Water Kanin: Chapter 43 - Along Came a Spider

Oh, no. Oh, fuck. Shit crap fucking—

Anger surges from Ink, in contrast to my dread, and I mentally leap at it, wrangling it back before it can do anything rash. My soul is tight with fear, but now is not the time to act without thinking. Yedzaquib is not someone to underestimate—especially given his level.

[Name: Yedzaquib]

[Species: Arachnoid]

[Class: Mind Weaver]

[Level: 68]

[HP: 249/249]

[Mana: 2434/2450]

To this day, he’s the highest level of anyone I’ve seen on this planet. Twice the level of Zyneth. Over five times my own mana reserves.

Be cool. We have to be cool.

“Yedzaquib.” Zyneth doesn’t move, his back pressed against the locked door. “Can’t say I was expecting you to be my client. Didn’t think a man as respectable as yourself would stoop to dealings in the underworld.”

Yedzaquib laughs lightly, his many eyes crinkling. Well, most of his eyes. There’s a faint scar across his face, a starburst of grey against the white of his skin and chitin. Some of the smaller six eyes, scattered around the primary two, appear white and foggy instead of a shiny black like the rest. That would be where I fired a supercharged Lightbeam right into his face. You don’t think he’s still holding a grudge about that, do you?

“Don’t be naive,” Yedzaquib says. “When your life’s work is the cultivation of information, you can’t discriminate against the morality of a source. Though I must say, it came as a surprise even to me when I learned the thief that had breached my archive was an exiled Shale heir. And entangled with several illicit groups, no less. You are truly full of surprises.”

While Yedzaquib talks, Zyneth slowly inches one of his hands behind his back. There’s a tool in his grasp; the artificed lockpick I’d seen him use on Vardi’s tavern door. Still moving imperceptibly slow, he shifts the tool back until it touches the locked door.

“So, what?” he asks. “You buy one of my debts to get back at me for damaging your library?”

Yedzaquib shakes his head with a disappointed smile, his long white hair whispering over his shoulders like spider silk. “So short sighted. I would have thought you’d have more respect for me than that. No, I am not so petty as to enact revenge on anyone intent on stealing from the Athenaeum. You and that friend of yours were by no means the first to try—though I should commend you for causing the most damage. The repair is quite costly. But not as costly as it was to arrange your delivery here.”

Ink notices them first; flickers of white emerging from the dark. A dozen spider constructs the size of dinner plates creep quietly forward along the walls and ceiling.

“It couldn’t have cost that much to buy my debt from Vardi,” Zyneth remarks, twisting his tool against the door. Yellow runes illuminate across the surface of the tool, bleeding into the door’s metal like cracks in a sheet of ice.

“Indeed,” Yedzaquib agrees. “Your contract was the least expensive aspect of this entire operation. But it’s good to have contingencies.”

Zyneth pauses, and the magic in his lockpick stutters.

“You were the one who hired all those pirates to track down the Prismatic,” he realizes. “It was never Gillow.”

Wait, what?

“A quick study. I respect that.” Yedzaquib chuckles. “But really, you thought Gillow might be responsible for that whole affair? Please, they haven’t nearly the means. Nor would they have wished to sink their own ship, I imagine.”

The spiders are slowly inching closer. Zyneth continues to work at the door’s locking spell. Through my mounting dread, I manage to hold Ink back from jumping on the nearest spider construct and ripping it to shreds.

Not yet, I urge. The second it attacks, they’ll come for Zyneth. We have to wait until the door is unlocked. Then Ink can be whatever sort of destructive and distracting force it likes.

“Buying my debt was a fallback after the pirates failed to find us,” Zyneth surmises. I imagine he’s just trying to buy time and keep Yedzaquib talking, and as long as the arachnoid seems happy to oblige, I’m not complaining. But I hate feeling so useless. I can’t expose my presence yet. I still have the element of surprise on my side. Yedzaquib must think he outnumbers Zyneth three to one, but with me and Ink here, it’s actually three on three.

“I admit, I was beginning to think even that method had failed,” Yedzaquib says. “It took you an awfully long time to respond. But I’m nothing if not patient.”

“Well, I’m here now.” The runes on his lockpick flicker, and the spell circle lines in the door turn blue, then fade out. “What is it you want with me?”

Yedzaquib holds out his hand, and Pogra sets the relic in his palm. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I have no interest in you at all. What I want is what you brought with you.”

“Well, now you have it,” Zyneth says. Still moving painstakingly slow, he grabs the door’s handle.

But something about that isn’t right. If Yedzaquib just wanted the relic, he could have gotten anyone to retrieve it. And he hired the pirates to track down the Prismatic before he called in Zyneth’s debt. The relic can’t be his target. At least, not his only target. He wants something from Zyneth, specifically.

“You are again mistaken,” Yedzaquib says, watching the marble as he rolls it between his fingers. A pit of dread sinks in my soul. “Tell me, where is that homunculus friend of yours?”

Ice creeps through me.

“We parted ways after we made it back to land,” Zyneth says without missing a beat.

Yedzaquib gives him an unimpressed look. He flicks a hand at his mercenaries. “Search him.”

Zyneth turns the handle and pulls, which is about when everything goes to shit.

Pogra charges forward. A red blade appears in Vorigan’s hand, which he launches at Zyneth as the door is yanked open. Zyneth jerks to the side, and the blade strikes the door, slamming it closed with far more force than any dagger should have. The spider constructs launch lines of magic Zyneth’s way, and he’s forced to abandon the door as he dodges the attacks. I un-Chain my legs from around Zyneth’s belt, and a portion of our void splits off, darting from the shadows to catch me before I hit the ground. I grab my stash of glass that was hiding in a corner, and it’s only seconds behind, swirling toward Zyneth and I like a whirlwind of ice. Ink jumps on the nearest spider construct with the rest of our void and cuts through the illuminated spell circle on its back. The sentry goes inert, and Yedzaquib’s head snaps in Ink’s direction. All this happens before Pogra even reaches Zyneth. His axe is raised.

I pull my body from my Inventory. Pogra falters in surprise, and I use the opportunity to launch all the loose glass I’ve got at his gut.

He’s wearing armor of some kind, so it doesn’t cut through, but the blow packs quite a punch. Glass can be damn heavy.

[15 points of Bludgeoning damage dealt]

[Arcane Guardian activated]

Strength floods through my magic as I fit my core back into my chest. Pogra’s axe swings wide, lodging in the wall. Zyneth already has both blades in hand, and he stabs these toward the orc’s exposed torso.

A whip of red deflects his blow. Zyneth retreats as the whip unnaturally changes direction midair and spears toward him. He slices through it, but the severed piece flies toward him undeterred. I intercept it with a flurry of glass. The blood splatters across the glass instead of cutting into Zyneth. I spin my glass to the side, and the blood peels away, retreating back to Vorigan. As Pogra yanks his axe from the wall, stumbling back, Zyneth plants a kick in his chest for good measure. Both sides break apart in a momentary reprieve.

Zyneth flexes his wrists, and I form my excess glass into a wrecking ball, tethering it with a Void Whip. Pogra hefts his axe, glancing back to his ally. A ring of blood is swirling around Vorigan, his hands crooked and ready for another attack.

Even as we take a moment to size each other up, Ink hasn’t stopped fighting. Yedzaquib turns, watching its progress as if the rest of us don’t even exist. Spider constructs fire lines of glowing purple magic at Ink, which darts elusively away before jumping on the creatures and shredding their spell circles with claws of void and glass. The spider sentries switch tactics and group up, covering each other as Ink attempts to get close enough to disable them. Ink splits itself in two and comes at the paired sentries from opposite directions, tearing through them just as quickly as the last. Yet, Yedzaquib seems entirely unconcerned as Ink picks off his constructs. In fact, he’s grinning.

Ink notices my observation and shifts its attention to Yedzaquib. He is the source of these false bugs. The constructs are immaterial. If he’s taken out, the fight will be won. And Ink does enjoy a worthy foe.

No, I think. Wait—

Ink launches itself at Yedzaquib, shifting into a shape made only of claws and teeth and razor-sharp edges. Yedzaquib tips his head curiously, then casually raises the null marble between them.

The sense of doom stabs through both of us as Ink rockets toward the arachnoid. Its confidence evaporates into alarm, and it attempts to switch directions mid attack, pivoting away from Yedzaquib and the relic. Even so, the tiniest blot of void brushes up against the marble as Ink twists away.

“AHH!”

I stagger to my knees as a condensed sense of peril cuts through my soul like a hot knife. Ink is also reeling, overcome with an abrupt and painful memory—

—The explosion of the containment cube rocks us, shredding through our essence and blasting apart several of Emrox’s remaining stone pillars. But our moment of victory is snatched from us in an instant. Even as rubble flies harmlessly through our void, something else lances through us. A pull. Painful and sudden, a black hole is eating us up, and every ounce of our essence screams DANGER. We rip ourself away. Literally. We tear ourself in half in our haste to escape, leaving much of us behind to be consumed by the abyss. What remains limps away: afraid, subdued, beaten—

Ink flees back to me, twisting up and around my glass, as if the close proximity would chase away the lingering pain the relic caused. Pain we now remember experiencing before.

“Kanin?” Zyneth says, alarmed.

I pull myself back to my feet, an effort made easier now that I have all my void back. Ink is shaken. I’m trying not to feel the same.

“We need to get out of here,” I tell him.

“Yes, I believe that’s been the idea from the start,” Zyneth says.

“How do you feel about something drastic?”

“I’d say it’s warranted.”

I activate all the Durability spells in my glass.

Yedzaquib’s thugs seem to decide it’s time to re-engage.

I mentally look to Ink, but it knows what I’m planning before I even have to explain.

Pogra starts forward. Vorigan whips a spear of blood toward us. I lift the wrecking ball, leaning on Ink’s influence to lock it in shape with our void and reinforce its solidness.

First, I punch it into Pogra’s gut. The axe flies from his hands, and Zyneth is on him in an instant, a knife to his leg taking him down. I spin the flail around, launching it at Vorigan next. His blood condenses into a shield, narrowly deflecting the blow but stumbling back from its force. And finally, I yo-yo the glass wrecking ball back toward Zyneth and I, building up as much speed as I can manage before crashing into the wall behind us. Bludgeoning damage numbers flurry through my mind as stone and wood explode outward.

I yank the glass back into the building, cracking more of the wall away. It’s wide enough for Ink and I to squeeze through, given our malleable form, but I need a couple more hits for it to be big enough for Zyneth.

Vorigan spreads his hands, and the shield of blood divides into a dozen daggers. He pulls his hand back, ready to strike, and I swing my glass around, ready to defend, but Zyneth throws one of his knives first. The dhampyr twists away, and the blade clips his shoulder. If it had been a normal blade, the hit wouldn’t have done much. But when Zyneth’s dagger makes contact, it erupts in a sparking blaze of electricity. Vorigan collapses to the ground.

Yes! I crash my glass through the wall once more, and a large section crumbles away.

“Now!” I cry to Zyneth.

But even as I take a step toward our freedom, Zyneth goes down.

A glowing line of silk is looped around his ankle and dragging him across the floor. I falter, shocked, still processing what I’m seeing, but Zyneth has already twisted around, and cuts through the line with his dagger. I jump after him an instant later. He pushes himself up to his hands and knees—then both of us freeze as Yedzaquib steps over him and brings a shimmering, violet blade of mana to his throat.

“Careful,” Yedzaquib says as Zyneth breathes heavily, neck scraping against the knife. His limbs tremble, frozen in an awkward position halfway through pushing himself upright. A spider construct shoots a line of silk at Zyneth’s remaining knife, yanking it from his grasp.

Yedzaquib sighs, looking about the room. Vorigan appears unconscious. Pogra is awake but moaning on the floor, clutching his leg.

“Good sell-swords are so hard to find these days,” Yedzaquib remarks. “Constructs are far more reliable. Always perform as designed.”

I shift half a step toward Zyneth, and Yedzaquib gives me a sharp look, pressing the blade against Zyneth’s throat. Zyneth flinches back. “Drop your weapons.”

I immediately let go of the glass sphere, letting it crash to the ground beside me. My fear collides with Ink’s anger, and it presses against my mind, attempting to merge.

No! I think, fighting it back in a panic.

Ink forms claws over my hands, which twitch in anticipation. How dare he take what is ours? It wants to tear Yedzaquib apart. It presses against my mind with more force.

We can’t, I tell it, soul tight with fear. Even if the relic wasn’t repelling us like a physical pressure, Yedzaquib would kill Zyneth before we could close the gap.

Ink reminds me of our agreement. We are in danger. Zyneth is in danger! We are stronger when working together, and at this moment we need to destroy our opponent!

At this moment, we need to make sure we don’t do anything to provoke him, I think, trying to rein in my fear. But the fear isn’t just coming from me, I realize: Ink is still shaken from what the null marble did. No wonder it’s lashing out. It feels vulnerable and is seeking comfort in the strength of our united mind.

I understand, I tell it, watching Zyneth, my soul tight. I’m scared, too. But we can’t win this with a fight. I need to be able to talk to him. Please.

Ink doesn’t like this. Its grip is still lingering on my mind, but it doesn’t take hold.

“He’s not who you want,” I say, not daring to move. “Let him go.”

“That does not seem wise,” Yedzaquib replies. “If I let him go, you’ll attack me. But I suspect you’ll do the same if I kill him. Really, the only scenario in which you won’t attack me is while his fate remains undetermined. Quite the deadlock.”

Yedzaquib grabs Zyneth’s arm and twists it behind his back. Zyneth grunts as he’s forced to his feet. All the while, Yedzaquib keeps the mana blade scraping against his throat. Fury builds within me; I’m not even sure if the feeling originates from me or Ink, but it reflects between us, growing with every passing second.

“But I do believe we can reach a compromise,” Yedzaquib continues. As he speaks, the remaining spider constructs in the room creep toward his two fallen mercenaries. “You agree to hand over your core to me, and I’ll let him walk out of here.”

In the back of my head, beneath the raging maelstrom of my and Ink’s emotions, something prickles at my consciousness.

“No,” Zyneth says. “Kanin, you can’t—”

He’s cut off as the knife presses against his neck.

“Wait,” I cry, raising a useless hand.

A bead of blood runs down Zyneth’s skin, and he holds very still.

“You are not a participant in this conversation,” Yedzaquib says to Zyneth. “If you wish to keep your tongue, keep it still.”

Zyneth clenches his teeth, lips peeled back in anger. I’ve never seen him this mad. I’ve never seen him display such visibly murderous intent. I hate this feeling of helplessness. Of us being used against each other.

Zyneth looks straight at me, and with his free hand, held before his chest, he slowly and subtly signs, “The knife.”

Ink paces in my mind, agitated. Though it still wishes to tear Yedzaquib into thousands of little bits, its attention has split to another source of frustration tugging at our mind. It takes me a moment to realize what it’s focusing on.

“Alright,” I say, raising my hands in a sign of surrender. “I’ll hand myself over. As long as you swear not to kill him.”

Ink’s attention snaps back to me. No! It refuses to back down. It refuses to lose!

I don’t plan to, I think. And I’m not about to give up Zyneth, either. Trust me.

Ink hesitates. Trust… Trust is not something it entirely understands. But it can see my resolve, at least; it knows I won’t go down without a fight. Reluctantly, it relents, returning to its mental pacing with growing agitation. Each second its emotional turmoil coils ever more taut; soon that tension is going to snap, and when it does, I won’t be able to hold it back.

Yedzaquib nods appreciatively. “I swear I won’t kill him.”

The spiders reach the two fallen mercenaries and crawl around to their necks. Pogra lets out a startled cry, which is cut off a moment later as the spider latches onto him and its runes activate. A shudder runs through his body. Then he and Vorigan stagger to their feet. Their faces are blank, eyes glowing purple, and spidery limbs wrapped around their heads. Oh, great. More mind control shit. I forgot that was Yedzaquib’s M.O.

I place a hand over my core, but don’t yet pull it from my chest. Mentally, I find what Zyneth was asking of me. There, on the floor behind Yedzaquib.

“Once I hand this over, Ink is going to attack you, whether or not Zyneth is free,” I warn him. “I won’t be able to stop it.”

Yedzaquib raises an amused eyebrow. “You’re referring to the remnant? The warning is appreciated, but I have contingencies.” The mind-controlled Pogra and Vorigan lumber to his side.

The itching in the back of my head has grown into bristly tension, and my glass twitches. Ink is going mad. It takes all my willpower to stay still.

“What do you even want with me?” I ask. I Sculpt open the glass that’s keeping my core in my chest, unfolding petals of glass and intentionally taking my time. I take hold of the Attuned glass in Zyneth’s obsidian knife, but don’t dare move it yet. “I know this isn’t revenge.”

“Astutely observed,” Yedzaquib says, his eyes glued to my core. “Revenge is petty and shortsighted. What I desire resides far beyond such frivolities. Which isn’t to say you will emerge from this unscathed; I’m afraid you are far too closely tied to the remnant to avoid being caught in crossfire. But please understand that I would not involve you at all, if that were an option.”

Vorigan creates a paper-thin blade of blood, which he raises to Zyneth’s throat. Yedzaquib dispels his own ethereal blade, allowing Vorigan to pull Zyneth away. A third spider construct skitters over to Zyneth.

I stiffen. “You said you’d let him go.”

Yedzaquib smiles. “I said I’d let him walk out of here alive and unharmed.”

The spider crawls up Zyneth’s leg.

Ink is thrashing in my head, its thoughts frenzied and scattered. It can’t take this any longer. It can’t wait! It’s coming—our back is exposed—it won’t remain still and vulnerable. We have to attack. We have to go see!

Wait, I think desperately. Just a few more seconds! Despite all my efforts to wrangle the monster under control, our void spasms.

“Ah, ah,” Yedzaquib says, mistaking the rippling void for an incoming attack. He holds up the null marble. “I wouldn’t try—”

Behind Pogra and Vorigan, the wall explodes inward with an unworldly howl and burst of flame. In my last moment of lucidity, even as everyone is turning in surprise toward the demolished wall, I throw Zyneth’s knife at Vorigan’s hand. The knife stabs through his palm and his blood blade splashes away. Zyneth grabs the hilt of his knife.

Then I lose track of Zyneth and Yedzaquib and the hired muscle as Ink seizes control, driven frantic by that maddening sense of familiarity, that inescapable pull, now emanating from the creature before us.

The fire that burst into the room continues to burn, writhing and swirling as if stirred by a wind the rest of us can’t feel. A column of the fire turns toward us, eyes burning within the simmering heat.

It feels inevitable, like gravity. Two moons caught in the same orbit.

Both of us move at once, throwing ourselves at each other, fangs parted and claws extended.

We collide.