[Cenotaph Road 05] - Fire and Fog Read online

  Tefize’s revealing the pillar of black to him had augmented his abilities, even as it had delayed him. Nothing had been gained in the exchange when he and Claybore compared relative strengths.

  But compared to other mages, Lan Martak knew he was the single most capable anywhere along the Cenotaph Road. He had gone beyond warrior and mage to… what?

  Lan Martak felt godhood within his grasp. Who else stood against Claybore? The moment of incomparable ambition passed and Lan found himself staring out into the chamber, Claybore and Tefize rapidly retreating down one of the corridors. He blasted forth a fire spell that only added wings to their feet.

  Then Lan noted a new danger. The gnomes who had done such a quick job digging out Claybore’s arms now circled him, approached, and menaced him with spades and pickaxes. He lifted his hand to send forth a simple spell that would freeze them in their tracks and found his arms leaden.

  “Stop!” he called out, using the Voice. All the power of Claybore’s magical tongue went into that command.

  The gnomes still advanced.

  Lan moved then as if he had been dipped in molasses. Legs moving sluggishly, he started forward, following Claybore. The gnomes lashed out, shovels smashing at his knees. He toppled onto his face.

  “I’m a god!” he raged. But his powers had been depleted, just as water in a reservoir is used during a drought. Lan had no idea how long it would be until his magics came flowing back. Even the simplest of spells eluded him.

  Unbelieving, he held out his hand and tried to make the elementary fire spell send sparks between his fingertips. Even before he had walked the Road he had been able to manage that much.

  Not now.

  An axe blade missed his head by a fraction of an inch. The gnome wielding the pickaxe cursed and struck again, this time grazing Lan. New head wounds opened and threatened to blind him.

  “Krek!” he called out, but the spider was nowhere to be seen. Lan felt abandoned—then a cold chill shook his body. He remembered the faint voice coming to him during battle, begging for aid. A simple wave of the hand had dismissed such foolishness.

  What had he done to Krek?

  A gnome kicked him in the side, sending waves of agony washing throughout his body.

  He stroked over the necklace of power stone he had been given in Wurnna. Some small measure of his magic returned, but not enough. Even this had been exhausted in his duels with Tefize and Claybore.

  “Claybore has left too early, it seems,” came a cold voice from further down the corridor. Lan rolled over, got to his feet, and stared at the woman, feeling nothing toward her, not even hatred. He was too exhausted for such a high level of involvement.

  “It has been a while, Kiska,” he said to Claybore’s remaining human commander.

  “It will be even longer before we meet again, Martak. You and I will meet only again in Hell!” The woman drew forth a long rapier and slashed at the air in front of her with it. The whishing noise caused the gnomes to step back. The woman’s visage told them not to interfere; her hatred for Lan Martak was complete. Her victory must be, also.

  “I can reduce you to a smoking cinder,” said Lan, standing his ground. Kiska k’Adesina advanced, the blade’s tip aimed directly between his eyes. Lan never flinched, but inside he quailed at the idea of being sliced apart. His magics had gone and his physical weakness was almost complete. He could barely stand after the magical battle.

  “Do it then, worm. You killed my husband. For that I’d love to see you die the death of a thousand cuts. One small cut. Not enough to bleed to death, but painful. And another and another. Soon enough the blood would flow from you like a river, from each little scratch.” She slashed at him, the sharp point cutting open his tunic and leaving a red track behind where she had lightly pinked his skin.

  “Claybore wants you to kill me?” he asked, curious.

  “I want to kill you. Claybore be damned.”

  “Claybore told me I’m immortal, that my magics are so great I will live forever. You can’t kill me.”

  “Then I’ll have the pleasure of hacking you to living pieces and feeding you to the dogs!”

  Another cut barely missed his cheek. The steel rang loudly against the stone wall. Lan retreated. His mind worked over the energy spells he knew. This was a desperate maneuver that would leave him even weaker than he was now, but he needed a bit of magic, a spell, a small geas—anything!

  “Don’t do this,” he said, putting all his power into using the Voice.

  Kiska k’Adesina advanced, lunged. The blade slid to one side as he deftly twisted.

  “I want you to resist,” the brown-haired woman said. When Lan had first met her, she had chased him into the mountains. He had wondered at this mousy-appearing woman who had risen so high in Claybore’s ranks, but he wondered no more. He read the insanity blazing within her like a forest fire. He might have killed her husband—he had and with grim pleasure because alLyk Surepta had murdered his lover and his sister—but this was only an excuse for the woman. If the death hadn’t occurred, Kiska k’Adesina would have found some other reason, some other cause.

  He again dodged her lunge.

  In the chamber, near the rim, Lan looked down into the pit. It fell at least a hundred feet.

  “No, worm, I won’t be confused into stepping over the edge. Your magics must be dimmed or you would have used them.” The smile contorting her face gave Lan a moment’s rush of fear. Only great effort allowed him to settle his emotions, to think, to act.

  Kiska lunged once more, point aiming true for his heart. Lan kicked out with his feet, felt the blade slide along the length of his chest, then fell heavily forward. His feet tangled the woman’s. One snapped down heavily on Kiska’s knee, while the other caught behind her foot. She flailed wildly before turning in air and crashing to the floor.

  The battle was not to be won so easily. Like a tiger, she regained her feet, but this time without her rapier.

  And a new factor entered the fight. Lan’s magics were still weak, but physical power returned.

  “I will kill you!” she shrieked, launching herself at him with fingernails drawn back into claws.

  Lan grabbed a wrist, turned, and dropped to his knee. Kiska flipped over and landed hard on her back. He gave her no chance to recover her wind. He dropped onto her chest with his knee, further forcing the air from her lungs. She turned white, then flushed a bright red as she struggled for air.

  As she gasped and weakly writhed on the floor, he scooped up her rapier. The first gnome coming within range died, the blade spitting him. Another ended up toppling into the pit when Lan kicked forth and landed a heavy boot on the gnome’s rear.

  The others turned and fled. Lan laughed, more and more physical power flooding into his body. By the time Kiska had regained her breath, Lan knew she could never again menace him.

  Physically he was as fit as he had ever been—and his magics seeped back.

  The only blot on his victory was Claybore’s recovery of both arms. But Lan pushed that from his mind. He had held off both Claybore and his captive mage Lirory Tefize. He could defeat them again.

  And he would.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “That’s not possible,” Inyx said forcefully. Her words stung the spider more than she intended. Even larger tears beaded at the corners of the huge dun-colored eyes before spilling over to drip onto the floor. Inyx went to Krek and put her arms around his chitinous thorax. He shook her off.

  “Friend Inyx, this is the end for me. I have endured so much in my life, but always have I thought Lan Martak’s allegiance to me a permanent one. I was wrong! I have been wrong about so many things. Why did I ever stray from my web? Why, oh why?”

  Ducasien shuffled nervously nearby, his hand rubbing over sword hilt. He appeared unsure whether to draw and hack at the giant arachnid, run, or stay and listen.

  Inyx left Krek momentarily and whispered to the man from her own home world.

  “He is distraught
. Lan has done something to him. A spell, perhaps. I don’t know why he’d do such a thing, but we have to find out. The two of them have been fast friends for longer than I have known Lan.”

  “He is rather large, isn’t he?” Ducasien said, eyeing the spider. Krek shivered and collapsed into an even smaller bundle on the floor. His long legs sprawled gracelessly, making him look like a felled tree with its roots pulled from the ground.

  “You’ve never been on a world with the mountain spiders?” Inyx raised one eyebrow in surprise, then remembered how few worlds she’d seen with the spiders. Without Krek and Lan accompanying her, she might never have found even a single valley filled with the monstrous webs and the incredibly fragile-appearing aerial walkways traveled by the beasts.

  “I’ve seen some odd things, but nothing to compare.”

  “He’s not odd,” she snapped. “Sorry,” Inyx said in a softer tone. “This is making me edgy. I can understand swordplay. I can even understand courtly intrigues and the backstabbing of politics, but dealing with Krek is different.” She turned toward Ducasien and almost whispered, “He’s my friend.”

  “You don’t want to see him hurt. I understand that,” said Ducasien. “How can I help?”

  “What? You don’t have to. This isn’t your fight.”

  “I want to make it my fight,” he said, looking directly into her vivid blue eyes. Inyx felt the current of emotion flowing between them and fought it. She didn’t want it. Not like this. She had other battles to fight, other loves to win—loves that had been won. Lan wandered inside this hollowed mountain, needing her. That he had dismissed Krek in such a cavalier fashion indicated that.

  Not for a moment did Inyx believe Lan had abandoned Krek. Put a geas on him to save him, yes. That was fully within her powers to understand. Lan might even have said something in the heat of battle that the spider had misinterpreted. Krek’s mind was not human; his thoughts followed devious paths not shared by nonarachnids.

  “Krek,” she said, “tell me everything that happened.”

  The spider lamented a bit further, then finally unraveled the tale of battle at the rim of the pit.

  “… the ledge crumbled away so I swung out on a strand of web and dangled over the pit waiting for him. When I called, he… he dismissed me.”

  “Do you remember his exact words?” asked Ducasien.

  Krek turned one eye toward the man and said, “I do not know you.”

  Inyx spoke quickly to introduce them. Krek remained in his despondent state.

  “I ask only to help you,” said Ducasien. “There might be a clue in the manner of his speech, the way he said the words. After all, you were in mortal combat. The slightest of mistakes might have meant both your deaths.”

  “That is the odd thing,” said Krek. “Claybore said that Lan Martak could never die. It… it affected him so strangely. He both grew in stature and shrank.”

  “Shrank?” asked Inyx, puzzled.

  “He took on greater magical abilities. I felt the ebb and flow of his power as if it were some palpable force. But something fled from within him, too. He became diminished from what he had been.”

  “That’s the answer,” said Inyx. “Claybore cast a spell on him.”

  “I sense magic. The tide of battle did not go in that direction. This was something within Lan Martak. And that was when he tossed me aside like a well-gnawed insect carcass.” Krek pulled in his long legs until he occupied a space hardly larger than the length of Inyx’s sword. Anyone passing by in the corridor might even mistake Krek for a coppery colored boulder.

  “What do you think?” Inyx asked of Ducasien.

  “Magic is alien to me. I know only what I have overheard and most of that is boast or outright lie. Never have I actually confronted a sorcerer.”

  “You are new along the Road,” said Inyx. “In spite of what Krek says, I don’t think Lan willingly chased him off. To protect him, yes. To warn us, yes. But I know Lan. He would never ignore a friend in need.”

  “People change,” said Ducasien.

  Inyx turned and her eyes flashed angrily.

  “Lan did it to protect him. I know it.”

  Ducasien fell silent and Inyx’s anger cooled. She worked over the events in her mind and came to an uneasy realization. Lan Martak had changed since she’d met him. While their love had deepened and taken on an intimacy she had never dreamed of—the mental link between them when they were together revealed both their most intimate thoughts—Lan was not the man she had met so long ago. He had grown and in that growth had changed. His magical powers demanded more of him than she’d thought any human could deliver. He had delivered and kept on growing in ability. Had he reached the point where he no longer controlled the forces flowing about him? Did the magics now control him?

  “Could he truly be immortal?” asked Ducasien, breaking the woman’s train of thought. “I have heard of such but, well, I believed those to be wild tales told over a mug of wine.”

  “Immortal? Lan? Hardly,” she said, but the words rang hollow and she felt fear gripping at her belly. The cold within refused to go away because Inyx worried that Lan might have become more than mortal. Immortal? If so, he was lost to her forever. She would be only an ephemera in his life, a moment’s diversion in an eternity of experience. Would he even remember her name in a thousand years? In a hundred?

  She shook off such nonsense. Lan was not immortal.

  “There are—” began Ducasien, but his words were cut off by a wild cry echoing down the stony corridor. The sound of heavy boots clattered and scraped against rock and soon enough Broit Heresler stumbled into view.

  “Help,” he gasped out. “We have been attacked. The Tefize clan invaded our territory. They try to kill us all!”

  The gnome had been battered almost beyond recognition. Crimson flowed in spurting streams over his face and soaked his collar and shoulders. His right hand rested limply within his tunic and his left arm carried a deep cut caked over with dried blood.

  “You know this one?” asked Ducasien, his sword out and pointed at Broit.

  “Yes, he befriended us outside. We fought together and then got separated within the mountain.”

  “Which clan is he?” asked Ducasien.

  “Heresler. The gravediggers.” Inyx saw the tall man relax a bit, his sword point dropping from target. “What do you know of them?”

  “They are friendly enough,” Ducasien answered, “and have helped me a time or two. The Tefize kill any who stray into their corridors. The Nichi are little better.”

  “You’ll come to our assistance?” asked Broit Heresler, falling to his knees and almost fainting from the pain caused by his wounds.

  “Inyx?” The man looked at the dark-haired woman for her response.

  “We’ll help. What else can we do? We need friends inside Yerrary and the Hereslers are our best bet.”

  “The Heresler clan will not forget this. We will give you the finest funeral, the best grave site, the most pallbearers of any of those whom we have buried. I promise it!”

  “How touching,” Ducasien said dryly.

  “It’s their life,” said Inyx, cautioning the man not to make further comment on this. “Where is the fighting?”

  Broit Heresler pointed in the direction he had come.

  “Krek? Will you aid us? Our friends need us.”

  “Lan Martak does not need us. He does not need me. He told me to go away as if I were a mere spider, a servant; worse!”

  “I need you. The Heresler clan needs you. And we’ll find Lan and get this straightened out.”

  “There is nothing to straighten out, friend Inyx.” Krek heaved himself to his feet and shook like a dog just out of a pond. “Of course I will fight alongside you. You are all that I have left.”

  Inyx didn’t want to argue with the spider. She patted him on one nearby leg and then helped Broit Heresler to his feet. The gnome tottered precariously but showed more strength in walking than she’d given him cre
dit for. The rolling gait reminded her of a sailor long at sea finally come ashore, but Broit managed to make good time in spite of his unsteadiness caused by his wounds. Within minutes she heard the first sounds of battle.

  A surge of anticipation seized the woman. She had been raised for combat. Her hand tightened on the hilt of her sword, then she took a deep breath. Inyx let out a bloodcurdling yowl of attack, then rushed forward.

  Her frontal attack momentarily scattered the Tefize and gave Broit a chance to regroup his beleaguered grave-diggers. Inyx swung her sword in a smooth, economical arc, cutting at wrists and necks, lunging for exposed throats and groins, and even occasionally lancing through to an eyeball. In minutes her blade dripped gore.

  Ducasien came to stand beside her, guarding her left, giving her encouragement.

  “You fight like a legion. There is no way they can defeat us if you keep up this pace!”

  Inyx flashed him a smile, then said, “Shut up and fight, dammit. They’ll swarm over us like locusts if we don’t account for more of them soon.” Inyx disengaged her blade from a probing broom handle, cut over, and lunged. The Tefize gnome let out a gusty sigh as he died—but another rushed forward to take his place. And another and another.

  Even with Ducasien helping, Inyx found herself being beaten back. The crush of numbers overwhelmed them and their position.

  Inyx shouted out to Broit Heresler, “We need to retreat. Lead the way to a safer spot where we can make a stand.”

  “There is no safer spot,” the gravedigger moaned out, clutching his injured right arm. “This is the heart of Heresler territory.”

  Inyx took the opportunity to glance about her. If this was the Heresler stronghold, they were indeed in serious trouble. Everywhere she looked lay dead gnomes—all diggers—and the phosphorescent moss growing on ceilings and walls had been ripped off in many spots, giving an eerie cast to all that happened within the chamber.

  Death moved in green-glowing shadows.

  The Tefize launched a redoubled attack that bowled Inyx over. She lost her sword and pulled forth her dagger to hamstring and jab at muscular bodies washing over her—but the woman knew it was all in vain. They had her and would quickly destroy her.