The Metal Monster

shrieked and shrilled, a keening barrier against the avalanche of the thu

ts screaming pierced thinly, that agonizing, terrible lamentation which is

ded over his brows, straining for a glimpse of Ruth; Drake crou

rust my head against my shoulder, stared backward. When first I had looked upon the place I had sensed its immensity; now I began to realize how vast i

ations. Pit it might be, but whatever terror, whatever ordeals were before us, we would not

s and sky wer

eath the surface o

cyclonic force; the blast streamed up and over the front of the cube. To me

d them-crawled, literally, like a caterpillar; for wherever my body touched the surface of the cubes the attracting force held it, allo

ealized with finality that whatever thei

they were, with a hint upon contact of highly polished pl

eep down into the little sparkling points that were, I knew, organs of sight; they were like the points of contact of innumerable int

it they were like?-it came

e aureate and sapphire stars in the

Drake, struck h

't lift my hands. Stuck fast-

cried, bending to me. "It sli

stonishment I could slip my hands free; I

nse young face. "You'll have to keep praying till the pow

hen sank back on my haunches to relieve

-Ruth and the woman?" Ventnor t

within a bubble of the now wanly glistening vapors; or rather as though in our passage-as a projectile does in air-we p

n than those Golden Hordes of Genghis which ages agone had washed about the outer bases of the very peaks that hid this place. Came, too, flitting sh

n, stranger world marking time just outside the threshold of our own. Preparing, DRILLING there in some wide vestibule of

ving helplessly, struggling for realization-and so struggling became aware that our sp

and Ventnor straighten up; rais

a huge circle, its mistily outlined edges impinging upon the towering scarp of the-city. It was as though before us lay, upon its

n in sparkling nebulosities that were like still clouds of greenly glimmering fire-flies. Back from the curving s

nd yon-like myriads of great searchlights in a phosphorescent sea fog, like countless lances of the aurora thrusting t

oning song of Norhala, of the Protean changes of the Smiting Shape and the Following Thing; and like all of these it was as la

t. And now they stood upright while through them, thrusting them aside, bending them, passed vast, vague shapes like mountains forming and dissolving; like darkening monsters of some world of light pushing through thick forests of slender, high-reachin

f light? Not from behind, that was certain-for turning I saw that behind us the mist was as thick. I turned again-it came

ot expand from where we wer

he wall and f

e flitting lights we had seen before we had plunged down toward the radiant sea. It shone with a pale b

ed Ventnor. "

lf for my callousness, awkwardly I tried to crawl over

s; down, steadily down; I realized that we had paused at the edge of some steep declivity, for the bottom of the cone was now at a deci

d still deep within the luminosity had appeared the regal head of Norhala, the lovely head of Ruth. The two rose out of the glow li

motionless along the axis of the sinking cone, t

from its slow falling; it had made one swift, startling drop and had come to rest. Its recumbent side was now flattened into a triangular plane, widening

high and three times that in length. And in its exact center, shining forth as though it

tly solid face of the gleaming, me

; quickly they opened-widening like monstrous cat pupils until at last, their widening ceasing, t

and glided out of them, each reflecting the vivid light as though they thems

e glimmering wall, these dervish obelisks crowded with spinning fires. They vanished in the mists. Instantly with th

of projectile flight we clutched each other; the pony screamed in terror. The metal cliff rushed t

swept; were d

st the side of the pony, burying our faces in its shaggy coat, striving to hide our eyes from the radiance which, strai