The Fortress
by Colin Wilson
The cold wind against his face restored him to a sense of normality. He was in almost total darkness. A few moments later, the moon emerged briefly from behind flying black clouds, so that he could take his bearings. The grass underfoot was wet and slippery; it had evidently been raining heavily. He had to walk carefully to avoid losing his footing. He held the metal rod by its narrow end, using it as a staff, and a few minutes later felt the hard pavement under his feet. The clouds parted again, and the moon revealed the avenue that stretched northward towards the bridge. He turned left and walked in the direction of the women’s quarter of the city.
As he crossed to the far side of the square, the wind was so powerful that he had to lean into it. It was a relief to be in the shelter of tall buildings. According to his map, this section of the city was deserted, forming a kind of no-man’s-land between the southern part and the slave quarter. He paused in a doorway to shelter from the wind, which made his teeth chatter, and to wait for the moon to emerge. When it did so, he saw something that made his heart contract with fear. The white tower was gleaming in the moonlight, looking as if it was shining with its own inner phosphorescence. And around its base, clearly visible against its whiteness, there was a movement of heaving black shadows. For a moment, he convinced himself that they were cloud shadows; then, as the moon was isolated for a moment in a calm space of unclouded blue, the light strengthened, and he knew they were living creatures. As the light dimmed again, the shadows seemed to be moving across the grass towards him.
His immediate response was to run, but he knew at once that this would be an error. He was already using all his self-discipline to repress the panic; fleeing would amplify it beyond his control. His next impulse was to take refuge in the nearest building. This he also rejected; sooner or later, every building in the city would be searched. The spiders possessed the thoroughness of endless patience. His hiding place would soon become a prison. The correct solution was to keep on the move and hope that the darkness and the wind would delay the search.
He began moving westward, towards the women’s quarter, but turned north at each intersection so that he was also moving towards the river. In these narrow, man-built canyons, the darkness was so complete that he had to walk like a blind man, the metal rod stretched out as a feeler, the other hand groping at railings or the walls of buildings. The pavements were cracked and uneven. At one street corner — he could tell it was a corner because the wind converged from two directions — he stumbled over the kerbstone into the gutter, and the rod shot out of his hand. As he groped around on all fours, he had to wrestle with rising panic; the thought of losing the rod filled him with despair. Then he recollected the thought mirror. He reached inside his shirt and turned it on his chest, then sat down in the roaring darkness and concentrated his attention. There was a momentary pain in the back of his skull; then he experienced the sense of power and control. He stood up and spread out his hands within a foot of the ground, walking forward slowly. A tingling feeling in the fingertips of his right hand guided him to the object of his search. Now his mind was calm, it was as if he was able to pick up some faint signal from the metal rod. A moment later, he found it lying in the gutter. He turned the disc again away from his chest, aware of how much this kind of concentration drained his energy.
When the moon came out again, he saw that he had reached a broad avenue. His memory of the map told him that the river was two blocks to the north. He stopped in a doorway and scanned the avenue for moving shadows; it seemed empty. Overhead, a vast spiderweb heaved up and down in the wind; but in such a gale the spider would be crouched in the shelter of some windowless room. Niall hurried on up the avenue; now his eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness he could move more quickly. In the freezing wind, his face and bare arms were beginning to feel numb. But the cold also brought him comfort; he knew the spiders disliked it even more than he did.
While still a block away from the river, he halted on a street corner to rest. Overhead an immense black cloud covered the moon; he judged that it would take at least ten minutes to pass. He was unwilling to venture on to the embankment in total darkness; if the spiders were guarding the bridge, then it also seemed likely they would be patrolling the river.
He sat on the pavement with his back against the railings of a basement area. Something yielded, and he realised he was leaning against a gate. The thought of sheltering from the wind, even for a few moments, was tempting. He pushed the gate, and it opened with a creak of rusty hinges. Groping on his knees, he felt worn stone steps, slippery with rain. He descended cautiously until he was below street level. There was an unpleasant smell, like rotting vegetation, but at least he was sheltered from the wind. Now his skin was no longer exposed, he experienced an illusion of warmth. He sat there shivering, his arms folded round his knees, and wondered why the smell of decaying vegetable matter seemed to grow stronger.
There was a light touch on his arm, and he started with fear. Since his first assumption was that a spider’s fangs were poised to plunge into his bare flesh, he became immobile. The touch groped upward to his shoulder and, at the same time, something brushed the calf of his left leg. As he sprang to his feet, a cold softness closed round his ankle, and the stench of decay was suddenly nauseating. He tore his foot free and felt the same cold softness groping at his arm. Then, as he shrank away, it closed round his upper arm, pulling him against the railing.
In spite of the fear and nausea, it was a relief to know he was not dealing with a spider. These cold, damp feelers moved slowly and deliberately; another was slipping between his legs and winding round his right knee. When he reached down, his hand encountered something cold, soft and slimy; as he squeezed, it seemed to ooze between his fingers. It might have been a cold-blooded worm.
Another of the wormlike fingers tried to pull the metal rod out of his right hand. Niall gripped it tightly and thrust between the railings; he felt it plunge into something soft. Again and again he thrust with all his strength; each time he felt it sink home. Yet the feelers continued to move, groping round his body with unhurried deliberation.
As he felt a cold touch against his face, his loathing turned to cold fury; once again he gripped the end of the rod and thrust between the bars to the full extent of his arm. His hatred seemed to convulse his brain like a shock, and he felt its power rippling through the muscles of his arm and into the rod. He gripped tighter, clenching his teeth, and again felt the shock run down his arm. Suddenly, the feelers released their hold. Niall staggered back against the wall, then clawed his way up the steps and fell out into the street. Coughing and retching, he stumbled forward across the road, then recovered his balance and ran. The cold wind was as welcome as a caress.
Before he had run a dozen yards, self-control returned. He withdrew into a doorway and stood there, eyes closed, resting the back of his head against the wall until his heartbeat returned to normal. His flesh felt sore where the tentacles had gripped him. Finally, to assist his concentration, he again turned the thought mirror on his chest. The pain in the back of his head made him feel sick for a moment; then it passed, and he experienced once more the satisfying sense of being in control of his body and mind.
If the spiders were advancing towards the river, there was no time to lose. He approached the embankment with caution and waited for the moon to emerge. When it did so, it revealed that the great arch of the bridge was surprisingly close, the road that led towards it empty. He waited for the moon to disappear behind the clouds, then crossed the road. A low stone wall, about four feet high, ran along the embankment. He groped his way along this until he encountered a gap. The metal rod, used like a blind man’s stick, revealed a recess with a flight of descending steps. He crouched behind the wall until another interval of moonlight enabled him to take his bearings and revealed that the steps were unguarded, then made his way down to the path that ran by the river. Here he became aware of the need for haste. If there were guards on the bridge, a sudden shaft of moonlight could betray him. He hurried forward until the moon showed through a break in the cloud, then halted and pressed himself tightly against the wall; as soon as darkness returned, he went on. Advancing in this way, it took him more than half an hour to reach the bridge. While still fifty yards away, he took refuge behind a buttress and waited until a longer interval of moonlight allowed him to study it carefully. There was no sign of spider guards; but at either end of the bridge were rectangular structures that might have been some form of sentry box. About to move from his hiding place, he obeyed some instinct that urged him to stay still. After a long interval of darkness, moonlight flooded the river, and illuminated the nearest rectangle; it enabled him to see a square window that looked out towards him. And, as he watched, there was an unmistakable movement behind. A moment later, it was blank. But it had told him what he wanted to know: the spider guards commanded a clear view along the river, as well as along the avenue that led to the white tower.