Lan pulled Velika through the door an instant before Inyx slammed and bolted it against outside intrusion. The scowl on her face told Lan that, to her way of thinking, she had failed by allowing Velika entry. But Inyx said nothing as she wiped the worst of the blood and gore from her tunic.
" Ah, my beauty, they have escaped. Amazing. I hadn' t thought the barbarians of this world showed so much determination. But are they really of this world? Or another? Can you tell?" Waldron held his gloved hand up level with the balcony railing so the huge raven perched on his wrist could peer down into the immense courtyard. A raucous caw was all the answer the conqueror received.
" Yes, I believe you are right. The spider is of this world. The flaxen- haired woman, possibly, also, but the dark- haired woman and the man who wields the sword so well cannot be."
Waldron leaned against the railing as he studied their movements so far below him in the convoluted maze of corridors he had ordered constructed. He peered into the darkness and sighted Klawn struggling against the door that Inyx had so securely latched. He reached down and scribbled a note on a piece of vellum, then tied it to the raven' s leg. With a casting motion, he sent the bird fluttering into the air. The black bird fell a few yards, then powerfully stroked against the humid air, cawed and soared like a shadowy bullet for the other side of the castle. Klawn would soon be neutralized by closing siege doors on each side of her, but the others presented a unique problem for Waldron.
A unique problem and a unique amusement.
Holding his wrist out and emitting a screech similar to that of the bird just flown, Waldron captured another airborne raven, wincing slightly as the bird' s metal- sheathed claws cut into his padded gauntlet.
" My beauty has been hunting again, eh? Would you like to become a herder of sheep? Or perhaps I should say people who can become sheeplike? You would? Excellent, my winged ally. Seek out those below and force them along the Chaos Path."
Waldron chuckled as he watched Lan, Inyx, Krek, and Velika dodge the plummeting death messenger. The raven' s talons slashed more savagely than any falcon' s. Soon, little knowing where they were being herded, the foursome fought and struck out against the raven, but inexorably they moved into the diabolical maze toward their deaths.
" Accursed black fiend!" screamed Velika. " Stay out of my hair!" The raven took a special delight in only plucking the strands of her golden hair away from her scalp. The others were decorated with red striations left by the raven' s steel talons.
" A door, Lan, quickly," called Inyx, holding the heavy wooden portal open for them. Velika raced for the safety offered by the door, and Lan followed in a rearguard position, still swinging his sword futilely at the darting raven. Only Krek hesitated on entering.
" Hurry, Krek, or we' ll be ripped to bloody shreds by that filthy creature."
" Friend Lan Martak, I feel an ominous presence lurking within. Are you sure we can cope with it better than the winged death? I am so weak from the fight and the encounter with lovely Klawn that I would be of little use to you."
" We' ll get by. Now, dammit, get in here!" Lan took one last stab at the raven as Krek lumbered into the darkness and Inyx swung the door shut. A resounding click told them all the door was selflocking. And, in the dark, none could find the freeing latch.
" What do we do now?" sobbed Velika. " It' s so dark."
Lan circled his arms around her and felt hot tears and breath against his skin. The curious effect of acid burning seized him once again, but he barely noticed. No matter what they' d been through, it was worth it for the moment. Velika needed him; that was something no one else could claim. Zarella had laughed at him, being too intent on her own pleasures to dare care for one such as he.
" Don' t worry, Velika. We' ll get through this."
" A fire! Let' s light a fire!" the woman cried out. Lan' s fingers hardened around her wrist to keep her from running blindly into the darkness. He pulled her closer to keep Krek from disemboweling her at the very idea of a fire so close.
" We don' t have fuel for a fire, Krek," he said hastily to reassure the spider. " We' ll find our way out of here without one."
" Out of here?" the spider asked, his voice curiously mild. " I rather like this place now that I have come to study it. There is a peculiar play between worlds, almost an eddy current, that amuses me. And Waldron' s gateway is ahead. I feel as if I can reach out to it, in spite of the thickness of the surging color."
" Color?" asked Inyx. " What color? All I see is blackness."
" Perhaps I tolerate this blackness, as you call it, better than a human. To me, this is a fine night, all the discarded objects glowing with an inner light."
" Objects?" demanded Lan. " Such as?"
" This." A clicking noise sounded. From the echoes, Lan guessed the area around them to be huge, walls and ceiling so distant he couldn' t touch them. Yet, curiously, he felt as confined as if the walls crushed him. His magic- sensing ability had left him like one blinded, and the only senses he had to work with were those of hearing and smell. And Krek' s hearing was far more acute than his.
A beam of light stabbed out abruptly, penetrating the veiling curtain of black. Krek valiantly struggled with a small lantern, his claws and mandibles doing a poor job of controlling the device. Inyx gingerly reached up and took it from the spider.
" This is sufficient light to guide us. But where do we go?" She cast the light in a circle, and Lan felt sudden chills. No sign of the door through which they' d come was visible. Indeed, they might have been standing in the center of a deserted field. The lantern beam, strong and thick, played around, only to be gobbled by immense distance.
When Inyx shone the light onto what Lan thought to be the floor, he experienced a surge of vertigo. No floor existed under him. He hung suspended high above a galaxy of stars, gently spinning through eternity, and he was falling into the flaming core. He shrieked and grabbed out, clutching wildly at Velika, but she squirmed away from him and left him to soar and dive and plummet on his own.
A hairy leg pulled him close. Hardened hands gripped his. A resounding, stinging slap made his head ring like a summons bell. His attention was forcibly pulled away from the limitlessness under him and back to his companions. Heart beating fiercely, sweat running in broad rivers down his body, he turned wild- eyed to Inyx and Krek.
The woman' s jet- black hair floated in wild disarray as if she had been running frenzied fingers through it or a typhoon had ripped apart the gentle braids holding it intact. Krek' s up- and- down motion reminded Lan so much of a furry rubber ball that he had to laugh. He laughed harder and harder, soon succumbing to hysteria. Another slap from Inyx' s punishing hand calmed him.
" I: I don' t know what happened," he confessed. " The sight of nothing under me did something to my head."
" Do not worry, friend Lan Martak," said Krek. " Many hatchlings experience such fears. Even we spiders are not immune to attacks of vertigo."
" Yes," hastily added Inyx, " it takes much exposure before you get used to the sensation. I experienced it many times on many worlds along the Cenotaph Road."
" Then we' re on Waldron' s Road?" he asked weakly. He wished his magic- sense weren' t so confused.
" I fear not, for the energies surrounding us are of a different nature. Rather, it seems to me that we are on a path leading to the Road. And what lies along this path, I am terrified to even guess."
" Thanks, both of you." Lan wiped sweat off his forehead and allowed the smell of fear to vanish from his nostrils before attempting to stand. Shaking, he got to his feet, only to find the floor underneath solid and opaque. The illusion had been good, too good for his liking, and he wondered if more of the same had to be endured before they reached Waldron' s artificial cenotaph.