Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

not seem overly surprised. When it was quite late he murmured something, went to a closet, and drew forth an evil weapon, a long yellowish tube ending in a bellows and a trigger. He turned, and upon his face was a mask, ham- mered from silver metal, expressionless, the mask that he always wore when he wished to hide his feelings, the mask which curved and hollowed so ex- quisitely to his thin cheeks and chin and brow. The mask glinted, and he held the evil weapon in his hand, considering it. It hummed constantly, an insect hum. From it hordes of golden bees could be flung out with a high shriek. Golden, horrid bees that stung, poisoned, and fell lifeless, like seeds on the sand. “Where are you going?” she asked. “What?” He listened to the bellows, to the evil hum. “If Dr. Nile is late, Pil be damned if Pl wait. I'm going out to hunt a bit. I'll be back. You be sure to stay right here now, won't you?” The silver mask glimmered. “Yes,” “And tell Dr. Nile PH return. Just hunting.” The triangular door closed. His footsteps faded down the hill, She watched him walking through the sunlight until he was gone. Then she resumed her tasks with the magnetic dusts and the new fruits to be plucked from the crystal walls. She worked with energy and dispatch, but op occasion a numbness took hold of her and she caught herself singing that odd and memorable song and looking out beyond the crystal pillars at the sky. She held her breath and stood very still, waiting. It was coming nearer. At any moment it might happen. It was like those days when you heard a thunderstorm coming and there was the waiting silence and then the faintest pressure of the atmosphere as the climate blew over the land in shifts and shadows and vapors. And the change pressed at your ears and you were suspended in the waiting time of the coming storm. You began to tremble. The sky was stained and coloured; the clouds were thickened; the mountains took on an iron taint. The caped flowers blew with faint sighs of warning. You felt your hair stir softly. Some- where in the house the voice-clock sang. “Time, time, time, time .. .” ever so gently, no more than water tapping on velvet. And then the storm. The electric illumination, the engul{ments of dark wash and sounding black fell down, shutting in, forever. : That's how it was now. A storm gathered, yet the sky was clear. Lightning was expected, yet there was no cloud. Ylla moved through the breathless summer house. Lightning would strike from the sky any instant; there would be a thunderclap, a boll of smoke, a silence, footsteps on the path, a rap on the crystalline door, and her running to answer... . Crazy Ylla! she scoffed. Why think these wild things with your idle mind? And then it happened. There was a warmth as of a great fire passing in the air. A whirling, rush ing sound. A gleam in the sky, of metal. Ya cried out. 27 comiclsooks.com