Part 37 (1/2)

The Metal Babes building like crystals from hearts of radiance beneath the play of jocund orbs!

Incredible blossos 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 , had been caught unaware, and noakening challenged us

Swiftly the niche closed--so swiftly that barely had we ti over its threshold into the corridor

The corridor ake--alive!

The power darted out; gripped us Up it swept us and on Far away a square of light appeared, grew quickly larger Frairdled the encircling cliffs

I turned !

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 wellly, inexorably ere pressed forward Noered within a yard-deep niche; noe trelared down the sheer drop of the City's wall

The sht to the valley floor And there were no merciful mists to hide what awaited us there; no lance every detail of the Pit was disclosed with an abnore ed, locked in each other's ar 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 hus; 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 Ti from oblivion, we can recreate in a fractionalto lengthen our existence, stretching out our apperception beyond the phanto upon a Bare?

How else explain the see leisureness hich the wall drifted up past us?

And was this punish 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 inging--swinging in slow broad curves; was oscillating dizzily

Slowly the colossal wall slipped upward

Realization sweptThis was no illusion After that first swift plunge our fall had been checked We were swinging--not the valley

Deliberately, in wide arcs like pendulu across the City's scarp; three feet out fro