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lurking monstrosities and roving packs of outcasts. This first tier is a place where not even the weakest of demonlings dwell; instead, it is the habitat of terrible things which guard the deeper spheres."
    At that the bard turned up the leather covering of his gem-faceted ocular, viewing the surroundings carefully as if wishing to confirm his companion's words. "Faugh!" Gellor said after completing his survey. "This is a disgusting place. What can live in it?"
    "Many things, methinks," Gord replied slowly, gazing off beyond Gellor's right shoulder. "In fact, here comes a welcoming party now!"
    The pack that approached was indeed no puny force of scavengers vomited up from below. The demon-beasts were elephantine in size, and their aspect was a nightmare phantasmagoria. As soon as Gellor turned to view their approach, the monsters sensed discovery and rushed at the two companions in a thundering charge. Bellows, hoots, and screams of hunger, blood lust, and cruel anticipation accompanied the mad stampede.
    As the bulking demon-beasts rushed toward the intruders, the bard had time to notice that there were many smaller, shadowy shapes alongside and behind the herd. Hippo-bodied things with snake necks and beaked heads lumbered alongside bearlike and mastodonian demons with equally incongruous appendages. Smaller but no less ferocious ones accompanied the great beasts, evidently planning to share in the feasting after the gigantic monsters had done the work. All that for two small people. Here brawn evidently ruled over brain.
    Gellor brought forth his ivory kanteel, adjusted one of the golden pegs, and gently stroked the silver strings of the little harp. A ripple of beautiful notes washed outward, and the demon-beasts reacted as if they had been struck by a tldal wave.
    When the sounds from the enchanted strings of the instrument struck, fully a dozen of the massive monsters were bowled over, while a half-hundred of the lesser scavengers were blown away, some actually torn to pieces in the process. Gord saw that, noting that already fresh bands of these creatures were being attracted to the scene by what was occurring. Down and wounded horrors were being torn and devoured by those of their fellows not so disabled.
    Courflamme seemed to spring from its scabbard as the young champion drew the sword's glittering blade to confront the onrush. Somehow Gord knew that this was the correct thing to do, even though the marvelous weapon seemed a minuscule defense in the face of such an attack. The pommel of Courflamme flashed heat, then chill to his hand, and the whole sword shimmered and pulsed.
    As this occurred the blade sundered itself into two portions. Gord held a bright band of silvery hue with an ebon-flamed core while its counterpart, a sword of Jet with a coruscating heart of diamond radiance, sprang forth to hover before him.
    Gord knew instinctively what he had to do. "Go!" he said aloud to the dark blade as if it were a living entity. "Seek the demons out — spare none!" As he uttered that command, Gord willed the weapon to arrow toward the monstrous pack that still came ahead. Many of the demon-beasts had escaped the effects of the kanteel's music, and these things still thundered on, bent on devouring him and his companion.
    The sable-hued sword sped out as if it were a bolt. Straight through the leading behemoth it shot, passing through the demon-beast from front to rear. The thing shrieked in agony at the passage, gouts of gore fountained from it, and it collapsed into putrid jelly an instant later. That was hardly the end of it, however. The long blade arced and spun in the foul atmosphere of the uppermost layer of the Abyss as if it were a faicon after a flock of doves. Back it came, sliced through a saurian neck chopped tree-trunk legs from under another of the chimerical demons, gutted a fourth, lopped the outstretched pincers of a fifth — all in the space of as many heartbeats.
    Gellor found it difficult to play