A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

36 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY . ah ie Not feverish—more as though he been taking some drug. “He sat looking at me for a few mo- _ ments silently, a subtle amusement com- peting with the terror in his overbright eyes—as though he felt himself ages be- yond me in knowledge of some sort and at the same time bitterly in fear of it. He said: “My shadow’s name is Brittis. She told me so last night.’ “That made me jump. I said: ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ “He answered with malicious patience, “My shadow. Her name is Brittis. She told me so last night.’ “T stared at him, and he laughed. ‘What do you know about the Succubi, Bill? Nothing, I at once perceive. I wish Alan was back—he’d know. Balzac had a great story about one, I renember—but Brittis says she really wasn’t one. I went up to the library this morning and looked them up. Plowed through the Malleus Malefi- “TI asked, ‘What the hell is that?’ “ “The Hammer Against Witches. The old book of the Inquisition that tells what Succubi and ,Incubi are, and what they can do, and how to tell witches and what to do against them, and all of that. Very interesting. It says that a demon can be- come a shadow, and becoming one may fasten itself upon a living person and be- come corporeal— The lady demons are - the Succubi. When one of them seeks out a man she beguiles him in this fashion or another until—well, until she succeeds. Whereupon he dies. * ““But Brittis says that wouldn’t be the end of me, and that she never was a demon. She says she was— “*“Dick,’ I interrupted him, ‘what’s all this nonsense?’ — “HE REPEATED, irritably, ‘I wish to God you wouldn’t keep on think- ing this thing is hallucination. If I’m as healthy as you say, it can’t be.’ He hesi- tated. ‘But even if you did believe it real, what could you do? You don’t know what those who sent the shadow to me know. That’s why I wish Alan was here. He’d know what to do—’ He hesitated again, then said slowly, ‘But . . . whether I’d take his advice .. . I’m not sure. . now...’ “I asked, ‘What do you mean?” ii? “He said, ‘I'll begin from the time we agreed I’d better go home and fight. I went to the theater. I purposely stayed out late. There was no unseen- whisperer | at the door when I let myself in. I saw nothing as I went upstairs to the library. I mixed a stiff highball, sat down and - began to read, I had turned on every light in the room. It was two o’clock, ““The clock struck the half hour, It roused me from the book. I smelled acuri- ous fragrance, unfamiliar, evocative of strange images—it made me think of an unknown lily, opening in the night, under moon rays, in a secret pool, among age-old ruins encircled by a desert. I looked up and around seeking its source. ““*T saw the shadow. “Tt was no longer as though cast against curtains or walls. It stood plain, a dozen feet from me. Sharp cut, in the room. It was in profile. It stood motion- less. Its face was a girl’s, delicate, ex- quisite. I could see its hair, coiled around the little head and two braids of deeper shadow falling down its neck. It was the shadow of a tall girl, a lithe girl, small- hipped, slender-footed. It moved. It be- gan to dance. It was neither black nor gray as I had thought when first I saw it. It was faintly rosy—a rose-pearl shad- ow. Beautiful, seductive—in a sense no living woman could be. It danced, and trembled—and vanished. I heard a whis- per, “I am here.” It was behind me— dancing . . . dimly I could see the room through it.’ “*Dancing,’ he said, ‘weaving—weav- ing my shroud—’ He laughed. ‘But a highly embroidered one, Bill.’ : “He said he felt a stirring of desire such as he had never felt for any woman. And with it a fear, a horror such as he had never known. He said it was as though a door had opened over whose threshold he might pass into some un- dreamed of Hell. The desire won. He | leaped for that dancing, rosy shadow. And ; shadow and fragrance were gone—snuffed | out. He sat again with his book, waiting, Nothing happened. The clock struck three —the half hour—four. He went to his room and lay upon the bed. “He said, ‘Slowly, like’a rhythm, the fragrance began. It pulsed—quicker and quicker. I sat up. The rosy shadow was - COMMC OOO KS Keon