The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 02

by Anthology

  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."

  "That's a strange word. It means, does it not, craving for excitement?"

  "Something of the kind," said Maskull.

  "That must be a disease brought on by rich food."

  "But are you never dull?"

  "How could we be? Our blood is quick and light and free, our flesh is clean and unclogged, inside and out.... Before long I hope you will understand what sort of question you have asked."

  Farther on they encountered a strange phenomenon. In the heart of the desert a fountain rose perpendicularly fifty feet into the air, with a cool and pleasant hissing sound. It differed, however, from a fountain in this respect--that the water of which it was composed did not return to the ground but was absorbed by the atmosphere at the summit. It was in fact a tall, graceful column of dark green fluid, with a capital of coiling and twisting vapours.

  When they came closer, Maskull perceived that this water column was the continuation and termination of a flowing brook, which came down from the direction of the mountains. The explanation of the phenomenon was evidently that the water at this spot found chemical affinities in the upper air, and consequently forsook the ground.

  "Now let us drink," said Joiwind.

  She threw herself unaffectedly at full length on the sand, face downward, by the side of the brook, and Maskull was not long in following her example. She refused to quench her thirst until she had seen him drink. He found the water heavy, but bubbling with gas. He drank copiously. It affected his palate in a new way--with the purity and cleanness of water was combined the exhilaration of a sparkling wine, raising his spirits--but somehow the intoxication brought out his better nature, and not his lower.


  "We call it 'gnawl water'," said Joiwind. "This is not quite pure, as you can see by the colour. At Poolingdred it is crystal clear. But we would be ungrateful if we complained. After this you'll find we'll get along much better."

  Maskull now began to realise his environment, as it were for the first time. All his sense organs started to show him beauties and wonders that he had not hitherto suspected. The uniform glaring scarlet of the sands became separated into a score of clearly distinguished shades of red. The sky was similarly split up into different blues. The radiant heat of Branchspell he found to affect every part of his body with unequal intensities. His ears awakened; the atmosphere was full of murmurs, the sands hummed, even the sun's rays had a sound of their own--a kind of faint Aeolian harp. Subtle, puzzling perfumes assailed his nostrils. His palate lingered over the memory of the gnawl water. All the pores of his skin were tickled and soothed by hitherto unperceived currents of air. His poigns explored actively the inward nature of everything in his immediate vicinity. His magn touched Joiwind, and drew from her person a stream of love and joy. And lastly by means of his breve he exchanged thoughts with her in silence. This mighty sense symphony stirred him to the depths, and throughout the walk of that endless morning he felt no more fatigue.

  When it was drawing near to Blodsombre, they approached the sedgy margin of a dark green lake, which lay underneath Poolingdred.

  Panawe was sitting on a dark rock, waiting for them.

  Chapter 7.

  PANAWE

  The husband got up to meet his wife and their guest. He was clothed in white. He had a beardless face, with breve and poigns. His skin, on face and body alike, was so white, fresh, and soft, that it scarcely looked skin at all--it rather resembled a new kind of pure, snowy flesh, extending right down to his bones. It had nothing in common with the artificially whitened skin of an over-civilised woman. Its whiteness and delicacy aroused no voluptuous thoughts; it was obviously the manifestation of a cold and almost cruel chastity of nature. His hair, which fell to the nape of his neck, also was white; but again, from vigour, not decay. His eyes were black, quiet and fathomless. He was still a young man, but so stern were his features that he had the appearance of a lawgiver, and this in spite of their great beauty and harmony.

  His magn and Joiwind's intertwined for a single moment and Maskull saw his face soften with love, while she looked exultant. She put him in her husband's arms with gentle force, and stood back, gazing and smiling. Maskull felt rather embarrassed at being embraced by a man, but submitted to it; a sense of cool, pleasant languor passed through him in the act.

  "The stranger is red-blooded, then?"

  He was startled by Panawe's speaking in English, and the voice too was extraordinary. It was absolutely tranquil, but its tranquillity seemed in a curious fashion to be an illusion, proceeding from a rapidity of thoughts and feelings so great that their motion could not be detected. How this could be, he did not know.

  "How do you come to speak in a tongue you have never heard before?" demanded Maskull.

  "Thought is a rich, complex thing. I can't say if I am really speaking your tongue by instinct, or if you yourself are translating my thoughts into your tongue as I utter them."

  "Already you see that Panawe is wiser than I am," said Joiwind gaily.

  "What is your name?" asked the husband.

  "Maskull."

  "That name must have a meaning--but again, thought is a strange thing. I connect that name with something--but with what?"

  "Try to discover," said Joiwind.

  "Has there been a man in your world who stole something from the Maker of the universe, in order to ennoble his fellow creatures?"

  "There is such a myth, The hero's name was Prometheus."

  "Well, you seem to be identified in my mind with that action--but what it all means I can't say, Maskull."

  "Accept it as a good omen, for Panawe never lies, and never speaks thoughtlessly."

  "There must be some confusion. These are heights beyond me," said Maskull calmly, but looking rather contemplative.

  "Where do you come from?"

  "From the planet of a distant sun, called Earth."

  "What for?"

  "I was tired of vulgarity," returned Maskull laconically. He intentionally avoided mentioning his fellow voyagers, in order that Krag's name should not come to light.

  "That's an honourable motive," said Panawe. "And what's more, it may be true, though you spoke it as a prevarication."

  "As far as it goes, it's quite true," said Maskull, staring at him with annoyance and surprise.

  The swampy lake extended for about half a mile from where they were standing to the lower buttresses of the mountain. Feathery purple reeds showed themselves here and there through the shallows. The water was dark green. Maskull did not see how they were going to cross it.

  Joiwind caught his arm. "Perhaps you don't know that the lake will bear us?"

  Panawe walked onto the water; it was so heavy that it carried his weight. Joiwind followed with Maskull. He instantly started to slip about--nevertheless the motion was amusing, and he learned so fast, by watching and imitating Panawe, that he was soon able to balance himself without assistance. After that he found the sport excellent.

  For the same reason that women excel in dancing, Joiwind's half falls and recoveries were far more graceful and sure than those of either of the men. Her slight, draped form--dipping, bending, rising, swaying, twisting, upon the surface of the dark water--this was a picture Maskull could not keep his eyes away from.

  The lake grew deeper. The gnawl water became green-black. The crags, gullies, and precipices of the shore could now be distinguished in detail. A waterfall was visible, descending several hundred feet. The surface of the lake grew disturbed--so much so that Maskull had difficulty in keeping his balance. He therefore threw himself down and started swimming on the face of the water. Joiwind turned her head, and laughed so joyously that all her teeth flashed in the sunlight.

  They landed in a few more minutes on a promontory of black rock. The water on Maskull's garment and body evaporated very quickly. He gazed upward at the towering mountain, but at that moment some strange movements on the part of Panawe attracted his attention. His face was working convulsively, and he began to stagger about. Then he put his hand to his mouth and took from it what looked like a bright-coloured pebble. He looked at it carefully for some seconds. Joiwind also looked, over his shoulder, with quickly changing colors. After this inspection, Panawe let the object--whatever it was--fall to the ground, and took no more interest in it.

  "May I look?" asked Maskull; and, without waiting for permission, he picked it up. It was a delicately beautiful egg-shaped crystal of pale green.

  "Where did this come from?" he asked queerly.

  Panawe turned away, but Joiwind answered for him. "It came out of my husband."

  "That's what I thought, but I couldn't believe it. But what is it?"

  "I don't know that it has either name or use. It is merely an overflowing of beauty."

  "Beauty?"

  Joiwind smiled. "If you were to regard nature as the husband, and Panawe as the wife, Maskull, perhaps everything would be explained."

  Maskull reflected.

  "On Earth," he said after a minute, "men like Panawe are called artists, poets, and musicians. Beauty overflows into them too, and out of them again. The only distinction is that their productions are more human and intelligible."

  "Nothing comes from it but vanity," said Panawe, and, taking the crystal out of Maskull's hand, he threw it into the lake.

  The precipice they now had to climb was several hundred feet in height. Maskull was more anxious for Joiwind than for himself. She was evidently tiring, but she refused all help, and was in fact still the nimbler of the two. She made a mocking face at him. Panawe seemed lost in quiet thoughts. The rock was sound, and did not crumble under their weight. The heat of Branchspell, however, was by this time almost killing, the ra
diance was shocking in its white intensity, and Maskull's pain steadily grew worse.

  When they got to the top, a plateau of dark rock appeared, bare of vegetation, stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see. It was of a nearly uniform width of five hundred yards, from the edge of the cliffs to the lower slopes of the chain of hills inland. The hills varied in height. The cup-shaped Poolingdred was approximately a thousand feet above them. The upper part of it was covered with a kind of glittering vegetation which he could not comprehend.

  Joiwind put her hand on Maskull's shoulder, and pointed upward. "Here you have the highest peak in the whole land--that is, until you come to the Ifdawn Marest."

  On hearing that strange name, he experienced a momentary unaccountable sensation of wild vigour and restlessness--but it passed away.

  Without losing time, Panawe led the way up the mountainside. The lower half was of bare rock, not difficult to climb. Halfway up, however, it grew steeper, and they began to meet bushes and small trees. The growth became thicker as they continued to ascend, and when they neared the summit, tall forest trees appeared.

  These bushes and trees had pale, glassy trunks and branches, but the small twigs and the leaves were translucent and crystal. They cast no shadows from above, but still the shade was cool. Both leaves and branches were fantastically shaped. What surprised Maskull the most, however, was the fact that, as far as he could see, scarcely any two plants belonged to the same species.

  "Won't you help Maskull out of his difficulty?" said Joiwind, pulling her husband's arm.

  He smiled. "If he'll forgive me for again trespassing in his brain. But the difficulty is small. Life on a new planet, Maskull, is necessarily energetic and lawless, and not sedate and imitative. Nature is still fluid--not yet rigid--and matter is plastic. The will forks and sports incessantly, and thus no two creatures are alike."

  "Well, I understand all that," replied Maskull, after listening attentively. "But what I don't grasp is this--if living creatures here sport so energetically, how does it come about that human beings wear much the same shape as in my world?"