“What have you conjured?” Kiska said, backing away from the lip of the well.

“I should have tossed you into the pit,” Lan said.

Inchoate space pulsed with life now and a somber voice said, “Welcome, Lan Martak. You have arrived, as I knew you would.”

“Where is Claybore?” asked Lan.

“On this world,” came the Resident of the Pit’s sly answer.

“How do I fight him?”

“With all your skills.”

Lan pondered. The Resident always answered questions honestly, but obliquely.

“How has Claybore imprisoned you?” Lan asked.

“There is no answer for this, Lan Martak,” came the baleful answer. “If I knew the exact spells, I might free myself of them.”

“You are, after all, a god,” said Lan.

“A deposed one,” said the Resident of the Pit, “and one willing to die. Eternity is too long for me. I have been trapped within this pit for thousands of years.”

“The pit?” asked Kiska. “It opens onto other worlds? I saw one such as this back in Yerrary.”

“I,” said the Resident, “am everywhere and nowhere. On every world there are wells similar to this one, but none worships me now. Claybore has thwarted me.”

Kiska laughed. “I know you now. Terrill was your pawn, wasn’t he? He tried to free you from the Pillar of Night and failed.”

“True,” said the Resident.

Lan frowned. He walked in circles around the mouth of the pit, occasionally looking into the writhing mass of insubstantial blackness trapped within.

“Am I also your pawn?” asked Lan.

“I aid you in whatever manner I can,” said the Resident. “I will tell you this, and nothing more because of the spells binding me: the Pillar of Night is both Claybore’s strength and his weakness.”