A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

. agony shot through it piercing the air. The ae in the hall were per- emptory. The rustlings were close. The _ shadows were pressing around me. They pressed me from the window, back to my room. I thrust the door shut against them, and leaned against it, wet with sweat. Leaning against it, I heard again that scream of anguish, sharper, more agon- : _ ized. And suddenly muffled. Gt ey aS 4 e's ‘Wiss “ ” , 4 tas ey Fas) a wit ~ nv fat PENS Aang ware of Dahut.. free... free... Again the torpor swept over me. I crumpled down at the edge of the door, and slept. CHAPTER 16 Ralston’s Shadow OMETHING was dancing, flittering before me. It had no shape, but it had a voice. The voice was saying, over and over: “Dahut . . . beware of Dahut .. . Alan, beware of Dahut ... ive me release, Alan . .*. but beware of ahut ... Alan, give me release . . . from the Gatherer .. . from the Blackness. . .” I tried to focus upon this flittering thing, but there was a brilliancy about it into which it melted and was lost; a broad aureole of brilliancy and only when I turned my eyes from it could I see the thing dancing and flittering like a fly caught in a globule of light. But the voice—I knew the voice. The thing danced and flittered, grew larger but never assumed definite shape; became small, and still was shapeless ... a flittering shadow caught in a brilliancy. A shadow! The thing whispered: “The Gatherer, Alan ... the Gatherer in the Cairn... do not let it eat me . . . but beware, be- . free me, Alan... Ralston’s voice! I lifted myself to my knees, crouching hands on the floor; my eyes fixed upon the brilliancy—straining to focus this whispering, flittering thing that spoke with the voice of Ralston. a The brilliancy contracted—like the eye ' of the captain of the Brittis. It became __ the knob of a door. A knob of brass glim- Be mering in the light of dawn. There was a fly upon the knob. A blue- bottle; a carrion fly. It was crawling over CREEP, SHADOW! the knob, buzzing. The voice I had thought a aa aa EE that of Dick was drained down into the buzzing; became one with it. There was only a blue-bottle fly flittering and buz- zing upon a shining brass door-knob. The fly left the knob, circled me and was gone, I staggered to my feet. I thought: Whatever you did to me there on the boat, Dahut, it was a first-class job. I looked at my wrist watch. It was a few minutes after six. I opened the door, cautiously. The hall was shadowless; tranquil. There was not a sound in the house. It seemed to sleep, but I didn’t trust it. I closed the door quietly. There were great bolts at top and bottom which I dropped into place. There was a queer emptiness in my head, and I could not see clearly. I made my way to the window and drew deep breaths of the sharp morning air, the tang of the sea strong within it. It made me feel better. I turned and looked at the room. It was immense; panelled in old © wood; tapestries, colors softened by cen- turies, fell here and there. The bed was ancient, carved and postered and can- opied. It was the chamber of some castle in Brittany, rather than that of a New England manse. At my left was an ar- moire ancient as the bed. Idly, I opened a drawer. There upon my handkerchiefs lay my pistol. I pulled it open. Not a cartridge was in the chamber. I looked at it, unbelievingly. I knew that I had loaded it when I had placed it in one of my bags. Abruptly, its empti- ness linked itself with the useless flash, the unresponsive switch, the strange sleepiness. It jarred me wide-awake. I - put the gun back in the drawer and lay down on the bed. I hadn’t the slightest doubt that something other than causes had mduced the stupor. Whether it had been suggestion by Dahut while I lay asleep on the deck, or whether she had given me some soporific drug with my lunch made no difference. It had not been natural. A drug. I remembered the subtle drug the Tibetan lamas administer—the drug they name “Master of the Will” which weakens all resistance to hypnotic control and renders the minds of those to whom it is given impotent against com- mand, wide-open to hallucination. All at once the behavior. the appear- comicbooks.co