A Voyage to Arcturus · Chapter 17 (3/3)

“How do you come to be on such terms with the Invisible? How is it that I’ve never had this experience before I met you, in spite of my never-ending prayers and mortifications? In what way are you superior to me?”

“To hear voices perhaps can’t be made a profession,” replied Maskull. “I have a simple and unoccupied mind⁠—that may be why I sometimes hear things that up to the present you have not been able to.”

Corpang darkened, and kept silent; and then Maskull saw through to his pride.

The ledge presently began to rise. They were high above the platform on the opposite side of the gulf. The road then curved sharply to the right, and they passed over the abyss and the other ledge as by a bridge, coming out upon the top of the opposite cliffs. A new line of precipices immediately confronted them. They followed the drumming along the base of these heights, but as they were passing the mouth of a large cave the sound came from its recesses, and they turned their steps inward.

“This leads to the outer world,” remarked Corpang. “I’ve occasionally been there by this passage.”

“Then that’s where it is taking us, no doubt. I confess I shan’t be sorry to see sunlight once more.”

“Can you find time to think of sunlight?” asked Corpang with a rough smile.

“I love the sun, and perhaps I’m rather lacking in the spirit of a zealot.”

“Yet, for all that, you may get there before me.”

“Don’t be bitter,” said Maskull. “I’ll tell you another thing. Muspel can’t be willed, for the simple reason that Muspel does not concern the will. To will is a property of this world.”

“Then what is your journey for?”

“It’s one thing to walk to a destination, and to linger over the walk, and quite another to run there at top speed.”

“Perhaps I’m not so easily deceived as you think,” said Corpang with another smile.

The light persisted in the cave. The path narrowed and became a steep ascent. Then the angle became one of forty-five degrees, and they had to climb. The tunnel grew so confined that Maskull was reminded of the confined dreams of his childhood.

Not long afterward, daylight appeared. They hastened to complete the last stage. Maskull rushed out first into the world of colours and, all dirty and bleeding from numerous scratches, stood blinking on a hillside, bathed in the brilliant late-afternoon sunshine. Corpang followed closely at his heels, He was obliged to shield his eyes with his hands for a few minutes, so unaccustomed was he to Branchspell’s blinding rays.

“The drum beats have stopped!” he exclaimed suddenly.

“You can’t expect music all the time,” answered Maskull dryly. “We mustn’t be luxurious.”

“But now we have no guide. We’re no better off than before.”

“Well, Tormance is a big place. But I have an infallible rule, Corpang. As I come from the south, I always go due north.”

“That will take us to Lichstorm.”

Maskull gazed at the fantastically piled rocks all around them. “I saw these rocks from Matterplay. The mountains look as far off now as they did then, and there’s not much of the day left. How far is Lichstorm from here?”

Corpang looked away to the distant range. “I don’t know, but unless a miracle happens we shan’t get there tonight.”

“I have a feeling,” said Maskull, “that we shall not only get there tonight, but that tonight will be the most important in my life.”

And he sat down passively to rest.