Emmi Itäranta - The City of Woven Streets

The silk of the webs begins to emit a soft light. Valeria shudders.

‘How does it work?’ I ask.

Spinner’s form is clearly visible now. The long limbs support the rounded body, and the eyes are dim mirrors, reflecting a place I cannot yet see.

‘You moved the threads of the Web of Worlds, like ancient Dreamers did,’ she says. ‘Even among them, it was a rare skill. That is why few could use the power, and that is why so many feared it.’

I think about all the times I have wished to change something and could not.

‘Why can I do this now?’ I ask. ‘Why not before?’

Spinner is quiet for a while. When she speaks again, the words are slow, as if she is dragging them to light from dark corners of ancient memories.

‘The Dream-power is not born of nothing,’ Spinner says. ‘It is born of everything that has made you who you are. Of each day when you have breathed in the scent of the sea in the chill of the morning and ran the shuttle through the warp with weary fingers. Of each moment when you have loved or desired or lost. Of each time you have looked away from yourself, and become aware that something in you has shifted irrevocably. Of each dream you have dreamed, and each step you have taken.’

Spinner pauses briefly.

‘Do you see now why it was necessary for you to walk through the darkness?’ she continues.

I do not reply. The world is a white-hot globe of molten glass, ready to assume any shape I wish to give it. My whole body aches like it is filled with light trying to burst through my skin, sparks with an urge to move the reality out of place and bring about a new one where all obeys my will. And yet I sense another ache underneath: like a muscle sore from too much strain, a phantom limb weary from exertion. It is familiar from every dream I have bent to my will, from every waking afterwards.

The glass freezes into shape and shatters, and I know the answer before I ask.

‘But the power is not without limit,’ I say.

Spinner is silent. I sense a soft brush of thought across my mind, seeking, withdrawing.

‘No power is without limit,’ she says. ‘And a power that can shift the shape of reality has a higher price than many others. Every time you use it, it will make a rift in you. Rearranging the fabric of the universe is not easy or without danger. Sometimes the limits of the body give in and your spirit goes astray, and the threads come loose from your grip.’

‘What if I don’t want this power?’ I say. My voice drifts across the room and shatters against the wall. Valeria’s fingers tighten around mine.

‘It is a part of you, whether you wish it or not,’ Spinner says. ‘No one gave it to you, and no one can take it away.’

Just then, a bell begins to clang in the distance. After only a brief moment, the sound collapses into silence. After a few breaths, it begins again. This time the clanging continues for longer, until it is followed by another silence.

The evacuation signal of the Dreamers.

I turn to look at Valeria.

‘We must go,’ I say.

‘Yes,’ Spinner says into the dusk behind her many eyes. ‘It has begun. The ships await, ready to be claimed, and Dreamers hope for a wind that will billow the sails at dawn.’

She goes quiet. Valeria takes a step back, another. She pulls me by the hand to go with her.

‘But they will not make it far,’ Spinner says.

I know then that we have finally come to the place where she has been leading me all along. This is the end of the path, the hidden heart behind all her words. I am afraid to see it, and yet I cannot turn away.

‘Why?’ I ask. My words float in the room like speckles of dead dust.

‘The earth under the sea is readying itself to move,’ Spinner says. ‘Soon it will shake the foundations of the island, and every stone your people have placed on top of another will crack and fall. Your traces will soon be gone, and you will no longer be here to mend what is broken.’

Valeria shivers, but stays next to me.

‘Are you certain?’ I ask Spinner.

‘I have seen it,’ she says. ‘I have felt it.’

I ask the question to which I dread to hear the answer.

‘Can you stop it?’

A low hum rises from Spinner, song-like, and fades.

‘Yes, I can,’ she says. ‘But I will not.’

I draw a deep breath.

‘Why?’

‘I will show you,’ she says. ‘If you come closer.’

Alarm ripples on Valeria’s face. I look at her and loosen my grip of her hand. I take a step forward.

I stand there, in the soft glow of the webs. One of Spinner’s limbs reaches out and settles on my forehead. I feel a light prickling where my skin has not yet healed completely. And then

I see with her eyes and she sees with mine.

I see a time of peace turn into a time of war, when some men grow restless at Dreamers doing things they themselves are not capable of. They believe the Dream-power comes from the Web-folk, and they turn against us. At first they build their houses where the Web-folk have always lived, and make fields for their crops where the Web-folk have always fed. When that does not push away those to whom the island belonged before the ships arrived, men take their torches and blades to the web-forests of the island. The fires are slow to die and the screams of pain last long.

A long time, long. Years bundled together and pushed further and further away, like barely visible stars, their jewels ever dimmer in the outstretched Web of Worlds. No one else left now. No one else to tell the story. And age, it gnaws and corrodes, slowly crumbles every limb, adds weight to every movement: even the longest life is a vanishing flicker against the silence that surrounds all lives, a space so deep it will eventually drown everyone. Must find someone to carry the story forward. Must not let it vanish into the void that draws nearer every moment. Must not let the lost people be forgotten.

Waiting in the dark, and then there is no more time left to wait. Must call whoever will hear even a faint echo of the call, and will come. She is too scared. Too used to hiding. But there is no one else. No others to hear, no one with Dream-power. And I am showing her this so she can take it with her and see through my eyes, if she lives,

Spinner says without any words.

My knees hit the floor and pain surges through me. My teeth clatter together. Tears are running down my face.

‘I didn’t know,’ I tell Spinner. A weight greater than a night-maere’s grows in my chest. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.’

The forests still burn before my eyes and somewhere in the shroud of the past, in a moment that has never come to an end, the Web-folk are being torn apart, limb by limb, and I do not believe I will ever stop hearing their screams.

‘I will take your story with me and tell it again and again,’ I whisper. ‘If you let us go.’

‘You are free to go,’ Spinner says. ‘Save yourself and this girl you love.’ Valeria’s arm twines around my waist. ‘Find a boat. Leave. You may make it to the continent, if you use your power sparingly. There is nothing you can do for the rest of your people. Leave them.’

I see the ships and Dreamers in my eyes. I think about everyone who has hidden their dreams as I have, and those who have been deprived of their dreams unknowingly. People who wake up in the morning and collect seaweed for their food, raise chickens, comb their children’s hair and fix their leaking roofs. I think of their fear when they look at those who carry the mark on their foreheads, and of their weariness, which makes it easier to take orders from the Council than to imagine how something could be different. Of their hopes, and their ability to change, or the lack thereof.