Pillar of Night

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Claybore walked down the corridor, his bowed leg giving him a curiously rolling gait. The mage held onto his left arm as it tried to fall off once more, and his skull actually split enough to drop a tiny piece to the wooden flooring. Claybore bent and picked up the precious skull fragment and gently put it back into place. With some reluctance, it stayed.

In spite of all the troubles he experienced with his newly whole body, Claybore felt more power surging within him than he had since Terrill had dismembered him. The circuit had been completed, albeit imperfectly. The magics long lost now sang and pulsed through his veins. The sorcerer felt invincible, like a god.

“Patriccan!” he called out. “Attend me!”

Patriccan’s own wounds had healed adequately for the man to show little outward sign of damage. He hastened to join his master.

“How may I be of service?” he asked, bowing low. Patriccan winced at the sight of the dark eye sockets churning with the pale ruby light. The death beams that lashed forth had reduced the ranks of his mages by a quarter. None stood against that ravening death-none except Lan Martak.

“My arm rejects me once again. Is there nothing to do? A demon to summon?”

“Master, even at the best of times it is difficult to entrap a demon. Since you exiled the one who worked on your leg, they have become even wilier in eluding my snare spells. Hasn’t the adhesive paste bonded the arm?”

“See for yourself.” Claybore thrust out his left shoulder. The arm had disconnected grotesquely and dangled by a few arteries and grey, stringy nerves.

“Please, master, come into my laboratory. I will again attempt the connection. The flesh has been separated so long that it has taken on a life of its own.”

“One of the penalties of immortality. The parts attempt to live by themselves. Damn Terrill,” Claybore exclaimed. Then the sorcerer chuckled and danced about, favoring his gimpy leg. “How should I visit Terrill and let him know that his plight will continue? How can I best instill hope and then dash it?”

“His madness prevents any such revenge, master,” said Patriccan fumbling with the arm. He frowned. The best of his magics failed to hold Claybore’s arm in place. Even Claybore had not been able to keep himself intact.

“Perhaps I shall lift the madness, give the promise of rescue-after letting him know what his life has been like for ten thousand years-and then cast him back into insanity.”

“A fitting end for him, master.”

“Don’t patronize me, fool.” Claybore jerked free of Patriccan’s fumbling examination. He stormed into the journeyman mage’s laboratory and perched on the edge of the green-tiled table, waiting impatiently.

Patriccan went first to a cabinet filled with vials and mixed a new potion. He chanted over it and activated it with magics barely under his control.

“This will keep the arm from slipping free of its own volition,” said Patriccan. He held Claybore’s arm in place, then swabbed on the frothy mixture he had conjured.

“My arm turns increasingly numb. No feeling and the fingers refuse to clench.”

“Master, this is the best I can do. Will you do battle with Martak soon? If I have time to experiment, perhaps then I can find some other way of mending your body.”

“The power is on me,” said Claybore. “Simply having all my parts again augments my ability. Spells long forgotten now return to me, and power? I have power!”

Patriccan looked skeptically at the mage. The bone white of the skull had been broken by the weblike dark fracture patterns. The flesh had been destroyed and the tongue now rested in Martak’s mouth. Patriccan did not understand how Claybore could be so sanguine about his chances when the reconstructed body that carried him into this conflict betrayed him at every turn.

“Come into the viewing room, Patriccan,” ordered Claybore. “I will show you the progress I make.”

Patriccan followed, feeling the aches in every joint; but compared to his master, he was in perfect condition.

“See?” said Claybore, pointing to the wall of moving scenes. “On that world the conquest is complete. A full score of sorcerers joins the effort. On this world, two of my strongest opponents are dead. Their magics availed them nothing.” Claybore chuckled when he saw huge mechanical juggernauts, magically powered by captive demons, lumbering forth to crush opposition. This world had proven especially recalcitrant. Only the most intricate of magics had allowed Claybore to topple its regime.

“And there,” the mage continued, rubbing hands together as he stood in front of one panoramic view of a world in ruins, “there my troops have captured a grimoire, that might allow me to complete the spell creating the Pillar of Night.”

“You would kill the Resident?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” said Claybore. “I am undecided. I rather enjoy gloating, and the Resident of the Pit is a captive audience this way. Still, I prefer having the power to permanently remove a god, if the mood strikes me. The legion commander on that world will deliver the grimoire to me within the week.”

“What efforts are being made by Martak? I cannot assume he bides his time.”

“There is evidence he penetrated all the way to the Pillar,” said Claybore. “I have not been able to contact k’Adesina and find out. The Lady Brinke holds Kiska behind a wall of magic.”

“You cannot break through?” asked Patriccan, astonished.

“Of course I can.” Claybore’s irritation made Patriccan cringe away. He waited for the ruby death beams. They never came. “I have been occupied with other things.” Claybore flexed his right arm; his left sluggishly stirred but did no more.

Patriccan, for the first time, began to doubt. His master took too many chances, made too many mistakes. While Claybore was ostensibly whole again, Patriccan knew how tenuous were the bonds holding arms and legs to the torso. The dismembered sorcerer gained much in strength by being reassembled, but all of the parts were not his own. Did that cause the peculiar overconfidence? Patriccan hoped not. The final confrontation with Martak required every skill Claybore had accumulated over a very long lifetime of sorcerous doings.

“It will all come together on the plains in front of the Pillar of Night,” said Claybore. “Martak will not stand a chance. And with his defeat, I will sap the power that makes him so powerful. I will suck up his essence and let it fill me. I will become the new god of the universe. None will dare oppose me!”

“None so dares now, master,” said Patriccan.

“Martak does. Look. There and there and there.” Claybore went from scried scene to scene, pointing. “All those worlds opposed me. They were crushed by might of arms. No longer will they even think of opposition. My very name will cause them to drop to one knee and pay me the homage I am due.”

“Those machines,” said Patriccan. “They come to this world? How? Surely, none will fit through a cenotaph.”

“They come,” said Claybore. “Using this, they will come.” He tapped his chest cavity where the Kinetic Sphere pulsed slowly.

Patriccan said nothing. He knew the immense power of the Kinetic Sphere, but the journeyman mage had to question the value of Claybore’s draining himself so before meeting Martak. The effort to move even one of those huge demon-powered fighting machines from another world had to be extreme.

He bowed and left the room. There were preparations to be made and perhaps he might even find the time to properly question a few prisoners brought him from another world. He had no desire for the information they hid; Patriccan desired only the painful questioning.

That would ease some of the strain he felt, he was positive.

“Why not just fly directly to the Pillar?” asked Ducasien as they disembarked from the demon-powered flyer. The warrior was still pale from the trip; it was his first experience with such a vehicle and the demon had berated him constantly for his airsickness.

“I tried that before,” said Lan. “The demon refused to go any closer than the edge of the forest. But I have a path well scouted now. The dangers of the forest are… minimal.”

All knew Lan lied. The sense of “deadness” within the woods reflected a closer appraisal of their chances. But Lan was able to use his spells freely enough now and that opened ways that were both more and less dangerous. The physical threat within the sterile forest would be small, but the attention attracted by the use of a potent spell might be unwanted. It was a risk that had to be borne.

“You leave me sitting here,” complained the demon within the flyer. “Just like that? After so many hours of faithful service? What kind of ass are you?”

“Be quiet or I shall eat you,” said Krek. The spider unfolded long legs from the cramped storage space of the flyer. One taloned leg tapped hard against the hatch plate behind which the demon crouched.

“Go on, you overgrown nightmare. Try it! I’ll give you such a case of heartburn you’ll never recover!”

“We have no time for such things, Krek.” Inyx tugged at the giant arachnid’s leg and led him away.

“All things being equal, I would rather devour her.” Kick’s mandibles clacked just inches away from Kiska k’Adesina’s neck. The mousy-appearing woman’s expression altered in a flash and her long sword snaked from its sheath, point darting straight for the spider. Lan was helpless to stop her, but Brinke wasn’t.

The blonde raised her arm and blocked the thrust so that it missed Krek’s thorax by inches. Brinke mouthed a small spell that made Kiska drop to her knees, cursing volubly.

“You blonde bitch. You will die for this. My legs are numb. Lan, I can’t walk!”

“Release the spell, Brinke.” Lan closed his eyes and tried to retain his calmness. How could he possibly do battle with Claybore when his handful of supporters tried to slay one another-and the ones who weren’t actively working toward killing merely hated the others.

“Very well.” The lovely mage passed her hand above the fallen woman’s head. Hair began to sizzle and spark. The smell of burned hair filled the air and gave some substance to the undead forest.

“Stop it!” Lan shouted, control gone.

Ducasien moved to stand beside Inyx, hand on sword. Brinke flinched but stopped her spell. Even Krek shifted away. Lan had used the Voice, something he had avoided among the group before this.

“We have little time. Bickering among ourselves will only lead us to defeat.”

“She will stab you in the back at the first opportunity,” said Brinke, pointing to Kiska. The brown-haired commandant of Claybore’s troops smiled wickedly.

“I know,” Lan said weakly.

“We still have time, Lan my darling,” Kiska said, rising to her feet. She stroked along his cheek and kissed him. She clung to him and prevented him from getting away. He lacked the resolve to make her stop, even though he knew both Inyx and Brinke were seething.

“Put her into the chamber with the demon,” suggested Krek. “Let them give one another heartburn.”

“No way, you oversized ceiling crawler,” protested the demon. “It’s too damn small in here. First you want me to fly right on up to that awful black rotating pillar and risk my scaly limbs. Now you want to squeeze a truly dreadful lumpy human in here with me. You’re a cruel one, fuzz-legs.”

“Thank you,” said Krek. “I had not expected such a fine compliment from one of your inferior mental status.”

“Inferior!” raged the demon. It scrabbled against the metal plates until a loud ringing echoed through the forest. The spells binding it to the flyer were too great. After a few minutes of frenzied activity, the demon subsided into a sulky silence.

“We must hurry,” said Lan, not using the Voice now. He already felt drained and the real struggle had yet to begin. Just trying to hold together this disparate band taxed him to the utmost.

The flow of emotion became too confusing for him to consider. Ducasien loved Inyx, who obviously cared for him-but little more. Brinke had true affection for Lan, but the sorcerer tried to hold back because the geas forced him to unwanted behavior toward Kiska. Kiska hated them all, but experienced some of the geas toward Lan so that she would only wait for the worst possible instants before trying to assassinate him.

Lan’s head threatened to split like a frozen spring melon.

“Yes, let us leave this posturing device,” said Krek. The spider thwacked! the side of the flyer before joining Lan.

“Krek, you, Inyx and Ducasien will have to fend off any physical attacks. Brinke and I will concentrate on the sorcerous ones-and they are going to be desperate ones.”

“Will Claybore throw everything against us before we get to the Pillar of Night?” asked Inyx. “Or will he let the forest wear us down before attacking?”

“This is a mistake,” cried Kiska. “Lan works to release Claybore’s soul. It’s trapped by the Pillar!”

Lan cut off the protests from Brinke even as they formed on the woman’s lips. “I know,” the man said. “She lies. I have felt the Resident of the Pit within.”

“It’s a trap,” insisted Kiska. “Claybore is gulling you into believing you aid the Resident.”

Lan started walking, trying not to listen to the bickering that flowed around him. By the time the first wave of mutilated forest-dwellers swung down on them, the petty arguments had ceased.

“Aloft!” cried Ducasien. “In the trees!”

His sword whispered free of its engraved leather sheath and skewered an armless woman as she slithered down a vine, using only legs and incredibly powerful teeth for support. Inyx quickly responded and drove off another seeking their blood-or was it another pair? The two men were joined at the side, sharing two heads, and the proper number of limbs for a single human.

“How revolting,” said Inyx. “Killing them makes me feel dirty.”

“They will kill us if we don’t,” pointed out Ducasien. He bound a wound on his arm himself as they hurried on. “Vicious fighters.”

“Demented fighters,” said Lan. “Claybore has driven them all quite mad.”

“He experimented horribly upon them,” said Brinke, shivering delicately. “And… Lan! Do you sense it?”

Lan kept walking but summoned up the light mote familiar he had cultivated into his major offensive and defensive weapon. The mote whirled forth, spun through the forest in a crazy orbit and returned seconds later. On the rippling surface of the point of light Lan read the spells forming around them.

He began counters immediately.

“The ground!” shouted Kiska. “Run!”

“Stand,” said Lan. “It is illusion.”

The yawning chasm split open the soft earth, sucking in trees and scores of the screeching remnants of Claybore’s experiments. The pit looked endless-and it widened, moving toward the small group with a dizzying speed.

“Run. It’ll swallow us all. Run,” urged Kiska.

Lan lifted the light mote and brought it hurling downward at his feet. The bright pinpoint burned through the ground at the vee front of the pit. The hole vanished.

“Illusion,” insisted Lan.

“Lan,” Brinke said, clinging to his arm. “Something moves against us.”

“The trees. They are Claybore’s creatures. I hold them at bay.”

“No, you’re failing. They’re coming for us. The trees will destroy us.” Kiska bolted and tried to run. Lan felled her with a simple spell, then ran to her side.

“Are you all right?” he asked, concerned-and hating himself for it. This woman was a cold-blooded killer and had proven it on a dozen worlds.

“No,” she sobbed. “Turn back. Now, Lan, for me.”

His vision blurred and his mouth turned dry. Only Inyx’s hand on his shoulder kept him from passing out.

“We must continue,” the dark-haired woman said in a soft voice. Electricity flowed through her light touch on his shoulder, and they both trembled as the rapport that had once been theirs built anew. More than words, they shared emotions, inchoate thoughts, the most subtle of communications.

Kiska saw the sharing between them and moved to kill Lan. Inyx swung her fist and clipped the other woman on the point of the chin even as Lan acted to stop her.

Kiska lay unconscious on the ground. Lan apologized to Inyx.

“Lan, please,” Inyx said. “I… we.” She took a deep breath. “I understand the power of this compulsion now that we can again see into one another’s souls.”

“You see why I went astray?” he asked.

Inyx nodded.

“I thought I didn’t need you. I was wrong. I need you in all ways.”

“Will you two please explain this mating ritual to me?” piped up Krek. “I have tried in vain to understand it. You, friend Inyx, must knock down the scrawny one so that friend Lan Martak can…”

“Never mind, Krek.”

“But I do wish to explain this to my hatchlings. They must deal with you ridiculous humans.” The spider canted his head to one side. “I rather wish to understand it myself and I am failing.”

“Let’s march,” said Ducasien. His gruff tones told how little he liked seeing Inyx with Lan. “We can leave her.” He indicated Kiska with the tip of his sword.

“She comes along,” said Lan before he could stop himself.

“Bring her,” Inyx said. “It’s all right, Ducasien. I begin to understand the magics involved.”

Ducasien hoisted Kiska over his shoulder, muttering about clean steel and fair fights.

“The magics still surround us,” said Brinke. “They overwhelm me. I can’t fight them.”

Krek stopped and faced the white-haired man in a small clearing. “Do let us by,” said the spider, “or I shall be forced to eat you.”

Terrill waved his hand. Krek collapsed against a tree, which immediately began dropping leaves and sinuous vines down around his stilled body.

“You can’t stop us,” said Lan. “Have you remembered or does Claybore only use you?”

“My friends are all so peeved that their rest is disturbed,” said Terrill. The madness burned in his eyes, brighter than Lan had seen it before. “They want you to leave. Go now and don’t bother us further. We are preparing for a party. Oh, yes, a fine party. None of you is invited.”

“This is Terrill?” asked Inyx, eyes wide. “I had expected more.”

“The spells are overwhelming me,” said Brinke. “Help me, Lan. I’m being drowned in a sea of magic.”

The blonde mage pulled her regal scarlet cloak tighter around her sleek body. Then all movement ceased. She stood as still as any marble sculpture. Ducasien and Inyx were similarly disabled. Lan saw Ducasien’s eyes turn wild with despair.

“You are a great sorcerer, Terrill. The greatest who ever lived. You once aided the Resident of the Pit. Do so now. Help us free him from under the Pillar.”

“Pinned there, the god’s pinned there. Not killed, oh no, Claybore couldn’t do that. But the years… so many years.” For a moment Lan thought he had reached the deranged sorcerer.

“You must go,” Terrill said. “Now!” He waved his hand and set a cascade of fire tumbling forth from his fingertips. Lan’s light mote expanded to shield him and the others.

“Claybore animates you,” Lan said. “Fight him. You can again be the mage you were. Decent, wanting only freedom. Fight Claybore.”

“Rook!” screamed Terrill. “Destroy them all!”

The trees moved aside for the mud and stick figure striding through the sterile forest. Leaves fluttered in mock applause for their champion. Sap oozed like drool from the mouth of a fool.

And Lan Martak feared Terrill’s champion.

Rook no longer stood a few inches high. He was Lan’s height and more. The clay flesh had firmed and rippled with underlying muscle. The parody of a face sneered: rock eyes turned into black pools of hatred; cheek bones of twigs lifted into a squint; the simple gash mouth opened to reveal a whiteness Lan was only too familiar with.

It was the absolute whiteness found between worlds. Inyx had been lost in it and Claybore had tried to exile Lan once into that infinity. Now another creature of Claybore’s threatened them with it.

“Destroy them all, Rook,” shrieked Terrill.

Lan set his most powerful fire spell against Rook. Nothing happened. Conjuring an air elemental, the whirlwind whipping about the mud creature’s stick feet, did not even slow its inexorable pace. Opening a pit in front of Rook did nothing. It walked on emptiness.

“Brinke,” pleaded Lan. “I need your energy.” He did not find it. The woman’s entire being was tangled in Terrill’s immobility spell.

But help came. A feeble grasping at first firmed into something more substantial. Lan experienced it as a hand on his back, urging him forward, comforting him, giving him the courage to fight.

“Inyx,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

Rook’s bulging, sapling arms circled Lan’s body. Mud muscles tightened. The mouth opened to whiteness and turned to rip out his throat.

Lan Martak concentrated all his power into the light mote. His body slumped in Rook’s arms, more a corpse than lifelike. But the magical energies flowed like a mighty river. With Inyx’s encouragement and succor, Lan focused them into a stream of incalculable power. And this he refined into the single mote of light. It shot forward and into Rook’s obscenely gaping mouth.

Flames seared Lan’s eyebrows and hair. He stumbled back and fell heavily. Dried sticks and mud rained down on him and with the physical came more. Broken spells, tangled magics, bits and pieces of a long lifetime of being a sorcerer all poured into him, like water into a bucket. Lan not only destroyed Rook, he shattered Terrill’s mind once and for all time.

The burned out husk of a once-great mage stood in the clearing, all light gone from the eyes.

“He still lives,” said Brinke, released from Terrill’s spell. “But there is no life force.”

“You’re wrong,” Lan said. “The life force is all that’s left. Everything else has been drained. Terrill is, indeed, immortal and cannot be killed by ones such as we, but all that remains is a shell. He has no personality left, not even a deranged one. No volition, no sense of being alive.”

“How horrible,” muttered Ducasien.

“This might be a better existence than the one Claybore doomed him to,” said Inyx. “But I don’t think so. Lan, can you do anything for him?”

Lan didn’t answer. All the knowledge that had been sealed and unreachable in Terrill’s mind now unfolded for him. His powers doubled, trebled-more!

“I can do nothing,” Lan said. “That is still beyond my grasp.” He stretched out a hand to Inyx, who took it. Her eyes welled with tears as she saw within him the truth of all he said.

“He is surely doomed to be like this forever,” Inyx said. “The poor, poor man.”

“Friend Lan Martak,” came Krek’s shaky voice. “Behind you is the terrible woman. She again tries to do you harm. If you let her, can you then mate? This is so odd, backwards from the way we spiders do it. We mate first, then the female devours the male.”

Lan had forgotten about Kiska k’Adesina in the aftermath of the brief, mind-twisting battle with Terrill’s golem. He moved the barest fraction of an inch, not even taking his hand from Inyx’s, and let Kiska’s dagger pass harmlessly by his back.

Kiska spun like a jungle beast, dagger held point up in a knife-fighting position.

The snarl of feral rage on her face showed that she thought the time ripe for killing Lan.

Lan motioned for the others to hold.

“Kiska,” he said in a low voice, “you have tried to kill me for the last time.”

“Yes,” she hissed. “This time I succeed! And if they stop me, you’ll present the opportunity again for me to drive my knife into you, you weak, sniveling fool.”

She lunged and again Lan sidestepped.

“You can’t prevent me from killing you, can you, you lovesick bastard?”

“The geas Claybore laid upon me is a subtle and complicated one,” said Lan. “I have to admit to a certain admiration for the delicacy of the spell and the way Claybore wrapped it around my own vanity, ego, and need to best him. Yes, that’s what he did,” said Lan to Inyx. “As much as anything else, the geas fed my ego, making me think I was invincible.” He gave a tired little laugh.

“The irony of it is that I am invincible. Now.”

“Not to me, Martak. You love me. You love the source of your own death!”

Kiska viciously drove the dagger tip directly for Lan’s groin. The blade vaporized, taking with it her hand, wrist and most of her forearm.

“Yes, Kiska, I suppose I do still love you. The geas is strong, but I am now stronger. Terrill’s legacy to me.”

Kiska stared stupidly at her ruined hand. Her brown eyes lifted to Lan’s and a frightened look came into them. Lan made a small motion and Kiska k’Adesina fell to the ground, dead.

“You killed her.” Ducasien stared at the woman’s still body.

Brinke gasped and turned shades whiter. She put one hand over her mouth and backed from Lan.

Lan felt only sorrow for Kiska. She had been little more than a pawn in this world-spanning power game.

But Lan felt even sorrier for Brinke. She possessed enough knowledge to understand what he had become. And for Inyx, who saw inside him. She saw what he was still changing into.

“The real conflict lies ahead of us,” Lan said. “We can reach the Pillar of Night in a few minutes, if we hurry.”