Fire and Fog

She still loved him. But it became harder and harder to maintain that love.

" We help him. We have to," she finally said.

" Then we need a plan," spoke up Ducasien.

" This isn' t your fight," she said.

" If you' re there, I' m making it my fight. Now what do we need to do to prepare ourselves?"

Inyx tried to wipe away the tears forming before anyone noticed. While she was sure Krek and Ducasien both saw the motion that swiped away the salty tracks, neither mentioned it.

They called Broit Heresler into their circle and spoke quickly with the gnome. He nodded, smiled as much as he could, then went off with a few battered survivors of his clan to find the weapons needed to help Lan Martak when he finally faced Claybore.

" Through that arch," Lan Martak said, pointing. His hand glowed a dull purple in response to the ward spell Lirory Tefize had placed on the doorway. " Go through and die."

" You can take off the spell?" Kiska k' Adesina asked anxiously.

" It is a multilayered spell," he said, examining it carefully. " Very tricky. And very clever. One small slip and it is all over."

Kiska tensed, her hands balled to strike out. Lan noticed and she relaxed and let her arms hang limply at her sides. He faced the doorway and began his chants.

Slowly at first, then with increasing assurance, he peeled away the layers of the spells Lirory had wrought. Like onion skins, the spells fell away until only the bare stone archway remained. Lan wiped his sleeve over his forehead. The unlocking had taken more from him than he' d thought possible. An instant of fear flashed through him.

Was he as powerful as he thought? Did this multiple spell hold traps of which he was unaware? Had he committed too much of his power too soon? Fear chewed at his self- confidence, but he dared not admit it. Not in front of Kiska.

" Let' s not tarry. We have our destiny lying in wait beyond."

With more confidence than he felt, he walked forward. Lan' s eyes blinked as he passed under the stone archway. A slight electric tingle of spell had not been driven off, but it was a minor annoyance. He flicked it away as if it were nothing more than a buzzing mosquito.

He entered the chamber holding Claybore' s legs.

" There they are!" cried Kiska. " Claybore' s lost limbs."

Lan restrained her. She tried to bolt forward and seize the beaten copper coffins holding those legs.

" The exterior protective spells are gone. Others remain. How else could those legs stay preserved?"

" Claybore is immortal. His parts are, too."

Lan reeled at the notion. For whatever reason, this had never occurred to him. He studied the twin coffins and saw the spells woven through the fabric of metal and flesh within and knew then that Kiska was right. The spells Lirory had placed on the legs bound them to this time and place; preservation was accomplished on a more fundamental level, one fraught with magics even Lan did not pretend to understand.

" They can be destroyed," he said, more to maintain the fiction of his superiority than anything else. Showing ignorance in front of Kiska bothered him more than he cared to admit.

" Of course they can be destroyed," came a voice all too familiar from previous battlings. " You ought to know that my parts are not invincible. After all, my skin was left in a puddle of protoplasm within the Twistings."

" I wondered when you would come," said Lan, turning to face Claybore. The sorcerer stood under the archway so recently swept clear of its guardian spells.

" I waited for you to tire yourself, to do the work for me."

" I am not tired, Claybore."

" You kid yourself, then," said Claybore, laughing. His mocking gestures angered Lan, who watched as the sorcerer came into the chamber on clanking mechanical legs driven by subtle magics. The arms took up a defensive pose, ready to subvert any spell Lan might cast.

Lan savored this moment. Claybore might decry his skills, but Lan knew deep within how he had grown as a mage. Claybore was not only wrong, he was defeated and didn' t know it. Lan Martak felt the power on him. He could not lose.

" This after you' ve told me it' s possible to destroy your parts. Kiska was wrong. The parts are not immortal. The whole might be, but not the parts."

" Immortality rests with all the parts, but that doesn' t mean the segments cannot be destroyed," said Claybore. " Left alone, they will survive for all eternity."

" Consummate magics will destroy them," said Lan, almost gloating now.

" Terrill tried and failed."

" I' m better than Terrill."

The chalk- white skull tipped sideways, the eye sockets taking on a blackness darker than space. The jaw had been destroyed and the area around the nose hole had become riddled with cracks. 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 the stakes are we play for."

" Conquest. Power."

" Yes, that," said Claybore, stopping beside the copper coffin holding his left leg. " And more. Power is worthless unless it is used. And 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 was 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 what was being said was truth or not he didn' t know, but it could well be. Terrill had been the Resident of the Pit' 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."

" And 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 one such as yourself. Prepare to die, Lan Martak."

Lan readied himself for the battle. He stood on one side of the chamber, the coffins holding the legs between him and Claybore. All that he had gone through, the death and the misery, the pain and learning would now be put to the test.

" You will not win, Claybore," he said confidently.

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.

" The water you wanted," panted Broit Heresler. " We have it. But there' s bad news."

Inyx looked at the tuns of acid rainwater accumulated from Eckalt' s vats. How the burning quality of the water might be used, she wasn' t sure, but it had to provide a potent weapon in the right circumstance.

" None of you was hurt?" she asked anxiously. She counted heads and saw Broit had returned with all the gnomes he' d set out with.