It was apparent that this window also had the power to make him see into the past. What could it divulge? Niall focused his attention until he felt the sensation like a click in his brain. Suddenly, the valley below was full of men and spiders, and the wall was incomplete. The workers were all stripped to the waist, except those whose task was to transport great stones; viewed from a thousand feet above, they looked like ants. The workers were commanded by wolf spiders, and Niall was interested to note that they were smaller than the spiders of today, yet obviously tremendously strong, for one of them was carrying a great stone block.
Niall observed that the cave dwellings carved out of the opposite cliff face looked much as they did at present. Curious about those who made them, he made a focused mental effort. The Great Wall disappeared, and the gray-blue rock dwellings became sharper and clearer. Instead of empty doorways, they now had wooden doors, and strongly built ladders were propped against the cliff face. He could also see a few people moving around down below or climbing the ladders, although they were too distant to see clearly. Once more, an effort of focus had the effect of magnifying them, as if through a pair of binoculars, and he was able to see that they were a primitive people dressed in coarse brown garments. The men had rounded yet powerful shoulders and shaven bald heads — he knew they were shaven, for many had beards — and the women were thin, although some had large breasts. The man he Was looking at — bald-headed and clean-shaven — reminded him of someone, but Niall had to look more closely before he recalled who it was.
The beaky nose and receding chin were those of the assassin who had killed himself when a glue spider had immobilized him. Other men had this same characteristic face — the face of a servant of the Magician.
But in that case, why were these cliff dwellings now deserted? Was it possible that these original men of the valley, who had built their homes as fortresses, almost certainly drawing up their ladders after nightfall, had been conquered and carried off as captives by the Magician?
Niall’s brain was becoming weary with speculation. He dismissed this vision of the past by thrusting his head out of the window and reestablishing the present moment. It was time to leave. For the moment, he had learned as much as he could take in. The next stage of the journey required returning the way he had come.
He put his head out of the window and studied the wall. There were doors at the base of each guard tower, so he could reach the top. But how could they get down the far side?
It was then that Niall remembered something he had absorbed from the mind of Sephardus. This tower had a bell rope, and it descended past the window from which he was now leaning. In fact, it was still there, but was so worn and shabby that it looked as if it was not strong enough to bear Niall’s weight. Niall took hold of it and gave it as strong pull, hoping to snap it where it joined the bell. Instead there was a loud clang that rang out across the valley, causing alarmed birds to squawk.
Niall retreated into the room and pulled as hard as he could. The only effect was another clang that echoed off the cliffs.
Suddenly he dropped the rope, and almost tumbled backwards on the floor. There was a noise like a frog’s croak magnified many times, and something huge swept past the window. He knew instantly what it was — one of the creatures called oolus birds, for the head was saurian, like a turtle. He retreated across the room as the creature flew with a crash against the window frame; fortunately, its wingspan was too great for it to get in.
Niall looked around for something he could use as a weapon, but could see nothing. Now he regretted leaving his pack, with the expanding rod, down below. On its next attack, the creature succeeded in getting its head into the room, and it glared at Niall with small, red eyes before it fell away. A moment later, a crash from the opposite window revealed that there was more than one of them. Niall looked down with sudden alarm at the doorway below, and was relieved to see that it was scarcely bigger than the windows, and would certainly not admit a creature with a twelve-foot wingspan.
A moment later his certainty vanished as one of the birds gripped the windowsill and made an effort to perch. Its feet looked oddly like human hands, flesh-colored and hairy; they easily spanned the window ledge. Niall made a rush at it, realizing that if it succeeded in perching and folding its wings it might squeeze through the window opening; but his rush made it flap its huge wings against the wall, then let go.
The other bird also tried the door, but again, lacked the intelligence to try perching with closed wings. It clung there, flapping, and again Niall regretted not having the expanding rod, since the bird’s breast would have made a perfect target.
They continued trying to gain an entrance for perhaps ten more minutes, thrusting their heads in at the windows and beating their wings against the walls, before they tired and flew away; as the squawking croak retreated, Niall climbed the steps and watched them soar down over the valley.
His next thought was to get down the pinnacle as quickly as possible, in case they decided to return. He was concerned at the possibility that their withdrawal was designed to tempt him out, but he was reassured by the thought of their stupidity.
As he climbed down from the chamber, he noted that he was no longer worried about the height — only about his vulnerability in case the birds came back; he descended the steps to his pack as confidently as clambering down a ladder, spurred on by the memory of the crushed animal with the broken bones that he had seen that morning. At the bottom he decided to put his sandals in his pack; bare feet would give him a better purchase on the rock. Then he hurried on down the sloping path, relieved to arrive at the first platform, where the second chamber would afford shelter in case of attack. But the sky remained empty, and he felt free to slacken his pace for the remainder of the descent.
The captain was waiting patiently in the shade of a bush, as Niall had known he would be. He asked: “Did you see the birds?”
Niall said dryly: “At close quarters.” He sat down on the stone ledge, mopping the sweat from his face, then took the water bottle out of his pack and moistened his dry lips and throat. “Have you ever been attacked by them?”
“No. They have learned that spiders are dangerous. But sometimes we make use of them.”
“Make use of them? How?”
“Because they are so powerful, they can be used to transport us.”
Niall was baffled. “How?”
“They can carry very heavy burdens.” He explained himself in a single flash of imagery, most of which went past too quickly for Niall to understand. But he grasped a picture of an oolus bird carrying a net that contained a number of sheep.
The thought that passed through his mind seemed so absurd that, if they had been speaking in human language, he would not have bothered to voice it. But because their minds were in communication, the spider picked it up immediately.
“That is possible, if they could be brought back.”
“Could you bring them back?”
“No. They are too far away. And they are afraid of us.”
Niall said: “They didn’t seem afraid of me.”
“No. They are afraid of the spider people.”
As the captain said this, Niall suddenly grasped the idea that had occurred to him: that if the bell was rung again, the birds would almost certainly return.
He looked up at the bell tower against the blue sky. But the thought of climbing the pinnacle again made his heart sink.
Then he remembered the way that the bell had echoed out across the valley. He climbed to the point on the cliff top that overlooked the valley. He cupped his hands to his mouth, leaned back his head, and shouted as loud as he could. As the shout died away, it echoed back from the opposite cliffs, then continued down the valley. The two opposing cliff faces made an ideal echo chamber.
But there was no sign of the birds. He shouted again, this time even louder, and then a third time. Echoes coincided with his shouts, making the valley ring.