A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

CREEP, SHADOW! like hundreds of carrion flies. Over the I dipped my fingers into the bowl and sprinkled what filled it over the threshold of the Cairn. I took the ewer and poured what it held from side to side of that threshold. I went back to the altar of the fire and fed it from red hands. Now: de Keradel was standing at the squat altar. He raised a small body in his arms, and cast it into the Cairn. Dahut was beside him, rigid, golden sickle up- raised—but the sickle was no longer golden. It was red... like my hands... The smoke from the sacred fire swirled between and around us. De Keradel cried a word—and the chant of the prayer ended. A man sham- bled: from the sacrifices, eyes. wide and unwinking, face rapt. De Keradel caught him by the shoulders, and instantly two of the servants threw themselves upon this man, tore off his clothing and. pressed him naked down upon the stone. His head fell behind the stone pillow—his chest strained over it.. Swiftly de Keradel pressed upon a spot on the neck, and over the heart, and under the thighs. The sacri- fices lay limp upon the slab . . . and de Keradel began to beat upon the naked lifted breast with the black maul. Slowly at first . . . then faster and faster .. . harder . . . to the ancients’ prescribed rhythm. There was a shrilling of agony from the man on the stone. As though fed by it, the corposants flared wanly. They pulsed-and waned. The sacrifice was silent, and I knew that de Keradel had pressed fingers against his throat .. . the agony of the sacrifice must not be articulate since agony that is voiceless is hardest to bear, and therefore most acceptable to the Gath- erer.... The maul crashed down in the last stroke, splintering ribs and crushing heart. The smoke from the fire was swirling into the Cairn. De Keradel had raised the body of the sacrifice from the slab... held it high over his head... He hurled it into the Cairn, while fast upon its fall came the thud of a. smaller body, hurled after it... From the hands of Dahut! And. they were stained red and dripping—like: my own. There was a buzzing within the: Cairn, Cairn the fog blackened. A formless shad- 89 ow dropped through the fog and gathered _ over the Cairn. It had no shape, and it had no place in space. It darkened the fog and it squatted upon the Cairn—yet I~ knew that it was but a part of something that extended to the rim of the galaxy of which our world is a mote, our sun a spark ... and beyond the rim of the galaxy ... beyond the universe . . . beyond where there is no such thing as space, S Meee squatting darkness on the Cairn was no longer there. It had seeped through the great stones that roofed it, but still its shadow stained the fog reaching up and up like a black pillar. The cham- ber of the Cairn was thick with the black- ness. And the smoke from the altar fire no longer clothed. Dahut and de Keradel and me, but streamed straight through in- to. the Cairn. The buzzing ceased; all sound died everywhere; a silence that was like the silence of space before ever a sun was born took its place. All:movement ceased. But . knew. that the formless darkness within the Cairn was aware of me. Was aware of me and weighing me with a thousand eyes: I felt its awareness; mag- lignant—crueler beyond measurement than even human cruelty. Its awareness streamed out and flicked over me like tiny, tentacles . . . like black butterflies testing-me with their antennae: I was not afraid: Now the buzzing began again within the Cairn, rising higher and higher until it became a faint, sustained whispering. De Keradel was kneeling at the thres- hold, listening. Beside him stood Dahut, listening .. . sickle in hand .. . sickle no longer golden but red... There was a child upon the squat altar, crying—not yet dead... \ Abruptly the Cairn was empty ... the | fog above it empty of the shadow . . . the Gatherer gone. ... I was marching back between the stand- ing stones, Dahut and de Keradel beside me. There were no corposants over the monoliths. The flambeaux flared in the hands: of the servants. Behind us, chant- ng and swaying, danced those who were left of the sacrifices. We passed through = cS (e| 8XoXo) \ com (E(0) > } . é / b ; 4 ee! ee ee pe eI Se AREA'S BAW eS ENR SR LRA EV ARRAS LEAN CM BDA SNRIVAV ER VENTS HR SPCR ERAS SHS HVPCASSERCTSERHREA CLICHE ES CS ESSEC SATE AS oy ig ee =}