Eventually they caught up with a figure lying face-down in the snow. It wasn't Eir, Randur saw with a stab of relief. This was the spokeswoman whose hand he had severed. Lingering over her corpse, they realized she must have bled to death there in the darkness.
They moved on, the tracks accumulating, indicating that the intruders came along this path often. It sloped upwards, to the left, towards the cliff face.
And into the rock caves.
'The hell am I going in there,' Munio muttered.
'Fuck yourself then.' Randur continued forward with Rika, leaving his old tutor outside in the dark. He didn't care what was waiting for him – he would get Eir back, or else die trying.
A few moments later, a cry, 'Wait!'
Eventually Munio caught up, but was breathless because of the additional sprint. He panted, 'I can't have you lot all killing yourselves.'
Rika led the way to the entrance, while Randur gripped his blade in anticipation, switching his mind into that lethal zone, ready to be as savage as was needed. Torchlight picked out stalagmites and stalactites, so it seemed that everywhere they looked they were staring into the jaws of some rock beast. Would they ever find Eir in this maze? The surfaces had been weathered so intensely they looked wrinkled with age. In places the stone sagged. They passed mirror pools and zones drenched with bat excrement. The path itself was smooth from years of use, and Randur reckoned that the white-skinned race might not be merely hiding down here, but actually lived here – which would explain the lack of pigmentation in their skins.
Eventually the same path narrowed, before expanding into a larger cavern. Despite the absence of light they noted several exits on the opposite side.
'Down there, look.' Rika was pointing to a pool of water.
A pile of metallic objects was barely visible, a motionless form lying alongside. Randur's heart missed a few beats. They edged their way down cautiously, after detecting an ancient stairway smoothed out of the rock.
'Eir!' Randur called out, the echo of his voice strangely prolonged.
She lay flat on her back at the foot of the stairway, rubbing one hand over her face.
He sprinted to her side and skidded on to his knees. No blood, no wounds, nothing to denote she'd been suffering any pain. 'How do you feel?' he gasped.
'I'm fine. My head's a little sore, as is my neck, but I'm fine.' He helped her sit up and she buried her head in his shoulder. She was shaking and he did his best to comfort her.
Munio nodded at the sight, and stepped this way and that to check for any sign of the white folk. Randur, too, wondered where they'd gone, then he glanced upwards. 'Bohr…' he breathed, and Eir squirmed away from him to follow his gaze.
The torchlight reflected off an array of surfaces, gold, silver, copper, brass – hundreds of coins and ornaments, bangles and rings and necklaces. The hoard was vast, extending like a money-beach. Sloping downwards, it descended into a deep pool which bore evidence of rust, the centuries of decay evident.
Randur lifted Eir up in his arms, and they slowly skirted the rim of the treasure, sifting through it with their feet, totally in awe.
Munio crouched, with a groan, to examine some of the coins in more detail, asking for Rika to lower the torch. 'Some of these… they're positively ancient. Long before Emperors Gulion and Haldun. Look, this even has Goltang's image! Well I never… I've never seen such… such wealth,' he muttered.
'My necklace,' Eir whispered, exploring her skin with one hand. 'It's gone. They must have stolen it.'
'They might have even taken you just for your necklace,' Randur suggested. 'These people, it looks like they've been bringing all these trinkets down here for hundreds of years, and without anyone knowing about them.'
'Millennia!' Munio examined a piece under the light of Rika's torch. 'This here is from the Azimuth era.'
Randur noted how the old man was slyly filling his pockets with some of the trinkets, but thought better than to query it.
This seemed unreal, for an entire community to lead little more than a magpie existence, obsessed with anything that glittered. How long ago must they have fallen away from the surface world, evolving to become those ghosts who had butchered the horse?
'Look at these markings on the walls.' Rika brought the light nearer to an area of pale stone that had been noticeably smoothed away. Rock-script bled across it. 'These are deliberate markings, symbols or equations. I've never studied the subject in any detail, but I believe this could be the Mathema language.'
The jagged lines were painted in startlingly bright pigments, yellow and red, the workings of a culture tens of thousands of years old. The notion was absurd, because the writing seemed so fresh.
'Vectors,' Rika whispered. 'Geometric patterns, algebra. Integration… And yet the graffiti scribbled around it all seem like…'
'The scrawls of madmen,' Randur mumbled, studying the ragged scripts. Vaguely, one set of symbols spelled out:
To Randur it resembled 'HELP US' and he was hardly surprised they had gone mad because of all the mathematics…
'So is this what eventually happened to that great civilization, then?' Eir suggested. 'I always thought it was crop failure that wiped them out. Surely they couldn't just simply vanish underground while chasing treasure.'
There was a noise nearby, an inhalation of breath, and Randur peered towards the dark exits beyond. Sets of orbs began faintly glowing blue, two, four, then an almost exponential rate of appearance.
'They won't come at us – not with that torch.' Randur glanced to Rika, as if to ask How long will it last?
'I've plenty of sulphur and lime, and matches if it runs out,' she said. 'We're quite safe.'
They returned their gaze to the hoard and the script, independently investigating their discoveries. For some time they patrolled the area to investigate.
There was a weird and distant howl, like a fractured incantation. The group glanced at each other and readied themselves for a fight, but nothing followed. A tension persisted in the air, though, as if someone had triggered a relic. Sounds began to act abnormally, voices hanging disturbingly in the gloom. Reverberations of their footsteps became suddenly muted.
Then there was the clink-clink-clink of metal.
Coins skimmed back and forth across the floor, rolling over each other, rupturing the surface of the water. Of their own accord, the countless metallic discs began to aggregate and spool, to form a figure.
They massed, stacked and banked up, forming a torso and arms and legs, which then pushed themselves up from the mirror-pool. Resting on top of a vague metal head was a semi-shattered rust-crown.
A coin golem?
The four scrambled back up the stairway as the metal entity strode out of the pool, its legs and feet buckling rustily as it gained control of its own movements. Randur hovered at the rear, now feeling utterly useless, because it would take much more than a couple of sword strokes to bring this bastard down. Stretching upwards, the thing's head nearly scraped the roof of the cavern, sending individual discs slipping away from it like drops of water.
It began to lumber after them, vast and awkward, and making a hell of a racket.
They ran.
'Stick together and aim for narrow passageways!' Randur shouted. 'I doubt it can fit through many of them.'
'Nor do I,' Munio called back.
Light from the torch dipped as they entered pockets of stale air, retracing their route. The occasional enforced darkness made for an unlikely escape. The path narrowed, opened up again. Randur desperately wanted to pause to check on the state of the golem following them. He could still hear the rattle of metal against stone as its body clipped the outcrops of rock, spilling metal-flesh each time. It was in pursuit, but what he wanted to see was how much of it was left.
The air became fresher and colder as the outside world beckoned them again.
A burst of the glade, the stars above, the glow of snow – and they bundled out, breathlessly slipping and sliding dow
n the slope. Behind them, the coin golem was nowhere to be seen.
Randur felt his heart slapping inside him, and he crouched on his hands and knees until he regained his composure.
'Next time,' Munio growled, 'don't let's go getting any stupid ideas about following things into dark places, right?'
'We had to rescue Eir,' Randur reminded him. 'Anyway, I wanted to know who they were.'
'I'll tell you one thing,' Eir panted, 'I'll be glad not to come across any money again in a hurry.'
As the two of them embraced, Randur peered over her shoulder, into the darkness.
She whispered into his ear, 'Thank you for coming to get me.'
'You're our main cook now,' he replied. 'Can't have you dying on us.'
TWENTY-NINE
It was called ballooning, and it was how spiders would colonize new territory.
By the open window of Voland's upstairs study, it shuddered and jutted into its new state, organs and segments unfolding in the small, candlelit room. It watched its shadow, double, triple in size against the wall.
The thing bloomed.
Under its abdomen, four glands drooled out the tougher silk it needed. It could secrete silk from its mouth also, a freak biological error that had somehow occurred, but the toughest material came from underneath. The texture began to solidify, then it quickly spun it, flattened it, elongated it, then globulated it. The spider crawled next to the window, draped those masses of silk outside, manipulated it in the air, till soon the wind caught it, began to fill it and, as this gossamer balloon became five times its size, it was hauled out into the skies above Villiren.
In this form it could not feel the bite of ice-tainted air, and so drifted along with a sense of freedom and comfort. Despite the clear skies, the twin moons were concealed by the bulk of the planet, leaving the creature with the advantage of the night. Tugging at silk strands it tilted the balloon this way and that, sensed changes in the currents above and below and took advantage as and when it pleased. Even around midnight, the city was unsurprisingly alive, so it had to choose its routes carefully so that the taller buildings obscured its passage overhead – not an easy job in Villiren, especially towards the southern section of the city. From up here, the movement of all those people registered visually as minute vibrations, minuscule alterations within hundreds of microclimates.
The spider floated above the border between Scarhouse and Althing, the Citadel almost behind. Knowing that the most proficient military gathered there, it did not want to risk being seen by a skilled archer, brought down in a nest of fine swordsmen. Over the Shanties, behind the old harbour of Port Nostalgia housing retired dockworkers and miners. The side along the coast would be particularly quiet, away from the main hubbub, and with a couple of its legs it began to pull at the threads so as to diminish the volume of the balloon.
Descending onto a small, flat roof, the gossamer collapsed to one side like a deflated corpse. It would need to re-inflate it for the return journey, but for now it untangled itself then scuttled over to the edge of the roof, peering at the movement of people down on the street.
Observing. Waiting.
Voland needed good-quality meat, enough to feed a few families for a little while longer, enough to keep the price of food a little lower. It was never a question of morality – Voland being an intellectual – they were merely serving the greater good. It could always rely on him, having endowed it as his arachnid-construct, injecting it with gifts at which it could only marvel.
There: four men in military uniform, all with bottles in their hands, shambling along an isolated alleyway, leaning in and out of varying shadows of the night, sometimes laughing, ultimately oblivious.
The creature waited for a fiacre to move by, then spat out a strand of thin webbing for a swift descent into the cobbled street below. There, it watched the men from a new perspective, moving away between rows of buildings that loomed high and featureless and continuous. A trilobite ran across its path, waist high and with antennae sifting the air, and when registering its presence the little creature emitted a high-pitched noise. With one hook-shaped foot the spider stamped down on it with a mild, clattering implosion.
One of the soldiers heard the sound, and turned and screamed and drew his sword and quickly the others did likewise. They advanced towards it, a tight line. Then three of them stood still, while one edged forward. The spider spat silk in his face and, as he drew his hands upwards, it spewed its quietus, knocking him askew with one leg. Six legs spread wide, it leapt forward over the other men and shoved them onto the ground with their weapons collapsing around them. Like a leaking wound, the spider oozed silk onto their pain-stricken faces, till soon their desperate movements diminished to a helpless twitching. Then nothing.
So simple, so quick.
It gathered up the first victim, then lined them all up, and for a moment it did nothing but simply watch them, and sense for any reactions.
There were none.
As it was seeing to their transportation, by hauling the bodies around the corner, another figure in similar uniform came by. Savagely it lashed out at the newcomer with its jaws, ripping his torso down the middle. Blood surged across the cobbles as it nudged the corpse behind some piles of waste food.
The spider lugged the bodies one by one up to the roof, then considered the problem of carrying this extra weight. It spent a while spinning more balloons, then bound them together, like giant frogspawn.
Deep night drew across Villiren. Clouds gathered momentum, overpowering starlight. The sound of the tide lapping the harbour walls and up against Port Nostalgia. Gentle sparks of snow drifted down, bringing with them a strange sense of calm.
And as the spider ascended, it sensed that in one of the side streets below, some hybrid human wrapped in black was coughing and retching into a gutter, a silent scream on his lips. But it did not have the time to ascertain what it might be.
*
Brynd kicked the sword away and sent it skittering across the cobbles past Nelum's feet. His lieutenant looked up startled, but at the moment Brynd didn't care. A distance had grown between them anyway, a barrier caused by red-hot secrets and speculations.
Right now, Brynd's concern was for what was happening out on the streets of Villiren. Already his day was ruined. Dawn was some minutes away, the horizon barely any lighter than the cityscape, and here he was, witnessing a scene where yet more soldiers had vanished. Those swords lying on the ground were imperial blades all right, the runework was there for all to see.
The man who had summoned them was a rubicund, elderly type, clothed in thick layers of ragged cloth, with a manic look in his eyes as if he was possessed.
'Just here, right here, yes,' the man muttered, rubbing his hands over and over again. 'I's asleep at first, in the refuse – nice and warm it is there – and then when I hear screams and such, and afterwards I get up and… like I said, at the end I wanted to be getting away from that one over there.' His outstretched hand was directed towards a slender man standing hunched against the wall, his collar turned up, emitting tendrils of smoke from a roll-up, and there was something distinctly civilized about his appearance.
'He responsible?' Brynd asked.
'Ha! Not him, like, but he can vouch for me.'
Brynd glanced at Nelum and they both stepped over to the stranger.
'You have a name?' Brynd demanded.
Dressed entirely in black and with traces of musk about him, the man regarded Brynd with an almost alien detachment. Although vaguely familiar, his pale face looked distinctly unhealthy, and there was something febrile about his mannerisms.
'Dannan,' he replied.
Suddenly the name rang a bell, and Brynd relaxed. 'You're the leader of a gang, aren't you? I didn't recognize you out here, my apologies. Could you tell me what the hell happened here?'
'Spider,' Dannan announced, then went on to describe the creature in terse whispers. This was a different man from the coxcomb gang leader he had
seen across a table. Illness seemed to plague him now. 'Twice as tall as a man at least.'
Brynd could hardly believe what he was hearing. 'Why were you here – some gang business?'
'I was merely enjoying the night. Felt that something was going to happen, is all. Happens to me sometimes.'
'And you, what, just came here to watch this performance? I don't understand why.'
With a disturbing smile, the man nodded. 'I can always sense death, but can do nothing about it.' And he gestured with a wave of his hand towards the corner where he had vomited.
The old man edged into the conversation, though hunching fearfully away from Dannan. 'BanHe, this one – likes death, so the word on the street goes. You have your witch women in Villjamur, doncha? Well this is a male one.'
Brynd was used to the eccentricities on the streets of Villjamur, but back in his home city it was easy to comprehend which were merely wild stories.
Out here, he didn't know what to believe.
*
Eventually the rumel investigator arrived, his hat tipped aslant across his eyes. He was clutching a pastry and, with his mouth half-full he mumbled, 'I got your damn message. You realize what time it is?'
'Four more,' Brynd announced. That message had been sent ages ago, and yet the investigator had stopped off at a bakery to fill his gut even more. 'Four soldiers gone tonight, and these two men here are actual witnesses.'
Information was exchanged between them until Jeryd was fully briefed. He then examined the scene, noted the remnants of a giant trilobite, the discarded swords, the precise location. Now and then he'd nod as if what he was seeing confirmed some hunch. At one point he took a blade from his boot, and scraped some residue off the cobbles. As he returned he grumbled, 'Spider, eh?' The rumel suddenly seemed on edge.
'That's what they claim,' Brynd admitted. 'But I'm doubtful something of such a size could remain concealed in a city as populous as this. Someone would be bound to spot something sooner or later.'
'Don't be so sure. You can stay hidden very easily, when you don't want to be seen.' Jeryd held out his blade from which drooped strands of some substance.
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