Robert Vardeman - Pillar of Night

The chalk white skull tipped sideways, the eye sockets taking on a blackness darker than space. The area around the nose hole became riddled with cracks as magical forces mounted. Claybore’s skull disintegrated a bit more under each attack. Lan felt confident that he would turn the skull into dust before the day was out.

“You think so?” mocked Claybore.

“I feel it.”

“You’re a fool. You’re a fool I have manipulated for my own ends for some time. You cannot win. You don’t even understand what stakes we play for.”

“Conquest. Power.”

“Yes, that,” said Claybore, stopping beside the copper coffin cradling his left leg. “And more. Power is worthless useless it is used. After you’ve conquered a few thousand worlds, what then? With immortality, mere power is not enough.”

“What else can there be?” asked Lan, wondering if this were a trick to gull him into vulnerability.

“Godhood! Not only power but the worship of all living beings. Their birth, their death, every instant in between ruled totally-by me! For millennia there has been no true god because I imprisoned the Resident of the Pit.”

Lan’s agile mind worked over the details and filled in gaps. It all fit a pattern. Whether or not what was being said was true he didn’t know, but it could well be. Terrill had been the Resident’s pawn in the battle against Claybore, but what was the nature of that conflict?

It had to be for the godhood Claybore mentioned. The sorcerer had dueled the reigning deity-the Resident of the Pit-and had somehow gained the upper hand. But the Resident fought back with Terrill as his principal weapon. Lacking full power, the Resident had not destroyed Claybore, but Terrill had succeeded in scattering the bodily parts along the Road.

“You get a glimmering of the truth,” said Claybore. “I failed to destroy the Resident and ended up dismembered. But the Resident was unable to regain godhood because I hold him imprisoned. A stalemate lasting centuries.”

“One which is drawing to a close,” said Lan. “Regaining your legs will give you the power to finally destroy the Resident. After all this time, you will be able to kill a deity.”

“Yes,” came the sibilant acknowledgment, “And in the universe ruled by the god Claybore, there will be no further use for fools such as you. Prepare to die, Lan Martak.”

The spell Claybore cast exploded like the heart of a sun, blinding him, leaving him cut free of all his senses and floating through empty infinity.

Spinning through space blinded and deaf, totally without senses, had startled him-but fear wasn’t his response. He fought and found within himself the right ways of countering Claybore’s attack.

He whirled back, still facing Claybore. No time had elapsed. The wild flight had been entirely illusory-but ever so real while he was caught up in the spell.

“A petty trick,” he said, knowing how Claybore had done it. “Goodbye.”

The spell he cast contained elements of the most powerful spells he was capable of controlling. The invisible web caught at Claybore and further cracked the skull, a piece falling to the stone floor. Lan tightened and the magics spilled over from the edge of his control and eroded away the coffin immediately in front of Claybore.

That almost proved his undoing.

The left leg, freed of its magical bindings, kicked out of the copper coffin and balanced in a mockery of life on the floor. The sight of the dismembered leg moving of its own volition startled Lan into relaxing his attack.

Claybore’s riposte came in an unexpected fashion. The leg hopped forward and kicked straight for Lan’s groin. The physical pain meant little to Lan; the shock of seeing the leg attack allowed cracks to develop in his own defenses.

Claybore entered that breach easily. The spells used by the mage beat at Lan’s every vulnerable point. He was forced backward, driven to the wall. The inner core on which he relied came to his aid, giving him the respite to reform his defenses.

All the while, the ghastly leg continued to hop forward and kick at him.

“See, Martak? All of me wants to see you die,” said Claybore. “And you will-you will die as only an immortal can. You will live forever and be in complete pain for all eternity. Nothing will save you. You will cry in the dark for surcease and never find it. You will die, not in body but in mind. Die, Martak, die!”

Lan couldn’t stop the surging attack, but he deflected it enough to keep from succumbing. Knowing his strength was nowhere near adequate to destroy Claybore as he’d thought, cunning took over. Lan Martak turned aside the assault and redirected it to the hopping, kicking leg.

“No!” came the shriek as Claybore realized what was happening.

His leg vanished in a sizzling cloud of greasy black smoke, lost forever.

“Your skin is gone. I have your tongue. Now your left leg is destroyed. Who is losing, Claybore?”

Lan twisted away as heat destroyed the other copper coffin. Droplets of molten metal seared his skin, raised blisters, burned like a million ants devouring his flesh. The other leg bounded free of its vaporized coffin and went hopping toward Claybore.

Lan tried to stop the right leg and found the other sorcerer’s spells prevented it. Leg and torso would soon be reunited. What power would this give Claybore? Lan didn’t want to find out.

“You can’t stop me, Martak,” gloated Claybore. “You had your chance. You’ve failed.”

“Aren’t you the one failing, Claybore? Where’s your left leg? It’s gone. Completely destroyed. The other soon will be.”

“Never!”

Lan sent out tangling spells to numb the nerves in the leg. They failed. The leg did not live in the same way other animate creatures did. He hurled fireballs and sent elementals and opened pits and still he failed to prevent the inexorable movement of the leg as it hopped toward Claybore.

Every spell he wove sapped him of that much more strength. Lan realized with a sick feeling that Claybore was growing stronger. When the leg rejoined, his power would be supreme.

“All the universe will be mine to rule,” came Claybore’s mocking words, so soft and sibilant that they were almost a whisper. “More than ruling, all the peoples of those worlds will worship me. I shall reign forever!”

“Won’t that pall on you?” gasped out Lan. He countered a nerve-numbing spell, started a chant of his own to renew his attack. Power slipped from him like a dropped cloak. Grabbing at it only caused it to slide away faster.

“Ask me in a million years.”

“You’ll ruin worlds.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t care. You owe it to the people you’ll rule not to harm them.”

“Why?” Then Claybore’s laughter echoed in Lan’s skull. “Your tone has changed, Martak. Now you’re trying to invest me with a conscience. You’re admitting I have won. It is apparent, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Lan grated out-but he had one last spell to try. Lan had not dared use it for fear of releasing energies beyond his control.

Lan began the magical summoning motions with his fingers. The air twisted into improbable shapes before him. The arcane words he chanted formed colored threads in the midst of the writhing mass. But one element of the spell was missing. He reached forth, summoned the dancing mote of light that had become his familiar, and sent it directly into the vortex to supply power.

Power!

The virtually uncontrolled spell burst forth with more vehemence than Lan had anticipated-or Claybore expected.

The sorcerer screamed as his leg froze in midhop and fell lifeless to the stone floor. His rejoined arms began twitching spastically, and Lan watched in fascination as the Kinetic Sphere, Claybore’s very heart, began pushing outward from his chest. But the potent spell was not without effect on Lan. His mouth turned metallic, and his tongue began to glow hotter and hotter. This spell affected all of Claybore’s bodily parts and that included the tongue ripped from the other mage’s mouth.