The last spider nest had been crammed with traps as well. Either they sought them out, or they made them.

  “Surely there is a better way, my good fellow?” I called to the pixie.

  The pixie laughed and clapped his hands, but didn’t otherwise respond to my query.

  Fruit withering on the stem!

  I took a few more steps back until I could reactivate my ring. I kept my eyes closed. I dug through my pack with my ring’s vision. The statues hadn’t been very tall, nor had they been very sturdy looking.

  My explosive rune.

  I didn’t need to risk teaching the spiders a spell to deactivate their guardian. I just had to remember where the statues had been relative to my position, and make a throw with my eyes closed.

  Oswic, Magi of the Sacred Order, Wise Man of Blackbridge, The Starcaller of Dawn, Master of Twilight, Voice of the Storm, Speaker on the Wind, Darkswallower of Bleak Fort, and Five Time Hoopstone Champion of Ravenhold.

  I would not miss.

  The explosive rune arced strong and true, though I dared not trace its path past my line of sight.

  My ears did the job for me.

  The explosion was louder than my hand cannon, though not by much.

  “Stop!”

  “Stop!”

  “Stop!”

  “Stop!”

  “Stop!”

  “Stop!”

  The spiders didn’t like it. It was big enough.

  The pixie stopped clapping.

  “You can open your eyes,” Attar said. He’d not been lured by the statues in the same manner I had.

  Only two of the statues had been destroyed by the explosion, but it had been enough to throw the rest into disarray and knock off the pixie’s hat. He hadn’t been wearing a hat when he entered the room.

  Pixies.

  Now how was I going to kill the spiders without casting a spell? Would they copy Attar’s necromanc—

  A series of explosions went off like an avalanche. Like the opening volley of battle. Flashes of light flared around the room beyond, illuminating pieces of spiders, the broken statues, a checker-board floor(another bathroom?), and the pixie’s delighted face.

  I moved to the entrance so that my light filled the room. My ring didn’t detect any spiders under any of its senses, not even the spider sense of moving air.

  The room had descended to carnage. Blood and viscera, broken carapaces and shattered legs were scattered about the room at random.

  “Hello?” I called.

  Silence.

  I guess the spiders copied more than spells and voices. They’d all exploded.

  It couldn’t be entirely that simple. Otherwise why hadn’t they caught fire last time? Something to keep in mind if I ever ran into them again.

  Pixies were nothing if not mercurial. He tugged the hat from his head(from!) and clasped it to his chest, “Poor creatures.”

  Then he skipped over a pair of mandibles and pushed open the door directly to the left of the door he’d entered by.

  “After me, my friends!”

  The pixie led us down a long corridor which, after several twists and turns, opened directly into “small” chamber. About thirty by fifty feet if I had to guess. Water barrels lined the left hand side of the wall, treasure lay scattered about like a king’s treasury, and a shallow pit occupied the right hand side of the room.

  I took it all in, but barely noticed any of it.

  The room was also full of centipedes.

  ***

  The centipedes were asleep. That was the small mercy. The winter following harvest was the pixie dancing his way along one of their backs.

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  I’d already nearly been killed fighting centipedes, though admittedly it had been my fault. Some of that mortal fear had lingered, settled in my bones.

  I dimmed my light before it woke them. In the gloom my enhanced eyes could just make out Attar raising a questioning eyebrow.

  The pixie hopped off the centipede and vanished in mid air.

  Attar’s eyebrow remained raised.

  None of my mass spells were under my control any more. Not without speaking aloud. Timing would be everything.

  I touched my ear and indicated the nearest centipede. I wasn’t going to risk fighting one of them near me again. We’d have to fight our way past to the invisible doorway the pixie had entered.

  Attart appeared. The remaining ogre—the ogress—appeared next to her.

  I scanned my spellbook for the spell to deal with another of the creatures at a distance.

  Sword Storm III

  All my plans fled as the world turned sideways.

  Attar and the centipedes vanished. I vanished. Our clothes remained.

  Attar’s clothes and mine. The centipedes didn’t have clothes. Even warlocks weren’t that twisted.

  Light exploded outwards from me, flooding the room.

  I quickly shut off my light and engaged my ring’s sense of *eugh* touch.

  The centipede was still there. Attar was still there. I was still there. I could feel all three of us—feel us in all too exquisite detail, inside and out. I would never forget the feeling of the inside of a centipede’s—

  I could try.

  We were invisible, or at least see through. Like when I’d been warped into that acid form.

  Neither fireball, will-o’-wisp, nor my shining body had woken the centipedes. I sent my will-o-wisp to hover over the nearest centipede, to give Attar an idea of where it was. The light was only twice the brightness of a candle. The knowledge was worth the risk.

  My fireball and my sword were already on the far side of the room with the other centipedes. I couldn’t see those centipedes with my eyes or my ring. I didn’t dare move my weapons from where they hovered over the sleeping creatures. I could only hope they as well were still asleep like the centipede nearest us. I couldn’t hear anything.

  I needed the nearest centipede dead, and I needed weapons which could kill the others the moment they came into my ring’s influence.

  I held up three fingers to Attar, then slowly counted down.

  Scorch, Sword, Scintillation

  I struck the instant my hand closed into a fist. There was no telling if the next fireball would wake the centipede.

  I felt the centipede’s blood flow around my sword as it was chopped in half. It screeched in pain, thrashing, but unable to move.

  The other centipedes woke to the noise with hissing and the scrabbling of feet.

  I struck blindly with my other sword. Sparks flew from the flagstone. My sword hadn’t met any resistance on the way down.

  I felt the ghostly chill of Attart (she had also turned invisible to reflect her master) rush the incoming horde, then vanish.

  There was no time to figure out what Attar had done, intentionally or otherwise. I took my other sword from the body of the still thrashing centipede and sent it in a broad sweep to our fore. It had to hit at least one of the centipedes not rushing along the roof-

  My sword also vanished. I pulled it back and it reappeared.

  No centipedes struck while we were distracted. The invisible teleporter went both ways. We’d been dumped at the top quarter of this room, but the centipedes couldn’t cross into it. Yet centipedes had occupied both sections.

  The strange teleportals turning this floor into a labyrinth were new.

  Did the opposite sides of the portal lead to the same location? We’d have to keep an eye out for the centipedes occupying the pyramid on our return. Perhaps the ceiling monster would take care of them.

  “I don’t think they can reach us. The room is split in two. Quickly! Straight ahead!”

  I grabbed my courage and ran straight towards where the invisible centipedes had last been. My ring detected them a moment later, vanishing and reappearing directly in front of us. Attar couldn’t see them. Either our path would succeed or he would run directly into them. I didn’t slow my step. Whatever happened, I’d be by his side.

  We vanished at the same time. The centipedes were gone.

  We were safe.

  We’d somehow walked through the closed portcullis I’d lifted six spiders and half a dozen centipedes ago.

  In other words, we’d gone in a circle, but our circuitous route had let us navigate to the true other side of the doorway.

  The pixie was staring at us with wide eyes. His flesh had been unchanged by the surge of dark magic. He’d already been out of the room.

  “What happened to you two? You’ve gone see-through! I have makeup and powders if you wish, no favours needed, though more magical and binding ones I could produce for said favour.”

  It was nice to be reminded that pixies had kind hearts, though their nature was careless.

  “Perhaps in time,” I said, “but the path it dangerous. It could be that this invisibility is to our advantage.”

  The pixie rubbed his chin, “As you say. As you say. We need travel through there,” he pointed to a circle of tall standing stones, not unlike the one near where Eric had been held captive, “then on past more centipedes. Keep your wits about you!”

  The pixie magicked open the door past the standing standing stones, and promptly had his hat sliced off by a descending pendulum. The sharpened weight swung a few more times before come to rest in the centre of the door.

  I still hadn’t taken in the sights of the room we were in and already the pixie was moving on. I gave it a quick scan with my eyes and my ring. There was the circle of standing stones of course, but also a deep pit or shaft in the centre of the room. The far end of the room, which held no doors but which I entered for the sake of my ring, revealed a wooden chest cleverly hidden behind a panel in the wall. I would have retrieved it, but the pixie was already heading through the door, back into the third room of the pyramid.

  Attar hastened to follow, while I caught up from the rear. The stones proved no barrier to Attar, and I’d already been able to pass through the ones on the first floor, though with some discomfort. This were inert, perhaps their power had faded, or they served a different purpose altogether.

  The pendulum had stopped swinging and now hung in the door, forcing us both to squeeze past.

  The centipedes were waiting.