Chapter 22

According to the court chemists, he was not, in fact, joking. Giant spiders are common in caves and tunnels under all of Veilsung.

"They're known as glass spiders," Nolara explains to me eagerly. "Their carapaces are entirely transparent, so you can see right through to their innards. Usually they come up to about knee height, so 'giant' is a relative term. Most adults of the sentient races are too big to need to worry about being preyed on, but they'll happily eat anyone around or under three feet tall.”

I’ve broken out into a cold sweat practically from the first word of her description. I don’t hate spiders or anything. Far from it – I think they’re fascinating and beautiful in a strange sort of way. I just don’t want them on or near me. And bigger spiders can move faster, so they could unexpectedly run up and touch me faster, so they need to stay further away. That’s all. In a cave, though I’d be forced into much closer quarters than I would like. I’m not looking forward to this.

“Are they venomous?” I ask nervously.

“No,” Nolara says with a dismissive wave of her hand, “not enough to kill you anyway. Just enough to hurt for a couple hours.”

That sounds like a “yes” to me, actually, but I don’t contradict her.

“We have a repellent that keeps them at a distance,” says another chemist named Ulli. “They won’t even look at you, let alone bite you.”

“If you happen to see one that’s already dead,” says Nolara, “you should bring back its body, or at least snap off a leg or two. The exoskeletons can be carved into durable and non-reactive utensils and containers. They cannibalize their dead very quickly, though, so you may not see any.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say while screaming internally. Giant cannibal spiders. All right.

Besides the spider repellant, they have a lot of other potions and gadgets that they use while searching caves for ingredients. Evidently caves are rich with plant, animal, and fungal life that have unique chemical uses. Veilsung is actually quite ahead in the study of chemistry for this reason. While loading me up with supplies, they go on and on about all the research they have done in caves across the country. I learn about a type of fungus that has only ever been found in one cave which has properties that reduce the gravitational pull on those who consume it, but is also exceedingly toxic. Also, a snail that creates two shells in different locations and can withdraw into one and pop out of the other. The chemists have figured out how to take secretions from its body and apply them to small containers, linking two together so that messages can be sent instantaneously as long as the intended recipient has the other box. I listen with rapt attention, even though I sincerely hope I don’t run into many of the more dangerous things they’re talking about.

Some things they hand me have obvious uses. I recognize a compass immediately, and a long measuring tape to help me with charting the caves as I go. Ulli also hands me something called a clinometer, which is for measuring the angle of the cave floor and should help me keep track of where we are vertically, as long as I can do a little math. Not looking forward to that, but I’m capable of it. I’m also given a special lantern that uses a specific oil.

“It’s mixed with oils from frost mint plants, which burn cold,” Nolara explains. “You can handle the lantern even after it’s been burning for a long time that way. Incidentally, if you ever get hot in your room, we can give you some frost mint to burn in your fireplace to cool it down.”

One thing that scares me is when they hand me what looks like a jar full of dead bugs.

“They’re choke beetles,” Ulli says. “They thrive in caves that have air that is poisonous to most living things. When taken out of their caves, they go into a dormant state, but when surrounded by bad air again, they wake back up. They are bioluminescent and make shrill whistling noises, so it’s hard not to notice when they start to revive. It’s essentially the opposite of a canary in a coal mine.”

“That’s amazing,” I say. “It’s probably a huge pain to collect them.”

“Actually, if you notice any that look dead on the cave floor, then it’s a good sign you’re coming up on a dangerous pocket of air. It’s not hard to just scoop up the dormant ones and turn around.”

I specifically ask if there’s anything they have that would mask my scent. Even though Rhys told me that there was no sign that anyone has been going through that entrance to the tunnel, if it does end up connecting to the catacombs where people have been secretly meeting up, I don’t want my distinct human scent in the area to tip anyone off that I’ve been sneaking around. They hand me a container of thin lotion that I have to rub all over my body including my hair. Apparently, rather than erasing my scent, it has a smell that’s analogous to white noise, sort of making it impossible to pinpoint or distinguish from the background. They reassure me that they have plenty of it, so I shouldn’t be afraid to use as much as I need.

In addition to everything the chemists set me up with, I send for some clothes that are more appropriate for tunnel exploration. Dresses aren’t going to cut it. Even the clothing I have from when I was with the Warblers isn’t entirely suited for crawling through the dirt and dust – it’s not durable enough. I’m going to need thick pants, breathable shirts, and good boots to get around down there.

Lastly, I ask someone to help me source the various rulers and other doohickeys needed for mapmaking. I’m not planning on going crazy and trying to be perfectly accurate, but I want to at least be able to tell if a tunnel loops back on itself, and maybe even get a good idea of where I am in relation to the mapped portions of the catacombs. I have a big sketchbook to take notes with, and I’m getting larger sheets of paper to make actual maps on.

It takes a few days for me to get all set up, and during that short time, a somewhat irritating development takes place.

I’m in my bedroom in the evening, sitting at my window and watching the tail end of the sunset while reading about mapmaking, when I hear a knock on my door. I expect it to be Vizsla, who sometimes comes by in the evenings just to hang out after her tasks for the day are finished, but unfortunately, it is not.

“Good evening,” Khysmet greets when I open the door.

“Um. Hi,” I respond unenthusiastically. He’s never sought me out after dinner before, so I’m a little confused as to why he’s here now. “Do you… need something?”

“Not particularly,” he says.

I wait for him to continue with some kind of explanation, but he does not. After a moment of silence, though, he speaks again.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

I purse my lips. “And why would I do that?”

“Come now, Cat, it’s only polite,” he chides me gently. “Also, I might have something important to tell you that can only be said behind closed doors.”

I narrow my eyes skeptically. “Do you?”

“You’ll have to let me in and find out.”

I sigh and roll my eyes, but I open the door for him anyway. Might as well see what he wants.

He strolls nonchalantly into my room, examining the decor as he goes.

“Hmm,” he says, “your couch isn’t very big. I’ll have it exchanged for something more comfortable.”

“Uh. Sure, that would be nice,” I say. I’m not really sure why he brought that up.

He takes a seat on the couch that I do have and looks at me expectantly. When I don’t do anything besides stare at him with a confused expression on my face, he pats his thigh as though inviting a dog to jump onto the furniture.

I flush bright red. “I’m not sitting on your lap.”

He rolls his eyes. “Oh now you’re shy. I get it, sunshine, you climb all over me in public, but once we’re behind closed doors, you suddenly feel it would be indecent.”

“I’m not sh– Don’t call me–” I stutter, unsure what part of that extremely objectionable statement to address first. “It was a means to an end, that’s all!”

“A means to the end of sleeping with me, right?” he finishes. “Well, I have some good news for you about what may happen if you sit in my lap now.”

“No,” I correct, “a means to the end of torturing you. And it worked very well, by the way, if you recall.”

"So come torture me some more. Please?"

I sigh deeply. I wouldn’t particularly mind sitting in his lap – in my recent experience, I’ve found it to be rather comfortable, in fact – but I don’t want to just do what he wants. I decide to try to regain some sense of agency in this scenario. I cross my arms and look down my nose at him.

“Beg more and I’ll consider it,” I instruct.

“Please come sit on me, Cat,” he says obediently. “Take pity on me, I beg of you. I so desperately desire your touch.”

“Wow, that was so pathetic. Aren’t you supposed to be a king or something? You really shouldn’t embarrass yourself like that.”

He smiles at me as I come over and curl up across his waiting thighs. His arms wrap around my waist, and even though he specifically asked me to torture him just now, I allow it. I lean my shoulder against his chest and he rests his cheek against my clavicle. It’s nice.

“So,” I ask, “is this the only reason you’re here?”

I feel his smirk against my skin. “More or less,” he says. “Since you’ve now responded positively to my advances, I’m finding it significantly more difficult to resist the urge to seek your company in the evenings. So I figured, why resist?”

“I guess…” I say hesitantly, “I wouldn’t mind seeing you at night. You know, from time to time.”

“I'm glad to hear you're amenable to the idea. As such, from now on I want you in your bedroom by eight each night,” he orders. “I don't want to have to come looking for you when I want to see you."

I scoff and pull away from his chest to glare at him.

"Are you serious?" I say. "I'm not going to follow a fucking curfew. Why don’t you try that again, and ask nicely this time.”

He meets my glare submissively, takes a deep breath, and asks again as instructed.

“I… would like to be able to locate you easily in the evenings," he says. "If you could please try to either be in your bedroom at night around eight, or at least send word to me of where you’re going to be… I would appreciate the courtesy.”

I give him a patronizing pat on the cheek. “Much better. I suppose I can keep you apprised of my location. If I want you to be able to find me, that is.”

“Is that a challenge, sunshine? I’ll be able to find you wherever you try to hide.”

“It’s a big castle, your majesty. I’d like to see you try.”

So now I’m going to have to contend with Khysmet calling on me at odd hours of the night. It’s a mild inconvenience, as I rather enjoyed my freedom and solitude in the evenings, but it’s not something I’m dreading as much as I would have a couple months ago. Somehow, between getting to know him better and learning that I have more power over him than I previously realized, I have begun to actually enjoy parts of our time together. He’s still constantly trying to get under my skin, but he also will do pretty much anything I ask of him, and I’m not shy about asking. If he wants to swing by a few nights a week to snuggle and fuck, I can live with that.

The day after next, I’m finally set up with all the equipment necessary to make my first foray down into the tunnels. I’ve packed and repacked everything a couple times, smeared the scent-covering lotion on myself head to foot, taken the giant spider repellant, and practiced lighting the lantern with my eyes closed in case we need to extinguish it and relight it in total darkness. I’m running circles around Rhys as we head to the tunnel entrance. He doesn't seem as enthusiastic as I am, but I know better than to assume that means he's not excited.

"Have you ever explored a cave before, Rhys?" I ask as we descend the stairs around the water tower. "I know they're super common everywhere under Veilsung."

"When I was pretty young, I used to sneak into a cave close to my house with some friends," he says. "Our parents all warned us to stay away, but obviously that just made it more exciting. We never got that far, though. I didn't want to be down there alone, so when someone else chickened out, I would follow them back outside. Before I could convince someone to go in really deep with me, they'd all lost interest in cave exploration."

I grin toothily at him. "Then you're in luck today, because I guarantee I'm not going to chicken out before you."

He shoots me a look tinged ever so slightly with doubt.

"I'll believe you more after seeing how you react to the first giant spider," he says.

"Hey," I protest, "I might piss myself and will probably cry, but I'm not leaving the damn tunnel on account of some eight-legged fucks that aren't even going to eat me."

I'm bouncing on the balls of my feet as we get to the door. We light one of our lanterns before opening it. A solid quarter of the supplies we're carrying consists of just extra lantern oil, much more than we need for the two to four hours of exploration that I promised Khysmet we would limit ourselves to. I'm not taking any chances, though. If something were to happen that would force us to stay down there longer, I don't want to run the risk of having to find our way back in total darkness.

I push gently on the section of wall that I know swings in and walk into the tunnel behind it, holding the door open for Rhys to follow behind. When the door swings closed again, I am in awe of just how quickly the darkness swallows our small light. Beyond the reach of our lanterns, the tunnel vanishes into nothingness, as though the hundred feet of illuminated tunnel is all that exists in the universe. A thrill runs through me, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand straight up. I inhale the stale smell of rocks and dirt, run my hand along the cool stone wall, and feel the narrow tunnel close in around me like a swallowing throat. I pull the long coil of measuring tape out of my backpack and drop the end on the ground.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s fucking do this.”

It doesn’t take long before it becomes clear that this isn’t going to be an easy process.

We run into a fork in the tunnel not two hundred feet in, where it separates into three paths. I take note in my sketchbook the exact distance from the entrance to this intersection and measure the angle of the ground, which has been on a steady slope the whole way so far. I’ll do the math later. Interestingly, at this intersection, the path that curves to the left takes a significant downward slope. I have a feeling that this is designed to funnel the runoff from a water tower breach in that direction. My gut says that it will lead either outside or to an underground river. We’re not going that way first.

I take us down the middle path, making note of the angles of the branching path and how they correspond to the needle on my compass, along with distinguishing features of the intersection that will help identify the path to the exit. A couple hundred feet further down, there is another three-way split, and I once again record measurements of all kinds and notate a sketch of the angles of these tunnels. Again, I take us down the center path.

Gradually, this tunnel hooks to the left, sloping gently downhill at the same slight slope that has characterized the path we've taken so far. Suddenly, it opens up into a larger, more natural looking cavern and I see my first giant spider sprawled high on the wall, legs spanning about six feet across, transparent body casting a freaky shadow on the stone behind it. The cobwebs in this room are thick, but there seems to be a clear path through them.

Before we go in, I pull up the measuring tape and take my measurements and my notes. Then I swallow thickly and motion for Rhys to go in front of me, which he kindly does, brandishing the spear he brought in case the spider decides to try its luck with eating us.

There seems to be only one other exit to this room, another tunnel in the opposite wall, which if we were to go through it, would take us within fifteen feet of the spider. I nod to Rhys that I'm ready to go, and he starts walking us across the room. I look around for other exits along the way, but there are none. I'm doing a good job of not pissing myself or even crying when, right when we're almost at the other side, suddenly the spider moves and I scream at the top of my lungs.

It only twitches, though. Then it's still once more. Rhys leads us the rest of the way through the cavern exit without the spider moving again. When we're a suitable distance down the new tunnel, I, while hyperventilating slightly, scribble my notes about the size of the cavern and the presence of unreasonably sized arachnid life in it.

"I'm impressed, Miss Catarina," Rhys says while I write. "You didn't even cry, let alone piss yourself."

I snort. Rhys seems livelier down here than I've ever seen him. He rarely cusses in front of me, and his face is quite a bit more expressive than usual. It's nice to see.

"I haven't pissed myself yet," I correct. "It's possible that twenty minutes from now, my brain will finally process what just happened and I'll faint on the spot."

We continue down the tunnel, which is still hooking to the left and starting to go slightly uphill. I keep an eye on my compass and record regular measurements. The next intersection we come upon gives me a sinking feeling in my stomach.

"We've already been here," I say. "The tunnel doubled back."

Rhys furrows his brow. "You're sure? How can you tell?"

"I'm pretty sure my measurements add up. I'm going to sit here and do a little math real quick, but I'm fairly certain we're at the same altitude as we were before. Plus, I recognize those three rocks in the corner there," I say and point to a spot on the floor.

I sit down to do my calculations and think for a bit. The math isn't precise, but it's close enough to convince me that this definitely is the same intersection. This concerns me deeply, because if the path is already doubling back on itself, who knows how many times it will do this down the line? If I didn't happen to recognize an innocuous rock formation, I wouldn't have been sure that this was the same place as before. Down the road though, we're probably going to run into a lot of intersections. I'm sure they will all start to blur together eventually.

"Rhys," I say, "I have some bad news. We have to return to the surface for today."

He looks clearly disappointed, which is kind of funny to see on someone whose expression is so often inscrutable. I clarify before he can complain.

"I want to have markers made that we can drop at these intersections. Little signs that say A, B, C, etc cetera, to label the ones we've already been to before. We can put the signs next to the tunnel that is the most direct way back to the entrance."

He nods slowly. "I guess that makes sense. It does seem like this place might end up being pretty maze-like. We don't want to get lost."

"Don't worry," I reassure him, "we'll be coming back before you know it."