A bend in the passage proved difficult to negotiate; it had been made for spiders rather than human beings. For a distance of perhaps ten feet it became even more narrow, so that the walls pressed upon his shoulders, and he had to push himself forward with his toes. Then, to his intense relief, it widened, and he found himself in a small chamber, pressed against the hairy bodies of the wolf spiders, with their oddly distinctive smell. It seemed impossible that there could be room for anyone else; but as Asmak pushed his way into the chamber, Niall had to squeeze against the wall, wedged tightly by the armored, crablike legs of one wolf spider and the upper portion of the soft abdomen of another.
Unlike the tomb of Cheb the Mighty, this tiny chamber, scarcely five feet in diameter and less than six feet high, contained no altar, nor any other repository for the body of a dead spider; it seemed to be empty. Then, on the opposite wall, Niall noticed the patch of newly spun cobweb, little more than six inches in diameter, and realized that it must conceal some kind of hole in the rock.
In this narrow space, the heat of the spiders’ bodies was oppressive, and their distinctive odor even more so. Yet in the presence of these young spiders, Niall made a decisive effort to overcome his feelings of oppression and alarm; as the representative of the goddess, he felt that it would be shameful to display weakness.
Now Asmak’s attention centered upon the cobweb-covered hole in the opposite wall, and Niall became aware that it was no more than a small hollow, scarcely six inches deep, and that its backward-sloping floor was covered with a cushiony mass of cobweb. In the center of this lay all that remained of Qisib the Wise, the spider who, according to legend, was the first to learn how human beings could be enslaved.
Niall had ceased to feel surprise; instead, he merely observed that Qisib was far smaller than his master Cheb. By comparison, Cheb was a giant. The body of Qisib was the size of a small bird, and most of the legs upon which it rested had broken away, so that they looked like withered segments of dry stick. The cephalic region and the thorax were complete, but the abdomen, which should have been the largest portion of its body, was so shriveled that it was almost nonexistent.
And now, for the first time, he understood why it had been necessary for three wolf spiders to accompany them. Qisib the Wise was in such a state of dissolution that he was scarcely more than a few mummified fragments. It was hardly surprising that Asmak had been troubled by Niall’s request to speak to him — it seemed inconceivable that even the vital force of three healthy young wolf spiders could restore this dehydrated shell to some semblance of life and intelligence.
The moment the three wolf spiders began to concentrate their attention on the fragments of the corpse, Niall’s sense of claustrophobia vanished; he was so totally absorbed in what was happening that his present situation was unimportant. This time, he allowed himself to become identified with the unified awareness of the spiders; like them, he entered into the shell of Qisib the Wise, and drifted into a kind of gray emptiness as his mind groped for a foothold in the world of nonexistence. What amazed him was that the wolf spiders seemed in no way discouraged by this emptiness; their vitality poured into it like water pouring over some bottomless waterfall. For a moment he was gripped by a feeling of loneliness that was close to panic, as his own mind threatened to dissolve into the void. Then he became aware that the grayness was no longer a featureless nothing; some kind of life was erupting to the surface, like an expanding pattern of ripples. It was like a monster rising from the bottom of the sea. The sense of erupting energy was due to its attempt to awaken itself from nonexistence. For a moment, it seemed doubtful that the energy of the spiders would suffice, and that they themselves would be dragged down into nonexistence. Then, like a sleeper opening his eyelids, the consciousness of Qisib the Wise began to take its bearings, and to struggle for a foothold in the world of the living. Oddly enough, it seemed intensely reluctant to do this, as if to be alive was an unutterable burden.
The difference between Qisib and Cheb was immediately apparent. Cheb had treated his excursion to the world of the living as a kind of holiday; for Qisib it was a wearisome duty that he would have been glad to escape. Like a sleeper roused from a heavy slumber, he was anxious to sink back into oblivion. And at this point, Niall realized why wolf spiders had been chosen rather than death spiders. They were less intelligent than death spiders, but their minds possessed the kind of brute force to prevent Qisib from escaping back into the grayness.
What happened next took Niall by surprise. It was exactly as if one of the young spiders had seized Qisib in his powerful front legs and dragged him across the threshold of the living world. What happened, in fact, was that the spider transferred Qisib’s consciousness into his own brain, then retreated into a kind of trance, leaving Qisib in possession. The dead spider had ceased to be a disembodied mind, and became part of a living entity, supported by his life system. For a moment, he remained passive, as if still unwilling to make any kind of effort. Then he turned his attention to Asmak, and asked wearily: “What is it this time, guardian of the dead?”
The voice, unlike that of the Lord Cheb, was thin and without resonance. Niall had observed before that the “voices” of spiders were as distinctive as those of humans, even though the communication was from mind to mind. They were clearly an expression of the spider’s whole personality.
Asmak said: “This youth is the emissary of the great goddess. He wants to ask you a question.”
Qisib surveyed Niall without interest. “Let him ask it.”
The voice was bored and flat.
Niall said: “I want to ask, lord, whether you know who built the great wall across the Valley of the Dead.”
“Yes. I did.”
“You!” Niall was aware that Asmak and Grel (who was standing behind him in the corridor) shared his astonishment.
“That is so. I don’t mean on my own, of course.” Qisib sounded slightly defensive. “I mean I supervised the work.”
“And that was after the time of Cheb the Mighty?”
“Yes, that’s right. It was in the reign of his son Kasib the Warrior. Although, in fact, I suppose the whole thing started in the time of Cheb.”
Qisib spoke slowly, as if he was ruminating on his words. His voice had none of the vigor of Cheb’s voice, nor any of his natural authority, and the reedy intonation made him sound very old. Yet there was something oddly likable about Qisib the Wise, as if he combined modesty with a sense of humor. It was easy to understand why he had been chosen by the two great Spider Lords as their chief counselor.
Niall asked: “But why was the wall built?”
“To keep out those human creatures from the north.” The image Qisib used for “human creatures” was vaguely insulting, as if referring to some particularly disgusting insects.
Niall made an effort to repress his excitement. “Who were they?”
“I don’t know. We never found out.”
He realized that it was going to be difficult getting specific information out of Qisib. It was not that the great counselor was trying to be difficult or was unwilling to tell what he knew. It was simply that Niall was questioning him in human language, and Qisib — who had obviously had little mental intercourse with humans — found it confusing, like a man trying to understand a foreign tongue.
Niall drew a deep breath, and reflected on how to phrase his next question.
“The mighty Lord Cheb has described to me how you conquered this city. He said that he then became master of all the lands between the two rivers. Yet now you tell me that he failed to conquer the humans from the north.” Niall paused, but Qisib made no reply; it was obvious that he failed to understand what Niall was asking. Niall tried to clarify: “What land did these people come from?”
“I don’t know. We never found out.”
“But didn’t you want to find out?”
“Not in the beginning. We weren’t interested in the mountains to the north of the Valley of the Dead. They weren’t of any use to us, and the coastal plain was too narrow.”
And now, at last, Qisib’s mind was beginning to convey geographical images, first of the Valley of the Dead, with its black volcanic lake, then of the bleak and precipitous mountains to the north, with their strange, needlelike spires. Niall also observed that these northern mountains were heavily coated with snow; it was clear that, in the time of Qisib the Wise, the land was only just emerging from the grip of the great ice age.