In the Lair of the Dweller
It is with marked that I this chapter, in it I must with an so to every law of as to impossible. Until this time, barring, of course, the of the Dweller, I had nothing that was not of explanation; nothing, in a word, the of science itself; nothing that I would have in to my of the International Association of Science. Amazing, unfamiliar—advanced—as many of the were, still they well the limits of what we have as the possible; in regions, it is true, still to the mind of man, but toward which that mind is advancing.
But this—well, I that I have a that is naturalistic; but so abstruse, so difficult to make clear the of the space I have to give it, so upon that the highest-trained scientific difficult to grasp, that I despair.
I can only say that the thing occurred; that it took place in the manner I am about to narrate, and that I it.
Yet, in to myself, I must open up some paths of approach toward the of the perplexity. And the path is the that our world it is, is not the world as we see it! Regarding this I shall to a upon "Gravitation and the Principle of Relativity," by the English physicist, Dr. A. S. Eddington, which I had the of him deliver the Royal Institution.[1]
I realize, of course, that it is not true logic to argue—"The world is not as we think it is—therefore we think is possible in it." Even if it be different, it is by law. The is that which is law, and as nothing can be law, the cannot exist.
The of the then our what we think is may or may not be possible under laws still our knowledge.
I that you will me for this digression, but I it was necessary, and it has, at least, put me more at ease. And now to resume.
We had watched, Larry and I, the frog-men the of Yolara's into the waters. As upon the dying, there came to where the men floated, of the globes. Their slender, out; the over the cadavers. And as they touched them there was the dissolution, the melting away into of and that I had when the touched fruit that time I had saved Rador—and upon this the Medusae gorged; lambently; their shifting, changing, stronger; now indeed, but was by death; of were from horror.
Sick, I away—O'Keefe as as I; passed into the that had opened on the from which we had watched; met Lakla toward us. Before she speak there about us a sighing. It into a murmur, a whispering, us—then like a presence, died away in distance.
"The Portal has opened," said the handmaiden. A sighing, like an echo of the other, about us. "Yolara is gone," she said, "the Portal is closed. Now must we hasten—for the Three have that you, Goodwin, and Larry and I that road of which I have spoken, and which Olaf may not take his break—and we must return he and Rador the bridge."
Her hand Larry's.
"Come!" said Lakla, and we walked on; and through after hall, upon of stairways. Deep, indeed, we must be the castle—Lakla paused a curved, of the into the passage. She pressed its side; it revolved; we entered; it closed us.
The room, the—hollow—in which we was like a diamond; and like a cut its glistened—though dully. Its shape was a oval, and our path to a base, two yards in diameter. Glancing me I saw that in the of the entrance there had been left no of it save the steps that from where that entrance had been—and as I looked these steps turned, us upon the circle, only the about us—and in each of the the three of us reflected—dimly. It was as though we were a diamond egg had been inward.
But the was not perfect; at my right a screen cut it—a screen that with fugitive, luminescences—stretching from the of our place up to the of the chamber; and by millions of lines like those upon a plate, but with this difference—that each line I the presence of of lines, into infinitude, ultramicroscopic, by some to our tool would be as a to the of a micrometer.
A or two from it something like the of a compass, bearing, like it a under ran of prisoned, vapours, blue. From the of the a little of crystal, a keyboard, in which were cut eight small cups.
Within these cups the her fingers. She upon the disk; pressed a digit—and the screen us into another angle.
"Put your arm around my waist, Larry, darlin', and close," she murmured. "You, Goodwin, place your arm over my shoulder."
Wondering, I did as she bade; she pressed other upon the shelf's indentations—three of the of into light, around each other; from the screen us a that itself all spectrums—not only those seen, but those by man's eyes. It and more brilliant, all suffusing, through me as day through a window pane!
The into a of coruscations, and in each I saw our images, and like in a whirlwind. I to look—was stopped by the handmaiden's command: "Turn not—on your life!"
The me grew; was a of light in which I was but the of a shadow. I heard, but not with my ears—nay with mind itself—a roaring; an ordered of that came from the of space; approaching—rushing—hurricane out of the of the cosmos—closer, closer. It itself about us with arms.
And brilliant, more brilliant, the through us.
The dimmed; in of me they melted, diaphanously, like a in a blast of flame; through their vanishing, under the of light, the unthinkable, tornado, I to move, slowly—then more swiftly!
Still the grew; the streamed—ever we went. Cutting through the length, the of me, a of rock, foreshortened, close; I a of the gardens; they whirled, contracted, into a thin—slice—of colour that was a part of me; another of into a thin through which I flew, and that at once took its place me like a card those others!
Flashing around me, and from Lakla and O'Keefe, were of flames. And always the forward—appallingly mechanical.
Another of rock—a of white themselves into my—drawing out—even as were the lands, the slicing, walls—still another of cliff, into the plane of those others. Our checked; we to within, then to onward—slowly, cautiously.
A ahead of me—a that thinner. We stopped, wavered—the cleared.
I looked out into translucent, green distances; with gleamings; and of like sun through green, waters: dancing, of that flew, and yon, through of splendour!
And Lakla and Larry and I were, I saw, like upon a of twenty or more above the surface of this place—a surface with white through of like of moon fire. We were shadows—and yet we had substance; we were with, a part of, the rock—and yet we were and blood; we stretched—nor will I this—we through mile upon mile of space that gave at one and the same time an of lengths and a that nothing of length, nothing of space whatever; we there upon the of the stone—and still we were here the the screen of radiance!
"Steady!" It was Lakla's voice—and not me there, but at my ear close the screen. "Steady, Goodwin! And—see!"
The cleared. Enormous me. Shimmering up through them, and as though in some medium than air, was upon of verdure—fruiting trees and trees with blossoms, and of blooms, like that sea fruit of oblivion—grapes of Lethe—that to the tide-swept of the of the Hebrides.
Through them, them, around and about them, and a horde—great as that with which Tamerlane upon Rome, as the which Genghis Khan rolled upon the califs—men and and children—clothed in tatters, and naked; slant-eyed Chinese, sloe-eyed Malays, black and and yellow, fierce-faced of the Solomons with bedizened; Papuans, Javans, Dyaks of hill and shore; hook-nosed Phoenicians, Romans, straight-browed Greeks, and Vikings centuries their lives: of the black-haired Murians; white of our own Westerners—men and and children—drifting, eddying—each with that and rapture, with and terror entwined, marked by God and in embrace—the seal of the Shining One—the dead-alive; the ones!
The of the Dweller!
Soul-sick, I gazed. They to us of dread; they toward us, upward—a bank against which other and still other of rolled, were checked, paused; until as as I see, like upon an ever-growing barrier, they us—staring—staring!
Now there was a movement—far, away; a of the lambency; the dead-alive swayed, oscillated, separated—forming a long against they with avid, insistence.
First only a cloud, then a of through the came—the Shining One. As it passed, the dead-alive in its wake like a whirlwind, eddying, twisting; and as the Dweller by them, them with its and tentacles, they with unearthly, gleamings—like of in which suddenly. And when it had passed they closed it, up at us once more.
The Dweller paused us.
Out of the the of Throckmartin! Throckmartin, my friend, to I had gone to the moon door; my friend call I had so followed. On his was the Dweller's stamp; the were bloodless; the were wide, lucent, something like pale, them—and soulless.
He up at me, unwinking, unrecognizing. Pressing against his was a woman, and gentle, and lovely—lovely through the that upon her face. And her wide eyes, like Throckmartin's, with the lurking, fires. She pressed against him closely; though the up the churning, these two together, as though by fetters.
And I the girl for Edith, his wife, who in to save him had herself into the Dweller's embrace!
"Throckmartin!" I cried. "Throckmartin! I'm here!"
Did he hear? I know now, of course, he not.
But then I waited—hope to through the hands that my heart.
Their wide left me. There was another movement about them, others pushed past them; they back, swaying, eddying—and still were in the throng.
Vainly I my to them again, to some of recognition, some of the clean life we know. But they were gone. Try as I would I not see them—nor Stanton and the northern woman named Thora who had been the of that party to be taken by the Dweller.
"Throckmartin!" I again, despairingly. My me.
I Lakla's light touch.
"Steady," she commanded, pitifully. "Steady, Goodwin. You cannot help them—now! Steady and—watch!"
Below us the Shining One had paused—spiralling, swirling, with all its transcendent, beauty; had paused and was us. Now I see that nucleus, that through with of radiance, that ever-shifting shape of through the of shimmering, plumes, opalescences, of fires. Steady over it the seven little of amethyst, of saffron, of and and silver, of rose of life and moon white. They themselves like a diadem—calm, serene, immobile—and from them into the Dweller, and and spirals, ran strands, radiations, than the of spider's web, through which to run—power—from the seven globes; like—yes, that was it—miniatures of the seven of moon that through the septichromatic, high in the Moon Pool's roof.
Swam out of the the—face!
Both of man and of woman it was—like some ancient, of Etruscan long dust, and yet neither woman man; and unhuman, and sinister, and malefic—and still no more of these four than is flame, which is it or devours, or wind it the trees or them, or the which is it or kills.
Subtly, it was of our world and of one not ours. Its from another sphere, took familiar form—and as they had come; something amorphous, unearthly—as of unknown unheeding, gods through the of star-hung space; and still of our own earth, with the very of earth out from it, it—and in some—unholy—way debased.
It had eyes—eyes that were now only its like falling, and falling, opening into the unknowable; into pools, as the Moon Pool itself; then out, and this only when the—face—bore its most resemblance, into large almost as the of little moons; and with that same of peep-holes into a world untrodden, alien, to man!
"Steady!" came Lakla's voice, her against mine.
I myself, my brain steadied, I looked again. And I saw that of body, at least as we know it, the Shining One had none—nothing but the throbbing, with of rainbows; and around this, still, it, the swirling, of its and radiance.
So the Dweller stood—and gazed.
Then up toward us a reaching, spiral!
Under my hand Lakla's quivered; dead-alive and their master vanished—I danced, flickered, the rock; a of shrinking, of withdrawal; slice upon slice the of stone, of waters, of gardens from me as cards are from a pack, one by one—slipped, wheeled, flattened, and out as I passed through them and they passed from me.
Gasping, shaken, weak, I the chamber; arm still about the handmaiden's white shoulder; Larry's hand still her girdle.
The roaring, from the was to the of space—was still; the intense, streaming, lessened—died.
"Now have you beheld," said Lakla, "and well you the road. And now shall you hear, as the Silent Ones have commanded, what the Shining One is—and how it came to be."
The steps back; the into the opened.
Larry as as I—we her through it.
[1] Reprinted in full in Nature, in which those may it.—W. T. G.
