“That one will die soon,” Infestix said with a pleasure-laden tone. “I will watch a while yet.”
The overlord of all daemonkind and his eight were viewing the scenes in the scrying basin when Virulex returned from his executionary duties. He too joined them as they watched tiny figures go through their meaningless little actions on the material plane, on the world known as Oerth. At times the scenes faded, masked by intervening mists. Infestix tried to clear those vapors, rend the veils, but even his powers were insufficient. Still they stood and watched what they could, and the overlord of them all never allowed a hint of his frustration and uncertainty to show.
The citadel fell; armies marched and fought: men, dwarves, and humanoids died. Here a little band went off to seek one thing or another. The demons came then, and the daemons snarled as their own servants failed because of the intervention of the Abyss. “We must do something!” The chief of the eight was infuriated. Infestix remained calm.
“The unruly brawlers bring attention to themselves-see! Now all forms of antagonists gather to contest for their prize. That is the middle Theorpart, the Arouser. My servants have the Initiator, and it calls to its own. Neither human mage nor demonling shall have it!”
Yet even the master of daemons was proved wrong by the events that followed. Mighty armies clashed over the relic, that which would awaken the sleeping one of greatest evil, that king to whom even Infestix would bow, for he was Tharizdun. Tharizdun, greatest of Evil, he who would restore all the multiverse to the malign powers. Locked away in nothingness, comatose, chained now. But the means to pierce the nothingness, dispel the unconsciousness, free the bonds, had been unearthed at last.
Soon, despite all hopes to the contrary, Infestix knew that the tripartite relic would be conjoined, the dweomers destroyed, and Tharizdun freed. It could never be otherwise. Evil was stronger than Balance, more powerful than Good. It held no interfering ethical beliefs, suffered no qualms. In the end it must prevail.
“It goes to the demons, master!”
Infestix turned and exited the chamber in silence.
“Are we beaten?” The leader of the Eight asked that quietly, unbelievingly.
Virulex stared at the group with unwavering gaze, his dead-black eyes unwinking. “Never! Watch on, but interfere not-especially as to any foreseeing with respect to the relic or those who serve the Balance. Our master warned us well, I know. Believe! There can be but one final result.” With that, Infestix’s steward too left the scrying room.
The Eight Diseased Ones, the nobles of Hades, remained at their post, watching and waiting. So many sides contesting, so many forces arrayed, so many players and pieces. Even the super-powerful intellects of those mighty ones of daemonkind had difficulty seeing all, and assessing what they viewed. Still, they knew and believed.
“A pawn has just been taken,” one of the eight observed tonelessly.
Another nodded. “It was the auraless one, the one the master said would die.”
“I cannot find a trace of him,” the first speaker observed. “To what end did he go?”
“To annihilation,” the other said unemotionally. “Where else? Otherwise there would be a trace, the shadow of the cord.”
“Of course,” the first said. Being the least of the Eight, it was his duty to observe the least important of events. The assurance from one of greater status was sufficient. Besides, he had commented on the occurrence, and it had been noted. The explanation of it supplied by Pneumonias set the burden squarely on that one’s decayed head. That was doubly satisfying. “The martinets of the hells do have their uses,” he finally commented to the seven others. “If we can’t intervene directly, at least the devils can serve.”
“Of course. Infestix has commanded it,” the greatest of the Eight said. Then they returned full attention to the scrying, and silence reigned in the purple-washed hall.
At various other places, on other planes and in secluded places, men and more-than-men observed events in much the same fashion. So many watchers, so many energies flowing, such cross purposes were involved that there was a swirling vortex soon. It seemed to come naturally enough, and was so slowly and gently formed that it went all but unnoticed.
The surge of magical currents was not disruptive; rather, the energy vortex that was generated grew as more and more attention was focused on the material plane and distorted perspectives there. It did so in so subtle a fashion as to be virtually undetectable. What demons, daemons, and devils saw was different from the observances of the denizens of the planes of light, those powers that sought for good, weal, and justice.
So too was different the view of the ones who believed in all as part of a whole, those who understood that without evil no good could be known, that without darkness light was not truly comprehensible, was not true. Perhaps this was more real than the other views, or perhaps the great ones of Balance saw more because they had fewer preconceptions, no sacrosanctities that had to remain inflexible as judgment points upon which information must founder if not in agreement. In any case, those beings were suddenly aware of what had occurred.
“How is the vortex come?” asked a demiurge.
“The flow and surge, the fluxes…?”
“The energies form the vortex,” the being observed to the ancient human archimage who had replied to his query, “but I am not certain that they formed in and of themselves. Observe how there are ghosts and distortions present. What is actually occurring, what has happened, and what will happen are unreadable in the force of the swirl.”
The arch-wizard pondered that for a long period. “There are two unknowns then, lord. The first is the cause of the distortion; the second, the actualities masked by it.”
“Exactly, my old companion. Succinctly put. I fear we may only guess at either.”
Other members of the Balance, hierophant priests and other humans as well as beings similar to the demiurge, then proposed a number of possibilities and posed certain questions as well. The great worker for wholeness finally spoke after each, in turn, had stated the conditions as perceived individually. “We all concur, then, that some force unknown is a likely cause of the shaping of energies, although coincidence can be ruled out. We must, therefore, continue to act as if coincidence was indeed the sole cause of the vortex.”
“We will continue to play off demons against the combined Evils?”
“That is correct. Moreover, our agents on Oerth will continue to work toward the foiling of the plots of Hades with respect to all matters save one.”
“What is that one exception, lord?” the venerable archimage asked.
“We can no longer accept events as they seem. It has been our belief that a final struggle is occurring. Perhaps that is so, but I now see that it is but true in part. We must resist the evil ones, for if they combine and succeed in their aims, then light will be no more. With its loss, so too must we all perish.”
“Speak on, please.”
“It seems possible that we are less than we imagined. Beyond us, beyond the lord of Evil and powers of Good, unbeknownst to the masters of Order and the forces of Chaos, a greater one might be laboring.”
“For or against us, lord?”
“Who can say? Neither? That seems a reasonable suggestion. That power does as it does toward an end which is yet hidden from us. It is logical to continue as we have been, but to observe carefully as well. There is a strong probability that what will occur is far beyond the scope we have previously considered.”
“I believe you are on to something there, lord,” said the arch-wizard suddenly. His vigor and animation were those of a schoolboy as he went on. “There is no Balance if things are as we perceive them to be. Consider, sirs, the misshaping of things if all save the benighted must forever strive to prevent one of their number to ascend over the multiverse! Is there such a one in the ranks of the upper beings? Do we have such a champion? Those answers are self-evident, and if the question is put with respect to chaos, to law, the answer is the same. None exists save in the depths of Evil.”