The tall woman slumped. Lan caught her and eased her to the stone battlements. The knowledge of the spell being placed flitted lightly across the surface of her being. Lan grabbed it forcefully and pulled. What he saw magically as a tiny thread ran down into the woman’s very soul. He followed, probing carefully, placing ward spells at every stage to prevent Claybore from taking him by surprise.

The magical surgery resulted in excising a tiny, glowing knot from deep within Brinke’s being. Lan plucked it forth and crushed it as he would a tick.

Lan released the shell around them. The entire countering had taken less than a minute.

“He visited me often!” gasped Brinke. “I remember now. He got information from me, then ordered me to forget. And I did. I was a traitor. I betrayed those best able to oppose Claybore and never knew it until this moment. And my sister. I betrayed her to him!” Brinke turned and stared into the sun. One slender foot went up to the crenelation. She hoisted herself up and looked out into the distance.

Lan didn’t understand what she did until it was almost too late to act. He surged forward and grabbed a double handful of the thick robe just as Brinke jumped. The heavy fabric ripped but held well enough for him to pull her back to the battlements.

“Why did you do that?” He probed her for some lingering effect of the spell. Claybore was wily enough to plant a second compulsion spell to make her kill herself if found out.

“I betrayed my friends and family. I would have betrayed you, but I knew nothing of your trip.”

“You didn’t do this,” Lan said quickly, trying to convince the woman. “Claybore is a mage of vast power. Your magics cannot stand against his. Don’t surrender to him by killing yourself. Fight him! If you truly hate what he’s made you do, fight him with all your strength. Don’t give in to him.”

Brinke swallowed hard and pulled free. Lan watched for a telltale sign that she might try suicide gain. The blonde leaned forward on the rough-hewn stone and bowed her head.

“You are right. But I feel so… used!”

“He is expert at manipulating people, with or without spells,” said Lan. “Look how he uses me as a pawn. Kiska provides control over me, both day and night. Leaving her is a major act of courage on my part.”

“But you do it.”

“I must, but each time is more difficult. Claybore is evil and brings stark horror wherever he goes.” Lan thought of the forest again with its mutilated, insane inhabitants. Terrill, of all those poor wights, caused Lan to mourn the most. Terrill’s fate would be his, if he failed.

Lan would not fail.

“The geas,” said Brinke. “Do you think I might be able to help you break it? As you broke mine?”

“You have the power, but it is undisciplined,” said Lan, considering it. “What have I to lose?”

“I might do something wrong and injure you.”

Insanity. Living for all eternity a madman like Terrill. Lan forced the thoughts from his mind. Also pushed aside was the paranoid idea that Claybore engineered all this, that he wanted Brinke to attempt the spells and drive Lan crazy.

“Do it,” he said. He let the light mote spread out and surround them once more to insure a modicum of privacy from Claybore’s prying. Then Lan relaxed the impenetrable barriers within him that he had maintained for so long.

Feathery touches across the surface of his mind told him Brinke sought the geas. He stared off into the sunrise, the light hurting his eyes as he looked directly into the white-hot sun.

He winced, then pulled away, only to relax and allow Brinke another try. And another and still another. Finally the woman shook her head, blonde hair spilling forward and into her eyes. She pushed it back with a gesture showing her frustration.

“Lan, I’m sorry. I cannot do it. The geas is there. I see it magically. But I cannot alter it. The spells Claybore used are too strong.”

“Too subtle,” Lan corrected. “He has insinuated them into my mind and I can do nothing about it. Only my ability prevented him from planting a self-destructive compulsion.”

“I tried, Lan,” repeated Brinke. “I’m so sorry. I’m freed and you aren’t.”

Lan Martak knew she was not the only one who felt sorry.

“Lan! I awoke and you were gone. Is anything wrong?” Kiska k’Adesina strutted onto the battlements, her garments only half fastened. Lan saw large expanses of bare skin gleaming in the morning light and began to respond to the erotic provocations.

The geas definitely had not been lifted from him.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” asked Kiska. Coyness did not sit well with her. She was whipcord thin and lacked the stature to make such work to her benefit. But Lan hardly noticed. His body already responded to her overtures.

Brinke cleared her throat and said, “I’ll be down in my chambers. I’ll expect you at breakfast, Lan.”

“Perhaps noon hour,” cut in Kiska.

Brinke pulled her torn robes around her and walked off, regal and proud. Lan started to go with her, but Kiska’s insistent fingers touched his cheek, his lips, his chest and lower. He gave in to the full power of Claybore’s geas once again. He could do nothing else.

For the moment.

He had only a few minutes to speak with Brinke before Kiska came. He used the time to full advantage.

“Claybore learned nothing of my trip from you?” he asked.

“You told me little,” the blonde responded.

“Good. That was fortuitous.” Brinke blushed in embarrassment. Lan hastily said, “I meant nothing by it, only that we are in a stronger position now than before. Claybore might not know I spoke to Terrill.”

“No, his question to me was about the Pillar of Night, not Terrill. I only answered direct questions and never volunteered information. I was that much in control, at least.”

“Terrill told me that the Pillar was Claybore’s finest spell, the one that almost allowed him total domination ten thousand years ago, but hinted that it failed in some respect. Do you know anything about it?”

“Little. Only recently have I found the proper scrying spells to even look at it,” said Brinke. “But rumors, half truths, perhaps outright lies. Those I have heard. I know that Claybore wiped even the name from my memory, but he hardly needed to do so. Even before this geas, I knew nothing important.”

Lan nodded for her to continue. Any conjecture, no matter how farfetched, might aid him now. He believed the demented mage when Terrill told him of failure. The titanic battle of magics so many thousands of years ago had not resulted in a clear-cut victor. Terrill still wandered about playing with his artificial friends and Claybore’s bodily parts were only now being regained. Beyond this, Lan wondered if still another player in the drama wasn’t of greater importance than he-seemed.

“What of the Resident of the Pit?” he asked Brinke.

“The Resident of the Pit?” she asked, startled. “I was about to mention this. One tale has it that Claybore imprisoned the Resident inside the Pillar of Night.”

“He caged a god?”

Brinke shrugged shapely shoulders. “I cannot conceive of such a thing, but you must be able to.”

“Me?” laughed Lan. “Why me?”

The woman’s face turned serious. “You are as much a god as Claybore.”

“No!”

“You are,” she insisted. “The powerful aura surrounding you also emanates from Claybore. But it is different in substance. You are less avaricious.”

“That’s all?” Lan didn’t care for the comparison.

“Yes.”

Had he become so like his enemy? Lan leaned back in his chair and munched at a juicy persimmon. He spat out the seeds and magically caught them in midair. So easy, he mused. The spells he had once commanded were minor healing spells and the ability to light a campfire by a spark from his fingertips, spells useful to a hunter. Now he summoned elementals, sent whirlwinds and fireballs against his enemies with the ease he used to draw a bow and loose an arrow. A pass of his hand and the proper chant might destroy not only this castle and everyone in it but the entire world.