Silk

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All together Amyag said “Your unborn child is marked.  I heard them say.  The scarlet silk is laid.  The web mother prepares to lay her eggs.”

Tears broke out upon Roku’s face as she stroked the firm, white bristles along Amyag’s back.  The spider was fully upon her, his legs wrapped about her and reaching from a belly swollen with child to shoulders thin as icicles caught in a winter web.  Amyag’s two great, amber eyes stared into Roku’s while the kite spider’s four simple orbs scanned the web.  Becca and Shou were nearby, young arachnids too shy to embrace their mistress when tears turned to sobs out along the edge of the Mislang web.

“Is that it then?” Roku asked, her voice breaking.  “It can’t be so.  My father will not allow it!  My son is no sacrifice.”

“It is your first,” said Amyag.  “Your mate says there will be others.”

“He lied to me!”  In that instant, Roku could no more conceive of being touched again by the man her father had chosen for her than being branded as outlaw and thrown from the web. 

“Miss, what are you doing down there?” called a human voice from above.

Roku looked up.  The Mislang web rose in a great diamond shape above her, like a city floating in the sky.  She was hanging upside down, along some of the last guy wires before the silken cables joined together into one of the twelve tensioned braids that joined the Mislang web to its anchor points in the sky. 

Roku knew all about such things.  Her father was an architect, a mage who fashioned anchor points and skyhooks for the web cities, setting them deep in the interstices behind the sky itself.  Let them anger him and he would make the whole of Mislang go crashing into the hell below the clouds! 

“Miss, you need to come up now.”  It was a guard dressed in dark silks, a small crossbow at his belt.  He stood at the rail of the access walkway circling the downward facet of the city web.  At his sides, peeking over the gray-rimmed railing were two jumping spiders, each the size of a small boy.  He sent one over the edge.

“Gela is sure-footed.  He’ll spin you a strand and you hold on while we pull you up.”

“Officer, I’m not in trouble.  Thanks.  I’m a flyer, and we’re here to practice.”  As the jumping spider approached, all glittering and green, Amyag left his mistress to block the way.  When the spider of the law got within a dozen feet, Amyag hissed a warning.  His fangs showed the slightest wetness of venom.  The jumping spider stopped and looked back for orders.

The officer leaned over as if trying to get a better look at the young woman who hung upside down beneath him.

“Miss, by the look of it, you’re in no shape to be flying anywhere, and this is no launching web.  Now, if you don’t want this to go any further, just come up from there and we’ll get you back home.”

“Becca, Shou!” Roku brought her apprentice web spinners to attention.  “Spin us a kite.  A glider sail, ridged wing style.  Amyag will help if he can.  Big enough for us all.”  The two young kite spiders looked at each other, hesitant, waiting for one to take the lead.  “Now!” Roku insisted, and at last Becca put her spinnerets into action.

As she directed her small crew, Roku pulled herself up along the thick guy wires to face the officer directly. 

“Officer, I’m Roku, wing leader of last year’s Star Riders.  My husband is Ars-Pentax of the Mislang Council.  My father is—“

“Miss, it doesn’t matter who you are; you can’t launch a kite down here in the anchors, and I can see you’re in no condition to fly.  Stay right where you are while I summon your husband.”  As the guard disappeared, he sent the second jumping spider over the edge to reinforce the first. 

Amyag raised his front arms as if ready for a fight and dripped true venom from his fangs.   An experienced kite maker, Amyag was able to back up carefully and feed silk from his spinnerets to Becca and Shou, all the while looking as threatening as he could to the approaching greenbacks.

Roku began her spell even as the first of her spiders’ silk hit the air.  She was channeling her kai, that aura of magic centered in her middle and without which the spider threads would remain only silk.  As others were adept at fashioning clothes, hardening the soles of silken boots, or crafting weatherproof skeins for the building of palaces and portals, Roku was a practiced flyer.  She used her magic to help shape the kites that allowed transport between the webs, and she had captained more than one racing team in her days upon the wind.

When she held out her hands, sparks flew from Roku’s fingertips, firming up the first wing pattern Becca and Shou had laid down.  As she ran her glowing hands across the wing, she felt the child within her stir, its unborn will rising to the beat of the magic in play. 

“Not now, sweet one,” Roku whispered.  He was draining her, playfully suckling on the threads of magic as they pulsed out from the center of her being.  She breathed deep, putting her reserves into the billowing silk to compensate.

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Silk
Copyright © 2010 by Scot Noel

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