Pillar of Night

“You will reign forever, Lan Martak,” cried the Resident of the Pit. “Your powers are infinitely greater than mine ever were. Free me. Free me!”

Wind of hurricane force whipped about them. In the distance came impenetrable black clouds trailing tornados. These magical storms ringed the Pillar of Night. The spells holding the Resident of the Pit began to yield to the onslaught of Lan’s power. Elementals of all forms whistled and whispered, sizzled and sprayed against the light-sucking blackness of the column.

“It comes,” moaned the Resident. “The pressure on me lightens.”

“Foul weather,” grumbled Krek. “Rain is matting my fur, and the lightning. I never liked it. Set my web afire once back in the Egrii Mountains.” The giant spider gusted a deep sigh. “How I miss my lovely Klawn.”

“Lan,” Inyx shouted over the gale-force winds whipping about them. “I can’t reach you anymore. What’s happening?”

“The core of the planet is rising beneath us,” said Lan. “You, Krek, and Ducasien must walk the Road. Do it now. Hurry.”

“We won’t leave you.”

“Nothing will harm me. I promise that. Now go.”

“But we don’t know where a cenotaph is.”

“There,” Lan Martak said, pointing. “There’s one I just created. Use it! Now!”

Winds pulled Inyx away from him. She tried to fight the gusts and failed. Driven into the cenotaph, she, Krek and Ducasien, holding a lifeless Brinke, stared at Lan. Alone he stood next to the ebony Pillar of Night.

But the color changed. No longer did the column retain all energy. It glowed internally and rose upward, ripping apart the sky with the rotating spikes.

The last thing Inyx saw before the cenotaph opened and carried them to another world was the orange fire inside the Pillar, a signal that Lan had cracked the planet’s crust and released the immense energies of a molten core.

The Pillar of Night ceased to exist and, along with it, the entire planet. Storms of magic raged until only dust spun through the cosmos. And then even this vanished.

EPILOGUE

Lan Martak walked along the paved street, hardly recognizing the buildings. The Dancing Serpent had been razed, some ten years earlier, one old-timer sitting rocked back in a chair had told him. Hardly anyone else remembered the place and even the old man didn’t remember Zarella. She had been just a bit before his time, or so he said. From the twinkle in his eye, though, Lan thought the old man remembered the stu

Lan looked at the new building gleaming in the sunlight. Some architect had gone wild with glass and gilt edging. The wood beams over the porch had been intricately carved and a sign dangled down proudly proclaiming two chirurgeons and a solicitor specializing in demonic law had offices inside.

“Outta my way, you blithering fool!” came the loud cry. Lan turned and looked down the street. Two drivers hunched over the steering sticks on their demon-powered cars. Huge puffs of white steam rose from one; the other’s smokestack spewed forth heavy, oily black. The two raced by, nearly ru

Lan had to laugh. He remembered how the old sheriff had hated those Maxwell-demon-powered contraptions. Then the man sobered. The sheriff had died less than a month after Lan had walked the Cenotaph Road for the first time. The grey-clads had murdered him, or so Lan had been told. Kyn-alLyk-Surepta had vanished soon after, leaving still another, even worse, garrison commander. In only a year the soldiers had supplanted the weak deputy who had taken the old man’s place.

Lan’s sister’s rapist and murderer had come to justice on another world. His fist tightened around the dagger hanging at his belt as he remembered the brief pleasure he had taken killing Surepta-and then the hollowness following the bloody act. There had been no sense of revenge, just as the Resident of the Pit had predicted. Lan’s sister was still dead, the sheriff had not been properly avenged, and Surepta’s death had set off the long chain of events leading to Kiska k’Adesina trying to murder him.

“The time flows get confusing,” Lan said softly, thinking about Kiska and Surepta. They had been married by the time Lan killed the man, yet Surepta had left this world after Lan.

“Either pay rent or move,” came a cold voice. Lan looked over his shoulder and saw a uniformed officer behind him. “We don’t hold with drifters coming through town.” The officer cocked his head to one side and asked, “You be leaving soon?”

“This is-was-my home,” Lan said. “A long time ago. I’m just looking around. A lot has changed.”

“One thing’s still the same,” said the law officer. “We don’t want trouble.”

Lan sensed the magics at the officer’s control. He smiled. The man probably conjured small sparks from his fingers. There’d be a paralysis spell in case anyone got too rowdy. Even the reduction spell for execution. To be reduced to a smoldering puddle of lard. Lan shook his head.

He had ruined worlds with the wave of his hand. And once he had feared the old sheriff’s reduction spell.

“You got anybody to vouch for you?”

“What? Oh, no, no one. Not now. I just wanted to see the homesite once more, before I left.”

The law officer nodded curtly. The expression on his face told Lan that he expected this unwanted loiterer out of town as soon as possible. Otherwise, Lan might spend the night in jail. The idea amused Lan.

He strolled the streets, then turned toward the outskirts of town. They were farther away than he remembered. There were more people than he remembered, too. And all were strangers.

He came to a simple house sadly in need of repairs. Lan knelt down by the foundations and saw the sword cuts in the wood beams where he had tried to get out of the locked cellar in time to save his sister. Surepta had killed her while Lan struggled.

The house was unoccupied, long since deserted.

He didn’t bother entering. Lan turned into the woods and noted the lumbering activity. He wandered old game trails and saw no spoor. The animals had fled the encroaching civilization and without a doubt moved higher into the el-Liot Mountains. A grey-green haze from numerous factories cloaked the horizon and prevented Lan from seeing those majestic peaks.

The path widened unexpectedly and he found himself poised on the edge of a rock quarry. Dozens of men worked heavy equipment below. Demons screeched out their curses at being forced to use talons to cut through the rock, but the mine superintendent was a competent mage; he kept the demons at work quarrying while the men lugged the stone to conveyors and hoisted it from the pit.

“What you want, stranger?”

“Just looking,” said Lan. “I’ll be moving on soon enough. I used to live around here, but the quarry is new.”

“New,” snorted the man. “Been here well nigh fifteen years.”

“They use the demons well,” Lan said.

“Damn nuisance, if you ask me, but then nobody does. I’m just a watchman.”

“You make sure no one steals a block of stone?”

The man laughed. “By all the Lower Places, I wish that were it. Damn kids come in and get into trouble here. I make sure no one’s hurt. A demon worked his way free of his binding spell a year back. Damn-fool kid cornered the poor frightened bugger and made it do his schoolwork before releasing it. The demon came back in tears, begging to go onto the cutters again.” The watchman shook his head.

“This is all so strange to me,” Lan admitted. “I’m not used to it.”

“Seeing more and more of the demons and sprites,” the man said, mistaking what Lan meant. “Better get used to them. They’re the future, or so the mages say.”