Niall drove his spear down the hole until the creature stopped moving. “What was it?”
Ulf was sitting down, examining his foot. “A lion beetle larva. They’re like trapdoor spiders — they hide in a hole. . .”
It took an hour to dress the cuts — a number of deep parallel scratches, obviously made by sharp teeth or mandibles. Ulf was carrying an ointment made of the root of the devil plant, and he smeared this on strips of cloth and bandaged the ankle and foot. It seemed a pity to make such use of the cloth — a present from Sefna for Siri — but it was a necessity. With spare sandals, presented to him by Hamna, on his feet, he limped forward vigorously for the rest of the day.
By evening, they were in country they recognised, about twenty miles from the burrow. Again they slept in an improvised shelter of rocks and bushes. But in the morning, Ulf’s foot was badly swollen and beginning to turn blue. Niall took his pannier and marched awkwardly with one on either shoulder, while Ulf used a crutch made of a branch of a tree. Both were aware that it was now a matter of urgent necessity to reach the burrow before nightfall; by the following day, Ulf’s foot would probably be too poisoned to walk. So they staggered on, covering less than ten miles during the heat of the day. Then they paused in the shadow of a rock, and ate and drank; Ulf slept a little. The foot was now so swollen that he could not rest his weight on it; the crutch had to take the full weight of his right side as they moved forward a dozen yards at a time, halting for frequent rests. Then, as the sun dipped towards the horizon, Ulf seemed to call reserves of strength from somewhere and began to swing forward at a steady pace. The great red rocks became visible on their right, then the cactus grove. They were now so exhausted that they would have been an easy prey for any scorpion, tiger beetle or trapdoor spider. Niall clutched his telescopic spear, using it as a staff, and staggered unevenly as the panniers swung on his back.
Suddenly Veig and Siris were running towards them across the sand, with Runa trotting behind. Niall was relieved of his packs and felt at once absurdly light, as if about to float off the ground. Siris put her arm round her husband’s waist and supported him across the last fifty yards to the burrow. As he stood waiting for them to go in first, Niall looked out across the desert at the distant plateau and felt a kind of incredulity at the thought that he had been so far away from home. Even the thought of Merlew seemed slightly unreal.
There was only one cause for sadness in the relief of homecoming. Jomar was too feeble even to rise from his bed to meet them. In the light of the oil lamps — they lit all six as a celebration — it was obvious that he was dying. In the two weeks since they had seen him, his face had become very thin, and his eyes were sunken. Siris told them that he had only just recovered from a fever. But the real fever was weariness, a sense that he had seen all there was to see, and that life held no more interest for him. Now Thorg and Hrolf and Ingeld were gone, and he was unable to walk more than a few yards beyond the entrance to the burrow, Jomar had lost his delight in being alive. He listened with apparent interest to the description of Kazak’s underground city, but when he asked “Are there still rats among the ruins?” it was obvious that he had not taken it in.
Niall could understand his apathy. After Kazak’s palace, life at home seemed unbearably dull. Although he had been in Dira for only two days, it had taught him the meaning of living in a community, of consorting with others of his own age and exchanging ideas and feelings. In retrospect he idealised it; everything about Dira now seemed charming and exciting. He envied Ingeld for being able to live there for the rest of her days. He often thought fondly about Dona, and was saddened by the thought that he had left without saying goodbye — she had been asleep at the time. Only the recollection of Merlew made him wince.
The burrow seemed strangely empty without Thorg and Hrolf and Ingeld, and the realisation that Jomar was dying brought an oppressive feeling of loss, a sense that something was coming to an end. They had moved the old man into an inner chamber of the burrow, so that he could sleep undisturbed. Every morning, they helped him out into the daylight; there he sat until the sun became too hot, dozing and listening to the hum of flies. Sometimes, if there was no wind, they moved him into the shade of the euphorbia; Niall sat on guard, his spear close at hand in case of attack by some predator. He noticed that when the old man asked to be taken back inside, his hands were as cold as if they had only just emerged into the daylight.
During these final weeks, Mara played an important part in keeping the old man’s mind alert. She was now exactly a year old and had changed greatly. The juice of the ortis plant had transformed her from a nervous, fretful baby into a lively child who was interested in everything. She spent a great deal of time sitting on her grandfather’s knee and asking questions; if he failed to answer she drummed on his chest and said: “Tell me, tell me.” Jomar told her stories about his childhood, and legends of the great hunters of the past. And Niall sat in the corner, hands clasped round his knees, and tried to memorise everything the old man said. He had always loved stories; but since the trip to Dira, he had a consuming desire to know about the past.
One day, when Mara had fallen asleep on Jomar’s knee, Niall asked him about the ruined city. Jomar had been born a few miles away, in the foothills, and had played there during his childhood. Birds and rodents lived there, and Jomar had often set traps for them.
Niall asked him about the building with the tall columns; Jomar said it had once been a temple to the gods. But when Niall asked about the strange boxes carved out of solid stone, Jomar confessed that he had never seen them. And his description made it clear that the city had then been covered in sand to a depth of about ten feet. This explained why he had never seen the stone boxes, or the shining metallic monster in the midst of the temple.
Niall asked: “How old were you when the spiders carried you off to their city?”
The old man was silent; Niall assumed he was unwilling to speak of it. But after a long pause, Jomar said: “It must have been — when I was eighteen summers. Eighteen or thereabouts. . . It was a black day for the men of Dira.”
“What happened?”
“They came on us in the dawn. There must have been hundreds of them. I knew they were there as soon as I woke up.”
“How?”
“I couldn’t move in my bed. I tried to sit up, but it was as if I had a big rock on my chest. Then I tried to move my arms. They’d gone dead, as if I’d been lying on them.”
“But what had happened?”
“They’d pinned us down. We were all the same.”
“But how?”
“With will-power.”
Niall felt the roots of his hair stirring. He was thinking of Kazak’s city. “What happened then?”
“Nothing until they found us.”
“Found you?” Niall was bewildered. “Didn’t they know where you were?”
“Not exactly. They knew we were in there somewhere.”
“But if they pinned you down, surely they must have known where you were?”
“No. They kept us pinned down until they found us.”
“What happened then?”
Jomar moved Mara from his knee, and carefully laid her on the bed; it was as if he did not want to be in contact with her while he remembered.
“They killed all those who resisted. They killed my father, and our chief Hallat.”
“Did they try to attack the spiders?”
“Not physically. But they tried to fight back with their wills. The spiders didn’t like that. Hallat was a strong-willed man.”
Jomar described how the spiders had kept them prisoners in the caves all through that day. The spiders disliked the heat; they preferred to travel by night. During the course of the day, the spiders ate the men they had killed. Unlike human jaws, the chelicerae of the death spiders move sideways. Jomar could not bear to watch as his father was eaten by four spiders; he turned his eyes away. But he could still hear the sound of tearing flesh.