The demonurgist saw plainly what he faced. There was an aura surrounding his adversary that caused the priest-wizard to shudder. So deep its colors, so brilliant their glowings, so varied their spectrum as to show no weakness. Here indeed were the hands of all the most potent foes of Tharizdun who formed the Balance. Gifted power of supernatural splendor encased Gord in a halo that brought fear into Gravestone. That dread was nothing compared to what he felt when he looked at the lightless sword. Its power was of evil, but an evil distorted and made over to serve the opposite force. It was an instrument made of malign energy to destroy evil!
Mistake after mistake.... The majority of Gravestone's spells had been selected to have effect upon an opponent aligned to the ethical outlook of the upper spheres, thus in harmony with certain patterns and subject to set counter-frequencies. The appearance of the solar had caused the priest-wizard to make false assumptions and base his strategy of attack thereon.
It was also an error not to have considered the possibility, however remote, of having to deal with an enemy loose within his sanctum sanctorum. Gravestone could not now utilize the powerful spells based on fire, lightning and the like because to bring up such dweomers here would destroy centuries of work, an age of collected arcana, and who knows how many valuable magical repositories such as wands, scrolls, and apparati for demonurgy. As his foe fought with the construct. Gravestone wracked his brain for the single most effective attack he could now employ against the Champion of the Balance. In seconds, minutes at best, the last force of the spell-beast would be drained, and then the priest-wizard had to be ready with some sending that would stop the man who wielded that terrible, dull-black sword. The weapon he could not destroy, but the one who wielded it was an altogether different matter.
"Entrance to the Pits of Hades," Gravestone began to chant, making the formal, ritual gestures as he did so. His hands were filled with the correct materials to activate the gateway. All that was necessary for the priest-wizard to do was send them forth at the proper intervals as the incantation progressed. He was evoking his Doompit, a dweomer that would plunge Gord bodily into the depths of the nether spheres' lowest plane.
"Now conjoined with Gravestone's playground," he sang, fitting words to suit the circumstances. Meter was important, as was rhyme and constancy of the chant. "Force of Nerull death and disease, keep it fast and make it stay bound," the demonurgist continued, trying not to rush the spell but unable to keep his eyes from the melee. There were four stanzas needed to effect the junction and open the tunnel-like portal under the victim's feet, a one-way chute straight to the nether-pits. Just as Gravestone finished his first quatrain, the dark-bladed sword struck the beast's arm and destroyed it. But he still had time!
"Spinning vortex now created. Barrier magics all abated." Gravestone chanted as he spread black powder before him and moved his hands Just so. A tiny whirlwind suddenly sprang up, and the sooty stuff was turned into a miniature tornado, a vortex that moved toward the unsuspecting man who was now in the act of delivering the final blow to the figure of ghastly, violet-hued force. "Here to Hades now instated, Doompit passage generated!"
The second stanza was completed. Only two to go, but the champion was staring directly at him. The demonurgist felt cold beads of sweat spring from his brow. He knew it was not from the effort of casting the dark dweomer of the spell, but from the stark terror that came directly from the blade that would soon threaten him again. The single touch of it, the slight wound Gravestone had suffered in the fleshy part of his upper arm, had sent an agonizing wrench through him. The metal of the longsword seemed to tug at his heart as it was pulled from Gravestone's flesh when the demonurgist leaped back from its touch. To die by that weapon was to die forever!
Gord saw his foe clearly as the thing of netherforce collapsed and sputtered into nothingness, dispelling the illusory Gravestone within it as it did so. The priest-wizard was intoning a spell. Although the young adventurer had no idea as to the nature of the dweomer that was being called for by the ritual, Gord understood all too well that nothing cast by Gravestone would be weak or not calculated to cause total calamity to his person or goal. Gord had to remain quick and capable so the demonurgist could be slain. Perhaps the magic was one of escape for Gravestone. Either way, it made no difference. The binding had to be interrupted, the spell's completion unattained. The tall man's mouth began to move faster, his arms and hands making passes that seemed to occur in lightninglike sequences. Gord leaped into motion himself then, dashing across the chamber.
The words the demonurgist now shouted in a rapid stream were indecipherable to Gord. He was intent only upon one thing. Blackheartseeker must strike the chanting spell-binder before that vile mouth of Gravestone's managed to utter the final syllable of his evil evocation. Only a half-dozen more steps, and the blade of his sword would be buried in the demonurgist's foul chest.
Then Gord stumbled over a small object. A crystal flask, knocked from a table in his struggle with the varihued beast of nether-force, had rolled into the young champions path. It was a thing of enchanted substance, so it hadn't broken from the fall, nor would it break beneath anything so puny as the foot of a man. It rolled under the pressure, and Gord's foot went with its roll.
Gravestone had but one more quatrain to recite and his antagonist would be consigned alive to Hades! How he would delight in seeing it, in actually traversing the planes himself in order to enjoy the sight of the one called Gord trapped and tortured for an eternity in the nether-pits! The last words were on Gravestone's lips even now, but it looked as though the lightless metal of the dreaded longsword would strike before they could speak their fulfilling sounds.
He rushed along as quickly as he dared — faster, perhaps, than any other mage could have managed. Yet the first couplet was just completed when Gord was but a handful of paces distant and coming for him like a rushing wind. At that moment Gord fell, and it was all the demonurgist could do to contain his joy, repress his wild laughter. That would have spoiled his work as surely as the thrust of the sword would have. Instead, Gravestone paused and drew a deep breath. It was a very minor interruption, one that would in no way disturb the casting. There were but two lines to recite, sixteen beats to toll in measured form. When that little was accomplished, the Doompit would seize the Champion of Balance and consume him.
The first of the dire sounds issued from Gravestone's mouth, one of sixteen needed. A deep voice sang back, two beats for his one, and at a disturbing pitch. The demonurgist turned his eyes sideways at this disturbance.
One of the small fellow's companions was at the chamber's exit. It was a man Gravestone recognized, a singer of magics, the troubador called Gellor. That too was laughable. The priest-wizard would have enjoyed a contest one on one with the stupid minstrel, but not now. He fixed his thoughts and chanted forth another pair of the sounds needed to complete his casting. Gellor countered with more lyrics of his own, louder still, and coming closer as he sang. Gravestone was uneasy, but not worried. His chief antagonist was still on hands and knees, trying to recover the sword that he needed to harm Gravestone. The demonurgist knew that he could complete the thirteen beats still remaining before Gord was up and again at his throat.
With evil delight spread upon his features, the tall demonurgist raised his arms high, booming triumphantly the completion of the line, and the five syllables flowed as a mountain freshet down its steep course. Then Gravestone commenced the completion of the binding. The sounds poured forth, but he had to slow them, to articulate each with greatest care.