“There’s probably some simple explanation for all them webs anyway,” Gorm said, looking to Jynn.

The wizard looked at the Dwarf askance and shook his head.

“No?” Gorm felt his own unease rising. “I mean, a king’s about to die, right? Maybe that much destiny, I don’t know, compresses bugs’ breeding cycles or otherwise attracts spiders?” His shoulders fell at the omnimancer’s blank expression. “No simple, rational explanation for… for all this?”

He gestured at the spider. An even larger and hairier specimen leapt from the shadows to pounce on the distracted arachnid. In a matter of seconds, it covered its struggling prey in webs and, with an eight-eyed glare at the heroes, dragged its meal back into the shadows.

“No,” said Jynn. “This is just creepy.”

“There’s so much malignant sorcery here,” said Laruna. “And the transformation must have happened quickly. You don’t see this sort of infestation every day.”

Gorm deflated with a long sigh. The corruption ensnaring the palace in thick webs was disturbing, but it wasn’t unfamiliar. “Not every day, but I have seen it before,” he said.

All eyes turned to the Dwarf. “Where?” asked Heraldin.

“In my nightmares, mostly,” said Gorm. “But before that…”

“In the dungeon of Az’Anon the Spider King,” Jynn finished for him.

“Aye.” The Dwarf gripped his face in a mailed hand and grit his teeth. A nagging suspicion tugged at the back of his mind. “Gods, he must have brought it back.”

“Exactly. Help from beyond,” said the omnimancer.

Gorm took a deep breath and dropped his hands to his sides. “Explains a lot.”

“I wish you’d do the same,” said Laruna. “Who brought what back?”

“Johan brought something back from the dungeon of Az’Anon,” said Gorm. “Something big and evil and with an affinity for spiders. Back when Az’Anon killed some of the best heroes I knew and sent me runnin’, Johan of Embleden was just a young hotshot with more ribbons on his tabard than quests under his belt. But afterward, Johan started taking on solo quests to slay the most powerful wizards on Arth.”

The omnimancer nodded. “In a few years he was the guild’s most celebrated hero, and some time after that the Champion of Tandos, and then the King of the Freedlands. His rapid rise suggests aid from something supernatural.”

“The only question is what that somethin’ is,” said Gorm.

“I’ll bet it’s epic, whatever it is.” Heraldin grimaced and shot Gaist a meaningful look.

Gorm ignored the bard. “Could be a coven of dark magic users, or any kind of demon, or a spider totem, or even Az’Anon’s ghost. Not sure how we can figure out what.”

“I believe I can answer that,” said Jynn.

“Ye know what’s behind all this?” said Gorm.

“No,” said the wizard. “But I believe whatever it was also made Az’Anon the Black into the Spider King. My father and the rest of Az’Anon’s associates from the Leviathan Project were frightened of it, and I suspect they had theories about its nature. And I am nearly certain their letters on the subject are somewhere in the Royal Archives, near the back of this very vault.”

Gorm saw where this was going. “We ain’t got time for readin’ through an archive! I’ll allow that we need to be cautious, but Johan’s makin’ his way toward the stairs now.”

“The stairs we destroyed,” said Laruna.

“He seems to think he’s got a chance, and I ain’t willin’ to risk him bein’ right.” Gorm snorted. “If he can find a way down to the dragon, who knows what he and whatever’s pullin’ his strings will do?”

“Then go on ahead,” said Jynn. “Help me reach the archives, and I’ll find the letters while you make your way to Johan. If you stall for time, I should know what we’re up against before it reveals itself.”

Gorm considered the proposal as he checked over his gear. “We get him started on a monologue, maybe test his strength a bit, play up the final confrontation… I still don’t think ye’ll have more than ten minutes before the bastard either summons his helper or true-forms or some such.”

“Then I’ll make the ten minutes count,” said the omnimancer. The gemstone in the Wyrmwood Staff flared a little brighter at its master’s determination.

Heraldin stepped in. “It does make sense, my friend. We need to know what we’re up against.”

Gaist nodded and watched another party of heroes make their way into the vault. Their weapons gleamed in the amber light of their solamancer’s flame.

“Jynn can do this.” Laruna locked gazes with the wizard. “And we need him to.”

“Aye, fine.” Gorm hefted his axe and shield. “Last time I faced… whatever this is, I ran screaming. Knowin’ what we’re up against is the best chance we have not to do that again. We’ll get ye to the archives, and then the rest of us will clear a path to Johan. But ready yourselves.”

Orange light flared and shouts rang out from within the vault. Something inhuman screeched in pain, and the shadows of spindly, hairy appendages waved through the light of the fire.

Gorm nodded to the other heroes as they readied their weapons. “It’s gonna be rough goin’.”

Chapter 29

Gorm’s warning turned out to be the sort of understatement that Jynn Ur’Mayan hated.

The phrase “rough going” implied a trek through brambles, or perhaps climbing over cumbersome rocks. “Rough going” conjured visions of a hike that turned out a bit sweatier than normal. “Rough going” suggested the sort of aches that a good beer and hot meal could ease.

Jynn reflected that, had he been asked to describe their journey into the Great Vault of Andarun, the fabled home of the Heroes’ Guild’s greatest treasures and stockpiles of loot, he would not have used such an innocuously broad term. Wizards prefer precision. Accuracy is a survival skill for those who make a career in magic, where a mispronounced phrase or clumsy gesture can be the difference between levitating a ham sandwich across the room and ripping a hole in space-time. As such, the archmage would have been much more exact when describing their descent into the black marble fortress beneath Andarun’s palace, making liberal use of phrases like “a nightmarish flight through a labyrinth of arachnid horror,” or “a grueling slog under constant assault from spidery abominations,” or even “the most traumatic experience that the gods have yet to curse me with.”

Thick curtains of webbing hung in front of locked doorways and dangled from vaulted ceilings. Gauzy tendrils waved from every glowstone lantern like the limbs of tiny ghosts reaching out for the adventurers. Spiders with the size and temperament of angry terriers leapt from the shadows and dropped from the ceiling, green fluid dribbling from their daggerlike mandibles. Flashes of sorcerous flames and crackling lightning cast baroque, spindly shadows on the black walls. The air rang with the screeches of burning spiders and the cracking of steel hacking through exoskeletons.

Most of the adventurers down here were seasoned enough to handle giant vermin, even if the spiders were unusually numerous and well-coordinated. The lurking arachnids were beat back with grim efficiency. Yet as routine as killing giant spiders was for veterans, being a professional hero is always dangerous. Jynn witnessed an unnamed warrior pulled away from his teammates and carried off by a swarm of rat-sized spiders, and some shouts down a side hallway indicated that another group had lost at least one member.

These other parties split away from Jynn’s party in the front rooms of the vault, drawn by chambers filled with mountains of giltin and piles of arcane artifacts like moths to candles. Soon the archmage could see no sign of any other heroes, save one. Johan had left a clear trail of carnage through the vaults. If the mad king and the spidery denizens of the vault had any relation, it couldn’t be called an alliance. Various chunks of arachnid littered the halls around the Johan-sized holes burned through the webs. The morbid trail left a mess on the boots. On the other hand, Gorm swore he could gauge how close they were to the king by the intensity of the twitches and spasms of the dying spiders in his wake.

They continued along the paladin’s path until Jynn found a door with a small placard indicating the Royal Archives lay beyond.

“I hate to split the party in the middle of a dungeon,” the Dwarf grumbled.

“You’d hate letting Johan get away more. And you’d hate a surprise in a fight with him even more than that,” the archmage reminded him. “I won’t be long.”

“Don’t be,” Gorm said.

Jynn turned to enter the archives, but a hand caught his arm. He turned to find Laruna holding him, but she dropped his sleeve as soon as their eyes met. “I’ll come with you,” she said. “It’s not safe to run solo on a high-level quest.”

“Aye,” said Gorm. “If we’re to split, ye should at least be a pair.”

“B-but what about you?” asked Jynn.

Heraldin and Gorm gave him a quizzical look. “We’ve got Gaist,” the bard said.

Gaist flourished a blade for emphasis.