He said to Niall, almost affectionately: “You will have to remain here while I attend to the matter.”
He raised the globe, and it once more filled the room with light. Then Niall found himself back inside the glass tube. The Magician slipped the globe into his pocket, and left the room.
A rivulet of blood was running across the floor from Jelko’s neck. Moments later, the two guards came in, and looked down at Jelko’s body with undisguised revulsion. The guards, obviously fighting the urge to vomit, grabbed the corpse by the ankles and wrists and dragged it outside. Since they had paid no attention to the boca, Niall deduced that they could not see it.
Alone again, Niall felt curiously placid and contented. All desire to escape had vanished. He and the Magician were reconciled, and there was nothing more to worry about. Veig would be cured, the peace treaty would be signed, and he would return to govern the spider city with the help and advice of his friend the Magician. It had all turned out well after all.
Five minutes went past. The clock on the wall showed twenty minutes past nine. It was a pity he was confined in the glass cylinder — he would have liked to look out of the window and see what was happening.
The boca, still crouched in its corner, was gazing at him intently. Why was it watching him so carefully when he had no intention of trying to escape? Niall stared into the yellow eyes, and was again struck by their intelligence.
Without any conscious decision, Niall tried probing its mind, and was surprised to realize that it was feeling pity for him. That seemed absurd. What was there about his situation to arouse pity?
Then, as if suddenly remembering something he had forgotten, he understood. The Magician had allayed all his fears and anxieties and made him feel free.
Why, in that case, was he still a prisoner?
It was then that Niall realized he had been in a state akin to hypnosis, and had wasted seven minutes, during which he ought to have been thinking about how to escape.
There was still one method that he had not tried.
He closed his eyes, and envisaged the younger of the troll children. There was still a slight feeling of resistance, but it vanished when he increased his attention. Then there was the unmistakable sense of contact with a living person, and he became aware that the child was asleep in his cot.
The fact that he was asleep made no difference to his effectiveness as a psychic link, for the boy was merely a steppingstone. Using him as his focus, Niall divided his attention, and reached out to the globe. Then he was in the troll cave looking at the crystal sphere on top of the pallen. As if it sensed his presence, the green spark glowed in its center, then the globe began to radiate light. The troll, who was standing at the back of the cave, turned his head in surprise.
Contact with the crystal was instantaneous; it was like meeting someone he knew intimately. The globe responded to his mental vibration, and his mind flowed into the spider web of awareness as if causing its strands to light up. The sense of relief was enormous: not only of escaping from his glass prison, but of escaping from his everyday consciousness and entering the world of objective reality.
The troll, communicating in direct-meaning language, said: “Back again? What is happening now?”
“The Magician is about to order his soldiers to fire on the crowd.”
The troll said dryly: “That sounds in character.”
“What can I do about it?”
“Does he have his crystal with him?”
“Yes.”
“Then use your own to neutralize it. That should distract him.”
“How?”
“Ask it.”
Niall reached up and took the crystal from the pallen; it produced a mild shock as its energies mingled with his own. He sat on the edge of the step below the chair, and allowed his mind to blend with the globe. This, as usual, produced such a deep sense of relaxation and absorption that he had to warn himself to remain alert. As soon as he focused on the question of neutralizing one globe with another, the answer became self-evident; it was merely a matter of bringing the two within one another’s vibrational radius, and allowing energy to flow from the stronger to the weaker.
He asked: “Are you sure the karvasid’s globe is less powerful than mine?”
“Quite sure.”
“But how can I bring them close together?”
The troll pointed to Niall’s crystal. “Take it with you.” Seeing Niall’s expression of puzzlement, he said: “Look.”
He reached up and placed his own globe in the top of the pallen, where it immediately began to emit a rosy light. He said: “Watch.”
He placed both his hands on either side of the pallen, about two feet below the globe, then slowly moved them upward. As his hands covered the globe, the rosy light seemed to spill over them as if it were some kind of liquid. The troll moved his hands farther apart, then slowly raised them. The light stayed inside his hands, while the globe itself became dull, like a gaslight that has been extinguished. The troll held out his hands to Niall. Between them, glowing like a red planet, the sphere of crimson light was suspended.
“Crystal has an energy body, just as you have. Now do what I have just done.” He carefully held his hands above the pallen, then lowered them on either side of the globe. When he removed them, it was glowing once more.
The troll removed the globe and placed it in its black cloth on the floor. Niall took his own globe and placed it on the pallen, where it continued to glow. He tried to imitate the troll’s movements precisely, placing both hands on the pallen and cautiously sliding them up. When they reached either side of the globe, he could feel the glow against his skin, as if he were touching a living thing. His palms were at least two inches from the surface. When he raised his hands further — as far above his head as he could reach — the light continued to glow between them, while the globe itself ceased to shine. Niall chuckled aloud at the sensation, which was rather like holding some soft, furry animal. It made his arms glow all the way to the shoulders.
As he closed his eyes, the troll said: “Good luck.”
When he opened them again, he was a hundred yards below the kalinda tree, and saw that he was just in time. The Magician was already past it, striding toward the bridge. Niall found it easy to read his thoughts, for they were dominated by pleasurable anticipation at the punishment he intended to inflict on these stupid children who had dared to question his authority.
For a moment Niall’s heart sank when he found there was no sign of the energy globe, although his palms still tingled from the contact. But as soon as he focused on the space between his hands, it glowed and reformed. Intuitively, he knew that this was some kind of projection of the globe in the troll’s cave, although in another sense it would have been equally true to say that the globe existed everywhere that its web extended.
Niall concentrated on it, and drew some of its energy into himself. Then he closed his eyes, envisaged being on the bridge, and instantly found himself there.
The mayor and mayoress were standing where he had left them more than half an hour earlier, when Jelko had set out to walk to the palace.
The crowd was totally silent as they watched the Magician walking toward them. All recognized the underlying air of menace, and wished they were elsewhere.
He halted, and stared at them, then asked, with dangerous civility:
“Who wanted to see me?”
There was no sound, and everyone avoided his eyes. Although the Magician looked calm, everyone felt they would be inviting instant violence by answering.
The Magician looked at Selena. “You?”
She was obviously too frightened to speak. Niall felt instinctively that the Magician would select her as the first victim, and that he had to do something before that happened. He touched the globe with his hand, absorbed some of its power, then directed it against the Magician like throwing a stone. It was intended to shock and cause a diversion.
What happened was instantaneous. The Magician turned, and lashed out with the rage of an angry snake. Niall’s physical body would have been carbonized by the bolt of energy, but his dream body only experienced a numbing shock before the force was absorbed by the crystal. Even this deflected blow was enough to stun him so that his senses seemed to fly apart.
When his vision cleared, he saw that the Magician was lying on the ground, and that the two red-haired guards were bending over him. What looked like the top of the Magician’s head had fallen off and was lying nearby; for a moment Niall assumed he was dead, and was puzzled at the lack of blood. But when he took a step forward, walking straight through the nearest guard, he saw that the Magician’s eyes were open, although the face was as pallid as a corpse. What lay on the ground a few feet away was not the top of his head, but a kind of hat shaped like a human cranium. The Magician’s skull was, in fact, of normal size and shape, and covered with stubbly gray hair; what had fallen on the ground was a domelike false cranium.