He began to follow the track — which he guessed to be some old trade route — with a new sense of purpose and direction, enjoying the impressive view. But this began to evaporate as he realized that the problem of being able to see so far was that his progress seemed infinitesimal. He seemed to be able to see himself from the air, moving like an ant through this vast landscape. Soon he felt so impatient that he was almost tempted to break into a jogtrot, although fully aware that this would only exhaust him.
Then he had a better idea. He turned the thought mirror on his chest, and felt a surge of power and energy that made him lengthen his stride. His newly focused attention noted the scent of the heather, the feeling of the wind on his bare chest, and the cries of birds, in a wave of pure perception — perception without any taint of thought or emotion.
He was aware of the disadvantages of the thought mirror — that after half an hour or so, it produced a feeling of strain behind the eyes, and then headache. But the sense of freshness and energy seemed worth it. Besides, he noticed that the thought mirror brought a pleasing sensation of control, and reasoned that if he deliberately kept on extending the time he used it, he would become accustomed to longer periods, and gradually cease to find it so tiring.
The sky had clouded over, and a soft rain began to fall. This normally would have weighed upon Niall’s spirits. But the effect of the thought mirror was to make him aware that allowing himself to become mildly depressed would have been a purely automatic reaction. He could see that it was entirely his own choice whether to feel depressed or not — that it was as simple as placing a weight on a scale and watching the scale pan sink.
As this thought came into his head, he was struck by a sudden astonishing insight: the recognition that he was free. He also realized that this was the first time in his life he had grasped it.
He paused to digest this remarkable insight. He could see clearly that, from childhood on, he had accepted that his choices were limited by physical needs like hunger, thirst, and tiredness. Above all, he had allowed these needs to weigh upon his spirits. They were like invisible masters who stood behind the present moment, issuing orders. Now he could see that obeying these orders was a matter of his own choice. He could deliberately resist them, or even ignore them.
This was an amazing moment, and he was aware of it as a moment of great change. He had seen and recognized a fundamental truth about human life, and nothing would ever be the same. It was as clear and distinct as leaving childhood behind and emerging into puberty.
As if to underline his insight, the rain stopped and the sun was reflected on the wet heather. Niall concentrated his attention, screwing up the muscles of his face and clenching his teeth. The sense of joyous energy made him want to laugh. He held it like this for perhaps half a minute, feeling that he could see as clearly and sharply as the raven. The problems and dangers ahead became unimportant, since he could see that all that mattered was refusing to be defeated by them.
In this sudden state of absurd optimism, it seemed to him that he could see the answer to any question he chose to think about; it was as if he had stumbled on a point of view from which any problem could be solved. And he recognized that a basic part of this feeling was his own natural and inherent optimism. Ever since he was a child, he had somehow taken it for granted that his future would be exciting because he had some important role to fulfill. Even when he had found his father’s body in the desert burrow where he had spent most of his life, this basic optimism still remained underneath the sorrow and bewilderment. It was untouched even when he was captured by the spiders and transported to their city as a slave.
And his optimism had proved well founded: his rescue of a spider that had been washed overboard during a storm at sea had established him in a position of privilege, and he had become an ally of King Kazak, who obviously regarded him as his potential son-in-law and successor. It was not until he had realized that remaining in Kazak’s palace would involve betraying his fellow human beings that he had decided to risk his life by trying to escape from the spider city.
His deepest and most powerful desire had been to destroy the spiders and free the inhabitants of the spider city. But this had proved unnecessary when his encounter with the empress plant, the goddess of the Delta, had enabled him to free the inhabitants of the spider city without the necessity of making war on the spiders. And now that he had friends among the spiders, like Dravig and Asmak and Asmak’s son Grel, he was deeply relieved that war had proved unnecessary.
And so, he reflected, he had powerful reasons for optimism, and did not intend to relinquish that considerable advantage. His decision to set out for the unknown stronghold of the Magician had seemed an act of madness, since he had no idea of where to find it, or what he would do when he found it. Yet, just as when he set out from his home in the desert for the city of the Death Lord, he knew that he had no alternative than to rely on an intuition that safety lay in going forward. The only certain disaster lay in allowing himself to be undermined by doubt.
These were Niall’s thoughts as he strode along the old trackway. He had been following it for more than an hour, and calculated that he had covered at least seven miles, when the scenery changed. The terrain due west remained flat, but the track to the northwest was climbing into foothills with outcrops of rock. Then a turn in the road brought a dramatic change as the track wound and twisted through a river valley whose walls of red sandstone had been weathered into columns.
Halfway along the valley, an immense red rock jutted into the sky, marking the point where the road made a forty-five-degree bend. As if to welcome him, the raven was standing on top of it. A dozen feet below road level, at the bottom of a rock-covered slope, ran the river that had carved out this valley. At this late stage in its descent to the plain, it was wide and not too deep — in fact, its edges were relatively shallow, and the sunlit ripples made the water look invitingly cool.
Niall paused to take in the scenery, then stood looking up at the raven. Why was it following him? Was it simply hoping for more food? He once again applied the technique of “looking sideways,” and instantly found himself behind its eyes. The raven turned its head sharply, as if aware that something was happening. It was then that Niall understood why it was following him. Its consciousness was far weaker than his own, and so Niall’s mind — even at second hand — added a certain intensity to its existence. It was akin to the feeling of “strangeness” that Niall was now experiencing inside a bird’s body, with folded wings where his arms should be and powerful claws that could carry a lamb.
Since his own feet at the moment were black with dust, he climbed down to the river and seated himself among the roots of a large willow tree that overhung the water, then slipped off his pack and his sandals, and turned the thought mirror the other way. He was glad to note that he had still not experienced the usual headache caused by wearing it for more than half an hour. That meant that he was becoming accustomed to it. Certainly, he felt at the moment as fresh and full of energy as when he had begun to use it an hour earlier.
The effect of turning its curved side away from his chest was to induce relaxation. He yawned, sighed with relief, and dipped both feet into the water. But it was colder than he had expected, and he had to plunge his feet in and out several times before they became accustomed to the temperature, and he could ease himself into the water and stand with it up to his thighs without discomfort.
After so much walking, it felt delightful to stand there and look at the clouds and the branches reflected in the slow-flowing water. The desert dweller in him never ceased to feel astonished that the Earth was so prodigal with its rivers and streams. He noticed that the steep sides of the red rock looked even more dangerous when seen upside down.
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