I
The escape corridor was narrow, like a whisper unwilling to become a voice.
Its walls were draped with silk fraying under the damp, clinging to stone like petals that had failed to bloom.
The smell of machine oil hung heavy in the air, as though someone had only just shut down a massive shaft and its heat had yet to fade.
From far ahead came a rolling sound—click… click…—whether from a spinning cylinder cord or the hidden joints of unseen Arachneans, it was impossible to tell.
Rae led the way, the small lamp on her chest catching on the fine strands stretched like frozen mist.
Every so often she raised a hand, pausing to listen.
There was a rhythm in the stone: a pulse rising from beneath, the World's Heartbeat, soft as a lullaby from the womb of the earth.
She drank it in as a silence that was not empty, but brimming with direction.
Behind her, Brug carried a small iron case on his shoulder—tools inside, and whatever else they had salvaged from the workshop.
His steps were steady and deep, yet he was holding his breath more often than usual.
Lua brought up the rear, her light steps brushing the walls as though soothing them.
Between them moved Sythri, like a shadow that had once learned to mimic a human but never fully succeeded.
Her thin legs touched the floor the way a bow touches violin strings.
"How much farther?" Lua asked, her voice swallowed by the damp.
Sythri turned her head halfway.
"Two majang strides west, one down—then the warehouse," she replied, using a measure only the underground dwellers knew.
"You'll smell thicker oil there, and silk stored away—not silk in use."
Rae nodded. "Logistics warehouse," she murmured.
"We need maps, cargo marks—anything that can explain the flow through the Webspire."
Brug gave a small grunt.
"And we need a door we can lock from the inside."
Rae glanced back with a thin smile, then turned her focus to the stone again.
The World's Heartbeat came once more—two beats, pause, two beats—a pattern her body now recorded on its own.
Once, she'd thought it was only random tremors.
Now, it felt like her own name being called.
She understood why the Overlord wanted human operators: only humans could attune the mine's heart to the World's Heartbeat.
That awareness rose in her like mud swelling to the surface—slow, unstoppable.
And she knew that the primary target… was her.
⸻
II
The abduction had failed—but not without leaving a mark.
Memory came like a shadow skimming water: swift, yet spreading ripples that lingered.
It had been moments earlier, at the junction where the air smelled of rock salt.
They had appeared without sound.
Arachneans—three on the left, two on the right—unfurling webs not of mere thread, but silk woven with fine wire, glinting green-blue, snaring the air as though trapping breath itself.
Spoolers—waist-high metal reels—clattered as life-thread launched, lashing out like a serpent's tongue.
One net shot toward Rae.
She caught the flash of Lua's face tightening, saw Brug slam his case into another net to block it.
Sythri screamed in a shattering click-language, plucking a single glistening strand and hurling it back—a mechanical spell known only to those who had studied under both light-fungi and machines.
The net would have caught Rae, had she not turned.
Had the World's Heartbeat not struck her breastbone from within—two beats, pause, two beats—and her hand not moved to answer.
On the ground lay an old rail—an abandoned cart track, iron dusted with fine rust.
Rae pressed her palm to it, almost without thinking.
She didn't summon anything; she simply tuned in—searching for the right note, like lulling a child that had never heard of sleep.
On the third count, the rail trembled faintly, then surged, striking the incoming spooler.
The taut silk line pulsed back like a plucked string biting its player's hand.
Tension shifted; the net's angle missed by a finger's width—enough for Rae to duck.
The net sealed against the wall, blocking the mouth of a side tunnel.
The leading Arachnean shrieked, its click-notes breaking; on its back, a small iron frame with fine gears and a green crystal sparked.
Rae saw the glint and knew: a synchronization device.
They had come not merely to capture her.
They had come to match her pulse, to measure alignment, to seek the key to the mine's heart.
The device—two thin iron bracelets traced with crystal veins—hung from the spooler by a short chain.
The tall-backed Arachnean was reaching to clamp them on Rae's arms when the net closed.
Rae lunged forward.
Brug swung his case one-handed, knocking the spooler off its stand.
Lua, swift as a whisper slipping through stone, sliced the net with a slim knife more like a surgeon's needle.
Sythri leapt, split-legs gripping the wall, snatching the device before the enemy could—cradling it like a fragile infant.
The fight was brief.
They did not kill.
The Arachneans, realizing they had failed to clasp the bracelets, retreated with angry clicks, climbing into the tunnel's ceiling and vanishing in veils of silk.
Rae stood on the rail, breath burning her lungs.
The World's Heartbeat entered her faster than air, and she silenced it only by closing her eyes.
Two beats. Pause. Two more.
As if someone far away was inviting her to a dance she had never learned, but somehow—remembered.
Lua touched her shoulder.
"You okay?"
Rae opened her eyes.
"The Overlord doesn't need all humans," she said softly.
"He needs operators. And I… I'm in sync."
Brug picked up the other bracelet from the floor.
"Then we keep these far from him."
Sythri tilted her head.
"Or wear them—when the time is right," she whispered.
"A key can lock; a key can also open."
⸻
III
The logistics warehouse lay beneath a low stone dome that drank sound until every breath felt close.
Its mineral-wood doors—wood turned to stone, stone that still remembered it was wood—stood half-open, flanked by rows of silk rolls wrapped in cloth; the scent was soft, like rain over an old nest.
The oil smell thickened here, mingling with the dust of old records: cargo lists, slate boards that could be washed with saltwater, and small metal stamps for marking shipments.
In the center stood a long table of mineral bone.
Not a flat map, but a weaving—silk embroidery on faded cloth, tracing routes that glowed faintly when touched: the Logistics Map.
Lua stood at its end, her slim fingers following a blue line.
"This is the Webspire," she said, pointing to the silk bridge that, on the map, curved like an 'S' across a black chasm.
"Here's the weighing post."
"Tithe engine," Sythri cut in, using their own term for the tax machine.
She leaned over, touching two points along the Webspire route.
"Here and here—two prayer bobbins. They count everything that passes. Threads under the floor. You can't see them, but every step, every wheel, turns a tiny gear that whispers numbers into a silent room. Tax is the song that keeps the Overlord full."
Brug scratched his beard.
"Full? On what? Numbers?"
"On obedience," Sythri said quietly.
"Numbers are the quietest way to make you bow. The Overlord feeds on silence. He weaves it into a net."
Rae listened.
"If we disable the tithe engine—"
"Logistics flow collapses. Taxes stop. The Overlord goes hungry," Lua finished.
"And angry," Brug added. "Very angry."
"In anger, he leaves safety," Sythri said, her black eyes catching the lamp's light.
"And outside—he can bleed."
Rae's gaze returned to the map.
Small orange patches marked cargo seals—warehouse masters' stamps for silk in use, silk in store, heavy-grade oil, fine oil for precision machinery, and synchronization components.
Her fingers brushed one patch marked for human cargo—operators—its feel delicate, like handwriting through thin paper.
"Sync components run along this route," she said, tracing a side path joining the Webspire's east.
"If we cut it, he might not notice. But if we hit the tax bobbins at the same time—he'll feel it, like someone yanking the rug from under his feet."
Brug's smile was slow.
"I like rugs being yanked."
Lua's smile was thin, fading quickly.
"But the Webspire… is crowded. We'll need a way in that no one sees."
Sythri pointed to a fine silk frond on the map's edge—a service track unnamed, its line thin as a hair.
"Ribbon rail. For light carts carrying precision oil. They're untaxed because precision oil is a sacred offering to the machines. If we can disguise ourselves as oil—"
"I smell like oil," Brug said, "but not sacred."
"Stamps," Rae said, flipping over a small board.
Beneath lay several metal stamps—cargo marks with the symbol of a drop within a circle.
"If we have the right mark, post guards won't ask questions."
Sythri's gaze fell to the synchronization device lying beside the map.
"And the bracelets?"
Rae stared at them for a long time.
The World's Heartbeat touched her through her fingertips—two beats, pause—without even contact.
She thought of the tall-backed Arachnean almost forcing them on her, of the old rail moving earlier not by her command, but by invitation.
"You could attune the tax bobbins," Lua said softly.
"Not to power them—but to make them forget."
"Forget?"
"Machines can forget," Sythri said.
"If they hear a note older than duty, older than command. One that makes the wheel return to its first song."
Rae nodded.
"The World's Heartbeat."
Brug sighed.
"Sounds like we'll sneak in, forge stamps, put the tax machine to sleep, and cross the most guarded bridge in the tunnels. When's the last time we did something simple?"
"Nap time in the barracks," Lua answered flatly.
"And that wasn't simple."
Their laughter was small, brief beneath the low dome.
Yet in the midst of tension, it warmed the room for a heartbeat—like someone had set a pot of stew on the stove.
IV
They prepared their disguise the way others assembled prayers.
Lua unfolded the damp-smelling silk of their cover garments, cutting it into work robes with the small blade she cared for like a living pet.
Brug lit an oil-wick lamp—its yellow glow thickening shadows as if draping them with heavy cloth—and checked the wheels of a light pushcart they had found in a warehouse corner.
The wheels were carved from hard mineral bone, but rolled without a squeak.
Sythri brought out a small box marked with the sacred drop: inside lay the metal stamp for precision oil cargo—a circle with a central dot, ringed by six fine lines, like a subterranean sun.
Rae sat at the table's edge, the synchronization device in her lap.
The bracelet was cold, yet a breath seemed to live inside—not temperature, but a memory in the metal of the hand it was meant to encircle.
The crystal veins tracing its surface glimmered faintly.
She considered fastening it to her wrist, then thought better of it.
For now, it would remain like a moon not yet risen.
"The stamps?" Brug asked, holding out a small cloth-covered board.
Sythri squeezed thick, black ink from a pouch.
"Black fungus," she explained.
"Saltwater-proof. Won't fade soon."
Lua hefted the salvaged crates of precision oil.
"Two crates only. Enough to look legitimate, not enough to draw attention."
Brug pressed the stamp onto cloth over the crate, lifted it away.
The circle-and-dot mark bloomed clean and sharp.
"Holy," he said with a half-smile.
Sythri gave him a sidelong look, half amused.
"Don't mock the sun."
Rae stood and drew the robe over her shoulders.
The fabric was coarse against her skin, as if reminding her it had once been alive as a caterpillar.
She slipped the device into an inner pocket close to her heart.
The World's Heartbeat tapped politely, like a courteous neighbor.
"If we fail?" Brug asked, half in seriousness, half as a ritual to ward off bad luck.
"We run," Lua said.
"We fight," Sythri countered.
Rae took a slow breath.
"We sync," she said at last.
"And make them lose their song."
⸻
V
They left the warehouse as the air changed—cooler, denser—sign of corridors above opening toward the chasm that held the Webspire.
The journey east crossed the mine's marrow: service tunnels, slick stone stairs, small windows overlooking voids lit by glowing fungus.
Now and then, loose silk strands slapped Rae's face; broken threads clung to her robe like down feathers.
At one turn, they passed a line of pushcarts: three Arachneans hauling crates marked for working silk.
Their eyes flicked over Rae's group in quick appraisal.
Sythri dipped her head in the underground gesture of acknowledgment; the others returned it stiffly and moved on.
No words were exchanged.
"Ribbon rail," Sythri murmured, pointing to a narrow track branching from the main road.
The metal gleamed damp under a small stone bridge.
"We follow it to the Oil Gate.
There, the clerk checks only stamps."
"And the tithe engine?" Brug asked.
"Above the nerve-bridge—Webspire," Sythri replied.
"Two bobbins, left and right."
She paused, turning to Rae.
"Can you hear them from here?"
Rae closed her eyes.
Beneath, the World's Heartbeat throbbed deep; above it, faint as sugar crust over a cake, came smaller beats: two distinct clicks—left and right—not harmonious, but deliberately set to lock each other.
"I hear them," she said.
"They're not at peace."
Sythri nodded, satisfied.
"Then you can speak to one—make it forget the other."
They reached the Oil Gate: a low arch flanked by two mushroom lanterns, guarded by a thin Arachnean who looked more like a file clerk than a sentry.
On a small table sat a mineral-hide ledger and a stamp like the warehouse's.
"Destination?" the guard asked, voice dry as old parchment.
Lua pushed the cart forward, calm-faced.
"East ribbon, for precision machinery. Two crates."
The guard studied the circle-dot stamp.
"Sacred drops," he murmured, writing a single line in the ledger.
"Pass. Don't spill on the rail."
Brug inclined his head solemnly.
"We'll keep it holy."
The guard blinked, uncertain whether it was jest or devotion.
By then they were already moving, wheels clinging to the slick-gleaming rail, into a tunnel mouth yawning like lips holding back bad news.
⸻
VI
The Webspire revealed itself first as sound.
A single hum, high and long, like a wire strung between cliffs, singing to an unending wind.
Then a green-blue glow seeped upward, reflecting off thin mist.
At last—the bridge: a giant lattice of silk woven in thick layers, bearing weight as if it were bearing memory.
Braided railings on each side, dotted with mushroom-lamps like stars that had chosen to live close to the ground.
At its root stood the tithe engine, twin towers like windmills that did not turn—each with a coconut-sized bobbin under a clear shield.
Beneath the deck, hair-thin black threads ran from the bobbins into the walkway.
Every step, every wheel, spun them as subtly as breath, counting without sound.
Rae halted the cart before the first line.
The synchronization device throbbed faintly in her pocket, but she left it there.
The World's Heartbeat kept the measure—two beats, pause—and above it, the small battling clicks of the two towers.
"Here," Sythri whispered, pointing to a narrow gap between a tower frame and the railing.
"A maintenance panel. You can touch the bobbin without being seen. But be careful—Arachnean guards like to look down from above."
Lua scanned the crowd: steady caravans of silk, spore sacks, common oil barrels.
A distant bell chimed—the shift change.
Perfect: the lightest guard presence.
Brug shifted sideways, making his shoulder a wall for Rae.
Lua lifted her robe to hide Rae's hand as it slid into the panel gap.
Sythri's gaze tracked the overhead guard's pacing, counting the seconds between glances.
The panel was cold.
Rae slipped her fingers inside, pressing a clip; it opened just enough to touch the bobbin.
The delicate needles inside trembled—not from her touch, but from her nearness.
She didn't reach for the device; she reached for stone.
Her palm found the iron frame.
From the chasm below, the World's Heartbeat rose—ancient, patient, true.
Rae matched her breathing.
Two beats… pause… two beats.
No commands, no pleading.
Only the rhythm of a mother lulling her child with a song it had heard before it was born.
The bobbin shivered—mechanism tuned to a certain tension.
Rae gave it a note older than taxes, older than governance.
A note that said: You once spun and pretended to forget your song. Here it is again.
Its needles wavered, then slowed a fraction.
The partner bobbin across the bridge tried to pull it back into lockstep, but Rae's target drifted, not in rebellion—only in forgetfulness.
It forgot it was meant to quarrel.
It forgot it was bound.
Lua exhaled silently.
Brug counted to six under his breath.
Sythri feigned interest in the damp ceiling as the overhead guard's head appeared—then turned away, bored.
"Now the right one," Lua murmured.
Rae crossed to the other panel.
This bobbin was more stubborn, its tempo tight.
She did not force it—only offered a slower beat, half an invitation, half a yawn.
When it began to ease, she brushed the bracelet in her pocket, letting its crystal touch the fabric.
The sound—a barely-heard ting—was lost to human ears, but the machine understood.
The bobbin sighed—one click lower.
Then another.
Not dead, merely drowsy at its own task.
"Enough," Sythri whispered.
"Full sleep draws attention. Half-forgetfulness—they'll blame the clock."
Rae withdrew her hand, shut the panel.
The guard above walked past without looking down.
The caravan flowed on, like a long prayer tired of itself.
Brug pushed the cart forward.
Its wheels rolled over the black threads, making the bobbins hum—not steady, not precise—like someone writing with their off-hand.
No bells rang.
No whistles blew.
They stepped onto the Webspire.
⸻
VII
Halfway across, the mist lifted for a breath.
Below yawned a black mouth that had forgotten to swallow.
The silk beneath their feet stretched gently, bearing, holding.
The mushroom-lamps flickered in the underground wind from the east.
Rae looked ahead: the far gate waited, low and solid, marked with the sign of precision oil.
To anyone watching, they were part of the flow.
Lua drew close.
"You… knew what you were doing back there?" she whispered, equal parts awe and unease.
Rae's eyes stayed forward.
"Half knowing, half remembering."
"And the other half?" Brug asked lightly.
Rae touched her pocket—felt the weight not as burden, but as promise.
"The other half is something I haven't yet become. The Overlord knows this—that's why he hunts human operators. The mine's heart doesn't obey orders; it obeys song. And only humans can sing the song that stone hears."
Sythri studied her like a painting with only one color filled in.
"You're dangerous to him."
"Or to us," Brug said, no longer teasing.
He eyed the railings, where shadows shifted—perhaps only silk playing with the light.
"Half-asleep bobbins don't mean we're safe."
They reached the east gate.
The Arachnean guard there—a clear-eyed female—took their stamp, marked her ledger, and waved them on.
"Guard the drops," she said, meaning perhaps 'be careful' or 'honor your cargo,' or both.
Lua inclined her head.
"We will."
Once the gate shut behind them, Rae felt the World's Heartbeat return to the foreground.
The tithe engine faded to the background, as they had intended.
For a moment, the world felt simpler: some things lived, some wished to live longer, and some wished to devour both.
⸻
VIII
The tunnels east were cleaner, as if order's hands passed through more often.
The oil smell was contained—in bottles, not spills.
In a recessed space, they stopped behind a stack of empty crates.
Lua opened a precision-oil crate and, with practiced ease, withdrew a small roll of cloth.
Inside was the miniature map Sythri had rewoven in the warehouse.
Though tiny, it still glowed faintly at touch.
"Next step," Lua said.
"We don't just dodge the tax—we break it. Not today—too many eyes—but soon."
Sythri pointed to two points on the map: the wheel-houses under the left and right towers.
"That's where the bobbins sleep when bored. Best time to strike is shift change—same as today. Next time, Rae, you make them forget deeper and tie that forgetfulness to the prayer pillars feeding the bells. When someone shakes them, the bells will think it's a ceremony—not an alarm."
Brug gave a low chuckle.
"You want to trick the bells into praying for saboteurs."
"Bells don't know morality," Sythri replied.
"They know pattern."
Lua nodded.
"I'll arrange an escape route—alternate rail. If anything goes wrong, we run to the iron-root workshop. Plenty of hiding spaces there."
Brug patted a crate.
"I'll handle the physical damage. One good hit on the wheel-house and the taxman will be looking for a bolt that never existed."
Rae studied the map, then her own hands—young, but carrying the weight of something older.
"And I… I'll talk to the machine. Persuade it to remember when it wasn't asked to count."
Sythri's tone sharpened slightly.
"You'll also need to talk to yourself, Rae. The Overlord isn't just a ruler—he's keeper of a stolen mine-heart. He wants your voice to turn the stone's song into a chain. If he gets you, he gets the key to make the mine sing a song that destroys humans."
Lua met Rae's gaze.
"You've been a target since the night the machine started on its own, and the radio called on an unregistered frequency."
Rae touched her pocket again, feeling the crystal veins through the cloth.
The World's Heartbeat tapped—two beats, pause—waiting for an answer.
"I won't sing for him," she said at last, quietly but sure.
"I'll sing for something older than both of us."
⸻
IX
They spent the night not far from the service tunnel, in a small storage room where the silk's scent was older than the air.
Lua tied the door with cord; Brug stacked crates into a makeshift barricade.
Sythri spun a single thread from silk scraps, fixing it to the door—if touched, it would tremble and strike a tiny bell they'd made from an old wheel joint.
Its ting would wake them.
Rae sat apart, back to the wall.
She took out the synchronization device, weighing it in her hand.
It looked simple, but inside, crystal veins crossed like a map of an invisible city.
It could focus what was already in her—or force her into a note not her own.
"You plan to wear it?" Lua asked softly, sitting beside her.
Rae turned the bracelet, watching the mushroom-light ripple over it.
"Not tonight."
Lua nodded.
"The Overlord will come for you again."
"I know."
A thin smile touched Rae's lips.
"Let him have something to chase. In the meantime, we take one of his fangs."
"Tax," Lua said.
"Tax," Rae echoed, and found the word absurd for holding so much life in its grip.
Brug's snores rumbled like an engine awaiting dawn.
Sythri sat with her back to the wall, eyes half-closed—not asleep, simply tending the dark.
Rae shut her eyes, letting the World's Heartbeat rise and fall like waves never touching shore.
She remembered her distant childhood aboveground—rain's voice, her mother's voice, the voice of an old radio sometimes catching stations that belonged to no nearby city.
Songs whose words she didn't understand but whose shapes she knew.
She wondered if the stone remembered something of its own childhood too.
Before sleep claimed her, she saw in her mind's eye the bridge—the Webspire—and its two small towers holding numbers like charms.
In that vision, the numbers crumbled to dust, dust became seeds, seeds became glowing mushrooms.
And where the Overlord sat, his net sagged just a little.
⸻
X
Morning underground wasn't about sunlight; it was about shift changes and the rhythm of mushrooms dimming or brightening.
When the caravan's sound returned—wheels on stone, synchronized footsteps, the collective sigh of people breathing in time—they readied themselves.
Lua rolled up the miniature map and tucked it in her belt.
Brug stretched his shoulders, tapping the empty crates to be sure nothing remained inside.
Sythri tied a strip of silk around her wrist—a custom among Arachneans to remind themselves they belonged to a web, even if now it was one she chose.
Rae hid the synchronization device deeper, in a secret pocket she had stitched herself during the night.
She stood and looked at each of them in turn.
"We know the way," she said.
"We know the note," Sythri replied.
"We know who falls first," Brug added with a crooked grin.
Lua gave a small gesture: go.
They stepped into the corridor, merging with a flow that seemed never to have stopped.
To any watching eyes, they were not fugitives, but workers with purpose—purpose stamped clear on their empty crates: circle, dot, six fine lines.
Far behind the stone walls, the World's Heartbeat kept its song.
Two beats, pause. Two beats.
Rae followed, not as a slave to the rhythm, but as one who carried the words to change the song without betraying it.
Ahead, the Webspire waited again—and beyond it, the tithe engine they would teach how to forget.