Chapter 20.2-20.3

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    Several long courses later, five servants stood before Talalski’s table, each bearing a fine-spun sculpture decorated with fruits and nuts.  One was a waterfall with silvery fish leaping skyward, one was a dragon with fierce red eyes, one was a tree covered with blossoms, one was a woman with a snake curled about her feet, and one was a spider.  Talaski’s hand flinched toward the spider.

    The servant holding the spider smiled and stepped forward.  The others frowned.

    “An interesting choice, your Majesty,” the priest said in a low voice.  “An ominous portent.”

    Talaski hadn’t chosen the spider.  His hand had moved on its own.  He frowned at the priest.

    Meanwhile, the servant continued to stand before Talaski, still holding the creation, smiling expectantly.

    “It is customary to reward the cook with a gold coin,” the priest added.

    Talaski felt his thin, pocketless clothes.  He had no purse on his belt, either.  “Do you have one?”

    “Watchers do not carry gold, your Majesty.”

    Talaski looked at Princess.  “My jewels are with my clothes.”

    The servant’s smile was now as stiff as his sculpture.

    “I have nothing,” Talaski admitted.  “What should I do?”

    The priest shifted uncomfortably.  “Perhaps...”

    There was a grunt from Jesland, at the end of the table.  He passed something to the priest, who then gave it to Talaski: a gold coin from the Wizardlands.  Talaski presented it to the servant, who set down his sculpture with a wide smile.   As he took the coin, his smile dipped to a frown.

    That will melt as pure as any coin of this land, Talaski thought.  Then wondered if that were indeed true.

    The servant recovered his smile, then bowed and stepped back.  The other four, clearly disappointed, left to distribute their offerings to the lesser people.

    Talaski stared at the fine spun spider.  It’s small black eyes seemed to stare back.  He reached out to snap off a leg, then paused as the priest cleared his throat.  Was it a sacrilege to destroy this before a people who worshiped spiders?

    “The head is your due,” the priest muttered.

    Avoiding its gaze as best he could, Talaski broke off the head and took a bite.  Sweetness and air.  He gagged it down, then glanced to his side where Princess nibbled on a leg.  The priest and the soldier shared the rest, ate it dutifully.

    “Is that all?”  Talaski asked as he wiped his hands on his trousers.  “May we now return to our private chambers?”

    “The time has come for the Watchers to inform you of the spinning of the webs.”  The priest gestured toward the door, where a cluster of old men leaned on their staffs.

    “All of them?”  Talaski shifted numb buttocks.

    “Ring the chime to summon them, your Majesty.”

    They came out as a group, with the oldest leading the way.  That one stepped forward, offered a few clipped words, then stepped back.

    “Well?” Talaski demanded.

    The priest frowned, then said slowly,  “The spiders speak in unison that an age of prosperity has come upon us, and will raise us all to new heights of wealth and comfort, once the formalities of your coronation have been completed.”

    Gneara’s hesitation bothered Talaski.  He leaned over to look at Jesland.  “Is this true, Assassin?  Is this what the old priest said?”

    “Yes,” Jesland stated firmly.  “Gneara does not agree because Gneara never agrees with the other Watchers.”

    “I see differently because my spider is insane.”

    Talaski tilted his head back to see the strange spider web above the table.  It looked like a picture within a frame – but a picture of what?  Only an insane spider would weave such a web.

    On the other hand, the priests in front of the table were old, very old.  No advisor to the king ever lived to that age unless he were good at saying what the kind wanted to hear.  Gneara, who read his webs differently, had almost been sacrificed that day.

    Perhaps, then, Gneara did not read differently so much as he read honestly.  “And your spider?  What does he say?”

    Gneara stared down at the crumbs on his plate, then spoke carefully.  “Mine claims that things are as they should be, your Majesty, but that you do not fit here.”

    Joyful words to Talaski’s ears.  “So I should leave?”

    “The Dajournae can never leave, your Majesty.  You must bring a new age of prosperity to your people.  If you do not fit, then you must change.  You must make yourself fit.”

***

    Their Farlander escort, each bearing a glowing ball which barely lit the floor before them, led Talaski and Princess back to the sleeping chamber.  There the priest and the two women left them, the former leaning on the older of the two women, but the guard entered the chamber and settled himself in the crook of a branch.

    Talaski looked at Princess, flushed and breathing deeply in her silk gown, then pointedly at Jesland.

    The guard pulled out his knife and picked up a half-whittled stick.

    “Do you intend to stay there all night?” Talaski asked aloud.

    “It is my duty to protect my Dajournae night and day.”

    “And you have to be in the same room?”

    “I should be close enough to stop whatever danger comes your way, yes.  But...”  Jesland looked around the leaf-filled space.  He pointed to what could have been considered a wall, if one did not see other people moving on the other side, and to the floor, through which Talaski could see luminous globes in the hands of passerbys.  “Why is without better than within?”

    Talaski suddenly felt exposed.

    “If you are in your hammock, no one will watch you.  That is the way things are.”

    “And you?”

    “I will watch the space around the hammock.  I will keep you safe.”

    Princess reached over and took Talaski’s hand, which she placed on the fastenings of her dress.  But she looked at the guard.  “Jesland, do all Dajournae have such loyal people to protect them as they...sleep?”

    “No,” the guard admitted.  “Just the ones who live a long life.”

***