Web of Defeat

by Lionel Fenn

  Finally, he sat up.

  He looked through the shade to the vast expanse of the plains that surrounded him, and saw nothing; he looked toward the red grove and saw nothing but a dark blotch that might or might not have been the trees, Harghe, or both; he looked in the direction they were heading and saw nothing but the glare.

  Then he looked up.

  "I think," he said, "I'm gonna like this place."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Bones Abber, in a fashion perfected over several years of living and dealing with the Wamchu household, managed a superb blend of ultrahorrified terror, extreme nonlethal shock, and a touch of unselfish affection when a lithe dark form leapt out of the branches and landed prettily on its booted feet. The woman threw her arms around the grey man and hugged him mightily, turned, and stared frankly at Gideon, who rose to his feet and pretended not to notice Abber's problems with his loincloth.

  "You," he said, "must be Grahne."

  And I, he thought, am going to be in big trouble if Ivy ever finds out about this.

  She was not nearly as tall as her uncle, though her height exceeded Gideon's by half a foot, if not more. She wore a perfectly reasonable barbarian ensemble of furs and leather that didn't do much to protect her from either the sun or an assault by her enemies, though she seemed through the collection of weapons strung about her waist to be quite capable of delivering all manner of deadly blows during an attack. Her proportions, not to mention her incredibly long black hair, were on the same scale as Harghe's, though perforce proportionally she was definitely more female than male what with all the growing out and growing in in all the places where such biological events occurred. Not as busty as Ivy, she was nevertheless not a boy; not as regal as Glorian, nevertheless she carried her quite slender frame with such confidence that only a cad would attempt to peremptorily give her anything but his best moves.

  Gideon had no best moves.

  His success with the women of his own world was spectacularly lacking in results even in his wildest dreams, and his success with the women of this world could reasonably be compared to his football career—filled with confusion and somewhat doubtful accomplishment.

  So it was, then, that while his eyes were attempting to reconcile this woman with the same family as Harghe, his mind was looking for a polite way to convince her that she really ought not to be toying with his bat that way.

  Abber, noting his plight, provided the introductions, his tone indicating that Gideon had better not be thinking what it seemed he was thinking, especially if he thought he could get away with it.

  Grahne stepped back, tossed her hair over her shoulders, and smiled brightly. "Hi!" she said.

  Gideon studied the smile for several seconds and decided two things on the spot: that if her candor was not a ploy, then everything he had heard and presumed was frighteningly correct; and that if anything flowed between those divinely shaped temples besides air, he would personally build an umbrella large enough to give Harghe permanent shade and carry it for him for the rest of his natural life.

  Her head tilted to one side, then the other. "Well, I guess we'd better be getting home, okay? Is that okay with you?"

  Please, Gideon thought; no dimples.

  "If that's where we have to go to get this thing on the road, yes," he said, noticing how the shade was deepening to shadow.

  "Okay, swell," she chirped, turned and hugged Abber again, and started for the road.

  Gideon followed, and the grey man scuttled beside him, muttering darkly about the lack of stretch in green loincloths these days and wishing he were just a little older so he wouldn't have all the thoughts he was thinking.

  Gideon sympathized, and when they reached yet another grove an hour later and Grahne suggested they spend the night here in case the dangers of the Grassplain caught up with them during the hours of darkness, he made absolutely sure Abber lay between him and her. It wasn't that he didn't trust her; he had every confidence that she would, given a fraction of a chance, welcome him warmly to her world. And that, sadly or not, was out of the question. As much as she was attractive, she was not all that attractive, not when she seemed to be the repository where all California girls go when they die.

  It was difficult.

  He persevered, slept, and hated himself in the morning.

  Abber congratulated him on his discipline with a smirk that almost cost the masseur his head, and began a wordless chanting as they hit the road again—a system, he explained when Gideon interrupted him, to pass the time away on those long, lonely journeys toward home. Not, he said, that they were actually heading home—with the exception of Grahne, who hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about—but the idea was there. Just as, he added an hour later, the idea was there that Harghe had evidently given up his vigil and was now following them.

  Gideon already knew that; he could feel the earth trembling and didn't think it was his reaction to the giant's niece. Nor did he have time to think when out of a patch of high, feathered grass to his left charged a black-and-white spotted creature that looked like a cow, sounded like a cow, and behaved in a very unbovine manner when it lowered its five-foot-long flared horns and aimed for Grahne's back.

  Gideon unholstered the bat and ran forward, unnecessarily, it turned out, since she spun neatly around with a triple-headed battle-axe in her hand, split the beast's skull in twain, and leapt nimbly away from the spray of blood that dyed the road a disturbing pink.

  "Poor thing," she said, giving its back a kick and snapping its spine. "I'll bet it was a mother. Do you think it was a mother?" A tear glinted in her right eye as she closed her left and hacked off a slice of steak which she jammed into a pouch at her waist. "Mothers have such a terrible time."

  Gideon looked at Abber.

  "A benst," Abber said as they skirted the slaughter.

  "Not anymore," he muttered, and said nothing when the tall woman suddenly clapped her hands in delight and pointed.

  "Home!" she cheered. "Wow, welcome to my home!"

  And home it was, he saw as the sun's glare faded and he was presented with the community of Terwin, a town of considerable size stretching for a fair distance on either side of the road. Its single-story buildings were uniformly square and made from carved stone in several bright colors; they were also, he noted in puzzlement, raised off the Grassplain on tall grey pillars that were little more than boulders thumped on top of each other. Stone ladders reached to wooden galleries that girdled each structure, and the windows he could see were tall casement-types, and bristling with what could only be the points of very large iron spears. There were no streets other than the road which continued on toward the misty horizon; the houses were set in a checkerboard pattern, no front therefore looking directly at the back of the house ahead of it.

  Grahne, once her excitement at returning had passed, dropped back to guide them, waving to faces that appeared in the doorways, calling out not to bother doing terrible things because these people were her friends and any insults to their presence would result in a thrashing from her uncle. She was not challenged. She was not answered. She was, in fact, completely ignored as doors slammed, windows slammed, and in one case a bucket of swill was thrown in their wake.

  Gideon avoided the splash and asked the grey man why none of these homes looked large enough to hold Harghe.

  "He doesn't live here is why," Abber said in a low voice.

  "I thought he was in charge."

  "He is. But, as you can see, he outgrew anything these people could build. So he built his own place on the far side of town." He shook his head, raised a few welts, and massaged them out of existence. "It's barbaric, you know."

  "I'm not surprised."

  Nor was he surprised when he saw Harghe's home.

  It befitted a giant the way Grahne's furs befitted her slender figure—everything in place and in places not so well.

  It was tall and wide and deep enough to accommodate the giant, but consisted of so many addi
tions that it had no specific design, no lines that his gaze could run along and approve of or groan at; it was, he thought, as though the barbarian had taken houses he'd liked from the village and slapped them one against the other in any way he liked.

  "There were these houses in the village," Abber said as they approached the massive front door, "and—"

  "I know," Gideon replied, and wished to hell people would stop giving voice to his thoughts. It was unnerving.

  Grahne turned at the door and spread his arms. "Home again, home again," she sang. "Isn't this great? I mean, isn't this just the most wonderful place you've ever seen in your life?"

  Gideon couldn't answer.

  With a giggle and a flourish she opened the door to admit them, and uttered a dainty cry when a great white thing flew out with a squawk that should have been heard all the way to Rayn, landed on Gideon's chest, and sat there, yellow beak not an inch from his right eye as yellow feet dug in painfully.

  "Where the goddamn hell have you been?" Tuesday demanded. "Do you have any idea what it's like traipsing through the jungle with only that jackass thief for a guide?"

  "Hi," he said brightly, and over the duck's shoulder saw Grahne's small bosom heave, smaller hips twitch, and baby blue eyes mist over with instant lust.

  —|—

  The bedroom was large enough to house a family of ten in fair comfort, yet Gideon had seen enough of monster rooms and ungainly furniture and Grahne lurking in the corners thinking unspeakable thoughts she attempted to communicate to him by means of subtle bodily manipulations. He stood instead at the window and looked out at the eastern Grassplain, ignoring the bed on its platform, the dozen wooden chairs scattered around the floor, the wardrobe so thoroughly covered with fantastical carvings that he'd not yet been able to locate the knob, and the table in the center where a huge meal had been laid. It was apparent from the size of the latter the household staff was not used to visitors, and though he knew he'd never be able to finish it, he suspected that if Harghe were here, the giant would scarcely be able to work up a good belch.

  Besides, he wasn't hungry.

  A cloud of pink dust rose momentarily a mile or so away, scooted right to left, and settled.

  Tuesday had upbraided him all the way into the house, all through Grahne's tour, and right up to the moment he had closed the door in the indignant duck's face. He didn't ask about Jimm, Red, or Botham. He didn't ask how they had managed to find their way here. He didn't ask about Harghe's whereabouts, though the giant had only been a few hundred yards behind when they'd entered town.

  Terwin's shadow stretched over the plain, and a cool breeze made him shiver.

  Unexpectedly, he had been touched with a bout of melancholy, and when the first round was over, he knew what had caused it—it was the town itself. Orderly. Filled with families. Filled with the sounds any ordinary town in an unknown world makes as the sun sets and dinners are served and the benst herds in the Grassplain settle down to a gentle lowing.

  He was homesick.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Quests, visions, and adventures were fine for someone who had a hearth to come home to, a place of safety and sanity, a refuge from the battles one does with the forces of Evil no matter where they are found; but he had nothing but an open road, the wind at his back, and a shirt that looked as if it had been savaged by a razor that couldn't take one more gentle sweep of a timid man's jaw.

  He had a sister, true, but she was a duck.

  He had friends, probably, but they were too busy counting on him to save their collective hides from disaster to worry about his state of mind.

  And he had damn-all little else.

  You, he thought then, are feeling sorry for yourself.

  He nodded and watched another dust cloud scoot from left to right before fading in the growing twilight.

  You, he added silently, should be grateful you're alive, that you have food and shelter, that you can wake up in the morning knowing there are years of productive life ahead of you if you don't screw up and get killed.

  He nodded again, and half turned when the door opened.

  You, he thought, cannot jump out the window; it's rude.

  Grahne stood in the doorway, took one long-legged step in, and scowled when Tuesday waddled swiftly around her legs and headed straight for the table.

  "Are you comfy?" the giant's niece asked.

  "Very," he said. "Thanks."

  She hesitated while Tuesday destroyed a perfectly good display of fresh fruit when her beak aimed for what looked like a skirt of iceberg lettuce around the bottom. "Gee," and she yawned, "I'm tired."

  "Yes," he said, edging away from the window to put the table and his sister between himself and the door. "I am, too."

  "Oh, good!" Grahne exclaimed.

  "In fact, I'm going to bed as soon as Tuesday and I catch up on things."

  "Oh, good," Grahne said. "Is this the duck I'm supposed to help?"

  Tuesday swung her head around and chewed on the lettuce.

  "Right," Gideon said.

  "Nice duck."

  "Rare," he said, then hurried to the tall woman's side, took her arm, and eased her gently, politely, and firmly back into the hall. "Tomorrow morning we'll have to talk," he whispered, and dodged when Jimm Horrn sneaked through the door and nearly skewered him with a sword. "When it isn't quite so crowded."

  Grahne looked down at him skeptically, pursed her moist lips, and grabbed his shoulders. Lifted him off the ground and kissed him until his life flashed before his eyes. Lowered him again and gave him a long, sultry wink before hurrying away.

  "Slut," Tuesday said when he returned and closed the door.

  "Oh, no," Jimm protested, pulling up a chair and sitting at the table. "She's very nice. At least, I think she is. I mean, she hasn't tried to kill us or anything. Doesn't that make her nice?"

  "Slut," Tuesday muttered, and yelped when Gideon plucked a feather from her back, cooed when he hugged her, and turned back to the lettuce while he shook Jimm's hand.

  Horrn blushed, raked a few fingers through his spiky hair, and tried not to blush again when Gideon studied his new clothes—a perfectly matched set of black furs from snug vest to slim leggings. "A gift," he said when he was asked. "My other things sort of got ruined in the jungle."

  "Very nice," Gideon said as he took a seat. "So. How'd you do it?"

  Horrn blushed a third time.

  "No," Gideon said. "I mean, how did you get here?"

  An hour later, with Tuesday interrupting and Botham barging in to find out where his lover was and Red showing himself below the window and bellowing for attention, he learned that after giving up trying to follow him along the river, they had voted to use Whale's map and move on to Terwin. It took them a day and a half.

  "We would have been here sooner," Tuesday said, "but our tracker kept getting lost."

  "I did the best I could," Horrn asserted around a bite of charred meat.

  "You kept turning the map around."

  "It was slippery."

  The duck squatted in front of Gideon's plate and stared at him. "He's a nice boy, Giddy, but you may notice he has a hard time chewing and breathing at the same time."

  They were rescued, she continued, by the slut when they came out of the jungle and found themselves attacked by a herd of overgrown cows. Finlay preened when he was allowed to tell his bit about bashing a few heads, and admitted readily that even his strength would not have carried the day had not Grahne intervened at a crucial moment.

  Jimm bobbed his head in agreement.

  Gideon expressed gratitude.

  Tuesday expressed a few opinions of the woman's hold over her man and the thief in words that sent Red out to graze on the plain and not return until the duck was asleep.

  Gideon laughed. "She's not that bad, Sis."

  The duck quacked derisively. "Really? Then why doesn't she get dressed in the morning, huh? Tell me that. You should see her, out there in that pool in
back, swimming around without a stitch on and knowing damned well these two creeps are watching every stroke!" Her feathers ruffled. Her beak snapped. "It's disgusting."

  "Pool? What pool?"

  Her beak snapped again, on his wrist. "Pay attention."

  He smiled and stroked her head. "I am, Sis, I am."

  Then Horrn sat back, burped his appreciation of the meal, and asked Gideon what had happened to him.

  Gideon told them.

  Finlay scowled as he reached for another side of benst steak.

  Horrn paled and reached for the ale.

  But it was Tuesday who showed the most concern—rubbing her head and neck apologetically along his arm and chest and telling him in a soft voice that, truly, she thought he had died.

  "I thought I was going to," he said quietly.

  "You will," she told him.

  He pushed her back. "I will what?"

  "Die."

  He frowned. "Well, yes, eventually, but don't you think this is a lousy time to bring it up?"

  "Ordinarily, yes. But the slut told me something this afternoon, before you arrived—and who is that slimy little man, anyway?—that scared me."

  "Do I want to know about it?"

  Jimm and Botham shook their heads.

  Tuesday merely blinked and said, "The Web."

  Gideon blinked back. "The Web?"

  Jimm and Botham shuddered.

  "The Web."

  "Let," Gideon said expansively, "me tell you about Bones Abber. He is one of the most amazing people I have ever met in my life. Why, do you know that after I fought the dragon I—" He stopped, looked at his sister, and sighed. "The Web."

  "Yes."

  "Bad news?"

  "You want to talk about dying again?"

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  "The Web," Gideon whispered dolefully with a slow shake of his head.

  "Y'know," Tuesday said, "a duck could get tired of hearing you say that hour after hour."

  They were at breakfast.