"Polecrab. What"s yours?"
"Maskull. If you"re a fisherman, you ought to have fish. I"m famishing."
Polecrab grunted, and paused a minute before answering.
"There"s fish enough. My dinner is cooking in the sands now. It"s easy enough to get you some more."
Maskull found this a pleasant speech.
"But how long will it take?" he asked.
The man slid the palms of his hands together, producing a shrill, screeching noise. He lifted his feet from the water, and clambered onto the bank. In a minute or two a curious little beast came crawling up to his feet, turning its face and eyes up affectionately, like a dog. It was about two feet long, and somewhat resembled a small seal, but had six legs, ending in strong claws.
"Arg, go fish!" said Polecrab hoa.r.s.ely.
The animal immediately tumbled off the bank into the water. It swam gracefully to the middle of the creek and made a pivotal dive beneath the surface, where it remained a great while.
"Simple fishing," remarked Maskull. "But what"s the raft for?"
"To go to sea with. The best fish are out at sea. These are eatable."
"That arg seems a highly intelligent creature."
Polecrab grunted again. "I"ve trained close on a hundred of them. The bigheads learn best, but they"re slow swimmers. The narrowheads swim like eels, but can"t be taught. Now I"ve started interbreeding them--he"s one of them."
"Do you live here alone?"
"No, I"ve got a wife and three boys. My wife"s sleeping somewhere, but where the lads are, Shaping knows."
Maskull began to feel very much at home with this unsophisticated being.
"The raft"s all crazy," he remarked, staring at it. "If you go far out in that, you"ve got more pluck than I have."
"I"ve been to Matterplay on it," said Polecrab.
The arg reappeared and started swimming to sh.o.r.e, but this time clumsily, as if it were bearing a heavy weight under the surface. When it landed at its master"s feet, they saw that each set of claws was clutching a fish--six in all. Polecrab took them from it. He proceeded to cut off the heads and tails with a sharp-edged stone which he picked up; these he threw to the arg, which devoured them without any fuss.
Polecrab beckoned to Maskull to follow him and, carrying the fish, walked toward the open sh.o.r.e, by the same way that he had come. When they reached the sands, he sliced the fish, removed the entrails, and digging a shallow hole in a patch of violet sand, placed the remainder of the carca.s.ses in it, and covered them over again. Then he dug up his own dinner. Maskull"s nostrils quivered at the savoury smell, but he was not yet to dine.
Polecrab, turning to go with the cooked fish in his hands, said, "These are mine, not yours. When yours are done, you can come back and join me, supposing you want company."
"How soon will that be?"
"About twenty minutes," replied the fisherman, over his shoulder.
Maskull sheltered himself in the shadows of the forest, and waited. When the time had approximately elapsed, he disinterred his meal, scorching his fingers in the operation, although it was only the surface of the sand which was so intensely hot. Then he returned to Polecrab.
In the warm, still air and cheerful shade of the inlet, they munched in silence, looking from their food to the sluggish water, and back again.
With every mouthful Maskull felt his strength returning. He finished before Polecrab, who ate like a man for whom time has no value. When he had done, he stood up.
"Come and drink," he said, in his husky voice.
Maskull looked at him inquiringly.
The man led him a little way into the forest, and walked straight up to a certain tree. At a convenient height in its trunk a hole had been tapped and plugged. Polecrab removed the plug and put his mouth to the aperture, sucking for quite a long time, like a child at its mother"s breast. Maskull, watching him, imagined that he saw his eyes growing brighter.
When his own turn came to drink, he found the juice of the tree somewhat like coconut milk in flavour, but intoxicating. It was a new sort of intoxication, however, for neither his will not his emotions were excited, but only his intellect--and that only in a certain way. His thoughts and images were not freed and loosened, but on the contrary kept labouring and swelling painfully, until they reached the full beauty of an aperu{sic}, which would then flame up in his consciousness, burst, and vanish. After that, the whole process started over again. But there was never a moment when he was not perfectly cool, and master of his senses. When each had drunk twice, Polecrab replugged the hole, and they returned to their bank.
"Is it Blodsombre yet?" asked Maskull, sprawling on the ground, well content.
Polecrab resumed his old upright sitting posture, with his feet in the water. "Just beginning," was his hoa.r.s.e response.
"Then I must stay here till it"s over.... Shall we talk?"
"We can," said the other, without enthusiasm.
Maskull glanced at him through half-closed lids, wondering if he were exactly what he seemed to be. In his eyes he thought he detected a wise light.
"Have you travelled much, Polecrab?"
"Not what you would call travelling."
"You tell me you"ve been to Matterplay--what kind of country is that?"
"I don"t know. I went there to pick up flints."
"What countries lie beyond it?"
"Threal comes next, as you go north. They say it"s a land of mystics...
I don"t know."
"Mystics?"
"So I"m told.... Still farther north there"s Lichstorm."
"Now we"re going far afield."
"There are mountains there--and altogether it must be a very dangerous place, especially for a full-blooded man like you. Take care of yourself."
"This is rather premature, Polecrab. How do you know I"m going there?"
"As you"ve come from the south, I suppose you"ll go north."
"Well, that"s right enough," said Maskull, staring hard at him. "But how do you know I"ve come from the south?"
"Well, then, perhaps you haven"t--but there"s a look of Ifdawn about you."
"What kind of look?"