The House on the Borderland

pposite to a vast rift, opening into the mountains. Through this, I was borne, moving at no great speed. On either side of me, huge, scarped walls of rock-like substance rose

last, I saw, ahead, a deep, red glow, that told m

founded with amazement, to behold, at a distance of several miles, and occupying the centre of the arena, a stupendous structure, built apparently of green jade. Yet, in itself, it was not the discovery of the b

hat does it mean?' and I was unable to make answer, even out of the depths of my imagination. I seemed capable only of wonder and fear. For a time longer, I gazed, noting, contin

hat sort of a place I had come. The arena, for so I have termed it, appeared a perfect circle of about ten to twelve miles in diameter, the House, as I h

ink that this same abominable stillness was more trying to me, than anything that I had, so far, seen or imagined. I was looki

hrough unknown eternities. Slowly, the monster became plainer to me; and then, suddenly, my gaze sprang from it to something further off and higher among the crags. For a long minute, I gazed, fearfully. I was strangely conscious of something not altogether unfamiliar - as though something stirred in the back of my mind. The thing was black, and had four grotesque arms. The features showed, indistinctly. Round

Set, or Seth, the Destroyer of Souls. With the knowledge, there came a great sweep of questioning - 'Two of the -!' I stopped, and endeavoured to think. Things beyond my imagination,

under a great peak, a shape of greyness. I wondered I had not seen it earlier, and then remembered I had not yet viewed that porti

rm, save for an unclean, half-animal face, that looked out, vilely, from somewhere about its middle. And then, I saw others - there were hundreds of them. They seemed to grow

y deny any further attempt to describe them. And I- I was filled with a terrible sense of overwhelming horror and fear and repugnance; yet, spite of these, I wondered exceed

tentness, my mind began to reach out to fresh conclusions. There was something about them, an indescribable sort of silent vitality, that suggested, to my broadening consciousness, a state of life-indeath - a something that was by no means life, as we understand it; but rather an inhuma

ed out of the semi-darkness, and began to move slowly across the arena - towards the House. At this, I gave up all thoughts of those prodigious Shapes above me - and could only stare, frightenedly, a

lding. Then, all at once, something caught my vision, something that came round one of the huge buttresses of the House, and so into full view. It was a gigantic thing, and moved with a curious lope, go

ously, round the building, stopping, as it came to each window, to peer in, and shake at the bars, with which - as in this house - they were protecte

lently. In an instant, it had covered half the distance that lay between. And still, I was borne helplessly to meet it. Only a hundred yards, and the brutish ferocity of the giant face numbed me with a feeling of unmitigated horror. I could have screamed, in the supremeness of my fear; and then, in the very moment of my extremity and despair, I became conscious that I was looking down upon the arena, from a rapidly-increasing height.

- floating, alone, afar in the redness. At a tremendous distance below, the arena showed, dimly; wit

rface, in the direction of the ring-shaped sun, there showed a confused blur. I looked towards it, in

ndous. With awakened interest, I watched it carefully, noting its strange boiling and glowing. Then, in a moment, the whole thing grew dim and unreal, and so passed out of sight. Much amazed, I glanced down to the Plain from which I was still rising. Thus, I received a fresh surprise. The