Gary Gygax - Come Endless Darkness

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.

The bard was now bellowing a counter-ballad to the demonurgist's rhyme, and the dweomer of that singing made it exacting work to accomplish. Now the last sounds were forming, but the priest-wizard was forced to enunciate each with excruciating slowness. To mispronounce might merely negate the power of the spell, but it could as easily open the vortex for Gravestone himself. An entrance thus before Infestix would be far from pleasant. Failure was never tolerated, of course….

It was a nightmare in a world where Gord's every motion was taken as if he were underwater. The fall was not serious, except that Blackheartseeker slipped from his hand as it occurred. Then, as if he and the weapon were opposite poles of a magnet, his hand couldn't seem to properly grip it as he tried to regain his feet and strike the demonurgist. It was a matter of trying to accomplish too many actions at once. Gord's hands were sweating, his nerves frayed, his body battered and wounded, his brain filled with desperation.

The sudden sound of Gellor's voice as it sang forth in counter to the dark spell of the priest-wizard brought Gord to his senses. Even as the troubador's singing hindered Gravestone in his incantation, the ballad forced the Champion of Balance to pause a split-second, get a firm grip on his sword hilt, then come erect and attack.

Had Gord possessed his dagger then, he would have hurled it at the demonurgist, trusting that the blade would suffice to break the binding that the demonurgist was surely about to finish. That would have been a fatal mistake, for the dweomer of that weapon was by no means potent enough for the task. Not being thus armed, though, and seeing that the distance was too great to close with a single step and long lunge, Gord decided that his only hope was the sword.

He shifted his grip on the hilt and threw the weapon as if it were a javelin. The long blade made that very difficult — the balance was all wrong — but there was little space between Gord and the chanting demonurgist. Of the incantation, but a single word remained to be uttered to create the Doompit when the edge of the lightless blade struck Gravestone.

The sword's point didn't sink into his throat, where Gord had aimed when he hurled the weapon. In fact, the sword was already turning and no longer flew true when it touched the priest-wizard. Gravestone, in completion of his spell, was just in the act of bringing both of his arms down, fingers to point at the exact place where the opening of the spell's vortex was to appear, when Blackheartseeker's edge contacted his flesh. Only a little of the flesh was touched; three fingers, to be exact. The descending fingers of Gravestone's right hand met the flying blade of the sword almost gently. The weapon fled past them, hardly checked, rang against the wall, and fell to the floor with a clang. Nearby lay the three blood-spilling fingers that had been severed very cleanly by the sword.

Gravestone's scream ended the casting with a single syllable wanting.

Gellor shouted in exultation when he saw what occurred, his ballad also interrupted by the sight of Gord's thrown sword.

Still feeling as if he were immersed in a great depth of water. Gord sprang toward the demonurgist. He reached his foe in three bounds and grabbed the tall man by the throat, bearing the fellow down with the savagery of his bare-handed assault.

"At last, you devil!" Gord was beating the bushy-haired head upon the hard stone floor as he tried his best to force his thumbs into Gravestone's flesh. "I"- thump — "know" — thud — "what" — bash — "you"-bump — "did" — thunk — "to…"

He got no farther. Despite the choke-hold. Gravestone managed to mutter a word, and suddenly Gord was trying to strangle a huge, amoeboid thing. His hands sank deep into its soft surface, and the acid of the monster's stuff burned them with searing pain.

Gord extracted his injured members and rolled and somersaulted away. The amoehoid thing that was Gravestone came after him. It was too slow to catch him, but it prevented Gord from getting to his sword.

It was a stand-off that the demonurgist would eventually have won, except that Gellor was there to intervene. Even as his comrade sought to flank the monster and get to the sword that the shapeless blob of acidic stuff guarded, the bard struck.

"You like swords, do you? Then try this one!" Gellor cried as he stabbed his blade into the formless blob. The amoeboid writhed and retreated from the attack. Gellor had no such weapon as Gord's, but the troubador's sword was of potent enchantment nonetheless. Had the priest-wizard been in his true form, it would have failed to do the slightest injury to him, so puissant were the evil protections that Gravestone had woven around his body. In this shape, however, it had effect. No mere slicing or stabbing would have harmed the amoeba either, but Gellor's blade exuded a chilling cold. The thing drew back instantly from that freezing brand, but the troubador kept up his assault. "Or this? Or this? Or this one?"