Deeper

Alice turned one last time to stare at the dam. The structure was still standing, but a substantial chunk of the footbridge, where Eleanor had lost her equilibrium, was now missing. A wide part of the limestone wall below was riddled with large cracks and she wasn’t sure it would still be standing by the time she came back.

“I guess I’ll have to find another path or tell the spiders about the beauty of civil architecture” she smiled, thinking about a Golden Gate Bridge made of silk.

They had taken another break after crossing the bridge, mainly to let Eleanor regain her strengths and Alice her legs, which had been too wobbly to even stand, let alone walk.

Now, with the ‘bridge experience’ finally behind them, the cluster of Spear Spiders finally moved into the mouth-like opening of the wall of stone, the darkness within soon swallowing them for what she knew was the final stretch of their trip.

While waiting for her legs to work once more, she had in fact asked a couple of questions regarding the journey to an impatient Skitter and, apparently, they probably only had one or two ‘sleeps’, as he called them, before reaching the main nest where his mom resided.

To her surprise, the set of tunnels they were now walking through was fairly different from the slick and humid limestone passages they had left behind. The deeper in they moved, the drier and warmer the air became, any humidity on their body slowly drying up as they proceeded further down.

The ground and walls themselves were different, composed of some kind of mottled hard stone, its color a mix of deep greys and greens that seemed to almost swallow her bioluminescence. Their surface was rougher, her footwraps now brushing on it instead of slipping on the glassy calcite.

In addition, she noticed that even the way the spiders moved had changed, their metal-tipped legs now landing on the ground without sinking in the natural floor, sometimes sending sparks around as they scratched the solid basalt.

Even the tunnels were different, their width and height increasing, while the amount of intersections lowered significantly, making it a fairly direct, if downward trip.

They walked for more than a day before coming to a large crossing where, for the first time, Alice caught a glimpse of the real size of the colony of Spear Spiders.

The subterranean passage they had encountered was the closest thing to a busy road she had encountered in the new world. Through it, dozens of man-sized arachnids dragged wrapped-up bundles of prey to their grisly ends, or skittered away empty-legged, probably heading back to their hunting grounds.

When their own group had appeared from the previously empty intersection, their arrival had caused quite a stir in the busy creatures, most of them stopping to stare at the large gleaming form of Eleanor coming back from her sortie. A few had even tried to move closer, clicking softly as they sauntered towards them.

That hadn’t lasted long.

The huge female hissed loudly at her curious kindred, causing them to flinch and recoil while the cluster tightened around Alice.

Less than a minute later they were quickly moving in the middle of the tunnel, ignoring the rest of the spiders as they parted to let them pass, staring in the meanwhile.

A now sweaty Alice tried to squash the feeling of anxiety and expectation that had slowly made its way into her head, attempting to instead focus on the views all around her.

In point of fact, the more they walked along the passage, the more it looked like a nest itself.

Small and large natural caves started peppering the two sides of the street, each one seemingly having been formed out of giant bubbles of air that had gotten stuck in the solidifying magma eons before.

In those round, open chambers, the Biomancer could see the many ‘facilities’ that kept the Nest working, most of those being quite recognizable even by her.

On one side, there were small chambers filled with dozens of melon-sized eggs. The unhatched spawn were divided in small clusters and covered up by a soft layer of silk; more than once, she saw them get carefully moved from one bubble to the other by very diligent males using the pedipalps on their face.

A lot of the medium-sized ones were used as resting spots, each one filled with hundreds of round silk constructions. Starting from the entrance, each resting spot was tightly built against the other in a spiral pattern, until the entire floor of the chamber resembled a small, concentrical igloo village.

A few paces later, Alice had to repress a small shiver running down her spine when she saw the function of the bigger, less frequent hollows.

They were pantries. Huge, oversized versions of the cave she herself had been placed in after her first encounter with Skitter, each one filled up with hundreds of light-grey bundles of many different sizes.

Those caves were also the only ones with some sort of guard. Both inside and at the entrance, at least a dozen spiders took their time with the stored food, regularly sinking their fangs into the cocoons to keep them still and sedated. She looked away as another shudder shook her body, a single realization filling her mind.

Had I been dragged here I would be dead now.

They had proceeded along the tunnel for at least half an hour and she was just starting to wonder if they would ever get to the real nest when, as if controlled by a higher entity, the swarm suddenly turned at once and walked through a particularly large opening in the wall.

The hole lead to another, smaller passageway which, as they progressed, became larger and wider, with evident signs of stoneworking on walls and floor. The further they went in, the more the stone looked polished, with large curtains of silk cloth covering the rougher walls.

To her surprise, she also noticed small heaps of bones and broken chitin regularly placed every few meters, each one invaded by some kind of slimy, bioluminescent mold that shed its soft blue light on the surroundings, working as a natural source of illumination.

To her dismay, the swarm didn’t stop for sightseeing and she had to promise herself to come back and take a look. If I don’t get eaten by dearest mother or her babies obviously.

With a rapidly growing feeling of expectation and dread, she was led straight towards the end of the passage, an even larger opening in the stone. She gawked at the huge hole in front of her, unable to believe to her eyes.

It was a large, perfect square cut in the green and black stone. Its angles were sharp and its sides smooth and polished under her eyes. It was an actual gate. Something she hadn’t believed a possibility for a colony of spiders, even if sentient ones.

On each side of the gate, standing guard on their strong and sharp metallic legs, were two naturally armored Spear Spiders. While smaller than Eleanor by quite a bit, they were still towering over the rest of the cluster Alice had gotten to know. The frontal limbs of the creatures resembled thick and sharp-edged swords and had left grooves even on the hard floor of this layer.

When they sighted the returning clutter, the guards stirred, their many eyes fixed on the glowing Biomancer in the middle.

The silvery spiders raised their weapons from their resting spots, a trickle of clear venom already dripping down each of their fangs and gently pattering on the floor.

Alice was getting ready to flood her system with adrenaline and run the heck away from that specific confrontation when a harsh click from Eleanor had the alerted soldiers falling back to the sides of the gate, allowing them to pass through.

Now that they were free to go, the large female suddenly turned, a stream of soft clicks and hisses coming out of her mouth, the swarm of the spiders instantly disbanding and streaming out of the tunnel.

“Hey! Wait!” she shouted, staring dismayed as her nominated Sherpa ran away with her luggage, soon disappearing with the rest of its kindred behind a bend of the passage.

“I want my things back! Dammit. Let’s go, before I start getting second thoughts” she stomped through the gate, trying to use her annoyance to squish her fear.

Behind her Skitter briefly tittered before following her through.

Alice couldn’t help but stop on her tracks and gawk at the large, circular cave she had just entered along with her two monstrous bodyguards.

In a long gone past, the Nest must have also been a large bubble of air that had gotten stuck in the rapidly hardening magma that would go on and become, over the course of millions of years, the rock she was now standing on.

The colony of sapient spiders that had picked it as a lair, however, had evidently decided that renovations were in order and, most likely over the course of many, many years, had started modifying the cave’s structure so that it would perfectly fit their needs.

The creatures had chipped away the stone of the walls to form a huge series of wide, carved steps that led directly to the bottom of the cavern.

The entirety of the cave was bathed in the blue light of hundreds of the small piles of food scraps on which grew the luminescent mucilage she had previously spotted. The light allowed her to perceive every visible inch of the space with her enhanced sight.

The piles were evenly placed all over another, longer way which had also been carved into the walls and followed them from the bottom to the very top of the bubble. Alongside the road, big and small hollows had been dug into the basalt, each one illuminated by a single ‘moldlight’.

Alice took a deep breath, clenching hard her single hand to stop its trembling, she took the first step down the long stairway.

Behind her, the arhythmic stepping of her escort was a small relief on her nerves, at least until the first spectator emerged from one of the many side rooms littering the walls. Soon, an army of the eight-legged creatures had come out to observe her coming, completely silent as they stared at the very nervous and very pale human girl.

In order to ignore the dozens of small and large monsters studying her every movement, she forced her attention on the ‘architecture’ of the cave, slowly walking down the pompous stairway as she took it all in.

Aside from the carved stone; huge, triangular silken sails had been anchored on the walls and floor to form some sort of palace of silk that seemed to be a mix between the Sydney Opera House and the Duomo of Milan.

The large cables, made of thousands of silk strands, looked like the columns of a strange airy temple and kept in place the thin, swaying walls of the structure while, at the same time, forming a sort of wide aisle in the middle of the floor. A pillar-lined corridor that would lead her to the throne room.

Too focused on the sight, Alice stumbled on the last step of stairs; her flustered face turning tomato red as she regained her composure, trying to ignore the subdued clicking that now echoed in the cave.

She stared at the ground to avoid making herself look even more stupid.

Why the hell am I worried about looking stupid? I’m meeting a spider! I should be worried about getting eaten! The frantic thought was however interrupted by another even more frantic one. But she has a palace… It’s like meeting a queen! A spider queen sure, but a queen nonetheless. I’ve gotta make a good impression.

A small, slightly hysterical chuckle left her lips as she looked around.

In front of her, previously hidden by the taut curtains of cloth, stood a gleaming forest of silvery crystals that sprouted like trees from the ground itself, hiding what laid behind. She watched, her mouth agape, at the floor upon which the crystal grew.

It was a vast, shiny lake of solid, polished and silvery metal. The exact same color and shine of the metal that composed the Spear Spiders’ exoskeleton. A massive, gleaming vein of the alloy crisscrossed the stone at her feet and, like the delta of a river, the ‘rivulets’ got thinner the farther they were from the main stream.

Only after a sharp poke in the kidney from Skitter did she start moving again.

With her eyes still trying to eat away at the incredible spectacle, Alice headed towards the forest, her trepidation increasing with each one of her steps.

She flinched when the first of the guards showed herself, the large silvery creature emerging from behind one of the silken drapes. Soon, at the sides of the corridor stood, immobile, a dozen identical spiders, silently eyeing her as she walked past them, her pace unsteady under the pressure.

A few mad heart beats later, the young woman came upon the first crystal, stopping to marvel at its jagged, natural shape, emerging like a crooked thorn out of the ground.

Unable to resist, the girl extended a hand and placed her palm on the cold and hard surface just as a soft, harmonic sound reverberated through the tree-like structures.

Caught by surprise, Alice pulled away her hand, leaving a small imprint of her palm and fingers on the reflective surface, her eyes now glued on the long, thin leg that had gently plinked on the ground a couple of meters in front of her.

Suddenly, where before was only crystal and metal, now silently stood a spider.

It was smaller than Eleanor, possibly only a bit more than two and a half meters in height, but it somehow looked even more imposing.

Unlike the large female she had gotten to know, this one looked like a black widow, its silver-white willowy legs holding aloft a lean, black thorax and a somewhat large, metallic abdomen. The creature slowly walked up to the human girl and lowered itself, its eight eyes staring straight into her two as it clicked softly.

Alice stood immobile, the air she had breathed in stuck in her chest by dread as the monster started closely observing every part of her body, its legs gently dancing around her, sometimes missing her by mere centimeters while somehow keeping its head stabilized at the same height.

After a few long instants where she thought she would die of heart attack, Alice calmed down, letting the inspection take place. She had just closed her eyes and started breathing again when a gentle poke on her right breast made her flinch, a yelp escaped her lips as her hand batted away the extremely long leg that had appeared from between the crystals.

A long, loud and enraged hiss came from Eleanor behind her, making the impromptu check-up end and her legs get ready for a mad dash out of there, as another, far taller shape emerged from between the natural structures.

This time, the new arrival looked almost like an orb-weaver spider that had gotten a transplant of legs from a harvestman. While somewhat small if you only looked at its body, the creature was easily taller than Eleanor and more than twice the new spider. Alice was honestly surprised those limbs didn’t break under the gravity, let alone the weight of its body.

The tall spider’s carapace pattern was the strangest she had encountered so far. Both its legs and body appeared to be striped like a zebra, uneven lines of silver intertwined with the blackness of the chitin, forming a strange, uneven pattern that, somehow, was extremely pleasing to the eye.

A long series of somewhat distant clicks and hisses resounded from up there, before the creature easily stepped over her, walking towards a quickly retreating Skitter and starting to poke it with one of its stilts.

“Oookay… I bet those are females.” She told herself.

She waited a couple of heart beats for the chaos to subside but the four monsters seemed to be pretty intent in arguing between themselves. The more she waited, jumping from one leg to the other, the more she grew annoyed, the fear eaten away by irritation.

Despite everything in her mind telling her to wait, the Biomancer of Symbiosis disappeared inside the forest of metallic crystals.

Behind it. A deep, rumbling titter shook the ground of the cave, a ripple coursing through the metal lake and its trees.

*****

This chapter is officially sponsored by Tarun E.! Thank you for your support.