In Milar, the rains had been
falling steadily, washing the mountains of snow away down to Lainz. The thin biomass
and soil had thawed and then soaked up every drop of rain it could hold, poor
sponge that it was, a slick film of clay over sharp-edged volcanic rock.
The rain filled the soil and trickled
around the loose scree mixed into the clay that was rapidly becoming slurry.
And then the rain stopped, the sun drying out the top layer, making it seem as
solid as it ever was, a smiling mountain face, glowing warm up at the clear
blue sky. Below the surface there was nowhere for the water to go and it sat
between the clay particles, putting a slick layer of lubricant between each
tiny grain.
**
Nadian, sat, still bleeding
gently from his lip, the iron/salt/oil slick puddling just under his tongue. He
waited, growing more and more impatient. What is taking so long?
**
Under the pressure of his
impatience, the mal-spider shifted, crawled out along the edges of the ornate
table. It was not a direct line to the bed but there was a screen close by,
that threw a long shadow in the right direction.
It stopped at the corner, its
pearl head swivelling to scan for bees. Apparently chilled down again, they
were still as if soldered onto the tips of the Immutable’s crown. The spider
crawled down slowly then made the tiny leap at the bottom into the deeper
shadow of the screen, diamond feet hitting the tile with an eightfold click and
froze once more.
The sound was enough. The bees
rose again. A few more flew in, circled the bed room. A single bee landed on
the vanity table, its feet tasting the jewel box. A second joined it and the
two began buzzing around one another in a zizzing circle. Then a third. And a
fourth. A fifth hovered over the knot of dancing, seething bees and the hum
rose to a higher pitch; high enough to make teeth start to quiver in the mouth.
Suddenly the vanity table was
covered with a glittering mass of yellow and black bees, a swarm of moving topaz and
onyx. The spider darted along the shadow of the screen straight toward the bed,
a stream of bees following after it as thunder follows the lightning, screaming
a buzzing threat, other bees pouring in to thicken the wave.
The stream of bees hit the
mal-spider, knocking it off its target, tumbling it, losing bits of gemstones
as it clattered against the tile and smacked against the trailing bedskirt. The
bees rippled under the bed after it, surging, but hummed in confusion. Where
was the spider?
It lay still under the heavy
puddle of silk, waiting as miniscule diamond claws wiggled across the tile to
re-join it, then stealthily set its forelegs on the trailing bedclothes.
Gently, softly, it pulled itself up the bed while bees blundered underneath,
sensors all but blind. But bees live in dim or dark in the hive and live by
touch, the faintest quiver of a neighbour, the wiggle of the queen across
risers. The spider had just dug claws into the mattress when the workers found
it.
**
“The view from up here is
fantastic,” Haraklez said, holding out her cup for Werfas to re-fill. He
obliged with a pour of hot liquid from the flask and with a solid glug from a
little jug as well.
“But you’re too good a girl to
ever disobey and you’ve never been up this far past the baffles.”
“They’re old. People keep
rebuilding them but we haven’t had an avalanche in years. The snow just never
builds up that deep anymore,” Haraklez said. She leaned back on her blanket,
sipping her tea.
Kyrus leaned on one elbow. “So
it’s an old rule that nobody’s bothered to get rid of?”
“I suppose,” Werfas said. “My
folks still think I’m not supposed to come out here.”
“I wrote my mother about this
view,” Kyrus said thoughtfully.
“And that we came up here sometimes.” The three
were stretched out on their blankets in the lee of a rock outcropping jutting
out of the mountain, straight up over their heads, using the sun-warmed rock as
a warm shelter from the wind that blew constantly so high. “You can almost
imagine, if it cleared a little more, that you could almost see straight to the
Lainz border from here.”
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