" Where can I find her?" asked Inyx as innocently as she could. The answer didn' t please her.
Eckalt shrugged, his sloping shoulders hunching strangely.
Before Inyx said another word, the ring of metal on metal reached her ears. She froze. This was the familiar sound of battle and it came from the level just above this one- the one on which she thought she' d left Lan and Krek.
" How do I get up one level?" she asked.
" I do not know. There is a way," Eckalt began. " I think there is, at any rate. I seldom leave and:"
Inyx didn' t stay to listen to the creature' s further woes of not being adventurous. She raced back through the vats and lead piping and found the aqueduct. Flexing her muscles, she leaped, caught hold, and began inching her way back up the spiraling ductway. It took longer to reach the upper level than she' d thought; she feared the battle would be over and Lan would no longer need her assistance.
Inyx need not have worried about the struggle ending quickly. The woman pulled herself onto the level and traced her footsteps back to the spot where she' d blazed the mark on the wall. Not ten paces further down the corridor, she saw the broad back of a dark- headed man furiously lunging and swinging his sword. Every stroke severed fingers and hands and ears and still the gnomes rushed him.
Inyx let out a war whoop and drew her sword from over her shoulder. In her haste, the blade struck the ceiling. But this accident brought the fight to a momentary halt. Bright sparks leaped from the nicked edge of her blade and caught the attention of all those battling.
The gnomes muttered something about sorcery.
Inyx didn' t give them the chance to think differently. They outnumbered the man forty to one. She vowed to cut down the odds from forty to two to even less.
Her first fleche skewered the lead gnome. He went down, air hissing obscenely from his punctured lungs.
" Nicely done," complimented the blood- soaked man to her right.
She blinked at him. He reminded her so of- but no, that wasn' t possible. Her husband Reinhardt was long dead; she had held him in her arms and had buried him herself, a victim of Claybore' s grey- clad legions. Only memories and magically induced visions of Reinhardt lingered to haunt her.
But the resemblance was still uncanny. This man had the same dark eyes, the same smile that curled sardonically at the corners of his lips, the straight nose and perfect bone structure. But there Inyx saw the similarity truly ended. This man was much more powerfully built. His wrist was half again the thickness of her dead husband' s- and this man' s skill with the blade surpassed even Reinhardt' s.
" You' ve been doing a fair job yourself, good sir."
" Ducasien, my lady. My name is Ducasien."
" Inyx," she said.
" From Leponto Province?"
" You know my home?" She made a quick backhanded cut and heel- toe advanced cutting, slashing, thrusting. The Nichi clan gnome was no match with only a broom handle.
" I am from Leponto, myself."
" We must explore this further. When we have a spare moment!" Inyx began a serious attack and found herself coordinating smoothly with Ducasien. When she tired, he took up the fight. When his mighty thewed arms knotted from effort, she stood ready to join in, rested and ready for any number of attacking gnomes.
Before long even the Nichi clan recognized that the pair they fought were too skilled in combat. They broke off their attack and fled.
Panting, Inyx leaned on her blade and watched the tiny, hunched backs vanishing down the corridor.
" We put them to rout in good order," said Ducasien, laughing. Inyx felt shivers racing up and down her spine. When he spoke his voice came out as melodiously as Reinhardt' s. The woman worried that Ducasien would prove another illusion, an hallucination conjured by her tired brain.
" Now that we have time," the man said, " let us compare lineages." He started in, detailing his ancestors and finishing with several of whom Inyx had never heard. She said as much.
" How long," Ducasien responded, " has it been since you were last home?"
" Time is fluid along the Road. Who can say? Perhaps five years is all it seems to me."
" It might be closer to fifty actual," said Ducasien. " My family moved only within the last twenty to Leponto. And I have walked the Road myself only for one year."
Inyx felt faint at the idea of being so totally cut off from her home world. Not only were her family and Reinhardt' s dead, most of her onetime friends would be dead also. Even with Claybore' s legions gone, there was little for her to return to in Leponto.
Ducasien read this sadness in her face.
" That is the price we pay for walking the Road. We trade security for adventure. But is it not worth the price?"
Inyx nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Again she was reminded of Reinhardt. Those were sentiments he might have uttered.
" I found this world by accident," Ducasien went on, filling the silence left by Inyx' s thoughts. " Only a day or two has elapsed since I came here from a world almost totally covered with water. Finding the cenotaph on that world proved difficult. It was under water and guarded by the oddest of fish creatures."
" I' ve never heard of such a thing!" exclaimed Inyx, this piece of information bringing her out of her gloom. " We' ve never found such on any world we' ve traveled."
" We?"
" Lan Martak and Krek. The three of us have been together for some time." Inyx went on detailing their fight against Claybore.
" I knew the sorcerer was a threat, but I had no idea of the magnitude," said Ducasien when she had finished her story. " Do you need another sword to aid you? With this Martak being the mage you claim, a mere sword is hardly much to offer, but it is all I have. I fear I have never learned much of magics." His ebon- dark eyes locked with her bright blue ones. Again Inyx felt the shivers of memory, of old feelings stirring anew. She nervously broke eye contact and looked away.
" We should find them and give aid if we can," Ducasien went on. " Where are they?"
" I got lost. But it was on this level. Since my marks indicate I came from the other direction, they might be ahead."
" Those were your blaze marks? I had wondered. My sense of direction within the tunnels is rather good. Since I heard digging from that direction earlier in the day, let' s try it first." Ducasien and Inyx went off, trading stories of home.
Only when Ducasien dropped into defensive posture and whipped forth his sword did Inyx pay any attention to where they went.
" No!" she cried, gripping Ducasien' s arm. " That' s Krek. He' s a friend."
" Some friend," muttered the man, easing out of his fighting position.
" Krek," Inyx said, going to where the spider huddled against one stone wall and openly wept. " What happened? Where' s Lan?"
" Why am I always the one stepped on, always the one humiliated, always the one no one considers?" moaned the spider.
" What happened?" Inyx demanded, fear clutching her throat. " What happened to Lan? Did he stop Claybore?"
" Friend Inyx, even you ask after him. But he is no good."
" Lan? I don' t understand. What went on?"
" Friend Lan Martak is my friend no more. He left me. He abandoned me without so much as a word, without even a backward look. To him I am nothing. Nothing! Oh, woe! Why did I ever leave my fine web?" The arachnid cried huge, salty tears now. They stained his coppery fur and he didn' t even take notice.
Inyx realized then how serious the matter was.
She stood, the fear mounting inside to the point where she felt faint. Lan Martak had to be crazy to abandon a friend as staunch as Krek had been- or in the deepest trouble of his life.
CHAPTER SIX
Lan Martak sank to his knees on the narrow ledge, the snapping, stabbing, bloodsucking insects all around. The spells cast at him by Claybore and the gnome wizard Lirory Tefize further sapped his strength and his will to fight.