The Necromancer's Nephew (9 page)

"You wanted to see a ghost!" Warren barked, "So this is the way we have to go."

"Isn't there another way around?" Garrett asked.

"I don't know," Warren said, "I just want to get this over with. You've already ruined the whole trip anyway. It's bad enough I gotta deal with my cousin all week, now you want to spend all day pokin' around in part of the city where's there's nothin' but ghosts and bugs."

"I'm sorry," Garrett said, "I really just wanted Marla to have a good time."

Warren snarled.

"It's all right," Marla said, "W
e really don't have to do this today. We can try again some other time."

"No," Warren shouted, "Garrett wanted to show you a ghost, so we're gonna see a ghost!"

Garrett looked at the walls of webbing all around them that seemed now to undulate and bulge disconcertingly in places. "Uh, Warren, I think you should be quiet," he hissed.

"Oh, no! I'm having a great time!" Warren shouted even louder, "This is the most fun I've had ever!" He waved his long shaggy arms over his head and rolled his eyes.

"Garrett! Look out!" Marla was suddenly beside Garrett, her hands on his shoulders. She lifted him easily aside as she kicked at something on the ground behind him. A brown spider the size of a small dog bounced off the far wall and then scurried away into the shadows. More spiders were squeezing through little holes in the silken walls of the tunnel.

"Aah!" Garrett shouted, pulling the knife from his belt and brandishing the torch with his other hand. "Marla, get behind me!"

She gave him an exasperated look, but did as he said. Warren had abandoned his tirade in favor of leaping to join his friends. He swung his arm in a scooping motion and sent one of the creatures flying. It bounced off the ceiling and rolled away in a ball only to unfurl its legs, right itself and join the scurrying crowd of arachnids now advancing upon the intruders.

"Let's go back!" Garrett said.

"There's more of them coming from that way too," Marla said. She brought her foot down hard on a spider's back. It made an awful wet crunching sound and lay twitching on the floor.

Garrett grunted with effort as he bashed one of the creatures with his torch. It scrabbled away in panic with tongues of witchfire flickering over its glossy carapace.

Warren had the worst of them. The ghoul roared as he pinwheeled his arms, batting the spiders away with such force that soon many of them lay curled into balls upon the floor.

Garrett yelped as a spider lunged forward to sink its fangs into his leg, or rather his boot. As uncomfortable as necromancer boots could be at times, he was at least grateful for their rugged craftsmanship. The spider's fangs could not penetrate the thick leather. Garrett jammed his knife through the monster's thorax and pried it off. He pushed it away. His skin crawled at the sight of the slimy goo that now coated the blade of his dagger.

He looked back at Marla. His heart leapt with fear to see that she no longer stood behind him. Then, suddenly, she was there again, and just as suddenly gone once more. The girl moved with such speed that he only really saw her when she stopped to choose a new target. He watched her in bemused silence. She was amazing
.

Marla paused long enough to frown back at him, and then she was once again a blur of gray. She ripped a large spider off of Garrett's back and hurled it into the shadows. She stopped again, her hand on Garrett's arm, and a little smile on her face. "Can I borrow your torch, dear?"

"...Yeah," Garrett slowly lifted his hand to offer her the witchfire torch, but it wasn't in his hand anymore. Marla had it.

She spun and danced among the spiders, trailing witchfire in shimmering arcs and crazy swirls of emerald light. The thick impact of blows on spider bodies punctuated the roiling, crackling whoosh of the torch as Marla beat them back. Garrett smiled in spite of his fear to witness the fiery beauty of Marla's defense
.

Warren growled. Garrett turned to see his friend who was now completely covered in spiders. The ghoul flailed wildly, tearing the creatures free and casting them away. More scuttled in as quickly as he could knock them off. The spiders jabbed their fangs against the ghoul's thick hide, unable to penetrate it, but causing him considerable misery
.

Garrett leapt forward, slashing with his knife at one of the creatures clinging to his friend's leg, but the blade glanced harmlessly off its leathery back
.

Then Marla appeared, wreathed in arcs of green flame as she swept the spiders from Warren's back with savage blows from her torch
.

A moment later, Warren stood, free of the beasts, yet still swinging drunkenly at empty air. He paused, opened his eyes and brushed his paws over his shoulders, checking his back for spiders
.

Marla twirled the torch between her fingers and smiled up at him
.

Warren shuddered, wiping his palms on his shaggy haunches. He looked at Marla in wonder then glanced down, shamefaced
.

"Thanks," Warren said quietly
.

"Yeah, thanks Marla," Garrett said, "You were amazing!"

Marla grinned, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "Thanks for letting me borrow your torch, Garrett." She offered it back to him
.

"Uh, you'd better let her keep it," Warren said.
He jabbed Garrett in the shoulder to get his attention and pointed further up the hallway
.

At the edge of the firelight, dozens of huge scuttling spiders hung back, watching them. From the darkness beyond them, something even bigger approached
.

A spider the size of a horse crawled down the tunnel toward them. Its skin glistened in the torchlight, black and shiny. Dagger-like fangs flexed, their tips dewed with poison. Garrett glanced back over his shoulder to see more spiders scurrying up the tunnel behind them.

"What do we do?" Garrett asked.

"I dunno," Warren said.

Marla's expression turned grim. She held the torch before her like a two-handed sword.

The spiders before them parted to allow their enormous companion to pass. Its long, spindly forelegs lifted tentatively as it regarded them with eight obsidian-black eyes.

Garrett's heart pounded in his chest. Horrible thoughts fought for space in his mind, but the worst of them was the realization that his friends were here because of him.

"I'm sorry
I made us come here
," he said.

Warren
looked at him, his eyes wide with fear
. "Are you kidding?" he said, "T
his is the most fun I've had all day!"

Garrett couldn't help but laugh
.

Marla laughed too. "Same for me, Garrett," she said.

They all laughed together then, and somehow their situation no longer seemed quite as horrible.

Then a forth laugh sounded through the web-shrouded tunnel, a high, girlish laugh.

Warren looked shocked. "Garrett," he said, "I think the spider likes jokes. Think of something funny, quick!"

"That wasn't the spider," Marla said.

"
Merre'nal lachoala!"
a voice called out from somewhere nearby, "Shoo, shoo!"

The spiders scattered, tumbling over one another to escape. One even scampered over Garrett's boot as he turned to let them pass. They fled up the tunnel into darkness or wriggled back into the thick silken walls. Even the monstrously giant spider wriggled its mandibles nervously and withdrew into shadow.

The friends looked at one another. Warren shrugged.

"Whoever it is," Marla whispered, "she speaks draconic."

"Great," Warren grumbled, "another vampire."

"I don't think so," Marla said, her voice trailing off as a portion of the wall's webbing stretched and tore free to reveal a dark cloaked figure that stepped into the center of the hallway before them.

The stranger pulled back the hood of her brown cloak to reveal a young human woman with a round, slightly down-turned face, short brown hair, and large brown eyes that darted from Marla to Warren and settled on Garrett. She smiled, hesitantly. She stood only a little taller than Garrett, and her weight shifted on the toes of her brown boots, as though at any moment she might run away.

"Is that Anna Gree?" Garrett asked.

Warren sputtered. "Does that look like a ghost to you?"

The girl laughed again. Her eyes sparkled in the witchfire light. "I am no ghost," she said, "though I am Anna's friend. If you have come to harm her, I will not allow it."

"How could we harm a ghost?" Marla asked.

The stranger regarded Marla for a moment before speaking, "The same way you harm anyone, really... with words."

"We just want to talk to her," Garrett said, "I promise we won't try to hurt her."

The girl looked back to him again. Her head tilted a little, and she leaned forward slightly as she studied him.

"My name is Garrett," he said, "and these are my friends, Warren and Marla. What's your name?"

The girl jumped as though startled from a daydream. "My name is..." she began, but her hand flew to her lips, and she looked suddenly ashamed. "It isn't important," she said at last. She looked away and pulled the hood back over her head. "Follow me. I'll show you the way to the one you call Anna Gree."

****

They walked until the last of the cobwebbed tunnels lay far behind them. Garrett tried again and again to coax information from the mysterious girl in brown. Again and again, she would only look back over her shoulder at him and smile silently
.

He decided to try a different tact.

"How did Anna Gree become a ghost?" he asked.

"Her name is Annalien," the girl in brown said, "and she was once the
Verisjha
of the city before humans came here."

"
Verisjha
?" Garrett asked.

"It's like a priestess of sorts," Marla said.

"I dare not disagree, noble lady," the girl in brown said, "but to call her a priestess implies worship. It is plainer to say that she spoke for her people."

"Spoke to whom?" Marla asked.

"To the Ones that made us both, noble lady," the girl answered with a pearly grin.

Marla frowned.

"Yeah, so why did she take the flower?" Warren asked.

"The goblin's flower?" the girl said, "She did not take it."

"Then who did?" Garrett asked.

"I did," she said.

"Why?"

"Because Annalien asked me to," she said, shrugging her narrow shoulders.

Warren groaned. "Then why did
you
..."

"Stop!" the girl in brown interrupted him. Before them, the tunnel opened into a vast subterranean chamber filled wit
h light. Its walls, composed of
white, seamless stone, curved up from the malachite floor to form a great dome overhead. The girl pointed toward the center of the chamber where stood a smaller dome-shaped building. From its many small, irregularly spaced windows poured the shimmering golden light.

"Ugh," Warren said, shielding his eyes with his paw.

Marla drew back, leaning against the wall of the tunnel.

"What's wrong?" Garrett asked, moving to Marla's side.

"I don't know," she said, looking as thought she might be sick.

Garrett turned back to the girl in brown to ask her the source of the light. She was gone.

"Where did she go?" Garrett asked.

"What?" Warren looked at him, his snout wrinkled.

"The girl."

"Marla?" Warren asked.

"No, the other girl."

"What are you talking about?"

"The girl that led us here," Garrett said, "She just disappeared."

"I led you here," Warren said.

Garrett groaned in frustration. "The girl that saved us from the spiders," he said, "Where did she go?"

"Marla saved us from the spiders," Warren said, "with a little help from me of course."

Garrett rolled his eyes, waving his hands. "Never mind!"

He turned to Marla. "Did you see where she went?" he asked.

"What are you talking about, Garrett?" she said, rubbing her temples with her fingertips.

"The girl that..." Garrett could no longer remember what it was that he was about to say. Something important was dancing just beyond the grasp of recollection. His mind fought to keep its hold on the thought as it slipped away from him. Garrett stood there, wondering what he had been trying to remember that was so important,
and then
he looked back to the center of the room and the strangely illuminated little building there.

"What is that gad-awful light?" Warren said.

"It's sunlight," Marla whispered.