oflifting and falling dust, a little roll showing the magic of invisibleforce, and pressed on, as if to cross.
Behind me a cry gave me pause. I turned, looking for that cry's source,for it seemed to me the cry was the girl I had rescued from Barto. Thatsaved me, for the little horse behind me pressed on across the strangeline--and faltered, gave a horse-scream of terror, fell dead before me.
We stopped, terror of the unknown in our breasts, wondering--afraid toput the wonder into words. We did not look at each other or discuss thething, we just accepted it, and stared dumbly at it like animals. Itossed a rock across the body of the now quite motionless pack animal,the rock reached the wall beneath which my animal lay dead--slowed,curved sharply to the ground, did not roll, but lay as if imprisoned ininvisible jelly!
There was a wall of invisible and deadly force there, and there was noknown explanation for it!
I growled at Barto, all the suspicion and distrust that had beenbuilding up in me toward him in my voice.
"What does your golden girl tell you now, Jake?"
Jake surprised me. He walked ahead toward that frightening manifestationof the unknown, holding the little statuette before him like a sword,his ugly face rapt in some listening beyond me. As the little statuecrossed the line, he sang out:
"Listen, Goddess of the Golden forces, listen and heed! We come fromafar to pay our worship, to give to you our devotion, and we are metwith this wall of death! Is that the way you greet your friends?"
Jake waved the statuette in a circular motion, then crossed the circletwice with the waving gold. He stood there, his crossed eyes dartinghere and there along the line of force, and after a long minute, after atime that seemed filled with a distant chuckling, like thunder too faroff to be heard clearly--the lift and fall of the dust on the baffledwind stopped, the strict line of the wind's stoppage began to disappear,the line of demarcation was gone!
Jake reached out an arm, feeling cautiously for the invisible wall, andafter a minute, his face lightened from its habitual gloom, he steppedacross the line, and did not stagger and fall as had the horse. The wallwas gone! Jake turned, said calmly:
"Come on, our friends have decided to let us in."
My mind in a whirl at the unexpected display of knowledge beyond me, offorces beyond the power of any rifle bullet to overcome, of strangehidden things here--I stepped across the line, keeping close to thetracks left by Jake's big feet. Polter and Noldi followed and the horsesplodded after. We trudged on, but not the same. We were afraid, and wewere conscious of a vast ignorance, of a fear that we did not belonghere, that the only wise thing for us to do was to turn back and give upthis Jake Barto and his cross eyes and his mumbo jumbo statue to his owndoom.
At least that's the way I felt, but something stronger than curiositydrew me on. I wanted to know why I was so drawn when reason keptdemanding I give up this quest. I wanted to know why a golden statuepointed always to one point on the horizon, and why that wall of forcehad obeyed Jake's injunction to go away. Or was I unable to think,really? Was I shocked out of my ability to reason and act on my reason'sdictates?
Ahead, as the trail dipped low, a vast panorama of valley and hill andhollow, of eerie rocky spires, lay outspread. Here and there werecultivated fields, and figures at work on the fields. In the distanceshone a stream. It flowed meandering into a wide lake. There were twovillages, not clear in the haze. At the distant lake, some kind oflarger structure lifted tall towers, shining with prismatic glitter, acity of strange appearance.
We had crossed a barrier, and we had entered a land of the living--butit was unclear before us. The drifting mountain mists, the sun-glitterand the haze of noon kept the scene from striking through to our brainswith its true significance. For there was an eerie _difference_ aboutthe scene; it was not a land below us such as any of us had ever seen.I felt that and yet I could not think clearly about it. We moved alonglike zombies, not thinking--just accepting the unusual and the unknownas casually as if we were travelers who could not be astounded. Butinside, my mind was busily turning the significance and the meaning ofthis wall of force. I had heard of such walls before--upon Shasta inCalifornia, and in Tibet, and in ancient times in Ireland, and therewere other instances of a similar wall in the past, and in the presentin other places. But what it could really mean, that was what I did notknow.
After crossing that invisible barrier, things began to happen in asequence, of a strangeness and with a rapidity such that I was unable toanalyze or to rationalize. From there on I was like a man on atightrope, hounded by invisible tormentors trying to shake me off. I hadnot time to wonder whether it was true that spirits existed. What I didthink was that some of these Korean primitives had a Devil Doctor whosurpassed all others in trickiness, and was amusing himself at ourexpense. But I did not _think_ it, I _clung_ to the idea to save myreason from tottering over the brink.
The first thing after the wall that could not exist but did--after wehad passed on over the ridge and half way down the mountain side--was agully along the mountain side, up which Barto turned. I assumed he wasstill following the pointing of the magnetic statuette, but I wasvaguely conscious that none of us were _really_ conscious--were under akind of spell in which our actions and our thoughts werepredetermined--inevitable! I knew it, but I could not shake it off, norput my finger on any reason why I should shake it off and call a halt tothe strange, wordless, silent following of Jake and his eerie talisman.
The faint trail led along the bottom of the gully, and after twentyminutes of downward progress, led into a dark overhang of rock, the skyhardly visible where the rocks almost met overhead. Down the semi-cavernwe went; still silent, zombie-like; and I felt ever more strongly thecompulsion that made us so move and so unable to do otherwise.
Jake was striding rapidly now, his dark ugly face aflame with weirdeagerness, my own heart pounding with alarm at the strangeness and theirrationality of the whole proceeding. He held the statuette outstiffly, it seemed fairly to leap in his hands, as if tugging with anecstatic longing to reach the dark place ahead. The rocks closedcompletely overhead; the dimness changed to stygian darkness. I got outmy flashlight, sent the beam ahead. But Jake was pressing on through thedarkness, directly in the center of the trail.
Quite suddenly the cavern turned, opened ahead, wider and wider--andbefore us lay a room of jeweled splendor, the temple of someforgotten--_or was it forgotten?_--cult of worship.
The golden statue in the center of the big round chamber drew our eyesfrom the splendor of the peculiarly decorated walls, from the strangecrystal pillar on the tall dais at the far wall, from the weirdassemblages of crystals and metals that had an eerie resemblance tomachines--to a science entirely unknown to modern men. All these detailsof that chamber I remember now, looking back, but then--my attention andthat of the others was entirely drawn to the beauty of the tall, goldenwoman who stood in frozen metallic wonder at the center of the forgottencrypt.
Jake, his ugly face in a transport, had fallen to his knees, wascrawling forward to the statue abjectly, mouthing phrases of worshipand self-abnegation. Close on his heels came Polter and Noldi, eyesrapt, movements mechanical. I stopped, some last remnant of senseremaining in my head, and by a strong effort of will held my limbsmotionless.
As Jake reached the statue, the little golden replica of the life-sizedwoman of gold seemed to leap out of his reaching hands, and clungagainst the metallic waist of the golden woman as a lodestone to themother lode.
Even as Barto's hands touched the statue, he slumped, lay thereoutstretched, his fingertips touching the metal hem of the golden skirt;and whether he was unconscious from unsupportable ecstasy or for whatmad reason, I did not know, but I did not _want_ to know.
Undeterred by Jake's condition, the two men following in his steps alsoreached out hands to touch the golden metal--and fell flat on theirfaces beside Jake Barto, unconscious, or dead!
I stood, numb and with a terrific compulsion running through my nerves,which I resisted with all my will
. I drew my eyes from the strangelypleasant magnetic lure of the metal woman with an effort and examinedthat strange chamber.
The walls were covered with a crystalline glittering substance, likemolten glass sprayed on and allowed to harden. Behind this glasseousprotective surface, paintings and carvings spread a fantasy of strangeform and color, but the light was too dim to make much of it, exceptthat it was alien to my experience, and exceedingly well done, speakingof a culture second to none.
Beyond the central form of the strange golden statue, was the dais whichI had noticed at once, and now my eyes picked out the fact that on itwas also a glasseous protective sheath about a form--another statue, Ithought.
Thoughtfully I prowled along the rim of the room, examining the wallfrescoes foot by foot, seeing on them a strange depiction of semi-humanforms, of crab-men and crab-women, of snake-men and snake-women, of menhalf-goat and half-man, of creatures hardly human with great jaws thatlooked like rock-cutters, with hands like