The Sea of Trolls - Farmer Nancy (читать книги онлайн без TXT) 📗

The spider was brooding at the center of her web. Jack could see the bulge of her enormous belly and her spinnerets. At least she was facing away. “Why didn’t she eat us?” said Thorgil, ever practical.

“We smelled right,” said Jack. “Our cloaks made us seem like baby spiders.”

“I’m trying to look on the bright side,” the shield maiden said, clutching the rune. “Our situation, as far as I can tell, is this: We’re so high, we’d never survive if we fell. But sooner or later we’ll get too tired to hold on. Or the spider will find us first and eat us. If we wait long enough, the eggs will hatch, and a hundred or so babies will climb up and eat us.”

“That’s the bright side?” said Jack.

“I’m only trying to work things out,” Thorgil said. “Maybe you should use that staff to call up fire.”

Jack untied the staff. His back was sore from where it had pressed against him. He pointed it at the mother spider and felt it thrum in response. All around, the trees went whisper, whisper, whisper.

“I don’t have much control over this,” he said. “What if I set the whole forest on fire?”

“You’ll just have to be careful,” Thorgil said crossly.

Jack pointed the staff again. “This doesn’t feel right.”

“Would it feel better to have the juice sucked out of you?”

“I think there’s another way.”

“Oh, Freya!” swore Thorgil. Jack saw a huge eagle, like the one that had attacked him on the ice bridge, sail overhead. It turned and circled the tree. Thorgil drew her sword. The eagle veered away with a harsh scream, but it came back with its claws out—and ran into a strand of spiderweb. The bird squawked and tried to free itself, but it only fell onto the main web, miring itself completely.

The spider dashed out and sank her fangs into it. The eagle tore at her with its beak and claws, but it was greatly outmatched. Soon it was wrapped in silk while the spider sat back, waiting for her poison to work. After awhile the bird stopped moving. Jack and Thorgil clung to each other as they listened to the monotonous sucking sound of the spider’s feast. When she was finished, she dropped the husk to the forest floor far below.

“ Nowwill you call up fire?” said Thorgil.

“Wait,” said Jack. The giant spider approached the egg sack. Jack tensed, his staff at the ready in case she made a rush up the tree, but she merely set about mending the hole the eagle had torn in her web. She moved back and forth, pulling long ropes of silk from her spinnerets. When she had laid one line, she squatted down and deposited a glob of goo. Delicately, she plucked the rope with one claw-tipped leg. The goo immediately vibrated out into droplets along the line.

Jack watched intently. This was extremely interesting. Not all of the web was sticky. If you could step between the droplets, you wouldn’t stick at all. The spider occasionally leaned back and looked up at the tree where Thorgil and Jack were. At the top of her body was a turret with eight shiny black eyes, but she didn’t seem to see the two humans cowering in the branches.

Now the spider did another interesting thing: She walked up to the egg sack and rested her fangs on it, apparently lost in an ecstasy of motherhood. Jack was convinced that was exactly what she was doing. He could feel the whisper of her thoughts and the tiny responses from the hundred or so eggs inside. She plucked rhythmically at a thread holding the sack. The whispering intensified, becoming more joyous.

“You know… I think that’s a lullaby,” said Jack.

“That’s a huge, ugly, people-eating spider,” Thorgil said. “Don’t go soft on me.”

“You’re the one who cooed over the baby rocks.”

“I didn’t know what they were. Burn all of them up. They’re our enemies.” Thorgil looked fierce enough to attack a hundred spiders.

“I’ve been studying the mother. She seems almost blind. She didn’t see us when she looked straight at us. I suppose the dragon had to get close before she realized the danger to her young. The spider can’t hear, either, or she would have gotten you when you were cursing so loudly in the egg sack.”

“So she has weaknesses. It makes it easier to kill her.”

But Jack couldn’t bring himself to do it. When he drank from Mimir’s Well, he’d remembered those moments when everything felt exactly right.When Mother sang to the bees or Father built the house, they were doing it so lovingly and well, the simplest activities were lit up from inside. They were filled with the life force. What the mother spider was doing now was the same.

It was necessary to kill to feed or protect one’s family and self. That was what the spider had done with the eagle. If she attacked Jack or Thorgil, he would have to slay her. But Jack also understood that if he killed the spider without need, he would lose his power and his music would go from him. He put the staff away.

“You are so stupid,” fumed Thorgil. She cursed him roundly as they clung to the tree trunk in the tossing wind. “I should go down there and stab her—and stab all those eggs, too.”

Jack knew she wouldn’t. The reckless frenzy that had driven Thorgil was gone. She was capable of great courage and daring, but she wouldn’t throw her life away.

In the early afternoon the spider returned to her vigil in the middle of the web. The wind dropped, and Jack felt safe enough to pass out the last of the meat pies and cider. “Our last meal,” Thorgil said sarcastically.

“Look,” said Jack, pointing. In the distance they saw a tiny speck. It grew larger until they could see it was a single crow flying back and forth. Jack stood up and waved.

Bold Heart sped straight to the top of the tree. He balanced there, cooing and warbling. “I’m glad to see you, too,” said Jack. “As you can tell, we’re in a mess. You mustn’t get close to the web.”

“Tell Jack to kill that spider,” ordered Thorgil. Bold Heart cawed back. “He says—idiot bird—he says you don’t have to kill her. You can send her to sleep. I think it should be a permanentsleep, but who listens to me?”

“All right,” said Jack, wondering how this could be done. “What then? Do we climb down?” Bold Heart clacked and burbled and cawed, going on at great length.

“He says, ‘Wait here. Help is on the way,’” said Thorgil.

“That was a lot of conversation for such a short translation. I’m sure he said more.”

“You’ll never know,” Thorgil said smugly.

Bold Heart sped off, and Jack climbed down to the egg sack. The spider loomed at the middle of her web. One eagle probably wouldn’t satisfy her for long. She might be ready for dessert. He drew the staff from the sling on his back, just in case, and cleared his throat. He began singing. The words came out awkwardly. He couldn’t seem to get the right music. How did you serenade a deaf spider?

After awhile Jack stopped. It was a waste of time. The spider ignored him, and he’d run out of poetry. Far away a large bird blundered into one of the other webs and was pounced on. Birds must be what these things live on,Jack thought. Bugs wouldn’t even whet their appetites.

How did you serenade a deaf spider?

The same way a spider sings lullabies to her young.Of course. Jack had studied the harp with the Bard, but he hadn’t made much headway. His voice was his best talent. Voice wouldn’t do him any good here, though. He put the staff away. He needed both hands for what he was about to do.

Spiders are nearly blind and deaf, but their sense of touch makes up for it. They can feel every quiver on their webs,thought Jack. Wonderful. He’d have to come up with something that felt like music and not dinner. He remembered the rhythm the mother spider had plucked when she was soothing her eggs. It was a thing Jack noticed automatically, being musical. I think I can repeat it,he thought. If I’m wrong, I’ll find out soon enough. And I thought the Northmen were a tough audience.