" 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 " Yes, 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.