The Metal Monster Read online

  CHAPTER XXIII. THE TREACHERY OF YURUK

  Was it true that Time is within ourselves--that like Space, its twin, itis only a self-created illusion of the human mind? There are hours thatflash by on hummingbird wings; there are seconds that shuffle on shod inleaden shoes.

  Was it true that when death faces us the consciousness finds powerthrough its will to live to conquer the illusion--to prolong Time? That,recoiling from oblivion, we can recreate in a fractional moment wholeyears gone past, years yet to come--striving to lengthen our existence,stretching out our apperception beyond the phantom boundaries,overdrawing upon a Barmecide deposit of minutes, staking fresh claimsupon a mirage?

  How else explain the seeming slowness with which we were falling--theseeming leisureness with which the wall drifted up past us?

  And was this punishment--a sentence meted out for profaning with oureyes a forbidden place; a penalty for touching with our gaze the ark ofthe Metal Tribes--their holy of holies--the budding place of the MetalBabes?

  The valley was swinging--swinging in slow broad curves; was oscillatingdizzily.

  Slowly the colossal wall slipped upward.

  Realization swept me; left me amazed; only half believing. This was noillusion. After that first swift plunge our fall had been checked. Wewere swinging--not the valley.

  Deliberately, in wide arcs like pendulums, we were swinging across theCity's scarp; three feet out from it, and as we swung, slowly sinking.

  And now I saw the countless eyes of the watching wall again weretwinkling, regarding us with impish mockery.

  It was the grip of the living wall that held us; that rocked us fromside to side as though giving greater breadths of it chance to beholdus; that was dropping us gently, carefully, to the valley floor now ascant two thousand feet below.

  A storm of rage, of intensest resentment swept me; as once before anygratitude I should have felt for escape was submerged in the utterhumiliation with which it was charged.

  I shook my fists at the twinkling wall, strove to kick and smite it likean angry child, cursed it--not childishly. Dared it to hurl me down todeath.

  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. Thevalley floor was not more than a thousand feet away. Thronging aboutwhere we must at last touch, clustered and seething, was a multitude ofthe Metal Things. They seemed to be looking up at us, watching, waitingfor us.

  "Reception committee," grinned Drake.

  I glanced away; over the valley. It was luminously clear; yet the skywas overcast, no stars showing. The light was no stronger than that ofthe moon at full, but it held a quality unfamiliar to me. It cast noshadows; though soft, it was piercing, revealing all it bathed with thedistinctness of bright sunshine. The illumination came, I thought, fromthe encircling veils falling from the band of amethyst.

  And, as I peered, out of the veils and far away sped a violet spark.With meteor speed it flew toward us. Close to the base of the vastfacade it landed with a flashing of blue incandescence. I knew itfor one of the Flying Things, the Mark Makers--one of the incrediblemessengers.

  Close upon its fall came increase in the turmoil of the crowding throngawaiting us. Came, too, an abrupt change in our own motion. The longarcs lessened. We were dropped more swiftly.

  Far away in the direction from which the Flying Thing had flown Isensed another movement; something coming that carried with it subtlesuggestion of unlikeness to all the other incessant, linked movementover the pit. Closer it drew.

  "Norhala!" gasped Drake.

  Robed in her silken amber swathings, red-copper hair streaming, wovenwith elfin sparklings, she was racing toward the City like some lovelywitch, riding upon the back of a steed of huge cubes.

  Nearer she raced. More direct became our fall. Now we were dropping asthough at the end of an unreeling plummet cord; the floor of the valleywas 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; came to ahalt beneath us. Through the hundred feet of space between I caught thebrilliancy of the weird constellations in Norhala's great eyes--saw witha 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 we were lifted outfrom the wall, and were set with no perceptible shock beside her on theback of the cubes.

  "Norhala--" I stopped. For this was no Norhala whom we had known. Gonewas all calm, vanished every trace of unearthly tranquillity. It was aNorhala awakened at last--all human.

  Yet in the still rage that filled her I sensed a force, an intensity,more than human. Over the blazing eyes the brows were knit in a rigid,golden bar; the delicate nostrils were pinched; the sweet red mouth waswhite and merciless. It was as though in its long sleep her humanself had gathered more than human strength, and that now, awakened andunleashed, the violence of its rage touched the vibrant zenith of thatsphere of which her quiet had been the nadir.

  She was like an urn filled and flaming with the fires of the Gods ofwrath.

  What was it that had awakened her--what in awakening had changed theinpouring human consciousness into this flood of fury? Forebodinggripped me.

  "Norhala!" My voice was shaking. "Those we left--"

  "They are gone!" The golden voice was octaves deeper, vibrant, throbbingwith that muffled, menacing note that must have pulsed from thegolden tambours that summoned to battle Timur's fierce hordes. "Theywere--taken."

  "Taken!" I gasped. "Taken by what--these?" I swept my hands out towardthe Metal Things milling around us.

  "No! THESE are mine. These are they who obey me." The golden voice nowshrilled with her passion. "Taken by--men!"

  Drake had read my face although he could not understand our words.

  "Ruth--"

  "Taken," I said. "Both Ruth and Ventnor. Taken by the armored men--themen of Cherkis!"

  "Cherkis!" She had caught the word. "Yes--Cherkis! And now he and allhis men--and all his women--and every living thing he rules shall pay.And fear not--you two. For I, Norhala, will bring back my own.

  "Woe, woe to you, Cherkis, and to all of yours! For I, Norhala, amawake, and I, Norhala, remember. Woe to you, Cherkis, woe--for now allends for you!

  "Not by the gods of my mother who turned their strength against her doI promise this. I, Norhala, have no need for them--I, Norhala, who havestrength greater than they. And would I could crush those gods as Ishall crush you, Cherkis--and every living thing of yours! Yea--andevery UNLIVING thing as well!"

  Not halting now was Norhala's speech; it poured from the ruthlesslips--flamingly.

  "We go," she cried. "And something of vengeance I have saved for you--asis your right."

  She tossed her arms high; stamped upon the back of the Metal Thing thatheld us.

  It quivered and sped away. Swiftly dwindled the City's bulk; fast fadedits glimmering watchful face.

  Not toward the veils of light but out over the plain we flew. Above us,crouching against the blast of our going, streamed like a silken bannerNorhala's hair, gemmed with the witch lights.

  We were far out now, the City far away. The cube slowed. Norhala threwhigh her head. From the arched, exquisite throat pealed a trumpetcall--golden, summoning, imperious. Thrice it rang forth--and all thesurrounding valley seemed to halt and listen.

  Followed upon its ending, a chanting as goldenly sonorous. Wild,peremptory, triumphant. It was like a mustering shouting to adventurousstars, buglings to buccaneering winds, cadenced beckonings to restlessranks of viking waves, signaling to all the corsairs and picaroons ofthe elemental.

  A cosmic call to slay!

  The gigantic block upon which we rode quivered; I myself felt a thousandneedle-pointed roving arrows prick me, urging me on to some jubilant,reckless orgy of destruction.

  Obeyi
ng that summoning there swirled to us cube and globe and pyramidby the score--by the hundreds. They swept into our wake andfollowed--lifting up behind us, an ever-rising sea.

  Higher and higher arose the metal wave--mounting, ever mounting as otherscore upon score leaped upon it, rushed up it and swelled its crest. Andsoon so great it was that it shadowed us, hung over us.

  The cubes we rode angled in their course; raced now with ever-increasingspeed toward the spangled curtains.

  And still Norhala's golden chant lured; higher and even higher reachedthe following wave. Now we were rising upon a steep slope; now theamethystine, gleaming ring was almost overheard.

  Norhala's song ceased. One breathless, soundless moment and we hadpierced the veils. A globule of sapphire shone afar, the elfin bubble ofher home. We neared it.

  Heart leaping, I saw three ponies, high and empty saddles turquoisestudded, lift their heads from their roadway browsing. For a moment theystood, stiff with terror; then whimpering raced away.

  We were at Norhala's door; were lifted down; stood close to itsthreshold. Slaves to a single thought, Drake and I sprang to enter.

  "Wait!" Norhala's white hands caught us. "There is peril there--withoutme! Me you must--follow!"

  Upon the exquisite face was no unshadowing of wrath, no diminishing ofrage, no weakening of dreadful determination. The star-flecked eyes werenot upon us; they looked over and beyond--coldly, calculatingly.

  "Not enough," I heard her whisper. "Not enough--for that which I willdo."

  We turned, following her gaze. A hundred feet on high, stretching nearlyacross the gorge, an incredible curtain was flung. Over its folds wasmovement--arms of spinning globes that thrust forth like paws and downupon which leaped pyramid upon pyramid stiffening as they clung likebristling spikes of hair; great bars of clicking cubes that threwthemselves from the shuttering--shook and withdrew. The curtain was aferment--shifting, mercurial; it throbbed with desire, palpitated witheagerness.

  "Not enough!" murmured Norhala.

  Her lips parted; from them came another trumpeting--tyrannic, arrogantand clangorous. Under it the curtaining writhed--out from it spurtedthin cascades of cubes. They swarmed up into tall pillars that shook andswayed and gyrated.

  With blinding flash upon flash the sapphire incandescences struck forthat their feet. A score of flaming columned shapes leaped up and curvedin meteor flight over the tumultuous curtain. Streaming with violetfires they shot back to the valley of the City.

  "Hai!" shouted Norhala as they flew. "Hai!"

  Up darted her arms; the starry galaxies of her eyes danced madly, shotforth visible rays. The mighty curtain of the Metal Things pulsed andthrobbed; its units interweaving--block and globe and pyramid of whichit was woven, each seeming to strain at leash.

  "Come!" cried Norhala--and led the way through the portal.

  Close behind her we pressed. I stumbled, nearly fell, over abrown-faced, leather-cuirassed body that lay half over, legs barring thethreshold.

  Contemptuously Norhala stepped over it. We were within that chamber ofthe pool. About it lay a fair dozen of the armored men. Ruth's defense,I thought with a grim delight, had been most excellent--those who hadtaken her and Ventnor had not done so without paying full toll.

  A violet flashing drew my eyes away. Close to the pool wherein we hadfirst seen the white miracle of Norhala's body, two immense, purplefired stars blazed. Between them, like a suppliant cast from black iron,was Yuruk.

  Poised upon their nether tips the stars guarded him. Head touching hisknees, eyes hidden within his folded arms, the black eunuch crouched.

  "Yuruk!"

  There was an unearthly mercilessness in Norhala's voice.

  The eunuch raised his head; slowly, fearfully.

  "Goddess!" he whispered. "Goddess! Mercy!"

  "I saved him," she turned to us, "for you to slay. He it was who broughtthose who took the maid who was mine and the helpless one she loved.Slay him."

  Drake understood--his hand twitched down to his pistol, drew it. Heleveled the gun at the black eunuch. Yuruk saw it--shrieked and cowered.Norhala laughed--sweetly, ruthlessly.

  "He dies before the stroke falls," she said. "He dies doublytherefore--and that is well."

  Drake slowly lowered the automatic; turned to me.

  "I can't," he said. "I can't--do it--"

  "Masters!" Upon his knees the eunuch writhed toward us. "Masters--Imeant no wrong. What I did was for love of the Goddess. Years upon yearsI have served her. And her mother before her.

  "I thought if the maid and the blasted one were gone, that you wouldfollow. Then I would be alone with the Goddess once more. Cherkis willnot slay them--and Cherkis will welcome you and give the maid and theblasted one back to you for the arts that you can teach him.

  "Mercy, Masters, I meant no harm--bid the Goddess be merciful!"

  The ebon pools of eyes were clarified of their ancient shadows by histerror; age was wiped from them by fear, even as it was wiped from hisface. The wrinkles were gone. Appallingly youthful, the face of Yurukprayed to us.

  "Why do you wait?" she asked us. "Time presses, and even now we shouldbe on the way. When so many are so soon to die, why tarry over one? Slayhim!"

  "Norhala," I answered, "we cannot slay him so. When we kill, we kill infair fight--hand to hand. The maid we both love has gone, taken with herbrother. It will not bring her back if we kill him through whom she wastaken. We would punish him--yes, but slay him we cannot. And we would beafter the maid and her brother quickly."

  A moment she looked at us, perplexity shading the high and steady anger.

  "As you will," she said at last; then added, half sarcastically,"Perhaps it is because I who am now awake have slept so long that Icannot understand you. But Yuruk has disobeyed ME. That of MINE whichI committed to his care he has given to the enemies of me and those whowere mine. It matters nothing to me what YOU would do. Matters to meonly what I will to do."

  She pointed to the dead.

  "Yuruk"--the golden voice was cold--"gather up these carrion and pilethem together."

  The eunuch arose, stole out fearfully from between the two stars. Heslithered to body after body, dragging them one after the other to thecenter of the chamber, lifting them and forming of them a heap. Onethere was who was not dead. His eyes opened as the eunuch seized him,the blackened mouth opened.

  "Water!" he begged. "Give me drink. I burn!"

  I felt a thrill of pity; lifted my canteen and walked toward him.

  "You of the beard," the merciless chime rang out, "he shall have nowater. But drink he shall have, and soon--drink of fire!"

  The soldier's fevered eyes rolled toward her, saw and read aright theruthlessness in the beautiful face.

  "Sorceress!" he groaned. "Cursed spawn of Ahriman!" He spat at her.

  The black talons of Yuruk stretched around his throat

  "Son of unclean dogs!" he whined. "You dare blaspheme the Goddess!"

  He snapped the soldier's neck as though it had been a rotten twig.

  At the callous cruelty I stood for an instant petrified; I heard Drakeswear wildly, saw his pistol flash up.

  Norhala struck down his arm.

  "Your chance has passed," she said, "and not for THAT shall you slayhim."

  And now Yuruk had cast that body upon the others; the pile was complete.

  "Mount!" commanded Norhala, and pointed. He cast himself at her feet,writhing, moaning, imploring. She looked at one of the great Shapes;something of command passed from her, something it understood plainly.

  The star slipped forward--there was an almost imperceptible movement ofits side points. The twitching form of the black seemed to leap up fromthe floor, to throw itself like a bag upon the mound of the dead.

  Norhala threw up her hands. Out of the violet ovals beneath the uppertips of the Things spurted streams of blue flame. They fell upon Yurukand splashed over him upon the heap of the slain. In the mound was adreadful movement, a contortion; the bodies
stiffened, seemed to try torise, to push away--dead nerves and muscles responding to the blastingenergy passing through them.

  Out from the stars rained bolt upon bolt. In the chamber was the soundof thunder, crackling like broken glass. The bodies flamed, crumbled.There was a little smoke--nauseous, feebly protesting, beaten out by theconsuming fires almost before it could rise.

  Where had been the heap of slain capped by the black eunuch there wasbut a little whirling cloud of sad gray dust. Caught by a passingdraft, it eddied, slipped over the floor, vanished through the doorway.Motionless stood the blasting stars, contemplating us. Motionlessstood Norhala, her wrath no whit abated by the ghastly sacrifice. Andparalyzed by what we had beheld, motionless stood we.

  "Listen," she said. "You two who love the maid. What you have seen isnothing to that which you SHALL see--a wisp of mist to the storm cloud."

  "Norhala"--I found speech--"can you tell us when it was that the maidwas captured?"

  Perhaps there was still time to overtake the abductors before Ruth wasthrust into the worse peril waiting where she was being carried. Crossedthis thought another--puzzling, baffling. The cliffs Yuruk had pointedout to me as those through which the hidden way passed were, I hadestimated then, at least twenty miles away. And how long was the pass,the tunnel, through them? And then how far this place of the armoredmen? It had been past dawn when Drake had frightened the black eunuchwith his pistol. It was not yet dawn now. How could Yuruk have made hisway to the Persians so swiftly--how could they so swiftly have returned?

  Amazingly she answered the spoken question and the unspoken.

  "They came long before dusk," she said. "By the night before Yuruk hadwon to Ruszark, the city of Cherkis; and long before dawn they were ontheir way hither. This the black dog I slew told me."

  "But Yuruk was with us here at dawn yesterday," I gasped.

  "A night has passed since then," she said, "and another night is almostgone."

  Stunned, I considered this. If this were true--and not for an instantdid I doubt her--then not for a few hours had we lain there at the footof the living wall in the Hall of the Cones--but for the balance of thatday and that night, and another day and part of still another night.

  "What does she say?" Drake stared anxiously into my whitened face. Itold him.

  "Yes." Norhala spoke again. "The dusk before the last dusk that haspassed I returned to my house. The maid was there and sorrowing. Shetold me you had gone into the valley, prayed me to help you and to bringyou back. I comforted her, and something of--the peace--I gave her; butnot all, for she fought against it. A little we played together, and Ileft her sleeping. I sought you and found you also sleeping. I knew noharm would come to you, and I went my ways--and forgot you. Then I camehere again--and found Yuruk and these the maid had slain."

  The great eyes flashed.

  "Now do I honor the maid for the battle that she did," she said, "thoughhow she slew so many strong men I do not know. My heart goes out to her.And therefore when I bring her back she shall no more be plaything toNorhala, but sister. And with you it shall be as she wills. And woe tothose who have taken her!"

  She paused, listening. From without came a rising storm of thinwailings, insistent and eager.

  "But I have an older vengeance than this to take," the golden voicetolled somberly. "Long have I forgotten--and shame I feel that Ihad forgot. So long have I forgotten all hatreds, all lusts, allcruelty--among--these--" She thrust a hand forth toward the hiddenvalley. "Forgot--dwelling in the great harmonies. Save for you and whathas befallen I would never have stirred from them, I think. But nowawakened, I take that vengeance. After it is done"--she paused--"afterit is over I shall go back again. For this awakening has in it nothingof the ordered joy I love--it is a fierce and slaying fire. I shall goback--"

  The shadow of her far dreaming flitted over, softened the angrybrilliancy of her eyes.

  "Listen, you two!" The shadow of dream fled. "Those that I am about toslay are evil--evil are they all, men and women. Long have they beenso--yea, for cycles of suns. And their children grow like them--orif they be gentle and with love for peace they are slain or die ofheartbreak. All this my mother told me long ago. So no more childrenshall be born from them either to suffer or to grow evil."

  Again she paused, nor did we interrupt her musing.

  "My father ruled Ruszark," she said at last. "Rustum he was named, ofthe seed of Rustum the Hero even as was my mother. They were gentle andgood, and it was their ancestors who built Ruszark when, fleeing fromthe might of Iskander, they were sealed in the hidden valley by thefalling mountain.

  "Then there sprang from one of the families of the nobles--Cherkis.Evil, evil was he, and as he grew he lusted for rule. On a night ofterror he fell upon those who loved my father and slew; and barely hadmy father time to fly from the city with my mother, still but a bride,and a handful of those loyal to him.

  "They found by chance the way to this place, hiding in the cleft whichis its portal. They came, and they were taken by--Those who are now mypeople. Then my mother, who was very beautiful, was lifted before himwho rules here and she found favor in his sight and he had built for herthis house, which now is mine.

  "And in time I was born--but not in this house. Nay--in a secret placeof light where, too, are born my people."

  She was silent. I shot a glance at Drake. The secret place of light--wasit not that vast vault of mystery, of dancing orbs and flames transmutedinto music into which we had peered and for which sacrilege, I hadthought, had been thrust from the City? And did in this lie theexplanation of her strangeness? Had she there sucked in with hermother's milk the enigmatic life of the Metal Hordes, been transformedinto half human changeling, become true kin to them? What else couldexplain--

  "My mother showed me Ruszark," her voice, taking up once more her tale,checked my thoughts. "Once when I was little she and my father bore methrough the forest and through the hidden way. I looked upon Ruszark--agreat city it is and populous, and a caldron of cruelty and of evil.

  "Not like me were my father and mother. They longed for their kind andsought ever for means to regain their place among them. There came atime when my father, driven by his longing, ventured forth to Ruszark,seeking friends to help him regain that place--for these who obey meobeyed not him as they obey me; nor would he have marched them--as Ishall--upon Ruszark if they had obeyed him.

  "Cherkis caught him. And Cherkis waited, knowing well that my motherwould follow. For Cherkis knew not where to seek her, nor where theyhad lain hid, for between his city and here the mountains are great,unscalable, and the way through them is cunningly hidden; by chancealone did my mother's mother and those who fled with her discover it:And though they tortured him, my father would not tell. And after awhile forthwith those who still remained of hers stole out with mymother to find him. They left me here with Yuruk. And Cherkis caught mymother."

  The proud breasts heaved, the eyes shot forth visible flames.

  "My father was flayed alive and crucified," she said. "His skin theynailed to the City's gates. And when Cherkis had had his will with mymother he threw her to his soldiers for their sport.

  "All of those who went with them he tortured and slew--and he and hislaughed at their torment. But one there was who escaped and told me--mewho was little more than a budding maid. He called on me to bringvengeance--and he died. A year passed--and I am not like my mother andmy father--and I forgot--dwelling here in the great tranquillities,barred from and having no thought for men and their way.

  "AIE, AIE!" she cried; "woe to me that I could forget! But now I shalltake my vengeance--I, Norhala, will stamp them flat--Cherkis and hiscity of Ruszark and everything it holds! I, Norhala, and my servantsshall stamp them into the rock of their valley so that none shall knowthat they have been! And would that I could meet their gods with alltheir powers that I might break them, too, and stamp them into the rockunder the feet of my servants!"

  She threw out white arms.

  Why h
ad Yuruk lied to me? I wondered as I watched her. The Disk had notslain her mother. Of course! He had lied to play upon our terrors; hadlied to frighten us away.

  The wailings were rising in a sustained crescendo. One of the slayingstars slipped over the chamber floor, folded its points and glided outthe door.

  "Come!" commanded Norhala, and led the way. The second star closed,followed us. We stepped over the threshold.

  For one astounded, breathless moment we paused. In front of us reared amonster--a colossal, headless Sphinx. Like forelegs and paws, a ridge ofpointed cubes, and globes thrust against each side of the canyon walls.Between them for two hundred feet on high stretched the breast.

  And this was a shifting, weaving mass of the Metal Things; they formedinto gigantic cuirasses, giant bucklers, corselets of living mail. Fromthem as they moved--nay, from all the monster--came the wailings. Like aheadless Sphinx it crouched--and as we stood it surged forward as thoughit sprang a step to greet us.

  "HAI!" shouted Norhala, battle buglings ringing through the goldenvoice. "HAI! my companies!"

  Out from the summit of the breast shot a tremendous trunk of cubes andspinning globes. And like a trunk it nuzzled us, caught us up, sweptus to the crest. An instant I tottered dizzily; was held; stood besideNorhala upon a little, level twinkling eyed platform; upon her otherside swayed Drake.

  Now through the monster I felt a throbbing, an eager and impatientpulse. I turned my head. Still like some huge and grotesque beastthe back of the clustered Things ran for half a mile at least behind,tapering to a dragon tail that coiled and twisted another full miletoward the Pit. And from this back uprose and fell immense spiked andfan-shaped ruffs, thickets of spikes, whipping knouts of bristlingtentacles, fanged crests. They thrust and waved, whipped and fellconstantly; and constantly the great tail lashed and snapped, fantastic,long and living.

  "HAI!" shouted Norhala once more. From her lifted throat came again thegolden chanting--but now a relentless, ruthless song of slaughter.

  Up reared the monstrous bulk. Into it ran the dragon tail. Into itpoured the fanged and bristling back.

  Up, up we were thrust--three hundred feet, four hundred, five hundred.Over the blue globe of Norhala's house bent a gigantic leg. Spiderlikeout from each side of the monster thrust half a score of others.

  Overhead the dawn began to break. Through it with ever increasing speedwe moved, straight to the line of the cliffs behind which lay the cityof the armored men--and Ruth and Ventnor.