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The web was back.
Namalee, who had also looked back, gasped.
The others turned their heads too.
"It may be some small animal which spins a web as soon as it is broken," Ishmael said. He tried to say it as if he meant it.
He turned away and began walking forward again. It would have been easy to panic then and dash toward the doorway and the web. Perhaps, though, that was what the spi
Something whooshed by his head.
He spun, batting at it with his torch.
A round body, grayish in the light, with six thin legs and a round head with a big eye and a slit mouth from which a long sharp tooth stuck, sailed away into the darkness. Its body was about the size of his own head, and something very thin and slimy was emerging from its back. Then he realized that the thin slimy thing was a line, and that the other end was attached to the ceiling somewhere up there in the black. The creature had leaped out, probably from high up on a wall, and swung down and made a pass at his head.
These beasts might be quite harmless except as watch dogs to frighten away intruders or to cause them to make a noise which would alert the human sentinels.
The next creature came out of the darkness on the end of its line so swiftly that there was no defense. It shot out into the light and fastened its legs around the head of a sailor near Ishmael. The impact knocked the man backward, and his short spear clattered on the stone. The man next to him stabbed his spear into the creature, which spread out its six legs and fell off its victim's head. It lay on the floor, kicking.
The sailor did not get up.
Ishmael shook him and placed his head against his heart and then peeled back an eyelid.
"He's dead."
There were three little red marks on the man's neck where the claws at the end of the legs had scratched.
Something dark gray shot out of the darkness, and another sailor impaled it on his spear.
The spear was torn out of the man's grasp, but the thing was dead.
About thirty seconds later, another arced over their heads, but it went on into the darkness.
That the creatures didn't swing back showed that they were ending their swing on something hanging down from the ceiling.
Ishmael counted to twenty slowly and then told everybody to roll a few feet to one side immediately. At approximately thirty seconds after the last thing had swung over, another zoomed over them. It was lower to the floor than the previous one but not low enough because of the change of position of its intended prey.
There might be thousands of them -- a chilling vision -- but they seemed to be taking turns at thirty-second intervals.
Ishmael leaped up and threw the torch high into the air.
It turned over and over, lighting up only darkness, until it came to the top of its arc. It briefly illuminated the ends of three thick strands of grayish stuff hanging down from the darkness. The ceiling was still out of sight. But on each strand, clinging to it, was one of the creatures.
Ishmael could not see it, but he suspected that a grayish line coming from the back of each creature was attached at the other end to the hanging strand. It seemed likely that the line was coiled inside the thing's body and could be controlled for the distance needed for the deadly swing at its prey on the floor. The creatures did not drop; they seemed paralyzed by the torchlight.
But there must be many others outside the light who were not frozen by it.
For some reason, through some complex of interactions, uncoiling from their instincts, which were habits formed and fossilized millions of years ago, they dropped at thirty-second intervals. Something passed through them, releasing them at stated intervals like so many wooden cuckoos.
Ishmael told the crew in a low voice that they were to run. But they should imitate him, and when he leaped to one side, they must do so too. And when he dropped to the floor, they must do the same.
He set out immediately, starting his count at fifteen, which was his rough estimate of the time it had taken him to give his orders. At thirty he threw himself on the floor, reaching out at the same time to seize the fallen torch, which had landed about thirty feet from where he had cast it.
The gray six-legged thing arced over him and into the darkness.
Ishmael got up, counting under his breath, and ran forward. At the count of thirty, he gave two tremendous leaps to the left, and the torches showed a dark body hurtling through the light and on up.
The next time he slashed upward, and his spearhead, though it missed the creature, severed the line from its back. It was just starting the upward swing and so flew out of sight. But a moment later, having dashed ahead, Ishmael saw it. It was staggering around, two of its thin legs bent outward. Even so, it scuttled away and would have been lost if a sailor had not thrown a torch after it. The brand hit the floor, bounced, cartwheeling, and its flaming end struck the thing. An odor of burned flesh was wafted to them; the thing folded its unbroken legs to its body and died, or pretended to die. Ishmael made certain with his spear.
The next room did not reveal to the thrown torch anything like they had just left. It seemed to be nothing except a black emptiness. That did not mean the room was bare: the light had not reached the ceiling or the walls.
Ishmael looked back toward the doorway through which they had escaped, hoping to see the doorway on the other side of the room, the first they had entered, still limned with faint light. It would be a sort of lighthouse, assuring him that they were not in a universe which had gone eternally dark.
He did see the rectangle, or its ghost, far off.
He also saw something else. Rather, he saw the lack of something.
"Where is Pamkamshi?" he said.
The others looked back too. Then they looked at each other.
"He was behind me a moment ago," Goonrajum, a sailor, said.
"I thought he was carrying a torch," Ishmael said. "But you have one now. Did he give you his?"
"He asked me to hold it for a moment," Goonrajum said.
And now Pamkamshi was gone.
Ishmael and the others, keeping close together, retraced their path until they were close to the doorway. This was again covered by a web.
Ishmael led them away from the door but on a winding path calculated to cover territory at random. Nowhere was there any sign of Pamkamshi.
Again Ishmael threw his torch high into the air. He saw nothing, except... But he could not be sure. He picked up the torch and threw it once more, putting every bit of force he had into the throw.
The torch, just before begi
"Listen!" Namalee said.
They were quiet. The torches sputtered and flickered. Ishmael could hear his own blood singing. And he could hear another sound, very faintly.
"It sounds like somebody chewing," Namalee said.
"Chomping," Karkri said.
At Ishmael's request, Karkri took the torch and cast it upward. Though he was shorter and lighter in weight than Ishmael, he still had spent half of his life throwing a harpoon. The torch sailed up higher than when Ismael had thrown it, and it showed a pair of bare feet hanging in the air. They were moving slowly away from the men below.
Namalee gasped, and some of the men uttered prayers or curses.
"Something snatched Pamkamshi into the air when nobody had their eyes on him," Ishmael said. "Something up there."
He felt cold, and his stomach muscles were contracting.
"Shoot up in that direction," he said to Avarjam, who had a bow. "Don't worry about hitting Pamkamshi. I think he is dead. His feet weren't moving by themselves. Something is carrying him off across the room."