Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

A. MERRITT 115 A few paces away from it we stopped. The yellow luminescence streamed through a slit not more than a foot wide in the wall. We were in a eul-de-sac for the opening was not wide enough for either Drake or me to push through. Through it with the light gushed the curious heat enveloping us. , Drake walked to the opening, peered through. I joined him. _ At first all that I could see was a space filled with the saffron lam- bency. Then I saw that this was splashed with tiny flashes of the jewel fires; little lances and javelin thrusts of burning emeralds and rubies: caring gem hard flames rose scarlet and pale sapphire; quick flares of violet. | Into my sight through the irised, crocus mist swam the radiant body of Norhala! | She stood naked, clad only in the veils of her hair that glowed now like spun silk of molten copper, her strange eyes wide and smiling, the galaxies of tiny stars sparkling through their gray depths. And all about her swirled a countless host of the Little Things! From them came the gem fires piercing the aureate mists. They played and frolicked about her in scores of swiftly forming, swiftly changing, goblin shapes. They circled her feet in shining, elfin rings; then opening into flaming disks and stars, shot up and spun about the white miracle of her body in great girdles of multi-colored living fires. Mingled with disk and star were tiny crosses gleaming with sullen, deep’crimsons and smoky orange. A flash of blue incandescence and a slender pillared shape leaped from the floor; became a coronet, a whirling, flashing halo toward which streamed up the flaming tendrilings of her tresses. Other halos circled her arms and breasts; they spun like bracelets about the out-. stretched arms, | Then like a swiftly rushing wave a host of the Little Things thrust themselves up, covered her, hid her in a coruscating cloud. I saw an exquisite arm thrust itself from their clinging, wave gaily; saw her glorious head emerge from the incredible, the seething draperies of living jewéls. I heard her laughter, sweet and golden and far away. Goddess of the Inexplicable! Madonna of the Metal Babes! The Nursery of the Metal People! Norhala was gone, blotted out from our sight! Gone too were the bar of light and the chamber into which we had been peering. We stared at a smooth, blank wall. With that same ensorcelled swiftness the wall had closed even as we had stared through it; closed so quickly that we had not seen its motion. GOGO .S (GO)