A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 40: what you’re looking at

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

40 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY one who spoke from a measureless dis- tance: yet every word was clear, because the silence into which it fell was infinite. She said, “Wait! I seek myself in the pattern woven of all that has been or shall be in all the world, and I am but one little thread in the fabric we call life. Do you hear my voice?”’ He answered: “TI hear.” “We are very old, you, and I,” he heard, and each word as it reached his consciousness was clear and sweet and hushed, like a note from a shaken sistrum —but, as the analogy came to his mind, he knew he had never heard a shaken sistrum. Verily she had created an atmosphere, and in some occult way thrust her knowl- edge of things past into his own mind. ‘Again the tiny, bell-like notes impinged on his brain, and he> was aware that the distance across which he heard them was that of time, not of space. She had moved along time to speak from the far past into this present, to look again on what she ioe; I WAS a child (she began) a small girl- child, when my father took me to the temple that was then close by Aby- dos, dedicating me as a priestess there. My father, a merchant in whose sight I was nothing, gave me to the priests, bid- ding me serve the goddess, and I saw him no more. This was in the first year of the reign of Menkau-Ra the wise. (Gees stirred himself to interpolate— “Builder of the third pyramid,” and saw _ or imagined that as he spoke the fire came momentarily to life. But then again it ap- peared still, and her small voice spoke on.) .. . Not a stone of that pyramid was hewn from the quarries when I began my service and learned many things. So _ many, that I ceased to long for the world, the play and laughter of small lives, the embraces of a man, and even the bearing of children. I was apt to my tasks, and soon was set high in the service of the goddess, initiate to the mysteries about her. She with the form of a woman and the head of a lioness—Sekhmet. So I became a woman, instructed and initiate, and priests desired my beauty, but I laid hold on the goddess through my _ knowledge, and no one of them prevailed to win me to thought of him. No, not one. Ten years | served the goddess, and Menkau-Ra the wise came from holding a court in the upper land, came to the temple and set eyes of desire on me, Kefra, priestess and dedicate, yet subject to the will of him, the divine Menkau-Ra. The high priest of Sekhmet bade me put on attire fitting for the chosen of our lord, and await his messengers. But I knew that the desire of Menkau-Ra was but for an hour, :or until some other beauty should appear to his sight. I went into the temple at the close of a day and called on the goddess I served, as only those in dire need may call. In a great darkness she came to me, and I laid hold on the ears of the altar, and a voice breathed words into my heart, still, small words, deeply graven, to en- dure always while I endure, unforgotten as true. . There was a great darkness, and a voice. These were the words the voice spoke to me from above the altar: My servant, high in this my worship, I who am created by the service of all who truly obey and make sacrifice to me, I who am mother and guardian and lover to all my servants. . I have heard a prayer, I who see far into time, and view a day when my servants shall be few and even cease from this worship. lf the prayer prayed here before my altar be that of one dedicate in every thought to me, I will make a covenant with my servant Kefra. Then in fear, I asked what should be the substance of the covenant, and again the voice spoke in the darkness— The divine Menkau-Ra shall cease from desiring my servant Kefra, and no man shall desire her against her will. She shall not fail from her beauty while one is left alive to make sacrifice to me, even if she be that one and no other is left. So long shall she endure as I endure through the will of all who have created me and given me my strength, set up altars and made sacrifice to me, and I will be as a shield between her and all harm. For these my gifts, nine times shall she render up herself to me, each time a renewal through which her beauty shall not fail, and until the nine times are accomplished this my covenant shall endure. 1 asked: “O, holy one, after 1 have rendered up myself nine times, is this (E(0) aayicel ovoye) KH (E(o) ee ad -—~t. oon