“Are you in league with?”
“The Choir?” Chevat interjected. His mysterious smile was unending and overly wide for his sharp features as he flnwul Maialltr mim lltimoil’o Hollo “Xfft tVimiotl T 0i1LmtmbL you mind your weapons and your manners carefully, for my people do not, by tradition, hunt during the Lightning Tide. However, should they feel threatened…”
Chevat let the statement hang on the air as he glanced from Uthalion to Ghaelya, his eyebrow raised as he considered their drawn blades. Ghaelya shared a swift glance and a frustrated sigh with the human before withdrawing her sword, though she did not yet sheathe it. Uthalion took a moment longer, but did the same.
“Your people?” Ghaelya asked.
“Aranea,” Vaasurri answered. “Shapechangers.”
“Spiders…” Brindani added in a sibilant rasp.
Chevat bowed his head once and smiled as if enjoying the sudden discomfort of his guests. Lightning flashed again through the tight edges of the trapdoor, and the glowing roots flickered, allowing Ghaelya’s imagination to shape the shadows on Chevat’s face into a myriad of chilling, insectile features.
“What do you want?” Uthalion grumbled angrily as the thunder faded.
With precise, graceful movements Chevat rose till he stood tall over them.
“I shall tell you on the way, but we must be quick,” he said, turning to a southern tunnel. As he placed his hand upon the wall, he added, “Not all of my people are aware of, or would even agree with, your presence here in our warrens. We’ve had much trouble of late with those that come seeking twins from out of Tohrepur.”
“On the way to where?” Ghaelya asked, her voice angry and frustrated as she stood. “And what about Brindani? You said you would help him!”
“Ah, indeed I did,” Chevat replied, producing a small flask from beneath his robes and tossing it to Vaasurri. “That should counteract the poison, though I doubt he shall ever recover as once you knew him.”
“What do you?” Ghaelya began, but the aranea had already slipped into the shadows of the southern passage, ignoring her questions and her confusion. She fumed and turned away from the tunnel, her attention inevitably returning to the trapdoor above as she considered their chances on the surface. She caught Uthalion doing the same, but before either of them could speak, Vaasurri helped Brindani to his feet and made for the southern passage.
“No use in dithering now,” the killoren said sharply. “In case neither of you have noticed, we are out of choices. You had your chance.”
Ghaelya stared after Vaasurri as he and Brindani entered the dark behind Chevat. She had not expected such vehemence from the killoren. Uthalion sighed and followed, stopping to catch her eye before moving on.
“He wanted to turn back last night,” the human said thoughtfully. “Was he right?”
“No,” Ghaelya answered without hesitation and forged ahead into the flickering shadows. She ignored her own disgust as she felt along the walls, collecting tiny threads of web on her fingertips. Ahead, beyond the silhouettes of Vaasurri and Brindani, she caught the watchful jade eyes of Chevat glittering in the dark and suppressed a shudder, still imagining the spider hiding behind his face. She matched his stare coldly and descended bravely into the warrens of the aranea, a kingdom of spiders.
Uthalion felt the walls closing in as they progressed deeper and deeper into the caverns. The ghostly light of the knotted roots above flickered and flashed with energy as the walls shook, the stormy Tide rolling overhead with deafening rumbles. Down long side-passages and deep, from the dark. Occasionally, the pale green eyes were in somewhat comfortable pairs. But those were rare cases, and the clicking-squish of sharp unseen mandibles, salivating with poison, was unmistakable.
“Just keep going,” he muttered. “Almost there.”
He focused on an image of his wife and child, steeled his nerves for whatever could come hungrily crawling out of the shadows, and kept one foot moving in front of the other. Webbing clung to his boots stubbornly. Smaller spiders skittered among the webs and roots, feasting on gnats that seemed to thrive in the warrens. Though his notebook was stowed in his pack, he kept his thoughts busy, identifying the spiders he knew and giving names to those he didn’t.
Leading them all was the quiet, whispering voice of Chevat, echoing back eerily as the aranea spoke of what he knew concerning Tohrepur.
“Once the song was an accepted part of these warrens, like the wind or the storm,” he said wistfully. “Strong yet soft at night, weak and subtle during the day. We never questioned its presence; the eldest of us barely heard it unless they listened. But, just over a tenday ago, it changed.”
The caverns widened and narrowed as they passed, climbing close to the surface before plunging steeply again. The webbing oh the walls became more deliberate, more patterned and decorative. Bones littered the silken designs, arranged in pictures and grisly mosaics that made Uthalion think of the men he’d lost upon his crossing of the Lash six years ago. He wondered if the empty sockets of cast aside skulls watched him accusingly, imagined them whispering his name and asking if he recalled theirs.
“Arasteht was the first,” Chevat continued. “He disappeared one night, following some powerful call, a summoning that no one could dissuade him from obeying. He wept when restrained and fought fiercely to escape. Several others followed him in the days after, fleeing in groups to the south.
Not all of us could hear the singing, and a few that could were able to resist. Before we could learn much else, Arasteht returned and he… well…”
The aranea paused before an ornate passage that glowed with a dancing orange light. His strange, elflike features were troubled as he turned and eyed them all suspiciously. Finally, he gestured them into the passage. “In here,” he said simply.
The ceiling of the cavern rose dramatically, and a scent of damp earth and rotting flowers hung thickly. Warm, humid air made a welcome change to the colder tunnels they’d come from. The light came from torches set in makeshift sconces along the walls, adding a light smell of smoke to the chamber. Large rocks obscured their view of the eastern end of the cavern, and swirling clouds of gnats filled the damp spaces between. Fat spiders crawled lazily over their webs, their abdomens glistening in the torchlight as they gorged themselves on the plentiful bounty.
The quiet was broken by a soft moan, a hollow sound that carried loudly in the chamber. It rose to a horrible, groaning cry that set Uthalion’s teeth on edge. The sound scratched at his ears painfully, seeming to crawl through his hair and down the back of his neck as he pressed his hands to the side of his head. It faded as quickly as it had come, leaving his skin itching and tingling uncomfortably.
“What is it?” Ghaelya asked breathlessly, her wide eyes fixed on the glowing cleft between two large rocks.
“Arasteht,” Chevat answered solemnly as he strode forward. “One of the Choir.”
Cautiously they followed the aranea through the rocks into a rounded area that glistened with smooth, wet bones and polished seashells. They formed intricate and beautiful patterns around a shallow pool of dark water, designs rising along the walls and meeting across the ceiling. Ghaelva gasped as she observed the walls, shaking her head slightly at images of sea monsters and strange, watery letters that swirled into one another. Uthalion watched her curiously for a moment, but something else soon caught his attention.
On the far wall, the bone and shell patterns were obscured by a blanket of thick webbing that rose and fell as if with a soft breeze, except that there was no wind in the chamber. Something in the web twitched as they approached, a long-fingered hand bearing hooked claws and pale, mottled skin. Uthalion made out a manlike form, though any similarity to any man he’d ever seen ended at the general shape of the thing. Segmented legs protruded from the web at odd angles; the flesh was covered in dark bumps and spines like a crustacean. Thin, ropelike tentacles were tangled in silk, curling endlessly, weakly, in a futile attempt to escape.
At its head a pair of flexible mandibles pulled at the web while a sharp-angled jaw opened and closed behind them, gasping like a landed fish and hissing through protruding, spiny teeth. Where the creature’s eyes might have been was a ridged, chitinous coating streaked with blue markings.
“When they return, those that do, they usually come here first,” Chevat said. “This place has been here longer than any of my kind can remember. We call it the Temple; they call it”
“The Deep…” Arasteht’s hoarse voice boomed through the chamber, echoing like the weak breath of a dying god yet resonating with a lilting undertone as gentle as a child’s song.
