A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

sy * OTe: ir aes ‘7 > ao; a, , ~ : Bea sce ab saith I could look into this vat. It was half filled with a clotted, reddish-black fluid over the surface of which ran tiny flames. Not pale and dead like the corposants, but crimson and filled with evil life. It was to this vat that the blank-eyed men who fed the fires came to have their ewers refilled. And it was from it that de Kera- del took that which he sprinkled upon the pulsing fire . . . and his hands and his arms were red with it. On the threshold of the Cairn was an- other vessel, a huge bow! like a shallow baptismal font. It was filled, and over its surface ran the crimson flames. The smoke from the lesser fires the ten crim- son threaded arteries, met in the thicker column that arose from the: throbbing fire, mingled with it, and streamed as one into the Cairn— The silence of the plain was broken by a whispering, a faint wailing, and up from the bases of the monoliths shadows began to rise. They lifted, as I had first seen them, to their knees . . . and then they were wrenched from the earth, and whim- pering, wailing, were sucked into the Cairn . . . beating about it .. . fighting to escape. Within the Cairn was the Gatherer-. .. the Blackness. From the first I had known Jt was there. It was no longer shapeless, nebulous—part of an infinitely greater Something that dwelt in space and beyond space. The Gatherer was breaking loose . taking form. The small crimson flames were running through It .. . like corpuscles of evil blood. It was con- densing, becoming material. That which filled the font on the thres- hold of the Cairn was empty. De Keradel filled it from the vat... and again... and again. The Gatherer drank from the font and fed upon the shadows, and upon the smoke of the fires which were fed by blood. And steadily it assumed shape. I stepped back, covering my eyes. Ricori said, “What do you see? All I see are men in red, far away, who feed fires—and another who stands before the house of stones . . . what do you see, Caranac ?” I whispered, “I see Hell opening.” I forced myself to look again at that which was being spawned from the Cairn’s stone womb . . . and: stood, unable now ~ to look away... ,panur was clothed with pale green sea-fires, her eyes like violet seapools and wide—so wide that they were ringed with white; her slim black brows a bar above them; her face white as foam and cruel and mocking ; her hair like spindrift of silver. Far away or not, she seemed as close to me as did de Keradel. It was as if she stood just above the Cairn... — reach out, as I, and touch de Kera- I caught Ricori’s wrist and pointed, and whispered : “Dahut!”’ He said, “I saw far away and dimly a shining figure. With your hand upon me I seem to see her more plainly. What do you see, Caranac?” I said, “I see Dahut. She is laughing. Her eyes are the eyes of no woman... nor is her face. She is laughing, I say . . . can’t you hear her, Ricori? She calls to de Keradel . . . how sweet her voice and how merciless . . . like the sea! She calls, ‘My father, I am here!’ He sees her . . . the Thing in the Cairn is aware of her . . . de Keradel cries to her, “foo late, my daughter!’ He is mocking, contemptuous . .. but the Thing in the Cairn is not. It strains . . . toward completion.” He said, “I hear nothing.” I said, “I do not like this jesting, Ricori. It is—dreadful. The Thing in the Cairn does not like it . . . although de Keradel laughs. It reaches out from the Cairn . . . to the vat on the stone of sacrifice ... It drinks... It grows... Dahut . . . Dahut!” The shining figure raised hands as though she heard .. . and bent toward me...and [ felt the touch of her fingers on my eyes and ears, her lips on mine. She faced the sea and threw wide her arms, Shouting of the combers, thunder of the surges, roaring of the winds, all the clamor of sea and air, arose in a mighty diapason. It melted into chaotic uproar, elemental, bellowing. And suddenly all the sea was covered with the tossing manes I thought it a woman. 115) Ecomichbooks-co mm