“She dies, Martak,” bragged Claybore. “I will kill the slut.”
Inyx fell to hands and knees, panting harshly when the invisible fingers left her throat. Lan had broken Claybore’s spell. She looked up in silent thanks. But the gratitude turned to anger when she realized that Claybore had only used her as a diversion for his real attack.
Kiska stood upright, caught between transparent planes crushing the life from her body. She visibly flattened as Claybore applied more and more magical pressure. Her face contorted with the pain of being smashed to bloody pulp. Her brown eyes looked beseechingly at Lan Martak. The young mage paled when he saw the woman’s predicament.
“I… I can’t fight him and save her. Not at the same time,” moaned out Lan Martak.
“Kill Claybore!” shrieked Inyx. “Stop him and you’ll stop his spells.”
“She dies,” cut in Claybore. “I will kill her before you can penetrate my barrier.”
Lan fought to drive his light mote through Claybore’s protective spells. He failed. And every moment he dallied, more and more life fled from Kiska’s body.
“Don’t save her, Lan. Kill Claybore!” Inyx’s words fell on deaf ears.
Lan Martak turned his full power to saving Kiska.
Claybore broke free. “I almost had you, Martak,” said the sorcerer. “I thought this would be the final battle. I erred. But next time. Then I will be ready for you. Then you die!”
Claybore wavered and popped! away, transport spells stolen from Lan carrying him from the world.
“I had him. He… he was weakening,” said Lan in a shaky voice. “He would have succumbed. Not even Terrill could best Claybore, and I had him. I had him!”
“You unutterable fool,” snapped Inyx. “You let him go. And for what? Her?”
Kiska k’Adesina sneered at Lan’s weakness. But the power of Claybore’s infernal geas grew with every use of magic. Lan Martak had no choice but to protect the woman he loved-and hated.
“You fool,” repeated Inyx.
All Lan could do was agree. He held out his opened arms, beckoning to Kiska.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Claybore limped along, his mechanical right leg refusing to function properly. He stopped and stared into the cog-wheeled device and saw that one of the magical pinpoints of energy had been extinguished. From deep within his skull’s empty eye sockets came a tentative pink glow that firmed into a rod of the purest ruby light. It lashed forth to the offending spot on his leg. The metal turned viscid and flowed; Claybore’s death beams winked out before the metal deformed.
“There,” he said. “Repaired. But damn that Martak. I should have my own legs instead of these pathetic creations.”
“Master, we failed,” came a weak voice. Claybore swiveled about to face Patriccan. The journeyman mage clung to a tree trunk a few feet away. All blood had rushed from his face, leaving him with a pasty complexion. His eyes looked like two dark holes burned into a linen sheet. In spite of the apparent weakness, the mage had a feverish air about him, one approaching desperation.
“Failed?” roared Claybore. “How dare you say we failed?”
“Master, we did not destroy Martak. Or the others.”
“Forget the others. They are nothings. They are ciphers in this equation. Martak is all.” Claybore calmed. “While it is true we did not triumph totally, still we did not lose all, either.”
Patriccan’s appearance belied that boast.
“Martak’s strength surprised me, but I was not unprepared to deal with it. There is dissension in our enemy’s ranks now. And I still have my most potent weapon aimed at his heart.” Claybore chuckled at the pun. “Kiska will sow the seeds of discord and, when the time is ripe, she will destroy Martak.”
“We should have defeated him,” said Patriccan, sliding down the tree to sit between two large roots. “I lost all power when he sent the air elemental for me.”
“You are a weakling,” Claybore said without apparent malice.
“Is it enough having them fighting among themselves?” asked the lesser sorcerer.
Claybore did not respond for some time. Finally came the single word, “Yes.”
Patriccan was hardly satisfied with his defeat. Martak had been so strong!
“Find a living creature and bring it to me,” ordered Claybore. The dismembered mage went to the lip of a well and peered into the infinite ebony depths. He chuckled at the thought of who lay trapped within. Claybore’s ruby beams lashed forth and stirred the blackness, like a spoon stirring soup. Tiny ripples flowed and subsided.
“Here, master.” Patriccan limped up with a small doe. The creature kicked out with hooves and tried to wiggle free. The mage held it magically and gave the poor beast no chance to escape.
A wave of Claybore’s hand sent the doe tumbling into the well. A greeting surge of darkness enveloped the deer and swallowed it whole.
“Resident of the Pit, are you there?” called out Claybore. “I would speak to you.”
“I am here.”
“You have failed, Resident. You know that now. You saw how easily we defeated Martak and the others.”
“Martak lives.”
“But what good will he be? His friends have abandoned him. Inyx and the insect Krek are needed-and they shun him.”
“I have seen.” The Resident of the Pit’s voice rumbled in a basso profundo.
“And,” went on Claybore, warming to his bragging, “my commander’s influence over him grows every time he uses even the most minor of spells against me.”
“That is so.”
“Even Brinke’s power will not free him. I use her to further entangle him. Inyx will never again support Martak, not after Kiska informed her of Martak’s liaison with Brinke.”
“I have seen all this. Why do you summon me, Claybore?”
“You, a god, asking a question like that? Come, come, Resident, you know why. I want you to suffer. I want you to know the glory of my triumph. I want you to know that you have failed. Your pawn Lan Martak is worthless to you now.”
“There will be others,” said the Resident of the Pit. “I have nothing but time.”
“Martak will be removed soon,” said Claybore. “When he is gone, I will augment my power and finally become a god. I will see to it that you never die. You will live in this dimensionless limbo forever, forgotten by your worshippers and doomed to endlessly watch and wait-for nothing!”
“Even if you do achieve your ambition, I will find a way to die. I grow so weary of this existence.”
“It must be terrible,” Claybore said insincerely. “Seeing everything, knowing everything, and being unable to do anything about it.”
“Release me, Claybore. I am nothing to you. Destroy me. I want to die.”
“A god can never die. You know that.” Claybore laughed and let the Resident of the Pit slowly drift back into the timeless boredom of his existence.
“What now, master?” asked Patriccan.
“We recover, then approach Martak once more. This time we go in peace, not in battle.” Claybore chuckled to himself. “Perhaps this time we will destroy him totally.”
“This is victory?” asked Inyx. She stared at the battlefield and shivered in reaction. She had a bloodthirsty side to her nature, but seeing such carnage was not to her liking. It was one thing to do battle with your foe, hand to hand, sword to sword, and best him. The wholesale slaughter of the grey-clads by the arrows had been bad-the sight of all the slingers blown in half by Patriccan’s reversal of the spell used in the explosive pellets sickened her.
“Of course it is,” said Nowless. “Don’t you see how they have lost? Their fort is well nigh destroyed and all the soldiers are dead or put to rout. Their power over us is broken.”
Inyx looked at Ducasien, who shared her concern. Almost seven hundred had died this day. Few of them had died in a manner either she or Ducasien would consider honorable.
Inyx saw Lan and Kiska nearby. The pair argued. She found no solace in that. If it hadn’t been for Lan’s inability to let Kiska k’Adesina suffer, Claybore would have been defeated and the long, hard road they had followed would have been vindicated. But Lan Martak had succumbed to Kiska’s pleas and Claybore had escaped.