riding upon the back of a steed of huge cubes.

Nearer she raced. More direct became our fall. Now we were dropping as
though at the end of an unreeling plummet cord; the floor of the valley
was no more than two hundred feet below.

"Norhala!" we shouted; and again and again--again "Norhala!"

Before our cries could have reached her the cubes swerved; came to a
halt beneath us. Through the hundred feet of space between I caught the
brilliancy of the weird constellations in Norhala's great eyes--saw with
a vague but no less dire foreboding that on her face dwelt a terrifying,
a blasting wrath.

As softly as though by the hand of a giant of cloud we were lifted out
from the wall, and were set with no perceptible shock beside her on the
back of the cubes.

"Norhala--" I stopped. For this was no Norhala whom we had known. Gone
was all calm, vanished every trace of unearthly tranquillity. It was a
Norhala awakened at last--all human.

Yet in the still rage that filled her I sensed a force, an intensity,
more than human. Over the blazing eyes the brows were knit in a rigid,
golden bar; the delicate nostrils were pinched; the sweet red mouth was
white and merciless. It was as though in its long sleep her human
self had gathered more than human strength, and that now, awakened and
unleashed, the violence of its rage touched the vibrant zenith of that
sphere of which her quiet had been the nadir.

She was like an urn filled and flaming with the fires of the Gods of
wrath.

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. "They
were--taken."

"Taken!" I gasped. "Taken by what--these?" I swept my hands out toward
the Metal Things milling around us.

"No! THESE are mine. These are they who obey me." The golden voice now
shrilled with her passion. "Taken by--men!"

Drake had read my face although he could not understand our words.

"Ruth--"

"Taken," I said. "Both Ruth and Ventnor. Taken by the armored men--the
men of Cherkis!"

"Cherkis!" She had caught the word. "Yes--Cherkis! And now he and all
his men--and all his women--and every living thing he rules shall pa