"Whaat?" the snake-headed Apepi hissed angrily as Gord interposed himself. "No fairnesss in thisss fight?"
"Of course," Gord almost laughed in reply as he snapped his wrist. The length of the two Theorparts, now a steely whip, wrapped around the heavy khopesh. "I fairly despise you, and I fairly finish it so!" He tugged, and the hook-topped sword flew from the demon prince's grasp. "Now you may pick it up and fight again with my comrade, who is now getting his own weapon — or you can run!"
Both men laughed as the cobra-demon fled from the field by means of its own inner powers, a force that recalled the demon safely to his own stronghold elsewhere in the Abyss. "And now?" asked the troubador, surveying the littered field.
"We get Leda and the Unbinder, and be away from this pestilential place," Gord said.
"A plan worthy of Balance's finest, Gord," Gellor agreed. "Yonder Graz'zt is attempting to rally the disheartened horde he marshalled here, and his consort is urging compliance with the Eye of Deception."
"There could be more slaughter, but that would avail us nothing. Our goal is Tharizdun, and that goal is at hand."
The statement sobered Gellor. "Yes. ... I had almost forgotten that Let's get on with it, then."
The two tired men moved quickly despite their fatigue. "Good work Leda! I see you have managed your share of the enemy, too," Gellor said to the silent girl.
"Never mind that." Gord reprimanded, seeing that Leda was in near shock from what she had had to do. He took the sword gently, sheathing it, then placed his arm around her protectively, as a father might comfort a child. "It has been hard, I know, dearest one. You must pull yourself together now, for unless we leave here immediately there will be yet more and ghastlier fighting to manage."
"He . . . he . . . Vuron! It was if I had to slay my own father!"
Gord steered her to a little distance away, a place where he could use the powers of the Theorparts to shift them from the nethersphere of demons to another, even worse, place. Time later to tell Leda that the albino had brought her into existence from Eclavdra for his own evil purposes. Not even one as strong as Leda could deal with so much now. "Gellor, seize Unbinder and bring it along."
"What of me?" a slow voice spoke. "Will you tarry to see if your newfound might can deal with me?"
"No," Gord said without bothering to look "You, Lord Entropy, have no part in my current plans. Seep off to where you belong." The entity was gone when the three departed the Abyss a moment later.
Chapter 14
THEY LAUGHED LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN when the vast, dark cloud that had come so suddenly deluged all beneath it with large raindrops that fell as thick as the soft grass beneath their feet. Giggling and dancing, as naked and innocent as two babes, they ran for the shelter of a broad, leafy bower formed naturally by the palms nearby. Yet no sooner had they gained the protection than the pelting ram became no more than a silvery shower, for the moving mountain of cumulus sailed onward. Then warm, golden sun streamed down.
The land is spread with a million diamonds," he said.
"And there! See the rainbow? Does it have a pot of gold at its end?"
Gord took her hand and started outward. "Of course it does! Shall we go and get it?"
"No, who needs gold? We have each other and this beautiful place."
"It isn't as lovely as you. Leda, and no golden treasure can compare to the wonders of this place." he agreed.
It was so. As the sunshine warmed the land after the little storm, a hundred bright butterflies came out to seek nectar. They soared on iridescent wings above the flower-strewn meadows as if competing for attention with the brilliant blooms. The flowers, though, seemed unaware, or perhaps merely selfassured. Their myriad hues were more akin to the pastel bands of the rainbow's arch above than the vIvid colors that the butterflies despoiled, and they overspread the land in banks and petaled clusters, punctuating the green of bent grasses and thick-trunked trees with pastel beauty.
"Vixen!" The exclamation came from Gord as Leda suddenly reached up and shook a fresh shower of drops from the bough he stood beneath. "I'll make you pay for that!"
Leda laughed merrily and ran off into the meadow, her little feet leaving a clear track where crystalline droplets were disturbed from the blades on which they perched. "You're too fat and slow!" she called, seeing that Gord was well behind her.
Without bothering to reply to the taunt, Gord sped across the sward, heady from the perfume of the thousand flowers around them and the chase too. He was neither fat nor slow. The slender dark elf was quick and athletic, but Leda was no match for Gord in a foot race. He caught her just as she came to the edge of a deep pool fringed by mosses and ferns and ringed by a dozen old trees. "Ha!" he exclaimed, catching her up from behind and raising her stillrunning feet above the sward. "Caught you rather easily for a fat old slowpoke!"
She tried to twist free, and her gyrations made them both tumble into the soft bed of vegetation there. "Oh! Now see what— " she started to admonish, thinking more of crushed ferns than any harm to the two of them.
Gord cut her short by gently turning her head and kissing her. Leda had no objection. She returned the tenderness, and soon the kiss became a long and involved caress. "Ah, my love, this is what I have so long dreamed of," he murmured as they paused in their lovemaking.
"Then dream no longer, dear one," Leda said, and resumed the embrace so that passion soon rose in both of them.
Pale and dark so intertwined and played that an observer, had there been one, could scarcely have told where one left off and the other began. There in the dimness of the grove, beside the clear water, in air redolent with sweet herbs and fragrant blossoms, Gord and Leda made love to each other for a tenth time, and it seemed as if it were the first since coming to this idyllic place. The air was warm, so that afterward they could lay back on the cushion of mossy stuff and ferns beneath them, allowing the little breezes to cool the heat that had swept their bodies. And as they lay there thus, they looked up at the tracery of deep green leaves against the pale azure of the sky and heard the whisper of wind and plash of water as a lullaby gently played for them alone. The peace of love stole upon both, and lying thus Gord and Leda fell asleep, his hand holding hers while little birds warbled somewhere nearby and insects sang a noontide drowse.
Gord awoke first. How long he had slumbered he neither knew nor cared. He didn't move or awaken Leda, content to lie still and gaze at her nude body in repose. Leda was small, perfectly proportioned, her skin as dark as the shadows beneath the ferns, hair as bright as water under the sun. Her full breasts were tipped by lavender carmine, as were her lips, although the shade where they lay made dim the distinction between the glossy jet of her skin and those more brilliant highlights. Gord knew, though, the exact differences, for they were indelibly impressed on his mind, from the scrutiny under bright sunlight and pale moonlight too. All of her he had drunk in with his eyes as thirstily as a parched wayfarer coming upon a desert oasis, always and continuously over the brief time they had been in the place.