Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

in a long, long time.
    Rose headed straight for them, plunging into the web tunnel, so of course Brett had to follow her in.
    Deep inside him, something was screaming. The tunnel through the webbing was only just wide enough for them both to walk down it side by side. Brett kept his arms pressed tightly to his sides, to be sure he wouldn't risk brushing up against the pink and gray strands.
    The two figures sitting deathly still upon their ancient chairs looked even more appalling the closer he got to them. They sat side by side, human in shape but not in nature, their sunken faces lacking anything like human expression. The tops of their heads had been broken open long ago, or perhaps had burst open, and that was where all the webbing originated from. It grew up out of their heads, the pink and gray strands extensions of their living brains, consciousness spread across an entire room, endlessly generated, endlessly branching, all of it alive. Brett looked around him, shocked and sickened, as he realized he was walking through their shared mind. On the intertwining brain tissues, naked and slender and delicate, neurons sparked and flared like tiny fireworks.
    Rose and Brett finally came to a halt before the two seated figures, and for the first time the indistinct figures moved slightly, making dry rustling sounds like crackling paper. Perhaps their eyes moved.
    Perhaps their slit mouths widened slightly in a smile. Perhaps they merely stirred in anticipation . . . One naked arm from each was reaching out across the gap between the chairs, so that they could hold hands.
    They'd been holding hands for so long now that the flesh had grown together, fused into a single shape beyond hope of separation. Brett felt seriously sick. How long had these two been sitting here, gray and pink matters sprouting from their exposed brains, feeding on whatever poor fools came to visit them?
    We are the Spider Harps, said one of the figures, or perhaps both of them, the words ringing and echoing inside Brett's and Rose's heads like the voices of dead men speaking. The words were soft and foul, like rotten fruit, like every foul intention rolled into one, and proud of it. We speak for the ELFs.
    Talk to us, little humans. Be bold and eloquent, and maybe afterwards . . . we'll invite you to stay for dinner.
    Brett would have turned and bolted right then, and to hell with Finn, if Rose hadn't been there with him.
    He knew she wouldn't run, and he couldn't leave her there in that awful place. So he made himself concentrate on the shrunken, shriveled pair before him, so he wouldn't have to look at the brain web, or the half-devoured bodies hanging above and around him. Both the figures were so old, so wrinkled, so fallen in upon themselves, that it was impossible to even guess whether they were male or female. If they had ever worn clothes, they had long ago rotted and fallen away. And yet, though their faces were dead, their eyes were very much alive and aware. Brett took a deep breath, immediately wished he hadn't as the smell hit him all over again, and made a start.
    "Hello. I'm Brett Random, and this is Rose Constantine. We speak for Finn Durandal. Please don't kill us until you've heard us out. Fascinating place you have here. Love what you've done with it. How . . .
    long have you been down here?"
    Long and long, little Random. Ever since the Mater Mundi made us, fashioning us from the humble clay of ordinary espers. It hurt us so much, so very much, hut who were we to argue with the Mother of All
    Souls? She put us here, hidden behind the bedlam of so many alien minds, to think and calculate and solve problems for her. When problems grew too large for us, we grew larger to accommodate them.
    We were her brains, her creatures, made to serve her purposes. Of course, this was back in the days of The Lion, in the grand old days of Empire, when things were only just starting to go bad. But the Mater Mundi knew, even then. She saw what was coming, so she made weapons, living weapons, infernal devices to he unleashed upon those who would oppose her. But something went wrong. The Mater Mundi never fully awakened, until it was far too late. Now she is gone, but we remain. We serve the ELFs now. Because our nature compels us to serve someone, and we have spent so very long waiting for revenge . . .
    "The Lion . . ." Brett said quietly to Rose. "Lionstone's grandfather! Jesus, they've been down here for centuries . . . growing, spreading . .