Gregor the Overlander

  Except for Temp and Tick, all the roaches vanished into the shallow tunnels that led away from the riverbank.

  Vikus thrust Boots into Gregor's backpack and shoved them toward the tunnel he had pointed out earlier. "Run!" he ordered. Gregor tried to object, but Vikus cut him off. "Run, Gregor! The rest of us are expendable; you are not!"

  The old man vaulted onto his bat and joined the other Underlanders in the air just as a squad of six rats stampeded onto the riverbank. The leader, a gnarled gray rat with a diagonal scar across his face, pointed at Gregor and hissed, "Kill him!"

  Stranded on the riverbank without a weapon, Gregor had no .choice but to sprint for the mouth of the tunnel. Temp and Tick scurried after him. He glanced back for a second and saw Vikus knock the scarred rat into the river with the hilt of his sword. The other Underlanders, blades flashing, were attacking the five remaining rats.

  "Run, Gregor!" ordered Solovet in a rough voice so unlike the quiet one he was used to.

  "Make haste, make you, make haste!" urged Temp and Tick.

  Using his flashlight, Gregor started down the tunnel. It was just high enough that he could run upright. He realized he had lost Temp and Tick somewhere and turned back to see the entire tunnel, floor to ceiling, filling up with roaches. They weren't attacking the rats. They were using their bodies to form a barricade that would be nearly impossible to penetrate.

  "Oh, no," thought Gregor. "They're just going to let themselves be killed!" He turned back to help them, but the roaches nearest him insisted, "Run! Run with the princess!"

  They were right: He had to go. He had to get Boots out of there. He had to save his dad. Maybe he even had to save the Underland from the rats, he didn't know. But right now he could no more get through the fifty-foot wall of cockroaches to fight the rats than the rats could get to him.

  He took off down the tunnel, setting a pace he thought he could maintain for half an hour.

  CHAPTER 16

  He ripped his face off the sticky ropes, and it felt like someone had yanked strips of adhesive tape off his skin. "Ow!" he said. He freed his flashlight arm, but the other remained enmeshed in the web. Boots was on his back, so she hadn't got caught.

  "Hello!" he called. "Is anyone there? Hello!" He shone the flashlight around, but all he could see was web.

  "I am Gregor the Overlander. I come in peace," he said. I come in peace. Where'd he get that? Probably from some old movie. "Anybody home?"

  He felt a light tugging on his sandals and looked down. A huge spider was wrapping his feet together with a steady stream of silk.

  "Hey!" yelled Gregor, trying to free his feet. But in seconds the spider had spun its way up to his knees. "You don't understand! I'm -- I'm the warrior! In the prophecy! I'm the one who calls!"

  The spider busily worked its way up his body. "Oh, man," thought Gregor. "It's going to cover us completely!" He felt the arm that was caught in the web tighten up against his body.

  "Ge-go!" squeaked Boots. The silk ropes pressed her against his back as they encircled his chest.

  "Vikus sent me!" yelled Gregor, and for the first time the spider paused. He quickly followed up. "Yeah, Vikus sent me and he's on his way and he's going to be really mad you're wrapping us up!"

  He waved his free arm with the flashlight for emphasis and caught the spider full in the face with the light. It skittered back a few yards, and Gregor got his first good look at the arachnid. Six beady black eyes, bristly legs, and massive jaws that ended in curved, pointed fangs. He quickly diverted the flashlight beam. No point in making it angry.

  "So, do you know Vikus?" he asked. "He should be here any minute to have some official meeting with your king. Queen. Do you guys have a king or a queen? Or maybe it's something else. We have a presi dent, but that's different because you have to vote for them." He paused. "So, do you think you could unwrap us now?"

  The spider leaned down and snapped a thread with its jaws. Gregor and Boots shot up fifty feet in the air and yo-yoed up and down like they were on a big rubber band. "Hey!" Gregor yelled. "Hey!" His lunch sloshed around in his stomach. Eventually the bouncing stopped.

  Gregor shone the flashlight around him. In every direction he could see spiders. Some were working busily; others seemed asleep. Every single one of them was ignoring him. This was new. The roaches and bats had greeted him civilly enough, a whole crowd of people in the stadium had fallen silent when he appeared, and the rats had gone into a rage when they'd met... but the spiders? They couldn't care less.

  He yelled stuff at them for a while. Nice stuff. Crazy stuff. Annoying stuff. They didn't react. He got Boots to sing a couple rounds of "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" since she had a special way with bugs. No response. Finally he just gave up and watched them.

  An unlucky insect flew into their web. A spider ran over and drove its wicked fangs into the bug. It went still. "Poison," thought Gregor. The spider quickly wrapped the insect in silk, broke it into pieces, and shot some kind of juice inside it. Gregor looked away when the spider started sucking out the bug's liquefied insides. "Ugh, that could've been us. That still could be us!" he thought. He wished Vikus and the others would show up.

  But would they show up? What had happened back on the riverbank? Had they been able to fight off the rats? Had anybody been hurt, or worse, killed?

  He remembered Vikus's ordering him to run. "The rest of us are expendable, you are not!" He must have been talking about the prophecy. They could always find more crawlers, fliers, and spinners. Nerissa might be able to stand in if something happened to Luxa or Henry. Or maybe they would make someone else the king or queen. But Gregor and Boots, two Overlanders with a dad imprisoned by rats, they were irreplaceable.

  Gregor thought grimly of the people sacrificing themselves back on the riverbank. He should have stayed and fought even if he didn't stand much of a chance. They were risking their lives because they thought he was the warrior. But he wasn't. Surely that was clear by now.

  Minutes dragged by. Maybe the whole party had been wiped out and he and Boots were on their own. Maybe the spiders knew that and they were just letting them live so they could be nice and fresh when they decided to eat them.

  "Ge-go?" said Boots.

  "Yeah, Boots," said Gregor.

  "We go home?" she asked plaintively. "See Mama?"

  "Well, we have to get Daddy first," he said, trying to sound optimistic even though they were dangling helplessly in a spider's lair.

  "Da-da?" said Boots curiously. She knew their father from photos, though she'd never seen him in person. "See Da-da?"

  "We get Da-da. Then we go home," said Gregor.

  "See Mama?" Boots insisted. Images of their mom began to make Gregor ache with sadness. "See Mama?"

  A spider near them began to make a humming sound that was picked up by the other creatures. It was a soothing, soft melody. Gregor tried to remember the tune so he could play it for his dad on his saxophone. His dad played, too. Jazz, mostly. He'd bought Gregor his first saxophone, a used one from the pawnshop, when he was seven and started teaching him to play it. Gregor had just begun lessons at school when his dad had dropped out of sight and become a prisoner of the rats who probably hated music.

  What were the rats doing to his dad, anyway?

  He tried to distract himself with more positive thoughts but, given the circumstances, failed.

  When Henry materialized on the stone floor below him, Gregor wanted to cry with relief. "He lives!" Henry called out, looking genuinely happy to see him.

  From somewhere in the darkness Gregor heard Vikus call out, "Free you the Overlander, free you?" He felt himself being lowered to the ground. When his feet hit the stone, he fell on his stomach, unable to stand on his wrapped legs.

  They instantly gathered around him, cutting the silk off with their swords. Even Luxa and Henry helped. Tick and Temp chewed through the cords around Boots's pack. Gregor counted the bats, ones two, three, four, five. He could see several wounds, but everybody was a
live.

  "We thought you lost," said Mareth, who was bleeding freely from his thigh.

  "No, I couldn't get lost. The tunnel came straight here," said Gregor, kicking his legs free happily.

  "Not lost in direction," said Luxa. "Lost forever." Gregor realized she meant dead.

  "What happened with the rats?" he asked.

  "All killed," said Vikus. "You need not fear that they have seen you."

  "It's worse if they see me?" asked Gregor. "Why? They can smell I'm an Overlander from miles away. They know I'm here."

  "But only the dead ones know you resemble your father. That you are 'a son of the sun,'" said Vikus. Gregor remembered how Fangor and Shed had reacted when they'd seen his face in the torchlight. "Mark you, Shed, his shade?" They hadn't just wanted to kill him because he was an Overlander. They'd thought he was the warrior, too! He wanted to tell Vikus about that, but a score of spiders were descending around them and perching in nearby webs.

  One magnificent creature with beautifully striped legs swung down directly in front of Vikus. He bowed very low. "Greetings, Queen Wevox."

  The spider rubbed her front legs over her chest as if she were playing the harp. An eerie voice came out of her although there was no movement of her mouth. "Greetings, Lord Vikus."

  "Meet you, Gregor the Overlander, meet you," said Vikus, indicating Gregor.

  "He makes much noise," said the queen distastefully, her front legs moving across her chest again. Gregor realized that was how she talked, by making vibrations on her body. She sounded sort of like Mr. Johnson in apartment 4Q who'd had some kind of operation and talked through a hole in his neck. Only scary.

  "The Overlander ways are odd," said Vikus, shooting Gregor a look that told him not to object.

  "Why come you?" strummed Queen Wevox.

  Vikus told the whole tale in ten sentences using a soft voice. So apparently you spoke to spiders quickly and quietly. Screaming at them endlessly had been counterproductive.

  The queen considered the story a moment. "As it is Vikus, we will not drink. Web them."

  A horde of spiders surrounded them. Gregor watched a gorgeous, gauzy funnel of silk grow up around them as if by magic. It isolated the party and blocked all else from view. The spiders stopped spinning when it reached thirty feet. Two took positions as sentries at the top. It all happened in under a minute.

  Everyone looked at Vikus, who sighed. "You knew it would not be simple," said Solovet gently.

  "Yes, but I had hoped with the recent trade agreement ..." Vikus trailed off. "I hoped too high."

  "We still breathe," said Mareth encouragingly. "That is no small thing with the spinners."

  "What's going on?" said Gregor. "Aren't they coming with us?"

  CHAPTER 17

  "Prisoners!" exclaimed Gregor. "Are you at war with the spiders, too?"

  "Oh, no," said Mareth. "We are on peaceful terms with the spinners. We trade with them, we do not invade each other's lands ... but it would be an exaggeration to call them our friends."

  "I'll say," said Gregor. "So, did everybody know they would lock us up except me?" He had trouble keeping the irritation out of his voice. He was getting tired of finding out about things after the fact.

  "I am sorry, Gregor," said Vikus. "I have worked long to build bridges between ourselves and the spinners. I thought perhaps they would be more agreeable, but I overestimated my influence with them."

  He looked weary and old. Gregor hadn't meant to make him feel worse than he already did. "No, they really respect you. I mean, I think they were going to eat me until I mentioned your name."

  Vikus brightened a little. "Truly? Well, that is something. Where there is life there is hope."

  "That's so weird. That's what my grandma always says!" said Gregor. He laughed, and somehow that broke the tension.

  "Ge-go, fesh di-pur!" said Boots crankily. She tugged at her pants.

  "Yes, Boots, fresh diaper," said Gregor. She hadn't been changed for ages. He dug through the pack Dulcet had given him and realized he was down to two diapers. "Uh-oh," he said. "I'm almost out of catch cloths."

  "Well, you could not be in a better place. The spinners weave all our catch cloths," said Solovet.

  "How come they're not sticky?" asked Gregor, touching his face.

  "Spinners can make six different kinds of silk, some sticky, some soft as Boots's skin. They make our garments as well."

  "Really?" said Gregor. "Do you think they'd let us have more catch cloths? Even if we're prisoners?"

  "I doubt it not. It is not the spiders' goal to antagonize us," said Solovet. "Only to hold us until they can determine what to do." She called up to a guard, and in a few minutes two dozen diapers came down on a thread. The spider also sent down three woven baskets filled with clean water.

  Solovet began to work her way around the group, cleaning wounds and patching people up. Luxa, Henry, and Mareth paid close attention, as if she were teaching a class. Gregor realized the ability to heal battle wounds was probably important if you lived down here.

  Solovet began by cleaning the gash on Mareth's thigh and stitching it up with a needle and thread. Gregor winced on Mareth's behalf, but the guard's face was pale and set. Two bats required stitches on torn wings and, though they made a great effort to remain still while Solovet slid the needle in and out of their skin, the process was clearly agonizing for them.

  Once all obvious bleeding had been stopped, Solovet turned to Gregor. "Let us attend to your face now."

  Gregor touched his cheek and found that welts had formed where the webs had ripped off. Solovet soaked a catch cloth in water and placed it on his face. Gregor had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming.

  "I know it burns," said Solovet. "But you must wash the glue from your skin or it will fester."

  "Fester?" said Gregor. That sounded awful.

  "If you could stand to splash water upon your face, it would be a more painful but faster process," said Solovet.

  Gregor took a deep breath and dunked his whole head into one of the baskets of water. "Aaaa!" he screamed silently, and came up gasping. After five or six dunks, the pain faded.

  Solovet nodded approvingly and gave him a small clay pot of ointment to dab on his face. While he gingerly applied the medicine, she cleaned and bound a series of smaller wounds and forced an uncooperative Vikus to let her wrap his wrist.

  Finally she turned to Temp and Tick. "Crawlers, need you any assistance from me?"

  Boots pointed out a bent antenna on one of the roaches. "Temp boo-boo," she said.

  "No, Princess, we heal ourselves," said Temp. Gregor was sorry Temp was injured but, on the plus side, he could now tell the roaches apart.

  "Ban-didge!" insisted Boots, and reached out to grab the crooked antenna.

  "No, Boots!" said Gregor, blocking her hand. "No bandage on Temp."

  "Ban-didge!" Boots gave Gregor a scowl and pushed him away.

  "Oh, great," thought Gregor. "Here we go." In general, Boots was a very good-natured two-year-old. But she was still two and, every so often, she would throw a tantrum that left the rest of the family exhausted. Usually it happened when she was tired and hungry.

  Gregor dug in the pack. Hadn't Dulcet said something about treats? He pulled out a cookie. "Cookie, Boots?" She reluctantly took the cookie and sat down to gnaw on it. Maybe he had headed off the worst.

  "Hates us, the princess, hates us?" asked Tick worriedly.

  "Oh, no," said Gregor. "She just gets like this sometimes. My mom calls it the terrible twos. Sometimes she throws a fit for no reason."

  Boots scowled at everybody and drummed her feet on the ground.

  "Hates us, the princess, hates us?" murmured Temp sadly.

  Baby roaches probably didn't have tantrums.

  "No, really, she still thinks you're great," promised Gregor. "Just give her some space." He hoped the roaches wouldn't get so hurt by Boots's behavior that they'd want to go home. Not that anyone was going anywhere ri
ght now.

  Vikus gestured him over to where the others had gathered. He spoke in a whisper. "Gregor, my wife fears the spinners may pass on our whereabouts to the rats. She advises that we escape with all speed."

  "I'm good with that!" said Gregor. "But how?" Boots came up behind him and gave his arm a pinch for no reason. "No, Boots!" he said. "No pinching!"

  "More cookie!" she said, tugging on him.

  "No, not for pinchers. Cookies are not for pinchers," said Gregor firmly. Her lower lip began to tremble. She marched away from him, plunked herself down on the floor, and began to kick at the pack.

  "Okay, sorry, what? What's the plan?" said Gregor, turning back to the group. "Can we just cut our way through the web and run?"

  "No, outside this funnel web are scores of spinners ready to repair a hole and attack with poison fang. If we flee upward, they will leap on us from above," whispered Solovet.

  "What's that leave?" said Gregor.

  "Only one resort. We must damage the web so fully and so rapidly, they cannot repair it nor will it hold their weight," said Solovet. She paused. "Someone must perform the Coiler."

  Everyone looked at Luxa, so Gregor looked at her, too. Her golden bat, which stood behind her, dipped its head down and touched her neck. "We can do it," said Luxa softly.

  "We do not insist, Luxa. The danger, particularly at the top, is very great. But in truth, you are our best hope," said Vikus unhappily.

  Henry put his arm around her shoulder. "They can do it. I have seen them in training. They have both speed and accuracy."

  Luxa nodded resolutely. "We can do it. Let us not wait."

  "Gregor, ride you on Vikus's bat. Vikus, with me. Henry and Mareth, take one crawler each," said Solovet.

  "We need a distraction to cover Luxa," said Mareth. "I could go through the side."

  "Not with that leg," said Solovet, her eyes flashing around. "And no one goes through the side. It is certain death."

  "The spinners are very sensitive to noise," said Vikus. "It is too bad we have no horns."

  Gregor felt a pair of feet drumming angrily into his legs. He turned around and saw Boots on the floor kicking him. "Cut it out!" he snapped at her. "Do you need a time-out?"

  "No time-out! You time-out! You time-out! Cookie! Cookie!" sputtered Boots. She was about to blow any minute.