Sumi - First Memories

Part I

Food. Battle. Sleep. Sleep when she could find somewhere safe to rest. If she dared let down her guard, she would be eaten, just as she would eat the others. Others like her, not like her, it didn’t matter. She ate them all, and grew. When the first molt came, she instinctively knew she’d be in danger. More danger even than when she slept, since most of the Others slept at the same time.

She ate and grew, and when the image of herself - though how she knew it was Self, and not Other, she couldn’t say - showed the change, she hid. There were tall things everywhere. Taller than her, which was the only form of measurement she had. Everything was compared to Self. Rarely did the Others go up, seeming to prefer to scuttle on the ground, but even then she was a little smarter than most. If she hadn’t been, she would have been eaten, as all the weak ones were eaten.

When she reached as high as she could go, the thing swaying beneath her as if held in an invisible grip, she spun her first true web. The pictures showed it, and so she did it, and when it was wrapped around her, protecting her resting place, she slept, though it was a different sleep than any before.

When she wakened, it was dark. Dark, and tight, and she pushed with her legs, feeling something give way. Her legs emerged into the air, touched by light, and there was something different about them. She was no longer identical to the Others. Her feet, clawed toes grasping for purchase, were some color that was not-dark. She would no longer perfectly blend in at night, but she felt no fear. She was strong. Stronger than the Others.

And hungry.

An image burst into her mind. Others, some like-her, some entirely different, all edible. Many, many Others. She scurried down the tall thing. Tree, she thought, naming something for the first time. As she traveled down, she saw a husk, a thing like the one from which she had just emerged, the hollow shell of her lesser self. Some Other had grown, like her, and could be nearby. She felt fear of the future, now, instead of living only in the moment, and hurried away. Away from the Other who could eat her.

She ate. Ate and ate, killing anything that the image that hovered in front of her mind’s eye told her she should eat. When she had eaten enough, the image swirled and vanished, and she felt strength flood her body. The last battle had been difficult, leaving her with a cracked joint just above one of her not-dark feet, but when the image vanished, so did the pain.

A new image formed almost instantly. It was an Other, but for the first time, the image didn’t tell her to attack, to kill, or to eat. It showed Self approaching Other - a massive Other, dwarfing Self - and Other using its legs to draw out some milky substance from its body, which it offered to her. The images always led to strength. To survival. The more of the images she made become reality, the larger and more powerful she grew, and so she looked for the gigantic Other.

It grew dark, and light, and dark again, and she found nothing. No more images appeared, and she began to fear that she would fail, and be eaten, because somehow she knew that was the fate of those who could not fulfill their tasks.

Then something changed. In the great place of trees, and webs, and Other, a new kind of Other came. It had too few limbs, and its body was tall, though not as tall as most of the trees. When she first saw it, it was still, and she thought it might be a tree. Then one of the Others that looked like her tried to bite it, and it moved, gripping something in its top-foot that cracked the carapace of the Other and left it curled on the ground, dying. The new-Other made a noise, and left the broken same-Other behind, moving deeper into the trees.

She ate the dead one, of course, because leaving food behind was unthinkable, and she followed the new one, in case it might kill and abandon food again.

It did. Again and again, it killed Others, some like her, and some not. Several of them were larger than her, and she knew if she had fought them, she would have died. Sometimes even more Others would rise from the ground and fight beside the new one. These stank of death and rot, and when the battle was over, they returned to the dirt.

She followed. Deep, deep into the forest, she followed. The Others there grew larger and stronger, and the one she followed called up its minions nearly every battle now. She ate and ate, and somehow knew that she should have grown larger, but she couldn’t, because the image of the gigantic Other never wavered, and no new visions appeared.

She was stuck. Deep in a place she should never have been able to enter, entirely unable to grow, she would die if she left the new one - who she dubbed Man in her slowly growing personal vocabulary. The webs and trees alike were thick around them now, she and the man she shadowed. Sometimes it seemed impossible to advance, but Man summoned the dead, and destroyed the webs and their occupants.

Then she saw her. The gigantic Other. The Man made noises at it, and it made noises at him. They fought, and trees fell. She hadn’t known trees could fall. She cowered as far away as she could without encroaching on the territory of one who would kill her for simply being there, until the battle ended. The Man left.

The enormous Other remained, perhaps victorious? She used her battered limbs to touch the largest part of her body, and pale fluid came out, pooling in the leaves on the ground beneath her. The great creature lowered herself to the ground, drinking the fluid, and she, Self, crept forward. This was what was pictured in the image that would not leave her mind. If she drank this, the image would resolve, and she would finally, finally grow. Perhaps enough to survive without the man?

<Come.> The voice was soft, even gentle, and the great Other motioned with a clawed foot as large as Self. Her beautiful dark eyes glistened in the light that filtered through the trees, and there were not-dark colors on her legs and body that Self had never seen before.

She scuttled forward. Her foot touched the fluid, brought it to her mouth, and she ate. The vision flashed. She fell to the ground, limbs trembling. She spasmed, and her legs and abdomen drew in, tight. The great Other wrapped her in webbing, and she felt herself lifted, moved, and dropped.

Oh, she thought. This is death. Her mind seemed to fracture, splitting, growing, filled with new.

❦ ❦ ❦

“Atae promised me these eggs,” a voice said, sounding frustrated. “I completed the quest. As a servant of Atae, you must obey!”

<Not this one,> the female Other said, angrily. <There are dozens of others. Take one of them.>

“This is the one I need.” The deep voice grew persuasive. “Come, Araignee. Do I need to call Atae? I am Her Hand, and I may do so. She asked that I not kill you, but…”

Something bumped into the dark place in which she lay, still curled, but now awake and far more aware than she had ever been before.

<This one. It’s male. You may have it, and be done. You may have two males, if you wish! But let me keep the female. Never before has one so small found its way here. She could be great. She could be a Queen!> The spiderling - since she now had a word for what kind of creature she was - shuddered as the ball in which she rested was tugged one way and then another.

The web tore.

She looked out through the crack, one of her large, forward-facing eyes now able to see what was going on around her. Though she still couldn’t move her limbs, she felt slightly less helpless than before. The Man, the same one that she had followed through the forest, the one she had thought gone forever, stood talking to… her Mother?

Mother. Progenitor. Parent. Words and concepts poured through her mind. Things that she could never have imagined, much less understood, were suddenly there, though many of them remained distant, and ill-defined.

Her Mother was huge. Taller than the Man, her legs were longer than two of him, laid end to end. Words like ‘blue’, ‘pink’, ‘yellow’, ‘purple’, and ‘black’ chased themselves through her mind, attaching to different parts of her parent’s body. Mother’s jaws - longer than the Man’s arm - clicked in irritation. One pink-clawed foot rose and tugged at Self’s ball. Her egg? That didn’t seem right, but it was the word Man had used, and Mother hadn’t disagreed.

“No,” the Man said stubbornly. “That one. And this one, since you’ve so generously offered two.” He leaned over and picked up something white and fibrous, that fit neatly in the bent joint of his arm. He held out a top foot and stared challengingly at Mother.

Time passed. Now that she was aware of the existence of time, it seemed as if a lot of it went by as the two stared at each other. Finally, the Man broke eye-contact and looked up at the sky. “Great Atae,” he said, “I, Iorgas, your Hand, ask you-”

A new shape formed between the two. It looked something like the Man, but had jaws like a spider, and eight glittering red eyes that circled the top of its head. It stood on two limbs, but had more upper legs than Man did, all of which it folded as it stared at Mother.

It clicked its jaws at the Spider Queen, then faded from view, leaving the spiderling quivering and grateful she was wrapped in her protective covering. Her instincts were strong, and they told her that this being could kill and eat them all without any effort.

<Fine!> Mother snapped, though her voice shook.

The spiderling would have shrieked in fear, if such a thing was possible, as she abruptly felt her body grow weightless. Her ‘egg’ flew through the air, but Man caught it gently, settling it beside the first one he had picked up. His jawless mouth twisted, one side lifting. He bowed his head. “Thank you, Queen Araignee. I will care for them well.”

Mother’s voice grew sly. <It’s a promise, then. Before Atae, you must care for them well. You will bring them back to me once each turning so that I may see that the promise is kept. For ten years, you must do so. If you fail even once, our bargain is broken, and I will take my children back.>

A grinding sound came from Man’s face, but his head rocked in agreement. “So be it,” he growled, voice dark. He turned abruptly, and strode away through the trees.