And now this thing, this creature, roams the Web. It sparkles through the air, devilish, malicious. Where I once faced only an army of heretics, I now find my thoughts consumed by this more deadly invader. It paints the black skies with blinding rays and tongues of fire, killing anything it comes across, whether believer or loyal. I know not what this beast is, nor whence it has come, nor what motivates its slaughter. But I do know that I will not suffer it to trespass in my kingdom.
Whether god or devil, whether ally or enemy of the smoke demon that deceived Heinokk, I will destroy it. And in the end, only I will remain to inspire fear and worship.
Chapter 33
The Deadlands
Not here.
The jade world twisted, and Mark’s sight followed. Empty alleys and abandoned shacks stared back at him.
Not there.
Another flicker as his vision jumped to some distance away. He forced his mental eyes wider, and everything shifted. Objects blurred, as though slathered in Vaseline. A wire fence half-sunken in the sand, thatches of dried out succulents clawing at the rotted wood.
Not here.
Another jump in sight, and this time he widened his gaze even further. Pain split through his optic nerve, but he ignored as he always did.
Jump. Boarded up windows. High adobe walls hiding tight, twisting passages. Jump. Gold Rush-era wells, now desiccated pits in the sand. But no Kara. No Cinnamon. Not even a trace of them.
The entire town seemed completely dead, as if all its inhabitants had vanished in a single moment. The observation was biased; he knew what had befallen the town of Manix, and was merely reconciling his experience and knowledge. Off in the distance, the pinhole lights of the blazing bonfires mocked him with their silence. The cult’s membership—the Websworn—would be searching for Kara at this very moment. He couldn’t rest for even a second.
He pushed the magic against his weary eyelids, and the world again grew stark and green. Shadows lengthened, deepened; highlights cast by the waning gibbous moon bloomed into glaring suns. His vision twisted and turned. Every wall, every artificial construction was a hiding place, and he’d overturn each and every one of them if he needed to. He had to find her. He had to save Spinneretta.
A cold shock ripped through his left eye again. He yelped, his hand grasping at the intangible obstruction. The bent world wobbled and then flickered out. When the spell dissipated, he stood panting, fingernails scraping the skin of his face and forehead. Beads of sweat rolled down his neck. The attacks were getting worse and more frequent.
“Y’okay there?” The pattering of Annika’s footsteps behind him drew near.
He grunted. “I’m fine. Have you found anything?”
The woman shrugged so violently that he felt the gesture in his teeth. “The farseeing magician is asking me if I’ve found anything? Give me a break.”
Another grunt. Air hissed out between his clamped teeth. “Keep looking. I’m bound to miss something like this.”
Her hand came down upon his shoulder. “Give it a rest,” she said.
“Can’t. Can’t rest. She could be anywhere by now.”
“Which is why you should give the Vant’therax a chance to work. God knows they’re good at the whole tracking thing. Hell of a lot better than me, anyway, and—”
“I would never entrust Spinneretta’s life to them.”
“They already saved her once.” Her voice took on a harsh edge. “What makes you think they wouldn’t do so again?”
“Not again. I can’t let them . . . I won’t give them a chance to . . . ”
“Goddammit, Mark!” She grabbed his other shoulder and gave him a light shake. “You’re killing yourself! When was the last time you pushed yourself this hard? You need rest!”
“No. I can rest when she’s safe. When she’s—”
As he went to invoke the spell again, the sharp pain from before returned, tearing a white-hot fissure through his skull. An explosive burst carried the fizzling remnants of the invocation in all directions. For a moment, he went blind. Then came a blazing agony unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. He opened his mouth to scream, but the sound was washed away by a ringing that grew louder and louder. His hands clutched at the immaterial lesion, but it only worsened.
He felt his shoulder hit the ground, and everything went black.
Arthr couldn’t stop staring at the towering blades adorning the cliffs on either side as they trudged through the crevasse. The sharp angles of their corners could only have been artificial, yet their height and quantity made that prospect unimaginable. Even after what felt like countless hours of climbing the slope through the fissure, those sky-scraping monoliths still rose to a dizzying height far above, where the deep gray of the sky bulged ever nearer.
By the time the slope’s ascent leveled off, the lighting had changed; the darkness painting the sky had already receded, and the first hint of a new day’s light sent streaks of pale illumination through the heavens. How long had they been walking? The cycle of day and night was clearly fucked up in this crazy world, but he still hadn’t expected the night to end so soon.
The fatigue set in along his bones. By the time the pale light touched the apex of the towering unstructures, he’d had enough. “Hey, Spins, can we take a rest?” he asked.
She didn’t even look back at him. “Do you need it?”
“I think so.”
A grunt sounded from ahead. “Very well.” She stopped abruptly, turning around and dropping into a cross-legged sit. The eagerness with which she dropped suggested her feet were in just as much pain as his were.
Arthr let out a great sigh of relief and sat down, his back to one of the chilly stone walls, and stretched his aching legs out in front of him. Just being off his feet for a moment was like getting a world-class massage. His heels and toes throbbed with a raw heat, and it was impossible not to breathe a euphoric sigh. But even that rest was no escape from what remained of the ordeal.
Guilt. Was that what he felt? It couldn’t have been, because he had fuck all to feel guilty about. Spinneretta was the one who should’ve felt like shit. And based on her posturing and poorly disguised remorse, it was clear that she did. But so did he. If this was the end, then it wasn’t right. If he died here, he’d feel incomplete, and he thought he finally knew why. He half-grumbled and half-spoke a pair of words beneath his breath, hoping it would be enough. It wasn’t.
Spinneretta glanced over at him, confused. “Huh? Did you say something?”
Of course you’re going to make me actually say it. He raised his gaze to her and spoke once more. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?”
He bit his lip. “For being such a crappy brother all these years.”
She fell quiet. As though understanding what plagued him, she nodded and shifted where she sat. “It’s not that you were a crappy brother. We just drifted apart, is all.”
The distance in her words was apparent; she believed that like a dog understood calculus. “No wonder I never noticed all this shit happening,” he said. “I promise, when we get home I’m going to be the best fucking brother ever.” He didn’t know if he was making the promise for himself or if he was bargaining with a higher power to see him home safely.
Spinneretta gave him a look that drained the entirety of his will to go on. It was a sad, rueful look that held nothing but pity. “Okay, Arthr.”
The walls of his stomach trembled. He could only shake his head at her. “I’m serious.”
Her look of pity lingered, but she said nothing.
With a low sigh, Arthr focused on the relief that tingled in his feet and toes. It was hard to keep his mind from once again diving into despair. What have I done to deserve this? he thought. What have I done to make people think the worst of me? Even Spins thinks I’m useless. What does it mean for me if I can’t even be a good brother? I can’t be so bad that that’s impossible, right?
“I don’t think there’s a future for u
s both,” Spinneretta said, interrupting his downward spiral of self-hatred.
“Huh?”
One of her hands glided along a smooth section of the cliff face at her side. “I . . . I don’t want to pretend I’m optimistic about facing the Yellow King. I’m sure you heard Mark call him, what, a demigod? If half of what’s written about him is true, then we’re going to be in for the fight of our lives. And I don’t think that we . . . ”
The loss that suddenly came upon her face stabbed Arthr in the chest. “W-what? What happened to your confidence? I thought that you were certain that you could—”
“Nothing is certain. That’s why I wanted you to stay behind. So that, regardless of the outcome, you would make it out alive. Even if I didn’t.”
His mouth dried up at her words. His lips shook as the fear in her voice crept up his back. “Couldn’t Mark kill him, then?”
“With what? Magic?” A cold chuckle spilled against the trench’s walls. “The Yellow King wields anti-magic. That’s how he killed the prophet who rose to challenge his rule. No. Mark can’t be involved in this. This is my burden alone. And . . . I can’t lie to you. I can’t claim to believe I’ll survive this. And to be honest,” she said, eyes full of regret, “if you insist on coming with me, Arthr, I’m confident that you’ll die, too.”
The tickle racing along his skin turned to a deathly chill. “Die? B-but, you said you could kill him!”
A moment of silence. Spinneretta’s legs clicked against one another as she stared into the dust. “The only chance I have is venom. Fill his bloodstream with neurotoxin and digestive acid. If I’m lucky—and that’s a big if—then I’ll be able to survive long enough to finish him off afterward. But even if I’m lucky enough to survive, I don’t think I’ll get away uninjured. He must have followers who still serve him here. They’re not going to take regicide lying down.”
What little hope he’d had about the situation up and died. “So . . . that’s it? You’re planning on just getting yourself killed?”
“I never said that I was going to survive, Arthr. I just said it’s something that I have to do. Successful or not.” The harsh lighting and her serious expression made her look far older than she was. For a moment, he was startled to find himself staring into a skull, a soul already claimed by the reaper. “Stay here, Arthr,” she said. “I’ll carve the sign into the wall here. You’ll just have to wait until Kara can open the door for you. Please. Don’t follow me. I don’t want you on my conscience as well.”
The chills pervading Arthr’s limbs grew so intense he could barely see straight. Was it just his imagination, or was that tremor in Spinneretta’s voice the precursor to the tears he himself was on the verge of shedding again? Even if she was hiding it, even if she was putting on a front for him, he could see how scared she was. How alone she felt. A warmth rose in his chest. He bit down, crossed his arms, and smirked. “Hate to break it to you, Sis, but I’m not letting you get yourself killed by some fucked up Spiderman villain. I’m coming with you.”
She scowled in irritation. “Arthr, don’t be stupid.”
“How heartless do you think I am? To think I’d just sit here and watch you go right after you tell me you’re going to fucking die when you face the King . . . Do you honestly think that little of me? For God’s sake, Mom taught me better than that, and I thought she taught you, too. Family is family, Spins.” He took a deep breath to quell the apprehension that rose from his gut. “On my honor as a brother—what little may remain—I’m not going to let any sister of mine throw her life away while I just sit by and do nothing. I’m going with you, until the end.”
She shook her head, but before she could deny him he lurched forward. He punched the ground, stirring a cloud of dust. “Until the very end!” A smile on his lips, he flexed his muscles where he sat half-sprawled upon the ground. Two deep breaths to calm his nerves, and he was on his feet again. “Come on, Sis. Let’s show this Yellow King that the Warren brood ain’t nothin’ to fuck with!”
Spinneretta looked down at the ground. A rush of air came from her lungs, and then a gravelly chuckle. When she looked up again, he found her eyes a little more reflective than they’d been a moment before. “Okay,” she said, pushing herself up to her feet again. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Nails bit his palm as his fists clenched into tight, quivering balls. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
They started walking again, and this time Arthr’s heart was pounding not with fear, but with hope. I’m not useless, he thought. I’ll show you. I’ll show you that I’m not.
Spinneretta didn’t know how many hours they’d been walking through the snaking passage between the peaks. After another brief stop for rest at a wider-than-average joint in the pass, the two pressed on. Despite the pain wearing away at her feet, she forced herself to keep climbing, focusing on the throbbing that pulsed through the ground. It was drawing nearer and nearer by the minute, and she knew it would all be over soon. But when they rounded a final bend, they found an unexpected end to the pass just ahead of them.
The ground and the walls of the crevasse dropped away abruptly into a single sheer cliff, revealing a gigantic fissure splitting through the mountains. Several hundred feet ahead, a forest of knife-like spires towered dizzyingly into the heavens, opening a deep, narrow valley below. That valley, which plunged hundreds of feet down below them, continued on for some unfathomable distance in one direction, while in the other it ran up against what Spinneretta knew to be the final peaks of the journey. The gray walls of the fissure were sharp but uneven, covered in tubular, ropy masses like the roots of some gigantic tree. The thick, rolling clouds of fog seemed to gather below in the depths of the gorge, but rogue patches of vapor still hung in the air. The mists made estimating distances difficult, but the valley must have stretched at least a mile and a half into the distance before reaching the target mountains. And beyond those mountains, Spinneretta thought, lies Th’ai-ma.
“The fuck is this?” Arthr asked in a hoarse whisper.
“I have no earthly idea.” Her mouth was dry, and each breath she took now tasted like it was laced with poison.
No sooner had that thought entered her mind than Arthr gave a violent cough, covering his mouth with his sleeve. His eyes were wide and seemed to shimmer in horrified awe of the ravine below.
Spinneretta slunk up to the very edge of the path and peered down the sheer cliff face. It must have been a five-hundred-foot descent to the valley floor, at the very least. She carefully lowered herself onto her haunches and brought her spider legs out from beneath her jacket. “Come on. It’s the only way forward.”
“Oh, Jesus, are you serious?”
She turned about and began lowering herself over the edge. Her spider legs went immediately to the smooth cliff face, grabbing purchase through pressure alone. “Relax. You were literally born for this.” Despite the boast, her muscles strained as she began to rappel down the side, arms and legs and appendages grappling at every imperfection in the slope. Gravity weighed upon her, but she was able to restrain the shaking in her joints enough to feel confident in the descent.
Arthr shook his head in disbelief, but a moment later he was scrambling to lower himself over the edge before she left him behind. “Okay, okay, hold up! I’m not used to this, is all.”
“Just don’t look down.” As she said it, she cast a glance downward to make sure the slanting cliff face was sheer all the way to the bottom. It was, at least until the thick walls of mist obscured her vision a few hundred feet below. Stomach throbbing with her heartbeat, gravity pulling against her joints, she took a deep breath to calm her nerves. She crept downward, hand by hand, ready to catch her brother should he fall. Thankfully, her concern for him kept her from thinking too hard about how easy it would be to fall to her death. Once Arthr’s legs clumsily held their place, she began to descend an arm-length at a time, her spider legs clawing at the stone and utilizing muscles that for too long had gone unexercised.
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It was not a difficult climb, but the chitin around her joints creaked as she pressed their entire surface area against the cliff with each step. Arthr’s own descent began with an unpracticed slip of the foot that set Spinneretta on edge, but soon he’d fallen into a rhythm that—while not natural—appeared safe enough that she no longer had to worry about him. A couple times, loose sand fell from Arthr’s hand- and footholds, but each time she was able to avert her eyes before they became inundated with particles.
After some time, another glance below showed just how far they still had to go. It was a long way down, and the mists still curled and frothed at the bottom, appearing no nearer than when they’d started. “Arthr,” Spinneretta called up above her, “Don’t worry. I’m not falling.”
He froze in the middle of a downward lunge of his arms. “Huh?”
She ignored his confusion and, finding a moment of reckless bravery hiding beneath her fear of heights, she let go with her arms and loosened the grip her spider legs had upon the cliff face. The coupling weakened, and she went into a controlled slide. Her spider legs ground away her momentum, assaulting her spine with rapid vibrations. Her stomach rose against gravity. Arthr shrieked high above her, but soon his voice disappeared beneath the grating sound of chitin on stone. The air became thick with white wisps of fog that grew denser as she continued to slide down the wall.
Arthr vanished entirely from her sight. By the time she’d dropped over the final lip and found her feet on solid ground, her lungs ached with held breath. Adrenaline pounded through her. She let out an exhilarated gasp. And once she’d refilled her chest with the pungent taste of bleach, she realized just how impossibly thick the fog at the bottom was. She was completely surrounded by white.
Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3) Page 45