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

For a long time they continued crossing the rough and rocky slope, maintaining a slightly upward course. The angle was so steep that a false step would have been fatal. The high ground was on their right. After a while, the hillside on the left hand changed to level ground, and they seemed to have joined another spur of the mountain. The ascending slope on the right hand persisted for a few hundred yards more. Then Sullenbode bore sharply to the left, and they found level ground all around them.

“We are on the ridge,” announced the woman, halting.

The others came up to her, and at the same instant the moon burst through the clouds, illuminating the whole scene.

Maskull uttered a cry. The wild, noble, lonely beauty of the view was quite unexpected. Teargeld was high in the sky to their left, shining down on them from behind. Straight in front, like an enormously wide, smoothly descending road, lay the great ridge which went on to Adage, though Adage itself was out of sight. It was never less than two hundred yards wide. It was covered with green snow, in some places entirely, but in other places the naked rocks showed through like black teeth. From where they stood they were unable to see the sides of the ridge, or what lay underneath. On the right hand, which was north, the landscape was blurred and indistinct. There were no peaks there; it was the distant, low-lying land of Barey. But on the left hand appeared a whole forest of mighty pinnacles, near and far, as far as the eye could see in moonlight. All glittered green, and all possessed the extraordinary hanging caps that characterised the Lichstorm range. These caps were of fantastic shapes, and each one was different. The valley directly opposite them was filled with rolling mist.

Sarclash was a mighty mountain mass in the shape of a horseshoe. Its two ends pointed west, and were separated from each other by a mile or more of empty space. The northern end became the ridge on which they stood. The southern end was the long line of cliffs on that part of the mountain where Haunte’s cave was situated. The connecting curve was the steep slope they had just traversed. One peak of Sarclash was invisible.

In the south-west many mountains raised their heads. In addition, a few summits, which must have been of extraordinary height, appeared over the south side of the horseshoe.

Maskull turned round to put a question to Sullenbode, but when he saw her for the first time in moonlight the words he had framed died on his lips. The gashlike mouth no longer dominated her other features, and the face, pale as ivory and most femininely shaped, suddenly became almost beautiful. The lips were a long, womanish curve of rose-red. Her hair was a dark maroon. Maskull was greatly disturbed; he thought that she resembled a spirit, rather than a woman.

“What puzzles you?” she asked, smiling.

“Nothing. But I would like to see you by sunlight.”

“Perhaps you never will.”

“Your life must be most solitary.”

She explored his features with her black, slow-gleaming eyes. “Why do you fear to speak your feelings, Maskull?”

“Things seem to open up before me like a sunrise, but what it means I can’t say.”

Sullenbode laughed outright. “It assuredly does not mean the approach of night.”

Corpang, who had been staring steadily along the ridge, here abruptly broke in. “The road is plain now, Maskull. If you wish it, I’ll go on alone.”

“No, we’ll go on together. Sullenbode will accompany us.”

“A little way,” said the woman, “but not to Adage, to pit my strength against unseen powers. That light is not for me. I know how to renounce love, but I will never be a traitor to it.”

“Who knows what we shall find on Adage, or what will happen? Corpang is as ignorant as myself.”

Corpang looked him full in the face. “Maskull, you are quite well aware that you never dare approach that awful fire in the society of a beautiful woman.”

Maskull gave an uneasy laugh. “What Corpang doesn’t tell you, Sullenbode, is that I am far better acquainted with Muspel-light than he, and that, but for a chance meeting with me, he would still be saying his prayers in Threal.”

“Still, what he says must be true,” she replied, looking from one to the other.

“And so I am not to be allowed to—”

“So long as I am with you, I shall urge you onward, and not backward, Maskull.”

“We need not quarrel yet,” he remarked, with a forced smile. “No doubt things will straighten themselves out.”

Sullenbode began kicking the snow about with her foot. “I picked up another piece of wisdom in my sleep, Corpang.”

“Tell it to me, then.”

“Men who live by laws and rules are parasites. Others shed their strength to bring these laws out of nothing into the light of day, but the law-abiders live at their ease—they have conquered nothing for themselves.”

“It is given to some to discover, and to others to preserve and perfect. You cannot condemn me for wishing Maskull well.”

“No, but a child cannot lead a thunderstorm.”

They started walking again along the centre of the ridge. All three were abreast, Sullenbode in the middle.

The road descended by an easy gradient, and was for a long distance comparatively smooth. The freezing point seemed higher than on Earth, for the few inches of snow through which they trudged felt almost warm to their naked feet. Maskull’s soles were by now like tough hides. The moonlit snow was green and dazzling. Their slanting, abbreviated shadows were sharply defined, and red-black in colour. Maskull, who walked on Sullenbode’s right hand, looked constantly to the left, toward the galaxy of glorious distant peaks.

“You cannot belong to this world,” said the woman. “Men of your stamp are not to be looked for here.”

“No, I have come here from Earth.”

“Is that larger than our world?”

“Smaller, I think. Small, and overcrowded with men and women. With all those people, confusion would result but for orderly laws, and therefore the laws are of iron. As adventure would be impossible without encroaching on these laws, there is no longer any spirit of adventure among the Earthmen. Everything is safe, vulgar, and completed.”

“Do men hate women there, and women men?”

“No, the meeting of the sexes is sweet, though shameful. So poignant is the sweetness that the accompanying shame is ignored, with open eyes. There is no hatred, or only among a few eccentric persons.”

“That shame surely must be the rudiment of our Lichstorm passion. But now say—why did you come here?”

“To meet with