A Voyage to Arcturus Part 64

Two hours pa.s.sed. The land on either side was more than a mile distant.

In front of them there was no land at all. Behind them, the Lichstorm Mountains were blotted out from view by a haze that had gathered together. The sky ahead, just above the horizon, began to be of a strange colour. It was an intense jale-blue. The whole northern atmosphere was stained with ulfire.

Maskull's mind grew disturbed. "Alppain is rising, Gangnet."

Gangnet smiled wistfully. "It begins to trouble you?"

"It is so solemn--tragical, almost--yet it recalls me to Earth. Life was no longer important--but this is important."

"Daylight is night to this other daylight. Within half an hour you will be like a man who has stepped from a dark forest into the open day. Then you will ask yourself how you could have been blind."

The two men went on watching the blue sunrise. The entire sky in the north, halfway up to the zenith, was streaked with extraordinary colours, among which jale and dolm predominated. Just as the princ.i.p.al character of an ordinary dawn is mystery, the outstanding character of this dawn was wildness. It did not baffle the understanding, but the heart. Maskull felt no inarticulate craving to seize and perpetuate the sunrise, and make it his own. Instead of that, it agitated and tormented him, like the opening bars of a supernatural symphony.

When he looked back to the south, Branchspell's day had lost its glare, and he could gaze at the immense white sun without flinching. He instinctively turned to the north again, as one turns from darkness to light.

"If those were Crystalman's thoughts that you showed me before, Gangnet, these must be his feelings. I mean it literally. What I am feeling now, he must have felt before me."

"He is all feeling, Maskull--don't you understand that?"

Maskull was feeding greedily on the spectacle before him; he did not reply. His face was set like a rock, but his eyes were dim with the beginning of tears. The sky blazed deeper and deeper; it was obvious that Alppain was about to lift itself above the sea. The island had by this time floated past the mouth of the estuary. On three sides they were surrounded by water. The haze crept up behind them and shut out all sight of land. Krag was still sleeping--an ugly, wrinkled monstrosity.

Maskull looked over the side at the flowing water. It had lost its dark green colour, and was now of a perfect crystal transparency.

"Are we already on the Ocean, Gangnet?"

"Yes."

"Then nothing remains except my death."

"Don't think of death, but life."

"It's growing brighter--at the same time, more sombre, Krag seems to be fading away...."

"There is Alppain!" said Gangnet, touching his arm.

The deep, glowing disk of the blue sun peeped above the sea. Maskull was struck to silence. He was hardly so much looking, as feeling. His emotions were unutterable. His soul seemed too strong for his body. The great blue orb rose rapidly out of the water, like an awful eye watching him.... it shot above the sea with a bound, and Alppain's day commenced.

"What do you feel?" Gangnet still held his arm.

"I have set myself against the Infinite," muttered Maskull.

Suddenly his chaos of pa.s.sions sprang together, and a wonderful idea swept through his whole being, accompanied by the intensest joy.

"Why, Gangnet--I am nothing."

"No, you are nothing."

The mist closed in all around them. Nothing was visible except the two suns, and a few feet of sea. The shadows of the three men cast by Alppain were not black, but were composed of white daylight.

"Then nothing can hurt me," said Maskull with a peculiar smile.

Gangnet smiled too. "How could it?"

"I have lost my will; I feel as if some foul tumour had been sc.r.a.ped away, leaving me clean and free."

"Do you now understand life, Maskull?"

Gangnet's face was transfigured with an extraordinary spiritual beauty; he looked as if he had descended from heaven.

"I understand nothing, except that I have no self any more. But this is life."

"Is Gangnet expatiating on his famous blue sun?" said a jeering voice above them. Looking up, they saw that Krag had got to his feet.

They both rose. At the same moment the gathering mist began to obscure Alppain's disk, changing it from blue to a vivid jale.

"What do you want with us, Krag?" asked Maskull with simple composure.

Krag looked at him strangely for a few seconds. The water lapped around them.

"Don't you comprehend, Maskull, that your death has arrived?"

Maskull made no response. Krag rested an arm lightly on his shoulder, and suddenly he felt sick and faint. He sank to the ground, near the edge of the island raft. His heart was thumping heavily and queerly; its beating reminded him of the drum taps. He gazed languidly at the rippling water, and it seemed to him as if he could see right through it... away, away down... to a strange fire....

The water disappeared. The two suns were extinguished. The island was transformed into a cloud, and Maskull--alone on it--was floating through the atmosphere.... Down below, it was all fire--the fire of Muspel. The light mounted higher and higher, until it filled the whole world....

He floated toward an immense perpendicular cliff of black rock, without top or bottom. Halfway up it Krag, suspended in midair, was dealing terrific blows at a blood-red spot with a huge hammer. The rhythmical, clanging sounds were hideous.

Presently Maskull made out that these sounds were the familiar drum beats. "What are you doing, Krag?" he asked.

Krag suspended his work, and turned around.

"Beating on Your heart, Maskull," was his grinning response.

The cliff and Krag vanished. Maskull saw Gangnet struggling in the air--but it was not Gangnet--it was Crystalman. He seemed to be trying to escape from the Muspel-fire, which kept surrounding and licking him, whichever way he turned. He was screaming.... The fire caught him. He shrieked horribly. Maskull caught one glimpse of a vulgar, s...o...b..ring face--and then that too disappeared.

He opened his eyes. The floating island was still faintly illuminated by Alppain. Krag was standing by his side, but Gangnet was no longer there.

"What is this Ocean called?" asked Maskull, bringing out the words with difficulty.

"Surtur's Ocean."

Maskull nodded, and kept quiet for some time. He rested his face on his arm. "Where's Nightspore?" he asked suddenly.

Krag bent over him with a grave expression. "You are Nightspore."

The dying man closed his eyes, and smiled.

Opening them again, a few moments later, with an effort, he murmured, "Who are you?"

Krag maintained a gloomy silence.