A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (reading strategies book TXT) 📗

“There is another wonder,” said Tydomin, and she pointed her finger toward the sky overhead.

A small cloud, so low down that it was perhaps not more than five hundred feet above them, was sailing along in front of the dark wall of cliff. It was in the exact shape of an open human hand, with downward-pointing fingers. It was stained crimson by the sun; and one or two tiny cloudlets beneath the fingers looked like falling drops of blood.

“Who can doubt now that our death is close at hand?” said Tydomin. “I have been close to death twice today. The first time I was ready, but now I am more ready, for I shall die side by side with the man who has given me my first happiness.”

“Do not think of death, but of right persistence,” replied Spadevil. “I am not here to tremble before Shaping’s portents; but to snatch men from him.”

He at once proceeded to lead the way up the staircase. Tydomin gazed upward after him for a moment, with an odd, worshiping light in her eyes. Then she followed him, the second of the party. Maskull climbed last. He was travel stained, unkempt, and very tired; but his soul was at peace. As they steadily ascended the almost perpendicular stairs, the sun got higher in the sky. Its light dyed their bodies a ruddy gold.

They gained the top. There they found rolling in front of them, as far as the eye could see, a barren desert of white sand, broken here and there by large, jagged masses of black rock. Tracts of the sand were reddened by the sinking sun. The vast expanse of sky was filled by evil-shaped clouds and wild colors. The freezing wind, flurrying across the desert, drove the fine particles of sand painfully against their faces.

“Where now do you take us?” asked Maskull.

“He who guards the old wisdom of Sant must give up that wisdom to me, that I may change it. What he says, others will say. I go to find Maulger.”

“And where will you seek him, in this bare country?”

Spadevil struck off toward the north unhesitatingly.

“It is not so far,” he said. “It is his custom to be in that part where Sant overhangs the Wombflash Forest. Perhaps he will be there, but I cannot say.”

Maskull glanced toward Tydomin. Her sunken cheeks, and the dark circles beneath her eyes told of her extreme weariness.

“The woman is tired, Spadevil,” he said.

She smiled. “It’s but another step into the land of death. I can manage it. Give me your arm, Maskull.”

He put his arm around her waist, and supported her along that way.

“The sun is now sinking,” said Maskull. “Will we get there before dark?”

“Fear nothing, Maskull and Tydomin; this pain is eating up the evil in your nature. The road you are walking cannot remain unwalked. We shall arrive before dark.”

The sun then disappeared behind the far-distant ridges that formed the western boundary of the Ifdawn Marest. The sky blazed up into more vivid colors. The wind grew colder.

They passed some pools of colourless gnawl water, round the banks of which were planted fruit trees. Maskull ate some of the fruit. It was hard, bitter, and astringent; he could not get rid of the taste, but he felt braced and invigorated by the downward-flowing juices. No other trees or shrubs were to be seen anywhere. No animals appeared, no birds or insects. It was a desolate land.

A mile or two passed, when they again approached the edge of the plateau. Far down, beneath their feet, the great Wombflash Forest began. But daylight had vanished there; Maskull’s eyes rested only on a vague darkness. He faintly heard what sounded like the distant sighing of innumerable treetops.

In the rapidly darkening twilight, they came abruptly on a man. He was standing in a pool, on one leg. A pile of boulders had hidden him from their view. The water came as far up as his calf. A trifork, similar to the one Maskull had seen on Disscourn, but smaller, had been stuck in the mud close by his hand.

They stopped by the side of the pond, and waited. Immediately he became aware of their presence, the man set down his other leg, and waded out of the water toward them, picking up his trifork in doing so.

“This is not Maulger, but Catice,” said Spadevil.

“Maulger is dead,” said Catice, speaking the same tongue as Spadevil, but with an even harsher accent, so that the tympanum of Maskull’s ear was affected painfully.

The latter saw before him a bowed, powerful individual, advanced in years. He wore nothing but a scanty loincloth. His trunk was long and heavy, but his legs were rather short. His face was beardless, lemon-coloured, and anxious-looking. It was disfigured by a number of longitudinal ruts, a quarter of an inch deep, the cavities of which seemed clogged with ancient dirt. The hair of his head was black and sparse. Instead of the twin membranous organs of Spadevil, he possessed but one; and this was in the centre of his brow.

Spadevil’s dark, solid person stood out from the rest like a reality among dreams.

“Has the trifork passed to you?” he demanded.

“Yes. Why have you brought this woman to Sant?”

“I have brought another thing to Sant. I have brought the new faith.”

Catice stood motionless, and looked troubled. “State it.”

“Shall I speak with many words, or few words?”

“If you wish to say what is not, many words will not suffice. If you wish to say what is, a few words will be enough.”

Spadevil frowned.

“To hate pleasure brings pride with it. Pride is a pleasure. To kill pleasure, we must attach ourselves to duty. While the mind is planning right action, it has no time to think of pleasure.”

“Is that the whole?” asked Catice.

“The truth is simple, even for the simplest man.”

“Do you destroy Hator, and all his generations, with a single word?”

“I destroy nature, and set up law.”

A long silence followed.

“My probe is double,” said Spadevil. “Suffer me to double yours, and you will see as I see.”

“Come you here, you big man!” said Catice to Maskull. Maskull advanced a step closer.

“Do you follow Spadevil in his new faith?”

“As far as death,” exclaimed Maskull.

Catice picked up a flint. “With this stone I strike out one of your two probes. When you have but one, you will see with me, and you will recollect with Spadevil. Choose you then the superior faith, and I shall