was the paranoid idea that Claybore engineered all this, that he wanted Brinke to attempt the spells and drive Lan crazy.
“Do it,” he said. He let the light mote spread out and surround them once more to insure a modicum of privacy from Claybore’s prying. Then Lan relaxed the impenetrable barriers within him that he had maintained for so long.
Feathery touches across the surface of his mind told him Brinke sought the geas. He stared off into the sunrise, the light hurting his eyes as he looked directly into the white-hot sun.
He winced, then pulled away, only to relax and allow Brinke another try. And another and still another. Finally the woman shook her head, blonde hair spilling forward and into her eyes. She pushed it back with a gesture showing her frustration.
“Lan, I’m sorry. I cannot do it. The geas is there. I see it magically. But I cannot alter it. The spells Claybore used are too strong.”
“Too subtle,” Lan corrected. “He has insinuated them into my mind and I can do nothing about it. Only my ability prevented him from planting a self-destructive compulsion.”
“I tried, Lan,” repeated Brinke. “I’m so sorry. I’m freed and you aren’t.”
Lan Martak knew she was not the only one who felt sorry.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Lan! I awoke and you were gone. Is anything wrong?” Kiska k’Adesina strutted onto the battlements, her garments only half fastened. Lan saw large expanses of bare skin gleaming in the morning light and began to respond to the erotic provocations.
The geas definitely had not been lifted from him.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” asked Kiska. Coyness did not sit well with her. She was whipcord thin and lacked the stature to make such work to her benefit. But Lan hardly noticed. His body already responded to her overtures.
Brinke cleared her throat and said, “I’ll be down in my chambers. I’ll expect you at breakfast, Lan.”
“Perhaps noon hour,” cut in Kiska.
Brinke pulled her torn robes around her and walked off, regal and proud. Lan started to go with her, but Kiska’s insistent fingers touched his cheek, his lips, his chest and lower. He gave in to the full power of Claybore’s geas once again. He could do nothing else.
For the moment.
He had only a few minutes to speak with Brinke before Kiska came. He used the time to full advantage.
“Claybore learned nothing of my trip from you?” he asked.
“You told me little,” the blonde responded.
“Good. That was fortuitous.” Brinke blushed in embarrassment. Lan hastily said, “I meant nothing by it, only that we are in a stronger position now than before. Claybore might not know I spoke to Terrill.”
“No, his question to me was about the Pillar of Night, not Terrill. I only answered direct questions and never volunteered information. I was that much in control, at least.”
“Terrill told me that the Pillar was Claybore’s finest spell, the one that almost allowed him total domination ten thousand years ago, but hinted that it failed in some respect. Do you know anything about it?”
“Little. Only recently have I found the proper scrying spells to even look at it,” said Brinke. “But rumors, half truths, perhaps outright lies. Those I have heard. I know that Claybore wiped even the name from my memory, but he hardly needed to do so. Even before this geas, I knew nothing important.”
Lan nodded for her to continue. Any conjecture, no matter how farfetched, might aid him now. He believed the demented mage when Terrill told him of failure. The titanic battle of magics so many thousands of years ago had not resulted in a clear-cut victor. Terrill still wandered about playing with his artificial friends and Claybore’s bodily parts were only now being regained. Beyond this, Lan wondered if still another player in the drama wasn’t of greater importance than he-seemed.
“What of the Resident of the Pit?” he asked Brinke.
“The Resident of the Pit?” she asked, startled. “I was about to mention this. One tale has it that Claybore imprisoned the Resident inside the Pillar of Night.”
“He caged a god?”
Brinke shrugged shapely shoulders. “I cannot conceive of such a thing, but you must be able to.”
“Me?” laughed Lan. “Why me?”
The woman’s face turned serious. “You are as much a god as Claybore.”
“No!”
“You are,” she insisted. “The powerful aura surrounding you also emanates from Claybore. But it is different in substance. You are less avaricious.”
“That’s all?” Lan didn’t care for the comparison.
“Yes.”
Had he become so like his enemy? Lan leaned back in his chair and munched at a juicy persimmon. He spat out the seeds and magically caught them in midair. So easy, he mused. The spells he had once commanded were minor healing spells and the ability to light a campfire by a spark from his fingertips, spells useful to a hunter. Now he summoned elementals, sent whirlwinds and fireballs against his enemies with the ease he used to draw a bow and loose an arrow. A pass of his hand and the proper chant might destroy not only this castle and everyone in it but the entire world.
His mind turned over and over the spell required to crack the planet open to its center.
It wasn’t that difficult. Not for him. Not for a god.
Lan dropped the seeds to the table and straightened. He was not a god. He would not be a god, no matter how much the Resident of the Pit pushed him in that direction.
“It might be true,” he said, “about the Resident being imprisoned in the Pillar of Night.” Brinke noted his sudden change of topic. She made a great show of carefully slicing a freshly baked loaf of bread, her eyes avoiding his. “The Resident has aided me on occasion and I never decided why.”
“He wants to be released?”
“He wants to die,” Lan said. After meeting Terrill and seeing the mage’s pathetic existence, he sympathized with the Resident, if the god were trapped within the Pillar.
Lan looked over his shoulder and asked, “I wonder what’s keeping Kiska? She should have been here by now.”
“Let her be,” the blonde said. But Lan couldn’t. He left to find Kiska.
Brinke chewed slowly at the slab of bread she’d cut. A presence in the room made her turn.
“Claybore!”
Standing by the door was the mage, his metal legs gleaming and one arm held in a sling. A ragged incision ran around the shoulder, showing where someone had tried to stitch the arm back and had failed.
“I need to know what Martak discovered at the Pillar of Night. Tell me!”
Brinke experienced waves of heat assaulting her. Sweat beaded on her brow, but she did not speak. The geas Claybore had laid upon her was truly gone.
“So he removed it,” said Claybore. “Little matter. While I hate losing such a valued source of information, you are certainly the least of my informants.”
“Liar. You had great need for me or you wouldn’t have kept me as you did.”
“Your beauty is great,” Claybore said, “but do not substitute it for common sense. Why would I need you at all?”
“To use against Lan. You fear him. He controls powers great enough to destroy you.”
“I am immortal,” scoffed Claybore. “Since my geas has been lifted, I must apply a different spell. Time
