The Metal Monster Page 31

  CHAPTER XXX. BURNED OUT

  Ruth sighed and stirred. By the glare of the lightnings, now almostcontinuous, we saw that her rigidity, and in fact all the puzzlingcataleptic symptoms, had disappeared. Her limbs relaxed, her skinfaintly flushed, she lay in deepest but natural slumber undisturbed bythe incessant cannonading of the thunder under which the walls of theblue globe shuddered. Ventnor passed through the curtains of the centralhall; he returned with one of Norhala's cloaks; covered the girl withit.

  An overwhelming sleepiness took possession of me, a weariness ineffable.Nerve and brain and muscle suddenly relaxed, went slack and numb.Without a struggle I surrendered to an overpowering stupor and cradleddeep in its heart ceased consciously to be.

  When my eyes unclosed the chamber of the moonstone walls was filledwith a silvery, crepuscular light. I heard the murmuring and laughing ofrunning water, the play, I lazily realized, of the fountained pool.

  I lay for whole minutes unthinking, luxuriating in the sense of tensiongone and of security; lay steeped in the aftermath of complete rest.Memory flooded me.

  Quietly I sat up; Ruth still slept, breathing peacefully beneath thecloak, one white arm stretched over the shoulder of Drake--as though inher sleep she had drawn close to him.

  At her feet lay Ventnor, as deep in slumber as they. I arose andtip-toed over to the closed door.

  Searching, I found its key; a cupped indentation upon which I pressed.

  The crystalline panel slipped back; it was moved, I suppose, by somemechanism of counterbalances responding to the weight of the hand.It must have been some vibration of the thunder which had loosed thatmechanism and had closed the panel upon the heels of our entrance--so Ithought--then seeing again in memory that uncanny, deliberate shuttingwas not at all convinced that it had been the thunder.

  I looked out. How many hours the sun had been up there was no means ofknowing.

  The sky was low and slaty gray; a fine rain was falling. I stepped out.

  The garden of Norhala was a wreckage of uprooted and splintered treesand torn masses of what had been blossoming verdure.

  The gateway of the precipices beyond which lay the Pit was hidden in thewebs of the rain. Long I gazed down the canyon--and longingly; strivingto picture what the Pit now held; eager to read the riddles of thenight.

  There came from the valley no sound, no movement, no light.

  I reentered the blue globe and paused on the threshold--staring intothe wide and wondering eyes of Ruth bolt upright in her silken bedwith Norhala's cloak clutched to her chin like a suddenly awakened andstartled child. As she glimpsed me she stretched out her hand. Drake,wide awake on the instant, leaped to his feet, his hand jumping to hispistol.

  "Dick!" called Ruth, her voice tremulous, sweet.

  He swung about, looked deep into the clear and fearless brown eyes inwhich--with leaping heart I realized it--was throned only that spiritwhich was Ruth's and Ruth's alone; Ruth's clear unshadowed eyes glad andshy and soft with love.

  "Dick!" she whispered, and held soft arms out to him. The cloak fellfrom her. He swung her up. Their lips met.

  Upon them, embraced, the wakening eyes of Ventnor dwelt; they filledwith relief and joy, nor was there lacking in them a certain amusement.

  She drew from Drake's arms, pushed him from her, stood for a momentshakily, with covered eyes.

  "Ruth," called Ventnor softly.

  "Oh!" she cried. "Oh, Martin--I forgot--" She ran to him, held himtight, face hidden in his breast. His hand rested on the clusteringbrown curls, tenderly.

  "Martin." She raised her face to him. "Martin, it's GONE! I'm--ME again!All ME! What happened? Where's Norhala?"

  I started. Did she not know? Of course, lying bound as she had in thevanished veils, she could have seen nothing of the stupendous tragedyenacted beyond them--but had not Ventnor said that possessed by theinexplicable obsession evoked by the weird woman Ruth had seen with hereyes, thought with her mind?

  And had there not been evidence that in her body had been echoed thetorments of Norhala's? Had she forgotten? I started to speak--waschecked by Ventnor's swift, warning glance.

  "She's--over in the Pit," he answered her quietly. "But do you remembernothing, little sister?"

  "There's something in my mind that's been rubbed out," she replied."I remember the City of Cherkis--and your torture, Martin--and mytorture--"

  Her face whitened; Ventnor's brow contracted anxiously. I knew for whathe watched--but Ruth's shamed face was all human; on it was no shadownor trace of that alien soul which so few hours since had threatened us.

  "Yes," she nodded, "I remember that. And I remember how Norhalarepaid them. I remember that I was glad, fiercely glad, and then I wastired--so tired. And then--I come to the rubbed-out place," she endedperplexedly.

  Deliberately, almost banally had I not realized his purpose, he changedthe subject. He held her from him at arm's length.

  "Ruth!" he exclaimed, half mockingly, half reprovingly. "Don't you thinkyour morning negligee is just a little scanty even for this Godforsakencorner of the earth?"

  Lips parted in sheer astonishment, she looked at him. Then her eyesdropped to her bare feet, her dimpled knees. She clasped her arms acrossher breasts; rosy red turned all her fair skin.

  "Oh!" she gasped. "Oh!" And hid from Drake and me behind the tall figureof her brother.

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

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

  She nodded. We passed through the curtains and out of the hall into thechamber that had been Norhala's. There we halted, Drake eyeing Martinwith a certain embarrassment. The older man thrust out his hand to him.

  "I knew it, Drake," he said. "Ruth told me all about it when Cherkis hadus. And I'm very glad. It's time she was having a home of her own andnot running around the lost places with me. I'll miss her--miss herdamnably, of course. But I'm glad, boy--glad!"

  There was a little silence while each looked deep into each other'shearts. Then Ventnor dropped Dick's hand.

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

  "The--THING--is dead." I spoke from an absolute conviction thatsurprised 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 pass over itsbody, how can we climb out of its lair? That slide down which we rodewith Norhala is unclimbable. The walls are unscalable. And there is thatchasm--she--spanned for us. How can we cross THAT? The tunnel to theruins was sealed. There remains of possible roads the way through theforest 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 fewmay not have escaped and be lurking there. It would be short shrift forus if we fell into their hands now."

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

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

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

  We gaped at him, mystified.

  "Burned out!" said Drake. "Every damned one of them--burned out. Whatwere they, after all? A lot of living dynamos. Dynamotors--rather.And all of a sudden they had too much juice turned on. Bang went theirinsulations--whatever they were.

  "Bang went they. Burned out--short circuited. I don't pretend to knowwhy or how. Nonsense! I do know. The cones were some kind of immenselyconcentrated force--electric, magnetic; either or both or mo
re. I myselfbelieve that they were probably solid--in a way of speaking--coronium.

  "If about twenty of the greatest scientists the world has ever knownare right, coronium is--well, call it curdled energy. The electricpotentiality of Niagara in a pin point of dust of yellow fire. Allright--they or IT lost control. Every pin point swelled out into aNiagara. And as it did so, it expanded from a controlled dust dot toan uncontrolled cataract--in other words, its energy was unleashed andundammed.

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

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

  It was no dryad, no distressed pagan clad maid we saw as we passed backinto the room of the pool. In knickerbockers and short skirt, prim andself-possessed, rebellious curls held severely in place by close-fittingcap and slender feet stoutly shod, Ruth hovered over the steaming kettleswung above the spirit lamp.

  And she was very silent as we hastily broke fast. Nor when we hadfinished did she go to Drake. She clung close to her brother and besidehim as we set forth down the roadway, through the rain, toward the ledgebetween the cliffs where the veils had shimmered.

  Hotter and hotter it grew as we advanced; the air steamed like a Turkishbath. The mists clustered so thickly that at last we groped forward stepby step, holding to each other.

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

  "Burned out!" said Dick. "Didn't I tell you? The whole valley was avolcano. And with that deluge falling in it--why wouldn't there be afog? 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 ofdaylight we wandered over the house of Norhala, examining its mostinteresting contents, or sat theorizing, discussing all phases of thephenomena we had witnessed.

  We told Ruth what had occurred after she had thrown in her lot withNorhala; and of the enigmatic struggle between the glorious Disk and thesullenly 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 oursand that which was hers could not share the world together. But it comesto me that Earth would have been far less poisonous with those that wereNorhala's than it is with us and ours!"

  Weeping, she passed through the curtainings, going we knew to Norhala'schamber.

  It was a strange thing indeed that she had said, I thought, watching hergo. That the garden of the world would be far less poisonous blossomingwith those Things of wedded crystal and metal and magnetic firesthan fertile as now with us of flesh and blood and bone. To me cameappreciations of their harmonies, and mingled with those perceptionswere 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 momentit 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, forunder it, slipped from the girths, a saddle dangled. And its owner musthave been kind to it--we knew that from its lack of fear for us. Drivenby the tempest of the night before, it had been led back by instinct tothe protection of man.

  "Some luck!" breathed Drake.

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

  CHAPTER XXXI. SLAG!

  That night we slept well. Awakening, we found that the storm had grownviolent again; the wind roaring and the rain falling in such volumethat it was impossible to make our way to the Pit. Twice, as a matter offact, we tried; but the smooth roadway was a torrent, and, drenched eventhrough our oils to the skin, we at last abandoned the attempt. Ruth andDrake drifted away together among the other chambers of the globe; theywere 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'sstores. Seemingly Ruth had forgotten Norhala; at least, she spoke nomore of her.

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

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

  The next morning the storm had gone. We awakened soon after dawn intoclear and brilliant light. We had a silent and hurried breakfast. Thesaddlebags were packed and strapped upon the pony. Within them were whatwe could carry of souvenirs from Norhala's home--a suit of lacqueredarmor, a pair of cloaks and sandals, the jeweled combs. Ruth and Drakeat the side of the pony, Ventnor and I leading, we set forth toward thePit.

  "We'll probably have to come back, Walter," he said. "I don't believethe place is passable."

  I pointed--we were then just over the threshold of the elfin globe.Where the veils had stretched between the perpendicular pillars of thecliffs was now a wide and ragged-edged opening.

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

  "We can climb it," Ventnor said. We passed on and reached the baseof the barrier. An avalanche had dropped there; the barricade was thedebris of the torn cliffs, their dust, their pebbles, their boulders. Wetoiled 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 piercedwith lanced forests, swept with gigantic gonfalons of flame; we had seenit emptied of its fiery mists--a vast slate covered with the chirographyof a mathematical god; we had seen it filled with the symboling of theMetal Hordes and dominated by the colossal integrate hieroglyph of theliving City; we had seen it as a radiant lake over which brooded weirdsuns; a lake of yellow flame froth upon which a sparkling hail fell,within which reared islanded towers and a drowning mount running withcataracts of sun fires; here we had watched a goddess woman, a beinghalf of earth, half of the unknown immured within a living tomb--adying tomb--of flaming mysteries; had seen a cross-shaped metal Satan, asullen 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--

  Slag!

  The amethystine ring from which had been streamed the circling veils wascracked and blackened; like a seam of coal it had stretched around thePit--a crown of mourning. The veils were gone. The floor of the valleywas fissured and blackened; its patterns, its writings burned away. Asfar as we could see stretched a sea of slag--coal black, vitrified anddead.

  Here and there black hillocks sprawled; huge pillars arose, bent andtwisted as though they had been jettings of lava cooled into rigiditybefore they could sink back or break. These shapes clustered mostthickly around an immense calcified mound. They were what were left ofthe battling Hordes, and the mound was what had been the Metal Monster.

  Somewhere there were the ashes of Norhala, sealed by fire in the urn ofthe Metal Emperor!

  From side to side of the Pit, in broken beaches and waves and hummocks,in blackened, distorted tusks and warped towerings, reaching withhideous pathos in thousands of forms toward the charred mound, was onlyslag.

  From rifts and hollows still filled with water little wreaths of steamdrifted. In those futile wraiths of vapor was all that remained of themight of the Metal Monster.

  Catastrophe I had expected,
tragedy I knew we would find--but I hadlooked for nothing so filled with the abomination of desolation, sofrightful as was this.

  "Burned out!" muttered Drake. "Short-circuited and burned out! Like adynamo--like an electric light!"

  "Destiny!" said Ventnor. "Destiny! Not yet was the hour struck for manto relinquish his sovereignty over the world. Destiny!"

  We began to pick our way down the heaped debris and out upon the plain.For all that day and part of another we searched for an opening out ofthe Pit.

  Everywhere was the incredible calcification. The surfaces that hadbeen the smooth metallic carapaces with the tiny eyes deep within them,crumbled beneath the lightest blow. Not long would it be until underwind and rain they dissolved into dust and mud.

  And it grew increasingly obvious that Drake's theory of the destructionwas correct. The Monster had been one prodigious magnet--or, rather, aprodigious dynamo. By magnetism, by electricity, it had lived and hadbeen activated.

  Whatever the force of which the cones were built and that I have likenedto energy-made material, it was certainly akin to electromagneticenergies.

  When, in the cataclysm, that force was diffused there had been createda magnetic field of incredible intensity; had been concentrated anelectric charge of inconceivable magnitude.

  Discharging, it had blasted the Monster--short-circuited it, and burnedit out.

  But what was it that had led up to the cataclysm? What was it that hadturned the Metal Monster upon itself? What disharmony had crept intothat supernal order to set in motion the machinery of disintegration?

  We could only conjecture. The cruciform Shape I have named the Keeperwas the agent of destruction--of that there could be no doubt. In theenigmatic organism which while many still was one and which, retainingits integrity as a whole could dissociate manifold parts yet still as awhole maintain an unseen contact and direction over them through milesof space, the Keeper had its place, its work, its duties.

  So too had that wondrous Disk whose visible and concentrate power, whosemanifest leadership, had made us name it emperor.

  And had not Norhala called the Disk--Ruler?

  What were the responsibilities of these twain to the mass of theorganism of which they were such important units? What were the lawsthey administered, the laws they must obey?

  Something certainly of that mysterious law which Maeterlinck has calledthe spirit of the Hive--and something infinitely greater, like thatwhich governs the swarming sun bees of Hercules' clustered orbs.

  Had there evolved within the Keeper of the Cones--guardian and engineeras it seemed to have been--ambition?

  Had there risen within it a determination to wrest power from the Disk,to take its place as Ruler?

  How else explain that conflict I had sensed when the Emperor had pluckedDrake and me from the Keeper's grip that night following the orgy of thefeeding?

  How else explain that duel in the shattered Hall of the Cones whose endhad been the signal for the final cataclysm?

  How else explain the alinement of the cubes behind the Keeper againstthe globes and pyramids remaining loyal to the will of the Disk?

  We discussed this, Ventnor and I.

  "This world," he mused, "is a place of struggle. Air and sea and landand all things that dwell within and on them must battle for life. Earthnot Mars is the planet of war. I have a theory"--he hesitated--"that themagnetic currents which are the nerve force of this globe of ours werewhat fed the Metal Things.

  "Within those currents is the spirit of earth. And always they have beensupercharged with strife, with hatreds, warfare. Were these drawn in bythe Things as they fed? Did it happen that the Keeper became--TUNED--tothem? That it absorbed and responded to them, growing even moresensitive to these forces--until it reflected humanity?"

  "Who knows, Goodwin--who can tell?"

  Enigma, unless the explanations I have hazarded be accepted, must remainthat monstrous suicide. Enigma, save for inconclusive theories, mustremain the question of the Monster's origin.

  If answers there were, they were lost forever in the slag we trod.

  It was afternoon of the second day that we found a rift in the blastedwall of the valley. We decided to try it. We had not dared to take theroad by which Norhala had led us into the City.

  The giant slide was broken and climbable. But even if we could havepassed safely through the tunnel of the abyss there still was left thechasm over which we could have thrown no bridge. And if we could havebridged it still at that road's end was the cliff whose shaft Norhalahad sealed with her lightnings.

  So we entered the rift.

  Of our wanderings thereafter I need not write. From the rift we emergedinto a maze of the valleys, and after a month in that wilderness, livingupon what game we could shoot, we found a road that led us into Gyantse.

  In another six weeks we were home in America.

  My story is finished.

  There in the Trans-Himalayan wilderness is the blue globe that was theweird home of the lightning witch--and looking back I feel now she couldnot have been all woman.

  There is the vast pit with its coronet of fantastic peaks; itssymboled, calcined floor and the crumbling body of the inexplicable,the incredible Thing which, alive, was the shadow of extinction,annihilation, hovering to hurl itself upon humanity. That shadow isgone; that pall withdrawn.

  But to me--to each of us four who saw those phenomena--their lessonremains, ineradicable; giving a new strength and purpose to us, teachingus a new humility.

  For in that vast crucible of life of which we are so small a part, whatother Shapes may even now be rising to submerge us?

  In that vast reservoir of force that is the mystery-filled infinitethrough which we roll, what other shadows may be speeding upon us?

  Who knows?