Glasswrights' Journeyman (25 page)

Trembling in reaction to the infusion in her veins, Mareka crossed to the mantel above her hearth. A pitcher of water – cold, clear water – rested on the wooden shelf. Mareka filled her earthenware goblet carefully, loathe to lose even a single drop of the cooling stuff. She swirled the cup, making sure that it incorporated all of the pearlescent liquid at the bottom, the remnants of the nectar that she had just consumed. She drank down the water and forbade herself from being distracted by the glinting silver patterns that the nectar tracked around the cup. Twice more she rinsed the goblet, swallowing greedily to quench the thirst that raged at the back of her throat.

There. The power of the nectar radiated from her belly like a spider's web. She set the goblet beside the pitcher, taking care to place it precisely. If she were not cautious, she would move too quickly; she would drag the cup off the mantel and send it crashing onto the floor. She could control the nectar. She could control herself.

After all, she had completed eight years of apprenticeship in the spiderguild.

Once she was a journeyman, Mareka would be trained in all the finer points of octolaris nectar. She would mix the spiders' poison with more and more complex potions, so that she did more than merely immunize herself to the dangerous shimmering venom. Masters in the spiderguild could use nectar to slow their heartbeats, to make their bodies resemble cold and lifeless corpses. They could raise their skin's temperature, so that they could walk through winter nights without a cloak, tread through snowbanks without boots. They could adjust their bodies' cycles, so that they chose when to bear a child, when to bring a pair of squalling twins into the world.

Whatever Mareka did with octolaris nectar here in Liantine was really unimportant, the apprentice assured herself. Certainly no one from the guild would care that she had broken the rules in such a minor way. They would not care that she had mixed the poison, that she had consumed the concoction without supervision. And even if they were concerned, they would forget their wrath when Mareka brought them the rich fruit of her labors, the bountiful harvest of silk from her productive, virulent spiders. The guild could always be assuaged with silk.

With the passage of time, the fire began to lessen in Mareka's veins. When she opened her eyes, the world was still lit with a brilliant silver light; it still shimmered with painful beauty and power. Nevertheless, she could bear to look about her; she could manage to study the rain that streaked outside her window. Silver rain. Glinting rain. Brilliant rain.

She took a few steps toward the door to her chamber, and she almost cried out at the touch of her spidersilk gown across her skin. She could feel each individual fiber of the fabric, each separate strand that had been harvested from a spider's living body. She could sense every pore of her own flesh, every fine hair of the down on her arms. Gasping at the distraction, she stepped into the middle of the room.

She stretched one arm above her head, catching her lower lip between her teeth as her motion pulled her gown tighter across her chest. Lowering her arm slowly was a painful ecstasy. She spread her fingers across the fabric that draped over her thigh, and she cried out at the glinting sensations that fired across her flesh – her fingers, her legs, into the pit of her belly.

Spiders, she reminded herself at last. Octolaris. That was why she had consumed the nectar. That was why she had brewed the potion. She needed to tend to her spiders.

The octolaris were in the corner of the room farthest from the windows. All octolaris were uncertain in drafts, but Mareka's special breed were particularly sensitive. They huddled beneath the stony shelters inside their hastily improvised quarter-cages, all the more pitiful because of these octolaris' giant size.

Still, they had survived their journey. They had not perished on the masters' pyre.

Mareka did everything a guildsman would do back at the spiderguild enclave. She sang the spiders' soothing hymn. She Homed them and gave them markin grubs. She watched their egg sacs, desperate for the approaching day when the spiderlings would hatch. She was afraid of that day, though, uncertain how she would capture the young, how she would keep them safe and fed. But she would manage. She would do whatever she must to keep the strong octolaris strain alive. At least confining them in her cold, dark chamber reduced their need for food.

For the first time since she had settled her brood in Liantine, it was necessary to move one of the spiders. To Mareka's surprise and shame, one of the brooding females had died. Perhaps it had not received enough markin meat. Perhaps it had become too chilled in the darkened room. Perhaps it had fallen prey to one of the nameless diseases that the guild guarded against in its herds. Whatever the cause, Mareka had discovered the beast's curled body that morning.

She had wept, furious with herself for failing her charge. When she lifted the corpse from the cage, she was surprised to feel how light it had already become. She had shuddered as she consigned the body to the fire that burned in her grate.

And now, she needed to transfer the dead spider's egg sac to an octolaris who could care for it. This was a difficult operation. Some spiders gorged on their sisters' eggs. Others refused to tend new sacs, refused to rotate the precious bags, to patch them when their silk became torn. Still other octolaris abandoned their own unhatched young, favoring a new sac at the cost of the old.

Mareka could not know how her spiders would react, but she could not let the hundreds of bound hatchlings die without trying to save them. She needed to introduce the orphaned egg sac into a living spider's box. And to do that, she needed to handle a living spider. Thus, she had consumed the octolaris nectar, consumed the strongest tincture that she dared.

It was time.

One
, bind your sleeves, gathering up the extra silk that might frighten the spiders. Mareka caught her tongue between her teeth and pulled her silk gown closer. As she wrapped ribbons around her forearms, closing in her loose garment, nectar-induced tremors skipped across her muscles like sparks that danced from flames.

Two
, cover your wrists with spidersilk strips, wrapping the bands to protect against bites from leaping octolaris. It was awkward to set the strips alone, but she managed. She lost her concentration twice, losing her awareness in the drumbeat of her pulse, in the frantic, charging flow of her blood from her chest to her fingertips and back again.

Three
, block the direct sunlight, approaching the box without glare and with full view of the spider's every movement. There was no sunlight in the chamber, and the dull rain-fed light from the windows was not enough to distract Mareka, even with her nectar-enhanced vision.

Four
, sing the hymn, the soothing song that lulled most octolaris into complacence. The tune vibrated up from Mareka's lungs, thrumming across her throat. It hovered on her lips, more subtle than speech, more exciting than any words. Twice she recited the entire hymn, letting the familiar words carry her deeper into the nectar, into the poison, into the octolaris' secret lives.

Five
, bow four times, giving the spider a chance to recognize you. The first time, her spidersilk gown caressed her. The second time, it pressed itself against all her flesh at once, melding with her body. The third time, it jangled across her nectar-sensitive skin, sparking like newborn flames. The fourth time, it released her with a lover's reluctance, leaving her panting and flushed.

Six
, rattle the riberry branch, forcing the spider from its rocky cave. Mareka could hear the tip of the branch grate against each individual grain of earth on the floor of the octolaris's cage. The smooth riberry bark slipped beneath her fingers, whispering, summoning, luring the spider forward.

Seven
, complete the Homing, weaving your fingers in the complicated pattern that signaled dominance, not prey. Mareka stared down at her palms. The creases in her flesh told stories, whispered tales that tried to carry her away. She waggled her fingers as she'd been taught, sending the wordless signal, conveying the silent story. She was friend, not foe. She was companion, not prey. She was spiderguild.

Eight
, for brooding females, consume the nectar. Mareka had taken no chances. She had started with the nectar, in case the virulent octolaris leaped too soon. There were no masters to watch her, no other guildsman to say that she had acted out of order.

One, two, three, four. Five, six, seven, eight.

She was ready to approach the brooding spider.

The egg sac was cool and slightly sticky when she collected it from the abandoned spider box. She transferred it gently from palm to palm, momentarily snagged in the octolaris nectar's magic. The sac pulled ever so slightly at her skin, plucking her flesh as if she were a stringed lute.

When she opened the new spider box, she took her time, settling the wooden lid on the floorboards with exaggerated care. Even with her heightened vision, even with her silver sight, it took her a moment to find the living spider in the new box. The brooding female was huddled over her own clutch of egg sacs.

Of course, the spider was nervous. Of course she knew that something catastrophic had happened. One of her sisters had burned that morning. The spider tasted death in the very air of the room.

Mareka began the octolaris hymn again, drawing out the notes of soothing comfort. The octolaris would never understand words; she would never understand a specific argument of Mareka's desperate need. The apprentice could gain nothing by telling her living spiders that she mourned the death of one of their number. Indeed, the spiders had no way of understanding the complex emotion of loss, no way of measuring sorrow. Instead, they reacted to
fear
– fear that they would be threatened by the flames that had consumed their sister.

Mareka sang her hymn, focusing on broad thoughts of safety and security, of blessed protection. She poured comfort into the song that thrummed across her throat.

The spider responded to her song. The creature crept from beneath her stone, beneath her anchoring riberry branch. She crawled across the rich earth – earth that Mareka could smell with every fiber of her body, could taste with her lips, her tongue, her entire mouth. The octolaris sat back on four of her legs and cocked her head at a sharp angle.

Mareka took a deep breath, transferring the air in her lungs into the final sustained note of the hymn. The nectar pounded through her body, shattered down her arm. She leaned over the box and placed her hand against the earth. The rich earth. … The fertile earth. …

She could feel the individual grains of dirt. She could feel three separate hairs that the spider had shed during its confinement. She could feel the tremor as the octolaris registered her presence, as it measured her threat.

Mareka willed her fingers to stay still, to remain flat, even though energy beat through her veins. The nectar was designed to protect her if she were bitten, but it paradoxically made that bite more likely as it stripped away her ability to control the smallest motions of her own body. She reminded herself to breathe, reminded herself to fuel the final hymn note that resonated through the air above the box. She imagined the power of the nectar flowing from her skin, across the cage, through the air to the octolaris.

And the spider moved. It edged forward, first with one leg, then with a pair. It sidled up to Mareka's palm, and it felt at her fingers with its pedipalps. It waved over her as if she were prey, as if she were an egg sac, as if she were a mate. Mareka felt the air of its passing, felt the pressure of its attention, and she caught her own breath, even though that meant stilling her hymn.

The octolaris jumped onto her palm. All eight feet landed at the same time, smoothly, evenly. Mareka could feel the creature's abdomen, heavy against the lines of her palm. She could feel the convulsion of the long, thin heart that stretched across the octolaris's body. She raised the lethal creature and held it before her eyes.

The spider crouched on her hand, scrabbling a bit for an adequate purchase, for its body filled her palm. Its legs were drawn up beneath it, powerful, ready to spring. Eight eyes stared back at Mareka, grouped in three clumps on the top of the head – three, two, and three again. The eyes were like cabochon-cut onyx; they caught the dim light in the room and glinted it back in silver streaks.

Mareka raised her other hand, the hand that held the egg sac, moving it so that the eight stone eyes could see the thing she held. She kept her fingers flat and smooth, forbidding herself to wriggle in any way that might mimic a markin grub. Slowly, slowly, more slowly than she thought she could do with nectar pounding through her, she brought her hands together.

The octolaris rippled. Its movement started at its pedipalps and rolled back over its body, flipping through the fine black hairs that covered its back. Mareka flinched at the first motion but then regained control. This close, with her silver sight enhanced by the nectar, she could see the spider's jaws. She could see the mouthpieces that glinted with venom. She could see the poison that might be balanced by the strong, strong nectar she had brewed – might, or might not.

The spider reached a leg across the crease between Mareka's palms. One leg, and then another, sampling, testing, edging forward. Mareka felt the swollen abdomen move, felt the spider shift toward the alien egg sac. She concentrated on exuding the scent of the octolaris nectar, sending the power of that infusion through her skin, toward the spider. The octolaris must be comforted, must be made to feel secure. She must feel safe.

There was a long time when Mareka thought that she would fail. The spider hovered, suspended across both of the apprentice's hands. Mareka could feel the octolaris's heartbeat, could read her indecision as if it were a visible organ. And then, when Mareka had almost given up hope, the spider moved. It pulled itself forward until it could lift the egg sac in its front legs. It turned the silken gift over and around, raising the sac to its mouthpieces as if it could smell its dead, departed sister. And then, it passed the egg sac under its body, past its two pairs of middle legs, to the very last pair.