Dance of Demons Read Online Free PDF

Infestix said to himself. Strike into the Abyss with all available forces. Gain the three keys. Then — ah, then! — Infestix himself would carry the great relic's portions back to his realm. He would personally unite them, and in an instant Tharizdun, Greatest of Darkness, would be loosed for all time.
    What power could resist then? None. Gone would be the rebellious demon lords. Balance would be broken as rotten bones snap under the iron sole of a megadaemon warrior's armored boot With one taloned hand Tharizdun would tear down the spheres of gold, the vaults of argent, the thrones of blue. The gloom of Evil would rise upward as smoke. It would cover the heavens, darken all light, and bring all under the sole rulership of Tharizdun. Infestix, as the chief worker for the cause, would surely sit at the Blackest One's right hand. He was yielding his autonomy, but it would gain him tenfold the power, a hundred times the glory!
    The master of Hades crooked a skeletal finger. "Go, fetch The Diseased Ones to this place now," he grated to the putridaemon herald who hovered nearby. "Tell them to come before me fully prepared for every exigency," Infestix added in his hollow rasp. The herald knelt, banged its bronze-helmeted, zombie-faced head upon the massive stones of the floor, then crept backward from the place until well away from the hideous throne of its monarch. Then the monstrous thing leaped to its feet and ran to carry out Infestix's commands.
    To each of The Diseased Ones, the greatest of daemonkind other than Infestix himself, the putridaemon repeated the orders he had been charged with. A sense of urgency was conveyed; that, and a sense of impending triumph. These had been incuicated merely through the word and will of Infestix. The dull brain of the daemon herald was a sponge, and the eight who were The Diseased Ones squeezed it with their own mental power and were excited by the results.
    "The moment draws near!" exclaimed the first of the eight.
    "The Master himself will lead us," the least of them murmured.
    "Never fear," the greatest said with a mirthless smile to the eighth. "You will have your moment of significance. ..."
    "Pardon, Lord, I fail to understand," the least intoned suspiciously.
    "Heh, heh, heh! As the eighth, Brucilosu, it will be your honor to take the field as commander when the Master personally intervenes!"
    "But if I fall against the demons? . . ."
    "There is the seventh waiting behind you, of course. Heh, heh. . . ."
    Nothing further was uttered as the eight servants of Infestix made their way to their lord's grim audience chamber.
     
    Chapter 3
    IT WAS A BLACK VORTEX filled with motes of disgusting colors. The motion of the bilious green, rotten gray, putrescent yellow, and livid violet glows as they whirled and mixed with a riot of ineffable motes of other hues, was sufficient to sicken the viewer. Intestines churned in nauseous counterpoint to the evolutions of those vile-colored little gleams as they surfaced and sank within the growing maelstrom. The sight of that, the terrible wrongness of it all, caused brains to ache, thoughts to turn inward in a desperate desire to escape. Wrenching gut joined wracked brain in denial of it all. Still the vortex grew, intensified, and became omnipresent. Then the sounds reached out, and with them came the indescribable odors. It was too much for any normal mind to bear.
    "Is . . . this . . ."
    "The Abyss? Yes. Exactly as pictured for me by the Hierophants," Gord said. With a great deal of effort, he managed to speak to Gellor without choking on the gorge that was rising in his throat.
    Gellor swallowed hard and with crabbed fingers managed to pull his leather eye patch down to cover the enchanted gem that served as his left eye. "Your energy is greater than mine, Gord, or else your constitution is stronger. Either way, I can’t view the place through the ocular. Too much can be seen that way."
    "Not likely, you old wolf!" Gord countered, squeezing