His spells, Inyx’s drive, Krek’s ferocity. He bound them all together and hid them inside his light mote familiar, waiting for the proper instant. As Claybore built his assault, the moment came.

Patriccan paused for the briefest of times; Lan struck there.

The journeyman mage let forth a bloodcurdling shriek as Lan formed a fire elemental in the man’s stomach. The instant Lan released the elemental, Patriccan died. The other mages assembled in the room also perished, alleviating some of the pressure Lan felt. He quickly sought and destroyed those sorcerers not in Claybore’s headquarters.

“The troops still approach,” Lan heard Ducasien calling. The young mage had no time for mere soldiers. Claybore presented the gravest danger.

“What?” came the startled cry as Claybore realized Lan not only fought back again but had eliminated all the other mages. “You… you can’t do that. No one can!”

Lan lashed out at Claybore, striving to dismember him as Terrill had done so many years earlier. One arm fell off, but the mage’s power remained unscathed. Recovering, Claybore visited upon Lan nightmares come to life. Lan faced his own weaknesses, his fears, his regrets. Inyx’s support helped but it was Krek’s single-minded ferocity that carried Lan past the obscene thoughts from his own mind.

“You cannot stop me,” shouted Claybore. “You are not powerful enough alone, and you can never free the Resident of the Pit. I will see to that!”

“Resist him,” came the soft voice of the Resident. “You must!”

“The Resident has used you, Martak. You were only a pawn from the beginning. He thought you could give freedom. Nothing you’ve done has been because you wanted it. The Resident drove you.”

Lan looked at Inyx, her dark hair fluttering in the hot wind blowing from the plains. Her brilliant blue eyes shone. Behind her towered Krek. Chocolate-colored eyes betrayed none of the unswerving ferocity lodged in that arachnid nature.

“You are wrong, Claybore. The Resident of the Pit might have thought I was a pawn, but I have become more.” And with Inyx and Krek, he was more.

Much more.

Claybore’s peculiarly assembled body appeared in front of the advancing soldiers. On misshapen legs the sorcerer came forth, body limned with a ruby aura. The white skull had cracked and one-quarter of the top was missing. Claybore carried the one arm with the other and the necrotic section around the Kinetic Sphere visibly decayed.

Lan trembled at the realization that this was his enemy.

“Both you and the Resident were wrong, Claybore. I don’t need his help to defeat you. All the aid I need is with me, outside the spells forming the Pillar of Night.”

Lan waved his arm out in a fanning motion. The thousands of grey-clad soldiers perished, not even knowing death visited them.

Inyx and Krek crowded closer. Lan countered another of Claybore’s spells and returned it a thousandfold. Inyx’s arm around him almost cut off his wind and Krek’s clacking mandibles threatened to sever head from torso, but Lan needed their support, their strength, their love.

Claybore gave out a wordless scream as Lan’s light mote familiar split into tiny shards and sliced through shoulders, hips, chest, neck. Claybore’s parts crashed to the forest floor and twitched; trying to reassemble. Lan muttered spells of immense power, power that caused the ground to quake and the sky to froth over with lightning-wracked clouds.

“You cut him apart, just as Terrill did.” The awe in Inyx’s voice brought Lan around.

“I can do more than Terrill,” said Lan. “I can destroy him totally. Not even a fragment of flesh will remain if I utter one spell.” He touched the tip of the iron tongue within his mouth. This, too, would be rent apart, but it was a small price to pay for Claybore’s destruction.

“Do it,” urged Inyx. “It is all we’ve fought for.”

“No,” Lan said. “I destroyed his legs but I will not destroy the rest of him.”

“But why not?”

Lan smiled savagely. “Thank Krek for that. I have learned too well from him.”

“Doubtful,” muttered the spider, “but who can say what form your current delusion takes?”

“Each of Claybore’s parts retains awareness. Rudimentary, but it is there. He knows all that has happened to him and he feels the pain constantly.”

“For all eternity?” asked Inyx. “That’s awful.”

“That’s the punishment I decree for him. His parts are immortal and shall live minimal existence. Not a moment will go by when Claybore doesn’t realize the full impact of his defeat.”

“What’s to keep him from rejoining himself, like he did this time?” asked Ducasien.

“Terrill wasn’t efficient in the way he scattered the pieces. He allowed Claybore to grow in power as each new piece was attached. Seeing Claybore’s problems gave me the idea. Never again can one piece be attached to another. He will always be as you see him now.”

Lan Martak began the complex array of spells. For over an hour he conjured and chanted. One by one, the pieces of Claybore’s body vanished until only the battered, fractured skull remained.

“Claybore, you understand what I have done?”

“It will take millennia, Martak, but I will have my revenge!”

“It will be untold millennia and you will still be unable to do anything,” promised Lan.

Tiny red sparks sputtered deep in the eye sockets. Nothing else happened. Claybore’s power had been stolen away permanently.

Lan opened up the whiteness between worlds and cast Claybore’s skull into it.

“You defeated him without my aid,” said the Resident of the Pit. “I have created more than I guessed.”

“You created nothing,” snapped Lan. “I ought to leave you under the Pillar of Night. Not once did you tell me what you planned. You used me.”

“And I would have discarded you had the weapon proved unsatisfactory against Claybore,” the Resident finished. “I harbor no shame on that score. You know full well that horror of an eternity without power. Otherwise you would not have doomed Claybore in the fashion you did.

“Free me. Free me and give me death. That was your promise.”

“Lan, are you going to?” asked Inyx. “If the Resident has been so treacherous up till now, how can you trust him after you free him?”

Lan laughed. The Resident said, “Even though you are in rapport with him, you do not understand, do you? Lan Martak transcended all I had anticipated. He is a god, immortal and invulnerable. There is nothing I can do, even after being freed, to endanger him.”

“Immortal?” asked Krek. “That means…”

“I will outlive you and Inyx,” said Lan, his voice low. “I understand that. But I will also have the power of life and death.”

“You can grant a former god death. You will free me and then do what Claybore originally intended. You will destroy me. Only you can slay a god.”

The expression on Inyx’s face defied description. She shook her head and backed away from Lan.

“I don’t believe this. You… you can’t be immortal. Not really. And a god? I know you, Lan. You’re not a god. You’re not perfect.”

“Not even a god is perfect,” said Lan. “I am proof of that. My weaknesses remain under the veneer of power.”

“But it is awesome power,” said the Resident of the Pit. “Free me and give me surcease from my centuries of impotence.”

“I promise you that, Resident.”

Lan found the spells hidden in the dim recesses of his mind. Whether left by Terrill or Claybore or some other mage, he had no idea. They might even have been his own creation. Lan set the Pillar of Night spinning, faster and faster. The spikes atop it began to elongate.

He heard someone gasp when lightning bolts arced from each spike and split apart the heavens. Clouds formed above and pelted down rain in a torrential fury. Lan built the power required to a higher level, then to another and another. The ground shook beneath his feet and began to disintegrate.