Fire and Fog

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

" You can' t go," cried Kiska k' Adesina, gripping at Lan' s sleeve.

He shrugged her off. Even if he couldn' t use magics against herfor whatever reason- he was still physically stronger. Lan Martak stopped and considered his best course of action concerning her. Was it possible to bind Kiska in such a way she couldn' t follow? He made the effort and failed, not because she tried to elude him, but because his muscles began shaking as if from some huge exertion.

" Claybore has baited a trap and waits for you," Kiska told him. " You will die if you try to recover the legs."

" How do you know?" he demanded.

" It' s all part of Claybore' s master plan. He wants you out of the way. If you rush in foolishly, without planning, without taking enough precautions, then you will be: no more."

" What do you care?" Lan raged, more at his own impotence in dealing with Kiska than at the woman.

She didn' t answer. He worried that this failure on his part might carry over into actual dealing with Claybore.

While it struck him as odd that he had come to be so closely linked emotionally with Kiska, he didn' t question it deeply. Lan' s true worry lay in fighting Claybore. The other mage had eons of experience to draw upon- and Lan couldn' t forget the shadow hound.

The interdimensional beast had been easily dispatched, but he felt the complexities in the spell conjuring it up. Given the time, Claybore might summon an even more intricate monster, one not easily sent back into the nothingness between worlds.

The slightest pause, the most minute of hesitations, and he would lose this coming battle.

And at the center of it lay Claybore' s legs. Lirory had died to protect his ill- gotten treasure trove of limbs. Lan did not wish to follow that path trying to obtain them for himself.

Destruction seemed the wisest course. With Claybore in possession of his arms, any chance for completing the magical battery envisioned by Lirory Tefize was at an end. Destroy the legs, destroy them for all time. He had the power to do it- as long as they weren' t attached to Claybore' s body.

" I know the way is dangerous. That' s why I want you to stay in Lirory' s chamber. It' s safe there. The gnome set ward spells Claybore can circumvent- but only after some effort."

" I stay with you," Kiska maintained stoutly. Her usually brown eyes took on highlights of green from the moss glowing in the corridor, giving her an evil, alien aspect that disquieted Lan. But was he so human himself? He had come far. The Resident of the Pit and Claybore both admitted he was now immortal, thanks to the powers he had discovered. Inhuman- unhuman.

And power!

Currents of raw energy hummed and pulsed within his body. No mere human felt like this. He hadn' t when he was only a hunter in the forests of his home world. He transcended the norm and developed into more- much, much more.

Lan Martak said nothing as he spun and started through the maze inside Yerrary. The gnomes had spent centuries chewing out these corridors and had created a twisting domain that was as much a part of their heritage as the forests were his. Lan quickly forgot ordinary sight and depended more and more on a magical scrying spell to lead him through the turnings.

At first he walked with faltering steps, then became more confident and strode with his usual ground- devouring pace. Kiska struggled to keep up with him but said nothing. She would doggedly follow him into the mouth of the Netherworld.

Lan' s mind quickly turned from figuring out why his bitter enemy showed such devotion now to examining the hall they took. Tiny spots glowed more brilliantly in the walls than could be accounted for from the phosphorescent moss.

" Traps," he said, pointing. He knew the woman saw nothing. How could she? He was the mage. He had the power. The power!

Lan moved his light mote into the center of the corridor, then split it in half. Each section of his familiar blazed a fiery path for the spots on the walls. Incandescent heat filled the tiny space the instant the two motes touched stone. The trigger spell released vastly more potent magics.

" Lirory was a clever sorcerer. The true power is hidden away. Little energy is revealed, might be ignored. But once the trigger is touched, that is the result." He pointed.

Heat still billowed from the corridor, but the magical maelstrom had spent itself. Walls had turned to slag and the floor was eaten away by the intensity of the heat blast. Lan reunited his light mote, used it to smooth over the floor for Kiska' s benefit, then walked on, alert for more traps.

And he found them. Subtle ones, obvious ones, traps and spells and mind- confusing paths of all varieties. After a while, it became a game to him and little more. He pitted his wit and magical ability against the now- dead sorcerer gnome. He played the game and won repeatedly. As each obstacle was overcome, he sensed a growing within himself until he could barely withstand it. The pressure of power needing to be used bloated him.

Once, he had been like Kiska and Inyx and Ducasien and all the others. Once. No longer. He had become more now. And he would strip Claybore of his power and rule along the Cenotaph Road. It was destiny. It was his destiny!

" The chamber we seek is near," he said.

Kiska clung to him, barely noticed. Lan Martak moved on for the final confrontation. Claybore could not permit him to enter that chamber unopposed. To do so meant the disembodied sorcerer had lost all.

A faint smile curled Lan' s lips. This was the moment he had been born for.

" What!" cried Inyx. " The fool has gone off to destroy the legs without telling us?" She sagged against the wall at the enormity of what Krek told her.

" So it would seem," the spider said. " Lan Martak has developed a cockiness bordering on overconfidence. Perhaps it is due to his exposure to the fog outside."

" That' s not it, Krek. There' s more to it," said Ducasien. The tall man stood, hands on narrow hips, his wide shoulders almost filling an entryway. " He thinks he is invincible."

" He might be," said Inyx in a choked voice. " He might not need us any longer."

Ducasien laid his hand on the woman' s shoulder, squeezing gently. She smiled wanly, putting her own hand atop his. She barely kept her sanity these days. Loving Lan put a strain on her that became harder and harder. He ignored her- and all his friends- and obviously garnered much from Kiska k' Adesina' s company. Inyx tried to rationalize that this was a ploy on Lan' s part, a way of getting past Claybore' s guard.

She tried to believe and failed.

" Inyx," said Ducasien, " we can leave. The trip to the cenotaphs won' t take long. Leave him to his little war."

" It' s not little, damn it!" she flared. " This spans worlds. There' s nowhere we could go and not confront Claybore if Lan should lose. We began this battle together and we' ll finish it together."

" Will he accept our help?" asked Krek. " I have been guilty of choosing flight over fight in the past." The arachnid sighed like a fumarole giving vent. " Poor Klawn. Left alone because I ran like a craven from my duty. I ofttimes wonder how my hatchlings turned out. I trust they are brave spiders, one and all. Future Webmasters and mates of other Webmasters."

" Krek," Inyx said in disgust. " This is no time to reminisce."

" I was only agreeing with friend Ducasien. Lan Martak has abandoned us. Let us seek out other worlds and allow him to carry this fight to whatever finish he can."

" That' s not like you," Inyx said, worried.

" He placed a geas upon me. He told me to leave him alone. I fight the magic and wonder why I bother. Even without the spell he cast upon me, weak as it is, his attitudes do much to drive me away."

Inyx had no words to answer the spider' s accusation. Lan had done much to drive her away, too. In her mind she pictured vividly the sight of him making love to Kiska by the well holding the Resident of the Pit. He hadn' t known she had followed, but would it have mattered to Lan? She didn' t think so.

He had changed and not for the better. The power he gained corrupted him, made him brash and abrasive, too independent.

She snorted at that. How could one be too independent? Her own life had always been lived according to that notion. Now she was no longer so sure. The time with Lan had been magical, and not in terms of mere sorcery. Their bindings had emotional and mental parts mixed in with the physical.

She still loved him. But it became harder and harder to maintain that love.

" We help him. We have to," she finally said.

" Then we need a plan," spoke up Ducasien.

" This isn' t your fight," she said.

" If you' re there, I' m making it my fight. Now what do we need to do to prepare ourselves?"

Inyx tried to wipe away the tears forming before anyone noticed. While she was sure Krek and Ducasien both saw the motion that swiped away the salty tracks, neither mentioned it.

They called Broit Heresler into their circle and spoke quickly with the gnome. He nodded, smiled as much as he could, then went off with a few battered survivors of his clan to find the weapons needed to help Lan Martak when he finally faced Claybore.

" Through that arch," Lan Martak said, pointing. His hand glowed a dull purple in response to the ward spell Lirory Tefize had placed on the doorway. " Go through and die."

" You can take off the spell?" Kiska k' Adesina asked anxiously.

" It is a multilayered spell," he said, examining it carefully. " Very tricky. And very clever. One small slip and it is all over."

Kiska tensed, her hands balled to strike out. Lan noticed and she relaxed and let her arms hang limply at her sides. He faced the doorway and began his chants.

Slowly at first, then with increasing assurance, he peeled away the layers of the spells Lirory had wrought. Like onion skins, the spells fell away until only the bare stone archway remained. Lan wiped his sleeve over his forehead. The unlocking had taken more from him than he' d thought possible. An instant of fear flashed through him.

Was he as powerful as he thought? Did this multiple spell hold traps of which he was unaware? Had he committed too much of his power too soon? Fear chewed at his self- confidence, but he dared not admit it. Not in front of Kiska.

" Let' s not tarry. We have our destiny lying in wait beyond."

With more confidence than he felt, he walked forward. Lan' s eyes blinked as he passed under the stone archway. A slight electric tingle of spell had not been driven off, but it was a minor annoyance. He flicked it away as if it were nothing more than a buzzing mosquito.

He entered the chamber holding Claybore' s legs.

" There they are!" cried Kiska. " Claybore' s lost limbs."

Lan restrained her. She tried to bolt forward and seize the beaten copper coffins holding those legs.

" The exterior protective spells are gone. Others remain. How else could those legs stay preserved?"

" Claybore is immortal. His parts are, too."

Lan reeled at the notion. For whatever reason, this had never occurred to him. He studied the twin coffins and saw the spells woven through the fabric of metal and flesh within and knew then that Kiska was right. The spells Lirory had placed on the legs bound them to this time and place; preservation was accomplished on a more fundamental level, one fraught with magics even Lan did not pretend to understand.

" They can be destroyed," he said, more to maintain the fiction of his superiority than anything else. Showing ignorance in front of Kiska bothered him more than he cared to admit.

" Of course they can be destroyed," came a voice all too familiar from previous battlings. " You ought to know that my parts are not invincible. After all, my skin was left in a puddle of protoplasm within the Twistings."

" I wondered when you would come," said Lan, turning to face Claybore. The sorcerer stood under the archway so recently swept clear of its guardian spells.

" I waited for you to tire yourself, to do the work for me."

" I am not tired, Claybore."

" You kid yourself, then," said Claybore, laughing. His mocking gestures angered Lan, who watched as the sorcerer came into the chamber on clanking mechanical legs driven by subtle magics. The arms took up a defensive pose, ready to subvert any spell Lan might cast.

Lan savored this moment. Claybore might decry his skills, but Lan knew deep within how he had grown as a mage. Claybore was not only wrong, he was defeated and didn' t know it. Lan Martak felt the power on him. He could not lose.

" This after you' ve told me it' s possible to destroy your parts. Kiska was wrong. The parts are not immortal. The whole might be, but not the parts."

" Immortality rests with all the parts, but that doesn' t mean the segments cannot be destroyed," said Claybore. " Left alone, they will survive for all eternity."

" Consummate magics will destroy them," said Lan, almost gloating now.

" Terrill tried and failed."

" I' m better than Terrill."

The chalk- white skull tipped sideways, the eye sockets taking on a blackness darker than space. The jaw had been destroyed and the area around the nose hole had become riddled with cracks. Claybore' s skull disintegrated a bit more under each attack. Lan felt confident that he would turn the skull into dust before the day was out.

" You think so?" mocked Claybore.

" I feel it."

" You' re a fool. You' re a fool I have manipulated for my own ends for some time. You cannot win. You don' t even understand what the stakes are we play for."

" Conquest. Power."

" Yes, that," said Claybore, stopping beside the copper coffin holding his left leg. " And more. Power is worthless unless it is used. And after you' ve conquered a few thousand worlds, what then? With immortality, mere power is not enough."

" What else can there be?" asked Lan, wondering if this was a trick to gull him into vulnerability.

" Godhood. Not only power, but the worship of all living beings. Their birth, their death, every instant in between ruled totally- by me! For millennia there has been no true god because I imprisoned the Resident of the Pit."

Lan' s agile mind worked over the details and filled in gaps. It all fit a pattern. Whether what was being said was truth or not he didn' t know, but it could well be. Terrill had been the Resident of the Pit' s pawn in the battle against Claybore, but what was the nature of that conflict?

It had to be for the godhood Claybore mentioned; The sorcerer had dueled the reigning deity- the Resident of the Pit- and had somehow gained the upper hand. But the Resident fought back with Terrill as his principal weapon. Lacking full power, the Resident had not destroyed Claybore, but Terrill had succeeded in scattering the bodily parts along the Road.

" You get a glimmering of the truth," said Claybore. " I failed to destroy the Resident and ended up dismembered. But the Resident was unable to regain godhood because I hold him imprisoned. A stalemate lasting centuries."

" And one which is drawing to a close," said Lan. " Regaining your legs will give you the power to finally destroy the Resident. After all this time, you will be able to kill a deity."

" Yes," came the sibilant acknowledgment. " And in the universe ruled by the god Claybore, there will be no further use for one such as yourself. Prepare to die, Lan Martak."

Lan readied himself for the battle. He stood on one side of the chamber, the coffins holding the legs between him and Claybore. All that he had gone through, the death and the misery, the pain and learning would now be put to the test.

" You will not win, Claybore," he said confidently.

The spell Claybore cast exploded like the heart of a sun, blinding him, leaving him cut free of all his senses and floating through empty infinity.

" The water you wanted," panted Broit Heresler. " We have it. But there' s bad news."

Inyx looked at the tuns of acid rainwater accumulated from Eckalt' s vats. How the burning quality of the water might be used, she wasn' t sure, but it had to provide a potent weapon in the right circumstance.

" None of you was hurt?" she asked anxiously. She counted heads and saw Broit had returned with all the gnomes he' d set out with.

" You needed Eckalt' s help, didn' t you?" asked the clan leader.

" Eckalt knows more of the inner workings of Yerrary than anyone else I' ve met. He hops around down there, doing his work, dispensing his distilled water, and accumulating knowledge in return."

" Eckalt is dead."

" What? Claybore?" she demanded, ire rising. She had liked the toad- being. Ducasien came and laid a hand on her shoulder. She spun, even madder when she saw the man' s face. It was as if he held back a secret he thought would hurt her. That failure of trust added fuel to the fire of her anger.

" Not Claybore," said Broit Heresler. " Lan Martak. He killed Eckalt without remorse. There were witnesses. Several of the Wartton clan saw it all. Martak lifted Eckalt with a spell and hurled him into the well where you say this Resident thing lives."

" Lan gave the blood sacrifice," Inyx said in a choked voice. " He sacrificed an intelligent being. Eckalt was such a harmless little creature."

" He murdered Eckalt, is what he did," said Broit Heresler. " And he didn' t even leave us a proper body to bury. That might not be such a loss, though, if we can create another cenotaph because of it. A new way on and off the world is always a boon. New travelers, new corpses to bury. There' s usually a way to turn trouble into gain, especially if you' re clever like I am."

" But he could have sensed Eckalt' s intelligence," she said.

" He didn' t even try," said Ducasien. " I already knew but didn' t want to say anything. He is a callous killer, this friend of yours."

" There is nothing wrong in that," cut in Krek, " but the circumstances hardly warranted it. Lan Martak could have spent a few more minutes looking for an appropriate sacrifice to awaken the Resident."

" The power has gone to his head. He thinks only of himself, that he is invincible," declared Ducasien.

" You' re still thinking to help this corpse- destroyer?" asked Broit. " Not that it' s any cause for alarm, as long as he creates enough business for us Hereslers."

" I say we consecrate the cenotaph to Eckalt, then leave this world," said Ducasien.

" Friend Ducasien has a point," said Krek. The spider bobbed up and down, then added, " However, we know only one side of this issue. Should we not query Lan Martak first? While he has sorely mistreated me, my innate sense of fair play comes to the fore. In the past we owed him much. Surely, we can ask and listen to his explanation."

Inyx saw all eyes on her. The decision rested squarely on her shoulders whether they were to carry out the planned attack in conjunction with Lan' s magical assault or simply turn and leave Yerrary and this world.

Ducasien wanted to leave. Krek asked for answers from Lan.

Her vote decided the issue.

" You recovered nicely, Martak," congratulated Claybore. But the younger mage did not take it as a compliment. To do so meant Claybore gained a fraction of power over him.

Spinning through space- blinded and deaf, totally without senseshad startled him, but fear wasn' t his response. He had fought and found within himself the right ways of countering Claybore' s attack.

He whirled back and still faced Claybore. No time had elapsed. The wild flight had been entirely illusory- but ever so real while he was caught up in the spell.

" A petty trick," he said, knowing how Claybore had done it. " Goodbye."

The spell he cast contained elements of the most powerful spells he was capable of controlling. The invisible web caught at Claybore and further cracked the skull, a piece falling to the stone floor. Lan tightened and the magics spilled over from the edge of his control and eroded away the coffin immediately in front of Claybore.

That almost proved his undoing.

The leg, freed of the magical bindings Lirory Tefize had placed upon it, kicked out of the copper coffin and balanced in a mockery of life on the floor. The sight of the dismembered leg moving of its own volition startled Lan into relaxing his attack.

And when Claybore riposted, it came in an unexpected fashion. The leg hopped forward and kicked straight for Lan' s groin. The physical pain meant little to Lan; the shock of seeing the leg attack allowed cracks to develop in his own defenses.

Claybore entered that breach easily. The spells used by the mage beat at Lan' s every vulnerable point. He was forced backward, driven to the wall. The inner core on which he relied came to his aid, giving him the respite to reform his defenses.

All the while the ghastly leg continued to hop and kick at him.

" See, Martak? All of me wants to see you die," said Claybore. " And you will- you will die as only an immortal can. You will live forever and be in complete pain for all eternity. Nothing will save you. You will cry in the dark for surcease and never find it. You will die, not in body, but in mind. Die, Martak, die!"

Lan couldn' t stop the surging attack, but he could turn it aside enough to keep from succumbing. And knowing his strength was nowhere near adequate to destroy Claybore as he' d thought, cunning took over. Lan Martak turned aside the assault and redirected it for the hopping, kicking leg.

" No!" came the shriek as Claybore realized what was happening.

His leg vanished in a sizzling cloud of greasy black smoke, lost forever.

" Your skin is gone. I have your tongue. Now your leg is destroyed. Who is losing, Claybore?"

Lan twisted away as heat destroyed the other copper coffin. Droplets of molten metal seared his skin, raised blisters, burned like a million ants devouring his flesh. The other leg bounded free of its vaporized coffin and went hopping toward Claybore.

Lan tried to stop it and found the other sorcerer' s spells prevented it. Leg and torso would soon be reunited. What power would this give Claybore? Lan didn' t want to find out.

" You can' t stop me, Martak," gloated Claybore. " You had your chance. You' ve failed."

" Aren' t you the one failing, Claybore? Where' s your right leg? It' s gone. Completely destroyed. The other soon will be."

" Never!"

Lan sent out tangling spells to numb the nerves in the leg. They failed. The leg did not live in the same way other things did. He hurled fireballs and sent elementals and opened pits and still he failed to prevent the inexorable movement of the left leg as it hopped toward Claybore.

Every spell he wove sapped that much more strength from him. Lan realized with a sick feeling that Claybore was growing stronger. When the leg rejoined, his power would be supreme.

Lan was lost. The universe was lost- and ruling over it would be a new god: Claybore.