A Heart's Crucible

Joq mulled; a plague pit held less fear than the sloping pathway to the lair of Arachne.

She displayed outward confidence in meeting the spider queen. Yet, how Zel and herself might convince or press her to weave a pouch, she left the tricky part to a Peri whim.

Orion emerged as the model guide; Joq noted he had done his homework and knew the path. His quest, too, included Arachne. He loved Merope, the King of Chios’s daughter. He outlined his story around the fire late at night as Zel emptied the wineskin when she learned of the hunter’s troth. The King disapproved of Orion’s affection and refused to grant Merope’s hand. An uncomfortable visit to the seer and his quest involved several brutal stages — his current one securing a spider-woven silk bracelet for his lover.

As Joq outlined their quest fortified by drink, Orion named up the pesky black ones. Days ago, he shot one through the wing and completed an interrogation. They were fast and named the Dev.

Stalking stealth dominated as the trio approached the spider queen’s grotto. Cobwebs overwhelmed tree limbs and stone sentinels, as they don’t in graveyards. Joq ran her fingers through the ethereal silver mesh whilst Zel tucked her feathers closer to her shoulders.

The cavern entrance lay latticed in a web of delicate lace, barring entry.

Zel urged not to break the shroud. Her metaphor paused Joq and Orion.

“A membrane as fine as a hymen. Consequences will ripple in the tearing.”

Joq agreed, yet pondered a fear of spiders framed Zel’s words. She suspected the filmy canopy represented a juncture of decision. Either you broke with the previous and proceeded, or you ran away, towing your past forever. Choices, she mulled. The Peri selected options before the Dev considering no consequence. Every move today and forward carried ramifications.

Orion’s knife pierced the wafer veneer. Though the veil resisted, he slit the gossamer webs with force. Filaments hung shredded. The tatters fluttered, despite the absence of a breeze. Led by the hunter, Joq and Zel entered the realm of the spider queen.

The grotto swept open, spacious and stunning. Gorgeous webs of a Tyrian purple hug from limestone stalactites. A wonderland of fluff, a natural cavern of the dreamy surreal. Yet, at the rear lay a shadowy orifice, the tunnel leading to Arachne’s lair.

The passageway presented narrow and long, devoid of side shafts. Scattered skeletal bones bode no welcoming sight, and neither did the spider queen.

“Ah, an evening where dessert comes before the main course.”

Joq noted a black altar to the spider queen’s right, more a sacrificial slab than a dining table for guests.

Joq followed Arachne’s beady eyes, scanning the Peri and Orion. The hunter gripped his bow. The queen’s legs twitched, a sign she craved busy. Joq hoped for weaving, but she suspected murderous feasting.

The spider queen’s body defied logic. The legs and abdomen of a black widow, yet the chest and head of a stunning woman. More of a femme fatale formed in Joq’s mind. Arachne’s posture stiffened, and black eyes held an unblinking stare, seeking blood. The queen’s hands slithered over each other, beyond suggestive, impossible to escape her grasp if she snared you.

“Sit on my lap, and I will weave for you.”

Joq resisted the seducing voice, combined with a pat of hands, indicating space for two. She glimpsed Orion’s fingers loitered at his knife hilt.

The hunter surprised Joq and Arachne by stating, “Weave for the Peri first.”

“Not so, not so simple, big boy. Everything has a cost.”

The spider’s legs vibrated.

“A cup of blood from each of you. Your payment!”

She moved an inch, ready to strike and collect, as her jaw opened and showed black fangs. Joq and Zel shuffled to Orion’s sides. The hunter raised his knife; Arachne hissed and, in a blink, spun a web to tangle. However, Orion stilled his hand.

He said, “I will cup the bloodletting, but only while you weave.”

The spider queen growled low, and her hands spread wide. She possessed the slenderest, nimblest, most elegant fingers in creation. Their curved black nails menaced. So sharp, they could blind, believed a wary Joq.

“The cloth bimbos,” and she extended her palm.

Zel whispered to Joq, sharing a disquieting thought. Someone shared their quest agenda ahead of them.

Joq stretched forward and lay the shredded silk of Jeremiel at the throne’s steps in the no-man’s-land of Arachne’s reach. The Spider queen whipped a leg. With a fisherman’s flick, she cast a strand and hauled the silk remnant to her throne.

Arachne bided her time, running the heavenly silk between her fingers. Joq wondered what unfolded next. As she chewed her lip, Orion acted first.

He requested, “spin three silk bowls and three silk bandages.”

After a huff, with dizzying speed in her fingers but venom in her black sapphire eyes, the Spider queen complied.

Joq noted Zel remained rooted in the same spot. Since entering the silky-stranded lair, she quivered. Cobwebs dangled from the high ceiling, threatening to fall.

Joq motioned for the queen to toss the cups and bandage rolls across the silk rug covering the floor. She took her eyes off Arachne for a second, seduced by the laced stories on the sprawling carpet. Endless raunchy eye-popping incubi and succubi combinations.

She heard Orion’s stern voice, “The cups, the bindings, concentrate!”

Joq secured Zel’s trembling fingers around the silken cup as her friend made no eye contact. The steppe Peri discerned the order of the cuts. First, she extended her companion’s olive-skinned limb. Next, she nabbed her wrist tight. In a flash, Orion slashed and blood leaked from the brunette’s forearm in a constant spurt. Zel whimpered whilst her keen eyes focussed on the drooping webs of dread.

One bowl full, Orion watched the spider queen. Joq swathed the silk bandage tight on her limp-armed friend. She slid the bowl along the smooth carpet using her foot. The cup lay within the queen’s sticky grasp as Joq stayed out of reach. Arachne’s speed boggled. Joq saw the fast-finishing petite pouch and a delicate cord of Tyrian purple.

In a blur of butterscotch flapping, she said, “Stop!”

Her agitation disturbed the gossamer ceiling filaments. Cobweb tendrils descended and dangled in Zarella’s hair. Her buddy scragged her brunette locks in an awful frenzy. Joq plucked and brushed webs, forgetting her intrusive call to the queen. After calming Zel with gentle wing strokes, her gaze focused on Arachne. The occupied queen drained a bowl of blood as her shifty black pupils hinted at an unquenchable thirst.

“Please, no lush tales embroidered on the pouch; a trifle too small to do justice to the scale your talents deserve.”

Joq’s eyes swept across the displays of endless, mind-boggling coupling beneath her feet. Flattery will get you somewhere with the self-conceited. Arachne embellished the strap and left the pouch plain.

The Kazakh stretched her elegant forearm. She clenched her fist, which held her bandage. Unfortunately, the hunter’s razor blade cut her forearm deep, nicking a vein. The gash spurted and throbbed. Her silk cup filled too fast. As the bowl overflowed, she lamented her lack of forethought.

“Zel,” a level-headed appeal, “staunch the flow.”

Either her stream of blood, limp wings or the pulse under her tight binding released her buddy’s inertia. Joq saw Orion’s lightning glance in her direction. His brow creased; he couldn’t aid, his blade focused on the spider queen. Arachne flipped the pouch of the angel to the floor. Her lips smacked for her second cup, her legs drumming.

Zel acted. She curbed Joq’s blood flow with a tight bind and shared in a forearm touch. She sidled and pushed the second bowl within the spider queen’s grasping range. Yet she used her extended foot to drag back the pouch. She clutched the silk in her hand. Then, as she steadied a tottering Joq, she placed the small wallet around her companion’s neck.

Joq discerned Orion’s tensed knuckles gripping his knife. She knew the odds were poor. One chance to hit Arachne between the eyes as she sprung in a direction impossible to predict. In a looping arch, she could grab his head, twist his neck, and sink in her fangs. Or the too obvious; she could pounce and zag at a blistering pace, cheetah speed.

The hunter’s careful plan continued to unfold.

“Zel, dig your nails into the vein in my neck and fill the cup.”

Joq swayed because of a copious loss of blood. Her red gush stained the carpet, hiding an incubus and succubus in a rumpy-pumpy pose. Though woozy, she marvelled at the hunter’s preparation. He avoided cutting his arm to give the spider queen her second to pounce. Nor weaken his strength for his slung bow and sharp arrows beyond his hurled knife. Joq watched Zel’s precise feat, slapping to raise a vein and spiking a nick to spurt blood from Orion’s neck. The third cup filled. Joq glanced, shaking a groggy body. Arachne perched, titivating the Tyrian webbed bracelet.

The exchange of death lay ahead. A band of silk for the third cup. Then what? She admired Zel’s skilled wrapping of the hunter’s neck, though the bandage blotched a seep through the delicate gauze layers.

Zel pushed the last cup forward with the point of her exposed big toe. Joq noticed the spider queen grip the bracelet tighter and, with her other hand, reach for the blood bowl in the second the craved liquid remained out of range.

The hunter struck as Arachne’s impulses flashed to lethal greed. He hurled his dagger at falcon speed, but the queen reacted faster than a blink.

Damn, thought Joq, as Orion missed his mark. No bullseye. He sliced a leg, which startled the wounded Arachne. Enraged with a wailing screech to scare a banshee, she forgot cunning and blind-charged the hunter.

Joq quaked. Orion, whom she believed possessed calm in his veins, fumbled. He clutched for an arrow, and his raised bow trembled. Joq gasped; speed required a new definition, a livid ballistic killer queen. Though in pain, an idea from god knows where recalled a Peri lark inciting her to action. A batted eye to her chum, and Zel joined a flurried collusion. Though gritting her teeth, gosh, her arm hurt.

No time to warn Orion! He fell backward and cursed.

“What the flaming deuce!” he said.

The mat rippled and toppled the hunter. Joq glanced at his fists, clenched to punch Arachne’s nose.