A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, April 1950 — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

38 A. MERRITT’S FANTASY “T begin to understand,” he remarked, after another interminable interval. “Fight and thirty years ago, you began the eighth. That would make you—eight times thirty-eight, now—”’ “Not so,” she interposed. ‘‘I was sure the moment we met that you knew much. But not all. How could you, not being initiate?” “The night has hardly begun,” he ob- served coolly, ‘and I never intended to reach London till tomorrow. Let me crave another hour, say, of your hos- pitality, and ask why it is—not so.” “Why should I tell you?” she de- manded. “Because you are afraid of me,’’ he an- sweted, and made of the sentence a state- ment of inescapable fact. CHAPTER 7 Firelight for Fools GAIN they sat in silence. The red mass of coals in the fire basket fell and shrank with a rustling sound: so long was it since fresh coal had been put on that now there remained only smokeless, flameless embers. The glow in the room was fading. “Tt is true,” Cleo Kefra said. ‘‘Be- _ cause you are of those who see beyond words to the thoughts they conceal. And of those who know.” “As are you.” He rose. He lifted a big hod from the tiling of the fireplace and emptied its contents into the iron basket. For a few seconds the fire appeared al- most blacked out, and then tiny flames thrust up into the new fuel.- He went to the window, drew the curtains over it, and returned. “Presently,” he said, “that fire will light the room again. Do you wish for other light, though?” If J did, I could summon Saleh,” she answered, “So you are not alone here now?” he suggested. “T heard the car when you drew the curtains,” she explained, but he will not come near this room unless I summon him. Do you wish to go?” “No. I wish to know,” he said bluntly, _A little flame shafted up above the mass of coals, stood for seconds like a sword blade, lighting her grave face and almost black eyes in each of which only a faint circle of iris remained, and abruptly vanished. Seen thus, she was witchlike, uncanny, but very lovely too. “Why should you not be told?” The query was little more than a whisper. “For I am a woman of today, and if you told this tale of my yesterdays it would be no more than the babbling of a fool, an unbelievable fantasy that I need not even deny. For today believes only what it can see and explain by measure and rule, and the things of the spirit are no more.” He waited, in silence. She broke out with sudden intensity : “Why do you wish to know. What is it to you, after what you accused ?”’ He shrugged. “Vou have answered the accusation,” he said, ‘‘so I withdraw it. But there was a—an admission. Briggs is madly in love with you—anyone could see it, and you are not in love with him. Which means disaster for him.” Does it?” she questioned with angry irony. “Have I not—?” She broke off with odd abruptness. Again a flame broke through the coals, and, this time, lived and flickered, cast- ing on the walls of the room shadows that danced as if the inanimate things that outlined them moved and had life. “And still you don’t deny it!” he said, “You were going to ask whether you had not proved the contrary to my suggestion, in some one of your lives.” “So!” she said, as she took a cigarette. “You too are very old.” “But I want to know why—all of it. There is an explanation somewhere, and I want it. That’s my hand, every card of it face upward. So what?” She said: “T question—may you leave this place alive?”’ “As to that, I’m absolutely indifferent,” he drawled in reply. “If I don’t, you won't get much older. I telephoned a telegram to Tony Briggs here this morn- ing, and they’d drag the moat for the bones your cats can’t crack. But aren’t we. rather talking in circles?”’ She laughed softly. “I like you—Oh, I like you, you Gees! Tony speaks of you by that name. Take care that I do not cComicbooks..com