" He was our friend once. Will he be again?" the arachnid asked. Before Inyx could answer, Krek went on. " I feel the powers he gains are turning him into someone other than the Lan Martak we knew. The goodness within has been hidden by a darker side. Does power always corrupt? I made a fine Webmaster and did not allow the position to sway my thinking. Why is he so different?"
" He' s the man who rescued me when Claybore abandoned me between worlds. I lost count how many times he' s risked his life to save you."
" We have done likewise for him."
" Of course we have. And: and I love him." Inyx' s words were tiny, almost inaudible. She remembered the first shock when she realized there might be a man in her life other than her long- dead husband Reinhardt. Inyx' s shock grew when she and Lan made love and found they shared more than bodies. Their minds met and merged in ways she still found frightening and wonderful. His burgeoning power had forced this link and it had been something she wanted, needed. A warrior had to remain aloof. Becoming too friendly with another only caused intensified feelings of loss when the companion was killed. And Lan had shown her that this was totally wrong.
They were closer than man and woman. They were more than one, they were more than two, they were transcendent together.
" And he chooses her over me," Inyx said self- pityingly.
" I sense magic, as you well know," lectured Krek. " You mentioned it. I believe Lan Martak has himself some inkling of the problem. Claybore has set a geas of subtle and cunning power on him. It must have something to do with Kiska k' Adesina."
" You think this is Claybore' s doing?" The hope rising within couldn' t be held down. Inyx wanted to believe the spider.
" It is a more plausible explanation." Krek fell silent for a moment, then added, " Unless he has indeed become corrupted by the power he wields. I have seen it happen in the Web, of course. A hatchling is promoted too rapidly and assumes great duties of importance."
" What?" The woman was confused at how Krek had jumped from Lan to spiderish politics.
" They think respect is due the position rather the individual in that authority spot. Any order they give, no matter how absurd, must therefore be a good one. A sorry state. They become bloated with their own self- importance."
" What happens then?"
" We eat them."
Inyx shivered. Krek' s logical thought processes never failed to give her a pang of cold, gut- clutching fear. He spoke so easily of devouring his comrades.
" You think this is the way to handle Lan?" she asked.
" No. Lan Martak is too powerful. He would fry us long before such a course could be carried out. Or drown me. No, he would set fire to me. That is a hideously favorite spell with him." The huge body quaked at the very idea of being turned into a torch.
" What are we to do? I won' t give him up. Not to the likes of her."
The spider said nothing.
Inyx didn' t have any good answer to her own question, either. The best they could do for the moment was sit, wait, and then seize whatever opportunity presented itself. That waiting would be the most difficult she' d ever done, but it had to be done.
The woman turned and looked at Ducasien and experienced even more confusion. What exactly was it she wanted?
There seemed no easy answer.
" I must go," Lan Martak said, rising from the throne. He reached out and gestured with his hand to summon his light mote. It orbited in from the far reaches of the universe, ready for battle.
" What' s happened?" demanded Kiska k' Adesina. " Claybore' s attacking?"
" The legs. I go for them. I see how Lirory wanted to use them. It came to me- like so many other things do now."
" How? How would he have used them?"
Lan' s gaze turned outward, penetrating stone and changing from physical sight to a scrying with his magical powers. The legs glowed within their individual cases, hidden away in the deepest recesses of Yerrary. Lirory Tefize had hidden them well, but Lirory had lacked Lan' s power. To Lan they were apparent.
And to Claybore, as well.
" Like a battery," Lan said, starting off. Kiska trailed behind, clutching at his sleeve. He brushed her off. He started to empower a spell to freeze her to the spot, but it refused to form on his lips. The tongue resting inside his mouth felt cottony rather than metallic every time he began a spell to subdue Kiska.
" I don' t understand."
" Lirory intended to place a leg at one corner of this pyramidshaped chamber and the other leg at still another corner. The arms each went into the other corners. Sitting on his throne placed him equidistant from the four limbs. He would draw on the power focused on this special spot." Lan indicated where the throne had been before Claybore destroyed it.
" But he had the arms and legs. Why didn' t he do this when he had the chance?"
Lan smiled. Everything was so obvious to him now.
" He needed one further part. Any bodily part. In the ceiling of the chamber. Placed there, it completed a pyramid of power. I suspect he desired most the Kinetic Sphere, but Claybore had retrieved that." Lan felt a passing bitterness when he realized he had allowed it to fall into Claybore' s hands. " If Lirory had known I had Claybore' s tongue in my mouth, he might have succeeded. Instead, he banished me, thinking the fog outside the mountain would kill me. The tongue would have sufficed as well as the Kinetic Sphere."
" He didn' t sense the tongue," said Kiska in a hushed voice. She now understood, also.
" His powers were great, but not great enough. If Lirory had formed the battery of Claybore' s parts, his abilities would have been enhanced to the point not even Claybore could have withstood him."
Lan laughed aloud now.
" You can defeat him, can' t you?" asked Kiska.
Lan didn' t answer. He didn' t have to. The answer, like all else, was obvious.
" Are you able to wrest the legs from Claybore?" she pressed.
" Stay here."
" I have to be at your side," Kiska said, her voice turning shrill with urgency. The brunette forced her way up and next to Lan. He tried once more- in vain- to form the spell to hold her back. " I' ve come too far not to see this through to the end."
" But you-" Lan couldn' t even say the words he wanted.
Kiska k' Adesina was Claybore' s commandant. She commanded legions on a score of worlds and had perpetrated crimes so ghastly his mind recoiled thinking of them. Entire cities had died on the world the pair of them had walked prior to coming to Yerrary. Only one city survived- barely- when she and Claybore had finished. Kiska k' Adesina was his sworn enemy and still he not only allowed her to come with him on this most dangerous and vital of missions, but he spoke freely to her of Lirory and of the gnome mage' s discovery, how he himself had come across dozens of small clues and turned them into weapons against her master, and Lan even gave her information which could be turned against him.
And he loved her.
An addict dependent on drugs, a mage linked permanently into spell dreams, a man in love. All produced the same result, and Lan Martak found himself caught in the trap. He loved Kiska k' Adesina against reason and sanity.
" Stay back. This will be dangerous. Lirory Tefize laid traps of subtle and diabolical design."
They pushed into territory alien to Lan, but he knew it as well as he did the forests on his home world. He saw, not only with eyes but with magic- and burning like a campfire in the night were Claybore' s legs. Locked onto that, Lan couldn' t be turned away.
" Where you go, I will," said Kiska, but her lips curled back in a sneer that Lan failed to see. Her fingers lightly stroked a dagger hilt. She started to draw the sharp- edged weapon and sink it to the hilt in the mage' s broad back, but something stopped her.