Book 3: Sound And Fury

  Chapter 41 A Tale Told By An Idiot

  Foresthome valley almost sparkled in the bright, morning sunshine; basking in late summer abundance and glistening with dew. Cool breezes drifted up the slopes, carrying the scents of wildlands, campfires and a hint of distant coalsmoke from the city by the lake, so far away. On the lower slopes, thin streamers of smoke here and there picked out camps and cabins among the trees where woodsmen hunters or pioneers dwelt and labored among the woodlands. Closer to the lakeside town of humanoids, dwellings clustered more thickly until the streets of the small city took hold near the waterside.

  Down the long, baked clay road among the mountain passes, through the widely spaced coniferous forests of the foothills and into the rich woodlands of the valley below, a small troop of truly massive spiders marched. Their progress was heralded by the strumming of their greetings at the occasional human or humanoid they encountered along the way. Those hominids fled immediately, while emitting terrified noises and often leaving traces of their bodily fluids behind as they ran.

  Unsurprisingly, news of the approaching arachnid embassy flew faster ahead of them than a kingfisher on the wing. Every door and window was closed and barricaded, frightened residents hiding as a small group of walking nightmares crawled through the gate ward, headed for the portal into the walled town. Considering the reaction of the humans in general, only Kylie remained irrepressibly optimistic as they approached the walled settlement. “This is going to be awesome!” She danced a merry jig across the cobblestoned streets, her eight huge eyes taking in all the exotic, foreign sights.

  In a pleasantly surprising development, the town gate lay open for them; with one armored human waiting to greet the party of gigantic spiders. He made noises at them and bent himself in half briefly, before turning his back and leading them up to the stone structure on the hillside.

  As with the outer districts, the windows and doors remained firmly shut, hiding the terrified humans inside from the curious arachnids.

  Through the town and the palace gates, the tarantula, jumping wandering spiders all peered about with keen interest and deep excitement, which the locals seemed to interpret as terrifying and predatory hunger. None of them were familiar with arachnid body language, to be fair...

  Their solitary human guide led the four spiders up to the palace gate, through the courtyard and into the main hall. Architecture of stone and wood…

  Such things they had learned of in their exospecies sensitivity classes, but never seen in the carapace, before this. The vast, stonebuilt hall, covered with dead tree ‘rafters’ and crafted earthen ‘tiles’ was a wonder, the structure made far more sense than the noises produced by the human in elaborate armor, standing by the sooty alcove where many spiders believed humans actually allowed fire to burn in their homes. Currently there was no dangerous conflagration raging in the little stone nook, though some dead tree parts were laid there, in anticipation of just such an act of utter madness… “Humans… They are all deranged!” The black widow matron whispered through her harp of mammalian bones and hide, strung with her own silk.

  Nearly every interaction with exospecies, especially mammalians and particularly, hominids, could be fraught with peril and constant, often comical misunderstandings, even for experienced travelers of the realms.

  The current difficulty was a notoriously pernicious one; language. Few Arachneans had the talent and skill needed to emulate mammalian speech and only through a very few languages that fell within the limitations of the speaker’s instrument and ability.

  So far none of the humans encountered in the town understood a word from any of the idioms the team possessed, which was further aggravating the prickly widow matron by the minute.

  The human continued gesturing and speaking, though he made no sense at all, until finally, the widow had rudely turned away and clambered up a nearby wall to nest in the rafters.

  “I will remain here, until a being capable of civilized speech appears.” She announced firmly to her mortified subordinates, once she had a quick and comfy web strung up among the rafters.

  “Lady Finli’tichintch, this may be perceived as an insult, or even an attempt to seize control of, or dominate this structure.” Captain Thris, the wanderer whispered to the expedition leader; who was currently sulking in an upper corner of the room; like a spiderling who didn’t want to eat her trash-moth. “We should strive to be less… threatening, lady matron.”

  “Well, then you should crawl up here with me, so we present a unified message of non threatening patience.” She strummed her newly strung web with satisfaction. “If you build it, they will come.”

  Trying to convince a weaver to take active measures never went easily, just as the jumpers were notoriously impatient and cranky when forced to sit still. Of course, every-spider knew, deep inside that the only real answer to any of life’s problems could be found through careful exploration and a bit of strategically applied venom.

  The dissatisfaction of her underlings was plainly evident to the great matron of the widows as they began climbing, dutifully following her orders. “It’s not like they are civilized enough to be offended or anything.” The matron muttered sourly, while her team reluctantly climbed up to join her. “I just keep thinking that the human lord looks so… moist and tasty.”

  /

  Barry slipped into the palace through the servant’s low gate, which was conveniently located directly behind the stable. He passed over a small courtyard paved with immaculate slate flagstones and took a deep breath of the summer’s lingering scents. Typically, the stableyard would be the least desirable place to be in a castle court… But, when the count’s familiar is a colossal plant creature with a voracious appetite for anything moist and organic, no rubbish pile, privy pot or compost heap was safe from her hungry, invading tendrils.

  Barry fondly patted one of Audrey’s runners as he walked by, eliciting a soft, animal purr from the tiny monster. The little snapdragon had rooted herself firmly between the stones of the courtyard and stood ready to tidy up any horse leavings that might fall within her considerable reach. Her appetite for insect pests was equally voracious, which made her popular with all the people who dislike weevils, fleas, flies and mosquitoes… so, pretty much everyone. Audrey was widespread throughout the town now; with her colorful and friendly offshoots popping up around every barnyard, stable, feedlot and even among the canebrakes by the river.

  Each one was a semi autonomous replica of Audrey, an indivisible part of the creature that could regenerate the main plant body in a few hours, should she be destroyed in her current form. She purred again and rubbed against Harry’s legs as he passed, depositing some of her pollen and perfume on him, to mark her territory.

  “We’ll play hide and sneak in the woods soon. Be patient, darling.” He cooed softly at the little monster plant. “I gotta go… Uncle boss-man is waiting!”

  Through the servant’s door and up a long, winding staircase, Barry quietly slipped into the main hall from behind a tapestry in the corner. He peered around the cavernous chamber, lit by long, narrow windows in the stonework and a number of glowstone sconces around the walls.

  Of the supposed delegation there was no sign; just a worried looking count, seated at the head of the long table, all alone… “Uncle Liam?” He spoke softly, certain that the warrior count would hear. “I came to translate for you…”

  “Barry? Oh, thank the gods and spirits. I couldn’t handle your dad today.” The count gasped, tremendous relief evident in every syllable he spoke and the movements of his body.

  “Hey…!” The lad protested halfheartedly, with a sly wink at his uncle. “Can’t have a mad witch without the madness, uncle.”

  “It used to be my job to tell noblemen that…” The count smiled at his young nephew… or whatever. “It feels odd being on the receiving end.”

  “Where are our visitors?” Barry asked after a few more rounds of jackassery at the Fool’s expense. “I expected them to be here already.” In response, the count gestured to the shadowy rafters of the hall, high above their heads.

  In the corner above the main door, a cluster of dark forms lurked; dangling from silken lines or clinging to the rough stonework. Spiders… gigantic and terrifying, though at least two were familiar.

  “They tried communicating through musical instruments, but no one recognized the languages they use. After a few minutes they scurried up there and have been hanging around ever since.” Count Liam grumbled and griped. “I hope you have some ideas, Barry.”

  He rose from his chair and began to pace, striding up and down before the un-lit hearth. “It’s so socially awkward that I don’t even know where to begin!”

  “I swiped a toy or two from my pops on the way out the door… and I think that’s Kylie, up there; I know her already. Let me talk to them.” He declared firmly, gazing up at the group of eight legged creatures lurking in the corner with some amusement in his eyes.

  He strolled out into the center of the great hall and began to dance. He stepped his way through a sweeping, leaping performance while droning out an eerie noise through his mouth and nose.

  “Kylie, why don’t you come down and talk with me. The count is pretty unhappy with you already, so let’s try to keep things cordial.” He looked up at them, pausing his dance and relying on his voice alone. “You do seek cordial relations… Right?” He asked rather boldly. “We just ran off an interdimensional invasion attempt; I would hate to have to begin hostilities again so soon.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  /

  Lady Finli’tichintch barely noticed when another human entered the hall, until he spoke to the human lord… The vague, blurry, moving thing’s voice cut right through the stress and noise of the last few awful weeks. She’d heard that voice before, speaking the language of her people, on the homeworld!

  “That’s him!” She gasped softly. “The new, larger human is the pet of the Spinner in Darkness, Weaver in the Void, the property of divine lady Thirp herself! I must be the one to communicate with this being!”

  She bustled herself forward and slowly began to descend to the floor, her memories flashing back to that otherwise ordinary evening.

  This pink human had appeared without warning below her brood web, which she took to be an offering from a foolish male with high hopes and awful timing. The poor creatures were always so eager to enter her web, so mindlessly persistent in the way they constantly sought her attention, despite the inevitable results... Hunger roiled in her abdomen as her thoughts turned to the males of her species… She shook off her hunger and addressed the human as she dropped down.

  “No hostilities are desired… Barry Ward, human.” The huge, black widow spider strummed, as she alighted from her dropline directly in front of him. “We have met before… beloved pet of the divine lady Thirp.” She gasped in mingled wonder and awe.

  “Is that you, lady Finli? I can call you Finli… Right? Seems fair, since you wanted to eat me when we last met.” He boldly sassed the elephant sized widow matron, right to her venomous, fanged face. “And I’m no one’s pet! Thirp’s my auntie… She’s been a close friend of the family for years and years. I might Contract her someday, but I’m not her pet!”

  He sniffed at her, eying the colossal spider up and down. “I was talking to my friend, Kylie; until you butted in. I guess that means you’re her boss…”

  He sniffed again, which must signify something among humans… “That makes you the boss who told her and Thyla to prey on us, as if we were animals. That’s twice you’ve suggested eating me! You aren’t very good at diplomacy, are you?”

  “I am a cleric of great and mighty Aclintherios, all powerful Weaver of Fates!” She strummed harshly, sending her instrument slightly out of tune. “You will show me the proper respect, tiny human!”

  /

  Count Liam watched with rapidly growing worry, as his damned fool of a nephew dragged the spider emissary through the rhetorical thorny briar patch and back again up blackberry bramble road. He scolded, insinuated and abused the big black widow beyond mortal endurance, all in a language the count had no chance of comprehending; especially since much of it was in the form of interpretive dance, or expressed in notes beyond the range of human hearing.

  Liam knew that body language, though… In his youth, he’d watched the boys’ father humiliate nobles, demons and even divines in just the same way; often inciting them to sputtering rage with childish taunts and jibes… All for his own mad amusement.

  “Oh, sweet gods and spirits… I should have asked for Rio!” Liam muttered sourly, when Barry brought out his dad’s old magical banjo.

  /

  Barry let a small giggle of mischievous delight slip from his lips as he quickly double checked his tuning and settled the strap of braided wallow-bear hide over his shoulders. Ogre bone finger-picks and a thumb-pick of eldritch conch shell rattled over the head of possessed devil ray skin as he began to play a brain-rattling rendition of Creedence Clearwater’s classic, ‘Fortunate Son’.

  Just because he felt like shaking the walls a little to show the ‘proper respect’ to her ladyship.

  The Foggy Mountain Breakup, Enchanted banjo, Etheric and spiritual enchantments. Rank, copper. Rarity, Unique.

  Effect: That Dang Twang: All entities within audible range, even beings incapable of perceiving sound, or for whom the concept of sound is alien will perceive this instrument’s vibrations, when played by or near a source of etheric magic.

  The instrument’s enchantments went well beyond simply being impossible to ignore, even for entities unable to perceive sound. It was the noise factor he needed right now, he wanted something undeniable and absolutely insufferable for the sensitive, venomous creature.

  The young lad felt an almost painful draw on his Mana pool as the enchantments in the instrument began rapidly draining him dry. The limitations of his unranked mortal body became very clear, when the copper ranked banjo started hollowing him out from the inside. Before the musical engine of destruction could send him slumping to the floor in a heap of soiled laundry and loose limbs, Barry began the Ward brother’s secret art, the one even their folks couldn’t know about.

  Deep in his mind, where conscious thought and the less organized regions of the brain met and mingled, three gentle points of pressure lingered, pulsing softly glowing, full of life and energy. Harry, Larry and Perry lingered there, just beyond his waking mind, linked on to another in a way that was difficult to describe.

  With a subtle twist of his perceptions and a well practiced mental trick, life flooded into his pools; drawn from his brothers’ own internal reserves. In the same way, the burden of keeping the Foggy Mountain going strong lightened, as his brothers took up some of the load.

  Barry’s wandering mind hadn’t stopped the awesome one man classic rock show; nor did uncle Liam’s voice, when he called out to the lad, mid-chorus.

  “Barry… I’ve seen your father do this many times…” He spoke gently, his most soothing tone, one suitable for calming fools. “This is the part of the program where the outraged local lord tries to interrupt your show and gets humiliated by some dastardly prank or spell… I’m not going to fall for it, son.”

  “I’m literally just messing with them…” Barry gasped between bars of subversive lyrics. “My auntie Thirp snuck into my dreams and asked me to give her a hard time.”

  “Barry Ward… Did your father put you up to some prank?” The count demanded sharply.

  “You think he’d miss a chance to put on a show right now?” The boy scoffed during an extended solo that he shoehorned in to answer the lord. “Especially this show! He’s gonna be super-heated when he finds out! Hold on, this is where I reprise the track, but translated into Spider!”

  The song shifted into a tonal range that left the count’s ears ringing oddly as he directed his art at the spiders. The boy’s dance became just as obscure; he conveyed alien thoughts and ideas in a language never meant to hold them to a group that was unprepared to receive the information.

  /

  “Why is he telling us this odd tale of woe and poverty? This is very confusing!” The widow complained bitterly to her subordinates. “He was so clear and cogent before!”

  “I believe this is a performance of cultural significance, one intended to display peaceful intent, unless I miss my guess. He has repeatedly stressed that he is not of the affluent, militant, political or ruling castes.” Kylie whispered, while knitting notes on a long ribbon of undyed silk with her rearmost legs. “This is truly fascinating!”

  “I concur with your analysis, Adventurer Kylie…” Thris muttered, while appraising the yong human’s dance. He was getting a lot done with so few limbs; it was pretty impressive. It was like watching a fish climb a tree… surprising, unprecedented and so highly improbable as to beggar the imagination, even though they had come here for this very purpose.

  “Witnessing the art and hearing him through the woods are very different things.” Kylie crowed, with a smug tone and a cocky little bounce on her knees. Not actual laughter, but she was enjoying this to the fullest extent allowed by professional decorum; perhaps a smidge more than that, truth be told.

  /

  Back at the inn compound, the Wards and Daisybelle were introducing Gandree to the family training and cultivation methods; by blindfolding the lad and handing him obscure objects to describe. That was followed by exposing the still blindfolded dwarf to a wide range of prepared scent samples, then mixing them up and quizzing him relentlessly about each combined aroma.

  “All our senses can be honed to a higher degree, through this practice…” Amy lectured, during the extended scent trials. “It’s not so much that the senses grow stronger when utilized, but we learn to detect and interpret our senses through mindful study. Papa says he stole the idea from someone named Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze!”

  “Is that why you subjected me to that last… aroma?” Gandree asked, taking his lumps with good humor; at least so long as Daisybelle remained part of the game.

  “Oh, that was Larry! We had a bet, he was making wasabi pickled monster trout roe for lunch and didn’t wash up properly. When I called him out for being nasty, he claimed that I was just imagining it!” The girl in blue sang merrily. “Stinky boys, they’ll do anything to avoid taking a bath!”

  “I still think you coached him!” Larry complained, while heading for the baths in defeat.

  “Go on, smelly! Scat!” Amy jeered at her retreating younger brother.

  “Lunch is going to be salt grilled monster trout and assorted sides! I can’t wait!” She cooed, once the boy departed to wash up. “Has anybody seen dad?”

  “Basement.” Wilf muttered. “Making something weird. I'm not even allowed to see.”

  /

  In a dream place between the realms of mortals and the divine, a spider stood before the Hermit, towering mountain high and as vast as the unfathomable sea.

  The form of a man was his once more, wearing the clothes they had rolled him out of the convalescent hospital wearing. Second hand sneakers a size too small, sweatpants and a T-shirt from a boner pill company, declaring ‘Take Back your Power!’

  The form he wore was the one that faced the first day of his supposed new life; when the medical system handed him off to child services, with a mountain of medical bills and the shitty clothes on his back. Standing before this being, he felt naked and feeble as a newborn babe, but safe as that babe in his father’s arms… All eight of them.

  “Ah… A humanoid form! That is excellent progress, young spider. Your Will and Mind are expanding, as your powers matrix with the gifts I have bestowed on you. Soon you will be ready to become the next step in Arachnean evolution… The beginnings of true sentience for half of my children!” Aclintherios, the divine Weaver of Fate chortled happily over his newest follower.

  “Woah there, I’m not anybody’s science experiment!” Hermit called feebly to the divine being looming above him in the timeless, featureless void.

  “Yes, my child, you are, you all are, but not my experiment. I am simply here to watch what develops, as you become fully Arachnean and write yourself into the Akashic Record of my children.” He sighed and settled down, shrinking rapidly to a more manageable kaiju size for the discussion.

  “I am not truly a god of the Arachneans… I am in fact one of the great fae; the former rulers of the world your brother the Fool fell to. I fled to Arachnea and became the god of the sentients here, to save them and myself from extinction, many long ages ago.” He sighed, in the way a divine god spider the size of an office block sighs, gustily and without breath.

  “Before man ever became the masters of the deadworld, before the dryads cultivated humanity into what they became, I left to nurture these children. A task at which I have failed, until now! You are the key, a sentient male of my children’s kin and an isekai soul from the deadworld!” He bobbed on his knees in glee, as many spider clans did.

  “Peace, young spider… I did not instigate this in any way, I am simply seeking to guide you… and my children as a whole, into a better future, now that you have become one of mine, fully.”

  “What does that mean?” He demanded, while the divine being slowly faded and became diffuse.

  “You are waking now, my child… Seek out the human count of the human domain; he and his mate have vital information for you.” Aclintherios whispered softly as Hermit woke.

  Gary Ward, former human, was once more a gigantic, terrifying spider, clinging to a rock wall high above the valley in the realm of the fae; many, many centuries after his natural, human death on earth in a truck accident. After that trauma, he then spent four years as an undying crippled revenant, walking the earth leaving the uncanny and weird in his wake.

  Some freak accident of metaphysics had refused to allow him to die decently; instead hurling him back into his body, pouring magic from his undead aura, into a world that could not express or interact with those energies. The result was a crippled, mangled boy, shambling through the world emitting eldritch radiations; until the void swallowed him again, one summer evening.

  He’d gone from riding a rusty, busty bike down a rural road, to falling from a terrible height on a slender thread of silk, in the body of a gigantic peacock jumping spider. Three hundred years or so, he’d lived this way… all alone in the wilderness. Other people either fled, attacked or hunted him on sight; which was pretty understandable, since he was objectively, a walking nightmare.

  The Tarots were family, but even with them, he was an oddity among oddities; the outsider, even among outcasts. They could mostly pass as humans even in close quarters, something he never could do. Even Strength and Ghnash had a better shot at being mistaken for a person than he did.

  Sulking and pissing about in the sunshine wasn’t going to help anything… and he had divine advice to follow. With a sour and unhappy sigh, Hermit began clambering down the mountainside; headed for the palace above the lake.

  /