CHAPTER X. "WITCH! GIVE BACK MY SISTER"
How long we were within that glare I do not know; it seemed unendinghours; it was of course only minutes--seconds, perhaps. Then I wassensible of a permeating shadow, a darkness gentle and healing.
I raised my head and opened my eyes. We were moving tranquilly, witha curious suggestion of homing leisureliness, through a soft, blueshimmering darkness. It was as though we were drifting within some highborderland of light; a region in which that rapid vibration we call theviolet was mingled with a still more rapid vibration whose quick pulsingwas felt by the brain but ever fled ere that brain could register it interms of color. And there seemed to be a film over my sight; dazzlementfrom the unearthly blaze, I thought, shaking my head impatiently.
My eyes focused upon an object a little more than a foot away; my neckgrew rigid, my scalp prickled while I stared, unbelieving. And that atwhich I stared was--a skeleton hand. Every bone a grayish black, sharplysilhouetted, clean as some master surgeon's specimen, it was extendedas though clutching at--clutching at--what was that toward which it wasreaching?
Again the icy prickling over scalp and skin--for its talons stretchedout to grasp a steed that Death himself might have ridden, a rack whosebare skull hung drooping upon bent vertebrae.
I raised my hands to my face to shut out the ghostly sight--and swiftlythe clutching bony hand moved toward me--was before my eyes--touched me.
The cry that sheer horror wrested from me was strangled by realization.And so acute was my relief, so reassuring was it to have in the midstof these mysteries some sane, understandable thing occur that I laughedaloud.
For the skeleton hand was my own. The mournful ghastly mount of deathwas--our pony. And when I looked again I knew what I would see--andsee them I did--two tall skeletons, skulls resting on their bony arms,leaning against the frame of the beast.
While ahead of us, floating poised upon the surface of the glisteningcube, were two women skeletons--Ruth and Norhala!
Weird enough was the sight. Dureresque, grimly awful as materializationof a scene of the Dance Macabre--and yet--vastly comforting.
For here was something which was well within the range of humanknowledge. It was the light about us that did it; a vibration that evenas I conjectured, was within the only partly explored region of theultraviolet and the comparatively unexplored region above it.
Yet there were differences, for there was none of that misty halo aroundthe bones, the flesh which the X-rays cannot render wholly invisible.The skeletons stood out clean cut, with no trace of fleshly vestments.
I crept over, spoke to the two.
"Don't look up yet," I said. "Don't open your eyes. We're going througha queer light. It has an X-ray quality. You're going to see me as askeleton--"
"What?" shouted Drake. Disobeying my warning he straightened, glaredat me. And disquieting as the spectacle had been before, fullyunderstanding it as I did, I could not restrain my shudder at the utterweirdness of that skull which was his head thrusting itself toward me.
The skeleton that was Ventnor turned to me; was arrested by the sight ofthe flitting pair ahead. I saw the fleshless jaws clamp, then opened tospeak.
Abruptly, upon the skeletons in front the flesh dropped back. Girl andwoman stood there once again robed in beauty.
So swift was that transition from the grisly unreal to the normal thateven to my unsuperstitious mind it smacked of necromancy. The nextinstant the three of us stood looking at each other, clothed once morein the flesh, and the pony no longer the steed of death, but our shaggy,patient little companion.
The light had changed; the high violet had gone from it, and it was shotwith yellow gleamings like fugitive sunbeams. We were passing througha wide corridor that seemed to be unending. The yellow light grewstronger.
"That light wasn't exactly the Roentgen variety," Drake interrupted myabsorption in our surroundings. "And I hope to God it's as different asit seemed. If it's not we may be up against a lot of trouble."
"More trouble than we're in?" I asked, a trifle satirically.
"X-ray burns," he answered, "and no way to treat them in this place--ifwe live to want treatment," he ended grimly.
"I don't think we were subjected to their action long enough--" I began,and was silent.
The corridor had opened without warning into a place for whose immensityI have no images that are adequate. It was a chamber that was vasterthan ten score of the Great Halls of Karnac in one; great as that fabledhall in dread Amenti where Osiris sits throned between the Searcher ofHearts and the Eater of Souls, judging the jostling hosts of the newlydead.
Temple it was in its immensity, and its solemn vastness--but unlike anytemple ever raised by human toil. In no ruin of earth's youth giants'work now crumbling under the weight of time had I ever sensed ashadow of the strangeness with which this was instinct. No--nor in theshattered fanes that once had held the gods of old Egypt, nor in thepillared shrines of Ancient Greece, nor Imperial Rome, nor mosque,basilica nor cathedral.
All these had been dedicated to gods which, whether created by humanityas science believes, or creators of humanity as their worshippersbelieved, still held in them that essence we term human.
The spirit, the force, that filled this place had in it nothing, NOTHINGof the human.
No place? Yes, there was one--Stonehenge. Within that monolithic circleI had felt a something akin to this, as inhuman; a brooding spiritstony, stark, unyielding--as though not men but a people of stone hadraised the great Menhirs.
This was a sanctuary built by a people of metal!
It was filled with a soft yellow glow like pale sunshine. Up from itsfloor arose hundreds of tremendous, square pillars down whose polishedsides the crocus light seemed to flow.
Far, far as the gaze could reach, the columns marched, oppressivelyordered, appallingly mathematical. From their massiveness distilled asense of power, mysterious, mechanical yet--living; something priestly,hierophantic--as though they were guardians of a shrine.
Now I saw whence came the light suffusing this place. High up among thepillars floated scores of orbs that shone like pale gilt frozen suns.Great and small, through all the upper levels these strange luminariesgleamed, fixed and motionless, hanging unsupported in space. Out fromtheir shining spherical surfaces darted rays of the same pale gold,rigid, unshifting, with the same suggestion of frozen stillness.
"They look like big Christmas-tree stars," muttered Drake.
"They're lights," I answered. "Of course they are. They're notmatter--not metal, I mean--"
"There's something about them like St. Elmo's fire, witchlights--condensations of atmospheric electricity," Ventnor's voice wascalm; now that it was plain we were nearing the heart of this mysteryin which we were enmeshed he had clearly taken fresh grip, was again hisobservant, scientific self.
We watched, once more silent; and indeed we had spoken little sincewe had begun that ride whose end we sensed close. In the unfolding ofenigmatic happening after happening the mind had deserted speech andcrouched listening at every door of sight and hearing to gather someclue to causes, some thread of understanding.
Slowly now we were gliding through the forest of pillars; so effortless,so smooth our flight that we seemed to be standing still, the tremendouscolumns flitting past us, turning and wheeling around us, dizzyingly. Myhead swam with the mirage motion, I closed my eyes.
"Look," Drake was shaking me. "Look. What do you make of that?"
Half a mile ahead the pillars stopped at the edge of a shimmering,quivering curtain of green luminescence. High, high up past the palegilt suns its smooth folds ran, into the golden amber mist that canopiedthe columns.
In its sparkling was more than a hint of the dancing corpuscles of theaurora; it was, indeed, as though woven of the auroral rays. And allabout it played shifting, tremulous shadows formed by the merging of thegolden light with the curtain's emerald gleaming.
Up to its base swept the cube that bore Ruth and Norhala--
and stopped.From it leaped the woman, and drew Ruth down beside her, then turned andgestured toward us.
That upon which we rode drew close. I felt it quiver beneath me; felt onthe instant, the magnetic grip drop from me, angle downward and leave mefree. Shakily I arose from aching knees, and saw Ventnor flash down andrun, rifle in hand, toward his sister.
Drake bent for his gun. I moved unsteadily toward the side of theclustered cubes. There came a curious pushing motion driving me to theedge. Sliding over upon me came Drake and the pony--
The cube tilted, gently, playfully--and with the slightest of jars thethree of us stood beside it on the floor, we two men gaping at it inrenewed wonder, and the little beast stretching its legs, lifting itsfeet and whinnying with relief.
Then abruptly the four blocks that had been our steed broke from eachother; that which had been the woman's glided to them.
The four clicked into place behind it and darted from sight.
"Ruth!" Ventnor's voice was vibrant with his fear. "Ruth! What is wrongwith you? What has she done to you?"
We ran to his side. He stood clutching her hands, searching her eyes.They were wide, unseeing, dream filled. Upon her face the calm andstillness, which were mirrored reflections of Norhala's unearthlytranquillity, had deepened.
"Brother." The sweet voice seemed far away, drifting out of untroubledspace, an echo of Norhala's golden chimings--"Brother, there is nothingwrong with me. Indeed--all is--well with me--brother."
He dropped the listless palms, faced the woman, tall figure tense, drawnwith mingled rage and anguish.
"What have you done to her?" he whispered in Norhala's own tongue.
Her serene gaze took him in, undisturbed by his anger save for thefaintest shadow of wonder, of perplexity.
"Done?" she repeated, slowly. "I have stilled all that was troubledwithin her--have lifted her above sorrow. I have given her the peace--asI will give it to you if--"
"You'll give me nothing," he interrupted fiercely; then, his passionbreaking through all restraint--"Yes, you damned witch--you'll give meback my sister!"
In his rage he had spoken English; she could not, of course, haveunderstood the words, but their anger and hatred she did understand.Her serenity quivered, broke. The strange stars within her eyes beganto glitter forth as they had when she had summoned the Smiting Thing.Unheeding, Ventnor thrust out a hand, caught her roughly by one bare,lovely shoulder.
"Give her back to me, I say!" he cried. "Give her back to me!"
The woman's eyes grew--awful. Out of the distended pupils the strangestars blazed; upon her face was something of the goddess outraged. Ifelt the shadow of Death's wings.
"No! No--Norhala! No, Martin!" the veils of inhuman calm shrouding Ruthwere torn; swiftly the girl we knew looked out from them. She threwherself between the two, arms outstretched.
"Ventnor!" Drake caught his arms, held them tight; "that's not the wayto save her!"
Ventnor stood between us, quivering, half sobbing. Never until then hadI realized how great, how absorbing was that love of his for Ruth. Andthe woman saw it, too, even though dimly; envisioned it humanly. For,under the shock of human passion, that which I thought then as utterlyunknown to her as her cold serenity was to us, the sleeping soul--Iuse the popular word for those emotional complexes that are peculiar tomankind--stirred, awakened.
Wrath fled from her knitted brows; her eyes dropping to the girl, losttheir dreadfulness; softened. She turned them upon Ventnor, they broodedupon him; within their depths a half-troubled interest, a questioning.
A smile dawned upon the exquisite face, humanizing it, transfiguringit, touching with tenderness the sweet and sleeping mouth--as a hoveringdream the lips of the slumbering maid.
And on the face of Ruth, as upon a mirror, I watched that same slow,understanding tenderness reflected!
"Come," said Norhala, and led the way through the sparkling curtains.As she passed, an arm around Ruth's neck, I saw the marks of Ventnor'sfingers upon her white shoulder, staining its purity, marring it like ablasphemy.
For an instant I hung behind, watching their figures grow misty withinthe shining shadows; then followed hastily. Entering the mists I wasconscious of a pleasant tingling, an acceleration of the pulse, anincrease of that sense of well-being which, I grew suddenly aware,had since the beginning of our strange journey minimized the nervousattrition of constant contact with the abnormal.
Striving to classify, to reduce to order, my sensations I drew close tothe others, overtaking them in a dozen paces. A dozen paces more and westepped out of the curtainings.