Part 48 (2/2)

”Drake,” he said, ”stand where you are If you take another step toward this girl I'll shoot you--by God, I will!”

Drake halted, shocked a at his outburst

”But it's hurting her,” he , still dwelt upon hi her!” exclai Can't you see? Can't you see how little of Ruth is in that body there--how little of the girl you love? Hohy I don't know--but that it is so I DO know Drake--have you forgotten how Norhala beguiled Cherkis? I want et back Now let be

I knohat I'lared up at Ventnor was nothing of Ruth--even as he had said There was the same cold, awesome wrath that had rested upon Norhala's as she watched Cherkis weep over the eating up of his city Swiftly ca waves of a hill-locked, wind-lashed lake

The face was again Ruth's face--and Ruth's alone; the eyes were Ruth's eyes--supplicating, adjuring

”Ruth!” Ventnor cried ”While you can hear--aorously, sternly; she was lost, hidden once riht flashed upon the veils; alh above us Yet now I noted that where we stood the clamor was lessened, muffled Of course, it came to me, it was the veils

I wondered why--for whatever the quality of the radiant mists, their purpose certainly had to do with concentration of theof the noiseto do with their actual use; for sound is an air vibration solely No--it must be a secondary effect The Metal Monster was as heedless of claot to see,” Ventnor broke the chain of thought ”We've got to get through and see what's happening Win or lose--we've got to KNOW”

”Cut off your sleeve, as I did,” he motioned to Drake ”Tie her ankles

We'll carry her”

Quickly it was done Ruth's light body swinging between brother and lover, we h their dead silences

Passed out and fell back into theht, chaotic turip of Ventnor and Drake the body of Ruth dropped while we three stood blinded, deafened, fighting for recovery Ruth twisted, rolled toward the brink; Ventnor threw hi on our knees, we crept forward; we stopped when the thinning of the h theh tenuous, dimmed the intolerable brilliancy that filled the Pit, ree we could bear

I peered through therip of a paralyzing awe I felt then as one would feel set close to warring regiments of stars, made witness to the death-throes of a universe, or swept through space and held above the whirling coils of Androonies of nascent suns

These are no figures of speech, no hyperboles--speck as our whole planet would be in Andromeda's vast loom, pinprick as was the Pit to the cyclone craters of our own sun, within the cliff-cupped walls of the valley was a tangible, struggling living force akin to that which dwells within the nebula and the star; a cos its confines out into the infinite; a sentient emanation of the infinite itself

Nor was its voice less unearthly It used the shell of the earth valley for its trus of the fluted conch the great voice of ocean, its whispering and its roarings, so here in the clamorous shell of the Pit echoed the tremendous voices of that illimitable sea which laps the shores of the countless suns

I looked upon a es whose racing crests were shtnings; it was trodden by dervish h with forests of lances of living light It cast a cadent spray high to the heavens

Over it the heavens glittered as though they were a shi+eld held by fearful Gods Through theleviathan of pale bluetide of soe of fla we heard as of hollow beatenstars, was the breaking of these incandescent crests, the falling of the lightning spindrift, the rhyth mountain that reeled and tregling leviathan, was--the City!

It was the uarded by, storh separate from it were still as much of it as were the cells that formed the skin of its walls, its carapace

It was the Metal Monster tearing, rending, fighting for, battling against--itself