"Entropy! The fools have played into my hands," Tharizdun cried. "If you are to gain your reward, it is now time for you to truly earn it. Place your inertial weight upon the dim-witted brute. Bring it to senility and decay! Then I will finish the pitiful remainder easily."

"First, dark lord, you must assault the lesser ones massed upon the bulk of the thing. The numbers of those assisting the creature must be thinned." It was untrue, of course. The entity could have done whatever he wished then and there. Entropy cared not at all if Tharizdun knew the truth of the situation. Entropy would have more. Extermination, extlnction, and decay were all it cared for.

"You will do what I command! Now! Now!" Tharizdun railed.

Blithely the Lord of Entropy droned, "Yes, Ultimate Evil, as soon as your hordes have assailed the rebellious demons as I mentioned. Just after that will I obey your great command."

"I will not undertake such an assault, fool!" Tharizdun thundered. "We will sit and starve them out if need be."

Although there was no means of the darkest one's detecting it, that did make the entity rethink its strategy. If by chance Tharizdun was defeated by the champion, Gord, then all of Entropy's hopes for rule of the multiverse were dashed for a billion years, perhaps a billion decades. "I will gather myself and attack the demon brute, Tharizdun, but if I am to do so, your troops must simultaneously fall upon the others there. It will be a mass assault, or I will abandon your cause. What care I If you or the Champion of Balance prevails, if both are heedless of my wishes?"

Snarling, devising terrible tortures for the entity should he ever find a way to bring it into substance, Tharizdun protested long, but eventually gave in. "Sweet-smelling vibrancy! Who do you believe is to rule all? Who, I ask — you?" Entropy was silent, knowing what he knew. "Very well, leaden lump, I agree to your terms. I will order a massed advance onto ojukalazogadit the moment your inertial force is observable by me. When I see the ponderous pressure of your being bringing doom to the life force of the brute-thing, then will my millions of warriors attack unrelentingly. they will have orders not to cease their assaults until the last demon who dared to defy my sovereignty is annihilated."

"Excellent, Greatest of Fiends. You are truly the archfiend fit to rule the whole of the netherspheres,"

Entropy boomed in monotonous gratification. At the end of such a battle there would not be one demon in ten left to roam the Abyss. The legions of the hells would be gone, as well as the majority of all of the other inhabitants of the other nether realms too. That made the entity recall something else. "And your pack is it ready?"

"Oh, yes," Tharizdun said, rubbing his hands in anticipation, almost forgetting the other, more important matters at hand. "It is all but complete, and I feed its yeth constantly with the energies of those who were their fellows. each will be strong, full op insane fury, ready!" A fire sprang into the archfiend's eyes. "After they hunt down the fob, Gord, I will loose them on the mortal worlds. They need souls to sustain their vigor!"

Had Entropy been able, the entity would have laughed, cheered, even caroled a merry ditty at that prospect it was not in its makeup, so it responded by stating, "I now will begin the work of bearing down Ojukalazogadit into extinction," and his presence vanished from Tharizdun's ken. Entropy was foreseeing a cosmos depopulated, suns dwindling to cold lumps, motion slowed, life waning ever more rapidly.

Unnatural or not Entropy did cause a sound to emanate from itself as it went about the work promised. It was as if a winter wind shrieked across great stone chimneys, sounding them as organ pipes in a minor key so bass as to be nearly inaudible. But it was a dirge of sustained notes and coming doom that Entropy felt quite pleased with.

* * *

"The whole of our wisdom is exhausted," Proctor Chronos announced. "Yet in all, I believe we have devised a plan which will confound your foe."

"That is so," agreed Lady Tolerance. "It is a simple and direct course of action which will lay Tharizdun by his heels."

"And thwart the meddling nihilist as well!" the ancient Master of Time asserted.

Gord and his two companions stood up, relieved. "Let us set to it," the young champion said with vigor. "The enemy must grow ever more deadly as he gains ground."

The Mistress of Probability hesitated, casting her peer a sidelong glance. "Well..."

"Lady Tolerance is about to say that if your 'us' means you three, then well and good. Do not include her or me in your calculations," Proctor Chronos informed them.

"You have nothing other than a plan to give us?" The angry query sprang from Leda.

"This is intolerable," Gellor fairly snapped.

Gord remained calmer. "Your words are not encouraging up to this point, honored beings. Will you be so kind as to enlighten us three?"

"Of course. I sympathize with you, my dears," Lady Tolerance said. "I fully understand your view and your want. The Proctor is better at being direct, so he shall say what needs be said."

"The reemergence of the chief one of Evil has closed off this universe, heroes, from the remainder of the cosmos. Its gates have been slammed shut and barred fast. We must look only to the resources at hand. Is that much clear?" The Master of Time waited for assent or questions. Evidently, all three of them understood that only the spheres of existence that formed their own particular universe were now open to them — and to Tharizdun. They had no questions.

This neither strengthens or weakens either party, although it does limit options. Ravages beyond this pale are not permitted, nor can aid or refuge be found anywhere else either. When one faction or the other triumphs, then no force known can keep the many portals held shut The bounds are thus established for the battle."

"Tharizdun? Entropy? What of them?"

Proctor Chronos seemed annoyed at the interruption. "Let me go about this in an orderly fashion, one point at a time. As the Champion of Balance, you and your two associates have your greatest strength in the material realms and those that form them — the elements, shadow, thought, and all that lot. We two are only marginally involved in those places, for our concerns extend to so many other spheres and farflung locales.

"Tharizdun seeks to rule the cosmos. He must begin in this universe, just as he has. First he masters the nether realms, then captures the inner spheres, then assails the spheres of highest sort. That accomplished, the flood of his wickedness may extend well out into the multiverse. Then are Lady Tolerance and I somewhat constrained.

"Entropy rides the archfiend's coattails as a flea on a dog's tail. That flea grows greater, though, and soon after Tharizdun succeeded in his evil aspirations, it would become a mammoth crushing the host into extinction. Then would both time and probability cease to exist. Thus we are both very much desirous that you, Gord the Champion, Gellor, and Leda as well, should emerge the victors in the contest.

Tharizdun and that dull lump. Entropy, even now seek to complete the next step of the whole. They are near to conquering the whole of demonium. That is the nexus of the plan."

Tharizdun's taking of the Abyss?"

"No, his failure to do so!" Proctor Chronos boomed. "I will see that the three of you have time to gain the place where the decisive battle is being fought. Lady Tolerance guarantees you the chance of success. Go to the lair of the thing called Ojukalazogadit. There all the remaining demons who oppose Tharizdun are gathered in a final stand."

They are hated foes, we theirs!" Leda exclaimed. That is suicide. Do you seek to aid Evil and the Lord Entropy?"