Curt Newton was the first one inside. A great quantity of dirt had poured in through the open arches but most of this upper level was clear. Otho slid agilely after him, and then the Brain.
The lamps showed them a circular gallery, high up in the central cupola. Below was a round and empty shaft. Newton leaned out over the low carved railing. Far down in the pit he could see a soft and curdled luminescence, like spectral sunlight veiled in mist. The source was hidden from him by the overhang of other galleries lower down.
The silence of age-long death was in the place and the mingled smell of centuries and of the raw new soil. Newton led the way around the gallery, his footsteps ringing hollow against the vault of stone.
He found a narrow stairway, going down.
They descended, passing the other galleries, and came at last into a small chamber. It had had a door to the outside, a massive, age-tarnished metal door that had buckled somewhat with pressure and had let dirt sift through the cracks.
Opposite the door was a low, square opening in the stone wall. Above it was an inscription. Holding his lamp high, Curt Newton read slowly, “Here is the birthplace of the Children of the Sun.”
CHAPTER III
Dread Metamorphosis
WONDERINGLY they went through into the central chamber of the citadel. Dirt had spilled down from above, covering a good part of the floor. Newton realized that only the upper gallery, serving as a stop for the soil to dam itself against, had saved the interior of the citadel from being heavily inundated.
He scrambled up onto that heap of rock and soil, and then stood still, gazing in puzzled wonder. He saw now the sources of that dim, eerie light. Set in deep niches on opposite faces of the curving wall were two seeming identical sets of apparatus, like nothing he had ever seen before.