Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

158 THE METAL MONSTER The crack widened—widened as a gulley in a sand bank does when a swift stream rushes through it. Lightnings these were—and more than lightnings; lightnings keyed up to an invincible annihilating weapon that could rend and split and crumble to atoms the living granite. Steadily the cleft expanded. As its walls melted away the Blasting Thing advanced, spurting into it the flaming torrents. Behind it we crept. The dust of the shattered rocks swirled up toward us like angry ghosts—before they reached us they weré blown away as though by strong winds streaming from beneath us. , On we went, blinded, deafened. Interminably, it seemed, poured forth the hurricane of blue fire; interminably the thunder bellowed. There came a louder clamor—volcanic, chaotic, dulling the thunders. The sides of the cleft quivered, bent outward. They split; crashed down. Bright daylight poured in upon us, a flood of light toward which the billows of dust rushed as though seeking escape; out it poured like the smoke of ten thousand cannon. oe And the Blasting Thing shook—as though with laughter!. The stars closed. Back into the Shape ran globe and pyramid. It slid toward us—joined the body from which it had broken away. Through all the mass ran a wave of jubilation, a pulse of mirth—a colossal, metal- lic—silent—roar of laughter. oe We glided forward—out of the cleft. I felt a shifting movement. Up and up we were thrust. Dazed I looked behind me. In’ the. face of a sky climbing wall of rock, smoked a wide chasm. Out of it the bil- lowing clouds of ‘dust still streamed, pursuing, threatening us. The whole granite barrier seemed-to quiver with agony. Higher we rose and higher. | | “Look,” whispered Drake, and whirled me around. Less than five miles away was Ruszark, the City of Cherkis. And it was like some ancient city come into life out of long dead centuries. A page restored from once conquering Persia’s crumbled book. A city of the Chosroes transported by Jinns into our own time. | Burlt around and upon a low mount, it stood within a valley but lit- tle larger than the Pit. The plain was level, as though once it had been the floor of some primeval lake; the hill of the City was its only eleva- tion. a Beyond, I caught the glinting of a narrow stream, meandering. The valley was ringed with precipitous cliffs falling sheer to its floor. Slowly we advanced. ; The city was almost square, guarded by double walls of hewn stone. The first raised itself a hundred feet on high, turreted and parapeted and pierced with gates. Perhaps a quarter of a mile behind it the second GOGO .S (GO)