Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction; Science fiction; Tibet Autonomous Region (China) -- Fiction
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 I knew 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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