“Keep this fool away from me,” said Kiska.
“Terrill,” said Lan, putting an arm around the ancient mage’s shoulder and leading him away. “A word with you.”
The man smiled at being taken into Lan’s confidence.
“We are here in all secrecy-to visit the Pillar of Night. Can you aid us on this mission? Claybore must never know.”
“Claybore?” he asked, voice quavering. “He sees all that happens within this forest. I invited him to one of our celebrations, but he never came. Rook felt very bad. So did Mela and Pekulline. They sulked for days.”
“The Pillar,” Lan pressed. “I would see it again. How do I get close?”
“He failed with it, Claybore did,” said Terrill. “He only pinioned and did not skewer. Join us for our banquet this evening? We have many fine courses prepared.” Terrill clutched another dirty tuber in his hands. Lan knew what the entree would be and sadly shook his head.
“No? Perhaps again, some other time.” Terrill left without another word.
Lan rejoined Brinke and Kiska. The women were ready to come to blows when he stepped between them.
“Whatever the Pillar is, Terrill does not think it is Claybore’s supreme achievement. Claybore failed with it.”
“You would believe a demented old man?” Kiska crossed her arms and glared at both Lan and Brinke.
“We must hurry, Lan. I sense movement nearby.” The lovely blonde gestured toward trees already sneaking up on them.
“Claybore must not stop me now. I must get closer to the Pillar.” They started off at a trot, Kiska complaining with every step and Brinke struggling to keep up. When the magical pressures again shoved against Lan, he stopped.
“The Pillar of Night,” he said.
“I see it. Through the trees. Just a bit,” said Brinke, almost in awe. “It feels so… cold.”
Lan closed his eyes and allowed his inner sense to guide him. The force against him mounted but he countered it. Closer he went to the intense black shaft. But he felt himself weakening. The powers locked within this tower of light-sucking darkness far transcended his own. He could not even conceive of the spell, the energy, the ability required to conjure such a permanent, potent monument.
A permanent, potent tombstone.
“I will aid you, Lan Martak,” came a soft voice.
“Resident!”
“Closer. Come closer. I will it.”
Lan took one hesitant step after another. The line of trees marking the ring of forest passed behind him. Only level, gravelly plain stretched up to the Pillar of Night. A hundred yards. Less. Fifty. He felt himself melting inside, merging with the Resident of the Pit. Twenty. Heat. He ignored it. Ten. Polar cold so intense his eyebrows froze. Five.
He reached out and placed his trembling hand against the Pillar of Night.
And Lan Martak knew. He knew the plight of the Resident of the Pit. He knew the mistakes Claybore had made fashioning the Pillar. Worst of all, he knew that, by himself, he would never be able to counter the spell holding the Pillar of Night in place.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Go quickly. I do not think I can hold her long,” said Brinke. She glanced nervously toward the room where Kiska lay trussed up and gagged. If the woman managed to work her way free and call out, Brinke and Lan both knew he would be unable to resist her pleas.
“I hate leaving… you,” Lan said.
Brinke smiled wanly. “I know. And I know how difficult this is for you. The geas must be incredibly strong by this time.” She lightly touched his cheek. “The geas laid upon me by Claybore was so much more than I could cope with. I know what you are going through.”
Lan’s heart beat rapidly. He closed his eyes and began the spell that would transport him across worlds in the span of a single heartbeat. If he lingered even a few minutes more, he ran the risk of being unable to leave at all without Kiska k’Adesina. His mission was such that he needed secrecy-and with her along to report directly to Claybore, despite his best efforts, he would fail.
“Hurry,” he heard Brinke saying. The word lowered in pitch and the syllables drew out as he passed from one world to the next. When Lan blinked and peered about, he saw a rocky, barren world. A narrow canyon led into the higher mountains; the sheer cliff sides attracted his attention. Spider webs of enormous proportions depended from every outjut of rock and convenient spire.
“Krek,” he said softly. “You have worked well here.”
Lan started hiking, more for the sheer physical thrill than for any other reason. He had not refined the transport spell enough to pinpoint his destination, but he knew he could eliminate an hour or more of hard climbing by simple, short hops.
Lan Martak needed the exercise more than he needed to hurry. His life had been sedentary compared with the days of roaming the forests and living by his wits. Different skills had been sharpened, but at the expense of his strong sword arm, his indefatigable legs, his innate stamina. Also, this small hike gave him the opportunity to think of all that had occurred.
Touching the Pillar of Night had given him the truth. Kiska had lied; not something he had really doubted. And Brinke’s retelling of the legends surrounding the Pillar had been incomplete. Claybore had trapped the Resident of the Pit-therein lay the mistake made by the sorcerer.
He had intended for the powerful spell to form the Pillar of Night and drive it directly through the core of the Resident of the Pit’s being, killing the god for once and all time. The spell had failed at the last possible instant and had only trapped the god. Robbed of most of his power, the Resident had merely existed for the past ten thousand years with the Pillar as a tombstone to remind him of his former glory. Over this time he had come to long for death, even wishing Claybore had been successful with the original spell.
Lan could not defeat Claybore alone. He had fought to too many deadlocks to believe that now. His pride and overweening ego had been crushed by failure and forced him to admit he needed help.
He shook his head sadly. Together with the Resident of the Pit, he could defeat Claybore. To release the Resident from the Pillar of Night he needed the aid of others. He exhaled heavily when he realized that the friends he needed most were the very ones he had driven away.
Krek. Inyx. With their help he could free the Resident. With the Resident’s help he could defeat Claybore.
Lan huffed and puffed up a final ridge and looked down the narrow alley shadowed by spider webs. No stream flowed but large, verdant spots showed that water seeped up from below. An underground river, perhaps. Perfect for a spider who hated water and yet depended on the bugs nourished on and in it.
The man squinted into the sunlight and saw tiny shapes moving along the walking strands of the web. The pattern was unfamiliar to Lan, but he decided Krek had been improvising, trying to nurture his artistic talents now that he had nothing else to do.
“Krek!” he called. “It’s me, Lan Martak. Can we talk?”
Echoes reverberated down the valley. The tiny shapes in the web stopped and began swaying to and fro. The vibrations passed along certain cables in the web. Lan knew these spiders communicated with others, probably with Krek himself.
Lan trooped along, hunting for a small spring from which to slake his thirst. He found a bubbling pool and drank deeply from it, then sat and waited. Those spiders had sighted him and communication in the web was rapid and exact.
A spot twice as large appeared on the web and paused near the other two spiders. With long, loping steps, the distant spider dropped down to the bottom of the web and then to the ground out of Lan’s sight. In less than five minutes Krek loomed above him, his coppery furred legs gleaming in the sun.
“Thank you for seeing me,” Lan said.
Krek waited a spiderish length of time, then said, “Klawn always properly berated me for being brain-damaged. I know she is correct in that. Why I should desire to see you is beyond even my feeble power to imagine.”
“I need your help, Kre
k. To free the Resident of the Pit, I need you.”
“You are a powerful mage. Why do you need a craven one such as myself? You said as much before.”
“I was wrong. I… I can’t put into words what power you give me. It’s true I am magically powerful. But I need more. Together, with you beside me, I can succeed. I apologize for any hurt. It’s not much, but it’s all I can offer at the moment.”
“Contriteness does not suit you, Lan Martak.” The spider folded his eight long legs and sank down slowly so that his large dun-colored eyes were level with Lan’s. “I really ought to eat you for all you have done to me.”
“I won’t deny it.” Lan carefully watched as the spider’s huge mandibles clacked open and shut. One snip from those death scythes would end his life. Lan pulled his shoulders back and waited, wondering if Krek might attempt to cut him in half-and if both halves would continue to live. The magics within him were so potent, immortality might extend to even his pieces, just as it did to Claybore’s. The thought of Claybore’s mutilated foes scrabbling through the forest surrounding the Pillar of Night did not make him feel any better. Krek could doom him to such a fate with little effort.
“If I kill you, may I also eat you?”
“If you kill me, it won’t much matter,” said Lan.
The mountain arachnid thought on this for some time. Lan read not a hint of emotion in the chocolate pools of Krek’s eyes. Only a soft breeze wafting through the valley disturbed the fur on his legs. Other than this slight movement, the giant spider might have been a rock.
“Humans taste funny,” Krek finally said.
Lan did not answer. He interpreted this to mean Krek wasn’t likely to eat him. But it was difficult to say.
“Come along. Let me show you my kingdom.” Krek’s long legs levered him upright again. With a dexterity that always amazed Lan, the spider pivoted and got all eight legs moving in ground-devouring moves.
Lan trailed behind, up a small, rocky path and into a cave. He noticed Krek’s reluctance to enter such a confined space but said nothing. Lan depended on Krek’s good will now. Whatever the spider wanted to show him was fine, if it led to renewing their friendship.
“The mere spiders lost their Webmaster to the grey-clad humans,” explained Krek as he lumbered along the low-ceilinged mineshaft. “I came along in time to show them how to defeat Claybore’s soldiers. I am now Webmaster for the entire range, some forty thousand square miles of terrain.”
“Congratulations,” said Lan. “You were born to be a ruler.”
“I often wonder,” said Krek, sighing like a volcanic fumarole. “The demands are so wearing on me. It seems they never do things right the first time and I have to oversee their every web spin, their every hunting excursion.”
They entered an immense chamber strung with webs on all walls and ceilings. On the floor lay skins similar to those shed by a snake, but their shape disturbed Lan.
Krek saw the man’s interest.
“Claybore’s soldiers,” Krek explained.
“You ate them?”
“Not I personally. The mere spiders act like lowborns, at times. I try to elevate them to higher levels of sophistication and taste, but they resist. Another failure on my part, I fear. Sometimes I can be so inadequate, even in things I do well.”
“But how?” asked Lan, looking at the fallen soldiers.
“We mountain arachnids have a somewhat different digestive process. We can rip off chunks of flesh and devour it.” Krek’s mandibles clanked shut to emphasize the process. “But the mere spiders only spit out a fluid, which dissolves the innards. They can then drink their prey. It is time-consuming because the acid works slowly, but it serves them well enough, I suppose.” The spider shrugged it off, but Lan couldn’t keep from staring at the husks of those who had once been humans.
“Is this what you wanted me to see?” Lan asked.
“What? The debris from sloppy eating? Hardly, Lan Martak. I have had ample time to work on my web. All Webmasters are entitled to perform one artistic masterwork for the edification of their underlings. This is mine.”
Proudly, the spider lifted a middle leg and pointed.
“Krek, it’s gorgeous,” Lan said in true admiration. The other webs in the room were not spun by Krek, of that Lan had been certain the instant he spied them. They had been too small and lacked geometric complexity. But this web!
His eyes followed glistening strands and became confused by the profusion of color and cross-webbing. Sparkling diamonds and rubies glinted from strategic intersections and opalescent gems warmly accentuated the hard glitter of the other jewels. The strands themselves were of a kind Lan had not seen before. All the colors of the rainbow had been interwoven.
“In daylight, this would be an extraordinary work, Krek. Why did you hide it away in the eave?”
“One never boasts of one’s web treasure,” Krek said. “It might make the other spiders feel inferior, as they should in the presence of such grandeur.”
“You are happy ruling here?”
“Passably so,” said Krek, but Lan detected the faint tremors that indicated the spider meant more than he said.
Lan waited, saying nothing. Eventually Krek would elaborate. And he did.
“There is nothing to challenge me now that I have woven this web. How can anyone, even a Webmaster such as myself, improve upon perfection?”
“Would be hard,” Lan agreed.
“With the grey-clads all removed and properly eaten, no danger looms to menace my web. Our hunting webs are adequate for years of sustained growth from our hatchlings. And they even seem to lack ambition.”
“ ‘They,’ Krek?” Lan asked. “You talk of the mere spiders as if you were not one of them.”
“Of course I am not one of them, you silly human. I am twice their size. More.”
“You’re their leader, their Webmaster.”
“Such a burden it is, too.” Krek sighed.
“There were fine times when we walked the Road, weren’t there? Adventure. Danger, definitely danger.”
“That is of no interest.”
Lan knew Krek didn’t mean that.
“The excitement provided us with grand memories. None of it can compare to sitting here for long hours and studying the perfection of your web treasure, though.”
“That is true,” Krek agreed. A while later, the spider asked, “How long would I be away from my lovely web if I went on this mad venture with you?”
“Not long, if we are successful and defeat Claybore. But if we fail…”
Krek pondered this. “There is no way I can consider such a crack-brained journey unless friend Inyx accompanies us. You will abandon me at the first opportunity, as you did before.”
“No, Krek, I won’t,” protested Lan.
“And,” the spider went on, ignoring Lan’s outcry, “I want her to be there to give me some much-needed solace. She is quite good at that, for a human.”
“I’d like her along, too,” Lan said, mentally adding, I need her with me. “But she might refuse.”
“Granted,” said Krek, as if discarding such a silly notion outright. “What of that lumpy female who moons around and then tries to slit your puny throat?”
Sweat poured down Lan’s chest, neck, and face as the spider reminded him of Kiska k’Adesina. The geas grew more powerful by the minute. He fought down the irrational urge to leave Krek and return immediately to be at Kiska’s side. He cursed Claybore for this, even as he tried to calm himself and deny the magical bonds.
“I see you are still attached to her.” Krek rocked his head from side to side. “What bizarre mating rituals you humans have. And yet you claim to find it odd that Klawn was supposed to eat me, or cocoon me for our hatchlings.”
“Claybore’s compulsion spell is too strong now for me to break. This is another reason I need your help, Krek. I cannot prevent Kiska from harming me at the times I am most vulnerable.”
“Yet you would fry me if I
tried to harm her.”
“Yes.” Lan swallowed hard, but he had to let Krek know his problems.
“When do we leave?”
“What?”
“Is even your hearing faulty? I would have thought disuse would have quieted the ringing in your ears. While you will never have the acute hearing and vibratory sensing of a spider, I had thought…”
“You’ll come with me?” Lan asked, startled at the sudden acceptance.
“I said as much. Now do we go to find friend Inyx, or do we malinger in the cave only to admire that pathetic wall hanging?” Krek indicated his finely spun web.
Lan and Krek popped! into the world in the midst of a battle. Lan reacted instinctively, drawing sword and bringing it downward in a long, powerful slash that ended a grey legionnaire’s life. He had to put his foot on the man’s chest to give enough leverage to pull his blade free. By the time he spun about, ready to continue the fight, he saw that Krek had been actively eliminating soldiers. The sight of the giant arachnid implacably snipping and clacking his way through their ranks demoralized them.
They broke rank and ran-to their death.
Inyx gave the order to her slingers. As soon as the soldiers exposed themselves to fire, a hail of exploding pellets fell among them. Only a handful survived to surrender.
Lan panted harshly from the exertion. In prior times he would have just been getting started. Now he felt slow, tired, out of place.
“Friend Lan Martak,” complained Krek. “Why did you not use a spell to reduce them all to quivering blobs of green slime or some other appropriate measure?”
“Didn’t think of it,” Lan admitted. But he had noticed Krek again referred to him as “friend.” That lent more strength to his arm than anything else might have.
“They’re all dead,” Krek said, almost sadly. He was ready for a fray and it was at an end.
“What brings you here to ruin our carefully laid plans?” asked Ducasien.
“I come to speak with Inyx,” Lan replied.
“She is busy with planning for the final thrust at the grey-clads’ heart. All save one of their fortresses have fallen and the remaining one is poorly supplied. A siege might bring it down with little injury to our rank.”
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