Now he could no longer see himself at all, not even Blackheartseeker as he held the dull ebon of its long blade before him. "Why?" he whispered the question as he peered nervously around.
Voices. Behind him stood the demon queen Zuggtmoy in her most hideous form. Conversing with that horror was an ancient and equally loathsome crone. It could be none other than Iggwilv, the mother of witches.
Each held a darkly luminous object with her pride and arrogance plainly displayed. There was a slight disturbance, a darker place in the air between them, and each moved slightly so as to make the distance that separated them greater. In that instant another form appeared suddenly. It was the naked, red-hued form of the cambion demigod Iuz. Demi-god? No longer, it seemed. Iuz was fully a head taller than the demoness, and his bulk was as great. The cambion had grown larger, more powerful, and more assured. He too held a luminous object in his hands, and his huge mouth opened to show the rows of pointed teeth that filled it as he fully materialized.
"Welcome, my son," the greatest of hags croaked.
"Greetings, Lord of Pain," Zuggtmoy breathed in her dank, fungoid voice.
"Ho! Ho! Ho!" Iuz boomed his mirth, allowing it to roll and play into the distances of the plane. This is the place you have chosen, is it?"
"Yes, dear boy," the cambion's horrible mother said gleefully. "It is a place where none but ourselves can reach. Not even that corpse-lover Infestix can disturb us here," she simpered, looking to the fungus heap that was Zuggtmoy as if seeking approval.
The fungi demoness didn't disappoint Iggwilv. "A most clever notion, don't you agree, Iuz, my pet?"
She might have said more, but the cambion spoke rudely in interjection.
"Never call me that again, toadstool slut!"
"Be nice," the crone-mother admonished without force. "We three are an inseparable group now. Give me your Theorpart, dear Iuz, and mother will make the two a great tool for your power—"
"Tush! Don't interfere now, Wilva. The key must be given to me for the initial joining." Zuggtmoy shifted shape as she spoke, becoming a beautiful and seductive human as she conversed. "So I will accept your offering now, Iuz," the demon queen said in her now-sultry voice.
Iuz shook his head. "If we are conjoined, then we must act so, my lovely consorts!"
"What?" Iggwilv demanded somewhat irritably, even as she too shifted form to appear as a brightly clad and gorgeous young woman.
"How is that?" The beauty that was now Zuggtmoy demanded almost simultaneously.
"Each must hold forth that portion of the tripartite relic which she has, just as I do now," the cambion said smoothly, smilingly, as he extended his right arm and held the oddly shaped portion he possessed in such a manner so that it pointed toward the chitinous surface of the place. "Now you two must do likewise, and so doing we will gently bring the three together so as to form a whole!"
Zuggtmoy hesitated, looking at Iuz, then at Iggwilv. The ancient witch was likewise uncertain. She stared at her offspring, then looked at the fungi queen. The two exchanged glances, each suspicious, doubting the cambion, questioning each other as well. As if by some silent mutual conGord, both then turned to stare at Iuz. He stood as before, still amiable, a faint smile upon his huge face.
"Come, come! This act is to make us the unquestioned masters of all, the most powerful beings in the multiverse. Our wills alone have sufficed to keep the relic disjoined, to maintain the bindings upon Tharizdun.... See? I freely speak that turd's name without fear! It is we three who will rule, not he!"
Zuggtmoy hesitated, then nodded, and slowly extended her Theorpart. "Come on, Iggwilv, you too!" Her tone was harsh.
"Oh, very well," said the witch. "Here is—"
"Ieeuuzzz!"
The ferocious, rising shout that the cambion let out made both of his tensely extending arms twitch reflexively. Iuz had instantly dropped his portion of the relic when the other two had been held forth, and his long arms shot forth to seize the extended artifacts of the evil one's prisoning. The long fingers of his hands clamped with an iron grip, and the muscular arms jerked back with lightning speed. The horrified eyes of both Iggwilv and Zuggtmoy saw events as if in slow motion as the cambion brought his twin prizes to him, then lifted both overhead in exultation.
All of this time Gord had watched without attempting anything. He was uncertain if he was invisible, undetectable, to the trio. When Iuz tore the two keys from the grasp of his supposed co-masters of all, a shout of horror rose unbidden from the young champion's chest and was out of his mouth in a rush. His cry went unheard, however, for even as it vented forth, the three were themselves screaming at the top of their lungs.
"Nooo!" Zuggtmoy bellowed, trying to shift shape again.
"Wait!" Iggwilv screamed, hoping to gain time.
"Mine! You are mine!" Iuz shouted in triumph as he placed a massive, clawed foot upon the last portion of the relic. As he did so, the cambion used the other two together, bringing left and right parallel, portions touching.
"Dry dust!" he thundered, aiming the weird pair directly at his mother. Iggwilv blew away in the breeze, a little whirl of powder.
"Empty air!" he shouted, as he turned and leveled the twin Theorparts at the half-female, half-fungoid thing that was Zuggtmoy. The demoness vaporized, and the little haze of smoke she had been was instantly gone, too.
Iuz pranced and capered at that. "I am King! I am All! None can stand before Me! All, all, all is Mine!"
Gord was rooted to the spot. He watched as Iuz bent, scooped up the final portion of the dreaded artifact, and without hesitation fitted it into the other parts to form a whole. This cannot be...." Gord managed to whisper. As if in answer to that, thunder rolled in the distance somewhere. Thunder?
"Thunder?" The question in Gord's mind was echoed by the mouth of Iuz. The cambion left off his cavorting and stared at the horizon. It retained its pale, varicolored strata, yet the rumbling came from there. It was like thunder, but it was continuous. Iuz stared, immobile.
"It draws closer," the huge demon said at last. "Who dares to disturb the Master of the Multiverse?" Iuz finally demanded in a voice almost equal to the thunder itself.
There was no answer. The plane itself contracted, though, and the rolling boom of thunder grew louder still. There was no doubt in Gord's mind. The source of the noise was closer still. He could move now, but there was nowhere to go. Even as those thoughts raced through the young champion's mind, the place shrank still more. Now it had definite boundaries, perceivable dimensions. It was a rectangle of miles in depth, leagues in breadth. Still huge, but contracting, diminishing. Iuz raged and thundered in reply to the booming of the plane itself, and when they so contested. Gord saw the dimensions of the chitinous layer grow smaller and smaller until he and the cambion occupied a space no larger than a few hundred paces deep and thrice that across. Then the noise stopped, as did the shrinking, when a thin plume or dark smoke appeared against the pearlescent horizon.
Iuz noted the column of smoke and strode toward it. "Who dares to intrude upon Me?" he demanded. "What entity is so bold as to defy the wishes of Iuz?"
There was no reply. The smoke thickened, grew taller, and from its uppermost portion gleamed motes of bright amethyst hue, a purple fire within the dense, dark cloud, perhaps. The cambion was nonplussed but determined. "I sense your presence," he shouted, standing not fifty paces from the stuff. "I grow tired of this game," the half-demon added. Casually he lifted the awful form of the ancient relic he held and pointed It at the smoke. "Now, thing of folly, you see the might of lust"