[Cenotaph Road 05] - Fire and Fog Read online

  “You will get your worlds to rule,” snapped Claybore. “I have promised this.”

  “What game are you playing with Martak? Why didn’t you destroy him when you had the chance? Playing a cat and mouse with one so dangerous is foolhardy.”

  “If he bothers you so, Lirory, go and eliminate him. You have my permission.”

  Lirory Tefize studied the cracked, chipped skull for some hint of treachery. No glimmering of emotion showed to give a clue as to Claybore’s motives, but the gnome felt secure as long as he controlled the mage’s legs. Giving up the arms had been necessary to defeat Martak—temporarily—but Claybore would pay dearly for his legs. Dearly, indeed.

  “You will not care if I destroy him?” asked Tefize.

  “I’ve already dispatched one of my lieutenants to do so. If you can aid her, fine. Do so.” Claybore made a small motion of dismissal. Tefize almost staggered under the magical impact of that gesture. That brought home to him how dangerous was the game he played; but the gnome had defeated all the other mages of Yerrary. Claybore would prove no different.

  “This lieutenant of yours,” he asked. “I assume it is the woman, Kiska k’Adesina?”

  “Her hatred for Martak knows no limits. I decided to give him to her as a token of my gratitude for her loyalty.”

  Lirory knew the other sorcerer lied. Whatever went on, it would be more complicated than simply allowing one of his commanders sporting a hate for Martak to vent it. But what? Lirory Tefize didn’t know.

  “Martak will die,” he said, regaining his balance and starting back for the chamber. Already the gnome formed the spells that would reduce the upstart mage to a smoldering cinder. The human was adequate in his spells, but Lirory had experience. And with exhaustion preventing Martak from fully conjuring at the height of his ability, Tefize had no doubt the battle would end quickly, as it should have before.

  Claybore watched his ally depart. If that fleshless skull had possessed lips, they would have been drawn back in a sardonic smirk. Claybore turned in the direction of his legs, bathed in their wondrous radiance, pivoted, and went in a different direction, heading downward inside the hollowed-out mountain, down, down, down to the bowels of Yerrary.

  Claybore followed a path through the tumbled rock and partially excavated passages, his metallic legs clicking with effort. But his newly rewon arms aided him. A pass here, a gesture there and rocks turned to dust. He used precious energy in this display of magic, but the mage didn’t care. Simply having the power once more was an end in and of itself.

  The gnomes had neglected this portion of their mountain keep for decades—perhaps longer. Dust lay heavily wherever Claybore stepped, but the skull did not breathe, did not sneeze as the clouds billowed up around his hideous half-human, half-mechanized form. As he approached a small rock cairn, his steps slowed. Finally halting a few paces away, he simply stared at the ancient heap.

  Ruby beams lashed out at the rock pile and blasted it to gravel. Beneath where the rocks had been lay a cavity rimmed with a low wall, a pit dropping into the center of the planet itself. Claybore hesitantly advanced. Gone was all bravado. The shows of power were past. As much as any time in his existence he felt fear now, real fear at what lay trapped within this pit.

  The sorcerer bent forward at the hips and peered into the infinite blackness of the pit. He saw nothing. Spinning suddenly, his death beams lashing forth, he sighted on a small rodent. The creature let out a frenzied squeal, then keeled over. Claybore gently picked up the stunned form and squeezed with his hands. The feel of fur and living flesh beneath his fingers after so many eons thrilled him. He wanted to keep squeezing until life crushed from the rat. But he stopped. There was a better use for the creature.

  He cast the feebly kicking form into the pit.

  From far off something stirred. Darkness took shape and flowed, billowed, became a thing living as it sucked the vitality from the tiny blood offering.

  “You seek?” came a deeply resonant voice.

  “You know I do,” snapped Claybore. His fear knew no bounds at what lay within, but his anger at the pettiness overrode it.

  “You have not changed in the millennia I have known you, Claybore,” said the Resident of the Pit.

  “I’ve seen your shrines on a thousand worlds, Resident. I have spat on every one of them.”

  “Really, Claybore? Since Terrill sundered your parts, that must have required great magics on your part.” A rumbling chuckle boomed from the depths.

  “Terrill is no more. And you are trapped within. How does it feel to be a god and to lack power? Not to have worshippers believe in you? You scorn me but I live, I move freely. You are trapped, Resident of the Pit.”

  “Scorn? Yes, I feel that and more,” admitted the Resident. “But trapped? Hardly. I am a god and I am everywhere. On this world and on every other one in the universe.”

  “Are you on this world?” cried Claybore. His hands wove quickly in front of him. Above the pit appeared the same vision Lan Martak had seen. The ebony spire rose high above the plains on a world; sharp spikes radiated from the top of the pillar.

  “The Pillar of Night,” sighed the Resident of the Pit. “You know I am there, more than any other place.”

  “You know who put you there!”

  “Your triumph will be short-lived, Claybore.”

  “Short-lived?” Again Claybore laughed aloud, as much to release fear as in true mirth. “You have been trapped for ten thousand years. You call that short?”

  Almost imperceptibly came the answer, “Yes.”

  Claybore did not hear. He drew himself up to full height and bellowed forth his triumph at what he had done to his enemy. The Resident of the Pit had aided Terrill in his dismembering magics, but it had cost Terrill more than his life and had allowed Claybore the chance to imprison a god. A god!

  “You think to repeat your trick, using Lan Martak as your catspaw this time,” said Claybore. “It won’t work. He is a weak vessel for your magics and lacks the ability Terrill had. You cannot pour in power without rupturing him. Martak will fail, Resident, and you will remain imprisoned for another ten thousand years.”

  “Lan Martak has stood against you thus far,” said the Resident of the Pit.

  “He cannot be victorious when I have regained my legs. Even with only my arms in place, I feel the power in me. I feel it!” Claybore glowed all over in the reddish hue emanating from the eye sockets in his skull.

  “A petty trick hardly worthy of even an apprentice mage. Such tricks do not impress me,” said the Resident.

  “Yes,” sneered Claybore. “I keep forgetting. You are a god.”

  Again, a whisper, “Yes.”

  “My reign will span a million worlds—more! Power undreamed of will be mine. My legions already conquer most worlds along the Road. In time, they will all bow to me.

  “What then, Claybore? Have you thought of the consequences of winning? After you rule all worlds, what possible new goal can there be? What of the boredom then, not being able to achieve anything else in all the universe?”

  Claybore fell silent at this. Never had he considered the question. His fight for dominance had been too long, too bitter, too demanding to think of the future. For an immortal, being bored posed major problems.

  “It will take many millennia before that happens. By then, I may have a new adversary.”

  “You would create one to crush?” asked the imprisoned god.

  “Perhaps. If it pleased me. Until then, I will cherish the power I wield. All will bend their knee to me. Never since the creation of the universe will so many cry allegiance to one being.”

  “You would be a god, also?”

  “I am one, fool. I am not trapped in a pathetic hole in the ground. I am immortal. No matter what forces you bring to bear—what powers you give Martak—I cannot be slain. Terrill discovered that to his regret. He no longer exists as a human; I lived and will live forever!”

  “Your words take on shrillne
ss, Claybore. Do you truly believe that?”

  “It is the truth. Admit it is the truth!”

  “Is this a question you ask of me?”

  Claybore laughed at the Resident of the Pit.

  “I forgot. You’ve been reduced to little more than a wishing well, haven’t you? You must answer whatever questions are posed to you. Imprisonment has its penalties, doesn’t it, Resident?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. Is it not the truth that I will live forever?”

  Stirrings in the blackness in the pit showed the turmoil felt by the god trapped within.

  “You will live forever,” came the slow words.

  Claybore laughed and laughed and laughed.

  “Tell me one further thing. Will I triumph over Lan Martak and go on to rule all the worlds along the Cenotaph Road?”

  “Lan Martak will know infinite sorrow because of your doings, Claybore,” came the baleful words. “I feel my vitality slipping away. The life-offering you made was insufficient to maintain me on this world for long.”

  “Go on, then. Slip off to your real prison. And know who has done this to you. It is I, Claybore!”

  The shadows twisting in the pit stilled and only clammy, dead air remained in the chamber. Claybore laughed harshly one last time, spun on his mechanical legs, and stalked away. The Resident of the Pit had told him he would be victorious. His spells imprisoning a god—a god!—forced the Resident to always tell the truth when asked a question.

  Claybore thrilled in the knowledge of invincibility. Even his bitterest enemy had admitted it!

  “With a single twist I can break your neck,” Lan Martak told the captive woman. Kiska k’Adesina struggled in his grip, but failed to find a weakness. The man’s magic may have been drained for the moment, but his physical strength surpassed her own. She stopped fighting and hung limp in his stranglehold.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she demanded.

  “I ought to go ahead and snap your neck.” Lan thought furiously about what he would do with the woman. She was an enemy sworn to killing him in the most foul way possible.

  Turning her loose was ridiculous, yet he couldn’t bring himself to slay her in cold blood.

  But wasn’t that exactly what Kiska would do to him, given the chance?

  He shoved her onto hands and knees and picked up her rapier. Holding it lightly between thumb and forefinger, he moved the point around in tight circles. One single lunge would end a life—of a foe.

  Something moved within him that prevented the lunge and thrust. To kill her in this fashion would mean he was no better than she. He fought for freedom from Claybore’s tyranny; to kill Kiska k’Adesina in this fashion was to give in to the very principles he hated most.

  “Go on, coward,” she taunted. “End my life. Unless your manhood has withered and died.”

  “There’s a better way,” Lan said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, “but killing you isn’t it.”

  “Your black-haired slut would not hesitate.”

  Lan had to agree. Inyx’s sword would have leaped from its sheath in a smooth silver arc and made a deadly connection with Kiska’s throat. In such matters Inyx was much more like the spider Krek.

  “Release her,” came the cold words from off to his right. Lan spun, sword at ready. Lirory Tefize stood in the corridor, hands hidden inside his tunic. The gnome’s face pulled into a grimace of distaste that caused Lan to pause for just a moment.

  “Where’s Claybore?” he asked.

  “Release k’Adesina,” repeated Tefize. “Do so and I will spare your miserable life.”

  Lan knew better than to believe a mage, much less Claybore’s captive one. Wasn’t this gnome the one responsible for giving back Claybore’s arms?

  Lan spun and got behind Kiska, the blade resting lightly across her throat.

  “She dies unless you leave.”

  “An idle threat,” Tefize said angrily. “You had the chance to kill her and didn’t, for whatever reason. I believe it is because you are weak. And what makes you think she matters at all to me? She is Claybore’s pawn, not mine. She matters even less to me.”

  “Kill us both, Tefize,” cried Kiska. “Just be sure he is dead.”

  “Shut up,” Lan said, pulling the sword edge back harder across the woman’s throat. To the sorcerer he said, “You are more talk than before. Can it be you’re afraid to cast a spell for fear of injuring her? What would Claybore do to you if you harmed her? She’s important to him. She’s his sole remaining commander.”

  “She means nothing to Claybore,” Tefize said flatly.

  Lan had to admit the gnome was right. He began backing away, taking Kiska with him. Her thin body provided scant protection from a magical attack and barely more from a physical one.

  “Do not think to evade me so easily,” said Lirory Tefize. He lifted his hands and began a low incantation. Lan felt the magics rising about him like the ocean in a tidal basin. And with the magic came a twisting feeling within unlike anything he had ever experienced. It grew from the magic and yet was apart from it. He didn’t understand what it was that affected him so.

  But with the churning in his gut came a trickle of his own magical power. He hurled forth a protective spell that snuffed out Tefize’s assault totally. And using this as cover, Lan pulled the woman with him down a side corridor. His powers were still too feeble for a real attack and he had no desire to only fend off whatever spells Tefize cast in his direction.

  “Die, worm,” muttered Kiska k’Adesina. “Let the short one kill you. He will be more merciful than I when I get the chance.”

  Lan frowned at her words. They were familiar enough, but the tone changed subtly. Gone was the stark hatred and replacing it was—what? He didn’t know. The sharp edge of her insane need for revenge had been blunted somehow.

  “This way,” he said, dragging her down another corridor and another and another. Behind he felt magical heat. Lirory Tefize’s spells dogged their footsteps and still he lacked the strength to properly fend off the other mage. Lan knew better than to risk a physical attack. Such turned against the sword-wielder with the suddenness of a summer storm. Better to play for time until he regained his own powers.

  The weight of Lirory’s magics built up on him, though, until he barely managed to stagger. Deadly bolts of lightning ravaged the walls of Yerrary. Heat turned rock to slag. Pits opened almost beneath his feet, causing Lan to choose other paths through the mountain. And all the while he felt the changings within himself. Every time he formulated a spell of his own, the tickling sensation grew and confounded him even more.

  It did not sap his strength. It grew as his magical strength grew, but did not hinder him in any way. Lan cast it from his mind. Never before had he been so drained after a battle. This must be a compensation he had not been sensitive enough to feel before.

  “He’s getting closer,” said Kiska.

  “Afraid?”

  She turned brown eyes to him that caused the feeling within his breast to stir even more.

  “I won’t let Tefize hurt you,” he said, his voice almost choking him.

  “Martak!” came the mage’s taunting challenge. “Stand and fight! I will reduce you to a smoking cinder.”

  Heat blossomed in every doorway, trapping Lan and Kiska in the center of a chamber. Molten rock dripped down and blocked any possible escape, even if they had been able to enter one of the tunnels.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Kiska. “He’s trapped us.”

  Lan smiled. His light mote bobbed in the far distance, a distance of the mind rather than of space. He teased it along until his familiar came ever closer.

  “There’s a way out. Up there.” He pointed to the rock ceiling.

  “But it’s solid,” protested Kiska. “How can we…”

  The light mote surged upward and drilled effortlessly through stone and burst out of Yerrary. Cold air gushed down and b
athed their sweat-soaked bodies. A second gust of wind robbed Tefize’s heat spell of even more power.

  “Up. We go up.”

  “But that’s outside the mountain,” said Kiska. “We can’t live out there. It’s too dangerous!”

  Lan didn’t point out to her that staying within Yerrary was even more dangerous. He had recovered from his gargantuan battles with Tefize and Claybore, but not enough, not soon enough. There had to be a rest period to nurse himself back to full strength and ability.

  Arm circling Kiska’s trim waist, Lan rushed straight upward on a solid plug of rock rising from the floor. His mote spun in a network of light as it drilled free the rock plug and lifted. They burst onto the slopes of the mountain and staggered forward onto loose stone, stumbling and falling down into a ravine.

  “Tefize will follow,” said Lan. “We must be ready for him.”

  “No, he won’t follow,” said Kiska. “The gnomes hide within their mountain and seldom venture out. For them those tunnels are the entire world.”

  “Tefize is a sorcerer.”

  “It matters naught. He will not follow.” Lan sent his mote scouting and discovered the woman was correct. Lirory Tefize stood under the hole carved in the roof of his protective mountain and simply stared up at the nighttime sky. Lan recalled his light mote when Tefize stalked off through the corridors of Yerrary on his way to rejoin Claybore.

  “We’re safe,” Lan said, leaning back against cold rock. “It’s hard to believe he wouldn’t carry the fight outside.”

  “Is it?” asked Kiska. “This is an inhospitable world. Look at the storms.”

  In the far distance electrical discharges raged that made even his and Claybore’s pale in comparison. He sighed. The battles had been desperate and he was tired to the core of his being. Only a single acid droplet spattering on his forehead prevented him from slipping off to sleep. The burning brought Lan fully awake and aware.