“You may be wrong. Speaking to your mother when she is not present is already a way of making the spirit walk.”
“Yes, I suppose it is. . .” But he was not convinced.
When Leda joined them, she refused the mead that Simeon offered her, and poured herself water. She seemed to read the question in Niall’s mind.
“Your brother is asleep, and your mother is watching beside him.”
“Good.” He asked something else that had been puzzling him. “Why do you think that room was built around the two trees?”
“Probably to heal the sick. It would also be good for horses kept in the stable.”
Simeon said: “He wants to know about making the spirit walk.”
She asked Niall: “You want to learn how to do it?”
Niall was about to disclaim the idea; but something in the gaze of her calm gray eyes made him change his mind.
“Yes.”
She took his hands, turned the palms upward, and stared at them.
“You should be able to. You have a strong line of imagination.”
“Imagination?”
“It depends on the visual imagination.”
He found this baffling, so said nothing.
“Where do you want to send your spirit?”
“I’ll show you.” He stood up and led her into the next room, with the balcony that overlooked the square. He pointed to the balcony. “There.”
“You want to be seen there?” She had a pleasingly quick intelligence. Niall was glad that he did not have to explain his motives at length.
“Yes. But what do I have to do?”
She said: “Let me explain how it first happened to me. I was away from home, attending to my sister, who was sick. I had left my father alone, and after a few weeks I became very homesick. And one night, I was sitting in my room, wondering what they were doing, and I began to think about the room at home, and suddenly I felt that I could actually see it, with children sitting around the table, and my father carrying a dish of yams. Then he looked straight at me, and looked startled. . .”
Simeon laughed. “I almost dropped the yams.”
Leda said: “Then I was back in my sister’s home. But I knew something had happened. And when I got back home, my father and the children all said they had seen me. Then I knew I could do it.”
Niall asked Simeon: “You could see her clearly?”
“As clear as I can see her now. I thought she had come home. Then she disappeared.”
Niall asked: “Can anyone do it?”
“If they really want to.”
“But how?” Although Niall believed her, he doubted his own ability to learn it.
She said: “Close your eyes.” He did as she asked. “Now try to imagine this room you are sitting in. You know it well. Can you tell me the color of the walls? Keep your eyes closed.”
Niall said hesitantly: “A kind of yellow?”
“Open your eyes and look at them.” Niall saw immediately that they were blue. “Close your eyes again. There is a table with a plant pot. Point to it.” Niall pointed across the room. “Now open your eyes.” Niall saw that his pointing finger was missing the table by six feet.
Leda said: “How can you visualize the room if you can’t remember it? If you want to make the spirit walk, you must look at it until you can remember every detail.”
“That is difficult when I am tired. . .” But as he spoke, he was struck by a sudden thought. “But I think I may have the answer.”
He went into his bedroom and opened a drawer. Hidden underneath his clothes there was a gold-colored disk, nearly circular in shape, on a fine metal chain. He showed it to Leda on the palm of his hand.
“This is the thought mirror. I was given it in the white tower.”
She made no attempt to touch it.
“What does it do?”
“It focuses the mind. The first time I used it, I memorized a map in a few minutes.”
He placed it around his neck, inside the open neck of his tunic, so it was just above the solar plexus. The convex side rested against his flesh.
He said: “Now I will use it to memorize the room.” He reached into his tunic and turned it over.
He had forgotten how painful it could be when the mind was tired. His heart seemed to contract, and began to beat faster, as if he had been suddenly plunged into cold water.
“Does it hurt?”
He nodded. “A little.”
After a few moments he adjusted to the sensation. Everything in the room looked more sharp and clear. The lamplight seemed to be reflected off more surfaces than before, although he was aware that it was simply his senses that had intensified.
He looked carefully around the room, registering everything in it. It was unnecessary to make an effort. This was far easier than memorizing the map of the city; he had merely to memorize a few objects and their relation to one another. It took only a few seconds. He said: “I have done it. What now?”
“Now go to another room, and try to visualize this room. Turn off the light if it makes it easier.”
But in his bedroom it was unnecessary to turn off the light. As soon as he closed his eyes, and conjured up the other room, it was as if he was there. Every detail was present in his mind. Yet he was aware that he was still in his bedroom, simply visualizing the room he just left. It was oddly frustrating. He was aware he was doing something wrong.
Then he recalled the previous occasion when this had happened, in the white tower. The old man had told him to close his eyes. And a moment later, he had found himself in a room in Kazak’s palace. The old man had somehow transported him there.
Yet the old man was merely a computer simulation. Therefore it followed that Niall had somehow transported himself. The power lay in his own mind.
As soon as he recognized this, it happened. Suddenly he was standing in the room with Simeon and Leda, close enough to touch them. He could actually feel the night breeze blowing from the balcony. His body seemed normal and solid, and he felt that if he wanted to, he could pull back the curtains that led to the balcony, or open the doors.
Leda and Simeon were talking, and had not yet seen him. Leda was the first to realize he was in the room. She stared at him quizzically for a moment, then reached out to touch him. Her hand went through his arm. She said: “You did it.”
Niall smiled and nodded, but decided not to try to speak. Last time he had done that, he had found himself back in his body. Even now, he could feel an odd sensation, as if his body was trying to tug him back. He was about to give way to this when Leda said: “Wait.” She obviously was aware of what he was feeling. She walked past him, and pulled back the half-open curtains of the balcony. Beyond them, the doors were open.
She said: “Since you are not in your body, you are not bound by gravity. Why don’t you walk in the air?”
Although she was speaking the words, it seemed to Niall that she was conveying them directly into his mind, as the spiders did. He knew immediately that what she said was possible. Without hesitation he stepped onto the balustrade of the balcony, then took another step forward. Instead of falling, he found himself standing in the air, looking down at the pavement below. Then he allowed himself to obey the tug of his body. A moment later, he was sitting on his bed.
He reached inside his shirt and turned the thought mirror the other way; the relief was immediate. Then he went out of his bedroom and into the other room. All his tiredness had vanished.
Niall took Leda’s hand: “Thank you.”
She smiled. “You see, all human beings can make the soul walk.”
Simeon grunted. “I’d rather keep mine in my body.”
Leda said: “If you intend to set out tomorrow, you should rest now.”
Niall shook his head. “Not tomorrow. I must leave immediately. In two hours it will be dawn, and I must leave without being seen.”
She said: “But you’ll be seen anyway when the Sun comes up.”
Niall shook his head. “Not the way I’m going.”
The last time Niall had been in this underground tunnel, he had been accompanied by Asmak, the director of the aerial survey, and the spider had assisted him by transmitting telepathically its own intimate knowledge of the passages. And because spider memory is virtually photographic, the tunnel had appeared to be bathed in a kind of soft luminescence that had enabled Niall to “see” the rock walls, and the irregular stone of the floor beneath his feet. Now his only lighting was a small but powerful flashlight that had been found in a crate of hospital equipment dating from the last age of human rule. The beam, which looked like a bar of white metal, was adjustable, and the atomic storage cells were virtually inexhaustible; yet it seemed inadequate for these caverns of cold blackness.