" Krek! But how?"
" I cast my snaring web. I have not lost a bit of my skill," the giant spider said smugly. " Again I prove my worthiness to be Webmaster."
" Why didn' t you get me out of there sooner? That madman damned near split my head with that demon sword of his."
" I thought you intended scaling the cliff on my climbing strand. After all, I could. When I realized you were incapable of a simple feat that any feebleminded hatchling could perform, I aided you with a bit of stick- web."
Lan wanted to argue and rail against the spider' s logic. He found himself too weak. His insides tumbled, and his morning meal threatened to choke him. Soon, his nerves calmed enough, he asked, " How far is it to the cenotaph off this thrice- damned world?"
" Another day' s travel. And I shall be reunited with my mate!" chortled Krek. " Ah, how we shall rejoice. Such a web she will spin for me, her betrothed."
Lan shut out the rest of the spider' s fulsome praise for his mate. He simply rejoiced in his own continued life.
CHAPTER SIX
" How much longer, Krek? My legs are killing me." Lan valiantly worked his way up the steep incline amid sharp rocks that contrived to slip under his boots. His hands were scraped raw, and his knees carried the marks of too many painful encounters with the mountainside. The only cheery prospect lay in the fact that the soldiers pursuing them wouldn' t have been able to scale the walls of the canyon, now almost two days in the past. Lan doubted if their commander' s anger could whip them to do the impossible.
" Not far. I twitch with the nearness of the Road. The cemetery rests atop this mound of dirt."
Lan cast a furtive glance over his shoulder. If he did take a tumble, he would be airborne for long minutes before striking the ground far below. Luckily, the clouds covering this world hid the worst of a fall from his eyes.
" Let' s hurry. I' m tiring again, and my leg hurts."
" You always complain of your leg. Humans are so weak," the spider observed as he agilely leaped from boulder to boulder. " Spiders are obviously superior creatures. We have a sufficient number of legs to support us."
Lan had learned not to argue with Krek over trivialities. The spider' s world view differed so much from his at times that he wondered at the fate casting them together. The man had to work harder to keep up with the spider as the pair climbed higher up on the lone mountain. Whatever the spider' s philosophies, he proved extraordinarily adept at scaling rock. Lan' s brief excursions into the el- Liot Mountains on his home world had been minor jaunts compared with the climbing he' d done this past day. Yet, as he' d grown more and more weary, Krek' s strength had burgeoned. Gone was all trace of the pliant, woeful beast he' d met in the midst of the boggy lands. Krek had found his element in the craggy reaches of rock. Lan envied him his climbing ability; with every aching, sore muscle he envied him.
Finally, the mountain leveled and a mesa sprawled with small rock spires shooting up across it. Lan stood for a moment, panting. An ineffable feeling took control of him, and he knew this to be the cemetery they sought. Under each stony monument rested a corpse. Under all, save one, the one they needed to escape this festering, slimy world.
" Come, friend Lan Martak, we must hurry. The time is at hand for the Road to open to us."
" So soon? On my world, it is only at midnight."
Krek made an odd up and down motion, his eight legs never leaving the rock.
" It is the same here. Midnight approaches, you silly human. Why do you think I am so nervous?"
Lan blinked. He hadn' t realized the spider was in the least nervous. His actions hadn' t seemed out of line with those the man had come to expect. Still, the spider' s innate sense of time on this oddly clocked world had proven accurate in the past. There existed little to dispute it now.
" Which tomb is it we want?"
" That one," said Krek, one leg quivering in the direction of a solitary grave marker. " The cenotaph of:" and only a clacking noise mixed with a sound similar to frying bacon came from his mouth. Lan knew better than to ask the spider to repeat the name. It didn' t matter; all that counted was their hasty departure from this world and their arrival on Krek' s web world.
" Oh, Lan Martak, with the goal so near, I find myself quivering and weak once again. I fail to lift such a puny stone." The spider' s claws scooped out stony ground on either side of a huge slab of limestone, but no matter how the creature struggled, the slab refused to yield up the cenotaph below. Lan immediately added his strength to that of his companion and went tumbling into a heap as the stone sheet grated to one side.
" So weak am I. Who can blame me? The promise of adorable Klawnrik' wiktorn- kyt makes me woozy." Krek sat down in a hairy pile and simply shook. Again Lan felt an electric tension in the air, similar to that he' d felt in the tomb of Lee- Y- ett back on his home world. Powerful magics danced in the air around him. The time for transport to another world neared, too near to argue with Krek over trivial matters. Lan kicked the spider into the yawning pit and, as a thunderclap sounded, dived after him.
Lan landed atop Krek, but gone was the surrounding rocky mountaintop. Replacing it stretched a storm- wracked landscape more to Lan' s liking. The cemetery stood out in bold relief every time a jagged blast of naked lightning slashed the night. But nowhere could be seen greyness. Colors ran wild in the inky darkness: lush green trees with brown trunks, oddly shaped purple shrubs barely knee- high, intense yellow stalks of some wheatlike grain; even the very tombstones were boldly etched in vivid pink granite.
As the tiny fists of rain jabbed at Lan' s face, he felt tears of joy mingling with the natural moisture. Unabashed, he dropped to his knees and cried out his relief at being free of a world where he didn' t belong. Here, no matter what lurked in the forest, was more like home to him. This was terrain he understood, loved.
" Rain! The putrid water!" shrieked Krek. " I drown in this filthy downpour."
Lan clambered to his feet and pulled the spider half- erect. Bending over him, Lan formed a temporary shield from the pelting rain. Then Krek darted for the overhanging limbs of the nearby forest. The distaste for water added speed to his loping gait, and Lan found himself hard- pressed to keep up. He had to laugh aloud at the sight of the wet, furry spider shaking himself like a mongrel dumped into a lake.
And he was safe from the sheriff and the grey- clad soldiers and persecution. Free, free, free!
The heavy rain vanished as if it had never existed, leaving a world scrubbed clean and fresh. Lan inhaled deeply, savoring the crisp scent of the countryside. Myriad odors crowded in on his nose, vying for attention. Flowers in full bloom, all colors of the rainbow, scattered across verdant green fields like droplets from the palette of a drunken painter. Lan stooped and plucked one small golden flower and studied it. Feathery petals as fine as spun glass formed an intricate geometric pattern that gathered the sun' s rays and bent them into new and wonderful hues. The heady aroma reminded Lan of the most expensive perfumes, the texture of warm honey.
Krek stood by, watching his friend in the odd pursuit of sniffing each and every flower. Finally, the spider spoke.
" What is this insane delight you receive from those bits of food?"
" Food? I don' t eat flowers. Rather, I drink in their beauty, I savor their redolence. I:" Lan stopped and smiled. The spider lacked a sense of smell. Perhaps he was also unable to detect the subtle differences in shading among the flowers that so appealed to the man. On impulse, Lan laced the long green stem of a flower through the coppery strands of hair on one of Krek' s front legs.