Pillar of Night

“Let’s march,” said Ducasien. His gruff tones told how little he liked seeing Inyx with Lan. “We can leave her.” He indicated Kiska with the tip of his sword.

“She comes along,” said Lan before he could stop himself.

“Bring her,” Inyx said. “It’s all right, Ducasien. I begin to understand the magics involved.”

Ducasien hoisted Kiska over his shoulder, muttering about clean steel and fair fights.

“The magics still surround us,” said Brinke. “They overwhelm me. I can’t fight them.”

Krek stopped and faced the white-haired man in a small clearing. “Do let us by,” said the spider, “or I shall be forced to eat you.”

Terrill waved his hand. Krek collapsed against a tree, which immediately began dropping leaves and sinuous vines down around his stilled body.

“You can’t stop us,” said Lan. “Have you remembered or does Claybore only use you?”

“My friends are all so peeved that their rest is disturbed,” said Terrill. The madness burned in his eyes, brighter than Lan had seen it before. “They want you to leave. Go now and don’t bother us further. We are preparing for a party. Oh, yes, a fine party. None of you is invited.”

“This is Terrill?” asked Inyx, eyes wide. “I had expected more.”

“The spells are overwhelming me,” said Brinke. “Help me, Lan. I’m being drowned in a sea of magic.”

The blonde mage pulled her regal scarlet cloak tighter around her sleek body. Then all movement ceased. She stood as still as any marble sculpture. Ducasien and Inyx were similarly disabled. Lan saw Ducasien’s eyes turn wild with despair.

“You are a great sorcerer, Terrill. The greatest who ever lived. You once aided the Resident of the Pit. Do so now. Help us free him from under the Pillar.”

“Pi

“You must go,” Terrill said. “Now!” He waved his hand and set a cascade of fire tumbling forth from his fingertips. Lan’s light mote expanded to shield him and the others.

“Claybore animates you,” Lan said. “Fight him. You can again be the mage you were. Decent, wanting only freedom. Fight Claybore.”

“Rook!” screamed Terrill. “Destroy them all!”

The trees moved aside for the mud and stick figure striding through the sterile forest. Leaves fluttered in mock applause for their champion. Sap oozed like drool from the mouth of a fool.

And Lan Martak feared Terrill’s champion.

Rook no longer stood a few inches high. He was Lan’s height and more. The clay flesh had firmed and rippled with underlying muscle. The parody of a face sneered: rock eyes turned into black pools of hatred; cheek bones of twigs lifted into a squint; the simple gash mouth opened to reveal a whiteness Lan was only too familiar with.

It was the absolute whiteness found between worlds. Inyx had been lost in it and Claybore had tried to exile Lan once into that infinity. Now another creature of Claybore’s threatened them with it.

“Destroy them all, Rook,” shrieked Terrill.

Lan set his most powerful fire spell against Rook. Nothing happened. Conjuring an air elemental, the whirlwind whipping about the mud creature’s stick feet, did not even slow its inexorable pace. Opening a pit in front of Rook did nothing. It walked on emptiness.

“Brinke,” pleaded Lan. “I need your energy.” He did not find it. The woman’s entire being was tangled in Terrill’s immobility spell.

But help came. A feeble grasping at first firmed into something more substantial. Lan experienced it as a hand on his back, urging him forward, comforting him, giving him the courage to fight.

“Inyx,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

Rook’s bulging, sapling arms circled Lan’s body. Mud muscles tightened. The mouth opened to whiteness and turned to rip out his throat.

Lan Martak concentrated all his power into the light mote. His body slumped in Rook’s arms, more a corpse than lifelike. But the magical energies flowed like a mighty river. With Inyx’s encouragement and succor, Lan focused them into a stream of incalculable power. And this he refined into the single mote of light. It shot forward and into Rook’s obscenely gaping mouth.

Flames seared Lan’s eyebrows and hair. He stumbled back and fell heavily. Dried sticks and mud rained down on him and with the physical came more. Broken spells, tangled magics, bits and pieces of a long lifetime of being a sorcerer all poured into him, like water into a bucket. Lan not only destroyed Rook, he shattered Terrill’s mind once and for all time.

The burned out husk of a once-great mage stood in the clearing, all light gone from the eyes.

“He still lives,” said Brinke, released from Terrill’s spell. “But there is no life force.”

“You’re wrong,” Lan said. “The life force is all that’s left. Everything else has been drained. Terrill is, indeed, immortal and ca

“How horrible,” muttered Ducasien.

“This might be a better existence than the one Claybore doomed him to,” said Inyx. “But I don’t think so. Lan, can you do anything for him?”

Lan didn’t answer. All the knowledge that had been sealed and unreachable in Terrill’s mind now unfolded for him. His powers doubled, trebled-more!

“I can do nothing,” Lan said. “That is still beyond my grasp.” He stretched out a hand to Inyx, who took it. Her eyes welled with tears as she saw within him the truth of all he said.

“He is surely doomed to be like this forever,” Inyx said. “The poor, poor man.”

“Friend Lan Martak,” came Krek’s shaky voice. “Behind you is the terrible woman. She again tries to do you harm. If you let her, can you then mate? This is so odd, backwards from the way we spiders do it. We mate first, then the female devours the male.”

Lan had forgotten about Kiska k’Adesina in the aftermath of the brief, mind-twisting battle with Terrill’s golem. He moved the barest fraction of an inch, not even taking his hand from Inyx’s, and let Kiska’s dagger pass harmlessly by his back.

Kiska spun like a jungle beast, dagger held point up in a knife-fighting position.

The snarl of feral rage on her face showed that she thought the time ripe for killing Lan.

Lan motioned for the others to hold.

“Kiska,” he said in a low voice, “you have tried to kill me for the last time.”

“Yes,” she hissed. “This time I succeed! And if they stop me, you’ll present the opportunity again for me to drive my knife into you, you weak, sniveling fool.”

She lunged and again Lan sidestepped.

“You can’t prevent me from killing you, can you, you lovesick bastard?”

“The geas Claybore laid upon me is a subtle and complicated one,” said Lan. “I have to admit to a certain admiration for the delicacy of the spell and the way Claybore wrapped it around my own vanity, ego, and need to best him. Yes, that’s what he did,” said Lan to Inyx. “As much as anything else, the geas fed my ego, making me think I was invincible.” He gave a tired little laugh.

“The irony of it is that I am invincible. Now.”

“Not to me, Martak. You love me. You love the source of your own death!”

Kiska viciously drove the dagger tip directly for Lan’s groin. The blade vaporized, taking with it her hand, wrist and most of her forearm.

“Yes, Kiska, I suppose I do still love you. The geas is strong, but I am now stronger. Terrill’s legacy to me.”

Kiska stared stupidly at her ruined hand. Her brown eyes lifted to Lan’s and a frightened look came into them. Lan made a small motion and Kiska k’Adesina fell to the ground, dead.

“You killed her.” Ducasien stared at the woman’s still body.

Brinke gasped and turned shades whiter. She put one hand over her mouth and backed from Lan.