Web of Pale Venom
John C. Hocking

The knife flipped end over end and hit the target just left of center. Dust rose from the withered disc, a cross section of an ancient cactus cut down on my uncle’s estate. I frowned in the glare of the afternoon sun. I’d been aiming at the bulls-eye.

“A librarian who throws daggers?”

I’d thought I was alone in the dry courtyard behind my apartment, but there was a woman leaning on the rickety fence, watching me.

“I’m not a librarian,” I said, surprise giving my voice an irritable edge. “I am an archivist.”

The woman raised a hand in protest and smiled. The smile was white and attractive and seemed somewhat at odds with her severe military garb. She took off her low-crested helmet and shook back a golden stream of hair.

“Small difference,” she said. “I wonder if you might do me a service.”

“There is a very great difference,” I said. “A librarian tends a miscellany of titles and lends books to any and all. An archivist tends to an official collection of important works of historical and political value available only to those entitled to peruse them.”

“All right,” she said. “I misspoke.”

“What exactly is so unlikely about anyone, librarian or archivist, throwing a dagger? And have I not already done you a great service, Lucella Esteriak?”

The soldier squinted at me as if she was peering into a high wind.

“You have. Yet I have need of someone knowledgeable.” She smiled at me again, this time more wryly. “I thought of you.”

I went to the target and pulled the knife free. An archivist doesn’t get much flattery and I didn’t quite know how to respond.

“Do you know of the delirium root?” she asked.

“Used by the Old Southrons in ceremonies. Some say modern mesa folk still eat it in secret, but I’d say it was just another part of native culture lost when the cities of the Triad were built on Southron ruins.”

“Would you recognize delirium root if you saw it?”

“Are you suggesting I use the stuff? The best tool of an archivist is a clear mind.”

“No,” she snapped. “I’m just trying to get a direct answer to a simple question. Perhaps it is too much to hope for.”

“I worked the section of the archives devoted to flora when I was apprenticed. The delirium root is quite distinctive, umber colored and forked.”

“So you do know it?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Will you come with me then?”

“You want me to identify…”

“Give me an hour of your time and I’ll buy you lunch.”

I thrust the dagger into the sheath at the small of my back. It was my day off and nobody had offered to buy me lunch in quite a while, so I went with Lucella Esteriak, a soldier of the House of Flavius. I’d met her, under unusual circumstances, in the Archives a few weeks before and hadn’t thought I’d ever encounter her again. I was probably more pleased to see her than I should have been.

We walked out of tenement row and skirted Cistern Park, where the Archives slumbered in the warm sun, surrounded by dusty, nodding palms. The marketplace on the park’s north side was quieter than usual. We came out of the markets and began to ascend the Tiers, where many of the nobility have residence.

“Commoners shouldn’t wander in this neighborhood without reason,” I said.

“We have a reason.”

Lucella walked quickly, doubtless trained by years of marching in the service of the House of Flavius. She turned off the main street, down a narrow avenue shaded by stately ranks of trees. The air was cooler and the sun came through the branches in bars of gold. There was a guardhouse just past the corner. It was both larger and considerably better appointed than my apartment, but it was empty.

“Where’s the guard?” I asked.

“Busy elsewhere,” said Lucella.

We walked down the smoothly cobbled avenue, past mansions set back from the street, their pillared facades half obscured by well-tended foliage. Lucella stopped before an opening in a low wall of adobe brick. A stone walkway cut through the wall, across a yard full of aromatic cedars, to a broad porch that fronted a wide, two-storied mansion.

“Here we are,” she said.

“Where?” I demanded.

“You’ll see in a moment.”

We went down the walkway and up the porch steps to the door. The house was of ochre-tinted mesa stone and looked to have been thrust up whole from the earth.

“The windows are barred,” I said.

“Indeed,” said Lucella. Her hands were digging into the pouch that hung beside her short sword. Dappled sunlight shone on her gray and gold armor. She straightened suddenly, holding up a slim, hooked lockpick.

“Even the windows of the second floor are barred,” I said uncertainly.

She didn’t reply, but began working the pick in the door’s huge lock. It opened with a harsh snap. Lucella pulled the heavy door open and stepped inside.

“Come on,” she said, holding the door for me. “Quickly.”

I moved past her into a large foyer that was dim, quiet and cool.

“Stay away from the windows,” said Lucella. She shut the door, and began to walk into the house.

“One moment,” I said.

Lucella stopped, and then turned to favor me with one of her smiles. “Yes?”

“I’m certain that lunch at your expense will be delightful, but I really think I deserve some explanation before we go any farther.”

“Of course.” She raised her eyebrows guilelessly.

“Come Lucella, what is this place and what are we doing here?”

“This is the home of Vettius Karabonde,” she said.

I felt like I’d swallowed a stone, but I must not have looked it because Lucella continued blandly. “A new joy potion is circulating in the city and I have it on good authority that its source lies within these walls.”

“Vettius is an unscrupulous trader, but he is a very rich and powerful one. And he is said to consort with sorcerers. Lucella, why do you concern yourself with this?”

Her blue eyes flashed contempt at me and I might have felt abashed if we weren’t in the midst of a crime that could get us both sent to the mines.

“I’m an acting constable,” she said. “I did a long stretch with the legion outside Frekore chasing bandits off the caravan road, so they’ve given me work in the city for a while. Vettius is off on a trading venture to Anparar.”

Relief was like a balm. I opened my mouth, but before I could speak Lucella turned back into the house.

“This new joy potion has slain a pair of soldiers. Come along,” she called back over her shoulder, “and bring your expertise. There’s a greenhouse in the back that I want you to look at.”

I followed her out of the foyer and through a broad, circular room. Dark tapestries covered the walls, oil lamps dangled unlit from golden chains set in the ceiling. Shadows pooled everywhere. The silence was oppressive and made the small sounds of our intrusion seem like a clangor of trespass. We passed an elegant stairway, went through a number of dim rooms, then came to another locked door. Lucella used her lockpick again and we slipped out the back of the house into the bright, moist air of a greenhouse.

I went through it in short order, working my way down the ranks of potted plants. Most were flowers, and if I didn’t know all of them by name, I still knew that none of them were delirium root, or any other drug. Vettius Karabonde liked orchids.

I looked up through the glass roof of the greenhouse and saw movement in a second floor window. Something like a bundle of sticks pressed against the close-set bars. I felt an odd weakness at the base of my spine, akin to the instinctive revulsion one feels discovering tainted or vermin-infested food.

“What’s that?” I pointed.

“What?” Lucella peered upward. “There’s nothing.”

The second floor window was empty. I felt unaccountably foolish.

“Well, there’s nothing here in the greenhouse, either.” I said. “Harmless flowers.”

Lucella cursed and hastened back to the door. We went inside and, at her insistence, searched the first floor as thoroughly as we could without leaving any obvious signs. We found nothing.

When Lucella began to ascend the stairway to the second floor, I felt a strange reluctance and had to speak.

“I did see movement in that window.” I tried to make my voice firm and matter of fact. Lucella, as if to honor my apprehensions, drew her short sword from its sheath.

The air at the top of the stairs carried an odd scent, acrid and sharp, yet not unpleasant. It cleared my head. Lucella sniffed and frowned thoughtfully.

We went through an open arch into a fine library with a high, domed ceiling. Books bound in cloth, wood, iron and copper shared shelves with scrolls of all sizes. In moments I spotted volumes I’d never seen before. Walls that weren’t covered by shelves were hung with fine tapestries. At the room’s center sat a luxurious divan upholstered in scarlet velvet.

“It isn’t right,” I muttered.

“What?” Lucella was headed across the room, toward a half-open door.

“Vettius Karabonde sits here like some kinglet in his library, reading works even the Archive doesn’t have.”

Lucella snorted, pushed open the door, and froze.

“What the hell?” she said.

A desk scattered with scrolls sat beneath a barred window curtained with gauze that moved listlessly in the warm breeze. There were bookshelves lining the walls, but what first caught the eye was a cage in the corner between the desk and a tall cabinet. The cage was the right size to be a kennel for a large dog, but it was empty except for a few gray rags dangling from the bars. Its door, a simple hinged grate, was wide open.

A man in the tunic of a household servant lay prone beside the cage. Lucella moved quickly to his side and knelt. His skin was gray as paste, but he wasn’t dead. His lips moved ceaselessly, as if he whispered to himself. I bent over his face, close enough to see that it was slick with sweat, but I could hear nothing of what he said. He might have been praying.

“What happened to his leg?” Lucella’s voice held incredulity and revulsion.

The man’s right leg, bare below the tunic, was shrunken and withered, blotched with dark mottling like a rotted branch. The room seemed suddenly very quiet.

“It’s not dead,” said the man in the thinnest of whispers. “It’s not dead.”

There was a swift scuffling sound outside the room, a dry rattling that ceased abruptly. My heart reeled in my ribs and I backed away from the door, bumping into the cage. I knocked over a broomstick leaning against the bars.

“What was that?” I said. It occurred to me that even if lunch with Lucella was excellent, I was unlikely to have much appetite for it. She stood over the man with the withered leg, holding her short sword casually.

“Rats?” she suggested.

“In the house of Vettius Karabonde?”

The broomstick had fallen over my foot, and when I picked it up I saw that it wasn’t a broomstick at all. At one end was a tight bundle of cloth that was sticky with thick pale fluid. It gave off the acrid reek that tainted the air of the second floor. The wad of cloth showed many punctures, as if it had been chewed.

“Smells like the joy potion,” said Lucella, her eyes still on the door.

I set the broomstick aside and pulled open the cabinet beside the cage. Inside were many racks of small, glass flasks, each full of a pale fluid. I didn’t need to study the small wooden press or the clumps of sodden cloth within to understand what I had found.

“Gods,” I said. “Gods and demons.”

“Those are flasks of the drug,” said Lucella savagely.

“It’s not a drug,” I said, feeling sick. “It’s some kind of venom.”

A door slammed on the first floor. I started violently, but Lucella just lowered into a crouch.

“Hello!” came a cry from below.

“Damn,” said Lucella.

“Constable’s business,” shouted a deep voice.

“Damn!” said Lucella with more vehemence.

“What?” I demanded. An unpleasant certainty fell over me.

Silently, she went to the door and I followed her into the library.

“Here, Philon,” she called. “Up here.”

Lucella and I stood to either side of the red velvet divan and waited until a soldier appeared in the arch. He was a tall, rangy fellow whose brow formed a straight bar above his dark eyes. I couldn’t help noticing that his crest and chevrons showed him to be of higher rank than my companion. He held a naked sword in his fist.

“Not quite, Lucella,” he said. “Not quite clever enough.”

“Did you catch the cutpurse at the West Gate?”

“Of course not,” said Philon easily. “There wasn’t any. I wondered why you’d sent me on a fool’s errand. Then I was told a woman soldier had been seen in Vettius Karabonde’s greenhouse, and it all made sense. You’re over-zealous, Lucella.”

I noticed someone moving in the doorway behind the tall soldier. It was a smaller man, bald and hawk-faced, clad in ivory robes bordered with purple. As I watched he stepped from behind Philon with a dramatic flourish of his robe’s hem. He fixed a cold gaze on Lucella.

“Do you know who I am?” His voice was thin, but imperious.

“Statillus Devonata,” said Lucella. “You live next door. You saw us in the greenhouse.” It wasn’t a question.

“Vettius Karabonde and I are not merely neighbors, but partners in business. It is only natural that I watch over his interests when he is gone.” Statillus Devonata produced a short staff from a deep pocket. The dark green gem mounted at one end glittered balefully as he pointed it at us. I knew it must be a Nobleman’s Comfort, a sorcerous weapon produced by the king’s wizards for the protection of the rich and powerful. They contained a number of magical charges that could be released at will by their owner. I’d never seen one before, much less had one pointed at me.

“This is the woman you spoke of to me, Philon?” said the nobleman. “Who is the scribe?”

“I am not a scribe,” I said.

“I don’t know him,” said soldier.

“I am an archivist,” I said.

Statillus Devonata fingered the emerald-tipped staff and frowned at Lucella and me.

“They’ve been in Vettius’s study, constable,” he said slowly. “They must have seen it.”

Rage radiated from Lucella’s armored body like heat from a forge.

“You bastards can’t get away with this.” She forced the words between clenched teeth. “Your new joy potion is killing those who use it.”

“Not quite, Lucella,” said Philon with a smile.

“Not all,” said Statillus Devonata. “Just a few. Vettius simply failed to dilute it adequately. It’s been used by a little cult in Anparar for years, but it took a visionary man of business like Vettius to see its commercial value. It’s understandable we might lose some customers before learning how to handle the product correctly, and certainly worth it, as the drug is almost immediately addictive.”

“You’ve killed two of the legion,” snarled Lucella. “You’ll answer for it!”

“Not quite,” said Philon again.

“Stand back, constable,” said Statillus Devonata, and lifted the wand.

I’d read that a Nobleman’s Comfort might emit blasts that froze, burned or shredded flesh, and I didn’t want to learn what Devonata’s could do.

“Before you waste any charges,” I said quickly, “perhaps you should look in the study.” Devonata’s face darkened and Philon lifted his sword nervously. I was suddenly certain I knew something that would disturb them so much they might even forget about killing us.

“Why?” said the nobleman. “Speak!”

“It’s out,” I said. “It got out of the cage.”

The constable blanched and Statillus Devonata lunged forward. I stepped aside as he passed me at a run, his gilded sandals sliding as he drew up in the doorway and stared into the study.

“Oh my Gods!” His voice cracked. He spun to face me, all of his nobleman’s poise lost. “Where is it? Have you seen it?”

“I think we heard it just before you came in,” I said.

“It’s still here!” Devonata’s voice was strangled. “It couldn’t get out of the house!” He ran past me again, holding the Nobleman’s Comfort before him like a lucky talisman, and went on through the arch to the stairs.

“What the hell?” Lucella was looking at me as if I’d performed some wonder of sorcery.

“Come on,” said Philon tersely. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“A moment,” I lifted a hand. “Let’s wait just a moment.”

“No!” The nobleman’s voice came up the stairwell. “We’re trapped! Constable!”

Philon started forward, but then Statillus Devonata’s voice lifted in a horrible wordless cry, a desperate, incoherent screech of horror and protest.

The hair on my forearms rose as if I stood in a winter wind. Philon took a step back from the arch. Lucella seized my arm and stared at me with mad intensity.

Devonata’s scream dwindled to a ghastly series of pleading moans. Then he fell silent.

“What the hell is going on, archivist?” demanded Lucella hoarsely.

“My name is Kel,” I said. My mouth was so dry the words came out as a whisper.

“Come on,” said Philon. “It’ll be busy with him for a moment or two. Maybe we can get past it.” He moved quickly to the arch, sword held before him. I followed, leading Lucella, who kept a grip on my wrist like a steel manacle.

“What is it?” she whispered. “What?”

“I don’t know. Whatever was in the cage.”

The stairs seemed darker than they had on the way up. Lucella released my wrist and drew her sword. My fingers found the throwing dagger in its sheath at the small of my back.

The circular, tapestry-hung room was empty. So was the shadowed arch that led to the foyer and the front door. Philon moved toward the arch, sidling sideways as if he approached an armed foe. His steps grew shorter and shorter until he stopped in the room’s center. His face was beaded with sweat and his eyes were wild. I was keenly aware of the fact that he, alone among us, actually knew what manner of thing had escaped the cage, and that he, a constable of the legion, was clearly frightened half to madness. Lucella pushed past him and I kept up with her.

Statillus Devonata lay on the floor of the foyer, a few paces away from the door. The door itself looked strange, covered with gray rags like those that hung in the cage upstairs. There was nothing else in the room.

Lucella broke for the door. I went with her but looked about as I did, searching every corner of wall and ceiling. Devonata lay on his face, hands like claws against the floor, and there was a wound at the base of his neck. Two blue punctures. I caught a tang of the now familiar acrid reek. There was no sign of his Nobleman’s Comfort. Philon shuffled into the foyer behind us.

A frustrated curse from Lucella pulled my gaze up to the door. It was plastered with what looked like ragged, grey ropes. I reached out a hand.

“Don’t touch it!” Philon burst out. “Flesh will stick to it.”

“What is it?” I asked, though by now I knew.

“Web,” said the constable. “It’s sealed us in.”

“Sealed us…” I began, “…then this is a dead end.”

We returned to the circular room in a tight group, trying to look everywhere at once.

“Vettius said it was intelligent. Smarter than anyone would believe,” Philon muttered. I didn’t think he was really talking to us.

“Smart enough to seal the back door, too?” I asked. We worked our way halfway across the circular room.

“What is this thing? A demon?” Lucella apparently couldn’t decide if she should be terrified or enraged. Philon’s reaction was easier to read-- his voice shook as if he were in the grip of a hard fever.

“Not quite, Lucella. From the salt marshes South of Anparar. Vettius said it was damned hard to catch…”

There was a sudden strange rattling, as if a dozen dry sticks scraped and clattered across the hard floor.

Philon started to run before I even saw what made the noise. It came out of a dark arch to our right, and it was sickly yellow, the color of the poison land of its birth. The killer of Statillus Devonata rushed at us on eight legs, each as thick as two fingers, and as it came it lifted the foremost pair, displaying hooked black fangs and spasmodically grasping palps. A spider bigger than a hunting dog was scuttling toward me.

My hand snapped back to hurl my dagger but Lucella shoved me sideways with such force my feet left the floor. I lit on my side, rolled, came to my feet, and saw the thing race right up Lucella’s body. It moved so swiftly she couldn’t bring her point to bear and simply hurled the horror from her. The creature couldn’t have been heavy; it sailed through the air, landed on its back and slid until it hit the wall. Lucella spun and ran through an arch, down a shadowed hall. The long, many-jointed legs heaved convulsively and the spider flipped neatly onto its feet.

I fled. My mind was stripped of reason and falling as I ran down a dark hallway. I rounded a corner, slid on a rug, rebounded from a wall and scrambled through another arch. There was no consideration of where I was going; there was no room in my skull for anything like thought. I ran through a room almost filled by a large, unmade bed. My foot snagged in a loose coverlet, and I fell, rolling headlong into the next room. It had no other exit.

I crouched on the floor with my dagger held at arm’s length, pointing at the open arch. The blade trembled wildly. A chill like frost settled over my arms and shoulders. My lungs heaved for air, but I was desperate to remain silent and forced myself to breathe as slowly and softly as I could.

I’d considered my own death many times, but never imagined an end like this. To have that horror batten onto my body, pump me full of poison, and suck out my blood while I still lived was a fate so unendurable that I eyed the blade of my knife and wondered, should Vettius’s pet leap into the room, if I’d have the courage to cut my own throat.

But the creature did not appear. Long minutes passed until I felt able to stand. More passed until I could bring myself to leave the room. I’d heard no cries or sounds of struggle, but I didn’t know if that meant we had escaped it or that it could kill us silently.

I winced at the sound of my steps on Vettius Karabonde’s floor of marble and hardwood, pulled off my sandals and walked barefoot. Dread dizzied me, but I couldn’t let it steal my reason. I had to find Lucella, then get out of the house. I moved through the dim chambers like a man trapped in a delirium dream. I rounded a corner and came upon the stairway to the second floor.

“Hey, archivist,” someone whispered harshly. Lucella was crouched on the stairs. “I thought we lost you.”

“We?” My relief at seeing her literally weakened my knees. I gave her a grin, though I imagine it was a wretched specimen.

“Yes, Philon fled back to the room with the cage. Says it won’t want to go back to its prison.”

“How would he know that?” I managed, mounting the stairs to her side.

“I don’t think he does.” Lucella’s blue eyes were bright. “But it isn’t up there now at any rate.”

We went back through the high-ceilinged library to the room with the cage. The door was closed, and we knocked before going inside to where Philon waited, leaning on the desk. He didn’t greet us. In one hand he held his sword, in the other he hefted a small bust of Janarax he’d taken from the desktop. His gaze leapt repeatedly from the doorway to the window.

“Do you think we could tear loose the bars and climb out?” he asked.

“If we had a maul, a pickax and a few hours to work,” said Lucella. “Wake up, constable, we’re leaving.”

“How?” asked Philon sullenly.

Lucella tore a tapestry from the wall and began to cut it to strips with her sword. She caught up the broomstick and, with a grimace, stomped on and snapped off the venom-soaked bundle of rags.

“We fight, Philon. We check the back door, as the archivist suggested. Then, if we can’t get out there, we hunt that thing down and we kill it.” Lucella tied the strips of tapestry tightly around the broken tip of the broomstick, then took a lamp from the desk and poured oil over the bundle of cloth.

“Can we fight that thing?” Philon’s voice betrayed his doubt and fear.

“Of course we can,” I said. “It’s just an animal.”

“Not quite,” put in Philon scornfully.

“It ran up my leg and I tossed the stinking thing across the room before it could sink a fang in me,” said Lucella.

“And now we’ll have a weapon all beasts fear,” I said, more bravely than I felt.

Lucella bent over the broomstick with flint and steel, and when she stood she held a flickering torch. We went out the door together, united in our resolve, if nothing else. Philon brought the bust of Janarax and held it as if he might throw the little statue at any moment.

There was something different about the library. I slowed; certain that something had changed. Lucella and Philon walked ahead; I looked past them and saw that one of the tapestries was missing from the wall.

Overhead, in the shadows that clung at the domed ceiling’s apex, there was movement. Philon cried out and recoiled toward me. Something dark dropped swiftly from above and fell upon Lucella. She and her torch were blotted from view; a tapestry covered her like a net.

I looked up as the spider dropped, legs spread like an evil star, hurtling down from the high ceiling. It lit with a clatter, close beside Lucella, who was shouting and staggering beneath the tapestry the thing had dropped on her.

Philon yelled wordlessly and lashed out at the horror with a swing of his sword so wide and desperate that the point clipped my upper arm. The spider’s forelegs drew back and it sprang toward him, black fangs extended. With another cry, he hurled the little bust of Janarax at the thing and turned to run. His panicked throw struck home, but the statue merely knocked the spider backward before clattering to the floor.

Lucella was out from under the tapestry and still gripping her sword, but she’d lost the torch. She leapt toward the study’s door, through which Philon had already disappeared. The spider scuttled after her, moving between me and the study. Lucella skidded to a halt, seized the door and was about to slam it when she saw me standing stupidly in the middle of the library.

“Run!”

I did as she advised, whirled and sprinted for the stairs.

In the arch’s mouth something struck me at ankle level and cut my legs from under me. I went face-down hard, slamming chest, belly and chin into the floor. My dagger flew from my hand. Blood filled my mouth and yellow glare filled my eyes. I gagged, unable to suck air into my lungs. I tried to crawl but my bare right foot was held painfully in place. Writhing onto my side, I saw a gray band of web stretched across the arch a hand-span above the floor. It was a trip wire. The oily rope of webbing was sealed to my flesh just above the ankle. Pulling against it caused searing pain.

The red divan at the library’s center blocked my view of the study, so I couldn’t see Lucella, but I could tell she hadn’t closed the door against the spider because I could hear her cursing it at the top of her lungs.

Bleary eyed and stunned, I forced myself to look for the dagger, thinking to cut myself free. It lay in the middle of the floor ahead of me, beyond my reach. I pulled against the web and it felt like my foot was being skinned.

I heard the study door slam, and froze.

Lucella had closed off the study, which left me alone in the library with the spider. Silence pressed me to the floor. Dread hollowed and sickened me. I looked at the dagger and knew it was the only thing that could help me.

Then came the quick clattering of the horror moving across the floor, and I threw my full weight against the web. My foot ripped loose from the tripwire, stripping skin and flesh to the bone. I gasped in pain and shock, floundered forward and closed my hand on the dagger’s hilt.

The clattering came again, and I flipped onto my back in time to see the spider leap into view atop the red velvet divan. Eight eyes like clumps of black onyx fixed on me. The many-jointed legs crouched to spring and I hurled the dagger as hard as I could.

The blade struck just behind the thing’s head, drove through its body and nailed it to the divan. My hoarse shout of triumph drowned out any sound it might have made. I got to my feet as it writhed, legs thrashing. Pale venom flew from wildly clicking fangs. Deep yellow ichor flowed thickly from beneath its pierced body and painted an ugly stripe on the crimson velvet. Abruptly, it went still.

I stood and watched it for a while. Retrieving the knife seemed absurd. I swayed. My arm bled where Philon had cut it, my mouth and jaw throbbed, and when I finally took a step, my bare foot splashed in blood that flowed from the wound I’d torn coming off the tripwire.

“Lucella?” I called. My voice sounded strange. I walked past the tapestry the thing had dropped on her, and saw Lucella’s makeshift torch lying beside it, still smoldering and scorching an unsightly blotch on the floor of Vettius Karabonde’s library.

I knocked on the study door. Lucella opened it and I stumbled past her into the room.

“You killed it?” she exclaimed.

“The librarian throws daggers,” I slurred. I half fell against the wall and leaned there, suddenly so cold and weary I had to fight to keep my feet.

“It’s dead?” Philon stood in the study’s center. His sword was sheathed, but he laid his hand on its hilt.

“He pinned the damn thing to the couch with his dagger!” crowed Lucella.

Philon took a quick step toward me and drove his fist against the side of my head. The back of my skull rebounded from the wall and I sat down hard. I was stunned, but not so much that I couldn’t keep track of what was happening.

“Philon!” Lucella’s voice cracked like a whip. The constable stood over me with one hand still on his hilt. He turned his body to face her. Even with my head ringing like a gong I was grateful to Lucella for drawing Philon’s attention.

“So you think to clean up this mess for your master, Vettius Karabonde?” Lucella faced Philon squarely, sword sheathed at her hip. Her blue eyes were hard and bright and she was smiling.

“He’ll reward me,” said Philon softly, “for making the best of a bad situation.” Staring at Lucella, he drew his sword from its sheath with slow deliberation. “I’ve sparred with many lady legionnaires, and I’ve defeated every one of them. I will cut you down, Lucella.”

I pushed against the wall, and got to my feet just as they leapt together like two snakes striking at one another. There was no preliminary trading of cuts and parries; Philon thrust viciously. Lucella hammered his blade aside with such force his sword arm was thrown wide, as if he leapt to embrace her rather than run her through. She side-stepped into his wide open guard, and her sword shot up in a bright blur that punched through the hollow of his throat. It sounded like a soft melon getting a hard kick.

“Not quite, Philon.” She smiled savagely into his astonished face, then jerked her blade free. He reeled past me, spraying blood, hit the wall and slid down it, choking and leaving an ugly crimson smear.

I couldn’t speak. I looked at Lucella and felt my guts roll over. The smile hadn’t left her face. She held the red sword as if eager to use it again and I was the only fellow in the room.

“He shouldn’t have drawn on me,” she rasped through that awful smile.

“No,” I said. “It was unwise, and if he could speak right now I’m certain he’d agree with you.”

Her eyes lost some of their hard shine and she looked at me as if I’d just arrived.

“Archivist, you’re a mess.”

“Thanks.” I found some clean strips of cloth in the cabinet beside the cage and bound my foot while Lucella checked the body of Philon. I climbed onto the desk and pulled an oil lamp from its sconce.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to be certain it’s dead,” I said.

“Oh, don’t burn it,” she objected. “It’s evidence that will put Vettius Karabonde in a cell.” She followed me closely back into the library, and almost bumped into me when I drew to a sudden halt.

There was a vile yellow stain where I had pinned the spider to the divan, but it was gone.

“Gods!”

Lucella’s sword came out again. I held the unlit oil lamp as if it might provide some defense. I felt something like despair. Hadn’t I slain it? What did I have to do to be free from this nightmare?

We circled the red divan, looking around the room. Nothing moved.

“Hell, it’s gone into the house. Could be anywhere,” said Lucella.

“No,” I said. “There’s no blood trail. Look.” I squatted, facing the divan. Lucella did the same, then looked at me quizzically. There was no ichor anywhere around the divan, but beneath it I could see a small puddle of the thing’s blood. “It’s underneath.”

“Enough of this,” snarled Lucella. She leapt up and kicked over the divan.

The spider had flattened itself to the bottom of the couch, clinging there with my dagger still transfixing it.

Lucella thrust, but even wounded the thing was horribly fast. It leapt over her blade and into her face. Lucella reeled backwards, dropping her sword to seize the horror’s forelegs in desperate hands, trying to keep its fangs from her throat. She lost her balance and, with a despairing cry, fell on her back with the thing riding her down. The many-jointed legs worked frantically, trying to draw her deeper into its foul embrace. Black palps kissed her face.

I grabbed the ichor-slick hilt of my dagger and pulled upward. The deep-set blade heaved the spider up and off of Lucella. I held the monster aloft for a second, spellbound with sick horror as the long legs spasmed, and the fangs clicked and grated together. Then I hurled it across the room with all my strength. It hit the opposite wall with a brittle crunch and fell in a heap. The spider started to get up onto its broken legs, but I was having none of that. I threw the tapestry it had dropped onto Lucella over the thing, then poured the oil lamp onto it. I caught up Lucella’s still-smoldering torch and touched it off. Yellow flame leapt over the oil-sodden tapestry. There was frantic movement beneath the burning fabric, but I beat on it with the torch until the cloth head came off the broomstick and the movement stopped. Then all that was left was what looked like a sizable pile of rags burning on the library floor. Despite the stench, we watched until it burned itself out.

The spider’s web also proved vulnerable to flame. We burned our way through the slimy ropes that sealed the front door. Outside the house the sun was setting, and swallows darted on the cool evening breeze. Lucella and I parted ways, she promising to deliver Vettius Karabonde to the authorities and me promising to see a physician about my constellation of injuries.

I never did get to have lunch at Lucella’s expense or my throwing dagger back.

I missed one more than the other.