Chapter 7: the Shapes in the Mist

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

The valley was very still; as silent as though sound had been withdrawn from it.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

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

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

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

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

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

They lay immobile--staring at us.

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

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

She walked toward us, turned and faced the watching cubes. She uttered no sound, but as at a signal the central cube slid forward, halted before her. She rested a hand upon its edge.

“Ride with me,” she said to Ruth.

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

“I meant--you--to come,” the faraway voice chimed, “but I had not thought of--that.”

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

“Mount,” sighed Norhala.

Ventnor looked helplessly at the sheer front facing him.

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

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

“Mount,” she murmured again, looking down upon us.

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

“Lift the pony to me,” I called to Ventnor.

“Lift it?” he echoed, incredulously.

Drake’s grin cut like a sunray through the nightmare dread that shrouded my mind.

“Catch,” he called; placed one hand beneath the beast’s belly, the other under its throat; his shoulders heaved--and up shot the pony, laden as it was, landed softly upon four wide-stretched legs beside me. The faces of the two gaped up, ludicrous in their amazement.

“Follow,” cried Norhala.

Ventnor leaped wildly for the top, Drake beside him; in the flash of a humming-bird’s wing they were gripping me, swearing feebly. The unseen hold angled; struck upward; clutched from ankle to thigh; held us fast--men and beast.

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