Part 16 (1/2)

The cry that sheer horror wrested froled by realization

And so acute waswas it to have in theoccur that I laughed aloud

For the skeleton hand was hastly ain I knehat I would see--and see the on their bony arainst the fra poised upon the surface of the glistening cube, were toh was the sight Dureresque, grimly awful as materialization of a scene of the Dance Macabre--and yet--vastly co which ithin the range of huht about us that did it; a vibration that even as I conjectured, ithin the only partly explored region of the ultraviolet and the coion above it

Yet there were differences, for there was none of that misty halo around the bones, the flesh which the X-rays cannot render wholly invisible

The skeletons stood out clean cut, with no trace of fleshly vestments

I crept over, spoke to the two

”Don't look up yet,” I said ”Don't open your eyes We're going through a queer light It has an X-ray quality You're going to seeas the spectacle had been before, fully understanding it as I did, I could not restrain my shudder at the utter weirdness of that skull which was his head thrusting itself toward me

The skeleton that was Ventnor turned topair ahead I saw the fleshless jaws clamp, then opened to speak

Abruptly, upon the skeletons in front the flesh dropped back Girl and woain robed in beauty

So sas that transition frorisly unreal to the normal that even to my unsuperstitious mind it smacked of necro at each other, clothed once er the steed of death, but our shaggy, patient little coone froitive sunbeah a wide corridor that seeer

”That light wasn't exactly the Roentgen variety,” Drake interrupted s ”And I hope to God it's as different as it seeainst a lot of trouble”

”More trouble than we're in?” I asked, a trifle satirically

”X-ray burns,” he answered, ”and no way to treat therimly

”I don't think ere subjected to their action long enough--” I began, and was silent

The corridor had opened without warning into a place for whose ies that are adequate It was a chamber that was vaster than ten score of the Great Halls of Karnac in one; great as that fabled hall in dread Amenti where Osiris sits throned between the Searcher of Hearts and the Eater of Souls, judging the jostling hosts of the newly dead

Temple it was in its immensity, and its solemn vastness--but unlike any teiants'

work now cruht of tieness hich this was instinct No--nor in the shattered fanes that once had held the Gods of old Egypt, nor in the pillared shrines of Ancient Greece, nor Imperial Rome, nor mosque, basilica nor cathedral

All these had been dedicated to Gods which, whether created by humanity as science believes, or creators of humanity as their worshi+ppers believed, still held in them that essence we term human

The spirit, the force, that filled this place had in it nothing, NOTHING of the hue Within thatakin to this, as inhuh not reat Menhirs

This was a sanctuary built by a people of low like pale sunshi+ne Up from its floor arose hundreds of tremendous, square pillars dohose polished sides the crocus light seeaze could reach, the coluly mathematical From their massiveness distilled a sense of power,priestly, hierophantic--as though they were guardians of a shrine