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Updated: June 15, 2025
One by one they skimmed swiftly over the ledge; and one by one they nestled, edge to edge and alternately, against the cube which had gone before. In a crescent, they stretched before us. Back from them, a pace, ten paces, twenty, we retreated. They lay immobile staring at us. Cleaving the mists, silk of copper hair streaming wide, unearthly eyes lambent, floated up behind them Norhala.
Suddenly he moved away from me, strode over to the curtained oval through which Norhala had gone. "Dick," I cried, following him hastily, "where are you going? What are you going to do?" "I'm going after Norhala," he answered. "I'm going to have a showdown with her or know the reason why." "Drake," I cried again, aghast, "don't make the mistake Ventnor did. That's not the way to win through.
And all about it played shifting, tremulous shadows formed by the merging of the golden light with the curtain's emerald gleaming. Up to its base swept the cube that bore Ruth and Norhala and stopped. From it leaped the woman, and drew Ruth down beside her, then turned and gestured toward us. That upon which we rode drew close.
With an ebon swirling of wings the vulture dropped beside the blue heap thrust in it its beak. Slowly we descended that mount of desolation; lingeringly, as though the brooding eyes of Norhala were not yet sated with destruction. Of human life, of green life, of life of any kind there was none. Man and tree, woman and flower, babe and bud, palace, temple and home Norhala had stamped flat.
What was it that had awakened her what in awakening had changed the inpouring human consciousness into this flood of fury? Foreboding gripped me. "Norhala!" My voice was shaking. "Those we left " "They are gone!" The golden voice was octaves deeper, vibrant, throbbing with that muffled, menacing note that must have pulsed from the golden tambours that summoned to battle Timur's fierce hordes.
And by that curious human habit of seeking for the complex when the simple answer lies close, failed to recognize that it was jealousy of us that was the root of his behavior; that he wished to be, as it would seem he had been for years, the only human thing near Norhala; failed to realize this, and with Ruth and Drake was terribly to pay for this failure.
And Iskander? Equally, of course Alexander. Ventnor had been right. "Yuruk," I demanded directly, "is she whom you call goddess Norhala of the people of Cherkis?" "Long ago," he answered; "long, long ago there was trouble in their city, even in the great dwelling place of Cherkis. I fled with her who was the mother of the goddess.
Norhala waved a white hand; Yuruk sidled over to one of the curtained ovals and through it, reappearing almost instantly with a huge platter upon which were fruits, and a curdly white liquid in bowls of thick porcelain. "Eat," she said, as the gnarled black arms placed the platter at our feet. "Hungry?" asked Drake. Ruth shook her head violently. "I'm going out for the saddlebags," said Drake.
Beautiful, beautiful was Norhala as Isis punishing Typhon for the murder of Osiris; as avenging Diana; shining from her something of the spirit of all wrathful Goddesses. The flaming hair whirled and snapped. From all her sweet body came white-hot furious force, a withering perfume of destruction. She pressed against me, and I trembled at the contact. Lawless, wild imaginings ran through me.
From them as they moved nay, from all the monster came the wailings. Like a headless Sphinx it crouched and as we stood it surged forward as though it sprang a step to greet us. "HAI!" shouted Norhala, battle buglings ringing through the golden voice. "HAI! my companies!" Out from the summit of the breast shot a tremendous trunk of cubes and spinning globes.
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