COMMANDER PIGO PATROLLED THE corridor outside Lord Marmoo's chamber, scuttling along the boulders of the spider queen's castle. Spider guards and servants bowed and scurried aside when they saw him, creeping onto the walls or ceiling.
As second-in-command of the scorpion army, Pigo was not someone they wanted to anger. Only the spider queen's ladies-in-waiting-her three new assistant nightcasters-and Queen Jarrah herself were unafraid of him.
When Pigo turned, he saw the queen at the far end of the hallway, tall and regal. "Ah, Commander," she said, slinking closer, her ladies following behind her. "How is Lord Marmoo? Is he…himself again?"
Pigo bowed with his front legs. "I haven't heard from him in some time, your majesty."
"Still hiding away, is he?"
"I expect him to come out soon."
"There's no need to wait," Jarrah said, with a cold smile. "I'll simply let myself in."
"Er," Pigo said, unsure. On the one pincer, he knew that Marmoo hated Jarrah and didn't want her to see him in his current state. On the other pincer, he knew that Marmoo needed Jarrah-at least for a short time longer.
"Of course, your majesty," he said finally, and he opened the door for her and her ladies-in-waiting.
The rough rock walls and floor of the chamber were hidden by sheets of spider silk, woven into tapestries and carpets. Two scorpion warriors stood guard, their main eyes and side eyes alert as they bowed in greeting. A dry breeze blew in from the thin slit of a window, and a nightcasted web in the corner of the ceiling shone with as much light as half a dozen torches. A table was laden with roast rat tails and caterpillar stew.
And in the center of the room stood a massive scorpion.
Lord Marmoo. Perfectly still. Like a statue.
His stinger was frozen; his pincers were motionless. The two eyes in the front of his head and the three pairs on the sides all stared straight ahead.
Then a soft tearing sound broke the silence. A jagged line appeared at Marmoo's shoulders, a deep crack ripping his carapace in two from the inside.
The ladies-in-waiting gasped and skittered backward, but the queen strolled forward for a closer look as the split in Marmoo's thick carapace deepened.
"Wh-wh-what's happening?" one lady-in-waiting stammered.
"He's molting," Pigo explained. "It's how we grow."
"But scorpions don't molt after they're fully grown!"
"Not usually," the queen said, running one of her spidery fingers down the unmoving stinger. "But Marmoo is different now. My nightcasting magic gave him the strength and vigor of youth. And look…"
The split in Marmoo's carapace spread wider, past his shoulders to the bottoms of his pincers. One of his legs trembled, then another. His stinger shifted the tiniest bit.
With a sudden pop, another long crack appeared, running down his side. A ragged hole opened in his scarred black carapace, just between his shoulders…and something crawled out from inside it.
First one pincer appeared, opening slowly and snapping closed. Then two legs scrabbled at the edges of the hole, pulling and tugging. A moment later, Marmoo's head emerged, then his body and his legs and finally his stinger, long and serpentine, the tip shining with poison.
He stretched, and this time even Queen Jarrah took a tiny step backward.
Marmoo was almost twice as large as he'd been before. His eyes shone brightly, and his pincers were lined with razor-like serrations. His carapace was thicker, ridged with scales, completely unscratched, and a different color than before. He was now a shade of pale gray.
He rolled his shoulders and stretched each leg, then slowly turned toward the others, looming over them so the room suddenly felt too small, even to Pigo.
"Oh, very nice," he said, smashing the wooden table in half with one blow of his pincer. "Well done, Jarrah. I am stronger than ever."
"How kind of you to say that," she murmured, stepping closer again. "But while you're stronger, your shell is still soft and pale."
"Pigo!" Marmoo snapped, unwilling to believe it. "Strike me."
Without any hesitation, Pigo lashed out with a pincer.
Lord Marmoo didn't even flinch when Pigo's pincer slashed through his side. He only frowned, because the sharp edge cut so easily through his armor-his new pale carapace was as soft as frogskin.
"That's my first scar in this new carapace," he told Pigo, lowering his head to watch his blood trickle to the floor. "I'm glad it was you who gave it to me, Commander."
"An honor, m'lord," Pigo said, bowing.
Marmoo swiveled his side eyes toward the spider queen. "How soon before it hardens?"
"Well, Lord Marmoo," she murmured. "Your new strength is born from my magic. It is only my webbing that will harden your shell."
Marmoo's mouthparts clicked. "Then spin your web and make my armor so thick that not even the Kulipari can pierce it."
"Oh, I will." She prowled toward the door. "But not today. I only stopped in to see if you'd…come out of your shell."
The ladies-in-waiting giggled at the little joke, which made Pigo want to sting them all.
"And to tell you," Jarrah continued, glancing back from the doorway, "that I've been tracking that repulsive long-neck turtle."
"The dreamcaster?"
"Yes, the one called 'Yabber.'" She shuddered. "Even his name makes me ill. He ran from the Amphibilands-I know that much. And I am about to find his exact location. Here, come along."
As she sidled from the room, Pigo met Lord Marmoo's eyes and saw the rage in them. His lordship didn't like being ordered around like a pet-and he hated weakness, so being stuck with a vulnerable carapace must have enraged him. But an instant later, the anger disappeared. His lordship also knew how to wait for the right moment to strike.
Pigo and the guards scuttled along behind Lord Marmoo as the spider queen led them higher in the castle, finally emerging on a craggy stone roof. A squeaky buzzing grew louder as they climbed to a platform atop the highest boulder, where a huge spiderweb stretched between two rock pilings.
A hundred trapped flies buzzed in the web, their wings beating in helpless terror. Pigo squeezed his mouthparts together and scanned the surrounding countryside, the mines and the swamp and the desert beyond. He couldn't wait to return to the sand, to escape the spider castle, with its sticky webs and sly whispers.
"Step a little closer," Queen Jarrah told Marmoo. "Look into the web."
As Marmoo approached, Jarrah took a terrified butterfly from one of her ladies-in-waiting and sank her fangs into it. The butterfly stopped moving as she pumped it full of poison. She circled the spiderweb, drawing a silken thread from her spinnerets and wrapping the dead butterfly tightly, humming a strange song that made Pigo's head ache.
When the butterfly was completely encased in a silken ball, Jarrah drew back her arm and hurled the ball into the center of the web. The web trembled and a glimmer of magic swirled along all the strands, killing every fly it touched.
Then the web grew lighter and lighter until it was a pure white circle. Slowly, shapes appeared in the whiteness. With a sudden jerk, Pigo realized that the web had turned into a sort of window, and they were looking at a landscape. It wasn't just blank whiteness; it was snow.
A snowy cliff of some sort. The picture shifted, and dark blotches appeared, until finally they saw the outline of a huge jagged shape.
"The Snowy Mountains," Marmoo said.
"Ahh," Jarrah breathed. "So that is where Yabber is hiding."
"That's no place for a turtle."
She frowned fiercely. "It is where they dream about the Rainbow Serpent. Hmm. So that foul water snake has chosen sides?"
"What can the Serpent do?" Marmoo asked. "Is it powerful?"
"It is as old as time," she told him. "Wise and cunning…but not powerful, no. It only acts through lesser creatures. Frogs and turtles, platypuses and other pond scum." She eyed the snowy picture. "I'll send my strike force at once."
"Your what?" Marmoo asked.
"I've been gathering soldiers while you were recovering. The blue-banded bees joined my army, and the ghost bats are taking care of a little problem for me as we speak."
"You're sending bats to the Snowy Mountains?"
"No, no," she replied. "I sent them after the platypus village, just in case. The Rainbow Serpent's meddling doesn't come as a complete surprise, and nobody understands the Serpent as well as the duckbilled freaks. Well, no matter. I'll stop the Serpent's interference before it even begins. The ghost bats will finish the platypuses, and I have another squad for the mountains."
She nodded to a spider soldier, who pulled a lever that opened a trapdoor in the floor. With the creaking of chains, a square of stone shifted, revealing a pit.
A low hissing sounded from inside, and Pigo sidestepped closer to Marmoo while the guards reached automatically for their battle nets.
"Oh, they're quite tame," Jarrah told Pigo, slinking toward the pit. "And absolutely loyal."
Marmoo peered into the pit, then clicked one of his pincers in admiration. "Very impressive. Even that jabbering idiot of a dreamcaster cannot survive a squad of taipan snakes."
"And they're not even my fiercest new troops."
"No?" Marmoo asked. "You have more?"
"I have worse." Jarrah smiled hungrily. "I call them my little devils."