I don’t know how long I wandered. It could have been five minutes – it could have been fifty. I remember slipping into an alcove, a divot in the rock face, and finding myself on my hands and knees being violently ill. I closed my eyes and heaved until there was nothing left in my stomach. I wanted to lay down and sleep, but the smell was awful, so I shifted away and continued down the passage.
I found a chamber with more cocoons and a small pool of water. I collapsed next to the blessedly cool water and shoved my face into it – it smelled earthy and tasted like rock. I faintly wondered if it would make me sick, and then realized I didn’t care. I may have passed out momentarily.
I woke when I felt my body moving – something was dragging me, pulling me along by the hem of my shirt, pulling my face out of the water. I gasped, coughing on the water that threatened to fill my lungs, and pushed away from the edge. I wiped the wetness from my face. Feeling finally clear headed, I looked to see what had been pulling me.
Another spider. Fuzzy, striped like a tabby cat and about the size of a large dog, with two large front eyes that regarded me, its head tilting almost curiously. It seemed to be mostly legs and face. I screamed, and it jumped, back and up, landing on the ceiling far above and shifting out of sight behind a stalactite.
Some of the water I had inhaled wasn’t fully out of my system and the scream cut off into a coughing fit. I pulled myself back against the cavern wall, looking around at my surroundings. How had I gotten here? My mind traced back over recent events and I kept a wary eye on the stalactite the spider was hiding behind.
I could remember the attack on the camp. I had been bitten. I lifted my shirt and looked at the bite. In doing so, I remembered that I had also looked at the bite quite recently. It didn’t look as inflamed anymore. I poked one of the holes – it was sore, and I winced. I thought about when I had looked at it last. Lyre had cut me out of the cocoon I had been wrapped in.
Lyre! I dropped the shirt and looked around. He had helped me, and was trying to lead me to safety and I had wondered away in a haze. “Stupid, stupid,” I muttered to myself. “Damn it all,” I stood, wincing at the tenderness in my abdomen. How long had I wandered through these caves? How far had Lyre gotten before he realized I wasn’t following? Would he have come back for me, or continued to get the others and lead them back to help?
And what about the spiders? I glanced up at the ceiling again – the one that had dragged me out of the water had been poking its head out further, and dipped back into hiding as I turned toward it. It looked different than the ones that had attacked the camp – those had looked almost like wolf spiders, bristly and lean, with smaller eyes. This one had a broader face and larger eyes, and was fuzzier. I remembered the leap it had taken to reach the ceiling, and realized it was a jumping spider. A giant one. I shuddered in revulsion.
I hated spiders. My first serious girlfriend in college had raised jumping spiders, and I could acknowledge that they were cuter looking than most arachnids, but the instant chill of terror I had whenever there wasn’t any glass separating it from me was uncontrollable. She had built a terrarium for it, and had special ordered one that was quite colorful and large. But the moment she would pull the thing out of its enclosure so she could personally handle it, I would leave. She eventually dumped me for being, and I quote, “a pussy.”
I looked around the cave, and spied the opening I had originally come through. If I backtracked that way, maybe I could find Lyre? Or the way out? I drank some of the water one last time, and splashed some on my face and on my wound, the cold water a relief against the inflamed skin. Then I started out of the cavern. I glanced up at the ceiling where the jumping spider had continued to move, shifting out of my range of vision. I hoped it wouldn’t pursue me.
It was very dark just several steps into the passage. Turning back toward the cavern, I realized there was some lighting from within it, and my head swiveled, trying to locate the source. I finally figured out that the spider webbing glowed faintly. I gently ran my hand along a strand of it, and realized my fingertips tingled and numbed at the touch. I pulled my hand back quickly, wondering if the venom from the bite had caused my lapse in lucidity or the webbing itself.
Still, I needed the light source if I wanted to make my way out of this place. Feeling incredibly jealous of everyone else’s magical ability again, I poked one of the cocoons open very carefully with the toe of my boot, and found a longer piece of bone. I wondered what kind of creature it had belonged to. I wrapped one end in webbing, carefully, doing my best not to touch any of it with my bare skin. The entire time, I also carefully watched for any movement along the ceiling.
It was very dim light, but it was better than nothing. I started down the passage again. I vaguely remembered puking at some point along the way, and I kept the light low to the ground, looking for this sign of my previous passage. I walked quite far before I found it – maybe about thirty minutes away from the cavern with the pool. I sighed in distress as I kicked some dirt over it. So I had been wandering these caves for quite awhile.
I heard something skitter in the darkness, and felt my bowels twist in terror. “Please don’t shit yourself,” I said quietly to myself, lifting my dim torch up to try to locate the source of the sound. In the direction I was planning to go, the passage looked to be covered with many small glittering facets. I did not like it.
They moved toward me all at once, and as my eyes adjusted to the shapes around them, I realized they were the smaller cat-sized spiders I had seen before. I screamed – they were fast – and on me more quickly than I had anticipated. I slammed one off with the bone fragment, kicked another away from my feet. I felt something sharp pierce my hip, the flaring pain of the venom making me scream again as I batted the offending party off me. I slammed myself into the nearby wall, heard skittering and small screams and the disgustingly audible squishing noise some of them made as they died under my mad flailing.
Suddenly a loud hissing noise seemed to whoosh over my head, faintly ruffling my hair, and something larger than my attackers rolled into the fray. As I smashed another of the kitten sized ones under my boot with a squelch, I raised my light to see what was happening.
The jumping spider was attacking the other spiders. Several of them had turned to flee at its assault, and some of the others had decided to attack it instead. There was a mad scuffle, the smaller spiders making outright screaming noises as they fought – I watched the jumping spider rip one in half with its mandibles, and easily push the crushed remains of the body into its mouth. I shuddered and returned to smashing any that were near me.
It wasn’t long until I found myself twisting, trying to find any of the remaining little fucks to destroy, and realized they were all either dead or escaping. I could hear the jumping spider shifting in the dark behind me. I turned to see what it was doing. It was in the middle of eating some of the remains when my dim light fell on it, and it paused, turning to regard me carefully. I froze also, feeling the familiar tingle along the base of my neck, my unmitigated terror made physical. Something in the way my breathing hitched seemed to startle the spider, and it scooped up a few of the remaining bodies and jumped quickly out of sight.
It was so fast that I wasn’t certain if it had jumped back over me the way we had come or further back the way I wanted to go. I stared into the dark, feeling rooted to the spot. Everything about this was the worst waking nightmare I had ever faced.
After several long moments, I forced myself to move my feet, continuing along the passage. I had to get out of here.
I found the cavern where Lyre had freed me. The webbing covering it provided some degree of light, and I could see the cocoon that I had been freed from, slightly sunken in now that it didn’t hold a body. I stared at it for a moment, before moving on in the direction Lyre had been walking. I wasn’t sure how Lyre had chosen the direction, but I had an especially bad feeling as I continued. My makeshift light source was slowly becoming unnecessary, I realized, because the walls were more regularly coated in the webs.
The passage continued along a path, but opened on one side out into a small room. I realized the room was full of more cocoons, and what looked to be egg sacs. The chittering sounds of spiders echoed through the entire area. Everything seemed to be screaming that I was only walking further into the spider’s den. I stopped to investigate a couple of the cocoons, but nothing was really person shaped, and everything close enough in size was too desiccated to be alive still.
Now, more spaces opened here and there on both sides. It was almost actually bright. I continued to poke along, hoping to find Lyre. And then the passage ended.
It opened out onto a large cavern. I moved forward, bending low to the ground like that would hide me to whatever eyes existed in the cavern. Sounds echoed throughout – the space seemed vast. I moved quietly along the edge of the cavern, but could see a particularly bright spot out towards the center of the cavern – a whole concentrated nest of webbing.
Whimpering softly to myself, I moved toward it, and tripped. As I looked to see what I had tripped on, I found myself face to face with the jumping spider. I gasped and pulled away as it gestured frantically at me, and then I stood to run. As I got close to the more concentrated webbing, I could see a cocoon, half sliced open on the ground, a slouched figure sitting just within, eyes closed. I recognized Lexie.
For a moment forgetting my terror, I rushed forward and began pulling her the rest of the way out of the cocoon. Glancing around as I did so, keeping an eye out for any movement, I could see a rapier abandoned on the ground. Looking up, I saw another person shaped cocoon dangling above, attached to the side of a towering stalagmite. It shifted slightly.
Whatever inside was alive. Lyre, I realized. As I finished pulling Lexie from the cocoon and slung her over my shoulder, I heard the chittering grow loud around me. I reached for the rapier, standing to turn and look around. I watched as the shapes emerged from the darkness, the many eyes, the many legs. I felt my mouth gape open. There were so many of them! How had I even come this far without seeing any of them until now?
I could see the faint glow of webbing unfurling from the ceiling as some descended around me. They all stayed a respectful distance away. I turned, intending to take the chance to look for a way to cut Lyre down, when from within the heart of the concentrated webbing, something huge shifted.
Massive. Larger than the ones that had attacked the camp and brought me back to this cursed place. Larger than an elephant. I boggled, wondering if it was even able to leave the cave system, or if the smaller spiders just brought it offerings. It looked as if it had been folded in tight at the heart of its lair, and had simply unfolded into a massive shadow. I stared into eyes the size of car tires and felt myself gulp, almost comically loud.
Just as it loomed over me, the familiar hissing of the jumping spider sounded. It jumped onto the back of its head, snapping at the large eyes. The massive spider let out a scream that shook the room, and everything got cacophonous as all the creatures around us screamed in response.
I turned back to the stalagmite, climbing up it just enough to reach Lyre’s cocoon. I swiped up with the blade madly, hoping I wouldn’t injure him. The cut was too shallow. Just at my feet, a spider the size of a mountain lion rammed into the rock below me, snapping at my boots. I kicked at it, screaming. It snapped again, and I timed jumping down onto its head with one of its forward lunges. The lunge carried me up, and I took a second desperate swipe at the cocoon in front of me.
Lyre tumbled out. I tossed the rapier, suddenly terrified of any of us landing on the blade in the fall, and Lyre, Lexie and I tumbled into a heap on top of the attacking spider. Several smaller spiders came rushing in, and I rolled, squashing as many as I could as I flailed.
All of the violent movement must have been enough to wake Lexie, who sat up, blinking groggily for a moment. As she took in her surroundings, her eyes widened in terror and surprise, and the glow of magic instantly surrounded her. “Yes!” I shouted happily as a burst of fire erupted, scorching the webs around us and sending spiders scattering and screaming. Then I realized the fireburst was large – too close, too out of control. I shouted, ducking away and shutting my eyes closed, waiting to feel the painful rush of the fire over my skin.
When it didn’t happen, I opened my eyes to see that the flames were crawling up the sides of some sort of glowing barrier. Glancing over, I could see that Lyre was standing over Lexie’s shoulder, his hand outstretched, and he was chanting, his voice resonant. As the flames died down, Lyre grabbed Lexie’s shoulder and said, “We need to go. Now!”
I nodded dumbly, starting to follow. But the scream of the massive spider caught my attention, and I turned to look – the jumping spider was almost impossible to see, it moved quickly, dodging the massive legs and mandibles, nipping at its larger opponent, and then jumping again. It was caught with the swipe of a massive limb mid-jump, and the massive spider moved to pin it where it landed. I watched the massive spider move forward to devour it.
The jumping spider hissed viciously, if ineffectually, in its enemy’s face. The thing had saved me a few separate times. It looked piteously small pinned under the legs of the terrifying visage that was moving in on it. Time seemed to slow for a moment as I stared, feeling an overwhelming surge of sympathy for the poor thing. I’m not even sure if I shouted words or just a random wordless cry, but I flung my hand out.
The light of magic sprung up around me. A strange sensation, a sense of power, swirled through me, filling me with a strangely euphoric feeling – it had been there all along, I realized vaguely, before I became engrossed with the effect.
Vines surged forth from the rocky cavern floors, a burst of unexpected greenery striking at the giant spider, eviscerating it. It screamed as it died on the ends of the plants, which continued to grow and carry it up bodily away from the floor of the cavern, spearing it into the ceiling above. Rocks crashed around us and sunlight flooded in from above, and as the sunlight fell on the vines flowers suddenly budded and bloomed all over.
I pushed forward, afraid for a moment at how much damage I had caused, but strangely there was one undisturbed portion of the ground. The jumping spider was surrounded by vines, but unharmed, standing in the middle of that spot. It twisted, first one way, then the other, waving its proboscis in the air as if in celebration. It tilted its head when it saw me, almost like a puppy. And then it jumped away, up through one of the openings, out of the caved in cavern and into the sunlight above.
I stared for a long moment, blinking against the bright light. I could still hear the skittering and screams of other spiders, but none of them seemed to be attacking. They were retreating, either further into the caves or out into the world above.
I felt suddenly and completely drained. I turned to see Lexie and Lyre climbing over some of the vines, looking around in awe. “You finally cast, Lucas!” Lexie said when she saw me. She looked pale, almost gray-toned. I nodded dumbly. And then I passed out.
mehryment 