" I have studied all aspects of this phenomenon known to you as ' reduction.' It is simple application of disruptive vibrations to your molecules. The answer to your question is therefore: yes, you will no longer be alive if the sheriff captures you."
" If? I can avoid the sheriff?"
" Yes."
Lan waited for a more comprehensive explanation. When none came, he decided to press on. He had no idea how long this spell would hold, how much vitality the animal' s blood had given the Resident. It wouldn' t do to lose the only source of accurate information of the future he possessed.
" Is: who killed Zarella?" His voice choked with emotion.
" The one called Kyn- alLyk- Surepta. It was done with your knife, stolen earlier in the evening from you after a fight. He also stole your tunic and boots to cloud the trail and lend credence to the magics pointing to you as the killer."
Lan realized what the Resident was doing. Giving an answer was one thing, but giving a complete answer totally eliminated any chance of rephrasing the question later. Not that it mattered.
The sheriff wouldn' t accept the word of a disembodied spirit as the truth. Ghosts were notoriously deceitful, often intent on gaining vengeance on still- living people who had wronged them.
There seemed no way to convince the sheriff that the Resident of the Pit was an ancient god now physically powerless. Still, the cunning of the eldest god amazed and irritated Lan.
" Why did the murder occur?"
" Two reasons. First, Kyn- alLyk- Surepta desired the woman and she refused him his carnal pleasures. He saw a way of having his will and incriminating you at the same time. The second reason is theft. He stole a most valuable bauble given to Zarella."
" Then this bauble, whatever it is, could prove Kyn- alLykSurepta is the one responsible for the murder!"
" No. There are any number of ways he can lie about its possession. At the worst, he would be found guilty of theft. The murder would still rest on your head."
Lan thought how hopeless the situation was. Also, how ludicrous it became. With the sheriff hunting him at this very instant, he sat talking with a million- year- old deposed god, hanging on its every word, believing its pontifications because they matched his own thoughts.
As if reading his mind, the Resident said, " I speak truly. I cannot lie, as you know the term."
" Did Zarella love me? Really love me in a way she didn' t the others who came to the Dancing Serpent?" Lan was frightened of the answer. He hoped against hope for a positive answer, feared a negative one.
A pause lengthened into a full minute of silence. Only the wind blowing through the dried, glass- brittle leaves in the chamber came to his ears. Once, Lan thought he heard the chittering of a rat, but he wasn' t certain. He didn' t dare move. He felt his very sanity hanging in the balance on this answer. Had Zarella been worth all the heartache? Or had she merely been playing him for the fool? Dead, it hardly mattered in a physical sense, but Lan had to know.
" I have thought on this nonthing you call love," answered the Resident. " It is complex and has many manifestations. In the way you mean, she loved you."
Lan felt as if a huge burden had been lifted. He breathed more easily. Yet his love was dead, murdered by a man who escaped justice by sending an innocent victim to legal execution. Lan felt he personally could die happy if only he took Kyn- alLyk- Surepta with him.
That man' s viciousness and cruelty had caused the deaths of Zarella, her guards, and Suzarra. Lan swallowed hard and fought back moisture at the corners of his eyes. His half- sister had lost her life and honor trying to aid him. He could never forget that it was Kyn- alLyk- Surepta and his grey- clad soldiers who were responsible.
" Can I get revenge on Kyn- alLyk- Surepta?"
" No."
The answer was short, abrupt. It startled Lan, for he had become used to the Resident' s hesitating before answering. His future appeared blighted once again. Zarella was dead. Suzarra was dead. And he couldn' t avenge those deaths. A man of honor was stripped of all courses of action.
All except one. The idea came to Lan slowly, painfully. It had always seemed the coward' s way out to him. Now he saw it as something else, something more adventuresome. He was a lost soul in this world. The Resident assured him of death if he stayed. If he couldn' t survive in this overcrowded, too- many- lawed world, he could flee to another, perhaps better, world.
" Resident, is the: the Cenotaph Road open to me?"
" Yes."
" Will I avoid death following the Road this night?"
" No one avoids death. Not even a god. You will, however, not die in this world you currently inhabit. Death will come in another place at another time."
Lan started to ask the time and place of his demise, then bit back the question. If he knew, he would live only for his death. Better to experience all of life and ignore the scrawl of fate slowly inking his name on the Death Rota.
" If I take the Road, will the sheriff pursue?"
" No."
He thought of his friends, his family. Suzarra had been the closest, more a friend than relation. And staying would not aid his friends in the least. To leave behind an entire world frightened him; this was the world of his birth. It held comfort and familiarity. Taking the Cenotaph Road offered only doubt and danger.
" Will I ever return to this world if I follow the Road?"
" No. But you will escape forever the injustice of this world."
" And find injustice in other worlds."
" That was a statement, not a question. Do you wish to rephrase it so that I may properly answer?"
" No. Injustice is everywhere. It' s the nature of the universe."
Lan was startled when the Resident chuckled. It was the first show of emotion the nebulous being had displayed.
" That is a paranoid viewpoint. It is also true, in your terms. The only justice is that which you make yourself."
" I only wish I could bring Kyn- alLyk- Surepta to justice."
" You will."
" But you said I will never return to this world, that I' d never get revenge on him. What do you mean? What do you mean?" Lan shouted. But the Resident had begun to fade. The colors dissolved into a jet black indistinguishable from the void of space. Lan knew the being slipped back into the limbo from which it had come.
The Resident of the Pit faded into ebon blackness, patiently awaiting the next questioner. It might be a month or a century or a millennium; to the Resident it didn' t matter.
Lan sighed. It was a long hike to the cemetery and the properly consecrated cenotaph. He hoped he could reach the awaiting crypt before midnight- and the persistent sheriff.
CHAPTER THREE
Lan Martak fled from shadows. Since leaving the Resident of the Pit, he had dodged and cut back on his trail and swung through the limbs of the dense trees and done a half- dozen other tricks designed to throw the sheriff off. He hadn' t dared use another of his minor magical spells for fear the sheriff could detect it and turn it against him. The old man had taught him a little of his magic, but Lan realized he pitted himself against long years of experience he couldn' t hope to match. He held a wide measure of respect for the old man, perhaps too much.
Braced in the crotch of a tree, Lan panted and wiped sweat from his forehead. When his strength flowed back, he dropped lightly to the ground and instantly froze. A sound, so slight a city dweller would miss it, came to his alert ears. He felt his eardrums itching as they strained. Adrenaline flowed through his arteries, sending his heart pounding wildly in his chest. Pursuer or pursued. Those were the only two conditions he knew.
And the rules were different for him now that he had joined the pursued.
He inhaled deeply, sampling the cool night breeze for some spoor to indicate what had alerted him. The sharp, acrid tang of a sniffersnake made him tremble. The icy hand of fear clutched once at his heart, then relaxed as he stilled his runaway pulse. He hadn' t thought the sheriff would loose those vile creatures
.
It came again to him how a murder in this civilized community was the height of crime. The townspeople ignored real crimes, crimes against honor and dignity, while putting too much emphasis on a condition that would occur sooner or later anyway. Better to die with honor, Lan thought, than to be disgraced. Lan only wished he could kill Kyn- alLyk- Surepta and show to all how treacherous the other grey- clad soldiers were. But there seemed no way of even hinting that Surepta had done the dishonorable crimes. Magic failed occasionally, became muddled and obscured. He raged futilely, thinking of Lyk Surepta swaggering, unscathed by justice, untainted by the slightest guilt.
That thought more than any other made his hand tremble and his lips pull back into a thin line.
A slithery sound warned him of the approaching sniffer- snakes. Deaf, almost blind, the snakes tracked only by smell. He could scream and the snakes would take no notice. Let one small hair fall from his head, however, and the snakes sensed it immediately. Even magical potions failed to increase the abilities of lesser animals to equal the sensitivity of sniffer- snakes' sensory pits.
If their tracking ability had been all, Lan would have relished the challenge. Outwitting them and their preternaturally acute sense of smell was a duel worthy of his own abilities. But when the sniffersnakes tracked, no human dared follow. They hated with an intensity and an elemental intelligence. Anyone would do for their passionate hatred of humanity, including their keepers, but set on the trail of a fugitive, they paralyzed their victim with the bite of poisoned fang, then chewed with teeth. Carnivorous reptiles, they never stopped eating until the victim was totally devoured.
Lan shuddered as the slithering sounds grew louder. He began loping along, his legs covering vast chunks of terrain. The wind whispered through his hair, drew away the cold fear- sweat, soothed him. The stars burning mindlessly in the ebony bowl of the sky all peered down at him, questioning his ability to escape the voracious reptiles. He wondered if the stars held an intelligence and, if so, were wagering on him- or against him- in this death race.
Lan never broke stride as he jumped into a tree and began swinging limb to limb like some oversized monkey. The rough bark cut his hands, forcing him to pull himself up onto a branch and walk along it. The coal- bright eyes of the sniffer- snakes beneath him peered up, malevolent. They coiled, hissing and clacking their teeth together, until one caught his scent on the tree trunk. With a sinuosity that appeared magical, the snake immediately wrapped itself around the trunk and began swirling itself into the tree. Even though his time would be better spent racing the wind to the graveyard, Lan found himself unable to tear his gaze off the hunting sniffer- snake.
It hypnotized him with its boneless movements to and fro. When the snake reached the limb on which he stood, he came to his senses. Never had he heard of such hypnotic power in the reptiles, but he knew it existed. Nothing else explained his failure to run.
He slipped his knife from its sheath as the fiery- eyed snake slithered toward him. Faster than thought, he lunged- and missed. He recovered his balance in time to prevent a fall to the ground. He glanced down to a tight knot of a dozen or more of the sniffersnakes.
" Keep calm," he told himself. " Calm and you' ll still be able to reach the graveyard before midnight. Otherwise, you' ll be ready for the graveyard in seconds."
The snake mocked him. It pulled itself up into a coil on the branch and hissed contempt. Lan was loath to throw his dagger at the beast; a miss spelled death. He followed the head as it weaved back and forth, then felt a lethargy spreading to his arms and legs. Realizing it was the hypnotic effect of the snake, he fought successfully against it. As long as he didn' t relax his guard, the snakes had to rely on mere physical attacks.
A glance over his shoulder assured him that a jump into the next tree would be futile. Several of the sniffer- snakes already perched on the only limb within reach. As the hissing snake confronting him moved closer, he launched himself straight up.
The snake' s strike missed. As it extended along the limb, it opened up its entire length to attack. Lan dropped from the limb above and let his boots crush the snake' s back. Hissing fiercely, it fell from the limb to land among its fellows, broken beyond recovery. Lan hastily shot back up into the heights of the tree, transferred in a direction he hoped wouldn' t contain more of the slithering beasts, then made his way until he came to a rushing stream.
Walking a limb until the stream gurgled under him, Lan looked around for some sign of human presence. None. He braced himself for the chill water, then splashed down in the center of the flowing river. He immediately dived and swam underwater as far as possible before surfacing. He gulped a lungful of air, then dived once again. With this porpoiselike progress, he hoped to elude the sniffersnakes.
It worked. He arrived at the cemetery twenty minutes before midnight- alive and uneaten.
Lan scouted the graveyard to make sure it was as deserted as it seemed. While he found no obvious human presence, he did interrupt a pair of mating wolves. They left the cemetery with ferocious snarls to warn him against following them to some nearby place where they would continue their amorous activities.
Lan sat down, his back propping up a tottering tombstone, thinking how his life might have been different. He and Zarella might have been out here this evening with activities in mind similar to those of the wolves. Fate had cast a different role and robbed him of her. And, with cruel jest, fate went further and even held him accountable in human circles for her death.
" It' s not fair," he muttered to himself. Yet, he told himself, where was the contract saying life had to be fair? No such agreement existed. Fate could be cruel if it chose; as easily, it could benefit him.
His sharp ears picked up the crunch of booted feet against gravel. He started to bolt for the deeper shadows of the forest, then stilled his impulse. Best to remain stationary, then silently work his way around the cemetery until he found the proper crypt for his journey away from this world.
The sheriffs voice drifted on the light breeze.
" How should I know if he' s here, you fool? The sniffer- snakes might have got him already."
" Sure, Honor, whatever you say, but it seems a churlish thing to do, sending those snakes after him and all."
The deputy' s voice carried sincere regret, but Lan knew it wasn' t born of personal friendship. The man just hated to see anyone trailed by those vicious, carnivorous reptiles.
" Had to be done, boy. No other way of catching one as smart as Lan Martak. Trained him myself, like a son, I did. Damn fine man."
" Then why' d he kill Zarella? It was a bloody crime."
Lan imagined the sheriff shrugging thin shoulders, pulling tiredly at his scraggly white beard, and spitting. The old man' s words chilled him more than the cold stone against his spine.
" A man does strange things in the name of love. That whore Zarella twisted him up inside, maybe, and when he found out she never intended anything honorable, he killed her."
" But so bloody," persisted the deputy.
" A man changes." For a moment silence hung like a damp, suffocating fog over the cemetery; then the sheriff continued, " This place always makes me uneasy, jittery. I feel like visitors from beyond are knocking on my door."
" I know what you mean," came the frightened voice of the deputy. Lan smiled to himself. The deputy would be the most easily scared away. He took a quick look at the stars overhead, found the War Dog constellation spinning around the triad of unchanging stars, and knew he had little time left to find the proper crypt and enter it.
He peered out from behind the tombstone and saw the sheriff, his back to Lan, dealing cards to the deputy. The nervous gestures assured Lan of success in the deputy' s case. Getting rid of the sheriff without killing him would be more difficult.
Lan found several small pebbles and began flicking them behind the deputy. At first, the man glanced up, suspicious, not sure he' d really heard anything. His hand rested firmly on his sword, but he di
dn' t draw. Seeing nothing, he turned back to the game of magically lit cards, which provided a way of passing time without forcing him to think too much of his unwanted duty in the empty graveyard. Lan dropped another stone just behind the deputy.
This time, the man rose and pulled his sword, shouting, " Someone' s here!" He waved his blade and slashed at the darkness, killing only empty air.
" Sit down, you fool. If Lan is anywhere near, he' s heard you by now."
" A ghost brushed me. I felt it!"
Lan let the man' s imagination prey on itself for a few minutes, then rubbed his hands through some dew- laden grass. Dripping with moisture, he snapped his fingers in the deputy' s direction. The sparkling droplets arced through the air and landed on the man' s face. The deputy blanched death- pale, wiped the water away, rose on shaky legs, and let out a frightened howl.
" I felt them! I tell you, I felt them! A ghost. Hundreds of ghosts!"
The sheriff reached out and pulled hard on the man' s sleeve. Lan cursed his luck. Another few seconds and the deputy would have run into the night, leaving only the sheriff. The old man' s basic good sense prevailed over ignorant fear.
" Sit and be quiet. There are no ghosts, not around us. I cast a spell to ward them off," he lied for the man' s benefit.
" Y- you did? Wh- why didn' t you tell me?"
The old man shrugged it off.
" It' s nothing. One of these days, I' ll teach you the spell. Quite simple when dealing with ectoplasmic beings. Much easier than lighting the cards." He glanced down at the spread of softly glowing cards on the stone between them. " I see why you wanted to run, Miska. I have you beaten easily this hand."
" Your spell wards off ghosts? All types of ghosts?" persisted the deputy.
The sheriff nodded. " Let me tell you of some of the residents of this graveyard. My conjurings told me that Lan would head here, possibly to follow the Cenotaph Road."
" No!" gasped the deputy. " No man would be so foolish. To go into: into nothingness."
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