"But this is troubling you?"
"My days are spent in torture."
"You still persist, though? This day darkness can"t be the ultimate state?"
"My questions will be answered."
A silence ensued.
"What do you propose to show me?" asked Maskull.
"The land is about to grow wilder. I am taking you to the Three Figures, which were carved and erected by an earlier race of men. There, we will pray."
"And what then?"
"If you are truehearted, you will see things you will not easily forget."
They had been walking slightly uphill in a sort of trough between two parallel, gently sloping downs. The trough now deepened, while the hills on either side grew steeper. They were in an ascending valley and, as it curved this way and that, the landscape was shut off from view.
They came to a little spring, bubbling up from the ground. It formed a trickling brook, which was unlike all other brooks in that it was flowing up the valley instead of down. Before long it was joined by other miniature rivulets, so that in the end it became a fair-sized stream. Maskull kept looking at it, and puckering his forehead.
"Nature has other laws here, it seems?"
"Nothing can exist here that is not a compound of the three worlds."
"Yet the water is flowing somewhere."
"I can"t explain it, but there are three wills in it."
"Is there no such thing as pure Thire-matter?"
"Thire cannot exist without Amfuse, and Amfuse cannot exist without Faceny."
Maskull thought this over for some minutes. "That must be so," he said at last. "Without life there can be no love, and without love there can be no religious feeling."
In the half light of the land, the tops of the hills containing the valley presently attained such a height that they could not be seen. The sides were steep and craggy, while the bed of the valley grew narrower at every step. Not a living organism was visible. All was unnatural and sepulchral.
Maskull said, "I feel as if I were dead, and walking in another world."
"I still do not know what you are doing here," answered Corpang.
"Why should I go on making a mystery of it? I came to find Surtur."
"That name I"ve heard--but under what circ.u.mstances?"
"You forget?"
Corpang walked along, his eyes fixed on the ground, obviously troubled.
"Who is Surtur?"
Maskull shook his head, and said nothing.
The valley shortly afterward narrowed, so that the two men, touching fingertips in the middle, could have placed their free hands on the rock walls on either side. It threatened to terminate in a cul-de-sac, but just when the road seemed least promising, and they were shut in by cliffs on all sides, a hitherto unperceived bend brought them suddenly into the open. They emerged through a mere crack in the line of precipices.
A sort of huge natural corridor was running along at right angles to the way they had come; both ends faded into obscurity after a few hundred yards. Right down the centre of this corridor ran a chasm with perpendicular sides; its width varied from thirty to a hundred feet, but its bottom could not be seen. On both sides of the chasm, facing one another, were platforms of rock, twenty feet or so in width; they too proceeded in both directions out of sight. Maskull and Corpang emerged onto one of these platforms. The shelf opposite was a few feet higher than that on which they stood. The platforms were backed by a double line of lofty and unclimbable cliffs, whose tops were invisible.
The stream, which had accompanied them through the gap, went straight forward, but, instead of descending the wall of the chasm as a waterfall, it crossed from side to side like a liquid bridge. It then disappeared through a cleft in the cliffs on the opposite side.
To Maskull"s mind, however, even more wonderful than this unnatural phenomenon was the absence of shadows, which was more noticeable here than on the open plain. It made the place look like a hall of phantoms.
Corpang, without delay, led the way along the shelf to the left. When they had walked about a mile, the gulf widened to two hundred feet.
Three large rocks loomed up on the ledge opposite; they resembled three upright giants, standing motionless side by side on the extreme edge of the chasm. Corpang and Maskull drew nearer, and then Maskull saw that they were statues. Each was about thirty feet high, and the workmanship was of the rudest. They represented naked men, but the limbs and trunks had been barely chipped into shape--the faces alone had had care bestowed on them, and even these faces were merely generalised. It was obviously the work of primitive artists. The statues stood erect with knees closed and arms hanging straight down their sides. All three were exactly alike.
As soon as they were directly opposite, Corpang halted.
"Is this a representation of your three Beings?" asked Maskull, awed by the spectacle in spite of his const.i.tutional audacity.
"Ask no questions, but kneel," replied Corpang. He dropped onto his own knees, but Maskull remained standing.
Corpang covered his eyes with one hand, and prayed silently. After a few minutes the light sensibly faded. Then Maskull knelt as well, but he continued looking.
It grew darker and darker, until all was like the blackest night. Sight and sound no longer existed; he was alone with his own spirit.
Then one of the three Colossi came slowly into sight again. But it had ceased to be a statue--it was a living person. Out of the blackness of s.p.a.ce a gigantic head and chest emerged, illuminated by a mystic, rosy glow, like a mountain peak bathed by the rising sun. As the light grew stronger Maskull saw that the flesh was translucent and that the glow came from within. The limbs of the apparition were wreathed in mist.
Before long the features of the face stood out distinctly. It was that of a beardless youth of twenty years. It possessed the beauty of a girl and the daring force of a man; it bore a mocking, cryptic smile. Maskull felt the fresh, mysterious thrill of mingled pain and rapture of one who awakes from a deep sleep in midwinter and sees the gleaming, dark, delicate colours of the half-dawn. The vision smiled, kept still, and looked beyond him. He began to shudder, with delight--and many emotions.
As he gazed, his poetic sensibility acquired such a nervous and indefinable character that he could endure it no more; he burst into tears.
When he looked up again the image had nearly disappeared, and in a few moments more he was plunged back into total darkness.
Shortly afterward a second statue reappeared. It too was transfigured into a living form, but Maskull was unable to see the details of its face and body, because of the brightness of the light that radiated from them. This light, which started as pale gold, ended as flaming golden fire. It illumined the whole underground landscape. The rock ledges, the cliffs, himself and Corpang on their knees, the two unlighted statues--all appeared as if in sunlight, and the shadows were black and strongly defined. The light carried heat with it, but a singular heat.
Maskull was unaware of any rise in temperature, but he felt his heart melting to womanish softness. His male arrogance and egotism faded imperceptibly away; his personality seemed to disappear. What was left behind was not freedom of spirit or lightheartedness, but a pa.s.sionate and nearly savage mental state of pity and distress. He felt a tormenting desire to serve. All this came from the heat of the statue, and was without an object. He glanced anxiously around him, and fastened his eyes on Corpang. He put a hand on his shoulder and aroused him from his praying.
"You must know what I am feeling, Corpang."
Corpang smiled sweetly, but said nothing.
"I care nothing for my own affairs any more. How can I help you?"
"So much the better for you, Maskull, if you respond so quickly to the invisible worlds."
As soon as he had spoken, the figure began to vanish, and the light to die away from the landscape. Maskull"s emotion slowly subsided, but it was not until he was once more in complete darkness that he became master of himself again. Then he felt ashamed of his boyish exhibition of enthusiasm, and thought ruefully that there must be something wanting in his character. He got up onto his feet.
The very moment that he arose, a man"s voice sounded, not a yard from his ear. It was hardly raised above a whisper, but he could distinguish that it was not Corpang"s. As he listened he was unable to prevent himself from physically trembling.
"Maskull, you are to die," said the unseen speaker.
"Who is speaking?"
"You have only a few hours of life left. Don"t trifle the time away."