“How has this come about—­and how did you know it?”

“They were Faceny’s organs.  They have vanished, just as the phaen’s body vanished.”

Maskull kept rubbing his forehead.  “I feel more human without them.  But why isn’t the rest of my body affected?”

“Because its living will contains the element of Thire.”

“Why are we stopping here?”

Corpang broke off the tip of one of the aerial roots of a tree, and proffered it to him.  “Eat this, Maskull.”

“For food, or something else?”

“Food for body and soul.”

Maskull bit into the root.  It was white and hard; its white sap was bleeding.  It had no taste, but after eating it, he experienced a change of perception.  The landscape, without alteration of light or outline, became several degrees more stern and sacred.  When he looked at Corpang he was impressed by his aspect of Gothic awfulness, but the perplexed expression was still in his eyes.

“Do you spend all your time here, Corpang?”

“Occasionally I go above, but not often.”

“What fastens you to this gloomy world?”

“The search for Thire.”

“Then it’s still a search?”

“Let us walk on.”

As they resumed their journey across the dim, gradually rising plain, the conversation became even more earnest in character than before.  “Although I was not born here,” proceeded Corpang, “I’ve lived here for twenty-five years, and during all that time I have been drawing nearer to Thire, as I hope.  But there is this peculiarity about it—­ the first stages are richer in fruit and more promising than the later ones.  The longer a man seeks Thire, the more he seems to absent himself.  In the beginning he is felt and known, sometimes as a shape, sometimes as a voice, sometimes an overpowering emotion.  Later on all is dry, dark, and harsh in the soul.  Then you would think that Thire was a million miles off.”

“How do you explain that?”

“When everything is darkest, he may be nearest, Maskull.”

“But this is troubling you?”

“My days are spent in torture.”

“You still persist, though?  This day darkness can’t be the ultimate state?”

“My questions will be answered.”

A silence ensued.

“What do you propose to show me?” asked Maskull.

“The land is about to grow wilder.  I am taking you to the Three
Figures, which were carved and erected by an earlier race of men. 
There, we will pray.”

“And what then?”

“If you are truehearted, you will see things you will not easily forget.”

They had been walking slightly uphill in a sort of trough between two parallel, gently sloping downs.  The trough now deepened, while the hills on either side grew steeper.  They were in an ascending valley and, as it curved this way and that, the landscape was shut off from view.  They came to a little spring, bubbling up from the ground.  It formed a trickling brook, which was unlike all other brooks in that it was flowing up the valley instead of down.  Before long it was joined by other miniature rivulets, so that in the end it became a fair-sized stream.  Maskull kept looking at it, and puckering his forehead.