A Voyage to Arcturus

by David Lindsay

  Chapter 13. THE WOMBFLASH FOREST

  He awoke to his third day on Tormance. His limbs ached. He lay on hisside, looking stupidly at his surroundings. The forest was like night,but that period of the night when the grey dawn is about to break andobjects begin to be guessed at, rather than seen. Two or three amazingshadowy shapes, as broad as houses, loomed up out of the twilight. Hedid not realise that they were trees, until he turned over on his backand followed their course upward. Far overhead, so high up that he darednot calculate the height, he saw their tops glittering in the sunlight,against a tiny patch of blue sky.

  Clouds of mist, rolling over the floor of the forest, kept interruptinghis view. In their silent passage they were like phantoms flitting amongthe trees. The leaves underneath him were sodden, and heavy drops ofmoisture splashed onto his head from time to time.

  He continued lying there, trying to reconstruct the events of thepreceding day. His brain was lethargic and confused. Something terriblehad happened, but what it was he could not for a long time recollect.Then suddenly there came before his eyes that ghastly closing scene atdusk on the Sant plateau—Spadevil’s crushed and bloody features andTydomin’s dying sighs.... He shuddered convulsively, and felt sick.

  The peculiar moral outlook that had dictated these brutal murders haddeparted from him during the night, and now he recognised what he haddone! During the whole of the previous day he seemed to have beenlabouring under a series of heavy enchantments. First Oceaxe hadenslaved him, then Tydomin, then Spadevil, and lastly Catice. They hadforced him to murder and violate; he had guessed nothing, but hadimagined that he was travelling as a free and enlightened stranger. Whatwas this nightmare journey for—and would it continue, in the sameway?...

  The silence of the forest was so intense that he heard no sound exceptthe pumping of blood through his arteries.

  Putting his hand to his face, he found that his remaining probe haddisappeared and that he was in possession of three eyes. The third eyewas on his forehead, where the old sorb had been. He could not guess itsuse. He still had his third arm, but it was nerveless.

  Now he puzzled his head for a long time, trying unsuccessfully to recallthat name which had been the last word spoken by Catice.

  He got up, with the intention of resuming his journey. He had no toiletto make, and no meal to prepare. The forest was tremendous. The nearesttree appeared to him to have a circumference of at least a hundred feet.Other dim boles looked equally large. But what gave the scene its aspectof immensity was the vast spaces separating tree from tree. It was likesome gigantic, supernatural hall in a life after death. The lowestbranches were fifty yards or more from the ground. There was nounderbrush; the soil was carpeted only by the dead, wet leaves. Helooked all around him, to find his direction, but the cliffs of Sant,which he had descended, were invisible—every way was like every otherway, he had no idea which quarter to attack. He grew frightened, andmuttered to himself. Craning his neck back, he stared upward and triedto discover the points of the compass from the direction of thesunlight, but it was impossible.

  While he was standing there, anxious and hesitating, he heard the drumtaps. The rhythmical beats proceeded from some distance off. The unseendrummer seemed to be marching through the forest, away from him.

  “Surtur!” he said, under his breath. The next moment he marvelled athimself for uttering the name. That mysterious being had not been in histhoughts, nor was there any ostensible connection between him and thedrumming.

  He began to reflect—but in the meantime the sounds were travelling away.Automatically he started walking in the same direction. The drum beatshad this peculiarity—though odd and mystical, there was nothing awe-inspiring in them, but on the contrary they reminded him of some placeand some life with which he was perfectly familiar. Once again theycaused all his other sense impressions to appear false.

  The sounds were intermittent. They would go on for a minute, or for fiveminutes, and then cease for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Maskullfollowed them as well as he could. He walked hard among the huge,indistinct trees, in the attempt to come up with the origin of thenoise, but the same distance always seemed to separate them. The forestfrom now onward descended. The gradient was mostly gentle—about one footin ten—but in some places it was much steeper, and in other parts againit was practically level ground for quite long stretches. There weregreat swampy marshes, through which Maskull was obliged to splash. Itwas a matter of indifference to him how wet he became—if only he couldcatch sight of that individual with the drum. Mile after mile wascovered, and still he was no nearer to doing so.

  The gloom of the forest settled down upon his spirits. He feltdespondent, tired, and savage. He had not heard the drum beats for somewhile, and was half inclined to discontinue the pursuit.

  Passing around a great, columnar tree trunk, he almost stumbled againsta man who was standing on the farther side. He was leaning against thetrunk with one hand, in an attitude of repose. His other hand wasresting on a staff. Maskull stopped short and stared at him.

  He was nearly naked, and of gigantic build. He over-topped Maskull by ahead. His face and body were faintly phosphorescent. His eyes—three innumber—were pale green and luminous, shining like lamps. His skin washairless, but the hair of his head was piled up in thick, black coils,and fastened like a woman’s. His features were absolutely tranquil, buta 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 thatthe 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 sincehis arrival on the planet. He was so astonished that he could frame nomore questions.

  “Eat this,” said Dreamsinter. “Then we will chase the sound together.”He picked something up from the ground and handed it to Maskull. Hecould not see distinctly, but it felt like a hard, round nut, of thesize of a fist.

  “I can’t crack it.”

  Dreamsinter took it between his hands, and broke it into pieces. Maskullthen 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—neverdoubting 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 Iawoke.”

  Dreamsinter suddenly turned his head sideways, and appeared to listenfor 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 washeard—this time accompanied by the tramp of marching feet.

  Maskull saw, marching through the trees and heading toward them, threemen in single file separated from one another by only a yard or so. Theywere travelling down hill at a swift pace, and looked neither to leftnor right. They were naked. Their figures were shining against the blackbackground of the forest with a pale, supernatural light—green andghostly. When they were abreast of him, about twenty feet off, heperceived who they were. The first man was himself—Maskull. The secondwas 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 comefrom some point in front of them. Maskull and Dreamsinter put themselvesin motion, to keep up with the swiftly movi
ng marchers. At the same timea low, faint music began.

  Its rhythm stepped with the drum beats, but, unlike the latter, it didnot seem to proceed from any particular quarter of the forest. Itresembled the subjective music heard in dreams, which accompanies thedreamer everywhere, as a sort of natural atmosphere, rendering all hisexperiences emotional. It seemed to issue from an unearthly orchestra,and was strongly troubled, pathetic and tragic. Maskull marched, andlistened; and as he listened, it grew louder and stormier. But the pulseof the drum interpenetrated all the other sounds, like the quiet beatingof reality.

  His emotion deepened. He could not have said if minutes or hours werepassing. The spectral procession marched on, a little way ahead, on apath parallel with his own and Dreamsinter’s. The music pulsatedviolently. Krag lifted his arm, and displayed a long, murderous-lookingknife. He sprang forward and, raising it over the phantom Maskull’sback, stabbed him twice, leaving the knife in the wound the second time.Maskull threw up his arms, and fell down dead. Krag leaped into theforest and vanished from sight. Nightspore marched on alone, stern andunmoved.

  The music rose to crescendo. The whole dim, gigantic forest was roaringwith sound. The tones came from all sides, from above, from the groundunder their feet. It was so grandly passionate that Maskull felt hissoul loosening from its bodily envelope.

  He continued to follow Nightspore. A strange brightness began to glow infront of them. It was not daylight, but a radiance such as he had neverseen 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 hardone upon another, like the waves of a wild, magic ocean.... His body wasincapable of enduring such shocks, and all of a sudden he tumbled overin a faint that resembled death.