"Don't believe them. They're fake."
But Silly Cat seemed to have been startled into a panic. He stared fixedly at the ominous eyes overhead, each one full of malice.
"Thou art a god, not a cat that bristles at everything." Perched atop Silly Cat's raised fur, Little Spider looked as though she were lying on a Coniferous Forest, and she was not enjoying it. "There are no humans here to smooth thy fur."
"Who needs Annan to smooth my fur?!"
"Did I say Annan?"
Silly Cat stammered for a long while, only making his feelings more obvious. Eventually, he calmed down—partly because the eyes made no further move.
"How unpleasant. Who puts creepy things like that in their own temple?" If Silly Cat had been in human form, he would already have been rubbing the goose bumps on his arms.
"I do."
"Lunatic!"
On his head, Little Spider used all eight legs to tread out a more comfortable hollow, then said calmly, "Is that not what you deities of the Divine Kingdom call evil gods of the Abyss?"
Compared to the filth that came out of the Abyss, even the gods above sounded so... cute when they cursed.
Silly Cat decided to stop talking to her. "Which way now?"
The Spider Queen lazily raised a foreleg, then remembered Silly Cat couldn't see her. "Left first. We'll go around the Front Hall."
Silly Cat broke into a run to the left.
The eyes studding the black Veil cast a faint light through the temple. Visibility was poor, but the light drove back the almost tangible darkness.
Yet wherever he went, the eyes turned to follow. It was unsettling.
They passed through an enormous archway and left the Front Hall, but there were eyes here too.
Silly Cat peered ahead with his