Arcana: Among the Spheres

The Spinners

by R. Sean Borgstrom

Protective measures turn dangerous in the mystical Highrun Woods...

"Air is the medium through which all other matter moves; it is the silent context, unconsidered. Yet when it must move, nothing is swifter than the wind, and nothing more terrible than the thunderbolt. From this, learn the keys to power: stillness, consideration, careful planning, and thought. Let these guide your actions, and when you act you will be inexorable." --from The Tome of Power, as quoted in Spherewalker Sourcebook by Greg Stolze.

Highrun Woods, a coniferous forest in the Dusty Mountains, has taken on an immoderate importance to the people of the nearby Pinesedge Town. In their stories, the Woods is where the tragic lovers meet; where good and bad folk alike meet bandits, monsters, or destiny; where the gods and goddesses come to play; where the most solemn rituals transpire. Hunting in these woods is rare and ceremonial, and exploration is virtually forbidden--but every soul in Pinesedge enters the woods at least once. The call comes to each one, in broad daylight or in night's darkness, and she goes, and in the Highrun Woods she experiences the oldest tragedy and the brightest gift given to her people.

Shadowed by the trees, she weaves herself a cocoon out of the air, and for three days she sleeps, while her body reshapes itself. When the cocoon opens, she is no longer made of flesh and bone, but instead emerges as a spirit of the wind. In that form, she travels the world for a year; then she returns, and if she can find her cocoon again, she enters it and reassumes her human shape. Some stories attribute these strange events to the gift of a god; others call it the curse of an enormously powerful mage. Either way, the Year Journey is the defining event of every life begun in Pinesedge, whether the traveler finds her cocoon and stumbles back to the town in human form--or cannot, and must roam the sphere as wind forever.

The cities of Armorer and Politeness, also near the Woods, regard the forest more with avarice than with awe. Both cities send regular expeditions into the forest to harvest the cocoons. To them, the people of Pinesedge are "the Spinners," barely human and deserving of no consideration--and the cocoons can be reshaped into a light, flexible, and enormously sturdy armor. Since the Spinners rarely venture into the forest except when called, they do not know about this abomination--all that they know is that fewer return from the Year Journey every generation.

Once, long ago, a mage named Grassfire warned the two cities that their "silk armor" was dangerous. Some of the spirit of the Spinner clings to the armor, and can haunt the wearer's mind--this is the lesser danger. More frightening is the possibility that one of the Spinners, trapped as wind, might somehow find what has become of his cocoon. If he returns to the cocoon while someone is wearing it, he could displace or even utterly destroy the wearer. As a matter of conscience, Grassfire urged the two cities to discontinue the harvests. He chose not to explain the truth to Pinesedge, however, fearing that then there would be war. The people of Armorer and Politeness ignored him and did not change their ways…

The Spinners copyright © 1998 R. Sean Borgstrom. Used with permission.
Soldier image by Ian Miller copyright © 1998 Gaslight Press.