Gary Gygax - Gord the Rogue 4 = Come Endless Darkness.pdf - Gary Gigax - margozap

Gary Gygax

Come Endless Darkness

Gord the Rogue series, book 4

Publisher: ACE Charter (March 1, 1988)

ISBN: 0441114466

Scanned, formatted and proofed by Dreamcity

Ebook version 1.0

Release Date: November 12, 2004

WITH A DEEP LAUGHTER that was totally an expression of malign

hatred and ineffable wickedness, Tharizdun took the cambion Iuz into his

monstrous right hand and lifted him high.

"Observe the view as your Master sees it," Tharizdun bellowed, still

with a voice brimming with evil mirth. Then the terrible god tossed the

cambion up, caught him again, and squeezed. A piercing shriek came from

Iuz as his bones were splintered, organs ruptured.

Tharizdun's talonlike nails sank deeper into his victim's flesh as he

looked down with satisfaction at his handiwork. Then the glowing eyes of

pure purple looked up from the corpse of Iuz clutched in his hand and out

across the chitinous plane. "Now for you, little champion!"

Gord's knees sagged, his spirit quailed. Gord had found some measure

of revenge against the ones who had made his childhood a nightmare of

fear, hunger, and self-disgust. But his reason told him that no additional

evening of the score would ever occur hereafter. He steeled himself.

"If I must go," he said, "then why not go as a wolf rather than a

rabbit?"

Preface

AT ONLY A FEW WEEKS OF AGE, Gord suddenly became an orphan.

He was quite unaware of the fact, of course, but it impacted his life in a

bizarre and cruel fashion. His parents, knowing what threatened them,

had left him in the company of an old friend, a kindly sorcerer. But

instead of being watched and kept in safety for a brief time while his

parents were eluding the murderous evil that pursued them, the infant

became the target of the same deadly force that was visited upon his

father and mother.

Fortunately, many magical protections surrounded the little Gord. He

and the woman who was to be his nursemaid were thus hidden from the

malign ones who hunted them — she magically transformed and disguised

as the crazed and ugly crone known as Leena, and Gord as an ignorant

urchin unaware of his birth and heritage. Together they dwelled in the

crumbling filth and stark poverty of the slums of Greyhawk's Old City.

But then deprivation, sorrow, and cold — perhaps with some

assistance from the evil magics seeking them both — slew the

unfortunate and unsightly woman, Gord's only companion, before the lad

was twelve. Alone thereafter, Gord managed to escape a series of

harrowing challenges, learn the craft of beggary, and even receive some

training as a thief.

That period was in some ways more enjoyable than what he had

previously been through; for one thing, at least he didn't have to worry

any longer about starving. In other ways, it was worse for him than his

earlier life had been. In any event, this time came to an end when

warfare erupted between criminal elements of Greyhawk. Taking this

opportunity for revenge, Gord escaped from his indenture to the cruel

and sadistic murderer Theobald, master of all beggars in the city. After

having seen to Theobald's much-deserved demise, young Gord and his

friend, San, another little beggar lad, ventured forth uncertain if they

would be hunted down and slain by the Thieves Guild as other beggars

had been. Both found refuge among the young students dwelling in the

university area of the city. There too they found a tutor. In time both

boys actually managed to become official students during the day, paying

their own way from the proceeds of what they practiced in the night...

thievery!

Older, more learned, and an apt swordsman, Gord eventually left the

grim City of Hawks behind in order to sail the great lakes and waterways

of Oerth with the Rhennee, the so-called gypsy bargefolk of his world.

During his time with them and their land-loving cousins the Attloi, Gord

learned still more about thieving, acrobatics and gymnastics, life, and

love. Still not much wiser, however, the young adventurer began to rove

here and there throughout the eastern lands. In the bandit city of

Stoink he met a one-eyed troubador named Gellor, with whom he would

later become fast friends. In fact, Gellor was responsible for getting

Gord out of prison after he had immersed himself in an ill-fated love

affair with a beautiful woman named Evaleigh. During this period of his

life Gord also met a number of other brave stalwarts, among them Chert

the iron-thewed hillman and Curley Greenleaf, a half-elven ranger and

druid. The three of them had some desperate adventures indeed. A full-

scale battle, life-and-death duels, and combats with demons were

suddenly the stuff of daily routine for Gord.

After deciding he had taken in quite a sufficiency of that sort of

thing for a time, Gord convinced the barbarian Chert to return to

Greyhawk with him. The pair of them lived a fast and easy life on the

easy pickings of the city. They did have many rich hauls by practicing

their "night arrantry," but eventually Chert could stand the confines of

urban life no longer. He departed, and Gord carried on alone —

undaunted, it seemed. Then another unfortunate experience with another

beautiful woman brought about a change in his life. Gord became wiser

and more cynical. Yet he still sought three things: who he really was,

what had become of his parents, and exactly what meaning his life had.

Both Gellor and Curley Greenleaf had given Gord some inkling of his

purpose in the past, which is what got the young man thinking about such

serious matters in the first place. Possibly unrealized by Gord, both had

also influenced him for the better in other ways. Thus, when Gord

discovered he had an enchanted ring that not only enabled him to change

from man to panther and back as he willed, but also saved him from death

and carried him safely to the domain of the Catlord, he reached a plateau

of maturity. In early adulthood but already with a lifetime of dangers

and experiences behind him. Gord the Rogue was ready to do something

other than thieving his way to vast sums of loot and then spending it on

drinking and carousing.

Rexfelis the Catlord and Basiliv, the mighty worker of spells known as

the Demiurge, combined to convince Gord that he was instrumental in a

quest that was taking place — a quest to recover a terrible relic from a

bygone era. They explained to him that a millennium and more had passed

since Tharizdun, the Darkest of Evil, King of Wickedness, Emperor of all

the Netherplanes, was brought to ruin. The forces of Weal and Nature

had combined to defeat the malign Tharizdun, but slay him they could

not. Instead, they drugged him with a magical sleep from which there was

virtually no awakening, chained him with enchanted powers, and then

walled him in a prison that was in an otherworldly no-space. In this way

Tharizdun was to be exiled until the end of time, a captured and

slumbering incarnation of everything bad in the multiverse.

Unfortunately, even this imprisonment had a price for the jailers. His

foes could not accomplish the binding without unavoidably leaving a means

by which all could be undone. Just as a key can be used to both lock and

unlock, the great artifact that made possible Tharizdun's incarceration

could also be used to free him. The makers of it knew that even the

strongest of magics could not destroy the key, so the relic was divided

into thirds and each part carefully hidden far from the others. Each so-

called Theorpart was a mighty artifact of powerful evil force in itself. If

conjoined, the three portions were the key to the awakening and return

of the dreaded king of evil.

Eventually, one of the forces of evil did locate one of the Theorparts.

The vile society that worshiped evildom and called itself the Scarlet

Brotherhood managed to find the Initial Key, known as the Awakener.

When this occurred, Tharizdun stirred in his lightless cell in no-when and

sent forth thoughts of sleeping evil. This effect empowered the

possessors of the first of the keys to locate the whereabouts of the

second one. In fact, Gord himself had taken part in the force that fought

against the minions of evil to prevent their capture of this second

portion of the ancient relic.

In the course of events, the demons who also sought the thing were

triumphant. Iuz, a part-demon, part-human fiend, managed to gain the

second portion and thus become a terrible force for evil. Yet, this

outcome was not entirely to the detriment of those who opposed

wickedness. Demonkind did not seek to reawaken Tharizdun, for if that

occurred the mighty evil of that being would force them into submission.

If Good sought to conceal the second portion of the terrible relic, at

least the demoniacal possessors who gained it also sought to keep it from

the minions of the hells, who would favor reawakening the slumbering lord

of all darkness. A near stalemate had thus occurred — but now the Final

Key held the balance of power, and It could not be allowed to fall to

either the Brotherhood or the servants of Iuz. Rexfelis and the

Demiurge enlisted Gord to seek out and try to take the last portion of

the relic, thus preserving the balance that would keep Tharizdun

entombed.

Such an undertaking seemed worthwhile to Gord. He despised the evil

ones and understood the threat that Tharizdun posed to all not of their

ilk. Agreeing to serve, the young thief set off into the hinterland in

search of the last Theorpart. The trail of clues took him deep into the

Ashen Desert, a veritable sea of dusty death in whose center lay a lost

and burled city. Deep beneath the powdery ash of the desert, created by

a terrible magical war fought at the time of the forging of the relic.

Gord discovered the last portion of the thing, just as he had been told.

But finding it was one thing and keeping it quite another. At the

moment of potential triumph, Gord was deserted by his dark-elf

companion Leda and confronted by the evil-serving dwarf Obmi, the

Gary Gygax - Gord the Rogue 4 = Come Endless Darkness.pdf

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