Spiderlight

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Then Enth said, “I want to kill him.” “Join the queue,” Lief muttered. “You?” Harathes looked from Armes to Enth and apparently found the latter a target he could safely strike against. “This must be music to your ears.” “I want to kill him,” Enth repeated. His knuckly fists were clenched. “How touching. Does it do any other tricks?” Armes asked, approaching Enth and staring into the black orbs of his eyes. “Why even bring this thing? Even had I been no more than Darvezian the Dark Lord, it would have been mine for a word. Of course, you weren’t to know who I really was, and that everything is mine for a word.” He examined Enth’s face, then grimaced. “It’s disgusting, really. You’ve surpassed nature in making something even nastier out of a spider. And does the little monster want to kill poor old Armes?” In a grotesque stage whisper, with an eye for Dion’s reaction, he confided to Enth, “It’s all right, I’m not really of the Light. Light and Dark are just things I made up, back when I was trying to help. Does that set your little arachnid brainstem at rest?” Enth was shaking with a captive rage Cyrene could entirely sympathize with. “My Mother was hurt,” he hissed out. “My people were slaughtered. I was taken from my home. I was remade. All for your prophecy. All for your Light and Dark. And it was a joke. And it was because you were bored.” “And I never did like spiders much,” Armes added carelessly, peeling back Enth’s lips to look at his teeth. The man-spider shook him...