Niall was struck by the clarity of the mental image; it seemed even sharper and more real than his recent view of the same mountains through the mind of Asmak. It seemed incredible that memory — even the memory of a spider — could store any scene in such photographic detail.
Now that their minds were in close contact, it suddenly became easier to communicate. When Qisib realized that Niall was interested in the mental image of the northern mountains, he sustained and enlarged it, so Niall could study it in more detail. Niall immediately became aware that the lake in the center of the valley had been far larger at the end of the great ice age, and the rivers that flowed from it were more turbulent. The mountain streams that fed the lake were like cascades of white foam; they had filled it to the brim, so that the steep sides which Niall had noticed earlier were now hidden below the black surface.
Niall asked the question that he had been meaning to raise ever since his first sight of this valley. “Why is it called the Valley of the Dead?”
“Because so many of our people died here on the night of the great storm.”
“How did this come about?”
For answer, Qisib conjured up a vision of torrential rain, followed by an image of rushing water that seemed to explode across the valley, sweeping away thousands of spiders who had taken shelter under the southern flank of the mountain. The image lasted only a second — Qisib obviously had no desire to prolong it — but it left Niall feeling shaken and breathless. He could see that it had the same effect on the other spiders.
“But what were so many spiders doing in this valley?”
“They were preparing to march north, to seek out the enemy.”
“But you told me your people were not interested in the lands to the north.”
“That is true. But we had to defend ourselves from attack.”
And now Qisib’s mind created an image of a coastal city with white houses and tree-lined terraces, and buildings that Niall recognized as old churches. There was something oddly familiar about the surrounding plain, and the two domelike mountains that enclosed it. With a stir of excitement, Niall recognized the town of Cibilla that he had seen a couple of hours ago. It had then been a desolation of rubble-filled streets and smoke-blackened houses; yet the mountains in the background left no doubt that this was the same place.
Then, in a series of unambiguous images, Qisib told the story of the catastrophe in the Valley of the Dead.
The coastal town of Cibilla had been the one in which Cheb had taken refuge on his return from the northern wastes. More than a century earlier, it had been burnt by Skapta the Cunning. Men had never returned there, for the ruins were full of disgusting slimy creatures. (Niall knew that when a spider dies, its body turns into a lower form of life called a squid fungus — an octopus-like invertebrate that was fairly harmless to adults, but which loved to suffocate and consume sleeping children.) The spiders were unafraid of these creatures, for they could be controlled by will-force. So Cheb and his people had lived for many years in the ruined town, unsuspected by Vaken the Terrible, or by his son Vaken the Fair. When wandering shepherds came too close, they were captured and held as slaves. And this is how Qisib came to understand that he held the key to the conquest of the human race. Human babies were taken from their parents and brought up as spiders. And it was this new breed of spider-servants who enabled the Mighty Cheb to conquer Vaken the Fair, and to become lord of the spider city.
Within forty moons, all the human strongholds had been conquered, and Cheb was the undisputed master of the world. The conquest was not an easy one. In spite of their highly developed will-force, few individual spiders were a match for individual men. Compared with the spiders of that time, men were giants. And when a fully armed soldier, maddened with drink, charged into battle, he could kill a dozen spiders before their united will-force paralyzed his sword arm. Even the poison of the spiders was useless against a warrior in protective clothing. And since, at this time, men vastly outnumbered the spiders, the war was long and bloody, and after one major defeat, Cheb even considered returning to the lands of the north. But with the aid of the great goddess, he finally prevailed, and his kingdom extended from the deserts of Khaybad to the Gray Mountains in the north.
And when Cheb was in his hundred-and-twentieth year, and his legs were no longer strong enough to support the weight of his body, he retreated to the sacred cave beneath his capital city, and there made his entry into the land of the unliving. His son Kasib the Warrior, who had conducted Cheb’s last campaign against the men of the southern desert, became Death Lord in his place.
During the last years of his reign, the coastal town that men called Cibilla was used by Cheb and his ministers as a summer retreat — for now that the great ice age was over, the weather was becoming increasingly hot. It had been rebuilt by slaves under the command of Cheb’s faithful human servants, and the spiders and their servants often shared the same buildings, with the spiders living in the upper stories. The cool sea breezes were welcome in the heat of midsummer. But as Cheb grew old, he began to dream of his childhood in the cold lands of the north. He sent an expedition there, and learned that the ice had now retreated, and that the marshes were full of birds and other wild game. And in the year after the death of Cheb, his son Kasib sent some of his human servants, under the command of Madig, grandson of Hallat, to select a site for a new city.
But Madig failed to return, and a search party of spiders and human warriors could find no trace of him. He had vanished somewhere in the mountains to the northeast. But Kasib refused to believe that a dozen men could disappear without trace, even in the dangerous wastes of Kend, and he sent a second search party, headed by the famous tracker Tubin. Tubin soon picked up their tracks, and they led him to Madig’s last camp site. And a dozen miles from the camp site, he found a single clue — a dagger whose handle had been pushed into the damp earth, so that the blade pointed toward the Gray Mountains in the west. Madig’s wife identified it as her husband’s dagger and said that he always kept it strapped to the inside of his leg above the left ankle.
Tubin concluded that Madig’s party had been attacked in the middle of the night, and overpowered without a struggle. Then they had been taken away toward the west. They must have halted briefly — perhaps to eat breakfast — so that Madig had an opportunity to draw the dagger from its sheath above his ankle, and leave it pointing in the direction of their march. He had driven the handle into the earth, to make sure that whoever found it would know it had been placed there deliberately, and not dropped by accident.
Yet all Tubin’s skill could find no further trace of the party. Throughout that day and the next they marched toward the Gray Mountains, without discovering even the remains of an encampment. And in the barren foothills of the Gray Mountains, they decided to abandon the search and return home.
Kasib concluded that Madig had been attacked by wandering nomads, perhaps fugitive survivors from one of the armies he had conquered. But although spider balloons searched the wastes of Kend and every habitable valley in the Gray Mountains, they found no sign of human habitation.
Before that summer came to an end, a guard on the walls of Cibilla sighted a lone man, dressed in a gray cloak, stumbling across the plain toward the town. Before the stranger could pass through the gate, he collapsed in a swoon, and lay face downward like a corpse. He was carried to a nearby house and placed in a bed. It was only when the captain of the guard went to look at the stranger that he recognized him as Madig. The face was so pale and emaciated that he looked like a living death’s head.
Yet when he regained consciousness, Madig refused to tell his story, declaring that this was for the ear of the Death Lord alone. By this time, Kasib the Warrior had returned to his capital, and as soon as he was strong enough, Madig was sent to the spider city under escort. There he was taken immediately into the presence of the Death Lord. But what passed between them remained a secret, for Qisib and all his fellow counselors were sent from the room. Qisib was allowed to return when the meeting was over, and he observed that Madig seemed weary and heartsick, while the Death Lord looked grim and thoughtful.