Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 9. Abraham Merritt
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security; lay steeped in the aftermath of complete rest. Memory flooded me.
Quietly I sat up; Ruth still slept, breathing peacefully beneath the cloak, one white arm stretched over the shoulder of Drake—as though in her sleep she had drawn close to him.
At her feet lay Ventnor, as deep in slumber as they. I arose and tip-toed over to the closed door.
Searching, I found its key; a cupped indentation upon which I pressed.
The crystalline panel slipped back; it was moved, I suppose, by some mechanism of counterbalances responding to the weight of the hand. It must have been some vibration of the thunder which had loosed that mechanism and had closed the panel upon the heels of our entrance—so I thought —then seeing again in memory that uncanny, deliberate shutting was not at all convinced that it had been the thunder.
I looked out. How many hours the sun had been up there was no means of knowing.
The sky was low and slaty gray; a fine rain was falling. I stepped out.
The garden of Norhala was a wreckage of uprooted and splintered trees and torn masses of what had been blossoming verdure.
The gateway of the precipices beyond which lay the Pit was hidden in the webs of the rain. Long I gazed down the canyon—and longingly; striving to picture what the Pit now held; eager to read the riddles of the night.
There came from the valley no sound, no movement, no light.
I reentered the blue globe and paused on the threshold—staring into the wide and wondering eyes of Ruth bolt upright in her silken bed with Norhala's cloak clutched to her chin like a suddenly awakened and startled child. As she glimpsed me she stretched out her hand. Drake, wide awake on the instant, leaped to his feet, his hand jumping to his pistol.
"Dick!" called Ruth, her voice tremulous, sweet.
He swung about, looked deep into the clear and fearless brown eyes in which—with leaping heart I realized it—was throned only that spirit which was Ruth's and Ruth's alone; Ruth's clear unshadowed eyes glad and shy and soft with love.
"Dick!" she whispered, and held soft arms out to him. The cloak fell from her. He swung her up. Their lips met.
Upon them, embraced, the wakening eyes of Ventnor dwelt; they filled with relief and joy, nor was there lacking in them a certain amusement.
She drew from Drake's arms, pushed him from her, stood for a moment shakily, with covered eyes.
"Ruth," called Ventnor softly.
"Oh!" she cried. "Oh, Martin—I forgot—" She ran to him, held him tight, face hidden in his breast. His hand rested on the clustering brown curls, tenderly.
"Martin." She raised her face to him. "Martin, it's GONE! I'm—ME again! All ME! What happened? Where's Norhala?"
I started. Did she not know? Of course, lying bound as she had in the vanished veils, she could have seen nothing of the stupendous tragedy enacted beyond them—but had not Ventnor said that possessed by the inexplicable obsession evoked by the weird woman Ruth had seen with her eyes, thought with her mind?
And had there not been evidence that in her body had been echoed the torments of Norhala's? Had she forgotten? I started to speak—was checked by Ventnor's swift, warning glance.
"She's—over in the Pit," he answered her quietly. "But do you remember nothing, little sister?"
"There's something in my mind that's been rubbed out," she replied. "I remember the City of Cherkis—and your torture, Martin—and my torture—"
Her face whitened; Ventnor's brow contracted anxiously. I knew for what he watched—but Ruth's shamed face was all human; on it was no shadow nor trace of that alien soul which so few hours since had threatened us.
"Yes," she nodded, "I remember that. And I remember how Norhala repaid them. I remember that I was glad, fiercely glad, and then I was tired— so tired. And then—I come to the rubbed-out place," she ended perplexedly.
Deliberately, almost banally had I not realized his purpose, he changed the subject. He held her from him at arm's length.
"Ruth!" he exclaimed, half mockingly, half reprovingly. "Don't you think your morning negligee is just a little scanty even for this Godforsaken corner of the earth?"
Lips parted in sheer astonishment, she looked at him. Then her eyes dropped to her bare feet, her dimpled knees. She clasped her arms across her breasts; rosy red turned all her fair skin.
"Oh!" she gasped. "Oh!" And hid from Drake and me behind the tall figure of her brother.
I walked over to the pile of silken stuffs, took the cloak and tossed it to her. Ventnor pointed to the saddlebags.
"You've another outfit there, Ruth," he said. "We'll take a turn through the place. Call us when you're ready. We'll get something to eat and go see what's happening—out there."
She nodded. We passed through the curtains and out of the hall into the chamber that had been Norhala's. There we halted, Drake eyeing Martin with a certain embarrassment. The older man thrust out his hand to him.
"I knew it, Drake," he said. "Ruth told me all about it when Cherkis had us. And I'm very glad. It's time she was having a home of her own and not running around the lost places with me. I'll miss her—miss her damnably, of course. But I'm glad, boy—glad!"
There was a little silence while each looked deep into each other's hearts. Then Ventnor dropped Dick's hand.
"And that's all of THAT," he said. "The problem before us is—how are we going to get back home?"
"The—THING—is dead." I spoke from an absolute conviction that surprised me, based as it was upon no really tangible, known evidence.
"I think so," he said. "No—I KNOW so. Yet even if we can pass over its body, how can we climb out of its lair? That slide down which we rode with Norhala is unclimbable. The walls are unscalable. And there is that chasm—she—spanned for us. How can we cross THAT? The tunnel to the ruins was sealed. There remains of possible roads the way through the forest to what was the City of Cherkis. Frankly I am loathe to take it.
"I am not at all sure that all the armored men were slain—that some few may not have escaped and be lurking there. It would be short shrift for us if we fell into their hands now."
"And I'm not sure of THAT," objected Drake. "I think their pep and push must be pretty thoroughly knocked out—if any do remain. I think if they saw us coming they'd beat it so fast that they'd smoke with the friction."
"There's something to that," Ventnor smiled. "Still I'm not keen on taking the chance. At any rate, the first thing to do is to see what happened down there in the Pit. Maybe we'll have some other idea after that."
"I know what happened there," announced Drake, surprisingly. "It was a short circuit!"
We gaped at him, mystified.
"Burned out!" said Drake. "Every damned one of them—burned out. What were they, after all? A lot of living dynamos. Dynamotors— rather. And all of a sudden they had too much juice turned on. Bang went their insulations—whatever they were.
"Bang went they. Burned out—short circuited. I don't pretend to know why or how. Nonsense! I do know. The cones were some kind of immensely concentrated force—electric, magnetic; either or both or more. I myself believe that they were probably solid—in a way of speaking —coronium.
"If about twenty of the greatest scientists the world has ever known are right, coronium is—well, call it curdled energy. The electric potentiality of Niagara in a pin point of dust of yellow fire. All right —they or IT lost control. Every pin point swelled out into a Niagara. And as it did so, it expanded from a controlled dust dot to an uncontrolled cataract—in other words, its energy was unleashed and undammed.
"Very well—what followed? What HAD to follow?