A Voyage to Arcturus Part 15

Maskull wanted to talk to his travelling companion, but was somehow unable to find words. Panawe glanced at him with an inscrutable smile--stern, yet enchanting and half feminine. He then broke the silence, but, strangely enough, Maskull could not make out whether he was singing or speaking. From his lips issued a slow musical recitative, exactly like a bewitching adagio from a low toned stringed instrument--but there was a difference. Instead of the repet.i.tion and variation of one or two short themes, as in music, Panawe's theme was prolonged--it never came to an end, but rather resembled a conversation in rhythm and melody. And, at the same time, it was no recitative, for it was not declamatory. It was a long, quiet stream of lovely emotion.

Maskull listened entranced, yet agitated. The song, if it might be termed song, seemed to be always just on the point of becoming clear and intelligible--not with the intelligibility of words, but in the way one sympathises with another's moods and feelings; and Maskull felt that something important was about to be uttered, which would explain all that had gone before. But it was invariably postponed, he never understood--and yet somehow he did understand.

Late in the afternoon they came to a clearing, and there Panawe ceased his recitative. He slowed his pace and stopped, in the fas.h.i.+on of a man who wishes to convey that he intends to go no farther.

"What is the name of this country?" asked Maskull.

"It is the Lusion Plain."

"Was that music in the nature of a temptation--do you wish me not to go on?"

"Your work lies before you, and not behind you."

"What was it, then? What work do you allude to?"

"It must have seemed like something to you, Maskull."

"It seemed like Shaping music to me."

The instant he had absently uttered these words, Maskull wondered why he had done so, as they now appeared meaningless to him.

Panawe, however, showed no surprise. "Shaping you will find everywhere."

"Am I dreaming, or awake?"

"You are awake."

Maskull fell into deep thought. "So be it," he said, rousing himself.

"Now I will go on. But where must I sleep tonight?"

"You will reach a broad river. On that you can travel to the foot of the Marest tomorrow; but tonight you had better sleep where the forest and river meet."

"Adieu, then, Panawe! But do you wish to say anything more to me?"

"Only this, Maskull--wherever you go, help to make the world beautiful, and not ugly."

"That's more than any of us can undertake. I am a simple man, and have no ambitions in the way of beautifying life--But tell Joiwind I will try to keep myself pure."

They parted rather coldly. Maskull stood erect where they had stopped, and watched Panawe out of sight. He sighed more than once.

He became aware that something was about to happen. The air was breathless. The late-afternoon suns.h.i.+ne, un.o.bstructed, wrapped his frame in voluptuous heat. A solitary cloud, immensely high, raced through the sky overhead.

A single trumpet note sounded in the far distance from somewhere behind him. It gave him an impression of being several miles away at first; but then it slowly swelled, and came nearer and nearer at the same time that it increased in volume. Still the same note sounded, but now it was as if blown by a giant trumpeter immediately over his head. Then it gradually diminished in force, and travelled away in front of him. It ended very faintly and distantly.

He felt himself alone with Nature. A sacred stillness came over his heart. Past and future were forgotten. The forest, the sun, the day did not exist for him. He was unconscious of himself--he had no thoughts and no feelings. Yet never had Life had such an alt.i.tude for him.

A man stood, with crossed arms, right in his path. He was so clothed that his limbs were exposed, while his body was covered. He was young rather than old. Maskull observed that his countenance possessed none of the special organs of Tormance, to which he had not even yet become reconciled. He was smooth-faced. His whole person seemed to radiate an excess of life, like the trembling of air on a hot day. His eyes had such force that Maskull could not meet them.

He addressed Maskull by name, in an extraordinary voice. It had a double tone. The primary one sounded far away; the second was an undertone, like a sympathetic tanging string.

Maskull felt a rising joy, as he continued standing in the presence of this individual. He believed that something good was happening to him.

He found it physically difficult to bring any words out. "Why do you stop me?"

"Maskull, look well at me. Who am I?"

"I think you are Shaping."

"I am Surtur."

Maskull again attempted to meet his eyes, but felt as if he were being stabbed.

"You know that this is my world. Why do you think I have brought you here? I wish you to serve me."

Maskull could no longer speak.

"Those who joke at my world," continued the vision, "those who make a mock of its stern, eternal rhythm, its beauty and sublimity, which are not skin-deep, but proceed from fathomless roots--they shall not escape."

"I do not mock it."

"Ask me your questions, and I will answer them."

"I have nothing."

"It is necessary for you to serve me, Maskull. Do you not understand?

You are my servant and helper."

"I shall not fail."

"This is for my sake, and not for yours."

These last words had no sooner left Surtur's mouth than Maskull saw him spring suddenly upward and outward. Looking up at the vault of the sky, he saw the whole expanse of vision filled by Surtur's form--not as a concrete man, but as a vast, concave cloud image, looking down and frowning at him. Then the spectacle vanished, as a light goes out.

Maskull stood inactive, with a thumping heart. Now he again heard the solitary trumpet note. The sound began this time faintly in the far distance in front of him, travelled slowly toward him with regularly increasing intensity, pa.s.sed overhead at its loudest, and then grew more and more quiet, wonderful, and solemn, as it fell away in the rear, until the note was merged in the deathlike silence of the forest. It appeared to Maskull like the closing of a marvellous and important chapter.

Simultaneously with the fading away of the sound, the heavens seemed to open up with the rapidity of lightning into a blue vault of immeasurable height. He breathed a great breath, stretched all his limbs, and looked around him with a slow smile.

After a while he resumed his journey. His brain was all dark and confused, but one idea was already beginning to stand out from the rest--huge, shapeless, and grand, like the growing image in the soul of a creative artist: the staggering thought that he was a man of destiny.

The more he reflected upon all that had occurred since his arrival in this new world--and even before leaving Earth--the clearer and more indisputable it became, that he could not be here for his own purposes, but must be here for an end. But what that end was, he could not imagine.

Through the forest he saw Branchspell at last sinking in the west. It looked a stupendous ball of red fire--now he could realise at his ease what a sun it was! The avenue took an abrupt turn to the left and began to descend steeply.

A wide, rolling river of clear and dark water was visible in front of him, no great way off. It flowed from north to south. The forest path led him straight to its banks. Maskull stood there, and regarded the lapping, gurgling waters pensively. On the opposite bank, the forest continued. Miles to the south, Poolingdred could just be distinguished.

On the northern skyline the Ifdawn Mountains loomed up--high, wild, beautiful, and dangerous. They were not a dozen miles away.

Like the first mutterings of a thunderstorm, the first faint breaths of cool wind, Maskull felt the stirrings of pa.s.sion in his heart. In spite of his bodily fatigue, he wished to test his strength against something. This craving he identified with the crags of the Marest. They seemed to have the same magical attraction for his will as the lodestone for iron. He kept biting his nails, as he turned his eyes in that direction--wondering if it would not be possible to conquer the heights that evening. But when he glanced back again at Poolingdred, he remembered Joiwind and Panawe, and grew more tranquil. He decided to make his bed at this spot, and to set off as soon after daybreak as he should awake.

He drank at the river, washed himself, and lay down on the bank to sleep. By this time, so far had his idea progressed, that he cared nothing for the possible dangers of the night--he confided in his star.