by Jack Conner
“Dive, dive!” Baleron hissed in Lunir’s ear hole.
The old crow dove. He tucked his wings in to give him speed. The wind nearly pried Baleron off his back, but the prince held tight and put his head down.
Flame chased them. He could felt its heat, hear the crackle and the roar.
Throgmar bellowed behind and above.
“Down!” ordered Baleron, even though he could not see what lay before them. “Down!”
Suddenly, he felt the first clinging strands. He didn’t know what they were, but as more and more strands tore free and pasted themselves to him and Lunir, and he saw them for what they were, fear filled him.
“Up!” he cried. Tugging hard on the glarum’s reins, he repeated, “Up! Up!”
Lunir tried to pull out of the steep dive, but too late. The webs thickened and turned ever stickier. As the glarum’s speed diminished, the strands began to ensnare mount and rider, and the prince had to hold on tight or be uprooted. Please Illiana get us out of here! he prayed.
This place too was honeycombed with Spider webs—vast webs that stretched from mountain to mountain, hidden by the mist. Finally, a particularly thick and sticky web caught them, and Baleron’s stomach lurched as he and Lunir’s flight jerked to a halt.
The impact flung him from the saddle and plastered him to the web.
He swore violently, spitting out mouthfuls of the sticky material, beside himself with fury.
If nothing else, he had the good sense not to thrash around, but Lunir panicked and began doing just that, becoming more and more ensnared.
Throgmar, huge and breathing fire, burned and plowed his way through the mist, roaring defiantly.
He did not see the multi-legged shapes that leapt down on him from a hundred webs, not at first. But soon they were many and all over him, sinking their fangs into him. These were the direct spawn of the Black Goddess, Queen Mogra, Bride and Mother of Gilgaroth, and they were powerful. Their dripping fangs easily pierced the Great Worm’s armor and injected their venom into his flesh.
At first he shrugged the effects off, but soon his lids grew heavy, and everything blurred before him.
He roared and spat flame, but it was too late. The venom overwhelmed him and he dropped from the air and through several webs until he encountered one mighty enough to support even him, and it entangled him utterly.
Baleron saw the dragon’s massive, fiery shape below him, not too far off. Flame engulfed the giant Spiders that assailed the Worm, but Throgmar was too weak and the poison too strong. Before he could rouse himself, the Spiders—the igrith, Logran had called them—began spinning their binding shroud, of a very fine and durable silk, and soon the terrible Leviathan was helplessly cocooned.
The prince watched it all, the dim shapes in the fog, with incredulous eyes.
Then the igrith came for him.
Chapter 17
Suspended in their web, Baleron and Lunir hung side by side, completely cocooned. The prince managed to wiggle his head from side to side, unearthing his face a little so that he could breathe easier. The Spiders’ toxins blurred his vision, and he felt as if he floated on some weird, heaving sea of purple light. At least the creatures hadn’t drained him of any blood, though Lunir wasn’t so lucky. The bird moved feebly nearby, weakened with blood loss.
Baleron tried to reach either of his two swords, but his hands were bound too tightly.
“Well,” he told Lunir, his words slurred. He felt drunk, reeling. “This doesn’t look good.”
He directed his ire at the great mass of scales and treachery suspended below them. Throgmar’s fires had burned the cocoon away from his scaly face, but he couldn’t crane his long neck enough to use his fire to free the rest of his body. A dozen huge Spiders and another dozen vampires in bat-like form covered him, draining his rich, powerful juices.
“Does it hurt?” Baleron shouted down at him. His voice carried across the misty space strangely, becoming quickly absorbed. “I hope so!”
Tendrils of fog lashed lazily between himself and the dragon like cat tails, but both enemies remained, at least for the moment, visible to each other.
Smoke belched from Throgmar’s nostrils, drifting up towards Baleron. “YOU HAVE KILLED US BOTH,” said the Worm.
“You’re the one that chased me here.”
“YOU GAVE ME LITTLE CHOICE, WHOEVER YOU ARE. AFTER WHAT YOU DID—AFTER ...” His amber eyes regarded Baleron intently for a moment. “WAIT. I KNOW THAT VOICE.”
“It’s me, you bastard. Prince Baleron of Havensrike. Thanks to you, one of the last princes.”
The dragon looked, to Baleron, vaguely ashamed. “I HAVE NO CHOICE IN WHAT I AM, AND I WAS GIVEN NO CHOICE IN WHAT I DID.”
“I don’t care about the why of it.”
“YOU SHOULD. IT WAS BECAUSE OF YOU THAT IT HAPPENED.”
Baleron narrowed his eyes. “How?”
“AFTER I LET YOU GO IN THE ARAGST, I TOLD UNGIER THAT YOU’D ESCAPED ME, BUT HE DISCERNED THE TRUTH AND TOLD OUR FATHER. WHEN NEXT FELESTRATA LEFT ON ONE OF HER ROAMINGS, GILGAROTH CAPTURED HER. I ONLY LEARNED OF IT AFTER THE FALL OF GULROTHROG, AFTER I’D AIDED YOU ONCE MORE AND ATTACKED MY BROTHER DIRECTLY. FOR THIS CRIME THEY TORTURED HER. AN AGENT OF THE MASTER CAME TO ME IN MY SECRET CAVERN; I KNOW NOT HOW SHE FOUND ME. A HUMAN WOMAN IT WAS, OR SEEMED TO BE. SHE WAS NOT. I COULD SMELL THE TAINT OF MY FATHER ON HER.”
“Rauglir.”
“AYE. I HAD KNOWN THE DEMON IN TIMES PAST, AND I KNEW IT THEN. DEEP IN MY LORD’S COUNSELS IT IS, AND WELL-FAVORED, AS I AM NOT. IT TOLD ME GILGAROTH WOULD RELEASE FELI, BUT FIRST I MUST DESTROY GROTHGAR CASTLE AND FIRE THE CITY, AND SLAY THE KING IF I COULD.” He sighed. “IN THAT LAST, I FAILED, BUT FATHER DID NOT CARE. HE DID NOT EVEN ASK. TO HIM IT WAS ENOUGH TO CAUSE ME PAIN. HE KNOWS I HATE TO DO HIS BIDDING AND SO HATES ME IN RETURN. THE ONLY REASON HE SUFFERS MY EXISTENCE AT ALL IS BECAUSE HE ENJOYS FORCING ME TO CARRY OUT HIS WILL. HE ENJOYS MY TORMENT.”
“If your rambling is supposed to be in lieu of an apology, don’t bother. You’ll find no forgiveness here.”
Throgmar’s eyes hardened. “AND YOU WILL FIND NO PITY IN ME. YOU HUMANS ARE SHORT-LIVED, TEMPORARY THINGS. FELESTRATA COULD HAVE LIVED UNTIL THE SUN GREW BLACK—AND BEYOND. HAD YOU NOT TAKEN IT AWAY, SHE COULD HAVE HAD ETERNITY. WHAT ARE THE LIVES OF YOUR KIN AND KING COMPARED TO THAT?”
Anger seized Baleron. “The people you killed possessed a goodness and decency you’ll never understand, you snake. You’re a Darkworm, a foul thing, corrupt and full of pus and bile. The ones you betrayed deserved life much more than you—or your precious Felestrata.”
Fire licked the dragon’s lips. “DON’T SPEAK ILL OF FELI. DON’T YOU DARE!”
The Worm didn’t have to reposition his horned and whiskered head but a few inches for the column of fire that issued from his throat and poured out of his fanged, whiskered mouth to shoot upwards towards his hanging enemy, bathing Baleron in flames.
Face-downward in his web—the Spiders’ fangs had pierced his backside—Baleron screamed. Throgmar’s terrible fire washed across him, enveloping him, and Baleron felt as if he were being cooked in his shiny shell. The enspelled armor protected him from the worst of it, but the heat ... Gods, the heat!
Baleron screamed.
Enraged to see that the prince survived, Throgmar turned his hate on Lunir, spewing flames across the old glarum.
The crow let out one last squawk before the fires found him, and, as Baleron watched on helplessly, the glarum burst into flame. Lunir shrieked and thrashed, and Baleron yelled out for him, feeling cords stand out on his neck, but he doubted the crow even hear him.
The glarum’s body burned brightly in the misty gloom, black feathers on fire, fragile bird-bones smoldering.
Lunir’s long dark beak opened and closed once more, and then the glarum sagged in death. Baleron’s heart twisted.
The Worm’s fires had set the web aflame—weakened it. Now the strands supporting Baleron snapped, breaking under his armor
ed weight.
He gave a cry as he plummeted to the next web down. It too, was aflame and broke under his falling mass. He fell through the next one before finally being caught again. He was closer to Throgmar than ever.
The remains of Lunir burned above, entangled in another web.
The prince and the Worm eyed each other warily, hatefully.
“Now you really have killed everyone I ever counted on,” Baleron spat. “You and your ilk.”
“MY ILK?” said the dragon. “MY ILK ARE GODS! THE GREAT MOGRA HERSELF BORE ME IN A LITTER OF THREE, SIRED BY NONE OTHER THAN GILGAROTH, WHO WAS ALSO BIRTHED BY THE SPIDER QUEEN—HE IN A LITTER OF ONE BACK BEFORE THE MAKING OF THE WORLD, BEFORE SHE’D EVEN TAKEN A FORM OF FLESH. WHEREAS YOU AND YOUR PITIFUL FALLEN RACE ARE LITTLE MORE THAN WALKING LUMPS OF MUD.”
Throgmar’s column of flame had destroyed the cocoon surrounding Baleron, and he tried to reach for Rondthril, but his arms were stuck fast to the web and he could not reach the Fanged Blade, or the other one either.
“You’re a monster!” he shouted. “A monster spawned by a monster, and sired by another one! You say I’m of a fallen race. At least we humans had somewhere to fall from. You were born base and in darkness, and you’ve managed to stay there.”
Throgmar growled wolvishly, whiskers bristling. “MURDERER.”
“Murderer yourself, you son of a bitch!”
Throgmar blasted him with another gout of flame, burning away more webbing so that the prince fell onto the next lowest web. The dragon burned away this layer, too, and the prince fell onto the one just below that. Baleron’s stomach heaved, but his blood burned. In his rage, the dragon destroyed more of the clinging webs, and Baleron kept falling, until finally he fell right through the last web separating them and, to both their surprise, right onto the gleaming mound of the Worm’s cocooned belly.
Shocked by his sudden freedom, Baleron cried out, laughing, even as smoke rose from his armor.
Throgmar struggled to twist his head a bit so that he could regard the prince with one slitted amber eye.
“Thank you, Worm,” Baleron said. “You’ve done me a service, after all.” He reached for the sword on his right, but it was no more: Throgmar’s fires had burned it away. Instead he grabbed for Rondthril, resting in the scabbard that had come with this suit of armor. Its hilt was still there, he was glad to note, though it was hissing and hot to the touch; fortunately he had his gauntlets to protect him. “And yourself a disservice,” he added darkly, drawing the Fanged Blade with to scrape of steel.
“DON’T YOU DARE.”
Grinning manically, Baleron used his armored feet to sweep away some of the cocooning strands that bound the dragon, until he found the twin punctures a Spider had made.
“What’s this?” he asked in mock innocence. “Maybe I should investigate.”
He plunged Rondthril into the hole. The powerful sword cut deep into Throgmar’s exposed flesh, and the dragon cried out.
With a spray of blood, Baleron jerked the blade free. Grinning, he stabbed it into the other hole. Throgmar howled again. More blood flowed down his shrouded scales, staining the white cocoon red.
“WHAT IS THAT BLADE? IT BURNS!”
“Then it’s poetic justice. By the way, remind me to thank the Spiders for their holes.”
Baleron found another pair of fang holes, and another, and one after that. He stabbed into each one, yelling, “This is for Rolenya! This is for Salthrick! For Sophia! For Celievsti! Elethris! Shelir! Felias! For Mother! For my brothers: Larik! Epsel! Ridlum! Farleme! Rilurn! All the men lost at Oksil! For Glorifel! The castle! For Lunir!” Finding a particularly tender spot, he plunged Rondthril in and shouted, “And this is for me!”
Throgmar bellowed with each thrust. Baleron trod further up the dragon’s body to his neck and then picked his way warily up it. Throgmar’s reptilian eye stared at him hypnotically.
“STOP,” commanded the dragon.
Baleron laughed. “Don’t try to mesmerize me, Worm. I have a charm that protects me from such tricks.” He still wore Shelir’s charm about his neck, beneath his armor.
He found a pair of fang holes close to the dragon’s massive, whiskered lower jaw. “I wonder if I can hit the jugular from here,” he said, then paused. “I wonder if I want to. It might be more fun to keep you alive—for a time.”
“FINE. TORTURE IS WHAT I WILL DO TO YOU, TOO, WHEN I AM FREE. I WILL KEEP YOU BREATHING FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE, THOUGH YOU WILL NOT ENJOY IT.”
“I think not,” Baleron said, ignoring him. “My time’s too limited.” Dark, multi-legged shapes were already scuttling into view from further up this great web, it and others—another wave of the igrith come to feast on their prize catch. “Best to kill you now.”
“Don’t you dare!” cried a voice from above—a great, booming voice.
Baleron looked up.
A massive shape descended from the swirled gray mists like a dark moon with many legs, suspended from a strong thread that unreeled from its posterior. Ribbons of purple flowed subtly along the black carapace, rippling and winking.
Baleron knew her immediately. It could be no other.
“Mogra ...” he breathed. His mind reeled.
“MOTHER,” said Throgmar.
Mists parted before her and the giant Spiders that had been scuttling about shrank away in deference.
“I see I’ve snared myself two trophies,” she said, her voice thick but not unpleasant. “How gratifying. Now ... what shall I do with you?”
She laughed, and the dry, scratchy sound sent shivers down Baleron’s spine. Her mere presence lowered his body temperature ten degrees. Not only that, but as her shadow fell on him, he felt befouled by it. Sickened. He squirmed to be out from under her.
Yet ... at the same time ... she was oddly enchanting. Seductive. She exuded a dark perfume that captivated the senses.
“Why don’t you hide that blade?” she suggested, and, despite the charm he wore, Baleron felt himself replacing Rondthril in its scabbard.
“Little prince,” she hissed. “Journeying in my realms is not a practice I would advise you maintain. My children will not worship ul Ravast as will my Beloved’s.”
She turned her many eyes on her son. “Throgmar,” she said. “My rebelborn. Good of you to pay me a visit. I hope you don’t object to the treatment your brothers and sisters have given you. Dragon blood is so prized by them.” There was a touch of motherly pride in her voice.
“RELEASE ME,” he growled.
“Why? You’ve behaved quite poorly.”
“I DID WHAT HE WANTED.”
Without warning, she dropped onto Throgmar’s belly. So heavy was she that the impact bounced them all up and down, the web vibrating. The blow flung Baleron clear, and he screamed as he hurtled through the air.
He landed further up the same web and stuck fast. Twisting about, he saw the massive spider-form of Mogra perched on Throgmar’s belly and breast. She sank her glistening fangs into her son, her teeth punching right through his armor and into his flesh. Throgmar grunted in surprise and pain as she greedily sucked his blood like an overgrown leech.
Baleron felt disgusted, but he could not turn away.
At last, dripping blood, Mogra finished feeding from her son, and her head lifted from the red-spattered armor. Blood streamed from her mandibles.
“Much is at stake here,” she told Throgmar. “More than you or your Felestrata. Obey your Lord’s will or you risk His wrath, and if you think you’ve tasted it already, know that you haven’t tasted anything. You aided this mortal not once but twice. Luckily Gilgaroth foresaw that this friendship could be of some use. Now you seek to slay this man when you know that he should live. Stay your anger, my son. Do your Father’s bidding.”
Much of the dragon’s strength seemed to have gone out of him with her feeding, yet he evidently found some fortitude, as he said. “WHY DO YOU CARRY OUT HIS WILL, MOTHER? YOU’RE EVEN GREATER THAN HE. YOU ARE AN OMKAR.”
“YOU ERRED, MOTHER. HE WOULD DESTROY THE WORLD.”
She seemed to shimmer, like a mirage in a desert, and where the giant spider had stood now stood a tall woman—much taller than any human, twenty feet high or more—beautiful and naked, with six arms. Black hair flowed behind her. Blood coated her red lips. Her violet eyes shone. Baleron gasped at her beauty.
“He will not destroy it,” she corrected. “He will rule it.” She paused, reflecting, then added, “We will rule it, He and I, and Lorg-jilaad, until the Final War with Brunril and the Omkar of the Light.”
She strode to Throgmar’s head, her feet not sticking to the web, and stroked his long, whiskered jaw and horns with her many hands.
“You must decide whether you want to rule with us, or serve our amusement in our torture pits. Or perhaps Gilgaroth will consume your soul and you will be tormented in the Second Hell, until eons hence you are consumed utterly.” Almost lovingly, she whispered, “There is no place for you in this world, not unless you are with us. So ... side with me. Side with your lord father. There is no other way.”
Throgmar nearly had tears in his eyes, Baleron was shocked to see. The dragon was too overcome to speak.
Timorously, Baleron said, “What happens now?”
Mogra answered, “To you, you mean? That depends on Throgmar. My son, what say you?”
The Worm cast a baleful eye on Baleron. “I WILL TAKE HIM. I ... WILL SEE HIM PUNISHED.”
“Very well,” she said slowly. “The prince isn’t essential. But keep in mind that our Lord wishes him alive if it can be arranged. Ul Ravast may yet hold some value, for there are prophecies still to be played out. Gilgaroth laid a Doom on him that is not yet wholly fulfilled ... but should be. I shall free you and give the human to your care, as a test. Let us see what you will make of the opportunity.”