Iron Tongue

Robert E. Vardeman
CHAPTER ONE

" Where is he?" dark- haired, fiery- eyed Inyx demanded of Knoton. " Where is Alberto Silvain?"

" The human leader of the grey soldiers?" If metal shoulders could have shrugged, Knoton' s would have done so. The mechanical' s expression defied interpretation, but the way the body canted forward indicated an intense desire to discover their adversary' s location. " I have patrols out looking into every room of this palace. If he is within the walls, he' ll be found. We look most of all for the Lord."

Lan Martak limped in and sat heavily on an ornately carved ash footstool. The way Knoton stared at him told Lan how bad he actually looked. He felt worse. If someone had reached inside and ripped his heart out, he couldn' t have been in a more debilitated state. The use of magic had pushed him beyond the limits of his endurance. Being cast into the Lord' s maze had almost killed him. The long fight to regain freedom had taken a further toll. And now he had to perform still another task: finding Alberto Silvain.

" The Lord of the Twistings isn' t a concern any longer. He will never again trouble you." The mechanical seemed inclined to doubt the human' s opinion, but Lan was too tired to argue. What little strength he still possessed had to be saved for the battle to be joined all too soon. " But Silvain is another matter. He poses an immediate threat."

" Impossible."

" With Claybore backing him, the threat is incalculable," continued Lan. He fought blacking out, wondered if it were worth the effort not slipping into Lethe. " Claybore conquers entire worlds. As he regains his body' s parts and reconstructs himself, his power grows. The Lord of the Twistings was a powerful mage. He blended magic with the mechanical wondrously well, but Claybore is more powerful. He controls energies we cannot begin to comprehend."

Lan Martak let out a long, low sigh and felt the blanketing darkness creeping over him. He fought it off as long as he could. Silvain was the sorcerer Claybore' s chief assistant. Eliminate him and Claybore' s plans would be dealt a severe setback. But the effort of controlling his body- and holding back the fear and dread he had of Claybore- became too much. Sweet oblivion took him. Lan succumbed to the warmth of that embrace.

" Silvain is still within the palace," said Lan Martak. " Where, I can' t say. But he' s waiting for something."

" The cenotaph," spoke up Krek. The more- than- man- high giant spider towered over his human companions. Bouncing slightly on his coppery- furred legs, the huge arachnid appeared ready to jump. While Inyx and Lan were used to him, Knoton was not. The mechanical kept his distance from the ferocious- appearing beast. " You remember the one we ' felt' yesterday?" Krek reminded Lan.

" Yesterday?" Lan sat upright, momentarily dizzy. " I' ve been asleep for an entire day?"

" A bit less. The cenotaph opened and closed. Perhaps he waits for it again."

" Why do you seek a cenotaph?" asked Knoton, overcoming his distaste for the spider enough to question the humans. " What has this to do with finding Silvain?"

" A magically endowed cenotaph," explained Inyx, " allows us passage from world to world. Claybore has regained the Kinetic Spherehis heart. He can walk the Road at will; we must use less sure paths opened by others."

" Friend Lan Martak is able to open cenotaphs for us to walk," said Krek. The huge spider clacked his mandibles in a menacing fashion. Knoton tried unsuccessfully to ignore him.

" You appear to be the match for these interlopers," said Knoton, eyeing Lan dubiously. The young adventurer looked the worse for his experiences. Learning magics in the Twistings had sapped his mental vitality, and battles with the Lord of this world had added cuts and abrasions to his body.

" Where' s the graveyard?" Lan demanded of Knoton. " I sense the openings and closings, but I' m too weak to pinpoint the exact cenotaph he' ll use."

" I know where it is. I have not been slumbering away my life while desperate characters like this Silvain rush about uncaptured."

" Take me there. Let' s all get there. Don' t waste time!" Lan cursed to himself all the way out of the palace and toward the back lawns. Inyx had to give him more support than he' d have liked. He vowed that the first thing he' d do when all this was behind them was rest for a week, then spend another week with Inyx in more enjoyable pursuits.

Afterward:.

He cursed the burdens placed upon him. Stopping Claybore from seizing power in every world along the Cenotaph Road was a duty better suited to a mage trained for the task, a mage as powerful as the legendary Terrill. Lan Martak had begun on a pastoral world that was just developing the magical contrivances that abounded on so many other worlds. He had grown up hunting, finding peace and tranquility in nature, depending on his strong arm and steady nerve for a living. But that was all past. Now Lan Martak got pulled deeper and deeper into the vortex of incomprehensible magics swirling between worlds. Where once he had used simple fire- starting spells to cook dinner, now he wrought magics able to smash armies and send entire planets spinning crazily into their suns.

He alone of those adventurous souls walking the Cenotaph Road had the power and ability to stop Claybore from reconstructing his scattered body and becoming the greatest despot of myriad histories.

They made their way out onto the neatly cropped lawn, down the path and toward a small stand of trees. From this close, Lan " saw" the cenotaph- or cenotaphs. No fewer than eight neatly tended crypts clustered in this minuscule graveyard.

" I' ve never seen so many in one place."

" Nor I," agreed the spider. " This is a world of strange contrasts. Obviously great courage is possible. Perhaps that goes with great evil, also."

" What are these cenotaphs?" asked Knoton. " You humans speak of them as if they were the most marvelous things in the world."

How could flesh and blood ever explain the concept of death to a mechanical? Or was it possible that mechs recognized disassembly in the same way? Lan didn' t have the energy to explore the topic at the moment.

" They open gateways to other worlds by tapping the spirits of those dead but never properly interred. Using the Kinetic Sphere- his heart- Claybore walks the Cenotaph Road at will now, collecting hidden body artifacts. Silvain and others aid him; we oppose them."

" Succinctly put," came Alberto Silvain' s words. Lan spun, reaching for a magical death tube at his belt. His hand froze halfway there when he saw that Silvain aimed one of the weapons directly at Inyx' s head. The commandant of Claybore' s grey- clad troops laughed, saying, " So it' s as I surmised. You' d face your own death willingly enough to stop me- and Claybore. But you won' t risk her life. Claybore will find that interesting."

" You know what he' s trying to do," said Lan, trying to find the most convincing words. " Join us, oppose him."

" I side with winners."

" Like the not very lamented Lord of the Twistings?" asked Krek, his voice curiously mild and childlike for a creature so large.

" I had no choice in his case. Claybore ordered me to support him. Given the chance, I would have removed him permanently. I see that our lovely Inyx did that and more. She has a ruthlessness in her that I admire."

" I' d rip out your liver and stuff it down your throat, if I could," the woman said, her tone low and menacing. She jerked against the man' s strong forearm, held in a bar across her throat. Attempting to sink teeth into his flesh availed her little. He turned just enough to prevent any damage.

" See? Such an admirable display of courage. Too bad I must kill you all before joining Claybore."

" He' s not doing too well regaining his tongue." Lan made it a statement, not a question.

" How' d you know: Ah, a trick. There is no way you can know what happens on that world. You don' t even know which world he' s on. But as you have already learned from me in a careless moment, yes, progress is much too slow. I am now free of this world and can aid him. Then I shall return to this world and make it my own personal domain. He' s promised me."

" The cenotaph opens," said Krek.

Alberto Silvain jerked slightly in his eagerness to leave behind the world of his defeat. Inyx ducked, pulled free, then rolled behind a gravestone. The death beam lashed out and blew the marker into tiny stone fragments. Silvain poised for a second shot when he saw Knoton, Krek, and Lan simultaneously starting for him. The odds were too great, the need to escape this world too binding.

He dived into the already opened crypt just inches under Lan' s death beam.

Even as they approached, Lan Martak knew they were too late to stop the transition. Krek made a tiny choking noise, then sat down, legs akimbo around him.

" He is gone," lamented the spider. " He has walked the Cenotaph Road."

" It' ll be a full day before we can follow, too. Curse the luck!"

" You would follow?" Knoton asked, in surprise. " But if the other side is like this one, why can' t Silvain post a guard who will kill you as you emerge?"

" No reason in this world- or any world. We have to try to stop him, though. Claybore' s evil makes the Lord of the Twistings look puny in comparison."

The mechanical said nothing, studying the two humans and their arachnid companion.

" It opens at any moment," said Krek, peering into the open crypt.

" How are we going to do this?" asked Inyx. " Claybore and Silvain are sure to have their soldiers waiting for us."

" Time flows differently between worlds. We might be able to arrive closely enough on Silvain' s heels that he hasn' t had time to contact Claybore."

" A faint hope."

" Yes," Lan Martak admitted. " But still a hope." He and Inyx stood, arms around one another. The cenotaph began to glow a pale, wavering sea- green, to open its gateway onto a new world. Lan glanced at his companions. Krek' s expression was as spiderish and indecipherable as ever, but a clacking of his mandibles revealed an almost- human nervousness at what lay ahead. Under his arm, Inyx shivered, but Lan knew it was more excitement than fear on the woman' s part. She came from a warrior- world; while she might know fear on a secret level, it seldom surfaced to show its pale face to others. For himself, he was too exhausted to feel anything but the weight of dutyand destiny.

Lan, Inyx, and Krek crowded forward to squeeze into the cenotaph on their way to find and kill Silvain and his master, Claybore.

The transition from one world to another disoriented Lan, as it always did. He might walk the Road for a million years and still not become fully acclimated to the giddy turnings and mind- wrenchings of this magical travel.

" Friend Lan Martak," he heard Krek saying. Lan shook his head, as if to clear the haze from his brain. It didn' t help; it only hurt. Fire bugs chewed through his insides and something kicked unmercifully at the backs of his eyes.

" Lan," came another, softer, more urgent voice. He forced open his eyes to peer up and out of the cenotaph at Inyx. The woman stood above him, long, slender legs widespread, hands on her flaring hips. Her attention wasn' t on him but on something at some distance.

Lan took a deep breath and tasted the wet sweetness of nearby lush vegetation. But undercutting it came a new scent, one he had seldom encountered. This was definitely not the world of the Twistings. That world abounded with fresh growth. Here, the plant life seemed: abbreviated.

The man heaved himself out of the opened grave and followed Inyx' s extended arm. He took in the tiny area around them. Here grew thick grasses and towering plants with stems as thick as his wrist. Just beyond, hardly a bowshot distant, some brutal demarcation had been drawn between life and death. Green, growing life ended and hot sterile sands triumphed. But it was beyond even this ring that Inyx pointed.

" A caravan ambushed by the grey- clads," she said.

Lan squinted in harsh sun and nodded. The scene proved all too familiar for him. On world after world, the grey- clad soldiers commanded by Claybore and his underlings conquered, killing without quarter, seizing power, crushing all dissent.

It happened here, also.

Tired to the core of his being, Lan still drew forth his sword and nodded to his companions. They had not come here to rest. They must fight. And what better side to take than of those already knowing the terror and death brought by Claybore' s rule?

" Aieeeee!" shrieked Krek, his long legs extending to their fullest. The spider charged, death scythes clacking ominously even as his shrill keening echoed forth.

Lan and Inyx were only a few paces behind. Lan' s death tube bounced at his side, but he ignored it, for the moment. The adrenaline pumping through his arteries filled him with bloodlust. The smooth stroke of his sword, the meaty feel of it striking home, the jarring all the way to his shoulder, those were the sensations he now sought.

He found them quickly.

The battle welled up around him like artesian waters. Lan parried, hacked, riposted, thrust. He fell into old, practiced routines that had served him well in the past and served him admirably now. The battle had been going against the scruffy band of travelers; Claybore' s soldiers were too well- equipped and trained for any roving band to easily drive off. But with two additional swords and Krek' s fearsome bulk and intimidating manner of doing battle, the greys fell back to regroup.

" After them!" cried Krek.

Lan reached out and seized one of Krek' s thick back legs. He was dragged a few paces before Krek' s bloodlust died sufficiently for him to realize the folly of pursuit at this moment.

" I am so ashamed," the spider moaned, settling down into the sand beside Lan. " I kill wantonly. Oh my, why is it I do these awful things?"

" You were protecting these others from Claybore' s men," pointed out Inyx, stroking Krek' s gore- stained fur.

" But they are only humans," sniffed the spider.

" Aye, that we are," came the cautious words of one of the men. He approached, sword in hand, wary of the spider. " And glad we are that you showed when you did. Though we find it strange that the likes of you would aid us willingly."

" Do the grey- clads control much of this world?" asked Lan.

" Those dung beetles?" scoffed the man. " Hardly. We hold them off with ease."

From one of the others came a muffled snort of derision. Lan looked at the other men and women in the group. None had escaped injury. Their original number had been twenty. The brief skirmish had cost them half their rank.

" It appears you are doing all right," Lan said, testing the man' s reaction. He introduced himself and his companions. The man he faced had eyes only for Inyx, who smiled at the attention.

" And I, good sir, hight Jacy Noratumi, commander of the desert reaches of the magnificent empire of Bron."

" Magnificent, he says," mocked one of the women in the band, as she held a broken arm to her belly. " Jacy is hardly more than a pirate these days. As are we all. We used to be miners, traders, honest folks earning our living in peace. Those scum drive us like herd animals. Bron is little more than a pathetic huddling of huts hidden behind an all- too- thin wall."

" Silence, Margora," the man snapped. Smiling, he turned back to Lan and said, " She is always the pessimist. We are seldom caught in such a fashion on the sands. The dung- eating greys came upon us unexpectedly. They rode like demons for the oasis."

" To stop us," said Inyx, bitterness etching her voice.

" You?" asked the woman Margora suspiciously. She glanced from Inyx to Lan. When her eyes fixed on the brown lump near the cenotaph, she stiffened visibly. " Jacy," she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. " We cannot trust one of them!"

Lan Martak saw the woman' s response came from finally realizing that Krek was something other than human. In the heat of battle and the shocked interregnum after, there had been little enough time to do more than slump in exhaustion. Now that the battle fury and tiredness wore off, logical processes resumed. And the arachnid did not arouse good feelings in any of the natives of this world. All reached for daggers and swords, hands restlessly stroking hilts in preparation for the order to attack.

" Hold," said Jacy Noratumi, his voice sharp. " It is with these, our friends." Lan noticed that the man' s shining amber eyes locked firmly on Inyx when he spoke.

Krek could not remain silent at being termed an " it." The formless lump he had collapsed into stirred, legs extended to propel the spider to his full height; sand showered down on them. Krek dominated the scene, anger returning.

" I am Webmaster of the Egrii Mountains," he said with the cut of a sword in his usually mild voice.

" You are:" began Margora. But the woman' s words were drowned by the shouts of sentries.

" The grey- clads return," Noratumi said. " Our differences are to be placed aside until after we finish off our foes." He indicated the approaching dust cloud that partly cloaked the mounted forms of Claybore' s soldiers.

Lan moved closer to Inyx, but Jacy had already interposed himself. Lan had no chance to comment; a thundering wave of riders crashed against their pathetic defenses like a hurricane- tossed wave on a house of cards. His sword sang a bloody tune, hacking, driving, parrying, sometimes finding targets, sometimes successfully preventing an enemy' s sword from finding his flesh.

Even with Krek' s potent fighting ability thrown into the fray, the battle went against those on the ground.

" There, Lan, look!" came Inyx' s cry. The young warrior- mage turned to see where she pointed with her gore- encrusted blade. Pounding down on them was Alberto Silvain. Lan felt magical powers welling inside, but he fought them; he had no time and couldn' t afford to expend the energy needed for a proper spell.

He relied on his trusty sword. Steel flashed in the bright desert sun. A hard jolt rattled his teeth as his sword edge slashed into Silvain' s horse. The blade nearly severed the right front leg just above the knee. Horse and rider cartwheeled forward, but Lan lost hold of his sword in the maelstrom of flying bodies.

Silvain hit on his shoulders and rolled smoothly, coming to his feet. He, too, had lost his sword, but not his dagger. Claybore' s henchman swiftly drew his knife, lifted a brawny arm, and lungedstraight for Inyx' s unprotected back.

" Inyx!" screamed Lan, but even as the name ripped from his throat he knew the warning could never save her. Silvain was too close, too fast, too deadly.