"Perhaps you're going to Poolingdred, Digrung?" he inquired, interested.
"As a matter of fact I am - if I can find my way out of this accursed country."
"Possibly you are acquainted with Joiwind there?"
"She's my sister. I'm on my way to see her now. Why, do you know her?"
"I met her yesterday."
"What is your name, then?"
"Maskull."
"I shall tell her I met you. This will be our first meeting for four years. Is she well, and happy?"
"Both, as far as I could judge. You know Panawe?"
"Her husband - yes. But where do you come from? I've seen nothing like you before."
"From another world. Where is Matterplay?"
"It's the first country one comes to beyond the Sinking Sea."
"What is it like there - how do you amuse yourselves? The same old murders and sudden deaths?"
"Are you ill?" asked Digrung. "Who is this woman, why are you following at her heels like a slave? She looks insane to me. What's that corpse - why are you dragging it around the country with you?"
Tydomin smiled. "I've already heard it said about Matterplay, that if one sows an answer there, a rich crop of questions immediately springs up. But why do you make this unprovoked attack on me, Digrung?"
"I don't attack you, woman, but I know you. I see into you, and I see insanity. That wouldn't matter, but I don't like to see a man of intelligence like Maskull caught in your filthy meshes."
"I suppose even you clever Matterplay people sometimes misjudge character. However, I don't mind. Your opinion's nothing to me, Digrung. You'd better answer his questions, Maskull. Not for his own sake - but your feminine friend is sure to be curious about your having been seen carrying a dead man."
Maskull's underlip shot out. "Tell your sister nothing, Digrung. Don't mention my name at all. I don't want her to know about this meeting of ours."
"Why not?"
"I don't wish it - isn't that enough?"
Digrung looked impassive.
"Thoughts and words," he said, "which don't correspond with the real events of the world are considered most shameful in Matterplay."
"I'm not asking you to lie, only to keep silent."
"To hide the truth is a special branch of lying. I can't accede to your wish. I must tell Joiwind everything, as far as I know it."
Maskull got up, and Tydomin followed his example.
She touched Digrung on the arm and gave him a strange look. "The dead man is my husband, and Maskull murdered him. Now you'll understand why he wishes you to hold your tongue."
"I guessed there was some foul play," said Digrung. "It doesn't matter - I can't falsify facts. Joiwind must know."
"You refuse to consider her feelings?" said Maskull, turning pale.
"Feelings which flourish on illusions, and sicken and die on realities, aren't worth considering. But Joiwind's are not of that kind."
"If you decline to do what I ask, at least return home without seeing her; your sister will get very little pleasure out of the meeting when she hears your news."
"What are these strange relations between you?" demanded Digrung, eying him with suddenly aroused suspicion.
Maskull stared back in a sort of bewilderment. "Good God! You don't doubt your own sister. That pure angel!"
Tydomin caught hold of him delicately. "I don't know Joiwind, but, whoever she is and whatever she's like, I know this - she's more fortunate in her friend than in her brother. Now, if you really value her happiness, Maskull, you will have to take some firm step or other."
"I mean to. Digrung, I shall stop your journey."
"If you intend a second murder, no doubt you are big enough."
Maskull turned around to Tydomin and laughed. "I seem to be leaving a wake of corpses behind me on this journey."
"Why a corpse? There's no need to kill him."
"Thanks for that!" said Digrung dryly. "All the same, some crime is about to burst. I feel it."
"What must I do, then?" asked Maskull.
"It is not my business, and to tell the truth I am not very interested… If I were in your place, Maskull, I would not hesitate long. Don't you understand how to absorb these creatures, who set their feeble, obstinate wills against yours?"
"That is a worse crime," said Maskull.
"Who knows? He will live, but he will tell no tales."
Digrung laughed, but changed colour. "I was right then. The monster has sprung into the light of day."
Maskull laid a hand on his shoulder. "You have the choice, and we are not joking. Do as I ask."
"You have fallen low, Maskull. But you are walking in a dream, and I can't talk to you. As for you, woman - sin must be like a pleasant bath to you…"
"There are strange ties between Maskull and myself; but you are a passer-by, a foreigner. I care nothing for you."
"Nevertheless, I shall not be frightened out of my plans, which are legitimate and right."
"Do as you please," said Tydomin. "If you come to grief, your thoughts will hardly have corresponded with the real events of the world, which is what you boast about. It is no affair of mine."
"I shall go on, and not back!" exclaimed Digrung, with angry emphasis.
Tydomin threw a swift, evil smile at Maskull. "Bear witness that I have tried to persuade this young man. Now you must come to a quick decision in your own mind as to which is of the greatest importance, Digrung's happiness or Joiwind's. Digrung won't allow you to preserve them both."
"It won't take me long to decide. Digrung, I gave you a last chance to change your mind."
"As long as it's in my power I shall go on, and warn my sister against her criminal friends."
Maskull again clutched at him, but this time with violence. Instructed in his actions by some new and horrible instinct, he pressed the young man tightly to his body with all three arms. A feeling of wild, sweet delight immediately passed through him. Then for the first time he comprehended the triumphant joys of "absorbing." It satisfied the hunger of the will, exactly as food satisfies the hunger of the body. Digrung proved feeble - he made little opposition. His personality passed slowly and evenly into Maskull's. The latter became strong and gorged. The victim gradually became paler and limper, until Maskull held a corpse in his arms. He dropped the body, and stood trembling. He had committed his second crime. He felt no immediate difference in his soul, but…
Tydomin shed a sad smile on him, like winter sunshine. He half expected her to speak, but she said nothing. Instead, she made a sign to him to pick up Crimtyphon's corpse. As he obeyed, he wondered why Digrung's dead face did not wear the frightful Crystalman mask.
"Why hasn't he altered?" he muttered to himself.
Tydomin heard him. She kicked Digrung lightly with her little foot.
"He isn't dead - that's why. The expression you mean is waiting for your death."
"Then is that my real character?"
She laughed softly. "You came here to carve a strange world, and now it appears you are carved yourself. Oh, there's no doubt about it, Maskull. You needn't stand there gaping. You belong to Shaping, like the rest of us. You are not a king, or a god."
"Since when have I belonged to him?"
"What does that matter? Perhaps since you first breathed the air of Tormance, or perhaps since five minutes ago."
Without waiting for his response, she set off through the copse, and strode on to the next island. Maskull followed, physically distressed and looking very grave.
The journey continued for half an hour longer, without incident. The character of the scenery slowly changed. The mountaintops became loftier and more widely separated from one another. The gaps were filled with rolling, white clouds, which bathed the shores of the peaks like a mysterious sea. To pass from island to island was hard work, the intervening spaces were so wide - Tydomin, however, knew the way. The intense light, the violet-blue sky, the patches of vivid landscape, emerging from the white vapour-ocean, made
a profound impression on Maskull's mind. The glow of Alppain was hidden by the huge mass of Disscourn, which loomed up straight in front of them.
The green snow on the top of the gigantic pyramid had by now completely melted away. The black, gold, and crimson of its mighty cliffs stood out with terrific brilliance. They were directly beneath the bulk of the mountain, which was not a mile away. It did not appear dangerous to climb, but he was unaware on which side of it their destination lay.
It was split from top to bottom by numerous straight fissures. A few pale-green waterfalls descended here and there, like narrow, motionless threads. The face of the mountain was rugged and bare. It was strewn with detached boulders, and great, jagged rocks projected everywhere like iron teeth. Tydomin pointed to a small black hole near the base, which might be a cave. "That is where I live."
"You live here alone?"
"Yes."
"It's an odd choice for a woman - and you are not unbeautiful, either."
"A woman's life is over at twenty-five," she replied, sighing. "And I am far older than that. Ten years ago it would have been I who lived yonder, and not Oceaxe. Then all this wouldn't have happened."
A quarter of an hour later they stood within the mouth of the cave. It was ten feet high, and its interior was impenetrably black.
"Put down the body in the entrance, out of the sun," directed Tydomin. He did so.
She cast a keenly scrutinising glance at him. "Does your resolution still hold, Maskull?"
"Why shouldn't it hold? My brains are not feathers."
"Follow me, then."
They both stepped into the cave. At that very moment a sickening crash, like heavy thunder just over their heads, set Maskull's weakened heart thumping violently. An avalanche of boulders, stones, and dust, swept past the cave entrance from above. If their going in had been delayed by a single minute, they would have been killed.
Tydomin did not even look up. She took his hand in hers, and started walking with him into the darkness. The temperature became as cold as ice. At the first bend the light from the outer world disappeared, leaving them in absolute blackness. Maskull kept stumbling over the uneven ground, but she kept tight hold of him, and hurried him along.
The tunnel seemed of interminable length. Presently, however, the atmosphere changed - or such was his impression. He was somehow led to imagine that they had come to a larger chamber. Here Tydomin stopped, and then forced him down with quiet pressure. His groping hand encountered stone and, by feeling it all over, he discovered that it was a sort of stone slab, or couch, raised a foot or eighteen inches from the ground. She told him to lie down.
"Has the time come?" asked Maskull.
"Yes."
He lay there waiting in the darkness, ignorant of what was going to happen. He felt her hand clasping his. Without perceiving any gradation, he lost all consciousness of his body; he was no longer able to feel his limbs or internal organs. His mind remained active and alert. Nothing particular appeared to be taking place.
Then the chamber began to grow light, like very early morning. He could see nothing, but the retina of his eyes was affected. He fancied that he heard music, but while he was listening for it, it stopped. The light grew stronger, the air grew warmer; he heard the confused sound of distant voices.
Suddenly Tydomin gave his hand a powerful squeeze. He heard someone scream faintly, and then the light leaped up, and he saw everything clearly.
He was lying on a wooden couch, in a strangely decorated room, lighted by electricity. His hand was being squeezed, not by Tydomin, but by a man dressed in the garments of civilisation, with whose face he was certainly familiar, but under what circumstances he could not recall. Other people stood in the background - they too were vaguely known to him. He sat up and began to smile, without any especial reason; and then stood upright.
Everybody seemed to be watching him with anxiety and emotion - he wondered why. Yet he felt that they were all acquaintances. Two in particular he knew - the man at the farther end of the room, who paced restlessly backward and forward, his face transfigured by stern, holy grandeur; and that other big, bearded man - who was himself. Yes - he was looking at his own double. But it was just as if a crime-riddled man of middle age were suddenly confronted with his own photograph as an earnest, idealistic youth.
His other self spoke to him. He heard the sounds, but did not comprehend the sense. Then the door was abruptly flung open, and a short, brutish-looking individual leaped in. He began to behave in an extraordinary manner to everyone around him; and after that came straight up to him - Maskull. He spoke some words, but they were incomprehensible. A terrible expression came over the newcomer's face, and he grasped his neck with a pair of hairy hands. Maskull felt his bones bending and breaking, excruciating pains passed through all the nerves of his body, and he experienced a sense of impending death. He cried out, and sank helplessly on the floor, in a heap. The chamber and the company vanished - the light went out.
Once more he found himself in the blackness of the cave. He was this time lying on the ground, but Tydomin was still with him, holding his hand. He was in horrible bodily agony, but this was only a setting for the despairing anguish that filled his mind.
Tydomin addressed him in tones of gentle reproach. "Why are you back so soon? I've not had time yet. You must return."
He caught hold of her, and pulled himself up to his feet. She gave a low scream, as though in pain. "What does this mean - what are you doing, Maskull?"
"Krag - " began Maskull, but the effort to produce his words choked him, so that he was obliged to stop.
"Krag - what of Krag? Tell me quickly what has happened. Free my arm."
He gripped her arm tighter.
"Yes, I've seen Krag. I'm awake."
"Oh! You are awake, awake."
"And you must die," said Maskull, in an awful voice.
"But why? What has happened?…"
"You must die, and I must kill you. Because I am awake, and for no other reason. You blood-stained dancing mistress!"
Tydomin breathed hard for a little time. Then she seemed suddenly to regain her self-possession.
"You won't offer me violence, surely, in this black cave?"
"No, the sun shall look on, for it is not a murder. But rest assured that you must die - you must expiate your fearful crimes."
"You have already said so, and I see you have the power. You have escaped me. It is very curious. Well, then, Maskull, let us come outside. I am not afraid. But kill me courteously, for I have also been courteous to you. I make no other supplication."
Chapter 11
ON DISSCOURN
BY THE TIME that they regained the mouth of the cavern, Blodsombre was at its height. In front of them the scenery sloped downward - a long succession of mountain islands in a sea of clouds. Behind them the bright, stupendous crags of Disscourn loomed up for a thousand feet or more. Maskull's eyes were red, and his face looked stupid; he was still holding the woman by the arm. She made no attempt to speak, or to get away. She seemed perfectly gentle and composed.
After gazing at the country for along time in silence, he turned toward her.
"Whereabouts is the fiery lake you spoke of?"
"It lies on the other side of the mountain. But why do you ask?"
"It is just as well if we have some way to walk. I shall grow calmer, and that's what I want. I wish you to understand that what is going to happen is not a murder, but an execution."
"It will taste the same," said Tydomin.
"When I have gone out of this country, I don't wish to feel that I have left a demon behind me, wandering at large. That would not be fair to others. So we will go to the lake, which promises an easy death for you."
She shrugged her shoulders. "We must wait till Blodsombre is over."
"Is this a time for luxurious feelings? However hot it is now, we will both be cool by evening. We must start at once."
"Without doubt, you are the master, Maskull�
� May I not carry Crimtyphon?"
Maskull looked at her strangely.
"I grudge no man his funeral."
She painfully hoisted the body on her narrow shoulders, and they stepped out into the sunlight. The heat struck them like a blow on the head. Maskull moved aside, to allow her to precede him, but no compassion entered his heart. He brooded over the wrongs the woman had done him.
The way went along the south side of the great pyramid, near its base. It was a rough road, clogged with boulders and crossed by cracks and water gullies; they could see the water, but could not get at it. There was no shade. Blisters formed on their skin, while all the water in their blood seemed to dry up.
Maskull forgot his own tortures in his devil's delight at Tydomin's.
"Sing me a song!" he called out presently. "A characteristic one."
She turned her head and gave him a long, peculiar look; then, without any sort of expostulation, started singing. Her voice was low and weird. The song was so extraordinary that he had to rub his eyes to ascertain whether he was awake or dreaming. The slow surprises of the grotesque melody began to agitate him in a horrible fashion; the words were pure nonsense - or else their significance was too deep for him.
"Where, in the name of all unholy things, did you acquire that stuff, woman?"
Tydomin shed a sickly smile, while the corpse swayed about with ghastly jerks over her left shoulder. She held it in position with her two left arms. "It's a pity we could not have met as friends, Maskull. I could have shown you a side of Tormance which now perhaps you will never see. The wild, mad, side. But now it's too late, and it doesn't matter."
They turned the angle of the mountain, and started to traverse the western base.
"Which is the quickest way out of this miserable land?" asked Maskull.
"It is easiest to go to Sant."
"Will we see it from anywhere?"
"Yes, though it is a long way off."
"Have you been there?"
"I am a woman, and interdicted."
"True. I have heard something of the sort."
Voyage to Arcturus Page 12
