Chapter 9

CAUGHT IN THE WEB

Probably everyone has experienced the nightmare of falling endlessly. Usually the dream breaks just before the moment of impact-just before flesh pulps, brain matter squirts from shattered skull, and limbs break sickeningly.

That dream of horror I lived now. Falling … falling … down and down … vast branches whirling past me … canopy of gold-tissue leaves whipping by … shadowy gulf of doom yawning beneath me as I hurtled into the giddy abyss.

What lent an exquisite frisson to the nightmare was that I could actually see my princess beneath me, like a falling flower, bright chase-tunic fluttering tulip-yellow, carnation-red.

She was far beneath me, turning head over heels in a tumble of bare ivory limbs and a blur of spun-silver hair.

I knew we would not live to suffer the hideous death of hurtling down to shatter against the monster roots at the bottom of the gulf. Already I was panting for breath, the rapidly accelerating speed of my fall whipping the air past mouth and nostrils too swift for me to breathe. I had read of those who fall from great heights, and I knew their death was swift and merciful-from suffocation. They did not live to feel the impact as flesh mangled against sharp stones below. And the branch from which she had been flung-the branch from which I had sprung after hermust have been three miles or more aloft.

We would be dead, both of us, long before we struck the ground.

My eyes watered in the hissing wind of my fall; vision blurred; I blinked.

And in the next instant, crashed into some unglimpsed obstacle with stunning force. And knew no more.

When I awoke I was bruised and numb and aching in every thew. Some strange constriction held me, and some strange pressure filled my head; my face felt hot and congested and I had a problem breathing. My heart labored within my breast.

I opened my eyes and stared straight downward into an abyss of glooml

A moment of vertigo and madness seized me. Few experiences can be more nightmarish than awakening from a swoon to find yourself hanging upside down above a terrific gulf.

I steadied my nerves with an effort of will, forcing myself to unclench my squeezed tight eyes. I looked down again: the floor of the forest was a mile beneath me, lost in impenetrable darkness. Few and faint are the shafts of emerald sun that sink through the infinity of leaves to lighten the everlasting gloom of the surface of the weird world of Himalaya-tall trees.

But I did not see the pitiful, broken body of my love below me; so there was still hope.

In what was I entangled? It felt rather like a net. But something bound me tight-some constriction had caught and broken my fall. It was a wonder the impact of that collision had not been my death: nonetheless, I yet lived.

I craned and kicked and struggled about, and saw to my utter amazement that I was entangled in the torn, sticky meshes of a spiderweb!

True, the web must have measured five miles acrossfor such was the distance between the tree from which I had hurtled and its nearest neighbor-but it was a web, just the same.

My imagination quailed, flinching from a guess as to the size of the spider which had spun so unthinkable a web. Think of it yourself-a web longer than the Golden Gate Bridge!

The cables of the mesh nearest me were inches thick, spun of a gluey stuff yellowy-white in color. I could make out no texture or braiding to the strands: they were for

all the world like nothing more than ropes of rubber cement-but half-a-hand thick, and miles in lengthl

The impact of my fall had torn the webwork mesh and the flexive, gluey cabling had stretched to the thrust-and it was this springy “give” that had broken my fall without breaking my bones.

The relief of knowing I was safe made me giddy-I laughed in hysteria. Safe-if you can call yourself safe, stuck in a Brobdingnagian spiderweb a mile in the skyl

Then, looking about, my heart leaped in a throatstopping throb of joy. For there, a dozen yards away, dangling pale and limp, still unconscious, was-Niamh!

She did not seem to be injured. She hung in her swoon, bright silver hair a silken banner rippling faintly in the breeze, her scarlet raiment torn and disarranged, revealing mellow glimpses of smooth thigh and sleek, soft shoulder. But, although unconscious, her shallow breasts rose and fell as she breathed and her silken eyelids fluttered as if stirring towards wakefulness.

Then it was that I sensed an ominous vibration moving down the taut cables of the web.

The spiders which haunt the worldwide forests of the Laonese planet are known as the xoph. I did not know this at the time, but learned the word later.

The pressure of our fall into its miles-wide web had aroused the monster from its mindless slumber.

Now, immense white furred legs feeling delicately along the strand, it blindly sought to ascertain our position. I held my breath in suspense, knowing that the slightest involuntary motion would communicate itself throughout the webwork.

Only the gods of the World Above knew how close-or how far away-the monster spider made its hideous lair. If it were akin to the arachnida of my own far-off world, it could be at the very center of the web, curled in a silken pocket, or at the extremity of the strands.

How near were we to the center?

It was impossible to say: in the green-gold gloom I could hardly see the soaring, dark vastness that was the next tree-but we were quite some distance from our own. The huge crawling thing might be half a mile distant -or several miles. It might take it but minutes to scuttle

down the wobbling strand to where we dangled like fruit ripe for the picking-or hours!

I began to strive against my sticky bonds. If we could get loose now-if we could clamber down the strand to reach our tree in time-perhaps we could escape the attack of the loathsome xoph.

If not, then truly we were doomed. For I had lost my sword, and would have to fight the thing with my bare hands.

If we could not reach the nearest tree before the hideous thing was upon us, then our luck in landing amidst the great web was but a cruel jest of fate, who had thus spared us a quick, merciful death from suffocation to die slowly and horribly in the clutches of the gigantic xoph, which would drink our blood drop by_ drop, in slow, agonizing sips, through its horrible hollow fangs.

Niamh awoke from her swoon during my struggle to free myself from the gluey grip of the web.

One wide-eyed glance about her in terror, and the gallant-hearted girt summoned her courage and lay quietly watching me. Like all denizens of this world, she knew the dreaded xoph and the slow and ghastly death they bring their helpless victims. She knew that as I fought and tore against the constriction of my bonds I was signaling our position to the monstrous bloated thing that crouched listening somewhere not far off in the leafy whispering gloom.

Child of her strange and beautiful and savage world, she knew that we must fight against death, or wait supinely for the bitter kiss of the horrible hollow fangs.

For an interminable time, I struggled against the gluey substance that bound me. And all the while there came down the long cable-like strands of the web that distant tremor that announced the coming of the monster arachnid in whose net we lay entangled. With every moment that passed, the albino vampire came nearer-nearer!

I fought on: there was nothing else to do. If fate so willed, I would die still fighting to save the woman I loved from the slavering jaws that thirsted to drink her blood. It might well be that my fight would prove hopeless in the end; but I would face the judgment of whatever gods might be, without shame, my honor unstained, knowing that however I had failed, at least I had done my best.

No man can do more than his best.

At length I managed to extricate myself from the clinging web. And for this I owe thanks to the scarlet ythid loyal Panthon had slain with his arrow. For in my struggles with the tree dragon, my glass rapier had pierced its mailed hide again and again, drenching me from head to toe in reeking dragon blood.

The yellow gore stank abominably, and I was so besmeared with the stuff that I resembled a refugee from battlefield or charnel house. But the oily liquid which stained my limbs resisted the adhesive properties of the sticky web and gave me more freedom of movement than I might otherwise have enjoyed.

Crawling free from the strands, I climbed along the web to where Niamh lay hopelessly entangled.

“Do not be afraid,” I said. “We still have a chance.”

The brave girl stared up at me. Her face was pale but self-composed, and her amber eyes shone with unquenched courage.

“I am not afraid,” she said, “for you are with me.”

I could think of no reply to this astounding testimony of faith, but inwardly I prayed to the grim gods that Niamh’s faith in me was not misplaced!

In its death convulsions, the ythid had not besplattered the princess with its gore. But the portions of the giant web which entangled her adhered more to her garments than to her flesh; thus, setting her free was a comparatively simple matter of tearing away most of what remained of her robes. It left her clad in garments whose brevity would not have pleased modesty or convention: but at least she was free.

“What can we do now?” she asked.

It was a dilemma. I did not care to linger here, awaiting the approach of the monstrous spider, for it would result in a hopeless struggle. I was unarmed, with nothing to pit against the ferocity of the xoph but sheer strength alone. And the iron vigor of my thews would prove a puny defense against the fanged jaws of the monster denizen of this colossal web.

Our only recourse seemed to be to flee along the web, hoping to reach the nearest tree before-the brute was upon us. Luckily, this was a task far less difficult than it may sound to you. For while we were thousands of feet above the forest floor, the Laonese are racially immune to the vertigo that would have left all but the boldest adventurer of my distant planet helpless in a paralysis of giddy terror. And when I had inherited the body of Chong, I had inherited as well his cool nerve and the fearlessness for heights that was an attribute of his race.

As well, the cable strand along which we must travel was far thicker than you might think. While the web strands themselves were of thicknesses that varied from the width of a man’s finger to the width of his thigh, the great anchor cables that secured the web to the tree trunks were truly colossal, as big around as tree trunks on my own world, and so sticky there was very little problem of falling.

So we began to inch our way along the cable, going as swiftly as was humanly possible, but not so swiftly as we could have wished. For a strange chittering sounded from behind us, a dry, hollow sound, like the pattering of crisp leaves. And we looked over our shoulders into a face of frightful horror.

The huge spider bad advanced stealthily upon us while I had been busied freeing Niamh-and in the next instant it was upon us in a rush, glittering eyes blazing soullessly into mine, horny mandibles clashing at my throat!