Asmak said: “You are in the presence of Cheb the Mighty.” He lowered himself to the ground and, after a moment of indecision, Niall did the same.
Niall was in a state of bewilderment; he found it incredible that the great Spider Lord should be so small. According to legend, Cheb was a hundred-eyed monster who could bite a man in half with his enormous chelicerae. In fact, he was hardly larger than a domestic cat; even with his legs fully extended, he could hardly have stood more than three feet high.
After a few moments Asmak straightened up again and Niall did the same. He was fascinated by the sight of the Spider Lord. As a child, he had often shuddered when his grandfather, Jomar, told him stories about Cheb’s cruelty and ferocity — on one occasion he was said to have ordered the piecemeal execution of a thousand human beings, who were injected with spider venom to paralyze them, and then eaten over the course of several days. On another occasion Cheb had personally decapitated a hundred prisoners with his pincers. It was obvious that this story, at least, was untrue; Cheb’s infolded pincers looked scarcely more than two inches long.
Asmak said: “Do you wish to speak directly to the Great One? Or do you wish me to speak on your behalf?”
Niall looked at him with amazement. “But how. . .” He had to make an effort not to stammer. “But surely the Great One is dead?”
“No, lord, he is not dead. Neither is he alive.”
Niall stared at the mummified shell on the altar. “Not dead or alive? Surely that is impossible?”
In answer, Asmak conveyed another of those compressed bursts of information, which presented itself to Niall’s mind as a kind of pictograph. Its content was so astonishing that Niall had to allow it to unfold slowly in order to absorb it. Asmak, it seemed, was being strictly accurate in saying that the Lord Cheb was neither alive nor dead. It was true that his body had been dead for many centuries; so had much of his brain. But the parts of the brain that stored information had been kept alive, so that Cheb’s memory remained available to his own race, a kind of library preserved in the mummified shell of the body. Keeping his memory cells alive was a task assigned to young spiders; they prevented him from dying simply by feeding him with their own vital power. This was the explanation of the curious glow of warmth that Niall had experienced in the presence of the young spiders — a glow whose nature combined respect and love. It was with this same living force that the spiders prevented Cheb’s brain from dying.
Now, as Niall watched, the young spider reached into the brain of the Mighty Cheb, and poured forth a current of living energy. For the first time in his life, Niall understood a vital truth concerning the nature of love. He had always made the natural assumption that it was a mutually shared emotion. Now he recognized it as a vital force which existed in its own right, and which could be conveyed directly from one being to another in the form of a flow of life-energy.
What he found difficult to accept was that the shriveled corpse was in some sense alive. Niall’s own telepathic sensitivity, amplified by the power of Asmak’s mind, was unable to detect the slightest sign of life; the Lord Cheb might have been a piece of dead wood. The living current that flowed from the young spider was simply being absorbed, like water flowing into dry sand. What astonished Niall was that a spider who was obviously no more than a child was able to sustain such a stream of energy. Then, as he became more attuned to what was happening, he realized that the young spider was not alone in his efforts; he was a channel for the vital force of all the spiders gathered together in the cave. His task was to canalize and direct it, like a gardener directing the stream from a hose.
As Niall watched, the mummified body seemed to glow and expand; moments later, the stream of energy was literally rebounding, filling the narrow space of the cave with an unutterably joyous sense of springlike vitality — a sensation that reminded him of the shimmering energy he had experienced among the plants and bushes near Skorbo’s warehouse. Moments later, Niall realized that the Mighty Cheb was becoming aware of his surroundings. He almost expected to see him stir and stretch his legs, and the thought caused a momentary shock of alarm — for the shriveled shell was obviously too frail to move without falling apart. It was a relief to realize, a moment later, that the body remained as dead as it had been five minutes ago. Only the mind was alive, and was contemplating its surroundings with curiosity, like someone who has awakened from a deep sleep.
Almost immediately, he became aware of Niall’s presence. “Who is this?”
Asmak answered: “He is the chosen emissary of the great goddess.”
The Lord Cheb surveyed Niall with a kind of cold curiosity, which reminded Niall of his first meeting with the present Death Lord.
“Is this true?”
Six months ago, that question would have filled Niall with nervous misgivings. But in that time, he had become accustomed to the respect and obedience of the spiders. Now he replied indifferently: “They tell me so.”
“You seem little more than a child.”
This seemed to require no reply, so Niall merely stood silently.
What had happened in this brief exchange was complex and yet strangely simple. Cheb had known human beings only as enemies or as slaves; therefore, he had never met anyone like Niall, who faced him without reverence or fear, and who seemed indifferent to whether he was believed or not. Moreover, Niall faced him as an equal, possibly a superior. Until Cheb addressed him, Niall had seen him through the eyes of Asmak and the other spiders, and shared their sense of reverence. But the moment Cheb spoke, Niall entered his consciousness. It was like looking another man in the eyes, and immediately assessing his character. Cheb’s character was that of a ruler whose major traits are strength and cunning — the cunning of one who has achieved power and intends to keep it. Compared with Asmak or Dravig, his mind lacked subtlety; he certainly lacked their intelligence. Yet he emanated a sense of potency; even his “voice” was masculine and dominant. Niall could understand why he was known as Cheb the Mighty. In his coarse way, he was the most powerful spider Niall had ever met.
It was plain that Cheb found this human alien puzzling. He was aware of Niall’s intelligence, and accorded it a reluctant admiration. Yet he was also aware of Niall’s immaturity and inexperience — that if they had been face to face in the days when Cheb was alive, Niall would have been easy to outmaneuver. Therefore, the admiration was tinged with a patronizing disrespect. This shocked Asmak; and Cheb, in turn, was amused by Asmak’s dismay. There was a sense, therefore, in which Niall and Cheb the Mighty met as equals, while the others were mere onlookers.
Cheb asked: “Why have you come here?”
“To ask you a question.”
“Very well. Ask it.”
“I want to know who built the great wall across the Valley of the Dead.”
“I do not know. It was after my time.”
This was a disappointment; and Niall could sense that Asmak was I also disappointed.
Cheb asked: “Is that all?”
“No. I have one more question.”
“Ask it.”
“Is it true that you were the first spider to understand the secrets of the human soul?”
There was a silence, then Cheb asked: “Who told you that story?”
“My grandfather.” And since it was obvious that Cheb was waiting for further information, Niall went on: “He told me that a prince called Hallat had fallen in love with a maiden named Turool. But she was in love with a poor chieftain named Basat. The prince tried to kidnap her from Basat’s camp, but a dog betrayed his presence by barking, and he was driven away. So — according to my grandfather — Hallat came to you, and offered to betray the secrets of the human soul in exchange for Turool. He taught you how to read the minds of human beings, and in exchange, your warriors descended on the camp of Basat, and captured it in a surprise attack by night. Prince Hallat executed Basat by striking off his head. But Turool became insane with grief, and sacrificed her life by attacking a spider, who killed her.”
As he was speaking, Niall was aware that Cheb was listening with total attention. And so, he realized a moment later, were Asmak and the young spider. Since it was obvious that they wanted him to go on, and since Niall had heard the story so often that he knew it by heart, he continued: “At this time, according to my grandfather, the spiders were already living in this city, and were curious to learn the secret of the white tower. You offered to make Hallat the king of all men on Earth if he would help you to penetrate the secret of the tower. He agreed, and had many prisoners tortured to force them to reveal what they knew. Finally, an old woman agreed to tell him the answer to the riddle if he would spare her husband’s life. She told him that the secret of the tower was a ‘mind lock’ — the mind of man must interact with the walls of the tower, which would then dissolve away like smoke. This could be done with the aid of a magic rod. The old woman’s husband possessed such a rod, for it was a symbol of his power as a chief. Hallat took it from him, and went to the tower the next day at dawn — for the old woman told him that the rays of the rising sun would fall on a secret door at the foot of the tower. But when Hallat tried to approach the tower with the magic rod, some force threw him to the ground. He tried again, and the same thing happened. The third time, he stretched out both arms and shouted: ‘I command you to open!’ But when he tried to touch it with the magic rod, there was a flash like lightning, and Hallat was burned to a piece of black charcoal.”