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"In a far-back age," began Gleameil, "when the seas were hot, and clouds hung heavily over the earth, and life was rich with transformations, Swaylone came to this island, on which men had never before set foot, and began to play his music the first music in Tormance.
"What is he talking about, Nightspore?... Do you mean the star of that name?" he went on, to Krag. "Which you have in front of you at this very minute," said Krag, pointing a thick finger toward the brightest star in the south-eastern sky. "There you see Arcturus, and Tormance is its one inhabited planet." Maskull looked at the heavy, gleaning star, and again at Krag.
You are not a king, or a god." "Since when have I belonged to him?" "What does that matter? Perhaps since you first breathed the air of Tormance, or perhaps since five minutes ago." Without waiting for his response, she set off through the copse, and strode on to the next island. Maskull followed, physically distressed and looking very grave.
There were no insects to irritate them. The bright lake outside looked cool and poetic. Gangnet pressed Maskull's arm affectionately. "If the bringing of you from your world had fallen to me, Maskull, it is here I would have brought you, and not to the scarlet desert. Then you would have escaped the dark spots, and Tormance would have appeared beautiful to you." "And what then, Gangnet?
"At one time I did, but now I'm indifferent." "Keep in that humour, and you'll do well. Once for all, there's nothing worth seeing on Tormance." After a few minutes Maskull said, "Why did we come here, then?" "To follow Surtur." "True. But where is he?" "Closer at hand than you think, perhaps."
"Yes," replied Gleameil, gazing at him intently. "When Teargeld rises, which is our moon." "If Earthrid plays men to death, it appears to me that his own death is due. In any case I should like to hear those sounds for myself. But as for taking you with me, Gleameil women die too easily in Tormance. I have only just now washed myself clean of the death blood of another woman."
"Why?" demanded Maskull, following, however, the example of the other two men. Krag thumped his vast chest, which was covered with thick hairs, like an ape's. "Who knows what the Tormance fashions are like? We may sprout limbs I don't say we shall." "A-ha!" exclaimed Maskull, pausing in the middle of his undressing. Krag smote him on the back. "New pleasure organs possible, Maskull.
"Where am I? Is this Tormance?" he asked. As he spoke, he staggered. She caught him, and helped him to sit down. "Yes. You are with friends." Then she regarded him with a smile, and began speaking aloud, in English. Her voice somehow reminded him of an April day, it was so fresh, nervous, and girlish. "I can now understand your language. It was strange at first.
The dark spots would have existed all the same." "You could have seen them afterward. It makes all the difference whether one sees darkness through the light, or brightness through the shadows." "A clear eye is the best. Tormance is an ugly world, and I greatly prefer to know it as it really is." "The devil made it ugly, not Crystalman. These are Crystalman's thoughts, which you see around you.
It was less the mountains themselves that attracted him than the country which lay beyond the prospect of setting eyes on the blue sun, which he judged to be the wonder of wonders in Tormance. The direct route was over the hills, but that was out of the question, because of the killing heat and the absence of shade.
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