by Alec Hutson
She noticed something small and dark hunkered among the looming stone things. It drank her wizardlight, but it certainly looked to her like the shadows clinging to it had suddenly rippled. Like it had moved . . .
A tapping came from above her, and she glanced up. The spider hung just above her head, its foreleg rapidly pattering against the stone. It seemed almost . . . frantic.
“You don’t want me going in there,” she said to the spider. “And I’m not sure I want to, either. So lead on.”
As if it understood and agreed with her, the spider scuttled away. Alyanna peered one last time into the chamber, and she couldn’t dismiss the feeling that whatever crouched there was watching her as well.
Enough. She was not here to find out what other relics of the old world were hiding within this forgotten sanctum.
The undercity of Uthmala twisted ever deeper, and at times the passages seemed to fold back upon themselves, as if the place had been designed by madmen. It was such a vast structure that she wondered – not for the first time – how Caryxes and her spawn had managed to hide for so long. Alyanna suspected the Mazespinner predated the founding of Uthmala – perhaps, even, that the city had grown up over this complex. She must have crouched down here in the dark for centuries, feeding on the mortals who dwelled above.
To avoid the attention of the Imperium’s sorcerers was impressive, especially considering that these tunnels were almost directly below one of the Star Towers. And then she had also remained hidden when the Pure had come to destroy the city and Cleanse its sorcery. The Mazespinner was exactly the kind of creature the paladins of Ama hoped to uncover in their hunts, yet the city had fallen and she had remained forgotten.
Which was why Alyanna had entrusted the Black Lady with her most precious treasures.
The entrances to more chambers appeared. Alyanna did not glance within any of them; she could sense other things down here, refugees from ages past, but she did not want to be distracted. If her focus slipped, she might never see daylight again.
She knew she was getting closer to the heart of this labyrinth. Webs clotted the corridors, so thick in places that she had to brush them out of her way to slip past. More spiders hunched in the shadows, watching her. Some were as small as her fist; others were even larger than the one she followed. What did they eat? Surely they could not all survive feeding merely on rats and other vermin.
Alyanna turned a corner, and she found that the corridor suddenly ended, emptying into a vast space. The spider waited for her at the threshold, its mandibles clacking, as if it was trying to tell her that they had arrived.
“I can see,” she told her guide, brushing past the creature. A long leg, bristling with hair, reached up to lightly touch her as she passed. Alyanna fought back the urge to shudder. Instead, she wrapped herself in sorcery, layers of defenses that should protect against whatever she found within. If there was danger; she and Caryxes had long been something resembling allies. Well, mutual admirers, at least. But these were uncertain times, and old alliances might have to be renegotiated.
Alyanna entered the lair of the Black Lady. It was a chamber so large that it almost felt like she was no longer beneath Uthmala. She stood upon a narrow stone path only a few paces wide, lacking a balustrade to protect her from the great pit in the center of the room. Warm air billowed up from the unseen depths, smelling faintly of sulfur and rot. The narrow way skirted the edge of this abyss, and though her wizardlight could not clearly see the far side of the chamber, she thought she glimpsed the entrances to other passages, pockets of deeper blackness within the gloom.
Webs festooned the space above the great pit, stretching from one side of the room to the other. The ceiling was lost behind these gauzy layers, so she could not tell how high the chamber actually soared. A body was trapped in a patch of webbing – it was a man, perhaps a farmer or woodsman, as the tattered rags he wore looked to have once been simple homespun. His face was pale and sunken, drained of blood, his eyes closed.
Alyanna stepped to the edge of the path, staring down into the darkness. The last time she had been to this chamber, Caryxes had emerged from the pit, clambering up out of the shadows with the corpse of a deer clutched in her jaws.
Something shifted above her. Alyanna peered into the thick lattice of webbing, trying to make out what lurked beyond the reach of her wizardlight. Another shiver of movement came, reverberating down through the strands of the great web. There, she saw it now: a black shape hunched in the dimness.
The Mazespinner. The Black Lady. The Night Huntress. Caryxes, worshipped in these depths for ages undreamt.
What was she? The last remnant of a lost race? A fallen god? A mad sorceress? Alyanna had never learned. Nor did she care very much, outside of simple curiosity. Caryxes was one of the elders of this world, though she had survived the upheavals because almost no one remained who remembered she existed. Alyanna had only discovered her lair by chance when she had been scouring the ruins of Uthmala a thousand years ago for any artifacts the Pure might have missed.
“Alyanna.”
She jumped, her wards flaring around her.
The body hanging in the web turned its desiccated head towards her. Its eyes were open now, but she did not think it saw her, as a milky film covered its pupils.
Was this thing dead? The last time Alyanna had stood in audience to the Mazespinner, a shrouded child – very much alive – had spoken on behalf of the great spider.
“Caryxes.”
“The Weaver of wonders graces my abode, and the worldstrands tremble with joy.”
The man’s voice was a harsh, cracked whisper. It had not been used in a long, long time.
“Thank you for sending a guide. It is good to see that you are still safe here.”
The body’s half-rotted lips twitched, as if it was trying to smile. “It is true it is not so safe for us old ones these days. Of your ancient cabal only two now remain, when but a few moons ago four still drew their stolen breaths.”
Alyanna blinked. The Mazespinner knew about Demian, which did not surprise her, as the spider was devilishly sensitive. But . . . four? Another of the sorcerers who had drunk with her from the soul jewel had persisted down through the centuries? And had died only recently? The thought was alarming. But perhaps the spider lied – it was known to play such strange games.
“Do you know why I have come?”
“There could be only one reason.”
“And you still have it?”
“Of course. I would not betray you, Weaver.”
A thought occurred to her. “Do you feel them? The Chosen?”
“The dead children?”
“Yes.”
“I cannot unfeel them. They tear gashes in the great web wherever they go. They leak the poisons of the Void into this world with their passage.”
“Do they hunt me? What do they desire?”
The great dark shape looming within the webbing shifted, dropping closer. Alyanna’s wizardlight gleamed upon a vast, curving abdomen. It hung suspended above her like a moon carved of obsidian. She felt a trickle of fear, but then she burned that to ash in the blaze of her will.
Caryxes would not risk conflict with her.
“I do not know if they search for you. I find it likely, though, as you are one of the few who could threaten their plans.”
“Their plans. You know what they want?”
“Revenge.”
Alyanna sighed. “Yes, I gathered as much. Something terrible was done to them to make them what they are. They truly were children once, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“And what do they plan on doing?”
A scraping came from above, the same sound that had been made earlier when her spider-guide had clacked its mandibles together. Except many times louder.
“A boy came to my lair many moons ag
o. A rare Talent, like yourself. He found his way into a part of my maze and disturbed my children. When he grew close, I discovered to my great surprise that he smelled like one of the Ashenagi.”
Ashenagi. Alyanna had come across that term before, in the writings of a lost people. It referred to the Ancients, the great god-like beasts that slumbered in the hidden places of the world.
“That must have been the boy, Keilan. I did not know he came here. He was the one who disturbed the Sleeper in the Deep – I’m sure you felt the tremors in the worldstrands.”
“Yes. And now the strands tremble again.”
“The Sleeper is waking?” A cold wash of fear accompanied that thought. If one of the Ancients truly woke, the age of man would end.
“Not the Sleeper. The one in the north.”
The White Worm. The only Ancient she knew of that was not at the bottom of the ocean or buried beneath the black sands in the distant southern deserts. And also the only Ancient that could be reached with relative ease. If the spells the Min-Ceruthans had woven to keep it undisturbed were sundered . . .
She knew what the Chosen planned. And what she must do.
“I will stop them.”
The milky eyes of the corpse in the web widened slightly. Some grotesque approximation of surprise, though she didn’t understand why the puppeteer above was bothering with such theatrics.
“Truly, Weaver? I thought you cared only for yourself.”
Alyanna shook her head. “Where could I hide if the White Worm thrashed awake? Would even you be safe here in your burrow if it slithered forth?”
The silence was answer enough.
“So give back to me what I came here for.”
The body hanging in the web sagged, as if whatever force animating it had suddenly fled. More shifting came from above, the threads shivering violently. She waited, counting her heartbeats, until she saw a flash of black emerging from within the hanging layers.
It was a spider the size of a horse, slashes of red like tigers’ stripes streaking its black carapace. One of Caryxes’s larger spawn, but by no means the largest. With its front legs it was rolling a great ball of wadded silk. When it reached the edge of the web that overhung the stone path Alyanna stood upon, it gave its burden a final shove. The silken cocoon landed next to her with a fleshy thud.
Alyanna’s throat was dry, and she swallowed. She could feel the tendrils of power leaking out from within.
“Your possessions are returned to you. Our old bargain is fulfilled.”
“Yes, it is,” Alyanna breathed softly. She raised her hand, and found that her fingers were trembling in anticipation. Centuries ago, she had entrusted her most prized treasures to Caryxes; there was no place in the world safer from thieves and the lingering danger of her old, vanished rivals. She had known at the time that she would only see these things again in the direst of circumstances. Even the threat of Cein d’Kara had not warranted reclaiming what she had set aside. Though, she silently admitted, in retrospect, they had been needed.
With a whisper of sorcery, she sheathed her fingers with flickering blue talons. Then with a swipe she parted the cocoon, the silk blackening and falling away, and her treasures were revealed once more.
Her hand found the ebony hilt of her flail, the living shadows twitching into existence.
“Yes,” she murmured as the old, hoary presence slithered once more into her mind. “I’ve returned.”
“We’ll be in Chale by midday.”
Blinking away his daydreams, Keilan returned to himself. He’d been staring at the riverbank as it flowed past, but hadn’t even realized that the bare trees had given way to the high, yellowing grass of the salt marshes south of the town. His thoughts had been elsewhere.
He lifted his aching head from his folded arms and sat back from the ship’s railing, turning towards Nel. She stood a few paces away, one hand clutching at a rope that climbed midway up the small merchant ship’s stubby mast. The sail had already been taken down and stowed away; the contrary current of the Lenian meant that since leaving the sea they’d had to rely on the strong backs and arms of the rowers to travel up the river. In her other hand Nel held out a biscuit.
“Did you have breakfast?” she asked, brushing back a dark lock of her hair as the wind blew it across her face. When Keilan had met her a half-year ago she’d sported a boy’s cut, but now her hair had grown out until it reached past her shoulders. If one didn’t notice the travel-stained clothes – and the hilts of the daggers poking out from her belt – she could almost pass as a respectable young lady.
Keilan accepted the biscuit and nibbled its edge. Dry and tasteless. He forced himself to choke down a larger bite.
“You ate?” he asked her, and she grimaced.
“I’m waiting to stand on ground that doesn’t move,” she replied, releasing the rope and putting her hand over her stomach. “The river is smoother, but every time they pull hard on the oars my belly lurches along with the boat.”
“Hm,” he grunted back through a mouthful of stale biscuit. He wished he had a cup of water or the sailor’s wine he’d had at dinner last night to help him swallow. For some reason alcohol seemed to quiet the pounding in his head, at least for a moment.
“Have you given any more thought about what we should do when we reach Chale?” Nel asked.
Keilan used his finger to scrape away some of the tasteless mash that had become mortared to his teeth. “You mean, have I changed my mind?”
Nel frowned. “Yes. We need him.”
Keilan glanced at the prow of the boat, where Senacus stood like a shining figurehead, his silver hair gleaming and his white cloak rippling in the wind. “No. We return to Dymoria alone.”
“We didn’t have any trouble on the Iron Road when he rode with us,” Nel said, her voice tinged with exasperation. “It won’t be as safe without him.”
“I don’t care,” Keilan said angrily, the throbbing behind his eyes sharpening. “We can hire guards to protect us. I know you took some treasures from the island.” Keilan turned away from Nel, staring out again at the gray marsh, trying to avoid the bright sun. “He killed my grandmother, Nel.”
“He was trying to protect us.”
“He’s a zealot,” Keilan spat back, his fingers tightening on the wood of the railing. “He wanted a reason to murder Niara.”
“She imprisoned us,” Nel said, her own voice hardening.
“Because Sella took something. Her servants were mindless. They did only what they had been instructed to do when a thief stole something precious.”
“So why not blame her?”
“She’s a child,” Keilan hissed. His gaze slid across the deck until he found Sella, hunched near the hatch with the captain’s son, a boy of about her age. He looked like he was showing her how to tie a sailor’s knot, wrapping a small bit of rope around a piece of wood. Sella had been avoiding Keilan ever since they’d left Niara’s island, barely speaking more than a few words to him during the days they’d waited in Ven Ibras for a ship to appear that would take them back to Chale. Keilan knew she felt terrible about what had happened – he recognized it in her eyes, that look of guilt and self-loathing he had last seen when she had tricked him into the ambush set by his cousin Malik. A lifetime ago, it seemed. He hadn’t yet found the strength to forgive Sella for her foolishness, but his anger towards her was a shadow of what he felt when he looked at Senacus.
The paladin must have been extremely pleased with what had unfolded on the island – a great sorceress had perished, and they’d found a weapon to use against the dark children. That thought made Keilan’s jaw clench, and his fingers gripped the railing so tightly that pain prickled his skin, a splinter working its way into his flesh. He let go as a wave of dizziness washed over him.
“Keilan, are you all right?” Nel asked, her hand touching his shoulder.
/> He shrugged her away, and then felt a pang of guilt when he saw her face. “I’m fine, really. I’m sorry.” He was just tired. He hadn’t been sleeping well. At first it had been the infection in his arm from when Niara had cut him, but even after the blackness in his veins had faded away his sleep had remained troubled. Terrible dreams that brought him awake gasping. And this incessant headache, making him feel like his head was stuffed with straw and shards of broken glass. The horror of what had happened on the island wouldn’t let him go.
Because despite what he’d said to Nel, and what he had tried to convince himself, it hadn’t been Senacus who had murdered Niara. No matter how much he tried he could not forget the memory of her wrapped in blue flames, screaming as she ran towards the balcony and the sea below.
He had killed his grandmother.
The docks of Chale were busy that morning. Along with the small trading ship they had sailed on, two other merchant carracks had arrived with the dawn, and burly men were helping to unload crates of Shan winter fruit and bales of undyed cloth from the Whispering Isles. Keilan had been curious as to why they’d bring the goods ashore here, instead of Theris, which was just a day’s travel up the river. When he’d asked one of the sailors he’d been told the Iron Duke had recently put a substantial tax on the river trade, large enough that it made sense to make the last leg of the journey overland.
After disembarking, Keilan guided Sella away from the frantic commotion down by the water’s edge. He clutched the rosewood box to his chest, his arms already starting to ache. The lacquered red wood was surprisingly heavy, but still he did not want to remove the black dagger from its container and carry it separately. The coldness seeping from the blade unsettled him, though at least he felt no sorcerous reverberations. Carefully, he slipped the box into his pack, nestling it among his clothes and the books he’d taken from Niara’s library.
