Within circling walls, over plain and from the City hovered a cosmic spirit not to be understood by man.Like an emanation of stars and space, it was yet gem fine and gem hard, crystalline and metallic, lapidescent and--Conscious!
Down from the ledge where we stood fell a steep ramp, similar to that by which, in the darkness, we had descended.
It dropped at an angle of at least forty-five degrees; its surface was smooth and polished.
Through the mists at our back stole a shining block.It paused, seemed to perk itself; spun so that in turn each of its six faces took us in.
I felt myself lifted upon it by multitudes of little invisible hands; saw Drake whirling up beside me.I moved toward him--through the force that held us.A block swept away from the ledge, swayed for a moment.Under us, as though we were floating in air, the Pit lay stretched.
There was a rapid readjustment, a shifting of our two selves upon another surface.I looked down upon a tremendous, slender pillar of the cubes, dropping below, five hundred feet to the valley's floor a column of which the block that held us was the top.
Gone was the whirling wheel that had crowned it, but Iknew this for the Grinding Thing from which we had fled;the questing block had been its scout.As though curious to know more of us, the Shape had sought us out through the mists, its messenger had caught us, delivered us to it.
The pillar leaned over--bent like that shining pillar that had bridged for us, at Norhala's commands, the abyss.
The floor of the valley arose to meet us.Further and further leaned the pillar.Again there was a rapid shifting of us to another surface of the crowning cube.Fast now swept up toward us the valley floor.A dizziness clouded my sight.There was a little shock, a rolling over the Thing that had held us--We stood upon the floor of the Pit.
And breaking from the immense and prostrate shaft on whose top we had ridden downward came score upon score of the cubes.They broke from it, disintegrating it;circled about us, curiously, interestedly, twinkling at us from their deep sparkling points of eyes.
Helplessly we gazed at those who circled around us.
Then suddenly I felt myself lifted once more, was tossed to the surface of the nearest block.Upon it I spun while the tiny eyes searched me.Then like a human ball it tossed me to another.I caught a glimpse of Drake's tall figure drifting through the air.
The play became more rapid, breathtaking.It was play;I recognized that.But it was perilous play for us.I felt myself as fragile as a doll of glass in the hands of careless children.
I was tossed to a waiting cube.On the ground, not ten feet from me, was Drake, swaying dizzily.Suddenly the cube that held me tightened its grip; tightened it so that it drew me irresistibly flat down upon its surface.Before I dropped, Drake's body leaped toward me as though drawn by a lasso.He fell at my side.
Then pursued by scores of the Things and like some mischievous boy bearing off the spoils, the block that held us raced away, straight for an open portal.A blaze of incandescent blue flame blinded me; again as the dazzlement faded I saw Drake beside me--a skeleton form.
Swiftly flesh melted back upon him, clothed him.
The cube stopped, abruptly; the hosts of little unseen hands raised us, slid us gently over its edge, set us upright beside it.And it sped away.
All about us stretched another of those vast halls in which on high burned the pale-gilt suns.Between its colossal columns streamed thousands of the Metal Folk;no longer hurriedly, but quietly, deliberately, sedately.
We were within the City--even as Ventnor had commanded.
