"While it's cooking, I'll wash some of this blood away, which frightens you so much. Have you never seen blood before?"
Maskull gazed at her in perplexity. The old paradox came back - the contrasting sexual characteristics in her person. Her bold, masterful, masculine egotism of manner seemed quite incongruous with the fascinating and disturbing femininity of her voice. A startling idea flashed into his mind.
"In your country I'm told there is an act of will called 'absorbing.'
What is that?"
She held her red, dripping hands away from her draperies, and uttered a delicious, clashing laugh. "You think I am half a man?"
"Answer my question."
"I'm a woman through and through, Maskull - to the marrowbone. But that's not to say I have never absorbed males."
"And that means…"
"New strings for my harp, Maskull. A wider range of passions, a stormier heart…"
"For you, yes - But for them?…"
"I don't know. The victims don't describe their experiences. Probably unhappiness of some sort - if they still know anything."
"This is a fearful business!" he exclaimed, regarding her gloomily. "One would think Ifdawn a land of devils."
Oceaxe gave a beautiful sneer as she took a step toward the river.
"Better men than you - better in every sense of the word - are walking about with foreign wills inside them. You may be as moral as you like, Maskull, but the fact remains, animals were made to be eaten, and simple natures were made to be absorbed."
"And human rights count for nothing!"
She had bent over the river's edge, to wash her arms and hands, but glanced up over her shoulder to answer his remark. "They do count. But we only regard a man as human for just as long as he's able to hold his own with others."
The flesh was soon cooked, and they breakfasted in silence. Maskull cast heavy, doubtful glances from time to time toward his companion. Whether it was due to the strange quality of the food, or to his long abstention, he did not know, but the meal tasted nauseous, and even cannibalistic. He ate little, and the moment he got up he felt defiled.
"Let me bury this drude, where I can find it some other time," said Oceaxe. "On the next occasion, though, I shall have no Maskull with me, to shock… Now we have to take to the river."
They stepped off the land onto the water. It flowed against them with a sluggish current, but the opposition, instead of hindering them, had the contrary effect - it caused them to exert themselves, and they moved faster. They climbed the river in this way for several miles. The exercise gradually improved the circulation of Maskull's blood, and he began to look at things in a far more way. The hot sunshine, the diminished wind, the cheerful marvellous cloud scenery, the quiet, crystal forests - all was soothing and delightful. They approached nearer and nearer to the gaily painted heights of Ifdawn.
There was something enigmatic to him in those bright walls. He was attracted by them, yet felt a sort of awe. They looked real, but at the same time very supernatural. If one could see the portrait of a ghost, painted with a hard, firm outline, in substantial colors, the feelings produced by such a sight would be exactly similar to Maskull's impressions as he studied the Ifdawn precipices.
He broke the long silence. "Those mountains have most extraordinary shapes. All the lines are straight and perpendicular - no slopes or curves."
She walked backward on the water, in order to face him. "That's typical of Ifdawn. Nature is all hammer blows with us. Nothing soft and gradual."
"I hear you, but I don't understand you."
"All over the Marest you'll find patches of ground plunging down or rushing up. Trees grow fast. Women and men don't think twice before acting. One may call Ifdawn a place of quick decisions."
Maskull was impressed. "A fresh, wild, primitive land."
"How is it where you come from?" asked Oceaxe.
"Oh, mine is a decrepit world, where nature takes a hundred years to move a foot of solid land. Men and animals go about in flocks. Originality is a lost habit."
"Are there women there?"
"As with you, and not very differently formed."
"Do they love?"
He laughed. "So much so that it has changed the dress, speech, and thoughts of the whole sex."
"Probably they are more beautiful than I?"
"No, I think not," said Maskull.
There was another rather long silence, as they travelled unsteadily onward.
"What is your business in Ifdawn?" demanded Oceaxe suddenly.
He hesitated over his answer. "Can you grasp that it's possible to have an aim right in front of one, so big that one can't see it as a whole?"
She stole a long, inquisitive look at him, "What sort of aim?"
"A moral aim."
"Are you proposing to set the world right?"
"I propose nothing - I am waiting."
"Don't wait too long, for time doesn't wait - especially in Ifdawn."
"Something will happen," said Maskull.
Oceaxe threw a subtle smile. "So you have no special destination in the Marest?"
"No, and if you'll permit me, I will come home with you."
"Singular man!" she said, with a short, thrilling laugh. "That's what I have been offering all the time. Of course you will come home with me. As for Crimtyphon…"
"You mentioned that name before. Who is he?"
"Oh! My lover, or, as you would say, my husband."
"This doesn't improve matters," said Maskull.
"It leaves them exactly where they were. We merely have to remove him."
"We are certainly misunderstanding each other," said Maskull, quite startled. "Do you by any chance imagine that I am making a compact with you?"
"You will do nothing against your will. But you have promised to come home with me."
"Tell me, how do you remove husbands in Ifdawn?"
"Either you or I must kill him."
He eyed her for a full minute. "Now we are passing from folly to insanity."
"Not at all," replied Oceaxe. "It is the too-sad truth. And when you have seen Crimtyphon, you will realise it."
"I'm aware I am on a strange planet," said Maskull slowly, "where all sorts of unheard of things may happen, and where the very laws of morality may be different. Still as far as I am concerned, murder is murder, and I'll have no more to do with a woman who wants to make use of me, to get rid of her husband."
"You think me wicked?" demanded Oceaxe steadily.
"Or mad."
"Then you had better leave me, Maskull - only - "
"Only what?"
"You wish to be consistent, don't you? Leave all other mad and wicked people as well. Then you'll find it easier to reform the rest."
Maskull frowned, but said nothing.
"Well?" demanded Oceaxe, with a half smile.
"I'll come with you, and I'll see Crimtyphon - if only to warn him."
Oceaxe broke into a cascade of rich, feminine laughter, but whether at the image conjured up by Maskull's last words, or from some other cause, he did not know. The conversation dropped.
At a distance of a couple of miles from the now towering cliffs, the river made a sharp, right-angled turn to the west, and was no longer of use to them on their journey. Maskull stared up doubtfully.
"It's a stiff climb for a hot morning."
"Let's rest here a little," said she, indicating a smooth flat island of black rock, standing up just out of the water in the middle of the river.
They accordingly went to it, and Maskull sat down. Oceaxe, however, standing graceful and erect, turned her face toward the cliffs opposite, and uttered a piercing and peculiar call.
"What is that for?" She did not answer. After waiting a minute, she repeated the call. Maskull now saw a large bird detach itself from the top of one of the precipices, and sail slowly down toward them. It was followed by two others. The flight of these birds was exceedingly slow and clumsy.
"What are
they?" he asked.
She still returned no answer, but smiled rather peculiarly and sat down beside him. Before many minutes he was able to distinguish the shapes and colors of the flying monsters. They were not birds, but creatures with long, snakelike bodies, and ten reptilian legs apiece, terminating in fins which acted as wings. The bodies were of bright blue, the legs and fins were yellow. They were flying, without haste, but in a somewhat ominous fashion, straight toward them. He could make out a long, thin spike projecting from each of the heads.
"They are shrowks," explained Oceaxe at last. "If you want to know their intention, I'll tell you. To make a meal of us. First of all their spikes will pierce us, and then their mouths, which are really suckers, will drain us dry of blood - pretty thoroughly too; there are no half measures with shrowks. They are toothless beasts, so don't eat flesh."
"As you show such admirable sangfroid," said Maskull dryly, "I take it there's no particular danger."
Nevertheless he instinctively tried to get on to his feet and failed. A new form of paralysis was chaining him to the ground.
"Are you trying to get up?" asked Oceaxe smoothly.
"Well, yes, but those cursed reptiles seem to be nailing me down to the rock with their wills. May I ask if you had any special object in view in waking them up?"
"I assure you the danger is quite real, Maskull. Instead of talking and asking questions, you had much better see what you can do with your will."
"I seem to have no will, unfortunately."
Oceaxe was seized with a paroxysm of laughter, but it was still rich and beautiful. "It's obvious you aren't a very heroic protector, Maskull. It seems I must play the man, and you the woman. I expected better things of your big body. Why, my husband would send those creatures dancing all around the sky, by way of a joke, before disposing of them. Now watch me… Two of the three I'll kill; the third we will ride home on. Which one shall we keep?"
The shrowks continued their slow, wobbling flight toward them. Their bodies were of huge size. They produced in Maskull the same sensation of loathing as insects did. He instinctively understood that as they hunted with their wills, there was no necessity for them to possess a swift motion.
"Choose which you please," he said shortly. "They are equally objectionable to me."
"Then I'll choose the leader, as it is presumably the most energetic animal. Watch now."
She stood upright, and her sorb suddenly blazed with fire. Maskull felt something snap inside his brain. His limbs were free once more. The two monsters in the rear staggered and darted head foremost toward the earth, one after the other. He watched them crash on the ground, and then lie motionless. The leader still came toward them, but he fancied that its flight was altered in character; it was no longer menacing, but tame and unwilling.
Oceaxe guided it with her will to the mainland shore opposite their island rock. Its vast bulk lay there extended, awaiting her pleasure. They immediately crossed the water.
Maskull viewed the shrowk at close quarters. It was about thirty feet long. Its bright-coloured skin was shining, slippery, and leathery; a mane of black hair covered its long neck. Its face was awesome and unnatural, with its carnivorous eyes, frightful stiletto, and blood-sucking cavity. There were true fins on its back and tail.
"Have you a good seat?" asked Oceaxe, patting the creature's flank. "As I have to steer, let me jump on first."
She pulled up her gown, then climbed up and sat astride the animal's back, just behind the mane, which she clutched. Between her and the fin there was just room for Maskull. He grasped the two flanks with his outer hands; his third, new arm pressed against Oceaxe's back, and for additional security he was compelled to encircle her waist with it.
Directly he did so, he realised that he had been tricked, and that this ride had been planned for one purpose only - to inflame his desires.
The third arm possessed a function of its own, of which hitherto he had been ignorant. It was a developed magn. But the stream of love which was communicated to it was no longer pure and noble - it was boiling, passionate, and torturing. He gritted his teeth, and kept quiet, but Oceaxe had not plotted the adventure to remain unconscious of his feelings. She looked around, with a golden, triumphant smile.
"The ride will last some time, so hold on well!" Her voice was soft like a flute, but rather malicious.
Maskull grinned, and said nothing. He dared not remove his arm.
The shrowk straddled on to its legs. It jerked itself forward, and rose slowly and uncouthly in the air. They began to paddle upward toward the painted cliffs. The motion was swaying, rocking, and sickening; the contact of the brute's slimy skin was disgusting. All this, however, was merely, background to Maskull, as he sat there with closed eyes, holding on to Oceaxe. In the front and centre of his consciousness was the knowledge that he was gripping a fair woman, and that her flesh was responding to his touch like a lovely harp.
They climbed up and up. He opened his eyes, and ventured to look around him. By this time they were already level with the top of the outer rampart of precipices. There now came in sight a wild archipelago of islands, with jagged outlines, emerging from a sea of air. The islands were mountain summits; or, more accurately speaking, the country was a high tableland, fissured everywhere by narrow and apparently bottomless cracks. These cracks were in some cases like canals, in others like lakes, in others merely holes in the ground, closed in all round. The perpendicular sides of the islands - that is, the upper, visible parts of the innumerable cliff faces - were of bare rock, gaudily coloured; but the level surfaces were a tangle of wild plant life. The taller trees alone were distinguishable from the shrowk's back. They were of different shapes, and did not look ancient; they were slender and swaying but did not appear very graceful; they looked tough, wiry, and savage.
As Maskull continued to explore the landscape, he forgot Oceaxe and his passion. Other strange feelings came to the front. The morning was gay and bright. The sun scorched down, quickly-changing clouds sailed across the sky, the earth was vivid, wild, and lonely. Yet he experienced no aesthetic sensations - he felt nothing but an intense longing for action and possession. When he looked at anything, he immediately wanted to deal with it. The atmosphere of the land seemed not free, but sticky; attraction and repulsion were its constituents. Apart from this wish to play a personal part in what was going on around and beneath him, the scenery had no significance for him.
So preoccupied was he, that his arm partly released its clasp. Oceaxe turned around to gaze at him. Whether or not she was satisfied with what she saw, she uttered a low laugh, like a peculiar chord.
"Cold again so quickly, Maskull?"
"What do you want?" he asked absently, still looking over the side. "It's extraordinary how drawn I feel to all this."
"You wish to take a hand?"
"I wish to get down."
"Oh, we have a good way to go yet… So you really feel different?"
"Different from what? What are you talking about?" said Maskull, still lost in abstraction.
Oceaxe laughed again. "It would be strange if we couldn't make a man of you, for the material is excellent."
After that, she turned her back once more.
The air islands differed from water islands in another way. They were not on a plane surface, but sloped upward, like a succession of broken terraces, as the journey progressed. The shrowk had hitherto been flying well above the ground; but now, when a new line of towering cliffs confronted them, Oceaxe did not urge the beast upward, but caused it to enter a narrow canyon, which intersected the mountains like a channel. They were instantly plunged into deep shade. The canal was not above thirty feet wide; the walls stretched upward on both sides for many hundred feet. It was as cool as an ice chamber. When Maskull attempted to plumb the chasm with his eyes, he saw nothing but black obscurity.
"What is at the bottom?" he asked.
"Death for you, if you go to look for it."
"We know that. I me
an, is there any kind of life down there?"
"Not that I have ever heard of," said Oceaxe, "but of course all things are possible."
"I think very likely there is life," he returned thoughtfully.
Her ironical laugh sounded out of the gloom. "Shall we go down and see?"
"You find that amusing?"
"No, not that. What I do find amusing is the big stranger with the beard, who is so keenly interested in everything except himself."
Maskull then laughed too. "I happen to be the only thing in Tormance which is not a novelty for me."
"Yes, but I am a novelty for you."
The channel went zigzagging its way through the belly of the mountain, and all the time they were gradually rising.
"At least I have heard nothing like your voice before," said Maskull, who, since he had no longer anything to look at, was at last ready for conversation.
"What's the matter with my voice?"
"It's all that I can distinguish of you now; that's why I mentioned it."
"Isn't it clear - don't I speak distinctly?"
"Oh, it's clear enough, but - it's inappropriate."
"Inappropriate?"
"I won't explain further," said Maskull, "but whether you are speaking or laughing, your voice is by far the loveliest and strangest instrument I have ever listened to. And yet I repeat, it is inappropriate."
"You mean that my nature doesn't correspond?"
He was just considering his reply, when their talk was abruptly broken off by a huge and terrifying, but not very loud sound rising up from the gulf directly underneath them. It was a low, grinding, roaring thunder.
"The ground is rising under us!" cried Oceaxe.
"Shall we escape?"
She made no answer, but urged the shrowk's flight upward, at such a steep gradient that they retained their seats with difficulty. The floor of the canyon, upheaved by some mighty subterranean force, could be heard, and almost felt, coming up after them, like a gigantic landslip in the wrong direction. The cliffs cracked, and fragments began to fall. A hundred awful noises filled the air, growing louder and louder each second - splitting, hissing, cracking, grinding, booming, exploding, roaring. When they had still fifty feet or so to go, to reach the top, a sort of dark, indefinite sea of broken rocks and soil appeared under their feet, ascending rapidly, with irresistible might, accompanied by the most horrible noises. The canal was filled up for two hundred yards, before and behind them. Millions of tons of solid matter seemed to be raised. The shrowk in its ascent was caught by the uplifted debris. Beast and riders experienced in that moment all the horrors of an earthquake - they were rolled violently over, and thrown among the rocks and dirt. All was thunder, instability, motion, confusion.
Voyage to Arcturus Page 9