by Rex Hazelton
Clinging to her stone knife with one trembling hand and to Grour Blood's thick mane with the other, Muriel fought the desire to flee. In the presence of the rotund beast, her insides shrank until she felt like she was a little girl, once more, the fodder that Schmar's raging lust had fed on and could easily do so again, if he wanted to.
Perched high atop the huge griffin's back, she saw a mixed multitude of adults and children standing behind the menacing black warriors. A row of familiar dark holes opened up beyond the beleaguered mass of despoiled humanity. Two of the holes evoked vivid memories. The young boy, who stabbed Schmar with the stone blade Muriel now held in her hand, fled into one of these; the other led to a room Muriel had called home for many long cruel winters.
The faces of some of the men, standing in the midst of the disheveled throng, caused a feeling of nausea to rise up in Muriel; the palms of her hands began sweating profusely; horrible memories of being hurt by the wretched men flew about her brain. “NO! NO! NO!” Her voice sounded strangled like she was choking on food that had gone part way down her wind pipe.
Collapsing against Grour Blood's muscular neck, her surroundings faded. The cave's orange light dimmed. And then went out.
It was black for the longest time. Then, little-by-little, the light returned. No longer orange, it was brighter and clean. Flying through the air, Muriel found herself sitting on a wooden swing that hung from a large branch growing out of an old oak tree. The carefree, almost whimsical attitude inundating her being felt euphoric. Back and forth, she swung through the joy-laden air. Golden butterflies filled the azure sky. Laughing children danced around a tall ornate pole rising out of a field replete with verdant grasses. Sunlight poured over Muriel's face like warm shower water, cleansing her soul from every worry and fear.
“Is this Parm Warl?” Muriel quizzed herself. “I think I shall never leave this wonderful place.”
“No, you mustn't do that!” Bacchanor's voice floated across the fields that spread before her like an ocean of unending green.
Turning her radiant face to look upon the magical troubadour, who was strolling toward her playing a lilting tune on his guitar, the beautiful, black-haired woman made inquired, “Why not O' Fair Musician?”
“If you stay too long, you might not be able to return.”
“Return to where?”
“To Nyeg Warl, to Jeaf, and to your future.”
“But what place can be better than this one?”
“Muriel, this place is not real.”
“But it is so safe and comforting.”
“No, it's not!” Bacchanor quit playing his guitar. “It's only a place for you to stay until you die. All you see and experience here is an illusion. If you choose to remain, you'll never know true love or the wonder of the magic living in the warl. Please come back, Muriel! Don't let Schmar's evil magic imprison you here. Come back!”
Moved by the wizard's words, Muriel let her hands fall from the swing, allowing herself to float up into the air. Like a feather in the wind, she soared high up towards the bright yellow sun. But to her consternation, the closer she got, the more the huge orb began changing colors. An ominous burnt orange cast replaced the cheery yellow that had once been there. While this happened, Muriel felt her body grow heavy, and when she became too heavy to remain afloat, she began falling, faster-and-faster, until she landed with a jolt. But instead of cool grass, she felt Grour Blood's thick mane and fur laying beneath her.
As she struggled to regain her bearings, Bacchanor's rumbling voice softly repeated, “Come back, Muriel!”
When she finally opened her eyes, the wizard's griffin face was there to greet her. His huge paw lay upon her head in an effort to call her back from the warl she had created in her mind.
Seeing Muriel had returned, Bacchanor gave her a fatherly pat and said, “You're a courageous woman. You've just won a greater battle than those you shall soon fight.”
Sitting upright on the mighty griffin's back, Muriel was surprised to discover that the Company of the Hammer was already standing before Schmar's odious throne. A sound of wildly swirling water came hissing out of a pit positioned off to one side of the Seat of Forgetfulness. The gauntlet, that once cut its way through the legion of river-children, was quickly disappearing. The throng of black warriors were rapidly reforming their ranks in a semicircle around the Hammer Bearer and his entourage.
“Oh my! Look at me!” Schmar's wife suddenly became agitated over her appearance. “I can't greet guests! I'm not presentable!”
The short rotund beast swiveled about on his throne. Shooting a look of concern towards the tall woman in the flowing black dress, he exclaimed, “Arachnamor, My Passionate Love, you're the most beautiful woman in all the warl. Why look at all of the admirers who simply refuse to leave your lovely presence.” Schmar swept his arm back towards the wall rising up behind him.
Trying to focus on whatever Schmar was boasting about, Jeaf and the others could only see an undulating wall covered with lumps and clots of webbing.
Noticing that his guests weren't able to distinguish his wife's trophies from the wall's irregularities, the short, rotund man waved his hand, inflaming the luminous rock that lit the Cave of Forgetfulness. With the light increasing in intensity, the horrified Company was aghast at the hideous sight laying before them: shapes of human skeletons, encased in gauzy webbing, could now be clearly seen.
“I know, My Dear.” Arachnamor seemed little comforted by what she saw. “I'm flattered by their devotion to me, but I'm still not ready to meet any guests. Look at me… my nails need polish, my hair's a mess, and my legs are so thin and black. Why do I have so many legs?” Schmar's wife began weeping as she looked frantically about herself.
Hearing Arachnamor's enigmatic words, Jeaf focused his Powers of Intuition towards the woman, and as he did, he saw the shape of a huge black spider appear within a human-shaped cloud of illusion. “She's not human! She's a spider!” he whispered to his companions.
Schmar, having heard the Hammer Bearer, angrily regurgitated wretched bile out of the recesses of his digestive system. Spewing it through the air with great accuracy, it fell upon the young Woodswane. Once it hit, the spider vanished and a cloudy haze descended on the young man's mind, leaving only the tall woman standing where the spider once had. The magical bile-of-forgetfulness assaulted Jeaf's Powers of Intuition, stealing away his recent memories.
“She's a spider?” Fyreed asked incredulously as he wiped the slimy glop out of the young Woodswane's hair, his hand tingling as he did, almost like it was falling asleep.
“Spider?” The Hammer Bearer responded as he tried to reassemble the picture of the monster he thought he had seen. “Did I see a spider?” he inquired as he kept on cleaning up.
While Jeaf wrestled with his memory, Schmar turned to his wife and ejected another helping of his Bile-Of-Forgetfulness upon her. Instantly, the tall woman's demeanor brightened as the wretched muck poured over her and then vanished. Her reticence now gone, as if it disappeared with the bile, she picked up a hand mirror laying near her foul husband's throne and began meticulously rearranging wayward strands of hair.
“You're right, My Love... I am beautiful.” Arachnamor, flushed with ignorance of what she really was, boasted as she lowered the mirror and turned to admire her macabre trophies that clung to the rear wall. “They just refuse to leave me. Why… I don't know.” She sighed, feigning modesty. Awash in the confidence that Schmar's magic had given her, the tall woman turned toward Muriel and said, “Don't think we don't recognize you… you ungrateful wench. How could you run out on your father and me, after all the tender care we gave you? What were you trying to do, ruin my reputation?”
Arachnamor gestured to the huddled masses clinging to the cavern walls. “See! I'm a mother of a multitude of children, who, being thankful for the food and shelter I've provide them, would never think of spurning my love or leaving the home I've given them... But you, you wicked girl, have wounded my heart
! And now you must pay for your crime!”
Arachnamor's life was really no better than the lives of those she reigned over in Schmar's Cave of Forgetfulness: it was all a lie; she was a lie; she was not even human; she was a huge hideous black spider that sat perched upon the comforting web Schmar's deception built for her, nor was she a mother, as her delusions told her; she was the rotund beast's evil creation.In the beginning, Arachnamor had been an ordinary black widow spider whose cannibalistic nature had captured Schmar's fancy. So, the rotund little man extended his considerable magic to enlarge the tiny insect and infuse it with human attributes. By doing this he hoped to fashion a companion for himself, one that would fit nicely into the subterranean warl of horror he had built.
But the fly in the ointment, so to speak, was that her pseudo-humanity came with a price. The powerful magic, that gave her a capacity to reason far surpassing others of her species, had, in the process, robbed her of her ability to reproduce. Birthed with the instinct to procreate, Arachnamor lived in the continual torment that her bareness heaped upon her. In the end, her cannibalistic nature greatly intensified to offset her loss of fertility. An insatiable appetite for devouring would-be suitors quickly developed, those whose bones hung like trophies from the wall risng behind her.
“Burn it to ashes! How could you turn against the only parents who really cared for you?” Arachnamor shouted. She was gearing up her emotions to heave all her wrath at Muriel. “If it weren't for Schmar and me, you wouldn't have had a home, you blasted ingrate!”
Anger, as hot as the sun's surface, welled up within the Prophetess. No longer would she stand by and let the monstrous woman intimidate her, let alone belittle her parents. So, she spat out a scathing reply filled with words that she had wanted to shout out for more winters than she cared to remember. “You're not my mother! Neither is Schmar my father! Both of you are nothing more than fire-blasted kidnappers. You deceive yourself when you say you are a good parent. That's a lie! In truth, you're no more than Schmar's sheep dog who herds the lambs into his slaughterhouse. And all he has to do, to keep you doing his foul work for him, is to toss some lies your way, like dinner scraps thrown to a hound. No one loves you! And few would stay with you if they were given the choice!”
“You talk about choice.” The tall woman's feet made an eerie clicking noise as she shifted her weight. “Well, your father chose to die instead of caring for you.” The clicking noise continued as Arachnamor turned to point at the skeleton hanging directly over Schmar's fat little head.
“What are you saying!?” the young woman cried out.
“You don't know?” The witch's eyes grew black as dreamless sleep before continuing. “That's your father.” Arachnamor laughed aloud. “Poor girl, daddy didn't love you enough to stay with you.”
Responding to the spite-filled words, Muriel's ring became agitated. Violently vibrating, the jewel engulfed her hand with light that looked like a mass of fire, a thing that was in keeping with her rage, as she shouted, “NOOOOOO! YOU UGLY MONSTER! NOOOOOO!”
It was a sad and violent day, all those many winters ago. By the look of the foul crew that approached Laz, he knew trouble was at hand. “Have you seen my daughter?” He asked his question in spite of his misgivings, concern for his lost child compelling him to do so. He had to exhaust every possibility, no matter what dangers that possibility brought with it.
“What's her name?” A man with a scar running down the side of his face sniffed in air as he offered an insincere question.
“Muriel.” Laz placed his hand on his sword's hilt when he saw that others were slipping out of the surrounding trees and moving up behind him.
“I haven't any money!” Laz reckoned this must be a group of highwaymen who thought a lone traveler would be easy pickings.
“Money,” the sneering man rasped out his answer, “who said anything about wanting your money.”
When the man finished his reply, those standing beside him moved aside to let a beautiful woman dressed in all black pass through their midst. And as she came, a strange clicking noise was heard.
“Have you come for me?” The tall woman's long, thin arms waved about as she spoke.
“No! I'm looking for my daughter, Muriel.”
Angered by Laz's words, the woman shouted, “No! No! No!”
Seeing her consternation, the man with the scar on his face drew out his weapon and spoke again. This time his voice was threatening. “If you put down your sword, we'll tell you where your daughter is.”
Not being a fool, Laz pulled out his own blade, but not to drop it. “If you know my daughter's whereabouts… tell me now, but I won't give up my sword.”
“Daughter! Daughter! Daughter! What's all this talk about a daughter?” The woman in the black dress was beside herself now, ranting her complaint. “He's here for me. No one else!”
Watching the woman through the corner of his eye, fear crossed the spokesman's face a moment before he gave his command. “Come men. Take his sword!”
As happened to so many who rushed in upon Laz, not knowing the skills he possessed, those eager for a fight were quickly dealt with. After intercepting the first attackers blade with his own, knocking it aside, Laz swung his sword at another man who lept at him. Catching his knuckles with the flat of his steel, he caused the man's sword to go flying out of his hand. Not a moment later, the disarmed man felt sharp steel slashing across his ribs, rending his flesh as it went. Allowing his momentum to carry him, Laz twirled about and intercepted another oncoming blade with his own. As he did, his sword purposely slid off the attacker's weapon and fell across his hip, crumpling the man to the ground.
Turning back towards the man with the scar running across the side of his face, Laz positioned his weapon to absorb another blow, but to his surprise none came. The leader of the gang, now only a sword's length away, opened his mouth and threw his lower jaw forward. Vomit followed that was a weaker version of Schmar's Bile-Of-Forgetfulness.
Seeing Laz stumble under the weight of the confusion besetting him, his sword dropping out of his hand as he shook his head trying to gather his wits, the man began repeating an oft used script. “Sir, you need look no further. The beautiful Arachnamor, she who your heart longs for, now stands before you.”
The hunter-children who inherited an ability to produce weaker portions of the bile-of-forgetfulness, emulated their father by casting the slime upon the unfortunate men they captured, throwing them into a temporary haze of forgetfulness. Though Arachnamor was barren, the captive women were not. These were the ones who gave birth to those who would become hunter-children. Gladly, not all their children did. As soon as the bile took effect, the hunters would convince their suggestible prey that Arachnamor was indeed a desirable woman who they passionately longed for. Once the pitifully deceived men professed her beauty, she would blissfully sting them and carry them off to the Cave of Forgetfulness. After wrapping them in her webbing, she, at her leisure, fed on their flesh thinking they had willingly sacrificed themselves to her beauty.
But Laz did not follow the script. His love for Muriel was too great; the Warl's Magic that dwelt in him was too strong. “What are you saying? My heart belongs only to Mara. Not her!” Shaking his head, determined not to succumb to the magic that assailed his powers of reason, he added, “My mind is set on finding my daughter and nothing else!”
“Burn your daughter with fire!” Arachnamor screamed out her words. “You may be able to resist my beauty, but you won't resist my sting!”
That day, the unthinkable happened. Laz overcame the bile's power. His passion for his daughter was greater than the vomit's magic. Since no one had ever done this before, Arachnamor became enraged and, in a fit of fury, admitted the truth of herself so that she could have the pleasure of telling Laz he would die by a spider's venomous sting. In all the bitterly cold winters that Arachnamor had lived in Schmar's lair, this had been the only time she was forced to face the truth.
Now, having heard th
e members of the Company of the Hammer call out Muriel's name, Arachnamor was able to place her with the most prominent trophy, hanging directly above Schmar's throne. Before this, she had not taken time to learn her name, over all the winters that Muriel had been held prisone, nor did she learn the names of any of the other captives, except for the hunters who served her. Only Schmar knew who Muriel was and what she might become, and he had bent every effort to erase the memory of her name and the memory of the parents who bore her, hoping to pollute her soul, turning her into someone who would use her magic to help him in his quest to defile the warl.
The festering grudge that Arachnamor held against Laz now called for vengeance to be exacted upon his offspring. As a result, Schmar's wife quickly came to believe Muriel's death would not only satiate her desire for punishing she who had rejected her maternal glory, it would also be the medicine needed to heal the wound that Muriel's father had inflicted on her soul.
The shock of seeing Laz's bones hanging over Schmar's jubilant head broke the log jam of recollections stuck in Muriel's brain. In uncontrollable rapidity, memories lurched forward like apples rolling out of a barrel that had been rudely knocked over. And as each recollection tumbled forth, the associated emotions were unleashed with it. Jerking with each blow of sorrow, guilt and anger that slammed into her conscious mind, the griffin-woman slid off Grour Blood's back. Utterly dismayed, she tried to fend off the internal assault, swatting at the air with her hands.
