Chapter 21. MUSPEL
The fog thickened so that the two suns wholly disappeared, and all grew as black as night. Nightspore could no longer see his companion. The water lapped gently against the side of the island raft.
“You say the night is past,” said Nightspore. “But the night is still here. Am I dead, or alive?”
“You are still in Crystalman’s world, but you belong to it no more. We are approaching Muspel.”
Nightspore felt a strong, silent throbbing of the air—a rhythmical pulsation, in four-four time. “There is the drumming,” he exclaimed.
“Do you understand it, or have you forgotten?”
“I half understand it, but I’m all confused.”
“It’s evident Crystalman has dug his claws into you pretty deeply,” said Krag. “The sound comes from Muspel, but the rhythm is caused by its travelling through Crystalman’s atmosphere. His nature is rhythm as he loves to call it—or dull, deadly repetition, as I name it.”
“I remember,” said Nightspore, biting his nails in the dark.