Along Came a Spider by Sandor Szabo

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Along Came a Spider

Sandor Szabo

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" ... shaVathath ktal Nakrah !" the wizard's rasping invocation rose to a crescendo.
Billowing clouds of sulphurous smoke obscured the ultradimensional space inside
an iron pentagram. The dank underground chamber was a long time clearing of the
fumes, which added an ochre tinge to the nitre-crusted walls.
The sorcerer's wheezing inhalations resounded in sudden silence as he tottered
closer to the pentagram. Cacodemoniacal flames had melted the floor's granite
flags and the wrought-iron pentagram like so much candle wax. Residual heat from
the molten rock singed the grey hairs of the wizard's outreaching hand. His screech
however was not from pain but a mixture of incredulous shock and bitter
disappointment. The curiously carved opus-wood effigy of his nemesis, Maal Dweb,
lay unharmed on the cooling slag.
The twittering mirth of the wizard's seraphim brought his head about, features set
in a snarl. "Thaisadon damn you, Aliif! You dare mock my necromancies? 'Ware lest
I abjure you to the frozen hell whence you were convoked!"
The miniature features of Soloch's (for such was the wizard's common though of
course not his True name) most capable seraphim displayed only merriment. Its
piping voice mimicked that of Soloch's long deceased father.

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"Not your karcistry wrought my release from the glacial prison of Ikyythis, dread
lord, nor are you in possession of the Tolomethine Script. That puissant grimoire
eludes your glamours in the same fasion as Maal Dweb's life force."

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A r t ic le s
The grizzled enchanter bit back a scathing retort and instead surveyed the ruins of
his once immaculate thaumaturgic pentagram. At least four moons to construct
another and imbue its mithril-inlayed ironwork with the necessary theuregies. And
time seemed to flow so quickly of late.
Soloch wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his gnarled hand and
trudged over to his great oaken lectern. He nearly collapsed from his recent
exertions but managed the requisite aeromantic gestures that transformed the
murky jacinth of his scrying orb into a wavering image.
In its depths Soloch gazed intently at the figure of Maal Dweb, unequaled
arch-mage, apostate of Thaisadon and Soloch's sworn enemy. The unprepossessing
wizard sat at a convivial feast in his marble and crystal manse, drinking the amber
wine of far Fillor. He jested with two winsome lasses to his left and one of the
maidens laughed uproariously while her companion blushed an attractive shade of
pink. Soloch peered closely at his face for signs of putrefaction and scowled at the
salubricious, ruddy glow of health on the jocular spellbinder's face.
The flitting of Aliif's diaphanous triple wings alerted him that the seraph also
viewed the preturnatural scene. With a grunt betraying the effort his clairvoyance
demanded, Soloch allowed the sphere to dim and slumped back in his capacious
chair.

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Aliif's tinkling voice whispered with his mother's tones in his ear, "Dread lord, some
impermeable aegis appears to ward your rival, shielding him from your sendings.
Perhaps your necromantic research was not thorough enought to espy this
beneficent agent? Unless of course, the ascendency of your diablerie is on the
wane ..."
Soloch paused, startled for a breathless moment as if having heard a blunder in a
perilous incantation that would wreak the doom of the conjurer. Then he shook his

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head stubbornly and declared, "Nonsense, imp. You forget your place. I am Soloch
the Resplendent, whose thaumaturgy leveled the towers of Yuundal and
obliterated the Tarkellian League. Ever I delve more deeply into the recondite
mysteries at the dark heart of wisdom. Soon I shall eclipse Maal Dweb and assume
the Lordship of Xiccarph, the six planets and all their moons, and ..."
"And become the chief wine bibber at Maal Dweb's hall, no doubt. Dread lord, how
are you to usurp the archimandrite's manse if you cannot even magick away the
grey of your beard?"

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Soloch blinked in disbelief at the impudent and suddenly acerbic seraph, who had
already turned to tease a glass-encased homunculus on cluttered bookshelf.
"How now, Aliif?" he queried slowly and a dangerous light entered his eyes. "It
occurs to me that you have observed all my sendings against Maal Dweb, whether I
had summoned you hence or not."
Aliif chattered on, oblivious to the sinister undertone of its master's discourse.
"Yes, dread lord, I've witnessed your futile occultations of late: the Soomish
plague, the hacking lung rot, the speckled decrepitation, the necrotic sludge. All
very nasty to a human's corporeal shell, certes."
It flicked a speck of lotus pollen from the lip of a crystal alembic and yawned
behind a wafer-thin hand. "How nice not to subsist entirely in your plane of
existence."
Soloch's features had grown increasingly choleric and almost without volition his
thickly veined fingers traced eldritch runes in the air behind Aliif with vermicular
dexterity.
"Yet my faithful servant," he spat, "even to the depths of your demiempyreal plane
this dweomer shall smite you!"

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Lambent bolts of emerald flame flashed from his mantically contorted fingers
toward the slim spriteling ... and instantly rebounded with a thousandfold violence
at the stunned wizard! Caught unawares, Soloch had no time to form a
counterward or utter even the simplest cantrip ere the green levin bolts pierced
and ravaged his frail body. In an instant the great spellbinder was reduced to a
charred and smoking skeleton.
The diminutive sylph-like form of the seraphim Aliif began to expand and
polymorph, developing physical substance. Had any eyes been present in the slain
wizard's atelier they would have seen a smile of deep satisfaction spread across
the face of the now wholly corporeal and peerless arch-mage, Maal Dweb.
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Last Modified: 27 September 2006
Date Added: 30 April 1998
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