by David Drake
“Vascay!” Garric called. The peg-legged chieftain wasn't running, and Lord Thalemos stood at his side with his arms crossed in aristocratic disregard for danger. The boy wasn't much use in some ways, but Garric hadn't seen any reason to fault his courage. “Hold where you are! There's a way out!”
He wasn't sure that the catacombs would save them, but a few armed men in a tunnel could hold off a thousand ... for a time. Garric laughed as Carus would have laughed. That's all life was, after all, time added to time until there was no more to add.
Ademos had ducked over the corniche, perhaps hoping to hide among the broken rocks below. He reappeared, flailing his arms in his panic. He'd lost the golden brassards already, and as he stumbled onto the plain he flung away the looted gorget.
Behind Ademos, climbing the cliff like ants making their way up a step, came a score of Archai cluttering in metallic voices. They marched past Metron, ignoring Vascay and Thalemos as well, and began to form a line facing the oncoming lizardmen.
The Archai raised their saw-edged forearms, waiting. More of their fellows followed; Metron was raising a whole army of insectile monsters to battle the Intercessor's forces.
Garric drew his sword and ran past the Archai, braced for them to slash at him with their poised arms. They didn't even turn their heads.
“Come on!” Garric shouted. “We've got to get out of here!”
The appearance of Metron's allies hadn't changed Garric's mind about that. He grinned coldly. In fact, that had made him even more sure that this was no place for humans to remain.
Ilna hung in a sea of pearly light. She felt a wrench and found herself lying on a bed of rock like that of the cave.
Like, but not the same. She was in a shallow valley lighted by soft sunlight which something in the sky diffused. The barrier wasn't the solid rock ceiling she'd watched while Alecto chanted, but neither was it the kind of overcast Ilna had seen in normal skies. There was a pattern to these thin streaks and whorls; she thought she could grasp it if she bent her mind to the task in just the right way... .
The valley was sparsely forested. Pines and the smaller hardwoods like dogwood and hornbeam had managed to lodge their roots in the thin soil. There were tufts and hummocks of grass, sufficient to keep goats if not sheep like those used to the lush pastures of Barca's Hamlet. At the far end a sheer basalt escarpment closed a trough in the softer limestone.
From the trees and on outcrops of rock hung the webs of spiders whose bodies were as big as a hog's. They stared at Ilna with multiple glittering eyes.
Ilna had come—she'd been brought—to the spider-swathed hellworld which Tenoctris had found in the brain of the dead Echeus. She didn't know how she'd gotten here, and it seemed very unlikely that she'd have time to find a way out.
Ilna stood because it seemed undignified to die lying down. A silver-and-black spider the size of a bull had left its web and was walking toward her on legs as thick as Ilna's own. The tree which anchored one side of the structure of wrist-thick silk was a hundred and fifty feet high, but it swayed to be free of the spider's weight. Her steps had a mincing precision like those of a crab underwater.
Ilna took out her hank of cords. It was her pride that she could control any living creature which had eyes to read her patterns; were this spider alone, she could hold it till sundown.
It wasn't alone. The valley held more of the creatures than there were people in a Valles tenement. The smallest of them was as big as a dog, and even without poison their fangs could tear her apart.
This wasn't the way Ilna would have chosen to die. She smiled coldly. Well, that was all right; she hadn't chosen it.
GREETINGS AND HONOR, ILNA OS-KENSET, said a voice in her mind. WE TO WHOM WEAVING IS LIFE BOW TO YOU, WHO ARE A GREATER WEAVER YET.
SHE FEARS US, said another mental voice. SHE HAS NO REASON TO FEAR. WE ARE HER FRIENDS AND HER DISCIPLES.
WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS AND DISCIPLES, ILNA, agreed a chorus, each tone different but the thoughts all the same.
“You're the spiders,” Ilna said. Her gut didn't believe it, but she kept her voice flat because her intellect knew beyond a doubt that she was right.
WE ARE SPIDERS, the first voice said. The black-and-silver giant facing Ilna nodded her fused head and thorax to punctuate the statement. HAVE YOU COME TO OUR WORLD TO TEACH US?
Ilna frowned at the idea. “I didn't mean to come here,” she said. “I don't know why I'm here, I don't even know where I am.”
She'd started to say, “Perhaps I'm here by accident,” but before the words came out she realized they were absurd. She didn't know why she was in the place that Echeus had feared, but it couldn't reasonably have been the result of coincidence! You didn't have to read patterns the way Ilna did to see that. The giant bowed again, and said, WHATEVER THE CAUSE, WE ARE PLEASED AT YOUR PRESENCE. WOULD YOU VIEW THIS PLACE, ILNA? WE CATCH GLIMPSES OF YOUR WORLD WHERE THE BARRIER IS THIN, BUT WE RARELY HAVE VISITORS LIKE YOU.
“Yes, show me... ." Ilna said. She rubbed her eyes; she hated spiders. Opening her eyes again and facing the huge spider, she went on, “Where are we? It's not my world, you say; what is it, then?”
TAKE HER TO THE MOUND, said another voice.
TAKE HER TO THE MOUND, the chorus echoed, AND LET HER SEE HER OWN WORLD.
WILL YOU COME WITH ME TO THE MOUND, ILNA? asked the black-and-silver giant. She pointed to the nearby wall of black basalt; all joints of her foreleg sprouted tufts of silver hair. YOU CAN SEE YOUR WORLD AS WE DO.
“Yes, all right,” said Ilna. She had to fight an urge to fall to the ground and wrap her arms about herself, moaning. That wouldn't do any good. “Can I return to my world from there?”
The great spider set out, climbing the gentle side slope instead of heading directly toward the vertical escarpment. Despite her size, the spider moved with the care of someone to whom walking is not a natural activity; Ilna had no difficulty keeping pace.
I REGRET THAT THERE IS NO WAY TO GO FROM OUR WORLD TO YOURS, ILNA, the spider said. THE ONE WHO EXILED US HERE MADE CERTAIN OF THAT, THOUGH HIS BARRIER OCCASIONALLY ALLOWS HUMANS LIKE YOURSELF TO VISIT US.
Ilna's diaphragm tightened at the words. The spasm forced a gasp from her; she frowned like an angry hawk, embarrassed by the hint of weakness.
Her face still angry, she looked up at the sky. The barrier that dimmed the sun remained there, streaked and twisted. It was as surely a pattern as anything that came from Ilna's loom. More complex, perhaps—
Ilna caught herself and grimaced at the arrogance she'd allowed into her thoughts. More complex certainly; but that was only a matter of degree. Given a little time and a certain amount of experimentation, she was sure she could solve the puzzle which the hazy sky set her.
“I don't believe that,” she said flatly. “I think there's a way out as surely as my presence here proves there's a way in.”
PERHAPS FOR YOU, ILNA, the spider said. There was agreement and an odd satisfaction to the voice in Ilna's mind. WE ARE NOT AS SKILLED AS YOU, SO WE DO NOT SEE THE PATH.
The other spiders were watching her. Sometimes one of the spectators shifted slightly in her web, turning so that she could stare at Ilna with her bank of simple eyes.
“I...” Ilna said. “You said you'd been exiled here. How is that?”
The question that most puzzled—and concerned—her was what the spiders ate, but even her willingness to believe the worst didn't compel her to say, "Are you going to devour me?” to a hulking giant like her guide. For the moment she was willing to assume they were as friendly as they appeared to be.
MANY AGES BEFORE YOUR RACE AROSE, the spider said, YOUR WORLD WAS RULED BY A RACE OF MEN SPRUNG FROM REPTILES. WE AND THE LIZARDMEN LIVED IN PEACE FOR COUNTLESS YEARS, BUT AT LAST A WIZARD OF THAT RACE SET HIMSELF AGAINST US. THOUGH HIS POWER WAS GREAT, HE COULD NOT DESTROY US UTTERLY. INSTEAD HE FORCED US INTO THIS PLACE, AN ENCLAVE IN THE COSMOS, WHERE WE HAVE NO COMPANY BUT OURSELVES AND THE PLANTS ON WHOM WE LIVE.
Ilna fel
t her chest loosen. She believed—and had said—that she didn't care whether she lived or died, but it appeared that death from the fangs of giant spiders wasn't an experience she could manage to look forward to. She grinned in wry amusement at herself.
“I didn't realize spiders ate plants,” she said. They were nearing the top of the escarpment. The shallow downslope beyond was more heavily forested than the valley in which she'd arrived. Many of the trees were hardwoods—oaks, hickories, and not far away a black walnut. The webs of huge spiders hung from all of them.
WE DRINK PLANT JUICES, ILNA, said her guide. THERE IS NOTHING HERE BUT THE PLANTS AND OURSELVES. WE ARE NOT AS OUR LESSER SISTERS WHO REMAIN IN YOUR WORLD.
They'd reached the bald dome of basalt that blocked the head of the valley. It was the core of an ancient volcano, frozen into a dense plug that remained when the softer surrounding rock weathered away. No trees or lesser vegetation had found a roothold in the black stone, though where windblown grit had collected in hollows it supported occasional clumps of grass.
Ilna stood, wondering why her guide had chosen this location. The spider climbed to the smooth top of the dome and said, WATCH THE BARRIER, ILNA. WATCH THE SKY.
The spider elevated her rear body and raised her hindmost parr of legs. Spinnerets at the tip of the abdomen writhed, squirting an almost transparent fluid which the hind legs teased into growing coils of silk. The strands wove in and around themselves in a pattern that drew Ilna's eyes.
The creature repeated, WATCH THE SKY!
Ilna looked up. The streaks of haze, never more than hints in the pearly sheen, drew themselves into an imposed pattern less complex than the original: they were forming an analogue of the shape the spider wove in her silk. Instead of a uniform light-struck blur, Ilna saw—
“Garric!” she cried; and in the instant she spoke the word, she knew that she was wrong. She saw Garric's body in the clothes and armor of a common soldier as he walked toward the guards at the entrance of a silk-walled tent, but the woman at his side was Sharina. The man wasn't Ilna's childhood friend, but rather the hard-handed warrior who wore Garric's flesh until his soul could be retrieved.
Ilna curled her lips. Tenoctris had sent her to look for reasons and enemies. She'd found some of both; but she hadn't reported back. She'd failed her friends. WE WATCHED YOU OFTEN, ILNA, said her guide. THERE IS NONE LIKE YOU IN ALL THE COSMOS. WE BOW TO YOUR SKILL. THERE IS NO PATTERN THAT YOUR WISDOM CANNOT DISCERN.
Ilna sniffed. She knew her own skills, but she knew also what they had cost her to acquire. She had walked in Hell, and on her return to the waking world she'd done more harm than she could repay in a lifetime. She didn't like to hear others praise the things she was capable of, because she knew well what she might do when anger or envy led her.
“You can view any part of our world from here?” she asked.
The spider twisted the pattern in her hind legs. THIS LOCATION IS A WEAK POINT IN THE BARRIER, she said. IS THERE A THING YOU WOULD ESPECIALLY LIKE TO SEE, ILNA?
Other spiders, hanging in webs that could have held a trireme, watched with the rigid patience that Ilna had seen so often among spiders in her garden. Instinct told her they were malevolent, but she had no reason to believe that save her own hatred.
The pearly sky flowed across the view of Carus and Sharina, then cleared again. Her heart caught again, but this time she didn't speak.
The setting was one she recognized, the sanctum of Moon Wisdom's temple in Donelle. The rites hadn't begun, but several Children of the Mistress made preparations for what was to come.
This time they weren't going to cut the throats of rabbits. The sacrificial animal was trussed and gagged at the edge of the pool. She was a black-haired young girl, naked and trembling from more than the touch of the cold marble on which she lay.
One of the cowled priests was bending over her. When he straightened, Ilna saw the child's face.
This time the victim was Merota.
The spider's legs worked the silk. The image in the sky shimmered, momentarily mirroring the earth below. Ilna frowned. In the reflection she'd seen many long, hairy legs waving skyward in a rhythm that she almost understood.
The image was momentary; the sky re-formed as a window onto her brother Cashel, who stood with a girl Ilna didn't know. They were in a maze formed partly by the braided streams of a river and partly by the stone walls of the city they approached through the fog.
Ilna sensed what her eyes couldn't show her, the danger at the heart of pattern. There was a thing at the center of the maze, but outside that—hovering beyond not only sight but the cosmos, unknown even to the one who waited to trap Cashel—was the Pack. Moon Wisdom had loosed them; but as Alecto had warned, the Pack would not stay on any wizard's leash for long.
The spider crossed her hind legs, unmaking the silken pattern and closing the image in the sky. HE WAS YOUR BROTHER, WAS HE NOT, ILNA? she said in Ilna's mind.
“Yes,” said Ilna tightly. “That was Cashel. I—”
She'd been about to ask to be left alone to study the sky—study the barrier—without distraction. Before she got the words out, her guide had opened another window onto the world Ilna had left. She saw the real Garric clambering through torchlit gloom with his sword lifted. Ahead of him—
Ahead of Garric was whirling blackness, not the thing itself but a cloak which concealed the thing from Ilna's eyes. All she could be sure of was that the creature was powerful, and that it was hostile to Garric and to all life except its own.
Her guide's legs moved, closing the barrier again. This time the closure was permanent: she bent a hind leg forward, carrying the wad of silk to her mouth. Her jaw-plates chewed the silk methodically before she swallowed it again.
YOUR FRIENDS NEED HELP, ILNA, said the voice in her mind.
“Yes,” she said grimly. She held her hank of cords, but her fingers were knotting and unknotting them to settle her mind rather than with any considered purpose. Purpose would come.
“Mistress,” she said. What do you call a giant spider? “I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me to my own devices for a time. I think it's possible to open the barrier from this side, but it's going to require some thought. Is that agreeable to you?”
WHATEVER YOU WISH, ILNA, said her guide. YOUR SKILL IS GREATER THAN OURS.
Ilna seated herself on the basalt, looking up at the sky. The black-and-silver giant stepped away, picking her path down toward her web.
WE ARE YOUR DISCIPLES, chorused the denizens of this world. WE WILL LEARN FROM YOU.
Chapter Twenty-One
By the time the sun had risen a finger's breadth above the horizon, the fog had burned off. Cashel looked over his shoulder and for the first time saw the other bank of the river. He chuckled.
Tilphosa, curled in the stern of the boat, jerked awake at the sound. “What?” she said. “Cashel, is everything all right?”
“I don't know about everything,” Cashel said with a shy grin. “But better off than a little bit ago, sure. See the land, Tilphosa?”
“Yes,” she said, squinting into the low sun. She sounded doubtful. “It looks marshy, doesn't it?”
“Right,” said Cashel, “but it's land. I've been rowing all night. I was beginning to think it wasn't a river at all but a lake that I wasn't going to get across in this lifetime.”
“Oh!” said Tilphosa. She turned and looked west, toward where Soong ought to be. The city was still there, Cashel supposed, but it was long out of sight in their wake. “Cashel, you've been rowing all night? What do your palms look like?”
She leaned forward and unwrapped the fingers of his right hand from the oarloom. “I'm fine, mistress,” Cashel said in embarrassment. “I'm used to this sort of thing.”
That was true enough. His calluses had faced worse than a night of rowing, and the same was true of his shoulder muscles. Even so, Tilphosa looked at him with mingled anger and sympathy.
“Well, stop right now!” she said. “It isn't right that
anyone be worked like that!”
“It isn't somebody making me do it, mistress,” Cashel said calmly. “It's me doing it. I choose to.”
“Well, then choose—” the girl said sharply.
“Mistress,” said Cashel, loudly enough to be heard. “I don't want to float here in the middle of a river till we starve. It's that or else me rowing us the rest of the way to land. All right?”
Tilphosa's eyes flashed; then she lowered them, and quietly said, "All right, Cashel. Are you going to take us to the city there?”
“Huh?” said Cashel, looking over his shoulder again. The buildings rising out of the mud and mists were several stories high, gleaming as sunlight struck their wet stone. Granted that the fog was still clearing, he'd have thought he'd have seen them... .
“That's funny,” Cashel said. “But sure, we'll head for the city. You guide me if the current pulls us off course, all right?”
He resumed rowing. That last was just a way to be friendly to the girl after he'd told her to stop mothering him. The chance of this river's sluggish current drifting him downstream unnoticed was about the same as Cashel sprouting wings and flying to the city.
He smiled at Tilphosa. He'd had his sister to mother him, and Ilna wasn't one to claim hard work was a bad thing for a man—or a slip of a girl like herself, either. Tilphosa was tough and in her way strong, but she didn't have any notion of what was normal for peasants like Cashel.
“I lost my dagger,” the girl said suddenly. “I don't have...”
She had the tunic she'd worn to bed, period. Well, there hadn't been any time since then to do more than to keep moving.
“Maybe you won't need it,” Cashel said calmly. When you really didn't know what was going to happen next, there was no point in deciding it was going to be bad. “Anyway, I've still got my staff.”