The Hour of the Gate by Foster Alan Dean

Author:Foster, Alan Dean [Foster, Alan Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, ebook, Science Fiction, Humour, book
ISBN: 9780446341813
Amazon: 0446341819
Goodreads: 23399
Publisher: New York : Warner Books
Published: 1984-02-17T08:00:00+00:00

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THEY HADN’T NOTICED THE passageway when they’d been chucked into the cell. There was no telling where it ran to or what had hold of Flor. Blood oozed from beneath her nails as she tried to dig her fingers into the floor.

Jon-Tom was first at her side. Without thinking, he leaned over and heaved a head-sized rock at her foot. There was a breathy exclamation of surprise and pain from beyond. She stopped sliding.

Caz and Mudge half dragged, half carried her across the cell. Whatever had hold of her had missed her leg, but her boot was neatly punctured just behind the calf.

As he backed away from the opening several legs scrambled through. They were attached to a two-foot-wide bulbous body of light green with blue stripes and spots. Jon-Tom took note of the fact that it wore only one black silk scarf tied around the left rear leg at the uppermost joint.

The visitor was followed closely by a second, smaller spider. This one was an electric maroon with a single large gray rectangle on its abdomen. A third spider squeezed into their cell, barely clearing the passageway. It was gray-brown with white circles on cephalothorax and abdomen and had shockingly red legs. All wore only the single black scarf on identical limbs.

The three spiders stood confronting the wary knot of warmlanders.

“what the hell,” said the first spider who’d entered, in a tone so high and flighty it was barely intelligible, “are you?”

“Diplomatic ambassadors,” Clothahump informed them, with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances.

The little arachnid bobbed his head in that maybe yes, maybe no movement Jon-Tom had come to recognize. “maybe you’re diplomatic ambassadors to you,” he said, “but you’re just food to us.”

“they look nice and soft,” said the big one in a slightly deeper but still tenebrous voice. His body was a good three feet across, bulky, and with three foot legs. “diplomats or blasphemers, ambassador or storage-stealers, what difference does it make?” He displayed bright red fangs. “dinner is dinner.”

“You think so? Touch one of us again,” said Jon-Tom warningly, “and I’ll shove your fangs down your throat.”

The first spider cocked multiple eyes at him. “will you now, half-limbed?” The latter was an apparent reference to Jon-Tom’s disproportionately fewer number of limbs. “tell you a thing. if you can do that we’ll treat you as something more than dinner. if you can’t”—he pointed with a leg toward the shivering Flor—“we start with that one for an appetizer.”

“Why her, why not me?”

The spider could not grin, but conveyed that impression nonetheless. “almost had a taste. she smells full of fluid.”

It was too much for the terrified arachniphobe, that casual talk of being sucked dry like a lemon. She turned and vomited.

“there, you see?” said the spider knowingly.

Jon-Tom quelled his own rising nausea. He ignored the gagging sounds behind him to keep his attention on the big red-legged spider. It had scuttled off to the side, away from its companions.

“you can have me if you can get me,” it taunted.

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