(One story, one night, for Sarah and Daimon. Hitherby promised.)
This is a long-ago story. Once souls had no forms, just existence. Then some clever soul came up with the idea of bodies, and soon they caught on all over. Spiders, of course, chose the biggest bodies, being powerful predators. Insects chose small bodies, so that they would not come to the spiders' attention. Mammals and such were in between.
This story happens not long afterwards.
There was a girl named Chirichacara -- ("Where a girl means, of course, a spider," Hitherby commented.) -- who was always fascinated with the weaver's art. She learned everything her mother could teach her, and everything her grandmother could teach her. Then she went out into the world and studied with the greatest weaver of her forest, the adjoining plains, and ultimately with the greatest weavers in the whole world. She was masterful, strong and quick and clever in her patterns. However, soon this was not enough for Chirichacara. She wanted to be better. There was only one place in all existence where she might find teachers better than those she had already studied with, however. So she stretched her legs tip-to-tip, did a little wiggle to make sure all the parts were in place, and set off across the land.
("For an arachnid," Hitherby notes, "the nature of the 'one place' can be left unsaid. It is, of course, the home of the Great Weaver Lady, who orders the tapestry of existence. Since the spiders most certainly pre-date the Greeks, I am reasonably confident that this is not the house of Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis -- rather, I believe that it is the way that spiders perceive Yves' library. It is, of course, improbable that a spider could walk to Yves' Library -- but this story is set in the Age of Myths.")
The journey was long and troubled, but this is not the subject of our tale. In due time, Chirichacara found herself at the cave of the Weaver Lady. Etiquette is not a spider tradition, so she did not knock; instead, she boldly walked inside.
At the center of the cave stood the Loom of Destiny, the most marvelous of all artifacts, shaping the Symphony from the primal threads. Chirichacara stared at that for a short time. Then she turned her attention to the Weaver Lady, who continued placidly to adjust the strands and otherwise develop the masterpiece. Chirichacara was astonished! The Weaver Lady had no form. Now, not many years had passed since the creation of forms, but Chirichacara had always assumed that the Weaver Lady would keep abreast of the times.
Chiri said, after a moment, "Great Lady, I am Chirichacara, a weaver skilled. I come to you that I might understand your loom, and become better at my craft thereby."
The Lady murmured, "I am aware." She turned and fixed Chiri with an eyeless stare. "There is a condition, Chirichacara, that must be met. And there is a price. There is always a price."
"Then I will meet the condition," Chirichacara said boldly, "and I will pay the price."
"I will teach, then," said the Lady. For twelve long years, she taught, and Chirichacara learned. And this was what she learned: that the Loom was the bridge between reality and dream, though many things were lost in the crossing. Each thread was a mortal life, and the patterns were complex beyond imagining. She learned these things, and became a weaver like none ever known.
At the end of the twelve years, the Lady said, "I have taught you all that I know. Chirichacara, you must now meet my condition."
"And the price?" the spider asked.
"The price is not mine to levy," the Lady said. "It will come to you in due course, in its own time and fashion. But now! The condition is such: you must shape me a form upon the Loom, give me a destiny of my own; I cannot weave when I am also upon the Loom."
Chirichacara understood, when this had been explained, why the Lady had no shape. Further, she understood in that moment what she must do, and in some measure, she appreciated what the price would be. "Then place yourself among the strands," she said, "and I will weave as best I may, for your greater glory and the greater glory of the world."
The Lady did this thing, and Chirichacara set to work. It was twelve more years of labor, but then the Lady had a form; a beautiful thing, worthy of the Keeper of the Loom. The Lady thanked Chirichacara and moved to step down off the Loom -- and found that she could not. Her form was bound on every limb to the Loom, trapped among the threads, and she could not leave it.
"Why?" the Lady asked. Chirichacara made no answer, but simply moved the threads this way and that, separating all but her own to one side or the other. Then, because spiders were larger in those days, and because all creatures can stretch the distance of their own thread on the Loom, she hooked one foot on either side of her thread at the Loom's bottom, and one foot on either side at the top, and began to pull.
The Lady's face paled. "Chiri," she said, "take care."
Chiri strained for a time, and then her strength prevailed; the top of the Loom (that was dream) and the base of the Loom (that was reality) began to bend inevitably, one towards the other.
"Chirichacara," the Lady said, but nothing more.
Chiri pulled, and pulled, until dream and reality were no more than ten yards apart; then one yard; then one foot. And as she contracted the Loom, her own thread -- the only one in the middle, where the two came closest together -- shortened. In like manner, she grew weak, for the length of a spider's thread is the length of her life.
She braced herself for the final effort of bringing them together, and heaved; then her abdomen burst against the strain, and she fell back dead. Yet her goal was accomplished; dream and reality now stood one next to another, all but touching, and few threads had been shortened but her own.
When the Lady untangled herself, and studied the warped Loom, it is said that she smiled. On the back of the greatest female warriors of the spider-kind, thenceforth, she has placed the sign of the squeezed Loom, as red as Chirichacara's blood.
This is the story of the crime of the first of the wolf spiders.
A long time ago, when it first became clear that humans were going to pose a problem, the Colloquy of Spiders was assembled. There were big spiders and little spiders, hunters and weavers, venomous creatures and harmless tree-walkers -- all of the kinds were represented. It took a generation for them to assemble, but what is time when the world is at stake?
There were many voices raised during the Colloquy. Some advocated that spiders abandon the corporeal realm for the Marches -- a thing that many, in fact, did. Some advocated banding together to tackle humanity en masse; this notion never became popular. Some wished to wage a secret war, others to become domestic creatures -- to Finlandize, as it were. Many thought creatively; others tactically; still others dreamed of blood. Of the warlike spiders at the Colloquy, the bloodiest was a young huntress named Germa.
"Humans are strong," Germa said, "and inconceivably vast -- for we have dwindled since our primal days. But still there are humans who are weak, and they are a vital part of the race's continuance; I refer, of course, to the children."
The Colloquy murmured for a time, and then agreed that this all was true.
"Therefore," Germa continued, "I propose that we slay the children of humanity. They are easy targets, and we are many -- and within a generation, humanity will be no more."
The Colloquy thought on this. Finally, an elderly white-furred gentleman said, "Humans care a great deal for their children. With such deeds, we invite a horrific retribution. The humans are masters of fire, and have shown ability to kill things a hundred times their size or a hundred times smaller. It is one matter to set ourselves against them -- not my favorite course of action, but an acceptable one. It is another matter entirely to incite them to genocidal wrath."
This gave Germa and the assembly some cause for thought. Then Germa said, "I propose a test. I will carry out my plan at the local human habitation. Those who disagree with my plan will remove themselves from the area; others may assist me. A handful of humans will not dictate the direction of all humanity; should they defeat me and in their rage destroy me and all who stand with me, then the Colloquy should pursue alternatives."
The Colloquy murmured for a time, and then agreed. Thus Germa's campaign began.
Germa was, of course, not a wolf spider then. She was a venomous creature, and her bite was enormously lethal. She killed quickly, painfully, and without any measure of remorse. Five children died, then ten. Humans realized quickly that they were under attack; then they began to retaliate. But, to Germa's delight, while they were very efficient spider-killers, they knew nothing about how to find them.
Then, one day, after her thirteenth kill, an adult human male spotted Germa.
She went for the kill; he struck the ground between them with a flaming branch. ("Probably actually more like a torch," Hitherby admitted.) She stopped, turned, and scurried for the exit; a pelted stone shook the earth in front of her and knocked her off her feet. She called to her aides; they made no move to assist her. The human approached, and the branch lowered until she could feel the hairs on her abdomen smoking.
"I will give you the option, demon," the human said, "to abandon this campaign. Leave this place; return no more; you will be let to live. Wiggle one leg if you are willing."
Germa understood, ("although I'm not sure how,") and, reluctantly, wiggled one leg.
The branch lifted, and she rolled onto her feet, and in a long leap she flung herself to the part of the branch that did not burn. A moment later, she was on the human's hand, and not long after he was dead; as the branch fell to the ground, she flung herself away into the shadows.
Later that night, a spirit came to her in the wilds and spoke.
"Have you no honor, Germa?"
"I serve my people," she said.
"Your campaign will cease, as you agreed," the spirit said. "It is one thing to kill; it is another to betray."
Germa shrugged.
"Your venom is no more, Germa," the spirit said softly.
Germa shrugged.
"You shall know the pain of the fire until you have done penance for this crime."
Germa felt the fire, but she shrugged again. "I have no use for spirits," she said. "When have you ever served my kind well?"
"I go," the spirit said, and left, and Germa retreated from that place. It is said that her children are still hunters. It is said that still she lives, and still she feels the fire. It is said that her children might be able to save her, with good works and love for humanity.
But, then, ("the wolf spiders say,") -- who cares?
"Certain spiders believe that the angels and the stars are the same. They may have picked up this belief from the potato bugs, although I'm not entirely certain."
In the beginning, there was peace in Heaven and no stars ever fell. Then there was a struggle, and a terrible night in which the sky was alive with fire. The Earth is still scarred in secret places from the fires that fell that night. The spiders know. We are keepers of secrets.
Sometimes, still, a star will tumble blazing to the earth, and an angel will see Heaven for the last time. We have been told that sometimes a demon will become bright; these new stars rest close to the moon, where they cannot be seen. (An ancient secret: one was seen to appear in the sky perhaps two thousand years ago, and another seven thousand back. What great angels were created or redeemed upon those nights?)
This is the story of a spider who thought that the fall of stars was a tragedy -- who feared the day that the stars he loved might no longer hang within the sky. He had only a lifetime to give to his fear, to trying to prevent it. The plan he conceived of would take that entire life, but he was willing to dedicate himself thus.
Over the course of years, he strung a web between three mountains, above a place where the stars often fell. The wind tore it to shreds. So he started to build another one, a stronger one, over another several years, and the snow froze and shattered it. By the fourth web, only his will was holding him alive; he was ancient, cold, tired, and weak. And the wind tore at the web. And the snow fell on it. And the rain tried to break it, and the sun tried to melt it, but there was nothing as strong as the fourth web he wove.
He sat at the center of the web, then, and waited to die.
What happened next was a miracle. The spider had finished his task; his will had therefore failed him, and he was ancient beyond all reason. But before his withered body gave up the life, a star fell into his web. It burned with a great and a terrible fire, and it hit the web like the hammer of Heaven, and the world shook.
And the web held.
The spider crawled over by the star, which seemed at one moment a stone and at another an angel, curled tight around an impossible pain.
Then the angel opened his eyes, and looked at the spider, and the spider looked back. Then the angel whispered, quietly, "God?"
The spider was too old to answer, but it rested there by the angel before it died.
And the angel was high enough that he could reach the Heavens again.
There is more to the world than ordinary people know. ("In fact," Hitherby noted, "if this story can be trusted, there is more to the world than even angels know. And there's one moral, and I've hardly started the story.") A spider who thinks can see the pattern of things: structures built on structures, as webs are strung from branch to branch. The web is more beautiful and more orderly than the branches, but is supported by the greater dimension of the tree behind it.
Once upon a time, there was a spider who did think on this, and resolved to see the world under our world. This was a difficult matter, and for most it would have required walking to the edge of the world and then off of it. This spider, whose name was Meren, was cleverer than most, and he simply turned himself sideways in all directions and jumped.
("I once spent an interesting two months trying this," Hitherby added. "It's more difficult than it sounds.")
It is difficult to describe the place in which he found himself, because it was a deeper place than this world. Paths led places that we would be unable to understand; there were insects stranger and more interesting than those we know. Perhaps it was less orderly as well. Perhaps it was less beautiful. But Meren was a pioneer, and he enjoyed every part of it. He wandered. He built. He fed.
In time, he came to a division of the road. One path led to a place full of flame and glory; the other led to transcendent beauty and immortal singing. The roads were not often traveled. Cobwebs crossed both paths, filling the space between walls of broken stone. And Meren studied the webs, and saw on them ancient and withered corpses -- spiders drained by age until they had no more life in them than their prey.
Meren reflected. One direction would have brought him fame, power, joy, and legend. The other direction would have taught him the secrets of beauty and eternal happiness.
We don't know which way he went, only that he reached the cobweb, and began to tear through. The withered corpse in the web above shook, and threatened to fall.
Meren, sadly, twisted himself sideways in all directions and returned to Earth. "Why?" another spider later asked him.
"It was a place beyond our world," he said. "And the things you do there -- they change you. If I had gone through, I would forever be a desecrator of the dead."
"That's a problem," the other spider answered, "if you walk the path of glory. I mean, I wouldn't want to be remembered for that, either. But -- you could have gone on to beauty and eternal happiness, and neither you nor anyone else would have cared."
"True," Meren said.
"And yet you didn't?"
"If you can earn Heaven by defiling a spider's memory," Meren said, "I don't want to know."
Once upon a time, (Hitherby began,) there was a spider named Eight who caught a bug named Six.
Eight was all ready to eat Six, or at least drain all Six's blood, when the bug protested, "You are making a mistake; I am not simply a bug, but an oracle, and my wisdom can help you prosper. I can demonstrate! Ask me anything!"
Eight reflected on this. "Well enough," she said. "This is the first question with which I test you. What need have I for 'prosperity?' I have enough to eat, and I have a home; would I be better served by having too much to eat? An extra home? Come, I do not believe your offer is even sensible."
"You believe yourself a simple creature, of simple tastes," Six said softly, "because you have no experience with more; because you do not believe that you can ever obtain more; because you can hardly believe that a better life exists. But it does. I will start with the smaller inducements -- do you truly believe that your diet is as wondrous as it might be? Come, Eight; you eat bugs that in turn feast on dung. You have tasted bee; you have tasted wasp; you have tasted butterfly. Do you not prefer these things? Would you not rather eat them always? I continue. You love tending your web, and you love its beauty, but you assume that it must be limited to the size you can maintain. Wouldn't it be nice if it were larger, huge and glorious and all to your design, and others of your kind wove and tended the parts you could not tend yourself?"
Eight hesitated. "Well," she admitted, "the picture you paint is both interesting and abominable; it offends me deeply and it appeals to me on levels I had rather not name. Still, we will go one step further; how do you propose that I obtain these things?"
"You will need to build a new web," Six said softly, "and mix with the strands elements I will name for you. You will place it where I tell you, and you will catch a spirit. This spirit will then charm your favorite insects into your web, and subdue the local spiders to your will; thus, you will accomplish the things that I have told to you."
Eight paced in a circle around Six, who watched nervously. "Another question," she said. "If you are wise in this fashion, how is it that you have flown into my web? What kind of oracle is it who is overcome and bound by an ordinary member of an admittedly extraordinary race?"
Six adjusted himself slightly in the web. "My father is a noble among the gnats," he explained without preamble. "It is not meet for me to be a seer. I do not wish to embarrass him; nor do I wish to abandon my gift. Death seems the best option; I have chosen a comfortable one."
"Comfortable?" Eight asked, with some incredulity.
"Well," Six hedged, "it will be more comfortable than many, should you allow me the chance to demonstrate my predictions correct."
Eight laughed. "This has been an interesting conversation, if nothing else! I shall attempt your spirit-trapping; if it is successful, then I will make your death as painless as I know how."
So Eight built her spirit-trapping web, and, just as Six had predicted, a spirit of the garden was straightaway caught therein. In a matter of hours, Eight was surrounded by luxury -- mistress of the spiders around her, and feasting on the finest meats there are. She turned to Six and said, "As per our bargain, I will strive to limit your suffering."
Six murmured, thoughtfully, "Are you certain that is wise?"
Eight paused. "Pardon? Is there a hidden benefit to maximizing your suffering?"
Six indicated negation. "It is not that," he said. "It is -- hm. You are enjoying your new status, yes? And the privileges associated therewith?"
Eight struck the web lightly with a forefoot. "Indeed," she admitted. "I am not proud of this, but I find the experience somewhat intoxicating."
"When this began," Six explained, "you had some doubts that you would enjoy these things, did you not? You believed yourself a simple creature, with no great taste for the good life?" The gnat hesitated. "I simply wonder if there are not pleasures out there, even more esoteric, that you will be able to enjoy once you have accustomed yourself to what you have now. That is, if a simple creature can enjoy luxury, can a prosperous spider come to lust after -- oh, magical abilities, or a position in the royal houses of your kind?"
"This seems preposterous," Eight replied, "for I have never had such ambition. Nevertheless, I must concede the possibility; you have demonstrated yourself correct thus far. Come, then! Tell me how I may obtain these things. Must I ask the spirit?"
"I would not recommend that," Six murmured. "You have bargained with it in good faith; if you make additional demands before letting it free, neither it nor any magical creature will ever trust your word. Further, have you not a sense of honor of your own? Further, are not children of your race taught to show restraint, to eat the richest foods slowly? Eight, if you should rush past the life I have arranged for you, into greater things, you will not be ready to appreciate them; you will feel sick, as any glutton would. You would be discontent. No! This is my counsel for you, good friend -- wait. Savor this life; then, when you are truly ready to move on, ask me how you may do so."
Eight donned a suspicious expression. "You will die in days," she said. "A slow and painful death. This will negate your value, and break my word as well. I have no time for such delays -- and I will not set you free to find food for yourself."
Six made a happy buzz. "Then your newfound servants will have to tend to me as well," Six said, "as I lounge indolently in this web. I am trapped in a spider's house; by all measures, I am dead, and my family will know no shame if my consciousness should linger for a time."
Eight clicked several times in sharp succession. "Masterfully done," Eight said. "It is all the same to me; I shall order things as you have said."
So passed several weeks; then Eight returned to her old web, where Six hung suspended, guarded, served, groomed, and fed by a dozen spider attendants. "I have sated myself with these luxuries," she said. "I still have no inherent lust for nobility or great magics; still, I am willing to try them, and determine if they are as much of an improvement as this life has been."
Six considered. "Yes," he said, "I do believe that you are ready. Very well; I shall tell you where to build another, greater web, and what to mix within. You shall capture a passing --" (Hitherby thought. "I believe that I should just translate the term," she said, "and say:") "-- ethereal god. Make your demands thereto; if you bargain in good faith, he will as well." Six hesitated a moment. "You may also wish," the gnat added, "to ask that he broaden my insight, that I might better see the path that you will take from there."
Eight chittered. "And why should I not just ask for prophetic gifts myself?"
"I have seen my own death," Six said calmly. "Do you wish to see yours?"
Eight hesitated a long moment, and then withdrew to the corner of the web. "Very well," she said. "List me your ingredients."
Six did so; not long after, Eight captured the ethereal god, and demands were made and met, and Eight was a mage and a queen. As for Six, he gained nothing but a deeper insight; this seemed to content him well enough.
Eight came and spoke with Six often, for he had true wisdom in him now. She did not ask for greater powers or position, however -- not for a very long time. Finally, she presented herself to him and said, "I wish you to hold silence for a time."
He wriggled slightly, in affirmation.
"It has occurred to me that I might become a goddess of sorts myself," she said. Six was silent. "I would have powers, abilities, and knowledge beyond the humble dreams of the simple spider that I was. I would stride across world events like a thundercloud. My name would be remembered forever." Eight walked in a slow circle around him. "It has also occurred to me that I might like to go back to the creature that I was before. That it might be nice to be simple again. You are, of course, the key to both of these possibilities."
Six shrank slightly in his bonds. His expression was resigned.
"It has occurred to me that both of these possibilities would destroy me," Eight finally said. "It has occurred to me that, in a way, I have already been destroyed. If I walk either of these paths, or turn away, they have defeated me. I have, however, conceived of a plan. ...You may speak now."
Six said, philosophically, "I understand your decision. For what it is worth, I have expected it for some time."
Eight bobbed on the web. "I will devour you, as is my right, for you are a gnat who has come into my web. Then these futures will cease to exist, and I may not be blamed for ignoring them." Then she hesitated. "Expecting?"
Six murmured, "I have lived a longer and happier life than ever any bug caught in a spider's web. I have, by offering a spider queen my thoughts, shaped the destiny of your entire species. These are glorious things. You plan to defeat your destiny; I have already achieved mine."
"It is somewhat bothersome," Eight said, "that you have also emerged victorious; this is improper, given your position. Nevertheless, I find I do not care. I will make your death quick."
So she slew him, and she ate him, and this ends the story.
Once, there was a spider, and he lived on the ground. He hunted down bugs and he ate them. In his heart, he didn't like the ground very much. It's hard to get perspective on the ground. He wanted to go higher.
He moved into a house, into an attic, and hunted the bugs that lived in the hidden places there. This was better. One day, however, he went out of the attic through the wall and saw a tree branch that brushed the house. The tree was taller. It offered him the mysteries of the lower air. So he moved out onto the tree, onto the very highest branches, and ate the rare bugs that ventured there.
This was much better, and he saw many things, but he wanted to go higher. One day, he saw a thread dangling from the sky. He was not of the People of the Web, but nevertheless he climbed on and upwards and upwards, into the clouds. He lived there for a time, eating the strange bugs that infest the clouds, wandering across the vaporous surface.
Still he wanted to go higher, and the thread did not stop at the clouds. When his home passed near it again, he jumped on, and went higher.
We do not speak of what he found there, or how high he rose before the end of his journeys. There are things that are not meant to be spoken.
At the end of his life, he returned to the ground, and his childhood comrades said, "Why have you come back to us?"
He said, "When you get too high, you never stop falling."
Love is rare among the spiders. This is the story of Xatchuk, who was loved twice.
Xatchuk's first love was the pinnacle of spiderkind: strong and brave, a warrior and a magus. He loved Xatchuk dearly, and she loved him, but one day he told her that he needed to leave for a time. "There is a sorcerer beyond the hills," he said, "who has challenged me. I must go to him, and defeat him, for the sake of both our lives."
"Will you return to me, Pater?" she asked.
"I will return," he promised. "It may be weeks; it may be months. Wait for me."
Pater left across the hills, and Xatchuk waited. There was a harsh time of little food, and she grew as thin as a leaf. There was a great fire that washed through her home, and she nearly died. Waters rose and waters fell. Beasts tore her web, and once a human child captured her to use as a toy.
Another warrior, Luc, who knew of and admired her endurance, rescued her from that bondage. This was his opportunity, he felt, to begin a courtship; surely, he thought, after all the time that had passed, Pater was dead. Yet each approach he made, she rebuffed. "I promised him that I would wait," she said, "and I will wait, though God himself try to tear me away."
"He will do so, in time," Luc rejoined. "You are aging, Xatchuk; you should make the most of your last years."
"I will wait," she said.
At first, Luc was offended by her rebuffs. Had he not saved her from torture and death? In time, however, his appreciation for her dedication won out. He, like Pater before him, fell in love with the lady Xatchuk. He resolved that, win her or lose her, he would make an end to her pain and her waiting. Therefore, he too went beyond the hills.
It took him a very long time to reach the sorcerer that Pater fought. It took him a great struggle to defeat that sorcerer, and search his home, and find Pater's preserved corpse. It took him a very long time to return.
Xatchuk grew ill, and recovered. She was challenged by an elder for her web, and prevailed. She was poisoned by an insect not meant for spiders to digest, and purged herself. Then Luc arrived and presented himself to her again.
"Pater is dead," he said, bluntly. "There is nothing left to wait for."
Xatchuk looked into his eyes, and then turned and walked a ways along her web. "Do you see this?" she asked, gesturing to a bit of prism-like material that hung between two strands.
"I do."
"Pater gave it to me, before he left; he said that the light within would shine and remind me of him as long as he was alive." She struck it with one leg, and it chimed. "It glitters, it glitters, yes, but the light went out a very long time ago."
"Then --" Luc asked. "Why do you wait? -- is it I? Do I offend you? Was this an excuse to avoid my courtship?"
Xatchuk touched the prism again, softly. "No," she said. "He promised that he would return. I promised that I would wait." There was a very old pain in her voice. "There is no other choice."
Luc heard, and understood, and left, and he was never to be seen in that part of the world again.