Rise of the Spider Goddess

by Jim Hines

  Averlon Lan’thar

  PS, If I don’t make it, please delete my browser history.

  * * *

  Carefully, Pynne shut the book. “Thomas said that he made it to the temple, but died shortly after he got there.”

  Jenn nodded without saying anything, overwhelmed by the incredible sense of age coming from the room around her.

  “All of this has been here for thousands of years,” she whispered.

  “Obviously Olara’s priests never found this room,” Pynne commented. “I wonder how Averlon discovered it.”

  “Probably read about these tunnels back in his temple vaults.” Jenn looked around the room. “So now what?”

  “Averlon said he hid the scroll somewhere in these tunnels,” Pynne said, “so I guess we keep looking.”

  “Well, I’m not going back the way we came.”

  Pynne grinned. “Like I said, dwarves are masters at working with stone. They could have built an easier way in and out of this room, then hidden it from view somehow.”

  It took them about a half hour to find it. Jenn, opening one of the chests, noticed a round protrusion of stone from underneath the shelf. After examining it closely, she reached out and tugged on the small knob.

  All right, get your mind out of the gutter.

  A two foot square portion of the wall opened into the room, bumping against the chest. Grunting, Jenn and Pynne shoved the heavy chest to one side, allowing the door to swing completely open. They peered through the small portal.

  “Grab what you want to take, and let’s go,” Pynne said, squeezing through the opening.

  Jenn looked back, studying the riches that lay before her. “Aren’t you taking anything?”

  “Too heavy to fly with,” Pynne commented. Then she winked. “Besides, we can always come back.”

  With a grin, Jenn followed her through the small doorway. then a thought struck her. “What about Averlon’s journal?”

  The thief leaves without taking any of the gold or jewels? That’s about as in character as Mister Rogers busting a beer bottle and starting a bar brawl.

  Pynne’s voice took on a more somber note. “I think it would be safest here, don’t you?”

  The book had remained safely hidden from Olara for two thousand years in that room. Jenn nodded slowly, and pulled the door shut behind her.

  As the door shut, the light from the lava flow was lost. Once again they were plunged into blackness.

  Out of curiosity, Jenn knelt down and felt for the outlines of the small door. There was no trace of anything unusual.

  “It probably can’t even be opened from this side,” Pynne commented, hearing the sounds of Jenn’s search. “If we want to get back in, we’ll have to do it the hard way.”

  She smiled, hearing Jenn’s groans. “Shall we keep looking?” Pynne asked.

  Jenn stood and placed one hand on the damp stone of the wall. Using that hand as a guide, she began walking down the tunnel, ducking to keep from bumping her head.

  “I guess we shall,” Pynne muttered to herself, hearing Jenn leave.

  Chapter 9

  Nakor and Whoo ran silently through the tunnels. There was a faint light from ahead, giving off enough illumination to see where they were going.

  “Darkhesh,” Nakor cursed, feeling the empty scabbard bounce against his hip.

  “What was that?” Whoo asked.

  “A dwarvish word Scrunchy once tried to teach me,” Nakor said. “It means ‘cheesecake.’”

  “Cheesecake?”

  Nakor grinned. “I never got the pronunciation quite right. It was rather frustrating for him.”

  This was an actual thing in our D&D game.

  Whoo laughed, thinking of the legendary impatience of dwarven warriors. Then he came to an abrupt halt.

  “Look up there,” he whispered.

  Up ahead, the tunnel widened out. There were torches on one wall, and several doors on the other. Sitting casually on the floor, a guard sat honing a dagger. He was dressed in the same style of black trousers and weapons harness as the man they had encountered earlier.

  Can we all pause a moment to appreciate the artistry of that sentence? “Sitting casually on the floor, a guard sat…” That’s freaking art right there! Someone nominate this thing for the Hugo Award already!

  From behind one of the doors, a weak voice cried out.

  The man glanced up. With a snarl, he hurled his dagger at the door where it embedded itself in the brown wood, quivering slightly. There was silence.

  “Kill him?” Whoo asked quietly.

  Nakor shook his head. “Not this time.” He stood up. Without looking back, he whispered “Cover me.”

  Whoo raised an eyebrow. Then he crouched down and pulled an arrow out of his nearly empty quiver.

  Raised eyebrow count: 15

  The guard leapt to his feet as Nakor approached. Drawing a large broadsword, he pointed it at Nakor’s chest.

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?” he demanded.

  Nakor stopped a few feet away from the man. “I need your keys,” he said quietly.

  Anyone else imagining Nakor trying to do the Jedi mind trick here?

  The guard looked confused for a moment. This wasn’t how people were supposed to react with a sword pointed at them. “If I had the keys, I’d be locking you up with the rest of them,” he said, nodding at the wooden doors. “But I don’t. Anton took them when he went on break.”

  Then he grinned. “So I guess I have to just kill you now.”

  There was the ring of metal on metal, and then the guard was staring dumbly at his sword, now lying several feet behind him.

  Wait, WTF just happened?

  Whoo stepped into view, holding another arrow nocked and ready. “You talk too much,” he chided.

  Aha! I think we’re supposed to believe Whoo used one of his little pixie arrows to shoot a broadsword out of a man’s hand. Totally plausible!

  Then he turned to Nakor. “Courtesy of Anton, I assume,” he said, handing him the keys he had taken from the guard earlier.

  Nakor nodded his thanks, then looked back at the guard. Reaching over, he removed a pair of daggers from the man’s harness.

  Then he turned and began unlocking the doors, one at a time. The guard looked as if he were going to protest, but Whoo raised an eyebrow and he thought better of it.

  Raised eyebrow count: 16

  Soon, a group of eleven people had been freed. Several were small children, and all of them looked weak and hungry. One man, the largest, stepped forward and studied the helpless guard.

  “Are we to die now?” he asked. Several of the prisoners put their arms around the children protectively.

  Nakor shook his head sadly. “I hope not,” he answered. “All I can do right now is give you a choice.” He handed the man the ring of keys, followed by the two daggers he had taken from the guard. Another man picked up the sword, and a small boy wrenched the knife free of the door.

  Then Nakor looked at the guard and gestured at one of the empty cells behind him. Looking at the angry prisoners, he added “It’s probably safer.”

  The guard eyed the men who looked thoughtfully at their new weapons and swallowed hard. Moving swiftly, he stepped into the room and pulled the door shut behind.

  “If you would?” Nakor said to the man with the keys.

  “Robert,” he said as he locked the door. “Robert DeBaer.”

  Nakor quickly introduced himself and Whoo. “Well Robert,” he said, “all of you have a decision to make.”

  He turned to look at the former prisoners. “We can lead you out of the temple, but it would be leading you straight to Olara and her followers.”

  Robert and the others conferred quietly. Then Robert turned to address Nakor and Whoo.

  “We’re not staying here,” he said in a determined voice. “Show us the way out.”

  Nakor nodded. Spinning around on one heel, he began walking back down the corridor. He stoppe
d to take a torch off the wall as he walked.

  “Are you going with us?” Robert asked as they walked. He seemed to have been the spokesperson for the group.

  “No,” Nakor said. “We aren’t finished in here yet.” There was a quiet determination in his voice.

  “What about the children?” Nakor asked, lowering his voice.

  I feel like there was supposed to be something between Nakor’s two paragraphs there. Right now, it reads like a glitch in the Matrix.

  Robert lowered his head slightly, and suddenly Nakor knew what he was about to say.

  “They murdered my son the second night we were here.”

  Bitterness and grief were plain upon his face, but only a slight quiver betrayed those emotions in his voice.

  “He was one of three prisoners executed as an object lesson. One of us had resisted a guard the day before.” His knuckles were white where he clenched the guard’s sword. “Olara brought us out to watch as they were tortured to death.”

  I’m starting to think I was a very bleak and depressed college student.

  “I’ve talked with the others while the children slept,” he continued. “Freeing the few children who still live is all we want anymore.”

  Glancing back to assure himself nobody could overhear, he continued. “If that fails, we will kill them ourselves. They will not be allowed torture any of these children.”

  They came to the large door at the end of the tunnel. Nakor gestured for silence and passed his torch back to one of the prisoners. Nakor stepped close to Robert, moving so he could whisper into his ear.

  “There may be a priest in that room beyond.”

  Robert nodded to show he understood. “If so,” Nakor continued, “we wait until he leaves.” He looked sadly at Whoo. “He may already have killed one of the people we came in with.”

  Taking a deep breath, Nakor opened the door a crack and peered out. Then, sighing in relief, he opened it the rest of the way and stepped into the room.

  A grin spread over his face. Looking at the dead priest, he glanced back at Robert.

  “Then again, he may not have.”

  The body lay sprawled against the altar, arms and legs jutting from the body at random angles. His dagger still lay on the ground where it had fallen. The priest’s back had clearly been broken when he landed.

  “What kind of friends do you have?” Robert asked incredulously.

  Studying the knife on the ground, Nakor glanced back at him. “She doesn’t like knives.”

  From among the huddled group of prisoners one of the women whispered in amazement.

  “She?”

  Nakor grinned. Then he bent over and handed the dagger to Robert. Pointing at the small crack between two of the walls, he spoke.

  “That tunnel will lead you out of the temple.” He walked over to retrieve his rapier from where it had fallen earlier.

  Robert turned to one of the women. “Lenora,” he said, handing the dagger to her. They looked each other in the eye for a moment, but said nothing.

  Stepping away, Lenora tucked the knife inside her belt. Robert turned to Nakor.

  “The children will not be taken,” he repeated in a quiet voice.

  Nakor and Whoo watched in silence as Robert led the prisoners down the tunnel.

  “Good luck,” Whoo whispered.

  * * *

  “You know,” Whoo commented as they walked down the tunnel, “You don’t act like other elves I’ve met.”

  Nakor smiled. They were exploring another tunnel at random, guided by the torch he had taken from behind the altar.

  “Why not?” Nakor asked.

  “I don’t know exactly.” Whoo frowned, thinking. “You’re more expressive, more open somehow.”

  “Most elves are more withdrawn?” Nakor suggested.

  “Yes,” Whoo said. “No offense, but you act more like a human than an elf.”

  “Good guess.”

  He was quiet for a minute, trying to figure out what to say next. “I only spent the first two years of my life living with other elves.”

  Whoo listened in silence as Nakor talked.

  “You know that elves live in the woods,” Nakor began. “They take very good care of those woods, protecting the trees and the land they live in. Unfortunately, they can’t protect it from everything.”

  You know this because you’re familiar with the Big Book of Fantasy Clichés, from which this entire novel is derived.

  “The forest where I was born burned to the ground when I was two. A human town nearby needed the land, so the Duke ordered the forest cleared. Some of the people had heard rumors of the elven village living there, but they didn’t care.”

  Thus was my elf-pain born!

  “For some reason, my parents had taken me out of the forest that day. They might have been collecting food, or perhaps they were investigating the odd gathering of humans at the forest’s edge.”

  But more likely it was just another random plot contrivance.

  “I don’t know exactly what happened. I suspect they saw the fire, and ran back to help. To keep me safe, they left me hidden under a bush.”

  Nakor shrugged. “I was found nearly a day later, contentedly throwing rocks into a stream. The humans who found me decided to adopt me as their own son.”

  “That was nice of them,” Whoo commented. “They could have just left you to die.”

  Nakor closed his eyes, remembering.

  “You motherless elven bastard!” his father screamed.

  Nakor cowered back against the wall, holding the small, dead rabbit in front of him as a shield. His father grabbed it away from him.

  “I told you I wanted quail for supper!”

  “It’s the cold, sir,” Nakor said weakly, “it’s driven the animals away.” Then he fell as his father backhanded him across the face.

  “Don’t give me any of your excuses.” He gestured at a longbow that hung on a wall behind him. “If you’d learn to use a real weapon rather than that piddly-ass sling you carry, maybe you could start and earn your keep around here.”

  The bow had been found among the burned remains of the elven village. Two days after the forest was destroyed, a party of humans had explored the village, looking for souvenirs. There had been little regret over the massive deaths of the elves. The general response had been to blame the destruction on the Duke who had ordered the forest cleared.

  Nakor had never had any desire to use the bow. For him, it was a tangible reminder of what he had lost.

  “Give me that,” his father yelled, grabbing Nakor’s sling. Then he whipped it against Nakor’s arm.

  Nakor winced, glancing at the pink welt above his elbow.

  “Get out there and chop some firewood, you useless little bastard,” his father cried, giving him another slap with the sling.

  “Yes sir,” Nakor whispered, racing out the door.

  Nakor turned to Whoo with an ironic half-smile. “Yeah, it was really nice of them.”

  I don’t even know what to say at this point. I’m out of snark. Feel free to make up your own.

  He had later learned that the human town in which he had lived was started as an experiment. It was a place for the nearby Duke to dump the less desirable elements of society. Nakor had grown up surrounded by criminals, those people whose crimes weren’t serious to warrant death, but who could not be allowed to live with ‘civilized’ people.

  “So when did you leave?” Whoo asked.

  “I was probably about nineteen.”

  It had been seventeen years since Nakor had been found. Having overslept that morning, he had been unable to finish preparing breakfast before his parents had woken up.

  “Where’s our food?” his father screamed.

  Nakor’s mother sat quietly, as she always did when her husband’s temper flared. “I’m almost done,” Nakor cried out, scrambling to set the bacon on the plates.

  In his haste, Nakor dropped one of the plates, scattering food at his f
ather’s feet.

  “You bloody jackass!” his father screamed. Tipping his chair over backward, he stormed out of the room.

  Nakor got down and began cleaning up the mess. A moment later, he felt something smash across his back. There was a loud snap, and a moment later something was dropped onto the floor next to him.

  Turning his head, he saw the elven bow his father had hit him with. It had broken with the impact, and now lay uselessly next to him.

  Gently, he reached out and touched the bow. The only link to his true family now lay ruined beside him. An intense anger began to spread through his veins.

  “You useless little elf,” his father shouted. “Get off the floor and get your lazy ass back there to cook my breakfast!”

  Moving slowly, Nakor stood. His back hurt terribly, but the pain was brushed aside by the rage inside him.

  Interpreting Nakor’s sluggishness as an insult, his father hit him.

  Nakor was close to his adult height. Years of intense physical labor had strengthened his body, although that strength was difficult to see on his wiry elven form.

  He touched his lip, then looked slowly at the blood on his finger.

  “That’s right,” Nakor hissed, “I’m an elf.” He looked down at the food on the floor. “Cook your own bloody breakfast.”

  His father’s eyes widened.

  This time, Nakor was prepared for the blow. Catching his father’s arm, Nakor threw him into the table. His mother screamed.

  “How dare…” his father’s voice trailed off as Nakor brought a kitchen knife to his throat.

  “If you ever touch me again,” Nakor whispered, “I will kill you. Is that clear?”

  Fear shone in his father’s eyes, and he nodded desperately.

  Turning, Nakor walked toward the door. He listened to the sound of his father getting up off the table. He continued walking, listening to the gentle footfalls behind him. When they got close enough, Nakor spun and punched his father in the stomach.

  “Funny,” Nakor commented as his father gasped for breath, “A human wouldn’t have heard you.” He studied the knife in his hand.

  “I guess we’re lucky I’m an elf.”

  In disgust, he flipped the knife at his father’s feet. It stuck in the wooden floor, vibrating slightly.