“So here you are. Why is it I always find the pair of you together?” Her tone was intended to cut deeply. And it did. Lan had to bite back an apology.
“It is nothing,” he said. “We were merely discussing how best to defeat Claybore.”
“If you want to defeat him,” said Kiska in a confidential tone, “you’ll forget all about this Pillar of Night.”
“What?” This took Lan unexpectedly.
“The Pillar of Night. You mentioned it many times. Remember, my darling? Or has this… lovely woman addled your senses?”
“I remember. What do you mean, I should avoid it?”
“The fine lady doesn’t know this,” said Kiska, “but the Pillar is still another of Claybore’s pieces.”
Brinke laughed at this. “No one is so well endowed.”
“Slut,” snapped Kiska. “In the strictest sense, it is not a part of his body. Rather, it is more. Far more.”
“He has his arms back,” said Lan. He had to silently congratulate himself on the devastation he had wrought on Claybore’s limbs. “His heart has been sent skittering along the Road to who knows where. I still possess his tongue and the facial skin has been destroyed. We know torso and skull are still joined and the legs are gone. What’s left?”
Kiska looked from one to the other, a serious expression settling over her. “His very soul, that’s what.”
“Claybore has no soul,” scoffed Brinke.
“That is true-now. But Terrill wrenched it free from him and imprisoned it inside the Pillar of Night. If you unbalance the delicate spells surrounding the Pillar, Claybore will regain a vital portion of his whole. It might even be the most significant portion.”
“She lies, Lan,” Brinke said with some asperity. “She only seeks to have you divert your energies elsewhere and allow Claybore to do his evil deeds unopposed.”
“How would the blonde bitch know anything? Claybore uses her. In all ways.” The sneer twisting Kiska’s lips cut deeply into Lan. He was torn between the two women. He believed Brinke’s story of the Pillar of Night rather than Kiska’s. It explained all the details and contradicted none of the facts.
But he loved Kiska. He had to listen to her wild rantings, even though he knew she probably lied. Or did she? Claybore played a complex game that confused Lan more and more. The other sorcerer was not content with only dealing lies. He delved into the realm of half truths and even cunningly told truths that sounded as if they might be lies.
Frustration rose in Lan. Since Inyx and Krek had left him, he had nowhere to turn for aid. Or even comfort. Brinke was lovely and adept enough with simple magics, but she was not Inyx.
Kiska? If he could, he would kill her. Instead, he took the woman in his arms and kissed her.
“I love you,” he said. “But this story-this fable-cannot be true.”
“But it is!” Kiska protested.
“I have spoken with Terrill,” he said.
“Lan!” Brinke’s eyes widened in horror at what the mage said. But Lan found himself unable to stop now that he’d begun. The geas wormed words from his lips that he had not meant to utter.
But this was Kiska k’Adesina, the woman he loved. He had to reveal this to her, even as he felt the spell working within his mind like a worm burrowing through the earth. Its power expanded and his own control diminished.
“Tell me about it,” urged Kiska.
“Terrill did not say anything about its being Claybore trapped within the Pillar. Indeed, he hinted that there is nothing within but rather under.”
“That Terrill stays near the Pillar of Night is proof enough that she lies, Lan. Do not listen to her.” Brinke pleaded with him now, but Lan fell increasingly under the power of the geas, in matters both physical and emotional.
“So you talked to Terrill at the base of the Pillar?” Kiska smiled slyly.
Lan’s mind turned to the possibility that Kiska spoke the truth. Terrill might have been driven insane by the power of his own spell. When learning the more complex incantations, Lan himself had teetered on the edge of losing control and being destroyed. With a potent construct like the Pillar of Night, he couldn’t say what forces had been summoned to create it.
“Claybore’s soul,” he mused.
“Yes!”
“No!” protested Brinke. “Listen to her and you will never defeat Claybore.”
“If I shatter the spells holding the Pillar together, I might play into Claybore’s hands.”
“His severed hands,” said Brinke. “Remember what you did to him just a short while ago. He cannot hold himself together. He already nears the limits of his power. Release that held prisoner by the Pillar of Night and Claybore will fall victim to you in short order.”
“He was here?” cried Kiska. “Claybore?”
Lan’s head began to hurt. He found it harder to concentrate and soon conjured a small spell to shut out all sound. He let the women argue while he sat in a magically induced silence.
“Inyx,” he said softly. “I need you. You always saw so clearly. Even you, Krek. Even you, I need now.”
He released the spell and tried to follow the ebb and flow of the argument between Brinke and Kiska. Nothing was settled. He would have to decide which of them spoke truly.
Which one?
Act against the Pillar of Night and release a god-the Resident of the Pit? Or act against it and release the single most vital portion contributing to Claybore’s power? Or do nothing?
Lan Martak had no answer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Claybore swiveled about on his mechanical hips as he studied the softly glowing wall. If his fleshless skull had possessed lips, he would have smiled in satisfaction. As it was, the white bone took on a higher sheen and a tiny crack began to run from one eye socket up to the crown. Claybore didn’t notice. His full attention focused on the wall and the scenes beginning to appear.
“Good,” he said to his assistant mage. “You have done well, Patriccan.”
Patriccan hobbled over and propped himself against a table littered with charts, grimoires, and other magical paraphernalia. He, too, rejoiced in all that transpired on a dozen different worlds.
“Master, your scrying improves. None sees onto another world along the Road save you. And now you are able to maintain viewing ports to a full twelve worlds. Remarkable. I salute you.” Patriccan bowed as deeply as he could. His injuries had still not healed, even though he had ordered several of his junior sorcerers to use what healing spells they knew. It had come as a shock to Patriccan to find they knew very few-their expertise, like his own, lay in the field of destruction, not healing.
Claybore strutted back and forth like a partly mechanical, partly flesh, partly decayed rooster. From the pits of his eye sockets came a directing beam of pale red. The beams struck a spot on the wall and created a picture different only in detail. Like the others, this one also showed carnage and suffering.
“You have recovered the Kinetic Sphere for me?” Claybore asked. “I see my agents with it on this world.”
“Martak failed to hide it properly, master,” said Patriccan. The mage shifted his weight and forced away the pain he experienced. If he could not take full revenge on Inyx, Ducasien and the others on that backwater world, he would at least revel in his master’s scheme to humiliate and destroy Martak.
“He did not try. It came as a surprise to him that he was able to yank it from my chest.” A hesitant hand touched the putrescence around the gaping hole in Claybore’s chest. The hand shook uncontrollably; the arm had not been properly restored. New spells were required for permanent attachment.
“Look, master,” said Patriccan. “Our legions conquer still another world. Their king bows his knee to your supreme rule.”
“Pah,” snorted Claybore. “Who cares for petty rulers? Or even if they are led by mages of some power. They are ants. So what if it is an entire world coming under my aegis? The real battle continues here and here and… here.”
He pointed to scenes from the world where Ducasien and Inyx consolidated their power, to a scene with Brinke and Lan Martak and to the darkly towering Pillar of Night.