Xenora's Sacrifice
I was moved out of the machine like an automaton by the terrible force
that controlled me. My body was no longer my own! It was swept along
as if by a mighty wind. That force of horror roared and throbbed in
my brain. Red flames of fear flickered before my eyes. I was sick and
faint with terror. But my body did not collapse--it was relentlessly
moved by that terrible force from the violet cylinder. I was utterly
helpless--I felt the hopeless horror of one chained before a loathsome
monster!
Suddenly I wished fiercely for death, for only death could bring me
freedom from the horror that swept in a throbbing torrent through my
brain. But even death was beyond my reach, for my hands were not my own!
For a moment that power left me standing on the side of the overturned
machine. The Omnimobile lay on the sandy floor of the crater, which may
have been a hundred feet in depth and as many yards across. Against the
red sky, above the black cliffs of the pit's farther rim, towered the
violet metal cylinder--the flaming metal brain whose hypnotic control
ruled my body.
For a moment I was left standing there, and then my body was springing
down and running across the rock-strewn sand toward the cliffs. It ran
like a machine--beyond my control! In vain I tried even to stumble and
fall! In a few moments it reached the rim. It clambered wildly up. I
know that in my normal self I could never have surmounted that sheer
wall. But the telepathic force from the flaming brain seemed to give my
limbs superhuman strength! Soon I was at the top, with bleeding hands
and tattered clothing!
And my body ran on toward the violet monostyle!
It was two hundred yards away--a Titanic smooth upright cylinder of
metal, the polished surface crawling and flowing with violet flame,
with the great incredible serpent-like beam of green rising from the
top.
It was astounding--in the strangeness of its aspect, and in its
inexplicable suggestion of alien intelligence! But how could there be
intelligence in metal?
And then I saw the men about it!
Two of the vast silver spheres were stopped on the ground below the
cylinder, oddly dwarfed by its vast height. And about them were men!
They were the green slaves--the Sleepers of Mutron! Their bodies were
naked but for tattered scraps of cloth. Fastened upon their backs by
the cruel metal clamps, they bore the strange prisms!
But those bars of metal were not blue like the one we had taken from
the dead man! They shone with the same mysterious violet radiance as
the Titanic monostyle. They were parts of it--akin to it!
The men moved like sleepers, or like machines, as I felt that I was
moving--as if their wills were dead! They toiled in tireless haste,
without confusion. Many were carrying burdens. And it seemed that some
were polishing the surface of the cylinder, or applying some luminous
substance to it. Near the ground they were quite plainly visible,
clinging to its surface like flies, and toiling furiously. Higher up
on the colossal cylinder they were but dancing black specks within the
violet flame!
The ground about was pitted with shell holes from my bombardment, and
at one side I saw the twisted wreck of the great machine I had struck.
It is possible that I had hit the great cylinder itself, but it might
have received the fire of the biggest gun in Christendom with little
injury.
In two minutes more I had been drawn to within fifty yards of that vast
shining column of metal. Then the force of fear that had seized my body
permitted it to stop, and I stood still. That awful twisting beam of
green flame reached out of the top of the thing, and bent down over me!
It touched me!
[Illustration: _That awful twisting beam of green flame reached out of
the top of the thing and bent down over me! It touched me!_]
I felt tiny whip-like fingers of it feeling--exploring my body! The
green radiance grew denser about me. It enshrouded me in a fog of green
light--so painfully intense, blinding and terrible, that I tried to
shut my eyes against it. But that horror held them open!
And that green fire came into my body, and into my brain. It was eager,
insistent, questioning--and so horrible that my being rocked with
pain. It questioned; it commanded! It sought to know of me, and of my
companions, of the Omnimobile, and of the world we had left above.
I struggled against it, fiercely, terribly, until I felt my limbs
chilling with the sweat of the conflict. But it won!
It took my mind as it had taken my body! It beat about my brain like
a vast storm; it penetrated my being in a flood of green fire! My
brain reeled, was swept by an avalanche of awful power! I sank at last
into merciful oblivion that was the counterpart of the death I had so
desired!
At last, when I was vaguely conscious again, I had a curious feeling
of mental exhaustion. I felt as if I had undergone a fearful ordeal. I
felt as if I had toiled as I slept, as if I had answered many questions
put to me by that power. It seemed as if the green light had swept the
contents from my brain, had searched all my knowledge.
As I awoke, bodily sensation returned, and I felt someone lifting
me gently from the bare earth upon which I lay: My limbs were cold
and stiff; but the awful force that had controlled them was, for the
moment, relaxed.
I opened my eyes, and cried out, first in incredulous joy, and then in
utter despair. Xenora--the Green Girl--was lifting my head. There was
anxiety and care in her violet eyes, and unutterable fatigue was shown
in her body. She had followed me into the pit, to give her life with
mine!
"Oh, Xenora, my dream girl, why did you come? There was no need for you
to give your life!" I protested in bitter despair as she raised me in
her arms and held me against her breath.
"I felt you battle with the Lord of Flame. I felt it conquer you. So I
left the camp, to come."
"And how, in all wonders, did you get into this pit, and so soon?"
"My chieftain, it is not so soon! For three sleeps I have come through
the forests and rocks, without stopping, while you lay still in the
power of the Flame!"
"But why--why--come to throw away your life--"
"See, I bring you the wonderful thing of Barsoni Sam, that shuts out
the horror. I give it to you, and you can go on with your battle
against the Flame!--No, you can never conquer the Flame! But fly! Go
back to your land!"
Even then I felt the horror awakening again, felt that fearful force
directed again upon me. With a single quick motion, before I could
prevent her, Xenora had whipped the electro-screen helmet from her head
and drawn it about my own.
"Fly," she whispered fiercely. "The Sleepers of Mutron! And think not
of me! Fly! Even from me!"
The horror relaxed, and I collapsed in a daze of relief. In a moment
I had recovered and got to my feet. Xenora was a score of yards away,
dashing off. I ran after her, calling for her to take back the precious
helmet.
Suddenly she stopped. A convulsion ran through her frame. She turned,
with her face a mask of livid horror. She was in the power of the
Flame! She was a Sleeper! She bent, seized a rock, and hurled it at my
head with superhuman strength. I dodged and it hurtled past my ear. She
sprang at me like an animal, drawing the hunting knife I had left her.
I turned and ran wildly, as a score of the Sleepers came running. I
passed close by that violet metal monostyle, and it seemed that its
crawling violet fires reached out for me. I ran desperately toward the
east! I heard the strange cries of the Sleepers of Mutron behind me!
I felt the awful green flame writhing above me, but even it could not
penetrate the helmet!
I was insane with terror!
I ran on and on, through eternities of heart-breaking effort. At last
I stopped exhausted, with pounding temples and bursting lungs, to look
behind me. The flaming brain was but a dull violet glow against the red
sky. A desolate waste of bare rugged rocks and great round craters
lay about me beneath the crimson mist. All was silent! The sounds of
pursuit were gone!