“But not impossible for you to meet.”
“We are the judge of what is possible and what is not. And if we were to pay, what will you do with our young men?”
“Sell them for what we want.”
“And what would happen to our young men?”
“They will be sent to work some place far away, and never return.”
“If that happens, we will never see our young men again.”
“Do you ask to see again the grain, or the goat, or the pot you traded away last season?”
Spider had never heard of such a thing. He understood what everyone of the land knew, that wealth was counted in obligations a man was owed. He wondered, how could debt be settled by sacrificing the very thing that made a man wealthy? Give away enough young men, and soon there would be no one for the Big Men to call on for tribute, or service, or sustenance. Bonds forged by satisfying needs and appetites would vanish as debt and debtor were sold off to strangers. The web of dependency and power on which Spider danced would collapse!
It was the kind of scheme Spider himself might have designed, thinking himself clever. The kind of scheme he sometimes came to regret.
As shouts and screams erupted, Spider decided to act. No one on either side of the argument appeared as clever as himself, since both groups had gone from words to blows. Spider crept closer to the battle, hoping to discover who was responsible for changing how and why bargains were made. And to steal something of value from fighters knocked out in the fray.
The battle swung back and forth and suddenly ran over him. Fists and limbs and sticks and clubs flew one way and another. Then there was quiet, and the men from the victorious village took Spider prisoner, tied him up and roped him with a string of other captives from the losing group.
“Off to market you go,” the Big Man told him with a smile. Spider decided that was not a bad idea, for he still wanted to meet the trickster responsible for passing off such a scheme on his neighbors. Here was a chance to learn a new trick or two. And there was always the challenge of deceiving someone who thought himself more cunning than Spider.
His captors led Spider far from the villages of his choice. Under the thick canopy of a forest, men marked by foreign tribal scars welcomed them with strange speech. Spider’s captors bargained until darkness wove the branches over their heads into the blanket of night.
At last, the new men gave Spider’s captors a bundle of sticks with metal heads whose strength and sharpness he had never before seen. Spider and the other men bound with him were given over to the new traders, who roped them with strings of other captives. During the celebration that followed, Spider slipped out of his bonds for a short while, stole the metal-headed sticks and replaced them with sticks with heads of stone.
The next morning, the two groups parted company. The new men led Spider and his fellow captives through hills and valleys until they came upon a different people. Once again, Spider and his company were handed over, this time for bags of pale flour. Once again, Spider was thrown into an even larger gathering of captives. During the night’s celebration, Spider shrugged and his bindings fell. He stole the powder and replaced it with dirt.
In the morning, the groups parted company. Spider and his fellow captives were led across rivers and swamps until they came upon a town by the sea. An old man struggled to free himself from the string of captives, shouting they were all being sold to the Lord of the Dead.
“His followers are pale,” the elder yelled, “and they will take us across the water where the dead wander. Our bodies will be crushed, and from our flesh they will squeeze the oil they use to cook their food. From our blood they will make the red wine they drink. Our broken bones they will grind to powder that turns to fire in their iron tubes.”
The old man wailed, and the despair in his voice brought a moan to the lips of all the captives. Even Spider, for a moment.
A group of men came out of the town, and Spider saw they were indeed pale, and not like any men he had seen before. Their dress, manner and speech marked them as from a world Spider never knew. They handed bundles of shell money to Spider’s captors. The strings of captives were given over. Spider was led into town. There was no celebration, which suited Spider. He did not want to steal shells.
Spider and his company were brought to pens and crowded together like herds of animals. One by one they were branded, their ritual scars defaced by the town’s sign. When Spider’s turn came, he asked the man in charge:
“Why do you chain and brand us? If you want our labor, can we not strike a deal and both gain in the bargain?”
“Does a human ask permission of a horse to ride him?” replied the man in charge. “Does a human beg a cow for milk, or ask forgiveness of a pig for taking its flesh?” He cracked his whip across Spider’s back.
Spider flinched. “But we are not beasts.”
Again the whip cracked. “You are naked.”
Spider shuddered. “The cloth I wear is enough to protect me.”
Once more, the whip cracked. “You stink.”
Spider’s body shook as blood trickled down his back. “Surely not as badly as you, in the sweat-drenched layers that hide your shame.”
The whip cracked a third time. “You live among beasts, like beasts.”
Spider fell to his knees in a pool of his own blood and tears. “We live as we choose, as our customs and spirit tell us to live. But you do not understand, do you, whipmaster? Let me prove we are no different from you.” The old excitement coursed through Spider, easing the pain of his punishment slightly, as a plan blossomed in his thoughts. “I’ll wager freedom against service. Already, you hear that I can speak your tongue. I will wear your clothes, use your tools, balance your ledgers. I will take the blessing of your god, and worship in your temple, and you will see your god loves me as my own creator in the sky loves me, for I am made no different than you.”
“A beast taught tricks and dressed like its master is still a beast. Besides, how can beasts wager with men? Such a thing does not belong in the natural order of life.”
The man’s assistants rushed forward and burned the town’s mark in Spider’s flesh. Others placed a collar of iron around Spider’s neck, dragged him back to the pens, and chained him to men from tribes which had no name for him.
Lost among strangers, Spider sat stunned by the failure of his trick. What kind of men were these, who did not tumble before his wit and charm and cunning? He was used to being punished when caught stealing or making a fool out of a man, but not before he enjoyed his prize, or the fool was already made. He considered the problem.
That night, Spider slipped out of his shredded skin and into a fresh coat. The wounds he had suffered to his body healed. The cuts to his pride remained open. The sea’s waves crashed onto shore, carrying the cries of captives trapped in the darkness of ship holds and in the fields of strange lands. From his place of hiding, Spider took out the sharp metal-headed sticks and gave them to his fellow captives.
“Rise with me,” he told them, “and show these servants of the Lord of the Dead that the living are not prey, but lions with strength and courage. Show them how we bury the dead, and keep the spirits of evil from our houses.”
From the pens rose a roar that shook stars from the sky. Walls fell. A tide of sharp-edged rage spilled over brick and wood and flowed towards the town. Voices rose in alarm, and the darkness in front of Spider seethed with lights and motion.
Then the night shattered with a hundred lightning bursts, and thunder cracked, drowning the sound of chains rattling and lions roaring. A hail of angry hornets flew past Spider’s ear. Men fell, dragging Spider down with them. Lightning flashed again, like the eyes of demons opening and closing. Thunder boomed over him, and clouds of acrid smoke chased after the sound. Men screamed. Blood flowed into the earth. Plumes of fire lit the ships waiting in the harbor. The keening of spirits filled the air. Then the earth trembled and split and swallowed men whole.
««—»
»
Men with whips and iron tubes picked among the bodies, killing the crippled, taking the living and wounded back to the pens in chains. Spider went along with the rest, once again shocked that his trick had failed. How could he have known the monster’s strength matched its terrible appetite?
The next morning, Spider was taken to the market, the destiny his first captor had promised him. Men inspected him, probing his mouth and prodding his arms and back. When men began haggling over prices, pointing to wounds suffered by one or another prisoner, Spider regretted not stealing shell money when he had the chance. What a fine trick it might have been to join the bidding and win freedom for himself and his fellow prisoners. But as the whipmaster dragged him off to be branded once more, this time with the mark of his new owner, Spider realized his bid and money would not have been accepted. He could hear the mocking reply: a beast cannot buy its freedom, especially when there is work to be done. The vast monster’s blindness cast his mood in such darkness that he barely smiled when the whipmaster was himself whipped because Spider’s first brand had disappeared.
That night, Spider slipped out of his bruised and branded skin and into a fresh coat. He discovered a wound to his soul was keeping company with the one to his pride. He listened as waves crashed on shore, carrying with them the drowning cries of neighbors lost to the sea. From his place of hiding, Spider took out the flour and tried to give it to his fellow prisoners.
“Join me,” he told them, “and show these servants of the Lord of the Dead that they cannot use the living to do the work they themselves are too weak to do. Cover yourselves with the powder so you will seem like the men who keep us. Carry your chains, follow me over the walls. I will guide you, and together we will walk like the chameleon.”
Spider stood and, after showering the flour over himself, became as pale as the moon. No one joined him. He stepped out of his chains and went to the pen wall. No one followed him. Those who had survived the previous night’s slaughter looked away as he climbed out.
“Are you afraid of freedom?” Spider asked them.
“When we see it, we will tell you,” a broken voice answered.
Spider left them behind and walked past guards, who saw only a flash of white. He made his way into the trees. He ran, feet barely touching the ground so no one could track him. He thought himself free.
Laughter and song from the town and ships stopped him. He looked back. Lights, like the many eyes of a monster, flickered with amusement. The wounds to his pride and soul deepened as he imagined the monster taunting him with a trick well-played. Run to your freedom, the monster seemed to say. Leave these worthless souls to me.
But no drums filled the night air with talk between one village and the next. No stories were being told around hearth fires. Instead, the breeze brought Spider the clink of shell money, the cries of battle, the clang of new chains being forged. An insatiable monster was devouring the freedom in the land he had assumed would always be his.
The truth struck him. These new men were afraid of the world and their place in it. They did not know how to appease the demons haunting them, or settle the restless spirits living among them. They were blind to the ways of the world because they feared it, and blindness fed their terror.
Spider understood that they were blind, as well, to wonders not of their making or under their control. Their eyes were pinched shut by the desire to overcome what they perceived to be greater than themselves, for in that greatness they found dread. The sea, the sky, the land, all were enemies to be conquered and used. Prisoners to their clever instruments of power like their killing iron tubes and the sea-spanning vessels in the harbor, the new men took comfort in the vision of a world filled with material wealth theirs for the taking. They dared not risk the moment’s gain for the rewards of kinship with other men and higher forces. Such sentiments only frightened them.
And as long as illusions of power separated these new men from the feeling that drove them, he could not use that passion against them in his play. But the game was not over. Was he not Spider, surely filled with wit enough to best a mere monster?
Spider returned to the pens and placed himself back in chains. He stared at the monster he had dared challenge, searching for a way to heal his pride and win back his soul.
The next day, the captives were divided according to brands. Voices rose in anger over Spider’s missing brand, but he gained no satisfaction from the momentary confusion. Soon enough, he was marked again, brought to a ship and quartered below decks with the other captives who lay on their backs on narrow shelves piled one atop the other. The sweat and sorrow of many passages rose out of the wood to choke him. The ship moved before the wind’s breath, rocked in rhythm to the sea’s restless motion.
He thought of men’s eyes blinded by fear to his tricks and illusions. That night, he kept his skin with its mark of ownership. His wounds festered. Waves and wind brought the songs of captives from the other side of the sea, where the old man had said only the dead wander. The songs were driven by the pounding beat of ceaseless labor, and were filled with pain and loneliness. And hope.
Spider spoke to no one. He bit his tongue and lips until blood ran from his mouth. He pressed and rubbed his face against wood, letting the rough grain pit and peel back skin.
“What are you doing?” asked a man across the aisle.
“I am coming down with a terrible illness,” Spider replied, grinning broadly. He worked a splinter loose and used it to prick bloody holes all over his body.
“The owners will only throw you overboard if they think you’ll infect the rest of us,” said another man.
“But what if we’re all infected already?” Spider asked. He moaned softly and rubbed his stomach. “Can the owners throw us all overboard? Will they dare?” He coughed up phlegm, which he mixed with the blood in his mouth and sprayed liberally across the aisle. “Do we care if they do?” he whispered.
For a while, Spider’s low moans and occasional coughs were the only sound in the hold. Then someone else coughed. A leg iron thumped against wood as someone’s leg trembled. The smell of blood, and piss, and shit grew thick in the hold.
“I think a plague has come to curse our owners,” Spider said.
Laughter rippled through the night.
Guards came down to the hold in the morning with food. They were greeted by a chorus of wails and moans. Captives vomited at their feet, clutched at their leggings, bled on their flesh.
Spider crawled to where the guards stood, frozen in place. “Help me, “ he cried out, rattling his chains while he trembled as if seized by fever.
The guards retreated back up the stairs. The shock and wonder in their eyes drained away, leaving a glaze of terror over the emptiness that remained. Spider reached out to them, bloody foam on his lips. “Help us,” he pleaded.
The master of the ship pushed the stunned guards aside and inspected the hold from the top of the stairs. He wrinkled his nose at the stench, turned to the guards, and pointed at his cargo.
“Go down there and clean that filth out,” the master said.
“They’re dying,” said one guard.
“It’s the plague,” said another.
Spider put a hand on the bottom step and drew himself forward, reaching for the light, and for the ship’s master. Behind him, the others massed, weeping with imagined suffering.
“Throw the lot overboard,” the ship’s master commanded. “We’ll go back to port. Those thieves won’t get away with selling us spoiled merchandise.”
“I’m not touching them,” replied a guard.
“We’ll catch what they have,” replied another.
“Then shoot the poor beasts before you throw them overboard.”
“I’m not going into that devil’s pit,” a guard said, letting his weapon fall and backing away from the stairs.
“The ship’s a plague carrier,” said another guard. “To the boats, before we all die.”
Cries and footsteps sounde
d from the deck. Bodies splashed into water. The ship’s master cried out, waved his cutlass and fired an iron tube into the air. But his crew ignored him, and finally he looked down into the hold, at first with despair, and then with resignation.
“At least I’ll have the insurance,” he said, closing down the hold.
Moments later, the crackle of flames and the smell of smoke filled the dark space. Spider slipped out of his chains, worked out the latch’s trick and opened the door. The ship’s master was already gone, urging a small band of rowers to pull harder on their oars. Spider went back to free the other captives, and together they put out the flames and saved the sails and masts.
Wails and moans turned to laughter, and a great cheer rose among the men.
“Are you afraid of freedom now?” Spider asked the old man who had answered him in the pens.
The old man smiled and rubbed the place where iron bracelets had chafed his skin. His gaze passed over the sea, and he said, a little sadly, “I am not certain I see it.”
“Then we will go find it,” Spider said. The wound to his pride closed a little, and some of his soul grew back as he watched the ship’s master and crew flee. He laughed at the trick he had played, until the wind and waves brought him the songs of captives from far away.
He heard their cry of pain and knew the monster had them all in its terrible maw. And Spider understood that he still had many tricks to learn and play before he found a land where his spirit and the people to which it belonged could once more run free.
— | — | —
PEST CONTROL
C. DENNIS MOORE
Sixteen hours he’d been on the move. He had to stop soon. Not to sleep, that was too risky. But his feet screamed with raw pain and he had to rest. His lungs burned like he’d been breathing acid. His mind reeled, still, with the images he’d seen since last night. And to think they’d been there all along, hiding, waiting, biding their time. And when they struck, they’d done it with a vengeance.
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