Lake Stagnation

    When the residents of Glustershire were inexplicably transported to the barren Chenchar Plains, the strangeness of their new surroundings strengthened rather than weakened their faith; but the lack of chocolate, eggs and rabbits made Easter less enjoyable. They found local substitutes in the form of ground-dwelling spiders that crawled from burrows every spring with silken egg sacs on their backs. The elders of New Glustershire collected egg sacs, roasted them, painted them bright colours and gave them to their children to eat, but due to their aversion to spiders, they pretended these egg sacs were actually eggs that had been delivered by sentient rabbits. As the children grew up they learned the truth, but those who raised families went on telling the same tales.

    This imperfect state of affairs was even worse for the poor spiders, who had to watch their offspring being ritually consumed each year. As the human population increased and the spider population fell, eight spiders went to Yezni Sound and called on Nehumi for help. Nehumi owed the spiders a favour, for Ashinshi, Mother of All Spiders, had caught the seven-headed rat who had sucked all the blood from Nehumi’s last pig.

    Nehumi could step between dimensions as easily as you or I might walk from one room to the next. We will never know how long she spent in realms beyond the Chenchar Plains; but to the spiders it seemed eight days passed before she returned with twelve breeding pairs of genetically modified egg-laying rabbits. As most humans found her true form disturbing, she adopted the guise of a travelling merchant and presented the egg-laying rabbits to the headman of New Glustershire, Sir Hormel Wollis Porpington. Sir Hormel was delighted at this expression of goodwill and faith, and when spring arrived the spiders were spared, though large numbers of rabbit eggs were consumed. The eggs, in fact, were so delicious the ritual spread to other towns. More rabbits were bred to keep up with demand and new farming practices began. Rabbits were confined to cages and pumped full of hormones to increase their fertility. Warehouses filled with long rows of these cages replaced fields of older and less profitable crops, which were imported if required. As only female rabbits laid eggs, only one male rabbit in every hundred was allowed to live; the other ninety-nine were gassed and dumped into the River Vohm. The people of New Glustershire enjoyed a trade monopoly and told their tales of eggs and rabbits with more conviction every spring. The obvious existence of both lessened any qualms the elders had, though due to the infrequency of resurrections in their town, other aspects of their faith were downplayed and in time forgotten.

    Yet it would seem that humans are – depending on one’s point of view – innately poetic or innately credulous; as old stories are abandoned new ones emerge to take their place. As the River Vohm meanders south across the Chenchar Plains it slows, and its last currents dissipate in the aptly named Lake Stagnation. Here monstrous organic shapes which are not rabbits, trees or corpses, but bear attributes of all three, have risen dripping from the mire; and the people of New Squellington, who know nothing of New Glustershire, have developed their own tales about these frightful apparitions. Their low moans are interpreted as songs sung for departed spirits who sleep between lives on this earth. Kem Shemple sings to spirits who were kind and undemanding, and they dream they live in a beautiful city whose people are well clothed, housed and fed. Joppery Grullins sings to spirits who were cruel and greedy, and they dream they wander through neglected fields of dying plants and animals. Nobo Chudluwery sings to spirits who were unwilling or unable to do any harm or good, and they dream they sit at the mouth of a cave, watching others live their lives outside, but unable to participate. None of these stories acknowledge the spiders whose desperate survival plea transformed one belief system and laid foundations for another!