" Velika!" he called out, suddenly worried for her safety. " Where are you?"
" Here, Lan darling," she said, sidling up to him, her arm snaking around his waist. " I was so frightened when you went stumbling away like that."
" If you' d held on to him, he wouldn' t have experienced the full effect of vertigo," accused Inyx. " Afraid you' d tumble after him?"
" I was afraid," she said. " I don' t want to die."
" That' s all right, Velika," said Lan, holding her close and feeling the heart beat strongly in her breast. " This is strange and frightening- to all of us."
Krek whined a little, and Inyx simply turned her back on Lan. He wondered what it was they both held against Velika, then forgot the little tiff as Inyx said, " This direction appears a likely one." She pointed into the darkness, no discernible reason for it. Lan started to protest, then bit back his argument. He' d follow her for the moment. One direction was as good as another in his present condition.
" Do we have to go with her, Lan? I don' t like her," Velika said softly. " I think she hates me."
" You' re imagining things. Inyx has different customs than those you' re used to, but she doesn' t bear you any malice. And yes, it' s best we stay together. For a while."
" As long as I' m with you, Lan, I know everything will be fine."
Lan puffed with pride at the confidence she showed in him. Taking her hand, he walked off after Krek and Inyx, making certain to keep his eyes fixed straight ahead. He wanted no more vertiginous tumbles into infinity. They were too undignified.
The four trod silently on the substance of the floor for some time without seeming to make progress. Lan lost all track of direction in this nonspace, but trusted Krek' s senses to be sharper than his. But he began to worry when a pungent odor assailed his nostrils. He took a deep breath and almost gagged on it. Sickly sweet, it reminded him of something long dead and now rotting.
" Inyx, hold a minute." The woman turned and cast the beam of light over him. Lan squinted and moved to one side to avoid being blinded. " Do you smell anything unusual?"
" No, nothing. Do you, Krek?"
" You humans are simply inventing this spurious smell- sense you boast about endlessly. I cannot imagine what it would be. If I cannot see or feel it, if I fail to hear it or ' vibe' it, surely it does not exist."
The spider seemed satisfied that nothing alien and evil approached. Even Inyx with her survival- trained senses failed to detect the vile odor. For a moment, Lan wondered if he were imagining this. Then he knew he wasn' t. The lizard- thing slithered up, gobbets of rotting flesh falling from its ponderous bulk. As it surged from the veil of darkness into the tiny circle of light cast by their lantern, Lan pulled his blade from its sheath and drove mercilessly into a blind, atrophied eye, hoping to penetrate all the way into the creature' s brain.
A geyser of pink ichor blasted down the length of his blade and onto his hand as he twisted the sword and lunged again. The sticky, warm blood fountaining from the wound spattered upward into Lan' s face, momentarily blinding him. But still he slashed and lunged, flailing wildly, his gorge rising along with his panic.
The monstrous creature rolled over and twitched feebly. Lan stood, staring at it as a numbness claimed his soul. It had come so close to killing them all, and only he had the nerve to fight it. Even Inyx had denied its existence.
" Are you all right, Lan?" came Inyx' s concerned voice. " What' s wrong?"
" That thing," he said with loathing tingeing his words. " It' s dead now, no thanks to all of you."
" What thing?" asked Krek mildly. " I am feeling poorly and cannot fend off any sustained assault. Oh, why did I ever leave my web, even for this transient thrill of exploring between worlds? Stupid, I am stupid beyond belief!"
Lan' s jaw dropped in amazement as he went to wipe the gore from his blade. The carbon steel blade gleamed in the lantern light, as clean as the day it came from the forge. And nowhere did he find the carcass of the blind lizard- thing. Not a trace existed on the floor or on his tunic. Even the malodorous taint to the air had mysteriously purified. Whereas the others had shared the vertigo at the beginning of their trek through the velvet black wasteland, none of them had even seen this creature.
" You' re not going mad, are you?" demanded Velika, shrinking from him. " Did you see something or not?"
" Don' t badger him, Velika. I want to hear him out. It might cast some light on the nature of our surroundings." Inyx sat the lantern down and stood, hand on sword, waiting for an explanation. He gave it to her as succinctly as possible.
As he finished, Krek wailed, " Woe! A lizard grown too large for Krek to eat! The world shifts on its axis around me. I am powerless to do a thing. Pull me free of my noble web and I am nothing. Klawn, lovely spinner of delicate webs, why did I ever think to leave you and our bliss?"
" Hallucinations," said Inyx forcefully. " That is the answer. And for some reason, you are the most susceptible to them. Or perhaps Waldron has singled you out for this unique attack."
Lan shuddered, thinking of bearing constant assault by these alltoo- substantial wraiths. While he had been fighting, it had been real. Nothing had seemed more real to him in his life, and this datum set his mind racing for the answer.
" Can these images be dredged from the pits of our own minds? Could Waldron be tapping our inner fears?" he asked.
" Doubtful. Otherwise, we would have seen Krek dancing amid a fire, and I would be drowning in an ocean without shores. I detest water in bodies larger than those conveniently stepped across," confided Inyx.
" You, too?" said Krek, almost cheerful now that he had found a companion to share another of his private fears. " Water makes the fur of my legs twitch dreadfully. Nothing in the world do I hate moresave fire."
" And I do not care for the feeling of insecurity," chimed in Velika. Lan pressed close to reassure her with his nearness.
" These creatures and happenings might leak through from other worlds," said Inyx. " Perhaps, since we are all creatures of different origins, our senses are subtly tuned to one world line but not another. Lan might be sensitive to creatures from certain worlds and we from others."
" Aieee!" screeched Krek, his mandibles slashing at thin air. The giant spider hopped backward and slashed again with his man- killing pincers. Lan freed his sword from its sheath but feared to attack something he couldn' t see. Foretelling where Krek might dodge or leap proved impossible as he bounced and ducked his invisible foe.
" Finally, my weakness proved an asset," said Krek. He shook himself and fluffed his fur, then sank down to rock size beside them. " A vicious swarm of gnats the size of your fist. Dangerous to one in my pitiable condition, but tasty when taken singly."
" We' d better hurry. If these things are finding us with greater regularity, we might be attracting them simply by our presence in this nothing- world," said Lan. " Inyx, you seemed to know where we' re headed. Start out. I have no idea at all where the Road lies from here." Even closing his eyes and attempting to regain the throbbing headache he now associated with the presence of the interworld gates, Lan couldn' t find the proper direction in the darkness. The gate seemed to be everywhere and nowhere.
" Do you know where it is, Krek?" she asked. " I was simply following your lead."
" I did, but my powers wane rapidly in this nonworld. But if memory serves, and at any moment I might fade into senility from all the shocks to my system, this is where our destinies lie."
He rose and trotted in the direction he' d pointed. For long hours they trooped beside him, Inyx' s head swivelling from side to side like a mechanical toy and Lan holding Velika' s hand in a death- grip, sure that any moment might be their last. Lan was the first to notice a gradual lightening. Soon, the others commented on it. When the level of light reached that of false dawn, they turned off the lantern.