"Yes. We must diminish the number of claimants to nobility and reshape power and territorial holdings in the Abyss anyway," said Abraxas, who hungered after the realm of Yeenoghu. "Many will be the lesser prizes which will accumulate in our boodle as we sweep away our enemies."
"But a human! Surely those three must be considered our principal foes, the greater threat! Demon can understand and deal with demon, but the champion of Balance is—"
"Enough maundering, Marduk it is time for a vote." So saying, Iuz posed the two possibilities to the assembly. Those favoring an immediate search for the three invading humans were told to stand (or raise their torsos upright), those seeking immediate and complete destruction of Graz'zt were to remain seated (or as they were). All not in accord with one course or the other were given time to leave the amphitheater. Surprisingly, only a handful of the demons did leave. Marduk was at the head of those deserting the alliance.
"Excellent! One fewer to claim a chance at a Theorpart," noted Iuz, and that was a statement that none of the remaining demons challenged.
"Twenty-seven only," said Iggwilv, counting the number standing. "Do you bow to the greater number's wishes, or will you leave the assemblage?"
The ones who had favored hunting down Gord, Eclavdra, and Gellor were by no means ready to leave. They all sat down without undue commotion, and the leaders then began to make their plans to crush Graz'zt. Although he now had only a one-front war to fight, what with Demogorgon's desertion of the struggle, there was now more arrayed against Graz'zt than ever before. "He no longer has the power of the Eye of Deception, either," noted Szhublox.
"Unless that bag, Elazalag, decides to throw in with him," quipped Iggwilv. "She is almost human, and that worries me," the witch continued with a serious note in her voice. "The clans under her rule might be sufficient, what with the Eye, to enable that oversized dog-turd to conduct a long defense. Perhaps we should have . .."
"What is that you mumble about?" Iuz made the demand an insult as well.
"Tend to the strategies," she countered. "I'll be heard loud enough when I so wish!" Yet something nagged at the back of iggwllv's mind. Did she allow her own hatred for Graz'zt to cloud her judgment? Impossible! But . . . "Now, Iuz, I think we must consider the division of the hordes into battles, and which of these great demonlords will be in charge of them!"
Chapter 10
THE TRANSITION FROM COLD and windswept rock desert to the steamy verdure of Mezzafgraduun was sudden. There was no demarcation, no clue that they were about to leave the inhospitable barren of an unnamed tier of the Abyss and find themselves suddenly traversing the jungle frontier of Graz'zt's own domain.
The three had actually entered the Soulless Sounding where its portal stood in the midst of Elazalag's massive castle. They did so unceremoniously, without any leave-taking whatsoever. They simply strode into the place while the ebon-hued warriors watched closely but stayed well clear of such ones as they were now known to be. They were in the ghastly passage one moment and out of it the very next, barely treading the insubstantial and shifting stuff of the Sounding.
Leda took them to the gate that was at hand, but it entered a deep and wild region of the Abyss. Six thousand kinds of beasts existed in demonium, six hundred brutes, things worse by far than the bestial fauna of the place. She knew this place, for it was one where the demonlords hunted for sport. It was wild. harsh, and sparsely populated. The things that did inhabit the region were vast, ferocious, deadly. Unlike the swarming menagerie that had greeted Gord and Gellor on their arrival upon the uppermost portion of demonium, the brutes of this region were silent killers who stalked prey in stealth with relentless determination.
Often the hunters from elsewhere became the hunted here, and lesser demons were prone to become morsels in the belly of one or another of the lurking things, as their demonlord masters laughed and despoiled at the amusement thus provided, each safe in armor, armed with beast-slaying weapons, ringed round by their huntsdemons holding sawedged pikes in nervous grips.
Gellor held his ivory harp ready, fingers poised to pluck the silver wires and send out fear and death to the predatory things that slunk just out of sight. Leda now bore the Theorpart, knowing the use of such a thing from her experience with Graz'zt's own great relic. But Gord was not willing to risk her use of the terrible relic that was called Initiator. He attuned Courflamme to the Theorpart, drawing dark force from it into his sword. Leda wielded the relic still, and its force was greater than that channeled by the Eye of Deception, but thanks to Gord's efforts she was not in peril of becoming a mere zombie possessed by the terrible instrument.
The three sped across the cold wastes, moving with strides which would have left the swiftest courser behind, yet moving without exertion as if they merely strolled at a leisurely pace through a pleasant parkland. Even at such a rate of travel, a few of the hunters of the tier managed to stay on their trail as hounds would track a stag.
"Our blood is to such monsters as gold is to a miser's eyes," Leda said in response to the bard's query about the phenomenon. "The scent of it will draw beast and brute from leagues distant to get at us."
"Mezzafgraduun knows no such monsters?"
"No, Gord. The swamps and tangles of the jungle which rings the place have many ferocious things within, but none so fearsome as the brutes here."
Gord actually grinned. "I know you told me that before, and it isn't that I doubted you. I just had to have your second assurance after seeing this desert. It is exactly what I had hoped for."
"An icy waste of rock and nightmare scrub populated with such creatures as would make dragons flee gibbering in fear? I confess my absolute amazement," Gellor said in a tone of disgust. "My nerves are as taut as the strings of the kanteel."
"How long will such things survive in a warmer clime, lady?" Gord asked the beautiful little dark elf, ignoring Gellor.
"There are a dozen or so beasts in the demonking"s menagerie — even a monstrous demon-brute was caged therein for a short time. Graz'zt used it in his games, though."
"Then let us be on the safe side and try to round up a dozen or two of the worst sort we can," Gord said, grinning again with boyish glee.
"You wouldn't. . . ." Gellor said with an expression of dawning understanding spreading across his face.
The gray eyes sparkled back at the bard. "Oh, but I would. We will, to be exact. You, my dear old troubador, will stand ready to put down any recalcitrant brute with the dweomer of your harp. Leda, you will use the Theorpart to draw them to us quickly but with whatever humility and fear such things can experience and retain within their minds, dim as they might be. I, In turn, will see to it that they remain tractable and nonaggressive to us. Courflamme will be sufficient, I am sure!"
"And then?" Gellor asked with near sarcasm. The scheme sounded preposterous, considering what sort of monsters Gord had in mind.
"Yes, Gord. Are you sure—"
"You two must trust me on this. We must make an entrance upon Mezzafgraduun, and gam the palace of Graz'zt thereafter. We have no guards, no army, nothing to demonstrate our might. Yes, I do believe we could accomplish the journey without mishap, and after we cut down a few thousand of the demonking's own, he might be willing to hear what we have to propose to him. But that would be a poor way to begin a delicate negotiation. Graz'zt would be smarting from the loss of face and the loss of his soldiers, and the loss of the Eye would then burn as a midsummer sun on the brow of a serf."
Gord gestured around, taking in the whole sweeping harshness of the fell wild. "From this barren we will bring an escort of creatures which the great amongst demonkind hold deadly and fierce. So many will we bend to our will that the loss of a few from combats in the jungles of Mezzafgraduun, and from whatever heat and pestilences will be there as well, will not detract from the spectacle of our appearance before the capitol of the ebon monarch." He paused, looking at his old comrade first, then at Leda.