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The eastern sky blazed up suddenly with violent dyes, and the outer rim of Branchspell lifted itself above the sea. The moon had already sunk. The shore loomed nearer and nearer. In physical character it was like Swaylone's Island the same wide sands, small cliffs, and rounded, insignificant hills inland, without vegetation. In the early-morning sunlight, however, it looked romantic.
The gigantic, white, withering Branchspell, the awful, body-changing Alppain, the beautiful, deadly, treacherous sea, the dark and eerie Swaylone's Island, the spirit-crushing forest out of which he had just escaped to all these mighty powers, surrounding him on every side, what resources had he, a feeble, ignorant traveller to oppose, from a tiny planet on the other side of space, to avoid being utterly destroyed?... Then he smiled to himself.
This sea is full of pouches of water that will not bear a man's weight, and as these light parts don't differ in appearance from the rest, it is dangerous to cross. My father pointed out a dim outline on the horizon, and told me it was Swaylone's Island. Men sometimes go there, but none ever return.
He drank in the hot, invigorating wind, listened to the hissing waves, and stared over the coloured sea with its pinnacles and currents, at Swaylone's Island. "What music can that be, which tears a wife and mother away from all she loves the most?" he meditated. "It sounds unholy. Will it tell me what I want to know? Can it?"
About twenty miles distant, as he judged, directly opposite him, a long, low island stood up from the sea, black and not distinguished in outline. It was Swaylone's Island. Maskull was less interested in that than in the blue sunset that glowed behind its back. Alppain had set, but the whole northern sky was plunged into the minor key by its afterlight.
Many men crossed over to the island during his lifetime, to listen to the amazing tones, but none could endure them; all died. After Swaylone's death, another musician took up the tale; and so the light has passed down from torch to torch, till now Earthrid bears it." "An interesting legend," commented Maskull. "But who is Krag?"
It commands the whole land as far as the Sinking Sea and Swaylone's Island and beyond. You can also see Alppain from it." "That's a sight I mean to see before I have finished." "Do you, Maskull?" She turned around and put her hand on his wrist. "Stay with me, and one day we'll go to Disscourn together." He grunted unintelligibly.
Sit down again, stranger and you too, wife, since you are here." They both obeyed. "I heard everything," repeated Gleameil. "But what I did not hear was where you are going to, Maskull, after you have left us." "I know no more than you do." "Listen, then. There's only one place for you to go to, and that is Swaylone's Island. I will ferry you across myself before sunset."
The bare, undulating wolds sloped straight down toward it; the water glittered in the distance; and on the horizon he was just able to make out Swaylone's Island. Looking north, the land continued sloping upward as far as he could see. Over the crest that is to say, some miles away a line of black, fantastic-shaped rocks of quite another character showed themselves; this was probably Threal.
But in that other world these words have no meaning." There was a silence. "It's useless to discuss such topics," said Maskull. "The choice is now out of our hands, and we must go where we are taken. What I would rather speak about is what awaits us on the island." "I am ignorant except that we shall find Earthrid there." "Who is Earthrid, and why is it called Swaylone's Island?"
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