Cave

Taryn spent every waking hour in the cave, studying the native pictograms, seeking to unlock their secrets. Bengal and Wolfe noted that only partial examples of this language, thought to be early Anasazi, had ever been found.

Sylvie took to patrolling the area with the soldiers and Stetson, getting a close rapport with them as they worked diligently to secure the site. A small guard had been posted at the campground, but outside the cave sprouted well-ordered tents and piles of equipment. All trails leading up to the site were 'Closed until Further Notice: Trail Washed Out Ahead', much to the annoyance of those trying to make their way past Hermit's Rest and into the flatlands beyond.

Taryn found herself only peripherally involved in these processes as she worked diligently to understand the drawings. So far the full meanings eluded her. At best they seemed to be a calendar of a specific time: some of the paintings showed the night sky with the constellations marked very clearly, allowing Wolfe to plug them into a computer to try and determine the timeline of the cave. Dating wasn't certain, but it seemed to be around 1500 B.C., the very earliest signs of the Anasazi people.

By the fifth morning she'd carefully noted, drawn, and described by word every pictogram, exact placement and other details of the cavern. But it still made no sense. She got the feeling she was missing something obvious but it didn't strike her until the seventh day when she had her epiphany.

Putting everyone out, Taryn sealed the cave behind her.

On the floor Taryn drew several pictograms for understanding and Far Sight. Lighting a sprig of sage, she chanted her prayers.

Movement. A sand pile drained away revealing the scorpion.

Taryn stared impassively as the arachnid crawled out of its hole, heading for her. Its tail hung limp, relaxed. The two huge pincers shut and non-threatening.

It is the same from earlier, Taryn realized.

The scorpion halted just inches from her hand where it pressed into the dirt. In a strangely detached sort of way she observed the coal-black, multi-segmented eyes as they stared at her. Without any warning, the scorpion's tail jerked off the ground! Taryn noted a blur, too fast for even her eyes to follow, then pain bloomed in her arm. The scorpion had stung her!

“Oh! I...what?” she felt disoriented, weak, sick to her stomach. She struggled to get her feet under her. Roughness on the side of her face. What? It took her precious seconds to realize she'd collapsed.

“We have much to see.” That voice! Strong, unyielding. Just like... before! She couldn't...

Dream

A hot sun beat down on her neck. Her eyes opened and immediately she realized she was standing in a dense scrub bush that surrounded a small spring of water, shaded by one lonely Joshua Tree. The rough bark did not touch her skin, though the bush stirred in the wind and should have scored her legs and hide.

“Where am I?” Taryn asked, looking round her curiously.

“You are in the beginning.”

Somehow it did not seem strange to see the scorpion sunning itself on the rock next to her.

“Why am I here?” she asked.

“To understand.”

Taryn looked around her. The grotto was beautiful, she had to admit. The scrub was green and healthy, following the sand of the narrow floor enclosed by towering walls of rose-red stone save where a narrow slash allowed a small freshet to trickle away.

The Joshua Tree stood solemnly by its crystal blue pool, watching the teeming life surrounding it. Birds nested in its branches while lizards raced below chasing insects. Beneath the ground in burrows Taryn sensed sleeping tortoises and hares waiting for the evening cool, and something else. A presence that puzzled her.

She got the feeling that this place didn't have the answers. She turned to leave down the narrow canyon and bit back a startled cry!

Two dozen men, women, and children stood in the entrance to the grotto, looking around them. They carried no weapons that Taryn saw, but held digging tools, baskets, and bags made of stitched animal hide about their naked forms.

“Who are they?” she whispered unconsciously.

“They are the First Born.” The scorpion responded lazily. “You might call them Anasazi, but that term truly applies to their children's, children's, children.”

Taryn watched mutely as these forerunners of the Anasazi walked into the dell and carefully harvested the bounty around them.

Some filled their skin bottles with precious water, while others dug out tubers or collected berries, nuts and herbs. Twice only Taryn watched them kill lizards that got too close to the working children. They were added to the food baskets after a short prayer over their still bodies.

When the tribe had collected their food, they did not leave immediately. Instead they continued to work, replacing the soil back into the holes they'd made, returning kicked or turned over stones to their proper places. When the eldest member, a wrinkled little man with clear sky-blue eyes, nodded in satisfaction did the members rub off what dirt they could. Picking up their burdens they walked back into the canyon mouth.

The scorpion followed, hopping off its rock. Not knowing what else to do, Taryn chased after, her hooves sliding on the loose pebbles.

They'd scarcely gone a mile when shrieks rent the air!

Taryn cursed, her hand flying to her spear haft only to find her weapons were not there with her!

Meanwhile men with heavy brows and a savage snarl on their faces jumped out of hiding from behind boulders and in crevices, in the scarce brush or even charging up from a bend where others had remained. Their hair was long and greasy, their cruel eyes were bright with triumph and in their dirty hands were shortened branches shorn of their twigs and leaves, turning them into crude clubs.

The Anasazi shrieked in alarm, dropping their baskets of food. The children were thrust to the center of the mass of women while the braves drew into a protective half-circle facing their enemy.

Their attackers continued to draw in, smiling in macabre delight at the helplessness of their prey. One stepped out of the shadows spinning his club over his head as he charged.

Taryn gasped! There on his back was the same tattoo she'd seen on that spider earlier!

This man brough his club down on the arm of a brave. The club shattered! But the brave's arm hung useless at his side.

The combatants fell apart, the Anasazi landing several blows on his opponent with his one good arm.

Step by step the tribes made their way back to the rose-colored grotto. Each made the Anasazi that much more desperate and their enemy more excited.

It's a trap! Taryn realized, slamming her fist into her palm in frustration at not being able to fight. Once the Anasazi are into the open space, they'll be surrounded!

The elder must have sensed it as well because he cried out a warning, stopping the retreat. he shouted in a language Taryn did not know, marshalling his people.

All at once, men, women and children sprang off the rocks, rushing down the center of the canyon in the light.

Their enemy tried to cut them off, but the numbers were not on their side. Three brave Anasazi died but the rest broke through. Scooping up their children the tribe fled, leaving the antelope skulls in possession of the field.

Strangely, that fact did not seem to please them. One of the tattooed warriors, a hard man with a sprinkling of frost in his long hair, started shouting at a sullen young man. Taryn recognized him as one of those in the overwhelmed center.

The scorpion stood beside her and Taryn was about to ask him what was going on when the hard man-Taryn guessed him to be the leader-raised his club and brought it down on the boy's head.

He went sprawling on the ground, a shocked look on his face. Then the others commenced whaling on him with feet and hands and clubs.

“Stop that!” Taryn shouted angrily, knowing how futile it was.

Surprisingly they did stop. Lowering their clubs they marched away from the fallen without a backward glance. Gathering the food baskets and other plunder they left the shrunken body behind.

“This was the beginning.” The scorpion looked sadly at the boy.

A flake of rock fell off the wall revealing a large cavity; black, empty and gaping like the mouth of a jagged-toothed skeleton. But it wasn't empty for long.

Taryn shuddered as it emerged. Though she'd expected it, the giant brown-haired tarantula still stunned and terrified. Its bulbous, hair body was longer than a man's, minus the thick, powerful segmented legs. Eight eyes, six beady little things surrounding two large dinner-plates of obsidian looked hungrily at the boy.

Two wickedly curved fangs drove downward, piercing the flesh just above the boy's shoulders and the lower back so great was the distance between the points.

He jackknifed, starting to scream, when the spider withdrew.

“Good. You're awake.” a high-pitched buzzing and clacking voice said evilly.

“Who...who are you, mighty god?” the boy asked in fright.

“My name is unimportant compared to yours. Tell me, will you be Chief of your village?”

The boy's eyes flashed angrily.

“Once I kill my father and prove myself worthy in the eyes of the village, I will!”

“Good! Good! I can help you with that, and make your tribe the strongest in your history, driving those unworthy wretches who've bested you into oblivion!”

“What do you want in return?” he asked.

The eyes seemed to smile.

“Your utter devotion.”

Nodding, the fool accepted the spider's help right before her eyes.

Immediately the scene faded.

“For many moons this Fallen tribe warred on their neighbors, including the Anasazi, killing entire communities in their bloodlust. Many of their foes they tortured before killing and consuming them. Their women and children found themselves kept as offerings to the spider gods whose support became more pronounced.

Then, one day, they ambushed their old enemies not far from this spot, and the remnant fled here.”

The grotto brightened once more. Six torn, bleeding men and women raced into the grotto. Desperately they looked for any avenue of escape, of hiding, but there were none.

In the canyon the sounds of pursuit got sharper, more distinct. Taryn felt her ears flatten and her tail swish angrily. Those weren't all human!

Around the corner they came like and evil flood; scores of armored, hairy bodies intermixed with tattooed warriors, some of whom rode the largest spiders like surfboards, brandishing their clubs and spears still dripping blood and flesh.

Seeing their prey the humans howled in victory. Howls that turned into baffled rage as the spiders slammed to a halt outside the grotto.

They stood in a solid line of death some fifteen feet from the little oasis and did not go a half-step nearer.

“What is this?” Taryn recognized the speaker as the boy from before, though now he stood full-grown as large as a football lineman. Scars decorated his bronze hide, giving him a fearsome appearance under his huge antelope skull tattoo. Now he stood looking furiously at the frozen spiders and warriors.

“What stops us? Foe there!” he jabbed with his heavy wooden club. “Nothing stop us!”

And so saying, he strode forward grimly. With a snarl the humans followed and then, more reluctantly, the spiders.

The moment the foul chieftain stepped into the grotto there came the most awful of sounds. High pitched as a jet engine, but with the force of an earthquake, it rent the air bringing the charge to a sudden halt.

Next to the Joshua Tree there had been a small space filled with small berry bushes and herbs. This place rose like water breaking from a whaleback as it came to the surface. It moved like one too, rolling forward in a wave towards the Antelope Skull tribal chief and his warriors with deliberate speed. The man took an uncertain step back before readying his club to strike. Taryn had to give him points for courage, she would have sought escape from the wave than to get ready to fight it.

The earth broke and drained away, revealing the back of a giant scorpion larger than a pickup truck! Its huge pinchers clapped shut with a sound not unlike knives being sharpened. Above the armored body a three-foot long stinger like a scimitar bobbed on a tail as thick and tall as a telephone pole. Droplets of poison dripped from the tip and flew willy-nilly through the air.

Taryn decided the chief had to be insane, or stupidly courageous. Despite the overwhelming presence of the giant in front of him, he advanced with his club at the ready.

The two regarded one another, wondering who would strike--

The scorpion!

Almost too fast for the eye to follow the tail arched high over the arachnid's back and drove its wickedly sharp barb into solid rock, just missing the man by a hairsbreadth.

Taking advantage of the momentary miss, the chief clubbed the barb, perhaps hoping to break it off and render the weapon less dangerous for a while. The club broke off against the armor, throwing the chief backward in dismay.

Sensing victory the scorpion moved in for the kill when, from behind the crowd of warriors and spiders, there came a new cry. Taryn knew, before it shoved it flabby, swollen body forward, that it would be the very first spider.

Turning to face the new challenger the scorpion screeched its challenge.

Taryn watched as the Anasazi, the Antelope Skulls, and the spiders backed against the walls of the grotto, their eyes on the giant combatants.

The spider had speed on its side but the scorpion had greater strength and reach. Both creatures were too large to climb the walls or circle each other. Taryn thought this fact could give the scorpion the edge, as the only avenue of attack was head on, into the reach of the stinger. But she reckoned without the spider's innate leveler: silk. The tarantula, or at least these unnatural ones, could use its secretions offensively, spinning small web traps and flinging them like nets to glue the dangerous pincers shut and blunt the sharpened stinger.

The scorpion scoffed at them and shredded the webs on its pincers with ease, but the stinger was effectively neutralized by the mass of webbing stuck on the end, weighing it down.

Taryn realized that very quickly the fight would devolve into a stalemate. So did the humans.

With a shrieking cry the antelope skulls hurled themselves at the beasts. The six remaining Anasazi grabbed rocks and hurled them at their foes. The antelope skulls turned back to fight and the sands turned red with blood.

Taryn clenched her hand wishing she could fight. The Anasazi barely could fight themselves, for their enemies were too numerous and they were already weakened from their earlier battles.

A deep noise and a brilliant noise overpowered the scene as a light like the sun blinded everything. Taryn gasped and shielded her eyes. But the Anasazi, antelope skull tribe, and the creatures all screamed as they were bowled backwards by the force.

Squinting her eyes against the sudden glare Taryn tried to see the source. She thought it could be coming from the tree, but it looked different. Where it had once been twisted and gnarled, clearly dead, now it had grown tall and bushy. Its trunks and leaves were silver white and stretched to the heavens and from these twigs and long reaching fingers this white force and noise seemed to come.

Suddenly, an overwhelming voice spoke. Taryn couldn’t understand what it said, but it scared the combatants into stopping the battle. The humans, one Anasazi woman and just eight antelope skulls, threw themselves to the ground. As for the spiders and the scorpion, they cowered back from the light, throwing up hairy legs and black pincers to block it from their eyes.

Taryn watched as the eight antelope skulls were transformed into eight tarantulas with their skull symbol tattooed across their abdomens, shrinking until they were only a little bigger than ordinary spiders of the desert. The two giants shrank as well, until only the Anasazi woman remained.

“IN TWO-THOUSAND GENERATIONS HENCE, THIS SPELL WILL BE OVERCOME. YOUR HEIRS SHALL BE CHOSEN TO FIGHT ONCE MORE. KEEP THE MEMORY OF THIS DAY ALIVE IN SONG AND LEGEND IT WILL COME CLEAR IN TIME.”

“I will, Great Spirit.”

Taryn wondered for a fleeting moment if the woman actually sounded like her mother in life, or if it was her own mind overlaying the memory with tones and words that she knew. But wouldn't she have recognized the other voices then?

The vision faded to black.

Cave

Taryn woke on the cave floor with her worried mother patting her face. Josh and Sylvie loomed behind her, making the place seem very crowded.

Taryn looked straight into Sylvia's eyes.

“I have it now.” she announced.

“Have what?” Sylvie asked intently.

“The meaning of these drawings.” Taryn explained. Recapping the vision, she gathered her audience through each step until....

“... and then it faded. Now, if you would like my opinion, I think that the spell is going to wear off soon. The Antelope Skull Tribe will break free and be ready to take their revenge and this land back.”

Wolfe tapped his chin thoughtfully.

“It is a good theory, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. One of which is the shape this threat will take. Are we going to see small spiders? Big spiders? Or will they simply become human? Again? How will they “take” this land back? Can they be saved? Magic or not, if these are the same eight warriors as before, still alive, then they would represent a snapshot into our past, such as we had never had before.”

Taryn shook her head.

“I doubt even if they were the same, we would be able to reason with them. Remember, they've had over ten-thousand generations steeped in malice, guile, and hatred. They will be unreasoning, manipulative, and dangerous.”

“Ten-thousand?” Bengal asked with a frowned.

“Yes. Probably more. Don't forget that spiders breed much faster than humans. And if they have so much spider characteristics with them, then the magic may have made them breed much faster as well. I don't know, but I figure that such a number would be the safest to assume.” Taryn replied.

No one had much to say to that.