Chapter 2 - Part II

Rejnev had been a strange man, even within his own culture. He was the only one of his siblings with any memory of normal life outside of Deezhul. His younger brother Vrtok was only an infant when the Simar called the first Tribal Council beckoning the nomadic clans to face the impending imperialism of Heilth through solidarity. His parents, like many in the Nüish clans, responded by moving and settling in the City that Sprung Up. They tossed their lot into a conglomeration of permanent structures barely months old that would soon become Deezhul, and most never looked back.

For the boy Rejnev, his travels and family transition from nomadic hunter to city denizen were addictive. When he realized that there was no such thing as one life, one choice, one path that a spirit would have to follow, he yearned to learn more about all of the other possibilities in the world. He dreamed of adventures in foreign lands and he was full of busy ambition more often seen in the people of the continent than of any of the Nü or other Outer Crestans. He often wore his hair in the fashion of the pale mainlanders, long and half bound.

Strangers often gossiped that he was a wandering spider, but his kin were fiercely loyal to the bright and charismatic man they knew as brother and cousin. He knew what other clans said of him in the dusty streets of the infant metropolis, and he never let it bother him. To a child Onion brimming with new knowledge of the tales of the Spider, he once quipped that he was not a wandering spider, but that his web was the world and all the people he knew and loved were in that web.

"What about me? Am I there?", asked the six year old.

"You, beautiful, are in the center"


The next day, or the day after that, Onion could hardly perceive the position of the sun from where she sat, and the days all melted together anyway, the robed man returned to speak with the pale man. The man he had referred to has Cedric had clearly become more at ease over the time that had passed; he had regained some color in his face and it now resembled the complexion of soft cheese. However he still had the air of a rabbit caught in the gaze of a wolf.

Onion, however, had been sitting flat against the wall, focused solely on her breath. She was rebuilding her web and was oblivious to the babble of the visitor and his priestly charge.

"She has been sitting there like that for 30 hours straight!", cried Cedric to his tired looking friend. Practically imploring the priest for a similarly incredulous remark he continued, "In fact, she's been that way since you were here last. What exactly did you say to put her in such a trance?"

"I'm not sure myself. I tried to explain how she got into the situation she is in, poor girl. You know most of the Outer Crest is still tribal. They don't do things the way we do here."

"So you think she is innocent? Just a primitive pawn caught up in something bigger than she expected? I don't know, Fal'du Rel.", he paused, invoking the formal name of a priest The Ally of Rel, "But you are the expert."

"Right. I obviously said something she didn't want to hear. Lets hope that doesn't doom me in her eyes forever. I will try again today to talk to her." he looked over at the cell across the hall before refocusing on Cedric again. "I will try to speak with her again soon. She deserves at least that."