Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

loved each other. Aye, on this very lake have we floated in past ages, living and loving, thou and I. So weep not, my lover, for what is one litte life when we have known so many and shall know so many more? And in each of them, thou art mine, and I am thine. “But chou must not linger. Hark! They clamor for thy blood below. But since the ladder is destroyed there is but one other way by which they may come upon the eliffs—the place by which they brought thee into the valley. Haste! They will return across the lake, scale the cliffs there and pursue thee, but thou may'st escape them if thou be’st swift. And when thou hearest the Voice of El-lil, remember, living or dead, Naluna loves thee with a greater love than any pod. “*But one boon I beg of thee,’ she whispered, her heavy lids drooping like a sleepy child’s. ‘Press, I beg thee, thy lips on mine, my master, before the shadows utterly enfold me; then leave me here and go, and weep not, oh my lover, for what is—one—little—life—to—-us —who—have—loved—in—so— many—’ “Conrad wept like a blithering baby and so did J, by Judas, and I'll stamp the lousy brains out of the jackass who twits ine for it! We left her with her arms folded on her bosom and a smile on her lovely face, and if there's a heaven for Christian folk, she’s there with the best of them, on my oath. “Well, we reeled away in the moonlight and my wounds were still bleeding and 1 was about done in. All that kept me going was a sort of wild beast instinct to live, I fancy, for if € was ever near to lying down and dying, it was then. We’d gone perhaps a mile when the Sumerians played their last ace. I think they'd realized we'd slipped out of their grasp and had too much start to be caught. : “At any rate, all at once that damnable gong began booming. I felt like howling like a dog with rabies. This time it was a different sound. I never saw or heard a gong before or since whose notes could convey so many dif- ferent meanings. This was ao insidious call—a luring urge, yet a peremptory command for us to return. It threatened and promised; if its attraction had Seen great before we stood on that Babel tower and felt its full power, now it was almost irresisuble. [t was hypnotic. | know now how a bird feels when charmed by a snake and how the snake himself feels when the fakirs play on their pipes. T can’t begia to make you understand the overpowering mag- netisin of that call. It made you want to writhe and tear at the air and run back, blind and screaming, as a hare runs into a python’s jaw. I had to fight it as a man fights for his soul. “As for Conrad, it had him in its grip. He halted and rocked like a drunken man, “Its no use,’ he mumbled thickly. ‘It drags at my heartstrings; its fettered my brain and my soul; it enibraces all the evil lure of all the universes. I niust go back.’ “And he started staggering back the way we had come—toward that golden lic floating to us over the jungle. But ] thought of the girl Naluna that had given up her life to save us from that abomination, and a strange fury gripped me. 18 comicbooks.com