Chapter 2 of 5

The Game is Afoot

Webber's POV

I let out an unhappy growl as I spat out another foul-tasting glob of phlegm. The stench of rot was clogging up my senses, and that sheer fact alone was putting me in a very bad mood. I wasn't exactly sure where it was coming from, but I had experienced much worse. I could only imagine it was related to the way the human half of this body rejected the spider meat, even if I quite enjoyed the feasting.

It had been a couple of days now with no signs of life other than the remaining spider colonies. While I very well could strike back off into the cold, I instead chose to stay close to the spider den. The silk they had used was much thicker and softer than the silk I was once able to produce, and I couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy about this fact. However, I was smart enough to realize it was an evolutionary adaptation more than anything. Thicker webs and dens meant better insulation against the freezing winds that had nearly done us in a few days ago. The spiders themselves had been rather weak, though that likely came from a lack of enemies to fight. Below zero temperatures didn't allow for many creatures to thrive in the tundra, and the few that did rarely crossed each others paths.

If I had to guess, at least. I certainly hadn't seen any animals other than spiders.

I wasn't too concerned about the lack of wildlife, honestly. After all, the initial massacre had provided more than enough fresh meat to last for awhile, even if Tyler was clearly unhappy about this idea.

I was unhappy with the idea of starving and freezing to death, so we were even. He could be annoyed with me all he wanted, but he couldn't really do anything as long as I took the brunt of the freezing. Sure, he took the brunt of the hunger, but you win some, you lose some.

Really, though, he shouldn't have been complaining at all. We had feasted fairly well, so I'm sure he wasn't even feeling the hunger pains anymore.

"This is wrong," Tyler muttered as I ate. I rolled my eyes.

"It grows on you," I responded breezily. I shuddered at the texture of the tough meat, but I was aware enough of myself to know it was Tyler disgusted at it. "Really, I don't understand the issue. Do you expect spiders to just let their dead rot on the ground?"

"Why don't you just bury them. Respectfully."

I scoffed in wry amusement at the idea. "They're dead, Tyler. Do you think they're going to have their feelings hurt?"

He quieted a bit at that, grumbled in dissatisfaction but no longer outwardly protesting. After eating my fill, I dragged myself to my feet and stretched luxuriously. Even wrapped in thick silk as I was, my limbs still stiffened with cold when I sat in one place too long. It was a game of keeping myself active without wasting too much energy doing nothing of note. And, to be quite honest, it was a game spiders were great at.

The nests I had destroyed were at the edges of a Queen's Gathering. I would have been concerned about their rage in killing their brethren, but I knew that they wouldn't even protest it unless they had seen the homicide happen, which none of them had. I felt no fear pacing deeper into the Queen's Gathering, running my claws over the large silk dens that decorated it. Occasionally, a spider would poke its head out to look at me, but none of them seemed to see me as a threat. Instead, they'd simply turn back into their hovel, muttering and growling about disrupting their sleep.

Ah, spiders were nocturnal, weren't they? I couldn't help but wonder what else had been lost to the symbiosis. I could try to fix my sleep schedule, but I wasn't entirely convinced that the Night Monster wouldn't see me as a threat and wipe me out if caught in the dark. It had played with Tyler before, clearly amused with his terror as it brushed our fur and whiskers with unnaturally long claws, but it didn't take a genius to see that I wasn't Tyler. I wasn't sure whether that would be good or bad in its book, and I didn't have any intention of risking it. It seemed to be safe enough to sleep through the night, but I wouldn't tempt its wrath.

There was a queen nearby. I could smell her, my nose twitching slightly as the familiar scent wafted towards me. I could sense the coiling of Tyler's awareness, likely preparing to fight me if I gave into the pheromones, but I simply scoffed and turned away. Once, maybe, but not anymore. It would take something much stronger than that to sway me.

"What are you doing?"

"Exploring. Is there an issue with that?" I quirked an eyebrow at the question.

"Are you planning something?"

"What could I possibly be planning? Are you seriously concerned enough about the lives of some random spiders that you are worried about me killing them?" I rolled my eyes. "Relax. I have food. I don't need more."

"...what about my friends?"

"I don't see any of your 'friends' here," I snapped. "Would you drop it? I threatened to kill them once. How many times have you threatened to kill them?" When Tyler didn't immediately respond, I huffed. "If it were up to me, we'd never see any of them again. It's just as I told the monkey; I want nothing more than to survive."

Silence. I had believed this child to be the bane of my existence for years now, but I had somehow never quite realized how annoying he really was.

A cough suddenly rose in my throat, bringing with it more hot, foul fluid. I spit it out with a grimace and wiped my mouth. This body was incredibly unhappy with me. I wasn't sure of the full extent, but pressing for sensation would only make me deal with the portions that Tyler was currently dealing with. I wasn't really in the mood to be pressing him for information either. If he was uncomfortable, that was his problem.

"Unless you're killing us and don't realize it because you're making me feel all of our pain," Tyler growled.

Hmm. I had forgotten that my thoughts were clear to him at the moment. How inconvenient. I would have to find a way around it.

"Do you really not feel any of it?"

"Any of what?" I snapped. "The silk beneath my feet that I haven't felt in years? Temperature, which was all but foreign to me until recently?"

"...the pain."

"The pain?" I repeated incredulously. "Sorry, I didn't realize you were hurting, poor guy. Do you want to get some rest and get off your achy feet?" My voice dripped with sarcastic venom as I spoke, and I mentally kicked myself. How in the Constant are you supposed to gain someone's trust when they're so freaking-

Relax, Webber. Baby steps.

For a moment, I was worried he would clam up. Luckily, the monkey seemed to have at least partially broken him of that habit, because he answered lamely a moment later.

"Our whole body hurts."

As if that was a surprise. "Forcing yourself as hard as we have on the verge of freezing and starvation will do that to you," I responded 'helpfully'.

"No! Don't you get it? I don't know what you're doing, I can only imagine the... the cannibalism... but it's like you're making our body reject itself."

I shrugged. "That's what happens when you have to build up a tolerance to spider meat. You'll get used to it."

He continued to protest, but I ignored the rest of his argument. He could blubber on all he wanted to, I really didn't care. It wasn't affecting me any, even if his voice could be pretty annoying. Hearing someone's thoughts for several years made it incredibly easy to tune them out.

I moved deeper into the Queen's Gathering, humming quietly to myself as I noted the size and shape of their dens. The way they differed from my old home and the way they were the same. Nostalgia ached in my chest.

Soon enough, the sun started to sink and my stomach started to growl. Though... I didn't feel hungry. Rather, it felt like there was something hot and sour building in my core.

It rose as a tickle in my throat before devolving into a coughing fit. Most of the aches and pains plaguing us transferred to Tyler, but that didn't stop a sharp pain from stabbing into my chest with every aborted inhale and violent exhale. When it didn't seem to let up after a few minutes, I found myself on my knees, both arms planted on the silk below me to hold me up.

The sludge that was dislodged from my chest splattered the snowy ground. Dark, unnaturally green slime and vibrantly scarlet splashes of blood painted across the white purity of snow and silk, an unhealthy amount to see at all let alone just from coughing. It took several moments to subside, and when it finally did, I felt drained and exhausted. I grumbled in displeasure as I wiped the blood and phlegm off of my face with the back of my hand.

It smelled like rotted meat. Rancid and sour. I looked away unhappily and cleared my throat several times to spit out the remaining saliva that hadn't already made its way out.

Huh. 'Rejecting itself'. Maybe that was more accurate than I wanted to believe.

Even though dusk had arrived, I still saw very few spiders. The ones that I did see were either young drones nervously skittering around their dens or older warriors crouched on top of their nests, growling uncertainly. Instead of paying them any attention, I clutched a hand to my aching chest and made my way back to my own makeshift den.

"What is that stuff?"

I shrugged. It was easy to assume it was related to the spider meat, but I wasn't sure. Spider meat didn't smell anything like that. Whatever it was, it wasn't my problem. I pushed the concern to the side, to a place where Tyler would be the one to deal with it.

The space I had carved out for myself was ravaged beyond belief by my own claws. Silk had been torn from the ground, leaving large patches of bare dirt in some places and piles of silk up to my waist in others. The bare dirt was stained purple with blood that had drained from the carcasses left on it. I was no queen and literally incapable of creating any proper shelter, but I made do with what I had.

The next day started just as predictable as the last. Instead of pushing deeper into the Queen's Gathering, though, I picked another direction to explore. I wasn't sure what my ultimate goal was.

I couldn't stay here if I wanted to-

I trudged through the frozen landscape with scraps of silk wrapped around my arms and torso. It preserved just enough warmth to keep me going as long as I didn't stay still for too long. It was far from perfect, but better than nothing.

There was very little to see. When the spiders were far behind us, there wasn't much more than snow and grass as far as I could see. Still, I pushed forward, driven forward only by instinct.

I had to get to Darkness.

I kept my ears open and whiskers out to catch the smallest disturbances. This body had frustrating limitations, and they seemed to hit at every single opportunity. Today's issue was related to the missing eye. While my vision was much better than Tyler's, given my full access to all of my eyes, that also meant more of my vision had been wiped out by Wilson's betrayal all that time ago. Tyler had only lost one eye, while I had lost three. The main one, yes, but two smaller ones, one above and one below. I could fight it all I wanted, but nothing would give me those eyes back.

Tyler, though, had done a lot to hone our sense of hearing, and I was surprised to see how much he had done to perfect the ability to sense air movement with our whiskers. When a strange hum suddenly came to my attention, I followed it without hesitation, largely allowing senses other than sight to lead me forward.

Another violent cough racked my chest. More of the vile green and red mucus came up with it. I wiped it away and kept moving without even stopping to think about it. Even without probing, I could feel Tyler's unease at the sight of it. I couldn't be bothered to care. Spiders were impossibly resilient to disease to the point that a spider dying of illness was almost unheard of.

I hope this problem doesn't persist after-

The land around me started to narrow. I noticed glimpses of the sea on one side and thought little of it at first. It was very plausible that I was wandering the edge of the land at this point.

What gave me pause was when I started seeing glimmers of water on the other side as well. I narrowed my eyes in thought but continued forward. There wasn't any reason for me to do anything else, after all.

I moved forward, and the world grew narrower, until my way was blocked entirely by tall, black obelisks. I growled in agitation. The hum seemed to be coming from the obelisks, but that meant it was so loud here that my ears ached. I reached one hand out to touch the pillar and involuntarily shuddered at the texture. It was cold, dry yet so smooth it felt almost wet. Waves of sound echoed through my bones, producing the worst sensation I could possibly imagine as I felt every single bone of both skeletons. I snatched my hand back and flicked it a couple of times to dispel the lingering feelings.

"What are these?" Tyler wondered. "I've never seen anything like it."

I paced to either side of the obelisks, examining the spaces between each and whether trying to squeeze past them was worth it. There was less than an inch between the ones on the edge and the ocean, and each one was too wide to simply step across. The spaces between each individual one could possibly be squeezed through... if I was still a full-blooded spider. As I was, I was too big to do so.

Which was, of course, hilarious. Everyone ranted about how small Tyler was and yet, when it mattered, he couldn't be small enough.

He ruins everything.

"There's a plaque in the center."

He was right. The center of the roadblock wasn't entirely made up of obelisks. There was a black marble slab that the pillars- a few inches higher than the rest- rose from. With my examination of the outer edges completed, I indulged in his curiosity and moved within reading distance of the plaque. I dusted the show off of it to reveal gouges made in the surface.

I recognized letters, of course, but I couldn't read. So while Tyler got to look at those, I kept my focus on the picture carved into it.

It was crude, with the appearance of having been carved out with a chisel by someone who wasn't practiced in the art. What I could make out, was the image of someone holding a sword against the obelisks. Lines, likely representing light, came off of the weapon, and the structures seemed to have retracted in response to it. More letters decorated the bottom of it, likely instructions.

Thank the Queens I recognized the weapon. It was the exact image of Tyler's sword, down to the glow. Whatever it was, it appeared it was the key to getting past the obelisks.

Tyler suddenly went very quiet and cold. It would have been unnoticeable if it weren't for the way I felt his consciousness rage against mine, and for a moment, his emotions won out. In that moment, I was swamped with fury and terror, horror and grief and confusion and pain all at once. I stumbled back, shocked at the strength, especially since his emotions would be far duller than normal.

"What?" I frowned, tracing the letters with one claw. "What does it say?"

"It... it says..." His voice shook so hard it was a wonder he got the words out. Finally, he choked out: "The Reign of Giants will come and go

Shipwrecked will he, we'll never know

When finally, the end of lives

Begins with the fall of five."

Oh, the prophecy. Had he never heard it before?

"Okay?" I shrugged. "So?"

"Under the... the sword. My sword... it... it calls it the Sword of the Martyr."

"So what?" Why was this freaking him out so bad? Was he just freaking out over his robot friend again?

"That's my sword," he whispered, voice unnaturally small. "That's... it doesn't make sense. Why did it let me take it if I wasn't supposed to wield it? Winona said she tried and failed so why did it let me..."

I quirked an eyebrow.

If he broke down in my mind, what would happen?

"Tyler, I seem to be missing the point. I normally wouldn't care, but you are giving me quite the headache. Or perhaps that's the god-awful sound coming from these obelisks."

"Am... Am I... the Martyr?"

"Does it matter?" I asked with a sigh.

"If I'm the Martyr, then what was WX? Who is the Heir? Did..." His internal voice cracked. "Did we fail before we even began?"

If he wanted to spiral again, that was his issue, not mine. I pushed his panicked questions to the back of my mind as I examined the plaque closer.

It was old... very old. Unlike the pillars blocking my way, it showed damage from the elements, with the edges of the carved letters and picture smoothed out with wear. I absently dug a claw into one, tracing the letter thoughtfully. I still had Tyler's sword, but I didn't like to carry it with me. I preferred having a free hand that actually worked. If I was reading the image correctly, it acted a sort of key to command the obelisks. If that was the case, it really was quite the blessing that it kept getting dragged around with us, wasn't it?

I'd have to thank Maxwell for that later.

Tyler seemed to have shut down for the moment, which was incredibly convenient for me as I didn't have to hear his useless blubbering anymore. Instead, in its place, was a sort of strange emptiness. A quietness. It was nice. Perhaps I would have to make him freak out like this more often.

Well, I wouldn't be going any further without the sword. It seemed like a good time to turn back and return another day. I moved quickly in order to beat nightfall.

By the time I made it back, my breaths were rattling in my chest and the fur on my face had grown sticky with green and red goo. My claws itched with the urge to clean it, but exhaustion pulled at my limbs to the point I couldn't be bothered to do so. I collapsed to the ground and closed my eyes while pulling loose silk around me to preserve some warmth.

I was tired of this.

I slept just enough to dodge the nighttime hours, rising again with the sun. My mind felt refreshed, but my body felt heavy and groggy. I ignored the ugly stain splattered across the silk and spent the first few minutes awake scarfing down breakfast. With meat hanging satisfyingly in my stomach, I tore the sword from where I had stuck it in the ground and retraced my steps back to the obelisks.

It wasn't hard. The land seemed almost designed to bottleneck you into the bridge, with the tall, immovable pillars being the only way in or out of the peninsula. I sensed them before I heard them, and heard them before I saw them. They still emitted that low, threatening hum, but it seemed to be a slightly higher pitch than it had been before. A pitch that only rose infinitesimally with each step I took towards it as if beckoning me, or the sword, closer.

It was about this time that Tyler's consciousness stirred. He said nothing, did nothing, simply stayed back and gave me full control without protest. I felt my face twist into a smirk for just a second before I got control of it again.

Give up.

He didn't even seem to question my actions. I knew he was there, his presence was too big to ignore, but he only watched dully as I inched closer to the blockade.

When they came into view, I prepared myself for some sort of challenge. Perhaps some sort of ritual or ceremony I would have to perform with the weapon, or some enemy I had to fight.

I didn't expect the obelisks to react to me when I was still several feet away. I didn't have to say or do anything; the second the blue glow of the sword touched their marbled surface, the barricade retracted into the ground. The plaque in the center was suddenly the tallest part of the structure, the edges traced with the same shimmer of light that the sword produced. I frowned deeply, readjusting my grip on the hilt of the sword. I didn't trust it one bit.

Still though, they stayed put when I stepped over them, only rising back above the ground once I was several feet away from them. An uncertain growl rumbled in my throat. I didn't hear or smell anything out of the ordinary, but that didn't mean there wasn't a 'surprise' waiting for me. My grip tightened until my knuckles ached, but no enemy came to fight me and no traps seemed to have been sprung.

I was entering woodlands now. The snow was thinner hear, most of it captured in the high boughs of the trees. There wasn't any animal trails through the brush, so I lashed the sword out to clear my way.

The swing was clumsy- I barely knew how to use hands, let alone how to wield a sword, and Tyler was left-handed and had never quite gotten the hang of using his right hand. The blade was sharper than I expected and it sliced through the dead brush with barely any effort. The extra force I expended had me stumbling, and an awkward curve of the elbow caused the weapon to recoil into my leg.

Waves of acid poured through my veins as the weapon drew blood. I hissed in pain and dropped the sword on instinct as if it was on fire. My claws immediately curled around the wound, blocking the lazy stream oozing from the wound.

At the same time, Tyler let out a distinctive yelp and a pained hiss. "How bad did you hit us?" He demanded. His voice was still shaky, but the shock of pain seemed to have pulled him back to his senses for the moment.

"It barely made contact," I snapped back. I drew my hand back to examine the depth and to confirm my initial thought: it was minor. Barely breaking through chitin. It drew very little blood, but more noticeable was the foul-smelling liquid that the weapon drew out. The slime I coughed up was a forest-green, but this was darker, almost black. It poured from the injury as if I had hit a vein instead of just breaking a few capillaries.

"It doesn't look like it barely made contact!"

My whiskers twitched towards the sword lying on the ground a few feet away. Consciousness that was not my own swirled in my palms, and without my input, I reached out and took a hold of the weapon again. It felt like molten metal against the skin of my lame hand, but I couldn't let it go even if wanted to. Instead, I eased the flat end of the blade against the cut calmly, as if repeating an action I had done a million times.

The sensation was a shock to my mind. It struck me so hard I nearly lost my breakfast, but a few hard swallows kept it down. An intense scratch rose in the back of my throat, but the coughs wouldn't come to clear it.

Something was being pulled from my blood. I could feel it in my veins, defying the natural flow of cells in order to slither towards the blade resting against the open wound.

I wanted to scream.

Tyler didn't say anything, and to be honest, I wasn't even sure if he was the one forcing me to hold the sword to the cut. My arm shook violently as it fought to move.

The infectious sludge writhed around the sword, swirling around the blade before being absorbed into it. Every drop turned it the slightest shade darker, but the glow around it turned brighter in turn. When it finally drew the grime out, the magnetic attraction suddenly dropped and I was able to properly throw the sword away like I wanted to.

I could barely breathe. My vision spotted with dark spots and nausea rose in my throat again, threatening to make this scene all the more embarrassing. I clenched my teeth hard, closed my eyes tightly, and pressed my forehead against the snow. Disturbed flakes rose with every open-mouthed pant. The worst part of all, though, was the scattered nature of my consciousness. It felt as though someone had taken a scalpel and tore through my brain, leaving only shreds of awareness behind.

Tyler didn't even need to force his way through if he wanted to take control. I fully expected him to do exactly that, but he didn't. Instead, I felt his uncertainty and confusion more than anything else. He simply watched me, waiting for me to act.

"Well?" I spat. Drops of green-black slime splattered across the ground. "Do it. You know you want to."

And yet, he still didn't push forward. Whatever the reason, he was choosing not to take control back.

Filthy, useless, miserable wretch-

"Coward!" I snarled, digging my claws into the ground. They scraped uselessly against frozen dirt. "You're stronger right now! Take. It."

"I've nicked myself plenty of times with that sword," Tyler said uneasily. His voice shuddered with nerves. "What did you do?"

A roar of fury erupted from my chest. I lashed out in frustration, attacking nothing. Exhaustion quickly latched back onto my limbs, and I pounded my fist into the dirt. He didn't push, didn't press, didn't even try to take control back.

I wasn't sure how long I sat there, panting in a poor attempt to get my breath back. It was well past noon when I finally dragged myself to my feet, the cut on my leg throbbing like hellfire. The brush I had cut through remained open, taunting. That entire episode had spurred from cutting down the vegetation; I wasn't about to stop now.

After an uneasy moment of consideration, I took the sword with me. The thing might have been cursed in some way, but in the end, it was a weapon, and the only weapon I had. Even if I could stand, and limp if I moved slow enough, I was extremely weak. My breaths came out in uneasy wheezes of mist.

Moving forward was a challenge all of its own. I ached all over and every inch of our body shook with each movement, no matter how small. Still, I managed. The sword dragged behind me, leaving a narrow trail in the snow in its wake.

My strength returned gradually. With every step, my legs held my body weight better. And yet, the broken nature of my consciousness never seemed to right itself. No, what seemed to be pushing us forward wasn't my own consciousness, and it wasn't Tyler's. It was a more primal instinct. The animalistic knowledge that standing in one place was dangerous when it was cold.

Strangely enough, I didn't feel the cold.

Eventually, I looked up from where my eyes had been trained on the ground. Fog wreathed around my knees, heavy enough to remain close to the ground and dense enough to hide my feet from view.

Tall stones dotted the ground around me. I wandered closer to one, splitting the mist with my steps, and crouched next to it. It looked as though words had been carved into it, but Tyler didn't seem to care enough to read it.

I sat against it and leaned my head back. I was exhausted, incapable of even bringing myself to my feet any longer. It was turning dark anyway when did it get dark how did I miss that so if I didn't want to risk Nightmare's wrath, it would be best to rest now anyway.

All the while, I felt Tyler's presence hovering beside me. He had a wide opening to take control, but he didn't. He simply watched, a silent observer to my actions. He only spared me a single word as I sat against that headstone, preparing to drift off.

"Finally."