{"id":843,"date":"2020-03-19T18:41:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T18:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/?post_type=chapter&p=843"},"modified":"2020-03-19T18:41:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-19T18:41:04","slug":"david-lindsay-a-voyage-to-arcturus","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/chapter\/david-lindsay-a-voyage-to-arcturus\/","title":{"raw":"David Lindsay, A Voyage to Arcturus","rendered":"David Lindsay, A Voyage to Arcturus"},"content":{"raw":"

A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS.<\/h1>\r\n

By David Lindsay<\/h2>\r\n \r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n \r\n
\r\n

CONTENTS<\/b><\/big><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 1. THE S\u00c3\u2030ANCE <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 2. IN THE STREET <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 3. STARKNESS <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 4. THE VOICE <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 5. THE NIGHT OF DEPARTURE <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 6. JOIWIND <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 7. PANAWE <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 8. THE LUSION PLAIN <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 9. OCEAXE <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 10. TYDOMIN <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 11. ON DISSCOURN <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 12. SPADEVIL <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 13. THE WOMBFLASH FOREST <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 14. POLECRAB <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 15. SWAYLONE\u2019S ISLAND <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 16. LEEHALLFAE <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 17. CORPANG <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 18. HAUNTE <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 19. SULLENBODE <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 20. BAREY <\/a><\/p>\r\n

Chapter 21. MUSPEL <\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n \r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

Chapter 1. THE S\u00c3\u2030ANCE<\/h2>\r\nOn a March evening, at eight o\u2019clock, Backhouse, the medium\u2014a fast-rising star in the psychic world\u2014was ushered into the study at Prolands, the Hampstead residence of Montague Faull. The room was illuminated only by the light of a blazing fire. The host, eying him with indolent curiosity, got up, and the usual conventional greetings were exchanged. Having indicated an easy chair before the fire to his guest, the South American merchant sank back again into his own. The electric light was switched on. Faull\u2019s prominent, clear-cut features, metallic-looking skin, and general air of bored impassiveness, did not seem greatly to impress the medium, who was accustomed to regard men from a special angle. Backhouse, on the contrary, was a novelty to the merchant. As he tranquilly studied him through half closed lids and the smoke of a cigar, he wondered how this little, thickset person with the pointed beard contrived to remain so fresh and sane in appearance, in view of the morbid nature of his occupation.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you smoke?\u201d drawled Faull, by way of starting the conversation. \u201cNo? Then will you take a drink?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNot at present, I thank you.\u201d\r\n\r\nA pause.\r\n\r\n\u201cEverything is satisfactory? The materialisation will take place?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI see no reason to doubt it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s good, for I would not like my guests to be disappointed. I have your check written out in my pocket.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAfterward will do quite well.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNine o\u2019clock was the time specified, I believe?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI fancy so.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe conversation continued to flag. Faull sprawled in his chair, and remained apathetic.\r\n\r\n\u201cWould you care to hear what arrangements I have made?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am unaware that any are necessary, beyond chairs for your guests.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI mean the decoration of the s\u00c3\u00a9ance room, the music, and so forth.\u201d\r\n\r\nBackhouse stared at his host. \u201cBut this is not a theatrical performance.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s correct. Perhaps I ought to explain.... There will be ladies present, and ladies, you know, are aesthetically inclined.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn that case I have no objection. I only hope they will enjoy the performance to the end.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe spoke rather dryly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, that\u2019s all right, then,\u201d said Faull. Flicking his cigar into the fire, he got up and helped himself to whisky.\r\n\r\n\u201cWill you come and see the room?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThank you, no. I prefer to have nothing to do with it till the time arrives.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen let\u2019s go to see my sister, Mrs. Jameson, who is in the drawing room. She sometimes does me the kindness to act as my hostess, as I am unmarried.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI will be delighted,\u201d said Backhouse coldly.\r\n\r\nThey found the lady alone, sitting by the open pianoforte in a pensive attitude. She had been playing Scriabin and was overcome. The medium took in her small, tight, patrician features and porcelain-like hands, and wondered how Faull came by such a sister. She received him bravely, with just a shade of quiet emotion. He was used to such receptions at the hands of the sex, and knew well how to respond to them.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat amazes me,\u201d she half whispered, after ten minutes of graceful, hollow conversation, \u201cis, if you must know it, not so much the manifestation itself\u2014though that will surely be wonderful\u2014as your assurance that it will take place. Tell me the grounds of your confidence.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI dream with open eyes,\u201d he answered, looking around at the door, \u201cand others see my dreams. That is all.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut that\u2019s beautiful,\u201d responded Mrs. Jameson. She smiled rather absently, for the first guest had just entered.\r\n\r\nIt was Kent-Smith, the ex-magistrate, celebrated for his shrewd judicial humour, which, however, he had the good sense not to attempt to carry into private life. Although well on the wrong side of seventy, his eyes were still disconcertingly bright. With the selective skill of an old man, he immediately settled himself in the most comfortable of many comfortable chairs.\r\n\r\n\u201cSo we are to see wonders tonight?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFresh material for your autobiography,\u201d remarked Faull.\r\n\r\n\u201cAh, you should not have mentioned my unfortunate book. An old public servant is merely amusing himself in his retirement, Mr. Backhouse. You have no cause for alarm\u2014I have studied in the school of discretion.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am not alarmed. There can be no possible objection to your publishing whatever you please.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are most kind,\u201d said the old man, with a cunning smile.\r\n\r\n\u201cTrent is not coming tonight,\u201d remarked Mrs. Jameson, throwing a curious little glance at her brother.\r\n\r\n\u201cI never thought he would. It\u2019s not in his line.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMrs. Trent, you must understand,\u201d she went on, addressing the ex-magistrate, \u201chas placed us all under a debt of gratitude. She has decorated the old lounge hall upstairs most beautifully, and has secured the services of the sweetest little orchestra.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut this is Roman magnificence.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBackhouse thinks the spirits should be treated with more deference,\u201d laughed Faull.\r\n\r\n\u201cSurely, Mr. Backhouse\u2014a poetic environment...\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPardon me. I am a simple man, and always prefer to reduce things to elemental simplicity. I raise no opposition, but I express my opinion. Nature is one thing, and art is another.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd I am not sure that I don\u2019t agree with you,\u201d said the ex-magistrate. \u201cAn occasion like this ought to be simple, to guard against the possibility of deception\u2014if you will forgive my bluntness, Mr. Backhouse.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe shall sit in full light,\u201d replied Backhouse, \u201cand every opportunity will be given to all to inspect the room. I shall also ask you to submit me to a personal examination.\u201d\r\n\r\nA rather embarrassed silence followed. It was broken by the arrival of two more guests, who entered together. These were Prior, the prosperous City coffee importer, and Lang, the stockjobber, well known in his own circle as an amateur prestidigitator. Backhouse was slightly acquainted with the latter. Prior, perfuming the room with the faint odour of wine and tobacco smoke, tried to introduce an atmosphere of joviality into the proceedings. Finding that no one seconded his efforts, however, he shortly subsided and fell to examining the water colours on the walls. Lang, tall, thin, and growing bald, said little, but stared at Backhouse a good deal.\r\n\r\nCoffee, liqueurs, and cigarettes were now brought in. Everyone partook, except Lang and the medium. At the same moment, Professor Halbart was announced. He was the eminent psychologist, the author and lecturer on crime, insanity, genius, and so forth, considered in their mental aspects. His presence at such a gathering somewhat mystified the other guests, but all felt as if the object of their meeting had immediately acquired additional solemnity. He was small, meagre-looking, and mild in manner, but was probably the most stubborn-brained of all that mixed company. Completely ignoring the medium, he at once sat down beside Kent-Smith, with whom he began to exchange remarks.\r\n\r\nAt a few minutes past the appointed hour Mrs. Trent entered, unannounced. She was a woman of about twenty-eight. She had a white, demure, saintlike face, smooth black hair, and lips so crimson and full that they seemed to be bursting with blood. Her tall, graceful body was most expensively attired. Kisses were exchanged between her and Mrs. Jameson. She bowed to the rest of the assembly, and stole a half glance and a smile at Faull. The latter gave her a queer look, and Backhouse, who lost nothing, saw the concealed barbarian in the complacent gleam of his eye. She refused the refreshment that was offered her, and Faull proposed that, as everyone had now arrived, they should adjourn to the lounge hall.\r\n\r\nMrs. Trent held up a slender palm. \u201cDid you, or did you not, give me carte blanche, Montague?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOf course I did,\u201d said Faull, laughing. \u201cBut what\u2019s the matter?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps I have been rather presumptuous. I don\u2019t know. I have invited a couple of friends to join us. No, no one knows them.... The two most extraordinary individuals you ever saw. And mediums, I am sure.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt sounds very mysterious. Who are these conspirators?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAt least tell us their names, you provoking girl,\u201d put in Mrs. Jameson.\r\n\r\n\u201cOne rejoices in the name of Maskull, and the other in that of Nightspore. That\u2019s nearly all that I know about them, so don\u2019t overwhelm me with any more questions.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut where did you pick them up? You must have picked them up somewhere.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut this is a cross-examination. Have I sinned against convention? I swear I will tell you not another word about them. They will be here directly, and then I will deliver them to your tender mercy.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know them,\u201d said Faull, \u201cand nobody else seems to, but, of course, we will all be very pleased to have them.... Shall we wait, or what?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI said nine, and it\u2019s past that now. It\u2019s quite possible they may not turn up after all.... Anyway, don\u2019t wait.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI would prefer to start at once,\u201d said Backhouse.\r\n\r\nThe lounge, a lofty room, forty feet long by twenty wide, had been divided for the occasion into two equal parts by a heavy brocade curtain drawn across the middle. The far end was thus concealed. The nearer half had been converted into an auditorium by a crescent of armchairs. There was no other furniture. A large fire was burning halfway along the wall, between the chairbacks and the door. The room was brilliantly lighted by electric bracket lamps. A sumptuous carpet covered the floor.\r\n\r\nHaving settled his guests in their seats, Faull stepped up to the curtain and flung it aside. A replica, or nearly so, of the Drury Lane presentation of the temple scene in The Magic Flute<\/i> was then exposed to view: the gloomy, massive architecture of the interior, the glowing sky above it in the background, and, silhouetted against the latter, the gigantic seated statue of the Pharaoh. A fantastically carved wooden couch lay before the pedestal of the statue. Near the curtain, obliquely placed to the auditorium, was a plain oak armchair, for the use of the medium.\r\n\r\nMany of those present felt privately that the setting was quite inappropriate to the occasion and savoured rather unpleasantly of ostentation. Backhouse in particular seemed put out. The usual compliments, however, were showered on Mrs. Trent as the deviser of so remarkable a theatre. Faull invited his friends to step forward and examine the apartment as minutely as they might desire. Prior and Lang were the only ones to accept. The former wandered about among the pasteboard scenery, whistling to himself and occasionally tapping a part of it with his knuckles. Lang, who was in his element, ignored the rest of his party and commenced a patient, systematic search, on his own account, for secret apparatus. Faull and Mrs. Trent stood in a corner of the temple, talking together in low tones; while Mrs. Jameson, pretending to hold Backhouse in conversation, watched them as only a deeply interested woman knows how to watch.\r\n\r\nLang, to his own disgust, having failed to find anything of a suspicious nature, the medium now requested that his own clothing should be searched.\r\n\r\n\u201cAll these precautions are quite needless and beside the matter in hand, as you will immediately see for yourselves. My reputation demands, however, that other people who are not present would not be able to say afterward that trickery has been resorted to.\u201d\r\n\r\nTo Lang again fell the ungrateful task of investigating pockets and sleeves. Within a few minutes he expressed himself satisfied that nothing mechanical was in Backhouse\u2019s possession. The guests reseated themselves. Faull ordered two more chairs to be brought for Mrs. Trent\u2019s friends, who, however, had not yet arrived. He then pressed an electric bell, and took his own seat.\r\n\r\nThe signal was for the hidden orchestra to begin playing. A murmur of surprise passed through the audience as, without previous warning, the beautiful and solemn strains of Mozart\u2019s \u201ctemple\u201d music pulsated through the air. The expectation of everyone was raised, while, beneath her pallor and composure, it could be seen that Mrs. Trent was deeply moved. It was evident that aesthetically she was by far the most important person present. Faull watched her, with his face sunk on his chest, sprawling as usual.\r\n\r\nBackhouse stood up, with one hand on the back of his chair, and began speaking. The music instantly sank to pianissimo, and remained so for as long as he was on his legs.\r\n\r\n\u201cLadies and gentlemen, you are about to witness a materialisation. That means you will see something appear in space that was not previously there. At first it will appear as a vaporous form, but finally it will be a solid body, which anyone present may feel and handle\u2014and, for example, shake hands with. For this body will be in the human shape. It will be a real man or woman\u2014which, I can\u2019t say\u2014but a man or woman without known antecedents. If, however, you demand from me an explanation of the origin of this materialised form\u2014where it comes from, whence the atoms and molecules composing its tissues are derived\u2014I am unable to satisfy you. I am about to produce the phenomenon; if anyone can explain it to me afterward, I shall be very grateful.... That is all I have to say.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe resumed his seat, half turning his back on the assembly, and paused for a moment before beginning his task.\r\n\r\nIt was precisely at this minute that the manservant opened the door and announced in a subdued but distinct voice: \u201cMr. Maskull, Mr. Nightspore.\u201d\r\n\r\nEveryone turned round. Faull rose to welcome the late arrivals. Backhouse also stood up, and stared hard at them.\r\n\r\nThe two strangers remained standing by the door, which was closed quietly behind them. They seemed to be waiting for the mild sensation caused by their appearance to subside before advancing into the room. Maskull was a kind of giant, but of broader and more robust physique than most giants. He wore a full beard. His features were thick and heavy, coarsely modelled, like those of a wooden carving; but his eyes, small and black, sparkled with the fires of intelligence and audacity. His hair was short, black, and bristling. Nightspore was of middle height, but so tough-looking that he appeared to be trained out of all human frailties and susceptibilities. His hairless face seemed consumed by an intense spiritual hunger, and his eyes were wild and distant. Both men were dressed in tweeds.\r\n\r\nBefore any words were spoken, a loud and terrible crash of falling masonry caused the assembled party to start up from their chairs in consternation. It sounded as if the entire upper part of the building had collapsed. Faull sprang to the door, and called to the servant to say what was happening. The man had to be questioned twice before he gathered what was required of him. He said he had heard nothing. In obedience to his master\u2019s order, he went upstairs. Nothing, however, was amiss there, neither had the maids heard anything.\r\n\r\nIn the meantime Backhouse, who almost alone of those assembled had preserved his sangfroid, went straight up to Nightspore, who stood gnawing his nails.\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps you can explain it, sir?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was supernatural,\u201d said Nightspore, in a harsh, muffled voice, turning away from his questioner.\r\n\r\n\u201cI guessed so. It is a familiar phenomenon, but I have never heard it so loud.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe then went among the guests, reassuring them. By degrees they settled down, but it was observable that their former easy and good-humoured interest in the proceedings was now changed to strained watchfulness. Maskull and Nightspore took the places allotted to them. Mrs. Trent kept stealing uneasy glances at them. Throughout the entire incident, Mozart\u2019s hymn continued to be played. The orchestra also had heard nothing.\r\n\r\nBackhouse now entered on his task. It was one that began to be familiar to him, and he had no anxiety about the result. It was not possible to effect the materialisation by mere concentration of will, or the exercise of any faculty; otherwise many people could have done what he had engaged himself to do. His nature was phenomenal\u2014the dividing wall between himself and the spiritual world was broken in many places. Through the gaps in his mind the inhabitants of the invisible, when he summoned them, passed for a moment timidly and awfully into the solid, coloured universe.... He could not say how it was brought about.... The experience was a rough one for the body, and many such struggles would lead to insanity and early death. That is why Backhouse was stern and abrupt in his manner. The coarse, clumsy suspicion of some of the witnesses, the frivolous aestheticism of others, were equally obnoxious to his grim, bursting heart; but he was obliged to live, and, to pay his way, must put up with these impertinences.\r\n\r\nHe sat down facing the wooden couch. His eyes remained open but seemed to look inward. His cheeks paled, and he became noticeably thinner. The spectators almost forgot to breathe. The more sensitive among them began to feel, or imagine, strange presences all around them. Maskull\u2019s eyes glittered with anticipation, and his brows went up and down, but Nightspore appeared bored.\r\n\r\nAfter a long ten minutes the pedestal of the statue was seen to become slightly blurred, as though an intervening mist were rising from the ground. This slowly developed into a visible cloud, coiling hither and thither, and constantly changing shape. The professor half rose, and held his glasses with one hand further forward on the bridge of his nose.\r\n\r\nBy slow stages the cloud acquired the dimensions and approximate outline of an adult human body, although all was still vague and blurred. It hovered lightly in the air, a foot or so above the couch. Backhouse looked haggard and ghastly. Mrs. Jameson quietly fainted in her chair, but she was unnoticed, and presently revived. The apparition now settled down upon the couch, and at the moment of doing so seemed suddenly to grow dark, solid, and manlike. Many of the guests were as pale as the medium himself, but Faull preserved his stoical apathy, and glanced once or twice at Mrs. Trent. She was staring straight at the couch, and was twisting a little lace handkerchief through the different fingers of her hand. The music went on playing.\r\n\r\nThe figure was by this time unmistakably that of a man lying down. The face focused itself into distinctness. The body was draped in a sort of shroud, but the features were those of a young man. One smooth hand fell over, nearly touching the floor, white and motionless. The weaker spirits of the company stared at the vision in sick horror; the rest were grave and perplexed. The seeming man was dead<\/i>, but somehow it did not appear like a death succeeding life, but like a death preliminary to life. All felt that he might sit up at any minute.\r\n\r\n\u201cStop that music!\u201d muttered Backhouse, tottering from his chair and facing the party. Faull touched the bell. A few more bars sounded, and then total silence ensued.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnyone who wants to may approach the couch,\u201d said Backhouse with difficulty.\r\n\r\nLang at once advanced, and stared awestruck at the supernatural youth.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are at liberty to touch,\u201d said the medium.\r\n\r\nBut Lang did not venture to, nor did any of the others, who one by one stole up to the couch\u2014until it came to Faull\u2019s turn. He looked straight at Mrs. Trent, who seemed frightened and disgusted at the spectacle before her, and then not only touched the apparition but suddenly grasped the drooping hand in his own and gave it a powerful squeeze. Mrs. Trent gave a low scream. The ghostly visitor opened his eyes, looked at Faull strangely, and sat up on the couch. A cryptic smile started playing over his mouth. Faull looked at his hand; a feeling of intense pleasure passed through his body.\r\n\r\nMaskull caught Mrs. Jameson in his arms; she was attacked by another spell of faintness. Mrs. Trent ran forward, and led her out of the room. Neither of them returned.\r\n\r\nThe phantom body now stood upright, looking about him, still with his peculiar smile. Prior suddenly felt sick, and went out. The other men more or less hung together, for the sake of human society, but Nightspore paced up and down, like a man weary and impatient, while Maskull attempted to interrogate the youth. The apparition watched him with a baffling expression, but did not answer. Backhouse was sitting apart, his face buried in his hands.\r\n\r\nIt was at this moment that the door was burst open violently, and a stranger, unannounced, half leaped, half strode a few yards into the room, and then stopped. None of Faull\u2019s friends had ever seen him before. He was a thick, shortish man, with surprising muscular development and a head far too large in proportion to his body. His beardless yellow face indicated, as a first impression, a mixture of sagacity, brutality, and humour.\r\n\r\n\u201cAha-i, gentlemen!\u201d he called out loudly. His voice was piercing, and oddly disagreeable to the ear. \u201cSo we have a little visitor here.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore turned his back, but everyone else stared at the intruder in astonishment. He took another few steps forward, which brought him to the edge of the theatre.\r\n\r\n\u201cMay I ask, sir, how I come to have the honour of being your host?\u201d asked Faull sullenly. He thought that the evening was not proceeding as smoothly as he had anticipated.\r\n\r\nThe newcomer looked at him for a second, and then broke into a great, roaring guffaw. He thumped Faull on the back playfully\u2014but the play was rather rough, for the victim was sent staggering against the wall before he could recover his balance.\r\n\r\n\u201cGood evening, my host!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd good evening to you too, my lad!\u201d he went on, addressing the supernatural youth, who was now beginning to wander about the room, in apparent unconsciousness of his surroundings. \u201cI have seen someone very like you before, I think.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere was no response.\r\n\r\nThe intruder thrust his head almost up to the phantom\u2019s face. \u201cYou have no right here, as you know.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe shape looked back at him with a smile full of significance, which, however, no one could understand.\r\n\r\n\u201cBe careful what you are doing,\u201d said Backhouse quickly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter, spirit usher?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know who you are, but if you use physical violence toward that<\/i>, as you seem inclined to do, the consequences may prove very unpleasant.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd without pleasure our evening would be spoiled, wouldn\u2019t it, my little mercenary friend?\u201d\r\n\r\nHumour vanished from his face, like sunlight from a landscape, leaving it hard and rocky. Before anyone realised what he was doing, he encircled the soft, white neck of the materialised shape with his hairy hands and, with a double turn, twisted it completely round. A faint, unearthly shriek sounded, and the body fell in a heap to the floor. Its face was uppermost. The guests were unutterably shocked to observe that its expression had changed from the mysterious but fascinating smile to a vulgar, sordid, bestial grin, which cast a cold shadow of moral nastiness into every heart. The transformation was accompanied by a sickening stench of the graveyard.\r\n\r\nThe features faded rapidly away, the body lost its consistence, passing from the solid to the shadowy condition, and, before two minutes had elapsed, the spirit-form had entirely disappeared.\r\n\r\nThe short stranger turned and confronted the party, with a long, loud laugh, like nothing in nature.\r\n\r\nThe professor talked excitedly to Kent-Smith in low tones. Faull beckoned Backhouse behind a wing of scenery, and handed him his check without a word. The medium put it in his pocket, buttoned his coat, and walked out of the room. Lang followed him, in order to get a drink.\r\n\r\nThe stranger poked his face up into Maskull\u2019s.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, giant, what do you think of it all? Wouldn\u2019t you like to see the land where this sort of fruit grows wild?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat sort of fruit?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat specimen goblin.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull waved him away with his huge hand. \u201cWho are you, and how did you come here?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCall up your friend. Perhaps he may recognise me.\u201d Nightspore had moved a chair to the fire, and was watching the embers with a set, fanatical expression.\r\n\r\n\u201cLet Krag come to me, if he wants me,\u201d he said, in his strange voice.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou see, he does know me,\u201d uttered Krag, with a humorous look. Walking over to Nightspore, he put a hand on the back of his chair.\r\n\r\n\u201cStill the same old gnawing hunger?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is doing these days?\u201d demanded Nightspore disdainfully, without altering his attitude.\r\n\r\n\u201cSurtur has gone, and we are to follow him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow do you two come to know each other, and of whom are you speaking?\u201d asked Maskull, looking from one to the other in perplexity.\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag has something for us. Let us go outside,\u201d replied Nightspore. He got up, and glanced over his shoulder. Maskull, following the direction of his eye, observed that the few remaining men were watching their little group attentively.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 2. IN THE STREET<\/h2>\r\nThe three men gathered in the street outside the house. The night was slightly frosty, but particularly clear, with an east wind blowing. The multitude of blazing stars caused the sky to appear like a vast scroll of hieroglyphic symbols. Maskull felt oddly excited; he had a sense that something extraordinary was about to happen. \u201cWhat brought you to this house tonight, Krag, and what made you do what you did? How are we understand that apparition?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat must have been Crystalman\u2019s expression on its face,\u201d muttered Nightspore.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe have discussed that, haven\u2019t we, Maskull? Maskull is anxious to behold that rare fruit in its native wilds.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull looked at Krag carefully, trying to analyse his own feelings toward him. He was distinctly repelled by the man\u2019s personality, yet side by side with this aversion a savage, living energy seemed to spring up in his heart that in some strange fashion was attributable to Krag.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy do you insist on this simile?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause it is apropos. Nightspore\u2019s quite right. That was Crystalman\u2019s face, and we are going to Crystalman\u2019s country.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd where is this mysterious country?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTormance.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s a quaint name. But where is it?\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag grinned, showing his yellow teeth in the light of the street lamp.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is the residential suburb of Arcturus.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is he talking about, Nightspore?... Do you mean the star of that name?\u201d he went on, to Krag.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhich you have in front of you at this very minute,\u201d said Krag, pointing a thick finger toward the brightest star in the south-eastern sky. \u201cThere you see Arcturus, and Tormance is its one inhabited planet.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull looked at the heavy, gleaming star, and again at Krag. Then he pulled out a pipe, and began to fill it.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou must have cultivated a new form of humour, Krag.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am glad if I can amuse you, Maskull, if only for a few days.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI meant to ask you\u2014how do you know my name?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt would be odd if I didn\u2019t, seeing that I only came here on your account. As a matter of fact, Nightspore and I are old friends.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull paused with his suspended match. \u201cYou came here on my account?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSurely. On your account and Nightspore\u2019s. We three are to be fellow travellers.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull now lit his pipe and puffed away coolly for a few moments.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m sorry, Krag, but I must assume you are mad.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag threw his head back, and gave a scraping laugh. \u201cAm I mad, Nightspore?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHas Surtur gone to Tormance?\u201d ejaculated Nightspore in a strangled voice, fixing his eyes on Krag\u2019s face.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, and he requires that we follow him at once.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull\u2019s heart began to beat strangely. It all sounded to him like a dream conversation.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd since how long, Krag, have I been required<\/i> to do things by a total stranger.... Besides, who is this individual?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag\u2019s chief,\u201d said Nightspore, turning his head away.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe riddle is too elaborate for me. I give up.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are looking for mysteries,\u201d said Krag, \u201cso naturally you are finding them. Try and simplify your ideas, my friend. The affair is plain and serious.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull stared hard at him and smoked rapidly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere have you come from now?\u201d demanded Nightspore suddenly.\r\n\r\n\u201cFrom the old observatory at Starkness.... Have you heard of the famous Starkness Observatory, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo. Where is it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOn the north-east coast of Scotland. Curious discoveries are made there from time to time.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAs, for example, how to make voyages to the stars. So this Surtur turns out to be an astronomer. And you too, presumably?\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag grinned again. \u201cHow long will it take you to wind up your affairs? When can you be ready to start?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are too considerate,\u201d said Maskull, laughing outright. \u201cI was beginning to fear that I would be hauled away at once.... However, I have neither wife, land, nor profession, so there\u2019s nothing to wait for.... What is the itinerary?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are a fortunate man. A bold, daring heart, and no encumbrances.\u201d Krag\u2019s features became suddenly grave and rigid. \u201cDon\u2019t be a fool, and refuse a gift of luck. A gift declined is not offered a second time.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag,\u201d replied Maskull simply, returning his pipe to his pocket. \u201cI ask you to put yourself in my place. Even if I were a man sick for adventures, how could I listen seriously to such an insane proposition as this? What do I know about you, or your past record? You may be a practical joker, or you may have come out of a madhouse\u2014I know nothing about it. If you claim to be an exceptional man, and want my cooperation, you must offer me exceptional proofs.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what proofs would you consider adequate, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\nAs he spoke he gripped Maskull\u2019s arm. A sharp, chilling pain immediately passed through the latter\u2019s body and at the same moment his brain caught fire. A light burst in upon him like the rising of the sun. He asked himself for the first time if this fantastic conversation could by any chance refer to real things.\r\n\r\n\u201cListen, Krag,\u201d he said slowly, while peculiar images and conceptions started to travel in rich disorder through his mind. \u201cYou talk about a certain journey. Well, if that journey were a possible one, and I were given the chance of making it, I would be willing never to come back. For twenty-four hours on that Arcturian planet, I would give my life. That is my attitude toward that journey.... Now prove to me that you\u2019re not talking nonsense. Produce your credentials.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag stared at him all the time he was speaking, his face gradually resuming its jesting expression.\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, you will get your twenty-four hours, and perhaps longer, but not much longer. You\u2019re an audacious fellow, Maskull, but this trip will prove a little strenuous, even for you.... And so, like the unbelievers of old, you want a sign from heaven?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull frowned. \u201cBut the whole thing is ridiculous. Our brains are overexcited by what took place in there<\/i>. Let us go home, and sleep it off.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag detained him with one hand, while groping in his breast pocket with the other. He presently fished out what resembled a small folding lens. The diameter of the glass did not exceed two inches.\r\n\r\n\u201cFirst take a peep at Arcturus through this, Maskull. It may serve as a provisional sign. It\u2019s the best I can do, unfortunately. I am not a travelling magician.... Be very careful not to drop it. It\u2019s somewhat heavy.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull took the lens in his hand, struggled with it for a minute, and then looked at Krag in amazement. The little object weighed at least twenty pounds, though it was not much bigger than a crown piece.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat stuff can this be, Krag?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLook through it, my good friend. That\u2019s what I gave it to you for.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull held it up with difficulty, directed it toward the gleaming Arcturus, and snatched as long and as steady a glance at the star as the muscles of his arm would permit. What he saw was this. The star, which to the naked eye appeared as a single yellow point of light, now became clearly split into two bright but minute suns, the larger of which was still yellow, while its smaller companion was a beautiful blue. But this was not all. Apparently circulating around the yellow sun was a comparatively small and hardly distinguishable satellite, which seemed to shine, not by its own, but by reflected light.... Maskull lowered and raised his arm repeatedly. The same spectacle revealed itself again and again, but he was able to see nothing else. Then he passed back the lens to Krag, without a word, and stood chewing his underlip.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou take a glimpse too,\u201d scraped Krag, proffering the glass to Nightspore.\r\n\r\nNightspore turned his back and began to pace up and down. Krag laughed sardonically, and returned the lens to his pocket. \u201cWell, Maskull, are you satisfied?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cArcturus, then, is a double sun. And is that third point the planet Tormance?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOur future home, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull continued to ponder. \u201cYou inquire if I am satisfied. I don\u2019t know, Krag. It\u2019s miraculous, and that\u2019s all I can say about it.... But I\u2019m satisfied of one thing. There must be very wonderful astronomers at Starkness and if you invite me to your observatory I will surely come.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI do invite you. We set off from there.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd you, Nightspore?\u201d demanded Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe journey has to be made,\u201d answered his friend in indistinct tones, \u201cthough I don\u2019t see what will come of it.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag shot a penetrating glance at him. \u201cMore remarkable adventures than this would need to be arranged before we could excite Nightspore.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYet he is coming.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut not con amore<\/i>. He is coming merely to bear you company.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull again sought the heavy, sombre star, gleaming in solitary might, in the south-eastern heavens, and, as he gazed, his heart swelled with grand and painful longings, for which, however, he was unable to account to his own intellect. He felt that his destiny was in some way bound up with this gigantic, far-distant sun. But still he did not dare to admit to himself Krag\u2019s seriousness.\r\n\r\nHe heard his parting remarks in deep abstraction, and only after the lapse of several minutes, when, alone with Nightspore, did he realise that they referred to such mundane matters as travelling routes and times of trains.\r\n\r\n\u201cDoes Krag travel north with us, Nightspore? I didn\u2019t catch that.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo. We go on first, and he joins us at Starkness on the evening of the day after tomorrow.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull remained thoughtful. \u201cWhat am I to think of that man?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFor your information,\u201d replied Nightspore wearily, \u201cI have never known him to lie.\u201d\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 3. STARKNESS<\/h2>\r\nA couple of days later, at two o\u2019clock in the afternoon, Maskull and Nightspore arrived at Starkness Observatory, having covered the seven miles from Haillar Station on foot. The road, very wild and lonely, ran for the greater part of the way near the edge of rather lofty cliffs, within sight of the North Sea. The sun shone, but a brisk east wind was blowing and the air was salt and cold. The dark green waves were flecked with white. Throughout the walk, they were accompanied by the plaintive, beautiful crying of the gulls.\r\n\r\nThe observatory presented itself to their eyes as a self-contained little community, without neighbours, and perched on the extreme end of the land. There were three buildings: a small, stone-built dwelling house, a low workshop, and, about two hundred yards farther north, a square tower of granite masonry, seventy feet in height.\r\n\r\nThe house and the shop were separated by an open yard, littered with waste. A single stone wall surrounded both, except on the side facing the sea, where the house itself formed a continuation of the cliff. No one appeared. The windows were all closed, and Maskull could have sworn that the whole establishment was shut up and deserted.\r\n\r\nHe passed through the open gate, followed by Nightspore, and knocked vigorously at the front door. The knocker was thick with dust and had obviously not been used for a long time. He put his ear to the door, but could hear no movements inside the house. He then tried the handle; the door was looked.\r\n\r\nThey walked around the house, looking for another entrance, but there was only the one door.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis isn\u2019t promising,\u201d growled Maskull. \u201cThere\u2019s no one here..... Now you try the shed, while I go over to that tower.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore, who had not spoken half a dozen words since leaving the train, complied in silence, and started off across the yard. Maskull passed out of the gate again. When he arrived at the foot of the tower, which stood some way back from the cliff, he found the door heavily padlocked. Gazing up, he saw six windows, one above the other at equal distances, all on the east face\u2014that is, overlooking the sea. Realising that no satisfaction was to be gained here, he came away again, still more irritated than before. When he rejoined his friend, Nightspore reported that the workshop was also locked.\r\n\r\n\u201cDid we, or did we not, receive an invitation?\u201d demanded Maskull energetically.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe house is empty,\u201d replied Nightspore, biting his nails. \u201cBetter break a window.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI certainly don\u2019t mean to camp out till Krag condescends to come.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe picked up an old iron bolt from the yard and, retreating to a safe distance, hurled it against a sash window on the ground floor. The lower pane was completely shattered. Carefully avoiding the broken glass, Maskull thrust his hand through the aperture and pushed back the frame fastening. A minute later they had climbed through and were standing inside the house.\r\n\r\nThe room, which was a kitchen, was in an indescribably filthy and neglected condition. The furniture scarcely held together, broken utensils and rubbish lay on the floor instead of on the dust heap, everything was covered with a deep deposit of dust. The atmosphere was so foul that Maskull judged that no fresh air had passed into the room for several months. Insects were crawling on the walls.\r\n\r\nThey went into the other rooms on the lower floor\u2014a scullery, a barely furnished dining room, and a storing place for lumber. The same dirt, mustiness, and neglect met their eyes. At least half a year must have elapsed since these rooms were last touched, or even entered.\r\n\r\n\u201cDoes your faith in Krag still hold?\u201d asked Maskull. \u201cI confess mine is at vanishing point. If this affair isn\u2019t one big practical joke, it has every promise of being one. Krag never lived here in his life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCome upstairs first,\u201d said Nightspore.\r\n\r\nThe upstairs rooms proved to consist of a library and three bedrooms. All the windows were tightly closed, and the air was insufferable. The beds had been slept in, evidently a long time ago, and had never been made since. The tumbled, discoloured bed linen actually preserved the impressions of the sleepers. There was no doubt that these impressions were ancient, for all sorts of floating dirt had accumulated on the sheets and coverlets.\r\n\r\n\u201cWho could have slept here, do you think?\u201d interrogated Maskull. \u201cThe observatory staff?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMore likely travellers like ourselves. They left suddenly.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull flung the windows wide open in every room he came to, and held his breath until he had done so. Two of the bedrooms faced the sea; the third, the library, the upward-sloping moorland. This library was now the only room left unvisited, and unless they discovered signs of recent occupation here Maskull made up his mind to regard the whole business as a gigantic hoax.\r\n\r\nBut the library, like all the other rooms, was foul with stale air and dust-laden. Maskull, having flung the window up and down, fell heavily into an armchair and looked disgustedly at his friend.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow what is your opinion of Krag?\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore sat on the edge of the table which stood before the window. \u201cHe may still have left a message for us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat message? Why? Do you mean in this room?\u2014I see no message.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore\u2019s eyes wandered about the room, finally seeming to linger upon a glass-fronted wall cupboard, which contained a few old bottles on one of the shelves and nothing else. Maskull glanced at him and at the cupboard. Then, without a word, he got up to examine the bottles.\r\n\r\nThere were four altogether, one of which was larger than the rest. The smaller ones were about eight inches long. All were torpedo-shaped, but had flattened bottoms, which enabled them to stand upright. Two of the smaller ones were empty and unstoppered, the others contained a colourless liquid, and possessed queer-looking, nozzle-like stoppers that were connected by a thin metal rod with a catch halfway down the side of the bottle. They were labelled, but the labels were yellow with age and the writing was nearly undecipherable. Maskull carried the filled bottles with him to the table in front of the window, in order to get better light. Nightspore moved away to make room for him.\r\n\r\nHe now made out on the larger bottle the words \u201cSolar Back Rays\u201d; and on the other one, after some doubt, he thought that he could distinguish something like \u201cArcturian Back Rays.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe looked up, to stare curiously at his friend. \u201cHave you been here before, Nightspore?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI guessed Krag would leave a message.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, I don\u2019t know\u2014it may be a message, but it means nothing to us, or at all events to me. What are \u2018back rays\u2019?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLight that goes back to its source,\u201d muttered Nightspore.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what kind of light would that be?\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore seemed unwilling to answer, but, finding Maskull\u2019s eyes still fixed on him, he brought out: \u201cUnless light pulled, as well as pushed, how would flowers contrive to twist their heads around after the sun?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know. But the point is, what are these bottles for?\u201d\r\n\r\nWhile he was still talking, with his hand on the smaller bottle, the other, which was lying on its side, accidentally rolled over in such a manner that the metal caught against the table. He made a movement to stop it, his hand was actually descending, when\u2014the bottle suddenly disappeared before his eyes. It had not rolled off the table, but had really vanished\u2014it was nowhere at all.\r\n\r\nMaskull stared at the table. After a minute he raised his brows, and turned to Nightspore with a smile. \u201cThe message grows more intricate.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore looked bored. \u201cThe valve became unfastened. The contents have escaped through the open window toward the sun, carrying the bottle with them. But the bottle will be burned up by the earth\u2019s atmosphere, and the contents will dissipate, and will not reach the sun.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull listened attentively, and his smile faded. \u201cDoes anything prevent us from experimenting with this other bottle?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cReplace it in the cupboard,\u201d said Nightspore. \u201cArcturus is still below the horizon, and you would succeed only in wrecking the house.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull remained standing before the window, pensively gazing out at the sunlit moors.\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag treats me like a child,\u201d he remarked presently. \u201cAnd perhaps I really am a child.... My cynicism must seem most amusing to Krag. But why does he leave me to find out all this by myself\u2014for I don\u2019t include you, Nightspore.... But what time will Krag be here?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNot before dark, I expect,\u201d his friend replied.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 4. THE VOICE<\/h2>\r\nIt was by this time past three o\u2019clock. Feeling hungry, for they had eaten nothing since early morning, Maskull went downstairs to forage, but without much hope of finding anything in the shape of food. In a safe in the kitchen he discovered a bag of mouldy oatmeal, which was untouchable, a quantity of quite good tea in an airtight caddy, and an unopened can of ox tongue. Best of all, in the dining-room cupboard he came across an uncorked bottle of first-class Scotch whisky. He at once made preparations for a scratch meal.\r\n\r\nA pump in the yard ran clear after a good deal of hard working at it, and he washed out and filled the antique kettle. For firewood, one of the kitchen chairs was broken up with a chopper. The light, dusty wood made a good blaze in the grate, the kettle was boiled, and cups were procured and washed. Ten minutes later the friends were dining in the library.\r\n\r\nNightspore ate and drank little, but Maskull sat down with good appetite. There being no milk, whisky took the place of it; the nearly black tea was mixed with an equal quantity of the spirit. Of this concoction Maskull drank cup after cup, and long after the tongue had disappeared he was still imbibing.\r\n\r\nNightspore looked at him queerly. \u201cDo you intend to finish the bottle before Krag comes?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag won\u2019t want any, and one must do something. I feel restless.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLet us take a look at the country.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe cup, which was on its way to Maskull\u2019s lips, remained poised in the air. \u201cHave you anything in view, Nightspore?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLet us walk out to the Gap of Sorgie.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA showplace,\u201d answered Nightspore, biting his lip.\r\n\r\nMaskull finished off the cup, and rose to his feet. \u201cWalking is better than soaking at any time, and especially on a day like this.... How far is it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThree or four miles each way.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou probably mean something,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cfor I\u2019m beginning to regard you as a second Krag. But if so, so much the better. I am growing nervous, and need incidents.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey left the house by the door, which they left ajar, and immediately found themselves again on the moorland road that had brought them from Haillar. This time they continued along it, past the tower.\r\n\r\nMaskull, as they went by, regarded the erection with puzzled interest. \u201cWhat is<\/i> that tower, Nightspore?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe sail from the platform on the top.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTonight?\u201d\u2014throwing him a quick look.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull smiled, but his eyes were grave. \u201cThen we are looking at the gateway of Arcturus, and Krag is now travelling north to unlock it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou no longer think it impossible, I fancy,\u201d mumbled Nightspore.\r\n\r\nAfter a mile or two, the road parted from the sea coast and swerved sharply inland, across the hills. With Nightspore as guide, they left it and took to the grass. A faint sheep path marked the way along the cliff edge for some distance, but at the end of another mile it vanished. The two men then had some rough walking up and down hillsides and across deep gullies. The sun disappeared behind the hills, and twilight imperceptibly came on. They soon reached a spot where further progress appeared impossible. The buttress of a mountain descended at a steep angle to the very edge of the cliff, forming an impassable slope of slippery grass. Maskull halted, stroked his beard, and wondered what the next step was to be.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s a little scrambling here,\u201d said Nightspore. \u201cWe are both used to climbing, and there is not much in it.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe indicated a narrow ledge, winding along the face of the precipice a few yards beneath where they were standing. It averaged from fifteen to thirty inches in width. Without waiting for Maskull\u2019s consent to the undertaking, he instantly swung himself down and started walking along this ledge at a rapid pace. Maskull, seeing that there was no help for it, followed him. The shelf did not extend for above a quarter of a mile, but its passage was somewhat unnerving; there was a sheer drop to the sea, four hundred feet below. In a few places they had to sidle along without placing one foot before another. The sound of the breakers came up to them in a low, threatening roar.\r\n\r\nUpon rounding a corner, the ledge broadened out into a fair-sized platform of rock and came to a sudden end. A narrow inlet of the sea separated them from the continuation of the cliffs beyond.\r\n\r\n\u201cAs we can\u2019t get any further,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cI presume this is your Gap of Sorgie?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d answered his friend, first dropping on his knees and then lying at full length, face downward. He drew his head and shoulders over the edge and began to stare straight down at the water.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is there interesting down there, Nightspore?\u201d\r\n\r\nReceiving no reply, however, he followed his friend\u2019s example, and the next minute was looking for himself. Nothing was to be seen; the gloom had deepened, and the sea was nearly invisible. But, while he was ineffectually gazing, he heard what sounded like the beating of a drum on the narrow strip of shore below. It was very faint, but quite distinct. The beats were in four-four time, with the third beat slightly accented. He now continued to hear the noise all the time he was lying there. The beats were in no way drowned by the far louder sound of the surf, but seemed somehow to belong to a different world....\r\n\r\nWhen they were on their feet again, he questioned Nightspore. \u201cWe came here solely to hear that?\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore cast one of his odd looks at him. \u201cIt\u2019s called locally \u2018The Drum Taps of Sorgie.\u2019 You will not hear that name again, but perhaps you will hear the sound again.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd if I do, what will it imply?\u201d demanded Maskull in amazement.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt bears its own message. Only try always to hear it more and more distinctly.... Now it\u2019s growing dark, and we must get back.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull pulled out his watch automatically, and looked at the time. It was past six.... But he was thinking of Nightspore\u2019s words, and not of the time.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nNight had already fallen by the time they regained the tower. The black sky was glorious with liquid stars. Arcturus was a little way above the sea, directly opposite them, in the east. As they were passing the base of the tower, Maskull observed with a sudden shock that the gate was open. He caught hold of Nightspore\u2019s arm violently. \u201cLook! Krag is back.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, we must make haste to the house.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd why not the tower? He\u2019s probably in there, since the gate is open. I\u2019m going up to look.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore grunted, but made no opposition.\r\n\r\nAll was pitch-black inside the gate. Maskull struck a match, and the flickering light disclosed the lower end of a circular flight of stone steps. \u201cAre you coming up?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, I\u2019ll wait here.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull immediately began the ascent. Hardly had he mounted half a dozen steps, however, before he was compelled to pause, to gain breath. He seemed to be carrying upstairs not one Maskull, but three. As he proceeded, the sensation of crushing weight, so far from diminishing, grew worse and worse. It was nearly physically impossible to go on; his lungs could not take in enough oxygen, while his heart thumped like a ship\u2019s engine. Sweat coursed down his face. At the twentieth step he completed the first revolution of the tower and came face to face with the first window, which was set in a high embrasure.\r\n\r\nRealising that he could go no higher, he struck another match, and climbed into the embrasure, in order that he might at all events see something from the tower. The flame died, and he stared through the window at the stars. Then, to his astonishment, he discovered that it was not a window at all but a lens.... The sky was not a wide expanse of space containing a multitude of stars, but a blurred darkness, focused only in one part, where two very bright stars, like small moons in size, appeared in close conjunction; and near them a more minute planetary object, as brilliant as Venus and with an observable disk. One of the suns shone with a glaring white light; the other was a weird and awful blue. Their light, though almost solar in intensity, did not illuminate the interior of the tower.\r\n\r\nMaskull knew at once that the system of spheres at which he was gazing was what is known to astronomy as the star Arcturus.... He had seen the sight before, through Krag\u2019s glass, but then the scale had been smaller, the colors of the twin suns had not appeared in their naked reality.... These colors seemed to him most marvellous, as if, in seeing them through earth eyes, he was not seeing them correctly.... But it was at Tormance that he stared the longest and the most earnestly. On that mysterious and terrible earth, countless millions of miles distant, it had been promised him that he would set foot, even though he might leave his bones there. The strange creatures that he was to behold and touch were already living, at this very moment.\r\n\r\nA low, sighing whisper sounded in his ear, from not more than a yard away. \u201cDon\u2019t you understand, Maskull, that you are only an instrument, to be used and then broken? Nightspore is asleep now, but when he wakes you must die. You will go, but he will return.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull hastily struck another match, with trembling fingers. No one was in sight, and all was quiet as the tomb.\r\n\r\nThe voice did not sound again. After waiting a few minutes, he redescended to the foot of the tower. On gaining the open air, his sensation of weight was instantly removed, but he continued panting and palpitating, like a man who has lifted a far too heavy load.\r\n\r\nNightspore\u2019s dark form came forward. \u201cWas Krag there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf he was, I didn\u2019t see him. But I heard someone speak.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWas it Krag?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was not Krag\u2014but a voice warned me against you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, you will hear these voices too,\u201d said Nightspore enigmatically.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 5. THE NIGHT OF DEPARTURE<\/h2>\r\nWhen they returned to the house, the windows were all in darkness and the door was ajar, just as they had left it; Krag presumably was not there. Maskull went all over the house, striking matches in every room\u2014at the end of the examination he was ready to swear that the man they were expecting had not even stuck his nose inside the premises. Groping their way into the library, they sat down in the total darkness to wait, for nothing else remained to be done. Maskull lit his pipe, and began to drink the remainder of the whisky. Through the open window sounded in their ears the trainlike grinding of the sea at the foot of the cliffs.\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag must be in the tower after all,\u201d remarked Maskull, breaking the silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, he is getting ready.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI hope he doesn\u2019t expect us to join him there. It was beyond my powers\u2014but why, heaven knows. The stairs must have a magnetic pull of some sort.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is Tormantic gravity,\u201d muttered Nightspore.\r\n\r\n\u201cI understand you\u2014or, rather, I don\u2019t\u2014but it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe went on smoking in silence, occasionally taking a mouthful of the neat liquor. \u201cWho is Surtur?\u201d he demanded abruptly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe others are gropers and bunglers, but he is a master<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull digested this. \u201cI fancy you are right, for though I know nothing about him his mere name has an exciting effect on me.... Are you personally acquainted with him?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI must be... I forget...\u201d replied Nightspore in a choking voice.\r\n\r\nMaskull looked up, surprised, but could make nothing out in the blackness of the room.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you know so many extraordinary men that you can forget some of them?... Perhaps you can tell me this... will we meet him, where we are going?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou will meet death, Maskull.... Ask me no more questions\u2014I can\u2019t answer them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen let us go on waiting for Krag,\u201d said Maskull coldly.\r\n\r\nTen minutes later the front door slammed, and a light, quick footstep was heard running up the stairs. Maskull got up, with a beating heart.\r\n\r\nKrag appeared on the threshold of the door, bearing in his hand a feebly glimmering lantern. A hat was on his head, and he looked stern and forbidding. After scrutinising the two friends for a moment or so, he strode into the room and thrust the lantern on the table. Its light hardly served to illuminate the walls.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have got here, then, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo it seems\u2014but I shan\u2019t thank you for your hospitality, for it has been conspicuous by its absence.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag ignored the remark. \u201cAre you ready to start?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBy all means\u2014when you are. It is not so entertaining here.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag surveyed him critically. \u201cI heard you stumbling about in the tower. You couldn\u2019t get up, it seems.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt looks like an obstacle, for Nightspore informs me that the start takes place from the top.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut your other doubts are all removed?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo far, Krag, that I now possess an open mind. I am quite willing to see what you can do.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNothing more is asked.... But this tower business. You know that until you are able to climb to the top you are unfit to stand the gravitation of Tormance?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen I repeat, it\u2019s an awkward obstacle, for I certainly can\u2019t get up.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag hunted about in his pockets, and at length produced a clasp knife.\r\n\r\n\u201cRemove your coat, and roll up your shirt sleeve,\u201d he directed.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you propose to make an incision with that?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, and don\u2019t start difficulties, because the effect is certain, but you can\u2019t possibly understand it beforehand.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cStill, a cut with a pocket-knife\u2014\u201d began Maskull, laughing.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt will answer, Maskull,\u201d interrupted Nightspore.\r\n\r\n\u201cThen bare your arm too, you aristocrat of the universe,\u201d said Krag. \u201cLet us see what your blood is made of.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore obeyed.\r\n\r\nKrag pulled out the big blade of the knife, and made a careless and almost savage slash at Maskull\u2019s upper arm. The wound was deep, and blood flowed freely.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo I bind it up?\u201d asked Maskull, scowling with pain.\r\n\r\nKrag spat on the wound. \u201cPull your shirt down, it won\u2019t bleed any more.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe then turned his attention to Nightspore, who endured his operation with grim indifference. Krag threw the knife on the floor.\r\n\r\nAn awful agony, emanating from the wound, started to run through Maskull\u2019s body, and he began to doubt whether he would not have to faint, but it subsided almost immediately, and then he felt nothing but a gnawing ache in the injured arm, just strong enough to make life one long discomfort.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s finished,\u201d said Krag. \u201cNow you can follow me.\u201d\r\n\r\nPicking up the lantern, he walked toward the door. The others hastened after him, to take advantage of the light, and a moment later their footsteps, clattering down the uncarpeted stairs, resounded through the deserted house. Krag waited till they were out, and then banged the front door after them with such violence that the windows shook.\r\n\r\nWhile they were walking swiftly across to the tower, Maskull caught his arm. \u201cI heard a voice up those stairs.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat did it say?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat I am to go, but Nightspore is to return.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag smiled. \u201cThe journey is getting notorious,\u201d he remarked, after a pause. \u201cThere must be ill-wishers about.... Well, do you want to return?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what I want. But I thought the thing was curious enough to be mentioned.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is not a bad thing to hear voices,\u201d said Krag, \u201cbut you mustn\u2019t for a minute imagine that all is wise that comes to you out of the night world.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen they had arrived at the open gateway of the tower, he immediately set foot on the bottom step of the spiral staircase and ran nimbly up, bearing the lantern. Maskull followed him with some trepidation, in view of his previous painful experience on these stairs, but when, after the first half-dozen steps, he discovered that he was still breathing freely, his dread changed to relief and astonishment, and he could have chattered like a girl.\r\n\r\nAt the lowest window Krag went straight ahead without stopping, but Maskull clambered into the embrasure, in order to renew his acquaintance with the miraculous spectacle of the Arcturian group. The lens had lost its magic property. It had become a common sheet of glass, through which the ordinary sky field appeared.\r\n\r\nThe climb continued, and at the second and third windows he again mounted and stared out, but still the common sights presented themselves. After that, he gave up and looked through no more windows.\r\n\r\nKrag and Nightspore meanwhile had gone on ahead with the light, so that he had to complete the ascent in darkness. When he was near the top, he saw yellow light shining through the crack of a half-opened door. His companions were standing just inside a small room, shut off from the staircase by rough wooden planking; it was rudely furnished and contained nothing of astronomical interest. The lantern was resting on a table.\r\n\r\nMaskull walked in and looked around him with curiosity. \u201cAre we at the top?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cExcept for the platform over our heads,\u201d replied Krag.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy didn\u2019t that lowest window magnify, as it did earlier in the evening?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, you missed your opportunity,\u201d said Krag, grinning. \u201cIf you had finished your climb then, you would have seen heart-expanding sights. From the fifth window, for example, you would have seen Tormance like a continent in relief; from the sixth you would have seen it like a landscape.... But now there\u2019s no need.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy not\u2014and what has need got to do with it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThings are changed, my friend, since that wound of yours. For the same reason that you have now been able to mount the stairs, there was no necessity to stop and gape at illusions en route<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cVery well,\u201d said Maskull, not quite understanding what he meant. \u201cBut is this Surtur\u2019s den?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe has spent time here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI wish you would describe this mysterious individual, Krag. We may not get another chance.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat I said about the windows also applies to Surtur. There\u2019s no need to waste time over visualising him, because you are immediately going on to the reality.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen let us go.\u201d He pressed his eyeballs wearily.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo we strip?\u201d asked Nightspore.\r\n\r\n\u201cNaturally,\u201d answered Krag, and he began to tear off his clothes with slow, uncouth movements.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy?\u201d demanded Maskull, following, however, the example of the other two men.\r\n\r\nKrag thumped his vast chest, which was covered with thick hairs, like an ape\u2019s. \u201cWho knows what the Tormance fashions are like? We may sprout limbs\u2014I don\u2019t say we shall.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA-ha!\u201d exclaimed Maskull, pausing in the middle of his undressing.\r\n\r\nKrag smote him on the back. \u201cNew pleasure organs possible, Maskull. You like that?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe three men stood as nature made them. Maskull\u2019s spirits rose fast, as the moment of departure drew near.\r\n\r\n\u201cA farewell drink to success!\u201d cried Krag, seizing a bottle and breaking its head off between his fingers. There were no glasses, but he poured the amber-coloured wine into some cracked cups.\r\n\r\nPerceiving that the others drank, Maskull tossed off his cupful. It was as if he had swallowed a draught of liquid electricity.... Krag dropped onto the floor and rolled around on his back, kicking his legs in the air. He tried to drag Maskull down on top of him, and a little horseplay went on between the two. Nightspore took no part in it, but walked to and fro, like a hungry caged animal.\r\n\r\nSuddenly, from out-of-doors, there came a single prolonged, piercing wail, such as a banshee might be imagined to utter. It ceased abruptly, and was not repeated.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d called out Maskull, disengaging himself impatiently from Krag.\r\n\r\nKrag rocked with laughter. \u201cA Scottish spirit trying to reproduce the bagpipes of its earth life\u2014in honour of our departure.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore turned to Krag. \u201cMaskull will sleep throughout the journey?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd you too, if you wish, my altruistic friend. I am pilot, and you passengers can amuse yourselves as you please.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAre we off at last?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, you are about to cross your Rubicon, Maskull. But what a Rubicon!... Do you know that it takes light a hundred years or so to arrive here from Arcturus? Yet we shall do it in nineteen hours.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen you assert that Surtur is already there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSurtur is where he is. He is a great traveller.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWon\u2019t I see him?\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag went up to him and looked him in the eyes. \u201cDon\u2019t forget that you have asked for it, and wanted it. Few people in Tormance will know more about him than you do, but your memory will be your worst friend.\u201d\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nHe led the way up a short iron ladder, mounting through a trap to the flat roof above. When they were up, he switched on a small electric torch.\r\n\r\nMaskull beheld with awe the torpedo of crystal that was to convey them through the whole breadth of visible space. It was forty feet long, eight wide, and eight high; the tank containing the Arcturian back rays was in front, the car behind. The nose of the torpedo was directed toward the south-eastern sky. The whole machine rested upon a flat platform, raised about four feet above the level of the roof, so as to encounter no obstruction on starting its flight.\r\n\r\nKrag flashed the light on to the door of the car, to enable them to enter. Before doing so, Maskull gazed sternly once again at the gigantic, far-distant star, which was to be their sun from now onward. He frowned, shivered slightly, and got in beside Nightspore. Krag clambered past them onto his pilot\u2019s seat. He threw the flashlight through the open door, which was then carefully closed, fastened, and screwed up.\r\n\r\nHe pulled the starting lever. The torpedo glided gently from its platform, and passed rather slowly away from the tower, seaward. Its speed increased sensibly, though not excessively, until the approximate limits of the earth\u2019s atmosphere were reached. Krag then released the speed valve, and the car sped on its way with a velocity more nearly approaching that of thought than of light.\r\n\r\nMaskull had no opportunity of examining through the crystal walls the rapidly changing panorama of the heavens. An extreme drowsiness oppressed him. He opened his eyes violently a dozen times, but on the thirteenth attempt he failed. From that time forward he slept heavily.\r\n\r\nThe bored, hungry expression never left Nightspore\u2019s face. The alterations in the aspect of the sky seemed to possess not the least interest for him.\r\n\r\nKrag sat with his hand on the lever, watching with savage intentness his phosphorescent charts and gauges.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 6. JOIWIND<\/h2>\r\nIT WAS DENSE NIGHT when Maskull awoke from his profound sleep. A wind was blowing against him, gentle but wall-like, such as he had never experienced on earth. He remained sprawling on the ground, as he was unable to lift his body because of its intense weight. A numbing pain, which he could not identify with any region of his frame, acted from now onward as a lower, sympathetic note to all his other sensations. It gnawed away at him continuously; sometimes it embittered and irritated him, at other times he forgot it.\r\n\r\nHe felt something hard on his forehead. Putting his hand up, he discovered there a fleshy protuberance the size of a small plum, having a cavity in the middle, of which he could not feel the bottom. Then he also became aware of a large knob on each side of his neck, an inch below the ear.\r\n\r\nFrom the region of his heart, a tentacle had budded. It was as long as his arm, but thin, like whipcord, and soft and flexible.\r\n\r\nAs soon as he thoroughly realised the significance of these new organs, his heart began to pump. Whatever might, or might not, be their use, they proved one thing\u2014that he was in a new world.\r\n\r\nOne part of the sky began to get lighter than the rest. Maskull cried out to his companions, but received no response. This frightened him. He went on shouting out, at irregular intervals\u2014equally alarmed at the silence and at the sound of his own voice. Finally, as no answering hail came, he thought it wiser not to make too much noise, and after that he lay quiet, waiting in cold blood for what might happen.\r\n\r\nIn a short while he perceived dim shadows around him, but these were not his friends.\r\n\r\nA pale, milky vapour over the ground began to succeed the black night, while in the upper sky rosy tints appeared. On earth, one would have said that day was breaking. The brightness went on imperceptibly increasing for a very long time.\r\n\r\nMaskull then discovered that he was lying on sand. The colour of the sand was scarlet. The obscure shadows he had seen were bushes, with black stems and purple leaves. So far, nothing else was visible.\r\n\r\nThe day surged up. It was too misty for direct sunshine, but before long the brilliance of the light was already greater than that of the midday sun on earth. The heat, too, was intense, but Maskull welcomed it\u2014it relieved his pain and diminished his sense of crushing weight. The wind had dropped with the rising of the sun.\r\n\r\nHe now tried to get onto his feet, but succeeded only in kneeling. He was unable to see far. The mists had no more than partially dissolved, and all that he could distinguish was a narrow circle of red sand dotted with ten or twenty bushes.\r\n\r\nHe felt a soft, cool touch on the back of his neck. He started forward in nervous fright and, in doing so, tumbled over onto the sand. Looking up over his shoulder quickly, he was astounded to see a woman standing beside him.\r\n\r\nShe was clothed in a single flowing, pale green garment, rather classically draped. According to earth standards she was not beautiful, for, although her face was otherwise human, she was endowed\u2014or afflicted\u2014with the additional disfiguring organs that Maskull had discovered in himself. She also possessed the heart tentacle. But when he sat up, and their eyes met and remained in sympathetic contact, he seemed to see right into a soul that was the home of love, warmth, kindness, tenderness, and intimacy. Such was the noble familiarity of that gaze, that he thought he knew her. After that, he recognised all the loveliness of her person. She was tall and slight. All her movements were as graceful as music. Her skin was not of a dead, opaque colour, like that of an earth beauty, but was opalescent; its hue was continually changing, with every thought and emotion, but none of these tints was vivid\u2014all were delicate, half-toned, and poetic. She had very long, loosely plaited, flaxen hair. The new organs, as soon as Maskull had familiarised himself with them, imparted something to her face that was unique and striking. He could not quite define it to himself, but subtlety and inwardness seemed added. The organs did not contradict the love of her eyes or the angelic purity of her features, but nevertheless sounded a deeper note\u2014a note that saved her from mere girlishness.\r\n\r\nHer gaze was so friendly and unembarrassed that Maskull felt scarcely any humiliation at sitting at her feet, naked and helpless. She realised his plight, and put into his hands a garment that she had been carrying over her arm. It was similar to the one she was wearing, but of a darker, more masculine colour.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you think you can put it on by yourself?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe was distinctly conscious of these words, yet her voice had not sounded.\r\n\r\nHe forced himself up to his feet, and she helped him to master the complications of the drapery.\r\n\r\n\u201cPoor man\u2014how you are suffering!\u201d she said, in the same inaudible language. This time he discovered that the sense of what she said was received by his brain through the organ on his forehead.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere am I? Is this Tormance?\u201d he asked. As he spoke, he staggered.\r\n\r\nShe caught him, and helped him to sit down. \u201cYes. You are with friends.\u201d\r\n\r\nThen she regarded him with a smile, and began speaking aloud, in English. Her voice somehow reminded him of an April day, it was so fresh, nervous, and girlish. \u201cI can now understand your language. It was strange at first. In the future I\u2019ll speak to you with my mouth.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is extraordinary! What is this organ?\u201d he asked, touching his forehead.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is named the \u2018breve.\u2019 By means of it we read one another\u2019s thoughts. Still, speech is better, for then the heart can be read too.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe smiled. \u201cThey say that speech is given us to deceive others.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOne can deceive with thought, too. But I\u2019m thinking of the best, not the worst.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHave you seen my friends?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe scrutinised him quietly, before answering. \u201cDid you not come alone?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI came with two other men, in a machine. I must have lost consciousness on arrival, and I haven\u2019t seen them since.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s very strange! No, I haven\u2019t seen them. They can\u2019t be here, or we would have known it. My husband and I\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is your name, and your husband\u2019s name?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMine is Joiwind\u2014my husband\u2019s is Panawe. We live a very long way from here; still, it came to us both last night that you were lying here insensible. We almost quarrelled about which of us should come to you, but in the end I won.\u201d Here she laughed. \u201cI won, because I am the stronger-hearted of the two; he is the purer in perception.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThanks, Joiwind!\u201d said Maskull simply.\r\n\r\nThe colors chased each other rapidly beneath her skin. \u201cOh, why do you say that? What pleasure is greater than loving-kindness? I rejoiced at the opportunity.... But now we must exchange blood.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is this?\u201d he demanded, rather puzzled.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt must be so. Your blood is far too thick and heavy for our world. Until you have an infusion of mine, you will never get up.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull flushed. \u201cI feel like a complete ignoramus here.... Won\u2019t it hurt you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf your blood pains you, I suppose it will pain me. But we will share the pain.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is a new kind of hospitality to me,\u201d he muttered.\r\n\r\n\u201cWouldn\u2019t you do the same for me?\u201d asked Joiwind, half smiling, half agitated.\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t answer for any of my actions in this world. I scarcely know where I am.... Why, yes\u2014of course I would, Joiwind.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhile they were talking it had become full day. The mists had rolled away from the ground, and only the upper atmosphere remained fog-charged. The desert of scarlet sand stretched in all directions, except one, where there was a sort of little oasis\u2014some low hills, clothed sparsely with little purple trees from base to summit. It was about a quarter of a mile distant.\r\n\r\nJoiwind had brought with her a small flint knife. Without any trace of nervousness, she made a careful, deep incision on her upper arm. Maskull expostulated.\r\n\r\n\u201cReally, this part of it is nothing,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cAnd if it were\u2014a sacrifice that is no sacrifice\u2014what merit is there in that?... Come now\u2014your arm!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe blood was streaming down her arm. It was not red blood, but a milky, opalescent fluid.\r\n\r\n\u201cNot that one!\u201d said Maskull, shrinking. \u201cI have already been cut there.\u201d He submitted the other, and his blood poured forth.\r\n\r\nJoiwind delicately and skilfully placed the mouths of the two wounds together, and then kept her arm pressed tightly against Maskull\u2019s for a long time. He felt a stream of pleasure entering his body through the incision. His old lightness and vigour began to return to him. After about five minutes a duel of kindness started between them; he wanted to remove his arm, and she to continue. At last he had his way, but it was none too soon\u2014she stood there pale and dispirited.\r\n\r\nShe looked at him with a more serious expression than before, as if strange depths had opened up before her eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere have you come from, with this awful blood?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFrom a world called Earth.... The blood is clearly unsuitable for this world, Joiwind, but after all, that was only to be expected. I am sorry I let you have your way.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, don\u2019t say that! There was nothing else to be done. We must all help one another. Yet, somehow\u2014forgive me\u2014I feel polluted.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd well you may, for it\u2019s a fearful thing for a girl to accept in her own veins the blood of a strange man from a strange planet. If I had not been so dazed and weak I would never have allowed it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut I would have insisted. Are we not all brothers and sisters? Why did you come here, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe was conscious of a slight degree of embarrassment. \u201cWill you think it foolish if I say I hardly know?\u2014I came with those two men. Perhaps I was attracted by curiosity, or perhaps it was the love of adventure.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps,\u201d said Joiwind. \u201cI wonder... These friends of yours must be terrible men. Why did they come?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat I can tell you. They came to follow Surtur.\u201d\r\n\r\nHer face grew troubled. \u201cI don\u2019t understand it. One of them at least must be a bad man, and yet if he is following Surtur\u2014or Shaping, as he is called here\u2014he can\u2019t be really bad.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you know of Surtur?\u201d asked Maskull in astonishment.\r\n\r\nJoiwind remained silent for a time, studying his face. His brain moved restlessly, as though it were being probed from outside. \u201cI see.... and yet I don\u2019t see,\u201d she said at last. \u201cIt is very difficult.... Your God is a dreadful Being\u2014bodyless, unfriendly, invisible. Here we don\u2019t worship a God like that. Tell me, has any man set eyes on your God?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat does all this mean, Joiwind? Why speak of God?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI want to know.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn ancient times, when the earth was young and grand, a few holy men are reputed to have walked and spoken with God, but those days are past.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOur world is still young,\u201d said Joiwind. \u201cShaping goes among us and converses with us. He is real and active\u2014a friend and lover. Shaping made us, and he loves his work.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHave you<\/i> met him?\u201d demanded Maskull, hardly believing his ears.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo. I have done nothing to deserve it yet. Some day I may have an opportunity to sacrifice myself, and then I may be rewarded by meeting and talking with Shaping.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have certainly come to another world. But why do you say he is the same as Surtur?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, he is the same. We women call him Shaping, and so do most men, but a few name him Surtur.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull bit his nail. \u201cHave you ever heard of Crystalman?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is Shaping once again. You see, he has many names\u2014which shows how much he occupies our minds. Crystalman is a name of affection.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s odd,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cI came here with quite different ideas about Crystalman.\u201d\r\n\r\nJoiwind shook her hair. \u201cIn that grove of trees over there stands a desert shrine of his. Let us go and pray there, and then we\u2019ll go on our way to Poolingdred. That is my home. It\u2019s a long way off, and we must get there before Blodsombre.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNow, what is Blodsombre?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFor about four hours in the middle of the day Branchspell\u2019s rays are so hot that no one can endure them. We call it Blodsombre.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs Branchspell another name for Arcturus?\u201d\r\n\r\nJoiwind threw off her seriousness and laughed. \u201cNaturally we don\u2019t take our names from you, Maskull. I don\u2019t think our names are very poetic, but they follow nature.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe took his arm affectionately, and directed their walk towards the tree-covered hills. As they went along, the sun broke through the upper mists and a terrible gust of scorching heat, like a blast from a furnace, struck Maskull\u2019s head. He involuntarily looked up, but lowered his eyes again like lightning. All that he saw in that instant was a glaring ball of electric white, three times the apparent diameter of the sun. For a few minutes he was quite blind.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy God!\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cIf it\u2019s like this in early morning you must be right enough about Blodsombre.\u201d When he had somewhat recovered himself he asked, \u201cHow long are the days here, Joiwind?\u201d\r\n\r\nAgain he felt his brain being probed.\r\n\r\n\u201cAt this time of the year, for every hour\u2019s daylight that you have in summer, we have two.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe heat is terrific\u2014and yet somehow I don\u2019t feel so distressed by it as I would have expected.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI feel it more than usual. It\u2019s not difficult to account for it; you have some of my blood, and I have some of yours.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, every time I realise that, I\u2014Tell me, Joiwind, will my blood alter, if I stay here long enough?\u2014I mean, will it lose its redness and thickness, and become pure and thin and light-coloured, like yours?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy not? If you live as we live, you will assuredly grow like us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you mean food and drink?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe eat no food, and drink only water.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd on that you manage to sustain life?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, Maskull, our water is good water,\u201d replied Joiwind, smiling.\r\n\r\nAs soon as he could see again he stared around at the landscape. The enormous scarlet desert extended everywhere to the horizon, excepting where it was broken by the oasis. It was roofed by a cloudless, deep blue, almost violet, sky. The circle of the horizon was far larger than on earth. On the skyline, at right angles to the direction in which they were walking, appeared a chain of mountains, apparently about forty miles distant. One, which was higher than the rest, was shaped like a cup. Maskull would have felt inclined to believe he was travelling in dreamland, but for the intensity of the light, which made everything vividly real.\r\n\r\nJoiwind pointed to the cup-shaped mountain. \u201cThat\u2019s Poolingdred.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou didn\u2019t come from there!\u201d he exclaimed, quite startled.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, I did indeed. And that is where we have to go to now.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWith the single object of finding me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy, yes.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe colour mounted to his face. \u201cThen you are the bravest and noblest of all girls,\u201d he said quietly, after a pause. \u201cWithout exception. Why, this is a journey for an athlete!\u201d\r\n\r\nShe pressed his arm, while a score of unpaintable, delicate hues stained her cheeks in rapid transition. \u201cPlease don\u2019t say any more about it, Maskull. It makes me feel unpleasant.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cVery well. But can we possibly get there before midday?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, yes. And you mustn\u2019t be frightened at the distance. We think nothing of long distances here\u2014we have so much to think about and feel. Time goes all too quickly.\u201d\r\n\r\nDuring their conversation they had drawn near the base of the hills, which sloped gently, and were not above fifty feet in height. Maskull now began to see strange specimens of vegetable life. What looked like a small patch of purple grass, above five feet square, was moving across the sand in their direction. When it came near enough he perceived that it was not grass; there were no blades, but only purple roots. The roots were revolving, for each small plant in the whole patch, like the spokes of a rimless wheel. They were alternately plunged in the sand, and withdrawn from it, and by this means the plant proceeded forward. Some uncanny, semi-intelligent instinct was keeping all the plants together, moving at one pace, in one direction, like a flock of migrating birds in flight.\r\n\r\nAnother remarkable plant was a large, feathery ball, resembling a dandelion fruit, which they encountered sailing through the air. Joiwind caught it with an exceedingly graceful movement of her arm, and showed it to Maskull. It had roots and presumably lived in the air and fed on the chemical constituents of the atmosphere. But what was peculiar about it was its colour. It was an entirely new colour\u2014not a new shade or combination, but a new primary colour, as vivid as blue, red, or yellow, but quite different. When he inquired, she told him that it was known as \u201culfire.\u201d Presently he met with a second new colour. This she designated \u201cjale.\u201d The sense impressions caused in Maskull by these two additional primary colors can only be vaguely hinted at by analogy. Just as blue is delicate and mysterious, yellow clear and unsubtle, and red sanguine and passionate, so he felt ulfire to be wild and painful, and jale dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous.\r\n\r\nThe hills were composed of a rich, dark mould. Small trees, of weird shapes, all differing from each other, but all purple-coloured, covered the slopes and top. Maskull and Joiwind climbed up and through. Some hard fruit, bright blue in colour, of the size of a large apple, and shaped like an egg, was lying in profusion underneath the trees.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs the fruit here poisonous, or why don\u2019t you eat it?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\nShe looked at him tranquilly. \u201cWe don\u2019t eat living things. The thought is horrible to us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have nothing to say against that, theoretically. But do you really sustain your bodies on water?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSupposing you could find nothing else to live on, Maskull\u2014would you eat other men?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI would not.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNeither will we eat plants and animals, which are our fellow creatures. So nothing is left to us but water, and as one can really live on anything, water does very well.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull picked up one of the fruits and handled it curiously. As he did so another of his newly acquired sense organs came into action. He found that the fleshy knobs beneath his ears were in some novel fashion acquainting him with the inward properties of the fruit. He could not only see, feel, and smell it, but could detect its intrinsic nature. This nature was hard, persistent and melancholy.\r\n\r\nJoiwind answered the questions he had not asked.\r\n\r\n\u201cThose organs are called \u2018poigns.\u2019 Their use is to enable us to understand and sympathise with all living creatures.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat advantage do you derive from that, Joiwind?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe advantage of not being cruel and selfish, dear Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe threw the fruit away and flushed again.\r\n\r\nJoiwind looked into his swarthy, bearded face without embarrassment and slowly smiled. \u201cHave I said too much? Have I been too familiar? Do you know why you think so? It\u2019s because you are still impure. By and by you will listen to all language without shame.\u201d\r\n\r\nBefore he realised what she was about to do, she threw her tentacle round his neck, like another arm. He offered no resistance to its cool pressure. The contact of her soft flesh with his own was so moist and sensitive that it resembled another kind of kiss. He saw who it was that embraced him\u2014a pale, beautiful girl. Yet, oddly enough, he experienced neither voluptuousness nor sexual pride. The love expressed by the caress was rich, glowing, and personal, but there was not the least trace of sex in it\u2014and so he received it.\r\n\r\nShe removed her tentacle, placed her two arms on his shoulders and penetrated with her eyes right into his very soul.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, I wish to be pure,\u201d he muttered. \u201cWithout that what can I ever be but a weak, squirming devil?\u201d\r\n\r\nJoiwind released him. \u201cThis we call the \u2018magn,\u2019\u201d she said, indicating her tentacle. \u201cBy means of it what we love already we love more, and what we don\u2019t love at all we begin to love.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA godlike organ!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is the one we guard most jealously,\u201d said Joiwind.\r\n\r\nThe shade of the trees afforded a timely screen from the now almost insufferable rays of Branchspell, which was climbing steadily upward to the zenith. On descending the other side of the little hills, Maskull looked anxiously for traces of Nightspore and Krag, but without result. After staring about him for a few minutes he shrugged his shoulders; but suspicions had already begun to gather in his mind.\r\n\r\nA small, natural amphitheatre lay at their feet, completely circled by the tree-clad heights. The centre was of red sand. In the very middle shot up a tall, stately tree, with a black trunk and branches, and transparent, crystal leaves. At the foot of this tree was a natural, circular well, containing dark green water.\r\n\r\nWhen they had reached the bottom, Joiwind took him straight over to the well.\r\n\r\nMaskull gazed at it intently. \u201cIs this the shrine you talked about?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes. It is called Shaping\u2019s Well. The man or woman who wishes to invoke Shaping must take up some of the gnawl water, and drink it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPray for me,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cYour unspotted prayer will carry more weight.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you wish for?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFor purity,\u201d answered Maskull, in a troubled voice.\r\n\r\nJoiwind made a cup of her hand, and drank a little of the water. She held it up to Maskull\u2019s mouth. \u201cYou must drink too.\u201d He obeyed. She then stood erect, closed her eyes, and, in a voice like the soft murmurings of spring, prayed aloud.\r\n\r\n\u201cShaping, my father, I am hoping you can hear me. A strange man has come to us weighed down with heavy blood. He wishes to be pure. Let him know the meaning of love, let him live for others. Don\u2019t spare him pain, dear Shaping, but let him seek his own pain. Breathe into him a noble soul.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull listened with tears in his heart.\r\n\r\nAs Joiwind finished speaking, a blurred mist came over his eyes, and, half buried in the scarlet sand, appeared a large circle of dazzlingly white pillars. For some minutes they flickered to and fro between distinctness and indistinctness, like an object being focused. Then they faded out of sight again.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs that a sign from Shaping?\u201d asked Maskull, in a low, awed tone.\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps it is. It is a time mirage.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat can that be, Joiwind?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou see, dear Maskull, the temple does not yet exist but it will do so, because it must. What you and I are now doing in simplicity, wise men will do hereafter in full knowledge.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is right for man to pray,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cGood and evil in the world don\u2019t originate from nothing. God and Devil must exist. And we should pray to the one, and fight the other.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, we must fight Krag.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat name did you say?\u201d asked Maskull in amazement.\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag\u2014the author of evil and misery\u2014whom you call Devil.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe immediately concealed his thoughts. To prevent Joiwind from learning his relationship to this being, he made his mind a blank.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy do you hide your mind from me?\u201d she demanded, looking at him strangely and changing colour.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn this bright, pure, radiant world, evil seems so remote, one can scarcely grasp its meaning.\u201d But he lied.\r\n\r\nJoiwind continued gazing at him, straight out of her clean soul. \u201cThe world is good and pure, but many men are corrupt. Panawe, my husband, has travelled, and he has told me things I would almost rather have not heard. One person he met believed the universe to be, from top to bottom, a conjurer\u2019s cave.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI should like to meet your husband.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, we are going home now.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull was on the point of inquiring whether she had any children, but was afraid of offending her, and checked himself.\r\n\r\nShe read the mental question. \u201cWhat need is there? Is not the whole world full of lovely children? Why should I want selfish possessions?\u201d\r\n\r\nAn extraordinary creature flew past, uttering a plaintive cry of five distinct notes. It was not a bird, but had a balloon-shaped body, paddled by five webbed feet. It disappeared among the trees.\r\n\r\nJoiwind pointed to it, as it went by. \u201cI love that beast, grotesque as it is\u2014perhaps all the more for its grotesqueness. But if I had children of my own, would I still love it? Which is best\u2014to love two or three, or to love all?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cEvery woman can\u2019t be like you, Joiwind, but it is good to have a few like you. Wouldn\u2019t it be as well,\u201d he went on, \u201csince we\u2019ve got to walk through that sun-baked wilderness, to make turbans for our heads out of some of those long leaves?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe smiled rather pathetically. \u201cYou will think me foolish, but every tearing off of a leaf would be a wound in my heart. We have only to throw our robes over our heads.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo doubt that will answer the same purpose, but tell me\u2014weren\u2019t these very robes once part of a living creature?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, no\u2014no, they are the webs of a certain animal, but they have never been in themselves alive.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou reduce life to extreme simplicity,\u201d remarked Maskull meditatively, \u201cbut it is very beautiful.\u201d\r\n\r\nClimbing back over the hills, they now without further ceremony began their march across the desert.\r\n\r\nThey walked side by side. Joiwind directed their course straight toward Poolingdred. From the position of the sun, Maskull judged their way to lie due north. The sand was soft and powdery, very tiring to his naked feet. The red glare dazed his eyes, and made him semi-blind. He was hot, parched, and tormented with the craving to drink; his undertone of pain emerged into full consciousness.\r\n\r\n\u201cI see my friends nowhere, and it is very queer.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, it is queer\u2014if it is accidental,\u201d said Joiwind, with a peculiar intonation.\r\n\r\n\u201cExactly!\u201d agreed Maskull. \u201cIf they had met with a mishap, their bodies would still be there. It begins to look like a piece of bad work to me. They must have gone on, and left me.... Well, I am here, and I must make the best of it. I will trouble no more about them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t wish to speak ill of anyone,\u201d said Joiwind, \u201cbut my instinct tells me that you are better away from those men. They did not come here for your sake, but for their own.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey walked on for a long time. Maskull was beginning to feel faint. She twined her magn lovingly around his waist, and a strong current of confidence and well-being instantly coursed through his veins.\r\n\r\n\u201cThanks, Joiwind! But am I not weakening you<\/i>?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d she replied, with a quick, thrilling glance. \u201cBut not much\u2014and it gives me great happiness.\u201d\r\n\r\nPresently they met a fantastic little creature, the size of a new-born lamb, waltzing along on three legs. Each leg in turn moved to the front, and so the little monstrosity proceeded by means of a series of complete rotations. It was vividly coloured, as though it had been dipped into pots of bright blue and yellow paint. It looked up with small, shining eyes, as they passed.\r\n\r\nJoiwind nodded and smiled to it. \u201cThat\u2019s a personal friend of mine, Maskull. Whenever I come this way, I see it. It\u2019s always waltzing, and always in a hurry, but it never seems to get anywhere.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt seems to me that life is so self-sufficient here that there is no need for anyone to get anywhere. What I don\u2019t quite understand is how you manage to pass your days without ennui.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s a strange word. It means, does it not, craving for excitement?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSomething of the kind,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat must be a disease brought on by rich food.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut are you never dull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow could we be? Our blood is quick and light and free, our flesh is clean and unclogged, inside and out.... Before long I hope you will understand what sort of question you have asked.\u201d\r\n\r\nFarther on they encountered a strange phenomenon. In the heart of the desert a fountain rose perpendicularly fifty feet into the air, with a cool and pleasant hissing sound. It differed, however, from a fountain in this respect\u2014that the water of which it was composed did not return to the ground but was absorbed by the atmosphere at the summit. It was in fact a tall, graceful column of dark green fluid, with a capital of coiling and twisting vapours.\r\n\r\nWhen they came closer, Maskull perceived that this water column was the continuation and termination of a flowing brook, which came down from the direction of the mountains. The explanation of the phenomenon was evidently that the water at this spot found chemical affinities in the upper air, and consequently forsook the ground.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow let us drink,\u201d said Joiwind.\r\n\r\nShe threw herself unaffectedly at full length on the sand, face downward, by the side of the brook, and Maskull was not long in following her example. She refused to quench her thirst until she had seen him drink. He found the water heavy, but bubbling with gas. He drank copiously. It affected his palate in a new way\u2014with the purity and cleanness of water was combined the exhilaration of a sparkling wine, raising his spirits\u2014but somehow the intoxication brought out his better nature, and not his lower.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe call it \u2018gnawl water\u2019,\u201d said Joiwind. \u201cThis is not quite pure, as you can see by the colour. At Poolingdred it is crystal clear. But we would be ungrateful if we complained. After this you\u2019ll find we\u2019ll get along much better.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull now began to realise his environment, as it were for the first time. All his sense organs started to show him beauties and wonders that he had not hitherto suspected. The uniform glaring scarlet of the sands became separated into a score of clearly distinguished shades of red. The sky was similarly split up into different blues. The radiant heat of Branchspell he found to affect every part of his body with unequal intensities. His ears awakened; the atmosphere was full of murmurs, the sands hummed, even the sun\u2019s rays had a sound of their own\u2014a kind of faint Aeolian harp. Subtle, puzzling perfumes assailed his nostrils. His palate lingered over the memory of the gnawl water. All the pores of his skin were tickled and soothed by hitherto unperceived currents of air. His poigns explored actively the inward nature of everything in his immediate vicinity. His magn touched Joiwind, and drew from her person a stream of love and joy. And lastly by means of his breve he exchanged thoughts with her in silence. This mighty sense symphony stirred him to the depths, and throughout the walk of that endless morning he felt no more fatigue.\r\n\r\nWhen it was drawing near to Blodsombre, they approached the sedgy margin of a dark green lake, which lay underneath Poolingdred.\r\n\r\nPanawe was sitting on a dark rock, waiting for them.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 7. PANAWE<\/h2>\r\nThe husband got up to meet his wife and their guest. He was clothed in white. He had a beardless face, with breve and poigns. His skin, on face and body alike, was so white, fresh, and soft, that it scarcely looked skin at all\u2014it rather resembled a new kind of pure, snowy flesh, extending right down to his bones. It had nothing in common with the artificially whitened skin of an over-civilised woman. Its whiteness and delicacy aroused no voluptuous thoughts; it was obviously the manifestation of a cold and almost cruel chastity of nature. His hair, which fell to the nape of his neck, also was white; but again, from vigour, not decay. His eyes were black, quiet and fathomless. He was still a young man, but so stern were his features that he had the appearance of a lawgiver, and this in spite of their great beauty and harmony.\r\n\r\nHis magn and Joiwind\u2019s intertwined for a single moment and Maskull saw his face soften with love, while she looked exultant. She put him in her husband\u2019s arms with gentle force, and stood back, gazing and smiling. Maskull felt rather embarrassed at being embraced by a man, but submitted to it; a sense of cool, pleasant languor passed through him in the act.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe stranger is red-blooded, then?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe was startled by Panawe\u2019s speaking in English, and the voice too was extraordinary. It was absolutely tranquil, but its tranquillity seemed in a curious fashion to be an illusion, proceeding from a rapidity of thoughts and feelings so great that their motion could not be detected. How this could be, he did not know.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow do you come to speak in a tongue you have never heard before?\u201d demanded Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cThought is a rich, complex thing. I can\u2019t say if I am really speaking your tongue by instinct, or if you yourself are translating my thoughts into your tongue as I utter them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAlready you see that Panawe is wiser than I am,\u201d said Joiwind gaily.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d asked the husband.\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat name must have a meaning\u2014but again, thought is a strange thing. I connect that name with something\u2014but with what?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTry to discover,\u201d said Joiwind.\r\n\r\n\u201cHas there been a man in your world who stole something from the Maker of the universe, in order to ennoble his fellow creatures?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is such a myth. The hero\u2019s name was Prometheus.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, you seem to be identified in my mind with that action\u2014but what it all means I can\u2019t say, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAccept it as a good omen, for Panawe never lies, and never speaks thoughtlessly.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere must be some confusion. These are heights beyond me,\u201d said Maskull calmly, but looking rather contemplative.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere do you come from?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFrom the planet of a distant sun, called Earth.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat for?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI was tired of vulgarity,\u201d returned Maskull laconically. He intentionally avoided mentioning his fellow voyagers, in order that Krag\u2019s name should not come to light.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s an honourable motive,\u201d said Panawe. \u201cAnd what\u2019s more, it may be true, though you spoke it as a prevarication.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAs far as it goes, it\u2019s quite true,\u201d said Maskull, staring at him with annoyance and surprise.\r\n\r\nThe swampy lake extended for about half a mile from where they were standing to the lower buttresses of the mountain. Feathery purple reeds showed themselves here and there through the shallows. The water was dark green. Maskull did not see how they were going to cross it.\r\n\r\nJoiwind caught his arm. \u201cPerhaps you don\u2019t know that the lake will bear us?\u201d\r\n\r\nPanawe walked onto the water; it was so heavy that it carried his weight. Joiwind followed with Maskull. He instantly started to slip about\u2014nevertheless the motion was amusing, and he learned so fast, by watching and imitating Panawe, that he was soon able to balance himself without assistance. After that he found the sport excellent.\r\n\r\nFor the same reason that women excel in dancing, Joiwind\u2019s half falls and recoveries were far more graceful and sure than those of either of the men. Her slight, draped form\u2014dipping, bending, rising, swaying, twisting, upon the surface of the dark water\u2014this was a picture Maskull could not keep his eyes away from.\r\n\r\nThe lake grew deeper. The gnawl water became green-black. The crags, gullies, and precipices of the shore could now be distinguished in detail. A waterfall was visible, descending several hundred feet. The surface of the lake grew disturbed\u2014so much so that Maskull had difficulty in keeping his balance. He therefore threw himself down and started swimming on the face of the water. Joiwind turned her head, and laughed so joyously that all her teeth flashed in the sunlight.\r\n\r\nThey landed in a few more minutes on a promontory of black rock. The water on Maskull\u2019s garment and body evaporated very quickly. He gazed upward at the towering mountain, but at that moment some strange movements on the part of Panawe attracted his attention. His face was working convulsively, and he began to stagger about. Then he put his hand to his mouth and took from it what looked like a bright-coloured pebble. He looked at it carefully for some seconds. Joiwind also looked, over his shoulder, with quickly changing colors. After this inspection, Panawe let the object\u2014whatever it was\u2014fall to the ground, and took no more interest in it.\r\n\r\n\u201cMay I look?\u201d asked Maskull; and, without waiting for permission, he picked it up. It was a delicately beautiful egg-shaped crystal of pale green.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere did this come from?\u201d he asked queerly.\r\n\r\nPanawe turned away, but Joiwind answered for him. \u201cIt came out of my husband.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s what I thought, but I couldn\u2019t believe it. But what is it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know that it has either name or use. It is merely an overflowing of beauty.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBeauty?\u201d\r\n\r\nJoiwind smiled. \u201cIf you were to regard nature as the husband, and Panawe as the wife, Maskull, perhaps everything would be explained.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull reflected.\r\n\r\n\u201cOn Earth,\u201d he said after a minute, \u201cmen like Panawe are called artists, poets, and musicians. Beauty overflows into them too, and out of them again. The only distinction is that their<\/i> productions are more human and intelligible.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNothing comes from it but vanity,\u201d said Panawe, and, taking the crystal out of Maskull\u2019s hand, he threw it into the lake.\r\n\r\nThe precipice they now had to climb was several hundred feet in height. Maskull was more anxious for Joiwind than for himself. She was evidently tiring, but she refused all help, and was in fact still the nimbler of the two. She made a mocking face at him. Panawe seemed lost in quiet thoughts. The rock was sound, and did not crumble under their weight. The heat of Branchspell, however, was by this time almost killing, the radiance was shocking in its white intensity, and Maskull\u2019s pain steadily grew worse.\r\n\r\nWhen they got to the top, a plateau of dark rock appeared, bare of vegetation, stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see. It was of a nearly uniform width of five hundred yards, from the edge of the cliffs to the lower slopes of the chain of hills inland. The hills varied in height. The cup-shaped Poolingdred was approximately a thousand feet above them. The upper part of it was covered with a kind of glittering vegetation which he could not comprehend.\r\n\r\nJoiwind put her hand on Maskull\u2019s shoulder, and pointed upward. \u201cHere you have the highest peak in the whole land\u2014that is, until you come to the Ifdawn Marest.\u201d\r\n\r\nOn hearing that strange name, he experienced a momentary unaccountable sensation of wild vigour and restlessness\u2014but it passed away.\r\n\r\nWithout losing time, Panawe led the way up the mountainside. The lower half was of bare rock, not difficult to climb. Halfway up, however, it grew steeper, and they began to meet bushes and small trees. The growth became thicker as they continued to ascend, and when they neared the summit, tall forest trees appeared.\r\n\r\nThese bushes and trees had pale, glassy trunks and branches, but the small twigs and the leaves were translucent and crystal. They cast no shadows from above, but still the shade was cool. Both leaves and branches were fantastically shaped. What surprised Maskull the most, however, was the fact that, as far as he could see, scarcely any two plants belonged to the same species.\r\n\r\n\u201cWon\u2019t you help Maskull out of his difficulty?\u201d said Joiwind, pulling her husband\u2019s arm.\r\n\r\nHe smiled. \u201cIf he\u2019ll forgive me for again trespassing in his brain. But the difficulty is small. Life on a new planet, Maskull, is necessarily energetic and lawless, and not sedate and imitative. Nature is still fluid\u2014not yet rigid\u2014and matter is plastic. The will forks and sports incessantly, and thus no two creatures are alike.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, I understand all that,\u201d replied Maskull, after listening attentively. \u201cBut what I don\u2019t grasp is this\u2014if living creatures here sport so energetically, how does it come about that human beings wear much the same shape as in my world?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ll explain that too,\u201d said Panawe. \u201cAll creatures that resemble Shaping must of necessity resemble one another.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen sporting is the blind will to become like Shaping?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cExactly.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is most wonderful,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cThen the brotherhood of man is not a fable invented by idealists, but a solid fact.\u201d\r\n\r\nJoiwind looked at him, and changed colour. Panawe relapsed into sternness.\r\n\r\nMaskull became interested in a new phenomenon. The jale-coloured blossoms of a crystal bush were emitting mental waves, which with his breve he could clearly distinguish. They cried out silently, \u201cTo me! To me!\u201d While he looked, a flying worm guided itself through the air to one of these blossoms and began to suck its nectar. The floral cry immediately ceased.\r\n\r\nThey now gained the crest of the mountain, and looked down beyond. A lake occupied its crater-like cavity. A fringe of trees partly intercepted the view, but Maskull was able to perceive that this mountain lake was nearly circular and perhaps a quarter of a mile across. Its shore stood a hundred feet below them.\r\n\r\nObserving that his hosts did not propose to descend, he begged them to wait for him, and scrambled down to the surface. When he got there, he found the water perfectly motionless and of a colourless transparency. He walked onto it, lay down at full length, and peered into the depths. It was weirdly clear: he could see down for an indefinite distance, without arriving at any bottom. Some dark, shadowy objects, almost out of reach of his eyes, were moving about. Then a sound, very faint and mysterious, seemed to come up through the gnawl water from an immense depth. It was like the rhythm of a drum. There were four beats of equal length, but the accent was on the third. It went on for a considerable time, and then ceased.\r\n\r\nThe sound appeared to him to belong to a different world from that in which he was travelling. The latter was mystical, dreamlike, and unbelievable\u2014the drumming was like a very dim undertone of reality. It resembled the ticking of a clock in a room full of voices, only occasionally possible to be picked up by the ear.\r\n\r\nHe rejoined Panawe and Joiwind, but said nothing to them about his experience. They all walked round the rim of the crater, and gazed down on the opposite side. Precipices similar to those that had overlooked the desert here formed the boundary of a vast moorland plain, whose dimensions could not be measured by the eye. It was solid land, yet he could not make out its prevailing colour. It was as if made of transparent glass, but it did not glitter in the sunlight. No objects in it could be distinguished, except a rolling river in the far distance, and, farther off still, on the horizon, a line of dark mountains, of strange shapes. Instead of being rounded, conical, or hogbacked, these heights were carved by nature into the semblance of castle battlements, but with extremely deep indentations.\r\n\r\nThe sky immediately above the mountains was of a vivid, intense blue. It contrasted in a most marvellous way with the blue of the rest of the heavens. It seemed more luminous and radiant, and was in fact like the afterglow of a gorgeous blue<\/i> sunset.\r\n\r\nMaskull kept on looking. The more he gazed, the more restless and noble became his feelings.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is that light?\u201d\r\n\r\nPanawe was sterner than usual, while his wife clung to his arm. \u201cIt is Alppain\u2014our second sun,\u201d he replied. \u201cThose hills are the Ifdawn Marest.... Now let us get to our shelter.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs it imagination, or am I really being affected\u2014tormented by that light?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, it\u2019s not imagination\u2014it\u2019s real. How can it be otherwise when two suns, of different natures, are drawing you at the same time? Luckily you are not looking at Alppain itself. It\u2019s invisible here. You would need to go at least as far as Ifdawn, to set eyes on it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy do you say \u2018luckily\u2019?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause the agony caused by those opposing forces would perhaps be more than you could bear.... But I don\u2019t know.\u201d\r\n\r\nFor the short distance that remained of their walk, Maskull was very thoughtful and uneasy. He understood nothing. Whatever object his eye chanced to rest on changed immediately into a puzzle. The silence and stillness of the mountain peak seemed brooding, mysterious, and waiting<\/i>. Panawe gave him a friendly, anxious look, and without further delay led the way down a little track, which traversed the side of the mountain and terminated in the mouth of a cave.\r\n\r\nThis cave was the home of Panawe and Joiwind. It was dark inside. The host took a shell and, filling it with liquid from a well, carelessly sprinkled the sandy floor of the interior. A greenish, phosphorescent light gradually spread to the furthest limits of the cavern, and continued to illuminate it for the whole time they were there. There was no furniture. Some dried, fernlike leaves served for couches.\r\n\r\nThe moment she got in, Joiwind fell down in exhaustion. Her husband tended her with calm concern. He bathed her face, put drink to her lips, energised her with his magn, and finally laid her down to sleep. At the sight of the noble woman thus suffering on his account, Maskull was distressed.\r\n\r\nPanawe, however, endeavoured to reassure him. \u201cIt\u2019s quite true this has been a very long, hard double journey, but for the future it will lighten all her other journeys for her.... Such is the nature of sacrifice.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t conceive how I have walked so far in a morning,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cand she has been twice the distance.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLove flows in her veins, instead of blood, and that\u2019s why she is so strong.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou know she gave me some of it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOtherwise you couldn\u2019t even have started.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI shall never forget that.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe languorous heat of the day outside, the bright mouth of the cavern, the cool seclusion of the interior, with its pale green glow, invited Maskull to sleep. But curiosity got the better of his lassitude.\r\n\r\n\u201cWill it disturb her if we talk?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut how do you feel?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI require little sleep. In any case, it\u2019s more important that you should hear something about your new life. It\u2019s not all as innocent and idyllic as this. If you intend to go through, you ought to be instructed about the dangers.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, I guessed as much. But how shall we arrange\u2014shall I put questions, or will you tell me what you think is most essential?\u201d\r\n\r\nPanawe motioned to Maskull to sit down on a pile of ferns, and at the same time reclined himself, leaning on one arm, with outstretched legs.\r\n\r\n\u201cI will tell some incidents of my life. You will begin to learn from them what sort of place you have come to.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI shall be grateful,\u201d said Maskull, preparing himself to listen.\r\n\r\nPanawe paused for a moment or two, and then started his narrative in tranquil, measured, yet sympathetic tones.\r\n\r\nPANAWE\u2019S STORY\r\n\r\n\u201cMy earliest recollection is of being taken, when three years old (that\u2019s equivalent to fifteen of your years, but we develop more slowly here), by my father and mother, to see Broodviol, the wisest man in Tormance. He dwelt in the great Wombflash Forest. We walked through trees for three days, sleeping at night. The trees grew taller as we went along, until the tops were out of sight. The trunks were of a dark red colour and the leaves were of pale ulfire. My father kept stopping to think. If left uninterrupted, he would remain for half a day in deep abstraction. My mother came out of Poolingdred, and was of a different stamp. She was beautiful, generous, and charming\u2014but also active. She kept urging him on. This led to many disputes between them, which made me miserable. On the fourth day we passed through a part of the forest which bordered on the Sinking Sea. This sea is full of pouches of water that will not bear a man\u2019s weight, and as these light parts don\u2019t differ in appearance from the rest, it is dangerous to cross. My father pointed out a dim outline on the horizon, and told me it was Swaylone\u2019s Island. Men sometimes go there, but none ever return. In the evening of the same day we found Broodviol standing in a deep, miry pit in the forest, surrounded on all sides by trees three hundred feet high. He was a big gnarled, rugged, wrinkled, sturdy old man. His age at that time was a hundred and twenty of our years, or nearly six hundred of yours. His body was trilateral: he had three legs, three arms, and six eyes, placed at equal distances all around his head. This gave him an aspect of great watchfulness and sagacity. He was standing in a sort of trance. I afterward heard this saying of his: \u2018To lie is to sleep, to sit is to dream, to stand is to think.\u2019 My father caught the infection, and fell into meditation, but my mother roused them both thoroughly. Broodviol scowled at her savagely, and demanded what she required. Then I too learned for the first time the object of our journey. I was a prodigy\u2014that is to say, I was without sex. My parents were troubled over this, and wished to consult the wisest of men.\r\n\r\n\u201cOld Broodviol smoothed his face, and said, \u2018This perhaps will not be so difficult. I will explain the marvel. Every man and woman among us is a walking murderer. If a male, he has struggled with and killed the female who was born in the same body with him\u2014if a female, she has killed the male. But in this child the struggle is still continuing.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018How shall we end it?\u2019 asked my mother.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Let the child direct its will to the scene of the combat, and it will be of whichever sex it pleases.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018You want, of course, to be a man, don\u2019t you?\u2019 said my mother to me earnestly.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Then I shall be slaying your daughter, and that would be a crime.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cSomething in my tone attracted Broodviol\u2019s notice.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018That was spoken, not selfishly, but magnanimously. Therefore the male must have spoken it, and you need not trouble further. Before you arrive home, the child will be a boy.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cMy father walked away out of sight. My mother bent very low before Broodviol for about ten minutes, and he remained all that time looking kindly at her.\r\n\r\n\u201cI heard that shortly afterward Alppain came into that land for a few hours daily. Broodviol grew melancholy, and died.\r\n\r\n\u201cHis prophecy came true\u2014before we reached home, I knew the meaning of shame. But I have often pondered over his words since, in later years, when trying to understand my own nature; and I have come to the conclusion that, wisest of men as he was, he still did not see quite straight on this occasion. Between me and my twin sister, enclosed in one body, there never was any struggle, but instinctive reverence for life withheld both of us from fighting for existence. Hers was the stronger temperament, and she sacrificed herself\u2014though not consciously\u2014for me.\r\n\r\n\u201cAs soon as I comprehended this, I made a vow never to eat or destroy anything that contained life\u2014and I have kept it ever since.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhile I was still hardly a grown man, my father died. My mother\u2019s death followed immediately, and I hated the associations of the land. I therefore made up my mind to travel into my mother\u2019s country, where, as she had often told me, nature was most sacred and solitary.\r\n\r\n\u201cOne hot morning I came to Shaping\u2019s Causeway. It is so called either because Shaping once crossed it, or because of its stupendous character. It is a natural embankment, twenty miles long, which links the mountains bordering my homeland with the Ifdawn Marest. The valley lies below at a depth varying from eight to ten thousand feet\u2014a terrible precipice on either side. The knife edge of the ridge is generally not much over a foot wide. The causeway goes due north and south. The valley on my right hand was plunged in shadow\u2014that on my left was sparkling with sunlight and dew. I walked fearfully along this precarious path for some miles. Far to the east the valley was closed by a lofty tableland, connecting the two chains of mountains, but overtopping even the most towering pinnacles. This is called the Sant Levels. I was never there, but I have heard two curious facts concerning the inhabitants. The first is that they have no women; the second, that though they are addicted to travelling in other parts they never acquire habits of the peoples with whom they reside.\r\n\r\n\u201cPresently I turned giddy, and lay at full length for a great while, clutching the two edges of the path with both hands, and staring at the ground I was lying on with wide-open eyes. When that passed I felt like a different man and grew conceited and gay. About halfway across I saw someone approaching me a long way off. This put fear into my heart again, for I did not see how we could very well pass. However, I went slowly on, and presently we drew near enough together for me to recognise the walker. It was Slofork, the so-called sorcerer. I had never met him before, but I knew him by his peculiarities of person. He was of a bright gamboge colour and possessed a very long, proboscis-like nose, which appeared to be a useful organ, but did not add to his beauty, as I knew beauty. He was dubbed \u2018sorcerer\u2019 from his wondrous skill in budding limbs and organs. The tale is told that one evening he slowly sawed his leg off with a blunt stone and then lay for two days in agony while his new leg was sprouting. He was not reputed to be a consistently wise man, but he had periodical flashes of penetration and audacity that none could equal.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe sat down and faced one another, about two yards apart.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Which of us walks over the other?\u2019 asked Slofork. His manner was as calm as the day itself, but, to my young nature, terrible with hidden terrors. I smiled at him, but did not wish for this humiliation. We continued sitting thus, in a friendly way, for many minutes.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018What is greater than Pleasure?\u2019 he asked suddenly.\r\n\r\n\u201cI was at an age when one wishes to be thought equal to any emergency, so, concealing my surprise, I applied myself to the conversation, as if it were for that purpose we had met.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Pain,\u2019 I replied, \u2018for pain drives out pleasure.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018What is greater than Pain?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cI reflected. \u2018Love. Because we will accept our loved one\u2019s share of pain.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018But what is greater than Love?\u2019 he persisted.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Nothing, Slofork.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018And what is Nothing?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018That you must tell me.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Tell you I will. This is Shaping\u2019s world. He that is a good child here, knows pleasure, pain, and love, and gets his rewards. But there\u2019s another world\u2014not Shaping\u2019s\u2014and there all this is unknown, and another order of things reigns. That world we call Nothing\u2014but it is not Nothing, but Something.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cThere was a pause.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018I have heard,\u2019 said I, \u2018that you are good at growing and ungrowing organs?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018That\u2019s not enough for me. Every organ tells me the same story. I want to hear different stories.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Is it true, what men say, that your wisdom flows and ebbs in pulses?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Quite true,\u2019 replied Slofork. \u2018But those you had it from did not add that they have always mistaken the flow for the ebb.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018My experience is,\u2019 said I sententiously, \u2018that wisdom is misery.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018Perhaps it is, young man, but you have never learned that, and never will. For you the world will continue to wear a noble, awful face. You will never rise above mysticism.... But be happy in your own way.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cBefore I realised what he was doing, he jumped tranquilly from the path, down into the empty void. He crashed with ever-increasing momentum toward the valley below. I screeched, flung myself down on the ground, and shut my eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cOften have I wondered which of my ill-considered, juvenile remarks it was that caused this sudden resolution on his part to commit suicide. Whichever it might be, since then I have made it a rigid law never to speak for my own pleasure, but only to help others.\r\n\r\n\u201cI came eventually to the Marest. I threaded its mazes in terror for four days. I was frightened of death, but still more terrified at the possibility of losing my sacred attitude toward life. When I was nearly through, and was beginning to congratulate myself, I stumbled across the third extraordinary personage of my experience\u2014the grim Muremaker. It was under horrible circumstances. On an afternoon, cloudy and stormy, I saw, suspended in the air without visible support, a living man. He was hanging in an upright position in front of a cliff\u2014a yawning gulf, a thousand feet deep, lay beneath his feet. I climbed as near as I could, and looked on. He saw me, and made a wry grimace, like one who wishes to turn his humiliation into humour. The spectacle so astounded me that I could not even grasp what had happened.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2018I am Muremaker,\u2019 he cried in a scraping voice which shocked my ears. \u2018All my life I have sorbed others\u2014now I am sorbed. Nuclamp and I fell out over a woman. Now Nuclamp holds me up like this. While the strength of his will lasts I shall remain suspended; but when he gets tired\u2014and it can\u2019t be long now\u2014I drop into those depths.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u201cHad it been another man, I would have tried to save him, but this ogre-like being was too well known to me as one who passed his whole existence in tormenting, murdering, and absorbing others, for the sake of his own delight. I hurried away, and did not pause again that day.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn Poolingdred I met Joiwind. We walked and talked together for a month, and by that time we found that we loved each other too well to part.\u201d\r\n\r\nPanawe stopped speaking.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is a fascinating story,\u201d remarked Maskull. \u201cNow I begin to know my way around better. But one thing puzzles me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow it happens that men here are ignorant of tools and arts, and have no civilisation, and yet contrive to be social in their habits and wise in their thoughts.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you imagine, then, that love and wisdom spring from tools? But I see how it arises. In your world you have fewer sense organs, and to make up for the deficiency you have been obliged to call in the assistance of stones and metals. That\u2019s by no means a sign of superiority.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, I suppose not,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cbut I see I have a great deal to unlearn.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey talked together a little longer, and then gradually fell asleep. Joiwind opened her eyes, smiled, and slumbered again.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 8. THE LUSION PLAIN<\/h2>\r\nMaskull awoke before the others. He got up, stretched himself, and walked out into the sunlight. Branchspell was already declining. He climbed to the top of the crater edge and looked away toward Ifdawn. The afterglow of Alppain had by now completely disappeared. The mountains stood up wild and grand.\r\n\r\nThey impressed him like a simple musical theme, the notes of which are widely separated in the scale; a spirit of rashness, daring, and adventure seemed to call to him from them. It was at that moment that the determination flashed into his heart to walk to the Marest and explore its dangers.\r\n\r\nHe returned to the cavern to say good-by to his hosts.\r\n\r\nJoiwind looked at him with her brave and honest eyes. \u201cIs this selfishness, Maskull?\u201d she asked, \u201cor are you drawn by something stronger than yourself?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe must be reasonable,\u201d he answered, smiling. \u201cI can\u2019t settle down in Poolingdred before I have found out something about this surprising new planet of yours. Remember what a long way I have come.... But very likely I shall come back here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWill you make me a promise?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull hesitated. \u201cAsk nothing difficult, for I hardly know my powers yet.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is not hard, and I wish it. Promise this\u2014never to raise your hand against a living creature, either to strike, pluck, or eat, without first recollecting its mother, who suffered for it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps I won\u2019t promise that,\u201d said Maskull slowly, \u201cbut I\u2019ll undertake something more tangible. I will never lift my hand against a living creature without first recollecting you, Joiwind.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe turned a little pale. \u201cNow if Panawe knew that Panawe existed, he might be jealous.\u201d\r\n\r\nPanawe put his hand on her gently. \u201cYou would not talk like that in Shaping\u2019s presence,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo. Forgive me! I\u2019m not quite myself. Perhaps it is Maskull\u2019s blood in my veins.... Now let us bid him adieu. Let us pray that he will do only honourable deeds, wherever he may be.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ll set Maskull on his way,\u201d said Panawe.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s no need,\u201d replied Maskull. \u201cThe way is plain.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut talking shortens the road.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull turned to go.\r\n\r\nJoiwind pulled him around toward her softly. \u201cYou won\u2019t think badly of other women on my account?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are a blessed spirit,\u201d answered he.\r\n\r\nShe trod quietly to the inner extremity of the cave and stood there thinking. Panawe and Maskull emerged into the open air. Halfway down the cliff face a little spring was encountered. Its water was colourless, transparent, but gaseous. As soon as Maskull had satisfied his thirst he felt himself different. His surroundings were so real to him in their vividness and colour, so unreal in their phantom-like mystery, that he scrambled downhill like one in a winter\u2019s dream.\r\n\r\nWhen they reached the plain he saw in front of them an interminable forest of tall trees, the shapes of which were extraordinarily foreign looking. The leaves were crystalline and, looking upward, it was as if he were gazing through a roof of glass. The moment they got underneath the trees the light rays of the sun continued to come through\u2014white, savage, and blazing\u2014but they were gelded of heat. Then it was not hard to imagine that they were wandering through cool, bright elfin glades.\r\n\r\nThrough the forest, beginning at their very feet an avenue, perfectly straight and not very wide, went forward as far as the eye could see.\r\n\r\nMaskull wanted to talk to his travelling companion, but was somehow unable to find words. Panawe glanced at him with an inscrutable smile\u2014stern, yet enchanting and half feminine. He then broke the silence, but, strangely enough, Maskull could not make out whether he was singing or speaking. From his lips issued a slow musical recitative, exactly like a bewitching adagio from a low toned stringed instrument\u2014but there was a difference. Instead of the repetition and variation of one or two short themes, as in music, Panawe\u2019s theme was prolonged\u2014it never came to an end, but rather resembled a conversation in rhythm and melody. And, at the same time, it was no recitative, for it was not declamatory. It was a long, quiet stream of lovely emotion.\r\n\r\nMaskull listened entranced, yet agitated. The song, if it might be termed song, seemed to be always just on the point of becoming clear and intelligible\u2014not with the intelligibility of words, but in the way one sympathises with another\u2019s moods and feelings; and Maskull felt that something important was about to be uttered, which would explain all that had gone before. But it was invariably postponed, he never understood\u2014and yet somehow he did understand.\r\n\r\nLate in the afternoon they came to a clearing, and there Panawe ceased his recitative. He slowed his pace and stopped, in the fashion of a man who wishes to convey that he intends to go no farther.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is the name of this country?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is the Lusion Plain.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWas that music in the nature of a temptation\u2014do you wish me not to go on?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYour work lies before you, and not behind you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat was it, then? What work do you allude to?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt must have seemed like something to you, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt seemed like Shaping music to me.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe instant he had absently uttered these words, Maskull wondered why he had done so, as they now appeared meaningless to him.\r\n\r\nPanawe, however, showed no surprise. \u201cShaping you will find everywhere.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAm I dreaming, or awake?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are awake.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull fell into deep thought. \u201cSo be it,\u201d he said, rousing himself. \u201cNow I will go on. But where must I sleep tonight?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou will reach a broad river. On that you can travel to the foot of the Marest tomorrow; but tonight you had better sleep where the forest and river meet.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAdieu, then, Panawe! But do you wish to say anything more to me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOnly this, Maskull\u2014wherever you go, help to make the world beautiful, and not ugly.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s more than any of us can undertake. I am a simple man, and have no ambitions in the way of beautifying life\u2014But tell Joiwind I will try to keep myself pure.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey parted rather coldly. Maskull stood erect where they had stopped, and watched Panawe out of sight. He sighed more than once.\r\n\r\nHe became aware that something was about to happen. The air was breathless. The late-afternoon sunshine, unobstructed, wrapped his frame in voluptuous heat. A solitary cloud, immensely high, raced through the sky overhead.\r\n\r\nA single trumpet note sounded in the far distance from somewhere behind him. It gave him an impression of being several miles away at first; but then it slowly swelled, and came nearer and nearer at the same time that it increased in volume. Still the same note sounded, but now it was as if blown by a giant trumpeter immediately over his head. Then it gradually diminished in force, and travelled away in front of him. It ended very faintly and distantly.\r\n\r\nHe felt himself alone with Nature. A sacred stillness came over his heart. Past and future were forgotten. The forest, the sun, the day did not exist for him. He was unconscious of himself\u2014he had no thoughts and no feelings. Yet never had Life had such an altitude for him.\r\n\r\nA man stood, with crossed arms, right in his path. He was so clothed that his limbs were exposed, while his body was covered. He was young rather than old. Maskull observed that his countenance possessed none of the special organs of Tormance, to which he had not even yet become reconciled. He was smooth-faced. His whole person seemed to radiate an excess of life, like the trembling of air on a hot day. His eyes had such force that Maskull could not meet them.\r\n\r\nHe addressed Maskull by name, in an extraordinary voice. It had a double tone. The primary one sounded far away; the second was an undertone, like a sympathetic tanging string.\r\n\r\nMaskull felt a rising joy, as he continued standing in the presence of this individual. He believed that something good was happening to him. He found it physically difficult to bring any words out. \u201cWhy do you stop me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull, look well at me. Who am I?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI think you are Shaping.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am Surtur.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull again attempted to meet his eyes, but felt as if he were being stabbed.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou know that this is my world. Why do you think I have brought you here? I wish you to serve me.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull could no longer speak.\r\n\r\n\u201cThose who joke at my world,\u201d continued the vision, \u201cthose who make a mock of its stern, eternal rhythm, its beauty and sublimity, which are not skin-deep, but proceed from fathomless roots\u2014they shall not escape.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI do not mock it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAsk me your questions, and I will answer them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have nothing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is necessary for you to serve me, Maskull. Do you not understand? You are my servant and helper.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI shall not fail.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is for my sake, and not for yours.\u201d\r\n\r\nThese last words had no sooner left Surtur\u2019s mouth than Maskull saw him spring suddenly upward and outward. Looking up at the vault of the sky, he saw the whole expanse of vision filled by Surtur\u2019s form\u2014not as a concrete man, but as a vast, concave cloud image, looking down and frowning at him. Then the spectacle vanished, as a light goes out.\r\n\r\nMaskull stood inactive, with a thumping heart. Now he again heard the solitary trumpet note. The sound began this time faintly in the far distance in front of him, travelled slowly toward him with regularly increasing intensity, passed overhead at its loudest, and then grew more and more quiet, wonderful, and solemn, as it fell away in the rear, until the note was merged in the deathlike silence of the forest. It appeared to Maskull like the closing of a marvellous and important chapter.\r\n\r\nSimultaneously with the fading away of the sound, the heavens seemed to open up with the rapidity of lightning into a blue vault of immeasurable height. He breathed a great breath, stretched all his limbs, and looked around him with a slow smile.\r\n\r\nAfter a while he resumed his journey. His brain was all dark and confused, but one idea was already beginning to stand out from the rest\u2014huge, shapeless, and grand, like the growing image in the soul of a creative artist: the staggering thought that he was a man of destiny.\r\n\r\nThe more he reflected upon all that had occurred since his arrival in this new world\u2014and even before leaving Earth\u2014the clearer and more indisputable it became, that he could not be here for his own purposes, but must be here for an end. But what that end was, he could not imagine.\r\n\r\nThrough the forest he saw Branchspell at last sinking in the west. It looked a stupendous ball of red fire\u2014now he could realise at his ease what a sun it was! The avenue took an abrupt turn to the left and began to descend steeply.\r\n\r\nA wide, rolling river of clear and dark water was visible in front of him, no great way off. It flowed from north to south. The forest path led him straight to its banks. Maskull stood there, and regarded the lapping, gurgling waters pensively. On the opposite bank, the forest continued. Miles to the south, Poolingdred could just be distinguished. On the northern skyline the Ifdawn Mountains loomed up\u2014high, wild, beautiful, and dangerous. They were not a dozen miles away.\r\n\r\nLike the first mutterings of a thunderstorm, the first faint breaths of cool wind, Maskull felt the stirrings of passion in his heart. In spite of his bodily fatigue, he wished to test his strength against something. This craving he identified with the crags of the Marest. They seemed to have the same magical attraction for his will as the lodestone for iron. He kept biting his nails, as he turned his eyes in that direction\u2014wondering if it would not be possible to conquer the heights that evening. But when he glanced back again at Poolingdred, he remembered Joiwind and Panawe, and grew more tranquil. He decided to make his bed at this spot, and to set off as soon after daybreak as he should awake.\r\n\r\nHe drank at the river, washed himself, and lay down on the bank to sleep. By this time, so far had his idea progressed, that he cared nothing for the possible dangers of the night\u2014he confided in his star.\r\n\r\nBranchspell set, the day faded, night with its terrible weight came on, and through it all Maskull slept. Long before midnight, however, he was awakened by a crimson glow in the sky. He opened his eyes, and wondered where he was. He felt heaviness and pain. The red glow was a terrestrial phenomenon; it came from among the trees. He got up and went toward the source of the light.\r\n\r\nAway from the river, not a hundred feet off, he nearly stumbled across the form of a sleeping woman. The object which emitted the crimson rays was lying on the ground, several yards away from her. It was like a small jewel, throwing off sparks of red light. He barely threw a glance at that, however.\r\n\r\nThe woman was clothed in the large skin of an animal. She had big, smooth, shapely limbs, rather muscular than fat. Her magn was not a thin tentacle, but a third arm, terminating in a hand. Her face, which was upturned, was wild, powerful, and exceedingly handsome. But he saw with surprise that in place of a breve on her forehead, she possessed another eye. All three were closed. The colour of her skin in the crimson glow he could not distinguish.\r\n\r\nHe touched her gently with his hand. She awoke calmly and looked up at him without stirring a muscle. All three eyes stared at him; but the two lower ones were dull and vacant\u2014mere carriers of vision. The middle, upper one alone expressed her inner nature. Its haughty, unflinching glare had yet something seductive and alluring in it. Maskull felt a challenge in that look of lordly, feminine will, and his manner instinctively stiffened.\r\n\r\nShe sat up.\r\n\r\n\u201cCan you speak my language?\u201d he asked. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t put such a question, but others have been able to.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy should you imagine that I can\u2019t read your mind? Is it so extremely complex?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe spoke in a rich, lingering, musical voice, which delighted him to listen to.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, but you have no breve.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, but haven\u2019t I a sorb, which is better?\u201d And she pointed to the eye on her brow.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOceaxe.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd where do you come from?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIfdawn.\u201d\r\n\r\nThese contemptuous replies began to irritate him, and yet the mere sound of her voice was fascinating.\r\n\r\n\u201cI am going there tomorrow,\u201d he remarked.\r\n\r\nShe laughed, as if against her will, but made no comment.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy name is Maskull,\u201d he went on. \u201cI am a stranger\u2014from another world.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo I should judge, from your absurd appearance.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps it would be as well to say at once,\u201d said Maskull bluntly, \u201care we, or are we not, to be friends?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe yawned and stretched her arms, without rising. \u201cWhy should we be friends? If I thought you were a man, I might accept you as a lover.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou must look elsewhere for that.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo be it, Maskull! Now go away, and leave me in peace.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe dropped her head again to the ground, but did not at once close her eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d he interrogated.\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, we Ifdawn folk occasionally come here to sleep, for there<\/i> often enough it is a night for us which has no next morning.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBeing such a terrible place, and seeing that I am a total stranger, it would be merely courteous if you were to warn me what I have to expect in the way of dangers.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am perfectly and utterly indifferent to what becomes of you,\u201d retorted Oceaxe.\r\n\r\n\u201cAre you returning in the morning?\u201d persisted Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf I wish.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen we will go together.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe got up again on her elbow. \u201cInstead of making plans for other people, I would do a very necessary thing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPray, tell me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, there\u2019s no reason why I should, but I will. I would try to convert my women\u2019s organs into men\u2019s organs. It is a man\u2019s country.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSpeak more plainly.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, it\u2019s plain enough. If you attempt to pass through Ifdawn without a sorb, you are simply committing suicide. And that magn too is worse than useless.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou probably know what you are talking about, Oceaxe. But what do you advise me to do?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe negligently pointed to the light-emitting stone lying on the ground.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is the solution. If you hold that drude to your organs for a good while, perhaps it will start the change, and perhaps nature will do the rest during the night. I promise nothing.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe now really turned her back on Maskull.\r\n\r\nHe considered for a few minutes, and then walked over to where the stone was lying, and took it in his hand. It was a pebble the size of a hen\u2019s egg, radiant with crimson light, as though red-hot, and throwing out a continuous shower of small, blood-red sparks.\r\n\r\nFinally deciding that Oceaxe\u2019s advice was good, he applied the drude first to his magn, and then to his breve. He experienced a cauterising sensation\u2014a feeling of healing pain.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 9. OCEAXE<\/h2>\r\nMaskull\u2019s second day on Tormance dawned. Branchspell was already above the horizon when he awoke. He was instantly aware that his organs had changed during the night. His fleshy breve was altered into an eyelike sorb; his magn had swelled and developed into a third arm, springing from the breast. The arm gave him at once a sense of greater physical security, but with the sorb he was obliged to experiment, before he could grasp its function.\r\n\r\nAs he lay there in the white sunlight, opening and shutting each of his three eyes in turn, he found that the two lower ones served his understanding, the upper one his will. That is to say, with the lower eyes he saw things in clear detail, but without personal interest; with the sorb he saw nothing as self-existent\u2014everything appeared as an object of importance or non-importance to his own needs.\r\n\r\nRather puzzled as to how this would turn out, he got up and looked about him. He had slept out of sight of Oceaxe. He was anxious to learn if she were still on the spot, but before going to ascertain he made up his mind to bathe in the river.\r\n\r\nIt was a glorious morning. The hot white sun already began to glare, but its heat was tempered by a strong wind, which whistled through the trees. A host of fantastic clouds filled the sky. They looked like animals, and were always changing shape. The ground, as well as the leaves and branches of the forest trees, still held traces of heavy dew or rain during the night. A poignantly sweet smell of nature entered his nostrils. His pain was quiescent, and his spirits were high.\r\n\r\nBefore he bathed, he viewed the mountains of the Ifdawn Marest. In the morning sunlight they stood out pictorially. He guessed that they were from five to six thousand feet high. The lofty, irregular, castellated line seemed like the walls of a magic city. The cliffs fronting him were composed of gaudy rocks\u2014vermilion, emerald, yellow, ulfire, and black. As he gazed at them, his heart began to beat like a slow, heavy drum, and he thrilled all over\u2014indescribable hopes, aspirations, and emotions came over him. It was more than the conquest of a new world which he felt\u2014it was something different....\r\n\r\nHe bathed and drank, and as he was reclothing himself, Oceaxe strolled indolently up.\r\n\r\nHe could now perceive the colour of her skin\u2014it was a vivid, yet delicate mixture of carmine, white, and jale. The effect was startlingly unearthly. With these new colors she looked like a genuine representative of a strange planet. Her frame also had something curious about it. The curves were womanly, the bones were characteristically female\u2014yet all seemed somehow to express a daring, masculine underlying will. The commanding eye on her forehead set the same puzzle in plainer language. Its bold, domineering egotism was shot with undergleams of sex and softness.\r\n\r\nShe came to the river\u2019s edge and reviewed him from top to toe. \u201cNow you are built more like a man,\u201d she said, in her lovely, lingering voice.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou see, the experiment was successful,\u201d he answered, smiling gaily.\r\n\r\nOceaxe continued looking him over. \u201cDid some woman give you that ridiculous robe?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA woman did give it to me\u201d\u2014dropping his smile\u2014\u201cbut I saw nothing ridiculous in the gift at the time, and I don\u2019t now.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI think I\u2019d look better in it.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs she drawled the words, she began stripping off the skin, which suited her form so well, and motioned to him to exchange garments. He obeyed, rather shamefacedly, for he realised that the proposed exchange was in fact more appropriate to his sex. He found the skin a freer dress. Oceaxe in her drapery appeared more dangerously feminine to him.\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t want you to receive gifts at all from other women,\u201d she remarked slowly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy not? What can I be to you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have been thinking about you during the night.\u201d Her voice was retarded, scornful, viola-like. She sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and looked away.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn what way?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe returned no answer to his question, but began to pull off pieces of the bark.\r\n\r\n\u201cLast night you were so contemptuous.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLast night is not today. Do you always walk through the world with your head over your shoulder?\u201d\r\n\r\nIt was now Maskull\u2019s turn to be silent.\r\n\r\n\u201cStill, if you have male instincts, as I suppose you have, you can\u2019t go on resisting me forever.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut this is preposterous,\u201d said Maskull, opening his eyes wide. \u201cGranted that you are a beautiful woman\u2014we can\u2019t be quite so primeval.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe sighed, and rose to her feet. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. I can wait.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFrom that I gather that you intend to make the journey in my society. I have no objection\u2014in fact I shall be glad\u2014but only on condition that you drop this language.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYet you do think me beautiful?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t I think so, if it is the fact? I fail to see what that has to do with my feelings. Bring it to an end, Oceaxe. You will find plenty of men to admire\u2014and love you.\u201d\r\n\r\nAt that she blazed up. \u201cDoes love pick and choose, you fool? Do you imagine I am so hard put to it that I have to hunt for lovers? Is not Crimtyphon waiting for me at this very moment?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cVery well. I am sorry to have hurt your feelings. Now carry the temptation no farther\u2014for it is<\/i> a temptation, where a lovely woman is concerned. I am not my own master.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m not proposing anything so very hateful, am I? Why do you humiliate me so?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull put his hands behind his back. \u201cI repeat, I am not my own master.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen who is your master?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYesterday I saw Surtur, and from today I am serving him<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDid you speak with him?\u201d she asked curiously.\r\n\r\n\u201cI did.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTell me what he said.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, I can\u2019t\u2014I won\u2019t. But whatever he said, his beauty was more tormenting than yours, Oceaxe, and that\u2019s why I can look at you in cold blood.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDid Surtur forbid you to be a man?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull frowned. \u201cIs love such a manly sport, then? I should have thought it effeminate.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. You won\u2019t always be so boyish. But don\u2019t try my patience too far.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLet us talk about something else\u2014and, above all, let us get on our road.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe suddenly broke into a laugh, so rich, sweet, and enchanting, that he grew half inflamed, and half wished to catch her body in his arms. \u201cOh, Maskull, Maskull\u2014what a fool you are!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn what way am I a fool?\u201d he demanded, scowling\u2014not at her words, but at his own weakness.\r\n\r\n\u201cIsn\u2019t the whole world the handiwork of innumerable pairs of lovers? And yet you think yourself above all that. You try to fly away from nature, but where will you find a hole to hide yourself in?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBesides beauty, I now credit you with a second quality: persistence.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cRead me well, and then it is natural law that you\u2019ll think twice and three times before throwing me away.... And now, before we go, we had better eat.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cEat?\u201d said Maskull thoughtfully.\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t you eat? Is food in the same category as love?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat food is it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFish from the river.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull recollected his promise to Joiwind. At the same time, he felt hungry.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs there nothing milder?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe pulled her mouth scornfully. \u201cYou came through Poolingdred, didn\u2019t you? All the people there are the same. They think life is to be looked at, and not lived. Now that you are visiting Ifdawn, you will have to change your notions.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGo catch your fish,\u201d he returned, pulling down his brows.\r\n\r\nThe broad, clear waters flowed past them with swelling undulations, from the direction of the mountains. Oceaxe knelt down on the bank, and peered into the depths. Presently her look became tense and concentrated; she dipped her hand in and pulled out some sort of little monster. It was more like a reptile than a fish, with its scaly plates and teeth. She threw it on the ground, and it started crawling about. Suddenly she darted all her will into her sorb. The creature leaped into the air, and fell down dead.\r\n\r\nShe picked up a sharp-edged slate, and with it removed the scales and entrails. During this operation, her hands and garment became stained with the light scarlet blood.\r\n\r\n\u201cFind the drude, Maskull,\u201d she said, with a lazy smile. \u201cYou had it last night.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe searched for it. It was hard to locate, for its rays had grown dull and feeble in the sunlight, but at last he found it. Oceaxe placed it in the interior of the monster, and left the body lying on the ground.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhile it\u2019s cooking, I\u2019ll wash some of this blood away, which frightens you so much. Have you never seen blood before?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull gazed at her in perplexity. The old paradox came back\u2014the contrasting sexual characteristics in her person. Her bold, masterful, masculine egotism of manner seemed quite incongruous with the fascinating and disturbing femininity of her voice. A startling idea flashed into his mind.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn your country I\u2019m told there is an act of will called \u2018absorbing.\u2019 What is that?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe held her red, dripping hands away from her draperies, and uttered a delicious, clashing laugh. \u201cYou think I am half a man?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnswer my question.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m a woman through and through, Maskull\u2014to the marrowbone. But that\u2019s not to say I have never absorbed males.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd that means...\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNew strings for my harp, Maskull. A wider range of passions, a stormier heart...\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFor you, yes\u2014But for them?...\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know. The victims don\u2019t describe their experiences. Probably unhappiness of some sort\u2014if they still know anything.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is a fearful business!\u201d he exclaimed, regarding her gloomily. \u201cOne would think Ifdawn a land of devils.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe gave a beautiful sneer as she took a step toward the river. \u201cBetter men than you\u2014better in every sense of the word\u2014are walking about with foreign wills inside them. You may be as moral as you like, Maskull, but the fact remains, animals were made to be eaten, and simple natures were made to be absorbed.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd human rights count for nothing!\u201d\r\n\r\nShe had bent over the river\u2019s edge, to wash her arms and hands, but glanced up over her shoulder to answer his remark. \u201cThey do count. But we only regard a man as human for just as long as he\u2019s able to hold his own with others.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe flesh was soon cooked, and they breakfasted in silence. Maskull cast heavy, doubtful glances from time to time toward his companion. Whether it was due to the strange quality of the food, or to his long abstention, he did not know, but the meal tasted nauseous, and even cannibalistic. He ate little, and the moment he got up he felt defiled.\r\n\r\n\u201cLet me bury this drude, where I can find it some other time,\u201d said Oceaxe. \u201cOn the next occasion, though, I shall have no Maskull with me, to shock.... Now we have to take to the river.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey stepped off the land onto the water. It flowed against them with a sluggish current, but the opposition, instead of hindering them, had the contrary effect\u2014it caused them to exert themselves, and they moved faster. They climbed the river in this way for several miles. The exercise gradually improved the circulation of Maskull\u2019s blood, and he began to look at things in a far more cheerful way. The hot sunshine, the diminished wind, the marvellous cloud scenery, the quiet, crystal forests\u2014all was soothing and delightful. They approached nearer and nearer to the gaily painted heights of Ifdawn.\r\n\r\nThere was something enigmatic to him in those bright walls. He was attracted by them, yet felt a sort of awe. They looked real, but at the same time very supernatural. If one could see the portrait of a ghost, painted with a hard, firm outline, in substantial colors, the feelings produced by such a sight would be exactly similar to Maskull\u2019s impressions as he studied the Ifdawn precipices.\r\n\r\nHe broke the long silence. \u201cThose mountains have most extraordinary shapes. All the lines are straight and perpendicular\u2014no slopes or curves.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe walked backward on the water, in order to face him. \u201cThat\u2019s typical of Ifdawn. Nature is all hammer blows with us. Nothing soft and gradual.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI hear you, but I don\u2019t understand you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAll over the Marest you\u2019ll find patches of ground plunging down or rushing up. Trees grow fast. Women and men don\u2019t think twice before acting. One may call Ifdawn a place of quick decisions.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull was impressed. \u201cA fresh, wild, primitive land.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow is it where you come from?\u201d asked Oceaxe.\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, mine is a decrepit world, where nature takes a hundred years to move a foot of solid land. Men and animals go about in flocks. Originality is a lost habit.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAre there women there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAs with you, and not very differently formed.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo they love?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe laughed. \u201cSo much so that it has changed the dress, speech, and thoughts of the whole sex.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cProbably they are more beautiful than I?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, I think not,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\nThere was another rather long silence, as they travelled unsteadily onward.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is your business in Ifdawn?\u201d demanded Oceaxe suddenly.\r\n\r\nHe hesitated over his answer. \u201cCan you grasp that it\u2019s possible to have an aim right in front of one, so big that one can\u2019t see it as a whole?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe stole a long, inquisitive look at him, \u201cWhat sort of aim?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA moral aim.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAre you proposing to set the world right?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI propose nothing\u2014I am waiting.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t wait too long, for time doesn\u2019t wait\u2014especially in Ifdawn.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSomething will happen,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\nOceaxe threw a subtle smile. \u201cSo you have no special destination in the Marest?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, and if you\u2019ll permit me, I will come home with you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSingular man!\u201d she said, with a short, thrilling laugh. \u201cThat\u2019s what I have been offering all the time. Of course you will come home with me. As for Crimtyphon...\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou mentioned that name before. Who is he?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh! My lover, or, as you would say, my husband.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis doesn\u2019t improve matters,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt leaves them exactly where they were. We merely have to remove him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe are certainly misunderstanding each other,\u201d said Maskull, quite startled. \u201cDo you by any chance imagine that I am making a compact with you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou will do nothing against your will. But you have promised to come home with me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTell me, how do you remove husbands in Ifdawn?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cEither you or I must kill him.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe eyed her for a full minute. \u201cNow we are passing from folly to insanity.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNot at all,\u201d replied Oceaxe. \u201cIt is the too-sad truth. And when you have seen Crimtyphon, you will realise it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m aware I am on a strange planet,\u201d said Maskull slowly, \u201cwhere all sorts of unheard of things may happen, and where the very laws of morality may be different. Still as far as I am concerned, murder is murder, and I\u2019ll have no more to do with a woman who wants to make use of me, to get rid of her husband.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou think me wicked?\u201d demanded Oceaxe steadily.\r\n\r\n\u201cOr mad.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen you had better leave me, Maskull\u2014only\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOnly what?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou wish to be consistent, don\u2019t you? Leave all other mad and wicked people as well. Then you\u2019ll find it easier to reform the rest.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull frowned, but said nothing.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell?\u201d demanded Oceaxe, with a half smile.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ll come with you, and I\u2019ll see Crimtyphon\u2014if only to warn him.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe broke into a cascade of rich, feminine laughter, but whether at the image conjured up by Maskull\u2019s last words, or from some other cause, he did not know. The conversation dropped.\r\n\r\nAt a distance of a couple of miles from the now towering cliffs, the river made a sharp, right-angled turn to the west, and was no longer of use to them on their journey. Maskull stared up doubtfully.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a stiff climb for a hot morning.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLet\u2019s rest here a little,\u201d said she, indicating a smooth flat island of black rock, standing up just out of the water in the middle of the river.\r\n\r\nThey accordingly went to it, and Maskull sat down. Oceaxe, however, standing graceful and erect, turned her face toward the cliffs opposite, and uttered a piercing and peculiar call.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is that for?\u201d She did not answer. After waiting a minute, she repeated the call. Maskull now saw a large bird detach itself from the top of one of the precipices, and sail slowly down toward them. It was followed by two others. The flight of these birds was exceedingly slow and clumsy.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat are they?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\nShe still returned no answer, but smiled rather peculiarly and sat down beside him. Before many minutes he was able to distinguish the shapes and colors of the flying monsters. They were not birds, but creatures with long, snakelike bodies, and ten reptilian legs apiece, terminating in fins which acted as wings. The bodies were of bright blue, the legs and fins were yellow. They were flying, without haste, but in a somewhat ominous fashion, straight toward them. He could make out a long, thin spike projecting from each of the heads.\r\n\r\n\u201cThey are shrowks,\u201d explained Oceaxe at last. \u201cIf you want to know their intention, I\u2019ll tell you. To make a meal of us. First of all their spikes will pierce us, and then their mouths, which are really suckers, will drain us dry of blood\u2014pretty thoroughly too; there are no half measures with shrowks. They are toothless beasts, so don\u2019t eat flesh.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAs you show such admirable sangfroid,\u201d said Maskull dryly, \u201cI take it there\u2019s no particular danger.\u201d\r\n\r\nNevertheless he instinctively tried to get on to his feet and failed. A new form of paralysis was chaining him to the ground.\r\n\r\n\u201cAre you trying to get up?\u201d asked Oceaxe smoothly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, yes, but those cursed reptiles seem to be nailing me down to the rock with their wills. May I ask if you had any special object in view in waking them up?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI assure you the danger is quite real, Maskull. Instead of talking and asking questions, you had much better see what you can do with your<\/i> will.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI seem to have no will, unfortunately.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe was seized with a paroxysm of laughter, but it was still rich and beautiful. \u201cIt\u2019s obvious you aren\u2019t a very heroic protector, Maskull. It seems I must play the man, and you the woman. I expected better things of your big body. Why, my husband would send those creatures dancing all around the sky, by way of a joke, before disposing of them. Now watch me. Two of the three I\u2019ll kill; the third we will ride home on. Which one shall we keep?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe shrowks continued their slow, wobbling flight toward them. Their bodies were of huge size. They produced in Maskull the same sensation of loathing as insects did. He instinctively understood that as they hunted with their wills, there was no necessity for them to possess a swift motion.\r\n\r\n\u201cChoose which you please,\u201d he said shortly. \u201cThey are equally objectionable to me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen I\u2019ll choose the leader, as it is presumably the most energetic animal. Watch now.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe stood upright, and her sorb suddenly blazed with fire. Maskull felt something snap inside his brain. His limbs were free once more. The two monsters in the rear staggered and darted head foremost toward the earth, one after the other. He watched them crash on the ground, and then lie motionless. The leader still came toward them, but he fancied that its flight was altered in character; it was no longer menacing, but tame and unwilling.\r\n\r\nOceaxe guided it with her will to the mainland shore opposite their island rock. Its vast bulk lay there extended, awaiting her pleasure. They immediately crossed the water.\r\n\r\nMaskull viewed the shrowk at close quarters. It was about thirty feet long. Its bright-coloured skin was shining, slippery, and leathery; a mane of black hair covered its long neck. Its face was awesome and unnatural, with its carnivorous eyes, frightful stiletto, and blood-sucking cavity. There were true fins on its back and tail.\r\n\r\n\u201cHave you a good seat?\u201d asked Oceaxe, patting the creature\u2019s flank. \u201cAs I have to steer, let me jump on first.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe pulled up her gown, then climbed up and sat astride the animal\u2019s back, just behind the mane, which she clutched. Between her and the fin there was just room for Maskull. He grasped the two flanks with his outer hands; his third, new arm pressed against Oceaxe\u2019s back, and for additional security he was compelled to encircle her waist with it.\r\n\r\nDirectly he did so, he realised that he had been tricked, and that this ride had been planned for one purpose only\u2014to inflame his desires.\r\n\r\nThe third arm possessed a function of its own, of which hitherto he had been ignorant. It was a developed magn. But the stream of love which was communicated to it was no longer pure and noble\u2014it was boiling, passionate, and torturing. He gritted his teeth, and kept quiet, but Oceaxe had not plotted the adventure to remain unconscious of his feelings. She looked around, with a golden, triumphant smile. \u201cThe ride will last some time, so hold on well!\u201d Her voice was soft like a flute, but rather malicious.\r\n\r\nMaskull grinned, and said nothing. He dared not remove his arm.\r\n\r\nThe shrowk straddled on to its legs. It jerked itself forward, and rose slowly and uncouthly in the air. They began to paddle upward toward the painted cliffs. The motion was swaying, rocking, and sickening; the contact of the brute\u2019s slimy skin was disgusting. All this, however, was merely background to Maskull, as he sat there with closed eyes, holding on to Oceaxe. In the front and centre of his consciousness was the knowledge that he was gripping a fair woman, and that her flesh was responding to his touch like a lovely harp.\r\n\r\nThey climbed up and up. He opened his eyes, and ventured to look around him. By this time they were already level with the top of the outer rampart of precipices. There now came in sight a wild archipelago of islands, with jagged outlines, emerging from a sea of air. The islands were mountain summits; or, more accurately speaking, the country was a high tableland, fissured everywhere by narrow and apparently bottomless cracks. These cracks were in some cases like canals, in others like lakes, in others merely holes in the ground, closed in all round. The perpendicular sides of the islands\u2014that is, the upper, visible parts of the innumerable cliff faces\u2014were of bare rock, gaudily coloured; but the level surfaces were a tangle of wild plant life. The taller trees alone were distinguishable from the shrowk\u2019s back. They were of different shapes, and did not look ancient; they were slender and swaying but did not appear very graceful; they looked tough, wiry, and savage.\r\n\r\nAs Maskull continued to explore the landscape, he forgot Oceaxe and his passion. Other strange feelings came to the front. The morning was gay and bright. The sun scorched down, quickly-changing clouds sailed across the sky, the earth was vivid, wild, and lonely. Yet he experienced no aesthetic sensations\u2014he felt nothing but an intense longing for action and possession. When he looked at anything, he immediately wanted to deal with it. The atmosphere of the land seemed not free, but sticky; attraction and repulsion were its constituents. Apart from this wish to play a personal part in what was going on around and beneath him, the scenery had no significance for him.\r\n\r\nSo preoccupied was he, that his arm partly released its clasp. Oceaxe turned around to gaze at him. Whether or not she was satisfied with what she saw, she uttered a low laugh, like a peculiar chord.\r\n\r\n\u201cCold again so quickly, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you want?\u201d he asked absently, still looking over the side. \u201cIt\u2019s extraordinary how drawn I feel to all this.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou wish to take a hand?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI wish to get down.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, we have a good way to go yet.... So you really feel different?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDifferent from what? What are you talking about?\u201d said Maskull, still lost in abstraction.\r\n\r\nOceaxe laughed again. \u201cIt would be strange if we couldn\u2019t make a man of you, for the material is excellent.\u201d\r\n\r\nAfter that, she turned her back once more.\r\n\r\nThe air islands differed from water islands in another way. They were not on a plane surface, but sloped upward, like a succession of broken terraces, as the journey progressed. The shrowk had hitherto been flying well above the ground; but now, when a new line of towering cliffs confronted them, Oceaxe did not urge the beast upward, but caused it to enter a narrow canyon, which intersected the mountains like a channel. They were instantly plunged into deep shade. The canal was not above thirty feet wide; the walls stretched upward on both sides for many hundred feet. It was as cool as an ice chamber. When Maskull attempted to plumb the chasm with his eyes, he saw nothing but black obscurity.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is at the bottom?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\n\u201cDeath for you, if you go to look for it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe know that. I mean, is there any kind of life down there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNot that I have ever heard of,\u201d said Oceaxe, \u201cbut of course all things are possible.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI think very likely there is life,\u201d he returned thoughtfully.\r\n\r\nHer ironical laugh sounded out of the gloom. \u201cShall we go down and see?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou find that amusing?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, not that. What I do find amusing is the big stranger with the beard, who is so keenly interested in everything except himself.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull then laughed too. \u201cI happen to be the only thing in Tormance which is not a novelty for me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, but I am a novelty for you.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe channel went zigzagging its way through the belly of the mountain, and all the time they were gradually rising.\r\n\r\n\u201cAt least I have heard nothing like your voice before,\u201d said Maskull, who, since he had no longer anything to look at, was at last ready for conversation.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter with my voice?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s all that I can distinguish of you now; that\u2019s why I mentioned it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIsn\u2019t it clear\u2014don\u2019t I speak distinctly?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, it\u2019s clear enough, but\u2014it\u2019s inappropriate.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cInappropriate?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI won\u2019t explain further,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cbut whether you are speaking or laughing, your voice is by far the loveliest and strangest instrument I have ever listened to. And yet I repeat, it is inappropriate.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou mean that my nature doesn\u2019t correspond?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe was just considering his reply, when their talk was abruptly broken off by a huge and terrifying, but not very loud sound rising up from the gulf directly underneath them. It was a low, grinding, roaring thunder.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe ground is rising under us!\u201d cried Oceaxe.\r\n\r\n\u201cShall we escape?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe made no answer, but urged the shrowk\u2019s flight upward, at such a steep gradient that they retained their seats with difficulty. The floor of the canyon, upheaved by some mighty subterranean force, could be heard, and almost felt, coming up after them, like a gigantic landslip in the wrong direction. The cliffs cracked, and fragments began to fall. A hundred awful noises filled the air, growing louder and louder each second\u2014splitting, hissing, cracking, grinding, booming, exploding, roaring. When they had still fifty feet or so to go, to reach the top, a sort of dark, indefinite sea of broken rocks and soil appeared under their feet, ascending rapidly, with irresistible might, accompanied by the most horrible noises. The canal was filled up for two hundred yards, before and behind them. Millions of tons of solid matter seemed to be raised. The shrowk in its ascent was caught by the uplifted debris. Beast and riders experienced in that moment all the horrors of an earthquake\u2014they were rolled violently over, and thrown among the rocks and dirt. All was thunder, instability, motion, confusion.\r\n\r\nBefore they had time to realise their position, they were in the sunlight. The upheaval still continued. In another minute or two the valley floor had formed a new mountain, a hundred feet or more higher than the old. Then its movement ceased suddenly. Every noise stopped, as if by magic; not a rock moved. Oceaxe and Maskull picked themselves up and examined themselves for cuts and bruises. The shrowk lay on its side, panting violently, and sweating with fright.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat was a nasty affair,\u201d said Maskull, flicking the dirt off his person.\r\n\r\nOceaxe staunched a cut on her chin with a corner of her robe.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt might have been far worse.... I mean, it\u2019s bad enough to come up, but it\u2019s death to go down, and that happens just as often.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhatever induces you to live in such a country?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know, Maskull. Habit, I suppose. I have often thought of moving out of it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA good deal must be forgiven you for having to spend your life in a place like this, where one is obviously never safe from one minute to another.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou will learn by degrees,\u201d she answered, smiling.\r\n\r\nShe looked hard at the monster, and it got heavily to its feet.\r\n\r\n\u201cGet on again, Maskull!\u201d she directed, climbing back to her perch. \u201cWe haven\u2019t too much time to waste.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe obeyed. They resumed their interrupted flight, this time over the mountains, and in full sunlight. Maskull settled down again to his thoughts. The peculiar atmosphere of the country continued to soak into his brain. His will became so restless and uneasy that merely to sit there in inactivity was a torture. He could scarcely endure not to be doing something.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow secretive you are, Maskull!\u201d said Oceaxe quietly, without turning her head.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat secrets\u2014what do you mean?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, I know perfectly well what\u2019s passing inside you. Now I think it wouldn\u2019t be amiss to ask you\u2014is friendship still enough?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, don\u2019t ask me anything,\u201d growled Maskull. \u201cI\u2019ve far too many problems in my head already. I only wish I could answer some of them.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe stared stonily at the landscape. The beast was winging its way toward a distant mountain, of singular shape. It was an enormous natural quadrilateral pyramid, rising in great terraces and terminating in a broad, flat top, on which what looked like green snow still lingered.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat mountain is that?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\n\u201cDisscourn. The highest point in Ifdawn.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAre we going there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy should we go there? But if you were going on farther, it might be worth your while to pay a visit to the top. It commands the whole land as far as the Sinking Sea and Swaylone\u2019s Island\u2014and beyond. You can also see Alppain from it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s a sight I mean to see before I have finished.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you, Maskull?\u201d She turned around and put her hand on his wrist. \u201cStay with me, and one day we\u2019ll go to Disscourn together.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe grunted unintelligibly.\r\n\r\nThere were no signs of human existence in the country under their feet. While Maskull was still grimly regarding it, a large tract of forest not far ahead, bearing many trees and rocks, suddenly subsided with an awful roar and crashed down into an invisible gulf. What was solid land one minute became a clean-cut chasm the next. He jumped violently up with the shock. \u201cThis is frightful.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe remained unmoved.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy, life here must be absolutely impossible,\u201d he went on, when he had somewhat recovered himself. \u201cA man would need nerves of steel.... Is there no means at all of foreseeing a catastrophe like this?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, I suppose we wouldn\u2019t be alive if there weren\u2019t,\u201d replied Oceaxe, with composure. \u201cWe are more or less clever at it\u2014but that doesn\u2019t prevent our often getting caught.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou had better teach me the signs.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe\u2019ll have many things to go over together. And among them, I expect, will be whether we are to stay in the land at all.... But first let us get home.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow far is it now?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is right in front of you,\u201d said Oceaxe, pointing with her forefinger. \u201cYou can see it.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe followed the direction of the finger and, after a few questions, made out the spot she was indicating. It was a broad peninsula, about two miles distant. Three of its sides rose sheer out of a lake of air, the bottom of which was invisible; its fourth was a bottleneck, joining it to the mainland. It was overgrown with bright vegetation, distinct in the brilliant atmosphere. A single tall tree, shooting up in the middle of the peninsula, dwarfed everything else; it was wide and shady with sea-green leaves.\r\n\r\n\u201cI wonder if Crimtyphon is there,\u201d remarked Oceaxe. \u201cCan I see two figures, or am I mistaken?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI also see something,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\nIn twenty minutes they were directly above the peninsula, at a height of about fifty feet. The shrowk slackened speed, and came to earth on the mainland, exactly at the gateway of the isthmus. They both descended\u2014Maskull with aching thighs.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat shall we do with the monster?\u201d asked Oceaxe. Without waiting for a suggestion, she patted its hideous face with her hand. \u201cFly away home! I may want you some other time.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt gave a stupid grunt, elevated itself on its legs again, and, after half running, half flying for a few yards, rose awkwardly into the air, and paddled away in the same direction from which they had come. They watched it out of sight, and then Oceaxe started to cross the neck of land, followed by Maskull.\r\n\r\nBranchspell\u2019s white rays beat down on them with pitiless force. The sky had by degrees become cloudless, and the wind had dropped entirely. The ground was a rich riot of vividly coloured ferns, shrubs, and grasses. Through these could be seen here and there the golden chalky soil\u2014and occasionally a glittering, white metallic boulder. Everything looked extraordinary and barbaric. Maskull was at last walking in the weird Ifdawn Marest which had created such strange feelings in him when seen from a distance.... And now he felt no wonder or curiosity at all, but only desired to meet human beings\u2014so intense had grown his will. He longed to test his powers on his fellow creatures, and nothing else seemed of the least importance to him.\r\n\r\nOn the peninsula all was coolness and delicate shade. It resembled a large copse, about two acres in extent. In the heart of the tangle of small trees and undergrowth was a partially cleared space\u2014perhaps the roots of the giant tree growing in the centre had killed off the smaller fry all around it. By the side of the tree sparkled a little, bubbling fountain, whose water was iron-red. The precipices on all sides, overhung with thorns, flowers, and creepers, invested the enclosure with an air of wild and charming seclusion\u2014a mythological mountain god might have dwelt here.\r\n\r\nMaskull\u2019s restless eye left everything, to fall on the two men who formed the centre of the picture.\r\n\r\nOne was reclining, in the ancient Grecian fashion of banqueters on a tall couch of mosses, sprinkled with flowers; he rested on one arm, and was eating a kind of plum, with calm enjoyment. A pile of these plums lay on the couch beside him. The over-spreading branches of the tree completely sheltered him from the sun. His small, boyish form was clad in a rough skin, leaving his limbs naked. Maskull could not tell from his face whether he were a young boy or a grown man. The features were smooth, soft, and childish, their expression was seraphically tranquil; but his violet upper eye was sinister and adult. His skin was of the colour of yellow ivory. His long, curling hair matched his sorb\u2014it was violet. The second man was standing erect before the other, a few feet away from him. He was short and muscular, his face was broad, bearded, and rather commonplace, but there was something terrible about his appearance. The features were distorted by a deep-seated look of pain, despair, and horror.\r\n\r\nOceaxe, without pausing, strolled lightly and lazily up to the outermost shadows of the tree, some distance from the couch.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe have met with an uplift,\u201d she remarked carelessly, looking toward the youth.\r\n\r\nHe eyed her, but said nothing.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow is your plant man getting on?\u201d Her tone was artificial but extremely beautiful. While waiting for an answer, she sat down on the ground, her legs gracefully thrust under her body, and pulled down the skirt of her robe. Maskull remained standing just behind her, with crossed arms.\r\n\r\nThere was silence for a minute.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you answer your mistress, Sature?\u201d said the boy on the couch, in a calm, treble voice.\r\n\r\nThe man addressed did not alter his expression, but replied in a strangled tone, \u201cI am getting on very well, Oceaxe. There are already buds on my feet. Tomorrow I hope to take root.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull felt a rising storm inside him. He was perfectly aware that although these words were uttered by Sature, they were being dictated by the boy.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat he says is quite true,\u201d remarked the latter. \u201cTomorrow roots will reach the ground, and in a few days they ought to be well established. Then I shall set to work to convert his arms into branches, and his fingers into leaves. It will take longer to transform his head into a crown, but still I hope\u2014in fact I can almost promise that within a month you and I, Oceaxe, will be plucking and enjoying fruit from this new and remarkable tree.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI love these natural experiments,\u201d he concluded, putting out his hand for another plum. \u201cThey thrill me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis must be a joke,\u201d said Maskull, taking a step forward.\r\n\r\nThe youth looked at him serenely. He made no reply, but Maskull felt as if he were being thrust backward by an iron hand on his throat.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe morning\u2019s work is now concluded, Sature. Come here again after Blodsombre. After tonight you will remain here permanently, I expect, so you had better set to work to clear a patch of ground for your roots. Never forget\u2014however fresh and charming these plants appear to you now, in the future they will be your deadliest rivals and enemies. Now you may go.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe man limped painfully away, across the isthmus, out of sight. Oceaxe yawned.\r\n\r\nMaskull pushed his way forward, as if against a wall. \u201cAre you joking, or are you a devil?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am Crimtyphon. I never joke. For that epithet of yours, I will devise a new punishment for you.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe duel of wills commenced without ceremony. Oceaxe got up, stretched her beautiful limbs, smiled, and prepared herself to witness the struggle between her old lover and her new. Crimtyphon smiled too; he reached out his hand for more fruit, but did not eat it. Maskull\u2019s self-control broke down and he dashed at the boy, choking with red fury\u2014his beard wagged and his face was crimson. When he realised with whom he had to deal, Crimtyphon left off smiling, slipped off the couch, and threw a terrible and malignant glare into his sorb. Maskull staggered. He gathered together all the brute force of his will, and by sheer weight continued his advance. The boy shrieked and ran behind the couch, trying to get away.... His opposition suddenly collapsed. Maskull stumbled forward, recovered himself, and then vaulted clear over the high pile of mosses, to get at his antagonist. He fell on top of him with all his bulk. Grasping his throat, he pulled his little head completely around, so that the neck was broken. Crimtyphon immediately died.\r\n\r\nThe corpse lay underneath the tree with its face upturned. Maskull viewed it attentively, and as he did so an expression of awe and wonder came into his own countenance. In the moment of death Crimtyphon\u2019s face had undergone a startling and even shocking alteration. Its personal character had wholly vanished, giving place to a vulgar, grinning mask which expressed nothing.\r\n\r\nHe did not have to search his mind long, to remember where he had seen the brother of that expression. It was identical with that on the face of the apparition at the s\u00c3\u00a9ance, after Krag had dealt with it.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 10. TYDOMIN<\/h2>\r\nOceaxe sat down carelessly on the couch of mosses, and began eating the plums.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou see, you had to kill him, Maskull,\u201d she said, in a rather quizzical voice.\r\n\r\nHe came away from the corpse and regarded her\u2014still red, and still breathing hard. \u201cIt\u2019s no joking matter. You especially ought to keep quiet.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause he was your husband.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou think I ought to show grief\u2014when I feel none?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t pretend, woman!\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe smiled. \u201cFrom your manner one would think you were accusing me of some crime.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull literally snorted at her words. \u201cWhat, you live with filth\u2014you live in the arms of a morbid monstrosity and then\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, now I grasp it,\u201d she said, in a tone of perfect detachment.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m glad.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, Maskull,\u201d she proceeded, after a pause, \u201cand who gave you the right to rule my conduct? Am I not mistress of my own person?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe looked at her with disgust, but said nothing. There was another long interval of silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cI never loved him,\u201d said Oceaxe at last, looking at the ground.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat makes it all the worse.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat does all this mean\u2014what do you want?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNothing from you\u2014absolutely nothing\u2014thank heaven!\u201d\r\n\r\nShe gave a hard laugh. \u201cYou come here with your foreign preconceptions and expect us all to bow down to them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat preconceptions?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cJust because Crimtyphon\u2019s sports are strange to you, you murder him\u2014and you would like to murder me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSports! That diabolical cruelty.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, you\u2019re sentimental!\u201d said Oceaxe contemptuously. \u201cWhy do you need to make such a fuss over that man? Life is life, all the world over, and one form is as good as another. He was only to be made a tree, like a million other trees. If they can endure the life, why can\u2019t he?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd this is Ifdawn morality!\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe began to grow angry. \u201cIt\u2019s you who have peculiar ideas. You rave about the beauty of flowers and trees\u2014you think them divine. But when it\u2019s a question of taking on this divine, fresh, pure, enchanting loveliness yourself, in your own person, it immediately becomes a cruel and wicked degradation. Here we have a strange riddle, in my opinion.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOceaxe, you\u2019re a beautiful, heartless wild beast\u2014nothing more. If you weren\u2019t a woman\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell\u201d\u2014curling her lip\u2014\u201clet us hear what would happen if I weren\u2019t a woman?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull bit his nails.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. I can\u2019t touch you\u2014though there\u2019s certainly not the difference of a hair between you and your boy-husband. For this you may thank my \u2018foreign preconceptions.\u2019... Farewell!\u201d\r\n\r\nHe turned to go. Oceaxe\u2019s eyes slanted at him through their long lashes.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere are you off to, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s a matter of no importance, for wherever I go it must be a change for the better. You walking whirlpools of crime!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWait a minute. I only want to say this. Blodsombre is just starting, and you had better stay here till the afternoon. We can quickly put that body out of sight, and, as you seem to detest me so much, the place is big enough\u2014we needn\u2019t talk, or even see each other.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t wish to breathe the same air.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSingular man!\u201d She was sitting erect and motionless, like a beautiful statue. \u201cAnd what of your wonderful interview with Surtur, and all the undone things which you set out to do?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou aren\u2019t the one I shall speak to about that. But\u201d\u2014he eyed her meditatively\u2014\u201cwhile I\u2019m still here you can tell me this. What\u2019s the meaning of the expression on that corpse\u2019s face?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs that another crime, Maskull? All dead people look like that. Ought they not to?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI once heard it called \u2018Crystalman\u2019s face.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy not? We are all daughters and sons of Crystalman. It is doubtless the family resemblance.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt has also been told me that Surtur and Crystalman are one and the same.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have wise and truthful acquaintances.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen how could it have been Surtur whom I saw?\u201d said Maskull, more to himself than to her. \u201cThat apparition was something quite different.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe dropped her mocking manner and, sliding imperceptibly toward him, gently pulled his arm.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou see\u2014we have to talk. Sit down beside me, and ask me your questions. I\u2019m not excessively smart, but I\u2019ll try to be of assistance.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull permitted himself to be dragged down with soft violence. She bent toward him, as if confidentially, and contrived that her sweet, cool, feminine breath should fan his cheek.\r\n\r\n\u201cAren\u2019t you here to alter the evil to the good, Maskull? Then what does it matter who sent you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat can you possibly know of good and evil?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAre you only instructing the initiated?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWho am I, to instruct anybody? However, you\u2019re quite right. I wish to do what I can\u2014not because I am qualified, but because I am here.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe\u2019s voice dropped to a whisper. \u201cYou\u2019re a giant, both in body and soul. What you want to do, you can<\/i> do.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs that your honest opinion, or are you flattering me for your own ends?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe sighed. \u201cDon\u2019t you see how difficult you are making the conversation? Let\u2019s talk about your work, not about ourselves.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull suddenly noticed a strange blue light glowing in the northern sky. It was from Alppain, but Alppain itself was behind the hills. While he was observing it, a peculiar wave of self-denial, of a disquieting nature, passed through him. He looked at Oceaxe, and it struck him for the first time that he was being unnecessarily brutal to her. He had forgotten that she was a woman, and defenceless.\r\n\r\n\u201cWon\u2019t you stay?\u201d she asked all of a sudden, quite openly and frankly.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, I think I\u2019ll stay,\u201d he replied slowly. \u201cAnd another thing, Oceaxe\u2014if I\u2019ve misjudged your character, pray forgive me. I\u2019m a hasty, passionate man.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are enough easygoing men. Hard knocks are a good medicine for vicious hearts. And you didn\u2019t misjudge my character, as far as you went\u2014only, every woman has more than one character. Don\u2019t you know that?\u201d\r\n\r\nDuring the pause that followed, a snapping of twigs was heard, and both looked around, startled. They saw a woman stepping slowly across the neck that separated them from the mainland.\r\n\r\n\u201cTydomin,\u201d muttered Oceaxe, in a vexed, frightened voice. She immediately moved away from Maskull and stood up.\r\n\r\nThe newcomer was of middle height, very slight and graceful. She was no longer quite young. Her face wore the composure of a woman who knows her way about the world. It was intensely pale, and under its quiescence there just was a glimpse of something strange and dangerous. It was curiously alluring, though not exactly beautiful. Her hair was clustering and boyish, reaching only to the neck. It was of a strange indigo colour. She was quaintly attired in a tunic and breeches, pieced together from the square, blue-green plates of some reptile. Her small, ivory-white breasts were exposed. Her sorb was black and sad\u2014rather contemplative.\r\n\r\nWithout once glancing up at Oceaxe and Maskull, she quietly glided straight toward Crimtyphon\u2019s corpse. When she arrived within a few feet of it, she stopped and looked down, with arms folded.\r\n\r\nOceaxe drew Maskull a little away, and whispered, \u201cIt\u2019s Crimtyphon\u2019s other wife, who lives under Disscourn. She\u2019s a most dangerous woman. Be careful what you say. If she asks you to do anything, refuse it outright.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe poor soul looks harmless enough.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, she does\u2014but the poor soul is quite capable of swallowing up Krag himself.... Now, play the man.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe murmur of their voices seemed to attract Tydomin\u2019s notice, for she now slowly turned her eyes toward them.\r\n\r\n\u201cWho killed him?\u201d she demanded.\r\n\r\nHer voice was so soft, low, and refined, that Maskull hardly was able to catch the words. The sounds, however, lingered in his ears, and curiously enough seemed to grow stronger, instead of fainter.\r\n\r\nOceaxe whispered, \u201cDon\u2019t say a word, leave it all to me.\u201d Then she swung her body around to face Tydomin squarely, and said aloud, \u201cI killed him.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin\u2019s words by this time were ringing in Maskull\u2019s head like an actual physical sound. There was no question of being able to ignore them; he had to make an open confession of his act, whatever the consequences might be. Quietly taking Oceaxe by the shoulder and putting her behind him, he said in a low, but perfectly distinct voice, \u201cIt was I that killed Crimtyphon.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe looked both haughty and frightened. \u201cMaskull says that so as to shield me, as he thinks. I require no shield, Maskull. I killed him, Tydomin.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI believe you, Oceaxe. You did murder him. Not with your own strength, for you brought this man along for the purpose.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull took a couple of steps toward Tydomin. \u201cIt\u2019s of little consequence who killed him, for he\u2019s better dead than alive, in my opinion. Still, I did it. Oceaxe had no hand in the affair.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin appeared not to hear him\u2014she looked beyond him at Oceaxe musingly. \u201cWhen you murdered him, didn\u2019t it occur to you that I would come here, to find out?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI never once thought of you,\u201d replied Oceaxe, with an angry laugh. \u201cDo you really imagine that I carry your image with me wherever I go?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf someone were to murder your lover here, what would you do?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLying hypocrite!\u201d Oceaxe spat out. \u201cYou never were in love with Crimtyphon. You always hated me, and now you think it an excellent opportunity to make it good... now that Crimtyphon\u2019s gone.... For we both know he would have made a footstool of you, if I had asked him. He worshiped me, but he laughed at you. He thought you ugly.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin flashed a quick, gentle smile at Maskull. \u201cIs it necessary for you to listen to all this?\u201d\r\n\r\nWithout question, and feeling it the right thing to do, he walked away out of earshot.\r\n\r\nTydomin approached Oceaxe. \u201cPerhaps because my beauty fades and I\u2019m no longer young, I needed him<\/i> all the more.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe gave a kind of snarl. \u201cWell, he\u2019s dead, and that\u2019s the end of it. What are you going to do now, Tydomin?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe other woman smiled faintly and rather pathetically. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing left to do, except mourn the dead. You won\u2019t grudge me that last office?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you want to stay here?\u201d demanded Oceaxe suspiciously.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, Oceaxe dear, I wish to be alone.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen what is to become of us?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI thought that you and your lover\u2014what is his name?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI thought that perhaps you two would go to Disscourn, and spend Blodsombre at my home.\u201d\r\n\r\nOceaxe called out aloud to Maskull, \u201cWill you come with me now to Disscourn?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you wish,\u201d returned Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cGo first, Oceaxe. I must question your friend about Crimtyphon\u2019s death. I won\u2019t keep him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you question me, rather?\u201d demanded Oceaxe, looking up sharply.\r\n\r\nTydomin gave the shadow of a smile. \u201cWe know each other too well.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPlay no tricks!\u201d said Oceaxe, and she turned to go.\r\n\r\n\u201cSurely you must be dreaming,\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cThat\u2019s the way\u2014unless you want to walk over the cliffside.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe path Oceaxe had chosen led across the isthmus. The direction which Tydomin proposed for her was over the edge of the precipice, into empty space.\r\n\r\n\u201cShaping! I must be mad,\u201d cried Oceaxe, with a laugh. And she obediently followed the other\u2019s finger.\r\n\r\nShe walked straight on toward the edge of the abyss, twenty paces away. Maskull pulled his beard around, and wondered what she was doing. Tydomin remained standing with outstretched finger, watching her. Without hesitation, without slackening her step once, Oceaxe strolled on\u2014and when she had reached the extreme end of the land she still took one more step.\r\n\r\nMaskull saw her limbs wrench as she stumbled over the edge. Her body disappeared, and as it did so an awful shriek sounded.\r\n\r\nDisillusionment had come to her an instant too late. He tore himself out of his stupor, rushed to the edge of the cliff, threw himself on the ground recklessly, and looked over.... Oceaxe had vanished.\r\n\r\nHe continued staring wildly down for several minutes, and then began to sob. Tydomin came up to him, and he got to his feet.\r\n\r\nThe blood kept rushing to his face and leaving it again. It was some time before he could speak at all. Then he brought out the words with difficulty. \u201cYou shall pay for this, Tydomin. But first I want to hear why you did it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHadn\u2019t I cause?\u201d she asked, standing with downcast eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cWas it pure fiendishness?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was for Crimtyphon\u2019s sake.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cShe had nothing to do with that death. I told you so.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are loyal to her, and I\u2019m loyal to him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLoyal? You\u2019ve made a terrible blunder. She wasn\u2019t my mistress. I killed Crimtyphon for quite another reason. She had absolutely no part in it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWasn\u2019t she your lover?\u201d asked Tydomin slowly.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou\u2019ve made a terrible mistake,\u201d repeated Maskull. \u201cI killed him because he was a wild beast. She was as innocent of his death as you are.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin\u2019s face took on a hard look. \u201cSo you are guilty of two deaths.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere was a dreadful silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy couldn\u2019t you believe me?\u201d asked Maskull, who was pale and sweating painfully.\r\n\r\n\u201cWho gave you the right to kill him?\u201d demanded Tydomin sternly.\r\n\r\nHe said nothing, and perhaps did not hear her question.\r\n\r\nShe sighed two or three times and began to stir restlessly. \u201cSince you murdered him, you must help me bury him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u2019s to be done? This is a most fearful crime.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are a most fearful man. Why did you come here, to do all this? What are we to you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cUnfortunately you are right.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnother pause ensued.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s no use standing here,\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cNothing can be done. You must come with me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCome with you? Where to?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo Disscourn. There\u2019s a burning lake on the far side of it. He always wished to be cast there after death. We can do that after Blodsombre\u2014in the meantime we must take him home.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou\u2019re a callous, heartless woman. Why should he be buried when that poor girl must remain unburied?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou know that\u2019s out of the question,\u201d replied Tydomin quietly.\r\n\r\nMaskull\u2019s eyes roamed about agitatedly, apparently seeing nothing.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe must do something,\u201d she continued. \u201cI shall go. You can\u2019t wish to stay here alone?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, I couldn\u2019t stay here\u2014and why should I want to? You want me to carry the corpse?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe can\u2019t carry himself, and you murdered him. Perhaps it will ease your mind to carry it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cEase my mind?\u201d said Maskull, rather stupidly.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s only one relief for remorse, and that\u2019s voluntary pain.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd have you no remorse?\u201d he asked, fixing her with a heavy eye.\r\n\r\n\u201cThese crimes are yours, Maskull,\u201d she said in a low but incisive voice.\r\n\r\nThey walked over to Crimtyphon\u2019s body, and Maskull hoisted it on to his shoulders. It weighed heavier than he had thought. Tydomin did not offer to assist him to adjust the ghastly burden.\r\n\r\nShe crossed the isthmus, followed by Maskull. Their path lay through sunshine and shadow. Branchspell was blazing in a cloudless sky, the heat was insufferable\u2014streams of sweat coursed down his face, and the corpse seemed to grow heavier and heavier. Tydomin always walked in front of him. His eyes were fastened in an unseeing stare on her white, womanish calves; he looked neither to right nor left. His features grew sullen. At the end of ten minutes he suddenly allowed his burden to slip off his shoulders on to the ground, where it lay sprawled every which way. He called out to Tydomin.\r\n\r\nShe quickly looked around.\r\n\r\n\u201cCome here. It has just occurred to me\u201d\u2014he laughed\u2014\u201cwhy should I be carrying this corpse\u2014and why should I be following you at all? What surprises me is, why this has never struck me before.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe at once came back to him. \u201cI suppose you\u2019re tired, Maskull. Let us sit down. Perhaps you have come a long way this morning?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, it\u2019s not tiredness, but a sudden gleam of sense. Do you know of any reason why I should be acting as your porter?\u201d He laughed again, but nevertheless sat down on the ground beside her.\r\n\r\nTydomin neither looked at him nor answered. Her head was half bent, so as to face the northern sky, where the Alppain light was still glowing. Maskull followed her gaze, and also watched the glow for a moment or two in silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you speak?\u201d he asked at last.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat does that light suggest to you, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m not speaking of that light.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDoesn\u2019t it suggest anything at all?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps it doesn\u2019t. What does it matter?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNot sacrifice?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull grew sullen again. \u201cSacrifice of what? What do you mean?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHasn\u2019t it entered your head yet,\u201d said Tydomin, looking straight in front of her, and speaking in her delicate, hard manner, \u201cthat this adventure of yours will scarcely come to an end until you have made some sort of sacrifice?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe returned no answer, and she said nothing more. In a few minutes\u2019 time Maskull got up of his own accord, and irreverently, and almost angrily, threw Crimtyphon\u2019s corpse over his shoulder again.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow far do we have to go?\u201d he asked in a surly tone.\r\n\r\n\u201cAn hour\u2019s walk.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLead on.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cStill, this isn\u2019t the sacrifice I mean,\u201d said Tydomin quietly, as she went on in front.\r\n\r\nAlmost immediately they reached more difficult ground. They had to pass from peak to peak, as from island to island. In some cases they were able to stride or jump across, but in others they had to make use of rude bridges of fallen timber. It appeared to be a frequented path. Underneath were the black, impenetrable abysses\u2014on the surface were the glaring sunshine, the gay, painted rocks, the chaotic tangle of strange plants. There were countless reptiles and insects. The latter were thicker built than those of Earth\u2014consequently still more disgusting, and some of them were of enormous size. One monstrous insect, as large as a horse, stood right in the centre of their path without budging. It was armour-plated, had jaws like scimitars, and underneath its body was a forest of legs. Tydomin gave one malignant look at it, and sent it crashing into the gulf.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat have I to offer, except my life?\u201d Maskull suddenly broke out. \u201cAnd what good is that? It won\u2019t bring that poor girl back into the world.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSacrifice is not for utility. It\u2019s a penalty which we pay.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI know that.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe point is whether you can go on enjoying life, after what has happened.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe waited for Maskull to come even with her.\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps you imagine I\u2019m not man enough\u2014you imagine that because I allowed poor Oceaxe to die for me\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cShe did die for you,\u201d said Tydomin, in a quiet, emphatic voice.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat would be a second blunder of yours,\u201d returned Maskull, just as firmly. \u201cI was not in love with Oceaxe, and I\u2019m not in love with life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYour life is not required.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen I don\u2019t understand what you want, or what you are speaking about.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s not for me to ask a sacrifice from you, Maskull. That would be compliance on your part, but not sacrifice. You must wait until you feel there\u2019s nothing else for you to do.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s all very mysterious.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe conversation was abruptly cut short by a prolonged and frightful crashing, roaring sound, coming from a short distance ahead. It was accompanied by a violent oscillation of the ground on which they stood. They looked up, startled, just in time to witness the final disappearance of a huge mass of forest land, not two hundred yards in front of them. Several acres of trees, plants, rocks, and soil, with all its teeming animal life, vanished before their eyes, like a magic story. The new chasm was cut, as if by a knife. Beyond its farther edge the Alppain glow burned blue just over the horizon.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow we shall have to make a detour,\u201d said Tydomin, halting.\r\n\r\nMaskull caught hold of her with his third hand. \u201cListen to me, while I try to describe what I\u2019m feeling. When I saw that landslip, everything I have heard about the last destruction of the world came into my mind. It seemed to me as if I were actually witnessing it, and that the world were really falling to pieces. Then, where the land was, we now have this empty, awful gulf\u2014that\u2019s to say, nothing<\/i>\u2014and it seems to me as if our life will come to the same condition, where there was something there will be nothing. But that terrible blue glare on the opposite side is exactly like the eye of fate. It accuses us, and demands what we have made of our life, which is no more. At the same time, it is grand and joyful. The joy consists in this\u2014that it is in our power to give freely what will later on be taken from us by force.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin watched him attentively. \u201cThen your feeling is that your life is worthless, and you make a present of it to the first one who asks?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, it goes beyond that. I feel that the only thing worth living for is to be so magnanimous that fate itself will be astonished at us. Understand me. It isn\u2019t cynicism, or bitterness, or despair, but heroism.... It\u2019s hard to explain.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNow you shall hear what sacrifice I offer you, Maskull. It\u2019s a heavy one, but that\u2019s what you seem to wish.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is so. In my present mood it can\u2019t be too heavy.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen, if you are in earnest, resign your body to me. Now that Crimtyphon\u2019s dead, I\u2019m tired of being a woman.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI fail to comprehend.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cListen, then. I wish to start a new existence in your body. I wish to be a male. I see it isn\u2019t worth while being a woman. I mean to dedicate my own body to Crimtyphon. I shall tie his body and mine together, and give them a common funeral in the burning lake. That\u2019s the sacrifice I offer you. As I said, it\u2019s a hard one.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo you do ask me to die. Though how you can make use of my body is difficult to understand.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, I don\u2019t ask you to die. You will go on living.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow is it possible without a body?\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin gazed at him earnestly. \u201cThere are many such beings, even in your world. There you call them spirits, apparitions, phantoms. They are in reality living wills, deprived of material bodies, always longing to act and enjoy, but quite unable to do so. Are you noble-minded enough to accept such a state, do you think?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf it\u2019s possible, I accept it,\u201d replied Maskull quietly. \u201cNot in spite of its heaviness, but because of it. But how is it possible?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cUndoubtedly there are very many things possible in our world of which you have no conception. Now let us wait till we get home. I don\u2019t hold you to your word, for unless it\u2019s a free sacrifice I will have nothing to do with it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am not a man who speaks lightly. If you can perform this miracle, you have my consent, once for all.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen we\u2019ll leave it like that for the present,\u201d said Tydomin sadly.\r\n\r\nThey proceeded on their way. Owing to the subsidence, Tydomin seemed rather doubtful at first as to the right road, but by making a long divergence they eventually got around to the other side of the newly formed chasm. A little later on, in a narrow copse crowning a miniature, insulated peak, they fell in with a man. He was resting himself against a tree, and looked tired, overheated, and despondent. He was young. His beardless expression bore an expression of unusual sincerity, and in other respects he seemed a hardy, hardworking youth, of an intellectual type. His hair was thick, short, and flaxen. He possessed neither a sorb nor a third arm\u2014so presumably he was not a native of Ifdawn. His forehead, however, was disfigured by what looked like a haphazard assortment of eyes, eight in number, of different sizes and shapes. They went in pairs, and whenever two were in use, it was indicated by a peculiar shining\u2014the rest remained dull, until their turn came. In addition to the upper eyes he had the two lower ones, but they were vacant and lifeless. This extraordinary battery of eyes, alternatively alive and dead, gave the young man an appearance of almost alarming mental activity. He was wearing nothing but a sort of skin kilt. Maskull seemed somehow to recognise the face, though he had certainly never set eyes on it before.\r\n\r\nTydomin suggested to him to set down the corpse, and both sat down to rest in the shade.\r\n\r\n\u201cQuestion him, Maskull,\u201d she said, rather carelessly, jerking her head toward the stranger.\r\n\r\nMaskull sighed and asked aloud, from his seat on the ground, \u201cWhat\u2019s your name, and where do you come from?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe man studied him for a few moments, first with one pair of eyes, then with another, then with a third. He next turned his attention to Tydomin, who occupied him a still longer time. He replied at last, in a dry, manly, nervous voice. \u201cI am Digrung. I have arrived here from Matterplay.\u201d His colour kept changing, and Maskull suddenly realised of whom he reminded him. It was of Joiwind.\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps you\u2019re going to Poolingdred, Digrung?\u201d he inquired, interested.\r\n\r\n\u201cAs a matter of fact I am\u2014if I can find my way out of this accursed country.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPossibly you are acquainted with Joiwind there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cShe\u2019s my sister. I\u2019m on my way to see her now. Why, do you know her?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI met her yesterday.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is your name, then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI shall tell her I met you. This will be our first meeting for four years. Is she well, and happy?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBoth, as far as I could judge. You know Panawe?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHer husband\u2014yes. But where do you come from? I\u2019ve seen nothing like you before.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFrom another world. Where is Matterplay?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s the first country one comes to beyond the Sinking Sea.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is it like there\u2014how do you amuse yourselves? The same old murders and sudden deaths?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAre you ill?\u201d asked Digrung. \u201cWho is this woman, why are you following at her heels like a slave? She looks insane to me. What\u2019s that corpse\u2014why are you dragging it around the country with you?\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin smiled. \u201cI\u2019ve already heard it said about Matterplay, that if one sows an answer there, a rich crop of questions immediately springs up. But why do you make this unprovoked attack on me, Digrung?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t attack you, woman, but I know you. I see into you, and I see insanity. That wouldn\u2019t matter, but I don\u2019t like to see a man of intelligence like Maskull caught in your filthy meshes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI suppose even you clever Matterplay people sometimes misjudge character. However, I don\u2019t mind. Your opinion\u2019s nothing to me, Digrung. You\u2019d better answer his questions, Maskull. Not for his own sake\u2014but your feminine friend is sure to be curious about your having been seen carrying a dead man.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull\u2019s underlip shot out. \u201cTell your sister nothing, Digrung. Don\u2019t mention my name at all. I don\u2019t want her to know about this meeting of ours.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy not?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t wish it\u2014isn\u2019t that enough?\u201d\r\n\r\nDigrung looked impassive.\r\n\r\n\u201cThoughts and words,\u201d he said, \u201cwhich don\u2019t correspond with the real events of the world are considered most shameful in Matterplay.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m not asking you to lie, only to keep silent.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo hide the truth is a special branch of lying. I can\u2019t accede to your wish. I must tell Joiwind everything, as far as I know it.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull got up, and Tydomin followed his example.\r\n\r\nShe touched Digrung on the arm and gave him a strange look. \u201cThe dead man is my husband, and Maskull murdered him. Now you\u2019ll understand why he wishes you to hold your tongue.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI guessed there was some foul play,\u201d said Digrung. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter\u2014I can\u2019t falsify facts. Joiwind must know.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou refuse to consider her feelings?\u201d said Maskull, turning pale.\r\n\r\n\u201cFeelings which flourish on illusions, and sicken and die on realities, aren\u2019t worth considering. But Joiwind\u2019s are not of that kind.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you decline to do what I ask, at least return home without seeing her; your sister will get very little pleasure out of the meeting when she hears your news.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat are these strange relations between you?\u201d demanded Digrung, eying him with suddenly aroused suspicion.\r\n\r\nMaskull stared back in a sort of bewilderment. \u201cGood God! You don\u2019t doubt your own sister. That pure angel!\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin caught hold of him delicately. \u201cI don\u2019t know Joiwind, but, whoever she is and whatever she\u2019s like, I know this\u2014she\u2019s more fortunate in her friend than in her brother. Now, if you really value her happiness, Maskull, you will have to take some firm step or other.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI mean to. Digrung, I shall stop your journey.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you intend a second murder, no doubt you are big enough.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull turned around to Tydomin and laughed. \u201cI seem to be leaving a wake of corpses behind me on this journey.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy a corpse? There\u2019s no need to kill him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThanks for that!\u201d said Digrung dryly. \u201cAll the same, some crime is about to burst. I feel it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat must I do, then?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is not my business, and to tell the truth I am not very interested.... If I were in your place, Maskull, I would not hesitate long. Don\u2019t you understand how to absorb these creatures, who set their feeble, obstinate wills against yours?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is a worse crime,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cWho knows? He will live, but he will tell no tales.\u201d\r\n\r\nDigrung laughed, but changed colour. \u201cI was right then. The monster has sprung into the light of day.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull laid a hand on his shoulder. \u201cYou have the choice, and we are not joking. Do as I ask.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have fallen low, Maskull. But you are walking in a dream, and I can\u2019t talk to you. As for you, woman\u2014sin must be like a pleasant bath to you....\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are strange ties between Maskull and myself; but you are a passer-by, a foreigner. I care nothing for you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNevertheless, I shall not be frightened out of my plans, which are legitimate and right.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo as you please,\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cIf you come to grief, your thoughts will hardly have corresponded with the real events of the world, which is what you boast about. It is no affair of mine.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI shall go on, and not back!\u201d exclaimed Digrung, with angry emphasis.\r\n\r\nTydomin threw a swift, evil smile at Maskull. \u201cBear witness that I have tried to persuade this young man. Now you must come to a quick decision in your own mind as to which is of the greatest importance, Digrung\u2019s happiness or Joiwind\u2019s. Digrung won\u2019t allow you to preserve them both.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt won\u2019t take me long to decide, Digrung, I gave you a last chance to change your mind.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAs long as it\u2019s in my power I shall go on, and warn my sister against her criminal friends.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull again clutched at him, but this time with violence. Instructed in his actions by some new and horrible instinct, he pressed the young man tightly to his body with all three arms. A feeling of wild, sweet delight immediately passed through him. Then for the first time he comprehended the triumphant joys of \u201cabsorbing.\u201d It satisfied the hunger of the will, exactly as food satisfies the hunger of the body. Digrung proved feeble\u2014he made little opposition. His personality passed slowly and evenly into Maskull\u2019s. The latter became strong and gorged. The victim gradually became paler and limper, until Maskull held a corpse in his arms. He dropped the body, and stood trembling. He had committed his second crime. He felt no immediate difference in his soul, but...\r\n\r\nTydomin shed a sad smile on him, like winter sunshine. He half expected her to speak, but she said nothing. Instead, she made a sign to him to pick up Crimtyphon\u2019s corpse. As he obeyed, he wondered why Digrung\u2019s dead face did not wear the frightful Crystalman mask.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy hasn\u2019t he altered?\u201d he muttered to himself.\r\n\r\nTydomin heard him. She kicked Digrung lightly with her little foot. \u201cHe isn\u2019t dead\u2014that\u2019s why. The expression you mean is waiting for your death.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen is that my real character?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe laughed softly. \u201cYou came here to carve a strange world, and now it appears you are carved yourself. Oh, there\u2019s no doubt about it, Maskull. You needn\u2019t stand there gaping. You belong to Shaping, like the rest of us. You are not a king, or a god.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSince when have I belonged to him?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat does that matter? Perhaps since you first breathed the air of Tormance, or perhaps since five minutes ago.\u201d\r\n\r\nWithout waiting for his response, she set off through the copse, and strode on to the next island. Maskull followed, physically distressed and looking very grave.\r\n\r\nThe journey continued for half an hour longer, without incident. The character of the scenery slowly changed. The mountaintops became loftier and more widely separated from one another. The gaps were filled with rolling, white clouds, which bathed the shores of the peaks like a mysterious sea. To pass from island to island was hard work, the intervening spaces were so wide\u2014Tydomin, however, knew the way. The intense light, the violet-blue sky, the patches of vivid landscape, emerging from the white vapour-ocean, made a profound impression on Maskull\u2019s mind. The glow of Alppain was hidden by the huge mass of Disscourn, which loomed up straight in front of them.\r\n\r\nThe green snow on the top of the gigantic pyramid had by now completely melted away. The black, gold, and crimson of its mighty cliffs stood out with terrific brilliance. They were directly beneath the bulk of the mountain, which was not a mile away. It did not appear dangerous to climb, but he was unaware on which side of it their destination lay.\r\n\r\nIt was split from top to bottom by numerous straight fissures. A few pale-green waterfalls descended here and there, like narrow, motionless threads. The face of the mountain was rugged and bare. It was strewn with detached boulders, and great, jagged rocks projected everywhere like iron teeth. Tydomin pointed to a small black hole near the base, which might be a cave. \u201cThat is where I live.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou live here alone?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s an odd choice for a woman\u2014and you are not unbeautiful, either.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA woman\u2019s life is over at twenty-five,\u201d she replied, sighing. \u201cAnd I am far older than that. Ten years ago it would have been I who lived yonder, and not Oceaxe. Then all this wouldn\u2019t have happened.\u201d\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nA quarter of an hour later they stood within the mouth of the cave. It was ten feet high, and its interior was impenetrably black.\r\n\r\n\u201cPut down the body in the entrance, out of the sun,\u201d directed Tydomin. He did so.\r\n\r\nShe cast a keenly scrutinising glance at him. \u201cDoes your resolution still hold, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t it hold? My brains are not feathers.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFollow me, then.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey both stepped into the cave. At that very moment a sickening crash, like heavy thunder just over their heads, set Maskull\u2019s weakened heart thumping violently. An avalanche of boulders, stones, and dust, swept past the cave entrance from above. If their going in had been delayed by a single minute, they would have been killed.\r\n\r\nTydomin did not even look up. She took his hand in hers, and started walking with him into the darkness. The temperature became as cold as ice. At the first bend the light from the outer world disappeared, leaving them in absolute blackness. Maskull kept stumbling over the uneven ground, but she kept tight hold of him, and hurried him along.\r\n\r\nThe tunnel seemed of interminable length. Presently, however, the atmosphere changed\u2014or such was his impression. He was somehow led to imagine that they had come to a larger chamber. Here Tydomin stopped, and then forced him down with quiet pressure. His groping hand encountered stone and, by feeling it all over, he discovered that it was a sort of stone slab, or couch, raised a foot or eighteen inches from the ground. She told him to lie down.\r\n\r\n\u201cHas the time come?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe lay there waiting in the darkness, ignorant of what was going to happen. He felt her hand clasping his. Without perceiving any gradation, he lost all consciousness of his body; he was no longer able to feel his limbs or internal organs. His mind remained active and alert. Nothing particular appeared to be taking place.\r\n\r\nThen the chamber began to grow light, like very early morning. He could see nothing, but the retina of his eyes was affected. He fancied that he heard music, but while he was listening for it, it stopped. The light grew stronger, the air grew warmer; he heard the confused sound of distant voices.\r\n\r\nSuddenly Tydomin gave his hand a powerful squeeze. He heard someone scream faintly, and then the light leaped up, and he saw everything clearly.\r\n\r\nHe was lying on a wooden couch, in a strangely decorated room, lighted by electricity. His hand was being squeezed, not by Tydomin, but by a man dressed in the garments of civilisation, with whose face he was certainly familiar, but under what circumstances he could not recall. Other people stood in the background\u2014they too were vaguely known to him. He sat up and began to smile, without any especial reason; and then stood upright.\r\n\r\nEverybody seemed to be watching him with anxiety and emotion\u2014he wondered why. Yet he felt that they were all acquaintances. Two in particular he knew\u2014the man at the farther end of the room, who paced restlessly backward and forward, his face transfigured by stern, holy grandeur; and that other big, bearded man\u2014who was himself<\/i>. Yes\u2014he was looking at his own double. But it was just as if a crime-riddled man of middle age were suddenly confronted with his own photograph as an earnest, idealistic youth.\r\n\r\nHis other self spoke to him. He heard the sounds, but did not comprehend the sense. Then the door was abruptly flung open, and a short, brutish-looking individual leaped in. He began to behave in an extraordinary manner to everyone around him; and after that came straight up to him\u2014Maskull. He spoke some words, but they were incomprehensible. A terrible expression came over the newcomer\u2019s face, and he grasped his neck with a pair of hairy hands. Maskull felt his bones bending and breaking, excruciating pains passed through all the nerves of his body, and he experienced a sense of impending death. He cried out, and sank helplessly on the floor, in a heap. The chamber and the company vanished\u2014the light went out.\r\n\r\nOnce more he found himself in the blackness of the cave. He was this time lying on the ground, but Tydomin was still with him, holding his hand. He was in horrible bodily agony, but this was only a setting for the despairing anguish that filled his mind.\r\n\r\nTydomin addressed him in tones of gentle reproach. \u201cWhy are you back so soon? I\u2019ve not had time yet. You must return.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe caught hold of her, and pulled himself up to his feet. She gave a low scream, as though in pain. \u201cWhat does this mean\u2014what are you doing, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag\u2014\u201d began Maskull, but the effort to produce his words choked him, so that he was obliged to stop.\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag\u2014what of Krag? Tell me quickly what has happened. Free my arm.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe gripped her arm tighter.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, I\u2019ve seen Krag. I\u2019m awake.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh! You are awake, awake.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd you must die,\u201d said Maskull, in an awful voice.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut why? What has happened?...\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou must die, and I must kill you. Because I am awake, and for no other reason. You blood-stained dancing mistress!\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin breathed hard for a little time. Then she seemed suddenly to regain her self-possession.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou won\u2019t offer me violence, surely, in this black cave?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, the sun shall look on, for it is not a murder. But rest assured that you must die\u2014you must expiate your fearful crimes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have already said so, and I see you have the power. You have escaped me. It is very curious. Well, then, Maskull, let us come outside. I am not afraid. But kill me courteously, for I have also been courteous to you. I make no other supplication.\u201d\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 11. ON DISSCOURN<\/h2>\r\nBY THE TIME that they regained the mouth of the cavern, Blodsombre was at its height. In front of them the scenery sloped downward\u2014a long succession of mountain islands in a sea of clouds. Behind them the bright, stupendous crags of Disscourn loomed up for a thousand feet or more. Maskull\u2019s eyes were red, and his face looked stupid; he was still holding the woman by the arm. She made no attempt to speak, or to get away. She seemed perfectly gentle and composed.\r\n\r\nAfter gazing at the country for a long time in silence, he turned toward her. \u201cWhereabouts is the fiery lake you spoke of?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt lies on the other side of the mountain. But why do you ask?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is just as well if we have some way to walk. I shall grow calmer, and that\u2019s what I want. I wish you to understand that what is going to happen is not a murder, but an execution.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt will taste the same,\u201d said Tydomin.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen I have gone out of this country, I don\u2019t wish to feel that I have left a demon behind me, wandering at large. That would not be fair to others. So we will go to the lake, which promises an easy death for you.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe shrugged her shoulders. \u201cWe must wait till Blodsombre is over.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs this a time for luxurious feelings? However hot it is now, we will both be cool by evening. We must start at once.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWithout doubt, you are the master, Maskull.... May I not carry Crimtyphon?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull looked at her strangely.\r\n\r\n\u201cI grudge no man his funeral.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe painfully hoisted the body on her narrow shoulders, and they stepped out into the sunlight. The heat struck them like a blow on the head. Maskull moved aside, to allow her to precede him, but no compassion entered his heart. He brooded over the wrongs the woman had done him.\r\n\r\nThe way went along the south side of the great pyramid, near its base. It was a rough road, clogged with boulders and crossed by cracks and water gullies; they could see the water, but could not get at it. There was no shade. Blisters formed on their skin, while all the water in their blood seemed to dry up.\r\n\r\nMaskull forgot his own tortures in his devil\u2019s delight at Tydomin\u2019s. \u201cSing me a song!\u201d he called out presently. \u201cA characteristic one.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe turned her head and gave him a long, peculiar look; then, without any sort of expostulation, started singing. Her voice was low and weird. The song was so extraordinary that he had to rub his eyes to ascertain whether he was awake or dreaming. The slow surprises of the grotesque melody began to agitate him in a horrible fashion; the words were pure nonsense\u2014or else their significance was too deep for him.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere, in the name of all unholy things, did you acquire that stuff, woman?\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin shed a sickly smile, while the corpse swayed about with ghastly jerks over her left shoulder. She held it in position with her two left arms. \u201cIt\u2019s a pity we could not have met as friends, Maskull. I could have shown you a side of Tormance which now perhaps you will never see. The wild, mad side. But now it\u2019s too late, and it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey turned the angle of the mountain, and started to traverse the western base.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhich is the quickest way out of this miserable land?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is easiest to go to Sant.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWill we see it from anywhere?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, though it is a long way off.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHave you been there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am a woman, and interdicted.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTrue. I have heard something of the sort.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut don\u2019t ask me any more questions,\u201d said Tydomin, who was becoming faint.\r\n\r\nMaskull stopped at a little spring. He himself drank, and then made a cup of his hand for the woman, so that she might not have to lay down her burden. The gnawl water acted like magic\u2014it seemed to replenish all the cells of his body as though they had been thirsty sponge pores, sucking up liquid. Tydomin recovered her self-possession.\r\n\r\nAbout three-quarters of an hour later they worked around the second corner, and entered into full view of the north aspect of Disscourn.\r\n\r\nA hundred yards lower down the slope on which they were walking, the mountain ended abruptly in a chasm. The air above it was filled with a sort of green haze, which trembled violently like the atmosphere immediately over a furnace.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe lake is underneath,\u201d said Tydomin.\r\n\r\nMaskull looked curiously about him. Beyond the crater the country sloped away in a continuous descent to the skyline. Behind them, a narrow path channelled its way up through the rocks toward the towering summit of the pyramid. Miles away, in the north-east quarter, a long, flat-topped plateau raised its head far above all the surrounding country. It was Sant\u2014and there and then he made up his mind that that should be his destination that day.\r\n\r\nTydomin meanwhile had walked straight to the gulf, and set down Crimtyphon\u2019s body on the edge. In a minute or two, Maskull joined her; arrived at the brink, he immediately flung himself at full length on his chest, to see what could be seen of the lake of fire. A gust of hot, asphyxiating air smote his face and set him coughing, but he did not get up until he had stared his fill at the huge sea of green, molten lava, tossing and swirling at no great distance below, like a living will.\r\n\r\nA faint sound of drumming came up. He listened intently, and as he did so his heart quickened and the black cares rolled away from his soul. All the world and its accidents seemed at that moment false, and without meaning....\r\n\r\nHe climbed abstractedly to his feet. Tydomin was talking to her dead husband. She was peering into the hideous face of ivory, and fondling his violet hair. When she perceived Maskull, she hastily kissed the withered lips, and got up from her knees. Lifting the corpse with all three arms, she staggered with it to the extreme edge of the gulf and, after an instant\u2019s hesitation, allowed it to drop into the lava. It disappeared immediately without sound; a metallic splash came up. That was Crimtyphon\u2019s funeral.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow I am ready, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe did not answer, but stared past her. Another figure was standing, erect and mournful, not far behind her. It was Joiwind. Her face was wan, and there was an accusing look in her eyes. Maskull knew that it was a phantasm, and that the real Joiwind was miles away, at Poolingdred.\r\n\r\n\u201cTurn around, Tydomin,\u201d he said oddly, \u201cand tell me what you see behind you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t see anything,\u201d she answered, looking around.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut I see Joiwind.\u201d\r\n\r\nJust as he was speaking, the apparition vanished.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow I present you with your life, Tydomin. She<\/i> wishes it.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe woman fingered her chin thoughtfully.\r\n\r\n\u201cI little expected I should ever be beholden for my life to one of my own sex\u2014but so be it. What really happened to you in my cavern?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI really saw Krag.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, some miracle must have taken place.\u201d She suddenly shivered. \u201cCome, let us leave this horrible spot. I shall never come here again.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cit stinks of death and dying. But where are we to go\u2014what are we to do? Take me to Sant. I must get away from this hellish land.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin remained standing, dull and hollow-eyed. Then she gave an abrupt, bitter little laugh. \u201cWe make our journey together in singular stages. Rather than be alone, I\u2019ll come with you\u2014but you know that if I set foot in Sant they will kill me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAt least set me on the way. I wish to get there before night. Is it possible?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you are willing to take risks with nature. And why should you not take risks today? Your luck holds. But someday or other it won\u2019t hold\u2014your luck.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLet us start,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cThe luck I\u2019ve had so far is nothing to brag about.\u201d\r\n\r\nBlodsombre was over when they set off; it was early afternoon, but the heat seemed more stifling than ever. They made no more pretence at conversation; both were buried in their own painful thoughts. The land fell away from Disscourn in all other directions, but toward Sant there was a gentle, persistent rise. Its dark, distant plateau continued to dominate the landscape, and after walking for an hour they seemed none the nearer to it. The air was stale and stagnant.\r\n\r\nBy and by, an upright object, apparently the work of man, attracted Maskull\u2019s notice. It was a slender tree stem, with the bark still on, imbedded in the stony ground. From the upper end three branches sprang out, pointing aloft at a sharp angle. They were stripped to twigs and leaves and, getting closer, he saw that they had been artificially fastened on, at equal distances from each other.\r\n\r\nAs he stared at the object, a strange, sudden flush of confident vanity and self-sufficiency seemed to pass through him, but it was so momentary that he could be sure of nothing.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat may that be, Tydomin?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is Hator\u2019s Trifork.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what is its purpose?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a guide to Sant.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut who or what is Hator?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHator was the founder of Sant\u2014many thousands of years ago. He laid down the principles they all live by, and that trifork is his symbol. When I was a little child my father told me the legends, but I\u2019ve forgotten most of them.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull regarded it attentively.\r\n\r\n\u201cDoes it affect you in any way?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd why should it do that?\u201d she said, dropping her lip scornfully. \u201cI am only a woman, and these are masculine mysteries.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA sort of gladness came over me,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cbut perhaps I am mistaken.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey passed on. The scenery gradually changed in character. The solid parts of the land grew more continuous, the fissures became narrower and more infrequent. There were now no more subsidences or upheavals. The peculiar nature of the Ifdawn Marest appeared to be giving place to a different order of things.\r\n\r\nLater on, they encountered a flock of pale blue jellies floating in the air. They were miniature animals. Tydomin caught one in her hand and began to eat it, just as one eats a luscious pear plucked from a tree. Maskull, who had fasted since early morning, was not slow in following her example. A sort of electric vigour at once entered his limbs and body, his muscles regained their elasticity, his heart began to beat with hard, slow, strong throbs.\r\n\r\n\u201cFood and body seem to agree well in this world,\u201d he remarked smiling.\r\n\r\nShe glanced toward him. \u201cPerhaps the explanation is not in the food, but in your body.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI brought my body with me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou brought your soul with you, but that\u2019s altering fast, too.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn a copse they came across a short, wide tree, without leaves, but possessing a multitude of thin, flexible branches, like the tentacles of a cuttlefish. Some of these branches were moving rapidly. A furry animal, somewhat resembling a wildcat, leaped about among them in the most extraordinary way. But the next minute Maskull was shocked to realise that the beast was not leaping at all, but was being thrown from branch to branch by the volition of the tree, exactly as an imprisoned mouse is thrown by a cat from paw to paw.\r\n\r\nHe watched the spectacle a while with morbid interest.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s a gruesome reversal of r\u00c3\u00b4les, Tydomin.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOne can see you\u2019re disgusted,\u201d she replied, stifling a yawn. \u201cBut that is because you are a slave to words. If you called that plant an animal, you would find its occupation perfectly natural and pleasing. And why should you not call it an animal?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am quite aware that, as long as I remain in the Ifdawn Marest, I shall go on listening to this sort of language.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey trudged along for an hour or more without talking. The day became overcast. A thin mist began to shroud the landscape, and the sun changed into an immense ruddy disk which could be stared at without flinching. A chill, damp wind blew against them. Presently it grew still darker, the sun disappeared and, glancing first at his companion and then at himself, Maskull noticed that their skin and clothing were coated by a kind of green hoarfrost.\r\n\r\nThe land was now completely solid. About half a mile, in front of them, against a background of dark fog, a moving forest of tall waterspouts gyrated slowly and gracefully hither and thither. They were green and self-luminous, and looked terrifying. Tydomin explained that they were not waterspouts at all, but mobile columns of lightning.\r\n\r\n\u201cThen they are dangerous?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo we think,\u201d she answered, watching them closely.\r\n\r\n\u201cSomeone is wandering there who appears to have a different opinion.\u201d\r\n\r\nAmong the spouts, and entirely encompassed by them, a man was walking with a slow, calm, composed gait, his back turned toward Maskull and Tydomin. There was something unusual in his appearance\u2014his form looked extraordinarily distinct, solid, and real.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf there\u2019s danger, he ought to be warned,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe who is always anxious to teach will learn nothing,\u201d returned the woman coolly. She restrained Maskull by a pressure of the arm, and continued to watch.\r\n\r\nThe base of one of the columns touched the man. He remained unharmed, but turned sharply around, as if for the first time made aware of the proximity of these deadly waltzers. Then he raised himself to his full height, and stretched both arms aloft above his head, like a diver. He seemed to be addressing the columns.\r\n\r\nWhile they looked on, the electric spouts discharged themselves, with a series of loud explosions. The stranger stood alone, uninjured. He dropped his arms. The next moment he caught sight of the two, and stood still, waiting for them to come up. The pictorial clarity of his person grew more and more noticeable as they approached; his body seemed to be composed of some substance heavier and denser than solid matter.\r\n\r\nTydomin looked perplexed.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe must be a Sant man. I have seen no one quite like him before. This is a day of days for me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe must be an individual of great importance,\u201d murmured Maskull.\r\n\r\nThey now came up to him. He was tall, strong, and bearded, and was clothed in a shirt and breeches of skin. Since turning his back to the wind, the green deposit on his face and limbs had changed to streaming moisture, through which his natural colour was visible; it was that of pale iron. There was no third arm. His face was harsh and frowning, and a projecting chin pushed the beard forward. On his forehead there were two flat membranes, like rudimentary eyes, but no sorb. These membranes were expressionless, but in some strange way seemed to add vigour to the stern eyes underneath. When his glance rested on Maskull, the latter felt as though his brain were being thoroughly travelled through. The man was middle-aged.\r\n\r\nHis physical distinctness transcended nature. By contrast with him, every object in the neighbourhood looked vague and blurred. Tydomin\u2019s person suddenly appeared faint, sketch-like, without significance, and Maskull realised that it was no better with himself. A queer, quickening fire began running through his veins.\r\n\r\nHe turned to the woman. \u201cIf this man is going to Sant, I shall bear him company. We can now part. No doubt you will think it high time.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLet Tydomin come too.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe words were delivered in a rough, foreign tongue, but were as intelligible to Maskull as if spoken in English.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou who know my name, also know my sex,\u201d said Tydomin quietly. \u201cIt is death for me to enter Sant.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is the old law. I am the bearer of the new law.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs it so\u2014and will it be accepted?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe old skin is cracking, the new skin has been silently forming underneath, the moment of sloughing has arrived.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe storm gathered. The green snow drove against them, as they stood talking, and it grew intensely cold. None noticed it.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d asked Maskull, with a beating heart.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy name, Maskull, is Spadevil. You, a voyager across the dark ocean of space, shall be my first witness and follower. You, Tydomin, a daughter of the despised sex, shall be my second.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe new law? But what is it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cUntil eye sees, of what use it is for ear to hear?.... Come, both of you, to me!\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin went to him unhesitatingly. Spadevil pressed his hand on her sorb and kept it there for a few minutes, while he closed his own eyes. When he removed it, Maskull observed that the sorb was transformed into twin membranes like Spadevil\u2019s own.\r\n\r\nTydomin looked dazed. She glanced quietly about for a little while, apparently testing her new faculty. Then the tears started to her eyes and, snatching up Spadevil\u2019s hand, she bent over and kissed it hurriedly many times.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy past has been bad,\u201d she said. \u201cNumbers have received harm from me, and none good. I have killed\u2014and worse. But now I can throw all that away, and laugh. Nothing can now injure me. Oh, Maskull, you and I have been fools together!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t you repent your crimes?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cLeave the past alone,\u201d said Spadevil, \u201cit cannot be reshaped. The future alone is ours. It starts fresh and clean from this very minute. Why do you hesitate, Maskull? Are you afraid?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is the name of those organs, and what is their function?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThey are probes<\/i>, and they are the gates opening into a new world.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull lingered no longer, but permitted Spadevil to cover his sorb.\r\n\r\nWhile the iron hand was still pressing his forehead, the new law quietly flowed into his consciousness, like a smooth-running stream of clean water which had hitherto been dammed by his obstructive will. The law was duty<\/i>.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 12. SPADEVIL<\/h2>\r\nMaskull found that his new organs had no independent function of their own, but only intensified and altered his other senses. When he used his eyes, ears, or nostrils, the same objects presented themselves to him, but his judgment concerning them was different. Previously all external things had existed for him; now he existed for them. According to whether they served his purpose or were in harmony with his nature, or otherwise, they had been pleasant or painful. Now these words \u201cpleasure\u201d and \u201cpain\u201d simply had no meaning.\r\n\r\nThe other two watched him, while he was making himself acquainted with his new mental outlook. He smiled at them.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou were quite right, Tydomin,\u201d he said, in a bold, cheerful voice. \u201cWe have been fools. So near the light all the time, and we never guessed it. Always buried in the past or future\u2014systematically ignoring the present\u2014and now it turns out that apart from the present we have no life at all.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThank Spadevil for it,\u201d she answered, more loudly than usual.\r\n\r\nMaskull looked at the man\u2019s dark, concrete form. \u201cSpadevil, now I mean to follow you to the end. I can do nothing less.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe severe face showed no sign of gratification\u2014not a muscle relaxed.\r\n\r\n\u201cWatch that you don\u2019t lose your gift,\u201d he said gruffly.\r\n\r\nTydomin spoke. \u201cYou promised that I should enter Sant with you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAttach yourself to the truth, not to me. For I may die before you, but the truth will accompany you to your<\/i> death. However, now let us journey together, all three of us.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe words had not left his mouth before he put his face against the fine, driving snow, and pressed onward toward his destination. He walked with a long stride; Tydomin was obliged to half run in order to keep up with him. The three travelled abreast; Spadevil in the middle. The fog was so dense that it was impossible to see a hundred yards ahead. The ground was covered by the green snow. The wind blew in gusts from the Sant highlands and was piercingly cold.\r\n\r\n\u201cSpadevil, are you a man, or more than a man?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe that is not more than a man is nothing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere have you now come from?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFrom brooding, Maskull. Out of no other mother can truth be born. I have brooded, and rejected; and I have brooded again. Now, after many months\u2019 absence from Sant, the truth at last shines forth for me in its simple splendour, like an upturned diamond.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI see its shining,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cBut how much does it owe to ancient Hator?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKnowledge has its seasons. The blossom was to Hator, the fruit is to me. Hator also was a brooder\u2014but now his followers do not brood. In Sant all is icy selfishness, a living death. They hate pleasure, and this hatred is the greatest pleasure to them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut in what way have they fallen off from Hator\u2019s doctrines?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFor him, in his sullen purity of nature, all the world was a snare, a limed twig. Knowing that pleasure was everywhere, a fierce, mocking enemy, crouching and waiting at every corner of the road of life, in order to kill with its sweet sting the naked grandeur of the soul, he shielded himself behind pain<\/i>. This also his followers do, but they do not do it for the sake of the soul, but for the sake of vanity and pride.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is the Trifork?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe stem, Maskull, is hatred of pleasure. The first fork is disentanglement from the sweetness of the world. The second fork is power over those who still writhe in the nets of illusion. The third fork is the healthy glow of one who steps into ice-cold water.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFrom what land did Hator come?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is not said. He lived in Ifdawn for a while. There are many legends told of him while there.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe have a long way to go,\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cRelate some of these legends, Spadevil.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe snow had ceased, the day brightened, Branchspell reappeared like a phantom sun, but bitter blasts of wind still swept over the plain.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn those days,\u201d said Spadevil, \u201cthere existed in Ifdawn a mountain island separated by wide spaces from the land around it. A handsome girl, who knew sorcery, caused a bridge to be constructed across which men and women might pass to it. Having by a false tale drawn Hator on to this rock, she pushed at the bridge with her foot until it tumbled into the depths below. \u2018You and I, Hator, are now together, and there is no means of separating. I wish to see how long the famous frost man can withstand the breath, smiles and perfume of a girl.\u2019 Hator said no word, either then or all that day. He stood till sunset like a tree trunk, and thought of other things. Then the girl grew passionate, and shook her curls. She rose from where she was sitting she looked at him, and touched his arm; but he did not see her. She looked at him, so that all the soul was in her eyes; and then she fell down dead. Hator awoke from his thoughts, and saw her lying, still warm, at his feet, a corpse. He passed to the mainland; but how, it is not related.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin shuddered. \u201cYou too have met your wicked woman, Spadevil; but your method is a nobler one.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t pity other women,\u201d said Spadevil, \u201cbut love the right<\/i>. Hator also once conversed with Shaping.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWith the Maker of the World?\u201d said Maskull thoughtfully.\r\n\r\n\u201cWith the Maker of Pleasure. It is told how Shaping defended his world, and tried to force Hator to acknowledge loveliness and joy. But Hator, answering all his marvellous speeches in a few concise, iron words, showed how this joy and beauty was but another name for the bestiality of souls wallowing in luxury and sloth. Shaping smiled, and said, \u2018How comes it that your wisdom is greater than that of the Master of wisdom?\u2019 Hator said, \u2018My wisdom does not come from you, nor from your world, but from that other world, which you, Shaping, have vainly tried to imitate.\u2019 Shaping replied, \u2018What, then, do you do in my world?\u2019 Hator said, \u2018I am here falsely, and therefore I am subject to your false pleasures. But I wrap myself in pain<\/i>\u2014not because it is good, but because I wish to keep myself as far from you as possible. For pain is not yours, neither does it belong to the other world, but it is the shadow cast by your false pleasures.\u2019 Shaping then said, \u2018What is this faraway other world of which you say \u201cThis is so\u2014this is not so?\u201d How happens it that you alone of all my creatures have knowledge of it?\u2019 But Hator spat at his feet, and said, \u2018You lie, Shaping. All have knowledge of it. You, with your pretty toys, alone obscure it from our view.\u2019 Shaping asked, \u2018What, then, am I?\u2019 Hator answered, \u2018You are the dreamer of impossible dreams.\u2019 And then the story goes that Shaping departed, ill pleased with what had been said.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat other world did Hator refer to?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cOne where grandeur reigns, Maskull, just as pleasure reigns here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhether grandeur or pleasure, it makes no difference,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cThe individual spirit that lives and wishes to live is mean and corrupt-natured.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGuard you your pride!\u201d returned Spadevil. \u201cDo not make law for the universe and for all time, but for yourself and for this small, false life of yours.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn what shape did death come to that hard, unconquerable man?\u201d asked Tydomin.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe lived to be old, but went upright and free-limbed to his last hour. When he saw that death could not be staved off longer he determined to destroy himself. He gathered his friends around him; not from vanity, but that they might see to what lengths the human soul can go in its perpetual warfare with the voluptuous body. Standing erect, without support, he died by withholding his breath.\u201d\r\n\r\nA silence followed, which lasted for perhaps an hour. Their minds refused to acknowledge the icy winds, but the current of their thoughts became frozen.\r\n\r\nWhen Branchspell, however, shone out again, though with subdued power, Maskull\u2019s curiosity rose once more. \u201cYour fellow countrymen, then, Spadevil, are sick with self-love?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe men of other countries,\u201d said Spadevil, \u201care the slaves of pleasure and desire, knowing it. But the men of my country are the slaves of pleasure and desire, not knowing it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd yet that proud pleasure, which rejoices in self-torture, has something noble in it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe who studies himself at all is ignoble. Only by despising soul as well as body can a man enter into true life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOn what grounds do they reject women?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cInasmuch as a woman has ideal love, and cannot live for herself. Love for another is pleasure for the loved one, and therefore injurious to him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA forest of false ideas is waiting for your axe,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cBut will they allow it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSpadevil knows, Maskull,\u201d said Tydomin, \u201cthat be it today or be it tomorrow, love can\u2019t be kept out of a land, even by the disciples of Hator.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBeware of love\u2014beware of emotion!\u201d exclaimed Spadevil. \u201cLove is but pleasure once removed. Think not of pleasing others, but of serving them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cForgive me, Spadevil, if I am still feminine.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cRight<\/i> has no sex. So long, Tydomin, as you remember that you are a woman, so long you will not enter into divine apathy of soul.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut where there are no women, there are no children,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cHow came there to be all these generations of Hator men?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLife breeds passion, passion breeds suffering, suffering breeds the yearning for relief from suffering. Men throng to Sant from all parts, in order to have the scars of their souls healed.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn place of hatred of pleasure, which all can understand, what simple formula do you offer?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIron obedience to duty,\u201d answered Spadevil.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd if they ask \u2018How far is this consistent with hatred of pleasure?\u2019 what will your pronouncement be?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI do not answer them, but I answer you, Maskull, who ask the question. Hatred is passion, and all passion springs from the dark fires of self. Do not hate pleasure at all, but pass it by on one side, calm and undisturbed.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is the criterion of pleasure? How can we always recognise it, in order to avoid it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cRigidly follow duty, and such questions will not arise.\u201d\r\n\r\nLater in the afternoon, Tydomin timidly placed her fingers on Spadevil\u2019s arm.\r\n\r\n\u201cFearful doubts are in my mind,\u201d she said. \u201cThis expedition to Sant may turn out badly. I have seen a vision of you, Spadevil, and myself lying dead and covered in blood, but Maskull was not there.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe may drop the torch, but it will not be extinguished, and others will raise it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cShow me a sign that you are not as other men\u2014so that I may know that our blood will not be wasted.\u201d\r\n\r\nSpadevil regarded her sternly. \u201cI am not a magician. I don\u2019t persuade the senses, but the soul. Does your duty call you to Sant, Tydomin? Then go there. Does it not call you to Sant? Then go no farther. Is not this simple? What signs are necessary?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDid I not see you dispel those spouts of lightning? No common man could have done that.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWho knows what any man can do? This man can do one thing, that man can do another. But what all men can do is their duty; and to open their eyes to this, I must go to Sant, and if necessary lay down my life. Will you not still accompany me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Tydomin, \u201cI will follow you to the end. It is all the more essential, because I keep on displeasing you with my remarks, and that means I have not yet learned my lesson properly.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo not be humble, for humility is only self-judgment, and while we are thinking of self, we must be neglecting some action we could be planning or shaping in our mind.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin continued to be uneasy and preoccupied.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy was Maskull not in the picture?\u201d she asked.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou dwell on this foreboding because you imagine it is tragical. There is nothing tragical in death, Tydomin, nor in life. There is only right and wrong. What arises from right or wrong action does not matter. We are not gods, constructing a world, but simple men and women, doing our immediate duty. We may die in Sant\u2014so you have seen it; but the truth will go on living.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSpadevil, why do you choose Sant to start your work in?\u201d asked Maskull. \u201cThese men with fixed ideas seem to me the least likely of any to follow a new light.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere a bad tree thrives, a good tree will flourish. But where no tree at all can be found, nothing will grow.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI understand you,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cHere perhaps we are going to martyrdom, but elsewhere we should resemble men preaching to cattle.\u201d\r\n\r\nShortly before sunset they arrived at the extremity of the upland plain, above which towered the black cliffs of the Sant Levels. A dizzy, artificially constructed staircase, of more than a thousand steps of varying depth, twisting and forking in order to conform to the angles of the precipices, led to the world overhead. In the place where they stood they were sheltered from the cutting winds. Branchspell, radiantly shining at last, but on the point of sinking, filled the cloudy sky with violent, lurid colors, some of the combinations of which were new to Maskull. The circle of the horizon was so gigantic, that had he been suddenly carried back to Earth, he would by comparison have fancied himself to be moving beneath the dome of some little, closed-in cathedral. He realised that he was on a foreign planet. But he was not stirred or uplifted by the knowledge; he was conscious only of moral ideas. Looking backward, he saw the plain, which for several miles past had been without vegetation, stretching back away to Disscourn. So regular had been the ascent, and so great was the distance, that the huge pyramid looked nothing more than a slight swelling on the face of the earth.\r\n\r\nSpadevil stopped, and gazed over the landscape in silence. In the evening sunlight his form looked more dense, dark, and real than ever before. His features were set hard in grimness.\r\n\r\nHe turned around to his companions. \u201cWhat is the greatest wonder, in all this wonderful scene?\u201d he demanded.\r\n\r\n\u201cAcquaint us,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cAll that you see is born from pleasure, and moves on, from pleasure to pleasure. Nowhere is right<\/i> to be found. It is Shaping\u2019s world.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is another wonder,\u201d said Tydomin, and she pointed her finger toward the sky overhead.\r\n\r\nA small cloud, so low down that it was perhaps not more than five hundred feet above them, was sailing along in front of the dark wall of cliff. It was in the exact shape of an open human hand, with downward-pointing fingers. It was stained crimson by the sun; and one or two tiny cloudlets beneath the fingers looked like falling drops of blood.\r\n\r\n\u201cWho can doubt now that our death is close at hand?\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cI have been close to death twice today. The first time I was ready, but now I am more ready, for I shall die side by side with the man who has given me my first happiness.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo not think of death, but of right persistence,\u201d replied Spadevil. \u201cI am not here to tremble before Shaping\u2019s portents; but to snatch men from him.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe at once proceeded to lead the way up the staircase. Tydomin gazed upward after him for a moment, with an odd, worshiping light in her eyes. Then she followed him, the second of the party. Maskull climbed last. He was travel stained, unkempt, and very tired; but his soul was at peace. As they steadily ascended the almost perpendicular stairs, the sun got higher in the sky. Its light dyed their bodies a ruddy gold.\r\n\r\nThey gained the top. There they found rolling in front of them, as far as the eye could see, a barren desert of white sand, broken here and there by large, jagged masses of black rock. Tracts of the sand were reddened by the sinking sun. The vast expanse of sky was filled by evil-shaped clouds and wild colors. The freezing wind, flurrying across the desert, drove the fine particles of sand painfully against their faces.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere now do you take us?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe who guards the old wisdom of Sant must give up that wisdom to me, that I may change it. What he says, others will say. I go to find Maulger.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd where will you seek him, in this bare country?\u201d\r\n\r\nSpadevil struck off toward the north unhesitatingly.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is not so far,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is his custom to be in that part where Sant overhangs the Wombflash Forest. Perhaps he will be there, but I cannot say.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull glanced toward Tydomin. Her sunken cheeks, and the dark circles beneath her eyes told of her extreme weariness.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe woman is tired, Spadevil,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nShe smiled. \u201cIt\u2019s but another step into the land of death. I can manage it. Give me your arm, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe put his arm around her waist, and supported her along that way.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe sun is now sinking,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cWill we get there before dark?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFear nothing, Maskull and Tydomin; this pain is eating up the evil in your nature. The road you are walking cannot remain unwalked. We shall arrive before dark.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe sun then disappeared behind the far-distant ridges that formed the western boundary of the Ifdawn Marest. The sky blazed up into more vivid colors. The wind grew colder.\r\n\r\nThey passed some pools of colourless gnawl water, round the banks of which were planted fruit trees. Maskull ate some of the fruit. It was hard, bitter, and astringent; he could not get rid of the taste, but he felt braced and invigorated by the downward-flowing juices. No other trees or shrubs were to be seen anywhere. No animals appeared, no birds or insects. It was a desolate land.\r\n\r\nA mile or two passed, when they again approached the edge of the plateau. Far down, beneath their feet, the great Wombflash Forest began. But daylight had vanished there; Maskull\u2019s eyes rested only on a vague darkness. He faintly heard what sounded like the distant sighing of innumerable treetops.\r\n\r\nIn the rapidly darkening twilight, they came abruptly on a man. He was standing in a pool, on one leg. A pile of boulders had hidden him from their view. The water came as far up as his calf. A trifork, similar to the one Maskull had seen on Disscourn, but smaller, had been stuck in the mud close by his hand.\r\n\r\nThey stopped by the side of the pond, and waited. Immediately he became aware of their presence, the man set down his other leg, and waded out of the water toward them, picking up his trifork in doing so.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is not Maulger, but Catice,\u201d said Spadevil.\r\n\r\n\u201cMaulger is dead,\u201d said Catice, speaking the same tongue as Spadevil, but with an even harsher accent, so that the tympanum of Maskull\u2019s ear was affected painfully.\r\n\r\nThe latter saw before him a bowed, powerful individual, advanced in years. He wore nothing but a scanty loincloth. His trunk was long and heavy, but his legs were rather short. His face was beardless, lemon-coloured, and anxious-looking. It was disfigured by a number of longitudinal ruts, a quarter of an inch deep, the cavities of which seemed clogged with ancient dirt. The hair of his head was black and sparse. Instead of the twin membranous organs of Spadevil, he possessed but one; and this was in the centre of his brow.\r\n\r\nSpadevil\u2019s dark, solid person stood out from the rest like a reality among dreams.\r\n\r\n\u201cHas the trifork passed to you?\u201d he demanded.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes. Why have you brought this woman to Sant?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have brought another thing to Sant. I have brought the new faith.\u201d\r\n\r\nCatice stood motionless, and looked troubled. \u201cState it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cShall I speak with many words, or few words?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you wish to say what is not<\/i>, many words will not suffice. If you wish to say what is, a few words will be enough.\u201d\r\n\r\nSpadevil frowned.\r\n\r\n\u201cTo hate pleasure brings pride with it. Pride is a pleasure. To kill pleasure, we must attach ourselves to duty<\/i>. While the mind is planning right action, it has no time to think of pleasure.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs that the whole?\u201d asked Catice.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe truth is simple, even for the simplest man.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you destroy Hator, and all his generations, with a single word?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI destroy nature, and set up law.\u201d\r\n\r\nA long silence followed.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy probe is double,\u201d said Spadevil. \u201cSuffer me to double yours, and you will see as I see.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCome you here, you big man!\u201d said Catice to Maskull. Maskull advanced a step closer.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you follow Spadevil in his new faith?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAs far as death,\u201d exclaimed Maskull.\r\n\r\nCatice picked up a flint. \u201cWith this stone I strike out one of your two probes. When you have but one, you will see with me, and you will recollect with Spadevil. Choose you then the superior faith, and I shall obey your choice.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cEndure this little pain, Maskull, for the sake of future men,\u201d said Spadevil.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe pain is nothing,\u201d replied Maskull, \u201cbut I fear the result.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPermit me, although I am only a woman, to take his place, Catice,\u201d said Tydomin, stretching out her hand.\r\n\r\nHe struck at it violently with the flint, and gashed it from wrist to thumb; the pale carmine blood spouted up. \u201cWhat brings this kiss-lover to Sant?\u201d he said. \u201cHow does she presume to make the rules of life for the sons of Hator?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe bit her lip, and stepped back. \u201cWell then, Maskull, accept! I certainly should not have played false to Spadevil; but you hardly can.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf he bids me, I must do it,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cBut who knows what will come of it?\u201d\r\n\r\nSpadevil spoke. \u201cOf all the descendants of Hator, Catice is the most wholehearted and sincere. He will trample my truth underfoot, thinking me a demon sent by Shaping, to destroy the work of this land. But a seed will escape, and my blood and yours, Tydomin, will wash it. Then men will know that my destroying evil is their greatest good. But none here will live to see that.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull now went quite close to Catice, and offered his head. Catice raised his hand, and after holding the flint poised for a moment, brought it down with adroitness and force upon the left-hand probe. Maskull cried out with the pain. The blood streamed down, and the function of the organ was destroyed.\r\n\r\nThere was a pause, while he walked to and fro, trying to staunch the blood.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat now do you feel, Maskull? What do you see?\u201d inquired Tydomin anxiously.\r\n\r\nHe stopped, and stared hard at her. \u201cI now see straight,\u201d he said slowly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe continued to wipe the blood from his forehead. He looked troubled. \u201cHenceforward, as long as I live, I shall fight with my nature, and refuse to feel pleasure. And I advise you to do the same.\u201d\r\n\r\nSpadevil gazed at him sternly. \u201cDo you renounce my teaching?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull, however, returned the gaze without dismay. Spadevil\u2019s image-like clearness of form had departed for him; his frowning face he knew to be the deceptive portico of a weak and confused intellect.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is false.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs it false to sacrifice oneself for another?\u201d demanded Tydomin.\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t argue as yet,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cAt this moment the world with its sweetness seems to me a sort of charnel house. I feel a loathing for everything in it, including myself. I know no more.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs there no duty?\u201d asked Spadevil, in a harsh tone.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt appears to me but a cloak under which we share the pleasure of other people.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin pulled at Spadevil\u2019s arm. \u201cMaskull has betrayed you, as he has so many others. Let us go.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe stood fast. \u201cYou have changed quickly, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull, without answering him, turned to Catice. \u201cWhy do men go on living in this soft, shameful world, when they can kill themselves?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPain is the native air of Surtur\u2019s children. To what other air do you wish to escape?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSurtur\u2019s children? Is not Surtur Shaping?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is the greatest of lies. It is Shaping\u2019s masterpiece.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnswer, Maskull!\u201d said Spadevil. \u201cDo you repudiate right action?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLeave me alone. Go back! I am not thinking of you, and your ideas. I wish you no harm.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe darkness came on fast. There was another prolonged silence.\r\n\r\nCatice threw away the flint, and picked up his staff. \u201cThe woman must return home,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cShe was persuaded here, and did not come freely. You, Spadevil, must die\u2014backslider as you are!\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin said quietly, \u201cHe has no power to enforce this. Are you going to allow the truth to fall to the ground, Spadevil?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt will not perish by my death, but by my efforts to escape from death. Catice, I accept your judgment.\u201d\r\n\r\nTydomin smiled. \u201cFor my part, I am too tired to walk farther today, so I shall die with him.\u201d\r\n\r\nCatice said to Maskull, \u201cProve your sincerity. Kill this man and his mistress, according to the laws of Hator.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t do that. I have travelled in friendship with them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou denied duty; and now you must do your duty,\u201d said Spadevil, calmly stroking his beard. \u201cWhatever law you accept, you must obey, without turning to right or left. Your law commands that we must be stoned; and it will soon be dark.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHave you not even this amount of manhood?\u201d exclaimed Tydomin.\r\n\r\nMaskull moved heavily. \u201cBe my witness, Catice, that the thing was forced on me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHator is looking on, and approving,\u201d replied Catice.\r\n\r\nMaskull then went apart to the pile of boulders scattered by the side of the pool. He glanced about him, and selected two large fragments of rock, the heaviest that he thought he could carry. With these in his arms, he staggered back.\r\n\r\nHe dropped them on the ground, and stood, recovering his breath. When he could speak again, he said, \u201cI have a bad heart for the business. Is there no alternative? Sleep here tonight, Spadevil, and in the morning go back to where you have come from. No one shall harm you.\u201d\r\n\r\nSpadevil\u2019s ironic smile was lost in the gloom.\r\n\r\n\u201cShall I brood again, Maskull, for still another year, and after that come back to Sant with other truths? Come, waste no time, but choose the heavier stone for me, for I am stronger than Tydomin.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull lifted one of the rocks, and stepped out four full paces. Spadevil confronted him, erect, and waited tranquilly.\r\n\r\nThe huge stone hurtled through the air. Its flight looked like a dark shadow. It struck Spadevil full in the face, crushing his features, and breaking his neck. He died instantaneously.\r\n\r\nTydomin looked away from the fallen man.\r\n\r\n\u201cBe very quick, Maskull, and don\u2019t let me keep him waiting.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe panted, and raised the second stone. She placed herself in front of Spadevil\u2019s body, and stood there, unsmiling and cold.\r\n\r\nThe blow caught her between breast and chin, and she fell. Maskull went to her, and, kneeling on the ground, half-raised her in his arms. There she breathed out her last sighs.\r\n\r\nAfter that, he laid her down again, and rested heavily on his hands, while he peered into the dead face. The transition from its heroic, spiritual expression to the vulgar and grinning mask of Crystalman came like a flash; but he saw it.\r\n\r\nHe stood up in the darkness, and pulled Catice toward him.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs that the true likeness of Shaping?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is Shaping stripped of illusion.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow comes this horrible world to exist?\u201d\r\n\r\nCatice did not answer.\r\n\r\n\u201cWho is Surtur?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou will get nearer to him tomorrow; but not here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am wading through too much blood,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cNothing good can come of it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo not fear change and destruction; but laughter and joy.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull meditated.\r\n\r\n\u201cTell me, Catice. If I had elected to follow Spadevil, would you really have accepted his faith?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe was a great-souled man,\u201d replied Catice. \u201cI see that the pride of our men is only another sprouting-out of pleasure. Tomorrow I too shall leave Sant, to reflect on all this.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull shuddered. \u201cThen these two deaths were not a necessity, but a crime!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHis part was played and henceforward the woman would have dragged down his ideas, with her soft love and loyalty. Regret nothing, stranger, but go away at once out of the land.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTonight? Where shall I go?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo Wombflash, where you will meet the deepest minds. I will put you on the way.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe linked his arm in Maskull\u2019s, and they walked away into the night. For a mile or more they skirted the edge of the precipice. The wind was searching, and drove grit into their faces. Through the rifts of the clouds, stars, faint and brilliant, appeared. Maskull saw no familiar constellations. He wondered if the sun of earth was visible, and if so which one it was.\r\n\r\nThey came to the head of a rough staircase, leading down the cliffside. It resembled the one by which he had come up; but this descended to the Wombflash Forest.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is your path,\u201d said Catice, \u201cand I shall not come any farther.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull detained him. \u201cSay just this, before we part company\u2014why does pleasure appear so shameful to us?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause in feeling pleasure, we forget our home<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd that is\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMuspel,\u201d answered Catice.\r\n\r\nHaving made this reply, he disengaged himself, and, turning his back, disappeared into the darkness.\r\n\r\nMaskull stumbled down the staircase as best he could. He was tired, but contemptuous of his pains. His uninjured probe began to discharge matter. He lowered himself from step to step during what seemed an interminable time. The rustling and sighing of the trees grew louder as he approached the bottom; the air became still and warm. Inky blackness was all around him.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nHe at last reached level ground. Still attempting to proceed, he began to trip over roots, and to collide with tree trunks. After this had happened a few times, he determined to go no farther that night. He heaped together some dry leaves for a pillow, and immediately flung himself down to sleep. Deep and heavy unconsciousness seized him almost instantly.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 13. THE WOMBFLASH FOREST<\/h2>\r\nHe awoke to his third day on Tormance. His limbs ached. He lay on his side, looking stupidly at his surroundings. The forest was like night, but that period of the night when the grey dawn is about to break and objects begin to be guessed at, rather than seen. Two or three amazing shadowy shapes, as broad as houses, loomed up out of the twilight. He did not realise that they were trees, until he turned over on his back and followed their course upward. Far overhead, so high up that he dared not calculate the height, he saw their tops glittering in the sunlight, against a tiny patch of blue sky.\r\n\r\nClouds of mist, rolling over the floor of the forest, kept interrupting his view. In their silent passage they were like phantoms flitting among the trees. The leaves underneath him were sodden, and heavy drops of moisture splashed onto his head from time to time.\r\n\r\nHe continued lying there, trying to reconstruct the events of the preceding day. His brain was lethargic and confused. Something terrible had happened, but what it was he could not for a long time recollect. Then suddenly there came before his eyes that ghastly closing scene at dusk on the Sant plateau\u2014Spadevil\u2019s crushed and bloody features and Tydomin\u2019s dying sighs.... He shuddered convulsively, and felt sick.\r\n\r\nThe peculiar moral outlook that had dictated these brutal murders had departed from him during the night, and now he recognised what he had done! During the whole of the previous day he seemed to have been labouring under a series of heavy enchantments. First Oceaxe had enslaved him, then Tydomin, then Spadevil, and lastly Catice. They had forced him to murder and violate; he had guessed nothing, but had imagined that he was travelling as a free and enlightened stranger. What was this nightmare journey for\u2014and would it continue, in the same way?...\r\n\r\nThe silence of the forest was so intense that he heard no sound except the pumping of blood through his arteries.\r\n\r\nPutting his hand to his face, he found that his remaining probe had disappeared and that he was in possession of three eyes. The third eye was on his forehead, where the old sorb had been. He could not guess its use. He still had his third arm, but it was nerveless.\r\n\r\nNow he puzzled his head for a long time, trying unsuccessfully to recall that name which had been the last word spoken by Catice.\r\n\r\nHe got up, with the intention of resuming his journey. He had no toilet to make, and no meal to prepare. The forest was tremendous. The nearest tree appeared to him to have a circumference of at least a hundred feet. Other dim boles looked equally large. But what gave the scene its aspect of immensity was the vast spaces separating tree from tree. It was like some gigantic, supernatural hall in a life after death. The lowest branches were fifty yards or more from the ground. There was no underbrush; the soil was carpeted only by the dead, wet leaves. He looked all around him, to find his direction, but the cliffs of Sant, which he had descended, were invisible\u2014every way was like every other way, he had no idea which quarter to attack. He grew frightened, and muttered to himself. Craning his neck back, he stared upward and tried to discover the points of the compass from the direction of the sunlight, but it was impossible.\r\n\r\nWhile he was standing there, anxious and hesitating, he heard the drum taps. The rhythmical beats proceeded from some distance off. The unseen drummer seemed to be marching through the forest, away from him.\r\n\r\n\u201cSurtur!\u201d he said, under his breath. The next moment he marvelled at himself for uttering the name. That mysterious being had not been in his thoughts, nor was there any ostensible connection between him and the drumming.\r\n\r\nHe began to reflect\u2014but in the meantime the sounds were travelling away. Automatically he started walking in the same direction. The drum beats had this peculiarity\u2014though odd and mystical, there was nothing awe-inspiring in them, but on the contrary they reminded him of some place and some life with which he was perfectly familiar. Once again they caused all his other sense impressions to appear false.\r\n\r\nThe sounds were intermittent. They would go on for a minute, or for five minutes, and then cease for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Maskull followed them as well as he could. He walked hard among the huge, indistinct trees, in the attempt to come up with the origin of the noise, but the same distance always seemed to separate them. The forest from now onward descended. The gradient was mostly gentle\u2014about one foot in ten\u2014but in some places it was much steeper, and in other parts again it was practically level ground for quite long stretches. There were great swampy marshes, through which Maskull was obliged to splash. It was a matter of indifference to him how wet he became\u2014if only he could catch sight of that individual with the drum. Mile after mile was covered, and still he was no nearer to doing so.\r\n\r\nThe gloom of the forest settled down upon his spirits. He felt despondent, tired, and savage. He had not heard the drum beats for some while, and was half inclined to discontinue the pursuit.\r\n\r\nPassing around a great, columnar tree trunk, he almost stumbled against a man who was standing on the farther side. He was leaning against the trunk with one hand, in an attitude of repose. His other hand was resting on a staff. Maskull stopped short and stared at him.\r\n\r\nHe was nearly naked, and of gigantic build. He over-topped Maskull by a head. His face and body were faintly phosphorescent. His eyes\u2014three in number\u2014were pale green and luminous, shining like lamps. His skin was hairless, but the hair of his head was piled up in thick, black coils, and fastened like a woman\u2019s. His features were absolutely tranquil, but a terrible, quiet energy seemed to lie just underneath the surface.\r\n\r\nMaskull addressed him. \u201cDid the drumming come from you?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe man shook his head.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe replied in a strange, strained, twisted voice. Maskull gathered that the name he gave was \u201cDreamsinter.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is that drumming?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSurtur,\u201d said Dreamsinter.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs it advisable for me to follow it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps he intends me to. He brought me here from Earth.\u201d\r\n\r\nDreamsinter caught hold of him, bent down, and peered into his face. \u201cNot you, but Nightspore.\u201d\r\n\r\nThis was the first time that Maskull had heard Nightspore\u2019s name since his arrival on the planet. He was so astonished that he could frame no more questions.\r\n\r\n\u201cEat this,\u201d said Dreamsinter. \u201cThen we will chase the sound together.\u201d He picked something up from the ground and handed it to Maskull. He could not see distinctly, but it felt like a hard, round nut, of the size of a fist.\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t crack it.\u201d\r\n\r\nDreamsinter took it between his hands, and broke it into pieces. Maskull then ate some of the pulpy interior, which was intensely disagreeable.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat am I doing in Tormance, then?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou came to steal Muspel-fire, to give a deeper life to men\u2014never doubting if your soul could endure that burning.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull could hardly decipher the strangled words.\r\n\r\n\u201cMuspel.... That\u2019s the name I\u2019ve been trying to remember ever since I awoke.\u201d\r\n\r\nDreamsinter suddenly turned his head sideways, and appeared to listen for something. He motioned with his hand to Maskull to keep quiet.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs it the drumming?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHush! They come.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe was looking toward the upper forest. The now familiar drum rhythm was heard\u2014this time accompanied by the tramp of marching feet.\r\n\r\nMaskull saw, marching through the trees and heading toward them, three men in single file separated from one another by only a yard or so. They were travelling down hill at a swift pace, and looked neither to left nor right. They were naked. Their figures were shining against the black background of the forest with a pale, supernatural light\u2014green and ghostly. When they were abreast of him, about twenty feet off, he perceived who they were. The first man was himself\u2014Maskull. The second was Krag. The third man was Nightspore. Their faces were grim and set.\r\n\r\nThe source of the drumming was out of sight. The sound appeared to come from some point in front of them. Maskull and Dreamsinter put themselves in motion, to keep up with the swiftly moving marchers. At the same time a low, faint music began.\r\n\r\nIts rhythm stepped with the drum beats, but, unlike the latter, it did not seem to proceed from any particular quarter of the forest. It resembled the subjective music heard in dreams, which accompanies the dreamer everywhere, as a sort of natural atmosphere, rendering all his experiences emotional. It seemed to issue from an unearthly orchestra, and was strongly troubled, pathetic and tragic. Maskull marched, and listened; and as he listened, it grew louder and stormier. But the pulse of the drum interpenetrated all the other sounds, like the quiet beating of reality.\r\n\r\nHis emotion deepened. He could not have said if minutes or hours were passing. The spectral procession marched on, a little way ahead, on a path parallel with his own and Dreamsinter\u2019s. The music pulsated violently. Krag lifted his arm, and displayed a long, murderous-looking knife. He sprang forward and, raising it over the phantom Maskull\u2019s back, stabbed him twice, leaving the knife in the wound the second time. Maskull threw up his arms, and fell down dead. Krag leaped into the forest and vanished from sight. Nightspore marched on alone, stern and unmoved.\r\n\r\nThe music rose to crescendo. The whole dim, gigantic forest was roaring with sound. The tones came from all sides, from above, from the ground under their feet. It was so grandly passionate that Maskull felt his soul loosening from its bodily envelope.\r\n\r\nHe continued to follow Nightspore. A strange brightness began to glow in front of them. It was not daylight, but a radiance such as he had never seen before, and such as he could not have imagined to be possible. Nightspore moved straight toward it. Maskull felt his chest bursting. The light flashed higher. The awful harmonies of the music followed hard one upon another, like the waves of a wild, magic ocean.... His body was incapable of enduring such shocks, and all of a sudden he tumbled over in a faint that resembled death.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 14. POLECRAB<\/h2>\r\nThe morning slowly passed. Maskull made some convulsive movements, and opened his eyes. He sat up, blinking. All was night-like and silent in the forest. The strange light had gone, the music had ceased, Dreamsinter had vanished. He fingered his beard, clotted with Tydomin\u2019s blood, and fell into a deep muse.\r\n\r\n\u201cAccording to Panawe and Catice, this forest contains wise men. Perhaps Dreamsinter was one. Perhaps that vision I have just seen was a specimen of his wisdom. It looked almost like an answer to my question.... I ought not to have asked about myself, but about Surtur. Then I would have got a different answer. I might have learned something... I might have seen him<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe remained quiet and apathetic for a bit.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut I couldn\u2019t face that awful glare,\u201d he proceeded. \u201cIt was bursting my body. He warned me, too. And so Surtur does really exist, and my journey stands for something. But why am I here, and what can I do? Who is<\/i> Surtur? Where is he to be found?\u201d\r\n\r\nSomething wild came into his eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat did Dreamsinter mean by his \u2018Not you, but Nightspore\u2019? Am I a secondary character\u2014is he regarded as important; and I as unimportant? Where is Nightspore, and what is he doing? Am I to wait for his time and pleasure\u2014can I originate nothing?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe continued sitting up, with straight-extended legs.\r\n\r\n\u201cI must make up my mind that this is a strange journey, and that the strangest things will happen in it. It\u2019s no use making plans, for I can\u2019t see two steps ahead\u2014everything is unknown. But one thing\u2019s evident: nothing but the wildest audacity will carry me through, and I must sacrifice everything else to that. And therefore if Surtur shows himself again, I shall go forward to meet him, even if it means death.\u201d\r\n\r\nThrough the black, quiet aisles of the forest the drum beats came again. The sound was a long way off and very faint. It was like the last mutterings of thunder after a heavy storm. Maskull listened, without getting up. The drumming faded into silence, and did not return.\r\n\r\nHe smiled queerly, and said aloud, \u201cThanks, Surtur! I accept the omen.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen he was about to get up, he found that the shrivelled skin that had been his third arm was flapping disconcertingly with every movement of his body. He made perforations in it all around, as close to his chest as possible, with the fingernails of both hands; then he carefully twisted it off. In that world of rapid growth and ungrowth he judged that the stump would soon disappear. After that, he rose and peered into the darkness.\r\n\r\nThe forest at that point sloped rather steeply and, without thinking twice about it, he took the downhill direction, never doubting it would bring him somewhere. As soon as he started walking, his temper became gloomy and morose\u2014he was shaken, tired, dirty, and languid with hunger; moreover, he realised that the walk was not going to be a short one. Be that as it may, he determined to sit down no more until the whole dismal forest was at his back.\r\n\r\nOne after another the shadowy, houselike trees were observed, avoided, and passed. Far overhead the little patch of glowing sky was still always visible; otherwise he had no clue to the time of day. He continued tramping sullenly down the slope for many damp, slippery miles\u2014in some places through bogs. When, presently, the twilight seemed to thin, he guessed that the open world was not far away. The forest grew more palpable and grey, and now he saw its majesty better. The tree trunks were like round towers, and so wide were the intervals that they resembled natural amphitheatres. He could not make out the colour of the bark. Everything he saw amazed him, but his admiration was of the growling, grudging kind. The difference in light between the forest behind him and the forest ahead became so marked that he could no longer doubt that he was on the point of coming out.\r\n\r\nReal light was in front of him; looking back, he found he had a shadow. The trunks acquired a reddish tint. He quickened his pace. As the minutes went by, the bright patch ahead grew luminous and vivid; it had a tinge of blue. He also imagined that he heard the sound of surf.\r\n\r\nAll that part of the forest toward which he was moving became rich with colour. The boles of the trees were of a deep, dark red; their leaves, high above his head, were ulfire-hued; the dead leaves on the ground were of a colour he could not name. At the same time he discovered the use of his third eye. By adding a third angle to his sight, every object he looked at stood out in greater relief. The world looked less flat<\/i>\u2014more realistic and significant. He had a stronger attraction toward his surroundings; he seemed somehow to lose his egotism, and to become free and thoughtful.\r\n\r\nNow through the last trees he saw full daylight. Less than half a mile separated him from the border of the forest, and, eager to discover what lay beyond, he broke into a run. He heard the surf louder. It was a peculiar hissing sound that could proceed only from water, yet was unlike the sea. Almost immediately he came within sight of an enormous horizon of dancing waves, which he knew must be the Sinking Sea. He fell back into a quick walk, continuing to stare hard. The wind that met him was hot, fresh and sweet.\r\n\r\nWhen he arrived at the final fringe of forest, which joined the wide sands of the shore without any change of level, he leaned with his back to a great tree and gazed his fill, motionless, at what lay in front of him. The sands continued east and west in a straight line, broken only here and there by a few creeks. They were of a brilliant orange colour, but there were patches of violet. The forest appeared to stand sentinel over the shore for its entire length. Everything else was sea and sky\u2014he had never seen so much water. The semicircle of the skyline was so vast that he might have imagined himself on a flat world, with a range of vision determined only by the power of his eye. The sea was unlike any sea on Earth. It resembled an immense liquid opal. On a body colour of rich, magnificent emerald-green, flashes of red, yellow, and blue were everywhere shooting up and vanishing. The wave motion was extraordinary. Pinnacles of water were slowly formed until they attained a height of perhaps ten or twenty feet, when they would suddenly sink downward and outward, creating in their descent a series of concentric rings for long distances around them. Quickly moving currents, like rivers in the sea, could be seen, racing away from land; they were of a darker green and bore no pinnacles. Where the sea met the shore, the waves rushed over the sands far in, with almost sinister rapidity\u2014accompanied by a weird, hissing, spitting sound, which was what Maskull had heard. The green tongues rolled in without foam.\r\n\r\nAbout twenty miles distant, as he judged, directly opposite him, a long, low island stood up from the sea, black and not distinguished in outline. It was Swaylone\u2019s Island. Maskull was less interested in that than in the blue sunset that glowed behind its back. Alppain had set, but the whole northern sky was plunged into the minor key by its afterlight. Branchspell in the zenith was white and overpowering, the day was cloudless and terrifically hot; but where the blue sun had sunk, a sombre shadow seemed to overhang the world. Maskull had a feeling of disintegration\u2014just as if two chemically distinct forces were simultaneously acting upon the cells of his body. Since the afterglow of Alppain affected him like this, he thought it more than likely that he would never be able to face that sun itself, and go on living. Still, some modification might happen to him that would make it possible.\r\n\r\nThe sea tempted him. He made up his mind to bathe, and at once walked toward the shore. The instant he stepped outside the shadow line of the forest trees, the blinding rays of the sun beat down on him so savagely that for a few minutes he felt sick and his head swam. He trod quickly across the sands. The orange-coloured parts were nearly hot enough to roast food, he judged, but the violet parts were like fire itself. He stepped on a patch in ignorance, and immediately jumped high into the air with a startled yell.\r\n\r\nThe sea was voluptuously warm. It would not bear his weight, so he determined to try swimming. First of all he stripped off his skin garment, washed it thoroughly with sand and water, and laid it in the sun to dry. Then he scrubbed himself as well as he could and washed out his beard and hair. After that, he waded in a long way, until the water reached his breast, and took to swimming\u2014avoiding the spouts as far as possible He found it no pastime. The water was everywhere of unequal density. In some places he could swim, in others he could barely save himself from drowning, in others again he could not force himself beneath the surface at all. There were no outward signs to show what the water ahead held in store for him. The whole business was most dangerous.\r\n\r\nHe came out, feeling clean and invigorated. For a time he walked up and down the sands, drying himself in the hot sunshine and looking around him. He was a naked stranger in a huge, foreign, mystical world, and whichever way he turned, unknown and threatening forces were glaring at him. The gigantic, white, withering Branchspell, the awful, body-changing Alppain, the beautiful, deadly, treacherous sea, the dark and eerie Swaylone\u2019s Island, the spirit-crushing forest out of which he had just escaped\u2014to all these mighty powers, surrounding him on every side, what resources had he, a feeble, ignorant traveller from a tiny planet on the other side of space, to oppose, to avoid being utterly destroyed?... Then he smiled to himself. \u201cI\u2019ve already been here two days, and still I survive. I have luck\u2014and with that one can balance the universe. But what is luck\u2014a verbal expression, or a thing?\u201d\r\n\r\nAs he was putting on his skin, which was now dry, the answer came to him, and this time he was grave. \u201cSurtur brought me here, and Surtur is watching over me. That is my \u2018luck.\u2019... But what is Surtur in this world?... How is he able to protect me against the blind and ungovernable forces of nature? Is he stronger than Nature?...\u201d\r\n\r\nHungry as he was for food, he was hungrier still for human society, for he wished to inquire about all these things. He asked himself which way he should turn his steps. There were only two ways; along the shore, either east or west. The nearest creek lay to the east, cutting the sands about a mile away. He walked toward it.\r\n\r\nThe forest face was forbidding and enormously high. It was so squarely turned to the sea that it looked as though it had been planed by tools. Maskull strode along in the shade of the trees, but kept his head constantly turned away from them, toward the sea\u2014there it was more cheerful. The creek, when he reached it, proved to be broad and flat-banked. It was not a river, but an arm of the sea. Its still, dark green water curved around a bend out of sight, into the forest. The trees on both banks overhung the water, so that it was completely in shadow.\r\n\r\nHe went as far as the bend, beyond which another short reach appeared. A man was sitting on a narrow shelf of bank, with his feet in the water. He was clothed in a coarse, rough hide, which left his limbs bare. He was short, thick, and sturdy, with short legs and a long, powerful arms, terminating in hands of an extraordinary size. He was oldish. His face was plain, slablike, and expressionless; it was full of wrinkles, and walnut-coloured. Both face and head were bald, and his skin was tough and leathery. He seemed to be some sort of peasant, or fisherman; there was no trace in his face of thought for others, or delicacy of feeling. He possessed three eyes, of different colors\u2014jade-green, blue, and ulfire.\r\n\r\nIn front of him, riding on the water, moored to the bank, was an elementary raft, consisting of the branches of trees, clumsily corded together.\r\n\r\nMaskull addressed him. \u201cAre you another of the wise men of the Wombflash Forest?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe man answered him in a gruff, husky voice, looking up as he did so. \u201cI\u2019m a fisherman. I know nothing about wisdom.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat name do you go by?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPolecrab. What\u2019s yours?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull. If you\u2019re a fisherman, you ought to have fish. I\u2019m famishing.\u201d\r\n\r\nPolecrab grunted, and paused a minute before answering.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s fish enough. My dinner is cooking in the sands now. It\u2019s easy enough to get you some more.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull found this a pleasant speech.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut how long will it take?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\nThe man slid the palms of his hands together, producing a shrill, screeching noise. He lifted his feet from the water, and clambered onto the bank. In a minute or two a curious little beast came crawling up to his feet, turning its face and eyes up affectionately, like a dog. It was about two feet long, and somewhat resembled a small seal, but had six legs, ending in strong claws.\r\n\r\n\u201cArg, go fish!\u201d said Polecrab hoarsely.\r\n\r\nThe animal immediately tumbled off the bank into the water. It swam gracefully to the middle of the creek and made a pivotal dive beneath the surface, where it remained a great while.\r\n\r\n\u201cSimple fishing,\u201d remarked Maskull. \u201cBut what\u2019s the raft for?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo go to sea with. The best fish are out at sea. These are eatable.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat arg seems a highly intelligent creature.\u201d\r\n\r\nPolecrab grunted again. \u201cI\u2019ve trained close on a hundred of them. The bigheads learn best, but they\u2019re slow swimmers. The narrowheads swim like eels, but can\u2019t be taught. Now I\u2019ve started interbreeding them\u2014he\u2019s<\/i> one of them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you live here alone?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, I\u2019ve got a wife and three boys. My wife\u2019s sleeping somewhere, but where the lads are, Shaping knows.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull began to feel very much at home with this unsophisticated being.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe raft\u2019s all crazy,\u201d he remarked, staring at it. \u201cIf you go far out in that, you\u2019ve got more pluck than I have.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve been to Matterplay on it,\u201d said Polecrab.\r\n\r\nThe arg reappeared and started swimming to shore, but this time clumsily, as if it were bearing a heavy weight under the surface. When it landed at its master\u2019s feet, they saw that each set of claws was clutching a fish\u2014six in all. Polecrab took them from it. He proceeded to cut off the heads and tails with a sharp-edged stone which he picked up; these he threw to the arg, which devoured them without any fuss.\r\n\r\nPolecrab beckoned to Maskull to follow him and, carrying the fish, walked toward the open shore, by the same way that he had come. When they reached the sands, he sliced the fish, removed the entrails, and digging a shallow hole in a patch of violet sand, placed the remainder of the carcasses in it, and covered them over again. Then he dug up his own dinner. Maskull\u2019s nostrils quivered at the savoury smell, but he was not yet to dine.\r\n\r\nPolecrab, turning to go with the cooked fish in his hands, said, \u201cThese are mine, not yours. When yours are done, you can come back and join me, supposing you want company.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow soon will that be?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAbout twenty minutes,\u201d replied the fisherman, over his shoulder.\r\n\r\nMaskull sheltered himself in the shadows of the forest, and waited. When the time had approximately elapsed, he disinterred his meal, scorching his fingers in the operation, although it was only the surface of the sand which was so intensely hot. Then he returned to Polecrab.\r\n\r\nIn the warm, still air and cheerful shade of the inlet, they munched in silence, looking from their food to the sluggish water, and back again. With every mouthful Maskull felt his strength returning. He finished before Polecrab, who ate like a man for whom time has no value. When he had done, he stood up.\r\n\r\n\u201cCome and drink,\u201d he said, in his husky voice.\r\n\r\nMaskull looked at him inquiringly.\r\n\r\nThe man led him a little way into the forest, and walked straight up to a certain tree. At a convenient height in its trunk a hole had been tapped and plugged. Polecrab removed the plug and put his mouth to the aperture, sucking for quite a long time, like a child at its mother\u2019s breast. Maskull, watching him, imagined that he saw his eyes growing brighter.\r\n\r\nWhen his own turn came to drink, he found the juice of the tree somewhat like coconut milk in flavour, but intoxicating. It was a new sort of intoxication, however, for neither his will not his emotions were excited, but only his intellect\u2014and that only in a certain way. His thoughts and images were not freed and loosened, but on the contrary kept labouring and swelling painfully, until they reached the full beauty of an aper\u00c3\u00a7u<\/i>, which would then flame up in his consciousness, burst, and vanish. After that, the whole process started over again. But there was never a moment when he was not perfectly cool, and master of his senses. When each had drunk twice, Polecrab replugged the hole, and they returned to their bank.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs it Blodsombre yet?\u201d asked Maskull, sprawling on the ground, well content.\r\n\r\nPolecrab resumed his old upright sitting posture, with his feet in the water. \u201cJust beginning,\u201d was his hoarse response.\r\n\r\n\u201cThen I must stay here till it\u2019s over.... Shall we talk?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe can,\u201d said the other, without enthusiasm.\r\n\r\nMaskull glanced at him through half-closed lids, wondering if he were exactly what he seemed to be. In his eyes he thought he detected a wise light.\r\n\r\n\u201cHave you travelled much, Polecrab?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNot what you<\/i> would call travelling.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou tell me you\u2019ve been to Matterplay\u2014what kind of country is that?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know. I went there to pick up flints.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat countries lie beyond it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThreal comes next, as you go north. They say it\u2019s a land of mystics... I don\u2019t know.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMystics?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo I\u2019m told.... Still farther north there\u2019s Lichstorm.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNow we\u2019re going far afield.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are mountains there\u2014and altogether it must be a very dangerous place, especially for a full-blooded man like you. Take care of yourself.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is rather premature, Polecrab. How do you know I\u2019m going there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAs you\u2019ve come from the south, I suppose you\u2019ll go north.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, that\u2019s right enough,\u201d said Maskull, staring hard at him. \u201cBut how do you know I\u2019ve come from the south?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, then, perhaps you haven\u2019t\u2014but there\u2019s a look of Ifdawn about you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat kind of look?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA tragical look,\u201d said Polecrab. He never even glanced at Maskull, but was gazing at a fixed spot on the water with unblinking eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat lies beyond Lichstorm?\u201d asked Maskull, after a minute or two.\r\n\r\n\u201cBarey, where you have two suns instead of one\u2014but beyond that fact I know nothing about it.... Then comes the ocean.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what\u2019s on the other side of the ocean?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat you must find out for yourself, for I doubt if anybody has ever crossed it and come back.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull was silent for a little while.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow is it that your people are so unadventurous? I seem to be the only one travelling from curiosity.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you mean by \u2018your people\u2019?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTrue\u2014you don\u2019t know that I don\u2019t belong to your planet at all. I\u2019ve come from another world, Polecrab.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat to find?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI came here with Krag and Nightspore\u2014to follow Surtur. I must have fainted the moment I arrived. When I sat up, it was night and the others had vanished. Since then I\u2019ve been travelling at random.\u201d\r\n\r\nPolecrab scratched his nose. \u201cYou haven\u2019t found Surtur yet?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve heard his drum taps frequently. In the forest this morning I came quite close to him. Then two days ago, in the Lusion Plain, I saw a vision\u2014a being in man\u2019s shape, who called himself Surtur.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, maybe it was Surtur.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, that\u2019s impossible,\u201d replied Maskull reflectively. \u201cIt was Crystalman. And it isn\u2019t a question of my suspecting it\u2014I know<\/i> it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause this is Crystalman\u2019s world, and Surtur\u2019s world is something quite different.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s queer, then,\u201d said Polecrab.\r\n\r\n\u201cSince I\u2019ve come out of that forest,\u201d proceeded Maskull, talking half to himself, \u201ca change has come over me, and I see things differently. Everything here looks much more solid and real in my eyes than in other places so much so that I can\u2019t entertain the least doubt of its existence. It not only looks<\/i> real, it is<\/i> real\u2014and on that I would stake my life.... But at the same time that it\u2019s real, it is false<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLike a dream?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo\u2014not at all like a dream, and that\u2019s just what I want to explain. This world of yours\u2014and perhaps of mine too, for that matter\u2014doesn\u2019t give me the slightest impression of a dream, or an illusion, or anything of that sort. I know it\u2019s really here at this moment, and it\u2019s exactly as we\u2019re seeing it, you and I. Yet it\u2019s false. It\u2019s false in this sense, Polecrab. Side by side with it another world exists, and that other world is the true one, and this one is all false and deceitful, to the very core. And so it occurs to me that reality and falseness are two words for the same thing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps there is such another world,\u201d said Polecrab huskily. \u201cBut did that vision also seem real and false to you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cVery real, but not false then, for then I didn\u2019t understand all this. But just because it was real, it couldn\u2019t have been Surtur, who has no connection with reality.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDidn\u2019t those drum taps sound real to you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI had to hear them with my ears, and so they sounded real to me. Still, they were somehow different, and they certainly came from Surtur. If I didn\u2019t hear them correctly, that was my fault and not his.\u201d\r\n\r\nPolecrab growled a little. \u201cIf Surtur chooses to speak to you in that fashion, it appears he\u2019s trying to say something.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat else can I think? But, Polecrab, what\u2019s your opinion\u2014is he calling me to the life after death?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe old man stirred uneasily. \u201cI\u2019m a fisherman,\u201d he said, after a minute or two. \u201cI live by killing, and so does everybody. This life seems to me all wrong. So maybe life of any kind is wrong, and Surtur\u2019s world is not life at all, but something else.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, but will death lead me to it, whatever it is?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAsk the dead,\u201d said Polecrab, \u201cand not a living man.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull continued. \u201cIn the forest I heard music and saw a light, which could not have belonged to this world. They were too strong for my senses, and I must have fainted for a long time. There was a vision as well, in which I saw myself killed, while Nightspore walked on toward the light, alone.\u201d\r\n\r\nPolecrab uttered his grunt. \u201cYou have enough to think over.\u201d\r\n\r\nA short silence ensued, which was broken by Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cSo strong is my sense of the untruth of this present life, that it may come to my putting an end to myself.\u201d The fisherman remained quiet and immobile.\r\n\r\nMaskull lay on his stomach, propped his face on his hands, and stared at him. \u201cWhat do you think, Polecrab? Is it possible for any man, while in the body, to gain a closer view of that other world than I have done?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am an ignorant man, stranger, so I can\u2019t say. Perhaps there are many others like you who would gladly know.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere? I should like to meet them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you think you were made of one stuff, and the rest of mankind of another stuff?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t be so presumptuous. Possibly all men are reaching out toward Muspel, in most cases without being aware of it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn the wrong direction,\u201d said Polecrab.\r\n\r\nMaskull gave him a strange look. \u201cHow so?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t speak from my own wisdom,\u201d said Polecrab, \u201cfor I have none; but I have just now recalled what Broodviol once told me, when I was a young man, and he was an old one. He said that Crystalman tries to turn all things into one, and that whichever way his shapes march, in order to escape from him, they find themselves again face to face with Crystalman, and are changed into new crystals. But that this marching of shapes (which we call \u2018forking\u2019) springs from the unconscious desire to find Surtur, but is in the opposite direction to the right one. For Surtur\u2019s world does not lie on this side of the one<\/i>, which was the beginning of life, but on the other side; and to get to it we must repass through the one. But this can only be by renouncing our self-life, and reuniting ourselves to the whole of Crystalman\u2019s world. And when this has been done, it is only the first stage of the journey; though many good men imagine it to be the whole journey.... As far as I can remember, that is what Broodviol said, but perhaps, as I was then a young and ignorant man, I may have left out words which would explain his meaning better.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull, who had listened attentively to all this, remained thoughtful at the end.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s plain enough,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what did he mean by our reuniting ourselves to Crystalman\u2019s world? If it is false, are we to make ourselves false as well?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI didn\u2019t ask him that question, and you are as well qualified to answer it as I am.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe must have meant that, as it is, we are each of us living in a false, private world of our own, a world of dreams and appetites and distorted perceptions. By embracing the great world we certainly lose nothing in truth and reality.\u201d\r\n\r\nPolecrab withdrew his feet from the water, stood up, yawned, and stretched his limbs.\r\n\r\n\u201cI have told you all I know,\u201d he said in a surly voice. \u201cNow let me go to sleep.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull kept his eyes fixed on him, but made no reply. The old man let himself down stiffly on to the ground, and prepared to rest.\r\n\r\nWhile he was still arranging his position to his liking, a footfall sounded behind the two men, coming from the direction of the forest. Maskull twisted his neck, and saw a woman approaching them. He at once guessed that it was Polecrab\u2019s wife. He sat up, but the fisherman did not stir. The woman came and stood in front of them, looking down from what appeared a great height.\r\n\r\nHer dress was similar to her husband\u2019s, but covered her limbs more. She was young, tall, slender, and strikingly erect. Her skin was lightly tanned, and she looked strong, but not at all peasantlike. Refinement was stamped all over her. Her face had too much energy of expression for a woman, and she was not beautiful. Her three great eyes kept flashing and glowing. She had great masses of fine, yellow hair, coiled up and fastened, but so carelessly that some of the strands were flowing down her back.\r\n\r\nWhen she spoke, it was in a rather weak voice, but full of lights and shades, and somehow intense passionateness never seemed to be far away from it.\r\n\r\n\u201cForgiveness is asked for listening to your conversation,\u201d she said, addressing Maskull. \u201cI was resting behind the tree, and heard it all.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe got up slowly. \u201cAre you Polecrab\u2019s wife?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cShe is my wife,\u201d said Polecrab, \u201cand her name is Gleameil. Sit down again, stranger\u2014and you too, wife, since you are here.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey both obeyed. \u201cI heard everything,\u201d repeated Gleameil. \u201cBut what I did not hear was where you are going to, Maskull, after you have left us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI know no more than you do.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cListen, then. There\u2019s only one place for you to go to, and that is Swaylone\u2019s Island. I will ferry you across myself before sunset.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat shall I find there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe may go, wife,\u201d put in the old man hoarsely, \u201cbut I won\u2019t allow you to go. I will take him over myself.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, you have always put me off,\u201d said Gleameil, with some emotion. \u201cThis time I mean to go. When Teargeld shines at night, and I sit on the shore here, listening to Earthrid\u2019s music travelling faintly across the sea, I am tortured\u2014I can\u2019t endure it.... I have long since made up my mind to go to the island, and see what this music is. If it\u2019s bad, if it kills me\u2014well.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat have I to do with the man and his music, Gleameil?\u201d demanded Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cI think the music will answer all your questions better than Polecrab has done\u2014and possibly in a way that will surprise you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat kind of music can it be to travel all those miles across the sea?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA peculiar kind, so we are told. Not pleasant, but painful. And the man that can play the instrument of Earthrid would be able to conjure up the most astonishing forms, which are not phantasms, but realities.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat may be so,\u201d growled Polecrab. \u201cBut I have been to the island by daylight, and what did I find there? Human bones, new and ancient. Those are Earthrid\u2019s victims. And you, wife, shall not go.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut will that music play tonight?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d replied Gleameil, gazing at him intently. \u201cWhen Teargeld rises, which is our moon.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf Earthrid plays men to death, it appears to me that his own death is due. In any case I should like to hear those sounds for myself. But as for taking you with me, Gleameil\u2014women die too easily in Tormance. I have only just now washed myself clean of the death blood of another woman.\u201d\r\n\r\nGleameil laughed, but said nothing.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow go to sleep,\u201d said Polecrab. \u201cWhen the time comes, I will take you across myself.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe lay down again, and closed his eyes. Maskull followed his example; but Gleameil remained sitting erect, with her legs under her.\r\n\r\n\u201cWho was that other woman, Maskull?\u201d she asked presently.\r\n\r\nHe did not answer, but pretended to sleep.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 15. SWAYLONE\u2019S ISLAND<\/h2>\r\nWhen he awoke, the day was not so bright, and he guessed it was late afternoon. Polecrab and his wife were both on their feet, and another meal of fish had been cooked and was waiting for him.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs it decided who is to go with me?\u201d he asked, before sitting down.\r\n\r\n\u201cI go,\u201d said Gleameil.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you agree, Polecrab?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe fisherman growled a little in his throat and motioned to the others to take their seats. He took a mouthful before answering.\r\n\r\n\u201cSomething strong is attracting her, and I can\u2019t hold her back. I don\u2019t think I shall see you again, wife, but the lads are now nearly old enough to fend for themselves.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t take dejected views,\u201d replied Gleameil sternly. She was not eating. \u201cI shall come back, and make amends to you. It\u2019s only for a night.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull gazed from one to the other in perplexity. \u201cLet me go alone. I would be sorry if anything happened.\u201d\r\n\r\nGleameil shook her head.\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t regard this as a woman\u2019s caprice,\u201d she said. \u201cEven if you hadn\u2019t passed this way, I would have heard that music soon. I have a hunger for it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHaven\u2019t you any such feeling, Polecrab?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo. A woman is a noble and sensitive creature, and there are attractions in nature too subtle for males. Take her with you, since she is set on it. Maybe she\u2019s right. Perhaps Earthrid\u2019s music will answer your questions, and hers too.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat are your questions, Gleameil?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe woman shed a strange smile. \u201cYou may be sure that a question which requires music for an answer can\u2019t be put into words.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you are not back by the morning,\u201d remarked her husband, \u201cI will know you are dead.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe meal was finished in a constrained silence. Polecrab wiped his mouth, and produced a seashell from a kind of pocket.\r\n\r\n\u201cWill you say goodbye to the boys? Shall I call them?\u201d She considered a moment.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes\u2014yes, I must see them.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe put the shell to his mouth, and blew; a loud, mournful noise passed through the air.\r\n\r\nA few minutes later there was a sound of scurrying footsteps, and the boys were seen emerging from the forest. Maskull looked with curiosity at the first children he had seen on Tormance. The oldest boy was carrying the youngest on his back, while the third trotted some distance behind. The child was let down, and all the three formed a semicircle in front of Maskull, standing staring up at him with wide-open eyes. Polecrab looked on stolidly, but Gleameil glanced away from them, with proudly raised head and a baffling expression.\r\n\r\nMaskull put the ages of the boys at about nine, seven, and five years, respectively; but he was calculating according to Earth time. The eldest was tall, slim, but strongly built. He, like his brothers, was naked, and his skin from top to toe was ulfire-colored. His facial muscles indicated a wild and daring nature, and his eyes were like green fires. The second showed promise of being a broad, powerful man. His head was large and heavy, and drooped. His face and skin were reddish. His eyes were almost too sombre and penetrating for a child\u2019s.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat one,\u201d said Polecrab, pinching the boy\u2019s ear, \u201cmay perhaps grow up to be a second Broodviol.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWho was that?\u201d demanded the boy, bending his head forward to hear the answer.\r\n\r\n\u201cA big, old man, of marvellous wisdom. He became wise by making up his mind never to ask questions, but to find things out for himself.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf I had not asked this question, I should not have known about him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat would not have mattered,\u201d replied the father.\r\n\r\nThe youngest child was paler and slighter than his brothers. His face was mostly tranquil and expressionless, but it had this peculiarity about it, that every few minutes, without any apparent cause, it would wrinkle up and look perplexed. At these times his eyes, which were of a tawny gold, seemed to contain secrets difficult to associate with one of his age.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe puzzles me,\u201d said Polecrab. \u201cHe has a soul like sap, and he\u2019s interested in nothing. He may turn out to be the most remarkable of the bunch.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull took the child in one hand, and lifted him as high as his head. He took a good look at him, and set him down again. The boy never changed countenance.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you make of him?\u201d asked the fisherman.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s on the tip of my tongue to say, but it just escapes me. Let me drink again, and then I shall have it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGo and drink, then.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull strode over to the tree, drank, and returned. \u201cIn ages to come,\u201d he said, speaking deliberately, \u201che will be a grand and awful tradition. A seer possibly, or even a divinity. Watch over him well.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe eldest boy looked scornful. \u201cI want to be none of those things. I would like to be like that big fellow.\u201d And he pointed his finger at Maskull.\r\n\r\nHe laughed, and showed his white teeth through his beard. \u201cThanks for the compliments old warrior!\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe\u2019s great and brawny,\u201d continued the boy, \u201cand can hold his own with other men. Can you hold me up with one arm, as you did that child?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull complied.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is being a man!\u201d exclaimed the boy. \u201cEnough!\u201d said Polecrab impatiently. \u201cI called you lads here to say goodbye to your mother. She is going away with this man. I think she may not return, but we don\u2019t know.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe second boy\u2019s face became suddenly inflamed. \u201cIs she going of her own choice?\u201d he inquired.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d replied the father.\r\n\r\n\u201cThen she is bad.\u201d He brought the words out with such force and emphasis that they sounded like the crack of a whip.\r\n\r\nThe old man cuffed him twice. \u201cIs it your mother you are speaking of?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe boy stood his ground, without change of expression, but said nothing.\r\n\r\nThe youngest child spoke, for the first time. \u201cMy mother will not come back, but she will die dancing.\u201d\r\n\r\nPolecrab and his wife looked at one another.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere are you going to, Mother?\u201d asked the eldest lad.\r\n\r\nGleameil bent down, and kissed him. \u201cTo the Island.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell then, if you don\u2019t come back by tomorrow morning, I will go and look for you.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull grew more and more uneasy in his mind. \u201cThis seems to me to be a man\u2019s journey,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it would be better for you not to come, Gleameil.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am not to be dissuaded,\u201d she replied.\r\n\r\nHe stroked his beard in perplexity. \u201cIs it time to start?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt wants four hours to sunset, and we shall need all that.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull sighed. \u201cI\u2019ll go to the mouth of the creek, and wait there for you and the raft. You will wish to make your farewells, Gleameil.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe then clasped Polecrab by the hand. \u201cAdieu, fisherman!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have repaid me well for my answers,\u201d said the old man gruffly. \u201cBut it\u2019s not your fault, and in Shaping\u2019s world the worst things happen.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe eldest boy came close to Maskull, and frowned at him. \u201cFarewell, big man!\u201d he said. \u201cBut guard my mother well, as well as you are well able to, or I shall follow you, and kill you.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull walked slowly along the creek bank till he came to the bend. The glorious sunshine, and the sparkling, brilliant sea then met his eyes again; and all melancholy was swept out of his mind. He continued as far as the seashore, and issuing out of the shadows of the forest, strolled on to the sands, and sat down in the full sunlight. The radiance of Alppain had long since disappeared. He drank in the hot, invigorating wind, listened to the hissing waves, and stared over the coloured sea with its pinnacles and currents, at Swaylone\u2019s Island.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat music can that be, which tears a wife and mother away from all she loves the most?\u201d he meditated. \u201cIt sounds unholy. Will it tell me what I want to know? Can it?\u201d\r\n\r\nIn a little while he became aware of a movement behind him, and, turning his head, he saw the raft floating along the creek, toward the open sea. Polecrab was standing upright, propelling it with a rude pole. He passed by Maskull, without looking at him, or making any salutation, and proceeded out to sea.\r\n\r\nWhile he was wondering at this strange behaviour, Gleameil and the boys came in sight, walking along the bank of the inlet. The eldest-born was holding her hand, and talking; and the other two were behind. She was calm and smiling, but seemed abstracted.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is your husband doing with the raft?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe\u2019s putting it in position and we shall wade out and join it,\u201d she answered, in her low-toned voice.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut how shall we make the island, without oars or sails?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t you see that current running away from land? See, he is approaching it. That will take us straight there.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut how can you get back?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is a way; but we need not think of that today.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t I come too?\u201d demanded the eldest boy.\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause the raft won\u2019t carry three. Maskull is a heavy man.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d said the boy. \u201cI know where there is wood for another raft. As soon as you have gone, I shall set to work.\u201d\r\n\r\nPolecrab had by this time manoeuvred his flimsy craft to the position he desired, within a few yards of the current, which at that point made a sharp bend from the east. He shouted out some words to his wife and Maskull. Gleameil kissed her children convulsively, and broke down a little. The eldest boy bit his lip till it bled, and tears glistened in his eyes; but the younger children stared wide-eyed, and displayed no emotion.\r\n\r\nGleameil now walked into the sea, followed by Maskull. The water covered first their ankles, then their knees, but when it came as high as their waists, they were close on the raft. Polecrab let himself down into the water, and assisted his wife to climb over the side. When she was up, she bent down and kissed him. No words were exchanged. Maskull scrambled up on to the front part of the raft. The woman sat cross-legged in the stern, and seized the pole.\r\n\r\nPolecrab shoved them off toward the current, while she worked her pole until they had got within its power. The raft immediately began to travel swiftly away from land, with a smooth, swaying motion.\r\n\r\nThe boys waved from the shore. Gleameil responded; but Maskull turned his back squarely to land, and gazed ahead. Polecrab was wading back to the shore.\r\n\r\nFor upward of an hour Maskull did not change his position by an inch. No sound was heard but the splashing of the strange waves all around them, and the streamlike gurgle of the current, which threaded its way smoothly through the tossing, tumultuous sea. From their pathway of safety, the beautiful dangers surrounding them were an exhilarating experience. The air was fresh and clean, and the heat from Branchspell, now low in the west, was at last endurable. The riot of sea colors had long since banished all sadness and anxiety from his heart. Yet he felt such a grudge against the woman for selfishly forsaking those who should have been dear to her that he could not bring himself to begin a conversation.\r\n\r\nBut when, over the now enlarged shape of the dark island, he caught sight of a long chain of lofty, distant mountains, glowing salmon-pink in the evening sunlight, he felt constrained to break the silence by inquiring what they were.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is Lichstorm,\u201d said Gleameil.\r\n\r\nMaskull asked no questions about it; but in turning to address her, his eyes had rested on the rapidly receding Wombflash Forest, and he continued to stare at that. They had travelled about eight miles, and now he could better estimate the enormous height of the trees. Overtopping them, far away, he saw Sant; and he fancied, but was not quite sure, that he could distinguish Disscourn as well.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow that we are alone in a strange place,\u201d said Gleameil, averting her head, and looking down over the side of the raft into the water, \u201ctell me what you thought of Polecrab.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull paused before answering. \u201cHe seemed to me like a mountain wrapped in cloud. You see the lower buttresses, and think that is all. But then, high up, far above the clouds, you suddenly catch sight of more mountain\u2014and even then it is not the top.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou read character well, and have great perception,\u201d remarked Gleameil quietly. \u201cNow say what I am.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn place of a human heart, you have a wild harp, and that\u2019s all I know about you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat was that you said to my husband about two worlds?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou heard.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, I heard. And I also am conscious of two worlds. My husband and boys are real to me, and I love them fondly. But there is another world for me, as there is for you, Maskull, and it makes my real world appear all false and vulgar.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps we are seeking the same thing. But can it be right to satisfy our self-nature at the expense of other people?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, it\u2019s not right. It is wrong, and base. But in that other world these words have no meaning.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere was a silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s useless to discuss such topics,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cThe choice is now out of our hands, and we must go where we are taken. What I would rather speak about is what awaits us on the island.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am ignorant\u2014except that we shall find Earthrid there.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWho is Earthrid, and why is it called Swaylone\u2019s Island?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThey say Earthrid came from Threal, but I know nothing else about him. As for Swaylone, if you like I will tell you his legend.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you please,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn a far-back age,\u201d began Gleameil, \u201cwhen the seas were hot, and clouds hung heavily over the earth, and life was rich with transformations, Swaylone came to this island, on which men had never before set foot, and began to play his music\u2014the first music in Tormance. Nightly, when the moon shone, people used to gather on this shore behind us, and listen to the faint, sweet strains floating from over the sea. One night, Shaping (whom you call Crystalman) was passing this way in company with Krag. They listened a while to the music, and Shaping said \u2018Have you heard more beautiful sounds? This is my world and my music.\u2019 Krag stamped with his foot, and laughed. \u2018You must do better than that, if I am to admire it. Let us pass over, and see this bungler at work.\u2019 Shaping consented, and they passed over to the island. Swaylone was not able to see their presence. Shaping stood behind him, and breathed thoughts into his soul, so that his music became ten times lovelier, and people listening on that shore went mad with sick delight. \u2018Can any strains be nobler?\u2019 demanded Shaping. Krag grinned and said, \u2018You are naturally effeminate. Now let me try.\u2019 Then he stood behind Swaylone, and shot ugly discords fast into his head. His instrument was so cracked, that never since has it played right. From that time forth Swaylone could utter only distorted music; yet it called to folk more than the other sort. Many men crossed over to the island during his lifetime, to listen to the amazing tones, but none could endure them; all died. After Swaylone\u2019s death, another musician took up the tale; and so the light has passed down from torch to torch, till now Earthrid bears it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAn interesting legend,\u201d commented Maskull. \u201cBut who is Krag?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThey say that when the world was born, Krag was born with it\u2014a spirit compounded of those vestiges of Muspel which Shaping did not know how to transform. Thereafter nothing has gone right with the world, for he dogs Shaping\u2019s footsteps everywhere, and whatever the latter does, he undoes. To love he joins death; to sex, shame; to intellect, madness; to virtue, cruelty; and to fair exteriors, bloody entrails. These are Krag\u2019s actions, so the lovers of the world call him \u2018devil.\u2019 They don\u2019t understand, Maskull, that without him the world would lose its beauty.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKrag and beauty!\u201d exclaimed he, with a cynical smile.\r\n\r\n\u201cEven so. That same beauty which you and I are now voyaging to discover. That beauty for whose sake I am renouncing husband, children, and happiness.... Did you imagine beauty to be pleasant?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSurely.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat pleasant beauty is an insipid compound of Shaping. To see beauty in its terrible purity, you must tear away the pleasure from it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you say I am going to seek beauty, Gleameil? Such an idea is far from my mind.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe did not respond to his remark. After waiting for a few minutes, to hear if she would speak again, he turned his back on her once more. There was no more talk until they reached the island.\r\n\r\nThe air had grown chill and damp by the time they approached its shores. Branchspell was on the point of touching the sea. The Island appeared to be some three or four miles in length. There were first of all broad sands, then low, dark cliffs, and behind these a wilderness of insignificant, swelling hills, entirely devoid of vegetation. The current bore them to within a hundred yards of the coast, when it made a sharp angle, and proceeded to skirt the length of the land.\r\n\r\nGleameil jumped overboard, and began swimming to shore. Maskull followed her example, and the raft, abandoned, was rapidly borne away by the current. They soon touched ground, and were able to wade the rest of the way. By the time they reached dry land, the sun had set.\r\n\r\nGleameil made straight for the hills; and Maskull, after casting a single glance at the low, dim outline of the Wombflash Forest, followed her. The cliffs were soon scrambled up. Then the ascent was gentle and easy, while the rich, dry, brown mould was good to walk upon.\r\n\r\nA little way off, on their left, something white was shining.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou need not go to it,\u201d said the woman. \u201cIt can be nothing else than one of those skeletons Polecrab talked about. And look\u2014there is another one over there!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis brings it home!\u201d remarked Maskull, smiling.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is nothing comical in having died for beauty,\u201d said Gleameil, bending her brows at him.\r\n\r\nAnd when in the course of their walk he saw the innumerable human bones, from gleaming white to dirty yellow, lying scattered about, as if it were a naked graveyard among the hills, he agreed with her, and fell into a sombre mood.\r\n\r\nIt was still light when they reached the highest point, and could set eyes on the other side. The sea to the north of the island was in no way different from that which they had crossed, but its lively colors were fast becoming invisible.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is Matterplay,\u201d said the woman, pointing her finger toward some low land on the horizon, which seemed to be even farther off than Wombflash.\r\n\r\n\u201cI wonder how Digrung passed over,\u201d meditated Maskull.\r\n\r\nNot far away, in a hollow enclosed by a circle of little hills, they saw a small, circular lake, not more than half a mile in diameter. The sunset colors of the sky were reflected in its waters.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat must be Irontick,\u201d remarked Gleameil.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is that?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have heard that it\u2019s the instrument Earthrid plays on.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe are getting close,\u201d responded he. \u201cLet us go and investigate.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen they drew nearer, they observed that a man was reclining on the farther side, in an attitude of sleep.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf that\u2019s not the man himself, who can it be?\u201d said Maskull. \u201cLet\u2019s get across the water, if it will bear us; it will save time.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe now assumed the lead, and took running strides down the slope which bounded the lake on that side. Gleameil followed him with greater dignity, keeping her eyes fixed on the recumbent man as if fascinated. When Maskull reached the water\u2019s edge, he tried it with one foot, to discover if it would carry his weight. Something unusual in its appearance led him to have doubts. It was a tranquil, dark, and beautifully reflecting sheet of water; it resembled a mirror of liquid metal. Finding that it would bear him, and that nothing happened, he placed his second foot on its surface. Instantly he sustained a violent shock throughout his body, as from a powerful electric current; and he was hurled in a tumbled heap back on to the bank.\r\n\r\nHe picked himself up, brushed the dirt off his person, and started walking around the lake. Gleameil joined him, and they completed the half circuit together. They came to the man, and Maskull prodded him with his foot. He woke up, and blinked at them.\r\n\r\nHis face was pale, weak, and vacant-looking, and had a disagreeable expression. There were thin sprouts of black hair on his chin and head. On his forehead, in place of a third eye, he possessed a perfectly circular organ, with elaborate convolutions, like an ear. He had an unpleasant smell. He appeared to be of young middle age.\r\n\r\n\u201cWake up, man,\u201d said Maskull sharply, \u201cand tell us if you are Earthrid.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat time is it?\u201d counterquestioned the man. \u201cDoes it want long to moonrise?\u201d\r\n\r\nWithout appearing to care about an answer, he sat up, and turning away from them, began to scoop up the loose soil with his hand, and to eat it halfheartedly.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow, how can you eat that filth?\u201d demanded Maskull, in disgust.\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t be angry, Maskull,\u201d said Gleameil, laying hold of his arm, and flushing a little. \u201cIt is Earthrid\u2014the man who is to help us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe has not said so.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am Earthrid,\u201d said the other, in his weak and muffled voice, which, however, suddenly struck Maskull as being autocratic. \u201cWhat do you want here? Or rather, you had better get away as quickly as you can, for it will be too late when Teargeld rises.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou need not explain,\u201d exclaimed Maskull. \u201cWe know your reputation, and we have come to hear your music. But what\u2019s that organ for on your forehead?\u201d\r\n\r\nEarthrid glared, and smiled, and glared again.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is for rhythm, which is what changes noise into music. Don\u2019t stand and argue, but go away. It is no pleasure to me to people the island with corpses. They corrupt the air, and do nothing else.\u201d\r\n\r\nDarkness now crept swiftly on over the landscape.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are rather bigmouthed,\u201d said Maskull coolly. \u201cBut after we have heard you play, perhaps I shall adventure a tune myself.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou? Are you a musician, then? Do you even know what music is?\u201d\r\n\r\nA flame danced in Gleameil\u2019s eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull thinks music reposes in the instrument,\u201d she said in her intense way. \u201cBut it is in the soul of the Master.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Earthrid, \u201cbut that is not all. I will tell you what it is. In Threal, where I was born and brought up, we learn the mystery of the Three in nature. This world, which lies extended before us, has three directions. Length is the line which shuts off what is, from what is not. Breadth is the surface which shows us in what manner one thing of what-is, lives with another thing. Depth is the path which leads from what-is, to our own body. In music it is not otherwise. Tone is existence, without which nothing at all can be. Symmetry and Numbers are the manner in which tones exist, one with another. Emotion is the movement of our soul toward the wonderful world that is being created. Now, men when they make music are accustomed to build beautiful tones, because of the delight they cause. Therefore their music world is based on pleasure; its symmetry is regular and charming, its emotion is sweet and lovely.... But my music is founded on painful tones; and thus its symmetry is wild, and difficult to discover; its emotion is bitter and terrible.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf I had not anticipated its being original, I would not have come here,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cStill, explain\u2014why can\u2019t harsh tones have simple symmetry of form? And why must they necessarily cause more profound emotions in us who listen?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPleasures may harmonise. Pains must clash; and in the order of their clashing lies the symmetry. The emotions follow the music, which is rough and earnest.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou may call it music,\u201d remarked Maskull thoughtfully, \u201cbut to me it bears a closer resemblance to actual life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf Shaping\u2019s plans had gone straight, life would have been like that other sort of music. He who seeks can find traces of that intention in the world of nature. But as it has turned out, real life resembles my music and mine is the true music.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cShall we see living shapes?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what my mood will be,\u201d returned Earthrid. \u201cBut when I have finished, you shall adventure your tune, and produce whatever shapes you please\u2014unless, indeed, the tune is out of your own big body.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe shocks you are preparing may kill us,\u201d said Gleameil, in a low, taut voice, \u201cbut we shall die, seeing beauty<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\nEarthrid looked at her with a dignified expression.\r\n\r\n\u201cNeither you, nor any other person, can endure the thoughts which I put into my music. Still, you must have it your own way. It needed a woman to call it \u2018beauty.\u2019 But if this is beauty, what is ugliness?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat I can tell you, Master,\u201d replied Gleameil, smiling at him. \u201cUgliness is old, stale life, while yours every night issues fresh from the womb of nature.\u201d\r\n\r\nEarthrid stared at her, without response. \u201cTeargeld is rising,\u201d he said at last. \u201cAnd now you shall see\u2014though not for long.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs the words left his mouth, the full moon peeped over the hills in the dark eastern sky. They watched it in silence, and soon it was wholly up. It was larger than the moon of Earth, and seemed nearer. Its shadowy parts stood out in just as strong relief, but somehow it did not give Maskull the impression of being a dead world. Branchspell shone on the whole of it, but Alppain only on a part. The broad crescent that reflected Branchspell\u2019s rays alone was white and brilliant; but the part that was illuminated by both suns shone with a greenish radiance that had almost solar power, and yet was cold and cheerless. On gazing at that combined light, he felt the same sense of disintegration that the afterglow of Alppain had always caused in him; but now the feeling was not physical, but merely aesthetic. The moon did not appear romantic to him, but disturbing and mystical.\r\n\r\nEarthrid rose, and stood quietly for a minute. In the bright moonlight, his face seemed to have undergone a change. It lost its loose, weak, disagreeable look, and acquired a sort of crafty grandeur. He clapped his hands together meditatively two or three times, and walked up and down. The others stood together, watching him.\r\n\r\nThen he sat down by the side of the lake, and, leaning on his side, placed his right hand, open palm downward, on the ground, at the same time stretching out his right leg, so that the foot was in contact with the water.\r\n\r\nWhile Maskull was in the act of staring at him and at the lake, he felt a stabbing sensation right through his heart, as though he had been pierced by a rapier. He barely recovered himself from falling, and as he did so he saw that a spout had formed on the water, and was now subsiding again. The next moment he was knocked down by a violent blow in the mouth, delivered by an invisible hand. He picked himself up; and observed that a second spout had formed. No sooner was he on his legs, than a hideous pain hammered away inside his brain, as if caused by a malignant tumour. In his agony, he stumbled and fell again; this time on the arm Krag had wounded. All his other mishaps were forgotten in this one, which half stunned him. It lasted only a moment, and then sudden relief came, and he found that Earthrid\u2019s rough music had lost its power over him.\r\n\r\nHe saw him still stretched in the same position. Spouts were coming thick and fast on the lake, which was full of lively motion. But Gleameil was not on her legs. She was lying on the ground, in a heap, without moving. Her attitude was ugly, and he guessed she was<\/i> dead. When he reached her, he discovered that she was dead. In what state of mind she had died, he did not know, for her face wore the vulgar Crystalman grin. The whole tragedy had not lasted five minutes.\r\n\r\nHe went over to Earthrid and dragged him forcibly away from his playing.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have been as good as your word, musician,\u201d he said. \u201cGleameil is dead.\u201d\r\n\r\nEarthrid tried to collect his scattered senses.\r\n\r\n\u201cI warned her,\u201d he replied, sitting up. \u201cDid I not beg her to go away? But she died very easily. She did not wait for the beauty she spoke about. She heard nothing of the passion, nor even of the rhythm. Neither have you.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull looked down at him in indignation, but said nothing.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou should not have interrupted me,\u201d went on Earthrid. \u201cWhen I am playing, nothing else is of importance. I might have lost the thread of my ideas. Fortunately, I never forget. I shall start over again.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf music is to continue, in the presence of the dead, I play next.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe man glanced up quickly.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat can\u2019t be.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt must be,\u201d said Maskull decisively. \u201cI prefer playing to listening. Another reason is that you will have every night, but I have only tonight.\u201d\r\n\r\nEarthrid clenched and unclenched his fist, and began to turn pale. \u201cWith your recklessness, you are likely to kill us both. Irontick belongs to me, and until you have learned how to play, you would only break the instrument.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, then, I will break it; but I am going to try.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe musician jumped to his feet and confronted him. \u201cDo you intend to take it from me by violence?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKeep calm! You will have the same choice that you offered us. I shall give you time to go away somewhere.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow will that serve me, if you spoil my lake? You don\u2019t understand what you are doing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGo, or stay!\u201d responded Maskull. \u201cI give you till the water gets smooth again. After that, I begin playing.\u201d\r\n\r\nEarthrid kept swallowing. He glanced at the lake and back to Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you swear it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow long that will take, you know better than I; but till then you are safe.\u201d\r\n\r\nEarthrid cast him a look of malice, hesitated for an instant, and then moved away, and started to climb the nearest hill. Halfway up he glanced over his shoulder apprehensively, as if to see what was happening. In another minute or so, he had disappeared over the crest, travelling in the direction of the shore that faced Matterplay.\r\n\r\nLater, when the water was once more tranquil, Maskull sat down by its edge, in imitation of Earthrid\u2019s attitude. He knew neither how to set about producing his music, nor what would come of it. But audacious projects entered his brain and he willed to create physical shapes\u2014and, above all, one shape, that of Surtur.\r\n\r\nBefore putting his foot to the water, he turned things over a little in his mind.\r\n\r\nHe said, \u201cWhat themes<\/i> are in common music, shapes<\/i> are in this music. The composer does not find his theme by picking out single notes; but the whole theme flashes into his mind by inspiration. So it must be with shapes. When I start playing, if I am worth anything, the undivided ideas will pass from my unconscious mind to this lake, and then, reflected back in the dimensions of reality, I shall be for the first time made acquainted with them. So it must be.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe instant his foot touched the water, he felt his thoughts flowing from him. He did not know what they were, but the mere act of flowing created a sensation of joyful mastery. With this was curiosity to learn what they would prove to be. Spouts formed on the lake in increasing numbers, but he experienced no pain. His thoughts, which he knew to be music, did not issue from him in a steady, unbroken stream, but in great, rough gushes, succeeding intervals of quiescence. When these gushes came, the whole lake broke out in an eruption of spouts.\r\n\r\nHe realised that the ideas passing from him did not arise in his intellect, but had their source in the fathomless depths of his will. He could not decide what character they should have, but he was able to force them out, or retard them, by the exercise of his volition.\r\n\r\nAt first nothing changed around him. Then the moon grew dimmer, and a strange, new radiance began to illuminate the landscape. It increased so imperceptibly that it was some time before he recognised it as the Muspel-light which he had seen in the Wombflash Forest. He could not give it a colour, or a name, but it filled him with a sort of stern and sacred awe. He called up the resources of his powerful will. The spouts thickened like a forest, and many of them were twenty feet high. Teargeld looked faint and pale; the radiance became intense; but it cast no shadows. The wind got up, but where Maskull was sitting, it was calm. Shortly afterward it began to shriek and whistle, like a full gale. He saw no shapes, and redoubled his efforts.\r\n\r\nHis ideas were now rushing out onto the lake so furiously that his whole soul was possessed by exhilaration and defiance. But still he did not know their nature. A huge spout shot up and at the same moment the hills began to crack and break. Great masses of loose soil were erupted from their bowels, and in the next period of quietness, he saw that the landscape had altered. Still the mysterious light intensified. The moon disappeared entirely. The noise of the unseen tempest was terrifying, but Maskull played heroically on, trying to urge out ideas which would take shape. The hillsides were cleft with chasms. The water escaping from the tops of the spouts, swamped the land; but where he was, it was dry.\r\n\r\nThe radiance grew terrible. It was everywhere, but Maskull fancied that it was far brighter in one particular quarter. He thought that it was becoming localised, preparatory to contracting into a solid form. He strained and strained....\r\n\r\nImmediately afterward the bottom of the lake subsided. Its waters fell through, and his instrument was broken.\r\n\r\nThe Muspel-light vanished. The moon shone out again, but Maskull could not see it. After that unearthly shining, he seemed to himself to be in total blackness. The screaming wind ceased; there was a dead silence. His thoughts finished flowing toward the lake, and his foot no longer touched water, but hung in space.\r\n\r\nHe was too stunned by the suddenness of the change to either think or feel. While he was still lying dazed, a vast explosion occurred in the newly opened depths beneath the lakebed. The water in its descent had met fire. Maskull was lifted bodily in the air, many yards high, and came down heavily. He lost consciousness....\r\n\r\nWhen he came to his senses again, he saw everything. Teargeld was gleaming brilliantly. He was lying by the side of the old lake, but it was now a crater, to the bottom of which his eyes could not penetrate. The hills encircling it were torn, as if by heavy gunfire. A few thunderclouds were floating in the air at no great height, from which branched lightning descended to the earth incessantly, accompanied by alarming and singular crashes.\r\n\r\nHe got on his legs, and tested his actions. Finding that he was uninjured, he first of all viewed the crater at closer quarters, and then started to walk painfully toward the northern shore.\r\n\r\nWhen he had attained the crest above the lake, the landscape sloped gently down for two miles to the sea. Everywhere he passed through traces of his rough work. The country was carved into scarps, grooves, channels, and craters. He arrived at the line of low cliffs overlooking the beach, and found that these also were partly broken down by landslips. He got down onto the sand and stood looking over the moonlit, agitated sea, wondering how he could contrive to escape from this island of failure.\r\n\r\nThen he saw Earthrid\u2019s body, lying quite close to him. It was on its back. Both legs had been violently torn off and he could not see them anywhere. Earthrid\u2019s teeth were buried in the flesh of his right forearm, indicating that the man had died in unreasoning physical agony. The skin gleamed green in the moonlight, but it was stained by darker discolourations, which were wounds. The sand about him was dyed by the pool of blood which had long since filtered through.\r\n\r\nMaskull left the corpse in dismay, and walked a long way along the sweet-smelling shore. Sitting down on a rock, he waited for daybreak.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 16. LEEHALLFAE<\/h2>\r\nAt midnight, when Teargeld was in the south, throwing his shadow straight toward the sea and making everything nearly as bright as day, he saw a great tree floating in the water, not far out. It was thirty feet out of the water, upright, and alive, and its roots must have been enormously deep and wide. It was drifting along the coast, through the heavy seas. Maskull eyed it incuriously for a few minutes. Then it dawned on him that it might be a good thing to investigate its nature. Without stopping to weigh the danger, he immediately swam out, caught hold of the lowest branch, and swung himself up.\r\n\r\nHe looked aloft and saw that the main stem was thick to the very top, terminating in a knob that somewhat resembled a human head. He made his way toward this knob, through the multitude of boughs, which were covered with tough, slippery, marine leaves, like seaweed. Arriving at the crown, he found that it actually was a sort of head, for there were membranes like rudimentary eyes all the way around it, denoting some form of low intelligence.\r\n\r\nAt that moment the tree touched bottom, though some way from the shore, and began to bump heavily. To steady himself, Maskull put his hand out, and, in doing so, accidentally covered some of the membranes. The tree sheered off the land, as if by an act of will. When it was steady again, Maskull removed his hand; they at once drifted back to shore. He thought a bit, and then started experimenting with the eyelike membranes. It was as he had guessed\u2014these eyes were stimulated by the light of the moon, and whichever way the light came from, the tree would travel.\r\n\r\nA rather defiant smile crossed Maskull\u2019s face as it struck him that it might be possible to navigate this huge plant-animal as far as Matterplay. He lost no time in putting the conception into execution. Tearing off some of the long, tough leaves, he bound up all the membranes except the ones that faced the north. The tree instantly left the island, and definitely put out to sea. It travelled due north. It was not moving at more than a mile an hour, however, while Matterplay was possibly forty miles distant.\r\n\r\nThe great spout waves fell against the trunk with mighty thuds; the breaking seas hissed through the lower branches\u2014Maskull rested high and dry, but was more than a little apprehensive about their slow rate of progress. Presently he sighted a current racing along toward the north-west, and that put another idea into his head. He began to juggle with the membranes again, and before long had succeeded in piloting his tree into the fast-running stream. As soon as they were fairly in its rapids, he blinded the crown entirely, and thenceforward the current acted in the double capacity of road and steed.\r\n\r\nMaskull made himself secure among the branches and slept for the remainder of the night.\r\n\r\nWhen his eyes opened again, the island was out of sight. Teargeld was setting in the western sea. The sky in the east was bright with the colours of the approaching day. The air was cool and fresh; the light over the sea was beautiful, gleaming, and mysterious. Land\u2014probably Matterplay\u2014lay ahead, a long, dark line of low cliffs, perhaps a mile away. The current no longer ran toward the shore, but began to skirt the coast without drawing any closer to it. As soon as Maskull realised the fact, he manoeuvred the tree out of its channel and started drifting it inshore. The eastern sky blazed up suddenly with violent dyes, and the outer rim of Branchspell lifted itself above the sea. The moon had already sunk.\r\n\r\nThe shore loomed nearer and nearer. In physical character it was like Swaylone\u2019s Island\u2014the same wide sands, small cliffs, and rounded, insignificant hills inland, without vegetation. In the early-morning sunlight, however, it looked romantic. Maskull, hollow-eyed and morose, cared nothing for all that, but the moment the tree grounded, clambered swiftly down through the branches and dropped into the sea. By the time he had swam ashore, the white, stupendous sun was high above the horizon.\r\n\r\nHe walked along the sands toward the east for a considerable distance, without having any special intention in his mind. He thought he would go on until he came to some creek or valley, and then turn up it. The sun\u2019s rays were cheering, and began to relieve him of his oppressive night weight. After strolling along the beach for about a mile, he was stopped by a broad stream that flowed into the sea out of a kind of natural gateway in the line of cliffs. Its water was of a beautiful, limpid green, all filled with bubbles. So ice-cold, aerated, and enticing did it look that he flung himself face downward on the ground and took a prolonged draught. When he got up again his eyes started to play pranks\u2014they became alternately blurred and clear.... It may have been pure imagination, but he fancied that Digrung was moving inside him.\r\n\r\nHe followed the bank of the stream through the gap in the cliffs, and then for the first time saw the real Matterplay. A valley appeared, like a jewel enveloped by naked rock. All the hill country was bare and lifeless, but this valley lying in the heart of it was extremely fertile; he had never seen such fertility. It wound up among the hills, and all that he was looking at was its broad lower end. The floor of the valley was about half a mile wide; the stream that ran down its middle was nearly a hundred feet across, but was exceedingly shallow\u2014in most places not more than a few inches deep. The sides of the valley were about seventy feet high, but very sloping; they were clothed from top to bottom with little, bright-leaved trees\u2014not of varied tints of one colour, like Earth trees, but of widely diverse colours, most of which were brilliant and positive.\r\n\r\nThe floor itself was like a magician\u2019s garden. Densely interwoven trees, shrubs, and parasitical climbers fought everywhere for possession of it. The forms were strange and grotesque, and each one seemed different; the colours of leaf, flower, sexual organs, and stem were equally peculiar\u2014all the different combinations of the five primary colours of Tormance seemed to be represented, and the result, for Maskull was a sort of eye chaos. So rank was the vegetation that he could not fight his way through it; he was obliged to take to the riverbed. The contact of the water created an odd tingling sensation throughout his body, like a mild electric shock. There were no birds, but a few extraordinary-looking winged reptiles of small size kept crossing the valley from hill to hill. Swarms of flying insects clustered around him, threatening mischief, but in the end it turned out that his blood was disagreeable to them, for he was not bitten once. Repulsive crawling creatures resembling centipedes, scorpions, snakes, and so forth were in myriads on the banks of the stream, but they also made no attempt to use their weapons on his bare legs and feet, as he passed through them into the water.... Presently however, he was confronted in midstream by a hideous monster, of the size of a pony, but resembling in shape\u2014if it resembled anything\u2014a sea crustacean; and then he came to a halt. They stared at one another, the beast with wicked eyes, Maskull with cool and wary ones. While he was staring, a singular thing happened to him.\r\n\r\nHis eyes blurred again. But when in a minute or two this blurring passed away and he saw clearly once more, his vision had changed in character. He was looking right through the animal\u2019s body and could distinguish all its interior parts. The outer crust, however, and all the hard tissues were misty and semi-transparent; through them a luminous network of blood-red veins and arteries stood out in startling distinctness. The hard parts faded away to nothingness, and the blood system alone was left. Not even the fleshy ducts remained. The naked blood alone was visible, flowing this way and that like a fiery, liquid skeleton, in the shape of the monster. Then this blood began to change too. Instead of a continuous liquid stream, Maskull perceived that it was composed of a million individual points. The red colour had been an illusion caused by the rapid motion of the points; he now saw clearly that they resembled minute suns in their scintillating brightness. They seemed like a double drift of stars, streaming through space. One drift was travelling toward a fixed point in the centre, while the other was moving away from it. He recognised the former as the veins of the beast, the latter as the arteries, and the fixed point as the heart.\r\n\r\nWhile he was still looking, lost in amazement, the starry network went out suddenly like an extinguished flame. Where the crustacean had stood, there was nothing. Yet through this \u201cnothing\u201d he could not see the landscape. Something was standing there that intercepted the light, though it possessed neither shape, colour, nor substance. And now the object, which could no longer be perceived by vision, began to be felt by emotion. A delightful, springlike sense of rising sap, of quickening pulses of love, adventure, mystery, beauty, femininity\u2014took possession of his being, and, strangely enough, he identified it with the monster. Why that invisible brute should cause him to feel young, sexual, and audacious, he did not ask himself, for he was fully occupied with the effect. But it was as if flesh, bones, and blood had been discarded, and he were face to face with naked Life itself, which slowly passed into his own body.\r\n\r\nThe sensations died away. There was a brief interval, and then the streaming, starlike skeleton rose up again out of space. It changed to the red-blood system. The hard parts of the body reappeared, with more and more distinctness, and at the same time the network of blood grew fainter. Presently the interior parts were entirely concealed by the crust\u2014the creature stood opposite Maskull in its old formidable ugliness, hard, painted, and concrete.\r\n\r\nDisliking something about him, the crustacean turned aside and stumbled awkwardly away on its six legs, with laborious and repulsive movements, toward the other bank of the stream.\r\n\r\nMaskull\u2019s apathy left him after this adventure. He became uneasy and thoughtful. He imagined that he was beginning to see things through Digrung\u2019s eyes, and that there were strange troubles immediately ahead. The next time his eyes started to blur, he fought it down with his will, and nothing happened.\r\n\r\nThe valley ascended with many windings toward the hills. It narrowed considerably, and the wooded slopes on either side grew steeper and higher. The stream shrunk to about twenty feet across, but it was deeper\u2014it was alive with motion, music, and bubbles. The electric sensations caused by its water became more pronounced, almost disagreeably so; but there was nowhere else to walk. With its deafening confusion of sounds from the multitude of living creatures, the little valley resembled a vast conversation hall of Nature. The life was still more prolific than before; every square foot of space was a tangle of struggling wills, both animal and vegetable. For a naturalist it would have been paradise, for no two shapes were alike, and all were fantastic, with individual character.\r\n\r\nIt looked as if life forms were being coined so fast by Nature that there was not physical room for all. Nevertheless it was not as on Earth, where a hundred seeds are scattered in order that one may be sown. Here the young forms seemed to survive, while, to find accommodation for them, the old ones perished; everywhere he looked they were withering and dying, without any ostensible cause\u2014they were simply being killed by new life.\r\n\r\nOther creatures sported so wildly, in front of his very eyes, that they became of different \u201ckingdoms\u201d altogether. For example, a fruit was lying on the ground, of the size and shape of a lemon, but with a tougher skin. He picked it up, intending to eat the contained pulp; but inside it was a fully formed young tree, just on the point of bursting its shell. Maskull threw it away upstream. It floated back toward him; by the time he was even with it, its downward motion had stopped and it was swimming against the current. He fished it out and discovered that it had sprouted six rudimentary legs.\r\n\r\nMaskull sang no paeans of praise in honour of the gloriously overcrowded valley. On the contrary, he felt deeply cynical and depressed. He thought that the unseen power\u2014whether it was called Nature, Life, Will, or God\u2014that was so frantic to rush forward and occupy this small, vulgar, contemptible world, could not possess very high aims and was not worth much. How this sordid struggle for an hour or two of physical existence could ever be regarded as a deeply earnest and important business was beyond his comprehension The atmosphere choked him, he longed for air and space. Thrusting his way through to the side of the ravine, he began to climb the overhanging cliff, swinging his way up from tree to tree.\r\n\r\nWhen he arrived at the top, Branchspell beat down on him with such brutal, white intensity that he saw that there was no staying there. He looked around, to ascertain what part of the country he had come to. He had travelled about ten miles from the sea, as the crow flies. The bare, undulating wolds sloped straight down toward it; the water glittered in the distance; and on the horizon he was just able to make out Swaylone\u2019s Island. Looking north, the land continued sloping upward as far as he could see. Over the crest\u2014that is to say, some miles away\u2014a line of black, fantastic-shaped rocks of quite another character showed themselves; this was probably Threal. Behind these again, against the sky, perhaps fifty or even a hundred miles off, were the peaks of Lichstorm, most of them covered with greenish snow that glittered in the sunlight.\r\n\r\nThey were stupendously high and of weird contours. Most of them were conical to the top, but from the top, great masses of mountain balanced themselves at what looked like impossible angles\u2014overhanging without apparent support. A land like that promised something new, he thought: extraordinary inhabitants. The idea took shape in his mind to go there, and to travel as swiftly as possible, it might even be feasible to get there before sunset. It was less the mountains themselves that attracted him than the country which lay beyond\u2014the prospect of setting eyes on the blue sun, which he judged to be the wonder of wonders in Tormance.\r\n\r\nThe direct route was over the hills, but that was out of the question, because of the killing heat and the absence of shade. He guessed, however, that the valley would not take him far out of his way, and decided to keep to that for the time being, much as he hated and feared it. Into the hotbed of life, therefore, he once more swung himself.\r\n\r\nOnce down, he continued to follow the windings of the valley for several miles through sunlight and shadow. The path became increasingly difficult. The cliffs closed in on either side until they were less than a hundred yards apart, while the bed of the ravine was blocked by boulders, great and small, so that the little stream, which was now diminished to the proportions of a brook, had to come down where and how it could. The forms of life grew stranger. Pure plants and pure animals disappeared by degrees, and their place was filled by singular creatures that seemed to partake of both characters. They had limbs, faces, will, and intelligence, but they remained for the greater part of their time rooted in the ground by preference, and they fed only on soil and air. Maskull saw no sexual organs and failed to understand how the young came into existence.\r\n\r\nThen he witnessed an astonishing sight. A large and fully developed plant-animal appeared suddenly in front of him, out of empty space. He could not believe his eyes, but stared at the creature for a long time in amazement. It went on calmly moving and burrowing before him, as thought it had been there all its life. Giving up the puzzle, Maskull resumed his striding from rock to rock up the gorge, and then, quietly and without warning, the same phenomenon occurred again. No longer could he doubt that he was seeing miracles\u2014that Nature was precipitating its shapes into the world without making use of the medium of parentage.... No solution of the problem presented itself.\r\n\r\nThe brook too had altered in character. A trembling radiance came up from its green water, like some imprisoned force escaping into the air. He had not walked in it for some time; now he did so, to test its quality. He felt new life entering his body, from his feet upward; it resembled a slowly moving cordial, rather than mere heat. The sensation was quite new in his experience, yet he knew by instinct what it was. The energy emitted by the brook was ascending his body neither as friend nor foe but simply because it happened to be the direct road to its objective elsewhere. But, although it had no hostile intentions, it was likely to prove a rough traveller\u2014he was clearly conscious that its passage through his body threatened to bring about some physical transformation, unless he could do something to prevent it. Leaping quickly out of the water, he leaned against a rock, tightened his muscles, and braced himself against the impending change. At that very moment the blurring again attacked his sight, and, while he was guarding against that, his forehead sprouted out into a galaxy of new eyes. He put his hand up and counted six, in addition to his old ones.\r\n\r\nThe danger was past and Maskull laughed, congratulating himself on having got off so easily. Then he wondered what the new organs were for\u2014whether they were a good or a bad thing. He had not taken a dozen steps up the ravine before he found out. Just as he was in the act of jumping down from the top of a boulder, his vision altered and he came to an automatic standstill. He was perceiving two worlds simultaneously. With his own eyes he saw the gorge as before, with its rocks, brook, plant-animals, sunshine, and shadows. But with his acquired eyes he saw differently. All the details of the valley were visible, but the light seemed turned down, and everything appeared faint, hard, and uncoloured. The sun was obscured by masses of cloud which filled the whole sky. This vapour was in violent and almost living motion. It was thick in extension, but thin in texture; some parts, however, were far denser than others, as the particles were crushed together or swept apart by the motion. The green sparks from the brook, when closely watched, could be distinguished individually, each one wavering up toward the clouds, but the moment they got within them a fearful struggle seemed to begin. The spark endeavoured to escape through to the upper air, while the clouds concentrated around it whichever way it darted, trying to create so dense a prison that further movement would be impossible. As far as Maskull could detect, most of the sparks succeeded eventually in finding their way out after frantic efforts; but one that he was looking at was caught, and what happened was this. A complete ring of cloud surrounded it, and, in spite of its furious leaps and flashes in all directions\u2014as if it were a live, savage creature caught in a net\u2014nowhere could it find an opening, but it dragged the enveloping cloud stuff with it, wherever it went. The vapours continued to thicken around it, until they resembled the black, heavy, compressed sky masses seen before a bad thunderstorm. Then the green spark, which was still visible in the interior, ceased its efforts, and remained for a time quite quiescent. The cloud shape went on consolidating itself, and became nearly spherical; as it grew heavier and stiller, it started slowly to descend toward the valley floor. When it was directly opposite Maskull, with its lower end only a few feet off the ground, its motion stopped altogether and there was a complete pause for at least two minutes. Suddenly, like a stab of forked lightning, the great cloud shot together, became small, indented, and coloured, and as a plant-animal started walking around on legs and rooting up the ground in search of food. The concluding stage of the phenomenon he witnessed with his normal eyesight. It showed him the creature\u2019s appearing miraculously out of nowhere.\r\n\r\nMaskull was shaken. His cynicism dropped from him and gave place to curiosity and awe. \u201cThat was exactly like the birth of a thought<\/i>,\u201d he said to himself, \u201cbut who was the thinker? Some great Living Mind is at work in this spot. He has intelligence, for all his shapes are different, and he has character, for all belong to the same general type.... If I\u2019m not wrong, and if it\u2019s the force called Shaping or Crystalman, I\u2019ve seen enough to make me want to find out something more about him.... It would be ridiculous to go on to other riddles before I have solved these.\u201d\r\n\r\nA voice called out to him from behind, and, turning around, he saw a human figure hastening toward him from some distance down the ravine. It looked more like a man than a woman. He was rather tall, but nimble, and was clothed in a dark, frocklike garment that reached from the neck to below the knees. Around his head was rolled a turban. Maskull waited for him, and when he was nearer went a little way to meet him.\r\n\r\nThen he experienced another surprise, for this person, although clearly a human being, was neither man nor woman, nor anything between the two, but was unmistakably of a third positive sex, which was remarkable to behold and difficult to understand. In order to translate into words the sexual impression produced in Maskull\u2019s mind by the stranger\u2019s physical aspect, it is necessary to coin a new pronoun, for none in earthly use would be applicable. Instead of \u201che,\u201d \u201cshe,\u201d or \u201cit,\u201d therefore \u201cae\u201d will be used.\r\n\r\nHe found himself incapable of grasping at first why the bodily peculiarities of this being should strike him as springing from sex, and not from race, and yet there was no doubt about the fact itself. Body, face, and eyes were absolutely neither male nor female, but something quite different. Just as one can distinguish a man from a woman at the first glance by some indefinable difference of expression and atmospheres altogether apart from the contour of the figure, so the stranger was separated in appearance from both. As with men and women, the whole person expressed a latent sensuality, which gave body and face alike their peculiar character.... Maskull decided that it was love<\/i>\u2014but what love\u2014love for whom? It was neither the shame-carrying passion of a male, nor the deep-rooted instinct of a female to obey her destiny. It was as real and irresistible as these, but quite different.\r\n\r\nAs he continued staring into those strange, archaic eyes, he had an intuitive feeling that aer lover was no other than Shaping himself. It came to him that the design of this love was not the continuance of the race but the immortality on earth of the individual. No children were produced by the act; the lover aerself was the eternal child. Further, ae sought like a man, but received like a woman. All these things were dimly and confusedly expressed by this extraordinary being, who seemed to have dropped out of another age, when creation was different.\r\n\r\nOf all the weird personalities Maskull had so far met in Tormance, this one struck him as infinitely the most foreign<\/i>\u2014that is, the farthest removed from him in spiritual structure. If they were to live together for a hundred years, they could never be companions.\r\n\r\nMaskull pulled himself out of his trancelike meditations and, viewing the newcomer in greater detail, tried with his understanding to account for the marvellous things told him by his intuitions. Ae possessed broad shoulders and big bones, and was without female breasts, and so far ae resembled a man. But the bones were so flat and angular that aer flesh presented something of the character of a crystal, having plane surfaces in place of curves. The body looked as if it had not been ground down by the sea of ages into smooth and rounded regularity but had sprung together in angles and facets as the result of a single, sudden idea<\/i>. The face too was broken and irregular. With his racial prejudices, Maskull found little beauty in it, yet beauty there was, though neither of a masculine nor of a feminine type, for it had the three essentials of beauty: character, intelligence, and repose. The skin was copper-coloured and strangely luminous, as if lighted from within. The face was beardless, but the hair of the head was as long as a woman\u2019s, and, dressed in a single plait, fell down behind as far as the ankles. Ae possessed only two eyes. That part of the turban which went across the forehead protruded so far in front that it evidently concealed some organ.\r\n\r\nMaskull found it impossible to compute aer age. The frame appeared active, vigorous, and healthy, the skin was clear and glowing; the eyes were powerful and alert\u2014ae might well be in early youth. Nevertheless, the longer Maskull gazed, the more an impression of unbelievable ancientness came upon him\u2014aer real youth seemed as far away as the view observed through a reversed telescope.\r\n\r\nAt last he addressed the stranger, though it was just as if he were conversing with a dream. \u201cTo what sex do you belong?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\nThe voice in which the reply came was neither manly nor womanly, but was oddly suggestive of a mystical forest horn, heard from a great distance.\r\n\r\n\u201cNowadays there are men and women, but in the olden times the world was peopled by \u2018phaens.\u2019 I think I am the only survivor of all those beings who were then passing through Faceny\u2019s mind.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFaceny?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWho is now miscalled Shaping or Crystalman. The superficial names invented by a race of superficial creatures.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u2019s your own name?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLeehallfae.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLeehallfae. And yours is Maskull. I read in your mind that you have just come through some wonderful adventures. You seem to possess extraordinary luck. If it lasts long enough, perhaps I can make use of it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you think that my luck exists for your benefit?... But never mind that now. It is your sex<\/i> that interests me. How do you satisfy your desires?\u201d\r\n\r\nLeehallfae pointed to the concealed organ on her brow. \u201cWith that I gather life from the streams that flow in all the hundred Matterplay valleys. The streams spring direct from Faceny. My whole life has been spent trying to find Faceny himself. I\u2019ve hunted so long that if I were to state the number of years you would believe I lied.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull looked at the phaen slowly. \u201cIn Ifdawn I met someone else from Matterplay\u2014a young man called Digrung. I absorbed him.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou can\u2019t be telling me this out of vanity.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was a fearful crime. What will come of it?\u201d\r\n\r\nLeehallfae gave a curious, wrinkled smile. \u201cIn Matterplay he will stir inside you, for he smells the air. Already you have his eyes.... I knew him.... Take care of yourself, or something more startling may happen. Keep out of the water.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis seems to me a terrible valley, in which anything may happen.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t torment yourself about Digrung. The valleys belong by right to the phaens\u2014the men here are interlopers. It is a good work to remove them.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull continued thoughtful. \u201cI say no more, but I see I will have to be cautious. What did you mean about my helping you with my luck?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYour luck is fast weakening, but it may still be strong enough to serve me. Together we will search<\/i> for Threal.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSearch for Threal\u2014why, is it so hard to find?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have told you that my whole life has been spent in the quest.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou said Faceny, Leehallfae.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe phaen gazed at him with queer, ancient eyes, and smiled again. \u201cThis stream, Maskull, like every other life stream in Matterplay, has its source in Faceny. But as all these streams issue out from Threal, it is in Threal that we must look for Faceny.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut what\u2019s to prevent your finding Threal? Surely it\u2019s a well-known country?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt lies underground. Its communications with the upper world are few, and where they are, no one that I have ever spoken to knows. I have scoured the valleys and the hills. I have been to the very gates of Lichstorm. I am old, so that your aged men would appear newborn infants beside me, but I am as far from Threal as when I was a green youth, dwelling among a throng of fellow phaens.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen, if my luck is good, yours is very bad.... But when you have found Faceny, what do you gain?\u201d\r\n\r\nLeehallfae looked at him in silence. The smile faded from aer face, and its place was taken by such a look of unearthly pain and sorrow that Maskull had no need to press his question. Ae was consumed by the grief and yearning of a lover eternally separated from the loved one, the scents and traces of whose person were always present. This passion stamped aer features at that moment with a wild, stern, spiritual beauty, far transcending any beauty of woman or man.\r\n\r\nBut the expression vanished suddenly, and then the abrupt contrast showed Maskull the real Leehallfae. Aer sensuality was solitary, but vulgar\u2014it was like the heroism of a lonely nature, pursuing animal aims with untiring persistence.\r\n\r\nHe looked at the phaen askance, and drummed his fingers against his thigh. \u201cWell, we will go together. We may find something, and in any case I shan\u2019t be sorry to converse with such a singular individual as yourself.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut I should warn you, Maskull. You and I are of different creations. A phaen\u2019s body contains the whole of life, a man\u2019s body contains only the half of life\u2014the other half is in woman. Faceny may be too strong a draught for your body to endure.... Do you not feel this?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am dull with my different feelings. I must take what precautions I can, and chance the rest.\u201d He bent down, and, taking hold of the phaen\u2019s thin and ragged robe, tore off a broad strip, which he proceeded to swathe in folds around his forehead. \u201cI\u2019m not forgetting your advice, Leehallfae. I would not like to start the walk as Maskull and finish it as Digrung.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe phaen gave a twisted grin, and they began to move upstream. The road was difficult. They had to stride from boulder to boulder, and found it warm work. Occasionally a worse obstacle presented itself, which they could surmount only by climbing. There was no more conversation for a long time. Maskull, as far as possible, adopted his companion\u2019s counsel to avoid the water, but here and there he was forced to set foot in it. The second or third time he did so, he felt a sudden agony in his arm, where it had been wounded by Krag. His eyes grew joyful; his fears vanished; and he began deliberately to tread the stream.\r\n\r\nLeehallfae stroked aer chin and watched him with screwed-up eyes, trying to comprehend what had happened. \u201cIs your luck speaking to you, Maskull, or what is the matter?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cListen. You are a being of antique experience, and ought to know, if anyone does. What is Muspel?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe phaen\u2019s face was blank. \u201cI don\u2019t know the name.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is another world of some sort.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat cannot be. There is only this one world\u2014Faceny\u2019s.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull came up to aer, linked arms, and began to talk. \u201cI\u2019m glad I fell in with you, Leehallfae, for this valley and everything connected with it need a lot of explaining. For example, in this spot there are hardly any organic forms left\u2014why have they all disappeared? You call this brook a \u2018life stream,\u2019 yet the nearer its source we get, the less life it produces. A mile or two lower down we had those spontaneous plant-animals appearing out of nowhere, while right down by the sea, plants and animals were tumbling over one another. Now, if all this is connected in some mysterious way or other with your Faceny, it seems to me he must have a most paradoxical nature. His essence doesn\u2019t start creating shapes until it has become thoroughly weakened and watered.... But perhaps both of us are talking nonsense.\u201d\r\n\r\nLeehallfae shook aer head. \u201cEverything hangs together. The stream is life, and it is throwing off sparks of life all the time. When these sparks are caught and imprisoned by matter, they become living shapes. The nearer the stream is to its source, the more terrible and vigorous is its life. You\u2019ll see for yourself when we reach the head of the valley that there are no living shapes there at all. That means that there is no kind of matter tough enough to capture and hold the terrible sparks that are to be found there. Lower down the stream, most of the sparks are vigorous enough to escape to the upper air, but some are held when they are a little way up, and these burst suddenly into shapes. I myself am of this nature. Lower down still, toward the sea, the stream has lost a great part of its vital power and the sparks are lazy and sluggish. They spread out, rather than rise into the air. There is hardly any kind of matter, however delicate, that is incapable of capturing these feeble sparks, and they are captured in multitudes\u2014that accounts for the innumerable living shapes you see there. But not only that\u2014the sparks are passed from one body to another by way of generation, and can never hope to cease being so until they are worn out by decay. Lowest of all, you have the Sinking Sea itself. There the degenerate and enfeebled life of the Matterplay streams has for its body the whole sea. So weak is it\u2019s power that it can\u2019t succeed in creating any shapes at all but you can see its ceaseless, futile attempts to do so, in those spouts.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo the slow development of men and women is due to the feebleness of the life germ in their case?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cExactly. It can\u2019t attain all its desires at once. And now you can see how immeasurably superior are the phaens, who spring spontaneously from the more electric and vigorous sparks.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut where does the matter come from that imprisons these sparks?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen life dies, it becomes matter. Matter itself dies, but its place is constantly taken by new matter.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut if life comes from Faceny, how can it die at all?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLife is the thoughts of Faceny, and once these thoughts have left his brain they are nothing\u2014mere dying embers.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is a cheerless philosophy,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cBut who is Faceny himself, then, and why does he think at all?\u201d\r\n\r\nLeehallfae gave another wrinkled smile. \u201cThat I\u2019ll explain too. Faceny is of this nature. He faces Nothingness in all directions. He has no back and no sides, but is all face; and this face is his shape. It must necessarily be so, for nothing else can exist between him and Nothingness. His face is all eyes, for he eternally contemplates Nothingness. He draws his inspirations from it; in no other way could he feel himself. For the same reason, phaens and even men love to be in empty places and vast solitudes, for each one is a little Faceny.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat rings true,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cThoughts flow perpetually from Faceny\u2019s face backward. Since his face is on all sides, however, they flow into his interior. A draught of thought thus continuously flows from Nothingness to the inside of Faceny, which is the world. The thoughts become shapes, and people the world. This outer world, therefore, which is lying all around us, is not outside at all, as it happens, but inside. The visible universe is like a gigantic stomach, and the real outside of the world we shall never see.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull pondered deeply for a while.\r\n\r\n\u201cLeehallfae, I fail to see what you personally have to hope for, since you are nothing more than a discarded, dying thought.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHave you never loved a woman?\u201d asked the phaen, regarding him fixedly.\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps I have.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen you loved, did you have no high moments?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s asking the same question in other words.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn those moments you were approaching Faceny. If you could have drawn nearer still, would you not have done so?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI would, regardless of the consequences.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cEven if you personally had nothing to hope for?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut I would have that<\/i> to hope for.\u201d\r\n\r\nLeehallfae walked on in silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cA man is the half of Life,\u201d ae broke out suddenly. \u201cA woman is the other half of life, but a phaen is the whole of life. Moreover, when life becomes split into halves, something else has dropped out of it\u2014something that belongs only to the whole. Between your love and mine there is no comparison. If even your sluggish blood is drawn to Faceny, without stopping to ask what will come of it, how do you suppose it is with me<\/i>?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t question the genuineness of your passion,\u201d replied Maskull, \u201cbut it\u2019s a pity you can\u2019t see your way to carry it forward into the next world.\u201d\r\n\r\nLeehallfae gave a distorted grin, expressing heaven knows what emotion. \u201cMen think what they like, but phaens are so made that they can see the world only as it really is.\u201d\r\n\r\nThat ended the conversation.\r\n\r\nThe sun was high in the sky, and they appeared to be approaching the head of the ravine. Its walls had still further closed in and, except at those moments when Branchspell was directly behind them, they strode along all the time in deep shade; but still it was disagreeably hot and relaxing. All life had ceased. A beautiful, fantastic spectacle was presented by the cliff faces, the rocky ground, and the boulders that choked the entire width of the gorge. They were of a snow-white crystalline limestone, heavily scored by veins of bright, gleaming blue. The rivulet was no longer green, but a clear, transparent crystal. Its noise was musical, and altogether it looked most romantic and charming, but Leehallfae seemed to find something else in it\u2014aer features grew more and more set and tortured.\r\n\r\nAbout half an hour after all the other life forms had vanished, another plant-animal was precipitated out of space, in front of their eyes. It was as tall as Maskull himself, and had a brilliant and vigorous appearance, as befitted a creature just out of Nature\u2019s mint. It started to walk about; but hardly had it done so when it burst silently asunder. Nothing remained of it\u2014the whole body disappeared instantaneously into the same invisible mist from which it had sprung.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat bears out what you said,\u201d commented Maskull, turning rather pale.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d answered Leehallfae, \u201cwe have now come to the region of terrible life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen, since you\u2019re right in this, I must believe all that you\u2019ve been telling me.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs he uttered the words, they were just turning a bend of the ravine. There now loomed up straight ahead a perpendicular cliff about three hundred feet in height, composed of white, marbled rock. It was the head of the valley, and beyond it they could not proceed.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn return for my wisdom,\u201d said the phaen, \u201cyou will now lend me your luck.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey walked up to the base of the cliff, and Maskull looked at it reflectively. It was possible to climb it, but the ascent would be difficult. The now tiny brook issued from a hole in the rock only a few feet up. Apart from its musical running, not a sound was to be heard. The floor of the gorge was in shadow, but about halfway up the precipice the sun was shining.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you want me to do?\u201d demanded Maskull. \u201cEverything is now in your hands, and I have no suggestions to make. Now it\u2019s your luck that must help us.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull continued gazing up a little while longer. \u201cWe had better wait till the afternoon, Leehallfae. I\u2019ll probably have to climb to the top, but it\u2019s too hot at present\u2014and besides, I\u2019m tired. I\u2019ll snatch a few hours\u2019 sleep. After that, we\u2019ll see.\u201d\r\n\r\nLeehallfae seemed annoyed, but raised no opposition.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 17. CORPANG<\/h2>\r\nMaskull did not awaken till long after Blodsombre. Leehallfae was standing by his side, looking down at him. It was doubtful whether ae had slept at all.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat time is it?\u201d Maskull asked, rubbing his eyes and sitting up.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe day is passing,\u201d was the vague reply.\r\n\r\nMaskull got on to his feet, and gazed up at the cliff. \u201cNow I\u2019m going to climb that<\/i>. No need for both of us to risk our necks, so you wait here, and if I find anything on top I\u2019ll call you.\u201d\r\n\r\nA phaen glanced at him strangely. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing up there except a bare hillside. I\u2019ve been there often. Have you anything special in mind?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHeights often bring me inspiration. Sit down, and wait.\u201d\r\n\r\nRefreshed by his sleep, Maskull immediately attacked the face of the cliff, and took the first twenty feet at a single rush. Then it grew precipitous, and the ascent demanded greater circumspection and intelligence. There were few hand- or footholds: he had to reflect before every step. On the other hand, it was sound rock, and he was no novice at the sport. Branchspell glared full on the wall, so that it half blinded him with its glittering whiteness.\r\n\r\nAfter many doubts and pauses he drew near the top. He was hot, sweating copiously, and rather dizzy. To reach a ledge he caught hold of two projecting rocks, one with each hand, at the same time scrambling upward, his legs between the rocks. The left-hand rock, which was the larger of the two, became dislodged by his weight, and, flying like a huge, dark shadow past his head, crashed down with a terrifying sound to the foot of the precipice, followed by an avalanche of smaller stones. Maskull steadied himself as well as he could, but it was some moments before he dared to look down behind him.\r\n\r\nAt first he could not distinguish Leehallfae. Then he caught sight of legs and hindquarters a few feet up the cliff from the bottom. He perceived that the phaen had aer head in a cavity and was scrutinising something, and waited for aer to reappear.\r\n\r\nAe emerged, looked up to Maskull, and called out in aer hornlike voice, \u201cThe entrance is here!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m coming down!\u201d roared Maskull. \u201cWait for me!\u201d\r\n\r\nHe descended swiftly\u2014without taking too much care, for he thought he recognised his \u201cluck\u201d in this discovery\u2014and within twenty minutes was standing beside the phaen.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat happened?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe rock you dislodged struck this other rock just above the spring. It tore it out of its bed. See\u2014now there\u2019s room for us to get in!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t get excited!\u201d said Maskull. \u201cIt\u2019s a remarkable accident, but we have plenty of time. Let me look.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe peered into the hole, which was large enough to admit a big man without stooping. Contrasted with the daylight outside it was dark, yet a peculiar glow pervaded the place, and he could see well enough. A rock tunnel went straight forward into the bowels of the hill, out of sight. The valley brook did not flow along the floor of this tunnel, as he had expected, but came up as a spring just inside the entrance.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell Leehallfae, not much need to deliberate, eh? Still, observe that your stream parts company with us here.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs he turned around for an answer he noticed that his companion was trembling from head to foot.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy, what\u2019s the matter?\u201d\r\n\r\nLeehallfae pressed a hand to aer heart. \u201cThe stream leaves us, but what makes the stream what it is continues with us. Faceny is there.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut surely you don\u2019t expect to see him in person? Why are you shaking?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps it will be too much for me after all.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy? How is it affecting you?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe phaen took him by the shoulder and held him at arm\u2019s length, endeavouring to study him with aer unsteady eyes. \u201cFaceny\u2019s thoughts are obscure. I am his lover, you are a lover of women, yet he grants to you what he denies to me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat does he grant to me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo see him, and go on living. I shall die. But it\u2019s immaterial. Tomorrow both of us will be dead.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull impatiently shook himself free. \u201cYour sensations may be reliable in your own case, but how do you know I shall die?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLife is flaming up inside you,\u201d replied Leehallfae, shaking aer head. \u201cBut after it has reached its climax\u2014perhaps tonight\u2014it will sink rapidly and you\u2019ll die tomorrow. As for me, if I enter Threal I shan\u2019t come out again. A smell of death is being wafted to me out of this hole.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou talk like a frightened man. I smell nothing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am not frightened,\u201d said Leehallfae quietly\u2014ae had been gradually recovering aer tranquillity\u2014\u201cbut when one has lived as long as I have, it is a serious matter to die. Every year one puts out new roots.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDecide what you\u2019re going to do,\u201d said Maskull with a touch of contempt, \u201cfor I\u2019m going in at once.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe phaen gave an odd, meditative stare down the ravine, and after that walked into the cavern without another word. Maskull, scratching his head, followed close at aer heels.\r\n\r\nThe moment they stepped across the bubbling spring, the atmosphere altered. Without becoming stale or unpleasant, it grew cold, clear and refined, and somehow suggested austere and tomblike thoughts. The daylight disappeared at the first bend in the tunnel. After that, Maskull could not say where the light came from. The air itself must have been luminous, for though it was as light as full moon on Earth, neither he nor Leehallfae cast a shadow. Another peculiarity of the light was that both the walls of the tunnel and their own bodies appeared colourless. Everything was black and white, like a lunar landscape. This intensified the solemn, funereal feelings created by the atmosphere.\r\n\r\nAfter they had proceeded for about ten minutes, the tunnel began to widen out. The roof was high above their heads, and six men could have walked side by side. Leehallfae was visibly weakening. Ae dragged aerself along slowly and painfully, with sunken head.\r\n\r\nMaskull caught hold of aer. \u201cYou can\u2019t go on like that. Better let me take you back.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe phaen smiled, and staggered. \u201cI\u2019m dying.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t talk like that. It\u2019s only a passing indisposition. Let me take you back to the daylight.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, help me forward. I wish to see Faceny.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe sick must have their way,\u201d said Maskull. Lifting aer bodily in his arms, he walked quickly along for another hundred yards or so. They then emerged from the tunnel and faced a world the parallel of which he had never set eyes upon before.\r\n\r\n\u201cSet me down!\u201d directed Leehallfae feebly. \u201cHere I\u2019ll die.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull obeyed, and laid aer down at full length on the rocky ground. The phaen raised aerself with difficulty on one arm, and stared with fast-glazing eyes at the mystic landscape.\r\n\r\nMaskull looked too, and what he saw was a vast, undulating plain, lighted as if by the moon\u2014but there was of course no moon, and there were no shadows. He made out running streams in the distance. Beside them were trees of a peculiar kind; they were rooted in the ground, but the branches also were aerial roots, and there were no leaves. No other plants could be seen. The soil was soft, porous rock, resembling pumice. Beyond a mile or two in any direction the light merged into obscurity. At their back a great rocky wall extended on either hand; but it was not square like a wall, but full of bays and promontories like an indented line of sea cliffs. The roof of this huge underworld was out of sight. Here and there a mighty shaft of naked rock, fantastically weathered, towered aloft into the gloom, doubtless serving to support the roof. There were no colours\u2014every detail of the landscape was black, white, or grey. The scene appeared so still, so solemn and religious, that all his feelings quieted down to absolute tranquillity.\r\n\r\nLeehallfae fell back suddenly. Maskull dropped on his knees, and helplessly watched the last flickerings of aer spirit, going out like a candle in foul air. Death came.... He closed the eyes. The awful grin of Crystalman immediately fastened upon the phaen\u2019s dead features.\r\n\r\nWhile Maskull was still kneeling, he became conscious of someone standing beside him. He looked up quickly and saw a man, but did not at once rise.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnother phaen dead,\u201d said the newcomer in a grave, toneless, and intellectual voice.\r\n\r\nMaskull got up.\r\n\r\nThe man was short and thickset but emaciated. His forehead was not disfigured by any organs. He was middle-aged. The features were energetic and rather coarse\u2014yet it seemed to Maskull as though a pure, hard life had done something toward refining them. His sanguine eyes carried a twisted, puzzled look; some unanswerable problem was apparently in the forefront of his brain. His face was hairless; the hair of his head was short and manly; his brow was wide. He was clothed in a black, sleeveless robe, and bore a long staff in his hand. There was an air of cleanness and austerity about the whole man that was attractive.\r\n\r\nHe went on speaking dispassionately to Maskull, and, while doing so, kept passing his hand reflectively over his cheeks and chin. \u201cThey all find their way here to die. They come from Matterplay. There they live to an incredible age. Partly on that account, and partly because of their spontaneous origin, they regard themselves as the favoured children of Faceny. But when they come here to find him, they die at once.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI think this one is the last of the race. But whom do I speak to?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am Corpang. Who are you, where do you come from, and what are you doing here?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy name is Maskull. My home is on the other side of the universe. As for what I am doing here\u2014I accompanied Leehallfae, that phaen, from Matterplay.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut a man doesn\u2019t accompany a phaen out of friendship. What do you want in Threal?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen this is<\/i> Threal?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull remained silent.\r\n\r\nCorpang studied his face with rough, curious eyes. \u201cAre you ignorant, or merely reticent, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI came here to ask questions, and not to answer them.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe stillness of the place was almost oppressive. Not a breeze stirred, and not a sound came through the air. Their voices had been lowered, as though they were in a cathedral.\r\n\r\n\u201cThen do you want my society, or not?\u201d asked Corpang.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, if you can fit in with my mood, which is\u2014not to talk about myself.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut you must at least tell me where you want to go to.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI want to see what is to be seen here, and then go on to Lichstorm.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI can guide you through, if that\u2019s all you want. Come, let us start.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFirst let\u2019s do our duty and bury the dead, if possible.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTurn around,\u201d directed Corpang.\r\n\r\nMaskull looked around quickly. Leehallfae\u2019s body had disappeared.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat does this mean\u2014what has happened?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe body has returned to whence it came. There was nowhere here for it to be, so it has vanished. No burial will be required.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWas the phaen an illusion, then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn no sense.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, explain quickly, then, what has taken place. I seem to be going mad.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s nothing unintelligible in it, if you\u2019ll only listen calmly. The phaen belonged, body and soul, to the outside, visible world\u2014to Faceny. This underworld is not Faceny\u2019s world, but Thire\u2019s, and Faceny\u2019s creatures cannot breathe its atmosphere. As this applies not only to whole bodies, but even to the last particles of bodies, the phaen has dissolved into Nothingness.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut don\u2019t you and I belong to the outside world too?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe belong to all three worlds.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat three worlds\u2014what do you mean?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are three worlds,\u201d said Corpang composedly. \u201cThe first is Faceny\u2019s, the second is Amfuse\u2019s, the third is Thire\u2019s. From him Threal gets its name.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut this is mere nomenclature. In what sense are there three worlds?\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang passed his hand over his forehead. \u201cAll this we can discuss as we go along. It\u2019s a torment to me to be standing still.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull stared again at the spot where Leehallfae\u2019s body had lain, quite bewildered at the extraordinary disappearance. He could scarcely tear himself away from the place, so mysterious was it. Not until Corpang called to him a second time did he make up his mind to follow him.\r\n\r\nThey set off from the rock wall straight across the airlit plain, directing their course toward the nearest trees. The subdued light, the absence of shadows, the massive shafts, springing grey-white out of the jetlike ground, the fantastic trees, the absence of a sky, the deathly silence, the knowledge that he was underground\u2014the combination of all these things predisposed Maskull\u2019s mind to mysticism, and he prepared himself with some anxiety to hear Corpang\u2019s explanation of the land and its wonders. He already began to grasp that the reality of the outside world and the reality of this world were two quite different things.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn what sense are there three worlds?\u201d he demanded, repeating his former question.\r\n\r\nCorpang smote the end of his staff on the ground. \u201cFirst of all, Maskull, what is your motive for asking? If it\u2019s mere intellectual curiosity, tell me, for we mustn\u2019t play with awful matters.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, it isn\u2019t that,\u201d said Maskull slowly. \u201cI\u2019m not a student. My journey is no holiday tour.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIsn\u2019t there blood on your soul?\u201d asked Corpang, eying him intently.\r\n\r\nThe blood rose steadily to Maskull\u2019s face, but in that light it caused it to appear black.\r\n\r\n\u201cUnfortunately there is, and not a little.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe other\u2019s face was all wrinkles, but he made no comment.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd so you see,\u201d went on Maskull, with a short laugh, \u201cI\u2019m in the very best condition for receiving your instruction.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang still paused. \u201cUnderneath your crimes I see a man,\u201d he said, after a few minutes. \u201cOn that account, and because we are commanded to help one another, I won\u2019t leave you at present, though I little thought to be walking with a murderer.... Now to your question.... Whatever a man sees with his eyes, Maskull, he sees in three ways\u2014length, breadth, depth. Length is existence, breadth is relation, depth is feeling.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSomething of the sort was told me by Earthrid, the musician, who came from Threal.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know him. What else did he tell you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe went on to apply it to music. Continue, and pardon the interruption.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThese three states of perception are the three worlds. Existence is Faceny\u2019s world, relation is Amfuse\u2019s world, feeling is Thire\u2019s world.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCan\u2019t we come down to hard facts?\u201d said Maskull, frowning. \u201cI understand no more than I did before what you mean by three worlds.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are no harder facts than the ones I am giving you. The first world is visible, tangible Nature. It was created by Faceny out of nothingness, and therefore we call it Existence.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat I understand.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe second world is Love\u2014by which I don\u2019t mean lust. Without love, every individual would be entirely self-centred and unable deliberately to act on others. Without love, there would be no sympathy\u2014not even hatred, anger, or revenge would be possible. These are all imperfect and distorted forms of pure love. Interpenetrating Faceny\u2019s world of Nature, therefore, we have Amfuse\u2019s world of Love, or Relation.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat grounds have you for assuming that this so-called second world is not contained in the first?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThey are contradictory. A natural man lives for himself; a lover lives for others.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt may be so. It\u2019s rather mystical. But go on\u2014who is Thire?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLength and breadth together without depth give flatness. Life and love without feeling produce shallow, superficial natures. Feeling is the need of men to stretch out toward their creator.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou mean prayer and worship?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI mean intimacy with Thire. This feeling is not to be found in either the first or second world, therefore it is a third world. Just as depth is the line between object and subject, feeling is the line between Thire and man.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut what is Thire himself?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThire is the afterworld.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI still don\u2019t understand,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cDo you believe in three separate gods, or are these merely three ways of regarding one God?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are three gods, for they are mutually antagonistic. Yet they are somehow united.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull reflected a while. \u201cHow have you arrived at these conclusions?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNone other are possible in Threal, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy in Threal\u2014what is there peculiar here?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI will show you presently.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey walked on for above a mile in silence, while Maskull digested what had been said. When they came to the first trees, which grew along the banks of a small stream of transparent water, Corpang halted.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat bandage around your forehead has long been unnecessary,\u201d he remarked.\r\n\r\nMaskull removed it. He found that the line of his brow was smooth and uninterrupted, as it had never yet been since his arrival in Tormance.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow has this come about\u2014and how did you know it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThey were Faceny\u2019s organs. They have vanished, just as the phaen\u2019s body vanished.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull kept rubbing his forehead. \u201cI feel more human without them. But why isn\u2019t the rest of my body affected?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause its living will contains the element of Thire.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy are we stopping here?\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang broke off the tip of one of the aerial roots of a tree, and proffered it to him. \u201cEat this, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFor food, or something else?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFood for body and soul.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull bit into the root. It was white and hard; its white sap was bleeding. It had no taste, but after eating it, he experienced a change of perception. The landscape, without alteration of light or outline, became several degrees more stern and sacred. When he looked at Corpang he was impressed by his aspect of Gothic awfulness, but the perplexed expression was still in his eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you spend all your time here, Corpang?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOccasionally I go above, but not often.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat fastens you to this gloomy world?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe search for Thire.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen it\u2019s still a search?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLet us walk on.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs they resumed their journey across the dim, gradually rising plain, the conversation became even more earnest in character than before. \u201cAlthough I was not born here,\u201d proceeded Corpang, \u201cI\u2019ve lived here for twenty-five years, and during all that time I have been drawing nearer to Thire, as I hope. But there is this peculiarity about it\u2014the first stages are richer in fruit and more promising than the later ones. The longer a man seeks Thire, the more he seems to absent himself. In the beginning he is felt and known, sometimes as a shape, sometimes as a voice, sometimes an overpowering emotion. Later on all is dry, dark, and harsh in the soul. Then you would think that Thire was a million miles off.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow do you explain that?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen everything is darkest, he may be nearest, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut this is troubling you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy days are spent in torture.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou still persist, though? This day darkness can\u2019t be the ultimate state?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy questions will be answered.\u201d\r\n\r\nA silence ensued.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you propose to show me?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe land is about to grow wilder. I am taking you to the Three Figures, which were carved and erected by an earlier race of men. There, we will pray.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you are truehearted, you will see things you will not easily forget.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey had been walking slightly uphill in a sort of trough between two parallel, gently sloping downs. The trough now deepened, while the hills on either side grew steeper. They were in an ascending valley and, as it curved this way and that, the landscape was shut off from view. They came to a little spring, bubbling up from the ground. It formed a trickling brook, which was unlike all other brooks in that it was flowing up<\/i> the valley instead of down<\/i>. Before long it was joined by other miniature rivulets, so that in the end it became a fair-sized stream. Maskull kept looking at it, and puckering his forehead.\r\n\r\n\u201cNature has other laws here, it seems?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNothing can exist here that is not a compound of the three worlds.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYet the water is flowing somewhere.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t explain it, but there are three wills in it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs there no such thing as pure Thire-matter?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThire cannot exist without Amfuse, and Amfuse cannot exist without Faceny.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull thought this over for some minutes. \u201cThat must be so,\u201d he said at last. \u201cWithout life there can be no love, and without love there can be no religious feeling.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn the half light of the land, the tops of the hills containing the valley presently attained such a height that they could not be seen. The sides were steep and craggy, while the bed of the valley grew narrower at every step. Not a living organism was visible. All was unnatural and sepulchral.\r\n\r\nMaskull said, \u201cI feel as if I were dead, and walking in another world.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI still do not know what you are doing here,\u201d answered Corpang.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy should I go on making a mystery of it? I came to find Surtur.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat name I\u2019ve heard\u2014but under what circumstances?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou forget?\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang walked along, his eyes fixed on the ground, obviously troubled. \u201cWho is<\/i> Surtur?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull shook his head, and said nothing.\r\n\r\nThe valley shortly afterward narrowed, so that the two men, touching fingertips in the middle, could have placed their free hands on the rock walls on either side. It threatened to terminate in a cul-de-sac, but just when the road seemed least promising, and they were shut in by cliffs on all sides, a hitherto unperceived bend brought them suddenly into the open. They emerged through a mere crack in the line of precipices.\r\n\r\nA sort of huge natural corridor was running along at right angles to the way they had come; both ends faded into obscurity after a few hundred yards. Right down the centre of this corridor ran a chasm with perpendicular sides; its width varied from thirty to a hundred feet, but its bottom could not be seen. On both sides of the chasm, facing one another, were platforms of rock, twenty feet or so in width; they too proceeded in both directions out of sight. Maskull and Corpang emerged onto one of these platforms. The shelf opposite was a few feet higher than that on which they stood. The platforms were backed by a double line of lofty and unclimbable cliffs, whose tops were invisible.\r\n\r\nThe stream, which had accompanied them through the gap, went straight forward, but, instead of descending the wall of the chasm as a waterfall, it crossed from side to side like a liquid bridge. It then disappeared through a cleft in the cliffs on the opposite side.\r\n\r\nTo Maskull\u2019s mind, however, even more wonderful than this unnatural phenomenon was the absence of shadows, which was more noticeable here than on the open plain. It made the place look like a hall of phantoms.\r\n\r\nCorpang, without delay, led the way along the shelf to the left. When they had walked about a mile, the gulf widened to two hundred feet. Three large rocks loomed up on the ledge opposite; they resembled three upright giants, standing motionless side by side on the extreme edge of the chasm. Corpang and Maskull drew nearer, and then Maskull saw that they were statues. Each was about thirty feet high, and the workmanship was of the rudest. They represented naked men, but the limbs and trunks had been barely chipped into shape\u2014the faces alone had had care bestowed on them, and even these faces were merely generalised. It was obviously the work of primitive artists. The statues stood erect with knees closed and arms hanging straight down their sides. All three were exactly alike.\r\n\r\nAs soon as they were directly opposite, Corpang halted.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs this a representation of your three Beings?\u201d asked Maskull, awed by the spectacle in spite of his constitutional audacity.\r\n\r\n\u201cAsk no questions, but kneel,\u201d replied Corpang. He dropped onto his own knees, but Maskull remained standing.\r\n\r\nCorpang covered his eyes with one hand, and prayed silently. After a few minutes the light sensibly faded. Then Maskull knelt as well, but he continued looking.\r\n\r\nIt grew darker and darker, until all was like the blackest night. Sight and sound no longer existed; he was alone with his own spirit.\r\n\r\nThen one of the three Colossi came slowly into sight again. But it had ceased to be a statue\u2014it was a living person. Out of the blackness of space a gigantic head and chest emerged, illuminated by a mystic, rosy glow, like a mountain peak bathed by the rising sun. As the light grew stronger Maskull saw that the flesh was translucent and that the glow came from within. The limbs of the apparition were wreathed in mist.\r\n\r\nBefore long the features of the face stood out distinctly. It was that of a beardless youth of twenty years. It possessed the beauty of a girl and the daring force of a man; it bore a mocking, cryptic smile. Maskull felt the fresh, mysterious thrill of mingled pain and rapture of one who awakes from a deep sleep in midwinter and sees the gleaming, dark, delicate colours of the half-dawn. The vision smiled, kept still, and looked beyond him. He began to shudder, with delight\u2014and many emotions. As he gazed, his poetic sensibility acquired such a nervous and indefinable character that he could endure it no more; he burst into tears.\r\n\r\nWhen he looked up again the image had nearly disappeared, and in a few moments more he was plunged back into total darkness.\r\n\r\nShortly afterward a second statue reappeared. It too was transfigured into a living form, but Maskull was unable to see the details of its face and body, because of the brightness of the light that radiated from them. This light, which started as pale gold, ended as flaming golden fire. It illumined the whole underground landscape. The rock ledges, the cliffs, himself and Corpang on their knees, the two unlighted statues\u2014all appeared as if in sunlight, and the shadows were black and strongly defined. The light carried heat with it, but a singular heat. Maskull was unaware of any rise in temperature, but he felt his heart melting to womanish softness. His male arrogance and egotism faded imperceptibly away; his personality seemed to disappear. What was left behind was not freedom of spirit or lightheartedness, but a passionate and nearly savage mental state of pity and distress. He felt a tormenting desire to serve<\/i>. All this came from the heat of the statue, and was without an object. He glanced anxiously around him, and fastened his eyes on Corpang. He put a hand on his shoulder and aroused him from his praying.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou must know what I am feeling, Corpang.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang smiled sweetly, but said nothing.\r\n\r\n\u201cI care nothing for my own affairs any more. How can I help you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo much the better for you, Maskull, if you respond so quickly to the invisible worlds.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs soon as he had spoken, the figure began to vanish, and the light to die away from the landscape. Maskull\u2019s emotion slowly subsided, but it was not until he was once more in complete darkness that he became master of himself again. Then he felt ashamed of his boyish exhibition of enthusiasm, and thought ruefully that there must be something wanting in his character. He got up onto his feet.\r\n\r\nThe very moment that he arose, a man\u2019s voice sounded, not a yard from his ear. It was hardly raised above a whisper, but he could distinguish that it was not Corpang\u2019s. As he listened he was unable to prevent himself from physically trembling.\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull, you are to die,\u201d said the unseen speaker.\r\n\r\n\u201cWho is speaking?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have only a few hours of life left. Don\u2019t trifle the time away.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull could bring nothing out.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have despised life,\u201d went on the low-toned voice. \u201cDo you really imagine that this mighty world has no meaning, and that life is a joke?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat must I do?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cRepent your murders, commit no fresh ones, pay honour to...\u201d\r\n\r\nThe voice died away. Maskull waited in silence for it to speak again. All remained still, however, and the speaker appeared to have taken his departure. Supernatural horror seized him; he fell into a sort of catalepsy.\r\n\r\nAt that moment he saw one of the statues fading away<\/i>, from a pale, white glow to darkness. He had not previously seen it shining.\r\n\r\nIn a few more minutes the normal light of the land returned. Corpang got up, and shook him out of his trance.\r\n\r\nMaskull looked around, but saw no third person. \u201cWhose statue was the last?\u201d he demanded.\r\n\r\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thire\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\r\n\r\n\u201cDid you hear me speaking?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI heard your voice, but no one else\u2019s.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve just had my death foretold, so I suppose I have not long to live. Leehallfae prophesied the same thing.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang shook his head. \u201cWhat value do you set on life?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\n\u201cVery little. But it\u2019s a fearful thing all the same.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYour death is?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, but this warning.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey stopped talking. A profound silence reigned. Neither of the two men seemed to know what to do next, or where to go. Then both of them heard the sound of drumming. It was slow, emphatic, and impressive, a long way off and not loud, but against the background of quietness, very marked. It appeared to come from some point out of sight, to the left of where they were standing, but on the same rock shelf. Maskull\u2019s heart beat quickly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat can that sound be?\u201d asked Corpang, peering into the obscurity.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is Surtur.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOnce again, who is<\/i> Surtur?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull clutched his arm and pressed him to silence. A strange radiance was in the air, in the direction of the drumming. It increased in intensity and gradually occupied the whole scene. Things were no longer seen by Their\u2019s light, but by this new light. It cast no shadows.\r\n\r\nCorpang\u2019s nostrils swelled, and he held himself more proudly. \u201cWhat fire is that?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is Muspel-light.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey both glanced instinctively at the three statues. In the strange glow they had undergone a change. The face of each figure was clothed in the sordid and horrible Crystalman mask.\r\n\r\nCorpang cried out and put his hand over his eyes. \u201cWhat can this mean?\u201d he asked a minute later.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt must mean that life is wrong, and the creator of life too, whether he is one person or three.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang looked again, like a man trying to accustom himself to a shocking sight. \u201cDare we believe this?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou must,\u201d replied Maskull. \u201cYou have always served the highest, and you must continue to do so. It has simply turned out that Thire is not the highest.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang\u2019s face became swollen with a kind of coarse anger. \u201cLife is clearly false\u2014I have been seeking Thire for a lifetime, and now I find\u2014this.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou have nothing to reproach yourself with. Crystalman has had eternity to practice his cunning in, so it\u2019s no wonder if a man can\u2019t see straight, even with the best intentions. What have you decided to do?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe drumming seems to be moving away. Will you follow it, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut where will it take us?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps out of Threal altogether.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt sounds to me more real than reality,\u201d said Corpang. \u201cTell me, who is Surtur?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSurtur\u2019s world, or Muspel, we are told, is the original of which this world is a distorted copy. Crystalman is life, but Surtur is other than life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow do you know this?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt has sprung together somehow\u2014from inspiration, from experience, from conversation with the wise men of your planet. Every hour it grows truer for me and takes a more definite shape.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang stood up squarely, facing the three Figures with a harsh, energetic countenance, stamped all over with resolution. \u201cI believe you, Maskull. No better proof is required than that<\/i>. Thire is not the highest; he is even in a certain sense the lowest<\/i>. Nothing but the thoroughly false and base could stoop to such deceits.... I am coming with you\u2014but don\u2019t play the traitor. These signs may be for you, and not for me at all, and if you leave me\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI make no promises. I don\u2019t ask you to come with me. If you prefer to stay in your little world, or if you have any doubts about it, you had better not come.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t talk like that. I shall never forget your service to me... Let us make haste, or we shall lose the sound.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang started off more eagerly than Maskull. They walked fast in the direction of the drumming. For upward of two miles the path went along the ledge without any change of level. The mysterious radiance gradually departed, and was replaced by the normal light of Threal. The rhythmical beats continued, but a very long way ahead\u2014neither was able to diminish the distance.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat kind of man are you?\u201d Corpang suddenly broke out.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn what respect?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow do you come to be on such terms with the Invisible? How is it that I\u2019ve never had this experience before I met you, in spite of my never-ending prayers and mortifications? In what way are you superior to me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo hear voices perhaps can\u2019t be made a profession,\u201d replied Maskull. \u201cI have a simple and unoccupied mind\u2014that may be why I sometimes hear things that up to the present you have not been able to.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang darkened, and kept silent; and then Maskull saw through to his pride.\r\n\r\nThe ledge presently began to rise. They were high above the platform on the opposite side of the gulf. The road then curved sharply to the right, and they passed over the abyss and the other ledge as by a bridge, coming out upon the top of the opposite cliffs. A new line of precipices immediately confronted them. They followed the drumming along the base of these heights, but as they were passing the mouth of a large cave the sound came from its recesses, and they turned their steps inward.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis leads to the outer world,\u201d remarked Corpang. \u201cI\u2019ve occasionally been there by this passage.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen that\u2019s where it is taking us, no doubt. I confess I shan\u2019t be sorry to see sunlight once more.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCan you find time to think of sunlight?\u201d asked Corpang with a rough smile.\r\n\r\n\u201cI love the sun, and perhaps I\u2019m rather lacking in the spirit of a zealot.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYet, for all that, you may get there<\/i> before me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t be bitter,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you another thing. Muspel can\u2019t be willed, for the simple reason that Muspel does not concern the will. To will is a property of this world.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen what is your journey for?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to walk to a destination, and to linger over the walk, and quite another to run there at top speed.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps I\u2019m not so easily deceived as you think,\u201d said Corpang with another smile.\r\n\r\nThe light persisted in the cave. The path narrowed and became a steep ascent. Then the angle became one of forty-five degrees, and they had to climb. The tunnel grew so confined that Maskull was reminded of the confined dreams of his childhood.\r\n\r\nNot long afterward, daylight appeared. They hastened to complete the last stage. Maskull rushed out first into the world of colours and, all dirty and bleeding from numerous scratches, stood blinking on a hillside, bathed in the brilliant late-afternoon sunshine. Corpang followed closely at his heels. He was obliged to shield his eyes with his hands for a few minutes, so unaccustomed was he to Branchspell\u2019s blinding rays.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe drum beats have stopped!\u201d he exclaimed suddenly.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou can\u2019t expect music all the time,\u201d answered Maskull dryly. \u201cWe mustn\u2019t be luxurious.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut now we have no guide. We\u2019re no better off than before.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, Tormance is a big place. But I have an infallible rule, Corpang. As I come from the south, I always go due north.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat will take us to Lichstorm.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull gazed at the fantastically piled rocks all around them. \u201cI saw these rocks from Matterplay. The mountains look as far off now as they did then, and there\u2019s not much of the day left. How far is Lichstorm from here?\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang looked away to the distant range. \u201cI don\u2019t know, but unless a miracle happens we shan\u2019t get there tonight.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have a feeling,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cthat we shall not only get there tonight, but that tonight will be the most important in my life.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd he sat down passively to rest.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 18. HAUNTE<\/h2>\r\nWhile Maskull sat, Corpang walked restlessly to and fro, swinging his arms. He had lost his staff. His face was inflamed with suppressed impatience, which accentuated its natural coarseness. At last he stopped short in front of Maskull and looked down at him. \u201cWhat do you intend to do?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull glanced up and idly waved his hand toward the distant mountains. \u201cSince we can\u2019t walk, we must wait.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFor what?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know... How\u2019s this, though? Those peaks have changed colour, from red to green.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, the lich wind is travelling this way.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe lich wind?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s the atmosphere of Lichstorm. It always clings to the mountains, but when the wind blows from the north it comes as far as Threal.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a sort of fog, then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA peculiar sort, for they say it excites the sexual passions.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo we are to have lovemaking,\u201d said Maskull, laughing.\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps you won\u2019t find it so joyous,\u201d replied Corpang a little grimly.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut tell me\u2014these peaks, how do they preserve their balance?\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang gazed at the distant, overhanging summits, which were fast fading into obscurity.\r\n\r\n\u201cPassion keeps them from falling.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull laughed again; he was feeling a strange disturbance of spirit. \u201cWhat, the love of rock for rock?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is comical, but true.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe\u2019ll take a closer peep at them presently. Beyond the mountains is Barey, is it not?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd then the Ocean. But what is the name of that Ocean?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat is told only to those who die beside it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs the secret so precious, Corpang?\u201d\r\n\r\nBranchspell was nearing the horizon in the west; there were more than two hours of daylight remaining. The air all around them became murky. It was a thin mist, neither damp nor cold. The Lichstorm Range now appeared only as a blur on the sky. The air was electric and tingling, and was exciting in its effect. Maskull felt a sort of emotional inflammation, as though a very slight external cause would serve to overturn his self-control. Corpang stood silent with a mouth like iron.\r\n\r\nMaskull kept looking toward a high pile of rocks in the vicinity.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat seems to me a good watchtower. Perhaps we shall see something from the top.\u201d\r\n\r\nWithout waiting for his companion\u2019s opinion, he began to scramble up the tor, and in a few minutes was standing on the summit. Corpang joined him.\r\n\r\nFrom their viewpoint they saw the whole countryside sloping down to the sea, which appeared as a mere flash of far-off, glittering water. Leaving all that, however, Maskull\u2019s eyes immediately fastened themselves on a small, boat-shaped object, about two miles away, which was travelling rapidly toward them, suspended only a few feet in the air.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you make of that?\u201d he asked in a tone of astonishment.\r\n\r\nCorpang shook his head and said nothing.\r\n\r\nWithin two minutes the flying object, whatever it was, had diminished the distance between them by one half. It resembled a boat more and more, but its flight was erratic, rather than smooth; its nose was continually jerking upward and downward, and from side to side. Maskull now made out a man sitting in the stern, and what looked like a large dead animal lying amidships. As the aerial craft drew nearer, he observed a thick, blue haze underneath it, and a similar haze behind, but the front, facing them, was clear.\r\n\r\n\u201cHere must be what we are waiting for, Corpang. But what on earth carries it?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe stroked his beard contemplatively, and then, fearing that they had not been seen, stepped onto the highest rock, bellowed loudly, and made wild motions with his arm. The flying-boat, which was only a few hundred yards distant, slightly altered its course, now heading toward them in a way that left no doubt that the steersman had detected their presence.\r\n\r\nThe boat slackened speed until it was travelling no faster than a walking man, but the irregularity of its movements continued. It was shaped rather queerly. About twenty feet long, its straight sides tapered off from a flat bow, four feet broad, to a sharp-angled stern. The flat bottom was not above ten feet from the ground. It was undecked, and carried only one living occupant; the other object they had distinguished was really the carcass of an animal, of about the size of a large sheep. The blue haze trailing behind the boat appeared to emanate from the glittering point of a short upright pole fastened in the stern. When the craft was within a few feet of them, and they were looking down at it in wonder from above, the man removed this pole and covered the brightly shining tip with a cap. The forward motion then ceased altogether, and the boat began to drift hither and thither, but still it remained suspended in the air, while the haze underneath persisted. Finally the broad side came gently up against the pile of rocks on which they were standing. The steersman jumped ashore and immediately clambered up to meet them.\r\n\r\nMaskull offered him a hand, but he refused it disdainfully. He was a young man, of middle height. He wore a close-fitting fur garment. His limbs were quite ordinary, but his trunk was disproportionately long, and he had the biggest and deepest chest that Maskull had ever seen in a man. His hairless face was sharp, pointed, and ugly, with protruding teeth, and a spiteful, grinning expression. His eyes and brows sloped upward. On his forehead was an organ which looked as though it had been mutilated\u2014it was a mere disagreeable stump of flesh. His hair was short and thin. Maskull could not name the colour of his skin, but it seemed to stand in the same relation to jale as green to red.\r\n\r\nOnce up, the stranger stood for a minute or two, scrutinising the two companions through half-closed lids, all the time smiling insolently. Maskull was all eagerness to exchange words, but did not care to be the first to speak. Corpang stood moodily, a little in the background.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat men are you?\u201d demanded the aerial navigator at last. His voice was extremely loud, and possessed a most unpleasant timbre. It sounded to Maskull like a large volume of air trying to force its way through a narrow orifice.\r\n\r\n\u201cI am Maskull; my friend is Corpang. He comes from Threal, but where I come from, don\u2019t ask.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am Haunte, from Sarclash.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere may that be?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHalf an hour ago I could have shown it to you, but now it has got too murky. It is a mountain in Lichstorm.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAre you returning there now?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd how long will it take to get there in that boat?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTwo\u2014three hours.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWill it accommodate us too?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat, are you for Lichstorm as well? What can you want there?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo see the sights,\u201d responded Maskull with twinkling eyes. \u201cBut first of all, to dine. I can\u2019t remember having eaten all day. You seem to have been hunting to some purpose, so we won\u2019t lack for food.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte eyed him quizzically. \u201cYou certainly don\u2019t lack impudence. However, I\u2019m a man of that sort myself, and it is the sort I prefer. Your friend, now, would probably rather starve than ask a meal of a stranger. He looks to me just like a bewildered toad dragged up out of a dark hole.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull took Corpang\u2019s arm, and constrained him to silence.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere have you been hunting, Haunte?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMatterplay. I had the worst luck\u2014I speared one wold horse, and there it lies.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is Lichstorm like?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are men there, and there are women there, but there are no men-women, as with you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you call men-women?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPersons of mixed sex, like yourself. In Lichstorm the sexes are pure.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have always regarded myself as a man.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cVery likely you have; but the test is, do you hate and fear women?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy, do you?\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte grinned and showed his teeth. \u201cThings are different in Lichstorm.... So you want to see the sights?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI confess I am curious to see your women, for example, after what you say.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen I\u2019ll introduce you to Sullenbode.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe paused a moment after making this remark, and then suddenly uttered a great, bass laugh, so that his chest shook.\r\n\r\n\u201cLet us share the joke,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, you\u2019ll understand it later.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you play pranks with me, I won\u2019t stand on ceremony with you.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte laughed again. \u201cI won\u2019t be the one to play pranks. Sullenbode will be deeply obliged to me. If I don\u2019t visit her myself as often as she would like, I\u2019m always glad to serve her in other ways.... Well, you shall have your boat ride.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull rubbed his nose doubtfully. \u201cIf the sexes hate one another in your land, is it because passion is weaker, or stronger?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn other parts of the world there is soft passion, but in Lichstorm there is hard passion.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut what do you call hard passion?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere men are called to women by pain, and not pleasure.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI intend to understand, before I\u2019ve finished.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d answered Haunte, with a taunting look, \u201cit would be a pity to let the chance slip, since you\u2019re going to Lichstorm.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt was now Corpang\u2019s turn to take Maskull by the arm. \u201cThis journey will end badly.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy so?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYour goal was Muspel a short while ago; now it is women.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLet me alone,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cGive luck a slack rein. What brought this boat here?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is this talk about Muspel?\u201d demanded Haunte.\r\n\r\nCorpang caught his shoulder roughly, and stared straight into his eyes. \u201cWhat do you know?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNot much, but something, perhaps. Ask me at supper. Now it is high time to start. Navigating the mountains by night isn\u2019t child\u2019s play, let me tell you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI shall not forget,\u201d said Corpang.\r\n\r\nMaskull gazed down at the boat. \u201cAre we to get in?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGently, my friend. It\u2019s only canework and skin.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFirst of all, you might enlighten me as to how you have contrived to dispense with the laws of gravitation.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte smiled sarcastically. \u201cA secret in your ear, Maskull. All laws are female. A true male is an outlaw\u2014outside the law.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t understand.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe great body of the earth is continually giving out female particles, and the male parts of rocks and living bodies are equally continually trying to reach them. That\u2019s gravitation.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen how do you manage with your boat?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy two male stones do the work. The one underneath the boat prevents it from falling to the ground; the one in the stern shuts it off from solid objects in the rear. The only part of the boat attracted by any part of the earth is the bow, for that\u2019s the only part the light of the male stones does not fall on. So in that direction the boat travels.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what are these wondrous male stones?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThey really are male stones. There is nothing female in them; they are showering out male sparks all the time. These sparks devour all the female particles rising from the earth. No female particles are left over to attract the male parts of the boat, and so they are not in the least attracted in that direction.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull ruminated for a minute.\r\n\r\n\u201cWith your hunting, and boatbuilding, and science, you seem a very handy, skilful fellow, Haunte.... But the sun\u2019s sinking, and we\u2019d better start.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGet down first, then, and shift that carcass farther forward. Then you and your gloomy friend can sit amidships.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull immediately climbed down, and dropped himself into the boat; but then he received a surprise. The moment he stood on the frail bottom, still clinging to the rock, not only did his weight entirely disappear, as though he were floating in some heavy medium, like salt water, but the rock he held onto drew him, as by a mild current of electricity, and he was able to withdraw his hands only with difficulty.\r\n\r\nAfter the first moment\u2019s shock, he quietly accepted the new order of things, and set about shifting the carcass. Since there was no weight in the boat this was effected without any great labour. Corpang then descended. The astonishing physical change had no power to disturb his settled composure, which was founded on moral ideas. Haunte came last; grasping the staff which held the upper male stone, he proceeded to erect it, after removing the cap. Maskull then obtained his first near view of the mysterious light, which, by counteracting the forces of Nature, acted indirectly not only as elevator but as motive force. In the last ruddy gleams of the great sun, its rays were obscured, and it looked little more impressive than an extremely brilliant, scintillating blue-white jewel, but its power could be gauged by the visible, coloured mist that it threw out for many yards around.\r\n\r\nThe steering was effected by means of a shutter attached by a cord to the top of the staff, which could be so manipulated that any segment of the male stone\u2019s rays, or all the rays, or none at all, could be shut off at will. No sooner was the staff raised than the aerial vessel quietly detached itself from the rock to which it had been drawn, and passed slowly forward in the direction of the mountains. Branchspell sank below the horizon. The gathering mist blotted out everything outside a radius of a few miles. The air grew cool and fresh.\r\n\r\nSoon the rock masses ceased on the great, rising plain. Haunte withdrew the shutter entirely, and the boat gathered full speed.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou say that navigation among the mountains is difficult at night,\u201d exclaimed Maskull. \u201cI would have thought it impossible.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte grunted. \u201cYou will have to take risks, and think yourself fortunate if you come off with nothing worse than a cracked skull. But one thing I can tell you\u2014if you go on disturbing me with your chitchat we shan\u2019t get as far as the mountains.\u201d\r\n\r\nThereafter Maskull was silent.\r\n\r\nThe twilight deepened; the murk grew denser. There was little to look at, but much to feel. The motion of the boat, which was due to the never-ending struggle between the male stones and the force of gravitation, resembled in an exaggerated fashion the violent tossing of a small craft on a choppy sea. The two passengers became unhappy. Haunte, from his seat in the stern, gazed at them sardonically with one eye. The darkness now came on rapidly.\r\n\r\nAbout ninety minutes after the commencement of the voyage they arrived at the foothills of Lichstorm. They began to mount. There was no daylight left to see by. Beneath them, however, on both sides of them and in the rear, the landscape was lighted up for a considerable distance by the now vivid blue rays of the twin male stones. Ahead, where these rays did not shine, Haunte was guided by the self-luminous nature of the rocks, grass, and trees. These were faintly phosphorescent; the vegetation shone out more strongly than the soil.\r\n\r\nThe moon was not shining and there were no stars; Maskull therefore inferred that the upper atmosphere was dense with mist. Once or twice, from his sensations of choking, he thought that they were entering a fogbank, but it was a strange kind of fog, for it had the effect of doubling the intensity of every light in front of them. Whenever this happened, nightmare feelings attacked him; he experienced transitory, unreasoning fright and horror.\r\n\r\nNow they passed high above the valley that separated the foothills from the mountains themselves. The boat began an ascent of many thousands of feet and, as the cliffs were near, Haunte had to manoeuvre carefully with the rear light in order to keep clear of them. Maskull watched the delicacy of his movements, not without admiration. A long time went by. It grew much colder; the air was damp and drafty. The fog began to deposit something like snow on their persons. Maskull kept sweating with terror, not because of the danger they were in, but because of the cloud banks that continued to envelop them.\r\n\r\nThey cleared the first line of precipices. Still mounting, but this time with a forward motion, as could be seen by the vapours illuminated by the male stones through which they passed, they were soon altogether out of sight of solid ground. Suddenly and quite unexpectedly the moon broke through. In the upper atmosphere thick masses of fog were seen crawling hither and thither, broken in many places by thin rifts of sky, through one of which Teargeld was shining. Below them, to their left, a gigantic peak, glittering with green ice, showed itself for a few seconds, and was then swallowed up again. All the rest of the world was hidden by the mist. The moon went in again. Maskull had seen quite enough to make him long for the aerial voyage to end.\r\n\r\nThe light from the male stones presently illuminated the face of a new cliff. It was grand, rugged, and perpendicular. Upward, downward, and on both sides, it faded imperceptibly into the night. After coasting it a little way, they observed a shelf of rock jutting out. It was square, measuring about a dozen feet each way. Green snow covered it to a depth of some inches. Immediately behind it was a dark slit in the rock, which promised to be the mouth of a cave.\r\n\r\nHaunte skilfully landed the boat on this platform. Standing up, he raised the staff bearing the keel light and lowered the other; then removed both male stones, which he continued to hold in his hand. His face was thrown into strong relief by the vivid, sparkling blue-white rays. It looked rather surly.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo we get out?\u201d inquired Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes. I live here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThanks for the successful end of a dangerous journey.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, it has been touch-and-go.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang jumped onto the platform. He was smiling coarsely. \u201cThere has been no danger, for our destinies lie elsewhere. You are merely a ferryman, Haunte.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs that so?\u201d returned Haunte, with a most unpleasant laugh. \u201cI thought I was carrying men, not gods.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere are we?\u201d asked Maskull. As he spoke, he got out, but Haunte remained standing a minute in the boat.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is Sarclash\u2014the second highest mountain in the land.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhich is the highest, then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAdage. Between Sarclash and Adage there is a long ridge\u2014very difficult in places. About halfway along the ridge, at the lowest point, lies the top of the Mornstab Pass, which goes through to Barey. Now you know the lay of the land.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDoes the woman Sullenbode live near here?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNear enough.\u201d Haunte grinned.\r\n\r\nHe leaped out of the boat and, pushing past the others without ceremony, walked straight into the cave.\r\n\r\nMaskull followed, with Corpang at his heels. A few stone steps led to a doorway, curtained by the skin of some large beast. Their host pushed his way in, never offering to hold the skin aside for them. Maskull made no comment, but grabbed it with his fist and tugged it away from its fastenings to the ground. Haunte looked at the skin, and then stared hard at Maskull with his disagreeable smile, but neither said anything.\r\n\r\nThe place in which they found themselves was a large oblong cavern, with walls, floor, and ceiling of natural rock. There were two doorways: that by which they had entered, and another of smaller size directly opposite. The cave was cold and cheerless; a damp draft passed from door to door. Many skins of wild animals lay scattered on the ground. A number of lumps of sun-dried flesh were hanging on a string along the wall, and a few bulging liquor skins reposed in a corner. There were tusks, horns, and bones everywhere. Resting against the wall were two short hunting spears, having beautiful crystal heads.\r\n\r\nHaunte set down the two male stones on the ground, near the farther door; thire light illuminated the whole cave. He then walked over to the meat and, snatching a large piece, began to gnaw it ravenously.\r\n\r\n\u201cAre we invited to the feast?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\nHaunte pointed to the hanging flesh and to the liquor skins, but did not pause in his chewing.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere\u2019s a cup?\u201d inquired Maskull, lifting one of the skins.\r\n\r\nHaunte indicated a clay goblet lying on the floor. Maskull picked it up, undid the neck of the skin, and, resting it under his arm, filled the cup. Tasting the liquor, he discovered it to be raw spirit. He tossed off the draught, and then felt much better.\r\n\r\nThe second cupful he proffered to Corpang. The latter took a single sip, swallowed it, and then passed the cup back without a word. He refused to drink again, as long as they were in the cave. Maskull finished the cup, and began to throw off care.\r\n\r\nGoing to the meat line, he took down a large double handful, and sat down on a pile of skins to eat at his ease. The flesh was tough and coarse, but he had never tasted anything sweeter. He could not understand the flavour, which was not surprising in a world of strange animals. The meal proceeded in silence. Corpang ate sparingly, standing up, and afterward lay down on a bundle of furs. His bold eyes watched all the movements of the other two. Haunte had not drunk as yet.\r\n\r\nAt last Maskull concluded his meal. He emptied another cup, sighed pleasantly, and prepared to talk.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow explain further about your women, Haunte.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte fetched another skin of liquor and a second cup. He tore off the string with his teeth, and poured out and drank cup after cup in quick succession. Then he sat down, crossed his legs, and turned to Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo they are objectionable?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThey are deadly.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDeadly? In what way can they possibly be deadly?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou will learn. I was watching you in the boat, Maskull. You had some bad feelings, eh?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t conceal it. There were times when I felt as if I were struggling with a nightmare. What caused it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe female atmosphere of Lichstorm. Sexual passion.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI had no passion.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat was<\/i> passion\u2014the first stage. Nature tickles your people into marriage, but it tortures us. Wait till you get outside. You\u2019ll have a return of those sensations\u2014only ten times worse. The drink you\u2019ve had will see to that.... How do you suppose it will all end?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf I knew, I wouldn\u2019t be asking you questions.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte laughed loudly. \u201cSullenbode.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou mean it will end in my seeking Sullenbode?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut what will come of it, Maskull? What will she give you? Sweet, fainting, white-armed, feminine voluptuousness?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull coolly drank another cup. \u201cAnd why should she give all that to a passerby?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, as a matter of fact, she hasn\u2019t it to give. No, what she will give you, and what you\u2019ll accept from her, because you can\u2019t help it, is\u2014anguish, insanity, possibly death.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou may be talking sense, but it sounds like raving to me. Why should I accept insanity and death?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause your passion will force you to.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat about yourself?\u201d Maskull asked, biting his nails.\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, I have my male stones. I am immune.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs that all that prevents you from being like other men?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, but don\u2019t attempt any tricks, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull went on drinking steadily, and said nothing for a time. \u201cSo men and women here are hostile to each other, and love is unknown?\u201d he proceeded at last.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat magic word.... Shall I tell you what love is, Maskull? Love between male and female is impossible. When Maskull loves a woman, it is Maskull\u2019s female ancestors who are loving her. But here in this land the men are pure males. They have drawn nothing from the female side.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere do the male stones come from?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, they are not freaks. There must be whole beds of the stuff somewhere. It is all that prevents the world from being a pure female world. It would be one big mass of heavy sweetness, without individual shapes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYet this same sweetness is torturing to men?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe life of an absolute male is fierce. An excess of life is dangerous to the body. How can it be anything else than torturing?\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang now sat up suddenly, and addressed Haunte. \u201cI remind you of your promise to tell about Muspel.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte regarded him with a malevolent smile. \u201cHa! The underground man has come to life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, tell us,\u201d put in Maskull carelessly.\r\n\r\nHaunte drank, and laughed a little. \u201cWell, the tale\u2019s short, and hardly worth telling, but since you\u2019re interested.... A stranger came here five years ago, inquiring after Muspel-light. His name was Lodd. He came from the east. He came up to me one bright morning in summer, outside this very cave. If you ask me to describe him\u2014I can\u2019t imagine a second man like him. He looked so proud, noble, superior, that I felt my own blood to be dirty by comparison. You can guess I don\u2019t have this feeling for everyone. Now that I am recalling him, he was not so much superior as different. I was so impressed that I rose and talked to him standing. He inquired the direction of the mountain Adage. He went on to say, \u2018They say Muspel-light is sometimes seen there. What do you know of such a thing?\u2019 I told him the truth\u2014that I knew nothing about it, and then he went on, \u2018Well, I am going to Adage. And tell those who come after me on the same errand that they had better do the same thing.\u2019 That was the whole conversation. He started on his way, and I\u2019ve never seen him or heard of him since.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo you didn\u2019t have the curiosity to follow him?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, because the moment he had turned his back all my interest in the man somehow seemed to vanish.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cProbably because he was useless to you.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang glanced at Maskull. \u201cOur road is marked out for us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo it would appear,\u201d said Maskull indifferently.\r\n\r\nThe talk flagged for a time. Maskull felt the silence oppressive, and grew restless.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you call the colour of your skin, Haunte, as I saw it in daylight? It struck me as strange.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDolm,\u201d said Haunte.\r\n\r\n\u201cA compound of ulfire and blue,\u201d explained Corpang.\r\n\r\n\u201cNow I know. These colours are puzzling for a stranger.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat colours have you in your world?\u201d asked Corpang.\r\n\r\n\u201cOnly three primary ones, but here you seem to have five, though how it comes about I can\u2019t imagine.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are two sets of three primary colours here,\u201d said Corpang, \u201cbut as one of the colours\u2014blue\u2014is identical in both sets, altogether there are five primary colours.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy two sets?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cProduced by the two suns. Branchspell produces blue, yellow, and red; Alppain, ulfire, blue, and jale.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s remarkable that explanation has never occurred to me before.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo here you have another illustration of the necessary trinity of nature. Blue is existence. It is darkness seen through light; a contrasting of existence and nothingness. Yellow is relation. In yellow light we see the relation of objects in the clearest way. Red is feeling. When we see red, we are thrown back on our personal feelings.... As regards the Alppain colours, blue stands in the middle and is therefore not existence, but relation. Ulfire is existence; so it must be a different sort of existence.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte yawned. \u201cThere are marvellous philosophers in your underground hole.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull got up and looked about him.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere does that other door lead to?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBetter explore,\u201d said Haunte.\r\n\r\nMaskull took him at his word, and strolled across the cave, flinging the curtain aside and disappearing into the night. Haunte rose abruptly and hurried after him.\r\n\r\nCorpang too got to his feet. He went over to the untouched spirit skins, untied the necks, and allowed the contents to gush out on to the floor. Next he took the hunting spears, and snapped off the points between his hands. Before he had time to resume his seat, Haunte and Maskull reappeared. The host\u2019s quick, shifty eyes at once took in what had happened. He smiled, and turned pale.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou haven\u2019t been idle, friend.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang fixed Haunte with his bold, heavy gaze. \u201cI thought it well to draw your teeth.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull burst out laughing. \u201cThe toad\u2019s come into the light to some purpose, Haunte. Who would have expected it?\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte, after staring hard at Corpang for two or three minutes, suddenly uttered a strange cry, like an evil spirit, and flung himself upon him. The two men began to wrestle like wildcats. They were as often on the floor as on their legs, and Maskull could not see who was getting the better of it. He made no attempt to separate them. A thought came into his head and, snatching up the two male stones, he ran with them, laughing, through the upper doorway, into the open night air.\r\n\r\nThe door overlooked an abyss on another face of the mountain. A narrow ledge, sprinkled with green snow, wound along the cliff to the right; it was the only available path. He pitched the pebbles over the edge of the chasm. Although hard and heavy in his hand, they sank more like feathers than stones, and left a long trail of vapour behind. While Maskull was still watching them disappear, Haunte came rushing out of the cavern, followed by Corpang. He gripped Maskull\u2019s arm excitedly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat in Krag\u2019s name have you done?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOverboard they have gone,\u201d replied Maskull, renewing his laughter.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou accursed madman!\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte\u2019s luminous colour came and went, just as though his internal light were breathing. Then he grew suddenly calm, by a supreme exertion of his will.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou know this kills me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHaven\u2019t you been doing your best this last hour to make me ripe for Sullenbode? Well then, cheer up, and join the pleasure party!\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou say it as a joke, but it is the miserable truth.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte\u2019s jeering malevolence had completely vanished. He looked a sick man\u2014yet somehow his face had become nobler.\r\n\r\n\u201cI would be very sorry for you, Haunte, if it did not entail my being also very sorry for myself. We are now all three together on the same errand\u2014which doesn\u2019t appear to have struck you yet.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut why this errand at all?\u201d asked Corpang quietly. \u201cCan\u2019t you men exercise self-control till you have arrived out of danger?\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte fixed him with wild eyes. \u201cNo. The phantoms come trooping in on me already.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe sat down moodily, but the next minute was up again.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd I cannot wait.... the game is started.\u201d\r\n\r\nSoon afterward, by silent consent, they began to walk the ledge, Haunte in front. It was narrow, ascending, and slippery, so that extreme caution was demanded. The way was lighted by the self-luminous snow and rocks.\r\n\r\nWhen they had covered about half a mile, Maskull, who went second of the party, staggered, caught the cliff, and finally sat down.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe drink works. My old sensations are returning, but worse.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte turned back. \u201cThen you are a doomed man.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull, though fully conscious of his companions and situation, imagined that he was being oppressed by a black, shapeless, supernatural being, who was trying to clasp him. He was filled with horror, trembled violently, yet could not move a limb. Sweat tumbled off his face in great drops. The waking nightmare lasted a long time, but during that space it kept coming and going. At one moment the vision seemed on the point of departing; the next it almost took shape\u2014which he knew would be his death. Suddenly it vanished altogether\u2014he was free. A fresh spring breeze fanned his face; he heard the slow, solitary singing of a sweet bird; and it seemed to him as if a poem had shot together in his soul. Such flashing, heartbreaking joy he had never experienced before in all his life! Almost immediately that too vanished.\r\n\r\nSitting up, he passed his hand across his eyes and swayed quietly, like one who has been visited by an angel.\r\n\r\n\u201cYour colour changed to white,\u201d said Corpang. \u201cWhat happened?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI passed through torture to love,\u201d replied Maskull simply.\r\n\r\nHe stood up. Haunte gazed at him sombrely. \u201cWill you not describe that passage?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull answered slowly and thoughtfully. \u201cWhen I was in Matterplay, I saw heavy clouds discharge themselves and change to coloured, living animals. In the same way, my black, chaotic pangs just now seemed to consolidate themselves and spring together as a new sort of joy. The joy would not have been possible without the preliminary nightmare. It is not accidental; Nature intends it so. The truth has just flashed through my brain.... You men of Lichstorm don\u2019t go far enough. You stop at the pangs, without realising that they are birth pangs.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf this is true, you are a great pioneer,\u201d muttered Haunte.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow does this sensation differ from common love?\u201d interrogated Corpang.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis was all that love is, multiplied by wildness.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang fingered his chin awhile. \u201cThe Lichstorm men, however, will never reach this stage, for they are too masculine.\u201d\r\n\r\nHaunte turned pale. \u201cWhy should we alone suffer?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNature is freakish and cruel, and doesn\u2019t act according to justice.... Follow us, Haunte, and escape from it all.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ll see,\u201d muttered Haunte. \u201cPerhaps I will.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHave we far to go, to Sullenbode?\u201d inquired Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, her home\u2019s under the hanging cap of Sarclash.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is to happen tonight?\u201d Maskull spoke to himself, but Haunte answered him.\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t expect anything pleasant, in spite of what has just occurred. She is not a woman, but a mass of pure sex. Your passion will draw her out into human shape, but only for a moment. If the change were permanent, you would have endowed her with a soul.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps the change might be made permanent.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo do that, it is not enough to desire her; she must desire you as well. But why should she desire you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNothing turns out as one expects,\u201d said Maskull, shaking his head. \u201cWe had better get on again.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey resumed the journey. The ledge still rose, but, on turning a corner of the cliff, Haunte quitted it and began to climb a steep gully, which mounted directly to the upper heights. Here they were compelled to use both hands and feet. Maskull thought all the while of nothing but the overwhelming sweetness he had just experienced.\r\n\r\nThe flat ground on top was dry and springy. There was no more snow, and bright plants appeared. Haunte turned sharply to the left.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis must be under the cap,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is; and within five minutes you will see Sullenbode.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen he spoke his words, Maskull\u2019s lips surprised him by their tender sensitiveness. Their action against each other sent thrills throughout his body.\r\n\r\nThe grass shone dimly. A huge tree, with glowing branches, came into sight. It bore a multitude of red fruit, like hanging lanterns, but no leaves. Underneath this tree Sullenbode was sitting. Her beautiful light\u2014a mingling of jale and white\u2014gleamed softly through the darkness. She sat erect, on crossed legs, asleep. She was clothed in a singular skin garment, which started as a cloak thrown over one shoulder, and ended as loose breeches terminating above the knees. Her forearms were lightly folded, and in one hand she held a half-eaten fruit.\r\n\r\nMaskull stood over her and looked down, deeply interested. He thought he had never seen anything half so feminine. Her flesh was almost melting in its softness. So undeveloped were the facial organs that they looked scarcely human; only the lips were full, pouting, and expressive. In their richness, these lips seemed like a splash of vivid will on a background of slumbering protoplasm. Her hair was undressed. Its colour could not be distinguished. It was long and tangled, and had been tucked into her garment behind, for convenience.\r\n\r\nCorpang looked calm and sullen, but both the others were visibly agitated. Maskull\u2019s heart was hammering away under his chest. Haunte pulled him, and said, \u201cMy head feels as if it were being torn from my shoulders.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat can that mean?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYet there\u2019s a horrible joy in it,\u201d added Haunte, with a sickly smile.\r\n\r\nHe put his hand on the woman\u2019s shoulder. She awoke softly, glanced up at them, smiled, and then resumed eating her fruit. Maskull did not imagine that she had intelligence enough to speak. Haunte suddenly dropped on his knees, and kissed her lips.\r\n\r\nShe did not repulse him. During the continuance of the kiss, Maskull noticed with a shock that her face was altering. The features emerged from their indistinctness and became human, and almost powerful. The smile faded, a scowl took its place. She thrust Haunte away, rose to her feet, and stared beneath bent brows at the three men, each one in turn. Maskull came last; his face she studied for quite a long time, but nothing indicated what she thought.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile Haunte again approached her, staggering and grinning. She suffered him quietly; but the instant lips met lips the second time, he fell backward with a startled cry, as though he had come in contact with an electric wire. The back of his head struck the ground, and he lay there motionless.\r\n\r\nCorpang sprang forward to his assistance. But, when he saw what had happened, he left him where he was.\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull, come here quickly!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe light was perceptibly fading from Haunte\u2019s skin, as Maskull bent over. The man was dead. His face was unrecognisable. The head had been split from the top downward into two halves, streaming with strange-coloured blood, as though it had received a terrible blow from an axe.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis couldn\u2019t be from the fall,\u201d said Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, Sullenbode did it.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull turned quickly to look at the woman. She had resumed her former attitude on the ground. The momentary intelligence had vanished from her face, and she was again smiling.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 19. SULLENBODE<\/h2>\r\nSullenbode\u2019s naked skin glowed softly through the darkness, but the clothed part of her person was invisible. Maskull watched her senseless, smiling face, and shivered. Strange feelings ran through his body.\r\n\r\nCorpang spoke out of the night. \u201cShe looks like an evil spirit filled with deadliness.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was like deliberately kissing lightning.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHaunte was insane with passion.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo am I,\u201d said Maskull quietly. \u201cMy body seems full of rocks, all grinding against one another.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is what I was afraid of.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt appears I shall have to kiss her too.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang pulled his arm. \u201cHave you lost all manliness?\u201d\r\n\r\nBut Maskull impatiently shook himself free. He plucked nervously at his beard, and stared at Sullenbode. His lips kept twitching. After this had gone on for a few minutes, he stepped forward, bent over the woman, and lifted her bodily in his arms. Setting her upright against the rugged tree trunk, he kissed her.\r\n\r\nA cold, knifelike shock passed down his frame. He thought that it was death, and lost consciousness.\r\n\r\nWhen his sense returned, Sullenbode was holding him by the shoulder with one hand at arm\u2019s length, searching his face with gloomy eyes. At first he failed to recognise her; it was not the woman he had kissed, but another. Then he gradually realised that her face was identical with that which Haunte\u2019s action had called into existence. A great calmness came upon him; his bad sensations had disappeared.\r\n\r\nSullenbode was transformed into a living soul. Her skin was firm, her features were strong, her eyes gleamed with the consciousness of power. She was tall and slight, but slow in all her gestures and movements. Her face was not beautiful. It was long, and palely lighted, while the mouth crossed the lower half like a gash of fire. The lips were as voluptuous as before. Her brows were heavy. There was nothing vulgar in her\u2014she looked the kingliest<\/i> of all women. She appeared not more than twenty-five.\r\n\r\nGrowing tired, apparently, of his scrutiny, she pushed him a little way and allowed her arm to drop, at the same time curving her mouth into a long, bowlike smile. \u201cWhom have I to thank for this gift of life?\u201d\r\n\r\nHer voice was rich, slow, and odd. Maskull felt himself in a dream.\r\n\r\n\u201cMy name is Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe motioned to him to come a step nearer. \u201cListen, Maskull. Man after man has drawn me into the world, but they could not keep me there, for I did not wish it. But now you have drawn me into it for all time, for good or evil.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull stretched a hand toward the now invisible corpse, and said quietly, \u201cWhat have you to say about him<\/i>?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWho was it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHaunte.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo that was Haunte. The news will travel far and wide. He was a famous man.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a horrible affair. I can\u2019t think that you killed him deliberately.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe women are endowed with terrible power, but it is our only protection. We do not want these visits; we loathe them.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI might have died, too.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou came together?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere were three of us. Corpang still stands over there.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI see a faintly glimmering form. What do you want of me, Corpang?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNothing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen go away, and leave me with Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo need, Corpang. I am coming with you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is not that pleasure, then?\u201d demanded the low, earnest voice, out of the darkness.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, that pleasure has not returned.\u201d\r\n\r\nSullenbode gripped his arm hard. \u201cWhat pleasure are you speaking of?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA presentiment of love, which I felt not long ago.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBut what do you feel now?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCalm and free.\u201d\r\n\r\nSullenbode\u2019s face seemed like a pallid mask, hiding a slow, swelling sea of elemental passions. \u201cI do not know how it will end, Maskull, but we will still keep together a little. Where are you going?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo Adage,\u201d said Corpang, stepping forward.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut why?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe are following the steps of Lodd, who went there years ago, to find Muspel-light.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What light is that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s the light of another world.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe quest is grand. But cannot women see that light?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOn one condition,\u201d said Corpang. \u201cThey must forget their sex. Womanhood and love belong to life, while Muspel is above life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI give you all other men,\u201d said Sullenbode. \u201cMaskull is mine.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo. I am not here to help Maskull to a lover but to remind him of the existence of nobler things.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are a good man. But you two alone will never strike the road to Adage.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAre you acquainted with it?\u201d\r\n\r\nAgain the woman gripped Maskull\u2019s arm. \u201cWhat is love\u2014which Corpang despises?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull looked at her attentively. Sullenbode went on, \u201cLove is that which is perfectly willing to disappear and become nothing, for the sake of the beloved.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang wrinkled his forehead. \u201cA magnanimous female lover is new in my experience.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull put him aside with his hand, and said to Sullenbode, \u201cAre you contemplating a sacrifice?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe gazed at her feet, and smiled. \u201cWhat does it matter what my thoughts are? Tell me, are you starting at once, or do you mean to rest first? It\u2019s a rough road to Adage.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat\u2019s in your mind?\u201d demanded Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cI will guide you a little. When we reach the ridge between Sarclash and Adage, perhaps I shall turn back.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen if the moon shines perhaps you will arrive before daybreak, but if it is dark it\u2019s hardly likely.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s not what I meant. What will become of you after we have parted company?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI shall return somewhere\u2014perhaps here.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull went close up to her, in order to study her face better. \u201cShall you sink back into\u2014the old state?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, Maskull, thank heaven.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen how will you live?\u201d\r\n\r\nSullenbode calmly removed the hand which he had placed on her arm. There was a sort of swirling flame in her eyes. \u201cAnd who said I would go on living?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull blinked at her in bewilderment. A few moments passed before he spoke again. \u201cYou women are a sacrificing lot. You know I can\u2019t leave you like this.\u201d\r\n\r\nTheir eyes met. Neither withdrew them, and neither felt embarrassed.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou will always be the most generous of men, Maskull. Now let us go.... Corpang is a single-minded personage, and the least we others\u2014who aren\u2019t so single-minded\u2014can do is to help him to his destination. We mustn\u2019t inquire whether the destination of single-minded men is as a rule worth arriving at.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf it is good for Maskull, it will be good for me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, no vessel can hold more than its appointed measure.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang gave a wry smile. \u201cDuring your long sleep you appear to have picked up wisdom.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, Corpang, I have met many men, and explored many minds.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs they moved off, Maskull remembered Haunte.\r\n\r\n\u201cCan we not bury that poor fellow?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBy this time tomorrow we shall need burial ourselves. But I do not include Corpang.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe have no tools, so you must have your way. You killed him, but I am the real murderer. I stole his protecting light.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSurely that death is balanced by the life you have given me.\u201d They left the spot in the direction opposite to that by which the three men had arrived. After a few steps, they came to green snow again. At the same time the flat ground ended, and they started to traverse a steep, pathless mountain slope. The snow and rocks glimmered, their own bodies shone; otherwise everything was dark. The mists swirled around them, but Maskull had no more nightmares. The breeze was cold, pure, and steady. They walked in file, Sullenbode leading; her movements were slow and fascinating. Corpang came last. His stern eyes saw nothing ahead but an alluring girl and a half-infatuated man.\r\n\r\nFor a long time they continued crossing the rough and rocky slope, maintaining a slightly upward course. The angle was so steep that a false step would have been fatal. The high ground was on their right. After a while, the hillside on the left hand changed to level ground, and they seemed to have joined another spur of the mountain. The ascending slope on the right hand persisted for a few hundred yards more. Then Sullenbode bore sharply to the left, and they found level ground all around them.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe are on the ridge,\u201d announced the woman, halting.\r\n\r\nThe others came up to her, and at the same instant the moon burst through the clouds, illuminating the whole scene.\r\n\r\nMaskull uttered a cry. The wild, noble, lonely beauty of the view was quite unexpected. Teargeld was high in the sky to their left, shining down on them from behind. Straight in front, like an enormously wide, smoothly descending road, lay the great ridge which went on to Adage, though Adage itself was out of sight. It was never less than two hundred yards wide. It was covered with green snow, in some places entirely, but in other places the naked rocks showed through like black teeth. From where they stood they were unable to see the sides of the ridge, or what lay underneath. On the right hand, which was north, the landscape was blurred and indistinct. There were no peaks there; it was the distant, low-lying land of Barey. But on the left hand appeared a whole forest of mighty pinnacles, near and far, as far as the eye could see in moonlight. All glittered green, and all possessed the extraordinary hanging caps that characterised the Lichstorm range. These caps were of fantastic shapes, and each one was different. The valley directly opposite them was filled with rolling mist.\r\n\r\nSarclash was a mighty mountain mass in the shape of a horseshoe. Its two ends pointed west, and were separated from each other by a mile or more of empty space. The northern end became the ridge on which they stood. The southern end was the long line of cliffs on that part of the mountain where Haunte\u2019s cave was situated. The connecting curve was the steep slope they had just traversed. One peak of Sarclash was invisible.\r\n\r\nIn the south-west many mountains raised their heads. In addition, a few summits, which must have been of extraordinary height, appeared over the south side of the horseshoe.\r\n\r\nMaskull turned round to put a question to Sullenbode, but when he saw her for the first time in moonlight the words he had framed died on his lips. The gashlike mouth no longer dominated her other features, and the face, pale as ivory and most femininely shaped, suddenly became almost beautiful. The lips were a long, womanish curve of rose-red. Her hair was a dark maroon. Maskull was greatly disturbed; he thought that she resembled a spirit, rather than a woman.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat puzzles you?\u201d she asked, smiling.\r\n\r\n\u201cNothing. But I would like to see you by sunlight.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps you never will.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYour life must be most solitary.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe explored his features with her black, slow-gleaming eyes. \u201cWhy do you fear to speak your feelings, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThings seem to open up before me like a sunrise, but what it means I can\u2019t say.\u201d\r\n\r\nSullenbode laughed outright. \u201cIt assuredly does not mean the approach of night.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang, who had been staring steadily along the ridge, here abruptly broke in. \u201cThe road is plain now, Maskull. If you wish it, I\u2019ll go on alone.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, we\u2019ll go on together. Sullenbode will accompany us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA little way,\u201d said the woman, \u201cbut not to Adage, to pit my strength against unseen powers. That light is not for me. I know how to renounce love, but I will never be a traitor to it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWho knows what we shall find on Adage, or what will happen? Corpang is as ignorant as myself.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorpang looked him full in the face. \u201cMaskull, you are quite well aware that you never dare approach that awful fire in the society of a beautiful woman.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull gave an uneasy laugh. \u201cWhat Corpang doesn\u2019t tell you, Sullenbode, is that I am far better acquainted with Muspel-light than he, and that, but for a chance meeting with me, he would still be saying his prayers in Threal.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cStill, what he says must be true,\u201d she replied, looking from one to the other.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd so I am not to be allowed to\u2014\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo long as I am with you, I shall urge you onward, and not backward, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe need not quarrel yet,\u201d he remarked, with a forced smile. \u201cNo doubt things will straighten themselves out.\u201d\r\n\r\nSullenbode began kicking the snow about with her foot. \u201cI picked up another piece of wisdom in my sleep, Corpang.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTell it to me, then.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMen who live by laws and rules are parasites. Others shed their strength to bring these laws out of nothing into the light of day, but the law-abiders live at their ease\u2014they have conquered nothing for themselves.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is given to some to discover, and to others to preserve and perfect. You cannot condemn me for wishing Maskull well.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, but a child cannot lead a thunderstorm.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey started walking again along the centre of the ridge. All three were abreast, Sullenbode in the middle.\r\n\r\nThe road descended by an easy gradient, and was for a long distance comparatively smooth. The freezing point seemed higher than on Earth, for the few inches of snow through which they trudged felt almost warm to their naked feet. Maskull\u2019s soles were by now like tough hides. The moonlit snow was green and dazzling. Their slanting, abbreviated shadows were sharply defined, and red-black in colour. Maskull, who walked on Sullenbode\u2019s right hand, looked constantly to the left, toward the galaxy of glorious distant peaks.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou cannot belong to this world,\u201d said the woman. \u201cMen of your stamp are not to be looked for here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, I have come here from Earth.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs that larger than our world?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSmaller, I think. Small, and overcrowded with men and women. With all those people, confusion would result but for orderly laws, and therefore the laws are of iron. As adventure would be impossible without encroaching on these laws, there is no longer any spirit of adventure among the Earthmen. Everything is safe, vulgar, and completed.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo men hate women there, and women men?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, the meeting of the sexes is sweet, though shameful. So poignant is the sweetness that the accompanying shame is ignored, with open eyes. There is no hatred, or only among a few eccentric persons.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat shame surely must be the rudiment of our Lichstorm passion. But now say\u2014why did you come here?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo meet with new experiences, perhaps. The old ones no longer interested me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow long have you been in this world?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is the end of my fourth day.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen tell me what you have seen and done during those four days. You cannot have been inactive.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGreat misfortunes have happened to me.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe proceeded briefly to relate everything that had taken place from the moment of his first awakening in the scarlet desert. Sullenbode listened, with half-closed eyes, nodding her head from time to time. Only twice did she interrupt him. After his description of Tydomin\u2019s death, she said, speaking in a low voice\u2014\u201cNone of us women ought by right of nature to fall short of Tydomin in sacrifice. For that one act of hers, I almost love her, although she brought evil to your door.\u201d Again, speaking of Gleameil, she remarked, \u201cThat grand-souled girl I admire the most of all. She listened to her inner voice, and to nothing else besides. Which of us others is strong enough for that?\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen his tale was quite over, Sullenbode said, \u201cDoes it not strike you, Maskull, that these women you have met have been far nobler than the men?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI recognise that. We men often sacrifice ourselves, but only for a substantial cause. For you women almost any cause will serve. You love the sacrifice for its own sake, and that is because you are naturally noble.\u201d\r\n\r\nTurning her head a little, she threw him a smile so proud, yet so sweet, that he was struck into silence.\r\n\r\nThey tramped on quietly for some distance, and then he said, \u201cNow you understand the sort of man I am. Much brutality, more weakness, scant pity for anyone\u2014Oh, it has been a bloody journey!\u201d\r\n\r\nShe laid her hand on his arm. \u201cI, for one, would not have it less rugged.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNothing good can be said of my crimes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo me you seem like a lonely giant, searching for you know not what.... The grandest that life holds.... You at least have no cause to look up to women.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThanks, Sullenbode!\u201d he responded, with a troubled smile.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen Maskull passes, let people watch. Everyone is thrown out of your road. You go on, looking neither to right nor left.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTake care that you are not thrown as well,\u201d said Corpang gravely.\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull shall do with me whatever he pleases, old skull! And for whatever he does, I will thank him.... In place of a heart you have a bag of loose dust. Someone has described love to you. You have had it described to you. You have heard that it is a small, fearful, selfish joy. It is not that\u2014it is wild, and scornful, and sportive, and bloody.... How should you know.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSelfishness has far too many disguises.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf a woman wills to give up all, what can there be selfish in that?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOnly do not deceive yourself. Act decisively, or fate will be too swift for you both.\u201d\r\n\r\nSullenbode studied him through her lashes. \u201cDo you mean death\u2014his death as well as mine?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou go too far, Corpang,\u201d said Maskull, turning a shade darker. \u201cI don\u2019t accept you as the arbiter of our fortunes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf honest counsel is disagreeable to you, let me go on ahead.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe woman detained him with her slow, light fingers. \u201cI wish you to stay with us.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI think you may know what you are talking about. I don\u2019t wish to bring harm to Maskull. Presently I\u2019ll leave you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat will be best,\u201d said Corpang.\r\n\r\nMaskull looked angry. \u201cI shall decide\u2014Sullenbode, whether you go on, or back, I stay with you. My mind is made up.\u201d\r\n\r\nAn expression of joyousness overspread her face, in spite of her efforts to conceal it. \u201cWhy do you scowl at me, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe returned no answer, but continued walking onward with puckered brows. After a dozen paces or so, he halted abruptly. \u201cWait, Sullenbode!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe others came to a standstill. Corpang looked puzzled, but the woman smiled. Maskull, without a word, bent over and kissed her lips. Then he relinquished her body, and turned around to Corpang.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow do you, in your great wisdom, interpret that kiss?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt requires no great wisdom to interpret kisses, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHereafter, never dare to come between us. Sullenbode belongs to me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen I say no more; but you are a fated man.\u201d\r\n\r\nFrom that time forward he spoke not another word to either of the others.\r\n\r\nA heavy gleam appeared in the woman\u2019s eyes. \u201cNow things are changed, Maskull. Where are you taking me?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cChoose, you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe man I love must complete his journey. I won\u2019t have it otherwise. You shall not stand lower than Corpang.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere you go, I will go.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd I\u2014as long as your love endures, I will accompany you\u2014even to Adage.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you doubt its lasting?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI wish not to.... Now I will tell you what I refused to tell you before. The term of your love is the term of my life. When you love me no longer, I must die.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd why?\u201d asked Maskull slowly.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, that\u2019s the responsibility you incurred when you kissed me for the first time. I never meant to tell you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you mean that if I had gone on alone, you would have died?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have no other life but what you give me.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe gazed at her mournfully, without attempting to reply, and then slowly placed his arms around her body. During this embrace he turned very pale, but Sullenbode grew as white as chalk.\r\n\r\nA few minutes later the journey toward Adage was resumed.\r\n\r\nThey had been walking for two hours. Teargeld was higher in the sky and nearer the south. They had descended many hundred feet, and the character of the ridge began to alter for the worse. The thin snow disappeared, and gave way to moist, boggy ground. It was all little grassy hillocks and marshes. They began to slip about and become draggled with mud. Conversation ceased; Sullenbode led the way, and the men followed in her tracks. The southern half of the landscape grew grander. The greenish light of the brilliant moon, shining on the multitude of snow-green peaks, caused it to appear like a spectral world. Their nearest neighbour towered high above them on the other side of the valley, due south, some five miles distant. It was a slender, inaccessible, dizzy spire of black rock, the angles of which were too steep to retain snow. A great upward-curving horn of rock sprang out from its topmost pinnacle. For a long time it constituted their cheif landmark.\r\n\r\nThe whole ridge gradually became saturated with moisture. The surface soil was spongy, and rested on impermeable rock; it breathed in the damp mists by night, and breathed them out again by day, under Branchspell\u2019s rays. The walking grew first unpleasant, then difficult, and finally dangerous. None of the party could distinguish firm ground from bog. Sullenbode sank up to her waist in a pit of slime; Maskull rescued her, but after this incident took the lead himself. Corpang was the next to meet with trouble. Exploring a new path for himself, he tumbled into liquid mud up to his shoulders, and narrowly escaped a filthy death. After Maskull had got him out, at great personal risk, they proceeded once more; but now the scramble changed from bad to worse. Each step had to be thoroughly tested before weight was put upon it, and even so the test frequently failed. All of them went in so often, that in the end they no longer resembled human beings, but walking pillars plastered from top to toe with black filth. The hardest work fell to Maskull. He not only had the exhausting task of beating the way, but was continually called upon to help his companions out of their difficulties. Without him they could not have got through.\r\n\r\nAfter a peculiarly evil patch, they paused to recruit their strength. Corpang\u2019s breathing was difficult, Sullenbode was quiet, listless, and depressed.\r\n\r\nMaskull gazed at them doubtfully. \u201cDoes this continue?\u201d he inquired.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo. I think,\u201d replied the woman, \u201cwe can\u2019t be far from the Mornstab Pass. After that we shall begin to climb again, and then the road will improve perhaps.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCan you have been here before?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOnce I have been to the Pass, but it was not so bad then.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are tired out, Sullenbode.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat of it?\u201d she replied, smiling faintly. \u201cWhen one has a terrible lover, one must pay the price.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe cannot get there tonight, so let us stop at the first shelter we come to.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI leave it to you.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe paced up and down, while the others sat. \u201cDo you regret anything?\u201d he demanded suddenly.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, Maskull, nothing. I regret nothing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYour feelings are unchanged?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLove can\u2019t go back\u2014it can only go on.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, eternally on. It is so.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, I don\u2019t mean that. There is a climax, but when the climax has been reached, love if it still wants to ascend must turn to sacrifice.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s a dreadful creed,\u201d he said in a low voice, turning pale beneath his coating of mud.\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps my nature is discordant.... I am tired. I don\u2019t know what I feel.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn a few minutes they were on their feet again, and the journey recommenced. Within half an hour they had reached the Mornstab Pass.\r\n\r\nThe ground here was drier; the broken land to the north served to drain off the moisture of the soil. Sullenbode led them to the northern edge of the ridge, to show them the nature of the country. The pass was nothing but a gigantic landslip on both sides of the ridge, where it was the lowest above the underlying land. A series of huge broken terraces of earth and rock descended toward Barey. They were overgrown with stunted vegetation. It was quite possible to get down to the lowlands that way, but rather difficult. On either side of the landslip, to east and west, the ridge came down in a long line of sheer, terrific cliffs. A low haze concealed Barey from view. Complete stillness was in the air, broken only by the distant thundering of an invisible waterfall.\r\n\r\nMaskull and Sullenbode sat down on a boulder, facing the open country. The moon was directly behind them, high up. It was almost as light as an Earth day.\r\n\r\n\u201cTonight is like life,\u201d said Sullenbode.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow so?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo lovely above and around us, so foul underfoot.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull sighed. \u201cPoor girl, you are unhappy.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd you\u2014are you happy?\u201d\r\n\r\nHe thought a while, and then replied\u2014\u201cNo. No, I\u2019m not happy. Love is not happiness.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is it, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cRestlessness\u2014unshed tears\u2014thoughts too grand for our soul to think...\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Sullenbode.\r\n\r\nAfter a time she asked, \u201cWhy were we created, just to live for a few years and then disappear?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe are told that we shall live again.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPerhaps in Muspel,\u201d he added thoughtfully.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat kind of life will that be?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSurely we shall meet again. Love is too wonderful and mysterious a thing to remain uncompleted.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe gave a slight shiver, and turned away from him. \u201cThis dream is untrue. Love is completed here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow can that be, when sooner or later it is brutally interrupted by Fate?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is completed by anguish.... Oh, why must it always be enjoyment for us? Can\u2019t we suffer\u2014can\u2019t we go on suffering, forever and ever? Maskull, until love crushes our spirit, finally and without remedy, we don\u2019t begin to feel ourselves.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull gazed at her with a troubled expression. \u201cCan the memory of love be worth more than its presence and reality?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou don\u2019t understand. Those pangs are more precious than all the rest beside.\u201d She caught at him. \u201cOh, if you could only see inside my mind, Maskull! You would see strange things.... I can\u2019t explain. It is all confused, even to myself.... This love is quite different from what I thought.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe sighed again. \u201cLove is a strong drink. Perhaps it is too strong for human beings. And I think that it overturns our reason in different ways.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey remained sitting side by side, staring straight before them with unseeing eyes.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d said Sullenbode at last, with a smile, getting up. \u201cSoon it will be ended, one way or another. Come, let us be off!\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull too got up.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere\u2019s Corpang?\u201d he asked listlessly.\r\n\r\nThey both looked across the ridge in the direction of Adage. At the point where they stood it was nearly a mile wide. It sloped perceptibly toward the southern edge, giving all the earth the appearance of a heavy list. Toward the west the ground continued level for a thousand yards, but then a high, sloping, grassy hill went right across the ridge from side to side, like a vast billow on the verge of breaking. It shut out all further view beyond. The whole crest of this hill, from one end to the other, was crowned by a long row of enormous stone posts, shining brightly in the moonlight against a background of dark sky. There were about thirty in all, and they were placed at such regular intervals that there was little doubt that they had been set there by human hands. Some were perpendicular, but others dipped so much that an aspect of extreme antiquity was given to the entire colonnade. Corpang was seen climbing the hill, not far from the top.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe wishes to arrive,\u201d said Maskull, watching the energetic ascent with a rather cynical smile.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe heavens won\u2019t open for Corpang,\u201d returned Sullenbode. \u201cHe need not be in such a hurry.... What do these pillars seem like to you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThey might be the entrance to some mighty temple. Who can have planted them there?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe did not answer. They watched Corpang gain the summit of the hill, and disappear through the line of posts.\r\n\r\nMaskull turned again to Sullenbode. \u201cNow we two are alone in a lonely world.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe regarded him steadily. \u201cOur last night on this earth must be a grand one. I am ready to go on.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t think you are fit to go on. It will be better to go down the pass a little, and find shelter.\u201d\r\n\r\nShe half smiled. \u201cWe won\u2019t study our poor bodies tonight. I mean you to go to Adage, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen at all events let us rest first, for it must be a long, terrible climb, and who knows what hardships we shall meet?\u201d\r\n\r\nShe walked a step or two forward, half turned, and held out her hand to him. \u201cCome, Maskull!\u201d\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nWhen they had covered half the distance that separated them from the foot of the hill, Maskull heard the drum taps. They came from behind the hill, and were loud, sharp, almost explosive. He glanced at Sullenbode, but she appeared to hear nothing. A minute later the whole sky behind and above the long chain of stone posts on the crest of the hill began to be illuminated by a strange radiance. The moonlight in that quarter faded; the posts stood out black on a background of fire. It was the light of Muspel. As the moments passed, it grew more and more vivid, peculiar, and awful. It was of no colour, and resembled nothing\u2014it was supernatural and indescribable. Maskull\u2019s spirit swelled. He stood fast, with expanded nostrils and terrible eyes.\r\n\r\nSullenbode touched him lightly.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you see, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMuspel-light.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI see nothing.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe light shot up, until Maskull scarcely knew where he stood. It burned with a fiercer and stranger glare than ever before. He forgot the existence of Sullenbode. The drum beats grew deafeningly loud. Each beat was like a rip of startling thunder, crashing through the sky and making the air tremble. Presently the crashes coalesced, and one continuous roar of thunder rocked the world. But the rhythm persisted\u2014the four beats, with the third accented, still came pulsing through the atmosphere, only now against a background of thunder, and not of silence.\r\n\r\nMaskull\u2019s heart beat wildly. His body was like a prison. He longed to throw it off, to spring up and become incorporated with the sublime universe which was beginning to unveil itself.\r\n\r\nSullenbode suddenly enfolded him in her arms, and kissed him\u2014passionately, again and again. He made no response; he was unaware of what she was doing. She unclasped him and, with bent head and streaming eyes, went noiselessly away. She started to go back toward the Mornstab Pass.\r\n\r\nA few minutes afterward the radiance began to fade. The thunder died down. The moonlight reappeared, the stone posts and the hillside were again bright. In a short time the supernatural light had entirely vanished, but the drum taps still sounded faintly, a muffled rhythm, from behind the hill. Maskull started violently, and stared around him like a suddenly awakened sleeper.\r\n\r\nHe saw Sullenbode walking slowly away from him, a few hundred yards off. At that sight, death entered his heart. He ran after her, calling out.... She did not look around. When he had lessened the distance between them by a half, he saw her suddenly stumble and fall. She did not get up again, but lay motionless where she fell.\r\n\r\nHe flew toward her, and bent over her body. His worst fears were realised. Life had departed.\r\n\r\nBeneath its coating of mud, her face bore the vulgar, ghastly Crystalman grin, but Maskull saw nothing of it. She had never appeared so beautiful to him as at that moment.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nHe remained beside her for a long time, on his knees. He wept\u2014but, between his fits of weeping, he raised his head from time to time, and listened to the distant drum beats.\r\n\r\nAn hour passed\u2014two hours. Teargeld was now in the south-west. Maskull lifted Sullenbode\u2019s dead body on to his shoulders, and started to walk toward the Pass. He cared no more for Muspel. He intended to look for water in which to wash the corpse of his beloved, and earth in which to bury her.\r\n\r\nWhen he had reached the boulder overlooking the landslip, on which they had sat together, he lowered his burden, and, placing the dead girl on the stone, seated himself beside her for a time, gazing over toward Barey.\r\n\r\nAfter that, he commenced his descent of the Mornstab Pass.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 20. BAREY<\/h2>\r\nThe day had already dawned, but it was not yet sunrise when Maskull awoke from his miserable sleep. He sat up and yawned feebly. The air was cool and sweet. Far away down the landslip a bird was singing; the song consisted of only two notes, but it was so plaintive and heartbreaking that he scarcely knew how to endure it.\r\n\r\nThe eastern sky was a delicate green, crossed by a long, thin band of chocolate-coloured cloud near the horizon. The atmosphere was blue-tinted, mysterious, and hazy. Neither Sarclash nor Adage was visible.\r\n\r\nThe saddle of the Pass was five hundred feet above him; he had descended that distance overnight. The landslip continued downward, like a huge flying staircase, to the upper slopes of Barey, which lay perhaps fifteen hundred feet beneath. The surface of the Pass was rough, and the angle was excessively steep, though not precipitous. It was above a mile across. On each side of it, east and west, the dark walls of the ridge descended sheer. At the point where the pass sprang outward they were two thousand feet from top to bottom, but as the ridge went upward, on the one hand toward Adage, on the other toward Sarclash, they attained almost unbelievable heights. Despite the great breadth and solidity of the pass, Maskull felt as though he were suspended in midair.\r\n\r\nThe patch of broken, rich, brown soil observable not far away marked Sullenbode\u2019s grave. He had interred her by the light of the moon, with a long, flat stone for a spade. A little lower down, the white steam of a hot spring was curling about in the twilight. From where he sat he was unable to see the pool into which the spring ultimately flowed, but it was in that pool that he had last night washed first of all the dead girl\u2019s body, and then his own.\r\n\r\nHe got up, yawned again, stretched himself, and looked around him dully. For a long time he eyed the grave. The half-darkness changed by imperceptible degrees to full day; the sun was about to appear. The sky was nearly cloudless. The whole wonderful extent of the mighty ridge behind him began to emerge from the morning mist... there was a part of Sarclash, and the ice-green crest of gigantic Adage itself, which he could only take in by throwing his head right back.\r\n\r\nHe gazed at everything in weary apathy, like a lost soul. All his desires were gone forever; he wished to go nowhere, and to do nothing. He thought he would go to Barey.\r\n\r\nHe went to the warm pool, to wash the sleep out of his eyes. Sitting beside it, watching the bubbles, was Krag.\r\n\r\nMaskull thought that he was dreaming. The man was clothed in a skin shirt and breeches. His face was stern, yellow, and ugly. He eyed Maskull without smiling or getting up.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere in the devil\u2019s name have you come from, Krag?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe great point is, I am here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere\u2019s Nightspore?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNot far away.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt seems a hundred years since I saw you. Why did you two leave me in such a damnable fashion?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou were strong enough to get through alone.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo it turned out, but how were you to know?.... Anyway, you\u2019ve timed it well. It seems I am to die today.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag scowled. \u201cYou will die this morning.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf I am to, I shall. But where have you heard it from?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are ripe for it. You have run through the gamut. What else is there to live for?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNothing,\u201d said Maskull, uttering a short laugh. \u201cI am quite ready. I have failed in everything. I only wondered how you knew.... So now you\u2019ve come to rejoin me. Where are we going?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThrough Barey.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what about Nightspore?\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag jumped to his feet with clumsy agility. \u201cWe won\u2019t wait for him. He\u2019ll be there as soon as we shall.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAt our destination.... Come! The sun\u2019s rising.\u201d\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nAs they started clambering down the pass side by side, Branchspell, huge and white, leaped fiercely into the sky. All the delicacy of the dawn vanished, and another vulgar day began. They passed some trees and plants, the leaves of which were all curled up, as if in sleep.\r\n\r\nMaskull pointed them out to his companion.\r\n\r\n\u201cHow is it the sunshine doesn\u2019t open them?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBranchspell is a second night to them. Their day is Alppain.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow long will it be before that sun rises?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSome time yet.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cShall I live to see it, do you think?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you want to?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAt one time I did, but now I\u2019m indifferent.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKeep in that humour, and you\u2019ll do well. Once for all, there\u2019s nothing worth seeing on Tormance.\u201d\r\n\r\nAfter a few minutes Maskull said, \u201cWhy did we come here, then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo follow Surtur.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTrue. But where is he?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCloser at hand than you think, perhaps.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you know that he is regarded as a god here, Krag?... There is supernatural fire, too, which I have been led to believe is somehow connected with him.... Why do you keep up the mystery? Who and what is Surtur?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t disturb yourself about that. You will never know.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you<\/i> know?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI know,\u201d snarled Krag.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe devil here is called Krag,\u201d went on Maskull, peering into his face.\r\n\r\n\u201cAs long as pleasure is worshiped, Krag will always be the devil.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHere we are, talking face to face, two men together.... What am I to believe of you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBelieve your senses. The real devil is Crystalman.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey continued descending the landslip. The sun\u2019s rays had grown insufferably hot. In front of them, down below in the far distance, Maskull saw water and land intermingled. It appeared that they were travelling toward a lake district.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat have you and Nightspore been doing during the last four days, Krag? What happened to the torpedo?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou\u2019re just about on the same mental level as a man who sees a brand-new palace, and asks what has become of the scaffolding.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat palace have you been building, then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe have not been idle,\u201d said Krag. \u201cWhile you have been murdering and lovemaking, we have had our work.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd how have you been made acquainted with my actions?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, you\u2019re an open book. Now you\u2019ve got a mortal heart wound on account of a woman you knew for six hours.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull turned pale. \u201cSneer away, Krag! If you lived with a woman for six hundred years and saw her die, that would never touch your leather heart. You haven\u2019t even the feelings of an insect.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBehold the child defending its toys!\u201d said Krag, grinning faintly.\r\n\r\nMaskull stopped short. \u201cWhat do you want with me, and why did you bring me here?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s no use stopping, even for the sake of theatrical effect,\u201d said Krag, pulling him into motion again. \u201cThe distance has got to be covered, however often we pull up.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen he touched him, Maskull felt a terrible shooting pain through his heart.\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t go on regarding you as a man, Krag. You\u2019re something more than a man\u2014whether good or evil, I can\u2019t say.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag looked yellow and formidable. He did not reply to Maskull\u2019s remark, but after a pause said, \u201cSo you\u2019ve been trying to find Surtur on your own account, during the intervals between killing and fondling?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat was that drumming?\u201d demanded Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou needn\u2019t look so important. We know you had your ear to the keyhole. But you could join the assembly, the music was not playing for you, my friend.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull smiled rather bitterly. \u201cAt all events, I listen through no more keyholes. I have finished with life. I belong to nobody and nothing any more, from this time forward.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBrave words, brave words! We shall see. Perhaps Crystalman will make one more attempt on you. There is still time for one more.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNow I don\u2019t understand you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou think you are thoroughly disillusioned, don\u2019t you? Well, that may prove to be the last and strongest illusion of all.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe conversation ceased. They reached the foot of the landslip an hour later. Branchspell was steadily mounting the cloudless sky. It was approaching Sarclash, and it was an open question whether or not it would clear its peak. The heat was sweltering. The long, massive, saucer-shaped ridge behind them, with its terrific precipices, was glowing with bright morning colours. Adage, towering up many thousands of feet higher still, guarded the end of it like a lonely Colossus. In front of them, starting from where they stood, was a cool and enchanting wilderness of little lakes and forests. The water of the lakes was dark green; the forests were asleep, waiting for the rising of Alppain.\r\n\r\n\u201cAre we now in Barey?\u201d asked Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes\u2014and there is one of the natives.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere was an ugly glint in his eye as he spoke the words, but Maskull did not see it.\r\n\r\nA man was leaning in the shade against one of the first trees, apparently waiting for them to come up. He was small, dark, and beardless, and was still in early manhood. He was clothed in a dark blue, loosely flowing robe, and wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat. His face, which was not disfigured by any special organs, was pale, earnest, and grave, yet somehow remarkably pleasing.\r\n\r\nBefore a word was spoken, he warmly grasped Maskull\u2019s hand, but even while he was in the act of doing so he threw a queer frown at Krag. The latter responded with a scowling grin.\r\n\r\nWhen he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was a vibrating baritone, but it was at the same time strangely womanish in its modulations and variety of tone.\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for you here since sunrise,\u201d he said. \u201cWelcome to Barey, Maskull! Let\u2019s hope you\u2019ll forget your sorrows here, you over-tested man.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull stared at him, not without friendliness. \u201cWhat made you expect me, and how do you know my name?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe stranger smiled, which made his face very handsome. \u201cI\u2019m Gangnet. I know most things.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHaven\u2019t you a greeting for me too\u2014Gangnet?\u201d asked Krag, thrusting his forbidding features almost into the other\u2019s face.\r\n\r\n\u201cI know you, Krag. There are few places where you are welcome.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd I know you, Gangnet\u2014you man-woman.... Well, we are here together, and you must make what you can of it. We are going down to the Ocean.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe smile faded from Gangnet\u2019s face. \u201cI can\u2019t drive you away, Krag\u2014but I can make you the unwelcome third.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag threw back his head, and gave a loud, grating laugh. \u201cThat bargain suits me all right. As long as I have the substance, you may have the shadow, and much good may it do you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNow that it\u2019s all arranged so satisfactorily,\u201d said Maskull, with a hard smile, \u201cpermit me to say that I don\u2019t desire any society at all at present.... You take too much for granted, Krag. You have played the false friend once already.... I presume I\u2019m a free agent?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo be a free man, one must have a universe of one\u2019s own,\u201d said Krag, with a jeering look. \u201cWhat do you say, Gangnet\u2014is this a free world?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cFreedom from pain and ugliness should be every man\u2019s privilege,\u201d returned Gangnet tranquilly. \u201cMaskull is quite within his rights, and if you\u2019ll engage to leave him I\u2019ll do the same.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMaskull can change face as often as he likes, but he won\u2019t get rid of me so easily. Be easy on that point, Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d muttered Maskull. \u201cLet everyone join in the procession. In a few hours I shall finally be free, anyhow, if what they say is true.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ll lead the way,\u201d said Gangnet. \u201cYou don\u2019t know this country, of course, Maskull. When we get to the flat lands some miles farther down, we shall be able to travel by water, but at present we must walk, I fear.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, you fear\u2014you fear!\u201d broke out Krag, in a highpitched, scraping voice. \u201cYou eternal loller!\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull kept looking from one to the other in amazement. There seemed to be a determined hostility between the two, which indicated an intimate previous acquaintance.\r\n\r\nThey set off through a wood, keeping close to its border, so that for a mile or more they were within sight of the long, narrow lake that flowed beside it. The trees were low and thin; their dolm-coloured leaves were all folded. There was no underbrush\u2014they walked on clean, brown earth, A distant waterfall sounded. They were in shade, but the air was pleasantly warm. There were no insects to irritate them. The bright lake outside looked cool and poetic.\r\n\r\nGangnet pressed Maskull\u2019s arm affectionately. \u201cIf the bringing of you from your world had fallen to me, Maskull, it is here I would have brought you, and not to the scarlet desert. Then you would have escaped the dark spots, and Tormance would have appeared beautiful to you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what then, Gangnet? The dark spots would have existed all the same.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou could have seen them afterward. It makes all the difference whether one sees darkness through the light, or brightness through the shadows.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cA clear eye is the best. Tormance is an ugly world, and I greatly prefer to know it as it really is.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe devil made it ugly, not Crystalman. These are Crystalman\u2019s thoughts, which you see around you. He is nothing but Beauty and Pleasantness. Even Krag won\u2019t have the effrontery to deny that.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s very nice here,\u201d said Krag, looking around him malignantly. \u201cOne only wants a cushion and half a dozen houris to complete it.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull disengaged himself from Gangnet. \u201cLast night, when I was struggling through the mud in the ghastly moonlight\u2014then I thought the world beautiful.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cPoor Sullenbode!\u201d said Gangnet, sighing.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat! You knew her?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI know her through you. By mourning for a noble woman, you show your own nobility. I think all women are noble.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere may be millions of noble women, but there\u2019s only one Sullenbode.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf Sullenbode can exist,\u201d said Gangnet, \u201cthe world cannot be a bad place.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cChange the subject.... The world\u2019s hard and cruel, and I am thankful to be leaving it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOn one point, though, you both agree,\u201d said Krag, smiling evilly. \u201cPleasure is good, and the cessation of pleasure is bad.\u201d\r\n\r\nGangnet glanced at him coldly. \u201cWe know your peculiar theories, Krag. You are very fond of them, but they are unworkable. The world could not go on being, without pleasure.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cSo Gangnet thinks!\u201d jeered Krag.\r\n\r\nThey came to the end of the wood, and found themselves overlooking a little cliff. At the foot of it, about fifty feet below, a fresh series of lakes and forests commenced. Barey appeared to be one big mountain slope, built by nature into terraces. The lake along whose border they had been travelling was not banked at the end, but overflowed to the lower level in half a dozen beautiful, threadlike falls, white and throwing off spray. The cliff was not perpendicular, and the men found it easy to negotiate.\r\n\r\nAt the base they entered another wood. Here it was much denser, and they had nothing but trees all around them. A clear brook rippled through the heart of it; they followed its bank.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt has occurred to me,\u201d said Maskull, addressing Gangnet, \u201cthat Alppain may be my death. Is that so?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThese trees don\u2019t fear Alppain, so why should you? Alppain is a wonderful, life-bringing sun.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe reason I ask is\u2014I\u2019ve seen its afterglow, and it produced such violent sensations that a very little more would have proved too much.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause the forces were evenly balanced. When you see Alppain itself, it will reign supreme, and there will be no more struggling of wills inside you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd that, I may tell you beforehand, Maskull,\u201d said Krag, grinning, \u201cis Crystalman\u2019s trump card.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHow do you mean?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou\u2019ll see. You\u2019ll renounce the world so eagerly that you\u2019ll want to stay in the world merely to enjoy your sensations.\u201d\r\n\r\nGangnet smiled. \u201cKrag, you see, is hard to please. You must neither enjoy, nor renounce. What are<\/i> you to do?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull turned toward Krag. \u201cIt\u2019s very odd, but I don\u2019t understand your creed even yet. Are you recommending suicide?\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag seemed to grow sallower and more repulsive every minute. \u201cWhat, because they have left off stroking you?\u201d he exclaimed, laughing and showing his discoloured teeth.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhoever you are, and whatever you want,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cyou seem very certain of yourself.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, you would like me to blush and stammer like a booby, wouldn\u2019t you! That would be an excellent way of destroying lies.\u201d\r\n\r\nGangnet glanced toward the foot of one of the trees. He stooped and picked up two or three objects that resembled eggs.\r\n\r\n\u201cTo eat?\u201d asked Maskull, accepting the offered gift.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, eat them; you must be hungry. I want none myself, and one mustn\u2019t insult Krag by offering him a pleasure\u2014especially such a low pleasure.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull knocked the ends off two of the eggs, and swallowed the liquid contents. They tasted rather alcoholic. Krag snatched the remaining egg out of his hand and flung it against a tree trunk, where it broke and stuck, a splash of slime.\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t wait to be asked, Gangnet.... Say, is there a filthier sight than a smashed pleasure?\u201d\r\n\r\nGangnet did not reply, but took Maskull\u2019s arm.\r\n\r\nAfter they had alternately walked through forests and descended cliffs and slopes for upward of two hours, the landscape altered. A steep mountainside commenced and continued for at least a couple of miles, during which space the land must have dropped nearly four thousand feet, at a practically uniform gradient. Maskull had seen nothing like this immense slide of country anywhere. The hill slope carried an enormous forest on its back. This forest, however, was different from those they had hitherto passed through. The leaves of the trees were curled in sleep, but the boughs were so close and numerous that, but for the fact that they were translucent, the rays of the sun would have been completely intercepted. As it was, the whole forest was flooded with light, and this light, being tinged with the colour of the branches, was a soft and lovely rose. So gay, feminine, and dawnlike was the illumination, that Maskull\u2019s spirits immediately started to rise, although he did not wish it.\r\n\r\nHe checked himself, sighed, and grew pensive.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat a place for languishing eyes and necks of ivory, Maskull!\u201d rasped Krag mockingly. \u201cWhy isn\u2019t Sullenbode here?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull gripped him roughly and flung him against the nearest tree. Krag recovered himself, and burst into a roaring laugh, seeming not a whit discomposed.\r\n\r\n\u201cStill what I said\u2014was it true or untrue?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull gazed at him sternly. \u201cYou seem to regard yourself as a necessary evil. I\u2019m under no obligation to go on with you any farther. I think we had better part.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag turned to Gangnet with an air of grotesque mock earnestness.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you<\/i> say\u2014do we part when Maskull pleases, or when I please?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKeep your temper, Maskull,\u201d said Gangnet, showing Krag his back. \u201cI know the man better than you do. Now that he has fastened onto you there\u2019s only one way of making him lose his hold, by ignoring him. Despise him\u2014say nothing to him, don\u2019t answer his questions. If you refuse to recognise his existence, he is as good as not here.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m beginning to be tired of it all,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cIt seems as if I shall add one more to my murders, before I have finished.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI smell murder in the air,\u201d exclaimed Krag, pretending to sniff. \u201cBut whose?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo as I say, Maskull. To bandy words with him is to throw oil on fire.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ll say no more to anyone.... When do we get out of this accursed forest?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s some way yet, but when we\u2019re once out we can take to the water, and you will be able to rest, and think.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd brood comfortably over your sufferings,\u201d added Krag.\r\n\r\nNone of the three men said anything more until they emerged into the open day. The slope of the forest was so steep that they were forced to run, rather than walk, and this would have prevented any conversation, even if they had otherwise felt inclined toward it. In less than half an hour they were through. A flat, open landscape lay stretched in front of them as far as they could see.\r\n\r\nThree parts of this country consisted of smooth water. It was a succession of large, low-shored lakes, divided by narrow strips of tree-covered land. The lake immediately before them had its small end to the forest. It was there about a third of a mile wide. The water at the sides and end was shallow, and choked with dolm-colored rushes; but in the middle, beginning a few yards from the shore, there was a perceptible current away from them. In view of this current, it was difficult to decide whether it was a lake or a river. Some little floating islands were in the shallows.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs it here that we take to the water?\u201d inquired Maskull.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, here,\u201d answered Gangnet.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut how?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cOne of those islands will serve. It only needs to move it into the stream.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull frowned. \u201cWhere will it carry us to?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cCome, get on, get on!\u201d said Krag, laughing uncouthly. \u201cThe morning\u2019s wearing away, and you have to die before noon. We are going to the Ocean.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you are omniscient, Krag, what is my death to be?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGangnet will murder you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou lie!\u201d said Gangnet. \u201cI wish Maskull nothing but good.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAt all events, he will be the cause of your death. But what does it matter? The great point is you are quitting this futile world.... Well, Gangnet, I see you\u2019re as slack as ever. I suppose I must do the work.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe jumped into the lake and began to run through the shallow water, splashing it about. When he came to the nearest island, the water was up to his thighs. The island was lozenge-shaped, and about fifteen feet from end to end. It was composed of a sort of light brown peat; there was no form of living vegetation on its surface. Krag went behind it, and started shoving it toward the current, apparently without having unduly to exert himself. When it was within the influence of the stream the others waded out to him, and all three climbed on.\r\n\r\nThe voyage began. The current was not travelling at more than two miles an hour. The sun glared down on their heads mercilessly, and there was no shade or prospect of shade. Maskull sat down near the edge, and periodically splashed water over his head. Gangnet sat on his haunches next to him. Krag paced up and down with short, quick steps, like an animal in a cage. The lake widened out more and more, and the width of the stream increased in proportion, until they seemed to themselves to be floating on the bosom of some broad, flowing estuary.\r\n\r\nKrag suddenly bent over and snatched off Gangnet\u2019s hat, crushing it together in his hairy fist and throwing it far out into the stream.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy should you disguise yourself like a woman?\u201d he asked with a harsh guffaw\u2014\u201cShow Maskull your face. Perhaps he has seen it somewhere.\u201d\r\n\r\nGangnet did remind Maskull of someone, but he could not say of whom. His dark hair curled down to his neck, his brow was wide, lofty, and noble, and there was an air of serious sweetness about the whole man that was strangely appealing to the feelings.\r\n\r\n\u201cLet Maskull judge,\u201d he said with proud composure, \u201cwhether I have anything to be ashamed of.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere can be nothing but magnificent thoughts in that head,\u201d muttered Maskull, staring hard at him.\r\n\r\n\u201cA capital valuation. Gangnet is the king of poets. But what happens when poets try to carry through practical enterprises?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat enterprises?\u201d asked Maskull, in astonishment.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat have you got on hand, Gangnet? Tell Maskull.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere are two forms of practical activity,\u201d replied Gangnet calmly. \u201cOne may either build up, or destroy.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, there\u2019s a third species. One may steal\u2014and not even know one is stealing. One may take the purse and leave the money.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull raised his eyebrows. \u201cWhere have you two met before?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019m paying Gangnet a visit today, Maskull, but once upon a time Gangnet paid me a visit.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIn my home\u2014whatever that is. Gangnet is a common thief.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are speaking in riddles, and I don\u2019t understand you. I don\u2019t know either of you, but it\u2019s clear that if Gangnet is a poet, you\u2019re a buffoon. Must you go on talking? I want to be quiet.\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag laughed, but said no more. Presently he lay down at full length, with his face to the sun, and in a few minutes was fast asleep, and snoring disagreeably. Maskull kept glancing over at his yellow, repulsive face with strong disfavour.\r\n\r\nTwo hours passed. The land on either side was more than a mile distant. In front of them there was no land at all. Behind them, the Lichstorm Mountains were blotted out from view by a haze that had gathered together. The sky ahead, just above the horizon, began to be of a strange colour. It was an intense jale-blue. The whole northern atmosphere was stained with ulfire.\r\n\r\nMaskull\u2019s mind grew disturbed. \u201cAlppain is rising, Gangnet.\u201d\r\n\r\nGangnet smiled wistfully. \u201cIt begins to trouble you?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is so solemn\u2014tragical, almost\u2014yet it recalls me to Earth. Life was no longer important\u2014but this is important.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDaylight is night to this other daylight. Within half an hour you will be like a man who has stepped from a dark forest into the open day. Then you will ask yourself how you could have been blind.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe two men went on watching the blue sunrise. The entire sky in the north, halfway up to the zenith, was streaked with extraordinary colours, among which jale and dolm predominated. Just as the principal character of an ordinary dawn is mystery<\/i>, the outstanding character of this dawn was wildness. It did not baffle the understanding, but the heart. Maskull felt no inarticulate craving to seize and perpetuate the sunrise, and make it his own. Instead of that, it agitated and tormented him, like the opening bars of a supernatural symphony.\r\n\r\nWhen he looked back to the south, Branchspell\u2019s day had lost its glare, and he could gaze at the immense white sun without flinching. He instinctively turned to the north again, as one turns from darkness to light.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf those were Crystalman\u2019s thoughts that you showed me before, Gangnet, these must be his feelings. I mean it literally. What I am feeling now, he must have felt before me.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cHe is all feeling<\/i>, Maskull\u2014don\u2019t you understand that?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull was feeding greedily on the spectacle before him; he did not reply. His face was set like a rock, but his eyes were dim with the beginning of tears. The sky blazed deeper and deeper; it was obvious that Alppain was about to lift itself above the sea. The island had by this time floated past the mouth of the estuary. On three sides they were surrounded by water. The haze crept up behind them and shut out all sight of land. Krag was still sleeping\u2014an ugly, wrinkled monstrosity.\r\n\r\nMaskull looked over the side at the flowing water. It had lost its dark green colour, and was now of a perfect crystal transparency.\r\n\r\n\u201cAre we already on the Ocean, Gangnet?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThen nothing remains except my death.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t think of death, but life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s growing brighter\u2014at the same time, more sombre. Krag seems to be fading away....\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is Alppain!\u201d said Gangnet, touching his arm.\r\n\r\nThe deep, glowing disk of the blue sun peeped above the sea. Maskull was struck to silence. He was hardly so much looking, as feeling. His emotions were unutterable. His soul seemed too strong for his body. The great blue orb rose rapidly out of the water, like an awful eye watching him.... it shot above the sea with a bound, and Alppain\u2019s day commenced.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you feel?\u201d Gangnet still held his arm.\r\n\r\n\u201cI have set myself against the Infinite,\u201d muttered Maskull.\r\n\r\nSuddenly his chaos of passions sprang together, and a wonderful idea swept through his whole being, accompanied by the intensest joy.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy, Gangnet\u2014I am nothing<\/i>.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, you are nothing.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe mist closed in all around them. Nothing was visible except the two suns, and a few feet of sea. The shadows of the three men cast by Alppain were not black, but were composed of white daylight.\r\n\r\n\u201cThen nothing can hurt me,\u201d said Maskull with a peculiar smile.\r\n\r\nGangnet smiled too. \u201cHow could it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI have lost my will; I feel as if some foul tumour had been scraped away, leaving me clean and free.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you now understand life, Maskull?\u201d\r\n\r\nGangnet\u2019s face was transfigured with an extraordinary spiritual beauty; he looked as if he had descended from heaven.\r\n\r\n\u201cI understand nothing, except that I have no self any more. But this is<\/i> life.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIs Gangnet expatiating on his famous blue sun?\u201d said a jeering voice above them. Looking up, they saw that Krag had got to his feet.\r\n\r\nThey both rose. At the same moment the gathering mist began to obscure Alppain\u2019s disk, changing it from blue to a vivid jale.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you want with us, Krag?\u201d asked Maskull with simple composure.\r\n\r\nKrag looked at him strangely for a few seconds. The water lapped around them.\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t you comprehend, Maskull, that your death has arrived?\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull made no response. Krag rested an arm lightly on his shoulder, and suddenly he felt sick and faint. He sank to the ground, near the edge of the island raft. His heart was thumping heavily and queerly; its beating reminded him of the drum taps. He gazed languidly at the rippling water, and it seemed to him as if he could see right through<\/i> it... away, away down... to a strange fire....\r\n\r\nThe water disappeared. The two suns were extinguished. The island was transformed into a cloud, and Maskull\u2014alone on it\u2014was floating through the atmosphere.... Down below, it was all fire\u2014the fire of Muspel. The light mounted higher and higher, until it filled the whole world....\r\n\r\nHe floated toward an immense perpendicular cliff of black rock, without top or bottom. Halfway up it Krag, suspended in midair, was dealing terrific blows at a blood-red spot with a huge hammer. The rhythmical, clanging sounds were hideous.\r\n\r\nPresently Maskull made out that these sounds were the familiar drum beats. \u201cWhat are you doing, Krag?\u201d he asked.\r\n\r\nKrag suspended his work, and turned around.\r\n\r\n\u201cBeating on your heart, Maskull,\u201d was his grinning response.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nThe cliff and Krag vanished. Maskull saw Gangnet struggling in the air\u2014but it was not Gangnet\u2014it was Crystalman. He seemed to be trying to escape from the Muspel-fire, which kept surrounding and licking him, whichever way he turned. He was screaming.... The fire caught him. He shrieked horribly. Maskull caught one glimpse of a vulgar, slobbering face\u2014and then that too disappeared.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nHe opened his eyes. The floating island was still faintly illuminated by Alppain. Krag was standing by his side, but Gangnet was no longer there.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat is this Ocean called?\u201d asked Maskull, bringing out the words with difficulty.\r\n\r\n\u201cSurtur\u2019s Ocean.\u201d\r\n\r\nMaskull nodded, and kept quiet for some time. He rested his face on his arm. \u201cWhere\u2019s Nightspore?\u201d he asked suddenly.\r\n\r\nKrag bent over him with a grave expression. \u201cYou are Nightspore.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe dying man closed his eyes, and smiled.\r\n\r\nOpening them again, a few moments later, with an effort, he murmured, \u201cWho are you?\u201d\r\n\r\nKrag maintained a gloomy silence.\r\n\r\nShortly afterward a frightful pang passed through Maskull\u2019s heart, and he died immediately.\r\n\r\nKrag turned his head around. \u201cThe night is really past at last, Nightspore.... The day is here.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore gazed long and earnestly at Maskull\u2019s body. \u201cWhy was all this necessary?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAsk Crystalman,\u201d replied Krag sternly. \u201cHis world is no joke. He has a strong clutch\u2014but I have a stronger... Maskull was his, but Nightspore is mine.\u201d\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

Chapter 21. MUSPEL<\/h2>\r\nThe fog thickened so that the two suns wholly disappeared, and all grew as black as night. Nightspore could no longer see his companion. The water lapped gently against the side of the island raft.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou say the night is past,\u201d said Nightspore. \u201cBut the night is still here. Am I dead, or alive?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are still in Crystalman\u2019s world, but you belong to it no more. We are approaching Muspel.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore felt a strong, silent throbbing of the air\u2014a rhythmical pulsation, in four-four time. \u201cThere is the drumming,\u201d he exclaimed.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo you understand it, or have you forgotten?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI half understand it, but I\u2019m all confused.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s evident Crystalman has dug his claws into you pretty deeply,\u201d said Krag. \u201cThe sound comes from Muspel, but the rhythm is caused by its travelling through Crystalman\u2019s atmosphere. His nature is rhythm as he loves to call it\u2014or dull, deadly repetition, as I name it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI remember,\u201d said Nightspore, biting his nails in the dark.\r\n\r\nThe throbbing became audible; it now sounded like a distant drum. A small patch of strange light in the far distance, straight ahead of them, began faintly to illuminate the floating island and the glassy sea around it.\r\n\r\n\u201cDo all men escape from that ghastly world, or only I, and a few like me?\u201d asked Nightspore.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf all escaped, I shouldn\u2019t sweat, my friend... There\u2019s hard work, and anguish, and the risk of total death, waiting for us yonder.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore\u2019s heart sank. \u201cHave I not yet finished, then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you wish it. You have got through. But will you wish it?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe drumming grew loud and painful. The light resolved itself into a tiny oblong of mysterious brightness in a huge wall of night. Krag\u2019s grim and rocklike features were revealed.\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t face rebirth,\u201d said Nightspore. \u201cThe horror of death is nothing to it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou will choose.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI can do nothing. Crystalman is too powerful. I barely escaped with my own soul.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are still stupid with Earth fumes, and see nothing straight,\u201d said Krag.\r\n\r\nNightspore made no reply, but seemed to be trying to recall something. The water around them was so still, colourless, and transparent, that they scarcely seemed to be borne up by liquid matter at all. Maskull\u2019s corpse had disappeared.\r\n\r\nThe drumming was now like the clanging of iron. The oblong patch of light grew much bigger; it burned, fierce and wild. The darkness above, below, and on either side of it, began to shape itself into the semblance of a huge, black wall, without bounds.\r\n\r\n\u201cIs that really a wall we are coming to?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou will soon find out. What you see is Muspel, and that light is the gate you have to enter.\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore\u2019s heart beat wildly.\r\n\r\n\u201cShall I remember?\u201d he muttered.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes, you\u2019ll remember.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cAccompany me, Krag, or I shall be lost.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is nothing for me to do in there. I shall wait outside for you.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou are returning to the struggle?\u201d demanded Nightspore, gnawing his fingertips.\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI dare not.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe thunderous clangor of the rhythmical beats struck on his head like actual blows. The light glared so vividly that he was no longer able to look at it. It had the startling irregularity of continuous lightning, but it possessed this further peculiarity\u2014that it seemed somehow to give out not actual light, but emotion, seen as light. They continued to approach the wall of darkness, straight toward the door. The glasslike water flowed right against it, its surface reaching up almost to the threshold.\r\n\r\nThey could not speak any more; the noise was too deafening.\r\n\r\nIn a few minutes they were before the gateway. Nightspore turned his back and hid his eyes in his two hands, but even then he was blinded by the light. So passionate were his feelings that his body seemed to enlarge itself. At every frightful beat of sound, he quivered violently.\r\n\r\nThe entrance was doorless. Krag jumped onto the rocky platform and pulled Nightspore after him.\r\n\r\nOnce through the gateway, the light vanished. The rhythmical sound\u2014blows totally ceased. Nightspore dropped his hands.... All was dark and quiet as an opened tomb. But the air was filled with grim, burning passion, which was to light and sound what light itself is to opaque colour.\r\n\r\nNightspore pressed his hand to his heart. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I can endure it,\u201d he said, looking toward Krag. He felt<\/i> his person far more vividly and distinctly than if he had been able to see him.\r\n\r\n\u201cGo in, and lose no time, Nightspore.... Time here is more precious than on earth. We can\u2019t squander the minutes. There are terrible and tragic affairs to attend to, which won\u2019t wait for us... Go in at once. Stop for nothing.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhere shall I go to?\u201d muttered Nightspore. \u201cI have forgotten everything.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cEnter, enter! There is only one way. You can\u2019t mistake it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy do you bid me go in, if I am to come out again?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTo have your wounds healed.\u201d\r\n\r\nAlmost before the words had left his mouth, Krag sprang back on to the island raft. Nightspore involuntarily started after him, but at once recovered himself and remained standing where he was. Krag was completely invisible; everything outside was black night.\r\n\r\nThe moment he had gone, a feeling shot up in Nightspore\u2019s heart like a thousand trumpets.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nStraight in front of him, almost at his feet, was the lower end of a steep, narrow, circular flight of stone steps. There was no other way forward.\r\n\r\nHe put his foot on the bottom stair, at the same time peering aloft. He saw nothing, yet as he proceeded upward every inch of the way was perceptible to his inner feelings. The staircase was cold, dismal, and deserted, but it seemed to him, in his exaltation of soul, like a ladder to heaven.\r\n\r\nAfter he had mounted a dozen steps or so, he paused to take breath. Each step was increasingly difficult to ascend; he felt as though he were carrying a heavy man on his shoulders. It struck a familiar chord in his mind. He went on and, ten stairs higher up, came to a window set in a high embrasure.\r\n\r\nOn to this he clambered, and looked through. The window was of a sort of glass, but he could see nothing. Coming to him, however, from the world outside, a disturbance of the atmosphere struck his senses, causing his blood to run cold. At one moment it resembled a low, mocking, vulgar laugh, travelling from the ends of the earth; at the next it was like a rhythmical vibration of the air\u2014the silent, continuous throbbing of some mighty engine. The two sensations were identical, yet different. They seemed to be related in the same manner as soul and body. After feeling them for a long time, Nightspore got down from the embrasure, and continued his ascent, having meanwhile grown very serious.\r\n\r\nThe climbing became still more laborious, and he was forced to stop at every third or fourth step, to rest his muscles and regain breath. When he had mounted another twenty stairs in this way, he came to a second window. Again he saw nothing. The laughing disturbance of the air, too, had ceased; but the atmospheric throb was now twice as distinct as before, and its rhythm had become double<\/i>. There were two separate pulses; one was in the time of a march, the other in the time of a waltz. The first was bitter and petrifying to feel, but the second was gay, enervating, and horrible.\r\n\r\nNightspore spent little time at that window, for he felt that he was on the eve of a great discovery, and that something far more important awaited him higher up. He proceeded aloft. The ascent grew more and more exhausting, so much so that he had frequently to sit down, utterly crushed by his own dead weight. Still, he got to the third window.\r\n\r\nHe climbed into the embrasure. His feelings translated themselves into vision, and he saw a sight that caused him to turn pale. A gigantic, self-luminous sphere was hanging in the sky, occupying nearly the whole of it. This sphere was composed entirely of two kinds of active beings. There were a myriad of tiny green corpuscles, varying in size from the very small to the almost indiscernible. They were not green, but he somehow saw them so. They were all striving in one direction\u2014toward himself, toward Muspel, but were too feeble and miniature to make any headway. Their action produced the marching rhythm he had previously felt, but this rhythm was not intrinsic in the corpuscles themselves, but was a consequence of the obstruction they met with. And, surrounding these atoms of life and light, were far larger whirls of white light that gyrated hither and thither, carrying the green corpuscles with them wherever they desired. Their whirling motion was accompanied by the waltzing rhythm. It seemed to Nightspore that the green atoms were not only being danced about against their will but were suffering excruciating shame and degradation in consequence. The larger ones were steadier than the extremely small, a few were even almost stationary, and one was advancing in the direction it wished to go.\r\n\r\nHe turned his back to the window, buried his face in his hands, and searched in the dim recesses of his memory for an explanation of what he had just seen. Nothing came straight, but horror and wrath began to take possession of him.\r\n\r\nOn his way upward to the next window, invisible fingers seemed to him to be squeezing his heart and twisting it about here and there; but he never dreamed of turning back. His mood was so grim that he did not once permit himself to pause. Such was his physical distress by the time that he had clambered into the recess, that for several minutes he could see nothing at all\u2014the world seemed to be spinning round him rapidly.\r\n\r\nWhen at last he looked, he saw the same sphere as before, but now all was changed on it. It was a world of rocks, minerals, water, plants, animals, and men. He saw the whole world at one view, yet everything was so magnified that he could distinguish the smallest details of life. In the interior of every individual, of every aggregate of individuals, of every chemical atom, he clearly perceived the presence of the green corpuscles. But, according to the degree of dignity of the life form, they were fragmentary or comparatively large. In the crystal, for example, the green, imprisoned life was so minute as to be scarcely visible; in some men it was hardly bigger; but in other men and women it was twenty or a hundred times greater. But, great or small, it played an important part in every individual. It appeared as if the whirls of white light, which were the individuals, and plainly showed themselves beneath the enveloping bodies, were delighted with existence and wished only to enjoy it, but the green corpuscles were in a condition of eternal discontent, yet, blind and not knowing which way to turn for liberation, kept changing form, as though breaking a new path, by way of experiment. Whenever the old grotesque became metamorphosed into the new grotesque, it was in every case the direct work of the green atoms, trying to escape toward Muspel, but encountering immediate opposition. These subdivided sparks of living, fiery spirit were hopelessly imprisoned in a ghastly mush of soft pleasure. They were being effeminated and corrupted\u2014that is to say, absorbed<\/i> in the foul, sickly enveloping forms.\r\n\r\nNightspore felt a sickening shame in his soul as he looked on at that spectacle. His exaltation had long since vanished. He bit his nails, and understood why Krag was waiting for him below.\r\n\r\nHe mounted slowly to the fifth window. The pressure of air against him was as strong as a full gale, divested of violence and irregularity, so that he was not for an instant suffered to relax his efforts. Nevertheless, not a breath stirred.\r\n\r\nLooking through the window, he was startled by a new sight. The sphere was still there, but between it and the Muspel-world in which he was standing he perceived a dim, vast shadow, without any distinguishable shape, but somehow throwing out a scent of disgusting sweetness. Nightspore knew that it was Crystalman. A flood of fierce light\u2014but it was not light, but passion\u2014was streaming all the time from Muspel to the Shadow, and through it. When, however, it emerged on the other side, which was the sphere, the light was altered in character. It became split, as by a prism, into the two forms of life which he had previously seen\u2014the green corpuscles and the whirls. What had been fiery spirit but a moment ago was now a disgusting mass of crawling, wriggling individuals, each whirl of pleasure-seeking will having, as nucleus, a fragmentary spark of living green fire. Nightspore recollected the back rays of Starkness, and it flashed across him with the certainty of truth that the green sparks were the back rays, and the whirls the forward rays, of Muspel. The former were trying desperately to return to their place of origin, but were overpowered by the brute force of the latter, which wished only to remain where they were. The individual whirls were jostling and fighting with, and even devouring, each other. This created pain, but, whatever pain they felt, it was always pleasure that they sought. Sometimes the green sparks were strong enough for a moment to move a little way in the direction of Muspel; the whirls would then accept the movement, not only without demur, but with pride and pleasure, as if it were their own handiwork\u2014but they never saw beyond the Shadow, they thought that they were travelling toward it<\/i>. The instant the direct movement wearied them, as contrary to their whirling nature, they fell again to killing, dancing, and loving.\r\n\r\nNightspore had a foreknowledge that the sixth window would prove to be the last. Nothing would have kept him from ascending to it, for he guessed that the nature of Crystalman himself would there become manifest. Every step upward was like a bloody life-and-death struggle. The stairs nailed him to the ground; the air pressure caused blood to gush from his nose and ears; his head clanged like an iron bell. When he had fought his way up a dozen steps, he found himself suddenly at the top; the staircase terminated in a small, bare chamber of cold stone, possessing a single window. On the other side of the apartment another short flight of stairs mounted through a trap, apparently to the roof of the building. Before ascending these stairs, Nightspore hastened to the window and stared out.\r\n\r\nThe shadow form of Crystalman had drawn much closer to him, and filled the whole sky, but it was not a shadow of darkness, but a bright shadow. It had neither shape, nor colour, yet it in some way suggested the delicate tints of early morning. It was so nebulous that the sphere could be clearly distinguished through it; in extension, however, it was thick. The sweet smell emanating from it was strong, loathsome, and terrible; it seemed to spring from a sort of loose, mocking slime inexpressibly vulgar and ignorant.\r\n\r\nThe spirit stream from Muspel flashed with complexity and variety. It was not below individuality, but above it. It was not the One, or the Many, but something else far beyond either. It approached Crystalman, and entered his body\u2014if that bright mist could be called a body. It passed right through him, and the passage caused him the most exquisite pleasure. The Muspel-stream was Crystalman\u2019s food<\/i>. The stream emerged from the other side on to the sphere, in a double condition. Part of it reappeared intrinsically unaltered, but shivered into a million fragments. These were the green corpuscles. In passing through Crystalman they had escaped absorption by reason of their extreme minuteness. The other part of the stream had not escaped. Its fire had been abstracted, its cement was withdrawn, and, after being fouled and softened by the horrible sweetness of the host, it broke into individuals, which were<\/i> the whirls of living will.\r\n\r\nNightspore shuddered. He comprehended at last how the whole world of will was doomed to eternal anguish in order that one Being might feel joy.\r\n\r\nPresently he set foot on the final flight leading to the roof; for he remembered vaguely that now only that remained.\r\n\r\nHalfway up, he fainted\u2014but when he recovered consciousness he persisted as though nothing had happened to him. As soon as his head was above the trap, breathing the free air, he had the same physical sensation as a man stepping out of water. He pulled his body up, and stood expectantly on the stone-floored roof, looking round for his first glimpse of Muspel.\r\n\r\nThere was nothing<\/i>.\r\n\r\nHe was standing upon the top of a tower, measuring not above fifteen feet each way. Darkness was all around him. He sat down on the stone parapet, with a sinking heart; a heavy foreboding possessed him.\r\n\r\nSuddenly, without seeing or hearing anything, he had the distinct impression that the darkness around him, on all four sides, was grinning.... As soon as that happened, he understood that he was wholly surrounded by Crystalman\u2019s world, and that Muspel consisted of himself and the stone tower on which he was sitting.\r\n\r\nFire flashed in his heart.... Millions upon millions of grotesque, vulgar, ridiculous, sweetened individuals\u2014once Spirit<\/i>\u2014were calling out from their degradation and agony for salvation from Muspel.... To answer that cry there was only himself... and Krag waiting below... and Surtur\u2014But where was Surtur?\r\n\r\nThe truth forced itself on him in all its cold, brutal reality. Muspel was no all-powerful Universe, tolerating from pure indifference the existence side by side with it of another false world, which had no right to be. Muspel was fighting for its life\u2014against all that is most shameful and frightful\u2014against sin masquerading as eternal beauty, against baseness masquerading as Nature, against the Devil masquerading as God....\r\n\r\nNow he understood everything. The moral combat was no mock one, no Valhalla, where warriors are cut to pieces by day and feast by night; but a grim death struggle in which what is worse than death\u2014namely, spiritual death\u2014inevitably awaited the vanquished of Muspel.... By what means could he hold back from this horrible war!\r\n\r\nDuring those moments of anguish, all thoughts of Self\u2014the corruption of his life on Earth\u2014were scorched out of Nightspore\u2019s soul, perhaps not for the first time.\r\n\r\nAfter sitting a long time, he prepared to descend. Without warning, a strange, wailing cry swept over the face of the world. Starting in awful mystery, it ended with such a note of low and sordid mockery that he could not doubt for a moment whence it originated. It was the voice of Crystalman.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nKrag was waiting for him on the island raft. He threw a stern glance at Nightspore.\r\n\r\n\u201cHave you seen everything?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe struggle is hopeless,\u201d muttered Nightspore.\r\n\r\n\u201cDid I not say I am the stronger?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou may be the stronger, but he is the mightier.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI am the stronger and the mightier. Crystalman\u2019s Empire is but a shadow on the face of Muspel. But nothing will be done without the bloodiest blows.... What do you mean to do?\u201d\r\n\r\nNightspore looked at him strangely. \u201cAre you not Surtur, Krag?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Nightspore in a slow voice, without surprise. \u201cBut what is your name on Earth?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is pain.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat, too, I must have known.\u201d\r\n\r\nHe was silent for a few minutes; then he stepped quietly onto the raft. Krag pushed off, and they proceeded into the darkness.","rendered":"

A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS.<\/h1>\n

By David Lindsay<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

CONTENTS<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 1. THE S\u00c3\u2030ANCE <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 2. IN THE STREET <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 3. STARKNESS <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 4. THE VOICE <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 5. THE NIGHT OF DEPARTURE <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 6. JOIWIND <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 7. PANAWE <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 8. THE LUSION PLAIN <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 9. OCEAXE <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 10. TYDOMIN <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 11. ON DISSCOURN <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 12. SPADEVIL <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 13. THE WOMBFLASH FOREST <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 14. POLECRAB <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 15. SWAYLONE\u2019S ISLAND <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 16. LEEHALLFAE <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 17. CORPANG <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 18. HAUNTE <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 19. SULLENBODE <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 20. BAREY <\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 21. MUSPEL <\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Chapter 1. THE S\u00c3\u2030ANCE<\/h2>\n

On a March evening, at eight o\u2019clock, Backhouse, the medium\u2014a fast-rising star in the psychic world\u2014was ushered into the study at Prolands, the Hampstead residence of Montague Faull. The room was illuminated only by the light of a blazing fire. The host, eying him with indolent curiosity, got up, and the usual conventional greetings were exchanged. Having indicated an easy chair before the fire to his guest, the South American merchant sank back again into his own. The electric light was switched on. Faull\u2019s prominent, clear-cut features, metallic-looking skin, and general air of bored impassiveness, did not seem greatly to impress the medium, who was accustomed to regard men from a special angle. Backhouse, on the contrary, was a novelty to the merchant. As he tranquilly studied him through half closed lids and the smoke of a cigar, he wondered how this little, thickset person with the pointed beard contrived to remain so fresh and sane in appearance, in view of the morbid nature of his occupation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you smoke?\u201d drawled Faull, by way of starting the conversation. \u201cNo? Then will you take a drink?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot at present, I thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

A pause.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is satisfactory? The materialisation will take place?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see no reason to doubt it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s good, for I would not like my guests to be disappointed. I have your check written out in my pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfterward will do quite well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNine o\u2019clock was the time specified, I believe?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI fancy so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conversation continued to flag. Faull sprawled in his chair, and remained apathetic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you care to hear what arrangements I have made?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am unaware that any are necessary, beyond chairs for your guests.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean the decoration of the s\u00c3\u00a9ance room, the music, and so forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backhouse stared at his host. \u201cBut this is not a theatrical performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s correct. Perhaps I ought to explain…. There will be ladies present, and ladies, you know, are aesthetically inclined.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that case I have no objection. I only hope they will enjoy the performance to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

He spoke rather dryly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s all right, then,\u201d said Faull. Flicking his cigar into the fire, he got up and helped himself to whisky.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill you come and see the room?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you, no. I prefer to have nothing to do with it till the time arrives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen let\u2019s go to see my sister, Mrs. Jameson, who is in the drawing room. She sometimes does me the kindness to act as my hostess, as I am unmarried.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be delighted,\u201d said Backhouse coldly.<\/p>\n

They found the lady alone, sitting by the open pianoforte in a pensive attitude. She had been playing Scriabin and was overcome. The medium took in her small, tight, patrician features and porcelain-like hands, and wondered how Faull came by such a sister. She received him bravely, with just a shade of quiet emotion. He was used to such receptions at the hands of the sex, and knew well how to respond to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat amazes me,\u201d she half whispered, after ten minutes of graceful, hollow conversation, \u201cis, if you must know it, not so much the manifestation itself\u2014though that will surely be wonderful\u2014as your assurance that it will take place. Tell me the grounds of your confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI dream with open eyes,\u201d he answered, looking around at the door, \u201cand others see my dreams. That is all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s beautiful,\u201d responded Mrs. Jameson. She smiled rather absently, for the first guest had just entered.<\/p>\n

It was Kent-Smith, the ex-magistrate, celebrated for his shrewd judicial humour, which, however, he had the good sense not to attempt to carry into private life. Although well on the wrong side of seventy, his eyes were still disconcertingly bright. With the selective skill of an old man, he immediately settled himself in the most comfortable of many comfortable chairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we are to see wonders tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFresh material for your autobiography,\u201d remarked Faull.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, you should not have mentioned my unfortunate book. An old public servant is merely amusing himself in his retirement, Mr. Backhouse. You have no cause for alarm\u2014I have studied in the school of discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not alarmed. There can be no possible objection to your publishing whatever you please.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are most kind,\u201d said the old man, with a cunning smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrent is not coming tonight,\u201d remarked Mrs. Jameson, throwing a curious little glance at her brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought he would. It\u2019s not in his line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMrs. Trent, you must understand,\u201d she went on, addressing the ex-magistrate, \u201chas placed us all under a debt of gratitude. She has decorated the old lounge hall upstairs most beautifully, and has secured the services of the sweetest little orchestra.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this is Roman magnificence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBackhouse thinks the spirits should be treated with more deference,\u201d laughed Faull.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely, Mr. Backhouse\u2014a poetic environment…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPardon me. I am a simple man, and always prefer to reduce things to elemental simplicity. I raise no opposition, but I express my opinion. Nature is one thing, and art is another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I am not sure that I don\u2019t agree with you,\u201d said the ex-magistrate. \u201cAn occasion like this ought to be simple, to guard against the possibility of deception\u2014if you will forgive my bluntness, Mr. Backhouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shall sit in full light,\u201d replied Backhouse, \u201cand every opportunity will be given to all to inspect the room. I shall also ask you to submit me to a personal examination.\u201d<\/p>\n

A rather embarrassed silence followed. It was broken by the arrival of two more guests, who entered together. These were Prior, the prosperous City coffee importer, and Lang, the stockjobber, well known in his own circle as an amateur prestidigitator. Backhouse was slightly acquainted with the latter. Prior, perfuming the room with the faint odour of wine and tobacco smoke, tried to introduce an atmosphere of joviality into the proceedings. Finding that no one seconded his efforts, however, he shortly subsided and fell to examining the water colours on the walls. Lang, tall, thin, and growing bald, said little, but stared at Backhouse a good deal.<\/p>\n

Coffee, liqueurs, and cigarettes were now brought in. Everyone partook, except Lang and the medium. At the same moment, Professor Halbart was announced. He was the eminent psychologist, the author and lecturer on crime, insanity, genius, and so forth, considered in their mental aspects. His presence at such a gathering somewhat mystified the other guests, but all felt as if the object of their meeting had immediately acquired additional solemnity. He was small, meagre-looking, and mild in manner, but was probably the most stubborn-brained of all that mixed company. Completely ignoring the medium, he at once sat down beside Kent-Smith, with whom he began to exchange remarks.<\/p>\n

At a few minutes past the appointed hour Mrs. Trent entered, unannounced. She was a woman of about twenty-eight. She had a white, demure, saintlike face, smooth black hair, and lips so crimson and full that they seemed to be bursting with blood. Her tall, graceful body was most expensively attired. Kisses were exchanged between her and Mrs. Jameson. She bowed to the rest of the assembly, and stole a half glance and a smile at Faull. The latter gave her a queer look, and Backhouse, who lost nothing, saw the concealed barbarian in the complacent gleam of his eye. She refused the refreshment that was offered her, and Faull proposed that, as everyone had now arrived, they should adjourn to the lounge hall.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Trent held up a slender palm. \u201cDid you, or did you not, give me carte blanche, Montague?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I did,\u201d said Faull, laughing. \u201cBut what\u2019s the matter?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps I have been rather presumptuous. I don\u2019t know. I have invited a couple of friends to join us. No, no one knows them…. The two most extraordinary individuals you ever saw. And mediums, I am sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds very mysterious. Who are these conspirators?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least tell us their names, you provoking girl,\u201d put in Mrs. Jameson.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne rejoices in the name of Maskull, and the other in that of Nightspore. That\u2019s nearly all that I know about them, so don\u2019t overwhelm me with any more questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut where did you pick them up? You must have picked them up somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this is a cross-examination. Have I sinned against convention? I swear I will tell you not another word about them. They will be here directly, and then I will deliver them to your tender mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know them,\u201d said Faull, \u201cand nobody else seems to, but, of course, we will all be very pleased to have them…. Shall we wait, or what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI said nine, and it\u2019s past that now. It\u2019s quite possible they may not turn up after all…. Anyway, don\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would prefer to start at once,\u201d said Backhouse.<\/p>\n

The lounge, a lofty room, forty feet long by twenty wide, had been divided for the occasion into two equal parts by a heavy brocade curtain drawn across the middle. The far end was thus concealed. The nearer half had been converted into an auditorium by a crescent of armchairs. There was no other furniture. A large fire was burning halfway along the wall, between the chairbacks and the door. The room was brilliantly lighted by electric bracket lamps. A sumptuous carpet covered the floor.<\/p>\n

Having settled his guests in their seats, Faull stepped up to the curtain and flung it aside. A replica, or nearly so, of the Drury Lane presentation of the temple scene in The Magic Flute<\/i> was then exposed to view: the gloomy, massive architecture of the interior, the glowing sky above it in the background, and, silhouetted against the latter, the gigantic seated statue of the Pharaoh. A fantastically carved wooden couch lay before the pedestal of the statue. Near the curtain, obliquely placed to the auditorium, was a plain oak armchair, for the use of the medium.<\/p>\n

Many of those present felt privately that the setting was quite inappropriate to the occasion and savoured rather unpleasantly of ostentation. Backhouse in particular seemed put out. The usual compliments, however, were showered on Mrs. Trent as the deviser of so remarkable a theatre. Faull invited his friends to step forward and examine the apartment as minutely as they might desire. Prior and Lang were the only ones to accept. The former wandered about among the pasteboard scenery, whistling to himself and occasionally tapping a part of it with his knuckles. Lang, who was in his element, ignored the rest of his party and commenced a patient, systematic search, on his own account, for secret apparatus. Faull and Mrs. Trent stood in a corner of the temple, talking together in low tones; while Mrs. Jameson, pretending to hold Backhouse in conversation, watched them as only a deeply interested woman knows how to watch.<\/p>\n

Lang, to his own disgust, having failed to find anything of a suspicious nature, the medium now requested that his own clothing should be searched.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these precautions are quite needless and beside the matter in hand, as you will immediately see for yourselves. My reputation demands, however, that other people who are not present would not be able to say afterward that trickery has been resorted to.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Lang again fell the ungrateful task of investigating pockets and sleeves. Within a few minutes he expressed himself satisfied that nothing mechanical was in Backhouse\u2019s possession. The guests reseated themselves. Faull ordered two more chairs to be brought for Mrs. Trent\u2019s friends, who, however, had not yet arrived. He then pressed an electric bell, and took his own seat.<\/p>\n

The signal was for the hidden orchestra to begin playing. A murmur of surprise passed through the audience as, without previous warning, the beautiful and solemn strains of Mozart\u2019s \u201ctemple\u201d music pulsated through the air. The expectation of everyone was raised, while, beneath her pallor and composure, it could be seen that Mrs. Trent was deeply moved. It was evident that aesthetically she was by far the most important person present. Faull watched her, with his face sunk on his chest, sprawling as usual.<\/p>\n

Backhouse stood up, with one hand on the back of his chair, and began speaking. The music instantly sank to pianissimo, and remained so for as long as he was on his legs.<\/p>\n

\u201cLadies and gentlemen, you are about to witness a materialisation. That means you will see something appear in space that was not previously there. At first it will appear as a vaporous form, but finally it will be a solid body, which anyone present may feel and handle\u2014and, for example, shake hands with. For this body will be in the human shape. It will be a real man or woman\u2014which, I can\u2019t say\u2014but a man or woman without known antecedents. If, however, you demand from me an explanation of the origin of this materialised form\u2014where it comes from, whence the atoms and molecules composing its tissues are derived\u2014I am unable to satisfy you. I am about to produce the phenomenon; if anyone can explain it to me afterward, I shall be very grateful…. That is all I have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

He resumed his seat, half turning his back on the assembly, and paused for a moment before beginning his task.<\/p>\n

It was precisely at this minute that the manservant opened the door and announced in a subdued but distinct voice: \u201cMr. Maskull, Mr. Nightspore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone turned round. Faull rose to welcome the late arrivals. Backhouse also stood up, and stared hard at them.<\/p>\n

The two strangers remained standing by the door, which was closed quietly behind them. They seemed to be waiting for the mild sensation caused by their appearance to subside before advancing into the room. Maskull was a kind of giant, but of broader and more robust physique than most giants. He wore a full beard. His features were thick and heavy, coarsely modelled, like those of a wooden carving; but his eyes, small and black, sparkled with the fires of intelligence and audacity. His hair was short, black, and bristling. Nightspore was of middle height, but so tough-looking that he appeared to be trained out of all human frailties and susceptibilities. His hairless face seemed consumed by an intense spiritual hunger, and his eyes were wild and distant. Both men were dressed in tweeds.<\/p>\n

Before any words were spoken, a loud and terrible crash of falling masonry caused the assembled party to start up from their chairs in consternation. It sounded as if the entire upper part of the building had collapsed. Faull sprang to the door, and called to the servant to say what was happening. The man had to be questioned twice before he gathered what was required of him. He said he had heard nothing. In obedience to his master\u2019s order, he went upstairs. Nothing, however, was amiss there, neither had the maids heard anything.<\/p>\n

In the meantime Backhouse, who almost alone of those assembled had preserved his sangfroid, went straight up to Nightspore, who stood gnawing his nails.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps you can explain it, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was supernatural,\u201d said Nightspore, in a harsh, muffled voice, turning away from his questioner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guessed so. It is a familiar phenomenon, but I have never heard it so loud.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then went among the guests, reassuring them. By degrees they settled down, but it was observable that their former easy and good-humoured interest in the proceedings was now changed to strained watchfulness. Maskull and Nightspore took the places allotted to them. Mrs. Trent kept stealing uneasy glances at them. Throughout the entire incident, Mozart\u2019s hymn continued to be played. The orchestra also had heard nothing.<\/p>\n

Backhouse now entered on his task. It was one that began to be familiar to him, and he had no anxiety about the result. It was not possible to effect the materialisation by mere concentration of will, or the exercise of any faculty; otherwise many people could have done what he had engaged himself to do. His nature was phenomenal\u2014the dividing wall between himself and the spiritual world was broken in many places. Through the gaps in his mind the inhabitants of the invisible, when he summoned them, passed for a moment timidly and awfully into the solid, coloured universe…. He could not say how it was brought about…. The experience was a rough one for the body, and many such struggles would lead to insanity and early death. That is why Backhouse was stern and abrupt in his manner. The coarse, clumsy suspicion of some of the witnesses, the frivolous aestheticism of others, were equally obnoxious to his grim, bursting heart; but he was obliged to live, and, to pay his way, must put up with these impertinences.<\/p>\n

He sat down facing the wooden couch. His eyes remained open but seemed to look inward. His cheeks paled, and he became noticeably thinner. The spectators almost forgot to breathe. The more sensitive among them began to feel, or imagine, strange presences all around them. Maskull\u2019s eyes glittered with anticipation, and his brows went up and down, but Nightspore appeared bored.<\/p>\n

After a long ten minutes the pedestal of the statue was seen to become slightly blurred, as though an intervening mist were rising from the ground. This slowly developed into a visible cloud, coiling hither and thither, and constantly changing shape. The professor half rose, and held his glasses with one hand further forward on the bridge of his nose.<\/p>\n

By slow stages the cloud acquired the dimensions and approximate outline of an adult human body, although all was still vague and blurred. It hovered lightly in the air, a foot or so above the couch. Backhouse looked haggard and ghastly. Mrs. Jameson quietly fainted in her chair, but she was unnoticed, and presently revived. The apparition now settled down upon the couch, and at the moment of doing so seemed suddenly to grow dark, solid, and manlike. Many of the guests were as pale as the medium himself, but Faull preserved his stoical apathy, and glanced once or twice at Mrs. Trent. She was staring straight at the couch, and was twisting a little lace handkerchief through the different fingers of her hand. The music went on playing.<\/p>\n

The figure was by this time unmistakably that of a man lying down. The face focused itself into distinctness. The body was draped in a sort of shroud, but the features were those of a young man. One smooth hand fell over, nearly touching the floor, white and motionless. The weaker spirits of the company stared at the vision in sick horror; the rest were grave and perplexed. The seeming man was dead<\/i>, but somehow it did not appear like a death succeeding life, but like a death preliminary to life. All felt that he might sit up at any minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop that music!\u201d muttered Backhouse, tottering from his chair and facing the party. Faull touched the bell. A few more bars sounded, and then total silence ensued.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who wants to may approach the couch,\u201d said Backhouse with difficulty.<\/p>\n

Lang at once advanced, and stared awestruck at the supernatural youth.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are at liberty to touch,\u201d said the medium.<\/p>\n

But Lang did not venture to, nor did any of the others, who one by one stole up to the couch\u2014until it came to Faull\u2019s turn. He looked straight at Mrs. Trent, who seemed frightened and disgusted at the spectacle before her, and then not only touched the apparition but suddenly grasped the drooping hand in his own and gave it a powerful squeeze. Mrs. Trent gave a low scream. The ghostly visitor opened his eyes, looked at Faull strangely, and sat up on the couch. A cryptic smile started playing over his mouth. Faull looked at his hand; a feeling of intense pleasure passed through his body.<\/p>\n

Maskull caught Mrs. Jameson in his arms; she was attacked by another spell of faintness. Mrs. Trent ran forward, and led her out of the room. Neither of them returned.<\/p>\n

The phantom body now stood upright, looking about him, still with his peculiar smile. Prior suddenly felt sick, and went out. The other men more or less hung together, for the sake of human society, but Nightspore paced up and down, like a man weary and impatient, while Maskull attempted to interrogate the youth. The apparition watched him with a baffling expression, but did not answer. Backhouse was sitting apart, his face buried in his hands.<\/p>\n

It was at this moment that the door was burst open violently, and a stranger, unannounced, half leaped, half strode a few yards into the room, and then stopped. None of Faull\u2019s friends had ever seen him before. He was a thick, shortish man, with surprising muscular development and a head far too large in proportion to his body. His beardless yellow face indicated, as a first impression, a mixture of sagacity, brutality, and humour.<\/p>\n

\u201cAha-i, gentlemen!\u201d he called out loudly. His voice was piercing, and oddly disagreeable to the ear. \u201cSo we have a little visitor here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore turned his back, but everyone else stared at the intruder in astonishment. He took another few steps forward, which brought him to the edge of the theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay I ask, sir, how I come to have the honour of being your host?\u201d asked Faull sullenly. He thought that the evening was not proceeding as smoothly as he had anticipated.<\/p>\n

The newcomer looked at him for a second, and then broke into a great, roaring guffaw. He thumped Faull on the back playfully\u2014but the play was rather rough, for the victim was sent staggering against the wall before he could recover his balance.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood evening, my host!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd good evening to you too, my lad!\u201d he went on, addressing the supernatural youth, who was now beginning to wander about the room, in apparent unconsciousness of his surroundings. \u201cI have seen someone very like you before, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no response.<\/p>\n

The intruder thrust his head almost up to the phantom\u2019s face. \u201cYou have no right here, as you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shape looked back at him with a smile full of significance, which, however, no one could understand.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe careful what you are doing,\u201d said Backhouse quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter, spirit usher?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know who you are, but if you use physical violence toward that<\/i>, as you seem inclined to do, the consequences may prove very unpleasant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd without pleasure our evening would be spoiled, wouldn\u2019t it, my little mercenary friend?\u201d<\/p>\n

Humour vanished from his face, like sunlight from a landscape, leaving it hard and rocky. Before anyone realised what he was doing, he encircled the soft, white neck of the materialised shape with his hairy hands and, with a double turn, twisted it completely round. A faint, unearthly shriek sounded, and the body fell in a heap to the floor. Its face was uppermost. The guests were unutterably shocked to observe that its expression had changed from the mysterious but fascinating smile to a vulgar, sordid, bestial grin, which cast a cold shadow of moral nastiness into every heart. The transformation was accompanied by a sickening stench of the graveyard.<\/p>\n

The features faded rapidly away, the body lost its consistence, passing from the solid to the shadowy condition, and, before two minutes had elapsed, the spirit-form had entirely disappeared.<\/p>\n

The short stranger turned and confronted the party, with a long, loud laugh, like nothing in nature.<\/p>\n

The professor talked excitedly to Kent-Smith in low tones. Faull beckoned Backhouse behind a wing of scenery, and handed him his check without a word. The medium put it in his pocket, buttoned his coat, and walked out of the room. Lang followed him, in order to get a drink.<\/p>\n

The stranger poked his face up into Maskull\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, giant, what do you think of it all? Wouldn\u2019t you like to see the land where this sort of fruit grows wild?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat sort of fruit?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat specimen goblin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull waved him away with his huge hand. \u201cWho are you, and how did you come here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCall up your friend. Perhaps he may recognise me.\u201d Nightspore had moved a chair to the fire, and was watching the embers with a set, fanatical expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet Krag come to me, if he wants me,\u201d he said, in his strange voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see, he does know me,\u201d uttered Krag, with a humorous look. Walking over to Nightspore, he put a hand on the back of his chair.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill the same old gnawing hunger?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is doing these days?\u201d demanded Nightspore disdainfully, without altering his attitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurtur has gone, and we are to follow him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you two come to know each other, and of whom are you speaking?\u201d asked Maskull, looking from one to the other in perplexity.<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag has something for us. Let us go outside,\u201d replied Nightspore. He got up, and glanced over his shoulder. Maskull, following the direction of his eye, observed that the few remaining men were watching their little group attentively.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 2. IN THE STREET<\/h2>\n

The three men gathered in the street outside the house. The night was slightly frosty, but particularly clear, with an east wind blowing. The multitude of blazing stars caused the sky to appear like a vast scroll of hieroglyphic symbols. Maskull felt oddly excited; he had a sense that something extraordinary was about to happen. \u201cWhat brought you to this house tonight, Krag, and what made you do what you did? How are we understand that apparition?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat must have been Crystalman\u2019s expression on its face,\u201d muttered Nightspore.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have discussed that, haven\u2019t we, Maskull? Maskull is anxious to behold that rare fruit in its native wilds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull looked at Krag carefully, trying to analyse his own feelings toward him. He was distinctly repelled by the man\u2019s personality, yet side by side with this aversion a savage, living energy seemed to spring up in his heart that in some strange fashion was attributable to Krag.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you insist on this simile?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it is apropos. Nightspore\u2019s quite right. That was Crystalman\u2019s face, and we are going to Crystalman\u2019s country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd where is this mysterious country?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTormance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a quaint name. But where is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag grinned, showing his yellow teeth in the light of the street lamp.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the residential suburb of Arcturus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is he talking about, Nightspore?… Do you mean the star of that name?\u201d he went on, to Krag.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich you have in front of you at this very minute,\u201d said Krag, pointing a thick finger toward the brightest star in the south-eastern sky. \u201cThere you see Arcturus, and Tormance is its one inhabited planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull looked at the heavy, gleaming star, and again at Krag. Then he pulled out a pipe, and began to fill it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must have cultivated a new form of humour, Krag.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am glad if I can amuse you, Maskull, if only for a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI meant to ask you\u2014how do you know my name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be odd if I didn\u2019t, seeing that I only came here on your account. As a matter of fact, Nightspore and I are old friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull paused with his suspended match. \u201cYou came here on my account?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely. On your account and Nightspore\u2019s. We three are to be fellow travellers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull now lit his pipe and puffed away coolly for a few moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, Krag, but I must assume you are mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag threw his head back, and gave a scraping laugh. \u201cAm I mad, Nightspore?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHas Surtur gone to Tormance?\u201d ejaculated Nightspore in a strangled voice, fixing his eyes on Krag\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and he requires that we follow him at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull\u2019s heart began to beat strangely. It all sounded to him like a dream conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd since how long, Krag, have I been required<\/i> to do things by a total stranger…. Besides, who is this individual?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag\u2019s chief,\u201d said Nightspore, turning his head away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe riddle is too elaborate for me. I give up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are looking for mysteries,\u201d said Krag, \u201cso naturally you are finding them. Try and simplify your ideas, my friend. The affair is plain and serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull stared hard at him and smoked rapidly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere have you come from now?\u201d demanded Nightspore suddenly.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the old observatory at Starkness…. Have you heard of the famous Starkness Observatory, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. Where is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the north-east coast of Scotland. Curious discoveries are made there from time to time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs, for example, how to make voyages to the stars. So this Surtur turns out to be an astronomer. And you too, presumably?\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag grinned again. \u201cHow long will it take you to wind up your affairs? When can you be ready to start?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are too considerate,\u201d said Maskull, laughing outright. \u201cI was beginning to fear that I would be hauled away at once…. However, I have neither wife, land, nor profession, so there\u2019s nothing to wait for…. What is the itinerary?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are a fortunate man. A bold, daring heart, and no encumbrances.\u201d Krag\u2019s features became suddenly grave and rigid. \u201cDon\u2019t be a fool, and refuse a gift of luck. A gift declined is not offered a second time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag,\u201d replied Maskull simply, returning his pipe to his pocket. \u201cI ask you to put yourself in my place. Even if I were a man sick for adventures, how could I listen seriously to such an insane proposition as this? What do I know about you, or your past record? You may be a practical joker, or you may have come out of a madhouse\u2014I know nothing about it. If you claim to be an exceptional man, and want my cooperation, you must offer me exceptional proofs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what proofs would you consider adequate, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

As he spoke he gripped Maskull\u2019s arm. A sharp, chilling pain immediately passed through the latter\u2019s body and at the same moment his brain caught fire. A light burst in upon him like the rising of the sun. He asked himself for the first time if this fantastic conversation could by any chance refer to real things.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, Krag,\u201d he said slowly, while peculiar images and conceptions started to travel in rich disorder through his mind. \u201cYou talk about a certain journey. Well, if that journey were a possible one, and I were given the chance of making it, I would be willing never to come back. For twenty-four hours on that Arcturian planet, I would give my life. That is my attitude toward that journey…. Now prove to me that you\u2019re not talking nonsense. Produce your credentials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag stared at him all the time he was speaking, his face gradually resuming its jesting expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, you will get your twenty-four hours, and perhaps longer, but not much longer. You\u2019re an audacious fellow, Maskull, but this trip will prove a little strenuous, even for you…. And so, like the unbelievers of old, you want a sign from heaven?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull frowned. \u201cBut the whole thing is ridiculous. Our brains are overexcited by what took place in there<\/i>. Let us go home, and sleep it off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag detained him with one hand, while groping in his breast pocket with the other. He presently fished out what resembled a small folding lens. The diameter of the glass did not exceed two inches.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst take a peep at Arcturus through this, Maskull. It may serve as a provisional sign. It\u2019s the best I can do, unfortunately. I am not a travelling magician…. Be very careful not to drop it. It\u2019s somewhat heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull took the lens in his hand, struggled with it for a minute, and then looked at Krag in amazement. The little object weighed at least twenty pounds, though it was not much bigger than a crown piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat stuff can this be, Krag?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook through it, my good friend. That\u2019s what I gave it to you for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull held it up with difficulty, directed it toward the gleaming Arcturus, and snatched as long and as steady a glance at the star as the muscles of his arm would permit. What he saw was this. The star, which to the naked eye appeared as a single yellow point of light, now became clearly split into two bright but minute suns, the larger of which was still yellow, while its smaller companion was a beautiful blue. But this was not all. Apparently circulating around the yellow sun was a comparatively small and hardly distinguishable satellite, which seemed to shine, not by its own, but by reflected light…. Maskull lowered and raised his arm repeatedly. The same spectacle revealed itself again and again, but he was able to see nothing else. Then he passed back the lens to Krag, without a word, and stood chewing his underlip.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou take a glimpse too,\u201d scraped Krag, proffering the glass to Nightspore.<\/p>\n

Nightspore turned his back and began to pace up and down. Krag laughed sardonically, and returned the lens to his pocket. \u201cWell, Maskull, are you satisfied?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cArcturus, then, is a double sun. And is that third point the planet Tormance?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur future home, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull continued to ponder. \u201cYou inquire if I am satisfied. I don\u2019t know, Krag. It\u2019s miraculous, and that\u2019s all I can say about it…. But I\u2019m satisfied of one thing. There must be very wonderful astronomers at Starkness and if you invite me to your observatory I will surely come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do invite you. We set off from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you, Nightspore?\u201d demanded Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe journey has to be made,\u201d answered his friend in indistinct tones, \u201cthough I don\u2019t see what will come of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag shot a penetrating glance at him. \u201cMore remarkable adventures than this would need to be arranged before we could excite Nightspore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYet he is coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut not con amore<\/i>. He is coming merely to bear you company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull again sought the heavy, sombre star, gleaming in solitary might, in the south-eastern heavens, and, as he gazed, his heart swelled with grand and painful longings, for which, however, he was unable to account to his own intellect. He felt that his destiny was in some way bound up with this gigantic, far-distant sun. But still he did not dare to admit to himself Krag\u2019s seriousness.<\/p>\n

He heard his parting remarks in deep abstraction, and only after the lapse of several minutes, when, alone with Nightspore, did he realise that they referred to such mundane matters as travelling routes and times of trains.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes Krag travel north with us, Nightspore? I didn\u2019t catch that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. We go on first, and he joins us at Starkness on the evening of the day after tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull remained thoughtful. \u201cWhat am I to think of that man?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor your information,\u201d replied Nightspore wearily, \u201cI have never known him to lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 3. STARKNESS<\/h2>\n

A couple of days later, at two o\u2019clock in the afternoon, Maskull and Nightspore arrived at Starkness Observatory, having covered the seven miles from Haillar Station on foot. The road, very wild and lonely, ran for the greater part of the way near the edge of rather lofty cliffs, within sight of the North Sea. The sun shone, but a brisk east wind was blowing and the air was salt and cold. The dark green waves were flecked with white. Throughout the walk, they were accompanied by the plaintive, beautiful crying of the gulls.<\/p>\n

The observatory presented itself to their eyes as a self-contained little community, without neighbours, and perched on the extreme end of the land. There were three buildings: a small, stone-built dwelling house, a low workshop, and, about two hundred yards farther north, a square tower of granite masonry, seventy feet in height.<\/p>\n

The house and the shop were separated by an open yard, littered with waste. A single stone wall surrounded both, except on the side facing the sea, where the house itself formed a continuation of the cliff. No one appeared. The windows were all closed, and Maskull could have sworn that the whole establishment was shut up and deserted.<\/p>\n

He passed through the open gate, followed by Nightspore, and knocked vigorously at the front door. The knocker was thick with dust and had obviously not been used for a long time. He put his ear to the door, but could hear no movements inside the house. He then tried the handle; the door was looked.<\/p>\n

They walked around the house, looking for another entrance, but there was only the one door.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t promising,\u201d growled Maskull. \u201cThere\u2019s no one here….. Now you try the shed, while I go over to that tower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore, who had not spoken half a dozen words since leaving the train, complied in silence, and started off across the yard. Maskull passed out of the gate again. When he arrived at the foot of the tower, which stood some way back from the cliff, he found the door heavily padlocked. Gazing up, he saw six windows, one above the other at equal distances, all on the east face\u2014that is, overlooking the sea. Realising that no satisfaction was to be gained here, he came away again, still more irritated than before. When he rejoined his friend, Nightspore reported that the workshop was also locked.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid we, or did we not, receive an invitation?\u201d demanded Maskull energetically.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe house is empty,\u201d replied Nightspore, biting his nails. \u201cBetter break a window.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly don\u2019t mean to camp out till Krag condescends to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

He picked up an old iron bolt from the yard and, retreating to a safe distance, hurled it against a sash window on the ground floor. The lower pane was completely shattered. Carefully avoiding the broken glass, Maskull thrust his hand through the aperture and pushed back the frame fastening. A minute later they had climbed through and were standing inside the house.<\/p>\n

The room, which was a kitchen, was in an indescribably filthy and neglected condition. The furniture scarcely held together, broken utensils and rubbish lay on the floor instead of on the dust heap, everything was covered with a deep deposit of dust. The atmosphere was so foul that Maskull judged that no fresh air had passed into the room for several months. Insects were crawling on the walls.<\/p>\n

They went into the other rooms on the lower floor\u2014a scullery, a barely furnished dining room, and a storing place for lumber. The same dirt, mustiness, and neglect met their eyes. At least half a year must have elapsed since these rooms were last touched, or even entered.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes your faith in Krag still hold?\u201d asked Maskull. \u201cI confess mine is at vanishing point. If this affair isn\u2019t one big practical joke, it has every promise of being one. Krag never lived here in his life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCome upstairs first,\u201d said Nightspore.<\/p>\n

The upstairs rooms proved to consist of a library and three bedrooms. All the windows were tightly closed, and the air was insufferable. The beds had been slept in, evidently a long time ago, and had never been made since. The tumbled, discoloured bed linen actually preserved the impressions of the sleepers. There was no doubt that these impressions were ancient, for all sorts of floating dirt had accumulated on the sheets and coverlets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho could have slept here, do you think?\u201d interrogated Maskull. \u201cThe observatory staff?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMore likely travellers like ourselves. They left suddenly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull flung the windows wide open in every room he came to, and held his breath until he had done so. Two of the bedrooms faced the sea; the third, the library, the upward-sloping moorland. This library was now the only room left unvisited, and unless they discovered signs of recent occupation here Maskull made up his mind to regard the whole business as a gigantic hoax.<\/p>\n

But the library, like all the other rooms, was foul with stale air and dust-laden. Maskull, having flung the window up and down, fell heavily into an armchair and looked disgustedly at his friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow what is your opinion of Krag?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore sat on the edge of the table which stood before the window. \u201cHe may still have left a message for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat message? Why? Do you mean in this room?\u2014I see no message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore\u2019s eyes wandered about the room, finally seeming to linger upon a glass-fronted wall cupboard, which contained a few old bottles on one of the shelves and nothing else. Maskull glanced at him and at the cupboard. Then, without a word, he got up to examine the bottles.<\/p>\n

There were four altogether, one of which was larger than the rest. The smaller ones were about eight inches long. All were torpedo-shaped, but had flattened bottoms, which enabled them to stand upright. Two of the smaller ones were empty and unstoppered, the others contained a colourless liquid, and possessed queer-looking, nozzle-like stoppers that were connected by a thin metal rod with a catch halfway down the side of the bottle. They were labelled, but the labels were yellow with age and the writing was nearly undecipherable. Maskull carried the filled bottles with him to the table in front of the window, in order to get better light. Nightspore moved away to make room for him.<\/p>\n

He now made out on the larger bottle the words \u201cSolar Back Rays\u201d; and on the other one, after some doubt, he thought that he could distinguish something like \u201cArcturian Back Rays.\u201d<\/p>\n

He looked up, to stare curiously at his friend. \u201cHave you been here before, Nightspore?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guessed Krag would leave a message.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I don\u2019t know\u2014it may be a message, but it means nothing to us, or at all events to me. What are \u2018back rays\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLight that goes back to its source,\u201d muttered Nightspore.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what kind of light would that be?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore seemed unwilling to answer, but, finding Maskull\u2019s eyes still fixed on him, he brought out: \u201cUnless light pulled, as well as pushed, how would flowers contrive to twist their heads around after the sun?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. But the point is, what are these bottles for?\u201d<\/p>\n

While he was still talking, with his hand on the smaller bottle, the other, which was lying on its side, accidentally rolled over in such a manner that the metal caught against the table. He made a movement to stop it, his hand was actually descending, when\u2014the bottle suddenly disappeared before his eyes. It had not rolled off the table, but had really vanished\u2014it was nowhere at all.<\/p>\n

Maskull stared at the table. After a minute he raised his brows, and turned to Nightspore with a smile. \u201cThe message grows more intricate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore looked bored. \u201cThe valve became unfastened. The contents have escaped through the open window toward the sun, carrying the bottle with them. But the bottle will be burned up by the earth\u2019s atmosphere, and the contents will dissipate, and will not reach the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull listened attentively, and his smile faded. \u201cDoes anything prevent us from experimenting with this other bottle?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReplace it in the cupboard,\u201d said Nightspore. \u201cArcturus is still below the horizon, and you would succeed only in wrecking the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull remained standing before the window, pensively gazing out at the sunlit moors.<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag treats me like a child,\u201d he remarked presently. \u201cAnd perhaps I really am a child…. My cynicism must seem most amusing to Krag. But why does he leave me to find out all this by myself\u2014for I don\u2019t include you, Nightspore…. But what time will Krag be here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot before dark, I expect,\u201d his friend replied.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 4. THE VOICE<\/h2>\n

It was by this time past three o\u2019clock. Feeling hungry, for they had eaten nothing since early morning, Maskull went downstairs to forage, but without much hope of finding anything in the shape of food. In a safe in the kitchen he discovered a bag of mouldy oatmeal, which was untouchable, a quantity of quite good tea in an airtight caddy, and an unopened can of ox tongue. Best of all, in the dining-room cupboard he came across an uncorked bottle of first-class Scotch whisky. He at once made preparations for a scratch meal.<\/p>\n

A pump in the yard ran clear after a good deal of hard working at it, and he washed out and filled the antique kettle. For firewood, one of the kitchen chairs was broken up with a chopper. The light, dusty wood made a good blaze in the grate, the kettle was boiled, and cups were procured and washed. Ten minutes later the friends were dining in the library.<\/p>\n

Nightspore ate and drank little, but Maskull sat down with good appetite. There being no milk, whisky took the place of it; the nearly black tea was mixed with an equal quantity of the spirit. Of this concoction Maskull drank cup after cup, and long after the tongue had disappeared he was still imbibing.<\/p>\n

Nightspore looked at him queerly. \u201cDo you intend to finish the bottle before Krag comes?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag won\u2019t want any, and one must do something. I feel restless.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us take a look at the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cup, which was on its way to Maskull\u2019s lips, remained poised in the air. \u201cHave you anything in view, Nightspore?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us walk out to the Gap of Sorgie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA showplace,\u201d answered Nightspore, biting his lip.<\/p>\n

Maskull finished off the cup, and rose to his feet. \u201cWalking is better than soaking at any time, and especially on a day like this…. How far is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThree or four miles each way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou probably mean something,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cfor I\u2019m beginning to regard you as a second Krag. But if so, so much the better. I am growing nervous, and need incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

They left the house by the door, which they left ajar, and immediately found themselves again on the moorland road that had brought them from Haillar. This time they continued along it, past the tower.<\/p>\n

Maskull, as they went by, regarded the erection with puzzled interest. \u201cWhat is<\/i> that tower, Nightspore?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sail from the platform on the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight?\u201d\u2014throwing him a quick look.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull smiled, but his eyes were grave. \u201cThen we are looking at the gateway of Arcturus, and Krag is now travelling north to unlock it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou no longer think it impossible, I fancy,\u201d mumbled Nightspore.<\/p>\n

After a mile or two, the road parted from the sea coast and swerved sharply inland, across the hills. With Nightspore as guide, they left it and took to the grass. A faint sheep path marked the way along the cliff edge for some distance, but at the end of another mile it vanished. The two men then had some rough walking up and down hillsides and across deep gullies. The sun disappeared behind the hills, and twilight imperceptibly came on. They soon reached a spot where further progress appeared impossible. The buttress of a mountain descended at a steep angle to the very edge of the cliff, forming an impassable slope of slippery grass. Maskull halted, stroked his beard, and wondered what the next step was to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a little scrambling here,\u201d said Nightspore. \u201cWe are both used to climbing, and there is not much in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He indicated a narrow ledge, winding along the face of the precipice a few yards beneath where they were standing. It averaged from fifteen to thirty inches in width. Without waiting for Maskull\u2019s consent to the undertaking, he instantly swung himself down and started walking along this ledge at a rapid pace. Maskull, seeing that there was no help for it, followed him. The shelf did not extend for above a quarter of a mile, but its passage was somewhat unnerving; there was a sheer drop to the sea, four hundred feet below. In a few places they had to sidle along without placing one foot before another. The sound of the breakers came up to them in a low, threatening roar.<\/p>\n

Upon rounding a corner, the ledge broadened out into a fair-sized platform of rock and came to a sudden end. A narrow inlet of the sea separated them from the continuation of the cliffs beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we can\u2019t get any further,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cI presume this is your Gap of Sorgie?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d answered his friend, first dropping on his knees and then lying at full length, face downward. He drew his head and shoulders over the edge and began to stare straight down at the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is there interesting down there, Nightspore?\u201d<\/p>\n

Receiving no reply, however, he followed his friend\u2019s example, and the next minute was looking for himself. Nothing was to be seen; the gloom had deepened, and the sea was nearly invisible. But, while he was ineffectually gazing, he heard what sounded like the beating of a drum on the narrow strip of shore below. It was very faint, but quite distinct. The beats were in four-four time, with the third beat slightly accented. He now continued to hear the noise all the time he was lying there. The beats were in no way drowned by the far louder sound of the surf, but seemed somehow to belong to a different world….<\/p>\n

When they were on their feet again, he questioned Nightspore. \u201cWe came here solely to hear that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore cast one of his odd looks at him. \u201cIt\u2019s called locally \u2018The Drum Taps of Sorgie.\u2019 You will not hear that name again, but perhaps you will hear the sound again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if I do, what will it imply?\u201d demanded Maskull in amazement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt bears its own message. Only try always to hear it more and more distinctly…. Now it\u2019s growing dark, and we must get back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull pulled out his watch automatically, and looked at the time. It was past six…. But he was thinking of Nightspore\u2019s words, and not of the time.<\/p>\n

\n

Night had already fallen by the time they regained the tower. The black sky was glorious with liquid stars. Arcturus was a little way above the sea, directly opposite them, in the east. As they were passing the base of the tower, Maskull observed with a sudden shock that the gate was open. He caught hold of Nightspore\u2019s arm violently. \u201cLook! Krag is back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we must make haste to the house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd why not the tower? He\u2019s probably in there, since the gate is open. I\u2019m going up to look.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore grunted, but made no opposition.<\/p>\n

All was pitch-black inside the gate. Maskull struck a match, and the flickering light disclosed the lower end of a circular flight of stone steps. \u201cAre you coming up?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019ll wait here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull immediately began the ascent. Hardly had he mounted half a dozen steps, however, before he was compelled to pause, to gain breath. He seemed to be carrying upstairs not one Maskull, but three. As he proceeded, the sensation of crushing weight, so far from diminishing, grew worse and worse. It was nearly physically impossible to go on; his lungs could not take in enough oxygen, while his heart thumped like a ship\u2019s engine. Sweat coursed down his face. At the twentieth step he completed the first revolution of the tower and came face to face with the first window, which was set in a high embrasure.<\/p>\n

Realising that he could go no higher, he struck another match, and climbed into the embrasure, in order that he might at all events see something from the tower. The flame died, and he stared through the window at the stars. Then, to his astonishment, he discovered that it was not a window at all but a lens…. The sky was not a wide expanse of space containing a multitude of stars, but a blurred darkness, focused only in one part, where two very bright stars, like small moons in size, appeared in close conjunction; and near them a more minute planetary object, as brilliant as Venus and with an observable disk. One of the suns shone with a glaring white light; the other was a weird and awful blue. Their light, though almost solar in intensity, did not illuminate the interior of the tower.<\/p>\n

Maskull knew at once that the system of spheres at which he was gazing was what is known to astronomy as the star Arcturus…. He had seen the sight before, through Krag\u2019s glass, but then the scale had been smaller, the colors of the twin suns had not appeared in their naked reality…. These colors seemed to him most marvellous, as if, in seeing them through earth eyes, he was not seeing them correctly…. But it was at Tormance that he stared the longest and the most earnestly. On that mysterious and terrible earth, countless millions of miles distant, it had been promised him that he would set foot, even though he might leave his bones there. The strange creatures that he was to behold and touch were already living, at this very moment.<\/p>\n

A low, sighing whisper sounded in his ear, from not more than a yard away. \u201cDon\u2019t you understand, Maskull, that you are only an instrument, to be used and then broken? Nightspore is asleep now, but when he wakes you must die. You will go, but he will return.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull hastily struck another match, with trembling fingers. No one was in sight, and all was quiet as the tomb.<\/p>\n

The voice did not sound again. After waiting a few minutes, he redescended to the foot of the tower. On gaining the open air, his sensation of weight was instantly removed, but he continued panting and palpitating, like a man who has lifted a far too heavy load.<\/p>\n

Nightspore\u2019s dark form came forward. \u201cWas Krag there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he was, I didn\u2019t see him. But I heard someone speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it Krag?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not Krag\u2014but a voice warned me against you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, you will hear these voices too,\u201d said Nightspore enigmatically.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 5. THE NIGHT OF DEPARTURE<\/h2>\n

When they returned to the house, the windows were all in darkness and the door was ajar, just as they had left it; Krag presumably was not there. Maskull went all over the house, striking matches in every room\u2014at the end of the examination he was ready to swear that the man they were expecting had not even stuck his nose inside the premises. Groping their way into the library, they sat down in the total darkness to wait, for nothing else remained to be done. Maskull lit his pipe, and began to drink the remainder of the whisky. Through the open window sounded in their ears the trainlike grinding of the sea at the foot of the cliffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag must be in the tower after all,\u201d remarked Maskull, breaking the silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, he is getting ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope he doesn\u2019t expect us to join him there. It was beyond my powers\u2014but why, heaven knows. The stairs must have a magnetic pull of some sort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is Tormantic gravity,\u201d muttered Nightspore.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand you\u2014or, rather, I don\u2019t\u2014but it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on smoking in silence, occasionally taking a mouthful of the neat liquor. \u201cWho is Surtur?\u201d he demanded abruptly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe others are gropers and bunglers, but he is a master<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull digested this. \u201cI fancy you are right, for though I know nothing about him his mere name has an exciting effect on me…. Are you personally acquainted with him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI must be… I forget…\u201d replied Nightspore in a choking voice.<\/p>\n

Maskull looked up, surprised, but could make nothing out in the blackness of the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know so many extraordinary men that you can forget some of them?… Perhaps you can tell me this… will we meet him, where we are going?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will meet death, Maskull…. Ask me no more questions\u2014I can\u2019t answer them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen let us go on waiting for Krag,\u201d said Maskull coldly.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes later the front door slammed, and a light, quick footstep was heard running up the stairs. Maskull got up, with a beating heart.<\/p>\n

Krag appeared on the threshold of the door, bearing in his hand a feebly glimmering lantern. A hat was on his head, and he looked stern and forbidding. After scrutinising the two friends for a moment or so, he strode into the room and thrust the lantern on the table. Its light hardly served to illuminate the walls.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have got here, then, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it seems\u2014but I shan\u2019t thank you for your hospitality, for it has been conspicuous by its absence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag ignored the remark. \u201cAre you ready to start?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy all means\u2014when you are. It is not so entertaining here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag surveyed him critically. \u201cI heard you stumbling about in the tower. You couldn\u2019t get up, it seems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like an obstacle, for Nightspore informs me that the start takes place from the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut your other doubts are all removed?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, Krag, that I now possess an open mind. I am quite willing to see what you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing more is asked…. But this tower business. You know that until you are able to climb to the top you are unfit to stand the gravitation of Tormance?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I repeat, it\u2019s an awkward obstacle, for I certainly can\u2019t get up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag hunted about in his pockets, and at length produced a clasp knife.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemove your coat, and roll up your shirt sleeve,\u201d he directed.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you propose to make an incision with that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and don\u2019t start difficulties, because the effect is certain, but you can\u2019t possibly understand it beforehand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, a cut with a pocket-knife\u2014\u201d began Maskull, laughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will answer, Maskull,\u201d interrupted Nightspore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen bare your arm too, you aristocrat of the universe,\u201d said Krag. \u201cLet us see what your blood is made of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore obeyed.<\/p>\n

Krag pulled out the big blade of the knife, and made a careless and almost savage slash at Maskull\u2019s upper arm. The wound was deep, and blood flowed freely.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I bind it up?\u201d asked Maskull, scowling with pain.<\/p>\n

Krag spat on the wound. \u201cPull your shirt down, it won\u2019t bleed any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then turned his attention to Nightspore, who endured his operation with grim indifference. Krag threw the knife on the floor.<\/p>\n

An awful agony, emanating from the wound, started to run through Maskull\u2019s body, and he began to doubt whether he would not have to faint, but it subsided almost immediately, and then he felt nothing but a gnawing ache in the injured arm, just strong enough to make life one long discomfort.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s finished,\u201d said Krag. \u201cNow you can follow me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Picking up the lantern, he walked toward the door. The others hastened after him, to take advantage of the light, and a moment later their footsteps, clattering down the uncarpeted stairs, resounded through the deserted house. Krag waited till they were out, and then banged the front door after them with such violence that the windows shook.<\/p>\n

While they were walking swiftly across to the tower, Maskull caught his arm. \u201cI heard a voice up those stairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did it say?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat I am to go, but Nightspore is to return.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag smiled. \u201cThe journey is getting notorious,\u201d he remarked, after a pause. \u201cThere must be ill-wishers about…. Well, do you want to return?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what I want. But I thought the thing was curious enough to be mentioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not a bad thing to hear voices,\u201d said Krag, \u201cbut you mustn\u2019t for a minute imagine that all is wise that comes to you out of the night world.\u201d<\/p>\n

When they had arrived at the open gateway of the tower, he immediately set foot on the bottom step of the spiral staircase and ran nimbly up, bearing the lantern. Maskull followed him with some trepidation, in view of his previous painful experience on these stairs, but when, after the first half-dozen steps, he discovered that he was still breathing freely, his dread changed to relief and astonishment, and he could have chattered like a girl.<\/p>\n

At the lowest window Krag went straight ahead without stopping, but Maskull clambered into the embrasure, in order to renew his acquaintance with the miraculous spectacle of the Arcturian group. The lens had lost its magic property. It had become a common sheet of glass, through which the ordinary sky field appeared.<\/p>\n

The climb continued, and at the second and third windows he again mounted and stared out, but still the common sights presented themselves. After that, he gave up and looked through no more windows.<\/p>\n

Krag and Nightspore meanwhile had gone on ahead with the light, so that he had to complete the ascent in darkness. When he was near the top, he saw yellow light shining through the crack of a half-opened door. His companions were standing just inside a small room, shut off from the staircase by rough wooden planking; it was rudely furnished and contained nothing of astronomical interest. The lantern was resting on a table.<\/p>\n

Maskull walked in and looked around him with curiosity. \u201cAre we at the top?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExcept for the platform over our heads,\u201d replied Krag.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t that lowest window magnify, as it did earlier in the evening?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, you missed your opportunity,\u201d said Krag, grinning. \u201cIf you had finished your climb then, you would have seen heart-expanding sights. From the fifth window, for example, you would have seen Tormance like a continent in relief; from the sixth you would have seen it like a landscape…. But now there\u2019s no need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not\u2014and what has need got to do with it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are changed, my friend, since that wound of yours. For the same reason that you have now been able to mount the stairs, there was no necessity to stop and gape at illusions en route<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery well,\u201d said Maskull, not quite understanding what he meant. \u201cBut is this Surtur\u2019s den?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has spent time here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish you would describe this mysterious individual, Krag. We may not get another chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I said about the windows also applies to Surtur. There\u2019s no need to waste time over visualising him, because you are immediately going on to the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen let us go.\u201d He pressed his eyeballs wearily.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we strip?\u201d asked Nightspore.<\/p>\n

\u201cNaturally,\u201d answered Krag, and he began to tear off his clothes with slow, uncouth movements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d demanded Maskull, following, however, the example of the other two men.<\/p>\n

Krag thumped his vast chest, which was covered with thick hairs, like an ape\u2019s. \u201cWho knows what the Tormance fashions are like? We may sprout limbs\u2014I don\u2019t say we shall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA-ha!\u201d exclaimed Maskull, pausing in the middle of his undressing.<\/p>\n

Krag smote him on the back. \u201cNew pleasure organs possible, Maskull. You like that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The three men stood as nature made them. Maskull\u2019s spirits rose fast, as the moment of departure drew near.<\/p>\n

\u201cA farewell drink to success!\u201d cried Krag, seizing a bottle and breaking its head off between his fingers. There were no glasses, but he poured the amber-coloured wine into some cracked cups.<\/p>\n

Perceiving that the others drank, Maskull tossed off his cupful. It was as if he had swallowed a draught of liquid electricity…. Krag dropped onto the floor and rolled around on his back, kicking his legs in the air. He tried to drag Maskull down on top of him, and a little horseplay went on between the two. Nightspore took no part in it, but walked to and fro, like a hungry caged animal.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, from out-of-doors, there came a single prolonged, piercing wail, such as a banshee might be imagined to utter. It ceased abruptly, and was not repeated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d called out Maskull, disengaging himself impatiently from Krag.<\/p>\n

Krag rocked with laughter. \u201cA Scottish spirit trying to reproduce the bagpipes of its earth life\u2014in honour of our departure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore turned to Krag. \u201cMaskull will sleep throughout the journey?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you too, if you wish, my altruistic friend. I am pilot, and you passengers can amuse yourselves as you please.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we off at last?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, you are about to cross your Rubicon, Maskull. But what a Rubicon!… Do you know that it takes light a hundred years or so to arrive here from Arcturus? Yet we shall do it in nineteen hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you assert that Surtur is already there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurtur is where he is. He is a great traveller.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWon\u2019t I see him?\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag went up to him and looked him in the eyes. \u201cDon\u2019t forget that you have asked for it, and wanted it. Few people in Tormance will know more about him than you do, but your memory will be your worst friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

He led the way up a short iron ladder, mounting through a trap to the flat roof above. When they were up, he switched on a small electric torch.<\/p>\n

Maskull beheld with awe the torpedo of crystal that was to convey them through the whole breadth of visible space. It was forty feet long, eight wide, and eight high; the tank containing the Arcturian back rays was in front, the car behind. The nose of the torpedo was directed toward the south-eastern sky. The whole machine rested upon a flat platform, raised about four feet above the level of the roof, so as to encounter no obstruction on starting its flight.<\/p>\n

Krag flashed the light on to the door of the car, to enable them to enter. Before doing so, Maskull gazed sternly once again at the gigantic, far-distant star, which was to be their sun from now onward. He frowned, shivered slightly, and got in beside Nightspore. Krag clambered past them onto his pilot\u2019s seat. He threw the flashlight through the open door, which was then carefully closed, fastened, and screwed up.<\/p>\n

He pulled the starting lever. The torpedo glided gently from its platform, and passed rather slowly away from the tower, seaward. Its speed increased sensibly, though not excessively, until the approximate limits of the earth\u2019s atmosphere were reached. Krag then released the speed valve, and the car sped on its way with a velocity more nearly approaching that of thought than of light.<\/p>\n

Maskull had no opportunity of examining through the crystal walls the rapidly changing panorama of the heavens. An extreme drowsiness oppressed him. He opened his eyes violently a dozen times, but on the thirteenth attempt he failed. From that time forward he slept heavily.<\/p>\n

The bored, hungry expression never left Nightspore\u2019s face. The alterations in the aspect of the sky seemed to possess not the least interest for him.<\/p>\n

Krag sat with his hand on the lever, watching with savage intentness his phosphorescent charts and gauges.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 6. JOIWIND<\/h2>\n

IT WAS DENSE NIGHT when Maskull awoke from his profound sleep. A wind was blowing against him, gentle but wall-like, such as he had never experienced on earth. He remained sprawling on the ground, as he was unable to lift his body because of its intense weight. A numbing pain, which he could not identify with any region of his frame, acted from now onward as a lower, sympathetic note to all his other sensations. It gnawed away at him continuously; sometimes it embittered and irritated him, at other times he forgot it.<\/p>\n

He felt something hard on his forehead. Putting his hand up, he discovered there a fleshy protuberance the size of a small plum, having a cavity in the middle, of which he could not feel the bottom. Then he also became aware of a large knob on each side of his neck, an inch below the ear.<\/p>\n

From the region of his heart, a tentacle had budded. It was as long as his arm, but thin, like whipcord, and soft and flexible.<\/p>\n

As soon as he thoroughly realised the significance of these new organs, his heart began to pump. Whatever might, or might not, be their use, they proved one thing\u2014that he was in a new world.<\/p>\n

One part of the sky began to get lighter than the rest. Maskull cried out to his companions, but received no response. This frightened him. He went on shouting out, at irregular intervals\u2014equally alarmed at the silence and at the sound of his own voice. Finally, as no answering hail came, he thought it wiser not to make too much noise, and after that he lay quiet, waiting in cold blood for what might happen.<\/p>\n

In a short while he perceived dim shadows around him, but these were not his friends.<\/p>\n

A pale, milky vapour over the ground began to succeed the black night, while in the upper sky rosy tints appeared. On earth, one would have said that day was breaking. The brightness went on imperceptibly increasing for a very long time.<\/p>\n

Maskull then discovered that he was lying on sand. The colour of the sand was scarlet. The obscure shadows he had seen were bushes, with black stems and purple leaves. So far, nothing else was visible.<\/p>\n

The day surged up. It was too misty for direct sunshine, but before long the brilliance of the light was already greater than that of the midday sun on earth. The heat, too, was intense, but Maskull welcomed it\u2014it relieved his pain and diminished his sense of crushing weight. The wind had dropped with the rising of the sun.<\/p>\n

He now tried to get onto his feet, but succeeded only in kneeling. He was unable to see far. The mists had no more than partially dissolved, and all that he could distinguish was a narrow circle of red sand dotted with ten or twenty bushes.<\/p>\n

He felt a soft, cool touch on the back of his neck. He started forward in nervous fright and, in doing so, tumbled over onto the sand. Looking up over his shoulder quickly, he was astounded to see a woman standing beside him.<\/p>\n

She was clothed in a single flowing, pale green garment, rather classically draped. According to earth standards she was not beautiful, for, although her face was otherwise human, she was endowed\u2014or afflicted\u2014with the additional disfiguring organs that Maskull had discovered in himself. She also possessed the heart tentacle. But when he sat up, and their eyes met and remained in sympathetic contact, he seemed to see right into a soul that was the home of love, warmth, kindness, tenderness, and intimacy. Such was the noble familiarity of that gaze, that he thought he knew her. After that, he recognised all the loveliness of her person. She was tall and slight. All her movements were as graceful as music. Her skin was not of a dead, opaque colour, like that of an earth beauty, but was opalescent; its hue was continually changing, with every thought and emotion, but none of these tints was vivid\u2014all were delicate, half-toned, and poetic. She had very long, loosely plaited, flaxen hair. The new organs, as soon as Maskull had familiarised himself with them, imparted something to her face that was unique and striking. He could not quite define it to himself, but subtlety and inwardness seemed added. The organs did not contradict the love of her eyes or the angelic purity of her features, but nevertheless sounded a deeper note\u2014a note that saved her from mere girlishness.<\/p>\n

Her gaze was so friendly and unembarrassed that Maskull felt scarcely any humiliation at sitting at her feet, naked and helpless. She realised his plight, and put into his hands a garment that she had been carrying over her arm. It was similar to the one she was wearing, but of a darker, more masculine colour.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think you can put it on by yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n

He was distinctly conscious of these words, yet her voice had not sounded.<\/p>\n

He forced himself up to his feet, and she helped him to master the complications of the drapery.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor man\u2014how you are suffering!\u201d she said, in the same inaudible language. This time he discovered that the sense of what she said was received by his brain through the organ on his forehead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere am I? Is this Tormance?\u201d he asked. As he spoke, he staggered.<\/p>\n

She caught him, and helped him to sit down. \u201cYes. You are with friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then she regarded him with a smile, and began speaking aloud, in English. Her voice somehow reminded him of an April day, it was so fresh, nervous, and girlish. \u201cI can now understand your language. It was strange at first. In the future I\u2019ll speak to you with my mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is extraordinary! What is this organ?\u201d he asked, touching his forehead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is named the \u2018breve.\u2019 By means of it we read one another\u2019s thoughts. Still, speech is better, for then the heart can be read too.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiled. \u201cThey say that speech is given us to deceive others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne can deceive with thought, too. But I\u2019m thinking of the best, not the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you seen my friends?\u201d<\/p>\n

She scrutinised him quietly, before answering. \u201cDid you not come alone?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI came with two other men, in a machine. I must have lost consciousness on arrival, and I haven\u2019t seen them since.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s very strange! No, I haven\u2019t seen them. They can\u2019t be here, or we would have known it. My husband and I\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your name, and your husband\u2019s name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMine is Joiwind\u2014my husband\u2019s is Panawe. We live a very long way from here; still, it came to us both last night that you were lying here insensible. We almost quarrelled about which of us should come to you, but in the end I won.\u201d Here she laughed. \u201cI won, because I am the stronger-hearted of the two; he is the purer in perception.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks, Joiwind!\u201d said Maskull simply.<\/p>\n

The colors chased each other rapidly beneath her skin. \u201cOh, why do you say that? What pleasure is greater than loving-kindness? I rejoiced at the opportunity…. But now we must exchange blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is this?\u201d he demanded, rather puzzled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must be so. Your blood is far too thick and heavy for our world. Until you have an infusion of mine, you will never get up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull flushed. \u201cI feel like a complete ignoramus here…. Won\u2019t it hurt you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your blood pains you, I suppose it will pain me. But we will share the pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a new kind of hospitality to me,\u201d he muttered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWouldn\u2019t you do the same for me?\u201d asked Joiwind, half smiling, half agitated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t answer for any of my actions in this world. I scarcely know where I am…. Why, yes\u2014of course I would, Joiwind.\u201d<\/p>\n

While they were talking it had become full day. The mists had rolled away from the ground, and only the upper atmosphere remained fog-charged. The desert of scarlet sand stretched in all directions, except one, where there was a sort of little oasis\u2014some low hills, clothed sparsely with little purple trees from base to summit. It was about a quarter of a mile distant.<\/p>\n

Joiwind had brought with her a small flint knife. Without any trace of nervousness, she made a careful, deep incision on her upper arm. Maskull expostulated.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally, this part of it is nothing,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cAnd if it were\u2014a sacrifice that is no sacrifice\u2014what merit is there in that?… Come now\u2014your arm!\u201d<\/p>\n

The blood was streaming down her arm. It was not red blood, but a milky, opalescent fluid.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot that one!\u201d said Maskull, shrinking. \u201cI have already been cut there.\u201d He submitted the other, and his blood poured forth.<\/p>\n

Joiwind delicately and skilfully placed the mouths of the two wounds together, and then kept her arm pressed tightly against Maskull\u2019s for a long time. He felt a stream of pleasure entering his body through the incision. His old lightness and vigour began to return to him. After about five minutes a duel of kindness started between them; he wanted to remove his arm, and she to continue. At last he had his way, but it was none too soon\u2014she stood there pale and dispirited.<\/p>\n

She looked at him with a more serious expression than before, as if strange depths had opened up before her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere have you come from, with this awful blood?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a world called Earth…. The blood is clearly unsuitable for this world, Joiwind, but after all, that was only to be expected. I am sorry I let you have your way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, don\u2019t say that! There was nothing else to be done. We must all help one another. Yet, somehow\u2014forgive me\u2014I feel polluted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd well you may, for it\u2019s a fearful thing for a girl to accept in her own veins the blood of a strange man from a strange planet. If I had not been so dazed and weak I would never have allowed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I would have insisted. Are we not all brothers and sisters? Why did you come here, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

He was conscious of a slight degree of embarrassment. \u201cWill you think it foolish if I say I hardly know?\u2014I came with those two men. Perhaps I was attracted by curiosity, or perhaps it was the love of adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps,\u201d said Joiwind. \u201cI wonder… These friends of yours must be terrible men. Why did they come?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat I can tell you. They came to follow Surtur.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her face grew troubled. \u201cI don\u2019t understand it. One of them at least must be a bad man, and yet if he is following Surtur\u2014or Shaping, as he is called here\u2014he can\u2019t be really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you know of Surtur?\u201d asked Maskull in astonishment.<\/p>\n

Joiwind remained silent for a time, studying his face. His brain moved restlessly, as though it were being probed from outside. \u201cI see…. and yet I don\u2019t see,\u201d she said at last. \u201cIt is very difficult…. Your God is a dreadful Being\u2014bodyless, unfriendly, invisible. Here we don\u2019t worship a God like that. Tell me, has any man set eyes on your God?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does all this mean, Joiwind? Why speak of God?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn ancient times, when the earth was young and grand, a few holy men are reputed to have walked and spoken with God, but those days are past.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur world is still young,\u201d said Joiwind. \u201cShaping goes among us and converses with us. He is real and active\u2014a friend and lover. Shaping made us, and he loves his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you<\/i> met him?\u201d demanded Maskull, hardly believing his ears.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I have done nothing to deserve it yet. Some day I may have an opportunity to sacrifice myself, and then I may be rewarded by meeting and talking with Shaping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have certainly come to another world. But why do you say he is the same as Surtur?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, he is the same. We women call him Shaping, and so do most men, but a few name him Surtur.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull bit his nail. \u201cHave you ever heard of Crystalman?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is Shaping once again. You see, he has many names\u2014which shows how much he occupies our minds. Crystalman is a name of affection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s odd,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cI came here with quite different ideas about Crystalman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joiwind shook her hair. \u201cIn that grove of trees over there stands a desert shrine of his. Let us go and pray there, and then we\u2019ll go on our way to Poolingdred. That is my home. It\u2019s a long way off, and we must get there before Blodsombre.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, what is Blodsombre?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor about four hours in the middle of the day Branchspell\u2019s rays are so hot that no one can endure them. We call it Blodsombre.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs Branchspell another name for Arcturus?\u201d<\/p>\n

Joiwind threw off her seriousness and laughed. \u201cNaturally we don\u2019t take our names from you, Maskull. I don\u2019t think our names are very poetic, but they follow nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

She took his arm affectionately, and directed their walk towards the tree-covered hills. As they went along, the sun broke through the upper mists and a terrible gust of scorching heat, like a blast from a furnace, struck Maskull\u2019s head. He involuntarily looked up, but lowered his eyes again like lightning. All that he saw in that instant was a glaring ball of electric white, three times the apparent diameter of the sun. For a few minutes he was quite blind.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy God!\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cIf it\u2019s like this in early morning you must be right enough about Blodsombre.\u201d When he had somewhat recovered himself he asked, \u201cHow long are the days here, Joiwind?\u201d<\/p>\n

Again he felt his brain being probed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time of the year, for every hour\u2019s daylight that you have in summer, we have two.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe heat is terrific\u2014and yet somehow I don\u2019t feel so distressed by it as I would have expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it more than usual. It\u2019s not difficult to account for it; you have some of my blood, and I have some of yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, every time I realise that, I\u2014Tell me, Joiwind, will my blood alter, if I stay here long enough?\u2014I mean, will it lose its redness and thickness, and become pure and thin and light-coloured, like yours?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not? If you live as we live, you will assuredly grow like us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you mean food and drink?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe eat no food, and drink only water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd on that you manage to sustain life?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Maskull, our water is good water,\u201d replied Joiwind, smiling.<\/p>\n

As soon as he could see again he stared around at the landscape. The enormous scarlet desert extended everywhere to the horizon, excepting where it was broken by the oasis. It was roofed by a cloudless, deep blue, almost violet, sky. The circle of the horizon was far larger than on earth. On the skyline, at right angles to the direction in which they were walking, appeared a chain of mountains, apparently about forty miles distant. One, which was higher than the rest, was shaped like a cup. Maskull would have felt inclined to believe he was travelling in dreamland, but for the intensity of the light, which made everything vividly real.<\/p>\n

Joiwind pointed to the cup-shaped mountain. \u201cThat\u2019s Poolingdred.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou didn\u2019t come from there!\u201d he exclaimed, quite startled.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I did indeed. And that is where we have to go to now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the single object of finding me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The colour mounted to his face. \u201cThen you are the bravest and noblest of all girls,\u201d he said quietly, after a pause. \u201cWithout exception. Why, this is a journey for an athlete!\u201d<\/p>\n

She pressed his arm, while a score of unpaintable, delicate hues stained her cheeks in rapid transition. \u201cPlease don\u2019t say any more about it, Maskull. It makes me feel unpleasant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery well. But can we possibly get there before midday?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yes. And you mustn\u2019t be frightened at the distance. We think nothing of long distances here\u2014we have so much to think about and feel. Time goes all too quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

During their conversation they had drawn near the base of the hills, which sloped gently, and were not above fifty feet in height. Maskull now began to see strange specimens of vegetable life. What looked like a small patch of purple grass, above five feet square, was moving across the sand in their direction. When it came near enough he perceived that it was not grass; there were no blades, but only purple roots. The roots were revolving, for each small plant in the whole patch, like the spokes of a rimless wheel. They were alternately plunged in the sand, and withdrawn from it, and by this means the plant proceeded forward. Some uncanny, semi-intelligent instinct was keeping all the plants together, moving at one pace, in one direction, like a flock of migrating birds in flight.<\/p>\n

Another remarkable plant was a large, feathery ball, resembling a dandelion fruit, which they encountered sailing through the air. Joiwind caught it with an exceedingly graceful movement of her arm, and showed it to Maskull. It had roots and presumably lived in the air and fed on the chemical constituents of the atmosphere. But what was peculiar about it was its colour. It was an entirely new colour\u2014not a new shade or combination, but a new primary colour, as vivid as blue, red, or yellow, but quite different. When he inquired, she told him that it was known as \u201culfire.\u201d Presently he met with a second new colour. This she designated \u201cjale.\u201d The sense impressions caused in Maskull by these two additional primary colors can only be vaguely hinted at by analogy. Just as blue is delicate and mysterious, yellow clear and unsubtle, and red sanguine and passionate, so he felt ulfire to be wild and painful, and jale dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous.<\/p>\n

The hills were composed of a rich, dark mould. Small trees, of weird shapes, all differing from each other, but all purple-coloured, covered the slopes and top. Maskull and Joiwind climbed up and through. Some hard fruit, bright blue in colour, of the size of a large apple, and shaped like an egg, was lying in profusion underneath the trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the fruit here poisonous, or why don\u2019t you eat it?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

She looked at him tranquilly. \u201cWe don\u2019t eat living things. The thought is horrible to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have nothing to say against that, theoretically. But do you really sustain your bodies on water?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSupposing you could find nothing else to live on, Maskull\u2014would you eat other men?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither will we eat plants and animals, which are our fellow creatures. So nothing is left to us but water, and as one can really live on anything, water does very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull picked up one of the fruits and handled it curiously. As he did so another of his newly acquired sense organs came into action. He found that the fleshy knobs beneath his ears were in some novel fashion acquainting him with the inward properties of the fruit. He could not only see, feel, and smell it, but could detect its intrinsic nature. This nature was hard, persistent and melancholy.<\/p>\n

Joiwind answered the questions he had not asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose organs are called \u2018poigns.\u2019 Their use is to enable us to understand and sympathise with all living creatures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat advantage do you derive from that, Joiwind?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe advantage of not being cruel and selfish, dear Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

He threw the fruit away and flushed again.<\/p>\n

Joiwind looked into his swarthy, bearded face without embarrassment and slowly smiled. \u201cHave I said too much? Have I been too familiar? Do you know why you think so? It\u2019s because you are still impure. By and by you will listen to all language without shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before he realised what she was about to do, she threw her tentacle round his neck, like another arm. He offered no resistance to its cool pressure. The contact of her soft flesh with his own was so moist and sensitive that it resembled another kind of kiss. He saw who it was that embraced him\u2014a pale, beautiful girl. Yet, oddly enough, he experienced neither voluptuousness nor sexual pride. The love expressed by the caress was rich, glowing, and personal, but there was not the least trace of sex in it\u2014and so he received it.<\/p>\n

She removed her tentacle, placed her two arms on his shoulders and penetrated with her eyes right into his very soul.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I wish to be pure,\u201d he muttered. \u201cWithout that what can I ever be but a weak, squirming devil?\u201d<\/p>\n

Joiwind released him. \u201cThis we call the \u2018magn,\u2019\u201d she said, indicating her tentacle. \u201cBy means of it what we love already we love more, and what we don\u2019t love at all we begin to love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA godlike organ!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the one we guard most jealously,\u201d said Joiwind.<\/p>\n

The shade of the trees afforded a timely screen from the now almost insufferable rays of Branchspell, which was climbing steadily upward to the zenith. On descending the other side of the little hills, Maskull looked anxiously for traces of Nightspore and Krag, but without result. After staring about him for a few minutes he shrugged his shoulders; but suspicions had already begun to gather in his mind.<\/p>\n

A small, natural amphitheatre lay at their feet, completely circled by the tree-clad heights. The centre was of red sand. In the very middle shot up a tall, stately tree, with a black trunk and branches, and transparent, crystal leaves. At the foot of this tree was a natural, circular well, containing dark green water.<\/p>\n

When they had reached the bottom, Joiwind took him straight over to the well.<\/p>\n

Maskull gazed at it intently. \u201cIs this the shrine you talked about?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. It is called Shaping\u2019s Well. The man or woman who wishes to invoke Shaping must take up some of the gnawl water, and drink it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPray for me,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cYour unspotted prayer will carry more weight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you wish for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor purity,\u201d answered Maskull, in a troubled voice.<\/p>\n

Joiwind made a cup of her hand, and drank a little of the water. She held it up to Maskull\u2019s mouth. \u201cYou must drink too.\u201d He obeyed. She then stood erect, closed her eyes, and, in a voice like the soft murmurings of spring, prayed aloud.<\/p>\n

\u201cShaping, my father, I am hoping you can hear me. A strange man has come to us weighed down with heavy blood. He wishes to be pure. Let him know the meaning of love, let him live for others. Don\u2019t spare him pain, dear Shaping, but let him seek his own pain. Breathe into him a noble soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull listened with tears in his heart.<\/p>\n

As Joiwind finished speaking, a blurred mist came over his eyes, and, half buried in the scarlet sand, appeared a large circle of dazzlingly white pillars. For some minutes they flickered to and fro between distinctness and indistinctness, like an object being focused. Then they faded out of sight again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that a sign from Shaping?\u201d asked Maskull, in a low, awed tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps it is. It is a time mirage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can that be, Joiwind?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see, dear Maskull, the temple does not yet exist but it will do so, because it must. What you and I are now doing in simplicity, wise men will do hereafter in full knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is right for man to pray,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cGood and evil in the world don\u2019t originate from nothing. God and Devil must exist. And we should pray to the one, and fight the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we must fight Krag.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat name did you say?\u201d asked Maskull in amazement.<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag\u2014the author of evil and misery\u2014whom you call Devil.\u201d<\/p>\n

He immediately concealed his thoughts. To prevent Joiwind from learning his relationship to this being, he made his mind a blank.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you hide your mind from me?\u201d she demanded, looking at him strangely and changing colour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this bright, pure, radiant world, evil seems so remote, one can scarcely grasp its meaning.\u201d But he lied.<\/p>\n

Joiwind continued gazing at him, straight out of her clean soul. \u201cThe world is good and pure, but many men are corrupt. Panawe, my husband, has travelled, and he has told me things I would almost rather have not heard. One person he met believed the universe to be, from top to bottom, a conjurer\u2019s cave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI should like to meet your husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we are going home now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull was on the point of inquiring whether she had any children, but was afraid of offending her, and checked himself.<\/p>\n

She read the mental question. \u201cWhat need is there? Is not the whole world full of lovely children? Why should I want selfish possessions?\u201d<\/p>\n

An extraordinary creature flew past, uttering a plaintive cry of five distinct notes. It was not a bird, but had a balloon-shaped body, paddled by five webbed feet. It disappeared among the trees.<\/p>\n

Joiwind pointed to it, as it went by. \u201cI love that beast, grotesque as it is\u2014perhaps all the more for its grotesqueness. But if I had children of my own, would I still love it? Which is best\u2014to love two or three, or to love all?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery woman can\u2019t be like you, Joiwind, but it is good to have a few like you. Wouldn\u2019t it be as well,\u201d he went on, \u201csince we\u2019ve got to walk through that sun-baked wilderness, to make turbans for our heads out of some of those long leaves?\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled rather pathetically. \u201cYou will think me foolish, but every tearing off of a leaf would be a wound in my heart. We have only to throw our robes over our heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo doubt that will answer the same purpose, but tell me\u2014weren\u2019t these very robes once part of a living creature?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, no\u2014no, they are the webs of a certain animal, but they have never been in themselves alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou reduce life to extreme simplicity,\u201d remarked Maskull meditatively, \u201cbut it is very beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Climbing back over the hills, they now without further ceremony began their march across the desert.<\/p>\n

They walked side by side. Joiwind directed their course straight toward Poolingdred. From the position of the sun, Maskull judged their way to lie due north. The sand was soft and powdery, very tiring to his naked feet. The red glare dazed his eyes, and made him semi-blind. He was hot, parched, and tormented with the craving to drink; his undertone of pain emerged into full consciousness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see my friends nowhere, and it is very queer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it is queer\u2014if it is accidental,\u201d said Joiwind, with a peculiar intonation.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly!\u201d agreed Maskull. \u201cIf they had met with a mishap, their bodies would still be there. It begins to look like a piece of bad work to me. They must have gone on, and left me…. Well, I am here, and I must make the best of it. I will trouble no more about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t wish to speak ill of anyone,\u201d said Joiwind, \u201cbut my instinct tells me that you are better away from those men. They did not come here for your sake, but for their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

They walked on for a long time. Maskull was beginning to feel faint. She twined her magn lovingly around his waist, and a strong current of confidence and well-being instantly coursed through his veins.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks, Joiwind! But am I not weakening you<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d she replied, with a quick, thrilling glance. \u201cBut not much\u2014and it gives me great happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Presently they met a fantastic little creature, the size of a new-born lamb, waltzing along on three legs. Each leg in turn moved to the front, and so the little monstrosity proceeded by means of a series of complete rotations. It was vividly coloured, as though it had been dipped into pots of bright blue and yellow paint. It looked up with small, shining eyes, as they passed.<\/p>\n

Joiwind nodded and smiled to it. \u201cThat\u2019s a personal friend of mine, Maskull. Whenever I come this way, I see it. It\u2019s always waltzing, and always in a hurry, but it never seems to get anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me that life is so self-sufficient here that there is no need for anyone to get anywhere. What I don\u2019t quite understand is how you manage to pass your days without ennui.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a strange word. It means, does it not, craving for excitement?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething of the kind,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat must be a disease brought on by rich food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut are you never dull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could we be? Our blood is quick and light and free, our flesh is clean and unclogged, inside and out…. Before long I hope you will understand what sort of question you have asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farther on they encountered a strange phenomenon. In the heart of the desert a fountain rose perpendicularly fifty feet into the air, with a cool and pleasant hissing sound. It differed, however, from a fountain in this respect\u2014that the water of which it was composed did not return to the ground but was absorbed by the atmosphere at the summit. It was in fact a tall, graceful column of dark green fluid, with a capital of coiling and twisting vapours.<\/p>\n

When they came closer, Maskull perceived that this water column was the continuation and termination of a flowing brook, which came down from the direction of the mountains. The explanation of the phenomenon was evidently that the water at this spot found chemical affinities in the upper air, and consequently forsook the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow let us drink,\u201d said Joiwind.<\/p>\n

She threw herself unaffectedly at full length on the sand, face downward, by the side of the brook, and Maskull was not long in following her example. She refused to quench her thirst until she had seen him drink. He found the water heavy, but bubbling with gas. He drank copiously. It affected his palate in a new way\u2014with the purity and cleanness of water was combined the exhilaration of a sparkling wine, raising his spirits\u2014but somehow the intoxication brought out his better nature, and not his lower.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call it \u2018gnawl water\u2019,\u201d said Joiwind. \u201cThis is not quite pure, as you can see by the colour. At Poolingdred it is crystal clear. But we would be ungrateful if we complained. After this you\u2019ll find we\u2019ll get along much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull now began to realise his environment, as it were for the first time. All his sense organs started to show him beauties and wonders that he had not hitherto suspected. The uniform glaring scarlet of the sands became separated into a score of clearly distinguished shades of red. The sky was similarly split up into different blues. The radiant heat of Branchspell he found to affect every part of his body with unequal intensities. His ears awakened; the atmosphere was full of murmurs, the sands hummed, even the sun\u2019s rays had a sound of their own\u2014a kind of faint Aeolian harp. Subtle, puzzling perfumes assailed his nostrils. His palate lingered over the memory of the gnawl water. All the pores of his skin were tickled and soothed by hitherto unperceived currents of air. His poigns explored actively the inward nature of everything in his immediate vicinity. His magn touched Joiwind, and drew from her person a stream of love and joy. And lastly by means of his breve he exchanged thoughts with her in silence. This mighty sense symphony stirred him to the depths, and throughout the walk of that endless morning he felt no more fatigue.<\/p>\n

When it was drawing near to Blodsombre, they approached the sedgy margin of a dark green lake, which lay underneath Poolingdred.<\/p>\n

Panawe was sitting on a dark rock, waiting for them.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 7. PANAWE<\/h2>\n

The husband got up to meet his wife and their guest. He was clothed in white. He had a beardless face, with breve and poigns. His skin, on face and body alike, was so white, fresh, and soft, that it scarcely looked skin at all\u2014it rather resembled a new kind of pure, snowy flesh, extending right down to his bones. It had nothing in common with the artificially whitened skin of an over-civilised woman. Its whiteness and delicacy aroused no voluptuous thoughts; it was obviously the manifestation of a cold and almost cruel chastity of nature. His hair, which fell to the nape of his neck, also was white; but again, from vigour, not decay. His eyes were black, quiet and fathomless. He was still a young man, but so stern were his features that he had the appearance of a lawgiver, and this in spite of their great beauty and harmony.<\/p>\n

His magn and Joiwind\u2019s intertwined for a single moment and Maskull saw his face soften with love, while she looked exultant. She put him in her husband\u2019s arms with gentle force, and stood back, gazing and smiling. Maskull felt rather embarrassed at being embraced by a man, but submitted to it; a sense of cool, pleasant languor passed through him in the act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stranger is red-blooded, then?\u201d<\/p>\n

He was startled by Panawe\u2019s speaking in English, and the voice too was extraordinary. It was absolutely tranquil, but its tranquillity seemed in a curious fashion to be an illusion, proceeding from a rapidity of thoughts and feelings so great that their motion could not be detected. How this could be, he did not know.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you come to speak in a tongue you have never heard before?\u201d demanded Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cThought is a rich, complex thing. I can\u2019t say if I am really speaking your tongue by instinct, or if you yourself are translating my thoughts into your tongue as I utter them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlready you see that Panawe is wiser than I am,\u201d said Joiwind gaily.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d asked the husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat name must have a meaning\u2014but again, thought is a strange thing. I connect that name with something\u2014but with what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTry to discover,\u201d said Joiwind.<\/p>\n

\u201cHas there been a man in your world who stole something from the Maker of the universe, in order to ennoble his fellow creatures?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is such a myth. The hero\u2019s name was Prometheus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you seem to be identified in my mind with that action\u2014but what it all means I can\u2019t say, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAccept it as a good omen, for Panawe never lies, and never speaks thoughtlessly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere must be some confusion. These are heights beyond me,\u201d said Maskull calmly, but looking rather contemplative.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do you come from?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the planet of a distant sun, called Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was tired of vulgarity,\u201d returned Maskull laconically. He intentionally avoided mentioning his fellow voyagers, in order that Krag\u2019s name should not come to light.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an honourable motive,\u201d said Panawe. \u201cAnd what\u2019s more, it may be true, though you spoke it as a prevarication.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as it goes, it\u2019s quite true,\u201d said Maskull, staring at him with annoyance and surprise.<\/p>\n

The swampy lake extended for about half a mile from where they were standing to the lower buttresses of the mountain. Feathery purple reeds showed themselves here and there through the shallows. The water was dark green. Maskull did not see how they were going to cross it.<\/p>\n

Joiwind caught his arm. \u201cPerhaps you don\u2019t know that the lake will bear us?\u201d<\/p>\n

Panawe walked onto the water; it was so heavy that it carried his weight. Joiwind followed with Maskull. He instantly started to slip about\u2014nevertheless the motion was amusing, and he learned so fast, by watching and imitating Panawe, that he was soon able to balance himself without assistance. After that he found the sport excellent.<\/p>\n

For the same reason that women excel in dancing, Joiwind\u2019s half falls and recoveries were far more graceful and sure than those of either of the men. Her slight, draped form\u2014dipping, bending, rising, swaying, twisting, upon the surface of the dark water\u2014this was a picture Maskull could not keep his eyes away from.<\/p>\n

The lake grew deeper. The gnawl water became green-black. The crags, gullies, and precipices of the shore could now be distinguished in detail. A waterfall was visible, descending several hundred feet. The surface of the lake grew disturbed\u2014so much so that Maskull had difficulty in keeping his balance. He therefore threw himself down and started swimming on the face of the water. Joiwind turned her head, and laughed so joyously that all her teeth flashed in the sunlight.<\/p>\n

They landed in a few more minutes on a promontory of black rock. The water on Maskull\u2019s garment and body evaporated very quickly. He gazed upward at the towering mountain, but at that moment some strange movements on the part of Panawe attracted his attention. His face was working convulsively, and he began to stagger about. Then he put his hand to his mouth and took from it what looked like a bright-coloured pebble. He looked at it carefully for some seconds. Joiwind also looked, over his shoulder, with quickly changing colors. After this inspection, Panawe let the object\u2014whatever it was\u2014fall to the ground, and took no more interest in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay I look?\u201d asked Maskull; and, without waiting for permission, he picked it up. It was a delicately beautiful egg-shaped crystal of pale green.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere did this come from?\u201d he asked queerly.<\/p>\n

Panawe turned away, but Joiwind answered for him. \u201cIt came out of my husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I thought, but I couldn\u2019t believe it. But what is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know that it has either name or use. It is merely an overflowing of beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeauty?\u201d<\/p>\n

Joiwind smiled. \u201cIf you were to regard nature as the husband, and Panawe as the wife, Maskull, perhaps everything would be explained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull reflected.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Earth,\u201d he said after a minute, \u201cmen like Panawe are called artists, poets, and musicians. Beauty overflows into them too, and out of them again. The only distinction is that their<\/i> productions are more human and intelligible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing comes from it but vanity,\u201d said Panawe, and, taking the crystal out of Maskull\u2019s hand, he threw it into the lake.<\/p>\n

The precipice they now had to climb was several hundred feet in height. Maskull was more anxious for Joiwind than for himself. She was evidently tiring, but she refused all help, and was in fact still the nimbler of the two. She made a mocking face at him. Panawe seemed lost in quiet thoughts. The rock was sound, and did not crumble under their weight. The heat of Branchspell, however, was by this time almost killing, the radiance was shocking in its white intensity, and Maskull\u2019s pain steadily grew worse.<\/p>\n

When they got to the top, a plateau of dark rock appeared, bare of vegetation, stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see. It was of a nearly uniform width of five hundred yards, from the edge of the cliffs to the lower slopes of the chain of hills inland. The hills varied in height. The cup-shaped Poolingdred was approximately a thousand feet above them. The upper part of it was covered with a kind of glittering vegetation which he could not comprehend.<\/p>\n

Joiwind put her hand on Maskull\u2019s shoulder, and pointed upward. \u201cHere you have the highest peak in the whole land\u2014that is, until you come to the Ifdawn Marest.\u201d<\/p>\n

On hearing that strange name, he experienced a momentary unaccountable sensation of wild vigour and restlessness\u2014but it passed away.<\/p>\n

Without losing time, Panawe led the way up the mountainside. The lower half was of bare rock, not difficult to climb. Halfway up, however, it grew steeper, and they began to meet bushes and small trees. The growth became thicker as they continued to ascend, and when they neared the summit, tall forest trees appeared.<\/p>\n

These bushes and trees had pale, glassy trunks and branches, but the small twigs and the leaves were translucent and crystal. They cast no shadows from above, but still the shade was cool. Both leaves and branches were fantastically shaped. What surprised Maskull the most, however, was the fact that, as far as he could see, scarcely any two plants belonged to the same species.<\/p>\n

\u201cWon\u2019t you help Maskull out of his difficulty?\u201d said Joiwind, pulling her husband\u2019s arm.<\/p>\n

He smiled. \u201cIf he\u2019ll forgive me for again trespassing in his brain. But the difficulty is small. Life on a new planet, Maskull, is necessarily energetic and lawless, and not sedate and imitative. Nature is still fluid\u2014not yet rigid\u2014and matter is plastic. The will forks and sports incessantly, and thus no two creatures are alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I understand all that,\u201d replied Maskull, after listening attentively. \u201cBut what I don\u2019t grasp is this\u2014if living creatures here sport so energetically, how does it come about that human beings wear much the same shape as in my world?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll explain that too,\u201d said Panawe. \u201cAll creatures that resemble Shaping must of necessity resemble one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen sporting is the blind will to become like Shaping?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is most wonderful,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cThen the brotherhood of man is not a fable invented by idealists, but a solid fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joiwind looked at him, and changed colour. Panawe relapsed into sternness.<\/p>\n

Maskull became interested in a new phenomenon. The jale-coloured blossoms of a crystal bush were emitting mental waves, which with his breve he could clearly distinguish. They cried out silently, \u201cTo me! To me!\u201d While he looked, a flying worm guided itself through the air to one of these blossoms and began to suck its nectar. The floral cry immediately ceased.<\/p>\n

They now gained the crest of the mountain, and looked down beyond. A lake occupied its crater-like cavity. A fringe of trees partly intercepted the view, but Maskull was able to perceive that this mountain lake was nearly circular and perhaps a quarter of a mile across. Its shore stood a hundred feet below them.<\/p>\n

Observing that his hosts did not propose to descend, he begged them to wait for him, and scrambled down to the surface. When he got there, he found the water perfectly motionless and of a colourless transparency. He walked onto it, lay down at full length, and peered into the depths. It was weirdly clear: he could see down for an indefinite distance, without arriving at any bottom. Some dark, shadowy objects, almost out of reach of his eyes, were moving about. Then a sound, very faint and mysterious, seemed to come up through the gnawl water from an immense depth. It was like the rhythm of a drum. There were four beats of equal length, but the accent was on the third. It went on for a considerable time, and then ceased.<\/p>\n

The sound appeared to him to belong to a different world from that in which he was travelling. The latter was mystical, dreamlike, and unbelievable\u2014the drumming was like a very dim undertone of reality. It resembled the ticking of a clock in a room full of voices, only occasionally possible to be picked up by the ear.<\/p>\n

He rejoined Panawe and Joiwind, but said nothing to them about his experience. They all walked round the rim of the crater, and gazed down on the opposite side. Precipices similar to those that had overlooked the desert here formed the boundary of a vast moorland plain, whose dimensions could not be measured by the eye. It was solid land, yet he could not make out its prevailing colour. It was as if made of transparent glass, but it did not glitter in the sunlight. No objects in it could be distinguished, except a rolling river in the far distance, and, farther off still, on the horizon, a line of dark mountains, of strange shapes. Instead of being rounded, conical, or hogbacked, these heights were carved by nature into the semblance of castle battlements, but with extremely deep indentations.<\/p>\n

The sky immediately above the mountains was of a vivid, intense blue. It contrasted in a most marvellous way with the blue of the rest of the heavens. It seemed more luminous and radiant, and was in fact like the afterglow of a gorgeous blue<\/i> sunset.<\/p>\n

Maskull kept on looking. The more he gazed, the more restless and noble became his feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is that light?\u201d<\/p>\n

Panawe was sterner than usual, while his wife clung to his arm. \u201cIt is Alppain\u2014our second sun,\u201d he replied. \u201cThose hills are the Ifdawn Marest…. Now let us get to our shelter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it imagination, or am I really being affected\u2014tormented by that light?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it\u2019s not imagination\u2014it\u2019s real. How can it be otherwise when two suns, of different natures, are drawing you at the same time? Luckily you are not looking at Alppain itself. It\u2019s invisible here. You would need to go at least as far as Ifdawn, to set eyes on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you say \u2018luckily\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the agony caused by those opposing forces would perhaps be more than you could bear…. But I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the short distance that remained of their walk, Maskull was very thoughtful and uneasy. He understood nothing. Whatever object his eye chanced to rest on changed immediately into a puzzle. The silence and stillness of the mountain peak seemed brooding, mysterious, and waiting<\/i>. Panawe gave him a friendly, anxious look, and without further delay led the way down a little track, which traversed the side of the mountain and terminated in the mouth of a cave.<\/p>\n

This cave was the home of Panawe and Joiwind. It was dark inside. The host took a shell and, filling it with liquid from a well, carelessly sprinkled the sandy floor of the interior. A greenish, phosphorescent light gradually spread to the furthest limits of the cavern, and continued to illuminate it for the whole time they were there. There was no furniture. Some dried, fernlike leaves served for couches.<\/p>\n

The moment she got in, Joiwind fell down in exhaustion. Her husband tended her with calm concern. He bathed her face, put drink to her lips, energised her with his magn, and finally laid her down to sleep. At the sight of the noble woman thus suffering on his account, Maskull was distressed.<\/p>\n

Panawe, however, endeavoured to reassure him. \u201cIt\u2019s quite true this has been a very long, hard double journey, but for the future it will lighten all her other journeys for her…. Such is the nature of sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t conceive how I have walked so far in a morning,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cand she has been twice the distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLove flows in her veins, instead of blood, and that\u2019s why she is so strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know she gave me some of it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOtherwise you couldn\u2019t even have started.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shall never forget that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The languorous heat of the day outside, the bright mouth of the cavern, the cool seclusion of the interior, with its pale green glow, invited Maskull to sleep. But curiosity got the better of his lassitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill it disturb her if we talk?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut how do you feel?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI require little sleep. In any case, it\u2019s more important that you should hear something about your new life. It\u2019s not all as innocent and idyllic as this. If you intend to go through, you ought to be instructed about the dangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I guessed as much. But how shall we arrange\u2014shall I put questions, or will you tell me what you think is most essential?\u201d<\/p>\n

Panawe motioned to Maskull to sit down on a pile of ferns, and at the same time reclined himself, leaning on one arm, with outstretched legs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will tell some incidents of my life. You will begin to learn from them what sort of place you have come to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shall be grateful,\u201d said Maskull, preparing himself to listen.<\/p>\n

Panawe paused for a moment or two, and then started his narrative in tranquil, measured, yet sympathetic tones.<\/p>\n

PANAWE\u2019S STORY<\/p>\n

\u201cMy earliest recollection is of being taken, when three years old (that\u2019s equivalent to fifteen of your years, but we develop more slowly here), by my father and mother, to see Broodviol, the wisest man in Tormance. He dwelt in the great Wombflash Forest. We walked through trees for three days, sleeping at night. The trees grew taller as we went along, until the tops were out of sight. The trunks were of a dark red colour and the leaves were of pale ulfire. My father kept stopping to think. If left uninterrupted, he would remain for half a day in deep abstraction. My mother came out of Poolingdred, and was of a different stamp. She was beautiful, generous, and charming\u2014but also active. She kept urging him on. This led to many disputes between them, which made me miserable. On the fourth day we passed through a part of the forest which bordered on the Sinking Sea. This sea is full of pouches of water that will not bear a man\u2019s weight, and as these light parts don\u2019t differ in appearance from the rest, it is dangerous to cross. My father pointed out a dim outline on the horizon, and told me it was Swaylone\u2019s Island. Men sometimes go there, but none ever return. In the evening of the same day we found Broodviol standing in a deep, miry pit in the forest, surrounded on all sides by trees three hundred feet high. He was a big gnarled, rugged, wrinkled, sturdy old man. His age at that time was a hundred and twenty of our years, or nearly six hundred of yours. His body was trilateral: he had three legs, three arms, and six eyes, placed at equal distances all around his head. This gave him an aspect of great watchfulness and sagacity. He was standing in a sort of trance. I afterward heard this saying of his: \u2018To lie is to sleep, to sit is to dream, to stand is to think.\u2019 My father caught the infection, and fell into meditation, but my mother roused them both thoroughly. Broodviol scowled at her savagely, and demanded what she required. Then I too learned for the first time the object of our journey. I was a prodigy\u2014that is to say, I was without sex. My parents were troubled over this, and wished to consult the wisest of men.<\/p>\n

\u201cOld Broodviol smoothed his face, and said, \u2018This perhaps will not be so difficult. I will explain the marvel. Every man and woman among us is a walking murderer. If a male, he has struggled with and killed the female who was born in the same body with him\u2014if a female, she has killed the male. But in this child the struggle is still continuing.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018How shall we end it?\u2019 asked my mother.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Let the child direct its will to the scene of the combat, and it will be of whichever sex it pleases.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018You want, of course, to be a man, don\u2019t you?\u2019 said my mother to me earnestly.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Then I shall be slaying your daughter, and that would be a crime.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething in my tone attracted Broodviol\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018That was spoken, not selfishly, but magnanimously. Therefore the male must have spoken it, and you need not trouble further. Before you arrive home, the child will be a boy.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father walked away out of sight. My mother bent very low before Broodviol for about ten minutes, and he remained all that time looking kindly at her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard that shortly afterward Alppain came into that land for a few hours daily. Broodviol grew melancholy, and died.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis prophecy came true\u2014before we reached home, I knew the meaning of shame. But I have often pondered over his words since, in later years, when trying to understand my own nature; and I have come to the conclusion that, wisest of men as he was, he still did not see quite straight on this occasion. Between me and my twin sister, enclosed in one body, there never was any struggle, but instinctive reverence for life withheld both of us from fighting for existence. Hers was the stronger temperament, and she sacrificed herself\u2014though not consciously\u2014for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I comprehended this, I made a vow never to eat or destroy anything that contained life\u2014and I have kept it ever since.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I was still hardly a grown man, my father died. My mother\u2019s death followed immediately, and I hated the associations of the land. I therefore made up my mind to travel into my mother\u2019s country, where, as she had often told me, nature was most sacred and solitary.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne hot morning I came to Shaping\u2019s Causeway. It is so called either because Shaping once crossed it, or because of its stupendous character. It is a natural embankment, twenty miles long, which links the mountains bordering my homeland with the Ifdawn Marest. The valley lies below at a depth varying from eight to ten thousand feet\u2014a terrible precipice on either side. The knife edge of the ridge is generally not much over a foot wide. The causeway goes due north and south. The valley on my right hand was plunged in shadow\u2014that on my left was sparkling with sunlight and dew. I walked fearfully along this precarious path for some miles. Far to the east the valley was closed by a lofty tableland, connecting the two chains of mountains, but overtopping even the most towering pinnacles. This is called the Sant Levels. I was never there, but I have heard two curious facts concerning the inhabitants. The first is that they have no women; the second, that though they are addicted to travelling in other parts they never acquire habits of the peoples with whom they reside.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresently I turned giddy, and lay at full length for a great while, clutching the two edges of the path with both hands, and staring at the ground I was lying on with wide-open eyes. When that passed I felt like a different man and grew conceited and gay. About halfway across I saw someone approaching me a long way off. This put fear into my heart again, for I did not see how we could very well pass. However, I went slowly on, and presently we drew near enough together for me to recognise the walker. It was Slofork, the so-called sorcerer. I had never met him before, but I knew him by his peculiarities of person. He was of a bright gamboge colour and possessed a very long, proboscis-like nose, which appeared to be a useful organ, but did not add to his beauty, as I knew beauty. He was dubbed \u2018sorcerer\u2019 from his wondrous skill in budding limbs and organs. The tale is told that one evening he slowly sawed his leg off with a blunt stone and then lay for two days in agony while his new leg was sprouting. He was not reputed to be a consistently wise man, but he had periodical flashes of penetration and audacity that none could equal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sat down and faced one another, about two yards apart.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Which of us walks over the other?\u2019 asked Slofork. His manner was as calm as the day itself, but, to my young nature, terrible with hidden terrors. I smiled at him, but did not wish for this humiliation. We continued sitting thus, in a friendly way, for many minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018What is greater than Pleasure?\u2019 he asked suddenly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was at an age when one wishes to be thought equal to any emergency, so, concealing my surprise, I applied myself to the conversation, as if it were for that purpose we had met.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Pain,\u2019 I replied, \u2018for pain drives out pleasure.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018What is greater than Pain?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI reflected. \u2018Love. Because we will accept our loved one\u2019s share of pain.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018But what is greater than Love?\u2019 he persisted.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Nothing, Slofork.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018And what is Nothing?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018That you must tell me.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Tell you I will. This is Shaping\u2019s world. He that is a good child here, knows pleasure, pain, and love, and gets his rewards. But there\u2019s another world\u2014not Shaping\u2019s\u2014and there all this is unknown, and another order of things reigns. That world we call Nothing\u2014but it is not Nothing, but Something.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a pause.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I have heard,\u2019 said I, \u2018that you are good at growing and ungrowing organs?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018That\u2019s not enough for me. Every organ tells me the same story. I want to hear different stories.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Is it true, what men say, that your wisdom flows and ebbs in pulses?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Quite true,\u2019 replied Slofork. \u2018But those you had it from did not add that they have always mistaken the flow for the ebb.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018My experience is,\u2019 said I sententiously, \u2018that wisdom is misery.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Perhaps it is, young man, but you have never learned that, and never will. For you the world will continue to wear a noble, awful face. You will never rise above mysticism…. But be happy in your own way.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I realised what he was doing, he jumped tranquilly from the path, down into the empty void. He crashed with ever-increasing momentum toward the valley below. I screeched, flung myself down on the ground, and shut my eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften have I wondered which of my ill-considered, juvenile remarks it was that caused this sudden resolution on his part to commit suicide. Whichever it might be, since then I have made it a rigid law never to speak for my own pleasure, but only to help others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came eventually to the Marest. I threaded its mazes in terror for four days. I was frightened of death, but still more terrified at the possibility of losing my sacred attitude toward life. When I was nearly through, and was beginning to congratulate myself, I stumbled across the third extraordinary personage of my experience\u2014the grim Muremaker. It was under horrible circumstances. On an afternoon, cloudy and stormy, I saw, suspended in the air without visible support, a living man. He was hanging in an upright position in front of a cliff\u2014a yawning gulf, a thousand feet deep, lay beneath his feet. I climbed as near as I could, and looked on. He saw me, and made a wry grimace, like one who wishes to turn his humiliation into humour. The spectacle so astounded me that I could not even grasp what had happened.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I am Muremaker,\u2019 he cried in a scraping voice which shocked my ears. \u2018All my life I have sorbed others\u2014now I am sorbed. Nuclamp and I fell out over a woman. Now Nuclamp holds me up like this. While the strength of his will lasts I shall remain suspended; but when he gets tired\u2014and it can\u2019t be long now\u2014I drop into those depths.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHad it been another man, I would have tried to save him, but this ogre-like being was too well known to me as one who passed his whole existence in tormenting, murdering, and absorbing others, for the sake of his own delight. I hurried away, and did not pause again that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Poolingdred I met Joiwind. We walked and talked together for a month, and by that time we found that we loved each other too well to part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panawe stopped speaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a fascinating story,\u201d remarked Maskull. \u201cNow I begin to know my way around better. But one thing puzzles me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow it happens that men here are ignorant of tools and arts, and have no civilisation, and yet contrive to be social in their habits and wise in their thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you imagine, then, that love and wisdom spring from tools? But I see how it arises. In your world you have fewer sense organs, and to make up for the deficiency you have been obliged to call in the assistance of stones and metals. That\u2019s by no means a sign of superiority.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I suppose not,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cbut I see I have a great deal to unlearn.\u201d<\/p>\n

They talked together a little longer, and then gradually fell asleep. Joiwind opened her eyes, smiled, and slumbered again.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 8. THE LUSION PLAIN<\/h2>\n

Maskull awoke before the others. He got up, stretched himself, and walked out into the sunlight. Branchspell was already declining. He climbed to the top of the crater edge and looked away toward Ifdawn. The afterglow of Alppain had by now completely disappeared. The mountains stood up wild and grand.<\/p>\n

They impressed him like a simple musical theme, the notes of which are widely separated in the scale; a spirit of rashness, daring, and adventure seemed to call to him from them. It was at that moment that the determination flashed into his heart to walk to the Marest and explore its dangers.<\/p>\n

He returned to the cavern to say good-by to his hosts.<\/p>\n

Joiwind looked at him with her brave and honest eyes. \u201cIs this selfishness, Maskull?\u201d she asked, \u201cor are you drawn by something stronger than yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must be reasonable,\u201d he answered, smiling. \u201cI can\u2019t settle down in Poolingdred before I have found out something about this surprising new planet of yours. Remember what a long way I have come…. But very likely I shall come back here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWill you make me a promise?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull hesitated. \u201cAsk nothing difficult, for I hardly know my powers yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not hard, and I wish it. Promise this\u2014never to raise your hand against a living creature, either to strike, pluck, or eat, without first recollecting its mother, who suffered for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps I won\u2019t promise that,\u201d said Maskull slowly, \u201cbut I\u2019ll undertake something more tangible. I will never lift my hand against a living creature without first recollecting you, Joiwind.\u201d<\/p>\n

She turned a little pale. \u201cNow if Panawe knew that Panawe existed, he might be jealous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panawe put his hand on her gently. \u201cYou would not talk like that in Shaping\u2019s presence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. Forgive me! I\u2019m not quite myself. Perhaps it is Maskull\u2019s blood in my veins…. Now let us bid him adieu. Let us pray that he will do only honourable deeds, wherever he may be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll set Maskull on his way,\u201d said Panawe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no need,\u201d replied Maskull. \u201cThe way is plain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut talking shortens the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull turned to go.<\/p>\n

Joiwind pulled him around toward her softly. \u201cYou won\u2019t think badly of other women on my account?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are a blessed spirit,\u201d answered he.<\/p>\n

She trod quietly to the inner extremity of the cave and stood there thinking. Panawe and Maskull emerged into the open air. Halfway down the cliff face a little spring was encountered. Its water was colourless, transparent, but gaseous. As soon as Maskull had satisfied his thirst he felt himself different. His surroundings were so real to him in their vividness and colour, so unreal in their phantom-like mystery, that he scrambled downhill like one in a winter\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n

When they reached the plain he saw in front of them an interminable forest of tall trees, the shapes of which were extraordinarily foreign looking. The leaves were crystalline and, looking upward, it was as if he were gazing through a roof of glass. The moment they got underneath the trees the light rays of the sun continued to come through\u2014white, savage, and blazing\u2014but they were gelded of heat. Then it was not hard to imagine that they were wandering through cool, bright elfin glades.<\/p>\n

Through the forest, beginning at their very feet an avenue, perfectly straight and not very wide, went forward as far as the eye could see.<\/p>\n

Maskull wanted to talk to his travelling companion, but was somehow unable to find words. Panawe glanced at him with an inscrutable smile\u2014stern, yet enchanting and half feminine. He then broke the silence, but, strangely enough, Maskull could not make out whether he was singing or speaking. From his lips issued a slow musical recitative, exactly like a bewitching adagio from a low toned stringed instrument\u2014but there was a difference. Instead of the repetition and variation of one or two short themes, as in music, Panawe\u2019s theme was prolonged\u2014it never came to an end, but rather resembled a conversation in rhythm and melody. And, at the same time, it was no recitative, for it was not declamatory. It was a long, quiet stream of lovely emotion.<\/p>\n

Maskull listened entranced, yet agitated. The song, if it might be termed song, seemed to be always just on the point of becoming clear and intelligible\u2014not with the intelligibility of words, but in the way one sympathises with another\u2019s moods and feelings; and Maskull felt that something important was about to be uttered, which would explain all that had gone before. But it was invariably postponed, he never understood\u2014and yet somehow he did understand.<\/p>\n

Late in the afternoon they came to a clearing, and there Panawe ceased his recitative. He slowed his pace and stopped, in the fashion of a man who wishes to convey that he intends to go no farther.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the name of this country?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the Lusion Plain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWas that music in the nature of a temptation\u2014do you wish me not to go on?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour work lies before you, and not behind you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was it, then? What work do you allude to?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must have seemed like something to you, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seemed like Shaping music to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The instant he had absently uttered these words, Maskull wondered why he had done so, as they now appeared meaningless to him.<\/p>\n

Panawe, however, showed no surprise. \u201cShaping you will find everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAm I dreaming, or awake?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are awake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull fell into deep thought. \u201cSo be it,\u201d he said, rousing himself. \u201cNow I will go on. But where must I sleep tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will reach a broad river. On that you can travel to the foot of the Marest tomorrow; but tonight you had better sleep where the forest and river meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAdieu, then, Panawe! But do you wish to say anything more to me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly this, Maskull\u2014wherever you go, help to make the world beautiful, and not ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s more than any of us can undertake. I am a simple man, and have no ambitions in the way of beautifying life\u2014But tell Joiwind I will try to keep myself pure.\u201d<\/p>\n

They parted rather coldly. Maskull stood erect where they had stopped, and watched Panawe out of sight. He sighed more than once.<\/p>\n

He became aware that something was about to happen. The air was breathless. The late-afternoon sunshine, unobstructed, wrapped his frame in voluptuous heat. A solitary cloud, immensely high, raced through the sky overhead.<\/p>\n

A single trumpet note sounded in the far distance from somewhere behind him. It gave him an impression of being several miles away at first; but then it slowly swelled, and came nearer and nearer at the same time that it increased in volume. Still the same note sounded, but now it was as if blown by a giant trumpeter immediately over his head. Then it gradually diminished in force, and travelled away in front of him. It ended very faintly and distantly.<\/p>\n

He felt himself alone with Nature. A sacred stillness came over his heart. Past and future were forgotten. The forest, the sun, the day did not exist for him. He was unconscious of himself\u2014he had no thoughts and no feelings. Yet never had Life had such an altitude for him.<\/p>\n

A man stood, with crossed arms, right in his path. He was so clothed that his limbs were exposed, while his body was covered. He was young rather than old. Maskull observed that his countenance possessed none of the special organs of Tormance, to which he had not even yet become reconciled. He was smooth-faced. His whole person seemed to radiate an excess of life, like the trembling of air on a hot day. His eyes had such force that Maskull could not meet them.<\/p>\n

He addressed Maskull by name, in an extraordinary voice. It had a double tone. The primary one sounded far away; the second was an undertone, like a sympathetic tanging string.<\/p>\n

Maskull felt a rising joy, as he continued standing in the presence of this individual. He believed that something good was happening to him. He found it physically difficult to bring any words out. \u201cWhy do you stop me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull, look well at me. Who am I?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you are Shaping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am Surtur.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull again attempted to meet his eyes, but felt as if he were being stabbed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that this is my world. Why do you think I have brought you here? I wish you to serve me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull could no longer speak.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who joke at my world,\u201d continued the vision, \u201cthose who make a mock of its stern, eternal rhythm, its beauty and sublimity, which are not skin-deep, but proceed from fathomless roots\u2014they shall not escape.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not mock it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk me your questions, and I will answer them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is necessary for you to serve me, Maskull. Do you not understand? You are my servant and helper.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shall not fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is for my sake, and not for yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

These last words had no sooner left Surtur\u2019s mouth than Maskull saw him spring suddenly upward and outward. Looking up at the vault of the sky, he saw the whole expanse of vision filled by Surtur\u2019s form\u2014not as a concrete man, but as a vast, concave cloud image, looking down and frowning at him. Then the spectacle vanished, as a light goes out.<\/p>\n

Maskull stood inactive, with a thumping heart. Now he again heard the solitary trumpet note. The sound began this time faintly in the far distance in front of him, travelled slowly toward him with regularly increasing intensity, passed overhead at its loudest, and then grew more and more quiet, wonderful, and solemn, as it fell away in the rear, until the note was merged in the deathlike silence of the forest. It appeared to Maskull like the closing of a marvellous and important chapter.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously with the fading away of the sound, the heavens seemed to open up with the rapidity of lightning into a blue vault of immeasurable height. He breathed a great breath, stretched all his limbs, and looked around him with a slow smile.<\/p>\n

After a while he resumed his journey. His brain was all dark and confused, but one idea was already beginning to stand out from the rest\u2014huge, shapeless, and grand, like the growing image in the soul of a creative artist: the staggering thought that he was a man of destiny.<\/p>\n

The more he reflected upon all that had occurred since his arrival in this new world\u2014and even before leaving Earth\u2014the clearer and more indisputable it became, that he could not be here for his own purposes, but must be here for an end. But what that end was, he could not imagine.<\/p>\n

Through the forest he saw Branchspell at last sinking in the west. It looked a stupendous ball of red fire\u2014now he could realise at his ease what a sun it was! The avenue took an abrupt turn to the left and began to descend steeply.<\/p>\n

A wide, rolling river of clear and dark water was visible in front of him, no great way off. It flowed from north to south. The forest path led him straight to its banks. Maskull stood there, and regarded the lapping, gurgling waters pensively. On the opposite bank, the forest continued. Miles to the south, Poolingdred could just be distinguished. On the northern skyline the Ifdawn Mountains loomed up\u2014high, wild, beautiful, and dangerous. They were not a dozen miles away.<\/p>\n

Like the first mutterings of a thunderstorm, the first faint breaths of cool wind, Maskull felt the stirrings of passion in his heart. In spite of his bodily fatigue, he wished to test his strength against something. This craving he identified with the crags of the Marest. They seemed to have the same magical attraction for his will as the lodestone for iron. He kept biting his nails, as he turned his eyes in that direction\u2014wondering if it would not be possible to conquer the heights that evening. But when he glanced back again at Poolingdred, he remembered Joiwind and Panawe, and grew more tranquil. He decided to make his bed at this spot, and to set off as soon after daybreak as he should awake.<\/p>\n

He drank at the river, washed himself, and lay down on the bank to sleep. By this time, so far had his idea progressed, that he cared nothing for the possible dangers of the night\u2014he confided in his star.<\/p>\n

Branchspell set, the day faded, night with its terrible weight came on, and through it all Maskull slept. Long before midnight, however, he was awakened by a crimson glow in the sky. He opened his eyes, and wondered where he was. He felt heaviness and pain. The red glow was a terrestrial phenomenon; it came from among the trees. He got up and went toward the source of the light.<\/p>\n

Away from the river, not a hundred feet off, he nearly stumbled across the form of a sleeping woman. The object which emitted the crimson rays was lying on the ground, several yards away from her. It was like a small jewel, throwing off sparks of red light. He barely threw a glance at that, however.<\/p>\n

The woman was clothed in the large skin of an animal. She had big, smooth, shapely limbs, rather muscular than fat. Her magn was not a thin tentacle, but a third arm, terminating in a hand. Her face, which was upturned, was wild, powerful, and exceedingly handsome. But he saw with surprise that in place of a breve on her forehead, she possessed another eye. All three were closed. The colour of her skin in the crimson glow he could not distinguish.<\/p>\n

He touched her gently with his hand. She awoke calmly and looked up at him without stirring a muscle. All three eyes stared at him; but the two lower ones were dull and vacant\u2014mere carriers of vision. The middle, upper one alone expressed her inner nature. Its haughty, unflinching glare had yet something seductive and alluring in it. Maskull felt a challenge in that look of lordly, feminine will, and his manner instinctively stiffened.<\/p>\n

She sat up.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you speak my language?\u201d he asked. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t put such a question, but others have been able to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should you imagine that I can\u2019t read your mind? Is it so extremely complex?\u201d<\/p>\n

She spoke in a rich, lingering, musical voice, which delighted him to listen to.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but you have no breve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, but haven\u2019t I a sorb, which is better?\u201d And she pointed to the eye on her brow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOceaxe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd where do you come from?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIfdawn.\u201d<\/p>\n

These contemptuous replies began to irritate him, and yet the mere sound of her voice was fascinating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am going there tomorrow,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n

She laughed, as if against her will, but made no comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is Maskull,\u201d he went on. \u201cI am a stranger\u2014from another world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I should judge, from your absurd appearance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps it would be as well to say at once,\u201d said Maskull bluntly, \u201care we, or are we not, to be friends?\u201d<\/p>\n

She yawned and stretched her arms, without rising. \u201cWhy should we be friends? If I thought you were a man, I might accept you as a lover.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must look elsewhere for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo be it, Maskull! Now go away, and leave me in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

She dropped her head again to the ground, but did not at once close her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d he interrogated.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, we Ifdawn folk occasionally come here to sleep, for there<\/i> often enough it is a night for us which has no next morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing such a terrible place, and seeing that I am a total stranger, it would be merely courteous if you were to warn me what I have to expect in the way of dangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am perfectly and utterly indifferent to what becomes of you,\u201d retorted Oceaxe.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you returning in the morning?\u201d persisted Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I wish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we will go together.\u201d<\/p>\n

She got up again on her elbow. \u201cInstead of making plans for other people, I would do a very necessary thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPray, tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, there\u2019s no reason why I should, but I will. I would try to convert my women\u2019s organs into men\u2019s organs. It is a man\u2019s country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeak more plainly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, it\u2019s plain enough. If you attempt to pass through Ifdawn without a sorb, you are simply committing suicide. And that magn too is worse than useless.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou probably know what you are talking about, Oceaxe. But what do you advise me to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

She negligently pointed to the light-emitting stone lying on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is the solution. If you hold that drude to your organs for a good while, perhaps it will start the change, and perhaps nature will do the rest during the night. I promise nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe now really turned her back on Maskull.<\/p>\n

He considered for a few minutes, and then walked over to where the stone was lying, and took it in his hand. It was a pebble the size of a hen\u2019s egg, radiant with crimson light, as though red-hot, and throwing out a continuous shower of small, blood-red sparks.<\/p>\n

Finally deciding that Oceaxe\u2019s advice was good, he applied the drude first to his magn, and then to his breve. He experienced a cauterising sensation\u2014a feeling of healing pain.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 9. OCEAXE<\/h2>\n

Maskull\u2019s second day on Tormance dawned. Branchspell was already above the horizon when he awoke. He was instantly aware that his organs had changed during the night. His fleshy breve was altered into an eyelike sorb; his magn had swelled and developed into a third arm, springing from the breast. The arm gave him at once a sense of greater physical security, but with the sorb he was obliged to experiment, before he could grasp its function.<\/p>\n

As he lay there in the white sunlight, opening and shutting each of his three eyes in turn, he found that the two lower ones served his understanding, the upper one his will. That is to say, with the lower eyes he saw things in clear detail, but without personal interest; with the sorb he saw nothing as self-existent\u2014everything appeared as an object of importance or non-importance to his own needs.<\/p>\n

Rather puzzled as to how this would turn out, he got up and looked about him. He had slept out of sight of Oceaxe. He was anxious to learn if she were still on the spot, but before going to ascertain he made up his mind to bathe in the river.<\/p>\n

It was a glorious morning. The hot white sun already began to glare, but its heat was tempered by a strong wind, which whistled through the trees. A host of fantastic clouds filled the sky. They looked like animals, and were always changing shape. The ground, as well as the leaves and branches of the forest trees, still held traces of heavy dew or rain during the night. A poignantly sweet smell of nature entered his nostrils. His pain was quiescent, and his spirits were high.<\/p>\n

Before he bathed, he viewed the mountains of the Ifdawn Marest. In the morning sunlight they stood out pictorially. He guessed that they were from five to six thousand feet high. The lofty, irregular, castellated line seemed like the walls of a magic city. The cliffs fronting him were composed of gaudy rocks\u2014vermilion, emerald, yellow, ulfire, and black. As he gazed at them, his heart began to beat like a slow, heavy drum, and he thrilled all over\u2014indescribable hopes, aspirations, and emotions came over him. It was more than the conquest of a new world which he felt\u2014it was something different….<\/p>\n

He bathed and drank, and as he was reclothing himself, Oceaxe strolled indolently up.<\/p>\n

He could now perceive the colour of her skin\u2014it was a vivid, yet delicate mixture of carmine, white, and jale. The effect was startlingly unearthly. With these new colors she looked like a genuine representative of a strange planet. Her frame also had something curious about it. The curves were womanly, the bones were characteristically female\u2014yet all seemed somehow to express a daring, masculine underlying will. The commanding eye on her forehead set the same puzzle in plainer language. Its bold, domineering egotism was shot with undergleams of sex and softness.<\/p>\n

She came to the river\u2019s edge and reviewed him from top to toe. \u201cNow you are built more like a man,\u201d she said, in her lovely, lingering voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see, the experiment was successful,\u201d he answered, smiling gaily.<\/p>\n

Oceaxe continued looking him over. \u201cDid some woman give you that ridiculous robe?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA woman did give it to me\u201d\u2014dropping his smile\u2014\u201cbut I saw nothing ridiculous in the gift at the time, and I don\u2019t now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019d look better in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she drawled the words, she began stripping off the skin, which suited her form so well, and motioned to him to exchange garments. He obeyed, rather shamefacedly, for he realised that the proposed exchange was in fact more appropriate to his sex. He found the skin a freer dress. Oceaxe in her drapery appeared more dangerously feminine to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want you to receive gifts at all from other women,\u201d she remarked slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not? What can I be to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been thinking about you during the night.\u201d Her voice was retarded, scornful, viola-like. She sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and looked away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn what way?\u201d<\/p>\n

She returned no answer to his question, but began to pull off pieces of the bark.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast night you were so contemptuous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLast night is not today. Do you always walk through the world with your head over your shoulder?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was now Maskull\u2019s turn to be silent.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, if you have male instincts, as I suppose you have, you can\u2019t go on resisting me forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this is preposterous,\u201d said Maskull, opening his eyes wide. \u201cGranted that you are a beautiful woman\u2014we can\u2019t be quite so primeval.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe sighed, and rose to her feet. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. I can wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom that I gather that you intend to make the journey in my society. I have no objection\u2014in fact I shall be glad\u2014but only on condition that you drop this language.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYet you do think me beautiful?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t I think so, if it is the fact? I fail to see what that has to do with my feelings. Bring it to an end, Oceaxe. You will find plenty of men to admire\u2014and love you.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that she blazed up. \u201cDoes love pick and choose, you fool? Do you imagine I am so hard put to it that I have to hunt for lovers? Is not Crimtyphon waiting for me at this very moment?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery well. I am sorry to have hurt your feelings. Now carry the temptation no farther\u2014for it is<\/i> a temptation, where a lovely woman is concerned. I am not my own master.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not proposing anything so very hateful, am I? Why do you humiliate me so?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull put his hands behind his back. \u201cI repeat, I am not my own master.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen who is your master?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday I saw Surtur, and from today I am serving him<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you speak with him?\u201d she asked curiously.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me what he said.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I can\u2019t\u2014I won\u2019t. But whatever he said, his beauty was more tormenting than yours, Oceaxe, and that\u2019s why I can look at you in cold blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid Surtur forbid you to be a man?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull frowned. \u201cIs love such a manly sport, then? I should have thought it effeminate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. You won\u2019t always be so boyish. But don\u2019t try my patience too far.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us talk about something else\u2014and, above all, let us get on our road.\u201d<\/p>\n

She suddenly broke into a laugh, so rich, sweet, and enchanting, that he grew half inflamed, and half wished to catch her body in his arms. \u201cOh, Maskull, Maskull\u2014what a fool you are!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn what way am I a fool?\u201d he demanded, scowling\u2014not at her words, but at his own weakness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t the whole world the handiwork of innumerable pairs of lovers? And yet you think yourself above all that. You try to fly away from nature, but where will you find a hole to hide yourself in?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides beauty, I now credit you with a second quality: persistence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRead me well, and then it is natural law that you\u2019ll think twice and three times before throwing me away…. And now, before we go, we had better eat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEat?\u201d said Maskull thoughtfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you eat? Is food in the same category as love?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat food is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFish from the river.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull recollected his promise to Joiwind. At the same time, he felt hungry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there nothing milder?\u201d<\/p>\n

She pulled her mouth scornfully. \u201cYou came through Poolingdred, didn\u2019t you? All the people there are the same. They think life is to be looked at, and not lived. Now that you are visiting Ifdawn, you will have to change your notions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGo catch your fish,\u201d he returned, pulling down his brows.<\/p>\n

The broad, clear waters flowed past them with swelling undulations, from the direction of the mountains. Oceaxe knelt down on the bank, and peered into the depths. Presently her look became tense and concentrated; she dipped her hand in and pulled out some sort of little monster. It was more like a reptile than a fish, with its scaly plates and teeth. She threw it on the ground, and it started crawling about. Suddenly she darted all her will into her sorb. The creature leaped into the air, and fell down dead.<\/p>\n

She picked up a sharp-edged slate, and with it removed the scales and entrails. During this operation, her hands and garment became stained with the light scarlet blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cFind the drude, Maskull,\u201d she said, with a lazy smile. \u201cYou had it last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

He searched for it. It was hard to locate, for its rays had grown dull and feeble in the sunlight, but at last he found it. Oceaxe placed it in the interior of the monster, and left the body lying on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s cooking, I\u2019ll wash some of this blood away, which frightens you so much. Have you never seen blood before?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull gazed at her in perplexity. The old paradox came back\u2014the contrasting sexual characteristics in her person. Her bold, masterful, masculine egotism of manner seemed quite incongruous with the fascinating and disturbing femininity of her voice. A startling idea flashed into his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn your country I\u2019m told there is an act of will called \u2018absorbing.\u2019 What is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

She held her red, dripping hands away from her draperies, and uttered a delicious, clashing laugh. \u201cYou think I am half a man?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnswer my question.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a woman through and through, Maskull\u2014to the marrowbone. But that\u2019s not to say I have never absorbed males.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that means…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNew strings for my harp, Maskull. A wider range of passions, a stormier heart…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor you, yes\u2014But for them?…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. The victims don\u2019t describe their experiences. Probably unhappiness of some sort\u2014if they still know anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a fearful business!\u201d he exclaimed, regarding her gloomily. \u201cOne would think Ifdawn a land of devils.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe gave a beautiful sneer as she took a step toward the river. \u201cBetter men than you\u2014better in every sense of the word\u2014are walking about with foreign wills inside them. You may be as moral as you like, Maskull, but the fact remains, animals were made to be eaten, and simple natures were made to be absorbed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd human rights count for nothing!\u201d<\/p>\n

She had bent over the river\u2019s edge, to wash her arms and hands, but glanced up over her shoulder to answer his remark. \u201cThey do count. But we only regard a man as human for just as long as he\u2019s able to hold his own with others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The flesh was soon cooked, and they breakfasted in silence. Maskull cast heavy, doubtful glances from time to time toward his companion. Whether it was due to the strange quality of the food, or to his long abstention, he did not know, but the meal tasted nauseous, and even cannibalistic. He ate little, and the moment he got up he felt defiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me bury this drude, where I can find it some other time,\u201d said Oceaxe. \u201cOn the next occasion, though, I shall have no Maskull with me, to shock…. Now we have to take to the river.\u201d<\/p>\n

They stepped off the land onto the water. It flowed against them with a sluggish current, but the opposition, instead of hindering them, had the contrary effect\u2014it caused them to exert themselves, and they moved faster. They climbed the river in this way for several miles. The exercise gradually improved the circulation of Maskull\u2019s blood, and he began to look at things in a far more cheerful way. The hot sunshine, the diminished wind, the marvellous cloud scenery, the quiet, crystal forests\u2014all was soothing and delightful. They approached nearer and nearer to the gaily painted heights of Ifdawn.<\/p>\n

There was something enigmatic to him in those bright walls. He was attracted by them, yet felt a sort of awe. They looked real, but at the same time very supernatural. If one could see the portrait of a ghost, painted with a hard, firm outline, in substantial colors, the feelings produced by such a sight would be exactly similar to Maskull\u2019s impressions as he studied the Ifdawn precipices.<\/p>\n

He broke the long silence. \u201cThose mountains have most extraordinary shapes. All the lines are straight and perpendicular\u2014no slopes or curves.\u201d<\/p>\n

She walked backward on the water, in order to face him. \u201cThat\u2019s typical of Ifdawn. Nature is all hammer blows with us. Nothing soft and gradual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear you, but I don\u2019t understand you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll over the Marest you\u2019ll find patches of ground plunging down or rushing up. Trees grow fast. Women and men don\u2019t think twice before acting. One may call Ifdawn a place of quick decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull was impressed. \u201cA fresh, wild, primitive land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is it where you come from?\u201d asked Oceaxe.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, mine is a decrepit world, where nature takes a hundred years to move a foot of solid land. Men and animals go about in flocks. Originality is a lost habit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre there women there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs with you, and not very differently formed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo they love?\u201d<\/p>\n

He laughed. \u201cSo much so that it has changed the dress, speech, and thoughts of the whole sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably they are more beautiful than I?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I think not,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

There was another rather long silence, as they travelled unsteadily onward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your business in Ifdawn?\u201d demanded Oceaxe suddenly.<\/p>\n

He hesitated over his answer. \u201cCan you grasp that it\u2019s possible to have an aim right in front of one, so big that one can\u2019t see it as a whole?\u201d<\/p>\n

She stole a long, inquisitive look at him, \u201cWhat sort of aim?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA moral aim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you proposing to set the world right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI propose nothing\u2014I am waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t wait too long, for time doesn\u2019t wait\u2014especially in Ifdawn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething will happen,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

Oceaxe threw a subtle smile. \u201cSo you have no special destination in the Marest?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, and if you\u2019ll permit me, I will come home with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSingular man!\u201d she said, with a short, thrilling laugh. \u201cThat\u2019s what I have been offering all the time. Of course you will come home with me. As for Crimtyphon…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mentioned that name before. Who is he?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh! My lover, or, as you would say, my husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis doesn\u2019t improve matters,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt leaves them exactly where they were. We merely have to remove him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are certainly misunderstanding each other,\u201d said Maskull, quite startled. \u201cDo you by any chance imagine that I am making a compact with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will do nothing against your will. But you have promised to come home with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me, how do you remove husbands in Ifdawn?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEither you or I must kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

He eyed her for a full minute. \u201cNow we are passing from folly to insanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot at all,\u201d replied Oceaxe. \u201cIt is the too-sad truth. And when you have seen Crimtyphon, you will realise it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m aware I am on a strange planet,\u201d said Maskull slowly, \u201cwhere all sorts of unheard of things may happen, and where the very laws of morality may be different. Still as far as I am concerned, murder is murder, and I\u2019ll have no more to do with a woman who wants to make use of me, to get rid of her husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think me wicked?\u201d demanded Oceaxe steadily.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you had better leave me, Maskull\u2014only\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wish to be consistent, don\u2019t you? Leave all other mad and wicked people as well. Then you\u2019ll find it easier to reform the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull frowned, but said nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell?\u201d demanded Oceaxe, with a half smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll come with you, and I\u2019ll see Crimtyphon\u2014if only to warn him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe broke into a cascade of rich, feminine laughter, but whether at the image conjured up by Maskull\u2019s last words, or from some other cause, he did not know. The conversation dropped.<\/p>\n

At a distance of a couple of miles from the now towering cliffs, the river made a sharp, right-angled turn to the west, and was no longer of use to them on their journey. Maskull stared up doubtfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a stiff climb for a hot morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s rest here a little,\u201d said she, indicating a smooth flat island of black rock, standing up just out of the water in the middle of the river.<\/p>\n

They accordingly went to it, and Maskull sat down. Oceaxe, however, standing graceful and erect, turned her face toward the cliffs opposite, and uttered a piercing and peculiar call.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is that for?\u201d She did not answer. After waiting a minute, she repeated the call. Maskull now saw a large bird detach itself from the top of one of the precipices, and sail slowly down toward them. It was followed by two others. The flight of these birds was exceedingly slow and clumsy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are they?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

She still returned no answer, but smiled rather peculiarly and sat down beside him. Before many minutes he was able to distinguish the shapes and colors of the flying monsters. They were not birds, but creatures with long, snakelike bodies, and ten reptilian legs apiece, terminating in fins which acted as wings. The bodies were of bright blue, the legs and fins were yellow. They were flying, without haste, but in a somewhat ominous fashion, straight toward them. He could make out a long, thin spike projecting from each of the heads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are shrowks,\u201d explained Oceaxe at last. \u201cIf you want to know their intention, I\u2019ll tell you. To make a meal of us. First of all their spikes will pierce us, and then their mouths, which are really suckers, will drain us dry of blood\u2014pretty thoroughly too; there are no half measures with shrowks. They are toothless beasts, so don\u2019t eat flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you show such admirable sangfroid,\u201d said Maskull dryly, \u201cI take it there\u2019s no particular danger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless he instinctively tried to get on to his feet and failed. A new form of paralysis was chaining him to the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you trying to get up?\u201d asked Oceaxe smoothly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, yes, but those cursed reptiles seem to be nailing me down to the rock with their wills. May I ask if you had any special object in view in waking them up?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI assure you the danger is quite real, Maskull. Instead of talking and asking questions, you had much better see what you can do with your<\/i> will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI seem to have no will, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe was seized with a paroxysm of laughter, but it was still rich and beautiful. \u201cIt\u2019s obvious you aren\u2019t a very heroic protector, Maskull. It seems I must play the man, and you the woman. I expected better things of your big body. Why, my husband would send those creatures dancing all around the sky, by way of a joke, before disposing of them. Now watch me. Two of the three I\u2019ll kill; the third we will ride home on. Which one shall we keep?\u201d<\/p>\n

The shrowks continued their slow, wobbling flight toward them. Their bodies were of huge size. They produced in Maskull the same sensation of loathing as insects did. He instinctively understood that as they hunted with their wills, there was no necessity for them to possess a swift motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cChoose which you please,\u201d he said shortly. \u201cThey are equally objectionable to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I\u2019ll choose the leader, as it is presumably the most energetic animal. Watch now.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stood upright, and her sorb suddenly blazed with fire. Maskull felt something snap inside his brain. His limbs were free once more. The two monsters in the rear staggered and darted head foremost toward the earth, one after the other. He watched them crash on the ground, and then lie motionless. The leader still came toward them, but he fancied that its flight was altered in character; it was no longer menacing, but tame and unwilling.<\/p>\n

Oceaxe guided it with her will to the mainland shore opposite their island rock. Its vast bulk lay there extended, awaiting her pleasure. They immediately crossed the water.<\/p>\n

Maskull viewed the shrowk at close quarters. It was about thirty feet long. Its bright-coloured skin was shining, slippery, and leathery; a mane of black hair covered its long neck. Its face was awesome and unnatural, with its carnivorous eyes, frightful stiletto, and blood-sucking cavity. There were true fins on its back and tail.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you a good seat?\u201d asked Oceaxe, patting the creature\u2019s flank. \u201cAs I have to steer, let me jump on first.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pulled up her gown, then climbed up and sat astride the animal\u2019s back, just behind the mane, which she clutched. Between her and the fin there was just room for Maskull. He grasped the two flanks with his outer hands; his third, new arm pressed against Oceaxe\u2019s back, and for additional security he was compelled to encircle her waist with it.<\/p>\n

Directly he did so, he realised that he had been tricked, and that this ride had been planned for one purpose only\u2014to inflame his desires.<\/p>\n

The third arm possessed a function of its own, of which hitherto he had been ignorant. It was a developed magn. But the stream of love which was communicated to it was no longer pure and noble\u2014it was boiling, passionate, and torturing. He gritted his teeth, and kept quiet, but Oceaxe had not plotted the adventure to remain unconscious of his feelings. She looked around, with a golden, triumphant smile. \u201cThe ride will last some time, so hold on well!\u201d Her voice was soft like a flute, but rather malicious.<\/p>\n

Maskull grinned, and said nothing. He dared not remove his arm.<\/p>\n

The shrowk straddled on to its legs. It jerked itself forward, and rose slowly and uncouthly in the air. They began to paddle upward toward the painted cliffs. The motion was swaying, rocking, and sickening; the contact of the brute\u2019s slimy skin was disgusting. All this, however, was merely background to Maskull, as he sat there with closed eyes, holding on to Oceaxe. In the front and centre of his consciousness was the knowledge that he was gripping a fair woman, and that her flesh was responding to his touch like a lovely harp.<\/p>\n

They climbed up and up. He opened his eyes, and ventured to look around him. By this time they were already level with the top of the outer rampart of precipices. There now came in sight a wild archipelago of islands, with jagged outlines, emerging from a sea of air. The islands were mountain summits; or, more accurately speaking, the country was a high tableland, fissured everywhere by narrow and apparently bottomless cracks. These cracks were in some cases like canals, in others like lakes, in others merely holes in the ground, closed in all round. The perpendicular sides of the islands\u2014that is, the upper, visible parts of the innumerable cliff faces\u2014were of bare rock, gaudily coloured; but the level surfaces were a tangle of wild plant life. The taller trees alone were distinguishable from the shrowk\u2019s back. They were of different shapes, and did not look ancient; they were slender and swaying but did not appear very graceful; they looked tough, wiry, and savage.<\/p>\n

As Maskull continued to explore the landscape, he forgot Oceaxe and his passion. Other strange feelings came to the front. The morning was gay and bright. The sun scorched down, quickly-changing clouds sailed across the sky, the earth was vivid, wild, and lonely. Yet he experienced no aesthetic sensations\u2014he felt nothing but an intense longing for action and possession. When he looked at anything, he immediately wanted to deal with it. The atmosphere of the land seemed not free, but sticky; attraction and repulsion were its constituents. Apart from this wish to play a personal part in what was going on around and beneath him, the scenery had no significance for him.<\/p>\n

So preoccupied was he, that his arm partly released its clasp. Oceaxe turned around to gaze at him. Whether or not she was satisfied with what she saw, she uttered a low laugh, like a peculiar chord.<\/p>\n

\u201cCold again so quickly, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you want?\u201d he asked absently, still looking over the side. \u201cIt\u2019s extraordinary how drawn I feel to all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wish to take a hand?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish to get down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, we have a good way to go yet…. So you really feel different?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDifferent from what? What are you talking about?\u201d said Maskull, still lost in abstraction.<\/p>\n

Oceaxe laughed again. \u201cIt would be strange if we couldn\u2019t make a man of you, for the material is excellent.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that, she turned her back once more.<\/p>\n

The air islands differed from water islands in another way. They were not on a plane surface, but sloped upward, like a succession of broken terraces, as the journey progressed. The shrowk had hitherto been flying well above the ground; but now, when a new line of towering cliffs confronted them, Oceaxe did not urge the beast upward, but caused it to enter a narrow canyon, which intersected the mountains like a channel. They were instantly plunged into deep shade. The canal was not above thirty feet wide; the walls stretched upward on both sides for many hundred feet. It was as cool as an ice chamber. When Maskull attempted to plumb the chasm with his eyes, he saw nothing but black obscurity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is at the bottom?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeath for you, if you go to look for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that. I mean, is there any kind of life down there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot that I have ever heard of,\u201d said Oceaxe, \u201cbut of course all things are possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think very likely there is life,\u201d he returned thoughtfully.<\/p>\n

Her ironical laugh sounded out of the gloom. \u201cShall we go down and see?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou find that amusing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, not that. What I do find amusing is the big stranger with the beard, who is so keenly interested in everything except himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull then laughed too. \u201cI happen to be the only thing in Tormance which is not a novelty for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but I am a novelty for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The channel went zigzagging its way through the belly of the mountain, and all the time they were gradually rising.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least I have heard nothing like your voice before,\u201d said Maskull, who, since he had no longer anything to look at, was at last ready for conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter with my voice?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all that I can distinguish of you now; that\u2019s why I mentioned it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t it clear\u2014don\u2019t I speak distinctly?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, it\u2019s clear enough, but\u2014it\u2019s inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInappropriate?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t explain further,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cbut whether you are speaking or laughing, your voice is by far the loveliest and strangest instrument I have ever listened to. And yet I repeat, it is inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean that my nature doesn\u2019t correspond?\u201d<\/p>\n

He was just considering his reply, when their talk was abruptly broken off by a huge and terrifying, but not very loud sound rising up from the gulf directly underneath them. It was a low, grinding, roaring thunder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ground is rising under us!\u201d cried Oceaxe.<\/p>\n

\u201cShall we escape?\u201d<\/p>\n

She made no answer, but urged the shrowk\u2019s flight upward, at such a steep gradient that they retained their seats with difficulty. The floor of the canyon, upheaved by some mighty subterranean force, could be heard, and almost felt, coming up after them, like a gigantic landslip in the wrong direction. The cliffs cracked, and fragments began to fall. A hundred awful noises filled the air, growing louder and louder each second\u2014splitting, hissing, cracking, grinding, booming, exploding, roaring. When they had still fifty feet or so to go, to reach the top, a sort of dark, indefinite sea of broken rocks and soil appeared under their feet, ascending rapidly, with irresistible might, accompanied by the most horrible noises. The canal was filled up for two hundred yards, before and behind them. Millions of tons of solid matter seemed to be raised. The shrowk in its ascent was caught by the uplifted debris. Beast and riders experienced in that moment all the horrors of an earthquake\u2014they were rolled violently over, and thrown among the rocks and dirt. All was thunder, instability, motion, confusion.<\/p>\n

Before they had time to realise their position, they were in the sunlight. The upheaval still continued. In another minute or two the valley floor had formed a new mountain, a hundred feet or more higher than the old. Then its movement ceased suddenly. Every noise stopped, as if by magic; not a rock moved. Oceaxe and Maskull picked themselves up and examined themselves for cuts and bruises. The shrowk lay on its side, panting violently, and sweating with fright.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a nasty affair,\u201d said Maskull, flicking the dirt off his person.<\/p>\n

Oceaxe staunched a cut on her chin with a corner of her robe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might have been far worse…. I mean, it\u2019s bad enough to come up, but it\u2019s death to go down, and that happens just as often.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever induces you to live in such a country?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, Maskull. Habit, I suppose. I have often thought of moving out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA good deal must be forgiven you for having to spend your life in a place like this, where one is obviously never safe from one minute to another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will learn by degrees,\u201d she answered, smiling.<\/p>\n

She looked hard at the monster, and it got heavily to its feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet on again, Maskull!\u201d she directed, climbing back to her perch. \u201cWe haven\u2019t too much time to waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

He obeyed. They resumed their interrupted flight, this time over the mountains, and in full sunlight. Maskull settled down again to his thoughts. The peculiar atmosphere of the country continued to soak into his brain. His will became so restless and uneasy that merely to sit there in inactivity was a torture. He could scarcely endure not to be doing something.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow secretive you are, Maskull!\u201d said Oceaxe quietly, without turning her head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat secrets\u2014what do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I know perfectly well what\u2019s passing inside you. Now I think it wouldn\u2019t be amiss to ask you\u2014is friendship still enough?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, don\u2019t ask me anything,\u201d growled Maskull. \u201cI\u2019ve far too many problems in my head already. I only wish I could answer some of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stared stonily at the landscape. The beast was winging its way toward a distant mountain, of singular shape. It was an enormous natural quadrilateral pyramid, rising in great terraces and terminating in a broad, flat top, on which what looked like green snow still lingered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat mountain is that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisscourn. The highest point in Ifdawn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we going there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should we go there? But if you were going on farther, it might be worth your while to pay a visit to the top. It commands the whole land as far as the Sinking Sea and Swaylone\u2019s Island\u2014and beyond. You can also see Alppain from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a sight I mean to see before I have finished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you, Maskull?\u201d She turned around and put her hand on his wrist. \u201cStay with me, and one day we\u2019ll go to Disscourn together.\u201d<\/p>\n

He grunted unintelligibly.<\/p>\n

There were no signs of human existence in the country under their feet. While Maskull was still grimly regarding it, a large tract of forest not far ahead, bearing many trees and rocks, suddenly subsided with an awful roar and crashed down into an invisible gulf. What was solid land one minute became a clean-cut chasm the next. He jumped violently up with the shock. \u201cThis is frightful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe remained unmoved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, life here must be absolutely impossible,\u201d he went on, when he had somewhat recovered himself. \u201cA man would need nerves of steel…. Is there no means at all of foreseeing a catastrophe like this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I suppose we wouldn\u2019t be alive if there weren\u2019t,\u201d replied Oceaxe, with composure. \u201cWe are more or less clever at it\u2014but that doesn\u2019t prevent our often getting caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had better teach me the signs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have many things to go over together. And among them, I expect, will be whether we are to stay in the land at all…. But first let us get home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow far is it now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is right in front of you,\u201d said Oceaxe, pointing with her forefinger. \u201cYou can see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He followed the direction of the finger and, after a few questions, made out the spot she was indicating. It was a broad peninsula, about two miles distant. Three of its sides rose sheer out of a lake of air, the bottom of which was invisible; its fourth was a bottleneck, joining it to the mainland. It was overgrown with bright vegetation, distinct in the brilliant atmosphere. A single tall tree, shooting up in the middle of the peninsula, dwarfed everything else; it was wide and shady with sea-green leaves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder if Crimtyphon is there,\u201d remarked Oceaxe. \u201cCan I see two figures, or am I mistaken?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI also see something,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

In twenty minutes they were directly above the peninsula, at a height of about fifty feet. The shrowk slackened speed, and came to earth on the mainland, exactly at the gateway of the isthmus. They both descended\u2014Maskull with aching thighs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat shall we do with the monster?\u201d asked Oceaxe. Without waiting for a suggestion, she patted its hideous face with her hand. \u201cFly away home! I may want you some other time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It gave a stupid grunt, elevated itself on its legs again, and, after half running, half flying for a few yards, rose awkwardly into the air, and paddled away in the same direction from which they had come. They watched it out of sight, and then Oceaxe started to cross the neck of land, followed by Maskull.<\/p>\n

Branchspell\u2019s white rays beat down on them with pitiless force. The sky had by degrees become cloudless, and the wind had dropped entirely. The ground was a rich riot of vividly coloured ferns, shrubs, and grasses. Through these could be seen here and there the golden chalky soil\u2014and occasionally a glittering, white metallic boulder. Everything looked extraordinary and barbaric. Maskull was at last walking in the weird Ifdawn Marest which had created such strange feelings in him when seen from a distance…. And now he felt no wonder or curiosity at all, but only desired to meet human beings\u2014so intense had grown his will. He longed to test his powers on his fellow creatures, and nothing else seemed of the least importance to him.<\/p>\n

On the peninsula all was coolness and delicate shade. It resembled a large copse, about two acres in extent. In the heart of the tangle of small trees and undergrowth was a partially cleared space\u2014perhaps the roots of the giant tree growing in the centre had killed off the smaller fry all around it. By the side of the tree sparkled a little, bubbling fountain, whose water was iron-red. The precipices on all sides, overhung with thorns, flowers, and creepers, invested the enclosure with an air of wild and charming seclusion\u2014a mythological mountain god might have dwelt here.<\/p>\n

Maskull\u2019s restless eye left everything, to fall on the two men who formed the centre of the picture.<\/p>\n

One was reclining, in the ancient Grecian fashion of banqueters on a tall couch of mosses, sprinkled with flowers; he rested on one arm, and was eating a kind of plum, with calm enjoyment. A pile of these plums lay on the couch beside him. The over-spreading branches of the tree completely sheltered him from the sun. His small, boyish form was clad in a rough skin, leaving his limbs naked. Maskull could not tell from his face whether he were a young boy or a grown man. The features were smooth, soft, and childish, their expression was seraphically tranquil; but his violet upper eye was sinister and adult. His skin was of the colour of yellow ivory. His long, curling hair matched his sorb\u2014it was violet. The second man was standing erect before the other, a few feet away from him. He was short and muscular, his face was broad, bearded, and rather commonplace, but there was something terrible about his appearance. The features were distorted by a deep-seated look of pain, despair, and horror.<\/p>\n

Oceaxe, without pausing, strolled lightly and lazily up to the outermost shadows of the tree, some distance from the couch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have met with an uplift,\u201d she remarked carelessly, looking toward the youth.<\/p>\n

He eyed her, but said nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is your plant man getting on?\u201d Her tone was artificial but extremely beautiful. While waiting for an answer, she sat down on the ground, her legs gracefully thrust under her body, and pulled down the skirt of her robe. Maskull remained standing just behind her, with crossed arms.<\/p>\n

There was silence for a minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you answer your mistress, Sature?\u201d said the boy on the couch, in a calm, treble voice.<\/p>\n

The man addressed did not alter his expression, but replied in a strangled tone, \u201cI am getting on very well, Oceaxe. There are already buds on my feet. Tomorrow I hope to take root.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull felt a rising storm inside him. He was perfectly aware that although these words were uttered by Sature, they were being dictated by the boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he says is quite true,\u201d remarked the latter. \u201cTomorrow roots will reach the ground, and in a few days they ought to be well established. Then I shall set to work to convert his arms into branches, and his fingers into leaves. It will take longer to transform his head into a crown, but still I hope\u2014in fact I can almost promise that within a month you and I, Oceaxe, will be plucking and enjoying fruit from this new and remarkable tree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love these natural experiments,\u201d he concluded, putting out his hand for another plum. \u201cThey thrill me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis must be a joke,\u201d said Maskull, taking a step forward.<\/p>\n

The youth looked at him serenely. He made no reply, but Maskull felt as if he were being thrust backward by an iron hand on his throat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe morning\u2019s work is now concluded, Sature. Come here again after Blodsombre. After tonight you will remain here permanently, I expect, so you had better set to work to clear a patch of ground for your roots. Never forget\u2014however fresh and charming these plants appear to you now, in the future they will be your deadliest rivals and enemies. Now you may go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man limped painfully away, across the isthmus, out of sight. Oceaxe yawned.<\/p>\n

Maskull pushed his way forward, as if against a wall. \u201cAre you joking, or are you a devil?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am Crimtyphon. I never joke. For that epithet of yours, I will devise a new punishment for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The duel of wills commenced without ceremony. Oceaxe got up, stretched her beautiful limbs, smiled, and prepared herself to witness the struggle between her old lover and her new. Crimtyphon smiled too; he reached out his hand for more fruit, but did not eat it. Maskull\u2019s self-control broke down and he dashed at the boy, choking with red fury\u2014his beard wagged and his face was crimson. When he realised with whom he had to deal, Crimtyphon left off smiling, slipped off the couch, and threw a terrible and malignant glare into his sorb. Maskull staggered. He gathered together all the brute force of his will, and by sheer weight continued his advance. The boy shrieked and ran behind the couch, trying to get away…. His opposition suddenly collapsed. Maskull stumbled forward, recovered himself, and then vaulted clear over the high pile of mosses, to get at his antagonist. He fell on top of him with all his bulk. Grasping his throat, he pulled his little head completely around, so that the neck was broken. Crimtyphon immediately died.<\/p>\n

The corpse lay underneath the tree with its face upturned. Maskull viewed it attentively, and as he did so an expression of awe and wonder came into his own countenance. In the moment of death Crimtyphon\u2019s face had undergone a startling and even shocking alteration. Its personal character had wholly vanished, giving place to a vulgar, grinning mask which expressed nothing.<\/p>\n

He did not have to search his mind long, to remember where he had seen the brother of that expression. It was identical with that on the face of the apparition at the s\u00c3\u00a9ance, after Krag had dealt with it.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 10. TYDOMIN<\/h2>\n

Oceaxe sat down carelessly on the couch of mosses, and began eating the plums.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see, you had to kill him, Maskull,\u201d she said, in a rather quizzical voice.<\/p>\n

He came away from the corpse and regarded her\u2014still red, and still breathing hard. \u201cIt\u2019s no joking matter. You especially ought to keep quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he was your husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think I ought to show grief\u2014when I feel none?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t pretend, woman!\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe smiled. \u201cFrom your manner one would think you were accusing me of some crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull literally snorted at her words. \u201cWhat, you live with filth\u2014you live in the arms of a morbid monstrosity and then\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, now I grasp it,\u201d she said, in a tone of perfect detachment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Maskull,\u201d she proceeded, after a pause, \u201cand who gave you the right to rule my conduct? Am I not mistress of my own person?\u201d<\/p>\n

He looked at her with disgust, but said nothing. There was another long interval of silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never loved him,\u201d said Oceaxe at last, looking at the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat makes it all the worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does all this mean\u2014what do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing from you\u2014absolutely nothing\u2014thank heaven!\u201d<\/p>\n

She gave a hard laugh. \u201cYou come here with your foreign preconceptions and expect us all to bow down to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat preconceptions?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because Crimtyphon\u2019s sports are strange to you, you murder him\u2014and you would like to murder me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSports! That diabolical cruelty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, you\u2019re sentimental!\u201d said Oceaxe contemptuously. \u201cWhy do you need to make such a fuss over that man? Life is life, all the world over, and one form is as good as another. He was only to be made a tree, like a million other trees. If they can endure the life, why can\u2019t he?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is Ifdawn morality!\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe began to grow angry. \u201cIt\u2019s you who have peculiar ideas. You rave about the beauty of flowers and trees\u2014you think them divine. But when it\u2019s a question of taking on this divine, fresh, pure, enchanting loveliness yourself, in your own person, it immediately becomes a cruel and wicked degradation. Here we have a strange riddle, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOceaxe, you\u2019re a beautiful, heartless wild beast\u2014nothing more. If you weren\u2019t a woman\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u201d\u2014curling her lip\u2014\u201clet us hear what would happen if I weren\u2019t a woman?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull bit his nails.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. I can\u2019t touch you\u2014though there\u2019s certainly not the difference of a hair between you and your boy-husband. For this you may thank my \u2018foreign preconceptions.\u2019… Farewell!\u201d<\/p>\n

He turned to go. Oceaxe\u2019s eyes slanted at him through their long lashes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are you off to, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a matter of no importance, for wherever I go it must be a change for the better. You walking whirlpools of crime!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWait a minute. I only want to say this. Blodsombre is just starting, and you had better stay here till the afternoon. We can quickly put that body out of sight, and, as you seem to detest me so much, the place is big enough\u2014we needn\u2019t talk, or even see each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t wish to breathe the same air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSingular man!\u201d She was sitting erect and motionless, like a beautiful statue. \u201cAnd what of your wonderful interview with Surtur, and all the undone things which you set out to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou aren\u2019t the one I shall speak to about that. But\u201d\u2014he eyed her meditatively\u2014\u201cwhile I\u2019m still here you can tell me this. What\u2019s the meaning of the expression on that corpse\u2019s face?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that another crime, Maskull? All dead people look like that. Ought they not to?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI once heard it called \u2018Crystalman\u2019s face.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not? We are all daughters and sons of Crystalman. It is doubtless the family resemblance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has also been told me that Surtur and Crystalman are one and the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have wise and truthful acquaintances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen how could it have been Surtur whom I saw?\u201d said Maskull, more to himself than to her. \u201cThat apparition was something quite different.\u201d<\/p>\n

She dropped her mocking manner and, sliding imperceptibly toward him, gently pulled his arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see\u2014we have to talk. Sit down beside me, and ask me your questions. I\u2019m not excessively smart, but I\u2019ll try to be of assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull permitted himself to be dragged down with soft violence. She bent toward him, as if confidentially, and contrived that her sweet, cool, feminine breath should fan his cheek.<\/p>\n

\u201cAren\u2019t you here to alter the evil to the good, Maskull? Then what does it matter who sent you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can you possibly know of good and evil?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you only instructing the initiated?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho am I, to instruct anybody? However, you\u2019re quite right. I wish to do what I can\u2014not because I am qualified, but because I am here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe\u2019s voice dropped to a whisper. \u201cYou\u2019re a giant, both in body and soul. What you want to do, you can<\/i> do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that your honest opinion, or are you flattering me for your own ends?\u201d<\/p>\n

She sighed. \u201cDon\u2019t you see how difficult you are making the conversation? Let\u2019s talk about your work, not about ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull suddenly noticed a strange blue light glowing in the northern sky. It was from Alppain, but Alppain itself was behind the hills. While he was observing it, a peculiar wave of self-denial, of a disquieting nature, passed through him. He looked at Oceaxe, and it struck him for the first time that he was being unnecessarily brutal to her. He had forgotten that she was a woman, and defenceless.<\/p>\n

\u201cWon\u2019t you stay?\u201d she asked all of a sudden, quite openly and frankly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I think I\u2019ll stay,\u201d he replied slowly. \u201cAnd another thing, Oceaxe\u2014if I\u2019ve misjudged your character, pray forgive me. I\u2019m a hasty, passionate man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are enough easygoing men. Hard knocks are a good medicine for vicious hearts. And you didn\u2019t misjudge my character, as far as you went\u2014only, every woman has more than one character. Don\u2019t you know that?\u201d<\/p>\n

During the pause that followed, a snapping of twigs was heard, and both looked around, startled. They saw a woman stepping slowly across the neck that separated them from the mainland.<\/p>\n

\u201cTydomin,\u201d muttered Oceaxe, in a vexed, frightened voice. She immediately moved away from Maskull and stood up.<\/p>\n

The newcomer was of middle height, very slight and graceful. She was no longer quite young. Her face wore the composure of a woman who knows her way about the world. It was intensely pale, and under its quiescence there just was a glimpse of something strange and dangerous. It was curiously alluring, though not exactly beautiful. Her hair was clustering and boyish, reaching only to the neck. It was of a strange indigo colour. She was quaintly attired in a tunic and breeches, pieced together from the square, blue-green plates of some reptile. Her small, ivory-white breasts were exposed. Her sorb was black and sad\u2014rather contemplative.<\/p>\n

Without once glancing up at Oceaxe and Maskull, she quietly glided straight toward Crimtyphon\u2019s corpse. When she arrived within a few feet of it, she stopped and looked down, with arms folded.<\/p>\n

Oceaxe drew Maskull a little away, and whispered, \u201cIt\u2019s Crimtyphon\u2019s other wife, who lives under Disscourn. She\u2019s a most dangerous woman. Be careful what you say. If she asks you to do anything, refuse it outright.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe poor soul looks harmless enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, she does\u2014but the poor soul is quite capable of swallowing up Krag himself…. Now, play the man.\u201d<\/p>\n

The murmur of their voices seemed to attract Tydomin\u2019s notice, for she now slowly turned her eyes toward them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho killed him?\u201d she demanded.<\/p>\n

Her voice was so soft, low, and refined, that Maskull hardly was able to catch the words. The sounds, however, lingered in his ears, and curiously enough seemed to grow stronger, instead of fainter.<\/p>\n

Oceaxe whispered, \u201cDon\u2019t say a word, leave it all to me.\u201d Then she swung her body around to face Tydomin squarely, and said aloud, \u201cI killed him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin\u2019s words by this time were ringing in Maskull\u2019s head like an actual physical sound. There was no question of being able to ignore them; he had to make an open confession of his act, whatever the consequences might be. Quietly taking Oceaxe by the shoulder and putting her behind him, he said in a low, but perfectly distinct voice, \u201cIt was I that killed Crimtyphon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe looked both haughty and frightened. \u201cMaskull says that so as to shield me, as he thinks. I require no shield, Maskull. I killed him, Tydomin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe you, Oceaxe. You did murder him. Not with your own strength, for you brought this man along for the purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull took a couple of steps toward Tydomin. \u201cIt\u2019s of little consequence who killed him, for he\u2019s better dead than alive, in my opinion. Still, I did it. Oceaxe had no hand in the affair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin appeared not to hear him\u2014she looked beyond him at Oceaxe musingly. \u201cWhen you murdered him, didn\u2019t it occur to you that I would come here, to find out?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI never once thought of you,\u201d replied Oceaxe, with an angry laugh. \u201cDo you really imagine that I carry your image with me wherever I go?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone were to murder your lover here, what would you do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLying hypocrite!\u201d Oceaxe spat out. \u201cYou never were in love with Crimtyphon. You always hated me, and now you think it an excellent opportunity to make it good… now that Crimtyphon\u2019s gone…. For we both know he would have made a footstool of you, if I had asked him. He worshiped me, but he laughed at you. He thought you ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin flashed a quick, gentle smile at Maskull. \u201cIs it necessary for you to listen to all this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Without question, and feeling it the right thing to do, he walked away out of earshot.<\/p>\n

Tydomin approached Oceaxe. \u201cPerhaps because my beauty fades and I\u2019m no longer young, I needed him<\/i> all the more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe gave a kind of snarl. \u201cWell, he\u2019s dead, and that\u2019s the end of it. What are you going to do now, Tydomin?\u201d<\/p>\n

The other woman smiled faintly and rather pathetically. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing left to do, except mourn the dead. You won\u2019t grudge me that last office?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want to stay here?\u201d demanded Oceaxe suspiciously.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Oceaxe dear, I wish to be alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen what is to become of us?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought that you and your lover\u2014what is his name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought that perhaps you two would go to Disscourn, and spend Blodsombre at my home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oceaxe called out aloud to Maskull, \u201cWill you come with me now to Disscourn?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you wish,\u201d returned Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo first, Oceaxe. I must question your friend about Crimtyphon\u2019s death. I won\u2019t keep him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you question me, rather?\u201d demanded Oceaxe, looking up sharply.<\/p>\n

Tydomin gave the shadow of a smile. \u201cWe know each other too well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlay no tricks!\u201d said Oceaxe, and she turned to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely you must be dreaming,\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cThat\u2019s the way\u2014unless you want to walk over the cliffside.\u201d<\/p>\n

The path Oceaxe had chosen led across the isthmus. The direction which Tydomin proposed for her was over the edge of the precipice, into empty space.<\/p>\n

\u201cShaping! I must be mad,\u201d cried Oceaxe, with a laugh. And she obediently followed the other\u2019s finger.<\/p>\n

She walked straight on toward the edge of the abyss, twenty paces away. Maskull pulled his beard around, and wondered what she was doing. Tydomin remained standing with outstretched finger, watching her. Without hesitation, without slackening her step once, Oceaxe strolled on\u2014and when she had reached the extreme end of the land she still took one more step.<\/p>\n

Maskull saw her limbs wrench as she stumbled over the edge. Her body disappeared, and as it did so an awful shriek sounded.<\/p>\n

Disillusionment had come to her an instant too late. He tore himself out of his stupor, rushed to the edge of the cliff, threw himself on the ground recklessly, and looked over…. Oceaxe had vanished.<\/p>\n

He continued staring wildly down for several minutes, and then began to sob. Tydomin came up to him, and he got to his feet.<\/p>\n

The blood kept rushing to his face and leaving it again. It was some time before he could speak at all. Then he brought out the words with difficulty. \u201cYou shall pay for this, Tydomin. But first I want to hear why you did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHadn\u2019t I cause?\u201d she asked, standing with downcast eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas it pure fiendishness?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was for Crimtyphon\u2019s sake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had nothing to do with that death. I told you so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are loyal to her, and I\u2019m loyal to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLoyal? You\u2019ve made a terrible blunder. She wasn\u2019t my mistress. I killed Crimtyphon for quite another reason. She had absolutely no part in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWasn\u2019t she your lover?\u201d asked Tydomin slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve made a terrible mistake,\u201d repeated Maskull. \u201cI killed him because he was a wild beast. She was as innocent of his death as you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin\u2019s face took on a hard look. \u201cSo you are guilty of two deaths.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a dreadful silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy couldn\u2019t you believe me?\u201d asked Maskull, who was pale and sweating painfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho gave you the right to kill him?\u201d demanded Tydomin sternly.<\/p>\n

He said nothing, and perhaps did not hear her question.<\/p>\n

She sighed two or three times and began to stir restlessly. \u201cSince you murdered him, you must help me bury him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s to be done? This is a most fearful crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are a most fearful man. Why did you come here, to do all this? What are we to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately you are right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another pause ensued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no use standing here,\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cNothing can be done. You must come with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCome with you? Where to?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo Disscourn. There\u2019s a burning lake on the far side of it. He always wished to be cast there after death. We can do that after Blodsombre\u2014in the meantime we must take him home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a callous, heartless woman. Why should he be buried when that poor girl must remain unburied?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that\u2019s out of the question,\u201d replied Tydomin quietly.<\/p>\n

Maskull\u2019s eyes roamed about agitatedly, apparently seeing nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must do something,\u201d she continued. \u201cI shall go. You can\u2019t wish to stay here alone?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I couldn\u2019t stay here\u2014and why should I want to? You want me to carry the corpse?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can\u2019t carry himself, and you murdered him. Perhaps it will ease your mind to carry it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEase my mind?\u201d said Maskull, rather stupidly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s only one relief for remorse, and that\u2019s voluntary pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd have you no remorse?\u201d he asked, fixing her with a heavy eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese crimes are yours, Maskull,\u201d she said in a low but incisive voice.<\/p>\n

They walked over to Crimtyphon\u2019s body, and Maskull hoisted it on to his shoulders. It weighed heavier than he had thought. Tydomin did not offer to assist him to adjust the ghastly burden.<\/p>\n

She crossed the isthmus, followed by Maskull. Their path lay through sunshine and shadow. Branchspell was blazing in a cloudless sky, the heat was insufferable\u2014streams of sweat coursed down his face, and the corpse seemed to grow heavier and heavier. Tydomin always walked in front of him. His eyes were fastened in an unseeing stare on her white, womanish calves; he looked neither to right nor left. His features grew sullen. At the end of ten minutes he suddenly allowed his burden to slip off his shoulders on to the ground, where it lay sprawled every which way. He called out to Tydomin.<\/p>\n

She quickly looked around.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome here. It has just occurred to me\u201d\u2014he laughed\u2014\u201cwhy should I be carrying this corpse\u2014and why should I be following you at all? What surprises me is, why this has never struck me before.\u201d<\/p>\n

She at once came back to him. \u201cI suppose you\u2019re tired, Maskull. Let us sit down. Perhaps you have come a long way this morning?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, it\u2019s not tiredness, but a sudden gleam of sense. Do you know of any reason why I should be acting as your porter?\u201d He laughed again, but nevertheless sat down on the ground beside her.<\/p>\n

Tydomin neither looked at him nor answered. Her head was half bent, so as to face the northern sky, where the Alppain light was still glowing. Maskull followed her gaze, and also watched the glow for a moment or two in silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you speak?\u201d he asked at last.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does that light suggest to you, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not speaking of that light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t it suggest anything at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps it doesn\u2019t. What does it matter?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot sacrifice?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull grew sullen again. \u201cSacrifice of what? What do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHasn\u2019t it entered your head yet,\u201d said Tydomin, looking straight in front of her, and speaking in her delicate, hard manner, \u201cthat this adventure of yours will scarcely come to an end until you have made some sort of sacrifice?\u201d<\/p>\n

He returned no answer, and she said nothing more. In a few minutes\u2019 time Maskull got up of his own accord, and irreverently, and almost angrily, threw Crimtyphon\u2019s corpse over his shoulder again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow far do we have to go?\u201d he asked in a surly tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn hour\u2019s walk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLead on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, this isn\u2019t the sacrifice I mean,\u201d said Tydomin quietly, as she went on in front.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately they reached more difficult ground. They had to pass from peak to peak, as from island to island. In some cases they were able to stride or jump across, but in others they had to make use of rude bridges of fallen timber. It appeared to be a frequented path. Underneath were the black, impenetrable abysses\u2014on the surface were the glaring sunshine, the gay, painted rocks, the chaotic tangle of strange plants. There were countless reptiles and insects. The latter were thicker built than those of Earth\u2014consequently still more disgusting, and some of them were of enormous size. One monstrous insect, as large as a horse, stood right in the centre of their path without budging. It was armour-plated, had jaws like scimitars, and underneath its body was a forest of legs. Tydomin gave one malignant look at it, and sent it crashing into the gulf.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat have I to offer, except my life?\u201d Maskull suddenly broke out. \u201cAnd what good is that? It won\u2019t bring that poor girl back into the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSacrifice is not for utility. It\u2019s a penalty which we pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point is whether you can go on enjoying life, after what has happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

She waited for Maskull to come even with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps you imagine I\u2019m not man enough\u2014you imagine that because I allowed poor Oceaxe to die for me\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe did die for you,\u201d said Tydomin, in a quiet, emphatic voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be a second blunder of yours,\u201d returned Maskull, just as firmly. \u201cI was not in love with Oceaxe, and I\u2019m not in love with life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour life is not required.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I don\u2019t understand what you want, or what you are speaking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not for me to ask a sacrifice from you, Maskull. That would be compliance on your part, but not sacrifice. You must wait until you feel there\u2019s nothing else for you to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all very mysterious.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conversation was abruptly cut short by a prolonged and frightful crashing, roaring sound, coming from a short distance ahead. It was accompanied by a violent oscillation of the ground on which they stood. They looked up, startled, just in time to witness the final disappearance of a huge mass of forest land, not two hundred yards in front of them. Several acres of trees, plants, rocks, and soil, with all its teeming animal life, vanished before their eyes, like a magic story. The new chasm was cut, as if by a knife. Beyond its farther edge the Alppain glow burned blue just over the horizon.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we shall have to make a detour,\u201d said Tydomin, halting.<\/p>\n

Maskull caught hold of her with his third hand. \u201cListen to me, while I try to describe what I\u2019m feeling. When I saw that landslip, everything I have heard about the last destruction of the world came into my mind. It seemed to me as if I were actually witnessing it, and that the world were really falling to pieces. Then, where the land was, we now have this empty, awful gulf\u2014that\u2019s to say, nothing<\/i>\u2014and it seems to me as if our life will come to the same condition, where there was something there will be nothing. But that terrible blue glare on the opposite side is exactly like the eye of fate. It accuses us, and demands what we have made of our life, which is no more. At the same time, it is grand and joyful. The joy consists in this\u2014that it is in our power to give freely what will later on be taken from us by force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin watched him attentively. \u201cThen your feeling is that your life is worthless, and you make a present of it to the first one who asks?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it goes beyond that. I feel that the only thing worth living for is to be so magnanimous that fate itself will be astonished at us. Understand me. It isn\u2019t cynicism, or bitterness, or despair, but heroism…. It\u2019s hard to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow you shall hear what sacrifice I offer you, Maskull. It\u2019s a heavy one, but that\u2019s what you seem to wish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is so. In my present mood it can\u2019t be too heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, if you are in earnest, resign your body to me. Now that Crimtyphon\u2019s dead, I\u2019m tired of being a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI fail to comprehend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, then. I wish to start a new existence in your body. I wish to be a male. I see it isn\u2019t worth while being a woman. I mean to dedicate my own body to Crimtyphon. I shall tie his body and mine together, and give them a common funeral in the burning lake. That\u2019s the sacrifice I offer you. As I said, it\u2019s a hard one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you do ask me to die. Though how you can make use of my body is difficult to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I don\u2019t ask you to die. You will go on living.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is it possible without a body?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin gazed at him earnestly. \u201cThere are many such beings, even in your world. There you call them spirits, apparitions, phantoms. They are in reality living wills, deprived of material bodies, always longing to act and enjoy, but quite unable to do so. Are you noble-minded enough to accept such a state, do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s possible, I accept it,\u201d replied Maskull quietly. \u201cNot in spite of its heaviness, but because of it. But how is it possible?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUndoubtedly there are very many things possible in our world of which you have no conception. Now let us wait till we get home. I don\u2019t hold you to your word, for unless it\u2019s a free sacrifice I will have nothing to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not a man who speaks lightly. If you can perform this miracle, you have my consent, once for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we\u2019ll leave it like that for the present,\u201d said Tydomin sadly.<\/p>\n

They proceeded on their way. Owing to the subsidence, Tydomin seemed rather doubtful at first as to the right road, but by making a long divergence they eventually got around to the other side of the newly formed chasm. A little later on, in a narrow copse crowning a miniature, insulated peak, they fell in with a man. He was resting himself against a tree, and looked tired, overheated, and despondent. He was young. His beardless expression bore an expression of unusual sincerity, and in other respects he seemed a hardy, hardworking youth, of an intellectual type. His hair was thick, short, and flaxen. He possessed neither a sorb nor a third arm\u2014so presumably he was not a native of Ifdawn. His forehead, however, was disfigured by what looked like a haphazard assortment of eyes, eight in number, of different sizes and shapes. They went in pairs, and whenever two were in use, it was indicated by a peculiar shining\u2014the rest remained dull, until their turn came. In addition to the upper eyes he had the two lower ones, but they were vacant and lifeless. This extraordinary battery of eyes, alternatively alive and dead, gave the young man an appearance of almost alarming mental activity. He was wearing nothing but a sort of skin kilt. Maskull seemed somehow to recognise the face, though he had certainly never set eyes on it before.<\/p>\n

Tydomin suggested to him to set down the corpse, and both sat down to rest in the shade.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuestion him, Maskull,\u201d she said, rather carelessly, jerking her head toward the stranger.<\/p>\n

Maskull sighed and asked aloud, from his seat on the ground, \u201cWhat\u2019s your name, and where do you come from?\u201d<\/p>\n

The man studied him for a few moments, first with one pair of eyes, then with another, then with a third. He next turned his attention to Tydomin, who occupied him a still longer time. He replied at last, in a dry, manly, nervous voice. \u201cI am Digrung. I have arrived here from Matterplay.\u201d His colour kept changing, and Maskull suddenly realised of whom he reminded him. It was of Joiwind.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps you\u2019re going to Poolingdred, Digrung?\u201d he inquired, interested.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a matter of fact I am\u2014if I can find my way out of this accursed country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPossibly you are acquainted with Joiwind there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s my sister. I\u2019m on my way to see her now. Why, do you know her?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI met her yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your name, then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shall tell her I met you. This will be our first meeting for four years. Is she well, and happy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth, as far as I could judge. You know Panawe?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHer husband\u2014yes. But where do you come from? I\u2019ve seen nothing like you before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom another world. Where is Matterplay?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first country one comes to beyond the Sinking Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is it like there\u2014how do you amuse yourselves? The same old murders and sudden deaths?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you ill?\u201d asked Digrung. \u201cWho is this woman, why are you following at her heels like a slave? She looks insane to me. What\u2019s that corpse\u2014why are you dragging it around the country with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin smiled. \u201cI\u2019ve already heard it said about Matterplay, that if one sows an answer there, a rich crop of questions immediately springs up. But why do you make this unprovoked attack on me, Digrung?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t attack you, woman, but I know you. I see into you, and I see insanity. That wouldn\u2019t matter, but I don\u2019t like to see a man of intelligence like Maskull caught in your filthy meshes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose even you clever Matterplay people sometimes misjudge character. However, I don\u2019t mind. Your opinion\u2019s nothing to me, Digrung. You\u2019d better answer his questions, Maskull. Not for his own sake\u2014but your feminine friend is sure to be curious about your having been seen carrying a dead man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull\u2019s underlip shot out. \u201cTell your sister nothing, Digrung. Don\u2019t mention my name at all. I don\u2019t want her to know about this meeting of ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t wish it\u2014isn\u2019t that enough?\u201d<\/p>\n

Digrung looked impassive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThoughts and words,\u201d he said, \u201cwhich don\u2019t correspond with the real events of the world are considered most shameful in Matterplay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not asking you to lie, only to keep silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hide the truth is a special branch of lying. I can\u2019t accede to your wish. I must tell Joiwind everything, as far as I know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull got up, and Tydomin followed his example.<\/p>\n

She touched Digrung on the arm and gave him a strange look. \u201cThe dead man is my husband, and Maskull murdered him. Now you\u2019ll understand why he wishes you to hold your tongue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guessed there was some foul play,\u201d said Digrung. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter\u2014I can\u2019t falsify facts. Joiwind must know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou refuse to consider her feelings?\u201d said Maskull, turning pale.<\/p>\n

\u201cFeelings which flourish on illusions, and sicken and die on realities, aren\u2019t worth considering. But Joiwind\u2019s are not of that kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you decline to do what I ask, at least return home without seeing her; your sister will get very little pleasure out of the meeting when she hears your news.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are these strange relations between you?\u201d demanded Digrung, eying him with suddenly aroused suspicion.<\/p>\n

Maskull stared back in a sort of bewilderment. \u201cGood God! You don\u2019t doubt your own sister. That pure angel!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin caught hold of him delicately. \u201cI don\u2019t know Joiwind, but, whoever she is and whatever she\u2019s like, I know this\u2014she\u2019s more fortunate in her friend than in her brother. Now, if you really value her happiness, Maskull, you will have to take some firm step or other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean to. Digrung, I shall stop your journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you intend a second murder, no doubt you are big enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull turned around to Tydomin and laughed. \u201cI seem to be leaving a wake of corpses behind me on this journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy a corpse? There\u2019s no need to kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks for that!\u201d said Digrung dryly. \u201cAll the same, some crime is about to burst. I feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat must I do, then?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not my business, and to tell the truth I am not very interested…. If I were in your place, Maskull, I would not hesitate long. Don\u2019t you understand how to absorb these creatures, who set their feeble, obstinate wills against yours?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a worse crime,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows? He will live, but he will tell no tales.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digrung laughed, but changed colour. \u201cI was right then. The monster has sprung into the light of day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull laid a hand on his shoulder. \u201cYou have the choice, and we are not joking. Do as I ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have fallen low, Maskull. But you are walking in a dream, and I can\u2019t talk to you. As for you, woman\u2014sin must be like a pleasant bath to you….\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are strange ties between Maskull and myself; but you are a passer-by, a foreigner. I care nothing for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNevertheless, I shall not be frightened out of my plans, which are legitimate and right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo as you please,\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cIf you come to grief, your thoughts will hardly have corresponded with the real events of the world, which is what you boast about. It is no affair of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shall go on, and not back!\u201d exclaimed Digrung, with angry emphasis.<\/p>\n

Tydomin threw a swift, evil smile at Maskull. \u201cBear witness that I have tried to persuade this young man. Now you must come to a quick decision in your own mind as to which is of the greatest importance, Digrung\u2019s happiness or Joiwind\u2019s. Digrung won\u2019t allow you to preserve them both.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt won\u2019t take me long to decide, Digrung, I gave you a last chance to change your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as it\u2019s in my power I shall go on, and warn my sister against her criminal friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull again clutched at him, but this time with violence. Instructed in his actions by some new and horrible instinct, he pressed the young man tightly to his body with all three arms. A feeling of wild, sweet delight immediately passed through him. Then for the first time he comprehended the triumphant joys of \u201cabsorbing.\u201d It satisfied the hunger of the will, exactly as food satisfies the hunger of the body. Digrung proved feeble\u2014he made little opposition. His personality passed slowly and evenly into Maskull\u2019s. The latter became strong and gorged. The victim gradually became paler and limper, until Maskull held a corpse in his arms. He dropped the body, and stood trembling. He had committed his second crime. He felt no immediate difference in his soul, but…<\/p>\n

Tydomin shed a sad smile on him, like winter sunshine. He half expected her to speak, but she said nothing. Instead, she made a sign to him to pick up Crimtyphon\u2019s corpse. As he obeyed, he wondered why Digrung\u2019s dead face did not wear the frightful Crystalman mask.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy hasn\u2019t he altered?\u201d he muttered to himself.<\/p>\n

Tydomin heard him. She kicked Digrung lightly with her little foot. \u201cHe isn\u2019t dead\u2014that\u2019s why. The expression you mean is waiting for your death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen is that my real character?\u201d<\/p>\n

She laughed softly. \u201cYou came here to carve a strange world, and now it appears you are carved yourself. Oh, there\u2019s no doubt about it, Maskull. You needn\u2019t stand there gaping. You belong to Shaping, like the rest of us. You are not a king, or a god.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince when have I belonged to him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does that matter? Perhaps since you first breathed the air of Tormance, or perhaps since five minutes ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without waiting for his response, she set off through the copse, and strode on to the next island. Maskull followed, physically distressed and looking very grave.<\/p>\n

The journey continued for half an hour longer, without incident. The character of the scenery slowly changed. The mountaintops became loftier and more widely separated from one another. The gaps were filled with rolling, white clouds, which bathed the shores of the peaks like a mysterious sea. To pass from island to island was hard work, the intervening spaces were so wide\u2014Tydomin, however, knew the way. The intense light, the violet-blue sky, the patches of vivid landscape, emerging from the white vapour-ocean, made a profound impression on Maskull\u2019s mind. The glow of Alppain was hidden by the huge mass of Disscourn, which loomed up straight in front of them.<\/p>\n

The green snow on the top of the gigantic pyramid had by now completely melted away. The black, gold, and crimson of its mighty cliffs stood out with terrific brilliance. They were directly beneath the bulk of the mountain, which was not a mile away. It did not appear dangerous to climb, but he was unaware on which side of it their destination lay.<\/p>\n

It was split from top to bottom by numerous straight fissures. A few pale-green waterfalls descended here and there, like narrow, motionless threads. The face of the mountain was rugged and bare. It was strewn with detached boulders, and great, jagged rocks projected everywhere like iron teeth. Tydomin pointed to a small black hole near the base, which might be a cave. \u201cThat is where I live.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou live here alone?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an odd choice for a woman\u2014and you are not unbeautiful, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA woman\u2019s life is over at twenty-five,\u201d she replied, sighing. \u201cAnd I am far older than that. Ten years ago it would have been I who lived yonder, and not Oceaxe. Then all this wouldn\u2019t have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

A quarter of an hour later they stood within the mouth of the cave. It was ten feet high, and its interior was impenetrably black.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut down the body in the entrance, out of the sun,\u201d directed Tydomin. He did so.<\/p>\n

She cast a keenly scrutinising glance at him. \u201cDoes your resolution still hold, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t it hold? My brains are not feathers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFollow me, then.\u201d<\/p>\n

They both stepped into the cave. At that very moment a sickening crash, like heavy thunder just over their heads, set Maskull\u2019s weakened heart thumping violently. An avalanche of boulders, stones, and dust, swept past the cave entrance from above. If their going in had been delayed by a single minute, they would have been killed.<\/p>\n

Tydomin did not even look up. She took his hand in hers, and started walking with him into the darkness. The temperature became as cold as ice. At the first bend the light from the outer world disappeared, leaving them in absolute blackness. Maskull kept stumbling over the uneven ground, but she kept tight hold of him, and hurried him along.<\/p>\n

The tunnel seemed of interminable length. Presently, however, the atmosphere changed\u2014or such was his impression. He was somehow led to imagine that they had come to a larger chamber. Here Tydomin stopped, and then forced him down with quiet pressure. His groping hand encountered stone and, by feeling it all over, he discovered that it was a sort of stone slab, or couch, raised a foot or eighteen inches from the ground. She told him to lie down.<\/p>\n

\u201cHas the time come?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He lay there waiting in the darkness, ignorant of what was going to happen. He felt her hand clasping his. Without perceiving any gradation, he lost all consciousness of his body; he was no longer able to feel his limbs or internal organs. His mind remained active and alert. Nothing particular appeared to be taking place.<\/p>\n

Then the chamber began to grow light, like very early morning. He could see nothing, but the retina of his eyes was affected. He fancied that he heard music, but while he was listening for it, it stopped. The light grew stronger, the air grew warmer; he heard the confused sound of distant voices.<\/p>\n

Suddenly Tydomin gave his hand a powerful squeeze. He heard someone scream faintly, and then the light leaped up, and he saw everything clearly.<\/p>\n

He was lying on a wooden couch, in a strangely decorated room, lighted by electricity. His hand was being squeezed, not by Tydomin, but by a man dressed in the garments of civilisation, with whose face he was certainly familiar, but under what circumstances he could not recall. Other people stood in the background\u2014they too were vaguely known to him. He sat up and began to smile, without any especial reason; and then stood upright.<\/p>\n

Everybody seemed to be watching him with anxiety and emotion\u2014he wondered why. Yet he felt that they were all acquaintances. Two in particular he knew\u2014the man at the farther end of the room, who paced restlessly backward and forward, his face transfigured by stern, holy grandeur; and that other big, bearded man\u2014who was himself<\/i>. Yes\u2014he was looking at his own double. But it was just as if a crime-riddled man of middle age were suddenly confronted with his own photograph as an earnest, idealistic youth.<\/p>\n

His other self spoke to him. He heard the sounds, but did not comprehend the sense. Then the door was abruptly flung open, and a short, brutish-looking individual leaped in. He began to behave in an extraordinary manner to everyone around him; and after that came straight up to him\u2014Maskull. He spoke some words, but they were incomprehensible. A terrible expression came over the newcomer\u2019s face, and he grasped his neck with a pair of hairy hands. Maskull felt his bones bending and breaking, excruciating pains passed through all the nerves of his body, and he experienced a sense of impending death. He cried out, and sank helplessly on the floor, in a heap. The chamber and the company vanished\u2014the light went out.<\/p>\n

Once more he found himself in the blackness of the cave. He was this time lying on the ground, but Tydomin was still with him, holding his hand. He was in horrible bodily agony, but this was only a setting for the despairing anguish that filled his mind.<\/p>\n

Tydomin addressed him in tones of gentle reproach. \u201cWhy are you back so soon? I\u2019ve not had time yet. You must return.\u201d<\/p>\n

He caught hold of her, and pulled himself up to his feet. She gave a low scream, as though in pain. \u201cWhat does this mean\u2014what are you doing, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag\u2014\u201d began Maskull, but the effort to produce his words choked him, so that he was obliged to stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag\u2014what of Krag? Tell me quickly what has happened. Free my arm.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gripped her arm tighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I\u2019ve seen Krag. I\u2019m awake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh! You are awake, awake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you must die,\u201d said Maskull, in an awful voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut why? What has happened?…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must die, and I must kill you. Because I am awake, and for no other reason. You blood-stained dancing mistress!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin breathed hard for a little time. Then she seemed suddenly to regain her self-possession.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou won\u2019t offer me violence, surely, in this black cave?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, the sun shall look on, for it is not a murder. But rest assured that you must die\u2014you must expiate your fearful crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have already said so, and I see you have the power. You have escaped me. It is very curious. Well, then, Maskull, let us come outside. I am not afraid. But kill me courteously, for I have also been courteous to you. I make no other supplication.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 11. ON DISSCOURN<\/h2>\n

BY THE TIME that they regained the mouth of the cavern, Blodsombre was at its height. In front of them the scenery sloped downward\u2014a long succession of mountain islands in a sea of clouds. Behind them the bright, stupendous crags of Disscourn loomed up for a thousand feet or more. Maskull\u2019s eyes were red, and his face looked stupid; he was still holding the woman by the arm. She made no attempt to speak, or to get away. She seemed perfectly gentle and composed.<\/p>\n

After gazing at the country for a long time in silence, he turned toward her. \u201cWhereabouts is the fiery lake you spoke of?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt lies on the other side of the mountain. But why do you ask?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just as well if we have some way to walk. I shall grow calmer, and that\u2019s what I want. I wish you to understand that what is going to happen is not a murder, but an execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will taste the same,\u201d said Tydomin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I have gone out of this country, I don\u2019t wish to feel that I have left a demon behind me, wandering at large. That would not be fair to others. So we will go to the lake, which promises an easy death for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She shrugged her shoulders. \u201cWe must wait till Blodsombre is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this a time for luxurious feelings? However hot it is now, we will both be cool by evening. We must start at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout doubt, you are the master, Maskull…. May I not carry Crimtyphon?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull looked at her strangely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grudge no man his funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n

She painfully hoisted the body on her narrow shoulders, and they stepped out into the sunlight. The heat struck them like a blow on the head. Maskull moved aside, to allow her to precede him, but no compassion entered his heart. He brooded over the wrongs the woman had done him.<\/p>\n

The way went along the south side of the great pyramid, near its base. It was a rough road, clogged with boulders and crossed by cracks and water gullies; they could see the water, but could not get at it. There was no shade. Blisters formed on their skin, while all the water in their blood seemed to dry up.<\/p>\n

Maskull forgot his own tortures in his devil\u2019s delight at Tydomin\u2019s. \u201cSing me a song!\u201d he called out presently. \u201cA characteristic one.\u201d<\/p>\n

She turned her head and gave him a long, peculiar look; then, without any sort of expostulation, started singing. Her voice was low and weird. The song was so extraordinary that he had to rub his eyes to ascertain whether he was awake or dreaming. The slow surprises of the grotesque melody began to agitate him in a horrible fashion; the words were pure nonsense\u2014or else their significance was too deep for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere, in the name of all unholy things, did you acquire that stuff, woman?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin shed a sickly smile, while the corpse swayed about with ghastly jerks over her left shoulder. She held it in position with her two left arms. \u201cIt\u2019s a pity we could not have met as friends, Maskull. I could have shown you a side of Tormance which now perhaps you will never see. The wild, mad side. But now it\u2019s too late, and it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

They turned the angle of the mountain, and started to traverse the western base.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is the quickest way out of this miserable land?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is easiest to go to Sant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWill we see it from anywhere?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, though it is a long way off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you been there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a woman, and interdicted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue. I have heard something of the sort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut don\u2019t ask me any more questions,\u201d said Tydomin, who was becoming faint.<\/p>\n

Maskull stopped at a little spring. He himself drank, and then made a cup of his hand for the woman, so that she might not have to lay down her burden. The gnawl water acted like magic\u2014it seemed to replenish all the cells of his body as though they had been thirsty sponge pores, sucking up liquid. Tydomin recovered her self-possession.<\/p>\n

About three-quarters of an hour later they worked around the second corner, and entered into full view of the north aspect of Disscourn.<\/p>\n

A hundred yards lower down the slope on which they were walking, the mountain ended abruptly in a chasm. The air above it was filled with a sort of green haze, which trembled violently like the atmosphere immediately over a furnace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lake is underneath,\u201d said Tydomin.<\/p>\n

Maskull looked curiously about him. Beyond the crater the country sloped away in a continuous descent to the skyline. Behind them, a narrow path channelled its way up through the rocks toward the towering summit of the pyramid. Miles away, in the north-east quarter, a long, flat-topped plateau raised its head far above all the surrounding country. It was Sant\u2014and there and then he made up his mind that that should be his destination that day.<\/p>\n

Tydomin meanwhile had walked straight to the gulf, and set down Crimtyphon\u2019s body on the edge. In a minute or two, Maskull joined her; arrived at the brink, he immediately flung himself at full length on his chest, to see what could be seen of the lake of fire. A gust of hot, asphyxiating air smote his face and set him coughing, but he did not get up until he had stared his fill at the huge sea of green, molten lava, tossing and swirling at no great distance below, like a living will.<\/p>\n

A faint sound of drumming came up. He listened intently, and as he did so his heart quickened and the black cares rolled away from his soul. All the world and its accidents seemed at that moment false, and without meaning….<\/p>\n

He climbed abstractedly to his feet. Tydomin was talking to her dead husband. She was peering into the hideous face of ivory, and fondling his violet hair. When she perceived Maskull, she hastily kissed the withered lips, and got up from her knees. Lifting the corpse with all three arms, she staggered with it to the extreme edge of the gulf and, after an instant\u2019s hesitation, allowed it to drop into the lava. It disappeared immediately without sound; a metallic splash came up. That was Crimtyphon\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I am ready, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

He did not answer, but stared past her. Another figure was standing, erect and mournful, not far behind her. It was Joiwind. Her face was wan, and there was an accusing look in her eyes. Maskull knew that it was a phantasm, and that the real Joiwind was miles away, at Poolingdred.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurn around, Tydomin,\u201d he said oddly, \u201cand tell me what you see behind you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see anything,\u201d she answered, looking around.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I see Joiwind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as he was speaking, the apparition vanished.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I present you with your life, Tydomin. She<\/i> wishes it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman fingered her chin thoughtfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cI little expected I should ever be beholden for my life to one of my own sex\u2014but so be it. What really happened to you in my cavern?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really saw Krag.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, some miracle must have taken place.\u201d She suddenly shivered. \u201cCome, let us leave this horrible spot. I shall never come here again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cit stinks of death and dying. But where are we to go\u2014what are we to do? Take me to Sant. I must get away from this hellish land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin remained standing, dull and hollow-eyed. Then she gave an abrupt, bitter little laugh. \u201cWe make our journey together in singular stages. Rather than be alone, I\u2019ll come with you\u2014but you know that if I set foot in Sant they will kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least set me on the way. I wish to get there before night. Is it possible?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are willing to take risks with nature. And why should you not take risks today? Your luck holds. But someday or other it won\u2019t hold\u2014your luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us start,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cThe luck I\u2019ve had so far is nothing to brag about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blodsombre was over when they set off; it was early afternoon, but the heat seemed more stifling than ever. They made no more pretence at conversation; both were buried in their own painful thoughts. The land fell away from Disscourn in all other directions, but toward Sant there was a gentle, persistent rise. Its dark, distant plateau continued to dominate the landscape, and after walking for an hour they seemed none the nearer to it. The air was stale and stagnant.<\/p>\n

By and by, an upright object, apparently the work of man, attracted Maskull\u2019s notice. It was a slender tree stem, with the bark still on, imbedded in the stony ground. From the upper end three branches sprang out, pointing aloft at a sharp angle. They were stripped to twigs and leaves and, getting closer, he saw that they had been artificially fastened on, at equal distances from each other.<\/p>\n

As he stared at the object, a strange, sudden flush of confident vanity and self-sufficiency seemed to pass through him, but it was so momentary that he could be sure of nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat may that be, Tydomin?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is Hator\u2019s Trifork.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what is its purpose?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a guide to Sant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut who or what is Hator?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHator was the founder of Sant\u2014many thousands of years ago. He laid down the principles they all live by, and that trifork is his symbol. When I was a little child my father told me the legends, but I\u2019ve forgotten most of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull regarded it attentively.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes it affect you in any way?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd why should it do that?\u201d she said, dropping her lip scornfully. \u201cI am only a woman, and these are masculine mysteries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA sort of gladness came over me,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cbut perhaps I am mistaken.\u201d<\/p>\n

They passed on. The scenery gradually changed in character. The solid parts of the land grew more continuous, the fissures became narrower and more infrequent. There were now no more subsidences or upheavals. The peculiar nature of the Ifdawn Marest appeared to be giving place to a different order of things.<\/p>\n

Later on, they encountered a flock of pale blue jellies floating in the air. They were miniature animals. Tydomin caught one in her hand and began to eat it, just as one eats a luscious pear plucked from a tree. Maskull, who had fasted since early morning, was not slow in following her example. A sort of electric vigour at once entered his limbs and body, his muscles regained their elasticity, his heart began to beat with hard, slow, strong throbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cFood and body seem to agree well in this world,\u201d he remarked smiling.<\/p>\n

She glanced toward him. \u201cPerhaps the explanation is not in the food, but in your body.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI brought my body with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou brought your soul with you, but that\u2019s altering fast, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a copse they came across a short, wide tree, without leaves, but possessing a multitude of thin, flexible branches, like the tentacles of a cuttlefish. Some of these branches were moving rapidly. A furry animal, somewhat resembling a wildcat, leaped about among them in the most extraordinary way. But the next minute Maskull was shocked to realise that the beast was not leaping at all, but was being thrown from branch to branch by the volition of the tree, exactly as an imprisoned mouse is thrown by a cat from paw to paw.<\/p>\n

He watched the spectacle a while with morbid interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a gruesome reversal of r\u00c3\u00b4les, Tydomin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne can see you\u2019re disgusted,\u201d she replied, stifling a yawn. \u201cBut that is because you are a slave to words. If you called that plant an animal, you would find its occupation perfectly natural and pleasing. And why should you not call it an animal?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am quite aware that, as long as I remain in the Ifdawn Marest, I shall go on listening to this sort of language.\u201d<\/p>\n

They trudged along for an hour or more without talking. The day became overcast. A thin mist began to shroud the landscape, and the sun changed into an immense ruddy disk which could be stared at without flinching. A chill, damp wind blew against them. Presently it grew still darker, the sun disappeared and, glancing first at his companion and then at himself, Maskull noticed that their skin and clothing were coated by a kind of green hoarfrost.<\/p>\n

The land was now completely solid. About half a mile, in front of them, against a background of dark fog, a moving forest of tall waterspouts gyrated slowly and gracefully hither and thither. They were green and self-luminous, and looked terrifying. Tydomin explained that they were not waterspouts at all, but mobile columns of lightning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen they are dangerous?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we think,\u201d she answered, watching them closely.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone is wandering there who appears to have a different opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the spouts, and entirely encompassed by them, a man was walking with a slow, calm, composed gait, his back turned toward Maskull and Tydomin. There was something unusual in his appearance\u2014his form looked extraordinarily distinct, solid, and real.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s danger, he ought to be warned,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe who is always anxious to teach will learn nothing,\u201d returned the woman coolly. She restrained Maskull by a pressure of the arm, and continued to watch.<\/p>\n

The base of one of the columns touched the man. He remained unharmed, but turned sharply around, as if for the first time made aware of the proximity of these deadly waltzers. Then he raised himself to his full height, and stretched both arms aloft above his head, like a diver. He seemed to be addressing the columns.<\/p>\n

While they looked on, the electric spouts discharged themselves, with a series of loud explosions. The stranger stood alone, uninjured. He dropped his arms. The next moment he caught sight of the two, and stood still, waiting for them to come up. The pictorial clarity of his person grew more and more noticeable as they approached; his body seemed to be composed of some substance heavier and denser than solid matter.<\/p>\n

Tydomin looked perplexed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe must be a Sant man. I have seen no one quite like him before. This is a day of days for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe must be an individual of great importance,\u201d murmured Maskull.<\/p>\n

They now came up to him. He was tall, strong, and bearded, and was clothed in a shirt and breeches of skin. Since turning his back to the wind, the green deposit on his face and limbs had changed to streaming moisture, through which his natural colour was visible; it was that of pale iron. There was no third arm. His face was harsh and frowning, and a projecting chin pushed the beard forward. On his forehead there were two flat membranes, like rudimentary eyes, but no sorb. These membranes were expressionless, but in some strange way seemed to add vigour to the stern eyes underneath. When his glance rested on Maskull, the latter felt as though his brain were being thoroughly travelled through. The man was middle-aged.<\/p>\n

His physical distinctness transcended nature. By contrast with him, every object in the neighbourhood looked vague and blurred. Tydomin\u2019s person suddenly appeared faint, sketch-like, without significance, and Maskull realised that it was no better with himself. A queer, quickening fire began running through his veins.<\/p>\n

He turned to the woman. \u201cIf this man is going to Sant, I shall bear him company. We can now part. No doubt you will think it high time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet Tydomin come too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The words were delivered in a rough, foreign tongue, but were as intelligible to Maskull as if spoken in English.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou who know my name, also know my sex,\u201d said Tydomin quietly. \u201cIt is death for me to enter Sant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the old law. I am the bearer of the new law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it so\u2014and will it be accepted?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe old skin is cracking, the new skin has been silently forming underneath, the moment of sloughing has arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

The storm gathered. The green snow drove against them, as they stood talking, and it grew intensely cold. None noticed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d asked Maskull, with a beating heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name, Maskull, is Spadevil. You, a voyager across the dark ocean of space, shall be my first witness and follower. You, Tydomin, a daughter of the despised sex, shall be my second.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new law? But what is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil eye sees, of what use it is for ear to hear?…. Come, both of you, to me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin went to him unhesitatingly. Spadevil pressed his hand on her sorb and kept it there for a few minutes, while he closed his own eyes. When he removed it, Maskull observed that the sorb was transformed into twin membranes like Spadevil\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

Tydomin looked dazed. She glanced quietly about for a little while, apparently testing her new faculty. Then the tears started to her eyes and, snatching up Spadevil\u2019s hand, she bent over and kissed it hurriedly many times.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy past has been bad,\u201d she said. \u201cNumbers have received harm from me, and none good. I have killed\u2014and worse. But now I can throw all that away, and laugh. Nothing can now injure me. Oh, Maskull, you and I have been fools together!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you repent your crimes?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeave the past alone,\u201d said Spadevil, \u201cit cannot be reshaped. The future alone is ours. It starts fresh and clean from this very minute. Why do you hesitate, Maskull? Are you afraid?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the name of those organs, and what is their function?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are probes<\/i>, and they are the gates opening into a new world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull lingered no longer, but permitted Spadevil to cover his sorb.<\/p>\n

While the iron hand was still pressing his forehead, the new law quietly flowed into his consciousness, like a smooth-running stream of clean water which had hitherto been dammed by his obstructive will. The law was duty<\/i>.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 12. SPADEVIL<\/h2>\n

Maskull found that his new organs had no independent function of their own, but only intensified and altered his other senses. When he used his eyes, ears, or nostrils, the same objects presented themselves to him, but his judgment concerning them was different. Previously all external things had existed for him; now he existed for them. According to whether they served his purpose or were in harmony with his nature, or otherwise, they had been pleasant or painful. Now these words \u201cpleasure\u201d and \u201cpain\u201d simply had no meaning.<\/p>\n

The other two watched him, while he was making himself acquainted with his new mental outlook. He smiled at them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were quite right, Tydomin,\u201d he said, in a bold, cheerful voice. \u201cWe have been fools. So near the light all the time, and we never guessed it. Always buried in the past or future\u2014systematically ignoring the present\u2014and now it turns out that apart from the present we have no life at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank Spadevil for it,\u201d she answered, more loudly than usual.<\/p>\n

Maskull looked at the man\u2019s dark, concrete form. \u201cSpadevil, now I mean to follow you to the end. I can do nothing less.\u201d<\/p>\n

The severe face showed no sign of gratification\u2014not a muscle relaxed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatch that you don\u2019t lose your gift,\u201d he said gruffly.<\/p>\n

Tydomin spoke. \u201cYou promised that I should enter Sant with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAttach yourself to the truth, not to me. For I may die before you, but the truth will accompany you to your<\/i> death. However, now let us journey together, all three of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The words had not left his mouth before he put his face against the fine, driving snow, and pressed onward toward his destination. He walked with a long stride; Tydomin was obliged to half run in order to keep up with him. The three travelled abreast; Spadevil in the middle. The fog was so dense that it was impossible to see a hundred yards ahead. The ground was covered by the green snow. The wind blew in gusts from the Sant highlands and was piercingly cold.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpadevil, are you a man, or more than a man?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe that is not more than a man is nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere have you now come from?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom brooding, Maskull. Out of no other mother can truth be born. I have brooded, and rejected; and I have brooded again. Now, after many months\u2019 absence from Sant, the truth at last shines forth for me in its simple splendour, like an upturned diamond.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see its shining,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cBut how much does it owe to ancient Hator?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowledge has its seasons. The blossom was to Hator, the fruit is to me. Hator also was a brooder\u2014but now his followers do not brood. In Sant all is icy selfishness, a living death. They hate pleasure, and this hatred is the greatest pleasure to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in what way have they fallen off from Hator\u2019s doctrines?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor him, in his sullen purity of nature, all the world was a snare, a limed twig. Knowing that pleasure was everywhere, a fierce, mocking enemy, crouching and waiting at every corner of the road of life, in order to kill with its sweet sting the naked grandeur of the soul, he shielded himself behind pain<\/i>. This also his followers do, but they do not do it for the sake of the soul, but for the sake of vanity and pride.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the Trifork?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stem, Maskull, is hatred of pleasure. The first fork is disentanglement from the sweetness of the world. The second fork is power over those who still writhe in the nets of illusion. The third fork is the healthy glow of one who steps into ice-cold water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what land did Hator come?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not said. He lived in Ifdawn for a while. There are many legends told of him while there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a long way to go,\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cRelate some of these legends, Spadevil.\u201d<\/p>\n

The snow had ceased, the day brightened, Branchspell reappeared like a phantom sun, but bitter blasts of wind still swept over the plain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn those days,\u201d said Spadevil, \u201cthere existed in Ifdawn a mountain island separated by wide spaces from the land around it. A handsome girl, who knew sorcery, caused a bridge to be constructed across which men and women might pass to it. Having by a false tale drawn Hator on to this rock, she pushed at the bridge with her foot until it tumbled into the depths below. \u2018You and I, Hator, are now together, and there is no means of separating. I wish to see how long the famous frost man can withstand the breath, smiles and perfume of a girl.\u2019 Hator said no word, either then or all that day. He stood till sunset like a tree trunk, and thought of other things. Then the girl grew passionate, and shook her curls. She rose from where she was sitting she looked at him, and touched his arm; but he did not see her. She looked at him, so that all the soul was in her eyes; and then she fell down dead. Hator awoke from his thoughts, and saw her lying, still warm, at his feet, a corpse. He passed to the mainland; but how, it is not related.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin shuddered. \u201cYou too have met your wicked woman, Spadevil; but your method is a nobler one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t pity other women,\u201d said Spadevil, \u201cbut love the right<\/i>. Hator also once conversed with Shaping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Maker of the World?\u201d said Maskull thoughtfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Maker of Pleasure. It is told how Shaping defended his world, and tried to force Hator to acknowledge loveliness and joy. But Hator, answering all his marvellous speeches in a few concise, iron words, showed how this joy and beauty was but another name for the bestiality of souls wallowing in luxury and sloth. Shaping smiled, and said, \u2018How comes it that your wisdom is greater than that of the Master of wisdom?\u2019 Hator said, \u2018My wisdom does not come from you, nor from your world, but from that other world, which you, Shaping, have vainly tried to imitate.\u2019 Shaping replied, \u2018What, then, do you do in my world?\u2019 Hator said, \u2018I am here falsely, and therefore I am subject to your false pleasures. But I wrap myself in pain<\/i>\u2014not because it is good, but because I wish to keep myself as far from you as possible. For pain is not yours, neither does it belong to the other world, but it is the shadow cast by your false pleasures.\u2019 Shaping then said, \u2018What is this faraway other world of which you say \u201cThis is so\u2014this is not so?\u201d How happens it that you alone of all my creatures have knowledge of it?\u2019 But Hator spat at his feet, and said, \u2018You lie, Shaping. All have knowledge of it. You, with your pretty toys, alone obscure it from our view.\u2019 Shaping asked, \u2018What, then, am I?\u2019 Hator answered, \u2018You are the dreamer of impossible dreams.\u2019 And then the story goes that Shaping departed, ill pleased with what had been said.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat other world did Hator refer to?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne where grandeur reigns, Maskull, just as pleasure reigns here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether grandeur or pleasure, it makes no difference,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cThe individual spirit that lives and wishes to live is mean and corrupt-natured.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGuard you your pride!\u201d returned Spadevil. \u201cDo not make law for the universe and for all time, but for yourself and for this small, false life of yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn what shape did death come to that hard, unconquerable man?\u201d asked Tydomin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lived to be old, but went upright and free-limbed to his last hour. When he saw that death could not be staved off longer he determined to destroy himself. He gathered his friends around him; not from vanity, but that they might see to what lengths the human soul can go in its perpetual warfare with the voluptuous body. Standing erect, without support, he died by withholding his breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

A silence followed, which lasted for perhaps an hour. Their minds refused to acknowledge the icy winds, but the current of their thoughts became frozen.<\/p>\n

When Branchspell, however, shone out again, though with subdued power, Maskull\u2019s curiosity rose once more. \u201cYour fellow countrymen, then, Spadevil, are sick with self-love?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe men of other countries,\u201d said Spadevil, \u201care the slaves of pleasure and desire, knowing it. But the men of my country are the slaves of pleasure and desire, not knowing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yet that proud pleasure, which rejoices in self-torture, has something noble in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe who studies himself at all is ignoble. Only by despising soul as well as body can a man enter into true life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn what grounds do they reject women?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInasmuch as a woman has ideal love, and cannot live for herself. Love for another is pleasure for the loved one, and therefore injurious to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA forest of false ideas is waiting for your axe,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cBut will they allow it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSpadevil knows, Maskull,\u201d said Tydomin, \u201cthat be it today or be it tomorrow, love can\u2019t be kept out of a land, even by the disciples of Hator.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeware of love\u2014beware of emotion!\u201d exclaimed Spadevil. \u201cLove is but pleasure once removed. Think not of pleasing others, but of serving them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cForgive me, Spadevil, if I am still feminine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight<\/i> has no sex. So long, Tydomin, as you remember that you are a woman, so long you will not enter into divine apathy of soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut where there are no women, there are no children,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cHow came there to be all these generations of Hator men?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLife breeds passion, passion breeds suffering, suffering breeds the yearning for relief from suffering. Men throng to Sant from all parts, in order to have the scars of their souls healed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn place of hatred of pleasure, which all can understand, what simple formula do you offer?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIron obedience to duty,\u201d answered Spadevil.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if they ask \u2018How far is this consistent with hatred of pleasure?\u2019 what will your pronouncement be?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not answer them, but I answer you, Maskull, who ask the question. Hatred is passion, and all passion springs from the dark fires of self. Do not hate pleasure at all, but pass it by on one side, calm and undisturbed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is the criterion of pleasure? How can we always recognise it, in order to avoid it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRigidly follow duty, and such questions will not arise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in the afternoon, Tydomin timidly placed her fingers on Spadevil\u2019s arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cFearful doubts are in my mind,\u201d she said. \u201cThis expedition to Sant may turn out badly. I have seen a vision of you, Spadevil, and myself lying dead and covered in blood, but Maskull was not there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may drop the torch, but it will not be extinguished, and others will raise it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShow me a sign that you are not as other men\u2014so that I may know that our blood will not be wasted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spadevil regarded her sternly. \u201cI am not a magician. I don\u2019t persuade the senses, but the soul. Does your duty call you to Sant, Tydomin? Then go there. Does it not call you to Sant? Then go no farther. Is not this simple? What signs are necessary?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid I not see you dispel those spouts of lightning? No common man could have done that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows what any man can do? This man can do one thing, that man can do another. But what all men can do is their duty; and to open their eyes to this, I must go to Sant, and if necessary lay down my life. Will you not still accompany me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Tydomin, \u201cI will follow you to the end. It is all the more essential, because I keep on displeasing you with my remarks, and that means I have not yet learned my lesson properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not be humble, for humility is only self-judgment, and while we are thinking of self, we must be neglecting some action we could be planning or shaping in our mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin continued to be uneasy and preoccupied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy was Maskull not in the picture?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou dwell on this foreboding because you imagine it is tragical. There is nothing tragical in death, Tydomin, nor in life. There is only right and wrong. What arises from right or wrong action does not matter. We are not gods, constructing a world, but simple men and women, doing our immediate duty. We may die in Sant\u2014so you have seen it; but the truth will go on living.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSpadevil, why do you choose Sant to start your work in?\u201d asked Maskull. \u201cThese men with fixed ideas seem to me the least likely of any to follow a new light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere a bad tree thrives, a good tree will flourish. But where no tree at all can be found, nothing will grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand you,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cHere perhaps we are going to martyrdom, but elsewhere we should resemble men preaching to cattle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly before sunset they arrived at the extremity of the upland plain, above which towered the black cliffs of the Sant Levels. A dizzy, artificially constructed staircase, of more than a thousand steps of varying depth, twisting and forking in order to conform to the angles of the precipices, led to the world overhead. In the place where they stood they were sheltered from the cutting winds. Branchspell, radiantly shining at last, but on the point of sinking, filled the cloudy sky with violent, lurid colors, some of the combinations of which were new to Maskull. The circle of the horizon was so gigantic, that had he been suddenly carried back to Earth, he would by comparison have fancied himself to be moving beneath the dome of some little, closed-in cathedral. He realised that he was on a foreign planet. But he was not stirred or uplifted by the knowledge; he was conscious only of moral ideas. Looking backward, he saw the plain, which for several miles past had been without vegetation, stretching back away to Disscourn. So regular had been the ascent, and so great was the distance, that the huge pyramid looked nothing more than a slight swelling on the face of the earth.<\/p>\n

Spadevil stopped, and gazed over the landscape in silence. In the evening sunlight his form looked more dense, dark, and real than ever before. His features were set hard in grimness.<\/p>\n

He turned around to his companions. \u201cWhat is the greatest wonder, in all this wonderful scene?\u201d he demanded.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcquaint us,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll that you see is born from pleasure, and moves on, from pleasure to pleasure. Nowhere is right<\/i> to be found. It is Shaping\u2019s world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is another wonder,\u201d said Tydomin, and she pointed her finger toward the sky overhead.<\/p>\n

A small cloud, so low down that it was perhaps not more than five hundred feet above them, was sailing along in front of the dark wall of cliff. It was in the exact shape of an open human hand, with downward-pointing fingers. It was stained crimson by the sun; and one or two tiny cloudlets beneath the fingers looked like falling drops of blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho can doubt now that our death is close at hand?\u201d said Tydomin. \u201cI have been close to death twice today. The first time I was ready, but now I am more ready, for I shall die side by side with the man who has given me my first happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not think of death, but of right persistence,\u201d replied Spadevil. \u201cI am not here to tremble before Shaping\u2019s portents; but to snatch men from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

He at once proceeded to lead the way up the staircase. Tydomin gazed upward after him for a moment, with an odd, worshiping light in her eyes. Then she followed him, the second of the party. Maskull climbed last. He was travel stained, unkempt, and very tired; but his soul was at peace. As they steadily ascended the almost perpendicular stairs, the sun got higher in the sky. Its light dyed their bodies a ruddy gold.<\/p>\n

They gained the top. There they found rolling in front of them, as far as the eye could see, a barren desert of white sand, broken here and there by large, jagged masses of black rock. Tracts of the sand were reddened by the sinking sun. The vast expanse of sky was filled by evil-shaped clouds and wild colors. The freezing wind, flurrying across the desert, drove the fine particles of sand painfully against their faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere now do you take us?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe who guards the old wisdom of Sant must give up that wisdom to me, that I may change it. What he says, others will say. I go to find Maulger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd where will you seek him, in this bare country?\u201d<\/p>\n

Spadevil struck off toward the north unhesitatingly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not so far,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is his custom to be in that part where Sant overhangs the Wombflash Forest. Perhaps he will be there, but I cannot say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull glanced toward Tydomin. Her sunken cheeks, and the dark circles beneath her eyes told of her extreme weariness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe woman is tired, Spadevil,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

She smiled. \u201cIt\u2019s but another step into the land of death. I can manage it. Give me your arm, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

He put his arm around her waist, and supported her along that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sun is now sinking,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cWill we get there before dark?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFear nothing, Maskull and Tydomin; this pain is eating up the evil in your nature. The road you are walking cannot remain unwalked. We shall arrive before dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sun then disappeared behind the far-distant ridges that formed the western boundary of the Ifdawn Marest. The sky blazed up into more vivid colors. The wind grew colder.<\/p>\n

They passed some pools of colourless gnawl water, round the banks of which were planted fruit trees. Maskull ate some of the fruit. It was hard, bitter, and astringent; he could not get rid of the taste, but he felt braced and invigorated by the downward-flowing juices. No other trees or shrubs were to be seen anywhere. No animals appeared, no birds or insects. It was a desolate land.<\/p>\n

A mile or two passed, when they again approached the edge of the plateau. Far down, beneath their feet, the great Wombflash Forest began. But daylight had vanished there; Maskull\u2019s eyes rested only on a vague darkness. He faintly heard what sounded like the distant sighing of innumerable treetops.<\/p>\n

In the rapidly darkening twilight, they came abruptly on a man. He was standing in a pool, on one leg. A pile of boulders had hidden him from their view. The water came as far up as his calf. A trifork, similar to the one Maskull had seen on Disscourn, but smaller, had been stuck in the mud close by his hand.<\/p>\n

They stopped by the side of the pond, and waited. Immediately he became aware of their presence, the man set down his other leg, and waded out of the water toward them, picking up his trifork in doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not Maulger, but Catice,\u201d said Spadevil.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaulger is dead,\u201d said Catice, speaking the same tongue as Spadevil, but with an even harsher accent, so that the tympanum of Maskull\u2019s ear was affected painfully.<\/p>\n

The latter saw before him a bowed, powerful individual, advanced in years. He wore nothing but a scanty loincloth. His trunk was long and heavy, but his legs were rather short. His face was beardless, lemon-coloured, and anxious-looking. It was disfigured by a number of longitudinal ruts, a quarter of an inch deep, the cavities of which seemed clogged with ancient dirt. The hair of his head was black and sparse. Instead of the twin membranous organs of Spadevil, he possessed but one; and this was in the centre of his brow.<\/p>\n

Spadevil\u2019s dark, solid person stood out from the rest like a reality among dreams.<\/p>\n

\u201cHas the trifork passed to you?\u201d he demanded.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. Why have you brought this woman to Sant?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have brought another thing to Sant. I have brought the new faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catice stood motionless, and looked troubled. \u201cState it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShall I speak with many words, or few words?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you wish to say what is not<\/i>, many words will not suffice. If you wish to say what is, a few words will be enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spadevil frowned.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hate pleasure brings pride with it. Pride is a pleasure. To kill pleasure, we must attach ourselves to duty<\/i>. While the mind is planning right action, it has no time to think of pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that the whole?\u201d asked Catice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is simple, even for the simplest man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you destroy Hator, and all his generations, with a single word?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI destroy nature, and set up law.\u201d<\/p>\n

A long silence followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy probe is double,\u201d said Spadevil. \u201cSuffer me to double yours, and you will see as I see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCome you here, you big man!\u201d said Catice to Maskull. Maskull advanced a step closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you follow Spadevil in his new faith?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as death,\u201d exclaimed Maskull.<\/p>\n

Catice picked up a flint. \u201cWith this stone I strike out one of your two probes. When you have but one, you will see with me, and you will recollect with Spadevil. Choose you then the superior faith, and I shall obey your choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEndure this little pain, Maskull, for the sake of future men,\u201d said Spadevil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pain is nothing,\u201d replied Maskull, \u201cbut I fear the result.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPermit me, although I am only a woman, to take his place, Catice,\u201d said Tydomin, stretching out her hand.<\/p>\n

He struck at it violently with the flint, and gashed it from wrist to thumb; the pale carmine blood spouted up. \u201cWhat brings this kiss-lover to Sant?\u201d he said. \u201cHow does she presume to make the rules of life for the sons of Hator?\u201d<\/p>\n

She bit her lip, and stepped back. \u201cWell then, Maskull, accept! I certainly should not have played false to Spadevil; but you hardly can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he bids me, I must do it,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cBut who knows what will come of it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Spadevil spoke. \u201cOf all the descendants of Hator, Catice is the most wholehearted and sincere. He will trample my truth underfoot, thinking me a demon sent by Shaping, to destroy the work of this land. But a seed will escape, and my blood and yours, Tydomin, will wash it. Then men will know that my destroying evil is their greatest good. But none here will live to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull now went quite close to Catice, and offered his head. Catice raised his hand, and after holding the flint poised for a moment, brought it down with adroitness and force upon the left-hand probe. Maskull cried out with the pain. The blood streamed down, and the function of the organ was destroyed.<\/p>\n

There was a pause, while he walked to and fro, trying to staunch the blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat now do you feel, Maskull? What do you see?\u201d inquired Tydomin anxiously.<\/p>\n

He stopped, and stared hard at her. \u201cI now see straight,\u201d he said slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued to wipe the blood from his forehead. He looked troubled. \u201cHenceforward, as long as I live, I shall fight with my nature, and refuse to feel pleasure. And I advise you to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spadevil gazed at him sternly. \u201cDo you renounce my teaching?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull, however, returned the gaze without dismay. Spadevil\u2019s image-like clearness of form had departed for him; his frowning face he knew to be the deceptive portico of a weak and confused intellect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is false.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it false to sacrifice oneself for another?\u201d demanded Tydomin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t argue as yet,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cAt this moment the world with its sweetness seems to me a sort of charnel house. I feel a loathing for everything in it, including myself. I know no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there no duty?\u201d asked Spadevil, in a harsh tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears to me but a cloak under which we share the pleasure of other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin pulled at Spadevil\u2019s arm. \u201cMaskull has betrayed you, as he has so many others. Let us go.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stood fast. \u201cYou have changed quickly, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull, without answering him, turned to Catice. \u201cWhy do men go on living in this soft, shameful world, when they can kill themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPain is the native air of Surtur\u2019s children. To what other air do you wish to escape?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurtur\u2019s children? Is not Surtur Shaping?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the greatest of lies. It is Shaping\u2019s masterpiece.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnswer, Maskull!\u201d said Spadevil. \u201cDo you repudiate right action?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeave me alone. Go back! I am not thinking of you, and your ideas. I wish you no harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The darkness came on fast. There was another prolonged silence.<\/p>\n

Catice threw away the flint, and picked up his staff. \u201cThe woman must return home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was persuaded here, and did not come freely. You, Spadevil, must die\u2014backslider as you are!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin said quietly, \u201cHe has no power to enforce this. Are you going to allow the truth to fall to the ground, Spadevil?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will not perish by my death, but by my efforts to escape from death. Catice, I accept your judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tydomin smiled. \u201cFor my part, I am too tired to walk farther today, so I shall die with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catice said to Maskull, \u201cProve your sincerity. Kill this man and his mistress, according to the laws of Hator.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t do that. I have travelled in friendship with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou denied duty; and now you must do your duty,\u201d said Spadevil, calmly stroking his beard. \u201cWhatever law you accept, you must obey, without turning to right or left. Your law commands that we must be stoned; and it will soon be dark.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you not even this amount of manhood?\u201d exclaimed Tydomin.<\/p>\n

Maskull moved heavily. \u201cBe my witness, Catice, that the thing was forced on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHator is looking on, and approving,\u201d replied Catice.<\/p>\n

Maskull then went apart to the pile of boulders scattered by the side of the pool. He glanced about him, and selected two large fragments of rock, the heaviest that he thought he could carry. With these in his arms, he staggered back.<\/p>\n

He dropped them on the ground, and stood, recovering his breath. When he could speak again, he said, \u201cI have a bad heart for the business. Is there no alternative? Sleep here tonight, Spadevil, and in the morning go back to where you have come from. No one shall harm you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spadevil\u2019s ironic smile was lost in the gloom.<\/p>\n

\u201cShall I brood again, Maskull, for still another year, and after that come back to Sant with other truths? Come, waste no time, but choose the heavier stone for me, for I am stronger than Tydomin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull lifted one of the rocks, and stepped out four full paces. Spadevil confronted him, erect, and waited tranquilly.<\/p>\n

The huge stone hurtled through the air. Its flight looked like a dark shadow. It struck Spadevil full in the face, crushing his features, and breaking his neck. He died instantaneously.<\/p>\n

Tydomin looked away from the fallen man.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe very quick, Maskull, and don\u2019t let me keep him waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He panted, and raised the second stone. She placed herself in front of Spadevil\u2019s body, and stood there, unsmiling and cold.<\/p>\n

The blow caught her between breast and chin, and she fell. Maskull went to her, and, kneeling on the ground, half-raised her in his arms. There she breathed out her last sighs.<\/p>\n

After that, he laid her down again, and rested heavily on his hands, while he peered into the dead face. The transition from its heroic, spiritual expression to the vulgar and grinning mask of Crystalman came like a flash; but he saw it.<\/p>\n

He stood up in the darkness, and pulled Catice toward him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that the true likeness of Shaping?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is Shaping stripped of illusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow comes this horrible world to exist?\u201d<\/p>\n

Catice did not answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is Surtur?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will get nearer to him tomorrow; but not here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am wading through too much blood,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cNothing good can come of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not fear change and destruction; but laughter and joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull meditated.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me, Catice. If I had elected to follow Spadevil, would you really have accepted his faith?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a great-souled man,\u201d replied Catice. \u201cI see that the pride of our men is only another sprouting-out of pleasure. Tomorrow I too shall leave Sant, to reflect on all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull shuddered. \u201cThen these two deaths were not a necessity, but a crime!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHis part was played and henceforward the woman would have dragged down his ideas, with her soft love and loyalty. Regret nothing, stranger, but go away at once out of the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight? Where shall I go?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo Wombflash, where you will meet the deepest minds. I will put you on the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

He linked his arm in Maskull\u2019s, and they walked away into the night. For a mile or more they skirted the edge of the precipice. The wind was searching, and drove grit into their faces. Through the rifts of the clouds, stars, faint and brilliant, appeared. Maskull saw no familiar constellations. He wondered if the sun of earth was visible, and if so which one it was.<\/p>\n

They came to the head of a rough staircase, leading down the cliffside. It resembled the one by which he had come up; but this descended to the Wombflash Forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is your path,\u201d said Catice, \u201cand I shall not come any farther.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull detained him. \u201cSay just this, before we part company\u2014why does pleasure appear so shameful to us?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause in feeling pleasure, we forget our home<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that is\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMuspel,\u201d answered Catice.<\/p>\n

Having made this reply, he disengaged himself, and, turning his back, disappeared into the darkness.<\/p>\n

Maskull stumbled down the staircase as best he could. He was tired, but contemptuous of his pains. His uninjured probe began to discharge matter. He lowered himself from step to step during what seemed an interminable time. The rustling and sighing of the trees grew louder as he approached the bottom; the air became still and warm. Inky blackness was all around him.<\/p>\n

\n

He at last reached level ground. Still attempting to proceed, he began to trip over roots, and to collide with tree trunks. After this had happened a few times, he determined to go no farther that night. He heaped together some dry leaves for a pillow, and immediately flung himself down to sleep. Deep and heavy unconsciousness seized him almost instantly.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 13. THE WOMBFLASH FOREST<\/h2>\n

He awoke to his third day on Tormance. His limbs ached. He lay on his side, looking stupidly at his surroundings. The forest was like night, but that period of the night when the grey dawn is about to break and objects begin to be guessed at, rather than seen. Two or three amazing shadowy shapes, as broad as houses, loomed up out of the twilight. He did not realise that they were trees, until he turned over on his back and followed their course upward. Far overhead, so high up that he dared not calculate the height, he saw their tops glittering in the sunlight, against a tiny patch of blue sky.<\/p>\n

Clouds of mist, rolling over the floor of the forest, kept interrupting his view. In their silent passage they were like phantoms flitting among the trees. The leaves underneath him were sodden, and heavy drops of moisture splashed onto his head from time to time.<\/p>\n

He continued lying there, trying to reconstruct the events of the preceding day. His brain was lethargic and confused. Something terrible had happened, but what it was he could not for a long time recollect. Then suddenly there came before his eyes that ghastly closing scene at dusk on the Sant plateau\u2014Spadevil\u2019s crushed and bloody features and Tydomin\u2019s dying sighs…. He shuddered convulsively, and felt sick.<\/p>\n

The peculiar moral outlook that had dictated these brutal murders had departed from him during the night, and now he recognised what he had done! During the whole of the previous day he seemed to have been labouring under a series of heavy enchantments. First Oceaxe had enslaved him, then Tydomin, then Spadevil, and lastly Catice. They had forced him to murder and violate; he had guessed nothing, but had imagined that he was travelling as a free and enlightened stranger. What was this nightmare journey for\u2014and would it continue, in the same way?…<\/p>\n

The silence of the forest was so intense that he heard no sound except the pumping of blood through his arteries.<\/p>\n

Putting his hand to his face, he found that his remaining probe had disappeared and that he was in possession of three eyes. The third eye was on his forehead, where the old sorb had been. He could not guess its use. He still had his third arm, but it was nerveless.<\/p>\n

Now he puzzled his head for a long time, trying unsuccessfully to recall that name which had been the last word spoken by Catice.<\/p>\n

He got up, with the intention of resuming his journey. He had no toilet to make, and no meal to prepare. The forest was tremendous. The nearest tree appeared to him to have a circumference of at least a hundred feet. Other dim boles looked equally large. But what gave the scene its aspect of immensity was the vast spaces separating tree from tree. It was like some gigantic, supernatural hall in a life after death. The lowest branches were fifty yards or more from the ground. There was no underbrush; the soil was carpeted only by the dead, wet leaves. He looked all around him, to find his direction, but the cliffs of Sant, which he had descended, were invisible\u2014every way was like every other way, he had no idea which quarter to attack. He grew frightened, and muttered to himself. Craning his neck back, he stared upward and tried to discover the points of the compass from the direction of the sunlight, but it was impossible.<\/p>\n

While he was standing there, anxious and hesitating, he heard the drum taps. The rhythmical beats proceeded from some distance off. The unseen drummer seemed to be marching through the forest, away from him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurtur!\u201d he said, under his breath. The next moment he marvelled at himself for uttering the name. That mysterious being had not been in his thoughts, nor was there any ostensible connection between him and the drumming.<\/p>\n

He began to reflect\u2014but in the meantime the sounds were travelling away. Automatically he started walking in the same direction. The drum beats had this peculiarity\u2014though odd and mystical, there was nothing awe-inspiring in them, but on the contrary they reminded him of some place and some life with which he was perfectly familiar. Once again they caused all his other sense impressions to appear false.<\/p>\n

The sounds were intermittent. They would go on for a minute, or for five minutes, and then cease for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Maskull followed them as well as he could. He walked hard among the huge, indistinct trees, in the attempt to come up with the origin of the noise, but the same distance always seemed to separate them. The forest from now onward descended. The gradient was mostly gentle\u2014about one foot in ten\u2014but in some places it was much steeper, and in other parts again it was practically level ground for quite long stretches. There were great swampy marshes, through which Maskull was obliged to splash. It was a matter of indifference to him how wet he became\u2014if only he could catch sight of that individual with the drum. Mile after mile was covered, and still he was no nearer to doing so.<\/p>\n

The gloom of the forest settled down upon his spirits. He felt despondent, tired, and savage. He had not heard the drum beats for some while, and was half inclined to discontinue the pursuit.<\/p>\n

Passing around a great, columnar tree trunk, he almost stumbled against a man who was standing on the farther side. He was leaning against the trunk with one hand, in an attitude of repose. His other hand was resting on a staff. Maskull stopped short and stared at him.<\/p>\n

He was nearly naked, and of gigantic build. He over-topped Maskull by a head. His face and body were faintly phosphorescent. His eyes\u2014three in number\u2014were pale green and luminous, shining like lamps. His skin was hairless, but the hair of his head was piled up in thick, black coils, and fastened like a woman\u2019s. His features were absolutely tranquil, but a terrible, quiet energy seemed to lie just underneath the surface.<\/p>\n

Maskull addressed him. \u201cDid the drumming come from you?\u201d<\/p>\n

The man shook his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d<\/p>\n

He replied in a strange, strained, twisted voice. Maskull gathered that the name he gave was \u201cDreamsinter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is that drumming?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurtur,\u201d said Dreamsinter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it advisable for me to follow it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps he intends me to. He brought me here from Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dreamsinter caught hold of him, bent down, and peered into his face. \u201cNot you, but Nightspore.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was the first time that Maskull had heard Nightspore\u2019s name since his arrival on the planet. He was so astonished that he could frame no more questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEat this,\u201d said Dreamsinter. \u201cThen we will chase the sound together.\u201d He picked something up from the ground and handed it to Maskull. He could not see distinctly, but it felt like a hard, round nut, of the size of a fist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t crack it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dreamsinter took it between his hands, and broke it into pieces. Maskull then ate some of the pulpy interior, which was intensely disagreeable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat am I doing in Tormance, then?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou came to steal Muspel-fire, to give a deeper life to men\u2014never doubting if your soul could endure that burning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull could hardly decipher the strangled words.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuspel…. That\u2019s the name I\u2019ve been trying to remember ever since I awoke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dreamsinter suddenly turned his head sideways, and appeared to listen for something. He motioned with his hand to Maskull to keep quiet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it the drumming?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHush! They come.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was looking toward the upper forest. The now familiar drum rhythm was heard\u2014this time accompanied by the tramp of marching feet.<\/p>\n

Maskull saw, marching through the trees and heading toward them, three men in single file separated from one another by only a yard or so. They were travelling down hill at a swift pace, and looked neither to left nor right. They were naked. Their figures were shining against the black background of the forest with a pale, supernatural light\u2014green and ghostly. When they were abreast of him, about twenty feet off, he perceived who they were. The first man was himself\u2014Maskull. The second was Krag. The third man was Nightspore. Their faces were grim and set.<\/p>\n

The source of the drumming was out of sight. The sound appeared to come from some point in front of them. Maskull and Dreamsinter put themselves in motion, to keep up with the swiftly moving marchers. At the same time a low, faint music began.<\/p>\n

Its rhythm stepped with the drum beats, but, unlike the latter, it did not seem to proceed from any particular quarter of the forest. It resembled the subjective music heard in dreams, which accompanies the dreamer everywhere, as a sort of natural atmosphere, rendering all his experiences emotional. It seemed to issue from an unearthly orchestra, and was strongly troubled, pathetic and tragic. Maskull marched, and listened; and as he listened, it grew louder and stormier. But the pulse of the drum interpenetrated all the other sounds, like the quiet beating of reality.<\/p>\n

His emotion deepened. He could not have said if minutes or hours were passing. The spectral procession marched on, a little way ahead, on a path parallel with his own and Dreamsinter\u2019s. The music pulsated violently. Krag lifted his arm, and displayed a long, murderous-looking knife. He sprang forward and, raising it over the phantom Maskull\u2019s back, stabbed him twice, leaving the knife in the wound the second time. Maskull threw up his arms, and fell down dead. Krag leaped into the forest and vanished from sight. Nightspore marched on alone, stern and unmoved.<\/p>\n

The music rose to crescendo. The whole dim, gigantic forest was roaring with sound. The tones came from all sides, from above, from the ground under their feet. It was so grandly passionate that Maskull felt his soul loosening from its bodily envelope.<\/p>\n

He continued to follow Nightspore. A strange brightness began to glow in front of them. It was not daylight, but a radiance such as he had never seen before, and such as he could not have imagined to be possible. Nightspore moved straight toward it. Maskull felt his chest bursting. The light flashed higher. The awful harmonies of the music followed hard one upon another, like the waves of a wild, magic ocean…. His body was incapable of enduring such shocks, and all of a sudden he tumbled over in a faint that resembled death.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 14. POLECRAB<\/h2>\n

The morning slowly passed. Maskull made some convulsive movements, and opened his eyes. He sat up, blinking. All was night-like and silent in the forest. The strange light had gone, the music had ceased, Dreamsinter had vanished. He fingered his beard, clotted with Tydomin\u2019s blood, and fell into a deep muse.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to Panawe and Catice, this forest contains wise men. Perhaps Dreamsinter was one. Perhaps that vision I have just seen was a specimen of his wisdom. It looked almost like an answer to my question…. I ought not to have asked about myself, but about Surtur. Then I would have got a different answer. I might have learned something… I might have seen him<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He remained quiet and apathetic for a bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I couldn\u2019t face that awful glare,\u201d he proceeded. \u201cIt was bursting my body. He warned me, too. And so Surtur does really exist, and my journey stands for something. But why am I here, and what can I do? Who is<\/i> Surtur? Where is he to be found?\u201d<\/p>\n

Something wild came into his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did Dreamsinter mean by his \u2018Not you, but Nightspore\u2019? Am I a secondary character\u2014is he regarded as important; and I as unimportant? Where is Nightspore, and what is he doing? Am I to wait for his time and pleasure\u2014can I originate nothing?\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued sitting up, with straight-extended legs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must make up my mind that this is a strange journey, and that the strangest things will happen in it. It\u2019s no use making plans, for I can\u2019t see two steps ahead\u2014everything is unknown. But one thing\u2019s evident: nothing but the wildest audacity will carry me through, and I must sacrifice everything else to that. And therefore if Surtur shows himself again, I shall go forward to meet him, even if it means death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through the black, quiet aisles of the forest the drum beats came again. The sound was a long way off and very faint. It was like the last mutterings of thunder after a heavy storm. Maskull listened, without getting up. The drumming faded into silence, and did not return.<\/p>\n

He smiled queerly, and said aloud, \u201cThanks, Surtur! I accept the omen.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he was about to get up, he found that the shrivelled skin that had been his third arm was flapping disconcertingly with every movement of his body. He made perforations in it all around, as close to his chest as possible, with the fingernails of both hands; then he carefully twisted it off. In that world of rapid growth and ungrowth he judged that the stump would soon disappear. After that, he rose and peered into the darkness.<\/p>\n

The forest at that point sloped rather steeply and, without thinking twice about it, he took the downhill direction, never doubting it would bring him somewhere. As soon as he started walking, his temper became gloomy and morose\u2014he was shaken, tired, dirty, and languid with hunger; moreover, he realised that the walk was not going to be a short one. Be that as it may, he determined to sit down no more until the whole dismal forest was at his back.<\/p>\n

One after another the shadowy, houselike trees were observed, avoided, and passed. Far overhead the little patch of glowing sky was still always visible; otherwise he had no clue to the time of day. He continued tramping sullenly down the slope for many damp, slippery miles\u2014in some places through bogs. When, presently, the twilight seemed to thin, he guessed that the open world was not far away. The forest grew more palpable and grey, and now he saw its majesty better. The tree trunks were like round towers, and so wide were the intervals that they resembled natural amphitheatres. He could not make out the colour of the bark. Everything he saw amazed him, but his admiration was of the growling, grudging kind. The difference in light between the forest behind him and the forest ahead became so marked that he could no longer doubt that he was on the point of coming out.<\/p>\n

Real light was in front of him; looking back, he found he had a shadow. The trunks acquired a reddish tint. He quickened his pace. As the minutes went by, the bright patch ahead grew luminous and vivid; it had a tinge of blue. He also imagined that he heard the sound of surf.<\/p>\n

All that part of the forest toward which he was moving became rich with colour. The boles of the trees were of a deep, dark red; their leaves, high above his head, were ulfire-hued; the dead leaves on the ground were of a colour he could not name. At the same time he discovered the use of his third eye. By adding a third angle to his sight, every object he looked at stood out in greater relief. The world looked less flat<\/i>\u2014more realistic and significant. He had a stronger attraction toward his surroundings; he seemed somehow to lose his egotism, and to become free and thoughtful.<\/p>\n

Now through the last trees he saw full daylight. Less than half a mile separated him from the border of the forest, and, eager to discover what lay beyond, he broke into a run. He heard the surf louder. It was a peculiar hissing sound that could proceed only from water, yet was unlike the sea. Almost immediately he came within sight of an enormous horizon of dancing waves, which he knew must be the Sinking Sea. He fell back into a quick walk, continuing to stare hard. The wind that met him was hot, fresh and sweet.<\/p>\n

When he arrived at the final fringe of forest, which joined the wide sands of the shore without any change of level, he leaned with his back to a great tree and gazed his fill, motionless, at what lay in front of him. The sands continued east and west in a straight line, broken only here and there by a few creeks. They were of a brilliant orange colour, but there were patches of violet. The forest appeared to stand sentinel over the shore for its entire length. Everything else was sea and sky\u2014he had never seen so much water. The semicircle of the skyline was so vast that he might have imagined himself on a flat world, with a range of vision determined only by the power of his eye. The sea was unlike any sea on Earth. It resembled an immense liquid opal. On a body colour of rich, magnificent emerald-green, flashes of red, yellow, and blue were everywhere shooting up and vanishing. The wave motion was extraordinary. Pinnacles of water were slowly formed until they attained a height of perhaps ten or twenty feet, when they would suddenly sink downward and outward, creating in their descent a series of concentric rings for long distances around them. Quickly moving currents, like rivers in the sea, could be seen, racing away from land; they were of a darker green and bore no pinnacles. Where the sea met the shore, the waves rushed over the sands far in, with almost sinister rapidity\u2014accompanied by a weird, hissing, spitting sound, which was what Maskull had heard. The green tongues rolled in without foam.<\/p>\n

About twenty miles distant, as he judged, directly opposite him, a long, low island stood up from the sea, black and not distinguished in outline. It was Swaylone\u2019s Island. Maskull was less interested in that than in the blue sunset that glowed behind its back. Alppain had set, but the whole northern sky was plunged into the minor key by its afterlight. Branchspell in the zenith was white and overpowering, the day was cloudless and terrifically hot; but where the blue sun had sunk, a sombre shadow seemed to overhang the world. Maskull had a feeling of disintegration\u2014just as if two chemically distinct forces were simultaneously acting upon the cells of his body. Since the afterglow of Alppain affected him like this, he thought it more than likely that he would never be able to face that sun itself, and go on living. Still, some modification might happen to him that would make it possible.<\/p>\n

The sea tempted him. He made up his mind to bathe, and at once walked toward the shore. The instant he stepped outside the shadow line of the forest trees, the blinding rays of the sun beat down on him so savagely that for a few minutes he felt sick and his head swam. He trod quickly across the sands. The orange-coloured parts were nearly hot enough to roast food, he judged, but the violet parts were like fire itself. He stepped on a patch in ignorance, and immediately jumped high into the air with a startled yell.<\/p>\n

The sea was voluptuously warm. It would not bear his weight, so he determined to try swimming. First of all he stripped off his skin garment, washed it thoroughly with sand and water, and laid it in the sun to dry. Then he scrubbed himself as well as he could and washed out his beard and hair. After that, he waded in a long way, until the water reached his breast, and took to swimming\u2014avoiding the spouts as far as possible He found it no pastime. The water was everywhere of unequal density. In some places he could swim, in others he could barely save himself from drowning, in others again he could not force himself beneath the surface at all. There were no outward signs to show what the water ahead held in store for him. The whole business was most dangerous.<\/p>\n

He came out, feeling clean and invigorated. For a time he walked up and down the sands, drying himself in the hot sunshine and looking around him. He was a naked stranger in a huge, foreign, mystical world, and whichever way he turned, unknown and threatening forces were glaring at him. The gigantic, white, withering Branchspell, the awful, body-changing Alppain, the beautiful, deadly, treacherous sea, the dark and eerie Swaylone\u2019s Island, the spirit-crushing forest out of which he had just escaped\u2014to all these mighty powers, surrounding him on every side, what resources had he, a feeble, ignorant traveller from a tiny planet on the other side of space, to oppose, to avoid being utterly destroyed?… Then he smiled to himself. \u201cI\u2019ve already been here two days, and still I survive. I have luck\u2014and with that one can balance the universe. But what is luck\u2014a verbal expression, or a thing?\u201d<\/p>\n

As he was putting on his skin, which was now dry, the answer came to him, and this time he was grave. \u201cSurtur brought me here, and Surtur is watching over me. That is my \u2018luck.\u2019… But what is Surtur in this world?… How is he able to protect me against the blind and ungovernable forces of nature? Is he stronger than Nature?…\u201d<\/p>\n

Hungry as he was for food, he was hungrier still for human society, for he wished to inquire about all these things. He asked himself which way he should turn his steps. There were only two ways; along the shore, either east or west. The nearest creek lay to the east, cutting the sands about a mile away. He walked toward it.<\/p>\n

The forest face was forbidding and enormously high. It was so squarely turned to the sea that it looked as though it had been planed by tools. Maskull strode along in the shade of the trees, but kept his head constantly turned away from them, toward the sea\u2014there it was more cheerful. The creek, when he reached it, proved to be broad and flat-banked. It was not a river, but an arm of the sea. Its still, dark green water curved around a bend out of sight, into the forest. The trees on both banks overhung the water, so that it was completely in shadow.<\/p>\n

He went as far as the bend, beyond which another short reach appeared. A man was sitting on a narrow shelf of bank, with his feet in the water. He was clothed in a coarse, rough hide, which left his limbs bare. He was short, thick, and sturdy, with short legs and a long, powerful arms, terminating in hands of an extraordinary size. He was oldish. His face was plain, slablike, and expressionless; it was full of wrinkles, and walnut-coloured. Both face and head were bald, and his skin was tough and leathery. He seemed to be some sort of peasant, or fisherman; there was no trace in his face of thought for others, or delicacy of feeling. He possessed three eyes, of different colors\u2014jade-green, blue, and ulfire.<\/p>\n

In front of him, riding on the water, moored to the bank, was an elementary raft, consisting of the branches of trees, clumsily corded together.<\/p>\n

Maskull addressed him. \u201cAre you another of the wise men of the Wombflash Forest?\u201d<\/p>\n

The man answered him in a gruff, husky voice, looking up as he did so. \u201cI\u2019m a fisherman. I know nothing about wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat name do you go by?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPolecrab. What\u2019s yours?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull. If you\u2019re a fisherman, you ought to have fish. I\u2019m famishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polecrab grunted, and paused a minute before answering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s fish enough. My dinner is cooking in the sands now. It\u2019s easy enough to get you some more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull found this a pleasant speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut how long will it take?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

The man slid the palms of his hands together, producing a shrill, screeching noise. He lifted his feet from the water, and clambered onto the bank. In a minute or two a curious little beast came crawling up to his feet, turning its face and eyes up affectionately, like a dog. It was about two feet long, and somewhat resembled a small seal, but had six legs, ending in strong claws.<\/p>\n

\u201cArg, go fish!\u201d said Polecrab hoarsely.<\/p>\n

The animal immediately tumbled off the bank into the water. It swam gracefully to the middle of the creek and made a pivotal dive beneath the surface, where it remained a great while.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimple fishing,\u201d remarked Maskull. \u201cBut what\u2019s the raft for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo go to sea with. The best fish are out at sea. These are eatable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat arg seems a highly intelligent creature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polecrab grunted again. \u201cI\u2019ve trained close on a hundred of them. The bigheads learn best, but they\u2019re slow swimmers. The narrowheads swim like eels, but can\u2019t be taught. Now I\u2019ve started interbreeding them\u2014he\u2019s<\/i> one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you live here alone?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019ve got a wife and three boys. My wife\u2019s sleeping somewhere, but where the lads are, Shaping knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull began to feel very much at home with this unsophisticated being.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe raft\u2019s all crazy,\u201d he remarked, staring at it. \u201cIf you go far out in that, you\u2019ve got more pluck than I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been to Matterplay on it,\u201d said Polecrab.<\/p>\n

The arg reappeared and started swimming to shore, but this time clumsily, as if it were bearing a heavy weight under the surface. When it landed at its master\u2019s feet, they saw that each set of claws was clutching a fish\u2014six in all. Polecrab took them from it. He proceeded to cut off the heads and tails with a sharp-edged stone which he picked up; these he threw to the arg, which devoured them without any fuss.<\/p>\n

Polecrab beckoned to Maskull to follow him and, carrying the fish, walked toward the open shore, by the same way that he had come. When they reached the sands, he sliced the fish, removed the entrails, and digging a shallow hole in a patch of violet sand, placed the remainder of the carcasses in it, and covered them over again. Then he dug up his own dinner. Maskull\u2019s nostrils quivered at the savoury smell, but he was not yet to dine.<\/p>\n

Polecrab, turning to go with the cooked fish in his hands, said, \u201cThese are mine, not yours. When yours are done, you can come back and join me, supposing you want company.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow soon will that be?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout twenty minutes,\u201d replied the fisherman, over his shoulder.<\/p>\n

Maskull sheltered himself in the shadows of the forest, and waited. When the time had approximately elapsed, he disinterred his meal, scorching his fingers in the operation, although it was only the surface of the sand which was so intensely hot. Then he returned to Polecrab.<\/p>\n

In the warm, still air and cheerful shade of the inlet, they munched in silence, looking from their food to the sluggish water, and back again. With every mouthful Maskull felt his strength returning. He finished before Polecrab, who ate like a man for whom time has no value. When he had done, he stood up.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome and drink,\u201d he said, in his husky voice.<\/p>\n

Maskull looked at him inquiringly.<\/p>\n

The man led him a little way into the forest, and walked straight up to a certain tree. At a convenient height in its trunk a hole had been tapped and plugged. Polecrab removed the plug and put his mouth to the aperture, sucking for quite a long time, like a child at its mother\u2019s breast. Maskull, watching him, imagined that he saw his eyes growing brighter.<\/p>\n

When his own turn came to drink, he found the juice of the tree somewhat like coconut milk in flavour, but intoxicating. It was a new sort of intoxication, however, for neither his will not his emotions were excited, but only his intellect\u2014and that only in a certain way. His thoughts and images were not freed and loosened, but on the contrary kept labouring and swelling painfully, until they reached the full beauty of an aper\u00c3\u00a7u<\/i>, which would then flame up in his consciousness, burst, and vanish. After that, the whole process started over again. But there was never a moment when he was not perfectly cool, and master of his senses. When each had drunk twice, Polecrab replugged the hole, and they returned to their bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it Blodsombre yet?\u201d asked Maskull, sprawling on the ground, well content.<\/p>\n

Polecrab resumed his old upright sitting posture, with his feet in the water. \u201cJust beginning,\u201d was his hoarse response.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I must stay here till it\u2019s over…. Shall we talk?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can,\u201d said the other, without enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Maskull glanced at him through half-closed lids, wondering if he were exactly what he seemed to be. In his eyes he thought he detected a wise light.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you travelled much, Polecrab?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot what you<\/i> would call travelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou tell me you\u2019ve been to Matterplay\u2014what kind of country is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I went there to pick up flints.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat countries lie beyond it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThreal comes next, as you go north. They say it\u2019s a land of mystics… I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMystics?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m told…. Still farther north there\u2019s Lichstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re going far afield.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are mountains there\u2014and altogether it must be a very dangerous place, especially for a full-blooded man like you. Take care of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is rather premature, Polecrab. How do you know I\u2019m going there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you\u2019ve come from the south, I suppose you\u2019ll go north.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s right enough,\u201d said Maskull, staring hard at him. \u201cBut how do you know I\u2019ve come from the south?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, then, perhaps you haven\u2019t\u2014but there\u2019s a look of Ifdawn about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of look?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA tragical look,\u201d said Polecrab. He never even glanced at Maskull, but was gazing at a fixed spot on the water with unblinking eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat lies beyond Lichstorm?\u201d asked Maskull, after a minute or two.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarey, where you have two suns instead of one\u2014but beyond that fact I know nothing about it…. Then comes the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what\u2019s on the other side of the ocean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat you must find out for yourself, for I doubt if anybody has ever crossed it and come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull was silent for a little while.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is it that your people are so unadventurous? I seem to be the only one travelling from curiosity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean by \u2018your people\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue\u2014you don\u2019t know that I don\u2019t belong to your planet at all. I\u2019ve come from another world, Polecrab.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat to find?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI came here with Krag and Nightspore\u2014to follow Surtur. I must have fainted the moment I arrived. When I sat up, it was night and the others had vanished. Since then I\u2019ve been travelling at random.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polecrab scratched his nose. \u201cYou haven\u2019t found Surtur yet?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard his drum taps frequently. In the forest this morning I came quite close to him. Then two days ago, in the Lusion Plain, I saw a vision\u2014a being in man\u2019s shape, who called himself Surtur.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, maybe it was Surtur.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, that\u2019s impossible,\u201d replied Maskull reflectively. \u201cIt was Crystalman. And it isn\u2019t a question of my suspecting it\u2014I know<\/i> it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause this is Crystalman\u2019s world, and Surtur\u2019s world is something quite different.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s queer, then,\u201d said Polecrab.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I\u2019ve come out of that forest,\u201d proceeded Maskull, talking half to himself, \u201ca change has come over me, and I see things differently. Everything here looks much more solid and real in my eyes than in other places so much so that I can\u2019t entertain the least doubt of its existence. It not only looks<\/i> real, it is<\/i> real\u2014and on that I would stake my life…. But at the same time that it\u2019s real, it is false<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike a dream?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo\u2014not at all like a dream, and that\u2019s just what I want to explain. This world of yours\u2014and perhaps of mine too, for that matter\u2014doesn\u2019t give me the slightest impression of a dream, or an illusion, or anything of that sort. I know it\u2019s really here at this moment, and it\u2019s exactly as we\u2019re seeing it, you and I. Yet it\u2019s false. It\u2019s false in this sense, Polecrab. Side by side with it another world exists, and that other world is the true one, and this one is all false and deceitful, to the very core. And so it occurs to me that reality and falseness are two words for the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps there is such another world,\u201d said Polecrab huskily. \u201cBut did that vision also seem real and false to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery real, but not false then, for then I didn\u2019t understand all this. But just because it was real, it couldn\u2019t have been Surtur, who has no connection with reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDidn\u2019t those drum taps sound real to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to hear them with my ears, and so they sounded real to me. Still, they were somehow different, and they certainly came from Surtur. If I didn\u2019t hear them correctly, that was my fault and not his.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polecrab growled a little. \u201cIf Surtur chooses to speak to you in that fashion, it appears he\u2019s trying to say something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat else can I think? But, Polecrab, what\u2019s your opinion\u2014is he calling me to the life after death?\u201d<\/p>\n

The old man stirred uneasily. \u201cI\u2019m a fisherman,\u201d he said, after a minute or two. \u201cI live by killing, and so does everybody. This life seems to me all wrong. So maybe life of any kind is wrong, and Surtur\u2019s world is not life at all, but something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but will death lead me to it, whatever it is?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk the dead,\u201d said Polecrab, \u201cand not a living man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull continued. \u201cIn the forest I heard music and saw a light, which could not have belonged to this world. They were too strong for my senses, and I must have fainted for a long time. There was a vision as well, in which I saw myself killed, while Nightspore walked on toward the light, alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polecrab uttered his grunt. \u201cYou have enough to think over.\u201d<\/p>\n

A short silence ensued, which was broken by Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo strong is my sense of the untruth of this present life, that it may come to my putting an end to myself.\u201d The fisherman remained quiet and immobile.<\/p>\n

Maskull lay on his stomach, propped his face on his hands, and stared at him. \u201cWhat do you think, Polecrab? Is it possible for any man, while in the body, to gain a closer view of that other world than I have done?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am an ignorant man, stranger, so I can\u2019t say. Perhaps there are many others like you who would gladly know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere? I should like to meet them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think you were made of one stuff, and the rest of mankind of another stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t be so presumptuous. Possibly all men are reaching out toward Muspel, in most cases without being aware of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the wrong direction,\u201d said Polecrab.<\/p>\n

Maskull gave him a strange look. \u201cHow so?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t speak from my own wisdom,\u201d said Polecrab, \u201cfor I have none; but I have just now recalled what Broodviol once told me, when I was a young man, and he was an old one. He said that Crystalman tries to turn all things into one, and that whichever way his shapes march, in order to escape from him, they find themselves again face to face with Crystalman, and are changed into new crystals. But that this marching of shapes (which we call \u2018forking\u2019) springs from the unconscious desire to find Surtur, but is in the opposite direction to the right one. For Surtur\u2019s world does not lie on this side of the one<\/i>, which was the beginning of life, but on the other side; and to get to it we must repass through the one. But this can only be by renouncing our self-life, and reuniting ourselves to the whole of Crystalman\u2019s world. And when this has been done, it is only the first stage of the journey; though many good men imagine it to be the whole journey…. As far as I can remember, that is what Broodviol said, but perhaps, as I was then a young and ignorant man, I may have left out words which would explain his meaning better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull, who had listened attentively to all this, remained thoughtful at the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s plain enough,\u201d he said. \u201cBut what did he mean by our reuniting ourselves to Crystalman\u2019s world? If it is false, are we to make ourselves false as well?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t ask him that question, and you are as well qualified to answer it as I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe must have meant that, as it is, we are each of us living in a false, private world of our own, a world of dreams and appetites and distorted perceptions. By embracing the great world we certainly lose nothing in truth and reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polecrab withdrew his feet from the water, stood up, yawned, and stretched his limbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have told you all I know,\u201d he said in a surly voice. \u201cNow let me go to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull kept his eyes fixed on him, but made no reply. The old man let himself down stiffly on to the ground, and prepared to rest.<\/p>\n

While he was still arranging his position to his liking, a footfall sounded behind the two men, coming from the direction of the forest. Maskull twisted his neck, and saw a woman approaching them. He at once guessed that it was Polecrab\u2019s wife. He sat up, but the fisherman did not stir. The woman came and stood in front of them, looking down from what appeared a great height.<\/p>\n

Her dress was similar to her husband\u2019s, but covered her limbs more. She was young, tall, slender, and strikingly erect. Her skin was lightly tanned, and she looked strong, but not at all peasantlike. Refinement was stamped all over her. Her face had too much energy of expression for a woman, and she was not beautiful. Her three great eyes kept flashing and glowing. She had great masses of fine, yellow hair, coiled up and fastened, but so carelessly that some of the strands were flowing down her back.<\/p>\n

When she spoke, it was in a rather weak voice, but full of lights and shades, and somehow intense passionateness never seemed to be far away from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cForgiveness is asked for listening to your conversation,\u201d she said, addressing Maskull. \u201cI was resting behind the tree, and heard it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

He got up slowly. \u201cAre you Polecrab\u2019s wife?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is my wife,\u201d said Polecrab, \u201cand her name is Gleameil. Sit down again, stranger\u2014and you too, wife, since you are here.\u201d<\/p>\n

They both obeyed. \u201cI heard everything,\u201d repeated Gleameil. \u201cBut what I did not hear was where you are going to, Maskull, after you have left us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know no more than you do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, then. There\u2019s only one place for you to go to, and that is Swaylone\u2019s Island. I will ferry you across myself before sunset.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat shall I find there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe may go, wife,\u201d put in the old man hoarsely, \u201cbut I won\u2019t allow you to go. I will take him over myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, you have always put me off,\u201d said Gleameil, with some emotion. \u201cThis time I mean to go. When Teargeld shines at night, and I sit on the shore here, listening to Earthrid\u2019s music travelling faintly across the sea, I am tortured\u2014I can\u2019t endure it…. I have long since made up my mind to go to the island, and see what this music is. If it\u2019s bad, if it kills me\u2014well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat have I to do with the man and his music, Gleameil?\u201d demanded Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the music will answer all your questions better than Polecrab has done\u2014and possibly in a way that will surprise you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of music can it be to travel all those miles across the sea?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA peculiar kind, so we are told. Not pleasant, but painful. And the man that can play the instrument of Earthrid would be able to conjure up the most astonishing forms, which are not phantasms, but realities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat may be so,\u201d growled Polecrab. \u201cBut I have been to the island by daylight, and what did I find there? Human bones, new and ancient. Those are Earthrid\u2019s victims. And you, wife, shall not go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut will that music play tonight?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d replied Gleameil, gazing at him intently. \u201cWhen Teargeld rises, which is our moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Earthrid plays men to death, it appears to me that his own death is due. In any case I should like to hear those sounds for myself. But as for taking you with me, Gleameil\u2014women die too easily in Tormance. I have only just now washed myself clean of the death blood of another woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gleameil laughed, but said nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow go to sleep,\u201d said Polecrab. \u201cWhen the time comes, I will take you across myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

He lay down again, and closed his eyes. Maskull followed his example; but Gleameil remained sitting erect, with her legs under her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho was that other woman, Maskull?\u201d she asked presently.<\/p>\n

He did not answer, but pretended to sleep.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 15. SWAYLONE\u2019S ISLAND<\/h2>\n

When he awoke, the day was not so bright, and he guessed it was late afternoon. Polecrab and his wife were both on their feet, and another meal of fish had been cooked and was waiting for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it decided who is to go with me?\u201d he asked, before sitting down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go,\u201d said Gleameil.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you agree, Polecrab?\u201d<\/p>\n

The fisherman growled a little in his throat and motioned to the others to take their seats. He took a mouthful before answering.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething strong is attracting her, and I can\u2019t hold her back. I don\u2019t think I shall see you again, wife, but the lads are now nearly old enough to fend for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t take dejected views,\u201d replied Gleameil sternly. She was not eating. \u201cI shall come back, and make amends to you. It\u2019s only for a night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull gazed from one to the other in perplexity. \u201cLet me go alone. I would be sorry if anything happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gleameil shook her head.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t regard this as a woman\u2019s caprice,\u201d she said. \u201cEven if you hadn\u2019t passed this way, I would have heard that music soon. I have a hunger for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaven\u2019t you any such feeling, Polecrab?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. A woman is a noble and sensitive creature, and there are attractions in nature too subtle for males. Take her with you, since she is set on it. Maybe she\u2019s right. Perhaps Earthrid\u2019s music will answer your questions, and hers too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are your questions, Gleameil?\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman shed a strange smile. \u201cYou may be sure that a question which requires music for an answer can\u2019t be put into words.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are not back by the morning,\u201d remarked her husband, \u201cI will know you are dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meal was finished in a constrained silence. Polecrab wiped his mouth, and produced a seashell from a kind of pocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill you say goodbye to the boys? Shall I call them?\u201d She considered a moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes\u2014yes, I must see them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He put the shell to his mouth, and blew; a loud, mournful noise passed through the air.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later there was a sound of scurrying footsteps, and the boys were seen emerging from the forest. Maskull looked with curiosity at the first children he had seen on Tormance. The oldest boy was carrying the youngest on his back, while the third trotted some distance behind. The child was let down, and all the three formed a semicircle in front of Maskull, standing staring up at him with wide-open eyes. Polecrab looked on stolidly, but Gleameil glanced away from them, with proudly raised head and a baffling expression.<\/p>\n

Maskull put the ages of the boys at about nine, seven, and five years, respectively; but he was calculating according to Earth time. The eldest was tall, slim, but strongly built. He, like his brothers, was naked, and his skin from top to toe was ulfire-colored. His facial muscles indicated a wild and daring nature, and his eyes were like green fires. The second showed promise of being a broad, powerful man. His head was large and heavy, and drooped. His face and skin were reddish. His eyes were almost too sombre and penetrating for a child\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one,\u201d said Polecrab, pinching the boy\u2019s ear, \u201cmay perhaps grow up to be a second Broodviol.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho was that?\u201d demanded the boy, bending his head forward to hear the answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cA big, old man, of marvellous wisdom. He became wise by making up his mind never to ask questions, but to find things out for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had not asked this question, I should not have known about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would not have mattered,\u201d replied the father.<\/p>\n

The youngest child was paler and slighter than his brothers. His face was mostly tranquil and expressionless, but it had this peculiarity about it, that every few minutes, without any apparent cause, it would wrinkle up and look perplexed. At these times his eyes, which were of a tawny gold, seemed to contain secrets difficult to associate with one of his age.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe puzzles me,\u201d said Polecrab. \u201cHe has a soul like sap, and he\u2019s interested in nothing. He may turn out to be the most remarkable of the bunch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull took the child in one hand, and lifted him as high as his head. He took a good look at him, and set him down again. The boy never changed countenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you make of him?\u201d asked the fisherman.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s on the tip of my tongue to say, but it just escapes me. Let me drink again, and then I shall have it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGo and drink, then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull strode over to the tree, drank, and returned. \u201cIn ages to come,\u201d he said, speaking deliberately, \u201che will be a grand and awful tradition. A seer possibly, or even a divinity. Watch over him well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The eldest boy looked scornful. \u201cI want to be none of those things. I would like to be like that big fellow.\u201d And he pointed his finger at Maskull.<\/p>\n

He laughed, and showed his white teeth through his beard. \u201cThanks for the compliments old warrior!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s great and brawny,\u201d continued the boy, \u201cand can hold his own with other men. Can you hold me up with one arm, as you did that child?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull complied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is being a man!\u201d exclaimed the boy. \u201cEnough!\u201d said Polecrab impatiently. \u201cI called you lads here to say goodbye to your mother. She is going away with this man. I think she may not return, but we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second boy\u2019s face became suddenly inflamed. \u201cIs she going of her own choice?\u201d he inquired.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d replied the father.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen she is bad.\u201d He brought the words out with such force and emphasis that they sounded like the crack of a whip.<\/p>\n

The old man cuffed him twice. \u201cIs it your mother you are speaking of?\u201d<\/p>\n

The boy stood his ground, without change of expression, but said nothing.<\/p>\n

The youngest child spoke, for the first time. \u201cMy mother will not come back, but she will die dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polecrab and his wife looked at one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are you going to, Mother?\u201d asked the eldest lad.<\/p>\n

Gleameil bent down, and kissed him. \u201cTo the Island.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell then, if you don\u2019t come back by tomorrow morning, I will go and look for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull grew more and more uneasy in his mind. \u201cThis seems to me to be a man\u2019s journey,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it would be better for you not to come, Gleameil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not to be dissuaded,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

He stroked his beard in perplexity. \u201cIs it time to start?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wants four hours to sunset, and we shall need all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull sighed. \u201cI\u2019ll go to the mouth of the creek, and wait there for you and the raft. You will wish to make your farewells, Gleameil.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then clasped Polecrab by the hand. \u201cAdieu, fisherman!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have repaid me well for my answers,\u201d said the old man gruffly. \u201cBut it\u2019s not your fault, and in Shaping\u2019s world the worst things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The eldest boy came close to Maskull, and frowned at him. \u201cFarewell, big man!\u201d he said. \u201cBut guard my mother well, as well as you are well able to, or I shall follow you, and kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull walked slowly along the creek bank till he came to the bend. The glorious sunshine, and the sparkling, brilliant sea then met his eyes again; and all melancholy was swept out of his mind. He continued as far as the seashore, and issuing out of the shadows of the forest, strolled on to the sands, and sat down in the full sunlight. The radiance of Alppain had long since disappeared. He drank in the hot, invigorating wind, listened to the hissing waves, and stared over the coloured sea with its pinnacles and currents, at Swaylone\u2019s Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat music can that be, which tears a wife and mother away from all she loves the most?\u201d he meditated. \u201cIt sounds unholy. Will it tell me what I want to know? Can it?\u201d<\/p>\n

In a little while he became aware of a movement behind him, and, turning his head, he saw the raft floating along the creek, toward the open sea. Polecrab was standing upright, propelling it with a rude pole. He passed by Maskull, without looking at him, or making any salutation, and proceeded out to sea.<\/p>\n

While he was wondering at this strange behaviour, Gleameil and the boys came in sight, walking along the bank of the inlet. The eldest-born was holding her hand, and talking; and the other two were behind. She was calm and smiling, but seemed abstracted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is your husband doing with the raft?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s putting it in position and we shall wade out and join it,\u201d she answered, in her low-toned voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut how shall we make the island, without oars or sails?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you see that current running away from land? See, he is approaching it. That will take us straight there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut how can you get back?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a way; but we need not think of that today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t I come too?\u201d demanded the eldest boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the raft won\u2019t carry three. Maskull is a heavy man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d said the boy. \u201cI know where there is wood for another raft. As soon as you have gone, I shall set to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polecrab had by this time manoeuvred his flimsy craft to the position he desired, within a few yards of the current, which at that point made a sharp bend from the east. He shouted out some words to his wife and Maskull. Gleameil kissed her children convulsively, and broke down a little. The eldest boy bit his lip till it bled, and tears glistened in his eyes; but the younger children stared wide-eyed, and displayed no emotion.<\/p>\n

Gleameil now walked into the sea, followed by Maskull. The water covered first their ankles, then their knees, but when it came as high as their waists, they were close on the raft. Polecrab let himself down into the water, and assisted his wife to climb over the side. When she was up, she bent down and kissed him. No words were exchanged. Maskull scrambled up on to the front part of the raft. The woman sat cross-legged in the stern, and seized the pole.<\/p>\n

Polecrab shoved them off toward the current, while she worked her pole until they had got within its power. The raft immediately began to travel swiftly away from land, with a smooth, swaying motion.<\/p>\n

The boys waved from the shore. Gleameil responded; but Maskull turned his back squarely to land, and gazed ahead. Polecrab was wading back to the shore.<\/p>\n

For upward of an hour Maskull did not change his position by an inch. No sound was heard but the splashing of the strange waves all around them, and the streamlike gurgle of the current, which threaded its way smoothly through the tossing, tumultuous sea. From their pathway of safety, the beautiful dangers surrounding them were an exhilarating experience. The air was fresh and clean, and the heat from Branchspell, now low in the west, was at last endurable. The riot of sea colors had long since banished all sadness and anxiety from his heart. Yet he felt such a grudge against the woman for selfishly forsaking those who should have been dear to her that he could not bring himself to begin a conversation.<\/p>\n

But when, over the now enlarged shape of the dark island, he caught sight of a long chain of lofty, distant mountains, glowing salmon-pink in the evening sunlight, he felt constrained to break the silence by inquiring what they were.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is Lichstorm,\u201d said Gleameil.<\/p>\n

Maskull asked no questions about it; but in turning to address her, his eyes had rested on the rapidly receding Wombflash Forest, and he continued to stare at that. They had travelled about eight miles, and now he could better estimate the enormous height of the trees. Overtopping them, far away, he saw Sant; and he fancied, but was not quite sure, that he could distinguish Disscourn as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that we are alone in a strange place,\u201d said Gleameil, averting her head, and looking down over the side of the raft into the water, \u201ctell me what you thought of Polecrab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull paused before answering. \u201cHe seemed to me like a mountain wrapped in cloud. You see the lower buttresses, and think that is all. But then, high up, far above the clouds, you suddenly catch sight of more mountain\u2014and even then it is not the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou read character well, and have great perception,\u201d remarked Gleameil quietly. \u201cNow say what I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn place of a human heart, you have a wild harp, and that\u2019s all I know about you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was that you said to my husband about two worlds?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I heard. And I also am conscious of two worlds. My husband and boys are real to me, and I love them fondly. But there is another world for me, as there is for you, Maskull, and it makes my real world appear all false and vulgar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps we are seeking the same thing. But can it be right to satisfy our self-nature at the expense of other people?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it\u2019s not right. It is wrong, and base. But in that other world these words have no meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s useless to discuss such topics,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cThe choice is now out of our hands, and we must go where we are taken. What I would rather speak about is what awaits us on the island.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am ignorant\u2014except that we shall find Earthrid there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is Earthrid, and why is it called Swaylone\u2019s Island?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say Earthrid came from Threal, but I know nothing else about him. As for Swaylone, if you like I will tell you his legend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you please,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a far-back age,\u201d began Gleameil, \u201cwhen the seas were hot, and clouds hung heavily over the earth, and life was rich with transformations, Swaylone came to this island, on which men had never before set foot, and began to play his music\u2014the first music in Tormance. Nightly, when the moon shone, people used to gather on this shore behind us, and listen to the faint, sweet strains floating from over the sea. One night, Shaping (whom you call Crystalman) was passing this way in company with Krag. They listened a while to the music, and Shaping said \u2018Have you heard more beautiful sounds? This is my world and my music.\u2019 Krag stamped with his foot, and laughed. \u2018You must do better than that, if I am to admire it. Let us pass over, and see this bungler at work.\u2019 Shaping consented, and they passed over to the island. Swaylone was not able to see their presence. Shaping stood behind him, and breathed thoughts into his soul, so that his music became ten times lovelier, and people listening on that shore went mad with sick delight. \u2018Can any strains be nobler?\u2019 demanded Shaping. Krag grinned and said, \u2018You are naturally effeminate. Now let me try.\u2019 Then he stood behind Swaylone, and shot ugly discords fast into his head. His instrument was so cracked, that never since has it played right. From that time forth Swaylone could utter only distorted music; yet it called to folk more than the other sort. Many men crossed over to the island during his lifetime, to listen to the amazing tones, but none could endure them; all died. After Swaylone\u2019s death, another musician took up the tale; and so the light has passed down from torch to torch, till now Earthrid bears it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAn interesting legend,\u201d commented Maskull. \u201cBut who is Krag?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say that when the world was born, Krag was born with it\u2014a spirit compounded of those vestiges of Muspel which Shaping did not know how to transform. Thereafter nothing has gone right with the world, for he dogs Shaping\u2019s footsteps everywhere, and whatever the latter does, he undoes. To love he joins death; to sex, shame; to intellect, madness; to virtue, cruelty; and to fair exteriors, bloody entrails. These are Krag\u2019s actions, so the lovers of the world call him \u2018devil.\u2019 They don\u2019t understand, Maskull, that without him the world would lose its beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKrag and beauty!\u201d exclaimed he, with a cynical smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven so. That same beauty which you and I are now voyaging to discover. That beauty for whose sake I am renouncing husband, children, and happiness…. Did you imagine beauty to be pleasant?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat pleasant beauty is an insipid compound of Shaping. To see beauty in its terrible purity, you must tear away the pleasure from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you say I am going to seek beauty, Gleameil? Such an idea is far from my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did not respond to his remark. After waiting for a few minutes, to hear if she would speak again, he turned his back on her once more. There was no more talk until they reached the island.<\/p>\n

The air had grown chill and damp by the time they approached its shores. Branchspell was on the point of touching the sea. The Island appeared to be some three or four miles in length. There were first of all broad sands, then low, dark cliffs, and behind these a wilderness of insignificant, swelling hills, entirely devoid of vegetation. The current bore them to within a hundred yards of the coast, when it made a sharp angle, and proceeded to skirt the length of the land.<\/p>\n

Gleameil jumped overboard, and began swimming to shore. Maskull followed her example, and the raft, abandoned, was rapidly borne away by the current. They soon touched ground, and were able to wade the rest of the way. By the time they reached dry land, the sun had set.<\/p>\n

Gleameil made straight for the hills; and Maskull, after casting a single glance at the low, dim outline of the Wombflash Forest, followed her. The cliffs were soon scrambled up. Then the ascent was gentle and easy, while the rich, dry, brown mould was good to walk upon.<\/p>\n

A little way off, on their left, something white was shining.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need not go to it,\u201d said the woman. \u201cIt can be nothing else than one of those skeletons Polecrab talked about. And look\u2014there is another one over there!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis brings it home!\u201d remarked Maskull, smiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing comical in having died for beauty,\u201d said Gleameil, bending her brows at him.<\/p>\n

And when in the course of their walk he saw the innumerable human bones, from gleaming white to dirty yellow, lying scattered about, as if it were a naked graveyard among the hills, he agreed with her, and fell into a sombre mood.<\/p>\n

It was still light when they reached the highest point, and could set eyes on the other side. The sea to the north of the island was in no way different from that which they had crossed, but its lively colors were fast becoming invisible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is Matterplay,\u201d said the woman, pointing her finger toward some low land on the horizon, which seemed to be even farther off than Wombflash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder how Digrung passed over,\u201d meditated Maskull.<\/p>\n

Not far away, in a hollow enclosed by a circle of little hills, they saw a small, circular lake, not more than half a mile in diameter. The sunset colors of the sky were reflected in its waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat must be Irontick,\u201d remarked Gleameil.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have heard that it\u2019s the instrument Earthrid plays on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are getting close,\u201d responded he. \u201cLet us go and investigate.\u201d<\/p>\n

When they drew nearer, they observed that a man was reclining on the farther side, in an attitude of sleep.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that\u2019s not the man himself, who can it be?\u201d said Maskull. \u201cLet\u2019s get across the water, if it will bear us; it will save time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He now assumed the lead, and took running strides down the slope which bounded the lake on that side. Gleameil followed him with greater dignity, keeping her eyes fixed on the recumbent man as if fascinated. When Maskull reached the water\u2019s edge, he tried it with one foot, to discover if it would carry his weight. Something unusual in its appearance led him to have doubts. It was a tranquil, dark, and beautifully reflecting sheet of water; it resembled a mirror of liquid metal. Finding that it would bear him, and that nothing happened, he placed his second foot on its surface. Instantly he sustained a violent shock throughout his body, as from a powerful electric current; and he was hurled in a tumbled heap back on to the bank.<\/p>\n

He picked himself up, brushed the dirt off his person, and started walking around the lake. Gleameil joined him, and they completed the half circuit together. They came to the man, and Maskull prodded him with his foot. He woke up, and blinked at them.<\/p>\n

His face was pale, weak, and vacant-looking, and had a disagreeable expression. There were thin sprouts of black hair on his chin and head. On his forehead, in place of a third eye, he possessed a perfectly circular organ, with elaborate convolutions, like an ear. He had an unpleasant smell. He appeared to be of young middle age.<\/p>\n

\u201cWake up, man,\u201d said Maskull sharply, \u201cand tell us if you are Earthrid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat time is it?\u201d counterquestioned the man. \u201cDoes it want long to moonrise?\u201d<\/p>\n

Without appearing to care about an answer, he sat up, and turning away from them, began to scoop up the loose soil with his hand, and to eat it halfheartedly.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, how can you eat that filth?\u201d demanded Maskull, in disgust.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be angry, Maskull,\u201d said Gleameil, laying hold of his arm, and flushing a little. \u201cIt is Earthrid\u2014the man who is to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has not said so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am Earthrid,\u201d said the other, in his weak and muffled voice, which, however, suddenly struck Maskull as being autocratic. \u201cWhat do you want here? Or rather, you had better get away as quickly as you can, for it will be too late when Teargeld rises.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need not explain,\u201d exclaimed Maskull. \u201cWe know your reputation, and we have come to hear your music. But what\u2019s that organ for on your forehead?\u201d<\/p>\n

Earthrid glared, and smiled, and glared again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is for rhythm, which is what changes noise into music. Don\u2019t stand and argue, but go away. It is no pleasure to me to people the island with corpses. They corrupt the air, and do nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darkness now crept swiftly on over the landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are rather bigmouthed,\u201d said Maskull coolly. \u201cBut after we have heard you play, perhaps I shall adventure a tune myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou? Are you a musician, then? Do you even know what music is?\u201d<\/p>\n

A flame danced in Gleameil\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull thinks music reposes in the instrument,\u201d she said in her intense way. \u201cBut it is in the soul of the Master.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Earthrid, \u201cbut that is not all. I will tell you what it is. In Threal, where I was born and brought up, we learn the mystery of the Three in nature. This world, which lies extended before us, has three directions. Length is the line which shuts off what is, from what is not. Breadth is the surface which shows us in what manner one thing of what-is, lives with another thing. Depth is the path which leads from what-is, to our own body. In music it is not otherwise. Tone is existence, without which nothing at all can be. Symmetry and Numbers are the manner in which tones exist, one with another. Emotion is the movement of our soul toward the wonderful world that is being created. Now, men when they make music are accustomed to build beautiful tones, because of the delight they cause. Therefore their music world is based on pleasure; its symmetry is regular and charming, its emotion is sweet and lovely…. But my music is founded on painful tones; and thus its symmetry is wild, and difficult to discover; its emotion is bitter and terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had not anticipated its being original, I would not have come here,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cStill, explain\u2014why can\u2019t harsh tones have simple symmetry of form? And why must they necessarily cause more profound emotions in us who listen?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPleasures may harmonise. Pains must clash; and in the order of their clashing lies the symmetry. The emotions follow the music, which is rough and earnest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may call it music,\u201d remarked Maskull thoughtfully, \u201cbut to me it bears a closer resemblance to actual life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Shaping\u2019s plans had gone straight, life would have been like that other sort of music. He who seeks can find traces of that intention in the world of nature. But as it has turned out, real life resembles my music and mine is the true music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShall we see living shapes?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what my mood will be,\u201d returned Earthrid. \u201cBut when I have finished, you shall adventure your tune, and produce whatever shapes you please\u2014unless, indeed, the tune is out of your own big body.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shocks you are preparing may kill us,\u201d said Gleameil, in a low, taut voice, \u201cbut we shall die, seeing beauty<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earthrid looked at her with a dignified expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither you, nor any other person, can endure the thoughts which I put into my music. Still, you must have it your own way. It needed a woman to call it \u2018beauty.\u2019 But if this is beauty, what is ugliness?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat I can tell you, Master,\u201d replied Gleameil, smiling at him. \u201cUgliness is old, stale life, while yours every night issues fresh from the womb of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earthrid stared at her, without response. \u201cTeargeld is rising,\u201d he said at last. \u201cAnd now you shall see\u2014though not for long.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the words left his mouth, the full moon peeped over the hills in the dark eastern sky. They watched it in silence, and soon it was wholly up. It was larger than the moon of Earth, and seemed nearer. Its shadowy parts stood out in just as strong relief, but somehow it did not give Maskull the impression of being a dead world. Branchspell shone on the whole of it, but Alppain only on a part. The broad crescent that reflected Branchspell\u2019s rays alone was white and brilliant; but the part that was illuminated by both suns shone with a greenish radiance that had almost solar power, and yet was cold and cheerless. On gazing at that combined light, he felt the same sense of disintegration that the afterglow of Alppain had always caused in him; but now the feeling was not physical, but merely aesthetic. The moon did not appear romantic to him, but disturbing and mystical.<\/p>\n

Earthrid rose, and stood quietly for a minute. In the bright moonlight, his face seemed to have undergone a change. It lost its loose, weak, disagreeable look, and acquired a sort of crafty grandeur. He clapped his hands together meditatively two or three times, and walked up and down. The others stood together, watching him.<\/p>\n

Then he sat down by the side of the lake, and, leaning on his side, placed his right hand, open palm downward, on the ground, at the same time stretching out his right leg, so that the foot was in contact with the water.<\/p>\n

While Maskull was in the act of staring at him and at the lake, he felt a stabbing sensation right through his heart, as though he had been pierced by a rapier. He barely recovered himself from falling, and as he did so he saw that a spout had formed on the water, and was now subsiding again. The next moment he was knocked down by a violent blow in the mouth, delivered by an invisible hand. He picked himself up; and observed that a second spout had formed. No sooner was he on his legs, than a hideous pain hammered away inside his brain, as if caused by a malignant tumour. In his agony, he stumbled and fell again; this time on the arm Krag had wounded. All his other mishaps were forgotten in this one, which half stunned him. It lasted only a moment, and then sudden relief came, and he found that Earthrid\u2019s rough music had lost its power over him.<\/p>\n

He saw him still stretched in the same position. Spouts were coming thick and fast on the lake, which was full of lively motion. But Gleameil was not on her legs. She was lying on the ground, in a heap, without moving. Her attitude was ugly, and he guessed she was<\/i> dead. When he reached her, he discovered that she was dead. In what state of mind she had died, he did not know, for her face wore the vulgar Crystalman grin. The whole tragedy had not lasted five minutes.<\/p>\n

He went over to Earthrid and dragged him forcibly away from his playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have been as good as your word, musician,\u201d he said. \u201cGleameil is dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earthrid tried to collect his scattered senses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI warned her,\u201d he replied, sitting up. \u201cDid I not beg her to go away? But she died very easily. She did not wait for the beauty she spoke about. She heard nothing of the passion, nor even of the rhythm. Neither have you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull looked down at him in indignation, but said nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should not have interrupted me,\u201d went on Earthrid. \u201cWhen I am playing, nothing else is of importance. I might have lost the thread of my ideas. Fortunately, I never forget. I shall start over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf music is to continue, in the presence of the dead, I play next.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man glanced up quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat can\u2019t be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must be,\u201d said Maskull decisively. \u201cI prefer playing to listening. Another reason is that you will have every night, but I have only tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earthrid clenched and unclenched his fist, and began to turn pale. \u201cWith your recklessness, you are likely to kill us both. Irontick belongs to me, and until you have learned how to play, you would only break the instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, then, I will break it; but I am going to try.\u201d<\/p>\n

The musician jumped to his feet and confronted him. \u201cDo you intend to take it from me by violence?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep calm! You will have the same choice that you offered us. I shall give you time to go away somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow will that serve me, if you spoil my lake? You don\u2019t understand what you are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGo, or stay!\u201d responded Maskull. \u201cI give you till the water gets smooth again. After that, I begin playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earthrid kept swallowing. He glanced at the lake and back to Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you swear it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long that will take, you know better than I; but till then you are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earthrid cast him a look of malice, hesitated for an instant, and then moved away, and started to climb the nearest hill. Halfway up he glanced over his shoulder apprehensively, as if to see what was happening. In another minute or so, he had disappeared over the crest, travelling in the direction of the shore that faced Matterplay.<\/p>\n

Later, when the water was once more tranquil, Maskull sat down by its edge, in imitation of Earthrid\u2019s attitude. He knew neither how to set about producing his music, nor what would come of it. But audacious projects entered his brain and he willed to create physical shapes\u2014and, above all, one shape, that of Surtur.<\/p>\n

Before putting his foot to the water, he turned things over a little in his mind.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cWhat themes<\/i> are in common music, shapes<\/i> are in this music. The composer does not find his theme by picking out single notes; but the whole theme flashes into his mind by inspiration. So it must be with shapes. When I start playing, if I am worth anything, the undivided ideas will pass from my unconscious mind to this lake, and then, reflected back in the dimensions of reality, I shall be for the first time made acquainted with them. So it must be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The instant his foot touched the water, he felt his thoughts flowing from him. He did not know what they were, but the mere act of flowing created a sensation of joyful mastery. With this was curiosity to learn what they would prove to be. Spouts formed on the lake in increasing numbers, but he experienced no pain. His thoughts, which he knew to be music, did not issue from him in a steady, unbroken stream, but in great, rough gushes, succeeding intervals of quiescence. When these gushes came, the whole lake broke out in an eruption of spouts.<\/p>\n

He realised that the ideas passing from him did not arise in his intellect, but had their source in the fathomless depths of his will. He could not decide what character they should have, but he was able to force them out, or retard them, by the exercise of his volition.<\/p>\n

At first nothing changed around him. Then the moon grew dimmer, and a strange, new radiance began to illuminate the landscape. It increased so imperceptibly that it was some time before he recognised it as the Muspel-light which he had seen in the Wombflash Forest. He could not give it a colour, or a name, but it filled him with a sort of stern and sacred awe. He called up the resources of his powerful will. The spouts thickened like a forest, and many of them were twenty feet high. Teargeld looked faint and pale; the radiance became intense; but it cast no shadows. The wind got up, but where Maskull was sitting, it was calm. Shortly afterward it began to shriek and whistle, like a full gale. He saw no shapes, and redoubled his efforts.<\/p>\n

His ideas were now rushing out onto the lake so furiously that his whole soul was possessed by exhilaration and defiance. But still he did not know their nature. A huge spout shot up and at the same moment the hills began to crack and break. Great masses of loose soil were erupted from their bowels, and in the next period of quietness, he saw that the landscape had altered. Still the mysterious light intensified. The moon disappeared entirely. The noise of the unseen tempest was terrifying, but Maskull played heroically on, trying to urge out ideas which would take shape. The hillsides were cleft with chasms. The water escaping from the tops of the spouts, swamped the land; but where he was, it was dry.<\/p>\n

The radiance grew terrible. It was everywhere, but Maskull fancied that it was far brighter in one particular quarter. He thought that it was becoming localised, preparatory to contracting into a solid form. He strained and strained….<\/p>\n

Immediately afterward the bottom of the lake subsided. Its waters fell through, and his instrument was broken.<\/p>\n

The Muspel-light vanished. The moon shone out again, but Maskull could not see it. After that unearthly shining, he seemed to himself to be in total blackness. The screaming wind ceased; there was a dead silence. His thoughts finished flowing toward the lake, and his foot no longer touched water, but hung in space.<\/p>\n

He was too stunned by the suddenness of the change to either think or feel. While he was still lying dazed, a vast explosion occurred in the newly opened depths beneath the lakebed. The water in its descent had met fire. Maskull was lifted bodily in the air, many yards high, and came down heavily. He lost consciousness….<\/p>\n

When he came to his senses again, he saw everything. Teargeld was gleaming brilliantly. He was lying by the side of the old lake, but it was now a crater, to the bottom of which his eyes could not penetrate. The hills encircling it were torn, as if by heavy gunfire. A few thunderclouds were floating in the air at no great height, from which branched lightning descended to the earth incessantly, accompanied by alarming and singular crashes.<\/p>\n

He got on his legs, and tested his actions. Finding that he was uninjured, he first of all viewed the crater at closer quarters, and then started to walk painfully toward the northern shore.<\/p>\n

When he had attained the crest above the lake, the landscape sloped gently down for two miles to the sea. Everywhere he passed through traces of his rough work. The country was carved into scarps, grooves, channels, and craters. He arrived at the line of low cliffs overlooking the beach, and found that these also were partly broken down by landslips. He got down onto the sand and stood looking over the moonlit, agitated sea, wondering how he could contrive to escape from this island of failure.<\/p>\n

Then he saw Earthrid\u2019s body, lying quite close to him. It was on its back. Both legs had been violently torn off and he could not see them anywhere. Earthrid\u2019s teeth were buried in the flesh of his right forearm, indicating that the man had died in unreasoning physical agony. The skin gleamed green in the moonlight, but it was stained by darker discolourations, which were wounds. The sand about him was dyed by the pool of blood which had long since filtered through.<\/p>\n

Maskull left the corpse in dismay, and walked a long way along the sweet-smelling shore. Sitting down on a rock, he waited for daybreak.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 16. LEEHALLFAE<\/h2>\n

At midnight, when Teargeld was in the south, throwing his shadow straight toward the sea and making everything nearly as bright as day, he saw a great tree floating in the water, not far out. It was thirty feet out of the water, upright, and alive, and its roots must have been enormously deep and wide. It was drifting along the coast, through the heavy seas. Maskull eyed it incuriously for a few minutes. Then it dawned on him that it might be a good thing to investigate its nature. Without stopping to weigh the danger, he immediately swam out, caught hold of the lowest branch, and swung himself up.<\/p>\n

He looked aloft and saw that the main stem was thick to the very top, terminating in a knob that somewhat resembled a human head. He made his way toward this knob, through the multitude of boughs, which were covered with tough, slippery, marine leaves, like seaweed. Arriving at the crown, he found that it actually was a sort of head, for there were membranes like rudimentary eyes all the way around it, denoting some form of low intelligence.<\/p>\n

At that moment the tree touched bottom, though some way from the shore, and began to bump heavily. To steady himself, Maskull put his hand out, and, in doing so, accidentally covered some of the membranes. The tree sheered off the land, as if by an act of will. When it was steady again, Maskull removed his hand; they at once drifted back to shore. He thought a bit, and then started experimenting with the eyelike membranes. It was as he had guessed\u2014these eyes were stimulated by the light of the moon, and whichever way the light came from, the tree would travel.<\/p>\n

A rather defiant smile crossed Maskull\u2019s face as it struck him that it might be possible to navigate this huge plant-animal as far as Matterplay. He lost no time in putting the conception into execution. Tearing off some of the long, tough leaves, he bound up all the membranes except the ones that faced the north. The tree instantly left the island, and definitely put out to sea. It travelled due north. It was not moving at more than a mile an hour, however, while Matterplay was possibly forty miles distant.<\/p>\n

The great spout waves fell against the trunk with mighty thuds; the breaking seas hissed through the lower branches\u2014Maskull rested high and dry, but was more than a little apprehensive about their slow rate of progress. Presently he sighted a current racing along toward the north-west, and that put another idea into his head. He began to juggle with the membranes again, and before long had succeeded in piloting his tree into the fast-running stream. As soon as they were fairly in its rapids, he blinded the crown entirely, and thenceforward the current acted in the double capacity of road and steed.<\/p>\n

Maskull made himself secure among the branches and slept for the remainder of the night.<\/p>\n

When his eyes opened again, the island was out of sight. Teargeld was setting in the western sea. The sky in the east was bright with the colours of the approaching day. The air was cool and fresh; the light over the sea was beautiful, gleaming, and mysterious. Land\u2014probably Matterplay\u2014lay ahead, a long, dark line of low cliffs, perhaps a mile away. The current no longer ran toward the shore, but began to skirt the coast without drawing any closer to it. As soon as Maskull realised the fact, he manoeuvred the tree out of its channel and started drifting it inshore. The eastern sky blazed up suddenly with violent dyes, and the outer rim of Branchspell lifted itself above the sea. The moon had already sunk.<\/p>\n

The shore loomed nearer and nearer. In physical character it was like Swaylone\u2019s Island\u2014the same wide sands, small cliffs, and rounded, insignificant hills inland, without vegetation. In the early-morning sunlight, however, it looked romantic. Maskull, hollow-eyed and morose, cared nothing for all that, but the moment the tree grounded, clambered swiftly down through the branches and dropped into the sea. By the time he had swam ashore, the white, stupendous sun was high above the horizon.<\/p>\n

He walked along the sands toward the east for a considerable distance, without having any special intention in his mind. He thought he would go on until he came to some creek or valley, and then turn up it. The sun\u2019s rays were cheering, and began to relieve him of his oppressive night weight. After strolling along the beach for about a mile, he was stopped by a broad stream that flowed into the sea out of a kind of natural gateway in the line of cliffs. Its water was of a beautiful, limpid green, all filled with bubbles. So ice-cold, aerated, and enticing did it look that he flung himself face downward on the ground and took a prolonged draught. When he got up again his eyes started to play pranks\u2014they became alternately blurred and clear…. It may have been pure imagination, but he fancied that Digrung was moving inside him.<\/p>\n

He followed the bank of the stream through the gap in the cliffs, and then for the first time saw the real Matterplay. A valley appeared, like a jewel enveloped by naked rock. All the hill country was bare and lifeless, but this valley lying in the heart of it was extremely fertile; he had never seen such fertility. It wound up among the hills, and all that he was looking at was its broad lower end. The floor of the valley was about half a mile wide; the stream that ran down its middle was nearly a hundred feet across, but was exceedingly shallow\u2014in most places not more than a few inches deep. The sides of the valley were about seventy feet high, but very sloping; they were clothed from top to bottom with little, bright-leaved trees\u2014not of varied tints of one colour, like Earth trees, but of widely diverse colours, most of which were brilliant and positive.<\/p>\n

The floor itself was like a magician\u2019s garden. Densely interwoven trees, shrubs, and parasitical climbers fought everywhere for possession of it. The forms were strange and grotesque, and each one seemed different; the colours of leaf, flower, sexual organs, and stem were equally peculiar\u2014all the different combinations of the five primary colours of Tormance seemed to be represented, and the result, for Maskull was a sort of eye chaos. So rank was the vegetation that he could not fight his way through it; he was obliged to take to the riverbed. The contact of the water created an odd tingling sensation throughout his body, like a mild electric shock. There were no birds, but a few extraordinary-looking winged reptiles of small size kept crossing the valley from hill to hill. Swarms of flying insects clustered around him, threatening mischief, but in the end it turned out that his blood was disagreeable to them, for he was not bitten once. Repulsive crawling creatures resembling centipedes, scorpions, snakes, and so forth were in myriads on the banks of the stream, but they also made no attempt to use their weapons on his bare legs and feet, as he passed through them into the water…. Presently however, he was confronted in midstream by a hideous monster, of the size of a pony, but resembling in shape\u2014if it resembled anything\u2014a sea crustacean; and then he came to a halt. They stared at one another, the beast with wicked eyes, Maskull with cool and wary ones. While he was staring, a singular thing happened to him.<\/p>\n

His eyes blurred again. But when in a minute or two this blurring passed away and he saw clearly once more, his vision had changed in character. He was looking right through the animal\u2019s body and could distinguish all its interior parts. The outer crust, however, and all the hard tissues were misty and semi-transparent; through them a luminous network of blood-red veins and arteries stood out in startling distinctness. The hard parts faded away to nothingness, and the blood system alone was left. Not even the fleshy ducts remained. The naked blood alone was visible, flowing this way and that like a fiery, liquid skeleton, in the shape of the monster. Then this blood began to change too. Instead of a continuous liquid stream, Maskull perceived that it was composed of a million individual points. The red colour had been an illusion caused by the rapid motion of the points; he now saw clearly that they resembled minute suns in their scintillating brightness. They seemed like a double drift of stars, streaming through space. One drift was travelling toward a fixed point in the centre, while the other was moving away from it. He recognised the former as the veins of the beast, the latter as the arteries, and the fixed point as the heart.<\/p>\n

While he was still looking, lost in amazement, the starry network went out suddenly like an extinguished flame. Where the crustacean had stood, there was nothing. Yet through this \u201cnothing\u201d he could not see the landscape. Something was standing there that intercepted the light, though it possessed neither shape, colour, nor substance. And now the object, which could no longer be perceived by vision, began to be felt by emotion. A delightful, springlike sense of rising sap, of quickening pulses of love, adventure, mystery, beauty, femininity\u2014took possession of his being, and, strangely enough, he identified it with the monster. Why that invisible brute should cause him to feel young, sexual, and audacious, he did not ask himself, for he was fully occupied with the effect. But it was as if flesh, bones, and blood had been discarded, and he were face to face with naked Life itself, which slowly passed into his own body.<\/p>\n

The sensations died away. There was a brief interval, and then the streaming, starlike skeleton rose up again out of space. It changed to the red-blood system. The hard parts of the body reappeared, with more and more distinctness, and at the same time the network of blood grew fainter. Presently the interior parts were entirely concealed by the crust\u2014the creature stood opposite Maskull in its old formidable ugliness, hard, painted, and concrete.<\/p>\n

Disliking something about him, the crustacean turned aside and stumbled awkwardly away on its six legs, with laborious and repulsive movements, toward the other bank of the stream.<\/p>\n

Maskull\u2019s apathy left him after this adventure. He became uneasy and thoughtful. He imagined that he was beginning to see things through Digrung\u2019s eyes, and that there were strange troubles immediately ahead. The next time his eyes started to blur, he fought it down with his will, and nothing happened.<\/p>\n

The valley ascended with many windings toward the hills. It narrowed considerably, and the wooded slopes on either side grew steeper and higher. The stream shrunk to about twenty feet across, but it was deeper\u2014it was alive with motion, music, and bubbles. The electric sensations caused by its water became more pronounced, almost disagreeably so; but there was nowhere else to walk. With its deafening confusion of sounds from the multitude of living creatures, the little valley resembled a vast conversation hall of Nature. The life was still more prolific than before; every square foot of space was a tangle of struggling wills, both animal and vegetable. For a naturalist it would have been paradise, for no two shapes were alike, and all were fantastic, with individual character.<\/p>\n

It looked as if life forms were being coined so fast by Nature that there was not physical room for all. Nevertheless it was not as on Earth, where a hundred seeds are scattered in order that one may be sown. Here the young forms seemed to survive, while, to find accommodation for them, the old ones perished; everywhere he looked they were withering and dying, without any ostensible cause\u2014they were simply being killed by new life.<\/p>\n

Other creatures sported so wildly, in front of his very eyes, that they became of different \u201ckingdoms\u201d altogether. For example, a fruit was lying on the ground, of the size and shape of a lemon, but with a tougher skin. He picked it up, intending to eat the contained pulp; but inside it was a fully formed young tree, just on the point of bursting its shell. Maskull threw it away upstream. It floated back toward him; by the time he was even with it, its downward motion had stopped and it was swimming against the current. He fished it out and discovered that it had sprouted six rudimentary legs.<\/p>\n

Maskull sang no paeans of praise in honour of the gloriously overcrowded valley. On the contrary, he felt deeply cynical and depressed. He thought that the unseen power\u2014whether it was called Nature, Life, Will, or God\u2014that was so frantic to rush forward and occupy this small, vulgar, contemptible world, could not possess very high aims and was not worth much. How this sordid struggle for an hour or two of physical existence could ever be regarded as a deeply earnest and important business was beyond his comprehension The atmosphere choked him, he longed for air and space. Thrusting his way through to the side of the ravine, he began to climb the overhanging cliff, swinging his way up from tree to tree.<\/p>\n

When he arrived at the top, Branchspell beat down on him with such brutal, white intensity that he saw that there was no staying there. He looked around, to ascertain what part of the country he had come to. He had travelled about ten miles from the sea, as the crow flies. The bare, undulating wolds sloped straight down toward it; the water glittered in the distance; and on the horizon he was just able to make out Swaylone\u2019s Island. Looking north, the land continued sloping upward as far as he could see. Over the crest\u2014that is to say, some miles away\u2014a line of black, fantastic-shaped rocks of quite another character showed themselves; this was probably Threal. Behind these again, against the sky, perhaps fifty or even a hundred miles off, were the peaks of Lichstorm, most of them covered with greenish snow that glittered in the sunlight.<\/p>\n

They were stupendously high and of weird contours. Most of them were conical to the top, but from the top, great masses of mountain balanced themselves at what looked like impossible angles\u2014overhanging without apparent support. A land like that promised something new, he thought: extraordinary inhabitants. The idea took shape in his mind to go there, and to travel as swiftly as possible, it might even be feasible to get there before sunset. It was less the mountains themselves that attracted him than the country which lay beyond\u2014the prospect of setting eyes on the blue sun, which he judged to be the wonder of wonders in Tormance.<\/p>\n

The direct route was over the hills, but that was out of the question, because of the killing heat and the absence of shade. He guessed, however, that the valley would not take him far out of his way, and decided to keep to that for the time being, much as he hated and feared it. Into the hotbed of life, therefore, he once more swung himself.<\/p>\n

Once down, he continued to follow the windings of the valley for several miles through sunlight and shadow. The path became increasingly difficult. The cliffs closed in on either side until they were less than a hundred yards apart, while the bed of the ravine was blocked by boulders, great and small, so that the little stream, which was now diminished to the proportions of a brook, had to come down where and how it could. The forms of life grew stranger. Pure plants and pure animals disappeared by degrees, and their place was filled by singular creatures that seemed to partake of both characters. They had limbs, faces, will, and intelligence, but they remained for the greater part of their time rooted in the ground by preference, and they fed only on soil and air. Maskull saw no sexual organs and failed to understand how the young came into existence.<\/p>\n

Then he witnessed an astonishing sight. A large and fully developed plant-animal appeared suddenly in front of him, out of empty space. He could not believe his eyes, but stared at the creature for a long time in amazement. It went on calmly moving and burrowing before him, as thought it had been there all its life. Giving up the puzzle, Maskull resumed his striding from rock to rock up the gorge, and then, quietly and without warning, the same phenomenon occurred again. No longer could he doubt that he was seeing miracles\u2014that Nature was precipitating its shapes into the world without making use of the medium of parentage…. No solution of the problem presented itself.<\/p>\n

The brook too had altered in character. A trembling radiance came up from its green water, like some imprisoned force escaping into the air. He had not walked in it for some time; now he did so, to test its quality. He felt new life entering his body, from his feet upward; it resembled a slowly moving cordial, rather than mere heat. The sensation was quite new in his experience, yet he knew by instinct what it was. The energy emitted by the brook was ascending his body neither as friend nor foe but simply because it happened to be the direct road to its objective elsewhere. But, although it had no hostile intentions, it was likely to prove a rough traveller\u2014he was clearly conscious that its passage through his body threatened to bring about some physical transformation, unless he could do something to prevent it. Leaping quickly out of the water, he leaned against a rock, tightened his muscles, and braced himself against the impending change. At that very moment the blurring again attacked his sight, and, while he was guarding against that, his forehead sprouted out into a galaxy of new eyes. He put his hand up and counted six, in addition to his old ones.<\/p>\n

The danger was past and Maskull laughed, congratulating himself on having got off so easily. Then he wondered what the new organs were for\u2014whether they were a good or a bad thing. He had not taken a dozen steps up the ravine before he found out. Just as he was in the act of jumping down from the top of a boulder, his vision altered and he came to an automatic standstill. He was perceiving two worlds simultaneously. With his own eyes he saw the gorge as before, with its rocks, brook, plant-animals, sunshine, and shadows. But with his acquired eyes he saw differently. All the details of the valley were visible, but the light seemed turned down, and everything appeared faint, hard, and uncoloured. The sun was obscured by masses of cloud which filled the whole sky. This vapour was in violent and almost living motion. It was thick in extension, but thin in texture; some parts, however, were far denser than others, as the particles were crushed together or swept apart by the motion. The green sparks from the brook, when closely watched, could be distinguished individually, each one wavering up toward the clouds, but the moment they got within them a fearful struggle seemed to begin. The spark endeavoured to escape through to the upper air, while the clouds concentrated around it whichever way it darted, trying to create so dense a prison that further movement would be impossible. As far as Maskull could detect, most of the sparks succeeded eventually in finding their way out after frantic efforts; but one that he was looking at was caught, and what happened was this. A complete ring of cloud surrounded it, and, in spite of its furious leaps and flashes in all directions\u2014as if it were a live, savage creature caught in a net\u2014nowhere could it find an opening, but it dragged the enveloping cloud stuff with it, wherever it went. The vapours continued to thicken around it, until they resembled the black, heavy, compressed sky masses seen before a bad thunderstorm. Then the green spark, which was still visible in the interior, ceased its efforts, and remained for a time quite quiescent. The cloud shape went on consolidating itself, and became nearly spherical; as it grew heavier and stiller, it started slowly to descend toward the valley floor. When it was directly opposite Maskull, with its lower end only a few feet off the ground, its motion stopped altogether and there was a complete pause for at least two minutes. Suddenly, like a stab of forked lightning, the great cloud shot together, became small, indented, and coloured, and as a plant-animal started walking around on legs and rooting up the ground in search of food. The concluding stage of the phenomenon he witnessed with his normal eyesight. It showed him the creature\u2019s appearing miraculously out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

Maskull was shaken. His cynicism dropped from him and gave place to curiosity and awe. \u201cThat was exactly like the birth of a thought<\/i>,\u201d he said to himself, \u201cbut who was the thinker? Some great Living Mind is at work in this spot. He has intelligence, for all his shapes are different, and he has character, for all belong to the same general type…. If I\u2019m not wrong, and if it\u2019s the force called Shaping or Crystalman, I\u2019ve seen enough to make me want to find out something more about him…. It would be ridiculous to go on to other riddles before I have solved these.\u201d<\/p>\n

A voice called out to him from behind, and, turning around, he saw a human figure hastening toward him from some distance down the ravine. It looked more like a man than a woman. He was rather tall, but nimble, and was clothed in a dark, frocklike garment that reached from the neck to below the knees. Around his head was rolled a turban. Maskull waited for him, and when he was nearer went a little way to meet him.<\/p>\n

Then he experienced another surprise, for this person, although clearly a human being, was neither man nor woman, nor anything between the two, but was unmistakably of a third positive sex, which was remarkable to behold and difficult to understand. In order to translate into words the sexual impression produced in Maskull\u2019s mind by the stranger\u2019s physical aspect, it is necessary to coin a new pronoun, for none in earthly use would be applicable. Instead of \u201che,\u201d \u201cshe,\u201d or \u201cit,\u201d therefore \u201cae\u201d will be used.<\/p>\n

He found himself incapable of grasping at first why the bodily peculiarities of this being should strike him as springing from sex, and not from race, and yet there was no doubt about the fact itself. Body, face, and eyes were absolutely neither male nor female, but something quite different. Just as one can distinguish a man from a woman at the first glance by some indefinable difference of expression and atmospheres altogether apart from the contour of the figure, so the stranger was separated in appearance from both. As with men and women, the whole person expressed a latent sensuality, which gave body and face alike their peculiar character…. Maskull decided that it was love<\/i>\u2014but what love\u2014love for whom? It was neither the shame-carrying passion of a male, nor the deep-rooted instinct of a female to obey her destiny. It was as real and irresistible as these, but quite different.<\/p>\n

As he continued staring into those strange, archaic eyes, he had an intuitive feeling that aer lover was no other than Shaping himself. It came to him that the design of this love was not the continuance of the race but the immortality on earth of the individual. No children were produced by the act; the lover aerself was the eternal child. Further, ae sought like a man, but received like a woman. All these things were dimly and confusedly expressed by this extraordinary being, who seemed to have dropped out of another age, when creation was different.<\/p>\n

Of all the weird personalities Maskull had so far met in Tormance, this one struck him as infinitely the most foreign<\/i>\u2014that is, the farthest removed from him in spiritual structure. If they were to live together for a hundred years, they could never be companions.<\/p>\n

Maskull pulled himself out of his trancelike meditations and, viewing the newcomer in greater detail, tried with his understanding to account for the marvellous things told him by his intuitions. Ae possessed broad shoulders and big bones, and was without female breasts, and so far ae resembled a man. But the bones were so flat and angular that aer flesh presented something of the character of a crystal, having plane surfaces in place of curves. The body looked as if it had not been ground down by the sea of ages into smooth and rounded regularity but had sprung together in angles and facets as the result of a single, sudden idea<\/i>. The face too was broken and irregular. With his racial prejudices, Maskull found little beauty in it, yet beauty there was, though neither of a masculine nor of a feminine type, for it had the three essentials of beauty: character, intelligence, and repose. The skin was copper-coloured and strangely luminous, as if lighted from within. The face was beardless, but the hair of the head was as long as a woman\u2019s, and, dressed in a single plait, fell down behind as far as the ankles. Ae possessed only two eyes. That part of the turban which went across the forehead protruded so far in front that it evidently concealed some organ.<\/p>\n

Maskull found it impossible to compute aer age. The frame appeared active, vigorous, and healthy, the skin was clear and glowing; the eyes were powerful and alert\u2014ae might well be in early youth. Nevertheless, the longer Maskull gazed, the more an impression of unbelievable ancientness came upon him\u2014aer real youth seemed as far away as the view observed through a reversed telescope.<\/p>\n

At last he addressed the stranger, though it was just as if he were conversing with a dream. \u201cTo what sex do you belong?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

The voice in which the reply came was neither manly nor womanly, but was oddly suggestive of a mystical forest horn, heard from a great distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays there are men and women, but in the olden times the world was peopled by \u2018phaens.\u2019 I think I am the only survivor of all those beings who were then passing through Faceny\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFaceny?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is now miscalled Shaping or Crystalman. The superficial names invented by a race of superficial creatures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your own name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeehallfae.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeehallfae. And yours is Maskull. I read in your mind that you have just come through some wonderful adventures. You seem to possess extraordinary luck. If it lasts long enough, perhaps I can make use of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think that my luck exists for your benefit?… But never mind that now. It is your sex<\/i> that interests me. How do you satisfy your desires?\u201d<\/p>\n

Leehallfae pointed to the concealed organ on her brow. \u201cWith that I gather life from the streams that flow in all the hundred Matterplay valleys. The streams spring direct from Faceny. My whole life has been spent trying to find Faceny himself. I\u2019ve hunted so long that if I were to state the number of years you would believe I lied.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull looked at the phaen slowly. \u201cIn Ifdawn I met someone else from Matterplay\u2014a young man called Digrung. I absorbed him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t be telling me this out of vanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a fearful crime. What will come of it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Leehallfae gave a curious, wrinkled smile. \u201cIn Matterplay he will stir inside you, for he smells the air. Already you have his eyes…. I knew him…. Take care of yourself, or something more startling may happen. Keep out of the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis seems to me a terrible valley, in which anything may happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t torment yourself about Digrung. The valleys belong by right to the phaens\u2014the men here are interlopers. It is a good work to remove them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull continued thoughtful. \u201cI say no more, but I see I will have to be cautious. What did you mean about my helping you with my luck?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour luck is fast weakening, but it may still be strong enough to serve me. Together we will search<\/i> for Threal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSearch for Threal\u2014why, is it so hard to find?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have told you that my whole life has been spent in the quest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou said Faceny, Leehallfae.\u201d<\/p>\n

The phaen gazed at him with queer, ancient eyes, and smiled again. \u201cThis stream, Maskull, like every other life stream in Matterplay, has its source in Faceny. But as all these streams issue out from Threal, it is in Threal that we must look for Faceny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what\u2019s to prevent your finding Threal? Surely it\u2019s a well-known country?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt lies underground. Its communications with the upper world are few, and where they are, no one that I have ever spoken to knows. I have scoured the valleys and the hills. I have been to the very gates of Lichstorm. I am old, so that your aged men would appear newborn infants beside me, but I am as far from Threal as when I was a green youth, dwelling among a throng of fellow phaens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, if my luck is good, yours is very bad…. But when you have found Faceny, what do you gain?\u201d<\/p>\n

Leehallfae looked at him in silence. The smile faded from aer face, and its place was taken by such a look of unearthly pain and sorrow that Maskull had no need to press his question. Ae was consumed by the grief and yearning of a lover eternally separated from the loved one, the scents and traces of whose person were always present. This passion stamped aer features at that moment with a wild, stern, spiritual beauty, far transcending any beauty of woman or man.<\/p>\n

But the expression vanished suddenly, and then the abrupt contrast showed Maskull the real Leehallfae. Aer sensuality was solitary, but vulgar\u2014it was like the heroism of a lonely nature, pursuing animal aims with untiring persistence.<\/p>\n

He looked at the phaen askance, and drummed his fingers against his thigh. \u201cWell, we will go together. We may find something, and in any case I shan\u2019t be sorry to converse with such a singular individual as yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I should warn you, Maskull. You and I are of different creations. A phaen\u2019s body contains the whole of life, a man\u2019s body contains only the half of life\u2014the other half is in woman. Faceny may be too strong a draught for your body to endure…. Do you not feel this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am dull with my different feelings. I must take what precautions I can, and chance the rest.\u201d He bent down, and, taking hold of the phaen\u2019s thin and ragged robe, tore off a broad strip, which he proceeded to swathe in folds around his forehead. \u201cI\u2019m not forgetting your advice, Leehallfae. I would not like to start the walk as Maskull and finish it as Digrung.\u201d<\/p>\n

The phaen gave a twisted grin, and they began to move upstream. The road was difficult. They had to stride from boulder to boulder, and found it warm work. Occasionally a worse obstacle presented itself, which they could surmount only by climbing. There was no more conversation for a long time. Maskull, as far as possible, adopted his companion\u2019s counsel to avoid the water, but here and there he was forced to set foot in it. The second or third time he did so, he felt a sudden agony in his arm, where it had been wounded by Krag. His eyes grew joyful; his fears vanished; and he began deliberately to tread the stream.<\/p>\n

Leehallfae stroked aer chin and watched him with screwed-up eyes, trying to comprehend what had happened. \u201cIs your luck speaking to you, Maskull, or what is the matter?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cListen. You are a being of antique experience, and ought to know, if anyone does. What is Muspel?\u201d<\/p>\n

The phaen\u2019s face was blank. \u201cI don\u2019t know the name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is another world of some sort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat cannot be. There is only this one world\u2014Faceny\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull came up to aer, linked arms, and began to talk. \u201cI\u2019m glad I fell in with you, Leehallfae, for this valley and everything connected with it need a lot of explaining. For example, in this spot there are hardly any organic forms left\u2014why have they all disappeared? You call this brook a \u2018life stream,\u2019 yet the nearer its source we get, the less life it produces. A mile or two lower down we had those spontaneous plant-animals appearing out of nowhere, while right down by the sea, plants and animals were tumbling over one another. Now, if all this is connected in some mysterious way or other with your Faceny, it seems to me he must have a most paradoxical nature. His essence doesn\u2019t start creating shapes until it has become thoroughly weakened and watered…. But perhaps both of us are talking nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leehallfae shook aer head. \u201cEverything hangs together. The stream is life, and it is throwing off sparks of life all the time. When these sparks are caught and imprisoned by matter, they become living shapes. The nearer the stream is to its source, the more terrible and vigorous is its life. You\u2019ll see for yourself when we reach the head of the valley that there are no living shapes there at all. That means that there is no kind of matter tough enough to capture and hold the terrible sparks that are to be found there. Lower down the stream, most of the sparks are vigorous enough to escape to the upper air, but some are held when they are a little way up, and these burst suddenly into shapes. I myself am of this nature. Lower down still, toward the sea, the stream has lost a great part of its vital power and the sparks are lazy and sluggish. They spread out, rather than rise into the air. There is hardly any kind of matter, however delicate, that is incapable of capturing these feeble sparks, and they are captured in multitudes\u2014that accounts for the innumerable living shapes you see there. But not only that\u2014the sparks are passed from one body to another by way of generation, and can never hope to cease being so until they are worn out by decay. Lowest of all, you have the Sinking Sea itself. There the degenerate and enfeebled life of the Matterplay streams has for its body the whole sea. So weak is it\u2019s power that it can\u2019t succeed in creating any shapes at all but you can see its ceaseless, futile attempts to do so, in those spouts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the slow development of men and women is due to the feebleness of the life germ in their case?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly. It can\u2019t attain all its desires at once. And now you can see how immeasurably superior are the phaens, who spring spontaneously from the more electric and vigorous sparks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut where does the matter come from that imprisons these sparks?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen life dies, it becomes matter. Matter itself dies, but its place is constantly taken by new matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if life comes from Faceny, how can it die at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is the thoughts of Faceny, and once these thoughts have left his brain they are nothing\u2014mere dying embers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a cheerless philosophy,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cBut who is Faceny himself, then, and why does he think at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

Leehallfae gave another wrinkled smile. \u201cThat I\u2019ll explain too. Faceny is of this nature. He faces Nothingness in all directions. He has no back and no sides, but is all face; and this face is his shape. It must necessarily be so, for nothing else can exist between him and Nothingness. His face is all eyes, for he eternally contemplates Nothingness. He draws his inspirations from it; in no other way could he feel himself. For the same reason, phaens and even men love to be in empty places and vast solitudes, for each one is a little Faceny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat rings true,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cThoughts flow perpetually from Faceny\u2019s face backward. Since his face is on all sides, however, they flow into his interior. A draught of thought thus continuously flows from Nothingness to the inside of Faceny, which is the world. The thoughts become shapes, and people the world. This outer world, therefore, which is lying all around us, is not outside at all, as it happens, but inside. The visible universe is like a gigantic stomach, and the real outside of the world we shall never see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull pondered deeply for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeehallfae, I fail to see what you personally have to hope for, since you are nothing more than a discarded, dying thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you never loved a woman?\u201d asked the phaen, regarding him fixedly.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you loved, did you have no high moments?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s asking the same question in other words.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn those moments you were approaching Faceny. If you could have drawn nearer still, would you not have done so?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would, regardless of the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you personally had nothing to hope for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I would have that<\/i> to hope for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leehallfae walked on in silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cA man is the half of Life,\u201d ae broke out suddenly. \u201cA woman is the other half of life, but a phaen is the whole of life. Moreover, when life becomes split into halves, something else has dropped out of it\u2014something that belongs only to the whole. Between your love and mine there is no comparison. If even your sluggish blood is drawn to Faceny, without stopping to ask what will come of it, how do you suppose it is with me<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t question the genuineness of your passion,\u201d replied Maskull, \u201cbut it\u2019s a pity you can\u2019t see your way to carry it forward into the next world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leehallfae gave a distorted grin, expressing heaven knows what emotion. \u201cMen think what they like, but phaens are so made that they can see the world only as it really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

That ended the conversation.<\/p>\n

The sun was high in the sky, and they appeared to be approaching the head of the ravine. Its walls had still further closed in and, except at those moments when Branchspell was directly behind them, they strode along all the time in deep shade; but still it was disagreeably hot and relaxing. All life had ceased. A beautiful, fantastic spectacle was presented by the cliff faces, the rocky ground, and the boulders that choked the entire width of the gorge. They were of a snow-white crystalline limestone, heavily scored by veins of bright, gleaming blue. The rivulet was no longer green, but a clear, transparent crystal. Its noise was musical, and altogether it looked most romantic and charming, but Leehallfae seemed to find something else in it\u2014aer features grew more and more set and tortured.<\/p>\n

About half an hour after all the other life forms had vanished, another plant-animal was precipitated out of space, in front of their eyes. It was as tall as Maskull himself, and had a brilliant and vigorous appearance, as befitted a creature just out of Nature\u2019s mint. It started to walk about; but hardly had it done so when it burst silently asunder. Nothing remained of it\u2014the whole body disappeared instantaneously into the same invisible mist from which it had sprung.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat bears out what you said,\u201d commented Maskull, turning rather pale.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d answered Leehallfae, \u201cwe have now come to the region of terrible life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, since you\u2019re right in this, I must believe all that you\u2019ve been telling me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he uttered the words, they were just turning a bend of the ravine. There now loomed up straight ahead a perpendicular cliff about three hundred feet in height, composed of white, marbled rock. It was the head of the valley, and beyond it they could not proceed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn return for my wisdom,\u201d said the phaen, \u201cyou will now lend me your luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

They walked up to the base of the cliff, and Maskull looked at it reflectively. It was possible to climb it, but the ascent would be difficult. The now tiny brook issued from a hole in the rock only a few feet up. Apart from its musical running, not a sound was to be heard. The floor of the gorge was in shadow, but about halfway up the precipice the sun was shining.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you want me to do?\u201d demanded Maskull. \u201cEverything is now in your hands, and I have no suggestions to make. Now it\u2019s your luck that must help us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull continued gazing up a little while longer. \u201cWe had better wait till the afternoon, Leehallfae. I\u2019ll probably have to climb to the top, but it\u2019s too hot at present\u2014and besides, I\u2019m tired. I\u2019ll snatch a few hours\u2019 sleep. After that, we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leehallfae seemed annoyed, but raised no opposition.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 17. CORPANG<\/h2>\n

Maskull did not awaken till long after Blodsombre. Leehallfae was standing by his side, looking down at him. It was doubtful whether ae had slept at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat time is it?\u201d Maskull asked, rubbing his eyes and sitting up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe day is passing,\u201d was the vague reply.<\/p>\n

Maskull got on to his feet, and gazed up at the cliff. \u201cNow I\u2019m going to climb that<\/i>. No need for both of us to risk our necks, so you wait here, and if I find anything on top I\u2019ll call you.\u201d<\/p>\n

A phaen glanced at him strangely. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing up there except a bare hillside. I\u2019ve been there often. Have you anything special in mind?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHeights often bring me inspiration. Sit down, and wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Refreshed by his sleep, Maskull immediately attacked the face of the cliff, and took the first twenty feet at a single rush. Then it grew precipitous, and the ascent demanded greater circumspection and intelligence. There were few hand- or footholds: he had to reflect before every step. On the other hand, it was sound rock, and he was no novice at the sport. Branchspell glared full on the wall, so that it half blinded him with its glittering whiteness.<\/p>\n

After many doubts and pauses he drew near the top. He was hot, sweating copiously, and rather dizzy. To reach a ledge he caught hold of two projecting rocks, one with each hand, at the same time scrambling upward, his legs between the rocks. The left-hand rock, which was the larger of the two, became dislodged by his weight, and, flying like a huge, dark shadow past his head, crashed down with a terrifying sound to the foot of the precipice, followed by an avalanche of smaller stones. Maskull steadied himself as well as he could, but it was some moments before he dared to look down behind him.<\/p>\n

At first he could not distinguish Leehallfae. Then he caught sight of legs and hindquarters a few feet up the cliff from the bottom. He perceived that the phaen had aer head in a cavity and was scrutinising something, and waited for aer to reappear.<\/p>\n

Ae emerged, looked up to Maskull, and called out in aer hornlike voice, \u201cThe entrance is here!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m coming down!\u201d roared Maskull. \u201cWait for me!\u201d<\/p>\n

He descended swiftly\u2014without taking too much care, for he thought he recognised his \u201cluck\u201d in this discovery\u2014and within twenty minutes was standing beside the phaen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rock you dislodged struck this other rock just above the spring. It tore it out of its bed. See\u2014now there\u2019s room for us to get in!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get excited!\u201d said Maskull. \u201cIt\u2019s a remarkable accident, but we have plenty of time. Let me look.\u201d<\/p>\n

He peered into the hole, which was large enough to admit a big man without stooping. Contrasted with the daylight outside it was dark, yet a peculiar glow pervaded the place, and he could see well enough. A rock tunnel went straight forward into the bowels of the hill, out of sight. The valley brook did not flow along the floor of this tunnel, as he had expected, but came up as a spring just inside the entrance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell Leehallfae, not much need to deliberate, eh? Still, observe that your stream parts company with us here.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he turned around for an answer he noticed that his companion was trembling from head to foot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, what\u2019s the matter?\u201d<\/p>\n

Leehallfae pressed a hand to aer heart. \u201cThe stream leaves us, but what makes the stream what it is continues with us. Faceny is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut surely you don\u2019t expect to see him in person? Why are you shaking?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps it will be too much for me after all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy? How is it affecting you?\u201d<\/p>\n

The phaen took him by the shoulder and held him at arm\u2019s length, endeavouring to study him with aer unsteady eyes. \u201cFaceny\u2019s thoughts are obscure. I am his lover, you are a lover of women, yet he grants to you what he denies to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does he grant to me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see him, and go on living. I shall die. But it\u2019s immaterial. Tomorrow both of us will be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull impatiently shook himself free. \u201cYour sensations may be reliable in your own case, but how do you know I shall die?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is flaming up inside you,\u201d replied Leehallfae, shaking aer head. \u201cBut after it has reached its climax\u2014perhaps tonight\u2014it will sink rapidly and you\u2019ll die tomorrow. As for me, if I enter Threal I shan\u2019t come out again. A smell of death is being wafted to me out of this hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou talk like a frightened man. I smell nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not frightened,\u201d said Leehallfae quietly\u2014ae had been gradually recovering aer tranquillity\u2014\u201cbut when one has lived as long as I have, it is a serious matter to die. Every year one puts out new roots.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDecide what you\u2019re going to do,\u201d said Maskull with a touch of contempt, \u201cfor I\u2019m going in at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

The phaen gave an odd, meditative stare down the ravine, and after that walked into the cavern without another word. Maskull, scratching his head, followed close at aer heels.<\/p>\n

The moment they stepped across the bubbling spring, the atmosphere altered. Without becoming stale or unpleasant, it grew cold, clear and refined, and somehow suggested austere and tomblike thoughts. The daylight disappeared at the first bend in the tunnel. After that, Maskull could not say where the light came from. The air itself must have been luminous, for though it was as light as full moon on Earth, neither he nor Leehallfae cast a shadow. Another peculiarity of the light was that both the walls of the tunnel and their own bodies appeared colourless. Everything was black and white, like a lunar landscape. This intensified the solemn, funereal feelings created by the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

After they had proceeded for about ten minutes, the tunnel began to widen out. The roof was high above their heads, and six men could have walked side by side. Leehallfae was visibly weakening. Ae dragged aerself along slowly and painfully, with sunken head.<\/p>\n

Maskull caught hold of aer. \u201cYou can\u2019t go on like that. Better let me take you back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The phaen smiled, and staggered. \u201cI\u2019m dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t talk like that. It\u2019s only a passing indisposition. Let me take you back to the daylight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, help me forward. I wish to see Faceny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sick must have their way,\u201d said Maskull. Lifting aer bodily in his arms, he walked quickly along for another hundred yards or so. They then emerged from the tunnel and faced a world the parallel of which he had never set eyes upon before.<\/p>\n

\u201cSet me down!\u201d directed Leehallfae feebly. \u201cHere I\u2019ll die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull obeyed, and laid aer down at full length on the rocky ground. The phaen raised aerself with difficulty on one arm, and stared with fast-glazing eyes at the mystic landscape.<\/p>\n

Maskull looked too, and what he saw was a vast, undulating plain, lighted as if by the moon\u2014but there was of course no moon, and there were no shadows. He made out running streams in the distance. Beside them were trees of a peculiar kind; they were rooted in the ground, but the branches also were aerial roots, and there were no leaves. No other plants could be seen. The soil was soft, porous rock, resembling pumice. Beyond a mile or two in any direction the light merged into obscurity. At their back a great rocky wall extended on either hand; but it was not square like a wall, but full of bays and promontories like an indented line of sea cliffs. The roof of this huge underworld was out of sight. Here and there a mighty shaft of naked rock, fantastically weathered, towered aloft into the gloom, doubtless serving to support the roof. There were no colours\u2014every detail of the landscape was black, white, or grey. The scene appeared so still, so solemn and religious, that all his feelings quieted down to absolute tranquillity.<\/p>\n

Leehallfae fell back suddenly. Maskull dropped on his knees, and helplessly watched the last flickerings of aer spirit, going out like a candle in foul air. Death came…. He closed the eyes. The awful grin of Crystalman immediately fastened upon the phaen\u2019s dead features.<\/p>\n

While Maskull was still kneeling, he became conscious of someone standing beside him. He looked up quickly and saw a man, but did not at once rise.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother phaen dead,\u201d said the newcomer in a grave, toneless, and intellectual voice.<\/p>\n

Maskull got up.<\/p>\n

The man was short and thickset but emaciated. His forehead was not disfigured by any organs. He was middle-aged. The features were energetic and rather coarse\u2014yet it seemed to Maskull as though a pure, hard life had done something toward refining them. His sanguine eyes carried a twisted, puzzled look; some unanswerable problem was apparently in the forefront of his brain. His face was hairless; the hair of his head was short and manly; his brow was wide. He was clothed in a black, sleeveless robe, and bore a long staff in his hand. There was an air of cleanness and austerity about the whole man that was attractive.<\/p>\n

He went on speaking dispassionately to Maskull, and, while doing so, kept passing his hand reflectively over his cheeks and chin. \u201cThey all find their way here to die. They come from Matterplay. There they live to an incredible age. Partly on that account, and partly because of their spontaneous origin, they regard themselves as the favoured children of Faceny. But when they come here to find him, they die at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this one is the last of the race. But whom do I speak to?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am Corpang. Who are you, where do you come from, and what are you doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is Maskull. My home is on the other side of the universe. As for what I am doing here\u2014I accompanied Leehallfae, that phaen, from Matterplay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut a man doesn\u2019t accompany a phaen out of friendship. What do you want in Threal?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen this is<\/i> Threal?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull remained silent.<\/p>\n

Corpang studied his face with rough, curious eyes. \u201cAre you ignorant, or merely reticent, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI came here to ask questions, and not to answer them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stillness of the place was almost oppressive. Not a breeze stirred, and not a sound came through the air. Their voices had been lowered, as though they were in a cathedral.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen do you want my society, or not?\u201d asked Corpang.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, if you can fit in with my mood, which is\u2014not to talk about myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you must at least tell me where you want to go to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see what is to be seen here, and then go on to Lichstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can guide you through, if that\u2019s all you want. Come, let us start.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst let\u2019s do our duty and bury the dead, if possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTurn around,\u201d directed Corpang.<\/p>\n

Maskull looked around quickly. Leehallfae\u2019s body had disappeared.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does this mean\u2014what has happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe body has returned to whence it came. There was nowhere here for it to be, so it has vanished. No burial will be required.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWas the phaen an illusion, then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, explain quickly, then, what has taken place. I seem to be going mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing unintelligible in it, if you\u2019ll only listen calmly. The phaen belonged, body and soul, to the outside, visible world\u2014to Faceny. This underworld is not Faceny\u2019s world, but Thire\u2019s, and Faceny\u2019s creatures cannot breathe its atmosphere. As this applies not only to whole bodies, but even to the last particles of bodies, the phaen has dissolved into Nothingness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut don\u2019t you and I belong to the outside world too?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe belong to all three worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat three worlds\u2014what do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are three worlds,\u201d said Corpang composedly. \u201cThe first is Faceny\u2019s, the second is Amfuse\u2019s, the third is Thire\u2019s. From him Threal gets its name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this is mere nomenclature. In what sense are there three worlds?\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang passed his hand over his forehead. \u201cAll this we can discuss as we go along. It\u2019s a torment to me to be standing still.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull stared again at the spot where Leehallfae\u2019s body had lain, quite bewildered at the extraordinary disappearance. He could scarcely tear himself away from the place, so mysterious was it. Not until Corpang called to him a second time did he make up his mind to follow him.<\/p>\n

They set off from the rock wall straight across the airlit plain, directing their course toward the nearest trees. The subdued light, the absence of shadows, the massive shafts, springing grey-white out of the jetlike ground, the fantastic trees, the absence of a sky, the deathly silence, the knowledge that he was underground\u2014the combination of all these things predisposed Maskull\u2019s mind to mysticism, and he prepared himself with some anxiety to hear Corpang\u2019s explanation of the land and its wonders. He already began to grasp that the reality of the outside world and the reality of this world were two quite different things.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn what sense are there three worlds?\u201d he demanded, repeating his former question.<\/p>\n

Corpang smote the end of his staff on the ground. \u201cFirst of all, Maskull, what is your motive for asking? If it\u2019s mere intellectual curiosity, tell me, for we mustn\u2019t play with awful matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it isn\u2019t that,\u201d said Maskull slowly. \u201cI\u2019m not a student. My journey is no holiday tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t there blood on your soul?\u201d asked Corpang, eying him intently.<\/p>\n

The blood rose steadily to Maskull\u2019s face, but in that light it caused it to appear black.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately there is, and not a little.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other\u2019s face was all wrinkles, but he made no comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so you see,\u201d went on Maskull, with a short laugh, \u201cI\u2019m in the very best condition for receiving your instruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang still paused. \u201cUnderneath your crimes I see a man,\u201d he said, after a few minutes. \u201cOn that account, and because we are commanded to help one another, I won\u2019t leave you at present, though I little thought to be walking with a murderer…. Now to your question…. Whatever a man sees with his eyes, Maskull, he sees in three ways\u2014length, breadth, depth. Length is existence, breadth is relation, depth is feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething of the sort was told me by Earthrid, the musician, who came from Threal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know him. What else did he tell you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe went on to apply it to music. Continue, and pardon the interruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese three states of perception are the three worlds. Existence is Faceny\u2019s world, relation is Amfuse\u2019s world, feeling is Thire\u2019s world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t we come down to hard facts?\u201d said Maskull, frowning. \u201cI understand no more than I did before what you mean by three worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no harder facts than the ones I am giving you. The first world is visible, tangible Nature. It was created by Faceny out of nothingness, and therefore we call it Existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat I understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second world is Love\u2014by which I don\u2019t mean lust. Without love, every individual would be entirely self-centred and unable deliberately to act on others. Without love, there would be no sympathy\u2014not even hatred, anger, or revenge would be possible. These are all imperfect and distorted forms of pure love. Interpenetrating Faceny\u2019s world of Nature, therefore, we have Amfuse\u2019s world of Love, or Relation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat grounds have you for assuming that this so-called second world is not contained in the first?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are contradictory. A natural man lives for himself; a lover lives for others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may be so. It\u2019s rather mystical. But go on\u2014who is Thire?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLength and breadth together without depth give flatness. Life and love without feeling produce shallow, superficial natures. Feeling is the need of men to stretch out toward their creator.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean prayer and worship?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean intimacy with Thire. This feeling is not to be found in either the first or second world, therefore it is a third world. Just as depth is the line between object and subject, feeling is the line between Thire and man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what is Thire himself?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThire is the afterworld.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still don\u2019t understand,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cDo you believe in three separate gods, or are these merely three ways of regarding one God?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are three gods, for they are mutually antagonistic. Yet they are somehow united.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull reflected a while. \u201cHow have you arrived at these conclusions?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNone other are possible in Threal, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy in Threal\u2014what is there peculiar here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will show you presently.\u201d<\/p>\n

They walked on for above a mile in silence, while Maskull digested what had been said. When they came to the first trees, which grew along the banks of a small stream of transparent water, Corpang halted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat bandage around your forehead has long been unnecessary,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n

Maskull removed it. He found that the line of his brow was smooth and uninterrupted, as it had never yet been since his arrival in Tormance.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow has this come about\u2014and how did you know it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were Faceny\u2019s organs. They have vanished, just as the phaen\u2019s body vanished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull kept rubbing his forehead. \u201cI feel more human without them. But why isn\u2019t the rest of my body affected?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause its living will contains the element of Thire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we stopping here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang broke off the tip of one of the aerial roots of a tree, and proffered it to him. \u201cEat this, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor food, or something else?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFood for body and soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull bit into the root. It was white and hard; its white sap was bleeding. It had no taste, but after eating it, he experienced a change of perception. The landscape, without alteration of light or outline, became several degrees more stern and sacred. When he looked at Corpang he was impressed by his aspect of Gothic awfulness, but the perplexed expression was still in his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you spend all your time here, Corpang?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOccasionally I go above, but not often.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat fastens you to this gloomy world?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe search for Thire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it\u2019s still a search?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us walk on.\u201d<\/p>\n

As they resumed their journey across the dim, gradually rising plain, the conversation became even more earnest in character than before. \u201cAlthough I was not born here,\u201d proceeded Corpang, \u201cI\u2019ve lived here for twenty-five years, and during all that time I have been drawing nearer to Thire, as I hope. But there is this peculiarity about it\u2014the first stages are richer in fruit and more promising than the later ones. The longer a man seeks Thire, the more he seems to absent himself. In the beginning he is felt and known, sometimes as a shape, sometimes as a voice, sometimes an overpowering emotion. Later on all is dry, dark, and harsh in the soul. Then you would think that Thire was a million miles off.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you explain that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen everything is darkest, he may be nearest, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this is troubling you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy days are spent in torture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou still persist, though? This day darkness can\u2019t be the ultimate state?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy questions will be answered.\u201d<\/p>\n

A silence ensued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you propose to show me?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe land is about to grow wilder. I am taking you to the Three Figures, which were carved and erected by an earlier race of men. There, we will pray.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are truehearted, you will see things you will not easily forget.\u201d<\/p>\n

They had been walking slightly uphill in a sort of trough between two parallel, gently sloping downs. The trough now deepened, while the hills on either side grew steeper. They were in an ascending valley and, as it curved this way and that, the landscape was shut off from view. They came to a little spring, bubbling up from the ground. It formed a trickling brook, which was unlike all other brooks in that it was flowing up<\/i> the valley instead of down<\/i>. Before long it was joined by other miniature rivulets, so that in the end it became a fair-sized stream. Maskull kept looking at it, and puckering his forehead.<\/p>\n

\u201cNature has other laws here, it seems?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing can exist here that is not a compound of the three worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYet the water is flowing somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t explain it, but there are three wills in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there no such thing as pure Thire-matter?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThire cannot exist without Amfuse, and Amfuse cannot exist without Faceny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull thought this over for some minutes. \u201cThat must be so,\u201d he said at last. \u201cWithout life there can be no love, and without love there can be no religious feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the half light of the land, the tops of the hills containing the valley presently attained such a height that they could not be seen. The sides were steep and craggy, while the bed of the valley grew narrower at every step. Not a living organism was visible. All was unnatural and sepulchral.<\/p>\n

Maskull said, \u201cI feel as if I were dead, and walking in another world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still do not know what you are doing here,\u201d answered Corpang.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should I go on making a mystery of it? I came to find Surtur.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat name I\u2019ve heard\u2014but under what circumstances?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou forget?\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang walked along, his eyes fixed on the ground, obviously troubled. \u201cWho is<\/i> Surtur?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull shook his head, and said nothing.<\/p>\n

The valley shortly afterward narrowed, so that the two men, touching fingertips in the middle, could have placed their free hands on the rock walls on either side. It threatened to terminate in a cul-de-sac, but just when the road seemed least promising, and they were shut in by cliffs on all sides, a hitherto unperceived bend brought them suddenly into the open. They emerged through a mere crack in the line of precipices.<\/p>\n

A sort of huge natural corridor was running along at right angles to the way they had come; both ends faded into obscurity after a few hundred yards. Right down the centre of this corridor ran a chasm with perpendicular sides; its width varied from thirty to a hundred feet, but its bottom could not be seen. On both sides of the chasm, facing one another, were platforms of rock, twenty feet or so in width; they too proceeded in both directions out of sight. Maskull and Corpang emerged onto one of these platforms. The shelf opposite was a few feet higher than that on which they stood. The platforms were backed by a double line of lofty and unclimbable cliffs, whose tops were invisible.<\/p>\n

The stream, which had accompanied them through the gap, went straight forward, but, instead of descending the wall of the chasm as a waterfall, it crossed from side to side like a liquid bridge. It then disappeared through a cleft in the cliffs on the opposite side.<\/p>\n

To Maskull\u2019s mind, however, even more wonderful than this unnatural phenomenon was the absence of shadows, which was more noticeable here than on the open plain. It made the place look like a hall of phantoms.<\/p>\n

Corpang, without delay, led the way along the shelf to the left. When they had walked about a mile, the gulf widened to two hundred feet. Three large rocks loomed up on the ledge opposite; they resembled three upright giants, standing motionless side by side on the extreme edge of the chasm. Corpang and Maskull drew nearer, and then Maskull saw that they were statues. Each was about thirty feet high, and the workmanship was of the rudest. They represented naked men, but the limbs and trunks had been barely chipped into shape\u2014the faces alone had had care bestowed on them, and even these faces were merely generalised. It was obviously the work of primitive artists. The statues stood erect with knees closed and arms hanging straight down their sides. All three were exactly alike.<\/p>\n

As soon as they were directly opposite, Corpang halted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs this a representation of your three Beings?\u201d asked Maskull, awed by the spectacle in spite of his constitutional audacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk no questions, but kneel,\u201d replied Corpang. He dropped onto his own knees, but Maskull remained standing.<\/p>\n

Corpang covered his eyes with one hand, and prayed silently. After a few minutes the light sensibly faded. Then Maskull knelt as well, but he continued looking.<\/p>\n

It grew darker and darker, until all was like the blackest night. Sight and sound no longer existed; he was alone with his own spirit.<\/p>\n

Then one of the three Colossi came slowly into sight again. But it had ceased to be a statue\u2014it was a living person. Out of the blackness of space a gigantic head and chest emerged, illuminated by a mystic, rosy glow, like a mountain peak bathed by the rising sun. As the light grew stronger Maskull saw that the flesh was translucent and that the glow came from within. The limbs of the apparition were wreathed in mist.<\/p>\n

Before long the features of the face stood out distinctly. It was that of a beardless youth of twenty years. It possessed the beauty of a girl and the daring force of a man; it bore a mocking, cryptic smile. Maskull felt the fresh, mysterious thrill of mingled pain and rapture of one who awakes from a deep sleep in midwinter and sees the gleaming, dark, delicate colours of the half-dawn. The vision smiled, kept still, and looked beyond him. He began to shudder, with delight\u2014and many emotions. As he gazed, his poetic sensibility acquired such a nervous and indefinable character that he could endure it no more; he burst into tears.<\/p>\n

When he looked up again the image had nearly disappeared, and in a few moments more he was plunged back into total darkness.<\/p>\n

Shortly afterward a second statue reappeared. It too was transfigured into a living form, but Maskull was unable to see the details of its face and body, because of the brightness of the light that radiated from them. This light, which started as pale gold, ended as flaming golden fire. It illumined the whole underground landscape. The rock ledges, the cliffs, himself and Corpang on their knees, the two unlighted statues\u2014all appeared as if in sunlight, and the shadows were black and strongly defined. The light carried heat with it, but a singular heat. Maskull was unaware of any rise in temperature, but he felt his heart melting to womanish softness. His male arrogance and egotism faded imperceptibly away; his personality seemed to disappear. What was left behind was not freedom of spirit or lightheartedness, but a passionate and nearly savage mental state of pity and distress. He felt a tormenting desire to serve<\/i>. All this came from the heat of the statue, and was without an object. He glanced anxiously around him, and fastened his eyes on Corpang. He put a hand on his shoulder and aroused him from his praying.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must know what I am feeling, Corpang.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang smiled sweetly, but said nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI care nothing for my own affairs any more. How can I help you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much the better for you, Maskull, if you respond so quickly to the invisible worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

As soon as he had spoken, the figure began to vanish, and the light to die away from the landscape. Maskull\u2019s emotion slowly subsided, but it was not until he was once more in complete darkness that he became master of himself again. Then he felt ashamed of his boyish exhibition of enthusiasm, and thought ruefully that there must be something wanting in his character. He got up onto his feet.<\/p>\n

The very moment that he arose, a man\u2019s voice sounded, not a yard from his ear. It was hardly raised above a whisper, but he could distinguish that it was not Corpang\u2019s. As he listened he was unable to prevent himself from physically trembling.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull, you are to die,\u201d said the unseen speaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is speaking?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have only a few hours of life left. Don\u2019t trifle the time away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull could bring nothing out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have despised life,\u201d went on the low-toned voice. \u201cDo you really imagine that this mighty world has no meaning, and that life is a joke?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat must I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRepent your murders, commit no fresh ones, pay honour to…\u201d<\/p>\n

The voice died away. Maskull waited in silence for it to speak again. All remained still, however, and the speaker appeared to have taken his departure. Supernatural horror seized him; he fell into a sort of catalepsy.<\/p>\n

At that moment he saw one of the statues fading away<\/i>, from a pale, white glow to darkness. He had not previously seen it shining.<\/p>\n

In a few more minutes the normal light of the land returned. Corpang got up, and shook him out of his trance.<\/p>\n

Maskull looked around, but saw no third person. \u201cWhose statue was the last?\u201d he demanded.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thire\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you hear me speaking?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard your voice, but no one else\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve just had my death foretold, so I suppose I have not long to live. Leehallfae prophesied the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang shook his head. \u201cWhat value do you set on life?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery little. But it\u2019s a fearful thing all the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour death is?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but this warning.\u201d<\/p>\n

They stopped talking. A profound silence reigned. Neither of the two men seemed to know what to do next, or where to go. Then both of them heard the sound of drumming. It was slow, emphatic, and impressive, a long way off and not loud, but against the background of quietness, very marked. It appeared to come from some point out of sight, to the left of where they were standing, but on the same rock shelf. Maskull\u2019s heart beat quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can that sound be?\u201d asked Corpang, peering into the obscurity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is Surtur.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce again, who is<\/i> Surtur?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull clutched his arm and pressed him to silence. A strange radiance was in the air, in the direction of the drumming. It increased in intensity and gradually occupied the whole scene. Things were no longer seen by Their\u2019s light, but by this new light. It cast no shadows.<\/p>\n

Corpang\u2019s nostrils swelled, and he held himself more proudly. \u201cWhat fire is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is Muspel-light.\u201d<\/p>\n

They both glanced instinctively at the three statues. In the strange glow they had undergone a change. The face of each figure was clothed in the sordid and horrible Crystalman mask.<\/p>\n

Corpang cried out and put his hand over his eyes. \u201cWhat can this mean?\u201d he asked a minute later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must mean that life is wrong, and the creator of life too, whether he is one person or three.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang looked again, like a man trying to accustom himself to a shocking sight. \u201cDare we believe this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must,\u201d replied Maskull. \u201cYou have always served the highest, and you must continue to do so. It has simply turned out that Thire is not the highest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang\u2019s face became swollen with a kind of coarse anger. \u201cLife is clearly false\u2014I have been seeking Thire for a lifetime, and now I find\u2014this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have nothing to reproach yourself with. Crystalman has had eternity to practice his cunning in, so it\u2019s no wonder if a man can\u2019t see straight, even with the best intentions. What have you decided to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drumming seems to be moving away. Will you follow it, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut where will it take us?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps out of Threal altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds to me more real than reality,\u201d said Corpang. \u201cTell me, who is Surtur?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurtur\u2019s world, or Muspel, we are told, is the original of which this world is a distorted copy. Crystalman is life, but Surtur is other than life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you know this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has sprung together somehow\u2014from inspiration, from experience, from conversation with the wise men of your planet. Every hour it grows truer for me and takes a more definite shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang stood up squarely, facing the three Figures with a harsh, energetic countenance, stamped all over with resolution. \u201cI believe you, Maskull. No better proof is required than that<\/i>. Thire is not the highest; he is even in a certain sense the lowest<\/i>. Nothing but the thoroughly false and base could stoop to such deceits…. I am coming with you\u2014but don\u2019t play the traitor. These signs may be for you, and not for me at all, and if you leave me\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI make no promises. I don\u2019t ask you to come with me. If you prefer to stay in your little world, or if you have any doubts about it, you had better not come.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t talk like that. I shall never forget your service to me… Let us make haste, or we shall lose the sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang started off more eagerly than Maskull. They walked fast in the direction of the drumming. For upward of two miles the path went along the ledge without any change of level. The mysterious radiance gradually departed, and was replaced by the normal light of Threal. The rhythmical beats continued, but a very long way ahead\u2014neither was able to diminish the distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of man are you?\u201d Corpang suddenly broke out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn what respect?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you come to be on such terms with the Invisible? How is it that I\u2019ve never had this experience before I met you, in spite of my never-ending prayers and mortifications? In what way are you superior to me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hear voices perhaps can\u2019t be made a profession,\u201d replied Maskull. \u201cI have a simple and unoccupied mind\u2014that may be why I sometimes hear things that up to the present you have not been able to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang darkened, and kept silent; and then Maskull saw through to his pride.<\/p>\n

The ledge presently began to rise. They were high above the platform on the opposite side of the gulf. The road then curved sharply to the right, and they passed over the abyss and the other ledge as by a bridge, coming out upon the top of the opposite cliffs. A new line of precipices immediately confronted them. They followed the drumming along the base of these heights, but as they were passing the mouth of a large cave the sound came from its recesses, and they turned their steps inward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis leads to the outer world,\u201d remarked Corpang. \u201cI\u2019ve occasionally been there by this passage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen that\u2019s where it is taking us, no doubt. I confess I shan\u2019t be sorry to see sunlight once more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you find time to think of sunlight?\u201d asked Corpang with a rough smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the sun, and perhaps I\u2019m rather lacking in the spirit of a zealot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYet, for all that, you may get there<\/i> before me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be bitter,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you another thing. Muspel can\u2019t be willed, for the simple reason that Muspel does not concern the will. To will is a property of this world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen what is your journey for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to walk to a destination, and to linger over the walk, and quite another to run there at top speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps I\u2019m not so easily deceived as you think,\u201d said Corpang with another smile.<\/p>\n

The light persisted in the cave. The path narrowed and became a steep ascent. Then the angle became one of forty-five degrees, and they had to climb. The tunnel grew so confined that Maskull was reminded of the confined dreams of his childhood.<\/p>\n

Not long afterward, daylight appeared. They hastened to complete the last stage. Maskull rushed out first into the world of colours and, all dirty and bleeding from numerous scratches, stood blinking on a hillside, bathed in the brilliant late-afternoon sunshine. Corpang followed closely at his heels. He was obliged to shield his eyes with his hands for a few minutes, so unaccustomed was he to Branchspell\u2019s blinding rays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drum beats have stopped!\u201d he exclaimed suddenly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t expect music all the time,\u201d answered Maskull dryly. \u201cWe mustn\u2019t be luxurious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now we have no guide. We\u2019re no better off than before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Tormance is a big place. But I have an infallible rule, Corpang. As I come from the south, I always go due north.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will take us to Lichstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull gazed at the fantastically piled rocks all around them. \u201cI saw these rocks from Matterplay. The mountains look as far off now as they did then, and there\u2019s not much of the day left. How far is Lichstorm from here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang looked away to the distant range. \u201cI don\u2019t know, but unless a miracle happens we shan\u2019t get there tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a feeling,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cthat we shall not only get there tonight, but that tonight will be the most important in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he sat down passively to rest.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 18. HAUNTE<\/h2>\n

While Maskull sat, Corpang walked restlessly to and fro, swinging his arms. He had lost his staff. His face was inflamed with suppressed impatience, which accentuated its natural coarseness. At last he stopped short in front of Maskull and looked down at him. \u201cWhat do you intend to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull glanced up and idly waved his hand toward the distant mountains. \u201cSince we can\u2019t walk, we must wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know… How\u2019s this, though? Those peaks have changed colour, from red to green.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, the lich wind is travelling this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lich wind?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the atmosphere of Lichstorm. It always clings to the mountains, but when the wind blows from the north it comes as far as Threal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sort of fog, then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA peculiar sort, for they say it excites the sexual passions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we are to have lovemaking,\u201d said Maskull, laughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps you won\u2019t find it so joyous,\u201d replied Corpang a little grimly.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut tell me\u2014these peaks, how do they preserve their balance?\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang gazed at the distant, overhanging summits, which were fast fading into obscurity.<\/p>\n

\u201cPassion keeps them from falling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull laughed again; he was feeling a strange disturbance of spirit. \u201cWhat, the love of rock for rock?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is comical, but true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll take a closer peep at them presently. Beyond the mountains is Barey, is it not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then the Ocean. But what is the name of that Ocean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is told only to those who die beside it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the secret so precious, Corpang?\u201d<\/p>\n

Branchspell was nearing the horizon in the west; there were more than two hours of daylight remaining. The air all around them became murky. It was a thin mist, neither damp nor cold. The Lichstorm Range now appeared only as a blur on the sky. The air was electric and tingling, and was exciting in its effect. Maskull felt a sort of emotional inflammation, as though a very slight external cause would serve to overturn his self-control. Corpang stood silent with a mouth like iron.<\/p>\n

Maskull kept looking toward a high pile of rocks in the vicinity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat seems to me a good watchtower. Perhaps we shall see something from the top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without waiting for his companion\u2019s opinion, he began to scramble up the tor, and in a few minutes was standing on the summit. Corpang joined him.<\/p>\n

From their viewpoint they saw the whole countryside sloping down to the sea, which appeared as a mere flash of far-off, glittering water. Leaving all that, however, Maskull\u2019s eyes immediately fastened themselves on a small, boat-shaped object, about two miles away, which was travelling rapidly toward them, suspended only a few feet in the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you make of that?\u201d he asked in a tone of astonishment.<\/p>\n

Corpang shook his head and said nothing.<\/p>\n

Within two minutes the flying object, whatever it was, had diminished the distance between them by one half. It resembled a boat more and more, but its flight was erratic, rather than smooth; its nose was continually jerking upward and downward, and from side to side. Maskull now made out a man sitting in the stern, and what looked like a large dead animal lying amidships. As the aerial craft drew nearer, he observed a thick, blue haze underneath it, and a similar haze behind, but the front, facing them, was clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere must be what we are waiting for, Corpang. But what on earth carries it?\u201d<\/p>\n

He stroked his beard contemplatively, and then, fearing that they had not been seen, stepped onto the highest rock, bellowed loudly, and made wild motions with his arm. The flying-boat, which was only a few hundred yards distant, slightly altered its course, now heading toward them in a way that left no doubt that the steersman had detected their presence.<\/p>\n

The boat slackened speed until it was travelling no faster than a walking man, but the irregularity of its movements continued. It was shaped rather queerly. About twenty feet long, its straight sides tapered off from a flat bow, four feet broad, to a sharp-angled stern. The flat bottom was not above ten feet from the ground. It was undecked, and carried only one living occupant; the other object they had distinguished was really the carcass of an animal, of about the size of a large sheep. The blue haze trailing behind the boat appeared to emanate from the glittering point of a short upright pole fastened in the stern. When the craft was within a few feet of them, and they were looking down at it in wonder from above, the man removed this pole and covered the brightly shining tip with a cap. The forward motion then ceased altogether, and the boat began to drift hither and thither, but still it remained suspended in the air, while the haze underneath persisted. Finally the broad side came gently up against the pile of rocks on which they were standing. The steersman jumped ashore and immediately clambered up to meet them.<\/p>\n

Maskull offered him a hand, but he refused it disdainfully. He was a young man, of middle height. He wore a close-fitting fur garment. His limbs were quite ordinary, but his trunk was disproportionately long, and he had the biggest and deepest chest that Maskull had ever seen in a man. His hairless face was sharp, pointed, and ugly, with protruding teeth, and a spiteful, grinning expression. His eyes and brows sloped upward. On his forehead was an organ which looked as though it had been mutilated\u2014it was a mere disagreeable stump of flesh. His hair was short and thin. Maskull could not name the colour of his skin, but it seemed to stand in the same relation to jale as green to red.<\/p>\n

Once up, the stranger stood for a minute or two, scrutinising the two companions through half-closed lids, all the time smiling insolently. Maskull was all eagerness to exchange words, but did not care to be the first to speak. Corpang stood moodily, a little in the background.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat men are you?\u201d demanded the aerial navigator at last. His voice was extremely loud, and possessed a most unpleasant timbre. It sounded to Maskull like a large volume of air trying to force its way through a narrow orifice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am Maskull; my friend is Corpang. He comes from Threal, but where I come from, don\u2019t ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am Haunte, from Sarclash.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere may that be?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHalf an hour ago I could have shown it to you, but now it has got too murky. It is a mountain in Lichstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you returning there now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how long will it take to get there in that boat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo\u2014three hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWill it accommodate us too?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat, are you for Lichstorm as well? What can you want there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see the sights,\u201d responded Maskull with twinkling eyes. \u201cBut first of all, to dine. I can\u2019t remember having eaten all day. You seem to have been hunting to some purpose, so we won\u2019t lack for food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte eyed him quizzically. \u201cYou certainly don\u2019t lack impudence. However, I\u2019m a man of that sort myself, and it is the sort I prefer. Your friend, now, would probably rather starve than ask a meal of a stranger. He looks to me just like a bewildered toad dragged up out of a dark hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull took Corpang\u2019s arm, and constrained him to silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere have you been hunting, Haunte?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMatterplay. I had the worst luck\u2014I speared one wold horse, and there it lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is Lichstorm like?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are men there, and there are women there, but there are no men-women, as with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you call men-women?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPersons of mixed sex, like yourself. In Lichstorm the sexes are pure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always regarded myself as a man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery likely you have; but the test is, do you hate and fear women?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, do you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte grinned and showed his teeth. \u201cThings are different in Lichstorm…. So you want to see the sights?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI confess I am curious to see your women, for example, after what you say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I\u2019ll introduce you to Sullenbode.\u201d<\/p>\n

He paused a moment after making this remark, and then suddenly uttered a great, bass laugh, so that his chest shook.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet us share the joke,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, you\u2019ll understand it later.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you play pranks with me, I won\u2019t stand on ceremony with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte laughed again. \u201cI won\u2019t be the one to play pranks. Sullenbode will be deeply obliged to me. If I don\u2019t visit her myself as often as she would like, I\u2019m always glad to serve her in other ways…. Well, you shall have your boat ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull rubbed his nose doubtfully. \u201cIf the sexes hate one another in your land, is it because passion is weaker, or stronger?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other parts of the world there is soft passion, but in Lichstorm there is hard passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what do you call hard passion?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere men are called to women by pain, and not pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to understand, before I\u2019ve finished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d answered Haunte, with a taunting look, \u201cit would be a pity to let the chance slip, since you\u2019re going to Lichstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was now Corpang\u2019s turn to take Maskull by the arm. \u201cThis journey will end badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy so?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour goal was Muspel a short while ago; now it is women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me alone,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cGive luck a slack rein. What brought this boat here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is this talk about Muspel?\u201d demanded Haunte.<\/p>\n

Corpang caught his shoulder roughly, and stared straight into his eyes. \u201cWhat do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot much, but something, perhaps. Ask me at supper. Now it is high time to start. Navigating the mountains by night isn\u2019t child\u2019s play, let me tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shall not forget,\u201d said Corpang.<\/p>\n

Maskull gazed down at the boat. \u201cAre we to get in?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGently, my friend. It\u2019s only canework and skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, you might enlighten me as to how you have contrived to dispense with the laws of gravitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte smiled sarcastically. \u201cA secret in your ear, Maskull. All laws are female. A true male is an outlaw\u2014outside the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe great body of the earth is continually giving out female particles, and the male parts of rocks and living bodies are equally continually trying to reach them. That\u2019s gravitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen how do you manage with your boat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy two male stones do the work. The one underneath the boat prevents it from falling to the ground; the one in the stern shuts it off from solid objects in the rear. The only part of the boat attracted by any part of the earth is the bow, for that\u2019s the only part the light of the male stones does not fall on. So in that direction the boat travels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what are these wondrous male stones?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey really are male stones. There is nothing female in them; they are showering out male sparks all the time. These sparks devour all the female particles rising from the earth. No female particles are left over to attract the male parts of the boat, and so they are not in the least attracted in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull ruminated for a minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith your hunting, and boatbuilding, and science, you seem a very handy, skilful fellow, Haunte…. But the sun\u2019s sinking, and we\u2019d better start.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGet down first, then, and shift that carcass farther forward. Then you and your gloomy friend can sit amidships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull immediately climbed down, and dropped himself into the boat; but then he received a surprise. The moment he stood on the frail bottom, still clinging to the rock, not only did his weight entirely disappear, as though he were floating in some heavy medium, like salt water, but the rock he held onto drew him, as by a mild current of electricity, and he was able to withdraw his hands only with difficulty.<\/p>\n

After the first moment\u2019s shock, he quietly accepted the new order of things, and set about shifting the carcass. Since there was no weight in the boat this was effected without any great labour. Corpang then descended. The astonishing physical change had no power to disturb his settled composure, which was founded on moral ideas. Haunte came last; grasping the staff which held the upper male stone, he proceeded to erect it, after removing the cap. Maskull then obtained his first near view of the mysterious light, which, by counteracting the forces of Nature, acted indirectly not only as elevator but as motive force. In the last ruddy gleams of the great sun, its rays were obscured, and it looked little more impressive than an extremely brilliant, scintillating blue-white jewel, but its power could be gauged by the visible, coloured mist that it threw out for many yards around.<\/p>\n

The steering was effected by means of a shutter attached by a cord to the top of the staff, which could be so manipulated that any segment of the male stone\u2019s rays, or all the rays, or none at all, could be shut off at will. No sooner was the staff raised than the aerial vessel quietly detached itself from the rock to which it had been drawn, and passed slowly forward in the direction of the mountains. Branchspell sank below the horizon. The gathering mist blotted out everything outside a radius of a few miles. The air grew cool and fresh.<\/p>\n

Soon the rock masses ceased on the great, rising plain. Haunte withdrew the shutter entirely, and the boat gathered full speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou say that navigation among the mountains is difficult at night,\u201d exclaimed Maskull. \u201cI would have thought it impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte grunted. \u201cYou will have to take risks, and think yourself fortunate if you come off with nothing worse than a cracked skull. But one thing I can tell you\u2014if you go on disturbing me with your chitchat we shan\u2019t get as far as the mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thereafter Maskull was silent.<\/p>\n

The twilight deepened; the murk grew denser. There was little to look at, but much to feel. The motion of the boat, which was due to the never-ending struggle between the male stones and the force of gravitation, resembled in an exaggerated fashion the violent tossing of a small craft on a choppy sea. The two passengers became unhappy. Haunte, from his seat in the stern, gazed at them sardonically with one eye. The darkness now came on rapidly.<\/p>\n

About ninety minutes after the commencement of the voyage they arrived at the foothills of Lichstorm. They began to mount. There was no daylight left to see by. Beneath them, however, on both sides of them and in the rear, the landscape was lighted up for a considerable distance by the now vivid blue rays of the twin male stones. Ahead, where these rays did not shine, Haunte was guided by the self-luminous nature of the rocks, grass, and trees. These were faintly phosphorescent; the vegetation shone out more strongly than the soil.<\/p>\n

The moon was not shining and there were no stars; Maskull therefore inferred that the upper atmosphere was dense with mist. Once or twice, from his sensations of choking, he thought that they were entering a fogbank, but it was a strange kind of fog, for it had the effect of doubling the intensity of every light in front of them. Whenever this happened, nightmare feelings attacked him; he experienced transitory, unreasoning fright and horror.<\/p>\n

Now they passed high above the valley that separated the foothills from the mountains themselves. The boat began an ascent of many thousands of feet and, as the cliffs were near, Haunte had to manoeuvre carefully with the rear light in order to keep clear of them. Maskull watched the delicacy of his movements, not without admiration. A long time went by. It grew much colder; the air was damp and drafty. The fog began to deposit something like snow on their persons. Maskull kept sweating with terror, not because of the danger they were in, but because of the cloud banks that continued to envelop them.<\/p>\n

They cleared the first line of precipices. Still mounting, but this time with a forward motion, as could be seen by the vapours illuminated by the male stones through which they passed, they were soon altogether out of sight of solid ground. Suddenly and quite unexpectedly the moon broke through. In the upper atmosphere thick masses of fog were seen crawling hither and thither, broken in many places by thin rifts of sky, through one of which Teargeld was shining. Below them, to their left, a gigantic peak, glittering with green ice, showed itself for a few seconds, and was then swallowed up again. All the rest of the world was hidden by the mist. The moon went in again. Maskull had seen quite enough to make him long for the aerial voyage to end.<\/p>\n

The light from the male stones presently illuminated the face of a new cliff. It was grand, rugged, and perpendicular. Upward, downward, and on both sides, it faded imperceptibly into the night. After coasting it a little way, they observed a shelf of rock jutting out. It was square, measuring about a dozen feet each way. Green snow covered it to a depth of some inches. Immediately behind it was a dark slit in the rock, which promised to be the mouth of a cave.<\/p>\n

Haunte skilfully landed the boat on this platform. Standing up, he raised the staff bearing the keel light and lowered the other; then removed both male stones, which he continued to hold in his hand. His face was thrown into strong relief by the vivid, sparkling blue-white rays. It looked rather surly.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we get out?\u201d inquired Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. I live here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks for the successful end of a dangerous journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it has been touch-and-go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang jumped onto the platform. He was smiling coarsely. \u201cThere has been no danger, for our destinies lie elsewhere. You are merely a ferryman, Haunte.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that so?\u201d returned Haunte, with a most unpleasant laugh. \u201cI thought I was carrying men, not gods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are we?\u201d asked Maskull. As he spoke, he got out, but Haunte remained standing a minute in the boat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Sarclash\u2014the second highest mountain in the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is the highest, then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAdage. Between Sarclash and Adage there is a long ridge\u2014very difficult in places. About halfway along the ridge, at the lowest point, lies the top of the Mornstab Pass, which goes through to Barey. Now you know the lay of the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes the woman Sullenbode live near here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNear enough.\u201d Haunte grinned.<\/p>\n

He leaped out of the boat and, pushing past the others without ceremony, walked straight into the cave.<\/p>\n

Maskull followed, with Corpang at his heels. A few stone steps led to a doorway, curtained by the skin of some large beast. Their host pushed his way in, never offering to hold the skin aside for them. Maskull made no comment, but grabbed it with his fist and tugged it away from its fastenings to the ground. Haunte looked at the skin, and then stared hard at Maskull with his disagreeable smile, but neither said anything.<\/p>\n

The place in which they found themselves was a large oblong cavern, with walls, floor, and ceiling of natural rock. There were two doorways: that by which they had entered, and another of smaller size directly opposite. The cave was cold and cheerless; a damp draft passed from door to door. Many skins of wild animals lay scattered on the ground. A number of lumps of sun-dried flesh were hanging on a string along the wall, and a few bulging liquor skins reposed in a corner. There were tusks, horns, and bones everywhere. Resting against the wall were two short hunting spears, having beautiful crystal heads.<\/p>\n

Haunte set down the two male stones on the ground, near the farther door; thire light illuminated the whole cave. He then walked over to the meat and, snatching a large piece, began to gnaw it ravenously.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we invited to the feast?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

Haunte pointed to the hanging flesh and to the liquor skins, but did not pause in his chewing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s a cup?\u201d inquired Maskull, lifting one of the skins.<\/p>\n

Haunte indicated a clay goblet lying on the floor. Maskull picked it up, undid the neck of the skin, and, resting it under his arm, filled the cup. Tasting the liquor, he discovered it to be raw spirit. He tossed off the draught, and then felt much better.<\/p>\n

The second cupful he proffered to Corpang. The latter took a single sip, swallowed it, and then passed the cup back without a word. He refused to drink again, as long as they were in the cave. Maskull finished the cup, and began to throw off care.<\/p>\n

Going to the meat line, he took down a large double handful, and sat down on a pile of skins to eat at his ease. The flesh was tough and coarse, but he had never tasted anything sweeter. He could not understand the flavour, which was not surprising in a world of strange animals. The meal proceeded in silence. Corpang ate sparingly, standing up, and afterward lay down on a bundle of furs. His bold eyes watched all the movements of the other two. Haunte had not drunk as yet.<\/p>\n

At last Maskull concluded his meal. He emptied another cup, sighed pleasantly, and prepared to talk.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow explain further about your women, Haunte.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte fetched another skin of liquor and a second cup. He tore off the string with his teeth, and poured out and drank cup after cup in quick succession. Then he sat down, crossed his legs, and turned to Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they are objectionable?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are deadly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDeadly? In what way can they possibly be deadly?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will learn. I was watching you in the boat, Maskull. You had some bad feelings, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t conceal it. There were times when I felt as if I were struggling with a nightmare. What caused it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe female atmosphere of Lichstorm. Sexual passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was<\/i> passion\u2014the first stage. Nature tickles your people into marriage, but it tortures us. Wait till you get outside. You\u2019ll have a return of those sensations\u2014only ten times worse. The drink you\u2019ve had will see to that…. How do you suppose it will all end?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I knew, I wouldn\u2019t be asking you questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte laughed loudly. \u201cSullenbode.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean it will end in my seeking Sullenbode?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what will come of it, Maskull? What will she give you? Sweet, fainting, white-armed, feminine voluptuousness?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull coolly drank another cup. \u201cAnd why should she give all that to a passerby?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, as a matter of fact, she hasn\u2019t it to give. No, what she will give you, and what you\u2019ll accept from her, because you can\u2019t help it, is\u2014anguish, insanity, possibly death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may be talking sense, but it sounds like raving to me. Why should I accept insanity and death?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause your passion will force you to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about yourself?\u201d Maskull asked, biting his nails.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I have my male stones. I am immune.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that all that prevents you from being like other men?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but don\u2019t attempt any tricks, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull went on drinking steadily, and said nothing for a time. \u201cSo men and women here are hostile to each other, and love is unknown?\u201d he proceeded at last.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat magic word…. Shall I tell you what love is, Maskull? Love between male and female is impossible. When Maskull loves a woman, it is Maskull\u2019s female ancestors who are loving her. But here in this land the men are pure males. They have drawn nothing from the female side.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do the male stones come from?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, they are not freaks. There must be whole beds of the stuff somewhere. It is all that prevents the world from being a pure female world. It would be one big mass of heavy sweetness, without individual shapes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYet this same sweetness is torturing to men?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe life of an absolute male is fierce. An excess of life is dangerous to the body. How can it be anything else than torturing?\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang now sat up suddenly, and addressed Haunte. \u201cI remind you of your promise to tell about Muspel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte regarded him with a malevolent smile. \u201cHa! The underground man has come to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, tell us,\u201d put in Maskull carelessly.<\/p>\n

Haunte drank, and laughed a little. \u201cWell, the tale\u2019s short, and hardly worth telling, but since you\u2019re interested…. A stranger came here five years ago, inquiring after Muspel-light. His name was Lodd. He came from the east. He came up to me one bright morning in summer, outside this very cave. If you ask me to describe him\u2014I can\u2019t imagine a second man like him. He looked so proud, noble, superior, that I felt my own blood to be dirty by comparison. You can guess I don\u2019t have this feeling for everyone. Now that I am recalling him, he was not so much superior as different. I was so impressed that I rose and talked to him standing. He inquired the direction of the mountain Adage. He went on to say, \u2018They say Muspel-light is sometimes seen there. What do you know of such a thing?\u2019 I told him the truth\u2014that I knew nothing about it, and then he went on, \u2018Well, I am going to Adage. And tell those who come after me on the same errand that they had better do the same thing.\u2019 That was the whole conversation. He started on his way, and I\u2019ve never seen him or heard of him since.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you didn\u2019t have the curiosity to follow him?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, because the moment he had turned his back all my interest in the man somehow seemed to vanish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably because he was useless to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang glanced at Maskull. \u201cOur road is marked out for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it would appear,\u201d said Maskull indifferently.<\/p>\n

The talk flagged for a time. Maskull felt the silence oppressive, and grew restless.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you call the colour of your skin, Haunte, as I saw it in daylight? It struck me as strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDolm,\u201d said Haunte.<\/p>\n

\u201cA compound of ulfire and blue,\u201d explained Corpang.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I know. These colours are puzzling for a stranger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat colours have you in your world?\u201d asked Corpang.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly three primary ones, but here you seem to have five, though how it comes about I can\u2019t imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two sets of three primary colours here,\u201d said Corpang, \u201cbut as one of the colours\u2014blue\u2014is identical in both sets, altogether there are five primary colours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy two sets?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProduced by the two suns. Branchspell produces blue, yellow, and red; Alppain, ulfire, blue, and jale.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s remarkable that explanation has never occurred to me before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo here you have another illustration of the necessary trinity of nature. Blue is existence. It is darkness seen through light; a contrasting of existence and nothingness. Yellow is relation. In yellow light we see the relation of objects in the clearest way. Red is feeling. When we see red, we are thrown back on our personal feelings…. As regards the Alppain colours, blue stands in the middle and is therefore not existence, but relation. Ulfire is existence; so it must be a different sort of existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte yawned. \u201cThere are marvellous philosophers in your underground hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull got up and looked about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere does that other door lead to?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBetter explore,\u201d said Haunte.<\/p>\n

Maskull took him at his word, and strolled across the cave, flinging the curtain aside and disappearing into the night. Haunte rose abruptly and hurried after him.<\/p>\n

Corpang too got to his feet. He went over to the untouched spirit skins, untied the necks, and allowed the contents to gush out on to the floor. Next he took the hunting spears, and snapped off the points between his hands. Before he had time to resume his seat, Haunte and Maskull reappeared. The host\u2019s quick, shifty eyes at once took in what had happened. He smiled, and turned pale.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou haven\u2019t been idle, friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang fixed Haunte with his bold, heavy gaze. \u201cI thought it well to draw your teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull burst out laughing. \u201cThe toad\u2019s come into the light to some purpose, Haunte. Who would have expected it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte, after staring hard at Corpang for two or three minutes, suddenly uttered a strange cry, like an evil spirit, and flung himself upon him. The two men began to wrestle like wildcats. They were as often on the floor as on their legs, and Maskull could not see who was getting the better of it. He made no attempt to separate them. A thought came into his head and, snatching up the two male stones, he ran with them, laughing, through the upper doorway, into the open night air.<\/p>\n

The door overlooked an abyss on another face of the mountain. A narrow ledge, sprinkled with green snow, wound along the cliff to the right; it was the only available path. He pitched the pebbles over the edge of the chasm. Although hard and heavy in his hand, they sank more like feathers than stones, and left a long trail of vapour behind. While Maskull was still watching them disappear, Haunte came rushing out of the cavern, followed by Corpang. He gripped Maskull\u2019s arm excitedly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat in Krag\u2019s name have you done?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOverboard they have gone,\u201d replied Maskull, renewing his laughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou accursed madman!\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte\u2019s luminous colour came and went, just as though his internal light were breathing. Then he grew suddenly calm, by a supreme exertion of his will.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know this kills me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaven\u2019t you been doing your best this last hour to make me ripe for Sullenbode? Well then, cheer up, and join the pleasure party!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou say it as a joke, but it is the miserable truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte\u2019s jeering malevolence had completely vanished. He looked a sick man\u2014yet somehow his face had become nobler.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be very sorry for you, Haunte, if it did not entail my being also very sorry for myself. We are now all three together on the same errand\u2014which doesn\u2019t appear to have struck you yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut why this errand at all?\u201d asked Corpang quietly. \u201cCan\u2019t you men exercise self-control till you have arrived out of danger?\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte fixed him with wild eyes. \u201cNo. The phantoms come trooping in on me already.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sat down moodily, but the next minute was up again.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I cannot wait…. the game is started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon afterward, by silent consent, they began to walk the ledge, Haunte in front. It was narrow, ascending, and slippery, so that extreme caution was demanded. The way was lighted by the self-luminous snow and rocks.<\/p>\n

When they had covered about half a mile, Maskull, who went second of the party, staggered, caught the cliff, and finally sat down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drink works. My old sensations are returning, but worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte turned back. \u201cThen you are a doomed man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull, though fully conscious of his companions and situation, imagined that he was being oppressed by a black, shapeless, supernatural being, who was trying to clasp him. He was filled with horror, trembled violently, yet could not move a limb. Sweat tumbled off his face in great drops. The waking nightmare lasted a long time, but during that space it kept coming and going. At one moment the vision seemed on the point of departing; the next it almost took shape\u2014which he knew would be his death. Suddenly it vanished altogether\u2014he was free. A fresh spring breeze fanned his face; he heard the slow, solitary singing of a sweet bird; and it seemed to him as if a poem had shot together in his soul. Such flashing, heartbreaking joy he had never experienced before in all his life! Almost immediately that too vanished.<\/p>\n

Sitting up, he passed his hand across his eyes and swayed quietly, like one who has been visited by an angel.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour colour changed to white,\u201d said Corpang. \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI passed through torture to love,\u201d replied Maskull simply.<\/p>\n

He stood up. Haunte gazed at him sombrely. \u201cWill you not describe that passage?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull answered slowly and thoughtfully. \u201cWhen I was in Matterplay, I saw heavy clouds discharge themselves and change to coloured, living animals. In the same way, my black, chaotic pangs just now seemed to consolidate themselves and spring together as a new sort of joy. The joy would not have been possible without the preliminary nightmare. It is not accidental; Nature intends it so. The truth has just flashed through my brain…. You men of Lichstorm don\u2019t go far enough. You stop at the pangs, without realising that they are birth pangs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this is true, you are a great pioneer,\u201d muttered Haunte.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow does this sensation differ from common love?\u201d interrogated Corpang.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was all that love is, multiplied by wildness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang fingered his chin awhile. \u201cThe Lichstorm men, however, will never reach this stage, for they are too masculine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunte turned pale. \u201cWhy should we alone suffer?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNature is freakish and cruel, and doesn\u2019t act according to justice…. Follow us, Haunte, and escape from it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll see,\u201d muttered Haunte. \u201cPerhaps I will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave we far to go, to Sullenbode?\u201d inquired Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, her home\u2019s under the hanging cap of Sarclash.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is to happen tonight?\u201d Maskull spoke to himself, but Haunte answered him.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t expect anything pleasant, in spite of what has just occurred. She is not a woman, but a mass of pure sex. Your passion will draw her out into human shape, but only for a moment. If the change were permanent, you would have endowed her with a soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps the change might be made permanent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo do that, it is not enough to desire her; she must desire you as well. But why should she desire you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing turns out as one expects,\u201d said Maskull, shaking his head. \u201cWe had better get on again.\u201d<\/p>\n

They resumed the journey. The ledge still rose, but, on turning a corner of the cliff, Haunte quitted it and began to climb a steep gully, which mounted directly to the upper heights. Here they were compelled to use both hands and feet. Maskull thought all the while of nothing but the overwhelming sweetness he had just experienced.<\/p>\n

The flat ground on top was dry and springy. There was no more snow, and bright plants appeared. Haunte turned sharply to the left.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis must be under the cap,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is; and within five minutes you will see Sullenbode.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he spoke his words, Maskull\u2019s lips surprised him by their tender sensitiveness. Their action against each other sent thrills throughout his body.<\/p>\n

The grass shone dimly. A huge tree, with glowing branches, came into sight. It bore a multitude of red fruit, like hanging lanterns, but no leaves. Underneath this tree Sullenbode was sitting. Her beautiful light\u2014a mingling of jale and white\u2014gleamed softly through the darkness. She sat erect, on crossed legs, asleep. She was clothed in a singular skin garment, which started as a cloak thrown over one shoulder, and ended as loose breeches terminating above the knees. Her forearms were lightly folded, and in one hand she held a half-eaten fruit.<\/p>\n

Maskull stood over her and looked down, deeply interested. He thought he had never seen anything half so feminine. Her flesh was almost melting in its softness. So undeveloped were the facial organs that they looked scarcely human; only the lips were full, pouting, and expressive. In their richness, these lips seemed like a splash of vivid will on a background of slumbering protoplasm. Her hair was undressed. Its colour could not be distinguished. It was long and tangled, and had been tucked into her garment behind, for convenience.<\/p>\n

Corpang looked calm and sullen, but both the others were visibly agitated. Maskull\u2019s heart was hammering away under his chest. Haunte pulled him, and said, \u201cMy head feels as if it were being torn from my shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYet there\u2019s a horrible joy in it,\u201d added Haunte, with a sickly smile.<\/p>\n

He put his hand on the woman\u2019s shoulder. She awoke softly, glanced up at them, smiled, and then resumed eating her fruit. Maskull did not imagine that she had intelligence enough to speak. Haunte suddenly dropped on his knees, and kissed her lips.<\/p>\n

She did not repulse him. During the continuance of the kiss, Maskull noticed with a shock that her face was altering. The features emerged from their indistinctness and became human, and almost powerful. The smile faded, a scowl took its place. She thrust Haunte away, rose to her feet, and stared beneath bent brows at the three men, each one in turn. Maskull came last; his face she studied for quite a long time, but nothing indicated what she thought.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Haunte again approached her, staggering and grinning. She suffered him quietly; but the instant lips met lips the second time, he fell backward with a startled cry, as though he had come in contact with an electric wire. The back of his head struck the ground, and he lay there motionless.<\/p>\n

Corpang sprang forward to his assistance. But, when he saw what had happened, he left him where he was.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull, come here quickly!\u201d<\/p>\n

The light was perceptibly fading from Haunte\u2019s skin, as Maskull bent over. The man was dead. His face was unrecognisable. The head had been split from the top downward into two halves, streaming with strange-coloured blood, as though it had received a terrible blow from an axe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis couldn\u2019t be from the fall,\u201d said Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Sullenbode did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull turned quickly to look at the woman. She had resumed her former attitude on the ground. The momentary intelligence had vanished from her face, and she was again smiling.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 19. SULLENBODE<\/h2>\n

Sullenbode\u2019s naked skin glowed softly through the darkness, but the clothed part of her person was invisible. Maskull watched her senseless, smiling face, and shivered. Strange feelings ran through his body.<\/p>\n

Corpang spoke out of the night. \u201cShe looks like an evil spirit filled with deadliness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like deliberately kissing lightning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaunte was insane with passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo am I,\u201d said Maskull quietly. \u201cMy body seems full of rocks, all grinding against one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what I was afraid of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears I shall have to kiss her too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang pulled his arm. \u201cHave you lost all manliness?\u201d<\/p>\n

But Maskull impatiently shook himself free. He plucked nervously at his beard, and stared at Sullenbode. His lips kept twitching. After this had gone on for a few minutes, he stepped forward, bent over the woman, and lifted her bodily in his arms. Setting her upright against the rugged tree trunk, he kissed her.<\/p>\n

A cold, knifelike shock passed down his frame. He thought that it was death, and lost consciousness.<\/p>\n

When his sense returned, Sullenbode was holding him by the shoulder with one hand at arm\u2019s length, searching his face with gloomy eyes. At first he failed to recognise her; it was not the woman he had kissed, but another. Then he gradually realised that her face was identical with that which Haunte\u2019s action had called into existence. A great calmness came upon him; his bad sensations had disappeared.<\/p>\n

Sullenbode was transformed into a living soul. Her skin was firm, her features were strong, her eyes gleamed with the consciousness of power. She was tall and slight, but slow in all her gestures and movements. Her face was not beautiful. It was long, and palely lighted, while the mouth crossed the lower half like a gash of fire. The lips were as voluptuous as before. Her brows were heavy. There was nothing vulgar in her\u2014she looked the kingliest<\/i> of all women. She appeared not more than twenty-five.<\/p>\n

Growing tired, apparently, of his scrutiny, she pushed him a little way and allowed her arm to drop, at the same time curving her mouth into a long, bowlike smile. \u201cWhom have I to thank for this gift of life?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her voice was rich, slow, and odd. Maskull felt himself in a dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

She motioned to him to come a step nearer. \u201cListen, Maskull. Man after man has drawn me into the world, but they could not keep me there, for I did not wish it. But now you have drawn me into it for all time, for good or evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull stretched a hand toward the now invisible corpse, and said quietly, \u201cWhat have you to say about him<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho was it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaunte.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that was Haunte. The news will travel far and wide. He was a famous man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a horrible affair. I can\u2019t think that you killed him deliberately.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe women are endowed with terrible power, but it is our only protection. We do not want these visits; we loathe them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI might have died, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou came together?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were three of us. Corpang still stands over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see a faintly glimmering form. What do you want of me, Corpang?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen go away, and leave me with Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo need, Corpang. I am coming with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not that pleasure, then?\u201d demanded the low, earnest voice, out of the darkness.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, that pleasure has not returned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullenbode gripped his arm hard. \u201cWhat pleasure are you speaking of?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA presentiment of love, which I felt not long ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what do you feel now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCalm and free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullenbode\u2019s face seemed like a pallid mask, hiding a slow, swelling sea of elemental passions. \u201cI do not know how it will end, Maskull, but we will still keep together a little. Where are you going?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo Adage,\u201d said Corpang, stepping forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut why?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are following the steps of Lodd, who went there years ago, to find Muspel-light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What light is that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the light of another world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe quest is grand. But cannot women see that light?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn one condition,\u201d said Corpang. \u201cThey must forget their sex. Womanhood and love belong to life, while Muspel is above life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI give you all other men,\u201d said Sullenbode. \u201cMaskull is mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I am not here to help Maskull to a lover but to remind him of the existence of nobler things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are a good man. But you two alone will never strike the road to Adage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you acquainted with it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Again the woman gripped Maskull\u2019s arm. \u201cWhat is love\u2014which Corpang despises?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull looked at her attentively. Sullenbode went on, \u201cLove is that which is perfectly willing to disappear and become nothing, for the sake of the beloved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang wrinkled his forehead. \u201cA magnanimous female lover is new in my experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull put him aside with his hand, and said to Sullenbode, \u201cAre you contemplating a sacrifice?\u201d<\/p>\n

She gazed at her feet, and smiled. \u201cWhat does it matter what my thoughts are? Tell me, are you starting at once, or do you mean to rest first? It\u2019s a rough road to Adage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s in your mind?\u201d demanded Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will guide you a little. When we reach the ridge between Sarclash and Adage, perhaps I shall turn back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen if the moon shines perhaps you will arrive before daybreak, but if it is dark it\u2019s hardly likely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not what I meant. What will become of you after we have parted company?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI shall return somewhere\u2014perhaps here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull went close up to her, in order to study her face better. \u201cShall you sink back into\u2014the old state?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Maskull, thank heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen how will you live?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullenbode calmly removed the hand which he had placed on her arm. There was a sort of swirling flame in her eyes. \u201cAnd who said I would go on living?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull blinked at her in bewilderment. A few moments passed before he spoke again. \u201cYou women are a sacrificing lot. You know I can\u2019t leave you like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their eyes met. Neither withdrew them, and neither felt embarrassed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will always be the most generous of men, Maskull. Now let us go…. Corpang is a single-minded personage, and the least we others\u2014who aren\u2019t so single-minded\u2014can do is to help him to his destination. We mustn\u2019t inquire whether the destination of single-minded men is as a rule worth arriving at.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it is good for Maskull, it will be good for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, no vessel can hold more than its appointed measure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang gave a wry smile. \u201cDuring your long sleep you appear to have picked up wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Corpang, I have met many men, and explored many minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

As they moved off, Maskull remembered Haunte.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we not bury that poor fellow?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy this time tomorrow we shall need burial ourselves. But I do not include Corpang.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no tools, so you must have your way. You killed him, but I am the real murderer. I stole his protecting light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely that death is balanced by the life you have given me.\u201d They left the spot in the direction opposite to that by which the three men had arrived. After a few steps, they came to green snow again. At the same time the flat ground ended, and they started to traverse a steep, pathless mountain slope. The snow and rocks glimmered, their own bodies shone; otherwise everything was dark. The mists swirled around them, but Maskull had no more nightmares. The breeze was cold, pure, and steady. They walked in file, Sullenbode leading; her movements were slow and fascinating. Corpang came last. His stern eyes saw nothing ahead but an alluring girl and a half-infatuated man.<\/p>\n

For a long time they continued crossing the rough and rocky slope, maintaining a slightly upward course. The angle was so steep that a false step would have been fatal. The high ground was on their right. After a while, the hillside on the left hand changed to level ground, and they seemed to have joined another spur of the mountain. The ascending slope on the right hand persisted for a few hundred yards more. Then Sullenbode bore sharply to the left, and they found level ground all around them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are on the ridge,\u201d announced the woman, halting.<\/p>\n

The others came up to her, and at the same instant the moon burst through the clouds, illuminating the whole scene.<\/p>\n

Maskull uttered a cry. The wild, noble, lonely beauty of the view was quite unexpected. Teargeld was high in the sky to their left, shining down on them from behind. Straight in front, like an enormously wide, smoothly descending road, lay the great ridge which went on to Adage, though Adage itself was out of sight. It was never less than two hundred yards wide. It was covered with green snow, in some places entirely, but in other places the naked rocks showed through like black teeth. From where they stood they were unable to see the sides of the ridge, or what lay underneath. On the right hand, which was north, the landscape was blurred and indistinct. There were no peaks there; it was the distant, low-lying land of Barey. But on the left hand appeared a whole forest of mighty pinnacles, near and far, as far as the eye could see in moonlight. All glittered green, and all possessed the extraordinary hanging caps that characterised the Lichstorm range. These caps were of fantastic shapes, and each one was different. The valley directly opposite them was filled with rolling mist.<\/p>\n

Sarclash was a mighty mountain mass in the shape of a horseshoe. Its two ends pointed west, and were separated from each other by a mile or more of empty space. The northern end became the ridge on which they stood. The southern end was the long line of cliffs on that part of the mountain where Haunte\u2019s cave was situated. The connecting curve was the steep slope they had just traversed. One peak of Sarclash was invisible.<\/p>\n

In the south-west many mountains raised their heads. In addition, a few summits, which must have been of extraordinary height, appeared over the south side of the horseshoe.<\/p>\n

Maskull turned round to put a question to Sullenbode, but when he saw her for the first time in moonlight the words he had framed died on his lips. The gashlike mouth no longer dominated her other features, and the face, pale as ivory and most femininely shaped, suddenly became almost beautiful. The lips were a long, womanish curve of rose-red. Her hair was a dark maroon. Maskull was greatly disturbed; he thought that she resembled a spirit, rather than a woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat puzzles you?\u201d she asked, smiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing. But I would like to see you by sunlight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps you never will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour life must be most solitary.\u201d<\/p>\n

She explored his features with her black, slow-gleaming eyes. \u201cWhy do you fear to speak your feelings, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThings seem to open up before me like a sunrise, but what it means I can\u2019t say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullenbode laughed outright. \u201cIt assuredly does not mean the approach of night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang, who had been staring steadily along the ridge, here abruptly broke in. \u201cThe road is plain now, Maskull. If you wish it, I\u2019ll go on alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we\u2019ll go on together. Sullenbode will accompany us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA little way,\u201d said the woman, \u201cbut not to Adage, to pit my strength against unseen powers. That light is not for me. I know how to renounce love, but I will never be a traitor to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows what we shall find on Adage, or what will happen? Corpang is as ignorant as myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpang looked him full in the face. \u201cMaskull, you are quite well aware that you never dare approach that awful fire in the society of a beautiful woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull gave an uneasy laugh. \u201cWhat Corpang doesn\u2019t tell you, Sullenbode, is that I am far better acquainted with Muspel-light than he, and that, but for a chance meeting with me, he would still be saying his prayers in Threal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, what he says must be true,\u201d she replied, looking from one to the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so I am not to be allowed to\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo long as I am with you, I shall urge you onward, and not backward, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need not quarrel yet,\u201d he remarked, with a forced smile. \u201cNo doubt things will straighten themselves out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullenbode began kicking the snow about with her foot. \u201cI picked up another piece of wisdom in my sleep, Corpang.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell it to me, then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMen who live by laws and rules are parasites. Others shed their strength to bring these laws out of nothing into the light of day, but the law-abiders live at their ease\u2014they have conquered nothing for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is given to some to discover, and to others to preserve and perfect. You cannot condemn me for wishing Maskull well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but a child cannot lead a thunderstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n

They started walking again along the centre of the ridge. All three were abreast, Sullenbode in the middle.<\/p>\n

The road descended by an easy gradient, and was for a long distance comparatively smooth. The freezing point seemed higher than on Earth, for the few inches of snow through which they trudged felt almost warm to their naked feet. Maskull\u2019s soles were by now like tough hides. The moonlit snow was green and dazzling. Their slanting, abbreviated shadows were sharply defined, and red-black in colour. Maskull, who walked on Sullenbode\u2019s right hand, looked constantly to the left, toward the galaxy of glorious distant peaks.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot belong to this world,\u201d said the woman. \u201cMen of your stamp are not to be looked for here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I have come here from Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that larger than our world?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSmaller, I think. Small, and overcrowded with men and women. With all those people, confusion would result but for orderly laws, and therefore the laws are of iron. As adventure would be impossible without encroaching on these laws, there is no longer any spirit of adventure among the Earthmen. Everything is safe, vulgar, and completed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo men hate women there, and women men?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, the meeting of the sexes is sweet, though shameful. So poignant is the sweetness that the accompanying shame is ignored, with open eyes. There is no hatred, or only among a few eccentric persons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat shame surely must be the rudiment of our Lichstorm passion. But now say\u2014why did you come here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo meet with new experiences, perhaps. The old ones no longer interested me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long have you been in this world?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the end of my fourth day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen tell me what you have seen and done during those four days. You cannot have been inactive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat misfortunes have happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He proceeded briefly to relate everything that had taken place from the moment of his first awakening in the scarlet desert. Sullenbode listened, with half-closed eyes, nodding her head from time to time. Only twice did she interrupt him. After his description of Tydomin\u2019s death, she said, speaking in a low voice\u2014\u201cNone of us women ought by right of nature to fall short of Tydomin in sacrifice. For that one act of hers, I almost love her, although she brought evil to your door.\u201d Again, speaking of Gleameil, she remarked, \u201cThat grand-souled girl I admire the most of all. She listened to her inner voice, and to nothing else besides. Which of us others is strong enough for that?\u201d<\/p>\n

When his tale was quite over, Sullenbode said, \u201cDoes it not strike you, Maskull, that these women you have met have been far nobler than the men?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI recognise that. We men often sacrifice ourselves, but only for a substantial cause. For you women almost any cause will serve. You love the sacrifice for its own sake, and that is because you are naturally noble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning her head a little, she threw him a smile so proud, yet so sweet, that he was struck into silence.<\/p>\n

They tramped on quietly for some distance, and then he said, \u201cNow you understand the sort of man I am. Much brutality, more weakness, scant pity for anyone\u2014Oh, it has been a bloody journey!\u201d<\/p>\n

She laid her hand on his arm. \u201cI, for one, would not have it less rugged.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing good can be said of my crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me you seem like a lonely giant, searching for you know not what…. The grandest that life holds…. You at least have no cause to look up to women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks, Sullenbode!\u201d he responded, with a troubled smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Maskull passes, let people watch. Everyone is thrown out of your road. You go on, looking neither to right nor left.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTake care that you are not thrown as well,\u201d said Corpang gravely.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull shall do with me whatever he pleases, old skull! And for whatever he does, I will thank him…. In place of a heart you have a bag of loose dust. Someone has described love to you. You have had it described to you. You have heard that it is a small, fearful, selfish joy. It is not that\u2014it is wild, and scornful, and sportive, and bloody…. How should you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSelfishness has far too many disguises.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a woman wills to give up all, what can there be selfish in that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly do not deceive yourself. Act decisively, or fate will be too swift for you both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sullenbode studied him through her lashes. \u201cDo you mean death\u2014his death as well as mine?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go too far, Corpang,\u201d said Maskull, turning a shade darker. \u201cI don\u2019t accept you as the arbiter of our fortunes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf honest counsel is disagreeable to you, let me go on ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman detained him with her slow, light fingers. \u201cI wish you to stay with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you may know what you are talking about. I don\u2019t wish to bring harm to Maskull. Presently I\u2019ll leave you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will be best,\u201d said Corpang.<\/p>\n

Maskull looked angry. \u201cI shall decide\u2014Sullenbode, whether you go on, or back, I stay with you. My mind is made up.\u201d<\/p>\n

An expression of joyousness overspread her face, in spite of her efforts to conceal it. \u201cWhy do you scowl at me, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

He returned no answer, but continued walking onward with puckered brows. After a dozen paces or so, he halted abruptly. \u201cWait, Sullenbode!\u201d<\/p>\n

The others came to a standstill. Corpang looked puzzled, but the woman smiled. Maskull, without a word, bent over and kissed her lips. Then he relinquished her body, and turned around to Corpang.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you, in your great wisdom, interpret that kiss?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt requires no great wisdom to interpret kisses, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHereafter, never dare to come between us. Sullenbode belongs to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I say no more; but you are a fated man.\u201d<\/p>\n

From that time forward he spoke not another word to either of the others.<\/p>\n

A heavy gleam appeared in the woman\u2019s eyes. \u201cNow things are changed, Maskull. Where are you taking me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChoose, you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe man I love must complete his journey. I won\u2019t have it otherwise. You shall not stand lower than Corpang.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere you go, I will go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2014as long as your love endures, I will accompany you\u2014even to Adage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you doubt its lasting?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish not to…. Now I will tell you what I refused to tell you before. The term of your love is the term of my life. When you love me no longer, I must die.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd why?\u201d asked Maskull slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, that\u2019s the responsibility you incurred when you kissed me for the first time. I never meant to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you mean that if I had gone on alone, you would have died?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no other life but what you give me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gazed at her mournfully, without attempting to reply, and then slowly placed his arms around her body. During this embrace he turned very pale, but Sullenbode grew as white as chalk.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later the journey toward Adage was resumed.<\/p>\n

They had been walking for two hours. Teargeld was higher in the sky and nearer the south. They had descended many hundred feet, and the character of the ridge began to alter for the worse. The thin snow disappeared, and gave way to moist, boggy ground. It was all little grassy hillocks and marshes. They began to slip about and become draggled with mud. Conversation ceased; Sullenbode led the way, and the men followed in her tracks. The southern half of the landscape grew grander. The greenish light of the brilliant moon, shining on the multitude of snow-green peaks, caused it to appear like a spectral world. Their nearest neighbour towered high above them on the other side of the valley, due south, some five miles distant. It was a slender, inaccessible, dizzy spire of black rock, the angles of which were too steep to retain snow. A great upward-curving horn of rock sprang out from its topmost pinnacle. For a long time it constituted their cheif landmark.<\/p>\n

The whole ridge gradually became saturated with moisture. The surface soil was spongy, and rested on impermeable rock; it breathed in the damp mists by night, and breathed them out again by day, under Branchspell\u2019s rays. The walking grew first unpleasant, then difficult, and finally dangerous. None of the party could distinguish firm ground from bog. Sullenbode sank up to her waist in a pit of slime; Maskull rescued her, but after this incident took the lead himself. Corpang was the next to meet with trouble. Exploring a new path for himself, he tumbled into liquid mud up to his shoulders, and narrowly escaped a filthy death. After Maskull had got him out, at great personal risk, they proceeded once more; but now the scramble changed from bad to worse. Each step had to be thoroughly tested before weight was put upon it, and even so the test frequently failed. All of them went in so often, that in the end they no longer resembled human beings, but walking pillars plastered from top to toe with black filth. The hardest work fell to Maskull. He not only had the exhausting task of beating the way, but was continually called upon to help his companions out of their difficulties. Without him they could not have got through.<\/p>\n

After a peculiarly evil patch, they paused to recruit their strength. Corpang\u2019s breathing was difficult, Sullenbode was quiet, listless, and depressed.<\/p>\n

Maskull gazed at them doubtfully. \u201cDoes this continue?\u201d he inquired.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I think,\u201d replied the woman, \u201cwe can\u2019t be far from the Mornstab Pass. After that we shall begin to climb again, and then the road will improve perhaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you have been here before?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I have been to the Pass, but it was not so bad then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are tired out, Sullenbode.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat of it?\u201d she replied, smiling faintly. \u201cWhen one has a terrible lover, one must pay the price.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot get there tonight, so let us stop at the first shelter we come to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI leave it to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

He paced up and down, while the others sat. \u201cDo you regret anything?\u201d he demanded suddenly.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Maskull, nothing. I regret nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour feelings are unchanged?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLove can\u2019t go back\u2014it can only go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, eternally on. It is so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I don\u2019t mean that. There is a climax, but when the climax has been reached, love if it still wants to ascend must turn to sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a dreadful creed,\u201d he said in a low voice, turning pale beneath his coating of mud.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps my nature is discordant…. I am tired. I don\u2019t know what I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a few minutes they were on their feet again, and the journey recommenced. Within half an hour they had reached the Mornstab Pass.<\/p>\n

The ground here was drier; the broken land to the north served to drain off the moisture of the soil. Sullenbode led them to the northern edge of the ridge, to show them the nature of the country. The pass was nothing but a gigantic landslip on both sides of the ridge, where it was the lowest above the underlying land. A series of huge broken terraces of earth and rock descended toward Barey. They were overgrown with stunted vegetation. It was quite possible to get down to the lowlands that way, but rather difficult. On either side of the landslip, to east and west, the ridge came down in a long line of sheer, terrific cliffs. A low haze concealed Barey from view. Complete stillness was in the air, broken only by the distant thundering of an invisible waterfall.<\/p>\n

Maskull and Sullenbode sat down on a boulder, facing the open country. The moon was directly behind them, high up. It was almost as light as an Earth day.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight is like life,\u201d said Sullenbode.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow so?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo lovely above and around us, so foul underfoot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull sighed. \u201cPoor girl, you are unhappy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you\u2014are you happy?\u201d<\/p>\n

He thought a while, and then replied\u2014\u201cNo. No, I\u2019m not happy. Love is not happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is it, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRestlessness\u2014unshed tears\u2014thoughts too grand for our soul to think…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Sullenbode.<\/p>\n

After a time she asked, \u201cWhy were we created, just to live for a few years and then disappear?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are told that we shall live again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps in Muspel,\u201d he added thoughtfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of life will that be?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely we shall meet again. Love is too wonderful and mysterious a thing to remain uncompleted.\u201d<\/p>\n

She gave a slight shiver, and turned away from him. \u201cThis dream is untrue. Love is completed here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can that be, when sooner or later it is brutally interrupted by Fate?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is completed by anguish…. Oh, why must it always be enjoyment for us? Can\u2019t we suffer\u2014can\u2019t we go on suffering, forever and ever? Maskull, until love crushes our spirit, finally and without remedy, we don\u2019t begin to feel ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull gazed at her with a troubled expression. \u201cCan the memory of love be worth more than its presence and reality?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t understand. Those pangs are more precious than all the rest beside.\u201d She caught at him. \u201cOh, if you could only see inside my mind, Maskull! You would see strange things…. I can\u2019t explain. It is all confused, even to myself…. This love is quite different from what I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sighed again. \u201cLove is a strong drink. Perhaps it is too strong for human beings. And I think that it overturns our reason in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

They remained sitting side by side, staring straight before them with unseeing eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d said Sullenbode at last, with a smile, getting up. \u201cSoon it will be ended, one way or another. Come, let us be off!\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull too got up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s Corpang?\u201d he asked listlessly.<\/p>\n

They both looked across the ridge in the direction of Adage. At the point where they stood it was nearly a mile wide. It sloped perceptibly toward the southern edge, giving all the earth the appearance of a heavy list. Toward the west the ground continued level for a thousand yards, but then a high, sloping, grassy hill went right across the ridge from side to side, like a vast billow on the verge of breaking. It shut out all further view beyond. The whole crest of this hill, from one end to the other, was crowned by a long row of enormous stone posts, shining brightly in the moonlight against a background of dark sky. There were about thirty in all, and they were placed at such regular intervals that there was little doubt that they had been set there by human hands. Some were perpendicular, but others dipped so much that an aspect of extreme antiquity was given to the entire colonnade. Corpang was seen climbing the hill, not far from the top.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wishes to arrive,\u201d said Maskull, watching the energetic ascent with a rather cynical smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe heavens won\u2019t open for Corpang,\u201d returned Sullenbode. \u201cHe need not be in such a hurry…. What do these pillars seem like to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might be the entrance to some mighty temple. Who can have planted them there?\u201d<\/p>\n

She did not answer. They watched Corpang gain the summit of the hill, and disappear through the line of posts.<\/p>\n

Maskull turned again to Sullenbode. \u201cNow we two are alone in a lonely world.\u201d<\/p>\n

She regarded him steadily. \u201cOur last night on this earth must be a grand one. I am ready to go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you are fit to go on. It will be better to go down the pass a little, and find shelter.\u201d<\/p>\n

She half smiled. \u201cWe won\u2019t study our poor bodies tonight. I mean you to go to Adage, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen at all events let us rest first, for it must be a long, terrible climb, and who knows what hardships we shall meet?\u201d<\/p>\n

She walked a step or two forward, half turned, and held out her hand to him. \u201cCome, Maskull!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

When they had covered half the distance that separated them from the foot of the hill, Maskull heard the drum taps. They came from behind the hill, and were loud, sharp, almost explosive. He glanced at Sullenbode, but she appeared to hear nothing. A minute later the whole sky behind and above the long chain of stone posts on the crest of the hill began to be illuminated by a strange radiance. The moonlight in that quarter faded; the posts stood out black on a background of fire. It was the light of Muspel. As the moments passed, it grew more and more vivid, peculiar, and awful. It was of no colour, and resembled nothing\u2014it was supernatural and indescribable. Maskull\u2019s spirit swelled. He stood fast, with expanded nostrils and terrible eyes.<\/p>\n

Sullenbode touched him lightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you see, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMuspel-light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI see nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The light shot up, until Maskull scarcely knew where he stood. It burned with a fiercer and stranger glare than ever before. He forgot the existence of Sullenbode. The drum beats grew deafeningly loud. Each beat was like a rip of startling thunder, crashing through the sky and making the air tremble. Presently the crashes coalesced, and one continuous roar of thunder rocked the world. But the rhythm persisted\u2014the four beats, with the third accented, still came pulsing through the atmosphere, only now against a background of thunder, and not of silence.<\/p>\n

Maskull\u2019s heart beat wildly. His body was like a prison. He longed to throw it off, to spring up and become incorporated with the sublime universe which was beginning to unveil itself.<\/p>\n

Sullenbode suddenly enfolded him in her arms, and kissed him\u2014passionately, again and again. He made no response; he was unaware of what she was doing. She unclasped him and, with bent head and streaming eyes, went noiselessly away. She started to go back toward the Mornstab Pass.<\/p>\n

A few minutes afterward the radiance began to fade. The thunder died down. The moonlight reappeared, the stone posts and the hillside were again bright. In a short time the supernatural light had entirely vanished, but the drum taps still sounded faintly, a muffled rhythm, from behind the hill. Maskull started violently, and stared around him like a suddenly awakened sleeper.<\/p>\n

He saw Sullenbode walking slowly away from him, a few hundred yards off. At that sight, death entered his heart. He ran after her, calling out…. She did not look around. When he had lessened the distance between them by a half, he saw her suddenly stumble and fall. She did not get up again, but lay motionless where she fell.<\/p>\n

He flew toward her, and bent over her body. His worst fears were realised. Life had departed.<\/p>\n

Beneath its coating of mud, her face bore the vulgar, ghastly Crystalman grin, but Maskull saw nothing of it. She had never appeared so beautiful to him as at that moment.<\/p>\n

\n

He remained beside her for a long time, on his knees. He wept\u2014but, between his fits of weeping, he raised his head from time to time, and listened to the distant drum beats.<\/p>\n

An hour passed\u2014two hours. Teargeld was now in the south-west. Maskull lifted Sullenbode\u2019s dead body on to his shoulders, and started to walk toward the Pass. He cared no more for Muspel. He intended to look for water in which to wash the corpse of his beloved, and earth in which to bury her.<\/p>\n

When he had reached the boulder overlooking the landslip, on which they had sat together, he lowered his burden, and, placing the dead girl on the stone, seated himself beside her for a time, gazing over toward Barey.<\/p>\n

After that, he commenced his descent of the Mornstab Pass.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 20. BAREY<\/h2>\n

The day had already dawned, but it was not yet sunrise when Maskull awoke from his miserable sleep. He sat up and yawned feebly. The air was cool and sweet. Far away down the landslip a bird was singing; the song consisted of only two notes, but it was so plaintive and heartbreaking that he scarcely knew how to endure it.<\/p>\n

The eastern sky was a delicate green, crossed by a long, thin band of chocolate-coloured cloud near the horizon. The atmosphere was blue-tinted, mysterious, and hazy. Neither Sarclash nor Adage was visible.<\/p>\n

The saddle of the Pass was five hundred feet above him; he had descended that distance overnight. The landslip continued downward, like a huge flying staircase, to the upper slopes of Barey, which lay perhaps fifteen hundred feet beneath. The surface of the Pass was rough, and the angle was excessively steep, though not precipitous. It was above a mile across. On each side of it, east and west, the dark walls of the ridge descended sheer. At the point where the pass sprang outward they were two thousand feet from top to bottom, but as the ridge went upward, on the one hand toward Adage, on the other toward Sarclash, they attained almost unbelievable heights. Despite the great breadth and solidity of the pass, Maskull felt as though he were suspended in midair.<\/p>\n

The patch of broken, rich, brown soil observable not far away marked Sullenbode\u2019s grave. He had interred her by the light of the moon, with a long, flat stone for a spade. A little lower down, the white steam of a hot spring was curling about in the twilight. From where he sat he was unable to see the pool into which the spring ultimately flowed, but it was in that pool that he had last night washed first of all the dead girl\u2019s body, and then his own.<\/p>\n

He got up, yawned again, stretched himself, and looked around him dully. For a long time he eyed the grave. The half-darkness changed by imperceptible degrees to full day; the sun was about to appear. The sky was nearly cloudless. The whole wonderful extent of the mighty ridge behind him began to emerge from the morning mist… there was a part of Sarclash, and the ice-green crest of gigantic Adage itself, which he could only take in by throwing his head right back.<\/p>\n

He gazed at everything in weary apathy, like a lost soul. All his desires were gone forever; he wished to go nowhere, and to do nothing. He thought he would go to Barey.<\/p>\n

He went to the warm pool, to wash the sleep out of his eyes. Sitting beside it, watching the bubbles, was Krag.<\/p>\n

Maskull thought that he was dreaming. The man was clothed in a skin shirt and breeches. His face was stern, yellow, and ugly. He eyed Maskull without smiling or getting up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere in the devil\u2019s name have you come from, Krag?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe great point is, I am here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s Nightspore?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot far away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems a hundred years since I saw you. Why did you two leave me in such a damnable fashion?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were strong enough to get through alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it turned out, but how were you to know?…. Anyway, you\u2019ve timed it well. It seems I am to die today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag scowled. \u201cYou will die this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I am to, I shall. But where have you heard it from?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are ripe for it. You have run through the gamut. What else is there to live for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing,\u201d said Maskull, uttering a short laugh. \u201cI am quite ready. I have failed in everything. I only wondered how you knew…. So now you\u2019ve come to rejoin me. Where are we going?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough Barey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what about Nightspore?\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag jumped to his feet with clumsy agility. \u201cWe won\u2019t wait for him. He\u2019ll be there as soon as we shall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt our destination…. Come! The sun\u2019s rising.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

As they started clambering down the pass side by side, Branchspell, huge and white, leaped fiercely into the sky. All the delicacy of the dawn vanished, and another vulgar day began. They passed some trees and plants, the leaves of which were all curled up, as if in sleep.<\/p>\n

Maskull pointed them out to his companion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is it the sunshine doesn\u2019t open them?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBranchspell is a second night to them. Their day is Alppain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long will it be before that sun rises?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome time yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShall I live to see it, do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want to?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one time I did, but now I\u2019m indifferent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep in that humour, and you\u2019ll do well. Once for all, there\u2019s nothing worth seeing on Tormance.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a few minutes Maskull said, \u201cWhy did we come here, then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo follow Surtur.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue. But where is he?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCloser at hand than you think, perhaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know that he is regarded as a god here, Krag?… There is supernatural fire, too, which I have been led to believe is somehow connected with him…. Why do you keep up the mystery? Who and what is Surtur?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t disturb yourself about that. You will never know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you<\/i> know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know,\u201d snarled Krag.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe devil here is called Krag,\u201d went on Maskull, peering into his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as pleasure is worshiped, Krag will always be the devil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we are, talking face to face, two men together…. What am I to believe of you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBelieve your senses. The real devil is Crystalman.\u201d<\/p>\n

They continued descending the landslip. The sun\u2019s rays had grown insufferably hot. In front of them, down below in the far distance, Maskull saw water and land intermingled. It appeared that they were travelling toward a lake district.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat have you and Nightspore been doing during the last four days, Krag? What happened to the torpedo?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re just about on the same mental level as a man who sees a brand-new palace, and asks what has become of the scaffolding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat palace have you been building, then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not been idle,\u201d said Krag. \u201cWhile you have been murdering and lovemaking, we have had our work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how have you been made acquainted with my actions?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, you\u2019re an open book. Now you\u2019ve got a mortal heart wound on account of a woman you knew for six hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull turned pale. \u201cSneer away, Krag! If you lived with a woman for six hundred years and saw her die, that would never touch your leather heart. You haven\u2019t even the feelings of an insect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBehold the child defending its toys!\u201d said Krag, grinning faintly.<\/p>\n

Maskull stopped short. \u201cWhat do you want with me, and why did you bring me here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no use stopping, even for the sake of theatrical effect,\u201d said Krag, pulling him into motion again. \u201cThe distance has got to be covered, however often we pull up.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he touched him, Maskull felt a terrible shooting pain through his heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t go on regarding you as a man, Krag. You\u2019re something more than a man\u2014whether good or evil, I can\u2019t say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag looked yellow and formidable. He did not reply to Maskull\u2019s remark, but after a pause said, \u201cSo you\u2019ve been trying to find Surtur on your own account, during the intervals between killing and fondling?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was that drumming?\u201d demanded Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou needn\u2019t look so important. We know you had your ear to the keyhole. But you could join the assembly, the music was not playing for you, my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull smiled rather bitterly. \u201cAt all events, I listen through no more keyholes. I have finished with life. I belong to nobody and nothing any more, from this time forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBrave words, brave words! We shall see. Perhaps Crystalman will make one more attempt on you. There is still time for one more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I don\u2019t understand you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think you are thoroughly disillusioned, don\u2019t you? Well, that may prove to be the last and strongest illusion of all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conversation ceased. They reached the foot of the landslip an hour later. Branchspell was steadily mounting the cloudless sky. It was approaching Sarclash, and it was an open question whether or not it would clear its peak. The heat was sweltering. The long, massive, saucer-shaped ridge behind them, with its terrific precipices, was glowing with bright morning colours. Adage, towering up many thousands of feet higher still, guarded the end of it like a lonely Colossus. In front of them, starting from where they stood, was a cool and enchanting wilderness of little lakes and forests. The water of the lakes was dark green; the forests were asleep, waiting for the rising of Alppain.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we now in Barey?\u201d asked Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes\u2014and there is one of the natives.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was an ugly glint in his eye as he spoke the words, but Maskull did not see it.<\/p>\n

A man was leaning in the shade against one of the first trees, apparently waiting for them to come up. He was small, dark, and beardless, and was still in early manhood. He was clothed in a dark blue, loosely flowing robe, and wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat. His face, which was not disfigured by any special organs, was pale, earnest, and grave, yet somehow remarkably pleasing.<\/p>\n

Before a word was spoken, he warmly grasped Maskull\u2019s hand, but even while he was in the act of doing so he threw a queer frown at Krag. The latter responded with a scowling grin.<\/p>\n

When he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was a vibrating baritone, but it was at the same time strangely womanish in its modulations and variety of tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for you here since sunrise,\u201d he said. \u201cWelcome to Barey, Maskull! Let\u2019s hope you\u2019ll forget your sorrows here, you over-tested man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull stared at him, not without friendliness. \u201cWhat made you expect me, and how do you know my name?\u201d<\/p>\n

The stranger smiled, which made his face very handsome. \u201cI\u2019m Gangnet. I know most things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaven\u2019t you a greeting for me too\u2014Gangnet?\u201d asked Krag, thrusting his forbidding features almost into the other\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you, Krag. There are few places where you are welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I know you, Gangnet\u2014you man-woman…. Well, we are here together, and you must make what you can of it. We are going down to the Ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

The smile faded from Gangnet\u2019s face. \u201cI can\u2019t drive you away, Krag\u2014but I can make you the unwelcome third.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag threw back his head, and gave a loud, grating laugh. \u201cThat bargain suits me all right. As long as I have the substance, you may have the shadow, and much good may it do you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that it\u2019s all arranged so satisfactorily,\u201d said Maskull, with a hard smile, \u201cpermit me to say that I don\u2019t desire any society at all at present…. You take too much for granted, Krag. You have played the false friend once already…. I presume I\u2019m a free agent?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be a free man, one must have a universe of one\u2019s own,\u201d said Krag, with a jeering look. \u201cWhat do you say, Gangnet\u2014is this a free world?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFreedom from pain and ugliness should be every man\u2019s privilege,\u201d returned Gangnet tranquilly. \u201cMaskull is quite within his rights, and if you\u2019ll engage to leave him I\u2019ll do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaskull can change face as often as he likes, but he won\u2019t get rid of me so easily. Be easy on that point, Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d muttered Maskull. \u201cLet everyone join in the procession. In a few hours I shall finally be free, anyhow, if what they say is true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll lead the way,\u201d said Gangnet. \u201cYou don\u2019t know this country, of course, Maskull. When we get to the flat lands some miles farther down, we shall be able to travel by water, but at present we must walk, I fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, you fear\u2014you fear!\u201d broke out Krag, in a highpitched, scraping voice. \u201cYou eternal loller!\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull kept looking from one to the other in amazement. There seemed to be a determined hostility between the two, which indicated an intimate previous acquaintance.<\/p>\n

They set off through a wood, keeping close to its border, so that for a mile or more they were within sight of the long, narrow lake that flowed beside it. The trees were low and thin; their dolm-coloured leaves were all folded. There was no underbrush\u2014they walked on clean, brown earth, A distant waterfall sounded. They were in shade, but the air was pleasantly warm. There were no insects to irritate them. The bright lake outside looked cool and poetic.<\/p>\n

Gangnet pressed Maskull\u2019s arm affectionately. \u201cIf the bringing of you from your world had fallen to me, Maskull, it is here I would have brought you, and not to the scarlet desert. Then you would have escaped the dark spots, and Tormance would have appeared beautiful to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what then, Gangnet? The dark spots would have existed all the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could have seen them afterward. It makes all the difference whether one sees darkness through the light, or brightness through the shadows.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA clear eye is the best. Tormance is an ugly world, and I greatly prefer to know it as it really is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe devil made it ugly, not Crystalman. These are Crystalman\u2019s thoughts, which you see around you. He is nothing but Beauty and Pleasantness. Even Krag won\u2019t have the effrontery to deny that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very nice here,\u201d said Krag, looking around him malignantly. \u201cOne only wants a cushion and half a dozen houris to complete it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull disengaged himself from Gangnet. \u201cLast night, when I was struggling through the mud in the ghastly moonlight\u2014then I thought the world beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor Sullenbode!\u201d said Gangnet, sighing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat! You knew her?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know her through you. By mourning for a noble woman, you show your own nobility. I think all women are noble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere may be millions of noble women, but there\u2019s only one Sullenbode.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Sullenbode can exist,\u201d said Gangnet, \u201cthe world cannot be a bad place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChange the subject…. The world\u2019s hard and cruel, and I am thankful to be leaving it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn one point, though, you both agree,\u201d said Krag, smiling evilly. \u201cPleasure is good, and the cessation of pleasure is bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gangnet glanced at him coldly. \u201cWe know your peculiar theories, Krag. You are very fond of them, but they are unworkable. The world could not go on being, without pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Gangnet thinks!\u201d jeered Krag.<\/p>\n

They came to the end of the wood, and found themselves overlooking a little cliff. At the foot of it, about fifty feet below, a fresh series of lakes and forests commenced. Barey appeared to be one big mountain slope, built by nature into terraces. The lake along whose border they had been travelling was not banked at the end, but overflowed to the lower level in half a dozen beautiful, threadlike falls, white and throwing off spray. The cliff was not perpendicular, and the men found it easy to negotiate.<\/p>\n

At the base they entered another wood. Here it was much denser, and they had nothing but trees all around them. A clear brook rippled through the heart of it; they followed its bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has occurred to me,\u201d said Maskull, addressing Gangnet, \u201cthat Alppain may be my death. Is that so?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese trees don\u2019t fear Alppain, so why should you? Alppain is a wonderful, life-bringing sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I ask is\u2014I\u2019ve seen its afterglow, and it produced such violent sensations that a very little more would have proved too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the forces were evenly balanced. When you see Alppain itself, it will reign supreme, and there will be no more struggling of wills inside you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that, I may tell you beforehand, Maskull,\u201d said Krag, grinning, \u201cis Crystalman\u2019s trump card.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll see. You\u2019ll renounce the world so eagerly that you\u2019ll want to stay in the world merely to enjoy your sensations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gangnet smiled. \u201cKrag, you see, is hard to please. You must neither enjoy, nor renounce. What are<\/i> you to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull turned toward Krag. \u201cIt\u2019s very odd, but I don\u2019t understand your creed even yet. Are you recommending suicide?\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag seemed to grow sallower and more repulsive every minute. \u201cWhat, because they have left off stroking you?\u201d he exclaimed, laughing and showing his discoloured teeth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever you are, and whatever you want,\u201d said Maskull, \u201cyou seem very certain of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, you would like me to blush and stammer like a booby, wouldn\u2019t you! That would be an excellent way of destroying lies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gangnet glanced toward the foot of one of the trees. He stooped and picked up two or three objects that resembled eggs.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo eat?\u201d asked Maskull, accepting the offered gift.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, eat them; you must be hungry. I want none myself, and one mustn\u2019t insult Krag by offering him a pleasure\u2014especially such a low pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull knocked the ends off two of the eggs, and swallowed the liquid contents. They tasted rather alcoholic. Krag snatched the remaining egg out of his hand and flung it against a tree trunk, where it broke and stuck, a splash of slime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t wait to be asked, Gangnet…. Say, is there a filthier sight than a smashed pleasure?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gangnet did not reply, but took Maskull\u2019s arm.<\/p>\n

After they had alternately walked through forests and descended cliffs and slopes for upward of two hours, the landscape altered. A steep mountainside commenced and continued for at least a couple of miles, during which space the land must have dropped nearly four thousand feet, at a practically uniform gradient. Maskull had seen nothing like this immense slide of country anywhere. The hill slope carried an enormous forest on its back. This forest, however, was different from those they had hitherto passed through. The leaves of the trees were curled in sleep, but the boughs were so close and numerous that, but for the fact that they were translucent, the rays of the sun would have been completely intercepted. As it was, the whole forest was flooded with light, and this light, being tinged with the colour of the branches, was a soft and lovely rose. So gay, feminine, and dawnlike was the illumination, that Maskull\u2019s spirits immediately started to rise, although he did not wish it.<\/p>\n

He checked himself, sighed, and grew pensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a place for languishing eyes and necks of ivory, Maskull!\u201d rasped Krag mockingly. \u201cWhy isn\u2019t Sullenbode here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull gripped him roughly and flung him against the nearest tree. Krag recovered himself, and burst into a roaring laugh, seeming not a whit discomposed.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill what I said\u2014was it true or untrue?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull gazed at him sternly. \u201cYou seem to regard yourself as a necessary evil. I\u2019m under no obligation to go on with you any farther. I think we had better part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag turned to Gangnet with an air of grotesque mock earnestness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you<\/i> say\u2014do we part when Maskull pleases, or when I please?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep your temper, Maskull,\u201d said Gangnet, showing Krag his back. \u201cI know the man better than you do. Now that he has fastened onto you there\u2019s only one way of making him lose his hold, by ignoring him. Despise him\u2014say nothing to him, don\u2019t answer his questions. If you refuse to recognise his existence, he is as good as not here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m beginning to be tired of it all,\u201d said Maskull. \u201cIt seems as if I shall add one more to my murders, before I have finished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI smell murder in the air,\u201d exclaimed Krag, pretending to sniff. \u201cBut whose?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo as I say, Maskull. To bandy words with him is to throw oil on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say no more to anyone…. When do we get out of this accursed forest?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s some way yet, but when we\u2019re once out we can take to the water, and you will be able to rest, and think.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd brood comfortably over your sufferings,\u201d added Krag.<\/p>\n

None of the three men said anything more until they emerged into the open day. The slope of the forest was so steep that they were forced to run, rather than walk, and this would have prevented any conversation, even if they had otherwise felt inclined toward it. In less than half an hour they were through. A flat, open landscape lay stretched in front of them as far as they could see.<\/p>\n

Three parts of this country consisted of smooth water. It was a succession of large, low-shored lakes, divided by narrow strips of tree-covered land. The lake immediately before them had its small end to the forest. It was there about a third of a mile wide. The water at the sides and end was shallow, and choked with dolm-colored rushes; but in the middle, beginning a few yards from the shore, there was a perceptible current away from them. In view of this current, it was difficult to decide whether it was a lake or a river. Some little floating islands were in the shallows.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it here that we take to the water?\u201d inquired Maskull.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, here,\u201d answered Gangnet.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut how?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of those islands will serve. It only needs to move it into the stream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull frowned. \u201cWhere will it carry us to?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCome, get on, get on!\u201d said Krag, laughing uncouthly. \u201cThe morning\u2019s wearing away, and you have to die before noon. We are going to the Ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are omniscient, Krag, what is my death to be?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGangnet will murder you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou lie!\u201d said Gangnet. \u201cI wish Maskull nothing but good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt all events, he will be the cause of your death. But what does it matter? The great point is you are quitting this futile world…. Well, Gangnet, I see you\u2019re as slack as ever. I suppose I must do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

He jumped into the lake and began to run through the shallow water, splashing it about. When he came to the nearest island, the water was up to his thighs. The island was lozenge-shaped, and about fifteen feet from end to end. It was composed of a sort of light brown peat; there was no form of living vegetation on its surface. Krag went behind it, and started shoving it toward the current, apparently without having unduly to exert himself. When it was within the influence of the stream the others waded out to him, and all three climbed on.<\/p>\n

The voyage began. The current was not travelling at more than two miles an hour. The sun glared down on their heads mercilessly, and there was no shade or prospect of shade. Maskull sat down near the edge, and periodically splashed water over his head. Gangnet sat on his haunches next to him. Krag paced up and down with short, quick steps, like an animal in a cage. The lake widened out more and more, and the width of the stream increased in proportion, until they seemed to themselves to be floating on the bosom of some broad, flowing estuary.<\/p>\n

Krag suddenly bent over and snatched off Gangnet\u2019s hat, crushing it together in his hairy fist and throwing it far out into the stream.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should you disguise yourself like a woman?\u201d he asked with a harsh guffaw\u2014\u201cShow Maskull your face. Perhaps he has seen it somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gangnet did remind Maskull of someone, but he could not say of whom. His dark hair curled down to his neck, his brow was wide, lofty, and noble, and there was an air of serious sweetness about the whole man that was strangely appealing to the feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet Maskull judge,\u201d he said with proud composure, \u201cwhether I have anything to be ashamed of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can be nothing but magnificent thoughts in that head,\u201d muttered Maskull, staring hard at him.<\/p>\n

\u201cA capital valuation. Gangnet is the king of poets. But what happens when poets try to carry through practical enterprises?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat enterprises?\u201d asked Maskull, in astonishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat have you got on hand, Gangnet? Tell Maskull.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two forms of practical activity,\u201d replied Gangnet calmly. \u201cOne may either build up, or destroy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, there\u2019s a third species. One may steal\u2014and not even know one is stealing. One may take the purse and leave the money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull raised his eyebrows. \u201cWhere have you two met before?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m paying Gangnet a visit today, Maskull, but once upon a time Gangnet paid me a visit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my home\u2014whatever that is. Gangnet is a common thief.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are speaking in riddles, and I don\u2019t understand you. I don\u2019t know either of you, but it\u2019s clear that if Gangnet is a poet, you\u2019re a buffoon. Must you go on talking? I want to be quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag laughed, but said no more. Presently he lay down at full length, with his face to the sun, and in a few minutes was fast asleep, and snoring disagreeably. Maskull kept glancing over at his yellow, repulsive face with strong disfavour.<\/p>\n

Two hours passed. The land on either side was more than a mile distant. In front of them there was no land at all. Behind them, the Lichstorm Mountains were blotted out from view by a haze that had gathered together. The sky ahead, just above the horizon, began to be of a strange colour. It was an intense jale-blue. The whole northern atmosphere was stained with ulfire.<\/p>\n

Maskull\u2019s mind grew disturbed. \u201cAlppain is rising, Gangnet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gangnet smiled wistfully. \u201cIt begins to trouble you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is so solemn\u2014tragical, almost\u2014yet it recalls me to Earth. Life was no longer important\u2014but this is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDaylight is night to this other daylight. Within half an hour you will be like a man who has stepped from a dark forest into the open day. Then you will ask yourself how you could have been blind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two men went on watching the blue sunrise. The entire sky in the north, halfway up to the zenith, was streaked with extraordinary colours, among which jale and dolm predominated. Just as the principal character of an ordinary dawn is mystery<\/i>, the outstanding character of this dawn was wildness. It did not baffle the understanding, but the heart. Maskull felt no inarticulate craving to seize and perpetuate the sunrise, and make it his own. Instead of that, it agitated and tormented him, like the opening bars of a supernatural symphony.<\/p>\n

When he looked back to the south, Branchspell\u2019s day had lost its glare, and he could gaze at the immense white sun without flinching. He instinctively turned to the north again, as one turns from darkness to light.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf those were Crystalman\u2019s thoughts that you showed me before, Gangnet, these must be his feelings. I mean it literally. What I am feeling now, he must have felt before me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is all feeling<\/i>, Maskull\u2014don\u2019t you understand that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull was feeding greedily on the spectacle before him; he did not reply. His face was set like a rock, but his eyes were dim with the beginning of tears. The sky blazed deeper and deeper; it was obvious that Alppain was about to lift itself above the sea. The island had by this time floated past the mouth of the estuary. On three sides they were surrounded by water. The haze crept up behind them and shut out all sight of land. Krag was still sleeping\u2014an ugly, wrinkled monstrosity.<\/p>\n

Maskull looked over the side at the flowing water. It had lost its dark green colour, and was now of a perfect crystal transparency.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we already on the Ocean, Gangnet?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen nothing remains except my death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t think of death, but life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s growing brighter\u2014at the same time, more sombre. Krag seems to be fading away….\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is Alppain!\u201d said Gangnet, touching his arm.<\/p>\n

The deep, glowing disk of the blue sun peeped above the sea. Maskull was struck to silence. He was hardly so much looking, as feeling. His emotions were unutterable. His soul seemed too strong for his body. The great blue orb rose rapidly out of the water, like an awful eye watching him…. it shot above the sea with a bound, and Alppain\u2019s day commenced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you feel?\u201d Gangnet still held his arm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have set myself against the Infinite,\u201d muttered Maskull.<\/p>\n

Suddenly his chaos of passions sprang together, and a wonderful idea swept through his whole being, accompanied by the intensest joy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, Gangnet\u2014I am nothing<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, you are nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mist closed in all around them. Nothing was visible except the two suns, and a few feet of sea. The shadows of the three men cast by Alppain were not black, but were composed of white daylight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen nothing can hurt me,\u201d said Maskull with a peculiar smile.<\/p>\n

Gangnet smiled too. \u201cHow could it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have lost my will; I feel as if some foul tumour had been scraped away, leaving me clean and free.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you now understand life, Maskull?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gangnet\u2019s face was transfigured with an extraordinary spiritual beauty; he looked as if he had descended from heaven.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand nothing, except that I have no self any more. But this is<\/i> life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs Gangnet expatiating on his famous blue sun?\u201d said a jeering voice above them. Looking up, they saw that Krag had got to his feet.<\/p>\n

They both rose. At the same moment the gathering mist began to obscure Alppain\u2019s disk, changing it from blue to a vivid jale.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you want with us, Krag?\u201d asked Maskull with simple composure.<\/p>\n

Krag looked at him strangely for a few seconds. The water lapped around them.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you comprehend, Maskull, that your death has arrived?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull made no response. Krag rested an arm lightly on his shoulder, and suddenly he felt sick and faint. He sank to the ground, near the edge of the island raft. His heart was thumping heavily and queerly; its beating reminded him of the drum taps. He gazed languidly at the rippling water, and it seemed to him as if he could see right through<\/i> it… away, away down… to a strange fire….<\/p>\n

The water disappeared. The two suns were extinguished. The island was transformed into a cloud, and Maskull\u2014alone on it\u2014was floating through the atmosphere…. Down below, it was all fire\u2014the fire of Muspel. The light mounted higher and higher, until it filled the whole world….<\/p>\n

He floated toward an immense perpendicular cliff of black rock, without top or bottom. Halfway up it Krag, suspended in midair, was dealing terrific blows at a blood-red spot with a huge hammer. The rhythmical, clanging sounds were hideous.<\/p>\n

Presently Maskull made out that these sounds were the familiar drum beats. \u201cWhat are you doing, Krag?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Krag suspended his work, and turned around.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeating on your heart, Maskull,\u201d was his grinning response.<\/p>\n

\n

The cliff and Krag vanished. Maskull saw Gangnet struggling in the air\u2014but it was not Gangnet\u2014it was Crystalman. He seemed to be trying to escape from the Muspel-fire, which kept surrounding and licking him, whichever way he turned. He was screaming…. The fire caught him. He shrieked horribly. Maskull caught one glimpse of a vulgar, slobbering face\u2014and then that too disappeared.<\/p>\n

\n

He opened his eyes. The floating island was still faintly illuminated by Alppain. Krag was standing by his side, but Gangnet was no longer there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is this Ocean called?\u201d asked Maskull, bringing out the words with difficulty.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurtur\u2019s Ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maskull nodded, and kept quiet for some time. He rested his face on his arm. \u201cWhere\u2019s Nightspore?\u201d he asked suddenly.<\/p>\n

Krag bent over him with a grave expression. \u201cYou are Nightspore.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dying man closed his eyes, and smiled.<\/p>\n

Opening them again, a few moments later, with an effort, he murmured, \u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Krag maintained a gloomy silence.<\/p>\n

Shortly afterward a frightful pang passed through Maskull\u2019s heart, and he died immediately.<\/p>\n

Krag turned his head around. \u201cThe night is really past at last, Nightspore…. The day is here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore gazed long and earnestly at Maskull\u2019s body. \u201cWhy was all this necessary?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk Crystalman,\u201d replied Krag sternly. \u201cHis world is no joke. He has a strong clutch\u2014but I have a stronger… Maskull was his, but Nightspore is mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Chapter 21. MUSPEL<\/h2>\n

The fog thickened so that the two suns wholly disappeared, and all grew as black as night. Nightspore could no longer see his companion. The water lapped gently against the side of the island raft.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou say the night is past,\u201d said Nightspore. \u201cBut the night is still here. Am I dead, or alive?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are still in Crystalman\u2019s world, but you belong to it no more. We are approaching Muspel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore felt a strong, silent throbbing of the air\u2014a rhythmical pulsation, in four-four time. \u201cThere is the drumming,\u201d he exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you understand it, or have you forgotten?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI half understand it, but I\u2019m all confused.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s evident Crystalman has dug his claws into you pretty deeply,\u201d said Krag. \u201cThe sound comes from Muspel, but the rhythm is caused by its travelling through Crystalman\u2019s atmosphere. His nature is rhythm as he loves to call it\u2014or dull, deadly repetition, as I name it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember,\u201d said Nightspore, biting his nails in the dark.<\/p>\n

The throbbing became audible; it now sounded like a distant drum. A small patch of strange light in the far distance, straight ahead of them, began faintly to illuminate the floating island and the glassy sea around it.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo all men escape from that ghastly world, or only I, and a few like me?\u201d asked Nightspore.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf all escaped, I shouldn\u2019t sweat, my friend… There\u2019s hard work, and anguish, and the risk of total death, waiting for us yonder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore\u2019s heart sank. \u201cHave I not yet finished, then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you wish it. You have got through. But will you wish it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The drumming grew loud and painful. The light resolved itself into a tiny oblong of mysterious brightness in a huge wall of night. Krag\u2019s grim and rocklike features were revealed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t face rebirth,\u201d said Nightspore. \u201cThe horror of death is nothing to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will choose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can do nothing. Crystalman is too powerful. I barely escaped with my own soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are still stupid with Earth fumes, and see nothing straight,\u201d said Krag.<\/p>\n

Nightspore made no reply, but seemed to be trying to recall something. The water around them was so still, colourless, and transparent, that they scarcely seemed to be borne up by liquid matter at all. Maskull\u2019s corpse had disappeared.<\/p>\n

The drumming was now like the clanging of iron. The oblong patch of light grew much bigger; it burned, fierce and wild. The darkness above, below, and on either side of it, began to shape itself into the semblance of a huge, black wall, without bounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that really a wall we are coming to?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will soon find out. What you see is Muspel, and that light is the gate you have to enter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore\u2019s heart beat wildly.<\/p>\n

\u201cShall I remember?\u201d he muttered.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, you\u2019ll remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAccompany me, Krag, or I shall be lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing for me to do in there. I shall wait outside for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are returning to the struggle?\u201d demanded Nightspore, gnawing his fingertips.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI dare not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thunderous clangor of the rhythmical beats struck on his head like actual blows. The light glared so vividly that he was no longer able to look at it. It had the startling irregularity of continuous lightning, but it possessed this further peculiarity\u2014that it seemed somehow to give out not actual light, but emotion, seen as light. They continued to approach the wall of darkness, straight toward the door. The glasslike water flowed right against it, its surface reaching up almost to the threshold.<\/p>\n

They could not speak any more; the noise was too deafening.<\/p>\n

In a few minutes they were before the gateway. Nightspore turned his back and hid his eyes in his two hands, but even then he was blinded by the light. So passionate were his feelings that his body seemed to enlarge itself. At every frightful beat of sound, he quivered violently.<\/p>\n

The entrance was doorless. Krag jumped onto the rocky platform and pulled Nightspore after him.<\/p>\n

Once through the gateway, the light vanished. The rhythmical sound\u2014blows totally ceased. Nightspore dropped his hands…. All was dark and quiet as an opened tomb. But the air was filled with grim, burning passion, which was to light and sound what light itself is to opaque colour.<\/p>\n

Nightspore pressed his hand to his heart. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I can endure it,\u201d he said, looking toward Krag. He felt<\/i> his person far more vividly and distinctly than if he had been able to see him.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo in, and lose no time, Nightspore…. Time here is more precious than on earth. We can\u2019t squander the minutes. There are terrible and tragic affairs to attend to, which won\u2019t wait for us… Go in at once. Stop for nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere shall I go to?\u201d muttered Nightspore. \u201cI have forgotten everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEnter, enter! There is only one way. You can\u2019t mistake it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you bid me go in, if I am to come out again?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have your wounds healed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost before the words had left his mouth, Krag sprang back on to the island raft. Nightspore involuntarily started after him, but at once recovered himself and remained standing where he was. Krag was completely invisible; everything outside was black night.<\/p>\n

The moment he had gone, a feeling shot up in Nightspore\u2019s heart like a thousand trumpets.<\/p>\n

\n

Straight in front of him, almost at his feet, was the lower end of a steep, narrow, circular flight of stone steps. There was no other way forward.<\/p>\n

He put his foot on the bottom stair, at the same time peering aloft. He saw nothing, yet as he proceeded upward every inch of the way was perceptible to his inner feelings. The staircase was cold, dismal, and deserted, but it seemed to him, in his exaltation of soul, like a ladder to heaven.<\/p>\n

After he had mounted a dozen steps or so, he paused to take breath. Each step was increasingly difficult to ascend; he felt as though he were carrying a heavy man on his shoulders. It struck a familiar chord in his mind. He went on and, ten stairs higher up, came to a window set in a high embrasure.<\/p>\n

On to this he clambered, and looked through. The window was of a sort of glass, but he could see nothing. Coming to him, however, from the world outside, a disturbance of the atmosphere struck his senses, causing his blood to run cold. At one moment it resembled a low, mocking, vulgar laugh, travelling from the ends of the earth; at the next it was like a rhythmical vibration of the air\u2014the silent, continuous throbbing of some mighty engine. The two sensations were identical, yet different. They seemed to be related in the same manner as soul and body. After feeling them for a long time, Nightspore got down from the embrasure, and continued his ascent, having meanwhile grown very serious.<\/p>\n

The climbing became still more laborious, and he was forced to stop at every third or fourth step, to rest his muscles and regain breath. When he had mounted another twenty stairs in this way, he came to a second window. Again he saw nothing. The laughing disturbance of the air, too, had ceased; but the atmospheric throb was now twice as distinct as before, and its rhythm had become double<\/i>. There were two separate pulses; one was in the time of a march, the other in the time of a waltz. The first was bitter and petrifying to feel, but the second was gay, enervating, and horrible.<\/p>\n

Nightspore spent little time at that window, for he felt that he was on the eve of a great discovery, and that something far more important awaited him higher up. He proceeded aloft. The ascent grew more and more exhausting, so much so that he had frequently to sit down, utterly crushed by his own dead weight. Still, he got to the third window.<\/p>\n

He climbed into the embrasure. His feelings translated themselves into vision, and he saw a sight that caused him to turn pale. A gigantic, self-luminous sphere was hanging in the sky, occupying nearly the whole of it. This sphere was composed entirely of two kinds of active beings. There were a myriad of tiny green corpuscles, varying in size from the very small to the almost indiscernible. They were not green, but he somehow saw them so. They were all striving in one direction\u2014toward himself, toward Muspel, but were too feeble and miniature to make any headway. Their action produced the marching rhythm he had previously felt, but this rhythm was not intrinsic in the corpuscles themselves, but was a consequence of the obstruction they met with. And, surrounding these atoms of life and light, were far larger whirls of white light that gyrated hither and thither, carrying the green corpuscles with them wherever they desired. Their whirling motion was accompanied by the waltzing rhythm. It seemed to Nightspore that the green atoms were not only being danced about against their will but were suffering excruciating shame and degradation in consequence. The larger ones were steadier than the extremely small, a few were even almost stationary, and one was advancing in the direction it wished to go.<\/p>\n

He turned his back to the window, buried his face in his hands, and searched in the dim recesses of his memory for an explanation of what he had just seen. Nothing came straight, but horror and wrath began to take possession of him.<\/p>\n

On his way upward to the next window, invisible fingers seemed to him to be squeezing his heart and twisting it about here and there; but he never dreamed of turning back. His mood was so grim that he did not once permit himself to pause. Such was his physical distress by the time that he had clambered into the recess, that for several minutes he could see nothing at all\u2014the world seemed to be spinning round him rapidly.<\/p>\n

When at last he looked, he saw the same sphere as before, but now all was changed on it. It was a world of rocks, minerals, water, plants, animals, and men. He saw the whole world at one view, yet everything was so magnified that he could distinguish the smallest details of life. In the interior of every individual, of every aggregate of individuals, of every chemical atom, he clearly perceived the presence of the green corpuscles. But, according to the degree of dignity of the life form, they were fragmentary or comparatively large. In the crystal, for example, the green, imprisoned life was so minute as to be scarcely visible; in some men it was hardly bigger; but in other men and women it was twenty or a hundred times greater. But, great or small, it played an important part in every individual. It appeared as if the whirls of white light, which were the individuals, and plainly showed themselves beneath the enveloping bodies, were delighted with existence and wished only to enjoy it, but the green corpuscles were in a condition of eternal discontent, yet, blind and not knowing which way to turn for liberation, kept changing form, as though breaking a new path, by way of experiment. Whenever the old grotesque became metamorphosed into the new grotesque, it was in every case the direct work of the green atoms, trying to escape toward Muspel, but encountering immediate opposition. These subdivided sparks of living, fiery spirit were hopelessly imprisoned in a ghastly mush of soft pleasure. They were being effeminated and corrupted\u2014that is to say, absorbed<\/i> in the foul, sickly enveloping forms.<\/p>\n

Nightspore felt a sickening shame in his soul as he looked on at that spectacle. His exaltation had long since vanished. He bit his nails, and understood why Krag was waiting for him below.<\/p>\n

He mounted slowly to the fifth window. The pressure of air against him was as strong as a full gale, divested of violence and irregularity, so that he was not for an instant suffered to relax his efforts. Nevertheless, not a breath stirred.<\/p>\n

Looking through the window, he was startled by a new sight. The sphere was still there, but between it and the Muspel-world in which he was standing he perceived a dim, vast shadow, without any distinguishable shape, but somehow throwing out a scent of disgusting sweetness. Nightspore knew that it was Crystalman. A flood of fierce light\u2014but it was not light, but passion\u2014was streaming all the time from Muspel to the Shadow, and through it. When, however, it emerged on the other side, which was the sphere, the light was altered in character. It became split, as by a prism, into the two forms of life which he had previously seen\u2014the green corpuscles and the whirls. What had been fiery spirit but a moment ago was now a disgusting mass of crawling, wriggling individuals, each whirl of pleasure-seeking will having, as nucleus, a fragmentary spark of living green fire. Nightspore recollected the back rays of Starkness, and it flashed across him with the certainty of truth that the green sparks were the back rays, and the whirls the forward rays, of Muspel. The former were trying desperately to return to their place of origin, but were overpowered by the brute force of the latter, which wished only to remain where they were. The individual whirls were jostling and fighting with, and even devouring, each other. This created pain, but, whatever pain they felt, it was always pleasure that they sought. Sometimes the green sparks were strong enough for a moment to move a little way in the direction of Muspel; the whirls would then accept the movement, not only without demur, but with pride and pleasure, as if it were their own handiwork\u2014but they never saw beyond the Shadow, they thought that they were travelling toward it<\/i>. The instant the direct movement wearied them, as contrary to their whirling nature, they fell again to killing, dancing, and loving.<\/p>\n

Nightspore had a foreknowledge that the sixth window would prove to be the last. Nothing would have kept him from ascending to it, for he guessed that the nature of Crystalman himself would there become manifest. Every step upward was like a bloody life-and-death struggle. The stairs nailed him to the ground; the air pressure caused blood to gush from his nose and ears; his head clanged like an iron bell. When he had fought his way up a dozen steps, he found himself suddenly at the top; the staircase terminated in a small, bare chamber of cold stone, possessing a single window. On the other side of the apartment another short flight of stairs mounted through a trap, apparently to the roof of the building. Before ascending these stairs, Nightspore hastened to the window and stared out.<\/p>\n

The shadow form of Crystalman had drawn much closer to him, and filled the whole sky, but it was not a shadow of darkness, but a bright shadow. It had neither shape, nor colour, yet it in some way suggested the delicate tints of early morning. It was so nebulous that the sphere could be clearly distinguished through it; in extension, however, it was thick. The sweet smell emanating from it was strong, loathsome, and terrible; it seemed to spring from a sort of loose, mocking slime inexpressibly vulgar and ignorant.<\/p>\n

The spirit stream from Muspel flashed with complexity and variety. It was not below individuality, but above it. It was not the One, or the Many, but something else far beyond either. It approached Crystalman, and entered his body\u2014if that bright mist could be called a body. It passed right through him, and the passage caused him the most exquisite pleasure. The Muspel-stream was Crystalman\u2019s food<\/i>. The stream emerged from the other side on to the sphere, in a double condition. Part of it reappeared intrinsically unaltered, but shivered into a million fragments. These were the green corpuscles. In passing through Crystalman they had escaped absorption by reason of their extreme minuteness. The other part of the stream had not escaped. Its fire had been abstracted, its cement was withdrawn, and, after being fouled and softened by the horrible sweetness of the host, it broke into individuals, which were<\/i> the whirls of living will.<\/p>\n

Nightspore shuddered. He comprehended at last how the whole world of will was doomed to eternal anguish in order that one Being might feel joy.<\/p>\n

Presently he set foot on the final flight leading to the roof; for he remembered vaguely that now only that remained.<\/p>\n

Halfway up, he fainted\u2014but when he recovered consciousness he persisted as though nothing had happened to him. As soon as his head was above the trap, breathing the free air, he had the same physical sensation as a man stepping out of water. He pulled his body up, and stood expectantly on the stone-floored roof, looking round for his first glimpse of Muspel.<\/p>\n

There was nothing<\/i>.<\/p>\n

He was standing upon the top of a tower, measuring not above fifteen feet each way. Darkness was all around him. He sat down on the stone parapet, with a sinking heart; a heavy foreboding possessed him.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, without seeing or hearing anything, he had the distinct impression that the darkness around him, on all four sides, was grinning…. As soon as that happened, he understood that he was wholly surrounded by Crystalman\u2019s world, and that Muspel consisted of himself and the stone tower on which he was sitting.<\/p>\n

Fire flashed in his heart…. Millions upon millions of grotesque, vulgar, ridiculous, sweetened individuals\u2014once Spirit<\/i>\u2014were calling out from their degradation and agony for salvation from Muspel…. To answer that cry there was only himself… and Krag waiting below… and Surtur\u2014But where was Surtur?<\/p>\n

The truth forced itself on him in all its cold, brutal reality. Muspel was no all-powerful Universe, tolerating from pure indifference the existence side by side with it of another false world, which had no right to be. Muspel was fighting for its life\u2014against all that is most shameful and frightful\u2014against sin masquerading as eternal beauty, against baseness masquerading as Nature, against the Devil masquerading as God….<\/p>\n

Now he understood everything. The moral combat was no mock one, no Valhalla, where warriors are cut to pieces by day and feast by night; but a grim death struggle in which what is worse than death\u2014namely, spiritual death\u2014inevitably awaited the vanquished of Muspel…. By what means could he hold back from this horrible war!<\/p>\n

During those moments of anguish, all thoughts of Self\u2014the corruption of his life on Earth\u2014were scorched out of Nightspore\u2019s soul, perhaps not for the first time.<\/p>\n

After sitting a long time, he prepared to descend. Without warning, a strange, wailing cry swept over the face of the world. Starting in awful mystery, it ended with such a note of low and sordid mockery that he could not doubt for a moment whence it originated. It was the voice of Crystalman.<\/p>\n

\n

Krag was waiting for him on the island raft. He threw a stern glance at Nightspore.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you seen everything?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe struggle is hopeless,\u201d muttered Nightspore.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid I not say I am the stronger?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may be the stronger, but he is the mightier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the stronger and the mightier. Crystalman\u2019s Empire is but a shadow on the face of Muspel. But nothing will be done without the bloodiest blows…. What do you mean to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nightspore looked at him strangely. \u201cAre you not Surtur, Krag?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Nightspore in a slow voice, without surprise. \u201cBut what is your name on Earth?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat, too, I must have known.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was silent for a few minutes; then he stepped quietly onto the raft. Krag pushed off, and they proceeded into the darkness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53936,"menu_order":8,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"A Voyage to Arcturus","pb_subtitle":"A Voyage to Arcturus","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-843","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":34,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":844,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/843\/revisions\/844"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/34"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/843\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-sciencefictionandfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}