cheeks.
Leda was stunned. 'This is the dreaded master of darkness?'
'He very nearly defeated Gord at that chess game,' Gellor cautioned.
'So he is a genius at gaming, but that doesn't make him-'
'Please say no more, Leda, Gellor. I would send you out of this place, but I need your strength, so stay here but be silent. Keep the rings on too, for I now understand what they are and do.'
Tharizdun let the air out of his cheeks with a razzing sound. 'Is that so? I don't think you know half as much as you think you do, fatherless whelp of a tomcat!' The boyish sparkle in Tharizdun's eyes was now a glow of deep malice that any demon would be proud of.
'I keep my own counsel, little toad,' Gord countered. 'What you think and what I understand might well be at variance. Are there more games you would play at?'
'How about these?' Tharizdun shouted, and as he spoke he flung a handful of darts at Gord's face, springing to his feet as he did so.
Gord's suspicion and quick reflexes saved him. The darts were acid-filled and poison-tipped both. Blind or kill, a single one could probably do either or both. He ducked aside, and all six missed their mark Tharizdun was up and away during the distraction, however. Gellor saw him heading for the ladder and started to intervene. 'Don't move!' Gord yelled. 'Let him go!'
Tharizdun swarmed up the ladder, the trap door opening automatically at his approach, banging shut as his heels disappeared. 'The dark disc of stone above houses his mature form,' Gord informed the two who stood wondering. 'Back down to the lower portion of this place, quickly!'
'Why couldn't we see his guise? Note his malice?'
'Neither you, Leda nor you, old friend, need be ashamed. His power is so immense that no normal dweomer can pierce any veil he chooses to place to hide his workings. Still, he is not omnipotent, and you two have means to counter his evil, just as the sword and ring I wear give me power to resist.'
'What hope have we?' the troubador asked.
'You both have rings. The three were forged in the empyreal realms, and each bound a portion of Tharizdun's evil force into the Theorparts. The power of his nature is loosed now, but the Good which fought against it remains in our three rings.' By then the three had come to the lower of the adamantitelined rooms that had been the monster's prison for so long.
'He nearly gulled me,' Gellor said sadly.
'I too,' Leda told the bard. 'Feel not a simpleton.'
'Should we go out and shut him fast again?'
'Make for the outside,' Gord said. 'There is no longer any means of holding Tharizdun anywhere, but I shall stand where this door once locked him in. I'll bar his passage until you two are free of his fortress.'
With great reluctance, Leda and Gellor complied. In a minute they were out of sight, heading to the base of the great keep and on beyond the confines of the fortress. Gord remained motionless, waiting. Soon there was a low moaning sound that seemed to come from the very stones of the castle, and the air grew rank and heavy. Then a flush suffused the blocks of marble and pale limestone. Red streamed forth from the walls, running from high on the walls downward, dripping from ceiling overhead to spot and pool the floor. Soon the whole of the place was milky white no longer but an ugly, red-violet that darkened and grew muddy as the process continued.
With the change of hue there came the sound of a heavy tread, and Gord knew that Tharizdun himself approached for confrontation.
Chapter 17
At last! How many tens of thousands of centuries had he been kept in bondage? Many. Far, far too many! While his true self had been bound in slumber, his mind drugged and powerless through the force of arcane dweomers, all that he had worked for and accomplished had been undone!
No. That wasn't exact. His puling enemies had been inept. The Lords of Light had attempted to destroy his work, but they had merely succeeded in making Evil factious — as weak as they were, those noble masters of Weal. Tharizdun smiled a smile of pure malice. Weaklings of any sort would be expunged from the cosmos soon.
The child-Tharizdun stood expectantly before him now. The boy was a creation of the Lords of Light, a place to house that part of himself that they could not submerge in their magical toils.
'Father!' the boy-Tharizdun shouted. 'They escape, they escape!' he cried, fairly dancing in his excitement and fury. 'Those three wear the rings!'
The true Master of Malevolence was sitting bolt upright in the stony cavity that had been his crypt for the centuries. Tharizdun was not yet fully himself.
There was a weakness evident inside, and only one answer at hand.
'Come here, my child,' he said to boy. The youthful little one obeyed reluctantly, his face still a twisted mask of impotent fury. 'Show me how to stop them,' he commanded. That order was ignored, and a heartbeat later Tharizdun seized the child and dragged him into the sarcophagus.
'You are unnatural,' the Darkest of Abominations growled as the boy started to resist. 'No! I am Tharizdun! Let me-' he screamed, seeing the red lust and awful fate that the being purposed for him. His last sentence was cut short by the teeth of his unnatural sire. Long, vampiric fangs closed on the jugular of the kicking child.
'Ahhh. That is better,' Tharizdun said with deep satisfaction as he drained the life from what had been his only consciousness for eons. Tossing aside the limp and lifeless body, Tharizdun sprang from the black crypt as lightly as a dancer. 'You dared to presume!' the terrible being said, looking down at the pale and bloodless form that was a replica of himself — or would have been, had Tharizdun ever been a child. 'Just because you housed a modicum of me, little jackal, that is not the same as being me! But you still have a use, for I am not yet fully satisfied.'
Then the ghastly thing grabbed up the corpse and proceeded to enjoy a cannibal feast. Tharizdun's mouth grew broad, jaws lengthened, and teeth grew to suit his desire. With snarl and slobber, he dined on flesh and bone. In but a few minutes nothing but the boy's skull remained.
Then the newly arisen emperor of the malign closed his burning eyes, seeking the ones who had freed him at last. There was no gratitude. In fact, Tharizdun would have felt none had the three been dedicated servants of his cause. All too well did Tharizdun know the prophecy of one who might resist his supreme reign over the cosmos, and just as well did the Master of Evil know that the man with gray eyes was that adversary.
'I see you,' Tharizdun said. In his mind were pictures of the whole of the castle, the land around, even more beyond. He concentrated only on the immediate surroundings, though, for he had first to eliminate all traces of the champion and the heroes who dared accompany him. Only then would it be time to bring to bear his might and subjugate all.
'I see you!' and as the thought arose in Tharizdun's brain it was transmitted to the minds of the three rash humans below. 'You two will stay there at the portal,' the archfiend communicated in his chilling thought, 'and as soon as your little would-be champion has been dealt with I will come for you.' The message was meant to dishearten, frighten, and disturb his foes. Tharizdun could have attempted to accomplish all through sheer mental assaults alone, but there was something compelling him to seek out the one named Gord and master him.
'You can never rule the multiverse,' came the sharp words, 'Tharizdun! Not until you can best me!'
With a snap that was clear to his antagonist, Tharizdun shut his mind. The force of the challenge was much greater than the dark being had imagined it could be. The opponent was a worthy one. That was not at all to Tharizdun's liking. How could one small half-human be more powerful than any of the deities he had faced and defeated long ago? Then only a great coalition of his enemies had been successful in overthrowing Tharizdun.
'I do not underestimate the adversary,' he said aloud softly. Arrogance and disdain were natural to the ultimate Evildoer, but now he would temper his pride and self-assurance. Testing the foe came first, discovery of patterns, weaknesses, and strengths too. Afterward, Tharizdun would strike, crush, and annihilate! He turned and stepped down, landing on the floor of the lower chamber with a dull thudding noise. Striding heavily, so that each step was like the distant thunder of doom, the Master of Malevolence went down to meet his awaiting opponent Gord was surprised when he finally saw the true Tharizdun. The being appeared as would a normal man. Tharizdun
