Spiders' War. S. Fowler Wright

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 1954 by S. Fowler Wright

      Copyright © 2009, 2013 by The Estate of S. Fowler Wright

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      PROLOGUE: INTERVIEW WITH A MAGICIAN

      “It is a long while,” the magician said, “since you were here. I had supposed that your last adventure had been enough, even for you.”

      Marguerite Cranleigh, who, whether the time had been long or short, looked little older than when she had bargained first for the acquaintance of distant days, gave a smiling reply: “It was exciting enough. But I cannot live in past days. I must ask you this: when I went into a far time, there was one whom I knew well. If I should go again into some distant time, could I meet him again?”

      “It would not be beyond possibility.”

      “And could it be at a future day, rather than one which is past? You can see that I should prefer that, if it would not be beyond your power to control.”

      “Why should it? Between past and future there is no difference at all.”

      “You mean that they are equally easy for you?”

      “I mean what I say. Past and present and future—they are all one. They are like the rotundity of the earth, which is not limitless, but has neither beginning nor end. You can move upon it, as I have moved you in time, but you cannot properly say that you go forward or back.”

      “All the same, you know what I mean.”

      “So I do. Some things are harder to explain than to understand.”

      “Then it is for that I will ask. And I should prefer a less primitive time than I had before.”

      “You mean a less primitive place. There have been no periods in the whole history of civilized or semi-civilized man when they have not been both orderly and savage parts of the earth, as there are today, although movement is the special development, as it must be the disintegrating factor, of the civilization to which we belong.”

      “A time when movement will be less worshiped would please me well. But there is another thing I would ask, though with little hope.”

      “Few things are beyond hope. What is it?”

      “It is that, when I am in that far time, I may remember what I am here.”

      “You ask much. Have you other desires beyond that?”

      “I would ask to remain, if the one of whom I speak should be there.”

      “So you could, while that life will last. But after that, you must return here, and find that you are in the same time as before.”

      “But it will not be the same, for another memory will be mine.”

      “You see gain in that? Well, so perhaps it may be. It is with yourselves.”

      “Yes. I see that.”

      “Even so, you may be asking more than I can certainly pledge. When you were translated before, you went into the past, and returned with memories which were easy to keep. But, if you are resolved to enter a future time, I cannot promise that you will bring back a memory of that which will not have occurred.”

      “But I thought you said—” she exclaimed, in some natural astonishment, and was interrupted by: “I have said too much.”

      He became practical, remembering the rent of the Bond Street suite in which this interview was taking place, and that the present was the only tense which its landlord would understand. He asked: “Have you brought a check?”

      Yes, she had done that.

      CHAPTER I: THE ANTICIPATION OF A GOOD MEAL

      She lay on her side. Her wrists were tied tightly behind her back. Her ankles were tied also, painfully. That was the one clear consciousness in a mind that was confused by two conflicting memories, and only dimly aware of the seated figure before her, in the gloom of the fire-lit room.

      For the magician had kept his word. She could still remember that she was Marguerite Cranleigh—a memory still clear, but strangely remote. But she was Gleda now, and she could also remember the violence which that young woman had suffered in the last hour—the useless struggle against a strength far greater than hers; the binding of hands and feet; the rough tumbling into the bottom of the canoe, which, in the next moment, had been loosed from the bank, and swept down the swift current of the river toward the falls; and the sight of the strained face of the man who paddled desperately to escape a danger which, she supposed, must otherwise bear her to unavoidable death, bound as she was. (But what better had she to hope now, beyond the delay of a few hours?)

      There had been the sound of the falls, louder and nearer with every stroke of the frantic paddle. And then the grating of the keel, as the canoe grounded, just as she thought that all hope had gone.

      After that he had pulled her out, and flung her over his shoulder, and brought her here, for a purpose which she did not know, and could only fear—the man who was sitting before her now.

      The magician surely could not have meant this—that she—Marguerite—should come here only to die in a few hours, and that in a most repugnant way, and for a use which no one would wish to serve. He must have made a mistake. Perhaps, when dealing with enormous distances of time, it was possible, even for his art, to be a few years, or a few centuries, wrong. Or a single hour might mean that the rolling earth would receive her at a widely different point. (Or was that nonsense, or not?) Or perhaps she was to have some miraculous escape, for which her ingenuity would be enough. But that was hard to think, for she—Gleda—was now on the side of the river far from any friend. And to recross it would be, for her, an impossible thing. She would have said impossible for anyone a few hours before.

      She looked at the man. He was the largest, best-made man that she (as Gleda) had ever seen. Now he wrote as though he had no other interest on his mind; a student rather than the man of action that she had seen him to be, to her own cost. He wrote as one who works against time, as, in fact, he did.

      He wrote from right to left, using his left hand, which did not seem strange to her, though her dual memories conflicted. Would the old memory become weaker, and the newly acquired one stronger, as the days passed? That seemed likely enough, but then, what days would there be? The consciousness of present peril, dimmed at intervals by the strangeness, the unreality, of the whole event, became acute. If there had been no mistake, and if she were to make no nearer acquaintance with the black caldron which stood by the great kitchen fireplace which could be seen through the half-opened door, she must exert her ingenuity to avert her impending fate. Could she break her bonds? It seemed hopeless to try as they now were. Could she induce him to ease them? Anything may be asked. She said: “The ropes are too tight. They are cutting my flesh.”

      He looked up. Speech was different on her side of the river, but not so much so that he failed to understand. She met eyes that were not hostile, but unconcerned. He said: “You must be safely tied. I do not mean you to wriggle free. If I should have to catch you again, you might get more hurt than you are now. You will not feel it for long. You must find comfort in that.”

      “It is no consolation at all. Could I not be of better use?”

      “Not for us. We need food. Would I have risked so much for anything else?”

      It was to continue the conversation, rather than from any acute discomfort in the fire-warmed room, that she went on: “I am cold, being uncovered. Is there any profit in that?”

      The man did not answer, but he got up, showing a tall and muscular form. He wore a fur cloak, loose from his shoulders, open in front. He had no other garment at all. At need, he could draw it closely, fastening it with thongs.

      Seeing his height and girth, she understood how he had been able to cross the great river below the