ith ever-increasing confidence, for up
from the surface streamed a guiding, a holding force, that was like a
host of little invisible hands, steadying me, keeping firm my feet. I
looked down; the myriads of enigmatic eyes were staring, staring up
at me from deep within. They fascinated me; I felt my pace slowing; a
vertigo seized me. Resolutely I dragged my gaze up and ahead; marched
on.

From the depths came more clearly the sound of the waters. Now there
were but a few feet more of the bridge before me. I reached its end,
dropped my feet over, felt them touch a smaller cube, and descended.

Over the span came Ventnor. He was leading his laden pony. He had
bandaged its eyes so that it could not look upon the narrow way it was
treading. And close behind, a band resting reassuringly upon its flank,
strode Drake, swinging along carelessly. The little beast ambled along
serenely, sure-footed as all its mountain kind, and docile to darkness
and guidance.

Then, an arm about Ruth, floated Norhala. Now she was beside us; dropped
her arm from Ruth; glided past us. On for a hundred yards or more we
went, and then she drew us a little toward the unseen canyon wall.

She stood before us, shielding us. One golden call she sent.

I looked back into the darkness. Something like an enormous, dimly
shimmering rod was raising itself. Higher it rose and higher. Now it
stood, upright, a slender towering pillar, a gigantic slim figure whose
tip pointed a full hundred feet in the air.

Then slowly it inclined itself toward us; drew closer, closer to
the ground; touched and lay there for an instant inert. Abruptly it
vanished.

But well I knew what I had seen. The span over which we had passed had
raised itself even as had the baby bridge of the fortress; had lifted
itself across the chasm and dropping itself upon the hither verge had
disintegrated into its units; was following us.

A bridge of metal that could build itself--and break itself. A thinking,
conscious metal bridge! A metal bridge with volition--with mind--that
was following us.

There sighed from behind a soft, sustained wailing; rapidly it neared
us. A wanly glimmering shape drew by; halted. It was like a rigid
serpent cut from a gigantic square bar of cold blue steel.

Its head was a pyramid, a tetrahedron; its length vanished in the
further darkness. The head raised itself, the blocks that formed its
neck separating into open wedges like a Brobdignagian replica o