The thing was at least seven feet tall. Sturm didn't tarry to measure. Deftly the lad rolled out of the way, crashing into a blue aeterna bush and losing his shield in the process. The spider leapt vainly behind him, its wicked fangs slashing at empty air.

Behind the monster, the elf maiden leapt from the roof of the cottage and, scrambling and scuttling like a spider herself, vanished into the shadowy door of the hut.

Bursting through to the other side of the bush, Sturm lifted his sword over his head, then slashed at the hurtling spider. The creature chittered wildly and sprang out of the way, grappling up a bare vallenwood to crouch in the low branches above the dodging boy. Down the spider leapt, and Sturm would have been crushed immediately had he not plunged forward, somersaulted into the side of the vallenwood trunk and, dazed and breathless, scrambled to his feet to paw the underbrush for his dropped sword. The spider approached, rocked back on its hind legs, and pounced forward viciously. But its fangs closed upon Angriff Bright-blade's breastplate, clashing harmlessly against the ornate bronze.

With a cry, Sturm broke free of the spider's grasp and, looking about him, noticed his sword lying only ten feet or so away. He raced for the sword, scooped it up in a swift, acrobatic movement, and rolled over the ground, springing at last to his feet with the blade leveled, pointed toward the spider…

… who was no longer where he pointed. For in the midst of Sturm's gymnastics, the spider had moved, clambered to a higher branch of the vallenwood, then hurtled out toward a leaning juniper, which it grasped, apelike, in its front two legs, then darted along a thick, extended branch, and dropped unceremoniously back on the roof of the cabin.

With a cry, Sturm raced toward the cottage, slipping on undergrowth, stumbling over root and bush and bramble. The spider leapt over his head, landing lightly behind him, a thick viscid spiral raveling from its spinnerets. The lad was quick enough this time, stepping from the path of the silk and lunging toward the creature, sword extended.

But again the spider was no longer there. Sturm looked about stupidly, then above, barely in time to dodge the monster as it dropped twenty feet in a murderous pounce. Running toward the juniper, the great net of the spider shimmering above him, Sturm raised his sword and slashed once, twice, a third time into the thick ropes of the web until a long strand fell, smooth and tough, into his gloved hand.

"Now," he muttered, turning to face the charging creature, "since sword and strength will not help me…"

He turned and dove among the twitching legs of the spider, dragging the webbing with him. The fangs clacked over his head, and then he was out beyond the creature, two of its legs entangled in Sturm's weaving. Immediately the lad drew the cord taut around a tree and turned again, scrambling beneath the monster once more. A fang brushed his back harmlessly, and he rolled clear of the spider, tugging the web strand taut behind him.

Five of its legs mired and tied now, the spider toppled onto the forest floor, scattering dust and leaves as it thrashed angrily. Its cry was like the whir of cicadas, deafening and shrill. Sturm slipped out of his glove, leaving it stuck to the filament, raised his sword, and marched over to the snared beast. Triumphantly he raised the blade…

… and the elf maiden poked her head out of the door of the cottage and shrieked in horror.

"No!" she shouted. "Stay your hand, human!"

Dumbstruck, Sturm stepped back from the creature, lowering the sword. In fury, the girl slipped from the hut and rushed across the clearing, her dark almond eyes ablaze.

"Untie the poor thing, you scoundrel!"

Sturm couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Untie him, I said! Or by Branchala…"

She drew her knife. Instinctively Sturm raised his shield, but she was by him in a breath, kneeling by the monster, whittling frantically at the web strands that bound it.

"I… I don't…" Sturm began, but the elf flashed him a look of such withering rage and hatred that he stopped trying to explain. He stood above her awkwardly, watching her hack and saw at the web. Finally, reluctantly, he knelt beside her, setting the blade of his broadsword against the coarse and stringy cords.

After a minute or so, the spider was free. Wobbily it stood, as though just awakening or just being born. Sturm watched it cautiously, sword low and shield raised, but the thing staggered, gibbered, and raced off into the copse, a strange, gulping sound in its cry, almost as if it were weeping. Completely confused, Sturm watched as the creature vanished into the cedars and pines and laricks, trailing one damaged leg.

"What-" he began, but he never finished the sentence.

The elf maiden's slap caught him utterly, completely off guard.

"How dare you burst into my clearing with sword and mayhem!" she exclaimed, then raised her hand to strike the lad again. Sturm staggered back from her.

"I thought you were in danger," he explained, flinching as again the girl moved suddenly. This time, however, she merely brushed back her dark hair, and sorrow vied with anger in her face.

"You fool of a boy," she said quietly. "You had no idea what you were doing, did you?"

Sturm said nothing. With a weak, melancholy smile, the elf maiden pointed to the heavens.

"Look above you," she said. "What do you see?"

A gap in the trees," Sturm replied uncertainly. "The night sky. The two moons…"

His head reeled as she slapped him again.

" 'The two moons' is right, you dolt! You rash, callow, dwarf-brained excuse for a swordsman!"

The elf reeled, clutching against the bark of a vallenwood for support.

"Two moons," she said more calmly, "who join in the winter sky under the sign of Mishakal… how often, would you say?"

"I am no astronomer, lady," Sturm confessed. "I know not how often."

"Oh, only every five years or so," the girl said, her teeth clenched and her glittering eyes fixed on the lad in scarcely controllable anger. "Every five years, at which time a specific tune, in the ninth mode of Branchalan harmonies, played by a musician three years in the learning of its intricacies, may be used to undo the magic of druids and wizards."

"I don't understand," Sturm said, backing away as the girl took one aggressive stride toward him.

"You don't understand," she repeated coldly, flipping the knife in her hand, blade to hilt to blade. "The song undoes enchantment, lifts curses, restores the transmogrified."

"Transmogrified?"

"Those who have been changed into spiders!" the girl bellowed and launched the knife past Sturm's ear. He stood confounded, motionless, the dagger trembling in a bare oak some twenty feet behind him. Strands of hair, neatly sliced from below his ear, settled on his shoulder.

"At the one worst moment in five years," the elf said, "you came upon this clearing. And in doing so, you have assured that Cyren of the House Royal in Silvanost, descendant of kings and lord of my heart, shall scramble alone in webs, eight-legged and six-eyed, eating vermin and offal for the next half a decade until white Solinari and red Lunitari, each on its separate path, sail through the whole forsaken sky, past fixed and movable stars, and converge again!"

"I'm… I'm…" Sturm began, but the words had fled to the treetops.

"No apologies," the girl said, her smile glittering and crooked as Solinari drifted behind the swaying junipers and the clearing was left in the red, ominous light of Lunitari. "No apologies, please, for I've still half a mind to kill you."