Iron Tongue

" Water? Then fire! Nooooo!" The echo reached the full length of the valley.

A dull plop marked Krek dropping from the web to stand beside him. The brown- haired youth stared off into the distance, not seeing with his eyes as much as with his mind.

" You are not inventing this danger to frighten Murrk into helping, are you?" Krek slumped down. " Oh woe! Fire. Water. Why do you humans so enjoy such nasty things?"

" Claybore' s not what you' d call human," Lan said distractedly. " I think I might be able to stop him. With a little help, that is."

" Oh?"

" The dam can be protected. The fires require a considerable bit more magic on my part, but maybe, just maybe something can be done."

" Do it, friend Lan Martak. I have come to like these brothers of mine. Murrk, especially. For a Webmaster he is considerate and capable, even if he does strike me as obdurate at times. Actually, when you take into account all he has to do:"

" Never mind that, Krek. Get them aloft into the webs in case I can' t stop the dam from being torn apart."

" But the fires."

" First things first. Claybore plans to drive them into the webs and then burn them out of the air. If the dam holds, he might reconsider the fires."

" A faint hope. We are all doomed. Doomed, I say." Krek began sniffling, tears forming at the corners of his dun- colored eyes. Lan ignored the mood shift. He had work to do. Hard work.

He didn' t even remember sinking to the ground to sit tailorfashion. The first effort to block Claybore' s magic failed. Lan tried to spread the mote of light into a curtain once more, but this time the energies were too thin to hold the enormous weight of a dam. All Claybore needed was a magical spear thrust through the dam under water level; a thousand motes plugging the hole wouldn' t stay the tons of water rushing outward.

Lan changed his mode of attack.

And in front of him floated the ghostly visage he had come to know and hate.

" So, my petty apprentice mage, you think to stop me in this little task?"

" I will, Claybore." Lan' s gaze didn' t waver as he stared directly into those hollow eye sockets. The tiny whirlwinds of red no longer inspired fear. He had matured and Claybore no longer menaced him- in that fashion. Nor did the other sorcerer attempt to use the ruby death shafts. The duel became more subtle, but nonetheless deadly.

Claybore' s attention wavered for a moment. Lan instinctively knew that tremendous spells were being conjured. His friend the mote of light reported back: water elemental.

The undine stirred in the muck at the bottom of the lake formed by the dam, stretched her muscles, shivered, and rippled with reborn power. The water about her boiled and blackened and she expanded, grew in stature, in power, finally lived after so many centuries of discontented slumber in the lake bottom.

The command impressed on her dull brain held her captive, but the command was a simple one. Swim. A water elemental did that best above all else. She swam. Directly for the base of the dam built in ancient days by those of Wurnna. The cold stone wouldn' t deter her. She was powerful, aided by powerful magics.

All this the mote reported to Lan Martak. For the briefest of instants, he quailed at the thought of what he must do. Fear welled up within him, then subsided as reason took control of his emotions. He did what had to be done.

His chants filled the valley of spiders with a plaintive, eerie sound. His hands moved constantly, weaving the complex binding spells in the air before him. And above all, his mind wrestled with the summoning, power coming from the gem- bracelet and necklace- and from deep within his own soul.

The salamander screamed vengeance as it formed in the air above the valley. Vaguely aware of the consternation among the spiders, Lan could do nothing to ease their fears. Conjuring elementals required total concentration; they were cunning creatures not easily bound and all too willing to turn on the mage summoning them.

" Into the lake," Lan ordered his fire elemental. The salamander hissed in rage and railed against the command that would cause its brief existence to be snuffed out. Lan' s control lacked much of that shown by Claybore, but the control was adequate. Reluctantly, the fire elemental arched in the air, a sinuosity of flame and blinding light that turned night into day, then launched itself directly for the retaining dam and the undine behind it.

Fire and water do not mix. As the elementals collided, water with fire, huge columns of steam rose to support the nighttime sky. The female undine fought recklessly with male salamander, but the outcome was never in question. Both snuffed out of existence.

Lan fell supine on the valley floor, panting, his face flushed. He blinked sweat from his eyes and peered up at Krek. With voice cracking, he asked, " Did I stop him?"

" There is no water in the valley."

" I stopped him. I stopped Claybore!" Lan exulted for a moment, then realized that the battle was not won by a single round. Claybore did these conjurings only to slow him. Every second spent fighting elementals and worrying over new and more diabolical traps allowed Kiska k' Adesina time to drop more boulders on feckless Wurnna.

Weakened as he was, Lan Martak took the time to do a quick survey of the valley. The dam had been weakened by the swift but brutal struggle of elementals; the important point was that it held. Cracks formed along important junctures but the dam held.

" Any signs of fire in the web?" he asked.

" Only a few from the fire elemental raging above. Those portions of the web have been isolated and new supports are being spun." Lan again sent out his magical scout. The arachnids coated endangered portions of their web with a sticky chemical similar to that used on their hunting webs. This retarded the fire long enough to give them time to spin new supporting cables and then cut loose the burning sections.

" No lives were lost."

" But time has been stolen away," said Krek. " Claybore manipulates us all like pieces on a game board. He occupies our time with fear- of fire and water, oh, the horror of it all!- and cares not if we perish. If so, he is content. If not, he has gained the time to further his schemes elsewhere. He must be stopped, friend Lan Martak."

" I' m trying. And you' ve got to try again with Murrk. Without the aid of the spiders, I don' t think Wurnna can survive."

" The dam will break soon," came the Webmaster' s shrill voice. Lan spun around to see the giant spider hanging from a strand a few feet above his head.

" You have time to fix it now."

" We cannot fix such things. In ancient times that structure was built by the humans to gain access to this valley and the rock mines they value so. We lack the skill to repair it."

Lan began to see another quirk of history on this world. The mages of Wurnna had built the dam to reach the power stone mines, but the spiders had moved in once the yearly floods were stemmed.

" You can leave the valley," he said, knowing what response he was likely to get. He wasn' t disappointed.

" Never! This is our home! For centuries this is our web!"

" With Wurnna gone, defeated by Claybore, I suppose there' ll be no one left to repair the dam."

Murrk considered the ramifications for a short while- a virtual snap decision on the part of the spider- and then said, " If we fight off the interloper soldier humans, will the other humans repair the cracks and insure our safety?"

" They' d be so grateful for the help, I' m sure they would do it willingly."

Murrk whistled and clicked and bobbed about for ten minutes. In that time the already dark sky darkened even more with the bulk of hundreds of spiders.

Lan Martak had his relief force. If only they weren' t too late to save Wurnna.