Lan felt the commotion on the web rather than seeing it. He looked downward- overhead for him- and saw a rusty- furred animal skulking into the valley. The frenzy displayed by the tiny spiders was out of proportion for the meek, unannounced entrance of a single doglike creature.
" What' s happening, Krek? Tell me. I can' t see."
" The canine has severely agitated them. They have even left you and Ehznoll alone."
" Then get us down, dammit. Now!"
" Such impatience. I am curious about the dog. Have you lost all desire to learn from the world around you?"
" I' ll learn right side up."
" You humans depend too much on orientation to the ground. A good spider knows where his web is, what crawls over it, nothing more."
" We' re not spiders. Or spider food."
Krek' s mandibles made a clacking noise. Lan fell ten feet before the giant spider snagged the cocoon silk and held him. A tiny hissing and Lan felt the silk rotting away. He finally broke free of the remaining strands on his own, flipped, and landed feet first on the rocky ground. Never had solid rock felt better. Ehznoll followed soon after, failing to perform the midair somersault. Lan helped him to his feet.
" The earth!" the man cried out, when the web- stuff over his face had been brushed away. " I worship the good earth. Bless you." He dropped and kissed the thin soil along the bottom of the narrow canyon.
A gout of flame lanced above Lan' s head. He ducked and collided with Ehznoll, who remained on his knees, praying to the earth. A second lance of fire ignited a strand of web- stuff dangling from above.
" Fire!" shrieked Krek. " The dog spits fire."
Lan Martak saw his friend was right. The small rust- colored animal had backed up against the far rock wall. While the general shape and size of a dog, the beast had a snout more like a pig' s. Twin columns of fire blasted from that snout. The threat of fire drove the small spiders crazy. Some attacked and were cremated. Others launched themselves for their aerial hideaways, only to find the fire travelling along their webs more swiftly than they.
" It smells of filth," said Ehznoll. " I prefer the scent of the earth."
" It snorts something volatile, then ignites it just in front of its nose," said Lan, fascinated by the creature.
" It is a flamer. A creature most unclean."
Lan started to say something about Ehznoll calling anyone or anything unclean, then stopped. Arguing between themselves solved nothing.
" If you are so captivated by the creature, friend Lan Martak, why not stay?"
" Sorry. Let' s get out of here."
Lan, Ehznoll, and Krek backtracked toward the mouth of the canyon. At the top of a small rise, Lan looked back. A full quarter of the spiders' webs were afire. A black pall hung over the scene, and the stench from burned fur and spider and web turned his stomach.
" They' re intelligent," Lan said firmly. " They need help. I' m going back."
" To die?" came Krek' s soft question.
" Don' t you feel any compassion, Krek?" he demanded. Lan pointed into the valley. " They' re arachnids, just like you. Smaller, maybe, but still of your kind."
" Do you rush to save every human you see?"
" I try."
Krek let out a gusty sigh.
" That does explain many of our problems."
" They' re intelligent."
" Moderately so," conceded the spider.
" We can' t let them die. The flames are sweeping through the valley. Every last one of them will die."
" It' s the earth' s way of cleansing its cloaca," said Ehznoll.
" What?"
" The fire cleanses and purifies. The interior of the planet is afire constantly. Magma erupts to purify the unclean land. This fire is good, even if it is brought by the flamer."
" I understand Krek more than I do you, Ehznoll. He' s afraid of fire. He can see what it' s doing to those spiders. But you? Aren' t those creatures of your earth?"
" Are they of the worm, burrowing through precious soil? No! They eat worms."
" They eat anything they can capture." Lan held back a shudder as he thought of how close he' d come to being one of those meals. " They' re thinking creatures. They need help."
" Abasi- Abi awaits us on the ledge," pointed out Krek. " He and his servant Morto might press on without us."
" You found a way up, off the ledge?"
" An easy path, even for humans, after the initial climb."
Lan felt torn between rejoining Abasi- Abi and continuing up to the summit and aiding the spiders. When the flamer snorted a gout of fire directly at one of the arachnids, catching it on fire, Lan made his decision.
" I' m going back, with or without you."
He pulled his sword and rushed back down the slope. The flamer turned bloodshot eyes on him, then seemed to scowl. The spiders it understood. They were enemy. This two- legged beast was about the same size but of different texture and color. This slowness to evaluate Lan and his intentions gave the man the opportunity he needed.
He danced around one hesitant spurt of fire, then lunged. The sword tip pinked the flamer' s haunch. It tried to howl in pain and spit fire at the same time. Whatever volatile it spat choked it. The flamer began kicking, clawing, snapping, trying to avoid Lan' s thrusting sword. Finally realizing its tactics didn' t work, the flamer raced down the valley faster than Lan could follow. By the time the man caught up, it had relit its flame.
Lan faced a wall of guttering flame. He might get lucky and penetrate the curtain of death; he probably wouldn' t be able to come close enough to do anything significantly dangerous to the flamer.
He glanced overhead. They stood under a suspiciously hanging curtain of snow. Tiny cracks ran up from the bottom hoar to vanish into a softer, newer layer above. The man had seen similar blankets of snow before. He began backing away from the flamer. Emboldened by what the animal thought was fear on Lan' s part, it advanced.
Lan thrust his sword into the frozen ground before him and clapped his hands. The sharp sound started an avalanche over the flamer. Lan didn' t stay to see how much snow eventually thundered down; he ran for his life back up the valley until he came to the spot where spider webs swung in the gusts of air caused by the rapidly falling snow.
" There," said Lan with some satisfaction. He saluted the surviving spiders aloft, then sheathed his sword- and found his legs pinioned by new strands of silk.
He fell to one side. More strands fell on him. He ripped skin off his left arm as the sticky hunting webs clung to his flesh.
" Krek!" he bellowed.
" Oh, very well, you silly human." Krek shrieked and chittered and drove back the horde of spiders trying to again bind Lan. The giant spider excreted the chemical needed to dissolve the cords.
" Don' t criticize. Just get me free."
Even as the spider did as he was told, Lan saw the desperate straits he was in. A hundred of the smaller arachnids now populated the webs aloft. They all vectored in on him.
Webs shot and missed, some landed and were severed by his sword, still others were pulled free, but the fusillade came unceasingly. Even with Krek' s aid, getting back up the slope to where Ehznoll waited proved difficult.
" Friend Lan Martak, I run out of the softening fluid." The giant spider spat out another mouthful of amber fluid to dissolve the silk cords. " If you do not free yourself of more soon:"
Krek didn' t have to spell out the alternative. Hundreds- maybe thousands- of the smaller spiders advanced on their position from the valley floor.
" Go on, Krek, you and Ehznoll. Rejoin Abasi- Abi."
" Leave you?"
" Do as I say! Now!"
" Very well. You are being very testy about this." Krek trotted off a few feet, then turned asking, " Are you sure you would not like company?"
Lan Martak didn' t hear his friend. He prepared to meet the onslaught of the spiders he' d tried to aid.