by Eric Ugland
I was shocked, and took more than a single step back. My eyes followed the leg from the man’s head back to the biggest spider, and I started to put some pieces together.
“We have kept you waiting,” the big spider said. “I am the Grand Mother. You have invaded our valley. Why should we not kill you?”
“Okay, well, you’re, uh,” I started, trying to get my thoughts together in some sort of coherent way, but the sudden violence of the act and the whole using a human as a puppet was a bit, uh startling. “Are you, uh, is this normal?”
“Is what normal?”
“The, uh, you know, talking--“
“Our bodies lack the appropriate means to communicate with most lower forms. We are forced to adapt.”
“By braining some poor human?”
“How we use our livestock is immaterial to this conversation,” the guy said. Or, rather, the Grand Mother said through the guy.
“What is this conversation we’re having?” I asked, trying to ignore the whole human-puppet aspect of the meeting.
“You have intruded into a space you do not belong. We are tempted to add you to our feedstock. But we have noticed an issue you might be poised to assist us in.”
“An issue?”
“Is this not a word you know?”
“I know the word, I’m—”
“We ask you to be silent while we talk. We find your noises unpleasant, and wish to make our interaction as brief as possible.”
“Makes two of us.”
“There are more than two of us.”
“More than two of us as well.”
“Your companions are still safe.”
“Uh, thanks?”
“It was what was agreed. Our issue relates to the lake in the middle of the valley—”
“The hags on the island?”
“We were not aware you knew of our issue.”
“Yeah, well, seems like underestimating my intelligence is a common refrain.”
“You will undertake the resolution of this issue, and we will allow you to pass through this valley unmolested.”
“What do you mean by resolution?”
“Eradication of the hags. They impede our growth.”
“Why?”
She seemed to stop and get really confused about my interruption.
“They have impeded our growth.”
“Because you can’t swim? You want their island?”
“Our reasons for wanting assistance are our own, and they have no bearing on you.”
“I suppose there’s a truth there. You want me to kill them?”
“We care little to what you do with them as long as they no longer reside in our valley.”
“Let’s take one little step back here, and look at the word our.”
“We are using it incorrectly? Imperial Common is still used in—”
“It’s not a linguistic issue, grandma. More of a question of ownership.”
The big spider tilted her head, which may have been because I used grandma, or may have been because of other reasons. Who knows — spiders, amiright?
“You believe our property claim is in error?”
“Yes.”
“To whom does the valley belong?”
“Me.”
There was a long pause while all the big mama spiders looked at each other. As far as I could tell, having a non-verbal conversation about things.
“That is false,” the Grand Mother finally said through her puppet. “We control the valley—”
“Grandma,” I replied, “if you controlled the valley, you wouldn’t need little old me to go and deal with some issue on that island. Would you?”
Again, silence. And probably more spidertalk.
“There is no evidence to your claim of ownership,” the Grand Mother said. “We are able and willing to destroy you at any moment we wish.”
“You might think that,” I said, “but that’s because you think I’m just like any other dude talking to a giant spider through a human puppet.”
I felt the barest tingle at my side, and looked over to see nothing.
“I am told you are not human,” the Grand Mother said.
“You know,” I replied, “it’s rude to cast magic on someone without their permission.”
“You are barely a step above our agricultural beasts. Your permission is never required.”
“Normally, when you want someone to do something for you, you tend to be nice to that person. Just, you know, a heads up.”
“We are unconcerned with your feelings. Do you agree to resolve our problem?”
You have been offered a quest the Grand Mother of the Spiders:
The DeHaggening
Get the hags out of the valley, dead or alive.
Reward for success: Safe passage through the valley. Once.
Penalty for failure (or refusal): Death.
Yes/No
I took a minute, looking around the cavern. Up above, it was just the horror-show of a moving carpet of spiders. Looking through the legs of the Grand Mother, I saw more spiders moving around, doing their thing, almost oblivious to what was going on with the mothers. There were five mothers up there, all staring down on me. All very clearly thinking I was nothing more than food.
The man-puppet looked wan. Blood dribbled down his body, leaking, along with some other things, from the hole in his head. I wondered how much longer he would survive. Their treatment of humans as chattel certainly made me less than enthusiastic to help them. But if I didn’t help them, would that doom my larger quest? There were certainly enough spiders to make things difficult. I probably had a decent chance at killing them all, but it would be a lot of killing. And what if there was something more I hadn’t seen yet? Some sort of camouflage spider, or a super-poisonous spider that could paralyze me, leaving me as little more than spiderchow? And even if I had seen the toughest the spiders had to offer, I wasn’t sure I’d manage to keep everyone else alive during my killing spree. I had no choice.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “But you have to move my people to the other end of the valley before I do anything.”
“No,” the Grand Mother said. “The hags only come out at night. You must deal with them before dawn. Or we will eat you and your companions.”
That bugged me. Not a ton. Not to the point where I was going to just rip a sword out of my bag and go ham on the grandma from hell. Putting such a ridiculous time limit on the quest was annoying. Though, to be fair, it was probably for the best considering I also had another time sensitive quest on the back-burner. I had to knock some quests out on the quick. It would also be good if I could figure out what was going on with this valley, solve that mystery of the valley quest. At least if I accepted the spider quest, it meant I wouldn’t need to worry about the spiders while I explored the valley. That was something of a win.
“My people remain safe and unmolested until I come back to them,” I said.
“We will keep away from them until morning,” the Grand Mother said, “unless you have completed our quest.”
“Fine,” I said, taking the quest. “I’ll let you know when I’ve resolved the issue.”
I turned and walked away.
Behind me, I heard a really disgusting sound, and a quick glance over my shoulder confirmed what I’d feared. The puppet had just become a snack for two of the spider moms.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I walked back through the caverns, ready for some sort of interaction with the spiders. I assumed one of them would come at me or something, but I was roundly ignored. That is, until I tried going down one of the tunnels we’d bypassed on our way in. As soon as I took a few steps down, a massive spider dropped from the ceiling and blocked the tunnel. No aggressive action, it just made sure I knew where not to go.
Outside it was the same story. The spiders just did their things, seemingly ignoring me. There were plenty of disgusting things to see as I walked from the cave mouth to the lake, including a large pi
t filled with organic waste. Lots of bodies, with even more little things crawling over those bodies. They didn’t look like cute baby spiders so much as plus-sized maggots.
I got out of the dead-zone and back into the forest where there were leaves and grass and bugs. I took in a big lungful of air and just rested for a heartbeat. It had been so gross around the spiders. Which, you know, maybe didn’t bother them, but it really disgusted me. I hated to think of the entire valley ending up that way. A valley of death and decay. I wasn’t thrilled I’d had to accept the spiders’ quest.
First step, though was making contact with the hags. Figure out what, if anything I could do with or to them to complete the quest. Or, the idea I was increasingly leaning towards, if there was some way the hags could help me rid my valley of the gross spider fucks.
Finding the lake was pretty simple: head downhill. Weave through trees. Ignore spiders ignoring me. Finally the trees gave way to an open field of long grass. At the other end of the clearing, I could see the lake.
I walked through the field, looking at the island in the center of the water. It rose up at one end about fifty feet or so, and was flat at the other. There were some trees on it, a few really big ones. Maples or, uh, well, not oaks. At least, I didn’t think they were oaks. They might have been. I needed to work on my arborist skill.
The lake was incredibly still, despite a mild breeze. There wasn’t even a hint of a wave on the surface, nary a ripple. The water, insofar as I could tell, was clean and clear. Pure. It even smelled nice. Maybe it was just such a massive difference between the spider’s area and the lake that it seemed more amazing than it really was.
The large bonfire still burned on the low end of the island, though now I could see it had a little more color than normal. The flames had a greenish-blue tint to them, and they reached unnaturally high into the sky. A separate glow came from something over on the higher side of the island, the spot where I’d seen something resembling a man-made structure.
I stood on the shore, thinking about diving into the water. But then I second-guessed that move. If I’d learned anything about my new home world, it was that creepy things liked to live in dark water. Creepy things with big tentacles and lots of teeth. I knelt down and put my hand in the water. It was pleasantly cool, and felt slick on my fingers.
Unfortunately, it seemed like there were few alternatives to swimming. Perhaps wading if I was lucky. So off came the boots, and I rolled up my pants once before I realized there was no way I’d avoid getting my clothes wet. But I did put my boots in the bag.
I took a few deep breaths, and then I started wading into the water, moving slowly. After my first few steps, no tentacles grabbed at me.
It was to my waist. Nothing. The ground was sandy, without any noticeable rocks. Really quite pleasant. A common theme with this lake. If I got to name it, I’d probably call it Lake Pleasant. Unless there weren’t any fish in it, in which case I’d call it Lake Tease. And then I’d stock it with fish. That was something a duke could do, right?
After the water got chest high, I just started swimming. A nice and discrete side-stroke. No need to do the crawl and risk attracting something. I still felt nothing at my legs, or anywhere else on me. Just the water.
And it was a pleasant swim. I walked out onto the island, water streaming down my body. I squeezed some from my hair and beard, then shook off as best I could.
“Would you prefer to dry by the fire?” a kind voice asked me.
I looked around, eyes wide, but I didn’t see anyone. So I switched to tremorsense. There was someone over to my left, standing about ten feet away, their heart beating quite fast. I glanced in the direction of the heartbeat. Nothing visible, but I could almost sense something off, like the light wasn’t flowing correctly in that exact spot.
“That’d be nice,” I said, directing my words to the spot.
“I am surprised you knew where I was,” the voice replied. An older woman seemed to step out of thin air and into view. She was short, and had a nice smile, and bright white hair piled on top of her head. She wore grey robes that seemed a little too big for her, with a large hood hanging off the back.
She gave me a smile, then took my hand.
“This way,” she said.
It didn’t feel right to pull away or anything, so I just went with her, following as she led me along the shore around the island until we got to the bonfire. A pile of logs and sticks went up in greenish flames. There was a smell to the smoke that seemed familiar, a bit like barbecue, but sweeter somehow. The heat felt nice, if a bit intense, and I could feel my body drying off.
The woman had let my hand go at some point, and I stood there by myself again. I looked from one side to the other, but no little old ladies were around. Once again, I dipped into my bag of tricks and used a little tremorsense to find out more about what was going on. There were actually a few people around me. Seven of them. They were mostly on the other side of the fire, six huddled together while the seventh stood in between me and the path to the high ground. I was going to say something about how they didn’t need to hide, but I wasn’t sure that was true. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to let them know I still knew where they were. It seemed like something that would be better kept to myself.
Finally, they wrapped up their huddle, and the little old lady who’d brought me here walked around the fire, appearing to my left.
“Neat trick,” I said.
She gave me a smile.
“A necessary one, sadly,” she replied.
“I’d love to be able to turn invisible at will.”
“If I could teach you, I would. But I must ask you: why are you here?”
“It’s probably a longer story than I can tell you right now.”
“And why is that?”
“I’ve got some quests I’m trying to fulfill, and they’re rather time sensitive.”
“A quest here?”
“The more important of my quests is actually outside the bounds of this valley, but it seems like I’m going to have to, uh, interfere here before I can get back out to that.”
“Ah. And your quest brings you to this island?”
“That it does.”
“Which means it must involve me.”
“Technically all of you.”
She paused and raised an eyebrow.
“At least the seven of you here,” I said, spreading my hands out to take in more warmth from the fire.
“You are a surprising young man,” she said with a slight nod.
“My mom’s said the same thing to me a few times. But she never meant it as a compliment.”
“Are you a member of the Empire?” she asked.
“I am.”
“An official member?”
“Uh, sure. I mean, I’m a duke.”
“That is disappointing,” she said softly. “You seemed nice.”
“I am nice—”
The old woman made a signal with her hand. Immediately there was a flash of light to my right, and something slammed into my side. It hurt like hell and set my arm on fire.
“What the fuck?” I yelled, patting my arm out and gritting my teeth.
The old woman had both hands up, apparently weaving some sort of fancy spell.
I did a quick stutter step forward, and while I started with a closed fist, I switched on the fly to a more open slap.
She stuttered, and the spell misfired, sending colorful streams of light fluttering through the air.
I felt someone moving to my side, and I shot out a jab, connecting with someone’s face quite a bit harder than I’d intended. There was a soft cry, and then a body appeared, falling to the ground.
“Can we take a second here?” I asked, stepping back away from the old woman. I was also keeping an eye on the other six figures still on the other side of the fire. “I’m not here to, uh, I think do what you might be thinking I’m doing. I’m really just trying to get through the valley.”
“You are just
passing through?”
“That’s right.”
The old woman wiped a bit of blood from her lip, then did a little wiggle of her hand, and I saw the cut heal itself up.
“Then why are you here on my island?”
“I got trapped by the damn spiders, and they made me come out here to resolve some issue with you.”
“They sent you to kill us?”
“Let’s take a moment to realize I’m not on the side of the spiders. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on in the valley.”
“You know nothing of us?”
“No.”
“Will you allow me to heal my associate?”
I gestured to the fallen ‘associate’ and took a few steps closer to the fire, making sure the old woman had a clear path. The old lady walked over and knelt down next to the body.
And that’s where the magic happened.
It was a quiet sort of a spell with a little bit of fancy lighting, something I probably wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t night out. The figure stirred a bit, and then made a few soft murmurs. It was a woman. A human woman who was also wearing robes and a hood. She had a bit of mud on her face now. Slowly she got on her hands and knees, then the older woman helped the younger woman stand. They leaned their heads together and had a soft murmuring conference.
The old woman turned to me, and gave me a very slight nod.
“You have earned the right to talk,” she said. “Your name?”
“Duke Montana of Coggeshall.”
The old woman looked to the young woman, and the young woman shook her head. She was petite, with a pretty face and red hair in a bouffant-ish ponytail.
“We have not heard of you,” the old woman said.
“You two have names?”
She smiled. “Forgive my impertinence, but—”
I wiggled out of my armor and pulled off my still-wet shirt. Then I flared my indicium for her to see. She reached out and traced the various lines over my body, and I realized that it might have been better if I’d just flared the one indicium relating to my title. Or if I knew how to do that. One more thing to talk to Skeld about.
“Lord Coggeshall,” she said with a very slight bow, “it is a pleasure to meet you. I am unused to dealing with nobility. Or anyone really. It is rare for me to have visitors.”