A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, July 1950 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

a —— SS - pall a a, +e ya oe ~~. - 2 ae a ~ x & .---* + ¥e J — en — = —e ee oe > aa “> - ps T — = ¢ - 4 “4 _ monstrous grotesques that ruled earth mil- _ lions upon millions of years ago, and but - for whose extinction, so he had been E Sencht. man could never have developed. _ Who in this Andean wilderness could know or could have known the dinosaur? Who here could have carved the monsters with such life-like details as these pos- _ sessed? Why, it was only yesterday that _ science had learned what really were their huge bones, buried so long that the rocks had molded themselves around them in every _ laboriously, science had set those bones _ together as a perplexed puzzle, and timidly put forth what it be- adamantine matrix. And laboriously, with modern resource still haltingly and child a picture _ lieved to be reconstructions of these long _ vanished chimeras of earth’s nightmare youth. Yet here, far from all science it must *s surely be, some one-had modeled those same monsters for a woman’s bracelet. Why then, it followed that whoever had done this must have had before him the living forms from which to work. Or, - if not, copies of those forms set down ac- curately by ancient men who had seen them. And either or both these things were incredible. What were these people to whom this - girl belonged? People who—what was it _ she had said—could blot out both body and soul, or change the soul to some dreadful thing? There had been a name —Yu-Atlanchi, “Suarra,”’ he said, ‘where is Yu-Atlan- = chi? Is it this place where we are now?” “This,” she laughed. “No! Yu-Atlan- chi is the ancient land. The hidden land where the Five Lords and the Lord of Lords once ruled, and where now rules only the Lord of Fate and the Lord of Folly and the Snake Mother! This place Yu-Atlanchi!” again she laughed. “Now and then we hunt here—with the Xinli and the—the—” she hesitated, looking at him oddly ; then went on. “So it was that he,” she pointed to Sterrett, “caught me. I was hunting. I had slipped away from _ my—my—” again she hesitated, as oddly = te ~ Ait 5 as - = = as before—“my followers, for sometimes I would hunt alone, wander alone. I came _ through these trees and saw your tetuane, —— I came face to face with— gris I was amazed—too amazed to a — : —,* Fe Ee - ee ee a Ve "4 7 _ “i —- .. + ee re 4 fe ° we - "la ee te * — strike with one of these.” She ‘pointed to a low knoll a few feet away. “So, before I could conquer that amaze he seized me, choked me. And then you came.” Gradyon stared at the place where she had pointed. There upon the ground lay three slender shining spears. Their slim shafts were of gold; the arrow shaped heads of two of them were of fine opal. But the third—the third was a single emerald, translucent and flawless, all of six inches long and three at its widest and ground to keenest point and cutting edge! SPHERE it lay, a priceless jewel tipping a spear of gold—and a swift panic shook Graydon. He had forgotten Soames and Dancre! Suppose they should return while this girl was there! This girl with her ornaments of gold, her gem tipped golden spears, and her—beauty! Well, her knew what they could do. And while now he knew, too, how with all his wit and strength he would fight for her. Still they were two and armed and cunning, and he only one. Suddenly he discounted all that tale of hers of a hidden land with its Lords and Snake Mother and its people who dealt out mysterious unfamiliar deaths. If this were all, so why had she come alone into the algarrobas? Why was she still alone? As suddenly he saw her only a girl, speak- ing fantasy, and helpless. “Suarra,” he said, “you must go and go quickly. This man and I are not all. There are two more and even now they may be close. Take your spears, and go quickly. Else I may not be able to save ou. “You think I am—”" she began “T tell you to go,” he answered, “Who- ever you are, whatever you are, go now and keep away from this place. —Tomor- row I will try to lead them back. H you have people to fight for you—vwell, let them come and fight if you so desire. But this imstant take your spears and go.” She crossed to the little knoll and slow- ly picked them up. She held one out to him, the one that bore the emerald point. “This,” she said, “to remember— Suarra.” “No,” he thrust it back. “No!” Once the others saw that jewel never, he eee would he t J. tomicbooks.com