Dwellers in the Mirage

BOOK OF KHALK’RU

CHAPTER I.

SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT

I raised my head, listening,—not only with my ears but with every square inch of my skin, waiting for recurrence of the sound that had awakened me. There was silence, utter silence. No soughing in the boughs of the spruces clustered around the little camp. No stirring of furtive life in the underbrush. Through the spires of the spruces the stars shone wanly in the short sunset to sunrise twilight of the early Alaskan summer.

A sudden wind bent the spruce tops, carrying again the sound—the clangour of a beaten anvil.

I slipped out of my blanket, and round the dim embers of the fire toward Jim. His voice halted me.

“All right, Leif. I hear it.”

The wind sighed and died, and with it died the humming aftertones of the anvil stroke. Before we could speak, the wind arose. It bore the after-hum of the anvil stroke—faint and far away. And again the wind died, and with it the sound.

“An anvil, Leif!”

“Listen!”

A stronger gust swayed the spruces. It carried a distant chanting; voices of many women and men singing a strange, minor theme. The chant ended on a wailing chord, archaic, dissonant.

Dwellers in the Mirage

Posted but not written by Bob Wallace.

Comments

[Tom Novak]

Even though they are opposite stylists, both Burroughs and Merritt are dissed by the Dicks these days. Proves that they've never read them. Cyberpunks - bah!