"Ah, hush . . . hush, now," Gord said soothingly, rocking the slight form as he spoke. Although couldn't know for certain just why she was so wracked, the emotion filling Gord was enough to enable him to share the pain and joy of the moment, to understand and be tender. "There will be no separation again — ever. Not as long as I live and you live, Leda my one love." He gently stroked her cheek caressed her hair as he soothed her, and Leda's crying diminished slowly.
Leda regained her composure but didn't move unnecessarily, content to have Gord hold her. Drawing herself as close as their armor would allow, and clasping him around his neck again, the dark elven girl asked, "But how came you to be in this forsaken place?"
"I am pouring out my heart in love to her, and this hard-hearted drow can only interrogate me in return," Gord responded with mock severity but not a little hurt.
"Forgive me, dearest one," Leda said, giving him a little kiss. "You see, I am consigned to this horrid sphere, but not you! I thought never to see you again, let alone to find you wandering through this accursed sink they call the Soulless Sounding. . . ." Then something else struck her. "How is it that you traverse this place? That you can survive in it is miraculous!"
Smiling, Gord returned her kiss with more fervor than was suggested by the situation. Finally he stopped and answered her queries. "The charge I have been given enables it, Leda. I have grown stronger, been imbued with power, too. Gellor and I now trek the Abyss — even the whole of the netherworlds if need be — to accomplish our purpose!"
"Which is ... ?"
Before Gord could say anything to that, the oneeyed bard arrived. "I don't mean to intrude," he harrumphed with a suppressed smile, "yet I fear I must. For one thing, I can't take much more of this place — I should have thought both of you would feel the same, too! For another, we stand exposed to any others who might also be plying this disgusting channel, and any capable of traversing it pose some threat to us. . . . So, Gord, this is none other than the Leda you have so often spoken of?" the grizzled veteran added suavely, approval in his glance as he smiled fully at the ebon-skinned elven priestess.
"And you must be none other then Gellor, a name Gord spoke often during our adventures together," Leda responded as she released her hold on Gord and stood erect. She was now composed and fully able. "I agree that we should tarry here no longer, although I think that none likely to pass would dare to trouble us," she concluded with confidence in her tone and bearing.
"Well, no need for me to make introductions," Gord said. "Here," he added, proffering the sphere to Leda as he reached for his own sword. "I think this is the object which makes you feel so invulnerable here. As for me, I'll feel easier holding Courflamme."
"That is a great and puissant relic of demonkind!"
Gellor gasped as his attention was drawn to the smoky-hued globe.
"Most observant, troubador," Leda responded, slipping the object into its protective covering. "The ocular you use in place of your natural eye . . ."
"Enables me to see much. That, and the other abilities I have recently gained, tell me that what you have there can be nothing other than the infamous Eye of Deceptionf"
Gord turned and stared at the slight priestess as she held the rune-worked bag. "Is what he says true? Do you have the greatest prize of Graz'zt there?"
"That is my affair," she snapped back. "What business of yours might it be if it were?" Then she was struck by the suddenness of their meeting, the change in Gord's aura and manner, the steel evident in his resolve to do whatever he was in the nethersphere to do. Perhaps she had been mistaken. People changed — even dark elven people, she had to admit to herself. Was his being here nothing more than another sort of trick after all? "You are Gord, but what is your real reason for being here?" Leda asked with measured words. "Have you come merely after this?"
"So many questions, so much doubt," Gord said sadly. "I am here to do but one thing. I am to locate each of the Theorparts, take them, and join the three fractions into a whole again." He saw the stunned look on Leda's face, but he forged on regardless. "It is wonderful to be with you again. I want you to come with Gellor and me in this quest Should you decline, ask instead that I go to some other place with you, I would have to refuse. Not because you are not the most precious thing to me, sweet love. The whole of the cosmos rests upon my poor, inadequate abilities. The ancient artifact of Evil must be conjoined, Tharizdun must be loosed, and I — we, perhaps — must face the vilest one and defeat him."
"Oh, Gord ..." Leda's large eyes were huge in wonder and fear at his words. "Such a thing .. . such is not possible. We're too small . . . too weak Why, the greatest of evils could crush the three of us in one hand," she whispered, as if afraid that Tharizdun would hear her speak and come then and there.
"Think again, girl." Gord's tone was harsh, the words sharp. "Recall your failure to recognize me. I am no puny opponent, this blade no mere toad-sticker. There is but one being alive to contend with Tharizdun. I am told it's me, and I choose to accept that at its face. Now, Leda, will you join me — Gellor and me?"
"We could use that thing's magic well, I think" the bard told her by way of encouragement, "and your assistance, too."
"But. . . my duties. I said to Vuron that I'd hasten with the Eye so that it could be used in defense — Graz'zt is ringed by his foes!" Leda concluded almost hysterically.
Gord was filled with a fury that made his eyes fierce and his veins stand out. "Vuron? I'll skewer him on this point as if he were a toad and this a sticker!" he snapped in a rising voice. "As for Graz'zt, I give not a fart in the breeze for him and all that is his. Should he get in the way of my path, I'll slay him too, demonking or no — perhaps I should make a point of doing that now!" He turned away, spat, then turned back and glared at Leda. "Do you serve demons still? If so, then begone!"
"Wait!" the level-headed Gellor said.
Leda was already turning back. At Gord's harsh statements, she had spun on one little heel and started away. Then she thought better of it. She was hurt that he could think so of her, speak so degradingly. "You are jealous!" she cried.
"Jealous? I'll show you what that means. Give me that cursed bag with Graz'zt's little toy in it! Hand it to me now! I'll personally take it to him. He'll get that, and more, from me."
"Easy, my young friend," Gellor counseled, grabbing Gord by his arm to keep him from brandishing Courflamme. "You might take off my head — or hers — with such wild gesticulations of that razor-edged brand of yours." Gord subsided a bit at that. "Better," the one-eyed troubador said soothingly, "much better. Give the lass a chance to catch her breath, take this all in. She came to this bedamned place for as good a cause as that which we now seek to fulfill. If Leda has some difficulty in so sudden a change, allow her Just a bit to make the adjustment, Gord. My rede is that this pretty little drow loves only one thing more than doing what's right — and that one thing's you."
Gord looked uncertainly from Gellor's face to Leda's. "I.. ." he started, then trailed off. "You . . ."
"So articulate," Leda said, smiling up at him. Gord was barely five and a half feet tall in his boots, but Leda was a scant five feet tall. Nevertheless, she felt as tall as he at the moment. "So powerful and manly in his ire," she continued. Now Leda felt better, for she understood Gord's actions fully. "I am swept off my poor feet, sir. Pray, do allow me to accompany you on this fell quest."
"Now you leave off, lass." Gellor said. Although the dark elf was no doubt a highly capable person, one skilled in the use of words, magics, and weaponplay too, the troubador felt easy enough speaking to her thus. He took an instant liking to Leda, trusted her, and felt almost as if she were a daughter, though Gellor had never had any children that he knew of. "Don't play with the poor fool so. He is a great and Just champion, a foe to be reckoned with. He's poor at this sort of thing, though, and you have him at a great disadvantage at this moment. Just be gentle now," he admonished.
"Hmmm," Leda answered, looking from Gord's flushed and stony face to the lined, weathered features of the bard. "You are a good man and wise," Leda said to Gellor seriously. "I take your meaning." She looked back at Gord and smiled. "I am sorry, dear one. I got carried away by the press, the suddenness of all this, just as you did. Of course I will be with you, stand by your side. What more could I ask?"
Gord relaxed visibly, and his grim look changed to one of happiness. "Come on then, Leda! Let's get out of this place — though I suspect wherever else we land will be scarcely less oppressive. We seek out the nearest part of the evil relic."
"What of Graz'zt? He isn't so bad as those who fight against him. He has been fair to me."
"Don't start with that again," the young champion nearly snarled, taking Leda by one small hand and dragging her along. "Where is the place which will lead us to him? I'll wrest the first of the Theorparts from his weird paws!"
Knowing argument was fruitless, Leda simply pointed. "There, along that twisting passage there," she said to Gord. "Even I can sense the proximity of a Theorpart that way."
"She speaks true," Gellor said when he noted Gord hesitating. "The closest of the three portions lies but a little way off there."
"It is not held by Graz'zt," Gord protested.
"What matter? One is like another, and we are here to get the triple key quickly and from whatever hand should try to hold each part Graz'zt's or any other, it matters naught." With that the troubador set off on his own, not waiting for further discussion.
Leda moved to Gord's side. "Come on, my champion. We can't leave our companion to face the enemy by himself." Gord grunted in a disconsolate manner but moved along the way Gellor was following. Leda spoke no further, allowing them to travel the short distance in silence. She wanted to turn back to carry the Eye of Deception back to Graz'zt where he waited in his massive palace. But she couldn't — she knew that. If she did, Gord would follow her to Mezzafgraduun. There would be a terrible fight. Graz'zt would lose, even with the Eye and a thousand demons to assist him, of that Leda felt sure. Somehow Gord and Gellor would triumph, but they would be sorely hurt in the process.
All of that couldn't be allowed to happen. Still, Graz'zt needed the Eye. He would lose the Theorpart soon enough, but the Eye .... Perhaps the other two Theorparts, If Gord and Gellor could obtain them, would draw the third one from his possession. Then he would survive. With the Eye of Deception at his command, Graz'zt would scatter his diverse opponents, all of them bereft of any power to match that which the ebon demonking would wield through the Eye. Gone would be his dream of an empire commanding the netherrealms and stretching into many material planes and probabilities, true. But he would still have his existence.
Why did she care about the massive demon monarch? No time to consider that fully now. Suffice to let it go as merely a case of Graz'zt being a lesser evil than most of the other dwellers in the Abyss. Vuron as well, but in a different way. The demonking was, after all, the patron of her race, as dark of complexion as Leda herself and all drow, and he had made her a noble of his court, treated her well, been . . . Never mind.
What would Eclavdra have done had she survived instead of she, Leda, a mere clone, triumphing through the aid of Vuron? It was a fair question, she thought, for Eclavdra was another self, one dead and still living within Leda too. Eclavdra would have tried to make Graz'zt her pawn; and at this juncture she would have done exactly as Leda was doing, only for far different motives. No — that wasn't exactly true. Eclavdra would not have desired to return the Eye of Deception to the demonking. She would have desired it for herself, to keep the evil thing and utilize its powers to further her own ends.
"Where will we emerge?" Gellor asked. Interrupting Leda's reverie. The bard was staring at the murky place that was the gateway to a tier of the Abyss. It led to no great strata, only to a large and wild layer, but a place of much importance nonetheless.
"Beyond lies iyondagur, three hundred ninety-ninth tier of the Abyss," Leda said woodenly. "It is a place of nine regions, and it accesses not only the levels above and below it"
"I know," Gord said, drawing from the inner knowledge that had been imbued in his mind by the great ones of Balance. "Iyondagur leads also to the three hundred and sixty-sixth stratum of demonsrealm."
"What sort of place is this, Leda?" Gellor asked as the three stood at the brink of the portal. "Gord and I have implanted knowledge of much of the sphere, but fine details are not available. I sense that the Theorpart nearby is the Initiator, and that it is strongly held by both demons and daemons. . ."
"Iyondagur's nine regions are held by the Abat-dolor, bard," the dark elf told him readily enough. "They are independent ones, the nine clans of pain, and bow to no master other than their own."
"Who commands them?" asked Gord with an urgency that he couldn't conceal. It was, after all a tight spot they were in. Despite confidence, great inner powers, armor, weapons, the task at hand was monumental. To wrest a Theorpart from its wielder was sufficient to make any great champion blench. When tens of thousands of hostile demon guards were added to the equation, the task became something on the order of incredible impossibility. Impossible and incredible, that is, until one factored in the rest of the disparate components. Courflamme's true powers were still unknown, but Gord thought that they were sufficient to overmatch a single Theorpart. They had already proved that a thousand great demon-brutes and demon-beasts could not overwhelm them. Gellor's magic from the kanteel and the work of his own sword were sufficient to withstand assault — for a time, at least.
Now fortune had thrown Leda and the Eye of Deception into the equation. By herself, the gorgeous little drow priestess was the equal of most demons. Perhaps even one of the princes might demur at facing Leda in single combat, Gord mused. She too had grown stronger during the time they had been in separate worlds. Just as he was unreadable when he held Courflamme, so too was Leda. Perhaps it was an effect of the Eye; he wasn't sure. Gord only knew that her innermost force was shielded from any probing, and that shielding was strong — very, very strong! If Leda would employ the artifact she held on their behalf, perhaps the three of them could actually manage to openly confront an entire horde of demonkind and defeat them all. Perhaps. ... It was a big "if", and Gord preferred to add to the weight of their force in as many ways as possible to ensure success immediately. Faltering and failure initially would mean the enemy would have warning, time to prepare, and heart to resist more strongly.