Pillar of Night

CHAPTER FIVE

“Noooooo!” Lan Martak screamed as he whirled through nothingness. The world of summer scents and brightly blooming flowers and airy breezes vanished when Claybore’s spell took hold. Lan reached out magically and clung to Kiska k’Adesina, keeping her beside him. If he had to spend an eternity lost in the whiteness between worlds, he would not spend it alone.

“Oh, yes, Martak,” came the scornful words. Claybore enjoyed his revenge to the hilt. “You now find yourself lost. Remember how it was when I did this to that bitch Inyx? You sought her out and only succeeded in bringing her back because of the help you had. This time there is no aid for you. None. You are lost!”

The laughter following faded away until only deathly silence remained behind.

Lan walked through the cloaking whiteness, aware of Kiska nearby but not seeing her. The weight of responsibility for her drove him to seek her out. The task proved more difficult than he’d imagined. Even though Lan had successfully found the disembodied Inyx in this place between worlds when Claybore had exiled her here, he had forgotten how truly alien the white nothingness was.

Time ceased to have meaning. He walked and he thought of all that had happened. The magical battle had been premature on his part, yet he hadn’t been totally unprepared. Meeting with the Resident of the Pit had definitely alerted Claybore to his presence on that world, even if the small magic used in battle with the grey-clad soldiers hadn’t. But the sight of the Pillar of Night again stunned Lan and allowed Claybore to work his spells unhindered.

Why? What was it about the black column that devoured all light that so paralyzed him? He was not afraid of it or the magics locked within it, yet he knew he ought to be. There came from it an undeniable power, and the Resident was unable to tell him of it. In some fashion the magics robbed the Resident of godhood and reduced a once mighty deity to little more than a wishing well.

But what a wishing well! Lan guessed that there were pits on every world along the Road. His mind turned to other avenues of attack. If the Resident of the Pit existed simultaneously on each world, might it not be possible to walk the Road using those pits? Where was the magic for that? Lan searched for the proper chant, the incantation that would reveal any such well in this whiteness, and failed.

He turned-or not, since it hardly mattered-and saw Kiska k’Adesina. She had become a ghostlike figure, transparent and flickering in and out of sight like a guttering candle flame. Lan lost her as gauzy curtains floated between them, then found her, much to his disgust, by using the geas Claybore had laid upon him. His love for her drew them together.

“Lan,” gasped Kiska as she grabbed for his arm. “I never thought I’d be happy to see you. What is this place?”

Lan Martak didn’t answer. The geas forced him to joy on being reunited with Kiska, but he knew there was no true love. For Inyx he would have stranded himself in this nothing place if she could only have walked free on some world of substance. But for Kiska, he would not trade spit for her company, given free will.

But an idea began forming. His spells were useless, that he knew. Could Claybore’s geas provide the thread leading out of this white desolation? Lan smiled wryly at that. To use Claybore’s own spell to unlock a more deadly one amused him. It almost vindicated his claim to being a mage.

Try as he would, though, all Lan succeeded in finding was a hint as to the direction, a glimmering of hope that he had enough power held in reserve to accomplish the task.

“Lan?” Kiska moved closer and yet the distance between them did not change. “I feel as if I am coming apart. Drifting apart inside. Everything is so… dreamy.”

“The space between worlds does not follow ordinary laws. My spells fail and force is useless.” He lightly touched the hilt of his sword. Creatures roamed through the whiteness, but they fought in ways he had never mastered. If magic and blade availed him nothing, how did he defend himself? He renewed his efforts to follow the trail back to Claybore’s world.

“I don’t like it here. I want to go somewhere else. Lan, take me away from this.”

Power surged inside Lan. The geas to love Kiska, to keep her from harm and to please her, added to his ability. The thready indications of magic he spied became clearer, dark dots occasionally hidden by the movements of the white landscape. Lan followed the trail as he would any spoor in the forest.

“Who?” came the distant question.

Lan tried to ask Kiska what she meant, but the woman was again separated from him, more by mind than distance. Even though she clung to his arm, they were poles away from one another-and someone else again asked, “Who is there?”

“We are lost between worlds. Claybore’s spell holds us here. Can you help?”

“Where?”

“Here,” Lan said. He formed a mental image of the whiteness and sent it out, as he would a spell. The thready path they followed became more distinct.

“I see you and yet I do not. This is perplexing.”

“Help us.”

For a long while no answer came. Lan feared he had made contact with another mage-one in Claybore’s camp. He had not forgotten how the mage Patriccan had given him such problems when Claybore had laid siege to Iron Tongue’s walled city. Lan thrust the metal tongue in his mouth out and lightly touched the very tip. It heated, indicating spells about him of which he knew nothing. The legacy of Claybore’s tongue had brought him both augmented magical powers and woe. For all the newfound ability it gave him, it also took its toll on his humanity.

“Help me,” he said, using the Voice. The tongue warmed even more. The potent spell rippled along the black band leading off into the whiteness.

“Do not think me such a fool,” came the instant warning. “I am no novice.”

“Help me, please,” Lan said, toning down his command and making it a plea. “Without your aid we will be lost here. Show me the way back.”

“Very well.”

The black thread widened. Lan coaxed it and the mage on the other end spread it out until it stood as wide as a footpath through the forest. Lan and Kiska hurriedly followed it.

“Lan!” shrieked Kiska, when they had walked for what seemed hours. Her sword slid free of its sheath and cut through white nothingness to one side of the path. “Did you see it?”

A hulking creature loomed up once more. Its skin had faded to glasslike transparency and revealed the sturdy skeletal structure within. The only parts of the beast that seemed the least bit solid were the six-inch-long fangs in the vicious mouth. Lan tried a fire spell, only to have it snuffed out inches from his hand. He drew his sword and slashed downward. He caught the creature high on one shoulder and tried to cleave it open to the groin.

His blade bit into a clavicle, then found only mist.

“You wounded it, Lan. It… it attacks!” Kiska’s voice betrayed fear but her actions were those of a soldier. She did not even consider retreat. She widened her stance and prepared to meet the brutal assault head on.

The creature spun from Lan’s punishing blade at the last instant and ducked under Kiska’s sword. She thrust high and missed. Fangs sank into her thigh.

Kiska moaned and tried to cut the beast’s back. Her sword found only mist. Lan drove it back and into the whiteness.

“What is happening? I sense disturbance,” came the other mage’s words.

“We were attacked. If we don’t win free soon, we might never make it.” He looked anxiously at Kiska’s wound. It bled, but not in the fashion of most bites. The blood came out in perfect, expanding circles, like the ripples on a small pond when a rock is dropped into the water. Lan tried to staunch the flow from the curious wound but only made it worse.

“Follow my familiar,” the other mage commanded.

But Lan saw nothing. He helped Kiska along the black pathway, not knowing where it led. The tiny hints he received about their rescuer only raised more questions than they answered. In some fashion he sensed the other mage was also bound to Claybore, but not as he was through the geas linking him inexorably to Kiska k’Adesina.

“There!”

Lan lifted his gaze to see what excited Kiska. It hardly seemed possible. An archway of solid stone stood in the midst of the whiteness. Through the arch he saw a well-appointed room. A figure sat in a high-backed carved wood chair, obscured by shadows.

“Through the door,” he said, one arm around Kiska. He rushed forward, but again distances proved different in the white mists. Hours, years, centuries passed before he stepped through the archway and into the solid room.

“Oh,” he said, dropping to his knees. Kiska’s weight almost proved more than he could bear. He eased her to the floor. The wound on her thigh now flowed bright red in a way that meant an artery had been severed.

“She needs healing,” said the other mage.

“I can do it, I think,” said Lan. “The spells are not overly complex.”

“Show me.”

He nodded. He started the spell without recourse to the magics locked within his tongue. When he was sure the watching mage had learned what he did, Lan used the Voice.

“Heal!” he commanded, building the potent healing spell and driving it through Kiska’s flesh and to the severed artery.

“She is pale but the artery is mended,” said the other.

“Good.” Lan wiped sweat off his forehead and tried to get a good look at his benefactor. Instead, he saw a looking glass on the wall across the room reflecting the image of the archway.

Lan Martak spun, hand going to sword. He whipped out the blade and lunged just as the seven-foot-long beast emerged fully from the space between worlds. The six-inch fangs dripped red-Kiska’s blood. But all that saved them from death was the spurting wound on the shoulder that Lan had given the creature in the whiteness. It lurched to one side and its spring was aborted.

Lan’s lunge went true, piercing the creamy furred chest. The beast let out an ear-shattering bellow of pain and jerked away. Lan’s sword was pulled from his hand.

He reached for his dagger, then remembered they were no longer between worlds. If they had returned to Claybore’s planet, then Lan’s arsenal of magical weapons worked. He straightened and faced the slavering monster. Yellowed teeth were exposed as lips pulled back. Talons lashed at the air in front of the creature as it gathered powerful hindquarters under it for the killing leap.

A fireball exploded from Lan’s fingertips. A loud sizzling filled the room as the greenish fire touched fur and flesh and began burning. Only when the beast’s heart had been turned into a cinder did the magical fire dwindle and finally extinguish.

“Whew,” Lan said. “Being in the mists must have addled my brain. My spells didn’t work there and I had to use my sword. Facing this again, it never occurred to me that a spell would defeat it so quickly.”

“Your swordplay was expert,” came a light, musical voice. “Your magics even more so.”

Lan turned to see the other mage for the first time. He had been groggy due to passing from nothingness to a real world. Now he was simply speechless from admiration. The mage rescuing him was not only a woman, she was a stunningly gorgeous woman. Long cascades of white-blonde hair fell past her shoulders. Grey eyes probed questioningly into his very soul and found answers. Lush, full red lips curled into a pleasant smile, one that Lan wanted to enjoy.

Her figure was even more captivating than her smile. Purple velvet cloaked her body, clinging to her with static intensity. She brushed back a vagrant strand of hair falling into her eyes and turned slightly, perching on the edge of a carved wood table.

“You seem startled. Do you recognize me?” she asked.

“Never could I forget you, had we met.” Lan introduced himself.

“I am Brinke.”

Lan bowed deeply. Brinke smiled at his attempt at the courtly gesture.

“You are not used to such things, are you?” she asked. “You seem so unlike mere courtiers.”

“I’m not,” Lan admitted. He cursed his rough upbringing. How he wished for the polish of a court dandy now.

“Yet you control magics of incredible power and versatility.” A note came into Brinke’s voice that alerted Lan to hidden dangers. “You neglected to mention your friend.” Brinke pointed to where Kiska lay unconscious.

“No friend mine,” Lan said bitterly. “She is one of Claybore’s personal staff, a commander high in his esteem.” The words choked him now; he felt the full force of the geas strangling him. “I… I love her,” he grated out between clenched lips.

“So?” Brinke moved around the table and sat in her chair.

She tented slender, gold-ringed fingers and peered at him over the top. Lan flinched under the intensity of the grey eyes, yet no spell was uttered. What magics Brinke used were only natural ones.

“I can’t help myself,” Lan said, fighting to keep control. “Claybore placed me under a geas. I… I can’t counter it. She is a dagger against my throat. Claybore cares nothing for her except as an instrument of my destruction.”

“She has tried to kill you several times.” Brinke’s words came as a simple statement, not a question. Lan nodded. “He saves her for the ultimate confrontation, then. If he succeeds in killing you without using her, however he intends to do that, fine. Otherwise, he always has a spy and ally in your camp.” Brinke shook her head, white-blonde hair fluttering up in disarray.

Lan glanced over to the mountain of dead carcass and asked, “Is there some way of removing that? I have no wish to keep it as a trophy.”

“Ugly, isn’t it? I’ve never seen its like around here.”

“There’s no way to find out what world it came from. The space between worlds contains beings from all, I think.”

Brinke made a small gesture. From a tiny closet set off to one side of the room came small demon-powered cylinders, rolling on rubber wheels. They hissed and complained but taloned arms came forth and grabbed at the carcass. The fronts of the cylinders opened and the demons began sucking in noisily until the beast vanished. Only then did the cleaners belch, whirl about, and return to their stations in the closet.

“You must tell me more of this,” Brinke said, pointing at Kiska. “Would you like me to kill her for you?”

Lan’s reaction came instinctively. Brinke slammed back in her chair as the spell sought to crush the life from her body. Only through extreme exertion did Lan lighten the spell he cast and then destroy it totally.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“This geas is more than I had thought,” the woman said softly. “But it could not be a common spell or a mage of your ability would have lifted it himself.” Brinke rose and said, “We’ll see that she’s put to bed. While your healing spells seemed adequate, let’s have the chirurgeon examine her.”

Lan picked Kiska up in his arms and followed Brinke through a maze of corridors. Glimpses out narrow windows showed the full bloom of summer on the land; he had returned to the world where the Pillar of Night beckoned so seductively to him.

“Claybore is not likely to know of your rescue,” Brinke said as she ushered Lan into a sleeping chamber. She indicated he ought to put Kiska on the bed. He lowered her gently, even as he wanted to throw her from the high window. “This castle is shielded against his intrusions.”

“You bear some burden put upon you by Claybore. What is it?”

She swallowed, then pulled herself up stiff-necked, eyes staring at a blank wall.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I know he has placed a geas on me, also, but its nature is hidden from me. I fear it.” She turned and gripped Lan’s brawny forearm. “Oh, how I fear not knowing what he might make me do. The uncertainty is worse than any deed he might make me perform.”

Lan snorted at that. “Claybore’s imagination is vivid. You might be better off not knowing.” But he understood the woman’s concern. Only because he had advanced to a stage almost matching Claybore’s had he been able to detect the geas forcing him to protect Kiska. Lan needed to surpass Claybore in ability to be able to counter the spell. He wondered if the answer lay locked within the beguiling Pillar of Night.

“Lan?” called out Kiska. “What happened?”

“Rest,” he said. “I’ll be here. There’s someone coming to examine you, to make sure your injuries aren’t worse than I thought.”

Brown eyes moved past Lan to fix on Brinke. Lan saw the calculation working in Kiska’s expression. He made no move to introduce the two.

“She is very lovely,” said Kiska.

“I will fetch the chirurgeon,” said Brinke, moving from the room with a liquid grace that reminded Lan of Inyx stalking game.

“She likes you. I can tell,” said Kiska.

“I used a small healing spell on your leg wound. All that saved you was the odd flow of time between worlds. An artery had been severed by the beast’s fanging. Only when we emerged back onto this world did the wound begin to bleed.”

“The Pillar of Night is near?” Kiska asked. “Never mind. It must be. I recognize this world. It was here that Claybore and I-” Kiska abruptly cut off her words and smiled wickedly. “That is no concern of yours, dear, loving Lan.” The words burned as if they had been dipped in acid.

Brinke returned with the chirurgeon, who performed a thorough and nonmagical examination. All the while Lan and Brinke stood to one side, quietly talking.

When the chirurgeon left, Lan said, “I should stay with her.”

“No, darling Lan,” spoke up Kiska. “I would rest. He gave me a sleeping potion. I… grow drowsy. Go and swap spells with her.” A tiny smile curled the corners of Kiska’s mouth. Lan couldn’t help but compare the difference between the two women. On Brinke a smile brought sunshine; on Kiska it chilled to the bone. “Go and leave me alone. I would sleep now.” Kiska pulled a blanket over her shoulder and turned her head away.

Lan and Brinke silently left the room and made their way back to Brinke’s study. Another of the magically powered cleaning devices scuttled about to clean the beast’s blood from the flagstone floor. Lan went and stood in front of the archway.

“It doesn’t appear to lead anywhere now,” he said. “What spells do you use to activate it?”

“My magics are not so predictable,” Brinke said. “I know few spells. I sit and sometimes everything seems right. Then I perform what strike me as miracles; but, on a consistent basis, I have no control.”

“You plucked me from the nothingness,” said Lan.

“I sat here reading and a mood came over me. I felt… apprehensive. I spoke, you answered. If I used some spell or another, I know nothing of it.”

“Purely instinctual,” Lan mused.

“I have made no real effort to learn formally.”

Lan’s heart accelerated as he looked at Brinke. Her beauty was unmatched on any of the worlds he had walked. He told her so.

“What will Claybore’s militant pawn think of such flowery words?” Brinke asked.

“I don’t know.”

A sinking feeling gripped Lan Martak. Kiska had almost chased him away, knowing full well what it would lead to. Why? What part did this have in Claybore’s plot? Any?

His and Brinke’s eyes locked. He moved closer to her.

“I should thank you for all you’ve done.”

“No thanks is necessary,” Brinke said. Her tongue slipped the merest fraction from her mouth, wetting her lips. Lan kissed her.

The kiss became more, much more. Through the long, passionate night, Lan never once thought of Kiska.

But he did think of lost Inyx.