The Metal Monster Read online

  CHAPTER VII. THE SHAPES IN THE MIST

  Mutely we faced each other, white and wan in the ghostly light.

  The valley was very still; as silent as though sound had been withdrawnfrom it. The shimmering radiance suffusing it had thickened perceptibly;hovered over the valley floor faintly sparkling mists; hid it.

  Like a shroud was that silence. Beneath it my mind struggled, itsunease, its forebodings growing ever stronger. Silently we repacked thesaddlebags; girthed the pony; silently we waited for Norhala's return.

  Idly I had noted that the place on which we stood must be raisedabove the level of the vale. Up toward us the gathering mists had beensteadily rising; still was their wavering crest a half score feet belowus.

  Abruptly out of their dim nebulosity a faintly phosphorescent squarebroke. It lifted, slowly; then swept, a dully lustrous six-foot cube,up the slope and came to rest almost at our feet. It dwelt there;contemplated us from its myriads of deep-set, sparkling striations.

  In its wake swam, one by one, six others--their tops raising fromthe vapors like the first, watchfully; like shimmering backs ofsea monsters; like turrets of fantastic angled submarines fromphosphorescent seas. One by one they skimmed swiftly over the ledge; andone by one they nestled, edge to edge and alternately, against the cubewhich had gone before.

  In a crescent, they stretched before us. Back from them, a pace, tenpaces, twenty, we retreated.

  They lay immobile--staring at us.

  Cleaving the mists, silk of copper hair streaming wide, unearthly eyeslambent, floated up behind them--Norhala. For an instant she was hiddenbehind their bulk; suddenly was upon them; drifted over them like somespirit of light; stood before us.

  Her veils were again about her; golden girdle, sandals of gold andturquoise in their places. Pearl white her body gleamed; no mark oflightning marred it.

  She walked toward us, turned and faced the watching cubes. She utteredno sound, but as at a signal the central cube slid forward, haltedbefore her. She rested a hand upon its edge.

  "Ride with me," she said to Ruth.

  "Norhala." Ventnor took a step forward. "Norhala, we must go with her.And this"--he pointed to the pony--"must go with us."

  "I meant--you--to come," the faraway voice chimed, "but I had notthought of--that."

  A moment she considered; then turned to the six waiting cubes. Again asat a command four of the things moved, swirled in toward each otherwith a weird precision, with a monstrous martial mimicry; joined; stoodbefore us, a platform twelve feet square, six high.

  "Mount," sighed Norhala.

  Ventnor looked helplessly at the sheer front facing him.

  "Mount." There was half-wondering impatience in her command. "See!"

  She caught Ruth by the waist and with the same bewildering swiftnesswith which she had vanished from us when the aurora beckoned she stood,holding the girl, upon the top of the single cube. It was as though thetwo had been lifted, had been levitated with an incredible rapidity.

  "Mount," she murmured again, looking down upon us.

  Slowly Ventnor began to bandage the pony's eyes. I placed my hand uponthe edge of the quadruple; sprang. A myriad unseen hands caught me,raised me, set me instantaneously on the upward surface.

  "Lift the pony to me," I called to Ventnor.

  "Lift it?" he echoed, incredulously.

  Drake's grin cut like a sunray through the nightmare dread that shroudedmy mind.

  "Catch," he called; placed one hand beneath the beast's belly, the otherunder its throat; his shoulders heaved--and up shot the pony, laden asit was, landed softly upon four wide-stretched legs beside me. The facesof the two gaped up, ludicrous in their amazement.

  "Follow," cried Norhala.

  Ventnor leaped wildly for the top, Drake beside him; in the flash of ahumming-bird's wing they were gripping me, swearing feebly. The unseenhold angled; struck upward; clutched from ankle to thigh; held usfast--men and beast.

  Away swept the block that bore Ruth and Norhala; I saw Ruth crouching,head bent, her arms around the knees of the woman. They slipped into themists; vanished.

  And after them, like a log in a racing current, we, too, dipped beneaththe faintly luminous vapors.

  The cubes moved with an entire absence of vibration; so smoothly andskimmingly, indeed, that had it not been for the sudden wind that hadrisen when first we had stirred, and that now beat steadily upon ourfaces, and the cloudy walls streaming by, I would have thought ourselvesat rest.

  I saw the blurred form of Ventnor drift toward the forward edge. Hewalked as though wading. I essayed to follow him; my feet I could notlift; I could advance only by gliding them as though skating.

  Also the force, whatever it was, that held me seemed to pass me on fromunseen clutch to clutch; it was as though up to my hips I moved througha closely woven yet fluid mass of cobwebs. I had the fantastic idea thatif I so willed I could slip over the edge of the blocks, crawl abouttheir sides without falling--like a fly on the vertical faces of a hugesugar loaf.

  I drew beside Ventnor. He was staring ahead, striving, I knew, to piercethe mists for some glimpse of Ruth.

  He turned to me, his face drawn with anxiety, his eyes feverish.

  "Can you see them, Walter?" His voice shook. "God--why did I ever lether go like that? Why did I let her go alone?"

  "They'll be close ahead, Martin." I spoke out of a conviction I couldnot explain. "Whatever it is we're bound for, wherever it is the woman'staking us, she means to keep us together--for a time at least. I'm sureof it."

  "She said--follow." It was Drake beside us. "How the hell can we doanything else? We haven't any control over this bird we're on. But shehas. What she meant, Ventnor, is that it would follow her."

  "That's true"--new hope softened the haggard face--"that's true--butis it? We're reckoning with creatures that man's imagination neverconceived--nor could conceive. And with this--woman--human in shape,yes, but human in thought--never. How then can we tell--"

  He turned once more, all his consciousness concentrated in his searchingeyes.

  Drake's rifle slipped from his hand.

  He stooped to pick it up; then tugged with both hands. The rifle layimmovable.

  I bent and strove to aid him. For all the pair of us could do, the riflemight have been a part of the gleaming surface on which it rested. Thetiny, deepset star points winked up--

  "They're--laughing at us!" grunted Drake.

  "Nonsense," I answered, and tried to check the involuntary shudderingthat shook me, as I saw it shake him. "Nonsense. These blocks are greatmagnets--that's what holds the rifle; what holds us, too."

  "I don't mean the rifle," he said; "I mean those points of lights--theeyes--"

  There came from Ventnor a cry of almost anguished relief. Westraightened. Our head shot above the mists like those of swimmers fromwater. Unnoticed, we had been climbing out of them.

  And a hundred yards ahead of us, cleaving them, veiled in them almost tothe shoulders, was Norhala, red-gold tresses steaming; and close besideher were the brown curls of Ruth. At her brother's cry she turned andher arm flashed out of the veils with reassuring gesture.

  A mile away was an opening in the valley's mountainous wall; toward itwe were speeding. It was no ragged crevice, no nature split fissure; itgave the impression of a gigantic doorway.

  "Look," whispered Drake.

  Between us and the vast gateway, gleaming triangles began to breakthrough the vapors, like the cutting fins of sharks, glints of roundbodies like gigantic porpoises--the vapors seethed with them. Quicklythe fins and rolling curves were all about us. They centered upon theportal, streamed through--a horde of the metal things, leading us,guarding us, playing about us.

  And weird, unutterably weird was that spectacle--the vast and silentvale with its still, smooth vapors like a coverlet of cloud; the regalhead of Norhala sweeping over them; the dull glint and gleam of themetal paradoxes flowing, in ordered motion, all about us; the titanicgateway, glowing before u
s.

  We were at its threshold; over it.