The tunnel opened near the walls of Wurnna. It was here that Martak had thought it possible to sneak back into the walled city with three loads of the power stone ore. Claybore chuckled to himself. Martak was such a fool. He had never learned that nothing went unobserved in the realm of magic. Every spell, no matter how minor, caused " ripples" to form on the fabric of the universe. Those sensitive enough to the " ripples" might trace them back to their source.
Claybore had known from the start about the mission to the valley of spiders, of Noratumi' s miners and the three demons summoned to help power the heavy ore carts up the steep mountain roads. He had known all and sent one of his allies. The green demon had done well. While the dust from the power stone cloaked even this magical vision, Claybore saw the havoc wrought.
Men and women lay crushed and ripped apart like so many marionettes with their strings clipped. The two lead wagons had wrecked, and he was sure that the third one plugged the tunnel. In that tunnel would be the dead bodies of Martak and Inyx and the meddling spider, suffocated from the choking dust.
" A fitting end. They thought to defeat me with that power stone. Instead, I turned it against them!" The sorcerer gloated for only a few more seconds. He had other uses for his all- seeing eye.
The scene shifted rapidly to a vantage high above his own camp. Spiraling downward with gut- twisting speed, he focused just inside the roof of Silvain' s tent. There he witnessed his two top commanders passionately locked in the rictus of sex. If he had the power to so move his skull, the mage would have nodded. This worked better and better for him. Let their human frailties bind them more closely to one another- and to him.
Silvain' s role would become clearer as the day wore on. Let him grab what frail pleasures he could.
He had hesitated in telling k' Adesina of Martak' s death. Hatred drove her, made her a better officer, gave her the reckless abandon in the field he would require to regain his tongue from that usurper in Wurnna. She held sway over Patriccan, and that sorcerer would be needed for the final assault. Claybore needed k' Adesina' s allegiance. He would not inform her of Martak' s demise.
While Claybore thought that Alberto Silvain guessed that Lan Martak and the others had perished, to him it meant little. Promise him nothing more than hydraulic release of his passion and he would remain quiet.
For Claybore it was all so simple. Use one against the other. Toy with their emotions and bind them the closer.
" Now," he said aloud, the word ringing through the emptiness, " now is the time. We attack. And soon I will be able to speak- and to utter all the power spells now denied me!"
The slate hardened, the picture vanished. As the mechanical bearing Claybore' s body turned to leave, the magically spent tablet crumbled into grey ash.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The green demon squawked as it worked to spin the rear axle faster and faster. Lan Martak' s first reaction was to grab, to physically hold back the runaway ore wagon. Then common sense and his newfound powers took over. No man, no matter how strong, could possibly slow that load. Instead, Lan reached down within himself and teased the dancing mote to life. The point of brilliance had become his guide, his companion, his source of power in realms he had yet to fully explore.
The savagery of the situation instantaneously communicated to the light mote. It blazed with indignant power, then flashed off, out of Lan' s line of sight.
Its response came too late. The crazed green demon smashed its wagon into the rear of the second one. The power stone surged up and out of the wagon, its momentum barely checked by the collision. The resulting roar almost deafened those in the tunnel. But that was the least of their worries.
" The dust. I can' t breathe," cried Inyx. She choked and gasped as billowing dust raced toward them from the wrecked wagons.
Lan knew full well that suffocation would be a merciful death compared to what might happen if they too deeply inhaled the power stone dust. His mote of light had failed to stop the demon' s suicidal mission, but it now served in a completely different fashion. Like a membrane drawn over a drumhead, the light diffused and formed a curtain between Lan, Inyx, and Krek and the source of the danger.
" It' ll be all right. Just hold your breath for a couple seconds." He looked at the way the curtain of palely shimmering light held back the dust and fragments of stone flying at speeds faster than he could track. The way the ore reacted reminded him of corn tossed into a campfire. Tiny explosions recurred at random, sending pieces hurtling outward. Every time one of the power stone shards hit his magical curtain, it exploded into actinic brilliance.
" How long will that continue, friend Lan Martak?"
" I don' t know," the young mage admitted. " But we' re safe as long as the shield is in place."
" Safe? How can you say that? There are men and women on the other side dying because you used some damned demon who double- crossed you!" Inyx raged, but he knew it wasn' t directed at him personally. She hated the idea of being unable to help the others trapped in the raging maelstrom of power stone.
" While I do share friend Inyx' s concern about the others," said Krek, " she and you both miss an important point. Claybore knew of our excursion. He senses magics just as you do. Even one of little or no training, as you are, is capable of detecting a spell in use."
" He can' t ' see' us now, no matter how good he is," said Lan. " The power stone is setting up some sort of continuous reaction. The magics are all jumbled. The energy locked within the raw ore is prodigious. With it we could have easily defeated Claybore. Now, it only serves to shield my own magic use."
" Then turn your spells against Claybore." Inyx stood defiantly. Dust coated her face and turned her into a chalk statue. Krek stood to one side in the narrow tunnel, shaking and brushing one leg against another in a vain attempt to remove the same dust.
" If I could, I would. But he remains too strong. Our best course is to go on out of the tunnel, see if we can salvage any of the power stone, and get inside Wurnna' s walls as quickly as possible. Let Iron Tongue activate it and then we can attack Claybore."
" Perhaps this is a suitable opportunity to use your power against Claybore," suggested Krek, " but in a more restrained fashion."
" What do you mean?"
" Spy on his camp. Learn of his troop preparations. We spiders care little about such things, but you humans value such oddments of information. Though why, I cannot say." Krek sank down, legs curled about him, hardly more than a dark lump in the narrow tunnel.
Lan didn' t bother answering. He split off a portion of the shield blocking out the power stone dust and sent it streaking through the nonworld it inhabited and into the air above Claybore' s camp. Through this aerial porthole he witnessed the grey- clads moving to mount their attack. Lan lacked control over the sky- spy, but what he saw chilled him. The troops marched with more determination than he' d have believed after his dragons had grazed among their ranks. Claybore- or k' Adesina or Silvain- had instilled a battle fever that would carry them to their deaths on Wurnna' s battlements.
The brief glimpse of an exposed chart carried in the hand of an officer made Lan shake his head. The canyon walls on either side of Wurnna would soon be scaled and the heights occupied. None but a sorcerer might use those heights to advantage, but Claybore and his mage- assistants knew enough spells to destroy Wurnna, given the chance.