Pazuzeus grinned evilly as the electricity shot out and took his foe just as the human's little darts of burning energy had struck him. His malign glee was quickly transferred into a hawklike shriek of pain and rage, however, as much of his own lightning arced back from the mage to play around his multiwinged body.

The mage was protected against his powers, Pazuzeus knew, but not well enough. In the blow and return, the human had suffered much, while the innate force of the elder demon had dissipated most of the harmful effects of the encounter. Pazuzeus would be more circumspect in his applications henceforth, but in a battle of attrition, the mighty netherbeing knew that he would prevail. Just as Shabriri sought to use brute force to slay his opponent, so too Pazuzeus now rushed to seize and destroy Allton.

From his distant but magically close vantage point, the demonurgist contentedly watched the initial and subsequent exchanges with relish. Gravestone was content that his demon-thralls were suffering punishment from the two humans. Let both understand just how deadly even such lesser men as those could be in mortal combat. Shabriri and Pazuzeus would both be more obedient after this.

The priest-wizard had little doubt that they would triumph. But if the unlikely happened, and the so-called heroes who had thought to confront him personally began to get the upper hand, Gravestone would intervene directly. He had a carefully stored reserve of dweomer prepared. It could be tapped instantly, and then there would be no contest at all. "Let us see something exciting!" he shouted. That statement was simply meant as general encouragement to all concerned. Gravestone was rewarded with a ferocious melee between the many-eyed Shabriri and the staunch Timmil.

It was painful, even damaging, but Shabriri broke through the screen that hedged the high priest. As the demon sought to grab the man who stood unflinchingly before him, there was a nasty surprise, for the staff held by the cleric did more than send forth magical forces. Its metal-shod foot caught Shabriri squarely on his massive, horny knee with such force that the demon was toppled backward and sent into convulsions of writhing agony. Despite that, one of his massive hands swiped out, and as Shabriri fell, the razor-keen talons sliced crimson tracks across the face of his opponent. The demon concentrated, expending some of his power to ease the pain and repair the damage caused by the magically enhanced blow he had suffered.

Timmil had nearly lost both eyes. He was wounded seriously, and blood from the wounds caused by the demon's raking nails was making him virtually blind. Thus the high priest was unable to take advantage of the opportunity presented to him when Shabriri broke off the attack. Instead, he too expended some of his forces to cast a healing upon his own flesh. It was an easy enough thing to do, and it required no effort and little time.

When he finished and could see clearly again, Timmil was greeted by the sight of his monstrous adversary erect and grinning a fiendish grin. "Blow and return, it would seem, you dark dungheap of perdition," the cleric said calmly. "But your breaking the protective ward cost you more dearly than you know!" The last was said with triumph, and to punctuate the claim. Timmil loosed a combination of word and rune, the one spoken as the other was etched in the air in green-gold with the clerics talisman bearing right hand.

A cloud of intense black appeared instantly around Shabriri as the demon understood what was occurring. He knew that in his desire to rend the hated priest into bloody bits, his impetuous action in forcing himself through the guarding magical globe had stripped him of his own protections against dweomers sent by the cleric. "Korb! Haklo! Meemgul!" He shouted, even as the inky darkness surrounded Shabriri.

The power of the syllables spoken by Timmil made the ebony obscurement vanish, to be replaced by a storm of silvery motes. Those nearest Shabriri attacked the demon as if they were wasps. The priest smiled grimly as he saw the demon dance and howl as the thing tried to beat away the fiery tormentors. The glowing glyph he had drawn was likewise still extant. That saved the cleric's life, for in the next moment appeared a trio of ghastly, chimerical demon-things.

These lesser beasts were thralls of Shabriri, just as the elder demon had been forced into servitude to Gravestone. They had been brought to their master's side by the utterance of their actual names. Terrible indeed were these three, and their numbers would have served to finish Timmil then and there; but the symbol that hung in incandescent glory in the air struck them as they appeared. The lesser demons were frozen into agonizing immobility by its force.

"Banished forever. Korb. Haklo, and Meemgul, too! Torment and dark doom upon you eternally in the stinking cesses of your home!" The high priest too had their true names, given to him by the very cry of their master. Shabriri. There was a hideous sound as the exorcising magic seized the three and jerked their life forces back to the lowest portions of the abyss.

"You fecal-headed pig fornicator!" That was a mild thing for Shabriri to shout, but the raging fury that filled him spoke volumes. He belched a cloud of poisonous gas as he came forth, leaping and roaring, to grapple with his hated foe. Long and long had the three chimerical ones been his. Now, stripped of their vassalage, humiliated, weakened in imagined and real power, Shabriri had only one choice. He must kill the demon-baiter, Timmil, and return to his own plane with the corpse of the priest or else be forever consigned to lesser status and ever-shrinking power.

"Much better! Much, much better!" The words sounded as if they were spoken in his ears, but Tim-mil knew that they came from the distant form of Gravestone as the demonurgist lay back in obscene relaxation, ministered to unspeakably as he watched the spectacle. Ignoring his tormentor's words. Timmil met the elder demon's rush with the full might of his blessed, glory-filled staff. Although the great monster was twice the priest's height and ten times his weight, Timmil wore magical armor of finest make. His determination, weapon, and plate mail made the match an even contest. Demon and cleric sparred, struck, cast spells and circled in a dancelike routine of deadly intent.

Pazuzeus had attempted to change his own opponent's flesh into stone, force the mage into submission by sheer mental strength, rot the man's eyeballs with a sickly green ray, as well as to wound Allton by blows from his taloned feet and iron-nailed hands. In turn, the battered mage had somehow not only managed to resist but actually serve out more punishment to the demoniacal foe than he took.

Both archmage and elder demon knew that certain of their powers would not function on this demi-plane of Gravestone's creation, so rather than take the chance of wasting critical energies and precious time with something that would prove fruitless, both kept to basic assaults. Allton sent forth spells and struck blows with his mage's thick staff. Pazuzeus used his innate powers, both mental and magical, to assail the human, occasionally meleeing with the fellow so as to prevent the employment of some greater dweomer by the spell-binder.

The demon was now aware that Allton could see and know energy sources and uses. This ability put the mage at an advantage here, and the four-winged monster began to feel unease, fear. No mere human should be so puissant in the face of one as mighty as Pazuzeus!

"You two lumps of shit disappoint me!" The rebuke was clear to men and demons as well. Gravestone was again speaking, this time clearly disturbed that the gladiatorial combats were taking so long and still hanging in the balance. "Show me that you have testicles, both of you! Finish the fart-smudges; stop playing with them. Do it now, Shabriri, Pazuzeus, or else..." The demonurgist let his angry warning fade into what both of his thralls knew was no empty threat.