Cenotaph Road

Even the best couldn' t have stood for long under the onslaught of armed and armored might. First Lan' s sword, then his dagger flew like a silver bird. He stood weaponless in the face of stark hatred.

As a dozen sharp sword points pricked his body, a cold voice commanded, " Stay! He is mine. The spider- thing has escaped, but this scum is mine!"

The commander strode into Lan' s field of vision. Clad in a grey cape held in front by a crimson frog, he presented an imposing figure, but it was the great sword, clutched as if it were a matchstick, that held Lan' s undivided attention. The man swung the massive blade with reckless ease. Each hypnotic pass through the air came a fraction closer to Lan' s head. Involuntarily, Lan ducked as he felt hot air and hotter steel rush by his ear.

" Coward!" roared the commander, his men supporting his case with angry curses.

Lan looked into the man' s eyes and saw only madness. Nothing but death would appease him. What ma

" I know nothing of your plans or your ruler or:" Lan flinched from the nearness of the swinging great sword. The arc blurred silver and edged toward his eyes with every stroke. Just as the huge blade rose for a last, killing stroke, Lan shrieked- and found himself dangling upside down far above the heads of the surprised soldiers.

Twisting, Lan saw the infuriated commander below him. The ponderous great sword smashed into the cliff face, sending electric blue sparks shooting high.

" Kill them! Kill, kill, KILL!" the man screamed in an inhumanly shrill voice.

Lan' s stomach turned over as he bounced repeatedly off the cliff face. But inexorably he jerked higher and higher. At the top of the precipice, he dared open his eyes again. Standing there as unconcerned as only a spider can be was Krek, a coil of web- stuff at his feet.

" Krek! But how?"

" I cast my snaring web. I have not lost a bit of my skill," the giant spider said smugly. " Again I prove my worthiness to be Webmaster."

" Why didn' t you get me out of there sooner? That madman damned near split my head with that demon sword of his."

" I thought you intended scaling the cliff on my climbing strand. After all, I could. When I realized you were incapable of a simple feat that any feebleminded hatchling could perform, I aided you with a bit of stick- web."

Lan wanted to argue and rail against the spider' s logic. He found himself too weak. His insides tumbled, and his morning meal threatened to choke him. Soon, his nerves calmed enough, he asked, " How far is it to the cenotaph off this thrice- damned world?"

" Another day' s travel. And I shall be reunited with my mate!" chortled Krek. " Ah, how we shall rejoice. Such a web she will spin for me, her betrothed."

Lan shut out the rest of the spider' s fulsome praise for his mate. He simply rejoiced in his own continued life.

CHAPTER SIX

" How much longer, Krek? My legs are killing me." Lan valiantly worked his way up the steep incline amid sharp rocks that contrived to slip under his boots. His hands were scraped raw, and his knees carried the marks of too many painful encounters with the mountainside. The only cheery prospect lay in the fact that the soldiers pursuing them wouldn' t have been able to scale the walls of the canyon, now almost two days in the past. Lan doubted if their commander' s anger could whip them to do the impossible.

" Not far. I twitch with the nearness of the Road. The cemetery rests atop this mound of dirt."

Lan cast a furtive glance over his shoulder. If he did take a tumble, he would be airborne for long minutes before striking the ground far below. Luckily, the clouds covering this world hid the worst of a fall from his eyes.

" Let' s hurry. I' m tiring again, and my leg hurts."

" You always complain of your leg. Humans are so weak," the spider observed as he agilely leaped from boulder to boulder. " Spiders are obviously superior creatures. We have a sufficient number of legs to support us."

Lan had learned not to argue with Krek over trivialities. The spider' s world view differed so much from his at times that he wondered at the fate casting them together. The man had to work harder to keep up with the spider as the pair climbed higher up on the lone mountain. Whatever the spider' s philosophies, he proved extraordinarily adept at scaling rock. Lan' s brief excursions into the el- Liot Mountains on his home world had been minor jaunts compared with the climbing he' d done this past day. Yet, as he' d grown more and more weary, Krek' s strength had burgeoned. Gone was all trace of the pliant, woeful beast he' d met in the midst of the boggy lands. Krek had found his element in the craggy reaches of rock. Lan envied him his climbing ability; with every aching, sore muscle he envied him.

Finally, the mountain leveled and a mesa sprawled with small rock spires shooting up across it. Lan stood for a moment, panting. An ineffable feeling took control of him, and he knew this to be the cemetery they sought. Under each stony monument rested a corpse. Under all, save one, the one they needed to escape this festering, slimy world.

" Come, friend Lan Martak, we must hurry. The time is at hand for the Road to open to us."

" So soon? On my world, it is only at midnight."

Krek made an odd up and down motion, his eight legs never leaving the rock.

" It is the same here. Midnight approaches, you silly human. Why do you think I am so nervous?"

Lan blinked. He hadn' t realized the spider was in the least nervous. His actions hadn' t seemed out of line with those the man had come to expect. Still, the spider' s i

" Which tomb is it we want?"

" That one," said Krek, one leg quivering in the direction of a solitary grave marker. " The cenotaph of:" and only a clacking noise mixed with a sound similar to frying bacon came from his mouth. Lan knew better than to ask the spider to repeat the name. It didn' t matter; all that counted was their hasty departure from this world and their arrival on Krek' s web world.

" Oh, Lan Martak, with the goal so near, I find myself quivering and weak once again. I fail to lift such a puny stone." The spider' s claws scooped out stony ground on either side of a huge slab of limestone, but no matter how the creature struggled, the slab refused to yield up the cenotaph below. Lan immediately added his strength to that of his companion and went tumbling into a heap as the stone sheet grated to one side.

" So weak am I. Who can blame me? The promise of adorable Klawnrik' wiktorn- kyt makes me woozy." Krek sat down in a hairy pile and simply shook. Again Lan felt an electric tension in the air, similar to that he' d felt in the tomb of Lee- Y- ett back on his home world. Powerful magics danced in the air around him. The time for transport to another world neared, too near to argue with Krek over trivial matters. Lan kicked the spider into the yawning pit and, as a thunderclap sounded, dived after him.

Lan landed atop Krek, but gone was the surrounding rocky mountaintop. Replacing it stretched a storm- wracked landscape more to Lan' s liking. The cemetery stood out in bold relief every time a jagged blast of naked lightning slashed the night. But nowhere could be seen greyness. Colors ran wild in the inky darkness: lush green trees with brown trunks, oddly shaped purple shrubs barely knee- high, intense yellow stalks of some wheatlike grain; even the very tombstones were boldly etched in vivid pink granite.

As the tiny fists of rain jabbed at Lan' s face, he felt tears of joy mingling with the natural moisture. Unabashed, he dropped to his knees and cried out his relief at being free of a world where he didn' t belong. Here, no matter what lurked in the forest, was more like home to him. This was terrain he understood, loved.