The sun was sinking when I approached the Inn where I had previously left my Harp in safe keeping, it being large to carry with me on my longer journeys. When I entered there was no-one there except the Inn Keeper who was seated by the fire. I had always trusted him. When he looked up and saw me he seemed very uneasy, constantly shifting his gaze from mine.

”Good evening to you Sir,” I said, ”You seem disturbed. Is something amiss? The Inn is strangely empty.”

”No, no,” he said, ”All is well. It’s just quiet tonight. Will you be wanting a meal and a bed for the night?”

I told him I would but had mainly come to collect my Harp. At that he looked uneasy again but stood up, and left the room saying, ”I will see that a chamber is prepared for you. Will you take your meal by the fire?”

I relaxed by the fire and in due course a meal was bought and, having eaten, I retired upstairs and lay on the bed relaxing. Some hours passed. I noted that the night was strangely quiet. There were none of the usual sounds to be heard in an Inn so close to a brook and a wood, as this one was.

It was then that I heard a Harp being played; a Harp that I felt sure was my own.

I got up and left my room, following the sound. The Inn was in darkness, the interior only slightly lit by shafts of moonlight which filtered through the small window panes. The Inn was quite large and I wandered along corridors from door to door following the sound of my harp. Increasing in volume the sound lead me from door to door but then, as I reached it, always grew distant again.

Feeling that someone was playing a game with me and one that I had not the patience or willingness to play I decided to return to my room and solve the mystery on the morrow.

As I approached the door to my room I heard my Harp louder again. The tune was very sad and dark and was one I had never heard before. It was strangely foreign to my ear. I entered my room.

Sitting by the now wide open I saw a woman playing my Harp. Her back was to me. Her hair, which reached to her waist, was dark as a moonless night and her gown of grey was bejewelled. I stood entranced, by both her and the wondrous music. I hoped she would turn as something in the music made me long to see her face.

I stepped towards her.

It was then that I noticed her hands on the strings.

They were wrinkled and ancient. I stood transfixed, watching them stroke the strings. She turned and looked up at me.

Her face was not only that of an old woman. Beauty can exist in age just as it can in youth. This face was hideous as if centuries of venom filled it.

Her eyes held mine for what seemed an age and I felt my energy draining from me. My head filled with terrible visions.

I saw her feed on dead bodies in graveyards, snarling and ripping off limbs. I saw her take a crying baby from its cot and swing it round her head, smashing its brains out on a wall. I saw her cause lovers to destroy each other. I saw her stand by laughing as a man, drunk and insane, took a knife and cut out his mothers’ eyes. I saw her chain a woman to a wall so that men could rape her and then, afterwards, kick her and spit in her face after as she lay sobbing on the floor, trying to cover herself.

I saw aeons pass, time flying backwards. She was there, present at the heart of every sorrow and act of anger in history. She deceived with beauty and promises of power or wealth and bought the good to their downfall. She crowed over poverty and starvation. She rejoiced in every despicable action.

Even the memory of some of these visions is too painful to relate. I could not bare such horror and fell to my knees in anguish. I tried to resist what I saw but could bring no kind of other visions to my mind against them.

She stood over me and spat out these words, ”Fool! You who believe in Love and Kindness have no resistance against me. I am evil and hatred and I will take what you love and you will follow me! You will meet your darkest fear!”

With that she spread dark wings and flew from the window, leaving me shaking. The Harp vanished. I knew she had taken it and I was struck with grief.

Now, you might think ‘Let the harp go, don’t follow her!’ But this was not just any harp. It is an ancient Elven harp, blessed by my ancestors, and belonged to my mother before me. It plays its own tunes that my fingers only follow and it brims with poetry. It was as if she had stolen my mother’s heart and dragged it to hell. I could never rest while this evil being had it.

I knew she had entered the wood so I followed. All was hushed and still but as I walked I felt eyes from behind every tree. As I turned to look I saw them briefly before they vanished.

After a time I became aware of a scuttling sound that sent shivers up my spine but I pressed on into what became denser and denser undergrowth that seemed to cling to my boots more and more with each step.

After a time I heard the harp in the distance. I followed the sound.

As the harp grew louder, and seemingly closer, the scuttling sound increased.

Being well aware of what my darkest fear is I was almost daunted as my imagination leapt ahead of me.

A little further on I saw a cave entrance and the song of the harp echoed within it. Approaching I saw that the entrance was beset with webs. Dimly, through them, I saw the Harp. It played alone. As expected the cobwebs stood between me and the Harp. I stood a while, trying to brace myself against what I knew was to come.

I had no weapon; only determination.

I started to push the webs aside. They broke easily at first but grew stronger as I was further in and spiders began to throng around me, getting in my clothes, my hair, my eyes. It was hard to continue as every fibre of my body warned me to flee.

I reached the heart of a huge web and all the spiders suddenly left me in peace. The woman then appeared and began to wave her arms as if casting a spell. The movement was that of a spider.

She transformed before my eyes. I was hypnotised with fear and loathing. This was a spider so huge I could see it’s fangs and the gaze of her eyes which, as before, were filled with evil intent.

She reached out her legs and dragged me towards her. I screamed. I felt her all over my skin as she stripped me.

I begged. She bared her fangs. I tried to think of beauty and peace and couldn’t. I tried to close my eyes but it made it worse, to feel her but not see her. She toyed with me, enjoying my horror and feeding on my fear.

I became a scream that would not stop.

There was no feeling of hope left in me. The time ran slow and I was oblivious to all but her. The pain and fear never abated for a moment. I only wished I might die.
I saw pleasure in her eyes for a moment as I called upon death to save me. She wanted my humiliation as well as my despair. Her jaws were full of drool. I almost wished she would drown me.

Vaguely, at the back of my mind, I heard the tune of the Harp changing. Each note seemed to respond to my pain and it began to soothe me.

Strands of the web began to snap but the Spider still clung to me fiercely. The music grew stronger. The Spider bound me and began to wave her legs above me as though warding the music off.

I heard my Mother sing. She sang of Love and Beauty, Birth and Starlight. Her voice sang in the strings. The Spider, cringing, slowly backed away and shrivelled and, becoming a woman again, she let out one long piercing cry and fled out of the cave.

The song faded, leaving me there bound on the ground. I started to try and free myself when the spiders began to gather about me again. I lay still and waited. I did not fear them any more. They swarmed over me and freed me. I laid there amongst them, admiring their grace, listening to the Love in the Harp.