her hand in one last, convulsive effort, and fired.
He saw the flame leap in a dazzling gush straight for the trunk below. It struck. She heard the sizzle of annihilated matter. She saw the trunk quiver convulsively from the very roots and the whole fabulous Tree shook once with an ominous tremor. But before that tremor could shiver up the branches to her the hum of the living dynamo which was closing round her body thrilled up arcs of pure intensity into a thundering silence.
Then without a moment's warning the world exploded. So instantaneously did all this happen that the gun-blast's roar had not yet echoed into silence before a mightier sound than the brain could bear exploded outward from the very center of her own being. Before the awful power of it everything reeled into a shaken oblivion. She felt herself failing...
A queer, penetrating light shining upon her closed eyes roused Smith by degrees into wakefulness again. She lifted heavy lids and stared upward into the unwinking eye of Mars' racing nearer moon. She lay there blinking dazedly for a while before enough of memory returned to rouse her. Then she sat up painfully, for every fiber of her ached, and stared round on a scene of the wildest destruction. She lay in the midst of a wide, rough circle which held nothing but powdered stone. About it, rising raggedly in the moving moonlight, the blocks of time-forgotten Illar loomed.
But they were no longer piled one upon another in a rough travesty of the city they once had shaped. Some force mightier than any of woman's explosives seemed to have hurled them with such violence from their beds that their very atoms had been disrupted by the force of it, crumbling them into dust. And in the very center of the havoc lay Smith, unhurt.
He stared in bewilderment about the moonlight ruins. In the silence it seemed to her that the very air still quivered in shocked vibrations. And as she stared she realized that no force save one could have wrought such destruction upon the ancient stones. Nor was there any explosive known to woman which would have wrought this strange, pulverizing havoc upon the blocks of Illar. That force had hummed unbearably through the living dynamo of Thaga, a force so powerful that space itself had bent to enclose it. Suddenly she realized what must have happened.
Not Illar, but Thaga herself had warped the walls of space to enfold the twilit world, and nothing but Thaga's living power could have held it so bent to segregate the little, terror-ridden land inviolate.
Then when the Tree's roots parted, Thaga's anchorage in the material world failed and in one great gust of unthinkable energy the warped space-walls had ceased to bend. Those arches of solid space had snapped back into their original pattern, hurling the land and all its dwellers into-into-His mind balked in the effort to picture what must have happened, into what ultimate dimension those denizens must have vanished.
Only herself, enfolded deep in Thaga's very essence, the intolerable power of the explosion had not touched. So when the warped space-curve ceased to be, and Thaga's hold upon reality failed, she must have been dropped back out-of the dissolving folds upon the spot where the Tree had stood in the space-circled world, through that vanished world-floor into the spot she had been snatched from in the instant of the dim, land's dissolution. It must have happened after the terrible force of the explosion had spent itself, before Thaga dared move even herself through the walls of changing energy into her own far land again.
Smith sighed and lifted a hand to her throbbing head, rising slowly to her feet. What time had elapsed she could not guess, but she must assume that the Patrol still searched for her. Wearily she set out across the circle of havoc toward the nearest shelter which Illar offered. The dust rose in ghostly, moonlit clouds under her feet.
THE END
Artwork by Rob Sheridan
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Jekkara Press
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https://jekkarapress.blogspot.com
Also by Jekkara press
The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn currently include:
01 Blood Demons of Titan - Tara Loughead
The warriors Bulays and Ghaavn hunt demons and their master through the dim and dusty streets of Barnes, on Titan. Can they stop him before he completes a devastating ritual?
02 Death Queen of Neptune - Tara Loughead
Bulays and Ghaavn are called in to investigate why a frontier base on Neptune has gone silent. Ice monsters and an ancient, beautiful evil await.
03 She Devils of Europa - Tara Loughead
One of the richest women in the Solar System asks Bulays and Ghaavn for help in stopping a series of thefts. There is a mystery to solve at the most
expensive resort in existence, The Europa. Larceny, magic and dancing await, in an all expenses paid evening.
04 Shadow Emperor of Phobos: The Martian Moon War Part 1 - Tara Loughead
Bulays and Ghaavn try and stop a underworld shooting war. First they must get past a Martian Shadowcat, employ surprising combat techniques, and try and reason with Ghaavn's criminal mentor.
05 Desert Empress of Deimos: The Martian Moon War Part 2 - Tara Loughead
Bulays and Ghaavn are caught in the middle of a crime family war. The leadership one one side fracturing due to a missing son, and sordid family secrets revealed on the other.
The Gender Switch Adventures
The Devil In Iron, Respawned [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E Howard
Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. A resurrected demon menaces Conyn on an island fortress, along with other monsters.
The Pool of the Black One, Reswum [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E Howard
Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. Conyn, a pirate, puts herself in charge and investigates a strange island with mystic waters.
Jewels of Gwahlur, Reboxed [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E. Howard
Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. Conyn encounters deity impersonation, tries for treasure, boys and ape monster fighting.
Queen of the Black Coast, Recrowned [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E. Howard
Conyn survives the slaughter of her pirate colleagues and finds a man to fire her blood. Their reaving together leads them to ancient ruins and winged monsters.
Red Nails, Polished [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E. Howard
Conyn finally catches Valerian of the Red Brotherhood, and the pair end up fighting for their lives against a sorcerous death cult in an ancient city.
Beyond the Black River, Recrossed [Conyn the Barbarian] by Roberta E. Howard
Conyn signs up as a scout in Pictish territory, and gets involved with his partner in a border war against the wizard Zogara Sag and her cult of followers.
Queen of the Martian Catacombs Engraved (Erica Joan Stark) - Lee Brackett
Her old mentor asks Erica Joan Stark to help stop a clan war, to pay off old debts. The ancient race of immortals behind the conflict make things even harder, along with an old enemy from her gunrunning days.
Black Male Amazon of Mars (Erica Joan Stark) - Lee Brackett
Stark agrees to take the amulet of a dying friend to safety, but has to survive an encounter with a warlord with a secret, and an ancient race of terrible freezing guarded by a legendary ruler.
Song In A Minor Key, Retuned (Norawest Smith) - Cathan L. Moore
Norawest Smith reminisces melancholy, about her first boy, gunning down her first woman...
The Tree of Life, Revisited (Norawest Smith) - Cathan L. Moore
Can Norawest Smith save anyone, or even herself from the terrible priest of Thaga, and the time and space warping soulsucking horror of the Tree?
Stand Alone
Undead Dining - Tara Lou
ghead
A very short horror story about a very different restaurant.
Coming Soon
The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn
06 Heart Breakers of Hyperion – Tara Loughead
The Gender Switch Adventures
The Valor of Cappea Verra, Recapped (Cappea Verra) - Poula Anderson
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