They landed at the center of Aragog's hollow, surrounded by layered webbing.
Hermes swayed on landing. Once steady, he ran out of eyes for everything.
His wand had already slipped from his sleeve into his right hand, his magic surging into an active state.
His gaze raked the surroundings: the massive nest, the layered webs, the black spiders moving through the holes, and further off in the dark, several pairs of glowing eyes drifting closer.
Then he turned his head and saw Regulus.
Right. Regulus had brought him. Nothing could go wrong.
His shoulders dropped back down. The wand stayed in his hand, but the tip pointed at the ground.
He looked at the web beneath his feet, ground a sole against it to test the give, found it solid, and shifted his weight onto it.
Then he looked up at the nest again and didn't blink.
First time here. Grim place, no question. But he'd seen grimmer things, and this was only a spider's nest.
Then he watched a spider larger than Baruk crawl slowly out of the nest, and his wand came up again.
Aragog.
A full size bigger than Baruk, close to three meters on those eight legs, black bristles over a dark brown carapace. Every step pressed the webbing down beneath it.
Above the cephalothorax, four pairs of eyes arced across its head, the largest pair a milky white, the rest a duller cream.
Its chelicerae hung open, showing the dark red inner walls and two rows of barbs.
The webs began to tremble. A dozen adult Acromantulas emerged from the nest holes, dropped from the canopy, pushed their heads up from beneath the silk.
Chelicerae spread, legs braced, they shuffled forward through the mist and closed into a ring that tightened by the second.
Aragog took a few steps out from the nest mouth, and every spider in that ring stopped.
They flattened where they stood, legs folded against their sides, all those eyes pointed the same direction.
Baruk crouched beside Regulus, front legs drawn in, back legs braced, carapace settling toward the ground.
Submission to the leader was written into an Acromantula's body from the moment it broke its shell.
Halfway down, it froze, as though something had occurred to it.
It belonged to Leader Regulus now. Father Aragog was afraid of Regulus too. So did it still have to grovel the way it used to?
By rights, no.
But Baruk was a clever spider, and it thought fast.
It didn't straighten up. It stayed low.
Aragog stood tall, and from that height it couldn't see what lay beneath that lowered head: a pair of main eyes rolled pleadingly toward Regulus.
Only Regulus could see them.
Those two eyes gazed up at him, pitiful, while the smaller ones underneath spun busily, sizing Aragog up from below. Not an ounce of stillness in them.
Regulus laughed under his breath and reached out to pat the big head.
Baruk got the message. Leader Regulus had its back.
Still crouched low, it performed a proper bow toward Aragog, chelicerae closed, all eight legs tucked in, the whole posture executed with care.
"Father Aragog."
The voice came out coarse and shrill, carrying the scraping quality peculiar to its kind.
Then it scrambled up at once, circled behind Regulus, and worked hard at hiding two meters of bulk behind a twelve-year-old boy.
Which didn't work. Half a head stuck out past Regulus's shoulder, eyes sliding toward Aragog, chelicerae giving one soft click before it went still.
Aragog ignored the performance.
Several pairs of eyes swept back and forth between Regulus and Baruk. The largest pair settled on Regulus while the others divided the labor.
Some stayed on Baruk. Two turned to Hermes, scanning the unfamiliar wizard from head to foot before returning to Regulus.
Its main eyes shifted, and the voice ground out from the base of its chelicerae, low and rough. "Wizard."
Regulus nodded. "Aragog."
"This time," Aragog said, chelicerae parting slightly to show the dark red within, "what do you want?"
Regulus raised a hand and beckoned behind him.
Baruk stepped out reluctantly, legs shuffling slow, chelicerae half open. Its head stayed down. It glanced at Aragog, then back at Regulus.
Regulus gave it a nod.
Aragog's main eyes landed on Baruk and found the changes.
The eyes were wrong, amber where they should have been milky white. The bristles had gone from deep brown to dark red. Rust-colored markings ringed the joints, and the carapace looked scaled over.
The smell coming off it had changed too. Something added.
What, Aragog couldn't say. It lacked the knowledge for that.
It only knew this offspring had changed, that something was off, that it resembled none of the brood in the nest and hardly resembled an Acromantula at all.
Alarm surfaced in its left main eye. Uncertainty in the right.
Under that stare Baruk sank down again, front legs in, back legs braced, carapace to the ground.
Even then it couldn't behave. Body facing Aragog, head tilted a fraction to the side, left eye watching for Aragog's reaction, right eye stealing a look at Regulus's face.
Regulus patted the big head again.
Aragog turned its intelligence to the problem, working it over and over. These markings, these eyes, this fur, this shell. What did they mean?
The longer it thought, the murkier it got.
It no longer had attention to spare for Baruk's peculiar excuse for submission. The change filled its mind entirely, and it couldn't see through it.
Hermes stood off Regulus's shoulder, wand still in hand, watching Baruk and Aragog in silence.
Aragog was bigger, true. Thicker legs, longer, heavier shell, stiffer bristles. Impressive enough, worth showing off, probably a monster in a fight.
But nowhere near as good-looking as Baruk.
A dull grey-black lump, like an old specimen gone dusty. No shine, no gloss, no spirit in it.
He wanted one like Baruk.
Aragog pulled its attention off Baruk and fixed its main eyes on Regulus's face again.
"This time. What do you want?"
Regulus didn't answer at once. A flicker of will, and Baruk went up in flames.
Aragog lurched back two steps, every pair of eyes wide, body recoiling on instinct. A few bristles curled in the radiant heat.
For a moment it thought Regulus meant to kill Baruk.
Fire, in front of an Acromantula, meant execution.
It had burned under this wizard's fire itself. The same fire, orange-red and ravenous.
But Baruk didn't scream, didn't thrash, didn't run. It looked comfortable in there. It even lifted a burning front leg and waved it, chelicerae clicking away, showing off.
Aragog stopped retreating. It held its ground at the edge of the heat while more bristles curled.
Baruk kept at it, stretching that flaming leg out to one side. The web underfoot hadn't caught, so it reached further, trying to spread the fire somewhere new.
Regulus watched that restless leg and moved a finger.
The flames died.
Baruk held the pose a second longer, leg frozen midair, then drew it back as though nothing had happened, all eight eyes cutting toward Regulus.
Aragog hadn't moved. Its eyes stayed on Baruk.
Only when the fire was fully out and Baruk stood there untouched, not a single bristle scorched, did it edge one step forward.
It understood now. Baruk didn't fear fire.
Not just unafraid. An Acromantula's version of unafraid meant keeping some distance, enduring a scorching, the way it had done a moment ago.
But this, wearing fire like a coat for that long and coming out fine, no Acromantula in the world could do that. None ever had.
Since the day of hatching, in the memory of the whole species, fire was the first enemy.
A tree in the Forbidden Forest struck by lightning and burning, smoke drifting into the deep tunnels of the nest: every Acromantula answered the same way. Run.
And Baruk had stood in it, stretching out a leg.
Aragog's main eyes strained wide. The rest churned with a dozen things at once.
Shock... Fear... Wariness... Calculation... Greed... Something violent...
"What have you done to it?" The voice came fast and agitated, one great pincer swinging, though it still didn't dare come closer.
It wanted to press for more and had no idea where to press. "The smell on it is wrong."
Regulus watched it.
The smell Aragog meant was probably magic. It could perceive the change at that level.
Maybe the extra eyes had something to do with it. Eight took in more than two.
He had no intention of explaining. Letting the old spider see the change was enough. The rest wasn't its business.
"One round of modification." Regulus held up a finger, tone easy. "I've come to do the second."
He glanced toward the nest. "Clear some space."
Hermes stood to the side, silent from beginning to end, watching the exchange between Regulus and that enormous creature, thinking.