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 Alessio Cerci Jersey 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 pale moonstones, springing from the curving walls and the high dome, and bisecting Gyasi Zardes Jersey and intersecting the chamber. They were pierced with oval doorways over which fell glimmering metallic curtains — silk of silver and gold.
I glimpsed a pile of this silken stuff near by, and as we laid our Nicolas Otamendi Jersey 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 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 Bayern Munchen Pelipaita 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 Sao Paulo Pelipaita black fire of malignancy, of hatred — jealousy.
“Augh!” he snarled; leaped Adrian Winter Jersey to his feet; thrust an arm Andres Guardado Jersey toward Ruth. She gave a little cry, cowered against Drake.
“None of that!” He Benoit Costil Jersey struck down the clutching arm.
“Yuruk!” There was a hint of anger in the bell-toned Alec Kann Jersey voice. “Yuruk, these belong to New Devils Pelipaidat me. Adam Lallana Jersey No harm must come to them. Yuruk — beware!”
“The goddess commands. Yuruk obeys.” If fear quavered in the words, beneath Juan Iturbe Jersey was more than a trace of a sullenness, too, sinister enough.
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