A Voyage to Arcturus

by David Lindsay

  Chapter 16. LEEHALLFAE

  At midnight, when Teargeld was in the south, throwing his shadowstraight 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 thirtyfeet out of the water, upright, and alive, and its roots must have beenenormously deep and wide. It was drifting along the coast, through theheavy seas. Maskull eyed it incuriously for a few minutes. Then itdawned on him that it might be a good thing to investigate its nature.Without stopping to weigh the danger, he immediately swam out, caughthold 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 hisway toward this knob, through the multitude of boughs, which werecovered with tough, slippery, marine leaves, like seaweed. Arriving atthe crown, he found that it actually was a sort of head, for there weremembranes like rudimentary eyes all the way around it, denoting someform 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 treesheered 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 thoughta bit, and then started experimenting with the eyelike membranes. It wasas 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 itmight be possible to navigate this huge plant-animal as far asMatterplay. He lost no time in putting the conception into execution.Tearing off some of the long, tough leaves, he bound up all themembranes except the ones that faced the north. The tree instantly leftthe island, and definitely put out to sea. It travelled due north. Itwas not moving at more than a mile an hour, however, while Matterplaywas possibly forty miles distant.

  The great spout waves fell against the trunk with mighty thuds; thebreaking seas hissed through the lower branches—Maskull rested high anddry, but was more than a little apprehensive about their slow rate ofprogress. Presently he sighted a current racing along toward the north-west, and that put another idea into his head. He began to juggle withthe membranes again, and before long had succeeded in piloting his treeinto the fast-running stream. As soon as they were fairly in its rapids,he blinded the crown entirely, and thenceforward the current acted inthe double capacity of road and steed.

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

  When his eyes opened again, the island was out of sight. Teargeld wassetting in the western sea. The sky in the east was bright with thecolours of the approaching day. The air was cool and fresh; the lightover the sea was beautiful, gleaming, and mysterious. Land—probablyMatterplay—lay ahead, a long, dark line of low cliffs, perhaps a mileaway. The current no longer ran toward the shore, but began to skirt thecoast without drawing any closer to it. As soon as Maskull realised thefact, he manoeuvred the tree out of its channel and started drifting itinshore. The eastern sky blazed up suddenly with violent dyes, and theouter rim of Branchspell lifted itself above the sea. The moon hadalready sunk.

  The shore loomed nearer and nearer. In physical character it was likeSwaylone’s Island—the same wide sands, small cliffs, and rounded,insignificant hills inland, without vegetation. In the early-morningsunlight, however, it looked romantic. Maskull, hollow-eyed and morose,cared nothing for all that, but the moment the tree grounded, clamberedswiftly down through the branches and dropped into the sea. By the timehe had swam ashore, the white, stupendous sun was high above thehorizon.

  He walked along the sands toward the east for a considerable distance,without having any special intention in his mind. He thought he would goon until he came to some creek or valley, and then turn up it. The sun’srays were cheering, and began to relieve him of his oppressive nightweight. After strolling along the beach for about a mile, he was stoppedby a broad stream that flowed into the sea out of a kind of naturalgateway in the line of cliffs. Its water was of a beautiful, limpidgreen, all filled with bubbles. So ice-cold, aerated, and enticing didit look that he flung himself face downward on the ground and took aprolonged draught. When he got up again his eyes started to playpranks—they became alternately blurred and clear.... It may have beenpure imagination, but he fancied that Digrung was moving inside him.

  He followed the bank of the stream through the gap in the cliffs, andthen for the first time saw the real Matterplay. A valley appeared, likea jewel enveloped by naked rock. All the hill country was bare andlifeless, but this valley lying in the heart of it was extremelyfertile; 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 thevalley was about half a mile wide; the stream that ran down its middlewas nearly a hundred feet across, but was exceedingly shallow—in mostplaces not more than a few inches deep. The sides of the valley wereabout seventy feet high, but very sloping; they were clothed from top tobottom with little, bright-leaved trees—not of varied tints of onecolour, like Earth trees, but of widely diverse colours, most of whichwere 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; thecolours of leaf, flower, sexual organs, and stem were equallypeculiar—all the different combinations of the five primary colours ofTormance seemed to be represented, and the result, for Maskull was asort of eye chaos. So rank was the vegetation that he could not fighthis way through it; he was obliged to take to the riverbed. The contactof the water created an odd tingling sensation throughout his body, likea mild electric shock. There were no birds, but a few extraordinary-looking winged reptiles of small size kept crossing the valley from hillto hill. Swarms of flying insects clustered around him, threateningmischief, but in the end it turned out that his blood was disagreeableto them, for he was not bitten once. Repulsive crawling creaturesresembling centipedes, scorpions, snakes, and so forth were in myriadson the banks of the stream, but they also made no attempt to use theirweapons on his bare legs and feet, as he passed through them into thewater.... Presently however, he was confronted in midstream by a hideousmonster, of the size of a pony, but resembling in shape—if it resembledanything—a sea crustacean; and then he came to a halt. They stared atone another, the beast with wicked eyes, Maskull with cool and waryones. While he was staring, a singular thing happened to him.

  His eyes blurred again. But when in a minute or two this blurring passedaway and he saw clearly once more, his vision had changed in character.He was looking right through the animal’s body and could distinguish allits interior parts. The outer crust, however, and all the hard tissueswere misty and semi-transparent; through them a luminous network ofblood-red veins and arteries stood out in startling distinctness. Thehard parts faded away to nothingness, and the blood system alone wasleft. Not even the fleshy ducts remained. The naked blood alone wasvisible, flowing this way and that like a fiery, liquid skeleton, in theshape of the monster. Then this blood began to change too. Instead of acontinuous liquid stream, Maskull perceived that it was composed of amillion individual points. The red colour had been an illusion caused bythe rapid motion of the points; he now saw clearly that they resembledminute suns in their scintillating brightness. They seemed like a doubledrift of stars, streaming through space. One drift was travelling towarda fixed point in the centre, while the other was moving away from it. Herecognised the former as the veins of the beast, the latter as thearteries, and the fixed point as the heart.

  While he was still looking, lost in amazement, the starry network wentout suddenly like an extinguished flame. Where the crustacean had stood,there was nothing. Yet through this “nothing” he could not see thelandscape. Something was standing there
that intercepted the light,though it possessed neither shape, colour, nor substance. And now theobject, which could no longer be perceived by vision, began to be feltby emotion. A delightful, springlike sense of rising sap, of quickeningpulses of love, adventure, mystery, beauty, femininity—took possessionof his being, and, strangely enough, he identified it with the monster.Why that invisible brute should cause him to feel young, sexual, andaudacious, he did not ask himself, for he was fully occupied with theeffect. But it was as if flesh, bones, and blood had been discarded, andhe were face to face with naked Life itself, which slowly passed intohis own body.

  The sensations died away. There was a brief interval, and then thestreaming, starlike skeleton rose up again out of space. It changed tothe red-blood system. The hard parts of the body reappeared, with moreand more distinctness, and at the same time the network of blood grewfainter. Presently the interior parts were entirely concealed by thecrust—the creature stood opposite Maskull in its old formidableugliness, hard, painted, and concrete.

  Disliking something about him, the crustacean turned aside and stumbledawkwardly 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 andthoughtful. He imagined that he was beginning to see things throughDigrung’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 narrowedconsiderably, and the wooded slopes on either side grew steeper andhigher. The stream shrunk to about twenty feet across, but it wasdeeper—it was alive with motion, music, and bubbles. The electricsensations caused by its water became more pronounced, almostdisagreeably so; but there was nowhere else to walk. With its deafeningconfusion of sounds from the multitude of living creatures, the littlevalley resembled a vast conversation hall of Nature. The life was stillmore prolific than before; every square foot of space was a tangle ofstruggling wills, both animal and vegetable. For a naturalist it wouldhave been paradise, for no two shapes were alike, and all werefantastic, with individual character.

  It looked as if life forms were being coined so fast by Nature thatthere was not physical room for all. Nevertheless it was not as onEarth, where a hundred seeds are scattered in order that one may besown. Here the young forms seemed to survive, while, to findaccommodation for them, the old ones perished; everywhere he looked theywere withering and dying, without any ostensible cause—they were simplybeing killed by new life.

  Other creatures sported so wildly, in front of his very eyes, that theybecame of different “kingdoms” altogether. For example, a fruit waslying on the ground, of the size and shape of a lemon, but with atougher skin. He picked it up, intending to eat the contained pulp; butinside it was a fully formed young tree, just on the point of burstingits 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 itwas swimming against the current. He fished it out and discovered thatit had sprouted six rudimentary legs.

  Maskull sang no paeans of praise in honour of the gloriously overcrowdedvalley. On the contrary, he felt deeply cynical and depressed. Hethought 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 notworth much. How this sordid struggle for an hour or two of physicalexistence could ever be regarded as a deeply earnest and importantbusiness was beyond his comprehension The atmosphere choked him, helonged for air and space. Thrusting his way through to the side of theravine, he began to climb the overhanging cliff, swinging his way upfrom tree to tree.

  When he arrived at the top, Branchspell beat down on him with suchbrutal, white intensity that he saw that there was no staying there. Helooked around, to ascertain what part of the country he had come to. Hehad travelled about ten miles from the sea, as the crow flies. The bare,undulating wolds sloped straight down toward it; the water glittered inthe distance; and on the horizon he was just able to make out Swaylone’sIsland. Looking north, the land continued sloping upward as far as hecould see. Over the crest—that is to say, some miles away—a line ofblack, fantastic-shaped rocks of quite another character showedthemselves; this was probably Threal. Behind these again, against thesky, perhaps fifty or even a hundred miles off, were the peaks ofLichstorm, most of them covered with greenish snow that glittered in thesunlight.

  They were stupendously high and of weird contours. Most of them wereconical to the top, but from the top, great masses of mountain balancedthemselves at what looked like impossible angles—overhanging withoutapparent 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 getthere before sunset. It was less the mountains themselves that attractedhim than the country which lay beyond—the prospect of setting eyes onthe 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, anddecided to keep to that for the time being, much as he hated and fearedit. Into the hotbed of life, therefore, he once more swung himself.

  Once down, he continued to follow the windings of the valley for severalmiles through sunlight and shadow. The path became increasinglydifficult. The cliffs closed in on either side until they were less thana hundred yards apart, while the bed of the ravine was blocked byboulders, great and small, so that the little stream, which was nowdiminished to the proportions of a brook, had to come down where and howit could. The forms of life grew stranger. Pure plants and pure animalsdisappeared by degrees, and their place was filled by singular creaturesthat seemed to partake of both characters. They had limbs, faces, will,and intelligence, but they remained for the greater part of their timerooted 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 cameinto existence.

  Then he witnessed an astonishing sight. A large and fully developedplant-animal appeared suddenly in front of him, out of empty space. Hecould not believe his eyes, but stared at the creature for a long timein amazement. It went on calmly moving and burrowing before him, asthought it had been there all its life. Giving up the puzzle, Maskullresumed his striding from rock to rock up the gorge, and then, quietlyand without warning, the same phenomenon occurred again. No longer couldhe doubt that he was seeing miracles—that Nature was precipitating itsshapes 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 upfrom 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 itsquality. He felt new life entering his body, from his feet upward; itresembled a slowly moving cordial, rather than mere heat. The sensationwas 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 friendnor foe but simply because it happened to be the direct road to itsobjective elsewhere. But, although it had no hostile intentions, it waslikely to prove a rough traveller—he was clearly conscious that itspassage through his body threatened to bring about some physicaltransformation, unless he could do something to prevent it. Leapingquickly out of the water, he leaned against a rock, tightened hismuscles, and braced himself against the impending change. At that verymoment the blurring again attacked his sight, and, while he was guardingagainst that, his forehead sprouted out into a galaxy of new eyes. Heput his hand up and counted six, in addition to his old ones.

  The danger was past and Maskull laughed, congratulating himself onhaving got off so easily. Then he wondered what
the new organs werefor—whether they were a good or a bad thing. He had not taken a dozensteps up the ravine before he found out. Just as he was in the act ofjumping down from the top of a boulder, his vision altered and he cameto 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 sawdifferently. All the details of the valley were visible, but the lightseemed turned down, and everything appeared faint, hard, and uncoloured.The sun was obscured by masses of cloud which filled the whole sky. Thisvapour was in violent and almost living motion. It was thick inextension, but thin in texture; some parts, however, were far denserthan others, as the particles were crushed together or swept apart bythe motion. The green sparks from the brook, when closely watched, couldbe 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 theclouds concentrated around it whichever way it darted, trying to createso dense a prison that further movement would be impossible. As far asMaskull could detect, most of the sparks succeeded eventually in findingtheir way out after frantic efforts; but one that he was looking at wascaught, and what happened was this. A complete ring of cloud surroundedit, and, in spite of its furious leaps and flashes in all directions—asif it were a live, savage creature caught in a net—nowhere could it findan opening, but it dragged the enveloping cloud stuff with it, whereverit went. The vapours continued to thicken around it, until theyresembled the black, heavy, compressed sky masses seen before a badthunderstorm. Then the green spark, which was still visible in theinterior, ceased its efforts, and remained for a time quite quiescent.The cloud shape went on consolidating itself, and became nearlyspherical; as it grew heavier and stiller, it started slowly to descendtoward the valley floor. When it was directly opposite Maskull, with itslower end only a few feet off the ground, its motion stopped altogetherand there was a complete pause for at least two minutes. Suddenly, likea stab of forked lightning, the great cloud shot together, became small,indented, and coloured, and as a plant-animal started walking around onlegs and rooting up the ground in search of food. The concluding stageof the phenomenon he witnessed with his normal eyesight. It showed himthe creature’s appearing miraculously out of nowhere.

  Maskull was shaken. His cynicism dropped from him and gave place tocuriosity and awe. “That was exactly like the birth of a thought,” hesaid to himself, “but who was the thinker? Some great Living Mind is atwork in this spot. He has intelligence, for all his shapes aredifferent, and he has character, for all belong to the same generaltype.... If I’m not wrong, and if it’s the force called Shaping orCrystalman, I’ve seen enough to make me want to find out something moreabout him.... It would be ridiculous to go on to other riddles before Ihave solved these.”

  A voice called out to him from behind, and, turning around, he saw ahuman figure hastening toward him from some distance down the ravine. Itlooked more like a man than a woman. He was rather tall, but nimble, andwas clothed in a dark, frocklike garment that reached from the neck tobelow the knees. Around his head was rolled a turban. Maskull waited forhim, and when he was nearer went a little way to meet him.

  Then he experienced another surprise, for this person, although clearlya human being, was neither man nor woman, nor anything between the two,but was unmistakably of a third positive sex, which was remarkable tobehold and difficult to understand. In order to translate into words thesexual impression produced in Maskull’s mind by the stranger’s physicalaspect, it is necessary to coin a new pronoun, for none in earthly usewould be applicable. Instead of “he,” “she,” or “it,” therefore “ae”will be used.

  He found himself incapable of grasping at first why the bodilypeculiarities of this being should strike him as springing from sex, andnot from race, and yet there was no doubt about the fact itself. Body,face, and eyes were absolutely neither male nor female, but somethingquite different. Just as one can distinguish a man from a woman at thefirst glance by some indefinable difference of expression andatmospheres altogether apart from the contour of the figure, so thestranger was separated in appearance from both. As with men and women,the whole person expressed a latent sensuality, which gave body and facealike their peculiar character.... Maskull decided that it was love—butwhat love—love for whom? It was neither the shame-carrying passion of amale, nor the deep-rooted instinct of a female to obey her destiny. Itwas as real and irresistible as these, but quite different.

  As he continued staring into those strange, archaic eyes, he had anintuitive feeling that aer lover was no other than Shaping himself. Itcame to him that the design of this love was not the continuance of therace but the immortality on earth of the individual. No children wereproduced by the act; the lover aerself was the eternal child. Further,ae sought like a man, but received like a woman. All these things weredimly and confusedly expressed by this extraordinary being, who seemedto have dropped out of another age, when creation was different.

  Of all the weird personalities Maskull had so far met in Tormance, thisone struck him as infinitely the most foreign—that is, the farthestremoved from him in spiritual structure. If they were to live togetherfor a hundred years, they could never be companions.

  Maskull pulled himself out of his trancelike meditations and, viewingthe newcomer in greater detail, tried with his understanding to accountfor the marvellous things told him by his intuitions. Ae possessed broadshoulders and big bones, and was without female breasts, and so far aeresembled a man. But the bones were so flat and angular that aer fleshpresented something of the character of a crystal, having plane surfacesin place of curves. The body looked as if it had not been ground down bythe sea of ages into smooth and rounded regularity but had sprungtogether in angles and facets as the result of a single, sudden idea.The face too was broken and irregular. With his racial prejudices,Maskull found little beauty in it, yet beauty there was, though neitherof a masculine nor of a feminine type, for it had the three essentialsof beauty: character, intelligence, and repose. The skin was copper-coloured and strangely luminous, as if lighted from within. The face wasbeardless, but the hair of the head was as long as a woman’s, and,dressed in a single plait, fell down behind as far as the ankles. Aepossessed only two eyes. That part of the turban which went across theforehead protruded so far in front that it evidently concealed someorgan.

  Maskull found it impossible to compute aer age. The frame appearedactive, vigorous, and healthy, the skin was clear and glowing; the eyeswere powerful and alert—ae might well be in early youth. Nevertheless,the longer Maskull gazed, the more an impression of unbelievableancientness came upon him—aer real youth seemed as far away as the viewobserved through a reversed telescope.

  At last he addressed the stranger, though it was just as if he wereconversing with a dream. “To what sex do you belong?” he asked.

  The voice in which the reply came was neither manly nor womanly, but wasoddly suggestive of a mystical forest horn, heard from a great distance.

  “Nowadays there are men and women, but in the olden times the world waspeopled by ‘phaens.’ I think I am the only survivor of all those beingswho were then passing through Faceny’s mind.”

  “Faceny?”

  “Who is now miscalled Shaping or Crystalman. The superficial namesinvented by a race of superficial creatures.”

  “What’s your own name?”

  “Leehallfae.”

  “What?”

  “Leehallfae. And yours is Maskull. I read in your mind that you havejust come through some wonderful adventures. You seem to possessextraordinary luck. If it lasts long enough, perhaps I can make use ofit.”

  “Do you think that my luck exists for your benefit?... But never mindthat now. It is your _sex_ that interests me. How do you satisfy yourdesires?”

  Leehallfae pointed to the concealed organ on her brow. “With that Igather life fro
m the streams that flow in all the hundred Matterplayvalleys. The streams spring direct from Faceny. My whole life has beenspent trying to find Faceny himself. I’ve hunted so long that if I wereto state the number of years you would believe I lied.”

  Maskull looked at the phaen slowly. “In Ifdawn I met someone else fromMatterplay—a young man called Digrung. I absorbed him.”

  “You can’t be telling me this out of vanity.”

  “It was a fearful crime. What will come of it?”

  Leehallfae gave a curious, wrinkled smile. “In Matterplay he will stirinside you, for he smells the air. Already you have his eyes.... I knewhim.... Take care of yourself, or something more startling may happen.Keep out of the water.”

  “This seems to me a terrible valley, in which anything may happen.”

  “Don’t torment yourself about Digrung. The valleys belong by right tothe phaens—the men here are interlopers. It is a good work to removethem.”

  Maskull continued thoughtful. “I say no more, but I see I will have tobe cautious. What did you mean about my helping you with my luck?”

  “Your luck is fast weakening, but it may still be strong enough to serveme. Together we will search for Threal.”

  “Search for Threal—why, is it so hard to find?”

  “I have told you that my whole life has been spent in the quest.”

  “You said Faceny, Leehallfae.”

  The phaen gazed at him with queer, ancient eyes, and smiled again. “Thisstream, Maskull, like every other life stream in Matterplay, has itssource in Faceny. But as all these streams issue out from Threal, it isin Threal that we must look for Faceny.”

  “But what’s to prevent your finding Threal? Surely it’s a well-knowncountry?”

  “It lies underground. Its communications with the upper world are few,and where they are, no one that I have ever spoken to knows. I havescoured the valleys and the hills. I have been to the very gates ofLichstorm. I am old, so that your aged men would appear newborn infantsbeside me, but I am as far from Threal as when I was a green youth,dwelling among a throng of fellow phaens.”

  “Then, if my luck is good, yours is very bad.... But when you have foundFaceny, what do you gain?”

  Leehallfae looked at him in silence. The smile faded from aer face, andits place was taken by such a look of unearthly pain and sorrow thatMaskull had no need to press his question. Ae was consumed by the griefand yearning of a lover eternally separated from the loved one, thescents and traces of whose person were always present. This passionstamped aer features at that moment with a wild, stern, spiritualbeauty, far transcending any beauty of woman or man.

  But the expression vanished suddenly, and then the abrupt contrastshowed Maskull the real Leehallfae. Aer sensuality was solitary, butvulgar—it was like the heroism of a lonely nature, pursuing animal aimswith untiring persistence.

  He looked at the phaen askance, and drummed his fingers against histhigh. “Well, we will go together. We may find something, and in anycase I shan’t be sorry to converse with such a singular individual asyourself.”

  “But I should warn you, Maskull. You and I are of different creations. Aphaen’s body contains the whole of life, a man’s body contains only thehalf of life—the other half is in woman. Faceny may be too strong adraught for your body to endure.... Do you not feel this?”

  “I am dull with my different feelings. I must take what precautions Ican, and chance the rest.” He bent down, and, taking hold of the phaen’sthin and ragged robe, tore off a broad strip, which he proceeded toswathe in folds around his forehead. “I’m not forgetting your advice,Leehallfae. I would not like to start the walk as Maskull and finish itas Digrung.”

  The phaen gave a twisted grin, and they began to move upstream. The roadwas difficult. They had to stride from boulder to boulder, and found itwarm work. Occasionally a worse obstacle presented itself, which theycould surmount only by climbing. There was no more conversation for along time. Maskull, as far as possible, adopted his companion’s counselto avoid the water, but here and there he was forced to set foot in it.The second or third time he did so, he felt a sudden agony in his arm,where it had been wounded by Krag. His eyes grew joyful; his fearsvanished; and he began deliberately to tread the stream.

  Leehallfae stroked aer chin and watched him with screwed-up eyes, tryingto comprehend what had happened. “Is your luck speaking to you, Maskull,or what is the matter?”

  “Listen. You are a being of antique experience, and ought to know, ifanyone does. What is Muspel?”

  The phaen’s face was blank. “I don’t know the name.”

  “It is another world of some sort.”

  “That cannot be. There is only this one world—Faceny’s.”

  Maskull came up to aer, linked arms, and began to talk. “I’m glad I fellin with you, Leehallfae, for this valley and everything connected withit need a lot of explaining. For example, in this spot there are hardlyany organic forms left—why have they all disappeared? You call thisbrook a ‘life stream,’ yet the nearer its source we get, the less lifeit produces. A mile or two lower down we had those spontaneous plant-animals appearing out of nowhere, while right down by the sea, plantsand animals were tumbling over one another. Now, if all this isconnected in some mysterious way or other with your Faceny, it seems tome he must have a most paradoxical nature. His essence doesn’t startcreating shapes until it has become thoroughly weakened and watered....But perhaps both of us are talking nonsense.”

  Leehallfae shook aer head. “Everything hangs together. The stream islife, and it is throwing off sparks of life all the time. When thesesparks are caught and imprisoned by matter, they become living shapes.The nearer the stream is to its source, the more terrible and vigorousis its life. You’ll see for yourself when we reach the head of thevalley that there are no living shapes there at all. That means thatthere is no kind of matter tough enough to capture and hold the terriblesparks that are to be found there. Lower down the stream, most of thesparks are vigorous enough to escape to the upper air, but some are heldwhen they are a little way up, and these burst suddenly into shapes. Imyself am of this nature. Lower down still, toward the sea, the streamhas lost a great part of its vital power and the sparks are lazy andsluggish. They spread out, rather than rise into the air. There ishardly any kind of matter, however delicate, that is incapable ofcapturing these feeble sparks, and they are captured in multitudes—thataccounts for the innumerable living shapes you see there. But not onlythat—the sparks are passed from one body to another by way ofgeneration, and can never hope to cease being so until they are worn outby decay. Lowest of all, you have the Sinking Sea itself. There thedegenerate and enfeebled life of the Matterplay streams has for its bodythe whole sea. So weak is it’s power that it can’t succeed in creatingany shapes at all but you can see its ceaseless, futile attempts to doso, in those spouts.”

  “So the slow development of men and women is due to the feebleness ofthe life germ in their case?”

  “Exactly. It can’t attain all its desires at once. And now you can seehow immeasurably superior are the phaens, who spring spontaneously fromthe more electric and vigorous sparks.”

  “But where does the matter come from that imprisons these sparks?”

  “When life dies, it becomes matter. Matter itself dies, but its place isconstantly taken by new matter.”

  “But if life comes from Faceny, how can it die at all?”

  “Life is the thoughts of Faceny, and once these thoughts have left hisbrain they are nothing—mere dying embers.”

  “This is a cheerless philosophy,” said Maskull. “But who is Facenyhimself, then, and why does he think at all?”

  Leehallfae gave another wrinkled smile. “That I’ll explain too. Facenyis of this nature. He faces Nothingness in all directions. He has noback and no sides, but is all face; and this face is his shape. It mustnecessarily be so, for nothing else can exist between him andNothingness. His face is all eyes, for he eternally contemplatesNothi
ngness. He draws his inspirations from it; in no other way could hefeel himself. For the same reason, phaens and even men love to be inempty places and vast solitudes, for each one is a little Faceny.”

  “That rings true,” said Maskull.

  “Thoughts flow perpetually from Faceny’s face backward. Since his faceis on all sides, however, they flow into his interior. A draught ofthought thus continuously flows from Nothingness to the inside ofFaceny, which is the world. The thoughts become shapes, and people theworld. This outer world, therefore, which is lying all around us, is notoutside at all, as it happens, but inside. The visible universe is likea gigantic stomach, and the real outside of the world we shall neversee.”

  Maskull pondered deeply for a while.

  “Leehallfae, I fail to see what you personally have to hope for, sinceyou are nothing more than a discarded, dying thought.”

  “Have you never loved a woman?” asked the phaen, regarding him fixedly.

  “Perhaps I have.”

  “When you loved, did you have no high moments?”

  “That’s asking the same question in other words.”

  “In those moments you were approaching Faceny. If you could have drawnnearer still, would you not have done so?”

  “I would, regardless of the consequences.”

  “Even if you personally had nothing to hope for?”

  “But I would have that to hope for.”

  Leehallfae walked on in silence.

  “A man is the half of Life,” ae broke out suddenly. “A woman is theother half of life, but a phaen is the whole of life. Moreover, whenlife becomes split into halves, something else has dropped out ofit—something that belongs only to the whole. Between your love and minethere is no comparison. If even your sluggish blood is drawn to Faceny,without stopping to ask what will come of it, how do you suppose it iswith me?”

  “I don’t question the genuineness of your passion,” replied Maskull,“but it’s a pity you can’t see your way to carry it forward into thenext world.”

  Leehallfae gave a distorted grin, expressing heaven knows what emotion.“Men think what they like, but phaens are so made that they can see theworld only as it really is.”

  That ended the conversation.

  The sun was high in the sky, and they appeared to be approaching thehead of the ravine. Its walls had still further closed in and, except atthose moments when Branchspell was directly behind them, they strodealong all the time in deep shade; but still it was disagreeably hot andrelaxing. All life had ceased. A beautiful, fantastic spectacle waspresented by the cliff faces, the rocky ground, and the boulders thatchoked the entire width of the gorge. They were of a snow-whitecrystalline limestone, heavily scored by veins of bright, gleaming blue.The rivulet was no longer green, but a clear, transparent crystal. Itsnoise was musical, and altogether it looked most romantic and charming,but Leehallfae seemed to find something else in it—aer features grewmore and more set and tortured.

  About half an hour after all the other life forms had vanished, anotherplant-animal was precipitated out of space, in front of their eyes. Itwas as tall as Maskull himself, and had a brilliant and vigorousappearance, as befitted a creature just out of Nature’s mint. It startedto walk about; but hardly had it done so when it burst silently asunder.Nothing remained of it—the whole body disappeared instantaneously intothe same invisible mist from which it had sprung.

  “That bears out what you said,” commented Maskull, turning rather pale.

  “Yes,” answered Leehallfae, “we have now come to the region of terriblelife.”

  “Then, since you’re right in this, I must believe all that you’ve beentelling me.”

  As he uttered the words, they were just turning a bend of the ravine.There now loomed up straight ahead a perpendicular cliff about threehundred feet in height, composed of white, marbled rock. It was the headof the valley, and beyond it they could not proceed.

  “In return for my wisdom,” said the phaen, “you will now lend me yourluck.”

  They walked up to the base of the cliff, and Maskull looked at itreflectively. It was possible to climb it, but the ascent would bedifficult. The now tiny brook issued from a hole in the rock only a fewfeet up. Apart from its musical running, not a sound was to be heard.The floor of the gorge was in shadow, but about halfway up the precipicethe sun was shining.

  “What do you want me to do?” demanded Maskull. “Everything is now inyour hands, and I have no suggestions to make. Now it’s your luck thatmust help us.”

  Maskull continued gazing up a little while longer. “We had better waittill the afternoon, Leehallfae. I’ll probably have to climb to the top,but it’s too hot at present—and besides, I’m tired. I’ll snatch a fewhours’ sleep. After that, we’ll see.”

  Leehallfae seemed annoyed, but raised no opposition.