Shadowland. Spider World 06 by Colin Wilson

His wet clothes felt cold again, and he widened the flashlight beam and walked on. He calculated that there must still be about a mile to go.

For about half that distance he was walking on a smooth red rock like sandstone, and able to make good speed. The water had carved it into impressive shapes that towered above his head, and made the cave look like a kind of cathedral, with columns that resembled red stalagmites. But as the narrowed beam of his flashlight probed the ceiling and walls, he saw something ahead that made his heart sink. The tunnel narrowed once more into a canyon, and the sandstone walls suddenly came together to form a bottleneck.

Niall walked on for another hundred yards, hoping to find some alternative route. A hollow that looked like the entrance to a tunnel seemed to offer some hope, and he scrambled down the slope toward it; but when he stood in front of the entrance, the beam showed that it was only a deep cave that came to an end in a wall of rock debris.

With a heavy heart, he climbed slowly back to the top, and walked along the bank to the point where the walls narrowed. The river flowed six feet below where he stood, into a cleft in the rock that was about twenty feet wide. There was no way to proceed any farther except by swimming.

He sat on a rock and stared gloomily across the river. He felt so tired that he thought of lying down and sleeping. But that would feel like acceptance of defeat. If he was going to return, he had a long way to go. And every wasted day could be a day off his brother’s life. He found that idea so depressing that he decided, after all, to make use of the thought mirror.

As soon as he turned it inward, his spirits lifted. And the new concentration made him see the situation objectively. Six months ago, he had been little more than a child, living in an underground burrow in the desert, and surrounded by a family. Suddenly, he had been hurled into adulthood. As the ruler of the spider city, he was alone, with no one to turn to except a few trusted advisers like Simeon. He had, he now realized, been happier in Kazak’s underground city of Dira, where at least he was surrounded by young people of his own age. And now he was setting out on a journey that might end in his death. If he failed to return, would the spiders honor their agreement to treat human beings as equals? He had no doubt they intended to behave honorably. But how could they treat humans as equals when they obviously were inferiors? They regarded Niall as their ruler because he was the chosen of the goddess. But what would happen if the chosen of the goddess simply disappeared?

Yet although these thoughts were gloomy in themselves, the thought mirror made him aware that they were, in a sense, illusions. Human beings allowed their thoughts to color their lives and plunge them into self-doubt. But he was not taken in by his negative thoughts. A curious optimism burned inside him that told him that surrender to his emotions would be absurd. What he had to do now was to dismiss his sense of disappointment and self-pity, and force himself once more into action.

He stood up and shone the light around the walls of the cave, to see whether there was any way out that he had overlooked. And when it was clear that there was not, he shrugged his shoulders and began to walk back the way he had come.

As he did so, he tried an interesting mental maneuver. The thought mirror had instantly increased his optimism by kindling a glow of inner power. Now he concentrated on that glow, and carefully and deliberately turned the thought mirror the other way.

It was like plunging into a cold darkness. Yet he refused to accept the darkness. The thought mirror had made him aware that things were not as hopeless as they seemed. He had to recognize that his sense of disappointment and defeat was an illusion. And little by little, with a mental effort of concentration, he forced himself into a sense of purpose and inner warmth.

He was not entirely successful; but even his limited success was an important advance. He was making a conscious effort to outgrow the Niall who wished he was back among the teenagers of Dira. What was so important was that he was learning to trust his conscious mind, rather than his thoughts or feelings.

As the roar of the waterfall increased, and he even felt a few drops of cold spray from the rapids, he remembered the ledge that ran to the other side. Then another thought struck him. The boats he had seen must have been brought somehow to this place. But how? It was impossible for them to have come downriver — they would have been smashed to pieces by the waterfall. But they could not have come upriver either, for surely the current was too strong to row against. So there must be some other means of reaching the outside world — tunnels that led away from the river.

Cheered by this notion, he lengthened his stride, and in another quarter of an hour had reached the waterfall.

Now he was struck by the thought that it might be safer to remove his cloak. If he lost his footing and fell into the river, a wet cloak would only impede him. He unfastened the chain that held it round his neck, folded it, and stowed it in the bottom of his pack.

The ledge behind the curtain of water was about four feet above the rapids. It was three feet wide, and its wet surface was reasonably flat. He clambered onto a large rock fragment, glad to find that it was quite solid, and stepped across a small gap onto the ledge. To his relief it was not slippery. Surprisingly, it was quieter there, since the falling water insulated him from the sound.

He stood there taking his bearings. His flashlight showed a crack about an inch wide at the rear of the ledge, and he suddenly realized why it had not been shown on the map. Periodically, this rock face would crumble and disappear into the torrent, causing the waterfall to retreat slowly upriver. When the map had been made, this ledge did not exist, and within another fifty years or so, it would also be carried away downstream. The thought made him peer down the crack to assure himself that it was not about to widen.

He again took his pack in his right hand, so that he could place his back tight against the wall, and then edged sideways across the ledge. The water roared past within a few feet of his face. But he reached the other side without incident. There he found that the distance between the ledge and the ground was greater than on the far side. He threw his pack down first, then sat on the ledge and launched himself, steadying his fall with one hand. As he landed on all fours and fell flat on the ground, the rough limestone skinned his knee.

He stood up and moved on quickly; the spray from the waterfall was soaking his hair and clothes. The surface underfoot was reasonably smooth, and it was not long before the sound of the waterfall had diminished behind him.

As he walked, he played the flashlight beam on the rock wall to his right, hoping to see another tunnel that would take him away from the river. But although there were hollows in the rock and even a cave that stretched for ten yards, there was no sign of another exit from the main tunnel.

The waterfall was almost inaudible when the beam of light picked out the upturned boat. This sign of civilization raised his spirits. But when he was a dozen feet away, he could see a six-inch hole that had been torn close to the prow. The boat apparently had driven against a rock at full speed. It was made of a smooth, gray substance that showed no sign of age. But when Niall lifted the bottom of the boat and looked inside, he saw that a piece of rope had almost disintegrated.

He went onto the second boat. This was smaller, but again, there was a six-inch hole in its bottom.

He shone the flashlight on the other boats, which were a dozen yards away. Two of them also had holes in them. But a third was intact, and the reason was evident. A rock, split in two, lay close by. Someone had deliberately set out to destroy the boats by smashing holes in them with the rock. Then the rock itself had broken, and they had decided to give up the attempt.