And still Norhala's golden chant lured; higher and even higher reached the following wave. Now we were rising upon a steep slope; now the amethystine, gleaming ring was almost overheard.
Norhala's song ceased. One breathless, soundless moment and we had pierced the veils. A globule of sapphire shone afar, the elfin bubble of her home. We neared it.
Heart leaping, I saw three ponies, high and empty saddles turquoise studded, lift their heads from their roadway browsing. For a moment they stood, stiff with terror; then whimpering raced away.
We were at Norhala's door; were lifted down; stood close to its threshold. Slaves to a single thought, Drake and I sprang to enter.
“Wait!” Norhala's white hands caught us. “There is peril there—without me! Me you must—follow!”
Upon the exquisite face was no unshadowing of wrath, no diminishing of rage, no weakening of dreadful determination. The star-flecked eyes were not upon us; they looked over and beyond—coldly, calculatingly.
“Not enough,” I heard her whisper. “Not enough—for that which I will do.”
We turned, following her gaze. A hundred feet on high, stretching nearly across the gorge, an incredible curtain was flung. Over its folds was movement—arms of spinning globes that thrust forth like paws and down upon which leaped pyramid upon pyramid stiffening as they clung like bristling spikes of hair; great bars of clicking cubes that threw themselves from the shuttering—shook and withdrew. The curtain was a ferment—shifting, mercurial; it throbbed with desire, palpitated with eagerness.
“Not enough!” murmured Norhala.
Her lips parted; from them came another trumpeting—tyrannic, arrogant and clangorous. Under it the curtaining writhed—out from it spurted thin cascades of cubes. They swarmed up into tall pillars that shook and swayed and gyrated.