A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 46: what you’re looking at

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

! 46 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY He sat silent, holding back a question. That a goddess of old Egypt could pack the mutilated corpse of a child in a sec- ond-hand fiber suitcase and throw it away on Wimbledon Common—no! There was a limit, even, to fantasy. She said: “T did not know of the child’s death till Tony told me.” “Tt was the ninth life,” he asserted, gravely. The stillness grew heavy about them again. He glanced at the fire, on his right as he sat, and saw that it was quiescent as had been the fire in the drawing room: it appeared not to have shrunk or changed since he had filled the two elastic, un- breakable glasses. Kefra said: ‘“Now you will understand why I was afraid of you.” “Was?” he asked. To his hearing his voice was a faint, thin likeness of itseli— the word a tiny sibilance let fall into an infinite stillness. “Was, because now you begin to un- derstand. She has taken as and when she willed—taken among others men I loved and the child I carried under my heart! And held me, who desired death, from my desire; bound me in the bonds of life and set me to watch, untouched by time, while time went by—because of her own need. I have no longer any fear of you who know me free of all guilt, as I have ever been, since the wisdom I have bought of time has bidden me keep heart and hands unstained. On her the guilt—to her the 1? doom! “What doom?” he asked. “Darkness, and to cease from being. Evil cannot serve her.any more, since I am now free of her. She must pass to, the darkness without end—as all gods fash- ioned of men’s minds must pass. No, I do not fear you any more.’ Again Saleh, entering, made a pause, and it seemed to Gees that while the man was in the room he was back in normality. Habit rather than thought caused him to glance at his wrist watch, and he saw that the hands now marked the time as a quar- ter past six. The door closed on Saleh, and he put the watch to his ear, but heard no ticking. — *T don’t understand this,” he said. ‘It’s still stopped, but the hands have moved ao minutes since I looker at it ast. “It is you who have stopped, not the watch,” Kefra said. | “Eh?” He stared at her, and knew that on his right the fire, which had flickered in burning while Saleh was in the room, had stilled again. “You, whom I have willed to stand aside from time,” she said. He looked at the watch again, and saw that the second hand did not move. “This is altogether fantastic.” She shook her head. “No,” she dis- sented. “For a hundredth—for a thou- sandth part of all that men spend on means to kill each other, they might have rediscovered thts—to you a miracle—that was known to the initiates of old time. To stand aside from time and let it pass, live untouched by it for a space, as is in my power to live and as I cause you to live here with me. Because I will you to un- derstand fully that neither the blood of the child nor any other blood stains my hands. ae | you, here with me, time is not. To you the watch seemed stopped, as the fire seems still, because for this space you are outside time’s passing. If. you had looked at the watch while Saleh was in the room, you would have seen that the hands moved, for I released you, then.” “Then—that fire in the drawing room didn’t stop burning?” he asked. ‘When you reached out and seemed to stop it, I mean.” “T made the illusion,” she answered. Kefra smiled; and proved that she read his thoughts: “Your breakdown enabled you to see me alone.” “Why, yes,” he answered, and put down his fork on the empty plate. “I wanted to know why you chose Tony Briggs.” She shook her head. ‘‘Wanted to pre- vent me from choosing him,” she amend- ed. “And now you know—what is your wish?” | “Does it make any difference to you?” he asked in reply. ‘And what, after all, do I know? Nothing within normal be- lief,”’ “Nothing,” she assented, “nor does your wish make any difference to me. 3) But—” she pushed back her chair and comicbooks.co