kagablog

Once upon a time, in a distant land, lived the much feared and majestic Spider God. It’s abode was a towering glass castle which overlooked an ancient forest. This vast and dark woodland bordered the edge of a land of glaciers. None had ventured far into this barren territory and next to nothing was known of it’s chartless ice. The glass castle itself was completely transparent. In fact it was possible for passers by to look upon it and see the Spider God moving within it’s many towers and chambers - like a drop of ink within a bottle. A small hamlet lay in the wood. This village was within feudal boundaries of the castle and the villagers paid tribute to the Spider as a God. in return the Spider God protected the village, upheld law and order and devoured any predators who might diminish the woodland game.

In appearance the Spider God’s girth comparable to that of an elephant, although it’s multitudinous arms gave it a much greater span. In addition to it’s formidable size it also boasted two enormous white angel’s wings and a crystal crown to mark it’s sovereignty. It was in fact not uncommon, whilst wandering the woods, to glance up every now and then and glimpse the Spider God swooping over the trees, carrying out inexplicable personal errands in the deep forest.

In terms of tributes to the strange God, the most taxing by far was the bi-annual offering of a specially selected village maiden to the Spider God. Needless to say, none of the maidens were all to keen to be offered up and many fled into the woods before they came of age. These girls were sometimes hunted for sport by the villagers who saw their betrayal of tradition as heresy, something which would bring bad fortune if allowed. As a result, many young girls were treated with suspicion and contempt until they had passed their first selection trial, which happened at the age of eighteen. The girls would be tested for fitness and then made to draw lots out of a sacred tree stump. One would be singled out and held in a special enclosure built into the top of a towering, ancient tree. At sunset on the appointed day of tribute, the Spider God would come flying out of it’s glass castle and swoop low over the trees. It would flap mightily above the tree, it’s great white wings billowing and buffeting the foliage while the village elders wailed and moaned in supplication. After the ceremony the Spider God would nimbly gather up the girl in it’s furry, black legs and return to the transparent towers of its abode. The young maiden would then be put to work as a maid and ordered to clean the glass castle. She would be placed in a strict hierarchy, under the instruction of a descending lineage of former maids. The maiden would be paid for her toil in silver and allocated a chamber in the basement quarters of the castle. The more maids would be well cared for. Especially the elder ones who were given comfortable lodgings in cottages outside the crystalline border walls. It was said that these elderly ladies were regularly visited by travelers and respectful villagers seeking counsel for a variety of minor ailments. This tradition of maids and maidens had continued for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. No-one in living memory could even recall mention of a time when the Spider God was not among them. It was simply understood to be the way things were. The villagers themselves saw the maiden arrangement as agreeable. Families were in fact more than willing to offer up their daughters into service, as a position in the crystal realm of the Spider God was looked upon as a great honour. Some of the young girls who were taken to the castle agreed with this. Others rebelled and attempted to escape into the forested regions. The escapees were ruthlessly hunted and accused of the highest possible heresy. If apprehended these escapees were ritually maimed and exiled into the land of glaciers. The Spider God itself played no further role in the tradition, other than it’s biannual collection of fresh maidens. There was after all, no shortage of service, and therefore no reason to intervene.

Now something came to happen which forever altered the arrangement of the villagers and the Spider God. It was announced that the God would be taking a bride. This was reported via the speaker of the Spider God; an ex maid turned vizier who purportedly conversed with the God and had thusly assumed an oracular function. The response to her announcement was that of enormous shock. After all, who would consent to marry such a being - a deity at that? The answer came as a surprise. The vizier let it become known that in one of it’s many long distance journeys, the Spider God had discovered a kingdom hidden deep within the land of glaciers. This secret kingdom was unknown to even the oldest of the forest dwellers. Nothing of it existed in history, memory or fable. The vizier in fact reported that none but the God itself had journeyed to this place from the forest regions. From her communications with the Spider God it was gleaned that the structures of the kingdom were carved completely from ice. The centre point of this frozen metropolis was a vast palace, fashioned out of a glacial peak, similar in appearance to the glass castle. Perhaps this synchronicity was one of the reasons why the Spider God had deigned to marry a princess of the icy keep. No-one knew of how or why the marriage came to be arranged and many tales and rumours circulated. Yet despite this gossip, preparations were carried out. And on the appointed day, the Spider God flew into the land of glaciers to fetch his bride. The God was absent for over three months and it became obvious to the village folk just how deep within the waste the kingdom of ice lay. When the Spider God eventually returned it carried beneath it a traveling cage, fashioned of gold and lined with plush white velvet. Within this structure, enthroned upon a soft couch was a pale fur laden woman with slanted violet eyes.

The Spider Queen turned out to be a terrifying mistress. After the wedding she took up quarters in the topmost tower and experienced regular conjugal visits by the Spider God. Purple velvet was hung so that none may disturb the privacy of their couplings. In appearance, the Spider Queen was extremely tall and lean. Yet despite her slenderness she was possessed of terrible strength. She was never seen to smile and her face seemed mask-like. Her skin was glassy and pale. Her slanted inhuman eyes gave one the impression of being lit by internal fires of the queerest lavender hue. Her straight black hair always hung down like a flag, making a pale stripe of her face. She would beat maids for no apparent reason. One she threw from a window on a whim. This poor girl was lacerated beyond description after striking so many of the glass rooftops throughout her descent. Her decimated corpse left crimson trails along the outer walls which were very difficult to remove. Birds and insects collected at the stains, lending them an even more gruesome aspect. The maids and maidens looked upon these markings with fear and dread whenever they passed. The Spider God seemed oblivious to his bride’s ill treatment of the castle staff. It’s inhumanity seemed to suddenly stand out, in harsh contrast to the ways of the village. All the previous nobility associated with it now lay in question - especially when placed in the context of the Ice Queen. There were mutterings and there were murmurs. When the third maid died, the Queen was already pregnant with the heir of the Spider God. None spoke of the couplings in the tower, practices which seemed incredibly unnatural and violent. The belly of the Queen swelled to such an abominable size that she had to be carried about in a palanquin hefted by six strong lads. She took to drinking blood to assuage her maternal cravings. Many animals were caught and delivered alive to her for consumption. Children began to disappear from the outlying areas of the village and more and more chambers became obscured behind luscious purple curtains. By now the rumors had reached a pitch of extreme virulence. It was decided that something had to be done.

Now amongst the various duties of the castle staff were several positions which were avoided at all costs. One of these odious tasks involved the regular milking of the Spider God’s mandibles. It was known that the venom of the Spider God had a vast array of practical and medicinal applications. It was also known that the God produced an excess of venom, the surfeit of which was gathered by the appointed milkmaid and distributed to all the elderly ladies outside the castle walls. Very few of these matrons were directly involved in the conspiracy which was brewing. The conspiracy against the Ice Queen had been maintained within a tiny circle of village elders and key members of the castle staff. These members included a quantity of maids who were not in favour of the Queen and actively sought her downfall. Many of the maids, particularly the elderly ones, felt that to plot against the Queen was an act of heresy against their God. It was only the brutality of the Queen and the disappearance of the children that kept them silent. Their faith tortured them and some even took their own lives or escaped quietly into the forest, never to return. It was in this climate of dissent and trouble that a plan was hatched to do away with the tyrannical Monarch.

The milkmaid at the time was a middle aged woman who was fiercely opposed to the Queen. Much of this had to do with the disappearance of one of her little nieces. It was she who came up with the idea to poison the Queen with a dose of the Spider God’s venom. So one afternoon, in the large, circular milking chamber, she prepared the bath of strange salts which promoted the activity of the Spider God’s poison glands. She donned the bizarre, all-covering habit of woven and oiled Spider’s silk which prevented exposure to the viscous fluid and awaited the arrival of the God. It was conjectured that the Spider, being a God, would suspect devious activity and smite the milkmaid before she could act. But this in fact was not the case. The Spider God simply squatted in it’s bath, as mindlessly as it always had, while the maid rubbed and massaged it’s mouthparts, carefully collecting the greenish white secretions which issued forth in great cupfuls.

Delivery of the poison into the body of the Queen was the first major obstacle to greet the conspirators. Her pregnancy diet was by now a carefully maintained secret. Even her devouring of live animals had ceased dramatically since the children had begun to disappear. The conspirators were at an impasse until one day a woodcutter was apprehended in the act of seizing a wandering child. The kidnapper was immediately taken to a secluded mill and subjected to strenuous questioning. Under pressure he confessed to the villagers that he was in the employ of the Queen’s handmaid. He was ordered to steal a child every two weeks or face the seizure and subsequent death of his entire family. Out of love for his wife and children he had done the bidding of the Ice Queen and kept his terrible secret. Now, freed of his terrible burden this burly man broke down and wept like all the terrified little ones he had stolen. The conspirators offered the woodcutter an option: offer his youngest child to the Queen and be pardoned, or witness the death of his family at the hands of the Queen once her bidding was seen to be ignored. Left with no choice, the woodcutter consented to this terrible price.

The next problem was to introduce the poison into the hapless infant. This had to be done so that the child was unaffected and the power of the venom undiminished. It was vital that the poison pass into the Queen in an untampered form. It was the baker who seized upon an idea. He claimed to know an old sweet maker who at one stage had been so adept at creating candies and confection that his wares were voraciously sought after by the traveling merchants. These exquisite creations fetched exorbitant prices in the distant cities which the merchants spoke of. The sweet maker had by now grown old and retired to a cottage in the deep wood. Despite his reclusive nature he was aware of the plight of the village children and had pledged to help, even if it meant the sacrifice of another little one. The task was put to him to contain a large quantity of the poison within several candy capsules and determine the exact rate of the sweet’s dissolution. The shell’s rate of digestion would allow the conspirators to know exactly when the poison would be released. The milk-maid surreptitiously delivered the venom to the sweet maker one night in the woods. She asked him not to touch the liquid and provided him with a pair of mittens fashioned out of the Spider God’s web. These, she explained, would allow him to handle the liquid without fear of poisoning.

When the sweets had been prepared the woodcutter was asked to feed them to his child and deliver the young one to crystal castle. The woeful woodcutter fed the candies to his child under the watchful supervision of the conspirators. A sleeping potion was then administered to the child. The woodcutter then carried the doomed infant to the crystal keep as the sun was sinking low. He came back some hours later shaking and trembling. He reported that the work was done and that he had seen the Queen devour the child before his very eyes. He broke down completely and thereafter collapsed into a sleep which lasted two whole days and nights.

In the hours of pre-dawn screams were heard issuing from the Queen’s high tower. These horrifying utterances were followed by great chaos in the castle. The Spider God could be seen scaling the side of the tower in an effort to reach it’s bride as hastily as possible. It was flapping its wings like some wounded bird, scrabbling and chittering. The terrible screaming was punctuated by enormous blows against the glass of the Queen’s chamber. In her agonies she beat the walls so that they cracked and clouded. Maids rushed about like terrified ants as the villagers waited breathlessly for news. The Queen was reported dead in the late afternoon. Some say that before her death she endured a forced birth and that her inhuman child was taken into the wasteland by some of the Spider God’s closest priestesses. It was said that the priestesses were attempting to return the offspring to the city in the ice. The castle itself was thrown into tumult as the Spider God went mad with grief. It destroyed the tower and scuttled about the castle emitting high pitched shrieks and whistles. The population watched in fear as their deity behaved in an increasingly insane fashion, smashing itself against walls and clumsily crushing any who stood in its path. It soon became obvious that the Spider God blamed itself for the death of the Queen. Perhaps it felt that it had accidently bitten her in its sleep. Whatever the case the God seemed inconsolable. A night of terror passed which saw mass destruction and fires. By dawn the Spider God was seen to be knitting a haphazard nest of webs at the top of the topmost tower. It appeared to have reverted entirely to an animal state. Towards noon it tumbled from the tower, purposefully tangled in it’s own web. The strands were gathered around it’s head. These caught tightly halfway down the side of the battlements, breaking the connection between its head and thorax. The hanged God dangled from its own castle, quivering and leaking. After a few hours it lay still and was not seen to move again.

For some days the villagers watched the massive carcass swing in the winds, expecting some form of unholy resurrection. But after a few weeks, when flies and scavengers had thoroughly plundered the corpse it was soon understood that the Spider God was truly dead and gone. An atmosphere of drunken celebration entered into the villagers. They felt freed from a yoke which had bound them for longer than any could remember. All order broke down as the merriments ensued. Duties were forgotten and a sort of chaos reigned. The villagers swarmed the castle and invaded each room, ransacking what was formerly seen as sacred. The dancing and drinking continued for many days beneath the body of the hanged God, degenerating into utter lawlessness.

After a year the body of the Spider God was hollowed out entirely, leaving a glassy husk. The wings were severed and the feathers and bones sold to passing merchants. The translucent shell of the God, freed of the burden of its wings, rattled in the winds. It rustled against the castle in a rotted cradle of web. The villagers had by now occupied the castle. Their disorder could be seen clogging the once pristine chambers, turning the translucency of the keep brown with grime and overpopulation. The former maids were enslaved, raped and used as labour. A dingy shantytown now collared the battlements, spilling out recklessly into the woods. Without the rulings of the Spider God, the forest for many leagues was quickly damaged by the effluvium of the settlement. The governing of the villagers had fallen to a handful of robber barons who imposed strange taxes and demands upon the rapidly growing population. Disease and violence ran rife in and around the fallen house of the Spider God. Sordid carnivals of poverty and vice were enacted daily within it’s halls. And every day, more people died.

After several years the bounty of the surrounding woods was almost entirely depleted. Trash and squalor extended far into the ravaged woodland. The population gradually left the damaged and derelict castle. They departed in straggling caravans, settling in a not too distant valley. The glass castle was left in ruins, surrounded by barren desecration and overhung by the translucent shell of its previous tenant. The glaciers were said to reclaim it all when the age of great blizzards increased the borders of the ice. The forest was eventually covered in an impenetrable blanket of snow. This stretched from horizon to horizon in unbroken vistas of whiteness.