"You shan't! Not really? That was just a ruse, wasn't it?"
"No, Leda. I spoke forthrightly and with truth. These demonfolk have carried out their portion of the bargain, and now we shall deliver ours."
"What if they are planning treachery?" the drow priestess said angrily. "What of your fine honesty then?"
"In that event, my dear Leda, we will serve up to them the same dish that Infestix and his horde Just found so unpalatable. We three can devastate the greatest of the Abat-dolor in a twinkling, then use the power of Theorpart, sword, and Eye too, for that matter, to be elsewhere."
They were almost to the place where the ebonhued demon army stood in wonder, trying to decide just what to do now that their more numerous foes had suddenly left off fighting and pulled back to stand in confusion opposite the Abat-dolor. Of course there were those shouting for a charge, but Elazalag and her nobles were keeping the masses of warriors in control awaiting the approaching humans.
"These ones will try no trickery, I trow," Gellor ventured. "I detect more than a little awe radiating from the princess, there, and Herald Nisroch too."
It was so. "You bested the greatest of daemons!" Elazalag uttered with amazement. "I saw mighty Infestix yowl off to his own realm as does a cur when it loses its tail to the jaws of another dog."
"He will eventually regrow it — his fingers, I mean. I took them, and his relic too, in the contest," Gord asserted.
This one would be a mighty champion of the Abyss, my Princess," Nisroch said, meaning it to be sotto voce, but booming it regardless because of his massive lungs and resonant voice. "With that one as your consort, my Princess, the Abat-dolor would control all demonlum before — "
"Enough!" commanded the tall demoness, but immediately after silencing her herald Elazalag cast a sidelong and speculative glance in Gord's direction. Tell me. Champion, have you ever considered — "
"He has not, nor will he ever!" Leda interrupted with a firm, cold voice. Grabbing Gord's arm possessively as she spoke, the little dark elf then gazed unflinchingly at the feral eyes of Princess Elazalag. Without turning, Leda addressed the young man. "Give her the Eye of Deception, Gord. Then I think it Is high time for us to be on our way from here."
The anticlimactic tension of this tableau was too much for Gord to bear. He laughed a full, clean laugh, the mirth rolling from his stomach up through his chest and spilling out from his mouth in staccato bursts. At the same time, though, he placed his right arm around the mailed shoulders of the beautiful drow who clung to him possessively and hugged her closer. "You, lady of mine, are most certainly correct. There is still much to accomplish and but scant time to do it in. May I have the artifact, please?"
Leda passed the container that held it into his hand, and Gord released his arm from its hold around her. Formally, with a slight bow, Gord proffered the sigil-strewn bag with the Eye of Deception within to the tall, six-fingered demoness who was sovereign ruler of the nine clans of Abat-dolor on iyondagur.
"Princess Elazalag, I present to you the gift which was promised in our bargain. The Eye of Deception is of the Abyss and has been held by the Abat-dolor for centuries, I am told. The artifact was only beyond the ken of demonkind for a brief time, but I offer my apologies for even so brief a hiatus. Please take it and use it as you will on behalf of the Abat-dolor, for that is as it should be."
It didn't seem incongruous to Gord to speak thus. The demoness and her kin were very much like humans. Yes, their repute placed them as some of the most vicious of all demons, but that was in keeping with their near-humanity. Evil they were, undoubtedly so, but not always — and, when pressed, what race of mankind was not also vicious and homicidal?
The demoness reached out and took the thing from him, acting with a little more haste than was called for, but such anxiety was understandable too. Elazalag was thinking of how this would redress the balance between iyondagur and Mezzafgraduun, between herself and the demonking Graz'zt. "With this I shall reunite all of the Abat-dolor," she said loudly, so that all the demons in earshot might hear and exult. "I shall extend our lands and bring woe to all those enemies who harassed and belittled the Abat-dolor when we were weak!"
"I doubt you'll need it to finish off the rabble left behind by Infestix when he fled," Gord said as he saw the trickle of movement toward the rear by the disorganized and frightened enemy, showing the beginnings of panic and rout. "They are leaderless and will soon be in full flight. On the other hand, negotiations with Graz'zt will be most interesting, Princess, and I think you will—"
His further thoughts were drowned out by a growing roar. The ranks of the Abat-dolor warriors were alive with triumph as the word was passed among them. Their princess had recovered the Eye, and the daemon was chased from their land. Victory! Cheers and shouts rolled along their front, outward, company by company, then back inward again.
Nisroch looked at his sovereign, and Elazalag nodded. The herald brought the princess's chariot up, and as soon as she was within it, Nisroch's voice bellowed out above the shouts and cheers: "Forward! Kill the enemy!"
That was all it took. The command was taken up by a thousand throats, then a hundred thousand, or so it seemed to the humans, who were nearly deafened by the din. With a continuing roar, the whole mass of the ebon-hued demon army rolled forward at a run. Elazalag with her hippokeres-drawn chariot, flanked by a score of cavalry on either hand, led the charge.
The riders on the wings forged ahead of the formation, making the advance into a crescent of death. It struck the fleeing horde of invaders as if it were a tidal wave, and fully a quarter of the foe were slain by that first impact.
"Let us leave this field," Gord said, turning from the slaughter that was now commencing in earnest. "I mind not seeing such as those meet their end, for it is meet. What happens afterward is something I care not to contemplate, let alone witness."
"Something you said before, Gord," Gellor mentioned as they began walking from the place toward the castle that sprawled some miles away.
"What's that, old friend?"
"The Eye — you said it was drawing power from Courflamme, and from the Theorpart, too."
"Only because of our thoughts and emotions, only because of the proximity and the rapport which had built as each of us fought the enemy."
"The burning spheres were a nonesuch, Gord," Leda said, including the bard by a quick glance in his direction. "What did you think of them, Gellor?"
"Sufficient to devastate whole battalions with a single discharge," he responded.
"It was your thought which brought them forth, Leda," Gord told the dark elven priestess. "That device is a potent one. It is of great evil, but the force can be turned to other ends ... on occasion."
"Doesn't your own sword bind the powers of the netherspheres, Gord?"
"Yes, Leda, It does that; but it also holds, separately but in conjunction, the might of the spheres of Light. Balance binds all, and enables the forces to be used in equilibrium. The manifold energies of the Eye of Deception can produce terrible results. They are always of Evil. Who can say what can be performed with that great relic? In the end, its employment always benefits the Abyss.
"The sword, though, has no truly dark side, not any longer. Courflamme is the artifact of primordial neutrality. It exists to enable the cosmos to continue as it is, each of the disparate forces within it keeping the others in check. Perhaps it is the doom of Tharizdun, or perhaps the cosmos must change. It is not written anywhere that things will always be as they are."