A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

28 . A. MERRITT’S FANTASY a trick Dennison had learned long years before in college-hazing days. And now, unthought of for decades, it served his purpose. Il Vecchio struggled, choked, gasped, and flung up both arms. The golden vial flew wide, clanked dully on the cement, and rolled away. Dennison, with one final upsurge of strength, hurled the strangling patriarch sprawling over on the work-bench, stunned and breathless, amid a crashing wreck of apparatus. Then, with catlike agility, he sprang to sess the little flask lay, dented, near the sink. A second and he caught it up. “Life! Life!” he shrilled with the cackling laughter of a madman. And, twisting off the cap, at one quick draft he drained the vial to its last clear golden drop. CHAPTER 6 The Birth of a Mystery INE, subtle, as the wandering top- most notes of a cathedral organ— warm, tingling, and elusive—in- stinct with potent, vital forces far beyond the range of human words, the Alkahest burned its way down the American’s throat. Staggering back a step or two, he stood there; one hand supported him against the wall, the other clutched his breast. In his face the color came and went. He gasped; his eyes closed, then opened in a wild, half-terrified stare. All at once a quivering, an uncontrollable tremor, vio- lent and sudden, possessed his body. Gid- dy and reeling, he clutched the table. There for a moment he clung, blinded and dazed, while round and round him the laboratory seemed to spin in grotesque, exaggerated flight. But through his much half-conscious- ness a dim perception now began to force itself. Distorted, far-off appearing, unreal as in a dream, he saw the figure of II Vecchio struggle up from where he had been hurled. Came a moment’s blankness, with flickering mental image like kineto- scope pictures from a torn and “rainy” film. In his ears sounded a buzzing, a roaring that waxed and waned—a thun- dering like sea-caves in storm; then a huge inertia seemed to overcome all thought, all feeling and emotion. All at once dazzling lights spread be- fore his vision—strange phantasmagorias of the retina. They drew to an intensely brilliant ring, then burst outward in fly- ing shreds of glory. Tense as wire, a band seemed closing around his brain. He felt that he was falling. With a cry he opened his eyes. His sight grew steady. The noises rang away in dying echoes, vanished and left him in what seemed a huge, hollow sphere of silence. A new, strange quality of being quivered through his flesh. The visions disappeared. He found himself, gasping, wide-eyed, staring about him in the sub- terranean room. “Doctor! Dr. Pagani—where—” he managed to pant with tingling throat and lips. No answer. Both hands grasping his head, he glared about. “‘Oh, doctor!” he cried again. For now he caught sight of II] Vecchio. “What— what are you—doing °” Still the Italian made no reply. He had slid off the work bench, and now, totter- ing, moaning, bent half double, was drag- ging himself toward the steel door that gave exit from the laboratory. Dennison perceived that the aged man was weeping. Through the gnarled fin- gers which sprawled unsteadily over I! Vecchio’s face, he caught the glint of tears by the strange purple light overhead. “Doctor!” Il Vecchio merely quickened his pace. Helping himself along by clinging to benches and tables, he seemed—despite his anguish and the physical injury which Dennison had inflicted on him—deter- mined to reach that door immediately. Why? For what sinister purpose? A keen wonder, followed by a dreadful fear, sobered the American. “Stop! Stop!” cried he, reeling after Il Vecchio. Instinctively he knew that, once the steel door should close upon him, the laboratory would become his prison-cell, a living tomb where he, perhaps for years and years, might vainly beat his hands, un- (C(O) nn) (C 6)(0)©) <S (C(O)