 chapter 23 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. The Metal Monster by Abraham Merritt, chapter 23, the Treasury of Europe. Was it true that time is within ourselves that like space, its twin, it is only a self-created illusion of the human mind? There are odds that flash on by hummingbird wings. There are seconds that shuffle on short in leaden shoes. Was it true that when death faces us, the consciousness finds power through its will to live to conquer the illusion, to prolong time? That, recoiling from oblivion, we can recreate in a fractional moment whole years gone past, years yet to come, striving to lengthen our existence, stretching out our aperception beyond the phantom boundaries or drawing upon a barma side deposit of minutes, staking fresh claims upon a mirage? How else explain the seeming slowness with which we were falling, the seeming lesionist with which the wall drifted up past us? And was this punishment a sentence meted out for profaning with our own eyes of a bidden place? A penalty for touching with our gaze the arc of the metal tribes? They're holy of holies, the budding place of the metal babes? The valley was swinging, swinging in slow, broad curves, was oscillating the zeely. Slowly the colossal wall slipped upwards. Realization swept me, left me amazed, only half believing. This was no illusion. After that first swift plunge our fall had been checked. We were swinging, not the valley. Deliverately in wide arcs like pendulums, we were swinging across the city's carp, three feet out from it, and as we swung, slowly sinking. And now I saw the countless eyes of the watching wall again with twinkling, regarding us with impish mockery. It was the grip of the living wall that held us, that rocked us from side to side, as though giving greater breadth of it, chance to behold us, that was dropping us gently, carefully, to the valley floor, now a scant two thousand feet below. A storm of rage of intense resentment swept me, as once before any gratitude I should have felt for escape was submerged in the utter humiliation with which it was charged. I shook my fists at the twinkling wall, strove to kick and smite it like an angry child, cursed it, not childishly. Dared it to hurl me down to death. I felt Drake's hand touch mine, steady he said, steady old boy, it's no use, steady, look down, hot with shame for my outburst, weak from its violence, I obeyed. The valley floor was not more than a thousand feet away, thronging about where we must at last touch, clustered and seething was a multitude of the metal things. They seemed to be looking up at us, watching, waiting for us. Reception, committee, grinned Drake. I glanced away over the valley. It was luminously clear, yet the sky was overcast, no stars showing. The light was now no stronger than that of the moon at four, but it held a quality unfamiliar to me. It cast no shadows, though soft it was piercing, revealing all at bat with the distinctness of bright sunshine. The illumination came, I thought, from the encircling veils falling from the band of amethyst, and as I peered out of the veils and far away sped a violent spark. With neatier speed, it flew towards us. Close to the base of the vast faquette, it landed with a flashing of blue incandescence. I knew it for one of the flying things, the markmakers, one of the incredible messengers. Close upon its fall came increase in the turmoil of the crowding throng awaiting us, came to and abrupt change in our own motion. The long arcs lessened. We were dropped most swiftly. Far away in the direction from which the flying thing had flown, I sensed another movement, something coming that carried with it subtle suggestion of unlikeness to all the other incisors linked movement over the pit. Closer it drew. Norhalla gasped drake, rubbed in her silken amber swathings, red copper hair streaming. Woven with elfin sparklings, she was racing towards the city like some lovely witch riding upon the back of a steed of huge cubes. Nearer she raced. More direct became our fall. Now we were dropping as though at the end of an unrailing plummet god. The floor of the valley was no more than 200 feet below. Norhalla, we shouted. And again, and again, again, Norhalla. Before a cries could have reached her, the cubes served, came to a halt beneath us. Through the hundred feet of space between, I got the brilliancy of the weird constellations in Norhalla's great eyes. Solved the wig, but no less tired foreboding that, on her face, dwelt a terrifying blasting rod. As softly as though by the hand of a giant of a cloud, we were lifted out from the wall and were set with no perceptible shock beside her on the back of the cubes. Norhalla, I stopped. For this was no Norhalla whom we had known. Gone was all the calm, vanished every trace of unearthly tranquility. It was a Norhalla awakened at last, all human. Yet, in the still rage that filled her, I sensed a force, an intensity more than human. Over the blazing eyes, the brows were knit in a rigid golden bar. The delicate nostrils were pinched, the sweet red mouth was white and merciless. It was as though, in its long sleep, her human self had gathered more than human strength. And that, now awakened and unleashed, the violence of its rage touched the vibrant zenith of that sphere of which her quite had been the nether. She was like an urn filled in flaming with the fires of the gods of wrath. What was it that had awakened her? What, in awakening, had changed the in pouring human consciousness into this flood of fury? Foreboding gripped me. Norhalla, my voice was shaken. Those we left, they are gone. The golden voice was octaves deeper, vibrant, throbbing with that muffled, menacing note that must have pulsed from the golden timbres that summoned to the battle timos, fierce hordes they were taken. Taken, I gasped. Taken by what? These? I swept my hands out toward the metal things milling around us. No, these are mine. These are they who obey me. The golden voice now shrilled with her passion. Taken by men. Drake had read my face, although he could not understand the words. Ruth? Taken, I said. Both Ruth and Ventna, taken by the armored men, the men of Cherkis. Cherkis, she had cut the word. Yes, Cherkis. And now he and all his men and all his women and every living thing he rules shall pay. And fear not, you two. For I, Norhalla, will bring back my own. Woe, woe to thee, Cherkis, and to all of yours. For I, Norhalla, am awake. And I, Norhalla, remember. Woe to you, Cherkis. Woe. For now all ends for you. Not by the gods of my mother who turn their strength against her, do I promise this. I, Norhalla, have no need for them. I, Norhalla, who have strength greater than they. And would I could crush those gods as I shall crush you, Cherkis, and every living thing of yours. Yeah, and every unliving thing as well. Not halting, now was Norhalla's speech. It bored from their rutless lips flamingly. We go, she cried, and something of vengeance I have saved for you, as is your right. She tossed her arms high, stamped upon the back of the metal thing that held us, it quivered and sped away, swiftly dwindled the city's bulk, fast-faded its glimmering watchful face. Not toward the wheels of light, but over the plane with lieu. Above us, crouching against the blast of our going, streamed like a sulken banner, Norhalla's hair jammed with the witch-lights. We were far out now, the city far away, the cube slowed. Norhalla, through high her head, from the arched, exquisite throat, peeled a trumpet call, golden, summoning, imperious. Thrice it rang forth, and all the surrounding valley seemed to halt and listen. Followed upon its ending, a chanting, as goldenly sonorous. Wild, preemptory, primebant, it was like a mustering shout to adventurous stars, bugling to buccaneering winds, cadenthed beckoning, trestless ranks of viking waves, signaling to all the corsairs and picanoers of the elemental, a cosmic call to slay. The gigantic block upon which we rode quivered, I myself felt a thousand needle-pointed, roving arrows prick me, urging me on to some jubilant, reckless orgy of destruction. Obeying that summoning there, swirled to us cube and globe and pyramid by the score, by the hundreds, they swept into our wake and followed, lifting up behind us an ever-rising sea. Higher and higher rose the metal wave, mounting, ever-mounting, as others' score upon score leaped upon it, rushed up it and swelled its crust, and soon so great it was that it shadowed us and over us. The cubes we rode angled in their cores raced now with ever-increasing speed towards the spangled curtains, and still Norhala's golden chant lured, higher and even higher raced the following wave. Now, we were rising up a steep slope. Now, the emethystene gleaming ring was almost overheard. Norhala's song ceased. One, breathless, soundless movement, and we had pierced the wheels, a globule of sapphire shone afar, the elfin bubble of her home. We neared it. Heart leaping, I saw three ponies, high and empty saddles, torquers stuttered, lifted their heads from their roadway browsing. For a moment they stood, stiff with terror, then whimpering raced away. We were at Norhala's door, were lifted down, stood close to its threshold, slaves to a single thought, drake and eyes sprang to enter. Wait! Norhala's white hands caught us. There is peril there, without me. Me you must follow. Upon the exquisite phase was no unshadowing of ramp, no diminishing of rage, no weakening of dreadful determination. The star-flecked eyes were not upon us, they looked over and beyond, coldly calculating. Not enough, I heard her whisper, not enough, for that which I will do. We turned, following her gaze, a hundred feet on high, stretching nearly across the gorge. An incredible curtain was flung. Over its folds was movement, arms of spinning globes that rushed forth like paws and down upon which leaped pyramid upon pyramid, stiffening as the clung like bristling spikes of hair. Great bars of clicking cubes that threw themselves from the shuttering, ship and vigil. The curtain was a ferment, shifting mercurial, it throbbed with desire, palpitated with eagerness. Not enough, murmured Norhala, her lips parted. From them came another trumpeting, tyrannic, arrogant and clangorous. Under it the curtain writhed, out from its perchethin cascades of cubes, the swarmed up into tall pillars that shook and swayed and gyrated. With blinding flash upon flash, the sapphire incandescences struck forth at their feet. A score of flaming columned shapes leaped up and curved in, niche a flight over the tumultuous curtain, streaming with violet fires the shot back to the valley of the city. High, shouted Norhala's dayfuel, high, up darted her arms, the starry galaxies of her eyes danced madly, shot forth visible rays. The mighty curtain of the metal things pulsed and throbbed, its units interweaving, block and globe and pyramid of which it was woven, each seeming to strain at leash. Come, cried Norhala, and led the way through the portal. Close behind her, we pressed. I stumbled, nearly fell, over a brown-faced, leather courriaste body that lay half over, legs barring the threshold. Contemptuously, Norhala stepped over it. We were within that chamber of the pool. About it lay a fair dozen of the armoured men, Ruth's defences, I thought with a grim delight, had been most excellent. Those who had taken her, and Wettner, had not done so without paying full toll. A violet flashing drew my eyes away. Close to the pool, close to the pool, wherein we had first seen the white miracle of Norhala's body, two immense purple-fired stars blazed. Between them, like a sublime cast from Black Iron, was Eurok. Poised upon their nether-tips, the stars guarded him, head touching his knees, eyes hidden within his folded arms, the black enunched, grouched. Eurok, there was an unearthly mercilessness in Norhala's voice. The enunch raised his head, slowly, fearfully. Goddess, he was born, Goddess, mercy. I saved him, she turned to us, for you to slay. He it was who brought those who took the maid who was mine, and the helpless one she laughed. Slay him. Drake understood. His hand twitched down to his pistol, drew it. He levels the gun at the black enunch. Eurok saw it, shrieked and covered. Norhala laughed, sweetly, ruthlessly. He dies before the stroke falls, she said. He dies doubly therefore, and that is well. Drake slowly lowered the automatic, turned to me. I can't, he said. I can't do it. Masters. Upon his knees, the enunched rides towards us. Masters, I meant no wrong. What I did was for love of the Goddess. Years upon years I have served her and her mother before her. I thought, if the maid and the blasted one were gone, that you would follow. Then I could be alone with the Goddess once more. Cherkis will not slay them, and Cherkis will welcome you and give the maid and the blasted one back to you, for the arts that you can teach him. Mercy, Masters, I meant no harm, but the Goddess be merciful. The ebb and pools of eyes were clarified of their ancient shadows by his terror. Age was wiped from them by fear, even as it was wiped from his face. The wrinkles were gone. Appalingly youthful, the face of Europe prayed to us. Why do you wait, she asked us. Time presses, and even now we should be on the way. When so many are so soon to die, why tarry over one? Slay him. Nor Hala, I answered. We cannot slay him so. When we kill, we kill in fair fight, hand to hand. The maid we both love has gone, taken with her brother. It will not bring her back if we kill him through whom she was taken. We would punish him, yes, but slay him we cannot, and we would be after the maid and her brother quickly. A moment she looked at us, perplexity shading the high and steady anger. As you will, she said at last. Then added, half sarcastically, perhaps it is because I, who am now awake, have slept so long that I cannot understand you, but Europe has disobeyed me. That of mine, which I committed to his care, he has given to the enemies of me and those who were mine. It matters nothing to me what you would do. Matters to me only what I will to do. She pointed to the dead. Europe, the golden voice, was cold. Gather up this carrion and pile them together. The Enunch arose. Stole out fearfully from between the two stars, his slither to body after body, dragging them one after the other to the centre of the chamber, lifting them and forming of them a heap. One there was who was not dead. His eyes open as the Enunch seized him. The blackened mouth opened. Water, he begged, gave me drink, I burned. I felt a thrill of pity, lifted my canteen and walked toward him. You of the beard, the merciless chime rang out, he shall have no water, but drink, he shall have and soon drink of fire. The soldiers' fevered eyes rolled towards her, saw and read a rite, the rootlessness in the beautiful face. Sorcerous he groaned, cursed Spawn of Ahriman. He spattered her. The black talons of Europe stretched round his throat. Son of unclean dogs, he wind. You dare blaspheme the goddess? He snapped the soldier's neck as though it had been a rotten twig. At the callous cruelty, I stood for an instant petrified. I heard Drake swear wildly, saw his pistol flash up. Norhalla struck down his arm. Your chance is past, she said, and not for that shall you slay him. And now Euruch had cast that body upon the others. The pile was complete. Mount commanded Norhalla and pointed. He cast himself at her feet, writhing, moaning, imploring. She looked at one of the great shapes. Something of command passed from her, something it understood plainly. The star slipped forward. There was an almost imperceptible movement of its side points. The twitching form of the black seemed to leap up from the floor, to throw itself like a bag upon the mound of the dead. Norhalla threw up her hands. Out of the violet ovals beneath the upper chips of the things spurted streams of blue flame. They fell upon Euruch and splashed over him upon the heap of the slain. In the mound was a dreadful movement, a contortion. The bodies stiffened, seemed to try to rise, to push away, dead nerves and muscles responding to the blasting energy passing through them. Out from the stars rained bolt upon bolt. In the chamber was the sound of thunder, crackling like broken glass. The bodies flamed, crumbled. There was a little smoke, nauseous, feebly protesting, beaten out by the consuming fires, almost before it could rise. Where have been the heap of slain capped? By the black enunch there was, but a little whirling cloud of sad grey dust. Caught by a passing draft, it eddied, slipped over the floor, vanished through the doorway. Motionless stood the blasting stars, contemplating us. Motionless stood Norhalla, her wrath, nor wit abated by the ghastly sacrifice, and paralyzed by what we had beheld, motionless stood we. Listen, she said, you too who love the maid, what you have seen is nothing to that which you shall see, a wisp of mist to the storm cloud. Norhalla, I found speech. Can you tell us when it was that the maid was captured? Perhaps there was still time to overtake the abductors before Ruth was thrust into the worst peril waiting where she was being carried. Crossed this thought another, puzzling baffling. The cliffs Euruc had pointed out to me are those through which the hidden way past were. I had estimated then at least 20 miles away. And how long was the pass, the tunnel through them? And then how far is this place of the armored men? It has been passed dawn when Drake had frightened the Black Enunch with his pistol. It was not yet dawn now. How could Euruc have made his way to the Persians so swiftly? How could they so swiftly have returned? Amazingly, she answered the spoken question and unspoken. They came long before dusk, she said, by the night before Euruc had won to Razark, the city of Cherkis. And long before dawn they were on their way hither. That's the Black Dog, I say, who told me. But Euruc was with us here at dawn yesterday, I gasped. A night has passed since then, she said, and another night is almost gone. Stunned, I considered this. If this were true, and not for an instant died out her, then not for a few hours had we lain there at the foot of the living wall in the hall of the cones but for the balance of that day and that night and another day and part of still another night. What does she say? Greg stared anxiously into my whitened face. I told him. Yes, nor Hala spoke again. The dusk before the last dusk that has passed, I returned to my house. The maid was there and sorrowing. She told me you had gone into the valley, prayed me to help you and to bring you back. I comforted her and, something of the peace I gave her, but not all, for she fought against it. A little we played together and I left her sleeping. I sought you and found you also sleeping. I knew no harm would come to you and I went my ways and forgot you. Then I came here again and found you rook and these the maid had slain. The great eyes flashed. Now do I honor the maid for the battle that she did? She said, though how she slew so many strongmen I do not know. My heart goes out to her and therefore when I bring her back she shall no more be plaything to nor Hala but sister and with you it shall be as she wills and woe to those who have taken her. She paused listening. From without came a rising storm of thin wailings insistent and eager. But I have an older vengeance than this to take, the golden voice told somberly. Long have I forgotten and shame I feel that I had forgotten. So long have I forgotten all hatreds, all lusts, all cruelty among these. She thrust a hand forth the hidden valley, forgot dwelling in the great harmonies. Safe for you and what has befallen I would never have stirred from them I think. But now awakened I take that vengeance. After it is done she paused. After it is over I shall go back again. For this awakening has in it nothing of the other joy I love. It is a fierce and slaying fire. I shall go back. The shadow of her far dreaming flitted over, softened the angry brilliancy of her eyes. Listen you too, the shadow of dream fled. Those that I am about to slay are evil. Evil are they all, men and women. Long have they been so, ye, for cycles of sons and their children grow like them, or if they be gentle and with love for peace they are slain or die of heartbreak. All this my mother told me long ago. So no more children shall be born from them either to suffer or to grow evil. Again she paused, nor did we interrupt her musing. My father ruled Ruzark. She said at last, Rastam he was named, of the seed of Rastam the hero even as was my mother. They were gentle and good and it was their ancestors who built Ruzark when fleeing from the might of Iskander they were sealed in a hidden valley by the falling mountain. Then theirs sprang from one of the families of the nobles, Cherkis. Evil, evil was he and as he grew he lusted for rule. On a night of terror he fell upon those who loved my father and slew and barely had my father time to fly from city with my mother, still but a bride and a handful of those loyal to him. They found by chance the way to this place hiding in the left which is its portal. They came and they were taken by those who are now my people. Then my mother who was very beautiful was lifted before him who rules here and she found favor in his side and he had built for her this house which now is mine and in time I was born but not in this house, nay, in a secret place of light where to are born my people. She was silent. I shot a glance at Drake. The secret place of light was it not that vast vault of mystery of dancing orbs and flames transmuted into music into which we had pair and for which sacrilege I had thought had been thrust from the city and dead in this lie the explanation of her strangeness had she there sucked in with her mother's milk the enigmatic life of the metal hordes being transformed into half human changeling become true keen to them what else could explain my mother showed me Ruzark her voice taking up once more her tale checked my thoughts once when I was little she and my father bore me through the forest and through the heathen way I looked upon Ruzark a great city it is and populace and a caldron of cruelty and of evil not like me were my father and mother they longed for their kind and sought ever for means to regain their place among them there came a time when my father driven by his longing when should forth to Ruzark seeking friends to help him regain that place for these who obey me obeyed not him as they obey me nor would he have marched them as I shall upon Ruzark if they had obeyed him circus caught him and circus waited knowing well that my mother would follow for circus knew not where to seek her nor where they had lane hit for between his city and here the mountains are a great unscalable and the way through them is cunningly hidden by chance alone did my mother's mother and those who fled with her discover it and though they tortured him my father would not tell and after a while for with those who still remained of hers stole out with my mother to find him they left me here with uruk and circus caught my mother the proud breasts heaved and the eyes shot forth visible flames my father was aflate alive and crucified she said his skin then nailed to the city's gates and when circus had had his will with my mother he drew her to his soldiers for their sport all of those who went with them he tortured and slew and he and his laughed at their torment but one there was who escaped and told me me who was little more than a budding maid he called on me to bring vengeance and he died a year passed and I'm not like my mother and my father and I forgot dwelling here in the great tranquillities but from and having no thought for men in their way I I she cried go to me that I could forget but now I shall take my vengeance I nor Hala will stamp them flat circus and his city are reserved and everything it holds I nor Hala and my servants shall stamp them into the rock of their valley so that none shall know that they have been and would that I could meet their gods with all their paths that I might break them to and stamp them into the rock under the feet of my servants she threw out white arms why had uruk lied to me I wondered as I watched her the disc had not slain her mother of course he had lied to play upon our terrors had lied to frighten us away the wailings were rising in a sustained crescendo one of the slaying stars slipped over the chamber floor folded its points and glided out the door come commanded nor Hala and led the way the second star closed followed us we stepped over the threshold for one astounded breathless moment we paused in front of us rear the monster a colossal headless swings like four legs and paws a ridge of pointed cubes and globes thrust against each side of the canyon walls between them for 200 feet on high stretched the breast and this was a shifting weaving mass of the metal things they formed into gigantic riasas giant bucklers coarselets of living male from them as they moved nay from all the monster came the wailings like a headless sphinx it grouched and as we stood it searched forward as though it sprang a step to greet us hi shouted nor Hala battle buglings ringing through the golden voice hi my companies out from the summit of the breast shot a tremendous trunk of cubes and spinning globes and like a trunk it nuzzled us caught us up swept us to the crest an instant i taught her the zilly was held stood beside nor Hala upon a little level twinkling eyed platform upon her other side swayed drake now through the monster i felt a throbbing an eager and impatient pulse i turned my head still like some huge grotesque beast the back of the clustered things ran for half a mile at least behind tapering to a dragon tail that coiled and twisted another full mile toward the pit and from this back up rose and fell immense spiked and fan shaped roughs tickets of spikes whipping knots of bristling tentacles fanned crests they thrust and waved whipped and fell constantly and constantly the gray tail lashed and snapped fantastic long and living hi shouted nor Hala once more from her lifted throat came again the golden chanting but now a relentless ruthless song of slaughter up reared the monstrous bulk into it ran the dragon tail into it poured the fanged and bristling back up up we were thrust 300 feet 400 500 over the blue globe of nor Hala's house bent a gigantic lick spider like out from each side of the monster thrust a half a score of others overhead the dawn began to break through it with ever increasing speed we moved straight to the line of the cliffs behind which lay the city of the armored men and root and wetner end of chapter 23 chapter 24 of the metal monster this is a livervox recording all livervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit livervox.org recording by Scott Carpenter the metal monster by Abraham Merritt chapter 24 Rusark smoothly moved the colossal shape on it we rode as easily as though cradled it did not glide it strode the columned legs raised themselves bending from a thousand joints the pedestals of the feet huge and massive as foundations for 16 inch guns fell with machine-like precision stamping gigantically under their tread the trees of the forest snapped were crushed like reeds beneath the pads of a mastodon from far below came the sound of their crashing the thick forest checked the progress of the shape less than tall grass would that of a man behind us our trail was marked by deep black pits in the forest screen clean cut and great as the mark upon the poppied valley they were the footprints of the thing that carried us the wind streamed and whistled a flock of the willow warblers arose swirled about us with manifold beating of little frightened wings norhalla's face softened her eyes smiled go foolish little ones she cried and waved her arms they flew away scolding a lemmergeier swooped down on wide funerial wings it peered at us darted away toward the cliffs there will be no carrion there for you black eater of the dead when i'm through i heard norhalla whisper eyes again somber steadily grew the dawn light from norhalla's lips came again the chanting and now that peon the reckless pulse of the monster we rode began to creep through my own veins into drakes too i knew for his head was held high and his eyes were clear and bright as hers who sang the jubilant pulse streamed through the hands that held us throbbed through us the pulse of the thing sang closer and closer grew the cliffs down and crashing down fell the trees the noise of their fall accompanying the battle chant of that valkyr beside me like wild harp chords of storm lashed surf up to the precipices the forest rolled unbroken now the cliffs loomed overhead the dawn had passed it was full day cutting up through the towering granite scarps was a rift in it the black shadows clustered thickly straight toward that cleft we sped as we drew near the crest of the shape began swiftly to lower down we sang and down a hundred feet two hundred now we were two score yards above the treetops outshot a neck a tremendous serpent body crested it was with pyramids crested with them too was its immense head thickly the head bristled with them poised motionless upon spinning globes as huge as they for hundreds of feet that incredible neck stretched ahead of us and for twice as far behind a monstrous lizard shaped body writhed we rode now upon a serpent a glittering blue metal dragon spiked and knobbed and scaled it was the weird steed of norhalla flattening thrusting out to pierce the rift and still as when it had reared on high beat through at the wild triumphant questing pulse still rang out norhalla's chanting the trees parted and fell upon each side of us as though we were some monster of the sea and they the waves we cleft the rift enclosed us lower we dropped we're not more than fifty feet above its floor the thing upon which we rode was a torrent roaring through it a deeper blackness enclosed us a tunneling through that we flowed out of it we darted into a widening filled with one light drifting down through a pinnacle fanged mouth miles on high again the cleft shrunk a thousand feet ahead was a crack a narrowing of the cleft so small that hardly could a man pass through it abruptly the metal dragon halted norhalla's chanting changed became again the arrogant clarioning and close below us the huge neck split it came to me then that it was as though norhalla were the over-spirit of this chimera as though it caught and understood and obeyed each quick thought of hers as though indeed she was a part of it as it was in reality a part of that infinitely greater thing crouching there in its lair of the pit the metal monster that had lent this living part of itself to her for a steed a champion little time had I to consider such matters up thrust the shape before us into it raced and spun things angled things curved and things squared it gathered itself into a titanic pillar out of which instantly thrust scores of arms over them great globes raced after these flew other scores of huge pyramids none less than 10 feet in height the mass of them 20 and 30 the manifold arms grew rigid quiet for a moment a titanic metal bryorius it stood then at the tips of the arms the globes began to spin faster faster upon them I saw the hosts of pyramids open as one into a host of stars the cleft leaped out in a flood of violent light now for another instant the stars which had been motionless poised upon the whirling spheres joined in their mad spinning cyclopean pinwheels they turn again as one they ceased more brilliant now was their light dazzling as though in their whirling they had gathered greater force under me I felt the split thing quiver with eagerness from the stars came a hurricane of lightning a cataract of electric flame poured into the crack splashed and guttered down the granite walls we were blinded by it we're deafened with thunders the face of the precipice smoked in split was whirled away in clouds of dust the crack widened widened as a gully in a sandbank does when a swift stream rushes through it lightnings these were and more than lightnings lightnings keyed up to an invincible annihilating weapon that could rend and split and crumble to atoms the living granite steadily the cleft expanded as its walls melted away the blasting thing advanced spurting into it the flaming torrents behind it we crept the dust of the shattered rocks swirled up towards us like angry ghosts before they reached us they were blown away as though by strong winds streaming from beneath us on we went blinded deafened interminably it seemed poured forth the hurricane of blue fire interminably the thunder bellowed there came a louder clamor volcanic chaotic dulling the thunders the sides of the cleft quivered bent outward they split crashed down bright daylight poured in upon us a flood of light toward which the billows of dust rushed as though seeking escape out it poured like the smoke of ten thousand cannon and the blasting thing shook as though with laughter the stars closed back into the shape round globe and pyramid it slid toward us joined the body from which it had broken away through all the mass ran a wave of jubilation a pulse of mirth a colossal metallic silent roar of laughter we glided forward out of the cleft I felt a shifting movement up and up we were thrust dazed I looked behind me in the face of a sky climbing wall of rock smoked a wide chasm out of it the billowing clouds of dust still streamed pursuing threatening us the whole granite barrier seemed to quiver with agony higher we rose and higher look whispered drake and whirled me around less than five miles away was ruzark the city of churkis and it was like some ancient city come to life out of long dead centuries a page restored from once conquering persia's crumbled book a city of the chostros transported by gins into our own time built around and upon a low mount it stood within a valley a bit a little larger than the pit the plane was level as the hill of the city was its only elevation beyond I caught the glinting of a narrow stream meandering the valley was ringed with precipitous cliffs falling sheer to its floor slowly we advanced the city was almost square guarded by double walls of hewn stone the first raised itself a hundred feet on high turreted and parapetted and pierced with gates perhaps a quarter of a mile behind it the second fortification thrust up the city itself I estimated covered about ten square miles it ran upward in broad terraces it was very fair decked with blossoming gardens and green groves among the clustering granite houses red and yellow roofed thrust skyward tall spires and towers upon the mount's top was a broad flat plaza on which were great buildings marble white and golden roofed temples I thought are palaces or both running to the city out of the grain fields and steds that surrounded it were scores of little figures rat like here and there among them I glimpsed horsemen arms and armor glittering all were racing to the gates and the shelter of the battlements nearer we drew from the walls came now a faint sound of gongs of drums of shrill flute like pipings upon them I could see hosts gathering hosts of swarming little figures whose bodies glistened from above whom came gleaming's the light striking upon their helms their spear and javelin tips ruzark breathed nor hala eyes wide red lips gruely smiling lo I am before your gates lo I am here and was there ever joy like this the constellations in her eyes blazed beautiful beautiful was nor hala as Isis punishing typhon for the murder of Osiris as avenging Diana shining from her something of the spirit of all wrathful goddesses the flaming hair world and snapped from all her sweet body came white hot furious force a withering perfume of destruction she pressed against me and I trembled at the contact lawless wild imaginings ran through me life human life dwindled the city seemed but a thing of toys on let us crush it on on again the monster shook beneath us faster we moved louder grew the clanger of the drums the gongs the pipes nearer came the walls and ever more crowded with the swarming human ants that manned them we were close upon the heels of the last fleeing stragglers the thing slackened in its stride waited patiently until they were close to the gates before they could reach them I heard the brazen clanging of their valves those shut out beat frenziedly upon them dragged themselves close to the base of the battlements cowered their or crept along them seeking some hole in which to hide with a slow lowering of its height the thing advanced now its form was that of a spindle a full mile in length on whose bulging center we three stood a hundred feet from the outer wall we halted we looked down upon it not more than 50 feet above its broad top hundreds of the soldiers were crouching behind the parapets companies of archers with great bows poised arrows at their cheeks scores of leather jerkened men with stands of javelins at their right hands spearsmen and men with long thonged slings set at intervals were squat powerful engines of wood and metal beside which were heaps of huge rounded boulders catapults I knew them to be and around each swarmed a knot of soldiers fixing the great stones in place drawing back the thick ropes that loosened would hurl forth the projectiles from each side came other men dragging more of these balusters assembling a battery against the prodigious gleaming monster that menace their city between outer wall and inner battlements galloped squadrons of mounted men upon this inner wall the soldiers clustered as thickly as on the outer preparing as actively for its defense the city sieved up from it arose a humming abusing as of some immense angry hive involuntarily I visualize the spectacle we must present to those who looked upon us this huge incredible shape of metal alive with quick silver shifting this as it must have seemed to them hellish mechanism of war captained by a sorceress and two familiars in form of men there came to me dreadful visions of such a monster looking down upon the peace reared battlements of new york the panic rush of thousands away from it there was a blaring of trumpets up on the parapet leaped a man clad in all gleaming red armor from head to feet the close linked scales covered him within a hood shaped somewhat like the tight fitting head coverings of the crusaders a pallid cruel face looked out upon us in the fierce black eyes was no trace of fear evil as nor holla had said these people of russark were wicked and cruel they were no cowards no the red armored men threw up a hand who are you he shouted who are you three you three who come driving down upon russark through the rocks we have no quarrel with you I seek a man and a maid cried nor holla a maid and the sick man your thieves took from me bring him forth seek elsewhere for them then he answered they are not here turn now and seek elsewhere go quickly lest I lose our mind upon you and you go never mockingly rang her laughter and under its slash the black eyes grew fiercer the cruelty on the white face darkened little man whose words are so big fly who thunders what are you called little man her railway bit deep but its menace passed unheeded in the rage and called forth I am coulon shouted the man in scarlet armor coulon the son of circus the mighty and captain of his hosts coulon who will cast your skin under my mare's install for them to trample and thrust your red-flayed body upon a pole in the grain fields to frighten away the crows does that answer you her laughter ceased and her eyes dwelt upon him filled with an infernal joy the son of circus I heard her murmur he has a son there was a sneer on the cruel face clearly he thought her odd quick was his disillusionment listen coulon she cried I am nor holla daughter of another no holla and of rustum whom circus tortured and slew now go you lying spawn of unclean totes go and tell your father that I nor holla am at his gates and bring back with you the maid and the man go I say end of chapter 24 chapter 25 of the metal monster this is the livervox recording all livervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit livervox.org recording by scott carpenter the metal monster by abraham merritt chapter 25 churcus there was stark amazement on coulon's face and fear now enough he dropped from the parapet among his men there came one loud trumpet blast out from the battlements poured a storm of arrows a cloud of javelins the squat catapults leaped forward from them came a hail of boulders before that on rushing tempest of death I flinched I heard nor holla's golden laughter and before they could reach us arrow and javelin and boulder were checked as though myriads of hands reached out from the thing under us and caught them down they dropped forth from the great spindle shot a gigantic arm hammer tipped with cubes it struck the wall close to where the scarlet armored coulon had vanished under its blow the stones crumbled with the fragments fell the soldiers were buried beneath them a hundred feet in width a breach gaped in the battlements outshot the arm again hooked its hammer tip over the parapet tore away a stretch of the breastwork as though it had been cardboard beside the breach an expanse of the broad flat top lay open like a wide platform the arm withdrew and out from the whole length of the spindle thrust other arms hammer tipped held high loft menacing from all the length of the wall rose panic outcry abruptly the storm of arrows ended the catapults were still again the trumpets sounded the crying ceased downfella silence terrified stifling coulon stepped forward again both hands held high gone was his arrogance a parley he shouted a parley nor holla if we give you the maid and the man will you go go get them she answered and take with you this my command to trick us that he returned with the two for an instant coulon hesitated up thrust the dreadful arms poised themselves to strike it shall be so he shouted I carry your command he leaped back his red mail flashed toward a turret that held I suppose a stairway he was lost to sight in silence we waited on the further side of the city I glimpsed movement little troops of mounted men pony drawn wanes knots of running figures were fleeing from the city through the opposite gates nor holla saw them too with that incomprehensible instant obedience to her unspoken thought a mass of the metal things separated from us whirled up into a dozen of those obelisked forms I had seen march from the cat eyes of the city of the pit and but a breath it seemed their columns were far off hurting back the fugitives they did not touch them did not offer to harm only grotesquely like dogs heading off and corralling frightened sheep they circled and darted rushing back came those they heard it from the watching terraces and walls arose shrill cries of terror availing far away the obelisks met pirouetted melted into one thick column towering motionless as we it stood guarding the further gates there was a stir upon the wall a flashing of spears of drawn blades two litters closed with curtainings surrounded by triple rows of swordsmen fully armored carrying small shields and led by couloune were being born to the torn battlement their bearers stopped well within the platform and gently lowered their burdens the leader of those around the second litter drew aside its covering spoke outstepped Ruth and after her ventoner Martin I cannot keep back the cry I heard mingled with it Drake's own cry to Ruth Ventoner raised his hand and greeting I thought he smiled the cubes on which we stood shot forward stopped within 50 feet of them instantly the guard of swordsmen raised their blades held them over the pair as though waiting the signal to strike and now I saw that Ruth was not clad as she had been when we had left her she stood in scanty kirtle that came scarcely to her knees her shoulders were bare her curly brown hair unbound entangled her face was set with wrath hardly less than that which beat from Norhalla on Ventoner's forehead was a blood red scar a line that ran from temple to temple like a brand the curtains of the first litter quivered behind them someone spoke that in which Ruth and Ventoner had written was drawn swiftly away the knot of swordsmen drew back into their places sprang and knelt a dozen archers they ringed in the two bows drawn taught arrows in place and pointing straight to their hearts out of the litter rolled the giant of a man seven feet he must have been in height over the huge shoulders the barreled chest and the bloated abdomen hung a purple cloak glittering with gems through the thick and grizzled hair past a flashing circlet of jewels the scarlet armored coulon beside him swordsmen guarding them he walked down to the verge of the torn gap in the wall he peered down it glancing imperturbably at the upraised hammer banded arms still threatening examined again the breach then still with coulon he strode over to the very edge of the broken battlement and stood head thrust a little forward studying us in silence Churcus whispered Norhalla the whisper was a hymn to nemesis I felt her body quiver from head to foot a wave of hatred a hot desire to kill passed through me as I scanned the face staring at us it was a great gross mask of evil of cold cruelty and callous lusts unwinking icely malignant black slits of eyes glared at us between pouches that held them half closed heavy jowls hung pendulous dragging down the corners of the thick lipped brutal mouth into a deep graven unchanging sneer as he gazed at Norhalla a flicker of lust shot like a licking tongue through his eyes yet from impulse power sinister instinct with evil concentrate with cruelty but power indomitable such was churcus descendant perhaps of that xerxes the conqueror who three millenniums gone ruled most of the known world it was Norhalla who broke the silence shurak greeting churcus there was merciless mirth in the buglings of her voice lo did I but knock so gently at your gates and you hasten to welcome me greetings gross swine spittle of the toads fat slug beneath my sandals he passed the insults by unmoved although I heard a murmuring go up from those near and cahoons hard eyes blazed we will bargain Norhalla he answered calmly the voice was deep filled with sinister strength bargain she laughed what have you with which to bargain churcus does the rat bargain with the tigress and you toad have nothing he shook his head I have these he waved a hand toward Ruth and her brother me you may slay and may have many of mine but before you can move my archers will feather their hearts she considered him no longer mocking two of mine you slew long since churcus she said slowly therefore it is that I am here I know he nodded heavily yet now that is neither here nor there nor Hala it was long since and I have learned much during the years I would have killed you to nor Hala could I have found you but now I would not do is then quite differently would I do nor Hala for I have learned much I am sorry that those that you love died as they did I am in truth sorry there was a curious lurking sardonicism in the words as undertone of mockery was what he really meant that in those years he had learned to inflict greater agonies or more exquisite tortures if so nor Hala apparently did not sense that interpretation indeed she seemed to be interested her wrath abating no the horse voice rumbled dispassionately none of that is important now you would have this man and girl I hold them they die if you stir a hand's breath toward me if they die I prevail against you for I have cheated you of what you desire I win nor Hala even though you slay me that is all that is now important there was doubt upon nor Hala's face and I cut a quick gleam of contemptuous triumph glint through the depths of the evil eyes empty will be your victory over me nor Hala he said then waited what is your bargain she spoke hesitatingly with the sinking of my heart I heard the doubt tremble in her throat if you will go without further knocking upon my gates there was a satiric grimness in the phrase go when you have been given them and pledge yourself never to return you shall have them if you will not then they die but what security what hostages do you ask her eyes were troubled I cannot swear by your God's circus for they are not my gods in truth I nor Hala have no gods why should I not say yes and take to then fall upon you and destroy as you would do in my place old wolf nor Hala he answered I ask nothing but your word do I not know those who bore you and the line from which they sprung was not always the word they gave kept till death unbroken and viable no need for vows to gods between you and me your word is holier than they oh glorious daughter of kings princess royal the great voice was harshly caressing not obsequious but as though he gave her as an equal her rightful honor her face softened she considered him from eyes far less hostile a wholesome respect for this gross tyrant's mentality came to me it did not temper it heightened the hatred I felt for him but I now recognize the subtlety of his attack I realized that unerringly he had taken the only means by which he could have gained a hearing have temporized could he win her with his guile is it not true there was a leonine purring in the question it is true she answered proudly though why you should dwell upon this circus whose word is steadfast as the running stream and whose promises are as lasting as its bubbles why you should dwell on this I do not know I have changed greatly princess in the years since my great wickedness I have learned much he who speaks to you now is not he you were taught and taught justly then to hate you may speak truth certainly you are not as I have pictured you it was as though she were more than half convinced in this at least you do speak truth that if I promise I will go and molest you no more why go at all princess quietly he asked the amazing question then drew himself to his full height through wide his arms princess the great voice rumbled forth nay queen why leave us again norhalla the queen are we not of your people am I not of your kin join your power with ours what that war engine you ride may be how built I know not but this I do know that with our strength joined we too can go forth from where I have dwelt so long go forth into the forgotten world eat its cities and rule you shall teach our people to make these engines norhalla and we will make many of them queen norhalla you shall wed my son Coulon he who stands beside me and while I live you shall rule with me rule equally and when I die you and Coulon shall rule thus shall our two royal lines be made one the old feud wiped out the long score be settled queen wherever it is you dwell it comes to me that you have few men queen you need men many men and strong to follow you men to gather the harvests of your power men to bring you the fruit of your smallest wish young men and vigorous to amuse you let the past be forgotten I too have wrongs to forget oh queen come to us great one with your power and your beauty teach us lead us return and thrown above your people rule the world he ceased over the battlements over the city dropped a vast expectant silence as though the city knew its fate was hanging upon the balance no no it was Ruth crying do not trust him norhalla it's a trap he shamed me he tortured turkis half turned before he swung about I saw a hell shadow darken his face vettner's hand thrust out covered Ruth's mouth choking her crying your son norhalla spoke swiftly and backflashed the cruel face of turkis devouring her with his eyes your son and queen ship here and empire of the world her voice was wrapped thrilled all this you offer me norhalla this and more the huge bulk of his body quivered with eagerness if it be your wish oh queen I turkis will step down from the throne for you and sit beneath your right hand eager to do your bidding a moment she studied him norhalla I whispered do not do this thing he thinks to gain your secrets let my bridegroom stand forth that I may look upon him called norhalla visibly turkis relaxed as though a strain had been withdrawn between him and his crimson clad son flashed a glance it was as though a triumphant devil sped from them into each other's eyes I saw Ruth shrink into vettner's arms up from the wall rose a jubilant shouting was caught by the inner battlements passed on to the crowded terraces take cologne it was drake pistol drawn and whispering across to me I'll handle turkis and shoot straight end of chapter 25 chapter 26 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 Lucy LaFaro the metal monster by Abraham Merritt chapter 26 the vengeance of norhalla norhalla's hand that had gone from my wrist dropped down again the other fell upon drakes cologne loose his hood let it fall about his shoulders he stepped forward held out his arms to norhalla a strong man she cried approvingly hey my bridegroom but stay stand back a moment stand beside that man for whom I came to ruzak I would see you together cologne's face darkened but turkis smiled with evil understanding shrugged his shoulders and whispered to him suddenly cologne stepped back the ring of the archers lowered their bows they leapt to their feet and stood aside to let him pass quick as a serpent's tongue a pyramid tipped tentacle flicked out beneath us it darted through the broken circle of the bowman it licked up Ruth and Vettel and cologne swiftly as it had swept forth it returned coiled and dropped those two I loved at norhalla's feet it flashed back on high with the scarlet length of churky sun sprawled along its angled end the great body of churkis seemed to wither up from all the wall went a tempestuous sigh of horror out rang the merciless chimes of norhalla's laughter chai she cried chai fat fool there chai you churkis toad whose wits have sickened with your years did you think to catch me norhalla in your filthy web princess queen empress of earth hoe old fox i have outplayed and beaten what now have you to trade with norhalla mouth sagging open eyes glaring the tyrant slowly raised his arms a suppliant you would have back the bridegroom you gave me she laughed take him then down swept the metal arm that held cologne the arm dropped churkis son at churkis feet and as though cologne had been a grape it crushed him before those who had seen could stir from their stupa the tentacle hovered over churkis glaring down at the horror that had been his son it did not strike him it drew him up to it as a magnet draws a pin and as the pin swings from the magnet when held suspended by the head so swung the great body of churkis from the underside of the pyramid that held him hanging so that he was carried toward us came to a stop not ten feet from us weird weird beyond all telling was that seen and would i had the power to make you who read see it as we did the animate living shape of metal on which we stood with its forest of hammer-handed arms raised menacingly along its mile of spindled length the great walls glistening with the armored hosts the terraces of that fair and ancient city their gardens and green groves and clustering red and yellow roofed houses and temples and palaces the swinging gross body of churkis in the clutch of the unseen grip of the tentacle his grizzled hair touching the side of the pyramid that held him his arms half outstretched the jammed cloak flapping like the wings of a jewelled bat his white malignant face in which the evil eyes were burning slits flaming hell's own blackest hatred and beyond the city from which pulsed almost visibly a vast and hopeless horror the watching column and over all this the palely radiant white sky under whose light the encircling cliffs were tremendous stony pallets splashed with a hundred pigments no harla's laughter had ceased somberly she looked upon churkis into the devil fires of his eyes churkis she half whispered now comes the end for you and for all that is yours but until the ends end you shall see the hanging body was thrust forward was thrust up was brought down upon its feet on the upper plane of the prostrate pyramid tipping the metal arm that held him for an instant he struggled to escape i think he meant to hurl himself down upon no harla to kill her before he himself was slain if so after one frenzied effort he realized the futility for with a certain dignity he drew himself upright turned his eyes toward the city over that city a dreadful silence hung it was as though it cowered hid its face was afraid to breathe the end murmured no harla there was a quick trembling through the metal thing down swung its forest of sledges beneath the blow down fell the smitten walls shattered crumbling and with it glittering like shining flies in a dust storm fell the armored men through that mile wide breach and up to the inner barrier i glimpsed confusion chaotic and again i say it they were no cowards those men of churkis from the inner battlements flew clouds of arrows of huge stones as uselessly as before then out from the opened gates poured regiments of horsemen brandishing javelins and great maces and shouting fiercely as they drove down upon each end of the metal shape under cover of their attack i saw cloaked riders spurring their ponies across the plane to shelter of the cliff walls to the chance of hiding places within them women and men of the rich the powerful flying for safety after them ran and scattered through the fields of grain a multitude on foot the ends of the spindle drew back before the horsemen's charge broadening as they went like the heads of monstrous cobras withdrawing into their hoods abruptly with the lightning velocity these broadening expanded into immense lunettes two tremendous curving and crab-like claws their tips flung themselves past the racing troops then like gigantic pincers began to contract of no avail now was it for the horsemen to halt dragging their mounts on their haunches or to turn to fly the ends of the lunettes had met the pincer tips had closed the mounted men were trapped within half a mile wide circles and in upon man and horse their living walls marched within those enclosures of the doomed began a frantic milling i shut my eyes there was a dreadful screaming of horses a shrieking of men then silence shattering i looked where the mounted men had been was nothing nothing there were two great circular spaces whose floors were glistening wetly red fragments of man or horse there was none they had been crushed into what was it nor harlow had promised had been stamped into the rock beneath the feet of her servants sick i looked away and stared at a thing that writhed and undulated over the plane a prodigious serpentine shape of cubes and spheres linked and stuttered thick with the spikes of the pyramid through the fields over the plane its coils flashed playfully it sped and twisted among the fugitives crushing them tossing them aside broken gliding over them some there were who hurled themselves upon it in impotent despair some who not before it praying unrolled the metal convolutions inexorable within my vision's range there were no more fugitives around a corner of the broken battlements raced the serpent shape where it had rived was now no waving grain no trees no green thing there was only smooth rock upon which here and there red smears glistened wetly afar there was a crying in its wake a rumbling it was the column it came to me at work upon the further battlements as though the sound had been a signal the spindle trembled up we were thrust another hundred feet or more back dropped the host of brandished arms threaded themselves into the parent bulk right and left of us the spindle split into scores of fishes between these fishes the metal things that made up each now dissociate and shapeless mass geysered block and sphere and tetrahedron spike spun and swirled there was an instant of formlessness then right and left of us stood scores of giant grotesque warriors their crests were fully 50 feet below our living platform they stood upon six immense columnar stilts these susceptible legs supported a hundred feet above their bases a huge and globular body formed of clusters of the spheres out from each of these bodies that were at one and the same time trunks and heads sprang half a score of colossal arms shaped like flails like spike-studded girders titanic battle maces cyclopean sledges from legs and trunks and arms the tiny eyes of the metal hordes flashed exalting there came from them from the thing we rode as well a chorus of thin and eager wailings and pulsed through all that battle line a jubilant throbbing then with a rhythmic jokin stride they leapt upon the city under the mallets of the smiting arms the inner battlements fell as under the hammers of a thousand metal thaws over their fragments and the armored men who fell with them strode the things grinding stone and man together as we passed all of the terraced city except to the side hidden by the mount lay open to my gaze in that brief moment of pause I saw crazed crowds battling in narrow streets trampling over mounds of the fallen surging over barricades of bodies clawing and tearing at each other in their flight there was a wide stepped street of gleaming white stone that climbed like an immense stairway straight up the slope to that broad plaza at the top where clustered the great temples and palaces the acropolis of the city into it the streets of the terraces flowed each pouring out upon it a living torrent tumultuous with tuliped sparkling little waves the gay coverings and the arms and armor of rusex's desperate thousands seeking safety at the shrines of their gods here great cavern arches arose their slender exquisite towers capped with red gold there was a street of colossal statues another over which dozens of graceful fretted bridges through their spans from feathery billows of flowering trees there were gardens gay with blossoms in which fountains sparkled green groves thousands upon thousands of bright multicolored pennants banners fluttered a fair a lovely city was circus's stronghold of rusex its beauty filled the eyes out from its stream the fragrance of its gardens the voice of its agony was that of the souls of diss the row of destroying shapes lengthened each huge warrior of metal drawing far apart from its mates they flexed their manifold arms shadow boxed grotesquely dreadful down struck the flails the sledges beneath the blows the buildings burst like eggshells their fragments burying the throngs fighting for escape in the thoroughfares that threaded them over their ruins we moved down and ever down crashed the awful sledges and ever under them the city crumbled there was a spider shape that crawled up the wide stairway hammering into the stone those who tried to flee before it stride by stride the destroying things ate up the city i felt neither wrath nor pity through me beat a jubilant roaring pulse as though i were a shouting corpuscle of the rushing hurricane as though i were one of the hosts of smiting spirits of the bellowing typhoon through this stole another thought vague unfamiliar yet seemingly of truth's own essence why i wondered had i never recognized this before why had i never known that these green forms called trees were but ugly unsymmetrical excrescences that these high projections of towers these buildings were deformities that these four pronged moving little shapes that screamed and ran were hideous they must be wiped out all this misshapen jumbled in harmonious ugliness must be wiped out it must be ground down to smooth unbroken planes harmonious curvings shapeliness harmonies of arc and line and angle something deep within me fought to speak fought to tell me that this thought was not human thought not my thought that it was the reflected thought of the metal things it told me and fiercely it struggled to make me realize what it was that it told its insistence was born upon little despairing rhythmic beatings throbbing's that were like the muffled sobbing's of the drums of grief louder closer came the throbbing clearer with it my perception of the inhumaneness of my thought the drumbeat tapped at my humanity became a dolorous knocking at my heart it was the sobbing of circus the gross face was shrunken the cheeks sagging in folds of woe cruelty and wickedness were wiped from it the evil in the eyes had been washed out by tears eyes streaming bull throat and barrel chest wracked by his sobbing he watched the passing of his people and his city and relentlessly coldly no hala watched him as they loathe to lose the faintest shadow of his agony now i saw we were close to the top of the mount packed between us and the immense white structures that crowned it were thousands of the people they fell on their knees before us prayed to us they tore at each other striving to hide themselves from us in the mass that was themselves they beat against the bar doors of the sanctuaries they climbed the pillars they swarmed over the golden roofs there was a moment of chaos a chaos of which we were the heart then temple and palace cracked burst were shattered fell i caught glimpses of gleaming sculptures glitterings of gold and of silver flashing of gems shimmering of gorgeous draperies under them a weltering of men and women we closed down upon them over them the dreadful sobbing ceased i saw the head of churka swing heavily upon his shoulder the eyes closed the destroying things touched their flailing arms coiled back with drew into their bodies they joined forming for an instant a tremendous hollow pillar far down in whose center we stood they parted shifted in shape rolled down the mount over the ruins like a widening wave crushing into the stone all over which they passed a far away i saw the gleaming serpent still at play still writhing among still obliterating the few score scattered fugitives that some way somehow had slipped by the destroying things we halted for one long moment no hala looked upon the dripping body of him upon whom she had let fall this mighty vengeance then the metal arm that held churka's world thrown from it the cloak form flew like a great blue bat it fell upon the flattened mound that had once been the proud crown of his city a blue blot upon desolation the broken body of churka slay a black speck appeared high in the sky grew fast they'll emerge here i have left carrion for you after all cried no hala with an ebb and swirling of wings the vulture dropped beside the blue heap thrust in it its beak end of chapter 26 chapter 27 of the metal monster this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit libra vox.org recording by robin balmer the metal monster by abraham merit chapter 27 the drums of destiny slowly we descended that mount of desolation lingeringly as though the brooding eyes of nor hala were not yet sated with destruction of human life of green life of life of any kind there was none man and tree woman and flower babe and bud palace temple and home nor hala had stamped flat she had crushed them within the rock even as she had promised their tremendous tragedy had absorbed my every faculty i had no time to think of my companions i had forgotten them now in the painful surges of awakening realization of full human understanding of that inhuman annihilation i turned to them for strength faintly i wondered again at ruth's scantiness of garb her more than half nudity dwelt curiously upon the red brand across ventner's forehead in his eyes and in drakes i saw reflected the horror i knew was in my own but in the eyes of ruth was none of this sternly coldly triumphant indifferent to its piteousness as nor hala herself she scanned the waste that less than an hour since had been a place of living beauty i felt a shock of repulsion after all those who had been destroyed so ruthlessly could not all have been holy evil yet mother and blossoming maid youth and oldster all the pageant of humanity within the great walls were now but lines within the stone according to their different lights it came to me there had been in ruth's ark no greater number of wicked than one could find in any great city of our own civilization from nor hala of course i looked for no perception of any of this but from ruth my reaction grew the pity long withheld racing through me linked with the burning anger a hatred for this woman who had been the directing soul of that catastrophe my gaze fell again upon the red brand i saw that it was a deep indentation so a thong had been twisted around ventner's head biting the bone there was dried blood on the edges a double ring of swollen white flesh rimming the cincher it was the mark of torture martin i cried that ring what did they do to you they awaked me with that he answered quietly i suppose they ought to be grateful although their intentions were not exactly therapeutic they tortured him ruth's voice was tense bitter she spoke in prussian for nor hall's benefit i thought then not guessing a deeper reason they tortured him that gave him agony until he returned and they promised him other agonies that would make him pray long for death and me me she raised little clenched hands me they stripped like a slave they led me through the city and the people mocked me they took me before that swine nor hala had punished and stripped me before him like a slave before my eyes they tortured my brother nor hala they were evil all evil nor hala you did well to slay them she caught the woman's hands pressed close to her nor hala gazed at her from great gray eyes in which sarath was dying into which the old tranquility the old serenity was flowing and when she spoke the golden voice held more than returning echoes of the faraway faint chiming's it is done she said and it was well done sister now you and i shall dwell together in peace sister or if there be those in the world from which you came that you would have slain then you and i shall go forth with our companies and stamp them out even as i did these my heart stopped beating for from the depths of ruth's eyes shining shadows were rising wraiths answering nor hall is calling and as they rose steadily they drew life from the clear radiance summoning drew closer to the semblance of that tranquil spirit which her vengeance had banished but that had now returned to its twin thrones of nor hala's eyes and at last it was twin sister of nor hala who looked upon her from the face of ruth the white arms of the woman encircled her the glorious head bent over her flaming tresses mingled with tender brown curls sister she whispered little sister these men you shall have as long as it pleases you to do with as you will or if it is your wish they shall go back to their world and i will guard them to its gates but you and i little sister will dwell together in the vastness in the peace shall it not be so with no faltering with no glance toward us three lover brother old friend ruth crept closer to her rested her head upon the virginal royal breasts it shall be so she murmured sister it shall be so nor hala i'm tired nor hala i've seen enough of men an ecstasy of tenderness a flame of unearthly rapture trembled over the woman's wondrous face hungrily defiantly she pressed the girl to her the stars in the lucid heavens of her eyes were soft and gentle and caressing ruth cried drake and sprang toward them she paid no heed and even as he leapt he was caught world back against us wait said ventner and caught him by the arm is wrathfully blindly he strove against the force that held him wait no use now there was a curious understanding in his voice a curious sympathy too in the patient untroubled gaze that dwelt upon his sister and this weirdly exquisite woman who held her wait exclaimed drake wait hell the damned witch is stealing her away from us again he threw himself forward recoiled as though swept back by an invisible arm fell against us and was clasped and held by ventner and as he struggled the thing we rode halted like metal waves back into it rushed the enigmatic billows that had washed over the fragments of the city we were lifted between us and the woman and girl a cleft appeared it widened into a rift it was as though nor hala had decreed it as a symbol of this her second victory or had set it between us as a barrier wider grew the rift save for the bridge of our voices it separated us from ruth as though she stood upon another world higher we rose the three of us now upon the flat top of a tower upon whose counterpart 50 feet away and facing the homeward path ruth and nor hala stood with white arms interlaced the serpent shape flashed toward us it vanished beneath merging into the waiting thing then slowly the thing began to move quietly it glided to the chasm it had blasted in the cliff wall the shadow of those walls fell upon us as one we looked back as one we searched out the path of blue with the black blot at its breast we found it then the precipices hit it silently we streamed through the chasm through the canyon and the tunnel speaking no word drake's eyes fixed with bitter hatred upon nor hala ventner brooding upon her always with that enigmatic sympathy we passed between the walls of the further cleft stood for an instant at the brink of the green forest there came to us as though from immeasurable distances a faint sustained thrumming like the beating of countless muffled drums the thing that carried us trembled the sound died away the thing quieted it began its steady effortless striding through the crowding trees but now with none of that speed with which it had come spurred forward by nor hala's awakened hate ventner stirred broke the silence and now i saw how wasted his body how sharpened his face almost ethereal purged not only by suffering but by it came to me some strange knowledge no you strike he said dreamily all this is now in the knees of the gods and whether those gods are humanities or whether they are gods of metal i do not know but this i do know only one way or another can the balance fall and if it be one way then you and we shall have ruth back and if it falls the other way then there will be little need for us to care for man will be done martin what do you mean it is the crisis he answered we can do nothing good win nothing whatever is to be steps forth now from the womb of destiny again there came that distant rolling louder now again the thing trembled the drums whispered ventner the drums of destiny what is it they are heralding a new birth of earth and the passing of man a new child to whom shall be given dominion nay to whom has been given dominion or is it taps for them the drumming died as i listened fearfully about us was only the swishing the sighing of the falling trees beneath the tread of the thing motionless stood nor hala and his motionless ruth martin i cried once more a dreadful doubt upon me martin what do you mean whence did they come his voice was clear and calm the eyes beneath the red brand clear and quiet too whence did they come these things that carry us that strode like destroying angels over checkerous's city are they spawn of earth as we are or are they foster children changelings from another star these creatures that when many still are one that when one still are many whence did they come what are they he looked down upon the cubes that held us their hosts of tiny eyes shown up at him enigmatically as though they heard and understood i do not forget he said at least not all do i forget of what i saw during that time when i seemed an atom outside space as i told you or think i told you speaking with unthinkable effort through lips that seemed eternities away from me the atom who strove to open them there were three visions revelations i know not what to call them and though each seemed equally real of two of them only one i think can be true and of the third that may sometime be true but surely is not yet through the air came a louder drumroll in it something ominous something sinister it swelled to a crescendo abruptly ceased and now i saw nor hala raise her head listen i saw a world a vast world goodwin marching stately through space it was no globe it was a world of many facets of smoothed and polished planes a huge blue jewel world dimly luminous a crystal world cut out of aether a geometric thought of of the great cause of god if you will made material it was airless waterless sunless i seemed to draw closer to it and then i saw that over every facet patterns were traced gigantic symmetrical designs mathematical hieroglyphs in them i read unthinkable calculations formulas of interwoven universes arithmetical progressions of armies of stars pandex of the motions of the suns and the patterns was an appalling harmony as though all the laws from those which guide the atom to those which direct the cosmos were there resolved into completeness totaled the faceted world was like a cosmic abacus tallying as it marched the errors of the infinite the patterned symbols constantly changed form i drew nearer the symbols were alive they were in untold numbers these he pointed to the thing that bore us i was swept back looked again at it from afar and a fantastic notion came to me fantasy it was of course he had built i know around a nucleus of strange truth it was his tone was half whimsical half apologetic it was that this jeweled world was ridden by some mathematical god driving it through space noting occasionally with amused tolerance the very bad arithmetic of another deity the reverse of mathematical a more or less haphazard deity the god in fact of us and the things we call living it had no mission it wasn't at all out to do any reforming it wasn't in the least concerned in rectifying any of the inaccuracies of the other only now and then it took note of the deplorable differences between the worlds it saw and its own impeccably ordered and tidy temple with its equally tidy servitors just an itinerant demure of super geometry riding along through space on its perfectly summed up world master of all celestial mechanics it's people independent of all that complex chemistry and labor and for equilibrium by which we live needing neither air nor water heating neither heat nor cold fed with the magnetism of interstellar space and stopping now and then to banquet off the energy of some great sun a thrill of amazement passed through me fantasy all this might be but how if so had he gotten that last thought he had not seen as we had the orgy in the hall of cones the prodigious feeding of the metal monster upon our son that past he went on noticing i saw vast caverns filled with the things working growing multiplying and caverns of our earth the fruit of some unguessed womb i do not know but in those caverns under countless orbs of many colored lights again the thrill of amaze shook me they grew came to me that they were reaching out towards sunlight and the open they burst into it into yellow glowing sunlight hours i do not know and that picture passed his voice deepened there came a third vision i saw our earth i knew could win indisputably unmistakably that it was our earth but its rolling hills were leveled its mountains were ground and shaped into cold and polished symbols geometric fashioned the seas were fettered gleaming like immense jewels and patterned settings of crystal shores the very polar ice was chiseled on the ordered planes were traced the higher glyphs of the faceted world and on all earth good when there was no green life no city no trace of man on this earth that had been ours were only these visioning he said don't think that i accept them in their entirety part truth part illusion the groping mind dazzled with light of unfamiliar truths and making pictures from half light and half shadow to help it understand but still some truth in them how much i do not know but this i do know that last vision was of a cataclysm whose beginnings we face now this very instant the picture flashed behind my own eyes of the walled city its thronging people its groves and gardens its science and its art of the destroying shapes trampling it flat and the dreadful desolate mount and suddenly i saw that mount as earth the city is earth cities its gardens and groves as earth's fields and forests and the vanished people of turkis seemed to expand into all humanity but martin i stammered fighting against choking intolerable terror there was something else something of the keeper of the cones and are striking through the sun to destroy the things something of them being governed by the same laws that govern us and that if they broke then they must fall a hope a promise that they would not conquer i remember he replied but not clearly there was something a shadow upon them a menace it was a shadow that seemed to be born of our own world some threatening spirit of earth hovering over them i cannot remember it eludes me yet it is because i remember but a little of it that i say those drums may not be taps for us as though his words had been a cue the sounds again burst forth no longer muffled nor faint they roared they seemed to pelt through the air and drop upon us they beat about our ears with thunderous tattoo like covered caverns drummed upon by titans with trunks of great trees the drumming did not die it grew louder more vehement defiant and deafening within the thing under us a mighty pulse began to throb accelerating rapidly to the rhythm of that clamorous roll i saw norhalla draw herself up sharply stand listening and alert under me the throbbing turned to an uneasy churning a ferment drums mother drake there are no drums it's drumfire it's like a dozen marnays a dozen verdans but where could batteries like those come from drums misprudentner they are drums the drums of destiny louder the roaring grew now it was a tremendous rhythmic canonating the thing halted the tower that upheld Ruth and nor Hollis swayed bent over the gap between us touched the top on which we rode gently the two were plucked up swiftly they were set beside us came a shrill keen wailing louder than ever i had heard before there was an earthquake trembling a maelstrom swirling in which we spun a swift sinking the thing split in two up before us rose a stupendous stepped pyramid little smaller it was than that which chaps built to throw its shadow across the holy nile into its streamed over it clicked score upon score of cubes building it higher and higher it lurched forward away from us from norhalla came a single cry resident blaring like a wrathful golden trumpet the speeding shape halted hesitated assumed about to return crashed down upon us an abrupt crescendo of the distant drumming preemptory commanding the shape darted forward raced away crushing to straw the trees beneath it in a fell quarter mile swath great gray eyes wide filled with incredulous wonder stunned disbelief norhalla for an instant faltered then out of her white throat through red lips pelted a tempest of staccato buglings under them what was left the thing leapt toron norhalla's flaming hair crackled and streamed about her body of milk and pearl about ruth's creamy skin a radiant nimbus began to glow in the distance i saw a sapphire spark knew it for norhalla's home not far from it now was the rushing pyramid and it came to me that within that shape was strangely neither globe nor pyramid nor except for the trembling cubes it made the platform on which we stood did the shrunken thing carry us hold any unit of the metal monster except its spheres and tetrahedrons at least within its visible bulk the sapphire spark had grown to a glimmering azure marble steadily we gained upon the pyramid never for an instant lessened the drumming clamor that seemed to try to smother them the sapphire marble became a sapphire ball a great globe i saw the thing we sought to join lift itself into a prodigious pillar the pillar's base thrust forth stilts upon them the thing stepped over the blue dome of norhalla's house the blue bubble was close now it curved below us gently we were lifted down we're set before its portal i looked up at the bulk that had carried us i'd been right built it was only of globe and pyramid an inconceivably grotesque shape it hung over us throughout the towering shape was awful movement the units writhed within it then it was lost to sight in the mists through which the thing we had pursued had gone norhalla's face as she watched it go was a dismay a poignant uncertainty that held in it something indescribably pitiful i am afraid i heard her whisper she tightened her grasp upon dreaming ruth motioned us to go within we passed silently behind us she came followed by three of the great globes by a pair of her tetrahedrons beside a pile of the silken stuffs she halted the girl's eyes dwelt upon hers trustingly i'm afraid whispered norhalla again afraid for you tenderly she looked down upon her the galaxies of stars in her eyes soft and tremulous i'm afraid little sister she whispered for the third time not yet can you go as i do among the fires she hesitated rest here until i return i shall leave these to guard you and obey you she motioned to five shapes they ranged themselves about ruth norhalla kissed her upon both brown eyes sleep till i return she murmured she swept from the chamber with never a glance for us three i heard a little wailing chorus without fast dying into silence spheres and pyramids twinkled at us guarding the silken pile where upon ruth lay asleep like some enchanted princess beat down upon the blue globe like hollow metal worlds beaten and shrieking the drums of destiny the drums of doom beating taps for the world of men end of chapter 27 the metal monster by abraham merit