The Tornado was a slower craft than Sonic: half an hour's leisurely run for him, was about two hours of flight time. And Sally was still wondering how Amy had managed to pack herself into the small luggage compartment, let alone get out of it.
The extra weight hadn't been accounted for when Bunnie fueled it, nor when Sally and Tails had come up with the flight path to the dig site. Amy wasn't heavy by any means, but the difference was enough: they would have to set the plane down sooner than they'd wanted. But where?
Sally did a few calculations as she lay the map on the ground beside The Tornado. Flying directly over the mountains to Knothole was out of the question: that flight path meant traveling through Robotropolis airspace. She would have to dogfight the automated patrols, which would use up even more fuel.
But she couldn't take the route she'd planned. She went over the map with Bunnie, using a flashlight. For several minutes, they cut out as many redundant direction changes as possible, which were originally meant to throw off any drones Robotnik might send out.
Unfortunately, the best landing strip within reach was Lake Degrath. Twenty miles south of Knothole, and….ten miles north of the Web Wall.
"It'll have to do," Bunnie said grimly. "Ah don't like it anymore than you, but if we don't get off the ground soon, we'll get caught."
Sally folded up the map and stuck it in her breast pocket. "You're right. Let's get out of here." She opened her comm. "Sonic, we're low on fuel. Meet us at Lake Degrath."
A pause on the other end. "You're sure about that?"
Sally began running pre-flight checks as she spoke into the comm. "Best we can do tonight. Bring a gas can, we'll have camp set up by the time you get there." She forced a smile. "Don't worry."
"Who's worried?"
"You." The smile became more natural. "Bunnie has my back. And she's got a sword now, we have an Emerald–"
"And a magic eight-ball that knocks you out when you touch it," Sonic finished. "Wait, you found a Chaos Emerald?"
"Well…I don't know." All systems nominal. She strapped herself into the pilot seat, as Bunnie climbed into the gunner seat behind her.
She began flipping switches. "It doesn't look like any Chaos Emerald we've found, but It's…" Despite the circumstances, talking about the strange gem made her oddly excited, and she wanted to take it out and hold it again. "You'll have to see it, it's like holding a star in the palm of your hand."
Sally heard the smile in Sonic's reply: "Sounds majestic," he said. "Alright, I'll be there before you land. Don't drop it, okay?"
Sally smooched the speaker of her comm. "I won't." Then she brought the engine to full power.
Bunnie yelled from the rear seat of the plane: "Love you, Sugar-hog!" But Sally had already cut the comm.
It was one in the morning when Amy's eyes creaked open. Tails was immediately at her side, squeezing her hand in his hands to let her know she was safe.
She smiled at him. "Hey kid," she said hoarsely. "Where am I?"
"Vanilla's place," Tails said, feeling a bit of heat on his cheeks as he smiled back. Even like this, she's beautiful.
"Where's Sal and Bunnie?" she asked.
Sonic had told him where they were headed. In the years before Robotnik ousted King Maximilian Acorn from power, Lake Degrath had been a national park, and a popular camping destination for both humans and Mobians.
It was a long, bow-shaped lake that wrapped around a great lump of porous volcanic stone, and its shores were famous for their black, gravely texture. Moreover, the surrounding forest was a dense thicket of fragrance, made up of fir, spruce, olive, holly, and terebinth.
But through all of last year, out of the hills further south, The Web Wall had creeped its way toward Knothole. Now it was a few miles from Degrath. Tails had never seen the wall himself; but he knew people who had. Supposedly, it was a miles-long stretch of forest, in which the canopy and most of the understory was covered in sticky, sickly grey spider webs.
According to Sonic–the only one in Knothole crazy enough to explore The Web Wall–only the first hundred yards inside was fresh. Further back, it all became loose cobwebs that seemed to absorb ambient light, and they reflected…well, not darkness, strictly speaking.
Tails remembered a ball of the stuff Sonic had brought home, wrapped around a stick. Darkness is a lack of light: these old webs gave off an unlight that hurt his eyes if he looked for too long. Worse, it stank.
Wisely, Tails avoided telling Amy where Sally and Bunnie had decided to land. "They're on their way." Quickly, he changed the subject: "What is the last thing you remember, before you blacked out?"
"I blacked out?" Amy slowly propped herself up in bed. She then brushed her quills out of her eyes. "I picked up a…a bowling ball, I think." She squinted in confusion. "Then I was somewhere else."
"Where were you?"
Her eyes widened as the memories came back to her. "I was in a glass ball. I saw…hands."
"Hands?" Tails asked.
Amy gingerly cupped his face in her hands. "Like that. Human hands, old and gray and wrinkly." She let go of his face, and her lip began to quiver. "They were on fire."
Tails winced. "You don't have to say anym–"
Her speech sped up, the words tumbling out in a telegraphic jumble. "I was in the tomb of the old kings. My son was burning, they'd put a poisoned arrow in him, and we were all going to burn, me, him, the wizard, and–" She shook her head. "What the heck did I just say?"
Sally and Bunnie landed by the little fire Sonic had made on the gravel shore of Lake Degrath. It was one-thirty by the time they'd finished setting up camp.
Clouds covered the moon, as well as the stars. Even though she'd volunteered to keep watch while they slept in the tent, Bunnie could hear Sonic and Sally whispering to each other. A bright glow in the corner of her eye told her they were discussing the gem.
"What's it done to your arm?"
"Some kind of marking…can't read it, but maybe…"
Bunnie's eyes traced the far shore of the black lake, and the black treeline all round, as she tried to pick out any unusual movement. This close to the Web Wall, it paid to be cautious. The smell of pine resin lay thick in the cool, damp air, sharply contrasting with the red heat and woodsmoke that batted at her face.
The glow went out. Sally must have stowed the jewel, or whatever it really was. Bunnie idly poked at the fire with a stick.
"I hate to…Bunnie like that."
"...be fine. Just get…"
"No. Not here."
Bunnie's mouth dropped. You've gotta be kiddin' me, she thought, Sonic, you–
"We can…"
Sally's voice rose to a louder whisper. "No. I don't care if she can, even for a couple hours. I won't have her alone out here, not while it's dark."
"Alright. Alright."
Bunnie held in a snort as she realized her mistake. Sal, you don't have to stick up for me like that, she thought. You're the royalty here, not me.
About twenty minutes later, Bunnie heard steady, soft breath: Sally was asleep. An hour later, to her mild surprise, Sonic came out of the tent and sat on the log beside her. "Can't sleep, Sugar-hog?"
Sonic shrugged. "I don't know how she can." He shifted. "Look, I don't know if you were listening or not, but I just want to say this."
Patiently, Bunnie waited.
"If there was anyone I'd want protecting Sal out here, besides me, it'd be you." He rubbed the back of his neck. "If you guys were genuinely stranded out here, I mean, no comms, no plane, no backup. I think you'd get her home okay."
Bunnie gave Sonic her best doe-eyes. "Is that why you wanna leave little ol' me out here, all alone?" Then she grinned. "Ah don't blame you. Her, neither, not after all that with Amy."
Tails was equal parts disturbed and fascinated, but he knew not to press Amy too hard for gory details just then. To that end, he'd left the room to allow her a moment to breathe, and to get a pencil and a notebook.
When he returned, Amy was fully awake, lost in thought. He decided to sit on the bed beside her. "You said you were in a tomb of the kings? Which kings?"
Amy's brow furrowed in concentration. "Well…I don't know. Did any human kings live around here?"
"Not that I know of," Tails replied, though something told him that wasn't entirely true.
He thought. Per Sally's history lessons, the Acorn Kingdom's borders often fluctuated; but for the surrounding thousand miles of land, it seemed Mobians had always been the majority population. If any human kingdom in this part of the world had existed, it was long lost to time.
When Tails finished telling her this, he asked: "It sounds like you could understand the man. Do you know how? Was he talking to you?"
Amy scratched the back of her head. "He wasn't talking to me, I know that. It was like…" She paused. "It was like, I could hear what he was thinking."
Tails scribbled on the smooth, creamy paper as she spoke. "What was he thinking about?"
Amy paused to think, then shuddered. "Fire."
"That's it?"
She glared at him. "Touch the ball and see it yourself!" she snapped. Almost immediately, she softened: "I'm sorry. He was just so sad and…" Her hand flew to her mouth. "No. No. I can't."
Tails relented. "Okay. You don't have to talk about it. Did you see anything else?"
Amy took a few breaths to calm down, before continuing. "I tried to turn around and run, but it was like trying to swim through quicksand."
"Could you move at all?"
Amy twisted her shoulders a couple times, saying: "This was all I could do. But on the third try, I turned around completely. The hands were gone, and–" She fell silent.
"And what? What did you see?" Tails reached out to her, not sure whether to put a hand on her shoulder or to take one of her hands.
"I saw the forest," she whispered, "and something else. Something dark."
Glancing back at the tent, Bunnie added more seriously: "Ah told Sal we shouldn't've opened that coffin, and did she listen? No. Now look, we're all in a mess tonight. What's next, Ah doze off, and find you two wrapped up in those crazy webs like a couple of Yule presents?"
She'd meant it lightly, but Sonic wasn't amused. He eyed the far shore of the lake warily, then the tent. "Then don't doze off," he said softly, before changing the subject. He nodded his chin at the sheath slung across Bunnie's back. "Sal tells me you found a sword?"
Bunnie had almost forgotten she was wearing the sheath; the sling sat well on her, and the weapon was surprisingly light for its size. She set the blade across her knees and drew it out.
The steel shimmered red in the firelight, and the elegant runes carved into the fuller shone blackly against the red. "Ah dunno how this wasn't broken when Ah found it." She tested the edge with a robotic thumb, and a spark flew off into the gravel at her feet. "See that? Didn't even nick it."
Sonic held out a hand to take the sword, and Bunnie let him. Turning in the light, he smiled. Then he gave it a few slow test swings, and a quick chop that made a beautiful swish as it cut the air. "Definitely a two-hander," he said as he gave it back to Bunnie, "Even for a human."
But as Bunnie took it back, she blinked. It's just the fire…wait a minute.
One by one, from the hilt to the tip, the runes began to glow a hot, electrical blue. Then the blade itself began to glow, as if a white fire had kindled within the steel itself.
Bunnie dropped the sword.
"The Web Wall? Is that what you saw?"
"Maybe." She looked away from Tails, as if ashamed.
Tails took one of her hands and gave it a gentle squeeze. He waited.
"I was above the forest," she continued. "It didn't look like any place near Knothole. There were these cliffs rising out of the trees." She managed to look Tails in the eye again. "All the trees looked sick. And the cliff faces were some kind of black rock. But there was one cliff that looked blacker than the others."
Foreboding slowly coiled around Tails's stomach. Part of him wanted to stop Amy there, but his rational mind needed to put this whole mystery together.
"I looked closer. There was a hole, a dark gap in the base of the cliff, like the top of a huge cave mouth. But it was all wrong: the cave was wider than the cliff above it."
Once again, Tails remembered the ball of unlight webs Sonic had brought home. He wondered if Amy had seen a particularly old and potent concentration of the stuff. "Was there anything in the cave?"
"Nothing. Not darkness, just nothing."
Tails felt his skin crawl, and his fur began to stand on end.
"And the nothing saw me. Like I'd bumped into it, and it turned around to look." Her mouth crumpled. "I couldn't move, it caught me. And then it smiled at me."
"What do you mean?" Tails asked.
"It smiled at me.Then it was everywhere, all around me, all over me, wrapping me up in nothing. I tried to scream, but I heard nothing. Then I felt like I was being pulled from the ball, toward the smile."
Tails was now fairly certain that whatever Amy had picked up, had allowed her to perform some kind of mental projection, at quite a distance from what she described. Gently, he asked: "What happened after? Was that when Bunnie knocked the ball out of your hand, do you remember that?"
Amy wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Bunnie was too late. There's a piece of me in its teeth."
Sally's ears turned up, and her scalp prickled. What had made that sound? It wasn't loud, nor long, like buzzing cricket suddenly cut its song short. She knew it wasn't a cricket.
A cold whisper wafted through the darkened trees behind her.
Nai kotumo ar nilmo, kalima Vala, thauza ar poika, Moringothonna…
She turned and saw no one. But she could feel someone, or something, looking at her from the grey haze and black trees. The whisper-voice was joined by a second.
…ilar thanyë, ilar melmë, ilar malkazon sammë…
The buzzing sound again, above her. Sally turned: nothing. A third, and a fourth voice joined in.
…Sí vandalmë ilyai…
Ice filled Sally's veins. A fifth, then a sixth voice joined the hoarse dissonance as she turned and turned and turned, trying to detect the source of the whispers.
…Oiyámórenna...íre queluvá tyardalma!
But she saw no one. The voices grew from dissonant whispers, to a great, icy hiss.
Sí vandalmë ilyai!
Sí vandalmë ilyai!
Sí vandalmë ilyai!
A seventh voice, clear, strong, and melodic as a church bell, cried aloud:
Awaken, you little fool!
Sally's eyes snapped open. Instinctively she sat up, reached for her bag, and slid open the side pocket; the gem was still there, shining pale light into the drab green of the tent.
She took it out of the bag and held it to her heart. The gem was warm in her hands, exuding the warmth of a cup of cider on a cold day. Soon, the pounding of her heart slowed.
She was about to put the gem away, when she heard the quick buzz above her. As Sally turned and looked up, the buzz turned to a sizzle, and all warmth drained from her body.
On the tent ceiling, was the largest spider Sally had ever seen. Nearly two feet from legtip to legtip, with a black head and an oblong abdomen that turned from sickly gold, to white, and finally to black at the spinnerets. And in the light of the gem, its eight eyes shined like drops of blood.
Worse still, Sally had the distinct feeling that those eyes were directly looking into hers.
But when she fully faced the spider, the gem's light made it freeze in place, and its first two pairs of legs scrunched up to cover its eyes.
It doesn't like the light, she thought numbly. Thank Heaven for small favors. She held the gem aloft like a flashlight, so that its radiance pinned the spider in place. Slowly, trying not to spook the creature, and not taking her eyes off it, Sally began shouldering her pack onto her free arm.
That's it, hold still, she thought, before speaking aloud: "Sonic? How much was in that gas can?" It amazed her how clear and even her voice came out.
When Sonic answered, his voice came out flat, over-controlled. "Enough to get you home."
In the corner of Sally's eye, she saw that the front zipper of the tent had been partially opened. She began to scoot backwards toward the exit. "You see it, too?"
"...Yeah."
"I'm coming out. Stay right there."
The sound of Bunnie's titanium feet rapidly crunching on the gravel shore, and into water: she was wading out to The Tornado. Sally kept her eyes and the light on the spider. Her free hand found the zipper, and began pulling it down.
The spider creeped forward an inch. Then it dropped to the dark floor.
Sally shrieked, threw herself backwards, but she hadn't opened the tent flap wide enough: only her torso and bag were free. Her violent motion sent the tent–along with the sleeping bags, her legs, and the spider–onto its side. The gem slipped from her hand.
Sonic was immediately at her side, pulling her out of the tent and slapping his hands all over her legs, her arms, her vest, her neck! But the spider had fled.
"C'mon, let's get you airborne," Sonic said as he helped her up. "Where there's one of those, there's a dozen more around."
"A dozen?" Sally squeaked, as she rapidly backed away and almost stepped into the campfire. She caught herself before she did so, and stepped around it. She sat down on the log. "Give me a minute, that…" She shuddered.
"Did it bite you?" Sonic asked.
"N-no, I don't think so," Sally replied, before realizing that she'd dropped the gem.
Thankfully it hadn't gone far: the loose gravel of the shoreline had stopped it after a few feet. She scooped it up, and held it aloft to see if any more spiders skittered along the ground.
The gem caught the firelight. What happened next made all three Mobians freeze in equal wonder and horror: the light of the gem blazed forth across Lake Degrath, casting the surrounding trees and water in shades of lava and blood.
And half-hidden in the undergrowth behind the tent, eight blood-eyes on a large, black head glinted back at them. Then another set of eight creeped out of the shadows beside it. Then another, and another, and another. Expressionless as they were, Sally felt the hunger, the unrelenting greed behind those eyes. They wanted.
"Get behind me," Sonic snapped as he picked up the sword and held it point-out, like a rapier. Its glow both drank the light of the gem and fed it, turning gem and blade the color of white-hot plasma.
The spiders silently crept out of the undergrowth on spindly black legs, each revealing an abdomen about the size of a football. And to Sally's mounting terror, these spiders didn't shield their eyes from the light of the gem.
"It's okay," Sonic whispered, not taking his eyes off the spiders, "just one foot behind the other." He took a step back. So did Sally. "Don't. Run." He raised his voice. "Bunnie? How are we on gas?"
"Fueled enough," Bunnie said, before the engine of the plane roared to life. Then the sound of jumping back into the water and wading back onto the shoreline. Sally heard the click-whirr of panels on Bunnie's arm opening.
The spiders paused on the edge of the ferns, a mere twenty yards away. They didn't shield their eyes; pedipalps eagerly rubbed over fangs, the fangs rubbed together, and the resultant sound was a low, buzzing hum that Sally felt more than she heard. As the hum intensified, it took on an awful, echoing quality, and the air itself seemed to vibrate.
Sally clapped one hand over an ear to shut out the overwhelming sound. Cold water lapped at her ankles. "What on earth are they doing?"
Sonic laughed grimly. "Calling for backup. Wouldn't you?"
Sally's mouth went dry. Backup. Revallie, muster, all hands on deck, matey, 'tis time to take our meat, that it is, oh we're dead. We're dead. We're–
Whoomp.
A stream of red fire roared from Bunnie's robotic arm toward the spiders.
Hisssssissis. POP. PipPOP.
Blood-freezing, high-pitched, ululating wails rose above the hum. That also soon died away, leaving only the crackling of fire on living, wet wood. Then, white foam smothered both wood and fire.