Out of the Silent Planet - C. S. Lewis [31]
Unfortunately he still knew too little of the language to explore their knowledge. He turned the conversation by asking them the name of the bright southern planet, and was told that it was Thulcandra - the silent world or planet.
"Why do you call it Thulc?" he asked. "Why silent?" No one knew.
"The séroni know," said Hnohra. "That is the sort of thing they know."
Then he was asked how he had come, and made a very poor attempt at describing the space- ship - but again:
"The séroni would know."
Had he come alone? No, he had come with two others of his kind - bad men ('bent' men was the nearest hrossian equivalent) who tried to kill him, but he had run away from them. The hrossa found this very difficult, but all finally agreed that he ought to go to Oyarsa. Oyarsa would protect him. Ransom asked who Oyarsa was. Slowly, and with many misunderstandings, he hammered out the information that Oyarsa (1) lived in Meldilorn; (2) knew everything and ruled everyone; (3) had always been there; and (4) was not a hross, nor one of the séroni. Then Ransom, following his own idea, asked if Oyarsa had made the world. The hrossa almost barked in the fervour of their denial. Did people in Thulcandra not know that Maleldil the Young had made and still ruled the world? Even a child knew that. Where did Maleldil live, Ransom asked.
"With the Old One."
And who was the Old One? Ransom did not understand the answer. He tried again.
"Where was the Old One?"
"He is not that sort," said Hnohra, "that he has to live anywhere," and proceeded to a good deal which Ransom did not follow. But he followed enough to feel once more a certain irritation. Ever since he had discovered the rationality of the hrossa he had been haunted by a conscientious scruple as to whether it might not be his duty to undertake their religious instruction; now, as a result of his tentative efforts, he found himself being treated as if he were the savage and being given a first sketch of civilized religion - a sort of hrossian equivalent of the shorter catechism. It became plain that Maleldil was a spirit without body, parts or passions.
"He is not a hnau," said the hrossa.
"What is hnau?" asked Ransom.
"You are hnau. I am hnau. The séroni are hnau. The pfifltriggi are hnau."
"Pfifltriggi?" said Ransom.
"More than ten days' journey to the west," said Hnohra. "The harandra sinks down not in to handramit but into a broad place, an open place, spreading every way. Five days' journey from the north to the south of it; ten days' journey from the east to the west. The forests are of other colours there than here, they are blue and green. It is very deep there, it goes to the roots of the world. The best things that can be dug out of the earth are there. The Pfifltriggi live there. They delight in digging. What they dig they soften with fire and make things of it. They are little people, smaller than you, long in the snout, pale, busy. They have long limbs in front. No hnau can match them in making and shaping things as none can match us in singing. But let Hman see."
He turned and spoke to one of the younger hrossa and presently, passed from hand to hand, there came to him a little bowl. He held it close to the firelight and examined it. It was certainly of gold, and Ransom realized the meaning of Devine's interest in Malacandra.
"Is there much of this thing?" he asked.
Yes, he was told, it was washed down in most, of the rivers; but the best and most was among the pfifltriggi, and it was they who were skilled in it. Arbol hru, they called it - Sun's blood. He looked at the