Part 11 (1/2)

She pointed into the void ahead; then, as we started forward, thrust out a hand to Ruth, held her back Drake and Ventnor drew close to thely, anxious But I stepped forward, out of the died in that uncertain light to be six feet high, the other half its bulk From them a shaft of pale-blue phosphorescence pierced the ainst the side of the larger, for all the world like a pair of iiant child

Asshaft was an unbroken span of cubes; not on chaaped at my very feet All of a hundred feet they stretched; a slender, lustrous girder crossing unguessed depths of gloo waters

I faltered For these were the blocks that had for ar that had played so murderously with the armored men

And now had shaped itself into this anchored, quiescent bridge

”Do not fear” It was the wo, softly, as one would reassure a child ”Ascend Cross They obey me”

I stepped firmly upon the first block, clied, s where each great cube held fast to the other

I walked at first slowly, then with ever-increasing confidence, for up fro force, that was like a host of little invisible hands, steadyingup at me fro; a vertigo seized aze up and ahead; marched on

From the depths came more clearly the sound of the waters Now there were but a few feet e before me I reached its end, dropped my feet over, felt them touch a smaller cube, and descended

Over the span caed its eyes so that it could not look upon the narroay it was treading And close behind, a band resting reassuringly upon its flank, strode Drake, swinging along carelessly The little beast a serenely, sure-footed as all its uidance

Then, an arm about Ruth, floated Norhala Now she was beside us; dropped her arlided past us On for a hundred yards or more ent, and then she drew us a little toward the unseen canyon wall

She stood before us, shi+elding us One golden call she sent

I looked back into the darkness So itself Higher it rose and higher Now it stood, upright, a slender towering pillar, a gigantic sliure whose tip pointed a full hundred feet in the air

Then slowly it inclined itself toward us; drew closer, closer to the ground; touched and lay there for an instant inert Abruptly it vanished

But well I knehat I had seen The span over which we had passed had raised itself even as had the baby bridge of the fortress; had lifted itself across the chasrated into its units; was following us

A bridge of , conscious e with volition--with hed fro; rapidly it neared us A wanly gliid serpent cut froantic square bar of cold blue steel

Its head was a pyrath vanished in the further darkness The head raised itself, the blocks that forian replica of those jointed, fantastic, little painted reptiles the japanese toy-ly The pointed head dropped--past us streamed the body Upon it other pyrauarded the back of the nightht--its tail another pyraaily; vanished

I had thought the span rate to follow--and it did not need to! It could ently, consciously--as the S had hts; we fell in behind her

Looking up I caught the friendly sparkle of a star; knew the cleft idening

The star points grew thicker We stepped out into a valley sed like it with heaven-touching summits I could see clearly The place was suffused with a soft radiance as though into it the far, bright stars were pouring all their rays, filling it as a cup with their pale flames