LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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