The Metal Monster [81]
mist entangled Pleiades transmuted into melodies; chameleon harmonies to which the strange suns danced.
And now I saw--realizing with a clutch of indescribable awe, with a sense of inexplicable profanation the secret of this ensorcelled chamber.
Within every pulsing rose of irised fire that was the heart of a disk, from every rubrous, clipped rose of a cross, and from every rayed purple petaling of a star there nestled a tiny disk, a tiny cross, a tiny star, luminous and symboled even as those that cradled them.
The Metal Babes building like crystals from hearts of radiance beneath the play of jocund orbs!
Incredible blossomings of crystal and of metal whose lullabies and cradle songs were singing symphonies of flame.
It was the birth chamber of the City!
The womb of the Metal Monster!
Abruptly the walls of the niche sparkled out, the glittering eye points regarding us with a most disquieting suggestion of sentinels who, slumbering, had been caught unaware, and now awakening challenged us. Swiftly the niche closed--so swiftly that barely had we time to spring over its threshold into the corridor.
The corridor was awake--alive!
The power darted out; gripped us. Up it swept us and on. Far away a square of light appeared, grew quickly larger. Framed in it was the amethystine burning of the great ring that girdled the encircling cliffs.
I turned my head--behind us the corridor was closing!
Now the opening was so close that through it I could see the vast panorama of the valley. The wall behind us touched us; pushed us on. We thrust ourselves against it, despairingly. As well might flies have tried to press back a moving mountain.
Resistingly, inexorably we were pressed forward. Now we cowered within a yard-deep niche; now we trembled upon a foot-wide ledge.
Shuddering, gasping, we glared down the sheer drop of the City's wall. The smooth and glimmering scarp fell thousands of feet straight to the valley floor. And there were no merciful mists to hide what awaited us there; no mists anywhere. In that brief, agonized glance every detail of the Pit was disclosed with an abnormal clarity.
We tottered on the brink. The ledge melted.
Down, down we plunged, locked in each other's arms, hurtling to the shattering death so far below!
CHAPTER XXIII
THE TREACHERY OF YURUK
Was it true that Time is within ourselves--that like Space, its twin, it is only a self-created illusion of the human mind? There are hours that flash by on hummingbird wings; there are seconds that shuffle on shod in leaden shoes.
Was it true that when death faces us the consciousness finds power through its will to live to conquer the illusion --to prolong Time? That, recoiling from oblivion, we can recreate in a fractional moment whole years gone past, years yet to come--striving to lengthen our existence, stretching out our apperception beyond the phantom boundaries, overdrawing upon a Barmecide deposit of minutes, staking fresh claims upon a mirage?
How else explain the seeming slowness with which we were falling--the seeming leisureness with which the wall drifted up past us?
And was this punishment--a sentence meted out for profaning with our eyes a forbidden place; a penalty for touching with our gaze the ark of the Metal Tribes-- their holy of holies--the budding place of the Metal Babes?
The valley was swinging--swinging in slow broad curves; was oscillating dizzily.
Slowly the colossal wall slipped upward.
Realization swept me; left me amazed; only half believing. This was no illusion. After that first swift plunge our fall had been checked. We were swinging--not the valley.
Deliberately, in wide arcs like pendulums, we were swinging across the City's scarp; three feet out from it, and as we swung, slowly sinking.
And now I saw the countless eyes of the watching wall again were twinkling, regarding us with impish mockery.
It was the grip of the living wall that held us; that rocked us from side to side as though giving greater breadths of it chance to behold us; that was
And now I saw--realizing with a clutch of indescribable awe, with a sense of inexplicable profanation the secret of this ensorcelled chamber.
Within every pulsing rose of irised fire that was the heart of a disk, from every rubrous, clipped rose of a cross, and from every rayed purple petaling of a star there nestled a tiny disk, a tiny cross, a tiny star, luminous and symboled even as those that cradled them.
The Metal Babes building like crystals from hearts of radiance beneath the play of jocund orbs!
Incredible blossomings of crystal and of metal whose lullabies and cradle songs were singing symphonies of flame.
It was the birth chamber of the City!
The womb of the Metal Monster!
Abruptly the walls of the niche sparkled out, the glittering eye points regarding us with a most disquieting suggestion of sentinels who, slumbering, had been caught unaware, and now awakening challenged us. Swiftly the niche closed--so swiftly that barely had we time to spring over its threshold into the corridor.
The corridor was awake--alive!
The power darted out; gripped us. Up it swept us and on. Far away a square of light appeared, grew quickly larger. Framed in it was the amethystine burning of the great ring that girdled the encircling cliffs.
I turned my head--behind us the corridor was closing!
Now the opening was so close that through it I could see the vast panorama of the valley. The wall behind us touched us; pushed us on. We thrust ourselves against it, despairingly. As well might flies have tried to press back a moving mountain.
Resistingly, inexorably we were pressed forward. Now we cowered within a yard-deep niche; now we trembled upon a foot-wide ledge.
Shuddering, gasping, we glared down the sheer drop of the City's wall. The smooth and glimmering scarp fell thousands of feet straight to the valley floor. And there were no merciful mists to hide what awaited us there; no mists anywhere. In that brief, agonized glance every detail of the Pit was disclosed with an abnormal clarity.
We tottered on the brink. The ledge melted.
Down, down we plunged, locked in each other's arms, hurtling to the shattering death so far below!
CHAPTER XXIII
THE TREACHERY OF YURUK
Was it true that Time is within ourselves--that like Space, its twin, it is only a self-created illusion of the human mind? There are hours that flash by on hummingbird wings; there are seconds that shuffle on shod in leaden shoes.
Was it true that when death faces us the consciousness finds power through its will to live to conquer the illusion --to prolong Time? That, recoiling from oblivion, we can recreate in a fractional moment whole years gone past, years yet to come--striving to lengthen our existence, stretching out our apperception beyond the phantom boundaries, overdrawing upon a Barmecide deposit of minutes, staking fresh claims upon a mirage?
How else explain the seeming slowness with which we were falling--the seeming leisureness with which the wall drifted up past us?
And was this punishment--a sentence meted out for profaning with our eyes a forbidden place; a penalty for touching with our gaze the ark of the Metal Tribes-- their holy of holies--the budding place of the Metal Babes?
The valley was swinging--swinging in slow broad curves; was oscillating dizzily.
Slowly the colossal wall slipped upward.
Realization swept me; left me amazed; only half believing. This was no illusion. After that first swift plunge our fall had been checked. We were swinging--not the valley.
Deliberately, in wide arcs like pendulums, we were swinging across the City's scarp; three feet out from it, and as we swung, slowly sinking.
And now I saw the countless eyes of the watching wall again were twinkling, regarding us with impish mockery.
It was the grip of the living wall that held us; that rocked us from side to side as though giving greater breadths of it chance to behold us; that was