Spellsinger 02 - The Hour of the Gate
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it allowed him.
"No. No, not too sharply, Ananthos." He squinted into the
sky. A few stars were still visible. "But why so early?"
Bribbens' voice sounded behind him. As usual, the boat-
man was first awake and at his duties before the others had
risen from beneath their warm blankets. "Because we're
nearing their city, man."
Something in the frog's voice made Jon-Tom sit up fast. It
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was not fear, not even worry, but a new quality usually absent
from the boatman's plebian monotone.
Pushing aside his blanket, he turned to look over the bow,
matching Bribbens' gaze. Then he understood the strange
new quality he'd detected in the boatman's voice: wonderment.
The first rays of the sun were arriving, having mounted the
mountain shield soaring ahead of the boat. In the distance lay
a range of immense peaks more massive than Zaryt's Teeth.
Several crags vanished into the clouds, only to reappear
above them. Jon-Tom was no surveyor, but if the Teeth
contained several mountains higher than twenty thousand feet
then the range ahead had to average twenty-five.
More modest escarpments dominated the north and south.
Swathed in glaciers and clouds, the colossal eastern range
also displayed an additional quality: dark smoke and occa-
sional liquid red flares rose from several of the peaks. The
towering range was still alive, still growing.
The sparks and smoke that drifted overhead came from a
massif much closer than the eastern horizon, however. Quite
close a black caldera rose from surrounding foothills to a
height a good ten thousand feet above me river, which banked
to the south before it. Ice and snow crowned the fiery
summit. --
Snow gave way to conifers and hardwoods, they in turn
surrendered to the climax vegetation of the variety which
flanked the river, and that at last to a city which crept up and
clung to the volcano's flanks. Small docks spread thin wooden
fingers out into the river.
"my home," said Ananthos, "capital and ancestral settle-
ment from which the first weavers laid claim to the scuttleteau
and all the lands that abut it." He spread four forearms, "i
welcome you all to gossameringue-on-the-breath."
The city was a marvel, like the scarf. The similarities did
not end there, for like the scarf it was woven of fine silk.
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Morning dew adhered to struts and suspensions and flying
buttresses of webwork. Roofs were hung from supports strung
lacily above instead of being supported by pillars from be-
neath. Millions of thick, silvery cables supported buildings
several stories high, all agleam with jewels of dew.
Other cables as thick as a man's body, spun from the
spinnerets of dozens of spiders, secured the larger structures
to the ground.
On the lower, nearer levels they could discern dozens of
moving forms. It was clear the city was heavily populated.
Spreading as it did around the base of the huge volcano and
climbing thousands of feet up its sides, it appeared capable of
housing a population in the tens of thousands.
There was enough spider silk in that single city, if it could
be unwrapped to its seminal strands, to cocoon the Earth.
Once Jon-Tom had spent an hour marveling at a single
small web woven by one spider on an ocean coast. It had
been speckled with dew from the morning fog.
Here the dew seemed almost choreographed. As the first
rising rays of the sun struck the city, it suddenly turned to a
labyrinth of platinum wires and diamond dust. It was too
bright to look at, but the effect faded quickly as the dew
evaporated. The sun rose higher, the enchanting effect dissi-
pating as rapidly as the sting fro.m a clash of cymbals. Left
behind was a spectacle of suspended structures only slightly
less impressive.
Gossameringue was all spheres and ellipses, arches and
domes. Jon-Tom could not find a sharp angle anywhere in the
design. Everything was smooth and rounded. It gave the
city a soft feeling which its inhabitants might or might not
reflect.
As the sun worked its way up into the morning sky, the
little boat put in at the nearest vacant dock. A few early
morning workers turned curious multiple eyes on the unique
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cargo of warmlanders. They did not interfere. They only
stared. As befitted their historical preference for privacy,
these few Weavers soon turned to their assigned tasks and
ignored the arrivals. It troubled Clothahump. A people fanatic
about minding its own business does not make a ready ally.
Under Ananthos' escort they left the boat and crossed the
docks. Soon they had entered a silk and silver world.
"This mission had best be successful," said Caz as they
began to climb. He placed his broad feet carefully. The
roadway was composed of a fine checkerboard of silk cables.
They were stronger than steel and did not quiver even when
Jon-Tom experimentally jumped up and down on one, but if
one missed a rung of the gigantic rope ladder and fell
through, a broken leg was a real possibility.
After a while caution gave way to confidence and the party
was able to make faster progress up the side of the mountain.
"I'll settle for just getting out of here alive," Talea
whispered to the rabbit.
"Precisely my meaning," said Caz. He gestured back the
way they'd come. The river and docks had long since been
swallowed up by twisting, contorting bands of silk and silken
buildings. "Because we'd never find our way out of here
without assistance."
It was not all silk. Some of the buildings boasted sculp-
tured stone or wood, and there was some use of metalwork.
Windows were made of fine glass, and there was evidence of
vegetable matter being employed in sofas and other furniture.
Though the Weavers were not arboreal creatures, their
construction ignored the demands of gravity. The whole city
was an exercise in the aesthetic applications of geometry. It
was difficult to tell up from down.
Caz was right, Jon-Tom thought worriedly. Without Weav-
er help they would never find their way back to the river.
They climbed steadily. Wherever they passed, daily rou-
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tines ground to a halt as the populace stared dumbfoundedly
at creatures they knew only from legend. Ananthos and his
two fellow guards took an aggressive attitude toward those
few citizens who tried to touch me warmlanders.
The only ones who weren't shoved aside were the curious
hordes of spiderlings who swarmed in fascination around the
visitors' legs. Most of these infants had bodies a foot or more
across. They were a riot of color underfoot; red, yellow,
orange, puce, black, and more in metallic, dull, or iridesce
nt
shades. They displayed stripes and spots, intricate patterns
and simple solids.
It was difficult to make sense of the extraordinary variety
of colors and shapes because the predominant sensation was
one of wading through a shallow pond made of legs. With
remarkable agility the youngsters scrambled in and between
the feet of the visitors, never once having a tiny leg kicked or
stepped on.
They reserved most of their attention for Talea, Flor, and
Jon-Tom. Bribbens and Clothahump they ignored completely.
Nor were they in the least bit shy.
One scrambled energetically up Jon-Tom's right side, pull-
ing thoughtlessly at his fortunately tough cape and pants. It
rode like a cat on his right shoulder, chattering breathily to
its less enterprising companions. Jon-Tom tried hard to think
of it as a cat.
The adolescent displayed a cluster of painted lines that ran
from its mandibles back between its eyes and down the back
of its head. The cosmetics did not give Jon-Tom a clue as to
its sex. He thought of brushing it away, but it behooves a
guest to match the hospitality of his hosts. So he left it alone,
resolutely ignoring the occasional reflexive flash of poisonous
fangs.
The spiderling sat there securely and waved its foot-long
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legs at disapproving adults and envious brethren. It whispered
in a rush to its obliging mount.
"where do you come from? you are warm, not cold like
me prey or the creatures of the forest, you are very tall and
thin and you have hair only atop your head and there very
dense." The youngster's partly clad abdomen brushed rhyth-
mically against the back of Jon-Tom's neck. He assumed it
was a friendly gesture. The fur on the spiderling's bottom
was as soft as Mudge's.
"you have funny mouths and your fangs are hidden, may i
see them?"
Jon-Tom patiently opened his mouth and grimaced to show
his teeth. The spiderling drew back in alarm, then moved
cautiously closer.
"so many. and they're white, not black or brown or gold.
they are so flat, save two. how can you suck fluids with
them?"
"I don't use my fangs—my teeth—to suck fluids," Jon-
Tom explained. "What liquid I do ingest I swallow straight.
Mostly I eat solid food and use my teeth to chew it into
smaller pieces."
The youngster shuddered visibly, "how awful, how grue-
some! you actually eat solid, unliquified flesh? your fangs
don't look up to the task. i'd think they'd break off. ugh,
ugh!"
"It can be tough sometimes," Jon-Tom confessed, recalling
some less than palatable meals he'd downed. "But my teeth
are stronger than yours. They're not hollow."
"i wonder," said the spiderling with the disarming honesty
common to all children, "if you'd taste good."
"I'd hope so. I'd hate to think I've lived all these years
just to give some friend an upset stomach. I'd probably be
pizza-and-coke flavored."
"i don't know what is a pissaoke." The infant bared tiny
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fangs, "i don't suppose you'd let me have a taste? your elders
aren't watching." He sounded hopeful.
"I'd like to oblige," Jon-Tom said nervously, "but I
haven't had anything to eat yet today and might make you
sick. Understand?"
"oh well." The youngster didn't sound too disappointed.
"i don't guess i'd like you sucking out one of my legs,
either." He quivered at the thought, "you're a nice person,
warmlander. i like you." Jon-Tom experienced the abdomen
caress once again. Then the spiderling jumped down to join
his fellow scamperers.
"luck to you, warmlander!"
"And to you also, child," Jon-Tom called hastily back to
him. Ananthos and several responsible bystanders were final-
ly shooing the spiderlings away. The children waved and
cheered in excited whispers, like any others, their multiple,
multicolored legs waving good-byes.
A greater weight pressured his left arm and he looked
around uncertainly. It was no disrespectful spiderling, howev-
er. Flor's expression was ashen, and she slumped weakly
against him. He quickly got an arm under her shoulders and
gave her some support.
"What's wrong, Flor? You look ill."
"What's wrong?" Fresh shock replaced some of the paleness
that had dominated her visage. "I've just been poked, probed,
and swarmed over by a dozen of the most loathesome,
disgusting creatures anyone could..."
Jon-Tom made urgent quieting motions. "Jesus, Flor. Keep
your voice down. These are our hosts."
"I know, but to have them touch me all over like that."
She was trembling uncontrollably. "Aranqs... uckkkk! I hate
them. I could never even stand the little ones the size of my
thumb, for all that Mama used to praise them for catching the
cockroaches. So you can imagine how I feel about these. I
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could hardly stand it on the boat." She moved unsteadily
away from his arm. "I don't know how much more of this I
can take, Jon-Tom," and she gestured at Ananthos, who was
marching ahead of them.
They turned up another, broader web-road. "What matters
isn't what they look like," Jon-Tom told her sternly, "but
what's behind their looks. In this case, intelligence. We need
their help or Clothahump wouldn't have herded us all this
way." He eyed her firmly.
"Think you can manage by yourself now?"
She was breathing deeply. The color was returning to her
face. "I hope so, compadre. But if they climb over me like
that again..." A brief reprise of the trembling. "I feel
so.. .so icky."
" 'Icky' is a state of mind, not a physiological condition."
"Easy for you to say, Jon-Tom."
"Look, they probably don't think much of the way we
look, either. I know they don't."
"I don't care what they think," she shot back. "Santa
Maria, I hope we finish with this place quickly."
"Oh, I don't know." He noted the way in which the rising
sun, bright despite the intensifying cloudiness, sparkled off
the millions of cables and the silken buildings and webwork
walkway they were climbing. "I think it's kind of pretty."
"The fly complimenting the spider," she muttered.
"Except that the flies are here hunting for allies."
"Let's hope they are allies."
"Ahhh, you worry too much." He gave her an affectionate
pat on the back. She forced a grin in response, thankful for
his moral support.
Jon-Tom's attention returned forward, and to his surprise
he found himself staring straight into Talea's eyes. The
instant their gazes locked she turned away.
He decided she probably hadn't been looking at him.
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Probably trying to memorize their path in ca
se they had to try
and flee. Such preparation and suspicion would be typical of
the redhead. It did not occur to him that the glance might
have been significant of anything else.
They had climbed several thousand feet by the afternoon.
Ahead loomed an enormous structure. How many spiders,
Jon-Tom wondered, had labored for how many years patiently
spinning the silk necessary to create those massive ramparts
of hardened silk and interlaced stone?
The royal palace of Gossameringue was made largely of
hewn rock cemented together not with mortar or clay or
concrete but layer on layer of spider silk. Turrets of silver
bulged from unexpected places. The entire immense structure
was suspended from a vast overhang of volcanic rock by
cables a yard thick. Those cables would have supported a
mountain. Though the wind was stronger here, high up the
volcanic flank, the palace did not move. It might as well have
been anchored in bedrock.
They entered a round, silk-lined tube and were soon walk-
ing through tunnels and hallways. It grew dark only slowly
inside since the glassy silk admitted a great deal of light.
Eventually torches and lamps were necessary, however, to
illuminate the depths.
They confronted a portal guarded by a pair of the largest
spiders yet seen. Each had a body as big as Jon-Tom's, but
with their loglike legs they spanned eighteen feet from front
to back.
They were a rich dark brown, without special markings or
bright colors anywhere on their bodies. The multiple black
eyes were small in comparison to the rest of the impressive
mass. Shocking-pink and orange silks enveloped torsos and
legs. There was also a set of white scarves tied around two
forelegs and the nonexistent necks. Huge halberds with intricately
carved wooden shafts rested between powerful forelegs.
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They didn't move, but Jon-Tom knew they were closely
scrutinizing the peculiar arrivals. For the first time since
they'd entered Gossameringue he was frightened. Thoughts
of the friendly spiderlings faded from his mind. It would have
been little comfort had he realized that the pair of impressive
guards before them were there precisely to intimidate visitors.
Ananthos turned to them. "you will have to wait here."
After conversing briefly with the two huge tarantulas he and
his two associates disappeared through the round entrance.