"Spider Prophecy 1" by A. Setliffe

~The next piece I offer was dictated by Keagan, Aiden’s eldest brother, some twelve to thirteen years after the above. I regret the leap forward without bridge or explanation, but as what comes after was penned in reaction to this dictation, I feel that this must come first. You will gather by the reading that much had happened in the intervening years, but the gaps will be filled soon enough.~

My name is Keagan, Eagan’s son, Lord of the Crescent Hall and the Meads of Galven. I dictate this so that it may be recorded in the letters of the wise by my advisor and friend, Druce. I leave this manuscript in his care, lest I die in my present attempt to destroy my family’s evil seed. If I fail, others must follow in my steps until the deed is done, so I shall here give full account of all that has happened since the birth of my depraved youngest brother.
            Aiden was our father’s third child by our mother, Elonde. He greatly resembled our mother with orange hair and fair skin, and father with gray eyes and noble features, yet I wonder, as father sometimes did, if the child was not a changeling sent to torment our lives. In the Spring after Aiden’s birth our father took us with him to bring the babe before Aislinn the seer. I was old enough at the time to recall what happened in that witch’s little hovel, but my younger brother Neal, middle child of our ill-fated house, was still quite small. I think, perhaps, his unclear memory of that day and the words that were spoken left him too trusting of our infant brother.
            The witch threw herself into a trance, before the spiced smoke of her fire and when she woke from it she spoke a cryptic prophecy of which I do not yet understand the meaning.  Druce will record the words as I recall them, in hope that one day their grim purport will be understood and its purpose thwarted.
            “The spider that devours spiders is born. Through him shall flies learn to bite.”
            From what Aislinn has since told me, I gather that this prophecy must never be fulfilled, and I pray that I may prevent it. Once the seer had spoken these words she bade us remove Aiden from her sight. She looked upon him as if she saw a scorpion poised to strike rather than a smiling babe. If only we had understood then why she was so struck. Aislinn told my father that Aiden would become his “grief and ruin,” and I now know the reason he believed Aislinn’s judgment to be unerring. 
            Aiden grew like any other child as the years passed. He was a lively imp, and our mother’s favorite, but I always saw something like unease in our father’s eyes when he looked upon him. I, being the eldest, had little to do with the boy, but he and Neal grew to be fast friends. Heavens rain down vengeance for Aiden’s treachery!
            Aiden possessed a gift for the bow, and a love for training hounds, and so seemed as any boy-child should, but I know now that beneath this façade, he was plotting our pain and destruction. I was seventeen, and just married, Neal thirteen, flowering into manhood and Aiden ten when our mother died. She took a fever while with child, and her death cast deep shadows across our lives. Then first we began to see Aiden’s true nature. Even as he watched her laid out on the bier, his eyes remained dry and his features hard and cold. I have never seen so unnatural a child as he appeared to me on that day. I wonder now if he was the cause of her death, for though he seemed to love her, I saw no grief in him when she died. Our father took him aside, and I do not know what passed between them, but that night Aiden left in secret. In the morning Neal found his bed empty save for his long hair, bound in a tail, severed and lying upon his pillow. Also, though we did not know this at the time, the evil child had stolen our mother’s ring from her dead fingers and taken it with him.
            Over a year passed before Neal convinced our father to allow him to search for Aiden. Would that he had failed in his attempt! And so he set out with his servant and I never saw him alive again.
            The little I know of Neal’s journey is this: He moved from village to village seeking any news of our wayward brother. At length he came across a girl named Mairead, living with her baby brother while working as a milkmaid for her bread. She knew Aiden, for her father had taken him in and put him to work on their farm. She told Neal that Aiden had worked for a time, but that no more than a month past he had vanished. Then came the horrible truth. Aiden had returned to their farm, though not as a boy.  Mairead said that he had become a demon and brought two other evil beings with him. Between them they slaughtered the farmer and his family. One thing Mairead told Neal, which gave him hope in his grief, was that Aiden had spared her and her infant brother and told them to flee. Neal, believing that our brother was not beyond the reach of salvation, sent his servant home to give my father and I this news and set off to Riona’s Wood, to find Aiden.
            I do not know what occurred in that cursed valley, nor do I wish to. That Neal met with our changeling brother, however, I am sure for, within ten nights, Neal’s horse returned.
            Now let any who read this take note of the vilest kin-slaying. Neal’s severed head was tied to the saddle by its hair. The flesh upon it was bruised, cut and rotting and in one braided tress was looped my mother’s ring. Never had I trusted Aiden, but I had not thought him capable of this. At the sight our father lost all reason, and within a month’s time he withered and died in his bed. Curse you, child of hell! You will not escape judgment for this action.
            Now I, thrice bereaved, took my father’s place as Lord, and around my neck I have strung on a chain both his ring and my mother’s that I may never forget to duty I owe them. Aiden is now my responsibility. I cannot and will not let him live after what he has done, and I must prevent him from continuing down his evil path in my family’s name. To this end, a year and a month past, I went to visit Aislinn, the seer.
            She was expecting me, and greeted me as her new liege lord. I spoke of Aiden and she nodded.
            “He must never be permitted to fulfill the prophecy I spoke over him. He is evil, and should he continue to live he will degrade further still.”
            “What am I to do?” I asked, though I was already determined to destroy him. She seemed to read my thoughts.
            “If you go now, as you are, your fate will be death. Aiden has grown powerful beyond your reckoning and his evil is beyond the ability of mortals to purify. He has given his soul for life unending and power almost without limit. No weapon you posses will suffice, but I know how one is to be made that will utterly destroy him. It must be shaped by your own hands and wielded by you or your blood kin.”
            “Tell me” I said.
            “Carve a blade from the trunk of an old holly, set it in a vat of sanctified oils in the temple of your hall. There you must pray every day for a year that the gods bless it with their power and strength.  If you are faithful, by the end of one year you shall have a holy blade that even Aiden cannot withstand. Even with this weapon, however, you must be cautious. Do not hunt him while he remains in Riona’s Wood, for there he is strongest.”
            I thanked Aislinn and took my leave.
            The year is finished and the blade is made. I have named it Maili, for I shaped it in bitterness and grief.  As for Aislinn’s other advice, I cannot obey it. I hear more tales every day of this demon-child’s murderous exploits. The evil is of my house, and I must stamp it out.
            I am placing my father’s trusted courtier Finley as regent until either I return or my eldest son comes of age. If I fail, may my children find the witch’s instructions here and never relent in their duty to purify our family line. Aiden must be destroyed.

~ From this I must skip forward to a much later writing, that of Aiden himself looking back on his own past. It needs neither explanation nor introduction.  ~

            Yesterday I once again found myself within my father’s hall, though for generations it has been ruled by heirs of a different house. Now it is a burned shell that smells of old charring and decay. One corner of the Crescent Hall remains intact, and fortunately it is this section that contains the meager library. I recovered all that I could find and removed the scrolls here, to Arlen’s keep. I will leave the Crescent hall to crumble; its time is ended and what power it once had is broken.
           Among the writings I saved from the library, I have found one dictated by Keagan, my eldest brother, touching on my childhood and transformation. I have no doubt that he believed every word therein. I will feely admit that I am now the abomination he thought me then, but I would not have his as the only record of who Aiden was, long ago. I do not write for vindication of my deeds, but even the evil may claim a right to speak truth. I now take pen to hide to set my record against that of my late brother’s. I will write truthfully, as I remember, and set forward what evils are mine, and of what I am innocent. I refuse to believe that any creature can be evil from birth, though the gods may know the path every babe will choose. 

My father, Eagan, Lord of the Crescent Hall, though he made an effort to be kind to me, was never warm in his affection. Even my earliest memories of him are colored by his discomfort, and the fear I saw in his eyes whenever he looked upon me will always be bound with the word ‘father,’ in my mind. Elonde, my mother, was different. I, among her three children, was her favorite. She often played with me in the nursery and challenged my father and brothers on my behalf. Keagan was seven years my elder, and as such I was scarcely ever the subject of his attention. When I was nothing more than a child at play he was learning to become a man, but Neal was only three when I was born. Neal was often my playmate, especially in my younger years. I suppose he teased me, but no more than is usual between brothers. In short, the most important person to me as a child was my mother, followed closely by Neal and my father’s closest advisor, Conan, who treated me almost as a father should treat his son. If I had thought my mother less than honorable, or seen less of my father in my own reflection, then I might have indeed come to think that Conan was my true sire.
           While I cannot claim a happy childhood, neither did I know much want. I was well fed and clothed, respected by my father’s servants and raised much as one would expect for a prince of that time. I remember spending much of my days in play, and a little in learning, but education then was more simple, even for the elite, and I was never expected to inherit my father’s position. As any child, my early memories are scattered and I can only try to piece them together. However, due to the nature of my mind, now, what memories I do still possess are startlingly clear as if they occurred only a day past.
           One of the earliest experiences I remember shaping my view of the world involved Conan. I do not know how old I was, maybe five, maybe six, but I was yet unfamiliar with true deceit and intrigue.
           I remember that my father had given me a mounted wooden soldier to play with and I was running along the halls of my home, looking to show the toy to my brother, Neal, when I rounded a corner, full-force into Conan’s knees. It knocked the breath out of me, but he just smiled and helped me to my feet.
           Then he laughed, a deep, soft sound, as I recall, and he said something like, “Be careful. Attacking a man so much larger than yourself can be dangerous.”
           As soon as I could breathe I smiled back at him and showed him my new toy. He humored me, bending down and resting his hands on his knees. I remember his dark hair hanging down in its long braid.
            “A fine thing to have...” he answered and I think he would have continued had not another man entered the hallway. At the man’s coming Conan straightened and nodded coldly in recognition.
            “Good day, Finley.”
            The man nodded in return and moved on down the passage.
            “Who is that?” I asked, noticing the stiffness in his manner, though with a child’s lack of comprehension.
            “Finley. He came from the North of your father’s lands to pay his respects. He’s a little liegeman with a small hold and large ambition. I don’t like the way he smells.”
            “He stinks?” I asked. Conan nodded.
            “Stinks of ambition, as I said.”
            “What is abishom?” the word was strange to me.
            “Ambition? It’s what causes a man to want to be more than he is or have more than he has. It’s not always bad. Ambition can drive a man to be a great warrior, or a strong leader, but it can also lead to treachery when he can’t get what he wants through clean dealing. Do you understand?”
            That definition has remained with me to this day, though when he asked me if I understood, I shook my head. I did not know then, how could I have? Conan laughed at my innocence. Why do adults find an uplifting joy in the naiveté of children? Perhaps they envy it; perhaps that is why many seem to be bent on destroying it as well.

            “Yes, I suppose it’s too much for you at your age,” said Conan. “Run on. I have work to do.”
            I scampered off and the incident quickly faded from my scattered thoughts.

            It was the next day, I think, that I came upon Finley in the stables, brushing down his tall stallion. The man was well built with a broad chest and strong arms. His hair was soft brown as were his eyes and he fixed me with a friendly expression.
            “Hello, Lordling! How goes your day?”
            Remembering, in my childlike way, Conan’s dislike of this man, I shuffled my feet nervously and said something like “It is bright out,” looking at the light streaming through the open stable doors. Finley laughed.
            “Aye, that it is. You are Aiden, are you not? My Liege Lord’s third and youngest scion?”
            The man’s cheerful smile mesmerized me and I nodded, like one in a trance. How could one so pleasant-looking be unsavory I wondered. I have since learned the answer to that question looking at my own reflection in the mirror.
            “Third son, eh… A hard lot to draw.” Finley shook his head and leaned down to worry some dried mud from the back of his stallion’s leg, near the hoof.
            “Why?” I had then no clue of what my future in the family would hold. Finley’s eyes seemed to burn slightly at the question.
            “A first son has it well. Your brother, Keagan, simply because he was lucky enough to be born first, will inherit your father’s position of power, his land and much of his wealth. Neal, being the second child, will receive your mother’s holdings and riches. But you?  A third son can hope for little more than a pittance and his father’s name to help him on, or beg for employ from his brothers like a common man.”
            “Is…is that bad?”
            “It can be. You must be a strong one to make a name for yourself. Ah… but I can see in your eyes that you will be strong. You have fire in your soul, Aiden, just like I have. You are well-named.  Nothing will stop you.”
            “Is that ambition?” 
            “Yes, lad.” He laughed “that is ambition. It is the blood and survival of children like you and I, children born who are not needed. Never let go of your ambition, lordling.”
            “That’ll be enough nonsense, Finley.” Conan’s voice broke across our conversation. The spell was broken and I turned to grasp the counselor’s thick leg.
            “I was only making conversation,” said Finley with a winning smile.
            “So you were… come, Aiden. You need not listen to such twisted words. Little men often grow bitter and their speech is poison.” He turned on his heel and I followed him, but Finley’s bright eyes did not leave my mind. I am sure now that, as we walked from the stable those same bright eyes burned on our backs until we were out of sight.

For weeks I never gave Finley a second thought. Preparations were being made for a great hunt to celebrate my brother Keagan’s birthday and Neal would talk of nothing else. Neal cried a great deal when father told him that he was too young to go and when mother supported her husband’s decision Neal sat in a corner and sulked. Thus deprived of my closest playmate, I took to wandering about, watching the preparations and peering into strange nooks and passages within our family stronghold. So it was that I was walking down a long corridor, behind the great hall, when I heard raised voices from within a nearby room. Touched with curiosity, I crept up to the door and pressed my ear to the rough wood. The voice I recognized instantly as Conan’s.
            “If you think you can wheedle your way into Lord Eagan’s good graces by licking his feet you are sadly mistaken. I know what you are, snake. Your brother’s death must have been very convenient for you, as you stood to inherit nothing without it. Eagan is sometimes too trusting, but I am not.  I may not have proof, but I know you had your brother killed and now you are looking for any way to increase your standing in my Lord’s presence.”
            “If you think I am a murderer, you would do well not to say it.” The answering voice was Finley’s, no longer cheerful and light, but menacing.
            “Are you threatening me, whelp? I’ll have you horsewhipped! Do not forget, I am the one who has my Lord’s ear. Once this hunt is finished you will respectfully remove yourself from the court and return to your holding. As long as I can be sure your scheming is over there is no need to destroy you. Take what your misdeeds have won you and be content. Perhaps if you amend your ways the gods will forgive even the murder of a brother, if such is possible. Well? Answer me. Or is your forked tongue tangled around your fangs?”
            “I understand you perfectly, and now I will take my leave. We snakes are nothing if not patient.”
            The sound of a chair scraping across the floor gave me just enough warning to turn and hide within an open room opposite where Finley emerged. He stalked down the hall and I heard Conan sigh as he moved to shut the door. I must have made a noise, however, for Conan paused and moved quietly forward. He stood stiff when he saw my rusty head of hair behind the door. Orange locks do not make hiding easy.
            “Aiden? By the gods, tell me you haven’t been listening.”
            I remember feeling nauseated, as if I had done something very wrong, but I did not understand what. I barely managed to answer, and when I did the words stumbled across each other in their hurry to flee my mouth. “I… I didn’t mean anything. I heard someone talking and I wondered what about.”

            The big man knelt down beside me and took my shoulders in his hands.
            “Forget what you heard. It was nothing important, just the squabbling of grown men.”
            “But you said he…”
            “Never mind what I said. Now go  and keep this to yourself. Go on.”
            I ran, as fast as I could down the hall in the opposite direction Finley had gone and when I reached my nursery I remained there until bedtime.

The next day the hunters set out. Sulky as he was, Neal joined our mother and me to watch them go.  Despite Conan’s words, I had not been able to forget the conversation I had heard the other day and I watched Finley with a morbid fascination, marking his every move as that of a murderer, worse, a man who had killed his own kin.   At one point, just before the men rode out, the young retainer met my gaze and winked at me. I promptly buried my face in mother’s skirt and when I looked up the hunters were gone.
            Mother looked down into my freckled face and I think she saw my distress, though she probably thought it akin to Neal’s disappointment at being left behind. Her eyes glanced aside to Donnan, Father’s old fletcher and bowman. He smiled in answer and called to my brother and I.
            “Well, now that that is over, why don’t you boys come with me to the archery range to try some shooting?”
            Neal’s blue eyes sprang suddenly to life and the regret in his face gave way to excitement.
            “You’re going to teach me to shoot?”
            “Both you and little Aiden too. Well come on. It is rude to tally.” He began to walk off, Neal following close. I looked again at mother then let go of her skirt and followed Donnan.
            The arrow range consisted of five tightly bound haystacks painted with crosses, braced against the compound wall. The standing ground was beneath a great shade tree where three bows with quivers leaned against the trunk. One was well used and, by its size, belonged to the old bowman. The other two were smaller, built for strengthening young muscles as much as actual shooting.
           Within the first hour of training I forgot completely about Finley. Never had I enjoyed anything so well as shooting, even with blunted practice arrows at a close and easy target. To this day, with a bow in my hand I can forget everything else in the world. The smooth wood, the scent of wax, and the target in one’s sights; the bow is freedom and mastery at once. I took pride in the fact that, by the lesson’s end, I was hitting my target more often than not, while Neal, also fairly gifted, could hit only one out of three. This obviously annoyed Neal, but that merely sparked my own determination, and Donnan showed no favoritism, merely watching us both with amusement and a little pride.
            That night and all the next day I was carefree and cheerful. I showed my little bow to anyone who would look and exaggerated my progress to everyone who would listen. Mother smiled at me, running about with my toy weapon.
           “You look quite fierce, my child” she laughed. “Perhaps I should find you a more peaceful occupation lest you leave me one day for war.”
           I found that thought impossible and frowned at her. “I will never leave you.”
           “I hope that is not true,” she answered.
            I do not think that I understood that, either.

The next evening the hunting party returned, several days before they were expected. When I saw them enter the gates I suddenly felt as if a stone were forming in my chest. Children have emotional instincts that adults often lack, I think.
            Neal ran up to father.  “What has happened?” he called.
            Father dismounted and laid a heavy hand on Neal’s head. His face was grim and his voice, when he spoke, was filled with sorrow.
            “Conan was hit with a stray arrow. For some reason he came at our quarry from the wrong side. The bolt took him full in the chest. He’s dead.”
            I choked, wanting to scream, but finding myself unable. Searching among the hunters, I hoped to find my father mistaken and spot Conan’s face, but my eyes were met, instead by Finley’s serene countenance.  I felt as if I were going to be sick and turned to my mother who was just entering the courtyard, concern on her face for the early return of her husband. She picked me up just as I began to sob quietly and I nestled into her shoulder. 
            “Eagan, what has happened?” she asked. Father did not answer at first, but stepped up and embraced her.

The rest of that night and the week following are a blur in my memory. The image of Conan’s corpse, pale as ashes and smelling of spices meant to cover the scent of decay comes to my mind, as does the sight of my father weeping in my mother’s arms.
            Over the next few months I watched in horror as Finley worked his way into a position of trust with my father. Every time I saw the young lord all I could think of was the word “murderer,” and I was paralyzed with fear. For a time he smiled at me and tried to make me his little, but I suspected him then, as I do now, of being the hand that loosed the bolt at Conan, and I always ran from him. In time he merely ignored me as another of his lord’s whelps.