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  World of Mazes

  ( Cenotaph Road - 3 )

  World of Mazes

  Robert E. Vardeman

  CHAPTER ONE

  " Die, fool, die!" screeched the sorcerer.

  Lan Martak couldn' t take his eyes off the ghastly sight hovering before him. Claybore had joined his severed, fleshless skull to the torso in the coffin. The combination, gave the mage even more power. And shining brightly in the sorcerer' s chest cavity was the Kinetic Sphere, that magical device allowing movement at will between different worlds. It pulsed pinkly, a heart for a being without mercy.

  Lan felt the magics crackling and humming about him. Although Claybore lacked arms and hands to point a spell, his powers were awesome. The man felt as if a giant hand was crushing his chest, squeezing the breath from his lungs, ripping the life from his body. He had come to the top of majestic Mount Tartanius in hope of recovering the Kinetic Sphere; Claybore had gotten here first. Now Lan Martak' s life was forfeit- and worse.

  His giant spider companion, Krek, would also die with him. And Inyx, lovely Inyx, remained trapped between worlds. Without the Kinetic Sphere to free her, she would roam, more ghost than human, for all eternity, lost, alone, enduring pain beyond the realm of the physical.

  He had failed, failed, failed.

  The iron bands around Lan' s chest tightened as Claybore augmented his spell. The immense altitude at the mountain- top did little in aiding Lan' s gasping efforts to suck in more oxygen. Everything worked against him. Pinned like a bug in an entymologist' s collection, he looked around the small stone shrine in panic. Krek, as tall and powerful as he was, couldn' t help. Their other companions were likewise incapacitated. The ancient mage Abasi- Abi lay dying on the floor. His son Morto lacked any expertise in spell casting. And the fanatical pilgrim Ehznoll had been cast aside like a rag doll.

  " Die, Lan Martak," crowed Claybore. The hollows where eyes had once resided in his skull glowed a dull red. At any moment twin beams of ruby death would surge forth and snuff out life.

  Lan fought. In vain. The rejoining of skull with torso had given Claybore too much power.

  The man felt life slipping from his body. The death beams wouldn' t be needed.

  A scream of rage and indignation from Ehznoll gave Lan a spurt of energy to resist. The pilgrim rose, obviously in extreme agony, and rushed toward the floating form of the sorcerer.

  " Blasphemer!" cried Ehznoll. His mindless charge sent him smashing into the sorcerer. Claybore shrieked obscenities, then diabolical spells- but it was too late. The pilgrim' s momentum carried human and human parody over the rim of the mountain. The instant Claybore vanished from sight, the spell lifted from Lan Martak.

  He gasped, recovered, then dashed forward. Tumbling over and over, Ehznoll slowly vanished from sight. Alongside the pilgrim spun a pink pulsation. Lan tensed. A brilliant flare seared his eyes. He raised a hand to shield his vision from the light; Claybore had used the Kinetic Sphere glowing in his cold chest cavity to switch worlds.

  Lan Martak lived. But he had also failed. Now he had to face that soul- devouring fact every day of his life. Time passed, and Lan Martak didn' t notice. Like a man drugged, he sat and stared over the rim of Mount Tartanius down into the mists below where so much of his life had just vanished. Inyx was similarly lost. Trapped between worlds, the woman was destined to roam, deserted and alone, forever. And, while this was a pleasant enough world, Lan had tasted the thrill of walking the Cenotaph Road, of finding and exploring new worlds. For most of his life he' d been trapped on a single world; following the advice of an ancient being, he' d taken a first hesitant step along the Road. He' d lost a love, killed an enemy, and found friends beyond compare in Krek and Inyx.

  And they' d used the Kinetic Sphere to explore. Now that Claybore had regained his magical gateway, nothing prevented him from marching on defenseless, unsuspecting worlds and conquering them. His greyclad soldiers would pour forth through the gate opened by the Kinetic Sphere and bring ruin and slavery to untold cultures.

  Lan Martak stared down the side of Mount Tartanius, wondering if he should follow the valiant Ehznoll' s path. One step, nothing, falling, death.

  A light touch startled him.

  " No, friend Lan Martak," came Krek' s soft words. " That is Ehznoll' s way, not yours. He died for his belief, for the betrayal of his faith. You must live for yours."

  " Everything' s gone. There' s no way off this world. You said so yourself. Unless:" Hope leaped in his breast.

  " No," said the coppery- furred arachnid, " I have discovered no other cenotaph off this world. With the Sphere gone, the ' vision' is clearer. There are no cenotaphs on this planet opening to other worlds, though I see countless ones opening onto it. These are oneway gates. Many have entered this world only to find no way off."

  Lan slumped again. " Ehznoll' s way may have been easier, but you' re right. It' s not my way." Looking up at the spider, he asked, " How' s Abasi- Abi? The battle severely injured him."

  " Worse. His son Morto tends him, as is proper."

  " Maybe my healing spells can do something for him."

  Inside the stone building, Morto knelt beside his father. The sorcerer had aged incredibly. Hair totally white, face lined as if some farmer had plowed it, transparent yellowed skin pulled across his hands as taut as a drumhead, he had come as close to death as possible without crossing the line.

  " Here he is," said Morto quietly. To Lan, " He wishes to speak. But hurry. He is almost gone."

  Lan cradled the old sorcerer' s head.

  " I didn' t know," explained Lan. " I thought all Claybore wanted was the Sphere. I see it all now. He' s rebuilding his body."

  " You didn' t know," absolved Abasi- Abi. " But for that ignorance you must now be punished." Lan tensed. " I am dying. You must carry on my fight against the evil Claybore promises. Morto will give you my grimoire. You have the native skill my son lacks in magic. You will learn all the spells you can to stop Claybore."

  " He used the Kinetic Sphere to shift worlds," Lan said glumly. " I saw the flash as he opened the gateway. Do you think he' ll be back to slay the rest of us?"

  " No, because he thinks I am dead and you helpless. He thinks there is no way off this world."

  " There' s a way? Tell me!"

  " First, I must tell you of Terrill." Abasi- Abi' s voice barely reached Lan now. The man bent down so the dying whispers sounded directly in his ear. " He was a mighty sorcerer, the mightiest and now long dead. But he saw the evil Claybore brought. Only Terrill possessed the skill to stop Claybore- not kill him, no one can do that, but stop him."

  " Is Terrill the one who dismembered Claybore and scattered the pieces along the Cenotaph Road?"

  " Yes."

  " Claybore cannot be killed, but he can be stopped? He needs his full body for full power?"

  " Yes," whispered Abasi- Abi. " Only the skull is potent; with the body it is an even more potent pairing, but even this combination can be defeated. The danger lies in allowing Claybore to find the arms, legs, feet, hands. Once they are joined, no mage lives on any of the worlds able to withstand Claybore' s might."

  " You' ll live, Abasi- Abi. I' ll start my healing spells. They aren' t much, but:"

  " No!" Bony fingers clawed at Lan' s arm.

  " I' ll have you back on your feet again. Soon. I promise."

  " Lan," said Morto in a peculiarly flat voice. " He' s dead. He fought death, tried to deny it. No one can do that, not even one as powerful as my father."

  Lan Martak placed the lifeless body gently on the soft floor.

  " He didn' t tell me how to get off this world. He wanted to tell me about Terrill and Claybore, but he never said anything about leaving here."

&
nbsp; " Here is his grimoire. He wanted you to have it." Morto passed over a small volume bound in brown leather and brass. Lan took it gingerly, as if it would bite.

  " It' s yours. You' re his son."

  " I cannot use it. I have no talent at all for magic, much to his disgust." Emotion returned to Morto' s voice and color rose in his blanched cheeks. " He was a harsh master and an unloving father." Tears choked him now. He made no attempt to hide his sorrow. " But still I loved him and believed in what he had to do."

  Together the three of them, two human and one arachnid, buried the sorcerer. The glassy plain of Mount Tartanius' mesa proved hard to dig in, but the combined assault of Lan' s sword and Krek' s talons, with Morto' s blind determination, finally cut the grave.

  Lan Martak spent the next four days studying Abasi- Abi' s notebook. One spell in the grimoire sent Lan' s heart racing. He composed himself, allowed the immense tides of magic flowing between worlds to suffuse his body, then cast himself outward. Like the therra on his home world, his spirit left his body and he roamed. Hours passed as he searched, disembodied, for Inyx. The world around his roving spirit, changed to a featureless plain, finally became the impenetrable white fog he' d experienced before.

  " Inyx!" he called. No answer. " Inyx, I need to reach you. I need you."

  " Lan?" A voice, hesitant, distant.

  " Inyx! Are you all right?"

  " I: feel: so: light. No: body. I: remain in: this place: too long."

  The voice faded. Lan never caught sight of the woman but heard the fear in her words. Once he imagined the brush of fingers across his, but he shook that off as wishful thinking. He' d been told that to remain too long in the white fogginess robbed a mortal of body and left behind only tortured spirit. It was true, and Inyx knew it.

  He had to rescue her and didn' t know how.

  His spirit returned to his body. The weakness hitting him made Lan gasp and collapse. For two days Morto and Krek tended him. The excursion had been costly for him, both in energy and morale.

  " I don' t see how we can do it. Not on the top of this thricedamned mountain."

  " Friend Lan Martak, there must be a way. Abasi- Abi hinted as much."

  " Hints, Krek, don' t mean a thing. The man was dying."

  " Inyx remains in limbo."

  " Dammit, I know." Spots of red flushed Lan' s cheeks.

  He paced constantly, Abasi- Abi' s spell book open in one hand. " I' ve gone over the contact spells again and again. They don' t work for me. I don' t have the experience, the control, the knowledge."

  " While I am no mage, reading through this one indicates a path to follow." Krek' s front right claw tapped the book, opened on the stone altar in the hut.

  " That' s a spell for creating a cenotaph. Yes, maybe the creation would bring Inyx out of the fog, but I can' t do it."

  " Why not?"

  Lan snorted in disgust.

  " I lack the most essential ingredient for a cenotaph: a dead hero."

  " There is one."

  " Abasi- Abi won' t work. We' ve buried him already. The grave must be freshly consecrated with those spells- and the hero' s body must be irretrievably lost."

  " Such as lost, meaning not recoverable?"

  Sometimes the spider could be so dense Lan wanted to scream.

  " Yes, lost. Like: oh, no. Of course."

  " Like Ehznoll," they chorused.

  " How could I have overlooked it, Krek? He died saving us- the world- from Claybore. When he hit the ground below, nothing but pink splotches would have been left, and those would be smeared halfway down the mountain. We can consecrate a cenotaph to Ehznoll!"

  " Obvious."

  Lan spent a half- hour chiding himself for not seeing the obvious, then took another hour worrying about the qualities of Ehznoll' s heroism. He finally decided heroism, no matter how motivated, provided the intense psychic energy required for establishing the Cenotaph Road. The gateway between worlds could be opened, no matter what he' d thought of Ehznoll while he lived.

  Lan Martak pored over the spells while Krek and Morto hollowed out the altar inside the hut. A special crypt had to be formed, one large enough to hold a human- or spider. But for all his bulk and eight long, furry legs, Krek managed easily to compact himself down into large human size.

  As the spider and human finished their chore, Lan said, " The preliminary spells are ready. I: I' ve improvised." He looked from Krek to Morto, to see if they approved.

  " Improvised in what way?" asked Morto.

  " I' ve sent a seeking spell into the whiteness and tried to couple it with the opening of the cenotaph. In this way, as the Cenotaph Road opens, Inyx will be pulled along and deposited on the proper world- the world onto which the cenotaph joins this one. We follow and join her."

  He sighed, thinking of being with Inyx once again. They had been apart for too long.

  " Which world?" the man asked.

  " Which? Well, I can' t say for sure. Is there any way of telling beforehand?"

  " There is. My father often cast scrying spells for days hunting for the exact world he desired most."

  " I can' t do that. It: it wasn' t in his book." Lan again felt his inadequacy as a mage. All through his preparations he' d sensed his control teetering, almost being lost. The energies he moulded were immense and immensely beyond his comprehension. Still, necessity forced him into the role of sorcerer.

  " Are we going to the world Claybore shifted to?" asked Krek.

  " I don' t know. There' s so much about this I just don' t know."

  " Fear naught, friend Lan Martak. You have done well, I am sure. Though I do remember the time when you:" The spider' s voice trailed off in memory of some gaffe on Lan' s part.

  " The spells. Now." Lan Martak closed his eyes and felt the rush of power surround him. As if he stood on a beach and the ocean waves lapped around his ankles, the power mounted. Up to his knees. Control. He fought to prevent a runaway of the energies he commanded. To his waist. A flicker. The gateway almost opened. Senses he didn' t know he possessed rose inside, welling up and providing him with control. He sculpted the almost palpable waves around him. The Cenotaph Road beckoned. The warm, engulfing waves rose higher, ever higher. To his neck. Over his head. A moment of panic. Control. He regained control. Another flicker, followed by an intensely brilliant flash.

  The Cenotaph Road opened.

  The waves receded from around him. Lan didn' t simply let loose. He maintained control as long as possible, nurturing the energy, stroking it as if it were a thing alive, coaxing the most possible from it. The cenotaph had been opened to another world, but an important element still remained unfulfilled.

  Inyx.

  " Come closer. Come to me. Follow the light from the Road," he called into the whiteness.

  " Lan, so near. I' m coming. Wait for me. Wait!"

  " Inyx!"

  He blinked and stared into the yawning crypt carved into the stone altar. A misty form appeared, shimmered, started to vanish. He reached out and manipulated the energies and prevented Inyx' s departure. The form coalesced into a woman. She lay in the crypt, confusion on her face. She turned, tried to sit up. The narrow confines prevented her from doing more than straightening her long legs.

  " Inyx, you' re back. Thank all: Inyx!"

  " Lan!"

  She reached out, touched his hand, then disappeared with a loud snapping noise.

  " What happened? Krek, she was here and I lost her. She' s back in the mist."

  " No, friend Lan Martak. She didn' t go back. I watched carefully. She retained her material body, and, by human standards, a nice one it is, too. I prefer more fur on the legs, naturally. All arachnids enjoy the sight of several well- turned legs, those being our most prominent feature."

  " Krek!"

  " Oh, yes. As I was saying, she formed most nicely, then winked out of sight. I do believe the cenotaph opened and took her. She walked the Road."

  " It opened already? Of course it did. I op
ened it!"

  " And it has already closed. Remember, the cenotaphs do not remain open constantly. Only once daily do they open, then for an appallingly short period. You should look into changing that, the next cenotaph you make."

  " It' s closed?" Lan hardly believed his ears. The first crypt he' d entered had been open to another world for only seconds. This one consecrated to Ehznoll had been open for long minutes- but he' d taken those minutes to summon Inyx, to coax her from the whiteness. By the time she' d reposed in the crypt, the time had expired.

  Inyx travelled ahead of them to a new world. They had to wait for another day to follow.

  " We' re still not together!" he complained.

  " There is only time between the two of you now," said Morto. " Wait a day, then follow. She saw you and must know that you follow. She will wait at the other side."

  " Wait," said Lan glumly. " So we wait."

  Inyx drifted, any real substance just beyond her fingertips. Every time she gripped down, she felt only: mist. The all- pervasive whiteness wrapped her like damp, fleecy cotton wool. She fought against it, thrashing, cursing, struggling. Only the slight wetness of fog greeted her.

  " Inyx!" came the distant cry. She turned, trying to recognize the voice, trying to decide from what direction it came.

  " Lan!" she screamed. " I' m over here! Help me! I don' t know where I am!"

  The voice calling her name grew fainter. She panicked.

  Ever since Claybore had trapped them between worlds, she had been wandering alone. Other wraiths in the white mistiness passed close by, but she had avoided them. They weren' t- quite- human. This limbo had been reserved for the damned souls unable to find rest. Lan' s voice gave her the first hope she' d had since entering this nothingness.

  " Inyx: stay where: you are. I: come."

  She saw a brief flash of brown hair, the color a riot of sensation after the continual diet of white. Lan Martak turned and faced her. Her hands reached out, brushed over- through- his. Inyx cried in frustration when the man faded away.

  But hope had been reborn in her breast. Lan still sought her. He hadn' t abandoned her. That thought made the waiting easier. A little bit, at least.