Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  Organs tightening into knots, she strode into the room. The robed figure on the throne seemed to hiss, a gnawing sound scraping at the walls. “Well,” it spoke, “isn’t this a surprise.”

  Spinneretta froze at the sound of the voice. All her nervousness collapsed to a single point of agony in her stomach. At once she realized that something was wrong. Very wrong. That figure sat upon the throne, draped in a tattered robe of saffron hues, face cloaked in shadow by a threadbare cowl. He was just as she’d imagined, and yet it felt so wrong. She’d heard his voice in her mind, twisting her thoughts to convey his own. But hearing him actually speak, in English, and in so high and childish a voice, disarmed her. Her blood ran icy.

  “Oh, how long I’ve waited,” the one upon the spider throne said, his robe rustling and rising. “How long I have searched.”

  A flicker of one of the torches cast a momentary light beneath the cowl. What Spinneretta saw frightened her in a way nothing should have; far from the ancient and time-beaten face she’d expected, the face she saw belonged to a young man. His features were thin, sharp, pitted by black growths of chitin that grew in haphazard clusters. And though that spark of light could have deceived her, she was certain that those eyes were not the piercing blue of Kara’s, but emerald green.

  Spinneretta staggered back a step in shock. Her whole body shook. It was all wrong. “You’re not the Yellow King,” she gasped.

  The figure laughed a malicious chord. “Oh. The King. You seek the King? If that is the case,” he said, one arm slipping behind him, “then allow me to introduce you.” His whole form twisted, and his arm flashed across his body. Something soared through the air and clattered to the ground just in front of her.

  Spinneretta stumbled another step back, her eyes drawn to the object. And when it rolled to a stop and she saw what it was, there was nothing she could do but scream.

  Chapter 39

  Where Flapped the Tatters

  After wandering the fortress of Th’ai-ma with a pillager’s eye, Nemo had thrown wide the doors of the Yellow King’s chamber, a quavering cry exploding from his chest.

  “Nayor!” he screamed into the darkness. The dim light from the loggia far behind encroached little into the chamber. Breathing deep the stirring dust and chemical-laced air, Nemo lurched into the room he knew housed the throne of his enemy. His eyes struggled to adjust to the dark, but he could just make out the suggestions of men standing at attention along the walls of the elongated room. Adorned in ornate headdresses, wielding the arms of the elite of the spider kingdom, those dead torch-bearing statues were a bitter reminder of where he was.

  “Nayor!” he called again, and his own voice echoed back to him. Excitement swelled in his heart. “I know you can hear me! Reveal yourself!”

  As he crept forward, one step at a time, the spider throne began to emerge at the end of the hall. It was visible only by the supple shadows that deepened behind it. His breathing grew coarse and unfulfilling. Mere feet away he sat—the man, the legend, the traitor. But no sound stirred the still air. Nemo stopped for a moment, feet curled in half-step. Pausing even his breath, he listened for any hint that the mythical King had noticed him. And when the pregnant silence showed no signs of lightening, Nemo growled and raised his voice toward the end of the dark throne room.

  “I have longed for this honor,” he said. “I have long awaited the moment I would, at last, be allowed to stand before your throne and bend knee. Four lifetimes of suffering burned into my brain. This was to be my Nirvana, my Elysian Wasteland. Urn-ma Nayor, Chosen of Raxxinoth, will you not even deign to acknowledge your most loyal of servants? The dead man, abandoned and left to the wolves, is deserving not even of your attention!” He threw out an arm and summoned a maelstrom of magic around him. “Do you understand who now stands before you, O exalted King? I am Urn-ma Nemo, reborn of Heinokk, leader of the Yellow Dawn, Chosen of Raxxinoth and of the Writhing Malefice. I have come to reclaim what rightfully belonged to Heinokk—the spider throne and, with it, dominion of Zigmhen! Now, Urn-ma Nayor, look upon me, and despair!”

  The spiraling tendrils of magic exploded outward, and the hidden torches clasped by the stone soldiers erupted into flames, bathing the room in vibrant light. It was then, at long last, that Nemo and Dwyre and Griffith and Repton the Younger together laid their eyes upon the Yellow King. Nemo gasped. His entire body went cold.

  There, sitting upon the spider throne, robed in the tattered yellow cloak of legend, was a skeleton.

  He blinked, his whole body shuddering. The skull of the Yellow King, bulbous and deformed on one side, seemed to glare at him in accusation. The cranium was broken in numerous places by dry, cracked shells of chitin. The empty sockets were endless, blackened wells. From one sleeve of the robe, long, spindly fingers grasped at the throne. From the other, only a broken wrist was visible. Sinew and tissue missing, it may have only been the tangled cobwebs that held the skeleton intact.

  Doubt choked him. Confusion. What the hell is this? It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. It didn’t make sense! Dwyre had touched minds with the King only months ago! But the state of the remains indicated they must have been close to twenty years beyond death. Perhaps it was some divine joke, a diversion, a misdirection. Yes, a misdirection; a ploy to get him to drop his guard. But before that paranoia could creep below the skin, the stump of the wrist protruding from the robe demanded his attention again. The wrist, and only the wrist. The hand—missing.

  A flash of the end of the world. Fear. The hand, the catalyst of all NIDUS had brought to pass. The genetic motherload, the holy grail of black biology. Where had it come from? Where had Griffith acquired it? He remembered distinctly the frightful words and images that had slipped into Simon Dwyre’s mind when he prayed to Nayor within the Vault. Was it madness? Was it mania and fantasy that drove him to hallucinate that the Yellow King yet lived and spoke?

  No, Nemo thought. Not madness. There was no madness so prolific, no symptom of insanity so sadistic as to inflict such suffering and mental trauma. Those thoughts—those commandments—they all flowed from something. If it was not Nayor, then who was it that had guided the Helixweavers down the path toward the Coronation? If it was not Nayor who’d inspired the foundation of the Websworn, who’d spoken to him in tongues of smoke and ghastly whispers, who’d given his own hand as a genetic catalyst to the ends of weaving the helices of man and spider—then who had?

  And yet, in the face of that question, Nemo was overcome by a dawning realization—one more important than the anachronistic evidence of the King’s life. The tatters of the King lay draped over the dried bones. Their yellow tone, deeper, richer, more earthy and pure than the gaudy color of the False Ones’ vestments, called to him. If the sovereign of the Web was no more, then that meant . . .

  Nemo doubled over, a nauseous, toxic feeling running from his brain to his stomach. The taste of vomit pooled on his tongue. His knees tried to fold under him, but he forced himself toward the throne. His eyes felt like they were swelling, bulging from his head. With a cry, he pounced upon the relic and threw his fist down into the robed remains. The bones buckled from the blow, their cobweb supports breaking as the King’s rib cage shattered. Bones and dried chitin spilled upon the floor, rattling across the ground. A fine powder lingered in the air, and along with it came the smell of burnt hair and dust.

  Shrieking, Nemo smashed the largest of the bones into smaller pieces. With a fevered hunger, he began to eat. He tore the skeleton apart piece by piece, gnashing on the largest bits and casting the rest to the floor. His jaws chomped down upon the dust-gray bone matter. Broken fragments sliced at his cheeks and lips. He felt one of his molars crack as he crushed open a rib and began the futile hunt for lingering marrow. The remains were brittle, offering little sustenance beyond the spiritual. Hungry for the magic the King once commanded, mind filled with visions of the power granted by the highmost Writhing Malefice, Nemo consumed every piece he could fit into his mouth.


  And when only the Yellow King’s skull, inedible fragments, and scattered traces of bone meal remained, Nemo shouted at the heavens in victory. His lacerated throat rumbled with the cry—the feeling of release. Laughing, he tore his own robe—the servant’s vestments—from his shoulders and allowed it to flutter to the floor. He snatched the tattered robe of legend from the arm of the throne and slipped it on, feeling the age and splendor of its silken threads. Though its sleeves and hems were ripped and ragged, shredded by the ages of tyranny its owner lived, it was still soft and supple. It conformed at once to his shoulders and arms. Drawing the hood up and over his head, Nemo looked out upon the ancient royal hall. He let out a quivering breath and spoke his decree. “Long live the King,” he said to the vacant air. “Long live the King!”

  Then, he lowered himself and sat upon the spider throne, the new king of Zigmhen.

  Spinneretta’s scream reverberated off the walls of the throne room. Her legs wobbled, and she fell to her knees, unable to drag her eyes off the skull sitting on the floor before her. Doubt. Denial. It made no sense; had she not heard the thoughts of the King as clearly as if they were her own? And yet the dried, eroded surface of the skull was unmistakably that of the King; with the chitin fragments and deformed cranial dome, there could have been no mistake. Her whole body shook in fear. How long had the King been dead?

  No, no, he can’t be dead. That doesn’t make sense, he has to be alive. If the King is dead, then who do the spider cults serve? Whose voice is in my head? Who has been controlling NIDUS? Altered paradigms collapsed. Only confusion remained, desolation in the heart of an abandoned world.

  The pretender clad in the King’s vestments cackled. “Oh, yes. It is too late to save him. Now, the throne is mine. And you will be the first to taste the power of Urn-ma Nemo, Chosen, Helixweaver, sovereign of the Web!” The floor vibrated. Heavy steps pounded down the hall toward her.

  “Spins?” Arthr yelled. “Spins, what are you doing? Get up!”

  The empty sockets of the Yellow King’s skull stared into her soul, absorbing the entirety of her focus. Beyond those dark orbits, distorted and twisted, lurked the event horizon to her existence. Like two blackened stars sitting at the edge of the universe, they sang the hymns of aeons passed in solitude.

  Languid and torpid upon the spider throne, the King had sat for ages uncountable as those blue stars rolled overhead. Hundreds—thousands of years had that creature’s heart beaten, cursed with a preternatural longevity. And before him, billions of years prior, that great and frightful beast of madness had walked these strands. From the wall between the dimensions, she could feel it pounding, even now.

  As the sharp thoughtforms scraped against the front of her mind, whispers filtered through the gate to A’vavel. Mother Raxxinoth. Massive beyond all comprehension, that creature’s legs would have flattened entire civilizations as it moved, seeping buoyant gas and cellular spider-spawn into the void. Its city-sized eyes, burning with some horrific internal reaction, appeared as stars assembled in a grotesque and asymmetrical weave. But now those stars were dark and dead, lurking behind the walls of their reality. Within A’vavel, where the mists could no longer reach; within A’vavel, where Mother Raxxinoth slept.

  Vacant sockets decrying reason, sleeping death awakening, igniting. DO NOT LET HIM OPEN THE GATE. The words rang and echoed inward, falling into universes of inverted and unimaginable sounds. With each unspeakable syllable in that language translatable only into strains of shrieking horror, her mind repeated those words with a greater and more vengeful fervor. DO NOT LET HIM OPEN THE GATE. DO NOT LET HIM OPEN THE GATE.

  “Spins? Spins!”

  “Daughter of the spider king,” Nemo said from the middle of the hall, his voice a breathy growl, “the time has come.”

  In her peripheral vision, Spinneretta saw the Helixweaver raise one arm. The air grew heavy, but her whole body was paralyzed by the revelation.

  “Spins!”

  The Helixweaver hissed a low note. His hand swept down across his body, and the air burst open.

  Move!

  Spinneretta started from her trance at the sound of the voice. Reflex threw her spider legs across her body. The air around her collapsed into a dense psychic fog that swept toward the yellow robe. The spell and anti-spell tangled, and then exploded. A gust of wind blew her hair and jacket back, and she clenched her eyes shut to defend against the wall of dust racing toward her. Arthr yelled in shock. The harsh sound of something splitting rock came. The floor around her broke, splinters of magic cutting into the finely worked tile and standing statues. But the spell had left her unscathed. For a moment longer, she just sat hunched there, breathing hard, staring at the yellow robe.

  Nemo growled. “What is this?” A smile full of filed, pointed teeth parted his lips. “No matter. I’d much prefer the feeling of crushing your skull with my own hands.” His legs bent, and then he was no more than a yellow blur racing toward her.

  Move!

  The Instinct took over. Spinneretta’s spider legs cocked and launched her backward just as a saffron streak flashed down from above and slammed into the floor. Dust and stone shards erupted from the site of impact. She landed in a loaded crouch, spider legs poised and ready. But before she could pounce, Nemo emerged from the screen. His chitin-ravaged fingers took her by the throat, ripping her from the floor. A sick sense of anti-gravity flooded her as the robed monster’s iron grip choked off the flow of blood to her brain. The room whirled, and a few huge steps later her back struck the wall.

  Pain radiated up and down her spine. She cringed, spider legs going to her throat and wrestling with the hand on her windpipe. It held a monstrous strength, even greater than the Vant’therax. Hot, plaque-tainted breath seethed from Nemo’s mouth, poisoning her spiracles. Arthr’s voice was a distant drone beneath the sound of her own pulse. Nemo grinned, tightening his grip around her throat. He pulled his other fist back high above his head.

  Spinneretta’s muscles tensed. She howled and lashed out with her anterior legs, taking aim at his face. The tips of her legs found his eye socket, and a ghoulish shriek accompanied the sight of vitreous gel splattering from his orbit. As Nemo’s other hand went to his gouged eye, his grip loosened for just a moment—more than long enough for her. Her plated legs wrapped about his arm and pried his hand from her throat. She opened her mouth wide and sank her fangs into the flesh of his hand. Hot blood filled her mouth. As soon as she felt her fangs scrape the bone, she opened her glands and pushed a payload of venom into his bloodstream. Her head swam with an explosive pressure release that dried her ducts.

  Nemo howled in pain, and a reflexive thrash of his arm sent her crashing to the ground ten feet away. Her shoulder rang in pain, but she flipped herself up into a bestial crouch. “Run!” she shouted. Her spider legs hurled her across the floor toward the door, and Arthr was only a few steps behind her, shrieking as he ran.

  “Whore child!” the Helixweaver screamed, his voice thundering down the hall. “Do you believe you can run from me!?”

  Spinneretta’s lungs burned. She did not look behind her even to see if Arthr was safe. She just kept her legs moving, praying that thing—Nemo, Helixweaver—wouldn’t be able to catch them.

  But the torchlight on the walls fluttered. The shadows roiled, melting along the tiled floor and flowing behind. The sound of crashing waters boomed, and the whole corridor went dark as the shadows streamed ahead of her. The black, oily puddle exploded upward. She stopped, and her spider legs threw her hard to the left. One of the statues exploded as the punch connected with it, showering them all with sand and chunks of bloodstone.

  “I am the reborn of Heinokk,” Nemo screamed. “You won’t escape me!” He reared up to slam another fist down upon her, but a nervous shudder rippled through his arm just as it reached its apex. Spinneretta leapt to the side, ducking beneath his attack as it crashed clumsily into the ground, dragging the Helixweaver down with it. She danced out of his reach just in time for
a wild swipe of his chitin-covered paw to shatter another statue. She rode back on her appendages and watched as Arthr weaved around the twitching yellow heap on the ground.

  “What did you do, spider whore!?”

  Spinneretta turned without a word and resumed her sprint. The venom had already taken effect, but it was only a half-measure; it wouldn’t keep the Helixweaver down forever if he could shadow-crawl like the damned Vant’therax. Their escape was on loaned time, and the interest rate howled in defiance as she ran down the hall toward the natural glow of the loggia.

  There was no escape from reality, and yet not even the fear of death could keep her crazed thoughts from wandering to the terribly familiar images flashing before her eyes. Dreams, apparitions, terrors from the seat of her soul. With each step, another flash. With each breath, another tremor from the abhorrent, grisly imagery.

  A towering, graven visage of stone rising from the sea of culture, a grotesque obelisk of deviant idolatry. Blood. Rivers of blood flowing from the gaping chest of the prophet of the Writhing Malefice. The harsh smell of toxic gas, burning the flesh from their bones and—

  their bitter perfume

  breathes a life of gathering gloom

  sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying

  sealed in the stone-cold tomb

  The broken statues hurtled by her on either side, and the only thing that kept her legs moving was the stirring voice, which kept her muscles trapped in a cycle of clenching and releasing. Cackling blasphemies rang out behind, just like the gaseous laughter of those brilliant eyes that wept through the curtains of smoke.

  Solitude. Utter abandon. Teal seas in sapphire irises. Trapped, enshrouded by that sentient smoke, those malicious beacons of light ever peering from the walls and the shadows and the torches and the dreams. For when the kingdom lay in desolation, and the last of the Avan’razi were but dried skeletons buried in the pits of the Other World—