The Metal Monster Part 52

I walked over to the pile of silken stuffs, took the cloak and tossed it to her. Ventnor pointed to the saddlebags.

"You've another outfit there, Ruth," he said. "We'll take a turn through the place. Call us when you're ready. We'll get something to eat and go see what's happening--out there."

She nodded. We pa.s.sed through the curtains and out of the hall into the chamber that had been Norhala's. There we halted, Drake eyeing Martin with a certain embarra.s.sment. The older man thrust out his hand to him.

"I knew it, Drake," he said. "Ruth told me all about it when Cherkis had us. And I'm very glad. It's time she was having a home of her own and not running around the lost places with me. I'll miss her--miss her d.a.m.nably, of course. But I'm glad, boy--glad!"

There was a little silence while each looked deep into each other's hearts. Then Ventnor dropped d.i.c.k's hand.

"And that's all of THAT," he said. "The problem before us is--how are we going to get back home?"

"The--THING--is dead." I spoke from an absolute conviction that surprised me, based as it was upon no really tangible, known evidence.

"I think so," he said. "No--I KNOW so. Yet even if we can pa.s.s over its body, how can we climb out of its lair? That slide down which we rode with Norhala is unclimbable. The walls are unscalable. And there is that chasm--she--spanned for us. How can we cross THAT? The tunnel to the ruins was sealed. There remains of possible roads the way through the forest to what was the City of Cherkis. Frankly I am loathe to take it.

"I am not at all sure that all the armored men were slain--that some few may not have escaped and be lurking there. It would be short shrift for us if we fell into their hands now."

"And I'm not sure of THAT," objected Drake. "I think their pep and push must be pretty thoroughly knocked out--if any do remain. I think if they saw us coming they'd beat it so fast that they'd smoke with the friction."

"There's something to that," Ventnor smiled. "Still I'm not keen on taking the chance. At any rate, the first thing to do is to see what happened down there in the Pit. Maybe we'll have some other idea after that."

"I know what happened there," announced Drake, surprisingly. "It was a short circuit!"

We gaped at him, mystified.

"Burned out!" said Drake. "Every d.a.m.ned one of them--burned out. What were they, after all? A lot of living dynamos. Dynamotors--rather.

And all of a sudden they had too much juice turned on. Bang went their insulations--whatever they were.

"Bang went they. Burned out--short circuited. I don't pretend to know why or how. Nonsense! I do know. The cones were some kind of immensely concentrated force--electric, magnetic; either or both or more. I myself believe that they were probably solid--in a way of speaking--coronium.

"If about twenty of the greatest scientists the world has ever known are right, coronium is--well, call it curdled energy. The electric potentiality of Niagara in a pin point of dust of yellow fire. All right--they or IT lost control. Every pin point swelled out into a Niagara. And as it did so, it expanded from a controlled dust dot to an uncontrolled cataract--in other words, its energy was unleashed and undammed.

"Very well--what followed? What HAD to follow? Every living battery of block and globe and spike was supercharged and went--blooey. The valley must have been some sweet little volcano while that short circuiting was going on. All right--let's go down and see what it did to your unclimbable slide and unscalable walls, Ventnor. I'm not sure we won't be able to get out that way."

"Come on; everything's ready," Ruth was calling; her summoning blocked any objection we might have raised to Drake's argument.

It was no dryad, no distressed pagan clad maid we saw as we pa.s.sed back into the room of the pool. In knickerbockers and short skirt, prim and self-possessed, rebellious curls held severely in place by close-fitting cap and slender feet stoutly shod, Ruth hovered over the steaming kettle swung above the spirit lamp.

And she was very silent as we hastily broke fast. Nor when we had finished did she go to Drake. She clung close to her brother and beside him as we set forth down the roadway, through the rain, toward the ledge between the cliffs where the veils had s.h.i.+mmered.

Hotter and hotter it grew as we advanced; the air steamed like a Turkish bath. The mists cl.u.s.tered so thickly that at last we groped forward step by step, holding to each other.

"No use," gasped Ventnor. "We couldn't see. We'll have to turn back."

"Burned out!" said d.i.c.k. "Didn't I tell you? The whole valley was a volcano. And with that deluge falling in it--why wouldn't there be a fog? It's why there IS a fog. We'll have to wait until it clears."

We trudged back to the blue globe.

All that day the rain fell. Throughout the few remaining hours of daylight we wandered over the house of Norhala, examining its most interesting contents, or sat theorizing, discussing all phases of the phenomena we had witnessed.

We told Ruth what had occurred after she had thrown in her lot with Norhala; and of the enigmatic struggle between the glorious Disk and the sullenly flaming Thing I have called the Keeper.

We told her of the entombment of Norhala.

When she heard that she wept.

"She was sweet," she sobbed; "she was lovely. And she was beautiful.

Dearly she loved me. I KNOW she loved me. Oh, I know that we and ours and that which was hers could not share the world together. But it comes to me that Earth would have been far less poisonous with those that were Norhala's than it is with us and ours!"

Weeping, she pa.s.sed through the curtainings, going we knew to Norhala's chamber.

It was a strange thing indeed that she had said, I thought, watching her go. That the garden of the world would be far less poisonous blossoming with those Things of wedded crystal and metal and magnetic fires than fertile as now with us of flesh and blood and bone. To me came appreciations of their harmonies, and mingled with those perceptions were others of humanity--disharmonious, incoordinate, ever struggling, ever striving to destroy itself--

There was a plaintive whinnying at the open door. A long and hairy face, a pair of patient, inquiring eyes looked in. It was a pony. For a moment it regarded us--and then trotted trustfully through; ambled up to us; poked its head against my side.

It had been ridden by one of the Persians whom Ruth had killed, for under it, slipped from the girths, a saddle dangled. And its owner must have been kind to it--we knew that from its lack of fear for us. Driven by the tempest of the night before, it had been led back by instinct to the protection of man.

"Some luck!" breathed Drake.

He busied himself with the pony, stripping away the hanging saddle, grooming it.

CHAPTER x.x.xI. SLAG!

That night we slept well. Awakening, we found that the storm had grown violent again; the wind roaring and the rain falling in such volume that it was impossible to make our way to the Pit. Twice, as a matter of fact, we tried; but the smooth roadway was a torrent, and, drenched even through our oils to the skin, we at last abandoned the attempt. Ruth and Drake drifted away together among the other chambers of the globe; they were absorbed in themselves, and we did not thrust ourselves upon them.

All the day the torrents fell.

We sat down that night to what was well-nigh the last of Ventnor's stores. Seemingly Ruth had forgotten Norhala; at least, she spoke no more of her.

"Martin," she said, "can't we start back tomorrow? I want to get away. I want to get back to our own world."

"As soon as the storm ceases, Ruth," he answered, "we start. Little sister--I too want you to get back quickly."

The next morning the storm had gone. We awakened soon after dawn into clear and brilliant light. We had a silent and hurried breakfast. The saddlebags were packed and strapped upon the pony. Within them were what we could carry of souvenirs from Norhala's home--a suit of lacquered armor, a pair of cloaks and sandals, the jeweled combs. Ruth and Drake at the side of the pony, Ventnor and I leading, we set forth toward the Pit.

"We'll probably have to come back, Walter," he said. "I don't believe the place is pa.s.sable."

I pointed--we were then just over the threshold of the elfin globe.

Where the veils had stretched between the perpendicular pillars of the cliffs was now a wide and ragged-edged opening.

The roadway which had run so smoothly through the scarps was blocked by a thousand foot barrier. Over it, beyond it, I could see through the crystalline clarity of the air the opposing walls.

"We can climb it," Ventnor said. We pa.s.sed on and reached the base of the barrier. An avalanche had dropped there; the barricade was the debris of the torn cliffs, their dust, their pebbles, their boulders. We toiled up; we reached the crest; we looked down upon the valley.

When first we had seen it we had gazed upon a sea of radiance pierced with lanced forests, swept with gigantic gonfalons of flame; we had seen it emptied of its fiery mists--a vast slate covered with the chirography of a mathematical G.o.d; we had seen it filled with the symboling of the Metal Hordes and dominated by the colossal integrate hieroglyph of the living City; we had seen it as a radiant lake over which brooded weird suns; a lake of yellow flame froth upon which a sparkling hail fell, within which reared islanded towers and a drowning mount running with cataracts of sun fires; here we had watched a G.o.ddess woman, a being half of earth, half of the unknown immured within a living tomb--a dying tomb--of flaming mysteries; had seen a cross-shaped metal Satan, a sullen flaming crystal Judas betray--itself.

Where we had peered into the unfathomable, had glimpsed the infinite, had heard and had seen the inexplicable, now was--