Page:Weird Tales Volume 35 Number 09 (1941-05).djvu/43

 fantastic designs. It brought a cessation of stillness, for now in the weird white-yellow glow there were voices, whispering, murmuring, as though people were speaking in the distance.

Alan Wedmore sat in a corner of a cafe, gazing through the open window on a city slowly changing into a tapestry in which the figures were blurred, grotesque, occasionally formless. The air was intensely oppressive. It was difficult to breathe. Wedmore had had a touch of fever and his head was still heavy. Nevertheless he surveyed the scene curiously as the monstrous fog wove its way like a serpent through the streets and alleys of the city.

Abruptly his thoughts were diverted as he noticed that seated opposite to him at the table was a Chinese whose face suggested great age, for it was bronzed and lined as though it had been left out in the rain all night and become rusted. But then he was in an amiable mood for he had had many brandies. His spirits were bubbling over.

"Welcome," he said cordially, "whoever you are. What do you think of our tapestries?"

As he spoke he pointed toward the fog.

"It is well that you appreciate them," said the stranger. His voice was low, yet each word fell upon the air full-born, an odd voice that showed vast training in the elegant winding paths of conversation.

"Tapestries," chuckled Wedmore, "not by Gobelins but goblins."

"By many words wit is exhausted."

"But I have said very few."

"Words whispered on earth sound like thunder in heaven."

There was something ominous in the stranger's tone, though perhaps it was only because of the sinister glowing fog that had climbed to the window ledge and was drifting into the cafe. It had a sobering effect on Wedmore. A man cannot afford to give himself over to the joys of intoxication when he is in danger. He stifled the thought as soon as it sprang up, but it refused to be vanquished. He gazed intently at the face of his companion which despite the suggestion of great age, mirrored an expression as tranquil and contented as that of a child. Soundlessly he had come as though on the wings of the fog. Wedmore shivered as he gazed into the gaunt face. The eyes were deep sunken but glowing with light, at strange variance to the brownish ivory texture of the skin. Although Wedmore had never met the man before, about him there was a vague familiar something, an intangible essence that suggested they were not entirely strangers.

"My name is Feng Yen," he said. "I was anxious for companionship. I saw you alone at this table; and decided to rest here a moment. I trust I have not disturbed you."

"Not at all," said Wedmore quickly. Momentarily his misgivings were stayed. The voice had a charming quality, an undercurrent of sincerity. "I am glad to have company. This fog is uncanny. It seems to emphasize the fact that a man is always alone even when there are many people surging about him."

And Feng Yen said, "Each man of earth leads a hermit's life in the little world which he builds around himself. No outsider, even though he be an older brother, is able to enter. As for the fog, I find it pleasant."

"It changes the whole city," declared Wedmore. "It repaints the houses and alters the shape of familiar objects. It turns Buitenzorg into a ghost city."

"This fog," Feng Yen said slowly, "is on yesterday's edge. Hidden within it is the city that used to be here, or rather the many cities that have been built through the ages one upon the other. So many billions of people have died since the earth cooled from molten intensity, that there is