" I will, you crazy eight- legged fool. You saved me- both of us."
Melira stirred on the ground, still unconscious.
" I allowed you to be placed in the danger."
" Krek," Lan said seriously, seeing the spider needed consoling, " bravery isn' t doing daring acts. Bravery is overcoming your fear. You were frightened and yet you overcame your fear of the water enough to rescue both me and the pilgrim."
" You think me brave?"
" I do."
" Humans are most peculiar." With that Krek trotted over to the now- stirring woman. He poked at her with one taloned claw. " She needs some attention. Perhaps you should perform some of those human mating rituals now."
" I think not." Lan knelt beside the woman, now sputtering to get fluid out of her lungs. She turned onto her side, coughed, and finally began breathing normally. Her eyes opened, stared up an Lan.
" Y- you saved me."
" Krek helped."
" Why?"
" Couldn' t just let you die, could I?"
Melira sobbed as Lan held her. He found this chore less tiresome than it might have been earlier. The water had washed away most of the dirt in her hair and on her body. While she wasn' t totally clean, she' d been improved by the ordeal.
" I: I cannot thank you. The good earth must do that." She turned wide eyes up to Lan' s. He felt a surge of discomfort.
" Better check to see how the others in your party fared."
" Yes," she said, the moment gone. " I hear the earth chants being sung. Ehznoll survived."
Lan helped her to her feet. The three started the long, arduous climb down the far side of the cliff, skirting the deadly waters to find a handful of survivors gathered around their leader.
" Their deaths were good," insisted Ehznoll. He leaned forward and thumped a fist into hard ground. " They were swallowed up by the waters, and the waters soaked into the earth. They returned to the bosom of dirt from which we all sprang."
" No death' s a good one," said Lan glumly. After rejoining Ehznoll and the four others who had escaped the floodwaters, they' d walked along the rim of the canyon, heading upward into the mountains. Less than an hour' s travel had brought them to an earthen dam intended to hold back the water. " Especially when it is deliberate."
" How can you say that? The earth barrier gave way. The earth wanted to receive our pilgrims. Their destiny wasn' t atop Mount Tartanius. It was here, going into the earth."
" Someone ripped open the dam and tried to drown us," said Lan. He pointed out the clear indications of the attempted murder. Sheer, mirror- smooth sides remained above the water, showing where incredible forces had been unleashed. The dirt itself had fused into a glassy substance that broke under Lan' s knife point.
" The god of earth did it in his: new form." Ehznoll' s voice softened and he dropped into tones reserved for his more reverent moments. " I saw him. The new god."
" You' re saying your god sliced through the earth like that?" A large chunk of the vitrified dam came loose and tumbled into the still- raging water. The green, turbulent water swallowed the material as if it were only an appetizer before a larger meal.
" Yes." Ehznoll' s voice lowered even more. " I saw! He was as our god of the earth: disembodied. Only his intelligence floated."
" What?"
" His head floated. He nodded toward me and eyes flashed. He is a new god on earth. And we are privileged to be here at his assumption of power."
Lan Martak scowled, then glanced over at Krek. The spider appeared not to be listening. The arachnid had been lost in his own thoughts since they' d rejoined Ehznoll' s band. The description Ehznoll gave of his new god worried Lan more than Krek' s depression.
" This new god' s eyes," he pressed. " Did ruby beams shoot from them?"
" No."
Lan let out a lungful of air he hadn' t known he held.
" The beams were crimson."
" Claybore!"
Ehznoll stared at the man.
" You know of him? That' s his name? Our god of the earth is nameless, omnipresent, needing no human term. But this new god is compact, condensed, a living relic. Even his name speaks of the earth."
The pilgrim gripped Lan' s arm with steely fingers. Lan pulled free and sat back on his heels, looking from Ehznoll to Melira to the other four. The zealots accepted every word Ehznoll uttered as gospel. He talked them into believing Claybore was a god.
" I' ve heard of this Claybore, nothing more," Lan said carefully. The man feared Krek would contradict him, but the spider remained wrapped in the dark cloak of his own thoughts and feelings.
" Our tenets change. This new god- Claybore! — works wonders on our earth, for us, through us, because of us. He split this dam to carry eighteen of our order to their justly deserved graves."
" Surrounded by dirt," chimed in Melira and the others.
" One with dirt," Ehznoll answered ritualistically. They crossed their wrists and dropped into a kneeling pose, eyes afire with religious fervor. Lan left them to go study the edge of the dam more closely.
Glass. It sloped down five feet and then vanished into green, swiftly flowing waters. Claybore had used a spell to slash through the retaining dam and send a wall of water down the canyon. That much was clear. But who aided the decapitated mage? Who acted as his legs? Lan felt sure now that he had seen a man with a pack animal. That man carried along the wooden box containing the sorcerer' s skull. Without the Kinetic Sphere, Claybore lacked mobility.
In a way, he felt happy this had happened. Claybore feared him, feared his ability to reach the top of Mount Tartanius first. Knowing that a foe as worthy as Claybore felt this way added spring to Lan' s step, energy to his body, determination to his quest.
" Come along, old spider," he said, kicking Krek in the ribs. " Time to be walking. We' ve got a race on our hands, and Claybore' s only a few miles ahead of us."
Krek lumbered to his feet and began working his way upslope. Lan followed, with Ehznoll' s band behind.
Mount Tartanius towered in front of them. For three days they' d fought their way ever higher in the foothills of the Sulliman Range. Now only the soaring peak itself remained between them and its summit.
" I can ' see' it," said Krek, speaking his first words in almost two days. " It radiates immense power."
" I sense it, too," said Lan. He closed his eyes. Floating in front of him was a brilliantly glowing ball of incandescent gas. It spun and turned and twisted, leaving misty strands of itself behind. He had no idea what this image meant; the Kinetic Sphere was solid. No doubt remained in his mind, though, that he now shared Krek' s vision of the gateway between worlds.
" There is also evidence of those who passed this way before us."
" What? Where?"
He knelt down to peer more intently at the hard, flintlike rock. Tiny scratches showed where a shod horse had trodden recently. The weather had yet to round off the edges of the scratch marks, to fill the grooves with dirt. The track led directly forward toward Mount Tartanius.
" I cannot sense Claybore, however," finished the spider.
" Nor I," said Lan. " I' ve been straining my magic- sensing ability to the utmost, but either he hasn' t used any spells or they are so devious I' m not able to detect them."
" His powers are diminished by separation from the Kinetic Sphere," said Krek. " His spells might be of such low- grade power they remain below your threshold of sensing."
" Our new god came this way? You are mages? You' re sure?" cut in Melira. " Ehznoll! They say our new god has come this way. Recently!"
" Glory be to the top of Mount Tartanius!" shrieked Ehznoll. " I knew we did well allowing you to join our pilgrimage."
The six earth- lovers dropped to pray. Lan shook his head sadly. The cleaning from the inadvertent baths they' d all been subjected to hadn' t lasted long. The very first day on the trail away from the dam, Ehznoll and the others had taken to rolling in the dust, patting it into one another' s skin, matting their hair until it hung in greasy ropes. Melira, possibly out of deference to Lan' s sensibilities, hadn' t become quite as filthy as she' d been before. The difference between her state now and then was one of degree only.