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.

"Surtur!" 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.

He began to reflect—but in the meantime the sounds were travelling away. Automatically he started walking in the same direction. The drum beats had this peculiarity—though 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.

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—about one foot in ten—but 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—if 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.

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.

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 started at him.

He was nearly naked, and of gigantic build. He over-topped Maskull by a head. His face and body were faintly phosphorescent. His eyes—three in number—were 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's. His features were absolutely tranquil, but a terrible, quiet energy seemed to lie just underneath the surface.

Maskull addressed him. "Did the drumming come from you?"

The man shook his head.

"What is your name?"

He replied in a strange, strained, twisted voice. Maskull gathered that the name he gave was "Dreamsinter."

"What is that drumming?"

"Surtur," said Dreamsinter.

"Is it advisable for me to follow it?"

"Why?"

"Perhaps he intends me to. He brought me here from Earth."

Dreamsinter caught hold of him, bent down, and peered into his face. "Not you, but Nightspore."

This was the first time that Maskull had heard Nightspore's name since his arrival on the planet. He was so astonished that he could frame no more questions.

"Eat this," said Dreamsinter. "Then we will chase the sound together." 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.

"I can't crack it."

Dreamsinter took it between his hands, and broke it into pieces. Maskull then ate some of the pulpy interior, which was intensely disagreeable.

"What am I doing in Tormance, then?" he asked.

"You came to steal Muspel-fire, to give a deeper life to men—never doubting if your soul could endure that burning."

Maskull could hardly decipher the strangled words.

"Muspel.... That's the name I've been trying to remember ever since I awoke."

Dreamsinter suddenly turned his head sideways, and appeared to listen for something. He motioned with his hand to Maskull to keep quiet.

"Is it the drumming?"

"Hush! They come."

He was looking toward the upper forest. The now familiar drum rhythm was heard—this time accompanied by the tramp of marching feet.

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—green and ghostly. When they were abreast of him, about twenty feet off, he perceived who they were. The first man was himself—Maskull. The second was Krag. The third man was Nightspore. Their faces were grim and set.

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.

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.

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's. 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's 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.

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.

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.



Chapter 14. POLECRAB

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's blood, and fell into a deep muse.

"According 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."

He remained quiet and apathetic for a bit.

"But I couldn't face that awful glare," he proceeded. "It 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 Surtur? Where is he to be found?"

Something wild came into his eyes.

"What did Dreamsinter mean by his 'Not you, but Nightspore'? Am I a secondary character—is 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—can I originate nothing?"

He continued sitting up, with straight-extended legs.

"I must make up my mind that this is a strange journey, and that the strangest things will happen in it. It's no use making plans, for I can't see two steps ahead—everything is unknown. But one thing's 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."

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.

He smiled queerly, and said aloud, "Thanks, Surtur! I accept the omen."

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.

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—he 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.

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—in 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.

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.

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—more realistic and significant. He had a stronger attraction toward his surroundings; he seemed somehow to lose his egotism, and to become free and thoughtful.

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.

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—he 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—accompanied by a weird, hissing, spitting sound, which was what Maskull had heard. The green tongues rolled in without foam.

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's 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—just 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.

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.

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—avoiding 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.

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's Island, the spirit-crushing forest out of which he had just escaped—to all these mighty powers, surrounding him on every side, what resources had he, a feeble, ignorant traveller to oppose, from a tiny planet on the other side of space, to avoid being utterly destroyed?... Then he smiled to himself. "I've already been here two days, and still I survive. I have luck—and with that one can balance the universe. But what is luck—a verbal expression, or a thing?"

As he was putting on his skin, which was now dry, the answer came to him, and this time he was grave. "Surtur brought me here, and Surtur is watching over me. That is my 'luck.'... 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?..."

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.

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—there 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.

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—jade-green, blue, and ulfire.

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.

Maskull addressed him. "Are you another of the wise men of the Wombflash Forest?"

The man answered him in a gruff, husky voice, looking up as he did so. "I'm a fisherman. I know nothing about wisdom."

"What name do you go by?"

"Polecrab. What's yours?"

"Maskull. If you're a fisherman, you ought to have fish. I'm famishing."

Polecrab grunted, and paused a minute before answering.

"There's fish enough. My dinner is cooking in the sands now. It's easy enough to get you some more."

Maskull found this a pleasant speech.

"But how long will it take?" he asked.

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.

"Arg, go fish!" said Polecrab hoarsely.

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.

"Simple fishing," remarked Maskull. "But what's the raft for?"

"To go to sea with. The best fish are out at sea. These are eatable."

"That arg seems a highly intelligent creature."

Polecrab grunted again. "I've trained close on a hundred of them. The bigheads learn best, but they're slow swimmers. The narrowheads swim like eels, but can't be taught. Now I've started interbreeding them—he's one of them."

"Do you live here alone?"

"No, I've got a wife and three boys. My wife's sleeping somewhere, but where the lads are, Shaping knows."

Maskull began to feel very much at home with this unsophisticated being.

"The raft's all crazy," he remarked, staring at it. "If you go far out in that, you've got more pluck than I have."

"I've been to Matterplay on it," said Polecrab.

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's feet, they saw that each set of claws was clutching a fish—six 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.

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's nostrils quivered at the savoury smell, but he was not yet to dine.

Polecrab, turning to go with the cooked fish in his hands, said, "These are mine, not yours. When yours are done, you can come back and join me, supposing you want company."

"How soon will that be?"

"About twenty minutes," replied the fisherman, over his shoulder.

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.

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.

"Come and drink," he said, in his husky voice.

Maskull looked at him inquiringly.

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's breast. Maskull, watching him, imagined that he saw his eyes growing brighter.

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—and 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 aperu{sic}, 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.

"Is it Blodsombre yet?" asked Maskull, sprawling on the ground, well content.

Polecrab resumed his old upright sitting posture, with his feet in the water. "Just beginning," was his hoarse response.

"Then I must stay here till it's over.... Shall we talk?"

"We can," said the other, without enthusiasm.

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.

"Have you travelled much, Polecrab?"

"Not what you would call travelling."

"You tell me you've been to Matterplay—what kind of country is that?"

"I don't know. I went there to pick up flints."

"What countries lie beyond it?"

"Threal comes next, as you go north. They say it's a land of mystics... I don't know."

"Mystics?"

"So I'm told.... Still farther north there's Lichstorm."

"Now we're going far afield."

"There are mountains there—and altogether it must be a very dangerous place, especially for a full-blooded man like you. Take care of yourself."

"This is rather premature, Polecrab. How do you know I'm going there?"

"As you've come from the south, I suppose you'll go north."

"Well, that's right enough," said Maskull, staring hard at him. "But how do you know I've come from the south?"

"Well, then, perhaps you haven't—but there's a look of Ifdawn about you."

"What kind of look?"

"A tragical look," said Polecrab. He never even glanced at Maskull, but was gazing at a fixed spot on the water with unblinking eyes.

"What lies beyond Lichstorm?" asked Maskull, after a minute or two.

"Barey, where you have two suns instead of one—but beyond that fact I know nothing about it.... Then comes the ocean."

"And what's on the other side of the ocean?"

"That you must find out for yourself, for I doubt if anybody has ever crossed it and come back."

Maskull was silent for a little while.

"How is it that your people are so unadventurous? I seem to be the only one travelling from curiosity."

"What do you mean by 'your people'?"

"True—you don't know that I don't belong to your planet at all. I've come from another world, Polecrab."

"What to find?"

"I came here with Krag and Nightspore—to 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've been travelling at random."

Polecrab scratched his nose. "You haven't found Surtur yet?"

"I've 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—a being in man's shape, who called himself Surtur."

"Well, maybe it was Surtur."

"No, that's impossible," replied Maskull reflectively. "It was Crystalman. And it isn't a question of my suspecting it—I know it."

"How?"

"Because this is Crystalman's world, and Surtur's world is something quite different."

"That's queer, then," said Polecrab.

"Since I've come out of that forest," proceeded Maskull, talking half to himself, "a 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't entertain the least doubt of its existence. It not only looks real, it is real—and on that I would stake my life.... But at the same time that it's real, it is false."

"Like a dream?"

"No—not at all like a dream, and that's just what I want to explain. This world of yours—and perhaps of mine too, for that matter—doesn't give me the slightest impression of a dream, or an illusion, or anything of that sort. I know it's really here at this moment, and it's exactly as we're seeing it, you and I. Yet it's false. It's 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."

"Perhaps there is such another world," said Polecrab huskily. "But did that vision also seem real and false to you?"

"Very real, but not false then, for then I didn't understand all this. But just because it was real, it couldn't have been Surtur, who has no connection with reality."

"Didn't those drum taps sound real to you?"

"I 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't hear them correctly, that was my fault and not his."

Polecrab growled a little. "If Surtur chooses to speak to you in that fashion, it appears he's trying to say something."

"What else can I think? But, Polecrab, what's your opinion—is he calling me to the life after death?"

The old man stirred uneasily. "I'm a fisherman," he said, after a minute or two. "I live by killing, and so does everybody. This life seems to me all wrong. So maybe life of any kind is wrong, and Surtur's world is not life at all, but something else."

"Yes, but will death lead me to it, whatever it is?"

"Ask the dead," said Polecrab, "and not a living man."

Maskull continued. "In 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."

Polecrab uttered his grunt. "You have enough to think over."

A short silence ensued, which was broken by Maskull.

"So strong is my sense of the untruth of this present life, that it may come to my putting an end to myself." The fisherman remained quiet and immobile.

Maskull lay on his stomach, propped his face on his hands, and stared at him. "What 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?"

"I am an ignorant man, stranger, so I can't say. Perhaps there are many others like you who would gladly know."

"Where? I should like to meet them."

"Do you think you were made of one stuff, and the rest of mankind of another stuff?"

"I can't be so presumptuous. Possibly all men are reaching out toward Muspel, in most cases without being aware of it."

"In the wrong direction," said Polecrab.

Maskull gave him a strange look. "How so?"

"I don't speak from my own wisdom," said Polecrab, "for 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 'forking') springs from the unconscious desire to find Surtur, but is in the opposite direction to the right one. For Surtur's world does not lie on this side of the one, 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's 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."

Maskull, who had listened attentively to all this, remained thoughtful at the end.

"It's plain enough," he said. "But what did he mean by our reuniting ourselves to Crystalman's world? If it is false, are we to make ourselves false as well?"

"I didn't ask him that question, and you are as well qualified to answer it as I am."

"He 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."

Polecrab withdrew his feet from the water, stood up, yawned, and stretched his limbs.

"I have told you all I know," he said in a surly voice. "Now let me go to sleep."

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.

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's 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.

Her dress was similar to her husband's, 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.

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.

"Forgiveness is asked for listening to your conversation," she said, addressing Maskull. "I was resting behind the tree, and heard it all."

He got up slowly. "Are you Polecrab's wife?"

"She is my wife," said Polecrab, "and her name is Gleameil. Sit down again, stranger—and you too, wife, since you are here."

They both obeyed. "I heard everything," repeated Gleameil. "But what I did not hear was where you are going to, Maskull, after you have left us."

"I know no more than you do."

"Listen, then. There's only one place for you to go to, and that is Swaylone's Island. I will ferry you across myself before sunset."

"What shall I find there?"

"He may go, wife," put in the old man hoarsely, "but I won't allow you to go. I will take him over myself."

"No, you have always put me off," said Gleameil, with some emotion. "This time I mean to go. When Teargeld shines at night, and I sit on the shore here, listening to Earthrid's music travelling faintly across the sea, I am tortured—I can't endure it.... I have long since made up my mind to go to the island, and see what this music is. If it's bad, if it kills me—well."

"What have I to do with the man and his music, Gleameil?" demanded Maskull.

"I think the music will answer all your questions better than Polecrab has done—and possibly in a way that will surprise you."

"What kind of music can it be to travel all those miles across the sea?"

"A 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."

"That may be so," growled Polecrab. "But I have been to the island by daylight, and what did I find there? Human bones, new and ancient. Those are Earthrid's victims. And you, wife, shall not go."

"But will that music play tonight?" asked Maskull.

"Yes," replied Gleameil, gazing at him intently. "When Teargeld rises, which is our moon."

"If 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—women die too easily in Tormance. I have only just now washed myself clean of the death blood of another woman."

Gleameil laughed, but said nothing.

"Now go to sleep," said Polecrab. "When the time comes, I will take you across myself."

He lay down again, and closed his eyes. Maskull followed his example; but Gleameil remained sitting erect, with her legs under her.

"Who was that other woman, Maskull?" she asked presently.

He did not answer, but pretended to sleep.



Chapter 15. SWALONE'S ISLAND

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.

"Is it decided who is to go with me?" he asked, before sitting down.

"I go," said Gleameil.

"Do you agree, Polecrab?"

The fisherman growled a little in his throat and motioned to the others to take their seats. He took a mouthful before answering.

"Something strong is attracting her, and I can't hold her back. I don't think I shall see you again, wife, but the lads are now nearly old enough to fend for themselves."

"Don't take dejected views," replied Gleameil sternly. She was not eating. "I shall come back, and make amends to you. It's only for a night."

Maskull gazed from one to the other in perplexity. "Let me go alone. I would be sorry if anything happened."

Gleameil shook her head.

"Don't regard this as a woman's caprice," she said. "Even if you hadn't passed this way, I would have heard that music soon. I have a hunger for it."

"Haven't you any such feeling, Polecrab?"

"No. 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's right. Perhaps Earthrid's music will answer your questions, and hers too."

"What are your questions, Gleameil?"

The woman shed a strange smile. "You may be sure that a question which requires music for an answer can't be put into words."

"If you are not back by the morning," remarked her husband, "I will know you are dead."

The meal was finished in a constrained silence. Polecrab wiped his mouth, and produced a seashell from a kind of pocket.

"Will you say goodbye to the boys? Shall I call them?" She considered a moment.

"Yes—yes, I must see them."

He put the shell to his mouth, and blew; a loud, mournful noise passed through the air.

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.

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's.

"That one," said Polecrab, pinching the boy's ear, "may perhaps grow up to be a second Broodviol."

"Who was that?" demanded the boy, bending his head forward to hear the answer.

"A 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."

"If I had not asked this question, I should not have known about him."

"That would not have mattered," replied the father.

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.

"He puzzles me," said Polecrab. "He has a soul like sap, and he's interested in nothing. He may turn out to be the most remarkable of the bunch."

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.

"What do you make of him?" asked the fisherman.

"It's on the tip of my tongue to say, but it just escapes me. Let me drink again, and then I shall have it."

"Go and drink, then."

Maskull strode over to the tree, drank, and returned. "In ages to come," he said, speaking deliberately, "he will be a grand and awful tradition. A seer possibly, or even a divinity. Watch over him well."

The eldest boy looked scornful. "I want to be none of those things. I would like to be like that big fellow." And he pointed his finger at Maskull.

He laughed, and showed his white teeth through his beard. "Thanks for the compliments old warrior!" he said.

"He's great and brawny," continued the boy, "and can hold his own with other men. Can you hold me up with one arm, as you did that child?"

Maskull complied.

"That is being a man!" exclaimed the boy. "Enough!" said Polecrab impatiently. "I 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't know."

The second boy's face became suddenly inflamed. "Is she going of her own choice?" he inquired.

"Yes," replied the father.

"Then she is bad." He brought the words out with such force and emphasis that they sounded like the crack of a whip.

The old man cuffed him twice. "Is it your mother you are speaking of?"

The boy stood his ground, without change of expression, but said nothing.

The youngest child spoke, for the first time. "My mother will not come back, but she will die dancing."

Polecrab and his wife looked at one another.

"Where are you going to, Mother?" asked the eldest lad.

Gleameil bent down, and kissed him. "To the Island."

"Well then, if you don't come back by tomorrow morning, I will go and look for you."

Maskull grew more and more uneasy in his mind. "This seems to me to be a man's journey," he said. "I think it would be better for you not to come, Gleameil."

"I am not to be dissuaded," she replied.

He stroked his beard in perplexity. "Is it time to start?"

"It wants four hours to sunset, and we shall need all that."

Maskull sighed. "I'll go to the mouth of the creek, and wait there for you and the raft. You will wish to make your farewells, Gleameil."

He then clasped Polecrab by the hand. "Adieu, fisherman!"

"You have repaid me well for my answers," said the old man gruffly. "But it's not your fault, and in Shaping's world the worst things happen."

The eldest boy came close to Maskull, and frowned at him. "Farewell, big man!" he said. "But guard my mother well, as well as you are well able to, or I shall follow you, and kill you."

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's Island.

"What music can that be, which tears a wife and mother away from all she loves the most?" he meditated. "It sounds unholy. Will it tell me what I want to know? Can it?"

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.

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.

"What is your husband doing with the raft?" asked Maskull.

"He's putting it in position and we shall wade out and join it," she answered, in her low-toned voice.

"But how shall we make the island, without oars or sails?"

"Don't you see that current running away from land? See, he is approaching it. That will take us straight there."

"But how can you get back?"

"There is a way; but we need not think of that today."

"Why shouldn't I come too?" demanded the eldest boy.

"Because the raft won't carry three. Maskull is a heavy man."

"It doesn't matter," said the boy. "I know where there is wood for another raft. As soon as you have gone, I shall set to work."

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.

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 stem, and seized the pole.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"It is Lichstorm," said Gleameil.

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.

"Now that we are alone in a strange place," said Gleameil, averting her head, and looking down over the side of the raft into the water, "tell me what you thought of Polecrab."

Maskull paused before answering. "He 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—and even then it is not the top."

"You read character well, and have great perception," remarked Gleameil quietly. "Now say what I am."

"In place of a human heart, you have a wild harp, and that's all I know about you."

"What was that you said to my husband about two worlds?"

"You heard."

"Yes, 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."

"Perhaps we are seeking the same thing. But can it be right to satisfy our self-nature at the expense of other people?"

"No, it's not right. It is wrong, and base. But in that other world these words have no meaning."

There was a silence.

"It's useless to discuss such topics," said Maskull. "The 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."

"I am ignorant—except that we shall find Earthrid there."

"Who is Earthrid, and why is it called Swaylone's Island?"

"They say Earthrid came from Threal, but I know nothing else about him. As for Swaylone, if you like I will tell you his legend."

"If you please," said Maskull.

"In a far-back age," began Gleameil, "when 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—the 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 'Have you heard more beautiful sounds? This is my world and my music.' Krag stamped with his foot, and laughed. 'You must do better than that, if I am to admire it. Let us pass over, and see this bungler at work.' 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. 'Can any strains be nobler?' demanded Shaping. Krag grinned and said, 'You are naturally effeminate. Now let me try.' 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's death, another musician took up the tale; and so the light has passed down from torch to torch, till now Earthrid bears it."

"An interesting legend," commented Maskull. "But who is Krag?"

"They say that when the world was born, Krag was born with it—a 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's 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's actions, so the lovers of the world call him 'devil.' They don't understand, Maskull, that without him the world would lose its beauty."

"Krag and beauty!" exclaimed he, with a cynical smile.

"Even 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?"

"Surely."

"That pleasant beauty is an insipid compound of Shaping. To see beauty in its terrible purity, you must tear away the pleasure from it."

"Do you say I am going to seek beauty, Gleameil? Such an idea is far from my mind."

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.

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.

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.

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.

A little way off, on their left, something white was shining.

"You need not go to it," said the woman. "It can be nothing else than one of those skeletons Polecrab talked about. And look—there is another one over there!"

"This brings it home!" remarked Maskull, smiling.

"There is nothing comical in having died for beauty," said Gleameil, bending her brows at him.

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.

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.

"That is Matterplay," said the woman, pointing her finger toward some low land on the horizon, which seemed to be even farther off than Wombflash.

"I wonder how Digrung passed over," meditated Maskull.

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.

"That must be Irontick," remarked Gleameil.

"What is that?"

"I have heard that it's the instrument Earthrid plays on."

"We are getting close," responded he. "Let us go and investigate."

When they drew nearer, they observed that a man was reclining on the farther side, in an attitude of sleep.

"If that's not the man himself, who can it be?" said Maskull. "Let's get across the water, if it will bear us; it will save time."

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's 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.

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.

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.

"Wake up, man," said Maskull sharply, "and tell us if you are Earthrid."

"What time is it?" counterquestioned the man. "Does it want long to moonrise?"

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.

"Now, how can you eat that filth?" demanded Maskull, in disgust.

"Don't be angry, Maskull," said Gleameil, laying hold of his arm, and flushing a little. "It is Earthrid—the man who is to help us."

"He has not said so."

"I am Earthrid," said the other, in his weak and muffled voice, which, however, suddenly struck Maskull as being autocratic. "What 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."

"You need not explain," exclaimed Maskull. "We know your reputation, and we have come to hear your music. But what's that organ for on your forehead?"

Earthrid glared, and smiled, and glared again.

"That is for rhythm, which is what changes noise into music. Don't 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."

Darkness now crept swiftly on over the landscape.

"You are rather bigmouthed," said Maskull coolly. "But after we have heard you play, perhaps I shall adventure a tune myself."

"You? Are you a musician, then? Do you even know what music is?"

A flame danced in Gleameil's eyes.

"Maskull thinks music reposes in the instrument," she said in her intense way. "But it is in the soul of the Master."

"Yes," said Earthrid, "but 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."

"If I had not anticipated its being original, I would not have come here," said Maskull. "Still, explain—why can't harsh tones have simple symmetry of form? And why must they necessarily cause more profound emotions in us who listen?"

"Pleasures 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."

"You may call it music," remarked Maskull thoughtfully, "but to me it bears a closer resemblance to actual life."

"If Shaping's 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."

"Shall we see living shapes?"

"I don't know what my mood will be," returned Earthrid. "But when I have finished, you shall adventure your tune, and produce whatever shapes you please—unless, indeed, the tune is out of your own big body."

"The shocks you are preparing may kill us," said Gleameil, in a low, taut voice, "but we shall die, seeing beauty."

Earthrid looked at her with a dignified expression.

"Neither 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 'beauty.' But if this is beauty, what is ugliness?"

"That I can tell you, Master," replied Gleameil, smiling at him. "Ugliness is old, stale life, while yours every night issues fresh from the womb of nature."

Earthrid stared at her, without response. "Teargeld is rising," he said at last. "And now you shall see—though not for long."

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's 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.

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.

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.

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's rough music had lost its power over him.

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 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.

He went over to Earthrid and dragged him forcibly away from his playing.

"You have been as good as your word, musician," he said. "Gleameil is dead."

Earthrid tried to collect his scattered senses.

"I warned her," he replied, sitting up. "Did 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."

Maskull looked down at him in indignation, but said nothing.

"You should not have interrupted me," went on Earthrid. "When 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."

"If music is to continue, in the presence of the dead, I play next."

The man glanced up quickly.

"That can't be."

"It must be," said Maskull decisively. "I prefer playing to listening. Another reason is that you will have every night, but I have only tonight."

Earthrid clenched and unclenched his fist, and began to turn pale. "With 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."

"Well, then, I will break it; but I am going to try."

The musician jumped to his feet and confronted him. "Do you intend to take it from me by violence?"

"Keep calm! You will have the same choice that you offered us. I shall give you time to go away somewhere."

"How will that serve me, if you spoil my lake? You don't understand what you are doing."

"Go, or stay!" responded Maskull. "I give you till the water gets smooth again. After that, I begin playing."

Earthrid kept swallowing. He glanced at the lake and back to Maskull.

"Do you swear it?"

"How long that will take, you know better than I; but till then you are safe."

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.

Later, when the water was once more tranquil. Maskull sat down by its edge, in imitation of Earthrid's 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—and, above all, one shape, that of Surtur.

Before putting his foot to the water, he turned things over a little in his mind.

He said, "What themes are in common music, shapes 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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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....

Immediately afterward the bottom of the lake subsided. Its waters fell through, and his instrument was broken.

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.

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....



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.

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.

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.

Then he saw Earthrid's 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's 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.

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.



Chapter 16. LEEHALLFAE

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.

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.

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—these eyes were stimulated by the light of the moon, and whichever way the light came from, the tree would travel.

A rather defiant smile crossed Maskull's 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.

The great spout waves fell against the trunk with mighty thuds; the breaking seas hissed through the lower branches—Maskull 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.

Maskull made himself secure among the branches and slept for the remainder of the night.

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—probably Matterplay—lay 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.

The shore loomed nearer and nearer. In physical character it was like Swaylone's Island—the 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.

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's 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—they became alternately blurted and clear.... It may have been pure imagination, but he fancied that Digrung was moving inside him.

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—in 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—not of varied tints of one colour, like Earth trees, but of widely diverse colours, most of which were brilliant and positive.

The floor itself was like a magician's 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—all 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—if it resembled anything—a 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.

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's 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.

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 "nothing" 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—took 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.

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—the creature stood opposite Maskull in its old formidable ugliness, hard, painted, and concrete.

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.

Maskull's apathy left him after this adventure. He became uneasy and thoughtful. He imagined that he was beginning to see things through Digrung's 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.

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—it 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.

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—they were simply being killed by new life.

Other creatures sported so wildly, in front of his very eyes, that they became of different "kingdoms" 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.

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—whether it was called Nature, Life, Will, or God—that 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.

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's Island. Looking north, the land continued sloping upward as far as he could see. Over the crest—that is to say, some miles away—a 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.

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—overhanging 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—the prospect of setting eyes on the blue sun, which he judged to be the wonder of wonders in Tormance.

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.

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.

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 than he was seeing miracles—that Nature was precipitating its shapes into the world without making use of the medium of parentage.... No solution of the problem presented itself.

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—he 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 charge. 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.

The danger was past and Maskull laughed, congratulating himself on having got off so easily. Then he wondered what the new organs were for—whether 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—as if it were a live, savage creature caught in a net—nowhere 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's appearing miraculously out of nowhere.