Simeon watched with curiosity as he reached down inside the neckline. Niall found what he was looking for between the small flat breasts; the tightness of the web had prevented it from falling out. Niall snapped the chain, and held out the pendant on the palm of his hand.

Simeon shook his head incredulously. "Another one of those." He took the girl's chin in his hand and turned her face toward him. "She doesn't look like the others."

It was true. Her hair was short, like that of a boy, but the features had the delicacy of a girl, with a finely shaped nose. The face might have been made of wax, and the lips were so bloodless that they looked white.

Simeon tore aside the gauze of web, freeing her arm, and placed his thumb on her wrist.

"There's a pulse all right." He stared with curiosity at the pale face. "But I'd like to know how she got here."

"Like the others. Walking around at night. She's lucky she wasn't eaten."

Simeon said: "I wonder if she's the reason they killed Skorbo."

The same idea had occurred to Niall. "It's possible."

"In that case, she's dangerous."

"Dangerous?" For a moment he was puzzled; the unconscious girl looked anything but dangerous.

"He may be willing to kill to get her back."

Niall shrugged. "That's a risk we'll have to take." But he was aware that he sounded more confident than he felt. He turned to Sidonia. "Would you mind staying here to guard her until we return?"

"Of course not, lord. But would it not be simpler for me to carry her?"

"Carry her?" The idea had not even occurred to him.

"She looks as light as a child."

Her words reminded him of the child who was still lying on the concrete floor.

Now that the sun was sinking below the treetops, the air was becoming chilly.

"No, Dravig can carry her. But do you think you could carry him?"

"Of course." She picked up the child as easily as if he had been a doll, cradling his head on her shoulder.

As they walked back toward the setting sun, Niall's body ached with weariness. A chill wind sprang up from the north, and he pulled up the hood of his cloak and drew its folds more closely around him. The events of the day had left him profoundly tired, and fatigue had numbed his senses, so he walked mechanically, oblivious of his surroundings.

Yet underneath the exhaustion there was a sense of deep satisfaction, which revived every time he looked at the child in Sidonia's arms, or at the girl who was now being carried by Dravig. And now, in retrospect, he could begin to understand what had happened in Skorbo's larder. As he had removed the thought mirror from his neck, he had experienced momentary loss of consciousness. His enemy had seized the opportunity to insinuate himself into his mind like an invisible leech. Yet this had proved to be a serious miscalculation, since he had alerted them to his presence. The result was that this girl -- whose identity would otherwise have gone unsuspected -- was now their hostage. The enemy might be unpredictable and dangerous, but he was obviously not infallible. . .

Niall had become so absorbed in his thoughts that it came as a surprise to realize that they were already entering the main square. The sun was sinking below the western rooftops; only the top half of the white tower reflected its golden light. Most of the snow had vanished from the square; it remained only on the grass that surrounded the white tower.

As they halted at the bottom of the steps, he saw the two wolf spiders who kept guard on either side of the door. "What are they doing here?"

Dravig said: "The Death Lord ordered them to keep guard. He was afraid that some of Skorbo's friends might bear you malice."

"Please thank him for his consideration." A few hours earlier, the thought of guards outside the palace would have struck him as ridiculous; now they brought a sense of security.

As he entered the main hallway, Nephtys was descending the stair; her smile of welcome turned to astonishment as Dravig entered, with the girl resting in his pedipalps.

Sidonia followed, with the child in her arms.

He asked her: "Is the kitchen maid Nyra still here?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Ask her to come here."

Dravig laid the girl on the matting in front of the fire; Sidonia set down the child beside her. A moment later, Nyra came in, looking apprehensive. Niall pointed to the child. "Is this your brother?"

As she looked at the still form her face became deathly pale; for a moment Niall thought she was going to faint. He said quickly: "He is alive."

She gave a cry and dropped on her knees beside the child. When she saw that he was breathing, she seized him and covered his face in kisses. Then, to Niall's embarrassment, she rushed over to him, seized both his hands, and pressed them to her lips. He freed one of them and placed it gently on her hair.

"There. The next task is to revive him." He turned to Simeon. "What do you advise?"

"Give him a warm bath, and massage his arms and legs." Niall could sense that he was less than optimistic; but Nyra was too excited to notice.

Nephtys was looking down with curiosity at the girl, whose breast was also rising and falling gently.

Niall said: "She was also destined for Skorbo's dinner." His words made her shrink, but he was too tired to care. "I want you to prepare the room next to mine, and place her in a warm bed. The door is to remain locked and bolted all the time." The sight of her pale face reminded him of the pendant. He excused himself and went down into the basement; it was in darkness, but the light through the open door enabled him to grope his way to the urn in the corner. As he removed the pendant from his pocket, his fingertips told him that it had ceased to be inert; it seemed to squirm like a living beetle.

He removed the heavy lid with both hands and dropped the pendant into its depths. As he replaced the lid he experienced a curious sense of lightness.

An hour later, he was stretched out on the cushions in his chamber, eating a dish of river prawns that had just been cooked by Jarita. Simeon was helping Nyra to bathe the child. The sound of excited voices told him that Nyra's parents had arrived; they had been summoned to the palace. He tried to generate the energy to go and see what was happening, then decided to drink a glass of mead instead. Ten minutes later, as Jarita was laying the table for supper, Nephtys came into the room, smiling with pleasure. "He's just opened his eyes. . ." She became silent as Jarita shook her head and pointed. Niall was lying on his back, sleeping deeply.

Part Two.

The Living Dead.

That night was made memorable by another curious experience. Niall woke up in a darkness that was as warm and suffocating as a blanket. For a moment he imagined he was back in the burrow; then the collapse of the ashes in the stove made him aware that he was in his own room. He lay there with all his senses alert, wondering if he had been awakened by some noise. When his sixth sense assured him that he was alone, he threw back the blankets and turned on his back in the velvet darkness, wondering why he found it so difficult to breathe. His heart was pounding and his body was covered in perspiration.

Inevitably, his mind returned to the warehouse with its hanging bodies, and he visualized them so clearly that he even seemed to be able to see them suspended above him in the dark. Even by daylight the scene had been unpleasant enough; now, in the middle of the night, he found himself imagining how the victim felt as a spider landed on him, immobilizing him with its will power, then sinking its fangs into the flesh and injecting the venom that would bring total paralysis. He could envisage how the victims felt as they were carried, fully conscious, to the warehouse, wrapped in a cocoon of sticky spider silk, then suspended upside down, in the full knowledge that they were to be eaten alive. The thought was so horrifying that he writhed as if in pain.

In fact, he knew that it was stupid to be tormented by these imaginings, and that in the daylight they would vanish like a nightmare. Yet even this thought became a kind of torment, for he was aware that the horror was real. Eventually, by using his will power to relax his muscles and slow down his heartbeat, he succeeded in restoring a sense of peace and equilibrium. As the gray light of dawn began to seep into the room, he felt himself drifting back into sleep.

The dream that followed had a curious air of reality. He was standing outside the palace, and the air was full of falling snow; flakes of snow were melting on his cheeks.

He was trying to push open the door, but it seemed to be locked. Then he heard footsteps from inside, and someone drew back the bolt. The door opened and his father was standing there. His mother, who was leaning over the balustrade at the top of the stairs, called: "Who is it?" and his father answered: "It's only Niall. He's been looking for the magician." For some reason, this answer struck Niall as incongruous. How could his father know about the magician, since he had died before Niall came to the spider city?

The realization that his father was dead made Niall suddenly aware that he must be dreaming. He looked carefully at his father to see if there was any obvious indication of his unreality; in fact, he looked as real and solid as usual. The beard and mustache were streaked with the gray hairs that had developed in the final year of his life, and he was wearing the shabby garment of the caterpillar skin that he had worn on the journey to Dira. The hall in which they were standing also looked completely normal, and when Niall put out a finger to touch the flecked green marble of the wall, it felt cool and solid, exactly as he had expected it to feel. Then he looked down at the floor, which should have been made of the same substance, and experienced a sense of triumph when he saw that it was made of triangular slabs of a stone that looked like granite. This was undeniable proof that he was dreaming. But in that case, where was he? The obvious answer was: lying asleep in bed. Yet when he moved his shoulders to see if he could feel the bed, it seemed obvious that he was standing in the hall. It then struck him that if his body was lying asleep upstairs, the simplest way to find out would be to go and look.

He took a step toward the stairs, then decided that, since he was dreaming, he might as well fly. He raised his arms in the air and rose gently from the ground and up over the balustrade where his mother was standing. Floating on up the second flight of stairs, he alighted on the floor outside his chamber. Inside, he found Jarita laying the table for breakfast; she was so preoccupied that she did not even notice him. He opened his bedroom door and went inside; just as he expected, he was lying in bed, fast asleep, with his left arm lying on the coverlet and his right hand under the pillow. He went and stood by the bed, looking down on his body with a kind of pleased astonishment, wondering what would happen if he leaned over and shook himself by the shoulder: would his other self wake up and speak to him? Then suddenly he knew what would happen: he would wake up and find himself in bed. But he had no desire to wake up yet; the situation was far too interesting. Therefore he stepped back quietly and tiptoed out of the room. Jarita was still so absorbed that she failed to notice him, and he was tempted to give her a pinch; he decided against it in case she screamed and woke him up. He tiptoed out into the corridor.

Now he recollected that he had ordered the unconscious girl to be placed in the next room. He pushed open the door and entered. Simeon was in the room, standing by the bed, which was underneath the window, and cutting the spider silk from the girl's body with a huge pair of scissors whose blades must have been over a foot long. As the snapping steel reached her feet, Simeon pulled open the silk with a jerk. The girl was not wearing shoes, and Niall observed that there were marks around her ankles, as if they had been tied. He asked Simeon: "What are those?" and Simeon shook his head and said: "Damned if I know." The phrase was quite uncharacteristic of Simeon, reminding Niall that this was a dream.

And now, to Niall's surprise, Simeon began cutting off the slave uniform, starting at the top near the neck. The big shears sliced through the coarse gray cloth until they reached the bottom of the garment, which fell apart, revealing that she was naked underneath. The first thing that struck Niall was that her body was unusually pale, and that faint blue veins showed in the skin of her thighs, which were delicately curved. But he was puzzled by fragments of some brown substance that was sticking to the small, flat breasts; there were also traces of it on her belly and thighs. Niall reached out and peeled off one of the larger pieces; it was dry, like a fragment of leaf mold.

He looked down at the sleeping face. "I wonder what she's called?"

"Charis."

"How do you know?"

Simeon made the curious reply: "It's written on her heart."

A sound from the street drew Niall's attention, and he looked out the window. In the square below, a gang of workmen led by the overseer Dion were pulling a large cart on which there was a wooden packing case; he recognized it as being one of those from the corner of the warehouse. He turned to Simeon. "One of your cases has arrived."

Simeon looked out the window and said with enthusiasm: "Good! Let's go and unpack it." Niall asked: "What are you expecting to find?" "What does it matter? It's sure to be interesting." He pulled the bedclothes up over the naked girl, and hurried to the door. As they stepped into the corridor, Niall turned the key in the door and dropped it into his pocket. Simeon looked surprised. "Why lock the door? She won't escape." Niall lowered his voice. "I don't trust Jarita any more than I trust Skorbo." At that moment he glanced toward his own chamber and saw that Jarita was, in fact, looking through the partly open door. His certainty that she must have overheard made him feel guilty and apologetic.

Then, to his surprise, she wrinkled her nose at him and stuck out her tongue. He was so startled that he woke up.

The sun was shining through the half-closed curtains; from its position on the wall he guessed that it was about seven o'clock. From outside he could hear the sound of birds.

It was then that he realized that he was lying with his left arm on the coverlet of the bed, and his right hand under the pillow, just as he had seen himself in his dream. The realization startled him; he usually slept on his left side or his right. Was it possible that the strange dream contained some element of reality?

He yawned and stretched, then climbed out of bed. He winced when he accidentally touched the red spot in the middle of his chest -- the bruise caused by the thought mirror during his encounter with the bull spider; the skin was peeling from it, as if it had been subjected to intense sunburn. It made him aware that a certain feeling of weariness still lingered in his muscles. He slipped into the sheepskin mantle that he used as a dressing gown and went out into the corridor, closing the door quietly behind him in case he woke Jarita, who slept in the next room. On the other side of his chamber was the room to which the girl had been taken. As he reached out to the handle, he noticed that the brass key in the keyhole was the same key he had seen in his dream.

But the room itself was different. It contained more furniture, and the bed was against the right-hand wall, not under the window. He half-expected to find Simeon there, and felt oddly relieved to find it empty. Even now, his tiredness created a faintly dreamlike sensation, so that for an absurd moment he found himself wondering if he was still asleep.

The girl was lying on the bed; she had been covered with a blanket that left only her face visible. When Niall pulled this back, he saw that she was still encased in a cocoon of spider silk. Her breathing was scarcely visible, and when he touched her forehead the flesh felt cold. As he looked down at her, he experienced again the sensation of his dream -- a feeling of being on the verge of some interesting discovery. Like an empty house, her sleeping mind seemed to invite him to investigate its secrets. Yet even as he placed his hand on her cold forehead, he experienced an oddly uncomfortable sensation as if he was being observed.

He crossed to the window, which was closed -- in the dream, it had been open. It cost some effort to open it -- the brass screw that controlled the sliding opener was thick with dust and the hinges were rusty. But even before he forced it open, he was aware that the dream had been incorrect in another particular: the view from this window was not of the square, but of an empty building next door.

When he pushed open the casement to its limit, a small portion of the square in front of the palace became visible. He breathed deeply, enjoying a fresh breeze. As he did so, he heard voices in the square and the sound of laughter. Suddenly, he knew with absolute certainly what he was going to see next. A moment later, four men came into view, dragging a baggage cart by the shafts. Then, as the cart itself became visible, he saw that it contained one of the large packing cases from the warehouse. Another four men were pushing from behind, and the overseer Dion was walking beside it. For a moment, the dreamlike sensation intensified, and he shook his head to get rid of it, pulling the sheepskin closer round his throat.

The door behind him opened; Jarita stood there in her night clothes -- a knee- length tunic of thin cotton-like material. She looked embarrassed to find him there.

"Is my lord ready for his bath?" She spoke with eyes on the ground, but Niall observed that she had stolen a glance toward the bed. He was glad that the girl was covered with the blanket.

"Yes, in a moment." He spoke curtly, vaguely annoyed that she had interrupted him. She withdrew in silence.

The square was now empty; at this time of the morning, there were few people about. Jarita's interruption had somehow destroyed the curious sense of anticipation.

After another glance at the unconscious girl, he realized that the desire to probe her mind had evaporated. As he closed the door behind him, he turned the key in the lock and dropped it into his pocket.

Niall's bathroom was less elaborate than the equivalent room in Kazak's palace, in which the circular bath was tiled with white porcelain, and was the size of a small swimming pool. This bath was a square stone tub, about six feet wide, sunk into the floor; a furnace underneath kept it perpetually warm. Neither was the water in this tub scented; to the bafflement of his womenfolk, Niall preferred plain water.

As he descended slowly into the water -- which was a little too hot for comfort -- Jarita came in with bath towels. She placed them on a wooden bench, then stood waiting.

He knew she was hoping to be asked to join him in the water, but he wanted to be alone.

"Shall I bring the oil of roses, my lord?"

"No, thank you."

When the door had closed behind her, he sat down in the warm water -- it came up to his shoulders -- and leaned back against the wall of the tub. Then, in the relaxation that followed, he set out to recall his dream. Unlike most dreams, this one had not faded, and he was able to go over it step by step, from the moment he had found himself standing outside the palace in the falling snow. The sensation of floating up the stairs had been quite clear; so had the curious experience of standing and looking down at his own body as it lay asleep. This struck him as oddly significant, yet he was unable to understand why. He also recollected the size of the pair of scissors that Simeon had used to cut off the girl's clothes; they were so large that they seemed almost comic. But when he recalled standing at the window, and watching the baggage cart go past, he remembered that there had been no snow on the ground. That seemed to prove that it was nothing more than a dream. In which case, what was the significance of its strange symbolism? What were the brown, leaflike fragments on the girl's body? Why had Simeon said that her name was written on her heart? (He tried hard to recollect her name, but was unable to do so.) And why had he told Simeon that he would not trust Jarita any more than Skorbo? This seemed typical of the stupid, irrational statements made in dreams. Yet although the whole thing had the absurdity of a dream, he still felt that it concealed some deeper meaning.

Niall stifled a yawn. This weariness troubled him; it seemed absurd to feel so sleepy when he had been awake for less than half an hour. In an attempt to shake it off, he gripped his nostrils between thumb and forefinger, and plunged his head below the surface of the water. There was a roaring sensation as the water entered his ears. Yet this was accompanied by an instantaneous feeling of relief, as if something inside his brain was expanding. When he came up gasping for air, the sense of relief continued, although he noticed that the weariness began to return as he leaned his head back against the wall of the tub and closed his eyes. He gripped his nostrils again and plunged his head under water. Once again, he experienced the sensation of relief, as if a window had opened inside his head and a cool breeze was blowing in. He allowed his body to slip down inside the bath until he was lying on the bottom; the depth of water above his head produced an oddly comforting sensation. This time he held his breath until his lungs were bursting.

When his head broke the surface, he was startled to realize that someone was standing beside the bath; he had to rub the water out of his eyes before he recognized Jarita.

"I'm sorry, my lord. I knocked twice."

"What is it?" He was beginning to feel resentful about these interruptions.

"The doctor is here. He wants to know if he can look at the ax."

"The ax? What does he want it for? Oh, never mind. Give it to him. And ask him to stay and have some breakfast."

It was only after she had gone that Niall realized that the feeling of weariness had vanished completely.

When he entered the room, five minutes later, Simeon was seated at the table, with the ax lying in front of him. Its head was resting on a white cloth, and Simeon was carefully scraping the edge of the blade with a knife. He was so absorbed that he failed to hear Niall entering the room, and only glanced up at the sound of the closing door.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking scrapings from the blade." He indicated a few traces of a brownish-black substance on the white cloth. "I'm going to try to find out if it's been poisoned."

"Is my brother no better?" "Worse. He has a fever."

Niall's heart contracted with anxiety. "Is it serious?"

"I don't think so. That's what puzzles me. If the ax had been poisoned, I'd expect him to be dead by now."

Jarita came in from the kitchen, carrying a plate containing a pile of pancakes. As they seated themselves at the table, Niall asked: "How will you test it?" He was aware that Simeon's laboratory in the hospital was primitive.

"To begin with, dissolve these scrapings in a salt solution, then examine them on a microscope slide."

"Microscope? You have a microscope?"

Simeon chuckled as he poured honey on a pancake. "I've more than that. Those packing cases contained some marvelous stuff. Hypodermics, scalpels, even a spectroscopic analyzer. You ought to come and see."

Niall said: "The brown stain on the blade is Skorbo's blood. Could that explain Veig's fever?"

"I doubt it. Why should it? Spider blood's not poisonous."

"What if there was spider venom on the ax blade?"

Simeon nodded. "I thought of that too. A very small quantity of spider venom might explain the symptoms. If so, he'll be all right in a day or so, as he builds up resistance."

They were interrupted by a timid knock on the door. Jarita opened it. Niall recognized the slight, blonde girl who stood there as Crestia, Veig's maidservant.