Page 38 of For the Love of the Quest

The flame roared to life, illuminating the passageway. The first thing Thomasin saw was Edith’s face, eyes round with abject terror, mouth hanging open. For a terrible second, Thomasin thought that it was her that Edith was afraid of, but then she followed Edith’s line of sight, just above Thomasin’s shoulder.

She turned on a slow heel and nearly dropped the torch. Beyond where the torch had hung, the passageway opened into another rectangular chamber of similar size to their room at the inn. This would have been great, except the ceiling of this new room was canopied with spider webs. Thick, lacy, intricate webs all weaving into one tangled mass of horrific white silk. In the little gaps between webs and strands, dark, spindly masses weaved in and out of sight. They were too fast, and it was too dark for Thomasin to make out their exact shape, but they were enormous.

Breath tickled her cheekbone, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. But it was just Edith leaning in to whisper, “Know any good poems?”

Too preoccupied with the phantom feeling of little spider legs running all over her, Thomasin was left without a glib remark. She just swallowed roughly and watched as spiders descended from the ceiling on single threads, their legs contorting and dancing as they spun their webs.

The walls weren’t safe either. There were burrows and nooks in the dirt, and the spiders skittered in and out, up the walls and down to the floor. Never in her life had she seen so many spiders in one place, and never had she thought to add spiders to her list of fears. But if she had known that this room existed, she would have been having nightmares about it long before now.

“Do you think this is a puzzle? Like the last one?” Thomasin asked desperately.

“I don’t think so. The spiders might just be coincidental. An unintended consequence of the chosen environment.” Edith sounded as gutted by this appraisal as Thomasin felt.

“So what do we do?”

“We have to go through,” Edith said hollowly.

“I was afraid you’d say that.” Thomasin shook out the fist that her hand had curled into of its own accord and jogged in place for a couple steps to build up momentum. She was about to launch herself into the horror, when Edith grabbed her arm.

“Wait a second.”

“I was all amped up!” Thomasin protested.

Edith ignored this, and said, “Shine the torch over by the sconce.”

Just to the left of it, right before the tunnel opened up into the spider chamber, a little gold plate was hammered into the wall. There was an inscription etched into it, the fine lines illuminated by the flame.

“It’s Latin. ‘Only may the bravest knights be granted entry into Avalon, for to walk the path is to walk your fears.’ ”

“What does that mean?”

“This isn’t a puzzle, but it is a part of the quest.”

“So it’s a challenge?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m shit at puzzles, but this I can do.”

“Okay, what’s the plan, then?” Edith asked, her body shrinking back into the shadows, away from the chamber of writhing spiders.

Thomasin’s thoughts circled uselessly. She couldn’t well shoot every spider, and the noise would likely make them scatter unpredictably. Her daggers were her strongest weapon, but no matter how good she was at wielding them, two blades were no match for at least a couple hundred spiders.

“Are they poisonous?” she asked.

Edith’s eyes narrowed at her. “How am I supposed to know?”

“You know everything!”

“I know everything about the things Ilike,” she seethed, “and I hate spiders!”

“There’s no need to shout,” Thomasin whispered furiously. In truth, Edith had only been speaking in a very aggressive whisper, but the sentiment of shouting was clear in her tone. Both of them seemed too nervous to actually speak above a whisper. Thomasin didn’t know if their voices would draw or repel the spiders, and she didn’t think it was worth finding out.

A grumble of frustration escaped from Edith’s throat, and her eyes went skyward. After another breath, she closed her eyes and let her shoulders relax. When she opened them again, the fear was still there, but there was also a new determination.

“We need to focus. Remember what you told me? You can’t let fear get in your head when you’re fighting.”

“I assumed your enemy would be another person when I said that, not—”