“Aloft!” cried Ducasien. “In the trees!”
His sword whispered free of its engraved leather sheath and skewered an armless woman as she slithered down a vine, using only legs and incredibly powerful teeth for support. Inyx quickly responded and drove off another seeking their blood-or was it another pair? The two men were joined at the side, sharing two heads, and the proper number of limbs for a single human.
“How revolting,” said Inyx. “Killing them makes me feel dirty.”
“They will kill us if we don’t,” pointed out Ducasien. He bound a wound on his arm himself as they hurried on. “Vicious fighters.”
“Demented fighters,” said Lan. “Claybore has driven them all quite mad.”
“He experimented horribly upon them,” said Brinke, shivering delicately. “And… Lan! Do you sense it?”
Lan kept walking but summoned up the light mote familiar he had cultivated into his major offensive and defensive weapon. The mote whirled forth, spun through the forest in a crazy orbit and returned seconds later. On the rippling surface of the point of light Lan read the spells forming around them.
He began counters immediately.
“The ground!” shouted Kiska. “Run!”
“Stand,” said Lan. “It is illusion.”
The yawning chasm split open the soft earth, sucking in trees and scores of the screeching remnants of Claybore’s experiments. The pit looked endless-and it widened, moving toward the small group with a dizzying speed.
“Run. It’ll swallow us all. Run,” urged Kiska.
Lan lifted the light mote and brought it hurling downward at his feet. The bright pinpoint burned through the ground at the vee front of the pit. The hole vanished.
“Illusion,” insisted Lan.
“Lan,” Brinke said, clinging to his arm. “Something moves against us.”
“The trees. They are Claybore’s creatures. I hold them at bay.”
“No, you’re failing. They’re coming for us. The trees will destroy us.” Kiska bolted and tried to run. Lan felled her with a simple spell, then ran to her side.
“Are you all right?” he asked, concerned-and hating himself for it. This woman was a cold-blooded killer and had proven it on a dozen worlds.
“No,” she sobbed. “Turn back. Now, Lan, for me.”
His vision blurred and his mouth turned dry. Only Inyx’s hand on his shoulder kept him from passing out.
“We must continue,” the dark-haired woman said in a soft voice. Electricity flowed through her light touch on his shoulder, and they both trembled as the rapport that had once been theirs built anew. More than words, they shared emotions, inchoate thoughts, the most subtle of communications.
Kiska saw the sharing between them and moved to kill Lan. Inyx swung her fist and clipped the other woman on the point of the chin even as Lan acted to stop her.
Kiska lay unconscious on the ground. Lan apologized to Inyx.
“Lan, please,” Inyx said. “I… we.” She took a deep breath. “I understand the power of this compulsion now that we can again see into one another’s souls.”
“You see why I went astray?” he asked.
Inyx nodded.
“I thought I didn’t need you. I was wrong. I need you in all ways.”
“Will you two please explain this mating ritual to me?” piped up Krek. “I have tried in vain to understand it. You, friend Inyx, must knock down the scrawny one so that friend Lan Martak can…”
“Never mind, Krek.”
“But I do wish to explain this to my hatchlings. They must deal with you ridiculous humans.” The spider canted his head to one side. “I rather wish to understand it myself and I am failing.”
“Let’s march,” said Ducasien. His gruff tones told how little he liked seeing Inyx with Lan. “We can leave her.” He indicated Kiska with the tip of his sword.
“She comes along,” said Lan before he could stop himself.
“Bring her,” Inyx said. “It’s all right, Ducasien. I begin to understand the magics involved.”
Ducasien hoisted Kiska over his shoulder, muttering about clean steel and fair fights.
“The magics still surround us,” said Brinke. “They overwhelm me. I can’t fight them.”
Krek stopped and faced the white-haired man in a small clearing. “Do let us by,” said the spider, “or I shall be forced to eat you.”
Terrill waved his hand. Krek collapsed against a tree, which immediately began dropping leaves and sinuous vines down around his stilled body.
“You can’t stop us,” said Lan. “Have you remembered or does Claybore only use you?”
“My friends are all so peeved that their rest is disturbed,” said Terrill. The madness burned in his eyes, brighter than Lan had seen it before. “They want you to leave. Go now and don’t bother us further. We are preparing for a party. Oh, yes, a fine party. None of you is invited.”
“This is Terrill?” asked Inyx, eyes wide. “I had expected more.”
“The spells are overwhelming me,” said Brinke. “Help me, Lan. I’m being drowned in a sea of magic.”
The blonde mage pulled her regal scarlet cloak tighter around her sleek body. Then all movement ceased. She stood as still as any marble sculpture. Ducasien and Inyx were similarly disabled. Lan saw Ducasien’s eyes turn wild with despair.
“You are a great sorcerer, Terrill. The greatest who ever lived. You once aided the Resident of the Pit. Do so now. Help us free him from under the Pillar.”
“Pinned there, the god’s pinned there. Not killed, oh no, Claybore couldn’t do that. But the years… so many years.” For a moment Lan thought he had reached the deranged sorcerer.
“You must go,” Terrill said. “Now!” He waved his hand and set a cascade of fire tumbling forth from his fingertips. Lan’s light mote expanded to shield him and the others.
“Claybore animates you,” Lan said. “Fight him. You can again be the mage you were. Decent, wanting only freedom. Fight Claybore.”
“Rook!” screamed Terrill. “Destroy them all!”
The trees moved aside for the mud and stick figure striding through the sterile forest. Leaves fluttered in mock applause for their champion. Sap oozed like drool from the mouth of a fool.
And Lan Martak feared Terrill’s champion.
Rook no longer stood a few inches high. He was Lan’s height and more. The clay flesh had firmed and rippled with underlying muscle. The parody of a face sneered: rock eyes turned into black pools of hatred; cheek bones of twigs lifted into a squint; the simple gash mouth opened to reveal a whiteness Lan was only too familiar with.
It was the absolute whiteness found between worlds. Inyx had been lost in it and Claybore had tried to exile Lan once into that infinity. Now another creature of Claybore’s threatened them with it.
“Destroy them all, Rook,” shrieked Terrill.
Lan set his most powerful fire spell against Rook. Nothing happened. Conjuring an air elemental, the whirlwind whipping about the mud creature’s stick feet, did not even slow its inexorable pace. Opening a pit in front of Rook did nothing. It walked on emptiness.
“Brinke,” pleaded Lan. “I need your energy.” He did not find it. The woman’s entire being was tangled in Terrill’s immobility spell.
But help came. A feeble grasping at first firmed into something more substantial. Lan experienced it as a hand on his back, urging him forward, comforting him, giving him the courage to fight.
“Inyx,” he said softly. “Thank you.”
Rook’s bulging, sapling arms circled Lan’s body. Mud muscles tightened. The mouth opened to whiteness and turned to rip out his throat.
Lan Martak concentrated all his power into the light mote. His body slumped in Rook’s arms, more a corpse than lifelike. But the magical energies flowed like a mighty river. With Inyx’s encouragement and succor, Lan focused them into a stream of incalculable power. And this he refined into the single mote of light. It shot forward and into Rook’s obscen
ely gaping mouth.
Flames seared Lan’s eyebrows and hair. He stumbled back and fell heavily. Dried sticks and mud rained down on him and with the physical came more. Broken spells, tangled magics, bits and pieces of a long lifetime of being a sorcerer all poured into him, like water into a bucket. Lan not only destroyed Rook, he shattered Terrill’s mind once and for all time.
The burned out husk of a once-great mage stood in the clearing, all light gone from the eyes.
“He still lives,” said Brinke, released from Terrill’s spell. “But there is no life force.”
“You’re wrong,” Lan said. “The life force is all that’s left. Everything else has been drained. Terrill is, indeed, immortal and cannot be killed by ones such as we, but all that remains is a shell. He has no personality left, not even a deranged one. No volition, no sense of being alive.”
“How horrible,” muttered Ducasien.
“This might be a better existence than the one Claybore doomed him to,” said Inyx. “But I don’t think so. Lan, can you do anything for him?”
Lan didn’t answer. All the knowledge that had been sealed and unreachable in Terrill’s mind now unfolded for him. His powers doubled, trebled-more!
“I can do nothing,” Lan said. “That is still beyond my grasp.” He stretched out a hand to Inyx, who took it. Her eyes welled with tears as she saw within him the truth of all he said.
“He is surely doomed to be like this forever,” Inyx said. “The poor, poor man.”
“Friend Lan Martak,” came Krek’s shaky voice. “Behind you is the terrible woman. She again tries to do you harm. If you let her, can you then mate? This is so odd, backwards from the way we spiders do it. We mate first, then the female devours the male.”
Lan had forgotten about Kiska k’Adesina in the aftermath of the brief, mind-twisting battle with Terrill’s golem. He moved the barest fraction of an inch, not even taking his hand from Inyx’s, and let Kiska’s dagger pass harmlessly by his back.
Kiska spun like a jungle beast, dagger held point up in a knife-fighting position.
The snarl of feral rage on her face showed that she thought the time ripe for killing Lan.
Lan motioned for the others to hold.
“Kiska,” he said in a low voice, “you have tried to kill me for the last time.”
“Yes,” she hissed. “This time I succeed! And if they stop me, you’ll present the opportunity again for me to drive my knife into you, you weak, sniveling fool.”
She lunged and again Lan sidestepped.
“You can’t prevent me from killing you, can you, you lovesick bastard?”
“The geas Claybore laid upon me is a subtle and complicated one,” said Lan. “I have to admit to a certain admiration for the delicacy of the spell and the way Claybore wrapped it around my own vanity, ego, and need to best him. Yes, that’s what he did,” said Lan to Inyx. “As much as anything else, the geas fed my ego, making me think I was invincible.” He gave a tired little laugh.
“The irony of it is that I am invincible. Now.”
“Not to me, Martak. You love me. You love the source of your own death!”
Kiska viciously drove the dagger tip directly for Lan’s groin. The blade vaporized, taking with it her hand, wrist and most of her forearm.
“Yes, Kiska, I suppose I do still love you. The geas is strong, but I am now stronger. Terrill’s legacy to me.”
Kiska stared stupidly at her ruined hand. Her brown eyes lifted to Lan’s and a frightened look came into them. Lan made a small motion and Kiska k’Adesina fell to the ground, dead.
“You killed her.” Ducasien stared at the woman’s still body.
Brinke gasped and turned shades whiter. She put one hand over her mouth and backed from Lan.
Lan felt only sorrow for Kiska. She had been little more than a pawn in this world-spanning power game.
But Lan felt even sorrier for Brinke. She possessed enough knowledge to understand what he had become. And for Inyx, who saw inside him. She saw what he was still changing into.
“The real conflict lies ahead of us,” Lan said. “We can reach the Pillar of Night in a few minutes, if we hurry.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lan Martak heard them whispering about him as he strode forward. The awful forest silence became more and more oppressive to him and the small, half-heard words irritated him.
“Either speak your mind or stay silent,” he snapped.
“Lan?” Inyx fell into step beside him. “You’re acting as you did before. We all want to help.”
He looked into her blue eyes and saw nothing but admiration and love there. He fought to hold himself in check.
“You know how I feel? About Kiska?”
Inyx nodded.
Lan looked ahead, not wanting to meet her eyes. “I hate myself for killing her, but if any of you had done it, I couldn’t have stopped myself from exacting revenge. Claybore is a subtle monster. The geas still binds me.”
“She is dead.”
“I still love her.”
Inyx put her arm around his shoulder. When he tried to shrug it off, muscles as strong as any steel band tightened. Lan stopped fighting it and they walked on like this, not speaking. The time for words was long past between them. The communication flowed in both directions, but the power resided mostly within Lan’s mind. Inyx carried some small measure of his energy, his ability, but it was a weak reflection. She understood what he did-and why-but could not work those spells herself. Her part was to give him stability. He trod areas that had driven others insane. Inyx lent support and a firm basis from which to act, but the action itself had to well up from inside Lan Martak.
“We need the Resident,” he said.
“I know. Are you really so concerned about releasing him?”
“He was a god once, until Claybore stole his powers. I do not want the Resident wreaking vengeance on all humanity because of something Claybore alone has done.”
“He knows who is responsible.”
“But he’s a god and who can say what a god thinks?”
Inyx tightened her arm around Lan’s waist.
“No!” Lan snapped. “I am not a god. You know that. Look at me and tell me I’m not a god, also.”
“I can’t, Lan. What is within you is so much more than human it frightens me. Even knowing you as I do, I’m scared.”
“Friend Lan Martak,” called out Krek. “These odious vines are dribbling sap all over my legs. Can we not get free of this silly forest?”
“Soon, Krek. The Pillar of Night is close.”
“I know that,” the spider said testily. “I sense it just as I do the cenotaphs. The moving trees crowd in on me and there are not any good grubs or bugs to be found. I think I shall certainly starve to death unless we find some soon.”
“You wolfed down huge numbers of those grubs back on the other world, Krek. How can you be hungry again?”
Krek sniffed. “Kadekk might have been right. This whole venture is looking more foolhardy by the moment. She had a way about her, Kadekk did, even if she was only a mere spider.”
Inyx looked questioningly at Lan. “The spider he left in charge,” Lan explained to her. “Krek was Webmaster and had to delegate his authority to one of them. This Kadekk was the most capable.”
“She spun a fine web,” said Krek, “but certainly not one as fine as I. Friend Inyx, you should have seen my web treasure. A masterpiece. None like it for texture or intricacy of pattern.”
Lan stopped. Inyx’s arm tensed, then dropped away. The dark-haired woman stepped back beside Ducasien. Even she felt the radiance, the malevolence ahead.
“The Pillar of Night,” Brinke said. The regal blonde woman stopped beside Lan. Inyx wanted to go join Lan, but even the rapport she had with the mage wasn’t enough to be of any help. Only another adept might give him the keys he needed to unlock this terrible spell cast by Claybore so long ago.
“What are they doing?” asked Ducasien. “What are we
supposed to do?”
“We wait. You and me and Krek. Our job is done now. Theirs has just started.”
Ducasien fingered his sword and stood on tiptoe to peer through the trees to see what Lan and Brinke already “saw.”
“That’s it? Even when we were coming to this infernal forest in the belly of that infernal machine, I saw nothing.”
“The blackness,” said Krek. “That is the Pillar of Night.”
Ducasien stayed unimpressed until Lan gestured and the trees reluctantly began moving away at the command. Then the warrior’s attention riveted to the vast black expanse rising up.
Lan hastened the trees to one side and walked forward, his mind reaching out to lightly touch the surface of the Pillar. Brinke beside him, they stopped only a few feet from the light-devouring column. Lan looked up and experienced a few seconds of vertigo. The Pillar was so tall it appeared to be leaning out, toppling over. But the moving spikes atop it helped Lan get the proper perspective. He blinked a few times and all became clear.
All.
“Resident of the Pit,” he said, “we have come to release you.”
“I see your intent, Lan Martak. Free me, yes, but let me die. I have grown too weary to continue this existence.”
“We need your aid to conquer Claybore and his armies,” Brinke said. “You cannot refuse us.”
“Give me my wish and I shall do whatever I can to help.”
Lan did not speak. His mind worked over complex relations, spells, laws both mundane and arcane. The unlocking would be easier than he had thought. He had accumulated knowledge from so many sorcerers. Abasi-Abi on Mount Tartanius. Some of the gnome sorcerer Lirory Tefize’s grimoires. All the spells locked within Terrill’s mind. Even spells accompanying Claybore’s tongue. Lan swallowed and tasted the bitter metal in his mouth. It sickened him even as it fed him power, knowledge, confidence. Coupled with the lore gained from those sources, Lan’s own experimentations had built up an arsenal of magic unparalleled since the time of the Resident.
It was still not enough to defeat Claybore unaided. He needed the Resident of the Pit.
“Lan,” said Brinke, her voice husky with fear. “Claybore’s legions. They mass on the plains.” She pointed. Lan looked over his shoulder and tried not to panic.
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