Fire and Fog cr-5

by Неизвестный

  " Perhaps he carried it within his head," she said.

  " I can' t dismiss that as a possibility," Lan said. He stalked back and forth across the room, eyes fixed on the floor in front of him. " The legs are near but I won' t go after them until I have a way of using them. What did Lirory have in mind for them?"

  " If Claybore knows where his legs are, also, why hasn' t he already tried to retrieve them?" The brunette gingerly sat on the single block remaining of Lirory Tefize' s throne. The power that had welled up and bathed both the gnome and Lan Martak did not come to her. She didn' t know whether to be miffed or relieved.

  " Lirory protected them, of that I' m sure. Claybore is cautious. I have already robbed him of his skin and his tongue. To lose his legs would be a blow second to none. He dares not make a mistake now."

  " He is close to dominance on all the worlds along the Road," said Kiska.

  " Claybore is far from it," Lan contradicted. " The last encounter proves that. I am the stumbling block on his path. His grey legions might swarm and physically seize world after world, but without his magic to back them, they are nothing. I can defeat them all with a wave of my hand."

  To demonstrate Lan lifted his arm and fire flickered from his fingertips. Then alternate fingertips froze solid while the others blazed with wild witchfire. He jerked his hand in a small circle and sent a ball of light burning through the rock vault of Lirory' s chamber and up through the mountain until it ripped apart the sky itself.

  " You are a mighty mage," said Kiska. Even as she spoke, the loathing for what she did built within her. The woman struggled to keep from puking. In a dim fashion she understood Claybore used her against Martak, but this role did not suit her well. Playing the toady to the man who had killed her husband revolted her. She would be more at home driving a barbed shaft into Martak' s guts, then twisting until the entrails billowed forth.

  How long would they be, she wondered. Long enough to string around the room? Would this appease her intense hatred for the man? Kiska k' Adesina wanted to find out. It might even be possible to rip his intestines from his belly and let him linger.

  Martak had killed her husband with a single sword thrust. His own death would not be so easy.

  Damn Claybore for what he did to her! The geas binding Martak bound her, as well.

  Lan turned and looked at her, his expression softening. She made a small gesture beckoning him to her side. To her disgust he came like a lovesick puppy dog.

  " I need you so," Lan said. " To think I tried to kill you so many times. That' s all so unreal to me. A nightmare."

  " You are the greatest man in all the universe," she whispered. Kiska longed for him to be closer, to take her in his arms, to make love to her. And then, at the precise moment of climax, she would drive a dagger into his back. Then would her revenge be sweet.

  " The others don' t understand the strain I am under. Krek demands attention all the time. He: he' s not human. He can' t understand what it' s like seeing evil such as Claybore' s loose in the world."

  " And your Inyx?" Kiska almost hissed. What she' d do to that bitch made her revenge on Lan Martak seem pale in comparison. There would be mismatings with a dozen ferocious animals on a hundred barbaric worlds before she allowed Inyx to die.

  " I don' t know what' s got into her. She seems so distant now. We had a rapport I can' t explain. Our thoughts were as one- but that was before we came onto this world."

  " The fog?" suggested Kiska.

  " That might have something to do with it. Or it might be something else." Bitterness came to Lan Martak.

  " Ducasien," Kiska said, striking the soft spot in Martak' s heart. She sensed his jealousy of the man from Inyx' s home world and played on it. His anguish thrilled her even if she did not allow it to be mirrored on her face.

  " What does she see in him?" he wondered aloud.

  " There is definite love for him," goaded Kiska. " The pair of them have been intimate."

  The man' s expression told her she traveled unsafe territory. No matter how potent Claybore' s magical workings, the power over Lan Martak was not complete.

  " She loves me."

  " Who couldn' t?" asked Kiska, stroking Lan' s cheek. The man pulled away, hesitated, turned back to her. Every use of magic on his part strengthened the spell binding the two of them together. Kiska saw that Lan became less and less aware of Claybore' s intrusion in this matter, another manifestation of the spell.

  Even she found it increasingly difficult to remember the few things Claybore had told her before sending her forth. A dagger at the enemy' s back, Claybore had said. A chance for revenge, he' d said. Kiska k' Adesina hadn' t questioned her master; she was too good a soldier for that. She did not care for this form of warfare, but if it gained her ends, so be it.

  Lan Martak would die at her hand. Claybore had promised that. She held on grimly to that single thought.

  " The legs," Lan said suddenly. " Why can' t I grasp their importance, their use?"

  " Rest, my darling," Kiska said, sickened by her honeyed words. " Rest and it will all come to you. You overwork yourself. Tired, you can' t hope to win. Rest, sleep, sleep, yes, sleep."

  She cradled his head and held it close. Muscles in her upper arms twitched spasmodically as she fought down the urge to place one hand on the man' s chin and another on the top of his head and jerk as hard as she could. That might break his neck.

  It might also fail.

  Her time would come. Soon. Claybore promised it. Soon.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The world exploded around Lan Martak, stars orbiting wildly about his head, the very planet tipping and gyrating and sending him to his knees. The walls of the pyramid- shaped stone chamber first cracked and then turned to powder. The floor beneath his feet became transparent and he hung suspended over a bottomless pit.

  And wind- Wind seared his flesh, threatening to strip his bones clean. Squinting, arm up to protect his face, he looked into the galeforce wind and saw an all too familiar figure: Claybore.

  The chalk- white skull showed thin fracture lines- and this gave Lan hope. He had put those cracks in Claybore' s skull. And he could do more, ever so much more.

  " This is silly, Claybore," he said, fighting to keep his face covered. " You attack with only wind?"

  " Surely a man of your vast ability recognizes an air elemental when you encounter one," the other mage said with studied politeness. " If you don' t like it, I' ll stop it. Now!"

  The sorcerer' s newly attached arms rose and formed a steeple over the skull.

  Lan dropped into the pit.

  He felt his stomach jerk and the air whistling around him in a new direction. The wind he could tolerate. To allow Claybore to cast him downward meant only death. With a surge of effort, he formed a new floor under his left foot. A solid patch took shape under his right and stopped his insane fall. Slowly, the hardness spread, merged with other spots, rose.

  He again faced Claybore, the floor substantial once again.

  " Very good," said Claybore. " The illusion is not a common one. You defeated it nicely. Your skill has grown to rival mine."

  Lan did not reply with words. He sent his own air elemental shrieking mindlessly for Claybore' s body. He hoped to catch the sorcerer off balance and knock him to the floor. With any luck the skull might smash into the stone and crack further.

  Luck was not with him. Claybore easily withstood the writhing, screaming puff of air and dismissed it with the wave of a hand. Lan realized then how important those arms and hands were to Claybore. They not only augmented his power, they gave him command over a new set of spells.

  " Surrender!" Lan said, using the Voice. The vibrancy of the tongue within his mouth caused the onset of a headache unlike any he had felt. He immediately stopped and the shooting pain diminished and finally went away entirely.

  " You cannot use my tongue against me like that, fool," said Claybore, now turning to his usual manner. All pretense of politeness sto
pped. " I can give you undreamed of powers. You still learn. I know!" The jaws of the skull clattered together emphasizing the words that were not spoken but were still heard.

  " You can give me nothing, Claybore. You seek too much power. You must be destroyed."

  " Why try?" asked Claybore, his tone curious. " You oppose me, but why? What is it to you? There isn' t the hard core within you to make power your goal."

  " I don' t want dominance over others," said Lan. " I want freedom from that power. You won' t impose your will on me or anyone else."

  " And you don' t want to impose your will on others?" asked Claybore, as if genuinely surprised at finding a fact he had not ever considered to have existed.

  Lan Martak spun about, his fingers strewing sparks. The powdery ruins of Lirory Tefize' s chamber snapped back into their original form.

  " Your illusions fail you, Claybore."

  " Do they?" the sorcerer asked softly. " You find the simple ones. The more complex ones might amaze you- had you the wit to see them."

  Lan shifted uneasily at those words. Something gnawed at the corners of his mind, as if Claybore had given him a crucial clue to unlocking the dismembered mage' s power. He groped for the clue and failed to find it.

  " Lan?" came a hesitant voice. " Are you all right? You look strained."

  He blinked and lost sight of Claybore, his physical eyes now doing the " seeing" for his mind. Kiska k' Adesina stood before him, the expression on her face a mixture of emotions he couldn' t put into words. Whatever he read there, true caring was not present.

  " I' m fine," he said. " Claybore started an attack. Didn' t you see what he did?"

  The woman shook her head, a brown shimmer of hair circling her face. She pushed a vagrant strand back and simply stared at him.

  He heaved a sigh. The visions Claybore sent were designed strictly for him. The battle they fought was a personal one and need not involve others- unless drawing others into the conflict aided one of them. Lan tried to figure out how best to use Kiska against Claybore and failed. The mage had made no mention whatsoever about her capture; it was as if this was a problem belonging to Lirory and since the gnome had perished, the matter was closed.

  " It won' t be long before we have one last meeting," said Lan. " The time is drawing close. I sense the powers mounting all around and: and I can' t control them." The insecurity of his position troubled him strangely. Never before had he worried over this to such an extent. He held more power than any mage except Claybore and now he hesitated, now he doubted himself.

  " You tire so easily," said Kiska. " You do need to rest. Don' t let Claybore force you into a battle you can' t win."

  " What' s it to you?" Lan flared. " You are his chief commandant now that Silvain is gone. You should be thinking of his welfare, not mine. Or is that the way it really is? Are you thinking of Claybore' s victory? Is this part of it?"

  " Lan, how can you say that?" Kiska' s words soothed him enough that the edge of anger left. Only confusion remained. He turned from her to go to the table holding Lirory' s grimoires. Placing both hands on the table, Lan leaned forward, head down and eyes closed tightly.

  It was growing harder to concentrate.

  " Nothing seems right to me anymore. Claybore' s words bother me."

  " He is your enemy."

  " He seems more and more like me. Or I' m adopting his philosophy." That idea made Lan even more uneasy. If Claybore weren' t changing, then he had to be the one becoming more like the disembodied sorcerer. They fought- but were their motives so different now?

  He started to speak and found it impossible. Lan' s eyes flashed open and he saw the room had again turned transparent. The slightest movement caused him pain; all he knew as the gut- twisting agony lodged deep within him was that he had failed. Self- pitying, he had let down his guard and now all was lost.

  He waited for Kiska to say something, to chastise or to praise. The words never came. Lan retraced the course of their conversation and came once more to the point of her being Claybore' s chief architect of destruction on a dozen worlds- Claybore' s pawn.

  Just as he was Claybore' s pawn.

  From deep within boiled the power that had once been his and that Claybore had cunningly buried with his spells. The pain in arms and legs lingered, but Lan forced movement into them. He straightened and found the dancing light mote that had become his constant companion. The light mote appeared indistinct, blurred, far away. He coaxed it closer and set it to blazing like a million stars.

  Pain dissolved from his body like snow melts in the morning sun. The walls of the room became translucent, then opaque. He cast a spell to insure that Claybore would never again be able to confuse his senses with such conjurings again.

  " Claybore," he said softly. " This is one battle that will be fought to the bitter end. One or the other of us will not survive it. We cannot continue together in the same universe, not like this. One of us will perish."

  Ghostly, mocking laughter greeted him.

  " We are immortal, you and I. Survive this petty difference of opinion? Of course we will. Both of us. The real question you ought to ask is the loser' s condition."

  " If I have to, I' ll scatter your body back along the Road. Terrill did it once. I can do it, also."

  Laughter. And pain.

  Lan doubled over as his insides ripped apart. For a moment he forgot this was a duel of magics. Ruled only by the physical, he sensed his life force slipping away, his body being torn asunder. He reached once more for the depths of his power and came away empty. This attack, as simple as it was, had defeated him.

  Lan Martak felt life draining from him.

  And then the flow stopped. Seizing the opportunity, he summoned forth his light mote. The light familiar entered and suffused through his body, leaving him weak but in control once more. The memory of pain and the need to avoid further anguish allowed him to fend off Claybore' s renewed attack. The other mage sensed his spells failing and hurled more and more potent, less and less subtle ones at Lan.

  They failed. And Lan found conjurings of his own that he hadn' t realized he knew to cast against Claybore.

  " Pressure," he muttered. " Pressure unlike anything you have ever felt!"

  Claybore let out a scream that almost deafened Lan. The spell compressed the sides of Claybore' s skull, producing more and deeper cracks. The jaw came unhinged and clattered to the floor.

  " And more," said Lan, the power his once again. He didn' t understand why the sudden change had occurred within him. He accepted and used it. To defeat Claybore now meant freedom all along the Cenotaph Road, for him and for Inyx and Krek and everyone else. The conquering grey legions Claybore commanded would soon fall into disarray without their mage- general.

  The spell crushed down on Claybore' s body, compressing the torso and breaking the reattached arms. Lan almost cried aloud in triumph when he saw the Kinetic Sphere- Claybore' s heart- slowly being squeezed from the chest cavity. Victory was within his grasp. And still the power flowed to him.

  " This can' t be," moaned Claybore. " It won' t be!"

  Lan staggered as his spells rebounded and found: nothingness. Claybore had vanished from between the anvils of his magic.

  " Where did you go?" he cried out. " Let' s finish this now, once and for all!"

  Only deathly silence greeted him. He had been close, so very, very close and now victory had been stolen from him. Claybore had eluded him at the last possible instant. Lan sent his dancing light mote forth to seek out Claybore. Long minutes passed and the mote reported no trace of the other sorcerer. Disheartened, Lan propped himself against a table and wondered how he might find Claybore, who had obviously fled this world and traveled the Road.

  As he worked out this problem, a new one occurred to him. He sensed another powerful presence on this world, in Yerrary.

  " Lirory' s dead," he said aloud.

  " Lan, you look so drawn. What' s happened?" Kiska k' Adesina' s concern struck him
as hollow and a lie. She cared nothing for him. But even as he thought this, other emotions surfaced and his view toward her softened.

  " Claybore has left Yerrary- even this world. I can' t track him down. I' ll have to follow him to other places, but there' s a power emanating from down below I had not felt before. Or rather, I have felt it before."

  " You' re not making sense."

  Lan realized the woman was right. His confusion centered on the familiarity of that power center and the impossibility of it. The other time when he had flagged in battle with Lirory and Claybore, this source had opened to him with the same feeling of elusive recognition. What it was stayed just beyond his grasp, yet he knew it.

  " Stay here," he said to the woman. " I' ve got to explore and see if I can' t get some answers."

  " I' m coming with you," Kiska declared.

  Lan started to protest but didn' t find it within him to tell her no. He motioned and she hurried along, matching his long strides as he found all the right corridors and down ramps to take him into the newer parts of Yerrary still being dug out from the living bedrock of the planet. The excavations were abandoned and he had to step over piles of rock and go around large boulders, but his stride was sure and his destination plain in his mind. The place he sought glowed with a dark power and drew him like a magnet pulls iron.

  " Where are we going?" Kiska asked him.

  He didn' t answer. He pushed aside rock, jumped back as the poorly buttressed roof sent down a shower of small stones and dust, and kept on until he came to the chamber Claybore had visited. Traces of the other mage lingered; Lan sensed the magical residues indicating physical presence. Whatever lay within this room was important enough to demand that Claybore actually be here.

  " What' s this cistern?" asked Kiska, going up to the low rock wall and cautiously peering down into the blackness. She shivered and looked away. " I don' t like it, whatever it' s for."

  " I' ve seen it before. On my home world." Lan experienced a dizziness as sensations rushed in on him.