Chapter 1 - The Waking Game

Chapter One

Tap...tap...pause...tap...tap...tap...

Castor Diep lifted his head forward on a stiff neck to investigate something heavy draped over the end of his bunk. He peered down toward his feet, just visible in the filtered morning light of the tent. There, something improper had imposed itself on his dreams before startling him awake; that and a sour pheromone scent of threat--not so much an odor as the reminder of an odor.

Tap...tap...pause...tap...tap...tap...

There was an odd menace in the perfect meter of the rhythm--slow and deliberate, daring him to wake and face it.

The heavy respiration of sleep had condensed in the chilled air creating a lingering mist which hung about the tent interior, obscuring any detail of the mass at his feet. Castor held his breath a while and as the mist dissipated, the thing took shape.

Roughly twenty centimeters across and symmetrical, with two pairs of thin, articulated appendages to either side, splayed flat and forward, extending almost to Castor's knees. A pair of mandibles situated themselves center front, each cocked at a knuckled joint, tapping in turn the menacing rhythm with soft clicks from needle-sharp tips just protruding from each. The creature was furred with thick hair of bronze-orange striped in black; gradated to full black at the terminating knuckle of each appendage, appearing as a sock where one could assume the foot began. Dominating the front of its body perched a pair of bushy 'eyebrows'. The brows seemed out of place to Castor as, although he was certain they existed, saw no discernible eyes to brow. He was reminded of the Bun T'Lal--unkempt brows the custom of the Order for most.

A spindler. Vebniva. Web dwellers of the ivy.

Castor felt the hidden remainder of the thing's bulk slung over the end of his bunk like so much dead weight. The threatening pheromone scent grew stronger; the tapping rhythm remained consistent.

Tap...tap...pause...tap...tap...tap...

So, the encroaching spider hunts the unseen snake, Castor thought. The hunter must find nothing but dead prey and when the dead prey strikes from nothingness, then the element of surprise is absolute. But timing is everything.

Spider... Snake... In the Old Forms. The before-dialect of Origin, forbidden by Bun T'Lal doctrine and the Basic Principles of Protection. Like all things forbidden, the dialect was knowable--if one knew the proper stones to turn. Castor was fortunate to have the attentions of Harrot, his unconventional instructor from the Bun T'Lal wheel of the Pedagoguery, as his lifelong mentor--a proper stone to turn, indeed.

Castor steeled, every nerve abuzz. Every fiber coiled with potential. Stabs of excitement danced at the edge of focus. His breathing resumed. Deliberate. Steady. Shallow. Imperceptible. Not a muscle twitched. Dead prey.

With the discipline of perfect motion--fluid and serpentine, imbued with a mesmerizing quality which rendered the observer blind to it--he reached down next to the bunk for his nakala robe (the robe that mimics), slipped his hand through the looped hilt of a nakh dagger within its folds. Primary fingers fitted between four curved ceramic claw blades, heal nub of his sixth resting behind, as he gripped the handle to which the blades attached. Another blade, perpendicular to the claws, tucked parallel to his forearm as he readied his wrist; the blade's twin extended opposite.

Castor's nerve-buzz broke crescendo. It was time.

He kicked the mass from his feet, sent it skyward where he could now see the relative enormity of the thing: Ten legs stretched outward to the breaking point like rays on a sun glyph, tip-to-tip wider than Castor's outstretched arm, bulbous abdomen perked upward in an aggressive display behind the eyeless brows, exposing the soft underside of its mid-section. The top of the spider-thing brushed against the rigid, nanoflex center tent frame two meters above, arresting its momentum where it appeared to hang weightless in mid-air for an instant. Then, cresting its trajectory, it folded its legs downward into an attack posture. Swollen venom sacs bulging from the distended lips of its mandibles, tapered into arched, wide needle-sharp barbs, now fully extended, directed at Castor's face. A discordic growl issued from within its abdomen and its scent became acrid.

He took a swipe at the spindler's underside with the dagger claw. Missed--just out of reach. Did it arrest its momentum mid-air?! He thought, rolling off the bunk, taking his sleeping bag to the floor with him. The spider-thing resumed its fall toward where Castor's face had been an instant before. Castor was on his knees, body turned, nakh blade poised to strike when the creature landed with a sharp bark from its abdomen. He raised the nakh above his head, began a downward strike. The spindler recovered from its awkward landing, arched up on bent legs and began turning toward him. With the blade a breath from impact, the spider-thing checked its turn, pushed laterally off the far side of the bunk in a blur of silky orange-black so fluid the thing seemed to disappear in the doing of it. The blunted blade-end of the sheath around Castor's nakh struck empty bunk.

The spindler slammed hard against the sturdy nanoflex of the lower wall encircling the inside perimeter of the tent, flipped, slid to the floor. It remained there, upside down and motionless, for a long moment. Presently, it folded its four front legs to the underside of its carapace, cocked its back legs toward the floor and kicked, righting itself tail-over-head. With a stiffness, it skittered under the bunk, issuing a whimpering drone of surrender from its abdomen.

Castor slumped backward against the wall. The nerve-buzz dissipated, his body tingling from the release of it. His nakh dagger plopped to the floor with a thump as he relaxed his hand from the shaft, then picked up the crumpled robe, swiped it across his forehead and tossed it carelessly at the far end of the semi-domed tent. The robe's outer layer took on the textured blue pattern of the cushion on which it landed.

He directed a low, inviting whistle under the bunk and the gangly creature emerged, turned its bushy brows to face him. They sat for a moment, each regarding the other in silence. The spider-thing flattened itself in repose next to the seated Castor and rested the lips of its silk-haired mandibles--barbs now withdrawn--on his bare leg. Castor smiled and sighed deep; the spindler imitated with the slow rise and fall of its carapace.

Such was the waking routine each morning the odd pair spent across the Great Vit'r Sea to the east, away from home...away From Sciriceen. It was a good game, a dangerous reminder that in the ivy wilds, complacency was not tolerated. Indeed, it was not tolerated most anywhere on Corieal.

The flattened, orange disc vibrated in a plea for attention and tapped a sequence on Castor's leg. Castor contemplated the contradiction held in the spindler's needle-sharp barbs, each nearly the length of the claws of his own nakh blade, concealed within the tapping mandibles. He was ever aware of the neurotoxin produced from those barbs, the very real choice in arresting the venom's deployment against him bound in a trust they'd each long earned of the other.

But still...

Tap...tap...pause...tap, the spider-thing insisted, accompanied this time by an abrupt chirp/bark from within its vibrating abdomen. A new pheromone scent touched Castor's awareness now: vanilla, pastry sweet, inquisitive. Concerned.

"I'm Fine," Castor said with a grin. "You? That was a nasty smack at the wall, girl." He gestured across the bunk with his chin.

A smooth bobbing motion from the spindler was a 'yes' in reply. Castor reached down, with a sequence of light taps, spoke atop its midsection, after which it crawled into his lap, tucked its legs under in a loaf covering Castor's stomach to his chest.

"I worried you may not pull this time, Bram--impale me. If but a nick." He repeated the gentle tapping pattern, smiled and laughed, said: "Gaya Ma'i, girl! Where does this vicious hatred come from, anyway? Don't I always share my treats with you? Don't I always feign thanks when you do the same?" Castor screwed his face up in mock disgust at the spindler. "Perhaps we should fashion sheaths for these!" He rapped the mandibles with a light flick of his finger to which Bramaria pulled back a bit, growled from her abdomen in disapproval.

"Or perhaps I should snip them dull while you sleep. To blunt your enthusiasm!" Castor stroked the spindler's carapace and its bulbous back end vibrated with a series of rumbles overlapping one into the next, so soft as to be felt more than heard.

Bramaria couldn't understand Castor's words. Indeed, she didn't hear as such, rather absorbed sound through every part of her body--a necessity of communication along the strands of interconnected, webbed nests spun throughout the folds of the ivy jungle. With Castor, she understood only the touch, the simple, rhythmic vocabulary built between them over time. Intent and emotion conveyed through the unique vibrations of Castor's tone of voice.

Bram's syntax was similar: rhythmic tapping vocabulary, pheromones combined into shades as nuanced as Castor's tone for intent. Myriad reflexive sounds produced deep within her abdomen her added punctuation.

Castor had heard once that spoken language, by its very nature, confused. Theirs was a limited, but efficient system with misunderstandings rare between the two.

They sat for a long, quiet while under brightening blue rays filtered into the tent through the remaining morning mist. The rapid brightening at this time of morning meant one thing--low humidity, high UV. The fog of midday would be short-lived, making travel on the mudsea shallows difficult if one dallied. Castor nudged Bramaria back with both hands. "Time we were headed home, girl. We've been long missed, I'm sure, and I believe we may be under the gun today. Poor Dani probably thinks we've expired out here." He tapped Bramaria's carapace as he spoke.

Castor eased his naked body from the tent floor. Once on his feet, he crossed to the pack case housing his clothes. Rummaging to the bottom, he selected his UV attire--a worn, dull-gray body suit made of reflective fiber mesh--for protection against the savage oncoming sun of midday. He then slipped on a pair of submud boots, locking clasps up the sides from ankle to knee.

He popped a tablet from his vax-dispenser into his mouth, swallowed, then, with a deep exhale, took stock of the morning's mess around him. Prodding stiff muscles to action, he began packing as his hairy companion skittered about the tent as if helping with the task.

* * *

A thought came to Castor as he stared up through the massive foliage of the thinning canopy: Direct sun on the way...good chance of rind. Best get a move on. The hyper-humidity of midday had overtaken the morning mist and was, itself, quickly dissipating, revealing a deep silver-blue hue in the cyan of the Corieal sky--the promise of a harsh day. Not typical this early in the fourth season, though not unheard of.

Such days brought savage UV and intense heat that dried vast flows of semi-solid, crystalline rind atop the dense shallows which encircled island shores and shale-bars of the mudseas of Corieal. This rind was unpredictable, treacherous to traverse on foot; unnavigable by mudfaring vessels.

A path wound through the jungle of immense, viridescent ivy folds, connecting the campsite grotto to the shore. Overhead, the high jungle canopy was still. Castor, shoulders strapped with a large sack, along with Bramaria hiked the path apace to put sufficient distance between them and their islet before sunlight struck full force, rendering their paddle-skiff stranded onshore, them with it.

Castor noticed the flocks of gulls which occupied the canopy top were now silent, having fled the oncoming heat to take their chances with the throngs of spindlers lurking deeper within the leafy knots.

Pea gravel of the path transitioned to cloudy quartz dust then to flat shale as the thinning canopy gave way to shoreline. A musty, dull acid stink replaced the organic sweet decay of the inner island where amassed knots of ivy--and the networks of spindler nests within--were thickest. Across the shale shore lay countless dark wooden tendrils like giant, fallen tree trunks (diameters up to three meters) spread out in both directions up and down the shoreline. Each disappeared into the translucent, lavender-blue mud to root in the bottom-soil of the shallows. Under each enormous vine tendril grew spiny rootlets, distributed along the sides. Clusters of ferns and broad, radiant pink Abvata Mageolas flowers bloomed in and around the rootlets; the clusters scattered with a variety of scrub succulents representing all shades of blue and green. Tiny chitinous shore crabs click-clacked among the succulents, seeking shelter from the disappearing fog and savage UV of coming midday.

On a gentle slope of shale, rested the paddle skiff beached days prior. "Bram! Quick!" Castor called and raced off toward it, the spindler scrambling close behind. At the skiff, Castor unslung the large sack from his shoulders, flipped the cover latches while inverting the thing, inadvertently dumped its load of pack cases and assorted gear to the ground. Nervous Bramaria, skittering near Castor's feet, scrambled between the tumbling cases, leaped backward onto a low rock ledge out of harm's way. A sharp chitter, reminiscent of a giggle, burst from her abdomen.

"Not at all funny, Bram," Castor said, removing the submud dive gear he kept locked in the rear storage of the skiff. He recovered the cases in a hurry, attempted to distribute them evenly throughout the compartment, finally tossing some loose items along with the submud gear on top before pulling a strap across and pinching the clip tight. "Good enough," he muttered. Two opposite outriggers were affixed to the sides of the narrow craft to handle minor load imbalances once outsea, but even a slight imbalance of weight could become a problem in the denser shallows, creating drift and slowing momentum.

Castor stepped up onto the low skiff's low deck, kicked his caked boots against the outer hull. The residual charge field in the hull's plate repelled the milky quartz mud, dislodging it from his boots leaving them with little more than a fine residue. He stooped under the tight fabric canopy hanging above the single-seat cockpit, backed down into the pilot's chair and strapped the belts in place, thumbed the starter. A rumble welled up under the deck from the core below the seat. Charged keel plating whined as it began radiating the glide cushion under the hull.

Bramaria scampered up the gangway bridging the right-side outrigger and the railing. She climbed behind Castor, nestled herself into a mesh netting drooped between the headrest of the pilot's seat and the rear compartment. Her legs poked through loose fabric mesh, clasped underneath.

"Set?" was all the warning Castor offered before pulling the release handle, unlocking the paddle treads on the bottom rear of the hull. He pushed the throttles hard forward and a tall spray of congealing, translucent sludge spat out the rear port of the skiff, falling in a rain of drying clods onto the shale behind them.

After the initial violent jerk of treads contacting shale, the skiff began to creep forward. Rubber paddles vied for purchase; charge plate struggled to maintain adequate slipstream under the loaded craft. Surface vapor began rising around them as the now nearly unfettered sun beat the surface, drying the shallows. Castor gagged from the intensifying caustic acid odor of it, realized he'd forgotten to unpack his breather.

Dullness began to form beneath the rising vapor signifying the initial elastic hardening of the rind, rendering the translucent lavender a dark purple-brown. The skiff was full throttle but gaining little--if steady--momentum. Castor kept his eyes fixed on the imaginary, wide arc roughly two hundred meters further offshore--the sahaata threshold, the threshold of easing, where deep, less viscous mud allowed for full speed and control. It seemed an eternity off at this pace.

Their progress was further hindered by a slight left drift in the controls. Castor slammed his head back in frustration, jostling Bramaria in her netting. "Damn me! The packs must have shifted! Gaya Ma'i!" He peered over the left railing at the hull of the outrigger digging into the forming rind, struggling to glide. Bramaria fidgeted, released aggravated rumblings of concern from her abdomen in reply to Castor's outburst.

Nothing to be done now but fight it 'til midsea, Castor reasoned.

Further out from shore, he noticed the surface vapor begin to wane, felt the decreasing drag on the struggling outrigger as the liquidity increased with depth. He relaxed his constant jockeying on the throttle and the craft's speed quickened, moving now at an acceptable clip passing over the threshold into the smooth mud of midsea. When the clear lavender pudding became liquid-smooth enough for the weak tidal pull of Corieal's two distant moons to cause noticeable drift and flow around them, Castor eased back on the throttle and brought the skiff to a halt.

He took a moment to regroup, surveyed the shining lavender-blue expanse of the Great Vit'r midsea around them noting the absence of jonke--rippling throngs of slug-like, bloodthirsty, tentacled masses--having likely fled to the mudsea floor to avoid the oncoming heat. The stillness was unnerving, absent the squish-squish-splat of the jonke. In the distance, he could just discern a pod of surface gliders milling about an enormous float of kukura fungus, unconcerned with the coming harshness of the day. The swim-motion kick of the gliders' long legs propelled the beasts around the edges of the float, no doubt nibbling at its soft perimeter, immune to the poisonous secretions of protective mucous.

"Let's remedy this," Castor said, unstrapping from the pilot's seat. "Sorry for the rough ride, girl." He tapped the apology for Bramaria, still clasped tight to the hammock, as he passed beside her along the narrow gangway. After properly re-securing the gear inside the storage, he returned, belted himself in once again and eased the throttles forward. This time the glide onto plane was smooth, the acceleration steady as they hit cruising speed, raced atop the velvety mud.

Two flat smudges floated at a wide arc from each other on the hazy horizon; Castor fixed the skiff's bearing westward between them.

To the left, dominating Arub Atoll (the smaller of the two smudges) quartz-glass spires of The Taj--opulent alcazar of the Bun T'Lal--sparked into a barrage of glints by distant rays of sunlight. Shrami'ka Island, or Island of Labors, to the right, was unremarkable but for the erratic dance of columns of steam from random points atop its flat, shimmering red hue. Not yet visible between them lay the grand island of Scir and Castor's home of Sciriceen populating its eastern coast.

Bram released her hold on the netting and reversed position, facing back toward the tiny island from which they'd just left. An island with no name. She lay still, legs again tucked underneath. The slow buzzing in her abdomen with the vague rose-scented pheromone odor suggested melancholy as she, once again, watched her home, her family nest, shrink into a green-yellow memory on the horizon.

* * *

Cloud cover obscured the blue-silver sky, darkening as the harsh light of day slipped into dusk. Soon--perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow--the ensuing storm of rains would pour, softening the coastal rind, beginning the process of reabsorption. For the moment at least, the rind seemed sturdy enough as Castor and Bramaria trudged across its near kilometer width toward the lights of Sciriceen.

Castor glanced back over his shoulder, toward the skiff they'd been forced to abandon at Vit'r Reef--the narrow crystal bloom outcropping skirting the rind's edge at the sahaata threshold east of Scir island. He hoped to find it still there, unmolested, in the coming days. Not many people ventured near the reef this far down-shore of the port channel, but it would be a tempting target, particularly for harvesters, until the mists returned to obscure it.

Perhaps tomorrow, Castor thought, I can steal away Qix and Pix for the afternoon. He referred to twin sibling acquaintances from the mall--the sprawling open-air market at which Castor sold custom jewelry (and the occasional sculpture) which he, along with his friend and partner, Danian Panille, fashioned from the finest shards harvested from the bowels of Vit'r reef. The twins kept a large skiff which Castor was not above begging the use of from time to time.

The odd duo hiked a cautious pace. Mud skin stretched beneath each of Castor's steps like a tight balloon, creating the complaint of low creaks, threatening to break through at any moment. Bramaria, indifferent to the danger, scuttled squat to the ground, close alongside her taller companion. Castor shooed her away from the stretching and creaking at his feet--a gesture she promptly ignored.

Around her midsection, crisscrossing underneath and clasped at the sides, Bramaria bore a tough fabric harness. Skidding behind her, laden with her fresh stash of bilge-fly carcasses and a share of the skiff's cargo, was a makeshift sled attached to the harness by three triangulated cords. "Glad to see you're willing to pull your weight," Castor said. Bramaria perceived his cheeky tone, responded with a soft rumble. Sobering, he added: "Likely dark by home, Bram. Careful but quick now."

Earlier, when the pair had reached the channel that led to the port of Sciriceen, they'd found it as overcome by rind as the rest of the coastline; scrapers--surface dredgers from the port--had likely been defeated by the intense UV of the day. A small assortment of elaborate outsea cruisers and scruffy harvesters--all caught off-guard--were anchored beyond the reef to wait out the oncoming rain and tomorrow's scrape, when the channel would likely clear. With the larger craft, they were all prepared for the wait; mudfaring folk always were.

As they trekked onward, Castor's gaze caught glimpses of sparse crystal bloom--clumps of erratic, slender fingers of quartz mud fused to solid glass by the omnipresent lightning of post-rind downpours; the same material which comprised Vit'r reef. Its shifting hues disappeared below the rind into the milky depths of the shallows.

The elasticity of the outer rind diminished with the decreasing depth of the underlying mud, was near solid by the halfway point between reef and shore when Bramaria halted abruptly. She lifted then dropped her legs in a twitching cadence, disturbed by something under her feet. Castor continued a few steps before noticing her absence from beside him. He turned to find where she'd gone, just catching the end of her nervous performance.

He then knew why she'd halted.

"You feel that?" He asked, forgetting for a moment that she wouldn't understand. He stepped back next to her, knelt, and tapped the question atop her carapace. The anxious, hairy little creature bobbed up and down several times with a cautious 'yes', added to the motion a mixed scent of sweet and sour; curious, hinting at threat, caution.

Castor could feel the object of Bramaria's warning--a low frequency vibration permeating the rind, causing the thin layer of fine quartz dust on its surface to dance. Both the vibration and the resulting dust dance were slight as to register just within the bounds of perception. Castor surveyed the surrounding area, noticed the dance gradually increase to their left until an area, twenty or so meters away, was alive with the shimmer of it. Staring at the shimmer-cloud to their left, Castor noticed something even more bizarre.

Does the rind glow there?

Without a word, he and Bramaria started across the dusty surface, each compelled in unison to follow the unseen trail of vibration toward the phantom luminescence of the rind. Upon reaching the point where the shimmer became most vigorous, Castor swept his gaze around them then looked down at Bramaria, answered himself aloud: "Why in the name of the Bagad'i does the mud glow?!"