by A. C. Salter
Dylap shook his head. “No, your Highness, we tried to escape, but you took an arrow in your arm. It’s poisoned and you will soon…”
“No,” she said, struggling to stay conscious. “I don’t want to, I can’t. Please, I want to go home.”
“Princess, listen to me. The only way to live is to share my blood, do you understand? If you don’t want to die, we must perform the bonding-kiss.”
Silence hung between them as his words sunk in, then her lip curled in disgust. “No, I can’t possibly…Urlmince…” Her head dropped, gaze flicking to her arm and the stump of arrow that protruded from the wound. “I want my father.”
“I don’t want this anymore than you do,” Dylap said. “But there is no other way.”
Sniffing back her tears, the Princess ground her teeth. “Then I shall die,” she said firmly. Then cried out as her body began to shake.
Dylap glanced at the spider, about to asked her to make it quick, but the Princess suddenly gripped his arm, fingers digging in.
“No,” she said. “Please, I want to live. Do it.”
Sighing, Dylap held her close, resting her head against his shoulder and put his mouth to her neck, but paused. Doubt eating into him as he tasted the sweat upon her skin, that salty tang of pain as his thoughts drifted back to Elaya. This should have been them in a few years’ time, in a happier time.
Pain shot up his neck as the Princess’s teeth cut into his skin. He fought the instinct to shake her free as she sucked his blood. He felt a bead of it run down his back, but she was greedy, nothing else was wasted.
“I’m sorry Elaya,” he whispered and then holding his canines above her delicate neck, sunk them into her flesh.
Hot blood entered his mouth, salty, but also tasting metallic, coppery. That was the poison he realised, wanting to spit it out but knew he couldn’t. Instead, swallowing it, sensing her soul as she drank him, feeling her presence enter him as they became one.
The room fell dark as she moaned, or had he closed his eyes, he couldn’t tell, the world shrank to just the two of them, moulding around them, pain burning his veins, cloying at his throat – clutching his heart.
“Enough,” the spider snapped, a hairy leg pushing between them and dividing their bodies.
Gasping, Dylap fell to his knees, catching the Princess as she slumped against him, blood dribbling down her chin – his blood.
He gathered her into his arms and stood. His legs feeling weak as he carried her to the cot the spider had spun and laid her down. He removed his cloak and placed it over her, tucking a corner of it below her face so it wouldn’t become stuck on the silk.
She looked at peace. Her features relaxing so his first thought was that she had died until he saw her chest gently rise and fall.
“How are you feeling?” Dewella asked.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Dylap leaned against the leg of the cot, his veins burning with liquid fire.
“Rough,” he answered, no wonder the Princess had succumbed to the suggestion of the bonding-kiss. She would have done anything to be rid of this pain, and she had double what he had.
“Will she be alright?”
The spider shuffled around to face the Princess. “Yes, but she will need sleep,” the large arachnid said, and then lowering her mandibles to the wound in her arm, grasped the arrow shaft, twisted and then wrenched it free.
“And will heal better without that,” she added, spitting it onto the floor.
Dylap pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around the wound. It wasn’t bleeding, but he didn’t want to leave it open.
“Come, I want to show you something,” Dewella said as she skittered away across the chamber. “It is time you realised who you are.”
Giving a final glance to the Princess, he followed the spider from the room and along the corridor.
The walls and ceiling were covered in spiders, watching him, legs twitching, fangs glistening. They shifted around the luminous spider, ever-watching but none made a move. From the corridor they turned down another and then followed a sweeping bed until they arrived at the fork he had been at before. One way led up, the other down into the pit of the ruined alabaster.
“It is time, Falon,” Dewella said.
“Falon? How do you know this name?” he asked, wondering if he had mentioned it to her.
“I’ve known you before, known you since this tree was young and the Twine was called something else and flowed in a different way to what it does today.”
“You’re not making sense, none of this makes any sense.”
The spider brushed passed him as it ventured down the dark tunnel, taking the light with it. “All will be revealed, come.”
Trepidation warning him back, he stepped after the spider, knowing that when he came out, if he came out, he would be different. He wouldn’t be the same Dylap that went in.
There came a knocking sound, a deep tap, tap, tap, continuous and unrelenting. It was the same noise he had heard when first shown the old city. When Merrybone and Ebbin had explained that it was the original wood knoll, trapped eternally in the ancient throne room. The tapping grew louder as they carried on.
They followed a staircase that was on its side, Dylap having to crawl along and over the landing that had at one time been as elaborately decorated as the Palace. The remains of rich furnishings lay curled up in the corner beneath a broken table. The cloth had once been velvet, patches of red now covered in mould and dust. Other details were being revealed as they moved between rooms and broken walls. Objects that had once been chairs, curtain rails, candle sticks or beds. Things left in a hurry, treasures that should have gone but were now rotting in a tomb. Unlike the lower portion of the tree which was covered in spiders, the upper levels were free from the insects.
“What happened here, why is the tree fallen?”
“The same thing that always breaks a kingdom. War. When the goblins came they destroyed the city, reduced it to ash. Because the alabaster doesn’t burn, they had it pushed onto its side to rot in the earth.”
“Goblins? They did this?”
“You should know, you were there.”
The knocking grew louder as they passed through a large arching doorway, which as they were traveling through the tree on its side, appeared flat at one end and tapered at the other. Dylap climbed over the frame and into what used to be the throne room.
It was the only chamber he had seen that hadn’t any dust. In fact, the wood was polished and a gem stone radiated heat from a brazier set at the centre beside a golden throne.
The knocking ceased as he cautiously stepped further into the chamber and he noticed a wood knoll. It was aged and cracked but originally cast from the same alabaster, although missing his legs and one of his arms. Its small eyes stared at him, deep holes in a featureless face. Then it began to move its remaining limb, striking the ground as it began to wipe the floor with a rag.
It was cleaning.
Dylap cast his gaze around the rest of the chamber.
A large web was spread across one wall, the biggest spider he had ever seen, sitting motionless at its centre; front legs raised, fangs on display but it was as if it was frozen in time.
“Arraris, the King of spiders,” came a voice from the throne. There was a figure sat on it which he hadn’t seen before. It was a fairy and spoke with a familiar voice.
“Dewella?” Dylap asked as he stepped closer, the luminous spider which had accompanied him, didn’t cross the threshold into the throne room.
She rose from the throne and Dylap noticed that she had a thread of silk wrapped around her bare wrist, the other attached to the web that contained Arraris. She appeared young, not much older than himself, wearing a crown and a simple gown which appeared to be woven from the same spider silk which bound her to the web.
“Welcome home, Falon,” she said, rising from the throne.
“Home? But it can’t be, I’m not old enough,” Dylap said, although feeling
an odd sensation that he had been here before.
“You’re of a similar age to me, my Prince,” Dewella admitted as she approached him, gathering a coil of silk in her hand and idly swinging it as she walked. “The wrong side of a thousand years old, but who’s counting a century or two. Oh, how I have missed you.”
Halting before him, she reached up to his neck, traced a finger along the bite mark which Princess Terina had left and withdrew a single bead of blood. She held it before her, a sad smile playing along her handsome features.
Odd feelings stirred within Dylap. Heat, lust, hunger. He knew her, he had loved her before. The sensation drifted away, replaced with guilt as he thought of Elaya.
“We were once destined to perform the bonding-kiss. My father had it all arranged. We were to be wed once the war was over. But alas,” she held her arms out to the room and the tree in general. “We lost and you never came home.”
She placed her finger into her mouth, eyes closing in delight, “delicious.”
“I can’t remember a war with the goblins, or you or anything before being washed up on the banks of Farro.”
“Then let me enlighten you,” she said, walking towards a side table with a bust of somebody important, sitting atop the smooth surface. “Recognise him?”
Dylap stepped closer, looking at the bust as Dewella trailed her hand over the features. Confusion rattled through him as he did indeed recognise it.
“It’s me.”
She pointed to a tapestry that hung from the wall behind. It portrayed several pictures: some depicting a fairy riding a black falcon, a long javelin held high and ready to be thrown, some where he was flying with wings, forked lightning flickering across spines, and another picture of him sitting upon a throne, the javelin held before him, point resting on the ground.
“You were a warrior, a god-created weapon sent by the god Dentos to kill a goblin overlord that had displeased him. After slaying the overlord, Dentos rewarded you by granting you freedom to live out your years amongst the fairies in the forest.”
“But the goblins sought revenge. They came for me,” Dylap finished, flashes of memory returning.
His mind suddenly filled with images, bright recollections of fairies, faces and days long since dead and gone. Some he loved, some he loathed, some he ruled and others he killed. Flying, fighting and battling, leading an army of fairies, wood knolls and creatures of the forest. They filled his mind, a rushing maelstrom of memories, swirling in an all-consuming vortex. He witnessed the city burning. Not Farro but Avelin, the city that stood before. He watched it burn, witnessed the palace being torn down, the goblins whipping giant rock trolls into a frenzy as they pushed the alabaster over. Humans, bulworgs, grumpkins, they attacked with relish, reducing his army to nothing.
“We didn’t stand a chance,” he murmured, hands cradling his head as he slumped to the ground. “Not when the giant races came and crushed us.”
Dewella placed a hand upon his shoulder. “They had their revenge for the death of the overlord. To them, we were little more than pestering insects. But they would not cease until they had you.”
“I remember,” he said, feeling the weight of his past catch up. “I surrendered. I gave myself up to the goblins. Let them take me and do what they wanted.”
“Yes,” Dewella said, she knelt and placed her hands around his shoulders and gently rocked him like a mother would a frightened child. “I watched you go. I saw them carry you away.”
Dylap’s body began to shake, the shock of the memories returning was too much, adding to the pressure of the poison that burned through his veins. Dewella helped him to his feet and onto the throne where he collapsed. More snatches of his past returning: the goblins torturing him, cutting him, burning him while laughing in delight at his painful existence. It lasted months, until even the goblins became bored. Still sensing a danger from him, the goblin overlord commissioned a special jar that would put him in a deep sleep – a slumber which would last for over a thousand years, preserving his body. Over time, the overlord was killed, his castle destroyed and the jar taken for plunder to be stolen again and then sold until he ended up at the goblin hovel. He had spent the next part of his life sat upon the shelf.
He combed his trembling hands through his hair and looked up at Dewella, a face he gazed lovingly at all those years ago.
“How are you still alive?”
Dewella nodded towards the huge spider on the web. “That is a long and sad story. A story that we don’t have time for. Let us simply say that King Arraris and I have a mutual understanding.”
Dylap glanced at the silk that was wrapped about Dewella’s wrist and the other end of the length that was attached to the web.
“You’re linked to him. That’s why you can control the spiders.”
“I’m both a slave and a master. As long as I stay linked,” she held up the silk, “I will live. The moment the bond breaks…King Arraris finishes his meal.”
“He’ll eat you?”
Dewella turned to show the back of her bare shoulder, two large puncture wounds indenting her perfect skin.
“It seems we are both victims to royal bites,” she said, her sad smile returning. “I waited a millennium to see you again and now that you’re here, you will still never be mine. I now belong to the King of spiders while you belong to Terina.”
The heat in his veins began to flow like lava, either by the sudden thought of the Princess, or by the fact that he now lost Elaya. It bubbled and spat as it worked through his heart, an eruption of fire to go with his emotions. Pain crushed him from the inside out, pushing against his throbbing head and the world began to close in around him.
“Falon?” Dewella said worriedly, her voice sounding distant as the darkness claimed him.
“Dylap?” his name came drifting out of a deep nothing as he rose into consciousness. “Dylap?”
His hand didn’t feel his own as he rubbed life into his face and sat up. The first thing his eyes focused on was the brazier, the gem a lot dimmer than before. Then his gaze found the huge spider, King Arraris perched in the same position, fangs bared in an eternal strike.
“She calls for you,” Dewella said. She was sat on the floor at his feet, her arms folded over his knees as she gazed up at him. “You’ve been asleep. The poison has taken its toll, but you should now be free of it.”
Dylap flexed his arms as he worked the spit in his mouth, his head still pounding with each heartbeat but the fire in his veins had gone.
“Dylap?” Princess Terina shouted again. “Where are you?”
“You better go to your bride,” Dewella said, using his legs to push herself from the floor. “That one isn’t used to waiting.”
Rising from the throne, Dylap stretched, his spines rising to their full extent. His memories now fully returned, he knew who he was, what he was and what must be done.
“I will return and put this right,” he said, pacing towards the door, determination clenching his fist.
“You may return, Falon, but nothing can put this right. I see before me the one I loved, that is enough. Go now and free Farro.”
He put the chamber behind him and stalked alone along the tunnels, seeing clear enough in the dark to not need the luminous companion. He found his way through the labyrinth of tunnels to where he had left the Princess. Light came in through a hole in the wall, now that the sun had moved around in the sky. It revealed Terina sitting up on her cot, head buried in her hands. When she realised he was there she glanced up, her eyes swollen from crying, dark make-up making tracks down her face, dress dirty and torn.
“What have you done?” she said, anger lacing her words. “You’ve ruined me.”
She opened her once pure white wings and the pale light caught them, marking out the change.
“I’m sorry Princess,” he said, feeling disgust at himself for the grey lines which now marked her wings. Lines in the shape and size of his own spines, arcing across the white membrane to the c
entre of her back.
“I hate you,” she said, fresh tears sparkling. “I’m now…nothing. Worse, I’m bonded to you.”
Dylap took a step into the room, wanting to comfort her, but knowing he was the last person she wanted. “I had no choice, Terina. It was either that or let you die.”
He placed a hand on her shoulder and she flinched from his touch, dropping her head and sobbing into the crook of her arm, snapping her wings closed in frustration. After a moment her crying calmed to a single sob. “I know,” she said, staring at the wound bound by his handkerchief. She pulled the cloak tighter around her shoulders before looking up. “But I still hate you.”
The hand that was hovering above her ready to give comfort, fell to his side as he crossed the room to the door.
“I can live with hate,” he said, pausing at the threshold. “You’re alive, that was what your father ordered of me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to carry out the other order. I’m saving Farro.”
“You’ll do no such thing, you’re supposed to fly me to Gramont,” the Princess snapped, rising to her feet.
“We won’t have time.”
“You will do as I say, you…you, cretin.”
Dylap breathed deeply before replying. “I will do what’s best, Terina.”
The Princess stamped her feet, jaw muscles tightening the tendons in her neck, the neck which he had bitten. “You cannot speak to me like that. I am a Princess.”
“I’m a monster you didn’t even know existed. Once a Prince, once a worm-gutter, once a bird-soother, but a monster. I will do what’s best for the city and the King. After that, you can do what you want.”
He put his back to the Princess and stormed out, if there had been a door to slam, he would have done so.
“Come back, Dylap. You will not leave me here,” she called after him, the frightened young girl returning to her voice. “Please, I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll be back to collect you soon,” he shouted over his shoulder. “There’s something I must do first and I don’t think you want to see it.”