Pillar of Night

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Lan! I awoke and you were gone. Is anything wrong?” Kiska k’Adesina strutted onto the battlements, her garments only half fastened. Lan saw large expanses of bare skin gleaming in the morning light and began to respond to the erotic provocations.

The geas definitely had not been lifted from him.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” asked Kiska. Coyness did not sit well with her. She was whipcord thin and lacked the stature to make such work to her benefit. But Lan hardly noticed. His body already responded to her overtures.

Brinke cleared her throat and said, “I’ll be down in my chambers. I’ll expect you at breakfast, Lan.”

“Perhaps noon hour,” cut in Kiska.

Brinke pulled her torn robes around her and walked off, regal and proud. Lan started to go with her, but Kiska’s insistent fingers touched his cheek, his lips, his chest and lower. He gave in to the full power of Claybore’s geas once again. He could do nothing else.

For the moment.

He had only a few minutes to speak with Brinke before Kiska came. He used the time to full advantage.

“Claybore learned nothing of my trip from you?” he asked.

“You told me little,” the blonde responded.

“Good. That was fortuitous.” Brinke blushed in embarrassment. Lan hastily said, “I meant nothing by it, only that we are in a stronger position now than before. Claybore might not know I spoke to Terrill.”

“No, his question to me was about the Pillar of Night, not Terrill. I only answered direct questions and never volunteered information. I was that much in control, at least.”

“Terrill told me that the Pillar was Claybore’s finest spell, the one that almost allowed him total domination ten thousand years ago, but hinted that it failed in some respect. Do you know anything about it?”

“Little. Only recently have I found the proper scrying spells to even look at it,” said Brinke. “But rumors, half truths, perhaps outright lies. Those I have heard. I know that Claybore wiped even the name from my memory, but he hardly needed to do so. Even before this geas, I knew nothing important.”

Lan nodded for her to continue. Any conjecture, no matter how farfetched, might aid him now. He believed the demented mage when Terrill told him of failure. The titanic battle of magics so many thousands of years ago had not resulted in a clear-cut victor. Terrill still wandered about playing with his artificial friends and Claybore’s bodily parts were only now being regained. Beyond this, Lan wondered if still another player in the drama wasn’t of greater importance than he-seemed.

“What of the Resident of the Pit?” he asked Brinke.

“The Resident of the Pit?” she asked, startled. “I was about to mention this. One tale has it that Claybore imprisoned the Resident inside the Pillar of Night.”

“He caged a god?”

Brinke shrugged shapely shoulders. “I cannot conceive of such a thing, but you must be able to.”

“Me?” laughed Lan. “Why me?”

The woman’s face turned serious. “You are as much a god as Claybore.”

“No!”

“You are,” she insisted. “The powerful aura surrounding you also emanates from Claybore. But it is different in substance. You are less avaricious.”

“That’s all?” Lan didn’t care for the comparison.

“Yes.”

Had he become so like his enemy? Lan leaned back in his chair and munched at a juicy persimmon. He spat out the seeds and magically caught them in midair. So easy, he mused. The spells he had once commanded were minor healing spells and the ability to light a campfire by a spark from his fingertips, spells useful to a hunter. Now he summoned elementals, sent whirlwinds and fireballs against his enemies with the ease he used to draw a bow and loose an arrow. A pass of his hand and the proper chant might destroy not only this castle and everyone in it but the entire world.

His mind turned over and over the spell required to crack the planet open to its center.

It wasn’t that difficult. Not for him. Not for a god.

Lan dropped the seeds to the table and straightened. He was not a god. He would not be a god, no matter how much the Resident of the Pit pushed him in that direction.

“It might be true,” he said, “about the Resident being imprisoned in the Pillar of Night.” Brinke noted his sudden change of topic. She made a great show of carefully slicing a freshly baked loaf of bread, her eyes avoiding his. “The Resident has aided me on occasion and I never decided why.”

“He wants to be released?”

“He wants to die,” Lan said. After meeting Terrill and seeing the mage’s pathetic existence, he sympathized with the Resident, if the god were trapped within the Pillar.

Lan looked over his shoulder and asked, “I wonder what’s keeping Kiska? She should have been here by now.”

“Let her be,” the blonde said. But Lan couldn’t. He left to find Kiska.

Brinke chewed slowly at the slab of bread she’d cut. A presence in the room made her turn.

“Claybore!”

Standing by the door was the mage, his metal legs gleaming and one arm held in a sling. A ragged incision ran around the shoulder, showing where someone had tried to stitch the arm back and had failed.

“I need to know what Martak discovered at the Pillar of Night. Tell me!”

Brinke experienced waves of heat assaulting her. Sweat beaded on her brow, but she did not speak. The geas Claybore had laid upon her was truly gone.

“So he removed it,” said Claybore. “Little matter. While I hate losing such a valued source of information, you are certainly the least of my informants.”

“Liar. You had great need for me or you wouldn’t have kept me as you did.”

“Your beauty is great,” Claybore said, “but do not substitute it for common sense. Why would I need you at all?”

“To use against Lan. You fear him. He controls powers great enough to destroy you.”

“I am immortal,” scoffed Claybore. “Since my geas has been lifted, I must apply a different spell. Time presses in on me. I must learn what Martak knows of the Pillar of Night. Tell me!”

Brinke let out a tiny gasp and rose from her chair. She staggered and fell heavily against the table, barely supporting herself. From all sides the very air crushed in upon her, draining her of strength, forcing her to speak.

“Tell me what I wish and you can be free of this torture.”

“You’ll kill me if I tell you.”

“I’ll find out, whether you are alive or dead. My power goes beyond the grave, my lovely Brinke. Tell me!”

“I refuse.” She tried to scream as pain wracked her body. Brinke knew the sorcerer ripped off her arms and legs and pulled her head from her neck. Stark agony unlike anything she had ever experienced dazzled her senses and made her more and more compliant to Claybore’s wishes. But she fought. From deep within herself she found reserves of strength and she fought.

“It will only take a bit more and you will die. Can such paltry information be worth this to you? Or do you enjoy pain?”

Claybore sent needles of anguish jabbing into her most private recesses. Brinke resisted, even though she weakened visibly. And then the pain evaporated.

“Martak!” shrieked the dismembered sorcerer.

“You forced only a spell of compulsion on her. I planted a few ward spells to aid her. She is no match for you. Shall we see who is the stronger, you or me?”

The spell Lan cast was both potent and subtle. He saw the way Claybore wore the sling to support the damaged arm. Like a buzz saw, Lan sent a plane of pure energy down against the shoulder joint. Claybore’s arm fell away. Whatever misfortune had caused the arm to require support now aided Lan’s attempt to dismember Claybore again.

Only the cloth sling supported the arm; Lan’s spell had rived it cleanly.

Claybore tried to destroy Brinke, but Lan anticipated-and he had learned. Claybore’s spell lacked full power. If the mage succeeded in killing Brinke, he would leave himself open to Lan’s counterattack. Already Claybore’s other arm twitched and jerked with a life of its own as it tried to slip from the shoulder joint.

Claybore had the same choice he had given Lan earlier. He might slay Brinke, but he would lose at least his arms and possibly more.

“Your fate will be excruciating, Martak,” raged Claybore. The sorcerer vanished from the chamber.

Lan’s eyebrows rose. He analyzed the spell Claybore had used-it was identical to the one he had pioneered for movement between worlds without the use of a cenotaph.

“He’s stolen it from me,” Lan said aloud. He didn’t know if he ought to be pleased at the theft or not. Claybore’s comings and goings had been limited when Lan ripped out the Kinetic Sphere and cast it at random along the Road. Now that Claybore employed the same movement spell he did, Lan no longer had the advantage of mobility over his foe.

“You saved me,” sobbed out Brinke. She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. He felt the wetness of her tears dampening his tunic. “I told him nothing. I resisted.”

“I know,” said Lan, renewed by the feel of Brinke’s sleek body in his arms. “Your powers may be untutored, but they are greater than either of us thought. You did not give in to him and Claybore used potent spells against you.”

“Your ward spells helped.”

Lan laughed. “There were no ward spells. Oh, I used them when initially finding the geas within your mind, but I didn’t want to impose my spells on you. You were free of them-and you kept Claybore away through your own efforts.”

Brinke said nothing, a shy smile crossing her lips. The smile vanished when Kiska came barreling into the room.

“So here you are. Why is it I always find the pair of you together?” Her tone was intended to cut deeply. And it did. Lan had to bite back an apology.

“It is nothing,” he said. “We were merely discussing how best to defeat Claybore.”

“If you want to defeat him,” said Kiska in a confidential tone, “you’ll forget all about this Pillar of Night.”

“What?” This took Lan unexpectedly.

“The Pillar of Night. You mentioned it many times. Remember, my darling? Or has this… lovely woman addled your senses?”

“I remember. What do you mean, I should avoid it?”

“The fine lady doesn’t know this,” said Kiska, “but the Pillar is still another of Claybore’s pieces.”

Brinke laughed at this. “No one is so well endowed.”

“Slut,” snapped Kiska. “In the strictest sense, it is not a part of his body. Rather, it is more. Far more.”

“He has his arms back,” said Lan. He had to silently congratulate himself on the devastation he had wrought on Claybore’s limbs. “His heart has been sent skittering along the Road to who knows where. I still possess his tongue and the facial skin has been destroyed. We know torso and skull are still joined and the legs are gone. What’s left?”

Kiska looked from one to the other, a serious expression settling over her. “His very soul, that’s what.”

“Claybore has no soul,” scoffed Brinke.

“That is true-now. But Terrill wrenched it free from him and imprisoned it inside the Pillar of Night. If you unbalance the delicate spells surrounding the Pillar, Claybore will regain a vital portion of his whole. It might even be the most significant portion.”

“She lies, Lan,” Brinke said with some asperity. “She only seeks to have you divert your energies elsewhere and allow Claybore to do his evil deeds unopposed.”

“How would the blonde bitch know anything? Claybore uses her. In all ways.” The sneer twisting Kiska’s lips cut deeply into Lan. He was torn between the two women. He believed Brinke’s story of the Pillar of Night rather than Kiska’s. It explained all the details and contradicted none of the facts.

But he loved Kiska. He had to listen to her wild rantings, even though he knew she probably lied. Or did she? Claybore played a complex game that confused Lan more and more. The other sorcerer was not content with only dealing lies. He delved into the realm of half truths and even cunningly told truths that sounded as if they might be lies.

Frustration rose in Lan. Since Inyx and Krek had left him, he had nowhere to turn for aid. Or even comfort. Brinke was lovely and adept enough with simple magics, but she was not Inyx.

Kiska? If he could, he would kill her. Instead, he took the woman in his arms and kissed her.

“I love you,” he said. “But this story-this fable-cannot be true.”

“But it is!” Kiska protested.

“I have spoken with Terrill,” he said.

“Lan!” Brinke’s eyes widened in horror at what the mage said. But Lan found himself unable to stop now that he’d begun. The geas wormed words from his lips that he had not meant to utter.

But this was Kiska k’Adesina, the woman he loved. He had to reveal this to her, even as he felt the spell working within his mind like a worm burrowing through the earth. Its power expanded and his own control diminished.

“Tell me about it,” urged Kiska.

“Terrill did not say anything about its being Claybore trapped within the Pillar. Indeed, he hinted that there is nothing within but rather under.”

“That Terrill stays near the Pillar of Night is proof enough that she lies, Lan. Do not listen to her.” Brinke pleaded with him now, but Lan fell increasingly under the power of the geas, in matters both physical and emotional.

“So you talked to Terrill at the base of the Pillar?” Kiska smiled slyly.

Lan’s mind turned to the possibility that Kiska spoke the truth. Terrill might have been driven insane by the power of his own spell. When learning the more complex incantations, Lan himself had teetered on the edge of losing control and being destroyed. With a potent construct like the Pillar of Night, he couldn’t say what forces had been summoned to create it.

“Claybore’s soul,” he mused.

“Yes!”

“No!” protested Brinke. “Listen to her and you will never defeat Claybore.”

“If I shatter the spells holding the Pillar together, I might play into Claybore’s hands.”

“His severed hands,” said Brinke. “Remember what you did to him just a short while ago. He cannot hold himself together. He already nears the limits of his power. Release that held prisoner by the Pillar of Night and Claybore will fall victim to you in short order.”

“He was here?” cried Kiska. “Claybore?”

Lan’s head began to hurt. He found it harder to concentrate and soon conjured a small spell to shut out all sound. He let the women argue while he sat in a magically induced silence.

“Inyx,” he said softly. “I need you. You always saw so clearly. Even you, Krek. Even you, I need now.”

He released the spell and tried to follow the ebb and flow of the argument between Brinke and Kiska. Nothing was settled. He would have to decide which of them spoke truly.

Which one?

Act against the Pillar of Night and release a god-the Resident of the Pit? Or act against it and release the single most vital portion contributing to Claybore’s power? Or do nothing?

Lan Martak had no answer.