"Yes, of course. I understand." The mechanically soothing voice caused a wave of irritation, and he had to remind himself that it would be pointless to lose his temper with a machine. "Please describe what happened." Niall drew a deep breath. "I found myself standing in a dark room with Skorbo's killer. There was an old man sitting on a kind of throne -- a man in a long black robe.

And when he realized I was there, he attacked me with his mind."

"At which point, I realized you were having a nightmare and switched off the machine."

"It was not a nightmare!" Niall found it hard to keep his voice down. "I'm certain he was real."

"Very well, he was real." The flat, reasonable voice was infuriating. "And what of Skorbo's assassin?"

"He was real, too. He was the first one to notice me."

"Then he was not dead after all?"

"Yes, he's dead." His own voice sounded dull and flat.

"How is that possible? You said he was alive."

"I said he was real. Perhaps he was some kind of a ghost."

"The Steegmaster does not make allowance for the existence of ghosts, except in the psychological sense. Torwald Steeg believed that ghosts are a primitive superstition."

Niall spoke with his eyes closed. "I don't care what Steeg believed. I'm telling you what happened." The peace machine switched on again; as the waves of relaxation flowed through him, Niall was tempted to allow it to soothe away his tiredness and frustration. But something in him revolted at this surrender to mere physical comfort. He said: "Turn that thing off. We've got to get to the bottom of this."

"Of course." The vibrations ceased. "But please consider what I am saying. Your description bears all the hallmarks of a nightmare. You insist that it was real. But you forget that the psychoscope has the power to make dreams appear to be realities."

It sounded highly plausible. Niall realized suddenly that the old man could be right after all. "But why should a nightmare make me feel so exhausted?"

"This is why I warned you against using the psychoscope when you are overtired.

Tiredness creates negative emotions, and the psychoscope amplifies them."

"But would it make me feel as if something had drained all the life out of me?"

"Not normally. But that is something that can easily be tested."

"How?"

"By measuring your life-field." He passed out of Niall's line of sight, behind the peace machine, and emerged a moment later holding two retractable wires -- coiled so they were like long springs -- which terminated in bell-shaped cups. He held out one of these to Niall. "Please place this against your inner thigh." Niall raised his tunic and pressed the cup against his flesh, where it immediately attached itself. "Please moisten your lower lip." He pressed the second cup against Niall's lip; Niall felt his flesh sucked inward as it gripped.

"What does it do?"

"Measures the electrical field associated with your vitality." He disappeared behind the machine; there was a humming sound, which lasted only a few seconds.

Niall said: "Well?"

"That is strange." He detached the two cups. "Your lambda reading is down to 8.5.".

"And what should it be?"

"A normal reading is between 10.5 and 11." "So it could have been real?" He experienced a sinking of the heart; it had been pleasant to believe that the man with the webbed fingers had merely been a dream.

"Not necessarily. You forget that your energies were drained by the man who attacked you. And the psychoscope uses up a great deal of vital energy."

"Don't you have some machine for putting it back again?"

"Of course." Niall looked at him with surprise; his comment had been intended as a joke. "The peace machine has an inbuilt Bentz apparatus for inducing an artificial life- field. That should at least restore your electrical potential."

Niall's weariness was turning into a headache, accompanied by a feeling of nausea.

"Can it stop me feeling sick?"

"I think so."

A bright blue light came on behind the frosted glass panel, accompanied by a whining sound that soon passed beyond the range of audibility. The light hurt his eyes, and he closed them tight. Then, as the sound faded, his headache faded with it. At the same time he began to experience a curious inner glow of optimism. He felt an absurd desire to chuckle, and a sensation that made him feel slightly breathless, as if someone had sprayed ice-cold water in his face. He gasped and drew a deep breath as the weariness turned into a pleasure that was close to pain. There was a brimming sensation of vitality, one curious consequence of which was a tickling sensation at the back of his throat; a moment later, this exploded into a sneeze. The blue light immediately vanished, and the serenity gave way to a feeling of normality that was like waking up. He groped in his pocket for his handkerchief, as he blew his nose, there was a flash of pain in the back of his skull.

The old man stood silently, looking at the dial. The silence lasted so long that Niall asked: "Is something wrong?"

"Something is causing your life-field to leak."

He felt a twinge of alarm. "What does that mean?"

"It means that we are dealing with some unknown factor that I cannot explain."

Niall watched with curiosity as Steeg picked up the pendant on its broken chain, carried it to the other end of the room, and dropped it into a cylindrical object that might have been a wastepaper basket made of copper-wire mesh.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking a simple precaution. The rupture of your biophysical membrane suggests that you have been in contact with some hostile entity. If this pendant is its transmitter, then an electromagnetic field will render it harmless."

"So you think it wasn't a nightmare after all?"

"I cannot judge. Your earlier encounter may have done more damage than you think."

Even as he was speaking, Niall could feel the euphoria induced by the Bentz apparatus leaking away, like air escaping from a punctured balloon.

"Can the damage be repaired?"

"Certainly. It will heal itself in due course, like a cut or graze. But the process can be accelerated by the Bentz apparatus."

As he spoke, the blue glow radiated from behind the frosted glass, and the electrical hum rose in pitch until it passed beyond the range of the human ear. This time the glow was less intense; it might have been the pale blue of a winter sky. The sensations that accompanied it were correspondingly less intense; but the headache dissolved slowly, as if blown away by a faint breeze.

As the vitality seeped back into him, like water into parched earth, Niall suddenly knew, beyond any possibility of doubt, that the man in the black robe was a reality, and that his own life was now in danger.

It was already dark when he emerged from the tower, and the temperature had dropped below freezing. In the cold black sky the stars looked like fragments of white ice; a faint glow on the western horizon announced the rising of the moon. The snow had frozen, so that with every footstep he had to crunch through the hard surface. In the great avenue, lights glowed behind windows, and the sound of music drifted on the bitter wind.

He had always found it pleasant to observe lighted windows, particularly in upper stories; in the days of slavery, human beings had been confined to basements, and lights had to be extinguished soon after dusk. But now he experienced only a sense of foreboding; it was as if the human beings in the lighted rooms were too vulnerable.

One thing was clear: the killers had time on their side. The tree that had struck Skorbo to the ground had been planted at least a year ago, the symbol of revenge hidden beneath its roots. If necessary they could afford to wait another year to claim their next victim. . . Yet the tree had failed to kill Skorbo, and one of the executioners had died as he tried to redeem the failure; that proved they were not infallible.

In the entrance hall of the palace, the log fire still blazed in its huge grate. His brother Veig was standing in front of it, one arm around a girl as he whispered in her ear.

The sound of the closing door made them break apart, and she ran away toward the kitchen -- Niall recognized her as the prettiest of the kitchen maids, a girl called Nyra. He felt a twinge of envy -- not for his brother's amorous escapades, but for the simplicity of his life.

Veig said cheerfully: "Had a hard day, brother?"

"A long one." Niall stretched out his hands toward the blaze.

"Why don't you take a day off. You are the king, you know."

Niall accepted the bantering tone without resentment; he understood the difficulties of his brother's position. Veig had always been fond of his younger brother, as well as highly protective. Now, suddenly, he was merely the king's elder brother with nothing much to do but hang around the city and flirt with pretty girls. A less amiable man might have been envious and resentful; Veig was far too good-natured for that. But he still felt the need to assert his independence.

Nephtys leaned over the stone balustrade above them. "Are you ready to eat, my lord?"

"Yes, I am." It had reminded him that he had not eaten since breakfast, and was famished. He asked Veig: "Have you eaten?"

"Yes, but I'll join you in a glass of wine."

It had been many months since the brothers had shared a meal together. Niall had been too busy with his duties, while Veig seemed determined to make up for the years during which he had been starved of female company. Even now, as they mounted the stairs behind Nephtys, his eyes studied the shapely legs under the short tunic.

In Niall's chamber, burning wood crackled in the stove, and the air was full of its smell. Jarita, the maidservant, was already setting out food on the low table.

Nephtys pointed to a long bundle wrapped in sacking, which leaned against the wall inside the door. "A man brought that for you."

"Do you know his name?"

"Yes. The overseer, Dion."

Niall laid the bundle on the floor, and unwrapped the sacking. It was an ax, with a haft about four feet long. The shining blade was stained with dried blood. Etched into the blade was the sign with which he was already familiar: the symbol of revenge.

"Did he say where it had been found?"

"He said in the garden, among the undergrowth."

Veig picked it up and swung it through the air. "It's beautifully balanced. And as sharp as a razor."

"Be careful. It's the ax that killed Skorbo."

"I guessed that." Veig tested the blade with his thumb, then snatched his hand away. "My god, it's sharp!" A drop of blood ran down his thumb.

"Go and wash it, quickly!" Niall was remembering the poisoned knife that had killed Skorbo's assassin in a matter of seconds. To his horror, Veig licked the cut and said casually: "It'll be all right." It was only when, a minute or so later, Veig was still obviously unaffected that he allowed himself to relax.

Niall rewrapped the ax in its sacking, and handed it to Nephtys. "Here, take it away."

Veig threw himself down on a heap of cushions, and poured two glasses of the pale golden mead; it had been freshly made, and was still sparkling with rising bubbles.

He drank down half the glass in one draught, then lay back with a smile of contentment.

"Well, whoever killed Skorbo did a good job."

Niall shook his head warningly, glancing toward Jarita, who had just entered the room with a dish of roast skylarks. Veig grinned broadly and raised his eyebrows. With his curly black hair and bright blue eyes, he exerted a charm that made it impossible to be annoyed with him. When Jarita had left, he asked: "Don't you trust her?"

"Of course, but I don't want to shock her. You forget that most of the people in this city still think of the spiders as their masters."

"That may be so." Veig picked up a roast skylark and dipped it in the savory sauce. "But they still hated Skorbo."

"Why? Most of them didn't even know him."

Veig chewed and swallowed before he replied, wiping the gravy from his beard with the back of his hand. "But they knew all about him."

Niall was intrigued by his tone. "What did they know about him?"

"He had a reputation as a brute. He enjoyed killing human beings. They say he even enjoyed killing children -- not just to eat them, but for the fun of making them scream. And of course, they say he's never stopped." Veig returned to gnawing the bird.

"Never stopped what?"

"Killing and eating human beings."

Niall stared at him incredulously. "Are you serious?"

"Didn't you know?" Veig shook his head in mild surprise. "I thought everybody knew."

Niall put down the bird he was eating. "Where did you hear that?"

"I think Sidonia told me." Sidonia was the captain of the Spider Lord's household guard; Veig was known to spend much of his time in her company.

"But what did she tell you?"

"Oh, that Skorbo and a bunch of his cronies didn't like the idea of giving up human flesh. Besides, they'd got quite a few left over from the days of slavery. They thought it'd be a pity to let all that meat go to waste, so they went on eating it."

Niall heaved a sigh of relief. "I thought you meant they were still eating people."

"So they are. Nyra told me that one of her brothers disappeared a few weeks ago."

"Nyra? That girl from the kitchen? Then why didn't she report it to me?"

Veig resumed his bird. "I think most people assumed you knew about it."

Niall felt stunned. "They really thought I'd allow that to go on?"

"Well. . . I suppose they thought there was nothing you could do about it."

Niall had to make an effort to keep his voice under control. He said: "When the Spider Lord agreed to end slavery, he also agreed that there should be no more killing of human beings. The terms of the treaty were that men and spiders should be free and equal. Now you tell me the spiders have never kept their side of the bargain. . ." He took a drink of mead to steady his voice.

Veig said mildly: "Don't blame me."