“No, they date back to olden times, before the spiders came.”
After talking for an hour, Niall became tired of the sound of his own voice, and so abridged the account of his trip to the Delta. But when he spoke of the empress plant, Gerek interrupted with amazement: “And you actually spoke to the goddess?” Niall nodded. “What was she like?”
Niall said, enjoying the sense of anticlimax: “A giant vegetable sticking out of a hilltop.”
But when it came to speaking of his conversation with the goddess, Niall experienced an odd reluctance to go into detail. An instinct checked him, and since he always obeyed such instincts, he confined himself to explaining that the empress plant had been brought to Earth by a comet from another galaxy; after that, he went on to describe his return to the city of the beetles.
By now, they were traveling by the side of a lake whose surface was almost entirely covered by a bright yellow weed, while on its far side was a vertical cliff, perhaps a thousand feet high. At the top of this was a blue-covered slope that stretched into the vapors of the sky. The ledges on the cliff face were full of birds.
Now extremely hungry, Niall abbreviated the next part of his tale even more. He said nothing of the fact that the Spider Lord proved to be a female, for he felt this should not be spoken about in front of the captain. Neither did he speak of the direct intervention of the goddess. Instead, he explained that he had told the spider council about his encounter with the goddess, and that this was why he had been elevated to the position of ruler of the spider city.
Gerek asked incredulously: “And they believed you?”
“Of course. They could read my mind.”
Gerek was silent. Niall obviously had given him much food for thought.
A few minutes later he brought the gelbs to a halt. “Do you feel hungry yet?”
“Very!”
The borders of the lake were covered with thick blue moss, which cushioned their feet. Gerek released the gelbs from the shafts, and they immediately began to eat this. More surprisingly, they also waded into the lake, and began to take mouthfuls of the yellow weed, which hung down from their faces like beards.
Gerek said: “This is called grilweed, and is regarded as a great delicacy. Try it.”
He kicked off his shoes, waded into the water, and took a handful of the weed, some of which was a quarter of an inch thick. Niall accepted it dubiously, but was agreeably surprised. Grilweed was crunchy and had a delicious flavor, like a slightly peppery form of sweet corn.
Gerek said: “The flavor disappears when it is transported to the city. It seems to be due to some peculiar electrical property of the cliff.”
It was true that the weed produced a light electrical sensation on the tongue.
Niall removed his sandals and walked into the water. He was immediately aware of a much stronger electrical current, and when he immersed his hands it became stronger than ever.
The captain tasted a fragment of the grilweed, but obviously did not find it to his taste.
Gerek said: “The lake is also well stocked with fish.”
The captain immediately showed more interest, and waded out into the water. But his legs soon became entangled in the grilweed, which formed a thick mat on the surface. Gerek went to the cart and opened a compartment under the seat; from this he took a blue device that seemed to consist mainly of a flat piece of metal about a foot square. It had a handle, not unlike that of a saw. Niall and the captain watched curiously as Gerek waded cautiously into the water, where the gelbs had cleared a space in the grilweed, and plunged the metal sheet down to arm’s length. He pressed a switch, and there was a humming sound.
“What does that do?”
“Attracts the fish.”
After about a minute, Gerek reached into the water with his other hand, and it came out with a plump fish, which he handed to the captain. It was a foot long and, like the fishes in the other lake, made only feeble attempts to escape. The captain waded ashore, turned his back for the sake of politeness, and ate hungrily.
Gerek meanwhile caught two more fishes, which he left to wriggle on the moss. He returned to the cart and took from the compartment a blue device that might have been a short rapier with a handguard dividing the handle from the blade. He pushed the blade down the throat of one of the fishes and pressed a button on the handle. There was a humming sound, and within a minute, the air was full of the appetizing smell of freshly cooked fish. From the cart Gerek took two plates and cutlery, then switched off the rapier, and slid the fish onto a plate. He handed this to Niall.
“Try it with the grilweed — they go well together.” He was right. The perfectly cooked fish was juicy, but needed something to give it flavor; the crunchy, peppery grilweed complemented it perfectly.
They ate their meal in a leisurely manner, stretched out on the thick moss. Niall twisted off a handful of this and tasted it; the consistency was like raw cauliflower. He washed it down with lake water, which was clear and sweet, and prickly on the tongue. After eating two large fishes, the captain fell asleep. Niall himself placed his head on a mossy stone and closed his eyes. The silence was broken only by the crackling of lightning, which frequently struck the cliff. The gelbs, having eaten their fill of the weed, stood there without stirring. Gerek also lay down with his head on a clump of moss.
Niall asked: “How old is the karvasid?”
Gerek yawned. “No one is quite sure. He came here about four hundred years ago.”
“How has he been able to live so long?”
“He says that anyone can live to any age they like. He told Typhon that prolonging old age is just like staying awake when you feel sleepy. You have to make sure that you stay interested in something. And then you get a kind of second wind.”
All this struck Niall as perfectly plausible. He asked: “Do the people of Shadowland believe in the goddess?”
“Oh no. At least, not in the superstitious sense.”
“What is the superstitious sense?”
“Well, believing that she’s a supernatural being.” He closed his eyes, then opened them suddenly. “Incidentally, the karvasid will be very interested to hear that the goddess is simply an intelligent vegetable from another planet.”
Niall had a feeling that Gerek had missed his point, but felt too pleasantly drowsy to bother to correct him. He asked: “What did the karvasid think she was?”
“Oh, just a silly superstition of the spiders.” He glanced across at the captain, but he was obviously sound asleep after his long morning’s walk.
The karvasid, Niall reflected, was obviously another total skeptic.
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall asleep; when he opened them again, Gerek was harnessing the gelbs.
The captain was taking advantage of the delay to eat another fish. But he was obviously not really hungry, and left it half finished.
As Niall took his seat, Gerek said: “We have only about a mile to drive, then we have to get out and walk.”
Beyond the point where the river flowed into the lake, the drive was uphill. Like the slope above the lake, the hillside was covered with a thick and particularly bright layer of the blue moss, obviously a major source of the city’s food supply. The gelbs plodded up the steep slope with no sign of strain — it was obvious they were built for strength and placidity rather than speed.
The river that ran alongside the track had become a cataract. Finally they reached a point where the cart obviously could go no farther. Here a level space had been cut into the hillside, only a few feet from the water that thundered past, filling the air with drops of spray. Horses would have been nervous, but the gelbs stood there as if they were deaf.
From the box under the seat, Gerek now produced two tubular objects, each six inches long, which Niall recognized as electric flashlights. He handed one to Niall and dropped the other into his own pocket.
Ahead of them lay a narrow and twisting path that became increasingly steep and slippery with spray from the stream that roared deafeningly past a few feet away. Birds were flying in and out of the spray, enjoying the shower bath. After climbing for half an hour, the sight of the drop below made the skin contract on Niall’s scalp.
By now, they were all soaked from head to foot. Then, to Niall’s relief, the path and the stream diverged. Looking up, he could see the point, fifty feet above them, where the water issued from the cliff. But their own path was becoming harder — so steep that steps had been cut into the rock face. Finally, to Niall’s relief, they encountered a metal rail that had been set into the cliff, and Niall clung to it until his knuckles became white.