Broccli_Head
Explorer
Very sinister, indeed!
Travels through the Wild West: Books V-VIII (Epilogue)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Lazybones
Adventurer
Well, we're nearing the end now, so it's time for a revelation--and since it's Friday, a cliffhanger to boot. Monday's post will be the conclusion of the story, with an epilogue coming later in the week to wrap up some loose ends, and then that's it, as Travels comes to an end.
* * * * *
Book VIII, Part 36
Delem saw the Prince approach the woman that he loved, but his head was echoing with a memory, triggered by the words of Graz’zt. The Prince’s words were eerily similar to the words of a prophecy that he’d heard years ago, on the docks of the city of Baldur’s Gate, worlds and planes away. The strange seeress had promised that one of them would “produce a scion that will prove the bane of nations...” The part of his mind that could still think whispered that the witch’s words had been for the four of them, the four original companions that had met on that lonely road in the West at the very beginning. Dana hadn’t even been with them, at the time. But that wasn’t what filled his thoughts. Rather, the words he heard echoing inside his skull were different ones within that same passage, words he’d often dreaded...
One will be forever destroyed, his soul consumed in the fire
As he’d come into his power over the course of their journeys, he’d feared those words, feared the fire that sprang from within. His birthright, born of the Firelord’s touch upon him. But Kossuth had abandoned him...
No.
Realization flooded through him with a force that nearly unbalanced him. No. Graz’zt had torn everything from him, had filled his head with lies and illusions and even the pure force of his dark power, purging him of nearly everything that had made him human. He’d driven him to bond with a demonic skin, dangling the promise of escape before him, but in reality only cementing the link that held him captive. Now, suddenly, he knew that he’d been wrong, that his despair had been rooted in a false hope.
He reached down inside himself, to a place where he’d never gone, a different place from the fire that fueled his magic. To get there, he opened himself to a bond that he’d forgotten, a link to a power that he’d believed had deserted him, but in fact it had been him that had turned away from its light, deceived and betrayed by the evil lies of his captor.
Graz’zt stood over Dana, drinking in her fear with amusement in his dark eyes. Thus occupied, he did not detect the change to come over Delem at first. His hands dropped slowly to his belt...
A white flash of pure light erupted from Delem’s hands, spreading outward in a blaze of fire. The flames, as bright as the fires of Toril’s sun, tore into the glabrezu, burning through their innate resistances in a flash, incinerating the pincers that held him, immolating both demons as they collapsed backward, screaming as their corrupt flesh melted before the heat of the flames.
As the demons fell, Delem stood there, teetering, wreathed in a halo of white fire that filled the room with an almost painful intensity of light. His face was a mask of anger as he looked down at the pit below.
Graz’zt stared up at him, but the look on his face was not anger, nor fear. Rather, the Prince’s expression was one of triumph... and naked avarice.
“I knew you could do it,” he said, each syllable fat with gloating. “I knew it was within you, Delem... my Delem...”
“Release them,” Delem said, his voice like the edge of a knife. His body crackled with the intensity of the flames that surrounded him, but he did not burn. Within the flames, his body was still clearly battered, but within his eyes burned an intensity that sustained him beyond the physical needs of his corporeal form.
The Demon walked almost casually toward the edge of the pit, lifting himself up out of it with another casual gesture. He did not take his eyes off of Delem.
“To be honest, my little sorcerer, I was almost at a loss for a time. You had resisted everything I did to you... Oh, your allegiance was won fairly swiftly, as such things go, but you had a remarkable resistance to unleashing your inner secrets... The fire that burned deep within you... the thing that I saw in you right away, the moment that you first came to my attention, that night in that dirty roadside tavern in that flyspeck village...”
Delem betrayed his surprise even within the nimbus of fire, and for a moment the white flames flickered. Graz’zt pressed his advantage, laughing. “Ah, did you think it was all an accident, then? Perhaps in a larger sense it was, in that I did not expect to find you where I did. That little statue that your ‘friend’ there lugged around all those years was a conduit in more ways than one, just one of the many eyes that I have, in a thousand different worlds...”
“You cannot understand, for all that you’ve learned, Delem. You are still bound to your material existence, to the limits of your own mortal perceptions. I have seen the shores of nigh-countless realities, spanning the width and breadth of the Planes. I have visited Primes as different from Faerûn as your Forgotten Realms are different from my Azzagrat. My name is reverenced—and feared—in places you have never even dreamed of: Mahragzar, Pak-rothas, Assyria, Greyhawk, Obros’saar, Wyre...”
“I am done with your lies,” Delem said.
“No,” the Prince said, his eyes narrowing. “No, you shall never be done with me, my Delem. This discovery changes nothing, as you will see. I will have the power you possess... the power that brought you to me, the one gift of Faerûn that I have sought for so long, a gift unique to that place, a gift that I have not found anywhere else, for all of my searching.”
“Spellfire.”
Delem screamed and lifted his hand in a sudden gesture, unleashing a stream of liquid flame that slashed through the air and tore into the Demon. Graz’zt was ready, however, and his own palm came up to meet the assault. The white flames struck black flesh in an ugly swirl of colors that briefly flared in the space between them, and then the flames were deflected to the side. Where they struck the wall, the abyssal stone smoked and hissed and melted away, leaving a deep gouge in the rock when Delem halted their flow.
Graz’zt shook out his smoking hand. “Excellent. More than I had imagined, even.”
“Release them,” Delem repeated.
“No. They are mine, as are you.”
Delem launched another attack, but even as Graz’zt again moved to deflect the stream of energy, the sorcerer lifted his other hand and hurled a bolt of spellfire into the ceiling. The blast sliced through stone as though it was parchment, and a huge slab fell down from the ceiling, toward the Demon Prince.
But Graz’zt wasn’t there when it hit. In that instant he’d... changed space and time, and when the smoke and dust cleared, the Prince was standing atop the edge of the dais, facing Delem. An ugly black slash of raw fire-scorched flesh ran across the Demon Prince’s shoulder, his tunic burned away where the spellfire had briefly penetrated his defenses. But in turn, the sorcerer had staggered as his latest assault faded, and nearly fell to his knees, the flames now just a faint halo around him.
“I see that there is some of that other fire left in you as well,” Graz’zt said. “But as for the spellfire... it exacts a high price. I am not such a fool as to be ignorant of what the power that I seek can do. Even for all your rage, and the righteous hatred that burns within you, you cannot defeat me. You could even burn yourself out, toying with powers that you don’t understand... but I will not let that happen, of course.”
The Prince stepped forward, without fear.
Delem screamed, a pure, primal sound. Lunging forward with arms outstretched, he unleashed a final torrent of spellfire, a stream that lasted only a heartbeat before burning out. Graz’zt didn’t even bother to dodge this time, accepting the blast that splashed against his shield in another chaotic burst of roiling, confused color. When it was done Delem cried out and sagged to his knees, barely able to keep from falling on his face against the cold stone. The halo of fire that had surrounded him was gone.
“It is not so bad, my Delem. You will be the progenitor of a new race of demons, a race armed with a power that will bend first the Abyss, and then other worlds, to me. You are more than a mere thrall, Delem. Your place will be one of honor, and once more you will serve as an ambassador of my will.”
Delem did not look up, his body heaving with the effort of breathing, propping himself up with both hands against the stone floor. “Never,” he managed to say.
Graz’zt now loomed over him, a mere three paces away, his power surrounding him in a tangible aura.
“It is over, Delem. You are done.”
* * * * *
Book VIII, Part 36
Delem saw the Prince approach the woman that he loved, but his head was echoing with a memory, triggered by the words of Graz’zt. The Prince’s words were eerily similar to the words of a prophecy that he’d heard years ago, on the docks of the city of Baldur’s Gate, worlds and planes away. The strange seeress had promised that one of them would “produce a scion that will prove the bane of nations...” The part of his mind that could still think whispered that the witch’s words had been for the four of them, the four original companions that had met on that lonely road in the West at the very beginning. Dana hadn’t even been with them, at the time. But that wasn’t what filled his thoughts. Rather, the words he heard echoing inside his skull were different ones within that same passage, words he’d often dreaded...
One will be forever destroyed, his soul consumed in the fire
As he’d come into his power over the course of their journeys, he’d feared those words, feared the fire that sprang from within. His birthright, born of the Firelord’s touch upon him. But Kossuth had abandoned him...
No.
Realization flooded through him with a force that nearly unbalanced him. No. Graz’zt had torn everything from him, had filled his head with lies and illusions and even the pure force of his dark power, purging him of nearly everything that had made him human. He’d driven him to bond with a demonic skin, dangling the promise of escape before him, but in reality only cementing the link that held him captive. Now, suddenly, he knew that he’d been wrong, that his despair had been rooted in a false hope.
He reached down inside himself, to a place where he’d never gone, a different place from the fire that fueled his magic. To get there, he opened himself to a bond that he’d forgotten, a link to a power that he’d believed had deserted him, but in fact it had been him that had turned away from its light, deceived and betrayed by the evil lies of his captor.
Graz’zt stood over Dana, drinking in her fear with amusement in his dark eyes. Thus occupied, he did not detect the change to come over Delem at first. His hands dropped slowly to his belt...
A white flash of pure light erupted from Delem’s hands, spreading outward in a blaze of fire. The flames, as bright as the fires of Toril’s sun, tore into the glabrezu, burning through their innate resistances in a flash, incinerating the pincers that held him, immolating both demons as they collapsed backward, screaming as their corrupt flesh melted before the heat of the flames.
As the demons fell, Delem stood there, teetering, wreathed in a halo of white fire that filled the room with an almost painful intensity of light. His face was a mask of anger as he looked down at the pit below.
Graz’zt stared up at him, but the look on his face was not anger, nor fear. Rather, the Prince’s expression was one of triumph... and naked avarice.
“I knew you could do it,” he said, each syllable fat with gloating. “I knew it was within you, Delem... my Delem...”
“Release them,” Delem said, his voice like the edge of a knife. His body crackled with the intensity of the flames that surrounded him, but he did not burn. Within the flames, his body was still clearly battered, but within his eyes burned an intensity that sustained him beyond the physical needs of his corporeal form.
The Demon walked almost casually toward the edge of the pit, lifting himself up out of it with another casual gesture. He did not take his eyes off of Delem.
“To be honest, my little sorcerer, I was almost at a loss for a time. You had resisted everything I did to you... Oh, your allegiance was won fairly swiftly, as such things go, but you had a remarkable resistance to unleashing your inner secrets... The fire that burned deep within you... the thing that I saw in you right away, the moment that you first came to my attention, that night in that dirty roadside tavern in that flyspeck village...”
Delem betrayed his surprise even within the nimbus of fire, and for a moment the white flames flickered. Graz’zt pressed his advantage, laughing. “Ah, did you think it was all an accident, then? Perhaps in a larger sense it was, in that I did not expect to find you where I did. That little statue that your ‘friend’ there lugged around all those years was a conduit in more ways than one, just one of the many eyes that I have, in a thousand different worlds...”
“You cannot understand, for all that you’ve learned, Delem. You are still bound to your material existence, to the limits of your own mortal perceptions. I have seen the shores of nigh-countless realities, spanning the width and breadth of the Planes. I have visited Primes as different from Faerûn as your Forgotten Realms are different from my Azzagrat. My name is reverenced—and feared—in places you have never even dreamed of: Mahragzar, Pak-rothas, Assyria, Greyhawk, Obros’saar, Wyre...”
“I am done with your lies,” Delem said.
“No,” the Prince said, his eyes narrowing. “No, you shall never be done with me, my Delem. This discovery changes nothing, as you will see. I will have the power you possess... the power that brought you to me, the one gift of Faerûn that I have sought for so long, a gift unique to that place, a gift that I have not found anywhere else, for all of my searching.”
“Spellfire.”
Delem screamed and lifted his hand in a sudden gesture, unleashing a stream of liquid flame that slashed through the air and tore into the Demon. Graz’zt was ready, however, and his own palm came up to meet the assault. The white flames struck black flesh in an ugly swirl of colors that briefly flared in the space between them, and then the flames were deflected to the side. Where they struck the wall, the abyssal stone smoked and hissed and melted away, leaving a deep gouge in the rock when Delem halted their flow.
Graz’zt shook out his smoking hand. “Excellent. More than I had imagined, even.”
“Release them,” Delem repeated.
“No. They are mine, as are you.”
Delem launched another attack, but even as Graz’zt again moved to deflect the stream of energy, the sorcerer lifted his other hand and hurled a bolt of spellfire into the ceiling. The blast sliced through stone as though it was parchment, and a huge slab fell down from the ceiling, toward the Demon Prince.
But Graz’zt wasn’t there when it hit. In that instant he’d... changed space and time, and when the smoke and dust cleared, the Prince was standing atop the edge of the dais, facing Delem. An ugly black slash of raw fire-scorched flesh ran across the Demon Prince’s shoulder, his tunic burned away where the spellfire had briefly penetrated his defenses. But in turn, the sorcerer had staggered as his latest assault faded, and nearly fell to his knees, the flames now just a faint halo around him.
“I see that there is some of that other fire left in you as well,” Graz’zt said. “But as for the spellfire... it exacts a high price. I am not such a fool as to be ignorant of what the power that I seek can do. Even for all your rage, and the righteous hatred that burns within you, you cannot defeat me. You could even burn yourself out, toying with powers that you don’t understand... but I will not let that happen, of course.”
The Prince stepped forward, without fear.
Delem screamed, a pure, primal sound. Lunging forward with arms outstretched, he unleashed a final torrent of spellfire, a stream that lasted only a heartbeat before burning out. Graz’zt didn’t even bother to dodge this time, accepting the blast that splashed against his shield in another chaotic burst of roiling, confused color. When it was done Delem cried out and sagged to his knees, barely able to keep from falling on his face against the cold stone. The halo of fire that had surrounded him was gone.
“It is not so bad, my Delem. You will be the progenitor of a new race of demons, a race armed with a power that will bend first the Abyss, and then other worlds, to me. You are more than a mere thrall, Delem. Your place will be one of honor, and once more you will serve as an ambassador of my will.”
Delem did not look up, his body heaving with the effort of breathing, propping himself up with both hands against the stone floor. “Never,” he managed to say.
Graz’zt now loomed over him, a mere three paces away, his power surrounding him in a tangible aura.
“It is over, Delem. You are done.”
Broccli_Head
Explorer
Lazybones said:
Funny...
Can't wait for the conclusion!
Want now!
djrdjmsqrd
First Post
*Claps*
Yes LB! I am still here and reading the SH, great, just great. I do so hope when you finish with Travels that you...
...a. start another story hour shortly after...
...b. dm a pbp on enworld, in which I could be a part (
- worth a try, eh?)
Djordje
Yes LB! I am still here and reading the SH, great, just great. I do so hope when you finish with Travels that you...
...a. start another story hour shortly after...
...b. dm a pbp on enworld, in which I could be a part (
- worth a try, eh?)Djordje
Lazybones
Adventurer
Book VIII, Part 37
“It is over, Delem. You are done.”
Delem’s head came up slowly. As his gaze met the cold stare of the Demon Prince flames burned in his eyes, a raging torrent stronger even than the halo of spellfire energy that had briefly surrounded the sorcerer.
“No,” Delem said. “The power within me flows from another source, demon, one that you cannot quench.”
Graz’zt’s surprise was only betrayed by a slight narrowing of his eyes. But as the demon opened his mouth to speak, a white light erupted from around Delem, blazing out in an arc to strike the Prince in the chest. Graz’zt roared and reared back, his own shields blazing fiercely in a storm of chaos that warred with the deluge unleashed by the human. Delem, rose to his feet, still unsteady, but not letting up with his assault. Graz’zt, now just a tall shadow within the tempest of blazing energy, hurled his own counterattack, calling down black tendrils of energy that twined into existence from all around Delem, from the ceiling, floor, and the very air about him. Those snaking filaments of negative energy lashed out at him, but as they contacted the white fire, they shriveled and died.
Finally, Delem’s strike faded, leaving a flaring afterimage that hung in the air for a few moments before dissipating. The floor where Graz’zt had stood was cratered and scored where stray blasts of spellfire had struck it. The Prince himself had given ground, his retreat carrying him back five paces, and smoke rose from his torso and arms where at least some of the barrage had gotten through.
“Worm,” Graz’zt hissed, all of his earlier calm demeanor gone now, replaced by a stark hatred that now focused entirely upon Delem. “This is my realm, you cannot...”
The attack came suddenly, in the middle of his words, as an envelope of pure blackness formed and closed in around Delem. For a moment the room grew suddenly dark as the white fire was surrounded, but then, in a sudden blaze of light, the black cocoon shattered, and Delem stood there still, standing within a white sun.
“This changes nothing!” the Demon shouted. “You are mine, Delem... you cannot escape this place!”
Delem regarded the Prince solemnly, his skin pale in the glow of the white flames that enshrouded him. In that aura of light he formed a stark contrast with the Prince, the one figure a blaze of white, the other a pure black. He nodded, and said, “I know—escape was not my plan.”
The flames streaked out again in a twinned stream, probing, streaking. Graz’zt called up a wall of amorphous black energy that held the spellfire at bay for all of a second before collapsing. Delem poured more power into the energy blast, but even that brief delay was enough for the Prince, whose tall form narrowed into a thin line that abruptly vanished. The flames streaked through the place just vacated by the demon lord, until they blasted through the wall with a loud crash of vaporized stone. Delem scanned the room warily for any sign of his foe, but as the dust from the impact settled, silence returned to the chamber.
The flames continued to blaze around him as he ambled awkwardly to the stairs at the edge of the dais and made his way down to the lip of the pit. The companions, still unable to speak through the glamour that Graz’zt had laid upon them, stared up at him with expressions of hope and wonder warring on their faces. Dana, still secured to the bier, looked pleadingly up at him, tears streaming uncontrolled down her face.
Delem looked down at her, and smiled. It was a soft smile, heavily laden with sadness.
“My friends.” He lifted his hands, and the white light flashed brightly around him, forcing the companions to avert their eyes. When the light faded, the green tendrils of energy that had held them had vanished, and the companions warily rose, their bodies still moving tentatively in the aftermath of what they had suffered. Delem stood wavering at the edge of the pit, the glow around him gone, leaving him looking worn, exhausted, and... normal. The sad smile lingered, though there was something of distraction about him, and his eyes continued to drift around the edges of the room.
Benzan was the first on his feet, crossing to the bier to help Dana. The mystic wanderer wore a haunted expression, but she seemed physically unharmed. “Delem—what, what just happened?” the tiefling asked. “Did you just defeat a demon prince?”
“Or is this perhaps just another illusion?” Lok said, tensing his muscles as he tested his footing. His hands clenched, as if seeking the reassurance of his missing weapons.
“If it is real, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Graz’zt,” Cal said. “You beat him off, Delem, but we’d be fools to think he isn’t getting ready to come back, with help.”
Dana’s reply was the most basic. He eyes fixed on her friend, the tears still flowing, she said, “Delem...”
The sorcerer lowered his head and for a moment he looked the essence of physical weariness. “I know,” he said simply. “He’s preparing even as we speak, I can feel it...” He lifted his eyes and looked at Dana, piercing her with a slow sad stare. “That is why you have to leave.”
Dana, leaning now against Benzan for support, shook her head, while Cal said, “We’ve come to bring you back, Delem. We’re not leaving without you.”
The sorcerer looked at the gnome, and while the sadness was still there in his eyes, there was also a calm, a feeling of peace that seemed so incongruous in this place of darkness. “No, my friend. Graz’zt is a creature of lies and deceptions, but in this, he had the truth of it. Here, at least, my soul is his, and it cannot be pried from him without his consent, or defeat.”
“Then let’s defeat him,” Lok said, forming a fist, the picture of defiance even unarmored and unarmed as he was.
“No,” Delem said. “No, you must go. Dana, your link to Selûne remains intact—he could not sunder that connection, though he could mask it with his illusions. Activate your plane shift, and return to Faerûn with the others.”
“Wait a minute,” Benzan said. “How do we know this isn’t another trick? What if the big G wants us to do this... open the way home, and then follow with a million demons?”
Delem couldn’t help but smile. “Ah, you never change, Benzan. Dana can tell you the truth, even if I cannot.”
Dana looked up at her lover, tears giving her eyes a glossy sheen in the dim light. “It’s him, Benzan. It’s Delem, I know, I feel it... and he’s telling the truth, I can feel the connection now, I can feel the touch of the goddess, weak as it is in this place...” She turned back to Delem. “But we can’t leave you here, leave you to... him...”
“You won’t,” Delem said. “Graz’zt has had all he can get out of me—no longer, no more.” Abruptly he tilted his head, as if listening to a distant voice. “You must go, now. They are coming.”
“No, Delem,” Dana insisted. “I won’t—”
“You must,” the sorcerer said. “You have already saved me, Dana, all of you. Coming here... You reminded me of what I had forgotten, that even here, even in the depths of despair, there is always a choice. Go, now. Go.”
He rose, with difficulty, leaving them staring after him as he crossed back to the steps that led up to the top of the dais. He waited there, though, his body too worn down to advance further. As they watched, his body began to glow again, slowly building, until the white fire flared once more into being around him.
“We can’t leave him,” Dana said.
“We can’t help him, not without our weapons, our items, our spell components,” Benzan said. “Even one of those demons could tear us all to pieces without breaking a sweat.”
“He means to die,” Lok said.
Even as the genasi spoke, the air... rippled and a pair of demons, hopping, vulpine vrocks, materialized around the perimeter of the room. Even as they appeared they were leaping to attack, one hurling a magical effect at Delem, while the other hurled itself at him with its wings flapping madly, claws outstretched. Delem caught that one with a blast of spellfire that drove it back into the wall, the flames ripping through its body as though its limbs were oiled kindling. The magical attack of the first faltered against Delem’s defenses, and a moment later it, too, took a streaking pulse of flame that sent it screaming to the floor.
“Go!” Delem cried. “He’s coming!” Even as his cry sounded through the chamber, there were other distortions, accompanied by sick popping sounds, as other demons teleported into the chamber.
“Dana!” Cal cried, rushing over to her.
“No,” the woman sobbed, but she was already reaching inward, and a silvery glow flared against her chest as she called upon her link to the power of Selûne.
“Ah!” Benzan cried in surprise, turning as a lumbering bar-lgura charged forward and leapt into the pit toward them, claws outstretched. The tiefling had no hope of reacting in time, and could only cringe as a blast of spellfire streaked over the pit and caught the demon in mid-leap, driving it roughly backward. Delem could not spare the time to finish it, however, as he was forced to turn to another several attackers rushing at him, even as more popping disruptions heralded the arrival of more demons.
A sick voice filled the chamber, disembodied but heavy with power.
Take him alive. Destroy the others.
“Go!” Delem cried out, but then the light surrounding him intensified into a blazing intensity, forcing the companions to look away. All save Dana, but her eyes were already directed inward, her consciousness traveling across the Planes through the link to her goddess.
“Take hold of me,” she said, her voice hollow, as if she were speaking from some great distance.
Cal and Lok joined Benzan, clasping themselves to her. And for a moment, another light flared in the chamber, lost within the radiance surrounding the sorcerer.
When it was gone, only Delem and the demons remained.
Within his shield of spellfire, Delem wavered. A few of the demons had gotten to him, before his counters had blasted them back. Dark scratches marred the pale glow of his skin, and his own blood was pooling at his feet before it was blasted into dust by the white flames. The demons hovered back, regarding him now with fear, and respect, wishing to avoid the fate that a dozen of their fellows had suffered, but likewise unable to defy the command of their Master.
Delem looked around the room, looking for Him, but there was no sign of Graz’zt, of course. No, the Prince would not return until he had been defeated, and secured.
That was not going to happen.
Delem raised his arms wide, and the demons drew back warily. The glow that surrounded him brightened, until he shone with the radiance of a star. The demons cried out, the light penetrating their eyes even behind closed lids and raised arms.
Delem knew that he could not sustain the power, knew that the essence of what he was could not channel the pureness of Kossuth’s divine fire for much longer. But he did not have to. Within the flames, he felt... life, could feel the subtle vibrations of every tiny concentration of matter within him. His body, his soul... here, in this place, they were one. Even as his consciousness began to waver, he reached down into that core of himself, and drew the fire with him.
At some point in that process, Delem ceased to be.
And then the chain reaction started.
“It is over, Delem. You are done.”
Delem’s head came up slowly. As his gaze met the cold stare of the Demon Prince flames burned in his eyes, a raging torrent stronger even than the halo of spellfire energy that had briefly surrounded the sorcerer.
“No,” Delem said. “The power within me flows from another source, demon, one that you cannot quench.”
Graz’zt’s surprise was only betrayed by a slight narrowing of his eyes. But as the demon opened his mouth to speak, a white light erupted from around Delem, blazing out in an arc to strike the Prince in the chest. Graz’zt roared and reared back, his own shields blazing fiercely in a storm of chaos that warred with the deluge unleashed by the human. Delem, rose to his feet, still unsteady, but not letting up with his assault. Graz’zt, now just a tall shadow within the tempest of blazing energy, hurled his own counterattack, calling down black tendrils of energy that twined into existence from all around Delem, from the ceiling, floor, and the very air about him. Those snaking filaments of negative energy lashed out at him, but as they contacted the white fire, they shriveled and died.
Finally, Delem’s strike faded, leaving a flaring afterimage that hung in the air for a few moments before dissipating. The floor where Graz’zt had stood was cratered and scored where stray blasts of spellfire had struck it. The Prince himself had given ground, his retreat carrying him back five paces, and smoke rose from his torso and arms where at least some of the barrage had gotten through.
“Worm,” Graz’zt hissed, all of his earlier calm demeanor gone now, replaced by a stark hatred that now focused entirely upon Delem. “This is my realm, you cannot...”
The attack came suddenly, in the middle of his words, as an envelope of pure blackness formed and closed in around Delem. For a moment the room grew suddenly dark as the white fire was surrounded, but then, in a sudden blaze of light, the black cocoon shattered, and Delem stood there still, standing within a white sun.
“This changes nothing!” the Demon shouted. “You are mine, Delem... you cannot escape this place!”
Delem regarded the Prince solemnly, his skin pale in the glow of the white flames that enshrouded him. In that aura of light he formed a stark contrast with the Prince, the one figure a blaze of white, the other a pure black. He nodded, and said, “I know—escape was not my plan.”
The flames streaked out again in a twinned stream, probing, streaking. Graz’zt called up a wall of amorphous black energy that held the spellfire at bay for all of a second before collapsing. Delem poured more power into the energy blast, but even that brief delay was enough for the Prince, whose tall form narrowed into a thin line that abruptly vanished. The flames streaked through the place just vacated by the demon lord, until they blasted through the wall with a loud crash of vaporized stone. Delem scanned the room warily for any sign of his foe, but as the dust from the impact settled, silence returned to the chamber.
The flames continued to blaze around him as he ambled awkwardly to the stairs at the edge of the dais and made his way down to the lip of the pit. The companions, still unable to speak through the glamour that Graz’zt had laid upon them, stared up at him with expressions of hope and wonder warring on their faces. Dana, still secured to the bier, looked pleadingly up at him, tears streaming uncontrolled down her face.
Delem looked down at her, and smiled. It was a soft smile, heavily laden with sadness.
“My friends.” He lifted his hands, and the white light flashed brightly around him, forcing the companions to avert their eyes. When the light faded, the green tendrils of energy that had held them had vanished, and the companions warily rose, their bodies still moving tentatively in the aftermath of what they had suffered. Delem stood wavering at the edge of the pit, the glow around him gone, leaving him looking worn, exhausted, and... normal. The sad smile lingered, though there was something of distraction about him, and his eyes continued to drift around the edges of the room.
Benzan was the first on his feet, crossing to the bier to help Dana. The mystic wanderer wore a haunted expression, but she seemed physically unharmed. “Delem—what, what just happened?” the tiefling asked. “Did you just defeat a demon prince?”
“Or is this perhaps just another illusion?” Lok said, tensing his muscles as he tested his footing. His hands clenched, as if seeking the reassurance of his missing weapons.
“If it is real, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Graz’zt,” Cal said. “You beat him off, Delem, but we’d be fools to think he isn’t getting ready to come back, with help.”
Dana’s reply was the most basic. He eyes fixed on her friend, the tears still flowing, she said, “Delem...”
The sorcerer lowered his head and for a moment he looked the essence of physical weariness. “I know,” he said simply. “He’s preparing even as we speak, I can feel it...” He lifted his eyes and looked at Dana, piercing her with a slow sad stare. “That is why you have to leave.”
Dana, leaning now against Benzan for support, shook her head, while Cal said, “We’ve come to bring you back, Delem. We’re not leaving without you.”
The sorcerer looked at the gnome, and while the sadness was still there in his eyes, there was also a calm, a feeling of peace that seemed so incongruous in this place of darkness. “No, my friend. Graz’zt is a creature of lies and deceptions, but in this, he had the truth of it. Here, at least, my soul is his, and it cannot be pried from him without his consent, or defeat.”
“Then let’s defeat him,” Lok said, forming a fist, the picture of defiance even unarmored and unarmed as he was.
“No,” Delem said. “No, you must go. Dana, your link to Selûne remains intact—he could not sunder that connection, though he could mask it with his illusions. Activate your plane shift, and return to Faerûn with the others.”
“Wait a minute,” Benzan said. “How do we know this isn’t another trick? What if the big G wants us to do this... open the way home, and then follow with a million demons?”
Delem couldn’t help but smile. “Ah, you never change, Benzan. Dana can tell you the truth, even if I cannot.”
Dana looked up at her lover, tears giving her eyes a glossy sheen in the dim light. “It’s him, Benzan. It’s Delem, I know, I feel it... and he’s telling the truth, I can feel the connection now, I can feel the touch of the goddess, weak as it is in this place...” She turned back to Delem. “But we can’t leave you here, leave you to... him...”
“You won’t,” Delem said. “Graz’zt has had all he can get out of me—no longer, no more.” Abruptly he tilted his head, as if listening to a distant voice. “You must go, now. They are coming.”
“No, Delem,” Dana insisted. “I won’t—”
“You must,” the sorcerer said. “You have already saved me, Dana, all of you. Coming here... You reminded me of what I had forgotten, that even here, even in the depths of despair, there is always a choice. Go, now. Go.”
He rose, with difficulty, leaving them staring after him as he crossed back to the steps that led up to the top of the dais. He waited there, though, his body too worn down to advance further. As they watched, his body began to glow again, slowly building, until the white fire flared once more into being around him.
“We can’t leave him,” Dana said.
“We can’t help him, not without our weapons, our items, our spell components,” Benzan said. “Even one of those demons could tear us all to pieces without breaking a sweat.”
“He means to die,” Lok said.
Even as the genasi spoke, the air... rippled and a pair of demons, hopping, vulpine vrocks, materialized around the perimeter of the room. Even as they appeared they were leaping to attack, one hurling a magical effect at Delem, while the other hurled itself at him with its wings flapping madly, claws outstretched. Delem caught that one with a blast of spellfire that drove it back into the wall, the flames ripping through its body as though its limbs were oiled kindling. The magical attack of the first faltered against Delem’s defenses, and a moment later it, too, took a streaking pulse of flame that sent it screaming to the floor.
“Go!” Delem cried. “He’s coming!” Even as his cry sounded through the chamber, there were other distortions, accompanied by sick popping sounds, as other demons teleported into the chamber.
“Dana!” Cal cried, rushing over to her.
“No,” the woman sobbed, but she was already reaching inward, and a silvery glow flared against her chest as she called upon her link to the power of Selûne.
“Ah!” Benzan cried in surprise, turning as a lumbering bar-lgura charged forward and leapt into the pit toward them, claws outstretched. The tiefling had no hope of reacting in time, and could only cringe as a blast of spellfire streaked over the pit and caught the demon in mid-leap, driving it roughly backward. Delem could not spare the time to finish it, however, as he was forced to turn to another several attackers rushing at him, even as more popping disruptions heralded the arrival of more demons.
A sick voice filled the chamber, disembodied but heavy with power.
Take him alive. Destroy the others.
“Go!” Delem cried out, but then the light surrounding him intensified into a blazing intensity, forcing the companions to look away. All save Dana, but her eyes were already directed inward, her consciousness traveling across the Planes through the link to her goddess.
“Take hold of me,” she said, her voice hollow, as if she were speaking from some great distance.
Cal and Lok joined Benzan, clasping themselves to her. And for a moment, another light flared in the chamber, lost within the radiance surrounding the sorcerer.
When it was gone, only Delem and the demons remained.
Within his shield of spellfire, Delem wavered. A few of the demons had gotten to him, before his counters had blasted them back. Dark scratches marred the pale glow of his skin, and his own blood was pooling at his feet before it was blasted into dust by the white flames. The demons hovered back, regarding him now with fear, and respect, wishing to avoid the fate that a dozen of their fellows had suffered, but likewise unable to defy the command of their Master.
Delem looked around the room, looking for Him, but there was no sign of Graz’zt, of course. No, the Prince would not return until he had been defeated, and secured.
That was not going to happen.
Delem raised his arms wide, and the demons drew back warily. The glow that surrounded him brightened, until he shone with the radiance of a star. The demons cried out, the light penetrating their eyes even behind closed lids and raised arms.
Delem knew that he could not sustain the power, knew that the essence of what he was could not channel the pureness of Kossuth’s divine fire for much longer. But he did not have to. Within the flames, he felt... life, could feel the subtle vibrations of every tiny concentration of matter within him. His body, his soul... here, in this place, they were one. Even as his consciousness began to waver, he reached down into that core of himself, and drew the fire with him.
At some point in that process, Delem ceased to be.
And then the chain reaction started.
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