That one is like a troll, Gord. Keep those hunks o' flesh apart from one another, and I'll build a fire quickly. Then when it's going, we toss in all the pieces. Burning is the only way to finish such a thing as that." Delver set about his task while the other three kept busy at the strange and grisly business of prodding and pushing the pieces so that they could not come together.

The other three are in bad shape, cap'n," Barrel said to Gord as they worked. "We've got 'em restin' on the other side of that little hillock."

"We'll tend to them soon," said Gord sincerely, "but much as I hate to say it, what we're doing right now is more important than all three of their lives – or ours either, for that matter."

"Aye, cap'n," said Barrel, who did not really need to be impressed with the seriousness of the situation as he contended with the scuttling bits of flesh and bone.

Minutes later the fire was ready, and they all took up pieces one by one and threw them in the flames. Dark, pungent smoke plumed skyward, and it was over. Obmi the dwarf, servant of EMI, champion of demons, was no more. Gord imagined he heard a wailing, the nearly inaudible sound of an evil life force lamenting as it went off to its end in the lowest of the lower planes.

Barrel had gone back to check on their three injured comrades while Gord witnessed the dwarfs final undoing. The burly seaman trudged back up to his captain with tears glistening in his eyes. "Doho-jar an' Smoker seem like they'll be okay…" he said, putting his hand upon the young thief s shoulder, "but poor Post is a goner."

"When does this end?" Gord said to himself more than anyone else. Then shaking his head to clear away the depression, it occurred to him that the battleground was more empty than it should have been. "Where are the others?" he asked. "What's happened to the white demon? Leda? Eclavdra?"

"Those three were right over there," Shade answered, pointing to the spot where Gord had first laid eyes on Vuron and Eclavdra. "I happened to be looking there, because a pair of Obmi's wild men were headed for the two females – the dark elves."

"Leda and Eclavdra," Gord supplied.

"I went for the men, thinking to take 'em both on, but the pale demon did something, and he… it… and both of the drow just vanished!" Then the half-elf added as an afterthought, "Those lousy marshers were so startled at that that I did for them both without much trouble at all. I guess they were the last left alive."

"Let's see to the wounded," Gord replied after a few seconds of contemplation, "and then we'll worry about what's happened to the rest."

As the four started toward the place where Doho-jar and Smoker lay unconscious, the earth shook and rumbled. Steam spurted up through a fissure that opened at their feet, and the group jumped back as quickly as they could. Then the ground erupted in a gout of smoke and flames, the blaze of the fire and blackness of the fumes obscuring the vision of all four.

Chapter 25

THE ALABASTER DEMON LORD stood on a circle of ground that appeared as bright and fresh as a morning meadow. The grass was green and sparkling with dew; little flowers tipped their faces toward the sun overhead. No sign of struggle, blood, or death was visible upon this unspoiled disc. Beside the tall, thin being from the Abyss stood Leda. At least it appeared to Gord to be her, for her garments were those that Eclavdra's clone had worn just today, and her sword was the very one she had taken from the dead Yoli warrior what seemed like an age ago. The demon merely regarded the four warriors with his red-pink eyes, and the dark elf spoke.

"Gord! You live! You have actually slain Obmi?" she cried, smiling and coming toward him as she spoke, her arms opening and then embracing him as she got close.

Gord was tempted to return her embrace. But instead, he remained stiff and unresponsive. "Yes," he said without emotion. "I killed the dwarf." At his cold reaction and toneless words, Leda released her grip on his torso and stepped back from him, her face showing hurt. Gord disregarded that. "What of Eclavdra?" he inquired in the same emotionless voice.

"Eclavdra is gone – finished! Only Leda lives."

"Is there a difference?"

Now the dark elf's beautiful face showed both hurt and anger. "How can you, of all who know me, ask such a question?"

"Much has occurred since last I thought I knew you… Leda. How am I, a poor, simple man, to know the truth of anything?"

Vuron laughed a musical, silvery-cold laugh at that. "Well put, Gord of Greyhawk. Yet even demons must often labor under the same burden which you claim. Allow Me to assure you that this is indeed Leda, not the one from whom she sprang – and there is a difference."

Truth from the mouth of a demon?"

Again Vuron laughed. "Yes. Stranger things occur frequently. And there is yet more…"

Delver, Shade, and Barrel had been close to their friend when the strange appearance of demon and drow occurred. Each was clasping his weapon, prepared to fight a hopeless fight to the last against this supernatural enemy. Now they were confused and uncertain, just as Gord was. Delver growled a warning, which was supported by Barrel's advice to "Beware the words of demons, cap'n!" Shade merely shook his long-haired head and took a step closer to the young thief, his weapon pointing at the snow-white Vuron.

Without any apparent offense taken at the reactions of the four, the demon lord slowly lowered his head to gaze at the sward at his feet. With a slight gesture and a soft series of sounds, Vuron caused a chest of beaten brass to appear at his feet, out of thin air. "The Final Key, Gord, lies therein," the demon said, indicating the container. "Perhaps you will allow Me to explain what has happened before you decide to do what you must do."

"Explain? Or do you mean, tell me what I am to do?" Gord shot back with contempt.

"Oh, no. I can by no means tell you what to do, Gord of Greyhawk. Your course is very much your own, and even a demon lord of My power is unable to alter that fact. Still, I can alter a few things," and as he spoke this the alabaster being looked away from the four who stood staring at him to the place a few paces away where the body of Post lay.

"I heal you, man," the demon pronounced. Post's chest heaved, he groaned, and then the lean man sat up, rubbing his eyes as if just awakening from a night's sleep. Vuron turned his glance to the injured pair. Smoker and Dohojar. "You two have likewise fought bravely. Be whole." Smoker rolled over on his side and began snoring peacefully, while the brown-skinned Changa sat up and looked at his friends with a white-toothed smile, not knowing what to say.

Gord did have a reply to these acts. "You use demon-powers to bribe me, to bemuse and befuddle my mind. I am unmoved, Vuron."

"That is exactly as I thought," the pale creature said. "The gesture was simply meant to take concern for your comrades from your mind. It must be free of such worries, Gord of Greyhawk, if it is to properly absorb what I now ask your permission to relate."

After a few seconds of consideration, Gord nodded. "I will hear your words, Vuron, with as much disinterest as is possible for one such as I."

"That is considerable, I assure you, but your attention is all I ask. Now I will relate what has transpired," the demon lord said, sinking to a sitting position on the long grass. The four disliked doing so, but they too sat warily when Leda followed Vuron's example, taking a position between the demon and the group of men and demi-humans. "Now, pay full attention," said Vuron in a contented tone. "What I have to say is rather lengthy.

"When the contest for the Theorpart commenced, I brought Leda into being. She is not and never was a true clone of Eclavdra, for never would I replicate such a one as that drow was. If ever a mortal creature could have visited ruin upon My liege lord, that one could have. I altered Leda – as you named her, Gord – and did what I could to aid her. Being as I am, a demon, I could not place any goodness within her, not even any balance or neutrality. She now possesses some modicum of both, and that is because of you, Gord of Greyhawk."