Archive of Our Own

The Malice of the Creator

“That is when everything became perfectly clear. Everything about the malice implanted by the Creator. We cannot resist that which is. We simply... we simply have to punish them.”

- Opening Narration of Ergo Proxy

“Of all evil I deem you capable: Therefore I want good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

...

The Queen of the Deepnest, it was said among the western tribes, was hardly of Deepnest at all.

Long had a storied house of honored caste ruled over the biting, scratching beasts in that high ancestral den, crimson-painted masks of rulers past strung up in its threaded walls, hanging high above that subterranean lake, born of a vaunted lineage dating back to those ancient giants from the days of the shadow worshipers – one of the last few clans that still went down to that shrine of obsidian spines in the lowermost depths of the nest, alongside the shape-shifters and other assorted shadowy things that populated these parts – though the beasts themselves recked nothing of that old faith, revering their lord as proxy.

Though not nearly as grand as the vast corpses of his ancestors that could be found strewn across these borderlands, the last of that line was magnificent to behold; Now, the shell of that enormous horseshoe crab was cleaned out and strung up in what used to be his den;

It was the custom of the western tribes to burn their dead, one that the Mantises would retain even when all their rivals were fallen and crumbled; The Kingdom of Hallownest, that had then not yet subsumed most of what was previously known as the borderlands, would take its own custom of committing the dead to the dirt from the moth tribe, its traditional grave-keepers since shortly after its founding, though it was said that their rituals dated back to an even earlier time beyond memory.

Deepnest’s foreign queen, however, had opted to see to her husband’s remains in the fashion of her distant land, his mighty shell displayed in what would become a shrine, his jeweled crown of stone still stuck to his mighty carcass, as no others could bear its weight.

The pale hatchling that would come to be reared in his vaunted domain would carry none of his blood; It was accounted bad enough when such a venerable lord chose to wed what, by the accounting of the borderland tribes, was nothing but base-born commoner, worse yet, an outsider, arrived one day from who-knows-where at the head of her tattered band of indigent refugees. Already there were whispers of how that cunning witch may have beguiled the honored lord to secure the position of her people, which had been permitted to build their own den at the very heart of his territory, plastering the winding caverns in foreign architecture unlike anything seen in these parts, composed of strange metals – though many of them settled also into Deepnest’s existing capital, mingling with the people of their new lord alongside the queen in that Distant Village.

But none could explain what madness possessed him to stay with her and refuse to have any other mate, even when she proved incapable of bearing him any offspring. Alas for such an ancient line!

Alas for the last of the giants, or very nearly the last – the old smith in the eastern mountains endured just a little longer, until he, too, came to an end in his fanatical pursuit of his craft.

The King of Deepnest would die without issue, last of his line.

Which, one might think, would have left that scheming foreign queen in dire need of some blue blood to cement her dwindling claim, and to satisfy her ambition, nothing would suffice but the bluest blood of them all: Seed of the Ancient Caste.

By the Dark, her daughter shall be Queen, and none shall outrank her!

That is how she brought the spawn of that upstart White King of the city-dwellers into the Deepnest’s ancestral halls.

At least, that is how they would spin the tale… those who knew nothing of Herrah the Beast, or why the people of Deepnest had taken her for their Queen and continued to worship her in their old lord’s stead. She was a cunning one indeed, and strong, and fierce, but too proud and wise to dishonor herself with lowly trickery. Not as a beggar did she come to Deepnest’s court, but as an ambassador, standing tall despite her people’s long harrowing journey, not to bend the knee, or swear fealty as a vassal, but to propose an alliance of mutual benefit, unbowed and unflappable in the face of certain doom – Her ragged band of refugees had run far, and now they had damn near reached the ends of the earth. There wasn’t much further left to go, save for those desolate wastes further beyond that were known even then to devour one’s mind.

The high crystal-studded peak up ahead was once known as the westernmost point of the world, where the Light of Old came to rest in the evenings among her chosen people, and even that was was an ancient story now, half-remembered explanations for long-abandoned ruins whose origins no one could name. The priests that once tended these ruins were long gone, slunk down to the White Kingdom perhaps to join in its supposed wealth; At the time, it was not yet the concern of the borderland tribes.

The odds for Herrah and her people would have looked quite grim indeed if they were turned away here; The other people of the borderlands were no less territorial and no more fond of foreigners; They’d thought their chances best with their fellow arachnids down in the dephts, but the King of the beasts was not expected to feel any such kinship with the weavers himself.

In truth, the relationship between the King of Deepnest and the Weavers’ nominal leader began as a purely professional one; Only as they worked did he find himself impressed by her unbowed strength, steeled and hardened through many trials.

Herrah married the King of Beasts because she loved him, no other reason; She declared herself a Beast, renouncing the title of Weaver Queen, garbing herself and her direct followers in the traditional crimson of the Deepnest, and vowing to rule of over Beasts, Weavers and Shadowvy Things alike, fearing not to break with the old ways of her own people nor to bring new ways to this new land.

She wanted a child with the one she loved, simply because she wanted a child, and for no other reason. She cared nothing what path they chose in life as long as they would live to grow strong and spend their life in freedom the like of which was never heard of in the distant land of her birth, free of servitude and yoke; Far, far away from the nameless terror they had fled from.

But in this, the refugees would come to know anew the malice of their creator, and the full extent of her pettiness.

Even in the borderlands, it did not go unnoticed that the Weavers were possessed of a great number of rare gifts and talents; Once, one careless traveler from the Greenpath had dared to pose the question if they, too, had once been blessed. The coddled fool was nearly throttled; Queen Herrah herself only just managed to stay her enraged underling right in time to prevent a major diplomatic incident.

She merely let him off with the warning that not all Higher Beings were as soft or gentle as his Lady Unn… How prophetic these words would come to ring in days to come.

Some among her people had scandalized the visitor by boasting they found their own creator more trouble than she was worth and that they had soundly disposed of her, but the very presence of them in these lands gave the lie to that: A victorious coup d’etat is seldom followed by running for the hills.

For a short while, they thought they had escaped. That their maker simply lacked the capacity to smite them from within her prison. Now, they knew for certain that they had been let go. Nobody escapes the One Atop, not even in death; The traditional punishment for apostasy is the oubliette, the fate of slowly wasting away… and waste away they would, unable to replenish their numbers:

She had stricken them all with barrenness as one final parting shot, cruel and crude as always.

She would have one last laugh in the distance, and perch atop them on last time:

“In pain shall you bring forth children”, she had decreed, just few enough to tempt one to endure the arduous task, to draw out the inevitable decline.

For one who insisted on being referred to as the ‘Grand Mother’, it was probably the most sadistic punishment she could think to inflict on another.

Thus were the Weavers followed by their chains, even to these distant lands;

Contrary to popular belief, Queen Herrah was one of the first to suggest that her husband take a concubine, consort or mistress, vowing to raise the resulting offspring as her own and never begrudge him the choice; But he would hear nothing of it.

At other times, she had declared that she’d account all the biting, scratching creatures as her children in some vicarious, figurative way, channeling that unfulfilled desire into seeing to the requirements of governance.

Some of their attempts came further than others, but the royal pair never produced offspring before the queen was widowed, and by that point, she would have other problems on her hands:

For the King of Deepnest was one of the first in that realm to be felled by what would come to be known as the pestilence of mind.

His wife had the misfortune of cutting him down herself, and took it upon herself to see to his rites to see his body cleansed of the defilement; To the last, he had babbled of the beautiful children that they would have, in the visions the Old Light had summoned to torment him.

As it would turn out, the borderlands had a Jealous Goddess of their own, and the fragile hope which Herrah and her people had built for themselves in this new land was about to be crushed between the rock of the curse they brought with them and the hard place of the new curse they found here, incidental, collateral damage to the whims of something enormous that would crush them simply because it could.

Faced with desperate times, the Queen turned to desperate measures.

The Beasts had long been at odds with their direct neighbors such as the Mantises and the Shrooms, each of them proud, territorial warrior peoples convinced of their own way’s superiority – But their forces were just about evenly matched, with none having the means to get the upper hand on the others; At most, their historic disputes had shifted their borders a few tunnels over, and provided them excuses to keep their warriors sharp… but as of late, the balance of power had been shifting.

New alliances were forming in what had long been untamed wilds.

Once, there had been nothing to the east; Just wet, stalactite-filled caverns beneath what used to be the land of the Moths, crawling with mindless beetles of many shapes, scuttling about in the lightless deep.

Daring adventurers might cross that empty place to make it to the remote Hive of the Bees, but they would find nothing in between other than sharp rocks and maybe the odd fleshy, nutritious snack.

Then, one day, those same skittering beetles who had hitherto been concerned with nothing but eating, mating and sleeping had suddenly started building up a city, of gleaming, towering spires, supposedly much vaster and grander than any of the outlying villages.

A fanciful tale it seemed to many; A distant rumor past their borders. A new power on the block at most, a bunch of braggart upstarts, as convinced in the superiority and righteousness of their own ways as every civilization ever before and ever since.

One of her Devouts asked Herrah to confirm that surely, such grand cities could not exist, that nowhere in the world could have such marvels.

What could she tell her, when the land of her own birth held gilded cities even grander than anything described in those rumors or reports? It would be best to hope, of course, that the tales were exaggerated.

Herrah ended up sending someone to get in touch with those bees; They proved a hardened tribe well-suited to surviving at the furthest edge of the world. Their Hive Queen Vespa proved a bug after her own heart, fierce, sober and rarely moved to awe. Their Hive had extensive records, documenting that the Kingdom of Beetles had indeed appeared out of nowhere about six Hive Queens before; Four Queens before, Vespa’s own Great-Grandmother had received the offer to join with them. An alliance was hashed out, trade deals were drawn, territories negotiated, but the Hive Queen of days past had opted to maintain a relative independence, and her descendants had kept that arrangement going to this day. The Moths were not so cautious – their old temples and settlements on the surface had been completely abandoned within just a few of their generations, as they had all come down to serve the city’s master – it seems that he offered shelter, enlightenment, wealth and long life to anyone that would come to dwell in his hallowed country.

He had promised that those who come to him as pilgrims should share forever in the glory of his Eternal Kingdom.

How the messenger’s fluids must have ran cold;

How the chill must have caught in her shell;

Perhaps she dropped whatever tokens of Hive Queen Vespa’s hospitality had been offered to her.

The Beasts of Deepnest had reasons to be suspicious of upstart new powers on the block, but they could not have understood the sheer terror resonating in the shells of their Weaver neighbors;

The messenger didn’t even have to say it, upon her return.

She didn’t have to say that none of the bees’ messengers had ever heard the city’s ruler being referred to by any kind of personal name. There was no need to ask if their sovereign was perhaps a stark white creature said to glow with a characteristic pale light, cold, pure and incandescent.

Queen Herrah had deduced it before she had the need to force the words forth – the signs were all clear.

The supposed grandeur of that city… The devotion of its denizens…

By the Shadows. Not another one.

Anything but that.

They ran so far…

The precious few of them who had managed to conceive clutched their offspring in fierce protectiveness.

Those who had found friends or partners among the denizens of this land looked at them with desperate urgency.

How do they possibly explain this?

How to warn the other denizens of these caverns of what may be about to break loose on them?

Herrah’s husband still lived in those days, and he deferred to her wisdom in many things.

In convincing his own subjects to follow her advice, he would bring up that he had never once seen his wife show fear until that very moment when she first heard of the creature they now had to contend with...

Not just one such creature, it would turn out. There were two of them. A mated pair, reigning as King and Queen over the sorry ignorant creatures in their thrall, much as the Weavers’ own ancestors had lured down surface-dwellers to be their servants in imitation of their Holy Mother.

Perhaps that is why they had not challenged each other the moment they both showed up in the same place – even those things might make an exception for their mates.

The first one to appear had sprouted up in what used to be part of the Greenpath long, long ago.

The Green Children had the wisdom to give it a wide berth, though they reported that it seemed benevolent at face value and did not chase them out or hamper them in their business; At first, it had not done anything particularly invasive aside from claiming that small territory, but its vast, glowing roots were said to stretch through most of these caverns… under their very feet? Right now?

It was hard not to think of choking threads stretching everywhere in a great, wide web that spanned an entire landmass.

No, not like the ones in Deepnest. Not their own.

A grand web imbued with a singular, malicious will, stretching larger than this entire cavern, several times over.

There had been Roots back in Pharloom, though none with the power to reach that far… how much of their movements and whereabouts did that one perceive? Did some of its senses stretch over all this territory, like the creator’s silken sight?

Its area of influence certainly seemed smaller in comparison. Even such beings must vary in their natural skill and strength, same as sentient mortals or feral creatures might. That one might just be be weaker, and hence not quite as daring or aggressive – at least not on its own. Another reason why it may have chosen to submit to its would-be-mate rather than challenge it.

Neither the Kingdom of beetles nor its vaunted city did start up until that other one arrived – a great, vast, monstrous thing, unfathomably large, eyeless and limbless, as one must imagine the very first moving things at the beginning of creation, sufficient upon itself, with nothing for it to perceive or interact with...

A wyrm. A wyrm?!

Weavers and Shadow-Worshippers both had thought those long extinct, if not mere legends.

A pale wyrm?!

Darkness help them.

It had come straight from the eastern plains, where there was supposed to be nothing.

Mortally wounded, it seemed at first, leaving aside the question what might possibly inflict significant harm on such a thing. Their likes were not exactly designed to die.

According to everything they had ever known about such creatures, the other one should have finished it off in its weakened state and consumed its power.

That is certainly what the Grand Mother would have done.

She wouldn’t even tolerate so much as a mortal lord within her territory, let alone another Higher Being.

The tale of what took place on the edge of the borderland, though no doubt distorted through the years after being relayed through generations, instead went rather differently: The one who showed up first, the one who would be known as Queen, was said to have cradled the new arrival’s great vast form in its… her?... many glowing tendrils, offering… him? Some measure of comfort in what may have been his last days, had he not decided that he wasn’t done with the world after all, and emerged renewed from the wrack of his grand carcass, in a small, disjointed form that poorly mimicked those of the beetles he would come to rule over, perhaps as a means of deception.

But whatever his intentions may have been, all accounts agreed that the pair had joined with each other, and promptly set to work in building and expanding their miserable little empire.

To the inhabitants of these caverns and the scattered surface villages all about, it was a marvel unmatched;

To Herrah and her own, it was but the nascent germ of calamity, an early, rudimentary form of the horror they had witnessed in their homeland, a pitiful backwater variant thereof, comparing to the kingdom of Pharloom as a small weed in a crevice resembles the same rampant pest placed in fertile soil. None of the tales impressed them, and their supporters among the tribe of Beasts followed their example in this.

The Queen of Beasts ensured that they would understand the gravity of the situation, so much as they possibly could:

They must never treat with the White King.

They must never recognize the White King as their sovereign.

They must never, ever, ever bend the knee to the White King, or they should surely suffer servitude and brutal subjugation… or so they had thought.

The encroachment they had feared did seem to come – first, he asked to build a road through the territory of the Mosskin – to connect his city to the surface, it was said, for trade to pass through, and for streams of pilgrims to swell the numbers of his underlings. For now, he and his ilk seemed to respect their agreement, but who could say for how long? He seemed intend on seizing the unclaimed wilds nearer to the surface first, but the great crossroads he built spoke to his further intentions.

His mate’s lands, he filled with lovingly constructed follies and gazebos, turning that knotty wild place into a proper garden. Perhaps that was how his ilk shows their affection, in the tolerating and entwining of each other’s presences. The pair made even the trees grow in rows and put the bushes in proper shapes, travesty upon travesty.

Another stretch, they handed off (wait? Handed off?) to a favored servant to build what they called a university, or an archive. Rather predictably, it soon filled up with strange fog and all manner of unnatural creatures, docile and beautiful though they might first seem. There had never been a university in the borderlands – though the Vaultkeepers used to have such a thing up in the citadel of Pharloom, mostly concerned with the rattling off of old, useless texts and the propagandizing of the masses, all part of the vain attempt to keep the creator caged… the descendants of those who designed that system would know. In the end it was hard to say how much it had ever truly served their purposes, and how much of it was swiftly subverted by hers.

That place of learning in what would come to be known as the Fog Canyon, however, was wholly the White Wyrm’s own brainchild, and of the creature he put in charge, once a student of his whom he personally mentored, now, known as a great teacher to their populace.

The city’s downward expansion continued steadily as well, with grand infrastructure being contrived to sustain its ballooning population and grandeur. Transport. Sanitation. Ominous heaps of crude gizmos and contraptions… until they somehow, suddenly stopped.

‘They must have hit upon the bottom of the world’, was the guess among the natives of Deepnest; It lay much nearer to the surface here, at the edges of the world, though that ancient darkness was just as known to the Weavers, some of whom had once retreated even to those furthest depths to escape the creator’s sight.

No more city could be built; For a while, the White King seemed to busy himself with the construction of a gaudy palace and other unspecified pursuits, of which the Queen of Deepnest would only come to learn much, much later. The grand spire that he previously dwelt in, he left to his most trusted supporters among his subservient feudal lords, whom he appointed as the city’s keeper and chiefest lord.

For a while, everything was quiet. By all accounts, the White King was wholly absorbed in playing with his new toys. The presence of that Wyrm and his kingdom remained a steady worry in the back of Queen Herrah’s mind, but her day-to-day business was taking up with the administering of their own lands, with their hunts, their internal frictions and lesser skirmishes with their direct neighbors. The Queen’s people and their skills furbished the Deepnest with some marvels of its own, so that they did not have that much to envy from their neighbors, but always in moderation – Herrah would always maintain that they did not come here to repeat the follies of their homeland, or inflict them upon others; Deepnest was not Pharloom, and that was for the better in every way, as much as some of the proud old guard might not like to hear this.

They need only look at the city-dwellers, she’d say, how weak and coddled they had become, how reliant on the systems they had built, and on the protection of their master. Their numbers had surely swelled beyond what could be maintained by hunting and scavenging alone; That city was dependent on imports from the outlying lands, on its precious little order.

If that were to collapse, the dwellers within would surely starve; Their weak little minds might not know what to make of themselves without somebody to tell them what to do.

Deepnest would never become like that; They would stand by their own strength, or not at all.

The White King’s attentions turned back to the west about a decade later, no doubt a mere blip for his likes, just long enough for him to remember again that they existed.

That was the turning of the tides, when the Shrooms went and bent the knee – this was thoroughly unexpected to all of their neighbors, for the Mushroom Tribe was proud and had always looked down on those who were not Hive Minds; Their acceptance of that thing’s rule was wary indeed, and they never called him ‘King’, but in the end, the lure of his power proved too seductive – they thought they could make use of him.

All too right that the mushroom hive mind would be the first to be taken by such hubris, as one of the few entities that may still have been able to contend with him on near to equal basis.

Next were the Mantisses – they never had any great love of the city dwellers and should have been expected to oppose them as stubbornly as they had traditionally opposed the beasts themselves, yet somehow, an alliance was formed.

With both their traditional enemies subsumed into the Wyrm’s growing empire (not that the Shrooms or Mantisses themselves would have thought of it this way), the Deepnest was starting to find itself surrounded.

They got an offer to join with that kingdom as well, of course. Quite expected.

And just as predictably, the spiders chased that messenger from their warrens.

No, they were not going to be vassals of no Eternal Kingdom, thank you very much!

By then, the Weavers of Deepnest were getting… not scared, for that wasn’t quite in their nature, but certainly apprehensive, ever waiting for the other shoe to drop – when was he going to start conquering them? Thus far, no one had been attacked outright. But no doubt, they must be itching for it… him and that mate of his.

He had been perfectly diplomatic as he had shown himself to be since the days of Hive Queen Vespa’s late Great-Grandmother. Some might say he had pacified these caves which were once a site of enduring tribal conflict, that he had brought convenience, prosperity and protection to those who could never have attained it in the harshness of the wilds, those who would be easy pickings if they ever were to wander into Deepnest… but of course, they would say that, weaklings dazzled by his flaunting of his power.

He could see the future to some extent, so perhaps he was playing some sort of long game. Some plot to make them all yield of what would seem to be their own free will.

Was it that? Did he fancy himself clever?

Benevolent even, in some lordly, condescending are-we-not-merciful kind of way.

Perhaps he preferred the carrot to the stick, thinking it elegant and without waste, why dispense destruction prematurely when he could still win their devotion?

The pair did not quite match up to the raw destructive force of the Grand Mother, so it figures that they would resort to trickery to compensate…

Their ancestors had themselves resorted to subterfuge when they thought they might get the drop on their creator, weaving in their spells along with the songs of worship she had ever so delighted in.

Some of their elders still recounted the story in a braggart manner, clinging to what cold comfort they could afford – how the old hag didn’t suspect a thing, even as she felt the first effects, how she bid them to keep up their hymns as she cocooned herself for a nap and just... never woke up.

Her physical form may still lie exactly where she sunk down all these ages ago.

Her will, however, ended up being but moderately restricted in the means of in its exertion.

There was no victory at all, only a mutual trading of spiteful blows, leaving each side with nothing but the pound of flesh extracted from each other, and a wrack of corpses all around them.

Some still held to the fantasy of maybe returning one day, of contriving some savior or weapon as a means to counter the creator and finish the job of usurping her, but Herrah thought this folly.

It got harder and harder to argue that they ought to count their blessings and live quietly in freedom of this darkness below, with the marked lack of fresh faces among their ranks and that new threat encroaching on their new home from the east. Envy was aroused among some in the Weavers’ Den when they beheld the plentiful broods of their new neighbors.

Herrah herself had come here because she would much rather be accounted a common beast in the dark of the borderland than a First Child high up in the gilded cages of Pharloom, but those who have been near the top rarely forget the view.

Grumblings and murmurs arose, about how they didn’t come here just to perish quietly, passing on their works as a legacy to their supposed lessers, to be forgotten as those abandoned temples on the surface…

It was then that the construction site was spied at the edge of their territory.

A tangible, external threat for the brewing powder-keg to discharge itself on.

A convenient proxy for the faraway origin of their curse.

It begins now.

This must be the start of it.

This must be the point where they would be conquered, subjugated and clamped in irons, and all their lands defiled. The locals who had taken them in would know the horrors they had sought to flee from.

It didn’t matter that the tunnel was not even aimed at Deepnest, but merely intended to go through it like the road through Greenpath, to connect to different caverns further out…

It was too close for comfort, if such a thing as a comfortable distance could ever have existed.

In hindsight this would come to stand out as the last time that the White King had ever attempted to build outward from the current bounds of his realm; His ambition would be brought to a stop indeed, but not by the spiders;

The real trouble was brewing at the very opposite end of the Kingdom, at the top of the crystal peaks. It was right about then when the first of his miners would have unearthed that long-forgotten statue amid those strangely convenient crystals with their many ever-so-nifty properties, remains of something that no one could quite recall anymore.

Any thoughts of further expansion would soon be driven from his mind as he scrambled to hold onto his Kingdom in the face of a larger threat; What last few good years he would obtain would be spent fortifying and strengthening the territory he already held, before the final end came for them all…

From the moment those ruins were found, it was all over for every single living thing in these caverns. Of all the civilizations within, only the Mantises would survive with any semblance of their old glories intact.

But nobody knew it yet.

The White King’s mind was all on tinkering with his new toys, hastening his demise with the fancy mining golems he had contrived from those crystals even as he dreamed of linking all his realm together with great machines.

Or, as a Weaver might call them, a poor bug’s ventrica.

Not that many poor bugs had ever seen the inside of those ‘tramways’, for now, they were only open to the wealthiest citizens to recoup the cost of building them. While roads and stagways might, in theory, be said to benefit everyone, the same could not be claimed of those iron monstrosities.

The Queen of Deepnest, for her part, thought that she had perceived the White King’s mind quite clearly in that move of his, and she was having none of it.

‘Oh no you don’t, Pale Wyrm.’ she thought.

Not this time.

Not here.

Not after they came all this way…

They would let him know that they were anything but defenseless easy prey.

He might well bring them down in the end, but they would make him pay for every inch of land… if they were lucky, he might decide to crush someone else first… and if they weren’t, then at least they would die free.

For all their fierceness and all the inhospitable reputation of the land itself and its wild creatures, even the Deepnest and its people may have become easy pickings to one such as him.

Truth be told her own people had their part in the subjugation of other fierce warrior tribes back when they still served their creator.

The beasts of Deepnest were fierce and wild, but they had nothing going for them that the Warriors of Karak or the Skarr of Pharloom would not also have had.

But not on Herrah’s watch.

Not while she still ruled and drew breath.

Her husband, still alive at the time, certainly didn’t need much encouragement to order the raid; He waited only for his wife’s approval to carry out his retaliation. Only his deference to her wisdom would have staid his claw to begin with.

The royal pair lead the charge, skittering along the walls as a furry wall of scuttling things descended on the hard-at-work beetles.

The soft, hapless creatures did not seem to understand at all why they had been thus rejected;

Some mumbled apologies to that king of theirs as they fell.

Pathetic.

Neither the queen nor her mate felt much sorrow for their plight in that moment.

They would leave their message clear and unmistakable for the next shift of workers to find; One would hope that the cushy life in their city had not yet wholly robbed them of the good sense to run away. Weak things like them ought to heed their instincts.

They made their move and showed clear their intentions;

The Ball was in the White King’s court now.

The answer of the Wyrm was… not what they expected.

They knew he’d send his knights; They had a contingent of Stalking Devouts and Weaver Mages ready to counter them. The Queen of Beasts herself stood ready with her claw-blades bared, ready to rend their shells and display the spoils of her victory on pikes as a reminder to His Majesty, so that he would never again forget the exact demarcations of Deepnest’s borders.

What they didn’t expect was for that enormous knight-captain in his shining white armor to address them in a soft-spoken voice, urging them gently to abstain from unnecessary bloodshed that would not be of any benefit to anyone.

This Ser Hegemol, as he introduced himself, explained to them that the Kingdom of Hallownest wanted no war and would not exact any weregild from them on account of their fallen workers, so long as they were willing to accept those lives lost as recompense for what territorial violation they felt had been committed. The relatives of those slain called out for restitution even now, but their King was willing to do his part to smooth their ire if further conflict could be avoided.

They claimed they always had every intention to leave Deepnest alone just as they had requested; The aims of their building project lay beyond the borderland cavern itself, but they were willing to cease the project at once, if this would keep the peace.

He insisted again and again that they only wished to talk, and so far as Herrah could discern, the tall bulky knight himself truly seemed to believe that.

The King of Deepnest was of a mind to have them chased from his sight and be willing to account them as sufficiently scared off so long as they did not come back – a reasonable course of action if he had been dealing with just any neighboring fiefdom. If it had been the Mantises or the Shrooms. Creatures that might be expected to have limits to their greed.

The Queen decided that she would test the Wyrm’s thralls just a little further. Push them just a little, to see how they push back:

“Your incursions cease at once. We will suffer none of you crossing our bounds anymore. Not even to pick up your playthings, to recoup your tools or materials – We don’t even want you gathering the bodies. Let their husks be picked clean by the things that live in these wilds. Let them be left to mark our borders in days to come, in case that you or the avarice of your master ever need another reminder!”

Ser Hegemol did not like these terms at all, she could tell, and neither did his comrades.

Most of them flinched at her demand to leave the bodies to the elements.

The rotund Dung Beetle beside barely suppressed the urge to throw hand at the disparaging mention of his ‘master’; The slight maiden knight beside him, a native of Greenpath by her looks, covered up her mouth-parts with a sharp gasp when she first heard the demand.

The spindly lady with the three long horns must be the proudest of their number – she visibly struggled the most to stomach the humiliation; The killing intent restrained in her taut battle stance could be plainly sensed.

Even so, the whole of them retained their discipline. None moved out of turn, none lost their composure, none let themselves be provoked into lunging at the hulking beasts or sneering weavers.

One could gather that they must have been under rather strict orders not to escalate to matter what.

Whatever might be said of the rest of their kindred in their city or their court, these ones were not weaklings; They were not cowed by the swift blades of the elite warriors surrounding them, neither by the great horseshoe crab towering crowned before them, nor by the tall queen of beasts in her elegant crimson headdress, who greeted them with claw-blades bared, her once slender form long left swollen and engorged from her many fruitless attempts at bearing child.

The only fear in them seemed to be that of failing in their mission, of the specter of war falling over their treasured home; Not an unwise fear, all things considered.

The Queen of Beasts would not press them any further.

She retracted her blades.

“So it is talk that your master desires?”

That Ser Hegemol displayed one truly amazing feat of self-control in extending the invitation to the White Palace as if none of the previous altercation had taken place.

As if they were not, even now, thinking of their fellow-citizen’s shells being picked clean by the mites.

The Queen of Beasts turned to her lord:

“What do you say, dear? Shall we see what that Wyrm has to say for himself?”

…

The White Palace was built even further from the surface than the Deepnest, and yet, the entirety of the place was suffused with ambient light, pale shine clinging to everything.

Even the leaves. Even the tiniest fronds of the ferns.

It didn’t even seem to be coming from any kind of particular direction – certainly not from the surface.

It appeared a result of the ruling pair simply existing at their general vicinity.

Herrah had never actually seen the creator face to face, though she may have caught a glimpse of what may have been the outermost strands of her grand web, back when she was a mere youth.

The mossy groves near the nest she was born in were one of the few places in Pharloom not yet wholly strangled by the might of its monarch. Only its distance to her seat of power had allowed Herrah’s group to plot their escape.

She had heard the Grand Mother described as deceptively beautiful, crowned with a halo of pure white light, with eight clawed limbs much like a Weaver’s and a haughty, austere air to her, but second-hand reports of old veterans were all she could rely upon.

While the Wyrm had plastered his likeness all over his kingdom, the Grand Mother had outlawed all depictions of her as an idolatrous offense punishable with a one-way trip to the Slab.

Perhaps no sculptor or painter could satisfy her vanity;

Even her own priests may have been surprised to find her resting place in the cradle above full of beastly web, and of the peasants below, it must be doubted if they even knew the abstract, faceless divinity atop to be a ‘she’. The most common emblem used to represent her was a simple spool of silk, the symbol of her power, curved in the likeness of her great loom, which had, ironically, come to double as her cage in later days, where she might be hanging still, cocooned and suspended. When the ancients still thought themselves victorious, they snickered that the emblem had not changed, but its meaning rather did. Later, they would see it as a bitter reminder that they never really escaped her.

The Pale King’s idols and statues were largely more personal in nature, though for reasons that were attributed high, transcended meaning by the devotees of his cult and to the confusion of everybody else, he allowed for a surprising amount of artistic freedom in the depictions – all showed him gleaming bright with long, jagged horns and six paired wings, but beyond that, the images could not seem to agree on something so basic as the number of his eyes and limbs, or even the overall shape of his body.

Whatever awaited her in here, Herrah would not be cowed.

Whatever monsters the rulers of Hallownest might be, they would be meeting as negotiators of equal rank, and she was not going to let them forget it.

The Deepnest royals were received with high honors. The Pale King’s little underlings, all clad in white, did their darnedest to scurry out of their way – weak things that may have easily been picked off if they did not cling to a stronger existence.

The same knights whom they had met before stood at attention to greet them, keeping stalwartly to their ceremonial roles despite whatever personal misgivings they may have.

The will of their master seemed absolute here, carried out to the letter even when his underlings must wonder at his meaning. They still trusted in his protection, perhaps, despite what little good it had done their colleagues of the builder guild.

At last, they were escorted to the throne room, which would have been an exception to the general brightness of the place, if not for the presence of its occupants.

The Queen of Beasts had to squint all six of her eyes to adjust to the unwelcome brightness – it was only then that she finally saw the Pale Wyrm, seated on a tall narrow throne framed with sharp spikes.

...he was actually a whole lot shorter than she expected.

One got the impression that he must be a slight, thin, stick-like thing, buried under what may be layers of wing membranes, but effectively served as a long, trailing robe, glancing at the visitors with a single pair of dark, almond-shaped eyes as if he’d known exactly when they would come in.

The circle of long, jagged horns at the crown of his head were almost half as tall as he was.

He would have been an odd, ill-proportioned sight on his own, but there was something almost comical about the contrast between the sovereign and what must be his wife.

One could see now that much of the palace had been built to admit the Lady’s considerable height, which fortuitously allowed for individuals such as Ser Hegemol or the King of Deepnest to traverse the halls comfortably.

What they saw before them now was undoubtedly but a small part of an enormous glowing creature that pretended even less to pass for a regular bug than her mate did, though she had some semblance of long, high-collared robes hung about the middle of her. Her pale shine was a bit softer compared to the harsh sharpness of his, her curling branches just a little bit translucent and hung with various ornaments. She slithered along on trailing roots that disappeared somewhere out of view, regarding the visitors with glossy blue eyes that exuded a strange serenity.

They obviously weren’t regular bugs, but Herrah had expected that. What surprised her most was just how mild the pair appeared to her – measured, composed, stoic, yet clearly finding some comfort in each other’s presence, ever so slightly turned toward each other, though they made no motion to touch in front of their visitors.

One might easily believe that they might lean against each other or take a hold of each other’s appendages once they were away from prying eyes, and that they might somehow both find something exceedingly restful about this, though they should both be free of most mortal limitations.

Their greetings were rather formal, with the Lord coming off just a bit stiffer than the Lady, who had more of a benign serenity to her, but neither of them quite seemed to match the tales of the creator in all her willful, formidable might.

The Queen voiced most of the pleasantries, while the King took most of the more substantial talk upon himself, something about unfortunate, regrettable misunderstandings and how they might all benefit greatly if they would just hand him the Deepnest on a platter and bow low before him, though he didn’t exactly put it like that, instead going on and on about the many advantages of trade and alliances and public transport infrastructure, occasionally diverging into vivid promises about the many gifts he’d lavish on them if only they would consider bending the knee, and the rave reviews he was getting from all his other sniveling vassals.

Why, he didn’t seem to understand why anyone wouldn’t want to join his glorious kingdom, but always, he betrayed himself with those very favorite words of his: Always circling back to ‘Eternal’, ‘Order’ and ‘Devotion’.

The creator was quite obsessed with that, too, wasn’t she?

Terribly, terribly obsessed.

As, no doubt, carnivores must be obsessed with hunting, and eaters of pollen and nectar with seeking out flowers.

In the end, it wasn’t possible to forget what those two were, reasonable or benevolent as though their word may appear.

Their lot make ‘order’ like spiders build webs and bees build hives.

The pair may appeal as thoroughly domesticated as their gardens and their city-dwelling underlings, base urges caged behind a thin veneer of ‘reason’ or ‘civilization’, to the point that they might even be perfectly agreeable to have tea with, but it would be foolish to forget what lay beneath.

They might fancy themselves noble demons rather than brazen, barefaced beasts, but they were demons all the same.

Such was the way of things: Eat or be eaten. The weak must serve, the strong must fight, to keep their perch at the peak.

The Queen of Deepnest had some fight left in her yet. She didn’t plan on being eaten, nor would she hand herself or her people over on a platter. If the Wyrm and his mate wanted Deepnest, they would have to come and get it.

Its current rulers didn’t exactly tell that to their faces, but they made sure that the Pale Beings would understand.

…

The King and Queen of Deepnest never again went on another joint diplomatic visit.

It was not long after their return home that the first cases of the dream plague sprung up all over the caverns.

It was utterly indiscriminate, snatching the young and the old alike, caring nothing for gender, caste, lineage, rank, status, or even what species or tribe a bug might belong to. It did not stop before borders, nor did it question anyone’s allegiance before striking them down.

Other disease might be contained by closing down doors, burning tainted food-stores or quarantining those afflicted, but there was no containing a dream. There was no caging a memory, an idea.

Anything that thinks, dreams. The more it thinks, the more it dreams, the more complex its imaginings.

Long did the Queen of Deepnest spend scraping the sticky, sweet defilement from the shell of the one she loved, her dream of ever bearing his child now well and truly ended.

She had long been thinking that it wouldn’t happen, truth be told.

They’d been trying for so long.

One thing or another would have cut short the window of opportunity eventually, a decade or so more, and Herrah herself may have been too aged to attempt it any longer.

Thus was the creator at last avenged on her wayward children, on those who dared to flee…

To think they had ran all this way to escape her, only to find themselves as incidental, collateral damage to whims of another power – a God of Gods, a thing so ancient, so overwhelming that it outclassed the creator’s likes just as badly as the Grand Mother herself dwarfed the mortals bound beneath her.

Long had they feared her coming after them; Little had they recked of another tribe within the borderlands bearing obvious marks of a Higher Power’s touch.

Not the Mosskin, whose placid maker was accounted for; but those storied gravekeepers, those with power over dreams. A remarkable power – though no more a blessing or a boon than the Weavers’ own silken craft.

Long had they relished in those gifts without paying reverence to her who granted them; The time to pay the piper had come at last, and everyone in these caverns would pay it with them, not just the new light for whom they betrayed her, not just his followers, but anything and anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the path of her wrath, even down to wild, mindless critters.

Perhaps this is what they would deserve, on account of their ancestors’ sins. For how they’d left the commonfolk to bear the brunt of maintaining the Grand Mother’s leaking prison while escaping themselves, to die on account of a conflict they did not even understand. Herrah herself was not really involved in the making of those decisions – she was too young then, it had been before her time.

She was among those who were expected to live as rulers in the Divine Mother’s stead, until the failure of the seal made itself known during the years of her youth.

It seems the sins of their mothers had at last caught up with them, avenging themselves on them by proxy of this foreign goddess in this foreign land.

--

Never in a hundred years would Herrah have expected that the White King would ever end up asking her for help.

Say what you will about him, he was the first to call a meeting between all the lords of these parts, whether they considered themselves his vassals or not, whether they still thought of their home as ‘the borderlands’ or as part of the ‘Kingdom of Hallownest’.. Whether this, too, be some sublimated outgrowth of some drive for order or dominance and whatnot, to take charge of the situation…

Or perhaps he simply felt responsible, because it was to him that the Old Light’s former followers had joined themselves, and to him where they now looked for deliverance from their creator’s wrath.

The meeting did not go as he expected it; In truth, it didn’t go well for him at all.

He found little help from his traditional allies. His city’s keeper and the archivist of the fog canyon were with him always, as it was him who had put them in their places, but his meeting with the Mushroom Elder proved a debacle: The Shroom insisted, in the public assembly of all the lords and nobles, and all the leading scholars of the land, that he confirm to them the future, that he foretell to them what consequences this rampant affliction would have for all their peoples.

That was, after all, what he was supposed to be good for in their estimation, they reason they bent the knee to him to begin with.

Herrah was in attendance then, as the representative of Deepnest; She hadn’t expected much of the meeting, truth be told, she was still in mourning for her husband then and would rather be dealing with just about everything else. But it just wouldn’t do to have the other lords all sitting around scheming without herself at the table, even if the goal was supposedly to find a solution to a common problem. At the time, she wouldn’t have put it past the Wyrm to use even this raging calamity as a means to ensure himself an advantage.

She wanted to sit by her husband’s shrine and offer song, as it was the custom in the land of her birth, meaningless as it must seem now even to his subjects that she now had to provide for.

The venerable old Shroom asked the question, speaking as representative of the Fungal Core, and she expected, without a doubt, that the Pale King would confidently proclaim that his realm would last eternal – she wouldn’t necessarily believe him, or that his perception of the future would be all that absolute even if he did tell the truth. She just wouldn’t expect him to admit uncertainty or weakness, regardless of whether he could actually see a favorable future or not.

She expected his hubris to hold impenetrable as the hardwired imperatives in his blood.

No promise or assurance, no matter how brazen and unlikely, how confident or transparent, would remotely have shocked her…

Except that the damn Wyrm got evasive, rambling something about how the future could be complicated, twisting and branching, depending on delicate factors rather than being wholly set in stone, how there were tipping points, probabilities, multiple paths sometimes, how one must be careful where to look, as that which one glimpses and acts on could become part of the loop of causality, propagating itself as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He spoke of things most mortals would not have a clue about and for all she knew he might well be exactly right, but the contents of his words could not cloak the pattern of them:

A whole load of generalities, and absolutely no specifics…

With terrible, sharp realization, the Queen of Deepnest realized that the damnable creature was afraid.

Reluctant to look.

Frightened of what he’d see…

Of the rough shape or path before them that he must have glimpsed already…

The great Fungus, or rather the vast Hive Mind that it spoke for, wasn’t having it in the least: “Do we overcome this plague? Yes or no?”

When the answer wasn’t either of those words, the Mushroom Elder drew its own conclusions:

"Pale Wyrm...What good to foresee a demise unavoidable?"

And now the curse was spoken out loud. Made undeniably real.

Ringing like a bell in all of their minds, tormented with the twin curses of knowledge and awareness.

Pandemonium broke out. Voices crying, pleading.

It was all the worse for the faith that so many of them had placed in that King’s oracular pronouncements – for long, they had expected him to have all the answers, so if they were faced with something that even he had no response to, where did that leave them?

Herrah herself might have been one of the calmest creatures in this room simply because she had never expected the Pale Being to contain all the world’s wisdom to begin with.

They had all hitched their carts to his wagon, some more explicitly than others, and now they were hurtling off the cliff along with him as his rising star had finally exhausted its supply of luck.

But it was disgraceful, to witness so many weak, clinging creatures with nowhere to turn.

Some of those pampered nobles had probably never known the sting of real fear in their lives before.

A representative of the Greenpath proclaimed in hasty, clinging fear that they best pray to Unn to call them back into her dream; Somewhere in the clamor, the solid voice of Vespa cut above the din, proclaiming that it was folly to fight against the inevitable, and that they’d all best face their ends with dignity, and take precautions to make the most of what little time is left to them rather than worsening their lots even further with futile actions.

The Moth elders were all in a frenzy, with some proclaiming that all of them must repent and do penance to appease their raging maker, while others declared that they all must die, that it was far too late to quell the blistering rage of Her Radiance, for why should she ever take them back once they had proven faithless?

Most confoundingly of all, one of them shared a prophecy about a fated savior meant to come and deliver them… some kind of ‘Wielder’ or a ‘Black Knight’, he spoke of, but they were not slated to arrive for another couple of centuries, and described with a variety of confusing, contradictory attributes, such as being fated to be born of the kingdom, and yet set to arrive from far, far away.

If such a vague, dream-like prophecy could be trusted at all, it would do them little good either way – they did not have another couple of centuries.

Certainly the mortals among their number didn’t, which a particular uppity scholar from the city was quick to point out, using this as some springboard to proclaim that the King should not have shut down his research – but whatever that was, neither the King nor his foremost scholar in charge of the archives would hear of it.

(It was then that the Hive Queen reiterated that she and her people would not be a part of any ill-advised madness meant to delay the inevitable)

The Mantis Lords simply declared that they did not fear dream plagues anymore than they feared anything else, though the fourth among their number didn’t sound as convinced as he could have.

In part, Herrah could see some of the wisdom in Vespa’s perspective: Fear of this thing would have them all finished before the thing itself did.

In the land of her birth, the things that were done in fear of the creator had at last equaled her own vile deeds…

But not all creatures accept the notion of predetermined fates as naturally as a Bee might, spiders included.

In the end, the Wyrm King was nearly left alone; Of all his allies and fair weather friends, only his Lady, the City Keeper and the Archivist stood by him, the latter two eyeing the one-time object of their worship and reverence with something akin to deep sympathy.

The White Lady alone was bold enough to place a stray branch on her husband’s wispy shoulders… though she, too, was looking to him to come up with a plan and bear the brunt of whatever black choices may lie ahead of them.

It was then that the idle boasts of days past were remembered. The King and his inner circle had their eyes, ears, tentacles and roots in many different places, so it was not surprising that the talk must have reached them at some point…

Perhaps not more than a passing rumor or an idle whisper, but just enough so that they would single out the Queen of Deepnest as the one to turn to.

It was then that the miserable creature did something that truly surprised her.

Something that grossly contradicted everything she thought she knew about his lot in an instant:

“Lady Herrah of Deepnest. We, along with all living, thinking beings within these caverns, are in dire need of your help.”

He asked for her strength. He asked for all of their strengths – their skill, their wisdom and expertise, as one who knows well the limits of what he can do alone, and values highly the contributions of those around him.

He did not think of dismissing them as ‘mere mortals’, and neither did his lady wife; Accounting their skills and contributions no less valuable than his, and all the more precious to him because their pooled expertise and ressources went beyond what he could do by himself.

The despair that marked all four of them was one and the same.

The nine eyes that they all shared between them were all pinned onto the six of hers.

As befitting of him as their leader, the Wyrm stepped forward first, and he promised then at once, without a moment’s hesitation, to grant her any wish or boon she might desire, if it were at all within his power, if only she would tell him:

What exactly was it that her people had done to dispose of their creator, and how could might one accomplish to do the same?

The Queen of Deepnest realized his purpose at once:

“You’re thinking of doing the same to the Old Light, aren’t you?”

They did not deny it.

All of them stood stricken, bracing for the moment in which their last desperate hopes might disintegrate.

Finally, the White King took it upon himself to nod ever so slightly, the minute motion nonetheless quite obvious since the full lengths of his horns followed the slight tilt of his chin.

He wasn’t going to like the answer one bit.

“Are you sure you want the truth? It isn’t one the weak could bear.”

The lot of them stood resolute… or floated resolutely, somehow, in the case of the archivist with her undulating tentacles.

“Ignorance will not save us. As it stands, the Old Light will rob us all of our very minds – our individuality. All diversity of thought. What could be worse than that?”

“For my city? For the kingdom? For my fellow subjects? I would bear anything.”

The King and Queen exchanged a glance. At last, his claw found one of her roots.

He spoke for both of them, well aware that the finality of the others’ decisions would rest with his: “There is nothing We would not give. No price We would not pay. Take Our soul. Take Our flesh. Use Us. Spend Us. Whatever it takes. Tell Us what is required, and name the price for your aid.”

He really wasn’t going to like it.

None of them would.

Naive, idealistic fools, the lot of them.

So proud of their tiny little backwater kingdom.

They all thought their little world-in-a-nutshell to be the uttermost pinnacle of civilization, something that must absolutely be preserved no matter what. They considered themselves the wisest creatures in their little bubble, and they didn’t have the foggiest idea what they were talking about, or of the horrors that they were just so casually invoking, the two immortals included.

Backwater gods of backwater kingdoms – No doubt that the Grand Mother would have soundly wiped the floor with them both if they had ever crossed her path. And their advisors, so admiring, so ready to lay down their lives… it might break their minds a little to picture a tyrant so vile one might justify any barbarity just to get rid of her.

It might kick the figurative floor out right from under them, to hear of a larger, grander kingdom many times the size of theirs with its single major city and handful of villages, older, vaster and sufficiently advanced to make all their famed technological achievements seem like children’s toys.

Watch that old Wyrm go green with envy at what his fellow-creature had achieved, only to recoil in palpable horror at the means by which it had been accomplished – the brutal conquests, the desolation wrought on the landscape, the squeezing of the weak like raw lemons, the harsh repression and draconian punishment, and the perpetuation of all the same practices by the would-be usurpers.

Herrah was not proud of her ancestors’ deeds and did not dress them up in glory.

She described in sober, pragmatic realism the enormous ever-hungry meat-shredder that was was concocted to keep the song of sealing sustained, the steady flow of hapless pilgrims fed to it as sacrifices, and how it all accomplished nothing more than to mildly inconvenience her whom it was supposed to contain; She who might be continuing her reign of terror even now from within the confines of her cage, if she had not undone her bonds already.

The whole endeavor was an abject, abysmal failure; A futile abomination of atrocity upon atrocity, and nothing in this world could possibly induce her to take part in anything remotely like it.

She expected the entire quartet to be shattered, or at least, the two royal advisors; Their hopes of some unlooked for, miraculous solution finally up in smoke.

They stood stricken indeed, insofar as one could discern. But not defeated. Not yet.

Not the King at least. He looked deep in thought, considering.

Considering quite a lot of things, probably. The little cogwheels were hard at work behind his unreadable dark eyes.

It seems he was not yet ready to eat his words.

“You have Our deepest gratitude, Lady Herrah. Our offer still stands. Any boon you wish. Consider lending Us your aid – for the future of your people, as much as Ours.”

“My people will not have the luxury of a future either way, Pale One. One of your kin made quite sure of that.” It was not that she did not account the non-weaver citizens as ‘her own people’, she felt like being a little pointed and cutting today, after a day like this. She had recently been widowed, and there were, no doubt, many more losses to come, now that they were apparently all doomed. She meant for these to be her parting words.

But that strange, quiet, whispery voice of his with all its paradoxical gravitas did, of course, have to pipe up again, before she could be gone:

“...perhaps that may be something We may be able to remedy. Any boon you wish, Herrah of Deepnest.”

Oh that bastard.

To have this dangled over her -

She still had no desire to be dragged into anything like he ancestors’ monstrous scheme;

But that offer, she could not refuse.

…

The idea was not really that mad, all things considered.

If one of their likes could curse them, it figured perhaps that another could un-curse them.

That, at least, would be the madness that compelled her to stand bared before the White Lady, to let her lay her tendrils on her shell. Living things were more his Lady’s area, the King had said.

Herrah was determined to stand proud all the same, summoning up the dignity that the external circumstances would refuse her.

The glowing creature’s sympathy seemed oddly genuine, all things considered.

“I cannot undo what has been done to you,” she began, somberly, “The might of that other power exceeds mine. Her essence is coupled too tightly to your very soul. I cannot lift the curse altogether… but I could mitigate it, soften it. Allow for some window of opportunity. I could grant such boons to all that ask.”

“In exchange for our alliance, I presume?”

Hard pressed, the Queen of Hallownest did not deny it:

“...we have dire need of your skills. They are piling up the dead in mass graves already.”

“I am aware. We too have suffered losses… You’ve named your price. You shall have your spools of silk, and tell that mate of yours that he can go and build his blasted contraptions on our border.”

The spider queen picked up her veil from where she had draped it just before, throwing it back upon her body.

“Believe me, I have no fondness for the Old Light… You might recall that I had a husband too once. Right now, you happen to be the enemy of my enemy.”

“And the enemy of your enemy is your friend?”

“The enemy of your enemy is your ally. That is something very different that one should never get confused.”

“But an ally can become a friend, in time... I would certainly hope so, and my beloved does as well.”

That turn of phrase would be predictable enough that Herrah did not even bother to sigh or feel much indignity. One does not rage at a storm, and only a fool should be surprised when a scorpion, in fact, stings. You can handle one at a respectful distance, so long as one does not forget its nature.

“Now is not the time to talk me into bending the knee to you, Pale One.”, she chides instead, almost amused at the tail end of all the absurdities she has found herself involved in. “I’ve told you before, if you want Deepnest you will have to come and get it. Don’t think you’ve conquered us simply because you got us to acquiesce to an alliance of convenience, or it might be you who find yourself bound to our purposes.”

Herrah had not failed to take note that the pair had still flinched when they heard what her ancestors had done with the creator; Like they had, for an instant, pictured themselves in her shoes and felt, maybe for the first time in very long, some dreadful awareness some that they were not so unassailable; They stopped short of outright sympathizing with their kin; Indeed Herrah would probably get them to agree, at least in word, that the maker had deserve it, at least on account of the carelessness and incompetence to let herself be thus lulled into a trap.

Any threats the Queen of Beasts might make would be empty, seeing as they knew now how that endeavor had shaken out – but whatever spark of dread they were still capable of feeling… it would be well for them to keep remembering it.

When the White Lady spoke again, her tone was wan and faintly saddened: “My apologies, Queen of Deepnest. Such was not my intention, though I can understand why you would not view our words with faith and charity. You and yours have been greatly wronged. You may not ever believe me, but I merely wanted to express my appreciation of you, your aid and a hope that we might one day see eye to eye, feeble thought it may be. The both of us have nothing but great respect for you. Clearly you have passed through much hardship in your short time, and come out of it with your strength and will unbent and unbroken. I can only hope that, if we prove able to help you indeed, whatever offspring you may be able to have will share in that fierce strength of yours.”

…

The Deed of the ancient Weavers was deemed unacceptable and atrocious by them all; And yet, it was the only precedent they had, a proof of concept, something that an engineer’s mind may refine and improve upon.

By all accounts, the Pale King had been as viscerally repulsed by that tale as his wife and confidants had been, but he still saw… potential.

A vision. A possibility.

Something he may use and bend to his will.

There surely was a terrifying intelligence ticking away behind his dark eyes, that which would even use and appropriate the forces that would seek his destruction.

His resolve, too, did not prove mere talk, and those who gathered around him followed in his example.

Long, dreadful discussions were had, mostly between the King, the Queen of Deepnest, and his two advisors, though the White Lady would also join in a few times, quite knowledgeable in her own right, if mostly concerned with other things.

She no longer bothered to wait until the others were out of the room to wrap her tendrils around her husband’s small form, and he gladly took the support.

The three mortals always kept on the elaborate veils that were traditional for those in their high positions, but more metaphorical masks came off over time –

Herrah had long thought the City Keeper a servile, fawning courtier of little consequence; In time, she came to find him possessing a quiet dignity and strength that she would not have thought him capable of – once some of their meetings began to take place up in his spire, she could not help but note that he was unfailingly polite and generous to his staff, by which he seemed universally beloved. He was of a quiet, loyal, melancholic disposition that seldom called attention to himself, so it was more incidentally that she came to learn that he happened to be a gifted painter and even something of a poet.

He was a quiet, dedicated, reclusive sort with no family of his own to speak of and few bonds outside of his work, but beneath his cool, restrained demeanor, a genuine love for the city he watched over could be found to run deep.

Herrah was loath to admit it, but it spoke well of the Wyrm that he would appoint this one to watch over his cherished city out of all the fawning aristocrats looking to hang onto the orbit of his power.

The Watcher’s devotion to his King, both as his liege lord and patron deity, was absolute indeed, but it was not at all divorced from devotion to his country as a whole, or to the citizens that lived in it.

It took but a few glimpses of the two of them absorbed in some manner of strategic board game as they waited for the rest of them to arrive, or for the pair to steal away jointly from a social function that had tired them out to incept one with the notion that the bond between them had at least some partial foundation in genuine like-mindedness.

Once, she had assumed that the Wyrm had taken that form of his with the intent to deceive, to lull potential followers into a false sense of security that their very survival instincts would deny them if he still appeared as that great, vast carcass which he had left behind at the eastern edge of his realm.

He may pretend to be alike to them, but he was still the King. They still worshiped him.

That her Devouts worshiped her also did not occur to her as a thought in that moment, because the difference between herself and him had seemed so obvious. There were always those who would need something to cling onto when their own strength wasn’t enough, better her than something worse. Better that it be her than something like him, or like the creator.

Now she wondered if she had not done him and his lady an injustice. If she was not acting as a thief, or a daughter of thieves, expecting everybody else to be thieves also… following in the example of such wicked, beastly cunning as the creator would have granted to her ancestors.

It wasn’t even that she trusted him, or started being taken in by him or anything like that… such thoughts, she would have known to squash down at their very beginnings.

It’s that he would look outright clumsy at times. Awkward. Weak, in his own way, for all his vast power.

She had a fine sense for matters of power; She had much need of it, in order to have survived as long as she did.

She knew better than to doubt the impressions that may arise, deep inside her guts.

Her life had long depended on knowing weakness in all its forms wherever she saw it, all possible avenues through which she may wedge through and, unlikely as it seemed, she sensed it plainly in that Wyrm, despite his natural power.

For the mindless things in the wilds, judging weak against strong may be a simple as drawing up the food chain, but perhaps it wasn’t quite so simple for thinking beings; They may have their hierarchies as well, their ranks, castes, genders and positions, differences in their skills, gifts and willpower, or advantages granted by circumstances such as wealth and cultural influence; The hierarchy back in Pharloom had very much resembled a pyramid, and for all its claims of idealism and splendor, even the so-called society of Hallownest was not without its ostensible winners and losers.

The city’s aristocracy certainly ranked higher than some lowly maggot laborer, not to speak of the King himself or other Higher Beings.

But the more complex a society becomes, the more complicated its members, the more it becomes possible to assign strength or weakness along multiple lines and axes. A superior in one context might be an inferior in another, for example, weak in brute force but strong in knowledge, influential popularity or fortitude of will; Those who belong inside the same group in one context might be opposed in another. Individuals could take on a multitude of different roles and positions, which could change throughout their lifetimes. Even weakness itself may be weaponized as a power, to claim oneself as a righteous wronged party.

Which was to say that the Wyrm might well give the orders when he was acting in his function as King and Creator, but at other times, the gap between him and his subjects, or at least his more direct subordinates, was not quite that absolute; One may observe a mutual reliance as might be expected between esteemed colleagues, or even something reminiscent of friendship, shared from eye to eye – He may act as leader, because he could, because someone had to, because his power and vision may enable him to see things that others could not, because he could bring clear plans of actions to those who scrambled without them in the dark – in this, he may be none too different than the Queen of Beasts.

But much as she had called herself a Queen of Beasts rather than of Weavers alone and refused the ways in which her ancestors had lorded callously over the commonfolk, leading them as fodder to the cage of the creator, she could tell, just as manner of self-evident, apparent knowledge, that he must long to be taken for one of their number, at least some of the time. It was just plain to see.

He seemed to appreciate it when he was taken as such; he seemed to find it regrettable, when he felt apart from them, even though he would not deny it – even when one such as Lurien may intend a comment on the marked difference between them as one of admiration or awe.

What distance still remained between him and his subjects may be not so much the product of hypocrisy, as one of limited ability. He could not exactly help that he happened to glow bright enough to burn someone’s eyes out; He had done what he could to remedy that.

Besides, the silly fool was, quite simply, terribly introverted in his disposition, whatever else he might be, the sort who had much more of a natural affinity for objects and machines than living things or people. He knew to build things, to plan them, to organize them, to design them to last long – he might take genuine joy in it, but it also seemed to be the most confident way he had of acting upon the world.

He often kept to himself, while leaving most of the pleasantries at the court to his placid lady wife. For all that he might be the distinct mastermind behind most of their joint pursuits, one may get the sense that he would be quite lost without her.

To mix directly with his subjects did not come to him naturally at all, yet even still, the King and Queen would often make the point to dine with their five great knights.

They barely needed the sustenance at all, seeing as they were by nature possessed of near-unlimited quantities of animating force – their likes were effectively immense masses of Soul given form, shining plainly with its light, but it seems that did not keep them from desiring to spend a pleasant afternoon with their respect colleagues of whom they always spoke with evident fondness.

That blasted creator would certainly never have lowered herself to cavorting even with the higher caste bugs of the citadel, denying the sight of herself to all but her ‘daughters’, unless she were going to war. That was no small part of what had made it possible to make the attempt at disappearing her and keeping her locked above, while the idea of her continued to serve as a convenient figurehead; So long as the orders kept coming from on high, nobody would have suspected anything amiss.

Would she have seemed a person, too, seen from up close, albeit a loathsome one?

An individual with pains, foibles and follies like any other, simply emboldened to do as she pleased by the great powers allotted to her by the accident of her birth?

Herrah had never heard it said that there was anything the creator had liked to do for fun, as the White Lady might like to garden, or her mate’s fondness of tinkering… one might think of those, too, as outgrowths of drive to force their order on their world, but that attribution had begun to seem too reductive if applied in any sense far stricter than that in which the many actions of most living things could be said to be derived in some way from basic urges like those to eat, mate and pack-bond.

It had become possible for her to picture the pair in states of dishevelment or mundane, domestic scenes. They appeared to worry for each other, a little, sometimes… and then, of course, they would say something that would unmistakably remind one that they had powers and senses reaching far beyond any mortal bug, or that they had existed since that first puff of light at the beginning of creation had spat all of their ilk out to shine against the primordial dark, presumably straight along with that loathed creator.

Presumably, she liked to have songs of worship sung to her – the Weavers of old had ruined that one for her, for sure. May she never find joy in it again, if joy were something she was capable of. It was said that she used to work at her Great Loom, spinning and dispensing her gifts as boons. Perhaps she had delighted in carrying off trophies of her conquests and putting them up on display, but such was not unheard of among lesser warlords or petty tyrants.

Herrah herself had a good few hunting trophies hung up on her own walls, though she would not account those as quite so ill-gotten. If Dirtcarvers and Mawleks could speak, they might perhaps disagree. Her demand that the failed tramway be abandoned and left as is may have seemed no less beastly to those coddled city dwellers, who were used to living removed from the brutality of nature without ever seeing much death.

One thing about which the reports were in agreement was that the creator had been ostentatious, fond of gilded ornaments, demonstrative and deceptively elegant. As long as she lived, Herrah had rejected any such deceptive pretty veneers or useless uppity pretensions.

She chose to be an honest beast, not a false saint cloaked in silken veils.

Back in Pharloom, she had only known that which called itself ‘civilization’ as pretense, excuse and falsehood, something she had sought to discard and reject.

It didn’t occur to her that there could be some more genuine variant of that, something that may be seen as having actual merit.

If the royal pair of Hallownest were liars, theirs were lies which the both of them genuinely believed. It called into question the exact line between self-serving lies and honest ideals imperfectly realized, as all ideals must be, once they make contact with reality.

While you might find about the same amount of bottom feeders clinging onto strength everywhere else, it became impossible to avoid the thought that at least some of the loyalty and dedication seen in the Pale Court was not purely the result of weaker minds deceived or opportunistic sycophants vying for a scrap of vicarious power, but a genuine result of the King leading by example, showing himself as dedicated to his subject’s welfare as they were to him.

She began to think that it may be naive idealism, not hubris, that lead him to spout his big-headed promises. It was not to grant him any charity or even the benefit of the doubt; The distinction was important to perceive and understand, when one is sizing up… if not an enemy, then at least a volatile asset one might fail to control. He reiterated again and again that he would bear any cost, but the Queen of Deepnest found herself wondering if he and his dear lady would actually have the stomach to live with what they may be forced to do. For now, he kept assuring her that he did, so long as the odds were in his favor and the calculations shook out. But would he feel the same once there actually came a day where he must swallow his honor? For now, he seemed determined to hold onto it insofar as he might be able to.

The one she had probably misjudged the worst, however, was Monomon the Teacher.

She was a translucent, faintly luminescent creature, though faint, natural glow not unlike some of the mushrooms native to Deepnest, nothing like the King’s cold magical shine. Her long, greenish tendrils would float around the room with gentle, undulating motions; She had a high, quiet, ethereal voice much different from the Queen’s own, usually pensive, halting and monotone, but she’d have moments where she could speak fast or even excitably.

She seemed no more anchored in the familiar realm of common sense than her long, fluid appendages would seem to be subject to gravity.

Herrah had known the least of her to begin with, little more than that she used to be the King’s disciple, before she took it upon herself to continue in his ‘sacred mission’ of sharing knowledge of her own accord, that she shared his affinity with technological, unnatural things, and that she’d written some semi-famous poetry in praise of him, so the spider queen had expected her to be essentially the same as Lurien, if not worse.

Instead, she proved scarcely less likely to object or contradict the King than Herrah herself. She wasn’t as strategic about it nor pursuit of her own agenda, and she had practically no aggression to her, often posing her criticism in a respectful, constructive manner, but that didn’t change that she was by no means new to the idea that the Wyrm King might be fallible… and he would respond to her objections. Take her criticism gratefully.

Though by no means inexperienced, the scholar was technically the youngest among the five of them, and yet, she seemed the only creature besides maybe his queen whose judgment he might outright defer to if he wasn’t too certain.

And he’d put that jellyfish in one of the highest positions in the kingdom, in charge of one of his most valued institutions, no less, a flagship project as much as his cherished city.

She was his devotee as much as Lurien, she carried an idol of her lord with her belongings always, but hers was a different manner of faith, much less tied to the King as a leader or monarch or even as a deity, but rather to the concepts of Knowledge, Enlightenment and Reason in and of themselves, to individuality. Diversity. Variance. Evolution.

All of which the Radiance would snuff out, as she saw it.

She dreaded the infection for more than just the death it could deal, more than just the agony, the defilement, the loss of self, but seeing in it some deeper, metaphysical end of all things she would account of any worth.

Herrah herself had never held that thinking beings were truly all that different from the many lesser, crawling things that filled the world, but to the scholar, a reduction to such a state was tantamount to being robbed of one’s very soul.

It was that deep, chilling horror that compelled her frantic work, obsessing every waking moment over the impending catastrophe and what may be done to bar its path.

Before she was called to work on the plan, she had not worked that closely with the King for quite some while, having busied herself with the running of her institution, conducting much research of her own and teaching numerous students; Though he was known as the one who met the challenge of bringing knowledge to the wilds, the King himself had long since too busy with the growing kingdom’s affairs of state that to mentor anyone in person, nor was he probably ever as suited to the task as Monomon was, who, though somewhat absent-minded, had much more of a gift for breaking down complicated matters into simple component parts and principles that might then be conveyed to others. The King’s own words were much too likely to go over another’s head, so he had long since left the bulk of the teaching to the kingdom’s designated Teacher.

Nor could Herrah fail to note that both the retainersand her own apprentices and aides always addressed her as ‘Madam’ rather than ‘Lady’.

Yet here she was, eye to eye with a Lord, a Weaver, and two of the Ancient Caste.

She often lapsed into old habit when assisting the King at his workbench, stretching out her long tentacles to hand him his tools as she might have in her own time as his disciple:

“Crystal! Wrench! Arclight! Terminal! Circular Saw!”

Yet unlike back then, she had many thoughts of her own to add.

Often, they would pre-empt one another’s thoughts before the other could finish their sentence, skipping ahead to the next idea at blinding space.

The pair was often irritatingly hard to follow. In some ways, one might come to think that the scholar was deeper in his confidence than anyone else.

One time, Herrah had grown frustrated of their incomprehensible exchanges and removed herself to where the White Lady had been standing, observing both her mate and the floating jellyfish scholar hovering over his shoulder…

Herrah had been wondering if the queen must perhaps be getting a little territorial over her husband’s young and beautiful apprentince, but instead the Pale Root was found regarding the two with a look of placid fondness.

“I wonder sometimes,” she mused just as the spider queen’s steps came to a halt not far from her, “If this is what he would be like, if we had a daughter. If he would delight in teaching her everything he can, or induct her into his craft…

Long have I hoped that I might welcome a child of my own into this our house,” she lamented, “But the right moment just never seemed to arrive….”

Was the creature trying to relate to her, as if they might share an unrealized wish?

Their self-inflicted dallying could hardly be said to compare with the creator’s cruel restriction.

Still, this was not the time to antagonize her, to Herrah decided to humor the queen of Hallownest and nod along as she related whatever luxurious woes she might have.

“My beloved always delays, since he is ever so busy improving his kingdom…. There always seems to be something to do, something to fix, something to research – but for every answer he gains, ten new questions arise, and every problem solved seems to bring with itself unintended consequences.

He brought wealth to the kingdom, but that opens up the questions of how to best distribute it. The population grew, so we started having to worry about issues of sanitation. He’d invent machines to make their lives easier, but now those who used to labor in their stead fear for their place…

Monomon herself had mused that he would never be done granting all their wishes –

I wonder sometimes, how long I shall have to wait before he may see to granting mine.

Now, with the affliction, it may again be many. Many years before a suitable moment comes within our sights...”

“I suppose in this regard, us mortals have an advantage – if we wait too long, we’d run out of breeding years, so we’d be forced to bite the bullet sooner or later. ” the spider queen responded, casually, conversationally, even a little playfully, figuring that she might as well indulge the Pale Being.

“You might not like to hear this, but if you want my thoughts, I’m afraid that you shall have to chasten that drive of yours for order and control if you ever want for your wish to be realized.

This isn’t like your gardens, nor like his buildings and machines. There’s no such a thing as a perfect moment, and you will wait long indeed if you’re hoping for one to fall into your lap. The truth of the matter is that you can never control everything, and those that try usually make for rather awful parents…”

The White Lady thoughtfully regarded her, as if she were giving her words some serious consideration.

“I suppose that in your case, it will be somewhat more tolerable, since your children would be of your own kind – no doubt they shall delight in lining up their toys in neat rows and play-fighting for dominion over their very first sand castles. But if they in any way resemble children as I would know them, you better say your goodbyes to the impeccably consistent color scheme of your palace.

The best laid plans may sometimes survive contact with the enemy, but I’ve yet to witness a single one that stood up to a toddler. You ought to move forward, and trust your instincts to guide you as you go…

As for your favorite Wyrm, I think we may just have to ambush him.”

“Ambush? I am not sure that I follow.”

“I’ll cut you a deal.” the weaver offered, conspiratorially, though not altogether serious. “When all this nasty business with the infection has been dealt with and I’ve received my payment, I might just so happen to bring my dear little weaverlings along to my next state visit and be sure flaunt their adorable qualities in the face of your mate. Let’s see if he finally catches the itch.

Just promise me not to set your spawn loose upon the Deepnest once they get to be juveniles, will you?”

“We shall endeavor to teach them proper manners, if it came to this. Though knowing my beloved, I still think that he would be unlikely to consent to this in your time...”

…

Yet, as they met, and worked, and debated, the wrath of the Old Light continued to run rampant throughout the caverns. A horrible sense of existential dread descended upon them, and overcame them all, even up in the high towers, even in the gleaming palace.

The five of them were all well aware of their situation, of the crushing weight of futility pressing onto them from all sides.

The sky was falling on them, the tide was coming in, the deluge was pouring through the walls, and before they knew it, the walls themselves had caught on fire and they were left scrambling, in their desperation to preserve something... anything of what they care about, of what little they had managed to gain through their lives’ works, petty and imperfect though it might be.

It was the exact kind of circumstance that might drive someone to tear out the floorboards to barricade the doors, to tear down the very things they longed to protect before the calamity itself could lay a feather on them.

The leaders in their high towers were seized by the same panic as the peasants in the streets; It was an open question if whatever greater wisdom and power was afforded to them would amount to anything more than to ensure a greater blast radius in the path of their undignified, impotent thrashing.

Once, she may have cast suspicion on any claim that the two immortals had as much to fear here as their followers; Surely, they must look upon as currency to spend in pursuit of their own aims, but the prospect of outlasting it it all, of having to stand and watch as it all crumbled… that horror, though alien to mortal kind, seemed to grip the ruling pair of Hallownest no less than their subjects feared death and indignity.

At last, ideas took shape and stewed in the marinade of their growing desperation.

The King refused to let his resolve be shaken (or perhaps, rather, his denial), but his confidants, at least, began to flirt with some stages of grief, entertaining proposals to mitigate the coming ruin if averting it could not be done – something about perhaps gathering up the creatures of this land to preserve at least some of them untouched by the infection, or see if some way could be found to replicate what relative immunities some of them may possesses – few cases had been reported among grubberflies or mantids, for one thing.

Monomon floated the thought of preserving all the kingdom’s knowledge stored in machines as an ark to shelter it all from the deluge, so that it would not perish with them.

To Herrah’s surprise, the Wyrm chose to bankroll those suggestions, but told them to keep seeking after more permanent solutions.

The Queen of Deepnest’s own role was clear from the beginning – she and her spider mages were to keep looking into what had been their area of expertise to begin with: Seals and bindings woven from silk and rune, potent enough to trap a deathless being.

Aside from the enticing payment promised, some in the Weaver’s den still held onto the hope of returning to their homeland with improved means to finish what their forebears had started, so there was actually a fair degree of enthusiasm for such a project. Anything that might hope to hold the Old Light may prove sufficient to trap the creator ten times over.

Herrah did not like the idea of encouraging such notions, but for now they served her purposes and silenced what murmurs there may have been about shipping cartloads of their precious silk to what had so recently been their enemies.

He came a few times personally to inspect their work.

Once, the Queen of Beasts would have thought that she would fight to the death before she would allow any sort of Pale Being so set foot in the Weaver’s den; (or whatever appendages they might have)

She ended up leading him in through the front entrance, of her own free will.

He tried admirably to restrain his obvious inquisitiveness at the foreign make of the structures and the strange architecture that resembled nothing else within the bonds of the realm.

He proved quite the asset, even more so that she ever would have expected.

Though he could not wield it himself, he came to understand and grasp the logic of their craft far more than one would anticipate it possible of an outsider.

He learned rather quickly, made incisive observations on whatever she showed him, voiced a small comment that would spark off a revelation.

“Move this rune just a little bit closer to the center”, “No, that will lead to a subtly building short circuit in the flow of the Soul; It may be fine for two-hundred years or so, but by that point, the effects will have built up…

He followed the same guidelines and maxims as he did in all his engineering: Build it to last. Eternal. She let him indulge in his compulsions and favorite words if it kept him focussed.

It must not be thought that those of the Weaver’s den were the kind to shudder fearfully at his words or skitter away before his feet. The many pairs of eyes watched him rather covetously, gleefully assured that taking a hold of his power for their purposes would greatly increase the odds of their victory.

The queen of Deepnest stopped being nearly as surprised at the swiftness with which he mastered the use of silk after she had seen his… collection.

In Pharloom, they might have called it a Materium.

He had all manner of flasks and vials and cabinets, chock full with any manner of wondrous substance one might find within these cavern.

Acid from the Greenpath. Singing crystal from the mountains. Chipped samples of wood from a whispering root. Chunks of glittering silver ore. Assorted machine parts. Canisters of the False Blood, though she was quite certain that he has none too unwisely outlawed the substance in his realm. Hardened chunks of nectar from the Hive, however he may have got his hands on that, though it did not seem like he had yet gotten Vespa to part with a sample of their steel. A few charged lumaflies kept in a terrarium of glass. Bottled gulka venom. Dried samples of mushroom, including some of the glowing ones she’d recognize from Deepnest. Mothwing feathers, likely gifted by his fawning devotees. Fine, patterned containers of concentrated soul, probably his own.

Barrels of liquid nothing from the abyss, and shards that must have been taken from those dark totem-spires erected by the ancients. Powdered scraps from the petrified carapaces giant ancient bugs. Faintly glowing petals, bottled with some kind of preservative.

Not one, not two, but three arcane eggs from the days of the ancients, all lined up in a glass case…

And of course, some of the very spools that her sisters had sent off to the stag beetles under his service as part of their agreements, now largely emptied out after the contents had been used for his tinkering.

So much for her fear that all of it would just be wasted on fancy robes for obnoxious rich people.

He already knew to discern the good stuff – Herrah recognized the soul clinging to the sample he was busying himself with from one of the most talented spinners in the Weaver’s den, a gifted Spider Mage besides.

He was currently stringing it up in some lightweight metal shell vaguely resembling one of the flying critters one might see flying about the gardens of his mate.

“Quite the astounding power you possess”, he commented, half mumbling, hardly looking up from his work, though he must have sensed her stepping close if he was bothering to address her.

“…to give permanent, material form to one’s soul, fragile though it may be.”

Taking advantage of her greater height, the Queen of Beasts peered over his shoulder to try to guess what he was working on – some sort of construct, possibly. Nothing all that impressive, honestly rather primitive compared to what they’d had back in Pharloom, though one must admit that it was none too shabby, that he’d manage this much just so shortly after becoming familiar with the material.

“...incidentally, before you depart… could you perhaps grant Us some more of this? Just about this amount?”

He ran a digit partway across an empty spool to suggest the amount he thought he would need.

Tch! Keh.

What a brazen, casual way to ask for something produced within her shell, of a royal guest from another realm, no less. He truly did seem to look at absolutely everything as resources to tap…

She’d have to disappoint him for today, however:

“...Not anytime soon. I used up what I had on the seal prototypes we were discussing earlier. I don’t know if you have forgotten, but not all of us near-infinite amounts of Soul at our disposal. I rather need the rest of mine to keep my limbs moving.”

Not fazed or peeved at all, he simply held out his left arm, letting it slip free of his robe-like wing-membranes – thin, and stick-like, it was, with marked segments in imitation of a beetle’s limbs, and of course the purest, pristine white.

“Take some of Ours then.”

“...did I just hear you right?”

He did not even look at her, continuing to fiddle with the strings in his contraptions so far as he might manage with only one hand.

“A shallow cut would fade within the hour, even if We did not use Our sorcery to close it. The next shipment does not arrive for another two days. We would finish this prototype sooner rather than later, so that We may proceed to test it.

We have the Soul to spare, as you rightly recognize, nonetheless it would be of greater use to Us at this time if you were to… process it for Us.

Take.”

The rare permission to slice him might almost be worth it, as much as that creature’s defiance of any natural impulse made her bristles stand ever so slightly on end.

If this should prove to be some kind of trick, she’d need only two strings of thread to knock over his sample cabinet – she’d figure that one thing or another in there might be dangerous even to him, or would at least distract him long enough for her to make her escape, that is, if he had truly been foolish enough to leave his environment unattended to while plotting to pull some kind of fast one on an ambush predator.

The complete lack of any trick or trap, however, somehow proved the most unsettling possibility of all.

She would oblige him still, if he would have her.

Nearly furtive, if such a thing were possible, the massive spider extended a single claw-blade, to do as she asked – and withdrew her claw at once.

By the shadows. So much.

Even his fluids were pale.

Some streaks on the floor may have been left permanently brighter where some of the droplets came down.

One might be surprised that he did have any semblance of bodily juices in him; One may have thought he’d be like adamant or glass, for how little semblance of a living thing he sometimes bothered to affect. The slightest flinch of the smallest digit on his claw was the only indication that his ilk had any sense of pain.

“...sufficient?”

“Quite so.”

“You have Our gratitude then.”

Only then did he raise his other hand from his work, and concentrated, briefly.

The effect was not as instantaneous as binding wounds with silk, but of course, he’d have the distinct advantage of not needing any prep time.

He continued at his craft as if nothing happened, ostensibly waiting for her to have the thread spun ready before he would have need of it, like he expected to know already when she would be finished.

She feared him not, in the sense she of doubting whether she’d know how to handle him, but she would confess to finding him a profoundly unnerving creature.

If only he were not so darn useful.

...

Silken seals were well and good, but they had proven insufficient on their own to snare a foe lesser than the Old Light. Used on their own, they risked a repeat of what had befallen in Pharloom.

So concerned seemed the Wyrm with the avoiding of that particular scenario that one may deduce he had seen some possible futures where just that had occurred.

He was adamant that an additional protection was required to ensure that the seal would not leak.

Some manner of additional containment.

A vault around; A vessel within, to hold the heart of the infection itself and keep it hermetically isolating it from the world beyond.

A layer within, and a layer without, multiple layers of confinement lathered on in concentric circles.

It was left to Lurien to look into the best placement and material for that vault itself;

The task of designing the trap’s innermost was something that the King and Monomon took upon themselves, proof of the great importance he assigned to the endeavor and the great confidence he placed in that scholar.

The two would seclude themselves for nights, writing down heaps of equations onto wax tablets, drawing up diagrams, pouring over samples. Two different avenues were pursued which merged at least into a single, unholy amalgamation.

It was the Teacher who thought of using an artificial form of life.

The idea might seem counter-intuitive at first – flesh would tear and fold so much easier than machines or stone structures. And yet life endured, in much the same forms as it had ages upon ages ago, as it would perpetuate and renew itself.

Metal corrodes, stone wears down, but new growth springs up stubbornly after every act of devastation.

– it would have to be a simple life, the simplest life possible, something that would not allow the infection any purchase, that would not have enough thought-flow to sustain a dream – but no matter how much Monomon’s experiments might reduce a creature, strip it back, for it to live, there would have to be at least some manner of drive to preserve or perpetuate itself.

She managed to produce creatures that might remain quite docile and passive, even when exposed to the infection, but its telltale orange filth could still be found to spread within their simple, gelatinous forms.

This might be why the King rather saw their hope in the lake of liquid nothing beneath the Kingdom, a subject he had long since been fascinated with. Herrah had often seen the writhing dark masses in his sample cabinets and felt the due, instinctual repulsion arising her in her being, the respect that any living being must have of that which spells certain death – she could understand why her husband’s ancestors would have fallen on their knees before it in awe. It is natural to want to join that which one cannot beat.

The twitching shadows did not seem to answer many prayers, though, apart from the ones for oblivion and swift end.

All living things must have a healthy respect from it, recognize it as something to be avoided, from some deep ancestral spark held deep within their guts…

So one must leave it to the Pale King to be one to disregard that warning, though he must feel it in his shell as surely as she must – maybe more, since he was its exact opposite.

It was about then that Herrah began to think that there might be something rather formidable about him, but not in any ways she would have expected.

That sight of his, piercing and clear as diamond.

No what he might use to peer into the future, supposedly a general feature of wyrms, but something more particular to him – the way he saw the use and the potential in anything no matter how strange, frightening or foreign.

She though she’d known, more or less, how he must look at them – mostly, looking down.

But having known him better, now and then, she would find herself wondering just what the world must look like through his eyes.

…

Four sacrifices, given willingly, at one single time.

Three of them would even get a real choice, of their own free will, and the last one, was at least not supposed to feel anything of it.

Compared to what they started with – held up side by side to the callous work of the Spider Queen’s own ancestors, it was an absolute steal of a bargain.

A marvelous work of design and engineering, all the waste and inefficiencies trimmed and paired down, elegant and without waste.

No multitudes. No masses, no generations’ worth of deception, no unceasing toil – just four. Just once.

No need to rely on a steady stream of something as fickle as mortal voices; Three volunteers would be enough to keep eternal watch. Rather than bother with the intermediary of song, living minds and souls were to be plugged into the very fabric of the seals directly, preserved forever within the spellwork itself. The King meant to use something rather like the same magic he had employed to grant the inhabitants of these caverns their lengthened lifespans, though he had restrained himself to not distort their timespans too far beyond their natural proportion, beyond what would have ill effects or require horrific deeds. Even in Hallownest, the people still grew old and died eventually, if at a slower rate compared to the surface dwellers.

He would abandon that restraint now, to suspend the volunteers unchanging stasis.

There would be a secure vault housing extensive spellwork, built after the fashion of structures left behind by the ancients.

And held within the center…

Something eternal.

According to the final conclusions of Monomon and the King, the ultimate flaw in the plan of the ancient weavers was that they’d hoped to hold a deathless thing with finite means, by the power of finite beings – this, they were forced to do, for they had no other means at their disposal, indeed, some rather cruel attempts to replicate divinity had been made, and come to nothing.

This time, however, there were some among the circle of conspirators who might provide them with an ample supply of the real thing.

When the King had said that he would give his everything, the Queen of Beasts had taken it for an idle boast, prattle meant to placate his followers and create some false sense that they were in this together – at the end of the day, he was going to send his underlings to their deaths while he alone remained untouched by death and untouchable to it.

Steel-eyed and strong to begin with, the increased experience of her years had made it very rare indeed for the Queen of Beasts to be shocked at anything, but never in a hundred years would she have expected what he would propose.

He meant it.

He truly meant it, when he said that he would give his everything, that he and his queen were willing to put their very flesh and their soul at their disposal and put even their very bodies to their use. He would strip bare, and hold nothing back…

Though one must observe that that desperate act would not involve him alone.

That was an awful sacrifice that he’d be forcing on his wife, and on the creatures produced-

“They are not going to feel it,” he explained, although the drawn features of the royal pair made it clear that they even they considered this cold comfort. “Even if the procedure succeeds, the creatures resulting will be as good as dead, in every way that matters, before they even hatch, snuffed out before they could ever have developed awareness to begin with. They will not suffer. The entire point of this is to give rise to something that is physically incapable of suffering – something that the Old Light can neither seduce, nor tempt, nor break in torment, washed clean of even the most basic instinctual drives to feed, breed or seek companionship, something without the need, desire nor even any use or benefit to derive from anything. If even the slightest trace remained, all this endeavor would be rendered futile.”

From untold years of studying the many relics and inscriptions that were still plentiful across the land, the King had come to those of the ancient civilization had revered the embrace of the void as the highest form of enlightenment – a blissful nirvana, free of fear, attachment or yearning, free of any ego that would resist the world as it is experienced, or seek to change it in any way.

It might be considered a state of perfect harmony or enlightenment – of total acceptance, beholding the world in absolute, mirror-like wisdom, because there was no longer any ‘self’ to distort the sight with its striving, biases and desires. There would be no attachment to produce suffering when one’s will could not be forced upon the world.

One so affected might still feel pain, but they would neither resist the pain, nor wish it away, nor picture its absence. It might be considered the most superior and complete of possible existence, a state of ecstasy –

Though it was clear as glass that the King himself did not share this viewpoint.

He related the viewpoint of the ancients as a curiosity, but mind, will, meaning, purpose, individuality…

Those had been his first gifts to his subjects, and what he would give his all to defend now that the Radiance threatened to strip it from them again.

For him to deprive one of that – his own spawn, no less! – even if it were for the good of the many… that was the ultimate betrayal of himself and all he stood for.

His noble knights would be oh so disappointed in their beloved sire!

Yet he would stain himself, so they would remain clean of the barbarity that would descend if this calamity were allowed to do away with the tenuous order her had built – long it took to bright forth, yet to destroy it would be so much swifter and easier.

All things longed intrinsically to collapse into the embrace of entropy in the end.

If he kept to his pride, and some purity perceived in his clean hands, the question of whether it was worth it would be swiftly answered by the silence of those he might have saved.

If all was lost and everyone was doomed anyways, then nothing he might do would truly change this, but if he could save, at least a few stray lingering lives, but did not try, then that would all be on his head.

So he stood ready to eat his pride, swallow his morals, violate his principles, compromise his beliefs, though the shame and guilt he would feel might well pursue him for the rest of eternity.

He stood ready to bear their glares, their gasps, their stares of horror… whatever it is that may come – though he had few illusions about what he would be doing:

“In the moments just before it kills its victims, the void obliterates consciousness. If We could preserve any creature in such a state, extinguished within, yet still intact in body, We would have Our perfect vessel. The expanse where its consciousness would have been could still form a dream, but there would be nothing left to warp, naught left to infect, only empty space for the Old Light to be held in.”

“That seems like a lot of effort to accomplish what you might get by whacking someone in the head with a nail, or waiting for senility to take them.” the spider queen remarked with some skepticism.

“How would a thing with no mind or will even follow or understand your orders? How would it stir or move at all?”

“You misunderstand…” He searched for words, but couldn’t find them. Or rather, the words he found proved unsuitable. “This would be easier to explain if you were familiar with the notion of a ‘philosophical husk’, or the ‘shroomish room problem’ in the art of giving instructions to complicated machines such as mining golems.”

“Try me, Wyrm.”

Despite their long cooperation, some part of Herrah would always relish how his reverent underlings were always a little bit stunned when she would address him by something other than his royal titles. She’d never let him forget that their ranks were equal, all his caste be damned.

She’d never let herself forget.

Even back in her home, she never was an engineer. A sorceress, a huntress, preeminent in silken craft, but machines were not her area… though they’d had plenty of those in their old nest, scarcely his lessers in skill… maybe his betters.

She was not going to be cowed.

Of course, he did not resent or shut down her objections any more than he did Monomon’s, as much as that may have felt vindicating… satisfying even.

He proved every bit the patient teacher than the jellyfish had often described him as in her blasted poems about him:

“The vessel’s lack of a mind or will would not equal a lack of a capacity to process or register information, or even to take deliberate, goal oriented action. We cannot speak for certain, as such a being has never once existed before, but from what We know, an outsider observer may in fact find it hard to discern whether it is conscious or not just from interacting with it.

It might appear no different from you or Us, and be quite capable of being educated and trained as any other person – maybe more so, for the lack of distraction in its focus or any wavering in its clarity of purpose.

We may expect it to be capable of walking around, going about its day, carrying out whatever tasks are required of it, even taking initiative and making swift judgment.

But all its choices would be made axiomatically, based on past instruction, according to predictable, deterministic rules. There will be no wavering, no deliberation, no doubt, no hesitation, no fear or shame leaving it vulnerable to irrational mistakes.

Its every action will be perfectly rational – and yet unthinking, as interlocked cogwork gears, compelled only by the laws of physics.

It won’t ever feel a thing, or have any sense that anything is missing.

All the mourning… all the horror and revulsion We might feel at such an act. All the shame and anguish We might feel in making that decision will all be left to Us.

The vessel itself will not even be able to conceive of why it should resent Us, so, it can never forgive Us either.

As is Our just punishment – for We would not deserve it.

But still, for Hallownest Eternal, We would gladly take such damnation upon ourselves.”

So much for the King and that vessel of his.

But three more sacrifices were needed. Those that must have a will, and discernment, and both in good measure, to watch over the lock for years uncounted.

A grim task indeed, and one crucial enough that it could not be encountered to just anyone.

Only the most competent would do, those who’d best understand the fullness of the King’s vision, who’d be the most resolute in protecting this world and opposing the oblivion the Old Light would bring if left to roam free…

Which means that it was never really any question.

It was their plan. Their desperate, clever lock.

None of them could countenance to make another bear its brunt.

Lurien was the first to fall to his knees, spreading out his long robe on the floorings, declaring that it would be an honor to stand forever in the protection of his beloved city, moved to anguish upon hearing what the King himself was willing to give, and unwilling to let his liege stand alone.

For Monomon, the decision seemed rather borne of despair.

She still held some doubt about what the effect of such a seal would be on the realm, but she was terrified of that light, and of that stark black thought of their entire civilization erased, along with all its history, and even the very memory of it.

She would rather slay herself than face the prospect of having her mind, will and individuality taken from her by the infection, and she felt as protective of the citizens as the King, seeing herself as much as their guide and teacher.

And so it was perhaps inevitable, that it would be the three of them that would end up following him to the bitter end, laying their very lives on his anvil, in a sense dying for him, or at least spending themselves to make his plan possible.

Looking back, they each had a clear, obvious affinity that would draw them to him, and to each other, if only because any person would be reflected in the choice of those they chose to surround themselves with.

How well they mirrored him:

Watcher, Teacher, Beast.

The dutiful protector and distant, reclusive guardian who nonetheless cared and cherished greatly from a distance, expressing his care through beautiful works of artistry;

The far-seeing scholar, the inventive creator, and guiding luminary who made it her mission not just to seek knowledge, but to share the gift of enlightenment with others;

And even Herrah herself: A resolute, pragmatic leader who did not flinch away from what must be done; One born with strength enough to be yielded and bowed to in worship, yet looking nonetheless to turn her great natural power to some higher use beyond its own sake.

Bitter necessity had welded them together;

She felt compelled to stand with them, to take with them to oath of protection, to join them in saying: “Nobody pays for this but us! Nobody suffers for this but us!” and in this, perhaps, forever prove herself different from the ancient weavers, who had left those under their stewardship to bear the brunt of their failed coup.

But there was another part of her, the part that would always be a trap-layer and an ambush predator, and as such perceived at once a chance to realize her long-held, personal desire, the likes of which would never come again.

The side that, she must concede, was every bit her blasted creator’s creature, quite a bit cunning, minded and beastly herself, concerned with the ancient, primal desire of her heart.

She wasn’t quite so selfless as Lurien or Monomon…

Or perhaps she simply knew herself better, understanding that the strength to sustain through such a thankless, eternal task could not come from nowhere.

She left the Wyrm to speak first with the others, as she knew would be his inclination, if left to his own devices. Though he clearly respected her, perhaps all the more for how hard it had been to win her regard, he had simply had not known her as long as his wife, his trusted steward or his favored disciple.

Had she called his attention to her, he would have given it, and she was usually quite apt at the art of making herself the squeaky wheel, but this time, she let him see to all the others first, let him wear himself out, let him be cut weak before the trap is sprung, so that he may be snared all the easier in her web.

She could not hope to wear him out physically, walking talking wellspring of near-endless power that he was, but she’d seen enough to know he was not above getting tired in mind and heart.

Even the creator, monstrous and formidable as she was, was at last overcome by subverting her confidence, by putting a little surprise in the very hymns she delighted in. Herrah had heard the song itself once, faint as though her memory was, after all these years.

She could not so much as have hummed the melody, but she recalled that it had struck her as sublimely beautiful. She had liked pretty, elegant things, that creator; Why else would she have cloaked herself so in false beauty?

Even she must have have been taken and distracted by the pretty, pretty music, both by its actual, sublime craftsmanship, and perhaps even a hint of that emotion that may fill any mother with delight when her child comes to show her their clumsy stick figure drawings.

For all her power, her heart, though thorny and wicked, was just as vulnerable as anyone else’s.

It was possible to hurt her feelings, even if that was the myopic, selective sorrow of a callous despot weeping over the death of her prized pet;

That Wyrm was small potatoes by comparison. The Old Light had perceived this, too, that’s why she was trying to get to him through his subordinates and the cherished work of his hands; She did not mind being left at the end as the empress of an ash heap, she would destroy her Moths, and all this land along with them, so long as it spites them. Because he did care, and to her, that was a handy weakness to be exploited… or perhaps she was attributing too much cunning to the Old Light’s simple, thoughtless anger on account of her own wicked, clever mind.

But be that as it may, he would be worn and aggrieved, from asking the unthinkable of his wife, from saying his farewells to his confidants and friends.

He would be properly tenderized to be carefully nudged to be right where she needed him.

She’d have the element of surprise –

She couldn’t hope to best him, not long-term, not forever, but she only needed to hold him for single a moment. She’d only need to aim for that chink in armor, to jump on him, and get her blades in him, and crack him open wide, now that she was, for once, sitting at the longer lever.

He needed her, for all his grand plan, for all his precious kingdom.

She might as well have him tangled in her thread.

Lurien and Monomon might be glad to volunteer, but the Queen of Beasts was not going to trade away her life without some haggling.

Time to play hardball.

“You are asking for my life, Wyrm. It’s not for cheap. You might think little of trading away our mortal lives because they might be briefer and more fragile than yours, and due to be gone anyways the next time you blink, but to me, that frailty and transience makes my few years remaining all the more precious.

I’m not one of your sycophants, I’m no disciple of yours, neither nor subject nor your devotee. Why should I perish to maintain your rule? Force untold sacrifices upon others while your immortal backside sits untouched on your cushy throne.”

Oh, she did like having him on the hook, especially since she’d been the one who could not refuse his offer the last time – a relish she took great care to restrain, lest it get the better of her.

She needed to carefully calculate each of her words, her tone…

Tug on the pressure points and target the fault lines she had observed in him these past few years, without pushing him too far.

The point was not to antagonize him or clash for dominance – a struggle she was due to lose, in any case, the moment he forgot himself and remembered that he used to be a cavernous behemoth the size of a tall spire, made of nothing but razor sharp blades. If he made the conscious decision to fight her, she’d be facing a mage, maybe an artificer. Plenty of both of those in the Weaver’s Den, certainly enough for Herrah to know how to fight them with some confidence.

But if he lost his temper, not that she’d ever seen him do that, he might incinerate her by his very presence, with but a thought. Less than a thought. A lack of thoughts.

It’s not like she couldn’t understand at all, she’d never once been unarmed from the moment of her birth; Even without the two needles concealed under her cloak, she’d always have her claw-blades and her thread and only death could part them; Every single handshake that either of them had ever undertaken had been a purely symbolic gesture.

Careful. Deliberate. As finely as one threads a needle. She’d have to make him feel the pressure, but not so much she’d wound his pride enough for him to lash out. The point was not to antagonize him, it was to maneuver him into an agreement from a favorable position.

One thing going in her favor was that much of that pride was tied up with his restraint and stoicism.

His patience was not at all the same thing as indolence or harmlessness, but he had a considerable attachment to it. He’d find it disgraceful, even embarrassing, to lose his level-headed reserve.

Even now, he did not raise his voice one bit:

“...We cannot spend Ourselves. We must remain to rule Our Kingdom.”

As if pulling the strings of a puppet show, the queen denied him the comfortable part of the wise teacher: “Ah, because we’d all be so lost without you? You would scarcely be the very first king who did not rule forever.”

She thought he must have felt that barb, though he tried valiantly not to let it show:

“...Our strength is still needed to work the spells. Few others would have the power required.”

“Well, my strength is needed in Deepnest! I’ve got my own kingdom to worry over! It might not be as grand as yours, but it is no less precious to me. I have a responsibility, as you’ll surely understand! I cannot just abandon it, not on my whims, nor to yours.”

“You are right. You have a responsibility. You have your kingdom now, as We have Ours. But if the Radiance is allowed to keep doing as she pleases, neither of Us will be left to hold them for long. The aim of Our proposal is to preserve them both, along with everything in these caverns, to contain a danger whose threat reaches beyond either of Our borders, not just for Ourselves, but for those without the means. We are willing to do Our part – the parts that only We can do, no matter how bitter. There is such a part for you as well, though it differs from Ours, as Our particular skills and abilities do. Your part, too, is not something that just anyone could do, and something We Ourselves are to free to take upon ourselves so long as other parts call for Us. We might attempt it without you, but the odds of success would be lower. You could certainly stand aside and see the task be done less efficiently… or you could do it yourself, and ensure that it is done well. You could do it if you had the will. Will you? The choice is entirely yours, of course. We could not compel you, even if We wished to. Yet you never struck us as one who would sit idle while leaving the dirty work is left to others, Queen of Deepnest.”

...clever bastard.

He thinks he’ll go and turn the table on her, doesn’t he?

All with that quiet, restrained voice, authoritative, somehow, even at its calmest whisper.

She had probably pushed him as far as she could, or as much as is wise.

It was time to lay her cards on the table…

After first making it clear that she wasn’t letting up:

“You misunderstand. You presume. It is not the Queen of Deepnest whom you must convince.

Do not condescend to lecture me about what’s best for my realm. I know more of that than you ever will, or than you could hope to know of your own subjects –

Unlike you, I understood from the start that I would never reign forever; If an end must come, it will come. I will not cling to my dominion with indignity.

I always knew that I would die – but before that happens, I would realize my long-held wish… a wish, not of the Queen of Deepnest, but of the spider beneath this mask.”

To his credit, the Wyrm caught her drift at once:

“You mean to ask another boon?”

She had expected him to say ‘to up your price’, but maybe that was too low a blow for his notions of honor. Interesting that he’d still clung to them, after he had proven himself so willing to discard them earlier… maybe he hung onto them all the more now, as compensation, to try and live with his cracked idea of himself.

Even so there was just the faintest hint of relief bleeding through into his voice.

Good.

She had him all wrapped up in her net.

“Of course! It is my life you’re asking for, not my crown. And good that is, because I swore that I would never let you have the latter. My life is mine to give away, if I find something worth the price.”

“Then what is your wish?”

He asks, a little too quickly for her likes, or rather too confident. He sure likes himself in the part of the granter of boons. Let him. It would serve her purpose:

“It was always my heart’s deepest longing to one day bear child, and spend the eve of my days lavishing the bounty of my long reign onto my cherished offspring.”

This implication, he did not grasp right away.

Bless his uptight little pale heart.

“...surely, it is understood that the aid We promised as recompense for yours would be provided to yourself as well?”

“Ah yes, but that alone is no guarantee of anything. You might recall that I have been widowed, and between the needs of my realm and the additional work your demands have foisted upon me, I have rather lacked for the leisure to procure myself another suitable sire. Besides, I am rather approaching the tail end of my breeding years.”

He seemed honestly a little bit confused why she would say this.

It certainly wasn’t an expression that he made very often.

“...there are a great many boons We could grant you, but We fail to grasp how it is within the scope of those to help you find a new partner? Surely, that is a selection that one such as you would prefer to make yourself?”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be nice! But beggars can’t be choosers.

And I do find it strange that you, of all creatures, would say you cannot help me, when just today, you seemed so confident in your capacity to sire great numbers offspring. If anything, I would have thought that the odds of overcoming the curse placed upon my people would be the most favorable for… one touched bright.”

...and the one-geo-piece drops.

“...you cannot be suggesting…?”

“Why not? After what you just proposed before, you cannot mean to tell me that you could never bring yourself to desecrate your marriage bed for the benefit of your kingdom. You are asking for my life, so anything less than a life for a life hardly seems a fair trade, don’t you think?”

He clearly had no counterarguments.

Ahahaha.

He was clearly starting to seriously consider it now.

She knew him well enough by now.

She could almost see the little cogwheels in his mind, going tick-tick-tick.

It might work.

Herrah had to take care that the blossoming euphoria in her thorax did not show in her bearing prematurely, grateful for the leeway that her mask and veil afforded her in this manner, yet knowing it would be folly to underestimate the Wyrm’s perceptiveness.

Time to clinch the deal:

“You want another Dreamer, right? Fine then. Do you want that badly enough to pay up, or was all your talk just idle boasting? I do recall once hearing you say you’d grant me any boon. Did you really mean any boon, or was that just idle prattle, like the empty promises of eternity with which you seduced those poor hapless Moths into following you to their doom?”

He did not outright wince, but she knew that he was stricken.

She could almost taste it in the air.

One could see the forces inside him, wrestling with each other, the spanner of her own will wrenched in there, percolating, straining to come out on top.

“...do not take this as condescension, Lady, but We feel some obligation to ensure that you understand what it is you are asking.”

“Think us lowly mortals could never comprehend?”

“Hardly. It was you who just referred to Us as an unsuitable ruler because of the difference between Us. If only those exactly alike could truly hope to understand each other, or hold each other’s best interest in mind, this world would be a bleak place indeed. Yet, just as there may be some facets of your existence that you would have to explain to Us before We could begin to grasp them, there are some realities of Ours that may not at once be… intuitive… to your understanding…”

Queen Herrah preempted whatever monologue he was going to lapse into:

“Don’t expect to talk me into feeling sorry for your likes, Wyrm. Much have they wronged me. One might argue that I am owed much recompense.”

That shut him right up.

A low blow, perhaps.

Possibly one step too far.

He might well argue that he could not help his flesh, any more than any other thing that crawled upon this earth. He did not ask to be born, or created, or however it was that his likes would have come into being.

He would not exactly… be wrong, come to think of it, if he did argue that.

Which he did not.

“Have We ourselves and Our Lady wronged you?”

He asked instead, rather carefully.

Good question.

...she preferred to side-step that matter for now, steering the flow of words to more confident ground where she might be more certain of her leverage:

“...you live in a palace thrice the size of mine. Long have you flaunted your wealth in my face. Are you truly surprised that I would see my children fed upon its riches?”

“Yet you do have your own… Not one that you were born in, but one that was granted to you, by those who would have your protection. So perhaps, out of all mortals We have known, you may come the closest to understanding.”

“Oh?”

“There are always those who are marked with great strength. Strength that would allow them to perform deeds of which others could only dream. If We were not as We are, We could never have built Our kingdom, nor could We have raised it to its present state of splendor. For that alone, you will never see Us lament Our state.

It is Our belief that, for every life, there is some role or purpose for them to perform, for each according to their measure.”

“Which means that you of the Ancient Caste get to raise us up from the dirt and squash us back down as you please, and that some Maggot gets the grand vaunted privilege of scrubbing your floors. How very convenient for you.”

“Yet the floors do need to be scrubbed. All the city would sink into filth without that service! Would you be suited to see to that task? We know We Ourselves would not be.”

“Says the one who assigns the tasks!”

“It may be that the allotment of tasks can yet be improved –“ he conceded, with just a touch of exasperation, swinging a claw in a wide gesture. “We are always working on new advancements and inventions to eliminate the most unpleasant ones.

Though we suppose you would prefer it if those you would deem weaklings wandered into your traps and webs down below.”

Ah. His tone wasn’t even cutting at all, but she could tell, that she must have ‘got’ him, and that he was trying hard not to be gotten.

What would she give to grasp just a spark of something live under that cold hard mask of his; She knew there was a grand apex predator in there, somehow constricted or distilled into that small shell.

His presence would irritate her, cold and still as a statue, or something metallic even, because she knew there must be meat beneath there, and if she couldn’t see it, then she couldn’t keep it in sight, seized up. She didn’t fear a great beast she might see, but one she knew to be there, but couldn’t place… that was one that might sneak up on her.

Maybe that’s what made it tempting to press him:

“I would pick our webs, if given the choice. At least our traps and snares do not pretend to be anything else. Better to let nature take its course, than to be made to live without pride.”

“Truly? Is pride that crucial? Life without purpose, We would fear more – long We had wandered, burrowing through the earth, crawling across the pathless plains, persisting only because Our existence is not prescribed a fixed end…”

That was the longest she had ever heard him speak about anything preceding his arrival near these caverns.

“We would not deny you, Lady Herrah. One like you, who would give all for the realm, We cannot deny anything. If you have no faith in Our honor, you may count instead on what you yourself have said about beggars and choosers.

We have need of you, as you have certainly realized.

Even so, We would not see you deceived by omission, even when that may be convenient to Our purposes.”

“Deceived?”

The spider queen’s voice carried just a hint of incredulous mockery.

It was to be expected that she would not admit error or ignorance before one she thought might seize upon her weakness.

This he knew, and well expected, so he tried as he might to get his point across without implying offense:

“What you ask… We assume you ask it because you think it a favorable advantage to obtain for the benefit of your offspring. In some regards, it may be one. Nonetheless, that is not the whole of it -

Our state is not quite so enviable as you might think. It all has its advantages and drawbacks, just as yours no doubt does -

And there is a strain of light in you as well, however dilute. If the two of Us were to mix, that light may come to the fore.

There is no small chance that such a union may give rise to one so marked as We were. One touched bright, as you have said.

That is something that set Us apart even from the other wyrms, when We were all spawned together in great numbers, in one large writhing mass deep below the earth -

Back when there still were other wyrms.

Even among Us old ones, all that anyone can seem to recall of them anymore in these times is that nobody recalls the days in which they were plentiful. There is not a thing or a place that still remains from the days where Our existence had begun – and if another such an existence were begun anew, there is no telling just how far it may stretch into the future. It may endure long past the days when you and yours are yourselves only spoken of in foggy legends.

We are Sources. Creators. Counterparts of the dark below that destroys all things – yet as much as We may create and create, everything that is made at last becomes unmade. We may order and order, but all order crumbles at last into chaos. We may purify, cleanse and uplift, but before long all things decay and corrode.

We who are tied to this plane for as long as it endures, must remain here, while all else merely passes through a short while. We are trapped here, Lady Herrah.

We do not mean to defend that creator of yours – from all that you have told Us, she seems a disagreeable creature with no sense of responsibility whatsoever, and We see no reason at all to doubt your account. Yet We can understand, or even sympathize, on some level, with what it may have been that had made her so… grasping.

You called Our words deception – Our vision, a mere fool-fire designed as a lure. But the wish at its heart is quite Our own. It is not a wish that We may realize on Our own – it requires some to participate, to yield to Our vision. To share Our hope. That some of what We build may endure. That We may keep them with Us while We can… We take care, as We might, not to hold on too tight, not to distort what We hold to its detriment – And We shall concede that We cannot claim, in truth, to know that Our judgment in this has never been in error. But it was companionship We sought. Merely a purpose. A use.

Something beyond mere existence, as a singular point in pathless desolation.”

...had he ever bared this to anyone, except perhaps his wife?

- No. Don’t be swayed. Don’t be taken in. Don’t waver.

He probably expected her to be shocked by that confession, even revolted.

Revolted enough to gag at the very thought of ever enduring his touch.

The Queen of Beasts remained hard, hard as steel, hard as adamant, however hard as she must be to see her heart’s desire realized:

“And this you tell me, as you’re trying to convince me to hang between life and death forever?”

“We tell you this to ensure, as much as We might, that you understand what it is you are asking. Had We not met our Lady when we did, We may well have decided not to renew Our shell, just to go and see just where it is that all others keep departing for. We were fortunate indeed, to find one like to Us not just in nature, but in disposition as well. We certainly would not have joined with that maker of yours – nor she with Us, We would suspect”

“She’d eat you raw!”

“Precisely. So who will be there for such a one as might come from the both of us? Half of dust and half of light – or likely, a little more than half of the latter, but still an in-between thing, without a place to call its own?”

By then, even the Queen of Beasts would have had to confess that there was absolutely no joy left in the act of twisting the knife on him.

She held no malice toward him at this point.

Not really. Not anymore…

Still she remained stubborn and dead-set, on extracting her allotted pound of flesh:

“Since when have you been all too concerned with the consequences of bringing forth some bizarre crossbreed that has never existed before? Or even with laying terrible burdens onto your children?

Whatever happened to all that yapping about ‘No cost too great’? Don’t tell me your hardened heart has suddenly gone soft.”

Herrah’s own heart most certainly had not:

“A rather cruel father you will make. Cold and pale, as our own cruel ‘Mother’. Not the one I would have chosen… but better than none. I had a husband, but he died of a horrific plague that made him not himself long before it made him not alive, all because you had to go an antagonize Her Radiance long before either he or I were ever born. You owe me restitution!

Or do you think it beneath your station to go cavorting with a ‘common beast’? Is the great ‘King and Creator’ too craven to bear a little gossip?

Then you’re not half the man my husband was, though you might claim yourself a god!”

He took in a long, drawn, pointed breath, which he then let out with a deep, protracted sigh.

The shine of him dimmed just a little, and she knew then that she’d broken his resistance.

“Will you truly not reconsider?”

“You are asking for my life.” she merely repeated, stubborn as a broken psalm cylinder. “If I must leave my flesh behind, I would not see it go to waste. Let it serve as a magnificent broodfeast for my spawn to grow strong upon.

I recall that when you first tried to cajole me into joining your cause, you told me to take of your soul. Of your flesh. That you’d grant me any boon.

When I left my old homeland, I had sworn that I would never again bow to one of your kind, least of all in supplication – but for the prize I seek, I would break that vow just this once. Let this be the first, last and only prayer that I ever make: I would take it. I would claim it. Your flesh.

I’ll take those pristine pure white entrails of yours. Will you grant it? Do your numbers shake out?”

“...that, they do.” he conceded, despite himself. “We shall grant your wish.”

He exhaled again, perhaps in disbelief over what he had just said. “We must confess, before this day, We had not understood why it is that you are called a Beast.”

It was quite the matter-of-factly statement, dry and defeated.

“Truly?” the spider queen replied, with no small hint of amusement. “I would have thought my nature bare to all. It is you who ever insists on veiling yours.”

“We insist on mastering Our nature, so that it does not master Us. Although We do know that you do not believe Us. We foresee only slim chances that you ever will. But for her you might become – for her whom Our words might one day reach, We shall agree to your terms.”

He did not even add any reservations about first needing to confer with his queen.

What an utterly callous bastard.

Necessity makes for strange, strange bedfellows indeed.

...

He would have spared her the indignity of seeing it done in her own home, but the Queen of Beasts wanted it known, to her own especially, that she stood by her decision and bore no shame.

The brightness he exuded must have been unmistakable amid the darkness below his kingdom, shining faintly through the silken walls of the Beasts’ Den.

When he comes at last to her bedchamber, she notes that his claws are ever so slightly trembling.

She almost thinks, for a moment, that he might not quite manage to… perform, as their business would demand.

Then, she is made to recall that he must be quite experienced now, at profaning this particular act, rather practiced, at keeping his mind and heart far away from his claws and body, as he’d carry out the deed like an unholy rite.

He steadies himself in an instant and comes right up to her.

Even now, he holds on for dear life to his vaunted composure.

“Let Us know if you wish Us to cease, or if We were to do anything that is disagreeable to you.”

The Queen of Beasts doubted that there would be any part of this during which she wouldn’t want him to stop, or that any second of it would be anything other than disagreeable.

Still she reclines, laying ready.

“Your Lady has already worked her magic. Do your worst, and hope she might forgive you.”

She had not taken her headdress off, nor was she planning to.

“This is the least of Our impositions on her...”, he mused, grimly, darkly, as he approached. “This barely even compares to the blow We have dealt her before.”

Still, he was not all too eager to add insult to that injury, though he must not have mated in years by now.

Ever since he had emerged from the depths with the Vessel in tow, the King and Queen of Hallownest would not even risk so much as brushing a stray appendage against each other, likely not even because they no longer desired each other, but because they still very much did, though the very thought of the act now filled them with disgust and dreadful, baleful regret.

She would never understand how they had managed it, how they could have quashed every last pang of parental stirrings to do as they did; For the Lady to let him pick all the glowing fruit off of her heavy, laden branches; For the King to cast it all down into that pit without exception, consigning the wriggling offspring held within those pale shells to the merciless dark.

Brutal though the act may be, callous as it sounded, easy as it might be to think nothing but the worst of one who would even consider such a thing, it would have been evident to anyone who spent any time with the pair of them in close quarters that the act had not come without a cost for them.

Immortal though they might be, undiminished in strength and vitality since the distant founding of their kingdom, one could not escape the sense that they had been dealt a blow they may not recover from, particularly the Lady, who often made a distant, wan impression these days, as if she were ever so slightly diminished from what she had been before, set on some ever-so-slow trajectory of near imperceptible decline.

The Wyrm seemed rightfully concerned for his queen, but he was ill-suited to console her, when the soothing of frazzled hearts had always been her area of expertise, and when it was his request, and her loyalty to him, that had been the cause of her sorrow. He likely hoped that he might see to her once the infection was dealt with, but first, he would have to win;

Quite a costly one to adore, he had proven, for all the many ones who did.

But that seemed something more tied to his particular destiny, his lot, his yoke, his person, perhaps what might be called his ‘crest’, more than it seemed a matter of innate nature, not a trait of wyrms, but of this particular Wyrm.

Even her who should be his equal mate had found her doom in the lure in the siren-call-beacon of his promises.

At times, the pair hardly seemed to find any more joy in any of the things that once delighted them.

The Palace gardens often went untended now, until it reached the point where one of the retainers would take the maintenance upon themselves; The King had closed the gate to the depths and never once went back to the places of study, work and excavation he had once kept there.

Still here he stood, ready to do it all over again, for the cause.

A consummate creature, he was. Remarkably pure in some way, even if the Queen of Beasts would now take it to be a rather different, opposite purity from that of her people’s creator, who rather stood out as a thing of pure instinct.

His was a mechanical purity, dead as his contraptions, stone as the spires he liked to design.

Good luck mating with something like that!

It may be as pleasuring oneself with some manner of crafting tool.

She can tell he is mentally preparing himself by how absent and vacant his gaze becomes, although there is also something like a cold sharpening in the shine he exudes.

“I wish it was my husband”, Herrah cannot help but spit, once he reaches her bedside.

But despite the cutting tone, there is a strange sense of companionship in their mutual distaste.

He understands it very well.

“Lie back and think of your kingdom.”, he recommends, speaking from deep, bitter experience.

The place where his mouth-parts would split presses into the thinnest possible line.

Running her many limbs under his trailing pale wings, she finds him as much of a slight little stick figure as she’d always expected him to be.

Nothing of his thin little shell appeals to her at all;

She certainly hopes that whatever offspring they might conceive would turn out sturdier.

He lies back, cool, sharp and gleaming.

Waiting for the present to pass away, to get gone to some future far away.

She climbs atop, and gets it done and over with.

She lets herself sink to the sheets besides him once she has consummated the miserable deed, groaning in disgust. She thought his essence might burn inside of her, but it does not; if anything, it had felt strangely cool, probably no less luminescent than any other part of him, leaving the most divine, iridescent of stains that she does not care to look at.

Belatedly, she notices that he’s still staring up at where she used to be, except, not quite.

“It is done”, he surmises, somehow able to tell though the physical process of fertilization could not even have begun yet.

“You shall conceive, and of what you carry, one survives. A girl.” he prophecies bitterly, “A child born pale – though We see her robed, almost always, in the crimson garb of the Deepnest, even long after your parting. You will not see her grown, but We believe you would have been most pleased if you had – she is your spitting image in her bearing. Proud. Fierce. Strong. Though not as tall or massive – she has your horns, but the rest of her form shall rather resemble Our own in terms of size, or in the numbering of her eyes and limbs, although We believe her joints shall connect like yours. She shall inherit all of your force of will, Our own resolve unyielding, all our skill of hand, along with that of your people, and she shall, perhaps come to surpass both throughout the long, long years, of which there shall be many – The magic she would possess will be all after the fashion of yours, but her lifespan may turn out rather like Our own. In this, We might have rejoiced, if it did not appear as if she herself would account it an impediment – she will much rather prefer the company of your likes. It will be long indeed before she moves beyond the circles of this world, where she remains within reach of both Our enemies, and all the ends We see her coming to a violent ones –

She lies dead in distant places We do not recognize; Strangled by twisting vines. She lies dead in places We know very well, gored upon the claw of her own sibling, her weapon stuck in its splintered shell, both of them buried in a tomb of Our own making. We see her stretching on, to a long, solitary path without end, as the very last thing left as these caverns crumble all around her.”

“That is not what you told me was going to happen, Wyrm.”

But he seems to overcome by what he sees to even respond to that protest:

“We see her locked in battle with another power – One of a nature rather like yours, and yet like Our own, as well. Your ancient enemy, We must presume. We cannot say if it takes her, or she takes it, but the outcome seems rather the same in either case. She is sufficiently like Us that she could attempt the deed of claiming that creature’s place and function for her own, but still far too much like you to succeed at it with her sense of self intact - or perhaps, the reasoning ought to be precisely the opposite. In either case, she is lost. Whatever in her was of dust rather than light – what came from some small, skittering thing long ago, maybe, will have been burned away in the crucible of transfiguration, and even the parts of her that are of Our light, though unchanging, will no longer slot together as they once did with other parts missing.

What constituted her as a person will be irrevocably diluted. Taken. Strangled. Desecrated. Subsumed as but a small part. Drowned out by a stronger existence. What results may not be quite what she consumed, but it will not be her, either… something keen and terrible. With all eight of your limbs, all six of your eyes, Our foresight, and the heart of blades of that force she swallowed whole. She will rule long, and be more loved than her predecessor… and all shall love her and despair.

Eternal.”

For the first time she can remember, he intones that word like it is dawning on him that it might not always be something perfectly wonderful, and even now it won’t quite go into his head.

But that is not really where his attention is going, either way.

The brunt of what has seized a hold of him is easy to understand.

It takes no foresight, no divinity. The simplest, mindless skittering critters out there could understand it, if they’re the sort to guard their broods at all.

That creature he describes… she is-

was-

will be-

- his daughter, too.

He is already mourning her.

The daughter whose face even her own mother had yet to see. Whose egg is not even laid.

At most, the mixing of their blood would just barely have begun.

The Queen of Beasts could yet feel his still-wet essence only just spilled within her – and yet, by some curse of his existence, their daughter… oh shadows, their daughter, is real to him already, and as good as dead and gone, and he is lamenting her, the daughter that even her own mother did not even get to hold yet.

Whatever fate awaits the child, he speaks as if it had already happened.

Maybe to him, it has.

He speaks as if what has not even begun yet is already long past, like it is all over but the crying; Just as he must have been lamenting that other sorry creature of his making, from the moment he had brought it with him up from the Abyss, knowing well, from the beginning, that he would be sending it to its doom.

“Both of them defiled, claimed. Both of them, buried together in the same tomb. What have We done… Just what is it we have wrought together, Herrah of Deepnest?”

All the world spinning around her, the Queen of Beasts cannot contain herself:

“Why in the Abyss are you asking me that?!”

Somehow, absurdly, they end up against each other, his thin, shining claw grasped in one of hers.

Some bodily aftereffect of the deed may still have had its hold on them.

“We ought not have glanced. Yet to resist was impossible. It was Our wish that she alone might be spared… That she, at least, might live. That she might live free - all Our sins justified, if only they might attain some better world for her to live in-”

“Foolish Wyrm!” the Queen exclaimed, seized by sheer overwhelmed exasperation. “Don’t you think that my hope was exactly the same?!”

It really was.

Was it not?

They sat together.

Bared.

New parents-to-be, yet already certain, beyond all doubt, that they would not be able to provide for that life to come as parents should.

That they would be bringing her into a broken, imperfect world, teetering on the brink of disaster and decline.

There was no foresight needed to realize that; They had known all along, from the moment they had struck their blasted pact.

The reality of it was merely beginning to sink in, as it must, inevitably.

His pair of dark eyes met all six of hers, meeting in the same sharp, horrific realization.

“There may be another path yet”, he argues, after a while, as if that were explanation enough, or itself a counterargument, some sort of reason, or justification, for anything at all.

Fending off the agitation he held down beneath the surface, possibly.

At this point, she is wholly willing to consider the possibility that he might just not know what else to do. “A distant, tangled, improbable path. Only just a glimmer of a possibility. One where she stands victorious over both our enemies, and returns to reign over both your realm and Ours. Or yours only, serving, in mine, as advisor to a Higher Power of considerable might – one We do not recognize at all, though it bears Our mark. And that tall knight beside them-” he narrows his eyes, like he’s focusing on something she can’t quite see, looking in some disbelief, carefully making sure before jumping to any premature conclusions – “One might almost think that it is the Vessel. Scarred, but alive, free, somehow…”

Coming back to the present now, he preempted the next question before she could think to ask it.

It rather irked her when he did that. Even revealed in all his patent limitations, he seemed to guess exactly what she was going to ask. Perhaps there was no sorcery involved in this at all, and he had only come to know her over these past few years, just as she had come to know him:

“We cannot possibly fathom how this might come to be. What path may take us there –

According to all that We know at this time, that outcome is all but impossible.

It might all depend on something that We have yet to realize, some missing piece of knowledge – We are attempting to get there, or to the closest outcome to that that We can yet map out.

We can only conclude that it is possible, that there is some way for the Old Light to be dealt with. And if this can be, then your foe, too, must have some solution.

There is a path. There must be.

But how to get there… is not at all clear to Us.

We… I am flailing blind, in abject darkness.”

So the kingly mask had come off at last, later than his robes had.

That’s very like him.

“Is that how you see us all, then? Flailing blindly? None of us can know the certain outcomes of what we do.”

Quickly did he lapse back into old, ingrained habits:

“...We intended no offense.”

This, too, she could have chosen to take as something twisted – but there is no need.

She thinks she knows what he means.

He is used to being able to tell. Without that clarity, he feels its absence, as she would feel that of a pair of eyes if she were suddenly left with four of them, no matter the multitudes that made do just fine with less.

In rejecting the vision of ruin he saw, in pressing onward regardless, in an attempt to find a path to some distant, unlikely outcome, or the nearest thing to it, he had pushed past the limits of even his considerable abilities.

So desperately did he seek to keep his promises, though he did not know if he could.

There was no hope to be gotten from him then.

Not for the reasons she once may have thought, but because he was adrift, tangled in a maze of distant faraway outcomes, of possible futures. It came quite naturally to her to picture them as sticky strings all caught on his long horns or sticking to the edges of his wings, though the picture in his mind may well be altogether different.

She for her part could only see what was right here before her, so, she must, by need, see to the crossing of the bridges in the order that they are reached.

That was all she could do.

She had never really believed in his grand promises, so, she wasn’t much disappointed either.

Before anyone else, he probably would not have dared to betray how lost he was.

Not when they were all expecting him to have the answers.

Not when they might fray apart without his strength and resolve to count on and cling to.

She knew that well; She’d been a leader, too.

So, she found herself in the odd, absurd position to do him a rare mercy.

They should be so fortunate, that out of the two of them, she had the greater experience with blind flailing.

He might be missing the trees for the forest, but their daughter wasn’t dead yet. She wasn’t even hatched.

If their time was to be limited, they had better make it count.

The Queen of Deepnest placed a claw on his shoulder, as she’d often seen the King’s wife do it – one of her middle ones, simply because those were the closest.

He stiffened briskly at first, but he allowed it.

Somehow, this simple gesture felt far more intimate than their previous act of bodily union.

One may account this evidence of their shared despair.

“...How much time do we have then? Until she comes after us? Not the Old Light. Our ancient foe, you called her. The One Atop.”

He had a precise answer for once:

“Three hundred and twenty-five years.”

“Heh….” the Beast noted, mirthlessly. “That coincides quite well with that prophecy of the Moths… You don’t suppose that Black Knight of theirs could help her out as well?”

“That is a prophecy of Dreams. It is nothing anywhere near as exact as Our sight. Dreams contradict, they speak in riddles and symbols, they are not beholden to reason… if they were, We might have slain the Old Light ourselves. That Black Knight they spoke of might be a metaphor rather than a literal warrior, for all that We can discern. We have not the faintest idea who or what it may be, if it is anyone at all. If it does refer to a physical warrior, it may be generations still until they are so much as hatched.”

...so it was not something to put much stock in?

Altogether unsurprising.

No guarantees of anything. What else is new.

The Queen of Deepnest came to a decision:

“...you focus on your own mess with the Old Light then. You have more than enough on your plate as it is. Leave it to me to worry about Her Up Top. She is my peoples’ unfinished business to begin with. I’ll take precautions. I’ll make arrangements. I will speak to Vespa about it.”

“Just be mindful not exert yourself overmuch –“ he spoke vaguely at the direction of her as she gathered herself up from her bed, somberly conceding to his limits. “You will be carrying soon.”

“Yet still we must press on, and do what we have to.”

“That, we must.”

Their wills were strangely united in this.

It figures that their interests must be naturally somewhat aligned, from now on, with their fates thus linked together. She could not possibly renege on her agreement now.

She would not.

She was more than duly motivated.

She felt no great change in herself as of yet, but it was done.

He’d finally done it after all – her cart was hitched to his wagon.

She and her realm would stand and fall by his plan.

Even if those plans all failed, she did not think that she would ever regret the bargain.

She’d just had the confirmation of something taking place that she knew well she’d never want to undo.

She had gotten what she wanted, and she wanted what she got.

She could only hope, for Lurien and Monomon, that they would be able to claim the same when it was all said and done.

...she considered once again that once so foreign, alien fear of outlasting all things dear as they crumble to nothing That which had once seemed to mark that royal pair as irrevocable different from them.

Now the three of them may know it too.

Her daughter would know it, most intimately, if all their desperate plots should come to naught.

Though, with a somewhat selfish twang of sentiment, she though the long task would be easier, knowing that she would not outlast her child.

She must be grateful to the Wyrm, for granting her this insight at last.

She would always something to keep fighting for.

She would give all.

For her.

…

Most of the clutch proved useless, as all her previous attempts, but just as the Pale Beings had promised, there was one among the waste that was distinctly live, which was more of a victory than she could ever claim before.

The Midwife of the Deepnest knew not of the Wyrm’s prophecies, and yet she had high hopes for that one when she inspected it once she had tended to the new mother-to-be after the laying – not just the practiced words of comfort and encouragement that her profession often demanded.

It appeared rounded and fuzzy, as a typical spider’s egg, but there was a faint pale light to it that shone through even after Herrah had swaddled it in a sac of her silk. When touched, there was a surprisingly crystalline texture to it, not nearly as pliant as it may seem, certainly not the transparent, gelatinous shell of a horseshoe crab egg.

It was far smaller than the White Lady’s fruits had been, containing only one single larva, but there could be no doubt as to the sire.

Compared to your average Weaver egg, it would have been accounted a little on the small side, but Herrah was sorceress enough to sense the thrum of latent power resonant inside.

This one would be incandescent with soul – strong with silk, if the father’s prediction held true.

A herald flanked by two guards arrived with such precise timing that they could only have come from the White Palace – they must have been sent before the Queen of Deepnest had even gone into labor. They extended warm regards, congratulations, and an announcement that the royal family meant to visit once the princess was hatched – no doubt, they already knew exactly when this would be. It must be awfully convenient, to know in advance just when to clear their busy schedules – the new mother had been afforded no such luxury, and caught off guard by the delivery just as she was hearing petitioners… Once may have resented such a flaunting of his powers, or at least viewed it with suspicion, but if the Wyrm had truly seen their daughter slain (or worse) in endless different ways in a manifold distant futures, she did not envy him at all. One might forgive him, even, for leveraging his unique curse for what little it was worth.

All the wide world may come after this dear one, things that Herrah may have chased off and rent to shred with her bare clawblades, and those far beyond her strength, those that could lie in wait for ages on end… and she would have to leave her child so, so soon.

If she did not leave, she could not protect her daughter from the threat of the Old Light, but once she was bound fast in sleep eternal, how would she protect her child at all, from within some ghostly half-life where she might not affect nor touch anything whatsoever?

Thus was always the dilemma:

Without one’s blades drawn, one cannot protect, but with one’s claws out, one cannot embrace.

This little spark beginning here would have to face more future than most.

As if to make up for all the years she would not see, Herrah carried the egg with her always, wearing it strung around her in a sling even as she held court on her seat of power, furiously engrossed in keeping it clean and always kept at the exact right proportions of temperature and moisture, doing what few limited things she might do.

No thought of inheritances or thrones, no shred of politics, agendas or plots survived that first, earliest cracking noise of the eggshell tearing open from within.

All of that ceased to exist.

The universe shifted, and all the priorities inside it rearranged themselves.

She couldn’t have cared less if the small girl would take her throne.

She couldn’t have cared less whether she would resemble her, or take after their father, or different paths entirely.

Gathering that soft-shelled little something up in her upper limbs, the Beast realized then that she cared for nothing and no one, as long as she’d grow strong. As long as she’d live free. As long as she might live proud, and unbowed, and never know the horrors of servitude they had once suffered in Pharloom.

Her daughter may not thank her in the end, for bringing her into this blasted world in times of war, bearing three kingdoms’ worth of curses, but she found that she would not care about this either.

She would certainly welcome being thanked, or loved, or adored, even remembered, but that wasn’t why she was doing this.

If this little life were to prosper, and never thanked her at all, that would be alright with her, too.

She still wouldn’t regret a thing.

...there was much rejoicing at the birth of the princess.

In Deepnest and Hallownest both.

Both their houses were well-loved, at least in their own realms, and the people could use some silly celebrity gossip about Royal Hatchlings to distract the general mounting atmosphere of impending doom that surely but slowly gripped the caverns. Panic was yet to set in fully, while most still had some faith in their leaders having a plan; Some cute little bundle of hope was just the thing that the masses would gladly take for a sign that things were looking up.

On either side of the fence, the child was hailed as a gift, the final signature on pacts promising futures of prosperity and peace.

A rather tall order for an infant.

Much of it was innocent enough. Genuine well-wishes as might be extended to any new parent, most of which were simply known to less people.

The Midwife had a habit of bragging garrulously of every new broodling she delivered, and the princess was a particularly special occasion. The rumors of just how much she glowed were vastly exaggerated, for all that she was marked with that pale light, at once discernible to anyone with the knowledge to tell what they were looking at. To the Midwife and the other beasts, it was, in effect, just yet another of the marvels they were used to from their rulers.

It merely singled out their princess as especially tough and noble, which could only swell their pride in their home, crowned now with yet another jewel.

The problem were Herrah’s own people, those who ironically should have been her daughter’s closest kin – especially the faction from the Weaver’s Den, who held the most to their old ways.

Congratulations had come thence as well, but among those were congratulations laced with other things, colored by a worrisome rainbow of gloating. Of gleeful, vengeful anticipation. Of avarice.

Much of it was praise for the Queen, though it was the kind of approval that might fill her with shame: ‘Finally… finally we succeed… in what could not be done at out old nest in our old home… unlike that wish cast vain...’

‘This might be the one… to weave us free.’

One to finish the job.

To face their ancient foe, and beat her, and seize her, and lay her low and take her everything with lustful relish, and perch atop in place of the Grand Pale Beast, this time for real.

See her rent, as she rent them.

Stomp on her, as she stomped on them.

Not all went quite that far; Some hoped simply for a guardian, a mighty pillar in their current place, or perhaps a wedge to drive into the Pale King’s side.

Here might be something grand.

Something great.

Rightful heiress not just to one kingdom, but three.

‘We must take care that she learns our ways’ they’d whisper.

‘Our strength. Our silk. Our nature.’

‘We must take that she stays loyal.’

‘Keep her bound tight to us. Push her to be strong, but take care that she does not get ideas. You know what to expect of her pale kin.’

By the Shadows.

There it was, lodged deep, come forth at last.

The Malice of the Creator, repeated anew in an endless chain of cruelty begetting cruelty, passed along like the dubious crown jewels of the family.

She had thought the Wyrm cold enough.

But at least the King and Queen of Hallownest knew well that they had sinned in robbing an innocent new life of future, freedom and choice so that they might obtain a weapon to wield against the Radiance.

The White Lady grieved what she had lost, she could hardly stand to be in a room with the Vessel.

The King rather compensated his guilt by speaking to it incessantly as if it could understand him, though he would have been the first to tell you that it was no use, no good, and nowhere near enough to making up for what was to come, even as he couldn’t seem to stop himself from lavishing praise and attention upon the unresponsive, void-ravaged ruin of what might otherwise have been his prized heir.

Never for a second had even those two supposed monsters entertained the illusion that their ugly deed was glorious, no matter how worthy the cause.

This prattling lot before her, however?

They seemed to be lacking even a shred of self-awareness.

In a way, some of them were still exactly what their Grand Mother had made of them, be it by design, by example, or by force or desperation: Her mirror images.

Cunning and minded. Crude and cruel.

Living what they’d learned, the only ways they’d ever known, ingrained deep in them from their rearing.

No more. It stops here.

“Disgraceful prattle! Listen to yourselves!

My daughter is a new-hatched infant who barely fills the crook of my arms. She is not her father, she is not you, and she certainly isn’t our So-called Mother. Have you so little confidence in the craft of your own needles that you feel the need to foist the protection of the realm all onto a new-hatched babe still wet from the egg? A perversion of nature, it seems, when it is us who should be safeguarding our brood. If this is how we would treat our children, then we rightfully do not deserve them.

I do not know about you, but I did not come running to the ends of the earth only to turn around and do onto my own spawn as our creator did onto us. Has the harshness of the wilds made you miss the taste of servitude? I thought I had once heard all of you swear to be you would rather rule deep down in the shadows than serve high up in the light.

If you still have the will to join with me and follow after me, know that I am not our kin, and that I do not intend to repeat the follies of those who came before us. I struck our bargain because I am willing to stand and fight for our new home, in such ways as I can, and because strong beyond our own is needed, if there is to be so much as a shred of a chance.

Divided we fall!

United, we might fall as well, for we are opposed by mighty foes from many sides, but at least we’ll be able to say to ourselves that we tried to make our stand for once, instead of slinking off to waste away in ignominy, as we leave those who depend on our stewardship to bear the brunt again.

This time, we shall make our land stand, along with the people of this Nest who took us in in our moment of need, and alongside all those who yet have the resolve to go down fighting, be they great wyrms, or tiny skittering things.

We shall not go down gently as easy, juicy prey.

We shall not bow, neither beneath the One Atop, nor before the Old Light!

If they want our lives, or our freedom, we shall at least make them come and get them!”

That shut all their whisperings right up, as was expected.

But Queen Herrah brooked no illusions: Some of them might well have seen the wisdom of her reasoning, but for most of them, it was the booming of her deep, raspy voice that had staid them, the memory of the sharp gleam of her claw-blades.

Ol’ reliable.

The oldest, simplest way to see one’s will done.

It was her strength that they respected, and her strength only.

While she had that, she doubted not that she could keep them in line, but she feared what might become of them in her absence, when other voices may get their turn being the loudest in the room.

She’d heard Lurien and Monomon expressing similar worries in their time – the other scholars, the other nobles… they weren’t all the cream of the crop.

In the end, they must all learn their limits, come to relinquish their holds.

Make preparations for their absence.

It was useless to keep grasping.

The Grand Mother had sought to keep an indeterminate grasp once, maybe, spared by her immortality and great natural power from learning such humbling, unpalatable lessons for the longest time, and then she had found herself shut up inside her very own seat of power by those who would put on her the limitations on her which nature had so ungenerously failed to provide her with.

If all this must be forced to endure the humiliating sting of impotence or weakness sooner or later, they could at least let it be a teacher to them.

Whatever may come to pass once she lay down to Dream would be out of her claws, for better or worse.

That old Wyrm would have no such respite – not yet, not while his strength was still needed, not while he was more useful to his Kingdom alive.

If the four of them did not die well (in most ways that mattered), it would be a black thing for the King that lead them to it.

Lurien was not entirely wrong, in the end – the part of giving the order was the blacker one, not enviable in the least.

The person in charge exists to take responsibility.

As his fellow monarch, Herrah would know this most of all.

…

Absurdly enough, the Beast was actually glad to see them, when they finally turned up.

The whole of their delegation.

Their knights, the King and Queen, even Monomon and Lurien, who had not been explicitly invited, but had joined themselves to the entourage either way, although they were not at all permanent residents at the court and had their own busy posts to see to.

They simply wished to attend to a respected comrade and friend as she was adjusted to a major event in her life, so that they might join her in celebrating the realization of a long-held wish.

One simply cannot spend so long in close proximity, struggling stalwartly against a common enemy, without a sprout of fellowship springing up between them like fine fungal strings, even if their alliance had begun as a pragmatic, fangs-clenched outgrowth of bare, desperate necessity.

The Watcher wasn’t too good or experienced with small children, which left him in one boat with the King, though he had sired children before – his fully divine offspring had emerged ready for training and schooling, able to follow complex instructions already. He seemed uncertain how to comport himself with a child that could not yet retain or remember his words.

Monomon, though no parent at all, had no such compunctions; She babbled eagerly at the newborn in a rare moment of lightheartedness, having one of her ever-so-slightly translucent tentacles in front of the child’s face, as she eagerly commented on which features had been passed down from each parent, and how she may come to develop in the future, how her emergent little mind might be beginning to develop the first of its understanding even now.

The White Lady asked reluctantly if she might hold the child, and with that request granted, she smiled, perhaps for the first time in… longer, really, than anybody could confidently recall. Though divine herself, she did not seem to share her husband’s hesitations. “It is true that she might not understand yet, dear,“ she mused, with heavy, understated longing, turning to both of the new parents with the babe held in her tendrils, “-but if you keep smiling at her, one day she will smile back. If you keep speaking to her, she will reply one day.”

The pain in her voice was understated, but carried heavily.

“Spider Queen…”, she spoke, seriously, wanly, affixing her head-on with her own pearlescent eyes. “I wish for you to know that I would never, ever, presume to take your place. Her mother will always be you, and I have long since forfeited any right to refer to myself as such. Even so, as much as it is within my power, I will do my utmost to provide for her in your absence, just as you would have. This, I swear to you, from now, to the end of my time, long though it may be.

There may not be much we can give to her, powerless as we are, brought low in these desperate times. Yet, for what is is worth, I assure you that I will always do my utmost to ensure that she will always feel welcome in our house, so much as we may. That we will account her as fully part of our family, and not consign her to any lesser place or role.”

For obvious reasons, the White Lady did stop short of daring to say ‘as if she were my own, also’.

That, she may have expected to inspire just about the opposite of confidence.

But whatever the sins of her past may be, one could sense from her a genuine, almost timid gratitude for being allowed to dote on the minuscule creature that seemed all the smaller when held to her tall form. It would seem that any child of her mate’s, she would account her own;

There was no territorial jealousy to her at all, nor was there any possessiveness to be sensed about her. She merely seemed grateful to be allowed a second chance that had come to her unlooked for and undeserved.

Herrah realized only in hindsight that she had just handed her hard-won daughter to her without even a moment’s apprehension.

Whatever superficial notion of similarity she may once have perceived on account of their vast, stretching presences had completely evaporated now.

Whatever other faults she may have, she was truly nothing like the creator in any way, and though she might decline such appellations, she may come to prove worthier of the title than the ‘Grand Mother’ had ever been.

Well. At least with regards to the young princess.

The sins of days past were far from evaporated, nor were they even finished being piled on.

The White Queen’s bodily offspring had been brought along as well, most likely at the behest of the King. It had followed a fixed distance after him, trailing off once there was nothing more for it to do. For most of the proceedings, it stood aloof from the eager crowd that swarmed around the tiny newborn, untouched by the flurry of warmth and word all around it. At some point, it must have idly wandered over to an air-hole in the great hall’s threaded walls, looking out on the subterranean lake below the Distant Village, whose vague vast dark still did not match that beyond the empty spaces where its eyes should have been.

A lanky adolescent thing, it was coming to be now, seemingly a good head taller every single time that Herrah came to see it now, the beginnings of a third spur beginning to branch off its horns as it vaguely approached the proportions of maturity. Its parents had draped it in an alabaster cape to make it seem fit for the momentous occasion, thought it was dubious if it grasped the first thing of what was going on around it – for its own sake, as much as all of theirs, they must all sorely hope that it did not.

Not for the first time, Herrah was left wondering what her husband might have made of the creature – according to his ancient faith, the state inflicted upon this being was considered akin to the highest peak of enlightenment.

She had discussed this once with Monomon, whom she expected to disagree on principle – after all, that ‘tragic being’, as the Teacher would refer to it, had been purposefully stripped of all the same things that the Radiance meant to rob them of, if only to prevent her from inflicting the same on everybody in these caverns, all of that which the scholar accounted as so precious: Thought, understanding, individuality...

But to the Beast’s surprise, the Teacher had pessimistically confessed that she felt the three of them might come to envy that creature’s state before long – it would not feel its long confinement. It would not suffer. Nothing would arise within its holy shell but the deepest, uttermost silence, no matter how many ages should rush past it, hanging motionlessly in place as the dust of aeons caked its form, near indistinguishable from a desiccated husk or an empty suit of armor –

Even if the hollowed sockets upon its face unmistakably bore the same approximate almond shape as the King’s, much like that squirming bundle in Herrah’s upper arms.

While her mate yet lived, the Queen of Beasts would probably have greeted the news that their neighbors had bred with wary exasperation, expecting nothing good from what she would then have taken to be the monstrous spawn of monstrous creatures. Her chief concern would have been to ensure that none of the offspring would decide to snatch the Deepnest once they were thought ready start up their own fiefdom of terror. She would have expected their parents to be of the sort who’d chase their brood out of of their territory as the spawn approached maturity, lest they be usurped themselves.

She would have assumed that this is why the Grand Mother, for all her patent burning desire for children, had never attempted to bear fully divine offspring.

Her territorial instincts were likely just a tad too strong to tolerate another Higher Being long enough to court it, let alone mate with it. Nor must it be supposed that her charming personality would have been any more endearing to her fellows – and after all the labor of birthing her spawn, she might have come to find that it takes after its father. But more than anything, such a being of equal strength, even born of a lesser sire, might have turned out mightier than the mother, capable of contending with her, or even challenging her for her rule.

No wonder she chose to make do with uplifted mortals, whom she might compel to obey her as she pleased… or so she had thought.

In the end, her wayward children had outgrown her anyway, come to dreadful splendor and ripeness of fruit fallen not so far from the tree of the Mother’s wickedness, surpassing her at last, if not in raw might, then in their wretched, clever schemes; How could she hope to understand the inventiveness compelled by necessity, when she had never felt its bite?

The offspring of Wyrm and Root was explicitly designed to do what its parents could not, though not for any kind of loving intention. The unprecedented power it held was brought into being not for its own sake, but for the kingdom.

It seemed a divine counterpart to the misshapen wriggling things that populated the lower depths, some kind of bastardized fusion between a Pale Being and a Galgant Gloom, part of it still giving off light, yet holding nothing but pitch blackness within its gaping hollow body…

Yet despite everything, that aberrant changeling still held a semblance to the White Lady’s tall stature and her elegant, fine face, or the echo of its father’s sharp majestic horns and slight, thin build, the mighty prongs upon its head a much better mimic of a beetle’s form than his own clumsy attempt had been.

His knights had taught it swordplay, and the King himself had tutored it in sorcery. Though drowned in void, it could still wield projectiles of hard light much as he could.

When it was casting its magic, its hands would appear to shine from within just for a moment, reminiscent of its parents’ forms, only to return to the darkest obsidian when the task was over, blackness so deep it carried no reflection and stood out only in silhouette

This must have been the strongest one, the lone survivor out of all that vast brood who had not only endured the process, but come out of it with most its divine strength intact – A Pale Shadow, every bit as contradictory as that sounds. A god still, albeit an empty god, a God of Nothingness. The ‘Pure Vessel’, he had named it, much in keeping with the conventions of his kind. A hollow thing of absence and shadow, retaining still some of its parents’ pure light, the masterful result finally attained after much heartache.

The King had at times implied that there had been a few other things still moving, when he came to get them, mangled and stunted, with underdeveloped shells, but none of them even made it to the exit. That any would have survived the process at all would have been considered an absurd notion, an impossibility… so far as she knew, both from her husband’s account and her own peoples’ forays into the matter, exposure to that substance is lethal to everything from the surface, past a certain point. A Pale Being might be more resistant than most, by some modest margin, on account of being its diametric opposite: The light of creation, contrasting the darkness of oblivion.

Even the King had to be careful not to risk too much exposure when he’d been tinkering with the stuff.

And yet, it was known that even much more ordinary critters had somehow adapted to life in those depths – simple, basic forms of life clinging to the furthest edge of Being near the great sea of nothingness.

Life could adapt – particularly nascent life, at its least settled and most adaptable. A fully-formed adult could not come to tolerate the void without the erasure of what it already was, but a new-formed creature, that wasn’t anything yet?

It was known not to be entirely impossible.

Very, very improbable, but he had said that even the most unlikely, most theoretical of possibility becomes a certainty if it is attempted time and time again.

He’d thought the mathematics on his side…

And here was his triumph:

A union of opposites, a hybrid abomination the likes of which had never once existed before, not once since the beginning of time.

Looking at that creature now, all Herrah could see was her daughter’s half-sibling: An unfortunate youth struck with a harsh curse in preparation for an even crueler fate.

She and the other Dreamers had at least chosen their roles of their own free will.

None had asked the Vessel – it could not answer, even if it were asked.

It was even deprived of the very will by which to choose or not choose.

A mercy, one must think, to one who must needs endure the Old Light’s assault for all of eternity.

And yet, Herrah had seen this creature raised from a teeny, tiny hatchling, and listened time and time again to its father speaking of its progress – ever now and again, something rather much like fondness and pride would begin to creep into his tone, only to be choked down with regret or forcibly crushed with stoicism and restraint.

The Wyrm may unfailingly listen to his math over his own instincts, but they were still plain to observe… even before the Queen of Beasts found herself the mother of a different unprecedented crossbreed creature, one whom some of her own followers thought of as a weapon, a messiah or an abomination.

It was easier still, now, to look upon the Vessel, void tendrils and all, and still see nothing more fanciful than an especially diligent youngster, dutiful maybe, hardworking, eager to be of use, mild as its mother and afflicted with much of it’s father’s reticence, but little worse than that.

She could only hope that Monomon and the Wyrm had crossed their ts and dotted their is in all those equations of theirs, that there wasn’t something they had overlooked which might make it possible for this poor child to suffer.

If this being could feel, what would it think about its little sister?

Would it burn with resentment, that she may get to live, and grow, and inherit, while it had been brought into the world marred and diminished, only to be put to a terrible task?

Or would it feel protectiveness, and renewed clarity of purpose, grateful to behold one who would come to grow up in the world that its sacrifice would enable to keep standing?

If so, they would have that in common, though it was an unjust burden to lay on one so young without a choice in the matter – if it were to resent them all instead, that would not be undeserved.

The Queen of Beasts herself might have, in its place…

But perhaps that creature should rather be expected to take after its dispassionate yet dutiful parents or the honorable knights that were mentoring it.

At least, Herrah did not protest, when the King beckoned the supposed aberration over and made the attempt to place its tiny sister into its arms. Even the White Lady, who usually gave the Vessel a wide berth, felt compelled to render assistance, just to ensure it would be holding the child the correct way, adjusting its claws to ensure that it would properly support the mewling hatchling’s bright little head. Herrah herself, of course, got involved in this, adjusting the silken swaddling clothes so that the shadow creature’s icy touch wouldn’t inadvertently leech the heat from her small form – she thought it listened well, taking great care from the moment she brought this up, though perhaps it was simply obeying her orders – they were so absorbed in this business that all the adults involved must have all but forgotten about Monomon’s continued presence in the room by the time they were suddenly greeted with the blunt exclamations of her voice:

“Wait, stop! Stay right where you are! The way you’re standing right now is perfect!”

They followed the Teacher’s blunt exclamations to their source, only to find the main point of interest to be Lurien, who stood beside her floating form, ostensibly moved, by a sudden stroke of inspiration, to commit a swift sketch of the royals onto a wax tablet, as a reference to use later for a proper painting.

Herrah saw the finished thing once, standing out among the others on display within his spire, which were largely depicting peaceful urban scenes and aristocratic portraits – a skillful composition of reds and whites, from the various figures depicted to the walls and decorations of the Beasts’ Den drawn behind them.

It wasn’t a bad painting, though she would have wished that her late husband could have been in it somehow.

She left it in the tower; It wouldn’t have seemed right, to have it carted off either to her Den or the King’s palace.

(Half an eternity later, a tiny, stunted creature with curved, beetle-like horns would find that very same painting still catching dust in that very same spire, faded and worn by age. The first time it passes by, it does not recognize who any of the figures depicted might be, barely just placing the King just from the likeness of his statues, scarcely sparing it more than just a curious, passing glance.

It would come remember the painting, many adventures later, with a suddenness that was almost a violence, and return to stare at it for long, this time, deducing exactly who the newborn was, and that it had met her before in this very city, likewise marking the tall youth draped in white, wondering just where exactly it was it must have been, at that same moment, nowhere near this scene from which it had been forever excluded, caught in this image like some pickled preserve.)

…

None of these incidents, however, ended up being the strangest or the most unexpected of it all.

Most of those, the Queen of Beasts could have justified or explained to her past self with some pragmatic reason or another, a justification that her previous self would see the wisdom in.

What she truly never could have anticipated, or understood even, before having truly experienced and lived through all the turns and twists of her long reign, was that she would one day be sitting with the White Lady in her gardens, in a pristine white gazebo, among those strangely tamed and organized plants, simply enjoying the fresh air, with all its honeyes scents and buzzing small critters… Herrah had thought of this as a foreboding, ominous place, back when she first heard of its existence.

Now, she sat in the heart of it, simply enjoying the weather over tea and crumpets, chatting amicably about the latest going-ons in their respective realms as the children played off in the distance.

The little princess had found herself a playmate, a young trainee among the guards who was somewhat friendly with the White Queen.

The aspiring warrior by the name of Marmu was not quite so young as Herrah’s daughter, but her wide-eyed, innocent disposition more than made up for it. The Beast felt a strange bittersweet mixture of pride and pain in noting how rather mature her daughter seemed, despite her diminutive size.

In a better world, they might have afforded to let her stay innocent for just a bit longer.

Herrah had never once intended for her coming sacrifice to make her daughter feel indebted, but it seems she had decided to feel that way all on her own.

The girl seemed too serious for her brief years sometimes, but her mother could not really tell her not to be, in good conscience… not with what the world out there was like, especially these days.

The Queen of Beasts was grateful for the opportunity to bring her here – thus far, the White Lady had performed admirably in keeping her promise of always making the child feel welcome in her domain, which was something that Herrah could, alas, not always count on when it came to her own followers.

This visit, too, was, in part, meant to be a respite for her, an opportunity for the girl to think about something other than the ills of the world... especially now that the day of their parting was undoubtedly drawing closer. Before departing to this retreat, as they were waiting for the child to get ready, the two of them had crossed paths with the King, on his way back from the latest training session with the Pure Vessel – he saw to most of those himself now, ever since his great knights had ran out of things to teach it.

The signs were subtle – the Vessel itself of course stood unreadable as always, and the King kept himself restrained, but he could conceal little now, not from one who had known him as long as his wife had, nor from one with instincts as acute as those of the spider queen’s.

It had been the first and only time that Herrah had ever seen the Wyrm noticeably out of breath.

At one point, he absently held onto a decorative spike on the walls, letting go the self-same instant he recalled he had an audience.

Between the two of them, the two queens had rather swiftly concluded that the Vessel may just have bested its sire in a sparring match. Perhaps he got careless and took a void tendril to the chest, or some such thing – for what else could have possibly affected him so?

Should one congratulate the Vessel? All of its incessant hard work had finally paid off.

But that victory was tantamount to signing its own death warrant.

Whatever it was that befell, the King did not speak a word of it, likely holding off on proclamations until he had ensured that the results could be replicated consistently, but it would not be long now, before he would have to concede that the last of the four sacrifices was getting to be as ready as it would ever be.

On the surface, the White Lady seemed perfectly detached from that looming occurrence, but not much detective work was required to deduce that she needed the retreat as much as anyone else… some kind of urgent, overdue reminder that there still things left in the world that made up for the ugly work needed to preserve it.

The devastation had not reached this green place, at least, not yet.

The little princess and her new playmate would be free to chase after the various critters around, showing off their latest advancements in their training, or even idly daydreaming about all the mischief they might get up to when they both finally got their wings…

Well. All thing’s considered, young Marmu’s odds in that respect were looking rather more favorable, seeing as she was a moth caterpillar. She would only have to brave a few more awkward years of adolescence before she might attain her dream.

The princess, meanwhile, hadn’t really shown any signs that she might be gaining any further appendages on any of her previous molts. She still had a few left, and for some, the features of their final form might not show themselves until the very last one, but with each one that brought no such changes with it, the odds decreased. Actual beetles began as bristly grubs and gained both their distinctive wings as well as their horns and mouth-parts with the last transition to maturity, but the King’s form, whom she largely resembled in terms of her body plan (the greater, weaver-like flexibility of her joints notwithstanding), was merely a mimicry of those, so they need not really work the same way – the vessel had its horns and wings at birth, albeit in a smaller, less developed form, and so far, its sister’s growth had appeared to follow a similar trajectory, which might just be how it tends to go with wyrms, though it remained to be seen if she, too, might hit a growth spurt to match something like her mother’s height – what she recalled of her father’s prophecy on the occasion of her conception suggested that she most likely would not.

But there was no harm in letting her dream for the moment.

The harshness of reality would assert itself soon enough, intruding even in this serene refuge flanked with placid alubas…

The two Queens had just about accomplished the feat of successfully distracting themselves, swapping at worst mildly exasperating stories from their respective courts, when the pair of young girls suddenly came running, their innocent levity washed away in an instant while the ladies had looked away.

Herrah’s daughter stepped forward first, clearly leading the charge, though she seemed a tiny speck next to the larger caterpillar, the small red hunter’s cloak she’s sewn with her own hands marked with grass stains from their previous roughhousing.

“Mama! Lady!” she called out, insistent on the importance of her errand: “Marmu is talking nonsense. You have to make her stop.”

At first, both queens suspected some simple disagreement or dispute as they may happen between friends, and be forgotten just as swiftly.

The White Lady addressed them at first with undimmed serenity:

“Now, now, children, what exactly seems to the matter?”

The young caterpillar warrior seemed none too eager to dwell on the topic:

“Oh… it’s nothing, really, milady… no point in thinking about such awful things when we could just keep thinking happier thoughts and having fun...”

But the tiny princess wasn’t having it, feeling called to remedy that which she found unacceptable:

“It’s not nothing! Someone tried to say that the infection is your fault!”

There it was. That word.

All the world’s nightmares come to pursue them even here.

The White Lady readied herself from a sobering exchange:

“Why would anyone claim such a thing?”

“It’s just... someone back at the village, the one by the resting grounds…” the caterpillar confessed, still trying to downplay the subject. “They say I shouldn’t be allowed there, that I shouldn’t I work here… It is of course the greatest honor to help protect this sacred garden!” the youth insisted, evidently wanting this very much known. Wide-eyed and naive though she may be, she had not failed to note the sorrowful gaze of her beloved queen, though she may be underestimating the complexity of its reasons.

One must be keenly aware of the sky’s crashing, when even one so committed to optimism couldn’t overlook the cracks in it:

“But one of the old Seers back at the village says I shouldn’t. That it’s because of people like me that so many in the kingdom have been suffering from the plague, and back home, too... Because it makes Her Radiance angry… They say we should all quit having anything to with anyone outside the tribe, and do penance so that she’ll forgive us…

I don’t want her to be angry, for sure! But I like it here. And I like you too, milady.

I don’t understand why we can’t just all get along. I sure never wanted for anyone to get hurt!”

“Tell her it’s not her fault!” The tiny princess demanded, as forceful as she was small. “Tell her that’s total nonsense!” Despite their disparities in size and age, one might have gotten the impression that the red-garbed half-spider had claimed her more passive friend as under her protection, and taken it upon herself as a solemn duty to see the young warrior’s troubles remedied at once. Already, she was showing all the marks of a natural leader – not unexpected at all, for a child born of such parents.

One might think that yet another competitor had come, arisen to put the Old Light out of a job.

The White Lady obliged her gladly, not in the least out of her own desire to grant comfort to her young devotee:

“Of course it isn’t your fault, dear one. How could it be, when the foundations of this conflict date back dozens of your generations? You had no claw in the choice of your ancestors. You were born as innocent as anybody else.”

The Pale Root’s voice had grown drawn and regretful.

“If it is anybody’s fault at all, that would be-”

“-The Old Light’s.”

Herrah interjected, scuttling out of her seat, then, to make the point of addressing the young one closer to her eye level. Much like her young daughter, the Queen of Beasts, too, had some things that she could not allow to stand.

“I know the type well. Our own maker back in our own distant homeland was just the same.”

“Your Maker?”

“She who gave rise to us, the way Old Light brought forth your people, or how those of Greenpath were dreamed into being by their Lady Unn.

A nasty piece of work she was. Not quite so powerful as the Old Light, but no less jealous. Thus it is always with petty tyrants, whether they’re ordinary warlords of flesh and shell, those of higher caste, or just some lout who likes to yell at their spouse and children because that is all the fiefdom they can claim. That lot think they get to do whatever they please, simply because they can.

I am no higher being, so I will never know what it is to be a creator, but I am a queen, and I am a mother, and you know what I would do if my daughter left me behind and wanted nothing to with me anymore? Or if my subjects were fleeing my realm in droves?

I would stop in my tracks and consider what it is I’m doing wrong.

To be in a position to guide others is supposed to be a responsibility, a duty. Our role as leaders is to think about what’s best for our followers. Our role as parents is to consider to do what’s best for our children. Not do do as we please like spoiled brats, insisting that we always have to win, or come to smash everything up in a tantrum.

I reckon they’re rather alike, your maker and mine. They never learned that they can’t always get what they want because some accident of their birth had made them powerful. They throw their weight around without a care because think they’re unassailable. Most of us are made to taste our limits sometime soon after we hatch, but there’s always some who refuse to learn, no matter how long they live. And the Old Light is even more powerful than our Great Frayed God was, so I reckon she’s gone very, very long without any sort of push-back. She probably thinks that no one can touch her, over there in the Dream Realm.

She thinks that because she brought you into the world, she can take you right out of it, and burn down every trace of civilization in these caverns right along with you.

But you and I, young warrior?

We are not things.

Your life is your own. It is for you to do with as you choose. Never forget that, even for an instant.”

The Queen of Beasts intoned this all the more intently, knowing that her own child was also watching. She knew her time was short. She knew that it wasn’t enough just to speak of values, she would also have to live them…

The only true way to lead anything is by example...

Limited though her capabilities may be.

She could not guarantee much to the caterpillar girl:

“Truth be told, the Lady here and I cannot truly promise that we’ll be able to protect you. Our foe is strong, and the odds aren’t in our favor. Sometimes, we cannot change what is.

But I can promise you this, young one:

We are going to punish her.

She’s going to have to live with the consequences of her actions, same as each and every one of us.”

Fortunately, young Marmu was just impressionable enough to be rather taken with that speech – by the end of it, she stood awestruck with big, wide, sparkling eyes.

“You are really, really brave, foreign lady.”

The girls spent the rest of the day not pretending that they could fly (as was not usual), but playing at being fierce spider warriors, a subject on which the princess was of course well equipped to advise her friend. (‘Though being a moth had its advantages, too’, the princess mused, dead serious, ‘Once you’re grown up, you’re probably going to be really, really fluffy.’)

Later, when Marmu’s supposed ‘shift’ as a ‘guard’ had long since ended, and the young princess had last tired herself out to the point that she curled into a very serious little ball upon her mother’s lap and dozed off despite her protestations that naps are for the weak, the queenly masks were… not quite free to come off, but perhaps to hang a bit ajar.

“You have my gratitude… for before, Queen of Beasts.”

It’s said mostly in a serene, understated way, in a voice that seems just a little thin.

The vast, glowing plant-creature with her far-stretching, world-spanning outgrowths is, of course, still an ancient, dangerous entity compelled by powerful, voracious drives, possessed of knowledge beyond mortal means. She’s no mere girl that would need a more confident friend to stand up for her at the playground, and the spider Queen carried too much hard-won wisdom, sharp instinct and world-wearied experience in her own right to mistake her for such even for an instant, and to think her a fellow middle-aged lady to rest in the breeze with would be even more ridiculous, in this place where all the climbing vines were ever so subtly altered from their likes in Greenpath, by means that were quite likely not available to your usual breeder of plants.

“Don’t mention it, Root. I did it because I wanted to, for reasons of my own.”

The faintest breeze passes over them, rustling the spider’s headdress and the hanging, wind chime-like ornaments on the White Lady’s branches.

A scent of autumn clings to the air, hints of mushrooms and ripeness.

Very soon now, even these verdant leaves that surround them may start falling, any moment now.

The first stirrings of cold wind are due soon to come seeping into all of their shells.

Or bark, in some cases.

…

The Wyrm promises monuments to them all; Building things does, in fact, seem to be how he shows his affections, but those are an impotent thing of little worth now, that will save none of them from the fates he will inflict on them.

He offers to bring them any luxuries they ask for their last days, including those to be gotten in the seedier parts of the city that he normally makes a show of officially disproving of. None take him up on the offer.

He also has the palace chefs whip up their favorite for their last earthly meals. He probably asked his wife rather than take note of and remember them himself, but there is still something genuine in the gesture.

Poor Lurien is rather touched, but can barely summon any kind of appetite.

It shall all go to waste, just as he will.

The Vessel is served an ornate nectar glass filled with concentrated soul, so that one might imagine it at least making the pretense of indulging in some grown-up pleasure at least once before departing to meet its fate, but it does not touch the offering.

It may not have felt a particularly strong need for the substance at the time; the very meaning and emotional significance of a communal meal may have been woefully lost on it – that, or it may have been embarrassed to bare its nature as a consuming thing of darkness before polite company.

The poor thing’s turned out just as uptight as its father.

Herrah, for her own part, had devoured the skewered meats placed before her with reckless abandon. She wants to feel her life, with her body, one last time.

When she is done, she puts on the new headdress and mask fitted especially for this task – all ordered their pieces from the Mask Maker in Deepnest, at her recommendation. The bug understands his craft well.

The veil is dark, unlike the crimson one she’d wear before; That is a hue for the living.

Monomon floats ghostlike near an intricate, silver-ribbed window of the palace, not quite placing a tentacle on the glass, so adrift in thought as to be utterly lost to the world.

So far as she was concerned, what awaited them was scarcely different from death… or maybe worse. It was despair that drove her down this path, that, and fear of the alternative.

“What did I have left to learn? What did I have left to teach? Who will guide them now, when I am gone? What will this win us, in the end? And what if we are wrong, somehow? What if there is something we overlooked? Something crucial? Will we come to find, in the end, that the cure was no better than the disease?”

No one in the world could have had answers to that.

She knew it too.

She was only lamenting, into the uncaring ether.

She grabbed herself a wax tablet and scrawls down the draft of a poem.

She’d never get that last rhyme to work.

It would remain unfinished. As her work. As her life.

Lurien had been apprehensive, for weeks, not to begin any new paintings that he might not finish.

He goes to lock himself up with his diary and his telescope, before his staff can ambush him with their many pledges of fealty.

By then, the Teacher had got a hold over herself and left to spend her final hours double-checking her last arrangements, speaking one last time with her apprentice and the floating things she had created in her likeness.

Herrah will leave the guarding to her resting place to the most loyal of her husbands’ old followers, her Stalking Devouts to lay their traps, shapeshifters to lure in trespassers with stolen faces… what they do not catch, the inhospitable terrain of the Deepnest itself should repel.

They were each going to be interred with their life’s work, surrounded by all that which once gave them strength and reason to fight, with the wishes that once made their souls shine, waiting to be twisted into curses.

She does not know this yet, but one not so distant day, the King’s own tomb is going to be of much the same fashion, when he at last made good on his promise to spend even himself.

Only the Vessel would be left to make do with a bare, impersonal mausoleum, that is at once a temple to its divinity.

At least the commonfolk call it a temple; The King calls it a vault.

It is of course both; A vault to store the Radiance, and a temple to the Vessel.

It looks nothing at all like cage-church of her ancestors, that gilded monstrosity of worship subverted into chains, that yet never truly stopped revering the one it sought to hold.

The Black Temple is not a place of honor; No pilgrims will be coming to it.

It is not a monument to wealth, power and domination, no idol of web and thread and string;

It’s a forbidding, foreboding place of sacrifice and holy silence, of sharp cleanliness and crisp purity, of the emptiness left behind after thankless but necessary tasks, a place of warning, site of a faith she was about to be consigned to as an offering, to be elevated to the dubious honor of serving as its saint.

She would die another’s angel, though she would keep her word to its parents that she would never be theirs. – let the Grand Mother rage at this as the Old Light had. A wicked little part of hers, the part that is undoubtedly her ‘daughter’, hopes very much that she’d die mad about it. In. Her. Face.

Instead, the Queen’s mask would be etched into the sanctum of a hollow, empty god, a god of sacrifice – one she could almost find herself praying to, had she not seen the sorry creature growing up. She’d always remember it as that tiny droplet of dark which the King first brought with him from below, or as that lanky adolescent cradling her newborn daughter.

Eldritch monstrosity of writhing, devouring shadows or not, Pale Being or not, it didn’t deserve this – this barren destiny without end.

At least the church-cage of the ancient Weavers only clamped its bars over the guilty party, and those seduced into thinking they could keep a hold of her power without falling prey to her will.

What punishment may come of their own follies?

What punishment, for their own, different sins, wrought in hapless scramble to avoid those of their forebears?

The answer lies cloaked in the murk of a distant future she would no longer be a part of, at least not as much more than a dream or a specter.

She wants to spend as much of her last remaining days as she can with her daughter... make it count, though she wonders if she ever could. Will not the glut of years to come drown out her feeble efforts like a torrential rain?

What will the child even remember of her?

The cruel irony is that without her eternal duty, she would surely be long perished in those three-hundred odd years, when the ancient foe is set to strike. But even if her duty remained till then, it would consign her to watching the events unfold without much capacity to interfere.

It was hard to say what that state was going to be like.

Time could pass quickly in dreams, but the explicit purpose of this one would be to keep a long, long watch. The clocks advance inexorably it as it.

Eventually it is the last night, of the last day, and the child had gone to sleep, as children must, for all her valiant efforts to stay awake, to hang on, as if that may somehow cause tomorrow to never come.

She is left at last to ponder the dark.

Rest seems impossible; She will have more than enough of that when the moment finally dawns.

A defiant little part of her mind considers telling that she would like to mate once more before facing her doom. She wouldn’t do that to the White Lady, but, it occurs to her that if she made the request, he probably wouldn’t deny her.

He wouldn’t have denied anything to the four of them right now, anything, that is, except to let them go free.

And the one to whom he likely wants to grant the most boons, comforts and mercies cannot ask for anything – could not desire ought at all, supposedly, nor even conceive of desiring.

There is nothing to be done for the Vessel.

There never was, from the moment he cast the pale fruit containing the first primitive germs of its existence into the cruel, light-less depths.

Her husband’s people had considered the shadows a god; If they were, the offerings that had been given to it to grant a curse upon the Radiance could never be taken back, even if it was another Power that had made the sacrifice.

The Hollow Knight was never meant for this world, there was nothing for it here, no joy or reward in its bare minimum of existence.

The King had confessed once, that he did not know whether that which he’d lead into his palace was a vestigial, blackened remnant of his child at all, or purely a thing of shadows that had crawled up into the shell of it in the fashion of Deepnest’s own corpse creepers, after gorging itself on the pale essence of its host, forced into a superficial pretense of form by his own craft.

If it was, the spider queen would reckon that the changeling creature must be accounted his child all the same, in the way that the princess was also the White Lady’s, or as Herrah herself would have been willing to count as her own what her husband might have produced from another.

He had raised it, lived with it, reared it from a round-faced child into a young adult with all its skills, talents and virtues now in splendid fruit and flower, over many long, long years, shorter, perhaps, to his measure, or maybe not at all, seeing as time has a way of feeling thicker when it is laced with wholly new experience…

Those last weeks might have felt longer to him than many a century.

Long did he sit with his offspring, compelled to spill forth parting words, but unable to think of anything to say that would make any difference, in the face of what he was about to do.

Herrah did not envy him, not knowing him as she did now.

She never could have chosen as he did, nor could she countenance the opposite selfish choice.

She had done as she could to do right by her realm and her daughter both, and perhaps accomplished both in some measure, albeit imperfectly, but perhaps she had simply been lucky that the interest of either had never been quite so opposed.

She would be leaving the girl soon, but in doing so, she would still be protecting her. She would still be paying for the means of bringing her forth.

Nothing could save the Vessel;

That one, he put in bonds first.

Alas, for such a promising young knight.

Would that its devotion could have been repaid with a kinder assignment.

He gets to her last, or rather, the others have to go first. Lurien, in his spire, bitterly wept over by his entire staff – his servants, his butler, his personal knights; Monomon, in that strange, glowing tube of acid, where a distraught apprentice stood ready to enact some additional failsafe she’d prepared all on her own; Her floating artificial guardian might have been weeping too, had it the eyes to do so. Blessed are those who have a voice to cry suffering.

The Queen of Beasts is needed, still, to string the actual seals of binding of her own silk, and twine them round and round of her own craft as divinely glowing cobwebs, just as the King must attend to activating the spellwork, which would require quantities of soul that only he could spare, among other requirements calling for his particular talents.

Her own shroud, she had prepared well in advance, lest some anxiety of the end should affect even her steely, unflinching claws;

The final designs of the seals amounted very much to a joint effort between both monarchs, a shared brainchild of them both, and both would they bear the weight of their work, each after the manner of his or her own nature and destiny.

There is no going back now.

The trap proper is already sprung, the prey captured, the bait, alas, consumed.

Now that the heart of the plague was held within its body, the Vessel was truly beyond all help forevermore.

The spider queen draped the glowing gossamer thread over herself, in the self-same bedchamber where she once lay with the King.

The time had come to uphold her side of the bargain.

She looks up at him with all six of her eyes, once she had affixed the very last of the glowing threads in place.

“Save them, Pale Wyrm. If you can.”

The last thing she sees of the waking world, with earthly eyes, is his somber, resolute nod of acknowledgment, and the beginnings of a blinding flash of soul lighting up in his claw, shining cold and pale.

So much for not delivering herself to him without a fight.