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The opening that had been more than ample for a child was only just big enough to let Molly and me squeeze through. We crouched down before the opening and peered into the darkness. A slow cold breeze came out of the dark, carrying a dry, dusty smell. Molly wrinkled her nose but said nothing. Thick strands of cobweb hung down inside the opening, swaying heavily on the breeze. There was no sign that anybody had been in the crawl space in years. I listened quietly, gesturing sharply for Molly to keep still when she fidgeted. I couldn’t hear anything. For the moment. I took a deep breath, braced myself, and then squeezed quickly through the cramped opening before I could change my mind. Molly followed me in, crowding right behind me, and the wooden panel slid jerkily back into place.
The darkness was absolute. Molly quickly conjured up a handful of her trademark witchfire, and the shimmering silver light showed us a narrow stone tu
"You big baby," said Molly, gri
"Isn’t that a slug by your foot?" I said, and gri
I led the way down the tu
Molly boosted her witchlight as much as possible, but the light didn’t travel far. Beyond a certain point, the darkness just seemed to soak it up. There was a feeling of spae…stretching away, endlessly. We walked and walked, and the journey was just as bad as I remembered. Perhaps more so; I kept coming across suddenly familiar details that I hadn’t let myself remember. Like the hollow husks of really big insects and beetles scattered across the floor, their insides chewed out. And the thick strands of webbing that hung down from somewhere high above us, twitching and twisting even though the breeze was no longer blowing. I was amazed I’d found the courage to come this way back when I was just a kid. But thinking of the Sarjeant-at-Arms’s punishments had made it easy. I was far more scared of him than I ever was of giant spiders. Even though I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have actually killed me.
There were noises out in the dark. Scuttling, scurrying noises. Molly and I stopped short and looked around us. Molly held her handful of light up high, but it didn’t help. Soft wet sounds came from behind and up ahead, along with slow scraping sounds, like claws on stone.
"Okay," said Molly. "This is seriously creeping me out."
"Are you sure you can’t make any more light?" I said. "I don’t think they like the light."
"I’m giving it all I’ve got," snapped Molly, sounding just a bit strained.
"Something in this pocket dimension of yours doesn’t like light. It’s all I can do to maintain what I’ve got. How much farther to the library?"
"Still some way yet," I said. "If I’m remembering correctly. Follow me, hurry as much as you can, but don’t run. They chase anything that runs. I found that out the hard way."
We moved on, striding quickly through the dark. The webbing hanging down from above was getting thicker, heavier, like hanging curtains of dirty gauze. I ducked around them, careful not to let any of them touch me. They were all stirring restlessly now, twitching as though disturbed from a long sleep. And always there were the noises out in the dark, slowly but steadily closing in on us. Molly and I moved as quickly as we could without actually ru
We almost ran straight into the massive web that blocked our way, its silver gray threads only showing up in the witchlight at the very last moment. It hung unsupported on the air before us, huge and intricate, radiating away beyond the limits of the witchlight. It would take a spider the size of a bus to spin a web that size. Or an awful lot of smaller spiders working together. I wasn’t sure which thought was the most disturbing. It very definitely hadn’t been here the last time I came this way.
"That…is a big web," said Molly. "Still, I’ve got some shears and you’ve got a bloody big stick. Do we smash our way through?"
"Can’t help feeling that’s a bad idea," I said. "But we don’t have any choice. We have to go on…"
"Look," said Molly. "If you’re really that worried, armour up."
"I can’t," I said. "The rules of reality work differently here. The armour won’t come. I found that out the hard way too."
"Now he tells me," said Molly. "Okay, it’s time to squeeze one out or get off the pot. We can’t go back, so…burn, baby, burn!"
She thrust her handful of witchfire into the nearest clump of threads, and they caught alight immediately, burning with a fierce blue light. The fires shot up and along the trembling threads, spreading quickly across the huge cobweb. And in this new, revealing light, Molly and I could at last see what it was that had been following us all this time. We were surrounded by an army of spiders, thousands of them, stretching away for as far as the light carried, and probably beyond. And they were all really big spiders. Black furry bodies the size of my head, many-jointed legs a yard or more long, clusters of eyes that glowed like precious jewels. And heavy mouth parts that clacked viciously together, drooling a thick saliva.
"Run," I said.
Molly and I burst through the burning remains of the web, slapping aside the entangling threads. The spiders came after us like a great black wave, silent except for the pattering of their many legs on the dusty stone floor. This close, I could smell them; a sour, bitter smell, like acid and spoiled meat. Something else I’d made myself forget, down the years…Molly and I sprinted through the dark, pushing ourselves as hard as we could. Horrid pain slammed through the whole of my left side with every step, forcing tortured sounds past my clenched teeth. So much tension and exercise must be spreading the strange matter farther through my system. I managed a small smile at the thought of the spiders behind me.
Hope I poison you, you bastards…
I could feel myself slowing. Molly was leaving me behind as she kept up a pace I could no longer match. I could have called out to her, but I didn’t. One of us had to get out. She looked back anyway, realised she was getting too far ahead, and dropped back to grab me by the arm and urge me on. Thank God she grabbed my good arm. A spider came sailing through the air towards me on the end of a long streamer of webbing, like a big black hairy balloon. I lashed out with Oath Breaker, and the heavy ironwood stick struck the giant spider right among its eyes. The body exploded in a wet splatter of flying i
We ran on, not as swiftly as before, our feet squelching heavily through pulped spider remains on the floor, sometimes still shuddering and twitching. The spiders were swarming close behind us now, almost on our heels. I thought longingly about the Colt Repeater in its shoulder holster, but in the time it would take me to stop and wrestle the gun out of the holster, the spiders would be all over me. So I just kept going, fighting for breath now, crying out at the pain within me, lashing increasingly wildly about me with Oath Breaker, which seemed to grow heavier with every blow.