XIII
Separation
In a large room, or recess, at the side of the library, there was a tank completely covering its floor, and filled, to a depth of about three feet, with a watery liquid, slightly tinged with carmine.
An arrangement of gently-sloping boards had enabled the books of several tiers of shelves to make their way to this tank, into which they plunged, and floated with an appearance of satisfaction, working their hands in such a way that they turned over continually, in a very comical manner.
It required no very great penetration to see that this was a place of refreshment, or nourishment, which was needed to maintain their vitality, but it was one which they could not reach without an intervening danger.
As they crossed the final plank, which was horizontal, they passed over a trap which was so adjusted that it would give way if a sufficient weight were upon it, and resume its position afterwards, and the weight required to spring it was that of a book which was mature and completed.
There was a square vat beneath this trap, filled with an indigo-coloured liquid, into which, as we watched about fifty of these books hurry over the plank, two fell, their little hands struggling frantically as they slowly sank to the bottom, having found a place of death instead of the enjoyment to which they had hurried.
It was reasonable to assume that these activities indicated some directing attendant, and I had little cause for surprise when my companion’s thought reached me quietly, “Do not attempt escape. We are discovered. I think you had better leave this to me. Can you be serene and confident?” Her mind closed from me, as we turned to observe the dreaded form of one of the Dwellers advancing upon us.
He stopped as we faced him, and I knew that my companion had already engaged him in the mental combat on which our lives depended. I could not follow their thoughts, which were not intended for me. I never did take the thoughts of the Dwellers with quite the same ease with which I received those of the Amphibians. Now I was conscious only of a tension of conflict, as when the swords of two duellists meet and hold, and either knows that his life is staked upon the strength of wrist that presses his opponent’s blade. There was a long minute during which their wills fought in this posture, and then it was as though her blade pressed sideward, inch by inch, the one that met, and inch by inch slid down it.
Size has no absolute meaning. It is only relative, and, even so, it is of little importance. The smallest insect might control the earth as easily as an elephant, had either of them the brains to do so, though the one be many million times the size of the other.
Our protagonist could have crushed us both in one hand, but I felt that her will had triumphed against him. Not entirely; for minutes passed, and I knew that they still warred with contending thoughts which I could not read, but these were rather of the terms of treaty than of an unconditioned hostility.
While they fought, I had endeavoured to maintain the poise of mind which she had asked. I knew that I must not think of Templeton. I fixed my attention upon the giant form which confronted us. He was similar to the others I had seen, except in one particular. He moved with a slight limp, and his left hip showed a long downward scar, deepening to an actual pit at its lower end, and being black, with an aspect of charred wood. It showed that their bodies, however perfect and enduring, were not exempt from the danger of accident.
She turned to me at last. “Come,” her mind said only. “There is an open way.”
I followed her down a corridor which we had not previously penetrated, and we came to a doorway standing open, by which the attendant had entered, and to which he had directed her. As we retreated, I saw him bending over the vat, as though he were unaware of our existence.
In the darkness of a passage such as those with which we were already familiar, we sat down together.
“I have made terms,” she commenced at once, “but it was not easy to do, and you may not like them. We are in the Sacred Places, as we had thought likely, and if we should be found here, or should it be known that we have been here, the things we have learnt will certainly cause our destruction. But I have given pledges which must be kept, and it will be as though he had not seen us. I could not have done it, were he not apart from his race, through the wound he bears, and angered by its cause, which does not concern us. He refused my will until he thought of the Seven Causes of Rejection, and his mind wavered.
“But the agreement is this. I must return at once to my own people, by a way which will be unobserved, which he has shown me, telling to none that I have seen him, nor of the things which we have seen and heard since we forced the barrier of silence.
“That was easily agreed; but your case was more difficult. He would have been willing that you should return with me, but we know that that would not be possible. He would have agreed that you should escape to the surface, and hide in the mountain caves, but I knew that you were resolved to seek your friend, and I feared that, if I should make such an agreement for you, you would not keep it. He showed me that it is a way of death to go downward, and I was not willing to leave you to perish. In the end, I have done little, but I have learnt this which may aid you. When you have found your friend, and have learnt (as I think you will), that you can do nothing to aid him, if you can then make your way to the Place of the Seekers of Wisdom, you will be in a sanctuary from which none will seek to remove you. They will question you of the life you left, and so long as you can tell them of new things they will be very sure to keep you in safety. Even beyond that time, there is a possibility that they may transfer you to depths into which our minds have not inquired, and of which I know nothing, where you might even find that some of your own kind are existing, as do the Bat-wings, on an inner surface of the earth.”
Her mind paused, expectant, to receive my pleasure.
Consternation replied—confused, hopeless, and yet protesting. Why had she agreed thus to our parting? Had she not herself urged, and did she not again suggest, that Brett was beyond my rescue? Was it not her own plan that I should return to the surface? Two passions, grief and fear, rose in an alliance of opposition. She was my one friend in a world in which I was worse than outcast—was I to part from her forever? She was the actual physical strength, as she was the moral confidence, by which I hoped to have overcome the dangers and difficulties of the descent—having feared to adventure it in her company, was I now to go lonely?
She realised my mind with a sympathy which was without comprehension, as one might sympathise with pain who had never felt it. Perceiving it, she met it with all her strength of will and reason, as she had fought the mind of our recent opponent.
“Did you not say yourself that it was a needful thing that you should go downward? Had I not agreed that we should part, I should have lost all that I have won for both of us. If our meeting has been a pleasure (as it has to me), shall we spoil it with foolish protest now that it is completing? It will not cease to be, because the event is over. Will it not be actual in our minds as long as we desire to recall it? … Do you not think too much of your body, and of the risks which it must take for your service? If you heed it thus it is of less use than even so poor a tool might be under a control more confident. … You think of the period of time which will divide us, should you succeed in that which you have attempted, and return to your own people. But is not your presence here a proof that you are vexed by illusions only? When we consider time or space, we know that they are, and yet we know that they are both impossible. … Were it otherwise, would it not be true that if two companions were to turn apart for a moment, though they were both immortal, and were to continue forward on their different ways, seeking each other for a million million of eons, they would be eternally separate, with a separation which would increase through all eternity? That is evident; but it is also incredible. … Can you not learn to become fearless of circumstance, so that you may find the freedom of living, and learn the joy of that liberty?”
So her mind struck, thought for thought, against the confusion of the thoughts I showed her.
Then she added, “I will do that which I can to secure the safety of the body which you value so greatly. I will ask my Leaders for their help when I rejoin them. If we should still be allied in the war which is coming, it will be a slight thing to require it. But does it matter so greatly? Is it not true that life is only good while we regard it lightly?”
At this she closed her mind, and rose, and left me. She gave no sign of regret, or of farewell, nor did she hasten nor loiter.
She left me with no further hope of her vitality to give me strength, or spirit to give me confidence, with a feeling of loneliness and despair such as I had not felt before, even in this strange and hostile world.