“Attach yourself to the truth, not to me. For I may die before you, but the truth will accompany you to your death. However, now let us journey together, all three of us.”
The words had not left his mouth before he put his face against the fine, driving snow, and pressed onward toward his destination. He walked with a long stride; Tydomin was obliged to half run in order to keep up with him. The three travelled abreast; Spadevil in the middle. The fog was so dense that it was impossible to see a hundred yards ahead. The ground was covered by the green snow. The wind blew in gusts from the Sant highlands and was piercingly cold.
“Spadevil, are you a man, or more than a man?” asked Maskull.
“He that is not more than a man is nothing.”
“Where have you now come from?”
“From brooding, Maskull. Out of no other mother can truth be born. I have brooded, and rejected; and I have brooded again. Now, after many months’ absence from Sant, the truth at last shines forth for me in its simple splendour, like an upturned diamond.”
“I see its shining,” said Maskull. “But how much does it owe to ancient Hator?”
“Knowledge has its seasons. The blossom was to Hator, the fruit is to me. Hator also was a brooder—but now his followers do not brood. In Sant all is icy selfishness, a living death. They hate pleasure, and this hatred is the greatest pleasure to them.”
“But in what way have they fallen off from Hator’s doctrines?”
“For him, in his sullen purity of nature, all the world was a snare, a limed twig. Knowing that pleasure was everywhere, a fierce, mocking enemy, crouching and waiting at every corner of the road of life, in order to kill with its sweet sting the naked grandeur of the soul, he shielded himself behind pain. This also his followers do, but they do not do it for the sake of the soul, but for the sake of vanity and pride.”