Scilly Seasons

by Chris Tookey

  “It was good of you to bring your own provisions with you,” said Avarus, draining the last contents of his bowl with every semblance of enjoyment. “Gentlemen, shall we reveal the main course?”

  The seven dwarves lifted the silver lids on the dishes in the centre of the table. The severed heads of Prince Artorus’s troops stared back at them.

  The prince, Osprey, Wyrd and Sir Ector all stumbled away from the table.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Avarus. “Don’t you like brains?”

  No sooner had Avarus said this than the moonlight struck him and he began to change. His face grew pink and raw, his nose receded into his face and his eyes turned black and bulbous. His arms and legs burst out of their clothing and bifurcated into eight furry legs. His body hardened into an exoskeleton. He lowered his face over one of the soldier’s heads and used fangs to tear the top off it. He then buried his face in the top of the head and began to suck.

  “How can you eat your own kind?” gasped Wyrd.

  “You are not our kind,” said Fortunatus, his face contorting as he spoke. “Dwarves are not humans, nor are humans dwarves. Besides, we are no longer mere dwarves. We are arachnids.”

  “Spiders!”

  “Spiders are our smaller, less audacious cousins,” spat the creature that had been Fortunatus. “We are werespiders, blessed with the noblest mission of them all – bringing fresh produce to our Empress.”

  Fortunatus himself was almost fully changed, as were all the other dwarves.

  “And we are that produce,” said Wyrd. “Right?”

  “Bloody hell,” said Sir Ector, “this is the first banquet I’ve attended where I ended up as the meal!”

  Just then there came a crash from the direction of the Empress’s trolley and out of it arose a werespider four times the size of any of the others. Her huge, hairy legs were each the thickness of a sea serpent. Her fangs were larger than those of any werewolf.

  “Don’t let their fangs near you,” muttered Osprey. “They’ll inject venom which will paralyse you, then fill you up with digesting juices. That softens you up until your internal organs become liquid. Then they suck you dry and throw the husk of your body away.”

  “Thanks for the biology lesson,” said Wyrd. “But I’m not sure I wanted to know that.”

  “What are we going to do?” wailed Prince Artorus.

  “I was rather hoping you’d tell me, sire,” said Sir Ector, grimly. “It was you who led us into this.”

  “What can we do, Osprey?” asked the prince. “We’re defenceless!”

  “Not as long as I have my staff,” said Osprey.

  Wyrd felt in his pocket.

  “And I have this knife,” he said, producing the small knife that Wenda had lent him and he’d forgotten to give back.

  “Call that a weapon?” asked Artorus, contemptuously.

  “That’s no ordinary kitchen knife,” said Osprey, looking at the runes cut into its side. “It’s a witchen knife.”

  “What use is that?” asked Artorus. “It’s tiny.”

  “That’s the beauty of it,” said Wyrd. “It can be whatever you want it to be.”

  “How did you get it?” asked Osprey. “Never mind. That’s not important. Just concentrate on the knife.”

  Wyrd gazed down at the unassuming knife and clenched it in his right hand.

  “Right now, I wish you were the longest, sharpest sword I have ever possessed,” murmured Wyrd.

  Magically, the witchen knife transformed itself into just that.

  Sir Ector had been studying the werespiders with alarm and snatched up a couple of the silver lids which had covered the food. He smashed them together like cymbals.

  “Right, you eight-legged crawlers,” he cried, “let’s see what you’re made of!”

  Prince Artorus overcame his revulsion, picked up two of his troops’ heads and hurled them into the gaping maw of the Empress Honoria. She used her front legs to knock one of them away and began to chomp contentedly away on the other. Finding himself defenceless, Artorus looked around for some way of escape and decided to hide under the huge table, which was too low for the spiders to crawl under.

  “So much for our commander-in-chief,” muttered Sir Ector, who didn’t seem over-confident that his two silver lids would have much of a restraining effect on eight hungry, homicidal spiders.

  Osprey raised his arm with difficulty to aim his staff at one of the advancing arachnids.

  “Thank you so much for shooting me in the shoulder,” he grimaced towards Sir Ector. “That really helps.”

  “Sorry, old chap,” said Sir Ector. “But if you have a master plan for dealing with this situation, now would be a good time to tell us.”

  “Take that!” The wizard pointed his staff at Mucus, the smallest of the spiders.

  Blue fire flashed from the top of the staff and hit Mucus. Shocked and blinded, the spider sidled away until it was within range of Wyrd’s sword. Wyrd brought the blade down on one of its legs, and it screamed as its severed leg fell to the floor.

  “Plan A,” suggested Wyrd. “Chop their legs off!”

  “No good,” said Osprey. “Look!”

  No sooner had the leg dropped off Mucus, than another leg began to grow in its place. Within seconds, it was as good as new.

  “Interesting,” said Osprey. “I believe the process is called ecdysis.”

  “I don’t give a toss what it’s called,” roared Sir Ector. “Just tell me bloody Plan B!”

  “What about stamping on them?” suggested Wyrd, remembering his time in the Castle Otto kitchen. “That sometimes works.”

  “Have you seen how big these bastards are?” yelled Sir Ector. “Never mind the bloody female!”

  “It’s still worth a try!” said Wyrd, jumping on the back of the spider that had once been Eructicus. “Any better ideas?”

  The stench was appalling, but somehow Wyrd managed to hang on to the carapace of Eructicus’s back and stamp his feet on the werespider as it heaved and bucked to dislodge him. Eventually, Wyrd was thrown off and sent hurtling into the wall, but Eructicus’s eight legs slipped on the mosaic floor, and his efforts to dislodge Wyrd meant that he ended up on his back. Wyrd stumbled to his feet and drove his witchen blade deep into the spider’s body. Eructicus twitched, then lay still.

  “One down, seven to go!” called Wyrd.

  “Six, with any luck,” bawled Sir Ector.

  He had managed to jump on Mucus’s back and was clapping the silver lids on either side of his head to disorientate the beast. Eventually, the dizzy spider rolled over and Wyrd was able to dispatch it with another jab to its body.

  “That’s two down, but I think we may need a Plan C,” said Sir Ector, pointing.

  The werespider that had been Fortunatus had managed to capture Osprey and was now weaving him inside a silken prison, so that his arms were tight by his side and only his head was showing.

  “Don’t come for me,” said Osprey, with an impressive degree of calm. “My staff is broken. I’m done for. Just save yourselves.”

  Those were the last words Wyrd heard from him, as a second later Fortunatus had covered the wizard’s mouth with a silken gag. Fortunatus began to pull Osprey towards the huge, salivating maw of the Empress spider.

  She squatted, covering the double doors at one end of the room. Meanwhile, the two spiders who had been Avarus and Sollicitus were spinning webs to pen Wyrd and Sir Ector into the other end. The other two – formerly Punctilius and Erecticus – had crawled up the walls on to the ceiling and were edging closer.

  “Do you think they’re going to drop on top of us?” asked Wyrd, nervously.

  “I think they might,” remarked Sir Ector. “And I don’t think they’re going to be so obliging as to attack us one at a time.”

  By now, Avarus and Sollicitu
s had finished weaving their net across the room. They scurried to the centre of their webs and hung there, silently staring at the three men.

  “Do you see what I see?” said Wyrd, after a second or two.

  “I see five spiders about to kill us,” said Sir Ector, “and a sixth who thinks we’re dinner.”

  “No. They’re not looking straight at us,” said Wyrd. “They’re feeling where we are.”

  “You think their eyes are that weak?” whispered Sir Ector.

  Wyrd nodded.

  “So, let’s create a decoy,” said Wyrd. “Can you lift me up so I can have a go at the two on the ceiling?”

  “You mean the two which are about to drop on us,” asked Sir Ector, “and tear us to pieces?”

  “Those would be the spiders I’m talking about,” assented Wyrd.

  “Right,” said Sir Ector. “One, two, ouch, mind my shoulder – three!”

  Wyrd stabbed at each of the ceiling spiders and shuddered as their heaving bodies almost touched his own. As soon as they had hit the floor, he jumped down and yelled:

  “Into the corner!”

  It was as Wyrd had suspected. As soon as the two ceiling spiders hit the floor, their presence triggered a response in their two nearest colleagues, who sank their fangs into them before they realised their mistake. The ceiling spiders were instantly paralysed, and for a few moments the other three left their backs unprotected. Wyrd leapt upon them with his sword, followed almost immediately by Sir Ector with his trusty silver lids.

  “I’ll stun them, you kill them!” roared Sir Ector.

  When Wyrd looked up from killing the four spiders, he saw Fortunatus dragging Osprey’s inert body to within a foot of the Empress’s masticating jaws.

  “We must save Osprey!” he yelled, running at the web hanging across the centre of the room and trying to cut a way through it. Sir Ector tore at the net too, and the frantic scrabblings of the two men distracted Fortunatus momentarily – so much so that the male spider stepped one pace too close to the Empress. In a trice, she had seized him in her mandibles and was biting into him with her fangs.

  “So much for being Lucky,” murmured Wyrd, as Fortunatus slid into the great female’s mouth.

  Her hunger momentarily satisfied, the Empress spider blearily surveyed the carnage in front of her and reversed through the double doors without bothering to open them. They fell away with a crash, as Wyrd finally broke through the spider webs and began to cut away at the silken binding that encased Osprey. The Empress scuttled away towards the front staircase.

  “Should we follow her?” asked Sir Ector.

  “Let’s free Osprey first,” said Wyrd. “Anyway, to finish her off, we may need all the help we can get.”

  “Have they gone?” asked Prince Artorus, crawling out from under the table. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help. But I’ve been terrified of spiders ever since I was a child.”

  “That’s okay,” said Wyrd, with more kindliness than he felt. “Look, Ector, could you finish untying Osprey? The prince and I have a damsel in distress to rescue.”

  “Where will you be?” asked Sir Ector. “I don’t fancy taking on the Empress on my own. Osprey still seems pretty woozy.”

  “Morgana’s in the bedroom at the top of the back staircase,” said Wyrd. “Come on, Artorus, it’s time you met your future bride. That’s if she’ll have you.”

  A few seconds later, as Wyrd and Artorus ran up the back staircase two steps at a time, Wyrd’s words struck home.

  “What do you mean, if she’ll have me?” protested Artorus. “I’m Prince Artorus, heir to Atlantis, future King of all Albion, for God’s sake!”

  “You could have fooled me,” said Wyrd. “Just then I saw you as a coward who didn’t go to help his friends because he was too afraid of spiders.”

  “That’s jolly unfair,” said Artorus. “At least you were armed.”

  “Here we are,” said Wyrd, trying the door.

  It wouldn’t open.

  “I think it’s locked,” said Artorus.

  “We’ll have to break it down,” said Wyrd.

  “It looks awfully solid,” said the prince. “Maybe Sir Ector…”

  “We don’t have time to wait,” said Wyrd. “The Empress could be upon us at any moment.”

  “You think?” asked Artorus nervously.

  Wyrd looked down at his sword.

  “I wish this were small enough to pick the lock,” he said.

  Hardly had he said this than the witchen knife dwindled into a short thin stiletto.

  “Wow!” said Prince Artorus, as Wyrd jiggled it around in the lock of the door.

  After a few seconds, the door swung open to reveal a room criss-crossed with silken threads. There, hanging in the middle, was Morgana. She was gagged, bound and seemingly asleep. Once Wyrd had instructed his knife to resume its former size as a long, sharp sword, it took him only a few moments to cut her down. Prince Artorus and he carried her out on to the landing at the top of the stairs.

  “Is she dead?” asked the prince.

  “I don’t think so,” said Wyrd. “She’s still breathing.”

  Up the stairs crashed Sir Ector, carrying the weapons which the dwarves had taken from them. Close behind came Osprey, looking dazed but determined, grimacing with pain from his damaged shoulder and using the remains of his magic staff as a third leg.

  “Is this the Princess Morgana?” asked Sir Ector.

  “Yes,” said Wyrd. “What do you think they’ve done to her, Osprey?”

  “Well, she seems to have avoided the magic that turned the others into werespiders,” said Osprey. “I imagine she hid. But they obviously found her, later. I suspect they paralysed her and were keeping her in reserve for when the Empress became hungry and there was no other food to be had.”

  “A mother eat her own daughter?” said Wyrd. “That’s horrible!”

  “That’s werespiders for you,” said Osprey. “They’re driven by only two things: hunger and sex. Which is why we’ve got to find the Empress immediately.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Wyrd.

  “Didn’t you see the size of her?” asked Osprey. “It can mean only one thing.”

  “She eats too much?” suggested Prince Artorus.

  “No!” Osprey’s voice was tinged with more than annoyance; it was more like intellectual contempt.

  “Tell us,” said Wyrd. “What does it mean?”

  “She’s about to give birth!” said Osprey. “And do you have any idea what that would mean?”

  “More werespiders?” suggested Wyrd.

  “Hundreds more. Possibly thousands. And have you any idea what they would do to Atlantis?”

  Wyrd decided to hazard a guess.

  “Destroy it?” he asked.

  “Precisely,” said Osprey. “Whoever laid this curse on the Empress and her dwarves wanted to bring about the end of Atlantis and everyone in it.”

  “Do you think it was Buzzard?”

  “Buzzard wouldn’t be that powerful,” said Osprey. “This kind of deed would require black magic on a scale that is well beyond the common run of magician.”

  “So, who?” asked Wyrd.

  “Excuse me,” said Sir Ector, who was nothing if not practical, “but can we leave this discussion until later?”

  “Sir Ector’s right,” said Osprey. “The first thing is to find the Empress before she can give birth. Have you any idea where she might have gone?”

  “I don’t know,” said Wyrd. “The Villa Honoria is a huge place. What’s the sort of surroundings she would look for?”

  “Somewhere restful, relaxing… where she feels safe, secure.”

  “Wouldn’t that be her boudoir?” asked Sir Ector. “That’s where my wife would go.”

  “Good idea,” said Osprey. “Sir
Ector, follow me. Uther, you stay here with the prince and look after Morgana.”

  The prince was noticeably more confident now that his sword had been restored to him. He looked down at Morgana, whose face in repose looked pale but beautiful.

  “Do you think I ought to kiss her?” asked Artorus. “It often seems to work in stories. I know this isn’t the most romantic situation on earth.”

  “What did you say?” asked Wyrd.

  “I asked if I ought to kiss her.”

  “No. After that.”

  “I said that this isn’t the most romantic place on earth.”

  “Artorus, you’re a genius!” exclaimed Wyrd. “I know just where to find the Empress. Can you stay here on your own, until the others get back?”

  “Why? Where are you going?” asked the prince.

  “Downstairs. When the others get back, assuming the Empress wasn’t in her bedroom, send them down to the baths.”

  “You’re going for a swim?” asked Artorus, incredulously. “At a time like this?”

  “No, that’s where I think the Empress is,” said Artorus.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “It’s just something she said to me once, about the baths being where she felt most relaxed, most romantic.”

  “Why did she tell you that?” asked the prince suspiciously.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Wyrd hurriedly. “What matters is that I think I know how her mind works.”

  “But she’s a werespider,” said the prince. “Maybe her mind works differently now.”

  “Maybe,” said Wyrd, impatiently. “But maybe not. Look, we’ve got to try to get to her before she can give birth. You heard Osprey.”

  Wyrd ran down to the baths and opened the door with difficulty. Something was stopping it from opening, and Wyrd soon identified what it was. A thick spider’s web had been spun across the opening, which Wyrd had to hack away at with his sword before he could go through. Inside, he heard his footsteps echoing before he could see what lay beyond. There was no water in the baths, or asses’ milk, but the great Empress spider lay at one end of the bath, on her back, as one after another, smaller spiders escaped from her abdomen.