The Metal Monster | Page 8

spot. I told you --look at that!" he cried.
The green lances had fallen back. The blackness gathered itself together--then from it
began to pulse billows of radiance, spangled with infinite darting swarms of flashing
corpuscles like uncounted hosts of dancing fireflies.
Higher the waves rolled--phosphorescent green and iridescent violet, weird copperous
yellows and metallic saffrons and a shimmer of glittering ash of rose--then wavered, split
and formed into gigantic, sparkling, marching curtains of splendor.
A vast circle of light sprang out upon the folds of the flickering, rushing curtains. Misty
at first, its edges sharpened until they rested upon the blazing glory of the northern sky
like a pale ring of cold flame. And about it the aurora began to churn, to heap itself, to
revolve.
Toward the ring from every side raced the majestic folds, drew themselves together,
circled, seethed around it like foam of fire about the lip of a cauldron, and poured through
the shining circle as though it were the mouth of that fabled cavern where old Aeolus sits
blowing forth and breathing back the winds that sweep the earth.
Yes--into the ring's mouth the aurora flew, cascading in a columned stream to earth. Then
swiftly, a mist swept over all the heavens, veiled that incredible cataract.
"Magnetism?" muttered Drake. "I guess NOT!"
"It struck about where the Ting-Pa was broken and seemed drawn down like the rays," I
said.
"Purposeful," Drake said. "And devilish. It hit on all my nerves like a--like a metal claw.
Purposeful and deliberate. There was intelligence behind that."
"Intelligence? Drake--what intelligence could break the rays of the setting sun and suck
down the aurora?"
"I don't know," he answered.
"Devils," croaked Chiu-Ming. "The devils that defied Buddha--and have grown strong--"
"Like a metal claw!" breathed Drake.
Far to the west a sound came to us; first a whisper, then a wild rushing, a prolonged
wailing, a crackling. A great light flashed through the mist, glowed about us and faded.
Again the wailing, the vast rushing, the retreating whisper.
Then silence and darkness dropped embraced upon the valley of the blue poppies.

CHAPTER II
THE SIGIL ON THE ROCKS
Dawn came. Drake had slept well. But I, who had not his youthful resiliency, lay for long,
awake and uneasy. I had hardly sunk into troubled slumber before dawn awakened me.
As we breakfasted, I approached directly that matter which my growing liking for him
was turning into strong desire.
"Drake," I asked. "Where are you going?"
"With you," he laughed. "I'm foot loose and fancy free. And I think you ought to have
somebody with you to help watch that cook. He might get away."
The idea seemed to appall him.
"Fine!" I exclaimed heartily, and thrust out my hand to him. "I'm thinking of striking over
the range soon to the Manasarowar Lakes. There's a curious flora I'd like to study."
"Anywhere you say suits me," he answered.
We clasped hands on our partnership and soon we were on our way to the valley's
western gate; our united caravans stringing along behind us. Mile after mile we trudged
through the blue poppies, discussing the enigmas of the twilight and of the night.
In the light of day their breath of vague terror was dissipated. There was no place for
mystery nor dread under this floor of brilliant sunshine. The smiling sapphire floor rolled
ever on before us.
Whispering little playful breezes flew down the slopes to gossip for a moment with the
nodding flowers. Flocks of rose finches raced chattering overhead to quarrel with the tiny
willow warblers, the chi-u-teb-tok, holding fief of the drooping, graceful bowers bending
down to the little laughing stream that for the past hour had chuckled and gurgled like a
friendly water baby beside us.
I had proven, almost to my own satisfaction, that what we had beheld had been a creation
of the extraordinary atmospheric attributes of these highlands, an atmosphere so unique
as to make almost anything of the kind possible. But Drake was not convinced.
"I know," he said. "Of course I understand all that-- superimposed layers of warmer air
that might have bent the ray; vortices in the higher levels that might have produced just
that effect of the captured aurora. I admit it's all possible. I'll even admit it's all probable,
but damn me, Doc, if I BELIEVE it! I had too clearly the feeling of a CONSCIOUS force,
a something that KNEW exactly what it was doing--and had a REASON for it."
It was mid-afternoon.

The spell of the valley upon us, we had gone leisurely. The western mount was close, the
mouth of the gorge through which we must pass, now plain before us. It did not seem as
though we could reach it before dusk, and Drake and