CHAPTER XI. THE METAL EMPEROR
We stood at the edge of a well whose walls were of that same greenvaporous iridescence through which we had just come, but finer grained,compact; as though here the corpuscles of which they were woven were farcloser spun. Thousands of feet above us the mighty cylinder uprose, andin the lessened circle that was its mouth I glimpsed the bright stars;and knew by this it opened into the free air.
All of half a mile in diameter was this shaft, and ringed regularlyalong its height by wide amethystine bands--like rings of a hollowpiston. They were, in color, replicas of that I had glimpsed beforeour descent into this place and against whose gleaming cataracts theoutlines of the incredible city had lowered. And they were in motion,spinning smoothly, and swiftly.
Only one swift glance I gave them, my eyes held by a mostextraordinary--edifice--altar--machine--I could not find the word forit--then.
Its base was a scant hundred yards from where we had paused andconcentric with the sides of the pit. It stood upon a thick circularpedestal of what appeared to be cloudy rock crystal supported byhundreds of thick rods of the same material.
Up from it lifted the structure, a thing of glistening cones andspinning golden disks; fantastic yet disquietingly symmetrical; bizarreas an angled headdress worn by a mountainous Javanese god--yet coldly,painfully mathematical. In every direction the cones pointed, seeminglyinterwoven of strands of metal and of light.
What was their color? It came to me--that of the mysterious elementwhich stains the sun's corona, that diadem seen only when our day staris in eclipse; the unknown element which science has named coronium,which never yet has been found on earth and that may be electricityin its one material form; electricity that is ponderable; force whosevibrations are keyed down to mass; power transmuted into substance.
Thousands upon thousands the cones bristled, pyramiding to the baseof one tremendous spire that tapered up almost to the top of the shaftitself.
In their grouping the mind caught infinite calculations carried intoinfinity; an apotheosis of geometry compassing the rhythms of unknownspatial dimensions; concentration of the equations of the star hordes.
The mathematics of the Cosmos.
From the left of the crystalline base swept an enormous sphere. It wastwice the height of a tall man, and it was a paler blue than any ofthese Things I had seen, almost, indeed, an azure; different, too, inother subtle, indefinable ways.
Behind it glided a pair of the pyramidal shapes, their pointedtips higher by a yard or more than the top of the sphere. Theypaused--regarding us. Out from the opposite arc of the crystal pedestalmoved six other globes, somewhat smaller than the first and of a deeppurplish luster.
They separated, lining up on each side of the leader now standing alittle in advance of the twin tetrahedrons, rigid and motionless aswatching guards.
There they stood--that enigmatic row, intent, studying us beneath theirgod or altar or machine of cones and disks within their cylinder walledwith light.
And at that moment there crystallized within my consciousness thesublimation of all the strangenesses of all that had gone before, apanic loneliness as though I had wandered into an alien world--a worldas unfamiliar to humanity, as unfamiliar with it as our own would seemto a thinking, mobile crystal adrift among men.
Norhala raised her white arms in salutation; from her throat came alilting theme of her weirdly ordered, golden chanting. Was it speech, Iwondered; and if so--prayer or entreaty or command?
The great sphere quivered and undulated. Swifter than the eye couldfollow it dilated; opened!
Where the azure globe had been, flashed out a disk of flaming splendors,the very secret soul of flowered flame! And simultaneously the pyramidsleaped up and out behind it--two gigantic, four-rayed stars blazing withcold blue fires.
The green auroral curtainings flared out, ran with streamingradiance--as though some Spirit of Jewels had broken bonds ofenchantment and burst forth jubilant, flooding the shaft with its freedglories. Norhala's song ceased; an arm dropped down upon the shouldersof Ruth.
Then woman and girl began to float toward the radiant disk.
As one, the three of us sprang after them. I felt a shock that was likea quick, abrupt tap upon every nerve and muscle, stiffening them intohelpless rigidity.
Paralyzing that sharp, unseen contact had been, but nothing of painfollowed it. Instead it created an extraordinary acuteness of sight andhearing, an abnormal keying up of the observational faculties, as thoughthe energy so mysteriously drawn from our motor centers had been thrownback into the sensory.
I could take in every minute detail of the flashing miracle of gemmedfires and its flaming ministers. Halfway between them and us Norhala andRuth drifted; I could catch no hint of voluntary motion on their partand knew that they were not walking, but were being borne onward by somemanifestation of that same force which held us motionless.
I forgot them in my contemplation of the Disk.
It was oval, twenty feet in height, I judged, and twelve in its greatestwidth. A broad band, translucent as sun golden chrysolite, ran about itsperiphery.
Set within this zodiac and spaced at mathematically regular intervalswere nine ovoids of intensely living light. They shone like ninegigantic cabochon cut sapphires; they ranged from palest, watery blueup through azure and purple and down to a ghostly mauve shot with sullenundertones of crimson.
In each of them was throned a flame that seemed the very fiery essenceof vitality.
The--BODY--was convex, swelling outward like the boss of a shield;shimmering rosy-gray and crystalline. From the vital ovoids ran apattern of sparkling threads, irised and brilliant as floss of moltenjewels; converging with interfacings of spirals, of volutes and oftriangles into the nucleus.
And that nucleus, what was it?
Even now I can but guess--brain in part as we understand brain,certainly; but far, far more than that in its energies, its powers.
It was like an immense rose. An incredible rose of a thousand closeclustering petals. It blossomed with a myriad shifting hues. And instantby instant the flood of varicolored flame that poured into its petalingsdown from the sapphire ovoids waxed and waned in crescendoes anddiminuendoes of relucent harmonies--ecstatic, awesome.
The heart of the rose was a star of incandescent ruby.
From the flaming crimson center to aureate, flashing penumbra it wasinstinct with and poured forth power--power vast and conscious.
Not with that same completeness could I realize the ministering starshapes, half hidden as they were by the Disk. Their radiance was less,nor had they its miracle of pulsing gem fires. Blue they were, blue ofa peculiar vibrancy, and blue were the glistening threads that randown from blue-black circular convexities set within each of the pointsvisible to me.
Unlike in shape, their flame of vitality dimmer than the ovoids of theDisk's golden zone, still I knew that they were even as those--ORGANS,organs of unknown senses, unknown potentialities. Their nuclei I couldnot observe.
The floating figures had drawn close to that disk and had paused.
And on the moment of their pausing I felt a surge of strength, asnapping of the spell that had bound us, an instantaneous withdrawal ofthe inhibiting force. Ventnor broke into a run, holding his rifle atthe alert. We raced after him; were close to the shining shapes. And,gasping, we stopped short not a dozen paces away.
For Norhala had soared up toward the flaming rose of the Disk as thoughlifted by gentle, unseen hands. Close to it for an instant she swung. Isaw the exquisite body gleam through her thin robes as though bathed insoft flames of rosy pearl.
Higher she floated, and toward the right of the zodiac. From the edgesof three of the ovoids swirled a little cloud of tentacles, gossamerfilaments of opal. They whipped out a full yard from the Disk's surface,touching her, caressing her.
For a moment she hung there, her face hidden from us; then was droppedsoftly to her feet and stood, arms stretched wide, her copper hairstreaming cloudily
about her regal head.
And up past her floated Ruth, levitated as had been she--and her face,ecstatic as though she were gazing into Paradise, yet drenched with thetranquillity of the infinite. Her wide eyes stared up toward that roseof splendors through which the pulsing colors now raced more swiftly.She hung poised before it while around her head a faint aureole began toform.
Again the gossamer threads thrust forth, searched her. They ran over herrough clothing--perplexedly. They coiled about her neck, stole throughher hair, brushed shut her eyes, circled her brow, her breasts, girdledher.
Weirdly was it like some intelligence observing, studying, some creatureof another species--puzzled by its similarity and unsimilarity with theone other creature of its kind it knew, and striving to reconcile thosedifferences. And like such a questioning brain calling upon others forcounsel, it swung Ruth upward to the watching star at the right.
A rifle shot rang out.
Another--the reports breaking the silence like a profanation. Unseen byeither of us, Ventnor had slipped to one side where he could cover thecore of ruby flame that must have seemed to him the heart of the Disk'srose of fire. He knelt a few yards away, white lipped, eyes cold grayice, sighting carefully for a third shot.
"Don't! Martin--don't fire!" I shouted, leaping toward him.
"Stop! Ventnor--" Drake's panic cry mingled with my own.
But before we could reach him, Norhala flew to him, like a dartingswallow. Down the face of the Disk glided the upright body of Ruth,struck softly, stood swaying.
And out of the blue-black convexity within a star point of one of theopened pyramids a lance of intense green flame darted, a lightning boltas real as any hurled by tempest, upon Ventnor.
The shattered air closed behind the streaming spark with the sound ofbreaking glass.
It struck--Norhala.
It struck her. It seemed to splash upon her, to run down her like water.One curling tongue writhed over her bare shoulder and leaped to thebarrel of the rifle in Ventnor's hands. It flashed up it and lickedhim. The gun was torn from his grip, hurled high in air, exploding as itwent. He leaped convulsively from his knees and dropped.
I heard a wailing, low, bitter and heartbroken. Past us ran Ruth, alldream, all unearthliness gone from a face now a tragic mask of humanwoe and terror. She threw herself down beside her brother, felt of hisheart; then raised herself upon her knees and thrust out supplicatinghands to the shapes.
"Don't hurt him any more! He didn't mean it!" she cried out to thempiteously--like a child. She reached up, caught one of Norhala's hands."Norhala--don't let them kill him. Don't let them hurt him any more.Please!" she sobbed.
Beside me I heard Drake cursing.
"If they touch her I'll kill the woman! I will, by God I will!" Hestrode to Norhala's side.
"If you want to live, call off these devils of yours." His voice wasstrangled.
She looked at him, wonder deepening on the tranquil brow, in the clear,untroubled gaze. Of course she could not understand his words--but itwas not that which made my own sick apprehension grow.
It was that she did not understand what called them forth. Did not evenunderstand what reason lay behind Ruth's sorrow, Ruth's prayer.
And more and more wondering grew in her eyes as she looked from thethreatening Drake to the supplicating Ruth, and from them to the stillbody of Ventnor.
"Tell her what I say, Goodwin. I mean it."
I shook my head. That was not the way, I knew. I looked toward the Disk,still flanked with its sextette of spheres, still guarded by the flamingblue stars. They were motionless, calm, watching. I sensed no hostility,no anger; it was as though they were waiting for us to--to--waiting forus to do what?
It came to me--they were indifferent. That was it--as indifferent as wecould be to the struggle of an ephemera; and as mildly curious.
"Norhala," I turned to the woman, "she would not have him suffer; shewould not have him die. She loves him."
"Love?" she repeated, and all of her wonderment seemed crystallized inthe word. "Love?" she asked.
"She loves him," I said; and then, why I did not know, but I added,pointing to Drake: "and he loves her."
There was a tiny, astonished sob from Ruth. Again Norhala brooded overher. Then with a little despairing shake of her head, she paced over andfaced the great Disk.
Tensely we waited. Communication there was between them, interchangeof--thought; how carried out I would not hazard even to myself.
But of a surety these two--the goddess woman, the wholly unhuman shapeof metal, of jeweled fires and conscious force--understood each other.
For she turned, stood aside--and the body of Ventnor quivered, arosefrom the floor, stood upright and with closed eyes, head dropping uponone shoulder, glided toward the Disk like a dead man carried by thosemessengers never seen by man who, the Arabs believe, bear the deathdrugged souls before Allah for their awakening.
Ruth moaned and hid her eyes; Drake reached down, gathered her up in hisarms, held her close.
Ventnor's body stood before the Disk, then swam up along its face. Thetendrils waved out, felt of it, thrust themselves down through the widecollar of the shirt. The floating form passed higher, over the edge ofthe Disk; lay high beside the right star point of the rayed shape towhich Ruth had been passing when Ventnor's shot brought the tragedy uponus. I saw other tentacles whip forth, examine, caress.
Then down the body swung, was borne through air, laid gently at ourfeet.
"He is not--dead," it was Norhala beside me; she lifted Ruth's face fromDrake's breast. "He will not die. It may be he will walk again. Theycan not help," there was a shadow of apology in her tones. "They didnot know. They thought it was the"--she hesitated as though at loss forwords--"the--the Fire Play."
"The Fire Play?" I gasped.
"Yes," she nodded. "You shall see it. And now I will take him to myhouse. You are safe--now, nor need you trouble. For he has given you tome."
"Who has given us to you--Norhala?" I asked, as calmly as I could.
"He"--she nodded to the Disk, then spoke the phrase that was bothancient Assyria's and ancient Persia's title for their all-conqueringrulers, and that meant--"the King of Kings. The Great King, Master ofLife and Death."
She took Ruth from Drake's arms, pointing to Ventnor.
"Bear him," she commanded, and led the way back through the walls oflight.
As we lifted the body, I slipped my hand through the shirt, felt at theheart. Faint was the pulsation and slow, but regular.
Close to the encircling vapors I cast one look behind me. The shapesstood immobile, flashing disks, gigantic radiant stars and the six greatspheres beneath their geometric super-Euclidean god or shrine or machineof interwoven threads of luminous force and metal--still motionless,still watching.
We emerged into the place of pillars. There stood the hooded pony andits patience, its uncomplaining acceptance of its place as servant toman brought a lump into my throat, salved, I suppose, my human vanity,abased as it had been by the colossal indifference of those things towhich we were but playthings.
Again Norhala sent forth her call. Out of the maze glided her quintetteof familiars; again the four clicked into one. Upon its top we lifted,Drake ascending first, the pony; then the body of Ventnor.
I saw Norhala lead Ruth to the remaining cube; saw the girl break awayfrom her, leap beside me, and kneeling at her brother's head, cradleit against her soft breast. Then as I found in the medicine case thehypodermic needle and the strychnine for which I had been searching, Ibegan my examination of Ventnor.
The cubes quivered--swept away through the forest of columns.
We crouched, the three of us, blind to anything that lay about us,heedless of whatever road of wonders we were on, striving to strengthenin Ventnor the spark of life so near extinction.