Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 3 — page 101: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE METAL MONSTER. radiant sea. It shone with a pale blue phos- phorescence that was the exact tone of the Nameless Things under the sheen of the Plated Caron and it was _ featureless, smooth, a blind cliff of polished, blue metal —and that was all! “Ruth!” groaned Ventnor. _ Where is sher’’” Aghast at my mental withdrawal from him, angry at myself for my callousness, awkwardly I tried to craw! over to him, to touch him, comfort him as well as I might. And then, as though his cry had been a signal, the great cone began to move. Slow- ly the circled base slipped down the shim- mering facades; down, steadily down; I ‘realized that we had paused at the edge of some steep declivity, for the bottom of the cone was now at a decided angle while the upper edge of the circle had dropped a full two hundred feet below where it had rested—and still it fell. There came a gasp of relief from Vent- nor, a sigh from Drake while, from my own heart, a weight rolled. Not ten yards ahead of us and still deep within the luminosity had appeared the unearthly regal head of Norhala, the lovely head of Ruth. The “ Ruth! ' two rose out of the glow like swimmers © floating from the depths. Now they were clear before us, and now we could see the surface of the cube on which they rode. But neither turned to us: each stared straightly, motionless along the axis of the sinking cone, the woman’s right arm hold- ing Ruth close to her side! ‘Good God!” Drake’s hand caught my shoulder in a grip that hurt—nor did he need to point toward that which had wrung the exclamation from him. The funnel had broken from its slow falling; it had made one swift, startling drop and had come to — rest. Its recumbent side was now flat- tened into a triangular plane, widening from the narrow tip in. which we stood to all of five hundred feet where its base rested against the blue wall, and falling at a full thirty-degree pitch. The misty-edged circle had become an oval, a flattened ellipse another five hun- dred feet high and three times that in length. And in its exact center, shining Ald forth as though it opened into a place of pale azure incandescence was a Cyclopean portal, rectangular, to which the huge mega- lithic gateway of that mysterious race whose fanes were time-worn before the Incas learned to build upon them were but door- ways for. pygmies! But it was not that prodigious gate into this unimaginable place that drove the blood from our cheeks, checked the heart- beat and. sent the hair prickling on our scalps; no. It was that on each side of it, in the apparently solid face of the gleaming, metallic cliffs, a slit was opening. They began as thin lines a hundred yards in height through which the intense light seemed to hiss; quickly they opened—wid- ening like monstrous cat pupils until at last, their widening ceasing, they glared forth, the blue incandescence gushing from them like molten steel from an opened sluice! And, wide open, weirdly, awesome- ly did they retain that feline suggestion— as though they were the blazing eyes of some colossal tigress Sphinx! Deep within them I sensed a movement. Swam there — scores of towering shapes; swam within and glided out of them— score upon score of obelisked forms, each reflecting that vivid light as though they themselves were incandescent! Around their crests spun wide and flaming coro- nets. They rushed forth, wheeling, whirling like dervishes, driven like leaves in a. whirl- wind. Out they swirled from the. cat’s eyes of the glimmering wall, these dervish Obelisks crowded with spinning fires and vanished in the mists! Instantly, with their going the eyes contracted; were but slits; were gone! And before us within the oval was only the waiting portal! The leading block leaped forward; rushed down the steep toward the portal. As abruptly those that bore us followed. Again under that strain of projectile flight we clutched each other; the pony screamed its terror. The metal cliff rushed to meet us like a thunder cloud of steel; the portal raced upon us—a square mouth of cold blue flame! | And into it we swept: were devoured by it! Light in a blinding, intolerable flood COLMUC OOOLK (CO