He dropped them on the ground, and stood, recovering his breath.  When he could speak again, he said, “I have a bad heart for the business.  Is there no alternative?  Sleep here tonight, Spadevil, and in the morning go back to where you have come from.  No one shall harm you.”

Spadevil’s ironic smile was lost in the gloom.

“Shall I brood again, Maskull, for still another year, and after that come back to Sant with other truths?  Come, waste no time, but choose the heavier stone for me, for I am stronger than Tydomin.”

Maskull lifted one of the rocks, and stepped out four full paces.  Spadevil confronted him, erect, and waited tranquilly.

The huge stone hurtled through the air.  Its flight looked like a dark shadow.  It struck Spadevil full in the face, crushing his features, and breaking his neck.  He died instantaneously.

Tydomin looked away from the fallen man.

“Be very quick, Maskull, and don’t let me keep him waiting.”

He panted, and raised the second stone.  She placed herself in front of Spadevil’s body, and stood there, unsmiling and cold.

The blow caught her between breast and chin, and she fell.  Maskull went to her, and, kneeling on the ground, half-raised her in his arms.  There she breathed out her last sighs.

After that, he laid her down again, and rested heavily on his hands, while he peered into the dead face.  The transition from its heroic, spiritual expression to the vulgar and grinning mask of Crystalman came like a flash; but he saw it.

He stood up in the darkness, and pulled Catice toward him.

“Is that the true likeness of Shaping?”

“It is Shaping stripped of illusion.”

“How comes this horrible world to exist?”

Catice did not answer.

“Who is Surtur?”

“You will get nearer to him tomorrow; but not here.”

“I am wading through too much blood,” said Maskull.  “Nothing good can come of it.”

“Do not fear change and destruction; but laughter and joy.”

Maskull meditated.

“Tell me, Catice.  If I had elected to follow Spadevil, would you really have accepted his faith?”

“He was a great-souled man,” replied Catice.  “I see that the pride of our men is only another sprouting-out of pleasure.  Tomorrow I too shall leave Sant, to reflect on all this.”

Maskull shuddered.  “Then these two deaths were not a necessity, but a crime!”

“His part was played and henceforward the woman would have dragged down his ideas, with her soft love and loyalty.  Regret nothing, stranger, but go away at once out of the land.”

“Tonight?  Where shall I go?”

“To Wombflash, where you will meet the deepest minds.  I will put you on the way.”

He linked his arm in Maskull’s, and they walked away into the night.  For a mile or more they skirted the edge of the precipice.  The wind was searching, and drove grit into their faces.  Through the rifts of the clouds, stars, faint and brilliant, appeared.  Maskull saw no familiar constellations.  He wondered if the sun of earth was visible, and if so which one it was.