Chapter 23: the Treachery of Yuruk

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 hours that flash by on hummingbird wings; there are seconds that shuffle on shod 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 apperception beyond the phantom boundaries, overdrawing upon a Barmecide deposit of minutes, staking fresh claims upon a mirage?

How else explain the seeming slowness with which we were falling--the seeming leisureness with which the wall drifted up past us?

And was this punishment--a sentence meted out for profaning with our eyes a forbidden place; a penalty for touching with our gaze the ark of the Metal Tribes--their holy of holies--the budding place of the Metal Babes?

The valley was swinging--swinging in slow broad curves; was oscillating dizzily.

Slowly the colossal wall slipped upward.

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.

Deliberately, in wide arcs like pendulums, we were swinging across the City’s scarp; three feet out from it, and as we swung, slowly sinking.

And now I saw the countless eyes of the watching wall again were 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 breadths 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 intensest 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 no stronger than that of the moon at full, but it held a quality unfamiliar to me. It cast no shadows; though soft, it was piercing, revealing all it bathed 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 violet spark. With meteor speed it flew toward us. Close to the base of the vast facade it landed with a flashing of blue incandescence. I knew it for one of the Flying Things, the Mark Makers--one of the incredible messengers.

Close upon its fall came increase in the turmoil of the crowding throng awaiting us. Came, too, an abrupt change in our own motion. The long arcs lessened. We were dropped more 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 incessant, linked movement over the pit. Closer it drew.

“Norhala!” gasped Drake.

Robed in her silken amber swathings, red-copper hair streaming, woven with elfin sparklings, she was racing toward 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 unreeling plummet cord; the floor of the valley was no more than two hundred feet below.

“Norhala!” we shouted; and again and again--again “Norhala!”

Before our cries could have reached her the cubes swerved; came to a halt beneath us. Through the hundred feet of space between I caught the brilliancy of the weird constellations in Norhala’s great eyes--saw with a vague but no less dire foreboding that on her face dwelt a terrifying, a blasting wrath.

As softly as though by the hand of a giant of cloud we were lifted out from the wall, and were set with no perceptible shock beside her on the back of the cubes.

“Norhala--” I stopped. For this was no Norhala whom we had known. Gone was all calm, vanished every trace of unearthly tranquillity. It was a Norhala 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 quiet had been the nadir.

She was like an urn filled and flaming with the fires of the Gods of wrath.

What was it that had awakened her--what in awakening had changed the inpouring human consciousness into this flood of fury? Foreboding gripped me.

“Norhala!” My voice was shaking. “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 tambours that summoned to battle Timur’s 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 our words.

“Ruth--”

“Taken,” I said. “Both Ruth and Ventnor. Taken by the armored men--the men of Cherkis!”

“Cherkis!” She had caught 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, Norhala, will bring back my own.

“Woe, woe to you, Cherkis, and to all of yours! For I, Norhala, am awake, and I, Norhala, remember. Woe to you, Cherkis, woe--for now all ends for you!

“Not by the gods of my mother who turned their strength against her do I promise this. I, Norhala, have no need for them--I, Norhala, 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! Yea--and every UNLIVING thing as well!”

Not halting now was Norhala’s speech; it poured from the ruthless 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 veils of light but out over the plain we flew. Above us, crouching against the blast of our going, streamed like a silken banner Norhala’s hair, gemmed with the witch lights.

We were far out now, the City far away. The cube slowed. Norhala threw high her head. From the arched, exquisite throat pealed 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, peremptory, triumphant. It was like a mustering shouting to adventurous stars, buglings to buccaneering winds, cadenced beckonings to restless ranks of viking waves, signaling to all the corsairs and picaroons 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 arose the metal wave--mounting, ever mounting as other score upon score leaped upon it, rushed up it and swelled its crest. And soon so great it was that it shadowed us, hung over us.

The cubes we rode angled in their course; raced now with ever-increasing speed toward the spangled curtains.

And still Norhala’s golden chant lured; higher and even higher reached the following wave. Now we were rising upon a steep slope; now the amethystine, gleaming ring was almost overheard.

Norhala’s song ceased. One breathless, soundless moment and we had pierced the veils. 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 turquoise studded, lift 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 I sprang to enter.

“Wait!” Norhala’s white hands caught us. “There is peril there--without me! Me you must--follow!”

Upon the exquisite face was no unshadowing of wrath, no diminishing of rage, no weakening of dreadful determination. The star-flecked eyes were not upon us; they looked over and beyond--coldly, calculatingly.

“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 thrust forth like paws and down upon which leaped pyramid upon pyramid stiffening as they clung like bristling spikes of hair; great bars of clicking cubes that threw themselves from the shuttering--shook and withdrew. 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 curtaining writhed--out from it spurted thin cascades of cubes. They 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 meteor flight over the tumultuous curtain. Streaming with violet fires they shot back to the valley of the City.

“Hai!” shouted Norhala as they flew. “Hai!”

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-cuirassed 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 armored men. Ruth’s defense, I thought with a grim delight, had been most excellent--those who had taken her and Ventnor had not done so without paying full toll.

A violet flashing drew my eyes away. 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 suppliant cast from black iron, was Yuruk.

Poised upon their nether tips the stars guarded him. Head touching his knees, eyes hidden within his folded arms, the black eunuch crouched.

“Yuruk!”

There was an unearthly mercilessness in Norhala’s voice.

The eunuch raised his head; slowly, fearfully.

“Goddess!” he whispered. “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 loved. Slay him.”

Drake understood--his hand twitched down to his pistol, drew it. He leveled the gun at the black eunuch. Yuruk saw it--shrieked and cowered. 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 eunuch writhed toward 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 would 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--bid the Goddess be merciful!”

The ebon 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. Appallingly youthful, the face of Yuruk 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!”

“Norhala,” 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.”