Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

others ... the old ones, elementals .. . and back to Leng, lost Leng, hidden Leng, whence sprung Wind-Walker ... and other... . | “Dr. Jamison was much interested in the mention of ‘elementals,’ and since he appeared to know something of them, I asked him to explain. Te seems that there still exists an age-old belief that there are elemental spirits —of fire, water, air and earth—all-powerful spirits subject to no one, spirits actually worshipped in some parts of the world. His excitement I thought rather exaggerated, and I shot questions at him. “It is very difficult for me to chronicle what came out finally in answer to all my questions. It is something that had been kept carefully away from us, though how it could have been is puzzling to me. Even I hesitated at frst to believe Dr. Jamison, though he appears to have known it for some time, and assures me that a number of people could tell odd stories if they wanted to. I remember that several anonymous reports of a highly suggestive nature were turned in to us, but I hardly dared suspect what lay behind them at the time. “It seems that the inhabitants of Stillwater toa ee performed a curious worship—not of any god we know, but of something they called an air elemental! A large thing, I am told, vaguely like a man, yet infinitely unlike him. Details are very distorted and unreliable. It is said to have been an air elemental, but there are weird hints of something of incredible age, that rose out of hidden fastness in the far north, from a frozen and impene- trable plateau up there. Of this I can venture nothing. Dr. Jamison men- tions a ‘Piateau of Leng, of which I have never heard save in the incoherent _babblings of Wentworth. But what is most horrible, most unbelievable in the mystery of this strange communal worship, is the suggestion that the people of Stillwater made human sacrifices to their strange god! “There are queer stories of some gigantic thing that these people sum- moned to their deeply hidden forest altars, and still weirder tales of some- thing seen against the sky in the glare of huge pine fires burning near Stillwater by travelers on the Olassie trail: How much credence it is ad- visable to give these stories you must decide for yourself, for I am, frankly, in view of later developments which I will chronicle in their order, unable to give any opinion. Dr. Jamison, whom I regard as a man of great intel- ligence, assures me that the elemental stories are sincerely believed here- abouts, and admitted to my surprise that he himself was unwilling to 3 condemn belief without adequate knowledge. This was in effect, admit- m ting that he himself might believe in them, “The man Wentworth suddenly became conscious, and I turned from : Dr. Jamison. He asked, naturally, where he was, and he was told. He did . not seem surprised. He then asked what year this was, and when we told = him expressed only an irritated surprise. He murmured something about, | ‘An even year, then,’ and aroused our interest the more. ““And Macdonald?’ he asked then. “ “Here, we answered. ““Hlow did we come?’ he asked. ““You fell from the sky.’ 77 < ee di ca ee TO a eT CR, avew i hr Gat ee Am fadiin reso. 3) = : me | comichooks.corn