Children of the Spider
The lad saw him. Him. Chynito: only, Chynito was making quite the effort not to look like Chynito. It brought his heart, beating thunderously, into the lad’s throat. He had been clambering about on the old steampipes, working his way through the hidden places of the ’Low, at his day’s tasks, at the endless hustle necessary for survival at this sunken level of the city.
But now he dropped soundlessly to the deck, his body trim and lithe, his eyes steady and keenly focused. Chynito was at a cakes stall, a grubby place, and—incredibly—he appeared to be fishing beneath the folds of his cloak for the chits to pay for the stall’s cheapest offering. That cloak’s cowl was up, but the fair hair, with that peculiar curl, spilled out just enough; also, an angle of his face was visible in the light of the electrical fixture above him. This was sufficient, along with the familiar lines of his elegant body, to reveal his identity.
Incredible. Simply…incredible.
Chynito, the famed songster, should not be down here, all the way down here. Unaccompanied. Trying to buy cheap food and evidently having trouble doing so. He shouldn’t be fumbling awkwardly in pockets, looking panic-stricken, while the proprietor—not recognizing him—grew impatient.
It was too much for the lad. It was an affront to reality, causing him a dizziness. He knew this great man’s work. Music which enthralled him, which spoke to his inmost being. He felt a debt to Chynito, though, of course, he had never met him before and Chynito would certainly not know him, he who lived so deep in the ’Low, a child of the spider.
It snapped something in him, and he glided forward on the soft gripping soles of his shoes. “Ursca,” he said to the stall’s owner, “get the man your best.” He flipped a chit onto the counter with a tinny ring. As the blowsy woman fetched a fat cake directly from the oven, he said out of the side of his mouth, “She doesn’t know who you are,” while not daring to look directly up at the face inside the cowl.
“Thank you,” the man said dully, whether to Ursca or him the lad didn’t know. He turned away and bit into the cake, chewing rapidly.
The lad watched him walk off, touched by a thrill he’d never experienced before: I bought a meal for Chynito! But suddenly he moved again, and came alongside him. Chynito was hunched and furtive, eating like a starved rodent. Slovenly ’Low denizens milled about, paying neither of them any mind. The lad was bursting with a thousand questions. He wanted to babble at this man about his songs, which he had heard—heard and balled—as the music came down the strands from the ’Bove, which was Chynito’s proper realm.
In a reassuring tone, he whispered to Chynito, “I won’t tell anyone you’re you.”
Chynito was shoving the last of the cake into his mouth. “Why do you think you know me?”
The lad shrugged. “Because I do.” He’d seen this man’s likeness many times. But looking sidelong, he saw the wariness on his face flashing in the folds of the cowl and the stains spoiling his powder blue cloak. As vastly improbable as this whole encounter was, the lad’s rapid mind was assembling pieces, drawing conclusions. He hadn’t survived on his own in the ’Low by being timid. Keeping his voice low, he said, “You’re in trouble. And you don’t have any place to go.”
“Go away, boy.”
“I can help.”
“I don’t need help.” But Chynito’s voice quavered.
The lad was acutely aware of his own effrontery. How dare he accost this famed songmaker! He contradicted him now. “Yes, you do,” he said firmly. He even braved the perilous moment to reach out and clutch at the cloak. “And if you don’t take my help, that trouble might catch up to you. Come with me. Come. Come with me.”
* * *
“Your hair…is green?” said Chynito.
“Yes.” Laughing.
“What is your name?”
“Krest.”
This deep in the ’Low everything was niches and crawlways and semisecret passages, trapdoors and hidey holes. The lad, Krest, knew every twist and jog. His living space was bigger than some, and fairly crammed with items which he collected and sold.
Chynito looked around, uncertain but grudgingly fascinated, Krest thought. “You can stay here, Chynito.” The name felt briefly unreal in his mouth. But every moment he spent in the man’s company affirmed the reality of the situation. This was Chynito. Here in his home!
Pushing off the cowl at last, Chynito looked at the low ceiling, the irregular walls. “Where would I sleep?”
Krest nodded to the short bed beside him, a raised pallet fixed into the wall. Chynito blinked at it, like he’d mistaken it for a shelf.
“And you? Where would you— This is madness, boy. Krest. Why, by the eyes of the martyrs, would you do all this?”
Krest pushed aside clutter with the edge of his foot. “I’ll sleep here, on the floor. And—huh—why, you ask.” He pointed to one of his walls, where he had pinned up pictures of the songster; these were artistic depictions he’d traded for or stolen off public surfaces advertising Chynito’s musical performances. Of course, Krest had never seen Chynito play. He did that in the ’Bove, and only the—literally—higher reaches of city society got to witness him.
But his music came twanging down the tough gossamer strands, carried along by the electrical cunning of the spider. Which prompted a thought in Krest. He hesitated, then stepped to his balling equipment. His home was wired to receive the spider’s output; he’d done that himself.
He plucked up a sphere, which was about the size of the circle his thumb and forefinger would make. It had a small but noticeable heft, and was run round and round with tiny grooves. He set it carefully into its suspension cradle, then maneuvered the delicate metal arm of the gear over it, dropping the sharpened rat’s fang into one of the grooves. The matte black ball began to spin.
Chynito was still gazing quizzically at the art depictions, like he didn’t quite recognize himself, when the music filled the knockabout room. He gasped when his own voice—that tough, lovely, honest voice—poured from the equipment.
Krest knew every note and flutter of the piece, right down to the crackles added by the recording itself. But what a wonder to watch Chynito listening to himself, his sky-blue eyes wide, wide sensual mouth agape. The ball tumbled over and over in its cradle, the rat’s tooth dragging across the curved surface.
“How…” Chynito asked when the song finished—a beautiful harsh ballad, Chynito’s voice extracting every nuance from the work; it never failed to move Krest. “How is that possible?”
“Balling.”
“Excuse me?”
Krest waved at his homemade rig. He traded lots of recordings, but never these he’d made himself of Chynito’s performances. “The music is scribed onto these specially treated balls, and can be retrieved whenever you like. Any sounds can be recorded, but music’s the best, of course. You, uh, don’t have this in the ’Bove?”
Chynito’s face held its look of wonder a moment longer, then fell all at once. He rubbed his eyes. “There is plenty of gadgetry—up there. But it’s mostly comforts. Doors that open by themselves, clocks that never fail. Stupid luxuries…” He undid his blue cloak and swayed on his feet. “I am very tired, Krest. Very tired. I tried to flee the city two days ago, but the egresses were watched, and I’d have no idea what to do or where to go outside this city. Very…tired.”
Krest did not press any questions on him—Who were you fleeing? What would happen if you were caught?—but took the cloak and helped the man lie on the bed, an awkward fit.
In moments he was heavily asleep. Krest doused lights. This event was a hole punched into his life, and through that hole had dropped this fantastical creature. Incredible. What he had to figure out now was what, exactly, he was supposed to do with Chynito, his musical hero.
* * *
It took a day and a night before Chynito explained, in terse phrases, what he was doing in the ’Low. By that time he seemed to have accepted—at least for the moment—his lodging situation, holed up in Krest’s tiny home. The hours passed without daylight this far down into the city.
Chynito, he told Krest with a mix of bitterness and shame, had fallen out of favor among the ruling classes of the ’Bove, where he had practiced his musical art and gained his fame. Actually, it emerged amidst his brusque explanations, a single person was responsible for his downfall. A woman. A lady of standing. She had decided—such acridness he put into the word, as if to emphasize the cruel whimsy of it—that his music was suddenly passe, his time as a celebrated songster over. She was vastly influential, her opinions carrying great weight among her rarefied social circle; and since many others emulated the trends and sentiments of these society titans, the attitude was swiftly adopted throughout the lofty reaches of the city. Chynito was no longer invited to play his music. His listeners evaporated. Even his name was shunned.
Krest was horrified. How could anyone not recognize—instantly and for all time—the genius of this man’s musical abilities, the penetrating quality of his voice, his felicity with words and notes? But this explanation didn’t quite shed light on why Chynito was on the run and trying to disguise himself.
“Oh, that,” he grunted, when Krest dared to ask. “Gambling debts, I’m afraid. I accrued quite a few. And now I’ve no income any longer. Those people want their money.”
Krest brought back food for him. In strict terms, he supposed they could keep up this arrangement indefinitely. But Chynito quickly grew tense and fretful, these confines visibly crushing his spirit. Krest suggested an alteration.
Chynito was dubious at first, but soon enough resigned himself. With scissors and a razor Krest divested the great man of his signature locks. Gone now were the idiosyncratic curls. Krest removed the hair up to the upper lobes of his ears and trimmed the top so that it stood up in a spiky bush. It was a radical change. But Krest wasn’t done. Chynito’s fair hair took dye quite well. To match his eyes he slathered on a shade of bright blue. It looked artificial, electrical, startling. But it was such a distraction that it drew attention from his features. It also made him look more like a citizen of the ’Low. He could go out now, onto the streets.
Krest tried to keep up with his own hustles, moving shady goods among collectors of various sorts. He was of course bursting with his secret. He was harboring Chynito! Chynito lived in his home! It was excruciating to stay silent. But he continually bit his tongue.
It was difficult, in those first days and nights, to get a real sense of the man, as a man. Chynito in Krest’s mind transcended the definitions of an individual. He was like something mystical, a being who had touched the divine and was imbued with a coruscating spirit of musical creativity.
But Chynito, Krest discovered, was also a person of inescapable needs and moods and smells and all the foibles of a typical man. He was deeply embittered by his circumstances, and his gratitude toward Krest was hardly a constant thing. He grumbled, he was curt, he fell into fugues of dejection which were so intense they seemed to darken the air about him.
The freedom to venture outside changed him some, however. With his new hair, he walked the byways of the ’Low, with Krest as his guide.
A few levels up from the city floor was less claustrophobic. Room to stretch, walk around. Chynito looked all about, at passersby, at the shops and domiciles squeezed together along the pedestrian areas. The scene was crowded and busy.
“Such creative dress,” he said. “And hair.” He brushed fingers over his own blue tufts.
To Krest, at his side, it was the normal scenery, populated by the usual denizens. Their clothing, he supposed, was inventive, in that much of what people wore down here was patched together and improvised. Krest’s own garb had started out mostly as scraps and rags. But the vivid mix of colors pleased him—and Chynito, evidently. It made Krest vaguely proud for his people.
Some of the haunted look left Chynito’s blue eyes as they ambled about. In a nook just off a main thoroughfare they found a girl hunched over a stringed instrument, picking out fast brittle notes and ululating a wordless tune. Chynito paused to gaze at her with an intense expression Krest couldn’t read.
Further on, they happened inevitably on chums of Krest. He knew many people, after all, socially and by way of his business. After the reflexive hellos, Krest froze with trepidation. Chynito, standing right next to him, had to be introduced. But—
“I’m Krest’s friend, Sterk,” Chynito said, making a casual ’Low gesture of greeting, like Krest had done. The chums were friendly but sniggered sidewise at Krest, remarking on how much he liked a good friend, before loping onward.
As they too resumed their amble, Chynito asked, “What were they teasing you about?”
Krest sighed. “They probably think we’re bangers.”
“Bangers? Banging? Is that like balling?” He sounded amused.
“No. Balling means recording. Banging is sex.”
Chynito made a strange choking noise but said nothing.
Krest asked, “Where’d you come up with ‘Sterk’?”
“It’s your name, with the letters mixed around.”
It left Krest unexpectedly moved, like this were some kind of benediction. But from then on, Chynito was Sterk to the rest of the ’Low.
* * *
Krest made deals and counter-deals, three-point trades; he scavenged and scrounged, and performed the occasional swindle. He dealt in small goods, personal items that people wanted. He was good at obtaining and repairing minor electrical devices. It was always a breakneck pace, but he’d scarcely known anything else so didn’t think the work was overly burdensome.
Chynito stayed on at his place, and Krest continued to sleep on the floor, between bouts of hustling. Yet he still found time to escort his famous incognito companion around. People called Chynito Sterk on the streets.
“How old are you?” Chynito asked one day.
“Fourteen year.”
Chynito hesitated. “Should I ask about your parents?”
“Why would you? Where you want to go today? We have some time.”
“I’d like to see the spider.”
Krest obliged. A generation and a half ago, the dwellers of the ’Low were referred to as children of the boiler. That had changed. But the great core power of the city was still located in the same general vicinity, occupying multiple levels and spreading its many limbs. You could only get so close, but proximity would do nothing to increase the overwhelming scope of the vast sparking buzzing generator. The housing was matte black, like a recording ball, and there were walkways and catwalks in and out of the gargantuan machine, where workers moved busily. It was a constant and elaborate business keeping the spider in its operational mode, supplying the controlled lightning which powered all the city, ‘Low and ’Bove alike.
But the spider was definitely located in the ’Low, beneath the traditional separation line between the city’s two halves. That border was the network of suspension cars which carried manufactured goods. Some of these came from outside the city; some transported factory output to those strange precincts beyond the city. Krest had never looked out from the outer borders of the city—he couldn’t even imagine the countryside—just as he’d never climbed above the cables to those gleaming reaches where golden towers and silver spires soared and the sunlight shone down, unobstructed. Of course, he would never be allowed to make that upward journey to the ’Bove. The division of the two city realms was a matter of law and punitive enforcement. Even Chynito, technically, was in violation.
As was often the case, Krest saw a familiar thing like the spider through Chynito’s eyes now, and was vicariously brushed with wonder at the awesome sight.
After a while, Chynito said, “I want to do something, make some money. Contribute to the household, you know?”
Despite being crowded onto his own floor, Krest was still delighted at the presence of his houseguest. But Chynito was quite serious, by the grave look on his handsome face. It gave Krest an idea.
* * *
He rummaged and finagled, and worked extra hard; but it all felt worth it. Krest was motivated, driven. When he came home one day, a little delirious from his ongoing effort and a lack of sleep, he presented Chynito with his gift. It thrilled him to do so.
Those sky-blue eyes popped wide, but his face was twisted in confusion. Nonetheless, he tentatively took the stringed implement Krest held out to him. “For…me?”
Krest’s grin was so big it made his cheekbones ache. “You can’t be Chynito, down here. You shouldn’t even play any of your old songs. But—maybe you could make new music, as Sterk?”
It was beautiful to watch him examine the instrument, which was serviceable but hardly of quality grade. Still, Chynito eventually fitted it against his body and explored the strings with his fingers. Quietly, Krest reached over and activated the recording mode of his equipment, dropping an unmarked ball into the cradle and setting the transcribing needle to it.
Chynito played three of his songs. He did so in fits and starts, tuning the instrument as he went. His voice was somewhat dulled by the small space. This shabby room was not one of the grand acoustical halls of the ’Bove, where once his music had rung.
Krest captured those three songs. Tears stood in his eyes as he switched off the gear.
Chynito was breathing long and slow. He said, without looking at Krest, “That woman who ruined my name. She wanted me to come into her house, where she would provide completely for me, and where I would perform only for her. She would have been able to tell me how to compose my work. Drop this set of notes. Play faster, play slower. I might have been allowed only to make songs about her. But I denied her. And she made me pay. I sometimes wonder if I made the right decision.”
* * *
He played on the street, did Sterk. Like any busker, like the random hawkers of music, some passable, some awful, who populated the ways of the ’Low. He performed no works by Chynito but readily sprang into popular tunes upon request. Soon enough, however, he began to work in original compositions, songs with agreeable melodies which nevertheless revealed unforeseen depths the longer one listened. Lyrics folded back onto themselves; key words were swapped for others that drew out a sweet poignancy. His voice was persuasive but not desperate. He sang with wisdom, with sadness.
Krest beamed with secret pride every time he watched. He started to drum up enthusiasm for a performance by Sterk, a proper one, in a venue. That greedy harridan in the ’Bove who’d wanted Chynito all to herself wasn’t the only person in the city who could generate a groundswell of opinion.
Here it was easy, though. People liked Sterk’s playing. They liked his rich voice, liked the songs that made some of them cry. Blue-haired Sterk already had a following. So when the offer for a paid performance came, it made perfect sense to accept.
Krest was deliriously happy. Chynito too was pleased, but in a more guarded manner. He, after all, knew this business, and therefore must know its drawbacks, its potential pitfalls.
“It’s your chance to start again!” Krest enthused.
“I see that.” Chynito sat pensively on the bed in their shared home. “It’s not for a lot of money.”
“No,” Krest admitted. “But the chits will come—come plentifully! You already have the talent, because you’ve already succeeded as a songster. And I honestly believe you’ll find a warmer reception for your work in the ’Low than you did up there.” For the first time in his life, Krest waved contemptuously upward, to indict that snobby realm in their crimes of decadence and caprice. Those people who made the rules and controlled the wealth had no true appreciation of the art which Chynito could create. Or Sterk. They didn’t deserve him.
Chynito on the bed nodded. “I need to thank you.”
“No, you—”
“I need to.” Chynito, gazing at the littered floor. Now looking up, blue eyes staring into Krest’s. In a hoarse voice: “Thank you, Krest.” It was a deep, long thanks, for everything, and Krest heard every dimension of it, just as he gathered every beautiful nuance of every song this man wrote and performed. There was no one like Chynito. There would be no one like Sterk.
The night of the performance arrived.
Chynito was right, of course. This wasn’t for much money, and the venue wasn’t auspicious. The place was three levels up from the floor of the city, a rough location which served drinks. But a crowd was assembling, and at least a part of that number must be here strictly to hear Sterk play.
Krest felt more nervous than Chynito appeared. Maybe, though, that was just how an experienced performer behaved before stepping out on stage. Krest was back behind the threadbare curtain with him as he made last-minute tune-ups to his instrument. Excitement threatened to swell Krest’s scrawny chest to bursting. Blood sped in his veins. Once more, he had a thousand things to say.
His mind latched inanely onto a question, which he blurted: “So, what do you think of the ’Low?”
Chynito smiled wryly. “It’s not much different from up above, frankly. Same assortment of people in the end.”
Krest didn’t understand. The ’Bove couldn’t be like the ’Low. But he rushed on, asking another anxious question, “Are you happy down here?” Maybe what he really wanted to say was: Do I make you happy? He so wanted that to be true.
“Time to get out there, Sterk!” called the proprietor.
Chynito’s eyes flashed at Krest. Sky-blue eyes—or least the color the lad thought the sky was supposed to be, when one looked up in the ’Bove. But the music-making man said nothing as he stepped out onto the tiny square of the stage. The crowd’s grumbling turned briefly to vague applause. Those fools didn’t know the treat they were in for, Krest thought. He waited tensely for the first ringing chord from the stringed instrument.
A thick hand dropped onto Krest’s shoulder from behind, and the strong man attached to it yanked him carelessly backward, tumbling him to the floor before marching past, onto the stage. Two other burly shapes followed.
Krest scrabbled, trying to regain his feet. But it was on his hands and knees that he watched, peeking past the curtain, as the same big man put his heavy hand to Chynito’s shoulder. He didn’t drop him to the ground, like he had Krest, but bent and said something into his ear. The crowd froze, observing, perhaps deducing how dangerous this intruding trio might be if provoked. They certainly looked tough to Krest, though their garb was slick, the fabrics and cuts belonging to someplace more rarefied than the ’Low.
He could only see Chynito in profile. The big man straightened from speaking into his ear. Slowly, Chynito nodded and stood from the stool where he’d only just settled himself. He set down the stringed implement and walked wordlessly through the crowd, which parted for him and the three dangerous-looking men. Krest, his throat closing on a helpless cry, saw them exit the establishment.
Krest was a quick thinker. It was part of how you survived down here. Either the gambling syndicate had come for Chynito, or that lofty woman had renewed her offer to take him into her house. In either instance, Chynito had gone quietly. Back up. To the ’Bove.
Without a word of farewell to Krest. Without even a glance.
It was later, much later, that he realized the further implications of what had so tragically transpired. If enforcers had come to collect his gambling debt, Chynito would have no way of paying. If the high-flown lady had successfully lured him into private servitude, he would play only for her. Either way, the vocals and musical strains which belonged so intrinsically to Chynito would be heard in public no longer. No more songs coming down the transmitting strands from the ’Bove, to hearten the dwellers of the ’Low in their shabby spaces far from the light of day.
But Krest still had those final three songs which he had recorded, the last audible evidence of Chynito in this world. Those would forever be the lad’s treasures.
Eric Del Carlo’s short fiction has appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld and many other venues. His latest novel is THE COLD, a harrowing tale of ’emotional apocalypse.’ He lives in his native California.