Rune Magic

7: Eight-Legged Horror

.^^ Vision Elder Peterson ^^

— James —

The giant arachnid flew back, skidding in its back, but several more took its place, sprinting at me. I swung my sword as hard and fast as I could, hacking them apart by the dozen, but each for each of them I killed, there seemed ten more to take its place, and they were soon pushing me back.

I spotted Vanessa, laying behind her desk, eyes wide open and staring at nothing. I could still hear an erratic heartbeat in her chest, and I could smell the venom around the bite mark on the back of her leg. It appeared an old wound, perhaps four-five hours, so I put away my shield, threw a barrier around her and her bookshelf, then let my sword ignite.

The dead spiders around me nearly evaporated, and the building itself began to melt around us, but the spiders died in an extraordinary fashion, popping like popcorn, and spreading little baby spiders, as if they were enchanted like a Hydra.

The baby spiders were burned before they could grow, though, and I caught one in a tiny jar, before it burned, to study it. Or rather, for a Mage that isn't terrified of arachnids to study it.

As I walked over to Vanessa, one of the crispy spiders moved, biting my ankle in one last hurrah, and then dying. The bite had been without impact, so my skin didn't harden, to stop the intrusion.

I burnt it extra-crispy, just to be sure, then poked at the venom with my sword. It glowed a ghastly green, absorbing the effects of the magical venom, and I groaned at the discovery of hallucinogenic proteins as the primary make-up of it.

I didn't know enough about venoms to cure it, so I grabbed Vanessa, slung her over a shoulder, and stepped through a portal, directly into Athenos's Clinic.

My vision began to swim, and my balance died out, instantly. I fell, just barely keeping Vanessa from slamming into the ground, and a white-haired woman dragged us both into a surgery room.

As we were placed onto the tables, I managed to speak a little, holding out the spider in a jar. "She was bit first... hours ago." I cursed myself for the elvish words, instead of English, but the woman paused, and looked at me, speaking in the same tongue, but by then I was out.

—

The feeling was akin to drowning, but with no fear for death. Like I had been here before. A heartbeat, not mine, pulsed, and I felt something on my left arm, feeding me blood that wasn't mine. 'An IV, maybe? Hmm...'

The battle played through my head again, and I looked for the person who had sent the first spider. They had been waiting for me, that was for sure. Vanessa had been surprised, I thought. Likely she'd been standing, facing the window, and the spider had bitten the back of her calf, then she must have fallen where she was standing.

Suddenly, my mind started sliding away from consciousness, as if I was on a mental slippery slope. As I fell backwards, the visions started, like I'd known they would, when I saw the hallucinogenic properties of the venom.

The place I was in reminded me of a story I'd read, a River in the Greek realm Tartarus, that was made of the molten blood of a Primordial Deity. The boat under me was made from simple reeds, but wasn't burning, and the air was cold, colder than it had any right to be. I looked behind me, and a headless demon of some kind was poling the boat down the river, somehow whistling an eerie tune.

"We're almost there, Sir Peterson. Just a bit further." The headless demon assured me in a thin, reedy voice.

"Do not believe that because you are headless, I cannot harm you, should you be lying, Zadriex." The body I was watching from growled, his voice roughened from disuse, and scars over his throat.