The tickling presence returned.

(Is that still your chief image of me? As a figment of your mind? If so, why not test it? Come to me, my unowned treasure. My unique wonder! Come to the one place in the cosmos where you will always be prized!) Dwer grimaced, resisting the hypnotic draw of the algae patterns, still scanning amid the rocks and tangles for Rety. At least the spider hadn't taken her yet. Or was it cruel enough to lie?

There! .Was that a flicker to the left? Dwer peered westward, shading his eyes against the late afternoon sun. Something rustled near the coiled vines, just a dozen or so meters closer to the lake, hidden by the bulk of several stone slabs, but causing a section of hedge to quiver. Squinting, Dwer wished he hadn't been so hasty in dropping his pack, which contained his priceless handmade ocular.

It might be a trap, he thought.

(Who would trap you, Special One? You suspect me? Say you don't mean it!) The wind had died down a bit. Dwer cupped his hands and called, "Rety!"

Queer echoes scattered among the rocks, to be sucked dry by pervasive moss and dust. Dwer looked around for alternatives. He could slip down to ground level and hack his way inward, using the machete sheathed at his back. But that would take forever, and how would One-of-a-Kind react to having its fingers sliced off?

His only real option was to go over.

Dwer backed up till his heels hung over empty s.p.a.ce, then took a deep breath and sprang forward . . . one, two, three paces, and leaped-sailing over a jungle of interlacing tendrils-to land with a jarring thud atop the next slab. This one slanted steeply, so there was no time to recover. He had to scramble fast to reach a long knife-edged ridge. Standing up, he spread his arms and gingerly walked heel-and-toe, teetering for ten paces before reaching a boulder with a flatter top.

Dwer's nostrils filled with sour, caustic odors from the lake. More nearby tendrils throbbed with veins now, flowing acrid tinctures. He skirted puddles of bitter fluid, collecting in cavities of etched stone. When his boot sc.r.a.ped one pool, it left fine trails of ash and a scent of burning leather.

The next time he took a running leap, he landed hard on hands and knees.

"Rety?" he called, crawling to the forward edge.

The sh.o.r.eline barrier was a dense-woven knot of green, red, and yellow strands, twisted in roiling confusion. Within this contorted ma.s.s, Dwer spied objects-each nestled in its own cavity. Each sealed, embedded, within a separate crystal coc.o.o.n.

Golden things, silvery things. Things gleaming like burnished copper or steel. Tubes, spheroids, and complex blocky forms. Things shining unnatural hues of pigment or nanodye. Some resembled items Dwer had seen dragged from Buyur sites by reclaimer teams; only those had been decomposed, worn by pa.s.sing centuries. These samples of past glory looked almost new. Like bugs trapped in amber, their coc.o.o.ns preserved them against the elements, against time. And each item, Dwer knew, was one of a kind.

Not every sample was a Buyur relic. Some had once been alive. Small animals. Insectoids. Anything that strayed too close and caught the mad spider's collecting fancy. It seemed a wonder that a being devoted to destruction-one designed to emit razing fluids-could also secrete a substance that conserved. All the more astonishing that it would want to.

The rustling resumed, coming from his left. Dwer slithered that way, dreading to find the girl trapped and suffering. Or else some small creature he would have to put out of misery with his bow.

He edged forward . . . and gasped.

What he saw netted in the profuse tangle, just a few meters ahead, came as a complete surprise.

At first sight it resembled a bird-a Jijoan avian-with the typical clawed stilt for a landing leg, four broad-feathered wings, and a tentacle-tail. But Dwer swiftly saw that it was no species he knew-or any genus listed on his brother's charts. Its wings, flapping desperately against a surrounding net of sticky threads, articulated in ways Dwer thought unnatural. And they beat with a power he found suspicious in any living thing that size.

Feathers had been ripped or burned away in several places. Within those gaps, Dwer glimpsed flashes of glistening metal.

A machine!

Shock made him release the screen on his thoughts, allowing the tickling voice to return.

(Indeed, a machine. Of a type I never before owned. And see, it still operates. It lives!) "I see that, all right," Dwer muttered.

(And you don't yet know the half of it. Is this my day, or what?) Dwer hated the way the mule-spider not only slipped into his mind but somehow used what it found there to produce perfect Anglic sentences, better than Dwer could manage, since the spider never stammered or seemed at a loss for words. He found that obnoxious, coming from a being lacking a face to talk back to.

The false bird thrashed in its snare. Along its feathered back gleamed clear, golden droplets that it fought to shake off, flicking most aside before they could harden into a sh.e.l.l of adamant, preserving crystal.

What on Jijo could it be? Dwer wondered.

(I was hoping, now that I have you, to learn the answer.) Dwer wasn't sure he liked the way One-of-a-Kind put that. Anyway, there wasn't time to bandy words. Dwer pushed aside pity for the trapped creature. Right now he must keep Rety from becoming yet another unique specimen in the mule-spider's collection.

(So, as I suspected. The small human is special!) Dwer quashed the voice with the best weapon he had-anger.

Get out of my mind!

It worked. The presence vanished, for now. Once more, Dwer lifted his head and shouted. "Rety! Where are you!"

An answer came at once, from surprisingly close by.

"I'm here, fool. Now be quiet, or you'll scare it!"

He swiveled, trying to stare in all directions at once. "Where? I don't see-"

"Right below you, so shut up! I've been followin' this thing for weeks! Now I gotta figure how to get it outta there."

Dwer slid further left to peer into the crisscrossing network just below-and found himself staring straight into the beady black eyes of a grinning noor! Stretched out across a dormant vine as if it were a comfy roost, Mudfoot tilted his head slightly, squinting back at Dwer. Then, without warning, the noor let loose a sudden sneeze.

Dwer rocked back, cursing and wiping his face, while Mudfoot grinned innocently, happily.

"Quiet, you two! I think I see how to get a little closer-"

"No, Rety. You mustn't!" Ignoring the noor, Dwer crept back to the edge and found her at last, close to the ground, perched with a leg on either side of a giant vine, squinting through the gloomy tangle at the mysterious avian.

"Took you long enough to catch up," Rety commented.

"I ... had some distractions," he replied. "Now just wait a second, will you? There's-some things you ought to know about this-about this here mule-spider." He motioned at the snarled mesh surrounding them. "It's more, well, dangerous than you realize."

"Hey, I been exploring webs since I was little," she replied. "Most are dead, but we got a few big ones in the Hills, still full o' sap and nasty stuff. I know my way around." She swung her leg over the branch and slipped forward.

In a panic, Dwer blurted out-"Did any of those spiders try to catch you?"

She stopped, turned to face him again, and smirked.

"Is that what you meant by crazy?Oh, hunter. You got some imagination."

Maybe you 're right, he pondered. That could be why he never heard of anyone else holding conversations with shrubs and lakes.

(What, again? How many times must we speak before you are convinced--) Shut up and let me think!

The spider's presence backed off again. Dwer bit his lip, trying to come up with something, anything, to keep the girl from venturing deeper into the thicket.

"Look, you've been following that bird-machine for some time, right? Is that what led you west in the first place?"

She nodded. "One day some o' the boys saw a critter swoop out of a marsh, down by the Rift. Mean ol' Ja.s.s winged it, but it got away, leaving a feather behind."

She plucked something out of her leather blouse. Dwer glimpsed a brief metal sparkle before she put it away.

"I swiped it from Ja.s.s before I snuck out to go after the bird. Poor thing must've been hurt, 'cause by the time I picked up the trail, it wasn't flyin' so good. Kind of gliding for a stretch, then hoppin' along. I only got one good look. Upslope to the Rimmers it started pullin' ahead. Then I reached the Slope, and it came to me that I risked getting hanged every dura that I stayed."

She shivered, a memory of fear.

"I was about to give up and head back home for a beatin', when I heard a tapping sound in the night. I followed it, and for a minute I thought the clock teet was my bird!" She sighed. "That's when I saw you, snorin' away, with that fancy bow of yours lyin' nearby. Figured it'd make Ja.s.s an' Bom happy enough to forget knockin' my teeth out for runnin' off."

Dwer had never heard their names before but decided a rope was too good for some sooners.

"That's why you came all this way? To follow that bird-thing?"

Rety answered with a shrug. "I don't spect you'd understand."

On the contrary, he thought. It was what he himself would have done, if something so strange ever crossed his path.

(As would I, were I not rooted to this spot, ensnared by my own limitations. Are we not alike?) Dwer chased the spider out-and the next instant an idea glimmered, offering a possible way out of this mess, as Rety slid off the branch and began to sidle forward, holding a slim blade that Dwer had never found when he searched her, the day before. It gleamed with razor sharpness.

"Wait. I-think about it, Rety. Shouldn't we work together? Wouldn't we do a better job getting it out?"

She stopped and seemed to consider the idea, looking up through the branches. "I'm listenin'."

Dwer frowned, concentrating on getting the words right. "Look . . . n.o.body on the Slope has seen an active Buyur machine since-well, long before humans came to Jijo. This is important. I want to get that thing out of there as much as you do."

All of which was true, or would have been if his first concern weren't saving the girl's life and his own. Stall for time, Dwer thought. There's only a midura of daylight left. Get her to retreat till tomorrow. Then you can drag her away by force if you have to.

"Go on," Rety said. "You want to come down an' chop with your big knife? I bet you'd splatter, hacking at live vines. Lotta pain that way, if the sap goes spraying around." Still, she seemed interested.

"Actually, I know a way that won't bruise a single branch but might spread a hole big enough to get your bird-thing out. We'd use some of the-um, natural resources handy hereabouts."

"Yeah?" She frowned. "The only stuff around here is rock, and dirt, and-"

Her eyes lit. "Boo!"

He nodded. "We'll cut some young shoots, trim them tonight, and return in the morning with bridges and ladders to cross on top of the boulders-and enough pry bars to spread a path through all this"-he waved at the surrounding thicket-"without spilling any acid or gunk on ourselves. We'll get your birdie-thing out long before it's sealed in a crystal egg, and march right up to the sages with a surprise that'll make a hoon's spine pop. How does that sound?"

Dwer saw distrust in her eyes. She was naturally suspicious, and he had never been a very good liar. When she glanced back at the trapped mystery machine, he knew she must be gauging whether it could hold out overnight. "It still looks strong," he told her. "If it lasted in there several days, one more night shouldn't make that much difference."

Rety lowered her head, pondering. "Might even be good if its wings got stickier. Won't be able to fly off when we free it." She nodded. "All right. Let's go cut us some boo."

With one hesitant, longing scan behind her, Rety swung her legs over the thick branch and reached up to begin climbing. She carefully examined each hand or foothold before committing herself, eyeing it for caustic leaks, then testing whether the next vine would bear her weight. Clearly, she was an experienced explorer.

But Rety had never ventured through a spider like this one. When she was about a third of the way through the twisty tangle, she suddenly winced, withdrawing her hand and staring at a single pale-golden droplet, glistening on the back of her wrist. It did not burn, or she would have screamed. For a moment, she seemed more entranced by the color than afraid.

"Quick, shake it off!" Dwer cried.

She complied. The glob flew into the foliage. But instantly there followed two more soft splatting sounds. A drop appeared on her shoulder, and one in her hair. Rety looked up to see where they came from-and took one more in the middle of her forehead. Cursing, she tried wiping it off-but managed only to smear it down her cheek. Rety backed away rapidly.

"Not that way!" Dwer urged. He saw some active vines snake toward her, golden dew oozing .from crevices. Rety hissed in dismay, taking more drops in her hair as she scrambled in a new direction.

(Tell her not to fight. There need be no pain.) Dwer's angry snarl was voiceless, inarticulate, hurling the spider's mind-touch away. He shrugged the bow off of his shoulder, leaving it atop the boulder, and began clambering down to the girl. Vaguely, he was aware that the noor had departed, sensibly fleeing danger. Unlike some fools I know, Dwer thought, slipping the machete out of its sheath.

"I'm coming, Rety," he said, testing his weight on a branch. Dwer saw Rety try to ascend by another route, easily evading the sluggishly pursuing vines.

"Don't bother!" she called. "I'm all right. I don't need your hel-ack!"

The branch she was holding, which had seemed inert moments before, suddenly beaded a line of golden moisture. Rety recoiled, cursing. Several drops adhered to her hand. "Don't rub them!" Dwer urged.

"I'm not an idiot!" she retorted, backing away. Unfortunately, that took her deeper into the mora.s.s.

Dwer's machete, an artfully reshaped length of Buyur metal, gleamed as he took a swipe at one of the vines between them. It looked lifeless, but he was ready to leap back in case- It severed neatly, a crumbling, decaying tube, spilling nothing but cloying dust. A good thing he had decided against using it as a foothold, then. This place wasn't forgiving of mistakes.

He let the machete hang by the pommel loop while he lowered himself one level, to what seemed a stable vine, setting his weight down gingerly; then he sidled along the horizontal span seeking a way downward. The next foothold seemed thinner, less anch.o.r.ed, but he didn't have much choice. At least it didn't gush acid or try to wrap his ankle like a snake. How did she get this far in the first place? He wondered, glad that most of the tendrils were dead. The hedge would have been impa.s.sable when the mule-spider was in its prime.

"Dwer!"

He swiveled, wobbling as the ropy strand rocked to and fro. Peering past shadows, he watched Rety climb a chimneylike funnel, offering what seemed a way out. Only now, halfway up the slim gap, she saw something begin twisting into place above. Another clump of living vines . . . moving in to block the promise of escape. Meanwhile, the chimney's base was closing the same way. Her face betrayed rising panic. Flushed, she held out her slim blade, eyes darting for some vital spot to stab her foe. But all she could do was saw at some nearby strand, hoping it would not gush vitriol or golden death.

A short way beyond, Dwer saw the bird-thing, still struggling within its own trap.

Let her go, One-of-a-Kind, Dwer thought as he crouched, then leaped with both hands outstretched for another cable-which fortunately held as he swung across a dark opening to land straddling another almost horizontal branch, as thick as a sapling's trunk. Let her go, or I'll- His mind seemed to strangle on the .demand, not knowing how one intimidated a mule-spider. Could he do more than irritate it with a machete? He might threaten to depart and return with tools to destroy the ancient thing, with flame and explosives, but somehow Dwer knew that would seem too abstract. The spider appeared to have little sense of perspective or cause and effect, only immediacy and avarice, combined with enough patience to make a hoon seem like a cranky noor.

Anyway, by the time Dwer could carry out his retribution, Rety would be sealed in a golden coc.o.o.n, preserved for all time . . . and dead as a stone.

Let's talk a trade, One-of-a-Kind, he projected as he took up the machete once more. What will you take in exchange for her?

There was no answer. Either One-of-a-Kind was too busy pushing vines and fluids around, acting with unaccustomed haste, or else- The spider's silence felt eerie, predatory. Smug. As if it felt no need for conversation when it had two treasures and seemed about to get a third. Grimacing, Dwer sidled deeper into the quagmire. What else could he do?

He hacked at three more vines. The last sent streams of caustic sap arcing between crisscrossing branches. Smoke curled up from the rubbish-strewn floor below, adding to the acrid stench.

"Dwer, help me!"

Rety was fully hemmed in now, and touchy pride no longer suppressed the normal panic of a frightened child. Seen through a matrix of ensnaring mule-twine, her hair glistened like an urrish tinker's mane on a dewy morning, coated with a fine dusting of golden droplets. A vine parted under her sawing knife-and two more slithered in to take its place.

"I'm coming!" he promised, splitting two more cables, then dropping to the next stable-looking branch. It sagged, then Dwer's footing went slippery as it seeped a clearish, greasy liquor. He shouted, and his feet slid out from under him.

The same dense tangle he'd been cursing saved him from a broken neck. His windmilling arms caught a vine, wrapping round it desperately as his legs swung in midair. But his sigh of relief turned into a gagging gasp. Under his chin, livid veins pulsed with some vile, crimson solution. Blisters formed as corrosive liquid welled beneath the thinnest of membranes. Dwer's eyes stung from escaping vapor.

(No, no. Don't think I would ever harm you so! You are much too precious for that.) Before Dwer's tear-blurred gaze, the blisters stopped rising-then reddish fluid seemed to drain out of the throbbing arteries.

(That nectar is for plain stone. For you, my unique one, only the gold.) Dwer grimaced. Thanks a lot!

Peering to one side, he found another tangle within reach of his feet. Risking that perch, he pushed away from the loathsome branch that had broken his fall.

(Think nothing of it.) Dwer was almost at Rety's level now, close enough to see grim determination replace panic in her eyes as she sawed another vine in half. A fine spray rewarded her, gilding the forearm she raised to protect her face. All of a sudden, Dwer realized-She's cutting in the wrong direction!

Instead of taking the most direct route toward daylight, she was heading deeper into the mora.s.s-toward the mechanical bird-thing!

Of all the times to chase an Ifni-slucking obsession!

Sudden liquid coolness brushed Dwer's wrist. A shimmering meniscus bead lay amid the dark hairs. He moved aside quickly, before another drop could fall from the seep-pore overhead. Dwer shook the droplet off, but even after it was gone, the spot still felt chilled, touched with a not-unpleasant numbness, like when the village dentist spread powdered Nural leaves along a patient's gums, before spinning his hand-cranked drill.

The machete now wore its own streaked coating, already starting to crystallize in places. Certainly it was an artifact worth collecting, a slab of star-G.o.d stuff, adapted by a tribe of primitives to new use in 'a twilight place, between the gritty earth and urbane sky. Grimly, he raised his weapon and set to with a will.