Chapter 10

IN THE GRIP OF THE XOPH

Even now my flesh creeps with horror as memory conjures up that moment of transcendent fright. I am sure I shall relive that nightmare battle on the mile-high web in my dreams for years to come.

Picture for yourself our predicament. We stood, insecurely perched on a spiderweb thousands of feet in the air. With every step-with every slightest motion-the taut cable strand swayed and trembled under our feet. Although the monstrous strand was as thick as a tree trunk, the slightest misstep could hurl us from our precarious perch to a horrible death amid the titanic roots far below us, lost in the impenetrable gloom of the forest floor.

And there, upon that giddy, swaying strand, we faced bare-handedly a monster so fearful and ferocious that I would willingly have challenged a pride -of lions, armed only with a peashooter, if I but had a choice. Now did I truly have reason to regret the loss of my sword. It had been only a flimsy dress rapier, and not my mighty twohanded broadsword, but in such a predicament I would have felt myself fortunate to be armed even with a dagger.

As for the thing I faced and must fight, words alone cannot convey its frightfulness or ferocity. Imagine a spider grown to the proportions of an elephant and you will have only the faintest conception of the multi-legged horror that loomed before us.

The xoph was unspeakably repulsive and loathsome to the sight. Its cylindrical body was encased in a horny carapace of slimy, glistening chitin as tough as armorplate. This oily thorax terminated in the obscene bulge of

its abdomen, which hung down beneath it, the egg sac hideously bloated and swollen. Like Terrene spiders, the xoph has eight jointed legs clad in greasy chitin, terminating in multiple claws; and it hung aloft on these towering skeletal limbs, glaring down upon us with eyes like clusters of black jewels-eyes aflame with cold ferocity and mindless lust.

The stench of the spider-thing was overpowering, a sickening reek of decay and corruption like an open sewer. But what made the xoph so loathsome was that it was snowy-white, a repulsive albino thing, its stalk-like legs and bloated belly shaggy with stinking white fur, besoiled with oily droppings.

Its face was a monstrous mask of indescribable horror. It bore not the slightest resemblance to the face of beast or man, bird or reptile. It was a shield-shaped casque of greasy chitin, lobed and crescentiform, rising to either side of the central mouth orifice in twin bosses or stubby horns. The eyes of the thing were completely inhuman, swollen structures of many-faced ebon crystal, glittering with blood-lust. And, instead of a mouth, the monster had a drooling slit which worked to and fro obscenely. From the corners of this repulsive orifice two jointed mandibles thrust clackingly at me-they were as large as the arms of a full-grown man, ending in curious multiplex claws which rubbed and rasped and clicked together in continuous motion.

It was in the grip of the dexter mandible that I was held, writhing helplessly. The chitinous claw resembled the pincers of a gigantic albino crab, with sawtoothed edges of durable horny stuff. The grip of the mandible was crushing and I feel certain that the pincers would have torn off my arm had it not been for the fortunate fact that the mandible had gripped me on the upper arm, just where I wore an armlet of heavy silver.

Niahm screamed in hopeless despair as the stinking thing pounced upon us with a rush, seizing me in its foremandible. I, too, felt a moment of sickening despair as the xoph tore me from the sticky web strand with a surge of irresistible strength. I hung there above the web, completely helpless in the crushing grip of the spider monster, dangling like a mouse from the jaws of a cat.

Had it been able to grasp me as well with its other foremandible, there is no slightest doubt in my mind but

that the giant spider could have torn me in half with a a single flexing of its foreclaws. But as it was, the mandibles branched from either side of that awful, drooling, lipless slit of a mouth, and the width of this orifice was such that the second mandible could not easily get a grip on me, although it scissored with a horrible rasping click only inches from my legs, which swung to and fro as the albino spider-thing swung me about.

Ere long, giving up any further attempt to seize me with both mandibles, it brought the dexter mandible near that gruesomely slavering mouth slit. Within the fleshless maw I could see multiple-horned tusk-rows grinding. If once the monster spider had me in its bony jaws, my flesh would be mangled to pulp in an instant.

As it was, the nameless slime excreted from the working jaws dripped upon my thighs. I have no notion of what vicious acid or digestive chemical the xoph secretes, but the slobber which fell on my flesh stung like fury and the foul, stinking breath that blew from the triple-fanged inner maw was unspeakably vile.

I realized instantly what the monster spider was attempting to do. Luckily, it was only my left arm that was helplessly caught in the grip of the mandible, and right arm and both legs were free. Swinging my body up, I planted both booted feet against the horny helm of the spider’s face, one above and one below the hideous, slavering mouth orifice. Bracing myself, I resisted with all my strength the xoph’s attempt to cram me into its clashing jaws, now only inches from my flesh.

In all the annals of fantasy and romance, was ever a hero caught in such a hopeless predicament? I clung there, pushing with all the strength of my legs against the face of the monster, as it strove again and again to thrust me into the reach of those tusked and clashing jaws.

The steely strength of my thigh muscles was great-but how long could I stave off the irresistible ferocity of the giant spider? Surely, fight as best I could, I would in time reach the dregs of my strength, and as my vigor was exhausted, I would be forced into the clashing jaws to be mangled to ribbons.

There was no hope of rescue. I was unarmed-Niamh, as well, bore no weapon, and the frail strength of her slender body could do naught to assist me. Yet I fought

on with grim, dogged determination, although I knew all too well that it was only a matter of time. Already the muscles of thigh and calf ached from the strain: if only I had some weapon, any weapon at alll For my right hand was free … .

My right hand was free/

Without a moment’s hesitation, I balled my right hand into a fist and drove it smashing down like a hammer into the bulging complex eye nearest me!

The glittering faceted eye of the spider-thing was of some hard crystalline stuff, but like crystal it was also fragile. Sheer warrior instinct had led me to the discovery of the one fatal weakness of the chitin-armored xoph-the eyes!

In a trice I bad hammered the monster’s left eye to crumpled ruin. The multiplex inner structure broke beneath my smashing blows like hard panes of wax in an immense honeycomb. A colorless, oily fluid leaked from the ruined eye of the giant spider.

I know not whether the albino monster was capable of feeling pain, but it uttered a high, thin, piercing shriek. It shook its two-horned head like a maddened thing, all but dislodging me from where I clung. The mandible that held me helpless bore down with shearing force on my left arm, and I would have been crippled in an instant, had it not been for the arm-ring of heavy metal I wore clasped high about my biceps. As it was, the smooth silver of the ring grated and squealed under the pressure as the sawtoothed mandible crunched down in maddened fury on my arm.

Now I swung myself about, with some difficulty, striving to reach the many-faceted eye that bulged out like a swollen mass of black crystals on the other side of the monstrous horny head. But from the position in which I was held, the other eye was beyond my reach.

Risking all on a desperate gamble, I swung about. Bracing myself with but one foot against the mandible that strove to force me into the drooling maw, I drove the other booted foot crashing into the monster’s second eyel

It squealed in an ear-splitting shriek of fury as my heel crunched through the complex structure. The globular eye broke in a smear of oily ruin—

And the xoph, stung at last with stabbing pain, threshed to and fro in blind agony—

And dropped me!

I struck the thick anchor cable to which the spider clung and would have bounced from it, hurtling into the dim gloom-drowned abyss below, had it not been that the leather of my war harness clung to the adhesive cable.

Niamh was at my side in an instant, even as the adhesion of the cable was yielding to my weight. She caught my arm and half-lifted, half-dragged me to the topmost surface of the cable.

Thrusting her ahead of me, I staggered further out on the thick web strand. Behind us, the giant albino spider convulsed in maddened fury, furred legs thrusting, claws snapping at empty air, making the taut-stretched cable bounce and quiver to the frenzy of its convulsions.

We clambered away from the blinded thing with all possible speed, heading toward the nearer of the colossal trees, that soared above us like arboreal Everests.

“Will it follow us?” Niamh panted as she stumbled along the rise of the thrumming cable.

“Only the gods know that,” I said. “But let us put what distance between us that we can-while we can!”

We both knew the brute could sense our whereabouts by its sensitivity to the vibrations of our movement as we scrambled up the web strand. Our only hope lay in the pain I had perhaps inflicted on the white furred monster. In its agony, it might not think to pursue us for some time-perhaps long enough for us to reach a more secure shelter among the boughs of the forest giant that rose before us like a tremendous wall of bark.

It took the two of us the better part of an hour to reach the crotch of one colossal branch, and whatever the reason, the monster xoph did not follow us up the great strand to where it was anchored to the tree.

The cable rose ever more steeply, like one of the support cables of a huge suspension bridge on my native world. Toward the last we were climbing with great difficulty up an almost vertical incline, and had it not been for the sticky goo wherewith the cable was surfaced, the feat would have been much more dangerous and difficult than it actually was.

But, after an interminable climb, we reached at last the safety of the crotch of a branch as broad as Times Square, and flung ourselves down, weary and trembling

with exhaustion, faint from our exertions, but safe enough for a time.

But we were hopelessly lost-alone, unarmed, and helpless-in a strange world of shadowy terrors and numberless monsters against whose attack we bad not the slightest means of defense.

And night was falling across the World of the Green Star.

Part I~I

THE BOOK OF SIONA THE HUNTRESS