“Of course, sire.” Broadus performed his most graceful bow.
Simeon waited until the door had closed behind them, then said: “You can see what happened there, can’t you? The little chap did all the work, and Broadus wants to take all the credit.”
“I don’t care who takes the credit. This could be the breakthrough we’ve been hoping for.”
It was another sunny day, although the north wind had a cutting edge. The sky was a cold blue, and piled high with fleecy white clouds that looked as if they were made of cotton wool. The few patches of melting snow that remained were on the grass surrounding the white tower, and these were stained with mud. Oddly enough, the top of the white tower, which was slightly curved, was still covered with a thick layer of snow, some of it projecting over the edge, like the guttering on a roof. As Niall and Simeon watched, a large slab of it came sliding off, and crashed to the ground.
From the corner of the main avenue, they saw Sidonia emerge from the headquarters of the Spider Lord, and approach Broadus and Fergus, who were waiting on the pavement, under the gaze of two wolf spiders. Simeon said: “Do you really think guards are necessary?” He grinned. “Or was that just to get rid of Broadus?”
“No. I’m not taking any risks. I think it would be a mistake to underestimate our opponent. He always seems to be two steps ahead of us.”
“You seem to have done fairly well so far.”
Niall nodded. “Yes, luck has been on our side. But it won’t continue unless we can find out who this man is and what he wants to achieve.”
Simeon asked seriously: “You’re sure he is a man?”
Niall was startled by the question. “What else could he be?”
“You called him a magician.”
“Isn’t that a man?”
Simeon shook his head. “My grandmother — goddess rest her soul — used to say that there are three orders of supernatural being. There are the gods who made the Earth. Then there are nature spirits, who care for nothing but trees and lakes and mountains. Then there are the magicians, who are halfway between gods and men. Your magician sounds like that.”
Niall felt no surprise to hear Simeon speak of gods and nature spirits. He had become accustomed to the fact that even the servants of the bombardier beetles took such beliefs for granted. In fact, Niall himself had shared them until the Steegmaster had taken his education in hand.
“All the same, I don’t believe he’s a supernatural being.”
“Then what is he?”
“A man. A spiteful and ruthless man, but a man nevertheless.”
Simeon gave him a sidelong glance. “You sound as if you know all about him.”
Niall said: “I think I have even seen him.”
Simeon stared at him with amazement. “You’ve what?”
Niall hastened to explain: “It was only in a dream.”
“And what did he look like?”
“He had a forked beard” — Niall tried to indicate its shape under his chin — “and his face was hidden in a black hood.”
Simeon nodded, his face serious. “That sounds like a magician all right. My grandmother used to say they’re twice as clever as a human being and twice as vindictive. She used to say she’d rather tease a swamp cobra.”
As he spoke, Niall experienced a peculiar sensation, as if a cloud had covered the sun. They walked the remaining distance to the hospital in silence, each preoccupied with his own thoughts.
Two four-wheel carts stood at the side entrance, one empty, the other containing three bodies wrapped in their cocoons of spider web. Niall observed that pedestrians averted their eyes and hurried past, as if afraid of being contaminated by the sight. It reminded him that, in this city, most of the human beings still preferred not to know the secrets of their former masters. Overhead, on a web that stretched across the street, a brown and black-striped hunting spider looked down curiously, probably wondering why good meat was being allowed to go to waste. A massively built workman came out of the yard, slung a body over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes, and carried it inside.
The unconscious bodies had been laid out on trestle tables in a large room next to the women’s ward. A tall young man with shoulder-length dark hair was cutting open a cocoon of web with an enormous pair of scissors. When he saw them, Niall experienced a tingling of the scalp; these were altogether more like the scissors of his dream.
Simeon said: “I don’t think you’ve met Phelim — my nephew and assistant.”
Niall and Phelim shook hands. The young man’s face was not handsome, but with his deep-set eyes and irregular nose, was full of character. He had a powerful grip and an open, friendly smile. Niall was glad that he made no attempt to bow.
Simeon asked: “Anything to report?”
“Only this.” He approached the body of a man wearing a slave uniform, and tugged at a chain that hung round his neck. “Any idea what this is?” He dangled a pendant between his thumb and forefinger.
Niall and Simeon exchanged glances. Simeon asked: “Have you found any more of them?”
Phelim shook his head. “No. What is it?”
Simeon was tugging the remainder of the cocoon off the man’s feet, then the sandals. He pulled open the toes; Niall could see the scar tissue where the web between the toes had been severed.
Niall said: “It’s a communicating device.”
Phelim looked blank. “Are you joking?” A moment later he gave a slight start and dropped the pendant.
“Why did you do that?”
“Oh, nothing.” He touched the pendant gingerly with his fingertip. “I thought I got a tingling feeling. . .”
Niall picked it up; it felt completely inert.
Phelim turned to his uncle and asked with mild exasperation: “What on earth’s happening here?”
Simeon explained to Niall: “He only arrived a couple of hours ago. I haven’t had a chance to tell him.” He took the scissors from Phelim and used them to cut off the slave tunic. The naked body was that of a man of about thirty. His breathing was faint but distinctly perceptible. The face bore a family resemblance to the others Niall had seen: a beaklike nose, a lined forehead, an oddly large and sensuous mouth, and a receding chin which, in spite of its lack of prominence, somehow conveyed no impression of weakness. The body looked hard and muscular, but the flesh was very pale. The black hairs that covered the chest and legs gave him an animal-like appearance.
Simeon reached out to the hairy midriff and removed a tiny brown fragment that looked like a piece of dried leaf.
Phelim asked: “What is it?”
Simeon handed it to him. “What do you think?”
Phelim sniffed it. “Seaweed? Has he been swimming?”
Simeon said: “That’s what we’d both like to know.”
Niall was staring at the immobile face, and at the yellow teeth that were just visible through the partly open lips. He placed one hand on the lined forehead, and experienced an odd sense of repulsion as he felt the cold flesh. Then, ignoring the others, he allowed his mind to become a blank and to blend with the consciousness of the sleeper. There was the oddly familiar sensation that he knew from past experience: of losing his own identity and becoming someone else. But since this man was unconscious, the “someone else” was a kind of blankness, like hovering in empty space. Niall had to reach out and hold on to the edge of the table to steady himself. After a few moments, his mind seemed to become accustomed to the blankness, as the eyes become accustomed to darkness. There were faint flashes in the darkness, like distant lightning; Niall assumed these to be some kind of electrical activity in the man’s brain. Then, to his surprise, there was a crash like a distant roll of thunder. A moment later, the darkness began to give way to a pale blue light, which seemed to vibrate when there was another crash of thunder. A strange landscape became dimly visible, as if seen from a great height. Niall almost ceased breathing, suddenly gripped by the certainty that he was about to learn something important.
Then two things happened. He experienced a sickening sensation that reminded him of a bad smell — the same smell he had experienced when probing the mind of Skorbo’s assassin — and at the same time he felt his consciousness hurled outward, as if by an explosion, and ejected violently and suddenly from the brain of the stranger; it was as if some powerful force had gripped him and thrown him through the air. There was a sharp pain in his eyeballs, as if they were being forced out of his head, and the nausea struck his solar plexus like the blow of a fist. Simeon and Phelim, who had been watching him in silence, saw him gasp and stagger backwards. Phelim caught him as his knees buckled.