The moon loomed in the sky outside the window, a thick crescent closing in on half full, and the spider and its web were back again. Soft whimpers rippled through the air, barely audible to him as he examined it, looking for differences in its construct from the st time he had seen it. He noticed nothing out of pce, but then, his recollection of it was less than trustworthy. Having nothing with which to record its shape, he had nothing reliable to compare it to, only his memory.
The spider’s legs twitched, its abdomen contracting and expanding, seemingly with the bor of breathing, and words in that peculiar nguage broke through the whimpering on occasion, words filled with quiet rage.
He watched the spider twitching in its web, the way its mandibles pyed against the strings, reached for it as if to take the fat, ugly thing into his palm. The urge lingered, though he was not brave enough to do it in truth. Whether his imagination pyed tricks on him, or that spider was there, present and in this pitiful state, he did not think it wise to take it from its home, did not know if this creature had venom. If it was capable of harming him.
He listened to those whispered curses, and wondered at what they meant. A question formed on his lips, and he spoke it into the ether, only half convinced he would receive an answer, anticipating silence.
“Why do you keep coming back?” he asked.
The spider’s mandibles stopped moving. Its legs stilled. Its abdomen clenched tight and rexed as it sat there.
“Why do you care?”
“It’s just…well I see you there struggling every few nights now. Almost every night really. I think the one time I haven’t was the night of the new moon.”
“I do not like the dark.” He said. “It hunts me.”
“But you keep coming back to this window. There must be a reason.”
The spider, he was convinced that voice belonged to it, grumbled something under its breath. Something that defied his understanding.It’s mandibles twitched, hooked around a silken thread.
“What kind of spider makes bck threads, anyway?” he said.
“You can see me?” the spider asked with a tone of surprise.
“Of course I can. Is that strange?”
“It is…exceedingly uncommon. Can you see others?”
“I don’t know. I suppose not.” He kept his voice low, so that if anyone in the nearest bunks awoke, they would not hear him. He hoped they wouldn’t. They’ll think I’m insane. He wasn’t convinced they’d be wrong.
“Actually, now I think about it, I had an imaginary friend when I was younger, I think. The memory is hazy, but I have the impression I once knew a weasel. He had a funny name, too. Used to talk to me, not unlike you do. My older brother….”
His mouth clicked shut.
“Is something wrong.”
“Just…I don’t have an older brother. At least, not that I know of. But I recall a face.” He rubbed the palms of his hands against his cheeks, his gaze shifting to the ever watchful moon.
“There are those in this pace with power over memory.” The spider said. “They are few. They should not be here at all.”
“Like Watchers? Those people from the story books?”
“Precisely those. People who bear witness to the deep reaches of the mind, who manipute memory.”
“Where are they? I thought they were outwed.”“It is hard to eradicate what is given by birthright with simple words on paper. They are here. They should not be. They nonetheless are.”
“How many?”
“Twelve, currently. There have been more and fewer in the past.”
Lance’s thoughts hung on that for a moment. He asked the question that seemed most obvious; hoping, at the same time, to distract from that peculiar sense of a family he had no connection to, that he thought he might only be beginning to remember.
They had brought him here, his parents. Perhaps he shared some retion with another servant, and if he did, the connection was lost in early childhood. If it was so, there was little point perseverating over it. It did not change much anyway.
“Have you visited other parts of the pace?”
“I have known all parts of this pace save two, which possess a poison to me in their midst. I avoid those pces. The Watchers are in one of them, I think. I have seen them smuggled into the pace in crates meant to conceal them, but each time I witness their arrival, I am blocked from seeing where they go.”
“I wonder.”
The spider’s limbs drew inward compulsively, its thorax bowing toward its abdomen.
“I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL KILL YOU ALL!” it bellowed.
“Shh.” Lance said. “Someone will hear you.”
“I promise you they will not. They are immune to the sound of my voice. Have been…” it groaned, its body unfolding. “…for generations.”
“Really, what are you?”
“I am a spirit. Of the elements. One in particur. But I have told you this in so many words. Remember, I set you to a task.”
“The riddle.”
“Yes.”
“I forgot. I’m sorry.”
“You recall the words I spoke.”
“Well yes. For the most part. I’ve just been distracted. I haven’t put much thought into it recently. But I think if you can see so far into the pace, you must know every corner of it, right?”
“Every corner. Every dark thought and whispered curse ever uttered within it. All exists in my domain.”
“Every…dark…” Lance mumbled. “Can I ask you something? Apart from knowing you, what happens if I guess the answer to that riddle?”
“I suppose you will have made a friend. The beginning of a friendship anyway. I may see fit to help you in your endeavors, if you do not force me to serve you.”
“I can do that?”
“I advise against it. Pulling on me would only cause me pain, and I would resent you for it.”
“But you would help me if I asked you to. If I knew what you were.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been wondering something. You see, one of my friends has been absent. I haven’t been able to find her. I suppose I could look harder, but with you knowing so much about this pce, maybe it would be easier if I asked you to help me instead.”
“I may be so inclined.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“There is no one in this pace I cannot see. At least, no one I haven’t seen before.”
“Alright. Well I’ve been thinking.” He said, observing the web. Its peculiar makeup, the threads all cast in silhouette, inviting notions of the very darkness the spirit would cim to hate. “And maybe I’d have gotten it wrong if not for something you just said. That thing about dark thoughts and whispers.
“There is a pce I’ve been that has something like that. They call it the Dark Heart. And if that pce belongs to you, I think maybe…well, maybe you’re a shadow.”
“I am all shadows, boy. All of them. I am the pure essence of shadow. And my name is Lothor.”
“Lothor.” Lance whispered. At once his shadow stretched across the bed, pooled against the mattress behind him, and deepened from its usual shade to matte bck. Cold washed over his back, and he twisted round to see the offending portal clear before his eyes, a vacuous pool hugging the contours of his body, which drove animal fear into him.
“Get it away! Make it stop!”
“The word is zente.” Lothor said. “It means end. You need only speak it.”
“Zente. Zente!”
The peculiar sensation fell away, and with it his shadow retracted, the shade of it lightening rapidly.
“You know I could be executed for knowing you. Knowing…knowing how to do that.”
“There are others here who can do the same, though the names they know are different. Most of those share kinship with fire, though some do entertain a spirit of air.”
“O-okay.”
“You have a request of me. To find this friend.”
“Y-yes. If you could.”
“I will try.”
“Thank you, um…if I say your name again, will that happen…will it happen every time?”
“Simply speak the command together with my name, and I will come to you.” Lothor expined. “But you must learn to command my power in truth if you are to resist the dark hearts of mortal beings who guard me. Now, this friend. What is its name?”
“Her name is Sami. She works in the armory. She has strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s tall. Not as tall as me. Maybe a head shorter.
But tall for a woman anyway.”
“I will see to it you know where she is.” He said. “But rest. A first calling is hard on the soul. You must sleep.”
