Cenotaph Road

" I' m glad this is over," she said. Then, eyes widening, she turned and yelled: " Krek!"

Lan had forgotten about their furry friend. He twisted and looked at the spider in time to see it catch the front of the attacking metal bug and flip it over. Twin snips from huge mandibles cut cables underneath to ensure immobility.

Lan glanced back at the fallen metal skeleton as if afraid it might spring back to life, then went to Krek and lightly asked, " Do you spiders keep a trophy of your kill? If so, I' d like to present you with a wheel." He hefted one of the beetle- thing' s soft wheels and tossed it to the spider.

Krek caught it easily between his mandibles. He squeezed the rubbery ring, then cast it aside.

" No good. Too chewy."

Lan laughed, and Velika came up beside him and joined in. For a brief instant, anger surged in him. Why should she enjoy the camaraderie they shared along with the danger? She had hidden and had not helped in the common defense. Then he forgot his irritation. Her kiss was wet and passionate against his lips, promising much more when the situation was right.

" My hero!" she whispered hotly in his ear. Embarrassed by Krek' s and Inyx' s glares, he pushed her away and said, " Later. We' ve got to find the Road. Then " Yes, then!" she smiled, looking at him with adoration shining brighter than the lantern in the darkness.

" I feel its pull. It is close," Krek said. " Yes, even in my debilitated condition, I sense its nearness. It is as if it opens and closes like a door."

Lan felt the throbbing headache pummel his head. It had come as if a switch had been thrown. Even he sensed the immense power released nearby.

They turned and walked toward the nexus of power.

CHAPTER TEN

Lan Martak ran forward to take the glowing crystal globe in his hands. A definite radiation exuded from the pulsating sphere that pulled him closer the way a magnet attracts iron filings. His eyes caught vagrant moonbeams dancing in the depths of the globe and followed them inward, down into infinity. Nothing mattered quite as much as actually possessing this wonderous door to other worlds.

Without straining, he felt power rippling through his being. He saw new worlds, he saw different futures, he witnessed the slow parade of a million histories. He held the power of the Resident of the Pit. He knew now what eternity meant. Worlds were his for the taking. He blinked and universes changed before him. The smallest particles, the largest worlds, all were his.

" Stop, friend Lan Martak," came Krek' s quivering voice. " I do not know the nature of this device, but it is Waldron' s answer to the Road. Woe is me. I should have paid more attention to my mentor when she instructed me on such things as the Road, but no, lazy and foolish, I simply allowed such knowledge to slip through my feeble brain." The spider vented a human- sounding sigh that lightly touched Lan' s face and brought him back to his senses.

The orb, pinkly warm and appearing soft rather than glassy- hard, still drew him closer, but now he successfully resisted the pull. Studying it more carefully, he witnessed a cavalcade of worlds flashing through the ball, each a separate reality beckoning to him, offering him things no other world could. The temptation to walk the Road soared inside him again.

" That' s all we sought?" came Velika' s petulant voice. " I' ve seen treasures far exceeding that. Why, Lan' s jeweled casket taken from him by those awful grey soldiers was worth more than this."

" Judge not by appearance," snapped Inyx. " I' d trade an empire for this. How a knave such as Waldron came by such a fine piece of magic, I' ll never know."

" It' s of no use to us! Who' d buy it? And who wants to leave this world to go stumbling among others? This world is enough for any sane person." Velika gripped Lan' s arm even harder, but he barely listened to her pleas.

Magic, yes, and he felt the flux all around him now. His magicsensing ability had returned in full force, so much so that his head ached horribly and his eyes felt as if they' d been placed in burning vises. Powerful spells were used in complex ways to generate this globe of transition. He knew that the Cenotaph Road demanded the personal energies of a person of great heroism and death- honored but unfulfilled by actual burial. Whatever the spells cast over an empty grave, they tied down that person' s essential bravery and soul- force to an eternity of maintaining a gateway between worlds. Some led one way, like the first he' d taken into the bog world. Others were so potent they opened both ways. Still others were rumored to span several worlds, so great was the power and honor of the unburied dead.

But this globe:

Lan saw at least a score of worlds passing in panoramic review. He wanted to learn all he could of this masterwork of sorcery, attune himself to it, and then follow the Road to each and every world shown. Velika might protest at first, but Lan knew they' d explore together where none from this world had trodden before. He felt a tightness in his throat as he thought of the blond woman, and again he experienced the twisting inside he couldn' t explain. She did things to him, that woman. The tension had made him giddy, nothing more, he told himself.

Or was it only tension?

" This is what I needed years ago," said Inyx in a hushed, almost reverent tone. " To walk randomly among the worlds is folly when one can choose with this."

" Yes," agreed Krek, " my own journey would have been immensely easier using such a device. My precious energies need not have been squandered fleeing shadows caused by fire and damp. Surely a world exists in that vista where neither flame nor water exists. What a find it would be! Sheer paradise for these creaking joints."

" I am glad you approve of my toy," came a cold voice from above. They looked at one another, then elevated their gaze to where Waldron Ravensroost leaned indolently against the balcony railing, one elbow resting on a rude wooden box. " Your triumphs in my little maze astonished me, to be sure. I was particularly amused by your confrontation with the metallic skeleton, a remnant from one of the most mechanized worlds inside that."

His finger pointed to the depths of the pinkly pulsating crystalline globe. A shimmer like heat across desert sands came and then a gradual focusing until one specific world snapped into clarity. Millions of darting mechanical devices purred and whined and screeched back and forth, raising such a din that Lan placed both hands over his ears for protection.

" Ah, you do not like that world, eh? Let us try another. From my study of the Kinetic Sphere, I suspect you are native to this world." With no discernible motion on Waldron' s part, the globe obeyed his spoken command. A jumble of colors, a silent, thick wind stirring the viscous mass, then Lan' s world came into view with heart- wrenching pellucidity. One of the demon- powered cars chuffed along, frozen mist on the bottom of the boiler while steam plumes arched high overhead from the dual stacks. And sitting ramrod- straight in the carriage was the old sheriff, looking apprehensive being so close to the symbol of progress on his world.

Straining, Lan imagined he heard the old man' s rough voice.

" No," said Waldron, " you ca

" Who manufactured this: Kinetic Sphere: for you?" demanded Lan. " This thing is beyond your power."