Very hungry.
She slid her body through the crevice that led to her den. Hopping to
the rocks, she began to move up the tunnel. A small stone was dislodged
from above, and nervously she sprang onto the side wall of the passageway.
She flattened her body against the rocks, a two-meter blot of red against
the dark purple of the stones. Any creature looking would see her, but in
her experience, her prey didn't pay attention to what they couldn't hear.
At least the reels and raiths didn't. The Melodies were different,
more difficult to trick and snare. Catching them as regular food was too
much work-which was why she waited for the changing time. She didn't like
to work too hard for her food. And there was no need to. When she heard the
sounds she was momentarily puzzled. They were neither the snarls and grunts
of raiths nor the slithering hisses of reels. And then she felt the
familiar pains in her underbelly, felt thick ropes of saliva begin to form
in her mouth and drip heavily from her pincers. Melodies.
Never before had they come here. They knew this was the dwelling place
of the purella. She did not pause to wonder why they were here. Instead she
skittered to the top of the passageway, over the strange carvings that
marred the purple rocks. She would wait, unseen, above them. And when the
Melodies came through the tunnel, came to her, she would be ready. Oh yes,
she thought greedily, she would be ready.
"This is as far as I can take you," Sannah whispered. She stood in the
rippling pool of yellow that blazed from the torch she carried. Deep within
the mountain, there were no holes or cracks in the rocks to let in the soft
evening light. As Sannah, Anakin, and Tahiri had descended into the bowels
of Sistra, they had been swallowed by the darkness. Without Sannah's
torches, they would not have been able to see.
"What you are about to do is folly," Sannah warned for the last time.
She'd spent the past hour trying to turn the Jedi candidates back from
what, to her, meant certain death. But her words had fallen on deaf ears,
and there was nothing left to say.
"May your Force be with you," she solemnly whispered to Anakin and
Tahiri. And then she turned and became a receding circle of yellow light,
consumed moments later by darkness. Anakin held his torch high to dispel
the blackness of the passageway before him. He heard Aragon 's translation
of the carved symbols ringing in his ears. If he and Tahiri could see the
carvings that Aragon had remembered in this tunnel, and then use Aragon's
translation to decipher the symbols, they'd be able to do the same with the
ones from the Palace of the Woolamander.
"Anakin, we forgot to bring something to copy down the symbols,"
Tahiri whispered, interrupting her friend's thoughts.
"I'll remember them," Anakin reassured Tahiri. Just as he'd recalled
the symbols from the palace, he knew he'd be able to draw the carvings in
this passageway once they were safely back on Yavin 4. Anakin turned to
Tahiri, whose green eyes glowed nervously in the pale yellow light of their
torch.
"Are you ready?" Anakin asked.
"Let's get this over with," Tahiri agreed. "I can sense danger."
"Me too," Anakin said softly. "Me too."
Slowly he led Tahiri into the passageway. He held his torch high, his
eyes darting from side to side, searching for the red spider he'd never
seen but knew enough to be afraid of. The passageway dove steeply into the
mountain, and several times Anakin and Tahiri almost lost their footing.
"Anakin, over there!" Tahiri cried. She pointed to a smooth segment in
the rocks. Then she raced ahead until she stood before the same strangely
twined symbols they'd seen in the palace on Yavin 4. Her eyes raced across
the message left in the walls of Sistra by the ancient Massassi.
"This is it, Anakin!" she called back happily. Anakin walked carefully
toward his friend. He sensed danger, grave danger. His ice blue eyes
studied the rocks around him, but he saw nothing, heard nothing. Maybe all
the stories he'd heard from Sannah about the purella had been
exaggerations. And perhaps the warnings that were screaming inside his head
were his own imagination. Still, all his senses jangled with alarm.
"Tahiri," Anakin began.
But it was too late. The purella that had been silently waiting above
the carvings dropped on top of Tahiri, flattening her with its giant red-
bristled body. In a split second, eight legs wrapped around Tahiri and four
large pincers sank through her orange academy jumpsuit. Tahiri screamed,
but her cries ceased as her body jerked once, then fell limp in the
spider's deadly embrace. Anakin watched in horror as the purella turned
from Tahiri and slowly approached him, its double-jointed legs moving with
casual grace. He began to back away, his torch held in front of his body to
ward off the spider's attack.
The creature 's eyes glowed orange as they studied him carefully.
Anakin's glance flew around the tunnel. It was roughly two meters wide, and
so was the spider. There was nowhere to dodge or roll from the creature's
attack. So Anakin stood his ground, and when the spider moved forward, he
lashed out with his torch, searing one of its legs. Thick ropes of yellow
spittle flew from the spider 's jaws as it recoiled in pain. The purella's
savage eyes glowered at Anakin. And then she sprang toward him, crashing
the torch from his grip and quenching its flame. The giant red spider
knocked Anakin flat on his back, pinning his arms and legs with four of her
eight limbs. He stared up into the spider's horrid face, all jaws, pincers,
and glowing eyes that lit the tunnel in orange flame.
Anakin tried to struggle, but the spider was too heavy. The creature
studied him as he fought, then languidly sank her needle-sharp pincers into
his body. Anakin felt pain, and then the venom coursed through his veins,
numbing and paralyzing him. At least he was still awake, Anakin thought. So
was Tahiri. The purella pulled both the Jedi candidates along the rocky
passageway, their bodies limp with poison, but their minds racing to figure
out a way to save themselves. Anakin's eyes rolled from side to side-they
were all he could move. He saw Tahiri looking over at him, her large green
eyes wide with fear.
The purella continued to drag them deeper into the mountain. Then,
quite suddenly, the creature stopped. Anakin lay in the tunnel, unable to
move, as he watched the spider wrap Tahiri in its supple red legs and carry
her through a crevice in the rocks. Minutes later, the awful creature
returned and dragged him through the same crack. Anakin was carried across
a thick black web and deposited next to Tahiri and a small raith. The raith
was still alive, but hopelessly entangled in the thick black web of the
purella. Through the only light in the cave-a surprisingly bright, eerie
orange glow that came from the purella's eyes-Anakin saw that the raith had
stopped struggling.
He also saw that the more the rodent had struggled, the tighter he'd
been bound in the spid
er's web. Anakin wanted to tell Tahiri that when the
venom wore off, she shouldn't struggle. But at the moment he couldn't move
his mouth. He grimly hoped the venom would wear off before the spider
decided it was dinnertime. The purella moved away from her prey to the far
side of the web. She would wait for the venom to wear off the Melodies.
Then they would try to escape, as her prey always did, and the sticky
strands of her web would bind them.
Once they could no longer move, she'd have all the time she wanted to
savor their warm flesh. She studied her burned leg and the scorched part of
her underbelly. She hated when they fought her, like the one had done with
the fire. He had hurt her, and she didn't like to be hurt. But in the end,
that one would suffer much more than she had. Oh yes, she thought to
herself, he would suffer.
Anakin felt sensation returning to his fingers and toes. Feeling
slowly crept up his legs in sharp pricks, swirled across his rib cage,
prickled in a stream of warm pain the length of his shoulder blades and
neck, and eventually danced all the way to his scalp. But he lay still.
"Tahiri," Anakin said breathlessly, "don't move."
Tahiri nodded, but didn't reply. She'd also seen the raith, and knew
that her struggles would only entangle her further in the sticky threads
that glued her body to the web, except for one arm that had fallen limply
across her belly. Part of one of Anakin's legs had fallen bent at the knee,
but otherwise he too was completely trapped in the purella's deadly snare.
Anakin had an idea. If he and Tahiri were glued to the sticky black
threads, why couldn't the spider be caught in her own web? He'd watched the
purella navigate through the web, careful not to touch any of its threads
with her bristles.
What if he and Tahiri could make the creature lose her balance, topple
into her own trap? He looked over at the purella, folded in the corner of
the web. Her glowing orange eyes were fixed on them. If only they could
topple the immense spider onto her back, where thick red bristles rose.
"Tahiri, can you rock the web without getting yourself stuck any more
than you already are?" Anakin breathed out of the side of his mouth.
"What do you have in mind?" Tahiri murmured back.
"We've got to try to trap that thing in its own web," Anakin said
softly.
Tahiri turned her head minutely and met Anakin's ice blue eyes with
determined green ones. Slowly, Tahiri raised her right arm and began to
pump it up and down. The purella watched her movements, but didn't rise.
Tahiri pumped harder, and the web began to shake. At the same time, Anakin
pushed with his left foot, the joint of his free knee hitching up and down.
They worked together, and the web began to rock. As it moved, the Jedi
candidates pumped their free limbs harder, bouncing the web up and down.
The purella rose. Her prey was beginning to struggle, to bind themselves in
her snare.
The quivers in the lines drew her toward them, as a spider is always
drawn to the tremors of prey in her web. She moved slowly, keeping her
delicate balance within the strands of her web.
"She's coming!" Tahiri cried.
"Keep bouncing the web," Anakin replied. He pounded his foot against
the strands. The web was now steadily rocking. The purella paused,
unaccustomed to so much motion within her web, to struggles of prey that
lasted so long. Her body rose and fell as Anakin and Tahiri pressured the
web into waves. Then the spider began to move forward again, the hairless
base of her legs dancing through the gummy strands until she stopped, less
than a half meter from her prey.
"Anakin, it's not working!" Tahiri cried in terror.
The purella fixed her with gleaming orange eyes. It was poised to
attack once again, jaws open wide, thick yellow saliva dripping in
anticipation. Anakin stared beyond the creature, up into the recesses of
the den. The rock above him was at least eight meters away.
"Use the Force to lift the web!" Anakin cried to Tahiri. He closed his
eyes and focused on the energy field generated by all living things.
Focused on the web, the air, the form of the purella, and his own body. In
his mind he was one with the energy field, using it to cause the web to
rise like an immense tidal wave. Anakin felt himself lifting, so high he
imagined his body might smash into the rocks far above the web.
"Drop, now!" Anakin yelled to his friend. He pushed with his mind, and
felt his body plummeting down, down, down, until he thought he might be
swallowed up in the belly of the mountain. Anakin's eyes flew open. He felt
the web rising again from his and Tahiri's efforts, falling and rising, and
falling again. It was rebounding so quickly that his stomach rolled with
nausea and his vision came in sharp flashes.
"Anakin, I think we did it!" Tahiri cried into the whirlwind. Anakin
tore his eyes from the rocks above, which ebbed and flowed before his
vision. A searing stab of fear shot through his belly. Where was the
spider? Had she leapt safely from the web? Was she now calmly waiting on
the walls of the den for the strands to stop rising? Then he saw her. The
motion of the web had thrown the spider into the center of her own deadly
snare. She'd landed on the bristles of her back, her red underbelly exposed
to the air.
The creature writhed and twisted, trying to escape from the gumminess
of her threads. As she struggled, the web wrapped around her spastic legs,
tightening until their only movement came in twitches. Anakin could see one
of the spider's glowing orange eyes, and he didn't have to use the Force to
sense the creature's rage. The web slowly came to rest, stuck to the lower
rocks.
"We need to figure out a way to unstick ourselves," Anakin said to
Tahiri. Although they hadn't become further ensnared in the web as it had
rocked, both of them were still firmly glued down.
"Any ideas, Tahiri?" Anakin asked.
"How about this?" Tahiri said with a grin as she reached into her
jumpsuit and pulled out her multitool. With a click, she snapped out the
knife she'd used to cut down her trico filter. Using her free arm, she
carefully began to cut around her body, and when she was free enough, she
leaned over and began to cut through the thick strands around Anakin. Then
she handed the blade to her friend so that he could cut around his other
side, then lean back to cut the places around her body that she couldn't
reach without risking sticking herself on the web. It was slow, tricky
work, but a half hour later, Anakin cut the last thread that held them in
the web.
They dangled for a split second, then dropped the short distance to
the rocks below. Anakin looked up at the purella. Her orange eyes glowered
in rage, but she didn't move. The spider was completely stuck in her own
web.
"Let's get out of here, Tahiri," Anakin said softly.
The Jedi candidates climbed up the rocks and through the narrow
crevice that the purella had carried them through earlier. As they left the
> spider's dwelling, they were swallowed up by the darkness of the
passageway. Tahiri reached through the gloom to find Anakin's hand.
"Don't worry," Anakin said in the darkness, "I remember the way out."
He gave Tahiri's hand a squeeze, then led her through the steep
tunnel. They walked softly, both worried that another purella might find
them. But they managed to reach the top of the lower tunnel without
encountering an orange-eyed predator. Still, they weren't prepared for what
awaited them as they rounded the corner.
Tahiri screamed as her body brushed against the thing at the top of
the tunnel. It was warm, and alive, and she felt frustration and fear rise
in her belly. Enough was enough; she was too tired and sore to defend
herself against another attack.
"Don't strike," a soft voice cried. It was Sannah. She had returned to
the lower tunnel. Sannah lit her trico torch, and Anakin and Tahiri saw the
Melodie in its golden light. Her yellow eyes were large and scared.
"I couldn't leave," she began, nervously twisting her straight brown
hair around pale fingers. "I had to know that you were all right."
"Let's get out of here," Anakin said urgently.
Sannah nodded, then began to lead the Jedi candidates back to the
middle passage of the mountain. She stopped once, frozen as she listened to
the soft scratching of raith claws overhead. But the creatures didn't sense
the three children, and after the rodents had passed Sannah moved forward.
Soon they reached the middle passageway, where morning light lazily
drifted through cracks and holes in the mountain. Here the tunnel divided
Lyric's World Page 6
