"Maskull, you are to die," said the unseen speaker.
"Who is speaking?"
"You have only a few hours of life left. Don't trifle the time away."
Maskull could bring nothing out.
"You have despised life," went on the low-toned voice. "Do you really imagine that this mighty world has no meaning, and that life is a joke?"
"What must I do?"
"Repent your murders, commit no fresh ones, pay honour to…"
The voice died away. Maskull waited in silence for it to speak again. All remained still, however, and the speaker appeared to have taken his departure. Supernatural horror seized him; he fell into a sort of catalepsy.
At that moment he saw one of the statues fading away, from a pale, white glow to darkness. He had not previously seen it shining.
In a few more minutes the normal light of the land returned. Corpang got up, and shook him out of his trance.
Maskull looked around, but saw no third person. "Whose statue was the last?" he demanded.
"Did you hear me speaking?"
"I heard your voice, but no one else's."
"I've just had my death foretold, so I suppose I have not long to live. Leehallfae prophesied the same thing."
Corpang shook his head. "What value do you set on life?" he asked.
"Very little. But it's a fearful thing all the same."
"Your death is?"
"No, but this warning."
They stopped talking. A profound silence reigned. Neither of the two men seemed to know what to do next, or where to go. Then both of them heard the sound of drumming. It was slow, emphatic, and impressive, a long way off and not loud, but against the background of quietness, very marked. It appeared to come from some point out of sight, to the left of where they were standing, but on the same rock shelf. Maskull's heart beat quickly.
"What can that sound be?" asked Corpang, peering into the obscurity.
"It is Surtur."
"Once again, who is Surtur?"
Maskull clutched his arm and pressed him to silence. A strange radiance was in the air, in the direction of the drumming. It increased in intensity and gradually occupied the whole scene. Things were no longer seen by Thire's light, but by this new light. It cast no shadows.
Corpang's nostrils swelled, and he held himself more proudly. "What fire is that?"
"It is Muspel-light."
They both glanced instinctively at the three statues. In the strange glow they had undergone a change. The face of each figure was clothed in the sordid and horrible Crystalman mask.
Corpang cried out and put his hand over his eyes. "What can this mean?" he asked a minute later.
"It must mean that life is wrong, and the creator of life too, whether he is one person or three."
Corpang looked again, like a man trying to accustom himself to a shocking sight. "Dare we believe this?"
"You must," replied Maskull. "You have always served the highest, and you must continue to do so. It has simply turned out that Thire is not the highest."
Corpang's face became swollen with a kind of coarse anger. "Life is clearly false - I have been seeking Thire for a lifetime, and now I find - this."
"You have nothing to reproach yourself with. Crystalman has had eternity to practice his cunning in, so it's no wonder if a man can't see straight, even with the best intentions. What have you decided to do?"
"The drumming seems to be moving away. Will you follow it, Maskull?"
"Yes."
"But where will it take us?"
"Perhaps out of Threal altogether."
"It sounds to me more real than reality," said Corpang. "Tell me, who is Surtur?"
"Surtur's world, or Muspel, we are told, is the original of which this world is a distorted copy. Crystalman is life, but Surtur is other than life."
"How do you know this?"
"It has sprung together somehow - from inspiration, from experience, from conversation with the wise men of your planet. Every hour it grows truer for me and takes a more definite shape."
Corpang stood up squarely, facing the three Figures with a harsh, energetic countenance, stamped all over with resolution. "I believe you, Maskull. No better proof is required than that. Thire is not the highest; he is even in a certain sense the lowest. Nothing but the thoroughly false and base could stoop to such deceits… I am coming with you - but don't play the traitor. These signs may be for you, and not for me at all, and if you leave me - "
"I make no promises. I don't ask you to come with me. If you prefer to stay in your little world, or if you have any doubts about it, you had better not come."
"Don't talk like that. I shall never forget your service to me… Let us make haste, or we shall lose the sound."
Corpang started off more eagerly than Maskull. They walked fast in the direction of the drumming. For upward of two miles the path went along the ledge without any change of level. The mysterious radiance gradually departed, and was replaced by the normal light of Threal. The rhythmical beats continued, but a very long way ahead - neither was able to diminish the distance.
"What kind of man are you?" Corpang suddenly broke out.
"In what respect?"
"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."