The Chains of Loyalty

- Two -

Four years ago, Cairn of Waspen, Fangrik of Anteon, and Bursus of Flys gathered their servants and aides together and boarded a ship en route to Arachnia in order to negotiate border treaties. As a servant, I was placed under Cairn’s cabin until we arrived at our destination. The party disembarked at the Arachnid coastal city of Spireweb. An escort of Arachnid feet-soldiers accompanied us to the grand Silk Estate, where lived the Arachnid Queen herself.

The negotiations were going as planned, for my master was skilled in the art of social intrigue, and he was in good company. Fangrik had negotiated the Proxy Accord, and Bursus was a skilled and popular politician.

However, two days into the discussions, a faction of Arachnid extremists attacked, and laid the Silk Estate to waste. My master and most of our train escaped the foray, but the mob had killed our transport Subsect, and in the chaos that followed, we feared to trust any Arachnid. We tried to escape through the wilderness, but the Arachnids are masters in their own environment, and soon a group of anti-Secti hunters had overtaken us. Cairn of Waspen had many opportunities to escape, for he could fly at an amazing rate, and we saw no signs of the dread winged Subarachnid. Yet he stayed with the rest of us when we were captured.

We were disarmed, bound and violently made unconscious. When I awoke, I was on a wagon in a caravan, or so I presumed from the noises and vibrations. I was blindfolded, and my antennae were tied. Devoid of my senses, I called softly for my master. He responded in a whisper. He told me that we had been separated from Bursus and Fangrik, and that only the strong Subsect were spared; the others had been encased for consumption.

We were brought to a prison camp of sorts, and were forced to work in an open mine. We were given hand-tools, and made to collect a mineral the Arachnid use to create armour.

Cairn was taken many times by the extremists and they performed delicate tortures upon his wings - yet he told them nothing. Despite their lack of technology, the rebels were not short on manpower or weaponry, and try as we might, we could find no hole in their defences.

We shared accommodations with various Secti and Subsect at first, but with time, Cairn and I were removed from the others, as our captors feared that my master might inspire discord.

The fact that I was allowed to stay with Cairn is a painful example of how irrelevant we Subsect are, in the eyes of the bipeds. The Arachnid have a shockingly similar propensity to cow their multi-legged relatives simply because they have yet to adopt a two-legged gait.

To them, I was as water or air. Required for survival, yet of no significance, and of no threat.

We laboured in the pit, side by side, slave beside slave. After a time, the suppression, the forced labour, the confinement, and the claustrophobia soon took their toll on Cairn. Eight months of such treatment, not to mention the abuse, both physical and verbal, caused Cairn to begin to fear for his sanity. Forcing Secti into slavery had never been successful. They seemed to have a low tolerance for such a state, and a quick mental collapse was the best a Secti might hope for.

I began to feel sorry for my master, though this shamed me greatly. The gall! A Subsect pitying a Secti!

Cairn had always been relatively good to his servants, and his past campaigns had advanced our fiefdom to political power. It seemed he was soon to be overcome by madness, and there was nothing that could be done. An ignoble end was inevitable.

A few weeks after he expressed his concern, Cairn’s midnight prayer woke me from the depths of slumber. He had always been devout, but this night his prayers contained unbridled passion. When he was done, he looked to me.

“Bug, how do you cope with this? I am… was… a great Secti. Strong. Powerful. Brimming with the honour of many glorious deeds. Yet I have been reduced to mindless babbling.

"Yet you, a simple Bug, seem to take no heed of this… this atrocity! What universal joke is it that leaves me in this state?

"You sit calmly, and watch me go mad. 

"I have seen it happen before. I never believed it would happen to me. It is so... fallable. It is such a disgrace.”

I dared not respond.