The Resident of the Pit had been correct, all too correct. Surepta had found justice at his hand, but Lan felt no sense of revenge, of fulfillment at the other' s death. And still he spun through the galaxies yawning under his feet, seeing the slow march of stars and worlds without number.
" I witnessed a duel of wizards on a world similar to this one," came Inyx' s disembodied voice. " They turned the entire glade dark and sent us whirling through space at a furious rate. I closed my eyes and concentrated on what I knew had to be my proper surroundings."
Proper surroundings? Lan was uncertain what that was now. He belonged to the universe. He roved among the stars at will. He was lost in eternity.
But the woman' s words kept repeating over and over in his mind. Lan screwed his eyes tightly shut and pictured the Kinetic Sphere pulsating with its almost obscene pseudolife, the ebon darkness of the surrounding room, the high- gloss floor, the fire- blackened door leading into the courtyard, other doors leading off into unknown directions. The dizziness passed, and he fought to maintain his mental picture against the new assaults on his senses. The interworld creatures couldn' t harm him now; he had substance and they did not.
A sharp pain lanced through his leg. He stumbled and fell. He hazarded a quick look and saw a quarrel piercing his calf. Breaking off the squared head, he withdrew the shaft and tossed it away. Wherever it had come from, it wasn' t from the nothingness of the wraith- dimension he fought his mental battles in.
" Why am I afflicted with this insane urge to leave my web?" moaned Krek. " I was happy. No spider could have been happier. I was content swinging across the Egrii Mountains. But no, fool that I am, I took to wandering. Oh, why, why!"
Inyx vanished from sight. Lan swallowed hard and fought down the pain rising in his leg like the ocean' s surf. The illusions diminished in intensity, and Lan thought it might be due to the pain from his injury. Pain drove out all mirages of the mind. A scuffling noise drew his attention and the point of his sword. A muted cry, then a body fell lifeless to the floor.
" Thanks for your quick sword, Lan," the black- haired woman said. " I thought you were still whirling in your orbit around all space."
" To tell the truth, I was until that crossbowman pulled me back to the here and now." He grimaced and sat down on the floor to begin the healing chants.
Inyx crouched beside him, then looked up at Krek and said, " Guard us for a few minutes. His magics take too long to work." She ripped away his pants leg and used the material to expertly bind the wound. Although the quarrel had missed all important bones and tendons, the wound still burned as if infested by a hill of acid ants. " There," she said finally, " that' ll take care of you for a short while. Later, when we have the time, you can chant away the cut with your spells."
" You' re expert at this. It seems you spend as much time repairing me as you do fighting."
" I' m an old hand at both. Until my brothers were killed, I spent my spare time sewing them back together. And Reinhardt:" Her voice trailed off, and Lan saw the twinkling speck of an unshed tear forming in the corner of her eye.
" Reinhardt? One of your brothers?"
" My husband, now dead a full year and more." She stood and said sternly, " On your feet. We must still fight free of the castle."
She helped Lan to his feet, and he found he could walk- after a fashion. He wondered how much more fighting would be necessary for escape.
And to rescue Velika.
CHAPTER TWELVE
" I can' t believe we were allowed out of the chamber so easily," worried Inyx. " That is unlike Waldron."
" Easy?" asked Lan. " What do you mean, easy? We fought for our very lives back there. We could have been killed at any instant." The dull pain in his calf told him exactly how near a brush with death he' d had. He didn' t like Inyx even thinking it had been too easy to escape from Waldron' s treachery.
Yet:
A thought niggled. He felt something amiss, though not the ease of their escape. At every turn, he had expected Velika to appear, breathless and flushed, newly escaped from Waldron' s clutches. Some minor detail relating to the blond woman and Waldron bothered him. The expression on the man' s face as his hand touched Velika' s tears. Unconsciously, Lan rubbed his own fingers over his grimy, bloodstained tunic, then stopped guiltily, as if caught at some unclean act. The confidence Waldron had shown had been wiped out in an instant- turned to confusion- by the blond woman. Lan couldn' t figure out what that meant. He' d reacted similarly to her when they' d first talked in the field, after he' d rescued her from a life of slavery in some merchant' s pleasure den. When he had time, he would have to put this perplexing reaction to Velika to serious thought, but now his entire energies had to be directed toward staying alive.
The courtyard was denuded of all but the small weeds growing at the periphery; nothing stirred but tiny dust devils whirling mindlessly across the barren ground. The wind whistled ominously through the pile of stone and glass comprising the castle and its battements, but not a human sound was to be heard.
" Have they deserted this fine castle?" asked Krek. " I might enjoy spinning my web from yon tower to this point and then over to the central keep. Not a large web, barely fifty miles of strands, but enough to satisfy me in my old age."
Lan hobbled forward, sword in hand, peering up at the towers, expecting the glint of sunlight off an unguarded crossbow or helm or sword tip. All humanity had been stripped from this now- desolate place. A chill crept up his spine and made his hand tremble. If Waldron had abandoned the castle in favor of another- or another world- Velika would be with the self- appointed Saviour. Lan might never find her in the myriad worlds of chance along the Cenotaph Road. A needle in the ocean was simple to find in comparison; a magnet attracted iron. But what magnet drew Velika if she were lost among the probabilities of all the worlds?
" The Kinetic Sphere is still in its chamber," he said suddenly. " Waldron wouldn' t abandon it. He must still be here. But why the emptiness?"
" Perphas he feels the need to expand or loot to further fuel his own world with goods for their coming winter," opined Krek. " If I were not so tired, I would consider leaving right away and tending my own affairs. My web must be in gross disrepair by now. The hatchlings are not up to tending it now that I am absent and Klawn searches for me. Ah, Klawn," he moaned softly, " where are you?"
" Krek, please, not so loud. They said something about her escaping from their dungeons. You might inadvertently call her."
" Do I deserve more justice than she is likely to dispense? No! I shirked my duties, a cowardly thing to do. But this obscene desire to see more of the world seized me again and pulled me away at a crucial time." The spider shrank down in size until hardly more than a large rock. Lan didn' t bother trying to cheer up the disconsolate spider. He had learned nothing worked well, but Inyx continued to cajole the creature.
" Krek, please, for me. We' ve got to get out of here. I feel a trap. Spin a strand for us over the wall so we won' t have to go through the main portal. Please." She stroked the spider' s hairy legs until he actually shivered with joy.
" No one needs me. You would be better off to look for another means of escape. Dependence on my feeble talents will lead only to ruin."
" Nonsense, Krek. You' re one of us, part of the team. The three of us belong together. Together, we can defeat Waldron and his whole damned army!" Inyx waved her sword around with wild abandon until Lan cringed. And he didn' t much care for the way the woman limited their number to only three. Velika made the fourth. Just because she was held captive didn' t mean her heart wasn' t with them and their efforts to defeat Waldron and walk the Road.
Yet the niggling thought made him wonder. Did her love for him extend that far? Lan didn' t know. He was no longer certain of his own love for the blonde at times.
" Oh, very well. This one time only. I simply have not the strength to do more." The spider made a coughing noise preparatory to spewing out the sticky strand of web- stu
ff, but he paused as he took aim on one of the crenelations along the battlement. " I fear I dallied too long. Company of a winged variety approaches, and quickly."
Lan strained his eyes against the sky and finally saw several hard black dots moving slowly. Predicting where the specks flew proved impossible because of the angle, but Lan felt a sinking feeling that these black birds were winging to stop them. No matter where Waldron had gone, his feathered bodyguards adequately protected the castle from all invaders.
" Inside the great hall," he urged, pointing toward the central keep. " If we can prevent them from entering, we stand a chance to kill them one by one."
Inyx snorted as if she didn' t believe him. Lan didn' t blame her for the skepticism; his own faith flagged dramatically upon finding the castle deserted after the fight required to win free from the chamber cradling the Kinetic Sphere. Better to meet Waldron face to face than to fight off the droves of those evil black ravens. The first hit and sent him stumbling before he had covered half the distance to the doorway. The next streaked down and left ugly, bloody tracks across his shoulders. A third almost clawed off his ear with a mighty swoop that caused the bird' s pinions to creak and snap under the strain.
" Hurry, Lan," said Inyx, standing in the doorway, one hand sweeping an arc over her head to keep the darting ravens at bay. " I' m not going to come and pick you up!"
The words galled him. Pick him up! Power flooded into his injured leg, and he propelled himself in a flat drive through the door. He skittered along the polished floor and collided with a wall, his teeth snapping together hard enough to give him a bone- jarring wrench. The torn remnants of two ravens told him that Krek had already beaten him to the cleanup detail. Blood dripped from the mighty pincers and glued small black feathers to the hard, serrated surfaces.
" Did I do that smartly enough for you, highness?" he asked sarcastically. " I wouldn' t want to delay you more than a few seconds in your noble quest to beat a cowardly retreat."
" Cowardly!" snarled Inyx. " Stupid is what you are to want the likes of Velika. Can' t you see her for what she is? Pah! I want to return to the Road and leave an oaf like you behind."
" And I will go with you, for a short while, if you will allow it, Inyx," said Krek. " I tire of all this petty bickering over the lumpy female."
Lan felt sheepish as he propped himself against the stone wall. Krek was right. He was being churlish.
" No more arguing?" he said, holding out his hand. Inyx hesitated, then took it firmly in her own.
" None."
" Then how shall we ever decide how to get past all those filthy ravens? You humans do nothing without arguing."
Lan only sighed.
" We are not alone," was Krek' s appraisal. " I hear the ravens beating themselves senseless against the door, and there is another sound deep in the halls, a slight noise hardly worthy of mention. But I note it solely in the event you missed it." Krek spread his long legs, claws biting into the stony walls.
Lan exchanged glances with Inyx, then drew his sword again. Perhaps this was an enemy who' d die by the sword, unlike the flapping cloud of gnatlike birds outside. Lan silently railed against the ravens, then tottered and weakly put his hand out to maintain balance. The building swung in a large arc, making him so dizzy he fought down the giddiness it brought.
" Are you all right?"
" No," he said weakly, dropping to his knee. Putting one hand on his forehead as a support while resting an elbow on a knee helped quell the revolt inside his brain for the span of a heartbeat. Then he sank completely to the floor.
" Krek, have you ever seen anything like this wound before?" Inyx' s voice sounded muffled, distant, as if she spoke from the bottom of a well. Even her face refused to come into focus.
" A spider learns to brew many poisons, since it is our stock in trade. I suggest bleeding him to relieve the poison from the raven' s talons. And perhaps tourniquets here and here and here."
" You idiot," raged Inyx. " Putting a tourniquet around his neck will kill him instantly."
" Oh."
" But the rest of your suggestions are sound. Help me." Inyx drew the point of her dagger along each wound inflicted by the birds. When they flowed profusely, she dabbed away the excess blood and bandaged the new wounds. " I hope that will help," she said, worry tingeing her words. " The poison seems to have gotten a foothold already. Look at him twitch about."
" He has always appeared twitchy to me," observed Krek. " But then, most humans do. You say a poison affecting his nerves was used? This is the basis for my own personal brand of killing poison. It paralyzes the body without inhibiting thought, although in his case there was precious little brain to begin with. Why, I remember once when we:"
" What are you getting at, Krek?"
" Oh, nothing, save that I might be able to concoct an antidote for the poison if I obtained a small sample."
Inyx speared one of the dead ravens with the tip of her sword and held it out for Krek' s inspection.
" Is this satisfactory?"
" Not quite." He took the raven and devoured it in front of the woman' s horrified eyes. " Ugh, such a vile, stringy texture that meat has. I fail to see what you humans enjoy about it. Bugs are much more satisfying." He sneezed, sending a cascade of feathers spiralling about his mouth. Then he sank to the ground and pulled Lan nearer. " The poison is simplistic for one of my acumen. Allow me." Krek' s mandibles punctured veins on the inside of each of Lan' s wrists. Tiny drops of yellowish fluid beaded at the hinge of his pincers to run down a duct to the very tip where the viscous ichor entered Lan' s blood stream.
In a few seconds, Lan went into convulsions. Krek' s powerful legs held him, and the spider commented, " Humans lack a certain tolerance to this, it appears. But fear not for his safety."
True to his word, Krek soon released Lan, who looked up and smiled weakly.
" He is cured, of course," Krek pronounced with insufferable superiority. But neither Lan nor Inyx noticed. The man managed to get his feet under him again, and when the world stopped precessing, he felt as good as he had before the poison coursed through his veins.
" I owe you one, Krek," he said, solemnly squeezing a convenient leg.
" One what?"
" Never mind. I' ll let you know when the time comes. Did you notice any activity further inside the keep? Waldron?" He didn' t have to add " Velika."
" Several are inside. Perhaps as many as a platoon."
" A holding force?"
" More likely a bodyguard. For Waldron," said Lan grimly. " And if he' s still here, I' ll wager Velika is, too. I don' t feel too great, but this might be our only chance to free her." He started off on shaky legs, his hands trembling and his vision still slightly blurred.
" A moment, Lan," demanded Inyx. " We- Krek and I- have no interest in that blond bitch, but we will aid you in return for your promise of the Kinetic Sphere. To be able to walk the Road without searching out the scattered cenotaphs, and not having to bow to their haphazard destinations, would be a boon of incalculable value."
" If we possess the glowing sphere," added Krek, " I would be unable to find the natural cenotaphs, anyway. The power is far too great for me to penetrate the occluding veil it casts, but it would not matter if we sought out worlds we desired to explore. I remember one I spent some little time on years and years ago. Grubs as thick as your wrists! Never a worry about food. And:"
" I get the idea," said Lan, his mind racing. As much as he would have loved to keep the Kinetic Sphere for himself, he had to admit it would be better used by Inyx. And if he and Velika settled down on this world after Waldron was properly routed, why did he need to walk the Road at will? " I accept your offer, and in return, not only will I give you the Kinetic Sphere, but all the treasure you can carry."
" Fair. Shake." Their hands gripped once, then slipped down each other' s forearm to signify a permanent pact. Both started when a furry leg was added to theirs.
" Your sword- y
our nearness!- is a gift I can scarce repay, Inyx," he said, his voice choking slightly. " And Krek, without you I' d be dead many times over." He hurriedly wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and saw Inyx surreptitiously do the same. It would be difficult without her and Krek.
But for Velika!
What would he really do for the woman? Lan struggled with the inner turmoil again, the internal war that confused and bothered him. He loved her. He did! Yet:
" Let' s get this over with while you' re still able to stand upright," said Inyx gruffly. She swung off down the hall, with Krek and Lan following a few steps behind. Lan didn' t know if it was the possibility of sudden death or his eyes slowly opening to the world around him, but never had he seen Inyx so trim, so athletic, so beautiful. Her loveliness didn' t match Velika' s, but there is beauty and beauty. While Velika was the sheltered rose, the hothousenurtured beauty, Inyx impressed him as more of the wildflower growing in spite of adversity and appearing all the more desirable for it.
Then all such poetic nonsense flew from his mind as the hallway filled with grey- clad soldiers. He lunged well past Inyx, using his superior reach, and pinked the officer' s arm as he drew forth his blade. The enemy sword clattered to the floor when Inyx spitted him through the hollow of the throat. The other four men were as easily removed by quick snips of Krek' s fast- moving mandibles.
" Inside the audience chamber," came the spider' s appraisal. " Only a handful of humans there."
" Watch for the damned ravens," cautioned Lan as he kicked open the door. None of the winged messengers of death attacked, but he found himself fighting swordsmen far better than he. His wounds slowly took their toll of his strength. He had to rely on stealth rather than strength if he were to live much longer. Using every trick he could remember, Lan killed one man. Then he used a quick cut over to slay a second. The third demanded more attention and skill. And Lan found his stamina fading like a flower petal before winter' s onset. The man executed a bind that sent Lan' s blade sailing through the air. Before the death stroke landed, a dagger blossomed in the soldier' s side.
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