h the portal.
We stood in a shadowed chamber. The light that filled it was translucent, and oddly enough with little of the bluish quality I had expected. Crystalline it was; the shadows crystalline, too, rigid — like the facets of great crystals. And as my eyes accustomed themselves I saw that what I had thought shadows actually were none.
They were slices of semitransparent stone like Maillot Croatie Pas CHer pale moonstones, springing from the curving walls and the high dome, and bisecting and intersecting the chamber. They were pierced with oval doorways over which Maillot Bayern Munich Pas CHer fell glimmering metallic curtains — silk of silver and gold.
I glimpsed a pile of this silken stuff near by, and as we laid our burden upon it Ruth caught my arm with a little frightened cry.
Through a curtained oval sidled a figure.
Black and tall, its long and gnarled arms swung apelike; its shoulders were distorted, one so much longer than the other that the hand upon that side hung far below the knee.
It walked with a curious, crablike motion. Upon its face were stamped countless wrinkles and its blackness seemed less that of pigmentation than the weathering of unbelievable years, the very stain of ancientness. And about neither face nor figure was there anything to show whether it was man or woman.
From the twisted shoulders a short and sleeveless red tunic fell. Incredibly old the creature was — and by its corded muscles, its sinewy tendons, as incredibly powerful. It raised San Jose Sharks Barn within me a half sick revulsion, loathing. But the eyes were not ancient, no. Irisless, lashless, black and brilliant, they blazed out of the face’s carven web of wrinkles, intent upon Norhala and filled with a flame of worship.
It threw itself at her feet, prostrate, the inordinately long arms outstretched.
“Mistress!” it whined in a high and curiously unpleasant falsetto. “Great lady! Goddess!”
She stretched out a sandaled foot, touched one of the black taloned hands, and at the contact I saw a shiver of ecstasy run through the lank body. “Yuruk —” she began, and paused, regarding us.
“The goddess speaks! Yuruk hears! The goddess speaks!” It was a chant of adoration.
“Yuruk. Rise. Look upon the strangers.”
The creature — and now I knew what it was — writhed, twisted, and hideously apelike crouched upon its haunches, hands knuckling the floor.
By the amazement in the unwinking eyes it was plain that not till now had the eunuch taken cognizance of us. The amazement fled, was replaced with a black Accueil Pas CHer fire of malignancy, of hatred — jealousy.
“Augh!” he snarled; leaped to his feet; thrust an arm toward Ruth. She gave a little cry, cowered against Drake.
“None of that!” He struck down the clutching arm.
“Yuruk!” There Halpa North Face Hats was a hint of anger in the bell-toned voice. “Yuruk, Columbus Blue Jackets Barn these belong to me. No harm must come to them. Yuruk — beware!”
“The goddess commands. Yuruk obeys.” If fear quavered in the words, beneath was more than a trace of a Jacksonville Jaguars Tröjor sullenness, too, sinister enough.
“That’s a nice little |
