"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 pa.s.sion. "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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds 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 p.r.i.c.k 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-cuira.s.sed 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.
"G.o.ddess!" he whispered. "G.o.ddess! 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 G.o.ddess. Years upon years I have served her. And her mother before her.