“Why not? What can I be to you?”
“I have been thinking about you during the night.” Her voice was retarded, scornful, viola-like. She sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and looked away.
“In what way?”
She returned no answer to his question, but began to pull off pieces of the bark.
“Last night you were so contemptuous.”
“Last night is not today. Do you always walk through the world with your head over your shoulder?”
It was now Maskull’s turn to be silent.
“Still, if you have male instincts, as I suppose you have, you can’t go on resisting me forever.”
“But this is preposterous,” said Maskull, opening his eyes wide. “Granted that you are a beautiful woman—we can’t be quite so primeval.”
Oceaxe sighed, and rose to her feet. “It doesn’t matter. I can wait.”
“From that I gather that you intend to make the journey in my society. I have no objection—in fact I shall be glad—but only on condition that you drop this language.”
“Yet you do think me beautiful?”
“Why shouldn’t I think so, if it is the fact? I fail to see what that has to do with my feelings. Bring it to an end, Oceaxe. You will find plenty of men to admire—and love you.”
At that she blazed up. “Does love pick and choose, you fool? Do you imagine I am so hard put to it that I have to hunt for lovers? Is not Crimtyphon waiting for me at this very moment?”
“Very well. I am sorry to have hurt your feelings. Now carry the temptation no farther—for it is a temptation, where a lovely woman is concerned. I am not my own master.”
“I’m not proposing anything so very hateful, am I? Why do you humiliate me so?”
Maskull put his hands behind his back. “I repeat, I am not my own master.”
“Then who is your master?”
“Yesterday I saw Surtur, and from today I am serving him.”
“Did you speak with him?” she asked curiously.
“I did.”
“Tell me what he said.”
“No, I can’t—I won’t. But whatever he said, his beauty was more tormenting than yours, Oceaxe, and that’s why I can look at you in cold blood.”
“Did Surtur forbid you to be a man?”
Maskull frowned. “Is love such a manly sport, then? I should have thought it effeminate.”
“It doesn’t matter. You won’t always be so boyish. But don’t try my patience too far.”
“Let us talk about something else—and, above all, let us get on our road.”
She suddenly broke into a laugh, so rich, sweet, and enchanting, that he grew half inflamed, and half wished to catch her body in his arms. “Oh, Maskull, Maskull—what a fool you are!”
“In what way am I a fool?” he demanded, scowling—not at her words, but at his own weakness.
“Isn’t the whole world the handiwork of innumerable pairs of lovers? And yet you think yourself above all that. You try to fly away from nature, but where will you find a hole to hide yourself in?”
“Besides beauty, I now credit you with a second quality: persistence.”
“Read me well, and then it is natural law that you’ll think twice and three times before throwing me away.... And now, before we go, we had better eat.”
“Eat?” said Maskull thoughtfully.
“Don’t you eat? Is food in the same category as love?”
“What food is it?”
“Fish from the river.”
Maskull recollected his promise to Joiwind. At the same time, he felt hungry.
“Is there nothing milder?”
She pulled her mouth scornfully. “You came through Poolingdred, didn’t you? All the people there are the same. They think life is to be looked at, and not lived. Now that you are visiting Ifdawn, you will have to change your notions.”
“Go catch your fish,” he returned, pulling down his brows.
The broad, clear waters flowed past them with swelling undulations, from the direction of the mountains. Oceaxe knelt down on the bank, and peered into the depths. Presently her look became tense and concentrated; she dipped her hand in and pulled out some sort of little monster. It was more like a reptile than a fish, with its scaly plates and teeth. She threw it on the ground, and it started crawling about. Suddenly she darted all her will into her sorb. The creature leaped into the air, and fell down dead.
She picked up a sharp-edged slate, and with it removed the scales and entrails. During this operation, her hands and garment became stained with the light scarlet blood.
“Find the drude, Maskull,” she said, with a lazy smile. “You had it last night.”
He searched for it. It was hard to locate, for its rays had grown dull and feeble in the sunlight, but at last he found it. Oceaxe placed it in the interior of the monster, and left the body lying on the ground.
“While it’s cooking, I’ll wash some of this blood away, which frightens you so much. Have you never seen blood before?”
Maskull gazed at her in perplexity. The old paradox came back—the contrasting sexual characteristics in her person. Her bold, masterful, masculine egotism of manner seemed quite incongruous with the fascinating and disturbing femininity of her voice. A startling idea flashed into his mind.
“In your country I’m told there is an act of will called ‘absorbing.’ What is that?”
She held her red, dripping hands away from her draperies, and uttered a delicious, clashing laugh. “You think I am half a man?”
“Answer my question.”
“I’m a woman through and through, Maskull—to the marrowbone. But that’s not to say I have never absorbed males.”
“And that means...”
“New strings for my harp, Maskull. A wider range of passions, a stormier heart...”
“For you, yes—But for them?...”
“I don’t know. The victims don’t describe their experiences. Probably unhappiness of some sort—if they still know anything.”
“This is a fearful business!” he exclaimed, regarding her gloomily. “One would think Ifdawn a land of devils.”
Oceaxe gave a beautiful sneer as she took a step toward the river. “Better men than you—better in every sense of the word—are walking about with foreign wills inside them. You may be as moral as you like, Maskull, but the fact remains, animals were made to be eaten, and simple natures were made to be absorbed.”
“And human rights count for nothing!”
She had bent over the river’s edge, to wash her arms and hands, but glanced up over her shoulder to answer his remark. “They do count. But we only regard a man as human for just as long as he’s able to hold his own with others.”
The flesh was soon cooked, and they breakfasted in silence. Maskull cast heavy, doubtful glances from time to time toward his companion. Whether it was due to the strange quality of the food, or to his long abstention, he did not know, but the meal tasted nauseous, and even cannibalistic. He ate little, and the moment he got up he felt defiled.
“Let