The Metal Monster

ote were the eyes, clear as rain-washed April skies, crystal clear as some secret spring sacred to crescented Diana. Their wi

re not in the irises alone; that they clustered even within the pupils-deep

acing, in their cold tranquillity than the hot flames of wrath? These eyes were not perilous-no. C

leep. Sweet were those lips as ever master painter, dreaming his dream of the very soul of wom

lustrous topaz, cloudy, METALLIC. Like spun silk of ruddy copper; and misty as the wisps of cloud

f her throat to merge into exquisite curves of shoulder

kissing her red lips and clothing h

mysteries of the star-filled spaces; out of th

sion in the scarlet mouth, in every slumbering, scul

sleep to still the restless mountain tarn

the winds of the Cosmos are to the summer breeze, t

r whispering at my ear. "Look at

ranslucent as though a soft brilliancy dwelt within it. Beside it Ruth's

olden bells; filled with that tranquil, far off spirit that was part of her-as though indeed a tiny golden chime should ring out from the silences, speak for them,

Persian-purest, m

ce chimed forth, whispered dow

ke rosy pearls; above the wrist was coiled a golden dragon with wicked little crimson eyes. The slender white h

lf Norhala thrust out a finger, touched the tear that

ion, of memory, seeme

" she asked with t

hook h

not tro

ght which had streamed from her great eyes came. For the little azure and golden s

radiance Ruth sh

gasped. "I

lay, a brown blotch at the

zlement in the faint voi

no recognition of the human, nothing of kin to her. There was a faint wonder in her ey

stirs within me that it seems has long been

d to the crevice. We looked at eac

't leave him like that. At least

had reached the mo

aid." Ruth reached little tremb

s an echo of harshness, a clanging, pe

rugged his

then,"

circling about him, we walked to the crevice. Norhala waited

re. It was a tunnel, a passage hewn by human hands, its walls

r. Far, far ahead was a wan gleaming. It quivered, a

us stretched a narrow gorge, a sword slash in the body of the towering gia

o verdure of any kind. Its floor was strewn with boulders, fantas

ling. Fissures radiated from the opening, like deep wrinkles in the rock, showing

halted us; and again through the clear

ugh to herself. "It may be well to

nd progressions utterly unknown to me; unfamiliar, abrupt, and alien themes that kept returning, droppings of crystal-clear jewels of sound, golden tolli

IT WAS THOSE GESTURES

ittle flashes; glimmerings of light began to come and go-like little awakenings of eyes of soft, jeweled flames, like giant gorgeous

irling mist. It thickened, was shot with slender shutt

iny vivid sparklings. They ran together, condensed-and all thi

lightning. The cliff face leaped out, a cataract of green

he flecks of green fire cleared. A faint lambency still clung to the cliff. By it I saw that the

nd, something whose touch was like that of warm metal-but metal t

inous shape in the darkness. Swiftly we followed.

ispered, "Walter

t do you think she is-a goddess, a spirit of

l human. Or how could she have commanded those things? Or have summoned the lightnings

hovers about her-why, it is by that light we are making

-something stronger than humanness, something

seemed to me-from Norhala which was as a light for us to follow within the darkness.

ment; soft stirring all about us. I had the feeling t

all about us-going with us

said, and paused-fo

uffled clickings, like a smothered mitrailleuse. The lumines

ro

t a hand to Ruth, held her back. Drake and Ventnor drew close to them,

om them a shaft of pale-blue phosphorescence pierced the murk. They stood, the smaller pressed against the side

idge of the dragon chamber, but flat and running out over an abyss that gaped at my very feet. All of a hundred feet they stretc

body of the monster of the hollow, its flailing arms. The

self into this anchor

ing, softly, as one would reassure a

he span stretched, sharp edged, smooth, only a slender, shimmer

host of little invisible hands, steadying me, keeping firm my feet. I looked down; the myriads of enigmatic eyes were staring, staring up a

were but a few feet more of the bridge before me. I reached its end

rrow way it was treading. And close behind, a hand resting reassuringly upon its flank, strode Drake, swinging along care

ped her arm from Ruth; glided past us. On for a hundred yards or more

shielding us. One g

as raising itself. Higher it rose and higher. Now it stood, upright, a slender towe

closer, closer to the ground; touched and lay t

ven as had the baby bridge of the fortress; had lifted itself across the chasm and dro

itself. A thinking, conscious metal bridge! A metal

eared us. A wanly glimmering shape drew by; halted. It was like

sed itself, the blocks that formed its neck separating into open wedges like a Brobdignagian rep

pon it other pyramids clustered-like the spikes that guarded the back of the nightmare

by-gaily;

not need to! It could move as a COMPOSITE as well as in UNITS.

fell in behind her. Looking up I caught the friend

ed like it with heaven-touching summits. I could see clearly. The place was suffused with a soft radiance as

e lighted, the Athabascans believe, by the gleaming spears of hunting gods

Norhala had vanished-or merging into

UR world or its peoples. Yet this conviction came not because of the light that had hovered about her, nor of her summoning

of the explicable, could be resolved into

an an actual consciousness foreign to earth, passionless, at least as we know passion,

it was that had spoken in the song which were those gestures transformed into s

cosmically blind TO all human emotion; that spread itself like a veil over her own consciousness; that PLATED her thought-that was a strange word-why

in the grip of fantasy; strove by taking minu

the smooth throat a buckle of dull gold held the sheer, diaphanous folds of the pale

thighs. The long, narrow, and high-arched feet were shod with golden sand

r folds, as glowing above th

ven life. A goddess of earth's

eyes; broke t

within me old thoughts, old wisdom, old questioning-al

was gone from us, like the fading out o

light swept to the zenith, hung for a moment and withdrew. Up came pouring the lances and the streamers of the aur

sprang into

inting finger. Into the valley from the right ran a bl

crest sto

aurora rose and fell, raced and were still, the silken cloud of her tresses swirled and eddi

ke a vessel, she bathed in it. She thrust arms through the streaming, flaming locks; held them out from

ints and lambencies of deepest sapphire, of wan sapphire, flickering opalescences, irised glitterings. A moment they gleamed. Then from them came bolt upon b

bathed her-she

ed by a swift mist.

which dropped like veils upon it, hiding all withi