A Voyage to Arcturus, David Lindsay [guided reading books TXT] 📗

pure males. They have drawn nothing from the female side.”

“Where do the male stones come from?”

“Oh, they are not freaks. There must be whole beds of the stuff somewhere. It is all that prevents the world from being a pure female world. It would be one big mass of heavy sweetness, without individual shapes.”

“Yet this same sweetness is torturing to men?”

“The life of an absolute male is fierce. An excess of life is dangerous to the body. How can it be anything else than torturing?”

Corpang now sat up suddenly, and addressed Haunte. “I remind you of your promise to tell about Muspel.”

Haunte regarded him with a malevolent smile. “Ha! The underground man has come to life.”

“Yes, tell us,” put in Maskull carelessly.

Haunte drank, and laughed a little. “Well, the tale’s short, and hardly worth telling, but since you’re interested.⁠ ⁠… A stranger came here five years ago, inquiring after Muspel-light. His name was Lodd. He came from the east. He came up to me one bright morning in summer, outside this very cave. If you ask me to describe him⁠—I can’t imagine a second man like him. He looked so proud, noble, superior, that I felt my own blood to be dirty by comparison. You can guess I don’t have this feeling for everyone. Now that I am recalling him, he was not so much superior as different. I was so impressed that I rose and talked to him standing. He inquired the direction of the mountain Adage. He went on to say, ‘They say Muspel-light is sometimes seen there. What do you know of such a thing?’ I told him the truth⁠—that I knew nothing about it, and then he went on, ‘Well, I am going to Adage. And tell those who come after me on the same errand that they had better do the same thing.’ That was the whole conversation. He started on his way, and I’ve never seen him or heard of him since.”

“So you didn’t have the curiosity to follow him?”

“No, because the moment he had turned his back all my interest in the man somehow seemed to vanish.”

“Probably because he was useless to you.”

Corpang glanced at Maskull. “Our road is marked out for us.”

“So it would appear,” said Maskull indifferently.

The talk flagged for a time. Maskull felt the silence oppressive, and grew restless.

“What do you call the colour of your skin, Haunte, as I saw it in daylight? It struck me as strange.”

“Dolm,” said Haunte.

“A compound of ulfire and blue,” explained Corpang.

“Now I know. These colours are puzzling for a stranger.”

“What colours have you in your world?” asked Corpang.

“Only three primary ones, but here you seem to have five, though how it comes about I can’t imagine.”

“There are two sets of three primary colours here,” said Corpang, “but as one of the colours⁠—blue⁠—is identical in both sets, altogether there are five primary colours.”

“Why two sets?”

“Produced by the two suns. Branchspell produces blue, yellow, and red; Alppain, ulfire, blue, and jale.”

“It’s remarkable that explanation has never occurred to me before.”

“So here you have another illustration of the necessary trinity of nature. Blue is existence. It is darkness seen through light; a contrasting of existence and nothingness. Yellow is relation. In yellow light we see the relation of objects in the clearest way. Red is feeling. When we see red, we are thrown back on our personal feelings.⁠ ⁠… As regards the Alppain colours, blue stands in the middle and is therefore not existence, but relation. ulfire is existence; so it must be a different sort of existence.”

Haunte yawned. “There are marvellous philosophers in your underground hole.”

Maskull got up and looked about him.

“Where does that other door lead to?”

“Better explore,” said Haunte.

Maskull took him at his word, and strolled across the cave, flinging the curtain aside and disappearing into the night. Haunte rose abruptly and hurried after him.

Corpang too got to his feet. He went over to the untouched spirit skins, untied the necks, and allowed the contents to gush out on to the floor. Next he took the hunting spears, and snapped off the points between his hands. Before he had time to resume his seat, Haunte and Maskull reappeared. The host’s quick, shifty eyes at once took in what had happened. He smiled, and turned pale.

“You haven’t been idle, friend.”

Corpang fixed Haunte with his bold, heavy gaze. “I thought it well to draw your teeth.”

Maskull burst out laughing. “The toad’s come into the light to some purpose, Haunte. Who would have expected it?”

Haunte, after staring hard at Corpang for two or three minutes, suddenly uttered a strange cry, like an evil spirit, and flung himself upon him. The two men began to wrestle like wildcats. They were as often on the floor as on their legs, and Maskull could not see who was getting the better of it. He made no attempt to separate them. A thought came into his head and, snatching up the two male stones, he ran with them, laughing, through the upper doorway, into the open night air.

The door overlooked an abyss on another face of the mountain. A narrow ledge, sprinkled with green snow, wound along the cliff to the right; it was the only available path. He pitched the pebbles over the edge of the chasm. Although hard and heavy in his hand, they sank more like feathers than stones, and left a long trail of vapour behind. While Maskull was still watching them disappear, Haunte came rushing out of the cavern, followed by Corpang. He gripped Maskull’s arm excitedly.

“What in Krag’s name have you done?”

“Overboard they have gone,” replied Maskull, renewing his laughter.

“You accursed madman!”

Haunte’s luminous colour came and went, just as though his internal light were breathing. Then he grew suddenly calm, by a supreme exertion of his will.

“You know this kills me?”

“Haven’t you been doing your best this last hour to make me ripe for Sullenbode? Well then, cheer up, and join the pleasure party!”

“You say it