Gord dared not allow Courflamme to impact upon the ruby-hued scimitar formed from the might of the Awakener. The relic could not be destroyed, save perhaps by Tharizdun himself. Gord now understood, from his experience with Infestix, that great as was the strength of the artifact of Balance, It could not withstand even a third of the evil relic, not in such direct manner. Courflamme's powers were greater than the Theorpart's own, but in a different form.
Rather than trying to sever the whiplike tentacles that lashed forth at him, Gord caused a mesh of crystal and soot-black weave to spring into being in the air between himself and the cambion. The deep red of the snakelike stuff struck the web of white and black LIvid carmine devoured strand after strand of the mesh, but as fast as it did so, more grew. Soon the whip was enmeshed, woven fast into a growing web.
But just as Gord was feeling positive, Iuz struck again. One instant, the half-demon's sword was held fast by the interplay of forces; the next, Iuz was striking at Gord with his own enchanted two-handed sword. The dirty-hued blade hit hard, sheared through the shadow plate, and snapped the silvery links of elfin mall beneath. The force drove Gord down, sprawling, his grip on Courflamme broken. The sword of Balance, however, remained where it was, horizontal, floating four feet above the muck of the grotto's floor, locked in its own duel with the scimitar-Theorpart. Disarmed, bruised, bleeding, only half conscious, Gord rolled and scrabbled, trying to get away.
Iuz had simply loosed his hold on Awakener, leaving it to contest with the enmeshing energies from the weapon of Balance. The cambion had his own sword, a long blade of demoniac forging, and this he used to spring his sudden onslaught upon his small adversary. Its blow was meant to cut the man in two at the waist. It gave Iuz only a moment's pause when the stroke failed to do as it had been meant. Then, with a bellow of killing lust and delight at what was to occur, Iuz leaped to straddle his fallen foe. "The thrust which strikes true!" the half-demon shouted with glee and excitement as he held the two-handed sword like a dagger, striking down to pierce Gord through his guts and pin him like a bug.
Some distance away, Iggwilv screeched in pain and rage. The terrible matter from the Baton d'Agrue had eaten away most of her silken garments, singed away her hair, blistered and pocked her flesh. Never had such a thing happened to her! Still voicing her awful ululations, the eldest of witches sprang to meet the hated drow. She would jam the wand down Leda's throat and choke her to death with its torrential emission of energy.
Instead of the dark elven priestess, however, Iggwilv leaped upon something else altogether. Seeing what her enemy intended, Leda used the Theorpart to form a barrier to intercept the charge of the infuriated witch. The power of Initiator was such that it went beyond a mere screen. The malign evil of the artifact brought forth a rack of iron spikes. The myriad needles of the thing caught the beautiful form that was that assumed by Iggwilv and turned it into a red ruin. Now the howling from the crone's throat was only of pain.
The agony made Iggwilv forget all about her former desires. Now all she wished was surcease of torment, and escape. Without thinking, Iggwilv thrust with both of her hands, desperately trying to pull her painwracked body from the terrible daggers that pierced it She had quite forgotten the Baton d'Agrue. Her mindless struggle brought the twisted wand into hard contact with what was essentially the force of the Theorpart. The baton was broken, consumed by that energy. As the thing was destroyed in a roar of conflicting forces, the rampant flux of energy devoured Iggwilv entirely. In one terrible roaring flash, the mother of all witches was no more.
"Aaahr That was all Leda could manage. No oath, no words could form. Something in Iggwilv's eyes at the moment of destruction, the sound of her final agony, made the dark elven girl shudder and draw back in disbelief. It was too terrible an end, even for one such as the witch had been.
Leda almost felt sympathy, remorse. Then she shook herself. No! Whatever fate had taken Iggwilv, the vile hag had brought upon herself. . . . What of Gord? Gellor? Leda turned, and her eyes fell upon the bard first where he was dueling with the mass of Zuggtmoy's fungoid bulk he plucking silvery strings, she manipulating her device of evil. The demoness was near to overwhelming Gellor — that was plain from the ever nearer thrusts issuing from the Cauldron of Corruption. Then Leda heard the cambion's shout of triumph and spun to see what had befallen Gord.
"Nooo!" She screamed as she saw Iuz jump and straddle the fallen champion. As she cried that denial, the dark elf sent the Theorpart flying from her hand. It spun through the air with the susurration of a thousand midge-sized imps tittering at some vast distance as if in diabolic delight.
The eerie sound of its passage made the cambion hesitate a split-second before he brought the huge sword down to pierce Gord's vitals. "Whang!" The sound of the alien metal as it impacted upon the sword's dingy blade was so loud that the halfdemon's eardrums nearly ruptured. The force of the impact moved the point of the weapon, so that when Iuz reflexively thrust it down, the tongue of the blade sank nearly its full length into the soft compost of the grotto's floor. The cambion, thrown off balance by the shift in the sword-stroke, pitched into an off-balance somersault. "Uuff!" was the sound Iuz made as he slammed down on his back.
Gord couldn't hear that, for he was temporarily deafened from the noise of the impact of Initiator upon the cambion's two-handed sword. The cry from Leda still sang in his mind, though. As he saw the sword come down, miss, and bury its length, the young champion knew that he had been given a last chance by the love of the little dark elf and her desperate act. Leaping erect, hardly pausing to note Iuz's distress, Gord took one step and grabbed Courflamme's diamond-and-jet banded hilt. "Good for Evil," he cried softly, and the sword separated in twain. A bright crystalline blade remained locked in contest with the rubine scimitar that was Awakener, but into Gord's gauntleted hand came a shining brand of nighted hue.
Seeing her love thus armed, Leda turned again to where Gellor fought against the terrible demoness. What could she accomplish against the mighty demon queen? Leda had many powerful spells upon which she could call. These were potent in terms of men, but against the force of Zuggtmoy, such dweomers would be paltry things indeed. Yet she had no other weapon with which to attack. . . . Leda decided to try a tactic that might work.
"Hear me utter your true name, O Zuggtmoy, Empress of Blights, and harken! You will not disregard this call, nor will you disobey my command. By the Black Votary I summon you, Zuggtmoy, and with the Bonds of Exaction do I fetter you. Hear and obey. Queen of Thallphytia, Mistress of Mycorji. You are but a demoness subject to my will. ..."
Immersed as she was in the battle with the bard and his magical harp, Zuggtmoy was superficially unaware of the casting of the evocation of binding. The words that Leda was chanting but a few yards distant might well have been said a thousand leagues away, for all the demoness actually heard. Yet the words, each with its charge of dweomer, did enter the mind of the fungoid being, and as these utterances accumulated there they began to niggle away. The spell being cast was not one that could ever demand full obedience from one as powerful as she, yet Zuggtmoy was affected nonetheless.
In other circumstances, had she not been engaged in a deadly battle, for instance, Zuggtmoy might have heard and answered — to wreak unspeakable revenge upon any so foolish as to annoy her thus. But the demoness was not free, and the incantation had an impact upon her. As the long strings of words was said, and the rite progressed, the gnawing of their message finally broke through from the subconscious of her brain to that part of Zuggtmoy's mind that was occupied in the fight with Gellor.
"What? Who dares?" came the telepathic demand from the disturbed demoness. The power of that blast of mental energy was sufficient to break Leda's casting. It knocked the little dark elf down, In fact, and wounded her with its force. But the distraction of the fungi queen was enough so that Zuggtmoy faltered in her complicated series of attacks upon the one-eyed bard.