Shadowland. Spider World 06 by Colin Wilson

While they had been speaking, the woman had laid the table. The smallest child was seated on a high chair, while the elder only needed a cushion to raise him to a comfortable level. Seating Niall was obviously going to be a problem, since the tabletop was as high as he was. This was solved with the aid of another high chair, even taller than the younger troll’s, and Niall, feeling rather precarious, sat with his feet dangling more than a yard above the ground.

Niall wondered how he could convey tactfully that spiders prefer to eat alone, but the captain saved him the trouble by explaining that, since he was unaccustomed to chairs, he would prefer to eat in the kitchen. The troll handed him the joint of red beef, and the captain disappeared, closing the kitchen door behind him. Soon distant crunching noises indicated that he was enjoying his dinner.

The food was simple, consisting of the steaming ham joint, large enough to feed a dozen guests, a loaf of bread, a pale yellow vegetable that looked like cauliflower, and a dish of cheese. There were also cups of the sparkling water.

The troll sliced the joint, removing the globe, which he laid on the plate, and gave Niall a slab of ham more than half an inch thick. Niall was interested to note that this was fully cooked, although the crystal globe had been placed inside it less than a quarter of an hour ago. But he had become accustomed to wonders in this strange world. The ham was eaten with a green substance called apsa, which Niall assumed to be a kind of mustard, but which had an astringent flavor that he had never tasted before, and was full of a crunchy seed; Niall found it much superior to mustard. The green cauliflower, called titri, was also completely unlike cauliflower — indeed, unlike any vegetable he had ever tasted.

Niall concentrated his full attention on eating, both because he was hungry and because he had some difficulty handling his huge knife and fork. The knife was the size of a carving knife, and the fork had only two prongs, spaced wide apart. He almost lost a slice of ham when the woman noticed his predicament, and found him a much smaller knife and fork, obviously intended for children. The young trolls found this funny and roared with laughter. Niall felt pleased that he was making them laugh.

The sparkling water soon had him feeling drunk, and he was astonished to see the children draining their cups and asking for more. But instead of making them noisier, as Niall expected, it made them drowsy, and within ten minutes, both were yawning and rubbing their eyes. Their mother took the small one and let him sleep in her arms.

The food and drink filled Niall with euphoria, and made him feel that the trolls were the most delightful family he had ever met. The mother seemed to radiate love for them as the great crystal in the hearth radiated heat. And when she spoke to Niall to offer him more titri or apsa, he felt himself showered with a feminine warmth that reminded him of Merlew, Odina, his mother, and every other woman who had given him affection. The sight of her holding her child against her breast made him wish that he was in that fortunate position.

The male troll also aroused in him feelings of warmth and even affection. With his good-tempered red face and his gap-toothed smile, he exuded good nature and strength — the same unfathomable Earth-power that Niall had observed in the troll of the sacred mountain. He struck Niall as the ideal father, and Niall could now understand why the children were allowed to make as much racket as a whole playground full of children in the beetle city. The immense vitality of the parents was impervious to the pandemonium.

The grandfather troll emanated a different kind of strength. When he moved across the room from his chair, Niall had observed that he walked with a limp, and that the right side of his face was stiff, as if he had suffered a stroke. And his son had told Niall with a kind of pride: “My father was struck by lightning.” It seemed an odd kind of information to impart, until Niall recalled that he had learned from the chameleon men that a troll who has been struck by lightning is regarded as a kind of god. This obviously accounted for his air of latent power.

Niall was anxious to raise the subject of the Magician, but felt that it might be presumptuous to question a person of such commanding presence. Moreover, the old man devoted himself to his food with a single-minded attention that discouraged conversation. But when the meal was over, and the children had become silent from overeating, he pushed back his chair and said in his troll language: “So you have met Hubrax?” The mental image showed that he was referring to the troll of the sacred mountain.

Niall said: “He led us to the sacred lake.” His own accompanying mental image showed he was speaking of himself and the chameleon men.

The grandfather had produced a curved pipe, into which he tamped a rich brown substance. He lit it by inserting a short crystal rod, whose end glowed red as the old man furrowed his brow and stared at it. He blew out a cloud of smoke whose smell was far more fragrant than that of the tobacco smoked by the beetle servants. He said: “Hubrax liked you.”

Niall asked: “Have you seen him?”

“Not recently, but we speak occasionally.”

Niall did not like to ask him by what means they communicated over such a distance. But the old man read his mind.

“We use a resonating crystal.”

The captain had meanwhile returned to the room, and stood quietly by the hearth, obviously enjoying the heat. To Niall’s surprise, he accepted a glass of the sparkling water that was offered by his hostess; holding the cup in his chelicera, which was as flexible as a hand, he looked oddly human. Niall sensed that the spider wanted to behave like a human being, and that it gave him pleasure to feel that, rejected by his own kind, he was now accepted on equal terms by humans — for he regarded the trolls as yet another species of human being.

The old man included the captain in his conversation. He continued to speak in troll language, which he obviously found more comfortable, but accompanied with telepathic suggestion whose skill reminded Niall of Dravig.

“Shadowland is a dangerous place.”

The spider said dryly: “So I have been told.”

“And the karvasid has a particular hatred of spiders.”

“Do you know why?”

“Yes, I know why.” The old man settled himself comfortably with his pipe, and his daughter-in-law refilled his cup. The children, anticipating a story, leaned forward with their elbows on the table.

“After the exploding star fell from the sky” — he obviously meant the comet Opik — “the land was covered with snow and ice. But it also brought the great goddess. Before her coming, the trolls were a dying race” — his word for trolls was “patara” — “but she gave us new life. We became even bigger and stronger.”

He turned to the captain. “As you know, your species also became bigger and stronger.” They sensed the spider’s puzzlement, and Niall realized that the captain knew nothing of the history of his own kind. “The spiders began to grow, although at first they were less than half the size of Gryllus there” — he gestured at the doglike creature now gnawing the hambone. “But humans, especially women, were afraid of the spiders, although their poison was not dangerous. And then a human warlord called Ivar the Brutal conquered this land. He hated spiders, and drove them to take refuge in the mountains.

“The warlord extended his conquests to the north. He had many wives, but his chief wife was a woman called Huni. And when he heard that a whole valley was full of spiders, she begged her husband to kill them all.”

It was the first time that Niall had heard that a woman had instigated the war against the spiders, but now that he knew, he saw that it made sense. His Aunt Ingeld had hated spiders, and if she found one in the desert cave where they lived in North Khaybad, screamed until her husband killed it.

“So the spiders were driven out of their caves with fire and smoke, and thousands were massacred.”

Niall knew this part of the story, for he had heard it direct from the mouth of the Mighty Cheb. Nevertheless, so compelling was the troll’s narrative power that Niall remained fascinated by every word.

“Yet this was the beginning of the victory of the spiders. As their intelligence increased, so did their desperation and hatred. They began to dream of revenge. Because they had always understood that the world of matter can be influenced by the will, they began to develop the will as their only defense against human aggression. To begin with, they learned how to hunt their prey with their minds. When the spiders were starving in the mountain valleys, certain hunting spiders learned how to paralyze birds as they flew in the air. The greatest hunter was called Cheb, and he became their leader.