A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 88: what you’re looking at

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

= —— ~ - ze . ~ a es * ~ - a. a a ~— 88 noe 2 7a « <-% ae PD thE R ATH EA. Ge PR ee as at Caranac now; but lifting straight up, _ defiant, as in Caranac of old. Scores of _ them in avenues like the spokes of a tre- _ mendous wheel. They marched and cir- cled to the gigantic dolmen, the Cairn, that was their heart. A crypt that was truly an Alkar-Az . . . greater than that which I had known in most ancient Caranac . . and among and between the standing stones danced the wraiths of the fog ... the fog was a huge inverted bow! covering the Cairn and the monoliths. And against the standing stones leaned shadows . . . the shadows of men... Dahut’s hands touched my eyes, cov- ered them. And abruptly all strangeness, all comparisons of memory, were gone, De Keradel had turned, facing the sacri- fices, roaring out the chant, black maul raised high, the symbols on black belt and cincture dancing like quicksilver. I raised _ the bowl and ewer and roared the chant. The faltering voices gathered strength, roared out to meet us. Dahut’s lips were again on mine . . . “Beloved, you are one with us,” : The oaks bent and waved their boughs and shouted the chant, The servants had lighted their fiam- beaux and stood like watching dogs on the fringes of the sacrifices. We entered the field. of the monoliths. In front of me _ strode de Keradel, maul held high, raised to the Cairn as the priest raises the host to the Altar. Dahut was beside me, sing- ing... singing .. . her golden sickle up- lifted. Thicker grew the walls of the great inverted bow! of the fog above and around us; and thicker grew the fog wraiths dancing among and circling the monoliths. Darker became the shadows guarding the standing stones. And the sacrifices were circling the monoliths, dancing around them in the an- cient measures as though hand in hand with the fog wraiths. The servants had quenched their torches, for now the cor- posants had begun to glimmer over the standing stones. The witch lights. The lamps of the dead. Faintly at first, but growing ever stronger. Glimmering, shift- ing orbs of gray phosphorescence of the grayness of the dead. And now I stood before the great Cairn. I looked into its vault; empty, unten- anted—as yet. Louder was the chanting as the sacrifices danced between anda ‘ around the monoliths. Coming ever closer, And more lividly gleamed the corposants, lighting the path of the Gatherer. a The chanting muted; became a prayer; an invocation. The sacrifices pressed up- on me; swaying; murmuring; rapt eyes intent upon the Cairn. HERE were three stones close to the entrance to the chamber of the Cairn. ~ The middle one was a slab of granite, longer than a tall man, and at about where the shoulders of a man lying upon it would be, there was a rounded ridge of stone — like a pillow. It was stained—like the maul; and the stains ran down its sides. At its left was another stone, lower, squat, hollowed shallowly and channeled at its lower end as though-to let some liquid escape from it. And at the right of the long slab was a more deeply hollowed stone black with fire. There was a curious numbness creep- ing through me; a queer sense of detach- ment as though a part of me, and the most vital part, were stepping aside to watch some play in which another and less im- portant self was to be an actor. At the same time, that lesser party knew per- fectly well what it had to do. Two of the white robed servants handed me small bunches of twigs, small bundles of leaves, and two black bowls in which were yellow crystals and lumps of resinous gum. With the twigs I built the fire on the blackened altar as the ancient rites prescribed . . . well did I remember how the priest of Ys had made that fire before the Alkar-Az at Caranac... I struck the flint, and as the twigs blazed I cast on them leaves and crystals and gums. The strangely-scented smoke arose and wound around us and then went streaming into the Cairn as though sucked by a strong draught. Dahut glided past me. There was a woman close by with a child in her arms. Dahut drew the child from her, unresist- ing, and glided back to the squat altar. Through the smoke I caught the flash of the golden sickle, and then de Keradel took the black bowl and ewer from me. He set them beneath the gutter of the squat altar. ne gave them to me, and they were filled... 5 -comicbooks ‘com