Niall was astonished. "Why?"

"Because they would owe their lives to the intercession of one they regard as an enemy. They would prefer to die."

Dravig now preceded him up the stairs. And, as he followed, Niall tried to understand this latest baffling paradox of the arachnoid mentality: that a spider should prefer death to the generosity of an "enemy." Then, as he again became aware of the suffocating tension in the air, he suddenly understood. Unlike human beings, spiders were in constant telepathic contact. There would be no way in which a spider could forget or ignore the contempt of his fellows. And that contempt would cause him to see himself as an entirely contemptible creature, unworthy of life. . .

The building was in almost complete darkness; every window was covered by a thick layer of dust-laden cobwebs which had accumulated over the centuries. Some long- dead Spider Lord had probably chosen this building as his headquarters because the great main staircase was built of black marble, and the walls were covered with a substance like black volcanic glass. Spiders had an instinctive preference for darkness -- no doubt because it was necessary for the concealment of their webs.

On the fourth floor, Dravig halted in front of a wide door covered with black leather and decorated with brass studs. The two wolf spiders who stood on guard on either side were so still that they might have been statues. The same was true of the dark- haired girl who stood to attention in front of the door; she was dressed in a black uniform, although her white arms had been left bare; Niall recognized her as Sidonia, the captain of the Spider Lord's household guard. She looked at him without recognition -- the slightest wavering of her gaze would have been regarded as a severe breach of discipline -- then turned her back on them and threw open the door.

In the spacious hall beyond, there was enough light to reveal that the walls and ceiling were entirely covered with dusty cobwebs. At the far end of the room, the cobwebs stretched from floor to ceiling, and were so thick that they resembled layers of netting or a tangle of creepers. From the midst of this jungle, Niall had a sensation of being surveyed by invisible eyes. As he came to a halt, the voice of the Spider Lord sounded inside his chest.

"Welcome, chosen of the goddess."

Niall replied: "I am honored to be in your presence, O lord of the Earth."

As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, Niall became aware of other spiders standing by the walls; they were so still, and blended so well into the background, that they were virtually invisible. And then, quite suddenly, it was unnecessary for him to try to penetrate the darkness; every spider in the room became clearly visible. For a moment he thought that a beam of sunlight had penetrated the dusty windows. Then, with a shock, he understood what had happened. The Spider Lord had integrated him into the web of awareness within the room. He had been granted the supreme honor of becoming a part of the general consciousness that united all spiders.

It was, in a sense, the most remarkable experience of his life. Like all human beings, Niall had spent his whole life seeing things from his individual standpoint, like a man sitting alone in a small room; even when closest to others he felt aware of his solitariness. He had taken it for granted that this was what it meant to be alive. Now, suddenly, he was no longer alone; he was a part of a network of other beings, as aware of their existence as he was of his own. The bewildering thing was that his sense of identity had vanished; he had become the spiders who surrounded him, while his own identity had somehow become divided among them. Yet when he looked inside himself, wondering at this loss of individuality, he realized with surprise that his identity was still there, as it always had been. It was his sense of being himself, of being Niall, that had disappeared.

And now he understood that this had always been an illusion, that he had never been Niall. Niall was merely a set of misconceptions.

All this, he realized, was an act of supreme courtesy on the part of the Spider Lord, an attempt to make amends for centuries of mistrust between spiders and human beings. And since spiders have a natural aversion to human beings, just as most human beings have a natural aversion to spiders, this gesture of integration into spider consciousness was also an act of extraordinary generosity. The generosity was all the more astounding since Niall could now understand why spiders found humans so distasteful; with their cramped little egos, their obsessive self-preoccupation, they must all seem to be suffering from a kind of insanity. Now he could also see why spiders had felt no guilt about treating human beings as slaves; with their blindness and narrowness, men were only one degree less stupid than sheep.

Yet although his new awareness allowed him to blend into the consciousness of the spiders, so that he himself became a kind of honorary spider, he was also aware that all the spiders possessed their own individual consciousness, so that the contents of their minds were hidden from him, just as his were hidden from them. He could betray his thoughts to them, by allowing them to "overflow," but if he chose to minimize his thought energy, then there was no way in which they could invade the privacy of his mind.

Now, as he stood in silence before the web of the Spider Lord, he understood the proverb quoted by Dravig as the essence of spider wisdom: "Silence allows Time to hear its own voice." Because they were directly aware of one another's existence, spiders felt perfectly at home in silence; this was why they could remain silent and motionless for days or weeks at a time. This, he also realized, was why spiders lived so long: the silence allowed them time to renew themselves. While he had been trapped in his own identity, Niall had felt awkward and self-conscious to be standing alone in the middle of the room; now he felt that he could easily stand there for a year without fatigue.

As his attention shifted from the strangeness of his new awareness to the room around him, Niall became conscious of the situation in which he found himself. The web that covered the end of the room like a dark tunnel now seemed transparent, and he recognized for the first time that it was the equivalent of a royal throne, in which the Spider Lord sat surrounded by her courtiers, the ruling council of the spider city; each of these councilors -- all were female -- had her precise place. The only other occupants of the room, besides himself and Dravig, were six male spiders, who were ranged on either side of the room; these, he now realized, were the prisoners on trial.

As soon as his attention was fixed on them, he was aware that five of the six were nonentities, the spider equivalent of foot soldiers. The leading spirit was the sixth, a captain of the guard who had been Skorbo's closest friend. This spider was smaller and more compact than the others, although his powerful legs and pincers revealed enormous physical strength. Niall was surprised to realize that this spider, like the others, was nameless -- for names would have been pointless when spiders had instant telepathic recognition. If one of them wished to refer to a spider who was absent, he could convey a mental image of the spider's essential identity. Names such as Skorbo and Dravig had been bestowed on prominent spiders by human beings.

And now that his attention was focused on the sixth spider, Niall also recognized that a name would have been an absurdity. This spider had come from a distant province across the sea, and he had been born into a privileged position, a member of a family whose natural dominance ensured them a certain preeminence. Here, in the spider city, his natural dominance aroused resentment, while his small stature led to him being regarded with a certain lack of respect. And since spiders attached immense importance to being respected, this had engendered a certain rebelliousness.

Skorbo, by comparison, had been coarse and stupid; but he also possessed a high degree of natural dominance, so the two had formed a kind of alliance. Skorbo had never understood his companion's rebelliousness, for he himself was a born soldier who regarded obedience as a law of nature; but he admired this "aristocrat" among spiders.

As members of the imperial guard, these two had never given cause for complaint; but when they were off duty, they took pleasure in hunting and tormenting human beings. They were not interested in those who were merely fat and succulent, but only in those who possessed a certain strength and enterprise, some degree of leadership quality. These they observed with infinite patience, studying their movements, waiting until the opportunity came to plunge down on them from the sky and seize the victim in all eight legs. This generated an almost feverish intensity of pleasure. The victim's vocal chords were paralyzed so that he could not cry out, but his limbs were left unaffected, for the essence of the pleasure lay in his struggles. To feel a terrified captive squirming frantically produced a delight that in human beings is associated only with sex. Then he would be taken to a lighted room, and allowed to try to escape. One man had even succeeded in leaping out of an upper window, hoping to kill himself; but Skorbo had been crouching in his web, and had caught him before he struck the pavement. (Spiders were able to increase or decrease their speed of descent at will.) The victim had then been tormented for hours until he had died of terror and exhaustion. His body had been eaten while still warm.

All this Niall knew instantaneously on looking at the guard captain, for it had already been confessed, and was therefore in the minds of his companions. He could also understand why, when the Spider Lord had announced the peace treaty between spiders and human beings, Skorbo and his companion had been so shocked and outraged. They were being deprived of a pleasure that had become the keenest and sweetest sensation in life, something that meant more to them than food and drink. Yet Skorbo was willing to accept the new state of affairs; since it was the will of the goddess, he could see no alternative. It was his companion who rebelled at the idea. Although he too was willing to respect the will of the goddess, the notion of treating human beings as equals filled him with fury and contempt. Humans were vermin, obviously intended by Nature to be the prey of spiders. If the goddess had allowed them to go on killing human beings for centuries, it was surely unlikely that she would suddenly change her mind. No, this new prohibition was obviously the decision of the old Spider Lord, who was impotent and senile. It deserved to be flouted.

In any case, there was no hurry about deciding what to do. Their private larder was well stocked with human flesh. A death spider could inject his prey with a poison that would paralyze the central nervous system without causing death; if precisely the right quantity was injected, the victim might live for six months without being able to move a finger or an eyelid. So Skorbo and his companion continued to dine on human flesh for many months after the peace treaty without feeling that they were breaking the law. Then five NCOs of the imperial guard discovered a forgotten communal larder containing a dozen or so paralyzed human carcasses, as well as some cows and pigs.

These were transferred to Skorbo's larder, and the NCOs joined in the nightly feasts. One night, an NCO brought back the body of a slave who had collapsed during an epileptic attack, and they all agreed that the fresh meat tasted so delicious that it would be absurd to forgo the pleasure of eating the occasional slave -- besides, no one really regarded slaves as human. But then, human beings from across the river often wandered around the slave quarter at night, and it was quite impossible to know which was which. And so, step by step, without any intention of breaking the law, Skorbo and his companions had drifted back into the habit of eating live flesh. . .

All these facts were communicated to Niall's mind within a few moments of the Spider Lord's greeting; it was unnecessary for them to be communicated serially, one by one, for they existed simultaneously, in the mind of the Spider Lord and of every other spider in this room. But he was also aware that the most important part of the interrogation was still to come -- a part that, although purely formal, was still essential to the process of justice.

First of all there was a lengthy silence -- the silence spiders believed should precede all affairs of importance. As Niall relaxed in this silence, he experienced an almost electrical sensation of delight. The last time he had experienced this sensation was when he and Veig, and their cousin Hrolf, were exploring the country of the ants, and had encountered a shallow stream that meandered in its rocky bed. For the first time in his life, Niall had immersed himself in water, and then had sat there, staring at the rippling surface, with this same sensation of peaceful ecstasy.

The Spider Lord finally spoke, addressing the prisoners: "You are aware that you have broken the law, and flouted the will of the goddess. What do you have to say for yourselves?"

The accused made no reply. The five NCOs were obviously too ashamed to speak; the captain simply maintained silence.

The Spider Lord said: "Is there any reason why I should not pass the sentence of death?"

After another silence, the captain replied: "I would regard the death sentence as an injustice."

"Why?" "Because the fault was unintentional. We began by eating humans who had already been destroyed." (The spider thought-language made no distinction between "paralyzed" and "destroyed.") "We realize that. But you then went on to break the law by killing those who had not yet been destroyed."

"It is true that I broke your law. But it was not the law of my own country, the land of Koresh."

At this point, Dravig intervened. "You are in this country, not in Koresh, and are therefore obliged to obey our laws. Are you trying to deny this?" Dravig's voice had a note of anger.

The captain's reply sounded cool and unemotional. "I do not deny it. But I submit that this particular law is unfair."

"Why?" The Spider Lord's voice also betrayed a note of anger.

"I am a stranger in your land. You have no right to ask me to treat human beings as equals. I do not regard them as equals. Moreover, I do not believe you regard them as equals."

Niall was suddenly struck by an astonishing insight. Spider justice differed from human justice in one basic respect. A spider could not be sentenced to death against his will. If he was to be executed, it had to be with his own total consent. The reason was obvious. If a spider was executed against his will, every other spider in the city would be aware of his misery and agony. Therefore, it was necessary for a spider to be convinced of his own guilt, and to consent to his own execution. The captain, apparently, was determined not to die. This, Niall now realized, was why Dravig and the Spider Lord were becoming angry.

But when the Spider Lord replied, it was with remarkable restraint. "All that is irrelevant. I gave my word that there should be peace between spiders and human beings.

You have caused that promise to be broken. Therefore you deserve to die."

This argument was obviously irrefutable; in effect, the captain had now been driven into a corner. Surely he would at last concede the justice of the sentence?

"I agree that I have been the cause of your promise being broken. But I argue that there are extenuating circumstances."

The Spider Lord addressed the other five prisoners. "Do you agree that you deserve to die?"

All five made a gesture that signified assent.

The Spider Lord asked: "Well?"

"I see no reason why my life should be sacrificed to the will of cowards."

The Spider Lord suddenly lost patience. "That is enough! I am tired of your equivocations! You have deserved death a thousand times. Bow your head!"

This last sentence -- it could also have been translated "Subordinate your will" or "Prepare to die" -- was spoken in a tone of such menace that the room suddenly seemed to darken. The five NCOs obeyed immediately and abjectly, as if bowing their heads to the executioner's ax. But the captain, although he knew himself to be in an impossible situation, continued to radiate defiance. The Spider Lord and Dravig struck at once with a force that made Niall cringe; a human being would have been squashed like a fly. The captain collapsed to the ground, and lay there, his legs drawn around him in a tight knot; at the same time, his will also collapsed into a defensive posture, surrounding him with a shield of invisible force. The combined strength of Dravig and the Death Lord struck this shield with a force that should have smashed it and crushed the spider underneath it. In fact, it rebounded onto the other five spiders, killing them instantly. There was a crunching sound, and the air was suddenly full of the peculiar pungent odor of spider blood.

Niall felt them die. It was a strange sensation, as if time had suddenly gone into slow motion. His brain was flooded with information -- so much information that it was impossible to absorb it, or even grasp its nature. Nevertheless, he knew intuitively what was happening: that in the moment of instantaneous extinction, the spiders were reliving their own lives. The experience was curiously exciting, and completely devoid of the terror he had expected to be associated with death. Then, what seemed to be several minutes later, there was only darkness and a sensation of emptiness.

The captain was still lying there, surrounded by his defensive shield; it was obvious that he had no intention of dropping his guard. All his will was concentrated upon a single purpose: to save his own life. In the pause that followed, the Spider Lord regarded him with angry contempt; he found it unbelievable that any spider should prefer ignominy and disgrace to an honorable death. Then he summoned the others to join with him in the work of destruction. This meant that he and his ruling council would cease to act as individuals, but would unite their efforts in a common purpose. This stratagem -- known to the beetle servants as multiple-reinforcement interaction -- could be compared to the decision of a group who had been trying to batter down a door by individual efforts to unite their strength behind a battering ram.

The captain sensed what was about to happen, and his fear was so powerful that it overwhelmed the bitter stench of blood. Yet even his terror had an element of calculation.

Since its vibrations were being carried simultaneously to every spider in the city, they had all become witnesses of this attempt to destroy him. He was like a man screaming at the top of his lungs in order to mitigate the severity of a beating. But as the multiple reinforcement mechanism began to operate, the terror became muted as it gave way to a grim determination to survive. Niall watched with sickened fascination as the captain exerted all his own will power in an attempt to preserve his life for a few moments longer. He could understand that terror of sudden extinction -- as could every spider in the city. The interlinked will power of the spiders was like some giant nutcracker; it seemed impossible that any living creature could withstand such force. Even the corpses of the other spiders were caught in the mesh of power, so they began to crack and crumble, while their blood ran over the floor like water squeezed from a sponge. The captain's mind was also cracking under the pressure, and Niall experienced again the sense of being overwhelmed with information -- that curious flood of images that seemed to accompany the conviction of approaching death. The most vivid of these was of a square, gray building surrounded by rich vegetation, including red and yellow tropical flowers. But the inside smelled like a butcher's shop, and from the beams that supported the ceiling, a number of human bodies cocooned in spider silk swung like pendulums in the breeze.

It was as the blood began to run around his own feet that Niall suddenly understood why this united will-force had not yet destroyed the captain's resistance. It was because he, Niall, was present in the room, thereby inhibiting the Spider Lord from exerting the power that could overwhelm resistance through brute force. Such an explosion of power might well have cracked the walls of the room in which they were standing; it would certainly have squeezed the life out of Niall at the same time as it destroyed the captain. There was only one way in which Niall could cease to be an obstruction: by uniting his own will with that of the Spider Lord, so that his will became a part of the web of power. Yet even as this thought occurred to him, he was aware that it was out of the question. He was a human being, not a spider. The captain might be a sadistic coward who enjoyed torturing Niall's fellow humans; but Niall had no personal quarrel with him. If he took part in this execution, he would be somehow forfeiting his own humanity.

The struggle seemed to continue for a long time; in fact, it might have been minutes, or even seconds. At a certain point, it became clear that the captain had won his fight for life. Without Niall's participation, he could not be destroyed. At that moment, the Spider Lord suddenly released his grip; Dravig and the others did so at the same time.

The result was that the captain spun across the room like a projectile, narrowly missing Niall's legs, and crashed into the wall. The force of the impact was enough to deprive him of his senses. But instead of taking advantage of his helplessness, the Spider Lord merely regarded him with contempt. Several minutes passed as the prostrate spider stirred; then, as if knowing the danger was past, he struggled slowly to his feet.

When the Spider Lord spoke, his voice was cold and detached. "You will leave this city immediately and never return. But you will not be allowed to return by sea to your own land. No ship will carry a traitor who prefers dishonor to death. Now go."

The spider dragged himself toward the door, every movement revealing a deadly fatigue. In this state, a child could have killed him.

The voice of the Spider Lord followed him. "You are now an outlaw, and all creatures are licensed to kill you. You must find your way back to your own land as best you can."

The door swung open; Sidonia was standing on the other side. When the exhausted spider had crawled past her, she closed it again.

The Spider Lord now addressed Niall. "You have chosen to spare his life. That was your own decision, and I accept it. But the debt is now discharged."

The implication was that, since Niall had spared the captain's life, he should not complain if more human beings were killed. Niall signified his understanding by making a deep bow. The gesture was intended as a kind of apology, and the Spider Lord understood it as such. Then, followed by Dravig, Niall made his way to the door, walking cautiously to avoid slipping in the blood. Activated by some command that was beyond the range of Niall's perceptions, Sidonia opened the door again, then closed it behind them. It was a relief to be in the clean air. The stench of dead spiders had brought Niall to the verge of being violently sick.

Sidonia was standing to attention, her face as blank as a doll's; the shoulder-length blonde hair and the pink cheeks reinforced this impression. But behind the immobility, Niall could sense her nervousness as he stood looking at her.

"Sidonia, I want to talk to you."

Her color deepened as he spoke; otherwise she gave no sign of having heard. He said: "I'd like you to come with me."

As she followed him down the stairs he could sense her puzzlement; she could imagine no reason why he should want to talk to her, unless he found her attractive, and harbored the same desires as his brother. Dravig was also puzzled, but was too polite to attempt to read Niall's thoughts.

Outside, the sunlight seemed dazzling. On the northern side of the square, he could see the captain moving down the main avenue toward the bridge that led to the slave quarter. Although his movements still betrayed fatigue, he was traveling swiftly, apparently determined to leave the city before someone took advantage of the license to kill.

Niall sat down on the sun-warmed balustrade, and gestured for Sidonia to take a seat beside him. She sat down awkwardly, as if it made her uncomfortable to cease to stand to attention. Dravig waited impassively; spiders had an odd ability to freeze, as if turned into statues.

Niall asked: "How well do you know this city?"

"Very well, I think." She spoke in the clipped voice of one accustomed to giving commands.

"Do you know of a square, gray building, surrounded by green bushes and red and yellow flowers?" He reinforced the question with a telepathic image.

She looked down at the pavement, biting her lip, then shook her head. "No, lord."

Niall could see she was telling the truth; yet he could also sense an element of doubt. Something about the image aroused a sense of familiarity.

"Are you quite sure?"

She flushed, thinking that he was doubting her word. Because she was so accustomed to spiders probing her mind, she had no idea that her privacy was being invaded.

"Yes, lord."

"But have you any idea where it might be?"

She frowned. "There are many flowers in that part of the city." She raised her hand and pointed to the east, along the avenue that ran past Niall's palace.

"How far?"

"Perhaps two or three miles."

Niall turned to Dravig.

"Do you know that part of the city?"

"No. My business has never taken me there. It is quite deserted."

"Why is it deserted?"

"Because it is not suitable for human habitation."

"I would like to go there. Will you come with me?"

The spider made a gesture of acquiescence. Niall turned back to Sidonia. "I would also like you to accompany me. Please come to the palace at two o'clock this afternoon."

The sun now shone from a clear blue sky; the only unmelted snow lay in the shadows of trees and buildings, and the air was full of the rippling sound of water as it ran along the gutters and down the drains. The heat on their backs was so great that Niall and Simeon removed their cloaks and carried them over their arms; only Sidonia preferred the discomfort of the sun to the indignity of being improperly dressed. Dravig, as usual, seemed indifferent to the temperature. Around his neck, Niall was wearing the thought mirror that had been presented to him on his first visit to the white tower. This was a device for coordinating vibrations from the brain, the heart, and the solar plexus, producing a concentration that intensified the perceptions. Since becoming ruler, Niall had lost the habit of using it; he found that it heightened the powers of the will at the expense of intuition. Today he was wearing it for a special purpose. On that first visit to the tower, he had used the thought mirror to enable him to memorize the map of the city. It had imprinted the map so powerfully on his memory circuits that now, with its aid, he was able to study it in detail merely by half- closing his eyes. The map showed the eastern part of the city extending to the lower slopes of the circle of hills that enclosed the spider city. But a large area was marked with the words "Industrial Estate," a description that Niall found baffling, and upon which neither Simeon nor Dravig was able to throw any light. He was aware that industry meant the production and manufacture of goods, and his history lessons in the white tower had included the story of the Industrial Revolution; but in the part of the city they were now approaching, he could see no sign of soot-blackened factories or tall chimneys. The buildings seemed, if anything, to be lower than in the central part of the city.

The sandstone-colored road along which they were walking looked as new as if it had been built yesterday. In the second half of the twenty-first century, tarmac and concrete had given way to a compound of stone dust and plastic that hardened into a substance not unlike marble, but twice as durable. This is why the road, and the pavements on either side of it, showed no sign of wear. The houses, shops, and office buildings in this part of the city had also been built of new compounds, so that they were in a far better state of repair than those in the center. The total effect was neat and orderly, but oddly dreary.

A mile further on, commercial buildings gave way to small identical dwelling houses built of red brick, each standing in its own small garden. These had once been saved from monotony only by the elaborate patterns surrounding windows and doorways; now the gardens had turned into tangles of overgrown vegetation that sometimes covered the roofs; in one case, a tree had grown up through the center of the house, so its trunk had pushed its way through the slates, and its branches overshadowed the roof. Niall experienced an intense curiosity to explore one of these houses, to see whether their former inhabitants had left behind evidence about their daily lives; but he knew that only a few more hours of daylight remained.

After another mile or so, the scenery again changed dramatically. The first sign of this was a profusion of bright color which began half a mile ahead where the red brick houses left off. According to the map, this was the beginning of the industrial estate; but the buildings looked as if they had been designed for a carnival or recreation park. They were built of brightly colored bricks, many of them triangular or circular, and none of them was more than two stories high; the favorite color of the roofing tiles was a mottled shade of emerald green. Like the red brick houses, these were overgrown with vegetation; but this vegetation had a tropical luxuriance. The main plant was a kind of thick creeper, whose broad, glossy leaves were marbled with green and yellow, while the flowers were trumpet-shaped cups of scarlet. A smaller plant also had bright green leaves, round and glossy, and bright blue flowers. Palm trees, such as Niall had seen in the Delta, pushed their way above this mass of vegetation. The total effect was one of strange extravagance, as if it had been designed by a joker. As they came closer, it became clear that the scent of the plants was as delightful as their appearance, a blend of honeysuckle, lilac, roses, gorse, and hyacinth, all overlaid by a rich odor resembling new-mown hay. The last time Niall had encountered such a complexity of sweet scents was in the Delta, and the recollection made him nervous. But when Sidonia strolled among the bushes and creepers, burying her face in the flowers with obvious pleasure, Niall also succumbed to the temptation, and found the odors delicious. He asked Sidonia: "Have you been here before?"

"Yes." He thought she cast a nervous glance at Dravig.

"And is it always like this?"

She hesitated. "I think so."

"Then why doesn't everyone come here? It's beautiful."

"Because. . ." She was taking a deep breath of one of the scarlet trumpets: "Because it is not good to have too much pleasure."

As he looked at her with astonishment, she blushed. But her reaction brought understanding. She was a soldier who took pride in discipline and self-control. These scents aroused a disturbing desire to surrender. And such an attitude would have been regarded with displeasure by the spiders.

Simeon was also studying the plants, but with the detached eye of an herbalist.

Niall asked: "Why do they grow like this in midwinter? Does the sunshine make them think that it's spring?"

Simeon made a gesture of bewilderment. "I don't know. I've never come across anything like it before."

"Not even in the Delta?"

"That's different. Most of the plants in the Delta contained some kind of trap."