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Close to the pool wherein we had first seen the white miracle of Norhala's body, two immense, purple fired stars blazed. Between them, like a suppliant cast from black iron, was Yuruk. Poised upon their nether tips the stars guarded him. Head touching his knees, eyes hidden within his folded arms, the black eunuch crouched. "Yuruk!" There was an unearthly mercilessness in Norhala's voice.
But I'm ME again." "Where is Yuruk?" I turned to Drake bruskly to smother the sob of sheer happiness I felt rising in my throat; and at his wink and warning grimace abruptly forebore to press the question. "You men pick out the things and I'll get breakfast ready," said Ruth. Drake picked up the teakettle and motioned me before him. "About Yuruk," he whispered when he had gotten outside.
Yet short as that time of slumber had been, I felt marvelously refreshed, reenergized; the effect, I was certain, of the extraordinarily tonic qualities of the atmosphere of this place. But where were the others? Where Yuruk? I heard Ruth's laughter. Some hundred yards to the left, half hidden by a screen of flowering shrubs, I saw a small meadow.
At the callous cruelty I stood for an instant petrified; I heard Drake swear wildly, saw his pistol flash up. Norhala struck down his arm. "Your chance has passed," she said, "and not for THAT shall you slay him." And now Yuruk had cast that body upon the others; the pile was complete. "Mount!" commanded Norhala, and pointed. He cast himself at her feet, writhing, moaning, imploring.
A moment she looked at us, perplexity shading the high and steady anger. "As you will," she said at last; then added, half sarcastically, "Perhaps it is because I who am now awake have slept so long that I cannot understand you. But Yuruk has disobeyed ME. That of MINE which I committed to his care he has given to the enemies of me and those who were mine.
I saw Drake enter with the saddlebags; saw them drop from hands relaxing under the shock of this amazing tableau; saw his eyes widen and fill with wonder and half-awed admiration. Now Norhala stepped out of her fallen robes and moved toward the further wall, Yuruk following. He stooped, raised an ewer of silver and began gently to pour over her shoulders its contents.
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.
"I'm not sleepy," I told him; nor was I. But whether I was or not, I wanted to question Yuruk, uninterrupted and undisturbed. Drake stretched himself out. When his breathing showed him fast asleep indeed, I slipped over to the black eunuch and crouched, right hand close to the butt of my automatic, facing him.
Out of the violet ovals beneath the upper tips of the Things spurted streams of blue flame. They fell upon Yuruk and splashed over him upon the heap of the slain. In the mound was a dreadful movement, a contortion; the bodies stiffened, seemed to try to rise, to push away dead nerves and muscles responding to the blasting energy passing through them. Out from the stars rained bolt upon bolt.
"Is Yuruk a fool not to know that in the world without, new things have arisen since long ago we fled from Iskander into the secret valley? What have you to beguile Cherkis beyond this woman flesh? Much, I think. Go then to him unafraid." Cherkis? There was a familiar sound to that. Cherkis? Of course it was the name of Xerxes, the Persian Conqueror, corrupted by time into this Cherkis.
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