As one we came to a sudden halt, drew together in a group, staring amazed, incredulous, horrified.
We were at the very edge of the high-bush, and before us was open space clear to the foot of towering cliff-walls, which rose sheer to some ten times the height of a tall male.
Half way up this there stuck out a broad shelf of rock, extending completely across the face of the cliff from the western end to the eastern, and at regular intervals we could perceive large, rectangular openings, covered, or closed, by doors of some dully glinting, leaden-hued metal.
And all the space between the edge of bush-growth and foot of cliff was occupied by the same sort of loathly monstrosities as we had previously encountered! There they lay, expectant, apparently, for their attentions were seemingly concentrated upon the shelf of rock high in air above them.
A door close to the western end opened and a procession emerged therefrom. At last we had found—
"Great Power of Life!" ejaculated Mor Ag profanely. "Those beings are no Aerthons!"
And he was right. Aerth never had produced any such type as we then beheld!
They had faces, and they had not faces! They had forms and they were formless! How may I describe that which baffles description? We are accustomed to concrete, cohesive, permanent types of form and faces, and these were inchoate! Never in any two moments were their aspects the same. They elongated, contracted, widened, expanded. At one moment the lower parts of one of these beings would apparently vanish while the upper parts remained visible, and again, conditions were reversed. Or a front aspect faded instantaneously, leaving but the rear section visible, only to promptly reverse the phenomenon. Or a left side disappeared, leaving the right side perceptible, then—but picture it for yourself! I have said enough!
It made me dizzy; it provoked Mor Ag because he could not name them! It enraged Hul Jok, inflamed him with desire to attack the whole throng, shatter them—why, he could not have told, but looking at them made him feel that way. Ron Ti was mildly curious; Vir Dax frantic with ambition to study such beings—our Lady of Bliss deliver me from the curiosity of such as Vir Dax, his methods of study!
Only Toj Qui and Lan Apo remained unperturbed: Toj Qui because he is a diplomat, therefore in no wise startled or amazed at, or by, anything. And Lan Apo was contemptuous, for as he looked at them, any race thus shifting as to bodily aspect must inevitably be shifty as to minds, and he had naught but despisal for a liar of any sort. Strange argument, strange stimulus to courageousness, yet perhaps as good as any!
Only one permanency had these beings—and even that fluctuated. They were of a silvery color, and they were black, of that blackness which is blacker than black. Later, we learned what manner of beings these were, and whence they came to afflict Aerth with their presences.
They formed in a row well back from the shelf-edge, and then, from out the same door from which they had emerged, came another procession, or rather, a rout or rabble. These were, as Mor Ag at once asserted, unmistakably Aerthons. But how had that once wise and mighty race fallen! For these men were little better than brutes. Naked, round-shouldered, bowed of heads, cringing, shambling of gait, matted as to hair, and bearded—the males, at least—and utterly crushed, broken, dispirited!
It had long been a proverb on all the inhabited planets, "As beautiful
