[Cenotaph Road 06] - Pillar of Night Read online

The dagger danced about in her trembling hand. She swallowed hard and sank to her knees. “I can’t,” she muttered. “I can’t!”

  Lan looked at her and, in that moment, shared the frustration. The spell Claybore had wrought bound them both. Whatever the disembodied mage had in mind, the time was not yet right for the trap to spring. Lan Martak recognized the deadliness of having Kiska beside him and could do little to prevent it. If anything, knowing Claybore’s spell would suddenly erupt into violence and death—and not knowing the exact instant—made the waiting all the more excruciating.

  “Defend yourself,” Lan said. “These grey-clads will kill anyone with me.”

  “No, they… won’t,” she said, unsure.

  The first arrow barely missed Kiska’s right arm. She jerked back and stared in disbelief at the feathered shaft buried in the soft turf.

  “Fight or die,” Lan said. His heart raced now, as much for his own safety as for the woman’s. Damn Claybore!

  A flight of arrows from the shadows caused Lan to drop behind a stump for cover. He reached out and pulled Kiska flat. The second barrage from the soldiers was instantly followed by six men with drawn swords.

  “A spell!” Kiska cried. “Fry them with a fireball!”

  Lan’s blade slashed across the first man’s eyes, sending him reeling back into the ranks with blood fountaining. Another thrust to the throat slipped under a sergeant’s gorget and penetrated the Adam’s apple. A heavy boot broke another’s wrist.

  “Fight!” Lan cried to Kiska. “Would you see me slaughtered here and now?”

  “Yes,” she hissed, but the woman was on her feet, dagger seeking target after target. Claybore’s spell still cut both ways. Lan and Kiska might hate one another, but they were tightly bound together. Until that indeterminate time arrived when Claybore’s diabolical trap would be sprung, Kiska had to fight to save her “lover,” just as Lan fought to save Kiska.

  Another half-dozen arrows winged toward Lan. Reflex action caused him to use a fire spell; the arrows burst into flame and turned to ash inches from his chest. He lunged and caught another soldier on the upper arm, putting him out of the fray.

  “How many of them are there?” moaned Kiska. She was covered with blood—Lan couldn’t tell how much was hers—and obviously weakened. She had retrieved a fallen sword and used it, but the greys still swarmed from the safety of the woods. Only the slight rise gave Lan and Kiska a fighting advantage.

  “Too many,” said Lan. He didn’t want to use another spell, but he had no other choice. Alerting Claybore of his presence was not as immediately dangerous as dying on the sword point of one of Claybore’s soldiers.

  Lan’s lips moved imperceptibly, the spell forming. The full power of the tongue resting within his mouth would be sent forth at the proper instant.

  “They all attack!” cried Kiska.

  “Die!” Lan commanded, using the Voice.

  Fourteen of the grey-clads stopped, stiffened, then dropped their weapons. For the span of three heartbeats not a single soldier moved. Then they slumped to the ground like rows of wheat being harvested.

  “Such power,” Kiska said softly, looking at Lan. “Claybore’s tongue is mightier than all their swords.”

  Lan tried forming the spell again, this time directed at Kiska. He failed, as he had known he would.

  “Claybore now knows I have come after him,” said Lan. “I had hoped for more time to study this world.”

  “You can see the Pillar of Night?” asked the woman. She shoved the sword into the soft dirt and wiped it free of blood. Kiska searched through the ranks of the fallen soldiers until she found a sword-belt that fit her. She draped it around her waist, the sword tugging down and swinging at her left side.

  “What do you know of it?” asked Lan.

  “Nothing,” she said blithely, enjoying the torment it caused Lan. “Claybore mentioned it once or twice. That’s all.”

  He knew Kiska lied. She knew more than a casual mention by the dismembered sorcerer. But what?

  Lan closed his eyes and “looked” around him. A pale glow pulsed from a spot a few hours’ walk away. The light warmed Lan, made him smile in fond recollection. Here was an ally. Perhaps not one overly dependable, but an ally nonetheless. Without a word to his companion, Lan started through the forest toward the green beacon of magic.

  “Here,” said Kiska with some distaste. She held out the kicking, clawing badger for Lan to take.

  “Do it,” he said, pointing. “Toss the beast into the well.” Kiska obeyed. The badger twisted and tried to savage her hand, but it was too late. Falling, the creature dwindled to a point of brown and then vanished into inky darkness. For some time nothing happened. Then the absolute blackness within the well began to churn and move, to take form, to rise.

  “What have you conjured?” Kiska said, backing away from the lip of the well.

  “I should have tossed you into the pit,” Lan said.

  Inchoate space pulsed with life now and a somber voice said, “Welcome, Lan Martak. You have arrived, as I knew you would.”

  “Where is Claybore?” asked Lan.

  “On this world,” came the Resident of the Pit’s sly answer.

  “How do I fight him?”

  “With all your skills.”

  Lan pondered. The Resident always answered questions honestly, but obliquely.

  “How has Claybore imprisoned you?” Lan asked.

  “There is no answer for this, Lan Martak,” came the baleful answer. “If I knew the exact spells, I might free myself of them.”

  “You are, after all, a god,” said Lan.

  “A deposed one,” said the Resident of the Pit, “and one willing to die. Eternity is too long for me. I have been trapped within this pit for thousands of years.”

  “The pit?” asked Kiska. “It opens onto other worlds? I saw one such as this back in Yerrary.”

  “I,” said the Resident, “am everywhere and nowhere. On every world there are wells similar to this one, but none worships me now. Claybore has thwarted me.”

  Kiska laughed. “I know you now. Terrill was your pawn, wasn’t he? He tried to free you from the Pillar of Night and failed.”

  “True,” said the Resident.

  Lan frowned. He walked in circles around the mouth of the pit, occasionally looking into the writhing mass of insubstantial blackness trapped within.

  “Am I also your pawn?” asked Lan.

  “I aid you in whatever manner I can,” said the Resident. “I will tell you this, and nothing more because of the spells binding me: the Pillar of Night is both Claybore’s strength and his weakness.”

  “I must destroy it?”

  The whirlpool of blackness spun, then slackened in speed, dipped back into the pit and vanished, shadow melting into shadow.

  Lan’s frustration rose. It always proved thus with the Resident of the Pit. Vague hints, nothing definite, warnings too general to be meaningful.

  “Now that you’ve enjoyed my fair world,” came Claybore’s taunting words, “it is time for you to leave. Goodbye, Martak!”

  The attack came from all directions at once. Lan fell to his knees under the onslaught of magics. Spells of mind-numbing complexity worked to burn away his flesh. His eyes expanded within his skull and threatened to explode. His genitals itched. Sounds shrill and deafening assaulted his ears even as bass vibrations shook his internal organs, churning one against the other. He clapped hands over his ears and screwed shut his eyes to protect himself.

  And the attack grew.

  “Stop!” he commanded, the Voice ringing from his lips. The magical tongue burned in his mouth and tasted foul with its metallic tang. But the single word caused the slightest of cracks in the battering ram of spells Claybore used against him.

  That small crack widened as Lan regained his senses. He twisted magically and stood in relative calm.

  Both mages surrounded themselves with protective bubbles of intricate, ever-changing magics.

>   “You have progressed,” said Claybore. “Even in the brief months since we parted company, you have learned much.”

  Lan said nothing. To Claybore it might have been months. For him it was mere hours. Time flowed differently between the worlds—and Lan realized for the first time that Claybore’s Kinetic Sphere gave the other mage instant translation between worlds. Lan’s self-taught spells were of a different nature and might have produced the time delay.

  He studied Claybore and saw that the sorcerer’s arms produced new and different patterns of glowing air before him. Reds flowed into greens only to burst into brilliant white pinwheels that sent sparks in all directions! Lan wished he had prevented Claybore from recovering his arms; the added power in Claybore’s conjurations was instantly apparent.

  “You have repaired your legs,” Lan said.

  Claybore did not glance down. The fleshless skull atop his shoulder lacked eyes. In the deep sockets ruby light swirled about, waiting to form death beams. The skull’s lower jaw had been destroyed, but the cracks Lan had caused in the white bone had been patched.

  “A master mechanician labored for weeks to rebuild my legs. They are better than ever.” Claybore flexed one of the metal wonders. Lan saw the bright points of magic powering the legs. He snuffed out one of the spots and Claybore almost fell.

  “Damn you!” snarled the sorcerer. The power point returned and Claybore straightened.

  “Let’s go on a trip, shall we?” asked Lan, his voice deceptively mild. “Now!” This time he put all the prodigious power of the Voice into his spell.

  The pair of them tumbled through the air, spinning and turning about as magics carried them aloft.

  Lan’s view of the world widened and what he saw he liked. It struck him as a crime that one such as Claybore could befoul such a bucolic place with his presence. Claybore would not rule this world—or any other! He kept the other sorcerer off balance by shifting the force of gravity, slackening in places and augmenting in others.

  “A trick, Martak, but not good enough.” Claybore’s fingers wiggled and new patterns of burning light shone forth. The tumbling ceased and they rocketed around the world, moving faster and faster until Lan fought for breath. The rushing air burned at his clothes, made his tunic smoulder, set the leather grips of his sword ablaze.

  “Cool!” he commanded, the Voice again producing the desired results. The friction-fed fires died as light breezes wafted past him. Lan Martak breathed normally now and began building an assault against Claybore that combined every deadly spell he knew into one vicious, icepick-slender thrust.

  Claybore screeched inhumanly as the magical dagger sank deep. The Kinetic Sphere turned bright red and began melting within the sorcerer’s chest. Claybore begged for release. Lan refused.

  “I hadn’t thought I had the power to defeat you, Claybore,” he said. “I was wrong. This is the moment of your death.”

  “I cannot die,” grated out Claybore. “I am immortal. We are immortal.”

  “Terrill found your weakness. So have I.” Like a small boy pulling the wings off an unwilling insect, Lan Martak plucked the Kinetic Sphere from Claybore’s chest and sent it spinning across the heavens. The cavity where it had beat heartlike in the other mage’s chest began to putrefy. The edges of flesh in the torso gleamed with pinkish fluids that dripped into space. Lan pressed his attack even more.

  “You have enslaved millions. You would enslave and torture more. I will stop you. I, Lan Martak!”

  The power was on him. Lan felt it building up and flowing like a river through his body. He could not fail. He was invincible. He was immortal. He was a god!

  “Look!” sobbed Claybore.

  The sleek black column rose from the plains below them. Lan blinked. This had to be the Pillar of Night. The spikes ringing the ebon top of the shaft rotated slowly as he watched. And something stirred within him. The Resident of the Pit had said this was Claybore’s strength and his weakness.

  How? What was it? What did it mean?

  The distraction proved Lan’s undoing. Even as the sight of the Pillar of Night captivated him, he felt his spells weakening.

  “Enjoy eternity, Martak,” came the sorcerer’s distant, haunting words. “Enjoy the nothingness between worlds, for it will be your home forever!”

  Lan Martak turned and took a single step forward into… ghostly whiteness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Rainbows filled her universe. The distant roar Inyx always experienced when shifting from one world to the next using the cenotaph seemed muted this time, but she paid it little attention. This was the first time in many months she had walked the Road without Lan beside her.

  The dark-haired woman didn’t know if she liked that or not.

  “This looks fair enough, even for ones like ourselves,” said Inyx’s companion. Ducasien stretched mightily and yawned, rubbing his stubbled chin and walking about the small graveyard. They had emerged on a hillside looking down on a barren expanse stretching off to a meandering river, its banks bursting from the spring runoffs.

  “There’s promise in the air,” she agreed.

  Behind her came a low moan and a rattling noise. She turned to see the giant spider Krek emerging from the cenotaph. Huge mandibles moved aside the stone coffin lid and as easily moved it back when the arachnid was fully transported into this world.

  “What’s wrong, Krek?” she asked.

  “Oh, friend Inyx, it is terrible, so positively terrible. I ache all over. My exoskeleton is in terrible shape. Look at the dents, the horrid gashes, even the burn marks. Burn marks! Why did I ever do such an insane thing? Why?”

  “What’s that?” asked Ducasien.

  “Leave my lovely bride Klawn and go a’wandering along the thrice-cursed Road,” answered the spider, glad to find a human willing to listen to his plight. “You have not seen gentle, petite Klawn, have you, friend Ducasien?”

  “Can’t say that I have,” the man admitted. He frowned in confusion. Inyx caught his eye and made gestures indicating “petite” Klawn was even larger than Krek.

  Krek stuck out his long, coppery-furred legs and scraped chitinous talons on the tips against a tombstone.

  “Nicks. There are nicks in my talons. A disgrace. No Webmaster allows himself to deteriorate so. I shame myself. Oh, woe!”

  “There, there, Krek,” soothed Inyx, putting her arm around the middle pair of the spider’s legs. “The acid burns will go away. Your fine fur will grow back, in time. And there’s an entire world to explore. Klawn may not be here, but think of the adventure!”

  “Lan Martak is not here, either,” said the spider.

  Inyx noted that Krek had not used his usual title of “friend” in referring to Lan.

  “Lan fights battles we cannot share,” she told the mountain arachnid. The woman knew she had to choose her words carefully or she’d break down and cry. “He follows his own path along the Road, and it split apart from ours.”

  “He was my friend and he betrayed me,” moaned Krek. “What did I do to deserve such hypocrisy?”

  “It wasn’t your fault, old spider,” spoke up Ducasien. “He plays with the magics and they are possessing him. We’re better rid of him, if you ask me.” The man’s gaze did not waver when Inyx glared hotly at him. “Martak thinks only of himself, not you. Nor of Krek.”

  The accusation hurt Inyx, but she couldn’t deny it. Lan had changed. Drastically. While she knew some of it had to do with the geas placed on him by Claybore, more of it came from within the man. The magical powers grew and changed his values. He had become obsessed with stopping Claybore and—what? Becoming a god? Inyx no longer mattered to him.

  But he still mattered to her. A great deal.

  “We can find whatever we want on this world. I feel it in my bones,” said Ducasien. He placed a powerful paw of a hand on her shoulder. She smiled weakly and nodded.

  “This is not my sort of place,” Krek said unexpectedly. “I do like you both, I do. Believe th
at, friends Inyx and Ducasien. But there is a wrongness to this place that disturbs me.” The spider heaved himself to his feet and lumbered about the graveyard. Krek stopped when he came to another grave marker. His talons and strong legs began pulling at the stone.

  “What is it, Krek?” Inyx asked.

  “Another cenotaph. Most unusual finding two in one spot. This might be a world of great heroes. Alas, I am not a hero. I am a coward, a fool, worse. I leave web and bride and wander aimlessly. I am lost.”

  “Krek?”

  “No, friend Inyx. Let me be. A new cenotaph opens. I sense this world to be one more to my liking.”

  “We’ll come with you…” Inyx started.

  “No!” Krek shook all over, his head swiveling from side to side. “Stay. Explore. Find peace, if you can. I am doomed to wander, though this new world is strangely appealing to me. Farewell, friend Inyx. May your sword arm always be strong, friend Ducasien.”

  “Krek, wait!” Inyx started forward, but Ducasien pulled her back. Krek folded up his eight long legs and hunkered down into the exposed crypt. A dull purple haze rose from within the grave and tugged at Krek’s body, pulling him to another world along the Cenotaph Road.

  “Why did he do that?” Inyx asked, stunned. “He wanted to come with us. Why leave like this?”

  Ducasien looked at her and then said, “Being with us will continue to remind him of all he had when you and Martak were together. Rather than face such painful memories, he prefers being alone once more. He’ll be all right. From what I’ve seen of Krek, he’s a fighter and will emerge victorious, no matter what the battle.”

  Inyx felt as if a piece of her had been forcibly removed and cast into another world. Losing Lan in the way she had was painful, but losing Krek, too, made it even worse. She sat and stared dry-eyed at the empty crypt where the arachnid had vanished. The grave and her insides shared one thing in common: hollowness. The woman felt drained of all emotion until only hopelessness remained.

  Ducasien lifted her and held her tightly. “Krek’ll be fine,” he said. “Most important, you’ll be fine. We’re together now. That matters, doesn’t it?”