Was it true that Time is within ourselves--that like Space, its twin, it
is only a self-created illusion of the human mind? There are hours that
flash by on hummingbird wings; there are seconds that shuffle on shod in
leaden shoes.
Was it true that when death faces us the consciousness finds power
through its will to live to conquer the illusion--to prolong Time? That,
recoiling from oblivion, we can recreate in a fractional moment whole
years gone past, years yet to come--striving to lengthen our existence,
stretching out our apperception beyond the phantom boundaries,
overdrawing upon a Barmecide deposit of minutes, staking fresh claims
upon a mirage?
How else explain the seeming slowness with which we were falling--the
seeming leisureness with which the wall drifted up past us?
And was this punishment--a sentence meted out for profaning with our
eyes a forbidden place; a penalty for touching with our gaze the ark of
the Metal Tribes--their holy of holies--the budding place of the Metal
Babes?
The valley was swinging--swinging in slow broad curves; was oscillating
dizzily.
Slowly the colossal wall slipped upward.
Realization swept me; left me amazed; only half believing. This was no
illusion. After that first swift plunge our fall had been checked. We
were swinging--not the valley.
Deliberately, in wide arcs like pendulums, we were swinging across the
City's scarp; three feet out from it, and as we swung, slowly sinking.
And now I saw the countless eyes of the watching wall again were
twinkling, regarding us with impish mockery.
It was the grip of the living wall that held us; that rocked us from
side to side as though giving greater breadths of it chance to behold
us; that was dropping us gently, carefully, to the valley floor now a
scant two thousand feet below.
A storm of rage, of intensest resentment swept me; as once before any
gratitude I should have felt for escape was submerged in the utter
humiliation with which it was charged.
I shook my fists at the twinkling wall, strove to kick and smite it like
an angry child, cursed it--not childishly. Dared it to hurl me down to
death.
I felt Drake's hand touch mine.
“Steady,” he said. “Steady, old boy. It's no use. Steady. Look down.”
Hot with shame for my outburst, weak from its violence, I obeyed. The
valley floor was not more than a thousand feet away. Thronging about
where we must at last touch, clustered and seething, was a multitude of
the Metal Things. They seemed to be looking up at us, watching, waiting
for us.
“Reception committee,” grinned Drake.
I glanced away; over the valley. It was luminously clear; yet the sky
was overcast, no stars showing. The light was no stronger than that of
the moon at full, but it held a quality unfamiliar to me. It cast no
shadows; though soft, it was piercing, revealing all it bathed with the
distinctness of bright sunshine. The illumination came, I thought, from
the encircling veils falling from the band of amethyst.
And, as I peered, out of the veils and far away sped a violet spark.
With meteor speed it flew toward us. Close to the base of the vast
facade it landed with a flashing of blue incandescence. I knew it
for one of the Flying Things, the Mark Makers--one of the incredible
messengers.
Close upon its fall came increase in the turmoil of the crowding throng
awaiting us. Came, too, an abrupt change in our own motion. The long
arcs lessened. We were dropped more swiftly.
Far away in the direction from which the Flying Thing had flown I
sensed another movement; something coming that carried with it subtle
suggestion of unlikeness to all the other incessant, linked movement
over the pit. Closer it drew.
“Norhala!” gasped Drake.
Robed in her silken amber swathings, red-copper hair streaming, woven
with elfin sparklings, she was racing toward the City like some lovely
witch, riding upon the back of a steed of huge cubes.
Nearer she raced. More direct became our fall. Now we were dropping as
though at the end of an unreeling plummet cord; the floor of the valley
was no more than two hundred feet below.
“Norhala!” we shouted; and again and again--again “Norhala!”
Before our cries could have reached her the cubes swerved; came to a
halt beneath us. Through the hundred feet of space between I caught the
brilliancy of the weird constellations in Norhala's great eyes--saw with
a vague but no less dire foreboding that on her face dwelt a terrifying,
a blasting wrath.
As softly as though by the hand of a giant of cloud we were lifted out
from the wall, and were set with no perceptible shock beside her on the
back of the cubes.
“Norhala--” I stopped. For this was no Norhala whom we had known. Gone
was all calm, vanished every trace of unearthly tranquillity. It was a
Norhala awakened at last--all human.
Yet in the still rage that filled her I sensed a force, an intensity,
more than human. Over the blazing eyes the brows were knit in a rigid,
golden bar; the delicate nostrils were pinched; the sweet red mouth was
white and merciless. It was as though in its long sleep her human
self had gathered more than human strength, and that now, awakened and
unleashed, the violence of its rage touched the vibrant zenith of that
sphere of which her quiet had been the nadir.
She was like an urn filled and flaming with the fires of the Gods of
wrath.
What was it that had awakened her--what in awakening had changed the
inpouring human consciousness into this flood of fury? Foreboding
gripped me.
“Norhala!” My voice was shaking. “Those we left--”
“They are gone!” The golden voice was octaves deeper, vibrant, throbbing
with that muffled, menacing note that must have pulsed from the
golden tambours that summoned to battle Timur's fierce hordes. “They
were--taken.”
“Taken!” I gasped. “Taken by what--these?” I swept my hands out toward
the Metal Things milling around us.
“No! THESE are mine. These are they who obey me.” The golden voice now
shrilled with her passion. “Taken by--men!”
Drake had read my face although he could not understand our words.
“Ruth--”
“Taken,” I said. “Both Ruth and Ventnor. Taken by the armored men--the
men of Cherkis!”
“Cherkis!” She had caught the word. “Yes--Cherkis! And now he and all
his men--and all his women--and every living thing he rules shall pay.
And fear not--you two. For I, Norhala, will bring back my own.
“Woe, woe to you, Cherkis, and to all of yours! For I, Norhala, am
awake, and I, Norhala, remember. Woe to you, Cherkis, woe--for now all
ends for you!
“Not by the gods of my mother who turned their strength against her do
I promise this. I, Norhala, have no need for them--I, Norhala, who have
strength greater than they. And would I could crush those gods as I
shall crush you, Cherkis--and every living thing of yours! Yea--and
every UNLIVING thing as well!”
Not halting now was Norhala's speech; it poured from the ruthless
lips--flamingly.
“We go,” she cried. “And something of vengeance I have saved for you--as
is your right.”
She tossed her arms high; stamped upon the back of the Metal Thing that
held us.
It quivered and sped away. Swiftly dwindled the City's bulk; fast faded
its glimmering watchful face.
Not toward the veils of light but out over the plain we flew. Above us,
crouching against the blast of our going, streamed like a silken banner
Norhala's hair, gemmed with the witch lights.
We were far out now, the City far away. The cube slowed. Norhala threw
high her head. From the arched, exquisite throat pealed a trumpet
call--golden, summoning, imperious. Thrice it rang forth--and all the
surrounding valley seemed to halt and listen.
Followed upon its ending, a chanting as goldenly sonorous. Wild,
peremptory, triumphant. It was like a mustering shouting to adventurous
stars, buglings to buccaneering winds, cadenced beckonings to restless
ranks of viking waves, signaling to all the corsairs and picaroons of
the elemental.
A cosmic call to slay!
The gigantic block upon which we rode quivered; I myself felt a thousand
needle-pointed roving arrows prick me, urging me on to some jubilant,
reckless orgy of destruction.
Obeying that summoning there swirled to us cube and globe and pyramid
by the score--by the hundreds. They swept into our wake and
followed--lifting up behind us, an ever-rising sea.
Higher and higher arose the metal wave--mounting, ever mounting as other
score upon score leaped upon it, rushed up it and swelled its crest. And
soon so great it was that it shadowed us, hung over us.
The cubes we rode angled in their course; raced now with ever-increasing
speed toward the spangled curtains.
And still Norhala's golden chant lured; higher and even higher reached
the following wave. Now we were rising upon a steep slope; now the
amethystine, gleaming ring was almost overheard.
Norhala's song ceased. One breathless, soundless moment and we had
pierced the veils. A globule of sapphire shone afar, the elfin bubble of
her home. We neared it.
Heart leaping, I saw three ponies, high and empty saddles turquoise
studded, lift their heads from their roadway browsing. For a moment they
stood, stiff with terror; then whimpering raced away.
We were at Norhala's door; were lifted down; stood close to its
threshold. Slaves to a single thought, Drake and I sprang to enter.
“Wait!” Norhala's white hands caught us. “There is peril there--without
me! Me you must--follow!”
Upon the exquisite face was no unshadowing of wrath, no diminishing of
rage, no weakening of dreadful determination. The star-flecked eyes were
not upon us; they looked over and beyond--coldly, calculatingly.
“Not enough,” I heard her whisper. “Not enough--for that which I will
do.”
We turned, following her gaze. A hundred feet on high, stretching nearly
across the gorge, an incredible curtain was flung. Over its folds was
movement--arms of spinning globes that thrust forth like paws and down
upon which leaped pyramid upon pyramid stiffening as they clung like
bristling spikes of hair; great bars of clicking cubes that threw
themselves from the shuttering--shook and withdrew. The curtain was a
ferment--shifting, mercurial; it throbbed with desire, palpitated with
eagerness.
“Not enough!” murmured Norhala.
Her lips parted; from them came another trumpeting--tyrannic, arrogant
and clangorous. Under it the curtaining writhed--out from it spurted
thin cascades of cubes. They swarmed up into tall pillars that shook and
swayed and gyrated.
With blinding flash upon flash the sapphire incandescences struck forth
at their feet. A score of flaming columned shapes leaped up and curved
in meteor flight over the tumultuous curtain. Streaming with violet
fires they shot back to the valley of the City.
“Hai!” shouted Norhala as they flew. “Hai!”
Up darted her arms; the starry galaxies of her eyes danced madly, shot
forth visible rays. The mighty curtain of the Metal Things pulsed and
throbbed; its units interweaving--block and globe and pyramid of which
it was woven, each seeming to strain at leash.
“Come!” cried Norhala--and led the way through the portal.
Close behind her we pressed. I stumbled, nearly fell, over a
brown-faced, leather-cuirassed body that lay half over, legs barring the
threshold.
Contemptuously Norhala stepped over it. We were within that chamber of
the pool. About it lay a fair dozen of the armored men. Ruth's defense,
I thought with a grim delight, had been most excellent--those who had
taken her and Ventnor had not done so without paying full toll.
A violet flashing drew my eyes away. Close to the pool wherein we had
first seen the white miracle of Norhala's body, two immense, purple
fired stars blazed. Between them, like a suppliant cast from black iron,
was Yuruk.
Poised upon their nether tips the stars guarded him. Head touching his
knees, eyes hidden within his folded arms, the black eunuch crouched.
“Yuruk!”
There was an unearthly mercilessness in Norhala's voice.
The eunuch raised his head; slowly, fearfully.
“Goddess!” he whispered. “Goddess! Mercy!”
“I saved him,” she turned to us, “for you to slay. He it was who brought
those who took the maid who was mine and the helpless one she loved.
Slay him.”
Drake understood--his hand twitched down to his pistol, drew it. He
leveled the gun at the black eunuch. Yuruk saw it--shrieked and cowered.
Norhala laughed--sweetly, ruthlessly.
“He dies before the stroke falls,” she said. “He dies doubly
therefore--and that is well.”
Drake slowly lowered the automatic; turned to me.
“I can't,” he said. “I can't--do it--”
“Masters!” Upon his knees the eunuch writhed toward us. “Masters--I
meant no wrong. What I did was for love of the Goddess. Years upon years
I have served her. And her mother before her.
“I thought if the maid and the blasted one were gone, that you would
follow. Then I would be alone with the Goddess once more. Cherkis will
not slay them--and Cherkis will welcome you and give the maid and the
blasted one back to you for the arts that you can teach him.
“Mercy, Masters, I meant no harm--bid the Goddess be merciful!”
The ebon pools of eyes were clarified of their ancient shadows by his
terror; age was wiped from them by fear, even as it was wiped from his
face. The wrinkles were gone. Appallingly youthful, the face of Yuruk
prayed to us.
“Why do you wait?” she asked us. “Time presses, and even now we should
be on the way. When so many are so soon to die, why tarry over one? Slay
him!”
“Norhala,” I answered, “we cannot slay him so. When we kill, we kill in
fair fight--hand to hand. The maid we both love has gone, taken with her
brother. It will not bring her back if we kill him through whom she was
taken. We would punish him--yes, but slay him we cannot. And we would be
after the maid and her brother quickly.”
A moment she looked at us, perplexity shading the high and steady anger.
“As you will,” she said at last; then added, half sarcastically,
“Perhaps it is because I who am now awake have slept so long that I
cannot understand you. But Yuruk has disobeyed ME. That of MINE which
I committed to his care he has given to the enemies of me and those who
were mine. It matters nothing to me what YOU would do. Matters to me
only what I will to do.”
She pointed to the dead.
“Yuruk”--the golden voice was cold--“gather up these carrion and pile
them together.”
The eunuch arose, stole out fearfully from between the two stars. He
slithered to body after body, dragging them one after the other to the
center of the chamber, lifting them and forming of them a heap. One
there was who was not dead. His eyes opened as the eunuch seized him,
the blackened mouth opened.
“Water!” he begged. “Give me drink. I burn!”
I felt a thrill of pity; lifted my canteen and walked toward him.
“You of the beard,” the merciless chime rang out, “he shall have no
water. But drink he shall have, and soon--drink of fire!”
The soldier's fevered eyes rolled toward her, saw and read aright the
ruthlessness in the beautiful face.
“Sorceress!” he groaned. “Cursed spawn of Ahriman!” He spat at her.
The black talons of Yuruk stretched around his throat
“Son of unclean dogs!” he whined. “You dare blaspheme the Goddess!”
He snapped the soldier's neck as though it had been a rotten twig.
At the callous cruelty I stood for an instant petrified; I heard Drake
swear wildly, saw his pistol flash up.
Norhala struck down his arm.
“Your chance has passed,” she said, “and not for THAT shall you slay
him.”
And now Yuruk had cast that body upon the others; the pile was complete.
“Mount!” commanded Norhala, and pointed. He cast himself at her feet,
writhing, moaning, imploring. She looked at one of the great Shapes;
something of command passed from her, something it understood plainly.
The star slipped forward--there was an almost imperceptible movement of
its side points. The twitching form of the black seemed to leap up from
the floor, to throw itself like a bag upon the mound of the dead.
Norhala threw up her hands. Out of the violet ovals beneath the upper
tips of the Things spurted streams of blue flame. They fell upon Yuruk
and splashed over him upon the heap of the slain. In the mound was a
dreadful movement, a contortion; the bodies stiffened, seemed to try to
rise, to push away--dead nerves and muscles responding to the blasting
energy passing through them.
Out from the stars rained bolt upon bolt. In the chamber was the sound
of thunder, crackling like broken glass. The bodies flamed, crumbled.
There was a little smoke--nauseous, feebly protesting, beaten out by the
consuming fires almost before it could rise.
Where had been the heap of slain capped by the black eunuch there was
but a little whirling cloud of sad gray dust. Caught by a passing
draft, it eddied, slipped over the floor, vanished through the doorway.
Motionless stood the blasting stars, contemplating us. Motionless
stood Norhala, her wrath no whit abated by the ghastly sacrifice. And
paralyzed by what we had beheld, motionless stood we.
“Listen,” she said. “You two who love the maid. What you have seen is
nothing to that which you SHALL see--a wisp of mist to the storm cloud.”
“Norhala”--I found speech--“can you tell us when it was that the maid
was captured?”
Perhaps there was still time to overtake the abductors before Ruth was
thrust into the worse peril waiting where she was being carried. Crossed
this thought another--puzzling, baffling. The cliffs Yuruk had pointed
out to me as those through which the hidden way passed were, I had
estimated then, at least twenty miles away. And how long was the pass,
the tunnel, through them? And then how far this place of the armored
men? It had been past dawn when Drake had frightened the black eunuch
with his pistol. It was not yet dawn now. How could Yuruk have made his
way to the Persians so swiftly--how could they so swiftly have returned?
Amazingly she answered the spoken question and the unspoken.
“They came long before dusk,” she said. “By the night before Yuruk had
won to Ruszark, the city of Cherkis; and long before dawn they were on
their way hither. This the black dog I slew told me.”
“But Yuruk was with us here at dawn yesterday,” I gasped.
“A night has passed since then,” she said, “and another night is almost
gone.”
Stunned, I considered this. If this were true--and not for an instant
did I doubt her--then not for a few hours had we lain there at the foot
of the living wall in the Hall of the Cones--but for the balance of that
day and that night, and another day and part of still another night.
“What does she say?” Drake stared anxiously into my whitened face. I
told him.
“Yes.” Norhala spoke again. “The dusk before the last dusk that has
passed I returned to my house. The maid was there and sorrowing. She
told me you had gone into the valley, prayed me to help you and to bring
you back. I comforted her, and something of--the peace--I gave her; but
not all, for she fought against it. A little we played together, and I
left her sleeping. I sought you and found you also sleeping. I knew no
harm would come to you, and I went my ways--and forgot you. Then I came
here again--and found Yuruk and these the maid had slain.”
The great eyes flashed.
“Now do I honor the maid for the battle that she did,” she said, “though
how she slew so many strong men I do not know. My heart goes out to her.
And therefore when I bring her back she shall no more be plaything to
Norhala, but sister. And with you it shall be as she wills. And woe to
those who have taken her!”
She paused, listening. From without came a rising storm of thin
wailings, insistent and eager.
“But I have an older vengeance than this to take,” the golden voice
tolled somberly. “Long have I forgotten--and shame I feel that I
had forgot. So long have I forgotten all hatreds, all lusts, all
cruelty--among--these--” She thrust a hand forth toward the hidden
valley. “Forgot--dwelling in the great harmonies. Save for you and what
has befallen I would never have stirred from them, I think. But now
awakened, I take that vengeance. After it is done”--she paused--“after
it is over I shall go back again. For this awakening has in it nothing
of the ordered joy I love--it is a fierce and slaying fire. I shall go
back--”
The shadow of her far dreaming flitted over, softened the angry
brilliancy of her eyes.
“Listen, you two!” The shadow of dream fled. “Those that I am about to
slay are evil--evil are they all, men and women. Long have they been
so--yea, for cycles of suns. And their children grow like them--or
if they be gentle and with love for peace they are slain or die of
heartbreak. All this my mother told me long ago. So no more children
shall be born from them either to suffer or to grow evil.”
Again she paused, nor did we interrupt her musing.
“My father ruled Ruszark,” she said at last. “Rustum he was named, of
the seed of Rustum the Hero even as was my mother. They were gentle and
good, and it was their ancestors who built Ruszark when, fleeing from
the might of Iskander, they were sealed in the hidden valley by the
falling mountain.
“Then there sprang from one of the families of the nobles--Cherkis.
Evil, evil was he, and as he grew he lusted for rule. On a night of
terror he fell upon those who loved my father and slew; and barely had
my father time to fly from the city with my mother, still but a bride,
and a handful of those loyal to him.
“They found by chance the way to this place, hiding in the cleft which
is its portal. They came, and they were taken by--Those who are now my
people. Then my mother, who was very beautiful, was lifted before him
who rules here and she found favor in his sight and he had built for her
this house, which now is mine.
“And in time I was born--but not in this house. Nay--in a secret place
of light where, too, are born my people.”
She was silent. I shot a glance at Drake. The secret place of light--was
it not that vast vault of mystery, of dancing orbs and flames transmuted
into music into which we had peered and for which sacrilege, I had
thought, had been thrust from the City? And did in this lie the
explanation of her strangeness? Had she there sucked in with her
mother's milk the enigmatic life of the Metal Hordes, been transformed
into half human changeling, become true kin to them? What else could
explain--
“My mother showed me Ruszark,” her voice, taking up once more her tale,
checked my thoughts. “Once when I was little she and my father bore me
through the forest and through the hidden way. I looked upon Ruszark--a
great city it is and populous, and a caldron of cruelty and of evil.
“Not like me were my father and mother. They longed for their kind and
sought ever for means to regain their place among them. There came a
time when my father, driven by his longing, ventured forth to Ruszark,
seeking friends to help him regain that place--for these who obey me
obeyed not him as they obey me; nor would he have marched them--as I
shall--upon Ruszark if they had obeyed him.
“Cherkis caught him. And Cherkis waited, knowing well that my mother
would follow. For Cherkis knew not where to seek her, nor where they
had lain hid, for between his city and here the mountains are great,
unscalable, and the way through them is cunningly hidden; by chance
alone did my mother's mother and those who fled with her discover it:
And though they tortured him, my father would not tell. And after a
while forthwith those who still remained of hers stole out with my
mother to find him. They left me here with Yuruk. And Cherkis caught my
mother.”
The proud breasts heaved, the eyes shot forth visible flames.
“My father was flayed alive and crucified,” she said. “His skin they
nailed to the City's gates. And when Cherkis had had his will with my
mother he threw her to his soldiers for their sport.
“All of those who went with them he tortured and slew--and he and his
laughed at their torment. But one there was who escaped and told me--me
who was little more than a budding maid. He called on me to bring
vengeance--and he died. A year passed--and I am not like my mother and
my father--and I forgot--dwelling here in the great tranquillities,
barred from and having no thought for men and their way.
“AIE, AIE!” she cried; “woe to me that I could forget! But now I shall
take my vengeance--I, Norhala, will stamp them flat--Cherkis and his
city of Ruszark and everything it holds! I, Norhala, and my servants
shall stamp them into the rock of their valley so that none shall know
that they have been! And would that I could meet their gods with all
their powers that I might break them, too, and stamp them into the rock
under the feet of my servants!”
She threw out white arms.
Why had Yuruk lied to me? I wondered as I watched her. The Disk had not
slain her mother. Of course! He had lied to play upon our terrors; had
lied to frighten us away.
The wailings were rising in a sustained crescendo. One of the slaying
stars slipped over the chamber floor, folded its points and glided out
the door.
“Come!” commanded Norhala, and led the way. The second star closed,
followed us. We stepped over the threshold.
For one astounded, breathless moment we paused. In front of us reared a
monster--a colossal, headless Sphinx. Like forelegs and paws, a ridge of
pointed cubes, and globes thrust against each side of the canyon walls.
Between them for two hundred feet on high stretched the breast.
And this was a shifting, weaving mass of the Metal Things; they formed
into gigantic cuirasses, giant bucklers, corselets of living mail. From
them as they moved--nay, from all the monster--came the wailings. Like a
headless Sphinx it crouched--and as we stood it surged forward as though
it sprang a step to greet us.
“HAI!” shouted Norhala, battle buglings ringing through the golden
voice. “HAI! my companies!”
Out from the summit of the breast shot a tremendous trunk of cubes and
spinning globes. And like a trunk it nuzzled us, caught us up, swept
us to the crest. An instant I tottered dizzily; was held; stood beside
Norhala upon a little, level twinkling eyed platform; upon her other
side swayed Drake.
Now through the monster I felt a throbbing, an eager and impatient
pulse. I turned my head. Still like some huge and grotesque beast
the back of the clustered Things ran for half a mile at least behind,
tapering to a dragon tail that coiled and twisted another full mile
toward the Pit. And from this back uprose and fell immense spiked and
fan-shaped ruffs, thickets of spikes, whipping knouts of bristling
tentacles, fanged crests. They thrust and waved, whipped and fell
constantly; and constantly the great tail lashed and snapped, fantastic,
long and living.
“HAI!” shouted Norhala once more. From her lifted throat came again the
golden chanting--but now a relentless, ruthless song of slaughter.
Up reared the monstrous bulk. Into it ran the dragon tail. Into it
poured the fanged and bristling back.
Up, up we were thrust--three hundred feet, four hundred, five hundred.
Over the blue globe of Norhala's house bent a gigantic leg. Spiderlike
out from each side of the monster thrust half a score of others.
Overhead the dawn began to break. Through it with ever increasing speed
we moved, straight to the line of the cliffs behind which lay the city
of the armored men--and Ruth and Ventnor.