by Jaime Castle
“I’ve known your leader for many years. I was that sure he would press onward no matter what. All roads led to this place. If chasing Redstar’s ghost is what's needed to open his eyes, so be it. Your quest, mine, it is as if we were all—”
“Fated to meet,” Sora finished for him.
He turned back and smiled like the old cotter in every village. That one you can’t help but love and listen to as he rambles on. Like old man Wetzel who’d somehow turned Sora into a blood mage. Whitney wasn’t sure if he liked that smile.
“He’s not our leader,” Whitney said, but he knew that wasn’t true.
“Do not fool yourself, boy,” Uriah said. “Sir Torsten Unger is everyone’s leader in the Glass.”
“Ah, hog’s piss,” Whitney spat. “Only reason I’m in this shog is me.”
Torsten stopped at a clearing and looked back. “Iam’s hand is in everything that happens on Pantego,” he said. “It’s not our place to question it.”
Whitney’s eyes nearly rolled through the back of his head. He didn’t think Torsten had been listening, but it didn’t matter. They reached Torsten’s side and saw why he stopped. In the small clearing of trees was a protrusion of rock with little more than a narrow hole in the side. There was no way it could be Bliss’s place. Whitney had expected something more, something grander—like a dragon’s lair. Truth be told, he’d never seen a dragon’s lair, not even that of a sleeping one. The one he’d once snuck by was a malformed runt stuck in a bird cage. A curiosity belonging to some Panping mystic in a monastery that smelled like incense and loneliness.
“Welcome to Bliss’s lair,” Uriah said. “This is where Redstar led them before they gave up on him and left him for dead. If Pi’s effigy is anywhere in these woods, it will be there.”
“Let’s go!” Torsten all but shouted as he began trekking forward again.
“Wait,” Uriah said.
“What now?”
“Even if Bliss is not present, it’s not wise for us all to traipse in there like we own the place and draw her attention back. Her senses are nothing like ours. They are divine.”
“What do you suggest then?” Torsten said, seething.
“You brought a thief for a reason, didn’t you?” Uriah placed a hand on Whitney’s shoulder. “You see? Fate is again with us.”
Whitney was barely paying attention. “Wait, what?”
“I believe you should go in alone, search the lair for Redstar—or what remains of him—and find what you came here for.”
“No way. I am a thief, not a monster slayer.”
“This should be nothing after Darkings’s place,” Sora added with a snigger.
“You go in then! I can’t summon fire.”
“As I’ve said: she’s been drawn away by the others,” Uriah said. “Her children follow her like chicks to a hen. There shouldn’t be any monsters to slay.”
“Shouldn’t? Shouldn’t be any?” Whitney took a step back.
“I hate to say it, but he’s right,” Torsten said. “This is the reason I broke you out of prison, greatest thief in Pantego. If you want that name, this is how you earn it.”
Whitney folded his arms. “It’s ‘world’s greatest thief.’”
“Pretend it’s only a dragon.” Sora gave him a playful slap on the back.
He released a nervous chuckle. They were right. All that boasting that he could steal from a mythical spider, and now he’d be forced to prove it.
You and your big mouth, Whitney.
Running seemed like the smarter option, if not for the warm breath of the Gryff the dire wolf against his back.
They all began walking again, slower this time, and he scurried to keep up.
“What am I supposed to do if I get in there and a massive spider attacks me?” he asked.
“Were you taught to pray as a child?” Torsten asked.
“Was that a joke, Sir Knight? I’m so proud of you.”
“What a blessing,” Torsten grunted.
Whitney sighed. “Fine. I’ll pop in for a—hey look! The stars are finally peeking through.” Lights glittered around the stray branches and vines bridging the break in the canopy over the cavern.
“Are those stars—”
“Swaying,” Torsten answered Sora’s question before she’d finished. The stars were swinging back and forth, like the crystal balls in the Glass Castle during the masquerade.
“Those aren’t stars,” Uriah said. “Those are eyes.”
Whitney retched. Sora cried out as some of his stomach contents splashed onto her boot. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said weakly, “Into the lair then, huh?”
The smell of death became nearly overwhelming. Whitney pulled the front of his silly, silk shirt up over his nose but if it helped at all it was minimal. He regretted not choosing something more practical from Darkings’s house.
“This is it?” he said, stalling. “I expected something more like when I raided the ancient tombs at the Brotlebir borders. You’ve never seen their equal.”
“In you go,” Torsten said. “This is why you were hired.”
“I might have to renegotiate my price.”
“You left me for dead,” Torsten bristled. “You’re lucky if you get anything at all.”
“I didn’t—you know, if something happens to me in there, you’re going to miss me.”
Torsten replied with a chortle, then grabbed the back of Whitney’s shirt and gave him a shove. Whitney hesitated in the maw, then felt a hand on his elbow. He turned to see Sora standing there.
“Just be careful?” She didn’t look him in the eye, just cleared her throat and said, “Go on, oh great one.”
“Right,” Whitney said, turning. He cracked his knuckles. “So, I just…” He motioned with his hands to indicate crawling inside. “Feet first? Head first? How does one crawl into the den of a murderous, giant spider?” When nobody offered a good idea, he decided to go with the latter and managed to squeeze halfway in. “Tight… fit…”
“Just hurry up,” Torsten said, his voice muffled and barely audible from inside the hole.
The tunnel was narrow and grew narrower. His hand brushed up against something soft and squishy. The red blister burst, a shower of clear liquid spraying out and covering his arm and chest. Tiny, transparent-looking spiders poured out, scurrying in every direction. He fought back the urge to throw up again.
“Just keep crawling,” he whispered to himself. “They’re babies. What’s more harmless than a baby?”
Where there weren’t egg sacs, the walls perspired with murky water. His mind raced back to just how many blisters he’d seen on their way into the heart of the woods. They must have numbered in the hundreds or even thousands. If each of them was this full of spiders….
A shiver stole any warmth he had left in him.
His mind raced back further to the day at the Twilight Manor when he’d met that little ale-keg of a dwarf. It seemed a lifetime ago. How would things have turned out had he not boasted quite so proudly? Steal the crown from a King? Yig and shog, what a stupid idea. From dead and dying kings, to probably dying in the lair of a spider queen.
Whitney arrived at a fork. He didn’t have a coin to flip to decide which way to go, and even if he did, he could barely move the tunnel was so narrow now. So, he simply closed his eyes and chose. He had one arm in when he realized the ground beneath his hand was supple, like a web.
Exactly like a web.
His elbow tore through and he plummeted, bumping and scraping flailing appendages, too shocked to scream. He braced for impact. It was impossible to tell how far down he’d gone when he finally crashed into a pile of sticks. They clamored against the wall, banging and tapping in an almost melodic, musical tune.
“’You’re lucky if you get anything at all,’” Whitney said like a child, imitating Torsten’s voice. Then, “I’ll give you luck.”
Something dug into his lower back. He reached around and wrapped his hand around somethin
g that felt like a smooth, thick branch. He tugged and it came loose.
A dim light came from somewhere. He couldn’t find its source, but it was bright enough for him to barely make out what appeared to be the femur bone—a human femur bone. Grossed out again, he wriggled free, the ground beneath him moving with each motion. More rattling; a symphony of death. Not sticks, but skulls, bones, ribcages, and even rusted remnants of armor rolled around below as Whitney scrambled to find his footing. It was almost as if he was swimming.
He finally found solid ground a few meters away and hopped between both feet to shake the smaller bones off his body.
“Perfect,” he said to no one. “Just perfect.”
Whitney looked up and saw the passage he’d fallen through, shuddered. Somehow the cave was even colder now. He could see his own breath. He tried not to think about how many adventurers had fallen to their deaths. Enough to create a pile of bones so high that he didn’t join them.
He searched the room. Every square centimeter of the walls and ceiling were covered in egg sacs. As he turned, he saw the tiny shaft where the light was coming from. Whitney thought twice, then decided anything was better than being stuck with corpses.
He checked the ground to make sure it wasn’t another hole, then shimmied inside and thanked any gods who might be listening that it was just a short tunnel which opened into a big dark auricle-shaped room.
Moonlight sifted in through several man-sized holes above. They looked like pinpricks from this distance. He crouched just in case, although there wasn’t any sign that anything other than him was alive in the whole cave—other than unhatched baby spiders. He shivered again at the thought.
As he delved further into the room, he saw thick stone columns at the center connected by thinner, stone protrusions. There were no red blisters in this room, but the stone was covered in puffy, white blotches.
He climbed three shallow steps into the middle of the chamber. His heart thumped against his ribcage as he looked upward. From his new vantage, he realized that the columns and protrusions weren’t that at all. They formed the shape of a massive web spanning out to all corners of the room.
Then one of the white puffy spots stuck to it moved. Whitney drew his curved daggers and spun, ready to fight before he realized that half the spots were moving. They were food, beasts and men strung up to the grand web like how normal-sized spiders string up flies.
“It’ll be empty.” Whitney whispered to himself, now mocking Uriah. “Bliss won’t be around anywhere.”
Last time Whitney checked, no one leaves their food for too long and it was clear that Bliss’s dinner resided in those puffy white sacks. His throat was dry and he felt sick. He searched the room for any route of escape.
He didn’t become the world’s greatest thief by running away from a challenge. He did, however, run away from giant scary monsters. If he didn’t, he’d have had an awfully short career.
Taking in a deep breath, he switched his targeting from a place of escape to making sure he was alone but for Bliss’s squirming, unfortunate prey. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t even a sign of smaller spiders or rodents.
If the rats are afraid of this place…
He drove the thought out of his mind and reminded himself of the mission: find some stupid, little kid’s stupid, little doll. Get back to Yarrington, and be crowned the hero of the day. Earn a new name to muck up.
“Where does a giant spider keep a doll?” he asked. There was no chest filled with loot, which was the image he’d conjured up throughout the journey. Though, he wasn’t sure what a spider might need with gold and jewels.
What am I looking for? Dead bodies?
There were plenty of those.
Rusted old chestplates?
Definitely those too.
One thing was for sure: he needed to get out from beneath the web and explore the massive room.
How massive it really was didn’t become clear until he realized the specks against the far wall were piles of human remains. His feeling of nausea returned in full force. He’d become somewhat used to the smell of the death that enveloped him—but every time he saw new sources it returned with a fresh fire.
A gleaming set of white armor, not dissimilar to Torsten’s, sat against the far wall. He knew plenty of Glass Kingdom men had been sent on this mad quest before, so it was as good as any place to start. He took one step. He heard a sound like a tarp unfolding, looked up but saw nothing. As he went to glance behind him, something fuzzy stroked his jaw.
“So, you’re the newest in a long line of failures to enter my lair? How handsome.”
The voice came from behind him. It was smooth, sultry even. Whitney’s whole body froze and he clamped his eyes tight. Whatever it was angled his head from side to side as if studying him before releasing him.
“You can open your eyes, Mr. Fierstown,” she said. “I won’t bite…”
Whitney complied and a creature that could be none other than Bliss circled around in front of him.
“…yet.”
Her laugh was infectious, like one of the ladies of Old Yarrington.
“My, my, aren’t you handsome?” she said.
Whitney just stared at her, mouth agape. The one thing no one prepared him for was how preternaturally gorgeous Bliss would be. Gorgeous and… naked. Sure, her lower half was a gruesome, horrid, massive, bulbous, spider body, but her top half was all woman.
“Go on, say something,” she said, licking her lips.
“You—you weren’t supposed to be here.”
She laughed again, this time it wasn’t quite as charming. “You steal your way into my home and then complain that I’m here? And here I thought you were supposed to be some great thief.”
“How...how do you know who I am?”
“Did your traveling companion tell you nothing?” She reared up onto her back four legs, the front four waving in the air. “I am a Goddess!”
She came down hard and the ground shook. Dust and loose webs poured from above, coalescing into the light from the holes above. A loud thump drew Whitney’s attention and he glanced over to see one of the bodies who’d been rolled up in webbing fall from above, landing just a few meters away.
Whitney took a step backward. His foot slipped off a short step, twisting his ankle. He fell hard onto his back, one of his daggers falling lose and sliding across the floor.
“Try to keep your feet, mortal.” Bliss said. “It’s no fun without a struggle.”
She strode forward and used one of her legs to flip him upright. The movement was so fluid and otherworldly it made Whitney’s heart pause. He’d never seen anything to compare. It was less like she’d walked and more like she glided toward him. She leaned in close and he could smell her rotting breath.
“You’re going to be delicious,” she said. “Impure meat is so much... juicier.”
Whitney took off, gritting his teeth through the pain of his ankle. Her laugh continued and by the sound of it, she wasn’t pursuing.
“Oh, I do love a chase!” she said.
Before Whitney could register the movement, she stood on the wall in front of him, peering down like an owl from a perch or, he supposed, like a spider from its web. She lowered her abdomen and a spray of silk shot out and landed at Whitney’s feet.
He dodged and strafed sideways, then searched frantically and spotted the nearest tunnel. There were many of them all around the lair, a dozen ways Bliss could’ve snuck up on him. When he looked back, she was gone.
He pushed his legs as fast as they could go. The tunnel wasn’t far, but it might as well have been Westvale. He was closing in when he heard her cackle echoing all around him, sounding almost as if it originated within his head.
He kept running.
One of her spiny feet pressed against his chest when he was only a few strides away. He collapsed onto his back, gasping for air. He wished he hadn’t. The smell gagged him and made it even harder to catch his breath.
&nbs
p; “Good show, boy,” she said, “but I tire of games.”
“Are you sure?” he said. “I can think of a few more.”
“Oh, don’t you wish, silly mortal?” She sighed. “Quiet now. If you struggle it will only be worse.”
Her legs wrenched their way beneath him and forced him onto his stomach.
Whitney momentarily broke free of her grasp, gripped his remaining dagger and slashed upward. He caught only air, but she stumbled backward. He hopped up and thrust at her.
“Now, you listen,” he said. “Let’s come to some sort of deal and I promise I won’t cut you into pieces.” He thrust again, and as he did, she whipped her body around. A thick spray of webby paste glued his mouth shut, and as she came back around, one of her legs smacked the blade out of his hand.
“You talk far too much for such a useless creature,” she said.
She brought her full body over him, towering. Whitney tripped again as he cowered, landing on his rear.
He pawed at his mouth.
She yanked at his legs.
He began rolling at a nauseating rate, seeing the floor and then the ceiling, over and over. He felt it on his calves first, the thick webbing drawing them closed so he could no longer kick. He tried to fight, slapping at her legs at any chance he could find. It was no use. His arms were bound, his left tight against his side, the right pinned uncomfortably against his chest. She reached his neck before stopping.
“Now, I will take your eyes just like all the rest,” she said. “You will forever watch as the world passes you by, damned to never leave this plane.”
Whitney wasn’t sure what he screamed into his sealed lips. Curses or prayers, anything he could think of. But she couldn’t hear him. No one could. He was all alone and he was going to die at the hands of a Spider Goddess.
She lowered her face until it was mere centimeters from his. Up close her beauty was even more undeniable. Her eyes were dark and deep purple, mesmerizing, and her face as fair as any maiden he’d seen across Pantego. Only instead of hair and ears, a silver carapace wrapped her head and stuck out on either side like the points of a crown.
