Avon Murder Mystery Monthly No. 41 — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

A. MERRITT 45 Twin monoliths bulwarked the passage end; the gigantic stones were leaning, crumbling. Fissures radiated from the opening, like deep wrinkles in the rock, showing where earth warping, range pressure, had long been working to close this hewn way. | “Stop,” Norhala’s abrupt, golden note halted us; and again through’ the clear eyes I saw the white starshine flash. _ “It may be well—” She spoke as though to herself. “It may be well to close this way. It is not needed—” | Her voice rang out again, vibrant, strangely disquieting, harmonious. Murmurous chanting it was at first, rhythmic and low; ripples and ‘flutings, tones and progressions utterly unknown to me; unfamiliar, abrupt, and alien themes that kept returning, droppings of crystal-clear jewels of sound, golden tollings—and all ordered, mathematical, geo- metric, even as had been the gestures of the shapes; Lilliputians of the ruins, Brobdignagian of the haunted hollow. What was it? I had it—st was those gestures transformed into sound! There was a movement down by. the tunnel mouth. It grew more rapid, seemed to vibrate with her song. Within the darkness there were little flashes; glimmerings of light began to come and go—like little awakenings of eyes of soft, jeweled flames, like giant gorgeous fire- flies; flashes of cloudy amber, gleam of rose, sparkles of diamonds and of opals, of emeralds and of rubies—blinking, gleaming. A shimmering mist drew down around them—a swift and swirling mist. It thickened, was shot with slender shuttled threads like cobweb, coruscating strands of light. ' The shining threads grew thicker, pulsed, were spangled with tiny vivid sparklings. They ran together, condensed—and all this in an instant, in a tenth of the time it takes me to write it. | From fiery mist and gemmed flashes came bolt upon bolt ‘of light- ning. The cliff face leaped out, a cataract of green flame. The fissures widened, the monoliths trembled, fell. In the wake of that dazzling brilliancy came utter blackness. I opened my blinded eyes; slowly the flecks of green fire cleared. A faint lam- bency still clung to the cliff. By it 1 saw that the tunnel’s mouth had vanished, had been sealed—where it had gaped were only tons of shattered rock. | | Came a rushing past us as of great bodies; something grazed my hand, something whose touch was like that of warm metal—but metal throb- bing with life. They rushed by—and whispered down into silence. | “Come!” Norhala flitted ahead, of us, a faintly luminous shape in the darkness. Swiftly we followed. I found Ruth beside me; felt her hand rip my wrist. , ° “Walter,” she whispered, “Walter—she isn’t human! GOGO .S (GO)