"Even? Score? I speak of combating the very essence of all that is wicked, of driving that one's servants to their demise, of locking evil away forever!"

"Cold untruths, neutral creature. You seek not the end of all evil, the glory of Weal forever. What you work and strive to do is play the wicked against the righteous eternally, thus allowing your gray-tinged existences forever. You will have no such service from me! Name now the one you will have quickened, then follow the reek of corruption left as the slug you call Gravestone crawled away to seek safety."

There was no choice. "Gellor," he said, speaking the name slowly, carefully. The one-eyed troubador was the greatest and most powerful of the three.

Gord's heart was leaden in his breast as he said the name.

"It is as you would have it." the solar said in its deep and beautifully resonant voice. Then the lucid blue vanished.

"What happened?" It was the bard, coming to consciousness, struggling erect.

Gord had no time to explain. "You're fine, I think, old comrade, but Chert and Greenleaf are not! See if you can do something for them. I must continue the hunt for the demonurgist. Here, catch!" the young adventurer said, tossing a rune-worked pyramid to Gellor. The troubador took it from the air but looked uncertain. "It is enspelled and will take you from here. Use it if I do not return in a thousand heartbeats. Speak the name of the Demiurge as you open the thing."

Til not be in so great a hurry to flee, Gord. Right protect you and make your aim true," Gellor said. Then he went as quickly as he could to where the torn and bloody forms of his other friends were. "Hurry after the rotten bastard, Gord. Get him, and even if we three here die, it is a good exchange."

"I... I'm sorry, but I must leave you. Care for them, do what is possible." Without saying anything more for fear that his voice would break, Gord turned in the general direction in which the priest-wizard had gone and began to peer at the floor, sniffing as he did so. True to his utterance, the solar had used his power to reveal the path that Gravestone had taken.

Curiously, although the place appeared flat and featureless to his normal vision, the dweomer of the being from the higher spheres enabled Gord to see the place as its evil maker did.

Better still, the energy imparted by the solar allowed the young champion of the Balance to follow the demonurgist as he entered the devious mazes of the subrosa portion of his creation. What was a disc of a few hundred feet diameter to others became far different now. There was a level below the apparent one on a different vibratory frequency. Its dark resonance expanded the confines of the nullity greatly. Below the featureless oval that held Gellor, Chert, and Curley Greenleaf was a warren of passages and chambers that was three times larger than the space above, even though it existed in the same seeming place. Gord was confused but could comprehend the principle behind it.

He followed the visible smudges of stinking stuff. It was a trail of the very essence of Gravestone; his aura of evil was such that it actually left behind a reek as he passed. Wondering if the solar's reaction to himself and the lightless sword had been based on a similar perception of aura, Gord went down a now plainly visible flight of steps fully twenty feet broad. His body was resonating on the same frequency as the vibrations of Gravestone and his hidden underlevel, only Gravestone wouldn't be aware of it. Not yet!

Despite the possible fate of his comrades. Gord felt a grim satisfaction, an impending doom hanging over the demonurgist's head. Gravestone had been the instrument of all that was truly bad in the young mans existence. It was the priest-wizard who had hunted down and killed both Gord's father and mother. All evil that had followed therefrom, even Leena's degenerative condition, the terrible existence he had suffered in Old City and beyond, all the rest, too. The demonurgist had caused it all and desired worse. There was one beyond Gravestone, of course. Perhaps two, if Infestix were placed in the equation.

But Gord didn't consider the master of the pits as a part of his mission. That one would be taken care of by some other. First came the demonurgist. Then Gord had but one remaining foe to face. The sole master of Gravestone was Tharizdun. That was in the priest-wizard's heart. "No problem." Gord said aloud as he stepped off the last stair and followed the slime of evil. "I'll remove his black heart and quench the burning desire all in one cleansing thrust!"

The foe Gord sought now had no idea he was being hounded by the young champion. Gravestone had activated a great spell, a dweomer contained in a scarab that had been carefully prepared and held ready for just such need as now. As the dumalduns stupidly sacrificed themselves in combat with the solar, the demonurgist had begun the task of evoking the malign forces locked in the scarab. Layer upon layer of magic flowed from it.

First, the wards against Weal. The quasi-sphere that was Gravestone's own creation in nullity began to glow darkly. Lasting globes of malign force sprang into being. These were fashioned to repel goodness, to drive away anything from the upper planes. Three bands of such malign power manifested themselves from the scarab: the dull, bloody hue of the hells, the ebon of the Abyss, the putrid purple of the pits. True, a great solar might be able to endure such force as those three globes emitted, but even so the evil would begin eroding the strength of any being of Weal.

Next issued the most potent and malign of the sigils of the netherplanes. Each evil sign was disguised, near-invisible even to a being as mighty as the solar. These sigils were themselves repositories of dweomer. Some held black destruction from the depths of demonium, others fiery force garnered in the hells, while the remainder contained the death-powers bestowed from Hades itself. To confront one was to be blasted by the full potency of the evil rune's magic. Should a solar even pass near to one, the sigil would trigger its guarding force to the detriment of the intruding foe. Wards to force away the strength of good, guarding sigils to lay the enemies of Tharizdun and his servant low. Great was the power of the scarab. Yet a third came beyond.

The complexities of the dark castings that the device contained had taken years of time and great effort to form. As the wardings and guards sprang into existence, so too the final portion of the dweomer. The dark power of the netherspheres formed a labyrinth of corridors and rooms, halls and passages, galleries and rooms in which the priest-wizard would be hidden. No bright creature could discover the secret of that maze, for the aura of evil was nowhere and everywhere at once. That particular pattern that was Gravestone's was replicated, mirrored, and spread throughout the complex whose confines were broad and confusing. The being of Weal who entered would be so affected as to find the whole ever greater. Each step added two to the evil complex, each turn created a branching, a fresh twist, so that the very operation of such an enemy in the black maze caused the labyrinth to expand and become more confusing.

A portion of it had existed from the time Gravestone had fashioned his web using the netherforces at his command. There, safe in the center, hedged round with every protection years of effort could build, the demonurgist hid. Pentagrams and circles graven into the stony stuff of the floor kept him free from magical intrusions, as did the mystic triangles and horned seals of evil. The entrance was of stone and iron, set with silver and gold runes. All were hidden by secret fashioning and cloaked further with spells of invisibility, illusion, and blindness, which made physical location of the lair he had constructed nearly impossible. Dense metal and dampening magics precluded other forms of intrusion. It was a place of total safety.