Spider Desert

by Ernst Vlcek

  Komyal’s men deployed themselves around the great reception hall and took positions close to the outer approaches so that they could cut off Manos’ men from retreating. They also found concealment at higher elevations so that their arrows would be within range of Manos’ most feared weapon, the giant birds

  By means of a simple device they were able to reach inaccessible places where no one would expect to find them. This device was a long rope with a barbed hook on the end of it. They were so skilled at throwing the heavy barb that they were able to assail vertical walls. Catching the hook securely on some protuberance or recessed spot, they would then climb up the rope into lofty hiding places.

  This method of overcoming vertical obstacles was not new to me, because on a number of occasions Fratulon and I had put it to good use. But until now I had not known that the inhabitants of the ruins were familiar with it.

  Marauthan’s former hall of splendour was still fairly well preserved, if one discounted the fact that the ceiling had fallen in and that only the sky spanned the gap between the lofty walls of the ruin. The local inhabitants had moved the fallen debris to the sides, stacking it against the walls and forward in such a manner that a descending pattern of tier like levels had been formed, thus creating a sort of amphitheatre. By this process an arena had finally come into being, in which the inhabitants of the ruins more often than not conducted their war games.

  Here it often happened that prisoners were forced to fight Zagors, or tests of courage were required here of new members joining one of the groups, or duels were fought between the leaders of several groups. In any case the inhabitants of these ruins never seemed to be lacking in reasons for conducting their war games.

  “They’re coming!” cried one of Komyal’s bowmen from a high lookout point.

  Immediately, all the rest vanished into their hiding places. Komyal had his container brought in under artfully arranged monolithic stones which formed a vaultlike enclosure where he would be safe from Lay Manos’ bird beasts. The warning call was a signal for our guards to drive us out into the open arena. At the same time they aimed their spears and arrows at us so that we would have no chance to escape.

  “Alright now, act like you’re free!” ordered one of our 4 guards—it was Plyturon. “You have to carry on as though nothing has happened so that Manos doesn’t get suspicious. If you try to warn him you’ll become a couple of walking pincushions!”

  In the air above the arena the first of the giant birds were already appearing, each of them carrying one of Lay Manos’ warriors in its claws. Most of the latter were Manolians, so at this distance I couldn’t make out whether or not Lay Manos himself was among them.

  The birds deposited their human cargos on various blocks of stone and masonry around the arena and then rose into the air to circle above us. By the time about 20 of Lay Manos’ men had deployed themselves around the arena, an unusually large bird appeared with a Manolian in its talons. As it swept down toward us, I recognized Lay Manos.

  “That lousy crook really did leave Azhira and Ice Claw back in his hideout?” I said angrily, although we had both figured on it in our plans.

  “That won’t do him much good?” said Fratulon.

  “How are we going to handle this mess?” I asked.

  As Lay Manos was hovering within only 5 meters of the arena’s floor, somebody shouted: “It’s an ambush!”

  It was a signal for the start of the battle. While Komyal’s bowmen brought the bird beasts under attack, his swordsmen and lancers charged upon Lay Manos’ men.

  Lay Manos’ favourite bird, Ayff, was the first victim of the hail of arrows. The loyal creature dropped into a tail spin, still holding its master aloft until it had brought him to a soft landing near the first rocky tiers of the amphitheatre, on the floor of the arena, where even then it sought to shield him with its widespread wings.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Fratulon shouted to me, and we ran for the protection of some of the ruin fragments.

  But he came to a stop short of the goal. Plyturon and the other three guards with their bows and arrows blocked our way.

  “Only way you’ll get past us?” said Plyturon, “is when you’ve led us to the treasure.”

  These were the last words he spoke, because in that moment he and his companions were struck down by a fiery beam of energy. Our path was free—Lay Manos’ men had inadvertently blasted the obstruction out of our way. I wondered briefly how they had gotten hold of the ray weapons but didn’t dwell on the question. The battle exploded around us.

  From the direction of the stone chamber where Komyal and his bodyguards had taken refuge came a frightful din and clamour. As I looked there I saw one of the monolithic supports, melting away under an energy beam, which caused the entire structure to collapse, burying Komyal beneath it.

  “I’ll bet that Voolynesian didn’t expect a turn of events like that?” I said.

  Fratulon bent down and picked up two discarded ropes which were attached to grapple hooks. He tossed one of them to me. “We may still be able to use these climbing ropes?” he told me.

  I knew what he had in mind, but at the moment I was concerned with another matter. The first thing we bad to do was to leave this fighting area behind us.

  There was also no way of forgetting Vafron, and I kept wondering where he had disappeared to.

  10/ IN THE SPELL OF THE SINGING GOD

  Aside from his mission of shielding Atlan, Fratulon had to guard himself against a standing death warrant, owing to his intimate knowledge of certain Arkon secrets of state.

  Orbanoshol III was a fierce and ruthless ruler. As Imperator of the Greater Empire he consolidated his power by mercilessly destroying every opponent, each in his turn, and by instituting largescale punitive actions against races, peoples or civilizations which refused to submit to his regime. Although aside from these little side skirmishes his imperial troops and war fleets had been deeply involved in a galaxywide war against the methane breathers for some years already, now as before the Arkonides were at the flowering pinnacle of their development.

  However, this high status was in no wise attributable to Orbanoshol III. Quite to the contrary, he was in the process of slowly but surely destroying everything that his predecessor, Gonozal VII, had built up.

  Orbanoshol III had only come to the throne because his brother, Gonozal VII, had lost his life in a hunting accident. At least this had been the official version. But there was a rumour to the effect that Orbanoshol III had instigated the hunting accident in order to seize the power for himself. And no one knew better than Fratulon how much truth was behind this rumour. For the physician in attendance to the Tatto of Gortavor, Armanck Declanter, had also been the personal physician to Gonozal VII, and Orbanoshol’s seizure of the throne had consequently made it necessary for him to flee for his life. He knew too much.

  But he had also left Arkon and the Crystal Palace behind him in order to save the life of Atlan, who was then but 4 years of age…

  * * * *

  “Here’s where we have to climb up?” said Fratulon, and he pointed to the wall that rose vertically before us.

  Forty meters overhead we saw the breaks in the wall which led into Lay Manos' throne room. Not far away, the needlelike wall fragment rose upward which supported the nesting place of the great birds of prey. At the present moment there were only two of the birds in evidence.

  We had negotiated the staircase that Manos’ men had constructed and had thus climbed up through a number of levels of the building. But inasmuch as the fortress was doubtlessly being guarded by some of his men, we did not dare to approach the drawbridge. The last part of our journey had to be accomplished by climbing the vertical wall. It was the only means of penetrating the stronghold without being detected.

  Fratulon swung the grappling hook and hurled it powerfully aloft. At the very first try the hook caught hold in a fissure some 20 meters above us. I required three tries before I also found an anchoring point
for my own hook.

  We clambered up the loosely flapping ropes and reached the first stage of our climb without incident. Here was a projection of the wall which left enough space for both of us to stand on. I looked across toward the giant birds and noted that they were still undisturbed, acting as though they had not yet discovered us.

  “If we’re lucky?” said Fratulon, “they’ll remain peaceful.”

  I harboured the secret hope that they were trained to respond only to Lay Manos’ silent mental commands. But I did not express it—perhaps because life on Gortavor had made me somewhat superstitious.

  “Are we going to take the last stage in one throw?” I asked, doubtfully.

  “Give it a try?” Fratulon advised.

  I started the boarding rope to swinging and with each revolution let out more line. Then I finally heaved the hook upward with full force. I heard it clanking and scratching as it struck the wall, but it soon dropped down again. On the second try, the hook took hold.

  “See if you can match that, Sawbones?” I challenged, grinning at him.

  He gravely shook his head. “No time to play games. This time we’ll use the one rope. You go up and I’ll follow.”

  “Too bad?” I answered, disappointed. “I’ll bet you would have needed more tries this time than I did. But you’re right as usual.”

  I clamped my sword between my teeth in order to have it ready in case of any surprises, after which I went up the rope hand over hand. Just beneath the wall opening, I paused to listen. There was no sound to be heard from the throne room, but I didn’t yet trust the situation. Using wall protuberances and crevices to support me, I climbed along until I was under the next opening. At that point I listened again. Still no sound inside. Only then did I risk raising myself up into full view so that I could take a careful look into the interior.

  It was empty.

  I signalled to Fratulon that it was all clear and swung into the room. With sword in hand, I took a look around. When Fratulon arrived, I could report confidently that no one was present and our entry had not been noticed.

  He merely nodded, moving silently to the exit of the throne room. Before he stepped into the adjacent room he stopped and pointed ahead. There lay two men on the floor whose bodies had been riddled by energy beams. Obviously someone had already been here before us—which was all the more reason for being super cautious.

  After a few more steps, Fratulon stopped again. I also listened, and it seemed to me I could hear distant voices.

  “Somebody’s talking?” I whispered to Sawbones.

  He nodded, moving forward again. In one hand he carried Skarg and in the other was his coiled boarding rope. I followed his example and also coiled up my rope, carrying it with me ready for use.

  We came closer to the origin of the voices. But suddenly they were silenced. Then came the low sound of a woman crying or moaning.

  Azhira!

  Fratulon tensed and hurried his pace. I wanted to caution him not to do anything rash, but he was already on his way. When I came around the next bend in the corridor he had already vanished from my sight. Two passages branched off at sharp angles in separate directions. There was a telltale sound to my left, and again I heard the soft whimpering of a woman.

  Someone was saying angrily: “Go ahead and scream—I want them to hear you!”

  Nursing the hunch that both passages led to the same place, I took the one on the right—and that was our salvation. I came to a room where the ceiling had caved in, revealing a patch of open sky above. Before me were 5 Arkonides wearing tattered uniforms of the Imperial Fleet. One of them—it was Vafron—held Azhira in front of him as a living shield, with a dagger at her breast.

  I was also aware that one wall of the room was overgrown with creepers and vines of various kinds. Within a few steps of me was Ice Claw, tied to the wall with the rough, heavy lianas.

  Vafron pressed the dagger still harder against Azhira’s breast. Her face twisted in pain—but then suddenly her eyes widened.

  “Fratulon!” she cried out in astonishment.

  The stupid little fool!

  Vafron and his men would not have discovered Fratulon if her cry had not betrayed his presence.

  The men brought their rayguns into play. Azhira tore herself away from Vafron and ran to Fratulon who had jumped back into the corridor. An energy beam flashed out. I let out a wordless cry in order to distract the men from Azhira and Fratulon, and it did cause them to turn their attention to me. It confused them to be faced with enemies from two directions at once.

  Again a ray beam flashed, but not in my direction. Azhira cried out and arched backwards even as I slung the grappling hook forward with all my strength. The heavy barb struck one of the men in the chest and penetrated his body. The force of its impact knocked him back into the midst of his companions.

  It gave me time to turn to Ice Claw and free him with my sword. But it was illadvised since it gave the three remaining men a moment of respite. They had recovered from their initial surprise and now faced us in earnest. They would surely have shot me down in cold blood had it not been for an unexpected occurrence.

  Two mighty shadows loomed above us—the two giant birds from the nest. I had no idea what had excited them but was grateful for their interference. They plunged down through the opening in the roof onto Vafron’s men. Vafron shot one of them, but before an energy beam struck the other one it had sunk its talons into the face of one of the men.

  “Let’s go, Ice Claw!” I yelled to the chretkor, and the two of us retreated through the passage I had chosen.

  At the intersection we joined Fratulon.

  Behind us we heard the injured man cry out as though he’d been impaled. “I’m blind! By the gods, I can’t see anymore!”

  Fratulon had also perceived that our only chance lay in flight. It would have been suicide to close in battle with Vafron and his men. With their energy weapons they outmatched us by far.

  “What about Azhira?” I asked as we ran along through the passages and rooms and stairs of Manos’ stronghold.

  “She’s dead!” was the answer.

  She had shielded Fratulon from a death shot with her body.

  “Vafron came here over the drawbridge,?” Ice Claw told us. “He made no bones about advertising that Manos was also a henchman of his.

  “Let’s hope Manos hasn’t pulled it up yet,” I said

  “He’s not able to?” commented Ice Claw, and added: “As payment for his services, Vafron has sent him to his Great Reward.”

  We were almost there. To my best recollection, all that still lay before us was one staircase and a short passage, and then we would be at the drawbridge. I was not mistaken. When we reached the end of the corridor beyond the stairs, there was the entrance hall—and beyond it the drawbridge still spanned the abyss.

  On the bridge itself crouched a man who was wounded and who had apparently dragged himself there with his last ounce of strength. He was holding something in his hand. When he saw us approaching, he laughed loudly and made a sudden movement.

  “Duck!” I yelled as I threw myself to the ground.

  In the next moment there was a tremendous explosion on the drawbridge. The wounded man had committed suicide in order to blow the bridge to pieces.

  The explosion had hardly subsided before Fratulon jumped up and ran to the dropoff. He swung his boarding rope over his head and then hurled it across the gap. The barbed hook caught on the other side, apparently caught fast in a ground declivity.

  Fratulon tugged on it with all his strength in order to test the rope’s holding ability. When he was satisfied that it would support our weight, he tied his end of it to some heavy vines that grew against the wall.

  “Alright, Atlan—you first!” he ordered.

  I responded without argument and moved across the abyss with a wideswinging movement, hand over hand. Even before I had reached the other side, Ice Claw followed me. The rope supported both of us.

&
nbsp; I drew myself up onto the opposite platform and waited to help Ice Claw. After both of us had solid ground under our feet, Fratulon ventured across the chasm. Since he wasn’t much lighter than Ice Claw and myself together, I added my weight to the grappling hook by standing on it. It was no harm to play it safe.

  Sawbones made it. He came puffing up onto the platform and yanked the hook out of its anchorage. In the very moment that Vafron appeared in the fortress entrance, Fratulon hurled the boarding hook across. Vafron had to take cover in order to avoid the dangerous missile, and it gained us the time we needed to get to safety.

  We hurried down the steps.

  “Now we’ve got a big enough lead on them!” panted Fratulon. “By the time Vafron and his 3 men get across the gap we’ll be way out of range of those beamers!”

  “He only has two men now?” I retorted. “The third one had his eyes scratched out by one of the birds.”

  “That makes one of them for each of us?” said Ice Claw.

  “They’re still superior to us with those energy weapons?” warned Fratulon. “There’s no choice left but to lure them down into Zagooth. We can’t face them until then, because we'd certainly be no good against them in the desert.”

  “Instead of facing them at all?” I suggested, wouldn’t it be better to try to reach Tarkihl? Maybe then they’ll give up the chase.”

  Fratulon shook his head. “Vafron will never rest until he’s intercepted us. He’s gambled everything in the hopes of catching us. He even made our escape from Marauthan’s hall possible so that he could set up an ambush for us in Lay Manos’ hideout—because he knew that’s where we would go next. No! Vafron will not give up.”

  We finally left the stairs behind us and stood on level ground. The Spider Desert lay before us in the sunshine. The air shimmered and we were halfblinded by the glare of the sun reflecting from the silvery strands of the web. The heat was almost unbearable.

  Ice Claw clung to my arm with his frigid hands. “I’m melting!” he exclaimed fearfully.