by Greg Curtis
She was in danger too. The spiders were everywhere. Some were behind her. And she had to keep spinning around wildly, looking up and down as well, terrified that one might land right on top of her.
But there was nothing else to do except fight. So she fought. She dropped hell-hound after hell-hound around her, hoping against hope that they would kill every spider that came near her. And the others fought too, just as terrified. The ground open up and swallowed the spiders as they landed. Beasts of all descriptions attacked them and tore them to pieces. Ice and lightning ripped into them on the ground and in the air. And the wind blew most of them away – she hoped. It was hard to see anything as the mist remained stubbornly on the ground, out of the wind's power.
Time passed. Minutes or hours – she couldn't tell. And the spiders kept marching to their doom. But so too did her people scream as they fell. And when the mist finally blew away she knew that all their calculations were wrong – again. The spiders weren't marching towards them in rivers anymore. Instead there was a sea flowing up at them!
How could there be so many?! In the entire world?!
But still they marched into the portal wall and died in their thousands, and the few that could fly were blown away. Once they had the wind at their backs they could hold them off. But there had been a price for that. A score or more of her people were down. Lying on the ground. Dead for the most part.
Though of course it was worse than that, she knew as she fought. Tomorrow they would all be older and weaker again. She would have more streaks of white running through her raven black locks. So would everyone else. They simply couldn't fight such an enemy as weak as they were. The only thing protecting them were the portal walls. And when the crakes could no longer fly because they were too old and sick, and they couldn't summon the winds, the spiders would sai over the walls and kill them all.
More hours passed like that, and the spiders kept marching and dying, and few of their number found it within them to fly on their spiderweb balloons. And eventually the numbers advancing on them began to dwindle. The advancing sea became a dozen rivers, and then the rivers became mere streams.
Another spider city had perished.
In time she knew, they would have to advance their walls. Overrun the empty city. And then hope that things would return to how they had been. That the spiders remained in their cities, while they regained their strength, and hopefully more joined them. But would that happen? The spiders were learning. Or the spider queen was.
But at least for now, they had survived. Not all of them, and the sight of so many of her fellow spell-casters lying on the ground was like a physical wound every bit as painful as the knife that had been plunged into her chest.
Still as the sun set and the trickling streams of spiders dried up, she could breathe again. And wonder when Peth asked, where the damned skyship that had started this nightmare had gone to. Because try as she might she couldn't see it anywhere above them.
They'd run away! She wanted to scream and yell at them.
They'd run away with their tails between their legs and left everyone on the ground to fight. Or really they'd floated away. Safe in the sky, high above the nightmare they'd unleashed. Either way they'd simply left. They hadn't even tried to help fight. It was disgraceful!
But as she finally collapsed to the ground and then sat there, breathing heavily, it struck her that maybe that was the way of war in this strange new world they'd woken up in. Truly she didn't understand a lot of this land. But she didn't like it. Not one damned bit!
One other thing she didn't like. People telling her that the spiders in the other cities were taking up positions around them. They hadn't been attacked. But obviously they were preparing in case it happened. Or else they were getting ready to march. Gods would that be terrible! They couldn't face them. Sorsha knew that. If the spiders came they would fall. She could barely stay awake. The others were the same.
And tomorrow when she woke, she knew, there would be more streaks of white in her hair. More aches and pains. More joints that didn't move as they should. And less strength to carry on. She was in trouble. They all were.
Chapter Thirty Two
It was early. Too early to be up in Manx' view. But he hadn't been able to sleep a lot the previous night. Adern's coughing was growing worse, and since they had to share a bed-chamber, there hadn't been a lot of peace to be had by either of them. But he wasn't going to complain. The man couldn't help it. In fact Manx was becoming a little worried by the walker's condition. He was staring to look rather ill. He had been getting worse for days.
So instead of complaining as he might otherwise have done, Manx headed for the bathroom to set about his daily ablutions. But there he found something unexpected. Blood – and a tooth.
It was just sitting there in the small porcelain basin in front of him where he had intended to wash his teeth and maybe shave. And the sight shocked him. But more than that, it frightened him. Because seeing the tooth in the basin, he understood two things.
The first was that both the tooth and the blood belonged to Adern. And his friend didn't just have a cold as he kept claiming. He had what all the spell-casters had – a body that was a lot older on the inside than it looked. And so the rest of him was simply slowly changing to match.
But it was worse for Adern. Because every day he used his magic to undo all the twisted mass of dimensions that they had to face. He was pushing himself, too hard. And because of that his health was failing.
Unfortunately that euphemism was actually a self-serving lie Manx realised as he stood there over the basin staring at the vivid red truth in front of him. Adern's health wasn't failing him. That implied that he was just sick. And sickness could be cured. But he wasn't sick. He was dying. And death couldn't be cured.
His friend was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it.
That in turn led to his second and perhaps even more shocking revelation of the morning. He had a friend.
Manx had never had a friend before. He had some people he worked with and who he said hello to every morning. But they seldom did much more than that. There were merchants he was friendly with. But he never saw them unless there was business to be done. And he was friendly with his neighbours. But again, it wasn't close. He didn't know a lot about them, nor they about him.
Adern he knew. He liked the walker, three eyes or not. He liked the jokes he came out with and the fact that the man had a smile every day no matter what problems they faced. By the gods he even liked the fact that he could imagine the cat was a pleasant animal. The man was naive – but that was something to be admired.
And he was dying!
So were the others. Perhaps it wasn't so advanced in their cases. They weren't pushing themselves as hard every day. But still they were all dying. And he didn't know how long any of them had left. So Larissa was dying too. And she was the next closest thing he had to a friend in this world. Or maybe a crabby matron aunt who imagined he was a wayward child – he was never sure with her. But he was sure he didn't want her to die.
It wasn't right. These people shouldn't have been brought out of prison only to die of old age. But as he stared at the evidence in front of him, he knew that that was exactly what had happened. And that there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing anyone could do.
Manx gave up on staring at the blood and turned the tap on to wash away the evidence. He didn't want to see it any more. Then he finished with his business and headed down to the dining room for breakfast. Naturally Whitey was with him every step of the way, tail in the air as she hurried down the stairs, eager to get to breakfast. Actually she told him to hurry up and would have pushed him down the stairs if it could have moved him any faster. Breakfast was waiting.
Unusually he was one of the first to breakfast. But not so unusually Larissa was already there. But then for some reason she decided to join him and the cat at the table, and that was odd. She didn't usually.
“You'
re here early,” she greeted him as she sat down on the other side of the heavy wooden table.
“And you're in my way,” Whitey told her as she hopped up onto the table and started mewling at the serving girl.
“Adern's coughing woke me.” Manx ignored the cat.
“It'll pass,” Larissa replied, diplomatically. “It's just a cold.”
“No it won't.” He stared her straight in the eye. “It's not a cold. You forget, I know about sick. He's not sick. He's dying.” Then he focussed on her face and the lines in it that seemed to be growing ever deeper and saw the truth written in them. The thing he hadn't wanted to face. “And so are you. You all are.”
The shaman shrugged, as if it didn't matter. “Everyone passes from this world. Ao will greet them when they do.”
“But Adern's passing faster than the rest of you,” Manx continued. “He's pushing himself to unravel the prisons, day after day, and the effort is killing him. He needs to stop that and you need to find another walker to take his place.”
“I know. And I wish we could.” She sighed quietly. “But we don't have any others who can. Not yet. Every walker who's strong enough is heading south to battle the spiders. Three died yesterday when the spiders attacked. The others are weaker from having had to fight. The rest are either not yet at their best after having been freed from the prison, or else too old and so battling advanced old age now, or too young and so not yet trained.”
“This war is destroying us. The walkers first. But all of us in time. And Adern knows what he's doing. He knows everything.”
After that it was Manx' turn to fall silent. Unfortunately he'd known almost everything she'd said. He just didn't want to know it. So he was grateful when the innkeeper's daughter came to bring them their breakfast and even to listen to Whitey's complaints and demands. It gave him time to think. Or just to mourn the passing of an era. And his friends. The only ones he'd ever had.
“But what about the gods?” he finally asked when the girl had left them. “Surely they must be able to do something? I mean you're a shaman. You speak for Ao. And there are so many others. Someone up there must have a way.” But he knew even as he asked that it was a faint hope. He could see it in her face.
“Shamans don't speak with their gods and goddesses. Not like that. We listen. We accept their wisdom and do their bidding. And none of us have been given any guidance on this.”
That wasn't good enough, Manx thought. But it was also what he'd expected to hear.
“Of course not,” Whitey interrupted, her chin covered in milk. “Why would the Mother waste her time on you? You're a foolish monkey face! Not a cat!”
“And she told you something about it?” Manx asked.
“Yes. She told me you're a dullard!” Whitey returned to her breakfast, gobbling down the little saucer of cold meats as fast as she could and lapping at the milk between bites.
“But did she tell you anything useful?” he asked, not really expecting anything more than more insults. “The sort of thing that might be worth some liver?”
“Liver?” The cat stopped lapping at her milk and looked up at him, her green eyes as wide as saucers. “You mean it muck spout? This isn't more lies?!”
“If you have something useful to say,” he agreed. “But only then.”
“I don't believe you. Show me the liver!”
“If I showed you it, you'd eat it,” he pointed out. “And then I'd get nothing.” But he realised the cat had exactly the same problem. Which was why he called the girl over and ordered a small plate of butter fried liver.
“You're really going to give that furry miscreant what she wants?” Larissa stared at him unhappily. “You have to be firm with cats! And she's getting fatter by the day!”
“How dare you! I'll claw your arse!” Whitey snapped at her. “I'll hurt you so badly you'll never sit down again! And then I'll tear your ears off! You don't deserve them! And you'll never have a clean pair of boots again!”
“How would you like to be bald?!” the shaman replied calmly.
“Ladies!” Manx jumped in before he had another round of insults being hurled between the two of them. It was too early for that. “I ordered the liver, and if She With The Sharp Claws Who Must Be Adored has something useful to say I'll give it to her. And if she doesn't, I'll eat it myself in front of her.”
“My breakfast!” Whitey stared at him in shock. “You'd eat my breakfast?! Just what sort of a monkey man are you?!”
“One who likes liver and hates feeding cats!” He returned her stare. “So what sort of a cat are you? One who has answers? Or one who just likes to spout the muck?”
“Whitey turned to face the shaman. “I blame you for this!” she growled at her.
“Maybe you should blame yourself for speaking so many lies.” Larissa smiled serenely back at her.
“Ladies!” Manx warned them again. “Cat, my livers cooking. So do you have anything to tell me?”
“That you'll never put your slippers on again without knowing a feeling of dread!” she told him unhappily.
“I meant about the spell-casters dying,” he told her bluntly, though really he suspected she'd actually forgotten about that part. It was all about the insults and the liver now. “You said you could speak to the Mother and that she would know something or she'd told you something. Or don't you want your breakfast?”
“This is shameful,” the cat muttered under her breath. “A hairless monkey man ordering a cat around!” She paused for a moment. “It's not right!”
“So no liver for you then.”
“Alright! Alright!” She glared at him. “The Mother made us learn this passage.” Then she sat up on the table and did her best to look important as only cats could. “And I learned it well!”
“The Goddess Ao made you learn a passage?” Manx wasn't sure he could believe that. Even among the many outlandish things that Whitey claimed, that was unlikely. “Why would she do that?”
“She's old and doddering,” the cat replied, and earned a disapproving glare from Larissa which naturally enough she ignored. “Now do you want to hear what she told us?”
Manx nodded, even though he was mostly wondering how the cat could go from one moment claiming that Ao was the revered Mother of cats to the next where she called her old and apparently in her dotage. The wagon had turned so fast that he wondered how everyone hadn't been sent flying from it. Still he thought, what did he have to lose? Save maybe his sanity of course!
“Lies are truth and truth is lies,
The world turns and all sense flies,
A spider seeks a crown, so we are told,
But look in the mirror, the truth to behold,
A servant seeks a master, so it is said,
But the wheel shows the truth is all on its head,
And a candle seeks a flame, for all is not right,
But look through a window, to see it burn bright.”
“There! Now do I get my liver?!”
“No!” the shaman snapped at her. “For a nonsense ditty? A thousand times no! And insulting the Goddess?! I'd rather eat it myself – and I hate liver! Especially for breakfast!”
“Yes,” Manx denied Larissa's outrage, even as he tried to put the words into order in his head. Because he understood them. Or some of them at least. And then he had the girl bring him pencil and paper so he could write them down while the others stared at him. Mostly though they glared at one another and seemingly considered having another argument.
“You think that makes sense?” Larissa asked him once he was done and when she was calm again. “That it's important? Because despite what the fleabag says Ao does not speak in riddles. Her will is always clear.”
“Unless you're a cat. In which case riddles and ditties may be the closest thing to sense that they would understand. But the first part is actually a simple clue. I think. It means we're being fooled.”
“The spider seeking the crown is obviously a reference to the spider queen. But no sp
ider would seek a crown, and that's the point. Look in the mirror however, and left becomes right and right left. Then the mirror image is that a crown seeks a spider – and that makes a lot more sense. I don't know who the crown is, but the spiders are his or her tool.”
“I'd send the soothsayers to speak with the prisoners as quickly as possible. The Silver Order have been lying again. They don't serve a spider queen. I think the spiders serve them. Or else they both serve another master.”
“And the servant seeking the master is an old riddle. Wheels turn. And when they do we call it revolution. No servant seeks a master. Instead they seek to become the master.”
“The last though, it's not for me. It's for the walkers I think. Because I'm fairly sure the window is a portal. And that somewhere out there, your life still burns on the other side of it. But I don't know where or how.” But still he was sure it was something to do with them. And why was he sure? Because Adern kept talking endlessly about doors and windows leading to other realms.
