Dance of Demons Read Online Free PDF Page B

his comrade's shoulder in a gesture of both sharing and reassurance. Gord, as the champion of Balance, had been imbued with a deep and lasting vitality from many supernatural sources. In all, however, the one-eyed troubador was his equal. Gellor too had received energies, been gifted with power, and granted strength beyond the ken of mortals. "I'd wager it's the perspective, not the prospect, which so disconcerts you."
    That remark, meant in Jest but taken more seriously, gave Gellor pause. Gord obviously referred to their situation and status. Always in the past it had been the bard who knew more, discovered more, and was in charge. Gord had been like an apprentice, a wayward nephew, then almost a protege. Now the roles were reversed, and Gellor accompanied his young friend as a lieutenant. Gord shared information, but there were certain things Gellor was not privy to, despite that. That circumstance existed because of the responsibility the young man bore, and because Gord must bear it, not because Gord desired to surpass his friend or to dominate him. "Perhaps you do see things better than I," Gellor finally said as the spinning vortex loomed to fill the whole of their universe. "I am unused to reliance on another, albeit even a minor dependence and from a bosom companion."
    "This is a fearsome thing we do," Gord said. "Who can feel anything but dread when confronting the mouth of the Abyss?"
    "It is like no other plane," Gellor said with a choked voice. "You have walked in Shadow, dwelled on the sphere of the Catlord, and sojourned in aether and astrality; but this . . ."
    "Don't forget I've brushed the interlinked planes of the elements, Gellor — even seen the fuicrum of positive and negative, sailed upon the vast Ocean of Thought."
    The grizzled troubador nodded vigorously at that. "None of which could have prepared you for . . . this!" he nearly shouted, waving wildly to indicate the now all-encompassing expanse of the first tier of the chaotic evil sphere known as the Abyss, the realm of all demonkind. "I have in my time had to deal with the charnel vistas of Acheron, and seek certain objects in the riotous horror of Pandemonium. Not even those places prepared me for what we now must face!"
    "Face? More than that, dear friend, more! We are to enter, traverse, and make this place our own,"
    Gord said with a grim smile.
    * * *
    After being armed, armored, and equipped with all that the masters of neutrality could provide, he and the bard had simultaneously touched the intricately worked buckles of their girdles. Each buckle was imbued with those dweomers that enabled the two to traverse the infinity of places that constitutes the cosmos, the endless spheres of the multiverse. Each device was rune-worked, sigil-covered, studded, and bore a spiderweb tracery of marks in strange and rare metals. A touch and a thought; then Gord and Gellor were no longer in the realm of Rexfelis, master of all felines. One moment there was the assembly of the Lords of Balance; the next instant, Gord and his companion were elsewhere.
    In the pearlescent twilight of the Aethereal Plane, Gord and Gellor fairly glowed with the strength of their internal powers, while the many magical items each bore radiated intense auras of their own. When Gellor remarked on the rather obvious locating and identifying effect coming from this emanation of dweomer, that caused Gord to consider cloaking both of them. By merely concentrating on his own amulet, a device that screened its wearer from magical locating and spying, the young champion was able to determine what needed to be done. By mentally weaving a screen of force to close in the radiations, by bending some forces and by altering others, he was able to dim the aura around them.
    "How's that?" Gord had asked his companion as the two strode along the glowing gray path that their senses interpreted for them as the environment of the place. In truth, human senses, even many supernatural ones, could not