I was not sure what to expect when my father took me back to the room with the orb, my mother in tow. I was not sure what to expect when a snap of my father’s fingers made the sphere dissipate into nothing, and I did not know what to expect when he told me to stand where it once was.
Once I was in position, my parents took positions on either side of me and raised their hands toward the floor. Runes, glyphs, and other shapes and symbols started glowing all across the floor, all contained within overlapping circles. An impossible gust started blowing from the circles, one strong enough to throw pebbles into the air. Due to the flying hazards, it was hard to see what was happening, and the debris obscured my vision further, fading into a blinding light blue hue. In an instant, it all ended, and everything went black as my eyes readjusted to the light.
Was that a ritual? I wondered, recalling something Griste mocked me for not knowing about two years prior.
Rituals, as the skinwalker described them, were a form of magic without the magic. When someone arranged letters, runes, and whatnot in a certain way, they would cause magical events to occur. Griste said they were no different from fire or friction except in that they required a level of precision that could never occur in nature.
When I asked him how scribbles of varying sorts could cause magic that wasn’t magic, he shrugged his shoulders.
“Why do fires start when things get hot? Why does gravity pull things? Why does the “burning” of Aura create mana? It’s just one of those things that governs our world,” he answered.
Before I had time to dwell on the nature of rituals, he threw a disk at me, and I dropped the topic. I also dropped my contemplation of the specifics of my travel when my eyes finished adjusting. The sight before me took away my breath to such a degree I couldn’t even gasp.
Before me was an enormous cylindrical cavern with numerous caves, such as the one I was in, dug into the wall. The cavern was so large that the side opposite was far enough away, a city would have looked no bigger than my palm.
Looking over the ledge to get a better view of the floor and ceiling, my jaw dropped as I realized I could see neither. Out of a newly developed fear of heights and depths, I hugged the wall behind me, wishing it went deeper than it did.
Yet the centerpiece of it all dwarfed everything in size. In the middle of the cavern was a tree whose thinnest branches were thick enough to hold ships with plenty of room for error. The thicker branches could have housed a city and penetrated the walls of the cavern. Some stopped there, while others had been dug around, allowing for further settlement of the cave beyond what I could see.
Large braziers encased in gold illuminated the path before me, each placed a few hundred feet apart from one another. The fire burned an identical golden color to its casing, making it hard to differentiate the two, and although I knew little about magic fires, it felt as though they were providing more light than they should have.
Such scenery was like nothing I could have ever dreamed of. Everything I once thought was magical and interesting about the world felt insignificant. It was as if the sheer size of it all pointed and laughed at me for thinking I knew what something wondrous really was.
For a moment, I felt broken as I tried and failed to take in all the magic my eyes took in. Yet my sense of defeat was short-lived and a sense of adventure replaced it. Nothing short of exploring every inch would quench my spirits. Under the most generous estimates, what I once knew was but a taste of everything the world offered, and I could not wait to discover and explore everything that once eluded me.
“So you're the human child Master Harok wanted,” a voice called out to me, startling me out of my amazement at the sight before me.
Bewilderment was replaced with astonishment as I followed the sound of the voice, the kind that kept men awake at night and forced children under their blankets.
The one who called out to me was a woman, one with more human features than I was expecting. Her skin had more color than Griste's, but I still feared what would happen if she went under the sun. Straight black hair hung down to her waist with a thick golden bead at the end to give it some kind of anchor. Somehow it looked as though it was wet, although no water dripped down. Purple eyes one shade below glowing peered into me with an insulting level of indifference. The only piece of clothing she wore was a simple, see through veil over her mouth and nose.
Such immodesty made me uncomfortable—but not because of her lack of clothes. Having lived in Russia and being forced to deal with the weather without magical assistance from time to time, I had grown accustomed to heavy clothing that covered as much skin as possible, so just looking at her made me feel cold.
That alone didn’t strike fear in me. Instead, what made my skin crawl was her lower half. She was half spider.
Insects were never something I had an issue with, but seeing the body of one bigger than me in any dimension was more than enough to fill me to the brim with discomfort and disgust.
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At first, my lack of a reply annoyed the woman, but she was quick to realize the reason for my silence. In my mind, I was expecting her to be amused by such a thing, so when she rolled her eyes from my surprised.
“Let me guess, never seen anything beyond a human,” she asked.
“Just a skinwalker and dragonoid,” I replied, unable to take my eyes off her lower half.
“So a skinwalker is fine, but an arachne isn’t? Kids, I swear I will never understand them,” she muttered. “Come along.”
Without so much as motioning for me to follow, the spider lady walked up a staircase carved straight from the rock that curled around the walls. How far it continued was a mystery, and because she walked on the walls, it became hard to tell which way she was going when the stairs split.
No matter how hard or how long I stared at her chitinous body, my skin would crawl. There was something about seeing the enlarged body of a spider that did not sit well with me. From the way it moved to the tiny way it shined in the golden light, nothing sat well with me, and despite how much I wanted to look away, I could not.
“Who may you be?” I asked, “Your name, I mean.”
“Daphne,” the spider lady replied, putting an end to the conversation.
“Where are your clothes?” I pressed.
“Despite what you may think, not everyone needs them. If you have an issue with my body, that is your problem, not mine,” she answered.
“I-I don’t. I just think you might be cold. Aren’t you?”
“Despite what you may think, not everyone needs them,” Daphne repeated.
“Then why the veil?” I pressed.
“Are you going to continue asking questions for your entire stay?” she asked.
Her response took me aback at first, and I was unprepared for the harshness of her words. The threatening undertones they possessed were enough to silence me for a few moments, but when I realized her tone was closer to that of an annoyed parent tired of their child asking why, she became less threatening.
“Yes, why the veil?” I continued.
Those four words were enough to make Daphne pause in her tracks and let out a long sigh.
“Why did it have to be me?” she mumbled under her breath.
Looking over her shoulder, the spider lady silenced me when six more eyes opened, four above and two below her original two, all appearing on once smooth surface. All eight focused on me, staring as if to maintain my silence. Their unspoken words fell on flat ears; however, as compared to her spider half, the emergence of her eyes was minor by comparison.
When she realized her gaze did not deter me, she let out another sigh.
“I hope you were chosen because of your abilities, human, so Master Harok will send you home sooner rather than later. If I have to spend longer than a week supervising you, you might end up on the wrong side of my web,” she threatened. “I refuse to spend more time with you than I have to. Time for a shortcut.”
Before I could contemplate what she meant, her abdomen pointed at me, and silvery gray silk shot forth. I did not have to test the webbing to know I could not pry it off my shirt, leaving me helpless to do anything as she yanked me towards her. With her back two legs, she lifted me up, and with her next set, she started wrapping the silk around my body.
Claustrophobia would have set in if she had bound my arms or head, but she left both free, alleviating some of the fear I felt about being wrapped up.
Once she finished her work, she placed me on her back, where she further secured me with webs that did not come from. Two quick tugs told her I was secure, and Daphne started climbing up the side of the wall. Having four legs to work with, she glided up the side of the rocks, finding purchase no matter where she stepped.
“Are we going to see Harok?” I asked.
“That’s Master Harok, and of course not. You were expected to be here tomorrow, not today. He has already gone to sleep and will not be up until then. I am taking you to where you will be staying,” Daphne explained.
“Where would that be?” I pondered.
“Under orders from my boss, you will stay with me,” she answered, sounding just as disappointed as I was by the situation.
My imagination could conjure nothing beyond an intertwining mess of webbing, and although there was a level of excitement that came with staying somewhere new, it was not strong enough to convince me sleeping with a spider was something I was ready for.
As if I really have a choice, I joked, squirming in the cocoon to find comfort in its tightness.
It did not take long for Daphne to arrive at our destination in a cave without a carved path leading to it. I found disappointment in the fact the hole she climbed into burrowed at a slant, obscuring my once perfect view of the larger cavern and leveling out on rocky but otherwise flat terrain.
There was no golden light illuminating the cave, and the mouth of the cave devoured any light attempting to penetrate the darkness. An involuntary shiver escaped my bones as the only sounds audible became Daphne’s eight legs skittering against the stone floor. Even my breath was silent, drowned out by the silence.
My shutter pleased the spider lady, and under her breath, I could hear her chuckle.
After wandering down the path for several minutes, she came to a halt and lifted me off my back. An invisible object slid down my back, cutting me from the webbing, and I was quick to stretch my limbs as if I wouldn’t have the chance to do so in the foreseeable future. Knowing it would be dangerous to walk around blind, I concentrated on making a ball of fire to see, only for it to be snuffed out before it could make any traction.
“No fire,” Daphne warned.
Trying my magic again, this time keeping it to light, a shiver once more ran through my body as I took in the sight before me. My expectation of where Daphne would live was spot on, and the cave was filled with spider webs spanning every inch above my head, sparing the ground of the silky substance.
I had to stifle a shout when I saw her maneuvering through her silk construction, her hands weaving together something I could not see.
“I recommend you sleep. I do not know when Master Harok will awaken, and when he does, you will be needed,” she recommended, letting her contraption fall to the ground, revealing it to be a hammock.