But before she could even set foot to earth, the air roared around her in the voice of thunder and crashing waters. The star’s wan light flickered and waned. From out of the dark, two hunched shapes emerged. The Vant’therax.
“You?” Silt said. Bits of chitin now hung from his jaw and throat, like water dribbling along a ruptured pipe. His teeth were blackened with coagulated blood and regenerative tissue. “You should not have returned. It is unsafe here.”
Dirge growled. His whole body seemed somehow crooked, and his hunch was more pronounced than before. “That robe. What has become of Nemo?”
Spiracles soaking in the familiar taste of the mists, Spinneretta rose to her feet and crossed her arms. The voluminous robe’s overlarge, tattered sleeves billowed about her, fluttering in the wind. She jerked her head toward the roiling mist portal behind her. “Dirge. Silt. Get out of here.”
Neither of them moved. They just stood there, staring at her. “Arachne,” Silt said, “what are . . . ?” His eyelids fluttered as her gaze found his. His facial muscles twitched. One hand snapped to his head, as though a psychic tremor had assailed him. His mouth fell agape. “Wait a moment. You’re . . . ”
The realization dawned over Dirge’s face as well. Beneath his columns of eyes, his jaw went slack, flattening the leathery wrinkles from his skin. A shuddering gasp spilled out into the damp air. His knees folded beneath him, and he sank to the ground before her. Silt followed, lowering his face to the sand, hiding his confusion with an ostentatious gesture of fealty.
Spinneretta glanced up at the black smudge in space above the spindle. “Listen,” she said. “There’s no time to explain, or to do anything else for that matter. Hurry up. Get through that portal. Protect Kara and the others at all costs. That’s an order.”
A moment’s hesitation hung between them. And then, the air cracked. They vanished just as suddenly as they’d emerged. The mist portal behind her flashed and frothed as the shadowporting Vant’therax flowed into its depths.
Alone once more, Spinneretta let out a shaky breath and started sprinting toward the gate to A’vavel with all her strength. Was sending them back a mistake? She could have used another couple pairs of monstrous hands, after all. No, she thought. Kara and the others need them more than I do.
Mists raced by her on all sides. They were thick and inviting; it was as though they’d been waiting for her return. Soon she arrived at the edge of the spindle’s crater. Down below, the blasted bedrock gave way to a flooring made of dull metal that gleamed in the scattered starlight. Arcs of iridescent electricity skittered through deep grooves in the machinery and crawled up the towering needle in the center. From the dark portal above it, wisps of disembodied thoughts lashed about in erratic ribbons that spoke gurgling, malefic hymns directly into her mind. Though the whispers were unintelligible, it did not surprise her that she at once understood their meaning. DO NOT LET HIM BREAK THE SEAL, a galaxy of voices demanded. DO NOT LET HIM BREAK THE SEAL.
Gazing into the ink stain swirling overhead, Spinneretta spread her spider legs and raised her hands. Her legs tingled with the cold energy of the Wine of Raxxinoth. The power that had snuffed out the Flames of Y’rokkrem. The force that had pierced Kaj’s pain immunity. The curse that had dealt a fatal wound to the Outsider Heu Rin in ages past. If there was ever a time she needed it, it was now.
“Mother Raxxinoth!” she yelled, shaping her aura into great coils of mistforce. “I finally understand. Who I am. Why I was born. What you’ve been trying to tell me. And though I reject this legacy you’ve left me, just this once I shall do as you wish!” The sense of gravity spiraling around her grew stronger, more chaotic. And where those psychic currents flowed, the physical mists began to whirl. She willed the Wine to gather in her outstretched legs. The mists collapsed, accreting into a dense orb of vapor. The anti-magic singularity tugged on her chitin plating, and the creaking in her joints put her teeth on edge. She curled her fingers into a trembling claw. “Mother Raxxinoth! Give me strength, and please let this work!”
With a massive heave of her shoulders, she hurled the ultra-dense globe of anti-magic toward the rift. At once, the Wine burst, unfolding into a great jet of psychic mist that streamed into the shifting portal. The reaction was instantaneous. A deafening crack came from the edge of the portal’s projection, and a storm of collapsing rays scattered in all directions. Fractal patterns whited out the internal darkness, turning the rift into a vibrant, turbid mass. Before the great column of mist had even dispersed, the portal fell into itself like a collapsing star. Then, the supernova came.
The pressure wave flattened Spinneretta against the ground, and the fog blanketing the crater was blown away. Her ears rang, and for a moment she thought that she’d been killed. When she felt the chill of mist again creeping in from the edges of the blast zone, her spider legs caught the scent of two bodies down in the crater that had not been there before.
“What happened?” the voice of the Cheshire Man demanded. “You treacherous half-man, what did you do!?”
Spinneretta’s jaw tightened. Her heart skipped a beat or three. Though the whispers pouring out from the portal had slowed to a trickle, she could still feel the presence of the thing beyond. She no longer feared it; it solidified her conviction. Her saffron cloak billowing around her, she got back to her feet.
“Has defeat stolen your hearing from you, Warren? What did you do!? Answer me!”
A glimmer of hope; Mark was still alive. She wasn’t too late. Her feet began to move, guiding her toward the crater. As the two shapes appeared below through the wall of folding vapor, she made no effort to conceal the sound of her footsteps. Where fear and confusion once held court in her heart, now only certainty remained. The distant dream-echoes of skulls caving beneath her steps came flooding back.
The crunch of gravelly stone silenced the Cheshire Man’s barking. The figure down below, in the shadow of the great spindle, turned toward her as she reached the lip of the crater. Dull amber light shone from his eyes, and a wet chill dripped down her spinal cord as he looked up at her. “By the pricking of my thumbs,” he said, “something yellow this way comes.”
The mists flowed around her tattered robe. She glared at the purple-suited devil. His expression was at first calm, and then took on an aspect of bemusement. Mark lay on the ground beneath him, covered in shallow slashes and streaks of dried blood. His pale irises pleaded with her to leave, to run.
“Well,” the Cheshire Man said, “that’s certainly an interesting look for you.” He pulled the rim of his bowler low over his eyes. “I’m rather surprised that Nemo hasn’t ripped you limb from limb already.”
She stayed silent. One foot went over the edge of the crater, and she started down the incline. The Instinct filled her veins with the urge to kill.
“Spinneretta!” Mark yelled from the ground. “You stupid, reckless girl! Get out of here! Don’t go near him!”
An ear-to-ear rictus peeled apart the Cheshire Man’s lips. “It’s quite fortuitous the Helixweaver left you intact. Aren’t you happy, Mark?” The dull flash of steel. A knife appeared between his fingers. “That means the first bargaining chip has arrived. I will leave no uncertainty to my terms.” He placed his foot upon Mark’s side. “Open A’vavel again or I’ll cut the girl’s throat before your very eyes.” The Cheshire Man’s foot pressed harder into Mark’s ribs, dragging a groan from his lips.
That sound ignited the gasoline in her veins. Her liberated muscles tensed, and she shot forward. The buried metal substrate blurred into the color of mist. It took only a moment for her appendages’ strides to carry her to the purple-suited devil. Fangs bared, she ripped at the air with her spider legs and gave a deathly shout. The Cheshire Man vanished in the blink of an eye, and her swipes raked only the empty air. Inertia carried her over Mark’s form. She twisted in the air and landed hard on all twelve. Chitin creaked from the force of impact. A wet snarl overflowed from the predatory Instinct as her eyes swept the crater
for her target. She found him on her six, half the crater away.
Arms crossed, leisurely twirling his knife between his fingers, the Cheshire Man hummed a dark note. “Seems our guest doesn’t like seeing you hurt. I wonder, what have you done to inspire such loyalty, Mark?”
“Spinny,” Mark said, his voice weak and strained. “What are you doing? Get out of here. You can’t fight him.”
She ignored him. Her spider legs twitched, clattering at the metal floor. Heat coursed through her body. Each breath saturated her muscles with a quivering strength. The tendons in her appendages tightened and threw her forward into another wild charge. She stoked her aura and the surrounding mists, summoning the Wine. The world ground to slow motion.
The man’s ivory grin gleamed in the dull light. The knife twirling between his fingers shook with palpable anticipation. With the mists of her inherited power enshrouding her, Spinneretta leapt for the kill. A wave of seething psychic fog surged forth. It raced along the ground and through her target. She felt the air crackle and sputter as the man attempted once more to teleport out of reach. This time, the Wine devoured the spell. And a microsecond later he still stood there, vulnerable.
Hunger. A moment of anti-gravity. And then the permeating scent of blood splattering into the air.
Two of Spinneretta’s legs sank into the Cheshire Man’s face, piercing deep into the orbit of his right eye. The force of her attack pulled him off his feet, and she slammed him headfirst into the ground. Momentum carried her forward. For two full gallops she dragged him across the metal substrate. Then, with an explosive release of anger from her lungs, she heaved with all the strength and hatred of the Instinct and hurled him twenty feet into the maroonstone embankment. A loud crack echoed off the walls of mist.
Silence. Her chest tingled with frosty gulps of air. She could taste the shock in Mark’s nerves. Far more enticing, however, was the metallic tinge covering her forelegs up to the first joint. The scent sang to her. It was the prelude to her vengeance.
From the heap he’d landed in, the Cheshire Man slowly rolled about to face her. He rose to his feet with no apparent effort. One hand sat beneath the river of blood gushing from the hollowed socket that had once been his right eye. For a long moment, he just gazed at the fluid running over his palm and dribbling to the stone below. “Blood?” he said. “How is this possible?”
Spinneretta clenched her teeth together. With a calculated exertion, her spider legs lifted her to her feet once more. “To be honest,” she said, “I was hoping you’d ask a different question. I was hoping you’d ask, what are you? Because ever since I was a kid, I’ve been trying to figure that out for myself. Last time someone asked me that question, I looked him in the eye and told him I was a Warren, and that nobody messed with a Warren and got away with it.” Concealed in her sleeves, her hands coiled into resolute fists. “But that was the wrong answer.” She opened her stance. Her robe fluttered in the misty breeze. “Now I understand what I am, why I was born. I now understand that I was born to kill you.”
The Cheshire Man’s remaining eye flicked up to her. There was no pain or anger. Only naked confusion. “Kill me? What nonsense is this?” Then, the muscles in his cheeks tensed. His jaw went tight and then slack. “Wait a moment . . . ”
She smirked. “Have you figured it out? If not, I guess I need to give up the secret.” She spread her arms in a gesture of grandeur, and her spider legs unfurled around her. Her tatters danced in the wind like flames off a bonfire. “I am the one the Mists serve!” she shouted, her voice booming through the fog-enshrouded ruins. “I am the path of the Web. I am the lord of this realm you have so brazenly invaded. I am the one whose kingdom you tore apart in your ambition. I was, am, and will always be the Chosen of Raxxinoth! I am Spinneretta Warren, the Yellow King reborn!”
A spark of fear ignited in the Cheshire Man’s eye. “That can’t be. No, that can’t . . . ”
“Perhaps you recall. When Nayor died, he swore revenge with his dying breath. And so I was reborn to carry out that vengeance. That was my purpose.” A deep breath, and her posture narrowed. Her spider legs clenched. “But you know what? I couldn’t give less of a shit about that now. Because I’m sick of all these damned purposes beyond my control. Tired of being a part of somebody else’s designs.” Another flood of burning Instinct rushed through her blood. “Whatever purpose I was born with, I don’t need it now. Because you’ve more than earned this girl’s ire. You engineered the creation of abominations to use as pawns in your game. You played with the lives of my siblings, my family. You hurt my Mark. And those are crimes Nayor would never have understood. Because he never loved anyone, nor was he ever loved in return. And love is a dangerous thing to fuck with. So this little revenge of mine. It has nothing to do with Nayor anymore. This is between you and me now. And by the time I’m done with you, you’ll wish I was Nayor instead.”
The low drone of the wind punctuated the quiet. The Cheshire Man’s gaze dipped back to the thick blood running from his hand. His shoulders began to shake. Then, a peal of deranged laughter split the air. “The Yellow King, reborn! Now, just what are the odds of that?” His voice dipped to a menacing growl. “Of all those cursed to live upon that sphere, that it should be you the King’s soul found . . . I had not planned for this. And yet, it fails to amuse me. Such bombast. Such pretense. This development is unexpected, certainly. But even at that, it is so utterly banal!” He whipped his knife through the air, carving away at the mists. “Do you truly believe this changes anything? To soliloquize with such defiant egotism . . . Is this dramatic irony? Do you not realize the flaw in your little revenge fantasy? I have already killed you! What have I to fear from an enemy I’ve already bested?”
Another menacing cackle shook his wraith-like body. The sound grew more desperate. It was bereft of humor, no matter how perverse. It was a laugh birthed of unbridled madness. Finally, the Cheshire Man hunched his spine and glowered at her with his one eye, lips quivering about his pearly teeth. “What do you expect to happen this time around? I have nothing to fear from a child such as you, and I have neither time for nor interest in your delusions of grandeur. So, let us then cast off the shackles of our bombast and pretense.”
A low buzzing began in Spinneretta’s ears. The whole world grew darker, as though all light was being absorbed into the Cheshire Man’s eye and bloody socket. A flash birthed a blinding white luminance. Thick smoke began to seep from his body and whirl in demonic phantasms about him.
“Spinneretta!” Mark yelled. “Run!”
A deathly chill washed over her, blowing her robe around her frame. The chill sank to the bone, causing goose bumps to immediately cover her whole body. The recognition hit her in the stomach. Her heart pounded faster as the Cheshire Man’s torso and limbs came apart in strange geometric patterns. What stood there after was an infernal mockery of man, forged of fumes and bleeding light from its brilliant eyes. It was the specter of her own death staring into her. A tremor of fear shook her shoulders and tensed every muscle in her body.
With a thunderous crack, the Weeping Man’s voice echoed through the whole fortress of Th’ai-ma, screaming around her in a legion of alien tongues. “Come, child king!” the voice of demise said. “Let us bring symmetry to your pathetic existence!” The half-solid creature reared back and flew at her, its lanky smoke-arms dragging its claws across the ground.
Spinneretta rode up on her spider legs, scuttling backward as the stream of cackling smoke raced toward her. In reflex, she threw two of her anterior legs over herself, calling forth the power of the Wine to shield her. A wreath of anti-magic fog swelled just as the Weeping Man reached her.
Smoke clashed with mist. Spinneretta’s mind went blank. Every muscle in her body contorted in agony. The shield of anti-magic tendrils crackled against the assault, but it was nowhere near enough. As the Weeping Man blew through her, deathsmoke refracting off her appendages, she opened her mouth to scream. All that came out was a feeble gurgle
. Her vision blurred with tears that felt like acid. When at last the Weeping Man passed through her completely, the black wind threw her from her legs and slammed her against the metal ground.
She scrambled to get back up, but her muscles twitched from the attack. She’d made it as far as her knees when the air above her rushed and stirred. An adrenal surge forced her legs to move. She threw herself into a roll just as the black cloud made another pass. The Weeping Man’s claw swept just past her head, dragging sparks behind it as it carved into the ancient metal. Spinneretta used her momentum to rise again, her spider legs shaking unsteadily as they bore her weight once more. As soon as she found herself upright, she had to dart to the side to avoid another attack from the column of smoke.
“Show me how a king dies!” its voice boomed, a manic glee bleeding from the glowing stars in its face. “Show me the hollow martyrdom of a kingdom adust!” Its claws raked at the broken cobbles and metal as it raced overground.
Cackling, the Weeping Man threw a wild swipe at her. She sprang backward out of its reach. Before her spider legs could recover, the other claw plunged at her. A pair of legs reacted and dragged a Winestream toward the attack. There came a dull flash as the smoke and the mists met. Her legs rang with pain, and her lower appendages ferried her back a half-scuttle. From below, another smoke-claw rose. Her defensive field flared just before the attack struck her full force in the chest.
Everything went white. The fiery pain enveloped every nerve in her body. A distant, shrill cry leaked from her mouth, barely audible beneath the thunderous roar of the attack. She hit the ground again, clutching her chest with one hand and gasping for breath. It felt like a forest of jagged hooks had just torn through her whole body. There was no blood; only an agony that rang through the center of her bones and organs.
Spinneretta bit down, determination fighting back the pain. The mists draped about her shoulders did nothing to ease the burning. With a desperate lurch, she twisted to all twelve. Another attack whistled in from the left. Her spell-shattering legs swept wide. There came a grating crackle as her limbs cut through the black cloud and dispersed some of its particles. Cringing at the imagined sensation of chitin being crushed to pulp, she leapt backward to dodge the follow-up strike. Though the pain flaring in her limbs was incredible, she forced herself to move. If another attack slipped past the Wine, she could very well die.
Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3) Page 70