The Collected SF & Fantasy Works. Abraham Merritt

SOURCES of the cold white flames of far stars — and as calm as those stars themselves.

      And in that face, although as yet I could distinguish nothing but the eyes, I sensed something unearthly.

      “God!” whispered Ventnor. “What IS she?”

      The woman stepped from the crevice. Not fifty feet from her were Ruth and Drake and Chiu–Ming, their rigid attitudes revealing the same shock of awe that had momentarily paralyzed me.

      She looked at them, beckoned them. I saw the two walk toward her, Chiu–Ming hang back. The great eyes fell upon Ventnor and myself. She raised a hand, motioned us to approach.

      I turned. There stood the host that had poured down (he mountain road, horsemen, spearsmen, pikemen — a full thousand of them. At my right were the scattered company that had come from the tunnel entrance, threescore or more.

      There seemed a spell upon them. They stood in silence, like automatons, only their fiercely staring eyes showing that they were alive.

      “Quick,” breathed Ventnor.

      We ran toward her who had checked death even while its jaws were closing upon us.

      Before we had gone half-way, as though our flight had broken whatever bonds had bound them, a clamor arose from the host; a wild shouting, a clanging of swords on shields. I shot a glance behind. They were in motion, advancing slowly, hesitatingly as yet — but I knew that soon that hesitation would pass; that they would sweep down upon us, engulf us.

      “To the crevice,” I shouted to Drake. He paid no heed to me, nor did Ruth — their gaze fastened upon the swathed woman.

      Ventnor’s hand shot out, gripped my shoulder, halted me. She had thrown up her head. The cloudy METALLIC hair billowed as though wind had blown it.

      From the lifted throat came a low, a vibrant cry; harmonious, weirdly disquieting, golden and sweet — and laden with the eery, minor wailings of the blue valley’s night, the dragoned chamber.

      Before the cry had ceased there poured with incredible swiftness out of the crevice score upon score of the metal things. The fissures vomited them!

      Globes and cubes and pyramids — not small like those of the ruins, but shapes all of four feet high, dully lustrous, and deep within that luster the myriads of tiny points of light like unwinking, staring eyes.

      They swirled, eddied and formed a barricade between us and the armored men.

      Down upon them poured a shower of arrows from the soldiers. I heard the shouts of their captains; they rushed. They had courage — those men — yes!

      Again came the woman’s cry — golden, peremptory.

      Sphere and block and pyramid ran together, seemed to seethe. I had again that sense of a quicksilver melting. Up from them thrust a thick rectangular column. Eight feet in width and twenty feet high, it shaped itself. Out from its left side, from right side, sprang arms — fearful arms that grew and grew as globe and cube and angle raced up the column’s side and clicked into place each upon, each after, the other. With magical quickness the arms lengthened.

      Before us stood a monstrous shape; a geometric prodigy. A shining angled pillar that, though rigid, immobile, seemed to crouch, be instinct with living force striving to be unleashed.

      Two great globes surmounted it — like the heads of some two-faced Janus of an alien world.

      At the left and right the knobbed arms, now fully fifty feet in length, writhed, twisted, straightened; flexing themselves in grotesque imitation of a boxer. And at the end of each of the six arms the spheres were clustered thick, studded with the pyramids — again in gigantic, awful, parody of the spiked gloves of those ancient gladiators who fought for imperial Nero.

      For an instant it stood here, preening, testing itself like an athlete — a chimera, amorphous yet weirdly symmetric — under the darkening sky, in the green of the hollow, the armored hosts frozen before it —

      And then — it struck!

      Out flashed two of the arms, with a glancing motion, with appalling force. They sliced into the close-packed forward ranks of the armored men; cut out of them two great gaps.

      Sickened, I saw fragments of man and horse fly. Another arm javelined from its place like a flying snake, clicked at the end of another, became a hundred-foot chain which swirled like a flail through the huddling mass. Down upon a knot of the soldiers with a straight-forward blow drove a third arm, driving through them like a giant punch.

      All that host which had driven us from the ruins threw down sword, spear, and pike; fled shrieking. The horsemen spurred their mounts, riding heedless over the footmen who fled with them.

      The Smiting Thing seemed to watch them go with — AMUSEMENT!

      Before they could cover a hundred yards it had disintegrated. I heard the little wailing sounds — then behind the fleeing men, close behind them, rose the angled pillar; into place sprang the flexing arms, and again it took its toll of them.

      They scattered, running singly, by twos, in little groups, for the sides of the valley. They were like rats scampering in panic over the bottom of a great green bowl. And like a monstrous cat the shape played with them — yes, PLAYED.

      It melted once more — took new form. Where had been pillar and flailing arms was now a tripod thirty feet high, its legs alternate globe and cube and upon its apex a wide and spinning ring of sparkling spheres. Out from the middle of this ring stretched a tentacle — writhing, undulating like a serpent of steel, four score yards at least in length.

      At its end cube, globe and pyramid had mingled to form a huge trident. With the three long prongs of this trident the thing struck, swiftly, with fearful precision — JOYOUSLY— tining those who fled, forking them, tossing them from its points high in air.

      It was, I think, that last touch of sheer horror, the playfulness of the Smiting Thing, that sent my dry tongue to the roof of my terror-parched mouth, and held open with monstrous fascination eyes that struggled to close.

      Ever the armored men fled from it, and ever was it swifter than they, teetering at their heels on its tripod legs.

      From half its length the darting snake streamed red rain.

      I heard a sigh from Ruth; wrested my gaze from the hollow; turned. She lay fainting in Drake’s arms.

      Beside the two the swathed woman stood, looking out upon that slaughter, calm and still, shrouded with an unearthly tranquillity — viewing it, it came to me, with eyes impersonal, cold, indifferent as the untroubled stars which look down upon hurricane and earthquake in this world of ours.

      There was a rushing of many feet at our left; a wail from Chiu–Ming. Were they maddened by fear, driven by despair, determined to slay before they themselves were slain? I do not know. But those who still lived of the men from the tunnel mouth were charging us.

      They clustered close, their shields held before them. They had no bows, these men. They moved swiftly down upon us in silence — swords and pikes gleaming.

      The Smiting Thing rocked toward us, the metal tentacle straining out like a rigid, racing serpent, flying to cut between its weird mistress and those who menaced her.

      I heard Chiu–Ming scream; saw him throw up his hands, cover his eyes — run straight upon the pikes!

      “Chiu–Ming!” I shouted. “Chiu–Ming! This way!”

      I ran toward him. Before I had gone five paces Ventnor flashed by me, revolver spitting. I saw a spear thrown. It struck the Chinaman squarely in the breast. He tottered — fell upon his knees.

      Even as he dropped, the giant flail swept down upon the soldiers. It swept through them like a scythe through ripe grain. It threw them, broken and torn, far toward the valley’s sloping sides. It left only fragments that bore no semblance to men.

      Ventnor was at Chiu–Ming’s head; I dropped beside him. There was