Shadowland. Spider World 06 by Colin Wilson

No wonder this emptier of buckets was disgusted. It meant the end of his hopes of a less dreary form of existence.

Suddenly Niall was unable to lie still. He sat up on the bed and threw off the blanket, his energies renewed by a sense of hope. This lasted only a few moments, until he reflected that the Magician was the despot of this land, and that there was no one who would dare to challenge his authority; nevertheless, it was a welcome change from the despair of half an hour before.

His stomach was again growling with hunger. He had become accustomed to hunger when he lived with his family in the desert, but his body was now used to regular meals. To take his mind off it, he closed his eyes, and thought about their home in North Khaybad, under the branches of the euphorbia cactus. With no great effort he could conjure up the sound of the wind blowing through them. Little by little, he relaxed, and ceased to care about the protesting noises from his stomach. Then he set out to recall the country of the ants, and how, for the first time in his life, he had sat up to his neck in running water and listened to its rippling sound. Soon his nose itched, and he scratched it — a sure sign he was drifting toward sleep — and a few moments later was dozing.

The doze became a kind of dream in which he was aware he was asleep. Someone was lying beside him, and it seemed that it was Umaya. In his half dream state, he could actually feel her body pressed against his and her arms around him. For some reason, it seemed important not to let her know he was awake, so he lay there breathing quietly. She was massaging him, just as Jarita did after a bath, and her hands ran from his shoulders down to his knees. He also knew that she wanted to kiss him, and since she thought he was asleep, there seemed to be no harm in this. Her lips brushed his own, after which she kissed him more firmly and lingeringly.

Her hands were very cool, and there was a soothing quality about their touch. He began to experience a sensation of lightness and acquiescence, a desire to let her do whatever she liked. And what she wanted to do, he realized, was to drink his energy as dry earth drinks water. The sensation of his energies flowing into her was one of the sweetest he had ever experienced.

He was shocked out of this by a sudden shout. He knew who it was: the woman with the long brown hair, whose face lacked eyes and a nose. In the same moment, he knew that he was not lying in bed beside Umaya, but beside one of the vampire-like creatures with pointed teeth. As he woke up, he felt for a moment totally confused, as if he no longer knew who he was. Then he found himself lying alone on the bed, with his cheek bleeding where he had scratched it on the hard pillow. But there was none of the usual pleasure of waking from a nightmare; on the contrary, he felt that the nightmare was continuing, even though he was now awake. It was as if he was still entangled with some entity that was draining his energy, and that was determined not to let go.

For a moment he experienced panic, then realized that was a mistake. It only increased the sense of vulnerability. During the past year, he had acquired a certain degree of self-discipline, and now he called upon it and concentrated his mind. There was a moment of struggle; then he experienced relief.

His face was hot, and his heart beat painfully. It seemed absurd to feel so hot when the cell was cold. He turned his attention inward and tried to analyze what was happening. The energy leak was still there, but less obvious than before — now it was little more than a kind of drip. Yet although imperceptible, it could still drain him until he was exhausted.

He tried closing the leak by concentrating hard; it only increased the hot flush, and made his heart beat faster. What he needed, he realized, was the kind of soothing coolness he had experienced when Umaya had dressed his bruises. But if Umaya was so telepathic, he ought to be able to call her. Using the technique he employed when trying to contact his mother, he envisaged her clearly, then tried to send a signal.

For the next five minutes he tried to slow the beating of his heart. Every time he began to succeed, he experienced a spurt of anxiety, and his pulse rate increased. It began to seem that the more effort he made, the more energy he would waste.

A sound in the corridor caused a flash of hope; when it was followed by sound of the bolt being drawn, he knew that it was Umaya.

She crossed the floor to the bed.

“You were calling me?”

He nodded without opening his eyes; he was already beginning to feel better. She reached out and touched his moist forehead.

“You have a fever.”

“Something is stealing my energy.”

She placed her hand at the junction of his throat and chest; her palm immediately became cooler.

“It is a graddik.”

He felt too tired to ask how she knew.

She said, with a touch of reproof: “But you must have invited it inside you.”

This time he knew exactly what she meant. He nodded.

“I was dreaming. I thought it was you.”

She said: “That is dangerous. When you have invited a graddik inside you, it is hard to get rid of.”

“Can you get rid of it?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

She left the room, drawing the bolt behind her.

Five minutes passed while he lay passively, listening to his heartbeat and feeling his energy draining away like a dripping tap.

When she returned, she was carrying an oblong box, which she placed on the floor at the foot of the bed. A moment later, the cell was full of an odor he recognized: the iodine smell of the lake weed.

She pulled back the blanket, then began to unbutton his tunic. He knew exactly what she intended do, and the thought made him breathe slowly and deeply with relief. He sat up to allow her to draw the tunic down over his feet.

When he was naked, she took the mat of weed from the box, and placed it over his body as if spreading an eiderdown on the bed. It was cool, and made him shiver. But the sense of losing energy stopped at once, as if someone had turned off the tap.

He heard the rustle as she removed her dress, then felt her weight press down on him. She adjusted herself, with both arms bent on either side of his chest, and lowered her right cheek against his face; her brown hair fell into his mouth. It took a few minutes for the mat to become warm. As soon as this happened, the flow of energy began, as quietly and as naturally as a blood transfusion. He breathed in slowly as his energies began to revive.

He had been afraid that the graddik would steal the energy as fast as it flowed into him; but during the energy transfer, he could see that this was impossible — as difficult as to steal the water someone was drinking.

As with Charis, this energy exchange made his nerves tingle with pleasure, so that he felt himself being sucked down into a vortex. They had ceased to be two separate beings, and had blended together, so that both became part-woman and part-man. They no longer had individual histories; her past and his had blended together, as intimately as if they had spent days describing their lives to one another. Yet in another sense they remained apart, for she was not giving herself, but doing this as a nurse, to restore him to health.

After a quarter of an hour, he felt as refreshed as if he had just awakened from a long night’s sleep; he would have been perfectly happy to shoulder his knapsack and begin the journey back home. Umaya pushed herself away from him, swung her legs onto the floor, and picked up her dress. He could sense that his maleness had refreshed her exactly as her female energies had revitalized him. As she slipped on her dress, which she had unbuttoned down the front, he found himself admiring her shapely breasts and buttocks without a trace of erotic attraction. She was like a nurse who had just changed his bandages.

He was struck by a sudden thought.

“Does your father know you are doing this?”

“Of course.” She smiled at him as if she found the question naive. Her nonverbal thoughts, which he could now read, went on to indicate that this was simply a part of her job.