Chapter 14. POLECRAB
The morning slowly passed. Maskull made some convulsive movements, andopened his eyes. He sat up, blinking. All was night-like and silent inthe forest. The strange light had gone, the music had ceased,Dreamsinter had vanished. He fingered his beard, clotted with Tydomin’sblood, and fell into a deep muse.
“According to Panawe and Catice, this forest contains wise men. PerhapsDreamsinter was one. Perhaps that vision I have just seen was a specimenof his wisdom. It looked almost like an answer to my question.... Iought not to have asked about myself, but about Surtur. Then I wouldhave got a different answer. I might have learned something... I mighthave seen him.”
He remained quiet and apathetic for a bit.
“But I couldn’t face that awful glare,” he proceeded. “It was burstingmy body. He warned me, too. And so Surtur does really exist, and myjourney stands for something. But why am I here, and what can I do? Whois 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 asecondary 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 andpleasure—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 thestrangest things will happen in it. It’s no use making plans, for Ican’t see two steps ahead—everything is unknown. But one thing’sevident: nothing but the wildest audacity will carry me through, and Imust sacrifice everything else to that. And therefore if Surtur showshimself 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 lastmutterings of thunder after a heavy storm. Maskull listened, withoutgetting 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 hadbeen his third arm was flapping disconcertingly with every movement ofhis body. He made perforations in it all around, as close to his chestas possible, with the fingernails of both hands; then he carefullytwisted it off. In that world of rapid growth and ungrowth he judgedthat the stump would soon disappear. After that, he rose and peered intothe darkness.
The forest at that point sloped rather steeply and, without thinkingtwice about it, he took the downhill direction, never doubting it wouldbring him somewhere. As soon as he started walking, his temper becamegloomy 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. Bethat as it may, he determined to sit down no more until the whole dismalforest 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 stillalways visible; otherwise he had no clue to the time of day. Hecontinued tramping sullenly down the slope for many damp, slipperymiles—in some places through bogs. When, presently, the twilight seemedto thin, he guessed that the open world was not far away. The forestgrew more palpable and grey, and now he saw its majesty better. The treetrunks were like round towers, and so wide were the intervals that theyresembled natural amphitheatres. He could not make out the colour of thebark. Everything he saw amazed him, but his admiration was of thegrowling, grudging kind. The difference in light between the forestbehind him and the forest ahead became so marked that he could no longerdoubt 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 theminutes went by, the bright patch ahead grew luminous and vivid; it hada 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 withcolour. 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 groundwere of a colour he could not name. At the same time he discovered theuse of his third eye. By adding a third angle to his sight, every objecthe looked at stood out in greater relief. The world looked lessflat—more realistic and significant. He had a stronger attraction towardhis surroundings; he seemed somehow to lose his egotism, and to becomefree and thoughtful.
Now through the last trees he saw full daylight. Less than half a mileseparated him from the border of the forest, and, eager to discover whatlay beyond, he broke into a run. He heard the surf louder. It was apeculiar hissing sound that could proceed only from water, yet wasunlike the sea. Almost immediately he came within sight of an enormoushorizon of dancing waves, which he knew must be the Sinking Sea. He fellback into a quick walk, continuing to stare hard. The wind that met himwas hot, fresh and sweet.
When he arrived at the final fringe of forest, which joined the widesands of the shore without any change of level, he leaned with his backto a great tree and gazed his fill, motionless, at what lay in front ofhim. The sands continued east and west in a straight line, broken onlyhere and there by a few creeks. They were of a brilliant orange colour,but there were patches of violet. The forest appeared to stand sentinelover the shore for its entire length. Everything else was sea and sky—hehad never seen so much water. The semicircle of the skyline was so vastthat he might have imagined himself on a flat world, with a range ofvision determined only by the power of his eye. The sea was unlike anysea on Earth. It resembled an immense liquid opal. On a body colour ofrich, magnificent emerald-green, flashes of red, yellow, and blue wereeverywhere shooting up and vanishing. The wave motion was extraordinary.Pinnacles of water were slowly formed until they attained a height ofperhaps ten or twenty feet, when they would suddenly sink downward andoutward, creating in their descent a series of concentric rings for longdistances around them. Quickly moving currents, like rivers in the sea,could be seen, racing away from land; they were of a darker green andbore no pinnacles. Where the sea met the shore, the waves rushed overthe sands far in, with almost sinister rapidity—accompanied by a weird,hissing, spitting sound, which was what Maskull had heard. The greentongues 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 inoutline. It was Swaylone’s Island. Maskull was less interested in thatthan in the blue sunset that glowed behind its back. Alppain had set,but the whole northern sky was plunged into the minor key by itsafterlight. Branchspell in the zenith was white and overpowering, theday was cloudless and terrifically hot; but where the blue sun had sunk,a sombre shadow seemed to overhang the world. Maskull had a feeling ofdisintegration—just as if two chemically distinct forces weresimultaneously acting upon the cells of his body. Since the afterglow ofAlppain affected him like this, he thought it more than likely that hewould 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 walkedtoward the shore. The instant he stepped outside the shadow line of theforest trees, the blinding rays of the sun beat down on him so savagelythat for a few minutes he felt sick and his head swam. He trod quicklyacross the sands. The orange-coloured parts were nearly hot enough toroast food, he judged, but the violet parts were like fire itself. Hestepped on a patch in ignorance, and immediately jumped high into theair with a startled yell.
The sea was voluptuously warm. It would not bear his weight, so hedetermined to try swimming. First of all he stripped off his skingarment, washed it thoroughly with sand and water, and laid it in thesun to dry. Then he scrubbed himself as well as he could and washed outhis beard and hair. After that, he waded in a long way, until the waterreached his breast, and took to swimming—avoiding the spouts as far aspossible He found it no pastime. The water w
as everywhere of unequaldensity. In some places he could swim, in others he could barely savehimself from drowning, in others again he could not force himselfbeneath the surface at all. There were no outward signs to show what thewater ahead held in store for him. The whole business was mostdangerous.
He came out, feeling clean and invigorated. For a time he walked up anddown the sands, drying himself in the hot sunshine and looking aroundhim. He was a naked stranger in a huge, foreign, mystical world, andwhichever way he turned, unknown and threatening forces were glaring athim. The gigantic, white, withering Branchspell, the awful, body-changing Alppain, the beautiful, deadly, treacherous sea, the dark andeerie Swaylone’s Island, the spirit-crushing forest out of which he hadjust escaped—to all these mighty powers, surrounding him on every side,what resources had he, a feeble, ignorant traveller from a tiny planeton the other side of space, to oppose, to avoid being utterlydestroyed?... Then he smiled to himself. “I’ve already been here twodays, and still I survive. I have luck—and with that one can balance theuniverse. But what is luck—a verbal expression, or a thing?”
As he was putting on his skin, which was now dry, the answer came tohim, and this time he was grave. “Surtur brought me here, and Surtur iswatching over me. That is my ‘luck.’... But what is Surtur in thisworld?... How is he able to protect me against the blind andungovernable forces of nature? Is he stronger than Nature?...”
Hungry as he was for food, he was hungrier still for human society, forhe wished to inquire about all these things. He asked himself which wayhe should turn his steps. There were only two ways; along the shore,either east or west. The nearest creek lay to the east, cutting thesands about a mile away. He walked toward it.
The forest face was forbidding and enormously high. It was so squarelyturned 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 headconstantly turned away from them, toward the sea—there it was morecheerful. 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 greenwater curved around a bend out of sight, into the forest. The trees onboth banks overhung the water, so that it was completely in shadow.
He went as far as the bend, beyond which another short reach appeared. Aman 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. Hewas short, thick, and sturdy, with short legs and a long, powerful arms,terminating in hands of an extraordinary size. He was oldish. His facewas plain, slablike, and expressionless; it was full of wrinkles, andwalnut-coloured. Both face and head were bald, and his skin was toughand leathery. He seemed to be some sort of peasant, or fisherman; therewas no trace in his face of thought for others, or delicacy of feeling.He possessed three eyes, of different colors—jade-green, blue, andulfire.
In front of him, riding on the water, moored to the bank, was anelementary raft, consisting of the branches of trees, clumsily cordedtogether.
Maskull addressed him. “Are you another of the wise men of the WombflashForest?”
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 easyenough 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 ontothe bank. In a minute or two a curious little beast came crawling up tohis feet, turning its face and eyes up affectionately, like a dog. Itwas about two feet long, and somewhat resembled a small seal, but hadsix legs, ending in strong claws.
“Arg, go fish!” said Polecrab hoarsely.
The animal immediately tumbled off the bank into the water. It swamgracefully to the middle of the creek and made a pivotal dive beneaththe 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. Thebigheads learn best, but they’re slow swimmers. The narrowheads swimlike eels, but can’t be taught. Now I’ve started interbreeding them—he’sone of them.”
“Do you live here alone?”
“No, I’ve got a wife and three boys. My wife’s sleeping somewhere, butwhere 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 outin 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 timeclumsily, as if it were bearing a heavy weight under the surface. Whenit landed at its master’s feet, they saw that each set of claws wasclutching a fish—six in all. Polecrab took them from it. He proceeded tocut 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. Whenthey reached the sands, he sliced the fish, removed the entrails, anddigging a shallow hole in a patch of violet sand, placed the remainderof the carcasses in it, and covered them over again. Then he dug up hisown dinner. Maskull’s nostrils quivered at the savoury smell, but he wasnot yet to dine.
Polecrab, turning to go with the cooked fish in his hands, said, “Theseare 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. Whenthe time had approximately elapsed, he disinterred his meal, scorchinghis fingers in the operation, although it was only the surface of thesand which was so intensely hot. Then he returned to Polecrab.
In the warm, still air and cheerful shade of the inlet, they munched insilence, looking from their food to the sluggish water, and back again.With every mouthful Maskull felt his strength returning. He finishedbefore Polecrab, who ate like a man for whom time has no value. When hehad 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 toa certain tree. At a convenient height in its trunk a hole had beentapped and plugged. Polecrab removed the plug and put his mouth to theaperture, sucking for quite a long time, like a child at its mother’sbreast. Maskull, watching him, imagined that he saw his eyes growingbrighter.
When his own turn came to drink, he found the juice of the tree somewhatlike coconut milk in flavour, but intoxicating. It was a new sort ofintoxication, however, for neither his will not his emotions wereexcited, but only his intellect—and that only in a certain way. Histhoughts and images were not freed and loosened, but on the contrarykept labouring and swelling painfully, until they reached the fullbeauty of an aperçu, which would then flame up in his consciousness,burst, and vanish. After that, the whole process started over again. Butthere was never a moment when he was not perfectly cool, and master ofhis senses. When each had drunk twice, Polecrab replugged the hole, andthey returned to their bank.
“Is it Blodsombre yet?” asked Maskull, sprawling on the ground, wellcontent.
“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 wereexactly what he seemed to be. In his eyes he thought he detected a wiselight.
“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 dangerousplace, especially for a full-blooded man like you. Take care ofyourself.”
“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 howdo you know I’ve come from the south?”
“Well, then, perhaps you haven’t—but there’s a look of Ifdawn aboutyou.”
“What kind of look?”
“A tragical look,” said Polecrab. He never even glanced at Maskull, butwas 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 Iknow 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 evercrossed 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 onlyone 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’vecome from another world, Polecrab.”
“What to find?”
“I came here with Krag and Nightspore—to follow Surtur. I must havefainted the moment I arrived. When I sat up, it was night and the othershad 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 camequite close to him. Then two days ago, in the Lusion Plain, I saw avision—a being in man’s shape, who called himself Surtur.”
“Well, maybe it was Surtur.”
“No, that’s impossible,” replied Maskull reflectively. “It wasCrystalman. 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 somethingquite different.”
“That’s queer, then,” said Polecrab.
“Since I’ve come out of that forest,” proceeded Maskull, talking half tohimself, “a change has come over me, and I see things differently.Everything here looks much more solid and real in my eyes than in otherplaces so much so that I can’t entertain the least doubt of itsexistence. It not only looks real, it is real—and on that I would stakemy 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’tgive me the slightest impression of a dream, or an illusion, or anythingof that sort. I know it’s really here at this moment, and it’s exactlyas 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 otherworld is the true one, and this one is all false and deceitful, to thevery core. And so it occurs to me that reality and falseness are twowords for the same thing.”
“Perhaps there is such another world,” said Polecrab huskily. “But didthat 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 noconnection 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 Ididn’t hear them correctly, that was my fault and not his.”
Polecrab growled a little. “If Surtur chooses to speak to you in thatfashion, it appears he’s trying to say something.”
“What else can I think? But, Polecrab, what’s your opinion—is he callingme to the life after death?”
The old man stirred uneasily. “I’m a fisherman,” he said, after a minuteor two. “I live by killing, and so does everybody. This life seems to meall wrong. So maybe life of any kind is wrong, and Surtur’s world is notlife 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, whichcould not have belonged to this world. They were too strong for mysenses, and I must have fainted for a long time. There was a vision aswell, in which I saw myself killed, while Nightspore walked on towardthe 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 maycome to my putting an end to myself.” The fisherman remained quiet andimmobile.
Maskull lay on his stomach, propped his face on his hands, and stared athim. “What do you think, Polecrab? Is it possible for any man, while inthe 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 manyothers 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 ofanother stuff?”
“I can’t be so presumptuous. Possibly all men are reaching out towardMuspel, 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; butI have just now recalled what Broodviol once told me, when I was a youngman, and he was an old one. He said that Crystalman tries to turn allthings into one, and that whichever way his shapes march, in order toescape from him, they find themselves again face to face withCrystalman, and are changed into new crystals. But that this marching ofshapes (which we call ‘forking’) springs from the unconscious desire tofind Surtur, but is in the opposite direction to the right one. ForSurtur’s world does not lie on this side of the one, which was thebeginning of life, but on the other side; and to get to it we mustrepass through the one. But this can only be by renouncing our self-life, and reuniting ourselves to the whole of Crystalman’s world. Andwhen 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 Ican remember, that is what Broodviol said, but perhaps, as I was then ayoung and ignorant man, I may have left out words which would explainhis meaning better.”
Maskull, who had listened attentively to all this, remained thoughtfulat the end.
“It’s plain enough,” he said. “But what did he mean by our reunitingourselves to Crystalman’s world? If it is false, are
we to makeourselves false as well?”
“I didn’t ask him that question, and you are as well qualified to answerit 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 distortedperceptions. By embracing the great world we certainly lose nothing intruth and reality.”
Polecrab withdrew his feet from the water, stood up, yawned, andstretched his limbs.
“I have told you all I know,” he said in a surly voice. “Now let me goto sleep.”
Maskull kept his eyes fixed on him, but made no reply. The old man lethimself down stiffly on to the ground, and prepared to rest.
While he was still arranging his position to his liking, a footfallsounded behind the two men, coming from the direction of the forest.Maskull twisted his neck, and saw a woman approaching them. He at onceguessed that it was Polecrab’s wife. He sat up, but the fisherman didnot stir. The woman came and stood in front of them, looking down fromwhat appeared a great height.
Her dress was similar to her husband’s, but covered her limbs more. Shewas young, tall, slender, and strikingly erect. Her skin was lightlytanned, and she looked strong, but not at all peasantlike. Refinementwas stamped all over her. Her face had too much energy of expression fora woman, and she was not beautiful. Her three great eyes kept flashingand glowing. She had great masses of fine, yellow hair, coiled up andfastened, but so carelessly that some of the strands were flowing downher back.
When she spoke, it was in a rather weak voice, but full of lights andshades, and somehow intense passionateness never seemed to be far awayfrom 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 downagain, stranger—and you too, wife, since you are here.”
They both obeyed. “I heard everything,” repeated Gleameil. “But what Idid not hear was where you are going to, Maskull, after you have leftus.”
“I know no more than you do.”
“Listen, then. There’s only one place for you to go to, and that isSwaylone’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 youto 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 theshore here, listening to Earthrid’s music travelling faintly across thesea, I am tortured—I can’t endure it.... I have long since made up mymind to go to the island, and see what this music is. If it’s bad, if itkills me—well.”
“What have I to do with the man and his music, Gleameil?” demandedMaskull.
“I think the music will answer all your questions better than Polecrabhas 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 manthat can play the instrument of Earthrid would be able to conjure up themost astonishing forms, which are not phantasms, but realities.”
“That may be so,” growled Polecrab. “But I have been to the island bydaylight, and what did I find there? Human bones, new and ancient. Thoseare 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 isdue. In any case I should like to hear those sounds for myself. But asfor taking you with me, Gleameil—women die too easily in Tormance. Ihave only just now washed myself clean of the death blood of anotherwoman.”
Gleameil laughed, but said nothing.
“Now go to sleep,” said Polecrab. “When the time comes, I will take youacross 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.
A Voyage to Arcturus Page 14
