
