Quite suddenly the room was no longer cold. He felt strangely tired — so much so that, if the bed had not been covered in blood, he would have climbed back into it and fallen asleep. Instead, he pulled on his tunic, and pushed his feet into sandals. Then he tiptoed out into the corridor. He knew that Doggins’ bedroom was next to his own. Very slowly, he raised the wooden latch and pushed open the door. The room was in almost total darkness, but when his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he could see that Doggins was sleeping alone. He shook him softly by the shoulder. Doggins woke with a start. Niall said: “Something’s happened.”
Without a word, Doggins clambered out of bed, struggled into his tunic, and followed Niall back to his own bedroom. He closed the door carefully behind them. When he saw the bloodstained bed he gave an exclamation of astonishment. “What was it?”
Niall took him to the window, and showed him the dead centipede lying among the snapdragons. He described briefly what had happened. Doggins said:
“We’ve got to get rid of it before the others wake up — especially the children. Get those bedclothes off the bed. . .”
He went out, and returned a few minutes later with an armful of sheets and blankets. The bloodstained bedclothes already lay on the floor. Fortunately, the blood had made only a small stain on the flock mattress; together, they turned this upside down. Then, as Niall remade the bed, Doggins vanished with the bloodstained sheets. Soon afterwards, Niall saw him outside the window, lifting the dead centipede with a pair of wooden tongs. Ten minutes later, billowing clouds of woodsmoke blowing past the window indicated that the incinerator behind the house was in operation.
When Doggins came back, Niall was cleaning the blood off the telescopic rod. Doggins said:
“Don’t mention this to the women.”
“Of course not. But how can we be sure that it didn’t wander in by accident?”
“No. It was a messenger from the Spider Lord.”
“How can you tell?”
“It was a hunting centipede. The spiders breed them to hunt wild rabbits in the foothills — they put them down the hole to drive the rabbits out. But that’s the biggest I’ve ever seen. You’d better sleep with your window closed from now on.”
“I ought to leave your house. The others might be in danger.”
“We’ll talk about that later. Get some sleep.”
But now he was no longer feeling tired. When Doggins had gone, he climbed back into bed and hung the thought mirror round his neck. He immediately experienced a flash of pain that seemed to divide his skull like a hatchet blow. It was so intense that he had to clench his teeth and place both hands over his eyes. After a few seconds, it became a headache that throbbed in the back of his head. He resisted the temptation to remove the thought mirror, and tried to accept the pain and to merge with it, as if it was as natural as pleasure. As he did this, he made an interesting discovery: that the thought mirror could provide the concentration to resist the pain that it caused. When he concentrated, the pain increased, but so did his power to fight against it. This pain, he now understood, was due to physical exhaustion; the attack of the Spider Lord had drained his vital energies. Yet there was also a curious satisfaction in defying his own fatigue. As he increased his concentration, the pain became so agonising that he felt droplets of sweat running down his face, and his pulse beat inside his skull like a hammer. But, underlying the discomfort, there was a sense of power and exultation.
Then, at a certain point, the pain itself became an ally, increasing his ability to focus. It was not unlike squeezing a handful of broken glass and deliberately trying to crush it into a powder. He sat with his fists clenched, his eyes screwed up to exclude the light. Quite suddenly, he was in control of the pain; it was a curious sensation, as if he was pushing himself up from the ground with a heavy weight on his back. One more convulsive effort of will, and he was standing upright, swaying slightly, and astonished to find himself in this unusual position, as an animal might feel if it succeeded in standing on its hind legs.
He opened his eyes and looked around him. The room seemed unchanged; yet, in another sense, it had become quite different. His concentration had achieved an intensity that he had never experienced before. Everything he looked at seemed deeply interesting; even the wooden latch on the door was so fascinating that he felt he could stare at it for hours, exploring its possibilities. It seemed self-evident that every object in the room concealed a thousand meanings that he normally overlooked.
He had never been so conscious of his freedom. He was aware that he could choose what to do with his mind — whether to think about his past life, or about the problem of the spiders, or whether to simply allow himself to explore this strange, exciting world that surrounded him. Now he could see quite clearly that our human senses are blocked by curtains, and that it was within his power to open or close them as he wished. When he focused his attention to admit more light, he experienced an excitement that was like a breeze blowing against his face. This soon expanded into a feeling of almost magical sensitivity. He could see that the branches of the tree outside the window were responding to the dawn wind like a cat purring with pleasure, and that the leaves were not merely rustling, but were speaking a language of their own.
As the sun rose, he was intrigued by a curious distant sound that seemed to rise and fall on the breeze. It was a faint ringing noise, which might have been compared to the ringing of a million tiny bells. He went to the window and pushed it open. Then he realised that it was not a sound, but some kind of vibration that seemed to be induced in the flowers by the sunlight. They were throwing off a sparkling shower of energy, which surged out of them like sparks from a firework, and then rained gently down on to the earth. It was an astonishing sight. Many of the flowers were still in the shade, and these were throwing off only a few random sparks of energy. As the sun reached them, this turned into a soft rain, like water from a fountain; then, as the full light of the sun fell on their open petals, the sparks became more energetic, and blazed upward so that the air above the flower-bed was a glittering mass of coloured light.
The grass of the lawn was giving off a gentler, softer vibration, and seemed to be covered in blue mist. As his eyes became accustomed to this, he was interested to see that the tall red houses of the beetles were surrounded by the same blue colour, whose outlines moved like a slow-burning flame. Now he could see that the purpose of the spiral design was to prevent this energy from flowing directly upward and dissipating itself in the atmosphere; by forcing it to flow into a spiral that was closed at the top, the houses were given more time to absorb this living current.
By comparison, the human dwellings seemed somehow lifeless and sterile. Some of the energy was absorbed by the blue walls, but most of it was simply reflected back and lost in the atmosphere.
As he turned away from the window, he experienced a momentary dizziness, and had to lean back against the wall. His body was unaccustomed to this richness of sensation, and his senses were flagging. With a deliberate movement of his will, he drew the inner curtains to block out the intensity. The ringing sound immediately faded away, and the room seemed to become silent. A feeling of relief was succeeded by deep weariness. He walked back to the bed with heavy steps, like a drunken man, removed the thought mirror, and lay down on his back. Then a wave of deep peace washed over him and carried him into sleep.
When he opened his eyes, there was a tray of food on the chair beside the bed, and the sun was high in the heavens. As he ate the white bread with honeycomb, and drank cold milk, a sense of well-being told him that his strength was beginning to return.
The door opened a few inches, and Simeon looked in.
“Ah, you’re awake. Are you all right?” He took Niall’s wrist and felt his pulse.
“Much better now.”
He laid his hand on Niall’s forehead.
“You feel better. But I think you’d better stay in bed for another day.”