He said with incredulity: “So you are the Death Lord?”
She made no reply; but when he took another step forward, she flinched and raised her jointed palps to cover her eyes; the blue light was causing her pain. He turned his head and looked for its source; but the light seemed to bathe the whole room in its pale, even glow. It also seemed to fill the room with a strange stillness, a silence that produced a sense of exhaustion and suffocation. It was as if the whole world had stopped like a clock. Then, as he looked down at his body, Niall realised with astonishment that he himself was the source of the blue glow; even his hands were shining as if they were made of white-hot iron. It was only then that he recognised why the glow seemed familiar; it was the light he had seen on the planet of the empress plants, the light of the star called Vega.
The room darkened and seemed to contract. At the moment this realisation dawned upon him, the light began to fade. Then the last glow vanished, and suddenly it was as if time had resumed its forward flow. The oppressive stillness disappeared, and the air seemed full of life and motion. It was then that Niall understood his feeling of suffocation: while the light was shining, the vibration of the Delta had ceased. At the same time he understood the curious feeling of inner certainty that had possessed him during the past few hours, and that had imparted to his actions the confidence of a sleepwalker. His decisions had been directed and controlled by the goddess.
He peered into the web; there was no movement. When he turned and looked at the beetle-ambassador, he was startled to see that he was lying prostrate on the floor; so was the captain of the guard. As Niall bent over the beetle, placing his hand on the gleaming shell, the ambassador stirred. Niall asked:
“Are you all right?”
To his surprise, the beetle answered feebly: “Yes, lord.”
The captain of the guard was lying with his legs bunched underneath him; Niall’s thought-probe established that he was suffering from shock and exhaustion. When Niall said: “Stand up,” he made no movement. Niall gave the spider a push with his boot in the soft part of its underbelly; it scrambled hastily on to its legs.
Niall went back to the web.
“Come out, all of you.”
There was a pause, then the web began to vibrate. The shrivelled female was the first to emerge; she moved awkwardly, as if her limbs were stiff. The others came out after her, one by one, and formed up in a row behind her, like a squad of soldiers. The last spider to emerge caused greater vibrations than the rest; its legs seemed bowed under the weight of its heavy body. This was Dravig, chief adviser to the Death Lord.
Niall walked forward until he stood in front of the ancient female spider. She was only slightly taller than he was, and at close quarters he could see that her skin looked shiny and cracked, like old leather. Although he knew that she could kill him with a single bite of her fangs, he experienced no apprehension. He could sense that she was badly shaken and demoralised. He was also aware that she regarded him with superstitious fear.
Niall said: “Send the others away. I want to talk to you alone.” As Dravig took a step towards the door he said: “No, you stay.”
The other spiders filed out of the room — he counted twelve of them — and as they did so, Niall gently probed their minds. They were aware that he was doing it, and made no attempt to prevent it. These twelve females were, he discovered, the ruling council of the spider city. All were far younger than the Death Lord, the youngest being the spider equivalent of a middle-aged woman. Although their official position was that of councillor, each was, in effect, a ruler in her own right, for their minds were able to unite together into a single mind. To be ordered to leave the room like this was a humiliation; but because they believed it was the will of the goddess, they accepted it without question.
The Spider Lord — Niall continued to think of her under this title — was by far the oldest among them; among human beings she would have been a centenarian. Now her mind lay open before him, Niall could see that she had both the faults and virtues of an old woman. She was imperious, bad-tempered and rigidly set in her ways; she was also cunning, wise, and more far-sighted than any of her subjects. Even so, she would have been incapable of exerting the force that had held Niall’s body in its grip of steel. This had been the joint effort of all the council, and the effort had been coordinated by Dravig, whose mind was capable of acting as a catalyst that united all the others.
It was Dravig who interested Niall most of all. There was something about his mind that was curiously abstract and impersonal; Niall could sense in him the same kind of wisdom he had sensed in the Master. The Spider Lord was totally self-absorbed, obsessed with her own private purposes; Dravig’s mind seemed to be directed towards the universe outside himself. Yet there was an element of strangeness about his thought-processes that Niall found totally incomprehensible.
When the door closed behind the captain of the guard, it was Dravig who spoke first. Niall could sense his nervousness.
“Are you a god or a human being?”
Niall laughed. “A human being, of course.”
The Spider Lord said: “But you are a messenger of the goddess.” It was a statement, not a question.
Niall said: “Yes.” In a sense, it was true.
Both spiders made a peculiar movement, raising the jointed feelers at an angle of forty-five degrees, and at the same time lowering their bellies to the floor while the position of the legs remained unchanged. Niall inferred that it was a ritual gesture of homage. The Spider Lord said:
“What is her will?”
Niall said: “First of all, that all my people should cease to be slaves. Human beings must be given the same freedom as the spiders or the beetles. If they should choose to serve you of their own accord, that is their business. But all must be allowed to make the choice.”
When they made no reply, he asked: “Well?”
The Spider Lord said: “It shall be done.”
It was then that Niall understood that their silence had been a gesture of assent. To reply would have been a sign of disrespect, since it implied a choice.
He said: “Next, it is the will of the goddess that there shall be a peace treaty between spiders and human beings, like the treaty between the spiders and the bombardier beetles. This treaty must be strictly observed by both sides, and whoever breaks it will bring severe punishment upon himself and his people.”
After a silence, the Spider Lord replied:
“It shall be done.”
It was slightly disconcerting. Niall had been expecting some kind of resistance or, at least, a sign of reluctance or resentment. This total submission left him feeling unsure of what to do next. To cover his indecision, he went to the window and tore aside some of the thick cobwebs that covered it, admitting a beam of sunlight through the dusty glass. Both spiders flinched at the light. As Niall’s eyes became accustomed to the brightness, he saw clouds of smoke billowing into the air above the bonfire. The square below was full of people; another cartload of books was trying to force its way through the crowd. A huge pile of unburnt books lay at the foot of the white tower, waiting to be consigned to the flames.
Niall turned to the Spider Lord.
“Order them to stop burning the books.”
Without speaking, Dravig went out of the door. He returned a few moments later, and silently resumed his place by the Spider Lord. And now, in a flash of insight, Niall understood why they obeyed his orders without resentment or reluctance. They had just witnessed a miracle. They had looked upon the face of the goddess and she had spoken to them directly. This room would henceforth be a holy place. Compared with this awesome miracle, nothing else was important. Mere personal feeling would have been a blasphemous absurdity. And since Niall was the instrument of the revelation, anything he said or did was beyond question.
But they had also treated the envoy of the goddess with brutal disrespect — a disrespect that, according to their own barbarous scale of values, merited the most agonising death. This, he now realised, was why their sense of awe was tinged with apprehension.
Niall stood in front of the Spider Lord.