Shadowland. Spider World 06 by Colin Wilson

This brought a sense of lightheartedness and gaiety. Then he noted a pleasant smell, like the smell that issued from the kitchen in the palace on the day his mother had given a party for his sisters, and invited the friends they had made when they were staying in the nursery on the far side of the river. The cooks had surpassed themselves with sweet cakes, and with a mass of pink, green, and blue candy floss, a substance as light as a tangle of hair, which melted on the tongue with a delicious caramel flavor. They had also made brightly colored drinks with flavors Niall had never tasted before.

At this point, Niall experienced a sensation like hands pressing on either side of his head, and felt himself propelled back toward consciousness. Then he realized that he had allowed himself to become too absorbed in memories of birthday parties, and was on the point of falling truly asleep. Somehow, the chameleon men had sensed this loss of attention, and gently nudged him back toward wakefulness.

He was still hovering on the borderland between sleep and waking. Sleep tugged at him like an impatient child, and once again he felt himself drifting. As soon as this happened, the sweet smell returned.

He was standing in a kind of street made of stripes of green, blue, and yellow, in which there were a number of immense conical buildings, also decorated with the same bright stripes. Around him, a vast striped plane with irregular and broken blue surfaces, like natural rock, stretched in all directions. The sky above was a pale blue, lit occasionally by strange flashes of lightning.

The sweet smell billowed around him in misty clouds, which seemed to be issuing from cracks in the pavement. There were large pools of water, which made it look as if it had been raining, except that the pools were in bright colors — yellow, red, violet — and were obviously not rainwater.

There was nothing dreamlike about this landscape; it looked as firm as the ground under his feet. He knelt and pressed his fingers against it. It was solid, and seemed to be made of a kind of colored rock with many parallel stripes, some an inch wide, some a foot or more. A piece of the stone was loose, and he levered it off with his fingernail and put it in his mouth. It was sweet but would not crumble when he bit it, so he finally spat it out.

What was so amazing was to be conscious that he was dreaming. It brought a marvelous sense of freedom. But what puzzled him most was where, in this strange city, were the people?

He decided to walk toward the nearest “building,” which he judged to be about a quarter of a mile away. This was a kind of lopsided tower, with something that looked like a door or gateway in one of its sides. But even when he had been walking for ten minutes, during which time he should have covered at least half the distance, the building seemed to be getting no closer.

Another striped building to his left looked not unlike several circus tents piled one on top of another, rather like a comic hat. This also seemed to have an entrance, like an inverted V with curved sides. This time he strode purposefully toward it. But even after he had taken a dozen strides, it was visibly no nearer.

This was absurd. He walked to one of the cracks in the ground and peered down it. A kind of steam that blew up from it made his face hot and damp, and smelled cloyingly sweet. Then there was a hissing noise that made him jump back. It was followed by a gurgle that was not unlike laughter, after which the steam subsided.

Next he sat down on a projection of rock to rest his legs. The seat was uncomfortable, with sharp edges that soon began to hurt his buttocks. He whistled with pain and stood up, screwing up his face. As he did so, he noticed something interesting: concentrating his attention seemed to make the rock he had been sitting on more brightly colored. As soon as he relaxed his concentration, it returned to normal.

This was encouraging, a sign that he could exercise some control in this strange place. He clenched his teeth and stared at the rock; again, the color deepened, and it became, in some subtle sense, more real. He remained focused for as long as he could; then, as his concentration slackened, watched it become paler and less real.

Another idea occurred to him. He tried concentrating hard, then walking toward the “circus tent.” This worked; he could actually see the building coming closer, as it would in normal life.

The engagement of his will in the process of walking felt odd, a little like rowing a boat — a skill he had learned in the harbor of the spider city. This “deliberate walking” brought a sense of effort and strain, but it was oddly satisfying.

He began practicing “deliberate walking” in the direction of the circus tent, and was pleased when each determined step took him closer. When he was finally standing in front of it, he could see that it was made of stone, which looked rougher and less finished than that of the ground under his feet. The entrance he had seen was not a true doorway, but merely a kind of slit in the wall that might have been slashed out with an immense knife or hatchet.

As he approached the doorway, the resistance seemed to increase, as if some force was trying to keep him out. He concentrated harder, and pressed forward through the entrance. Immediately, he found himself in semidarkness, as if he was wrapped around by bands of gray silk. Still encountering resistance, he continued to practice “deliberate walking” forward; it was a little like wading through deep water. Soon he was in total darkness. He turned and looked back toward the entrance, but nothing was visible. Bewildered, he thought of going back. But now he was not even sure of which way was back.

In a sense it was worse than being outside on the endless striped plane, for now there was nothing whatsoever. Then he tried concentrating again, and ceased to feel lost. He reflected that it did not matter which way he walked. Since he was inside a building, he was bound to encounter the other side sooner or later. So he devoted all his attention to concentrating, and simply strode forward. The darkness went on for a long time, but while he continued to practice “deliberate walking,” he was not troubled. Then the light turned gray, and he was passing through another door, and out once more onto the pavement.

But this time it was different. The buildings were smaller and closer together — it was evidently some kind of residential quarter — and the road was not striped, but made of gray cobbles. When he turned round, he saw that the conical buildings had disappeared. It seemed clear that he was in another place — or another dream.

Now he noticed that there were living beings wandering in a haphazard way across the pavement. It would have been inaccurate to call them people. They were white, and had faces that were old and wrinkled, with white hair that had been allowed to grow totally out of control, and which virtually concealed most of their faces. The eyes that peered out from this foliage of hair were round and too big for the face.

These creatures seemed at first to have four legs, but a closer look convinced Niall that they had two long legs and two long arms, at least twice as long as human arms, with enormous, long hands at the end of them. They walked naturally on all fours, and it was hard to see how they could have done otherwise, since even if they had stood erect, the hands would have been close to their feet. Niall thought they looked like ghosts with four legs. And although he was glad that he was no longer alone, something about them worried him slightly; he was not at all sure that he liked them.

The sky was also different. Whereas it had formerly been blue, it was now covered in silvery clouds. But ordinary clouds lie more or less parallel to the Earth. These clouds were vertical, and were small and shiny, so they looked rather like a vast curtain of beads, or some giant crystal chandelier. They imparted to the light a curious silvery quality.

Some of the four-legged creatures looked at him curiously, and a few advanced to peer more closely. Niall was equally curious about them — he suspected that they were some type of nature spirit, like the chameleon men. Soon there were a dozen or more gathered around him. One of them who seemed smaller — and younger — than the others reached out to touch him with one of its absurdly long hands. There was a hiss of warning from some of the others, and the creature snatched its hand away. But a moment later, another reached out and tentatively prodded Niall with a long, crooked forefinger, the back of which was covered with white hairs. When Niall showed no reaction, smiling to indicate that he was not alarmed, several more reached out and touched him.