“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?”
“The gift, Wylfrael.” Her tone grew sharp with warning. The webbing vibrated all around me.
“Of course.”
She lifted a hand, and I dropped my severed hair into it. Her three fingers closed over my hair. As soon as the fist was made, her entire body went rigid. Her head flew back and her eyes went wide, endless black orbs in her face.
“What is it?” I asked urgently as the webbing shook with such force I thought the entire cave might collapse down around us. Rúnwebbe’s back arched, her body contorting, her six arms rising out to her sides.
“I see her,” Rúnwebbe gasped.
“Who?” I barked. “Skalla’s mate?”
“Not Ssskallagrim’s,” she groaned. “Yours.”
Mine... My mate?
Her next words tumbled quickly from her mouth, each one running into the last and bouncing off the walls of the cave in an endless, spiralling echo.
“Bound yet unbound. A partner and a pawn.
Trapped under the arching sky of dawn.”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped. “Who is she? Where?”
But Rúnwebbe just kept going, as if she could not hear me and did not see me.
“Fated bride of Wylfrael. Starburning but afraid.
And when she dies, it will be by her husband’s hand and blade.”
Everything stopped – the words, the shaking. The cave was plunged into stillness so catastrophic it felt like an explosion.
Rúnwebbe hunched over, her six arms folding in towards her torso. I stared at her for a long moment, slowly becoming aware of a brutal hammering sound. I wondered what dared disturb the shocked silence that followed Rúnwebbe’s words before realizing it was my own heart.
“Ask me no more questionsss, Wylfrael,” the weaver of whispers finally croaked.
My jaw worked, defiance rising in me.
“No, Rúnwebbe,” I murmured icily. My voice grew louder. “You must tell me more!” I would rip every strand of hair from my head if I had to. I’d give her my sword if she asked it of me now. Anything. Anything.
I had to know, had to know, who my mortal mate was. Where she was. When she was. If she was somewhere out there, even now, or if she had yet to be born.