Within History

Within History

who stand alone are weak. In all times, during all events, you must follow the paths I have chosen for you. You may meet again and fight and even kill each other, but you must not tolerate those of Gaia’s Children who would kill your family. You must fight together against the Ovid if one of you is attacked, for even when your goals are opposed, even when you kill one another, none should ever let their family be destroyed by outsiders.”

This Ananasa commanded, and this we do. We may walk among the Mammals, we may slither near the Reptiles and we may even find reason to swim with the Fishes, but we are

Spiders. Should all the Ovid gather together and join forces with the Kumoti against the Hatar, still we must never let them assault one of ours and be forgiven. Though we might kill each other, we must always defend our brethren. We are family, we are the Children of Ananasa, and even in our greatest wars against each other, we must remember that.

Ananasa’s ways are not always ours to know, but the rules she gave us are there to help us survive in our ignorance. Since the end of the First War of Rage, we have distanced ourselves from the fights of the Garou and the sacred duties of the other

Changing Breeds, as Ananasa demanded. But we have not been idle. We are at war. Away from this place, away from the

Webs we have established where peace must rule, we are enemies. I have fought against the very Damhàn who stand with me now as your instructors. We have not been friends, but we have always been family.

The Weaver’s Revenge An old man came doddering up next, carrying with him scores of rolled-up paper of some size. The pages were so large and voluminous that they almost hid the tiny man that carried them.

When he reached the stopping point of his journey, he slowly and carefully began to place the pages on the ground, taking time to turn them the direction that he desired.

When he was finished, he turned and looked out at the gathered assembly. He looked at each person directly, meeting their eyes and then moving to the next. When he was finished, he reached down and picked up a small easel, setting it beside him.

To the assembled, he seemed almost fragile. He was small, and weathered to the bone. It seemed as though any sudden movement would break him. Many even felt pity for him, and dreaded becoming like him in later years — which was exactly what he wanted.

He set up the first of his pages on the easel. It was an illustrated image of a man, showing the internal organs, and where they sat in the body — but a man without normal human organs. This was an Ananasi, and these were their innards.

He smiled, and the young spiders felt a sudden chill rush through their bodies. “Now, little ones, we will talk about what it is that will kill you.”

When our Great Mother, Ananasa, created us, she did so with loving care and careful design. She made it so we were the ultimate hunters, fearing no other life, as they are all beneath us. Even her wisdom could not foresee the anger of her creator at this action, and in an act of pure jealousy, the Weaver made her displeasure known.

Your body is carefully armored to protect you from harm, keeping you safe from any natural form of attack, you see. Weaver looked at this and wanted us to have a weakness. If you look at the body of the Ananasi, you will notice that we are perfectly structured. Our organs are placed at the optimum location for defense. Our skin is rigid, preventing minor attacks entirely, and deflecting other attacks away from our vitals. We are perfect killers, and Weaver hates perfection she did not shape herself.

And so, she formed our imperfection. A horrible attack upon us, and upon Queen Ananasa herself. Weaver gave a gift to our enemies that could destroy us. A brutal gift without remorse or consideration for her own child’s creation. If it had been one simple thing, we could overcome it, but this is not simple, it is dangerous.

Weaver gave man the ability to make weapons. Oh, I can hear you scoffing my words. What are the weapons of mere humans to you? How does this affect you? Well, that is the sign of your ignorance. One man with a spear, a sword, a gun; no, he is no threat. A group of men with their bare fists — again, hardly dangerous. But we must always be careful of men who travel armed and in groups, because we lack the swift healing of other shapeshifters. With a full belly of blood and time to concentrate, you can mend cuts and bullet wounds easily enough, but what if you don’t have time? You see, then. Weapons and numbers — these two things make humans dangerous even to us, even without the second terrible gift of the Weaver’s.

Haven’t you guessed? The mastery of something that can kill us completely even in Crawlerling — fire.

Within History “What happened after the War of Rage?” The question was redundant, and none of those listening even considered answering. The new speaker was a huge man, with a distinctive

Southern drawl. He was dressed in Biballs and a T-shirt, and his shoes had seen their best days a few years back. Still, not one of those assembled so much as whispered a slight as he paced forward.

“The easy answer is that we fell back, got our little groups together and licked our wounds like there was no tomorrow.” He smiled, an amiable face with a hundred-watt grin and a face that said he was just shy of gullible. His smile wasn’t answered — and the man nodded contentedly and began speaking again. “Fact of the matter is, that’s a load of horseshit. Nothing is ever black and white in this world. We’ve kept busy. We’ve been fighting among ourselves, and following the agendas laid out for us by the Mother-Queen like there’s no tomorrow. Which, I might add, there might not be if things keep on the way they are now.

“We’ve done amazing stuff, and the best part of it is, no one knows about most of it but us. I can’t begin to tell you everything we’ve accomplished, but I can give you a few ideas about how we’ve done what we’ve managed, and if you’re half as smart as I suspect, you’ll be able to divine what I’m getting at.

He paused then, turning toward the cackling man sitting off to the side of the group, surrounded by three of the other teachers, though there was little doubt he could break from the shroud of webs that kept him stuck to the ground. “We’ve already discussed our abilities to mate and increase our numbers in brief, and we’ll go over it again, but I have a question for the whole lot of you. What is one of the most important things we’ve accomplished since the War of Rage?”

One of the students raised her hand, a delicate, well sculpted hand attached to a body that was equally deceptive. The hayseed who asked the question nodded to her, his simple smile still firmly in place. “Do you know the answer, Elizabeth?”

“Yes. We’ve kept the other Ovid from guessing at our true numbers.”

The instructor nodded, but a frown creased his sun-darkened face. “Halfway to the right answer there, darlin’. What else have we done?”

She puzzled over that for a moment, her porcelain face almost expressionless. “We’ve established our power bases?” Her voice was unsure, but she brightened slightly when he nodded.

“That’s right. We’ve built our strengths and we’ve established our power bases.” He nodded at the Nuwisha stuck to the ground. “Go get yourself a sip of him, but don’t get too greedy.

We ain’t finished with him by half.” The girl rose with a grace and demeanor that would have shamed most debutantes, but which drew no stares from her brethren. She kept her ears carefully sharpened to the instructor’s speech while she fed. The flavor was interesting, but the strength the blood gave her was incredible.

Most of what we know about the past’s been handed down by our ancestors, much as you’re hearing about it today, but there are exceptions. We’ve learned a lot in the last century or so, and we’ve done amazing things. The difference is, we’re still around to tell it first hand.

We aren’t like the other Changing Breeds. If you haven’t figured that out yet, you may never get the picture. We weren’t created to serve the Triat, we weren’t created to save or defend Gaia. We exist solely to serve Ananasa, whom we love. To that end, the different factions of the Damhàn have done what they’ve been told, and we’ve always done it in the same sort of fashion when possible: by that I mean we’ve done it quietly. There are exceptions, but I’ll get to them. Be patient for a while longer, and see if I don’t.

Where you find our kind, you find a certain symmetry.

That’s important to us. The Web can’t hold without it, and we can’t abide a life without it either. In order to maintain that symmetry, we’ve always found the best way to accomplish things is the same way you build a web, one strand at a time. Spin out too much silk in one place, and the web will become a mess and collapse. And yes, before any of you ask, I’m speaking metaphorically. We are the Grandchildren of Weaver, and no matter who we follow, that’s a part of us that can’t be forgotten. For that reason we’re methodical, and we’re precise. It’s in our nature just as sure as bears use the woods for their toilets.

One strand leads to the next, and from there others are spun and connected. Unlike the Garou, who can sing songs of their victories, or the Nuwisha who’ll gladly go on for weeks telling tales of what they’ve accomplished and who they’ve humiliated, our victories are slow and subtle, which is the best way to handle the matter as far as we’re concerned.

You don’t need bragging rights as a Damhàn. The end result is obvious to anyone who knows how to look.

Major things we’ve accomplished? Well, there’s that whole Jericho thing…

The Will of Jericho There’s one big lesson to establish our place in history.

About the year that the Europeans have designated 7500

BC, one of our kind took a great step. A man who would come to be known simply as Jericho took not only the form, life, and guise of a human, he became a leader of humans.

Jericho was a visionary. He understood that the humans were a disorganized race, not grasping the concept of order and structure. He brought to the city that would bear his name leadership unlike any they had seen. He guided them to build great walls to protect their city, and designed a center tower that served as the nerve center of the city.

Jericho brought the humans together to save themselves.

Almost two thousand humans were under the guidance of the first Ananasi that used the human system to rise above them, as is our rightful place. He protected them, he guided them, and he fed on them as he needed. Eventually, the people came to fear for their lives and protected themselves with ancient magics and talismans in the form of skulls dyed with the flesh of the dead, and filled with the earth of the grave from which the skull was exhumed. This had the desired effect, keeping Jericho from the houses that bore these skulls on their hearth. An unseen foe had changed the course of history.

Through his own will and actions, Jericho turned a city of humans into one of the most structured societies on the planet, and paid the ultimate price. He underestimated the humans.

They would not sit idly by as his will was served, even though his actions benefited their nature as no other had before, and they struck at his heart. Jericho was dead, but his city lived on, and the lesson that he taught was only beginning.

From this circumstance, the family of Jericho learned of magic, and the force that it could exert upon the living world.

His family asked a great gift of Ananasa, that they, too, could learn the gift of magic so that they may weave a new web.

Ananasa in her wisdom did not give them this gift directly, but let them discover magic and weave their way into the spell. The descendants of Jericho to this day are gifted with the ability to interweave with the forces of magic on a variety of levels, adding one more strand to Ananasa’s web on Earth.

What else…? Lessee…. Though you’ll never read of it in the history books, we were behind the abolition of slavery in much of Europe and in the United States. We did not sign the papers, we usually didn’t actually fight the wars, but we were partially responsible. A woman sleeps with a powerful, influential politician. The politician explains the woes of his government, the woman suggests a solution. Oh, I guess maybe the politician disagrees, but when the grander scheme of things gets examined, he finds his lover’s suggestion makes a certain sense. That’s what happened in the USA, when the right words were whispered to an aide of the president. The