Fire and Fog

" Too many of them. Too tired to use more magic. They' re everywhere. Aieee!" The shriek rose to taunt Krek. The spider used all the sensory information he had and then launched a hunting web into the fog. It missed. He tried again and again.

Finally he caught something.

Krek hesitated to reel in his catch. While he truly thought the mist creatures were products of the fog and not reality, he wasn' t certain. He might be pulling one of those ponderous beasts directly to him.

Krek jerked hard and a thin- and human- body sailed forth to crash into the rock at his feet.

" Kiska k' Adesina!" he cried in surprise.

The woman stared up, dazed and unable to speak. Krek spat forth an amber drop of solvent and freed her from his hunting web. For a second he worried that she might have slain Lan Martak. A new cry of anguish from the man' s throat came to the spider- and a new web rocketed forth to vanish into the grey, swirling depths of the fog.

This time Krek pulled out a weakly struggling Lan Martak.

" Hurry," Krek commanded. " The rains are coming." A single look at the ferocious sky confirmed this. Both Kiska and Lan stumbled and moved like they were possessed by demons. Movement, no matter how clumsy and uncoordinated, toward the entrances to Yerrary soon carried them to safety.

Lan sat wild- eyed and simply stared at Krek.

" Is the fog still upon you?" asked the spider. He dared not name this man friend again. Not yet.

" The visions," Lan said slowly. " They' re fading. They: they were so real!"

" Have you recovered sufficiently?" pressed Krek.

" What' s wrong?"

" Friend Inyx is imprisoned below. Only you have the power to free her."

Lan Martak didn' t reply. He sat and clutched himself, hands convulsively squeezing his upper arms. Looking around, his eyes finally focusing, he stared downward through the rock floor.

" Claybore," he muttered.

" Lan," started Kiska k' Adesina. A slash from Krek' s mandibles forced her against the wall. She paled and licked her lips nervously. But she didn' t speak further.

" Claybore is down there," Lan said. " And I sense more. His legs. Yes, the emanations have to be from his legs. He will regain them if I don' t hurry."

" Lan Martak, Inyx is in desperate need. Free her, then go after Claybore."

Lan Martak turned and stared into the spider' s dun- colored eyes and said, " I can' t help her. Not until I' ve defeated Claybore."

" Without you, she' ll die," pressed the spider.

" Then she must die. I must find Claybore and finish him before he finds his legs. I must." Lan rose and staggered off. Kiska k' Adesina came and supported him.

Krek only stared in disbelief. In his arachnid brain he understood betrayal by one whom he had thought his friend. But now Lan Martak refused even Inyx. Without him she would die and still the mage refused her aid.

Tears welled in Krek' s eyes for lost friends.

" You must rescue her. She is in need!" Krek protested. But the set expression on Lan Martak' s face told the story. The mage was not rushing to Inyx' s aid. He had set himself a task that required finishing before all else- anything else in the entire universe.

" Claybore is growing more powerful," Lan said, not hearing the spider. " My powers are still weak, but they return swiftly enough. The stay in the fog did little to help me, but soon I will be strong again. And it must be done right the first time or Claybore will again slip away."

" Rest, Lan," soothed Kiska k' Adesina. " The fog has turned our brains against us. I still see visions of things that are not true. You must see them also. Rest. Take your time in this."

" I must attack. Now!"

The spider stared in stark disbelief at the man who had been his friend. This Lan Martak was different, too different to bear. He was driven, haunted; the spider didn' t have words to express the emotions he saw playing out their scenes on Lan' s face.

Krek had witnessed spiders going insane and did not pretend to understand the cause. One day they would swing wild and free on their gigantic webs, relishing the feel of wind through their furry legs, seeing the ground so far below their mountainous kingdom and then the next the spiders would spin off- pattern, asymmetrical webs confusing to the eye and impossible to walk. Soon after the spiders might even leave their precious webs entirely and drop to the ground, easy prey for creatures prowling below.

Krek himself had touched insanity and paid dearly for it. Instead of remaining behind with his dear bride Klawn and allowing her to devour him to provide sustenance and protection for his hatchlings, he had left. He had walked the Cenotaph Road and met humans with different ways of looking at life, different mores, different values. And just when Krek thought he was beginning to understand and truly admire them- Lan Martak in particular- the man had changed drastically.

Krek tried to liken it to a spider spinning an ungeometric web and then simply abandoning all that had been held dear. The comparison failed.

By what the spider knew about humans, the bond formed between Lan and Inyx had been unbreakable.

Krek almost cried in frustration and suppressed rage when he realized he had been totally wrong. Whatever there was between Inyx and Lan, it was not love. A lover would never do such a thing as Lan Martak did now. To abandon Inyx was totally out of character- and Krek was forced to admit he did not understand the slightest portion of human behavior.

" Lan, you' re overtired. Rest. Claybore will not regain his parts soon," whispered Kiska, who occasionally glared at Krek.

" You listen to this one, Lan Martak?" asked Krek. " She is your sworn enemy. Our sworn enemy."

Lan opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it shut again. Confusion crossed his face and he shook his head.

" She' s harmless," he said. " As long as I watch over her, she won' t get into any mischief."

" She gives you bad counsel," said Krek.

" I know," the mage said, voice almost breaking.

" Then we rescue Inyx!"

" We attack Claybore!" contradicted Lan.

The spider fell silent. Things were not to his liking and even became more confusing as time went on. To tolerate Kiska k' Adesina' s continued life bewildered the spider. One quick slash with his mandibles would remove one of Claybore' s top commanders and an avowed enemy. Many had been the time when Kiska had followed and had tried to destroy them. Why did Lan Martak allow her to live now?

Lan made magical passes in the air and then spoke. Krek shivered as the mage used the Voice, the tongue taken from Claybore' s own mouth. The resonance billowed up and filled the huge stone chamber until Krek wanted to shrilly cry out for mercy. This was a potent spell being cast.

And it drew Kiska k' Adesina closer and closer to Lan in some fashion Krek couldn' t understand.

Soon, the young sorcerer stood with his arm protectively around her waist. Her head rested against his shoulder and her thin hand stroked up and down his arm as he watched the conjuration take form in the center of the chamber.

" There he is," said Lan. " This spell produces Claybore' s image without allowing him to know he is being spied upon."

" Inyx needs you," Krek said doggedly. " We must rescue her- you must, for I cannot get past the ward spells the gnome mage established."

" Claybore is unprepared. Look around him. He is plotting something and it is not battle. Now is the time. I know it!"

" Lan Martak, do not do this. She befuddles your mind. Her words confuse you just as the fog did."

" Kiska' s not urging me to attack. Listen to her, Krek. She' s telling me just the opposite. She wants me to forget about Clayboreand I can' t. We attack now."