A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, December 1949 — page 103: what you’re looking at

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

CREEP, SHADOW! 103 should have been gay blue instead of mournful gray. And shadowy livid lilies that should have been golden and scarlet swayed in a wind | could not feel. _ I heard above me a thin trilling, plain- tively sweet. Shadowy birds were winging over me toward the distant mountains. They passed . . . but the trilling lin- gered . .. shaped itself into words .. . into the voice of Dahut. “Creep, Shadow! Hunger .i.. Thirst!” My way was toward the mountains; the shadowy birds had pointed it. I had a swift moment of rebellion. I thought: / will not take tt. This ts illusion. Here I stay... The voice of Dahut, pitiless: “Creep, Shadow! Learn whether it is not real?” I began to walk through the somber grass toward the black mountains. - HERE was a muted beat of hoofs behind me. I turned. A shadowy horse was driving down upon me, a great gray destriere. The shadow who rode it was armored ; the shadow of a big man, wide of shoulder and thick of body; invisored, but chain-mailed from neck to feet; in his belt a battle-ax, and across his shoulders a long ,two-edged sword. The destriere was close, yet the sound of its hoofs was faint, like distant thunder. And I saw that far behind the armored man raced other shadowy horesmen, lean- ing forward over the necks of small steeds. The armored man drew up his horse beside me; looked down at me with faint glint of brown eyes in shadowy face. “A stranger ! Now, by Our Lady, I teave no straggler in the path of the wolves I draw! Up: Shadow ... up!” He swung an arm and lifted me; threw me astride the destriere behind~him. “Hold fast !”’ he cried, and gave the gray horse the spur. Swiftly it raced, and swift. Soon the sluices of the black mountains were close. A defile opened. At its mouth he stopped and looked back, made a gesture of derision and laughed. “They cannot catch us now.” He muttered, “Still, I do not know why my horse should be so weary.” He stared at me from shadowy face. “I do know . . . you have too much of life, shadow. He who casts you. is not . dead. Then what do you here?” He twisted, and lifted me from | the horse, and set me on the ground: * “See!” He pointed to my breast. There was a filament of glistening silver, fine as the finest cobweb, floating from it . stretching toward the ravine as though pointing the way I must take .. . as though it came from my heart .. . as though it were unwinding from my heart. “You are not dead! Shadowy pity was in his regard. “Therefore you must hun- ger; therefore you must thirst; until you feed and drink where the thread leads you. Half-Shadow—it was a witch who sent me here, Berenice de, Azlais, of Lang- uedoc. But my body has long been dust and I have long been content to feed on shadow fare. Long dust, I say, and so suppose .. . but here one knows no time. My year was 1346 of Our Lord. What year was yours?” “Night six centuries after,” I said. “So long . . . so long,” he rami “Who sent you here?” “Dahut of Ys.” “Queen of Shadows! Well, she had sent us. many. I am sorry, Half-Shadow, but I can carry you no farther.” Suddenly he slapped his sides and shook with laughter. “Six hundred years, and still I have my lemans. Shadowy, ’tis true —but then so.am I. And still I can fight. Berenice—to you my thanks. St. Francis . let Berenice hereafter toast less hotly in Hell, where without doubt she is.” He leaned and clapped me on the shoul- der. “But kill your witch, Half-brother— if ie can!” e rode into the ravine. I followed in his wake, walking. Soon he was out of sight. How long I walked I did not know. It was true that there was no time in this land. I passed out of the ravine. The black jade mountains were palis- ades circling a garden filled with the pallid lilies. In its center was a deep black pool in which floated other lilies, black and silver and rusty-black. The pool was walled with jet. It was there that I felt the first bite of the dreadful hunger, the first pang of the dreadful thirst. Upon the wide jet wall lay seven girls, dull silver shadows . . . and exquisite. Shadows . . . one lay with chin cupped in > 3 a 2 ’ 4 - . —. ECoimicboo KS) GC