Chapter 28: the Frenzy of Ruth

For many minutes we stood silent, in the shadowy chamber, listening, each absorbed in his own thoughts. The thunderous drumming was continuous; sometimes it faded into a background for clattering storms as of thousands of machine guns, thousands of riveters at work at once upon a thousand metal frameworks; sometimes it was nearly submerged beneath splitting crashes as of meeting meteors of hollow steel.

But always the drumming persisted, rhythmic, thunderous. Through it all Ruth slept, undisturbed, cheek pillowed in one rounded arm, the two great pyramids erect behind her, watchful; a globe at her feet, a globe at her head, the third sphere poised between her and us, and, like the pyramids--watchful.

What was happening out there--over the edge of the canyon, beyond the portal of the cliffs, behind the veils, in the Pit of the Metal Monster? What was the message of the roaring drums? What the rede of their clamorous runes?

Ventnor stepped by the sentinel globe, bent over the tranced girl. Sphere nor pointed pair stirred; only they watched him--like a palpable thing one felt their watchfulness. He listened to her heart, caught up a wrist, took note of her pulse of life. He drew a deep breath, stood upright, nodded reassuringly.

Abruptly Drake turned, walked out through the open portal, his strain and a very deep anxiety written plainly in deep lines that ran from nostrils to firm young mouth.

“Just went out to look for the pony,” he muttered when he returned. “It’s safe. I was afraid it had been stepped on. It’s getting dusk. There’s a big light down the canyon--over in the valley.”

Ventnor drew back past the globe; rejoined us.

The blue bower trembled under a gust of sound. Ruth stirred; her brows knitted; her hands clenched. The sphere that stood before her spun on its axis, swept up to the globe at her head, glided from it to the globe at her feet--as though whispering. Ruth moaned--her body bent upright, swayed rigidly. Her eyes opened; they stared through us as though upon some dreadful vision; and strangely was it as though she were seeing with another’s eyes, were reflecting another’s sufferings.

The globes at her feet and at her head swirled out, clustering against the third sphere--three weird shapes in silent consultation. On Ventnor’s face I saw pity--and a vast relief. With shocked amaze I realized that Ruth’s agony--for in agony she clearly was--was calling forth in him elation. He spoke--and I knew why.

“Norhala!” he whispered. “She is seeing with Norhala’s eyes--feeling what Norhala feels. It’s not going well with--That--out there. If we dared leave Ruth--could only, see--”

Ruth leaped to her feet; cried out--a golden bugling that might have been Norhala’s own wrathful trumpet notes. Instantly the two pyramids flamed open, became two gleaming stars that bathed her in violet radiance. Beneath their upper tips I saw the blasting ovals glitter--menacingly.

The girl glared at us--more brilliant grew the glittering ovals as though their lightnings trembled on their lips.

“Ruth!” called Ventnor softly.

A shadow softened the intolerable, hard brilliancy of the brown eyes. In them something struggled to arise, fighting its way to the surface like some drowning human thing.

It sank back--upon her face dropped a cloud of heartbreak, appalling woe; the despair of a soul that, having withdrawn all faith in its own kind to rest all faith, as it thought, on angels--sees that faith betrayed.

There stared upon us a stripped spirit, naked and hopeless and terrible.

Despairing, raging, she screamed once more. The central globe swam to her; it raised her upon its back; glided to the doorway. Upon it she stood poised like some youthful, anguished Victory--a Victory who faced and knew she faced destroying defeat; poised upon that enigmatic orb on bare slender feet, one sweet breast bare, hands upraised, virginally archaic, nothing about her of the Ruth we knew.

“Ruth!” cried Drake; despair as great as that upon her face was in his voice. He sprang before the globe that held her; barred its way.

For an instant the Thing paused--and in that instant the human soul of the girl rushed back.

“No!” she cried. “No!”

A weird call issued from the white lips--stumbling, uncertain, as though she who sent it forth herself wondered whence it sprang. Abruptly the angry stars closed. The three globes spun--doubting, puzzled! Again she called--now a tremulous, halting cadence. She was lifted; dropped gently to her feet.

For an instant the globes and pyramids whirled and danced before her--then sped away through the portal.

Ruth swayed, sobbing. Then as though drawn, she ran to the doorway, fled through it. As one we sprang after her. Rods ahead her white body flashed, speeding toward the Pit. Like fleet-footed Atalanta she fled--and far, far behind us was the blue bower, the misty barrier of the veils close, when Drake with a last desperate burst reached her side, gripped her. Down the two fell, rolling upon the smooth roadway. Silently she fought, biting, tearing at Drake, struggling to escape.

“Quick!” gasped Ventnor, stretching out to me an arm. “Cut off the sleeve. Quick!”

Unquestioningly, I drew my knife, ripped the garment at the shoulder. He snatched the sleeve, knelt at Ruth’s head; rapidly he crumpled an end, thrust it roughly into her mouth; tied it fast, gagging her.

“Hold her!” he ordered Drake; and with a sob of relief sprang up. The girl’s eyes blazed at him, filled with hate.

“Cut that other sleeve,” he said; and when I had done so, he knelt again, pinned Ruth down with a knee at her throat, turned her over and knotted her hands behind her. She ceased struggling; gently now he drew up the curly head; swung her upon her back.

“Hold her feet.” He nodded to Drake, who caught the slender bare ankles in his hands.

She lay there, helpless, being unable to use her hands or feet.

“Too little Ruth, and too much Norhala,” said Ventnor, looking up at me. “If she’d only thought to cry out! She could have brought a regiment of those Things down to blast us. And would--if she HAD thought. You don’t think THAT is Ruth, do you?”

He pointed to the pallid face glaring at him, the eyes from which cold fires flamed.

“No, you don’t!” He caught Drake by the shoulder, sent him spinning a dozen feet away. “Damn it, Drake--don’t you understand!”

For suddenly Ruth’s eyes softened; she had turned them on Dick pitifully, appealingly--and he had loosed her ankles, had leaned forward as though to draw away the band that covered her lips.

“Your gun,” whispered Ventnor to me; before I had moved he had snatched the automatic from my holster; had covered Drake with it.

“Drake,” he said, “stand where you are. If you take another step toward this girl I’ll shoot you--by God, I will!”

Drake halted, shocked amazement in his face; I myself felt resentful, wondering at his outburst.

“But it’s hurting her,” he muttered, Ruth’s eyes, soft and pleading, still dwelt upon him.

“Hurting her!” exclaimed Ventnor. “Man--she’s my sister! I know what I’m doing. Can’t you see? Can’t you see how little of Ruth is in that body there--how little of the girl you love? How or why I don’t know--but that it is so I DO know. Drake--have you forgotten how Norhala beguiled Cherkis? I want my sister back. I’m helping her to get back. Now let be. I know what I’m doing. Look at her!”

We looked. In the face that glared up at Ventnor was nothing of Ruth--even as he had said. There was the same cold, awesome wrath that had rested upon Norhala’s as she watched Cherkis weep over the eating up of his city. Swiftly came a change--like the sudden smoothing out of the rushing waves of a hill-locked, wind-lashed lake.

The face was again Ruth’s face--and Ruth’s alone; the eyes were Ruth’s eyes--supplicating, adjuring.

“Ruth!” Ventnor cried. “While you can hear--am I not right?”

She nodded vigorously, sternly; she was lost, hidden once more.

“You see.” He turned to us grimly.

A shattering shaft of light flashed upon the veils; almost pierced them. An avalanche of sound passed high above us. Yet now I noted that where we stood the clamor was lessened, muffled. Of course, it came to me, it was the veils.

I wondered why--for whatever the quality of the radiant mists, their purpose certainly had to do with concentration of the magnetic flux. The deadening of the noise must be accidental, could have nothing to do with their actual use; for sound is an air vibration solely. No--it must be a secondary effect. The Metal Monster was as heedless of clamor as it was of heat or cold--

“We’ve got to see,” Ventnor broke the chain of thought. “We’ve got to get through and see what’s happening. Win or lose--we’ve got to KNOW.”

“Cut off your sleeve, as I did,” he motioned to Drake. “Tie her ankles. We’ll carry her.”

Quickly it was done. Ruth’s light body swinging between brother and lover, we moved forward into the mists; we crept cautiously through their dead silences.

Passed out and fell back into them from a searing chaos of light, chaotic tumult.

From the slackened grip of Ventnor and Drake the body of Ruth dropped while we three stood blinded, deafened, fighting for recovery. Ruth twisted, rolled toward the brink; Ventnor threw himself upon her, held her fast.

Dragging her, crawling on our knees, we crept forward; we stopped when the thinning of the mists permitted us to see through them yet still interposed a curtaining which, though tenuous, dimmed the intolerable brilliancy that filled the Pit, muffled its din to a degree we could bear.

I peered through them--and nerve and muscle were locked in the grip of a paralyzing awe. I felt then as one would feel set close to warring regiments of stars, made witness to the death-throes of a universe, or swept through space and held above the whirling coils of Andromeda’s nebula to watch its birth agonies of nascent suns.

These are no figures of speech, no hyperboles--speck as our whole planet would be in Andromeda’s vast loom, pinprick as was the Pit to the cyclone craters of our own sun, within the cliff-cupped walls of the valley was a tangible, struggling living force akin to that which dwells within the nebula and the star; a cosmic spirit transcending all dimensions and thrusting its confines out into the infinite; a sentient emanation of the infinite itself.

Nor was its voice less unearthly. It used the shell of the earth valley for its trumpetings, its clangors--but as one hears in the murmurings of the fluted conch the great voice of ocean, its whispering and its roarings, so here in the clamorous shell of the Pit echoed the tremendous voices of that illimitable sea which laps the shores of the countless suns.