A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 74: what you’re looking at

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

THE ELIXIR OF HATE 73 “But Heaven! The cyanid!” gasped Dennison, staggering back. ‘'Two ounces! And I still—still live?” “Why not?” 66 But—’”’ “Ah, my friend, you are not now as other men. You—” “*I—what ?”’ cried the unhappy wretch, grasping the edge of the table for sup- port. ‘“‘You—you mean to say that— nothing—” “Precisely so,’ nodded I] Vecchio, puffing comfortable volumes of latakia smoke. “The Alkahest explains it all. A universal solvent, my son. Not only—” “You demon!” “—Not only against senility,” con- tinued the old man, quite unmoved, “but also against every other noxious drug or poison whatsoever. Nothing of that sort can harm you now. Nothing at all. Voila tout!” Dennison, sinking down into a chair beside the table, dashed his clenched fist against his forehead. “No help? No hope?” he wailed. The patriarch merely smiled again; yet those old eyes reflected the lamplight with a hard, metallic glitter. . “Let me advise you, as I said a mom- ent ago,” he remarked. “Poisons are now but stimulants to you. The more virulent they would be to an ordinary man, so much the more strongly will they act on you. But from their toxicity you are immune. Entirely, absolute so. A thou- sand tests, reactions and experiments al- ready have proven this, beyond all range of question.” Dennison merely groaned. Already the preliminary symptoms of strong stim- ulation were beginning to make them- selves felt. As when a man swallows a glass of whisky or. an empty stomach, so the cyanid was beginning to quicken his pulse, numb his lips, and completely daze his brain. “Tf this were only death!” he longed. “Death, noble and liberating, instead of a mere vulgar intoxication!” With an extreme bitternes of soul he writhed as he sat there, clasped his strained hands together, and, taking long breaths, sought to fight off the hateful and degrading symptoms. To him, as from a great distance, came the patriarch’s voice, even, quiet, cold: “‘Venoms can only make you drunk, nothing more. The coral snake, the cobra, the dread kariar—all these have now be- come innocuous to you. Animal, vege- table and mineral poisons alike are pow- erless, only certain alkaloidal toxins may in all probability possess a certain tonic quality and somewhat accelerate the prog- ress of your inverted evolution. In which case—’ “Stop!” cried Dennison in a shrill, hor- rible voice. He started up. Reeling, he stood there, bleared and horrible, des- ite his perfect bodily health. In his rain a humming, a whirling, had almost banished thought; but one idea, one sup- reme desire, had struggled through the ruck of disjointed mental images. He must escape! “Stop, you fiend!” again he choked; and, sickened with fear lest Stasia should find him there, started with reeling steps toward the door. But before he had traversed half the distance, he started back with a guttural, wordless gasp. There before him, summoned by the diabolic ingenuity, the cold and calculat- ing malice of Il Vecchio, stood the girl. | ets a moment all the drunken, poison- bred hallucinations died within him. His back was toward the light, while she framed like a gracious picture in the door- way, was facing it. He saw her eager, expectant look, the smile upon her oft-kissed lips, the wonder in her eyes. Then, with outstretched hands, and with a little cry of greeting and of joy, she came toward him. Just a trifle con- fused by the lamplight, by the issuance from darkness; deeply agitated by her beloved’s sudden. unannounced return, she for a moment detected nothing of the hideous change that had come over him. But as he still stood there, swaying a little, not running to meet her, to seize her hands, to clasp her in his arms, a change drew over her face. The smile died. A doubt, a sudden vague and indefinable fear, replaced it. Back upon her breast she drew her hands. “Granville?” she cried. ‘‘What—what (C(O) 6)(0)©) AMUC S (C(O)