" Please, don' t let the sword break," he moaned as he redoubled his efforts. A deeper creaking noise echoed down the valley. Then he fell heavily, the boulder pulled from its place.
He rolled over and called to those below, " Watch out!" But his words came too late for any to react.
They were saved by the scorpion' s lightning- fast reflexes. It saw the boulder hurtling downward at it. The long, deadly tail struck out with force, but it only served to deflect the rock from its trajectory. It fell onto the back of the scorpion. A sound like a pistol shot rang out as the heavy rock crushed the monster to a bloody, ichorous pulp.
Lan felt his gorge rising at the sight, but he controlled himself. Weakly, he swallowed, tasting bitterness. He spat and that helped. By the time he began his descent back to Krek and Ehznoll and the others, he' d regained his composure.
" I swear I saw someone from up there, Krek. I wasn' t hallucinating."
" Who else wanders these hills? Only Ehznoll and his pilgrims, friend Lan Martak. No one else on this world would be so intent on discovering paradise."
" I saw someone," the man said firmly. " Only one man, leading a pack animal. Might have been three miles up the canyon, but certainly no farther."
" I feel no one," said the spider.
" You' re still shaking from the fight with the scorpion."
" Nonsense." The spider shook even harder.
" And those crazy bastards didn' t even lift a hand to help," snapped Lan, anger replacing the fright he' d felt anew seeing the crushed carcass of the monstrous scorpion.
" Are you referring to my band?" said Ehznoll. " We destroyed the creature. What more can you ask of us?"
" You did what?" roared Lan, losing his temper.
" Our prayers were answered by the godhead residing in the planet."
" No godhead climbed that cliff. No godhead pried loose that boulder. I did it all. Me!"
" Without the sweet earth' s approval, you could have done nothing. I told you the earth wouldn' t allow us to die in plain sight of the sky. The truly devout die only out of sight of the infinite, awful void."
" He does seem to have a point, friend Lan Martak."
" What?" Lan spun on his friend, then quieted. In a voice as low and controlled as he could make it, he said, " Didn' t your hunting strands hold the scorpion down?"
" Of course, but they were anchored in the earth."
" See?" said Ehznoll, his eyes gleaming with religious fervor.
" You' re not becoming a convert, are you, Krek?"
" We accept all into the faith." Ehznoll tossed dirt onto Krek' s furry legs. The spider danced away. " Accept our sacrament. Join us in our ecstasy!"
" I will consider it," said Krek, warily watching the pilgrim for more fountains of dust.
" Be like the clods of the earth. Join with your neighbors. Unite into a whole."
" Let' s just be on our way," Lan said tiredly. He ached and his horse had been slaughtered. From now on he walked with the rest of them. While Ehznoll went back to his band, Lan sank down and closed his eyes. Visions appeared immediately. He fought down panic at the sight of a fleshless skull floating, seeming to mock him.
His eyelids flickered up. Krek stood over him.
" I felt his power, too. Claybore is near."
" Then he doesn' t have the Kinetic Sphere. Not yet!"
" It is a long ways to the summit of Mount Tartanius. We have much to contend with."
" What?" asked Lan. " You don' t like our travelling companions? You' re not going to join them in a nice dirt bath?" The sight of the spider shuddering gave Lan the revenge he needed.
" The thought of dust eternally on my legs is worse than burning off the fur. Poof! I would ignite like a torch. A flambeau blazing throughout the night, my screams meaning nothing. Oh, woe, how can I ever avoid the dangers of this life?"
" You' re doing a good enough job, old spider. We make quite a team."
" We do, at that," Krek said, his mood changing in a mercurial fashion peculiar to him. They walked past the crushed scorpion once more. " For a fellow arachnid, he possessed limited wit. Why, he refused to even speak to me."
" It talked?"
" No, but I can; therefore he must have similar powers."
" Different worlds, different creature?"
" Humph," snorted the spider. " You humans are pervasive, one might even say pernicious. I discern no difference between your species on one world or the next."
Lan saw no point in arguing. He had no explanations. What Krek said was true. On the worlds they' d travelled so far, humans had been native to each. Perhaps human cenotaphs opened only onto human worlds. If that were true, the Kinetic Sphere might lead to worlds without any men at all. Entire worlds populated with alien beings beckoned to Lan.
First, he had to recover the Sphere.
" Do you think it was just another pilgrim I saw?"
" What other pilgrim?"
" The one I saw from the cliff. I told you not ten minutes ago."
" I sense no one ahead of us. Why has there been no evidence of passage, if you did see a man with a pack animal?"
" These canyons intersect. He might have come up another one, one leading into this from an angle."
" You invent people to take your mind off our odious companions."
" You might be right in other circumstances, but I saw someone ahead of us. I: I can' t explain why I feel that' s so important. We' re out in the middle of nowhere. Why should there be so many people crowding into this one small area?"
" Mere pilgrims. Others like Ehznoll seek the wisdom of the crags. Perhaps they even wish to swing free, from peak to peak, savoring the freedom of a web. Who am I to say? I am a nothing, a poor beast beset by others of my class, an outcast good only for slaughtering weakling humans."
" Weakling humans?" protested Lan. " Who actually killed the scorpion?"
" I allow myself to be enticed away from web and my dear Klawn, to walk the Cenotaph Road and humiliate myself constantly. Oh, woe, I am nothing, nothing!"
The spider crouched down and melted into the shadows cast by the ravine wall. His eyes welled over with tears, which fell to dampen the dry sand of the arroyo floor.
" Come on, Krek, it' s not that bad. You' re just feeling sorry for yourself. We' ll get to the top of Mount Tartanius, get back the Kinetic Sphere, and find Inyx. Wouldn' t you like to see her again? The two of you hit it off so well, I' d think you' d do anything to see her again."
" Inyx?"
" Inyx," said Lan firmly. He' d learned ways of motivating the spider when depression hit. Inyx was one.
" We should try, I suppose." The spider rose up and began walking on unsteady legs. Lan watched in concern. The battle with the scorpion had taken much out of the spider. He had no idea what energy it took to spin webs; it had to require considerable effort. Krek had spun almost a mile of web in a very short time. He deserved pampering- for a while.
" Rejoice!" came Ehznoll' s shrill voice. " The earth loves us. We are a part of the mighty soil."
Lan shook his head. Putting up with the pilgrims might be more difficult than fending off all the grey- clad soldiers on the planet, even including the hate- driven Kiska k' Adesina. He might have made a bad mistake in not eliminating her, but cold- blooded killing didn' t suit him. At least, she and the others in her tiny band hadn' t tracked him down yet. With any luck, he' d be atop the mountain, in possession of the Sphere, reunited with Inyx, and on his way to permanently stopping Claybore before any of the greys caught up. He walked on, then stopped and looked back. Krek had frozen, eyes wide in horror.
" Krek, another scorpion?" Visions of a nest of the twelve- foot monsters flashed through his mind. He barely heard the choked reply.
" Water. Coming down the canyon. We' ll all drown!"
The spider shot forth a long strand of climbing web and vanished up the face of the cliff that had taken Lan long minutes to scale.