Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 151: what you’re looking at

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

A. MERRITT 153 that vengeance. After it is done”— she paused—“after it is over I shall "go back again. For this awakening has in it nothing of the ordered joy I love—it is a fierce and slaying fire. I shall go back—” _ The shadow of her far dreaming flitted over, softened the angry bril- liancy of her eyes. . | | “Listen, you two!” The shadow of dream fled. “Those that I am about to slay are evil—evil are they all, men and women. Long have they been so—yea, for cycles of suns. And their children grow like them—or if they be gentle and with love for peace they are slain or die of heart- break. All this my mother told me long ago. So no more children shall be born from them either to suffer or to grow evil.” Again she paused, nor did we interrupt her musing. _ “My father ruled Ruszark,” she said at last. “Rustum he was named, of the seed of Rustum the Hero even as was my mother. They were gentle and good, and it was their ancestors who built Ruszark when, fleeing from the might of Iskander, they were sealed in the hidden val- ley by the falling mountain. : “Then there sprang from one of the families of the nobles—Cherkis. Evil, evil was he, and as he grew he lusted for rule. On a night of ter- ror he fell upon those who loved my father and slew; and barely had my father time to fly from the city with my mother, still but a. bride, and a handful of those loyal to him. “They found by chance the way to this place, hiding in the cleft which. is its'portal. They came, and they were taken by—-Those who are now my people. Then my mother, who was very beautiful, was lifted be- fore him who rules here and she found favor in his sight and he had built for her this house, which now is mine. _ “And in time I was born—but not in this house. Nay—in a secret place of light where, too, are born my people.” _ She was silent. I shot a glance at Drake. The secret place of light— was it not that vast vault of mystery, of dancing orbs and flames trans- muted into music into which we had peered and for which sacrilege, | had thought, had been thrust from the City? And did in this lie the ex- planation of her strangeness? Had she there sucked in with her mother’s milk the enigmatic life of the Metal Hordes, been transtormed into halt human changeling, become true kin to them? What else could explain— “My mother showed me Ruszark,” her voice, taking up once more her tale, checked my thoughts. “Once when I was little she and my father bore me through the forest and through the hidden way. I looked upon Ruszark—a great city it is and populous, and a caldron of cruelty and of evil. “Not like me were my father and mother. They longed for their kind GOGO .S (GO)