The door rattled closed, leaving Spinneretta stunned. With a small sigh, she flopped back onto her side. Her stomach again punished her with a sharp pain that melted into a bout of incredulous and baffled laughter. Servants? Seriously? Surely Silt didn’t expect that she’d forgotten. The Vant’therax Kaj had nearly murdered Kara in the eleventh laboratory, so whatever veneration they felt toward the King’s children clearly only went so far. If that’s how they treat the princess, I’d hate to see how they treat the King. She coughed, and it tasted like the dust hanging in the air. Poisonous. Her eyes fell shut, and she let her worry encompass her completely.
Amanda was shaking. Throngs of cultists surrounded her, and Chelsea was trying to keep calm at her side. No matter where she looked, Amanda could see only death. The Manixites still wrapped in their casual dress, black robes tied and drawn, pale-skinned troglodytes, all mingling in the restless crowd. What if the leather they wear is tanned human skin? And worse, from each and every shadow and bulging vein of the hewn cavern walls, she could still see Kyle’s face. A grimace of horror, accusing, judging.
One of the cultists awaiting the spider children in the plaza far above had returned earlier and called a meeting with the Order. And so the Dawn had gathered in one of the assembly halls to await the news from the surface. Even Urn-ma Nemo himself sat in attendance at the sanctuary in the front of the hall.
Whatever the news was, it wasn’t good. If they’d captured Spinneretta, then she’d be executed by the malign Urn-ma now sitting upon that makeshift throne. If the time limit had been exceeded—God what day is it?— then Amanda suspected they would all be commanded forth as the promised calamity. Cultists, the captive congregation, and the Nothem would pour forth from the grottoes and tunnels, an army that would strike and spread wider the infection of the Dawn’s insanity.
That was it. That was their only chance. Once the masses marched out in the Dawn warband, she and Chelsea would run for the safety of civilization, screaming at the top of their lungs of the horrors that lurked in the hearts of Urn-ma Nemo and his loyal. That was the only chance they had to see the sun again, the only chance to avert the swelling storm that bristled with a civilization-ending power.
After what felt like hours of waiting, the crowd rippled from behind. A spindly Websworn, dressed in the same shredded leathers as the other cave dwellers, entered through the main doorway of the cavern. Nemo, who had until then sat unmoving and unspeaking, shifted in anticipation and leaned forward toward the figure. “If you have news,” Nemo said, “then speak it without hesitation. Do not waste my time.” His voice was higher than normal, cracking in excitement.
As the throngs parted to allow the tribesman through to the sanctuary, some bowed their heads and muttered a-hai, a-hai. With an eager haste, the pale-skinned man made his way up to the sanctuary and ascended the short steps. Amanda grabbed Chelsea’s hand and squeezed it tight. Her hand was cold. Amanda could feel her friend trembling, down to the muscles in her fingers. Or perhaps those were her own shivers.
“Well,” Nemo said, voice falling to a brooding hiss. “Do the others struggle to bring back my prize, or is it shame that delays them?”
Perhaps seeing the malice smoldering in the Urn-ma’s eyes, the man remained quiet a moment longer. Hesitation. “It is more complicated.”
Nemo quirked an eyebrow—a hideous expression when reflected on the face of the ghoul king—and his eyelids receded to nothing. “What? Why have you called me here if you haven’t victory to report?”
“The . . . Things have changed, Urn-ma Nemo. Both of the children arrived at the plaza not long ago. But before we could take them, the False Ones arrived.”
The Urn-ma’s mouth fell open, revealing his graveyard of teeth. “The False Ones?”
“Aye. Only three of us survived the attack. Elat and the others are dead, along with the acolytes. The False Ones took one of the children, and the other escaped.” A pause. “And they had one of the Qul’therax-ma with them.”
Nemo’s mouth widened until his blood-encrusted gums were visible. He flopped back down and placed his chin upon his fist. A rumble stirred the air. “A quoll. A gift from the King, no doubt. A servant, a familiar. And the False Ones have one of the children. This changes everything.”
The messenger drew a step back. “A-hai, Urn-ma Nemo.” With that, he turned and slunk back down, melting into the indistinguishable masses of the crowd.
For a long time, the only sound was the murmur of rumors washing along the walls and the pounding pulse in Amanda’s ears. After a great while, Nemo stood from his throne and spread his arms out toward the congregation. “Followers of the Dawn,” he spoke. “The faithful to the King move once more against us. The False Ones have at last revealed themselves, and they have taken one of the reviled children. But this dark hour of tribulation comes acrest our revolution. Before we may claim the new era, we must lay to rest the ambitions of the False Ones and their King, once and for all! And that means there is only one thing to do.” He turned and swept his arm against the wall with a flourish. An immaculate carving of that arcane ideograph found throughout the Repton Scriptures appeared, bursting into existence beneath a curtain of blue and purple sparks.
The crowd shuddered in amazement, and Amanda couldn’t help but do that same. Nemo turned back toward them with a demonic grin as the sigil began to seethe with mist birthed from the inner folds of the design.
“I shall bear the burden of ending their ambition before it may be realized,” Nemo said. “I am the reborn of Heinokk. And like Heinokk, the Writhing Malefice shall guide me forward on the path to victory. I now go forth to Zigmhen alone, to face the King once more. With my power, I shall shatter the hope of the vile False Ones and their sovereign once and for all, and scatter the pieces to the Void! But in my absence, you all must remain vigilant. Continue to hunt for the False Ones and the missing child of the King. Beware the trickery they command.” His gaze swept across the crowd and landed upon Amanda. She gagged when she saw the unconcealed lust that twisted the corners in his lips. “In my absence, you will all serve Zurt, just as you serve me. He harbors the seed of the Malefice, just as I do, and while I am gone you will consider him your god. And upon my return, the earth will tremble before us.”
With no further word, Nemo turned and vanished into the wall of mist. A roar of frenzied applause erupted throughout the chamber. Chants of a-hai, a-hai rang and echoed off the high walls and ceiling, but Amanda barely noticed. Her eyes were fixated upon the portal of mist as it spun and gradually shriveled into nothing. What the fuck is going on?
And amid the shouts and cheers and chants, Zurt took the stage. At once the crowd fell silent. He raised a fist toward them, a cold sneer upon his lips. “Return to your posts,” he said in the voice of a warlord. “The rituals continue. We shall await Urn-ma Nemo’s orders to march. Search parties will patrol at three and nine chimes, but all others are to remain here until his return. Now break. A-hai, Urn-ma Nemo!”
“A-hai, a-hai!” the crowd answered.
As the cultists and thralls shoved past one another for the exits, Amanda fell into the flow in a numb daze. What she’d just seen was confounding. But more than the mist portal and the leader of the cult vanishing into thin air, it was another thought that now swirled in her mind. Spinneretta was here? And she was captured, but not by us? Or did she get away? What the hell is going on? Is she okay? For a brief moment, those thoughts were more important than her own safety, but when she heard her grandfather barking on about the rituals behind her, she once again remembered that there was no way for them to get out—especially with the entire cult on high alert.
Despair crept in from all angles, and she tried desperately not to cry as she and Chelsea were led back to their chambers.
A few hours after Silt left her to her solitude, Spinneretta’s endless self-devouring thoughts were interrupted by the door to the ramshackle shelter flying open and flooding it with blinding light. Jostled upright, her
forearm and forelegs automatically went to protect her eyes.
“Arachne, can you stand?” It was Silt’s voice.
She nodded, though she didn’t know for certain if she could. “What’s going on? Is something—”
Behind Silt’s silhouette, the shadows swirled and melted into a puddle that splattered upward, revealing the lanky hunch of Dirge. “He comes!”
He?
Silt turned to the other Vant’therax. “Where is Faul?” The sound of swirling air and a ripple of preternatural darkness answered him. The third robe appeared just behind Dirge. “Excellent. Now, to your feet, Arachne. We need you outside.”
He started toward her. Before she could even try to stand, a clawed hand seized her by the back of the neck. She cringed as the Vant’therax heaved her to her feet. Were it not for Silt’s incredible strength, her legs may very well have collapsed beneath her. But with his support, her feet could at least go through the motions of walking as he led her outside into the blinding sands.
The heat pressed on her from all angles. A lick of perspiration came immediately to her face, and the crunching of the dry, powdery sand under her shoes somehow made her head hurt. Silt marched her, without a word, forty paces from the door and then stopped. His grip on her neck eased. “You may sit if you so desire.”
Despite the heat, she shuddered. Her spider legs twitched of their own accord. Her knees wobbled from the sudden exertion required to stand. As the ache in her eyes began to fade, she felt the rustling of moving air. Faul and Dirge had taken up positions on either side, just a couple steps behind them.
“What’s happening?” she whispered, barely able to hear her own voice over the breath of the wind.
“Quiet.” Silt’s tone was harder than before, more severe. “All of you. Allow me to speak. We do not want a fight.”
A few moments passed, and then a crackling sound came. A small orb of glistening green flames glowed not fifteen feet away. Spinneretta gasped in recognition. The crackle was replaced by a whooshing and ethereal hum. The Flames expanded outwards, swelling and roiling into a blazing human shape. A bright flash nearly made her shut her eyes again, but she kept them open, afraid that if she shut them the mirage would vanish. Then the ghostlight scattered, and Mark emerged.
Chapter 28
Negotiations
Spinneretta blinked back the blinding light as she stared at where Mark stood. The morning—holy crap, is it evening or morning?—sun beat down upon them, turning the sands into a glaring mirror. But still she peered through the burn, if only to convince herself it wasn’t a dream, that Mark was really there.
“What is the meaning of this?” Mark said, his voice wavering as his stance wobbled. Despite the glare, Spinneretta could tell his eyes were narrowed and his jaw was tight, either from anger or from the pain of magical overexertion. His gaze met hers, but she couldn’t find the strength to even greet him. Worry encroached upon his bloodshot whites. His lip twitched as he again set his sights upon the Vant’therax surrounding her.
Dirge growled, and the sound rolled like a coming thunderstorm. Silt made a sharp motion toward the hunched robe with one of his hands, and the sound faded into a disapproving hiss that was soon overtaken by the wind.
Silt then once again grabbed Spinneretta by the back of her neck. She cringed, and then stumbled as she was heaved forward. Her feet slid from beneath her, sending her crashing down onto the hot sand. Her spider legs scrambled, and she barely caught herself before eating a thatch of rattleweed.
At once, Mark was at her side and his hands on her shoulders. “Spinny, are you alright?”
She clung to his arms with two pairs of legs as she tried to shift back to a less vulnerable position. Exhaustion made her head spin, and she managed little more than a feeble upward lunge before sinking back to her knees.
Mark stared at the robed figures behind her, and Spinneretta could taste the tightness in his muscles. “What’s going on here?” he said through his teeth.
The three Vant’therax looked at one another. Silt stepped forward. Beside him, Dirge, the same one who had intercepted them on the way to prom, glared off into the distance.
“Mark Warren,” Silt said. “We were told you’d be coming. Allow me to assure you: we mean you no harm. We wish only to talk. As a token of good faith, we won’t even hold the girl as leverage. I’d like to think we can converse without resorting to such barbarism. Though, if I were you, I’d be just a little more grateful. Were it not for us, Arachne would have been killed not long ago.”
Mark’s eyes went wide. “What?” He held Spinneretta’s shoulders and peered at her. “Is that true?”
Tired and unable to think straight, she just gave a weak nod.
His lips curled, and a wrinkle split his sweat-touched brow. For a long moment, the only sound was that of the breeze lashing at the dust and shrubs. “What happened?” he asked at last.
Silt’s head rocked limply to one side, and he gave Spinneretta a distant look that made her shudder. “The Yellow Dawn,” he said, lips shivering as he punctuated each word. “Ever since the night they formed, the night the Golmont Corporation burned, we have been following them. Watching them. With most of us dead, and without a Conduit, there was little else we could do but sever our link with the Nothem and watch. And what we observed was most unsettling. The cult has turned their back upon the Yellow King, and it seems the Conduit has turned his attention to greater ambitions than merely merging man and spider on the King’s terms.”
Mark scoffed, and Spinneretta noticed his stance widening. “If you are going to practice deception, then craft something more believable than an outdated reference to your Conduit. Dwyre is dead, and whatever sorry soul you broke into his mold is now with him in the Void.”
Silt’s eyes lit up, and the hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Ahh, yes. While none of us knew just what your magical aptitude was capable of, it was shocking to see that you possessed the ability to destroy souls. A rare talent, I must assume.” His smile vanished, replaced by a tight grimace. “But allow me to relieve you of your false sense of security, Warren. The Helixweaver still lives.”
The weight of those words fell like a fist into Spinneretta’s gut. “What?”
Mark swept his hand to the side, and glistening blue-green sparks scattered. “You must think me a fool to make such claims.”
This time, a harsh bark came from behind Silt, from the Vant’therax called Dirge. “If not the Helixweaver, then who do you believe now leads the spider cult?”
At this Mark fell quiet. His posture loosened, and the certainty of his stance waned. He shook his head, eyes set upon the sands. “I felt his soul break under my attack. You monsters may be able to survive without souls, but make no mistake: a man cannot.”
Silt’s eyes narrowed. “What survived was not a man. It was a broken husk, a shell filled only with insanity and hatred. Something changed him, Warren, and it turned him into something incredibly dangerous. The fact that he survived at all,” he said with a distant look, “speaks of divine intervention.”
All at once, Mark’s defiant skepticism seemed to vanish. He stared at the robes before him, lips parting in confusion. “Divine intervention? You’re saying your damned spider god protected him?”
Silt frowned. “No. Raxxinoth could not have done anything of the sort, for She still sleeps within Her prison in A’vavel. Something else protected him and has since then consumed his mind. The cult has turned to worshiping not only Raxxinoth, but a beast they call the Writhing Malefice. And here we come to the heart of the matter, Warren. Whether you believe that it is the Helixweaver, or whether you believe that somebody else has taken his place, the fact remains: the cult seeks to undo all that NIDUS accomplished.”
“Everything . . . ” Spinneretta shuddered, and she thought she heard a gasp slip out of Mark’s mouth.
“Do you understand now? The Order of the Yellow Dawn, as they now call themselves, intend to destroy the
Yellow King. They intend to destroy all that remains of His followers, His legacy. And that includes the children of the Fifth.”
Though the information was nothing new to her, hearing it spoken aloud still sickened her, deepening the gulf between what she’d expected and what the whole ordeal had turned into.
Mark dragged his left foot through the sand a few times, digging a shallow trench as he looked down in thought. His tenseness was no longer focused on the robed figures before him. His shoulders were slumped and gaze downcast. It was a subtle sign of trust; if he’d expected the Vant’therax to attack, he’d have never lowered his guard.
After a few moments, Mark sniffed once and raised his gaze once more. “I thank you for saving Spinneretta, from the bottom of my heart. Now tell me: what is it that you want now that NIDUS is dead and your place in the cult has been usurped?”
Silt’s chitin-encrusted eyebrows rose. “That is a strange question.”
Mark’s posture immediately shifted, shoulders straight and arms clasped stoically over his chest. “Answer it.”
The Vant’therax chewed his lip as the breeze kicked a thin veil of dust across his cheek. “What we want has not changed.”
Warm air filled Spinneretta’s lungs. Chilling needles prickled up and down her insides. “That is to say,” she said, “you still seek an heir for the King.” The thought made her skin crawl and her empty stomach snarl.
Mark widened his stance further as he stared down the Vant’therax. “Why?”
“Why?” Silt frowned. His hands slipped up to the base of his robe’s hood and drew it back. As the hood fell away, Spinneretta could see the rest of his face for the first time. Matted, greasy black hair covered his scalp. The wrinkled skin of his neck and cheeks and forehead, pulled taut by the invasive growths, was covered in dark spots and swaths of flaky cutaneous rashes. Unlike the other Vant’therax, he had only a single pair of eyes. The sharp features of his face no longer seemed so intimidating.
Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3) Page 37