om half light and half shadow to help it understand.
“But still — SOME truth in them. How much I do not know. But this I do Maillot Other Teams Pas CHer know — that last vision was of a cataclysm whose beginnings we face now — this very instant.”
The picture flashed behind my own Maillot Grèce Pas CHer eyes — of the walled city, its thronging people, its groves and gardens, its science and its art; of the Destroying Shapes trampling it flat — and then the dreadful, desolate mount.
And suddenly I saw that mount as Earth — Maillot Seattle Sounders Pas CHer the city as Earth’s cities — its gardens and groves as Earth’s fields and forests — and the vanished people of Cherkis seemed to expand into all humanity.
“But Martin,” I stammered, fighting against choking, intolerable terror, “there was something else. Something of the Keeper of the Cones and of our striking through the sun to destroy the Things — something of them being governed by the same laws that Vancouver Canucks Barn govern us and that if they broke them they must fall. A hope — a PROMISE, that they would NOT conquer.”
“I remember,” he replied, “but not clearly. There WAS something — a shadow upon them, a menace. It was a shadow that seemed to be born of our own world — some threatening spirit of earth hovering over them.
“I cannot remember; it eludes me. Yet it is because I remember but a little of it that I say those drums may not be — taps — for us.”
As though his words had been a cue, the sounds again burst forth — no longer muffled nor faint. They roared; they seemed to pelt through air and drop upon us; they beat about our ears with thunderous tattoo like covered caverns drummed upon by Titans with trunks of great trees.
The drumming did not die; it grew louder, more vehement; defiant and deafening. Within the Thing under us a mighty pulse began to throb, accelerating rapidly to the rhythm of that clamorous roll.
I saw Norhala draw herself up, sharply; stand listening and alert. Under me, the throbbing turned to an uneasy churning, a ferment.
“Drums?” muttered Drake. “THEY’RE no drums. It’s drum fire. It’s like a dozen Marnes, a dozen Verduns. But where could batteries like those come from?”
“Drums,” whispered Ventnor. “They Halpa Miehet Scythe Takki ARE drums. The drums of Destiny!”
Louder the roaring grew. Now it was a tremendous rhythmic cannonading. The Thing halted. The tower Jacksonville Jaguars Hattar that upheld Ruth and Norhala swayed, bent over the gap between us, touched the top on which we rode.
Gently the two were plucked up; swiftly they were set beside us.
Came a shrill, keen wailing — louder than ever I had heard before. There was an earthquake trembling; a maelstrom swirling in which we spun; a swift sinking.
The Thing split in two. Up before us rose a stupendous, stepped pyramid; little smaller it was than that which Cheops built to throw its shadows across holy Nile. Into it streamed, over it clicked, score upon score of cubes, building it higher and higher. It lurched forward — away from us.
From Pittsburgh Steelers Hattar Norhala came a single cry — resonant, blaring like a wrathful, gold |
