I need to write this before I lose my nerve. I know some of you only read this to find out what is happening between Ariadne and me, what happened, what did Kerrass find and so on. I know that and, I will be honest, I am a little saddened by that.

I am tired of this project now. I feel as though it has run its course and because there is less and less that I can talk about from my real life, I feel increasingly that…

Oh, I don’t know. But the Empress has issued her orders and this means that I must follow them. She has told me that I must record what happened during the Kalayn rebellion, the aftermath and why I was elevated to my current position. I know that she wants me to do that. I know it and I know why she wants me to do it. But this is becoming a burden that I no longer want. The governing, that I will do but this?

Some of the things that I must talk about are too painful. I no longer want this. I no longer enjoy it, I want…

I don’t know what I want. I am surrounded by people that will fall over themselves to find me whatever it is that I might wish for and I don’t know what to tell them. Neither food nor drink satisfies me. I struggle to sleep until I get to the point where I sleep so deeply that people struggle to wake me. I promise myself that I will sleep better next time and then I don’t. But maybe next time.

I am tired and I look around and I wonder where my friends have gone. Emma is broken. Kerrass is… being Kerrass. Rickard is dead. Mark is dead. Sam is… not who I thought he was. Guillaume and Gregoire have their duties elsewhere and do not understand why I cannot just will myself towards happiness and well-being. Those two men are men happy at their work and so…

My university friends are now either dead in the fighting or are so bewildered by my elevation that they struggle to speak in my presence. The Skelligans? They too have other things that they must do and Ariadne?

Kerrass led us East. We followed the road for some time.

I would have gone with him alone if I had been allowed, but it is clear to me now that I am not the one that gets to make those kinds of decisions. I am the most powerful single man in the Pontar delta and arguably the North as well. But whenever I have to take a horse to go down the road, I must run it past dozens of people. I cannot accept a gift without people checking it and by the time the food reaches my table, it is often cold and a fraction of what it once was after all the people have to test it and taste it first.

So instead I went with twenty guards. Ten Elves that Carys selected and another ten humans that she had decided that she could tolerate. Carys herself led the party. With us came Samantha who was there to be in charge of my health. Which is another way that I am no longer in control of my destiny. The medical people still tell me that I have a long way to go before I attain proper recovery and as such, I must guard my strength carefully. So regularly, I get instructed that I must drink the drinks and do the things that they demand, when they demand.

Some servants see to my needs. A thing that I thought would infuriate Kerrass, but it seems that the Duke of the Pontar cannot make his own bed. Nor can he prepare his own food or guard his own pavilion when it comes time to sleep

I found the entire journey an intensely frustrating experience. I don’t know if I have lost the knack of travelling or what is going on there. But it takes me a frustrating amount of time to get up in the morning, a frustrating amount of time to get on my horse and a frustrating amount of time to do anything. I don’t feel as though we are physically moving any slower than we used to but there is a level of frustration to it that I don’t…. I cannot detect where it is coming from and I don’t like it.

I cannot sleep. My blankets are too heavy or they are too light. Sometimes I desperately need a pillow and other times I feel as though I could desperately do without one and would rather pillow my head on my saddle as I used to. The food is never quite right. I don’t… I don’t know what’s happening and it’s so frustrating.

Part of it was where we were going to be sure and desperation to go faster and travel further. I know that this was the case but…

I don’t like the fact that I am trusting my safety to other people. I have done this before. I used to trust Kerrass implicitly when it came to the matter of my safety. He would tell me when it was safe to just sleep or when we needed to set a watch. He would set up bells and traps and all kinds of things around our campsite when he felt the need to and I didn’t blame him or get angry. And when I’ve travelled with other men, the bastards or the Wave-Serpent crew, I have done the same. Men have told me that I didn’t need to worry about this or that or the other and I surrendered control to them without a second thought.

But now I worry and I don’t know why.

I used to find the wind in the light forests restful. Not the heavy forests as the shade of Amber’s crossing still haunts those forests. Especially around winter. But the open air and the rustling of crops having just been planted. Wild woodland frightens me but farmland or Riverland? I would be fine. I should be fine.

WHY AM I NOT FINE?

I have wept myself to sleep on the road and I did during that journey. But who do I talk to about that? Who do I confide in? Carys? Carys looks afraid when I try to treat her as a friend. She doesn’t understand it and asks me not to worry about her. She is too busy worrying about my physical well-being to apply too much in those levels.

Samantha just tells me to give it time. I am coming to almost missing her teasing.

She doesn’t tease me any more.

On the road, once upon a time, I would have used the things that I had been given to contact Ariadne. But Ariadne…

And Kerrass. For the first few days of the journey, I would try and speak to Kerrass. I would walk over to him and try to catch his attention. Even if my guards and my… I don’t like calling them servants, tell me that I can’t sleep at his fire, I wanted to spend some of my evening with Kerrass.

He wouldn’t have it. He was not angry as he was the first time he came back when I asked him to go and find Ariadne for me. He was just staring into the fire as I approached and calmly told me… “Go away, Lord.”

The first night I made a joke of it but he would just repeat that phrase over and over again until I simply…. Did as I was told. The habit of obedience runs deep and Flame knows that Kerras has forced that understanding into me over the years.

The next night I was more insistent. I told him that I missed him and that I wanted my friend back. He sighed and just repeated the phrase.

I fled from him then and I don’t think that he noticed, or cared.

I fled into my tent and that was not a good night for me. The tears flowed freely.

The following night I went and I got angry. I ranted and I raved at him about how he was letting me down. About how he had promised to be my friend and how he had promised that he would not lead me into darkness or into places that I could not follow. I really got angry with him and insisted to him that he come out of… wherever it was that he had gone and that he would face me. That he talked to me and said that we worked to recover a friendship that we had left somewhere. I wanted him back. I wanted Kerrass back.

That time, he got up and walked into the thickest part of the undergrowth where he knew that my wooden legs would prevent me from following him.

The following day, as I moved to try again, determined and stubborn to regain some measure of friendship between Kerrass and me, Carys frowned. I have learned that… when she is on duty, or when she considers herself on duty, Carys’ expression barely moves. She can look angry when it suits her and when she has decided that she needs to make a point or otherwise act on my behalf such as intimidating an idiot.

But she rarely comments or behaves differently. This time she frowned. After my rebuffing from Kerrass that night, which I took much better given that I was kind of expecting by this point, she seemed to nod in satisfaction. As though a point had been made about the world and she was satisfied with the way that things had gone.

I watched carefully as I learned that sometimes she can see things that I would miss. The Elven, female outsider’s perspective and I have tried to surround myself with people that would offer me different perspectives. I know that she, in particular, has enjoyed giving me her point of view and is pleased that I ask her opinion on a professional basis. Not as a friend, but as a professional.

Even though she would never admit that and does her best to follow her husband’s example of acting as though nothing surprises her.

But the following day, I made sure that she was riding next to me and I asked her what she was thinking. She shook her head and told me that I was not ready to hear what she had to say on the subject.

She was probably right.

I tried again for the following few days with Carys and Kerrass both. And then Carys finally told me what she was thinking.

“That is not the same man.” She told me, gesturing off and away from where everyone else was camping. We could see Kerrass there, staring into the fire leaning on his swords. The very poetic image of a Witcher alone on the path.

“He moves the same,” she went on, “he dresses the same and he behaves the same. He sounds the same and he fights the same. But that is not the same man. I do not like this man. You deserve better from him than this shell of a man, this… mockery of a friendship that only you are working on. It breaks my heart more than it breaks my heart to see you separated from the woman that you love. That is a matter of something beyond your and her control. She fled in a madness and now, hopefully, you will be able to bring her out of that madness but this?”

She gestured at Kerrass.

“I asked another Witcher, the white-haired one that waited until his woman was not looking, to check out my backside when he thought I wasn’t looking. But I asked if Kerrass was a skin-changer a… what is it?”

“A doppler.” I supplied.

“Yes, that’s the fucker.” She occasionally copies her husband’s turn of phrase.

“But that one?” she hissed as she gestured at Kerrass. Her accent still becomes stilted when she becomes angry. The pretence of the overtly Elven accent when she became angry has become true and now she must work at it to get it to go the other way.

“I saw you carry that man… that Witcher out of the forest. You were dying yourself of fear, hunger and sickness that we didn’t know. You were weak, terrified and I could see how much it had cost you to save that man but you did it. And when I heard what you had gone through to save him I was jealous of you both. No one has ever had that kind of friendship for me and I thought no one ever would. I was so pleased to be proven wrong. But I thought I would never know that level of love and friendship. I thought… I thought that you and he would share a bond that would never be broken. I thought that you and he would be friends for life. You SHOULD be friends for life and that is true on your end. You are his friend for life.

“But it was as though he would set it aside. As though he no longer cares.”

She spat in his direction, still her ultimate expression of anger and disdain.

“No real man or woman… elf, human or dwarf, would treat a friend like that. Fuck not even a cold-blooded Vran would do that. No real man would turn aside from a friend that had gone through what you went through to save him.”

“He has saved my life many times,” I replied, a little colder than I meant to say it. “I am sorry.”

She smiled, one of the rare true smiles that she only bestows when she means it. She was telling me that I was forgiven.

“How many times,” she began, obviously prepared for this declaration of mine. “How many times have you told yourself that when you think that your life would be so much easier if you stopped trying to be his friend?” She wondered. “How many times have you said that as a counter to people that wonder why you tolerate his treatment of you?”

I didn’t have to say anything. It was a lot and she, of all people, knew it.

“Was it not you that once wrote, and told him, that true friends, real friends don’t keep count of how often they save each other?”

It is always surprising when someone throws your own words back into your face.

“And I will save him this time as well,” I told her.

She shook her head.

“He does not wish to be saved,” she told me. “That is not the same man that you dragged out of the forest with shattered arms. That is not even the same Witcher that was desperate to break into the castle to save you from what he was sure was a fate worse than death. That is not the same Witcher that wanted to stand next to you on your wedding day. That is a man that is in love with his misery and image. I do not like this man. I do not like the way he treats you and I despise him for allowing you to hurt yourself by trying to keep him as his friend. He knows what you are doing and instead of telling you the truth, he is allowing you to dash yourself against him.”

She looked at me sharply.

“When this is done and your woman is in your arms again. You should stop trying to be his friend. You should cut him loose. He needs to realise what he has lost, before he comes back to you and when he does, you should honestly consider whether it is worth taking him back.”

“Of course, it is worth it.” I was appalled.

“Is he?” Again, she was immune and prepared to my wrath. “How many times has this happened, where he has abandoned you to his own…. Fucking nonsense? And always it is you or one of your other friends that drags him back. That is not a friend to you. One day, he will leave and you will not be able to bring him back. Even if you get through to him this time.”

She looked over at Kerrass again.

“If you can this time,” she mused. “I think he is too determined to push you away this time.”

She rose and brushed the dirt of her place from her trousers.

“Forgive me, Lord Duke, I must check the sentries and I miss my husband. My sadness makes me speak out of turn.”

And she was gone.

I did not try to talk to Kerrass that night. It nearly broke my heart but underneath some of her bitterness, I could hear some sense in what she was telling me.

For his part, Kerrass did not react to my new determination not to go running back to him. He seemed neither relieved nor saddened by it. Instead, he led us on.

The following day was a miserable one for me. I did not sleep well and I had strange dreams filled with fire that kept waking me up, convinced that the fire was about to overtake me. As I rode, I remember being in silence and not paying attention to where we were going or what I was doing. I seem to have a memory of trees but my journal of that time is confused and not followed through on.

That night, I found that I wanted to pace. I had been warned about this when I had first lost my legs. It’s called “Ghost leg.” where you can feel the leg that is no longer there. So you have to be careful about involuntary urges and the desire to follow through on instinctive needs must be guarded against. A leap to your feet can be catastrophic and send you tumbling ass over tit.

But I was restless and I wanted to pace. It was the same urge that gets me to move when I need to work out a problem during my student studies. Sometimes movement jerks the mind into attentiveness and makes you realise that there is a solution to the problem. I have no idea why and it has never seemed important enough when I am speaking to people that might know the answer.

But that night I wanted to pace. I wanted to move and jump about. Of course, I can do none of those things. Looking back, it seems obvious to me that what I wanted to do was to train. I had not brought my spear with me. I no longer have as many knives as I used to but I still have my belly dagger. It is alarmingly comforting to feel that familiar weight in my hands and on my belt and I can no longer sleep without it under my pillow.

I decided what I was going to do that night so I rose from my bed and blankets and dressed. I left my pavilion, telling my guards that I needed some air, which was true as far as it went, and one of them fell in behind me.

Another thing that I have been forced to become used to is that privacy is a luxury that I no longer have.

I went to where I knew Kerrass would be as his habits have not adjusted that much. I could easily see the shining of his campfire and the shape of the man who was sitting there, staring into the flames. He did not look up as I approached.

“I have decided something,” I told him as I walked up, not expecting him to react.

He didn’t.

“I have decided that I am not going to give up on you. You are my friend above all other things. I am aware that you can withdraw into yourself and your tendency for self-hatred is a thing that you live and breathe. But I am not going to give up on you.”

It might have been my imagination but in that moment, as I said those words, it seemed to me that the flames of his small campfire seemed to flare that little bit brighter. One of the logs settled separately or something but a flare of sparks shot up into the night sky.

“I will never give up on you Kerrass. Even when you give up on yourself. You can try and drive me away, you can try and fight me and you can yell at me and call me names. But you will always have a friend in me. Even if you kill me, I will be forgiving you as you strike. I mean… I hope that you don’t.”

My attempt at levity fell on deaf ears. Kerrass did not even blink.

“But I will not give up on you Kerrass. Eventually, that part of you that knows that you need people, the part of you that needs friendship and love and fellowship will reach through the part of you that is comfortable in the darkness. I know it will happen because it has happened before. And we will talk then as we always did. I love you Kerrass. Ariadne would laugh and wonder which kind of love given that she always calls our human language so… inappropriate and she always uses the example of Love as the word that covers the most meaning. But I love you like a brother.

“I have no other brothers now and it turns out that even when I did have brothers, I did not have brothers. But I love you as my brother and it hurts my soul to see you so unhappy.

“There will always be a place for you with me Kerrass and one day in the future, although I do not know when that will be, I will travel the path with you again. I swear it.”

“I will not give up on you. I will be here when you need me, but in the future, you will not be able to tell anyone that you have nowhere to go. You will not be able to say that no one loves you. You will not be able to say that you will starve because that is a Witcher’s lot. You will not be able to say that a Witcher’s life is a lonely one. You will be forced to accept that you were the one that turned away and that you must also accept that you have friends that love you, even when you did not love us back.”

I stopped for a moment to think.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m getting to the point where I’m talking myself around in circles. I have said the things that I wanted to say and I have mentioned the things that you need to hear. I am not going to give up on you Kerrass. Not until the day I die. And if you mean to die in the meantime, I will find out about it, I will recover your body and I will have you carried to my family’s tomb. I know that it is the Witcher’s way for your body to be burned and I will do that, but after that, your ashes will be placed there where my brother should have been placed and you will rest there, beside where I am to be laid.

“I am not giving up on you Kerrass.”

Once again, the fire seemed to flare up as I turned and moved away.

That night, and for the rest of my journey, I slept well. For all of the troubles and thoughts that beset me during the day and for all the aches and pains and sicknesses that crawled over my skin while I did these things and hauled myself into the saddle and fairly fell out of it at the end of the day. I could climb into my bed miserable and in pain but then I would sleep restfully and well.

There were dreams. That first night after I spoke to Kerrass I remember a dream of fire and it seemed to me that I heard a woman’s voice. I am pretty sure I know whose voice I heard and those people that have read my other works will probably also think they know whose voice they heard. But I know enough about her now not to mention her name as I do not think I would cope with her gaze upon me now.

But I heard her voice that night.

“Well done,” she said. “It is well done.” And then I felt her smile. “Are you sure you do not want to follow me instead of that insipid flame nonsense?” Then I heard her laugh although it was a kinder laugh. “There is still much struggle ahead of you but know that I am on your side in this one, for what it’s worth. Remember what we have all told you and remember what we told you that you have to do.”

It took me a while to remember but in the morning the answer was clear and this time we rode on with a new determination.

We rode East at first, as I say. East, at first following the line of the river before we started to shift north up to the mountains. Kerrass was always in front and although Carys insisted on putting scouts out, we saw very little. As we got into the forests above the river we started to see the first signs of a few monsters. Nothing more than some Endrega nests but even I know enough as to how to avoid those.

There was a brief period where Kerrass needed to find the trail. Carys chafed at this and wondered why we needed to wait but one of the few times that Kerrass spoke to us at all was to tell us that when he had found what he had been sent to search for, it took him some time to find the best way to come back. And this was not the route that he had taken.

We waited a few days and some messages caught up with me but then Kerrass found the path again and started to lead us up into the mountains between Kaedwen and Redania.

It was slow going but Kerrass led us comfortably now. We passed several points where it was clear that we might have made better speed if we were all on foot but Kerrass chose our paths with care. I began to wonder and hope that this might be the old Kerrass emerging from whatever and wherever he was in his head to return to see us.

I might have had grounds for hope, but he didn’t show us that. Instead, he just led us, just as silently.

We went single file and we had to take longer rests as we went higher and higher. The air became thinner and there was a conversation about whether or not we would need to leave the horses behind but Kerrass would tell us that there was not far to go now and that we just needed to be patient.

Carys would wait until he had left before she would mutter something about patience wearing thin. If Kerrass heard it, he gave no sign.

Eventually, though, we came to a large plateau.

“Make camp here,” Kerrass told them all. “The Duke and I will continue by ourselves.”

“Out of the question,” was Carys’ instant response. “You cannot…”

“Wait.” I jumped in, dismounting. I was getting better at the basic manoeuvres with the horse and was no longer getting as frustrated. “I know Witchers and I know this one in particular. We will get nowhere by arguing with him. I will go with Kerrass. We will not be hard to track if I am any judge.” I turned to Kerrass.

I had recognised the set of his shoulders. He was in that mode of being a Witcher which is the point where they have decided how the task will be completed and no amount of arguing will persuade them to change their mind.

“We will not.” Kerrass agreed, unable to keep from glancing at my wooden feet. “We will also be leading our horses, but the way gets narrow and the spiders are jumpy. They know me and they know the Duke so we are probably safe. And I will protect him and bring him back if I am wrong.”

That was enough for Carys.

“If he is not back within the day, then I am coming for him.” She told the Witcher.

He nodded.

Kerrass led me surely. I guessed that he had known where this place was and had planned the plateau as a place for everyone to wait. He led and I followed, it was almost like old times except I was exceptionally slow. Kerrass did not become frustrated or angry, he would just get to a point where he could wait and then turn and wait for me to catch up.

There was a way for the horses to follow. It was not so narrow that they would struggle, but it would have taken hours for the entire troop to make it up here and eventually, we came to another flat space. There was shrubbery around and I thought I could hear water. Kerrass stopped and gestured for me to join him.

It was an old gesture and again, I felt the flutterings of hope that my friend might be coming back to me from wherever it was that he had gone.

“She is up there,” he pointed at a small cave a short distance up the rocky slope. “There is a cave that goes further than it looks from the outside. There are shafts of natural light and glowing fungi so you will not need a torch.”

“Are you not coming with me?” It did not occur to me not to go. It would be tough, but the thought of giving up was not going to be one I would, or could entertain.

“No,” he told me with a ghost of his old smile. “It was made very clear to me that if I came back, I would not survive.”

There was just a hint that he was hiding something there which I should probably have listened to. But at the time, the prospect of finding Ariadne was overwhelming my reasoning.

“Thank you Kerrass,” I told him. “When this is done. We will talk and I will find a way to make this up to you. I cannot…”

He held his hand up.

“The deed must be done first.” He told me. “She is in pain, Freddie, and not thinking clearly. Go easy.”

I nodded and remembered my instructions from Life in Death, the Goddess and so many others as I moved towards the slope. “All I had to do was love her” they said and so…

I reached behind the saddle of my horse and pulled down one of the bags that I had ordered to be packed for the journey. It reminded me of another bag that we, Kerrass and I, had taken to another sleeping princess. There were more laden bags with the rest of the party as guarded by Carys, but I rather thought that this one was important. I fastened it around myself nice and securely so that I could make sure it wouldn’t fall off during what I was sure would be the coming hardships and I stepped forward to do what needed to be done.

I walked up the slope. I did not look back. I thought that I could hear Kerrass leading the horses off a short distance…

I guessed that they would go off to tie them up and find some water or something. Perfectly acceptable and the kind of thing that I would have done in his place, nothing to be concerned about there.

It was tough going. I cannot deny that. I have done a lot of things now that I have wooden legs. I am getting better and I am pleased with my progress. Not as pleased as my doctors who tell me that my progress is good and that I should be easier on myself but I am pleased enough to not worry about it as much. But climbing up a path with no obvious pathways and lots of loose stones was something that I had not faced. At least, not yet.

So there were a few times when I had to stop and relearn how to climb a slope. I had to change the direction that I was heading and choose a different route a couple of times. It might sound like a cliche but in this case, it was true, I was so focused on making sure that I didn’t slip and fall that I looked up and found myself at the mouth of the cave. The slope levelled off a little so the last stages were easier than the rest so I was able to peer into the cave.

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It was dark.

At first, I wanted to laugh. I wanted to turn back to Kerrass and yell at him. Something about “not all of us have Witcher eyes and potions that help us see in the dark,” but I didn’t do that. I did turn around to check where he was and as I had expected, he had led both his horse and mine to where the water was and was tying them up.

He was not looking at me.

I took a deep breath and walked forwards and promptly discovered why the entrance was dark. Just inside spider webs were covering the entrance. Nothing could easily be seen from the entrance, just far enough back that they were in the shadows so that I couldn’t see them. People must know the distinction though. These were spider webs. Not the stuff that you brush out of your face when you ride through thick woodland up near the mountains. Nor is it the stuff that you sweep out of corners when you move something that has been in that corner for far longer than it should have been.

This stuff was like rope. Easily as wide across as my wrist and there were layers of it. Not just that thickness either as it was also wrapped around and woven together with lots of smaller strands as made by smaller spiders. As my eyes became accustomed to the gloom I could see those same smaller spiders running around among the layers of webbing. I say small spiders, these were still field spiders with legs as wide across as my palm.

I leant back for a moment, giving my eyes a few more moments to adjust to the gloom.

Then I took a deep breath.

“Ariadne once told me,” I addressed the webs. “That the real intelligence of the Spiders is not in the spiders themselves, but in the webs that they weave. She spun a fantastical account of how it’s all tied together and about how the vibrations in one web vibrate onto the next. She said that the only thing that was more intelligent than the spider’s web was the network of mushrooms that lies underneath the soil.

“I did not like that idea, call me old fashioned.

“But she said that the web was potentially infinite and that what was happening was that the spiders were spreading that web, in service of the web and gaining information from that web the same way that I would get information from a book.

“I don’t know that that is true although I will admit that it’s a nice idea. I hope that one day I will be able to access that information or maybe even if I want to talk about the dreams of the future, I want Ariadne to be able to tell me what wisdom you have.

“But for now, I am just a simple human and I need to get through here to save the woman I love. Possibly from herself. Please don’t take this the wrong way if I pull out my knife and start cutting.”

So saying, I did precisely that. It was slow going, first I had to almost cut around the thicker webs to get the blade deep enough to then saw at the thicker, more rope-like webs. I did not enjoy doing that. I could not help but think what Letho might make of me using the knife that he had given me for this purpose and I dreaded to think just how much work it was going to take for me to be able to get the blade clean and sharp again afterwards.

But all I had to do was love her and everything was going to be alright.

So that was what I did.

It was work and although I saw no outward sign of my passage being blessed by the spiders, nor did I see any spiders trying to rebuild the web in any way so I took that for blessing. I wondered if this had all been here when Kerrass had come to this place and decided that it wasn’t really important.

It was difficult. I could use my wooden left hand as a club to beat aside some strands or to force a hole and my right hand could cut. My feet were less than useless and I soon learned that I had to cut from the ground up to make any kind of movement forwards. There was far too much of what I was doing that boiled down to brute force and ignorance. And although Svein had once joked that if you can’t solve a problem with violence, then you’re not using enough violence, that was not what I wanted to do here.

In the end, though, I staggered through and fell onto the cold stone. It was remarkably sudden as it all happened only through a combination of luck and a certain amount of leftover training from Kerrass that meant that I didn’t just land on my blade. I realised how close it might have come later and had a bit of a cackle at myself before pulling myself to a sitting position and examining myself for any injuries. It took a minute, again, I only had one working hand but I was fairly confident that I could put my blade away.

I pushed myself to what passes for my feet, another manoeuvre that is harder than you think it is going to be when you don’t have any feet and took stock.

I should have brought some water with me.

I took a deep breath and continued into the cave. As it turns out, Kerrass was right. After a moment of adjustment, I could see quite well here inside the cave itself.

And one of the things that I could see was that the walls were moving. Not literally, but as I got used to the darkness, I could see individual little things moving across the wall. Climbing over each other as though they were rippling in the darkness.

I took another deep breath.

“ARIADNE,” I called. “I LOVE YOU. I AM HERE FOR YOU AND I AM NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU.”

With a bit more time, it became clear that I could see a path that I could follow. I waited a bit longer to make sure that I was not imagining things and that there were limited things on the floor that were going to trip up my wooden legs and otherwise cause me issues.

And I took a step forward and another step and found that I was more confident in my footing. I had to work at it a bit to not worry about the small crawling things that I could feel underneath my trousers. If one of them was poisonous and was poisonous enough to render me unconscious or dead then there was nothing that I could do about that.

For a moment, a vision of being wrapped up in webbing and deposited at Kerrass’ feet by a pair of large spiders crossed my mind. It was not a pleasant thought.

I walked forwards, trying to feel more confident. All I had to do was to love the girl.

A nine-hundred-year-old Vampire, but still the girl that I loved.

After a moment, I could feel the ground starting to shake. It reminded me of the onrushing horses, but it sounded different. It didn’t take me long to figure out what that difference was as two giant spiders started thundering towards me.

I must make those distinctions. I say giant but what I mean by that is that they were huge. Don’t think of them as being the size of buildings or anything, but even a spider the size of a rabbit or a dog is more than enough to be described as being giant from a certain point of view. The bodies of these things were about the same size as cart horses. But when you factor in the reality that their legs had to support all that weight and size. And that their mouths and the mandibles that surrounded those mandibles were equally as proportioned then you might have some idea of the things that were hurtling towards me.

The differences in the sounds were down to the fact that the things rushing towards me had eight legs rather than the standard four. Such a slight difference but it changed the entire profile of that sound.

I picked a patch of the stone that I felt I could stand on moderately solidly as I waited for these huge things to get to me.

It did not take long, they reared up before me, forelegs thrashing around, mandibles working. They were huge things, towering over me. Ichor and slime were dripping from their limbs. Their arms seemed to be armour-plated and they positively exuded menace.

Except in the eyes. I don’t know what it is about the eyes but there was nothing there.

And they chittered. I don’t know how I can describe something as “chittering menacingly” but that was exactly what was happening as these huge things loomed over me.

I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths to calm my heart which was racing.

“I…” I had to take a moment to get my voice under control. “I cannot deny that your display is very frightening,” I told both the spiders and the person that I was certain was listening. “But it is not going to work.”

I risked opening my eyes and regretted it instantly. One of the spider’s maws was inches away from my face and I could see the mandibles working. I closed my eyes again and needed to use some of Kerrass’ old breathing techniques to calm myself down.

“You can frighten me.” I told the open air, doing my best to ignore the audible sounds of mandibles clacking and the feeling of venom and ichor dropping to the floor and on my clothes. “You can drug me and have me carried out of the cave. You can do your best to intimidate me. But you will not drive me away. You can tell me that you don’t love me but I will not believe you because if you wanted to hurt me or drive me away, I would be dead already.”

I took another breath to steady my nerves. I knew what I was going to say next and it was moderately terrifying.

“The only thing you can do to stop me coming to get you is to kill me. I hope that you won’t because I have a lot of duties now. But most important is that I love you and I cannot love you if I am dead.”

I tried for levity but my voice broke at the end. I took another deep breath.

“I LOVE YOU.” I told the empty air before listening to the echoes die away.

As I did so, it occurred to me that I could no longer feel the slime and the ichor dropping on my body. I could no longer hear the clicking of mandibles. I took a risk and opened my eyes.

The two giant spiders were standing a little way off, bracketing a path onward.

“Sorry boys,” I told them. “Lovers tiff.” And I took another step forward.

I looked again at one of them and I swear that it looked sheepish. I don’t know how I can ascribe body language or facial expressions to a Spider. I used to be pretty good at telling what Fluffy was thinking, but as Ariadne would often tell me, Fluffy was an uncommonly clever Spider.

I walked on.

I got the feeling that I was beginning to climb. I was going to have to slap the shit out of Kerrass when Ariadne and I came back out of all of this. Yes, I could see, but only just. I passed a glowing pile of… I want to call them eggs. I didn’t want to look at them too closely in case they were more disgusting than I wanted to think about. But they glowed and it was enough. There were indeed shafts of light high up that could give me the small glow of daylight.

At one point, when the light was brighter. I bent and tried to see if I could tell whether or not anyone had been past this way. Had Kerrass come this way to see what could be seen but I could still see a webway of silk, glittering in the light. Have you ever noticed that? How Spider webs can glitter in the light.

It was oddly beautiful and delicate. I shook my head at the paradox between the thick and tough webs that had covered the entranceway to the cave and this fine lattice work that was covering the ground. There were no signs of breakages though and although I knew that Spiders can repair their webs quickly there was other dust and things across the floor.

It had been a long while since anyone had come this way.

I mean… I am no Kerrass, but I felt comfortable in saying that he had not come this far in.

Maybe I wouldn’t yell at him that much after all. What I could see was that everywhere that I had trodden I had torn those webs that were there. The layers of the webs didn’t go very deep either. If I was any judge, the spiders had not been here that long at all.

I looked back and it was easy to read where I had trodden from the tears in the web.

I looked for a lump of one of the spiders that might be following me. It was not hard to find one above me which was a little intimidating. I have taught myself in the past to look at the body, not the legs when it comes to thinking about the size of the spider. Fluffy had been about the size of a cat with his legs as well but I have found that if you try and take in the size of the spider’s legs as well then the entire thing can be a bit overwhelming.

This one had the same size body as a small dog with additional legs spread out, clinging to the rock face. It was a little intimidating but it seemed to be still which, again experience with these bigger spiders, is an effort to remain hidden.

“I’m sorry for all the damage,” I said. “But I love her and I am determined.”

The spider didn’t move. It was spread out anyway so I’m not entirely sure what kind of body language it could have given me.

I walked on. The path continued to climb. Not needing hands and not so steep a slope that I felt as though I was struggling, but enough so that I could feel the incline. The kind of thing where you would climb a slope by the side of the road to see what was beyond it.

The cave did not narrow so it was still easy going, no need to turn sideways. I had the oddest feeling that I was inside a church of some kind.

The cave seemed to widen out onto a small plateau. The ceiling vanished upwards and I could no longer see daylight in the area above me. I felt as though I was on one of those outcroppings and it would have been easy for me to imagine some kind of Wyvern or a gryphon nesting here before flying off outside of a mountain through a hole that I couldn’t see. The plateau seemed to have been carved into a small bowl and there was further evidence that would support my feeling of a large winged beast of some kind as there were bones and bits of detritus in the plateau. I could see a patch of fur and I thought I could see some arrowheads and things.

There was also a dead spider in the middle of it. And this one earned the title of huge. I know something about Spiders but not enough to guess as to the build or species of the spider. But this one earned the title of huge. Large, bulbous back that was covered in hairs that were, I presume, meant for the channelling of dirt and dust away from the body as it tunnelled through this or that. The legs were large and wanting other descriptions I would have said that they were heavily muscled and there were some markings on the body.

I didn’t see all of the design at first glance but as I looked at it, it was dead. I guessed that, given the size of it, this was the Queen of the Nest although I have no way of knowing if Spiders have Queens, it has always seemed rude to ask. It was lying on its back with its legs curled up into itself in that pose that you see dead Spiders get into when they are definitely, definitively dead.

I stared at it for a long moment.

I don’t know if anyone else does this but this was one of those moments where I could feel my body and mind at war with themselves. There was the part of me that was illogical and the instinctive part of me that makes me laugh when I hear a joke and cry when I am sad. I felt my heart wanting to burst and beat faster. I could feel the tears burning in my eyes as I stood there and I saw the dead body of the woman I loved before me. I was suddenly so sure that this was it. This was the moment. It had all been for this and now here she was and she was dead.

I have no way of telling you what that felt like but I have rarely been so sure of something in my life. It was as though some huge, cold hand had taken hold of my heart and was squeezing it until all the unshed grief that I had contained over the recent weeks and months just… needed to come out.

I could feel the grief in me but even as I felt my knees wanting to buckle and the tears starting to fall from my eyes. My logical brain was rebelling.

“Over and over again,” it was telling me. “Over and over again, powerful beings have been telling you that if you just love her, then everything will be alright.” I levered myself back to my feet and forced myself to look at the dead spider in front of me.

Then I took a deep breath.

“I might not know a lot about Spiders,” I told the corpse. “I don’t even know if spiders breathe. And if I was any other man, then this ruse might have worked. I don’t even know if this is an illusion or if a spider is lying here in front of me.

“But I am not any other man, I am Frederick the Scholar. And when I fell in love with an Elder Vampire… In the same way that you studied humans and found out how humans worked. I studied Elder Vampires.

“You sometimes like to think you are a Spider. And for all I know there is more to that than I am entirely comfortable with. But you are not a Spider. You are a Higher Vampire. It is just that where some Elder Vampires are affiliated with bats, most famously Detlaff and some others are affiliated with Wolves, you are affiliated with Spiders. That is the difference between you and a spider.

“And I have studied you. Therefore I know several things. I know that Elder Vampires don’t just curl up and die. They must be actively killed by another Elder Vampire. It requires an act of will from the killer although I have no idea what that is. And further to that, I know that there isn’t an Elder Vampire for Miles around. As soon as they heard what had happened to you, meaning your enslavement they fled the local area. And then kept going. Your people are not very brave. They feared what happened to you, happening to them. I have that via Lord Geralt who had it via Regis.

Also, just thinking logically, you used to tell me that Spiders could be relatively intelligent, but not really capable of complex mental reasoning. It would not be within a spider to try and intimidate me. They would chase me off, maybe attack me to try and drive me off. But they wouldn’t charge up to me and wave their arms around to try and intimidate me. Before backing off when it became clear that I wasn’t going to be intimidated.

“So that was you. And therefore, I think this is another trick. I can see no signs that the… back bit of the spider is leaking venom or… web juice or however it is that that stuff is made. Nor can I see anything leaking from any part of the spider. This is another illusion.”

I took a deep breath and stepped forward so that I could reach out with my hand and pat the spider on the side, the hair under my hand was thick and bristly.

“Sorry, you had to get caught between us,” I told it.

I stepped back and raised my voice again.

“I am not giving up. Whether you are up, or down, I will find a way to get to you and when I get to you I will take you in my arms and I will keep telling you that I love you until you come back with me. Or, I will stay here with you but I am not leaving you. Never again. NEVER AGAIN.”

I shouted that last but it seemed to not be enough somehow. I closed my eyes.

“I LOVE YOU,” I howled into the void with all of the force that I could muster, putting all of my pain and longing into that howl that I could, or so it seemed to me.

I should have been less surprised when the spider rolled to its feet.

Even despite its bulk, it moved surprisingly quickly. It’s one of those things that people, including me, forget just how quickly spiders can move when they put their minds to it.

The giant spider climbed to its feet and seemed to stretch its legs. It did so four at a time. I had to stand back to give it space before it seemed to shake itself and I could see some dust shake itself free as well as an old bone.

“Sorry,” I told it. I have no idea why.

I swear. I SWEAR that it shrugged at me.

“I might need to speak to Ariadne about reevaluating her assessment as to a Spider’s intelligence,” I told it.

It shrugged again before turning until it’s back to me. It took a leisurely little run up and it leaped until it was against the opposite wall. It shuffled around a bit before it turned up to face the ceiling and what I thought of as up. Then a strange glow came from its back end and a thick rope started to come out of the back. I felt a gentle nudge at the back of my knees to find that I was now surrounded by spiders. Most roughly the size of hunting hounds. One had just tried to nudge me towards the rope.

“Really?” I wondered about the horde of spiders. The nudging one had backed off when I had spun towards it. Once it was agreed that I wasn’t going to immediately try and kill it it came on again, gently stepping forwards.

“You want me to climb the rope?”

The spiders came forwards again.

Somewhere in the back of my head, that instinctual part of my mind, the part that was still a little afraid of spiders, was screaming and gibbering in a foetal ball.

I walked over to the rope to see that I was standing over the edge of a precipice. I looked up at the spider that was lowering the… well… web rope.

“Ummm.” I began. “I might have been able to hold on when I was fit and healthy. But I only have one hand and limited control over my feet. Which are made of wood. I am not sure that I am secure on your… er…. Rope.

There were some generalised chittering noises. One of the bigger spiders, it might even have been one of the ones that had fake charged me, moved to the edge and leapt out until it hung just below the rope, it rotated itself and faced downwards.

“Wait, What?”

One of the smaller spiders nudged me in the back of the legs again.

“Hold on,” I said, turning on them all again. “Let me get this right. You want me to stand on the back of that spider?”

The chittering intensified.

“Sorry, AND hold onto the rope and then he… sorry, I presumed a he, is going to walk down the wall while I hold steady onto the rope?”

The brave little spider… As I say, size is relative. Took another step forward and waved its arms and mandibles furiously at me in a way that reminded me of a washerwoman chasing away a bunch of children that were pranking her.

I turned back to where the rope… it was easier to think of it as rope, dangled and seemed to shake. I could almost feel the words of the giant spider above me. “Come on,” she said to me. “We don’t have all day.”

As it does in these instances, my brain shut down.

“Fuck it,” I said.

I took the rope and wrapped it around my middle before wrapping it around my wrist as best as I could. It was oddly tacky to the touch but as I pulled my hands away, I felt no residue being left on my palms. I had no idea if that would accomplish anything in any kind of effort to prevent my sudden and catastrophic downward tumble. Indeed, I rather thought that if the spiders wanted me to fall, then I was done for, but if they wanted me to stay then I could hurl myself from their backs and I would not fall downward a solitary inch.

Despite the logical brain telling me that, the instinctive brain forced me to take a couple of deep breaths before I stepped out over the gulf and onto the back of the other spider. It can bend your mind if you try to think of it in three dimensions. But it felt like I was standing on the arse-end of a horse. But at the same time, it was remarkably stable.

The spider started to move downwards and I could feel the movements in the body. There was an odd feeling in my stomach as we descended. The rope glowed but I found that I was oddly grateful for the fact that I couldn’t see far enough to see how fast or how far we were going.

My ears did pop though. I don’t know when that’s supposed to be but I guess that this must mean that we went pretty far down. There’s a science to all of that that I can’t pretend to understand so… Who knows.

I do know that the spider playing out the rope that I was holding onto kept it taut so that I had something to hang onto. Which I was glad for as the spider that I was standing on would occasionally change direction and go this way and that way.

There were a couple of times that I ended up smashing into the wall and I had more than a few scrapes and bruises by the time that I was done. I did not count or try to measure time or anything else that might have happened. Instead, I just did my best to hold on and try not to think about whatever it was that I was going to find when I got to the bottom of the chasm.

Eventually, though, that time came and the spider slowed and shifted. It gave a little hop and I was jerked into the air, hanging by the rope which made my heart leap into my throat, I can tell you. But then I was lowered down to a solid floor.

It took me a moment to catch my breath after that small bout of excitement. In the meantime, the spiders were busy. Other spiders had joined us. Some more of the rope had been lowered in the meantime and I could see the dark shapes, illuminated in the soft glow of the rope as they moved around and worked. I did see a few of them doing things that I didn’t want to see again.

They would spit stuff onto the rope which increased the amount that the glow emanated.

More and more of the rope came down and was spread around by the helpful spiders. I was brought a particularly long stretch of rope that the spider lay before me as though it was making some kind of offer before a shrine.

It felt thinner than the stuff that I had held onto before. I guessed that this was something that I was going to use as a personal… Torch I suppose. I wrapped it around myself a bit before rapping considerably more around my useless wooden left hand.

When I looked up from this task I found that the Spiders had illuminated the area and a gap in the rock face. For just a moment, I would have given anything that I could give to not have to crawl through that gap. Because it would have to be a crawl.

“All you have to do is love her,” I told myself and marched towards the gap purposefully.

The spiders illuminated that area and the next. I got the feeling that they were trying to help light the place that I was going to go but what I couldn’t tell them was that as they did so, all I could see were strange shapes in the darkness and hear their skittering and chittering as they spoke to each other and presumably to me.

But telling them to stop would feel like kicking children so I swallowed my fear and moved forwards with them. One small cave led to a larger one but I was still pulling myself along on my body, sometimes pushing myself along with wooden stumps and knees.

Through another cave and another gap and I suddenly realised that there weren’t any spiders around any more. I turned and I could see a mass of them waiting in the previous cave. Not entirely unlike a group of villagers that were watching Kerrass and me going off to face the monster that they were all terrified of. If one of the spiders had had a hat, they would be twisting it nervously in their hands.

“Not coming with me?” I wondered.

They chittered at me.

“Afraid?” I asked.

They answered me by vanishing from sight.

“Fair enough,” I said aloud.

This was it. And the spiders were afraid. They had either delivered me to some God or greater monster to be eaten, or something else was going to happen.

I took the latest in a long line of deep breaths.

“ARIADNE?” I called.

My voice echoed emptily.

“ARIADNE,” I called again. “I AM NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU. ARIADNE. I LOVE YOU ARIADNE.”

Flame don’t let all of this be for nothing.

“ARIADNE.” My voice broke at that end. “Ariadne please.”

I had been keeping my fear and pain at bay with humour and by humanising the terrifying, horrifying creatures that surrounded me and I was finally losing my grip.

“ARIADNE,” I called again. “I LOVE YOU.”

“Go away,” came a small voice from a small distance away.

I literally sobbed with relief.

“Ariadne?” I begged. I scrabbled around looking for the next hole.

“Go away Freddie,” her voice was small and broken.

I found the hole and pulled myself through that as well.

I found myself in a dead end. I could not stand up or straighten. It was only just large enough for a person to lie on one side. I had to fight down panic and a dizzying bout of claustrophobia. But there was already a figure there and there was barely enough for that one alone.

I was weeping now, I couldn’t help it.

“Ariadne,” Flame but…”

She spoke at the same time. Her voice was small and muffled.

“Freddie,” she pleaded. “Please don’t…”

She was so small. I had forgotten how small she was. She was also wrapped in a cocoon of webbing turned on her side away from me, her knees pulled up to her chest.

“I took a breath and scooted along so I could lay with my belly to her back. I understand the position is described as spooning. She tried to scoot away from me but the movement was weak and apart from anything else, there was not a lot of room.

“It’s ok,” I told her. “I’m here now.”

“You shouldn’t,” she babbled from within the cocoon. “You should go, I didn’t want this.”

I didn’t say anything. I wrapped her around with my right arm.

“Freddie, I came here to die, or sleep.” She told me. “I don’t want you here.”

But she didn’t try to wriggle any more.

“It’s ok,” I told her. “I came anyway.”

“Why?” She wailed,

All I have to do is love her.

“Because I love you,” I told her. “I have never stopped. I will never stop.”

“Why?” She begged again.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Because…” I shook my head. “Does it have to be logical?”

“Yes,” She wailed, shifting more towards me in my arms. I took the opportunity to sneak my left arm under her form. I had to force it as the webbing had stuck to the floor. “Yes, it has to be logical. Freddie, after everything I’ve done… How can you love me? I… Powers but after I’ve…”

I wrapped my hands around her to where I thought her head was to try and stroke her head or something. I could feel her arms pressed against my chest. She felt so frail and fragile.

“I’ve killed and killed,” she sobbed. “I’m still covered in their blood. I tried to come down here clean but the blood won’t come off. All of that blood and bile and stomach acid. Goddess Freddie but how could you love me? I killed them. I tortured them. I hunted them down like animals. I chased them through fields and pounced on them at the end. I stood over him and next to him as he used me to strike fear into his followers. I helped him, Freddie. I monitored the chemicals that they put into his body so that he could perform his sick rituals. Goddess but I tortured… I tortured you and I tortured Emma and Laurelen and so many other people.”

She was trembling violently. I guessed that she had moved beyond tears to something else and I pushed my own emotions down until I could just help her through her pain.

“I made my arms and hands into blades that I used to shear through the bodies of men, women, and children. CHILDREN FREDDIE. I killed children. I grasped hold of heads and pulled until I could feel the skin and bone and cartilage tear. He once made me pull a man’s arms and legs off before I killed him. He wanted the man to feel what it was like to be the fly that had its wings and legs pulled off.

“And the spiders, those poor spiders that he forced me to work for him. The spiders that I forced were under my control. Spiders and other Vampires. I made them slaves again Freddie. I had sworn that I would not do that again. I never wanted to be a slavemaster again. I didn’t want to do it Freddie but there I was. Summoning them and forcing them to fight. They didn’t deserve that Freddie. They didn’t deserve that.

“I felt your pain and you looked at me with your eyes and I knew, I knew that if that man told me to pluck out your eyes then I would do so. That knowledge. God Freddie…”

She moved into tears for a while and I felt relief for a moment. I just held her as best as I could.

“I have starved and I have soiled myself and others,” she went on. “I saw you being pushed around on a chair. I saw the horror that they made of those men in the cellars when they took soldiers whose greatest crime was a desire to serve the country and the flag that they loved. And they lied to them. They told them that this was the only way to serve and then they did those things to them. They corrupted them, Freddie and I helped them do that. How can you love me? How can you love someone that did all of that?

“Their screams, Freddie. I can still hear them. I came here to the pit of the world to sleep and hope that the world ends before I wake. I can still hear them as their muscles and bones tore themselves open, only to be regrown. They went mad Freddie and then we gave them new memories and new minds and we told them that it was for the benefit of Redania. A place that’s barely two hundred and fifty years old. And I did that. I lied to those men.

“I killed and killed and killed. I dragged them out of their hiding holes by arms and legs. I dragged them out and threw them to the friends of that man so that they could satisfy themselves with the PEOPLE THAT I CAUGHT FOR THEM. And when I tried to kill the victims before they could be abused, they would force me to torture more, or they would force me to watch while THEY did the torture. Goddess Freddie but how could you love me… How could you love that? I did that. I did that over and over again. How can you love that? TELL ME FREDDIE. HOW COULD YOU LOVE ME?”

She was angry through her pain now and I judged that it was time for me to intervene.

“I want to see your eyes,” I told her. “I want to see your eyes so that you can see mine. I want you to see how much I mean this when I tell you.”

I reached up and started to pull the webs away from her face. There were layers to the webbing and it took some work. In the end, I found her eyes and gently pulled the webs away. I also took the time to expose more of her face. She was skeletally thin, her nose all but a bone and her lips were so far recessed that I could see her fangs. Her eyes were likewise recessed into the sockets of her skull. She was scared and her face was still streaked with blood and filth and tears.

I took her head in my hand and bitterly regretted the loss of my left hand so that I couldn’t cup her face.

“Because it was not your choice,” I told her. “You did not do those things by choice. You were forced. You were compelled. You were not even a slave and the Imperial courts agree with me by the way. You had less choice in the matter than a slave would. You loved and you fought. We saw you. All of us, including the people that you killed. I have a line of people that circle the castle, every day begging me to find you and bring you back so that they can thank you for what you did manage to do. You fought. And I love you for that. And in the end, when you were free, you did not dismiss what you did. You felt that pain, even though you had all the choice of the smith hammer as it strikes the horse-shoe. I love you for the pain that you feel and I will not let you carry it alone. You deserve better.”

Her arms pushed free of the webbing, tearing it easily I noticed. She gripped the side of my head for a moment as she stared into my face. I felt a sharp stabbing pain behind my eyes which I know is the telltale sign of someone reading your mind. I had once asked her never to do that but I forgave her instantly. I just told her that I loved her.

She howled and she was the woman again. Skeletally thin and corpselike. She buried her face in my chest and just howled.

“I’m sorry Freddie,” she wailed. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Shhh,” I told her. “It’s ok.”

We were like that for a while, her begging me that she was sorry and me telling her that it was ok. Then she seemed to calm down for a while.

Then abruptly she pulled me tight against her.

“THEY KILLED FLUFFY,” she howled into my chest.

I remembered the small cat-like Spider. I remembered how he had had the habit of getting up and stretching at those moments when Ariadne’s visitors were being uppity.

I remembered how, at my lowest point, he had slept next to me to keep me grounded.

A memory came of how, at my lowest point, I had been working my body too hard to recover before it was ready and the little spider had climbed onto my chest. His normally flat feet elongated into claws so that I could feel the pinpricks and then he bent to look me in the eyes to tell me that I needed to rest. I remember telling him that I would do as he told me and that he had all but nodded before climbing onto a pillow by the fire, turning around like a cat making itself comfortable and then going to sleep.

I pulled Ariadne close to me and we just held each other as we wept for everything and everyone that we had lost.