Cenotaph Road

Uncomfortably, Inyx shifted about, no words coming to her lips. Lan finished his healing spell and felt the same strange need to speak and the inability to put his feelings to voice. Krek relieved both of their fumbling needs.

" We had best remove ourselves from this worldless place. We spiders usually love out- of- the- way interstices, but I fear my overwhelming weakness and outright cowardice will betray us all."

" Right, Krek. I:" and Lan felt the floor vanish from under him. As had happened before when they' d entered Waldron' s dimensionless maze, he hung suspended light years above the slowly spi

Or was it the real world? Nothing seemed to belong to the reality with which he was accustomed. The very fighters sent against them by Waldron were phantasms, ghosts, creatures of dubious existence. Reality flowed like a clear stream in the springtime, sometimes overru

And if he fell long enough, mightn' t he find that timeless place where the dead resided?

To find Zarella!

His heart raced at the thought of the lovely woman. The heart' s beating stilled to nothingness. She was only a wisp of memory to him now. Gone, long gone on a world also vanished from his reality. Tears welled in his eyes at the thought of never returning, yet he' d had his revenge on Kyn- alLyk- Surepta. And it had been as ashes in his mouth.

The Resident of the Pit had been correct, all too correct. Surepta had found justice at his hand, but Lan felt no sense of revenge, of fulfillment at the other' s death. And still he spun through the galaxies yawning under his feet, seeing the slow march of stars and worlds without number.

" I witnessed a duel of wizards on a world similar to this one," came Inyx' s disembodied voice. " They turned the entire glade dark and sent us whirling through space at a furious rate. I closed my eyes and concentrated on what I knew had to be my proper surroundings."

Proper surroundings? Lan was uncertain what that was now. He belonged to the universe. He roved among the stars at will. He was lost in eternity.

But the woman' s words kept repeating over and over in his mind. Lan screwed his eyes tightly shut and pictured the Kinetic Sphere pulsating with its almost obscene pseudolife, the ebon darkness of the surrounding room, the high- gloss floor, the fire- blackened door leading into the courtyard, other doors leading off into unknown directions. The dizziness passed, and he fought to maintain his mental picture against the new assaults on his senses. The interworld creatures couldn' t harm him now; he had substance and they did not.

A sharp pain lanced through his leg. He stumbled and fell. He hazarded a quick look and saw a quarrel piercing his calf. Breaking off the squared head, he withdrew the shaft and tossed it away. Wherever it had come from, it wasn' t from the nothingness of the wraith- dimension he fought his mental battles in.

" Why am I afflicted with this insane urge to leave my web?" moaned Krek. " I was happy. No spider could have been happier. I was content swinging across the Egrii Mountains. But no, fool that I am, I took to wandering. Oh, why, why!"

Inyx vanished from sight. Lan swallowed hard and fought down the pain rising in his leg like the ocean' s surf. The illusions diminished in intensity, and Lan thought it might be due to the pain from his injury. Pain drove out all mirages of the mind. A scuffling noise drew his attention and the point of his sword. A muted cry, then a body fell lifeless to the floor.

" Thanks for your quick sword, Lan," the black- haired woman said. " I thought you were still whirling in your orbit around all space."

" To tell the truth, I was until that crossbowman pulled me back to the here and now." He grimaced and sat down on the floor to begin the healing chants.

Inyx crouched beside him, then looked up at Krek and said, " Guard us for a few minutes. His magics take too long to work." She ripped away his pants leg and used the material to expertly bind the wound. Although the quarrel had missed all important bones and tendons, the wound still burned as if infested by a hill of acid ants. " There," she said finally, " that' ll take care of you for a short while. Later, when we have the time, you can chant away the cut with your spells."

" You' re expert at this. It seems you spend as much time repairing me as you do fighting."

" I' m an old hand at both. Until my brothers were killed, I spent my spare time sewing them back together. And Reinhardt:" Her voice trailed off, and Lan saw the twinkling speck of an unshed tear forming in the corner of her eye.

" Reinhardt? One of your brothers?"

" My husband, now dead a full year and more." She stood and said sternly, " On your feet. We must still fight free of the castle."

She helped Lan to his feet, and he found he could walk- after a fashion. He wondered how much more fighting would be necessary for escape.

And to rescue Velika.

CHAPTER TWELVE

" I can' t believe we were allowed out of the chamber so easily," worried Inyx. " That is unlike Waldron."

" Easy?" asked Lan. " What do you mean, easy? We fought for our very lives back there. We could have been killed at any instant." The dull pain in his calf told him exactly how near a brush with death he' d had. He didn' t like Inyx even thinking it had been too easy to escape from Waldron' s treachery.

Yet:

A thought niggled. He felt something amiss, though not the ease of their escape. At every turn, he had expected Velika to appear, breathless and flushed, newly escaped from Waldron' s clutches. Some minor detail relating to the blond woman and Waldron bothered him. The expression on the man' s face as his hand touched Velika' s tears. Unconsciously, Lan rubbed his own fingers over his grimy, bloodstained tunic, then stopped guiltily, as if caught at some unclean act. The confidence Waldron had shown had been wiped out in an instant- turned to confusion- by the blond woman. Lan couldn' t figure out what that meant. He' d reacted similarly to her when they' d first talked in the field, after he' d rescued her from a life of slavery in some merchant' s pleasure den. When he had time, he would have to put this perplexing reaction to Velika to serious thought, but now his entire energies had to be directed toward staying alive.

The courtyard was denuded of all but the small weeds growing at the periphery; nothing stirred but tiny dust devils whirling mindlessly across the barren ground. The wind whistled ominously through the pile of stone and glass comprising the castle and its battements, but not a human sound was to be heard.

" Have they deserted this fine castle?" asked Krek. " I might enjoy spi

Lan hobbled forward, sword in hand, peering up at the towers, expecting the glint of sunlight off an unguarded crossbow or helm or sword tip. All humanity had been stripped from this now- desolate place. A chill crept up his spine and made his hand tremble. If Waldron had abandoned the castle in favor of another- or another world- Velika would be with the self- appointed Saviour. Lan might never find her in the myriad worlds of chance along the Cenotaph Road. A needle in the ocean was simple to find in comparison; a magnet attracted iron. But what magnet drew Velika if she were lost among the probabilities of all the worlds?