Pillar of Night

CHAPTER SEVEN

“There are evil stirrings,” said Lan Martak. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and continued to stare through the empty doorway in Brinke’s study. The woman denied having formal training as a mage, but Lan felt the power within her. He reached out and found his dancing light mote familiar and pulled it close to him, teasing it, coaxing it to spin and whirl in front of Brinke. At the precise instant, Lan released it and let it explode within Brinke.

The blonde arched her back and threw her hands upward. Her head tossed from side to side and piteous moans escaped her lips. Lan did not worry; she was in no physical danger. What menaced them both lay through the archway.

Claybore.

“I have some small control of it,” Brinke muttered between clenched teeth. “It is so close. So very, very close.”

“There!”

Lan leaned forward and applied his own scrying spells to the strangely formulated one intuitively used by Brinke. A kaleidoscopic pattern churned in the archway and then settled down into a perfect three-dimensional image of Claybore.

“Kill him!” Brinke cried. Her hands clutched the arms of the chair so hard that her knuckles turned white. She half rose and leaned forward, eyes turned into pools of utter hatred.

“Be calm,” Lan said soothingly. “This is only a picture of Claybore, not the flesh-and-blood reality.” He snorted derisively. “If you can even call him flesh and blood.”

Lan studied the image as it moved about on mechanical legs. They worked more smoothly than the prior ones and gave the mage better mobility. But it wasn’t the clockwork motion that drew Lan’s full attention. The skull showed renewed signs of cracking. The nose hole had several large fractures radiating from it, and in the back of the skull Lan spotted tiny triangular-shaped craters resulting from long cracks intersecting.

“What’s wrong with his arms?” asked Brinke.

“They don’t seem to be well-hinged, do they?” Lan noted the looseness of the swing, the almost uncontrolled swaying movement. Claybore barely held himself together. When he turned and seemed to face directly at Lan and Brinke, it became all the more apparent.

“His chest!” gasped Brinke.

Lan smiled without humor. He had been responsible for ripping the Kinetic Sphere from Claybore’s chest and sending it bouncing along the Cenotaph Road. He had no clear idea where he had discarded it, but it was no longer beating heartlike in the sorcerer’s chest. Any small advantage he could garner might prove the difference between winning and losing the battle to come.

Lan’s attention wandered a little. He remembered what the Resident of the Pit had said about the Pillar of Night. He shook free of the memory of that ebony, light-sucking column reaching to the very sky. Once he began thinking of it, Lan found it impossible to consider anything else. Perhaps that was its power. To have his thoughts tangled up at an awkward time might mean his death.

Deep down in his heart, his living, beating, flesh heart, Lan Martak did not believe he was immortal. Claybore had said he was and the Resident had intimated it, but Lan had to think otherwise. His powers still grew and would one day match Claybore’s, but that day was still in the future. He could not be immortal. Impossible.

“The visual part of the scrying is complete,” Lan said. “One more small adjustment and we can spy on him. But do not utter a word. The connection will be two-way. We can see while he cannot, but both Claybore and we will be able to hear.”

Brinke nodded understanding. She settled down into her chair, grey eyes fixed on the scene captured under the arch.

Lan performed the final spell.

“…send Patriccan immediately,” Claybore said. “It seems that matters on that world have reached a crisis stage.”

“Immediately, master,” said a uniformed officer. The woman bowed deeply and backed away, leaving Claybore. The mage sat at a table, elbows resting on the top and fingers peaked just under a jawless, bony mouth. Claybore held the pose for a moment, then laughed.

He rose and pulled out charts. Lan studied them over the mage’s shoulder, memorizing the details. Claybore’s headquarters were on the other side of the world and at a port city easily reached by either ship or caravan. For Lan it would be a month’s journey or more, but Claybore would never know his adversary crept up on him.

“Claybore!” came the shout. “Here!”

Lan spun and saw Kiska standing behind him. He had been so intent on Claybore’s map that he had not heard her enter the room. Lan tried to silence her, but the damage had been done.

The ghastly parody of a human jerked about on his clockwork legs. One spastic hand lifted and pointed toward Lan and Brinke. The kaleidoscope patterns returned to the doorway and then faded.

“As I thought. Welcome, Martak, Brinke. And my ever-loyal commander Kiska k’Adesina. How fare you all?”

“He sees us,” gasped Brinke.

“But of course I do, Lady Brinke. I am a mage second to none. Kiska’s outburst alerted me. I knew instantly that someone spied upon me. It required no huge mentation to decide that it had to be Martak. While your scrying spells are interesting, they lack subtlety.”

“Release me, Claybore. Do not hold me a prisoner to your magics any longer.” Brinke’s face reddened and Lan saw the beauty erased by the intense emotional storm wracking her.

“Release you from what, my lovely Brinke? That little geas I placed upon you? Don’t be silly. You have no idea what it will do. Or when.”

“I’ll kill you!”

Claybore’s mocking laughter filled the chamber. It penetrated like a knife and even sent one of the omnipresent demon-powered cleaning units scuttling away in fear. Lan had listened to the byplay and knew it was for his benefit. All the while Claybore boasted and taunted, Lan summoned his energies. He had thought to rest before this confrontation, but he saw now that he would never be more prepared.

The entire wall vanished as Lan hurled one of his fireballs. The green sphere exploded and melted stone and brick on Lan’s side of the spell gate. On Claybore’s side maps and papers strewn about the tables ignited and a superheated wind blew against the sorcerer’s skull. New cracks appeared, but Claybore seemed not to notice. Claybore’s quick hand gestures dropped Lan into inky blackness.

He panicked, remembering the whiteness between worlds. Then he found his light mote and used it to guide him from the pitch black hole and into the sun. Panic would destroy him; calm would allow him to prevail. The two mages fought constantly, striving for advantage.

“Let me help,” urged Brinke. “Use me however you can to destroy him!”

“Yes,” mocked Kiska, “use her. As if you hadn’t already.”

Lan dared not silence either of them. He needed full concentration to counter the increasingly devious spells Claybore threw at him. And his own grew in complexity.

Mere power would not suffice. There had to be artifice, also.

“You are not making any headway, Martak.”

“Nor are you, Claybore.”

“I feel no need to. After all, you are the challenger. You have to unseat me.”

“You’re no king and I’m no usurper,” Lan shot back. He molded his light familiar into a slender needle, the tip of which burned with eye-searing intensity. At the proper instant it would be launched directly for Claybore’s skull. Split that bone monstrosity and Lan thought Claybore’s power would fade.

“You misjudge our positions.”

“Lan!” screamed Brinke.

A rustle of velvet and leather from behind told Lan that Kiska had again tried to knife him in the back. He watched her carefully enough at most times, but when dealing with Claybore he left himself open. As much as he wanted to destroy her, swat her as he would an insect, Lan simply couldn’t. It seemed that, with every spell he cast, his love for the woman grew.

Claybore’s laughter filled his ears.

“Ah, darling Kiska has again tried and failed. She will succeed one day. But I am not too worried about that. I have other traps laid for you, Martak. You will enjoy them, I’m sure.”

“Goodbye, Claybore.”

Lan Martak launched the magical needle with all the power locked within him.

Claybore again laughed. Lan sensed rather than saw Claybore slip aside at the last possible instant. And Lan felt himself being pulled forward with the needle. He followed it between worlds and onto another. Only quick reflexes saved him from a nasty spill. He had emerged in thin air some ten feet off the ground. Lan doubled up and rolled and came to his feet.

Beside him stood a dazed Kiska k’Adesina.

He looked around. This was a fair world, but one he’d never set foot on before. Claybore had outmaneuvered him again. But why?

“Why do you fear this Patriccan?” asked Ducasien.

“I fear his magic, not the man,” Inyx answered. She quickly outlined the battles that had raged outside Wurnna on a faraway world and how Patriccan had taken part. “He is skilled and one of Claybore’s finest surviving sorcerers. Without him Claybore wouldn’t have been able to conquer nearly as many worlds as fast as he has.”

“We do not fear him,” Nowless said staunchly.

“You should,” said Julinne, speaking for the first time in days. “I see only snatches of the future and it is grim. Many, many die. I cannot tell individuals but the land is afloat in blood.”

“Now then, good lady, are you really needing the sight to predict that?” scoffed Nowless.

“Patriccan is responsible for many deaths,” Julinne said. “There are others, potent others. Mages whose power is so incredible I cannot comprehend it.”

“They oppose us at the fort?” asked Ducasien, worried for the first time. “We have adequate fighters”-he looked at Inyx for confirmation-“but spells are rare on this world. Julinne’s the only one with a talent worth mentioning.”

“Shork can conjure fire from his able fingers,” said Nowless. Even as the man spoke he knew how inadequate that sounded. “Perhaps he can learn to do more.”

“Before the battle? Hardly,” said Inyx. “We have the advantage tactically. Can we still assume we have the element of surprise on our side?”

“No,” said Ducasien. “With mages inside the fort? A scrying spell or some infernal ward spell would alert them to our attack long before the main body of fighters arrived. We will have to postpone the battle until they no longer have all these mages available.”

“I, for one, have no desire to be turned into a newt, don’t you know?” Nowless crossed his arms over his broad chest and glowered.

“I did not say we lacked sorcerers. I said there were many engaged in the battle.”

“Now what’s it you’re really meaning to say?” demanded Nowless. “Are you saying Shork’s going to give us the magical cover we need to sneak up on those barstids?”

“Wait.” Inyx took Julinne’s hand in hers. “Can you see the faces of the mages in the battle?”

A tiny nod.

“One is rat-faced and looks as if he’d just sucked on a bitter root?”

Another nod.

“And another has brown hair, is well built and is accompanied by a small, bright point of light?”

“You have the vision, too?” asked Julinne.

“Lan will somehow come to our aid,” she said to Ducasien. “How he found us, I can’t say. But he did!”

Ducasien turned and stalked off. Inyx said to Julinne, “Thank you. This is very important. It might mean the difference between success and failure.” Inyx bent forward and lightly kissed the other woman on the cheek, then hurried after Ducasien.

She overtook him just as he reached the spot where they’d pitched a small tent.

“Don’t be so crackbrained,” she said, grabbing his sleeve.

He jerked free of her grip and faced her. “It’s always Martak this and Martak that. If he’d been with us, the mage wouldn’t have been able to paralyze us. How do you know Julinne’s vision is accurate? We’ve never been able to verify a thing she’s said. I think you want Martak to be there. In spite of all he’s done to you, you want to see him again. So do it and be damned!”

“Ducasien, please, wait.”

She dropped to hands and knees and followed Ducasien into the tent. There was hardly enough room for the pair of them. It hadn’t mattered before.

“We cannot defeat Patriccan without a mage of surpassing power. Neither of us is able to conjure even the simplest of spells. Give us swords and we can fight the best Claybore has in his legion, but against a mage? Forget it.” Inyx slumped and rolled onto her back, staring up into the blank green fabric of the tent.

Ducasien said nothing as he lay on his pallet, similarly staring upward. Inyx soon felt his hand atop hers, squeezing gently. She turned and looked into the man’s eyes.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Ducasien said.

“You won’t hold me this way.”

“He…”

Inyx reached over and silenced him with a slender finger against his lips. “Don’t speak of him. Not now. The battle is set and we must be ready in an hour.”

Ducasien lifted himself up on an elbow and kissed Inyx. She returned it with mounting fervor and soon, in the confines of the tent, they made love.

But Inyx thought not of Ducasien. Her mind rattled with memories of Lan Martak.

“They have gathered just for us,” gloated Ducasien. “One swift thrust and they are ours. The power of the grey-clads on this world will be broken.”

Inyx wasn’t so sure. She looked down at the fort. They had successfully raided it before. Nowless’s poison had killed more than half the soldiers, but this victory was short-lived. The commander had called in troops from distant posts to recoup the lost position here.

“Nowless has everything in readiness,” said Ducasien. He smiled wickedly as he pointed out the traps and said, “The boulders will smash through the side of the fort and leave them vulnerable to the archers and slingers.”

“There’s no question that the boulders will do the trick?” asked Inyx. She spoke only to keep her mind off her true worries. Ducasien had had little contact with Claybore’s sorcerers and the power of magic. The woman had no desire to face the kinds of spells that might be thrown against their forces.

“The explosive Nowless uses in the pebble-slingers has been mined and planted in appropriate amounts. Fear naught. All will go well.” Ducasien put his arm around her in an attempt to be comforting. Inyx refused to allow herself to relax.

“They have gathered,” she said. A last company of grey-clads rode into the fort. “Their meeting begins.”

“Their death begins now,” said Ducasien. He lifted his arm and gave Nowless the signal. Bass rumblings shattered the still air and caused huge clouds of white smoke and dust to rise. Through the veiling curtain came ponderous boulders, rolling slowly at first, then with greater speed. Nowless had aimed well. Two boulders missed the fort entirely; six more crashed into the wood wall and broke it to splinters.

The legionnaires in the fort boiled forth, swords in hand. Ducasien gave another signal. Clouds of arrows arched up and landed among the soldiers, killing many. A second signal. The slings whirred and hissed and sent forth their tiny pellets of explosive. Against the massive wooden fort walls, these pellets were useless; against humans they took a deadly toll.

“They’ve taken cover,” said Inyx. “We must go down and engage them if we are to wipe them out entirely.”

“Another round of boulders,” said Ducasien. Explosions, another pair of huge rocks crushing their way through the interior of the fort, disarray among the grey-clads within.

Inyx gave the command for their band to charge down the hill and engage the soldiers. All the distance down the hill she saw arrows arcing overhead to keep the greys in confusion. But Inyx still worried, even though their plan had worked perfectly to this point.

The mage. Where was he?

Inyx saw Patriccan just as she and fifty sword-waving guerrillas reached the breached wall of the fort. The sorcerer walked out, hands hidden in thick folds of his long brown robe. A slight smile danced on his lips. He felt the battle had been won.

“I have expected you,” he said. His voice carried strangely over the distance. Inyx heard him as clearly as if he whispered in her ear.

“Surrender!” Inyx yelled to the mage. “Your time on this world is past.”

“Oh?”

A flight of arrows buried itself in the ground around the mage. He deflected the vicious broadheads from his own body but apparently cared little for saving the soldiers. Another dozen of them died near him. But the mage’s hands continued working their spells. Inyx saw the air turning hazy in front of Patriccan. And behind, up on the hill where Nowless commanded, came deafening explosions.

“Never use the mystical exploding rock against a mage,” Patriccan said, as if lecturing a class of dimwits. “It is too easily turned against you.”

“Inyx,” gasped Ducasien. “All the slingers are dead.”

“Yes, all died. They foolishly carried their projectiles in pouches around their waists. I daresay most were blown in half.” Patriccan smiled malevolently and continued, “Now it is your time to die.”

He raised his hand to cast the spell. Inyx stood stolidly, awaiting death. She had come far and had wished for a better end than this. The least she could do was meet her fate with courage.

Patriccan finished the spell but nothing happened. Confused, he tried another. And another and still another.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Ducasien. “Forget your chants?”

Patriccan shook his head and stared at his hands, as if accusing them of high crimes.

Inyx clapped hands over her ears to protect them from the shrill whistle of an air elemental. She twisted about and saw the lightning-laced haze surging through the darkening sky, plummeting down directly for Patriccan.

The mage saw the danger and began defensive spells. Only great skill prevented the elemental from ripping him limb from limb. As it was, Patriccan fought for his very life. The tide of battle had turned in a split second.

“Kill them. Kill the greys!” shouted Inyx. “Do it while we can!”

The soldiers fell easy prey to their naked swords. But Inyx kept one eye on Patriccan and his battle with the elemental. He struggled to escape and couldn’t. And there was no way an ordinary mage could hope to either summon or disrupt an elemental.

“Who sent it?” asked Ducasien, coming to stand beside Inyx.

She shook her head. It had to be Lan Martak, but she found it difficult to believe.

The air elemental winked out of existence. Replacing it was the figure she had grown to hate.

“Claybore!”

“Ah, the cast in the little drama has gathered. Fine.” The dismembered mage turned to Patriccan and studied his bruised, broken body. “He is the worse for his encounter with Martak’s airborne ally. Where is Martak?”

“Here, Claybore.” Thunder sounded and shock waves rolled across the clearing. Emptiness had been replaced by two figures. Lan Martak strode up. “You brought me here, for whatever reason.”

“How melodramatic an entrance,” said the dismembered sorcerer. “And the capable Commander k’Adesina is with you,” continued Claybore, as if Lan had not even spoken. “How are you, my dear?”

Lan’s entire body began glowing green as he mustered his sorcerous powers. Claybore laughed and said, “This is the moment. I have the edge now, Martak. Before, you eluded me. Not now. You will cease to exist now!”

The wall of spells erected by the two lifted all the others and carelessly tossed them away. Inyx landed heavily, bruising her shoulder. Ducasien fell into a tree some yards distant. The others of their attack force hobbled and dragged themselves away.

Even Kiska k’Adesina had been discarded by the casual blast of magics.

Inyx got to her feet and drew her dagger. The brief excursion through the air had cost her the sword. Eyes narrowed, she stalked Kiska.

“Lan might not be able to deal with you, but I can!” Inyx drove the sharp point of the dagger down squarely for Kiska’s back, but the woman managed to sidestep the blow. They locked together and wrestled to the ground.

“He loves me,” taunted Kiska. “You have lost him forever.”

“Claybore’s spell forces him to love you,” Inyx spat out. She tried to bury her teeth in Kiska’s neck and failed. They rolled over, with Kiska coming out on top, knees pinning Inyx’s shoulders to the ground. Inyx winced in pain from her injury.

“Oh? And why does Lan sleep with the Lady Brinke? Is this more of Claybore’s magic?”

“Who?”

Kiska made a small gesture. A picture took form just in front of Inyx’s eyes. She saw a lovely, tall blonde woman slowly slipping out of a purple robe to stand naked before Lan Martak. A smile crossed Lan’s lips as he began pulling free the laces on his tunic.

“No! It’s a lie.” Even as she spoke, Inyx knew what she witnessed was a true rendering of a scene that had happened.

“More?” Kiska laughed as the scene played faster than normal, complete to its finish in less than a minute. “There were other times. He has abandoned you, slut. He has left you to die on this backwater world. And die you will!”

Inyx’s mind raced. How had this scene been reconstructed? Magically. Did Kiska control any spells? No. Who did? Claybore!

“You try to weaken my will,” Inyx said. She twisted against her bad shoulder, then rocked in the other direction, unseating Kiska. They rolled over and over, struggling for dominance.

Both were sent tumbling once more by a wave of heat from where the real battle took place. Lan and Claybore were locked in a furious fight so intense it crossed worlds and returned to boil the very ground beneath their feet. Neither mage noticed. Both vied for supremacy by using every magical trick at their command.

Inyx saw Lan being forced back, yielding, slowly being crushed by the imponderable weight of magics on him.

“Fight, Lan!” she cried. “Stop him!”

She had no idea if her words cheered the mage or if he reached down and found some inner resource that he’d missed. His defense strengthened. He forced Claybore back. Inyx saw the disembodied sorcerer begin to waver. His arms flopped loosely now, as if they would spring from his torso. Even his bone-white skull began cracking.

“He’s losing,” she whispered in awe. For the first time since she and Lan had walked the Road together, she had the hope that Claybore would be decisively defeated.

Even Kiska k’Adesina watched, her face ashen with the realization that her master might lose.

As suddenly as the shift in power came, another replaced it. Inyx gasped and struggled for breath. Invisible fingers closed about her windpipe.

“She dies, Martak,” bragged Claybore. “I will kill the slut.”

Inyx fell to hands and knees, panting harshly when the invisible fingers left her throat. Lan had broken Claybore’s spell. She looked up in silent thanks. But the gratitude turned to anger when she realized that Claybore had only used her as a diversion for his real attack.

Kiska stood upright, caught between transparent planes crushing the life from her body. She visibly flattened as Claybore applied more and more magical pressure. Her face contorted with the pain of being smashed to bloody pulp. Her brown eyes looked beseechingly at Lan Martak. The young mage paled when he saw the woman’s predicament.

“I… I can’t fight him and save her. Not at the same time,” moaned out Lan Martak.

“Kill Claybore!” shrieked Inyx. “Stop him and you’ll stop his spells.”

“She dies,” cut in Claybore. “I will kill her before you can penetrate my barrier.”

Lan fought to drive his light mote through Claybore’s protective spells. He failed. And every moment he dallied, more and more life fled from Kiska’s body.

“Don’t save her, Lan. Kill Claybore!” Inyx’s words fell on deaf ears.

Lan Martak turned his full power to saving Kiska.

Claybore broke free. “I almost had you, Martak,” said the sorcerer. “I thought this would be the final battle. I erred. But next time. Then I will be ready for you. Then you die!”

Claybore wavered and popped! away, transport spells stolen from Lan carrying him from the world.

“I had him. He… he was weakening,” said Lan in a shaky voice. “He would have succumbed. Not even Terrill could best Claybore, and I had him. I had him!”

“You unutterable fool,” snapped Inyx. “You let him go. And for what? Her?”

Kiska k’Adesina sneered at Lan’s weakness. But the power of Claybore’s infernal geas grew with every use of magic. Lan Martak had no choice but to protect the woman he loved-and hated.

“You fool,” repeated Inyx.

All Lan could do was agree. He held out his opened arms, beckoning to Kiska.