Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“You talk to those monsters?” said Pazel, with a violent start. “Why?”

“Only the elder creatures of this world possess memories to match our own,” said Kirishgan. “We talk to them as we would our peers-as I dare say you would wish to speak to a fellow Ormali, even a dangerous one, if he were to step into this room. But the Ravens imagined that we were plotting their downfall. They could do little against the eguar, but us they have tried to exterminate. They did not quite succeed, but the damage done to our people may never be repaired: not in Alifros at any rate.”

Pazel did not know what to say. He was ashamed of his earlier words to Kirishgan, and his assumptions. At the same time he felt glad that the other had been willing to tell him of such terrible loss.

Then he saw the spider.

It was descending on a bright thread, directly over the candle on the table: a creature of living glass and ruby eyes, twice as large as the one that had bitten him. Kirishgan watched it descend, walking in a slow circle about the table, both hands raised as though in greeting. He was murmuring a chant: “Medet… amir medet… amir kelada medet…” The spider dropped to within a foot of the flame, and its crystalline legs scattered rainbows on the stone.

“Come here, Pazel!” said Kirishgan in an urgent whisper. “Hold out your hand!”

Nervously, Pazel approached. He trusted Kirishgan, but did not relish the thought of a second bite. With some trepidation he raised his hand. Kirishgan took his wrist and tugged him closer, and Pazel’s breath caught in his throat. The spider’s head was inches from his fingertips.

The creature grew quite still. Pazel had the strong feeling that those red eyes were studying him. Two mandibles like slivers of glass reached out cautiously toward his hand. Kirishgan tightened his grip. “Don’t pull away,” he hissed.

It took a great effort not to do so, but Pazel held still, and felt the brush of those strange organs against his fingers. They were barbed; it would have been easy for the spider to grab him with those mandibles and sink its fangs, hidden in that glass knob of a head, into finger or palm.

But this time the spider did not bite him. The mandibles withdrew, and Kirishgan released his wrist.

“Excellent,” he said. “The second stage of your cure has begun.”

“Has it?” said Pazel, starting. “But nothing happened, it barely touched me.”

“Only a touch is required. Now watch.”

The spider turned about on its strand of web, so that its head pointed upward. It remained directly above the candle. As Pazel stared, transfixed, a drop of clear liquid the size of a quail’s egg emerged from its abdomen and descended toward the flame. Though clear, it was thick, and hung suspended like a teardrop. In that moment, Kirishgan reached out and pressed the little square of parchment into the liquid. It passed inside, and the bubble of liquid separated from the spider, and Kirishgan caught it with great care. The spider retreated up its strand and was soon out of sight.

Kirishgan rolled the droplet from hand to hand, inches above the candleflame. It had become a perfect sphere. It was also expanding, and Pazel realized it was hollow. And very light, now, too, for it moved with the slowness of a feather. Then Kirishgan withdrew his hands. The sphere floated above the candle, motionless, glistening in the yellow light.

“This is not part of your cure,” he said, “only a gift, from one traveler to another.”

Kirishgan blew. The sphere drifted toward Pazel; and once away from the candleflame it began a slow descent. “Catch it; it is yours,” said the selk. “But be gentle! The shell is delicate as a prayer.”

Pazel let the tiny sphere settle onto his palm. It was light as a dragonfly, and its surface was an iridescent marvel: every color he could imagine danced in its curves, only to vanish when he looked directly. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered. “Kirishgan, I don’t know that you should give it to me. How can I keep from breaking it?”

“You cannot,” said the selk, “but surely you knew that already? We can possess a thing, but not its loveliness-that always escapes. Close your fist, lock your door, imprison the cherished thing in your home or heart. It makes no difference. When next you look, a part of what you cherished will be gone.”

“I’d like to give it to Thasha,” said Pazel on an impulse.

“A fine idea,” said Kirishgan. “I will send it to her, while your cure progresses. The message within is for all of you.”

Pazel carefully rolled the sphere back into his hands. “Thank you,” he said with feeling. “But Kirishgan, I still don’t understand what that spider had to do with my cure.”

“A great deal,” said Kirishgan. “Pazel, the medets exist in this world the way murths and spirits do: here and elsewhere at once, and detecting us as much by our spirits as our bodies. There was a reason for that bite, and you must seek it on the Floor of Echoes, or there can be no cure. The Actors will help you if they can-but the help of the medets is more important. They are expecting you, though you may not see them.”

He gestured at the door. “You may enter as soon as you like. Leave your boots; they will be returned to you when you exit Vasparhaven. And do not speak on the Floor of Echoes unless bidden to do so: that is essential.”

Pazel looked at him steadily. “This is a sort of test, isn’t it?”

“What isn’t, Pazel?”

“And does everyone who visits the Floor of Echoes take this test?”

Kirishgan nodded. “In one form or another. Tomorrow it will be my turn.” He gripped Pazel’s arm. “I must bid you farewell, sudden friend. Do not forget the heavens: that is what my people say. We are all young beneath the watchful stars. They will wait out our ignorance and errors, and perhaps even forgive them.”

Cradling the glass orb, he descended the stair. Pazel listened to his footsteps fade. It felt strange to be alone in this temple, inside a mountain, on the far side of the world from Ormael. Strange, and eerily peaceful. But he could not linger, he knew. Lifting the candle from the table, he walked to the door and swung it wide.

Another staircase rose before him. It was steep and built of ancient stone, and candles burned in puddles of wax on the crumbling steps, dwindling into the darkness above. Pazel tugged off his boots and set them outside the door.

The stones were wet and cold against his feet. The staircase curved and twisted, and soon Pazel knew that he had climbed the height of several additional floors. He glanced back, and saw to his great surprise that every candle he had passed was extinguished. He cupped his hand protectively around the one he bore.

The staircase ended, as it had begun, with a door, but this one stood open a few inches, and a brighter light was shining through the gap. Pazel crept forward and glimpsed a small fire crackling in a ring of stones. Figures crouched around it, and through their shoulders Pazel caught the flash of a crystal abdomen, the flicker of a ruby eye. Then the door creaked, and the figures leaped up and scattered into the darkness.

All but one. A young dlomic woman remained by the fire, wearing a pale peach-colored wrap that left her black arms bare to the shoulders, and a dark mask on the upper part of her face. She was holding a wide stone bowl over the flames. Of the spider Pazel saw no trace.

The woman beckoned him in, her silver eyes gleaming. Pazel stepped through the doorway, and found that he could see neither the ceiling nor any wall save that behind him. A strong draft, almost a wind, blew about them, making the fire dance and flare and shrink by turns. If he had not known better, Pazel would have thought that they were meeting not underground but on some desolate plain.