Voyage to Arcturus

by David Lindsay

  She looked at him with a more serious expression than before, as if strange depths had opened up before her eyes.

  "What is your name?"

  "Maskull."

  "Where have you come from, with this awful blood?"

  "From a world called Earth… The blood is clearly unsuitable for this world, Joiwind, but after all, that was only to be expected. I am sorry I let you have your way."

  "Oh, don't say that! There was nothing else to be done. We must all help one another. Yet, somehow - forgive me - I feel polluted."

  "And well you may, for it's a fearful thing for a girl to accept in her own veins the blood of a strange man from a strange planet. If I had not been so dazed and weak I would never have allowed it."

  "But I would have insisted. Are we not all brothers and sisters? Why did you come here, Maskull?"

  He was conscious of a slight degree of embarrassment. "Will you think it foolish if I say I hardly know? - I came with those two men. Perhaps I was attracted by curiosity, or perhaps it was the love of adventure."

  "Perhaps," said Joiwind. "I wonder… These friends of yours must be terrible men. Why did they come?"

  "That I can tell you. They came to follow Surtur."

  Her face grew troubled. "I don't understand it. One of them at least must be a bad man, and yet if he is following Surtur - or Shaping, as he is called here - he can't be really bad."

  "What do you know of Surtur?" asked Maskull in astonishment.

  Joiwind remained silent for a time, studying his face. His brain moved restlessly, as though it were being probed from outside. "I see… and yet I don't see," she said at last. "It is very difficult… Your God is a dreadful Being - bodyless, unfriendly, invisible. Here we don't worship a God like that. Tell me, has any man set eyes on your God?"

  "What does all this mean, Joiwind? Why speak of God?"

  "I want to know."

  "In ancient times, when the earth was young and grand, a few holy men are reputed to have walked and spoken with God, but those days are past."

  "Our world is still young," said Joiwind. "Shaping goes among us and converses with us. He is real and active - a friend and lover. Shaping made us, and he loves his work."

  "Have you met him?" demanded Maskull, hardly believing his ears.

  "No. I have done nothing to deserve it yet. Some day I may have an opportunity to sacrifice myself, and then I may be rewarded by meeting and talking with Shaping."

  "I have certainly come to another world. But why do you say he is the same as Surtur?"

  "Yes, he is the same. We women call him Shaping, and so do most men, but a few name him Surtur."

  Maskull bit his nail. "Have you ever heard of Crystalman?"

  "That is Shaping once again. You see, he has many names - which shows how much he occupies our minds. Crystalman is a name of affection."

  "It's odd," said Maskull. "I came here with quite different ideas about Crystalman."

  Joiwind shook her hair. "In that grove of trees over there stands a desert shrine of his. Let us go and pray there, and then we'll go on our way to Poolingdred. That is my home. It's a long way off, and we must get there before Blodsombre."

  "Now, what is Blodsombre?"

  "For about four hours in the middle of the day Branchspell's rays are so hot that no one can endure them. We call it Blodsombre."

  "Is Branchspell another name for Arcturus?"

  Joiwind threw off her seriousness and laughed. "Naturally we don't take our names from you, Maskull. I don't think our names are very poetic, but they follow nature."

  She took his arm affectionately, and directed their walk towards the tree-covered hills. As they went along, the sun broke through the upper mists and a terrible gust of scorching heat, like a blast from a furnace, struck Maskull's head. He involuntarily looked up, but lowered his eyes again like lightning. All that he saw in that instant was a glaring ball of electric white, three times the apparent diameter of the sun. For a few minutes he was quite blind.

  "My God!" he exclaimed. "If it's like this in early morning you must be right enough about Blodsombre." When he had somewhat recovered himself he asked, "How long are the days here, Joiwind?"

  Again he felt his brain being probed.

  "At this time of the year, for every hour's daylight that you have in summer, we have two."

  "The heat is terrific - and yet somehow I don't feel so distressed by it as I would have expected."

  "I feel it more than usual. It's not difficult to account for it;

  you have some of my blood, and I have some of yours."

  "Yes, every time I realise that, I - Tell me, Joiwind, will my blood alter, if I stay here long enough? - I mean, will it lose its redness and thickness, and become pure and thin and light-coloured, like yours?"

  "Why not? If you live as we live, you will assuredly grow like us."

  "Do you mean food and drink?"

  "We eat no food, and drink only water."

  "And on that you manage to sustain life?"

  "Well, Maskull, our water is good water," replied Joiwind, smiling.

  As soon as he could see again he stared around at the landscape. The enormous scarlet desert extended everywhere to the horizon, excepting where it was broken by the oasis. It was roofed by a cloudless, deep blue, almost violet, sky. The circle of the horizon was far larger than on earth. On the skyline, at right angles to the direction in which they were walking, appeared a chain of mountains, apparently about forty miles distant. One, which was higher than the rest, was shaped like a cup. Maskull would have felt inclined to believe he was travelling in dreamland, but for the intensity of the light, which made everything vividly real.

  Joiwind pointed to the cup-shaped mountain. "That's Poolingdred."

  "You didn't come from there!" he exclaimed, quite startled.

  "Yes, I did indeed. And that is where we have to go to now."

  "With the single object of finding me?"

  "Why, yes."

  The colour mounted to his face. "Then you are the bravest and noblest of all girls," he said quietly, after a pause. "Without exception. Why, this is a journey for an athlete!"

  She pressed his arm, while a score of unpaintable, delicate hues stained her cheeks in rapid transition. "Please don't say any more about it, Maskull. It makes me feel unpleasant."

  "Very well. But can we possibly get there before midday?"

  "Oh, yes. And you mustn't be frightened at the distance. We think nothing of long distances here - we have so much to think about and feel. Time goes all too quickly."

  During their conversation they had drawn near the base of the hills, which sloped gently, and were not above fifty feet in height. Maskull now began to see strange specimens of vegetable life. What looked like a small patch of purple grass, above five feet square, was moving across the sand in their direction. When it came near enough he perceived that it was not grass; there were no blades, but only purple roots. The roots were revolving, for each small plant in the whole patch, like the spokes of a rimless wheel. They were alternately plunged in the sand, and withdrawn from it, and by this means the plant proceeded forward. Some uncanny, semi-intelligent instinct was keeping all the plants together, moving at one pace, in one direction, like a flock of migrating birds in flight.

  Another remarkable plant was a large, feathery ball, resembling a dandelion fruit, which they encountered sailing through the air. Joiwind caught it with an exceedingly graceful movement of her arm, and showed it to Maskull. It had roots and presumably lived in the air and fed on the chemical constituents of the atmosphere. But what was peculiar about it was its colour. It was an entirely new colour - not a new shade or combination, but a new primary colour, as vivid as blue, red, or yellow, but quite different. When he inquired, she told him that it was known as "ulfire." Presently he met with a second new colour. This she designated "jale." The sense impressions caused in Maskull by these two additional primary colors can only be vaguely hinted at by analogy. Just
as blue is delicate and mysterious, yellow clear and unsubtle, and red sanguine and passionate, so he felt ulfire to be wild and painful, and jale dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous.

  The hills were composed of a rich, dark mould. Small trees, of weird shapes, all differing from each other, but all purple-coloured, covered the slopes and top. Maskull and Joiwind climbed up and through. Some hard fruit, bright blue in colour, of the size of a large apple, and shaped like an egg, was lying in profusion underneath the trees.

  "Is the fruit here poisonous, or why don't you eat it?" asked Maskull.

  She looked at him tranquilly. "We don't eat living things. The thought is horrible to us."

  "I have nothing to say against that, theoretically. But do you really sustain your bodies on water?"

  "Supposing you could find nothing else to live on, Maskull - would you eat other men?"

  "I would not."

  "Neither will we eat plants and animals, which are our fellow creatures. So nothing is left to us but water, and as one can really live on anything, water does very well."

  Maskull picked up one of the fruits and handled it curiously. As he did so another of his newly acquired sense organs came into action. He found that the fleshy knobs beneath his ears were in some novel fashion acquainting him with the inward properties of the fruit. He could not only see, feel, and smell it, but could detect its intrinsic nature. This nature was hard, persistent and melancholy.

  Joiwind answered the questions he had not asked.

  "Those organs are called 'poigns.' Their use is to enable us to understand and sympathise with all living creatures."

  "What advantage do you derive from that, Joiwind?"

  "The advantage of not being cruel and selfish, dear Maskull."

  He threw the fruit away and flushed again.

  Joiwind looked into his swarthy, bearded face without embarrassment and slowly smiled. "Have I said too much? Have I been too familiar? Do you know why you think so? It's because you are still impure. By and by you will listen to all language without shame."

  Before he realised what she was about to do, she threw her tentacle round his neck, like another arm. He offered no resistance to its cool pressure. The contact of her soft flesh with his own was so moist and sensitive that it resembled another kind of kiss. He saw who it was that embraced him - a pale, beautiful girl. Yet, oddly enough, he experienced neither voluptuousness nor sexual pride. The love expressed by the caress was rich, glowing, and personal, but there was not the least trace of sex in it - and so he received it.

  She removed her tentacle, placed her two arms on his shoulders and penetrated with her eyes right into his very soul.

  "Yes, I wish to be pure," he muttered. "Without that what can I ever be but a weak, squirming devil?"

  Joiwind released him. "This we call the 'magn,'" she said, indicating her tentacle. "By means of it what we love already we love more, and what we don't love at all we begin to love."

  "A godlike organ!"

  "It is the one we guard most jealously," said Joiwind.

  The shade of the trees afforded a timely screen from the now almost insufferable rays of Branchspell, which was climbing steadily upward to the zenith. On descending the other side of the little hills, Maskull looked anxiously for traces of Nightspore and Krag, but without result. After staring about him for a few minutes he shrugged his shoulders; but suspicions had already begun to gather in his mind.

  A small, natural amphitheatre lay at their feet, completely circled by the tree-clad heights. The centre was of red sand. In the very middle shot up a tall, stately tree, with a black trunk and branches, and transparent, crystal leaves. At the foot of this tree was a natural, circular well, containing dark green water.

  When they had reached the bottom, Joiwind took him straight over to the well.

  Maskull gazed at it intently. "Is this the shrine you talked about?"

  "Yes. It is called Shaping's Well. The man or woman who wishes to invoke Shaping must take up some of the gnawl water, and drink it."

  "Pray for me," said Maskull. "Your unspotted prayer will carry more weight."

  "What do you wish for?"

  "For purity," answered Maskull, in a troubled voice.

  Joiwind made a cup of her hand, and drank a little of the water. She held it up to Maskull's mouth. "You must drink too." He obeyed. She then stood erect, closed her eyes, and, in a voice like the soft murmurings of spring, prayed aloud.

  "Shaping, my father, I am hoping you can hear me. A strange man has come to us weighed down with heavy blood. He wishes to be pure. Let him know the meaning of love, let him live for others. Don't spare him pain, dear Shaping, but let him seek his own pain. Breathe into him a noble soul."

  Maskull listened with tears in his heart.

  As Joiwind finished speaking, a blurred mist came over his eyes, and, half buried in the scarlet sand, appeared a large circle of dazzlingly white pillars. For some minutes they flickered to and fro between distinctness and indistinctness, like an object being focused. Then they faded out of sight again.

  "Is that a sign from Shaping?" asked Maskull, in a low, awed tone.

  "Perhaps it is. It is a time mirage."

  "What can that be, Joiwind?"

  "You see, dear Maskull, the temple does not yet exist but it will do so, because it must. What you and I are now doing in simplicity, wise men will do hereafter in full knowledge."

  "It is right for man to pray," said Maskull. "Good and evil in the world don't originate from nothing. God and Devil must exist. And we should pray to the one, and fight the other."

  "Yes, we must fight Krag."

  "What name did you say?" asked Maskull in amazement.

  "Krag - the author of evil and misery - whom you call Devil."

  He immediately concealed his thoughts. To prevent Joiwind from learning his relationship to this being, he made his mind a blank.

  "Why do you hide your mind from me?" she demanded, looking at him strangely and changing colour.

  "In this bright, pure, radiant world, evil seems so remote, one can scarcely grasp its meaning." But he lied.

  Joiwind continued gazing at him, straight out of her clean soul.

  "The world is good and pure, but many men are corrupt. Panawe, my husband, has travelled, and he has told me things I would almost rather have not heard. One person he met believed the universe to be, from top to bottom, a conjurer's cave."

  "I should like to meet your husband."

  "Well, we are going home now."

  Maskull was on the point of inquiring whether she had any children, but was afraid of offending her, and checked himself.

  She read the mental question. "What need is there? Is not the whole world full of lovely children? Why should I want selfish possessions?"

  An extraordinary creature flew past, uttering a plaintive cry of five distinct notes. It was not a bird, but had a balloon-shaped body, paddled by five webbed feet. It disappeared among the trees.

  Joiwind pointed to it, as it went by. "I love that beast, grotesque as it is - perhaps all the more for its grotesqueness. But if I had children of my own, would I still love it? Which is best - to love two or three, or to love all?"

  "Every woman can't be like you, Joiwind, but it is good to have a few like you. Wouldn't it be as well," he went on, "since we've got to walk through that sun-baked wilderness, to make turbans for our heads out of some of those long leaves?"

  She smiled rather pathetically. "You will think me foolish, but every tearing off of a leaf would be a wound in my heart. We have only to throw our robes over our heads."

  "No doubt that will answer the same purpose, but tell me - weren't these very robes once part of a living creature?"

  "Oh, no - no, they are the webs of a certain animal, but they have never been in themselves alive."

  "You reduce life to extreme simplicity," remarked Maskull meditatively, "but it is very beautiful."

  Climbing back over the hills, they now without
further ceremony began their march across the desert.

  They walked side by side. Joiwind directed their course straight toward Poolingdred. From the position of the sun, Maskull judged their way to lie due north. The sand was soft and powdery, very tiring to his naked feet. The red glare dazed his eyes, and made him semi-blind. He was hot, parched, and tormented with the craving to drink; his undertone of pain emerged into full consciousness.

  "I see my friends nowhere, and it is very queer."

  "Yes, it is queer - if it is accidental," said Joiwind, with a peculiar intonation.

  "Exactly!" agreed Maskull. "If they had met with a mishap, their bodies would still be there. It begins to look like a piece of bad work to me. They must have gone on, and left me… Well, I am here, and I must make the best of it, I will trouble no more about them."

  "I don't wish to speak ill of anyone," said Joiwind, "but my instinct tells me that you are better away from those men. They did not come here for your sake, but for their own."

  They walked on for a long time. Maskull was beginning to feel faint. She twined her magn lovingly around his waist, and a strong current of confidence and well-being instantly coursed through his veins.

  "Thanks, Joiwind! But am I not weakening you?"

  "Yes," she replied, with a quick, thrilling glance. "But not much - and it gives me great happiness."

  Presently they met a fantastic little creature, the size of a new-born lamb, waltzing along on three legs. Each leg in turn moved to the front, and so the little monstrosity proceeded by means of a series of complete rotations. It was vividly coloured, as though it had been dipped into pots of bright blue and yellow paint. It looked up with small, shining eyes, as they passed.

  Joiwind nodded and smiled to it. "That's a personal friend of mine, Maskull. Whenever I come this way, I see it. It's always waltzing, and always in a hurry, but it never seems to get anywhere."

  "It seems to me that life is so self-sufficient here that there is no need for anyone to get anywhere. What I don't quite understand is how you manage to pass your days without ennui."