Shadowland. Spider World 06 by Colin Wilson

They seemed mainly interested in his face, his bare arms, and his legs — with their immense long arms, it was as easy to touch his feet as his head. He noted that their hands were very cool, and there was some curiously soothing quality about their touch.

Soon they all were stroking him as if he were a dog, their hands caressing his arms, shoulders, back, and even his thighs. He began to find it surprisingly pleasant, not unlike being massaged by his female attendants after he had taken a bath. A warm, drowsy feeling began to spread through him, which — oddly enough — reminded him of the pleasure he had once experienced holding Princess Merlew in his arms.

Suddenly he was startled by an angry shout, and the white creatures shrank back guiltily. Striding toward them came a human he knew instinctively to be female. Long, dark brown hair fell below her waist, and she wore a brown garment that almost reached the ground. But the face had neither eyes nor a nose — simply a mouth in its center, with long, sensual-looking red lips.

She said, in a strained, throaty voice: “What are you doing here?”

Being addressed in his own language was the last thing Niall expected — it was the first time he had heard it since he left the palace.

He said nervously: “I. . . I don’t know.”

This, of course, was true. But she evidently found it preposterous.

“You don’t know?”

She leaned forward until her face almost touched Niall’s. Her breath was as sweet as the breeze that blew around them. Even so, it was bewildering to look at this blank face, with only smooth skin where the nose and eyes should have been, and at the angrily contemptuous mouth. Her next question startled him.

“Can you fly?”

He said hesitantly: “I don’t think so.”

“In that case, you deserve to be eaten.”

Niall switched his gaze to the faces around him, and suddenly realized she was serious. Most of the white creatures had now brushed back their hair from around their mouths, and their pointed yellowish teeth were unmistakably those of carnivores. They were eyeing him hungrily, and some were licking their lips — one was even dribbling. With a sudden shock, Niall realized that those gentle caresses had been intended to soothe him into a state of hypnotic acquiescence and surrender before they sank in their teeth. What was even more worrying was that he suspected he might have let them do it.

The woman said impatiently: “Get him out of here.” She seemed to be addressing someone over Niall’s shoulder. Before he could turn round to see who it was, he was seized by the waist and jerked into the air with such speed that he had no time to feel alarmed. Great wings flapped above him, and his waist was held in the grip of immense claws that bore an odd resemblance to human fingers. He looked up — which was not easy, since his body was almost horizontal — but instead of the feathered breast he expected, he saw gray, scaly flesh like a reptile’s, and a blunt face that resembled a tortoise. The leathery wings were those of a bat rather than a bird.

As he shot away from the ground at breathtaking speed, he saw the city dwindling below him until it was blotted out by the silvery clouds.

A moment later, he woke up in the cave of the chameleon men. No one seemed to notice that he was awake — or, if they did, no one paid any attention. Several minutes passed before he realized that this was a form of courtesy. They were giving him time to reflect on what had happened.

It was quite different from waking from normal sleep, which was like returning from unreality to reality. This was like returning from one reality to another. The dream seemed as real as the world around him.

But what did it mean? What was the significance of that city of striped cones? When he was a child, his grandfather Jomar had often spoken about dreams and their meaning — he believed that dreams are full of all kinds of omens. But Niall’s dream seemed a medley of absurdities without obvious import.

He experienced a feeling of angry frustration. What was the good of possessing the power of reason if it could not even provide the key to a dream?

Then he felt ashamed of his irritation. The serenity of his companions was like a reproach. He deliberately induced in himself the same spirit of calm and patience, then attempted to relive the dream.

He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the striped plane with its conical buildings. At first it remained nothing more than this — a visualization, like a blurred and unfocused picture. But this, he realized, was because he was using his mind, rather than a faculty that was capable of re-creating reality.

This required relaxing further, as if trying to reactivate a memory. Then it happened, suddenly and instantaneously, and he was on the striped plane, with the sweet smell like candy.

There was one difference; this time he was aware that he was recalling it, and therefore had control over it. As soon as this happened, he understood the source of the dream.

The sweet smell was the smell of cotton candy at the children’s party. And the pools of liquid on the pavements were the brightly colored drinks at the same party. As to the green and yellow stripes, he now recalled that they reminded him of the sticks of peppermint-flavored rock that were a favorite of the children in the city of the bombardier beetles. Some dream-artist inside his brain had mingled these elements into a fantasy of the candy-striped city.

So the dream expressed nostalgia for childhood innocence. But why had the buildings come no closer when he had walked toward them?

A moment’s reflection told him the answer. Because he knew instinctively that nostalgia for lost innocence was no solution. He had recognized this when he called up an adult faculty — concentration and willpower — to achieve his objective. But all this had done was to plunge him into the interior of the circus tent, where he was lost in darkness. . .

And what about the next part of the dream — the creatures with white hair and bulging eyes, who had lured him into a sense of security only in order to be able to eat him? And what of the woman with no eyes or nose?

He followed the same procedure as before: conjured up the mental image of the gray pavement with the ghostlike creatures with their long hair, then retreated into deeper relaxation. This, he could see, was the essence of the technique; the relaxation served to activate some refocusing faculty that made it all real. This time he could see that the dream-artist had not even bothered to create the houses in detail; they were simply sketched in, as a painter might sketch in a background he meant to finish later.

Niall even noticed something he had not noticed when dreaming the dream: that there was a high-pitched humming noise somewhere in the background.

The white ghosts began caressing him, stroking his bare flesh until the delicious, drowsy feeling began to spread over him. Just as he was relaxing into a trance of pleasure, there was a shout, and the woman in the brown garment came striding toward them. This time Niall paid attention to the white ghosts, and noticed how they brushed aside their long hair to uncover their mouths with their pointed teeth.

Again, the woman asked him if he could fly; again, Niall raised his hands above his head and rose up like an arrow, experiencing the marvelous sense of freedom. This feeling, he saw, was in a sense the most important thing about the dream. . .

As he opened his eyes, Niall realized that his companions had been following what had been happening with interest, as well as with admiration. For them, this human ability to use the power of reason seemed almost miraculous. Their admiration spurred Niall to think once again about the dream of the ghosts.

His grandfather Jomar had been very fond of dream interpretation, and loved telling stories of dreams that foretold the future. Jomar certainly would have said that the dream of the “ghost people,” who seemed so harmless until he realized they wanted to eat him, was intended as a warning. By appearing to be nervous and apprehensive they had lured him into trusting them. . .

And what of the woman with the long hair, who had no eyes or nose? Surely the answer must be that if she was sent to warn him of danger, then all she needed was a mouth?

Niall was startled by a curious rattling noise, like a shower of pebbles falling on a roof. He looked at the faces of his companions, and smiled with astonishment as he realized that the sound was inside his head, and that it was their equivalent of applause.