Lan Martak might have had a worse hangover at some time in the past. The pain intensified to the point, however, where any mental feat, such as remembering when this might have been, drowned out the purpose. He groaned and found that even this hurt. Everything hurt. Terribly. He rolled onto his back and stared into the patches of blue sky. For long minutes, he wondered if his eyes were focusing properly. The billowing clouds formed mind- confusing patterns in their mad haste to coalesce into a raging storm.
The first heavy droplets spattered coldly into his face. He groaned again, this time feeling better for the movement. Lan managed to sit up and waited for the whirling world to calm. When he had regained some semblance of control, he saw he was naked. Whoever had robbed him had been extraordinarily thorough in not leaving him even one thread. Gone were his jewels and fine sword and cape and even his newly liberated slaves.
" Velika!" he cried out, immediately regretting it. Pain shot through his ribs and around the purple and green bruise blossoming there in the general shape of a boot sole. " All the gods take them!" he raged impotently, knowing the grey- clad soldiers had again entered his life. He banged his fist against the ground, as much railing against his own stupidity as anything else.
After a time, his anger at the soldiers changed into something colder, something more controlled. He felt himself returning to his old self, the man who knew intimately the ways of the forest, who prided himself on the things he did well and never pretended to be something he wasn' t. Lan sat down in the mud and ruefully shook his head. He knew quite well now what a complete fool he' d been. The money had given him a false sense of security; the only real security lay in what he was, not what he fantasized being. His dreams of riches had come true, and they had almost ruined him.
If he wanted to fight the greys, he' d have to do it with the weapons he was most accustomed to using. And most of all, he' d have to rely on his wits, something he' d failed to do since delivering Krek to his web and mate.
The rain became bolder as the clouds formed into the proper configurations. The lead- heavy drops pelted him unmercifully now, stinging coldly, savagely, against his bare hide. He made a vain attempt to reconstruct the site of his defeat, but the rain rapidly turned it into muddy soup. Lan hardly needed the evidence of the ground to relive the events. Inyx had warned him, and he had ignored her sage advice. While he had stared at the pretty hot- air balloon, those soldiers inside had signalled to others on the ground. He had felt so confused after kissing Velika that he had failed to hear others sneak up on him. The rest was obvious.
Lan sheepishly smiled to himself. It could have been worse. Only some quirk of fate had allowed him to survive the attack. The lesson had been a hard one, but one that was burned indelibly into his brain. The liquor and women and sudden wealth had changed him, and not for the better.
Turning his bare feet toward the beckoning green overhang of the trees, he slipped and stumbled in the glass- slick mud. Soon covered with brown slime, he succeeded in reaching the shelter promised by the forest. For a few minutes, he stood naked to wash off the mud. He soon found himself singing loudly and off- key. He lived. What more did he need? He walked the Road like Inyx and, like her, he took care of himself. After a fashion.
Sitting under the protection of the thickly woven leaves, he started making a simple loincloth. It didn' t provide the warmth needed, but it was a start. As his nimble fingers traced familiar patterns, he heard a piteous whirling noise. He stopped work on his project and concentrated. Not quite human, the keening noise raced up and down the scale, passing the upper limits of his hearing, only to return again, almost a child' s cry.
Curious, Lan investigated. This time history aided him. A dark lump appearing to be a rock with ropy tendrils extending to either side pulsated near a tree bole.
" Krek?" he called. " Is that you? Really you?"
" Oh, silly human, who else in all the world is as miserable as I? This rain! My fur is wet, and I wish to die. Never has one so noble born been subjected to such base treatment."
Lan went and hunkered down beside Krek. The giant spider was completely drenched, sitting under a natural rainspout formed by leaves. The man dragged the arachnid a few yards deeper into the forest, where the boughs formed a more perfect rain shelter.
" Now, you sodden spider, what are you doing here? I thought you' d be swinging high up in your web, mating with Klawn."
" Oh, you saw the mating!" cried the spider, showing signs of excitement for the first time. " Was it not the most glorious mating of two noble spiders you have ever witnessed? Such bliss! We lived for that wonderous ecstasy."
Lan moved closer. The spider might have been damp, but he also radiated warmth necessary to keep Lan from shivering. The coarse fur on the legs had softened in the rain and now caressed his naked flesh like a velvet comforter. He burrowed deeper and was rewarded by Krek' s shifting position. He found a berth between two of the large legs and settled down to listen.
" I don' t understand. I didn' t stay for the nuptials. All I saw was the web swinging back and forth when you greeted Klawn."
" Ah," signed Krek in remembrance, " the sweet epithalamion of our bliss! Such poignancy, such dexterity of spinning!"
" You mean you' ve already mated? You did it while I was there, watching?"
" Certainly," Krek said snappishly. " You silly humans prolong the moment of bliss to ridiculous lengths. We spiders concentrate our joy into one intense movement. I shall remember it forever," he sighed, sounding more like a maiden in love than ever before.
" If you' re so damned happy, what are you doing out here in the forest getting soaked through and through?"
Krek rose up and peered at Lan. The limpid eyes were as expressionless as ever.
" I simply will never understand you humans and your peculiar ways. Klawn must try to devour me as the ultimate act of our coupling." He didn' t have to add, " You stupid human." It carried in his tone.
" So you decided to explore again?"
" Of course. The Cenotaph Road provides a modicum of excitement for me. If I must leave my lovely bride, at least I can experience all the many worlds have to offer, in way of small recompense."
" Seems fair," muttered Lan. He again began weaving together more strands for a covering, then stopped. The universe' s finest silk was at his beck and call. All he had to do was ask. So he did.
" A cape?" murmured Krek. " I assume you mean one of those square things you toss around your frail bodies. Hmmm, yes, quite easily done, for one of my skill." In less than an hour, Lan securely wrapped a strong, warm silk cape around his chilled body.
Lan contemplated starting a fire with one of his simple spells, but he decided against it because of Krek' s aversion to flame.
Instead, Lan asked, " Have you been near the city recently?"
" I skirted it. My kind has little intercourse with those from that village. They most unkindly scream and flee from us as if we were some sort of monsters. On occasion, they have been known to use fire." The giant spider' s body shuddered until Lan thought it would fall apart under the vibration. Krek finally controlled himself and continued, " I have seen the patrols of the grey- clad soldiers, however, and decided that it was pointless to antagonize them further."
" Did you happen to see a small patrol with a woman prisoner?" Lan rapidly described Velika, hoping that the spider' s oddly different sensory apparatus had picked up a clue as to her whereabouts.
Lan felt his pulse rate increasing as he described the woman. His forehead dotted with sweat and an uncomfortable feeling mounted in his loins. He turned to keep the spider from seeing his arousal. Worse than the embarrassment was the confusion that accompanied the physical response. Just thinking about Velika excited him, yet he had seen her only briefly. She was lovely, yes, definitely! But a single kiss shouldn' t create such mental turmoil.
He remembered vividly the tears rolling down her face, and the acid burn as he touched them. The kiss. The tears on his lips. The surge of stark animal desire throughout his body. The confusion. He shook away the rest of the memory. Reliving his stupidity over and over accomplished nothing.
" I saw a mounted guard with two females. One as you describe and the other with black fur on her cranium. She fought well, but the chains binding her wrists prevented much damage. A shame she did not possess proper snippers." Krek grated his mandibles together in an awful sound that made Lan cringe. " That would have been a fight truly worth witnessing."
" Where were they taking her- them?"
Krek shivered in way of a shrug. " It is difficult to say since I have the feeling that the soldiers are not native to my world."
" Then they' re from still another world," mused Lan.
" I mean what I mean," snapped Krek. " They do not belong on this web world. All these grey ones come from some other world lying along the Road."
Lan thought this over, slowly nodding. It explained the encounters on the boggy world. The grey- clad soldiers expanded across world after world in an attempt to establish a real empire. He sighed. This was conquest on a cosmic scale. On his own world, many had established vast empires ranging over entire continents. N- Yalch of the Timbers had welded together a confederation spanning four continents less than a generation before, only to fall victim to an assassin' s poison. None had risen to take his place; few of his commanding, charismatic power appeared in any given century.
But the idea of conquering entire worlds, treading along the Cenotaph Road, took Lan by storm. The audacity of it! No simple barbarian warlord could attempt such a feat. The logistics, the movement of men and supplies alone, boggled the mind. Lan considered other aspects, then realized why Surepta had been recruited. Scouting ahead onto new worlds slated for conquest required knowledge. Locals enticed to accept high commissions as Surepta had done would prove invaluable when the main body of troops moved in to conquer.
Lan raged again against the turncoat and his back- stabbing ways. Yet he recognized a still greater danger. The old sheriff had considered the grey- clads a local phenomenon, nothing more. He and all the deputies in the world couldn' t resist the onslaught of a well- trained, disciplined army marching along the Cenotaph Road. With whole worlds to supply and support, no individual world could stand for long.
Yet the very act of invasion posed a major problem.
" Who can move so many men through one tiny cenotaph?" he asked Krek. " It seems a life' s work trying to get enough soldiers into just one world, much less several. Remember the numbers of soldiers we found? They seemed endless."
" I remember, oh, how this woe- filled one remembers!" Krek returned to pitying himself. " My fur has never been matted from more foul mud and water. And they humiliated me mercilessly. Me, Webmaster of the Egrii Mountains. Never again will I bear up under such scorn. My bravery then amazes me."
" You can be brave like that again, Krek. Now tell me, how is this being done, this invasion? Surely, a single man armed with a crossbow would be able to kill the soldiers one by one as they emerged from the cenotaph." And, he mentally added, the crossbowman wouldn' t even have to stand a long duty watch- merely a short span around midnight when the cenotaph activated.
" The obvious solution is that Waldron Ravensroost has discovered a way of generating his own Road." Krek sounded disgusted with Lan for missing such an obvious idea.
" Waldron?"
" Of course, Waldron. The grey king. The man they all call Saviour. But what matters all this to a dried- up husk of his former self? I am useless. My mate seeks to devour me, and I flee. So craven of me! How can I bear the shame when my hatchlings discover I have not been properly cocooned to feed them? Poor Klawn must capture millions of tiny insects for them instead of giving them my plump, cocooned body. I am a failed spider, failed utterly and beyond redemption."
Lan allowed Krek to pity himself without human intervention. He had much to consider. This Waldron would be the logical one to order the release of Velika and Inyx. All he had to do was find the base of operations and talk with him. Even ruthless conquerors listened with a knife at their throats.
To regain Velika, Lan Martak was willing to barter with forty demons from the Lower Places.
" The rain' s over, Krek. Let' s get out of here." Lan pulled the silken cape tightly around his flanks. Although the rain had stopped sometime earlier, a razor- sharp wind from the north had been seeking out his naked flesh for hours. Exercise would help keep him warm, and what better way than walking toward his goal of freeing Velika from the grey- clad soldiers?
" You go, Lan Martak. I wish nothing more than to die here. Oh, why did they not leave you with a sword?"
" I wish they had, too, but for different reasons," said Lan grimly.
" You could have dispatched me and put me out of my horrid existence."
Lan decided the spider meant what he said about not budging from this spot. He wondered if threats would work. Deciding against such overt violence, he tried a different tack.
" Krek? Why don' t you help me get some clothing and a weapon? That' d help us both, according to your logic."
The spider raised his head, brown eyes softly unfocused. " How could such a bungler as I aid the likes of you?"
" You' re always pointing out how clumsy we humans are. Show me how good a spider really is."
" Hmmmm, yes, you are right this time. You are clumsier than the most spastic of spiders. My newest hatchlings show more coordination in their movements along the web. Even old Klork, the seven- legged spider living over in the Estaman Gorge, is better able to get around than you, it seems. Very well, I will help you in exchange for your aid later in dispatching me from this sorrow- filled world."
Lan marched off beside the spider, figuring on arguing later with Krek- after he was decently clothed and had a sword and dagger weighing heavily in each hand. The way Krek' s moods oscillated, the spider might talk himself out of suicide soon. The cheerful countryside, dotted with delicate flowers and flowing green ground vines, certainly perked up Lan' s flagging spirits. The rain cleansed the air and left it sweet and heady. The porous ground sucked up the fallen water and left only dust, so that their path wasn' t through the mud of the bog world. Most of all, Lan enjoyed being able to survey the sprawling country dotted with stands of forest and know that none pursued him.
Rather, he had become the hunter. The grey- clads had left him for dead; they wasted no time hunting corpses. He was free to work as he saw fit until the proper moment for attack. And that moment had to include freeing Velika. Unbidden, Lan' s hand went to his lips and ran along them, remembering the feel of the woman' s soft kiss, the tears burning his flesh. His breathing came harder, and his hand trembled slightly in anticipation. As he ran over various scenarios in his head, his spirits rose to dizzying heights.
Krek sensed this.
" I fail to understand the workings of that thing you humans call a brain. How one such as yourself can be beaten senseless, robbed of valued treasure- from my web trove, yet- and your paramour whisked away, then laugh and sing afterward, is a total mystery."
" You think you have problems understanding us?" Lan laughed out loud. " If I live to be a hundred, I' ll never understand you."
" I am a hundred, and then some," mused Krek. " You are right. If you did live as long as I have, you would not appreciate us spiders." This satisfied something in the arachnid' s twisted mentality, for he began loping along with the spring in his gait that Lan remembered so well from the time they had entered the Egrii Mountains.
Krek suddenly stopped and dug his claws deep into the soft earth until he found bedrock. He " listened" for a moment, then announced, " Soldiers come this way."
" How many?"
" Enough" was all Krek said. He sank to the ground alongside the road, appearing to be nothing more than a small dark hillock. Lan found a tiny culvert and draped the silk cape over his shoulders, then camouflaged himself with a few strategically placed branches and leaves. They waited less than five minutes before a pair of horsemen galloping hard came into view.
One sported the grey of a soldier under the banner of Waldron, while the other dressed in gaudy, flowing layers of silk, the garb of a member of the merchant class. Lan didn' t care about the quality of the man' s clothing, as his interest lay in arming himself. Both men sported swords and daggers. And protruding from one' s swordbelt was the butt of a wheel lock pistol identical to those carried on Lan' s home world. He watched the men carefully, frowning. The one carrying the pistol wasn' t of Lan' s world. Lan waved his hand to signal Krek that he planned to attack as the pair galloped by.
Lan had no chance to mount his attack. Krek' s bulk blasted from concealment and bowled over the soldier' s horse. The frightened animal struggled to its feet and raced off, minus its rider. The merchant' s horse reared and vainly pawed the air to fend off the giant spider. Krek pounced, and two savage slashes of his mandibles left the horse bleeding on the ground, more dead than alive.
Lan hastened to the fallen soldier and discovered Krek had already done his work for him. A broken neck ensured that this man would never again lift a sword. Lan dragged out the knife sheathed at the soldier' s belt and turned to face the merchant. It became readily apparent the man had no desire to fight.
On his knees, he begged, " Master, call off your demon! I am sinless! Don' t steal my worthless, pitiable soul! I am too good for such a vile fate. I-"
" Silence!" roared Lan. The man blanched, then fell, touching his forehead repeatedly to the ground at Lan' s unshod feet. He wanted to laugh but decided avenging angels didn' t make sport of their victims in that manner.
" Strip. I want your clothes."
" Please, master! They forced me into the service of King Waldron. I was only a poor merchant on the bleak world, struggling for a living. King Waldron came and seduced me away with tales of riches, tales of people eating regularly. I was weak. He convinced me I should do his bidding and come to this world. Believe me that I didn' t want all those gold coins they demanded I take for-"
" Silence, I said," he snapped again. " And get those clothes off. I might decide that is recompense enough for your sins." Lan didn' t have to hear all the merchant' s garbled confession to know the man was greedy and had probably done worse in his day than steal clothing needed to cover nakedness. If anything, this man probably had sold the clothes and jewels already taken from Lan by the grey- clads. He had the air of the illicit about him.
Somehow, Krek' s looming bulk added speed to the merchant' s fingers as he disrobed.
" How do I look, Krek?" asked Lan, pirouetting to display the gaudy, flowing clothing stolen from the merchant. The thin material billowed out from his lean body and lent an air of massiveness to him that wasn' t his. In spite of the fine clothing, he kept the silk cape spun for him by Krek. Never had he found a garment so light and warm. The heavy sword swinging at his side comforted him, too. The body of the fallen soldier was neatly covered in the culvert after he had stripped it of the weapons he wanted. The wheel lock pistol felt hard and firm and substantial in his fist- and it gave a poignant reminder of his lost home. The sheathed knife completed his armament. While he could hardly fight off an entire army, he felt plucky enough to handle anything up to a company.
The spider crouched down and came close to looking him in the eye. His only comment was " The coarse weave of the fabric offends my craftsman' s sensibilities."
Lan laughed. That was the best he could expect from the spider. If Krek hadn' t commented in a sarcastic fashion, it would have bordered on a miracle.
" Very well, Krek, your opinion' s duly noted. Now let' s set off and find some that will be less objectionable to you- and less gaudy for me."
Krek let out a screech that made Lan jump. He had anticipated some bit of sarcasm, but not outright fear. He spun to face another arachnid fully half his height taller than Krek. Lan didn' t have to be told that this was " the lovely Klawn." He read it in Krek' s horrified response. Instinct guided him.
His blade flashed wickedly in the sunlight as he drew and slashed at the female spider' s legs.
Agilely, she leaped and avoided his sword. She simply ignored him in her single- minded drive to get to Krek, now cowering beside the road and blubbering incoherently. Lan wished the spider would at least attempt to defend himself, but knew this might be impossible under the circumstances. He didn' t blame his spider friend for not wishing to attack his mate; such behavior was frowned upon in most human cultures, Lan had found, and the consequences in the spider' s culture appeared even more dire.
" Klawn, you are too good for me," whimpered Krek. He might have been a beaten child, so high and thin and tremulous sounded his voice. Lan didn' t hesitate in reinitiating his attack. The sword resheathed, he dived forward and tackled the back two legs, giving impetus to Klawn' s attack. The spider overcompensated and tumbled down in a furry pile of legs and snapping mandibles.
Lan writhed around to avoid the ominous crashing of those serrated death scythes above his head. He knew better than to release his hold on the hind legs. Allowing Klawn mobility meant death. He pulled upward on the legs held tightly in the circle of his brawny arms as he rolled to one side and snared still another leg. With three of the giant spider' s legs under his control, he found it relatively easy to capture a fourth. Klawn kicked and fought but failed to reach and devour Krek, as her mating ritual demanded.
" Get me some rope, dammit!" flared Lan, struggling to maintain his grip. " I' m going to tie her up!"
" Oh, Klawn, my precious darling, please believe I was not in my right mind. I do not know what possessed me to rush from your fond embrace. I-"
" Krek! Get me a rope!"
This shook Krek from his fright long enough to see what his human friend attempted. With ponderous movement, he plucked a lariat from the pile of discarded possessions taken from the merchant and his soldier guard. As if the rope might burn him, Krek gingerly tossed it to Lan. The human continued cursing under his breath, inventing new tortures and destinations as well as finding increasingly improbable conjugal possibilities, while he looped the rope around Klawn' s four back legs. Then he went to work grabbing and securing the front legs. It took him the better part of fifteen minutes, but he finally hogtied Krek' s bride in such a way that she couldn' t easily get those razoredged mandibles back to snip through the rope- or him.
" Let' s race the wind, Krek, before she gets loose."
" Yes, let us make haste," the spider agreed. " And thank you, Lan Martak, for not injuring her." He vented a gusty sigh as he added, " Is she not the most lovely creature in all the world? Such fine legs, such lovely fur adorning them."
" She' s certainly got enough legs," Lan said, remembering the chitinous claws tipping each one.
" That she has," said Krek with a sigh, longingly peering backward at the still- struggling Klawn.
Lan spurred the stolen horse to a full gallop and let Krek try to match the pace as well he could. He had little time for the lovesick spider or the oversized Klawn. All that mattered to him centered on recapturing Velika- and proving to her that he wasn' t the wastrel and fool she had seen in the village and after.
His hand brushed over his lips. The sting of her tears remained.
" I don' t believe it," he said, awestruck. The huge castle battlements reared up two hundred yards before ripping the sky apart with crenelations of obsidian. He dug his heels into his horse' s flanks until he braced himself enough to reach out and touch the wall. Slagged glass slid under his fingers. Using the point of his dagger, he thrust directly against the translucent material. Blue sparks danced away, leaving the stone with only a tiny cicatrice.
" A house adequate for a king," observed Krek, crouching down while Lan continued his explorations at the base of the wall.
" Adequate isn' t the word. This place could withstand a generation- long attack and still remain unscathed. But there has to be a way in. No matter how well contrived a structure, there is always some unforeseen way in."
" Human philosophy?" asked Krek. " I can conceive of structures with but one means of ingress. Why, in the Egrii Mountains, I once spun this fabulously intricate web- trap capable of holding a snow bear. It held so well I failed repeatedly to get the carcass out. The bear finally rotted away in the silken prison."
" How interesting," Lan said dryly. " What' s that have to do with getting inside the castle and rescuing Velika?"
" Nothing," answered the spider.
Irritated, Lan guided the horse around the tower of glass until he found an observation point where he could spy on the people coming and going from the castle. The huge drawbridge lowered to cross a chasm fully fifteen yards wide. The cunning series of switchbacks immediately after crossing the bridge cancelled any plan he might have of charging the gate while it was down and storming the castle before the grey- clad soldiers responded. By the time he' d clear the second inner wall, even their dead could have been summoned to pick him off with their firearms, all of which looked as if they' d been imported from his home world. And none of the soldiers appeared lackluster in performing his duty. They paced their posts with an intentness that made Lan wonder at the punishment for falling asleep on patrol. But there had to be some way of sneaking in, if only he could find it. No amount of wishful thinking discounted the brilliantly colored hot- air balloon tethered just outside the drawbridge, either. An army could be seen, as well as a lone individual, from its dangling basket. Lan cursed the military mind that had invented the aerial spy.
Krek lumbered up beside him and studied the terrain. Finally the giant spider declared, " You might steal the balloon and float into the castle."
Lan' s hope surged anew. Single- handedly attack the balloon and kick open its burners to lift over the walls of the castle? This appeared the only path open to him, dangerous as it was. All other surreptitious or overt routes had been guarded against with the thoughtful cunning of a paranoid mind.
" Do you really think I can sneak under the balloon, crawl up the anchor line, kill the guards, and then float upward and over the wall?" he asked.
" No," was all the answer he got.
He turned bitter.
" Then why did you even mention it?"
" I simply wanted to present yet another method of gaining entry."
" Another method?" Lan cursed the spider' s nonlinear, nonlogical mind.
" Yes. I can spin a silk strand long enough and strong enough to easily scale the walls."
Lan put his head in his cupped hands. He didn' t know whether to cry from relief or frustration.