The Sorcerer_s Skull

Robert E. Vardeman
CHAPTER ONE

Lan Martak screamed in silent agony. The world shifted and turned to soft white all around. His words rattled and fell like tiny pebbles, but he didn' t hear them, he saw them. He reached out, cut his finger on them. The dripping blood wasn' t seen as much as it was tasted. His senses were jumbled and confused.

Sight, taste, smell, hearing, touch, all changed in a bewildering kaleidoscope. Lan heard himself falling, tasted the impact against velvet, heard the dim outline of someone near.

" Lan!" came the cry. " I' m frozen solid. Help meeeee!"

" Inyx!" He fought to order the universe, failed. Lan worked toward where the woman had been and found himself wrapped in downsoft clouds of vapor. He sought her. He didn' t find her.

For an eternity he staggered, senses altering in some unknowably random fashion. He felt his brain turn to liquid fire, things crawl through it, other things change within him. The occasional times he heard with his ears, saw with his eyes, felt with his fingers, he made slow progress. But to where?

The Kinetic Sphere had opened a gateway unlike any of the natural cenotaph roads between worlds he' d taken before. He was reminded of the maze he and his companions had followed in Waldron' s dungeons, yet this limbo contained none of the obvious physical dangers. If anything, the subtle danger was greater- to spend the rest of eternity with shifting senses would drive him insane. At least, Waldron' s dungeons contained dangers he could see and fight. And his friends, the dark- haired Inyx and the gigantic, towering, talking spider Krek, had been there to aid him against the would- be conqueror' s minions.

Here, he fought a lonely battle, an ever- changing one. He tasted roughness. His eyes heard a familiar voice.

" You thought it so easy to use the Sphere?" Demoniacal laughter accompanied the taunt. Claybore appeared in the soft fog, miraculously whole of body but still sporting the fleshless skull. The eyeholes burned with ruby fury. The last time Lan had seen the decapitated sorcerer had been seconds before he, Inyx, and Krek had walked along the Road opened by the Kinetic Sphere, that wonderous device fashioned and lost to Waldron- or so he said- by Claybore. " That buffoon Waldron knew nothing. I used him. Now that I have regained the Sphere, nothing will prevent my conquering the entire universe, one world at a time."

" Claybore?" Lan called, uncertain. The spectral figure shimmering in the fog held a pinkly pulsating globe in one hand: the Kinetic Sphere.

" Who else? I am a sorcerer supreme! Now my plans can be put into full effect."

" You' re responsible for the grey- clad soldiers?"

" I used Waldron for that purpose. Many are his men. But they obey my commands! They will flood all the worlds along the Cenotaph Road and conquer at my behest. I will rule!"

" Where are we? What happened?"

" We are nowhere, in a world between worlds. The instant of transport is critical. After making certain that Waldron was properly exiled back to his own bleak prison world, I altered the chant at the last possible moment to give you this little excursion, to give you a taste of what it means to cross a master sorcerer."

Lan' s initial panic subsided. While he was far from accepting the cavalcade of sensory changes torturously twisting around him, it no longer frightened him. His mind calmed; he forged a plan. He acted.

Claybore' s scream ripped through Lan' s flesh, made his skin crawl, gave him sensations of taste unknown to him before. But his fingertips brushed the pink, soft Sphere. The globe rose up as he touched it and obeyed a gravity vastly different from anything Lan had imagined possible. The Kinetic Sphere " fell" sideways, slowly at first, then with increasing velocity. In the span of a heartbeat, it vanished through the thick walls of whiteness.

" You fool!" shrieked Claybore. " You unutterable fool! I need that!" The sorcerer turned taloned fingers toward Lan, but the brief separation from the Sphere already worked deadly changes. The mage' s skin rippled and began to drip like water from a melting icicle. Even as Lan watched- smelled- Claybore' s flesh washed away, leaving behind only a hideous skeleton.

Then the bones crumbled like chalk until only the skull floated in the billows of fog, malevolent ruby beams lancing outward to be absorbed by the cloaking white.

" Lan Martak, I shall punish you for this! I shall make you cringe, grovel, beg for death. Then, then the pain shall truly begin for you. I shall keep you alive for eternity, every instant one of excruciating pain. I shall: " Claybore' s voice faded. Thick blankets of swirling fog surrounded his skull and hid its horrible visage from sight. Lan again existed alone in the limitlessness of limbo.

" Claybore!" he called out, hands groping for the sorcerer' s skull. Even the promise of eternal damnation offered by the mage seemed better than wandering alone and lonely in this infinite fog.

Fingers caressed his arm. A voice spoke. Truly spoke.

" Lan, you are with me. I never thought you' d follow:."

" Zarella?" The shock of again hearing the voice of the woman he' d so foolishly loved sent his heart racing. She came to him from eons before- before he had been forced to flee his home world due to the pursuit of the grey- clad soldiers, before his half- sister had been raped and murdered, before he had walked the Cenotaph Road and found true friends in Krek and Inyx. " Where are you? How did you survive? Surepta killed you!"

" Yes, Surepta and his grey soldiers killed me," came the lament. " I wander this world now, waiting."

" For what?"

It was as if Zarella did not hear him.

" I am like the therra, though I can never return to my body. I meet many here, learn what happens at the Dancing Serpent. All is well there. They do not even miss me. The gambling goes on, the drinking is never- ending, even the old sheriff occasionally stops in to quiet the crowds, though there is little need of him now that the town is totally under the power of the interloper soldiers."

" Zarella, I miss you!"

" More than I' d' ve thought, dear Lan. To follow me as you' ve done shows either true love- or stupidity."

" There are others with me. Can you find them? I can' t tell where I am, nor can I believe my senses."

" That is because you still possess a body. Cut loose, a spirit or therra, there is no resistance to the fog. I can see: forever."

" Can you find a spider, a large spider? And a woman with dark hair?"

" Another woman?" came Zarella' s mocking voice. " Yes, I see another still in body. And the spider." Her voice became wistful. " A huge spider, yes. In life I feared them. Now that I' ve lost all there is to lose, I fear nothing."

" Can you help us? Please, Zarella."

" What? No protestations of love? Can it be you' ve truly learned my true nature?" Her voice carried the old tinge of sarcasm, but it was now softened by: something. Lan Martak dared hope it was love, for him, for humanity, for the mortal life he and his friends represented.

" That you can love no one but yourself? Zarella, I suppose I always knew that, but you were so beautiful. The most gorgeous woman I' ve ever known."

" Including this dark- haired woman warrior?"

" Yes."

" You touch my vanity. My spirit is indistinguishable from thousands of others I' ve encountered in this horrid nothing place. To hear a mortal again tell me of my beauty is a gift beyond compare. Turn right. Walk."

Lan felt ghostly fingers on his shoulder. Only tendrils of fog touched him. He reached out, put his hand on top of them. The tendrils became more substantial, warmer, almost human. He heard a very human sigh.

Then, " Here is one of your friends, Lan, my darling."

" Krek!"

" I see you have found an acquaintance," said the spider petulantly. " You humans possess the most peculiar abilities. This fog completely befuddles me. I ' see' the Kinetic Sphere, but it is so distant and grows more so with every passing instant. And, of course, I see the wraiths."

" The woman. Do you see Inyx?" demanded Lan, feeling the pressure of time working against them. He felt his senses slipping, as if the longer they stayed in this dimension, the harder it would be to leave. To be trapped like Zarella, disembodied and longing a return to life, didn' t appeal to him. Since her death back on their home world, he had learned much. He wanted to live, really live.

" She: she is so distant; she blunders away. But I ' see' the Sphere. To the left." Krek loomed half again taller than a man, eight long legs coppery and gleaming in the mist, the only substantial anchor in shifting whiteness.

" I don' t see it," Lan said. He possessed a slight magic- sensing ability and some facility with minor spells, but nothing more, while Krek' s " vision" spotted both the cenotaph roadways to other worlds and the Kinetic Sphere with unerring accuracy.

" I do. It: it' s your way out of this dimension," said Zarella almost wistfully. Lan didn' t have to be able to read her mind to know what the ghostly creature thought. If Lan were stranded here, she wouldn' t walk the roads of forever alone.

" Zarella," he started, but she cut him off. The tendrils tightened on his shoulder, almost as if they were real, womanly, human fingers.

" You loved me and I spurned you. I can now give you a gift to repay what I could not in life." The touch vanished from his shoulder.

" What' re you doing, Zarella?"

" Good- bye, Lan. Think of me."

He felt a damp breeze over his lips, then somersaulted over and over- to land hard enough on solid earth to knock the wind from his lungs. Krek loomed over him as he gasped, trying to regain his breath.

" We seem to have arrived safely, friend Lan Martak," observed the spider. " Wherever this is."

Lan struggled to sit upright. The terrain stretched out green and inviting with more than spring, but less than summer, in the air. No hint of the white fog remained. They truly found another world along the Cenotaph Road, a substantial world, not one of indeterminate dimension.

" Inyx!" he cried. " Where' s Inyx?"

" Nowhere I see. You feel we should seek her out?"

" Krek, of course I do!" Lan had made many mistakes in his choice of women, unwisely loving Zarella, being ensorcelled by another, but his feelings for Inyx were true. He hadn' t sorted them out to his own satisfaction. Perhaps it was love, perhaps only duty. But above all, he was responsible for their walking the Cenotaph Road using Claybore' s Kinetic Sphere. And, in a lesser way, he had caused Inyx to become lost when he batted the Sphere from the sorcerer' s hand within the misty limbo he and Krek had just left.

" Hmmm," said the spider, rubbing two front legs together in thought, " your choice in females is improving. I am rather taken with Inyx also." The spider turned around and around, then performed a curious hopping motion. " I ' see' only one cenotaph on this world. It must be high atop a mountain."

" But Inyx!" protested Lan.

" Since we do not know this world, where else are we most likely to find her?"

" You' re right. It' s the only logical place, if she' s on this world. But what if she dropped into some other world?"

" Possible, but not likely. We went into the mist together. It is highly likely we left it together. There are bonds between us not easily broken, even by such an interworld journey. I have the feeling Claybore is also on this world."

" Claybore," said Lan, his voice hardening. " With the Kinetic Sphere, he' ll rule the entire Cenotaph Road."

" Perhaps he does not have the Sphere. Perhaps the potent cenotaph I ' see' is the Sphere. I cannot tell. We must get closer. At least having mountains around me will be a pleasant change. I find this flat country so tedious."

" This appears to be a kindly world for one as old and infirm as myself," said Krek.

The trilling words came with a modicum of animation now. The spider rejoiced in his own way of being free of his home world and his overamorous bride, Klawn- rik' wiktorn- kyt. Lan had helped the lovelorn spider return to his web for mating, not discovering until later that Krek' s bride was obligated to devour her mate afterward. Krek had betrayed almost human traits in not liking this outcome and had rejoined Lan Martak to walk the Cenotaph Road. But genetic imprinting was strong; Krek' s " lovely Klawn" had followed, might still follow, to fulfill her and her mate' s duty.

" I' ll explore ahead. Any direction please you more than that one?" asked Lan, pointing into the setting sun.

" I feared you would say that because of the stream of running water being so close." The spider shivered and moved from Lan' s side. " I even prefer the company of those in yon noisy caravan to the stream you are so desirous of crossing. The thought of water makes my legs tremble. The feeling of liquid running on them is indescribably horrid. It drips and mats the fur and-"

" A caravan?" Lan shinnied up a tree to peer down into the valley at the sight Krek had seen long before him. A long trail of wagons curled like a brown segmented worm across the verdant green. Some were pulled by draft animals, while others puffed and chugged along, smokestacks pouring out clouds of steam from magically inspired engines. " People, Krek, people! And from the richness of their dress, this is a most prosperous world."

" Rich, perhaps, but soon to be deceased if aid is not immediately rendered them."

" What? I don' t see anything."

" They are under attack," clacked Krek, his mandibles snapping together. " I see my first good meal in more weeks than I can remember." The bulky spider lumbered down the hill in full charge. Lan hesitated only a second before descending from the tree and following.

By the time they reached the bottom of the hill, Lan saw the caravan guards battling valiantly against dog- sized grasshopper creatures. But the droves of insects washed over them like an ocean' s tide covering a beach. The bugs peered forth at their prey through compound eyes the size of Lan' s fist. He knew the size exactly when he punched out to blind one intent on slashing off the arm of a woman in the nearest wagon.

" Are you all right?" he called to the woman. She turned a blanched face to him and silently nodded. Then he had no further time to worry about her safety. His own life hung in the balance.

Lan swung his sword and killed several of the grasshopper- things with each stroke, but sheer numbers soon tired him out. They swarmed, using their mandibles to nip tiny pieces from his sword blade, and he had to stay light on his feet to avoid their serrated legs. Every time he planted his feet to get a good swing with his sword, one buzzed past his guard and lashed out leg against leg.

Lan' s boot tops soon flapped like so much ribbon about his ankles. The boots filled with blood oozing down his legs from half a hundred cuts. But he fought on, harder than ever before. The tide turned against the humans. Lan Martak saw the penalty for slacking his effort.

Judging by the partially devoured corpses on the ground, the insects had a taste for human flesh.

Lan was thrown to the ground by a tremendous explosion as one of the engine- powered wagons blew apart. One of the grasshoppers had crawled down the stack, causing pressure to mount. The Maxwell' s demon inside had not ceased his selection of hot molecules; the steam continued to generate inside until the metal boiler walls suddenly gave way. Hot gas blasted across Lan' s back, boiling hundreds of the insects.

It hardly made a dent in the voracious tide.

Krek proved the most effective fighter. He gobbled and gorged and fought with the ferocity of a hundred men. Somehow, this communicated to the grasshopper- things. Perhaps the spider was a potent natural enemy on this world, or they might have been intelligent enough to realize their potential meal dined off them. However it was, the grasshoppers began retreating with oversized froglike hind legs propelling them in immense ten- foot jumps.

" Come back, you dastards!" cried Krek around a mouthful of grasshopper. " I have not finished dining on you!"

Lan panted harshly as he leaned on his gore- encrusted sword. His legs wobbled under him, and his shoulders felt as if millions of heated needles were being thrust into his flesh. If the battle had continued another minute, he might have succumbed.

" Good fight, Krek. Looks like we turned the tide."

He saw the caravan master coming toward them. " We might be able to hire on as extra protection. At the very least, we can get a ride into the nearest town."

" Then we go to the cenotaph on the mountain?" asked the spider, finishing off the last tidbit of grasshopper.

" That, yes," said Lan. " We' ve got Inyx to find." Lan quietly added, " And Claybore to stop." They couldn' t allow the sorcerer to conquer a world as lovely as this one. Together, they' d triumph against the mage.

Together, the three of them: Lan, Krek, and Inyx.

He turned to greet the wagon master.

" Are you certain your bandages aren' t too tight?" asked Oliana n' Hes. She bent over in the creaking, rolling wagon to check Lan' s fresh bindings.

" I' m fine, thanks," he protested, but the caravan master' s wife' s attentions weren' t totally unwanted. Since he had saved her during the battle against the locusts, both she and her husband Huw had been solicitous of his health. Overly solicitous, Inyx might say.

Inyx.

The name burned bright in Lan' s mind. Mentally he pictured the woman. Dark- haired, not beautiful but far from plain, she possessed a mental quickness and a physical prowess that were rare. She' d lost a husband and taken to walking the Cenotaph Road long before Lan Martak had discovered that route. Inyx battled and won, never compromising. She was her own woman, outspoken and direct.

Love? Lan didn' t know if he loved her or not, but he felt more for her than simple comradeship.

Inyx would scoff at Oliana' s attentions. If she' d been here.

" It' s been almost a week. I' ve healed enough to be able to walk." Lan glanced outside the wagon bed and saw Krek lumbering along at an easy gait. The horses that hadn' t been killed by the grasshoppers had been injured; they couldn' t pull the wagons fast enough to make Krek do more than amble along. And the Maxwell' s demon- powered wagons had fared even worse. Not a one of the mechanicals survived. Lan remembered the shrieks of joy as Huw had released the magically trapped demons into the world. They rocketed upward until vanishing in a low- hanging cloud layer.

It had rained continuously for the next three days.

" Without medicines or the proper spells, infection might set in."

" It hasn' t yet," Lan gently pointed out.

" Don' t go bothering the lad, Oliana," came Huw n' Hes' s voice from the front of the wagon. " He needs sleep as much as anything else."

" I' ve gotten enough sleep this past week, thank you," replied Lan in exasperation. Being the conquering hero and the saviour of the wagon caravan had its drawbacks. " Do you mind if I join you, Huw?"

" Come ahead, lad."

Lan moved forward, acutely aware of Oliana' s hot hand on his arm and hotter eyes, and sat beside Huw. The caravan master drove a rig now rather than riding ahead, because of the heavy toll taken by the insects. Not many humans had survived.

" Beautiful country," said Lan, his eyes drinking in the fresh green glory of the wooded landscape. " Reminds me of home."

" You walk the Cenotaph Road?" It came as a question, but Lan sensed more of a statement in it.

" I do. My friend Krek and I became separated from a companion. We' re looking for her. Is there any chance she might be in the city ahead, Melitarsus, I think you called it?" The name rolled off his tongue like a honey lozenge, rich and exotic. He felt his heart beat faster. Lan had wanted excitement, new worlds, and he now got it.

" Possible. It' s the center for trade in this part of the continent. Oliana and I, we bring up barley and oats and gurna corn from the southlands. Melitarsus is a governmental seat, and its people can' t be bothered with doing useful chores like growing food."

" You sound bitter about that."

" I make a good living out of supplying them what they don' t have, but the taxes! A tax to get in, a tax to sell, a tax to leave. They' ve taxed everything but the taxes themselves."

" That' s the function of any government. That' s how they provide services, like these roads."

" These are toll roads. Privately owned. The Suzerain of Melitarsus uses the taxes for-"

" Now, Huw," came Oliana' s sharp voice. " You mustn' t discuss politics like that. Lan doesn' t want to hear your opinions."

Lan did, but saw that nothing more was to be gained from pursuing the issue. Huw' s conversation turned to his home in Lummin, overlooking Strange Point and the easternmost jut of the Sea of Wistry. The tone the man used told Lan that he preferred that part of the world to overcrowded, metropolitan Melitarsus.

Lan Martak' s excitement mounted even more when he first sighted the gold- tipped spires rising at the corners of the walled citystate. Reflections from silver- capped sentries on the walls and the dark stream of wagons, both horse- drawn and magical, entering the gate opening at one side thrilled him. Above the ramparts circled long- winged aircraft, gliding on thermals, soaring, cruising, dipping downward to the earth. One of the flyers came so close to them that Lan caught a good look of his youthful face. The wind whipped sandy hair back from a wind- reddened face and tugged at a long white scarf around his neck. Then the flyer swooped, caught an updraft, and returned to his vigil above the city' s walls.

Civilization again.

He' d been out on the road eating dust and drinking the odors of the animals too long. After all he' d been through, he longed for nothing less than a long, hot soak in a tub of scented water.

" Friend Lan Martak," came Krek' s querulous voice. " Is this the place you want to be? Surely, you can choose better."

" Quiet, Krek. Melitarsus looks like my kind of place."

The spider only clacked his mandibles together in a deprecating fashion that Lan had learned to ignore. He was too happy at returning to civilization.