Sullenbode’s 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.
Corpang spoke out of the night. “She looks like an evil spirit filled with deadliness.”
“It was like deliberately kissing lightning.”
“Haunte was insane with passion.”
“So am I,” said Maskull quietly. “My body seems full of rocks, all grinding against one another.”
“This is what I was afraid of.”
“It appears I shall have to kiss her too.”
Corpang pulled his arm. “Have you lost all manliness?”
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.
A cold, knifelike shock passed down his frame. He thought that it was death, and lost consciousness.
When his sense returned, Sullenbode was holding him by the shoulder with one hand at arm’s 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’s action had called into existence. A great calmness came upon him; his bad sensations had disappeared.
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—she looked thekingliestof all women. She appeared not more than twenty-five.
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. “Whom have I to thank for this gift of life?”
Her voice was rich, slow, and odd. Maskull felt himself in a dream.
“My name is Maskull.”
She motioned to him to come a step nearer. “Listen, 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.”
Maskull stretched a hand toward the now invisible corpse, and said quietly, “What have you to say abouthim?”
“Who was it?”
“Haunte.”
“So that was Haunte. The news will travel far and wide. He was a famous man.”
“It’s a horrible affair. I can’t think that you killed him deliberately.”
“We women are endowed with terrible power, but it is our only protection. We do not want these visits; we loathe them.”
“I might have died, too.”
“You came together?”
“There were three of us. Corpang still stands over there.”
“I see a faintly glimmering form. What do you want of me, Corpang?”
“Nothing.”
“Then go away, and leave me with Maskull.”
“No need, Corpang. I am coming with you.”
“This is not that pleasure, then?” demanded the low, earnest voice, out of the darkness.
“No, that pleasure has not returned.”
Sullenbode gripped his arm hard. “What pleasure are you speaking of?”
“A presentiment of love, which I felt not long ago.”
“But what do you feel now?”
“Calm and free.”
Sullenbode’s face seemed like a pallid mask, hiding a slow, swelling sea of elemental passions. “I do not know how it will end, Maskull, but we will still keep together a little. Where are you going?”
“To Adage,” said Corpang, stepping forward.
“But why?”
“We are following the steps of Lodd, who went there years ago, to find Muspel-light.”
“What light is that?”
“It’s the light of another world.”
“The quest is grand. But cannot women see that light?”
“On one condition,” said Corpang. “They must forget their sex. Womanhood and love belong to life, while Muspel is above life.”
“I give you all other men,” said Sullenbode. “Maskull is mine.”
“No. I am not here to help Maskull to a lover but to remind him of the existence of nobler things.”
“You are a good man. But you two alone will never strike the road to Adage.”
“Are you acquainted with it?”
Again the woman gripped Maskull’s arm. “What is love—which Corpang despises?”
Maskull looked at her attentively. Sullenbode went on, “Love is that which is perfectly willing to disappear and become nothing, for the sake of the beloved.”
Corpang wrinkled his forehead. “A magnanimous female lover is new in my experience.”
Maskull put him aside with his hand, and said to Sullenbode, “Are you contemplating a sacrifice?”
She gazed at her feet, and smiled. “What does it matter what my thoughts are? Tell me, are you starting at once, or do you mean to rest first? It’s a rough road to Adage.”
“What’s in your mind?” demanded Maskull.
“I will guide you a little. When we reach the ridge between Sarclash and Adage, perhaps I shall turn back.”
“And then?”
“Then if the moon shines perhaps you will arrive before daybreak, but if it is dark it’s hardly likely.”
“That’s not what I meant. What will become of you after we have parted company?”
“I shall return somewhere—perhaps here.”
Maskull went close up to her, in order to study her face better. “Shall you sink back into—the old state?”
“No, Maskull, thank heaven.”
“Then how will you live?”
Sullenbode calmly removed the hand which he had placed on her arm. There was a sort of swirling flame in her eyes. “And who said I would go on living?”
Maskull blinked at her in bewilderment. A few moments passed before he spoke again. “You women are a sacrificing lot. You know I can’t leave you like this.”
Their eyes met. Neither withdrew them, and neither felt embarrassed.
“You will always be the most generous of men, Maskull. Now let us go.... Corpang is a single-minded personage, and the least we others—who aren’t so single-minded—can do is to help him to his destination. We mustn’t inquire whether the destination of single-minded men is as a rule worth arriving at.”
“If it is good for Maskull, it will be good for me.”
“Well, no vessel can hold more than its appointed measure.”
Corpang gave a wry smile. “During your long sleep you appear to have picked up wisdom.”
“Yes, Corpang, I have met many men, and explored many minds.”
As they moved off, Maskull remembered Haunte.
“Can we not bury that poor fellow?”
“By this time tomorrow we shall need burial ourselves. But I do not include Corpang.”
“We have no tools, so you must have your way. You killed him, but I am the real murderer. I stole his protecting light.”
“Surely that death is balanced by the life you have given me.” 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.
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.
“We are on the ridge,” announced the woman, halting.
The others came up to her, and at the same instant the moon burst through the clouds, illuminating the whole scene.
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.
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’s cave was situated. The connecting curve was the steep slope they had just traversed. One peak of Sarclash was invisible.
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.
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.
“What puzzles you?” she asked, smiling.
“Nothing. But I would like to see you by sunlight.”
“Perhaps you never will.”
“Your life must be most solitary.”
She explored his features with her black, slow-gleaming eyes. “Why do you fear to speak your feelings, Maskull?”
“Things seem to open up before me like a sunrise, but what it means I can’t say.”
Sullenbode laughed outright. “It assuredly does not mean the approach of night.”
Corpang, who had been staring steadily along the ridge, here abruptly broke in. “The road is plain now, Maskull. If you wish it, I’ll go on alone.”
“No, we’ll go on together. Sullenbode will accompany us.”
“A little way,” said the woman, “but 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.”
“Who knows what we shall find on Adage, or what will happen? Corpang is as ignorant as myself.”
Corpang looked him full in the face. “Maskull, you are quite well aware that you never dare approach that awful fire in the society of a beautiful woman.”
Maskull gave an uneasy laugh. “What Corpang doesn’t 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.”
“Still, what he says must be true,” she replied, looking from one to the other.
“And so I am not to be allowed to—”
“So long as I am with you, I shall urge you onward, and not backward, Maskull.”
“We need not quarrel yet,” he remarked, with a forced smile. “No doubt things will straighten themselves out.”
Sullenbode began kicking the snow about with her foot. “I picked up another piece of wisdom in my sleep, Corpang.”
“Tell it to me, then.”
“Men 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—they have conquered nothing for themselves.”
“It is given to some to discover, and to others to preserve and perfect. You cannot condemn me for wishing Maskull well.”
“No, but a child cannot lead a thunderstorm.”
They started walking again along the centre of the ridge. All three were abreast, Sullenbode in the middle.
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’s 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’s right hand, looked constantly to the left, toward the galaxy of glorious distant peaks.
“You cannot belong to this world,” said the woman. “Men of your stamp are not to be looked for here.”
“No, I have come here from Earth.”
“Is that larger than our world?”
“Smaller, 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.”
“Do men hate women there, and women men?”
“No, 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.”
“That shame surely must be the rudiment of our Lichstorm passion. But now say—why did you come here?”
“To meet with new experiences, perhaps. The old ones no longer interested me.”
“How long have you been in this world?”
“This is the end of my fourth day.”
“Then tell me what you have seen and done during those four days. You cannot have been inactive.”
“Great misfortunes have happened to me.”
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’s death, she said, speaking in a low voice—“None 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.” Again, speaking of Gleameil, she remarked, “That 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?”
When his tale was quite over, Sullenbode said, “Does it not strike you, Maskull, that these women you have met have been far nobler than the men?”
“I 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.”
Turning her head a little, she threw him a smile so proud, yet so sweet, that he was struck into silence.
They tramped on quietly for some distance, and then he said, “Now you understand the sort of man I am. Much brutality, more weakness, scant pity for anyone—Oh, it has been a bloody journey!”
She laid her hand on his arm. “I, for one, would not have it less rugged.”
“Nothing good can be said of my crimes.”
“To 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.”
“Thanks, Sullenbode!” he responded, with a troubled smile.
“When Maskull passes, let people watch. Everyone is thrown out of your road. You go on, looking neither to right nor left.”
“Take care that you are not thrown as well,” said Corpang gravely.
“Maskull 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—it is wild, and scornful, and sportive, and bloody.... How should you know.”
“Selfishness has far too many disguises.”
“If a woman wills to give up all, what can there be selfish in that?”
“Only do not deceive yourself. Act decisively, or fate will be too swift for you both.”
Sullenbode studied him through her lashes. “Do you mean death—his death as well as mine?”
“You go too far, Corpang,” said Maskull, turning a shade darker. “I don’t accept you as the arbiter of our fortunes.”
“If honest counsel is disagreeable to you, let me go on ahead.”
The woman detained him with her slow, light fingers. “I wish you to stay with us.”
“Why?”
“I think you may know what you are talking about. I don’t wish to bring harm to Maskull. Presently I’ll leave you.”
“That will be best,” said Corpang.
Maskull looked angry. “I shall decide—Sullenbode, whether you go on, or back, I stay with you. My mind is made up.”
An expression of joyousness overspread her face, in spite of her efforts to conceal it. “Why do you scowl at me, Maskull?”
He returned no answer, but continued walking onward with puckered brows. After a dozen paces or so, he halted abruptly. “Wait, Sullenbode!”
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.
“How do you, in your great wisdom, interpret that kiss?”
“It requires no great wisdom to interpret kisses, Maskull.”
“Hereafter, never dare to come between us. Sullenbode belongs to me.”
“Then I say no more; but you are a fated man.”
From that time forward he spoke not another word to either of the others.
A heavy gleam appeared in the woman’s eyes. “Now things are changed, Maskull. Where are you taking me?”
“Choose, you.”
“The man I love must complete his journey. I won’t have it otherwise. You shall not stand lower than Corpang.”
“Where you go, I will go.”
“And I—as long as your love endures, I will accompany you—even to Adage.”
“Do you doubt its lasting?”
“I 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.”
“And why?” asked Maskull slowly.
“Yes, that’s the responsibility you incurred when you kissed me for the first time. I never meant to tell you.”
“Do you mean that if I had gone on alone, you would have died?”
“I have no other life but what you give me.”
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.
A few minutes later the journey toward Adage was resumed.
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.
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’s 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.
After a peculiarly evil patch, they paused to recruit their strength. Corpang’s breathing was difficult, Sullenbode was quiet, listless, and depressed.
Maskull gazed at them doubtfully. “Does this continue?” he inquired.
“No. I think,” replied the woman, “we can’t be far from the Mornstab Pass. After that we shall begin to climb again, and then the road will improve perhaps.”
“Can you have been here before?”
“Once I have been to the Pass, but it was not so bad then.”
“You are tired out, Sullenbode.”
“What of it?” she replied, smiling faintly. “When one has a terrible lover, one must pay the price.”
“We cannot get there tonight, so let us stop at the first shelter we come to.”
“I leave it to you.”
He paced up and down, while the others sat. “Do you regret anything?” he demanded suddenly.
“No, Maskull, nothing. I regret nothing.”
“Your feelings are unchanged?”
“Love can’t go back—it can only go on.”
“Yes, eternally on. It is so.”
“No, I don’t mean that. There is a climax, but when the climax has been reached, love if it still wants to ascend must turn to sacrifice.”
“That’s a dreadful creed,” he said in a low voice, turning pale beneath his coating of mud.
“Perhaps my nature is discordant.... I am tired. I don’t know what I feel.”
In a few minutes they were on their feet again, and the journey recommenced. Within half an hour they had reached the Mornstab Pass.
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.
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.
“Tonight is like life,” said Sullenbode.
“How so?”
“So lovely above and around us, so foul underfoot.”
Maskull sighed. “Poor girl, you are unhappy.”
“And you—are you happy?”
He thought a while, and then replied—“No. No, I’m not happy. Love is not happiness.”
“What is it, Maskull?”
“Restlessness—unshed tears—thoughts too grand for our soul to think...”
“Yes,” said Sullenbode.
After a time she asked, “Why were we created, just to live for a few years and then disappear?”
“We are told that we shall live again.”
“Yes, Maskull?”
“Perhaps in Muspel,” he added thoughtfully.
“What kind of life will that be?”
“Surely we shall meet again. Love is too wonderful and mysterious a thing to remain uncompleted.”
She gave a slight shiver, and turned away from him. “This dream is untrue. Love is completed here.”
“How can that be, when sooner or later it is brutally interrupted by Fate?”
“It is completed by anguish.... Oh, why must it always be enjoyment for us? Can’t we suffer—can’t we go on suffering, forever and ever? Maskull, until love crushes our spirit, finally and without remedy, we don’t begin to feel ourselves.”
Maskull gazed at her with a troubled expression. “Can the memory of love be worth more than its presence and reality?”
“You don’t understand. Those pangs are more precious than all the rest beside.” She caught at him. “Oh, if you could only see inside my mind, Maskull! You would see strange things.... I can’t explain. It is all confused, even to myself.... This love is quite different from what I thought.”
He sighed again. “Love is a strong drink. Perhaps it is too strong for human beings. And I think that it overturns our reason in different ways.”
They remained sitting side by side, staring straight before them with unseeing eyes.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Sullenbode at last, with a smile, getting up. “Soon it will be ended, one way or another. Come, let us be off!”
Maskull too got up.
“Where’s Corpang?” he asked listlessly.
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.
“He wishes to arrive,” said Maskull, watching the energetic ascent with a rather cynical smile.
“The heavens won’t open for Corpang,” returned Sullenbode. “He need not be in such a hurry.... What do these pillars seem like to you?”
“They might be the entrance to some mighty temple. Who can have planted them there?”
She did not answer. They watched Corpang gain the summit of the hill, and disappear through the line of posts.
Maskull turned again to Sullenbode. “Now we two are alone in a lonely world.”
She regarded him steadily. “Our last night on this earth must be a grand one. I am ready to go on.”
“I don’t think you are fit to go on. It will be better to go down the pass a little, and find shelter.”
She half smiled. “We won’t study our poor bodies tonight. I mean you to go to Adage, Maskull.”
“Then at all events let us rest first, for it must be a long, terrible climb, and who knows what hardships we shall meet?”
She walked a step or two forward, half turned, and held out her hand to him. “Come, Maskull!”
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—it was supernatural and indescribable. Maskull’s spirit swelled. He stood fast, with expanded nostrils and terrible eyes.
Sullenbode touched him lightly.
“What do you see, Maskull?”
“Muspel-light.”
“I see nothing.”
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—the four beats, with the third accented, still came pulsing through the atmosphere, only now against a background of thunder, and not of silence.
Maskull’s 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.
Sullenbode suddenly enfolded him in her arms, and kissed him—passionately, 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.
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.
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.
He flew toward her, and bent over her body. His worst fears were realised. Life had departed.
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.
He remained beside her for a long time, on his knees. He wept—but, between his fits of weeping, he raised his head from time to time, and listened to the distant drum beats.
An hour passed—two hours. Teargeld was now in the south-west. Maskull lifted Sullenbode’s 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.
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.
After that, he commenced his descent of the Mornstab Pass.
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.
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.
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.
The patch of broken, rich, brown soil observable not far away marked Sullenbode’s 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’s body, and then his own.
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.
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.
He went to the warm pool, to wash the sleep out of his eyes. Sitting beside it, watching the bubbles, was Krag.
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.
“Where in the devil’s name have you come from, Krag?”
“The great point is, I am here.”
“Where’s Nightspore?”
“Not far away.”
“It seems a hundred years since I saw you. Why did you two leave me in such a damnable fashion?”
“You were strong enough to get through alone.”
“So it turned out, but how were you to know?.... Anyway, you’ve timed it well. It seems I am to die today.”
Krag scowled. “You will die this morning.”
“If I am to, I shall. But where have you heard it from?”
“You are ripe for it. You have run through the gamut. What else is there to live for?”
“Nothing,” said Maskull, uttering a short laugh. “I am quite ready. I have failed in everything. I only wondered how you knew.... So now you’ve come to rejoin me. Where are we going?”
“Through Barey.”
“And what about Nightspore?”
Krag jumped to his feet with clumsy agility. “We won’t wait for him. He’ll be there as soon as we shall.”
“Where?”
“At our destination.... Come! The sun’s rising.”
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.
Maskull pointed them out to his companion.
“How is it the sunshine doesn’t open them?”
“Branchspell is a second night to them. Their day is Alppain.”
“How long will it be before that sun rises?”
“Some time yet.”
“Shall I live to see it, do you think?”
“Do you want to?”
“At one time I did, but now I’m indifferent.”
“Keep in that humour, and you’ll do well. Once for all, there’s nothing worth seeing on Tormance.”
After a few minutes Maskull said, “Why did we come here, then?”
“To follow Surtur.”
“True. But where is he?”
“Closer at hand than you think, perhaps.”
“Do 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?”
“Don’t disturb yourself about that. You will never know.”
“Doyouknow?”
“I know,” snarled Krag.
“The devil here is called Krag,” went on Maskull, peering into his face.
“As long as pleasure is worshiped, Krag will always be the devil.”
“Here we are, talking face to face, two men together.... What am I to believe of you?”
“Believe your senses. The real devil is Crystalman.”
They continued descending the landslip. The sun’s 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.
“What have you and Nightspore been doing during the last four days, Krag? What happened to the torpedo?”
“You’re just about on the same mental level as a man who sees a brand-new palace, and asks what has become of the scaffolding.”
“What palace have you been building, then?”
“We have not been idle,” said Krag. “While you have been murdering and lovemaking, we have had our work.”
“And how have you been made acquainted with my actions?”
“Oh, you’re an open book. Now you’ve got a mortal heart wound on account of a woman you knew for six hours.”
Maskull turned pale. “Sneer 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’t even the feelings of an insect.”
“Behold the child defending its toys!” said Krag, grinning faintly.
Maskull stopped short. “What do you want with me, and why did you bring me here?”
“It’s no use stopping, even for the sake of theatrical effect,” said Krag, pulling him into motion again. “The distance has got to be covered, however often we pull up.”
When he touched him, Maskull felt a terrible shooting pain through his heart.
“I can’t go on regarding you as a man, Krag. You’re something more than a man—whether good or evil, I can’t say.”
Krag looked yellow and formidable. He did not reply to Maskull’s remark, but after a pause said, “So you’ve been trying to find Surtur on your own account, during the intervals between killing and fondling?”
“What was that drumming?” demanded Maskull.
“You needn’t 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.”
Maskull smiled rather bitterly. “At 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.”
“Brave words, brave words! We shall see. Perhaps Crystalman will make one more attempt on you. There is still time for one more.”
“Now I don’t understand you.”
“You think you are thoroughly disillusioned, don’t you? Well, that may prove to be the last and strongest illusion of all.”
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.
“Are we now in Barey?” asked Maskull.
“Yes—and there is one of the natives.”
There was an ugly glint in his eye as he spoke the words, but Maskull did not see it.
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.
Before a word was spoken, he warmly grasped Maskull’s 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.
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.
“I’ve been waiting for you here since sunrise,” he said. “Welcome to Barey, Maskull! Let’s hope you’ll forget your sorrows here, you over-tested man.”
Maskull stared at him, not without friendliness. “What made you expect me, and how do you know my name?”
The stranger smiled, which made his face very handsome. “I’m Gangnet. I know most things.”
“Haven’t you a greeting for me too—Gangnet?” asked Krag, thrusting his forbidding features almost into the other’s face.
“I know you, Krag. There are few places where you are welcome.”
“And I know you, Gangnet—you man-woman.... Well, we are here together, and you must make what you can of it. We are going down to the Ocean.”
The smile faded from Gangnet’s face. “I can’t drive you away, Krag—but I can make you the unwelcome third.”
Krag threw back his head, and gave a loud, grating laugh. “That bargain suits me all right. As long as I have the substance, you may have the shadow, and much good may it do you.”
“Now that it’s all arranged so satisfactorily,” said Maskull, with a hard smile, “permit me to say that I don’t 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’m a free agent?”
“To be a free man, one must have a universe of one’s own,” said Krag, with a jeering look. “What do you say, Gangnet—is this a free world?”
“Freedom from pain and ugliness should be every man’s privilege,” returned Gangnet tranquilly. “Maskull is quite within his rights, and if you’ll engage to leave him I’ll do the same.”
“Maskull can change face as often as he likes, but he won’t get rid of me so easily. Be easy on that point, Maskull.”
“It doesn’t matter,” muttered Maskull. “Let everyone join in the procession. In a few hours I shall finally be free, anyhow, if what they say is true.”
“I’ll lead the way,” said Gangnet. “You don’t 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.”
“Yes, you fear—you fear!” broke out Krag, in a highpitched, scraping voice. “You eternal loller!”
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.
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—they 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.
Gangnet pressed Maskull’s arm affectionately. “If 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.”
“And what then, Gangnet? The dark spots would have existed all the same.”
“You could have seen them afterward. It makes all the difference whether one sees darkness through the light, or brightness through the shadows.”
“A clear eye is the best. Tormance is an ugly world, and I greatly prefer to know it as it really is.”
“The devil made it ugly, not Crystalman. These are Crystalman’s thoughts, which you see around you. He is nothing but Beauty and Pleasantness. Even Krag won’t have the effrontery to deny that.”
“It’s very nice here,” said Krag, looking around him malignantly. “One only wants a cushion and half a dozen houris to complete it.”
Maskull disengaged himself from Gangnet. “Last night, when I was struggling through the mud in the ghastly moonlight—then I thought the world beautiful.”
“Poor Sullenbode!” said Gangnet, sighing.
“What! You knew her?”
“I know her through you. By mourning for a noble woman, you show your own nobility. I think all women are noble.”
“There may be millions of noble women, but there’s only one Sullenbode.”
“If Sullenbode can exist,” said Gangnet, “the world cannot be a bad place.”
“Change the subject.... The world’s hard and cruel, and I am thankful to be leaving it.”
“On one point, though, you both agree,” said Krag, smiling evilly. “Pleasure is good, and the cessation of pleasure is bad.”
Gangnet glanced at him coldly. “We know your peculiar theories, Krag. You are very fond of them, but they are unworkable. The world could not go on being, without pleasure.”
“So Gangnet thinks!” jeered Krag.
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.
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.
“It has occurred to me,” said Maskull, addressing Gangnet, “that Alppain may be my death. Is that so?”
“These trees don’t fear Alppain, so why should you? Alppain is a wonderful, life-bringing sun.”
“The reason I ask is—I’ve seen its afterglow, and it produced such violent sensations that a very little more would have proved too much.”
“Because 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.”
“And that, I may tell you beforehand, Maskull,” said Krag, grinning, “is Crystalman’s trump card.”
“How do you mean?”
“You’ll see. You’ll renounce the world so eagerly that you’ll want to stay in the world merely to enjoy your sensations.”
Gangnet smiled. “Krag, you see, is hard to please. You must neither enjoy, nor renounce. Whatareyou to do?”
Maskull turned toward Krag. “It’s very odd, but I don’t understand your creed even yet. Are you recommending suicide?”
Krag seemed to grow sallower and more repulsive every minute. “What, because they have left off stroking you?” he exclaimed, laughing and showing his discoloured teeth.
“Whoever you are, and whatever you want,” said Maskull, “you seem very certain of yourself.”
“Yes, you would like me to blush and stammer like a booby, wouldn’t you! That would be an excellent way of destroying lies.”
Gangnet glanced toward the foot of one of the trees. He stooped and picked up two or three objects that resembled eggs.
“To eat?” asked Maskull, accepting the offered gift.
“Yes, eat them; you must be hungry. I want none myself, and one mustn’t insult Krag by offering him a pleasure—especially such a low pleasure.”
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.
“I don’t wait to be asked, Gangnet.... Say, is there a filthier sight than a smashed pleasure?”
Gangnet did not reply, but took Maskull’s arm.
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’s spirits immediately started to rise, although he did not wish it.
He checked himself, sighed, and grew pensive.
“What a place for languishing eyes and necks of ivory, Maskull!” rasped Krag mockingly. “Why isn’t Sullenbode here?”
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.
“Still what I said—was it true or untrue?”
Maskull gazed at him sternly. “You seem to regard yourself as a necessary evil. I’m under no obligation to go on with you any farther. I think we had better part.”
Krag turned to Gangnet with an air of grotesque mock earnestness.
“What doyousay—do we part when Maskull pleases, or when I please?”
“Keep your temper, Maskull,” said Gangnet, showing Krag his back. “I know the man better than you do. Now that he has fastened onto you there’s only one way of making him lose his hold, by ignoring him. Despise him—say nothing to him, don’t answer his questions. If you refuse to recognise his existence, he is as good as not here.”
“I’m beginning to be tired of it all,” said Maskull. “It seems as if I shall add one more to my murders, before I have finished.”
“I smell murder in the air,” exclaimed Krag, pretending to sniff. “But whose?”
“Do as I say, Maskull. To bandy words with him is to throw oil on fire.”
“I’ll say no more to anyone.... When do we get out of this accursed forest?”
“It’s some way yet, but when we’re once out we can take to the water, and you will be able to rest, and think.”
“And brood comfortably over your sufferings,” added Krag.
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.
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.
“Is it here that we take to the water?” inquired Maskull.
“Yes, here,” answered Gangnet.
“But how?”
“One of those islands will serve. It only needs to move it into the stream.”
Maskull frowned. “Where will it carry us to?”
“Come, get on, get on!” said Krag, laughing uncouthly. “The morning’s wearing away, and you have to die before noon. We are going to the Ocean.”
“If you are omniscient, Krag, what is my death to be?”
“Gangnet will murder you.”
“You lie!” said Gangnet. “I wish Maskull nothing but good.”
“At 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’re as slack as ever. I suppose I must do the work.”
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.
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.
Krag suddenly bent over and snatched off Gangnet’s hat, crushing it together in his hairy fist and throwing it far out into the stream.
“Why should you disguise yourself like a woman?” he asked with a harsh guffaw—“Show Maskull your face. Perhaps he has seen it somewhere.”
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.
“Let Maskull judge,” he said with proud composure, “whether I have anything to be ashamed of.”
“There can be nothing but magnificent thoughts in that head,” muttered Maskull, staring hard at him.
“A capital valuation. Gangnet is the king of poets. But what happens when poets try to carry through practical enterprises?”
“What enterprises?” asked Maskull, in astonishment.
“What have you got on hand, Gangnet? Tell Maskull.”
“There are two forms of practical activity,” replied Gangnet calmly. “One may either build up, or destroy.”
“No, there’s a third species. One may steal—and not even know one is stealing. One may take the purse and leave the money.”