“Who?” came the distant question.
Lan tried to ask Kiska what she meant, but the woman was again separated from him, more by mind than distance. Even though she clung to his arm, they were poles away from one another-and someone else again asked, “Who is there?”
“We are lost between worlds. Claybore’s spell holds us here. Can you help?”
“Where?”
“Here,” Lan said. He formed a mental image of the whiteness and sent it out, as he would a spell. The thready path they followed became more distinct.
“I see you and yet I do not. This is perplexing.”
“Help us.”
For a long while no answer came. Lan feared he had made contact with another mage-one in Claybore’s camp. He had not forgotten how the mage Patriccan had given him such problems when Claybore had laid siege to Iron Tongue’s walled city. Lan thrust the metal tongue in his mouth out and lightly touched the very tip. It heated, indicating spells about him of which he knew nothing. The legacy of Claybore’s tongue had brought him both augmented magical powers and woe. For all the newfound ability it gave him, it also took its toll on his humanity.
“Help me,” he said, using the Voice. The tongue warmed even more. The potent spell rippled along the black band leading off into the whiteness.
“Do not think me such a fool,” came the instant warning. “I am no novice.”
“Help me, please,” Lan said, toning down his command and making it a plea. “Without your aid we will be lost here. Show me the way back.”
“Very well.”
The black thread widened. Lan coaxed it and the mage on the other end spread it out until it stood as wide as a footpath through the forest. Lan and Kiska hurriedly followed it.
“Lan!” shrieked Kiska, when they had walked for what seemed hours. Her sword slid free of its sheath and cut through white nothingness to one side of the path. “Did you see it?”
A hulking creature loomed up once more. Its skin had faded to glasslike transparency and revealed the sturdy skeletal structure within. The only parts of the beast that seemed the least bit solid were the six-inch-long fangs in the vicious mouth. Lan tried a fire spell, only to have it snuffed out inches from his hand. He drew his sword and slashed downward. He caught the creature high on one shoulder and tried to cleave it open to the groin.
His blade bit into a clavicle, then found only mist.
“You wounded it, Lan. It… it attacks!” Kiska’s voice betrayed fear but her actions were those of a soldier. She did not even consider retreat. She widened her stance and prepared to meet the brutal assault head on.
The creature spun from Lan’s punishing blade at the last instant and ducked under Kiska’s sword. She thrust high and missed. Fangs sank into her thigh.
Kiska moaned and tried to cut the beast’s back. Her sword found only mist. Lan drove it back and into the whiteness.
“What is happening? I sense disturbance,” came the other mage’s words.
“We were attacked. If we don’t win free soon, we might never make it.” He looked anxiously at Kiska’s wound. It bled, but not in the fashion of most bites. The blood came out in perfect, expanding circles, like the ripples on a small pond when a rock is dropped into the water. Lan tried to staunch the flow from the curious wound but only made it worse.
“Follow my familiar,” the other mage commanded.
But Lan saw nothing. He helped Kiska along the black pathway, not knowing where it led. The tiny hints he received about their rescuer only raised more questions than they answered. In some fashion he sensed the other mage was also bound to Claybore, but not as he was through the geas linking him inexorably to Kiska k’Adesina.
“There!”
Lan lifted his gaze to see what excited Kiska. It hardly seemed possible. An archway of solid stone stood in the midst of the whiteness. Through the arch he saw a well-appointed room. A figure sat in a high-backed carved wood chair, obscured by shadows.
“Through the door,” he said, one arm around Kiska. He rushed forward, but again distances proved different in the white mists. Hours, years, centuries passed before he stepped through the archway and into the solid room.
“Oh,” he said, dropping to his knees. Kiska’s weight almost proved more than he could bear. He eased her to the floor. The wound on her thigh now flowed bright red in a way that meant an artery had been severed.
“She needs healing,” said the other mage.
“I can do it, I think,” said Lan. “The spells are not overly complex.”
“Show me.”
He nodded. He started the spell without recourse to the magics locked within his tongue. When he was sure the watching mage had learned what he did, Lan used the Voice.
“Heal!” he commanded, building the potent healing spell and driving it through Kiska’s flesh and to the severed artery.
“She is pale but the artery is mended,” said the other.
“Good.” Lan wiped sweat off his forehead and tried to get a good look at his benefactor. Instead, he saw a looking glass on the wall across the room reflecting the image of the archway.
Lan Martak spun, hand going to sword. He whipped out the blade and lunged just as the seven-foot-long beast emerged fully from the space between worlds. The six-inch fangs dripped red-Kiska’s blood. But all that saved them from death was the spurting wound on the shoulder that Lan had given the creature in the whiteness. It lurched to one side and its spring was aborted.
Lan’s lunge went true, piercing the creamy furred chest. The beast let out an ear-shattering bellow of pain and jerked away. Lan’s sword was pulled from his hand.
He reached for his dagger, then remembered they were no longer between worlds. If they had returned to Claybore’s planet, then Lan’s arsenal of magical weapons worked. He straightened and faced the slavering monster. Yellowed teeth were exposed as lips pulled back. Talons lashed at the air in front of the creature as it gathered powerful hindquarters under it for the killing leap.
A fireball exploded from Lan’s fingertips. A loud sizzling filled the room as the greenish fire touched fur and flesh and began burning. Only when the beast’s heart had been turned into a cinder did the magical fire dwindle and finally extinguish.
“Whew,” Lan said. “Being in the mists must have addled my brain. My spells didn’t work there and I had to use my sword. Facing this again, it never occurred to me that a spell would defeat it so quickly.”
“Your swordplay was expert,” came a light, musical voice. “Your magics even more so.”
Lan turned to see the other mage for the first time. He had been groggy due to passing from nothingness to a real world. Now he was simply speechless from admiration. The mage rescuing him was not only a woman, she was a stunningly gorgeous woman. Long cascades of white-blonde hair fell past her shoulders. Grey eyes probed questioningly into his very soul and found answers. Lush, full red lips curled into a pleasant smile, one that Lan wanted to enjoy.
Her figure was even more captivating than her smile. Purple velvet cloaked her body, clinging to her with static intensity. She brushed back a vagrant strand of hair falling into her eyes and turned slightly, perching on the edge of a carved wood table.
“You seem startled. Do you recognize me?” she asked.
“Never could I forget you, had we met.” Lan introduced himself.
“I am Brinke.”
Lan bowed deeply. Brinke smiled at his attempt at the courtly gesture.
“You are not used to such things, are you?” she asked. “You seem so unlike mere courtiers.”
“I’m not,” Lan admitted. He cursed his rough upbringing. How he wished for the polish of a court dandy now.
“Yet you control magics of incredible power and versatility.” A note came into Brinke’s voice that alerted Lan to hidden dangers. “You neglected to mention your friend.” Brinke pointed to where Kiska lay unconscious.