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The
Mountain Spiders Pursue...
Lan Martak splashed
loudly through the pool, up onto a sandy embankment and then ran as
though all the demons of the Lower Places nipped at his heels. He lost
track of the turnings made by the stream, but the journey was
continually uphill. When the stream vanished totally, the young mage
stopped to study it. An artesian spring thrust upward from the rock and
fed the tiny river.
Glancing around, he saw
he had emerged from the valley and stood on a rocky ridge. To his right
stretched the distance-hazy green of the valley of the spiders. Ahead
lay even more treacherous mountain terrain. To the left--and far, far
down--raged a river.
"It's either ahead
or back," he said to himself. Ahead didn't promise anything but
sore feet and hard work. He turned to head back in the direction where
he and Krek had originally entered the mountainous region and gasped.
Not one, but fully a
hundred spiders advanced on him.
Again he fought to
restrain himself. A fire spell would fry them in their tracks. But there
might be another way out. There had to be. Wanton killing accomplished
nothing.
The river so far below
beckoned. A pathway down the rock face might exist. He ran to the edge
and stared down into a five-hundred-foot drop. The sheer granite face
put the lie to any such escape existing. Climbing down would require
mountaineering gear--and time he didn't have.
"I hope the river's
deep," he said, taking a breath. The spiders advanced, mandibles
slashing at the air. Lan Martak took two running steps and leaped out
into space. And fell and fell and fell.
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