Web of Defeat

by Lionel Fenn

  "You brought it up."

  "You wanted to know about dying."

  The table in the main hall was set for thirty, though there were only six of them and Harghe. Gideon had spent most of the first hour staring at the room—the sweating stone walls, the massive fireplaces at both ends, the exposed ceiling beams from which hung all manner of fighting regalia, in many cases still attached to the fighters who had been stupid enough to wield them against the giant—trying to imagine how many people would fit in here for a football game. He estimated several hundred, with room left over for the teams, the gridiron, and the overpriced hot dogs.

  It echoed as well.

  They were clustered at the table's north end, Harghe at the head and making short work of a full-grown benst. Occasionally, he would direct a question at either Botham or Horrn, stare at the duck, glower at Gideon, and defer to Abber, who had somehow become the official translator.

  "Wall," Harghe said angrily.

  "He means the Wall of Demarcation," the grey man told the others, "which was created by the sisters who are the wives of you-know-who a year or so ago, shortly after our host was stricken by his current solar affliction. It's a terrible thing. The Wall, I mean. It prevents the herds from grazing in the jungle, prevents the jungled animals from keeping the herds ecologically numbered, and stops Harghe from pursuing his favorite sport."

  "Which is?" Gideon asked.

  "Bashing dragons."

  "Bad," Harghe said in annoyance.

  "He means that the Grassplain will soon be no more if the herds are forced to graze exclusively on the vegetation here. And when the herds die out, his people will die. And if his people die, he'll die of loneliness and despair."

  "Speaks well for a barbarian, doesn't he," Tuesday muttered from Botham's lap.

  The blacksmith hushed her gently.

  Grahne winked at Gideon over a plate of barely cooked meat.

  "Web," Harghe then proclaimed.

  "He means that the only sure way to get rid of the Wall of Demarcation is to get rid of the Web."

  "Which is?"

  "Bad," said Harghe.

  "What he's saying is, the Web was created by the wives of you-know-who at the southern end of the Wall. It's guarded by the Qoll, an unpronounceable group of creatures who are charged with keeping the Web intact so that the Wall will not collapse so that the wives of you-know-who can get on with whatever they're getting on with."

  "Starving Chey," Gideon told him. "Among other things."

  "You," Harghe announced, pointing a thigh bone at Gideon.

  "Me?" He eased back in his chair, hoping the giant really meant his sister.

  "You."

  "What he means is—"

  "Forget it," Gideon said gloomily. "I know."

  "You do?" Abber said, astonished.

  He nodded. It was obvious. Too obvious. He was going to have to help Harghe get rid of the Web to get rid of the Wall before the giant would allow his niece to help Whale get rid of the spell that held his sister and, somewhere along in there, get rid of the Wamchus who were complicating things terribly.

  "A real hero," Grahne sighed from across the table.

  "When?" Gideon asked the giant.

  "Anytime," Grahne whispered.

  "Now," Harghe said.

  "Oh, I couldn't," Grahne demurred.

  Tuesday growled.

  Gideon looked down at his chest, his lap, the condition of his feet. "I'll need new clothes or I'll fry out there. These things are worthless now."

  Grahne immediately jumped to her feet. "I'll get some. Will you come with me? I'll need to fit them just right."

  Tuesday ruffled her wings.

  Gideon sighed when Horrn stood for a brief display of his elegance. "I'll tell you the truth; I wish I could have what I was wearing. I really don't look good in fur."

  Botham puffed out his chest. "I do."

  Tuesday settled with a whimper.

  "Okay," Harghe said.

  "He means," Abber whispered, "that he'll get his people on the problem right away. You should have your new wardrobe by this evening and you can start out for the Web first thing in the morning."

  Gideon stared over a stack of fruit at the grey man. "He said all that?"

  "Well, not word for word."

  "Done," Harghe announced, rose, and beckoned to his niece, who took a deep breath and sighed, and followed her uncle out of the room, though not before casting a mournful, hopeful glance at Gideon.

  When the doors closed, Botham set his lover on the table and grumpily declared that Whale hadn't sent him on this trip just to get killed.

  "Who said anything about getting killed?" the thief asked nervously.

  Botham snorted. "The man is a giant. If he can't knock down a silly Web, how can we?"

  "Good point," the thief said.

  "And suppose," said the blacksmith, "we get there and find out the Wamchus are there, too."

  "Better point," the thief said.

  "They aren't going to be happy. They won't like us doing whatever it is we have to do. They'll be mad."

  "Maybe I should stick around and practice my sneaking," Horrn suggested with a fragile smile. "I'm getting a little rusty. You don't sneak much in the jungle, you know."

  "And," Botham added for good measure, "it's his fault."

  Gideon gaped at the finger pointing at his chest. "My fault?"

  "You bashed the Wamchus' dragon. You got away from them. They don't like you."

  "I was supposed to stay there, is that it?"

  "How should I know? I'm only a humble blacksmith. You're the hero."

  "Wonderful," Gideon muttered, dared his sister with a look to say anything more, then got up and left. No one stopped him, though Jimm raised a tentative hand that was slapped back into his waist when Tuesday saw her brother's expression darken.

  Once out of the hall and in the corridors, it only took him an hour to find his way outside, and once there he walked around to the back, noting without a smile the hundred-yard-long swimming pool, the red trees that surrounded it, and the scattering of furs and hides along the cobbled rim. There was no one in the water. He sighed for the lack of small miracles and walked on, to a large plot of brilliantly green grass that bordered the stream he had seen from his room.

  Red was there, grazing.

  "You know," he said as he slipped an arm around the lorra's silky neck, "life can get so goddamned complicated sometimes."

  Red chewed, swallowed, bobbed his head.

  "I mean, all I was supposed to do was find Grahne and bring her back to Whale so Tuesday could get back to normal. Now, all of a sudden, I have a war on with the Wamchus, I have to do something about some kind of web before Harghe will let Grahne go back, and keep your goddamned teeth to yourself, that's my shirt, goddamnit."

  He slapped the lorra's muzzle. The lorra dropped the strip of cloth it was testing for nourishment and let its eyes shade close to black. Gideon apologized. Red snorted an acceptance. The two of them wandered listlessly to the shallow stream, where Gideon sat and the lorra drank and the sun rose inexorably to its zenith and started to burn the hell out of his shoulders.

  "Complicated," he said in disgust, rearranging his shirt to cover as much as it could. "When I was a player, all I had to do was throw the stupid ball and fall on the ground so I wouldn't get killed. If I did that here, I'd probably end up starting a damned war." He leaned over and splashed water on his face. "It's a bitch, Red."

  Red nodded.

  Someone came up behind him and covered his eyes. "Peekaboo, guess who?"

  The hands were cool, soft, gentle, kind, and relaxing. Then he heard Red clump away in disgust and he said, "Grahne."

  Light returned and she sat cross-legged beside him, tossing stones into the water. "You peeked."

  "No."

  "You're cute."

  "Thank you."

  She pushed her hair back over her shoulders and leaned forward to watch a spiked fish dart beneath t
he surface. "The boys around here, they're so shallow, you know?"

  "Tall, though."

  Her head turned slowly. "Are you mated?"

  Several hundred answers lined up for the choosing, none of which promised to give him anything but serious trouble. On the other hand, life without its spice, its excitement, its dollop of danger in proper doses, would be awfully dull. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Harghe looking out a window toward them. To have some innocent fun, he thought, or to be clobbered, that is the question.

  Her hand rested on his knee briefly, the dusky skin sparkling with drops of water caught by the sun.

  I am going to regret this, he thought.

  "No," he said.

  Her head turned away, showing him only the length of her barely covered spine and the glossy spill of her black hair. "The boys around here, they only have one thing on their minds, you know?"

  He cleared his throat. "Yes."

  "It takes them so long to become real men, you know? I mean, they're so immature."

  He closed his eyes. "Yes."

  Suddenly, she spun about and knelt between his legs, her eyes not six inches from his face, her hands disturbingly warm on his thighs. "My uncle is so, like, old-fashioned, you know what I mean? Like he keeps watching me all the time and I can't breathe, like I'm trapped, you know?"

  He nodded, once.

  She flipped her hair over her shoulders. "It's so... so... confining, like it's—" She stopped. She stared. She held his face in her hands and looked deep into his eyes. "He's watching us right now."

  "I know."

  "Are you afraid of him?"

  "He's tall."

  "If I kissed you, do you know what he'd do?"

  He swallowed, cleared his throat, and nodded again, twice.

  Her hands dropped and she sat back on her heels, her gaze lowering to his waist before climbing very slowly back to his face. "I don't want to hurt you," she said in a soft voice.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "I know you've been watching me since we first met. I know what you've been thinking. No, don't say anything, Gideon. It will only hurt more if you do. I can't stay. I have to go. It's too bad, because you're a hero and I'm a pretty decent girl myself and I think we could have made beautiful music together, if you know what I mean."

  He frowned.

  She smiled that bright smile and stood. "Well, that's all. See you around."

  "What?"

  He turned to watch her stride quickly back toward the house. "Hey! Grahne?"

  He saw that Harghe was no longer in the window. "Hey," he called, scrambling hastily to his feet. "Hey, wait, don't you think we ought to talk about it? He's gone!"

  But so was Grahne.

  I am cursed, he decided glumly; that's what it is, I'm cursed.

  He took a step back, took another, and sat down in the middle of the stream, ducked his head under the water and thought seriously about drowning himself, decided that wouldn't work because all he had to do was crawl to the bank to save himself, which was not the most romantic of situations for suicide, and sat up again.

  Red was watching him.

  Tuesday was on his back, watching him.

  "You're a jerk, Giddy," she said.

  He threw a double handful of water at her, remembered she was a duck, and wondered when the hell something would go right today.

  "You could've had her," his sister continued.

  "But you said she was a slut."

  "She is."

  "You don't like her."

  "I didn't say that, I just said she was a slut."

  "I don't get it."

  "I'm a duck."

  "I noticed."

  "I am also a woman who happens to be your sister."

  "I get it."

  "And you're a jerk."

  He looked at himself sitting in the water. "Not really," he said. "Just preserving my honor."

  Red brayed and flopped his head from side to side. Tuesday laughed as only a duck with a human brother who just lost a good time with a good woman can. From somewhere back by the pool, Botham laughed as well.

  And from somewhere high above them, hidden in the glare of the Grassplain sun, he heard another laugh—cold, harsh, and lingering over the land like the clammy touch of sleet.

  Red's eyes darkened.

  Tuesday flapped her wings nervously.

  Gideon stood and waded out of the stream. "We'd better get inside," he said grimly. "I think the Wamchus have come over the Wall."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Gideon took one look at the band assembled outside the stone house and said, "I'm going home."

  Jimm Horrn, who in his freshly brushed furs and spiked hair looked like a blow-dried squirrel after a long night in a raucous maple, was having a great deal of difficulty placing bulging saddlebags on Red's back because Red, who had spent the morning futilely chasing a female benst whose horns reminded him of his mother and several subsequent lovers, was too tired to stoop and too prickly to give a damn when the thief was reduced to begging on his knees; Tuesday, cuddled in the blacksmith's arms and wearing an elaborate lei of red leaves, was trying desperately not to offend Harghe by sneezing because of a just-discovered allergy, her resistance producing a squirming that both irritated Botham and gave him twinges of guilty pleasure; and Grahne kept coming to the door, looking at Gideon, bursting into tears, and running back inside, where all could hear her shrilly berating the household staff for minor transgressions, most of which had to do with their presenting the hero with his new clothes before she had a chance to fit them.

  "Damnit, did you hear me—I'm going home!"

  Bones Abber, standing to one side, neither encouraged nor discouraged him. He was too miserable. Shortly after dawn, he had been subjected at the giant's orders to a thorough bath and hair-washing in the now stagnant pool behind the house, and was lamenting the loss of his ugly black friends from his beard and oily locks. All he would do was sigh, look skeptically at his newly pressed bilious green loincloth, and scrub his hands dryly in hopes of working up a good enough sweat to pass through his locks and reattract his traveling companions.

  Gideon shook his head and closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again, everyone was still there.

  "Damn," he said, and slipped out his bat to tap it lightly on the ground.

  He should be satisfied, he supposed. After all, he did have a fresh set of clothes which were virtually indistinguishable from those he had brought with him to this land. The tailored shirt, a pleasant blue plaid, fit him perfectly, snug enough to prevent unsightly wrinkling during sleep and loose enough to give his body air; the jeans, while they did have an intricate gold-and-silver stitched rendition of a little benst on the left hip pocket, were sturdy enough to take the abuse they were sure to receive, yet pliable enough to permit him to kneel, squat, and sit without parting seams causing him embarrassment; and his new boots were black, hardy, and as comfortable as a pair of ten-year-old slippers.

  He also supposed he ought to be grateful that his friends had not voted to stay where they were when Harghe, through Abber's vivid translations, described the nature of the Qoll who guarded the Web. Even now, in broad daylight, he was unable to suppress a shudder when certain spidery and slimy images flitted nastily through his mind. He wouldn't have blamed the others if they had wanted to stay, and for their final decision he could only silently thank the giant for putting his objections to their not going so succinctly.

  "Dead," was what he said, and Abber didn't bother to explain.

  He thirdly supposed that he ought to be glad to be getting on with it after all the delays, such as capture and near death. Though he had met none of Terwin's other inhabitants, he knew they were counting on him to do his hero's job and get out of the way so they could get on with their lives. It was, all in all, rather awkward having one of his ilk hanging about looking for quests and things.

  And since that was what he seemed fated to do in this place,
no matter how hard he tried to get home again, he fourthly supposed he should stop carping and get moving.

  On the other hand, there was the danger.

  That, he thought, is a pain in the ass.

  "Tell them I'm going home if they don't knock it off," he said to Abber.

  "They heard, bwana," the not-so-grey-anymore man said.

  "Then for Christ's sake, what's the problem?"

  "Fear, sahib. They fear what lies beyond the Grassplain." And he touched a fist to his forehead in obeisance.

  "Kipling?"

  "Haggard."

  "I know. It's been a rough night."

  When Abber looked at him, he smiled and clapped his hands. All eyes turned to him in one way or another, and without a word he pointed sternly to Horrn, who got the saddlebags on the lorra; pointed to Red, who trotted over and waited to be boarded; pointed to Botham, who put Tuesday on the lorra's back and hefted his own pack, a battle-axe Harghe had given him, and a bloated pacch-skin of ale; pointed to Abber, who stood at attention with his staff; and pointed to Grahne, who shrieked back into the house to get some decent clothes on.

  Then he looked at Harghe. He looked up at Harghe. He leaned back and saluted the giant, who grinned fiercely and vowed in a single word to protect Terwin with his life until the Web and the Wall were down and all were saved and the tiny hero could return to bring his little niece to his good friend, Whale, back in the also anxiously waiting city of Rayn, beyond the jungle and the mighty River Khaleque.

  Abber offered to translate.

  Gideon holstered his bat and walked away from the house, listening as the others lined up behind him. He nodded. He hummed. He discovered a trail beaten through the grassland and followed it, since it seemed to be heading in the proper direction—south, then vaguely west, where he could see a low dark line of woodland rising out of the plain.

  The sun climbed and grew warm.

  Botham sang a lusty and lengthy medley of blacksmith songs, most of which dealt with the scarcity of horses a man of his trade had to work with and the sorrow such obstacles caused men of goodwill everywhere.

  Horrn, not to be outdone, sang a medley of thievery chanties, which, in the main, suggested that a thief's life was a lark, a party, and a much better deal than spending one's life looking for a horse to shoe.