Then Lan noted a new danger. The gnomes who had done such a quick job digging out Claybore' s arms now circled him, approached, and menaced him with spades and pickaxes. He lifted his hand to send forth a simple spell that would freeze them in their tracks and found his arms leaden.
" Stop!" he called out, using the Voice. All the power of Claybore' s magical tongue went into that command.
The gnomes still advanced.
Lan moved then as if he had been dipped in molasses. Legs moving sluggishly, he started forward, following Claybore. The gnomes lashed out, shovels smashing at his knees. He toppled onto his face.
" I' m a god!" he raged. But his powers had been depleted, just as water in a reservoir is used during a drought. Lan had no idea how long it would be until his magics came flowing back. Even the simplest of spells eluded him.
Unbelieving, he held out his hand and tried to make the elementary fire spell send sparks between his fingertips. Even before he had walked the Road he had been able to manage that much.
Not now.
An axe blade missed his head by a fraction of an inch. The gnome wielding the pickaxe cursed and struck again, this time grazing Lan. New head wounds opened and threatened to blind him.
" Krek!" he called out, but the spider was nowhere to be seen. Lan felt abandoned- then a cold chill shook his body. He remembered the faint voice coming to him during battle, begging for aid. A simple wave of the hand had dismissed such foolishness.
What had he done to Krek?
A gnome kicked him in the side, sending waves of agony washing throughout his body.
He stroked over the necklace of power stone he had been given in Wurnna. Some small measure of his magic returned, but not enough. Even this had been exhausted in his duels with Tefize and Claybore.
" Claybore has left too early, it seems," came a cold voice from further down the corridor. Lan rolled over, got to his feet, and stared at the woman, feeling nothing toward her, not even hatred. He was too exhausted for such a high level of involvement.
" It has been a while, Kiska," he said to Claybore' s remaining human commander.
" It will be even longer before we meet again, Martak. You and I will meet only again in Hell!" The woman drew forth a long rapier and slashed at the air in front of her with it. The whishing noise caused the gnomes to step back. The woman' s visage told them not to interfere; her hatred for Lan Martak was complete. Her victory must be, also.
" I can reduce you to a smoking cinder," said Lan, standing his ground. Kiska k' Adesina advanced, the blade' s tip aimed directly between his eyes. Lan never flinched, but inside he quailed at the idea of being sliced apart. His magics had gone and his physical weakness was almost complete. He could barely stand after the magical battle.
" Do it then, worm. You killed my husband. For that I' d love to see you die the death of a thousand cuts. One small cut. Not enough to bleed to death, but painful. And another and another. Soon enough the blood would flow from you like a river, from each little scratch." She slashed at him, the sharp point cutting open his tunic and leaving a red track behind where she had lightly pinked his skin.
" Claybore wants you to kill me?" he asked, curious.
“ I want to kill you. Claybore be damned."
" Claybore told me I' m immortal, that my magics are so great I will live forever. You can' t kill me."
" Then I' ll have the pleasure of hacking you to living pieces and feeding you to the dogs!"
Another cut barely missed his cheek. The steel rang loudly against the stone wall. Lan retreated. His mind worked over the energy spells he knew. This was a desperate maneuver that would leave him even weaker than he was now, but he needed a bit of magic, a spell, a small geas- anything!
" Don' t do this," he said, putting all his power into using the Voice.
Kiska k' Adesina advanced, lunged. The blade slid to one side as he deftly twisted.
" I want you to resist," the brown- haired woman said. When Lan had first met her, she had chased him into the mountains. He had wondered at this mousy- appearing woman who had risen so high in Claybore' s ranks, but he wondered no more. He read the insanity blazing within her like a forest fire. He might have killed her husband- he had and with grim pleasure because alLyk Surepta had murdered his lover and his sister- but this was only an excuse for the woman. If the death hadn' t occurred, Kiska k' Adesina would have found some other reason, some other cause.
He again dodged her lunge.
In the chamber, near the rim, Lan looked down into the pit. It fell at least a hundred feet.
" No, worm, I won' t be confused into stepping over the edge. Your magics must be dimmed or you would have used them." The smile contorting her face gave Lan a moment' s rush of fear. Only great effort allowed him to settle his emotions, to think, to act.
Kiska lunged once more, point aiming true for his heart. Lan kicked out with his feet, felt the blade slide along the length of his chest, then fell heavily forward. His feet tangled the woman' s. One snapped down heavily on Kiska' s knee, while the other caught behind her foot. She flailed wildly before turning in air and crashing to the floor.
The battle was not to be won so easily. Like a tiger, she regained her feet, but this time without her rapier.
And a new factor entered the fight. Lan' s magics were still weak, but physical power returned.
" I will kill you!" she shrieked, launching herself at him with fingernails drawn back into claws.
Lan grabbed a wrist, turned, and dropped to his knee. Kiska flipped over and landed hard on her back. He gave her no chance to recover her wind. He dropped onto her chest with his knee, further forcing the air from her lungs. She turned white, then flushed a bright red as she struggled for air.
As she gasped and weakly writhed on the floor, he scooped up her rapier. The first gnome coming within range died, the blade spitting him. Another ended up toppling into the pit when Lan kicked forth and landed a heavy boot on the gnome' s rear.
The others turned and fled. Lan laughed, more and more physical power flooding into his body. By the time Kiska had regained her breath, Lan knew she could never again menace him.
Physically he was as fit as he had ever been- and his magics seeped back.
The only blot on his victory was Claybore' s recovery of both arms. But Lan pushed that from his mind. He had held off both Claybore and his captive mage Lirory Tefize. He could defeat them again.
And he would.
CHAPTER SEVEN
" That' s not possible," Inyx said forcefully. Her words stung the spider more than she intended. Even larger tears beaded at the corners of the huge dun- colored eyes before spilling over to drip onto the floor. Inyx went to Krek and put her arms around his chitinous thorax. He shook her off.
" Friend Inyx, this is the end for me. I have endured so much in my life, but always have I thought Lan Martak' s allegiance to me a permanent one. I was wrong! I have been wrong about so many things. Why did I ever stray from my web? Why, oh why?"
Ducasien shuffled nervously nearby, his hand rubbing over sword hilt. He appeared unsure whether to draw and hack at the giant arachnid, run, or stay and listen.
Inyx left Krek momentarily and whispered to the man from her own home world.
" He is distraught. Lan has done something to him. A spell, perhaps. I don' t know why he' d do such a thing, but we have to find out. The two of them have been fast friends for longer than I have known Lan."
" He is rather large, isn' t he?" Ducasien said, eyeing the spider. Krek shivered and collapsed into an even smaller bundle on the floor. His long legs sprawled gracelessly, making him look like a felled tree with its roots pulled from the ground.