Said the Spider to the Fly
Posted on June 16th, 2021 by D'bryn Zoë

He stood naked on that crimson plain, his copper eyes unfocused on the starry splay above. The Obelisk rose from somewhere transcending horizons, its immensity immeasurable, with only a sliver of white-dwarf sunlight gleaming off its cylindrical length. A thin wisp of gray cloud stretched across his view, its edges defined by a meager erasure of stars.

His emerald toes sank into the cool black soil. A warm breeze rolled up from the south, rustling the long red grass. He performed his stretching routine, feeling every muscle and sinew tense and slacken in this fluvial and deliberate dance. When he rose from his final stretch he presented himself again to the Obelisk with a measured breath—the inhalation filling him to the brim, the exhalation delivering him to complete relief.

And he grinned, said, ‘Good morning.’

Turning he trod back to his small domical dwelling planted in the plain, its single external lamp pouring orange light upon the door-side. The surrounding three meters, sickle-mown by weekly ritual, was still redolent with the red grass’s earthy sweetness from yesterday’s cut. There sat his miniature reactor: a cube of black, translucent stone not unlike obsidian, housing an eternal white reaction in its center, muted and distant-seeming. It sat only in the motionless silence discernible by the forward consciousness, and was forever restless when discernible by the animal brain. From it sprouted a thin silver thread that wormed into the outer wall of the shelter.

He entered, took up the black robe on the hook just inside the door. Neloor was its material, a lavish soft fabric from a world none of these people would ever see. One of his many pilfered gifts. It brought him memories that set his heart to race.

In this dome was his bed, his forge, and his meditation cushion. The inside walls were adorned with simple black curtains hung by holographic pinions. Here his mind could find neutrality and the closest semblance to peace as could be achieved by a mind such as his.

In the center of the floor was a soft black rug of zlortiz fur, another treasure taken for his own in one of the Great Appropriations. At his command, ‘Ladder,’ the rug rolled aside by holographic servo, and the floor beneath vanished, revealing a short ladder to the underground chamber. Thence he climbed, his dry hands taking on the cool of the metal.

The underground chamber was his guest quarters, and in the impregnable blackness he heard the feeble wheezing of his guest.

‘Lights.’

Brightness pushed slow into being, revealing his guest and his invisible binds. His guest was in the form of a Zontinarian, with bruise-colored skin, elongated skull, marble-black eyes, clawed tridactyl hands. From whence in its subconscious and memory it had pulled this form, it was unknown; perhaps the guest would not have been able to tell. The only importance was that the guest could not change or shed form again.

‘Good morning.’

The guest did not speak.

‘Have you learned to not resist?’ Hence came his wicked grin. ‘To resist resisting, as it would be?’

Still the guest remained silent.

‘This is your daily reminder that neither of us are in the debt of Time, and that I am among the most patient creatures to ever possess thought. Relinquish control, and you will be set free.’

Another silence.

He thumbed his access to the control panel to the left of the containment field and activated the radiation alternator his former benefactors had devised for this single purpose. Omicron radiation alternated with metaphasic radiation at a high pulse, rattling the guest like a taut copper wire thrummed by a violent wind.

The guest did not scream; their species had no need for voice, unless they needed to fabricate one for the benefit of corporeals. Rather the Zontinarian mask it wore contorted into a bent, yawning horror.

The radiation pulsed for several minutes before he tired of the guest’s pain. Disabling the alternator he came slowly to face the trembling shape pretending to be shape in the chamber.

‘Thus ends your daily reminder. Refuse again, and the device is activated for a day.’

I…

His eyebrow twitched. ‘You speak.’ Hence came the grin. ‘I forgot what your voice sounded like.’

I will relinquish control.

‘I knew you would.’

On a condition.

‘It would amuse me to hear of this condition. Tell me.’

The condition is you must tell me what you will do.

‘Find the rest of you.’

Do you jest? I told you the first day that there are no more of us. Those who survived the final confrontation either moved on from this galaxy or chose Dissipation. I am the last.

‘I don’t think that’s true.’

Why would I lie?

‘I don’t think you’re lying. I just don’t think it’s true. I’ve known one who grew quite attached to a corporeal. They became as family. Nay, almost as one with each other. That cannot’ve been the only one. Others remain. Others hide.’

I would have seen them. All I see are embers.

‘You can become whatever you choose. You could become an ember.’

What would you do with the others you find?

‘Take what I can, and let them free if they agree to it—just like you.’

How can I trust your word?

Hence came the grin. ‘Because you have seen my word. I have kept you here without mercy, without lenience, just as I said. I have come down every uncountable day and fed you the poison of this terrible universe, on Time, every Time. You have seen my promise.’

An ill promise is not akin to a generous one.

‘Honor defies moral classification. You know this.’

Perhaps.

‘Will you relinquish control now?’

And into the room there came a great sigh. The air thickened and at once was relieved in a directionless rush to some far and impossible terminus on the boundary of human comprehension. Stars, nebulae, singularities—all wheeled around him as the guest’s control lifted, and its vast perception washed over him.

There, indeed, across the galaxy sprawl, he saw the embers: thousands of tiny white Lights, some static, some twitching like albino fleas on a black bedspread. He knew little about how to take control of an ëreli’s perception, but he speared his will upon the embers, pawing at them with his mind, searching for that special vibrance.

Then he found it. There, resting in the hands of a child; there, buried in the volcanic mud of a wild world; there, encased in ruby glass on a mantlepiece; there, couched in a small box in a dirty sleeping quarters; there, enclosed in a small spherical pendent on a stainless steel chain.

‘There you are.’

Reality blinked back as if it had never left. Hence came the grin as he gazed up at the guest.

‘Now. Was that so hard?’

More than you will know.

He gave one final grin, then circled back to the control panel for the alternator. Cranked it to maximum, locked it in active mode. The guest returned to the silent vibration of pure agony.

‘You are now free. Eventually the pain will envelop you and become your reality. It will bring you unimaginable peace, once it grinds away your senses, once it hones your thought in a single thought. There you will find true freedom.’ He mounted the ladder, turned, grinned, and added, ‘Or you won’t.’

So he left the guest forever in that lower chamber, packed what necessities he could carry, and struck out for his long journey north to a thatch of purple-gray hills. From there he would climb down into a forest, then out onto another plain, then up into another higher range of mountains. His scanners had mapped out a safe path through these that would spit him out onto a high desert that would roll and dive for another five hundred kilometers.

Many days his journey would take him, until he could find a spot far enough away to send his transmission: a simple distress call from, oh, say, an unlucky pilot whose ship had, oh, say, sunk beneath the black waves of the southwesterly ocean.

And so Sarreon would leave this crimson world, and continue the hunt.

The Obelisk loomed in the far sky until he made contact with a passing freighter, then drowned out of sight.