The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 02

by Anthology

  Before one of these forges, close to us, stood a Metal Thing. Its body was a twelve-foot column of smaller cubes. Upon the top was a hollow square formed of even lesser blocks--blocks hardly larger than the Little Things themselves. In the center of the open rectangle was another shaft, its top a two-foot square plate formed of a single cube.

  From the sides of the hollow square sprang long arms of spheres, each tipped by a tetrahedron. They moved freely, slipping about upon their curved points of contact and like a dozen little thinking hammers, the pyramid points at their ends beat down upon as many thimble shaped objects which they thrust alternately into the unwinking brazier then laid upon the central block to shape.

  A goblin workman the Thing seemed, standing there, so intent upon and so busy with its forgings.

  There were scores of these animate machines; they paid no slightest heed to us as we slipped by them, clinging as closely to the wall of the immense workshop as we could.

  We passed a company of other Shapes which stood two by two and close together, their tops wide spinning wheels through which the tendrils of an opened globe fed translucent, colorless ingots--the substance it seemed to me of which Norhala's shadowy walls were made, the crystal of which the bars that built out the base of the Cones were formed.

  The ingots passed between the whirling faces; emerged from them as slender, long cylinders; were seized as they slipped down by a crouching block, whose place as it glided away was instantly taken by another. In many bewildering forms, intent upon unknown activities directed toward unguessable ends, the composite, animate mechanisms labored. And all the place was filled with a goblin bustle, trollish racketings, ringing of gnomish anvils, clanging of kobold forges--a clamorous cavern filled with metal Nibelungens.

  We came to the opening of another passage, a doorway piercing the walls of the workshop. Its incline, though steep, was not dangerous.

  Into it we stepped; climbed onward it seemed interminably. Far ahead of us at last appeared the outline of its further entrance, silhouetted against and filled with a brighter luminosity. We drew near; stopped cautiously at its threshold, peering out.

  Well it was that we had hesitated. Before us was open space--an abyss in the body of the Metal Monster.

  The corridor opened into it like a window. Thrusting out our heads, we saw an unbroken wall both above and below. Half a mile away was its opposite side. Over this pit was a misty sky and not more than a thousand feet above and black against the heavens was the lip of it-- the cornices of this chasm within the City.

  Far, far beneath us we watched the Hordes throw themselves across the abyss in webs of curving arches and girder-straight bridges; gigantic we knew these spans must be yet dwarfed to slender footways by distance. Over them moved hurrying companies; from them came flashings, glitterings--prismatic, sun golden; plutonic scarlets, molten blues; javelins of colored light piercing upward from unfolded cubes and globes and pyramids crossing them or from busy bearers of the shining fruits of the mysterious workshops.

  And as they passed the bridges swung up, coiled and thrust themselves from sight through openings that closed behind them. Ever, as they passed, close on their going whipped out other spans so that always across that abyss a sentient, shifting web was hung.

  We drew back, stared into each other's white face. Panic swept through me, in quick, alternate pulse of ice and fire. For crushingly, no longer to be denied, came certainty that we were lost within the mazes of this incredible City-- lost in the body of the Metal Monster which that City was. There was a sick despair in my heart as we turned and slowly made our way back along the sloping corridor.

  A hundred yards, perhaps, we had gone in silence before we stopped, gazing stupidly at an opening in the wall beside us. The portal had not been there when we had passed--of that I was certain.

  "It's opened since we went by," whispered Drake.

  We peered through it. The passage was narrow; its pave led downward. For a moment we hesitated, the same foreboding in both our minds. And yet--among the perils that crowded in upon us what choice had we? There could be no more danger there than here.

  Both ways were--ALIVE, both obedient to impulses over which we had no more control and no more way of predetermining than mice in some complex, man-made trap. Furthermore, this shaft also ran downward, and although its pitch was less and it did not therefore drop as quickly toward that level we sought and wherein lay the openings of escape into the outer valley, it fell at right angles to the corridor through which we had come.

  We knew that to retrace our steps now would but take us back to the forges and thence to the hall of the Cones and the certain peril waiting for us there.

  We stepped into this opened way. For a little distance it ran straightly, then turned and sloped gently upward; and a little distance more we climbed. Then suddenly, not a hundred yards from us, gushed out a flood of soft radiance, opalescent, filled with pearly glimmerings and rosy shadows of light.

  It was as though a door had opened into some world of luminescence. From it the lambent torrent poured; billowed down upon us. In its wake came music--if music the mighty harmonies, the sonorous chords, the crystalline themes and the linked chaplet of notes that were like spiralings of tiny golden star bells could be named.

  Toward source of light and sound we moved, nor could we have halted nor withdrawn had we willed; the radiance drew us to it as the sun the water drop, and irresistibly the sweet, unearthly music called. Closer we came--it was a narrow alcove from which sound and light poured-- into it we crept--and went no further.

  We peered into a vast and columnless vault, a limitless temple of light. High up in it, strewn manifold, danced and shone soft orbs like tender suns. No pale gilt luminaries of frozen rays were these. Effulgent, jubilant, they flamed--orbs red as wine of rubies that Djinns of Al Shiraz press from his enchanted vineyards of jewels; twin orbs rosy white as breasts of pampered Babylonian maids; orbs of pulsing opalescences and orbs of the murmuring green of bursting buds of spring, crocused orbs and orbs of royal coral; suns that throbbed with singing rays of wedded rose and pearl and of sapphires and topazes amorous; orbs born of cool virginal dawns and of imperial sunsets and orbs that were the tuliped fruit of mating rainbows of fire.

  They danced, these countless aureoles; they swung and threaded in radiant choral patterns, in linked harmonies of light. And as they danced their gay rays caressed and bathed myriads of the Metal Folk open beneath them. Under the rays the jewel fires of disk and star and cross leaped and pulsed and danced to the same bright rhythm.

  We sought the source of the music--a tremendous thing of shimmering crystal pipes like some colossal organ. Out of the radiance around it great flames gathered, shook into sight with streamings and pennonings, in bannerets and bandrols, leaped upon the crystal pipes, and merged within them.

  And as the pipes drank them the flames changed into sound!

  Throbbing bass viols of roaring vernal winds, diapasons of waterfall and torrents--these had been flames of emerald; flaming trumpetings of desire that had been great streamers of scarlet--rose flames that had dissolved into echoes of fulfillment; diamond burgeonings that melted into silver symphonies like 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 dropping us gently, carefully, to the valley floor now a scant two thousand feet below.

  A storm of rage, of intensest resentment swept me; as once before any gratitude I should have felt for escape was submerged in the utter humiliation with which it was charged.

  I shook my fists at the twinkling wall, strove to kick and smite it like an angry child, cursed it--not childishly. Dared it to hurl me down to death.

  I felt Drake's hand touch mine.

  "Steady," he said. "Steady, old boy. It's no use. Steady. Look down."

  Hot with shame for my outburst, weak from its violence, I obeyed. The valley floor was not more than a thousand feet away. Thronging about where we must at last touch, clustered and seething, was a multitude of the Metal Things. They seemed to be looking up at us, watching, waiting for us.

  "Reception committee," grinned Drake.

  I glanced away; over the valley. It was luminously clear; yet the sky was overcast, no stars showing. The light was no stronger than that of the moon at full, but it held a quality unfamiliar to me. It cast no shadows; though soft, it was piercing, revealing all it bathed with the distinctness of bright sunshine. The illumination came, I thought, from the encircling veils falling from the band of amethyst.

  And, as I peered, out of the veils and far away sped a violet spark. With meteor speed it flew toward us. Close to the base of the vast facade it landed with a flashing of blue incandescence. I knew it for one of the Flying Things, the Mark Makers--one of the incredible messengers.

  Close upon its fall came increase in the turmoil of the crowding throng awaiting us. Came, too, an abrupt change in our own motion. The long arcs lessened. We were dropped more swiftly.

  Far away in the direction from which the Flying Thing had flown I sensed another movement; something coming that carried with it subtle suggestion of unlikeness to all the other incessant, linked movement over the pit. Closer it drew.

  "Norhala!" gasped Drake.

  Robed in her silken amber swathings, red-copper hair streaming, woven with elfin sparklings, she was racing toward the City like some lovely witch, riding upon the back of a steed of huge cubes.

  Nearer she raced. More direct became our fall. Now we were dropping as though at the end of an unreeling plummet cord; the floor of the valley was no more than two hundred feet below.

  "Norhala!" we shouted; and again and again--again "Norhala!"

  Before our cries could have reached her the cubes swerved; came to a halt beneath us. Through the hundred feet of space between I caught the brilliancy of the weird constellations in Norhala's great eyes--saw with a vague but no less dire foreboding that on her face dwelt a terrifying, a blasting wrath.

  As softly as though by the hand of a giant of cloud we were lifted out from the wall, and were set with no perceptible shock beside her on the back of the cubes.

  "Norhala--" I stopped. For this was no Norhala whom we had known. Gone was all calm, vanished every trace of unearthly tranquillity. It was a Norhala awakened at last--all human.

  Yet in the still rage that filled her I sensed a force, an intensity, more than human. Over the blazing eyes the brows were knit in a rigid, golden bar; the delicate nostrils were pinched; the sweet red mouth was white and merciless. It was as though in its long sleep her human self had gathered more than human strength, and that now, awakened and unleashed, the violence of its rage touched the vibrant zenith of that sphere of which her quiet had been the nadir.

  She was like an urn filled and flaming with the fires of the Gods of wrath.

  What was it that had awakened her--what in awakening had changed the inpouring human consciousness into this flood of fury? Foreboding gripped me.

  "Norhala!" My voice was shaking. "Those we left--"

  "They are gone!" The golden voice was octaves deeper, vibrant, throbbing with that muffled, menacing note that must have pulsed from the golden tambours that summoned to battle Timur's fierce hordes. "They were--taken."

  "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 passion. "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 gods of my mot
her 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 gods 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 prick 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.