The Last Satyr: The Company is Formed Part 1
The Crime is Discovered

The boy left Leradien’s cave directly in the morning to attend school. Not that the boy had one bit of desire to do so, but he knew his aunt would have found his bed empty that morning. She'd know he'd been out. He would be in trouble for that when he returned, and so he figured he could say he’d left for school early that morning and that’s how she missed him, and so he made a point of arriving at school early and helping Miss Morgana, who lived in Linthiel, with her lesson plan so that he even had a witness. If the plan succeeded, only Leradien and Ronthiel would know about him being out last night. Since Leradien wasn’t talking to anyone, he had only to swear Ronthiel to secrecy, and no one would be the wiser. Ronthiel wasn’t very pleased about taking the elves’ blood oath not to tell, but he did it.

So the boy had pretty much covered his bases. His mother would swear he had been home last night until he got up early for school, his teacher would swear he arrived early, and Ronthiel would not correct him. No one would know he’d been out with Leradien.

When the boy got home from school, his aunt was waiting, demanding to know where he was that morning and he recited his story and provided his collaborating witness, Miss Morgana, who lived in the next tree to confirm all. It all went pretty well, exactly as planned.

A little later, Duravane came by shortly after sunset, asking for the boy. Not having any idea what this was about, he sat down before the elder elf to replace out.

“Did you hear the news?” he asked the boy.

No. Whatever it was, the boy certainly hadn’t.

“Grave robbers took Erawin’s body.”

The boy looked surprised. How did the elves know this? But then he remembered Beowin and Olga had not put the lid back on the crypt’s coffin. That explained the discovery, but what did this have to do with him?

“Two witnesses say it was a drider that did it,” the elder elf told him.

The boy’s eyes widened in dismay. They were blaming Leradien!

“We found drider tracks up in the cemetery. It was weighted down from carrying something heavy.”

The boy’s head began to spin. The tracks were Leradien’s and the weight she was carrying was he and Ronthiel. But Duravane was thinking it was Erawin that was the weight.

“There are people that say you know a drider. Is that true?” Duravane interrogated him.

The boy tried to avoid the question. He was caught between the crossroads of truth and deception, like a traveler hesitating before two diverging paths in a shadowy forest.

“Satyrs say lots of things,” he replied.

“But we know there’s a drider about,” Duravane eyed him. “We’ve seen its webs. You know about the webs, don’t you?”

The boy nodded.

“The fairy folk say you’ve saved them from its webs. They also say they’ve seen you with it.”

“The drider didn’t touch Erawin,” the boy glared.

“How do you know that?”

“She wouldn’t do that!”

“She?” repeated Duravane. “How do you know the drider is a ‘she’?”

“I know her and you’re wrong that she touched Erawin.”

“How do you know that? We have two witnesses that say she did.”

“Would your witnesses be Beowin and Olga?”

Duravane’s previous suspicions were now suddenly even more aroused.

“How do you know that, boy?”

“I was there,” the boy said. “I saw the two of them do it.”

“You saw the two of who, do what?”

“Beowin and Olga opened the grave. Beowin robbed the body and Olga swallowed it.”

“You say you were there?”

“I was there.”

“Last night?”

“Yes.”

“No, he wasn’t.” His aunt corrected him. “He was home in bed.”

“I snuck out.”

“You didn’t sneak out!” his aunt corrected him. “You left early this morning to go to school. His teacher can confirm he arrived early.”

“So you’re lying about being there?” cross-examined Duravane. “Why? Is it to protect the drider? What for?” he wanted to know.

“I’m not lying. I was there!”

There came a knock at the door and his aunt answered it. It was Ronthiel who came in.

“Hello, Master Satyr. Greetings, elder Duravane,” Ronthiel said to them. “I came by after I heard what happened to Erawin.”

“Elder Duravane wants to know what happened in the cemetery last night,” the boy said. “You can tell them!”

“You were there?” Duravane asked.

“No, sir, not to my knowledge,” the elf boy answered.

“He was. He just doesn’t remember,” the boy countered.

“What do you know of the boy accusing Beowin and Olga?”

“Nothing.”

“The boy here seems to think you do.”

“I have taken an elves’ blood oath not to answer.”

“An elves’ blood oath?” gasped a shocked Duravane to hear this. “Who made you take such an oath?”

“The boy.”

“The boy?” said Duravane, looking at the satyr in surprise, and then asked Ronthiel. “But you say you know nothing about what happened at the cemetery last night?”

“No, sir, I do not.”

“So regardless of what you gave your oath not to tell, you don’t know what happened at the cemetery? Then it’s just the word of a known liar and a thief of a satyr against Beowin and Olga—a satyr who is corrected by his aunt, his teacher, and who has sworn an elf to silence?” Duravane’s eyes switched back to the boy. “Is this how you expected to build a defense for your drider, boy—a drider who was known to be there?”

Ronthiel looked up at this. He had not heard this.

“She was there?” he asked in surprise.

“She was,” Duravane nodded. “Her tracks lead right up to where a body lay on the ground, before they moved off carrying weight. It is quite obvious she picked up Erawin after pulling him from his coffin and carried him off.”

“That was Ronthiel she carried off!” the boy stood up and accused.

Duravane faced the boy. “You’re very clever. You would have me suspect Olga, the ogress, of the crime. In fact, I had already done so. She is the logical suspect. It is hard to imagine a drider sucking the blood from a day old corpse, but anything is possible. Yet now I have a satyr, friend to a drider, accusing Olga, and leaving a trail of lies and blood oaths to do so! I cannot convict the ogress now, even if she was guilty. Where is this drider you protect?”

“I am not saying.”

“You should,” Ronthiel told him.

The boy jumped up. “What?!” he declared. “How can you possibly betray her after she saved your life?”

And then he ran out of the house into the darkness.

The boy went off to sit on old Joe’s ore rock pile, too upset to even help the tree gnomes with cleaning it up. Leradien was right about the elves. They accused her exactly as she said they would, and he had failed to defend her. If the elves hunted her down to kill her, he would never forgive himself. He would take his knife, declare her innocence, and plunge his blade into his heart to die over her fallen body and join her in her wretched fate so that, at least, she would not face it alone.

Or better yet, he would join her now and they would run off together, and if the elves came after them, they would fight them, side by side, until either they died or the elves died.

In the middle of picturing his own tragic, heroic death, Ronthiel came along to join him, easily tracking him.

“You think I betrayed you back there, don’t you, Master Satyr?”

“If the shoe fits, wear it,” the boy said and then asked. “And why do you call me Master?”

“You saved my life. I am in your debt and in your service.”

“Why do you believe me now?”

“Because you knew about Olga, Beowin, and Erawin before they did. And now Duravane tells me the drider was there and picked someone up, someone you say was me.”

Well! At least someone believed him.

“It was you. But I didn’t save your life. Leradien did.”

“She would not have done so on her own. How many times did you have to ask her? And what price did she want for it in return?”

“You want to know what she wanted to do it?” He looked at the elf.

“Yes.”

“To see me again,” the boy said, looking away. “That’s all.”

“That’s all?” asked Ronthiel. “She asked for a heavy price. You think it’s a small price, but it’s not. Not when she goes mad, Master Satyr. Do you know how a drider is created?”

“They’re made into driders as punishment by Lolth for failing her.”

“No. I mean, how it’s actually done?”

The boy shook his head. He didn’t.

“They are created in the greatest pain,” Ronthiel explained. “It is part of their punishment. Let me tell you about that pain, Master Satyr. When a drow is punished for failing Lolth, a huge spider demon is summoned. That mindless spider attacks the unfortunate drow and begins to eat the drow’s legs off. Of course, the drow goes through incredible agony, being eaten alive. The torture is also unbearably slow—it takes at least 12 hours before the spider demon reaches the hips of the drow. Then the spider demon fuses its own body to the drow’s and the two become one, the mindless spider demon now ruled by the drow’s upper body and mind but with the spider's instincts. The result is a drider. So you see, driders are born out of incredible torture and pain. Your Leradien went through that terrible fate. It’s a wonder she didn’t go stark raving mad just from the endlessly excruciating pain of being half-eaten. And she still will.”

The elf went on. “The drow that is now a drider is then rejected by all other drow, for they know it failed their keeper, Lolth, and they are revolted by what happened to it. If the drider didn’t already go mad from the pain, it will try to remove its curse to be accepted by others again, which can’t be done. Eventually, they go mad from loneliness. They all do, Master Satyr, every single one of them! That includes your Leradien. If she’s not insane today, she will be tomorrow. And if she’s not insane tomorrow, well, maybe she will be the day after. But it will happen. There’s no stopping it. It’s like a big boulder rolling down a hill. It just keeps picking up speed until it finally hits something and then it just blows up all over the place. She’ll lose her mind. She’s already going down that hill. She just hasn’t hit the bottom yet.”

“She wouldn’t hurt me,” the boy insisted.

“She’s already going mad from the loneliness, Master Satyr. I can prove it.”

“You can prove it?”

“It’s easily enough done. Just walk out in that clearing over there and call her name.”

“Why would I do that? She’s too far away to hear.”

“Why don’t you call her and replace out? See what happens.”

Why was Ronthiel so sure? What would happen?

He got up to replace out.