A decayed creature, some minion of the rotting lord of Hades, replied humbly in a maggoty voice. “The ones of scarlet hue, master, move in their thousands to do your bidding…”
“And?”
“The Eight Diseased Ones, master,” the thing choked out, “with all of their servants, daemon and human.”
Infestix spat, a wad of horrid, yellowish green that struck the floor of ebon stone at the feet of the rotted servitor. It spread and sank, eating the stone and leaving it riddled as if by worms. “Yet none bring me the quarry I want-not even intelligence of it! I am tired of this dung-headedness. Out of my way, you sweet-smelling blossom,” the Overlord of Evil commanded as he rose from the ghastly throne and moved toward the daemon steward.
Virulex, himself a fell and dread lord of the realm, fairly scrambled to make way for his liege. “The matter is far more complex than we thought, master, the possibilities and their permutations impossible to analyze. One nexus after another, all leading to places none can discern…”
“You yammer like a soft-eyed puppy, Virulex. You create excuses for all, but only to cloak yourself. Do you think I am stupid? Be silent and follow, dog! I will personally tear aside the intervening veils and solve this once and for all.”
In another smaller but no less hideous chamber in Infestix’s loathsome palace, the Eight Diseased Ones and their lieutenants were gathered expectantly. They quickly covered their surprise when the Overlord himself came, each then reporting the results of their seeing and divination. Armies marched, the soldiers of Hades marshalled to contest with the rebellious demons. Spies slunk, assassins lurked, agents served, mages cast their magical nets, while priests of darkness sent forth their own evil meshes. A great hubbub of action and reaction, plots and ploys. Decoys and false trails, sendings and energies to confound and confuse any who sought to pry.
“We are sure to succeed, Master of Death,” one of the lesser ones said.
“Your existence rides on that,” Infestix said offhandedly as he peered into the misty vapors of a great pool of inky shadows. The massive basin was set into the chamber floor, a scrying pool filled with some undefinable substance. “I thought as much!” The daemon overlord spat that out in his hollow, dead voice as he saw the scenes flashing within the basin.
“Time varies there, master,” one of the eight supplied. “Perhaps we can intervene.”
“Fool! That would alert every enemy that we have, reveal to them our intentions, destroy whatever secrecy remains!”
Infestix had seen the fall of a massive citadel belonging to the Scarlet Brotherhood. That evil organization worshiped him in the form of his avatar, Nerull, who served the cause. “Besides,” the ruler of the lowest thought to himself, “the flow of events is such that even I might misjudge and thereby alter something which would rebound to foil my purpose.” Infestix would serve as Tharizdun’s viceroy. Better a servant of that greatest one and ruling over an infinite domain than being masterless with naught but the petty plane he had.
“It is the ambitious runt who meddles in our plans, master. If we arrange to have the Prince of Ulek murdered-”
“Silence.” Infestix spoke without anger, but the command was quite sufficient to make the whole of the eight still. “Who is that one?”
“It is a slave of the Qabbala, master, one most commonly known as Gellor.”
“I thought as much. Watch that one. Wherever he goes we must be before him, ready to thwart his plans.”
“I will have him dead, master, within an hour.”
Infestix turned and looked at the daemon who had volunteered that. Then he turned to Virulex. “That one,” he said softly, pointing. “Have it removed and destroyed instantly. It is stupid and inferior.”
The creature tried to protest, but it had already staked its continued existence on a claim proven false. It mewled and groveled to no avail as the daemon steward dragged it away. The Eight Diseased Ones stood still, silent as statues. Variolaz finally dared to speak. “What, master, makes… us…need to so respect the feeble Qabbala and its dogs?”
“They have The Rede,” Infestix explained as if to a child. “That relic which is the codex to the multiverse. With it they could manipulate any dimension, space, probability. It is small comfort that they do not fully understand its usages yet… A pair of their lackeys won it from a demon guardian-rot those idiotic lords of the abyssal planes! Had they but given it to me…,”
“Cannot we eliminate those vassals of theirs, then? By destroying their tools we will curtail their power. Then we Eight can move to recover the relic for you, master.”
“A most pleasant suggestion, and well put. The very thing, were it not for the rest who oppose us. No, better to allow those dogs to run and follow their yapping than to try to intervene and be discovered. It is the one-eye we must be most careful of, I think. The rest are nothings. Look. That one shows no aura at all, and has no cord!”
“He was one of the two who stole The Rede,” said the chief of the Eight Diseased Ones.
“That one will die soon,” Infestix said with a pleasure-laden tone. “I will watch a while yet.”
The overlord of all daemonkind and his eight were viewing the scenes in the scrying basin when Virulex returned from his executionary duties. He too joined them as they watched tiny figures go through their meaningless little actions on the material plane, on the world known as Oerth. At times the scenes faded, masked by intervening mists. Infestix tried to clear those vapors, rend the veils, but even his powers were insufficient. Still they stood and watched what they could, and the overlord of them all never allowed a hint of his frustration and uncertainty to show.
The citadel fell; armies marched and fought: men, dwarves, and humanoids died. Here a little band went off to seek one thing or another. The demons came then, and the daemons snarled as their own servants failed because of the intervention of the Abyss. “We must do something!” The chief of the eight was infuriated. Infestix remained calm.
“The unruly brawlers bring attention to themselves-see! Now all forms of antagonists gather to contest for their prize. That is the middle Theorpart, the Arouser. My servants have the Initiator, and it calls to its own. Neither human mage nor demonling shall have it!”
Yet even the master of daemons was proved wrong by the events that followed. Mighty armies clashed over the relic, that which would awaken the sleeping one of greatest evil, that king to whom even Infestix would bow, for he was Tharizdun. Tharizdun, greatest of Evil, he who would restore all the multiverse to the malign powers. Locked away in nothingness, comatose, chained now. But the means to pierce the nothingness, dispel the unconsciousness, free the bonds, had been unearthed at last.
Soon, despite all hopes to the contrary, Infestix knew that the tripartite relic would be conjoined, the dweomers destroyed, and Tharizdun freed. It could never be otherwise. Evil was stronger than Balance, more powerful than Good. It held no interfering ethical beliefs, suffered no qualms. In the end it must prevail.
“It goes to the demons, master!”
Infestix turned and exited the chamber in silence.
“Are we beaten?” The leader of the Eight asked that quietly, unbelievingly.
Virulex stared at the group with unwavering gaze, his dead-black eyes unwinking. “Never! Watch on, but interfere not-especially as to any foreseeing with respect to the relic or those who serve the Balance. Our master warned us well, I know. Believe! There can be but one final result.” With that, Infestix’s steward too left the scrying room.
The Eight Diseased Ones, the nobles of Hades, remained at their post, watching and waiting. So many sides contesting, so many forces arrayed, so many players and pieces. Even the super-powerful intellects of those mighty ones of daemonkind had difficulty seeing all, and assessing what they viewed. Still, they knew and believed.
“A pawn has just been taken,” one of the eight observed tonelessly.
Another nodded. “It was the auraless one, the one the master said would die.”
“I cannot find a trace of him,” the first speaker observed. “To what end did he go?”
“To annihilation,” the other said unemotionally. “Where else? Otherwise there would be a trace, the shadow of the cord.”
“Of course,” the first said. Being the least of the Eight, it was his duty to observe the least important of events. The assurance from one of greater status was sufficient. Besides, he had commented on the occurrence, and it had been noted. The explanation of it supplied by Pneumonias set the burden squarely on that one’s decayed head. That was doubly satisfying. “The martinets of the hells do have their uses,” he finally commented to the
