'Very amusing,' the entity responded without any enthusiasm, let alone humor. 'As it is of urgent requirement, the third of your greater yeth, I shall gather my presence in Pandemonium and the Abyss. The recaicitrant will be burdened by me, and your conquest thus hastened.'
'If you so choose, but I think not that it adds to any agreement between us or that these will be a debt to repay?'
'Trouble yourself not at all on that score, archfiend. The compact we have is all that I desire. Consider this a willing effort, my special gift in honor of your return to power, Tharizdun.'
As suddenly as the Lord of Entropy had come, its presence was no longer there in Tharizdun's hall. The darkest one of Evil was relieved, for as much as he hated to admit it, the entity made him uneasy, and Entropy's presence wore on his nerves, sapped his vitality somehow. 'You will be no welcome visitor soon, thing,' Tharizdun snarled softly as he pondered the role of the master of stasis. Once in full mastery of the cosmos, the archfiend would seek and find ways to dispatch Entropy, or at worst exile the entity from the vicinity of wherever Tharizdun happened to be. Perhaps the negative forces of the anti-cosmos were the answer, one given unwittingly to him by the stupid inactive one himself. That would be delightful and ironic. How would such a thing die? Slowly, no doubt, but probably without sufficient emotion to make the spectacle worthwhile. In this case, Tharizdun reckoned, the end would be worth it even lacking the sport.
That brought him to the matter of his adversary, Gord. It had required all of his skill at dissembling, acting and lying too to keep the truth of things from the Lord of Entropy. Tharizdun pondered, recalling clearly his rash act No ally, and certainly none of the slaves, must ever know of that act of weakness. Because of the lack of that last, essential portion of what he had been, Tharizdun knew himself to be both stronger than before and yet at the same time less potent. That was why he waited to complete his pack of yeth hounds, why he still sought the assistance of the master of inertia. Not only did the archfiend need to recover the skull and consume it, he had to wait to accomplish that after dealing with a deadly adversary prepared by every force that opposed him from time immemorial, honed since his last defeat.
'Even the demons gave to that opposition,' Tharizdun snarled, 'and such a price they will pay for that! That accursed sword wields energies drawn from ail aspects op my own domain; thus it b a weapon even I must he wary of. Yet no tool is better than the one using it, and I have the rede of the little knave who has been bequeathed with the mantle of Balance's power. Too flawed, you fools!' The last he shouted into the empty silences of his immeasurable hall there on the plane of Hades, and none heard.
He might have been a useful servant of Tharizdun's. That the darkest noted in studying the sordid history of the one called Gord. Well, there was no turning him around now, and his disgusting principles warped the drow priestess too, so that the clone grew apart from its true form. Ah, were but Eclavdra the one assisting the champion, she would have stung him as a scorpion! The many scenes involving Gord, Leda, Gellor too, all had been replayed by the archfiend as he wielded his arcane dweomers.
'I know my enemies now,' he reassured himself. The troubador had always been tainted with wealsome ethic, beliefs that were weak and unselfish. That one could be forgotten,despite his nasty little harp. Gellor and Leda, supernormal now, but hardly above human capability if stripped of magical bolstering. Imbued or otherwise, he could handle the pair easily enough.
In combination with Gord, the matter became more problematic. Especially since the three now bore the tokens left for just such purpose by the elders of Light. Were they separable? If so, then it would be a swatting of butterflies. Put such happy prospects aside, though. What strength did the three mortals, with their rings, constitute?
The three had improved wisdom, reasoning, senses. Two to guard the flanks of the champion, Gord armed with Courflamme, the single weapon capable of actually ending Tharizdun's existence. The little turd also kept the boy's head too! Was there more? Yes … it was coming forth as the archfiend bent his will to the problem. Unknown agencies seemed to lend their assistance, but that help was. puny and nonvital. Fortune was to smile upon them — no matter, Tharizdun took no chances, not any more, and he always stacked the tiles so that there were no odds in favor of his opponents.
Again, the tempo of whatever occurred would beat at a pace useful to those three. But yet again it was a matter of small consequence. The archfiend would commence the hunt only when he was ready. Until then he would stay in his now unassailable realm in the netherspheres. With time favoring him, there accrued no advantage to the foes if it briefly surged in their direction.
'Only the sword remains. If I can negate the power of Courflamme, I can win without effort!' Time passed as Tharizdun contemplated that. mulling over the whole of the history of the sword. Then it came to him in a flash that was inspired. 'It is of Balance, and the culmination of the ethos, the forces op that sphere's energy, are of mundane being where all others meet. Courflamme is agathokakological, a tool of Good and Evil forced in the gray neutrality of Balance. Now I have the final strategy.'
Tharizdun paused in his contemplations and gave vent to uncontrolled peals of mirth, laughter so malign that its echoes rolled beyond the precincts of even so monstrous a hall as he sat in, and the whole of the netherworld trembled at the sound. 'Let plodding master Entropy place his pall upon all he can to hinder you, gord the champion. I will use my yeth to hound you throughout the cosmos, and but one little hole will seem to be a place of safety. as hares you and your comrades will run into it, and there I'll wait. Never has there been a tool made which cannot be unmade, and I have the force which fashioned Courflamme there in the hidey-hole. It will be beaten into nothingness on the forge which formed it, and then you are mine!'
The wave of triumphant power that followed on the heels of that shouted proclamation also washed beyond the hall. At its passing, all the denizens of the dark planes were made stronger and exulted in the vileness of the energy. Now they were glad they were slaves of the greatest master Evil had ever spawned.
Chapter 20
Dark hordes rolled across Demonium in a wave. Composed of millions of indIvidual soldiers, the wave performed as if It was a single entity. In a hundred places it lapped around a fortress, each such stronghold then becoming an island in a hostile and stormy sea. Everywhere else, save one single continentlike mass, was inundated by the army of Tharizdun. One after another the small islands of demonic resistance fell to the rising tlde of the Ultimate Evil's hordes as more and more spawn of the other netherspheres were sent to fight the rebellious inhabitants of the Abyss. The smallest strongholds fell initially, of course, where some petty lord of a minor race of demons tried vainly to defy Tharizdun's overlordship. The Master of All Evil would brook no such independence, and each victory brought a horrible example of the fate that any who defied him would suffer. Yet surprisingly, most of the demons were not cowed by the cruelty or the monstrous things that befell the defenders after being overwhelmed by the invading forces.
Perhaps it was not actually surprising when the nature of demonium was considered. After all, what lord of the Abyss wouldn't do the same? What demon would ever forgive defiance? Once committed to opposition, there was no alternative course, no peace ever to be made, no amnesty that would be granted. The ethos of Evil allowed only victory, and the term 'vanquished' was synonymous with 'exterminated.' For every demon slain by the hordes under Tharizdun's banner, a score of the attackers were destroyed. Had not a quarter of the force been drawn from the Abyss itself, where a portion of the demonlords had bowed to the darkest force, then perhaps the invasion might have taken far, far longer to achieve appreciable results, make great inroads on the hundreds of planes that were demonkind's.
Tharizdun cared little about losses. Devils, daemons, maelvis, or any other of the dozen malign races under his command were but implements to be used, discarded if blunted or broken, and new ones obtained. Not that the Master of Malevolence would denude the whole of the netherspheres with such equanimity. Indeed, he needed many subjects to cany out his commands, see to his desires, and for the dutles of maintaining oppression there and elsewhere soon enough. In order to become absolute master of the cosmos, Tharizdun had first to rule all of the lower spheres. He had no option but to subjugate the Abyss before he could turn his attention elsewhere. Demons, certainly the most vicious enemies of all opposed to Evil, were thus serving the multiverse without knowing or caring that they aided all of Weal and nonwicked dlsposition.
Tharizdun understood all too well what was occurring and raged at it. Unthinkable in any circumstance, the
