David Dalglish - Cloak and Spider

“But then…then something terrible happened. The spider felt a shaking of his web, and normally that meant yet another captured prey, but this time it was deep in its center. He tried to hurry back, but he was so large, so lumbering now. By the time he arrived, there was only terror in every one of his eight eyes: his beloved mate was dead, stung by a scorpion that had crawled up from the ground.”

Aaron shivered. Thren started to speak, found a lump in his throat. He closed his eyes, breathed out slowly.

“The spider had erred,” he said. “He’d cast his web throughout the barn, but missed a piece of dirt directly below the heart of it. And he was heartbroken, and lost, and confused. He vowed to never again make such a mistake. Outward he cast his web, bathing the ground in white. From the barn he went, for there would be web everywhere now, stretching across the hills to the very sun itself. When the spider crawled out from the barn for the first time in years, the farmer fled, terrified by the very sight of it. Wolves, serpents, cattle in the fields, deer in the forests, eagles in the sky: they were all trapped and devoured. Nothing stopped his hunger. The webs were like great ropes, and the slightest touch would forever trap you.

“At last the farmer returned, and he did not come alone. Other farmers, men who had lost cattle and hens, accompanied him bearing torches. Soldiers from the king came as well, with swords and shields, for they had been told all the terrible stories of the spider that had claimed all the land as its own. They took their torches to the web, slowly burning toward the web’s center. The spider sensed them coming, and he did not run. He was too tired now, his legs like thin trunks of trees. He rushed them, still fast for something of such size, and fought with all his strength. As the torches burned his body he buried his teeth into body after body, flooding them with venom. The spikes at the bottoms of his legs slashed open bodies, and he thrashed and thrashed, spinning web for miles all around, burying hundreds, their only salvation that of a torch’s fire to burn them to death before starvation.”

Thren looked to his hands, opened and closed them.

“And then the spider died,” he said. “Too big, too old, too tired.”

Aaron shifted, and he no longer leaned against his father. His face was passive, but Thren could see the faintest hint of a frown on his son’s face.

“That’s a horrible story,” he said.

Thren chuckled.

“The story is not finished,” he said, standing.

“Then how does it end?”

Thren knelt before his son, and strangely he felt tears coming to his eyes. He took his son’s hands in his, squeezed them tight.

“For though the spider died, his children clung to his back. They crawled from his body and onto the web, and they too gained the wisdom from the cloak. And as they looked about, they found a nation covered with webs. They found bountiful food waiting for them, and a thousand places they might hide should any come looking for them. Everything they could want, prepared so carefully by the spider. All but one. A small little spider remained on the body, frightened to move to the web. Frightened of the wisdom of the cloak. It stayed there with the body of its father, content, until one day that smallest spider finally climbed down to the web, the bravest of them all, the wisest. That is how the story ends.”

He stood, moved to the door. From the other side he heard movement, and when he opened it he found Randith coming in from the street.

“Everything’s prepared for my meeting with Maynard Gemcroft,” Randith said, adjusting his sword belt. “Are you ready for yours?”

“I am,” Thren said. “I’m sure Leon will be unpleasant as it is, but if we want to prevent this coming war, we should go swiftly, before he thinks we purposefully left him waiting.”

“Then let’s head out.”

Randith returned to the exit, and Thren made to follow. Aaron stopped him before he could.

“Wait,” he said. “What becomes of the children?”

Thren turned, smiled at him.

“All legends must have their heir,” he said. “The children who rushed off on their own became equals of their father, as he had always hoped. But the one who waited, the one who learned, the one who finally had the courage to brave the cloak…that small little spider grew a legend all his own.”