Fire and Fog

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lan Martak fought with all the ferocity of a cornered rat. Try as he would, however, Claybore always proved the stronger. Lan thought he had strength and youth on his side; Claybore' s primary advantage was experience that sapped Lan' s strength, made him commit to foolish attacks using his spells so that they were sent skittering off harmlessly.

Lan felt weakness again. His hands shook and his vision blurred. But he all too clearly saw that Claybore' s left leg hopped toward the sorcerer. In only seconds the limb would be rejoined. Claybore would have triumphed to that extent- and it might be enough to bring his evil plans to fruition.

" All the universe will be mine to rule," came Claybore' s mocking words, so soft and sibilant that they were almost a whisper. " More than ruling, all the peoples of those worlds will worship me. I shall reign supreme forever!"

" Won' t that pall on you?" gasped out Lan. He countered a nervenumbing spell and started a chant of his own to renew his attack. Power slipped from him like a dropped cloak. Grabbing at it only caused it to slide away faster.

" Ask me in a million years."

" You' ll ruin worlds."

" Yes."

" You don' t care. You owe it to the people you' ll rule not to harm them."

" Why?" Then Claybore' s laughter echoed in Lan' s skull. " Your tone has changed, Martak. Now you' re trying to invest me with a conscience. You' re admitting I have won. It is apparent, isn' t it?"

" Yes," Lan grated out- but he had one last spell to try. Lirory Tefize had recorded this one and Lan had not dared use it. The binding spell holding Claybore' s arms and legs had been potent. Would it still work and would it work on Claybore himself?

Lan began the motions with his fingers. The air twisted into improbable shapes before him. The words formed colored threads in the midst of the writhing mass. And he sent his light mote directly into the vortex to supply power.

The virtually uncontrolled spell burst forth with more vehemence than Lan had anticipated- or Claybore expected.

The sorcerer screamed as his leg froze in midhop and fell lifeless to the stone floor. His rejoined arms began twitching spastically and Lan watched in fascination as the Kinetic Sphere, Claybore' s very heart, began pushing outward from his chest. But the spell was not without effect on Lan himself. His mouth turned metallic and his tongue began to glow hotter and hotter. Lirory' s spell affected all of Claybore' s bodily parts, and that included Claybore' s tongue.

" You can' t do this!" shrieked Claybore. The ghastly apparition of the sorcerer leaped and cavorted about, dodging unseen menace. The cracks in the skull deepened until Lan wondered how it held together. With the jawbone already gone, Claybore turned even more gruesome with every passing moment.

Lan found himself unable to speak, but the sensation of victory assuaged that. Claybore was becoming wrapped in the spell and would soon lie as numbed on the floor as his left leg. No longer even kicking, the leg presented no menace at all. Its magics were contained. And Claybore would be soon, also.

Lan blinked in surprise when all the magical attack against him suddenly ceased. His tongue still burned, but that was the product of his own conjuring.

" Given up so easily, Claybore?" he croaked out. Then Lan saw what the sorcerer did. The attack hadn' t lessened, it had shifted.

Kiska k' Adesina writhed on the floor, face blue from the spells cutting off her air. Her body arched violently as if her back would snap, then she flopped onto her belly and fingers cut into stone as she tried to escape Claybore' s punishment.

" Stop it!" cried Lan.

Without thinking, he directed his full power to shielding the woman from Claybore. The instant his attack on Claybore stopped, the disembodied sorcerer countered.

" You can' t let her come to harm, can you, Martak?" chided Claybore. " You love her. You must protect her. You have to. She means more than your own life, doesn' t she?"

" No," said Lan. The weakness of his reply told him everything. He did love Kiska k' Adesina, his sworn enemy, the woman who hated him with an obsession bordering on insanity; he loved her.

" I see it in your face. Defend her. Keep her from harm."

Claybore' s spells trapped the woman on the floor like a bug with a pin through it. She gasped for breath, twisted about as joints snapped and limbs turned in ways never intended. Lan watched as Claybore broke her physically with his powerful spells.

But if he protected Kiska adequately, he left himself open to attack. One or the other it was possible to defend, but not both of them.

" She dies, Martak. Your lover dies."

The desolation welling up within Lan couldn' t be expressed. He had no true love for Kiska. She had tried to kill him on more occasions than he could count, yet he did love her. Irrationally, without any regard for Inyx or his feelings for her, Lan loved Kiska.

" Look at her pain, Martak. I really don' t want to do this to her, but it gives me some practice. When I become a true god, I think I shall do this every day."

Lan gambled everything on forming one last spell to hurl every spark of energy he had directly at Claybore- to stun Claybore, to stop the torture Kiska felt.

The bolt lashed forth with such intensity the rock walls turned viscid and flowed in sluggish molten streams. The dancing light mote guided the tip of this energy blast directly for Claybore' s skull. The sorcerer staggered back, his metallic legs beginning to melt under the onslaught. But the reaction was not that which Lan expected. Claybore was being driven to the wall and yet an aura of triumph surrounded him.

" Stop her!" came Krek' s voice. Lan ventured a quick glance to one side and saw Kiska k' Adesina rising up, dagger in hand. And the dagger was aimed straight for Lan' s back.

As long as he maintained the spell against Claybore, Lan couldn' t move, couldn' t defend himself against physical attack. Even worse than this was the sight of the woman he loved trying to kill him, as if she still plotted with Claybore for his downfall.

Inyx rushed forward, quick, strong hand gripping Kiska' s wrist and twisting at the last possible instant. Lan felt hot steel rake over his back. Thick streams of blood gushed forth, but the wound was messier than it was dangerous.

But the shock of seeing the woman he loved try to kill him broke the continuity of his spell. Claybore began magically worming free of the attack.

" Come," the sorcerer hissed. " Come to me!"

The leg, once numbed, now twitched and kicked and bobbed until it was again hopping across the chamber. Lan' s power waned; he was unable to cope with Inyx and Kiska fighting, the spell he launched against Claybore and the countering spell the sorcerer returned, and the sight of the leg hopping to rejoin the body.

" Krek," he moaned. " The leg. Stop it!"

Krek' s huge front leg reached out and batted away the leg, sending it into the far wall. Flesh hissed slightly as it touched rock already turned molten from other spells.

" The heat. Oh, my precious fur is smoldering," cried the spider.

" Never mind that. Stop the leg from reaching Claybore."

Lan' s words needed more conviction to get the spider to move. The way the man' s tongue burned within his mouth told him that his own enervating spell had been turned against him. Claybore' s cunning played on his every weakness, his every mistake.

But if Krek was unable to move, Broit Heresler and his few surviving clansmen did act. They rushed into the chamber, spades and picks cutting and hacking at the leg. The limb tried valiantly to defend itself against the tiny chunks being taken out of it, but there were too many gnomes attacking.

Claybore cursed, tried to blast the gnomes, and found himself overextended. He dared not relent in his attack on Lan; to do so meant his own demise. But he needed his leg and the gnomes prevented it from rejoining him.

" Bring out the water," Broit called. Others of the grave- digger clan rolled huge barrels into the room.

" You can' t do that!" shrieked Claybore.

They threw the acid rainwater onto the leg. Flesh smoldered and turned putrescent. Soon, only the bare leg bones remained, and they were easily hammered into dust by the gnomes.

" You' ve lost, Claybore," said Lan. " Stop your drive for power now. We can work out some sort of truce."

" Truce? You fool! You don' t understand. I' ve tasted ultimate power. I can' t turn away from it. I can' t share it."

The sorcerer lay in a heap on the ground, his metallic legs destroyed and his own legs unreachable now. Lan Martak had magically blasted the right leg and the left was little more than bonemeal in a paste of acid water on the floor.

Claybore reached up and touched the spot on his chest where the Kinetic Sphere pinkly pulsed.

" You will find this victory fleeting, Martak," promised Claybore. The sorcerer' s entire body blinked out of existence.

" You killed him!" cried Broit Heresler, jumping up and down.

" He shifted worlds," Lan said in a tired voice. " We stopped him from regaining either of his legs, but he still walks the Road, plotting and planning."

A strangled sound came to the mage' s ears. Lan spun and saw Inyx with her fingers firmly wrapped around Kiska' s throat. The darkhaired woman slowly choked the life from her victim.

" Inyx, no!" he cried. Ducasien placed a hand on Lan' s shoulder to restrain him. Lan cast a minor spell that hurled Ducasien across the room. A second spell sent Inyx after him, leaving Kiska alone and gasping for air on the floor. He went to her and knelt, cradling her head in his lap.

Emotions boiled within him. He hated her for all she had done. She was insane, a cold- blooded murderer. And he loved her. He had to protect her at all costs.

" Lan Martak," came Krek' s voice, " she attempted to stab you in the back. You saw. You know of her treachery."

" I love her," he choked out. His heart leaped with joy when he saw her pale brown eyes flicker open and focus on him. Lan read only hatred blazing up at him and it didn' t matter. He loved her.

" Claybore has cast some sort of geas on you," said Krek.

" Examine yourself, Lan Martak, or beware."

Lan Martak looked up at the spider, not understanding.

" Friend Ducasien, do you mind if I accompany you?" asked Krek.

" You' re not staying with him?" asked Inyx.

" I have decided that it is impossible for me to bear his silliness any further," said Krek, a tear forming in his eye. " You are my friends. No longer can I name Lan Martak that."

Inyx rubbed a spot on Krek' s leg and said, " You can come along. We don' t know exactly where we' re headed, but it has to be a place better than this."

The plains stretching out from the foot of Yerrary were wracked with winds and the acid rain pelted down, forming tiny blazes wherever it touched. Broit Heresler and several of his gravediggers were escorting them to the graveyard. With Claybore driven off and the Tefize clan leaderless, Broit had stepped into the power vacuum and assumed control of most of the inner workings of Yerrary.

" It is a duty I take seriously," the gnome declared. " Imagine the bodies to be buried. Yerrary will function as it never has before!" His clan had cheered this, but Inyx found scant pleasure in it.

Lan Martak insisted on pursuing Claybore. She agreed with that. She couldn' t force herself to accompany the man any further as long as he insisted on keeping Kiska k’ Adesina by his side.

" It is a spell of subtle power," said Krek, seeing her frown. " But it is one I cannot cope with, either."

She hugged Krek' s leg and then turned. Ducasien waited just outside the doorway. They began their trek across the plains for the cenotaphs opening and closing in the graveyard. Inyx didn' t know what world they would end up on. And it didn' t matter.

Halfway to the grave site she turned and looked back at the black mass of Yerrary. A small figure stood atop the mountain, bathed in white fire. She lifted her hand, started to wave, then jerked around. Even if Lan watched, it was a show of weakness to make any gesture.

" You still love him, don' t you?" asked Ducasien.

" No."

" You don' t lie well," the man said. He looked toward Yerrary and the white pillar of fire, heaved a sigh, and then hugged Inyx close. She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed quietly.

" A cenotaph opens," said Krek, pointing with one of his back legs. The spider watched the two humans enter and wink out of existence on this world and go to another. He nodded to Broit Heresler, then climbed into the cenotaph and followed his friends. Somehow, the shifting from one world to another didn' t ease the pain or remove the tears forming in the spider' s huge eyes.

The last thing he heard was the sound of Broit Heresler' s picks working on the stony ground to dig new graves.

" Good riddance," snarled Kiska k' Adesina. She stood close beside Lan Martak on the mountaintop. The circle of energy surrounding them held the acid rain and the mind- altering fog at bay. Lan had had enough experience with both and knew better than to tempt fate without magical protection.

The tiny procession wended its way across the barren plain to the graveyard. Lan watched and felt a coldness inside grow until he wanted to scream. Inyx gone. Krek gone.

He clenched his fists and shook with emotion.

" You don' t need them. You have me. What were they, anyhow? A slut and an overgrown bug. You love me, Lan my darling. We can rule together."

" Be quiet," he said. Kiska only laughed at him, knowing his impotence in dealing with her.

The cenotaph blinked open. Lan watched the magics that linked one world to another begin to flow. First one brighter spot, then another and finally a third and last. Inyx. Ducasien. Krek. Gone.

All that remained on this world was the burning ground where the rains washed over the stone.

" Claybore must be destroyed," he said.

" Yes, my love," came Kiska' s mocking words.

Lan Martak clapped his hands and summoned his newfound power to shift worlds without a cenotaph or the Kinetic Sphere. He didn' t need Inyx or Krek. Claybore would be stopped.

A second clap of his hands prepared the world- spanning bridge of magic.

He would stop Claybore and rule a million worlds.

On the third clap of his hands, only barren rock remained where he and Kiska had stood. They now walked a lush, green meadow on a world distant in space and time.

Scanning, formatting and basic proofing by Undead.