Confusion. He felt confusion. Even as he sat outside the strange stone cave and kept vigil, he didn’t know what to think or how to feel. The day had been too strange, too uncertain, and he had carried that uncertainty in his heart. The matriarch had tasked him to watch the Cluster Slayer, the god of wrath who had killed and killed and killed their distant cousins. He was greatly honored to be singled out by the mother and given a task directly. Doubly honored, truly, to have been given a name all those years ago, and then given a task from the mother’s lips. Honored or not, though, he had felt fear. So much fear. The weight of that monster’s power was a terrible, terrible thing. And he could feel the dread beast’s gaze on him, always on him, even when the creature was turned away. It made Glimmer of Night want to flee back to the nest, back to the mother, back to safety.
As the awful sun had slowly crossed the sky, though, his fear had dwindled. It seemed the Cluster Slayer had other things on its inscrutable mind this day. It toiled at the ground, planting the strange flags the way he had heard that the human farmers planted things. Was the Cluster Slayer trying to grow larger flags? Glimmer of Night didn’t know and wouldn’t have dared to ask, even if he could utter the human speech like the mother did. Just when he had concluded that the Cluster Slayer wasn’t going to do anything evil, it happened. The beast had started racing toward him at speeds he couldn’t believe. Nothing moved that fast. Then it had leapt into the trees and simply disappeared. Glimmer of Night had been sure he was about to die. Brought low by the monster who had killed so many others. He’d been so frightened that he hadn’t even sensed the mighty fire eagle until its claws were almost to his carapace. Those claws that could slice through the armor of all but the mightiest of his kind. The mother could face the fell beasts of the sky, and a handful of others, but not him. It would take another century and countless beast cores before he could rise to those heights.
With the bird descending and the Cluster Slayer vanished to only the mother knew where, he had been frozen in shock and horror, certain that his time on the earth was over. He thought of the sweet streams beneath the earth. He pictured the cool and gentle moon in the night sky, a tender shepherd for his kind. He thought of the mother. Would she be disappointed in him? Would she forget his name? He hoped that she wouldn’t. Even as he could feel the heat from the fire eagle begin to scorch his legs and dry his eyes, the Cluster Slayer appeared from nowhere. He swung a great club of ice and all but carved the great bird in two. There was a terrible shattering noise, and the bird was carried away from Glimmer of Night by the appalling strength of the other monster.
He had watched with trembling awe as the monster he had feared hurled the great bird to the earth below like it was nothing at all. Then, like he had been doing it all his life, the Cluster Slayer had cast a web of qi and swung himself to safety. Glimmer of Night had remained frozen in place as the human beast had snuffed out the fire before it could spread to the rest of the forest and, in an act of contempt that drove ice into his heart, the human had kicked the fire eagle. It was only then that the others had found him, asked him questions he could not answer, and observed with awe like his own the sight of the felled bird. They had hurried down to the ground then, none of them entirely sure what to do other than keep watch as they had been bidden. The Cluster Slayer had opened the bird and cast the impossibly valuable core into the muddy water.
All of his instincts told him to attack the human and retrieve the core, that it could fuel his ascent, but fear and good sense held him back. Any being who could bring down one of the fire eagles was not to be molested. They were to be revered, feared, and honored. Glimmer of Night had been struck with awe again as the human revealed that he possessed a storage treasure by putting the entire fire eagle into one. Such wealth the creature possesses, thought Glimmer of Night. When the human had turned and let his gaze fall on them, it was a fight not to flee before those eyes. Eyes that were colder than the deepest winter nights. Eyes that felt like they could cut with a glance. He was sure the human would attack them in a killing frenzy, unsatisfied with the great bird. Instead, the human had simply nodded at them and walked back to its strange cave.
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Glimmer of Night had volunteered to stay and keep a watch so that the Cluster Slayer would remain undisturbed. It was in no one’s interest for a power like that to be left in a poor temper. Far, far better that it should rest and return to its flag farming, however mad that might seem to a young spider. As the hours had passed, though, he couldn’t help but wonder why the human beast had protected him. He couldn’t even be sure that it had acted to protect him at all. Perhaps, it had simply wished to kill the fire eagle. The humans valued cores as well or so the mother had instructed them. Of course, it could have let the eagle kill him and struck while the bird was distracted. That would have been easier. It’s what most predators would have done. Did it protect me? If it did, why? He supposed that the stories of the Cluster Slayer may have been exaggerated in the telling. It wasn’t in the nature of the spiders to exaggerate, but perhaps things were different among their distant cousins. He was certain that the mother had not lied to them. The mother never lied to them about anything.
The confusion bubbled inside of him, making him feel as though he had eaten something that was bad for him. It reminded him of the time he had eaten an air squirrel. That qi had not agreed with him at all, and it had taken the intervention of an elder to save him in the end. That was a debt he had yet to repay, and he worried that now he owed a debt to that dread beast of a human. He wasn’t sure he could live down a debt to the Cluster Slayer, but the human had clearly saved his life. Perhaps it wouldn’t mean what he feared it meant. The human was a monster. He couldn’t be forced to repay a debt to a monster, could he? The mother wouldn’t insist on that, would she?
As he wrestled with those thoughts, he felt the shift of stone against stone as someone exited the artificial cave. He knew there were others in the cave, ones that might harm him, so he prepared to flee into the forest if necessary. Yet, to his mixed relief and dread, it was the cluster slayer who appeared. The monster tipped its head to one side and spoke to him.
“You didn’t eat today, did you? No, of course, you didn’t. Too busy watching me, I imagine. Well, I can’t have you starving to death out here. You eat meat, right?”
The monster stared at him expectantly. Glimmer of Night was too dumbfounded to do anything. The monster was asking him about what he ate? What kind of monster did that? Then, the Cluster Slayer shook his head.
“Right, you probably can’t answer. Well, you are a spider. I suppose you eat meat. Here, how about this?”
The monster gestured and a whole spirit boar appeared. Glimmer of Night could sense the core inside of it like a living heart. The monster gave him another questioning look and spoke again.
“If that’s alright, could you poke it with one of your legs or something?”
Feeling numb, Glimmer of Night tentatively reached out a leg and poked the boar. That seemed to make the monster happy because it showed him its teeth. Strange, thought Glimmer of Night. I thought its teeth would be sharp.
“Great,” said the Cluster Slayer. “I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy your meal.”
With that, the walking nightmare waved a hand at Glimmer of Night and disappeared back into the human cave it had constructed. The spider stared down at the boar and felt it again. Confusion.