"Didn’t your family ever suspect?" said Molly.
"Oh, sure. Finding these old passages is a sort of rite of
passage for young Droods; tacitly permitted, if not actually encouraged. The
family likes to see initiative in its children. As long as they follow the
accepted rules and traditions. But I found some very odd ways that no one else
even dreamed existed, and I never told anyone. I needed something that was mine,
back then, and not the family’s."
"Am I to take it that you know a shortcut to the library?" said
Molly.
"Yes. There’s an opening into a crawl space within the wall not
far from here."
"Then why didn’t you say so before?"
"Well," I said.
"There’s bad news, isn’t there? Somehow I just know there’s bad
news."
"It’s dangerous," I said.
"How dangerous?"
"The crawl space is…inhabited. You see, the Hall has to put its
electrical cables and gas pipes and so on somewhere out of sight, but for
security purposes they can’t just be hidden away inside the walls; they have to
be protected. Against sabotage and the like. So all our crawl spaces and hidden
maintenance areas are located in attached pocket dimensions. Like the Armageddon
Codex and the Lion’s Jaws, but on a much smaller and less dramatic scale. And a
lot easier for people to get into, obviously. Anyway, some of these pocket
dimensions have been around so long they’ve acquired their own inhabitants.
Things that wandered in and…mutated. Or evolved."
"What exactly inhabits this particular crawl space?" said Molly.
"Spiders," I said unhappily. "Big spiders. And I mean really big
spiders; things the size of your head! Plus a whole bunch of other really nasty
creepy-crawly things that the spiders feed on."
"Spiders don’t bother me," said Molly. "That’s more a boy thing.
It’s slugs that weird me out. And snails. Do you know how snails have sex?"
"These spiders will bother you," I said firmly, refusing to be
sidetracked. "Hopefully they’re not actually as big and nasty as my childhood
memories insist, because there’s no way of avoiding them. Their webs are
everywhere. I still have nightmares, sometimes, about all the times they chased
me through the crawl space…with their scuttling legs and glowing eyes…"
"Then why did you keep using that particular shortcut?" said
Molly.
"Because I’ve never let anything stop me from doing what I need
to do," I said. "Not even my own fear. Perhaps especially not that."
"And there’s no other way of getting to the library?"
"Not safely."
Molly sniffed. "You have a really weird idea of what’s safe and
what’s not, Drood."
I led her down a shadowy side corridor, past a long row of tall
standing vases from the third Ming dynasty and then past a glass display case
full of exquisite Venetian glass, until I came to a wood-panelled wall that
stretched away into the distance. I had to keep pulling Molly along, as she got
distracted by so much wealth within easy snatching distance. I counted off the
panels until I came to a particular carved wooden rose motif, and then I turned
it carefully left and right the correct number of times until the primitive
combination lock reluctantly fell into place. The rose clicked loudly, and a
panel in the wall slid jerkily open. The ancient mechanism must be wearing out.
Beyond the panel and inside the wall, there was only darkness.
The opening that had been more than ample for a child was only
just big enough to let Molly and me squeeze through. We crouched down before the
opening and peered into the darkness. A slow cold breeze came out of the dark,
carrying a dry, dusty smell. Molly wrinkled her nose but said nothing. Thick
strands of cobweb hung down inside the opening, swaying heavily on the breeze.
There was no sign that anybody had been in the crawl space in years. I listened
quietly, gesturing sharply for Molly to keep still when she fidgeted. I couldn’t
hear anything. For the moment. I took a deep breath, braced myself, and then
squeezed quickly through the cramped opening before I could change my mind.
Molly followed me in, crowding right behind me, and the wooden panel slid
jerkily back into place.
The darkness was absolute. Molly quickly conjured up a handful
of her trademark witchfire, and the shimmering silver light showed us a narrow
stone tunnel, the rough gray walls all but buried under accumulated layers of
colour-coded wiring, cables, and copper and brass tubing. Thick mats of webbing
crawled across the surface of both walls. I grimaced despite myself, even though
I was careful not to touch or disturb any of it. Molly’s witchlight showed the
tunnel stretching away before us, but if there was a ceiling, the light couldn’t
reach high enough to find it. A thick streamer of webbing blew away from one
wall, carried on the gusting breeze, and I flinched away from it.
"You big baby," said Molly, grinning broadly.
"Isn’t that a slug by your foot?" I said, and grinned as Molly
made a loud eeking noise.
I led the way down the tunnel. Pride would allow no less. The
floor was thick with undisturbed dust. Even the smallest sounds we made seemed
to echo on forever; the only sounds in that endless eerie silence. The tunnel
steadily widened until it seemed the size of a room, and then a hall, and then
abruptly it widened out still farther until I could no longer tell how big a
space we were moving in. I stuck close to the right-hand wall, its familiar
man-made cables and piping a comfort to me. Until they became so thickly buried
under webbing I could no longer see them clearly.
Molly boosted her witchlight as much as possible, but the light
didn’t travel far. Beyond a certain point, the darkness just seemed to soak it
up. There was a feeling of spae…stretching away, endlessly. We walked and
walked, and the journey was just as bad as I remembered. Perhaps more so; I kept
coming across suddenly familiar details that I hadn’t let myself remember. Like
the hollow husks of really big insects and beetles scattered across the floor,
their insides chewed out. And the thick strands of webbing that hung down from
somewhere high above us, twitching and twisting even though the breeze was no
longer blowing. I was amazed I’d found the courage to come this way back when I
was just a kid. But thinking of the Sarjeant-at-Arms’s punishments had made it
easy. I was far more scared of him than I ever was of giant spiders. Even though
I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have actually killed me.
There were noises out in the dark. Scuttling, scurrying noises.
Molly and I stopped short and looked around us. Molly held her handful of light
up high, but it didn’t help. Soft wet sounds came from behind and up ahead,
along with slow scraping sounds, like claws on stone.
"Okay," said Molly. "This is seriously creeping me out."
"Are you sure you can’t make any more light?" I said. "I don’t
think they like the light."
"I’m giving it all I’ve got," snapped Molly, sounding just a bit
strained.
"Something in this pocket dimension of yours doesn’t like light.
It’s all I can do to maintain what I’ve got. How much farther to the library?"
"Still some way yet," I said. "If I’m remembering correctly.
Follow me, hurry as much as you can, but don’t run. They chase anything that
runs. I found that out the hard way."
We moved on, striding quickly through the dark. The webbing
hanging down from above was getting thicker, heavier, like hanging curtains of
dirty gauze. I ducked around them, careful not to let any of them touch me. They
were all stirring restlessly now, twitching as though disturbed from a long
sleep. And always there were the noises out in the dark, slowly but steadily
closing in on us. Molly and I moved as quickly as we could without actually
running. We were both breathing hard.
We almost ran straight into the massive web that blocked our
way, its silver gray threads only showing up in the witchlight at the very last
moment. It hung unsupported on the air before us, huge and intricate, radiating
away beyond the limits of the witchlight. It would take a spider the size of a
bus to spin a web that size. Or an awful lot of smaller spiders working
together. I wasn’t sure which thought was the most disturbing. It very
definitely hadn’t been here the last time I came this way.
"That…is a big web," said Molly. "Still, I’ve got some shears
and you’ve got a bloody big stick. Do we smash our way through?"
"Can’t help feeling that’s a bad idea," I said. "But we don’t
have any choice. We have to go on…"
"Look," said Molly. "If you’re really that worried, armour up."
"I can’t," I said. "The rules of reality work differently here.
The armour won’t come. I found that out the hard way too."
"Now he tells me," said Molly. "Okay, it’s time to squeeze one
out or get off the pot. We can’t go back, so…burn, baby, burn!"
She thrust her handful of witchfire into the nearest clump of
threads, and they caught alight immediately, burning with a fierce blue light.
The fires shot up and along the trembling threads, spreading quickly across the
huge cobweb. And in this new, revealing light, Molly and I could at last see
what it was that had been following us all this time. We were surrounded by an
army of spiders, thousands of them, stretching away for as far as the light
carried, and probably beyond. And they were all really big spiders. Black furry
bodies the size of my head, many-jointed legs a yard or more long, clusters of
eyes that glowed like precious jewels. And heavy mouth parts that clacked
viciously together, drooling a thick saliva.
"Run," I said.
Molly and I burst through the burning remains of the web,
slapping aside the entangling threads. The spiders came after us like a great
black wave, silent except for the pattering of their many legs on the dusty
stone floor. This close, I could smell them; a sour, bitter smell, like acid and
spoiled meat. Something else I’d made myself forget, down the years…Molly and I
sprinted through the dark, pushing ourselves as hard as we could. Horrid pain
slammed through the whole of my left side with every step, forcing tortured
sounds past my clenched teeth. So much tension and exercise must be spreading
the strange matter farther through my system. I managed a small smile at the
thought of the spiders behind me.
Hope I poison you, you bastards…
I could feel myself slowing. Molly was leaving me behind as she
kept up a pace I could no longer match. I could have called out to her, but I
didn’t. One of us had to get out. She looked back anyway, realised she was
getting too far ahead, and dropped back to grab me by the arm and urge me on.
Thank God she grabbed my good arm. A spider came sailing through the air towards
me on the end of a long streamer of webbing, like a big black hairy balloon. I
lashed out with Oath Breaker, and the heavy ironwood stick struck the giant
spider right among its eyes. The body exploded in a wet splatter of flying
innards. More spiders came sailing out of the darkness. I struck about me with
Oath Breaker, killing everything I hit. Molly threw handfuls of witchfire this
way and that, and burning spider bodies fell out of the air.
We ran on, not as swiftly as before, our feet squelching heavily
through pulped spider remains on the floor, sometimes still shuddering and
twitching. The spiders were swarming close behind us now, almost on our heels. I
thought longingly about the Colt Repeater in its shoulder holster, but in the
time it would take me to stop and wrestle the gun out of the holster, the
spiders would be all over me. So I just kept going, fighting for breath now,
crying out at the pain within me, lashing increasingly wildly about me with Oath
Breaker, which seemed to grow heavier with every blow.
The exit from the crawl space wasn’t far now, I was sure. I was
almost sure.
We slowed still more, exhausted by the long day, and the spiders
caught up and swarmed all over us, clawing and biting. Molly and I stumbled on,
crying out in pain and shock and disgust. I pulped their soft squishy bodies
with my bare hands, thrusting Oath Breaker through my belt. Molly brushed the
spiders away with her handful of witchfire, and the burning bodies fell away
from her to skitter madly back and forth on the floor, blazing brightly in the
dark. But there were always more climbing all over us, dropping out of the air.
Both Molly and I were yelling out loud now as we beat the things away. More
scurried around our moving feet, darting up our legs or trying to trip us, but
they were too light and flimsy, for all their size. We crushed them underfoot
and stumbled on.
Until finally I saw, in the flickering witchlight, a familiar
sight up ahead. The exit panel for the crawl space, leading back into the Hall.
Into light and warmth and sanity. I could see it up ahead, light from outside
shining brightly past its edges, clear as day in the endless crawl space dark.
I pointed it out to Molly, and we found a few last vestiges of
strength to hurry us on. The panel slid jerkily open as we approached, activated
by our presence, and then stuck halfway just long enough to scare me with the
thought that the ancient mechanism had broken down. And then it started moving
again, spilling painfully bright light into the darkness.
I pushed Molly through the narrow gap and squeezed myself
through right behind her. I spun around and twisted the carved wooden rose on
the wall, and the panel closed itself with a series of heavy, slow jerks. One
last giant spider forced its way through after us, rearing up, only to collapse
and die on the floor, its long multijointed legs scrabbling weakly. The
oversized thing couldn’t exist in our reality. The spiders that still clung to
Molly and me slowly fell away, also dying. They scuttled weakly across the waxed
and polished floor, trying to get back to the safety of the dark, but Molly and
I stamped on them, pulping them under our feet. They would have died anyway, but
we needed to kill them.