Voyage to Arcturus

by David Lindsay

He felt himself alone with Nature. A sacred stillness came over his heart. Past and future were forgotten. The forest, the sun, the day did not exist for him. He was unconscious of himself - he had no thoughts and no feelings. Yet never had Life had such an altitude for him.

  A man stood, with crossed arms, right in his path. He was so clothed that his limbs were exposed, while his body was covered. He was young rather than old. Maskull observed that his countenance possessed none of the special organs of Tormance, to which he had not even yet become reconciled. He was smooth-faced. His whole person seemed to radiate an excess of life, like the trembling of air on a hot day. His eyes had such force that Maskull could not meet them.

  He addressed Maskull by name, in an extraordinary voice. It had a double tone. The primary one sounded far away; the second was an undertone, like a sympathetic tanging string.

  Maskull felt a rising joy, as he continued standing in the presence of this individual. He believed that something good was happening to him. He found it physically difficult to bring any words out. "Why do you stop me?"

  "Maskull, look well at me. Who am I?"

  "I think you are Shaping."

  "I am Surtur."

  Maskull again attempted to meet his eyes, but felt as if he were being stabbed.

  "You know that this is my world. Why do you think I have brought you here? I wish you to serve me."

  Maskull could no longer speak.

  "Those who joke at my world," continued the vision, "those who make a mock of its stern, eternal rhythm, its beauty and sublimity, which are not skin-deep, but proceed from fathomless roots - they shall not escape."

  "I do not mock it."

  "Ask me your questions, and I will answer them."

  "I have nothing."

  "It is necessary for you to serve me, Maskull. Do you not understand? You are my servant and helper."

  "I shall not fail."

  "This is for my sake, and not for yours."

  These last words had no sooner left Surtur's mouth than Maskull saw him spring suddenly upward and outward. Looking up at the vault of the sky, he saw the whole expanse of vision filled by Surtur's form - not as a concrete man, but as a vast, concave cloud image, looking down and frowning at him. Then the spectacle vanished, as a light goes out.

  Maskull stood inactive, with a thumping heart. Now he again heard the solitary trumpet note. The sound began this time faintly in the far distance in front of him, travelled slowly toward him with regularly increasing intensity, passed overhead at its loudest, and then grew more and more quiet, wonderful, and solemn, as it fell away in the rear, until the note was merged in the deathlike silence of the forest. It appeared to Maskull like the closing of a marvellous and important chapter.

  Simultaneously with the fading away of the sound, the heavens seemed to open up with the rapidity of lightning into a blue vault of immeasurable height. He breathed a great breath, stretched all his limbs, and looked around him with a slow smile.

  After a while he resumed his journey. His brain was all dark and confused, but one idea was already beginning to stand out from the rest - huge, shapeless, and grand, like the growing image in the soul of a creative artist: the staggering thought that he was a man of destiny.

  The more he reflected upon all that had occurred since his arrival in this new world - and even before leaving Earth - the clearer and more indisputable it became, that he could not be here for his own purposes, but must be here for an end. But what that end was, he could not imagine.

  Through the forest he saw Branchspell at last sinking in the west. It looked a stupendous ball of red fire - now he could realise at his ease what a sun it was! The avenue took an abrupt turn to the left and began to descend steeply.

  A wide, rolling river of clear and dark water was visible in front of him, no great way off. It flowed from north to south. The forest path led him straight to its banks. Maskull stood there, and regarded the lapping, gurgling waters pensively. On the opposite bank, the forest continued. Miles to the south, Poolingdred could just be distinguished. On the northern skyline the Ifdawn Mountains loomed up - high, wild, beautiful, and dangerous. They were not a dozen miles away.

  Like the first mutterings of a thunderstorm, the first faint breaths of cool wind, Maskull felt the stirrings of passion in his heart. In spite of his bodily fatigue, he in wished to test his strength against something. This craving he identified with the crags of the Marest. They seemed to have the same magical attraction for his will as the lodestone for iron. He kept biting his nails, as he turned his eyes in that direction - wondering if it would not be possible to conquer the heights that evening. But when he glanced back again at Poolingdred, he remembered Joiwind and Panawe, and grew more tranquil. He decided to make his bed at this spot, and to set off as soon after daybreak as he should awake.

  He drank at the river, washed himself, and lay down on the bank to sleep. By this time, so far had his idea progressed, that he cared nothing for the possible dangers of the night - he confided in his star.

  Branchspell set, the day faded, night with its terrible weight came on, and through it all Maskull slept. Long before midnight, however, he was awakened by a crimson glow in the sky. He opened his eyes, and wondered where he was. He felt heaviness and pain. The red glow was a terrestrial phenomenon; it came from among the trees. He got up and went toward the source of the light.

  Away from the river, not a hundred feet off, he nearly stumbled across the form of a sleeping woman. The object which emitted the crimson rays was lying on the ground, several yards away from her. It was like a small jewel, throwing off sparks of red light. He barely threw a glance at that, however.

  The woman was clothed in the large skin of an animal. She had big, smooth, shapely limbs, rather muscular than fat. Her magn was not a thin tentacle, but a third arm, terminating in a hand. Her face, which was upturned, was wild, powerful, and exceedingly handsome. But he saw with surprise that in place of a breve on her forehead, she possessed another eye. All three were closed. The colour of her skin in the crimson glow he could not distinguish.

  He touched her gently with his hand. She awoke calmly and looked up at him without stirring a muscle. All three eyes stared at him; but the two lower ones were dull and vacant - mere carriers of vision. The middle, upper one alone expressed her inner nature. Its haughty, unflinching glare had yet something seductive and alluring in it. Maskull felt a challenge in that look of lordly, feminine will, and his manner instinctively stiffened.

  She sat up.

  "Can you speak my language?" he asked. "I wouldn't put such a question, but others have been able to."

  "Why should you imagine that I can't read your mind? Is it so extremely complex?"

  She spoke in a rich, lingering, musical voice, which delighted him to listen to.

  "No, but you have no breve."

  "Well, but haven't I a sorb, which is better?" And she pointed to the eye on her brow.

  "What is your name?"

  "Oceaxe."

  "And where do you come from?"

  "Ifdawn."

  These contemptuous replies began to irritate him, and yet the mere sound of her voice was fascinating.

  "I am going there tomorrow," he remarked.

  She laughed, as if against her will, but made no comment.

  "My name is Maskull," he went on. "I am a stranger - from another world."

  "So I should judge, from your absurd appearance."

  "Perhaps it would be as well to say at once," said Maskull bluntly, "are we, or are we not, to be friends?"

  She yawned and stretched her arms, without rising. "Why should we be friends? If I thought you were a man, I might accept you as a lover."

  "You must look elsewhere for that."

  "So be it, Maskull! Now go away, and leave me in peace."

  She dropped her head again to the ground, but did not at once close her eyes.

  "What are you doing here?" he interrogated.

  "Oh, we Ifdawn folk
occasionally come here to sleep, for there often enough it is a night for us which has no next morning."

  "Being such a terrible place, and seeing that I am a total stranger, it would be merely courteous if you were to warn me what I have to expect in the way of dangers."

  "I am perfectly and utterly indifferent to what becomes of you,"

  retorted Oceaxe.

  "Are you returning in the morning?" persisted Maskull.

  "If I wish."

  "Then we will go together."

  She got up again on her elbow. "Instead of making plans for other people, I would do a very necessary thing."

  "Pray, tell me."

  "Well, there's no reason why I should, but I will. I would try to convert my women's organs into men's organs. It is a man's country."

  "Speak more plainly."

  "Oh, it's plain enough. If you attempt to pass through Ifdawn without a sorb, you are simply committing suicide. And that magn too is worse than useless."

  "You probably know what you are talking about, Oceaxe. But what do you advise me to do?"

  She negligently pointed to the light-emitting stone lying on the ground.

  "There is the solution. If you hold that drude to your organs for a good while, perhaps it will start the change, and perhaps nature will do the rest during the night. I promise nothing."

  Oceaxe now really turned her back on Maskull.

  He considered for a few minutes, and then walked over and to where the stone was lying, and took it in his hand. It was a pebble the size of a hen's egg, radiant with crimson light, as though red-hot, and throwing out a continuous shower of small, blood-red sparks.

  Finally deciding that Oceaxe's advice was good, he applied the drude first to his magn, and then to his breve. He experienced a cauterising sensation - a feeling of healing pain.

  Chapter 9

  OCEAXE

  Maskull's second day on Tormance dawned. Branchspell was already above the horizon when he awoke. He was instantly aware that his organs had changed during the night. His fleshy breve was altered into an eyelike sorb; his magn had swelled and developed into a third arm, springing from the breast. The arm gave him at once a sense of greater physical security, but with the sorb he was obliged to experiment, before he could grasp its function.

  As he lay there in the white sunlight, opening and shutting each of his three eyes in turn, he found that the two lower ones served his understanding, the upper one his will. That is to say, with the lower eyes he saw things in clear detail, but without personal interest; with the sorb he saw nothing as self-existent - everything appeared as an object of importance or non-importance to his own needs.

  Rather puzzled as to how this would turn out, he got up and looked about him. He had slept out of sight of Oceaxe. He was anxious to learn if she were still on the spot, but before going to ascertain he made up his mind to bathe in the river.

  It was a glorious morning. The hot white sun already began to glare, but its heat was tempered by a strong wind, which whistled through the trees. A host of fantastic clouds filled the sky. They looked like animals, and were always changing shape. The ground, as well as the leaves and branches of the forest trees, still held traces of heavy dew or rain during the night. A poignantly sweet smell of nature entered his nostrils. His pain was quiescent, and his spirits were high.

  Before he bathed, he viewed the mountains of the Ifdawn Marest. In the morning sunlight they stood out pictorially. He guessed that they were from five to six thousand feet high. The lofty, irregular, castellated line seemed like the walls of a magic city. The cliffs fronting him were composed of gaudy rocks - vermilion, emerald, yellow, ulfire, and black. As he gazed at them, his heart began to beat like a slow, heavy drum, and he thrilled all over - indescribable hopes, aspirations, and emotions came over him. It was more than the conquest of a new world which he felt - it was something different…

  He bathed and drank, and as he was reclothing himself, Oceaxe strolled indolently up.

  He could now perceive the colour of her skin - it was a vivid, yet delicate mixture of carmine, white, and jale. The effect was startlingly unearthly. With these new colors she looked like a genuine representative of a strange planet. Her frame also had something curious about it. The curves were womanly, the bones were characteristically female - yet all seemed somehow to express a daring, masculine underlying will. The commanding eye on her forehead set the same puzzle in plainer language. Its bold, domineering egotism was shot with undergleams of sex and softness.

  She came to the river's edge and reviewed him from top to toe. "Now you are built more like a man," she said, in her lovely, lingering voice.

  "You see, the experiment was successful," he answered, smiling gaily.

  Oceaxe continued looking him over. "Did some woman give you that ridiculous robe?"

  "A woman did give it to me" - dropping his smile - "but I saw nothing ridiculous in the gift at the time, and I don't now."

  "I think I'd look better in it."

  As she drawled the words, she began stripping off the skin, which suited her form so well, and motioned to him to exchange garments. He obeyed, rather shamefacedly, for he realised that the proposed exchange was in fact more appropriate to his sex. He found the skin a freer dress. Oceaxe in her drapery appeared more dangerously feminine to him.

  "I don't want you to receive gifts at all from other women," she remarked slowly.

  "Why not? What can I be to you?"

  "I have been thinking about you during the night." Her voice was retarded, scornful, viola-like. She sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and looked away.

  "In what way?"

  She returned no answer to his question, but began to pull off pieces of the bark.

  "Last night you were so contemptuous."

  "Last night is not today. Do you always walk through the world with your head over your shoulder?"

  It was now Maskull's turn to be silent.

  "Still, if you have male instincts, as I suppose you have, you can't go on resisting me forever."

  "But this is preposterous" said Maskull, opening his eyes wide. "Granted that you are a beautiful woman - we can't be quite so primeval."

  Oceaxe sighed, and rose to her feet. "It doesn't matter. I can wait."

  "From that I gather that you intend to make the journey in my society. I have no objection - in fact I shall be glad - but only on condition that you drop this language."

  "Yet you do think me beautiful?"

  "Why shouldn't I think so, if it is the fact? I fail to see what that has to do with my feelings. Bring it to an end, Oceaxe. You will find plenty of men to admire - and love you."

  At that she blazed up. "Does love pick and choose, you fool? Do you imagine I am so hard put to it that I have to hunt for lovers? Is not Crimtyphon waiting for me at this very moment?"

  "Very well. I am sorry to have hurt your feelings. Now carry the temptation no farther - for it is a temptation, where a lovely woman is concerned. I am not my own master."

  "I'm not proposing anything so very hateful, am I? Why do you humiliate me so?"

  Maskull put his hands behind his back. "I repeat, I am not my own master."

  "Then who is your master?"

  "Yesterday I saw Surtur, and from today I am serving him."

  "Did you speak with him?" she asked curiously.

  "I did."

  "Tell me what he said."

  "No, I can't - I won't. But whatever he said, his beauty was more tormenting than yours, Oceaxe, and that's why I can look at you in cold blood."

  "Did Surtur forbid you to be a man?"

  Maskull frowned. "Is love such a manly sport, then? I should have thought it effeminate."

  "It doesn't matter. You won't always be so boyish. But don't try my patience too far."

  "Let us talk about something else - and, above all, let us get on our road."

  She suddenly broke into a laugh, so rich, sweet, and enchanting, that he grew half inflamed, and
half wished to catch her body in his arms.

  "Oh, Maskull, Maskull - what a fool you are!"

  "In what way am I a fool?" he demanded, scowling not at her words, but at his own weakness.

  "Isn't the whole world the handiwork of innumerable pairs of lovers? And yet you think yourself above all that. You try to fly away from nature, but where will you find a hole to hide yourself in?"

  "Besides beauty, I now credit you with a second quality: persistence."

  "Read me well, and then it is natural law that you'll think twice and three times before throwing me away… And now, before we go, we had better eat."

  "Eat?" said Maskull thoughtfully.

  "Don't you eat? Is food in the same category as love?"

  "What food is it?"

  "Fish from the river."

  Maskull recollected his promise to Joiwind. At the same time, he felt hungry.

  "Is there nothing milder?"

  She pulled her mouth scornfully. "You came through Poolingdred, didn't you? All the people there are the same. They think life is to be looked at, and not lived. Now that you are visiting Ifdawn, you will have to change your notions."

  "Go catch your fish," he returned, pulling down his brows.

  The broad, clear waters flowed past them with swelling undulations, from the direction of the mountains. Oceaxe knelt down on the bank, and peered into the depths. Presently her look became tense and concentrated; she dipped her hand in and pulled out some sort of little monster. It was more like a reptile than a fish, with its scaly plates and teeth. She threw it on the ground, and it started crawling about. Suddenly she darted all her will into her sorb. The creature leaped into the air, and fell down dead.

  She picked up a sharp-edged slate, and with it removed the scales and entrails. During this operation, her hands and garment became stained with the light scarlet blood.

  "Find the drude, Maskull," she said, with a lazy smile. "You had it last night."

  He searched for it. It was hard to locate, for its rays had grown dull and feeble in the sunlight, but at last he found it. Oceaxe placed it in the interior of the monster, and left the body lying on the ground.