Pillar of Night

CHAPTER THREE

Rainbows filled her universe. The distant roar Inyx always experienced when shifting from one world to the next using the cenotaph seemed muted this time, but she paid it little attention. This was the first time in many months she had walked the Road without Lan beside her.

The dark-haired woman didn’t know if she liked that or not.

“This looks fair enough, even for ones like ourselves,” said Inyx’s companion. Ducasien stretched mightily and yawned, rubbing his stubbled chin and walking about the small graveyard. They had emerged on a hillside looking down on a barren expanse stretching off to a meandering river, its banks bursting from the spring runoffs.

“There’s promise in the air,” she agreed.

Behind her came a low moan and a rattling noise. She turned to see the giant spider Krek emerging from the cenotaph. Huge mandibles moved aside the stone coffin lid and as easily moved it back when the arachnid was fully transported into this world.

“What’s wrong, Krek?” she asked.

“Oh, friend Inyx, it is terrible, so positively terrible. I ache all over. My exoskeleton is in terrible shape. Look at the dents, the horrid gashes, even the burn marks. Burn marks! Why did I ever do such an insane thing? Why?”

“What’s that?” asked Ducasien.

“Leave my lovely bride Klawn and go a’wandering along the thrice-cursed Road,” answered the spider, glad to find a human willing to listen to his plight. “You have not seen gentle, petite Klawn, have you, friend Ducasien?”

“Can’t say that I have,” the man admitted. He frowned in confusion. Inyx caught his eye and made gestures indicating “petite” Klawn was even larger than Krek.

Krek stuck out his long, coppery-furred legs and scraped chitinous talons on the tips against a tombstone.

“Nicks. There are nicks in my talons. A disgrace. No Webmaster allows himself to deteriorate so. I shame myself. Oh, woe!”

“There, there, Krek,” soothed Inyx, putting her arm around the middle pair of the spider’s legs. “The acid burns will go away. Your fine fur will grow back, in time. And there’s an entire world to explore. Klawn may not be here, but think of the adventure!”

“Lan Martak is not here, either,” said the spider.

Inyx noted that Krek had not used his usual title of “friend” in referring to Lan.

“Lan fights battles we cannot share,” she told the mountain arachnid. The woman knew she had to choose her words carefully or she’d break down and cry. “He follows his own path along the Road, and it split apart from ours.”

“He was my friend and he betrayed me,” moaned Krek. “What did I do to deserve such hypocrisy?”

“It wasn’t your fault, old spider,” spoke up Ducasien. “He plays with the magics and they are possessing him. We’re better rid of him, if you ask me.” The man’s gaze did not waver when Inyx glared hotly at him. “Martak thinks only of himself, not you. Nor of Krek.”

The accusation hurt Inyx, but she couldn’t deny it. Lan had changed. Drastically. While she knew some of it had to do with the geas placed on him by Claybore, more of it came from within the man. The magical powers grew and changed his values. He had become obsessed with stopping Claybore and-what? Becoming a god? Inyx no longer mattered to him.

But he still mattered to her. A great deal.

“We can find whatever we want on this world. I feel it in my bones,” said Ducasien. He placed a powerful paw of a hand on her shoulder. She smiled weakly and nodded.

“This is not my sort of place,” Krek said unexpectedly. “I do like you both, I do. Believe that, friends Inyx and Ducasien. But there is a wrongness to this place that disturbs me.” The spider heaved himself to his feet and lumbered about the graveyard. Krek stopped when he came to another grave marker. His talons and strong legs began pulling at the stone.

“What is it, Krek?” Inyx asked.

“Another cenotaph. Most unusual finding two in one spot. This might be a world of great heroes. Alas, I am not a hero. I am a coward, a fool, worse. I leave web and bride and wander aimlessly. I am lost.”

“Krek?”

“No, friend Inyx. Let me be. A new cenotaph opens. I sense this world to be one more to my liking.”

“We’ll come with you…” Inyx started.

“No!” Krek shook all over, his head swiveling from side to side. “Stay. Explore. Find peace, if you can. I am doomed to wander, though this new world is strangely appealing to me. Farewell, friend Inyx. May your sword arm always be strong, friend Ducasien.”

“Krek, wait!” Inyx started forward, but Ducasien pulled her back. Krek folded up his eight long legs and hunkered down into the exposed crypt. A dull purple haze rose from within the grave and tugged at Krek’s body, pulling him to another world along the Cenotaph Road.

“Why did he do that?” Inyx asked, stunned. “He wanted to come with us. Why leave like this?”

Ducasien looked at her and then said, “Being with us will continue to remind him of all he had when you and Martak were together. Rather than face such painful memories, he prefers being alone once more. He’ll be all right. From what I’ve seen of Krek, he’s a fighter and will emerge victorious, no matter what the battle.”

Inyx felt as if a piece of her had been forcibly removed and cast into another world. Losing Lan in the way she had was painful, but losing Krek, too, made it even worse. She sat and stared dry-eyed at the empty crypt where the arachnid had vanished. The grave and her insides shared one thing in common: hollowness. The woman felt drained of all emotion until only hopelessness remained.

Ducasien lifted her and held her tightly. “Krek’ll be fine,” he said. “Most important, you’ll be fine. We’re together now. That matters, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said softly, her face buried in Ducasien’s chest. Inyx sucked in a deep breath and pushed the man away. “What are we waiting for? There is a world to explore. Or have you changed your mind?”

Ducasien laughed and performed a courtly bow, indicating that Inyx should precede him down the hill. With forced gaiety, Inyx smiled and took the man’s arm. They went down the hill, together.

“An ambush,” whispered Inyx. “Not more than four.”

“Six,” corrected Ducasien, pointing. He indicated a rocky overhang where two more of the grey-clad soldiers hid. “They await a rider. Or more. A caravan, perhaps?”

The heavy ruts in the dusty road hinted at use by well-laden wagons. Inyx and Ducasien had traveled for more than six days before finding any sign of life. The path down from the graveyard had led to a village deader than the cemetery. Buildings had been burned to the ground within the week and not one corpse had been left behind. The other small township they had found was similarly abandoned-destroyed. Here, however, they found evidence of Claybore’s grey-clad legions. A blood-stained tunic had been discarded and red-striped sleeve indicating rank in the conquering army had been ripped into bandages and then discarded, possibly when the injured had died.

The pair had trooped on, wary now for sign of Claybore’s soldiers. This ambuscade gave them the first solid evidence of life on the world.

“Not much chance of a caravan,” said Inyx. “They can see far enough to know if anything is kicking up dust. They wait for something-someone-else.”

“Let’s help whoever that is,” said Ducasien, already moving to his right. Inyx waited a minute and then drifted to the left, flitting from shadow to shadow until she crouched behind one of the greys. Ducasien rose up behind his target, knife flashing in the hot sun. Inyx’s victim saw and started to respond; it was the last thing he ever did. The woman rammed her dagger into his right kidney, even as her fingers pinched shut his nose and lips.

Inyx slit the throat of another before the greys’ leader lifted a red-striped arm and lowered it in signal. The woman dropped into the position vacated by the dead soldier and waited.

Four men and a woman walked along the road, wary of every movement, every sound, every shadow. Inyx knew quarry when she saw it. These people had been hunted long and hard by Claybore’s soldiers.

As the small group neared, the officer shouted, “Attack!”

To the officer’s surprise, he found himself three men short on the ambush. Then Ducasien took out another and Inyx deftly tossed her dagger and buried the spinning blade into the chest of a fifth. The officer stood alone in the rocks, waving one arm and clinging to his sword with the other hand.

All five of the people on the road pulled out slings, whirled them around twice, and loosed their missiles. One struck the greys’ leader squarely in the head. The explosion caused Inyx to flinch and turn away. She blinked in surprise. If it had been Lan attacking, she would have expected anything, but this ragtag band didn’t seem the type to lavishly use magics.

“Well cast,” she called to the group below. One man separated himself and stood to one side. The way he held his shoulders, the appraising look he gave her from the colorless eyes, the distance he put between himself and the others all bespoke of command.

Ducasien stepped beside her and looked down on them, saying in a low voice, “Not too awe-inspiring, are they?”

“You saw what they did to the grey-clad. There’s more here than shows on the surface,” Inyx said.

“Aye and you’re right on that score,” said the one Inyx pegged as the leader. “Come on down and join us, will you?”

“You’ve got good hearing,” said Inyx.

“Good vision, and a mite more,” said the man. “Who be you? We’ve not seen your likes in these parts, now have we?” He turned to the other four. The woman in the group got a far-looking expression on her face, then slowly nodded. “Now that Julinne has passed favorably on you, be welcome with us.”

“A witch?” asked Ducasien, hand still on his sword.

“Careful,” Inyx cautioned. She had seen more along the Road than had her friend. Inyx remembered only too well the quaint attitudes she had carried along with her from Leponto province on her home world. It had taken many years and many different worlds to burn away the prejudices. One of the strongest had been against those wielding magics able to pry into a person’s innermost thoughts.

“Well that you should be careful. Julinne’s meaning you no harm, are you, my dear?”

The woman’s eyes were so pale that they were virtually colorless, too. She shook her head, saying nothing.

“Julinne’s not one for bandying about words. She leaves that to me. They all do now, don’t you see?” The man looked from one to the next of his tight group. They relaxed as their leader spoke.

“I’m Inyx and this is Ducasien. We’re travelers along the Cenotaph Road.” Inyx wasn’t sure the man knew of the way off his planet. Many she encountered had no inkling of interworld connections. The way Claybore recruited his troops locally fostered belief in many cultures that their ills were homegrown rather than imported.

“So I see. Julinne sees much in you to like and much that is alien.” The man nodded and pointed. “You’re no friends of their ilk, now are you?”

The savage grin Inyx flashed him made the man draw back. “I see that you’re not,” he said quickly. “I am the leader of this pathetic little group. Nowless is the name. We come from far Urm, though you’re probably not quite certain where that might be, now are you?”

“No idea,” said Ducasien.

“Nor,” cut in Inyx, “are we sure how many you have in your ‘little’ band. Fifty? More?”

“Fifty?” Nowless said in mock surprise. “Now look at them, will you? Do these look to be as many as fifty? More like five.”

“What about those higher up the slope? If they aren’t with you, we might be in some trouble.” Inyx pointed to the barren hillside. Ducasien moved a half-step closer, hand still clutching his sword. His sharp eyes began working over potential hiding spots. When he stiffened, Inyx knew he had spotted the others, too.

“I don’t think there’s to be any trouble,” said Nowless. “You have the sense about you, eh?”

“Not like Julinne,” said Inyx. “I depend on eyes and ears. You weren’t talking as if you worried what we might do. One or two of those above got careless. A pebble tumbling a few feet. The scrape of leather against rock. The shadow moving where there’s no life. Tiny things that all turn into something larger.”

“You are a clever wench,” said Nowless, a wide grin breaking out across his face. Yellowed, cracked teeth showed.

“We have a common enemy,” said Ducasien, still uneasy at the large numbers of natives on the hillside. “Let’s not lose sight of that.”

“Friends?” demanded Nowless, squinting slightly at Ducasien.

“Friends,” the man said, thrusting his sword point first into the ground.

“Were you thinking to ambush the ambushers?” asked Inyx.

“That we were. But you did such a fine job, we decided to play out a different future,” said Nowless. “Would you be looking to join a fine band of the opposition? And reap some of the booty?”

“If you’re opposed to Claybore’s grey-clads, yes,” the dark-haired woman said. Her bright blue eyes lit up with excitement. This was the sort of challenge she needed. To seek out the enemy and fight them to the death. To live by her wits. Nowless offered her the very thing she sought along the Road.

“Then it’s off with us, now,” said Nowless. “We have a noble mission to accomplish and the sun’s going to be just right when we reach their fort.”

Ducasien and Inyx walked on either side of Nowless as they continued along the dusty road for a few more miles before cutting to the west and walking into the setting sun. By the time the evening star twinkled on the horizon, they had come to a sprawling fortress dominating the mouth of a barren valley.

“How many?” asked Inyx.

“Who can say?” answered Nowless. “Even fair Julinne has trouble now and then with the seeing. She tells me of as many as a thousand within those walls.” Nowless cocked his head and gave a lopsided grin. “That’s about the right odds for doughty fighters such as we, don’t you think?”

“We’d better get started,” said Ducasien, “if we want to finish tonight. It’s been weeks and weeks since I had to kill more than twenty or thirty grey-clads in a single evening.”

Nowless let out a bellow of pure delight. “I knew there was a mite of humor lurking within you.” Nowless pointed out the salient features of the fortress. “We can’t expect to take on many of the troops. Rested they are and many too many for us. But there, that small shed. That’s the target for this night’s devilment.”

Inyx surveyed the layout of the fort and the shed Nowless indicated. “Animals of some sort there?” she asked.

“Enough horses to let us ride with the very wind,” said Nowless. “But while some of us try for the mounts, the rest of us will be doing what we can a’yonder.”

“The mess hall?”

“What better place to spend a fine spring evening?”

Julinne glided up and handed Nowless a small vial of colorless liquid. He tapped the sides of the glass. Bubbles formed and rose to the top of the stoppered tube.

“You’re going to poison them?” asked Ducasien, offended. “That’s no way to fight a battle!”

“Aye, then, go and kill your twenty. No, make it forty since I have other things to be doing. While you’re at it, lad, go on and slay all thousand of them because we’re not able to.”

“But the honor!” Ducasien protested. “This isn’t an honorable form of battle. You kill your enemy with sword or dagger, not poison him like some foul cur.”

“They’re nothing more than animals to us. For all they’ve done to my people, I’d see them all tortured to death. This is as close as I can come,” said Nowless. The man’s tone had dropped from bantering to monotone. Inyx sensed how close he came to driving a dirk into Ducasien’s ribs.

“Ducasien,” she said urgently, “there are many ways of fighting. My experience along the Road has shown me that. There’s nothing wrong with this.”

“You forget yourself, Inyx,” Ducasien said stiffly.

“These people fight for their very existence. The greys outnumber them because the grey-clads have been slaughtering them,” she said, guessing accurately. “Haven’t we seen the burned towns, the destroyed fields? What Claybore brings to this world is nothing less than genocide.”

“It’s not honorable,” Ducasien said.

“Then don’t fight,” she said hotly. “But I will. Nowless needs all the help he can get. And I pledge my sword!”

“Well said, well said!” applauded Nowless. Ducasien eyed them in disgust, then reluctantly nodded that he, too, would join the disgraceful battle.

“But I will not use the poison,” he added.

“Wouldn’t think of it. That’s my privilege.” The sudden bitterness told Inyx that Nowless had lost much to Claybore’s soldiers. He would gladly have used a knife on every one of the greys, had that been possible. This gave the best way of striking back.

“Let’s be off.” Nowless turned to Julinne and spoke quietly to the woman for several minutes, kissed her and went on down the hill. His bare feet made no sound on the ground as he walked. Inyx felt clumsy next to him.

At the gate Nowless signaled for them to wait. Two sentries marched slowly to and fro at their post. Before Inyx could decide how best to take out the one closest to her, the whistle of cast stones filled the air. Both guards crumpled to the ground like discarded foolscap. Almost without missing a step, two of Nowless’s men picked up the sentry duties. In the dark their lack of uniforms wasn’t obvious.

Inyx, Ducasien, Nowless, and three others slipped quietly into the compound.

“No disturbance to warn them, now,” cautioned Nowless. They made their way directly for the mess hall. Nowless went inside while the others stood watch.

“I don’t like this,” mumbled Ducasien.

“It’s all right,” soothed Inyx. “Different worlds, different ways of waging war.”

“I still prefer an honest sword fight.”

“You,” came the harsh voice. “Why are you loitering there? Don’t you have other duties?”

“Please,” spoke up Inyx. “We… well, we were just looking for a secluded spot.”

The officer strode over. The instant he was within range, Inyx spun, drew her sword, and lunged. The tip of her blade caught the man directly in the groin. He grabbed his wounded crotch and let out a bleat like a kicked sheep. No other sound emerged from his mouth. Ducasien’s strong hand clamped over his mouth. The other hand went to the back of the officer’s head. One quick jerk broke the man’s neck.

“Well met,” complimented Nowless, emerging from the kitchens. “Dump him inside and let’s be on our way.”

“Wait!” Inyx shook her head. “If they find him inside they might do some checking. We can carry him with us. For a ways.”

Nowless indicated that two of the men were to carry the slain officer. Inyx liked Nowless more and more. He was a brave man and a good leader not afraid to change plans when a better suggestion came up. She had seen men too stiff-necked to ever change their minds.

Like Lan Martak.

The thought of the brown-haired man, his gentle ways of loving, the times they had spent together before the magics so overwhelmed him brought a glistening to Inyx’s blue eyes. She fought back the tears. How she wished he were here with her. But, like her long-dead husband, Lan was forever lost to her.

“Damn Claybore,” she said viciously.

“Agreed,” whispered Nowless, “but the thrice-damned mage has not been on this planet in long years. All we can do is remove the trash he left us.”

The officer was unceremoniously dropped outside the gates to the fort. A signal brought the thunder of hooves as the rest of Nowless’s band drove off the horses they weren’t stealing.

Whether the sound alerted another guard or some other indiscretion had, alarm gongs sounded throughout the fort.

“We have a bit of a fight on our hands now,” said Nowless. “We’d best let them get a ways down the road, don’t you think?” He indicated those of his men escaping up the slopes.

“We can hold them long enough,” said Inyx. “Ducasien has been longing for this, haven’t you?”

“At last,” the man cried, “an honorable way of fighting!”

Ten of Nowless’s men rode up and held horses for them to mount, but by the time they’d settled into stirrup and saddle, the first wave of greys rushed from the fort.

Inyx’s blade rose and dropped, severing an ear. She kicked another in the face and reined her mount around to face still another enemy. The woman’s blade sang its restless song of death, and she was finally able to forget about Lan Martak in the heat of the battle.

Only when they galloped off into the night, the cries of the grey-clad soldiers following them, did she again think of Lan.

There would have to be more slaughter-much more-for his memory to be erased totally.