The bard was now bellowing a counter-ballad to the demonurgist's rhyme, and the dweomer of that singing made it exacting work to accomplish. Now the last sounds were forming, but the priest-wizard was forced to enunciate each with excruciating slowness. To mispronounce might merely negate the power of the spell, but it could as easily open the vortex for Gravestone himself. An entrance thus before Infestix would be far from pleasant. Failure was never tolerated, of course....
It was a nightmare in a world where Gord's every motion was taken as if he were underwater. The fall was not serious, except that Blackheartseeker slipped from his hand as it occurred. Then, as if he and the weapon were opposite poles of a magnet, his hand couldn't seem to properly grip it as he tried to regain his feet and strike the demonurgist. It was a matter of trying to accomplish too many actions at once. Gord's hands were sweating, his nerves frayed, his body battered and wounded, his brain filled with desperation.
The sudden sound of Gellor's voice as it sang forth in counter to the dark spell of the priest-wizard brought Gord to his senses. Even as the troubador's singing hindered Gravestone in his incantation, the ballad forced the Champion of Balance to pause a split-second, get a firm grip on his sword hilt, then come erect and attack.
Had Gord possessed his dagger then, he would have hurled it at the demonurgist, trusting that the blade would suffice to break the binding that the demonurgist was surely about to finish. That would have been a fatal mistake, for the dweomer of that weapon was by no means potent enough for the task. Not being thus armed, though, and seeing that the distance was too great to close with a single step and long lunge, Gord decided that his only hope was the sword.
He shifted his grip on the hilt and threw the weapon as if it were a javelin. The long blade made that very difficult — the balance was all wrong — but there was little space between Gord and the chanting demonurgist. Of the incantation, but a single word remained to be uttered to create the Doompit when the edge of the lightless blade struck Gravestone.
The sword's point didn't sink into his throat, where Gord had aimed when he hurled the weapon. In fact, the sword was already turning and no longer flew true when it touched the priest-wizard. Gravestone, in completion of his spell, was just in the act of bringing both of his arms down, fingers to point at the exact place where the opening of the spell's vortex was to appear, when Blackheartseeker's edge contacted his flesh. Only a little of the flesh was touched; three fingers, to be exact. The descending fingers of Gravestone's right hand met the flying blade of the sword almost gently. The weapon fled past them, hardly checked, rang against the wall, and fell to the floor with a clang. Nearby lay the three blood-spilling fingers that had been severed very cleanly by the sword.
Gravestone's scream ended the casting with a single syllable wanting.
Gellor shouted in exultation when he saw what occurred, his ballad also interrupted by the sight of Gord's thrown sword.
Still feeling as if he were immersed in a great depth of water. Gord sprang toward the demonurgist. He reached his foe in three bounds and grabbed the tall man by the throat, bearing the fellow down with the savagery of his bare-handed assault.
"At last, you devil!" Gord was beating the bushy-haired head upon the hard stone floor as he tried his best to force his thumbs into Gravestone's flesh. "I"— thump —"know" — thud —"what" — bash —"you"-bump — "did" — thunk — "to..."
He got no farther. Despite the choke-hold. Gravestone managed to mutter a word, and suddenly Gord was trying to strangle a huge, amoeboid thing. His hands sank deep into its soft surface, and the acid of the monster's stuff burned them with searing pain.
Gord extracted his injured members and rolled and somersaulted away. The amoehoid thing that was Gravestone came after him. It was too slow to catch him, but it prevented Gord from getting to his sword.
It was a stand-off that the demonurgist would eventually have won, except that Gellor was there to intervene. Even as his comrade sought to flank the monster and get to the sword that the shapeless blob of acidic stuff guarded, the bard struck.
"You like swords, do you? Then try this one!" Gellor cried as he stabbed his blade into the formless blob. The amoeboid writhed and retreated from the attack. Gellor had no such weapon as Gord's, but the troubador's sword was of potent enchantment nonetheless. Had the priest-wizard been in his true form, it would have failed to do the slightest injury to him, so puissant were the evil protections that Gravestone had woven around his body. In this shape, however, it had effect. No mere slicing or stabbing would have harmed the amoeba either, but Gellor's blade exuded a chilling cold. The thing drew back instantly from that freezing brand, but the troubador kept up his assault. "Or this? Or this? Or this one?"
It was almost impossible for the demonurgist to think clearly or quickly in the form of the amoeba he had taken. The pain from the sword sent him back and back with involuntary motions. Then somehow he recalled there was more than one reason for his choice of becoming this amoeboid monstrosity. There was an escape route that this form could take and no man follow! Gravestone-amoeba flowed toward the place where there was relief from the pain of the gelid metal — only when he-it tried to do that, the icy spear of metal was in the way. The hurt and anger became too much. Gravestone would take no more.
"Gord! Your weapon, quick!"
When the bard yelled that, Gord leaped over the jellylike mass of the amoeba. It had stopped its flow and was gathering itself for some renewed attack perhaps, but there was space and opportunity. His leap carried the young man onto the little space that existed between the monster and the wall. Blackheartseeker lay there, and the amoeba's sudden inactivity and contraction gave him the opportunity to reach the sword. "Look out, Gellor!" Gord called as he picked up his sword and turned to look at the thing he was about to strike with its deadly blade.
The change took only seconds — a split-second from the compaction as amoeba to his human shape again. Gravestone uttered a minor spell even as he had tongue and mouth to do so once again. The oneeyed scum who had been tormenting him with his icy-bladed sword was moving to strike, even as the smaller man was hefting his black-hued weapon and readying to do the same.
Neither succeeded in their aim, for suddenly there were six of the demonurgist where one had been, and the half-dozen forms immediately began to disappear and blink back into existence in a random fashion all over the place. Gravestone was now replicated and alternately moving off and onto the vibratory plane he had created. Before the two foemen could discover which of the six was the real priest-wizard, Gravestone would be far enough distant to do what he had to. Better to be alive without all than die with possessions intact. The demonurgist was desperate now. He would bring into existence a Hellsfire, an inferno of flames and raining lava in the center of this chamber. Of course, when that occurred Gravestone would be beyond the furnace-heat of his dweomer.
"The egress! Guard the passage out!" Gord shouted that to his comrade, for he saw that the blinking in and out by the half-dozen Gravestones was not as random as it might seem. Two of the figures seemed to appear constantly behind Gellor, moving a little closer to the lone exit each time they became visible again. Taking no chances, the champion of the struggle against Tharizdun dashed toward that place himself, striking a could-be-Gravestone with his ebon sword as he went. The figure popped as the metal edge cut through it.