Spiders from space

+ Free Fic... Monday?

Hello,

I will post this on the official free fiction friday page when it comes to my time to promote the giveaway, but it’s already open, so I thought I might as well show you now. It’s at the end of this rather short email.

What follows is the first poem ever written about the Atanattat, those spiderlike aliens which Lax Morales is a member of.

His older brother, Scohhrin, was going to be the spider beast in this poem.

This poem was one of the first instances where I used square brackets to add invasions of backstory or new tracks. The intention was to have these bits unread on stage, so the poems would grow if people bought the books. the line “eyes turned the blue of the sky” has been added in 2021 to further the link between this arachnid priest and Lax Morales. Reading it back, this one might also explain where the idea of the brain spiders came from.

As you can see, all my stories, poems, and jokes, have a shared multiverse.

This isn’t something you need to care about (every piece works on its own) but if you’re a bit of a geek, like me, you’ll love digging up these links.

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Echoes on Silk

In a small rural town, four hundred years away
an arachnid priest had inherited the position 
of leader, shepherd [their previous leader now buried]

he scuttled his way up the brickwork
down through a hole in the roof
a knocked slate, fallen, would never be questioned.
Extra legs tucked in under boots
their fibrous ethereal forms tautened into something human
a bipedal lie, mandibles secreted under impressive sideburns
eyes turned the blue of the sky

silken trousers and silken robe
empty minds willing to receive
hands cupped to gather the words
he spat from the altar 
people pouring sound into open heads
vestigial third eyes closed

he offered truths they had never heard before
stories of heroes, saints recycled
the web he wove [so complicated]
stretched from brain to brain
liquid silk congealing

a network of lies loosely hung 
all leading to the nucleus
the golden bell atop the church
ringing out every weekend
to drag them back in
the echoes on the membrane [like the wail of a violin]
shrill, calming, lulling them into unconsciousness
he gave them faith, in return they fixed the roof, kept him fed, gave him bodies
only clothes were buried, the skin for him, the gold for sale

one quiet winter night
his web spun, the silk thick
he climbed to the bell, worshipped himself
a victim wriggled free below
the scratching of human claws on stone turned him
the stairs had grown cold, his webs fat with condensation
he slipped
eight legs split from the robes, he fell down the tower
the bell cried as his weight tugged at it
the boy and the girl saw his writhing mass, screamed
a vibration in air enough to wobble the fibre, to alter the resonance
the priest unravelled to the floor, hissed at the children, mandibles in the dark
but brick dust had been loosened, the bell released from its perch
one last resonant hum before the fall
and the descent pulled the network tight
tearing minds filled with silken lies across the province
eyes torn from their sockets, ears shattered, tongues stretched
the web pulled further, dragging them in through the top
and the people appeared, piling in 

a congregation around a web of cracks
the bell dented, leaning into tiles
eight broken legs twitched from underneath
silk [cut by the impact] faded away
freedom until the next spider descended

Let me know what you think. This was very popular in 2015, and I haven’t really shown anyone since.

And here’s the FFF. Posting the link early here as a bonus feature for anyone who follows me here at RealPhillipCarter.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/free_books_friday_freebies/l4wi8r6j9v