Spirella's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Spirella's arm had scabbed black by the next night. She sat in the ancient ruin and stared at the old webs above her. A throne meant nothing without knees bent before it. She had no followers. She had only cold stone and the memory of dead spiders. So she left the ruin to find the one creature she had marked before the men came. She found him crouched by a still pool, muttering to his own reflection. His huge eyes caught the moonlight. His long fingers dipped into the water and came up empty. Spirella had watched this gollum for weeks. Others in Mirkwood spat at him and threw stones. He was an outcast, like her. That was why she wanted him first. "Smeagol," she said. "I know what it is to be hunted." He spun and hissed. "Who is she? Nasty spider-thing, comes creeping, yes." Then he tilted his head. "But she is alone too, precious. Alone like us." "Not alone," Spirella said. "I am building a court. A safe place for those the forest throws away. Kneel to me, and no one hunts you again." Smeagol crept closer on all fours. He sniffed her scabbed arm. His voice split into two. "She bleeds. She was beaten." Then softer, almost tender. "Poor thing. We knows beating. We knows the stones." He looked up at her, and something in his black eyes went bright. "Yes. Yes! We serves the spider-queen. We kneels." He dropped his face to the mud at her feet. Spirella felt it move through her like warmth. One knee bent. Her court was no longer empty. She reached down and touched his matted hair the way a mother might. "Rise," she said. "You are the first of many." But Smeagol did not rise. He seized her wrist and pressed it to his cheek. "First servant, yes. And we will make them all bow. The elf who guards the trees. The fat hobbits in their holes. We takes their eyes, we takes their hands, until Mirkwood is ours!" Spirella pulled back. "No. I want a haven. Not a slaughter." "Haven?" Smeagol laughed, a wet clicking sound. "They burned her home, precious. They will burn it again. A queen who does not hurt them is a queen they murder in her sleep." He crawled around her, quick and sure. "We knows how to hunt. We knows the quiet ways. Let Smeagol show her." Spirella stared at him. She had wanted one loyal knee. She had gotten it. But the creature bowing to her already dreamed of blood she never asked for. His hunger was larger than her own. She turned toward her ruin. Smeagol scurried behind, whispering plans she had not made. Her court had begun. So had something she did not know how to stop.