by Неизвестный
" He' s not a bug," said Lan, indignant. " He' s an intelligent being. More so than you, I can see."
The captain pulled forth his tube and aimed it directly at Lan' s midsection. Not knowing what the device did made Lan more uneasy than if he' d possessed intimate knowledge of its workings. On his home world those entrusted with law enforcement sometimes used wheel lock pistols. Those were cranky, delicate, and not very accurate, yet they killed at a considerable range. While he didn' t see any clockwork firing mechanism on the sides of the soldiers' weapons, he guessed they, too, had the ability to kill at a distance.
When Lan didn' t properly respond, the soldier slowly swung his cylinder in an arc until it pointed at Krek. At the last possible moment before pressing an inset firing button, the captain lowered his aim. A finger- thick beam of intense light speared forth and vaporized the dirt just under Krek' s back legs.
Startled and frightened, the spider leaped straight up into the air. For an instant, Lan stood open- mouthed and gaping, just like the soldiers. Krek had become airborne, his eight coppery legs spread from his body like a furry pinwheel. He landed with a heavy thud, whirling to face the captain of the guard.
" Never do that to me again," the spider raged. " You could have set my fur on fire!"
" I' ll do more than that if you don' t get your bulky carcass moving. It' s a long way into Dicca. Silvain' ll have my head on a spike for taking so long, as it is."
" Silvain?" asked Lan quietly.
" Shut up and get moving." This time the imperious gesture with the tube got both Lan and Krek trotting along.
Close enough to carry on a low- whispered conversation, Lan asked his friend, " Have you ever seen the likes of their weapons before?"
" Never," said Krek. " Nor have I heard of worlds where such are possible. Do they hide little fire elementals in each weapon? It seems a magical chore hardly worth accomplishing."
" It' s not done magically," Lan said. " I don' t ' see' any spells being used."
" One little book and the boy thinks he is a master sorcerer," scoffed Krek.
" I know what I know," said Lan defensively. " However they produce the light beam, it' s not done magically. This world is more advanced technologically, but I think I can get around that with a few well- chosen spells."
" Make me invisible first."
" I don' t know how to do that," said Lan. " I don' t even know if it' s possible."
" I don' t even know if your plan is possible," countered Krek.
They walked in silence for another mile before Lan calmed down enough to speak again.
" Remember how Claybore' s death beams bent around me? I think I can control that spell now. Before, it came to me on a subconscious level. I' ve been working on drawing it to the surface of my mind. I know it will work."
" You try it first. But before you do, what was that I heard about Inyx? You mentioned her name to the grey- clad soldier captain."
" He said a woman had stolen their fluttercraft, whatever that is. Some form of transportation, apparently. I didn' t get any good idea of when this happened, but it explains why they don' t have her as a prisoner."
" Like they do us."
" Krek, we can escape whenever we want. I' m playing along to get information."
" About Dicca, the capital city where the Lord of the Twistings rules supreme?" said the spider in an arrogant tone. " I know all. I hear so much you do not. They take us to Alberto Silvain, Claybore' s commandant on this planet. Or so I surmise. Silvain is the military governor who ordered these miserable wights out to intercept us, I assume he learned of the cenotaph through Claybore' s magics. Silvain is occupied with elections in Dicca. These odd sorting processes you humans use are rigged in this instance, with the Lord of the Twistings the shoo- in favorite because of bought votes and Claybore' s influence."
" What else have you overheard?" asked Lan.
" Nothing."
Lan shook his head. The spider managed to be vexing, even when he didn' t try very hard. Still, with the information they now shared, Lan saw little reason to remain in the custody of the soldiers. They weren' t of the highest caliber. They jumped at their own shadows and knew nothing of woodlore. Claybore' s usual tactic was to bring in a few key officers, then recruit locals for his army. He paid well and offered quick promotions. Such things appealed to the lower types. All the while, they were being exploited and used for interworld conquest.
Lan doubted any of these men realized Claybore' s designs extended across dozens, maybe hundreds of worlds. Alberto Silvain knew, just as Kiska k' Adesina had a world back and Lyk Surepta on Lan' s home world. A privileged, powerful few leading the ignorant, greedy many.
It was a conquest plan that worked all too well.
When the howler screamed across the sky, Lan Martak acted.
The soldiers stopped to gawk. They were natives of this world, but the sight of a howler still meant a special treat for them. Lan jerked to one side, kicked at a kneecap, and felt it crunch, then grabbed. He had regained his sword and dagger. Against the death tubes, these meant little, but he had magic on his side.
" Die, you spitting scum," came the captain' s curse.
Lan' s eyes glazed over as he summoned up all the inner power resting inside him. He remembered the nightmare battles with Claybore when the sorcerer' s skull cast forth the twin ruby death beams. The ruby shafts had parted, bent around Lan' s body. He mentally clutched at that spell now and moulded it for his own use.
The captain fired.
The lambent energy deflected from Lan at the last possible instant. The spell had worked. Barely.
The confusion on the captain' s face told Lan all he needed to know. The weapon had been given to the man with instructions and praise for its invincibility. Now that it had failed, he had no idea what to try next. Lan didn' t give him time to decide. Two quick steps and a swing of the sword sent hand and cylinder rolling.
Clutching his spurting stump, the man screamed in shock and fell into a shallow irrigation ditch, slowly filling the dirt channel with his life' s blood.
" Run!" cried Lan. Many of the soldiers took it as a command- or a convenient reason for leaving the scene of such carnage. Only a few hesitated. One raised his own weapon.
Lan' s mind felt as if it had slipped onto greased glass. He struggled to bring up the proper spells. His concentration had lapsed upon seeing the captain die. There wasn' t any way he could re- form his protective spell in time to be effective. He brought up the blade of his sword in a reflex action.
The death beam squarely struck his shiny sword and reflected away harmlessly. The attacking grey- clad blinked, then aimed again. Lan reflected the beam directly back into the man' s body. He died, his belly a smoky ruin.
" He killed Molok with his own pistol," cried one of the two remaining soldiers.
" AAARRGHHH!" roared Krek, rising up on his eight long legs. His mandibles crashed together like scythes. The soldiers saw death advancing on them, turned, and ran.
" I say," said Krek, " I did not think I was that frightening. I am relieved, though, to have avoided an ugly confrontation. Ever since my days in the arena killing those poor boys and girls, it is difficult for me to get into the spirit."
" You were forced to kill then, Krek. Now you fight to protect yourself- and your friends. Thanks. You certainly saved me."
" That was an interesting trick with your sword. How did you know it would work?"
" Seemed likely," Lan said hurriedly. He didn' t want to let his friend know it was purely accidental that he' d even tried it. " Let' s get moving for Dicca. Unless I miss my guess, Inyx is waiting for us there."
" Probably nice and dry, well fed, and dangling in a wonderful web," said the spider, head bobbing in agreement.
CHAPTER SIX
Inyx stirred, moaned softly, and reached out. Her arms felt soft, pliant, flabby flesh when she should have found nothing but firmly toned muscle. Vivid blue eyes fluttering open, she st
ared at the man in bed next to her.
" Reinhardt?" she asked, her voice still husky and her eyes gummy with sleep.
" Yes, my love."
The softness under her fingers never changed, but the shape altered subtly. She blinked harder and stared. Reinhardt smiled at her, his perfect, even teeth shining whitely in the soft light filtering through the window. The four parallel scars on his cheek glowed.
Four?
Inyx sat up.
" There should be three scars," she said.
" What' s this, my dearest?"
The woman looked harder. There were three. She' d been mistaken.
Or had she?
" Where have you been for these years, Reinhardt? Why did you make me suffer? How did you:?"
" Shush, my darling," he said, pressing a finger to her lips. " This is not the time for talk. It' s a time for rediscovery, for love."
She felt his hands moving slowly over her naked body. Old responses rose within her, responses she cherished and had denied herself since he' d died- gone away. She sighed and sank back to the bed. But Inyx worried. Something wasn' t right. The scars. Three or four? The flesh under her fingers, the weight pressing her into the mattress, the feel of the way Reinhardt made love to her.
Then her passions consumed all doubt and she cried out in joy. She' d found her beloved Reinhardt and would never let him go. Never!
Inyx awoke in midafternoon. She rose from the bed and found her clothing. Silently, she put on tunic and trousers, noting that her weapons were gone. Living with them as her constant companions for all these years made her feel more naked without them than when she wore no clothes. She looked around the small room, looking for a spot where Reinhardt might have laid them.
The room was dingy in the extreme. White and blue striped roaches frolicked along the rotting floorboards, darting in and out and mocking her attempts to step on them. The light coming through the window revealed a coating of dust on the pane thick enough to give a brown tint to everything in the room; one small pane had been broken and not replaced. Curtains hanging in tatters added little class to the place. Inyx sat heavily on the bed, heard the springs protesting mightily. The bedclothes were grey- once they' d been white. The pillows were lumpy. The mattress ticking poked through in heavy knots. The headboard had been sloppily painted years ago and was now peeled and chipped.
" At least that matches the walls," she said glumly. But, in spite of the sordid surroundings, she had to feel a warm inner glow.
Reinhardt.
She' d thought him dead all those years, killed by the grey- clad soldiers as they attempted to take over her home world. The woman flopped back on the rickety bed and stretched like a cat in the warm summer sun. She felt good all over, for the first time in recent memory.
Reinhardt!
Footsteps sounded outside. From the tentative quality of the tread, she guessed someone tried to walk softly and keep the floorboards from creaking. They failed. In this boarding house, only faith kept the roof from falling down or the floors from collapsing.
" Reinhardt, is that you?" she called out.
" Yes, my dearest." Inyx felt a moment of giddy shifting, then the door opened. Her husband stood there, a tray of food in hand. " I brought you lunch. You' ve slept most of the day."
" I: I' m still a little sleepy," she confessed. " But it was so good being with you last night. It' s so good being with you now."
He batted away her teasing fingers.
" Not now. I have work to do. You eat."
" But Reinhardt, let me help. I can:"
" Eat." The word came out sharp, brittle, a definite command. Inyx had been walking the Cenotaph Road for three years and had learned to rebel against such orders. In spite of the fact that this was her beloved husband Reinhardt, she only pretended to eat the food. A little sleight of hand slipped most of it under the bed for the gourmet feasting of the roaches. It' d hardly be noticed with all the other debris there, she guessed.
" I' m finished," she said. Reinhardt stirred from across the room and looked at the plate. He nodded curtly, turned, and left.
" Wait!" she cried. By the time she reached the door, it had been locked from the outside. " Reinhardt, why are you doing this to me?" Inyx thought she heard a cruel laugh, but wasn' t certain. Did Reinhardt have three or four scars on his cheek?
She slept fitfully, awakening from a nightmare combining tigers, Reinhardt, and grey soldiers on one side against her, Lan and Krek on the other defending her. Inyx wiped away sweat and took a deep breath to regain her composure. It was an odd dream. Reinhardt should have been aiding her, not opposing her.
Voices drifted up through the flooring. She shook off a slight dizziness and got out of bed, pressing her ear to the wood planking. What Inyx heard turned her cold inside.
": best I' ve ever seen. Great legs, too," bragged a man. She recognized the voice only after difficult concentration. It sounded much like Reinhardt. " I' ll keep her up in the room till after the election. I can make at least a score a tumble with her and have the men lined up around the block waiting their turn. The women, too! She' s a fine one, she is."
" Really, Luister, I couldn' t care less about your crude sexual exploitations. You owe me eighty score interest on the loan. My superiors are very upset over the lack of payment." The voice turned icy with menace. " If you don' t pay a hundred score by the end of the week, we shall have to take over your Fine Rooms."
Inyx frowned. The way the man said " Fine Rooms" sounded as if it meant something more than a description of a boarding room. The contempt carried in his tones were those a churchgoer reserves for " whorehouse." She slipped fingernails between the boards and pulled. Pain shot up her arms, but she had to see. After a wooden protest, the flooring parted enough for her to look into the room below.
A man dressed in a black suit over a frilly white shirt stood by the door. He gave the grossly overweight man seated in a chair a look cold enough to freeze fire.
" One hundred score by the end of the week. You will not like the alternative, len- Larrotti. I promise you that."
" Odissan, you bore me. I tell you that everything' s going to be fine now that I' ve got some high- class talent to sell."
" Maybe you will actually have a fine room," said Odissan. " It doesn' t matter. Good day to you."
The bloated frog of a man seated just at the edge of Inyx' s field of view made an obscene gesture at the departing man' s back. He rocked back in the chair and drummed stubby fingers on the battered chair arms. Inyx felt a wave of polar clarity wash through her brain. Everything fit into place.
This was Reinhardt. Or rather this gross blimp of a man had made her believe he was her husband. Reinhardt had died three years ago. Somehow she had been duped into thinking he still lived. The herb tea, the muffins, something had drugged her. Her thoughts were disturbed by someone knocking on the door below. She watched as Luister lenLarrotti rose and waddled forth.
As he walked, his form shifted, flowed. He became an old womanthe same one who had greeted her yesterday.
" Come in, my boy," cackled the old woman- Luister len- Larrotti. He ushered into the parlor an adolescent male, obviously nervous. " What can 1 do for you? Some herb tea? The muffins are superb."
" I: I want a Fine Room."
" Such a youth, so big and muscular. A real brawler. You want only the best, I' d wager."
" Yes," he said, head bobbing as if it were on springs. " The best."
" How much do you have?" The bite of greed made Inyx recoil. How the youth missed it was beyond her. Yet she couldn' t be too critical. She had entirely missed the illusion directed at her the day before.
She shuddered. Even worse, she had accepted the illusion of her dead husband as real. She' d wanted it to be true, and Luister lenLarrotti had played on that weakness, changing his form to match her every need. He was nothing more than a human chameleon, moulding himself to mood as well as physical surroundings.
" So much
? Two score? You get the best."
" My m- mother," the youth stammered.
" She knows of your: love," said len- Larrotti. " And she is anxiously awaiting you upstairs. Come, I' ll show you the way to the best Fine Room in the house."
Inyx listened to the footsteps outside her door. One was heavy, confident. The other set came hesitantly. A hand rested on the handle. Inyx stood, fists tensed at her side. She' d fight her way out, if she could.
But magics permeated the room, gripping her, confusing her, turning her inside out. She felt her knees go weak and all resolve drain away. When the door opened, her Reinhardt stood there. How could she fight the man she loved?
" My dearest," he said, his voice ringing forth in the baritone she knew and loved so well. He came to her, undressed her, made love to her. Inyx shivered after he left.
Faint words drifted up through the floorboards.
": Luister, you were right. She was worth it. You run the best Fine Room in all of Dicca."
" Come back soon."
Inyx rolled over in the shabby bed and began to cry.
" It will be an exciting new venture for us, my dear," Reinhardt told her. She carefully hid away the food he' d given her and artfully poured the herb tea behind the bed. Inyx faced slow starvation, but in the past two days she' d learned that her first suspicions had been correct: the food was drugged. By not eating, she maintained some semblance of her former self.
But all resistance faded whenever Reinhardt came into the room. She knew now that her husband was dead, that this was Luister lenLarrotti hiding behind illusion. She knew it intellectually; emotions presented another facet Inyx couldn' t cope with. She wanted Reinhardt to live, to breathe, to hold her in his arms and love her. She wanted that with all her heart and soul.
Luister len- Larrotti used it against her.
" There will be customers coming to the diorama, paying good coin to see you in your full glorious beauty. This will be the finest exhibit of its kind in all of Dicca."
She stared at Reinhardt- len- Larrotti. Four scars on the cheek. Even as she doubted, the illusion changed.