“Here, here, and here,” Argaen said calmly, pointing at the map as if unaware of Darius. “These are the most likely entrances your kender friend will be near. If we each cut him off and converge, one of us is bound to catch him.”
“He better pray it’s not me!” Kaz rumbled. “I’ll hang him from the top floor of this building by his shirt collar!”
Delbin was having the time of his life. Secret passages and locks were the things a kender lived for. He thought about how jealous some of his friends back home would be. Serves ‘em right, he decided.
In some ways, Delbin was a bit odd for his kind. Most kender cared for little more than fun, although there were the occasional serious ones, “oddballs,” as they were called by some of the young. Delbin liked adventures, but although he had never told anyone, especially Kaz, he also yearned for some purpose in his life, some grand scheme. Listening to the stories of heroes, both kender and otherwise, his ambition grew. Unfortunately, Delbin had been too young to participate in the great war, and by the time he was old enough to sneak away on his own, word had reached Hylo that She of the Many Faces, as the kender called Takhisis, had been banished to the beyond.
Delbin returned to the business at hand. A great web blocked his path upward. So far, this grand adventure had brought him nothing more than a few old coins, a rusty knife, and one amusing secret door. The web was kind of fascinating, Delbin thought, and he briefly imagined some great spider, as big as himself, spinning it. The image he conjured up was so real, the kender could almost see its eight red eyes…
Suddenly the eight red eyes flashed, and Delbin found himself facing the very spider of his imagination. The thing was incredibly ugly, what he could see of it, and barely able to fit in the passageway. Nevertheless, it was making headway. Imagining a huge spider was one thing, but actually being attacked by one was… was… icky, Delbin decided. The little candle he had shone too weakly to scare the monster, and the knife, which was useful for picking locks on secret doors, was too dull for a confrontation. Actually, a longsword, if he could have lifted one, would probably have been just as useless. The spider was awfully large.
Its eight long legs, each as thick as the kender’s arm, scraped against the passage walls as the huge creature slowly burst its way through the web. Delbin found himself paralyzed, not with fear, which he had experienced only occasionally, but with a trancelike fascination for what was happening. The multiple eyes of the spider seemed to entice him to a warm, safe place where he could sleep snugly, wrapped in his blanket.
He dropped the candle.
The spider scurried back, and Delbin’s mind cleared. The horror was only a few feet away from him. He tried to turn, but to his amazement, his feet were bound together-By webbing, of course, he thought, as he went crashing down on the steps. Recovering from its fright, the spider once again scuttled forward toward its helpless victim.
A roar-a war cry-ripped through the musty passage, and suddenly a huge figure bathed in light stood behind the giant arachnid. In one hand, nearly scraping the ceiling, was a magnificent battle-axe that no man could have wielded with such ease.
The spider hesitated, caught between desire and confusion. Delbin watched in open-mouthed awe as the axe rang down and bit into the monster. Ichor spilled out, splattering the kender and the walls, as the great weapon fairly cleaved the spider in two. It refused to die immediately, its tiny brain lagging behind reality. The light in its eight eyes slowly dimmed as it wobbled in the direction of Delbin. The axe came down once more.
The monstrosity finally collapsed at the kender’s bound feet.
“Delbin!” His axe dripping with the spider’s life fluids, Kaz stepped over the creature’s remains and kneeled down beside his companion. Behind him, carrying a torch, hurried Tesela. There were other sounds in the passage, running feet that undoubtedly belonged to Darius and Argaen.
“Delbin, you little fool!” Kaz muttered. He looked down at the kender’s feet. “What is that stuff?”
“It’s webbing,” Tesela remarked. “What else would a spider use?” She handed the torch to Kaz and brought her medallion in contact with the webbing. The sticky, ropelike substance melted away.
‘That thing’s pretty handy.”
“Yes, isn’t it.” She leaned back and spoke to the kender. “Do you feel any dizziness or have bruises? You must’ve fallen.”
“How’d you do that?” Delbin was touching the remains of the webbing. “Could I do that, too? Does it just work for spiders? Well, at least I don’t think I’m hurt. You should’ve seen it, Kaz, though I guess you did, but it just seemed to come right out of nowhere, and all I was doing was thinking that the web looked like a giant spider, and-”
Kaz briefly put a hand over the kender’s mouth and looked at Tesela. “I think he’s all right.”
“Paladine’s Sword! What happened here?” Darius, blade in one hand and a candle in the other, came running up the stairs behind Delbin. “Is that a-a-”
“A spider, yes.” Argaen joined them from the steps above. While both he and Darius had obviously run, only the knight seemed at all winded. “I cannot say I’ve come across one that big before. Not in a place like Vingaard Keep.”
Kaz wiped his axe blade off on the spider. The stench from the bodily fluids of the monster was becoming noticeable. “Have you ever been in these passages?” he asked the elf.
“When I first found those parchments-and, believe me, that was purely accidental, for they were extremely well hidden-I decided to traverse the entire library system. I came across many spiders, of course, but nothing like that.”
“Delbin says that it seemed to come out of nowhere, that he was just thinking how the web looked like one spun by a giant spider.”
The elf frowned. “I do not like the sound of that. Things grow ever worse. I fear that the kender himself may have somehow created that monster-by magic,” The kender was silent, but there was a gleam in his eyes that Kaz did not like.
“What do you mean?” the minotaur asked Argaen, “when you say that Delbin ‘created’ it?”
“That may be a poor choice of words. What I meant applies to us all, including what happened to you when you first entered Vingaard Keep. You recall the knight you told me of, or the sound of men and animals, yet there were none?”
“The knight was real,” Darius stated flatly.
“Perhaps. Your knight vanished, real or not. This spider of the kender’s imagination did not, however.” Argaen studied Delbin intently in the torchlight. Kaz noticed his companion shiver.
“Let this be a lesson to you, Delbin,” the minotaur chided the kender kindly. “Don’t go running off on any adventures without me.”
“Exactly how did you find the entrance you used, kender?” the elf asked with great interest. “Even I would have trouble finding them without help, and knowing how to open them…”
Delbin grinned. “It’s easy. All you have to do is know where to look, and the locks weren’t really hidden all that great. They were kind of fun, but my uncle Kebble showed me lots of tricks. A lot of the other kender think he’s the greatest, which he is, but-”
“Delbin’s a kender,” Kaz interrupted quickly. “That should be sufficient answer. He could go on for hours. I for one, however, would like to leave this place. This overgrown bug-eater stinks to high heaven, and I’ve seen less dust in a desert.”
The elf nodded rather absently. “Surely. The nearest exit is the one you came through.”
Kaz stepped back over the remains of the spider. Tesela helped Delbin rise to his feet. The kender seemed a bit unsteady. The cleric made a move to help him, but Argaen was suddenly there. He took hold of one of Delbin’s arms. “Allow me, human.” Argaen smiled politely at her. Tesela automatically stepped away. The elf helped the kender over the spider. Tesela blinked and followed hastily after them, not wanting to be left alone with the horrid remains. Spiders had always scared her as a small child.