Page 49 of The Inheritance
The spider herder paused. Above them, about forty feet off the ground, a large blossom glowed with gold instead of red. The herder raised their staff and leaped at the wall, clearing ten feet in a single jump. They climbed up the vine, shockingly fast, reached the flower, and thrust the staff into the blossom.
I glanced to the right. Across the cavern, a fissure split the wall near the ceiling, a crack in the solid stone about eight feet tall and five feet across at its widest.
Nothing moved. The fissure remained dark.
The spider herder swirled the staff as if scraping the pancake batter out of a bowl.
The fissure stayed still.
The spider herder pulled their staff out. Three dense clumps of spider silk hung suspended from the top, glowing softly with cream-colored light. They were about the size of a beach ball.
A segmented body squeezed out of the fissure and dove, three pairs of translucent wings snapping open in flight. A wasp-like insect the size of a kayak zipped through the air, glinting with blue and yellow like a blue sapphire wrapped in gold filigree.
Bear jumped up and growled.
The spider herder saw the wasp and scrambled down, but not quickly enough. The giant insect divebombed across the cavern, hooked one of the spider eggs with its segmented legs, tearing it from the bundle, and shot up, buzzing along the wall into a U-turn. A moment and it squeezed back into the fissure, taking its prize with it.
The spider herder stared after it for a long moment, climbed down, and deposited the two remaining egg sacks into their cart.
I had seen a similar scenario play out hours ago, when I first found the cavern. I had backtracked since then, exploring as many of the tunnels around it as I could. All of them either dead-ended or led to a narrow, bottomless chasm that ran parallel to this cave. I returned to the ledge a while ago and have been sitting here since, observing and deciding how to proceed.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. The anchor was still straight ahead and to the left of me, radiating discomfort. I opened my eyes. I was looking right at the bend of the cavern.
If we wanted to get to the anchor, we would have to pass through this underground canyon. There was no way around it. Backtracking wasn’t an option. We were truly lost at this point.
Unfortunately, I had a feeling that the spider herders wouldn’t welcome our intrusion into their territory.
Another wasp squeezed out of the gap and dove down, aiming for the cart. The spider herder let out a loud clicking sound. A green spider the size of a donkey raced around the bend of the cavern and leaped into the air, knocking the wasp into the wall. The insect and the arachnid tumbled down through the vines and rolled onto the floor. The wasp jabbed at the spider with a stinger the size of a sword, but the spider clung to it and sank its fangs into the wasp’s neck. The insect’s head fell to the ground.
The spider herder made another clicking noise. The green spider abandoned the wasp and scuttled over to the cart. The herder pulled out a glowing yellow globe and tossed it to the spider. The arachnid caught it and ran back around the bend.
“Look, Bear, your cousin from another dimension got a treat.”
Bear tilted her head.
The spider herder leveled their stave at the wasp’s body. A moment passed. Another. A bolt of green lightning tore out of the gem and struck the carcass. The insect sizzled and broke into dust.
The activation time was a bit long. The wasps would have no trouble evading, considering the delay it took to fire, but once the beam hit, the results were devastating.
If Bear and I strolled down there, assuming we somehow got down off the ledge, trying to make our way past the herders would be impossible. Between the green spiders and that green lightning, we wouldn’t get through, not without some serious injuries.
I glanced at the fissure. There was a wasp nest behind it. Spiders were excellent wall climbers. Theoretically, the spider herders could mount a full assault against it, but there were three problems with that.
First, the fissure wasn’t wide enough. The wasps were long and narrow, and they folded their wings to get through. The white spiders would never fit. The green ones could try to squeeze in there, but they would have to enter one at a time, and the wasps would swarm them.
Second, the wasps could take flight if they detected the assault and simply wait it out. The spiders couldn’t sit by that wasp nest indefinitely, and waiting by it exposed them to the aerial assault.
And third, the entirety of the wall around the nest was sheathed in mauve flowers. Toward the top, where my ledge met the fissure, the wall wasn’t strictly sheer. It broke down into a series of outcroppings, and the mauve flowers clung to the rocks like some deadly African violets. There was no way to approach the nest without going through them.
When one of the white spiders popped out of the highest flower, I had a chance to scan it. They were not immune to the pollen. It would short-circuit their nervous system. The spider herders and the wasps were at a standoff.
When I first stumbled onto the cavern, I got another vision. A group of three spider herders, their veils shifting in the wind of an alien world with a mass of giant spiders behind them; someone with human arms offering a carved wooden box to them; the leading spider herder accepting it; the spiders parting; and a single word spoken: Bekh-razz. A gift for safe passage.
I would have to offer a gift to cross.
The spiders couldn’t get to the nest, but I could. The ledge I was on curved along the wall all the way to the nest. It was barely seven feet wide near the entrance to the hive. I wouldn’t have a lot of room to work with.
I got up and walked along the ledge toward the fissure.
