Shadowland. Spider World 06 by Colin Wilson

He was puzzled. She had read his mind, apparently without effort. Yet the image of being bathed by Jarita and Nephtys had merely flashed through his brain as an idle reflection. It astonished him that she had picked it up.

Twice that day, Niall had felt someone trying to probe his mind. He had assumed it was the hunchbacked jailer. But could it have been Umaya?

He dismissed the idea immediately. Even the slightest contact with her made it clear that she was as sincere and guileless as Veig. So whoever was trying to read his thoughts, it was not Umaya.

All the same, it was strange that she had read his mind so easily.

After the food and drink, he was already feeling sufficiently recovered to try again contacting the crystal. This time it was easier. He envisaged the younger of the two children, conjuring up the red hair and red cheeks and the gap between his teeth, and immediately became aware of him; the child was sitting in front of the fire, playing with a dragon carved out of wood.

Niall then divided his awareness, established contact with the crystal, and immediately found himself standing beside it in the cave. The grandfather troll was only a few yards away, towering four feet above Niall. He was polishing a rose-colored crystal with a cloth, and was clearly unaware of Niall’s presence.

The odd thing was that the troll and the cave seemed transparent, as if made of a watery fluid. Looking down, Niall seemed to himself perfectly normal and solid. He reached out and touched the troll; his hand went through his hip. Niall reached up and waved his hand in front of his eyes; the old man did not even blink.

The troll stopped polishing, and placed the crystal in the hollow at the top of the pallen, where it instantly began to glow with a rosy light. Niall was surprised that he could not only feel its warmth, but could experience a rippling sense of vitality emanating from it. This felt so pleasant that he moved closer to absorb a little of the energy.

At that moment he noticed that his own crystal globe was lying on the floor, swathed in a black velvet cloth. Even through the cloth he could sense its energy. As soon as he bent over it, he automatically tuned in to this energy, and felt it responding.

The old man sensed that something was happening, and looked over his shoulder. His eyes widened as he saw the globe disentangling itself from its cloth and then rising into the air. He reached out to the chair to steady himself, then sat down with a bump.

Niall, totally focused on the crystal, was not even aware of the shock he had produced. What delighted him was that the crystal was responding to him exactly as if he was present in his physical body.

At that moment, the grandfather said something in the guttural troll language, and Niall looked at him, and suddenly grasped the effect of what he had done. At the same time, the old man understood what had happened. Speaking telepathically, he asked: “Where are you?”

“Here.” Niall found it hard to believe that the old man was unable to see him, since his body seemed quite solid.

The troll reached out and removed the rose-colored crystal from the pallen, and its light went out like a snuffed candle. Niall reached up and replaced it with the crystal globe, whose dazzling white light instantly filled the cave with its blinding glare, causing the troll to shield his eyes. As this happened, Niall’s surroundings lost their transparent appearance and became visibly more solid, although still several degrees less so than Niall himself. At the same moment, Niall realized he had become visible to the old man.

The troll peered down at him, scratching his nose.

“Where are you now?”

“In prison in Shadowland.”

The old man muttered: “I thought that might happen. What excuse did he use?”

“I refused to kiss his hand.”

“Good.” He smiled grimly. “But you’d better return to your prison. You are in great danger here.”

Niall asked in astonishment: “Why?” Nothing seemed further from the truth.

“Because if he knows you have the crystal, he will stop at nothing until he has it. He’ll torture you until you tell him where it is.”

This was an unnerving thought. For, as Niall instantly realized, if the Magician knew where it was, the trolls would also be in danger.

The troll seemed to understand that the warning had produced a greater effect than he intended, for he added: “But don’t be afraid. That is the worst thing you can do. So long as you hold on to your courage, he can’t harm you. Now listen. For the next week I will leave your globe on the pallen, in case you need to use it.”

“Thank you.”

“Now you’d better be gone.”

Niall transferred his attention from the light and back to his body, and immediately found himself in his own cell, lying on his back and again aware of his throbbing bruises. It seemed a poor exchange for the crystal cave.

The troll was right, of course. If someone now probed his mind, his increased vitality would immediately give him away. The thought of the Magician’s learning about the crystal globe made his stomach turn a somersault and his cheeks flush. Then the reflection that his journey to Shadowland had been a failure, and that he had condemned his brother to death, made it worse, causing an abrupt plunge into gloom. He sat down on the bed, and felt his energies leaking away, bringing a sense of total vulnerability. In his sudden despair, he even found himself wishing that he had kissed the Magician’s hand. What difference would it have made? Instead, absurd pride had led him into this dangerous and hopeless situation. . .

Was it, he wondered, too late to send the Magician an apology? But the very thought revolted him. The Magician was like an evil child, totally spoiled by power. The thought of kneeling in front of him made Niall feel physically sick.

For the next half hour, he felt as if he was trying to extricate himself from a swamp of black mud, and as if every attempt only caused him to plunge in deeper. He sat with his head in his hands, trying hard to find something to feel optimistic about, and failing.

When he felt it would be difficult to sink any further, he heard a faint movement outside the door. His stomach lurched; he suspected that someone was spying on him. Anticipating an attempt to probe his mind, he ordered himself to become passive and empty. He lay down, closing his eyes as if trying to relax into sleep, and pulled the blanket over him. During the next few minutes, he heard further sounds, including the clink of a bucket handle. Then the bolt was drawn back, and footsteps entered the cell. He kept his eyes closed until the sound of his waste bucket handle told him that whoever it was had his back toward him. He opened his eyes and saw a short, sandy-haired man, who gave a grunt of disgust as he raised the lid that covered the bucket.

Now certain this was only a servant, Niall tried probing his mind, ready to withdraw instantly if he reacted. But the man’s mind was a blank, merely conscious of its surroundings. The handle clinked again as he went outside with the bucket, poured it into another bucket, then came back and replaced it on the floor.

Lying on his back, appearing to be asleep, Niall could tell that the man was looking across at him. Then the door was opened, and the footsteps went out again. But as the door closed, Niall was able to catch the thought that crossed the man’s mind, and was amazed that one of its components was a sense of grievance against the Magician.

As the steps receded up the stairs, Niall reflected on this, and the more he thought, the more incredible it seemed. This man, apparently a menial whose task was to empty buckets of human waste product, was actually feeling irritable and disgusted toward the master of Shadowland.

Why? Niall tried to recall his impression of a moment ago. The man had looked across at Niall on the bed, and then. . . experienced a spontaneous surge of irritation toward the Magician.

There could surely be only one explanation. He knew that Niall was one of the envoys who had come to propose a peace treaty with the spiders. And everyone in Shadowland was longing for such a treaty. It would mean the end of isolation, of the boredom of living in a permanent blue twilight, of eating a monotonous diet of fish and blue moss. And the Magician had thrown all this away in one of his childish fits of rage.