[Cenotaph Road 05] - Fire and Fog

by Robert E. Vardeman - (ebook by Undead)

  He glanced over at Kiska k’Adesina huddling in the lee of a rock, protecting herself from the beginning rains. She was his enemy—but he felt protective toward her. Lan shook his head. There was no accounting for what tiredness did to him.

  He lifted the light mote and spread it like an umbrella over both of them. Kiska moved closer, as if he might use the rapier on her at any instant.

  “There, there,” he said. “Everything is going to be all right. Just relax. We’ll find a way back into the mountain and—watch out!”

  Lan Martak spun about, sword flashing through the mist. He slashed frantically at the fire-breathing lizard that slithered down the ravine at them—he slashed and missed.

  “Damn the fog,” he muttered. “The creature uses it to hide.”

  “What creature?” asked Kiska, her hands stroking his arm.

  “That one!”

  Lan pushed the woman behind him and went to do battle with the huge lizard beast menacing them. Finding it in the fog became more and more difficult and he soon forgot about Kiska or reentering Yerrary or anything else at all.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Lirory Tefize gazed up into the blackly billowing storm clouds crowning his mountain kingdom. The acids poured forth and flooded through the hole carved by Martak; off to one side the gnome saw the thick gatherings of fog sweeping down the ravine where Lan Martak had taken refuge.

  “Good enough,” the mage said to himself. “They will trouble me no more. What Claybore failed to do, I have done. Driving Martak outside is sufficient to destroy him in his present condition.”

  Tefize again checked and saw that magic usage from outside was minimal—not enough to save Martak from the insidious mind-altering effects of the fog. The gnome closed his eyes and built the proper spell. Heat blossomed forth and washed over him. Rock melted and flowed, closing the opening. In minutes no trace of the hole remained. The phosphorescent moss visibly crept back to cover the spot, seeking a source of heat for growth.

  The gnome’s attention turned to other matters. Dealing with Claybore proved more and more difficult. The sorcerer’s newfound power on regaining his arms worried Tefize, but not overly. He had taken a chance giving those limbs back, but it had been a calculated risk. Lan Martak’s power had been extraordinary. Only with Claybore augmented by new bodily parts had they managed to triumph.

  But would Claybore give him the power he promised? Tefize doubted it possible for the mage to say anything without lying. It came as second nature to him. But using the mage’s legs as a bargaining point had certain advantages. What would Claybore do to regain them? Was control of a dozen worlds too large a price to pay for control of thousands, or even millions?

  Lirory Tefize didn’t think so. With proper choosing of those worlds to rule, he decided it would be less than ten years before his own power rivaled Claybore’s. Traveling the Road had shown the gnome much. Careful lists compiled to show each nexus of power would come in handy very, very soon. Control those points, gain strength and knowledge, depose Claybore.

  The disembodied sorcerer might be immortal, but Lirory Tefize knew that Claybore had been defeated once. A second time was possible—and this time the victor would not perish as Terrill had.

  Tefize smiled and turned; then stopped. A frown wrinkled his forehead and anger welled inside him.

  “Master,” came a weak voice. “We have been defeated.”

  Lirory Tefize faced one of his clan. The gnome abasing himself was bloodied and barely able to crawl forward.

  “What happened?” Lirory demanded. “How could the Heresler have beaten you? You followed my plan to the letter, did you not?”

  “Master, they had help. Two of them with swords. And the spider! Never have we fought so well and died so nobly; but the spider!” The gnome shook all over and buried his face in his gnarled hands.

  “Oh, get up. Stop groveling,” Lirory said irritably. Dealing with such incompetence was a burden he disliked heartily. Ever since he had killed or exiled the other sorcerers from Yerrary, greater and greater demands of leadership fell upon him. It seemed that no one accomplished anything now without his personal guidance. Would it be like this when Claybore relinquished control of those worlds to him? Lirory Tefize didn’t want to consider that at the moment.

  “Where are they? The spider and the others who so ignominiously trounced you?”

  “Master, they are in the Heresler territory.”

  Lirory stalked off, stubby arms crossed over his barrel chest. As he walked he thought and frowned even more. He found no residual effects of magic. However his clansmen had been defeated, it wasn’t through the use of the arcane. In a way, this bothered him more than it should. He expected treachery from Claybore—he didn’t put it past the mage to aid one side over the other to sow discord. To defeat a force undoubtedly without equal in all of Yerrary through purely physical means wrought havoc on the troops and their morale.

  Lirory felt control slipping away. He did not like the feeling.

  Stopping short of a junction leading into Heresler-controlled corridors, he closed his eyes and listened. In the distance he heard faint scratching noises, rock against rock.

  “They put up barricades,” he said to his clansman. The battered gnome only bobbed his head, whether from fear or in agreement Lirory couldn’t tell. The mage began tracing patterns in the air before him, lines that first glowed pale blue and finally took on an intensity that caused his clansman to shield his eyes. Lirory Tefize stared directly into the center of the burning rectangle he’d formed.

  Swirls of color took on substance, changed, flowed again, and finally came into focus. Lirory muttered a final spell and then watched the small picture and the gnomes busily working within the fiery frame.

  “Master, that is Broit!” cried the gnome.

  “Silence.” Lirory spoke in an offhand manner. He focused all his attention on the picture and had scant time for dealing with subordinates. The barricades being erected by the Heresler clan were adequate to thwart a simple frontal assault. Lirory knew such an attack was out of the question. Using this clansman as a guideline, the mage knew the Tefize would never be whipped into attacking. They were defeated both physically and in morale.

  But there were other routes open to him.

  “Those large ones. The humans. They were responsible for your defeat?” he asked.

  “The spider, also.”

  “Yes, there is the spider.” Lirory repressed a shiver of disgust. The monster crouched to one side of his magical viewing port and slowly masticated a cave roach. Lirory turned his port away from the arachnid and back to Inyx and Ducasien.

  “What are you to do, Master? Do… do we attack again?” The obvious fear in the gnome’s voice solidified Lirory’s belief that the Tefize clan would be defeated in any further fight.

  “I attack. You and the others need only enter after I am victorious. The Heresler will not trouble you.”

  “You send demons to them?” The eagerness stemmed more from seeing an enemy vanquished than in releasing such potent magical beings. Lirory wanted to shake the gnome until the broken teeth rattled for even mentioning such a course of action. Elementals, demons, magical beings from other planes were all dangerous conjurations.

  He did shudder convulsively as he remembered the shadow hound Claybore had summoned forth with his newly regained arms.

  “There are other spells. The large sorcerer is not with them,” Lirory said smugly. “I have already taken care of him.”

  “Master!”

  “Do not fear. He has been cast outside Yerrary. The fog has seized his mind. He will never threaten us again.”

  “Master, you will reign supreme forever! Your power knows no bounds!”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” Lirory said in distraction. He knew the tales of defeating Lan Martak would spread and grow with each reverently whispered retelling. Good. Before the end of this year the name of Lirory Tefize would linger on everyone’s lips, some speaking
in fear, some in awe, and all in total obeisance.

  Lirory worked up the power required for the binding spell he would use. To project through the magical window was the only way possible for him. His magics were limited in that he needed to see the object of his spell. Lirory wondered if it were true that Claybore could project spells without seeing his victim. If so, that made the disembodied mage even more dangerous than he appeared—which was deadly, indeed.

  Inyx and Ducasien sat close by one another. Good. That made it easier for him to cast a single spell to capture both. While Lirory was certain it lay within his power to form two equally effective spells and direct them to different targets, this made his work all the easier.

  “They… they shimmer, Master!” said the watching gnome. Awe tinted his voice, but Lirory was beyond feeling pleased at this. He needed every particle of his being to propel his conjurings now.

  “Tangles,” he muttered. “Feet numbing. Fingers tingling. Stand, yes, that’s it, stand and try to shake off the effects.” Lirory smiled broadly now. Both Inyx and Ducasien played into his hand by fighting the paralyzing spell. If they had stayed quiet he might have failed. Not now, not with them beginning to experience the first feathery touches of his spell.

  Inyx opened her mouth and emitted a scream that echoed down the hallway. From the burning framed picture there came no sound. She spun about wildly, slapping her hands against her body. Every turn caused her increasing dizziness until she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  Ducasien tried to kneel beside her, to aid her. He bent forward and kept going. He crashed heavily atop her, unable to do more than feebly twitch.

  “The Hereslers will not oppose you now,” said Lirory. “Get a small party together. We go in to retrieve our two guests.”

  The gnome hastened away and returned a few minutes later with a scruffy band more fearful than anxious to serve. Lirory silently motioned them forward. It was a measure of his control that they obeyed. To have refused meant even worse punishment than death at the hands of the large ones allying themselves with the Heresler.

  Lirory Tefize moved the viewing port around and found the spider. Spell after spell wove through the air and bound the arachnid’s feet together. When Krek sensed the first of the Tefize clan at the barriers, he attempted to stand. The spells held him firmly.

  “But he is so different,” muttered Lirory. He tried other spells to render Krek totally unconscious and all failed. Finally he gave up on the attempt. Keeping the spider pinned to the ground, his deadly long talon-tipped legs powerless, was almost as good as being able to kill him magically.

  Lirory turned to the Heresler gnomes hacking and cutting at his own clansmen. Pass after pass sent the defending gnomes reeling backwards. Lirory felt drained to the center of his being by the time the Tefize had conquered the Heresler.

  On shaking legs, he walked forward, then paused and stiffened his resolve. It did not do to show weakness before an enemy—or an ally. With haughty contempt, he strutted into the center of the Heresler clan territory and slowly turned, looking at the captives.

  “Well done, my friends,” he complimented.

  Even though they had done little, the Tefize clan’s morale rose. They puffed out their chests and bullied their captives.

  “This day will long be remembered in our clan tales,” Lirory went on. Even though his knees threatened to lock and send him toppling face forward onto the ground, he walked about congratulating the gnomes individually and glaring at Broit Heresler along the way. When he came to Krek, Lirory stopped and stared.

  Krek’s legs were still tangled with the numbing spells he had used, but his mandibles clacked ferociously. Lirory made a point of standing well back. One quick snap of those death scythes might sever head from torso. He started a new spell, one workable at close range, and then stopped. Dizziness passed through him and threatened to make the gnome mage fall into a faint.

  “Leave the spider,” he said, fighting his weariness. Lirory knew it would take hours to regenerate power. How had that large one Lan Martak held off the combined magical attacks of Claybore and himself? It hardly seemed possible in the face of his own exhaustion now. But Martak was long dead. The creatures thriving on the exterior slopes of Yerrary were not gentle. And after breathing the mind-twisting fog and feeling the acid rains burn skin and set fire to the very rock, there was no way Martak could live.

  “What of them, Master?”

  Lirory looked at Inyx and Ducasien, then allowed himself to slowly smile.

  “Bring them. And as for the others of the Heresler clan, they are permitted to live.”

  Broit Heresler spat at the mage and missed.

  Lirory went on as if nothing had happened, saying, “They will be permitted to live as vassals of the Tefize. See to it that they are given appropriate jobs.”

  “There won’t be any of us who’ll dig your grave, Lirory,” cried Broit Heresler. “See how long it takes the cave worms to gnaw your bones. None of us will go outside and give your corpse a proper burial. Wait and see!”

  Lirory gestured that the Hereslers be taken away. The giddiness still bothered him. He needed to return to his throne of power and replenish his energy—soon.

  “Don’t bother with lifting them. Drag them. It’s easier.” He took a perverse glee out of seeing Inyx and Ducasien dragged along the rough rock corridors. This more than anything else kept the mage moving with a sprightly step, his bandy legs pumping along quickly to keep up with his clansmen.

  Several turnings later, they entered an area strictly Tefize. Down two levels, past the trough of rainwater pouring in from outside, and to the new excavations they went. Finally Lirory stopped and pointed to a rock cell.

  “There. Place them inside.”

  Inyx and Ducasien were semi-lucid now, moaning and weakly thrashing about. In minutes they would fight off the effects, of his numbing spell. Lirory watched, summoned his modicum of remaining power, then bound them magically to the rock cell. Try as they might now, they would never be able to leave this small, stony enclosure.

  “What did you do to us?” asked Ducasien. The man sat up and held his head. Lirory knew it had to be splitting wide open. That was one delightful aftermath of his nerve-numbing spell.

  “That is of little concern to you. You should be more worried about what you are to do next. There is no escape from this cell for you. None. You will die within it. No food, no water. Or rather,” Lirory said, chuckling evilly, “the water isn’t very good for drinking.”

  He pointed. High above Ducasien and Inyx the cell roof peaked up and showed a small patch of the cloud-riddled nighttime sky. Rain blew into the opening and dribbled down the walls.

  “If a real storm blows up, this cell might fill with water.”

  “It can’t. It’d go out the doorway,” Ducasien said. To human vision there was nothing barring the way. To Lirory’s magical sight, however, a barrier firmly blocked anything material from passing.

  “Think, large one. We shout at one another, as if we talk through walls. Is that not so?”

  Ducasien shoved himself forward, got his feet under him, and lurched toward Lirory. The gnome simply stood, waiting, watching, smirking. Ducasien let out a scream of infinite agony as his hands touched the magical sheet stretched tightly over the opening.

  “It will prevent water from leaving the cell,” repeated Lirory. “Rains come, fill up, the acids burn away your flesh. Yes, that is what might happen—if you are lucky.”

  “And if we’re unlucky,” Inyx said, managing to croak out the words.

  “Ah, dear lady, if you do not pray for a storm to end your miserable lives you will linger for a long, long time. No food, you know.”

  “We might die of thirst first.”

  “So be it,” said Lirory, enjoying this.

  “What’s to keep us from climbing out?” asked Ducasien.

  “Nothing.” Lirory smiled wickedly. If they tried that, the water seeping down the rock would surely
burn their fingers severely and, if luck rode with them and they reached the top somehow, the opening wasn’t large enough for either to crawl through. The finest mountain climbers had tried to escape this cell and had failed. Neither Ducasien nor Inyx would live for longer than a week—or even through the storm growing outside.”

  “Lan will save us. He can just wave his hand and make this barrier vanish.”

  “Yes, dear, dead lady, he might be able to do so. If he lived. He does not.”

  “You lie! You short, bowlegged, wart-ridden bastard! You’re lying!”

  Lirory said nothing more. Let the dark-haired woman rage. It only added to her torture. He now had to return to his throne of power. Without rejuvenation he would keel over all too soon. With as deliberate a move as possible, Lirory Tefize whipped his cloak over one shoulder, spun, and walked off, never looking back at his two prisoners.

  The mage felt nothing but satisfaction at this day’s work. With his clan enemies removed, he had only Claybore to contend with. And soon, very soon, Lirory Tefize’s name would be bannered—feared!—across a score of worlds.

  “How long?” asked Ducasien, pacing to and fro in the cell.

  “There’s no way to tell.” Inyx nervously looked above to the tiny opening in the rocky ceiling. Wind whirled droplets of the acid into the air and the morning sun caused bright rainbows to form, rainbows of death.

  “There’s a way out of this. There has to be.”

  “Rest. Save your strength. Lan will come for us.”

  “Your faith in him is so great?” Ducasien stared at her in open wonder.

  Inyx didn’t reply. She wondered if Lirory had been right about killing Lan. It hardly seemed likely. Lan Martak had withstood mages hundreds of times more powerful—he had endured the worst Claybore had to give and still lived.

  But perhaps the gnome spoke the truth. Perhaps they were doomed.

  Inyx tried to shake the feelings of dread mounting within. Lan ought to have found them by now. It had been hours and hours. To give up hope meant Lirory Tefize triumphed all the more.