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.”