And he understood, then, that what he was feeling now—what it was pushing him to do—might be magical compulsion, or it might be a choice made of his own free will, and he had no way of knowing which was which. And was it always thus, for man and spider, Ghant and every other creature of the world that believed in the capacity for thought? Were all beings just a thin skin of volition floating on a sea of drives and directives they could not control?

Abruptly he had stopped, crouching on the floor of the cave. The grand cavern lay ahead, with all its bustle carefully stilled to lull the prey. Nth felt the shallow sensations that were human speech, and could not work out how he could warn them, in any event. He had nothing to say that they would listen to. He could hardly spell it out with his spinnerets.

They were speaking again, but he spun round suddenly, facing them, shying away from their light. There was a certain body language that most animals shared, designed to warn away an enemy of any shape. With a sudden lunge he reared up before them, legs high, fangs bared.

He saw the humans flinch back, their expressions shifting fluidly. Lief was talking to him uselessly, refusing to back away even though the threat display should have been followed by a prompt attack. Harathes was advocating kicking Nth out of their path, or something similarly human. Nth reared up again, desperately trying to communicate through the language of an alien body.

Dion’s light flared brighter, and he cowered back despite himself. They did not understand. He had a single concept in this vocabulary, and they did not know his word for it. Warning! Danger! Beware! But somehow they were too stupid, too human, to know what he meant.

And Cyrene was pushing past him, heedless of poison or threat, and they were almost within the cave. Another step and she would trigger the traps, and it would all come down.

They would not understand. Possibly they would kill him. Torn as he was, he would almost have preferred it. He lunged for her, reaching, desperate to drag her back.

He caught hold of her arm and yanked her from the cavern’s mouth. The next moment, Harathes’s shield had smacked him across the head, sending him reeling into the cave wall.

“Trap!” he got out. “It’s a trap in there!”

They were looking at him, and he saw himself reflected in their eyes: a thing almost human, an ill-made mockery of their shape, Penthos’s idle plaything. Had the candle been snuffed; had he broken the enchantment himself?

Through his feet he felt the faint murmur that must be the raging massed shout of his people: Betrayer!