presses in on me. I must learn what Martak knows of the Pillar of Night. Tell me!”
Brinke let out a tiny gasp and rose from her chair. She staggered and fell heavily against the table, barely supporting herself. From all sides the very air crushed in upon her, draining her of strength, forcing her to speak.
“Tell me what I wish and you can be free of this torture.”
“You’ll kill me if I tell you.”
“I’ll find out, whether you are alive or dead. My power goes beyond the grave, my lovely Brinke. Tell me!”
“I refuse.” She tried to scream as pain wracked her body. Brinke knew the sorcerer ripped off her arms and legs and pulled her head from her neck. Stark agony unlike anything she had ever experienced dazzled her senses and made her more and more compliant to Claybore’s wishes. But she fought. From deep within herself she found reserves of strength and she fought.
“It will only take a bit more and you will die. Can such paltry information be worth this to you? Or do you enjoy pain?”
Claybore sent needles of anguish jabbing into her most private recesses. Brinke resisted, even though she weakened visibly. And then the pain evaporated.
“Martak!” shrieked the dismembered sorcerer.
“You forced only a spell of compulsion on her. I planted a few ward spells to aid her. She is no match for you. Shall we see who is the stronger, you or me?”
The spell Lan cast was both potent and subtle. He saw the way Claybore wore the sling to support the damaged arm. Like a buzz saw, Lan sent a plane of pure energy down against the shoulder joint. Claybore’s arm fell away. Whatever misfortune had caused the arm to require support now aided Lan’s attempt to dismember Claybore again.
Only the cloth sling supported the arm; Lan’s spell had rived it cleanly.
Claybore tried to destroy Brinke, but Lan anticipated-and he had learned. Claybore’s spell lacked full power. If the mage succeeded in killing Brinke, he would leave himself open to Lan’s counterattack. Already Claybore’s other arm twitched and jerked with a life of its own as it tried to slip from the shoulder joint.
Claybore had the same choice he had given Lan earlier. He might slay Brinke, but he would lose at least his arms and possibly more.
“Your fate will be excruciating, Martak,” raged Claybore. The sorcerer vanished from the chamber.
Lan’s eyebrows rose. He analyzed the spell Claybore had used-it was identical to the one he had pioneered for movement between worlds without the use of a cenotaph.
“He’s stolen it from me,” Lan said aloud. He didn’t know if he ought to be pleased at the theft or not. Claybore’s comings and goings had been limited when Lan ripped out the Kinetic Sphere and cast it at random along the Road. Now that Claybore employed the same movement spell he did, Lan no longer had the advantage of mobility over his foe.
“You saved me,” sobbed out Brinke. She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. He felt the wetness of her tears dampening his tunic. “I told him nothing. I resisted.”
“I know,” said Lan, renewed by the feel of Brinke’s sleek body in his arms. “Your powers may be untutored, but they are greater than either of us thought. You did not give in to him and Claybore used potent spells against you.”
“Your ward spells helped.”
Lan laughed. “There were no ward spells. Oh, I used them when initially finding the geas within your mind, but I didn’t want to impose my spells on you. You were free of them-and you kept Claybore away through your own efforts.”
Brinke said nothing, a shy smile crossing her lips. The smile vanished when Kiska came barreling into the room.
“So here you are. Why is it I always find the pair of you together?” Her tone was intended to cut deeply. And it did. Lan had to bite back an apology.
“It is nothing,” he said. “We were merely discussing how best to defeat Claybore.”
“If you want to defeat him,” said Kiska in a confidential tone, “you’ll forget all about this Pillar of Night.”
“What?” This took Lan unexpectedly.
“The Pillar of Night. You mentioned it many times. Remember, my darling? Or has this… lovely woman addled your senses?”
“I remember. What do you mean, I should avoid it?”
“The fine lady doesn’t know this,” said Kiska, “but the Pillar is still another of Claybore’s pieces.”
Brinke laughed at this. “No one is so well endowed.”
“Slut,” snapped Kiska. “In the strictest sense, it is not a part of his body. Rather, it is more. Far more.”
“He has his arms back,” said Lan. He had to silently congratulate himself on the devastation he had wrought on Claybore’s limbs. “His heart has been sent skittering along the Road to who knows where. I still possess his tongue and the facial skin has been destroyed. We know torso and skull are still joined and the legs are gone. What’s left?”
Kiska looked from one to the other, a serious expression settling over her. “His very soul, that’s what.”
“Claybore has no soul,” scoffed Brinke.
“That is true-now. But Terrill wrenched it free from him and imprisoned it inside the Pillar of Night. If you unbalance the delicate spells surrounding the Pillar, Claybore will regain a vital portion of his whole. It might even be the most significant portion.”
“She lies, Lan,” Brinke said with some asperity. “She only seeks to have you divert your energies elsewhere and allow Claybore to do his evil deeds unopposed.”
“How would the blonde bitch know anything? Claybore uses her. In all ways.” The sneer twisting Kiska’s lips cut deeply into Lan. He was torn between the two women. He believed Brinke’s story of the Pillar of Night rather than Kiska’s. It explained all the details and contradicted none of the facts.
But he loved Kiska. He had to listen to her wild rantings, even though he knew she probably lied. Or did she? Claybore played a complex game that confused Lan more and more. The other sorcerer was not content with only dealing lies. He delved into the realm of half truths and even cunningly told truths that sounded as if they might be lies.
Frustration rose in Lan. Since Inyx and Krek had left him, he had nowhere to turn for aid. Or even comfort. Brinke was lovely and adept enough with simple magics, but she was not Inyx.
Kiska? If he could, he would kill her. Instead, he took the woman in his arms and kissed her.
“I love you,” he said. “But this story-this fable-cannot be true.”
“But it is!” Kiska protested.
“I have spoken with Terrill,” he said.
“Lan!” Brinke’s eyes widened in horror at what the mage said. But Lan found himself unable to stop now that he’d begun. The geas wormed words from his lips that he had not meant to utter.
But this was Kiska k’Adesina, the woman he loved. He had to reveal this to her, even as he felt the spell working within his mind like a worm burrowing through the earth. Its power expanded and his own control diminished.
“Tell me about it,” urged Kiska.
“Terrill did not say anything about its being Claybore trapped within the Pillar. Indeed, he hinted that there is nothing within but rather under.”
“That Terrill stays near the Pillar of Night is proof enough that she lies, Lan. Do not listen to her.” Brinke pleaded with him now, but Lan fell increasingly under the power of the geas, in matters both physical and emotional.
“So you talked to Terrill at the base of the Pillar?” Kiska smiled slyly.
Lan’s mind turned to the possibility that Kiska spoke the truth. Terrill might have been driven insane by the power of his own spell. When learning the more complex incantations, Lan himself had teetered on the edge of losing control and being destroyed. With a potent construct like the Pillar of Night, he couldn’t say what forces had been summoned to create it.
“Claybore’s soul,” he mused.
“Yes!”
