Colin Wilson - Spider World 06

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Shadowland

Spider World 06

by Colin Wilson

a.b.e-book v3.0

Note from Scanner: Even though the back cover says this is the fourth book, it is

numbered 6 because the first book was originally published in three pieces: The

Desert, The Tower, and The Fortress. It was later released as a single collection

entitled The Tower. Since I scanned all of the books, I numbered them 01-06 to avoid

confusion.

Back Cover:

Shadowland: The fourth volume in the epic Spider World series

When the first three volumes in Colin Wilson's Spider World series appeared

in the 1980s, they were published internationally to great critical acclaim. But the

story was left unfinished -- until now!

The series is set in a future in which humans have lost command of the Earth

to giant insects. In The Tower, a young man named Niall, starting from a precarious

desert existence, learned to command unsuspected mental powers, forcing the dreaded

Spider Lord to an uneasy standoff. In The Delta, Niall learned how and why humans

had been dispossessed, and, to his astonishment, found himself unquestioned ruler of

the spider's city. In The Magician, a powerful malign being poisons Niall's brother,

who can only be saved if Niall can seek out and defeat this magician.

Shadowland is Niall's epic journey to save his brother's life and remove his

realm from the dark shadow of the magician. Along the way, as in each of the

previous volumes, he acquires a little more of the magical powers that are humanity's

unclaimed heritage.

As in preceding volumes, Shadowland challenges outmoded thinking about

the nature of time, human consciousness, evolutionary potential, global change, and

the equality of species. Colin Wilson combines spellbinding storytelling with daring

speculation, as only he can.

in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from

the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

Cover design by Grace Pedalino

Cover photograph by Grace Pedalino

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

1125 Stoney Ridge Road

Charlottesville, VA 22902

434-296-2772

fax: 434-296-5096

e-mail: hrpc@hrpub.com

www.hrpub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, Colin, 1931-

Spider world -- Shadowland / Colin Wilson.

p. cm. -- (Spider world ; v. 4)

ISBN 1-57174-399-5 (acid-free paper)

1. Spiders -- Fiction. 2. Telepathy -- Fiction.

I. Title: Shadowland. II. Title.

PR6073.I44 S625 2002

823'.914-dc21

2002005688

If you are unable to order this book from your local

bookseller, you may order directly from the publisher.

Call 1-800-766-8009, toll-free.

ISBN 1-57174-399-5

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed on acid-free paper in the United States

To Frank

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One

Part Two

Epilogue

About the Author

Acknowledgments

My friend and editor, Frank DeMarco, should certainly be at the head of these

acknowledgments.

Spider World was started in the early 1980s, and its first part, consisting of

The Tower and The Delta, was published in two volumes. The publisher suggested a

sequel, and I began The Magician, which was published in 1992. But I must admit

that I felt myself beginning to flag, and decided to take a break before I launched

myself on the conclusion of The Magician, Shadowland. I felt like someone who has

just returned from a trip to the North Pole, and that I needed to recharge my batteries.

In fact, I became absorbed in the question of the age of the Sphinx, and found

it a relief to write nonfiction. From Atlantis to the Sphinx was followed by Alien

Dawn, a book on the problem of UFOs, followed by another study of the age of

ancient civilization, The Atlantis Blueprint. When people asked me when I intended

to finish The Magician I said: "Perhaps never." I was afraid the book had gone cold

on me. Then Frank DeMarco, who had published my Rogue Messiahs and Books in

My Life, asked me if I felt like writing a fantasy novel in a new series he planned. I

asked him if he had ever read Spider World and he said no. So I sent him the three

volumes I had published so far. To my delight he liked it, and gave me the go-ahead.

After a decade, I felt a little nervous about returning to the world of the giant

spiders, recalling my sense of flagging imagination. But I found that the well had

refilled itself in the ten years since I had finished The Magician, and I was soon

writing with all the old sense of not knowing what was going to happen next.

So in a very real sense, this is Frank DeMarco's book as much as mine. He has

even encouraged me to brood actively on its sequel, New Earth.

This book also owes a great deal to my son-in-law Dr. Mike Dyer, an expert

on wildlife conservation, to whom I turned whenever I wanted to know something

about birds, animals, or fish.

I also feel I should again express my gratitude to Roald Dahl, who in 1975

said to me casually over dinner: "You ought to try writing a children's book."

Cornwall, March 2002

Introduction

Niall is born into a world dominated by gigantic telepathic spiders, who breed

human beings for food. His family belongs to the small number of humans who are

still free; they live in an underground cave in a waterless desert, continually on the

alert for spiders who float overhead in silken balloons, probing the desert landscape

with beams of willpower. Other humans live in an underground city called Dira on

the shores of a dead sea. While visiting relatives there, Niall is captivated by the

charms of the ruler's daughter Merlew. But when he overhears her referring to him as

"that skinny boy" he decides not to accept her father's invitation to remain in Dira.

On the way home, Niall and his father take shelter from a sandstorm, and Niall

finds a telescopic metal rod, a relic of the remote days when men ruled the Earth. By

accident rather than skill or choice he uses it to kill a spider whose balloon has

crashed in the storm. In doing so, he has committed an offense for which he and all

his family could die a horrible death.

Soon after their return to the desert, while Niall is absent, their cave is

discovered by spiders. Niall's father is killed and his family taken captive. Niall finds

his father's body when he returns to the cave. In trying to follow the trail of his

family, he also is captured and taken to the spider city. Upon his arrival he learns that

all the inhabitants of Dira are also prisoners. Merlew's father, King Kazak, a natural

survivor, has now entered the service of the spiders, and urges Niall to do the same.

Rejecting the thought of betraying his fellow men, Niall flees to the white tower in

the center of the city, and enters it with the aid of the telescopic rod. There he learns

that it is a time capsule left by former men, and through a supercomputer called the

Steegmaster, he learns the history of humanity on Earth. He also is presented with a

device called the thought mirror, through which he can achieve a high degree of

concentration.

On leaving the tower, Niall takes refuge in the slave quarter of the city, and is

appointed overseer of a contingent of slaves, whom he leads to the nearby city of the

bombardier beetles. The beetles, as intelligent as the spiders, love explosions, and

Niall has arrived in time for one of their great annual celebrations, Boomday,

organized by their chief explosives expert, Bill Doggins. But the festival culminates

in disaster, destroying the complete stock of explosives. Niall agrees to lead Doggins

to a disused barracks in the slave quarter, where they expect to find gunpowder.

They find more than that: Reapers, the deadliest weapon ever invented by

man, which fire a beam of atomic energy. They use these to shoot their way out of an

ambush by the spiders, and escape back to the city of the bombardier beetles in stolen

spider balloons.

The ruler of the beetles, the Master, is furious that they have broken an ancient

peace treaty, and is inclined to hand over Niall and Doggins to the spiders for

punishment. Only the treachery of the Spider Lord, who decides to preempt the

decision by trying to strangle Niall, leads the Master to decide to allow Niall to stay

after all.

Nevertheless, Niall is dismayed by the Master's decision that all the Reapers

should be destroyed -- dashing all hopes of using them to free his fellow men. So

Niall, Doggins, and a group of young men decide to travel to the Delta, perhaps the

most dangerous place on Earth, because Niall has concluded that the Delta is the

source of a powerful living vibration that is responsible for the abnormal growth of

simple life-forms, including the spiders. His aim is to destroy this source, known to

the spiders as the goddess Nuada.

The Delta proves to be even more dangerous than they expected; its perils

include octopus-like plants that lurk just below the surface of the ground, and

humanoid frogs that can spit a stream of poison. Niall and Doggins are the only ones

to reach the heart of the Delta, and there they discover that the "goddess" is actually a

gigantic plant that forms the summit of a mountain.

Since Doggins has been blinded, Niall is forced to press on alone. In the night

that follows, in telepathic communion with the goddess, he learns that she is indeed

the source of the giant life-forms. She came from a distant galaxy, transported to our

solar system in the tail of the comet Opik, which came close to destroying the Earth.

Another long and dangerous journey brings Niall and Doggins back to the city

of the beetles. There the Master agrees to the Death Lord's demand to hand him over.

In a final confrontation, only the direct intervention of the goddess saves Niall from

an appalling fate. But the "miracle" also convinces the Spider Council that Niall is the

emissary of the goddess, and to his own bewilderment, he finds himself exalted to the

rank of ruler of the spider city.

The Spider Lord agrees that there should henceforth be peace between human

beings and spiders, and that they should regard one another as equals. However, many

spiders secretly regard this treaty as a betrayal. Among these is Skorbo, a captain of

the Spider Lord's guard, who -- with six accomplices -- continues to trap and eat

human beings.

One snowy morning, Niall finds the dying Skorbo in a corner of the main

square; he has been struck down by some tremendous blow. Following the trail of

blood to the garden of a deserted house, Niall discovers that Skorbo has been the

victim of an ingenious booby trap: a young palm tree had been bent to the ground and

then released by cutting the rope that held it. Human footprints indicate that three men

were involved in Skorbo's murder.

Concealed nearby, Niall finds the swollen corpse of a man who has died from

spider venom; Skorbo apparently had succeeded in killing one of the "assassins."

In the roots of the palm tree, Niall has found a heavy metal disk, engraved

with a birdlike symbol. When he returns to the garden, this disk has vanished. Niall

deduces that it has been taken by one of the "assassins," and that they have been able

to remain undetected in the spider city by masquerading as slaves. Niall is able to

track one of the bogus slaves to a building used as a hospital. The man is subdued

with the aid of a glue spider, but immediately kills himself.

The pale skin of the dead man suggests that he originated in some place where

he has been deprived of light. With the aid of a "mind machine" in the white tower,

Niall learns that Skorbo's killers came from some region beneath the Earth, and that

its ruler, whom Niall calls "the Magician," is driven by a deep hatred of the spiders.

The third assassin also is tracked down, but proves to be already dead -- an

animated corpse.

After witnessing the execution of five of Skorbo's accomplices, and the

banishment of one of them who refuses to submit, Niall discovers the whereabouts of

Skorbo's "larder," where his paralyzed victims are hung like carcasses in a butcher's

shop, awaiting their turn to be eaten. One of these is a girl, Charis, whose pale skin

indicates that she is also from the underground realm of the Magician. Recognizing

that Charis is his last clue to the whereabouts of the Magician, Niall decides to keep

her in his palace until she can be restored to consciousness.

In the house that had been occupied by Skorbo's killers, Niall finds froglike

talismans carved from green stone, and realizes that they emanate a malevolent force.

A mat of some kind of seaweed proves to be the means by which the assassins were

able to draw vital energy from the girl who accompanied them.

Niall learns that Skorbo had once been lost in the mountains to the north of the

Great Wall, after a crash landing in his spider balloon. Niall begins to entertain the

suspicion that there may have been some connection between Skorbo and the

Magician, and that Skorbo's death may have been in revenge for some kind of

treachery.

Niall's attempt to learn more about the Great Wall, and the Gray Mountains, is

frustrated by the fact that the spiders are almost totally ignorant of their own history.

Then he learns that the greatest of all spider warriors, Cheb the Mighty, is kept in a

state of suspended animation by the vital energy of young spiders, and that Niall, as

the ruler of the spider city, will be allowed to question Cheb.

A journey beneath the city leads him to the sacred cave; there young acolytes

bring back the great spider warrior from the land of the dead. Cheb describes how the

spiders first learned to make use of human servants, who regarded themselves as

spiders rather than human beings, and how these psychological hybrids helped Cheb

to enslave all the remaining humans. Niall then speaks with the spirit of Cheb's

famous adviser, Qisib the Wise, and learns of the events that led to the building of the

Great Wall.

Qisib tells of how Cheb's successor sent his human servant Madig to select a

site for a new city in the Gray Mountains of the north. Madig, alone of all his party,

returned with a message for the Spider Lord that the Gray Mountains were the

territory of the Magician, who would destroy any invaders.

The Spider Lord was incensed -- particularly when Madig died, apparently of

a slow poison that had been administered by the Magician. An immense army of

spiders and human foot soldiers marched north, but were destroyed by a gale and a

flood in the deep valley known as the Valley of the Great Lake. The Spider Lord and

his councilor Qisib alone survived. After this catastrophe Qisib supervised the

building of a Great Wall in what is now known as the Valley of the Dead.

Niall has no doubt that the storm was caused by the powers of the Magician.

Qisib recounts Madig's own story of how his party was overwhelmed in the

dark, blindfolded, and taken to some strange city, where the streets are silent and

nobody speaks above a whisper. There, still blindfolded, Madig was ordered to carry

a message to the Spider Lord, threatening him with destruction if he ventured into the

Gray Mountains. Madig was told that if he did not return within thirty days, he would

die and the other prisoners would suffer horrible deaths. Madig, of course, did not

return, and died -- as the Magician foretold -- after thirty days.

When Niall returns from the sacred cave to his palace, he learns that his

brother Veig, who has cut himself on the ax used to kill Skorbo, is dangerously ill.

Grel, a young spider, detects the presence of some evil force in the palace. Niall

tracks it down to his bedroom, where he has left one of the toadlike figurines that he

found in the house of the assassins.

Niall destroys the force by cutting the figurine in two with an ax. But when

the physician Simeon unites the two halves for a moment, the unknown force is able

to destroy Charis, who was still lying unconscious in the next room.

After the destruction of the figurine, Veig seems to be recovering. But Grel

points out that, like Madig, Veig has been touched by the evil power of the Magician,

and will almost certainly die within thirty days.

Niall realizes that there is only one chance of saving his brother's life: he

himself must make the dangerous journey to the underground city of the Magician.

Part One

Niall stood on the balcony that overlooked the main square, and stared out

over the darkened city. The stars in the black sky looked very cold and bright. At this

hour, everyone, including the spider population, was asleep. Following the habit of a

lifetime, most of his fellow citizens fell asleep soon after dark, and the same force of

habit made those who wandered abroad at night glance nervously over their

shoulders, as if afraid of being caught and punished. It would take at least another

generation for human beings to behave as if they were free and could go where they

liked. He also, he realized, had become a creature of habit. Although he had been in

this city for less than six months, he already regarded it as his home, and the thought

of having to set out on a long journey made his heart contract with anxiety.

There was a tap at the door, so light that he wondered if he had imagined it.

Simeon peeped into the room.

"I wondered if you were asleep."

"No. I don't feel tired."

"Your mother doesn't want you to go alone."

"I know. I have told her it would be too dangerous to have companions."

"Even me?"

"Even you. I feel I have just about enough luck to last me for the journey. It

might not be enough for two."

Simeon nodded. "I understand. Then why don't you allow a spider balloon to

carry you to the Gray Mountains?"

"Again, it would be too dangerous. There are eyes watching this city, and a

spider balloon would be too obvious."

Simeon said: "Then how do you propose to leave the city without being

noticed?"

"By traveling underground."

"Underground?" Simeon looked at him as if he doubted his sanity.

"There are underground tunnels beneath this city. They may have been made

by men in the days before they were conquered by the spiders -- perhaps as an escape

route in case they were invaded."

"You learned this in the white tower?"

"No. From the spiders themselves."

But as he was about to tell Simeon about his journey beneath the city, he

experienced a sudden sense of caution. It would involve telling Simeon about the

sacred cave, and he knew intuitively that this was the most precious secret of the

spiders, and should not be discussed with another human being -- even as intimate a

friend as Simeon.

Instead, he said: "I learned something else. Did you know that there is a river

beneath this city?"

Simeon shook his head in bewilderment.

"Are you sure?"

"I have seen it."

"Where does it come out?"

"I don't know. Probably somewhere to the east."

Simeon digested this in silence, then said: "And do you know where to find

the kingdom of the Magician?"

"I know only one thing -- that it is to the north of the Great Wall, in the Gray

Mountains."

"It could be a thousand miles to the north."

"No. Have you heard of Madig, the servant of Kasib the Warrior?"

Simeon shook his head.

"Madig led an expedition to the Gray Mountains, and was captured by

servants of the Magician. He was taken to some underground city where people spoke

in whispers. . ."

Simeon said: "It is called Shadowland."

Niall said eagerly: "You know about it?"

"It is a legend among the beetles."

"What do they say?"

"Only that it is an underground kingdom in the north. They believe it is far

away -- hundreds of miles."

Niall shook his head. "No, that cannot be so. For when the Magician released

Madig, he told him to return in a month, or his companions would forfeit their lives.

If Madig could make the journey there and back in a month, Shadowland cannot be a

thousand miles away. A man on foot can only travel twenty or thirty miles a day --

not much more than three hundred miles in two weeks. You agree?"

Before Simeon could reply, there was a knock at the door. It was Nephtys, the

commander of Niall's personal guard. She said: "Captain Sidonia is here, highness."

"Thank you. Take her in to my brother -- I will come in a moment."

Simeon asked: "Sidonia? The captain of the Spider Lord's guard?"

"I sent for her. I think she might be able to help Veig."

Simeon frowned. "How?"

"Sidonia is fond of Veig."

Simeon smiled. "So are a lot of other ladies around here."

"Good. The more the better."

Simeon was puzzled. "I don't follow you."

Niall said: "Sidonia has plenty of courage and energy."

"Yes." Simeon had seen her risk her life by driving her shortsword into the

stomach of a bull spider that was threatening Niall.

"Then don't you think she might be able to convey some of it to Veig?"

"How?"

"Simply by wanting to -- perhaps laying her hands on him."

Simeon's wrinkled brow revealed he was unable to understand what Niall was

talking about.

"Don't you believe that people can give energy to those they love?"

"I've heard my daughter say so. But I think that's only a manner of speaking."

Niall was disappointed. Simeon obviously found the idea absurd. As a

physician he was pragmatic and skeptical. But Niall had seen the young spiders

transferring their vital energy to Cheb the Mighty and Qisib the Wise, and knew that

it could be done.

"Where is your daughter?"

"She's at home."

"Here, in the spider city?"

"Yes."

Since he had become a member of the Council of Free Men, Simeon had taken

over the ground floor of an empty building not far from the square; it saved the daily

journey back to the city of the bombardier beetles.

"Could you bring her here? Will she still be awake?"

"Probably. She often waits up for me."

As Simeon was leaving, Niall realized that Sidonia was waiting outside the

door. Niall was surprised to see her; he had assumed she would wait down in the hall.

As usual, she was standing to attention, her eyes in front of her so she looked like a

statue. He said: "At ease." She allowed her eyes to focus on him. "You know my

brother is sick?"

"No, sire." He was probing her mind, and felt her concern. Like most of the

women with whom his brother had been involved, she obviously continued to feel a

certain affection for him.

He said: "He is suffering from some illness that is draining his energy. Come

with me."

He led her downstairs and across the courtyard to his brother's quarters. The

room was empty except for Veig, who was asleep, his arm outflung, and his maid

Crestia, a slight, blond girl who was sitting by the bed, looking pale and tense. She

jumped to her feet, for both Niall and Sidonia were her superiors. Niall gestured for

her to sit down.

There was no need to probe Sidonia's mind to sense her anxiety as she looked

down at Veig. It struck Niall as odd that a girl with such a high level of self-discipline

that she seemed little more than a robot should feel so deeply about his brother.

He asked: "Is he hot?"

She sat on the bed and placed her hand on Veig's forehead.

"Yes."

"Do you know how to take away his fever?"

"No."

"Put your other hand on his solar plexus."

She looked puzzled; her education had not encompassed such anatomical

terms. Niall pulled back the bedclothes; his brother was naked. The chest and belly

were covered with curly hair that was damp with sweat. Niall took Sidonia's right

hand and placed it on Veig's solar plexus. As she sat there, unsure of what he wanted,

Niall placed his own hands on hers, then breathed deeply, and allowed himself to sink

into a state of deep relaxation. When he was calm enough, his feelings and sensations

blended with those of his brother, and he began to feel heat and discomfort. He was

interested to observe that Sidonia also followed him into deep relaxation, obeying his

thought impulses as if they shared the same body.

Now he began to try to soothe Veig's fever as though it were his own. To

begin with, this seemed to have no effect; on the contrary, the fever seemed to burn

more fiercely. Then, slowly, he began to respond, as if Niall -- and Sidonia -- were

whispering words that relieved his anxiety, and he was listening to them.

Suddenly, Crestia reached out and laid her hands on Veig. Although

unconscious, Veig responded to her, as if his attention had been drawn to someone

else who had walked into the room. Then he seemed to recognize her and relax.

What was happening to Niall was what had happened when he had given

energy to the girl in the hospital, and to Charis, the girl who had accompanied the

assassins from Shadowland. He was giving energy exactly as he might have given a

blood transfusion. Veig absorbed this energy as naturally as he absorbed the vitality

that flowed from Sidonia and Crestia. As he did so, his fever disappeared, and he sank

into a normal sleep.

For a few minutes more, the three of them sat there, suddenly aware of one

another. Niall was interested to observe that they seemed to be sharing the same body,

or rather that he was as aware of the women's bodies as he was of his own. In that

moment, he realized why Veig found the opposite sex so appealing. Holding them in

his arms was simply a first step toward this mutual exchange of energy.

This was also the reason that the energies that flowed from Sidonia and

Crestia were more satisfying to Veig than Niall's; it had the opposite polarity.

A light tap on the door made them all start. It was Simeon, followed by a

woman whose yellow hair flowed over her shoulders. Niall judged her age to be about

thirty. Simeon said: "This is my daughter Leda."

She had an oval face with firm lips, and serene gray eyes. Unlike the women

of the spider city, her profile was not perfect, and on this account was more

interesting. Niall felt immediately that he had known her for many years. He was glad

that she made no move to curtsy or otherwise show respect to him as the ruler.

She asked: "How is the invalid?"

"Feeling a little better."

She sat down on the far side of the bed. As he watched her capable brown

fingers taking Veig's pulse, Niall felt his brother was in good hands. He noticed that,

even after taking Veig's pulse, she continued to hold his wrist, as if tuning in to his

physical state. She finally laid his wrist on the coverlet.

"He is still very ill."

"But he was worse before you came. He was in a fever."

She seemed to understand immediately. "And you took it away?"

"All three of us."

"Then your brother is in good hands."

Niall said: "Can you answer me a question?"

"I'll try."

"If we can take away his fever, why can we not cure him completely?"

Simeon interrupted: "Because his blood is full of tiny parasites like leeches."

All this talk about healing evidently made him uncomfortable.

Leda said: "But that is not the only reason. I sense that there is more to it than

that." "What?"

"I don't know. Some kind of hostile force. But it may be possible to neutralize

it." Niall felt a tingle of hope. "How?"

"In this house you have a room with trees in it?"

Niall stared at her in bewilderment.

"Trees? You mean real trees?" For a moment he thought she must be talking

of a painting or mural.

"Yes."

He shook his head. "There is no such room."

The maid Crestia said: "Yes there is." They all stared at her.

She said: "It is part of the cellar. I can show you."

She took a pressure lamp and pumped it until it glowed fiercely; Niall took

another. The others took oil lamps from their wall niches.

As they followed Crestia across the upper courtyard and into the palace, Niall

tried to guess what she had in mind. He was sure he knew every room in the building,

from attic to cellar. In any case, how could trees grow in a room?

Crestia led the way across the hall and down the cellar steps. The great stone-

flagged room had a pleasant smell of stored food: apples, hams, spices, as well as

fermenting mead and cider. Game hung from hooks on the beam. Crestia went on

through a small door in the corner, which led into a lumber room full of broken

furniture and moldering curtains. Niall had glanced into it on several occasions, but

since there seemed to be no exit, had not bothered to explore it. Now Crestia picked

her way among broken wardrobes, cracked mirrors, and armchairs with springs

sticking out, stirring the dust so it made them sneeze. In the far corner of the room,

behind a rickety wardrobe, was a small door, held by two drawn bolts. When Crestia

pulled these back and tugged open the creaking door -- with some help from Simeon

-- a smell of fresh air blew in.

Crestia raised her lamp to reveal a chamber that obviously had been a stable at

some remote time in its history, and still had horse stalls; harnesses of old, cracked

leather hung on the walls, which were built of unplaned wood. The single window

was broken, and the floor was made of trampled earth. The stable obviously had been

added to the outer wall of the building, and from its floor, roughly six feet apart, grew

two trees, each about two feet thick, whose upper halves vanished through holes in

the ceiling.

The door was made of rough planks, and when Niall raised the wooden latch,

he found himself looking into a small courtyard of whose existence he had been

unaware.

Leda was caressing the rough gray bark of one of the trees. She said: "These

are abolia trees, whose wood is as hard as oak or mahogany. They grow in the Delta. I

would advise you to move your brother's bed between them."

Niall accepted her advice without question. Sidonia was dispatched to the

hospital to commandeer two porters with a stretcher, and Veig was transferred to it.

Niall directed two of the house servants to dismantle Veig's bed, which was held

together by wooden pegs, and it was carried down to the stable and reassembled. Veig

was sleeping so deeply that even the hammering when the pegs were loosened failed

to wake him.

Niall's mother, Siris, had been awakened by all the activity, and she watched

as Veig was replaced in his bed between the two trees. She bent over her son and

placed her hands on his forehead. Like Niall, she possessed certain telepathic abilities,

particularly where her children were concerned. Her face broke into a smile of relief.

"His fever is almost gone."

As Niall sat on a stool on the other side of the bed and placed his hands on

Veig's forehead, he was immediately aware that his mother's diagnosis was too

optimistic. Veig's blood still burned with a fever that was like poison. But at least his

condition now seemed stable. And as he focused his attention to a deeper level, he

became aware that the trees at either end of the bed were, in fact, exercising a

soothing influence. They were like a cool breeze blowing through a window. This

breeze was a form of vitality, the distinctive vibration of the goddess. On a spider, the

effect would have been a slow trickle of energy that would have cured sickness. The

flesh of humans was on too high a level to be recharged by this vitality, yet its effect

was nevertheless restorative, like soft music. When the dawn came, with its surge of

energy, the effect would be even stronger.

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ShadowlandSpiderWorld06byColinWilsona.b.e-bookv3.0NotefromScanner:Eventhoughthebackcoversaysthisisthefourthbook,itisnumbered6becausethefirstbookwasoriginallypublishedinthreepieces:TheDesert,TheTower,andTheFortress.ItwaslaterreleasedasasinglecollectionentitledTheTower.SinceIscannedallofthebooks,Inumb...

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Colin Wilson - Spider World 06

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