" You, too?" said Krek, almost cheerful now that he had found a companion to share another of his private fears. " Water makes the fur of my legs twitch dreadfully. Nothing in the world do I hate moresave fire."
" And I do not care for the feeling of insecurity," chimed in Velika. Lan pressed close to reassure her with his nearness.
" These creatures and happenings might leak through from other worlds," said Inyx. " Perhaps, since we are all creatures of different origins, our senses are subtly tuned to one world line but not another. Lan might be sensitive to creatures from certain worlds and we from others."
" Aieee!" screeched Krek, his mandibles slashing at thin air. The giant spider hopped backward and slashed again with his man- killing pincers. Lan freed his sword from its sheath but feared to attack something he couldn' t see. Foretelling where Krek might dodge or leap proved impossible as he bounced and ducked his invisible foe.
" Finally, my weakness proved an asset," said Krek. He shook himself and fluffed his fur, then sank down to rock size beside them. " A vicious swarm of gnats the size of your fist. Dangerous to one in my pitiable condition, but tasty when taken singly."
" We' d better hurry. If these things are finding us with greater regularity, we might be attracting them simply by our presence in this nothing- world," said Lan. " Inyx, you seemed to know where we' re headed. Start out. I have no idea at all where the Road lies from here." Even closing his eyes and attempting to regain the throbbing headache he now associated with the presence of the interworld gates, Lan couldn' t find the proper direction in the darkness. The gate seemed to be everywhere and nowhere.
" Do you know where it is, Krek?" she asked. " I was simply following your lead."
" I did, but my powers wane rapidly in this nonworld. But if memory serves, and at any moment I might fade into senility from all the shocks to my system, this is where our destinies lie."
He rose and trotted in the direction he' d pointed. For long hours they trooped beside him, Inyx' s head swivelling from side to side like a mechanical toy and Lan holding Velika' s hand in a death- grip, sure that any moment might be their last. Lan was the first to notice a gradual lightening. Soon, the others commented on it. When the level of light reached that of false dawn, they turned off the lantern.
" It looks like a junkyard," said Velika. Scattered around them were bits and pieces of machinery long rusted, huge beetle- shaped metal shells with wheels large enough to use as battle shields, and myriad smaller metallic implements. Lan stooped to examine some. Their feel assured him of their reality.
" It might be a razor blade," he said. " But who has ever seen one so small and difficult to hold?" Casting it aside, he picked up a smooth yellow cylinder. On impulse, he pressed his forefinger against the sharpened end. A long blue streak appeared on his skin. " A scriber! Imagine. And those things over there are paper fasteners such as clerks use."
" Someone' s discard pile. But why here, between worlds?"
" Ever lose anything?" Velika asked. " Maybe this is where it goes."
The other three scoffed at the idea, but Lan wondered if she might not have an inkling of some cosmic truth. His intellectualizing was cut off abruptly by the eerie sensation of being watched. He carefully turned and surveyed the littered nonworld. Rising silently from the rusty remains of metal came a skeletal being, ligaments of wire and bones of steel and eyes of glaring red glass. It would have been an amusing parody of a human had it not carried a long length of chain in each pseudohand. Rippling motions like a muleskinner' s sent the chains outward in perfect sine waves.
" I don' t know what it is- or if you can even see it- but it looks nasty." Lan heard Velika' s horrified gasp and knew she saw it, too. Inyx drew her sword and crowded close to his side. Krek bobbed up and down on the other.
" Separate a bit, and keep a lookout behind us, Krek," commanded Lan. " I don' t want this thing' s friends to sneak up on us." His mouth filled with cotton as he watched the graceful motions of the metallic being as it neared. The chains sang death songs now, snapping as if they were made from leather.
" How do we kill such a construction?" asked Inyx. " In all my travels, never have I seen its like."
" We take it from two sides at the same time. Maybe lopping its head off will do something. The way those eyes flash on and off makes me think it might have a brain of some sort, even if we can' t see anything in its head but a small black box."
Then the time for talking passed. The skeletal being lashed out with the left chain. Lan danced aside and slashed viciously at a steel wrist with his blade. Sparks danced as contact was made, but the sword refused to penetrate and slithered down the creature' s arm, leaving only a shining nick as evidence of the blow. Lan' s entire arm had been numbed by the force of the stroke. He barely recovered in time to avoid the chain swinging in a short arc for his legs.
Inyx used a massive two- handed overhead blow to embed her sword in the right- arm socket of the robotic thing. Placing her foot against the skeletal leg, she twisted. Her blade snapped clean and left the attacking scrap pile with only impaired dexterity in its right arm.
" What are we going to do? Krek? Can you:" Lan ventured a hasty glimpse over his shoulder. Krek silently defended them from one of the huge metal bug shells rolling on four soft wheels. It pulled back and shot forward, trying to crush Krek under its weight. At least, that seemed its only form of attack. Lan wished the same could be said for his opponent.
A whistling arc of chain swept his feet from under him. The pain lancing into his body almost robbed him of consciousness, but Lan continued to fight. He lunged awkwardly for the creature' s face. As his blade slid into where the mouth might have been on a living being, an electric shock jolted the blade from his hand. At the same instant, the creature jerked violently backward.
Inyx saw the reaction and pounced, her dagger out and aimed for one of the glass eyes. A tinkling noise sounded as the knife broke a crystalline eyeball. The robotic thing went berserk, thrashing around, using the chains as much against itself as to attack Inyx. Lan painfully pulled himself erect, drew his dagger, and took careful aim. The blade tumbled twice in midair and impacted firmly in the creature' s other glass eye. As if poleaxed, it sank to the ground.
Lan stumbled, then steadied himself. Inyx rubbed her arm where a wicked welt colored as the result of too- close contact with the chain. She tossed Lan his dagger, then pulled her own free from the shattered socket.
Lan considered giving her his sword to replace her shattered one, then knew with innate certainty that the proud woman would refuse it. Their eyes met and locked for an instant, and a silent communication flowed between them, the reassuring message of one ally to another. He sheathed his sword as she averted her eyes.
" I' m glad this is over," she said. Then, eyes widening, she turned and yelled: " Krek!"
Lan had forgotten about their furry friend. He twisted and looked at the spider in time to see it catch the front of the attacking metal bug and flip it over. Twin snips from huge mandibles cut cables underneath to ensure immobility.
Lan glanced back at the fallen metal skeleton as if afraid it might spring back to life, then went to Krek and lightly asked, " Do you spiders keep a trophy of your kill? If so, I' d like to present you with a wheel." He hefted one of the beetle- thing' s soft wheels and tossed it to the spider.
Krek caught it easily between his mandibles. He squeezed the rubbery ring, then cast it aside.
" No good. Too chewy."
Lan laughed, and Velika came up beside him and joined in. For a brief instant, anger surged in him. Why should she enjoy the camaraderie they shared along with the danger? She had hidden and had not helped in the common defense. Then he forgot his irritation. Her kiss was wet and passionate against his lips, promising much more when the situation was right.
" My hero!" she whispered hotly in his ear. Embarrassed by Krek' s and Inyx' s glares, he pushed her away and said, " Later. We' ve got to find the Road. Then " Y
es, then!" she smiled, looking at him with adoration shining brighter than the lantern in the darkness.
" I feel its pull. It is close," Krek said. " Yes, even in my debilitated condition, I sense its nearness. It is as if it opens and closes like a door."
Lan felt the throbbing headache pummel his head. It had come as if a switch had been thrown. Even he sensed the immense power released nearby.
They turned and walked toward the nexus of power.
CHAPTER TEN
Lan Martak ran forward to take the glowing crystal globe in his hands. A definite radiation exuded from the pulsating sphere that pulled him closer the way a magnet attracts iron filings. His eyes caught vagrant moonbeams dancing in the depths of the globe and followed them inward, down into infinity. Nothing mattered quite as much as actually possessing this wonderous door to other worlds.
Without straining, he felt power rippling through his being. He saw new worlds, he saw different futures, he witnessed the slow parade of a million histories. He held the power of the Resident of the Pit. He knew now what eternity meant. Worlds were his for the taking. He blinked and universes changed before him. The smallest particles, the largest worlds, all were his.
" Stop, friend Lan Martak," came Krek' s quivering voice. " I do not know the nature of this device, but it is Waldron' s answer to the Road. Woe is me. I should have paid more attention to my mentor when she instructed me on such things as the Road, but no, lazy and foolish, I simply allowed such knowledge to slip through my feeble brain." The spider vented a human- sounding sigh that lightly touched Lan' s face and brought him back to his senses.
The orb, pinkly warm and appearing soft rather than glassy- hard, still drew him closer, but now he successfully resisted the pull. Studying it more carefully, he witnessed a cavalcade of worlds flashing through the ball, each a separate reality beckoning to him, offering him things no other world could. The temptation to walk the Road soared inside him again.
" That' s all we sought?" came Velika' s petulant voice. " I' ve seen treasures far exceeding that. Why, Lan' s jeweled casket taken from him by those awful grey soldiers was worth more than this."
" Judge not by appearance," snapped Inyx. " I' d trade an empire for this. How a knave such as Waldron came by such a fine piece of magic, I' ll never know."
" It' s of no use to us! Who' d buy it? And who wants to leave this world to go stumbling among others? This world is enough for any sane person." Velika gripped Lan' s arm even harder, but he barely listened to her pleas.
Magic, yes, and he felt the flux all around him now. His magicsensing ability had returned in full force, so much so that his head ached horribly and his eyes felt as if they' d been placed in burning vises. Powerful spells were used in complex ways to generate this globe of transition. He knew that the Cenotaph Road demanded the personal energies of a person of great heroism and death- honored but unfulfilled by actual burial. Whatever the spells cast over an empty grave, they tied down that person' s essential bravery and soul- force to an eternity of maintaining a gateway between worlds. Some led one way, like the first he' d taken into the bog world. Others were so potent they opened both ways. Still others were rumored to span several worlds, so great was the power and honor of the unburied dead.
But this globe:
Lan saw at least a score of worlds passing in panoramic review. He wanted to learn all he could of this masterwork of sorcery, attune himself to it, and then follow the Road to each and every world shown. Velika might protest at first, but Lan knew they' d explore together where none from this world had trodden before. He felt a tightness in his throat as he thought of the blond woman, and again he experienced the twisting inside he couldn' t explain. She did things to him, that woman. The tension had made him giddy, nothing more, he told himself.
Or was it only tension?
" This is what I needed years ago," said Inyx in a hushed, almost reverent tone. " To walk randomly among the worlds is folly when one can choose with this."
" Yes," agreed Krek, " my own journey would have been immensely easier using such a device. My precious energies need not have been squandered fleeing shadows caused by fire and damp. Surely a world exists in that vista where neither flame nor water exists. What a find it would be! Sheer paradise for these creaking joints."
" I am glad you approve of my toy," came a cold voice from above. They looked at one another, then elevated their gaze to where Waldron Ravensroost leaned indolently against the balcony railing, one elbow resting on a rude wooden box. " Your triumphs in my little maze astonished me, to be sure. I was particularly amused by your confrontation with the metallic skeleton, a remnant from one of the most mechanized worlds inside that."
His finger pointed to the depths of the pinkly pulsating crystalline globe. A shimmer like heat across desert sands came and then a gradual focusing until one specific world snapped into clarity. Millions of darting mechanical devices purred and whined and screeched back and forth, raising such a din that Lan placed both hands over his ears for protection.
" Ah, you do not like that world, eh? Let us try another. From my study of the Kinetic Sphere, I suspect you are native to this world." With no discernible motion on Waldron' s part, the globe obeyed his spoken command. A jumble of colors, a silent, thick wind stirring the viscous mass, then Lan' s world came into view with heart- wrenching pellucidity. One of the demon- powered cars chuffed along, frozen mist on the bottom of the boiler while steam plumes arched high overhead from the dual stacks. And sitting ramrod- straight in the carriage was the old sheriff, looking apprehensive being so close to the symbol of progress on his world.
Straining, Lan imagined he heard the old man' s rough voice.
" No," said Waldron, " you cannot speak to him, nor he to you. One day I shall learn to control that feature of the Kinetic Sphere. Until I do, all that is open to me is searching out the locations where I and my men enter a new world. That, by the way, is a likely world for our Great Migration. Pleasant, the people are relatively unwarlike, and the abundances of food already flow to feed my people."
" Who manufactured this: Kinetic Sphere: for you?" demanded Lan. " This thing is beyond your power."
" I sense meaning to your use of the word ' power' that escapes me. But I shall be frank with you. A mage named Medolinev or Shastry, or possibly even L' ao Shu or Claybore, is responsible. He who constructed it is loath to give voice to his proper name for fear I would gain power over him." Waldron laughed harshly, changed elbows on the wooden box resting on the balcony railing, and added, " As if that matters to him now. But he refused to share this fine gift with my people, so:" A careless gesture of Waldron' s hand across his throat indicated what had happened to the niggardly magician. " You continue to amaze me, though, in that you sensed my inability to construct such a device. How did you know? A guess?"
" Hardly. I' ve been around magic- users all my life and, while I' m unable to cast more than elementary spells, I can feel power around me. You are lacking."
" Lacking in that form of power, perhaps, but not in others. I tire of this conversation, so allow me to congratulate you on pleasing me for so many hours during your journey through the maze. People walking between worlds as you did seldom survive, although the actual distance you traversed is less than ten yards."
" We' ll continue to survive, eater of small children!" raged Inyx, her hand pulling at her dagger.
" Alas, I cannot oblige you that minor request. You have two choices open to you. My captivity until I decide how you might be of best use to me or random passage along the Road."
" The Road!" cried Inyx.
" Yes, if my weak legs will carry me forward," agreed Krek.
" Come, Velika, let' s go through the gateway while it' s open," said Lan, pulling at the woman' s hand. But she refused to move. Yanking harder as Inyx and Krek advanced on the Kinetic Sphere and the curtain of radiant energy now surrounding it, Lan found himself off balance and stumbling. He slipped and bowled over Krek. T
he giant spider' s wildly thrashing limbs sent Inyx tumbling. Velika stood over the pile of bodies and shook her head.
" Better a dungeon than being lost in that welter of crazy, dangerous worlds!" she cried out, tears flowing copiously down her cheeks. Lan started to go to her, but some inner force held him back, an inexplicable one akin to his intuitions about magic use. Those tears:
Inyx surged to her feet, but the globe had lost its lustre and the energy curtain had closed. No more coalescing colors in the ball; it remained inert, dead, shut to them. And the ring of crossbowmen assured her that fighting now was tantamount to suicide. Turning on Lan, she screamed, " That bitch has signed our death warrants! I consign you both to the Lower Places for this!"
Lan Martak had no answer, for he felt much the same about Velika' s reluctance to walk the Road. It had just cost them all their freedom- and their lives.
" Hmmm, such a motley group you are," said Waldron, looking down at the four in chains. As Krek rattled his bindings ominously, several of the guards insinuated themselves between the giant spider and their liege lord. Waldron shifted the wooden box he carried so that it safely rested under his arm, then made a vague gesture in the air with his free hand as he said, " It' s all right, men. My armorer assures me even this ponderous creature will be unable to break through the special steel chains on all of his legs."
" Begging your gracious pardon, Saviour, but the armorer also assured us that the other spider could not escape the chamber in which he placed it. It took less than an hour for the beast to break entirely free and escape."
Waldron' s face tightened.
" Why wasn' t I informed of that immediately? Damn that man! You, Commander Ells, remove the armorer and find a suitable replacement. And report back to me afterward."
The indicated soldier, dressed in the grey of Waldron' s army, bowed to his liege and backed out, bobbing his head in agreement. The other stirred nervously, glanced at Krek, and obviously doubted the strength of the chains on all eight furry legs.
Cenotaph Road sr-1 Page 15