 Prologue of the Metal Monster The Metal Monster by Abraham Merritt Prologue Before the narrative which follows was placed in my hands, I had never seen Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, its author. When the manuscript revealing his adventures among the prehistoric ruins of the nanmetal in the Carolines, The Moon Pool had been given me by the International Association of Science for editing and revision to meet the requirements of a popular presentation Dr. Goodwin had left America. He had explained that he was still too shaken, too depressed to be able to recall experiences that must inevitably carry with them fresh in memories of those whom he loved so well and from whom he felt he was separated in all probability forever. I had understood that he had gone to some remote part of Asia to pursue certain botanical studies and it was therefore with the liveliest surprise and interest that I received a summons from the President of the Association to meet Dr. Goodwin at a designated place an hour. Through my close study of the Moon Pool papers I had formed a mental image of their writer. I had read to those volumes of botanical research which have set him high above all the other American scientists in this field. Gleaning from their curious mingling of extremely technical observation and minutely accurate but extraordinarily poetic descriptions hints to amplify my picture of him. It gratified me to find I had drawn a pretty good one. The man to whom the President of the Association introduced me was sturdy, well knit, a little under average height. He had a broad but rather low forehead that reminded me somewhat of the late electrical wizard Steinmetz. Under level black brows shone eyes, a clear hazel, kindly shrewd, a little wistful, lightly humorous, the eyes both of a dow and a dreamer. Not more than 40 I judged him to be. A close trimmed pointed beard did not hide the firm chin and the clean cut mouth. His hair was thick and black and oddly sprinkled with white, small streaks and dots of gleaming silver that shone with a curiously metallic luster. His right arm was closely bound to his breast. His manner as he greeted me was tinged with shyness. He extended his left hand in greeting and as I clasped the fingers I was struck by their peculiar, pronounced yet pleasant warmth, a sensation indeed curiously electric. The Association's President forced him gently back into his chair. Dr. Goodwin, he said, turning to me, is not entirely recovered as yet from certain consequences of his adventures. He will explain to you later what these are. In the meantime, Mr. Merrick, will you read this? I took the sheets he handed me and as I read them felt the gaze of Dr. Goodwin full upon me, searching, weighing, estimating. When I raised my eyes from the letter I found in his a new expression. The shyness was gone. They were filled with complete friendliness. Evidently I had passed master. You will accept, sir. It was the President's gravely courteous time. Accept, I exclaimed. Why? Of course I accept. It is not only one of the greatest honours, but to me one of the greatest delights to act as a collaborator with Dr. Goodwin. The President smiled. In that case, sir, there is no need for me to remain longer, he said. Dr. Goodwin has with him his manuscript, as far as he has progressed with it. I will leave you two alone for your discussion. He bound to us and, picking up his old-fashioned bowel, crowned silk hat and his quaint heavy cane of ebony, withdrew. Dr. Goodwin turned to me. I will start, he said, after a little pause, from when I met Richard Drake on the field of blue poppies that are like a great prayer rug at the grey feet at the nameless mountain. The sun sank. The shadows fell. The lights of the city sparkled out. For hours New York roared about me unheeded. While I listened to the tale of that utterly weird, stupendous drama of an unknown life, of an unknown creatures, unknown forces and of unconquerable human heroism played among the hidden gorges of unknown Asia, it was dawn when I left him for my own home. Nor was it for many hours after that I laid this then incomplete manuscript down and sought sleep, and found a troubled sleep. A Merit. End of Prologue. Please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Schwabbi. The Metal Monster by Abraham Merit. Chapter 1. Valley of the Blue Poppies. In this great crucible of life we call the world. In the vaster one we call the universe. The mysteries lie close packed, uncountable as grains of sand on ocean shores. They thread gigantic, the star flung spaces. They creep atomic, beneath the microscope's peering eye. They walk beside us, unseen and unheard, calling out to us, asking why we are deaf to their crying, blind to their wonder. Sometimes the veils drop from a man's eyes, and he sees, and speaks of his vision. Then those who have not seen pass him by with the lifted brows of disbelief, or they mock him, or if his vision has been great enough, they fall upon and destroy him. For the greater the mystery, the more bitterly is its verity assailed. Upon what seemed the lesser, a man may give testimony, and at least gain for himself a hearing. There is reason for this. Life is a ferment. And upon and about it, shifting and changing, adding to or taking away, beat over legions of forces, seen and unseen, known and unknown. And man, an atom in the ferment, clings desperately to what to him seems stable, nor greets with joy him who hazards that what he grips may be but a broken staff, and so saying fails to hold forth a sturdier one. Earth is a ship, plowing her way through uncharted oceans of space, wherein are strange currents, hidden shoals and reefs, and where blow the unknown winds of cosmos. If to the voyagers, painfully plotting their course, comes one who cries that their charts must be remade, nor can tell why they must be, that man is not welcome, no. Therefore it is that men have grown cherry of giving testimony upon mysteries, yet knowing each in his own heart the truth of that vision he himself beheld, lo, it is that in whose reality he most believes. The spot where I had uncamped was of a singular beauty, so beautiful that it caught the throat and set an ache within the breast, until from it a tranquility distilled that was like a healing mist. Since early March I had been wandering, it was now mid-July, and for the first time since my pilgrimage had begun I drank. Not of forgetfulness, for that could never be, but of anodyne for a sorrow which had held fast upon me since my return from the carolines a year before. No need to dwell upon that year, it has been written, nor shall I recite the reasons for my restlessness, for these are known to those who have read that history of mine, nor is there cause to set forth at length the steps in which I had arrived at this veil of peace. It is sufficient as to tell that in New York one night reading over what is perhaps the most sensational of my books, the poppies and primulas of Southern Tibet, the result of my travels of 1910 to 1911, I determined to return to that quiet forbidden land. There, if anywhere, might I find something akin to forgetting. There was a certain flower which I long had wished to study in its mutations from the singular forms appearing on the southern slopes of the Alborj, Persia's mountainous chain that extends from Azerbaijan in the west to Khorasan in the east. From thence I would follow its modified types in the Hindu Kush ranges and its migrations along the southern scarps of the Trans Himalayas, the unexplored upheaval higher than the Himalayas themselves. More deeply cut with precipice and gorge, which Sven Haydn had touched and named on his journey to Lhasa. Having accomplished this, I planned to push across the passes to the Manasarawar Lakes, where, legend has it, the strange, luminous purple lotuses grow. An ambitious project, undeniably fraught with danger, but it is written that desperate diseases require desperate remedies, and until inspiration or message how to rejoin those whom I had loved so dearly came to me, nothing less I felt could dull my heartache. And frankly, feeling that no such inspiration or message could come, I did not much care as to the end. In Tehran I had picked up a most unusual servant, yes more than this a companion and counsellor and interpreter as well. He was a Chinese, his name was Chiu Ming. His first thirty years had been spent at the great lamasary of Pal Kharchwand at Gansi, west of Lhasa. Why he had gone from there, and how he had come to Tehran I never asked. It was most fortunate that he had gone, and that I had found him. He recommended himself to me as the best cook within ten thousand miles of Peking. For almost three months we had journeyed, Chiu Ming, and I, and two ponies that carried my impedimenta. We had traversed mountain roads which had echoed the marching feet of the hosts of Darius, to the hordes of the Seitraps, the highways of the Achaemenids, yes, and which before them had trembled to the tramplings of the myriads of the godlike Dravidian conquerors. We had slipped over ancient Iranian trails, over paths which the warriors of conquering Alexander had traversed, dust of bones of Macedons, of Greeks, of Romans, beat about us. Ashes of the flaming ambitions of the Sasanidii whimpered beneath our feet. The feet of an American botanist, a Chinaman, two Tibetan ponies. We had crept through clefts whose walls had sent back the howlings of the Aetholites, the White Huns, who had sapped the strength of the same proud Sasanids until at last both fell before the Turks. Over the highways and byways of Persia's glory, Persia's shame and Persia's death, we four, two men, two beasts, had passed. For a fortnight we had met no human soul, seen no sign of human habitation. Game had been plentiful. Green things Jo-Ming might lack for his cooking, but meat never. About us was a welter of mighty summits. We were, I knew, somewhere within the blending of the Hindu Kush and the Trans-Simalayas. That morning we had come out of a ragged defile into this valley of enchantment, and here, though it had been so early, I had pitched my tent, determining to go no farther till the morrow. It was a focian veil, a gigantic cup filled with tranquility, a spirit brooded over it, serene, majestic, immutable. Like the untroubled calm which rests, the Burmese believe, over every place which has guarded the Buddha sleeping. At its eastern end towered the colossal scarf of the unnamed peak through one of whose gorges we had crept. On his head was a cap of silver set with pale emeralds, the snow-fields and glaciers that crowned him. Far to the west another grey and ochrous giant reared its bulk, closing the veil. North and south the horizon was a chaotic sky-land of pinnacles, spired in minareted, steepled and turreted and domed, each diademed with its green and argent of eternal ice and snow. And all the valley was carpeted with the blue poppies in wide, unbroken fields, luminous as the morning skies of mid-June. They rippled mile after mile over the path we had followed, over the still untrodden path, which we must take. They nodded, they leaned toward each other, they seemed to whisper, then to lift their heads and look up. Like crowding swarms of little azure faze, half impudently, wholly trustfully, into the faces of the jeweled giants standing guard over them. And when the little breeze walked upon them it was as though they bent beneath the soft tread and were brushed by the sweeping skirts of the unseen, hastening presences. Like a vast prayer rug, sapphire and silken, the poppies stretched to the gray feet of the mountain. Between their southern edge and the clustering summits a row of faded brown, low hills knelt, like brown-robed, withered and weary old men, backs bent, faces hidden between outstretched arms, palms to the earth and brows touching earth within them, in the east immemorial attitude of worship. I half expected them to rise, and as I watched a man appeared on one of the bowed, rocky shoulders abruptly, with the ever-startling suddenness, which in the strange light of these latitudes objects spring into vision. As he stood scanning my camp there arose beside him a laden pony, and at its head a Tibetan peasant. The first figure waved its hand and came striding down the hill. As he approached I took stock of him. A young giant, three good inches over six feet, a vigorous head of unruly, clustering black hair, a clean-cut, clean-shaven American face. I'm Dick Drake, he said, holding out his hand. Richard King Drake, recently with the uncle's engineers in France. My name is Goodwin. I took his hand, shook it warmly. Dr. Walter T. Goodwin. Goodwin the botanist? Then I know you, he exclaimed. Know all about you, that is. My father admired your work greatly. You knew him. Professor Alvin Drake. I nodded. So he was Alvin Drake's son. Alvin, I knew, had died about a year before I started on this journey. But what was his son doing in this wilderness? Wondering where I came from, he answered my unspoken question. Short story. War ended, felt an irresistible desire for something different. Couldn't think of anything more different from Tibet, always wanted to go there anyway. Went. Decided to strike over towards Turkistan, and here I am. I felt at once a strong liking for this young giant. No doubt subconsciously I had been feeling the need of companionship with my own kind. I even wondered, as I led the way to my little camp, whether he would care to join forces with me in my journeyings. His father's work I knew well, and although this stalwart lad was unlike what one would have expected Alvin Drake, a trifle dried, precise, wholly abstracted with his experiments, to beget, still I reflected, heredity, like the Lord, sometimes works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. It was almost with awe that he listened to me instruct Tio Ming as to just how I wanted supper prepared, and his gaze dwelt fondly upon the Chinese busy among his pots and pans. We talked a little, dalsatorily, as the meal was prepared. Fragments of Traveller's news and gossip as is the habit of journeyers who come upon each other in the silent places. Ever the speculation grew in his face as he made away with Tio Ming's artful concoctions. Drake sighed, drawing out his pipe. A cook, a marvel of a cook, where did you get him? Briefly I told him. Then a silence fell upon us. Suddenly the sun dipped down behind the flank of the stone giant guarding the valley's western gate. The whole veil swiftly darkened, a flood of crystal clear shadows poured within it. It was the prelude to that miracle of unearthly beauty seen nowhere else on this earth. The sunset of Tibet. We turned expectant eyes to the west. A little cool breeze raced down from the watching steeps like a messenger, whispered to the nodding poppies, sighed and was gone. The poppies were still. High overhead, a homing kite whistled, mellowly. As if it were a signal, their sprang out of the pale azure of the western sky row upon row of cirrus cloudlets, rank upon rank of them, thrusting their heads into the path of the setting sun. They changed from mottled silver to faint rose, deepened into crimson. The dragons of the sky drink the blood of the sunset, said Chöming. As though a gigantic globe of crystal had dropped upon the heavens, their blue turned swiftly to the clear and glowing amber. Then, as abruptly, shifted to a luminous violet, a soft green light pulsed through the valley. Under it, like hills ensorcelled, the rocky walls about it seemed to flatten. They glowed, and all at once pressed forward like gigantic slices of palest emerald jade, translucent, illumined, as though by a circlet of little suns shining behind them. The light faded, robes of deepest amethyst dropped around the mountains mighty shoulders, and then, from every snow and glacier-crowned peak, from minaret and pinnacle and towering turret, leaped forth a confusion of soft, peacock flames, a host of iris-prismatic gleamings, and ordered chaos of rainbows. Great and small, interlacing and shifting, they ringed the valley with an incredible glory, as if some god of light itself had touched the eternal rocks, and bitten radiant souls stand forth. Through the darkening sky swept a rosy pencil of living light, that utterly strange, pure beam whose coming never fails to clutch the throat of the beholder with a hand of ecstasy, the ray which the Tibetans name the Ting Pa. For a moment this rosy finger pointed to the east, then arched itself, divided slowly into six shining rosy bands, began to creep downward toward the eastern horizon, where a nebulous pulsing splendor arose to meet it. And as we watched, I heard a gasp from Drake, and it was echoed by my own. For the six beams were swaying, moving with ever-swifter motion from side to side in ever-widening sweep, as though the hidden orb from which they had sprung were swaying like a pendulum. Faster and faster the six high-flung beams swayed, and then broke, broke as though a gigantic unseen hand had reached up and snapped them. An instant the severed ends ribboned aimlessly, then bent, turned down and darted earthward into the welter of clustered summits from the north and swiftly were gone, while down upon the valley night fell. Good God! whispered Drake. It was as though something reached up, broke those little rays and drew them down, like threads. I saw it, I struggled with bewilderment. I saw it, but I never saw anything like it before. I ended, most inadequately. It was purposeful, he whispered. It was deliberate, as though something reached up, juggled with the rays, broke them, and drew them down like willow-withs. The devils that dwell here, quavered Chöming. Some magnetic phenomenon. I was half angry at myself for my own touch of panic. Light can be deflected by passage through a magnetic field. Of course that's it, certainly. I don't know, Drake's tone was doubtful indeed. It would take a whale of a magnetic field to have done that. It's inconceivable. He harked back to his first idea. It was so, so damned deliberate, he repeated. Devils muttered the frightened Chinese. What's that? Drake gripped my arm and pointed to the north. A deeper blackness had grown there while we had been talking. A pool of darkness against which the mountain summit stood out. Blade-sharp edges, faintly luminous. A gigantic lance of misty green fire darted from the blackness and thrust its point into the heart of the zenith. Following it, leaped into the sky a host of other sparkling spears of light. And now the blackness was like an even hand brandishing a thousand javelins of tinseled flame. The aurora, I said. It ought to be a good one, mused Drake. Gaze intent upon it. Did you notice the big sun spot? I shook my head. The biggest I ever saw. Notice that it dawned this morning. Some little aurora lighter that spot. I told you, look at that! he cried. The green lances had fallen back. The blackness gathered itself together. Then, from it began to pulse billows of radiance, spangled with infinite darting swarms of flashing corpuscles, like uncounted hosts of dancing fireflies. Higher the waves rolled, phosphorescent green and iridescent violet, weird copperous yellows and metallic saffrons, and a shimmer of glittering ash of rose. Then, wavered, split and formed into gigantic, sparkling, marching curtains of splendor. The vast circle of light sprang out upon the folds of the flickering, rushing curtains. Misty at first, its edges sharpened until they rested upon the blazing glory of the northern sky like a pale ring of cold flame. And about it the aurora began to churn, to heap itself, to revolve. Toward the ring from every side raced the majestic folds, drew themselves together, circled, seeeth around it like foam of fire, about the lip of a cauldron, and poured through the shining circle as though it were the mouth of that fabled cavern where old eolus sits blowing forth and breathing back the winds that sweep the earth. Yes, into the ring's mouth the aurora flew, cascading in a columned stream to earth. Then, swiftly, a mist swept over the heavens, veiled that incredible cataract. Magnetism, muttered Drake. I guess not. It struck about where the ting-pa was broken and seemed drawn down like the rays, I said. Purposeful, Drake said, and devilish. It hit on all my nerves like a—like a metal claw. Purposeful and deliberate. There was intelligence behind that. Intelligence? Drake, what intelligence could break the rays of the setting sun and suck down the aurora? I don't know, he answered. Devils croaked chioming, the devils that defied Buddha and have grown strong. Like a metal claw, breathed Drake. Far to the west the sound came to us, first the whisper, then a wild rushing, a prolonged wailing, a crackling, a great light flashed to the mist, glowed about us and faded, again the wailing, the vast rushing, the retreating whisper. Then silence and darkness dropped, embraced upon the valley of the blue poppies. End of Chapter 1. Recording by Mike Schwabbi. www.craftinvoice.com Chapter 2. Of the Metal Monster. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Schwabbi. The Metal Monster. By Abraham Merritt. Chapter 2. The Sigil on the Rocks. Dawn came. Drake had slept well, but I, who had not his youthful resiliency, lay for long, awake and uneasy. I had hardly sunk into troubled slumber before dawn awakened me. As we breakfasted, I approached directly that matter which my growing liking for him was turning into strong desire. Drake, I asked. Where are you going? With you, he laughed. I'm footloose and fancy-free, and I think you ought to have somebody with you to help you watch that cook. He might get away. The idea seemed to appall him. Fine, I exclaimed heartily and thrust out my hand to him. I'm thinking of striking over the range soon to the Manasarawar Lakes. There's a curious flora I'd like to study. Anywhere you say suits me, he answered. We clasped hands on our partnership, and soon we were on our way to the valley's western gate, our united caravans stringing along behind us. Mile after mile we trudged through the blue poppies discussing the enigmas of the twilight and of the night. In the light of day their breath of vague terror was dissipated. There was no place for mystery nor dread under this floor of brilliant sunshine. The smiling sapphire floor rolled ever on before us. Whispering little playful breezes flew down the slopes to gossip for a moment with the nodding flowers, flocks of rose-finches raced chattering overhead to quarrel with the tiny willow warblers, the chew-teb-talk, holding thief of the drooping, graceful bowers bending down to the little laughing stream that for the past hour had chuckled and gurgled like a friendly water-baby beside us. I had proven, almost to my own satisfaction, that what we had beheld had been a creation of the most extraordinary atmospheric attributes of these highlands, an atmosphere so unique as to make almost anything of the kind possible. But Drake was not convinced. I know, he said. Of course I understand all that, superimposed layers of warmer air that might have bent the ray, vortices in the higher levels that might have produced just that effect from the captured aurora. I admit it's all possible. I'll even admit it's all probable. But damn me, Doc, if I believe it. I had too clearly the feeling of a conscious force of something that knew exactly what it was doing and had a reason for it. It was mid-afternoon. The spell of the valley upon us we had gone ledgerly. The western mount was close, the mouth of the gorge through which we must pass now plain before us. It did not seem as though we could reach it before dusk and Drake and I were reconciled to spending another night in the peaceful veil. Plotting along, deep in thought, I was startled by his exclamation. He was staring at a point some hundred yards to his right. I followed his gaze. The towering cliffs were a scant half-mile away. At some distant time there had been an enormous fall of rock. This, disintegrating, had formed a gently curving breast which sloped down to merge with the valley's floor. Willow and witch-alder, stunted birch and poplar, had found root-hold, clothed it, until only their crowding outposts, thrusting forward in a wavering semi-circle, held back seemingly by the blue hordes, showed where it melded into the meadows. In the center of this breast, beginning halfway up its slopes, and stretching down into the flowered fields, was a colossal imprint. Gray and brown, it stood out against the green and blue of the slope and level. A rectangle all of thirty feet wide, two hundred long. The heel faintly curved, and from its hither end, like claws, four slender triangles radiating from it like twenty-four points of a ten-rayed star. Irresistibly was it like a footprint. But what thing was there whose tread could leave such a print as this? I ran up the slope, drake already well in advance. I paused at the base of the triangles where, where this thing indeed a footprint, the spreading claws sprang from the flat of it. The track was fresh. At its upper edges were clipped bushes and split trees, the white wood of the ladder showing where they had been placed through as though by the stroke of a scimitar. I stepped out of the mark. It was as level as though plained, bent down, and stared in utter disbelief at what my own eyes beheld. For stone and earth had been crushed, compressed into a smooth, microscopically-grained adamantine complex. And in this matrix, poppies still bearing traces of colouring were embedded like fossils. A cyclone can and does grip straws and thrust them unbroken through an inch board. But what force was there which could take the delicate petals of a flower and set them like inlay within the surface of a stone? Into my mind came recollection of the whalings, the crashings in the night, of the weird glow that had flashed about us when the mist arose to hide the chained aurora. It was what we heard, I said. The sounds. It was then that this was made. The foot of Xin Ji. Jiu Ming's voice was tremulous. The Lord of Hell has trodden here. I translated for Drake's benefit. Has the Lord of Hell but one foot? Asked Dick politely. He bestrides the mountains, said Jiu Ming. On the far side is his other footprint. Xin Ji it was who strode the mountains and set here his foot. Again I interpreted. Drake cast the calculating glance up to the cliff top. Two thousand feet about, he mused. Well, if Xin Ji is built to our proportions that makes it about right. The length of this thing would give him just about a two thousand foot leg. Yes, he could just about straddle that hill. You're surely not serious. I asked in consternation. What the hell, he exclaimed. Am I crazy? This is no footmark. How could it be? Look at the mathematical nicety with which these edges are stamped out. As though by a die. That's what it reminds me of. A die. It's as if some impossible power had been used to press it down, like a giant seal of metal in the mountain's hand. A sigil, a seal. But why, I asked. What could be the purpose? Better ask where the devil such a force could be gotten together and how it came here, he said. Look, except for this one place there isn't a mark anywhere. All the bushes in the trees, all the poppies in the grass are just as they ought to be. How did whoever or whatever it was that made this get here and get away without leaving any trace but this? Damn'd if I don't think Chi-O-Ming's explanation puts less strain on the credulity than anything I could offer. I peered about. It was so. Except for the mark there was no slightest sign of the unusual, the abnormal. But the mark was enough. I'm for pushing up a notch or two and getting into the gorge before dark. He was voicing my own thought. I'm willing to face anything human, but I'm not keen to be pressed into a rock like a flower in a maiden's book of poems. Just at twilight we drew out of the valley into the pass. We traveled a full mile along it before darkness forced us to make camp. The gorge was narrow, the far walls but a hundred feet away. But we had no quarrel with them for their neighborliness. No. Their solidity, their immutability breathed confidence back into us. And after we had found a deep niche capable of holding the entire caravan, we filed within, ponies and all. I, for one, perfectly willing thus to spend the night, let the air at dawn be what it would. We dined within on bread and tea and then, tired to the bone, sought each his place upon the rocky floor. I slept well, waking only once or twice by Joe Meng's groanings. His dreams evidently were none of the pleasantest. If there was an aurora, I neither knew nor cared. My slumber was dreamless. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Roger Maline. I was too close, yielded three to our guns. We breakfasted well, and a little later were pushing on down the cleft. Its descent, though gradual, was continuous. And therefore I was not surprised when soon we began to come upon evidences of semi-tropical vegetation. Giant rhododendrons and tree ferns gave way to occasional clumps of stately co-peck and clumps of the hardier bamboos. We added a few snow cocks to our larder, although they were out of their habitat, flying down into the gorge from their peaks and table lands for some choice tidbit. All that day we marched on, and when at night we made camp, sleep came to us quickly and over-mastering. An hour after dawn we were on our way. A brief stop we made for lunch pressed forward. It was close to two when we caught the first side of the ruins. The soaring, verger-clad walls of the canyon had long been steadily marching closer. Above, between their rims, the wide ribbon of sky was like a fantastically short river, shimmering, dazzling. Every cove and headland edged with an opalescent glimmering as a shining, pearly beaches. And as though we were sinking in that sky stream's depths, its light kept lessening, darkening imperceptibly with luminous shadows of ghostly barrel, drifting veils of pollucid aquamarine, limpid mists of glocus chrysalite. Fainter, more crepuscular, became the light, yet never losing its crystalline quality. Now the high overhead river was but a brook, became a thread. Abruptly it vanished. We passed into a tunnel, fern-walled, fern-roofed, garlanded with tawny orchids, gay with carbon fungus and golden moss. We stepped out into a blaze of sunlight. Before us lay a wide green bowl held in the hands of the clustered hills, shallow, circular as though while plastic still the thumb of God had run round its rim, shaping it. Around it the peaks crowded, craning their lofty heads to peer within. It was about a mile in its diameter, this hollow, as my gaze then measured it. It had three openings, one that lay like a crack in the northeast slope, another the tunnel mouth through which we had come. The third lifted itself out of the bowl, creeping up the precipitous bare scarf of the western barrier straight to the north, clinging to the ochrous rock up and up until it vanished around a far distant shoulder. It was a wide and bulwarked road, a road that spoke as clearly as though it had tongue of human hands which had cut it there in the mountain's breast. An ancient road weary beyond belief beneath the tread of uncounted years. From the hollow the blind soul of loneliness groped out to greet us. Never had I felt such loneliness as that which lapped the lip of the verdant bowl. It was tangible as though it had been poured from some reservoir of misery, a pool of despair. Half the width of the valley away the ruins began. Weirdly were they its visible expression. They huddled in two bent rows to the bottom. They crouched in a wide cluster against the cliffs. From the cluster a curving row of them ran along the southern crest of the hollow. A flight of shattered cyclopean steps lifted to a ledge and here a crumbling fortress stood. Irresistibly did the ruins seem a colossal hag, flung prone, lying listlessly, helplessly against the barrier's base. The huddled lower ranks were the legs, the cluster, the body, the upper row an outflung arm and above the neck of the stairway the ancient fortress. Rounded and with two huge ragged apertures in its northern front was an aged, bleached and withered head staring, watching. I looked at Drake. The spell of the bowl was heavy upon him, his face drawn. The Chinaman and Tibetan were murmuring, with terror written large upon them. A hell of a joint Drake turned to me, a shadow of a grin lightning the distress on his face. But I'd rather chance it than go back. What do you say? I nodded, curiosity mastering my oppression. We stepped over the rim, rifles on the alert. Close behind us crowded the two servants and the ponies. The veil was shallow, as I have said. We trod the fragments of an olden approach to the green tunnel so the descent was not difficult. Here and there, beside the path, up reared huge broken blocks. On them I thought I could see faint tracings as of carvings, now a suggestion of gaping, arrow-fang dragon jaws, now the outline of a scaled body, of enormous bat-like wings. Now we had reached the first of the crumbling piles that stretched down into the valley's center. Half-fainting I fell against Drake, clutching to him for support. A stream of utter hopelessness was racing upon us, swirling and eddying around us, reaching to our hearts with ghostly fingers dripping with despair. From every shattered heap it seemed to pour, rushing down the road upon us like a torrent engulfing us, submerging, drowning. Unseen it was, yet tangible as water, it sapped the life from every nerve. Weariness filled me, a desire to drop upon the stones, to be rolled away, to die. I felt Drake's body quivering even as mine knew that he was drawing upon every reserve of strength. Steady, he muttered, steady. The Tibetan shrieked and fled, the ponies scrambling after him. Dimly I remembered that mine carried precious specimens, a surge of anger past beating back the anguish. I heard a sob from Chu Ming, saw him drop. Drake stopped, drew him to his feet. We placed him between us, thrust each in arm through his own. Then, like swimmers, heads bent, we pushed on, buffeting that inexplicable, invisible flood. As the path rose, its forest lessened, my vitality grew, and the terrible desire to yield and be swept away waned. Now we had reached the foot of the Cyclopean stares, now we were half up them, and now, as we struggled out upon the ledge on which the watching fortress stood, the clutching stream shoaled swiftly, the shoal became safe, dry land, and the cheated, unseen maelstrom swirled harmlessly beneath us. We stood erect, gasping for breath, again, like swimmers who have fought their utmost and barely, so barely, won. There was an almost imperceptible movement at the side of the ruined portal. Out darted a girl. A rifle dropped from her hands. Straight, she sped toward me. And as she ran, I recognized her. Ruth Ventner. The flying figure reached me, threw soft arms around my neck, was weeping in relieved gladness on my shoulder. Ruth, I cried, what on earth are you doing here? Walter! she sobbed. Walter Goodwin! Oh, thank God! Thank God! She drew herself from my arms, catching her breath, laughed, shakily. I took swift stock of her. Saved for fears upon her, she was the same Ruth I had known three years before. Wide, deep blue eyes that were now all seriousness, now sparkling wells of mischief. Petite, rounded and tender, the fairest skin, an impudent little nose, shining clusters of intractable curls, all human, sparkling and sweet. Drake coughed insinuatingly. I introduced him. I watched you struggling through that dreadful pit, she shuddered. I could not see who you were. Did not know whether friend or enemy. But oh, my heart almost died in pity for you, Walter, she breathed. What can it be there? I shook my head. Martin could not see you, she went on. He was watching the road that leads above. But I ran down to help. Martin, watching, I asked. Watching for what? I, she hesitated oddly. I think I'd rather tell you before him. It's so strange, so incredible. She led us through the broken portal and into the fortress. It was more gigantic even than I had thought. The floor of the vast chamber we had entered was strewn with fragments fallen from the cracking stone-vaulted ceiling. Through the breaks, light streamed from the level above us. We picked our way among the debris to a wide crumbling stairway, crept up it, Ruth flitting ahead. We came out opposite one of the eye-like apertures. Black against it, perched high upon a pile of blocks, I recognized the long, lean outline of ventnor, rifle in hand, gazing intently up the ancient road whose windings were plain through the opening. He had not heard us. Martin! called Ruth softly. He turned a shaft of light from a crevice in the gap's edge, struck his face, flashing it out from the semi-darkness of the corner in which he crouched. I looked into the quiet gray eyes upon the keen face. Good when! he shouted, tumbling down from his perch, shaking me by the shoulders. If I had been in the way of praying, you're the man I'd have prayed for. How did you get here? Just wandering, Mart, I answered. But Lord, I'm sure glad to see you. Which way did you come? he asked keenly. I threw my hand toward the cell. Not through that hollow, he asked incredulously. And some hell of a place to get through, Drake broke in. It cost us our ponies and all my ammunition. Richard Drake, I said, son of old Alvin, you knew him, Mart. Knew him well, cried Ventner, seizing Dick's hand. Wanted me to go to Kamchatka to get some confounded sort of stuff for one of his devilish experiments. Is he well? He's dead, replied Dick soberly. Oh, said Ventner, oh, I'm sorry. He was a great man. Briefly I acquainted him with my wanderings, my encounter with Drake. That place out there, he considered us thoughtfully. Damned if I know what it is. Thought maybe it's gas of a sort. If it hadn't been for it, we'd have been out of this hole two days ago. I'm pretty sure it must be gas. And it must be much less than it was this morning, for then we made an attempt to get through again and couldn't. I was hardly listening. Ventner had certainly advanced a theory of our unusual symptoms that had not occurred to me. That hollow might indeed be a pocket into which a gas flowed. Just as in the mines, the deadly cold damp collects in pits, flows like a stream along the passages. It might be that. Some odorless, colorless gas of unknown qualities. And yet, did you try respirators? Asked Dick. Shirley, said Ventner, first off the go. But they weren't of any use. The gas, if it is gas, seems to operate as well through the skin as through the nose and mouth. We just couldn't make it, and that's all there is to it. But if you made it, can we try it now, do you think? He asked eagerly. I felt myself go white. Not, not for a little while, I stammered. He nodded, understandingly. I see, he said. Well, we'll wait a bit then. But why are you staying here? Why didn't you make for the road up the mountain? What are you watching for, anyway? Asked Drake. Go to it, Ruth, Ventner grinned. Tell him. After all, it was your party, you know. Mart, she cried, blushing. Well, it wasn't me they admired, he laughed. Martin, she cried again and stamped her foot. Shoot, he said. I'm busy, I've got to watch. Well, Ruth's voice was uncertain. We'd been hunting up in Kashmir. Martin wanted to come over somewhere here, so we crossed the passes. That was about a month ago. The fourth day out we ran across what looked like a road running south. We thought we'd take it. It looked sort of old and lost, but it was going the way we wanted to go. It took us first into a country of little hills, then to the very base of the Great Range itself. Finally into the mountains, and then it ran blank. Bing, interjected Ventner, looking around for a moment. Bing, just like that. Slapdash against the prodigious fall of rock. We couldn't get over it. So we cast about to find another road. Went on, Ruth. A wicked strike were just strikes. No fish on the end of them, said Ventner. God, but I'm glad to see you, Walter Goodwin. Believe me I am. However, go on, Ruth. At the end of the second week, she said, we knew we were lost. We were deep in the heart of the Range. All around us was a forest of enormous snow-topped peaks. The gorges, the canyons, the valleys that we tried, let us east and west, north and south. It was a maze, and in it we seemed to be going ever deeper. There was not the slightest sign of human life. It was as though no human beings except ourselves had ever been there. Game was plentiful, we had no trouble in getting food, and, sooner or later, of course, we were bound to find our way out. We didn't worry. It was five nights ago that we camped at the head of a lovely little valley. There was a mound that stood up like a tiny watch-tower, looking down it. The trees grew round like tall sentinels. We built our fire in that mound, and after we had eaten, Martin slept. I sat watching the beauty of the skies and of the shadowy veil. I heard no one approach, but something made me leap to my feet, look behind me. A man was standing just within the glow of firelight, watching me. A Tibetan, I asked. She shook her head, trouble in her eyes. Not at all, Fentner turned his head. Ruth screamed and awakened me. I caught a glimpse of the fellow before he vanished. A short purple mantle hung from his shoulders. His chest was covered with fine chain mail. His legs were swathed and bound by the thongs of his high buskins. He carried a small, round, high-covered shield and a short, two-edged sword. His head was helmeted. He belonged, in fact, oh, at least twenty centuries back. He laughed in plain enjoyment of our amazement. Go on, Ruth, he said, and took up his watch. But Martin did not see his face, she went on. And oh, but I wish I could forget it. It was as white as mine, Walter, and cruel, so cruel. The eyes glowed and they looked upon me like a slave-dealer. They shamed me. I wanted to hide myself. I cried out, and Martin awakened. As he moved, the man stepped out of the light and was gone. I think he had not seen Martin, had believed that I was alone. We put out the fire, moved farther into the shadow of the trees. But I could not sleep. I sat hour after hour, my pistol in my hand. She padded the automatic in her belt, my rifle close beside me. The hours went by dreadfully. At last I dozed. When I awakened again, it was dawn, and she covered her eyes. Then two men were looking down on me. One was he who had stood in the firelight. They were talking, interrupted Ventner again, in archaic Persian. Persian, I repeated blankly, archaic Persian? Very much so, he nodded. I have a fair knowledge of the modern tongue and a rather unusual command of Arabic. The modern Persian, as you know, comes straight through from the speech of Xerxes, of Cyrus, of Darius, whom Alexander of Macedon conquered. It has been changed mainly by taking on a load of Arabic words. Well, there wasn't a trace of the Arabic in the tongue they were speaking. It sounded odd, of course, but I could understand quite easily. They were talking about Ruth. To be explicit, they were discussing her with exceeding frankness. Martin, she cried wrathfully. Well, all right, he went on half-repentantly. As a matter of fact, I had seen the pair steal up. My rifle was under my hand, so I lay there quietly, listening. You can realize, Walter, that when I caught sight of those two, looking as though they had materialized from Darius's ghostly hordes, my scientific curiosity was aroused, prodigiously. So in my interest, I passed over the matter of their speech, not alone because I thought Ruth asleep, but also because I took into consideration that the mode of polite expression changes with the centuries. And these gentlemen clearly belonged at least twenty centuries back. The real truth is I was consumed with curiosity. They had got to a point where they were detailing with what pleasure a certain mysterious person whom they seemed to regard with much fear and respect would contemplate her. I was wondering how long my desire to observe, for to the anthropologists they were most fascinating, could hold my hand back from my rifle when Ruth awakened. She jumped up like a little fury, fired a pistol-point blank at them. Their amazement was, well, ludicrous. I know it seems incredible, but they seemed to know nothing of firearms. They certainly acted as though they didn't. They simply flew into the timber. I took a pistol-shot at one, but missed. Ruth hadn't, though. She had winged her man. He left a red trail behind him. We didn't follow the trail. We made for the opposite direction, and as fast as possible. Nothing happened that day or night. Next morning, creeping up a slope, we caught sight of a suspicious glitter a mile or two away in the direction we were going. We sought shelter in a small ravine. In a little while, over the hill, and half a mile away from us, about two hundred of these fellows marching along. And they were indeed Darius's men. Men of that Persia which had been dead for millenniums. There was no mistaking them with their high covering shields, their great bows, their javelins, and armor. They passed. We doubled. We built no fires that night, and we ought to have turned the pony loose, but we didn't. It carried my instruments and ammunition, and I felt we were going to need the latter. The next morning we caught sight of another band, or the same. We turned again. We stole through a tree-covered plain. We struck an ancient road. It led south into the peaks again. We followed it. It brought us here. It isn't, as you observe, the most comfortable of places. We struck across the hollow to the crevice. We knew nothing of the entrance you came through. The hollow was not pleasant either, but it was penetrable, then. We crossed. As we were about to enter the cleft, there issued out of it a most unusual and disconcerting chorus of sounds. Whalings, crashings, splinterings. I started, shot a look at Dick, absorbed. He was drinking in Vintner's every word. So unusual, so, well, disconcerting is the best word I can think of, that we were not encouraged to proceed. Also, the peculiar unpleasantness of the hollow was increasing rapidly. We made the best time we could back to the fortress, and when next we tried to go through the hollow to search for another outlet, we couldn't. You know why, he ended abruptly. But men in ancient armor, men like those of Darius, Dick broke the silence that had followed this amazing recital. It's incredible! Yes, agreed Vintner, isn't it? But there they were. Of course, I don't maintain that they were relics of Darius's armies. They might have been of Xerxes before him, or of Arta-Xerxes after him. But there they certainly were, Drake, living, breathing replicas of exceedingly ancient Persians. Why, they might have been the wall carvings and the tomb of Kostros come to life. I mention Darius because he fits in with the most plausible hypothesis. When Alexander the Great smashed his empire, he did it rather thoroughly. There wasn't much sympathy for the vanquished in those days. And it's entirely conceivable that a city or two in Alexander's way might have gathered up a fleeting regiment or so for protection and have decided not to wait for him, but to hunt for cover. Naturally they would have gone into the almost inaccessible heart of the High Ranges. There is nothing impossible in the theory that they found shelter at last up here. As long as history runs, this has been a well-nigh unknown land. Penetrating some mountain-guarded, easily defended valley they might have decided to settle down for a time, have rebuilt a city, raised a government, laying low in a sentence waiting for the storm to blow over. Why did they stay? Well, they might have found the new life more pleasant than the old. And they might have been locked in their valley by some accident. Landslides, rock falls sealing up the entrance. There are a dozen reasonable possibilities. But those who hunted you weren't locked in, objected Drake. No, Vintner grandrufully. No, they certainly weren't. Maybe we drifted into their preserves by a way they don't know. Maybe they've found another way out. I'm sure I don't know. But I do know what I saw. The noises, Martin, I said, for his description of these had been the description of those we had heard in the Blue Valley. Have you heard them since? Yes, he answered, hesitating oddly. And do you think those soldiers you saw are still hunting for you? Having to doubt of it, he replied more carefully. They didn't look like chaps who would give up a hunt easily, at least not a hunt for such novel, interesting, and therefore desirable and delectable game as we must have appeared to them. Martin, I said decisively. Where's your pony? We'll try the hollow again at once. There's Ruth, and we'd never be able to hold back such numbers as you've described. You feel strong enough to try it? End of Chapter 3. Recording by Roger Moline. The Eagerness. The relief in his voice betrayed the tension, the anxiety which until now he had hidden so well, and hot shame burned me from my shrinking, my dread of again passing through that haunted veil. I certainly do. I was once again master of myself. Drake, don't you agree? Sure, he replied. Sure, I'll look after Ruth, or I mean Miss Vettner. The glint of amusement in Vettner's eyes at this faded abruptly. His face grew somber. Wait, he said. I carried away some exhibits from the crevice of the noises, Goodwin. What kind of exhibits, I asked eagerly. Put him where they'd be safe, he continued. I've an idea they're far more curious than our armored men, and of far more importance. At any rate, we must take them with us. Go with Ruth, you and Drake, and look at them, and bring them back with a pony. Then we'll make a start. A few more minutes probably won't make much difference, but hurry. He turned back to his watch. Ordering Chiu Ming to stay with him, I followed Ruth and Drake down the ruined stairway. At the bottom she came to me, laid little hands on my shoulders. Walter, she breathed. I'm frightened. I'm so frightened I'm afraid to tell even Mart. He doesn't like them either, these little things you're going to see. He likes them so little that he's afraid to let me know how little he does like them. But what are they? What's the fear about them? Asked Drake. See what you think. You let us slowly, almost reluctantly, toward the rear of the fortress. They lay in a heap at the mouth of the cleft where we heard the noises. Martin picked them up and dropped them in a sack before we ran through the hollow. They're grotesque, and they're almost cute. And they make me feel as though they were the tiniest, tippy tip of the claw of some incredibly large cat just stealing around the corner. A terrible cat. A cat as big as a mountain. She ended breathlessly. We climbed through the crumbling masonry into the central open court. Here, a clear spring bubbled up in a ruined and choked stone basin. Close to the ancient well was their pony, contentedly browsing in the thick grass that grew around it. From one of its hampers, Ruth took a large cloth bag. To carry them, she said, and trembled. We passed through what had once been a great door into another chamber larger than the one we had just left. And it was in better preservation, the ceiling unbroken. The light dim after the blazing sun of the court. Near its center she halted us. Before me ran a two feet wide, ragged crack, splitting the floor and dropping down into black depths. Beyond was an expanse of smooth flagging, almost clear of debris. Drake gave a low whistle. I followed his pointing finger. In the wall at the end, world two enormous dragon shapes cut in low relief. Their gigantic wings, their monstrous coils, covered the nearly unbroken surface. And these chimere were the shapes upon the upthrust blocks of the haunted roadway. In Ruth's gaze I read a nameless fear, a half-shuttering fascination. But she was not looking at the cavern dragons. Her gaze was fixed upon what at my first glance seemed to be a raised and patterned circle in the dust-covered floor. Not more than a foot in width, it shone wildly in the pale, metallic bluish luster as though I thought it had been recently polished. Compared with the wall's tremendous winged figures, this floor design was trivial, ludicrously insignificant. What could there be about it to stamp that dread upon Ruth's face? I leaped the crevice, Dick joined me. Now I could see that the ring was not continuous. Its broken circle was made of sharply edged cubes about an inch in height, separated from each other with mathematical exactness by another inch of space. I counted them, there were nineteen. Almost touching them with their bases were an equal number of pyramids of tetrahedrons as sharply angled and of similar length. They lay on their sides, with tips pointing star-like, to six spheres, clustered like a conventionalized five-petaled primrose in the exact center. Five of these spheres, the petals, were, I roughly calculated, about an inch and a half in diameter, the ball they enclosed larger by almost an inch. So orderly was their arrangement, so much like a geometrical design nicely done by some clever child that I hesitated to disturb it. I bent and stiffened the first touch of dread upon me, for within the ring, close upon the clustering globes, was a miniature replica of the giant track in the poppied valley. It stood out from the dust with the same hint of crushing force, the same die-cut sharpness, the same metallic suggestion, and pointing towards the globes were the claw marks of the four spreading star points. I reached down and picked up one of the pyramids. It seemed to cling to the rock. It was with effort that I wrenched it away. It gave to the touch a slight sensation of warmth. How can I describe it? A warmth that was living. I weighed it in my hand. It was oddly heavy, twice the weight, I should say, of platinum. I drew out a glass and examined it. Decidedly the pyramid was metallic, but a finest, almost silken texture, and I could not place it among any of the known metals. It was certainly none I had ever seen, yet it was as certainly metal. It was striated, slender filaments radiating from tiny, dully lustrous points within the polished surface, and suddenly I had the weird feeling that each of these points was an eye peering up at me, scrutinizing me. There came a startled cry from Dick. Look at the ring! The ring was in motion. Faster the cubes moved, faster the circle revolved, the pyramids raised themselves, stood bolt upright on their square bases. The six rolling spheres touched them, joined the spinning, and with slight of hand suddenness the ring drew together. Its units coalesced, cubes and pyramids and globes threading with a curious suggestion of ferment. With the same startling abruptness there stood erect, where but a moment before they had seized a little figure, grotesque, a weirdly humorous, a vaguely terrifying foot-high shape squared and angled and pointed and animate, as though a child should build from nursery blocks a fantastic shape which abruptly is filled with throbbing life, a troll from the kindergarten, a cobalt of the toys. Only for a second it stood, then began swiftly to change, melting with quicksilver quickness from one outline into another as square and triangle and spheres changed places. Their shiftings were like the transformation one sees within a kaleidoscope and in each vanishing form was the suggestion of unfamiliar harmonies, of a subtle, a transcendental geometric art as though each swift shaping were a symbol, a word. Euclid's problems given volition. Geometry endowed with consciousness. It ceased, then the cubes drew one upon the other until they formed a pedestal nine inches high. Up this pillar rolled the larger globe, balancing itself upon the top. The five spheres followed it, clustered like a ring just below it. The other cubes raced up, clicked two by two on the outer arc of each of the five balls. The end of these twin blocks of pyramid took its place, tipping each with a point. The Liliputian fantasy was now a pedestal of cubes, surmounted by a ring of globes from which sprang a star of five arms. The spheres began to revolve, faster and faster they spun around the base of the crowning globe. The arms became a disk upon which brilliant sparks appeared, clustered, vanished only to reappear in greater number. The troll swept toward me. It glided. The finger of panic touched me. I sprang aside, and swift as light it followed seemed to poise itself to leap. Drop it! It was Ruth's cry. But before I could let fall the pyramid I had forgotten was in my hand. The little figure touched me, and a paralyzing shock ran through me. My fingers clenched, locked. I stood, muscle and nerve bound, unable to move. The little figure paused. Its whirling discs shifted from the horizontal plane upon which it spun. It was as though it cocked its head to look up at me. And again I had the sense of innumerable eyes peering at me. It did not seem menacing. Its attitude was inquisitive, waiting. Almost as though it had asked for something and wondered why I did not let it have it. The shock still held me rigid, although every tingle and every nerve told me of returning force. The disc tilted back to place. Bend toward me again. I heard a shout. Heard a bullet strike the pygmy that now clearly menaced. Heard the bullet ricochet without the slightest effect upon it. Dick leaped beside me, raised the foot and kicked at the thing. There was a flash of light, and upon the instant he crashed down as though struck by a giant hand. Lay sprawling and inert upon the floor. There was a scream from Ruth. There was a softly sibilant rustling all about her. I saw her leap the crevice. Drop on her knees beside Drake. There was movement on the flagging where she stood. A score or more of faintly shining bluish shapes were marching there. Pyramids and cubes and spheres like those forming the shape that stood before me. There was a curious sharp tang of ozone in the air, a perceptible tightening as of electrical tension. They swept to the edge of the fissure, swam together and there, hanging half over the gap was a bridge, half spanning it, a weird and fairy arch, made up of alternate cube and angle. The shape of my feet disintegrated, resolved itself into units and raced over to the beckoning's band. At the hither side of the crack, they clicked into place, even as had the others. Before me now was a bridge complete, except for the one arc near the middle where an angled gap marred it. I felt a little object I held pulse within my hand, striving to escape. I dropped it. The tiny shape swept to the bridge, ascended it, dropped into the gap. The arch was complete, hanging in one flying span over the depths. Upon it, over it, as though they had but awaited this completion, rolled the six globes. And as they dropped to the farther side, the end of the bridge nearest me raised itself in the air, curved itself like a scorpion's tail, drew itself into a closer circled arc and dropped upon the floor beyond. Again the sibilant rustling, the cubes and pyramids and spheres were gone. Nerves tingling slowly back to life, mazed in absolute bewilderment, my gaze sought drake. He was sitting up, feebly, his head supported by Ruth's hands. Goodwin, he whispered. What? What were they? Metal, I said. It was the only word to which my whirling mind could cling. Metal. Metal, he echoed. These things metal? Metal alive and thinking? Suddenly he was silent, his face a page on which, visibly, dread gathered slowly and ever deeper. And as I looked at Ruth, white-faced, and at him, I knew that my own was as pallid, as terror stricken as theirs. They were such little things, mother drake, such little things, bits of metal, little globes and pyramids and cubes, just little things. Babes. Only babes, it was Ruth. Babes. Bits of metal. Dick's gaze sought mine, held it. And they looked for each other. They worked with each other, thinkingly, consciously. Liberate, purposeful, little things. And with the force of a score of dynamos, living, thinking. Don't, Ruth laid white hands over his eyes. Don't, don't you be frightened? Frightened, he echoed. I'm not afraid, yes. I am afraid. He rose stiffly and stumbled toward me. Afraid, drake afraid? Well, so was I. Bitterly, terribly afraid. For what we had beheld in the dusk of that dragon-ruined chamber was outside all experience, beyond all knowledge or dream of science. Not their shapes, that was nothing. Not even that being metal they had moved, but that being metal they had moved consciously, thoughtfully, deliberately. They were metal things with minds. That, that was the incredible, the terrifying thing. That and their power. Thor compressed within hippomythum and thinking. The lightnings incarnate in metal minicules and thinking. The inert, the immobile, given volition, movement, cognizance, thinking. Metal with a brain. For more from Mike Schwabbe, go to www.craftinvoice.com Chapter 5 of The Metal Monster This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Robin Ballmer. The Metal Monster by Abraham Merritt. Chapter 5. The Smiting Thing Silently, we looked at each other, and silently we passed out of the courtyard. The dread was heavy upon me. The twilight was stealing upon the close clustered peaks. Another hour, and their amethyst and purple mantles would drop upon them. Snowfields and glaciers sparkle out in Irish beauty, nightfall. As I gazed upon them, I wondered to what secret place within their brooding immensities the little metal mysteries had fled, and to what myriads it might be of their kind, and these hidden hordes of what shapes were they, of what powers, small like these, or...or... Quick on the screen of my mind flashed two pictures, side by side, the little four-rayed print in the great dust of the crumbling ruin and its colossal twin on the breast of the poppied valley. I turned aside, crept through the shattered portal, and looked over the haunted hollow. Unbelieving, I rubbed my eyes, then leapt to the very brim of the bull. A lark had risen from the roof of one of the shattered heaps, and had flown caroling up into the shadowy sky. A flock of the little willow warblues flung themselves across the valley, scolding and gossiping. A hare set upright in the middle of the ancient roadway. The valley itself lay serenely under the ambering light, smiling, peaceful, emptied of horror. I dropped over the side, walked cautiously down the road, up which but an hour or so before we had struggled so desperately, paced farther and farther with an increasing confidence and a growing wonder. Gone was that soul of loneliness, vanished the whirlpool of despair that had striven to drag us down to death. The bull was nothing but a quiet, smiling, lovely little hollow in the hills. I looked back, even the ruins had lost their sinister shape. Were time-worn crumbling piles, nothing more. I saw Ruth and Drake run out upon the ledge and back in me, made my way back up to them, running. It's all right, I shouted. The place is all right. I stumbled up the side, joined them. It's empty, I cried. Get Martin and Chu Ming quick, while the way is open. A rifle shot rang out above us, another and another. The man who was holding his robe tucked up about his knees. They come, he gasped. They come. There was a flashing of spears high up in the winding mountain path. Down it was pouring an avalanche of men. I caught the glint of helmets and coarselets. Those in the van were mounted, galloping to a breast upon sure-footed mountain ponies. Their short swords lifted high, flickered. After the horsemen swarmed foot soldiers, a forest of shining points and dilly gleaming pikes above them. Clearly to us came their battle cries. Again, Venter's rifle cracked. One of the foremost riders went down. Another stumbled over him, fell. The rush was checked for an instant, milling upon the road. Dick, I cried, rush roof over to the tumble mouth. We'll follow. We can hold them there. I'll get Martin, Chu Ming, after the pony, quick. I pushed the two over the rim of the hollow. Side by side, the Chinaman and I ran through the gateway. I pointed to the animal and rushed back to the fortress. Quick, Mart, I shouted, up the shattered stairway. We can get through the hollow. Ruth and Drake are on their way to the break we came through. Hurry. All right, just a minute he called. I heard him empty his magazine with almost machine-gun quickness. There was a short pause, and down the broken steps he leapt, gray eyes blazing. The pony, he ran beside me along the portal. The ammunition is on him. Chu Ming's taking care of that, I gasped. We darted out to the gateway. A good five hundred yards away were Ruth and Drake running straight to the green tunnel's mouth. Between them and us was Chu Ming, urging on the pony. As we sped after him, I looked back. The horsemen had recovered. We're now a scant half-mile from where the road swept past the fortress. I saw that with their swords the horsemen bore great bows. The little cloud of arrows sparkled from them fell far short. Don't look back, grunted ventner. Stretch yourself, Walter. There's a surprise coming. Hope to God I judged the time, right? We turned off the ruined way, raced over the sword. It looks as though we can't make it, he panted. You beat it after the rest. I'll try to hold him until you get into the tunnel. Never do for him to get Ruth. Right. My own breathing was growing labored. We'll hold them. Drake can take care of Ruth. Good boy, he said. I wouldn't have asked you. Probably means death. Very well, I gasped, irritated. But why borrow trouble? He reached out, touched me. You're right, Walter, he grinned. It does seem like carrying coals to Newcastle. There was a thunderous booming behind us, a shattering crash, a cloud of smoke and dust hung over the northern end of the ruined fortress. It lifted swiftly, and I saw that the whole side of the structure had fallen, littering the road with its fragments. Scattered prone among these were men and horses, others staggered, screaming. On the further side of this stony dyke, our pursuers were held like rushing waters behind a sudden fallen tree. Timed to a second, cried Bentner, hold him for a while, fuses in dynamite, blow out the whole side right on him by the Lord. On we fled. Timing was now well in advance, Ruth and Dick less than half a mile from the opening of the green tunnel. I saw Drake stop, raise his rifle, empty it before him, and, holding Ruth by the hand, race back toward us. Even as he turned, the vine screened entrance through which we had come, through which we had thought, lay safety, streamed other armored men. We were outflanked. To the Fisher, shouted Bentner. Drake heard, for he changed his course while Ruth had said the little things at Lane. After him streaked Chew Ming, urging on the pony, shouting out of the tunnel, down over the lip of the bowl, left the soldiers. We dropped upon our knees, sent shot after shot into them. They fell back, hesitated. We sprang up, sped on. All too short was the cheque, but once more we held them, and again. Now Ruth and Dick were a scant fifty yards from the crevice. One stop, push her from him toward it. She shook her head. Now Chew Ming was with them. Ruth sprang to the pony, lifted from its back a rifle, then into the mass of their pursuers Drake and she poured a fuselage. They huddled, wavered, broke for cover. A chance, gasp Bentner. Behind us was a wolf-like yelping. The first pack had reformed, had crossed the barricade the dynamite had made, was rushing upon us. I ran as I had never known I could. Over us wind the bullets from the covering guns. Close were we now to the mouth of the Fisher. If we could but reach it. Close, close were our pursuers too. The arrows closer. No youth, said Bentner. We can't make it. Meet them from the front, drop and shoot. We threw ourselves down, facing them. There came a triumphant shouting, and in that strange sharpening of the senses it always goes hand in hand with deadly peril. That is indeed nature's summoning of every reserve to meet that peril. My eyes took them in with photographic nicety. The linked male lacquered blue and scarlet of the horsemen, brown padded armor of the footmen, their bows and javelins and short bronze swords, their pikes and shields, and under their round helmets their cruel bearded faces, white as our own where the black beards did not pierce in mocking eyes. The springs of ancient Persia's long dead power these, men of Xerxes's ruthlessness, world conquering hordes, the lustful, ravening wolves of Darius whom Alexander scattered, in this world of ours 20 centuries beyond their time. Swiftly, accurately, even as I scanned them we had been drilling into them, they advanced deliberately, heedless of their fallen. Their arrows had ceased to fly. I wondered why for now we were well within their range, had the orders to take us alive at whatever cost of themselves. But when I got about 10 cartridges left, Martin, I told him. We've saved Ruth anyway, he said. Drake got to be able to hold that hole in the wall. He's got lots of ammunition on the pony, but they've got us. Another wild shouting, down swept the pack. We left to our feet, sent our last troops into them, stood ready, rifles clubbed to meet the rush. I heard Ruth scream. What was the matter with the armored men? Why had they halted? What was it at which they were glaring over our heads, and why had the rifle fire of Ruth and Drake ceased so abruptly? Simultaneously, we turned. Within the black background of the fissures stood a shape, an apparition, a woman, beautiful, awesome, incredible. She was tall, standing there swathed from chin to feet, in clinging veils of pale amber. She seemed taller even than tall Drake, yet it was not her height that sent through me the thrill of awe, of half incredulous terror which, relaxing my grip, let my smoking rifle drop to the earth. Nor was it that about her proud head, a cloud of shining tresses swirled and pennant, like a misty banner of woven copper flames. No, nor that through her veils her body gleamed faint radiance. It was her eyes, her great wide eyes, whose clear depths were like pools of living starfires. They shone from her white face, not phosphorescent, not merely lucent and light reflecting, but as though they themselves were sources of the cold white flames of far stars, and as calm as those stars themselves. And in that face, although as yet I could distinguish nothing but the eyes, I sensed something unearthly. God was preventer. What is she? The woman stepped from the crevice, not fifty-freet from her were Ruth and Drake and Chu Ming. Their rigid attitudes revealed the same shock of awe that had momentarily paralyzed me. She looked at them, beckoned them. I saw the two walk toward her, Chu Ming hang back. The great eyes fell upon Ventner and Ruth. She raised a hand, motioned us to approach. I turned. There stood the host that had poured down the mountain road. Horsemen, spearsmen, pikemen, a full thousand of them, at my right were the scattered company that had come from the tunnel entrance, three score or more. There seemed a spell upon them. They stood in silence, like automatons, only their fiercely staring eyes showing that they were alive. Quick, breathed Ventner. We ran toward her, who had checked death even while its jaws were closing upon us. Before we had gone halfway, as though our flight had broken whatever bonds had bound them, a clamor arose from the host, a wild shouting, a clanging of swords on shields. I shot a glance behind. They were in motion, advancing slowly, hesitatingly as yet. But I knew that soon that hesitation would pass that they would sweep down upon us and gulf us. To the crevice I shouted to Drake. He paid no heed to me, nor did Ruth, their gaze fastened upon the swathed woman. Ventner's hand shot out, gripped my shoulder, halted me. She had thrown up her head. The cloudy metallic hair billowed as the wind had blown it. From the lifted throat came a low, a vibrant cry, harmonious, weirdly disquieting, golden and sweet, and laden with the eerie, minor wailings at the Blue Valley's night, the dragon's chamber. Before the cry had ceased, they poured, with incredible swiftness out of the crevice, score upon score of the metal things. The fishers vomited them. Globes and cubes and pyramids, not small like those of the ruins, but shapes all of four feet high, duly lustrous, and deep within that luster the myriads of tiny points of light like unwinking, staring eyes. They swirled, eddied and formed a barricade between us and the armored men. Down upon them poured a shower of arrows from the soldiers. I heard the shouts of their captains. They rushed. They had courage, those men, yes. Again came the woman's cry, golden, peremptory. Sphere and block and pyramid ran together, seemed to see. I had again that sense of quicksilver melting. Up from them thrust a thick rectangular column. Eight feet in width and twenty feet high, it shaped itself. Out from its left side, from right side sprang arms, fearful arms that grew and grew, as globe and cube and angle raced up the column side and clicked into place each upon each after the other, with magical quickness the arms lengthened. Before us stood a monstrous shape, a geometric prodigy, a shining angular pillar that, though rigid, noble, seemed to crouch, be instinct with living force striving to be unleashed. Two great globes surmounted it, like the heads of some two-faced Janus of an alien world. At the left and right, the noveled arms now fully fifty feet in length writhed, twisted, straightened, flexing themselves in grotesque imitation of a boxer. And at the end of each of the six arms the spheres were clustered thick, studded with pyramids. An gigantic, awful parody of the spiked gloves of those ancient gladiators who fought for Imperial Nero. For an instant it stood there, preening, testing itself like an athlete, a chimera, a morphis, yet weirdly symmetric. Under the darkening sky and the green of the hollow the armored hosts frozen before it. And then it struck. Outflashed two of the arms with a glancing motion with appalling force, they sliced into the close-packed forward ranks of the armored men, cut out of them two great gaps. Sickened I saw fragments of man and horse fly. Another arm javelined from its place like a flying snake, clicked at the end of another, became a hundred foot chain which swirled like a flail through the huddling mass. Down upon a knot of the soldiers with a straightforward blow drove a third arm, driving through them like a giant punch. A roast which had driven us from the ruins threw down sword, spear, and pike, fled, shrieking. The horsemen spurred their mounts, riding heedless over the footmen who fled with them. The smiting thing seemed to watch them go with amusement. Before they could cover a hundred yards at a disintegrated I heard the little wailing sounds then behind the fleeing men, close behind them rose the angled pillar into place sprang the flexing arms that took its toll of them. They scattered running singly by twos and little groups for the sides of the valley. They were like rats scampering in panic over the bottom of a great green bowl and like a monstrous cat the shape played with them. Yes, played. It melted once more, took new form. Where had been a pillar and flailing arms was now a tripod thirty feet high, its legs alternate globe and cube, and upon its apex a thin spinning ring of sparkling spheres out from the middle of this ring stretched a tentacle writhing undulating like a serpent of steel four score yards at least in length. At its end cube, globe, and pyramid had mingled to form a huge trident. With the three long prongs of this trident the thing struck swiftly with fearful precision joyously tining those who fled forking them, tossing them in the air. It was, I think, that last touch of sheer horror, the playfulness of the smiting thing that sent my dry tongue to the roof of my tear-parched mouth and held open with monstrous fascination eyes that struggled to close. Ever the armored men fled from it, and ever was it swifter than they, teetering at their heels on its tripod legs. From half its length the darting snake streamed red rain. Aside from Ruth, rested my gaze from the hollow, turned chile fainting in Drake's arms. Beside the two, the swathed woman stood, looking out upon that slaughter, calm and still, shrouded with an unearthly tranquility, viewing it it came to me with eyes impersonal, cold, indifferent as the untroubled stars which look down upon hurricane and earthquake in this world of ours. There was a rushing of many feet at our left, a whale from Chu Ming. Were they maddened by fear, driven by despair, determined to slay before they themselves were slain? I do not know, but those who still lived from the men from the tunnel mouth were charging us. They clustered close, their shields held before them. They had no bows, these men. They moved swiftly down upon us in silence, swords and pikes gleaming. The smiting thing rocked toward us, the metal tentacles straining out like a rigid racing serpent flying to cut between its weird mistress and those who minister. I heard Chu Ming scream, saw him throw up his hands, cover his eyes, run straight upon the pikes. Chu Ming, I shouted, Chu Ming this way. I ran toward him, before I had gone five paces, ventner flashed by me, revolver spitting. I saw a spear thrown, it struck the Chinaman squarely in the breast. He tottered, fell upon his knees. Even as he dropped, the giant flail swept down upon the soldiers. It swept through them like a scythe, through ripe grain. It threw them broken and torn far toward the valley's sloping sides. It left only fragments that bore no semblance to men. Ventner was at Chu Ming's head. I dropped beside him. There was a crimson froth upon his lips. I thought that Xin Ji was about to slay us, he whispered. Fear blinded me. His head dropped, his body quivered. Lay still. We arose, looked about us, dayzedly. At the side of the crevasse stood the woman, her gaze resting upon Drake, his arms about Ruth, her head hidden on his breast. The valley was empty, saved for the huddled heaps that dotted it. High up on the mountain path the score of figures crept, all that were left of those, but a little before had streamed down to take us captive or to slay. High up in the darkening heavens the lammer gears, the winged scavengers of the Himalayas were gathering. The woman lifted her hand, beckoned us once more. Slowly we walked toward her, stood before her. The great clear eyes searched us, but no more intently than our own wondering eyes did her. End of chapter 5 The Metal Monster and Merit