by LK Rigel
Spiderwork
Copyright 2011 L.K. Rigel
Cover by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.
Cover art by Nathalie Suellen, Lady Symphonia
Editing by Cara Wallace
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
LK Rigel http://www.lkrigel.com/
Also by LK Rigel
Space Junque (Apocalypto 1)
Bleeder (Apocalypto 3)
Give Me – A Tale of Wyrd and Fae
The Loves of Leopold Singer
Table of Contents
The End of the World
Fire and Revelation
Raptor and Chalice
Vain To Deny It
The Beekeeper, The Samaeli
Emissary of Sanguibahd
Durga and the Musician
Empani Rani
The Coronation Feast
A Kiss Like Lightning
Get A Dog
The Blackbird
The Liminal Gauntlet
Lotus Dagger
Everything Dies In Garrick
Tesla
Age of Consent
Hieros Gamos
Red Dagger
Epilogue — The Spiderwork
Spiderwork
The End of the World
Eight years ago
At night they all went out to watch the world fall down.
The beach was crowded with people from the compound at Corcovado. It was the best place to see the dazzling light show caused by space junk that fell into the atmosphere and burned. Char sent Jake ahead with a blanket to claim a spot on the sand and went back for the jug of coffee she’d forgotten.
She met Durga and the other girls crossing the compound courtyard with their chaperone, the old woman they called the matriarch. Until the cataclysm, the girls had lived in a boarding school outside Mexico City where the goddess Asherah first appeared to ten-year-old Durga. One night Asherah told Durga to flee, to get off planet immediately. Over three hundred people lived at the school, and only the matriarch and these few girls had believed.
The little girl was presumed insane when she said a goddess had spoken to her. Even though her hair had turned blood red with no reasoned explanation. Even when the black widow spider appeared tattooed on her shoulder.
No one believed in god, not really. The religios used sacred texts to justify their lust for power and control while they conveniently ignored the parts about love and forgiveness and caring for their fellow human beings. Hypocrites. Like the enviros who spouted crap about defending the earth while they set off dirty bombs near power plants and hydro dams.
Char believed. She hadn’t, but she did now. She’d seen Asherah. She’d received divine commands. Her hair had also been turned blood red.
“Wait,” Durga called to her. With bangs cut straight just above her dark eyebrows, she looked like a child version of a red-haired Cleopatra. Her left shoulder was uncovered as if she wanted to make sure people saw the spider tattoo. “My sister,” she said. “We’re going up to the statue. Come with us.”
Durga’s group had made it off planet as far as Vacation Station. Jake rescued them in his shuttle, the Space Junque, when he arrived to pick up his sister Rani. The statue Durga referred to was on Mount Corcovado, where they’d all been teleported from the Space Junque by Asherah’s command. Where Rani had died.
“We’re going to watch the show,” little Maribel said.
The show. No one could bring themselves to say what it really was: The de-orbiting debris of satellites and ships destroyed or crippled by the environmentalist terrorist group, the Defenders of Gaia. Only days ago, a hundred thousand people had been living up there. Likely some lived still—and were dying there. There was no way to bring them back to earth, and there was nothing anybody could do about it. The world was coming to an end.
“Thanks, but I’m meeting Jake on the beach.”
“Exgusting.” Maribel wrinkled her nose. She was eight years old and Durga’s opposite—blonde and blue-eyed, fragile, sweet, shy.
Char patted her head. “Someday you won’t think so.” To Durga she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” They were going to bury Rani in the morning.
In the twilight, Char picked her way along the crowded beach. The air was astoundingly clean and sweet, but a sense of deep sadness hung all around. Jake was dressed in his flight pants and shoeless. Incongruous to the occasion, Jake’s bare feet struck Char’s funny bone. He opened his arms, and she sat down beside him and hugged him with all her strength. The sun dipped behind Mount Corcovado, and the streaks of light across the heavens brightened.
“I never knew the world could be so beautiful,” she said. Since before she was born, the air had been too polluted to see stars well. A clear view of the dazzling universe had been one of the attractions of Vacation Station, the orbiting resort of choice for the world’s elite.
Jake kissed her forehead. “Before the Junque crashed, I went around a few times. There were explosions on every continent, everywhere but Garrick and Corcovado. It was like some mystical force shielded both places. But that’s what a miracle is, right? Something impossible. Your Asherah must have spared those two from destruction like she chose you and Durga.”
“Ooh!” The crowd on the beach applauded a larger meteor streaking overhead. Was it so easy to block from their minds what made that pretty light? It could be the cabin of some unfortunate shuttle. There might be people still inside.
“I don’t know,” Char said. “What kind of god spares Garrick?”
“According to the old scriptures I studied in school,” Jake said, “most gods don’t make sense. It’s part of the mystery.”
“Well, I’m glad Asherah dumped us here instead of in Garrick. If the world is going to end, I don’t mind spending my last days here.”
Corcovado was pristine, like it was right out of an historical holofilm. You could drink from its springs without treating the water. For the first time in her life Char loved simply being in the world, merely being alive. Breathing clean air. Feeling a breeze on her face. Tasting fresh water. Civilization had collapsed. The human race had finally destroyed itself and everything else. Perversely, she was happier than ever.
Multiple meteors streaked overhead. “Tell me again about Rani,” Jake said. “What you saw.”
What they saw. It had been Rani’s soul. What else could it have been?
“When you were lost outside the Space Junque, Asherah appeared with those beings she calls Empanii. There was one for each of us, and they seemed to be people each of us loved. The matriarch’s son, Maribel’s mother, my sister Sky. And you were there for Rani. The manifestations were true down to the sound of Sky’s voice and the way she hugged me. She wore the mirror twin to my necklace.”
“Empanii.” Jake turned the word on his tongue. “Empathy. Empathic beings. They scan your mind to find a form to take.”
“The form and everything that goes with it. Mine knew exactly what I wanted to hear.”
The glorious blazes continued above, unrelenting and unchanging in frequency. The wind from the surf grew cold, and the people around them began to collect their things and return to the compound.
“Rani recognized you—the Empani you. She said your name. Sky put her arms around me, and then we were all on Corcovado, on the mountain. Sky—my Empani—was gone. Only the Jake Empani remained.”
People walking by on thei
r way back to the compound acknowledged Char in one way or another. Some glanced at her furtively, sideways. Some smiled shyly and looked away. Some nodded or bowed.
“Now you know what it’s like,” Jake said. He might be a bastard, but he was an Imperial bastard—and son of the Emperor’s favorite concubine. He’d experienced enough kowtowing in his life.
One man made eye contact, and Char recognized him, a cook in the courtyard bistro. He lunged at her and grabbed her hair.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Jake pulled the guy off of her.
“I just wanted to touch Asherah’s hair,” the cook said. “I wanted to know.”
Cripes.
“Get out of here before I turn you in to Geraldo,” Jake said. “You could be banished from Corcovado for that.”
The guy’s face went white.
“It’s all right,” Char said. “He didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know.” The guy nodded eagerly.
“Go and sin no more,” Char said.
The cook turned paler and ran away. Jake burst out laughing.
“I was only joking!” Char said.
“I know.” Jake seemed amused by the whole thing. “But then I know you aren’t a goddess. You were saying, about Rani. The Jake Empani was still there, but the other ones were gone.”
“I think that’s when Rani died. Something came out of her, a shimmering echo of her that rose into the air like vapor. My first thought was that it was her soul. I still believe it was of Rani. Rani’s consciousness in some form. And Jake, she seemed at peace.”
They stayed on the beach until everyone else had gone, and they made love until the sun came up. There was just enough time to get back, take a shower, and hike up to The Redeemer. The gigantic sandstone statue’s head bent forward and its arms stretched wide as if accepting them all into some promised nirvana.
Durga and the girls were already there along with the matriarch.
“My sister.” Durga ran to hug Char.
As Char put her arms around the little tyrant, she noticed Maribel holding her mother’s hand. “Cripes!” Char pointed at the pair walking away toward the mountain’s sheer drop-off.
Durga sprang after them. She grabbed the mother while everyone watched in stunned silence. As Durga and the Empani locked gazes, the Empani metamorphosed into a white heron. It twisted and flapped its wings, pulling out of her grasp, and flew away.
“Well,” Jake said. “That doesn’t explain anything.”
They buried Rani’s body in the ground about fifty yards from the statue base. It seemed odd how they clung to routine in the face of catastrophe. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, bury the dead.
“Rani was my sister. We had the same father.” Jake was the first to speak. His words came slow through his pain. “And she was my best friend.”
The last funeral Char had attended was for Brandon who’d been killed by one of the DOGs’ bombs. There had been no priest then, just as there was none for Rani today. Was that a mistake? Knowing there were gods didn’t answer anything. Was there a heaven? Hell?
“Don’t you always say this is hell?”
Asherah appeared beside Durga. Her curly blood-red hair was piled on top of her head, and two tiny foo dogs sat on her shoulders holding two pieces of gauzy cloth over her body. Char felt sick to her stomach. Everything went black.
“There is a Great Chain of Being.” Durga’s voice spoke through Char’s mouth.
“All things are linked through the chain in the order of distance from the All, the Ultimate Reality.”
Durga’s voice mixed with Char’s voice, still coming out of Char’s mouth, the words flowing independent of Char’s will.
“The All experiences the material plane through the human soul. If the soul disappears, everything disappears.”
Asherah’s voice entered the blend with the two human voices. Char’s body shook with so much violence she thought her neck would snap.
“I am the god Asherah. I am that I am. I am eternal. The human race will not end. Samael made you, but I will save you.”
“Char.” The wet grass felt cool and welcome against Char’s face. She didn’t want to move. “Char!” Jake lifted her up off the ground. It took a moment to focus, to really see him.
She could still feel Asherah’s will permeating her every cell. The goddess wanted to save the human race. Not because she liked humans, but to ensure her own continued existence. Too many souls had already been wiped out by the DOGs.
“Did you see?” she asked Jake. “Did you see her?”
“You and Durga went into a trance. You were staring like zombies while Asherah’s words came out of your mouths at the same time.”
“I don’t remember all of it. What does she want?”
“She wants us to light candles,” Jake said. “Beeswax.”
“Now see, that’s where we’ll need a miracle.” Char’s field was hydroponics. Bees had gone extinct fifty years ago.
“And no prayers. She said to give our prayers to Samael.”
“I think she has a love/hate relationship with Samael.”
“That can’t be good,” Jake said, “when the gods don’t get along.”
The matriarch was on the ground with Durga’s head in her lap. The little tyrant was comatose.
Fire and Revelation
The end didn’t come. They weren’t all going to die. The gods were truly back, and at least one of them wasn’t going to let the human race go. After three days, Durga came out of her coma, weak but otherwise fine.
Jake, on the other hand, was not fine. He withdrew into a kind of cocoon, mourning Rani. Char couldn’t convince him he wasn’t responsible. A month later, he was still going over the events surrounding her death.
“If only I’d put the antibiotics in the infirmary instead of the storage hold.” They were having lunch in the courtyard outside the admin building.
“Antibiotics can’t cure the effects of a disruptor blast. You didn’t kill Rani. The DOG who shot her did.”
Char bit into a huge red strawberry. She had to give Geraldo his due. The shibdab weasel ran Corcovado like clockwork, even down to providing fresh fruits and vegetables daily for everyone in the compound. “Speak of the weasel,” she said under her breath. At that very moment, Geraldo was coming toward them across the courtyard.
He joined them without asking, looking typically pleased with himself. “Jake, I just spoke with your mother.”
“How?” Char said. Magda had been the Emperor’s favorite concubine. The Space Junque had belonged to her, a gift from her lover. Char knew Magda and Geraldo had some kind of connection because Rani had stayed in Corcovado for some time when she was young. She had hated it here.
“Her fallout shelter has communications. There must be a satellite at least partially operating in orbit. She made contact with us minutes ago.”
“Let’s go.” Jake was already on his feet. The light had returned to his eyes. “And then we’ll go to the Pacific Zone.”
The Space Junque was gone but they still had the orbit runner, which flew nearly as fast in the atmosphere as it had in orbit. Over the Atlantic, the air seemed relatively clean. The runner’s instruments detected surprisingly low levels of radiation.
“What?” Jake said when Char chuckled to herself.
“I just prayed to Asherah that the air would be as clean over the Pacific Zone, and then I remembered what she said about prayers. I hope she doesn’t smite me.”
“If you had some beeswax, you could light a candle.”
It felt so good to laugh.
Magda’s estate was in New Melbourne, a remote and beautiful island out of the path of war. “She’s on the roof.” Using telescoping sunglasses, Char spotted Magda from a mile out. She was waving a red and yellow silk scarf.
“Is anyone with her? Can you see?”
“Two women—and a small child.”
“Jordana survived,” Jake whispered. A tear slid down his cheek. “Rani’s daughter.”
He landed the runner and scooped the child up into his arms. Her eyes flashed a blue light, and she squealed with happiness.
“Let’s get out of here,” Magda said. “Too many ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” It was hard to believe Magda was intolerant of ghosts when she obviously cared for Rani’s daughter, a mutant.
“Not living ghosts,” Magda said. “Memories. Shades of the dead. Everyone on the island seems to have caught apocalyptic hysteria and either killed each other or themselves. Except those two. I have no idea who they are.”
The two unknown women took the passenger seats in the back of the runner. They were alive but in shock. Not ghosting, but not interested in talking either. Char sat with Magda and Jordana. The toddler was fascinated with Char’s unnatural red hair and kept trying to grab it.
As Char had expected, Jake’s mother was magnificent. She was in her early fifties and as beautiful as an older woman with adequate resources could be. More beautiful. Char had heard of mitochondrial repair, but until now she’d never believed the therapy was perfected. The rich and connected always get the good stuff first.
Magda’s dark hair could be from coloring. It was her peaches and cream skin that gave her away. The wrinkles around her eyes were barely noticeable, her lips full and unlined.
To her surprise, Char wasn’t intimidated. Magda reminded her of her own mother, a cold woman who never wanted children but had enjoyed them after they’d grown up.
“What is your name short for, my dear? You couldn’t possibly have been named Char on purpose.”
“Charybdis,” Char answered. “And my twin sister’s name is Scylla. We call her Sky.”
Magda burst out laughing. Char felt completely comfortable with her.
Magda told Char about Jordana, a second-generation exotic. Unlike first-generation mutants whose hair fell out at puberty, Jordana had never had any body hair. No eyelashes or eyebrows. She was natural born, which made sense. As a mutant, even an exotic, Rani would never have been given a license for children.