A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 91: what you’re looking at

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

CREEP, SHADOW! 91 SSeS But—there was the bloodstained bowl! Could that materialize from a dream? No, but de Keradel or Dahut might have placed it there to make me, waking, believe the dream had been real. And dream or no dream—I was tainted with their evil. I got up and searched for the auto- matic. I found it in the corner of the room where I had tossed it. Well, that much had been true. I strapped the hol- ster under my arm. My head felt like a hive, my brain a honeycomb in and out of which lame bees of thought went buzzing aimlessly. But a cold, implacable hatred, a loathing of de Keradel and his witch daughter held steady in the shaken fabric of my mind. The rain lashed the windows and the gale cried around the old house. Some- where a clock struck a single clanging note. Whether it was the half hour or the full I could not tell. A straight thought struck through the aimless ones. I took a pinch of the leaves out of the holster and chewed them. They were exceedingly bit- ter, but I swallowed them—and almost instantly my head was clear. There was no use in hunting out de Keradel and killing him. In the first place, I could give no real defense for doing so. Not unless there was a heap of bodies in the Cairn, and I could open the cavern of the paupers. I had not the slightest belief that I could find that cavern or that there would be any bodies. Killing de Keradel would seem the act of a madman, and for so doing a mad- house would be the best I could expect. Also, if I killed him, there would be the blank-eyed servants to reckon with. And Dahut .. . I doubted whether I could shoot down Dahut.in cold blood. -If I did, there still would be the servants. They would kill me .. . and I had no especial desire to die. The face of Helen came before me, and still less did I desire to die. © 3 Also, there was the necessity of know- ing whether what I had been visualizing had been dream or reality. It was most necessary that I know that. Some way, somehow I must get in touch with Mc- Cann. Whether dream or reality, I must continue to play the game, not allow my- self to be trapped again. At any rate, at first I must seem to be- lieve in its reality; convince de Keradel that I did so believe. For no other reason could he or Dahut have left the bowl be- side my _ bed. I dressed, picked up the bowl, and went downstairs, holding it behind me. De Keradel was at the table, but the Demoi- selle was not. I saw that it was a little after one. He looked up at\me sharply, as I sat, and said, “I trust you slept well. I gave order that you should not be dis- turbed. It is a desolate day, and my daughter sleeps late.” I laughed. night.” He asked, “What do you mean?” ~ “No need to fence longer with me, de Keradel,” I answered, “after last night.” He asked, slowly, “What do you re- member of last night?” “Everything, de Keradel, Everything —from your convincing disquisition upon the dark begetting of life. its darker de- livery, its darkest evolution—and the proof of it in what we summoned to the Cairn.” He said, “You have dreamed.” “Did I dream this?” I SET the stained bowl upon the table, His eyes widened; he looked down from it to me and back again to the bowl. He asked, “Where did you find that?” I answered, “Beside my bed. When I awoke not long ago.” ) The veins in his temples swelled and be- gan to throb; he whispered, “Now, why did she do that?” I said, “Because she is wiser than you. Because she knows I should be told the truth. Because she trusts me.” He said, “As once before she trusted you—to her cost and to her father’s,” “When | was Lord of Caranac.” I laughed. “The Lord of Caranac died last night. She told me so.” | He pushed back his chair, walked to the window and stared out at the driving rain. He came back to the table and sat quiet- ly down. “Caranac, what did you dream 2?” I said, “A waste of time to answer that. If it was a dream, you dictated it, and therefore know. If it was no dream, you were there.” “She should—after last- Eomicbooks.com: -* &