by Jim C. Hines
"That's not good." Larry fiddled with his sash. "If he's collecting the crystal armor...."
"He had a bracer and a gauntlet," I said. "Possibly more, I don't know. I'm assuming it's magical?"
"Worse. It's alive."
According to Larry, convention guests were staying on floors eleven and twelve. A quick cellphone call to ops, and he had Mason's room number.
Nobody answered when I knocked, not that I expected Mason to be there to welcome us. A Do not disturb sign hung from the knob.
"Want me to call maintenance?" Larry asked. "I could tell them—"
I shot a hole through the door, melting the lock.
"That works too," Larry said. "So you can really produce anything you want? I don't understand. Why aren't you living on your own private island, or—"
"There are rules." I opened the door. The room was a mess. Clothes were strewn over the bed. Untouched food sat on a tray by the window. A sticky film of spilled orange juice covered the desk. "The council supervises all magic. You're allowed to use your power up to three times on a job, but after that you need to wait a year. Otherwise, bad things happen." I had always hated the council for shackling me that way, even though I understood why.
"What kind of bad things?"
"You know how the first nuclear weapons tests took place out west?" I asked.
Larry nodded.
"Those weren't tests. They were damage control."
Larry swallowed. "How do we know Mason hasn't left the hotel?"
I set Smudge's cage on the desk. "Fire-spiders can sense danger."
"Your very own spider-sense. That's so cool. So hot, I mean."
I rolled my eyes, even though I had made the same jokes when I first got Smudge. I tore a strip of paper from a memo pad on the desk and placed the end against Smudge's body. The end curled and turned brown. "Mason's still around, along with that armor."
I sat down on the bed and pulled out my burnt copy of The Crystal Queen. Mason had written a typical fantasy doorstopper, over six-hundred pages if you included the preview of his next novel at the end of the book. "I don't have time to read this. Tell me what we're up against."
"Olara was a powerful sorceress. Beautiful, intelligent, and so gifted that the dark dwarves sacrificed dozens of their warriors in order to capture her and her family. They forced her to choose: help the dwarves conquer the land, or see her family killed. Olara found a third path. She made a deal with a dark god, who gave her the crystal armor. It made her unstoppable. The dwarves killed her family, and she slaughtered the dwarves. But she didn't stop there. Olara had always possessed a darkness, and the death of her family plunged her into evil. Eventually, the elves and humans managed to block her power and trap her in a mountain. Pieces of her armor were found centuries later, each one imbued with wisps of her magic."
"Like the power Mason used to throw me into the hall." That made sense. Most of us had a devil of a time using magic. It was easy enough to swipe Harry Potter's wand from a book, but casting an actual spell was another matter. I had practically given myself carpal tunnel trying to levitate that damn feather.
But Garth Mason had invented the armor. He would know its powers better than anyone. "You said it was alive," I prompted.
"Eventually, when enough of the armor was brought together, Olara returned. The spider god had bound her spirit to the armor, and—"
"Spider god?" I looked at Smudge. "Tell me that's a metaphor."
Larry shook his head. "Imagine Shelob on steroids. Olara turned her back on redemption, embracing the darkness. By the third book, Olara was more spider than woman. She poisons her prey and feeds on their liquefied remains. She controls lesser spiders, using them to assassinate her enemies. Mason says she's his favorite character."
A beautiful, wounded maiden, driven to despair. I could see how that might appeal to a certain kind of guy. But she would have sensed Smudge the moment I walked into the room. No wonder Mason had spotted me.
"I'm surprised she didn't turn Smudge against you," Larry said.
"She's trying." My throat tightened. "That's why he's sick."
"I don't understand. How—"
"Smudge was the most loyal character in his book. That's how he was written. By trying to force him to fight me, to act against his nature, Olara is killing him."
"So what do we do?" Larry asked.
"Find Mason."
That was when the crystal spider punched through the window. Mason had found us first.
The spider sprang to the floor, landing amidst a shower of pebbled glass. Smudge set the desk blotter on fire as he ran to hide behind the telephone. Fear had roused him that much.
"It's one of Olara's minions," Larry said.
I had figured that out by myself. I shot the spider twice, doing no more damage than I had to Mason. The spider shivered, then ran toward me.
Sharp crystals the size of my fingers covered the spider's body. He was easily three times Smudge's size.
I jumped onto the bed, grabbed a pillow, and waited. The instant the spider climbed up, I smothered it with the pillow, then bundled it in the covers. I could feel the thing squirming, and the sound of tearing fabric meant it would be free very soon. Ripping the covers from the bed, I ran to the broken window and tossed the whole mess down into the parking lot.
Glass crunched as Larry joined me. Already we could see the tiny sparkle of the spider as he scurried to the wall and began to climb. "Mason must have most of the armor. Olara wasn't strong enough to create her spiders until halfway through the second book."
"Great. How do we kill it?"
"The prince used a frost dragon," Larry said. "The icy breath froze the spiders, and then his elves swept through with silver hammers."
I jabbed a finger at Mason's book. "There's no way a dragon is going to fit through this book."
A dark speck dropped from the ceiling to land on my shoulder. I swore and slapped it, squashing a black and yellow spider. Even as I brushed its remains from my trenchcoat, two more raced across the floor. Another crawled across the ceiling.
"You said Olara could control ordinary spiders?" I asked.
Larry was twisting around, trying to reach the spider on his back. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he turned and slammed his back against the wall. "That's right."
More spiders were crawling through the window. I fired a few quick blasts, but I wasn't a good enough shot to hit a moving speck.
Illinois wasn't known for poisonous spiders, but it had a few. Unfortunately, these weren't lining up for identification.
A big brown one made a dash for my foot, and then Smudge pounced. The brown spider tried to flee, but Smudge snatched it in his forelegs. I heard a faint sizzling sound as Smudge stuffed the charred spider into his mandibles.
Tiny legs still sticking out of his mouth, Smudge turned to face the oncoming spiders. Though smaller than the crystal spider, he was still significantly bigger than anything native to this state. He raised his forelegs, and I could see the sparks jumping between those bristly hairs. Weak or not, Smudge had never backed away from a fight.
Smudge charged. A few of the spiders tried to swarm over him, only to fall with their legs burnt away. He jumped back and forth, showing no trace of his earlier lethargy as he attacked.
"He's like some sort of ninja spider," Larry said, flattening a spider who had slipped past Smudge.
I shook my head. This was the spider equivalent of an adrenaline rush. Smudge had to help me. It was how he had been written. But the harder he fought Olara's control, the faster she would destroy him.
Outside, a faint clinking signaled the return of the crystal spider. I checked one pocket after another, searching for the equivalent of a tiny frost dragon.
I pulled out a John Scalzi hardcover and skimmed through the pages until I found what I needed. Forget the dragon. I could go even colder. I cracked the spine and set the book face-down on the bed.
"Toss me the ice bucket." Crystal legs gr
ipped the broken glass in the window. I fired at the glass, trying to knock the spider down again, but it was too fast. The spider leapt to the floor.
"Incoming," Larry yelled.
I dropped the gun and caught the bucket. The spider was moving awfully fast. I pounced, slamming the bucket down on top of it.
The spider's legs were wider than the diameter of the bucket. Even with most of my weight pressing down, I could barely keep it from crawling free. Jagged legs shredded the carpet. One stabbed through the side of the bucket.
I shifted my weight, pressing my chest down on top of the bucket and praying the spider didn't start digging upward. "Book!"
Larry handed me the book, which I squeezed between myself and the bucket, pages down. My fingers curled around the edge of the book. The pages grew cold to the touch.
Pushing between worlds was like shoving your hand through plastic wrap. You can feel it growing thinner, stretching and clinging to your fingers like a second skin. The trick was to learn exactly when that boundary would break, and to do as little damage as possible.
Another leg punched through the bucket, then a third. One of the legs bent upward, gouging my forearm. And then I was through.
"Help me push," I said.
To his credit, Larry didn't argue. His weight pressed the breath from my lungs, but slowly, we forced the book down.
Soon the spider's legs stopped moving, and then it and the bucket were both gone. I twisted out from beneath Larry and slammed the book shut. If the cold of deep space didn't take care of the spider, Scalzi's Ghost Brigades should be able to handle it.
"Smudge." I tossed the book aside and scooped Smudge into my hands. He had curled his legs beneath his body, and he wasn't moving. He didn't even react when I set a chocolate by his head.
"Is he dead?"
"I'm not sure." He was cool to the touch. I set him on a pillow and pulled out a battered copy of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.
"What are you doing?"
"Lucy's gift was a potion that would cure any ailment," I said.
Larry caught my arm and pulled me away. "You said you could only use your power a few times."
I thought about decking him. "Three times in a year."
"That's one," Larry said, jabbing a finger at the Scalzi book. "And we still need to stop Olara. In the book, that required the combined might of humans, elves, and dragons. Even then, they weren't able to destroy all of her eggs. You're going to need all the tricks you can get to stop her."
I was still looking at Smudge.
Larry squeezed my arm. "If we're fighting crystal spiders, it means Olara is fully awakened. The first thing she'll need to do is feed."
Damn him for being right. I shoved the book back into my jacket and grabbed Mason's. "Is this her on the back cover?"
Larry nodded.
I stared at the woman who was killing my friend. The armor hid every inch of her body. She looked like a walking geode. "That's why Mason came here."
"What do you mean?"
I pointed at Larry's own attire. "She's got hundreds of victims packed into the hotel, and a convention is the one place she'll be able to walk around without drawing too much attention."
"That's why Mason agreed to be a guest," Larry said. "He's never done the con scene before."
I picked up Smudge and headed for the door. "The hotel's too big. We have to lure them to us."
"Olara will have more of those crystal spiders," Larry warned.
We hurried down the hall toward the elevators. Flyers were taped between the elevators, advertising room parties and other events. I glanced at them as we waited for the elevator. Then I blinked and ripped one down.
"Leave it to the geeks," I whispered. Larry had mentioned the homemade ice cream, but he hadn't said how it would be made. In true science fiction fashion, they would be gathering by the pool tonight and using liquid nitrogen to make their ice cream. All we needed was the bait.
I pulled out Mason's book, flipped to the back, and began reading.
* * *
The pool was mostly empty at this time in the afternoon. To the few swimmers, I said, "We need to close the pool for a few hours."
"You don't look like hotel staff," said one.
I held up Smudge's cage. "I'm the exterminator. These guys love to make their webs in humid areas." Even with his legs drawn tight to his body, Smudge was an impressive specimen. I made a show of checking beneath one of the plastic benches by the wall. "Could be dozens of them by now."
A few minutes later, the pool was empty. Larry was already wheeling a heavy steel tank across the tiles. "Laurie's going to kill me when she finds out I swiped this."
"Would you rather die at Laurie's hands or Olara's?"
He actually stopped to think about it. I rolled my eyes, then sat down on the bench and opened Mason's book.
"What are you doing?" Larry asked.
I jabbed the page. "Hold this."
Larry obeyed, and I pressed my fingers flat.
"You said they weren't able to destroy all of Olara's eggs. If anything will get Olara's attention, it's her own child." If I could bring the egg through.
My apprehension must have shown. "What's wrong?" Larry asked.
I pushed down until my nails were white from the pressure. Nothing happened. "Magic requires two things. The first is energy, which comes from the libriomancer. From me. That's part of the reason we can only use our power three times in a single year."
"So you don't run out of energy?" Larry asked.
"Because when we empty ourselves into a book, the book reaches back into us." I gritted my teeth and pressed harder, wondering what would be left of Garth Mason. "The second thing is will. Desire. You have to love stories so much they become real."
"And that's a problem?"
"It didn't used to be," I whispered.
Was that a softening of the page? I shifted my weight and straightened my fingers. The strain made me wince. Much more of this, and either the page would give or my joints would. "For more than a decade, books have been a job. I can't remember the last one I read for the sheer joy of it. We're always skimming the new releases, looking for things we can use. I have to file a report on every damn book I read. It sucks the wonder right out of you."
He didn't understand. I could see it from his expression. He looked like he wanted to shake me. "But you've done magic. How can you not love that?"
"I'm tired, okay? I have to use my power fighting books. Every year, I'm banishing thread back into McCaffrey or trying to trick Aladdin's genie into that damn lamp." I rapped a knuckle against the book. "They're tools. Threats. Occasionally, they're gifts. But they're not stories anymore. Not to me. That's what you give up when you become a libriomancer."
I narrowed my eyes, trying to concentrate on the words in front of me. Over and over I read a single paragraph, visualizing the scene until I could feel the warm stone of the cave and see the sickly green emanations of some sort of luminescent fungus.
Cynicism robbed me of desire. Glow-in-the-dark fungus was just one more overused cliché. Mason was a mediocre writer at best. He might be in love with his own words, but I wasn't.
I turned away, flexing my fingers to help the bloodflow. With my other hand, I opened Smudge's cage. His head twitched slightly, the first time he had moved since the fight in Mason's room.
Desire came in many shapes. Either I stopped Olara, or Smudge died.
My hand punched through to the cold air of the cave. The egg was heavier than I expected, and barely fit through the pages of the book. I left a bit of skin behind in Olara's cave, but I had what I needed.
The crystalline shell reminded me of Olara's spiders, but more chaotic. Bumpy shafts of cloudy crystal covered the egg. Some were small as warts, while other protrusions were the size of my thumb.
I cradled the egg in one arm. "Help me get the nitrogen to the far side of the pool, then take Smudge and get out of sight."
They were faster th
an I had expected. We had just finished setting up the nitrogen canister when the lock splintered and the door swung inward.
Olara the spider queen stepped through the doorway. She didn't look quite the way she appeared on the cover. Her body was more slender. Veins of red ran through her armor. She carried a jagged sword of blood-red crystal. Every time she moved, it sounded like someone had dropped a chandelier.
Garth Mason followed, along with at least a dozen of Olara's spiders.
I've only seen full-blown possession twice in my life, and it's not a pretty sight. The book becomes the author, rewriting your memories, your personality, even your thoughts. The author's mind remains, but it's like a palimpsest, a page which has been written on again and again until the original text is almost illegible.
"What's wrong with him?" Larry asked.
"He's spent too much of his power to bring Olara through. He had nothing left to protect himself." How many characters had clawed their way from the pages into Garth Mason's mind? Even the heroes wouldn't hesitate to destroy him. It was instinctive, like a drowning man so desperate to live that he drags his rescuer down.
Drool dribbled from Mason's chin. He still clutched his book with both hands. As I watched, another of Olara's spiders poked through the cover and jumped down to join its fellows.
"Not good," I muttered. The book had been torn open so many times it was little better than a revolving door. "You've got to get that book away from him."
"I've wanted an excuse to deck him since Thursday. You should see the way he's been treating the con staff." Larry plowed shoulder-first into Garth Mason, knocking him to the floor.
I turned my attention to Olara.
"You have my daughter," Olara said. Her voice was beautiful, like a trained singer. Deep and smooth and seductive. "How did you find her? I don't understand."
She sounded like a child, lost and confused. I could see shadows moving within the crystal, twitching limbs and black mandibles.
"Leave her alone!" Mason shouted. He and Larry were still struggling for the book.
"I can't." Even though I knew better, I still hesitated. Mason was a perverse version of Pygmalion, and Olara was his Galatea. Holding the egg close, I said to her, "He loves you, you know."