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Chapter 19 - Sullenbode
Sullenbode's naked skin glowed softly through the darkness, but the
clothed part of her person was invisible. Maskull watched her
senseless, smiling face, and shivered. Strange feelings ran through
his body.
Corpang spoke out of the night. "She looks like an evil spirit
filled with deadliness."
"It was like deliberately kissing lightning."
"Haunte was insane with passion."
"So am I," said Maskull quietly. "My body seems full of rocks, all
grinding against one another."
"This is what I was afraid of."
"It appears I shall have to kiss her too."
Corpang pulled his arm. "Have you lost all manliness?"
But Maskull impatiently shook himself free. He plucked nervously at
his beard, and stared at Sullenbode. His lips kept twitching. After
this had gone on for a few minutes, he stepped forward, bent over the
woman, and lifted her bodily in his arms. Setting her upright
against the rugged tree trunk, he kissed her.
A cold, knifelike shock passed down his frame. He thought that it
was death, and lost consciousness.
When his sense returned, Sullenbode was holding him by the shoulder
with one hand at arm's length, searching his face with gloomy eyes.
At first he failed to recognise her; it was not the woman he had
kissed, but another. Then he gradually realised that her face was
identical with that which Haunte's action had called into existence.
A great calmness came upon him; his bad sensations had disappeared.
Sullenbode was transformed into a living soul. Her skin was firm,
her features were strong, her eyes gleamed with the consciousness of
power. She was tall and slight, but slow in all her gestures and
movements. Her face was not beautiful. It was long, and palely
lighted, while the mouth crossed the lower half like a gash of fire.
The lips were as voluptuous as before. Her brows were heavy. There
was nothing vulgar in her - she looked the kingliest of all women.
She appeared not more than twenty-five.
Growing tired, apparently, of his scrutiny, she pushed him a little
way and allowed her arm to drop, at the same time curving her mouth
into a long, bowlike smile. "Whom have I to thank for this gift of
life?"
Her voice was rich, slow, and odd. Maskull felt himself in a dream.
"My name is Maskull."
She motioned to him to come a step nearer. "Listen, Maskull. Man
after man has drawn me into the world, but they could not keep me
there, for I did not wish it. But now you have drawn me into it for
all time, for good or evil."
Maskull stretched a hand toward the now invisible corpse, and said
quietly, "What have you to say about him?"
"Who was it?"
"Haunte."
"So that was Haunte. The news will travel far and wide. He was a
famous man."
"It's a horrible affair. I can't think that you killed him
deliberately."
"We women are endowed with terrible power, but it is our only
protection. We do not want these visits; we loathe them."
"I might have died, too."
"You came together?"
"There were three of us. Corpang still stands over there."
"I see a faintly glimmering form. What do you want of me, Corpang?"
"Nothing."
"Then go away, and leave me with Maskull."
"No need, Corpang. I am coming with you."
"This is not that pleasure, then?" demanded the low, earnest voice,
out of the darkness.
"No, that pleasure has not returned."
Sullenbode gripped his arm hard. "What pleasure are you speaking
of?"
"A presentiment of love, which I felt not long ago."
"But what do you feel now?"
"Calm and free."
Sullenbode's face seemed like a pallid mask, hiding a slow, swelling
sea of elemental passions. "I do not know how it will end, Maskull,
but we will still keep together a little. Where are you going?"
"To Adage," said Corpang, stepping forward.
"But why?"
"We are following the steps of Lodd, who went there years ago, to
find Muspel-light."
"It's the light of another world."
"The quest is grand. But cannot women see that light?"
"On one condition," said Corpang. "They must forget their sex.
Womanhood and love belong to life, while Muspel is above life."
"I give you all other men," said Sullenbode. "Maskull is mine."
"No. I am not here to help Maskull to a lover but to remind him of
the existence of nobler things."
"You are a good man. But you two alone will never strike the road to
Adage."
"Are you acquainted with it?"
Again the woman gripped Maskull's arm. "What is love - which Corpang
despises?"
Maskull looked at her attentively. Sullenbode went on, "Love is that
which is perfectly willing to disappear and become nothing, for the
sake of the beloved."
Corpang wrinkled his forehead. "A magnanimous female lover is new in
my experience."
Maskull put him aside with his hand, and said to Sullenbode, "Are you
contemplating a sacrifice?"
She gazed at her feet, and smiled. "'What does it matter what my
thoughts are? Tell me, are you starting at once, or do you mean to
rest first? It's a rough road to Adage."
"What's in your mind?" demanded Maskull.
"I will guide you a little. When we reach the ridge between Sarclash
and Adage, perhaps I shall turn back."
"And then?"
"Then if the moon shines perhaps you will arrive before daybreak, but
if it is dark it's hardly likely."
"That's not what I meant. What will become of you after we have
parted company?"
"I shall return somewhere - perhaps here."
Maskull went close up to her, in order to study her face better.
"Shall you sink back into - the old state?"
"No, Maskull, thank heaven."
"Then how will you live?"
Sullenbode calmly removed the hand which he had placed on her arm.
There was a sort of swirling flame in her eyes. "And who said I
would go on living?"
Maskull blinked at her in bewilderment. A few moments passed before
he spoke again. "You women are a sacrificing lot. You know I can't
leave you like this."
Their eyes met. Neither withdrew them, and neither felt embarrassed.
"You will always be the most generous of men, Maskull. Now let us
go.... Corpang is a single-minded personage, and the least we others
- who aren't so single-minded - can do is to help him to his
destination. We mustn't inquire whether the destination of single-
minded men is as a rule worth arriving at."
"If it is good for Maskull, it will be good for me."
"Well, no vessel can hold more than its appointed measure."
Corpang gave a wry smile. "During your long sleep you appear to have
picked up wisdom."
"Yes, Corpang, I have met many men, and explored many minds."
As they moved off, Maskull remembered Haunte.
"Can we not bury that poor fellow?"
"By this time tomorrow we shall need burial ourselves. But I do not
include Corpang."
"We have no tools, so you must have your way. You killed him, but I
am the real murderer. I stole his protecting light."
"Surely that death is balanced by the life you have given me." They
left the spot in the direction opposite to that by which the three
men had arrived. After a few steps, they came to green snow again.
At the same time the flat ground ended, and they started to traverse
a steep, pathless mountain slope. The snow and rocks glimmered,
their own bodies shone; otherwise everything was dark. The mists
swirled around them, but Maskull had no more nightmares. The breeze
was cold, pure, and steady. They walked in file, Sullenbode leading;
her movements were slow and fascinating. Corpang came last. His
stern eyes saw nothing ahead but an alluring girl and a half-
infatuated man.
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 new experiences, perhaps. The old ones no longer
interested me."
"How long have you been in this world?"
"This is the end of my fourth day."
"Then tell me what you have seen and done during those four days.
You cannot have been inactive."
"Great misfortunes have happened to me."
He proceeded briefly to relate everything that had taken place from
the moment of his first awakening in the scarlet desert. Sullenbode
listened, with half-closed eyes, nodding her head from time to time.
only twice did she interrupt him. After his description of Tydomin's
death, she said, speaking in a low voice - "None of us women ought by
right of nature to fall short of Tydomin in sacrifice. For that one
act of hers, I almost love her, although she brought evil to your
door." Again, speaking of Gleameil, she remarked, "That grand-souled
girl I admire the most of all. She listened to her inner voice, and
to nothing else besides. Which of us others is strong enough for
that?"
When his tale was quite over, Sullenbode said, "Does it not strike
you, Maskull, that these women you have met have been far nobler than
the men?"
"I recognise that. We men often sacrifice ourselves, but only for a
substantial cause. For you women almost any cause will serve. You
love the sacrifice for its own sake, and that is because you are
naturally noble."
Turning her head a little, she threw him a smile so proud, yet so
sweet, that he was struck into silence.
They tramped on quietly for some distance, and then he said, "Now you
understand the sort of man I am. Much brutality, more weakness,
scant pity for anyone - Oh, it has been a bloody journey!"
She laid her hand on his arm. "I, for one, would not have it less
rugged."
"Nothing good can be said of my crimes."
"To me you seem like a lonely giant, searching for you know not
what.... The grandest that life holds.... You at least have no cause
to look up to women."
"Thanks, Sullenbode!" he responded, with a troubled smile.
"When Maskull passes, let people watch. Everyone is thrown out of
your road. You go on, looking neither to right nor left."
"Take care that you are not thrown as well," said Corpang gravely.
"Maskull shall do with me whatever he pleases, old skull! And for
whatever he does, I will thank him... . In place of a heart you have
a bag of loose dust. Someone has described love to you. You have
had it described to you. You have heard that it is a small, fearful,
selfish joy. It is not that - it is wild, and scornful, and sportive,
and bloody.... How should you know."
"Selfishness has far too many disguises."
"If a woman wills to give up all, what can there be selfish in that?"
"Only do not deceive yourself. Act decisively, or fate will be too
swift for you both."
Sullenbode studied him through her lashes. "Do you mean death - his
death as well as mine?"
"You go too far, Corpang," said Maskull, turning a shade darker. "I
don't accept you as the arbiter of our fortunes."
"If honest counsel is disagreeable to you, let me go on ahead."
The woman detained him with her slow, light fingers. "I wish you to
stay with us."
"Why?"
"I think you may know what you are talking about. I don't wish to
bring harm to Maskull. Presently I'll leave you."
"That will be best," said Corpang.
Maskull looked angry. "I shall decide - Sullenbode, whether you go
on, or back, I stay with you. My mind is made up."
An expression of joyousness overspread her face, in spite of her
efforts to conceal it. "Why do you scowl at me, Maskull?"
He returned no answer, but continued walking onward with puckered
brows. After a dozen paces or so, he halted abruptly. "Wait,
Sullenbode!"
The others came to a standstill. Corpang looked puzzled, but the
woman smiled. Maskull, without a word, bent over and kissed her
lips. Then he relinquished her body, and turned around to Corpang.
"How do you, in your great wisdom, interpret that kiss?"
"It requires no great wisdom to interpret kisses, Maskull."
"Hereafter, never dare to come between us. Sullenbode belongs to
me."
"Then I say no more; but you are a fated man."
From that time forward he spoke not another word to either of the
others.
A heavy gleam appeared in the woman's eyes. "Now things are changed,
Maskull. Where are you taking me?"
"Choose, you."
"The man I love must complete his journey. I won't have it otherwise.
You shall not stand lower than Corpang."
"Where you go, I will go."
"And I - as long as your love endures, I will accompany you even to
Adage."
"Do you doubt its lasting?"
"I wish not to.... Now I will tell you what I refused to tell you
before. The term of your love is the term of my life. When you love
me no longer, I must die."
"And why?" asked Maskull slowly.
"Yes, that's the responsibility you incurred when you kissed me for
the first time. I never meant to tell you."
"Do you mean that if I had gone on alone, you would have died?"
"I have no other life but what you give me."
He gazed at her mournfully, without attempting to reply, and then
slowly placed his arms around her body. During this embrace he
turned very pale, but Sullenbode grew as white as chalk.
A few minutes later the journey toward Adage was resumed.
They had been walking for two hours. Teargeld was higher in the sky
and nearer the south. They had descended many hundred feet, and the
character of the ridge began to alter for the worse. The thin snow
disappeared, and gave way to moist, boggy ground. It was all little
grassy hillocks and marshes. They began to slip about and become
draggled with mud. Conversation ceased; Sullenbode led the way, and
the men followed in her tracks. The southern half of the landscape
grew grander. The greenish light of the brilliant moon, shining on
the multitude of snow-green peaks, caused it to appear like a
spectral world. Their nearest neighbour towered high above them on
the other side of the valley, due south, some five miles distant. It
was a slender, inaccessible, dizzy spire of black rock, the angles of
which were too steep to retain snow. A great upward - curving horn
of rock sprang out from its topmost pinnacle. For a long time it
constituted their clues landmark.
The whole ridge gradually became saturated with moisture. The
surface soil was spongy, and rested on impermeable rock; it breathed
in the damp mists by night, and breathed them out again by day, under
Branchspell's rays. The walking grew first unpleasant, then
difficult, and finally dangerous. None of the party could
distinguish firm ground from bog. Sullenbode sank up to her waist in
a pit of slime; Maskull rescued her, but after this incident took the
lead himself. Corpang was the next to meet with trouble. Exploring
a new path for himself, he tumbled into liquid mud up to his
shoulders, and narrowly escaped a filthy death. After Maskull had
got him out, at great personal risk, they proceeded once more; but
now the scramble changed from bad to worse. Each step had to be
thoroughly tested before weight was put upon it, and even so the test
frequently failed. All of them went in so often, that in the end
they no longer resembled human beings, but walking pillars plastered
from top to toe with black filth. The hardest work fell to Maskull.
He not only had the exhausting task of beating the way, but was
continually called upon to help his companions out of their
difficulties. Without him they could not have got through.
After a peculiarly evil patch, they paused to recruit their strength.
Corpang's breathing was difficult, Sullenbode was quiet, listless,
and depressed.
Maskull gazed at them doubtfully. "Does this continue?" he inquired.
"No. I think," replied the woman, "we can't be far from the Mornstab
Pass. After that we shall begin to climb again, and then the road
will improve perhaps."
"Can you have been here before?"
"Once I have been to the Pass, but it was not so bad then."
"You are tired out, Sullenbode."
"What of it?" she replied, smiling faintly. "When one has a terrible
lover, one must pay the price."
"We cannot get there tonight, so let us stop at the first shelter we
come too."
"I leave it to you."
He paced up and down, while the others sat. "Do you regret
anything?" he demanded suddenly.
"No, Maskull, nothing. I regret nothing."
"Your feelings are unchanged?"
"Love can't go back - it can only go on."
"Yes, eternally on. It is so."
"No, I don't mean that. There is a climax, but when the climax has
been reached, love if it still wants to ascend must turn to
sacrifice."
"That's a dreadful creed," he said in a low voice, turning pale
beneath his coating of mud.
"Perhaps my nature is discordant.... I am tired. I don't know what I
feel."
In a few minutes they were on their feet again, and the journey
recommenced. Within half an hour they had reached the Mornstab Pass.
The ground here was drier; the broken land to the north served to
drain off the moisture of the soil. Sullenbode led them to the
northern edge of the ridge, to show them the nature of the country.
The pass was nothing but a gigantic landslip on both sides of the
ridge, where it was the lowest above the underlying land. A series
of huge broken terraces of earth and rock descended toward Barey.
They were overgrown with stunted vegetation. It was quite possible
to get down to the lowlands that way, but rather difficult. On
either side of the landslip, to cast and west, the ridge came down in
a long line of sheer, terrific cliffs. A low haze concealed Barey
from view. Complete stillness was in the air, broken only by the
distant thundering of an invisible waterfall.
Maskull and Sullenbode sat down on a boulder, facing the open
country. The moon was directly behind them, high up. It was almost
as light as an Earth day.
"Tonight is like life," said Sullenbode.
"How so?"
"So lovely above and around us, so foul underfoot."
Maskull sighed. "Poor girl, you are unhappy."
"And you - are you happy?"
He thought a while, and then replied - "No. No, I'm not happy. Love
is not happiness."
"What is it, Maskull?"
"Restlessness - unshed tears - thoughts too grand for our soul to
think ..."
"Yes," said Sullenbode.
After a time she asked, "Why were we created, just to live for a few
years and then disappear?"
"We are told that we shall live again."
"Yes, Maskull?"
"Perhaps in Muspel," he added thoughtfully.
'What kind of life will that be?"
"Surely we shall meet again. Love is too wonderful and mysterious a
thing to remain uncompleted."
She gave a slight shiver, and turned away from him. "This dream is
untrue. Love is completed here."
"How can that be, when sooner or later it is brutally interrupted by
Fate?"
"It is completed by anguish.. .. Oh, why must it always be enjoyment
for us? Can't we suffer - can't we go on suffering, forever and
ever? Maskull, until love crushes our spirit, finally and without
remedy, we don't begin to feel ourselves."
Maskull gazed at her with a troubled expression. "Can the memory of
love be worth more than its presence. and reality?"
"You don't understand. Those pangs are more precious than all the
rest beside." She caught at him. "Oh, if you could only see inside
my mind, Maskull! You would see strange things.... I can't explain.
It is all confused, even to myself.... This love is quite different
from what I thought."
He sighed again. "Love is a strong drink. Perhaps it is too strong
for human beings. And I think that it overtures our reason in
different ways."
They remained sitting side by side, staring straight before them with
unseeing eyes.
"It doesn't matter," said Sullenbode at last, with a smile, getting
up. "Soon it will be ended, one way or another. Come, let us be
off!"
Maskull too got up.
"Where's Corpang?" he asked listlessly.
They both looked across the ridge in the direction of Adage. At the
point where they stood it was nearly a mile wide. It sloped
perceptibly toward the southern edge, giving all the earth the
appearance of a heavy list. Toward the west the ground continued
level for a thousand yards, but then a high, sloping, grassy hill
went right across the ridge from side to side, like a vast billow on
the verge of breaking. It shut out all further view beyond. The
whole crest of this hill, from one end to the other, was crowned by a
long row of enormous stone posts, shining brightly in the moonlight
against a background of dark sky. There were about thirty in all,
and they were placed at such regular intervals that there was little
doubt that they had been set there by human hands. Some were
perpendicular, but others dipped so much that an aspect of extreme
antiquity was given to the entire colonnade. Corpang was seen
climbing the hill, not far from the top.
"He wishes to arrive," said Maskull, watching the energetic ascent
with a rather cynical smile.
"The heavens won't open for Corpang," returned Sullenbode. "He need
not be in such a hurry.... What do these pillars seem like to you?"
"They might be the entrance to some mighty temple. Who can have
planted them there?"
She did not answer. They watched Corpang gain the summit of the
hill, and disappear through the line of posts.
Maskull turned again to Sullenbode. "Now we two are alone in a
lonely world."
She regarded him steadily. "Our last night on this earth must be a
grand one. I am ready to go on."
"I don't think you are fit to go on. It will be better to go down
the pass a little, and find shelter."
She half smiled. "We won't study our poor bodies tonight. I mean you
to go to Adage, Maskull."
"Then at all events let us rest first, for it must be a long,
terrible climb, and who knows what hardships we shall meet?"
She walked a step or two forward, half turned, and held out her hand
to him. "Come, Maskull!"
When they had covered half the distance that separated them from the
foot of the hill, Maskull heard the drum taps. They came from behind
the hill, and were loud, sharp, almost explosive. He glanced at
Sullenbode, but she appeared to hear nothing. A minute later the
whole sky behind and above the long chain of stone posts on the crest
of the hill began to be illuminated by a strange radiance. The
moonlight in that quarter faded; the posts stood out black on a
background of fire. It was the light of Muspel. As the moments
passed, it grew more and more vivid, peculiar, and awful. It was of
no colour, and resembled nothing - it was supernatural and
indescribable. Maskull's spirit swelled. He stood fast, with
expanded nostrils and terrible eyes.
Sullenbode touched him lightly.
"What do you see, Maskull?"
"Muspel-light."
"I see nothing."
The light shot up, until Maskull scarcely knew where he stood. It
burned with a fiercer and stranger glare than ever before. He forgot
the existence of Sullenbode. The drum beats grew deafeningly loud.
Each beat was like a rip of startling thunder, crashing through the
sky and making the air tremble. Presently the crashes coalesced, and
one continuous roar of thunder rocked the world. But the rhythm
persisted - the four beats, with the third accented, still came
pulsing through the atmosphere, only now against a background of
thunder, and not of silence.
Maskull's heart beat wildly. His body was like a prison. He longed
to throw it off, to spring up and become incorporated with the
sublime universe which was beginning to unveil itself.
Sullenbode suddenly enfolded him in her arms, and kissed him -
passionately, again and again. He made no response; he was unaware
of what she was doing. She unclasped him and, with bent head and
streaming eyes, went noiselessly away. She started to go back toward
the Mornstab Pass.
A few minutes afterward the radiance began to fade. The thunder died
down. The moonlight reappeared, the stone posts and the hillside
were again bright. In a short time the supernatural light had
entirely vanished, but the drum taps still sounded faintly, a muffled
rhythm, from behind the hill. Maskull started violently, and stared
around him like a suddenly awakened sleeper.
He saw Sullenbode walking slowly away from him, a few hundred yards
off. At that sight, death entered his heart. He ran after her,
calling out.... She did not look around. When he had lessened the
distance between them by a half, he saw her suddenly stumble and
fall. She did not get up again, but lay motionless where she fell.
He flew toward her, and bent over her body. His worst fears were
realised. Life had departed.
Beneath its coating of mud, her face bore the vulgar, ghastly
Crystalman grin, but Maskull saw nothing of it. She had never
appeared so beautiful to him as at that moment.
He remained beside her for a long time, on his knees. He wept - but,
between his fits of weeping, he raised his head from time to time,
and listened to the distant drum beats.
An hour passed - two hours. TeargeId was now in the south-west.
Maskull lifted Sullenbode's dead body on to his shoulders, and
started to walk toward the Pass. He cared no more for Muspel. He
intended to look for water in which to wash the corpse of his
beloved, and earth in which to bury her.
When he had reached the boulder overlooking the landslip, on which
they had sat together, he lowered his burden, and, placing the dead
girl on the stone, seated himself beside her for a time, gazing over
toward Barey.
After that, he commenced his descent of the Mornstab Pass.
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