" What of the grey soldiers? Why doesn' t Nashira fear them?"
" She sees no threat at all to her power. She is a supreme egotist. Nothing that will disturb her can be uttered within her hearing; that is her greatest spell and that will be her downfall. Pleasure," growled the pilgrim, " is all she lives for.
" I found the true faith one summer. A pilgrim on her way to Mount Tartanius stopped in Melitarsus for the night. We: we shared cultures and I found hers better. I became a disciple of the good earth."
" Just like that?"
" She was very persuasive. And the night was long."
The embers died down, only small hissings sounding when an occasional snowflake touched their still- glowing hearts. Ribbons of white smoke curled upward, to be caught and dazzled by the eddies of wind whirling around the edge of the mountain.
" I left it all behind. The court of the Suzerain, lovely Melitarsus, the soft living, everything. Even the flyers." Ehznoll touched the ragged scarf, his fingers almost caressing its silken length.
" You miss it?"
" Never!" Emotion flared in the pilgrim' s face. He crammed the scarf back into the neckline of his robe and rubbed his hands on the grimy sides as if absolving himself of some guilt. His eyes blazed more brightly than the fire ever had. Religious fervor swept through him, renewed, renewing itself, feeding on itself until it boiled forth. " I found all that lacking in Melitarsus society. Inner peace came to me."
" What of the pilgrim who converted you?" asked Lan, curious.
Ehznoll didn' t hear him. The pilgrim had become lost in his own religious rapture.
" The good earth provides for all. We rise from its dusty depths, only to return. It is what we do between rising and returning that matters. We do not worship the soil enough, nourish it, nurture it. We should. We must!"
He continued on. Lan realized that Ehznoll maintained a normal appearance as long as his religion wasn' t discussed. Touch that subject and he became an orator, a proselytizer, a fanatic unable to reason beyond the dogma he' d been taught. Seeing that the mysteries of Melitarsus weren' t to be solved for him, Lan pulled up his cape and leaned back against the warm bulk of Krek' s abdomen. He positioned the magical breathing mask so that the eyeholes were properly placed.
He stared into the dying glow of the fire- there was no more wood to be found- and felt his eyelids sinking. Sleep came.
Sleep, but not peace.
The scene blurred, turned, twisted around him. He finally recognized it. Waldron' s audience chamber. Before the would- be ruler stood a man and a woman: Lyk Surepta and Kiska k' Adesina.
" A new world. Commander k' Adesina," said Waldron, " take a regiment into this world for me, make it mine- ours!"
Waldron' s human figure faded, a death' s head superimposed. Twin shafts of ruby light blazed forth. Lan cowered from Claybore, turned to Surepta and k' Adesina for aid against this inhuman enemy. They laughed, Kiska departing after blowing a kiss to her lover and husband. Surepta bowed to the fleshless skull, then reached out.
The dream flowed like water in a stream, rippling, changing, finally clearing.
Surepta raped Inyx.
" I' ll kill you!" raged Lan Martak. He tried to stop his enemy, but legs felt leaden and arms refused to lift. Surepta laughed, taunted him, dared him to act.
Twin shafts of ruby light bathed Lan. He screamed in agony. The nightmare scene flashed by, his sword spitting Surepta but the man refusing to die. Kiska waving a mailed fist at him. Waldron pointing. And above all the combatants floated Claybore' s skull, oyster- white and mocking, the eye sockets leaking their deadly red glow.
" Escape?" came Claybore' s mocking tones. " You cannot escape. You will die, toad. No one opposes me, no one! You will die!"
" No, no, no!”
Lan awoke, drenched in a cold sweat. On either side of his body rested Krek' s legs. The spider stirred, head lifting and one eye studying his friend.
" Are you dying?" he asked in concern. " You fragile humans die at the oddest times."
" I- nothing."
" You also have the oddest ' nothings' I have ever experienced."
" Just a nightmare. I: I dreamed of Claybore and Surepta and Kiska."
" And Inyx?"
" I couldn' t help her, Krek, no matter how much I tried, I couldn' t help her."
" Claybore works his magics directly in your brain. If you turn back now, he wins easily, unopposed. It is all so apparent. Good night, friend Lan Martak."
The spider' s eyes closed and in seconds the creature slept again. Lan wished he could find rest that easily. He feared staying awake; he feared going back to sleep even more. The visions haunting him had been too real to bear.
He stared, unseeing, until the greyness that marked dawn turned into bright yellows and oranges. A new day started, a new day filled with inimical magic and physical danger.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nightmares stalked him, even during waking hours. He hallucinated hideous sun demons, melting men, giant behemoths, attacking mushroom people, an entire gamut of phantasms that threatened his life. One small slip, one instant of panic, and Lan Martak would dive over the edge of mighty Mount Tartanius.
The nightmares weren' t real; the death caused by reacting to them was only too real.
" Krek, he' s waging war on me and I can' t fight him. He' s too strong."
" Claybore' s power is weak."
" What? How can you say that? He: he' s driving me out of my mind." Lan shuddered as a three- headed winged creature surged upward from behind a rock. Not even the rock was real.
" If he had true power, he would slay you outright. These visions are intended to cause you to bring injury to yourself. He battles you to the full extent of his power. If you stop him now, you have stopped his worst."
" I don' t know," said Lan, but the idea appealed to him. To combat a sorcerer so powerful and win fed his vanity.
" The Kinetic Sphere is the source of Claybore' s power. When he regains it, do you think he needs to send insignificant little visions? He is now weak and attempting to frighten you. How he must fear that you will succeed where he is failing."
" Failing? Claybore?"
" Is it not obvious?" asked the spider. " We make good progress. Not as good as if I went on ahead, but good, considering that so many humans are involved. Claybore' s pace must be far less swift. He works to slow us through you by giving insignificant little visions. Nothing more."
Lan slammed back against a cold rock cliff as a flight of bees swarmed past him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The " insignificant little visions" were potent enough. Yet the spider was right. With the Kinetic Sphere, Claybore' s options extended considerably. He wouldn' t attack in dreams, ambushing from sleep, pouncing on unguarded moments. Claybore' s way was one of power, direct, swift, deadly.
" I seem to be able to hold back his outright invasion of my mind," said Lan. " That may be why he' s restored to the illusions."
" Your magical perceptions have improved drastically." The spider made it a statement of fact.
Lan started to protest, then considered. Krek had seen what he hadn' t. In Melitarsus, he had been under the Suzerain' s geas, yes, but not so strongly as the spider. He had been able to break away, the magical tendrils appearing weakly clinging; for Krek they had been steel cables. Even more to the point, Krek had been able to escape with him, as if the human' s mere presence was enough to loosen the magics.
The fire spell he' d used to melt footholds in the ice crevasse, usually only of short duration, came more easily to him than ever before: He had maintained it for several minutes, even if the effort did eventually tire him drastically.
Other signs of his growing ability struck him as obvious now. He " saw" the cenotaph as easily as Krek did. He sensed the flow of magic about him to the point where Abasi- Abi hadn' t even bothered denying he was a sorcerer; he had admitted it directly to Lan.