Cloak and Spider: A Shadowdance Novella (9 page)

“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” Carr said as Thren approached.

“I know,” Thren said. “And I don’t care.”

They dragged all three through the street, their wrists bound together with rope. Of the fifteen Spiders who had come, only four had died, compared to the twenty Scorpions Thren’s men had killed. No doubt more Scorpions lurked throughout the city, but Thren walked with his sword pressed against their leader’s throat. None would dare interfere, not anymore. If anything, they’d all be looking for new guilds to take them in.

Thren said nothing to them, as did Carr. Lenore wept, the pretty little thing, but she kept her mouth shut. Only the child dared say anything, but his questions were ignored, and eventually he fell silent.

Arriving at Thren’s hideout, a simple unmarked warehouse, they entered, Thren leading the way.

“Take them to the dark room,” Thren ordered. “Tie them to the wall, but don’t harm them needlessly.”

As Thren watched the men carry out his orders, he glanced to the stairs leading to the upper floor. Waiting on them, watching quietly, were his sons. Aaron was barely visible over the bannister, his blond hair and blue eyes poking out. Beside him Randith leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, a frown on his face. He seemed so much more serious than his ten years should have allowed.

“Where’s Mom?” Randith asked, his voice piercing the din.

Thren swallowed, tried to think of a way to answer.

“Dead,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.

Randith winced, but he put on a show of remaining strong. It made Thren proud of him, sick as his stomach was from the finality of the words he’d spoken. Aaron, however, teared up immediately.

“No,” the younger brother murmured. “No, she can’t, she…”

“Take him back upstairs,” Thren said. “Now. I have work to do.”

Not wanting to see them any longer, to see their pain both hidden and obvious, he pushed his mind to the matters at hand. In the back of his warehouse was the dark room, unfurnished and lacking any windows. Thren stepped inside, taking a torch with him. Hooking it on the wall just below a small vent to allow the smoke to escape, he returned to the door and shut it. The sound it made echoed and echoed in the cramped space.

“Thren,” Carr whispered, his features shadowed in the flickering torchlight. “Please, do whatever you want to me, but let them go. They had nothing to do with it, you know that. You know that!”

Tied to the opposite wall were Carr’s wife and son, and they both sniffled, crying from fear and uncertainty. Thren never looked their way. Instead he stood before Carr, let him see his body shaking with rage, let him see his control about to shatter.

And then Thren collapsed to his knees. He let his hardness break, let the anguish come pouring forth. As Carr watched in stunned silence, Thren beat against his legs, crying out Marion’s name again and again. Stumbling to his feet, he flung himself against a wall and smashed his fists against it, then slammed it with his forehead. He thought of Marion’s smile, her dazzling eyes. He remembered her body against his, every curve, every secret, all replaced by the ghost of a memory stolen away in Grayson’s hands. Thren never bothered to wipe away his tears, just let them flow down his face, down his chin.

At last his composure came to him, almost unwillingly. Using his sleeve, he brushed the snot from his nose, then walked over to Carr. The man sat on his rear, with his hands tied above him, and Thren knelt so they might stare eye to eye.

“Listen well,” Thren said after clearing his throat. “Tonight marks the end of your guild. Every Scorpion will die. Even those who left your guild to fly a cloak of a different color, they will die. Anyone who dares utter your name, or the name of your guild, will die. Twenty years from now, should a man be foolish enough to start a guild with the emblem of a Scorpion, I will crush his guild into the ground before it can last a week. Tonight you, and everything you accomplished, will cease to exist. Do you understand me, Carr?”

The man nodded, his jaw trembling.

Thren finally wiped at the tears that wetted his face, then held his hand out to Carr.

“I wanted you to see that,” Thren said, his voice so soft, so cold. “I wanted you to see the pain and anguish you’ve caused me. Marion was everything to me.
Everything.
My men may see me as hard, or calloused. Others will marvel at how I left her memory behind so easily. But you will know, Carr. You’ve seen it, seen every bit of my anguish.”

Thren grabbed Carr by the hair and pulled him close enough that he could whisper into his ear.

“And you’re about to feel that same pain and anguish, you stupid bastard. Because this isn’t about the dead. This isn’t about revenge. Not anymore. It’s about the
message
.”

He flung him back, rose to his feet. His tired, red-eyed gaze turned to Carr’s terrified family. No smile, no pleasure on his face. A sob came from Carr’s throat, yet the sound made no impact on Thren. Just a dullness in him now. A death.

“You’ll feel it,” Thren told the guildmaster. “I promise you, you’ll feel it. All that pain. All that agony.”

He drew his sword, approached the boy first.

“And I won’t have to lay a hand on you to do it.”

All throughout the night, Carr screamed and sobbed.

True to his word, Thren never laid a hand on him.

Thren checked his things once more as he paced within a room of his safe house. His older son, Randith, was out with the rest of his guild, preparing for his own meeting that night. Much as it worried him, Thren knew Randith was seventeen now, and needed to handle certain things on his own. That meant waiting instead of organizing things himself. That meant pacing and drumming his fingers on the hilts of his swords as the minutes crawled on by, instead of rallying his Spider Guild for a potential war.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Thren muttered, realizing just how nervous he was.

He went through a door leading to a modestly furnished bedroom, and was surprised to see his eight-year-old son, Aaron, standing there as if waiting for him. Thren raised an eyebrow, grunted.

“Yes?” he asked.

Aaron opened his mouth, closed it, and then looked to the ground. He was embarrassed about something, something he no doubt wanted to ask, but Thren didn’t have the patience to wait it out. He noticed a book in his son’s hand and he reached out and grabbed it. It was held open to a page with simple illustrations of a lioness and her cubs. It was a story Thren had seen his son reading multiple times, and he had a feeling as to why.

“I miss Mom,” Aaron said when Thren looked up from the page. Thren shut the book and let out a sigh.

“We all do,” he said, putting a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “But try not to let it overwhelm you.”

He tossed the book to the bed and turned to leave, thinking their conversation over. Ever since Marion’s death, Aaron had turned incredibly quiet and inward, rarely talking even with him. But it seemed that day was a day of surprises.

“Where are you going?” he asked before Thren could exit the door.

“I have things to do,” he said.

“Randith?”

Thren turned back, nodded.

“Randith too. Why do you ask?”

Aaron rubbed an arm, bit his lower lip.

“What am I for?”

The question was so odd, so unexpected, it startled Thren. Taking in a deep breath, he let it out, forcing himself to relax, forced his impatience away and tried to be honest with his son for once.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Aaron glanced away.

“You show Randith everything. You teach him every day. But not me. Why? What am I for?”

Thren crossed his arms, trying to decide on the right answer. Aaron was so young, but at times he seemed incredibly intelligent as well. Thren knew Randith might return anytime soon, but the mention of his beloved Marion had put a bit of nostalgia into his heart, and he sat down on the bed, gesturing for Aaron to sit beside him.

“I have some time to spare,” he said, “so let me tell you a story. Perhaps that will help.”

Aaron shifted in his seat and then hunched over, head rested on his hands, attentive. Thinking for a moment, Thren decided on the one he would tell.

“I was once told this story when I was younger,” he said. “When I was still being trained by the Darkhand. My version will be a little different, but still similar. It’s the story of the cloak and the spider.

“Years ago, when this land was still in its infancy, there was a man who’d been gifted with a cloak from a powerful wizard. The cloak made him wise, and made his life last for centuries. But this man had walked the land since its creation, and he was tired. Tired of the strife. Tired of watching his loved ones pass away while he continued on. So he rented a room from a farmer, and then in the middle of the night he stole away to the barn. There he built a fire, removed his cloak, and tossed it into the flames. The cloak burned to ash, and the man smiled, aged to dust, and then died.

“The cloak, however, did not burn completely. A tiny bit of it burned loose and floated on the wind, circling around the barn until it caught in the web of a small spider. That spider didn’t know what had happened, but he was suddenly aware now, far more wise than a simple spider should be. He looked at his little web and decided it could be bigger. It could be stronger. So the spider cast his web out farther, no longer taking up just a tiny little corner but instead larger and larger pieces of the roof.

“The farmer saw him building, and at first it just amused him. Spiders kept away the bugs, ate the flies, things he was never fond of anyway. But the spider continued to build, eating the little flies and moths and things that fly about. And he lived, lived far longer than a spider should have. He grew wiser, and he wrapped that piece of cloak into the very center of his web, knowing that it must be carefully protected, and that the spider must never leave his web. He also learned to strike fast, for the insects caught in his web would gain the same wisdom.

“So larger and larger the spider grew. He took a mate, one he loved dearly, and he made her a promise. So long as she remained safe in the heart of his web, he would spin her a creation so majestic she would understand how greatly he loved her. And so he did, crawling, spinning, until the farmer saw it and was afraid. But the spider was bigger now, the size of a fist, and the farmer was a cowardly man. He struck at his web at times, hacked parts of it with sticks should it get in his way, but he tried to ignore the spider, figuring surely the spider would soon die.”

“The farmer wasn’t wise, was he?” Aaron asked. Thren chuckled, but before he could answer he realized Aaron had leaned against him, the weight of his body pressing against his chest. It seemed strange, and he realized just how little contact he had with his own son. Clearing his throat, Thren began again, hiding his discomfort.

“No, he wasn’t,” Thren continued. “If he had been wise, he would have crushed the spider the moment he realized something was amiss. But he didn’t, and the spider grew and grew. He fed on bats and small birds, and everything made him larger. Soon the barn itself was wrapped entirely in his webs, and the farmer would not go there anymore. Larger birds, owls and hawks, began to get trapped within the web. But the spider was still not happy. He was hungry, so hungry. He cast his web to the ground, catching dogs, wolves, groundhogs, trapping them, wrapping them, feeding upon them. His legs grew larger, and each eye like the pit of a peach. Yet his mate remained small as she always was, resting peacefully in the heart of the web.

“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.”