“Be careful, my rotund druid, and hasten!” The latter charge was hardly necessary, for despite appearances, Greenleaf was as aware of things and as conscientious as the bard was.
“I shall, Gellor, I shall. Much more might rest in our hands than we know…” He allowed the last part to trail off, for nothing further needed to be said. Then he laughed. “I am supposed to be the kind and caring priest, you the hard-bitten troubadour-and you admonish me to hasten and take care as if I were some fledgling about to flutter forth for the first time against the dark foe! Bah!” The expression of disgust was mock, and Curley Greenleaf hugged the one-eyed man even as he said it. “But you too, friend, you too take care! We shall see you soon, and then the test shall commence.”
Soon Gellor was off on his own errands, and the warrior-priest too was gone from the secret place where an occult group bent on saving the systems of the multiverse had held conclave. In the chess game that Gellor had spoken of to Gord, those two were perhaps minor pieces, and the young thief a pawn. Yet they were being moved to support the lesser man, as chess terms would have it, and when it was properly protected, the pawn would move.
In the vast, multifaceted contest taking place for supremacy of all, there were many sides and more pieces than could be counted. Some of the participants sat idle, however, and most of the playing pieces were unmoving as well-misplaced, powerless, guarding meaningless squares from nothing in particular. Only two of the many sides in this multiversal game moved with purpose and understanding. One was the side championed by Greenleaf, Gellor, and others of their ilk. The other was hostile, malign, and very, very evil. How else could it be?
Evil has many faces, of course. Bestial, leering demons and grinning devils are at opposite spectrums of the vile depths of that force. There is a sink, a depth greater than the iron-floored pits of the hells, more profound than the unfathomable depths of the Abyss of demonkind. The nadir of all wickedness, the greatest depression of depravity, lies between the two. Some call that place Hades, others the black void. By any name, it and its denizens represent the most wicked of evil, the darkest of the dark. Their hosts were those in motion on the imaginary playing board, and they moved against not only the weak and exposed force represented by such as the one-eyed troubadour and his friends, but also against the gibbering hordes of demons, for those too would not bend their necks and be ruled.
“Which of the useless turds serves us in this matter?” The daemon who spoke from his dais was Infestix. Overlord of Death, ruler of the deepest darkness.
A decayed creature, some minion of the rotting lord of Hades, replied humbly in a maggoty voice. “The ones of scarlet hue, master, move in their thousands to do your bidding…”
“And?”
“The Eight Diseased Ones, master,” the thing choked out, “with all of their servants, daemon and human.”
Infestix spat, a wad of horrid, yellowish green that struck the floor of ebon stone at the feet of the rotted servitor. It spread and sank, eating the stone and leaving it riddled as if by worms. “Yet none bring me the quarry I want-not even intelligence of it! I am tired of this dung-headedness. Out of my way, you sweet-smelling blossom,” the Overlord of Evil commanded as he rose from the ghastly throne and moved toward the daemon steward.
Virulex, himself a fell and dread lord of the realm, fairly scrambled to make way for his liege. “The matter is far more complex than we thought, master, the possibilities and their permutations impossible to analyze. One nexus after another, all leading to places none can discern…”
“You yammer like a soft-eyed puppy, Virulex. You create excuses for all, but only to cloak yourself. Do you think I am stupid? Be silent and follow, dog! I will personally tear aside the intervening veils and solve this once and for all.”
In another smaller but no less hideous chamber in Infestix’s loathsome palace, the Eight Diseased Ones and their lieutenants were gathered expectantly. They quickly covered their surprise when the Overlord himself came, each then reporting the results of their seeing and divination. Armies marched, the soldiers of Hades marshalled to contest with the rebellious demons. Spies slunk, assassins lurked, agents served, mages cast their magical nets, while priests of darkness sent forth their own evil meshes. A great hubbub of action and reaction, plots and ploys. Decoys and false trails, sendings and energies to confound and confuse any who sought to pry.
“We are sure to succeed, Master of Death,” one of the lesser ones said.
“Your existence rides on that,” Infestix said offhandedly as he peered into the misty vapors of a great pool of inky shadows. The massive basin was set into the chamber floor, a scrying pool filled with some undefinable substance. “I thought as much!” The daemon overlord spat that out in his hollow, dead voice as he saw the scenes flashing within the basin.
“Time varies there, master,” one of the eight supplied. “Perhaps we can intervene.”
“Fool! That would alert every enemy that we have, reveal to them our intentions, destroy whatever secrecy remains!”
Infestix had seen the fall of a massive citadel belonging to the Scarlet Brotherhood. That evil organization worshiped him in the form of his avatar, Nerull, who served the cause. “Besides,” the ruler of the lowest thought to himself, “the flow of events is such that even I might misjudge and thereby alter something which would rebound to foil my purpose.” Infestix would serve as Tharizdun’s viceroy. Better a servant of that greatest one and ruling over an infinite domain than being masterless with naught but the petty plane he had.
“It is the ambitious runt who meddles in our plans, master. If we arrange to have the Prince of Ulek murdered-”
“Silence.” Infestix spoke without anger, but the command was quite sufficient to make the whole of the eight still. “Who is that one?”
“It is a slave of the Qabbala, master, one most commonly known as Gellor.”
“I thought as much. Watch that one. Wherever he goes we must be before him, ready to thwart his plans.”
“I will have him dead, master, within an hour.”
Infestix turned and looked at the daemon who had volunteered that. Then he turned to Virulex. “That one,” he said softly, pointing. “Have it removed and destroyed instantly. It is stupid and inferior.”
The creature tried to protest, but it had already staked its continued existence on a claim proven false. It mewled and groveled to no avail as the daemon steward dragged it away. The Eight Diseased Ones stood still, silent as statues. Variolaz finally dared to speak. “What, master, makes… us…need to so respect the feeble Qabbala and its dogs?”
“They have The Rede,” Infestix explained as if to a child. “That relic which is the codex to the multiverse. With it they could manipulate any dimension, space, probability. It is small comfort that they do not fully understand its usages yet… A pair of their lackeys won it from a demon guardian-rot those idiotic lords of the abyssal planes! Had they but given it to me…,”
“Cannot we eliminate those vassals of theirs, then? By destroying their tools we will curtail their power. Then we Eight can move to recover the relic for you, master.”
“A most pleasant suggestion, and well put. The very thing, were it not for the rest who oppose us. No, better to allow those dogs to run and follow their yapping than to try to intervene and be discovered. It is the one-eye we must be most careful of, I think. The rest are nothings. Look. That one shows no aura at all, and has no cord!”
“He was one of the two who stole The Rede,” said the chief of the Eight Diseased Ones.