“Futter yerself, Alby,” the small, ugly killer growled back. “What about Halferd?”

“He don’t have nothing to fret about now, Spotty. The geezer got him before I stuck the dagger in. Now cut that little brat’s throat while I check this place for valuables.”

The child in the strange crib was wailing, and Slono thought it would be a good idea to off it quickly. No sense in taking a chance on having its noise alert anyone to what was going on. “Here, my wee bunny,” he muttered with a horrid grin on his crooked face, “Uncle Spotty’s got a nice little s’prise fer ya…” With this, the assassin stepped toward a place where he could reach down and ply his own sharp blade-and suddenly his eyes stopped working!

“Godsdamnit!” Alburt cursed. “What in the Nine Hells are you doing?”

“I can’t see a thing…,” was all Slono managed to reply. The man’s voice, although panicky, was barely audible.

Alburt hurried to where his compatriot crouched, still a few steps away from the crib, with his hands clutching at his face. He had seen no flash, heard no sound, yet the chalked marks upon the floor burned with a smokeless, almost lightless flame. He felt weakness in his bones, sickness in the pit of his stomach, when his gaze went to those dancing lines of flame.

“Here, jerk,” Alburt said to his smaller associate as he roughly yanked the assassin out from amidst the magical markings burning on the stones. “You stay put until I finish the kid-I can manage everything.” With that, he picked up the lifeless body of Wanno, dropped it across the magical lines, and used it as if it were a bridge. He stepped gingerly, careful to put his feet only on the corpse or on the places where Wanno’s robe was splayed on the floor. Alburt made his way to a location from where he could peer over the side of the high-walled crib and view what was inside. His eyes grew wide instantly, and then he reached down and stabbed repeatedly, viciously.

“Crap!”

“Wazwrong, Alby?” Slono was still swiping at his eyes, but it was evident that some vision had returned to him already, for he was peering in the direction where the bigger thug stood.

“The li’l fart’s gone!” Alburt growled. “Jus’ plain vanished!”

The smaller man suddenly realized that the infant’s crying had stopped at the very moment his eyesight had been lost. “Some rotten magic trick,” he suggested.

“Naw,” replied Alburt. “I stuck the damn blade all over the whole crib and didn’t feel it sink into nothing but the mattress. Magic maybe, but it sure as shit ain’t invisibility. The flamin’ sprat just ain’t here anymore.”

“What’ll we do, Alby? This could be big trouble for us…”

“Not by a long shot. Spotty. Remember what that geezer did to our customer, so who’s to know the same thing didn’t get the brat too? I’ll check the place out, and check it good too, but I think the kid’s gone to wherever Halferd got blasted to.”

Eventually the smaller assassin managed to regain enough vision to assist his comrade in the search for loot. There was a fair haul that included gold orbs and several potentially valuable items of interest to those who dabbled in the arcane arts. Alburt claimed the lion’s share because he’d slain Wanno the mage and would have had to do the job on the child as well due to Slono’s temporary blindness. Because the smaller assassin valued living, he didn’t argue too loudly or too long. And neither did he enlighten his partner when he discovered a heavy ring of pure gold with a big, green cat’s-eye chrysoberyl set in the yellow metal. That he scooped up and slipped into his pocket without Alburt noticing. Whatever the cut he got, Slono would have a little something extra as his just compensation for this botched mess.

“Get your ass moving, Spotty. We been here too long,” Alburt ordered as he stuffed the last of several small crystal flasks into a bag.

“You know it,” his associate said, heading for the place in the wall where a secret passage led to and from Wanno’s hideaway. “Nice of that spell-binder to set up his quarters so near the Thieves’ Way,” Slono observed as the two went along the narrow passage in the walls of the Citadel.

“Yep. His sort always stick themselves up in some high tower or down underground. Never does ’em any good, either way.” He fell silent after that. In a few minutes the pair left the known passage and went into the even more secret way beneath it, the adit built by Greyhawk’s vaunted Thieves’ Guild. None of the members of the latter group knew that it was now a regular route for the assassins. Silence was complete in the passage and in the rooms it led to.

It was not until days later that Wanno’s body was discovered, and the news caused a stir in the Citadel that lasted for days thereafter. Finally, the apprentice Halferd was held guilty of murder and flight to avoid paying for his crime. Word was posted that he was a wanted man, and the matter was all but forgotten.

Chapter 2

The being whose name and title was Infestix stood as a misshapen pillar before the silent assemblage. If likened to a court on Oerth, this gathering would be an imperial parliament, or perhaps a council of royal sovereigns. The masters of the many planes of Gehenna, Hades, and Tarterus were ranked before Infestix. These terrible beings stood in a semicircle before that one’s dais, those to the left diabolic in appearance, those to the right demoniac, those in the middle resembling Infestix.

Other royal assemblages would show magnificence, splendid robes, glittering gems, bright gold. But the court of Infestix was the nadir of squalor and decay; where other courts would display beauty, grace, and life at its finest, this one showed instead ugliness, clumsiness, and the ever-present threat of death. This grand court existed in the deepest Gloom of Hades, lowest of the Lower Planes, evilest of evil realms. “Nightmare” would be far too pleasant a term to describe this place, considering both the gathering of creatures and their overlord, Infestix.

“Is there nothing more?” Infestix asked accusingly. His voice was hollow-sounding and sepulchral. Sickly yellow slime dripped from his lipless mouth as he spoke, and his tongue was a fat, gray worm.

A muted rasping and creaking issued forth in response, sibilant whispers mixing with harsh croakings. Here a figure shuffled, there another shifted. Ghastly heads bowed, clawlike hands clasped, but none of the Lords of Netherevil spoke in reply to their overlord’s query.

“What is forewritten can be altered.” This statement from Infestix, for all the self-assurance of its content, held a note of doubt, perhaps desperation.

A warty dreggal from the fuming pits of Gehenna drew itself up to its full height. “Who can oppose Infestix?” the monster shouted metallically.

“Better to ask who does,” a massive demodand crackled in retort.

The Masters of the Horde gabbled back and forth at that remark. Deviloids and dreggals screamed in rage while demodands and demonkin yowled their laughter at the caperings of hordlings and night hags.

“Stop.” The dead, toneless voice of Infestix somehow filled the vast chamber. The assembled horrors became instantly silent and still. Riot had been averted. “You, Haegresse. What became of those fools who were Our dupes?”

The queen of night hags made a terrible face, something between a smile and a moue. Perhaps she was being charming. “They have withdrawn, all of them, to their domains,” she simpered. “They will respond to no coaxing and are beyond ken.”

“What is the rede of the hells?” Infestix put this question to a huge fiend towering over the wart-covered dreggal who had begun the near-chaos.

The horned head of the great devil tilted slightly in perfunctory obeisance. “The writ has changed, fearful lord,” he replied with a sharp clashing of his tusks and fangs, “but there is still the last portion which is nebulous. We have increased the probabilities in our favor, but at the last there is still a small chance of risk a modicum of doubt…”