Niall opened his eyes and stared around him in bewilderment. It took him a few moments to recognize where he was. He was lying in the empty hallway of the hospital, at the foot of the stairs. Outside, the avenue was almost deserted. A few yards away, down the corridor, he could hear the voice of the matron holding a conversation with one of the nurses. The last thing he remembered was a flash of light inside his head, followed by a sharp pain like an incipient headache.

He clambered hastily to his feet, glad that no one had noticed him lying there -- the thought of fainting filled him with embarrassment. The circlet was lying on the floor; he picked it up and replaced it on his head. The moment he did so, he realized that this was what had been responsible for his loss of consciousness. His brain lurched, as if he had stepped onto the deck of a ship tossing in a storm, and he had to steady himself by grabbing the banister at the bottom of the stairway. He hastily snatched the circlet from his head, and dropped it into the wide pocket of his tunic. The moment he did so, the feeling of dizziness vanished, but a feeling of weakness remained.

He sat down on the bottom step and closed his eyes. It was best to relax and allow himself to become totally passive; any attempt to think brought a return of the weariness.

But after a few minutes, his sensations returned to normal. When he stood up, he was relieved to find that there was no return of the nausea.

But as soon as he stepped out into the winter sunlight he noticed the difference. It was as distinct as waking up from sleep. Everything around him seemed oddly clear, as if some kind of a veil had been withdrawn. The outline of everything he looked at was oddly sharp and bright. There was a similar heightening in his physical sensations. The wind against his face seemed somehow cooler and stronger, as if he had just stepped out of a hot bath. The sensation of his clothing against his body, normally unnoticed, was now almost painfully intrusive, as if a layer of skin had been removed. This new sense of clarity was at once delightful and uncomfortable; even the sunlight seemed too bright, so that he was forced to half-close his eyelids against it. In this state of wide-awakeness, his normal consciousness seemed like a form of sleep.

One thing was clear: that the Gullstrand apparatus caused peculiar changes in the brain. Boyd had said that it was used to help braindamaged patients. He was tempted to return to the hospital, to see if the medical textbook contained any further information; but since his forehead was covered in perspiration, and he felt a strong desire to lie down, he decided against it.

Now, as he walked along the southern side of the square toward the palace, he realized that strange things were still happening inside his head. He was now experiencing a disturbingly strange sensation -- as if everything had suddenly been magnified and then shrunk back to normal size. It felt rather as if some enormous object was rushing toward him at great speed, then receding again, or as if his brain was on a swing, swooping backwards and forwards. It was a vertiginous experience, and brought back some of the earlier feeling of nausea. But he comforted himself with the thought that, since it had been caused by the Gullstrand apparatus, which was now in his pocket, the effect should be only temporary.

Staring at the pavement helped. But this had the curious effect of making the pavement seem closer and somehow more real; although he had been staring at it for only a few seconds, he felt that he would remember it for the rest of his life. He made a kind of effort -- like pushing it to arm's length -- and this overpowering sense of reality disappeared, to be replaced by a curious sensation as if he was seeing the pavement through the long end of a telescope.

He had almost reached the palace when he heard the sound of footsteps running behind him. It was Boyd.

"You forgot this." He held out the box containing the lakeweed.

"Oh, thank you."

Boyd looked at him closely. "Are you all right? You look a bit funny."

"Yes. I'm all right. Just rather tired."

Boyd looked down at the gold circlet, which was sticking out of the wide tunic pocket. "It was that thing, wasn't it? It made me feel as if I'd had too many glasses of mead. But it soon wears off."

"Do you know how it works?"

"Yes, I think so. But it would take a long time to explain."

"Then why don't you come in? Or are they expecting you back?"

"Oh no. They're trying to analyze the blood on that hatchet. That'll take hours."

He looked up at the palace. "Is this where you live?"

"Yes."

"What a marvelous place. Does it have marble staircases?"

"Yes. Would you like to come and see it?"

Boyd said eagerly: "I'll say!" The piece of slang was new to Niall, but he gathered that it signified assent.

As they approached the door, Boyd glanced nervously at the wolf spider who stood on guard; the spider betrayed no sign of being aware of their presence. When the door had closed behind them, Boyd asked in an undertone: "Is that thing real?"

"Of course." Niall looked at him in surprise.

"I thought it might be a statue. Doesn't it give you the creeps?"

Niall was surprised to find himself feeling defensive about the spiders. "Human beings give spiders the creeps. We have to learn to get used to one another."

Oblivious to the implied rebuke, Boyd was staring around the hallway. "I say, what a place to live! It's like our town hall." He ran over to the fireplace and peered up the chimney. "Isn't it huge? Why doesn't the rain come down?"

"I don't know."

Boyd opened the cellar door. "What's this place?"

"The cellar."

"Can I have a look?"

"It's dark down there."

"There's a lamp here." In a niche at the top of the stairs, there was an unlighted oil lamp, with a tinder box beside it. (Matches had been available since the end of slavery, but were still in short supply.) With an expertise born of long experience Boyd kindled the wick and replaced the chimney. Then, with Niall behind him, he went down into the cellar. Half a dozen smoked hams were hanging from the beams, and there were a few barrels of pickles, preserves, and boxes of spices. Boyd said with disappointment: "Not much here."

"No. It was cleaned out six months ago."

"What's in them?" Boyd pointed to the massive black jars that stood against the far wall.

"Nothing -- they're empty." As he spoke, Niall's heart contracted with foreboding.

The jar in which he had placed the two pendants was broken, so that one fragment was lying on the floor, together with the stone plug that had sealed the neck. Boyd caught the gold-colored glint in the lamplight.

"Look, there's something in this one." He started to bend forward.

Niall said sharply: "Don't touch!"

Boyd straightened up obediently. Niall took the lamp from him, and knelt on one knee. The jar had been cracked into three pieces, as if struck with a sledgehammer. Two pieces remained upright; the third had fallen down.

His first thought was that the jar had been accidentally broken by a servant -- perhaps someone had removed the stone plug, found it unexpectedly heavy, and dropped it back into the neck, splitting the jar. Then he realized that this was improbable. No one knew that he had put the pendants into the jar, so no one had any reason to look into it.

Niall studied the pendants, holding the lamp close to them, then reached out cautiously and touched them. They were completely inert. He picked them up and held them at arm's length.

Boyd said: "There was one of those back in the hospital. What are they?"

"They are worn by the servants of the magician. Do you know about the magician?"

Boyd nodded. "Uncle Simeon's been telling us."

"Then you know they can be dangerous."

As he was speaking, Niall was trying to untangle the chains of the pendants; it was impossible; they had been virtually knotted together. Yet he could clearly remember dropping them from the glass into the jar, and noticing that they were separate. It should have been impossible for them to become entangled. He finally gave a hard tug that snapped one of the chains, and was able to pull them apart. Boyd asked: "Why are you doing that?"

"Because when they are separated they have less power."

If he had been alone, Niall would have taken the pendants to the white tower. Instead, he dropped them separately into two stone jars, deliberately choosing the two that were furthest apart, and carefully resealing them with the stone plugs.

As they were returning up the stairs, Boyd asked: "But who broke the jar?"

"The magician."

Boyd gazed at him with astonishment. "He's been here?"

"No. But the pendants are here, and that is enough. That is why they are so dangerous."

Boyd was full of questions, but Niall answered them in a state of abstraction. He was still wondering about the broken jar, and about the effect of the two pendants. It probably meant that the magician was aware of everything that had happened in the palace in the past two days. Niall cursed himself for his carelessness, and vowed to take them to the white tower at the first opportunity.

His room was empty; Jarita, like many other women in the palace, was inclined to take a siesta in the afternoon. He laid the box containing the lakeweed on the table, and removed the metal circlet from his pocket and placed it beside it. Now he became aware of the pressure of some object against his thigh; it was the green figurine. Before Boyd could ask what it was, Niall said: "Tell me about the Gullstrand apparatus."

"Shall I go and fetch the textbook?"

"No. just tell me what you can remember."

Boyd wrinkled his brow. "Well, let's see. . . It's something about nerve pathways in the brain. They carry different impulses. . ." He stopped, drew a deep breath, and began again. "They discovered that if someone has damage to some particular area of the brain -- let's say he falls out of a tree and can't use his left hand -- he'd often recover without any help -- especially if he kept trying to use the hand. And that wasn't because the damaged area in the brain had healed up. It was because he'd developed new nerve pathways around the damaged area. I think that's correct, anyway."

Niall nodded. "It sounds right."

"So this man Gullstrand thought they must be discovering the new pathways by trial and error. So he invented this thing to make it easier. It keeps on stimulating different nerve pathways at random. It's a bit like sending a lot of people off down dark lanes, carrying torches. Sooner or later, one finds a way."

Niall nodded slowly. He was beginning to understand some of the strange sensations he had experienced when he left the hospital. New nerve pathways would explain the sensation of freshness and newness, as if seeing things for the first time. Yet he still failed to understand that other sensation: as if his brain was on a swing, swooping backwards and forwards, so that objects seemed to come closer, then recede. Even thinking about it seemed to revive it, bringing a momentary feeling of dizziness.

He asked Boyd: "Can you describe how you felt when you tried it?"

"There was a strange sort of flash -- as if somebody had hit me on the head. Then I felt sick. Then I began to get a strange sort of feeling as though everything was alive. .

"Alive?"

"That's right. And as if I was being watched. It began to get better after that -- a sort of excited feeling."

Niall picked up the circlet. "I'm going to try it on this girl. . ."

"Can I come?" "Of course."

In the corridor he almost bumped into Dona, who was carrying an armful of children's clothes. When she saw Niall, she flushed with pleasure. "Hello. I haven't seen you for a long time."

"No. I've been very busy." Her smile made him feel guilty. There was a time when he had intended to marry Dona. And although nothing had ever been said, he knew that she was aware of it. The duties of kingship had made him push the idea to the back of his mind. Yet he still experienced the same curious feeling of gladness every time he saw her, a glow of affection that made him want to take her in his arms.

Boyd was staring at her with obvious curiosity. Niall hastened to introduce them.

"This is Boyd, Simeon's nephew. This is my cousin Dona."

They exchanged smiles, and Boyd made the odd little half-bow that was the standard formal greeting between males in the city of the bombardier beetles.

There was a moment of embarrassed silence, then Dona looked down at the circlet in Niall's hand. "What's that?"

"Oh, it's a. . ." Niall would have preferred to leave it unexplained, but Boyd broke in eagerly: "It's called a Gullstrand apparatus, and we're going to try it on this girl who's been bitten by a spider."

"Which girl?" It was obvious that Dona knew nothing about it.

Niall said: "Come and see." He spoke reluctantly, feeling that Boyd had obliged him to issue the invitation. For some reason, he experienced deep inner resistance to allowing his womenfolk to see the unconscious girl.

But Dona immediately placed her pile of washing on the floor outside the door.

"Yes, I'd like to."

The girl was lying there, exactly as Niall had left her that morning, with the blanket drawn up to her chin. The tangled bundle of web that Simeon had cut from her body still lay on the floor. Her breathing was scarcely perceptible. The face with its closed eyes looked as peaceful as a sleeping child.

Dona said: "She's beautiful."

For some odd reason, Niall felt embarrassed by the remark. Without further delay he took the gold circlet and slipped it onto her head, with the two ends behind her ears.

For a moment nothing happened. Then the girl's head jerked on the pillow and Niall knew that the flash of light had penetrated her sleeping brain. As they all watched intently, the girl's eyelids began to twitch. Boyd said: "It's working."

As he spoke, her eyes opened and she stared at Niall. Her hands moved convulsively under the blanket, as if she was trying to free herself. Then, with a suddenness that startled them all, she sat up, as if impelled by a spring. Her eyes stared directly into Niall's, and she seemed to be on the point of asking him who he was. Then the eyes seemed to change. She continued to look at Niall, but it was as if she had ceased to be aware of him, or as if she had become blind. A moment later she fell backward on to the pillow, and lay there as before, her face turned to the ceiling. The only difference was that her breathing had become faster. But after a few moments, even this subsided, and she seemed to relapse into deep unconsciousness. Niall pulled the blanket -- which had fallen down -- over her breasts; he noticed that Boyd blushed and looked away.

The circlet had become detached from her head, and now Niall picked it up from the pillow and readjusted it across her forehead. This time nothing happened. They waited for almost five minutes, but when it became plain that there was no change in the girl's condition, Niall sighed and turned away.

"Tell your uncle he'll have to make the serum after all."

Boyd said: "There's one thing I don't understand. If she woke up like that, why did she go back to sleep again?"

Dona said: "Well, people do wake up and go back to sleep again."

Boyd said lamely: "Yes, but you see what I mean. . ."

In fact, Niall did see what he meant. He had watched a dozen people recover from spider venom. Once they were awake, they stayed awake.

He turned to Boyd. "I'll ask Dravig if we can have some spider venom."

As Niall locked the door once again behind them, Boyd said: "Can I go and look at the view from the roof before I go?"

"Of course." Niall turned to Dona. "Would you mind showing him? Or are you busy?"

"No. The children are asleep. He can stay for tea if he likes."

Boyd said politely: "If you're sure I'm no trouble." But Niall caught the expression in his eyes as he looked at Dona, and knew that he would be happy to stay all afternoon.

It was a relief to be alone again. He flung himself down on the cushions and closed his eyes. But this immediately brought a return of the giddy sensation -- the feeling that his brain was on a swing. He sat up and propped a cushion between his back and the wall. As he did so, his eyes fell on the box of lakeweed on the table, and curiosity overcame his tiredness. Kneeling on a cushion, he removed the mat from the box and laid it out on the tabletop. It felt cold and clammy to the touch. Yet when he placed the palms of his hands on it, there was something delightfully soothing about the slippery dampness -- so much so that he bent forward and allowed his forehead to rest on the mat. It was as pleasantly relaxing as a soft pillow. There was undoubtedly something powerfully sensual in its damp coolness; but these feelings soon blended with a relaxed, floating sensation that brought images of massive dark forests whose trees overshadowed deep lakes. As this continued, he became aware that something was happening to his body. It was difficult to say precisely what this was, for it seemed to consist of a tingling feeling of anticipation. It was as if the contact between his flesh and the mat of lakeweed was only the beginning of the process, and he remained poised on the brink of the first stage.

After half a minute or so, he noticed something else: that there seemed to be no transmission of heat from his flesh to the weed; it remained as cool as when he first touched it. Even when he wrapped it around his hand, the coolness remained, exactly as if he had immersed the hand in cold water. But as his hand came into contact with the table- top, he noticed something else that intrigued him: the wood was warm. It took a few moments for the implications to dawn on him, and as they did, he sat upright with excitement. The mat was conducting the heat from his body direct to the tabletop, while itself remaining cool. This meant that it was not -- as the Steegmaster had suggested -- a purely ritual object. It served some other purpose. And Niall already had a glimmering of what that purpose might be.

He folded the mat and replaced it in the box. Then he tiptoed into the corridor -- afraid that his movements might bring Jarita out of her room -- and quietly unlocked the room next door. Once inside, he locked the door behind him.

He removed the mat from its box, and draped it over the back of the chair. Then he pulled back the blanket from the girl's body and allowed it to drop on to the floor.