Conan The Indomitable by Steve Perry Page B

move from their rooted position, but they
were none the less dangerous for that. The plants, each twice the height of a
tall cyclops, with thorny branches surrounding a central maw, produced a spiderlike silk webbing with which they snared their prey.
Unlike spiders, most of whom built nets upon which they might catch a hapless
passerby, the Webspinner Plants could throw sticky, ropelike lines for some
distance. These lines would adhere to anything save the plants’ own webbing. The
victim thus caught would then be hauled inexorably to the plant, where it would
be impaled upon the sharp spikes until it ceased struggling, then drawn into
the waiting maw. Around the plants was an artificed floor of shimmery
silk-overlay that kept the prey lines from sticking to the cavern’s rocky
surface. The undigested and regurgitated bones of a thousand meals past lay
upon the silken floor, and one desiring to speak to the plants stayed outside
the range of the prey lines or took his chances on becoming dinner.
    Wikkell and Deek kept well outside the perimeter of the largest of the silk
floorings, talking to the queen of this particular nest of Webspinners. Logic
dictated that the Webspinners should have been long extinct since they were
immobile, and despite their ability to heave lines; any prey species with half
a brain should certainly have learned over the years to stay well away from the
plants.
    However, the Webspinners had another talent, and while both Wikkell and Deek
had spoken to them a number of times, that talent was once again in full
evidence: the voices of the plants were
most
compelling. What Wikkell
heard when the queen spoke was the voice of a female cyclops, honey-smooth and
filled with promise of all manner of conjugal delights, almost irresistibly offered. Almost. Deek’s hearing
apparatus, upon receipt of the same voice, construed the sound as that of a
female of his species, gravid with a thousand eggs and desiring a big, strong
worm such as himself to fertilize them at his earliest pleasure. Guaranteed
pleasure, vermis-mine…
    Both cyclops and worm knew that the voice was specific to whatever kind of
creature that heard it: males heard females and females heard males, generally,
and only those with strong minds or experience with the plants could resist the
siren song they sang.
    “Come closer,” the queen of the plants urged, “that we might
discuss this without having to strain ourselves by yelling.” Surely no
cyclopian female had ever sounded so sweet and so willing to do anything Wikkell
might desire. Anything at all, would he simply come a bit closer …
    “Nay, sister,” Wikkell said. His voice held no rancor; he
understood the mechanisms the plants used and begrudged them not, for everybody
wanted to survive. “What we wish to discuss involves a long-term
arrangement rather than a quick meal upon Deek here or myself .”
    “Long term?” Deek heard the gravid
female’s soothing tones in the high pitch that his kind used, sounds quite
inaudible to human or cyclopian ears but hot music to his own. Even knowing
what she was, the call tempted him.
    “Aye,” Wikkell continued. “A large supply of food, spaced over a long period.”
    “How much? Over how
long?” The sweet tones vanished abruptly and the queen’s suddenly
alien rasp held no promise of anything either Wikkell or Deek or anything
interested in staying alive would find intriguing. The big plant was now all
business.
    Wikkell spared a quick grin and whisper for Deek. “That got her
attention.”
    Softly, Deek scraped back, “I-i-indeed.”
    Louder, Wikkell said, “We need water transportation. You can spin a
boat of your webbing, can you not?”
    “Certainly,” came her reply. The tone was full of arrogance and
disdain. “There is little we cannot create of the Magic Cord.”
    “In return for supplying my friend Deek and me with such a conveyance,
we would be willing to offer you, oh, say half a dozen each of Whites and