Part 33 (2/2)
”If we'd but known!” Drake's voice cah the tuot down there when they were so weak--if we could have handled the Keeper--we could have smashed that plate that works the Cones! We could have killed them!”
”There are other Cones,” I cried back to him
”No,” he shook his head ”This is the master h the sun And we've lost the chance--”
Louder grew the hurricane without; and noithin began its htnings Bolt upon javelin bolt, and ever htning bolts of destroying violets, searing scarlets; tearing chains of withering yellows, globes of exploding multicolored electric incandescences
The crater was threaded with the lightnings of the Metal People; was broidered with the patterns of electric flame
What was it that Drake had said? That if but we could have knoe could have destroyed these--Things--Destroyed--Theh ninety million miles of space and suck from the sun the honey of power! Drain it and hive it within these great s that could feed their own life into a s that could forge of their strength a spear which, piercing the side of the sun, sent gushi+ng back upon theth!
Destroy this City that was one vast and living dynanetic life of earth and sun!
The cla--like ar at sword play in a hundred Valhallas; like the war dru suns
And all the City was throbbing, beating with a gigantic pulse of life--was fed and drunken with life I felt that pulsing become my own; I echoed to it; throbbed in unison I saw Drake outlined in flaht I saw Norhala floating, clothed in shouting, flailing fires I strove to call out to her Byatwithin ainstinable depths of blackness So me out into those cold depths of space that alone could darken the fires that encircleda part
I felt myself leap outward--outward and outward--into--oblivion
CHAPTER XXI PHANTASMAGORIA METALLIOUE
Wearily I opened h above ed with the hosts of feeding shi+elds But the shi+elds were noanly glea had I lain here? And where was Drake? I struggled to rise
”Steady, old man,” his voice came fro?”
”Badly battered,” I groaned ”What happened?”
”We weren't used to the show,” he said ”We got all fed up at the orgy
Too netisestion Sh-h--look ahead of you”
Gingerly I turned I had been lying, I no, head toward and prone at the base of one of the crater's walls As aze swept away I noted with a curious relief that the tiny eye-points were no longer sparkling with their enigmatic life, that they were dulled and di pallidly, bristled the littered i-shaped diaely--lightless; they threw no shadows nor did their lambency lessen the dimness Beside each of these curious luminosities stood one of the sullen-fired, crucifors that now I knew for the opened cubes