A Far Sunset

THIRTY-TWO

There were no more voices in the dark. Nor did Oruri—or Aru Re—utter his soundless words in the daytime. After less than a day’s travel, Paul noticed that the long savannah grass was getting shorter. Presently it was only as high as his, knee. Presently, no higher than his ankle. The air grew colder as they came to the uplands.

And there before them, less than half a day’s march away, was the mountain range whose central peak was called the Temple of the White Darkness. All that lay between was a stretch of scrubland, rising into moorland and small patches of coniferous forest.

Suddenly, Paul became depressed. Through the high, clear air, he could see the detail of the jagged rock-face of the mountain—capped and scarred by everlasting snow. And sweeping round the base of the mountain was a great glacier— a broad river of ice whose movement could probably be reckoned in metres per year.

As they made their last camp before they came to the mountain, there were distant muted rumbles, as if the mountain were aware of their presence and resented their approach. The three Bayani—the man, the youth and the child—had never heard the sound of avalanches before.

Paul had much difficulty explaining the phenomenon to them. Eventually, he gave it up, seeing that they could not clearly understand. To them, the noise was only one more manifestation of the displeasure of Oruri.

He gazed despairingly at the Temple of the White Darkness, wondering how he could possibly begin his search. He was no mountaineer. Nor was he equipped for mountaineering. And it would be sheer cruelty to drag his companions— children of the forest—across the dangerous slopes of ice and snow. How terrible it was to be so near and yet so helpless. For the first time he was ready to acknowledge to himself the probability of defeat.

Then the sunset came—and with it a sign. Paul Marlowe was not easily moved to prayer. But, on this occasion, prayer was not just the only thing he was able to offer. It seemed strangely appropriate and even inevitable.

There, far above the moorland and the ring of coniferous forest, as the sun sank low, he saw briefly a great curving stem of fire.

He had seen something similar many, many years ago in a world on the other side of the sky. As he watched, and as the sun sank and the stem of the fire dissolved, he remembered how it had been when he first saw sunlight reflected from the polished hull of the Gloria Mundi.