The land to the far north of Korsh was a mountainous region, full of deep valleys, and it was in these valleys that the hairy spiders had established their own kingdom. They lived on birds and small animals and reptiles. Their nearest human neighbors had allowed them to live in peace. But when Ivar conquered these neighbors, he learned of the existence of the “Valley of the Spiders,” and decided that the hairy tarantulas had to be exterminated. The entrance to the valley was blocked by webs; these were destroyed by fire. Ivar had discovered an underground source of a black, tarry substance which burned fiercely and gave off a poisonous smoke. The spiders, confident that they were safe in the depths of their caves, made no attempt to resist the invaders; they learned too late that the black smoke could suffocate them. As spiders tried to flee from the depths of the caves, men waiting above the entrance covered them with the black tar, while others drove them toward bushes that had been set on fire. The spiders, blinded and half-poisoned by the smoke, were easy prey; by evening, the valley was piled high with their burnt bodies. Because they were telepathic, the pain and misery of the dying spread panic and madness among the living. Spiders in other valleys retreated to the north, into a land still in the grip of winter, and thousands died there. And because of the massacre of the spiders, Ivar became known as Ivar the Strong.
So great were Cheb’s powers of description that Niall could smell the charred flesh and the choking odor of burning tar; he witnessed the spectacle of mothers, with their young clinging to their backs, battered to a pulp with wooden clubs, or deliberately burned alive by men who ignited their tar-sprayed bodies with blazing straw. Now, at last, he understood why the death spiders regarded man as the most evil and depraved creature on Earth.
Ivar’s cruelty led to his downfall. The spiders were already evolving at an accelerated rate; now their misery and hatred concentrated the powers of the will. Within a few generations, they had developed a poison strong enough to kill the largest man or horse, and a will power capable of paralyzing a man in his tracks and preventing him from moving until he had been injected with venom. This was how the spiders became the deadliest creatures on the planet — out of a desperate need to prevent their extermination by human beings. Ivar, of course, knew nothing of this — he had been too busy conquering the lands to the east. So when he learned — from shepherds and herdsmen — that the spiders had returned to their valleys, he prepared for another massacre. The webs that blocked the entrance to the valley were burned, and wood soaked in tar was piled outside the caves. Ivar himself, on a mighty black horse, prepared to give the order to ignite the bonfires. His men, holding their blazing torches, awaited the signal. But the signal never came. As Ivar began to raise his arm, a look of surprise and alarm crossed his face, and he seemed to be struck dumb. And the men who were holding the torches also found that they were unable to move; even the strongest could only twitch their limbs and roll their eyes. Then the spiders swarmed out of the caves, while others blocked the entrance to the valley. Fleeing men — for many were still able to move — were overwhelmed by spiders that climbed their backs and sank fangs into their necks. No fires were lit that day. Instead, more than a thousand paralyzed men were dragged into caves, and their clothes stripped from them by the powerful chelicerae of the male spiders. Then the children drank their warm juices, while the adults gorged on their living flesh. Ivar the Cruel lasted for three days; his eyelids were eaten away so that his eyes remained open until the hour of his death. It was said that he remained fully conscious until a few minutes before he died.
So great was Niall’s state of empathy with the Spider Lord that he experienced no horror at this recital — rather, a feeling of satisfaction that the humans had received the punishment they deserved.
He asked: “And were you alive at the time of these events?”
“No. I was born a thousand moons later.” (It took Niall a few moments to work out that this was approximately eighty years.) “That was in the reign of the king called Vaken the Terrible. His warriors hunted and killed our people in order to obtain their poison, which they used to preserve animals in winter.”
Niall interrupted: “But if your people had developed the power of the mind, surely they had nothing to fear from human beings?”
“Unfortunately, that is not so. My people are peace-loving and unsuspicious. All they wanted was to be allowed to live without fear. This is why we moved away from the valley of the massacre — even after our triumph over Ivar the Cruel — and went to live in the valleys of the north. But human beings were full of desire for revenge, and they often took us by surprise. The grandson of Ivar the Cruel started an avalanche that buried alive thousands of our most courageous warriors. We retreated to a ruined city between the mountains and the sea, hoping to find safety. But on the night of the strong winds, Skapta the Cunning started a fire which swept through the city with the speed of a storm cloud, and again thousands of my people were burned to death.
“After that came Vaken the Terrible, and he never ceased to persecute us until my people were driven to find refuge on the mountainous side of the great river. I was born in these cold lands which are far to the north. I can remember the year of the icy winds, when many of our people froze to death. When my father failed to return from hunting, I went out to look for him. I found him buried in snow, still standing guard over the carcass of a stag, which had frozen into a block of ice. And since my father was our ruler, and I was his strongest son, I became Death Ruler in his place.
“It was I who decided that we should leave the lands of the north wind and return to the south, even if it meant being killed by human hunters. I was the first of our kind to decide that we had to make war if we were to survive. That is why I became known as Cheb the Mighty. I led my people back to the city that had been burned by Skapta the Cunning, and for many years we lived among its ruins, undetected by human beings. I taught my people to be vigilant — to keep guard so that we could no longer be surprised by enemies. If herdsmen came close to our city, we hid ourselves until they went away. If they came too close, and discovered our presence, we captured and killed them.
“Now my chief adviser was a counselor called Qisib, who was entrusted with the task of demolishing the dangerous parts of the city. And it was he who realized that our human captives could perform these tasks more efficiently than my people. They were physically stronger than we were, yet their minds were feeble by comparison. So instead of killing our captives, we began to use them as slaves. Among these was a boy called Hallat, who was as strong as an ox. One day, when he was demolishing a building, his guard was killed by a falling beam. He had the opportunity to escape, yet he preferred to remain. That is why I began to trust him, and to treat him with kindness. And it was through Hallat that I began to understand the ways of men.”
Niall asked: “And who was Princess Turool?”
“I do not know. Hallat was allowed to take his pick of female prisoners. But I never knew their names.”
“And is it true that he was killed by lightning when he tried to enter the white tower?”
“No. Hallat was never in this city, for in those days it was still occupied by human beings. But it was through my counselor Qisib that the city finally fell into our hands. One of Hallat’s wives died in childbirth, and the child was given to one of Qisib’s daughters. Instead of eating him, she decided to keep him as a pet. And when the child was old enough to walk, some other human children were sent to play with him. Instead of welcoming them, the child rushed at them and tried to bite them. And Qisib, who happened to be in the room, realized that the child did not regard himself as a human being. Because he had been brought up among our people, he regarded himself as a spider.