The Rising - Ennead 2

Scene 11.6 - Hunting for a Spider

Our Kwame ended up calling Ms. Hagan. He needed a favour, or at least he needed to ask one.

Maybe it was because his aunt made it clear it was his fault. Perhaps they wouldn't have to look for the Spider if Kwame was still as promising as he had been when he was a kid.

The Spider Talisman wasn't passed onto him, and now they didn't know who the new Magus was. Three days of searching and covering locations in and near the city had revealed nothing.

If the new Spider were his friend, Kwame would have told him to run far, far away. The world of the Societies seemed magical on the surface, but it was rotten parts on the inside. The positives weren't worth the negatives.

Ewuresi didn't pick up the first time he called. "Probably busy." He thought to himself. Maybe he needed to try again later, probably when he was in the proper space of mind.

Then she called, barely a moment after he did. Apprehensive, he picked up.

"Hello?"

He held on. Was this a good idea. When did he even become scared of this small girl?

"Hello stupid. You know I can hear you breathing right?"

"Hey. You still haven't learnt respect ehn?"

"Nope," she trilled happily, "what's up? What's the emergency?"

"Emergency?"

"There isn't one? It's too early for you to be missing me that much. It's late to be calling me because you wanted to try out my number. Plus, you've been avoiding your best friend, moi, for a while. It has to be an emergency. Who knows you better than I do?"

She had some good points, but Kwame was man enough not to admit the important bits.

"Okay Miss Lawyer. You got me," he tried to keep the irk out of his voice as he grumbled, "you alone you get head eh?"

"You already know. So, what's the favour?"

"Oh! But you. Is there something like a favour between friends like us?"

She caught on quick, "It must be a big one then, if you want it pro bono."

"Ewuresi, no be so. I just need your car for the weekend."

"You want Yaris? For a whole weekend?"

"I'll cover the fuel." He hedged.

"You know, it's been a while since we went out for dinner..." She laid in a pause, the end of her request was obvious.

They both knew what had changed, which was probably why she added, "We're still friends, right?"

Our man was not so easily floored. He placed his counter. "Hmmm, of late e no be easy oh. Accra make hard like wicked stone. I squeeze self ah, no lie, the money go make problem."

"Excuses. Maybe you should ask some other friend."

"Make you do long like that, I beg. E be me oh."

"No deal. How badly do you need the car?"

As it turned out, he needed the car badly enough. He agreed to all her conditions, including her insistence on coming along. On the bright side, at least Socrates and Kipo could earn money with Beauty whilst he was gone.

#

Kwame needed time out after acting the chauffeur for days. He went to his dreamspace. It was still work, but at least it was his choice to be there.

His space was small; not as large as better facility would have allowed. But it was large enough, littered with projects that might do something useful, hopefully. Very few worked how they were supposed to.

In the center of the dusty compound that was based on his aunt's compound from way back stood his current project. It was as much as he could do with limited ability, and to his eyes, it was beautiful.

It was unlike anything in the Summoner list of standard models, this was a doll stripped down to geometric basics.

The center of the doll was a lightsteel sphere, five a half feet tall etched with basic truebronze leylines for structural integrity and motion. At the sphere's equator hung a simple torus suspended and gleaming; again a truebronze/lightsteel jigsaw. Anchored on that torus were four lightsteel 'arms': four-foot-long hexagonal pyramids, blunted at their ends.

Its form was mesmerizing, clean and minimalistic. Kwame could barely believe that he had thought of it himself. There was no high-minded theory behind it, this was simply the product of limited facility and unlimited necessity.

It was a good thing that Kwame had one other summon. A stick doll used in training acolytes. How about his second summon? This geometric beauty we speak of? He had missed something vital along the way; it had never moved.

Author's Note
Here we end the 11th scene of The Rising. Apologies for the absolute lack of action over here. Hope to make it up later. Thanks for reading.

Background Music is Without You by Y'Akoto. © Warner Music Germany.