robe. Maskull remained standing just behind her, with crossed arms.

There was silence for a minute.

'Why don't you answer your mistress, Sature?' said the boy on the couch, in a calm, treble voice.

The man addressed did not alter his expression, but replied in a strangled tone, 'I am getting on very well, Oceaxe. There are already buds on my feet. Tomorrow I hope to take root.'

Maskull felt a rising storm inside him. He was perfectly aware that although these words were uttered by Sature, they were being dictated by the boy.

'What he says is quite true,' remarked the latter. 'Tomorrow roots will reach the ground, and in a few days they ought to be well established. Then I shall set to work to convert his arms into branches, and his fingers into leaves. It will take longer to transform his head into a crown, but still I hope - in fact I can almost promise that within a month you and I, Oceaxe, will be plucking and enjoying fruit from this new and remarkable tree.'

'I love these natural experiments,' he concluded, putting out his hand for another plum. 'They thrill me.'

'This must be a joke,' said Maskull, taking a step forward.

The youth looked at him serenely. He made no reply, but Maskull felt as if he were being thrust backward by an iron hand on his throat.

'The morning's work is now concluded, Sature. Come here again after Blodsombre. After tonight you will remain here permanently, I expect, so you had better set to work to clear a patch of ground for your roots. Never forget - however fresh and charming these plants appear to you now, in the future they will be your deadliest rivals and enemies. Now you may go.'

The man limped painfully away, across the isthmus, out of sight. Oceaxe yawned.

Maskull pushed his way forward, as if against a wall. 'Are you joking, or are you a devil?'

'I am Crimtyphon. I never joke. For that epithet of yours, I will devise a new punishment for you.'

The duel of wills commenced without ceremony. Oceaxe got up, stretched her beautiful limbs, smiled, and prepared herself to witness the struggle between her old lover and her new. Crimtyphon smiled too; he reached out his hand for more fruit, but did not eat it. Maskull's self-control broke down and he dashed at the boy, choking with red fury - his beard wagged and his face was crimson. When he realised with whom he had to deal, Crimtyphon left off smiling, slipped off the couch, and threw a terrible and malignant glare into his sorb. Maskull staggered. He gathered together all the brute force of his will, and by sheer weight continued his advance. The boy shrieked and ran behind the couch, trying to get away… His opposition suddenly collapsed. Maskull stumbled forward, recovered himself, and then vaulted clear over the high pile of mosses, to get at his antagonist. He fell on top of him with all his bulk. Grasping his throat, he pulled his little head completely around, so that the neck was broken. Crimtyphon immediately died.

The corpse lay underneath the tree with its face upturned. Maskull viewed it attentively, and as he did so an expression of awe and wonder came into his own countenance. In the moment of death Crimtyphon's face had undergone a startling and even shocking alteration. Its personal character had wholly vanished, giving place to a vulgar, grinning mask which expressed nothing.

He did not have to search his mind long, to remember where he had seen the brother of that expression. It was identical with that on the face of the apparition at the seance, after Krag had dealt with it.

Chapter 10

TYDOMIN

Oceaxe sat down carelessly on the couch of mosses, and began eating the plums.

'You see, you had to kill him, Maskull,' she said, in a rather quizzical voice.

He came away from the corpse and regarded her - still red, and still breathing hard. 'It's no joking matter. You especially ought to keep quiet.'

'Why?'

'Because he was your husband.'

'You think I ought to show grief - when I feel none?'

'Don't pretend, woman!'

Oceaxe smiled. 'From your manner one would think you were accusing me of some crime.'

Maskull literally snorted at her words. 'What, you live with filth - you live in the arms of a morbid monstrosity and then - '

'Oh, now I grasp it,' she said, in a tone of perfect detachment.

'I'm glad.'

'Well, Maskull,' she proceeded, after a pause, 'and who gave you the right to rule my conduct? Am I not mistress of my own person?'

He looked at her with disgust, but said nothing. There was another long interval of silence.

'I never loved him,' said Oceaxe at last, looking at the ground.

'That makes it all the worse.'

'What does all this mean - what do you want?'

'Nothing from you - absolutely nothing - thank heaven!'

She gave a hard laugh. 'You come here with your foreign preconceptions and expect us all to bow down to them.'

'What preconceptions?'

'Just because Crimtyphon's sports are strange to you, you murder him - and you would like to murder me.'

'Sports! That diabolical cruelty.'

'Oh, you're sentimental!' said Oceaxe contemptuously. 'Why do you need to make such a fuss over that man? Life is life, all the world over, and one form is as good as another. He was only to be made a tree, like a million other trees. If they can endure the life, why can't he?'

'And this is Ifdawn morality!'

Oceaxe began to grow angry. 'It's you who have peculiar ideas. You rave about the beauty of flowers and trees - you think them divine. But when it's a question of taking on this divine, fresh, pure, enchanting loveliness yourself, in your own person, it immediately becomes a cruel and wicked degradation. Here we have a strange riddle, in my opinion.'

'Oceaxe, you're a beautiful, heartless wild beast - nothing more. If you weren't a woman - '

'Well' - curling her lip - 'let us hear what would happen if I weren't a woman?'

Maskull bit his nails.

'It doesn't matter. I can't touch you - though there's certainly not the difference of a hair between you and your boy-husband. For this you may thank my 'foreign preconceptions.'… Farewell!'

He turned to go. Oceaxe's eyes slanted at him through their long lashes.

'Where are you off to, Maskull?'

'That's a matter of no importance, for wherever I go it must be a change for the better. You walking whirlpools of crime!'

'Wait a minute. I only want to say this. Blodsombre is just starting, and you had better stay here till the afternoon. We can quickly put that body out of sight, and, as you seem to detest me so much, the place is big enough - we needn't talk, or even see each other.'

'I don't wish to breathe the same air.'

'Singular man!' She was sitting erect and motionless, like a beautiful statue. 'And what of your wonderful interview with Surtur, and all the undone things which you set out to do?'

'You aren't the one I shall speak to about that. But' - he eyed her meditatively - 'while I'm still here you can tell me this. What's the meaning of the expression on that corpse's face?'

'Is that another crime, Maskull? All dead people look like that. Ought they not to?'

'I once heard it called 'Crystalman's face.''

'Why not? We are all daughters and sons of Crystalman. It is doubtless the family resemblance.'

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