Part 37 (2/2)

And now I saw the countless eyes of the watching wall again were twinkling, regarding us with i wall that held us; that rocked us froreater 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 store, of intensest resentratitude I should have felt for escape was subed

I shookwall, strove to kick and sry 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 notabout where we , was aup at us, watching, waiting for us

”Reception colanced away; over the valley It was lu The light was no stronger than that of the moon at full, but it held a quality unfa, revealing all it bathed with the distinctness of bright sunshi+ne The illu from the band of amethyst

And, as I peered, out of the veils and far away sped a violet spark

With meteor speed it fleard us Close to the base of the vast facade it landed with a flashi+ng of blue incandescence I knew it for one of the Flying Things, the Mark Makers--one of the incredible ers

Close upon its fall ca us Ca arcs lessened We were dropped more swiftly

Far away in the direction fro had flown I sensed another estion of unlikeness to all the other incessant, linked asped Drake

Robed in her silken a, woven with elfin sparklings, she was racing toward the City like soe cubes

Nearer she raced More direct becah 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; cah the hundred feet of space between I caught the brilliancy of the weird constellations in Norhala's great eyes--saith 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 ere 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 e had known Gone was all calm, vanished every trace of unearthly tranquillity It was a Norhala awakened at last--all hue that filled her I sensed a force, an intensity,eyes the broere knit in a rigid, golden bar; the delicate nostrils were pinched; the sweet redsleep her huth, and that noakened 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 fla with the fires of the Gods of wrath

What was it that had awakened her--what in awakening had changed the inpouring huripped”Those we left--”

”They are gone!” The golden voice was octaves deeper, vibrant, throbbing with that olden tambours that summoned to battle Timur's fierce hordes ”They were--taken”