by Stefon Mears
Amra smiled and drew her sword. Cavan nodded and drew his. Ehren sighed and took his staff in hand.
“You might as well come down,” Cavan called. “We know you’re there. We don’t want trouble, but we’re ready to defend ourselves. So whatever it is you want, let’s get this over with.”
What jumped down from the trees was too big to properly call a “spider.” Cavan had seen spiders over the years. Countless spiders. Most of them no bigger than his toenails. Maybe a dozen or two as big as the last joint on his thumb. Perhaps a half-dozen as big as his palm or his whole hand.
The thing that landed quietly in the middle of the road was a spider the same way the gigantic trees mixed in among the forest around them were pine trees — similar in look, but different by orders of magnitude.
It was bigger than their horses. Bigger than all three of their horses. So big that the tips of its eight legs straddled the path ahead of Cavan.
Its whole hairy body was shades of gray. Cavan might have noted a pattern, except two things drew his attention. The first were its dozens of eyes, blacker than the night sky. Black as the mountain behind them had been, but without any glimmer or reflected shine to them. The second were its fangs, each as long as Amra’s sword and dripping a pungent, pale gray venom that curled Cavan’s nose.
His stomach tightened up in primal fear. All along his spine, nerves shouted that this thing shouldn’t exist. And Ehren might have had a point about breathing, because Cavan felt like he might never breathe again.
But training at both wizardry and war had taught him to operate even when frozen in terror. That was why Cavan noticed that his horse didn’t rear. Didn’t buck. Didn’t bolt. Didn’t seem to react at all to a sight and smell that should have sent even a fully trained warhorse into a frenzy of self-preservation.
But he noted that only in the back of his head. The cool, collected part of him knew it had a job to do. So his voice sounded surprisingly calm when Cavan said, “Thank you. Please understand that we do not wish trouble with you, but we will defend ourselves if we must. Great need requires us to ride this path to its end. So, please, stand aside and let us pass.”
Like the corpses, the spider spoke in a hollow voice, with nothing moving on its body. Not even its venomous fangs.
“Mmmmmeat,” it said.
“We have some rations,” said Ehren who, damn him, looked as completely composed and unafraid as Cavan had ever seen him. “We would be happy to share.”
“Frrrrresh mmmmmeat.”
“We don’t carry fresh meat,” Amra said. She, at least, had the grace to look pale. “We’d have to hunt. And I doubt we’d find much here.”
“Chooooose.”
“You can’t have our horses,” Cavan said, raising his sword, “and you certainly can’t have us. So ask for something else.”
“Chooooose.”
“Fine. We choose you. Eat yourself.”
“Chooooose.”
Amra got as far as “Your—” before Ehren cut her off, visibly speaking to Cavan and Amra and not the spider. “No jokes. It’s asked three times. Ritual. What if we—”
“We’re not giving it anything,” Cavan said, refusing to take his eyes off the spider. His stomach settled now as the readiness to fight flowed through his veins. “No sacrifices. No offerings. No parts of ourselves left behind here. And I won’t consign our horses to that fate either.” Cavan shook his head. “Besides, I refuse to be robbed by a spider.”
The spider lowered itself, either to block the path more completely or readying itself to spring. Cavan stood in his stirrups and pointed his sword at the great monster.
“I called and you answered. I thank you for that. I asked what you wanted, and you answered. I thank you for that as well. But you seem to have mistaken curiosity for weakness. We are not your food. We are not your prey. So if all you want is meat, seek it elsewhere. We are travelers.” Cavan lent steel to his tone as he said, “And you are in our way.”
The spider sprang.
* * *
It should have cast a shadow. So gigantic a spider, leaping into the air. Forelegs raised. Fangs wide and dripping. But in this lightless, darkless place between, everything was shadows, and nothing cast shadows.
A flicker of thought through Cavan’s mind. No more. It got as little attention as the foul, pungent smell of the thing’s dripping fangs. Because Cavan had been waiting for the telltale twitches that told him the spider was about to spring. Like a tiny ripple of movement through the joints. Something he’d seen countless times in the miniscule things he was used to thinking of as spiders, especially in the tower of Master Powys.
And the moment he saw that same ripple go through the limbs of the gigantic thing in the shape of a spider, Cavan whistled the charge.
The horses bolted forward. As they’d been trained. Cavan held his sword high, ready to block any kicking leg or stabbing fang from the airborne creature. Ehren held his staff two-handed, likewise ready.
Amra chose to attack.
She swung her sword toward the sharp black tip of the nearest spider leg. Her dark blade sheared right through it. Black ichor gushed forth, smelling of rot. Amra tried to twist the blade and reach for the belly of the beast, but it was too high, too close to the apex where horse and spider crossed.
Cavan jammed his sword back into his scabbard. He leaned forward, egging Dzint for more speed while digging through his pouch of spells. Beside him he could hear Ehren’s voice weaving prayers out of syllables of Penthix.
“Landed,” Amra said, watching the rear as the horses galloped. “Turning. Running.”
Cavan held a spell between his fingers. Or at least, the physical part — if physical was the right word in this place. He held a spell he didn’t want to cast. A spell he’d always had trouble controlling. And a forest was the worst place to cast it.
But this wasn’t really a forest, he told himself. Any more than that was really a giant spider chasing them. Any more than actual corpses had gotten up and tried to hang him.
Weak words. They might not have been enough to make him raise the charcoal seeds where he could see them. Where he could breathe power across them.
But those fangs. Those humongous dripping fangs. One bite and any one of them were done for.
So Cavan did raise those charcoal seeds, and he did breathe power across them.
And he flung them hard over his shoulder as he yelled out, “Ze axa nah!”
Boom.
The spell called forth pure fire. Primal fire. Fire that sprang not from wood or lightning or friction, but from its essential nature. Spirit given form. When Master Powys taught Cavan that spell, the great wizard had emphasized the importance of control. Of burning out an obstacle or — in emergencies — a foe. But never letting it get out of hand.
Had Cavan called that spell in a town, or a keep, or a dirt road, he could have controlled it. In a nice, wet forest, he could have kept the damage to a minimum.
But this was not a wet forest in the world Cavan knew. This was the place between, where spirit took form readily.
And fire did what it does best.
Consume.
The explosion lent color to the gray world. A great orange light, and a hot wind that blew Cavan’s hair and roughspun cloak forward. Amra, who had been looking back, threw her arm over her face, cringing away.
The world was not a cold place now. It was hot as a dry summer day in the desert.
And in the heat behind him, something screamed.
Cavan risked a glance over his shoulder.
The great spider lay crumpled, twitching and burning with orange flame, legs up. And it did not burn alone. The needles that formed the path behind them burned just as bright. And the trees nearby took flame like seasoned wood.
Cavan whistled the charge again, urging the horses to greater speed.
“A bit excessive,” Ehren said, “don’t you think?”
Cavan didn’t bother responding. But he did glance bac
k to make sure the great monster was dead.
It was. All signs of movement gone from it now, and the flames surrounding it fading to gray. In fact, all the flames were gray now, as though they’d never been orange at all. But orange or gray, the fire spread.
It burned its way out into the forest. It burned its way along the path toward them. It burned its way up among the branches, heading for the canopy.
“More spiders incoming,” Amra said, looking up into the now-blazing canopy. She’d sheathed her sword, both hands on the reins.
“Don’t throw that spell at them,” Ehren said.
“I’m not trying to kill us,” Cavan said.
“Could have fooled me,” Ehren said.
“Did you want to feel those fangs?”
“Focus!” Amra yelled. “Ride hard.”
Cavan leaned forward in the saddle, urging Dzint to the best speed his blue roan could manage. Which was impressive, even for a hobby. From the corners of his eyes, he could see Ehren and Amra doing the same on their blonde chestnut and bay.
Cavan’s guts felt tight as his shoulders. His hands stayed light on the reins out of habit, but he had to keep working his jaw to keep it loose. So much fire. So many spiders.
So many ways this could go so very wrong.
Fortunately, it seemed the other giant spiders had figured out the riders were the source of the fire. They fled from the flames, but showed no signs of interest in Cavan and his friends as they sped past.
The same could not be said of the fire. It spread faster than it should have. Faster than it could have in a normal forest. Perhaps because these trees burned easier. Perhaps because of the nature of the fire in this place. Or perhaps, in this place between, the fire sought a home in the one who summoned it.
Cavan didn’t know and he didn’t want to find out.
So as the fire spread around them he pressed for more speed. All three horses should have been frothing by now. Fast as they were riding. But no froth came, any more than sweat formed on Cavan’s brow under all this heat.
“Oltoss!” Ehren yelled. “Oltoss!”
Oltoss? Did Ehren see it or…
Cavan would have smacked his forehead if he could have risked taking a hand off the reins. Of course. Oltoss. Their destination. Focus mattered more here than speed.
But the fire crept ever closer. Cavan was sure he could feel flames licking at his boots.
He refused to look. Instead he focused on Oltoss. Not Oltoss proper, the capitol city where the king made his home, but on Tradeton, the town where Cavan grew up, perhaps a half-day’s ride from the capitol. The town that was Oltoss, for Cavan…
Cobblestone streets in reds, grays and browns. The stones pulled from the nearby twin rivers. Oaks, ashes and elms everywhere. In the springtime, bluebirds and robins sang their battles for supremacy. And all through the town Cavan would have sworn he could smell bread baking. Homes, inns, even taverns, all baking those dark rye loaves. With a nutty edge that bordered on cinnamon, found only found in Oltoss bread.
Loaves so rich and thick one loaf could sustain a man for two days of hard work. The last bite every bit as good as the first.
Cavan had grown up eating that dark rye bread, and it was Oltoss every bit as much as those cobblestone streets and the two-story stone-and-wood house where Kent had made Cavan welcome. He could remember one summer day — perhaps his sixth summer — tearing hard to split a small loaf between himself and Jamse, his best friend.
Jamse! How long had it been since Cavan had seen his freckled face? His carrot-colored hair? He could almost picture Jamse, the way he was that day. Dirt on his sweaty face. Eagerness in those blue eyes, eagerness for his share of the bread they’d earned by—
“Cavan!” Amra yelled, and he realized she was tugging on his cloak.
Cavan blinked.
They were out of the forest.
* * *
Rolling hills of pale gray all around Cavan, along rivers so dark they were almost black. Starless, cloudless night sky above them again, and the world was once more a place of shivery cold. Cavan, Ehren and Amra sat atop their horses in the middle of a narrow path that looked like slate gray dirt.
Well, Cavan and Dzint were in the middle of the path. To Cavan’s left, under Ehren, Highsun’s hooves dented pale gray grass. Much as Caramel’s hooves did under Amra, to Cavan’s right. The path was only truly wide enough for them to ride single file. Why were they risking letting their horses’ hooves off the path?
Wait, why were they sweating? Horses and riders. Only Cavan and Dzint seemed as dry as…
Realization like a low gut punch. Doubled Cavan forward in his saddle. One moment he’d been six years old again. The smell of fresh baked Oltoss rye in his nostrils. Dirt and sweat on his forehead, and on Jamse’s. But that wasn’t right. He’d been here, in this place between. Riding through the fiery woods. Woods burning with flame from his own spell. A spell to burn away that monstrous spider.
“Breathe,” Ehren said, one soothing hand on the back of Cavan’s neck.
“I thought you said we don’t really breathe in this place,” Amra said.
“We don’t,” Ehren said. “And I’m sorry, Cavan, but deep breaths won’t be enough to calm you here. Still, you have the habit of calming. You have the practiced techniques of gathering yourself under stress. Draw on those habits now. Those techniques. They will still serve you here because they are part of who you are.”
Cavan closed his eyes and pulled into himself. Found his center. Who he was.
I am a bastard, he thought. The man between families. The man between professions. I am no one thing. But I am.
It was an old line of thought. Something he developed at first when the well-born looked down on him. Refined through the self-honesty of warrior training, and honed through the self-knowledge of magical training. And so he continued that line of thought. Honest statements about himself, said without judgment.
By the time he opened his eyes again, Cavan was again in control of himself.
“I sweated on the mountain,” he said. “I can remember it gelling on my forehead. But not in the forest. And not here. But you sweat here. Why?”
“I have guesses,” Ehren said. “Not answers. There’s a metaphysical school of thought—”
“It’s an arrow flight,” Amra said with a shrug.
Cavan and Ehren looked at each other, then at her, eyebrows raised.
“You don’t shoot at a distant target by pointing your arrowhead at the target. You have to arc the shot. That forest was probably the middle of the arrow’s flight of our arc through this place. Furthest from …” — she waved her hand — “our world. So the least like it.”
Amra shrugged and went back to surveying the area around them, eyes sharp for the next threat.
Cavan looked over at Ehren. Ehren shrugged. “That’s as good an explanation as any I have.”
“Try not to sound so surprised,” Amra said.
Cavan was on the verge of asking why they were sweating here, but not him, but stopped the question before it could escape his lips. They’d been sitting still long enough.
Wait. Why were they sitting still?
“Why did we stop?” he said. “We were making good time, weren’t we?”
“Too good,” Ehren said. “You were pulling away from us. What were you focusing on?”
Cavan thought of Jamse and the rye bread. He shook his head.
“Old memory. Doesn’t matter.”
“Well, try to include us in the next memory,” Amra said.
Cavan and Ehren looked at each other, eyebrows raised again. Amra was always the one of their three who never wanted to hear how Cavan’s magic or Ehren’s prayers worked.
Could so-very-practical Amra be thinking — finally — about more esoteric matters?
“If you two don’t stop giving each other such shocked looks, I’ll be more than happy to pound serious expressions onto your faces.”
Amra tapped her fist
into her palm and fluttered her eyelashes at them.
“Right,” Cavan said. “Do your horses need a break?”
“No,” Ehren said. “Not here. Not as long as you don’t try to leave us behind again.”
“You’re sure of that?” Amra said, sounding more like the Amra Cavan knew.
“Positive,” Ehren said with a nod.
Cavan clucked his tongue and started Dzint forward. Ehren fell into line behind him, and Amra brought up the rear, all three horses now on the slate gray dirt path.
The path wove between pale gray hillsides, while the near-black rivers rushed silently past.
“Two rivers here,” Cavan said aloud. “And there are two rivers near Oltoss. Does that mean we’re close?”
“I think that lightning bolt of speed you put on earlier means we’re close,” Amra said. Ehren nodded.
“How will we know when we…” Cavan let his words trail off, because he could see the answer ahead of him now. Just barely visible around a bend in the road, between two hills.
There, on a broad, arched stone bridge that was the gray of a forming storm cloud and nearly as tall as the hills they rode among. A tear in the space above the bridge. Paler than the sky, at this angle, but that was all he could tell. Still. Cavan suspected it was just like the tear they rode through from the Hawkspeaker’s ritual site to get to this place between.
At last. At long last, Cavan could see the door back into the real world.
Unfortunately, he could also see a guardian perched in front of it.
At first glance, Cavan had mistaken the guardian for a decoration. It was the same storm cloud gray as the bridge, and it was shaped like a gargoyle. But this gargoyle had bat wings that flexed above the bulging muscles of its humanoid body. And when its head turned to gaze at Cavan, its eyes burned the same vivid orange as the fires of Cavan’s spell.
“Guys,” Cavan said, but didn’t bother saying more because Ehren was already nodding and Amra said, “I see it.”
The gargoyle hopped from the ledge of the bridge to stand in front of the rift in space. It spread its wings and completely covered the rift.
And Cavan would have sworn it was smiling.