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Prologue

Once upon a time there was a village which sat on the edge of a cliff. It had been there for as long as anyone could remember — so long, in fact, that some of the wise men (or wise cracks, as often turned out to be the case) said it hadn’t been built, but instead had grown there, like a vine crawling up the trunk of a mighty oak. Some of the more daring villagers had even begun nailing planks down off the edge. They were generally considered crazy.

You see, not only was the cliff face sheer and almost vertical, but there was a tremendous canyon wind which blew past the cliff every single morning. When it came, anything that wasn’t nailed down would find itself flying off to who knows where. Every morning the farmers had to check and make sure their livestock was all safely locked up. (Once Farmer Jones had a hefty sow that burrowed its way out of its pen. Next morning it practically could have sprouted wings, it flew so fast. Farmer Jones’ children giggled with delight, at least till they realized they wouldn’t be eating any bacon for a fortnight or two.) And each morning not a soul ventured outside until the wind had blown its way through.

Until one day in the fall.

On that particular morning, young Rupert woke up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Now, not a soul knows what got into poor Rupert’s head at that time, but what we do know is that he put on his white slacks and red button-up shirt, donned a top hat (though nobody knows where on earth he could have gotten it), grabbed the big, black umbrella that lay in the corner of his aunt and uncle’s cottage, and went outside.

He was, of course, the only one. Strolling down the street he went, cocksure as a peacock, nose pointed up to the sky. He waved at the children peering out at him with wide eyes from each window. He tipped his hat to the furrowed brows of the men and women standing behind the children in each house. He smiled.

And then, when he reached the end of the street, which also happened to be the edge of the cliff, he stopped and opened his umbrella. And waited.

Some say he was whistling; others say he was praying. Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t thirty seconds before the wind came a-gusting through the village. The dust billowed and swirled around his feet, with twigs and leaves fluttering up and out into the great blue yonder.

Rupert held his umbrella up. And then, with a last wave goodbye, he jumped up and was carried off on the wind. And never was seen again.

There are those in the village who’ll tell you that his umbrella fell apart and that he plummeted to his death thousands of feet below. And there are those who say he kept going higher and higher until the sun melted his umbrella, like Icarus. But I think they’re wrong. If you ask me, Rupert went on flying until he passed the edge of the world. Maybe someday he’ll come back and tell us what he’s seen. Maybe even bring somebody back with him.

Chapter One: A Long-Lost Visitor

When I was a kid, my great-grandfather used to tell me the story of Rupert, the boy who had flown off with his umbrella. His uncle was friends with Gramps, you see, and Gramps never forgot it. Nor did I, for that matter. Plenty of us kids thought about flying off with our own umbrellas — some even said they could do it with broomsticks, like witches, but I never believed them — but nobody ever got the guts to do it. The cliff was steep. And me, I’m afraid of heights, so I never got closer than fifty feet to the edge.

We all started growing up, stretching and filling out, on the road to adulthood. Since our village was small, with only a hundred and fourteen people (Smithie Rogers’ wife had recently had a baby, but if you ask me, it could just as easily have been a monkey), everybody knew everybody. Even if we’d wanted to stop being friends, it wouldn’t last. The kids around my age were Minster Jones, who was my best friend growing up; Annabelle Kress, the redhead next-door who Minster liked an awful lot; and Soren Windward, who was an orphan. We were tight.

One summer afternoon when we were all fifteen or sixteen, we were strolling down the street talking about crazy old Gibbons who’d built a shack down on the side of the cliff. We came to the end, and right in the middle of a joke Minster was telling, a black umbrella flew up from the side of the cliff and landed at Annabelle’s feet. And it was followed by a top hat, and then a hand, and then another, and before long our wide eyes were looking at a kid about our age dressed in a red shirt and white slacks. We all knew who he was. He was supposed to be dead, or at least old — he’d left over fifty years ago — and yet I don’t think any of us was all that surprised to see him come back just the way he was when he left. Things were like that, you know.

“Hey, there,” Minster said. “You’re…Rupert?” We all stared.

Rupert nodded, brushing off his clothes. “That I am, my good man. And who might I have the pleasure of introducing myself to?”

“He talks funny,” Annabelle whispered in my ear. I tried not to laugh.

Minster took the lead, puffing his chest out. “I’m Minster, and that’s Annabelle” — and he blushed as he pointed — “and Soren and Tom.”

“Splendid. The pleasure is all mine, I assure you,” Rupert said, extending his hand. “It’s been a long time, I’m afraid, and I suspect that most of my friends are in the ground now. Might the chancellor be in?”

“The who?” Soren asked.

“The chanc…oh, bother, we didn’t call him that, did we. The vizier? The president?” We all looked at each other with furrowed brows. “Ah, the mayor! Yes, the mayor!”

We then took Rupert to meet the mayor, and as we walked down the street a cloud of villagers collected behind us. The mayor decided to call for a town meeting at that very moment. We all gathered to hear what Rupert had to say for himself.

“Esteemed citizens,” and here he tipped his hat, “it is good to see your faces again, after so many years away. No doubt you’ve wondered what became of me.” A murmur went through the crowd, with many a muted nod.

“Today I shall tell you. My good friends, I have come from beyond the edge of the world.” Gasps. “Yes, yes, it is hard to believe, but it is true. And the stories I have to share are even harder to believe. I wouldn’t believe them myself if they hadn’t happened to me.”

And with that he told us the most outlandish stories I’d ever heard before. Later on I got him to write them down, and here they are. Everything’s just the way Rupert wrote it. He was an interesting fellow, he was, but a good one — he had that look of truth in his eyes, so you knew he wasn’t lying to you even when he told you about the craziest things that had happened to him out there in the valley of the spider people, and in the dreamforest, and out on the ocean between worlds, and everything else. He’s gone again, but he promised me that when he goes out next time, he’ll take me with him. I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait, though, so in the meantime you can read about his travels. We all miss him. Good old Rupert…

Chapter Two: Spidervalley

As most of you probably remember, I left on a gust of wind forty-nine years, eight months, twelve days, six hours, and three minutes ago. I hadn’t the foggiest where I was headed; all I knew was that I needed to get out and see the world. And if I happened to amass some finances along the way, so much the better.

Now, I don’t know how familiar you are with the lay of the land, but beyond our little cliff there is a very, very long stretch of hill country. For a while I thought that was it. Nothing but hills from here to the edge of the world. But after five or six hours of flying — and might I mention that holding onto an umbrella for that long is very trying — after that, the hills blessedly flattened themselves out into some plains, which then tucked themselves into a river. I was far up enough that I couldn’t quite make out the size of the thing, and in my naivete I thought it but a trickle, a baby brooklet if you will. The wind blew me along its path.

Before long, though, I began to descend. Down I went, slowly at first, but soon picking up speed, and the river got larger and larger as I got closer and closer. A most exhilarating experience, I might add. Just before I plummeted into the water, the river disappeared beneath me into a waterfall and I found myself in a valley — or a crevice, rather, jutting straight down into the ground. It couldn’t have been more than half a mile across, but lengthwise it stretched on for what had to be miles.

With the change in scenery, my descent mysteriously slowed down, and I slowly wafted down to the bottom of the valley. But not quite the bottom, for I landed in the outskirts of a very large spider web. It had to have been at least fifty meters across in every direction. As you probably well know, webs are sticky, and I got stuck. I tried to detach my limbs from the web, but to no avail.

Imagine my chagrin when I spotted a set of spindly legs near my head.

My body went into rebellion, flaying my arms and legs in a marionette-ish fashion, almost tearing the skin off in the attempt. And yet my effort made no difference. The spindly legs clicked a little closer, and I looked up. I wished I hadn’t. Looming above me, a sight directly out of one of my childhood nightmares, was a mongrel mix between a spider and a human. The general shape was human — arms, legs, head, and so on — but the details were arachnid. And bone-chilling. The creature’s two arms and two legs were thin, too thin to be able to support such a body, and yet they did. Its armor-like head was small, but five black, glistening eyes gazed blankly out at who knows where. The overall effect was that of a humanoid daddy longleg. The overall effect upon me was a fever and a sickening jolt in my stomach.

As the spider-creature bent down over me, I expected my life to end, ingloriously devoured. Its long, segmented arms reached down and begin pulling at my limbs. I was sure I was going to be wrapped in a silk cocoon. But it was not to be. The creature injected some kind of fluid onto the web where it made contact with my skin, and I was able to pull myself free with light effort. Limb by limb I regained my freedom. When I was clear of the web, the creature inceremoniously picked me up and threw me off the web and onto a patch of grass below. It then clambered down from the web.

“Thank you?” I ventured as I brushed myself off and stood up. There was no answer. “Can you…can you understand me?”

The spider-thing clacked its mandibles. At this point I still wasn’t sure it hadn’t released me in order to make a more convenient feast, and I didn’t know quite how to interpret the clacks. But I wiped my brow and hoped for the best.

“I’m a traveler,” I said, my voice quavering. “Just passing through.”

Again, its mandibles clacked, but again I hadn’t any idea what it was supposed to mean. This wasn’t how it worked out in all the stories I’d read — no matter how strange the creatures were, they always seemed to speak English. If only that had been the case.

At any rate, I tried clicking my tongue, hoping that perhaps I could communicate back to the creature. Suddenly I heard a rush of tapping from the rocks behind the web. A horde of more spider-things, at least thirty in number, clattered out and surrounded us. I hoped I hadn’t said the wrong thing.

One of their number, a greyish creature that was thinner and taller than the rest, emerged from the surrounding circle and came up close to me. I froze.

“No visitors,” came an insectoid voice from behind me. I spun around to see who was speaking, but all I could see was the mass of spider-creatures clustered around me.

The voice said, “Turn around.” I did so, and from the arm motions of the grey creature in front of me, I realized that it was actually the one talking. Ventriloquism. Perhaps that was the natural result of talking with mandibles instead of a voice box, I mused.

“Well, sir,” I began, “I do want to say that I think this rather unfortunate event–”

“Stop saying nothing!” screeched the creature. “Your point?”

I swallowed. I also took a moment to compose my reply. “I am lost.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Cliffton,” I said. “Beyond the hills.”

The creature bent its head down and forward and peered at me. “Why?”

“Why am I from there?” I asked, confused.

“No, no, no,” it exclaimed. “Why are you lost? Why are you here?”

“Well, sir,” I said, “I’m a traveler. I’m going to see the world.”

It clicked and clacked some spider-language back to the rest of the group. More clacking tittered around me.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” I said, “how do you know English?”

The creature looked from side to side at the group around us. “I went to Oxford.”

“You did?” Images of this spider-thing impossibly sitting in a lecture hall among all the humans came in into my mind. There was no way. Wouldn’t someone have noticed? Wouldn’t someone have said something?

“Just kidding,” it said, clacking in what seemed to be a laugh. “We took a prisoner years ago and in return for his teaching me English, we allowed him to live a year longer than usual. I don’t even know where Oxford is.”

To be continued…