Pillar of Night

“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 ma

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.

He had not reached the point of his hatred for the woman to overcome the compulsion spell placed on him.

What bothered the dark-haired woman the most was knowing that Lan would not have saved her had she been the one in trouble. Claybore had used the same spells on her, and Inyx had felt the invisible fingers choking the life from her body. Lan’s attack on the master sorcerer had been unabated, but the instant Claybore shifted his attack to Kiska, Lan had ceased fighting and had fought only to save Kiska.

“He loves her,” said Ducasien.

“He does not,” Inyx snapped back. “It’s some damned geas Claybore put on him. Lan knows it, but the compulsion spell is too subtle for him to break.”

“That is a convenient excuse,” said Ducasien.

“It is not an excuse. It’s the truth. There’s no other explanation for the way Lan acts around her. She is an avowed enemy. He killed her husband and she has tried to murder him repeatedly.”

“There’s no accounting for tastes, especially when it comes to love.”

Inyx started to say something further to Ducasien, then thought better of it. The man was new to the Road and the ways of mages. He had no clear-cut idea what a tiny spell might do-or the power of a major one. Still, even knowing how adept and cu

Both Kiska and Lan were under the compulsion spell, but Kiska slipped free at all the worst times to attempt to kill Lan. Inyx wondered if Claybore’s intent was physical death or just a wounding, a weakening at the precisely opportune second. Claybore battled for the most ambitious of all goals: godhood.

“This world is freed of the grey-clads, at least for the time being,” Inyx said, changing the subject. “Nowless had better organize a new government if he wants to keep the countryside from falling into chaos.”

“Nowless isn’t much of an administrator,” said Ducasien.

“Or much else, if you ask me,” Inyx said. She blinked when she realized what Ducasien really meant.

“Why not?” the man said. “This is a lovely world. We can stay and rule.”

“You would be king?”

“Perhaps not king, but something significant. When I left Leponto I never thought of settling down and finding a single spot to live. Now the idea appeals to me. It becomes even more beguiling if I-we-were in positions of power.”

“I have never considered it,” said Inyx, frowning. She had walked the Road for years and relished the thrill of adventure. But all things must come to pass. Was it time to cease her aimless ramblings?

With Ducasien?

Lan Martak walked up, Kiska trailing behind. The woman had a smirk on her face that contrasted with Lan’s glum expression.

“What do you want?” demanded Inyx.

“To speak with you. Alone.”

“Oh? Think you can leave your precious Kiska for such a long time?”

“Don’t be more of a bitch than you have to, Inyx. This is important.”

“I am sure it is.”

Lan looked at her, pain in his eyes. “I can’t help myself. I’ve tried. Every spell I’ve ever known or heard of, I’ve tried over and over. Claybore did not attain such power without being very, very good at his magics.”

“And you’re some tyro from a backwater world. Is that it?”

“Yes, Inyx, that’s so.” The hurt in his words softened Inyx’s mood.

“You left Krek to fend for himself. And you’ve repeatedly chosen her over me. Oh, Lan, why? Why did it have to turn out this way?” Inyx stiffened when she felt the mental reaching out. She and Lan were bound together as one again-almost. The final link never formed. Inyx let the tears welling in her eyes run down her cheeks. Once more she had been cheated. The promise had not been fulfilled.

“I need you,” he said simply.

Inyx looked past Lan to where Ducasien and Kiska stood in stony silence. Ducasien fingered the hilt of his sword. Inyx knew the man well enough by now to know he considered drawing and killing; Inyx also knew that Ducasien would never succeed. Lan’s magics were quicker than any sword.