Broken Wing: A million deaths were not enough for Cassandra!

by Konig, Artor

“Maybe Harry did go up the stairs. If he had, but had fallen and hurt himself, he may not have got up to the cellars yet.” I prognosed thoughtfully.

  “The footprints don’t go that way.” The Doctor replied, “Not one set goes the other way around the lake. But why not?” Abruptly he turned and walked swiftly back around the lake. We went past the passage down to the crypt, around the edge of the lake, all the way to the foot of the stairs going up; but there was nothing, no trace of any person passing less than a couple of weeks ago.

  The Doctor shone his torch up the tight helix of the stairway, tense, his eyes intent, blazing. At last he turned away from that desolate hope. I saw his face in the light of my torch; it was as if he had aged ten years on that short journey. He nodded at the other side of the lake, “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  13. Spiders

  We walked back around the wide shelf that contained the lake, our torches marking the few places where those spiders, if there were more than one of them, could hide. I started noticing details of this chamber, the power conduit that came from the wall close to the pumping station. There was an on-off switch within the metal structure that housed the pump and its motor. The pump was large and powerful; just inside the shelter the pipe split up into three different pipes, each one separately insulated, each with its own stopcock. Why this was the case I didn’t know; at that time I wasn’t too interested in finding out. I followed after the Doctor, eyes watchful, my mind and body tense. We came back to the place where the Doctor had first turned back; here he once more took his gun out of his belt.

  The wall of the cave came closer to the white and encrusted edge of the pool, the heavy stone of the roof coming lower down. I looked up, half expecting a loathsome beast to be lurking there watching us. Right at the end of the ledge we stood, wondering where the boys had gone to next. We looked around, the Doctor looking for another secret door; I was trying to see where the footprints had gone on to. My answer stood plainly before me; the lake right at the end of the ledge was shallow; plainly in the mud lay a few muddy footprints. I looked beyond; there was a passage just above the level of the water.

  “This way, Doctor.” I said quietly.

  “Oh what? Good; good show Cassandra.” He replied, bringing his attention back to me with obvious effort. “Let me go first; we do have a good idea of what lies beyond.” I stood back, watching him, wondering how he would get into the passage, how he would keep his balance with both hands filled. He approached the problem with suitable caution, directing me to stand where the beam of my torch would light the passage to best advantage. I flashed my beam around one last time to make sure nothing was creeping up on me, before doing as he had directed. He reached out, securing a grip on the wall of the passage with the hand in which he held his torch. He stepped over from one ledge to the other without touching the hot water of the lake.

  It occurred to me then that the boys must have been in a terrible hurry to have stepped into the boiling water. I looked around me in the half-light of the eldritch cavern, feeling watchful eyes on my spine and not liking it. I turned back to where the Doctor had partially vanished within the passage. The light of his torch showed within, directed further into the mysterious dark. I stepped up, my eyes measuring the gap from one ledge to the next. It was just a long step for me; it caused me no concern. I stepped into the passage after the Doctor, dusting the white powder off my front and jeans, powder that had come from the wall.

  The passage was narrow, flooded with light from our two torches, the stone grey under the searing beams. The passage went down a short way before turning aside. The muddy footprints were plain on the floor of the passage, slipping and slithering on the dust made slick by the wetness of their shoes. They had been in a desperate hurry, all three of them; so much was plain. Fear began to close around my heart, a coldness that clung, its weight closing my chest. Beyond the corner of the passage there was a steep and narrow rock stairway.

  Someone had not made the corner; there were signs of a fall and there was blood on the sharp edge of the third tread. Whoever had fallen had recovered; there certainly wasn’t anyone lying on the step in that smear of blood when we passed. The Doctor paused to have a look at the marks on the floor and wall while I stood guard with my torch, shining it at all the approaches. At length the Doctor carried on up the stair; if he had an opinion about the marks on the stair, he didn’t share it with me.

  The stairway widened out gradually, the roof rising higher above my head, the walls drawing apart. The passage drifted slightly to the right, the turn visible over the length of the stairway. The steps came to an end leaving us in a chamber both wide and high. The roof was rough as were the walls. An attempt had been made to level the floor but it hadn’t been entirely successful. The chamber was featureless but for a passage leading out on the further wall. We glanced around this dreary cavern, looking out of hidden dangers. The footprints led across the floor, erratic individually but more coherent in ultimate purpose; to cross this wide expanse of pitiless stone as quickly as possible. But therein lay folly; in the air, almost masked behind the heavy salts of the lake, I could distinctly smell the permissive odour of musk.

  “Careful Doctor; the spiders’ lair is somewhere ahead; can you smell it?” I warned him quietly. The Doctor stood still, scenting the air for a few moments before he evidently picked up that slight odour.

  “I’m very glad you’re here.” He told me softly, “I wouldn’t have noticed that until too late. We’ll have to go rather carefully from here onwards.”

  “We haven’t exactly been reckless so far.” I told him reproachfully, “But I take your meaning.”

  With extreme caution we advanced across the floor flashing our beams over wall and roof in front of us. The passage was wide but low; an uncomfortable place to go through when expecting trouble of some sort. I flashed my torch back into the cavern we had just left, seeing nothing moving in the enclosed space. After the Doctor I went, my state of mind deteriorating as the scent in the air became stronger. The passage ran neither straight or level, the floor was cracked in places. There were potholes in the floor, gaping chasms in the roof. Each of these hazards were seen and negotiated carefully but they each took a toll of my nerve. The Doctor seemed immune in his glacial concentration, but I could not be sure how immune he actually was. Some of the holes were flooded, some of them echoed to some obscure subterranean activity. The holes above my head I found most disturbing; however far the beam of my torch penetrated, there were always shadows and slight movement just beyond.

  I came to a dead halt before one such hole in the roof; the Doctor was just in front of me, shining his torch up. At once I shone my torch around to see if there was anything nearby, before joining my beam with his. Up above our heads there were trays of cables going at right angles to our path. They were fastened to the roof, a good few dozen yards above our heads. There was a passage going in the same direction, but how it crossed the pit at the bottom of which we were standing, I couldn’t see. The Doctor had evidently found the same problem distracting, along with his understandable curiosity about the cables. He was familiar with the electrical layout of the castle but these cables he evidently didn’t know about or couldn’t place. My question I answered for myself by spotting a ledge two fathoms above my head; just below the level of the passage. Nonetheless at that point we discovered no reason for the cables; where they were going, or why. I lost interest after a few minutes of contemplative silence on the Doctor’s part. I idled those long minutes away with the cautious study of the passage to either side, my eyes alert for any movements. Finally the Doctor brought himself back to the matter on hand. He turned away from that enigmatic passage and looked once more at the floor, his eyes seeking the footprints which had led us so far.

  The tunnel was sloping upwards; each hole and crack almost a tread, each one leading higher. He walked more swiftly than I was comfortable with although it wasn’t beyond me to keep pace with him. Before us a wi
der crack opened up in the floor; a pit that much blacker for the torch beams that were shining on it. We approached it carefully, keeping an eye on any other hidden dangers about us. Though the scent in the air was far stronger than it had been before, the crack in the ground provided us with a breath of fresh air. The pit appeared bottomless, the crooked gullet going beyond our line-sight. But it went on; there was no mistaking that. The Doctor looked, his expression slightly puzzled. He turned the beam of his torch aside from the hole, directing me to do the same. I was glad to do this; I returned my beam to its ceaseless vigilance.

  After a few seconds his continued attention given to that hole called to me; I glanced down the maw to see what the darkness had done to capture his silent perusal.

  The answer was simple enough; down there the darkness was broken by a lurid yellow glow. I cast another hurried glance around before snapping off my torch. In the darkness after he had followed my example the light was more distinct. It had a movement to it; a pulse or flicker indicative of flames but somewhat too regular for that. It had a definite measured pulse though what it meant I do not know. We spent a short time looking at the light but as there was no means for getting down the pit at that point we left that puzzle for later contemplation. I flicked my torch down the pit once before turning the beam back to its watch.

  “Maybe we ought to hurry along a bit?” I suggested mildly.

  “Right you are.” He replied at once. We turned to the narrow passage out of the chamber, half hidden in the corner of the room by a crooked fold in the wall. This passage was distinctly uncomfortable to walk along, being full of twists and turns, with the walls so close together that in some places we had to pass through sideways. But there was one tiny but pleasing detail we noticed about the trail we were following; the left boot of whoever had passed here last was slick over the toes with the grey slime similar to that which had come from the other spider we had killed. It was evident that the brute had not got away with biting the lad unscathed. I kept my eyes above and behind, my light cutting through the dark only to be cut by the rough stone at each bend. But for the sound of our breathing the cave was silent; the silence somehow watchful and grim.

  The passage opened out after a sharp turn to the right, to leave us standing at the top of a stair. The top of the stair was wide, the roof low but the stairs themselves were almost too narrow for us to pass down. We looked around the small room at the top of the stairway, seeing the traces leading straight to the stairs with no hesitation. It was evident that although the lads had been going as hurriedly as before, at this point the spider had not been hurrying after them. This I found to be slightly reassuring. There was that slight chance that the kick it had received, a blow which had broken its hide at the very least, had done enough damage to make it retire for the moment.

  The stairway was evidently a fissure that had been slightly excavated at some stage in the past. Like most of the subterranean structures that had been altered by the hand of the men on this island, this was a half-hearted and superficial effort. Enough had been done to the fissure to make a stairway that was barely passable before work had been called off. There were no traces of blood on the trail now but that was not a hopeful sign. The footprints showed that all three who had passed this way by this point were no longer co-ordinated. Their steps were weaving to one side of the fissure and the other, the prints showing the jars of each blow as their bodies careened off the rough wall. On some of the jags of rock small traces of various sorts of fabric were evident. I felt that heavy, tearful weight in my throat, my mind conjuring only too vividly the image of those men, close to the final end of their strength, fleeing from something too horrible for their minds to accept, unable to get help, unable to even co-ordinate their strength and will to some final defiance, fleeing in terror for their lives that even then were ebbing from their veins.

  I choked back the tears that threatened to blind me, a threat only too terrible in this place. I flung the light behind me once again, blinking my eyes to focus on the stairs. My pace was steady and swift behind the Doctor. His pistol and torch were focussed before him. But for ourselves nothing moved on the stairs; there were no sounds apart from those noises we were making.

  Around yet another bend the stairs took us; the billow of stench that came wafting up to us was enough to cut off our motion in a blast of horror. We stood perfectly still, our eyes searching for the source of the stench even as our minds were classifying the information the stench gave us. After that moment’s paralysis my mind cleared of terror, becoming focussed again. The stench was compounded of musk, slime and blood; the metallic, nearly rust-like smell of fresh blood slightly predominant. We were almost at the end of the trail; that much was plain. Carefully we made our way past the corner of the stairway, our torches steady in the horrible gloom. Nevertheless the stench had been deceptive; before us the stairs went on; it was evident that whatever the mess actually was, it smelt a lot stronger than we thought. The breeze that wafted up the stairs was slightly warm, cloying with its weight of compounded odours.

  The smell of slime became heavier, as if the wounded spider was still oozing somewhere close by. I shone my torch around, searching all over and above me. The narrow peak of the roof hid no secrets for all it was close and full of seams and cracks. The stairs went down for a long way, straight in a stretch before us. However far the beams of the torches went the stairs went a little further until they tired of the game they were playing with us, showing at last in the light of our torches another bend. We walked quickly down to that bend, tasting the tangible dread in the air. We slowed up as we came to that last bend.

  I looked behind one last time before focussing my attention entirely on that corner. The Doctor seemed to think it was the end of the stair as well; or at least that the thing we were expecting to find was around that bend. He signalled me to keep a little way behind him, not to crowd his movements. He braced his back against the outer side of the bend, his pistol and torch pointing slightly down, round the corner. Step by step he advanced. I glanced up the stairs again and then looked a little more carefully, certain I had seen a hint of movement. But there was no trace to be seen by the light of my torch. I looked for a moment longer before turning my attention back to the corner below us. The Doctor was looking down into whatever room lay beyond, his eyes intent. He stepped down beyond the last corner and I made haste to follow him. I cast one last, distrustful glance up the stairs, before going past that bend.

  The stairway debouched into a somewhat large round room. One wall; the wall on our right; was pocked with holes; maybe a dozen or more. The floor was littered with fragments of silvery hard material, perhaps pieces of slimy spheres. The spheres had evidently been hurled with some force on the ground; some had been trampled on. The floor was slick with a yellow viscous fluid. It took me a moment to work out what must have been immediately obvious to the Doctor. These were eggs; spider eggs larger by half than turtle eggs and nearly perfectly round. There had been many; hundreds; now there wasn’t even one. Every single one had been smashed, carefully and deliberately. Whoever had done the deed wasn’t in the room; that was evident as we stepped carefully through the wide portal.

  I flashed my torch all around the room, expecting one spider at least to be somewhere on the scene. My search was at length partially rewarded; in one of the dozen holes in the wall I found the brute the Doctor had done away with. It had evidently managed to back itself up the passage a short way after we had left it but now it was motionless. It was quite within reason to assume it had taken steps to protect its eggs before we had passed through the hole, equally evident that whatever steps it had taken had been in vain. I was steeled to the nausea that the stench inspired in me but a close inspection of that Wight I could not make, not even to satisfy myself that it was really, properly dead.

  To this end, instead of a close inspection, I found myself the nearest and heaviest boulder I could conveniently carry and with the Doctor’s permission I fl
ung the rock down on the creature’s head as hard and as accurately as I could manage. Although the resulting mess was horrifying, it gave me a certain amount of satisfaction to know that this was the end of one of them at least. I picked up my torch, shining it around the melancholy chamber, that chamber of devilish horror, my mind not at ease and my attention focussed on finding any source of movement that shouldn’t be there. I backed away from the other holes in the wall, shining my torch down each in turn. Every one of them was empty as far as I could see; but in some of them I couldn’t see very far.

  “All three of the boys got this far; all three of them had a go at smashing the eggs; all three of them left the room down that passage, more or less on their feet.” The Doctor’s crisp voice intruded on my thoughts as I finished my inspection, “There are three distinct trails leading to that passage, all of them smeared with yolk from these eggs. They certainly did us a favour but I fear they paid for their temerity.” He looked at me as I came over to him, carefully skirting the mess on the floor, “I deduce from the signs on the floor that each man came up with the same rather novel defence against the spiders; they used the eggs as missiles to distract the beasts and slow them down. However it is quite evident that the spiders managed to sting them; there is blood of that particularly brilliant shade, probably arterial blood mixed with venom. How poisonous the creatures are I’m not sure, but the boys would be in a bad way from the point of view of simple volume of that toxin. The bird spider that these seem to be related to isn’t terribly poisonous; a bite will cause considerable pain but not death in most cases. However here we have creatures nine or more times the size of the regular sort, and maybe of a different strain. It occurs to me as well that they may have been stung more than once. The lads passed through here; that is evident. But I’m not hopeful that they managed to get much further.” The Doctor looked at me, his face sad.