“Can you—?” Anne began.
“Talking is out,” I said. “These guys are not here for a discussion.”
“You should run,” Arachne said.
A distant boom echoed down the tunnel, and I felt a faint tremor through the floor. “What about you?” I asked Arachne.
“I will stay.”
“What? Why?”
There was a second boom, louder and deeper, and this time I felt the signature of powerful magic, earth and force. “Alex . . .” Anne said. “She’s right, we have to go. If we’re not here, maybe they won’t . . .”
“They’re not going to leave her alone! Anyway, go where?”
I heard distant voices from up the tunnel, shouts and the sound of orders. “Withdraw into the tunnels,” Arachne said. “The wards on this area prevent gating, but if you can travel far enough, they should weaken to the point that you can use a gate stone.”
Light flickered from the tunnel mouth and I felt a spell discharge: there was a distant yell. Arachne glanced over and made a motion with one foreleg. I felt a spell trigger, something that had been hidden in the cave’s wards that I’d walked past a thousand times without noticing. With a rumble the sides of the tunnel bulged inward, earth and stone flowing to seal off the entrance.
Arachne stayed facing the wall and I grabbed one of her back legs. The hairs were rough under my fingers. “If you’re telling us to run, why aren’t you coming?” I’d already seen that she wouldn’t follow. “Are you planning to hold them off?”
“Not precisely.”
“Then why?”
Arachne held still, not turning to face me. “There is . . . no longer time to explain.” Arachne’s voice was sad. “There are reasons I must remain here, protections limited in time and space. In time, you will understand.”
“Understand what? I don’t—” And then I cut off as I realised that Arachne was right. We were out of time.
Cracks formed in the wall where the tunnel entrance had been, spiderwebbing across as chunks of earth and rock tumbled to the floor. With a rumbling crash a breach opened, dust billowing into the cave, shields of force magic sweeping the rubble away. Men came through behind the shields, wearing helmets and combat armour, beams flickering from the lights mounted on their guns. One of them aimed at us and fired.
I was already jumping backwards, catching Anne and pulling her to the side. We ran, falling back to the tunnel mouth at the far end of Arachne’s cave that led to her storerooms and down to the deep caverns below. Once I reached the cavern mouth, I slowed and turned.
Arachne hadn’t run. She lifted her front legs, magic trailing around them as she wove patterns. The men fanning out into the cavern turned on her, firing; sparks flashed as the shots glanced off, localised protective spells deflecting the bullets into the floor and walls, precise and efficient. Arachne made a flicking motion towards the soldiers, and nets of glowing light materialised out of the air, wrapping around them and taking them down one by one.
More people flooded into the cave, and this time they weren’t soldiers. A ball of fire erupted, engulfing Arachne for a moment before her defensive magic snuffed it out. Arachne sent nooses of magical silk, followed by a cocoon. The nooses didn’t make it through the fire shield; the cocoon did. The fire mage fell, struggling to burn away the bonds, but more and more mages were coming and they were filling up the cavern faster than Arachne could deal with them.
One of the flanking gunmen spotted me and Anne and lined up a shot. I blinded him with a flare, but more fire tracked in on our position and I had to duck back into the cave mouth. Arachne was left alone, a solitary figure in the centre of a semicircle of enemies.
An ice blast struck Arachne in the flank; she deflected it, sending a spell back at the mage with a flick of one leg. Earth magic surged, and the stone beneath Arachne’s feet reared and struck like a hammer. Arachne stumbled and fell. The mages around her pressed in, spells battering as Arachne’s shields began to flicker and fall.
“No,” I muttered under my breath, and took a half step forward.
“Alex.” Anne caught my arm. “Don’t.”
I dug my nails into my palms. I knew Anne was right, but I couldn’t stand to just leave Arachne alone. “I can’t—” I began, then stopped.
Something strange was happening in the cavern. Spells and magical attacks were still streaking in at Arachne, but they were slower to reach her. Not because they were moving more slowly, but because they had farther to travel. I saw one fireball dip and fall short, though its arc should have carried it the full distance. The gunfire no longer seemed to be doing anything; it was as though the soldiers were firing into empty space. Arachne still defended, still wove her nets and spells, but she seemed smaller and smaller, a tiny shape at the centre of a vast arena. Now none of the attacks were reaching her at all.
That was when I realised the walls were moving.
The walls swept anticlockwise, rippling and turning. Men fell back towards the centre of the room like scurrying ants. The walls were brown and gold now, plated and scaled, and as I looked up I realised that the ceiling had been replaced by a starry void. I kept looking up and up, knowing what I would see, and it wasn’t a surprise when I saw the draconic head, lifted on a long neck, towering above me like a mountain range.
Shouts and yells echoed through the chamber as the men fell back. Or tried to; it would have taken them ten minutes at a full sprint just to get from one side of the cavern to the other. Some of them fired at the dragon; strikes of fire and ice glanced off the scales like pinpricks. The dragon reared up, then down, its long serpentine body twisting as it reached Arachne.
Arachne was looking up at the dragon; it felt as if she was speaking, though I couldn’t hear words. The dragon reached down and picked up Arachne delicately in one claw. I saw Arachne turn to look at us; for one moment her eyes met mine across the vast distance. Then the dragon was rising, soaring up into the stars and the night. As it did, space seemed to expand, reality reverting itself. A flick of its tail restored the cavern roof, blotting out the void and returning the cave to its original shape.
There was a moment of silence. The dragon was gone. Arachne was gone. All that was left was an empty patch at the centre of Arachne’s lair. Anne was still there, I was still there, and so were about forty assorted mages and Council security, all picking themselves up off the floor and staring around them as they tried to figure out what had just happened.
My divination gave me a head start and I darted back into the tunnel, dragging Anne with me. Someone shouted something, and without looking I threw a condenser, feeling the flash of magic behind us as it burst into a cloud of mist. We ran down the tunnel, hearing shouts fading away behind us.
“What—?” Anne managed to ask as she ran.
I don’t know!
That dragon. It was the same—
Yeah, but I don’t think it’s coming back.
It couldn’t have given us a lift as well?
We ran through the darkness. It was pitch black but my divination guided my steps, showing me where to place my feet on the rough rock. Anne had to run blind, trusting to my guidance and her own sense of balance. Eventually I slowed to a jog, then a walk, then I stopped to listen. Silence.
I can’t sense anyone, Anne said.
I can, I said. The tunnel was dark and oppressive, the weight of hundreds of tonnes of earth pressing down from above. To sight and sound, we could have been alone in the dark, but as I looked through the futures I knew that was an illusion. They’re on our trail. Keep moving.