Chapter 11: On Disscourn

BY THE TIME that they regained the mouth of the cavern, Blodsombre was at its height. In front of them the scenery sloped downward--a long succession of mountain islands in a sea of clouds. Behind them the bright, stupendous crags of Disscourn loomed up for a thousand feet or more. Maskull’s eyes were red, and his face looked stupid; he was still holding the woman by the arm. She made no attempt to speak, or to get away. She seemed perfectly gentle and composed.

After gazing at the country for along time in silence, he turned toward her. “Whereabouts is the fiery lake you spoke of?”

“It lies on the other side of the mountain. But why do you ask?”

“It is just as well if we have some way to walk. I shall grow calmer, and that’s what I want. I wish you to understand that what is going to happen is not a murder, but an execution.”

“It will taste the same,” said Tydomin.

“When I have gone out of this country, I don’t wish to feel that I have left a demon behind me, wandering at large. That would not be fair to others. So we will go to the lake, which promises an easy death for you.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “We must wait till Blodsombre is over.”

“Is this a time for luxurious feelings? However hot it is now, we will both be cool by evening. We must start at once.”

“Without doubt, you are the master, Maskull ... May I not carry Crimtyphon?”

Maskull looked at her strangely.

“I grudge no man his funeral.”

She painfully hoisted the body on her narrow shoulders, and they stepped out into the sunlight. The heat struck them like a blow on the head. Maskull moved aside, to allow her to precede him, but no compassion entered his heart. He brooded over the wrongs the woman had done him.

The way went along the south side of the great pyramid, near its base. It was a rough road, clogged with boulders and crossed by cracks and water gullies; they could see the water, but could not get at it. There was no shade. Blisters formed on their skin, while all the water in their blood seemed to dry up.

Maskull forgot his own tortures in his devil’s delight at Tydomin’s. “Sing me a song!” he called out presently. “A characteristic one.”

She turned her head and gave him a long, peculiar look; then, without any sort of expostulation, started singing. Her voice was low and weird. The song was so extraordinary that he had to rub his eyes to ascertain whether he was awake or dreaming. The slow surprises of the grotesque melody began to agitate him in a horrible fashion; the words were pure nonsense--or else their significance was too deep for him.

“Where, in the name of all unholy things, did you acquire that stuff, woman?”

Tydomin shed a sickly smile, while the corpse swayed about with ghastly jerks over her left shoulder. She held it in position with her two left arms. “It’s a pity we could not have met as friends, Maskull. I could have shown you a side of Tormance which now perhaps you will never see. The wild, mad, side. But now it’s too late, and it doesn’t matter.”

They turned the angle of the mountain, and started to traverse the western base.

“Which is the quickest way out of this miserable land?” asked Maskull.

“It is easiest to go to Sant.”

“Will we see it from anywhere?”

“Yes, though it is a long way off.”

“Have you been there?”

“I am a woman, and interdicted.”

“True. I have heard something of the sort.”

“But don’t ask me any more questions,” said Tydomin, who was becoming faint.

Maskull stopped at a little spring. He himself drank, and then made a cup of his hand for the woman, so that she might not have to lay down her burden. The gnawl water acted like magic--it seemed to replenish all the cells of his body as though they had been thirsty sponge pores, sucking up liquid. Tydomin recovered her self-possession.

About three-quarters of an hour later they worked around the second corner, and entered into full view of the north aspect of Disscourn.

A hundred yards lower down the slope on which they were walking, the mountain ended abruptly in a chasm. The air above it was filled with a sort of green haze, which trembled violently like the atmosphere immediately over a furnace.

“The lake is underneath,” said Tydomin.

Maskull looked curiously about him. Beyond the crater the country sloped away in a continuous descent to the skyline. Behind them, a narrow path channelled its way up through the rocks toward the towering summit of the pyramid. Miles away, in the north-east quarter, a long, flat-topped plateau raised its head far above all the surrounding country. It was Sant--and there and then he made up his mind that that should be his destination that day.

Tydomin meanwhile had walked straight to the gulf, and set down Crimtyphon’s body on the edge. In a minute or two, Maskull joined her; arrived at the brink, he immediately flung himself at full length on his chest, to see what could be seen of the lake of fire. A gust of hot, asphyxiating air smote his face and set him coughing, but he did not get up until he had stared his fill at the huge sea of green, molten lava, tossing and swirling at no great distance below, like a living will.

A faint sound of drumming came up. He listened intently, and as he did so his heart quickened and the black cares rolled away from his soul. All the world and its accidents seemed at that moment false, and without meaning...

He climbed abstractedly to his feet. Tydomin was talking to her dead husband. She was peering into the hideous face of ivory, and fondling his violet hair. When she perceived Maskull, she hastily kissed the withered lips, and got up from her knees. Lifting the corpse with all three arms, she staggered with it to the extreme edge of the gulf and, after an instant’s hesitation, allowed it to drop into the lava. It disappeared immediately without sound; a metallic splash came up. That was Crimtyphon’s funeral.

“Now I am ready, Maskull.”

He did not answer, but stared past her. Another figure was standing, erect and mournful, not far behind her. It was Joiwind. Her face was wan, and there was an accusing look in her eyes. Maskull knew that it was a phantasm, and that the real Joiwind was miles away, at Poolingdred.

“Turn around, Tydomin,” he said oddly, “and tell me what you see behind you.”

“I don’t see anything,” she answered, looking around.

“But I see Joiwind.”

Just as he was speaking, the apparition vanished.

“Now I present you with your life, Tydomin. She wishes it.”

The woman fingered her chin thoughtfully.

“I little expected I should ever be beholden for my life to one of my own sex--but so be it. What really happened to you in my cavern?”

“I really saw Krag.”

“Yes, some miracle must have taken place.” She suddenly shivered. “Come, let us leave this horrible spot. I shall never come here again.”

“Yes,” said Maskull, “it stinks of death and dying. But where are we to go--what are we to do? Take me to Sant. I must get away from this hellish land.”

Tydomin remained standing, dull and hollow-eyed. Then she gave an abrupt, bitter little laugh. “We make our journey together in singular stages. Rather than be alone, I’ll come with you--but you know that if I set foot in Sant they will kill me.”

“At least set me on the way. I wish to get there before night. Is it possible?”

“If you are willing to take risks with nature. And why should you not take risks today? Your luck holds. But someday or other it won’t hold--your luck.”

“Let us start,” said Maskull. “The luck I’ve had so far is nothing to brag about.”

Blodsombre was over when they set off; it was early afternoon, but the heat seemed more stifling than ever. They made no more pretence at conversation; both were buried in their own painful thoughts. The land fell away from Disscourn in all other directions, but toward Sant there was a gentle, persistent rise. Its dark, distant plateau continued to dominate the landscape, and after walking for an hour they seemed none the nearer to it. The air was stale and stagnant.

By and by, an upright object, apparently the work of man, attracted Maskull’s notice. It was a slender tree stem, with the bark still on, imbedded in the stony ground. From the upper end three branches sprang out, pointing aloft at a sharp angle. They were stripped to twigs and leaves and, getting closer, he saw that they had been artificially fastened on, at equal distances from each other.

As he stared at the object, a strange, sudden flush of confident vanity and self-sufficiency seemed to pass through him, but it was so momentary that he could be sure of nothing.