Dance of Demons by Gary Gygax Read Free Book Online

disgusting one yammered and went into nothingness as the weapon sent its destruction through each in turn. Straight as arrows the bolts of force sped, well beyond the range of the best bows. In minutes not a single living demon was anywhere in sight before Gord. Then the young man turned to see how Gellor was faring.
    A rippling peal of harmony greeted Gord's turning. "Most impressive, my young friend," Gellor told him with a second little run of the kanteel's silver strings as an accent to the compliment. "My little harp sent the demons tumbling and breaking well enough — but that blade of yours spits out magical bolts as if it were Cabbac's own Baton of Blazes."
    "Not an impossible inspiration, Gellor. After all, the Uncaring One is of neutral disposition," Gord said dryly. Both men chuckled, for they knew that the god of all magics was indeed uninterested in affairs of any sort except those that pertained directly to dweomers and their spinning. Cabbac did not prevent his lieutenant from siding with Balance, but the father of magics himself remained purposely unaware, aloof. "Seriously, though, I do think that one of the Twelve Great Magicks of Cabbac was set within the sword."
    "Quite possible," Gellor concurred as he eyed the desolate, dun landscape that stretched into infinity around them. Leprous ochre growths and lIvid gashes of terra cotta were the only relief to the dull, decayed brown that colored this part of the plane. "Ugh!" the troubador added, noticing the ground that squished under his feet for the first time since the two had trod upon this tier of the Abyss. "Nothing in this place is right or clean!"
    "A bit cleaner now, with those heaps of offal manuring the ground." Gord quipped, spitting at the corpse of the nearest demon.
    "Shit to shit," Gellor agreed. "But where to next?"
    "We jump from this place to the buttes off there," the young champion told the bard. In the vast distance there were several tall, flat-topped hills rising like uicers from the mud-colored terrain. "The entrance to the next spheres lies there."
    Gellor didn't bother to ask his comrade how he knew that. The information was simply in Gord's brain. "Need we progress from first to second, second to third, and so on?" the troubador inquired, dread evident in his tone.
    "Nay. Whatever levels of this cesspool we can bypass, we will," Gord told his friend. "We need not prove anything, accomplish anything, save reach that place where Graz'zt and his allies wage war with the throng of demonkind who side with Iuz. From the central portals, we can step onto any one of a score of these spheres," Gord said reflectively. "I think, though, that we must opt to pass to the eighth plane next, and from thence make our way slantwise through several of the interposing levels, to reach the midrealms as quickly as possible."
    "Then why not pass directly to the lowest tier we can attain from the central gates? There, I perceive, is a portal which enters the three hundred third of the spheres of demonkind."
    "Think on that again, Gellor," Gord said as if instructing a pupil. "Does your mind note anything unusual about the plan?"
    The bard concentrated a moment, then nodded curtly. "Right. I sense a clot of evil blocking that path."
    "You sense right, Gellor," Gord confirmed. "I felt it immediately. Infestix and his rotting lieutenants are gathered there. He has gathered with him a legion of daemonkind, along with sundry demons and other scum of the netherplanes to greet us. His decayed brain labors for naught, and by my route we sidestep his trap and foil the ambush with ease."
    Although Gellor didn't mind playing a secondary role to the Champion of Balance, the one-eyed hero was by no means along merely to serve as a ready sword. His own mind was at work on the problem, too. "A sly demon spy reports our slaughter here to the Lord of Death even now, Gord," he told the young thief. "Infestix will soon enough note our route and send forth his fastest