Colin Wilson - Spider World 06 - Shadowland by Colin Wilson

Author:Colin Wilson [Wilson, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-08-26T21:32:18.234000+00:00

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Niall had no idea of how to even begin learning about Shadowland. But as soon as he entered the world of the crystal, he was aware that he was at the center of a web, and that, like a spider, he had to learn to read its vibrations. Not far from this center, where he was now sitting, there was the outside world, and the rock-strewn valley from which he had entered the underground world of the trolls. This valley was in darkness; but after a few moments, it lifted like a fog, and he could see the landscape as clearly as if in daylight.

This was not quite the daylight of normal perception. There was a strange quality about it that made things seem gray and unreal. In fact, he had noted something of the sort when he had been speaking to his mother, but had attributed it to the poor lighting in the room. Now he saw that it had to do with the energies of the crystal, which could penetrate solid matter, so that dense objects became almost transparent. It was not unlike the "double vision" he had experienced after speaking with the goddess of the Delta.

Like a spider, his mind used the energy threads as it climbed upward. Soon he was above the valley, following its course northward. It was, as he had feared, virtually impassable. To walk seven leagues -- twenty-one miles -- over such difficult terrain would take two hard days. As he gazed down on the valley that stretched north, he experienced a strong suspicion that these broken and piled rocks were not entirely the work of nature. True, they obviously had been swept down by a tremendous flood. In this case, why was there not even a stream in the valley? Moreover, there were many places where the cliffs had collapsed into the valley. What could have caused such landslides, when the cliffs were made of forms of granite?

The answer, he suspected, was that this road north was the main approach to Shadowland. Since it would be the obvious route for an army marching north, to make it impassable would be to block the main access to the Magician's underground kingdom.

What, then, were the alternative routes? With a mental effort, Niall projected himself still farther above the landscape.

He was familiar with its outline, since he had seen it so clearly through Asmak's imagination. Far ahead, where the mountains looked as if they had been carved into needles by wind and sleet, he recognized the plateau between two peaks where Skorbo had crashed. One of these peaks -- probably the higher one on the right -- was Skollen.

A river descended from the center of this plateau and ran south through a green valley, then flowed southwest to plunge in a spectacular waterfall over the cliffs of the Valley of the Dead and run westward to the sea. Obviously, then, the best approach to Skollen lay along the river valley. And this could

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