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Dusk listened, and waited, and upon waiting, came hunger. It had been hours too long since he last ate. He had been given water in a larger box but his food was dust and ants. Instead he heard the hammering of iron and wood, all throughout the night, and when it was done they put him in a larger box. When he looked up, he could see the flaps of the tent through hundreds of the tiny holes of iron.
The skies in this world did not exist; it was black and high, but it had a ceiling that no men had ever risen to endevour reaching. When the dawn of the morning came, the world basked in soft light carpeting the entire ceiling of the world. It was ever cold, and the only warmth was the heat of the fire that men revered.
It was in this morning that Dusk found himself in a carriage. And, during their travels, Claudius stepped inside. He looked around, opened the shutters, and placed the large box on the seat so it faced the light. Finally, he plopped a small heat stone inside.
Dusk inspected it. He liked its warmth. He wondered if they were ever going to kill him, but he had lost his strength to think about it.
“Captain. Here, please. Thank you. Now,” the giant loomed over him. “What am I to do with you? You don’t eat grass or fruits or vegetables, we can be certain of that. But what kind of meat?”
Blood dripped down to the iron bars and splattered on the wood. Dusk, with all his hunger, rushed over it and drank eagerly. A small cube of flesh dropped down. It was unlike hard shells and venomous meat. This was more appetizing. When it was gone, he looked up, raised a limb, and sprayed some of his pheromones.
“Can you understand me?” Claudius asked eagerly.
Dusk sent more pheromones, but he was not responding in kind. Claudius looked disappointed, though there was no way to tell in the shadows.
He took another cube and held it up until Dusk could see it. “Sit,” he commanded. And when Dusk didn’t respond, he took a stick with a flat end and prodded Dusk with it. “Sit,” he said again.
Instead of sitting, or resting, as spiders did, Dusk recoiled and tried to escape the iron rod but was flattened instead.
“This isn’t working,” Claudius said, frustrated. “Let’s try this again. Doctor! Here. Yes, I want it now. Where are my gloves?”
Claudius opened the iron cage. Cautious, Dusk did not move from his spot. He remembered vividly of an insect Dawn played with. He would set up traps to enclose an insect and she would play with it. But it bored her. So he thought of an idea: leave a hole so the insect could escape. Dawn would chase her prey with delight. He always did it since.
“Good,” Claudius said approvingly. “You’re cautious.”
Doctor Hamill stepped into the carriage sometimes later. He brought with him a wooden box, and when he spoke, it was a voice as old as milk. “It is a hard catch, my lord. Far too dangerous. But the men believed the weaver to be our saving grace. Their desperation drove them to hunt this, and more demonic creatures. They are fascinating creatures.” He placed the boxes beside him. “A Crying Mantis. Spectral Centipede. Venomancer Slug.” He smiled then, and it creased his old skin in layers. “During their hunt, a death spider bit a man’s finger. He would have died had we not cut his finger off immediately. It saved his life.”
“We have wine left in our storage. Give him a bottle for his sacrifice, and another bottle for the rest of the men.”
The doctor nodded. “A wise decision, my lord.”
Claudius put the wooden box inside. Something scratched and screeched, and it made Dusk nervous. And then the noise stopped, and something peered through the peephole. Dusk backed away cautiously.
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“It’s a death spider, my lord,” Doctor Hamill’s milky voice barely reached his ears. “It can kill a grown man with its venom in under ten minutes. I have seen a village be its breeding grounds. It was a curious study.”
“You studied these things?”
“Yes. There were some who lived its poison. Diagnosis became much easier for it. I learned that death spiders must be burned to be killed—its hard shells can withstand a stomp of a boot and come out unscathed. Its mandibles snaps to crack hard shells. It is very painful if you let it close enough. It’s smaller than the weaver, but it is fierce.”
“Can the weaver survive this?”
“If it is adequately equipped.”
“Doctor. I’m certain you understand, but I want this made clear. I do not want the weaver dead.The silkam soldiers won’t piss themselves and die seeing a weaver’s corpse.”
“No, my lord,” he smiled. “Infant weavers are different. Their soul, which is still foreign, is as easily transferred to their predators. The death spider may serve you better. It may not. In such cases, the stronger spider will survive.”
“Have you seen this phenomenons happen?”
The doctor’s milky eyes seemed to looked through him, somewhere beyond. “More than what was necessary, my lord. And in monstrous effects, when apparition souls are scattered like blackwheat on fields.”
His answer pleased Claudius, who closed the iron cage shut and prodded the wooden box inside. “I’ll let the little weaver place its traps. Then we’ll begin.”
It didn’t take long. The little death spider must have pushed the contraption by itself, and the box wall loosed with a thump on wood. Dusk stayed in one spot and did not move, for there was no other space he could spare himself than against the wall. The death spider, after sensing it, now after seeing it, would be his executioner.
The death spider was hungry. She had not eaten for too long, and when giants caught her, they placed her in a box inside a box, with a weaver. She had no notions of what a weaver was—her intelligence was far too meagre. But she had been a hunter in the wild swamps where she had been prey by other monstrous insects. The weaver glowed blue at its back, it was bigger, it had set up thick strands of webs that she could barely see it, and it was eerily still. Too still, she thought, so she had not moved from the box. She was very, very terrified.
Dusk was utterly terrified. He watched the blood red eyes inside the box that refused to move. He knew the look. He had seen it many times when Dawn was hungry, when they could not hunt, and she would stare at him in his cocoon and drool. It unnerved him.
The death spider inched forward, using her front limbs to saw across the thick strands. The weaver had not moved. She did it again, backed away, and picked her away across the webs. She wondered if there was ever a way to hold off their fight. Surely the weaver could spare her?
Dusk concluded she was cautious, and smart, and intelligent. His only saving grace was his wit, and Dawn had kept him near her for it.
Suddenly, the carriage rocked the two spiders mid-air. The foul stench of the swamp reached inside, forcing Claudius and the doctor to shut off their shutters. Dusk found the intelligence he’d never thought he’d muster, and the courage, when he screeched suddenly that made the death spider lower itself to be more defensive, and he forced two of his back limbs to pierce the joint of one of his middle limbs, that it snapped and limped on the ground. He bit his own leg, skittered closer to the death spider, and dropped his limb. He pushed it forward.
”What?” Claudius said.
Dusk sprayed her a small portion of his pheromones. An invitation. In his mind, it was an a plea to be spared.
Facing the enormous spider, the death spider gaped in silence. So little of her soul tried to decode this action and what prompted it. Finally, an answer came first before others: eat the limb. She ate it eagerly. A fraction of the specter’s soul flowed through her mouth directly to her soul like thunder. Then, and only then, she understood why the weaver offered it, as foreign as it may be. He gave her a part of his power so she could serve him. This new, soft feeling of her soul expanding, and she was ever so grateful for it. She sprayed her pheromones eagerly, then backed away with respect and with awe.
”What?” Claudius said.
Dusk hoped this pleased her, and must have, when she—and it was a she—sprayed pheromones on him. He was grateful for his quick thinking, and he thought he finally had an answer. Food solves everything. He would feed this death spider as much as Dawn would’ve wanted so her stomach could always be full, so she could turn her eye away from eating.
Claudius looked at the spiders, then at the doctor. “Might there be an explanation for this?” He asked.
The doctor answered meekly. “Weavers are intelligent, my lord. No doubt some passing conversation happened that we did not know.”
“And the death spider?”
He nodded. “A fraction of the weaver.” Then, creasing his eyebrows, he said uncertainly, “Might be best we keep them for inspection.”
“Indeed,” Claudius said, rubbing his forehead. “Indeed we should.”