CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Wylfrael

My power had recovered enough to open a sky door to Rúnwebbe’s world, though I’d landed farther from her cave than I’d meant to. I was in a deep, ragged valley of black rock, between shadowy mountains. It was daytime here, but there was little sunlight penetrating the thick grey clouds above. Though the black all around me was as reflective as the crystal of my homeland, it swallowed the light rather than shone.

Though I was not where I wanted to be, there was no way to get lost here. Everywhere, the jagged rock was draped with threads – Rúnwebbe’s work – that led back to her cave. The webbing glimmered in every colour imaginable, a stark contrast to the onyx rock. Intricately woven silken threads in shades of Sionnachan-sky pink, tree-silver, warm brown and gold just like –

Focus.

I lifted back into the air, beating my wings and flying, following the threads. I held my satchel tightly, making sure it did not fall. It was the satchel Hoshta had given me. I’d dumped out the fabrics purchased for the prisoner and had ordered Aiko to put them away. Then, I’d filled the satchel with gifts. Five gifts, to be precise, one for each bit of webbing I required from Rúnwebbe. Rúnwebbe never left this world, but she hoarded treasures at a level nearly comparable to Skalla’s mother’s people. She loved all manner of contraptions and trinkets from other lands and required gifts in order to share her web and divulge any information she possessed, whispers caught along her gleaming threads. I’d chosen five exquisitely carved Sionnachan crystal goblets to offer her, a matching set but each one a different colour. They clinked against each other as I flew. The only other thing I’d brought was my sword, given to me by my father, strapped to my back.

The air here was a shock after leaving Sionnach’s sky. Hot and dry, it buffeted my skin and wings, the wind feeling like the physical drag of dusty claws.

As I flew, the valley beneath deepened. I was getting closer now. The valley cut down, down, down, carving deep into black stone, pulling all the webbing down with it. In the deepest, darkest part of the valley, invisible if not for the shimmering webbing leading to its mouth, was a cave. Rúnwebbe’s cave.

I angled my wings and descended, landing among the multi-coloured threads at the entrance to the pitch-black cave.

“Wylfrael,” came her voice, sounding as if it came from everywhere, from inside my own head. A hiss, a whisper, a howl.  From her place deep in the cave, there was no way Rúnwebbe could see that it was me, but that did not matter. I’d landed among her web and the web told her all.

The voice spoke again.

“I heard whissspers you’d awoken.”

“Your whispers tell you true,” I called back, beginning the long walk down to where I’d find her.

A mirthless laugh met my words, a scraping cackle of a sound that made the fur on my tail puff up.

“They always do, stone sky god. They alwaysss do.”

It was not apparent outside, but the webbing actually gave off its own light. It was dim, but in the opaque darkness of Rúnwebbe’s cave, it lit the way, making the black walls luminous. I continued downward, the air growing cool around me. This deep, condensation formed on the webbing that covered the floor and ceiling and walls, pearly pinpricks of dew that shuddered and dripped when my motions made the webbing shake.

Finally, the descent halted, the ground flattening and the way widening into the astonishing home of Rúnwebbe.

Without her and her webbing, it would have merely been a cave. A large and sprawling one, to be sure, but a simple rocky cave all the same.

Rúnwebbe’s weaving made the place into a richly-layered, spangled space of multi-coloured light. Her webbing, woven into excruciatingly perfect geometric patterns, covered every surface. It hung from the ceiling and spilled down the walls like glowing tapestries, undulating to the floor to create a carpet older than any stone sky god.

And at the centre of it all was the whisper weaver herself. Rúnwebbe. Though her stature was hunched, she stood even taller than me. She appeared to grow right out of the webbing itself, though the illusion was backwards. She did not come from the webbing, but the webbing from her. Her woven robes connected directly to the rest of the webbing, flaring outward from her silver-skinned body. Her six long, bony arms worked ceaselessly as she bent over the webbing, her black claws sorting through the endless whispers of the universe.

“I’ve brought you gifts,” I said, hoisting the satchel into the air. “Five gifts for five bits of your web.”

Five of her arms kept moving, but one rose, cricking a knobby finger, beckoning me forward. As I walked, webbing shifted, like a living thing, parting before me as I made my way. It was not my power that moved the webbing out of the way, but hers.

I stopped walking when I reached her. This close, I could see her four large, black eyes and the four slitted nostrils in her angular silver face. Her mouth was so wide it stretched nearly from one side of her head to the other, and when she opened it to speak, it was as if half her face completely unhinged.

“Let me see the giftsss.”

I opened the satchel. Five of her arms were still skittering back and forth over her webbing as the sixth reached inside and pulled out each goblet, one at a time. Within moments, the goblets had disappeared into the layers of her web, trophies to be woven somewhere into the tapestry. I could see other such treasures, brought by other stone sky gods and Riverdark mages – jewellery and weapons and metal – glinting from between the shimmering strands.

“These will sssuffice,” she said.

Her black claws flashed. She held out five of her hands, each silver palm containing a small square of webbing to take back with me. I placed four of the pieces into the satchel but decided to waste no time with my own. I lifted my chin, angling my head backwards, and pressed a piece of webbing into my left ear.

My ear grew hot and buzzed viciously as the webbing dissolved inside the canal. I resisted the urge to violently shake my head, to twitch my ears until the sensation went away. When the heated buzzing finally did fade, I felt no different than before, but knew that the next time the human spoke to me, I’d understand her.

“Thank you, Rúnwebbe.” I said solemnly, pulling the satchel’s drawstring tight. A question entered my mind. I hesitated, knowing I had not brought enough gifts to satisfy her, but asked it anyway. “Have you had any news of my cousin Skallagrim? Where he is now?”

Her four black eyes narrowed.

“Have you brought more giftsss?”

I cursed myself for not thinking ahead this far. I’d been so preoccupied with my prisoner I’d lost sight of the larger problems at hand and hadn’t brought more items to trade for knowledge of Skalla or anything else. I didn’t want to deplete my energy by opening multiple sky doors to travel back and forth from here and Sionnach if I could help it, and besides, Rúnwebbe grew weary of visitors quickly. She would not take kindly to repeated visits from the same stone sky god in a short period of time.

I considered giving her my sword but wanted to avoid that if I could since it was a treasured gift from my father. An idea came to me, and I hoped it would be enough. Holding the satchel with one hand, I used the claws from my other to slice off some strands of my own hair and offered it to her.

“The hair of a stone sky god for my web?” she hissed, flat nostrils flaring. “Yesss, this will do, Wylfrael.”

“Where is he, then? Do you know?”

“He is with his mate.”

His mate!

“He’s found her! Is he still mate-mad, or is he now cured? Who is she? What world does she hail from?”