The circlet had become detached from her head, and now Niall picked it up from the pillow and readjusted it across her forehead. This time nothing happened. They waited for almost five minutes, but when it became plain that there was no change in the girl’s condition, Niall sighed and turned away.
“Tell your uncle he’ll have to make the serum after all.”
Boyd said: “There’s one thing I don’t understand. If she woke up like that, why did she go back to sleep again?”
Dona said: “Well, people do wake up and go back to sleep again.”
Boyd said lamely: “Yes, but you see what I mean. . .”
In fact, Niall did see what he meant. He had watched a dozen people recover from spider venom. Once they were awake, they stayed awake.
He turned to Boyd. “I’ll ask Dravig if we can have some spider venom.”
As Niall locked the door once again behind them, Boyd said: “Can I go and look at the view from the roof before I go?”
“Of course.” Niall turned to Dona. “Would you mind showing him? Or are you busy?”
“No. The children are asleep. He can stay for tea if he likes.”
Boyd said politely: “If you’re sure I’m no trouble.” But Niall caught the expression in his eyes as he looked at Dona, and knew that he would be happy to stay all afternoon.
It was a relief to be alone again. He flung himself down on the cushions and closed his eyes. But this immediately brought a return of the giddy sensation — the feeling that his brain was on a swing. He sat up and propped a cushion between his back and the wall. As he did so, his eyes fell on the box of lakeweed on the table, and curiosity overcame his tiredness. Kneeling on a cushion, he removed the mat from the box and laid it out on the tabletop. It felt cold and clammy to the touch. Yet when he placed the palms of his hands on it, there was something delightfully soothing about the slippery dampness — so much so that he bent forward and allowed his forehead to rest on the mat. It was as pleasantly relaxing as a soft pillow. There was undoubtedly something powerfully sensual in its damp coolness; but these feelings soon blended with a relaxed, floating sensation that brought images of massive dark forests whose trees overshadowed deep lakes. As this continued, he became aware that something was happening to his body. It was difficult to say precisely what this was, for it seemed to consist of a tingling feeling of anticipation. It was as if the contact between his flesh and the mat of lakeweed was only the beginning of the process, and he remained poised on the brink of the first stage.
After half a minute or so, he noticed something else: that there seemed to be no transmission of heat from his flesh to the weed; it remained as cool as when he first touched it. Even when he wrapped it around his hand, the coolness remained, exactly as if he had immersed the hand in cold water. But as his hand came into contact with the table-top, he noticed something else that intrigued him: the wood was warm. It took a few moments for the implications to dawn on him, and as they did, he sat upright with excitement. The mat was conducting the heat from his body direct to the tabletop, while itself remaining cool. This meant that it was not — as the Steegmaster had suggested — a purely ritual object. It served some other purpose. And Niall already had a glimmering of what that purpose might be.
He folded the mat and replaced it in the box. Then he tiptoed into the corridor — afraid that his movements might bring Jarita out of her room — and quietly unlocked the room next door. Once inside, he locked the door behind him.
He removed the mat from its box, and draped it over the back of the chair. Then he pulled back the blanket from the girl’s body and allowed it to drop on to the floor.
With its small breasts and round, firm belly, there was something oddly childlike and vulnerable about the naked body. Brown fragments of lakeweed still adhered to her thighs. He took the mat of lakeweed and carefully spread it over her body. A moment later, he realized that her breathing had become deeper, and that there were faint spots of color in the pale cheeks. He watched intently, wondering if she was about to wake up; but after several minutes, she still showed no further sign of life.
He drew the chair up beside the bed, then sat down and placed both his hands on the mat. The lakeweed felt pleasantly cool under his palms. Yet when he closed his eyes, he had a sense that there was something wrong. There was a subtle sense of discord that was quite unlike the feeling he had experienced in his own room, a tension that made his heart beat irregularly. Then, suddenly, he understood. He had placed the mat upside down. In his own room, he had placed the side that contained the sucker-like fronds against the tabletop. He now turned it over, so the fronds were against her body. Then, once again, he rested both hands on the mat.
A few moments later he became aware of a tingling sensation in both hands. It spread to the wrists, then into the lower part of the forearms. There was an almost blissful feeling of relaxation, such as he often experienced when immersing his hands and wrists in warm water. It took him a few minutes to realize what was happening: that he was drawing vital energy from the girl.
Yet after only a few moments he became aware that the method he was now using — merely resting his hands on the lakeweed — was inadequate. To experience the full benefit of this overflowing energy, their bodies had to be in total contact.
Niall stripped off his tunic and dropped it on the floor; then he lowered himself slowly onto the girl, allowing his weight to rest on his elbows. He was six inches taller than she was, and he was concerned that he might be too heavy for her; in fact, when he was lying on top of her, his weight was so evenly distributed that it was obvious that, even if she had been awake, she would have experienced no discomfort.
Even though he had been half-expecting it, what happened next still came as a surprise. She began to breathe more deeply, and a glowing sensation rose upward from her body. It was exactly like turning on a tap; vital energy flowed from her, then through the mat and into his body. In some strange way, the mat was sucking vital energy from her body, and allowing it to flow into Niall. He tried pressing his lips against hers, but this actually impeded the flow, even when he moistened them with his tongue. Meanwhile, the girl breathed deeply and regularly, as if accustomed to this process of energy-transfusion; he could even sense that she was enjoying it, glad to be rid of some of the vital fluid that had accumulated in her body.
This process of drinking her energy was among the most unusual sensations Niall had ever experienced. In some ways it reminded him of the first time he had held Merlew in his arms — the same tingling sense of aliveness that had communicated itself from her body to his. But compared to what he was now experiencing, even embracing Merlew was a poor second best. This was far deeper and more complete than lovemaking; or rather, lovemaking was an incomplete version of this experience. When Merlew allowed him to kiss her and press his body against hers, she was retreating into a private world of pleasure, and he was merely an instrument of her pleasure. This girl was giving unselfishly, giving because he was a man, and he needed her vital energy; she gave as unselfishly and naturally as a cow gives milk. In Niall, the flow satisfied some deep masculine craving, a craving of which he had not even been consciously aware a few moments ago. It was like a cool drink when the throat is harsh and dry, and it sent waves of pleasure into remote corners of his being, as if his nerves were telegraph wires that stretched out into the remote regions of some unknown country.
He was reminded of one of the most striking experiences of his childhood: the day the rains fell on the desert at the foot of the plateau. Black clouds had been carried on the cool westerly breeze, and suddenly water was gushing from the sky as though some god had upturned an enormous bucket or diverted a waterfall. As the torrent flooded down a dried watercourse, the ground had burst open, and bullfrogs pushed their way out of the mud; dry pods exploded and within half an hour the ground was covered with a multicolored carpet of flowers, white, red, yellow, blue, orange, and mauve. Soon small pools were full of tadpoles and algae, and the croaking of frogs was louder than the beating of the rain. It was perhaps the greatest exhilaration Niall had experienced during his years of childhood. And now, as his being absorbed this girl’s energy, he felt that his own being was bursting into flower, and that unsuspected areas of awareness were suddenly glowing into life.