Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 133: what you’re looking at

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

A, MERRITT 135 ticings. Into the entire figure ran numerous tiny rivulets of angry ¢rimson and orange light, angling in ‘interwoven patterns with never a curve nor arching. | Set at intervals between them were what looked like octagonal ro- settes filled with slender. silvery flutings, wan striations—like—it came to me—immense chrysanthemum buds, half opened, and carved .in grayjade. : Above towered the gigantic vertical beam. Toward its top I glimpsed a huge square of flaring crimsons and bright topaz; two other dia- monds stared down upon us from just beneath it—like eyes. And over all its height the striated octagons clustered. I felt myself lifted, floated upward. Drake’s hand shot out, clung to me as together we drifted up the living wall. Opposite the latticed heart of the square-petaled rose our flight was checked. There for an instant we hung. Then the octagonal symbols stirred, unfolded like ~ buds— | | They were the nests of the Keeper’s tentacles, and out from'them the whiplike tendrils uncoiled, shot out and writhed toward us. My skin flinched from their touch; my body, held in the unseen grip, was motionless. Yet when they touched their contact was not un- pleasant. They were like flexible strands of glass; their smooth tips questioned us, passing through our hair, searching our faces, writhing over our clothing. | | | There was a pulse in the great clipped rose, a rhythmic throbbing of vermilion fire that ran into it from the angled veins, beat through the latticed nucleus and throbbed back whence it had come. The huge, high square of scarlet and yellow was liquid flame; the diamond organs beneath it seemed to smoke, to send out swirls of orange-red vapor. Holding us so the Keeper studied us. | | ‘The rhythm of the square rose, became the rhythm of my own mind. But here was ‘none of the vast, serene and elemental calm that Ruth had described as emanating from the Metal Emperor. Powerful it was, without doubt, but in it were undertones of rage, of impatience, over- tones of revolt, something incomplete and struggling. Within the dis- harmonies I seemed to sense a fettered force striving for freedom; energy battling against itself. Greater grew the swarms of the tentacles winding about us like slen- | der strands of. glass, covering our faces, making breathing more and more difficult. There was a coil of them around my throat and tighten- ing—tightening.: . | [heard Drake gasping, laboring for breath. I could not turn my head toward him, could not speak. Was this then to be our end? The strangling clutch relaxed, the mass of the tentacles lessened, I ECOMC OOO (GO)