Iron Tongue

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

" Do something," pleaded Inyx. " He' s dying." The woman' s crude and usually effective first aid hadn' t staunched the geysering flow of blood from Lan' s jaw, where arteries had been clipped by the sword. He no longer made bubbling noises of pain. His body refused to believe such agony was possible and rejected any further misery.

But Inyx felt it fully for him. He' d been a handsome man, young, vital, quick of wit and quicker with his friendship and love. Now he lay with the lower right half of his jaw cut away. His tongue had vanished along with bone and teeth and palate, making only deepthroated sounds possible now. Lan Martak had lapsed into a state closer to coma than consciousness; he didn' t need to talk.

" He is dying," came the mocking words. " I can save him. Give me the tongue and I will save your lover." The image of Claybore' s skull and torso floated a few feet away. Inyx knew this was only illusion, that the sorcerer remained safely hidden away where none might physically reach him.

The offer tempted her sorely. Lan' s life for the worthless tongue in a dead mage' s mouth. Then she heard soft rustlings of silk. She turned and saw Krek mounting the perpendicular stone wall as if it had stairs cut into it. The soft sounds came from the fur on his legs brushing as he walked.

" Friend Inyx," the spider said simply. He had taken in all that had occurred with one swift glance. " I feel as you do for our fallen friend, but what was his mission?"

" To stop Claybore," she said, her voice choked. Then, firmer with resolve, she glared at Claybore' s fleshless skull and defiantly said, " Burn in all the Lower Places. You won' t get the tongue!"

" He is dying. I can save him."

" He dies thwarting you. What more can any warrior ask? He died honorably, nobly, for a cause that means something."

" It means nothing!" blared the skull. " Nothing, do you hear!"

A wicked smile crossed Inyx' s lips.

" You won' t get the tongue. He stopped you. Dar- elLan- Martak stopped Silvain and now he' s stopped you."

Claybore' s response chilled her. She' d hoped for a moment of rage from the sorcerer. It didn' t come. He laughed without humor.

" The tongue will be mine. You can' t stop me now. Those few pitiful mages remaining cannot conjure a fraction as well as I do. Silvain died for me. Do you think there are others any less willing? Are you ready to face still another giant?"

" While it might be true that your conjuration powers exceed those shown by the Wurnna sorcerers," said Krek, " it is within their power to destroy the tongue before you can recover it. You shall lose its use, even if you do conquer this entire world. Of what use is such a Pyrrhic victory?"

Again Claybore surprised them with his reaction.

He laughed louder, harder than ever before.

" The tongue is important, but I have won. Oh, yes, worms, I have won. He is dead." Ruby beams flashed from empty sockets to lightly brush across Lan' s body. The man twitched but could not cry out in pain. " More important, my agents on other worlds have been active. While you tried your pitiful efforts against me on this world, they have been successful elsewhere. Soon enough, arms and legs will be mine."

" You won' t have a tongue or a face!" taunted Inyx, but deep inside she felt sickness mounting. Their triumphs seemed pathetic in the face of Claybore' s victories. Destroying the flesh from his skull and holding the tongue did not prevent him from becoming more powerful through the regaining of other bodily parts. Even if he lied, Lan' s life slowly slipped away.

" I will come for the tongue." The image vanished.

For long minutes none moved, then Rugga motioned for the other mages to join her.

" He must be healed," she said, indicating Lan' s limp form. " Bringing the dead back to life is beyond our power, in spite of what those of Bron have claimed for so long, but saving a life might not be."

The mages chanted, hummed, made magical signs in the air that burned with fiery intensity and left the odor of brimstone, but Lan got no better. While Inyx thought the slow consumption by death had been halted, they did him no favors preserving him at this level. He had been a vital man, a vibrant one full of life. To leave him like this was a travesty. Better she drive a dagger through his noble heart.

" Stay your hand, friend Inyx," said the spider. " There is one course of action you have not taken."

" What? What is it?" she demanded, eyes wide and imploring.

" I do not know if it will work, but it seems most logical. You see, there is a symmetry to the universe that we arachnids often ponder. Perhaps it comes from our love of geometrically symmetrical webs. We spin and weave and-"

" Krek!"

" Oh, yes. I shall try it and see." The spider lumbered over to Iron Tongue' s body and used his front legs to roll the corpse onto its back. The dead mage' s head lolled grotesquely to one side, the tongue so eagerly sought by Claybore thrusting from between bloated lips. Krek used his front talons to separate the lips and open the mouth. Bending down until the serrated tips of his mandibles were deep inside, he snipped.

The spider jumped back, a shrill screech piercing the air. The contact with the magical tongue had caused fat blue sparks to erupt forth, burning both dead lips and living spider. But Krek held the organ between his powerful mandibles. Spinning in place, he pushed through the mages led by Rugga and placed the tongue into the sundered oral cavity of his friend.

" It is yours by right," Krek said softly. " Yours is the destiny we must all follow and aid. Use the magic to heal yourself. Do it, friend Lan Martak. We need you!"

A tear formed at the corner of his saucer- sized eye. Inyx gently wiped it away as she hugged one of his thick middle legs and watched.

For minutes nothing happened; then Rugga jerked back, a look of surprise on her face.

" Our magics are blocked. We can no longer aid him. He: he is healing himself."

Inyx dared to hope then. More minutes passed and a startling transformation began. What had been bone once in Lan' s face became bone again. Whitely exposed, it gleamed in the pale light of the setting sun. Then it was no longer visible. Skin flowed and covered it, recreating Lan' s normal visage. But the young mage lay as still as death.

" Help him now," urged Inyx. " Give him your strength."

" He blocks us. All of us together cannot pierce the curtain he pulls about himself."

Then came the faint and eerie chants from Lan' s newly grown lips. The spell mounted in power, built and soared to the skies. It was a spell of power and hope and success.

His eyes flickered open and soft brown eyes met Inyx' s vivid blue ones.

" Lan?" she said hesitantly, unsure of herself, unsure of Lan.

" It' ll be all right. The tongue. It: it' s giving me power I never thought possible. The spells I only half- understood. They' re crystal clear to me now. And more! I see so much more!"

Turning to Rugga, Inyx asked, " What effect will that tongue have on him? When Iron Tongue confronted Claybore, it drove him mad. Because the tongue was once Claybore' s, might that not happen with Lan, also?"

All Rugga could do was shrug. She was the most potent sorcerer in Wurnna now and this was far beyond her expertise. Compared with Claybore- and Lan Martak- she was only an apprentice.

" While Murrk and his doughty warriors have routed the grey- clad army, Claybore still remains," pointed out Krek. " From what the skull has said, victory on this world is minor. Should not our attentions be directed elsewhere?"

" Claybore remains on this world," Lan said. " I ' feel' him nearby. If he is stopped now, the war is won." He got to his feet with Inyx' s strong arm around his shoulders for support. He tapped into the power stone around him, allowed the tongue to roll in his mouth, be drenched with his saliva, become a part of his body- and soul.

" He still wants the tongue," said Jacy Noratumi. " But now we can fight him for it. You can do it, Martak. You can!"

Lan said nothing. He waited, consolidating the power building within, savoring the richness of his senses, the nearness of his own death. When Claybore came, he was ready.

" The tongue!" demanded Claybore.

" Your death," said Lan in a voice so soft it was barely audible. But he did not merely speak, he used the Voice. " I want you to slay yourself. Kill yourself, Claybore. Die, die!" He put all the urgency possible into that command.

And Claybore started to obey.

Only a faint human voice crying out broke the spell and saved Claybore' s quasi- existence.

The sorcerer trembled all over, shaking down to the mechanical legs bearing him.

" You have my tongue. You shall pay for this insult, Martak. You will wish you had died from my sword!"

Again came the human voice, clearer now, distinct and belonging to Kiska k' Adesina.

" All is ready, Master. Hurry. We must go. Patriccan can hold them back no longer. The troops are mutinying."

Claybore once more turned his attentions to Lan Martak. " I told your bitch. I tell you. This only seems victory for you. On other worlds, I have triumphed. When next we meet, do not think the battle will be so gentle."

Lan formed the most potent spell he knew and sent the bolt of energy blazing for Claybore. The leading edge of the energy spear wavered for an instant, then found only emptiness.

" Claybore has shifted worlds," moaned Inyx. " He has walked the Road."

" And there aren' t any cenotaphs nearby," said Krek. " I ' see' one within a month' s travel time, and I am not sure where that one leads. It might be onto another world, altogether different from the one chosen by Claybore."

" If we don' t hurry and follow him, he' ll regain arms and legs and become too powerful, even for you, Lan."

" A cenotaph," mused the young mage. " We can create one out there, on the plain in front of Wurnna."

" I suppose there are some bodies lost, but don' t you need to know the name for the consecration? It' ll take weeks to determine who has died and which corpses are which. Oh, Lan, that' ll take as long as hiking to the cenotaph Krek ' sees.' "

" We think in terms far too narrow. What to us is a hero is to our enemies a villain."

" So?"

" It is true the other way, also. A villain to us is a hero to our enemies."

" I don' t see- no, Lan. You can' t do this. I hate him. I was angry when you denied me the chance to kill him."

" You would consecrate a cenotaph to Alberto Silvain?" asked Krek. " What a novel idea."

" There is more to it than novelty, Krek. Silvain' s fortunes were linked with Claybore' s. Properly done, the cenotaph will continue to link their fortunes, and this world with the one chosen by Claybore. It is the only way we have of finding him among the myriad worlds along the Road."

Rugga stood, looking perplexed. For Jacy Noratumi' s part, he had no idea at all what the others argued over. But both had arms around the other. The fortunes of two destroyed cities, Bron and Wurnna, were now as one.

Lan Martak left them behind to walk slowly to the edge of the black pit he had formed. Into this vortex of darkness Silvain had fallen. The flames of his life had been snuffed out for all eternity and his body irretrievably lost in a fashion that not even Lan Martak understood. Perhaps the all- knowing Resident of the Pit might have been able to trace Silvain' s course through the universe, but the Resident resided on Lan' s home world, many worlds away.

Lan' s hand rested on the closed grimoire he carried within his tunic. After a moment' s pause, he knew he had no need to refresh his memory about the summoning spell or the proper method of consecration.

He began the chant, now surprisingly easy when uttered with the tongue that had once belonged to Claybore.

Inyx waved to Rugga and Noratumi as they stood in the wrecked gateway leading to the ruins of Wurnna. Then she turned and waved to the tiny dot on the top of the distant mountaintop. She thought the speck waved a furred leg in response, but she wasn' t certain. Murrk and the humans remaining had come to an uneasy truce, but one which would grow into trust.

" Will the spiders honor the treaty?" she asked.

Lan didn' t answer. Krek did.

" Murrk is honorable. He is Webmaster, after all. And if Jacy and Rugga keep the dam in fine repair and keep the stream in the valley to a mere trickle, there is no reason why Murrk will not allow mining of the power stone in his valley. It is all so simple now."

Krek turned and pointed with his long front leg. " The cenotaph opens."

" Silvain," muttered Inyx, remembering the foul deeds he had committed. But Lan had been correct. Silvain' s courage in assuming the magical guise given by Claybore to attack an entire city filled with sorcerers had been strong enough to open the pathway between worlds.

" Ready?" asked Lan Martak.

" Is this truly the world where Claybore walks?"

The mage shrugged his shoulders. His powers had grown, but there were some- many- questions he had no answer for.

" Let us leave this fine world behind," said Krek. The spider boldly entered the simple stone cairn, wavered for a moment, and vanished from sight.

Lan Martak took Inyx' s hand, squeezed it, and then led the way. They, too, shimmered as if caught in summer heat, felt the gutwrenching shift to another world, then came out ready to pursue their adversary.

Claybore would not prevail. Not while they walked the Cenotaph Road.

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