They reserved most of their attention for Talea, Flor, and Jon-Tom. Bribbens and Clothahump they ignored completely. Nor were they in the least bit shy.
One scrambled energetically up Jon-Tom’s right side, pulling thoughtlessly at his fortunately tough cape and pants. It rode like a cat on his right shoulder, chattering breathily to its less enterprising companions. Jon-Tom tried hard to think of it as a cat.
The adolescent displayed a cluster of painted lines that ran from its mandibles back between its eyes and down the back of its head. The cosmetics did not give Jon-Tom a clue as to its sex. He thought of brushing it away, but it behooves a guest to match the hospitality of his hosts. So he left it alone, resolutely ignoring the occasional reflexive flash of poisonous fangs.
The spiderling sat there securely and waved its foot-long legs at disapproving adults and envious brethren. It whispered in a rush to its obliging mount.
“where do you come from? you are warm, not cold like the prey or the creatures of the forest. you are very tall and thin and you have hair only atop your head and there very dense.” The youngster’s partly clad abdomen brushed rhythmically against the back of Jon-Tom’s neck. He assumed it was a friendly gesture. The fur on the spiderling’s bottom was as soft as Mudge’s.
“you have funny mouths and your fangs are hidden. may i see them?”
Jon-Tom patiently opened his mouth and grimaced to show his teeth. The spiderling drew back in alarm, then moved cautiously closer.
“so many. and they’re white, not black or brown or gold. they are so flat, save two. how can you suck fluids with them?”
“I don’t use my fangs—my teeth—to suck fluids,” Jon-Tom explained. “What liquid I do ingest I swallow straight. Mostly I eat solid food and use my teeth to chew it into smaller pieces.”
The youngster shuddered visibly. “how awful, how gruesome! you actually eat solid, unliquified flesh? your fangs don’t look up to the task. i’d think they’d break off. ugh, ugh!”
“It can be tough sometimes,” Jon-Tom confessed, recalling some less than palatable meals he’d downed. “But my teeth are stronger than yours. They’re not hollow.”
“i wonder,” said the spiderling with the disarming honesty common to all children, “if you’d taste good.”
“I’d hope so. I’d hate to think I’ve lived all these years just to give some friend an upset stomach. I’d probably be pizza-and-coke flavored.”
“i don’t know what is a pissaoke.” The infant bared tiny fangs. “i don’t suppose you’d let me have a taste? your elders aren’t watching.” He sounded hopeful.
“I’d like to oblige,” Jon-Tom said nervously, “but I haven’t had anything to eat yet today and might make you sick. Understand?”
“oh well.” The youngster didn’t sound too disappointed. “i don’t guess i’d like you sucking out one of my legs, either.” He quivered at the thought. “you’re a nice person, warmlander. i like you.” Jon-Tom experienced the abdomen caress once again. Then the spiderling jumped down to join his fellow scamperers.
“luck to you, warmlander!”
“And to you also, child,” Jon-Tom called hastily back to him. Ananthos and several responsible bystanders were finally shooing the spiderlings away. The children waved and cheered in excited whispers, like any others, their multiple, multicolored legs waving good-byes.
A greater weight pressured his left arm and he looked around uncertainly. It was no disrespectful spiderling, however. Flor’s expression was ashen, and she slumped weakly against him. He quickly got an arm under her shoulders and gave her some support.
“What’s wrong, Flor? You look ill.”
“What’s wrong?” Fresh shock replaced some of the paleness that had dominated her visage. “I’ve just been poked, probed, and swarmed over by a dozen of the most loathesome, disgusting creatures anyone could…”
Jon-Tom made urgent quieting motions. “Jesus, Flor. Keep your voice down. These are our hosts.”
“I know, but to have them touch me all over like that.” She was trembling uncontrollably. “Aranas . . . uckkkk! I hate them. I could never even stand the little ones the size of my thumb, for all that Mama used to praise them for catching the cockroaches. So you can imagine how I feel about these. I could hardly stand it on the boat.” She moved unsteadily away from his arm. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Jon-Tom,” and she gestured at Ananthos, who was marching ahead of them.
They turned up another, broader web-road. “What matters isn’t what they look like,” Jon-Tom told her sternly, “but what’s behind their looks. In this case, intelligence. We need their help or Clothahump wouldn’t have herded us all this way.” He eyed her firmly.
“Think you can manage by yourself now?”
She was breathing deeply. The color was returning to her face. “I hope so, compadre. But if they climb over me like that again…” A brief reprise of the trembling. “I feel so… so icky.”
“‘Icky’ is a state of mind, not a physiological condition.”
“Easy for you to say, Jon-Tom.”
“Look, they probably don’t think much of the way we look, either. I know they don’t.”
“I don’t care what they think,” she shot back. “Santa Maria, I hope we finish with this place quickly.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He noted the way in which the rising sun, bright despite the intensifying cloudiness, sparkled off the millions of cables and the silken buildings and webwork walkway they were climbing. “I think it’s kind of pretty.”
“The fly complimenting the spider,” she muttered.
“Except that the flies are here hunting for allies.”
“Let’s hope they are allies.”
“Ahhh, you worry too much.” He gave her an affectionate pat on the back. She forced a grin in response, thankful for his moral support.
Jon-Tom’s attention returned forward, and to his surprise he found himself staring straight into Talea’s eyes. The instant their gazes locked she turned away.
He decided she probably hadn’t been looking at him. Probably trying to memorize their path in case they had to try and flee. Such preparation and suspicion would be typical of the redhead. It did not occur to him that the glance might have been significant of anything else.
They had climbed several thousand feet by the afternoon. Ahead loomed an enormous structure. How many spiders, Jon-Tom wondered, had labored for how many years patiently spinning the silk necessary to create those massive ramparts of hardened silk and interlaced stone?
The royal palace of Gossameringue was made largely of hewn rock cemented together not with mortar or clay or concrete but layer on layer of spider silk. Turrets of silver bulged from unexpected places. The entire immense structure was suspended from a vast overhang of volcanic rock by cables a yard thick. Those cables would have supported a mountain. Though the wind was stronger here, high up the volcanic flank, the palace did not move. It might as well have been anchored in bedrock.
They entered a round, silk-lined tube and were soon walking through tunnels and hallways. It grew dark only slowly inside since the glassy silk admitted a great deal of light. Eventually torches and lamps were necessary, however, to illuminate the depths.
They confronted a portal guarded by a pair of the largest spiders yet seen. Each had a body as big as Jon-Tom’s, but with their loglike legs they spanned eighteen feet from front to back.
They were a rich dark brown, without special markings or bright colors anywhere on their bodies. The multiple black eyes were small in comparison to the rest of the impressive mass. Shocking-pink and orange silks enveloped torsos and legs. There was also a set of white scarves tied around two forelegs and the nonexistent necks. Huge halberds with intricately carved wooden shafts rested between powerful forelegs.
They didn’t move, but Jon-Tom knew they were closely scrutinizing the peculiar arrivals. For the first time since they’d entered Gossameringue he was frightened. Thoughts of t
he friendly spiderlings faded from his mind. It would have been little comfort had he realized that the pair of impressive guards before them were there precisely to intimidate visitors.
Ananthos turned to them. “you will have to wait here.” After conversing briefly with the two huge tarantulas he and his two associates disappeared through the round entrance.
While they waited, the visitors occupied themselves by inspecting the now indifferent guards and the gleaming silk walls. The silk had been dyed red, orange, and white in this corridor and shone wetly in the light of the lamps. Jon-Tom wondered how far from the entrance they’d come.
Mudge sauntered over next to him. “I don’t know ’ow it strikes you, mate, but seems t’ me our eight-legged friends ’ave been gone a ’ell of a long time now.”
Jon-Tom tried to sound secure as well as knowledgeable. “You don’t just walk in on the ruler of a powerful people and announce your demands. The diplomatic niceties have to be observed. History shows that.”
“More o’ your studies, wot? Well, maybe it do take some time at that. Never met a lot o’ bureaucrats that did move much faster than the dead. I expect they’re all like that, slow movin’ an’ slow thinkin’, no matter ’ow many legs they got.”
“Here they come,” Jon-Tom told him confidently.
But it was not Ananthos and his familiar comrades who emerged from the opening but instead a tall, very thin-legged arachnid with a delicate body and eyes raised high on the front of his skull. His forelegs were tied up in an intricate network of blue silk ribbons and there were matching purple ones on the rearmost limbs.
One wire-thin leg pointed at Caz, who stood nearest the portal, while dozens of spiders of varied size and color suddenly poured from behind him.
“immobilize them and carry them down!”
“Hey, wait a minute.” Jon-Tom was unable to get his staff around before he’d been seized by half a dozen hooking legs. Others thrust threatening spears and knives at his belly.
“There has been a mistake.” Clothahump was already disappearing around a corner, carried on his back.
“Put me down or I’ll cut your smelly heads off!” All fire and helpless frustration, Talea was being carted closely behind the wizard.
Then Jon-Tom felt himself turned on his back and borne on dozens of hairy legs, kicking and protesting with equal lack of effect.
They went down into darkness. How far he couldn’t guess, but it wasn’t long before they were dumped into a silk-and-stone cell under the imperious direction of the emaciated and beribboned spider in charge.
The silk lining the chamber was old and filthy. There were no windows to let in light, only a few oil lamps in the corridor beyond. Jon-Tom gathered himself up and moved to inspect the cross-hatched webwork that barred their exit.
It was not sticky to the touch, but was quite invulnerable. He leaned against it and shouted at their retreating captors.
“Stop, you can’t put us in here! We’re diplomatic visitors. We’re here to see the Grand Webmistress and__!”
“Save your wind, my friend.” Caz stood at the outermost comer of the cell, squinting up the silk ladder-steps. “They’ve gone.”
“Shit!” Jon-Tom kicked at an irregular, flattened piece of shiny material. At first he thought it was a piece of broken pottery. Closer inspection revealed it was a section of chitin. It clattered off a stone set in the far wall.
“God damn that sly-voiced Ananthos. He led us all this way by making us believe he was our friend.”
“He never said he was our friend.” Bribbens sat against a wall, his head resting on his knees. “Merely that he was doing his duty. Get us this far, then it’d be up to us, he said.” The frog chuckled throatily. “Certainly hasn’t gone out of his way to make it easy for us, looks like.”
Talea was sniffing the air and frowning. “I don’t know if any of you have noticed it yet, but—”
There was a startled scream. Jon-Tom looked left. Flor had been standing there. Now she’d fallen forward and landed hard on the floor. Her foot had vanished through an opening in me wall and the rest of her was slowly following… .
X
THEY HADN’T NOTICED THE passageway when they’d been chucked into the cell. There was no telling where it ran to or what had hold of Flor. Blood oozed from beneath her nails as she tried to dig her fingers into the floor.
Jon-Tom was first at her side. Without thinking, he leaned over and heaved a head-sized rock at her foot. There was a breathy exclamation of surprise and pain from beyond. She stopped sliding.
Caz and Mudge half dragged, half carried her across the cell. Whatever had hold of her had missed her leg, but her boot was neatly punctured just behind the calf.
As he backed away from the opening several legs scrambled through. They were attached to a two-foot-wide bulbous body of light green with blue stripes and spots. Jon-Tom took note of the fact that it wore only one black silk scarf tied around the left rear leg at the uppermost joint.
The visitor was followed closely by a second, smaller spider. This one was an electric maroon with a single large gray rectangle on its abdomen. A third spider squeezed into their cell, barely clearing the passageway. It was gray-brown with white circles on cephalothorax and abdomen and had shockingly red legs. All wore only the single black scarf on identical limbs.
The three spiders stood confronting the wary knot of warmlanders.
“what the hell,” said the first spider who’d entered, in a tone so high and flighty it was barely intelligible, “are you?”
“Diplomatic ambassadors,” Clothahump informed them, with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances.
The little arachnid bobbed his head in that maybe yes, maybe no movement Jon-Tom had come to recognize. “maybe you’re diplomatic ambassadors to you,” he said, “but you’re just food to us.”
“they look nice and soft,” said the big one in a slightly deeper but still tenebrous voice. His body was a good three feet across, bulky, and with three foot legs. “diplomats or blasphemers, ambassador or storage-stealers, what difference does it make?” He displayed bright red fangs. “dinner is dinner.”
“You think so? Touch one of us again,” said Jon-Tom warningly, “and I’ll shove your fangs down your throat.”
The first spider cocked multiple eyes at him. “will you now, half-limbed?” The latter was an apparent reference to Jon-Tom’s disproportionately fewer number of limbs. “tell you a thing. if you can do that we’ll treat you as something more than dinner. if you can’t”—he pointed with a leg toward the shivering Flor—“we start with that one for an appetizer.”
“Why her, why not me?”
The spider could not grin, but conveyed that impression nonetheless. “almost had a taste. she smells full of fluid.”
It was too much for the terrified arachniphobe, that casual talk of being sucked dry like a lemon. She turned and vomited.
“there, you see?” said the spider knowingly.
Jon-Tom quelled his own rising nausea. He ignored the gagging sounds behind him to keep his attention on the big red-legged spider. It had scuttled off to the side, away from its companions.
“you can have me if you can get me,” it taunted.
“Same goes for me,” said Jon-Tom grimly. “Leave the others out of this.”
“we’ll do that for a start.” The spider was sitting back on his hind legs, waving the four front limbs ritualistically as it bobbed from side to side. Then it brought them down and rushed forward.
It had been a while since Jon-Tom had practiced any karate. Four years, in fact. But he’d become reasonably good before he’d quit. What he hadn’t learned was how to attack something with eight limbs. Not that they would matter if the spider got those red fangs into him. Even if this particular arachnid’s venom wasn’t very toxic, the shock alone might be enough to kill.
The attacker’s intent seemed to involve throwing as many legs as possible at its prey in order to distra
ct him while the fangs bit home.
It was possible the spider wouldn’t expect an attack. If the eight limbs were confusing to Jon-Tom, then perhaps his human length and long legs might equally puzzle the spider. Besides, the best defense is a good offense, he reasoned.
So he ran at his opponent instead of away from it, keeping his eyes on his target as he was supposed to and trying hard to remember. Up on the opposite foot, kick out with the right, left leg tucked under the other.
Agile claws reacted quickly, but not quickly enough. They scraped at Jon-Tom’s neck and arms. They didn’t prevent his right foot from landing hard between the eight eyes (there was no chin to aim for).
The impact traveled up Jon-Tom’s leg. He landed awkwardly on his left foot, stumbled, and fought desperately to regain his balance.
It wasn’t necessary. The spider had stopped in its tracks. Making mewling noises horribly reminiscent of a lost kitten, it sat down, rolled over on its back, and clawed at its face. The leg movements slowed like a clock winding down. Jon-Tom waited nearby, panting hard in a defensive posture.
The leg movements finally ceased. Green goo dripped from between the eyes, which no longer shone in the lamplight. The spider who’d entered the cell first scrabbled over to its motionless, larger companion.
“damme,” he breathed in disbelief, “you’ve killed jogand.”
Jon-Tom caught his breath, frowned. “What do you mean, I’ve killed him? I didn’t kick him hard enough to kill him.”
“dead for sure, for sure,” said the smaller spider, turning a respectful gaze on the man. Blood continued to seep from the wound.
Fragile exoskeleton, Jon-Tom thought in relief and astonishment. Come to think of it, he’d seen a lot of clubs here. They’d be very effective against recalcitrant arachnids. Instead of a glass jaw, the spider possessed a glass body.
Or maybe he’d just slipped in a lucky blow. Either way…
He glared warily at the remaining pair. “No hard feelings?”
The first spider gazed distastefully down at his dead companion. “jogand always was the impulsive type.”
The Hour of the Gate: A Spellsinger Adventure (Book Two) (The Spellsinger Saga) Page 14
