A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

must you again kill me? I wonder, Alain o>, . 2 wonder...” ___ I took her hands, and they were cold; in her eyes there was neither mockery nor amusement; there was vague puzzlement and vague dread. Nor was there anything _ of the witch about her. I felt a stirring of pity—what if she, like the others upon _ this boat, were victim of another’s will? De Keradel’s, who called himself her fa- ther . . . Dahut, who lay there looking at me with the eyes of a frightened maiden ... and she was very beautiful . . . She whispered: “Alain, beloved—bet- ter for you and better for me if you had not obeyed my summons. Was it because of that shadow I was forced to send your friend ... or had you other reasons?” That steadied me. I thought: Witch, you are not so clever, I said, as though reluctantly: “There was another reason, Dahut.” . She asked: ‘And that?” “You,” I said. She bent toward me, took my chin in _ one soft hand and held my face close to % nets, “You mean that—Alain de Cara- nac?” I said “I may not love you as the— _ Lord of Caranac did. But I am tempted to try.” 3 GHE leaned back at that, laughing— es, little rippling waves of laughter, care- less and cruel. __ “You woo me strangely, Alain. Yet I _ like it—for I know that what you say is _ truth. What do you truly think of me, Alain?” _ I said: “I think of you as a garden __ that was planned under the red Heart of __ the Dragon ten thousand years before the _ Great Pyramid was built and its rays fell _ upon the altar of its most sacred shrine _,..a strange garden, Dahut, half of the _ sea... with trees whose leaves chant in- __ stead of whisper . . . with flowers that may ___ be evil and may not be, but certainly are not wholly of earth . . . whose birds sing _ Strange songs... . difficult garden to en- ter... more difficult to find its heart ... most difficult, once entered, to find es- __ She bent to nte, eyes wide and glowing, _ kissed me. “You think that of me! And _ it is true... andthe Lord of Caranac “* 4, ‘ 5 . 5 i 3! FS : “ he hn Deg v5 ly “e Phas By tip aA - tu 4 ; CREEP, SHADOW! never saw me so truly .. . you remember more than he... .” She fastened my wrists in her own hands: “The red-haired girl—I forget her — name—is she not a garden, too?” Helen! I said, indifferently: “A garden of earth. Fragrant and sweet. But no diffi- culty there about finding your way out.” She dropped my wrists, and sat for a time silent; then said, abruptly: “Let us go up to deck.” I followed her, uneasily. Something had gone amiss, something I had said of had not said about Helen. But what the devil it could have been. I did not know. I looked at my watch. It was after four. There was a fog, but the yacht seemed not to mind it; instead of diminishing, it seemed to me that the speed had increased. As we sat on the deck chairs, I mentioned this to the Demoiselle. She said, absently: “It is nothing. There can be no danger.” I said: “The speed seems rather dan- gerous,” She answered: “We must be at Ys by seven.” I echoed, stupidly: “Ys?” She said: “Ys, It is so we have named our home.” She sank back into silence. I watched. the fog. It was an odd fog. It did not swirl past us as fog normally does. It seemed to go with us, to accommodate its pace to ours. To move with us. The wide-eyed, vacant-faced sailors padded past. I began to have a night- marish sort of feeling that I was on a ship of ghosts, a modern Flying Dutchman, cut off from the rest of the world and sped on by unseen, unheard, unfelt winds. Or being pushed along by some gigantic swimmer whose hand was clasped about the stern of this boat . . . and whose breath was the fog that shrouded us. I glanced at the Demoiselle. Her eyes were shut, and she seemed to be fast asleep. I closed my own eyes. ... When I opened them, the yacht had stopped. There was no sign of fog. We lay in a little harbor between two rocky headlands, Dahut was shaking me by the shoulders, I was outlandishly sleepy. The sea air, I drowsily thought. We dropped into a tender, and landed at a dock. We ecomicbook com