The Sorcerer_s Skull

Then, " Here is one of your friends, Lan, my darling."

" Krek!"

" I see you have found an acquaintance," said the spider petulantly. " You humans possess the most peculiar abilities. This fog completely befuddles me. I ' see' the Kinetic Sphere, but it is so distant and grows more so with every passing instant. And, of course, I see the wraiths."

" The woman. Do you see Inyx?" demanded Lan, feeling the pressure of time working against them. He felt his senses slipping, as if the longer they stayed in this dimension, the harder it would be to leave. To be trapped like Zarella, disembodied and longing a return to life, didn' t appeal to him. Since her death back on their home world, he had learned much. He wanted to live, really live.

" She: she is so distant; she blunders away. But I ' see' the Sphere. To the left." Krek loomed half again taller than a man, eight long legs coppery and gleaming in the mist, the only substantial anchor in shifting whiteness.

" I don' t see it," Lan said. He possessed a slight magic- sensing ability and some facility with minor spells, but nothing more, while Krek' s " vision" spotted both the cenotaph roadways to other worlds and the Kinetic Sphere with unerring accuracy.

" I do. It: it' s your way out of this dimension," said Zarella almost wistfully. Lan didn' t have to be able to read her mind to know what the ghostly creature thought. If Lan were stranded here, she wouldn' t walk the roads of forever alone.

" Zarella," he started, but she cut him off. The tendrils tightened on his shoulder, almost as if they were real, womanly, human fingers.

" You loved me and I spurned you. I can now give you a gift to repay what I could not in life." The touch vanished from his shoulder.

" What' re you doing, Zarella?"

" Good- bye, Lan. Think of me."

He felt a damp breeze over his lips, then somersaulted over and over- to land hard enough on solid earth to knock the wind from his lungs. Krek loomed over him as he gasped, trying to regain his breath.

" We seem to have arrived safely, friend Lan Martak," observed the spider. " Wherever this is."

Lan struggled to sit upright. The terrain stretched out green and inviting with more than spring, but less than summer, in the air. No hint of the white fog remained. They truly found another world along the Cenotaph Road, a substantial world, not one of indeterminate dimension.

" Inyx!" he cried. " Where' s Inyx?"

" Nowhere I see. You feel we should seek her out?"

" Krek, of course I do!" Lan had made many mistakes in his choice of women, unwisely loving Zarella, being ensorcelled by another, but his feelings for Inyx were true. He hadn' t sorted them out to his own satisfaction. Perhaps it was love, perhaps only duty. But above all, he was responsible for their walking the Cenotaph Road using Claybore' s Kinetic Sphere. And, in a lesser way, he had caused Inyx to become lost when he batted the Sphere from the sorcerer' s hand within the misty limbo he and Krek had just left.

" Hmmm," said the spider, rubbing two front legs together in thought, " your choice in females is improving. I am rather taken with Inyx also." The spider turned around and around, then performed a curious hopping motion. " I ' see' only one cenotaph on this world. It must be high atop a mountain."

" But Inyx!" protested Lan.

" Since we do not know this world, where else are we most likely to find her?"

" You' re right. It' s the only logical place, if she' s on this world. But what if she dropped into some other world?"

" Possible, but not likely. We went into the mist together. It is highly likely we left it together. There are bonds between us not easily broken, even by such an interworld journey. I have the feeling Claybore is also on this world."

" Claybore," said Lan, his voice hardening. " With the Kinetic Sphere, he' ll rule the entire Cenotaph Road."

" Perhaps he does not have the Sphere. Perhaps the potent cenotaph I ' see' is the Sphere. I cannot tell. We must get closer. At least having mountains around me will be a pleasant change. I find this flat country so tedious."

" This appears to be a kindly world for one as old and infirm as myself," said Krek.

The trilling words came with a modicum of animation now. The spider rejoiced in his own way of being free of his home world and his overamorous bride, Klawn- rik' wiktorn- kyt. Lan had helped the lovelorn spider return to his web for mating, not discovering until later that Krek' s bride was obligated to devour her mate afterward. Krek had betrayed almost human traits in not liking this outcome and had rejoined Lan Martak to walk the Cenotaph Road. But genetic imprinting was strong; Krek' s " lovely Klawn" had followed, might still follow, to fulfill her and her mate' s duty.

" I' ll explore ahead. Any direction please you more than that one?" asked Lan, pointing into the setting sun.

" I feared you would say that because of the stream of running water being so close." The spider shivered and moved from Lan' s side. " I even prefer the company of those in yon noisy caravan to the stream you are so desirous of crossing. The thought of water makes my legs tremble. The feeling of liquid running on them is indescribably horrid. It drips and mats the fur and-"

" A caravan?" Lan shinnied up a tree to peer down into the valley at the sight Krek had seen long before him. A long trail of wagons curled like a brown segmented worm across the verdant green. Some were pulled by draft animals, while others puffed and chugged along, smokestacks pouring out clouds of steam from magically inspired engines. " People, Krek, people! And from the richness of their dress, this is a most prosperous world."

" Rich, perhaps, but soon to be deceased if aid is not immediately rendered them."

" What? I don' t see anything."

" They are under attack," clacked Krek, his mandibles snapping together. " I see my first good meal in more weeks than I can remember." The bulky spider lumbered down the hill in full charge. Lan hesitated only a second before descending from the tree and following.

By the time they reached the bottom of the hill, Lan saw the caravan guards battling valiantly against dog- sized grasshopper creatures. But the droves of insects washed over them like an ocean' s tide covering a beach. The bugs peered forth at their prey through compound eyes the size of Lan' s fist. He knew the size exactly when he punched out to blind one intent on slashing off the arm of a woman in the nearest wagon.

" Are you all right?" he called to the woman. She turned a blanched face to him and silently nodded. Then he had no further time to worry about her safety. His own life hung in the balance.

Lan swung his sword and killed several of the grasshopper- things with each stroke, but sheer numbers soon tired him out. They swarmed, using their mandibles to nip tiny pieces from his sword blade, and he had to stay light on his feet to avoid their serrated legs. Every time he planted his feet to get a good swing with his sword, one buzzed past his guard and lashed out leg against leg.

Lan' s boot tops soon flapped like so much ribbon about his ankles. The boots filled with blood oozing down his legs from half a hundred cuts. But he fought on, harder than ever before. The tide turned against the humans. Lan Martak saw the penalty for slacking his effort.

Judging by the partially devoured corpses on the ground, the insects had a taste for human flesh.

Lan was thrown to the ground by a tremendous explosion as one of the engine- powered wagons blew apart. One of the grasshoppers had crawled down the stack, causing pressure to mount. The Maxwell' s demon inside had not ceased his selection of hot molecules; the steam continued to generate inside until the metal boiler walls suddenly gave way. Hot gas blasted across Lan' s back, boiling hundreds of the insects.