"No," the slow and icy voice answered from yet another location in the chamber. "Master Entropy — at your service, prince and champion."

That made Gord start. "You are of ultimate chaos!"

"Never. I will consume the wild motion, eliminate randomness as I do order, wipe out death by removing life, burn out life and slay darkness into nothing. I am truly neutral, the actual balance of all. I am nothingness and everything — in their proper states."

"Beware!" Rexfelis and Basiliv spoke in unison, but Gord ignored both of them.

"How will you help?" he asked the unseen figure.

"My aid comes now in the form of information. One of your most important tools is a sword. Many of your fine associates will appreciate the weapon and its forms. You have it now, the dark blade you brought from the buried capital of the forgotten realm of the Suloise."

"I own it indeed," Gord admitted, "but it is of no special value."

"More than you suppose," the nothingness countered. "Still, the sword is not all it can be, on that point I agree." Was there mockery in the voice? Gord wasn't certain.

"You will assist me in making it truly potent?"

"I have already, by giving you this knowledge. This has been most painful, prince and champion, for it defies all I stand for and drains my particular force cruelly," Master Entropy Intoned monotonously, as if speaking to a slow and measured beat. "There is no more I shall say, no more I can do. Now. Gord, all is in your hands."

With that, the presence of the strange being faded away. Basiliv and Rexfelis, seeming to take their cues from that occurrence, silently rose from their seats. Gord did the same, and moments later was alone in his chamber.

* * *

Elsewhere, elsewhen, the tides of evil weakened in their surge, and the men of the kingdoms and nations of Oerth who opposed the dark and wicked pushed their enemies back a little, slaughtering many in so doing. Stalemate positions occurred in the netherworld, and the great war being fought in the Abyss raged, but neither side advanced.

Master Entropy was at work. Creation and life — vitality even of demoniacal or negative sort — slipped away into nothingness. Nothingness grew and was strengthened, and was content.

"We are lost," the Demiurge said lamentably when he, Rexfelis, and Gord reconvened a few hours later — hours during which weeks of time had passed on Oerth. "Now truly are we placed between the void and the bottomless pit!" Rexfelis nodded and looked grim. What Basiliv said was too true, and there seemed to be no escape. Entropy was perhaps better, if nonexistence of anything but nothingness could be accepted by those who were sentient. "Never should we have accepted Master Entropy, not in an eternity of days!"

"Lost or not. I have much to do," Gord said energetically. "Time will decide if that one is to triumph or not, but if I am to believe what I have been told, it is up to me to face and defeat Tharizdun." He spat as he said that name. "What can you tell me of the power of the sword Master Entropy spoke of?"

"I am as unaware of that as you, Gord," Rexfelis replied. "Basiliv?"

"Would I could be of assistance," the Demiurge said. "Perhaps if I could see the weapon and spend a little time examining its aura...."

There will be a bit of time for that, my old friend," Rexfelis said. "Gord will soon be presented to all of my subjects, including the peers who are his kinsfolk. There will be a short ceremony, longer speeches, and much growling of useless sort. I will name him first of all our sort after me before he sets forth on the mission we have for him."

"I will certainly stay for two reasons, then," Basiliv said, mustering up a weak smile. "Let us see the dark blade now, for soon we will be too busy for anything except such work as we need accomplished." Basiliv and the Catlord turned expectantly to Gord, both casting their gazes toward the scabbard at his waist. Gord's face was blank.

"Well? Bring forth the blade!" the Demiurge said.

"This is not it," Gord said, touching the sheath. "The sword that Master Entropy spoke of is hidden aboard Silver Seeker, and where that ship is I can't tell you," he said sadly.

Chapter 4

"WE ARE NOW MOORED In Safetons deep harbor, pious brother."

The bent old cleric looked up with weak, rheumy eyes from the prayerbook he was reading. "Thank you, shipmaster, but please call me simply Brother Donnur. 'Pious' is too worthy an honorific for a mendicant pilgrim," the ancient fellow added gravely.

"Of course," the captain of the little trading vessel said quickly. Then he turned and hurried above. Despite the priest's gentle demeanor and kindly ways, there was something about him that Shipmaster Rench found disquieting. "Ah, balls." the sailor muttered to himself. "Likely nothin' more than the fact I'm a lost and wicked heathen, it is." Nonetheless, Rench would be glad to see the back of the old cleric's dirty brown robe as the man went down the gangplank of his ship.

Safeton, northernmost of the ports that dotted the long Wild Coast, was a thriving town of some five thousand souls that Shipmaster Rench and his vessel, the Sea Turtle, called upon regularly. When the ship was tied fast to the long mole in Safeton Harbor, the town officials only barely checked papers, manifest, and passengers. Instead they greeted the captain as a long-lost comrade, took the usual bribe, and were soon off to the nearest tavern to share a few bumpers of ale with Rench and his officers.

Nobody even noticed Brother Donnur's departure from the ship, Rench included. The bent priest hobbled away and was lost in the throng that teemed around the cargoes and market stalls of the waterfront district. When he was safely away, where none of the crew of the Sea Turtle could see him, the man exchanged his brown robes for a dark overcoat hanging outside someone's door, straightened his spine, and strode on, looking nothing at all like the withered cleric that had been on the ship.

The very day that Sea Turtle raised anchor and headed south for other ports of call, a patched-up ship passed her, heading for its own place along the long quay. That vessel was none other than Silver Seeker, stopping at Safeton to take on water and provisions before sailing northward. She was bound for passage up the Selintan River to Greyhawk, and Barrel, her new captain, wanted to find and hire a pilot to make certain that the journey didn't bring craft and crew to grief. Deep-water sailing was something the burly man knew well, but he was veteran enough to realize also that navigating upriver was another matter altogether.

"Ahoy, mates! I expect we're goin' to be here no more than three days — two, if I find the man I'm lookin' for sooner," Barrel announced after the ship was moored. "Debauch yerselves to your black hearts' content, boys, but be back aboard before sunup Star-day — else I'll sail without ye!"

With Dohojar at his side, the burly captain began a careful canvassing of the dives along the town's waterfront horseshoe, seeking the services of a freshwater pilot. A drink here, a copper coin there, and soon enough Barrel had the names of a half-dozen navigators who did their sailing up and down the Selintan. That was no surprise, for the City of Grey-hawk was a thriving center of commerce. By then, however, both the Changa and Barrel were sufficiently drunk to know it was time to retire back aboard their ship.

"C'mon, my fine brown friend," Barrel said with a happy smile as he clapped his arm around the little Changa's narrow shoulders and steered him toward the door of the saloon. "We'll sleep now, an' tomorrow find our navigator."

"Oh, yes, Barrel, yes," Dohojar agreed, likewise grinning in happy inebriation. "Gord Zehaab himself would understand the correctness of such wisdom." The two lurched out the exit and were soon snoring in their cabins in Silver Seeker.