“Why Braim's?” said Darek. His eyes glanced at the coffin. “What makes Braim Kotogs so special? Why couldn't you just find the grave of some other mage? There are plenty of other magical graveyards in the world, after all, that are less well-protected than this one.”
Uron stroked his chin. “I see you weren't listening. I needed a stronger body capable of holding all of my power. North Academy is well known for producing mages of the highest caliber. Therefore, it was reasonable for me to assume that their deceased were of a better quality than the deceased mages from other lands. Braim Kotogs, as I understand it, was the personal pupil of the Magical Superior himself, after all, which puts him head and shoulders above even the other students at the school. He was the logical candidate, if somewhat of a hassle to get.”
That made some sense, although Darek wondered if Uron would have done just as well with the corpse of a slightly less powerful mage from some other school or part of the world. Certainly, it would have been much simpler, at any rate.
“And I couldn't have taken the body of an already living mage, either,” said Uron. “That's not how it works. I could only possess a deceased corpse. And seeing as Braim Kotogs has been dead for thirty years, I felt his remains were the perfect candidate to house my spirit.”
Darek glanced at the Ghostly God. It was disturbing to see a god lying in the dirt like a beaten animal. Granted, Darek didn't particularly like the Ghostly God, but he had always been taught that the gods were the highest powers in the world.
Just what kind of power am I dealing with here? Darek thought. If he can knock out a god in one hit—
“Concerned about the Ghostly God?” Uron said, interrupting Darek's thoughts. “Don't be. He's not dead, although he will be very soon, I imagine, along with the rest of his accursed siblings.”
“What do you mean?” said Darek.
“You will find out soon enough,” said Uron. “Because before the night is over, both the Northern and Southern Pantheons—along with Skimif himself—will be trembling at the mere mention of my name.”
He said that with relish, like he was thinking about how delicious it would be to terrorize the gods. His eyes dilated and he rubbed his hands together eagerly.
“So did the Ghostly God even know that you were manipulating him?” said Darek. “Or was he ignorant about you the entire time?”
“Your second guess is correct,” said Uron. He tossed an annoyed look at the Ghostly God. “He thinks he is smarter than his siblings, but he was easy enough to fool. He never once suspected that his loyal pet snake was manipulating his every move and thought. He truly believed, right up until the moment I knocked him out, that this whole plan was a concoction of his sad, strange little mind. The fool.”
“But why the Ghostly God?” said Darek. He could feel his energy returning more rapidly now, but he still didn't risk getting up and trying anything. “There are hundreds of other gods in the world you could have manipulated. Why him?”
“Because he's arrogant,” said Uron. “And arrogant fools are always the easiest kind to manipulate. They believe themselves too smart to fall for even the most complicated schemes, which causes them to let their defenses down. All I did was take advantage of his obvious weakness and control him as easily as an obedient puppy.”
“What about Aorja?” said Darek. “Did she know about you?”
“You mean the human woman who acted as the Ghostly God's spy?” said Uron. “She is just as ignorant of my existence as the Ghostly God himself. She is irrelevant to this discussion anyway. I could not care less about her life.”
“All of this,” said Darek, his breathing hard, “the destruction of the Third Dorm, the chimera, the destruction of the Soaring Sea, and everything else … it was all just so you could get a new body?”
“More or less,” said Uron. “Ideally, I should have gotten my new body a week ago, but those two idiot katabans messed everything up. No matter. I have a new body now, and with it, I will lay waste to Martir and rebuild my home and my people, just as I promised to do so many years ago.”
Uron raised his hand. Thick, ugly black tendrils emerged from his fingertips, looking like little more than sludge given life. The tendrils swirled around each other until they formed a large, black sphere the same color as Uron's skin.
“It's your lucky day, Darek Takren,” said Uron, a disturbing, terrifying smile crossing his lips. “You will be the very first mortal to die at my hands. This is an honor no one else will be able to claim; in fact, even you won't be able to truly claim it, because once I toss this sphere at you … you won't live long enough to claim it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Durima's head throbbed. So did her back. She didn't know why. Her memory was fuzzy, and growing fuzzier by the minute. Not to mention her arms ached, like she had been holding them in one position for too long.
She wanted to go back to sleep, and she almost did, but then she felt someone poking her and heard a familiar voice whisper, “Durima. Hey, Durima. Wake up. Are you okay? Durima, please wake up. I'm scared.”
Even that soft whisper was enough to make her head hurt. She rubbed the back of her head, but that mostly out of habit than out of conscious thought.
“You're awake,” said the familiar voice, which belonged to Gujak, who sounded somewhere close by. “Or are you just moving in your sleep again?”
Durima forced her eyes to open. It was much harder than it normally was. It felt like someone had glued her eyelids shut, but soon enough her eyes were wide open and she could see again.
Blinking hard, Durima looked to her right and saw Gujak. That in itself was not strange. What was strange was how he was hanging upside down, his arms hanging beneath him, and how Durima was eye level with him.
Startled, Durima looked up. Her short legs were tied together by a thick, grayish white webbing that hung from the ceiling. Gujak was also hanging from the webbing with a look of resignation on his face.
“Wh-Where are we?” said Durima. Her voice was alarmingly weak. “How long have we been out? What happened?”
Gujak gave her a weak smile. “Look down.”
Durima did as he said. At least two dozen feet below them was an empty pit, which was covered with several thick layers of web. Though the webbing was the same grayish white as the webbing that held Durima and Gujak, a glowing purple liquid could be dimly seen pulsating through the web, like blood flowing through the veins of a mortal. Directly opposite them was a cavernous opening that appeared to be the only way in—or out—of this cave.
She saw all of this thanks to a row of green lights running along the top of the walls. They were not very strong lights, but they were bright enough to allow her to see a good deal of the chamber they were in, although everything had a slightly greenish tinge as a result.
“Webbing?” said Durima. “Have we been caught by some kind of giant spider?”
“Not sure,” said Gujak with an awkward shrug. “It all happened so fast that I barely had time to put the gauntlet on my hand.”
“What?” said Durima.
Gujak held up his right hand. A shiny silver gauntlet completely covered his hand up to his wrist. Durima noticed tiny writing on the knuckles, but it was too small and indistinct for her to read, especially while hanging upside down in a dimly lit chamber.
Durima shoved Gujak in the chest. “Idiot! Master didn't say to wear the gauntlet. He said we're supposed to get the gauntlet and bring it to him.”
Gujak swung backwards from his webbing and almost slammed back into Durima, but she caught him with her claws before he could do that. After steadying him, she let go of Gujak and looked at him hard, wondering what his excuse was going to be.
“I know,” said Gujak, sounding apologetic (as he should). “But I just didn't want to lose the gauntlet. I saw the thing coming and I wanted to at least make sure I had the gauntlet with me. So I slipped it on my hand and now … now I can't get it off.”
Durima raised an eyebrow. “
Can't get it off?”
“It's stuck to my hand,” said Gujak, extending his gauntlet-covered hand and shaking it. “I can't do anything about it. It's like the gauntlet wanted me to wear it and no one else.”
“That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a while,” said Durima. “You must have jammed it onto your arm too tightly or maybe some web fluid somehow got into it. Either way, it will have to come off once we get out of here and return to Master.”
“If you say so,” said Gujak. “How do we get out?”
Durima clicked her claws together. “Easy. I cut away our webbing and we fall onto the web below. We crawl across it to that exit over there, find out where the heck we are, and then retrace our steps until we're on Bleak Rock's exterior again.”
Durima aimed her claws at Gujak's webbing, but then Gujak grabbed her hand. She looked at him in annoyance, but was astonished to see he had a grim expression on his face.
“Don't do it,” said Gujak. “Falling on that web below is probably not the smartest move we can make.”
“What do you mean?” said Durima. “That web looks thick enough to catch us.”
“I don't doubt it will hold even if we fell on it at full speed,” said Gujak. “But that purplish liquid … I've seen it somewhere before, but on a much smaller scale.”
Durima glanced at the webbing below them. The glowing purple liquid was as eerie as ever, but she didn't see anything dangerous about it.
“There's this type of spider back on World's End called a lethal widow,” said Gujak. “It's not really common and generally hangs out in abandoned buildings or underneath bridges and the like. What makes it different from other spiders is that it embeds its poison directly into its webbing. That way, if something flies or crawls onto its webbing, the victim dies almost instantly.”
“Almost?” said Durima in alarm, looking up at the webbing that they hung from.
“Don't worry about this,” said Gujak. “If it was poisoned, we'd be dead already, though I imagine that won't matter if you went through with your plan to cut us free. That poison below looks like lethal widow poison, so we'd probably die if we fell on it.”
Durima cursed. “What kind of spider produces poisonous and nonpoisonous webbing? It makes no sense.”
“That's what I wanted to tell you,” said Gujak. “See, this giant spider came out of nowhere and knocked you out with one bite. I tried to fight it, but it was big and fast. One touch from its barbs and I was down for the count.”
Durima shuddered. “Where is it now?”
“No idea,” said Gujak. “When I woke up, I was hanging here and the spider was nowhere to be seen. Maybe it went looking to see if we had brought any friends with us.”
Durima gulped. “Then we don't have much time before it returns, probably. Which means we have to act fast if we're going to get out of here alive.”
“Alive?” said a feminine, slightly insectoid voice from within the cave opening before them. “You must be a blind optimist of the worst kind if you think you will be escaping my web alive.”
Durima turned her head toward the only exit in the cave. She heard the sound of large, powerful legs walking across the earth, drawing closer and closer to them with each step until the creature emerged from within the darkness of the cave.
The creature was a giant spider. It had eight hairy long legs that looked capable of smashing boulders into pieces, with a behind as large as said boulders. Its fangs glistened in the green lighting, while its dozen eyes looked far too intelligent to be the eyes of a mere arachnid.
“That's it,” said Gujak, pointing at the giant spider. “That's the one that attacked us and brought us in here.”
“Did it just talk?” said Durima, tilting her head to the side. “How can a mere spider, even a giant one, talk?”
The giant spider made a strange clicking noise which might have meant that it was offended. “A mere spider? I am no mere spider, katabans. I am the Spider Goddess, Goddess of Spiders and Sleet. And you two have invaded my domain because you are apparently suicidal or my brother hates you.”
“By the gods,” said Gujak, who was now shaking uncontrollably. “We are so, so sorry for invading your domain, great Spider Goddess. We were told no one lived here and that none of the other gods had claimed this island as theirs.”
“Did my brother tell you that?” said the Spider Goddess in a sharp tone. “He was always an uninformed shut-in, brother was. I see he hasn't changed a bit since I last spoke with him what was it, three hundred years ago, maybe? I find time hard to keep track of these days.”
“How do you know we work for the Ghostly God?” said Durima. “We didn't say that.”
“Because I smelled his scent on you two,” said the Spider Goddess, gesturing at them with one of her thick legs. “Oh, it's not something you katabans can smell, so don't even try. But we gods can smell each other right away.”
Gujak had been about to sniff his armpit, but then he stopped immediately and tried to look nonchalant, although the look of fear on his face ruined the attempt for Durima.
“I took over Bleak Rock about a year ago,” the Spider Goddess continued. “I didn't tell anyone, obviously, because I value my privacy and did not want any of the other gods coming here to bug me about this or that. I expected to run into the so-called 'Mysterious One,' but I haven't seen even one hint of his existence since I've been here. Either he left and will never return or he never existed at all. Either way, this island is now mine.”
Durima gulped. “So what are you going to do to us, Spider Goddess? Will you let us go? Gujak and I did not mean to invade your domain. We were only looking for that gauntlet Gujak is wearing.”
She gestured at Gujak's gauntlet-covered hand. “As you can see, we got it. So if you would only let us down, we will leave immediately and never come back to bother you ever again.”
The Spider Goddess clicked her fangs together. “A nice offer … too bad I won't take it.”
“What?” said Durima. “But we're not trying to trick you or anything. We honestly only came here for the gauntlet and nothing else.”
“That useless piece of junk?” said the Spider Goddess, her twelve eyes flickering toward the gauntlet before returning to focus on Durima. “It doesn't do anything. That's why I left it where it was when I got here. I don't know who or what put it down here—maybe it was the Mysterious One—but I can't even wear it in my current form. I don't even want to know why my idiot brother wants it.”
“Master—the Ghostly God—said he wanted it as a part of his plan,” said Durima. All her blood was in her head, making it harder to think, but she had to keep speaking because it was the only way she and Gujak could get out of this situation alive.
“Oh, great,” said the Spider Goddess, rolling her spidery eyes. “Another one of my brother's great plans. How many has he done over the centuries? Honestly, he's the only one of us southern gods who spends more time acting like one of our northern siblings than ruling his domain. What a fool.”
“Why won't you let us go?” said Durima. “The Ghostly God made it very clear that we needed to get the gauntlet to him right away. If we delay the delivery, it will mess up his plans and he will be angry with you.”
“You think I care whether my brother is angry with me or not,” said the Spider Goddess with a strange clicking sound that Durima realized was a laugh. “I don't. We've never gotten along. Even during the Godly War, when we fought on the same side, we didn't work well together. If he gets angry at me now, so what?”
“What are you going to do to us?” said Gujak with a gulp.
“Eat you, of course,” said the Spider Goddess. “You two will be a warning to any of the other gods who are thinking of sending their servants to Bleak Rock. If they think they will lose their servants, then that will give them yet another reason to avoid this island and everything associated with it.”
“I didn't know gods ate katabans,” said Gujak. “I thought they only ate humans
and aquarians.”
“We usually don't eat katabans,” said the Spider Goddess. “But today, I think I will make an exception. I haven't had much to eat today, so between the two of you, I think I will have enough to tide me over until tomorrow.”
“Please, Spider Goddess,” said Gujak, putting his hands together pleadingly. “Don't kill us. We'll do whatever you want if you'll just let us live.”
The Spider Goddess paused. “Well, I suppose there is one thing I'd like for you two to do for me.”
“What's that?” said Gujak, looking both eager and relieved to find out that they might live after all.
Then the Spider Goddess made a dangerous clicking sound with her teeth. “Stay still and let me eat you without a lot of fuss.”
Without further ado, the Spider Goddess took off across the webbing below. Despite her size and bulk, she crawled across the net-like web below with the speed and grace of a seasoned runner. Durima realized that the Spider Goddess was heading for the back wall, the one she and Gujak were closest to, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” said Gujak in between deep, shuddering breaths. “We're gonna die, Durima, we're gonna die.”
Durima wanted to moan and whine with Gujak, but with the Spider Goddess almost at the back wall, she knew she didn't have time for such luxuries. She reached out with her geomancy, trying to form a pillar of stone from the back wall, but then her magic rebounded into her again and she pulled her arms back to her body.
“Ow,” said Durima under her breath. “Forgot about that.”
“Now we're really gonna die!” said Gujak, putting his hands on his face. “This is it. There's nothing we can do. Our lives are over and I didn't even get to do everything I wanted to do before I died. Good bye, cruel world.”
By now, the Spider Goddess had reached the base of the back wall. The Goddess of Spiders and Sleet was only seconds away from them, which meant that they had only seconds to live, seconds to figure out how to survive.
The Mage's Grave: Mages of Martir Book #1 Page 20