One mural depicted a man, composed mostly of right angles, receiving a radiant sphere from a bizarre creature. The other being was tall, lacked eyes, and had four thick appendages growing from its back. The two stood atop a ziggurat of some sort—or perhaps a symbolic representation of whatever the underdwellers’ worldview had entailed. Along the edges, coiled enigmas raised their hands in praise of the meeting, and Mark couldn’t waste the brainpower to decode what it had been meant to represent.
But on the wall opposite the mural of the King, a somewhat more recent engraving stood dominant. Two beings faced one another, each taking up the entirety of the wall’s vertical space. In the center, where their gazes would have met, was suspended the defaced sigil of the Yellow King. On the left stood a creature made entirely of fire, arms outstretched, radiant lines either being emitted from or converging upon two hollow eyes—the only features the thing bore. On the right was a grotesque insectoid thing, like a serpentine leech, or a monstrous amalgamation of slug and fly. Its body was segmented, covered in stubby, raptorial appendages bent in prayer. Decisive but unreadable lines filled the gaps in its body with bizarre features. Its slithering form ended with a single massive eye surrounded by more snapping legs extended at full length, as though in mockery of a sun god’s brilliance.
“Is this . . . Raxxinoth?” Annika asked.
A growl answered from behind them. “Are you blind? Does that beast resemble a spider in your eyes?”
She gave Dirge an annoyed look but soon turned back to the mural. Mark thought he caught a shiver work its way through her shoulders, and he couldn’t blame her. It was an abomination, and its very figure bade his skin to crawl. But there was a good reason it caused such a reaction in him. “I’ve seen these figures before,” he said, half to himself.
Silt grumbled. “As have we all. Have you any idea what these are?”
“I recall Repton speculating on their origins in his writing,” Mark said. “I do not remember any definitive conclusions.” And yet he was certain he knew the identity of the leech-thing. It resembled the vague, forbidden depictions of one of the Primal Ones, the one known to the late Egyptians as the Black Hierophant, and to the Shulaveri-Shomu only as The Plague.
“The Yellow King and these two,” Silt said, “are collectively known as the Fatewoven. They are the legends whose battle left the King’s lands in ruin. The fiery one on the left is called Heu Rin. This much I gleaned from Dwyre’s thoughts over the years.”
Mark nodded with a shiver, eager to draw his mind from the depiction he knew to represent the Writhing Malefice. “Heu Rin. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Silt closed his eyes. “My knowledge of the tongue of the Kingdom is limited. But I happen to know the name descends to vulgarity from the high tongue, which Repton the Younger professed to have mastered. It would originally have been rendered heu’thrin, using the genitive particle. Translated into English, it would mean ember of the end.”
The words chilled Mark to the bone. The fiery figure’s contours were somehow nearly as unwholesome as the amorphous horror opposite it. Though he could think of no reason for it to bother him so, he had to pry his eyes from the image before the decadent sculpting eroded any more of his peace of mind. “We should not linger.”
As Silt and Dirge slipped back into the shadows and Annika started for the next tunnel, Mark gave a final look over his shoulder. The being of fire, Heu Rin. There was a moment of fascination, but at the same time he felt he should not consider it for too long, lest his mind succumb to the mad secrets of the old kingdom.
Chapter 38
The Spider Throne
The dark corridors of the fortress wound and slithered on for ages. Arthr and Spinneretta made their way through the dense fortifications in near silence, ever alert for the sounds of guards or others loyal to the Yellow King. The light from the smoldering fungal torch revealed more doorways set into the passages—some tilted in their frames, some empty, some sealed tight. Spinneretta recognized boxes of equipment and weaponry hiding against the walls in one of the rooms they passed—part of the barracks, no doubt. So, too, did she spy a few huddled skeletons, held together only by the crude armor they wore. She didn’t point them out to Arthr; she just breathed deep the smoky, arboreal scent of the torch and pushed on.
She was always one step ahead of the expanding maze, for the silent stirring of the voice guided her. Confidently, she rounded corners and proceeded through doors no different than any other. Her intimate understanding of the fortress’s layout shocked her at each twist. Arthr twice questioned her sense of direction, and both times she dismissed him. How could she explain it when she herself did not understand it? Moreover, how could she even explain that much without sounding insane? As she thought about how those words would sound aloud, she even began to doubt it herself.
At last, another royal metal door appeared before them. The sigil, as before, had been scratched out. Once again she laid her legs upon the embossed disc and turned the mechanism. The door opened, and this time a small landing with flights of stairs running up and down appeared. She swallowed hard, apprehension beginning to claw at her confidence. When she awoke from this dream, when the illusion burst, what would be left? Unwilling to consider her own helplessness, she just held out the torch and started for the upward staircase.
The incline was steeper than she’d at first suspected. The steps themselves were narrow and angular, and she soon found her spider legs assisting, groping at the stairway’s teeth and climbing at a brisk pace. The dank smell of mold drifted in from somewhere, curling her nose and putting her stomach on edge.
Arthr gagged behind her, and a coughing fit forced him against the wall. He clasped a loose brick in the side of the stairwell with one hand to steady himself. “Oh, God, what is that smell?”
“I don’t know,” she said, covering her mouth with her sleeve. “Just breathe through your mouth and keep climbing.”
He grumbled. “Easy for you to say.”
The ascent continued from landing to landing. Gradually, light began to filter in through unseen windows and cracks in the mortar. And when it did, and the red walls again showed themselves, so too emerged great patches of black and blue mold. It grew in huge, crusty rashes along the walls, steaming the air with a musty, poisonous aroma.
Spinneretta gestured at one such rash with a pair of legs. “There’s your answer.” But she had to look away from its fuzzy surface as she passed by, for the air seared her eyes. Tears flowed, and for a moment she was blinded by the pain. It felt like somebody had squeezed a raw onion into her eye. And as she gasped and clawed her way past the cancerous lesions on the wall, she couldn’t ignore the way the air tasted for a moment like the toxic clouds of mist in the great ashen gorge.
When she made it to the next flight of stairs, she was relieved to find her eyes functioning, even if the tears standing in them blurred the world beyond recognition. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. Christ, better not get too close to that shit again.
After several flights more, the homing mechanism in her mind bade her off the stairs. At the far end of the landing, a broken door lay among a tangle of unidentifiable mechanical wreckage. But beyond that wrecked door, and through two more great halls, they were again upon a flight of stairs. This flight was larger and more regal than the last. Beckoned on by the voice in her head, she took a deep breath and started upward once again.
They climbed and climbed, the stitch in Spinneretta’s side squeezing harder with each exertion. When the beckoning finally brought them off the stairway again, it was into a brightly lit corridor lined with great windows on one side that overlooked the battered kingdom. Though a part of her knew it was coming, she couldn’t help but gasp as she laid eyes upon the wide gallery. The hall stretched endlessly ahead, and each of the arched windows blinded her with the trapped star’s light.
Arthr coughed a harsh chorus behind her as he finished his own climb. “I am so. Fucking.
Sick. Of stairs.” He paused as he looked up at the sight before them. “Whoa. What a view.” Half-limping, he walked over to one of the windows and leaned against its sill, having to bend to get his palms on its surface. “God, would you look at this?”
She followed him to the window, squinted through the light, and peered out. A chill shook her whole body. They were very high now, and the sprawling fortress city below took her breath away. Even through the mists hanging in the air, the scale of the alien civilization was difficult to fathom. Fractal streets and districts, each laid out according to some unique pattern, stretched as far as the eye could see. From so high above, the ruin and abandon were not so easy to discern. She could have been staring at Th’ai-ma at its height, on the morn of some blackened festival devoted to Raxxinoth, when the sightless Vant’therax danced to beckon the rising star.
Below, a series of grand buttresses stretched from the walls of the fortress and grew down to brace against the greatest of the perimeter towers. Looking upon the buttresses was just as dizzying as the streets below; they were covered in deep spiral patterns eaten away by erosion, and now resembled little more than the decayed scales of a snake.
“Whoa, what the hell is that?” Arthr asked. He was pointing down the loggia. An irregularity stood stark against the cityscape on the other side. At first glance, it was just visual noise, a blotch on the scenery as likely to be a speck in her eye as anything else. But drawn by curiosity, they both raced down the gallery hall, passing shattered windows that opened like caverns to the outside. When they came to where the hall cut ninety degrees to the right, a strange dread took hold of Spinneretta.
At a distance some miles away, a massive graven idol of black stone lay toppled on its side. Half of a wide, cylindrical tower had been demolished by the thing’s collapse, and the metallic remnants of the building’s internal structure protruded like the ribs of a half-eaten carcass. The idol was of some coiled, nearly formless entity. Long, insectoid limbs grew from all angles of the anomaly, and at the furthest end was a single colossal eye framed by a smooth, featureless mask. Wretched limbs surrounded that eye like the teeth of a leech. The thing at once filled her with a bitter loathing. Whatever it was, it wasn’t Raxxinoth.
“Any ideas about what the fuck that means, Spins?”
She began to slowly nod as she stared into the faded contours of the sculpture. “I told you before, right? That the spider kingdom was split apart because the people began to worship another god in place of Raxxinoth.”
“That sounds familiar, yeah.”
“That schism began the war that led to the extinction of the Vant’therax.” She extended one finger toward the coiled idol. “That was what started it. That thing.”
He stared at it with wide eyes, mouth agape. “My God . . . But, why?”
“Why what?”
He pursed his lips, and for a moment he looked like he’d swallow the question to avoid looking stupid. “Why would they worship another god? I mean, these, uhh, Vant’therax or whatever, weren’t they part spider? Like us? So why would they turn their back on the fucking spider god and . . . ?”
The smashed avenues and alleys at the idol’s perimeter were darker than the surrounding stone, as though they’d been burned. Spinneretta could easily imagine blazing fires torching the district, columns of smoke swirling about that hideous icon. “Because they were deceived.”
Arthr blinked at her. “By what?”
She turned from the vista. “By the Writhing Malefice.” The certainty came straight from the other voice in her head, and that just sharpened her resolve. They weren’t far now. The mouth of the final hallway awaited only a little further down the loggia, lit by a breathing orange light. On each side of it stood a crumbling statue, features reduced to nothing by time. Her palms sweat as she approached. The torch in her hand, which she only then noticed had been burnt out for some time, was as heavy as her soul. She let it fall to the floor without resisting, but her fingers still clung to the air in a tight, aching claw. Fear choked her breath. “Arthr. This is your last chance. Please, stay here. Don’t follow me any farther.”
His face was expressionless, but white-knuckled fists trembled at the ends of his arms. Slowly, he began to grin. “I’m not letting my own sister face this on her own. Mom wouldn’t think much of me if I came back without doing my damnedest to protect you. We’re the children of the spider—in the end, all we have is each other.”
She choked up. It was so unlike Arthr. Perhaps this whole ordeal really had changed him. Maybe she’d just been so distracted that she hadn’t noticed. “Thanks, Arthr.” Even if it was suicide, even if this was another stamp in her guilt bingo card, he was right. In the end, they were three of a kind. Steadying her breath, she started down the hallway.
When was it decided that I’d become a martyr? she thought. Though the approaching end pained her, she felt a calm gratitude that Kara had escaped. She would live on—and if it was the will of Raxxinoth, she may one day be mother to a new generation of spider children, free of the King’s shadow. Without NIDUS, without the cult, without the Yellow King, what would become of them?
The hall widened. The burning torches lining the walls illuminated the room and filled it with the fragrance of smoky pine needles. On either side, rows of statues stood at attention. They could have been Pharaohs guarding the secret of the everlasting sun god. But Ra had shown little gratitude, for that same black mold ate away at the helpless busts, turning the once-regal entryway into a shrine of inevitability. She covered her mouth and clenched her eyes to burning slits, barely open enough to see out of.
Mark. Her mind couldn’t escape the thought of him. This wasn’t fair to him. He’d given up so much for her and her family. He’d put his search for Lily on hold indefinitely to protect her and Kara. If only she hadn’t read the last text message, perhaps she could’ve convinced herself that he felt nothing for her. It would’ve made facing the King so much easier. But all that she had to lose was already lost. There was no returning, no retreating.
The metal door at the end of the hall drew nearer. Heavy, gilded silver, far different from the rust-blackened relics and skeletons of the city. The King’s sigil was gouged out, revealing the dull, unpolished metal beneath the surface.
She would never know if what she felt for Mark was an Instinctual fixation or true love. As far as she could tell, one had become the other. Even the approaching battle couldn’t hold back her own selfish regrets. About Mark. About Kara. About Arthr. About everyone.
Unthinking, one of her legs unfolded and hooked around the arm of one of the statues as she passed. She felt it creak under her touch, as though on the verge of collapse. Dust filled her spiracles, and with it came the taste of centuries passing in the blink of an eye.
Random flashes began to play at her thoughts. Mom. Sweet memories. She still remembered the scoldings, the rainy day games and cookies and hugs. The day Arthr was born. Though she shouldn’t have remembered much at one and a half, she distinctly recalled how her mom had smelled when they visited her in the hospital. Rubbing alcohol and lavender shampoo.
Her eyes fixed on the braziers blazing before the King’s door. Tongues of fire licked at the walls. Between the shifting shadows, the heat seared her damp cheeks.
Dad. She resented the luck she’d had with him. Some of her earliest memories were of being ignored or shunned by him, but she could hardly reconcile that memory with the man he now was. He’d always worked himself to sickness for them. He’d taught her about computers and how to feed them instructions. He’d, in his rare moments with her, shown her a kind wisdom nobody else in her life could. He was a good man whose memory was tainted by a distance that was not even his own fault. But even now, when she thought of him, she couldn’t escape the fact that another man’s DNA flowed through her blood as well.
She came to the door. Its ruined sigil stared at her. A sob clenched her chest tight. Was this the right decision? The only way? If not for this, could t
here ever be peace for the Warrens? Could they ever be free from the threat of the King?
No, said the voice in her head. You will never be free from me. Because . . .
She swallowed hard and finished the thought with her own. Because our fates are interwoven.
Arthr stopped behind her, his own breathing quick and labored. She could smell his heart pounding—it was even faster than her own. Her legs fell upon the disc in the center of the ornate door. She began to press.
Mark had doubted her ability to kill the Yellow King—he’d doubted even his own. But, a thought froze her muscles. What if the King doesn’t kill me? What if he just broke my bones and left me battered and helpless, and used me to complete the Coronation anyway? A frightful omen. Limbs torn off and mangled. Lower jaw ripped out so she couldn’t even bite her tongue in suicide. A lifetime spent as an incubator until either her fertility or her usefulness ran dry.
She shuddered. Even if that were to become her fate, it would be better than allowing the Yellow King to ravage their future. And if he had her, he wouldn’t need Kara. But a cold certainty calmed her nerves, bringing her muscles steady. She wasn’t going to lose. It wasn’t in her blood. Gasoline ran through her veins, on the brink of ignition.
Her life had meaning. At last, she would have her atonement. For Will. For Isabella. For the pain she’d caused her family. It would not be for nothing. She would fulfill her purpose as the daughter of the King. I guess there’s no need to pretend, is there? You know I’m here. Let’s end this.
Spinneretta tightened her jaw. Her legs went rigid in anticipation. The dial creaked to the side and then clicked. The door swung open, and the hall continued forward, wider and grander. The statues lining the walls became braziers, smoldering with tendrils of peaty smoke. The floor was hewn and polished to a dull gleam. A hundred feet away, the chamber ended with a great throne, upon which a yellow shape shifted at the sound of their arrival. The braziers ended halfway down the hall, tarping the end of the throne room in shadow, but Spinneretta could still make out the distinct shape of bones littering the ground.
Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3) Page 52