Tallah

Vergil spat into the abyss and ignored its siren call. If he had the kind of courage to walk over the lip of the platform and just embrace oblivion, he would’ve stayed behind in the canyon and freeze to death. He’d heard once that it was an easy death, like falling asleep and just never waking up.

What a place this was…

How could Sil stay there, listen to that creature, and not scream out in horror?

It took exactly two hundred paces to walk the circumference of the platform. Funny that. It was larger inside than outside, he was sure of it, and he’d seen enough nonsense from Tallah’s rend to accept this as possible.

Then two hundred more paces, the other way around, to reveal nothing new aside from grey rock and the breathtaking vista beneath.

And in the end, he sat down in front of the doors, surrounded by black spiders all aimed inside, as still as statues. It seemed Sil wasn’t done yet.

Grefe was as wondrous from above as it had been from within. The forest occupied a large plateau in the rock, spreading out into some kind of inner ravine that kept on going. It beggared belief by size alone. Swirls of red and blue light changed patterns and, from afar, made the place sway and shiver as if rustled by some invisible wind.

To the side, coming in on the red light of what he was coming to accept as night, swirls of smoke drifted above the city. That was Tallah’s doing seeing as there was still fire raging somewhere around a bend in the city wall. Touching the stud on his neck revealed it as slight warm, just a touch more than the surrounding skin. She was close, somewhere down there, but not close enough to be of help here.

Maybe in the forest? Or in the tunnels that had led them away from the burial pit?

No point in thinking about that.

What to do next? Sil would decide. It was best for him not to think on things like that. Thinking made him imagine. And imagining made him remember things that never happened. He didn’t want that, not as he was starting to believe he’d been lied to at some point. Who by or why… he didn’t know.

Argia was having another of its fits.

Kill the bloody things. Kill them. Kill them! Kill yourself, you useless bag of skin!

Lovely. Nothing like your head companion going for a loop. Of course, the messages self-deleted moments later.

“What the Hell is going on?”

“Good question.”

Sil sat heavily next to him and swung her feet over the black maw beneath. He hadn’t heard her approaching, but the spiders had all drawn away to give them a modicum of space.

“They’re not attacking us. I assume you’re set on helping?”

Her answer was a long groan as she knuckled fists into her eyes and rubbed vigorously while yawning.

“What I wouldn’t give to have one of my tonics right now. Belching and farting and all else included.”

“What are we going to do?”

He knew he should feel as ragged as she, but for some reason… he didn’t. There were aches and pains and all assorted effects of his wounds and the healing. But he wasn’t tired yet, not enough to lay down and sleep.

Sil gave him a bleary-eyed baleful glare.

“Would you give me at least a couple heartbeats to gather my wits? Goddess’s teat, if I’d known you’d get like this I would’ve cut back on your tonics.”

“Sorry.”

She sighed and waved a dismissive hand, “Forget it. This was a lot to take in.”

A soft scraping sound drew both their attention. They turned to the doors and saw the Oldest gingerly push forward a deep dish full of clear water. It retreated, skittishly, towards the shadows without a word.

Sil drank without questioning, then offered him the rest. It was wonderfully cool and clear, and Vergil was certain he’d never tasted anything more wonderful.

“Was this safe?”

“They assure me it is clean water. It’s one of the things they value reverently. They…” She took a pause, sucked in air through her teeth, then went on. “They fed it to Erisa to no ill effect.”

Oh. At least one other human had been exposed to this place. The state of that one did not really push him to trusting the spiders’ words.

“I didn’t understand much, just that she’d been… well…”

“Raped is the word you’re looking for,” Sil provided without a hint of emotion. “Raped and worse. We need to see what we do about her.”

“Will you be all right?” He handed the dish back.

“I haven’t been all right for a long time. This doesn’t change anything,” she said with surprising confidence. The shiver in her voice was back, but not in the rest of her. “Damn this place and bugger that old man for all he’s wrought.”

He wanted to argue on Ludwig’s behalf but hadn’t the nerve for it. An hour earlier he wouldn’t have hesitated. Now he wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t strike the old man on sight. And keep on striking him for a long, bloody time.

“What did you learn?”

“Enough, I think. They did come here, and they got deeper in than Ludwig said they did. They were plundering the place. Spiders didn’t initially attack but got out of the way and observed. Erisa was of interest as their Mother caught sight of her.”

She drank, rinsed her mouth, and spat blood over the edge. “Bit the inside of my cheek not to scream earlier. Most everything that Erisa told us is true. Humans turned on one another once their retreat got cut off—and what a wonder that was for our hosts here. Testament to species-wide stupidity.”

“At least we’re not dwarves.”

He’d meant it as a joke.

Why, then, did he end up on his back, blinking away stars?

“Ow…”

Sil looked down at him, mismatched eyes wide in astonishment. “What’s gotten into you?!”

“What?” His head throbbed, front where he’d been hit, and back where he’d cracked his skull against the stone floor.

“What what? Why’d you hit yourself?”

“I… what?”

“Get out of my light.” He heard her shooing spiders away. “Look at me. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Um… three.”

“Name?”

“Uh… Sil?”

“Yours, idiot.”

“Vergil. Vansce.”

“Don’t squirm.”

He felt her gently lifting the back of his head, her warm fingers questing through his hair to press on where it hurt now.

“You haven’t cracked your skull open,” she mused and traced the line down the back of his neck. “Nothing here to suggest anything worse. Let’s get you up. Slow. Let me lift.”

Once back up in a sitting position he nearly pitched forward, head still spinning.

“What hit me?”

“You did. Heel of your palm to the forehead.” She pressed a steadying hand on his chest and held him upright. “Dizzy?”

“A bit.”

“Nauseous?”

“No.”

Useless shite. Need a cunt t’ keep ya upright?

Badmouth yer betters again and see what that gets ye! Not funny now, innit?

Pox-arsed milksop.

Shite crust.

Goat diddler.

He blinked but the messages still stayed there, floating in his field of view, each a different colour. The list of insults only grew in creative profanity.

“That’s new,” he groaned.

“What?”

“Argia’s getting creative with insults. What’s pox-arsed?”

“You don’t want to know. I don’t think that’s Argia. Lovely.”

Purge unsuccessful. Corrupt sector quarantined. Please consult Maintenance at your earliest convenience.

I apologise for the disruption to my normal operation.

“And now it’s reset itself. That smarts.” He’d hit himself right in the eye socket. The entire area felt tender and throbbed in pain. “Another black eye. What do you mean it’s not Argia?”

“Pretty sure that’s the dwarf that hit you. I suspect you may be experiencing some low-level possession.”

She sighed and gave him one more look-over before rattling the dish for more water. Immediately, another spider advanced a different dish.

“Drink. Keep hydrated. I’ll figure something out for you after we get out of here. You should be safe for the time being. Give me the helmet.”

She reached for it and Vergil, to his stupefaction, pulled it away from her grasp.

“Uh, I’d rather you didn’t take it.”

“Give it here, Vergil. It’s for your own good. Don’t make me take it from you.”

“I said no. It’s… reassuring to have.”

“Oh, lovely. You’ve built a connection with the thing. Fine, suit yourself. Don’t come crying to me the next time you punch yourself somewhere nasty.”

“But… you said it wasn’t a soul. You said it was safe.”

“I said we thought it safe. Soul magic is finicky stuff. Dangerous at the best of times, downright unpredictable always. To make a soul trap out of an object and to encase even an echo of a personality, especially one as strong as the Hammer was, you would need to build some nearly impossible layers of illum trapping. Tallah knows more about this stuff than I do, but with how unpredictable this stuff is it’s entirely possible you may have in there more than just the surface of that warrior’s soul. Don’t even get me started on Erisa and her fate.”

“She became the spider?” Vergil wanted the conversation shifted away from his helmet. It eased the pounding pressure inside his skull.

“Yes. No. Maybe? I don’t know. Not yet. I’ll tell you one thing for nothing.”

“And that is.”

“I’m going to skin Angledeer alive. And then piss on him. At the very least.”

Vergil believed her. She spoke with the same kind of cold detachment she’d used on their first day together, when she’d warned him of what her talents could do. He believed that the old man’s time was at an end the moment Sil reached Tallah.

“Don’t you think he should get a chance to explain himself first?” He didn’t have any real love for the old fool, but something of his determination had spoken to him on that night. To see him so driven to come back here, to find a solution to undo his mistake… that couldn’t have been fake. Could it?

“No. I don’t think he deserves another chance to lie.”

“You’re a healer…”

“Yes, you’ve pointed it out before. My answer remains the same. I will not suffer the inhuman to live, not for what he’s done. The spiders confirmed Erisa’s story to the letter. If possible, he’s guiltier now than he was before.”

“It’s been a lifetime. More than one. He wants to atone. Maybe he deserves a chance to put his nightmares to rest?”

He half-expected her to explode at him again but she merely smiled, a small quirk upward of her lip. “You’re young. Truly young. If you did what he did—and neither myself nor Tallah think you capable of something of the sort, just so I’m clear—we would blame your age for it. You’re a child and you haven’t had time to develop a true backbone.”

“Umm, thank you? Or fuck you?”

“Don’t know what the last one means, but don’t take my words as insults. Ludwig, all that time ago, had already lived for longer than you will ever manage. That’s how illum changes us. Makes it bloody hard to conceive children, but we do live for a long time. My expectation of any channeller is much higher than of a blank. Cowardice like that is simply unacceptable.”

She swept a hand back to encompass the watching spiders. They pulled slightly back, but Vergil was certain they all listened and drank in their words.

“They’re not human. They are something new, something that, in the grand design of the world, was born a fragment of a heartbeat ago. Their mistakes are like yours, of youth and ignorance. I can’t even apply human morality to them, seeing how alien they really are. But I can apply it to Ludwig, and all of him is left wanting. So what if he’s tried to atone for his crime? It’s no less his and the effects are no less terrible. He doesn’t deserve dreamless sleep. Do you understand this?”

He did. In a way, he did. It was a hard, unforgiving stance, but he understood it. For the first time since he’d met the two channellers, he had an inkling of understanding about just how different their perspectives were to his. And how, despite their words, he’d never really been in real danger from Tallah.

“So…” He picked his words with care as he met that mismatched gaze. “How old are you?”

“Get buggered. You don’t ask that of a lady.”

“You’ve farted the loudest out of all of us on the way here. You’re as much a lady as I’m a dwarf.”

Sil considered pushing him off the ledge. It was in her eyes.

“If you must know, I will be sixty-seven Summers come the next.”

“And Tallah?”

“None of your business.”

Beneath, smoke burst out through one of the balconies followed by a gout of flame. More clouds of black smoke billowed from windows as more blasts rocked the side of the city. Both turned towards the commotion but nothing more followed.

“She’s bloody close,” Sil mused and looked to the spiders. “Lower the bridge. We need to get down there.”

“No,” came the Oldest’s voice.

As one, the spiders retreated and rushed inside through the stone doors, leaving only the Oldest and their smaller guide. Before Sil could protest, the creature extended a claw to point to a bend in the city.

They both saw it as it crawled across Grefe’s sculpted surface.

“What… Goddess, what’s that?”

Sil pressed a hand to her mouth and stared in horror at the same thing Vergil was trying to make sense of. It was only the distance that dampened the visceral reaction that built in him at the sight.

It resembled a spider only in general shape and only from this far away. A cacophony of body parts growing one over the other across a shape that flowed and shifted, broke apart and reformed. It writhed. And there were heads across it, staring in all directions, all the same grim visage that had met them in the grave.

“That is the false mother’s hunter. Come. Come inside. This is the one place she’s denied, but it’s best you don’t invite her attention.”

Vergil fought to tear his eyes away. One head turned his way and for an instant he met the eyes across the great distance and shivers ran down his spine. It knew they were there. It would come for them.

In due time.

A claw reached out and pulled him by the strap of his sword as the small spider climbed up him to perch on his shoulder.

“Come. Come. She is distracted. We will be safe inside. She cannot see this place. Mother does not show it to her.”