Title: Time and the Gods
Author: Dunsany, Lord
Language: English
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TIME AND THE GODS

by Lord Dunsany


_With Nine Full-Page Illustrations by_
S. H. SIME

LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1906


Contents

 Preface
 Part I:
 Time and the Gods
 The Coming of the Sea
 A Legend of the Dawn
 The Vengeance of Men
 When the Gods Slept
 The King That Was Not
 The Cave of Kai
 The Sorrow of Search
 The Men of Yarnith
 For the Honour of the Gods
 Night and Morning
 Usury
 Mlideen
 The Secret of the Gods
 The South Wind
 In the Land of Time
 The Relenting of Sarnidac
 The Jest of the Gods
 The Dreams of the Prophet
 Part II:
 The Journey of the King


List of Illustrations

 Inzana calls up the Thunder
 Kai Laughed
 Departure of Hothrun Dath
 Lo! The Gods
 The Opulence of Yahn
 “Yazun is God”
 The Tomb of Morning Zai
 The Dirge of Shimono Kani
 Pattering Leaves Danced



PREFACE


These tales are of the things that befell gods and men in Yarnith,
Averon, and Zarkandhu, and in the other countries of my dreams.



PART I.



TIME AND THE GODS


Once when the gods were young and only Their swarthy servant Time was
without age, the gods lay sleeping by a broad river upon earth. There
in a valley that from all the earth the gods had set apart for Their
repose the gods dreamed marble dreams. And with domes and pinnacles the
dreams arose and stood up proudly between the river and the sky, all
shimmering white to the morning. In the city’s midst the gleaming
marble of a thousand steps climbed to the citadel where arose four
pinnacles beckoning to heaven, and midmost between the pinnacles there
stood the dome, vast, as the gods had dreamed it. All around, terrace
by terrace, there went marble lawns well guarded by onyx lions and
carved with effigies of all the gods striding amid the symbols of the
worlds. With a sound like tinkling bells, far off in a land of
shepherds hidden by some hill, the waters of many fountains turned
again home. Then the gods awoke and there stood Sardathrion. Not to
common men have the gods given to walk Sardathrion’s streets, and not
to common eyes to see her fountains. Only to those to whom in lonely
passes in the night the gods have spoken, leaning through the stars, to
those that have heard the voices of the gods above the morning or seen
Their faces bending above the sea, only to those hath it been given to
see Sardathrion, to stand where her pinnacles gathered together in the
night fresh from the dreams of gods. For round the valley a great
desert lies through which no common traveller may come, but those whom
the gods have chosen feel suddenly a great longing at heart, and
crossing the mountains that divide the desert from the world, set out
across it driven by the gods, till hidden in the desert’s midst they
find the valley at last and look with eyes upon Sardathrion.

In the desert beyond the valley grow a myriad thorns, and all pointing
towards Sardathrion. So may many that the gods have loved come to the
marble city, but none can return, for other cities are no fitting home
for men whose feet have touched Sardathrion’s marble streets, where
even the gods have not been ashamed to come in the guise of men with
Their cloaks wrapped about their faces. Therefore no city shall ever
hear the songs that are sung in the marble citadel by those in whose
ears have rung the voices of the gods. No report shall ever come to
other lands of the music of the fall of Sardathrion’s fountains, when
the waters which went heavenward return again into the lake where the
gods cool Their brows sometimes in the guise of men. None may ever hear
the speech of the poets of that city, to whom the gods have spoken.

It stands a city aloof. There hath been no rumour of it—I alone have
dreamed of it, and I may not be sure that my dreams are true.


Above the Twilight the gods were seated in the after years, ruling the
worlds. No longer now They walked at evening in the Marble City hearing
the fountains splash, or listening to the singing of the men they
loved, because it was in the after years and the work of the gods was
to be done.

But often as they rested a moment from doing the work of the gods, from
hearing the prayers of men or sending here the Pestilence or there
Mercy, They would speak awhile with one another of the olden years
saying, “Rememberest thou not Sardathrion?” and another would answer
“Ah! Sardathrion, and all Sardathrion’s mist-draped marble lawns
whereon we walk not now.”

Then the gods turned to do the work of the gods, answering the prayers
of men or smiting them, and ever They sent Their swarthy servant Time
to heal or overwhelm. And Time went forth into the worlds to obey the
commands of the gods, yet he cast furtive glances at his masters, and
the gods distrusted Time because he had known the worlds or ever the
gods became.

One day when furtive Time had gone into the worlds to nimbly smite some
city whereof the gods were weary, the gods above the twilight speaking
to one another said:

“Surely we are the lords of Time and gods of the worlds besides. See
how our city Sardathrion lifts over other cities. Others arise and
perish but Sardathrion standeth yet, the first and the last of cities.
Rivers are lost in the sea and streams forsake the hills, but ever
Sardathrion’s fountains arise in our dream city. As was Sardathrion
when the gods were young, so are her streets to-day as a sign that we
are the gods.”

Suddenly the swart figure of Time stood up before the gods, with both
hands dripping with blood and a red sword dangling idly from his
fingers, and said:

“Sardathrion is gone! I have overthrown it!”

And the gods said:

“Sardathrion? Sardathrion, the marble city? Thou, thou hast overthrown
it? Thou, the slave of the gods?”

And the oldest of the gods said:

“Sardathrion, Sardathrion, and is Sardathrion gone?”

And furtively Time looked him in the face and edged towards him
fingering with his dripping fingers the hilt of his nimble sword.

Then the gods feared with a new fear that he that had overthrown Their
city would one day slay the gods. And a new cry went wailing through
the Twilight, the lament of the gods for Their dream city, crying:

“Tears may not bring again Sardathrion.

“But this the gods may do who have seen, and seen with unrelenting
eyes, the sorrows of ten thousand worlds—thy gods may weep for thee.

“Tears may not bring again Sardathrion.

“Believe it not, Sardathrion, that ever thy gods sent this doom to
thee; he that hath overthrown thee shall overthrow thy gods.

“How oft when Night came suddenly on Morning playing in the fields of
Twilight did we watch thy pinnacles emerging from the darkness,
Sardathrion, Sardathrion, dream city of the gods, and thine onyx lions
looming limb by limb from the dusk.

“How often have we sent our child the Dawn to play with thy fountain
tops; how often hath Evening, loveliest of our goddesses, strayed long
upon thy balconies.

“Let one fragment of thy marbles stand up above the dust for thine old
gods to caress, as a man when all else is lost treasures one lock of
the hair of his beloved.

“Sardathrion, the gods must kiss once more the place where thy streets
were once.

“There were wonderful marbles in thy streets, Sardathrion.”

“Sardathrion, Sardathrion, the gods weep for thee.”



THE COMING OF THE SEA


Once there was no sea, and the gods went walking over the green plains
of earth.

Upon an evening of the forgotten years the gods were seated on the
hills, and all the little rivers of the world lay coiled at Their feet
asleep, when Slid, the new god, striding through the stars, came
suddenly upon earth lying in a corner of space. And behind Slid there
marched a million waves, all following Slid and tramping up the
twilight; and Slid touched Earth in one of her great green valleys that
divide the south, and here he encamped for the night with all his waves
about him. But to the gods as They sat upon Their hilltops a new cry
came crying over the green spaces that lay below the hills, and the
gods said:

“This is neither the cry of life nor yet the whisper of death. What is
this new cry that the gods have never commanded, yet which comes to the
ears of the gods?”

And the gods together shouting made the cry of the south, calling the
south wind to them. And again the gods shouted all together making the
cry of the north, calling the north wind to Them; and thus They
gathered to Them all Their winds and sent these four down into the low
plains to find what thing it was that called with the new cry, and to
drive it away from the gods.

Then all the winds harnessed up their clouds and drave forth till they
came to the great green valley that divides the south in twain, and
there found Slid with all his waves about him. Then for a space Slid
and the four winds struggled with one another till the strength of the
winds was gone, and they limped back to the gods, their masters, and
said:

“We have met this new thing that has come upon the earth and have
striven against its armies, but could not drive them forth; and the new
thing is beautiful but very angry, and is creeping towards the gods.”

But Slid advanced and led his armies up the valley, and inch by inch
and mile by mile he conquered the lands of the gods. Then from Their
hills the gods sent down a great array of cliffs against hard, red
rocks, and bade them march against Slid. And the cliffs marched down
till they came and stood before Slid and leaned their heads forward and
frowned and stood staunch to guard the lands of the gods against the
might of the sea, shutting Slid off from the world. Then Slid sent some
of his smaller waves to search out what stood against him, and the
cliffs shattered them. But Slid went back and gathered together a hoard
of his greatest waves and hurled them against the cliffs, and the
cliffs shattered them. And again Slid called up out of his deep a
mighty array of waves and sent them roaring against the guardians of
the gods, and the red rocks frowned and smote them. And once again Slid
gathered his greater waves and hurled them against the cliffs; and when
the waves were scattered like those before them the feet of the cliffs
were no longer standing firm, and their faces were scarred and
battered. Then into every cleft that stood in the rocks Slid sent his
hugest wave and others followed behind it, and Slid himself seized hold
of huge rocks with his claws and tore them down and stamped them under
his feet. And when the tumult was over the sea had won, and over the
broken remnants of those red cliffs the armies of Slid marched on and
up the long green valley.

Then the gods heard Slid exulting far away and singing songs of triumph
over Their battered cliffs, and ever the tramp of his armies sounded
nearer and nearer in the listening ears of the gods.

Then the gods called to Their downlands to save Their world from Slid,
and the downlands gathered themselves and marched away, a great white
line of gleaming cliffs, and halted before Slid. Then Slid advanced no
more and lulled his legions, and while his waves were low he softly
crooned a song such as once long ago had troubled the stars and brought
down tears out of the twilight.

Sternly the white cliffs stood on guard to save the world of the gods,
but the song that once had troubled the stars went moaning on awaking
pent desires, till full at the feet of the gods the melody fell. Then
the blue rivers that lay curled asleep opened their gleaming eyes,
uncurled themselves and shook their rushes, and, making a stir among
the hills, crept down to find the sea. And passing across the world
they came at last to where the white cliffs stood, and, coming behind
them, split them here and there and went through their broken ranks to
Slid at last. And the gods were angry with Their traitorous streams.

Then Slid ceased from singing the song that lures the world, and
gathered up his legions, and the rivers lifted up their heads with the
waves, and all went marching on to assail the cliffs of the gods. And
wherever the rivers had broken the ranks of the cliffs, Slid’s armies
went surging in and broke them up into islands and shattered the
islands away. And the gods on Their hill-tops heard once more the voice
of Slid exulting over Their cliffs.

Already more than half the world lay subject to Slid, and still his
armies advanced; and the people of Slid, the fishes and the long eels,
went in and out of arbours that once were dear to the gods. Then the
gods feared for Their dominion, and to the innermost sacred recesses of
the mountains, to the very heart of the hills, the gods trooped off
together and there found Tintaggon, a mountain of black marble, staring
far over the earth, and spake thus to him with the voices of the gods:

“O eldest born of our mountains, when first we devised the earth we
made thee, and thereafter fashioned fields and hollows, valleys and
other hills, to lie about thy feet. And now, Tintaggon, thine ancient
lords, the gods, are facing a new thing which overthrows the old. Go
therefore, thou, Tintaggon, and stand up against Slid, that the gods be
still the gods and the earth still green.”

And hearing the voices of his sires, the elder gods, Tintaggon strode
down through the evening, leaving a wake of twilight broad behind him
as he strode: and going across the green earth came down to Ambrady at
the valley’s edge, and there met the foremost of Slid’s fierce armies
conquering the world.

And against him Slid hurled the force of a whole bay, which lashed
itself high over Tintaggon’s knees and streamed around his flanks and
then fell and was lost. Tintaggon still stood firm for the honour and
dominion of his lords, the elder gods. Then Slid went to Tintaggon and
said: “Let us now make a truce. Stand thou back from Ambrady and let me
pass through thy ranks that mine armies may now pass up the valley
which opens on the world, that the green earth that dreams around the
feet of older gods shall know the new god Slid. Then shall mine armies
strive with thee no more, and thou and I shall be the equal lords of
the whole earth when all the world is singing the chaunt of Slid, and
thy head alone shall be lifted above mine armies when rival hills are
dead. And I will deck thee with all the robes of the sea, and all the
plunder that I have taken in rare cities shall be piled before thy
feet. Tintaggon, I have conquered all the stars, my song swells through
all the space besides, I come victorious from Mahn and Khanagat on the
furthest edge of the worlds, and thou and I are to be equal lords when
the old gods are gone and the green earth knoweth Slid. Behold me
gleaming azure and fair with a thousand smiles, and swayed by a
thousand moods.” And Tintaggon answered: “I am staunch and black and
have one mood, and this—to defend my masters and their green earth.”

Then Slid went backward growling and summoned together the waves of a
whole sea and sent them singing full in Tintaggon’s face. Then from
Tintaggon’s marble front the sea fell backwards crying on to a broken
shore, and ripple by ripple straggled back to Slid saying: “Tintaggon
stands.”

Far out beyond the battered shore that lay at Tintaggon’s feet Slid
rested long and sent the nautilus to drift up and down before
Tintaggon’s eyes, and he and his armies sat singing idle songs of
dreamy islands far away to the south, and of the still stars whence
they had stolen forth, of twilight evenings and of long ago. Still
Tintaggon stood with his feet planted fair upon the valley’s edge
defending the gods and Their green earth against the sea.

And all the while that Slid sang his songs and played with the nautilus
that sailed up and down he gathered his oceans together. One morning as
Slid sang of old outrageous wars and of most enchanting peace and of
dreamy islands and the south wind and the sun, he suddenly launched
five oceans out of the deep all to attack Tintaggon. And the five
oceans sprang upon Tintaggon and passed above his head. One by one the
grip of the oceans loosened, one by one they fell back into the deep
and still Tintaggon stood, and on that morning the might of all five
oceans lay dead at Tintaggon’s feet. That which Slid had conquered he
still held, and there is now no longer a great green valley in the
south, but all that Tintaggon had guarded against Slid he gave back to
the gods. Very calm the sea lies now about Tintaggon’s feet, where he
stands all black amid crumbled cliffs of white, with red rocks piled
about his feet. And often the sea retreats far out along the shore, and
often wave by wave comes marching in with the sound of the tramping of
armies, that all may still remember the great fight that surged about
Tintaggon once, when he guarded the gods and the green earth against
Slid.

Sometimes in their dreams the war-scarred warriors of Slid still lift
their heads and cry their battle cry; then do dark clouds gather about
Tintaggon’s swarthy brow and he stands out menacing, seen afar by
ships, where once he conquered Slid. And the gods know well that while
Tintaggon stands They and Their world are safe; and whether Slid shall
one day smite Tintaggon is hidden among the secrets of the sea.



A LEGEND OF THE DAWN


When the worlds and All began the gods were stern and old and They saw
the Beginning from under eyebrows hoar with years, all but Inzana,
Their child, who played with the golden ball. Inzana was the child of
all the gods. And the law before the Beginning and thereafter was that
all should obey the gods, yet hither and thither went all Pegāna’s gods
to obey the Dawnchild because she loved to be obeyed.

It was dark all over the world and even in Pegāna, where dwell the
gods, it was dark when the child Inzana, the Dawn, first found her
golden ball. Then running down the stairway of the gods with tripping
feet, chalcedony, onyx, chalcedony, onyx, step by step, she cast her
golden ball across the sky. The golden ball went bounding up the sky,
and the Dawnchild with her flaring hair stood laughing upon the
stairway of the gods, and it was day. So gleaming fields below saw the
first of all the days that the gods have destined. But towards evening
certain mountains, afar and aloof, conspired together to stand between
the world and the golden ball and to wrap their crags about it and to
shut it from the world, and all the world was darkened with their plot.
And the Dawnchild up in Pegāna cried for her golden ball. Then all the
gods came down the stairway right to Pegāna’s gate to see what ailed
the Dawnchild and to ask her why she cried. Then Inzana said that her
golden ball had been taken away and hidden by mountains black and ugly,
far away from Pegāna, all in a world of rocks under the rim of the sky,
and she wanted her golden ball and could not love the dark.

Thereat Umborodom, whose hound was the thunder, took his hound in
leash, and strode away across the sky after the golden ball until he
came to the mountains afar and aloof. There did the thunder put his
nose to the rocks and bay along the valleys, and fast at his heels
followed Umborodom. And the nearer the hound, the thunder, came to the
golden ball the louder did he bay, but haughty and silent stood the
mountains whose plot had darkened the world. All in the dark among the
crags in a mighty cavern, guarded by two twin peaks, at last they found
the golden ball for which the Dawnchild wept. Then under the world went
Umborodom with his thunder panting behind him, and came in the dark
before the morning from underneath the world and gave the Dawnchild
back her golden ball. And Inzana laughed and took it in her hands, and
Umborodom went back into Pegāna, and at its threshold the thunder went
to sleep.

Again the Dawnchild tossed the golden ball far up into the blue across
the sky, and the second morning shone upon the world, on lakes and
oceans, and on drops of dew. But as the ball went bounding on its way,
the prowling mists and the rain conspired together and took it and
wrapped it in their tattered cloaks and carried it away. And through
the rents in their garments gleamed the golden ball, but they held it
fast and carried it right away and underneath the world. Then on an
onyx step Inzana sat down and wept, who could no more be happy without
her golden ball. And again the gods were sorry, and the South Wind came
to tell her tales of most enchanted islands, to whom she listened not,
nor yet to the tales of temples in lone lands that the East Wind told
her, who had stood beside her when she flung her golden ball. But from
far away the West Wind came with news of three grey travellers wrapt
round with battered cloaks that carried away between them a golden
ball.

Then up leapt the North Wind, he who guards the pole, and drew his
sword of ice out of his scabbard of snow and sped away along the road
that leads across the blue. And in the darkness underneath the world he
met the three grey travellers and rushed upon them and drove them far
before him, smiting them with his sword till their grey cloaks streamed
with blood. And out of the midst of them, as they fled with flapping
cloaks all red and grey and tattered, he leapt up with the golden ball
and gave it to the Dawnchild.

Again Inzana tossed the ball into the sky, making the third day, and up
and up it went and fell towards the fields, and as Inzana stooped to
pick it up she suddenly heard the singing of all the birds that were.
All the birds in the world were singing all together and also all the
streams, and Inzana sat and listened and thought of no golden ball, nor
ever of chalcedony and onyx, nor of all her fathers the gods, but only
of all the birds. Then in the woods and meadows where they had all
suddenly sung, they suddenly ceased. And Inzana, looking up, found that
her ball was lost, and all alone in the stillness one owl laughed. When
the gods heard Inzana crying for her ball They clustered together on
the threshold and peered into the dark, but saw no golden ball. And
leaning forward They cried out to the bat as he passed up and down:
“Bat that seest all things, where is the golden ball?”

And though the bat answered none heard. And none of the winds had seen
it nor any of the birds, and there were only the eyes of the gods in
the darkness peering for the golden ball. Then said the gods: “Thou
hast lost thy golden ball,” and They made her a moon of silver to roll
about the sky. And the child cried and threw it upon the stairway and
chipped and broke its edges and asked for the golden ball. And Limpang
Tung, the Lord of Music, who was least of all the gods, because the
child cried still for her golden ball, stole out of Pegāna and crept
across the sky, and found the birds of all the world sitting in trees
and ivy, and whispering in the dark. He asked them one by one for news
of the golden ball. Some had last seen it on a neighbouring hill and
others in trees, though none knew where it was. A heron had seen it
lying in a pond, but a wild duck in some reeds had seen it last as she
came home across the hills, and then it was rolling very far away.

At last the cock cried out that he had seen it lying beneath the world.
There Limpang Tung sought it and the cock called to him through the
darkness as he went, until at last he found the golden ball. Then
Limpang Tung went up into Pegāna and gave it to the Dawnchild, who
played with the moon no more. And the cock and all his tribe cried out:
“We found it. We found the golden ball.”

Again Inzana tossed the ball afar, laughing with joy to see it, her
hands stretched upwards, her golden hair afloat, and carefully she
watched it as it fell. But alas! it fell with a splash into the great
sea and gleamed and shimmered as it fell till the waters became dark
above it and could be seen no more. And men on the world said: “How the
dew has fallen, and how the mists set in with breezes from the
streams.”

But the dew was the tears of the Dawnchild, and the mists were her
sighs when she said: “There will no more come a time when I play with
my ball again, for now it is lost for ever.”

And the gods tried to comfort Inzana as she played with her silver
moon, but she would not hear Them, and went in tears to Slid, where he
played with gleaming sails, and in his mighty treasury turned over gems
and pearls and lorded it over the sea. And she said: “O Slid, whose
soul is in the sea, bring back my golden ball.”

And Slid stood up, swarthy, and clad in seaweed, and mightily dived
from the last chalcedony step out of Pegāna’s threshold straight into
ocean. There on the sand, among the battered navies of the nautilus and
broken weapons of the swordfish, hidden by dark water, he found the
golden ball. And coming up in the night, all green and dripping, he
carried it gleaming to the stairway of the gods and brought it back to
Inzana from the sea; and out of the hands of Slid she took it and
tossed it far and wide over his sails and sea, and far away it shone on
lands that knew not Slid, till it came to its zenith and dropped
towards the world.

But ere it fell the Eclipse dashed out from his hiding, and rushed at
the golden ball and seized it in his jaws. When Inzana saw the Eclipse
bearing her plaything away she cried aloud to the thunder, who burst
from Pegāna and fell howling upon the throat of the Eclipse, who
dropped the golden ball and let it fall towards earth. But the black
mountains disguised themselves with snow, and as the golden ball fell
down towards them they turned their peaks to ruby crimson and their
lakes to sapphires gleaming amongst silver, and Inzana saw a jewelled
casket into which her plaything fell. But when she stooped to pick it
up again she found no jewelled casket with rubies, silver or sapphires,
but only wicked mountains disguised in snow that had trapped her golden
ball. And then she cried because there was none to find it, for the
thunder was far away chasing the Eclipse, and all the gods lamented
when They saw her sorrow. And Limpang Tung, who was least of all the
gods, was yet the saddest at the Dawnchild’s grief, and when the gods
said: “Play with your silver moon,” he stepped lightly from the rest,
and coming down the stairway of the gods, playing an instrument of
music, went out towards the world to find the golden ball because
Inzana wept.


[Illustration: Inzāna calls up the Thunder ]


And into the world he went till he came to the nether cliffs that stand
by the inner mountains in the soul and heart of the earth where the
Earthquake dwelleth alone, asleep but astir as he sleeps, breathing and
moving his legs, and grunting aloud in the dark. Then in the ear of the
Earthquake Limpang Tung said a word that only the gods may say, and the
Earthquake started to his feet and flung the cave away, the cave
wherein he slept between the cliffs, and shook himself and went
galloping abroad and overturned the mountains that hid the golden ball,
and bit the earth beneath them and hurled their crags about and covered
himself with rocks and fallen hills, and went back ravening and
growling into the soul of the earth, and there lay down and slept again
for a hundred years. And the golden ball rolled free, passing under the
shattered earth, and so rolled back to Pegāna; and Limpang Tung came
home to the onyx step and took the Dawnchild by the hand and told not
what he had done but said it was the Earthquake, and went away to sit
at the feet of the gods. But Inzana went and patted the Earthquake on
the head, for she said it was dark and lonely in the soul of the earth.
Thereafter, returning step by step, chalcedony, onyx, chalcedony, onyx,
up the stairway of the gods, she cast again her golden ball from the
Threshold afar into the blue to gladden the world and the sky, and
laughed to see it go.

And far away Trogool upon the utter Rim turned a page that was numbered
six in a cipher that none might read. And as the golden ball went
through the sky to gleam on lands and cities, there came the Fog
towards it, stooping as he walked with his dark brown cloak about him,
and behind him slunk the Night. And as the golden ball rolled past the
Fog suddenly Night snarled and sprang upon it and carried it away.
Hastily Inzana gathered the gods and said: “The Night hath seized my
golden ball and no god alone can find it now, for none can say how far
the Night may roam, who prowls all round us and out beyond the worlds.”

At the entreaty of Their Dawnchild all the gods made Themselves stars
for torches, and far away through all the sky followed the tracks of
Night as far as he prowled abroad. And at one time Slid, with the
Pleiades in his hand, came nigh to the golden ball, and at another
Yoharneth-Lahai, holding Orion for a torch, but lastly Limpang Tung,
bearing the morning star, found the golden ball far away under the
world near to the lair of Night.

And all the gods together seized the ball, and Night turning smote out
the torches of the gods and thereafter slunk away; and all the gods in
triumph marched up the gleaming stairway of the gods, all praising
little Limpang Tung, who through the chase had followed Night so close
in search of the golden ball. Then far below on the world a human child
cried out to the Dawnchild for the golden ball, and Inzana ceased from
her play that illumined world and sky, and cast the ball from the
Threshold of the gods to the little human child that played in the
fields below, and would one day die. And the child played all day long
with the golden ball down in the little fields where the humans lived,
and went to bed at evening and put it beneath his pillow, and went to
sleep, and no one worked in all the world because the child was
playing. And the light of the golden ball streamed up from under the
pillow and out through the half shut door and shone in the western sky,
and Yoharneth-Lahai in the night time tip-toed into the room, and took
the ball gently (for he was a god) away from under the pillow and
brought it back to the Dawnchild to gleam on an onyx step.

But some day Night shall seize the golden ball and carry it right away
and drag it down to his lair, and Slid shall dive from the Threshold
into the sea to see if it be there, and coming up when the fishermen
draw their nets shall find it not, nor yet discover it among the sails.
Limpang Tung shall seek among the birds and shall not find it when the
cock is mute, and up the valleys shall go Umborodom to seek among the
crags. And the hound, the thunder, shall chase the Eclipse and all the
gods go seeking with Their stars, but never find the ball. And men, no
longer having light of the golden ball, shall pray to the gods no more,
who, having no worship, shall be no more the gods.

These things be hidden even from the gods.



THE VENGEANCE OF MEN


Ere the Beginning the gods divided earth into waste and pasture.
Pleasant pastures They made to be green over the face of earth,
orchards They made in valleys and heather upon hills, but Harza They
doomed, predestined and foreordained to be a waste for ever.

When the world prayed at evening to the gods and the gods answered
prayers They forgot the prayers of all the Tribes of Arim. Therefore
the men of Arim were assailed with wars and driven from land to land
and yet would not be crushed. And the men of Arim made them gods for
themselves, appointing men as gods until the gods of Pegāna should
remember them again. And their leaders, Yoth and Haneth, played the
part of gods and led their people on though every tribe assailed them.
At last they came to Harza, where no tribes were, and at last had rest
from war, and Yoth and Haneth said: “The work is done, and surely now
Pegāna’s gods will remember.” And they built a city in Harza and tilled
the soil, and the green came over the waste as the wind comes over the
sea, and there were fruit and cattle in Harza and the sounds of a
million sheep. There they rested from their flight from all the tribes,
and builded fables out of all their sorrows till all men smiled in
Harza and children laughed.

Then said the gods, “Earth is no place for laughter.” Thereat They
strode to Pegāna’s outer gate, to where the Pestilence lay curled
asleep, and waking him up They pointed toward Harza, and the Pestilence
leapt forward howling across the sky.

That night he came to the fields near Harza, and stalking through the
grass sat down and glared at the lights, and licked his paws and glared
at the lights again.

But the next night, unseen, through laughing crowds, the Pestilence
crept into the city, and stealing into the houses one by one, peered
into the people’s eyes, looking even through their eyelids, so that
when morning came men stared before them crying out that they saw the
Pestilence whom others saw not, and thereafter died, because the green
eyes of the Pestilence had looked into their souls. Chill and damp was
he, yet there came heat from his eyes that parched the souls of men.
Then came the physicians and the men learned in magic, and made the
sign of the physicians and the sign of the men of magic and cast blue
water upon herbs and chanted spells; but still the Pestilence crept
from house to house and still he looked into the souls of men. And the
lives of the people streamed away from Harza, and whither they went is
set in many books. But the Pestilence fed on the light that shines in
the eyes of men, which never appeased his hunger; chiller and damper he
grew, and the heat from his eyes increased when night by night he
galloped through the city, going by stealth no more.

Then did men pray in Harza to the gods, saying:

“High gods! Show clemency to Harza.”

And the gods listened to their prayers, but as They listened They
pointed with their fingers and cheered the Pestilence on. And the
Pestilence grew bolder at his masters’ voices and thrust his face close
up before the eyes of men.

He could be seen by none saving those he smote. At first he slept by
day, lying in misty hollows, but as his hunger increased he sprang up
even in sunlight and clung to the chests of men and looked down through
their eyes into their souls that shrivelled, until almost he could be
dimly seen even by those he smote not.

Adro, the physician, sat in his chamber with one light burning, making
a mixing in a bowl that should drive the Pestilence away, when through
his door there blew a draught that set the light a-flickering.

Then because the draught was cold the physician shivered and went and
closed the door, but as he turned again he saw the Pestilence lapping
at his mixing, who sprang and set one paw upon Adro’s shoulder and
another upon his cloak, while with two he clung to his waist, and
looked him in the eyes.

Two men were walking in the street; one said to the other: “Upon the
morrow I will sup with thee.”

And the Pestilence grinned a grin that none beheld, baring his dripping
teeth, and crept away to see whether upon the morrow those men should
sup together.

A traveller coming in said: “This is Harza. Here will I rest.”

But his life went further than Harza upon that day’s journey.

All feared the Pestilence, and those that he smote beheld him, but none
saw the great shapes of the gods by starlight as They urged Their
Pestilence on.

Then all men fled from Harza, and the Pestilence chased dogs and rats
and sprang upward at the bats as they sailed above him, who died and
lay in the streets. But soon he returned and pursued the men of Harza
where they fled, and sat by rivers where they came to drink, away below
the city. Then back to Harza went the people of Harza pursued by the
Pestilence still, and gathered in the Temple of All the gods save One,
and said to the High Prophet: “What may now be done?” who answered:

“All the gods have mocked at prayer. This sin must now be punished by
the vengeance of men.”

And the people stood in awe.

The High Prophet went up to the Tower beneath the sky whereupon beat
the eyes of all the gods by starlight. There in the sight of the gods
he spake in the ear of the gods, saying: “High gods! Ye have made mock
of men. Know therefore that it is writ in ancient lore and found by
prophecy that there is an _End_ that waiteth for the gods, who shall go
down from Pegāna in galleons of gold all down the Silent River and into
the Silent Sea, and there Their galleons shall go up in mist and They
shall be gods no more. And men shall gain harbour from the mocking of
the gods at last in the warm moist earth, but to the gods shall no
ceasing ever come from being the Things that were the gods. When Time
and worlds and death are gone away nought shall then remain but worn
regrets and Things that were once gods.

“In the sight of the gods.

“In the ear of the gods.”

Then the gods shouted all together and pointed with Their hands at the
High Prophet’s throat, and the Pestilence sprang.

Long since the High Prophet is dead and his words are forgotten by men,
but the gods know not yet whether it be true that _The End_ is waiting
for the gods, and him who might have told Them They have slain. And the
gods of Pegāna are fearing the fear that hath fallen upon the gods
because of the vengeance of men, for They know not when _The End_ shall
be, or whether it shall come.



WHEN THE GODS SLEPT


All the gods were sitting in Pegāna, and Their slave, Time, lay idle at
Pegāna’s gate with nothing to destroy, when They thought of worlds,
worlds large and round and gleaming, and little silver moons. Then (who
knoweth when?), as the gods raised Their hands making the sign of the
gods, the thoughts of the gods became worlds and silver moons. And the
worlds swam by Pegāna’s gate to take their places in the sky, to ride
at anchor for ever, each where the gods had bidden. And because they
were round and big and gleamed all over the sky, the gods laughed and
shouted and all clapped Their hands. Then upon earth the gods played
out the game of the gods, the game of life and death, and on the other
worlds They did a secret thing, playing a game that is hidden.

At last They mocked no more at life and laughed at death no more, and
cried aloud in Pegāna: “Will no new thing be? Must those four march for
ever round the world till our eyes are wearied with the treading of the
feet of the Seasons that will not cease, while Night and Day and Life
and Death drearily rise and fall?”

And as a child stares at the bare walls of a narrow hut, so the gods
looked all listlessly upon the worlds, saying:

“Will no new thing be?”

And in Their weariness the gods said: “Ah! to be young again. Ah! to be
fresh once more from the brain of _Mana-Yood-Sushai_.”

And They turned away Their eyes in weariness from all the gleaming
worlds and laid Them down upon Pegāna’s floor, for They said:

“It may be that the worlds shall pass and we would fain forget them.”

Then the gods slept. Then did the comet break loose from his moorings
and the eclipse roamed about the sky, and down on the earth did Death’s
three children—Famine, Pestilence, and Drought—come out to feed. The
eyes of the Famine were green, and the eyes of the Drought were red,
but the Pestilence was blind and smote about all round him with his
claws among the cities.

But as the gods slept, there came from beyond the Rim, out of the dark
and unknown, three Yozis, spirits of ill, that sailed up the river of
Silence in galleons with silver sails. Far away they had seen Yum and
Gothum, the stars that stand sentinel over Pegāna’s gate, blinking and
falling asleep, and as they neared Pegāna they found a hush wherein the
gods slept heavily. Ya, Ha, and Snyrg were these three Yozis, the lords
of evil, madness, and of spite. When they crept from their galleons and
stole over Pegāna’s silent threshold it boded ill for the gods. There
in Pegāna lay the gods asleep, and in a corner lay the Power of the
gods alone upon the floor, a thing wrought of black rock and four words
graven upon it, whereof I might not give thee any clue, if even I
should find it—four words of which none knoweth. Some say they tell of
the opening of a flower towards dawn, and others say they concern
earthquakes among hills, and others that they tell of the death of
fishes, and others that the words be these: Power, Knowledge,
Forgetting, and another word that not the gods themselves may ever
guess. These words the Yozis read, and sped away in dread lest the gods
should wake, and going aboard their galleons, bade the rowers haste.
Thus the Yozis became gods, having the power of gods, and they sailed
away to the earth, and came to a mountainous island in the sea. There
they sat upon the rocks, sitting as the gods sit, with their right
hands uplifted, and having the power of gods, only none came to
worship. Thither came no ships nigh them, nor ever at evening came the
prayers of men, nor smell of incense, nor screams from the sacrifice.
Then said the Yozis:

“Of what avails it that we be gods if no one worship us nor give us
sacrifice?”

And Ya, Ha, and Snyrg set sail in their silver galleons, and went
looming down the sea to come to the shores of men. And first they came
to an island where were fisher folk; and the folk of the island,
running down to the shore cried out to them:

“Who be ye?”

And the Yozis answered:

“We be three gods, and we would have your worship.”

But the fisher folk answered:

“Here we worship Rahm, the Thunder, and have no worship nor sacrifice
for other gods.”

Then the Yozis snarled with anger and sailed away, and sailed till they
came to another shore, sandy and low and forsaken. And at last they
found an old man upon the shore, and they cried out to him:

“Old man upon the shore! We be three gods that it were well to worship,
gods of great power and apt in the granting of prayer.”

The old man answered:

“We worship Pegāna’s gods, who have a fondness for our incense and the
sound of our sacrifice when it squeals upon the altar.”

Then answered Snyrg:

“Asleep are Pegāna’s gods, nor will They wake for the humming of thy
prayers which lie in the dust upon Pegāna’s floor, and over Them
Sniracte, the spider of the worlds, hath woven a web of mist. And the
squealing of the sacrifice maketh no music in ears that are closed in
sleep.”

The old man answered, standing upon the shore:

“Though all the gods of old shall answer our prayers no longer, yet
still to the gods of old shall all men pray here in Syrinais.”

But the Yozis turned their ships about and angrily sailed away, all
cursing Syrinais and Syrinais’s gods, but most especially the old man
that stood upon the shore.

Still the three Yozis lusted for the worship of men, and came, on the
third night of their sailing, to a city’s lights; and nearing the shore
they found it a city of song wherein all folks rejoiced. Then sat each
Yozi on his galleon’s prow, and leered with his eyes upon the city, so
that the music stopped and the dancing ceased, and all looked out to
sea at the strange shapes of the Yozis beneath their silver sails. Then
Snyrg demanded their worship, promising increase of joys, and swearing
by the light of his eyes that he would send little flames to leap over
the grass, to pursue the enemies of that city and to chase them about
the world.

But the people answered that in that city men worshipped Agrodaun, the
mountain standing alone, and might not worship other gods even though
they came in galleons with silver sails, sailing from over the sea. But
Snyrg answered:

“Certainly Agrodaun is only a mountain, and in no manner a god.”

But the priests of Agrodaun sang answer from the shore:

“If the sacrifice of men make not Agrodaun a god, nor blood still young
on his rocks, nor the little fluttering prayers of ten thousand hearts,
nor two thousands years of worship and all the hopes of the people and
the whole strength of our race, then are there no gods and ye be common
sailors, sailing from over the sea.”

Then said the Yozis:

“Hath Agrodaun answered prayer?” And the people heard the words that
the Yozis said.

Then went the priests of Agrodaun away from the shore and up the steep
streets of the city, the people following, and over the moor beyond it
to the foot of Agrodaun, and then said:

“Agrodaun, if thou art not our god, go back and herd with yonder common
hills, and put a cap of snow upon thy head and crouch far off as they
do beneath the sky; but if we have given thee divinity in two thousand
years, if our hopes are all about thee like a cloak, then stand and
look upon thy worshippers from over our city for ever.” And the smoke
that ascended from his feet stood still and there fell a hush over
great Agrodaun; and the priests went back to the sea and said to the
three Yozis:

“New gods shall have our worship when Agrodaun grows weary of being our
god, or when in some night-time he shall stride away, leaving us nought
to gaze at that is higher than our city.”

And the Yozis sailed away and cursed towards Agrodaun, but could not
hurt him, for he was but a mountain.

And the Yozis sailed along the coast till they came to a river running
to the sea, and they sailed up the river till they came to a people at
work, who furrowed the soil and sowed, and strove against the forest.
Then the Yozis called to the people as they worked in the fields:

“Give us your worship and ye shall have many joys.”

But the people answered:

“We may not worship you.”

Then answered Snyrg:

“Ye also, have ye a god?”

And the people answered:

“We worship the years to come, and we set the world in order for their
coming, as one layeth raiment on the road before the advent of a King.
And when those years shall come, they shall accept the worship of a
race they knew not, and their people shall make their sacrifice to the
years that follow them, who, in their turn, shall minister to the
_End_.”

Then answered Snyrg:

“Gods that shall recompense you not. Rather give us your prayers and
have our pleasures, the pleasures that we shall give you, and when your
gods shall come, let them be wroth—they cannot punish you.”

But the people continued to sacrifice their labour to their gods, the
years to come, making the world a place for gods to dwell in, and the
Yozis cursed those gods and sailed away. And Ya, the Lord of malice,
swore that when those years should come, they should see whether it
were well for them to have snatched away the worship from three Yozis.

And still the Yozis sailed, for they said:

“It were better to be birds and have no air to fly in, than to be gods
having neither prayers nor worship.”

But where sky met with ocean, the Yozis saw land again, and thither
sailed; and there the Yozis saw men in strange old garments performing
ancient rites in a land of many temples. And the Yozis called to the
men as they performed their ancient rites and said:

“We be three gods well versed in the needs of men, to worship whom were
to obtain instant joy.”

But the men said:

“We have already gods.”

And Snyrg replied:

“Ye, too?”

The men answered:

“For we worship the things that have been and all the years that were.
Divinely have they helped us, therefore we give them worship that is
their due.”

And the Yozis answered the people:

“We be gods of the present and return good things for worship.”

But the people answered, saying from the shore:

“Our gods have given us already the good things, and we return Them the
worship that is Their due.”

And the Yozis set their faces to landward, and cursed all things that
had been and all the years that were, and sailed in their galleons
away.

A rocky shore in an inhuman land stood up against the sea. Thither the
Yozis came and found no man, but out of the dark from inland towards
evening came a herd of great baboons and chattered greatly when they
saw the ships.

Then spake Snyrg to them:

“Have ye, too, a god?”

And the baboons spat.

Then said the Yozis:

“We be seductive gods, having a particular remembrance for little
prayers.”

But the baboons leered fiercely at the Yozis and would have none of
them for gods.

One said that prayers hindered the eating of nuts. But Snyrg leaned
forward and whispered, and the baboons went down upon their knees and
clasped their hands as men clasp, and chattered prayer and said to one
another that these were the gods of old, and gave the Yozis their
worship—for Snyrg had whispered in their ears that, if they would
worship the Yozis, he would make them men. And the baboons arose from
worshipping, smoother about the face and a little shorter in the arms,
and went away and hid their bodies in clothing, and afterwards galloped
away from the rocky shore and went and herded with men. And men could
not discern what they were, for their bodies were bodies of men, though
their souls were still the souls of beasts and their worship went to
the Yozis, spirits of ill.

And the lords of malice, hatred and madness sailed back to their island
in the sea and sat upon the shore as gods sit, with right hand
uplifted; and at evening foul prayers from the baboons gathered about
them and infested the rocks.

But in Pegāna the gods awoke with a start.



THE KING THAT WAS NOT


The land of Runazar hath no King nor ever had one; and this is the law
of the land of Runazar that, seeing that it hath never had a King, it
shall not have one for ever. Therefore in Runazar the priests hold
sway, who tell people that never in Runazar hath there been a King.

Althazar, King of Runazar, and lord of all lands near by, commanded for
the closer knowledge of the gods that Their images should be carven in
Runazar, and in all lands near by. And when Althazar’s command, wafted
abroad by trumpets, came tinkling in the ear of all the gods, right
glad were They at the sound of it. Therefore men quarried marble from
the earth, and sculptors busied themselves in Runazar to obey the edict
of the King. But the gods stood by starlight on the hills where the
sculptors might see Them, and draped the clouds about Them, and put
upon Them Their divinest air, that sculptors might do justice to
Pegāna’s gods. Then the gods strode back into Pegāna and the sculptors
hammered and wrought, and there came a day when the Master of Sculptors
took audience of the King, saying:

“Althazar, King of Runazar, High Lord moreover of all the lands near
by, to whom be the gods benignant, humbly have we completed the images
of all such gods as were in thine edict named.”

Then the King commanded a great space to be cleared among the houses in
his city, and there the images of all the gods were borne and set
before the King, and there were assembled the Master of Sculptors and
all his men; and before each stood a soldier bearing a pile of gold
upon a jewelled tray, and behind each stood a soldier with a drawn
sword pointing against their necks, and the King looked upon the
images. And lo! they stood as gods with the clouds all draped about
them, making the sign of the gods, but their bodies were those of men,
and lo! their faces were very like the King’s, and their beards were as
the King’s beard. And the King said:

“These be indeed Pegāna’s gods.”

And the soldiers that stood before the sculptors were caused to present
to them the piles of gold, and the soldiers that stood behind the
sculptors were caused to sheath their swords. And the people shouted:

“These be indeed Pegāna’s gods, whose faces we are permitted to see by
the will of Althazar the King, to whom be the gods benignant.” And
heralds were sent abroad through the cities of Runazar and of all the
lands near by, proclaiming of the images:

“These be Pegāna’s gods.”

But up in Pegāna the gods howled with wrath and Mung leant forward to
make the sign of Mung against Althazar the King. But the gods laid
Their hands upon his shoulder saying:

“Slay him not, for it is not enough that Althazar shall die, who hath
made the faces of the gods to be like the faces of men, but he must not
even have ever been.”

Then said the gods:

“Spake we of Althazar, a King?”

And the gods said:

“Nay, we spake not.” And the gods said:

“Dreamed we of one Althazar?” And the gods said:

“Nay, we dreamed not.”

But in the royal palace of Runazar, Althazar, passing suddenly out of
the remembrance of the gods, became no longer a thing that was or had
ever been.

And by the throne of Althazar lay a robe, and near it lay a crown, and
the priests of the gods entered his palace and made it a temple of the
gods. And the people coming to worship said:

“Whose was this robe and to what purpose is this crown?”

And the priests answered:

“The gods have cast away the fragment of a garment and lo! from the
fingers of the gods hath slipped one little ring.”

And the people said to the priests:

“Seeing that Runazar hath never had a King, therefore be ye our rulers,
and make ye our laws in the sight of Pegāna’s gods.”



THE CAVE OF KAI


The pomp of crowning was ended, the rejoicings had died away, and
Khanazar, the new King, sat in the seat of the Kings of Averon to do
his work upon the destinies of men. His uncle, Khanazar the Lone, had
died, and he had come from a far castle to the south, with a great
procession, to Ilaun, the citadel of Averon; and there they had crowned
him King of Averon and of the mountains, and Lord, if there be aught
beyond those mountains, of all such lands as are. But now the pomp of
the crowning was gone away and Khanazar sat afar off from his home, a
very mighty King.

Then the King grew weary of the destinies of Averon and weary of the
making of commands. So Khanazar sent heralds through all cities saying:

“Hear! The will of the King! Hear! The will of the King of Averon and
of the mountains and Lord, if there be aught beyond those mountains, of
all such lands as are. Let there come together to Ilaun all such as
have an art in secret matters. Hear!”

And there gathered together to Ilaun the wise men of all the degrees of
magic, even to the seventh, who had made spells before Khanazar the
Lone; and they came before the new King in his palace placing their
hands upon his feet. Then said the King to the magicians:

“I have a need.”

And they answered:

“The earth touches the feet of the King in token of submission.”

But the King answered:

“My need is not of the earth; but I would find certain of the hours
that have been, and sundry days that were.”

And all the wise folks were silent, till there spake out mournfully the
wisest of them all, who made spells in the seventh degree, saying:

“The days that were, and the hours, have winged their way to Mount
Agdora’s summit, and there, dipping, have passed away from sight, not
ever to return, for haply they have not heard the King’s command.”

Of these wise folks are many things chronicled. Moreover, it is set in
writing of the scribes how they had audience of King Khanazar and of
the words they spake, but of their further deeds there is no legend.
But it is told how the King sent men to run and pass through all the
cities till they should find one that was wiser even than the magicians
that had made spells before Khanazar the Lone. Far up the mountains
that limit Averon they found Syrahn, the prophet, among the goats, who
was of none of the degrees of magic, and who had cast no spells before
the former King. Him they brought to Khanazar, and the King said unto
him:

“I have a need.”

And Syrahn answered:

“Thou art a man.”

And the King said:

“Where lie the days that were and certain hours?”

And Syrahn answered:

“These things lie in a cave afar from here, and over the cave stands
sentinel one Kai, and this cave Kai hath guarded from the gods and men
since ever the Beginning was made. It may be that he shall let Khanazar
pass by.”

Then the King gathered elephants and camels that carried burdens of
gold, and trusty servants that carried precious gems, and gathered an
army to go before him and an army to follow behind, and sent out
horsemen to warn the dwellers of the plains that the King of Averon was
afoot.

And he bade Syrahn to lead to that place where the days of old lie hid
and all forgotten hours.

Across the plain and up Mount Agdora, and dipping beyond its summit
went Khanazar the King, and his two armies who followed Syrahn. Eight
times the purple tent with golden border had been pitched for the King
of Averon, and eight times it had been struck ere the King and the
King’s armies came to a dark cave in a valley dark, where Kai stood
guard over the days that were. And the face of Kai was as a warrior
that vanquisheth cities and burdeneth himself not with captives, and
his form was as the forms of gods, but his eyes were the eyes of
beasts; before whom came the King of Averon with elephants and camels
bearing burdens of gold, and trusty servants carrying precious gems.

Then said the King:

“Yonder behold my gifts. Give back to me my yesterday with its waving
banners, my yesterday with its music and blue sky and all its cheering
crowds that made me King, the yesterday that sailed with gleaming wings
over my Averon.”

And Kai answered, pointing to his cave:

“Thither, dishonoured and forgot, thy yesterday slunk away. And who
amid the dusty heap of the forgotten days shall grovel to find thy
yesterday?”

Then answered the King of Averon and of the mountains and Lord, if
there be aught beyond them, of all such lands as are:

“I will go down on my knees in yon dark cave and search with my hands
amid the dust, if so I may find my yesterday again and certain hours
that are gone.”

And the King pointed to his piles of gold that stood where elephants
were met together, and beyond them to the scornful camels. And Kai
answered:

“The gods have offered me the gleaming worlds and all as far as the
Rim, and whatever lies beyond it as far as the gods may see—and thou
comest to me with elephants and camels.”

Then said the King:

“Across the orchards of my home there hath passed one hour whereof thou
knowest well, and I pray to thee, who wilt take no gifts borne upon
elephants or camels, to give me of thy mercy one second back, one grain
of dust that clings to that hour in the heap that lies within thy
cave.”

And, at the word mercy, Kai laughed. And the King turned his armies to
the east. Therefore the armies returned to Averon and the heralds
before them cried:

“Here cometh Khanazar, King of Averon and of the mountains and Lord, if
there be aught beyond those mountains, of all such lands as are.”


[Illustration: Kay Laughed]


And the King said to them:

“Say rather that here comes one greatly wearied who, having
accomplished nought, returneth from a quest forlorn.”

So the King came again to Averon.

But it is told how there came into Ilaun one evening as the sun was
setting a harper with a golden harp desiring audience of the King.

And it is told how men led him to Khanazar, who sat frowning alone upon
his throne, to whom said the harper:

“I have a golden harp; and to its strings have clung like dust some
seconds out of the forgotten hours and little happenings of the days
that were.”

And Khanazar looked up and the harper touched the strings, and the old
forgotten things were stirring again, and there arose a sound of songs
that had passed away and long since voices. Then when the harper saw
that Khanazar looked not angrily upon him his fingers tramped over the
chords as the gods tramp down the sky, and out of the golden harp arose
a haze of memories; and the King leaning forward and staring before him
saw in the haze no more his palace walls, but saw a valley with a
stream that wandered through it, and woods upon either hill, and an old
castle standing lonely to the south. And the harper, seeing a strange
look upon the face of Khanazar, said:

“Is the King pleased who lords it over Averon and the mountains, and,
if there be aught beyond them, over all such lands as are?”

And the King said:—

“Seeing that I am a child again in a valley to the south, how may I say
what may be the will of the great King?”

When the stars shone high over Ilaun and still the King sat staring
straight before him, all the courtiers drew away from the great palace,
save one that stayed and kept one taper burning, and with them went the
harper.

And when the dawn came up through silent archways into the marble
palace, making the taper pale, the King still stared before him, and
still he sat there when the stars shone again clearly and high above
Ilaun.

But on the second morning the King arose and sent for the harper and
said to him:—

“I am King again, and thou that hast a skill to stay the hours and
mayest may bring again to men their forgotten days, thou shalt stand
sentinel over my great to-morrow; and when I go forth to conquer
Ziman-ho and make my armies mighty thou shalt stand between that morrow
and the cave of Kai, and haply some deed of mine and the battling of my
armies shall cling to thy golden harp and not go down dishonoured into
the cave. For my to-morrow, who with such resounding stride goes
trampling through my dreams, is far too kingly to herd with forgotten
days in the dust of things that were. But on some future day, when
Kings are dead and all their deeds forgotten, some harper of that time
shall come and from those golden strings awake those deeds that echo in
my dreams, till my to-morrow shall stride forth among the lesser days
and tell the years that Khanazar was a King.”

And answered the harper:

“I will stand sentinel over thy great to-morrow, and when thou goest
forth to conquer Ziman-ho and make thine armies mighty I will stand
between thy morrow and the cave of Kai, till thy deeds and the battling
of thine armies shall cling to my golden harp and not go down
dishonoured into the cave. So that when Kings are dead and all their
deeds forgotten the harpers of the future time shall awake from these
golden chords those deeds of thine. This will I do.”

Men of these days, that be skilled upon the harp, tell still of
Khanazar, how that he was King of Averon and of the mountains, and
claimed lordship of certain lands beyond, and how he went with armies
against Ziman-ho and fought great battles, and in the last gained
victory and was slain. But Kai, as he waited with his claws to gather
in the last days of Khanazar that they might loom enormous in his cave,
still found them not, and only gathered in some meaner deeds and the
days and hours of lesser men, and was vexed by the shadow of a harper
that stood between him and the world.



THE SORROW OF SEARCH


It is told also of King Khanazar how he bowed very low unto the gods of
Old. None bowed so low unto the gods of Old as did King Khanazar.

One day the King returning from the worship of the gods of Old and from
bowing before them in the temple of the gods commanded their prophets
to appear before him, saying:

“I would know somewhat concerning the gods.”

Then came the prophets before King Khanazar, burdened with many books,
to whom the King said:

“It is not in books.”

Thereat the prophets departed, bearing away with them a thousand
methods well devised in books whereby men may gain wisdom of the gods.
One alone remained, a master prophet, who had forgotten books, to whom
the King said:

“The gods of Old are mighty.”

And answered the master prophet:

“Very mighty are the gods of Old.”

Then said the King:

“There are no gods but the gods of Old.”

And answered the prophet:

“There are none other.”

And they two being alone within the palace the King said:

“Tell me aught concerning gods or men if aught of the truth be known.”

Then said the master prophet:

“Far and white and straight lieth the road to Knowing, and down it in
the heat and dust go all wise people of the earth, but in the fields
before they come to it the very wise lie down or pluck the flowers. By
the side of the road to Knowing—O King, it is hard and hot—stand many
temples, and in the doorway of every temple stand many priests, and
they cry to the travellers that weary of the road, crying to them:

“This is the End.”

And in the temples are the sounds of music, and from each roof arises
the savour of pleasant burning; and all that look at a cool temple,
whichever temple they look at, or hear the hidden music, turn in to see
whether it be indeed the End. And such as find that their temple is not
indeed the End set forth again upon the dusty road, stopping at each
temple as they pass for fear they miss the End, or striving onwards on
the road, and see nothing in the dust, till they can walk no longer and
are taken worn and weary of their journey into some other temple by a
kindly priest who shall tell them that this also is the End. Neither on
that road may a man gain any guiding from his fellows, for only one
thing that they say is surely true, when they say:

“Friend, we can see nothing for the dust.”

And of the dust that hides the way much has been there since ever that
road began, and some is stirred up by the feet of all that travel upon
it, and more arises from the temple doors.

And, O King, it were better for thee, travelling upon that road, to
rest when thou hearest one calling: “This is the End,” with the sounds
of music behind him. And if in the dust and darkness thou pass by Lo
and Mush and the pleasant temple of Kynash, or Sheenath with his opal
smile, or Sho with his eyes of agate, yet Shilo and Mynarthitep, Gazo
and Amurund and Slig are still before thee and the priests of their
temples will not forget to call thee.

And, O King, it is told that only one discerned the end and passed by
three thousand temples, and the priests of the last were like the
priests of the first, and all said that their temple was at the end of
the road, and the dark of the dust lay over them all, and all were very
pleasant and only the road was weary. And in some were many gods, and
in a few only one, and in some the shrine was empty, and all had many
priests, and in all the travellers were happy as they rested. And into
some his fellow travellers tried to force him, and when he said:

“I will travel further,” many said:

“This man lies, for the road ends here.”

And he that travelled to the End hath told that when the thunder was
heard upon the road there arose the sound of the voices of all the
priests as far as he could hear, crying:

“Hearken to Shilo”—“Hear Mush”—“Lo! Kynash”—“The voice of
Sho”—“Mynarthitep is angry”—“Hear the word of Slig!”

And far away along the road one cried to the traveller that Sheenath
stirred in his sleep.

O King this is very doleful. It is told that that traveller came at
last to the utter End and there was a mighty gulf, and in the darkness
at the bottom of the gulf one small god crept, no bigger than a hare,
whose voice came crying in the cold:

“I know not.”

And beyond the gulf was nought, only the small god crying.

And he that travelled to the End fled backwards for a great distance
till he came to temples again, and entering one where a priest cried:

“This is the End,” lay down and rested on a couch. There Yush sat
silent, carved with an emerald tongue and two great eyes of sapphire,
and there many rested and were happy. And an old priest, coming from
comforting a child, came over to that traveller who had seen the End
and said to him:

“This is Yush and this is the End of wisdom.”

And the traveller answered:

“Yush is very peaceful and this indeed the End.”

“O King, wouldst thou hear more?”

And the King said:

“I would hear all.”

And the master prophet answered:

“There was also another prophet and his name was Shaun, who had such
reverence for the gods of Old that he became able to discern their
forms by starlight as they strode, unseen by others, among men. Each
night did Shaun discern the forms of the gods and every day he taught
concerning them, till men in Averon knew how the gods appeared all grey
against the mountains, and how Rhoog was higher than Mount Scagadon,
and how Skun was smaller, and how Asgool leaned forward as he strode,
and how Trodath peered about him with small eyes. But one night as
Shaun watched the gods of Old by starlight, he faintly discerned some
other gods that sat far up the slopes of the mountains in the stillness
behind the gods of Old. And the next day he hurled his robe away that
he wore as Averon’s prophet and said to his people:

“There be gods greater than the gods of Old, three gods seen faintly on
the hills by starlight looking on Averon.”

And Shaun set out and travelled many days and many people followed him.
And every night he saw more clearly the shapes of the three new gods
who sat silent when the gods of Old were striding among men. On the
higher slopes of the mountain Shaun stopped with all his people, and
there they built a city and worshipped the gods, whom only Shaun could
see, seated above them on the mountain. And Shaun taught how the gods
were like grey streaks of light seen before dawn, and how the god on
the right pointed upward toward the sky, and how the god on the left
pointed downward toward the ground, but the god in the middle slept.

And in the city Shaun’s followers built three temples. The one on the
right was a temple for the young, and the one on the left a temple for
the old, and the third was a temple for the old, and the third was a
temple with doors closed and barred—therein none ever entered. One
night as Shaun watched before the three gods sitting like pale light
against the mountain, he saw on the mountain’s summit two gods that
spake together and pointed, mocking the gods of the hill, only he heard
no sound. The next day Shaun set out and a few followed him to climb to
the mountain’s summit in the cold, to find the gods who were so great
that they mocked at the silent three. And near the two gods they halted
and built for themselves huts. Also they built a temple wherein the Two
were carved by the hand of Shaun with their heads turned towards each
other, with mockery on Their faces and Their fingers pointing, and
beneath Them were carved the three gods of the hill as actors making
sport. None remembered now Asgool, Trodath, Skun, and Rhoog, the gods
of Old.

For many years Shaun and his few followers lived in their huts upon the
mountain’s summit worshipping gods that mocked, and every night Shaun
saw the two gods by starlight as they laughed to one another in the
silence. And Shaun grew old.

One night as his eyes were turned towards the Two, he saw across the
mountains in the distance a great god seated in the plain and looming
enormous to the sky, who looked with angry eyes towards the Two as they
sat and mocked. Then said Shaun to his people, the few that had
followed him thither:

“Alas that we may not rest, but beyond us in the plain sitteth the one
true god and he is wroth with mocking. Let us therefore leave these two
that sit and mock and let us find the truth in the worship of that
greater god, who even though he kill shall yet not mock us.”

But the people answered:

“Thou hast taken from us many gods and taught us now to worship gods
that mock, and if there is laughter on their faces as we die, lo! thou
alone canst see it, and we would rest.”

But three men who had grown old with following followed still.

And down the steep mountain on the further side Shaun led them, saying:

“Now we shall surely know.”

And the three old men answered:

“We shall know indeed, O last of all the prophets.”

That night the two gods mocking at their worshippers mocked not at
Shaun nor his three followers, who coming to the plain still travelled
on till they came at last to a place where the eyes of Shaun at night
could closely see the vast form of their god. And beyond them as far as
the sky there lay a marsh. There they rested, building such shelters as
they could, and said to one another:

“This is the End, for Shaun discerneth that there are no more gods, and
before us lieth the marsh and old age hath come upon us.”

And since they could not labour to build a temple, Shaun carved upon a
rock all that he saw by starlight of the great god of the plain; so
that if ever others forsook the gods of Old because they saw beyond
them the Greater Three, and should thence come to knowledge of the
Twain that mocked, and should yet persevere in wisdom till they saw by
starlight him whom Shaun named the Ultimate god, they should still find
there upon the rock what one had written concerning the end of search.
For three years Shaun carved upon the rock, and rising one night from
carving, saying:

“Now is my labour done,” saw in the distance four greater gods beyond
the Ultimate god. Proudly in the distance beyond the marsh these gods
were tramping together, taking no heed of the god upon the plain. Then
said Shaun to his three followers:

“Alas that we know not yet, for there be gods beyond the marsh.”

None would follow Shaun, for they said that old age must end all
quests, and that they would rather wait there in the plain for Death
than that he should pursue them across the marsh.

Then Shaun said farewell to his followers, saying:

“You have followed me well since ever we forsook the gods of Old to
worship greater gods. Farewell. It may be that your prayers at evening
shall avail when you pray to the god of the plain, but I must go
onward, for there be gods beyond.”

So Shaun went down into the marsh, and for three days struggled through
it, and on the third night saw the four gods not very far away, yet
could not discern Their faces. All the next day Shaun toiled on to see
Their faces by starlight, but ere the night came up or one star shone,
at set of sun, Shaun fell down before the feet of his four gods. The
stars came out, and the faces of the four shone bright and clear, but
Shaun saw them not, for the labour of toiling and seeing was over for
Shaun; and lo! They were Asgool, Trodath, Skun, and Rhoog—The gods of
Old.

Then said the King:

“It is well that the sorrow of search cometh only to the wise, for the
wise are very few.”

Also the King said:

“Tell me this thing, O prophet. Who are the true gods?”

The master prophet answered:

“Let the King command.”



THE MEN OF YARNITH


The men of Yarnith hold that nothing began until Yarni Zai uplifted his
hand. Yarni Zai, they say, has the form of a man but is greater and is
a thing of rock. When he uplifted his hand all the rocks that wandered
beneath the Dome, by which name they call the sky, gathered together
around Yarni Zai.

Of the other worlds they say nought, but hold that the stars are the
eyes of all the other gods that look on Yarni Zai and laugh, for they
are all greater than he, though they have gathered no worlds around
them.

Yet though they be greater than Yarni Zai, and though they laugh at him
when they speak together beneath the Dome, they all speak of Yarni Zai.

Unheard is the speaking of the gods to all except the gods, but the men
of Yarnith tell of how their prophet Iraun lying in the sand desert,
Azrakhan, heard once their speaking and knew thereby how Yarni Zai
departed from all the other gods to clothe himself with rocks and make
a world.

Certain it is that every legend tells that at the end of the valley of
Yodeth, where it becomes lost among black cliffs, there sits a figure
colossal, against a mountain, whose form is the form of a man with the
right hand uplifted, but vaster than the hills. And in the Book of
Secret Things which the prophets keep in the Temple that stands in
Yarnith is writ the story of the gathering of the world as Iraun heard
it when the gods spake together, up in the stillness above Azrakhan.

And all that read this may learn how Yarni Zai drew the mountains about
him like a cloak, and piled the world below him. It is not set in
writing for how many years Yarni Zai sat clothed with rocks at the end
of the Valley of Yodeth, while there was nought in all the world save
rocks and Yarni Zai.

But one day there came another god running over the rocks across the
world, and he ran as the clouds run upon days of storm, and as he sped
towards Yodeth, Yarni Zai, sitting against his mountain with right hand
uplifted, cried out:

“What dost thou, running across my world, and whither art thou going?”

And the new god answered never a word, but sped onwards, and as he went
to left of him and to right of him there sprang up green things all
over the rocks of the world of Yarni Zai.

So the new god ran round the world and made it green, saying in the
valley where Yarni Zai sat monstrous against his mountain and certain
lands wherein Cradoa, the drought, browsed horribly at night.

Further, the writing in the book tells of how there came yet another
god running speedily out of the east, as swiftly as the first, with his
face set westward, and nought to stay his running; and how he stretched
both arms outward beside him, and to left of him and to right of him as
he ran the whole world whitened.

And Yarni Zai called out:

“What dost thou, running across my world?”

And the new god answered:

“I bring the snow for all the world—whiteness and resting and
stillness.”

And he stilled the running of streams and laid his hand even upon the
head of Yarni Zai and muffled the noises of the world, till there was
no sound in all lands, but the running of the new god that brought the
snow as he sped across the plains.

But the two new gods chased each other for ever round the world, and
every year they passed again, running down the valleys and up the hills
and away across the plains before Yarni Zai, whose hand uplifted had
gathered the world about him.

And, furthermore, the very devout may read how all the animals came up
the valley of Yodeth to the mountain whereon rested Yarni Zai, saying:

“Give us leave to live, to be lions, rhinoceroses and rabbits, and to
go about the world.”

And Yarni Zai gave leave to the animals to be lions, rhinoceroses and
rabbits, and all the other kinds of beasts, and to go about the world.
But when they all had gone he gave leave to the bird to be a bird and
to go about the sky.

And further there came a man into that valley who said:

“Yarni Zai, thou hast made animals into thy world. O Yarni Zai, ordain
that there be men.”

So Yarni Zai made men.

Then was there in the world Yarni Zai, and two strange gods that
brought the greenness and the growing and the whiteness and the
stillness, and animals and men.

And the god of the greenness pursued the god of the whiteness, and the
god of the whiteness pursued the god of the greenness, and men pursued
animals, and animals pursued men. But Yarni Zai sat still against his
mountain with his right hand uplifted. But the men of Yarnith say that
when the arm of Yarni Zai shall cease to be uplifted the world shall be
flung behind him, as a man’s cloak is flung away. And Yarni Zai, no
longer clad with the world, shall go back into the emptiness beneath
the Dome among the stars, as a diver seeking pearls goes down from the
islands.

It is writ in Yarnith’s histories by scribes of old that there passed a
year over the valley of Yarnith that bore not with it any rain; and the
Famine from the wastes beyond, finding that it was dry and pleasant in
Yarnith, crept over the mountains and down their slopes and sunned
himself at the edge of Yarnith’s fields.

And men of Yarnith, labouring in the fields, found the Famine as he
nibbled at the corn and chased the cattle, and hastily they drew water
from deep wells and cast it over the Famine’s dry grey fur and drove
him back to the mountains. But the next day when his fur was dry again
the Famine returned and nibbled more of the corn and chased the cattle
further, and again men drove him back. But again the Famine returned,
and there came a time when there was no more water in the wells to
frighten the Famine with, and he nibbled the corn till all of it was
gone and the cattle that he chased grew very lean. And the Famine drew
nearer, even to the houses of men and trampled on their gardens at
night and ever came creeping nearer to their doors. At last the cattle
were able to run no more, and one by one the Famine took them by their
throats and dragged them down, and at night he scratched in the ground,
killing even the roots of things, and came and peered in at the
doorways and started back and peered in at the door again a little
further, but yet was not bold enough to enter altogether, for fear that
men should have water to throw over his dry grey fur.

Then did the men of Yarnith pray to Yarni Zai as he sat far off beyond
the valley, praying to him night and day to call his Famine back, but
the Famine sat and purred and slew all the cattle and dared at last to
take men for his food.

And the histories tell how he slew children first and afterwards grew
bolder and tore down women, till at last he even sprang at the throats
of men as they laboured in the fields.

Then said the men of Yarnith:

“There must go one to take our prayers to the feet of Yarni Zai; for
the world at evening utters many prayers, and it may be that Yarni Zai,
as he hears all earth lamenting when the prayers at evening flutter to
his feet, may have missed among so many the prayers of the men of
Yarnith. But if one go and say to Yarni Zai: ‘There is a little crease
in the outer skirts of thy cloak that men call the valley of Yarnith,
where the Famine is a greater lord than Yarni Zai,’ it may be that he
shall remember for an instant and call his Famine back.”

Yet all men feared to go, seeing that they were but men and Yarni Zai
was Lord of the whole earth, and the journey was far and rocky. But
that night Hothrun Dath heard the Famine whining outside his house and
pawing at his door; therefore, it seemed to him more meet to wither
before the glance of Yarni Zai than that the whining of that Famine
should ever again fall upon his ears.

So about the dawn, Hothrun Dath crept away, fearing still to hear
behind him the breathing of the Famine, and set out upon his journey
whither pointed the graves of men. For men in Yarnith are buried with
their feet and faces turned toward Yarni Zai, lest he might beckon to
them in their night and call them to him.

So all day long did Hothrun Dath follow the way of the graves. It is
told that he even journeyed for three days and nights with nought but
the graves to guide him, as they pointed towards Yarni Zai where all
the world slopes upwards towards Yodeth, and the great black rocks that
are nearest to Yarni Zai lie gathered together by clans, till he came
to the two great black pillars of asdarinth and saw the rocks beyond
them piled in a dark valley, narrow and aloof, and knew that this was
Yodeth. Then did he haste no more, but walked quietly up the valley,
daring not to disturb the stillness, for he said:

“Surely this is the stillness of Yarni Zai, which lay about him before
he clothed himself with rocks.”


[Illustration: Departure of Hothrun Dath]


Here among the rocks which first had gathered to the call of Yarni Zai,
Hothrun Dath felt a mighty fear, but yet went onwards because of all
his people and because he knew that thrice in every hour in some dark
chamber Death and Famine met to speak two words together, “The End.”

But as dawn turned the darkness into grey, he came to the valley’s end,
and even touched the foot of Yarni Zai, but saw him not, for he was all
hidden in the mist. Then Hothrun Dath feared that he might not behold
him to look him in the eyes when he sent up his prayer. But laying his
forehead against the foot of Yarni Zai he prayed for the men of
Yarnith, saying:

“O Lord of Famine and Father of Death, there is a spot in the world
that thou hast cast about thee which men call Yarnith, and there men
die before the time thou hast apportioned, passing out of Yarnith.
Perchance the Famine hath rebelled against thee, or Death exceeds his
powers. O Master of the World, drive out the Famine as a moth out of
thy cloak, lest the gods beyond that regard thee with their eyes
say—there is Yarni Zai, and lo! his cloak is tattered.”

And in the mist no sign made Yarni Zai. Then did Hothrun Dath pray to
Yarni Zai to make some sign with his uplifted hand that he might know
he heard him. In the awe and silence he waited, until nigh the dawn the
mist that hid the figure rolled upwards. Serene above the mountains he
brooded over the world, silent, with right hand uplifted.

What Hothrun Dath saw there upon the face of Yarni Zai no history
telleth, or how he came again alive to Yarnith, but this is writ that
he fled, and none hath since beheld the face of Yarni Zai. Some say
that he saw a look on the face of the image that set a horror tingling
through his soul, but it is held in Yarnith that he found the marks of
instruments of carving about the figure’s feet, and discerning thereby
that Yarni Zai was wrought by the hands of men, he fled down the valley
screaming:

“There are no gods, and all the world is lost.” And hope departed from
him and all the purposes of life. Motionless behind him, lit by the
rising sun, sat the colossal figure with right hand uplifted that man
had made in his own image.

But the men of Yarnith tell how Hothrun Dath came back again panting to
his own city, and told the people that there were no gods and that
Yarnith had no hope from Yarni Zai. Then the men of Yarnith when they
knew that the Famine came not from the gods, arose and strove against
him. They dug deep for wells, and slew goats for food high up on
Yarnith’s mountains and went afar and gathered blades of grass, where
yet it grew, that their cattle might live. Thus they fought the Famine,
for they said: “If Yarni Zai be not a god, then is there nothing
mightier in Yarnith than men, and who is the Famine that he should bare
his teeth against the lords of Yarnith?”

And they said: “If no help cometh from Yarni Zai then is there no help
but from our own strength and might, and we be Yarnith’s gods with the
saving of Yarnith burning within us or its doom according to our
desire.”

And some more the Famine slew, but others raised their hands saying:
“These be the hands of gods,” and drave the Famine back till he went
from the houses of men and out among the cattle, and still the men of
Yarnith pursued him, till above the heat of the fight came the million
whispers of rain heard faintly far off towards evening. Then the Famine
fled away howling back to the mountains and over the mountains’ crests,
and became no more than a thing that is told in Yarnith’s legends.

A thousand years have passed across the graves of those that fell in
Yarnith by the Famine. But the men of Yarnith still pray to Yarni Zai,
carved by men’s hands in the likeness of a man, for they say—“It may be
that the prayers we offer to Yarni Zai may roll upwards from his image
as do the mists at dawn, and somewhere find at last the other gods or
that God who sits behind the others of whom our prophets know not.”



FOR THE HONOUR OF THE GODS


Of the great wars of the Three Islands are many histories writ and of
how the heroes of the olden time one by one were slain, but nought is
told of the days before the olden time, or ever the people of the isles
went forth to war, when each in his own land tended cattle or sheep,
and listless peace obscured those isles in the days before the olden
time. For then the people of the Islands played like children about the
feet of Chance and had no gods and went not forth to war. But sailors,
cast by strange winds upon those shores which they named the Prosperous
Isles, and finding a happy people which had no gods, told how they
should be happier still and know the gods and fight for the honour of
the gods and leave their names writ large in histories and at the last
die proclaiming the names of the gods. And the people of the islands
met and said:

“The beasts we know, but lo! these sailors tell of things beyond that
know us as we know the beasts and use us for their pleasure as we use
the beasts, but yet are apt to answer idle prayer flung up at evening
near the hearth, when a man returneth from the ploughing of the fields.
Shall we now seek these gods?” And some said:

“We are lords of the Three Islands and have none to trouble us, and
while we live we find prosperity, and when we die our bones have ease
in the quiet. Let us not therefore seek those who may loom greater than
we do in the Islands Three or haply harry our bones when we be dead.”

But others said:

“The prayers that a man mutters, when the drought hath come and all the
cattle die, go up unheeded to the heedless clouds, and if somewhere
there be those that garner prayer let us send men to seek them and to
say: ‘There be men in the Isles called Three, or sometimes named by
sailors the Prosperous Isles (and they be in the Central Sea), who
ofttimes pray, and it hath been told us that ye love the worship of
men, and for it answer prayer, and we be travellers from the Islands
Three.’”

And the people of the Islands were greatly allured by the thought of
strange things neither men nor beasts who at evening answered prayer.

Therefore they sent men down in ships with sails to sail across the
sea, and in safety over the sea to a far shore Chance brought the
ships. Then over hill and valley three men set forth seeking to find
the gods, and their comrades beached the ships and waited on the shore.
And they that sought the gods followed for thirty nights the lightnings
in the sky over five mountains, and as they came to the summit of the
last, they saw a valley beneath them, and lo! the gods. For there the
gods sat, each on a marble hill, each sitting with an elbow on his
knee, and his chin upon his hand, and all the gods were smiling about
Their lips. And below them there were armies of little men, and about
the feet of the gods they fought against each other and slew one
another for the honour of the gods, and for the glory of the name of
the gods. And round them in the valley their cities that they had
builded with the toil of their hands, they burned for the honour of the
gods, where they died for the honour of the gods, and the gods looked
down and smiled. And up from the valley fluttered the prayers of men
and here and there the gods did answer a prayer, but oftentimes They
mocked them, and all the while men died.

And they that had sought the gods from the Islands Three, having seen
what they had seen, lay down on the mountain summit lest the gods
should see them. Then they crept backward a little space, still lying
down, and whispered together and then stooped low and ran, and
travelled across the mountains in twenty days and came again to their
comrades by the shore. But their comrades asked them if their quest had
failed and the three men only answered:

“We have seen the gods.”


[Illustration: Lo! The Gods]


And setting sail the ships hove back across the Central Sea and came
again to the Islands Three, where rest the feet of Chance, and said to
the people:

“We have seen the gods.”

But to the rulers of the Islands they told how the gods drove men in
herds; and went back and tended their flocks again all in the
Prosperous Isles, and were kinder to their cattle after they had seen
how that the gods used men.

But the gods walking large about Their valley, and peering over the
great mountain’s rim, saw one morning the tracks of the three men. Then
the gods bent their faces low over the tracks and leaning forward ran,
and came before the evening of the day to the shore where the men had
set sail in ships, and saw the tracks of ships upon the sand, and waded
far out into the sea, and yet saw nought. Still it had been well for
the Islands Three had not certain men that had heard the travellers’
tale sought also to see the gods themselves. These in the night-time
slipped away from the Isles in ships, and ere the gods had retreated to
the hills, They saw where ocean meets with sky the full white sails of
those that sought the gods upon an evil day. Then for a while the
people of those gods had rest while the gods lurked behind the
mountain, waiting for the travellers from the Prosperous Isles. But the
travellers came to shore and beached their ships, and sent six of their
number to the mountain whereof they had been told. But they after many
days returned, having not seen the gods but only the smoke that went
upward from burned cities, and vultures that stood in the sky instead
of answered prayer. And they all ran down their ships again into the
sea, and set sail again and came to the Prosperous Isles. But in the
distance crouching behind the ships the gods came wading through the
sea that They might have the worship of the isles. And to every isle of
the three the gods showed themselves in different garb and guise, and
to all they said:

“Leave your flocks. Go forth and fight for the honour of the gods.”

And from one of the isles all the folk came forth in ships to battle
for gods that strode through the isle like kings. And from another they
came to fight for gods that walked like humble men upon the earth in
beggars’ rags; and the people of the other isle fought for the honour
of gods that were clothed in hair like beasts; and had many gleaming
eyes and claws upon their foreheads. But of how these people fought
till the isles grew desolate but very glorious, and all for the fame of
the gods, are many histories writ.



NIGHT AND MORNING


Once in an arbour of the gods above the fields of twilight Night
wandering alone came suddenly on Morning. Then Night drew from his face
his cloak of dark grey mists and said: “See, I am Night,” and they two
sitting in that arbour of the gods, Night told wondrous stories of old
mysterious happenings in the dark. And Morning sat and wondered, gazing
into the face of Night and at his wreath of stars. And Morning told how
the rains of Snamarthis smoked in the plain, but Night told how
Snamarthis held riot in the dark, with revelry and drinking and tales
told by kings, till all the hosts of Meenath crept against it and the
lights went out and there arose the din of arms or ever Morning came.
And Night told how Sindana the beggar had dreamed that he was a King,
and Morning told how she had seen Sindana find suddenly an army in the
plain, and how he had gone to it thinking he was King and the army had
believed him, and Sindana now ruled over Marthis and Targadrides,
Dynath, Zahn, and Tumeida. And most Night loved to tell of Assarnees,
whose ruins are scant memories on the desert’s edge, but Morning told
of the twin cities of Nardis and Timaut that lorded over the plain. And
Night told terribly of what Mynandes found when he walked through his
own city in the dark. And ever at the elbow of regal Night whispers
arose saying: “Tell Morning _this_.”

And ever Night told and ever Morning wondered. And Night spake on, and
told what the dead had done when they came in the darkness on the King
that had led them into battle once. And Night knew who slew Darnex and
how it was done. Moreover, he told why the seven Kings tortured
Sydatheris and what Sydatheris said just at the last, and how the Kings
went forth and took their lives.

And Night told whose blood had stained the marble steps that lead to
the temple in Ozahn, and why the skull within it wears a golden crown,
and whose soul is in the wolf that howls in the dark against the city.
And Night knew whither the tigers go out of the Irasian desert and the
place where they meet together, and who speaks to them and what she
says and why. And he told why human teeth had bitten the iron hinge in
the great gate that swings in the walls of Mondas, and who came up out
of the marsh alone in the darktime and demanded audience of the King
and told the King a lie, and how the King, believing it, went down into
the vaults of his palace and found only toads and snakes, who slew the
King. And he told of ventures in palace towers in the quiet, and knew
the spell whereby a man might send the light of the moon right into the
soul of his foe. And Night spoke of the forest and the stirring of
shadows and soft feet pattering and peering eyes, and of the fear that
sits behind the trees taking to itself the shape of something crouched
to spring.

But far under that arbour of the gods down on the earth the mountain
peak Mondana looked Morning in the eyes and forsook his allegiance to
Night, and one by one the lesser hills about Mondana’s knees greeted
the Morning. And all the while in the plains the shapes of cities came
looming out of the dusk. And Kongros stood forth with all her
pinnacles, and the winged figure of Poesy carved upon the eastern
portal of her gate, and the squat figure of Avarice carved facing it
upon the west; and the bat began to tire of going up and down her
streets, and already the owl was home. And the dark lions went up out
of the plain back to their caves again. Not as yet shone any dew upon
the spider’s snare nor came the sound of any insects stirring or bird
of the day, and full allegiance all the valleys owned still to their
Lord the Night. Yet earth was preparing for another ruler, and kingdom
by kingdom she stole away from Night, and there marched through the
dreams of men a million heralds that cried with the voice of the cock:
“Lo! Morning come behind us.” But in that arbour of the gods above the
fields of twilight the star wreath was paling about the head of Night,
and ever more wonderful on Morning’s brow appeared the mark of power.
And at the moment when the camp fires pale and the smoke goes grey to
the sky, and camels sniff the dawn, suddenly Morning forgot Night. And
out of that arbour of the gods, and away to the haunts of the dark,
Night with his swart cloak slunk away; and Morning placed her hand upon
the mists and drew them upward and revealed the earth, and drove the
shadows before her, and they followed Night. And suddenly the mystery
quitted haunting shapes, and an old glamour was gone, and far and wide
over the fields of earth a new splendour arose.



USURY


The men of Zonu hold that Yahn is God, who sits as a usurer behind a
heap of little lustrous gems and ever clutches at them with both his
arms. Scarce larger than a drop of water are the gleaming jewels that
lie under the grasping talons of Yahn, and every jewel is a life. Men
tell in Zonu that the earth was empty when Yahn devised his plan, and
on it no life stirred. Then Yahn lured to him shadows whose home was
beyond the Rim, who knew little of joys and nought of any sorrow, whose
place was beyond the Rim before the birth of Time. These Yahn lured to
him and showed them his heap of gems; and in the jewels there was
light, and green fields glistened in them, and there were glimpses of
blue sky and little streams, and very faintly little gardens showed
that flowered in orchard lands. And some showed winds in the heaven,
and some showed the arch of the sky with a waste plain drawn across it,
with grasses bent in the wind and never aught but the plain. But the
gems that changed the most had in their centre the ever changing sea.
Then the shadows gazed into the Lives and saw the green fields and the
sea and earth and the gardens of earth. And Yahn said: “I will loan you
each a Life, and you may do your work with it upon the Scheme of
Things, and have each a shadow for his servant in green fields and in
gardens, only for these things you shall polish these Lives with
experience and cut their edges with your griefs, and in the end shall
return them again to me.”

And thereto the shadows consented, that they might have gleaming Lives
and have shadows for their servants, and this thing became the Law. But
the shadows, each with his Life, departed and came to Zonu and to other
lands, and there with experience they polished the Lives of Yahn, and
cut them with human griefs until they gleamed anew. And ever they found
new scenes to gleam within these Lives, and cities and sails and men
shone in them where there had been before only green fields and sea,
and ever Yahn the usurer cried out to remind them of their bargain.
When men added to their Lives scenes that were pleasant to Yahn, then
was Yahn silent, but when they added scenes that pleased not the eyes
of Yahn, then did he take a toll of sorrow from them because it was the
Law.

But men forgot the usurer, and there arose some claiming to be wise in
the Law, who said that after their labour, which they wrought upon
their Lives, was done, those Lives should be theirs to possess; so men
took comfort from their toil and labour and the grinding and cutting of
their griefs. But as their Lives began to shine with experience of many
things, the thumb and forefinger of Yahn would suddenly close upon a
Life, and the man became a shadow. But away beyond the Rim the shadows
say:

“We have greatly laboured for Yahn, and have gathered griefs in the
world, and caused his Lives to shine, and Yahn doeth nought for us. Far
better had we stayed where no cares are, floating beyond the Rim.”

And there the shadows fear lest ever again they be lured by specious
promises to suffer usury at the hands of Yahn, who is overskilled in
Law. Only Yahn sits and smiles, watching his hoard increase in
preciousness, and hath no pity for the poor shadows whom he hath lured
from their quiet to toil in the form of men.

And ever Yahn lures more shadows and sends them to brighten his Lives,
sending the old Lives out again to make them brighter still; and
sometimes he gives to a shadow a Life that was once a king’s and
sendeth him with it down to the earth to play the part of a beggar, or
sometimes he sendeth a beggar’s Life to play the part of a king. What
careth Yahn?

The men of Zonu have been promised by those that claim to be wise in
the Law that their Lives which they have toiled at shall be theirs to
possess for ever, yet the men of Zonu fear that Yahn is greater and
overskilled in the Law. Moreover it hath been said that Time will bring
the hour when the wealth of Yahn shall be such as his dreams have
lusted for. Then shall Yahn leave the earth at rest and trouble the
shadows no more, but sit and gloat with his unseemly face over his
hoard of Lives, for his soul is a usurer’s soul. But others say, and
they swear that this is true, that there are gods of Old, who be far
greater than Yahn, who made the Law wherein Yahn is overskilled, and
who will one day drive a bargain with him that shall be too hard for
Yahn. Then Yahn shall wander away, a mean forgotten god, and perchance
in some forsaken land shall haggle with the rain for a drop of water to
drink, for his soul is a usurer’s soul. And the Lives—who knoweth the
gods of Old or what Their will shall be?


[Illustration: The Opulence of Yahn]



MLIDEEN


Upon an evening of the forgotten years the gods were seated upon Mowrah
Nawut above Mlideen holding the avalanche in leash.

All in the Middle City stood the Temples of the city’s priests, and
hither came all the people of Mlideen to bring them gifts, and there it
was the wont of the City’s priests to carve them gods for Mlideen. For
in a room apart in the Temple of Eld in the midst of the temples that
stood in the Middle City of Mlideen there lay a book called the Book of
Beautiful Devices, writ in a language that no man may read and writ
long ago, telling how a man may make for himself gods that shall
neither rage nor seek revenge against a little people. And ever the
priests came forth from reading in the Book of Beautiful Devices and
ever they sought to make benignant gods, and all the gods that they
made were different from each other, only their eyes turned all upon
Mlideen.

But upon Mowrah Nawut for all of the forgotten years the gods had
waited and forborne until the people of Mlideen should have carven one
hundred gods. Never came lightnings from Mowrah Nawut crashing upon
Mlideen, nor blight on harvests nor pestilence in the city, only upon
Mowrah Nawut the gods sat and smiled. The people of Mlideen had said:
“Yoma is god.” And the gods sat and smiled. And after the forgetting of
Yoma and the passing of years the people had said: “Zungari is god.”
And the gods sat and smiled.

Then on the altar of Zungari a priest had set a figure squat, carven in
purple agate, saying: “Yazun is god.” Still the gods sat and smiled.


[Illustration: “Yazun is god.”]


About the feet of Yonu, Bazun, Nidish and Sundrao had gone the worship
of the people of Mlideen, and still the gods sat holding the avalanche
in leash above the city.

There set a great calm towards sunset over the heights, and Mowrah
Nawut stood up still with gleaming snow, and into the hot city cool
breezes blew from his benignant slopes as Tarsi Zalo, high prophet of
Mlideen, carved out of a great sapphire the city’s hundredth god, and
then upon Mowrah Nawut the gods turned away saying: “One hundred
infamies have now been wrought.” And they looked no longer upon Mlideen
and held the avalanche no more in leash, and he leapt forward howling.

Over the Middle City of Mlideen now lies a mass of rocks, and on the
rocks a new city is builded wherein people dwell who know not old
Mlideen, and the gods are seated on Mowrah Nawut still. And in the new
city men worship carven gods, and the number of the gods that they have
carven is ninety and nine, and I, the prophet, have found a curious
stone and go to carve it into the likeness of a god for all Mlideen to
worship.



THE SECRET OF THE GODS


Zyni Moe, the small snake, saw the cool river gleaming before him afar
off and set out over the burning sand to reach it.

Uldoon, the prophet, came out of the desert and followed up the bank of
the river towards his old home. Thirty years since Uldoon had left the
city, where he was born, to live his life in a silent place where he
might search for the secret of the gods. The name of his home was the
City by the River, and in that city many prophets taught concerning
many gods, and men made many secrets for themselves, but all the while
none knew the Secret of the gods. Nor might any seek to find it, for if
any sought men said of him:

“This man sins, for he giveth no worship to the gods that speak to our
prophets by starlight when none heareth.”

And Uldoon perceived that the mind of a man is as a garden, and that
his thoughts are as the flowers, and the prophets of a man’s city are
as many gardeners who weed and trim, and who have made in the garden
paths both smooth and straight, and only along these paths is a man’s
soul permitted to go lest the gardeners say, “This soul transgresseth.”
And from the paths the gardeners weed out every flower that grows, and
in the garden they cut off all flowers that grow tall, saying:

“It is customary,” and “it is written,” and “this hath ever been,” or
“that hath not been before.”

Therefore Uldoon saw that not in that city might he discover the Secret
of the gods. And Uldoon said to the people:

“When the worlds began, the Secret of the gods lay written clear over
the whole earth, but the feet of many prophets have trampled it out.
Your prophets are all true men, but I go into the desert to find a
truth which is truer than your prophets.” Therefore Uldoon went into
the desert and in storm and still he sought for many years. When the
thunder roared over the mountains that limited the desert he sought the
Secret in the thunder, but the gods spake not by the thunder. When the
voices of the beasts disturbed the stillness under the stars he sought
the secret there, but the gods spake not by the beasts.

Uldoon grew old and all the voices of the desert had spoken to Uldoon,
but not the gods, when one night he heard Them whispering beyond the
hills. And the gods whispered one to another, and turning Their faces
earthward They all wept. And Uldoon though he saw not the gods yet saw
Their shadows turn as They went back to a great hollow in the hills;
and there, all standing in the valley’s mouth, They said:

“Oh, Morning Zai, oh, oldest of the gods, the faith of thee is gone,
and yesterday for the last time thy name was spoken upon earth.” And
turning earthward they all wept again. And the gods tore white clouds
out of the sky and draped them about the body of Morning Zai and bore
him forth from his valley behind the hills, and muffled the mountain
peaks with snow, and beat upon their summits with drum sticks carved of
ebony, playing the dirge of the gods. And the echoes rolled about the
passes and the winds howled, because the faith of the olden days was
gone, and with it had sped the soul of Morning Zai. So through the
mountain passes the gods came at night bearing Their dead father. And
Uldoon followed. And the gods came to a great sepulchre of onyx that
stood upon four fluted pillars of white marble, each carved out of four
mountains, and therein the gods laid Morning Zai because the old faith
was fallen. And there at the tomb of Their father the gods spake and
Uldoon heard the Secret of the gods, and it became to him a simple
thing such as a man might well guess—yet hath not. Then the soul of the
desert arose and cast over the tomb its wreath of forgetfulness devised
of drifting sand, and the gods strode home across the mountains to
Their hollow land. But Uldoon left the desert and travelled many days,
and so came to the river where it passes beyond the city to seek the
sea, and following its bank came near to his old home. And the people
of the City by the River, seeing him far off, cried out:

“Hast thou found the Secret of the gods?”

And he answered:

“I have found it, and the Secret of the gods is this”—:

Zyni Moe, the small snake, seeing the figure and the shadow of a man
between him and the cool river, raised his head and struck once. And
the gods are pleased with Zyni Moe, and have called him the protector
of the Secret of the gods.


[Illustration: The Tomb of Morning Zai.]



THE SOUTH WIND


Two players sat down to play a game together to while eternity away,
and they chose the gods as pieces wherewith to play their game, and for
their board of playing they chose the sky from rim to rim, whereon lay
a little dust; and every speck of dust was a world upon the board of
playing. And the players were robed and their faces veiled, and the
robes and veils were alike, and their names were Fate and Chance. And
as they played their game and moved the gods hither and thither about
the board, the dust arose, and shone in the light from the players’
eyes that gleamed behind the veils. Then said the gods: “See how We
stir the dust.”

It chanced, or was ordained (who knoweth which?) that Ord, a prophet,
one night saw the gods as They strode knee deep among the stars. But as
he gave Them worship, he saw the hand of a player, enormous over Their
heads, stretched out to make his move. Then Ord, the prophet, knew. Had
he been silent it might have still been well with Ord, but Ord went
about the world crying out to all men, “There is a power over the
gods.”

This the gods heard. Then said They, “Ord hath seen.”

Terrible is the vengeance of the gods, and fierce were Their eyes when
They looked on the head of Ord and snatched out of his mind all
knowledge of Themselves. And that man’s soul went wandering afield to
find for itself gods, for ever finding them not. Then out of Ord’s
Dream of Life the gods plucked the moon and the stars, and in the
night-time he only saw black sky and saw the lights no more. Next the
gods took from him, for Their vengeance resteth not, the birds and
butterflies, flowers and leaves and insects and all small things, and
the prophet looked on the world that was strangely altered, yet knew
not of the anger of the gods. Then the gods sent away his familiar
hills, to be seen no more by him, and all the pleasant woodlands on
their summits and the further fields; and in a narrower world Ord
walked round and round, now seeing little, and his soul still wandered
searching for some gods and finding none.

Lastly, the gods took away the fields and stream and left to the
prophet only his house and the larger things that were in it. Day by
day They crept about him drawing films of mist between him and familiar
things, till at last he beheld nought at all and was quite blind and
unaware of the anger of the gods. Then Ord’s world became only a world
of sound, and only by hearing he kept his hold upon Things. All the
profit that he had out of his days was here some song from the hills or
there the voice of the birds, and sound of the stream, or the drip of
the falling rain. But the anger of the gods ceases not with the closing
of flowers, nor is it assuaged by all the winter’s snows, nor doth it
rest in the full glare of summer, and They snatched away from Ord one
night his world of sound and he awoke deaf. But as a man may smite away
the hive of the bee, and the bee with all his fellows builds again,
knowing not what hath smitten his hive or that it shall smite again, so
Ord built for himself a world out of old memories and set it in the
past. There he builded himself cities out of former joys, and therein
built palaces of mighty things achieved, and with his memory as a key
he opened golden locks and had still a world to live in, though the
gods had taken from him the world of sound and all the world of sight.
But the gods tire not from pursuing, and They seized his world of
former things and took his memory away and covered up the paths that
led into the past, and left him blind and deaf and forgetful among men,
and caused all men to know that this was he who once had said that the
gods were little things.

And lastly the gods took his soul, and out of it They fashioned the
South Wind to roam the seas for ever and not have rest; and well the
South Wind knows that he hath once understood somewhere and long ago,
and so he moans to the islands and cries along southern shores, “I have
known,” and “I have known.”

But all things sleep when the South Wind speaks to them and none heed
his cry that he hath known, but are rather content to sleep. But still
the South Wind, knowing that there is something that he hath forgot,
goes on crying, “I have known,” seeking to urge men to arise and to
discover it. But none heed the sorrows of the South Wind even when he
driveth his tears out of the South, so that though the South Wind cries
on and on and never findeth rest none heed that there is aught that may
be known, and the Secret of the gods is safe. But the business of the
South Wind is with the North, and it is said that the time will one day
come when he shall overcome the bergs and sink the seas of ice and come
where the Secret of the gods is graven upon the pole. And the game of
Fate and Chance shall suddenly cease and He that loses shall cease to
be or ever to have been, and from the board of playing Fate or Chance
(who knoweth which shall win?) shall sweep the gods away.



IN THE LAND OF TIME


Thus Karnith, King of Alatta, spake to his eldest son: “I bequeath to
thee my city of Zoon, with its golden eaves, whereunder hum the bees.
And I bequeath to thee also the land of Alatta, and all such other
lands as thou art worthy to possess, for my three strong armies which I
leave thee may well take Zindara and over-run Istahn, and drive back
Onin from his frontier, and leaguer the walls of Yan, and beyond that
spread conquest over the lesser lands of Hebith, Ebnon, and Karida.
Only lead not thine armies against Zeenar, nor ever cross the Eidis.”

Thereat in the city of Zoon in the land of Alatta, under his golden
eaves, died King Karnith, and his soul went whither had gone the souls
of his sires the elder Kings, and the souls of their slaves.

Then Karnith Zo, the new King, took the iron crown of Alatta and
afterwards went down to the plains that encircle Zoon and found his
three strong armies clamouring to be led against Zeenar, over the river
Eidis.

But the new King came back from his armies, and all one night in the
great palace alone with his iron crown, pondered long upon war; and a
little before dawn he saw dimly through his palace window, facing east
over the city of Zoon and across the fields of Alatta, to far off where
a valley opened on Istahn. There, as he pondered, he saw the smoke
arising tall and straight over small houses in the plain and the fields
where the sheep fed. Later the sun rose shining over Alatta as it shone
over Istahn, and there arose a stir about the houses both in Alatta and
Istahn, and cocks crowded in the city and men went out into the fields
among the bleating sheep; and the King wondered if men did otherwise in
Istahn. And men and women met as they went out to work and the sound of
laughter arose from streets and fields; the King’s eyes gazed into the
distance toward Istahn and still the smoke went upward tall and
straight from the small houses. And the sun rose higher that shone upon
Alatta and Istahn, causing the flowers to open wide in each, and the
birds to sing and the voices of men and women to arise. And in the
market place of Zoon caravans were astir that set out to carry
merchandise to Istahn, and afterwards passed camels coming to Alatta
with many tinkling bells. All this the King saw as he pondered much,
who had not pondered before. Westward the Agnid mountains frowned in
the distance guarding the river Eidis; behind them the fierce people of
Zeenar lived in a bleak land.

Later the King, going abroad through his new kingdom, came on the
Temple of the gods of Old. There he found the roof shattered and the
marble columns broken and tall weeds met together in the inner shrine,
and the gods of Old, bereft of worship or sacrifice, neglected and
forgotten. And the King asked of his councillors who it was that had
overturned this temple of the gods or caused the gods Themselves to be
thus forsaken. And they answered him:

“Time has done this.”

Next the King came upon a man bent and crippled, whose face was
furrowed and worn, and the King having seen no such sight within the
court of his father said to the man:

“Who hath done this thing to you?”

And the old man answered:

“Time hath ruthlessly done it.”

But the King and his councillors went on, and next they came upon a
body of men carrying among them a hearse. And the King asked his
councillors closely concerning death, for these things had not before
been expounded to the King. And the oldest of the councillors answered:

“Death, O King, is a gift sent by the gods by the hand of their servant
Time, and some receive it gladly, and some are forced reluctantly to
take it, and before others it is suddenly flung in the middle of the
day. And with this gift that Time hath brought him from the gods a man
must go forth into the dark to possess no other thing for so long as
the gods are willing.”

But the King went back to his palace and gathered the greatest of his
prophets and his councillors and asked them more particularly
concerning Time. And they told the King how that Time was a great
figure standing like a tall shadow in the dusk or striding, unseen,
across the world, and how that he was the slave of the gods and did
Their bidding, but ever chose new masters, and how all the former
masters of Time were dead and Their shrines forgotten. And one said:

“I have seen him once when I went down to play again in the garden of
my childhood because of certain memories. And it was towards evening
and the light was pale, and I saw Time standing over the little gate,
pale like the light, and he stood between me and that garden and had
stolen my memories because he was mightier than I.”

And another said:

“I, too, have seen the Enemy of my House. For I saw him when he strode
over the fields that I knew well and led a stranger by the hand to
place him in my home to sit where my forefathers sat. And I saw him
afterwards walk thrice round the house and stoop and gather up the
glamour from the lawns and brush aside the tall poppies in the garden
and spread weeds in his pathway where he strode through the remembered
nooks.”

And another said:

“He went one day into the desert and brought up life out of the waste
places, and made it cry bitterly and covered it with the desert again.”

And another said:

“I too saw him once seated in the garden of a child tearing the
flowers, and afterwards he went away through many woodlands and stooped
down as he went, and picked the leaves one by one from the trees.”

And another said:

“I saw him once by moonlight standing tall and black amidst the ruins
of a shrine in the old kingdom of Amarna, doing a deed by night. And he
wore a look on his face such as murderers wear as he busied himself to
cover over something with weeds and dust. Thereafter in Amarna the
people of that old Kingdom missed their god, in whose shrine I saw Time
crouching in the night, and they have not since beheld him.”

And all the while from the distance at the city’s edge rose a hum from
the three armies of the King clamouring to be led against Zeenar.
Thereat the King went down to his three armies and speaking to their
chiefs said:

“I will not go down clad with murder to be King over other lands. I
have seen the same morning arising on Istahn that also gladdened
Alatta, and have heard Peace lowing among the flowers. I will not
desolate homes to rule over an orphaned land and a land widowed. But I
will lead you against the pledged enemy of Alatta who shall crumble the
towers of Zoon and hath gone far to overthrow our gods. He is the foe
of Zindara and Istahn and many-citadeled Yan, Hebith and Ebnon may not
overcome him nor Karida be safe against him among her bleakest
mountains. He is a foe mightier than Zeenar with frontiers stronger
than Eidis; he leers at all the peoples of the earth and mocks their
gods and covets their builded cities. Therefore we will go forth and
conquer Time and save the gods of Alatta from his clutch, and coming
back victorious shall find that Death is gone and age and illness
departed, and here we shall live for ever by the golden eaves of Zoon,
while the bees hum among unrusted gables and never crumbling towers.
There shall be neither fading nor forgetting, nor ever dying nor
sorrow, when we shall have freed the people and pleasant fields of the
earth from inexorable Time.”

And the armies swore that they would follow the King to save the world
and the gods.

So the next day the King set forth with his three armies and crossed
many rivers and marched through many lands, and wherever they went they
asked for news of Time.

And the first day they met a woman with her face furrowed and lined,
who told them that she had been beautiful and that Time had smitten her
in the face with his five claws.

Many an old man they met as they marched in search of Time. All had
seen him but none could tell them more, except that some said he went
that way and pointed to a ruined tower or to an old and broken tree.

And day after day and month by month the King pushed on with his
armies, hoping to come at last on Time. Sometimes they encamped at
night near palaces of beautiful design or beside gardens of flowers,
hoping to find their enemy when he came to desecrate in the dark.
Sometimes they came on cobwebs, sometimes on rusted chains and houses
with broken roofs or crumbling walls. Then the armies would push on
apace thinking that they were closer upon the track of Time.

As the weeks passed by and weeks grew to months, and always they heard
reports and rumours of Time, but never found him, the armies grew weary
of the great march, but the King pushed on and would let none turn
back, saying always that the enemy was near at hand.

Month in, month out, the King led on his now unwilling armies, till at
last they had marched for close upon a year and came to the village of
Astarma very far to the north. There many of the King’s weary soldiers
deserted from his armies and settled down in Astarma and married
Astarmian girls. By these soldiers we have the march of the armies
clearly chronicled to the time when they came to Astarma, having been
nigh a year upon the march. And the army left that village and the
children cheered them as they went up the street, and five miles
distant they passed over a ridge of hills and out of sight. Beyond this
less is known, but the rest of this chronicle is gathered from the
tales that the veterans of the King’s armies used to tell in the
evenings about the fires in Zoon and remembered afterwards by the men
of Zeenar.

It is mostly credited in these days that such of the King’s armies as
went on past Astarma came at last (it is not known after how long a
time) over a crest of a slope where the whole earth slanted green to
the north. Below it lay green fields and beyond them moaned the sea
with never shore nor island so far as the eye could reach. Among the
green fields lay a village, and on this village the eyes of the King
and his armies were turned as they came down the slope. It lay beneath
them, grave with seared antiquity, with old-world gables stained and
bent by the lapse of frequent years, with all its chimneys awry. Its
roofs were tiled with antique stones covered over deep with moss, each
little window looked with a myriad strange cut panes on the gardens
shaped with quaint devices and overrun with weeds. On rusted hinges the
doors sung to and fro and were fashioned of planks of immemorial oak
with black knots gaping from their sockets. Against it all there beat
the thistle-down, about it clambered the ivy or swayed the weeds; tall
and straight out of the twisted chimneys arose blue columns of smoke,
and blades of grass peeped upward between the huge cobbles of the
unmolested street. Between the gardens and the cobbled streets stood
hedges higher than a horseman might look, of stalwart thorn, and upward
through it clambered the convolvulus to peer into the garden from the
top. Before each house there was cut a gap in the hedge, and in it
swung a wicket gate of timber soft with the rain and years, and green
like the moss. Over all of it there brooded age and the full hush of
things bygone and forgotten. Upon this derelict that the years had cast
up out of antiquity the King and his armies gazed long. Then on the
hill slope the King made his armies halt, and went down alone with one
of his chiefs into the village.

Presently there was a stir in one of the houses, and a bat flew out of
the door into the daylight, and three mice came running out of the
doorway down the step, an old stone cracked in two and held together by
moss; and there followed an old man bending on a stick with a white
beard coming to the ground, wearing clothes that were glossed with use,
and presently there came others out of the other houses, all of them as
old, and all hobbling on sticks. These were the oldest people that the
King had ever beheld, and he asked them the name of the village and who
they were; and one of them answered, “This is the City of the Aged in
the Territory of Time.”

And the King said, “Is Time then here?”

And one of the old men pointed to a great castle standing on a steep
hill and said: “Therein dwells Time, and we are his people;” and they
all looked curiously at King Karnith Zo, and the eldest of the
villagers spoke again and said: “Whence do you come, you that are so
young?” and Karnith Zo told him how he had come to conquer Time to save
the world and the gods, and asked them whence they came.

And the villagers said:

“We are older than always, and know not whence we came, but we are the
people of Time, and here from the Edge of Everything he sends out his
hours to assail the world, and you may never conquer Time.” But the
King went back to his armies, and pointed towards the castle on the
hill and told them that at last they had found the Enemy of the Earth;
and they that were older than always went back slowly into their houses
with the creaking of olden doors. And there they went across the fields
and passed the village. From one of his towers Time eyed them all the
while, and in battle order they closed in on the steep hill as Time sat
still in his great tower and watched.

But as the feet of the foremost touched the edge of the hill Time
hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads
and the army still came on, an army of older men. But the slope seemed
steeper to the King and to every man in his army, and they breathed
more heavily. And Time summoned up more years, and one by one he hurled
them at Karnith Zo and at all his men. And the knees of the army
stiffened, and their beards grew and turned grey, and the hours and
days and the months went singing over their heads, and their hair
turned whiter and whiter, and the conquering hours bore down, and the
years rushed on and swept the youth of that army clear away till they
came face to face under the walls of the castle of Time with a mass of
howling years, and found the top of the slope too steep for aged men.
Slowly and painfully, harassed with agues and chills, the King rallied
his aged army that tottered down the slope.

Slowly the King led back his warriors over whose heads had shrieked the
triumphant years. Year in, year out, they straggled southwards, always
towards Zoon; they came, with rust upon their spears and long beards
flowing, again into Astarma, and none knew them there. They passed
again by towns and villages where once they had inquired curiously
concerning Time, and none knew them there either. They came again to
the palaces and gardens where they had waited for Time in the night,
and found that Time had been there. And all the while they set a hope
before them that they should come on Zoon again and see its golden
eaves. And no one knew that unperceived behind them there lurked and
followed the gaunt figure of Time cutting off stragglers one by one and
overwhelming them with his hours, only men were missed from the army
every day, and fewer and fewer grew the veterans of Karnith Zo.

But at last after many a month, one night as they marched in the dusk
before the morning, dawn suddenly ascending shone on the eaves of Zoon,
and a great cry ran through the army:

“Alatta, Alatta!”

But drawing nearer they found that the gates were rusted and weeds grew
tall along the outer walls, many a roof had fallen, gables were
blackened and bent, and the golden eaves shone not as heretofore. And
the soldiers entering the city expecting to find their sisters and
sweethearts of a few years ago saw only old women wrinkled with great
age and knew not who they were.

Suddenly someone said:

“He has been here too.”

And then they knew that while they searched for Time, Time had gone
forth against their city and leaguered it with the years, and had taken
it while they were far away and enslaved their women and children with
the yoke of age. So all that remained of the three armies of Karnith Zo
settled in the conquered city. And presently the men of Zeenar crossed
over the river Eidis and easily conquering an army of aged men took all
Alatta for themselves, and their kings reigned thereafter in the city
of Zoon. And sometimes the men of Zeenar listened to the strange tales
that the old Alattans told of the years when they made battle against
Time. Such of these tales as the men of Zeenar remembered they
afterwards set forth, and this is all that may be told of those
adventurous armies that went to war with Time to save the world and the
gods, and were overwhelmed by the hours and the years.



THE RELENTING OF SARNIDAC


The lame boy Sarnidac tended sheep on a hill to the southward of the
city. Sarnidac was a dwarf and greatly derided in the city. For the
women said:

“It is very funny that Sarnidac is a dwarf,” and they would point their
fingers at him saying:—“This is Sarnidac, he is a dwarf; also he is
very lame.”

Once the doors of all the temples in the world swung open to the
morning, and Sarnidac with his sheep upon the hill saw strange figures
going down the white road, always southwards. All the morning he saw
the dust rising above the strange figures and always they went
southwards right as far as the rim of the Nydoon hills where the white
road could be seen no more. And the figures stooped and seemed to be
larger than men, but all men seemed very large to Sarnidac, and he
could not see clearly through the dust. And Sarnidac shouted to them,
as he hailed all people that passed down the long white road, and none
of the figures looked to left or right and none of them turned to
answer Sarnidac. But then few people ever answered him because he was
lame, and a small dwarf.

Still the figures went striding swiftly, stooping forward through the
dust, till at last Sarnidac came running down his hill to watch them
closer. As he came to the white road the last of the figures passed
him, and Sarnidac ran limping behind him down the road.

For Sarnidac was weary of the city wherein all derided him, and when he
saw these figures all hurrying away he thought that they went perhaps
to some other city beyond the hills over which the sun shone brighter,
or where there was more food, for he was poor, even perhaps where
people had not the custom of laughing at Sarnidac. So this procession
of figures that stooped and seemed larger than men went southward down
the road and a lame dwarf hobbled behind them.

Khamazan, now called the City of the Last of Temples, lies southward of
the Nydoon hills. This is the story of Pompeides, now chief prophet of
the only temple in the world, and greatest of all the prophets that
have been:

On the slopes of Nydoon I was seated once above Khamazan. There I saw
figures in the morning striding through much dust along the road that
leads across the world. Striding up the hill they came towards me, not
with the gait of men, and soon the first one came to the crest of the
hill where the road dips to find the plains again, where lies Khamazan.
And now I swear by all the gods that are gone that this thing happened
as I shall say it, and was surely so. When those that came striding up
the hill came to its summit they took not the road that goes down into
the plains nor trod the dust any longer, but went straight on and
upwards, striding as they strode before, as though the hill had not
ended nor the road dipped. And they strode as though they trod no
yielding substance, yet they stepped upwards through the air.

This the gods did, for They were not born men who strode that day so
strangely away from earth.

But I, when I saw this thing, when already three had passed me, leaving
earth, cried out before the fourth:

‘Gods of my childhood, guardians of little homes, whither are ye going,
leaving the round earth to swim alone and forgotten in so great a waste
of sky?’

And one answered:

‘Heresy apace shoots her fierce glare over the world and men’s faith
grows dim and the gods go. Men shall make iron gods and gods of steel
when the wind and the ivy meet within the shrines of the temples of the
gods of old.’

And I left that place as a man leaves fire by night, and going
plainwards down the white road that the gods spurned cried out to all
that I passed to follow me, and so crying came to the city’s gates. And
there I shouted to all near the gates:

‘From yonder hilltop the gods are leaving earth.’

Then I gathered many, and we all hastened to the hill to pray the gods
to tarry, and there we cried out to the last of the departing gods:

‘Gods of old prophecy and of men’s hopes, leave not the earth, and all
our worship shall hum about Your ears as never it hath before, and oft
the sacrifice shall squeal upon Your altars.’

And I said:—

‘Gods of still evenings and quiet nights, go not from earth and leave
not Your carven shrines, and all men shall worship You still. For
between us and yonder still blue spaces oft roam the thunder and the
storms, there in his hiding lurks the dark eclipse, and there are
stored all snows and hails and lightnings that shall vex the earth for
a million years. Gods of our hopes, how shall men’s prayers crying from
empty shrines pass through such terrible spaces; how shall they ever
fare above the thunder and many storms to whatever place the gods may
go in that blue waste beyond?’

But the gods bent straight forward, and trampled through the sky and
looked not to the right nor left nor downwards, nor ever heeded my
prayer.

And one cried out hoping yet to stay the gods, though nearly all were
gone, saying:—

‘O gods, rob not the earth of the dim hush that hangs round all Your
temples, bereave not all the world of old romance, take not the glamour
from the moonlight nor tear the wonder out of the white mists in every
land; for, O ye gods of the childhood of the world, when You have left
the earth you shall have taken the mystery from the sea and all its
glory from antiquity, and You shall have wrenched out hope from the dim
future. There shall be no strange cries at night time half understood,
nor songs in the twilight, and the whole of the wonder shall have died
with last year’s flowers in little gardens or hill-slopes leaning
south; for with the gods must go the enchantment of the plains and all
the magic of dark woods, and something shall be lacking from the quiet
of early dawn. For it would scarce befit the gods to leave the earth
and not take with Them that which They had given it. Out beyond the
still blue spaces Ye will need the holiness of sunset for Yourselves
and little sacred memories and the thrill that is in stories told by
firesides long ago. One strain of music, one song, one line of poetry
and one kiss, and a memory of one pool with rushes, and each one the
best, shall the gods take to whom the best belongs, when the gods go.

‘Sing a lamentation, people of Khamazan, sing a lamentation for all the
children of earth at the feet of the departing gods. Sing a lamentation
for the children of earth who now must carry their prayers to empty
shrines and around empty shrines must rest at last.’

Then when our prayers were ended and our tears shed, we beheld the last
and smallest of the gods halted upon the hilltop. Twice he called to
Them with a cry somewhat like the cry wherewith our shepherds hail
their brethren, and long gazed after Them, and then deigned to look no
longer and to tarry upon earth and turn his eyes on men. Then a great
shout went up when we saw that our hopes were saved and that there was
still on earth a haven for our prayers. Smaller than men now seemed the
figures that had loomed so big, as one behind the other far over our
heads They still strode upwards. But the small god that had pitied the
world came with us down the hill, still deigning to tread the road,
though strangely, not as men tread, and into Khamazan. There we housed
him in the palace of the King, for that was before the building of the
temple of gold, and the King made sacrifice before him with his own
hands, and he that had pitied the world did eat the flesh of the
sacrifice.

And the Book of the Knowledge of the gods in Khamazan tells how the
small god that pitied the world told his prophets that his name was
Sarnidac and that he herded sheep, and that therefore he is called the
shepherd god, and sheep are sacrificed upon his altars thrice a day,
and the North, East, West and the South are the four hurdles of
Sarnidac and the white clouds are his sheep. And the Book of the
Knowledge of the gods tells further how the day on which Pompeides
found the gods shall be kept for ever as a fast until the evening and
called the Fast of the Departing, but in the evening shall a feast be
held which is named the Feast of the Relenting, for on that evening
Sarnidac pitied the whole world and tarried.

And the people of Khamazan all prayed to Sarnidac, and dreamed their
dreams and hoped their hopes because their temple was not empty.
Whether the gods that are departed be greater than Sarnidac none know
in Khamazan, but some believe that in their azure windows They have set
lights that lost prayers swarming upwards may come to them like moths
and at last find haven and light far up above the evening and the
stillness where sit the gods.

But Sarnidac wondered at the strange figures, at the people of
Khamazan, and at the palace of the King and the customs of the
prophets, but wondered not more greatly at aught in Khamazan than he
had wondered at the city which he had left. For Sarnidac, who had not
known why men were unkind to him, thought that he had found at last the
land for which the gods had let him hope, where men should have the
custom of being kind to Sarnidac.



THE JEST OF THE GODS


Once the Older gods had need of laughter. Therefore They made the soul
of a king, and set in it ambitions greater than kings should have, and
lust for territories beyond the lust of other kings, and in this soul
They set strength beyond the strength of others and fierce desire for
power and a strong pride. Then the gods pointed earthward and sent that
soul into the fields of men to live in the body of a slave. And the
slave grew, and the pride and lust for power began to arise in his
heart, and he wore shackles on his arms. Then in the Fields of Twilight
the gods prepared to laugh.

But the slave went down to the shore of the great sea, and cast his
body away and the shackles that were upon it, and strode back to the
Fields of Twilight and stood up before the gods and looked Them in
Their faces. This thing the gods, when They had prepared to laugh, had
not foreseen. Lust for power burned strong in that King’s soul, and
there was all the strength and pride in it that the gods had placed
therein, and he was too strong for the Older gods. He whose body had
borne the lashes of men could brook no longer the dominion of the gods,
and standing before Them he bade the gods to go. Up to Their lips leapt
all the anger of the Older gods, being for the first time commanded,
but the King’s soul faced Them still, and Their anger died away and
They averted Their eyes. Then Their thrones became empty, and the
Fields of Twilight bare as the gods slunk far away. But the soul chose
new companions.



THE DREAMS OF THE PROPHET

I

When the gods drave me forth to toil and assailed me with thirst and
beat me down with hunger, then I prayed to the gods. When the gods
smote the cities wherein I dwelt, and when Their anger scorched me and
Their eyes burned, then did I praise the gods and offer sacrifice. But
when I came again to my green land and found that all was gone, and the
old mysterious haunts wherein I prayed as a child were gone, and when
the gods tore up the dust and even the spider’s web from the last
remembered nook, then did I curse the gods, speaking it to Their faces,
saying:—

“Gods of my prayers! Gods of my sacrifice! because Ye have forgotten
the sacred places of my childhood, and they have therefore ceased to
be, yet may I not forget. Because Ye have done this thing, Ye shall see
cold altars and shall lack both my fear and praise. I shall not wince
at Your lightnings, nor be awed when Ye go by.”

Then looking seawards I stood and cursed the gods, and at this moment
there came to me one in the garb of a poet, who said:—

“Curse not the gods.”

And I said to him:

“Wherefore should I not curse Those that have stolen my sacred places
in the night, and trodden down the gardens of my childhood?”

And he said “Come, and I will show thee.” And I followed him to where
two camels stood with their faces towards the desert. And we set out
and I travelled with him for a great space, he speaking never a word,
and so we came at last to a waste valley hid in the desert’s midst. And
herein, like fallen moons, I saw vast ribs that stood up white out of
the sand, higher than the hills of the desert. And here and there lay
the enormous shapes of skulls like the white marble domes of palaces
built for tyrannous kings a long while since by armies of driven
slaves. Also there lay in the desert other bones, the bones of vast
legs and arms, against which the desert, like a besieging sea, ever
advanced and already had half drowned. And as I gazed in wonder at
these colossal things the poet said to me:

“The gods are dead.”

And I gazed long in silence, and I said:

“These fingers, that are now so dead and so very white and still, tore
once the flowers in gardens of my youth.”

But my companion said to me:

“I have brought thee here to ask of thee thy forgiveness of the gods,
for I, being a poet, knew the gods, and would fain drive off the curses
that hover above Their bones and bring Them men’s forgiveness as an
offering at the last, that the weeds and the ivy may cover Their bones
from the sun.”

And I said:

“They made Remorse with his fur grey like a rainy evening in the
autumn, with many rending claws, and Pain with his hot hands and
lingering feet, and Fear like a rat with two cold teeth carved each out
of the ice of either pole, and Anger with the swift flight of the
dragonfly in summer having burning eyes. I will not forgive these
gods.”

But the poet said:

“Canst thou be angry with these beautiful white bones?” And I looked
long at those curved and beautiful bones that were no longer able to
hurt the smallest creature in all the worlds that they had made. And I
thought long of the evil that they had done, and also of the good. But
when I thought of Their great hands coming red and wet from battles to
make a primrose for a child to pick, then I forgave the gods.

And a gentle rain came falling out of heaven and stilled the restless
sand, and a soft green moss grew suddenly and covered the bones till
they looked like strange green hills, and I heard a cry and awoke and
found that I had dreamed, and looking out of my house into the street I
found that a flash of lightning had killed a child. Then I knew that
the gods still lived.

II

I lay asleep in the poppy fields of the gods in the valley of Alderon,
where the gods come by night to meet together in council when the moon
is low. And I dreamed that this was the Secret.

Fate and Chance had played their game and ended, and all was over, all
the hopes and tears, regrets, desires and sorrows, things that men wept
for and unremembered things, and kingdoms and little gardens and the
sea, and the worlds and the moons and the suns; and what remained was
nothing, having neither colour nor sound.

Then said Fate to Chance: “Let us play our old game again.” And they
played it again together, using the gods as pieces, as they had played
it oft before. So that those things which have been shall all be again,
and under the same bank in the same land a sudden glare of sunlight on
the same spring day shall bring the same daffodil to bloom once more
and the same child shall pick it, and not regretted shall be the
billion years that fell between. And the same old faces shall be seen
again, yet not bereaved of their familiar haunts. And you and I shall
in a garden meet again upon an afternoon in summer when the sun stands
midway between his zenith and the sea, where we met oft before. For
Fate and Chance play but one game together with every move the same,
and they play it oft to while eternity away.



PART II.



THE JOURNEY OF THE KING


I

One day the King turned to the women that danced and said to them:
“Dance no more,” and those that bore the wine in jewelled cups he sent
away. The palace of King Ebalon was emptied of sound of song and there
rose the voices of heralds crying in the streets to find the prophets
of the land.

Then went the dancers, the cupbearer and the singers down into the hard
streets among the houses, Pattering Leaves, Silvern Fountain and Summer
Lightning, the dancers whose feet the gods had not devised for stony
ways, which had only danced for princes. And with them went the singer,
Soul of the South, and the sweet singer, Dream of the Sea, whose voices
the gods had attuned to the ears of kings, and old Istahn the cupbearer
left his life’s work in the palace to tread the common ways, he that
had stood at the elbows of three kings of Zarkandhu and had watched his
ancient vintage feeding their valour and mirth as the waters of
Tondaris feed the green plains to the south. Ever he had stood grave
among their jests, but his heart warmed itself solely by the fire of
the mirth of Kings. He too, with the singers and dancers, went out into
the dark.

And throughout the land the heralds sought out the prophets thereof.
Then one evening as King Ebalon sat alone within his palace there were
brought before him all who had repute for wisdom and who wrote the
histories of the times to be. Then the King spake, saying: “The King
goeth upon a journey with many horses, yet riding upon none, when the
pomp of travelling shall be heard in the streets and the sound of the
lute and the drum and the name of the King. And I would know what
princes and what people shall greet me on the other shore in the land
to which I travel.”

Then fell a hush upon the prophets for they murmured: “All knowledge is
with the King.”

Then said the King: “Thou first, Samahn, High Prophet of the Temple of
gold in Azinorn, answer or thou shalt write no more the history of the
times to be, but shalt toil with thy hand to make record of the little
happenings of the days that were, as do the common men.”

Then said Samahn: “All knowledge is with the King,” and when the pomp
of travelling shall be heard in the streets and the slow horses whereon
the King rideth not go behind lute and drum, then, as the King well
knoweth, thou shalt go down to the great white house of Kings and,
entering the portals where none are worthy to follow, shalt make
obeisance alone to all the elder Kings of Zarkandhu, whose bones are
seated upon golden thrones grasping their sceptres still. Therein thou
shalt go with robes and sceptre through the marble porch, but thou
shalt leave behind thee thy gleaming crown that others may wear it, and
as the times go by come in to swell the number of the thirty Kings that
sit in the great white house on golden thrones. There is one doorway in
the great white house, and it stands wide with marble portals yawning
for kings, but when it shall receive thee, and thine obeisance hath
been made because of thine obligation to the thirty Kings, thou shalt
find at the back of the house an unknown door through which the soul of
a King may just pass, and leaving thy bones upon a golden throne thou
shalt go unseen out of the great white house to tread the velvet spaces
that lie among the worlds. Then, O King, it were well to travel fast
and not to tarry about the houses of men as do the souls of some who
still bewail the sudden murder that sent them upon the journey before
their time, and who, being yet both to go, linger in dark chambers all
the night. These, setting forth to travel in the dawn and travelling
all the day, see earth behind them gleaming when an evening falls, and
again are loth to leave its pleasant haunts, and come back again
through dark woods and up into some old loved chamber, and ever tarry
between home and flight and find no rest.

Thou wilt set forth at once because the journey is far and lasts for
many hours; but the hours on the velvet spaces are the hours of the
gods, and we may not say what time such an hour may be if reckoned in
mortal years.

At last thou shalt come to a grey place filled with mist, with grey
shapes standing before it which are altars, and on the altars rise
small red flames from dying fires that scarce illumine the mist. And in
the mist it is dark and cold because the fires are low. These are the
altars of the people’s faiths, and the flames are the worship of men,
and through the mist the gods of Old go groping in the dark and in the
cold. There thou shalt hear a voice cry feebly: “Inyani, Inyani, lord
of the thunder, where art thou, for I cannot see?” And a voice shall
answer faintly in the cold: “O maker of many worlds, I am here.” And in
that place the gods of Old are nearly deaf for the prayers of men grow
few, they are nigh blind because the fires burn low upon the altars of
men’s faiths and they are very cold. And all about the place of mist
there lies a moaning sea which is called the Sea of Souls. And behind
the place of mist are the dim shapes of mountains, and on the peak of
one there glows a silvern light that shines in the moaning sea; and
ever as the flames on the altars die before the gods of Old the light
on the mountain increases, and the light shines over the mist and never
through it as the gods of Old grow blind. It is said that the light on
the mountain shall one day become a new god who is not of the gods of
Old.

There, O King, thou shalt enter the Sea of Souls by the shore where the
altars stand which are covered in mist. In that sea are the souls of
all that ever lived on the worlds and all that ever shall live, all
freed from earth and flesh. And all the souls in that sea are aware of
one another but more than with hearing or sight or by taste or touch or
smell, and they all speak to each other yet not with lips, with voices
which need no sound. And over the sea lies music as winds o’er an ocean
on earth, and there unfettered by language great thoughts set outward
through the souls as on earth the currents go.

Once did I dream that in a mist-built ship I sailed upon that sea and
heard the music that is not of instruments, and voices not from lips,
and woke and found that I was upon the earth and that the gods had lied
to me in the night. Into this sea from fields of battle and cities come
down the rivers of lives, and ever the gods have taken onyx cups and
far and wide into the worlds again have flung the souls out of the sea,
that each soul may find a prison in the body of a man with five small
windows closely barred, and each one shackled with forgetfulness.

But all the while the light on the mountain grows, and none may say
what work the god that shall be born of the silvern light shall work on
the Sea of Souls, when the gods of Old are dead and the Sea is living
still.

And answer made the King:

“Thou that art a prophet of the gods of Old, go back and see that those
red flames burn more brightly on the altars in the mist, for the gods
of Old are easy and pleasant gods, and thou canst not say what toil
shall vex our souls when the god of the light on the mountain shall
stride along the shore where bleach the huge bones of the gods of Old.”

And Samahn answered: “All knowledge is with the King.”

II

Then the King called to Ynath bidding him speak concerning the journey
of the King. Ynath was the prophet that sat at the Eastern gate of the
Temple of Gorandhu. There Ynath prayed his prayers to all the passers
by lest ever the gods should go abroad, and one should pass him dressed
in mortal guise. And men are pleased as they walk by that Eastern gate
that Ynath should pray to them for fear that they be gods, so men bring
gifts to Ynath in the Eastern gate.

And Ynath said: “All knowledge is with the King. When a strange ship
comes to anchor in the air outside thy chamber window, thou shalt leave
thy well-kept garden and it shall become a prey to the nights and days
and be covered again with grass. But going aboard thou shalt set sail
over the Sea of Time and well shall the ship steer through the many
worlds and still sail on. If other ships shall pass thee on the way and
hail thee saying: ‘From what port’ thou shalt answer them: ‘From
Earth.’ And if they ask thee ‘whither bound?’ then thou shalt answer:
‘The End.’ Or thou shalt hail them saying: ‘From what port?’ And they
shall answer: ‘From The End called also The Beginning, and bound to
Earth.’ And thou shalt sail away till like an old sorrow dimly felt by
happy men the worlds shall gleam in the distance like one star, and as
the star pales thou shalt come to the shore of space where aeons
rolling shorewards from Time’s sea shall lash up centuries to foam away
in years. There lies the Centre Garden of the gods, facing full
seawards. All around lie songs that on earth were never sung, fair
thoughts not heard among the worlds, dream pictures never seen that
drifted over Time without a home till at last the aeons swept them on
to the shore of space. And in the Centre Garden of the gods bloom many
fancies. Therein once some souls were playing where the gods walked up
and down and to and fro. And a dream came in more beauteous than the
rest on the crest of a wave of Time, and one soul going downward to the
shore clutched at the dream and caught it. Then over the dreams and
stories and old songs that lay on the shore of space the hours came
sweeping back, and the centuries caught that soul and swirled him with
his dream far out to the Sea of Time, and the aeons swept him
earthwards and cast him into a palace with all the might of the sea and
left him there with his dream. The child grew to a King and still
clutched at his dream till the people wondered and laughed. Then, O
King, Thou didst cast thy dream back into the Sea, and Time drowned it
and men laughed no more, but thou didst forget that a certain sea beat
on a distant shore and that there was a garden and therein souls. But
at the end of the journey that thou shalt take, when thou comest to the
shore of space again thou shalt go up the beach, and coming to a garden
gate that stands in a garden wall shalt remember these things again,
for it stands where the hours assail not above the beating of Time, far
up the shore, and nothing altereth there. So thou shalt go through the
garden gate and hear again the whispering of the souls when they talk
low where sing the voices of the gods. There with kindred souls thou
shalt speak as thou didst of yore and tell them what befell thee beyond
the tides of time and how they took thee and made of thee a King so
that thy soul found no rest. There in the Centre Garden thou shalt sit
at ease and watch the gods all rainbow-clad go up and down and to and
fro on the paths of dreams and songs, and shalt not venture down to the
cheerless sea. For that which a man loves most is not on this side of
Time, and all which drifts on its aeons is a lure.

“All knowledge is with the King.”

Then said the King: “Ay, there was a dream once but Time hath swept it
away.”

III

Then spake Monith, Prophet of the Temple of Azure that stands on the
snow-peak of Ahmoon and said: “All knowledge is with the King. Once
thou didst set out upon a one day’s journey riding thy horse and before
thee had gone a beggar down the road, and his name was Yeb. Him thou
didst overtake and when he heeded not thy coming thou didst ride over
him.

“Upon the journey that thou shalt one day take riding upon no horse,
this beggar has set out before thee and is labouring up the crystal
steps towards the moon as a man goeth up the steps of a high tower in
the dark. On the moon’s edge beneath the shadow of Mount Angises he
shall rest awhile and then shall climb the crystal steps again. Then a
great journey lies before him before he may rest again till he come to
that star that is called the left eye of Gundo. Then a journey of many
crystal steps lieth before him again with nought to guide him but the
light of Omrazu. On the edge of Omrazu shall Yeb tarry long, for the
most dreadful part of his journey lieth before him. Up the crystal
steps that lie beyond Omrazu he must go, and any that follow, though
the howling of all the meteors that ride the sky; for in that part of
the crystal space go many meteors up and down all squealing in the
dark, which greatly perplex all travellers. And, if he may see though
the gleaming of the meteors and in spite of their uproar come safely
through, he shall come to the star Omrund at the edge of the Track of
Stars. And from star to star along the Track of Stars the soul of a man
may travel with more ease, and there the journey lies no more straight
forward, but curves to the right.”

Then said King Ebalon:

“Of this beggar whom my horse smote down thou hast spoken much, but I
sought to know by what road a King should go when he taketh his last
royal journey, and what princes and what people should meet him upon
another shore.”

Then answered Monith:

“All knowledge is with the King. It hath been doomed by the gods, who
speak not in jest, that thou shalt follow the soul that thou didst send
alone upon its journey, that that soul go not unattended up the crystal
steps.

“Moreover, as this beggar went upon his lonely journey he dared to
curse the King, and his curses lie like a red mist along the valleys
and hollows wherever he uttered them. By these red mists, O King, thou
shalt track him as a man follows a river by night until thou shalt fare
at last to the land wherein he hath blessed thee (repenting of anger at
last), and thou shalt see his blessing lie over the land like a blaze
of golden sunshine illumining fields and gardens.”

Then said the King:

“The gods have spoken hard above the snowy peak of this mountain
Ahmoon.”

And Monith said:

“How a man may come to the shore of space beyond the tides of time I
know not, but it is doomed that thou shalt certainly first follow the
beggar past the moon, Omrund and Omrazu till thou comest to the Track
of Stars, and up the Track of Stars coming towards the right along the
edge of it till thou comest to Ingazi. There the soul of the beggar Yeb
sat long, then, breathing deep, set off on his great journey earthward
adown the crystal steps. Straight through the spaces where no stars are
found to rest at, following the dull gleam of earth and her fields till
he come at last where journeys end and start.”

Then said King Ebalon:

“If this hard tale be true, how shall I find the beggar that I must
follow when I come again to the earth?”

And the Prophet answered:

“Thou shalt know him by his name and find him in this place, for that
beggar shall be called King Ebalon and he shall be sitting upon the
throne of the Kings of Zarkandhu.”

And the King answered:

“If one sit upon this throne whom men call King Ebalon, who then shall
I be?”

And the Prophet answered:

“Thou shalt be a beggar and thy name shall be Yeb, and thou shalt ever
tread the road before the palace waiting for alms from the King whom
men shall call Ebalon.”

Then said the King:

“Hard gods indeed are those that tramp the snows of Ahmoon about the
temple of Azure, for if I sinned against this beggar called Yeb, they
too have sinned against him when they doomed him to travel on this
weary journey though he hath not offended.”

And Monith said:

“He too hath offended, for he was angry as thy horse struck him, and
the gods smite anger. And his anger and his curses doom him to journey
without rest as also they doom thee.”

Then said the King:

“Thou that sittest upon Ahmoon in the Temple of Azure, dreaming thy
dreams and making prophecies, foresee the ending of this weary quest
and tell me where it shall be?”

And Monith answered:

“As a man looks across great lakes I have gazed into the days to be,
and as the great flies come upon four wings of gauze to skim over blue
waters, so have my dreams come sailing two by two out of the days to
be. And I dreamed that King Ebalon, whose soul was not thy soul, stood
in his palace in a time far hence, and beggars thronged the street
outside, and among them was Yeb, a beggar, having thy soul. And it was
on the morning of a festival and the King came robed in white, with all
his prophets and his seers and magicians, all down the marble steps to
bless the land and all that stood therein as far as the purple hills,
because it was the morning of festival. And as the King raised up his
hand over the beggars’ heads to bless the fields and rivers and all
that stood therein, I dreamed that the quest was ended.

“All knowledge is with the King.”

IV

Evening darkened and above the palace domes gleamed out the stars
whereon haply others missed the secret too.

And outside the palace in the dark they that had borne the wine in
jewelled cups mocked in low voices at the King and at the wisdom of his
prophets.

Then spake Ynar, called the prophet of the Crystal Peak; for there
rises Amanath above all that land, a mountain whose peak is crystal,
and Ynar beneath its summit hath his Temple, and when day shines no
longer on the world Amanath takes the sunlight and gleams afar as a
beacon in a bleak land lit at night. And at the hour when all faces are
turned on Amanath, Ynar comes forth beneath the Crystal peak to weave
strange spells and to make signs that people say are surely for the
gods. Therefore it is said in all those lands that Ynar speaks at
evening to the gods when all the world is still.

And Ynar said:

“All knowledge is with the King, and without doubt it hath come to the
King’s ears how certain speech is held at evening on the Peak of
Amanath.

“They that speak to me at evening on the Peak are They that live in a
city through whose streets Death walketh not, and I have heard it from
Their Elders that the King shall take no journey; only from thee the
hills shall slip away, the dark woods, the sky and all the gleaming
worlds that fill the night, and the green fields shall go on untrodden
by thy feet and the blue sky ungazed at by thine eyes, and still the
rivers shall all run seaward but making no music in thine ears. And all
the old laments shall still be spoken, troubling thee not, and to the
earth shall fall the tears of the children of earth and never grieving
thee. Pestilence, heat and cold, ignorance, famine and anger, these
things shall grip their claws upon all men as heretofore in fields and
roads and cities but shall not hold thee. But from thy soul, sitting in
the old worn track of the worlds when all is gone away, shall fall off
the shackles of circumstance and thou shalt dream thy dreams alone.

“And thou shalt find that dreams are real where there is nought as far
as the Rim but only thy dreams and thee.

“With them thou shalt build palaces and cities resting upon nothing and
having no place in time, not to be assailed by the hours or harmed by
ivy or rust, not to be taken by conquerors, but destroyed by thy fancy
if thou dost wish it so or by thy fancy rebuilded. And nought shall
ever disturb these dreams of thine which here are troubled and lost by
all the happenings of earth, as the dreams of one who sleeps in a
tumultuous city. For these thy dreams shall sweep outward like a strong
river over a great waste plain wherein are neither rocks nor hills to
turn it, only in that place there shall be no boundaries nor sea,
neither hindrance nor end. And it were well for thee that thou shouldst
take few regrets into thy waste dominions from the world wherein thou
livest, for such regrets or any memory of deeds ill done must sit
beside thy soul forever in that waste, singing one song always of
forlorn remorse; and they too shall be only dreams but very real.

“There nought shall hinder thee among thy dreams, for even the gods may
harass thee no more when flesh and earth and events with which They
bound thee shall have slipped away.”

Then said the King:

“I like not this grey doom, for dreams are empty. I would see action
roaring through the world, and men and deeds.”

Then answered the Prophet:

“Victory, jewels and dancing but please thy fancy. What is the sparkle
of the gem to thee without thy fancy which it allures, and thy fancy is
all a dream. Action and deeds and men are nought without dreams and do
but fetter them, and only dreams are real, and where thou stayest when
the worlds shall drift away there shall be only dreams.”

And the King answered:

“A mad prophet.”

And Ynar said:

“A mad prophet, but believing that his soul possesseth all things of
which his soul may become aware and that he is master of that soul, and
thou a high-minded King believing only that thy soul possesseth such
few countries as are leaguered by thine armies and the sea, and that
thy soul is possessed by certain strange gods of whom thou knowest not,
who shall deal with it in a way whereof thou knowest not. Until a
knowledge come to us that either is wrong I have wider realms, I King,
than thee and hold them beneath no overlords.”

Then said the King:

“Thou hast said no overlords! To whom then dost thou speak by strange
signs at evening above the world?”

And Ynar went forward and whispered to the King. And the King shouted:

“Seize ye this prophet for he is a hypocrite and speaks to no gods at
evening above the world, but has deceived us with his signs.”

And Ynar said:

“Come not near me or I shall point towards you when I speak at evening
upon the mountain with Those that ye know of.”

Then Ynar went away and the guards touched him not.

V

Then spake the prophet Thun, who was clad in seaweed and had no Temple,
but lived apart from men. All his life he had lived on a lonely beach
and had heard for ever the wailing of the sea and the crying of the
wind in hollows among the cliffs. Some said that having lived so long
by the full beating of the sea, and where always the wind cries
loudest, he could not feel the joys of other men, but only felt the
sorrow of the sea crying in his soul for ever.

“Long ago on the path of stars, midmost between the worlds, there
strode the gods of Old. In the bleak middle of the worlds They sat and
the worlds went round and round, like dead leaves in the wind at
Autumn’s end, with never a life on one, while the gods went sighing for
the things that might not be. And the centuries went over the gods to
go where the centuries go, toward the End of Things, and with Them went
the sighs of all the gods as They longed for what might not be.

“One by one in the midst of the worlds, fell dead the gods of Old,
still sighing for the things that might not be, all slain by Their own
regrets. Only Shimono Kani, the youngest of the gods, made him a harp
out of the heart strings of all the elder gods, and, sitting upon the
Path of Stars in the Middle of Things, played upon the harp a dirge for
the gods of Old. And the song told of all vain regrets and of unhappy
loves of the gods in the olden time, and of Their great deeds that were
to adorn the future years. But into the dirge of Shimono Kani came
voices crying out of the heart strings of the gods, all sighing still
for the things that might not be. And the dirge and the voices crying,
go drifting away from the Path of Stars, away from the Midst of Things,
till they come twittering among the Worlds, like a great host of birds
that are lost by night. And every note is a life, and many notes become
caught up among the worlds to be entangled with flesh for a little
while before they pass again on their journey to the great Anthem that
roars at the End of Time. Shimono Kani hath given a voice to the wind
and added a sorrow to the sea. But when in lighted chambers after
feasting there arises the voice of the singer to please the King, then
is the soul of that singer crying aloud to his fellows from where he
stands chained to earth. And when at the sound of the singing the heart
of the King grows sad and his princes lament then they remember, though
knowing not that, they remember it, the sad face of Shimono Kani
sitting by his dead brethren, the elder gods, playing on the harp of
crying heart strings whereby he sent their souls among the worlds.


[Illustration: The Dirge of Shimono Kani]


“And when the music of one lute is lonely on the hills at night, then
one soul calleth to his brother souls—the notes of Shimono Kani’s dirge
which have not been caught among the worlds—and he knoweth not to whom
he calls or why, but knoweth only that minstrelsy is his only cry and
sendeth it out into the dark.

“But although in the prison houses of earth all memories must die, yet
as there sometimes clings to a prisoner’s feet some dust of the fields
wherein he was captured, so sometimes fragments of remembrance cling to
a man’s soul after it hath been taken to earth. Then a great minstrel
arises, and, weaving together the shreds of his memories, maketh some
melody such as the hand of Shimono Kani smites out of his harp; and
they that pass by say: ‘Hath there not been some such melody before?’
and pass on sad at heart for memories which are not.

“Therefore, O King, one day the great gates of thy palace shall lie
open for a procession wherein the King comes down to pass through a
people, lamenting with lute and drum; and on the same day a prison door
shall be opened by relenting hands, and one more lost note of Shimono
Kani’s dirge shall go back to swell his melody again.

“The dirge of Shimono Kani shall roll on till one day it shall come
with all its notes complete to overwhelm the Silence that sits at the
End of Things. Then shall Shimono Kani say to his brethren’s bones: The
things that might not be have at last become.’

“But very quiet shall be the bones of the gods of Old, and only Their
voices shall live which cried from the harp of heart strings, for the
things which might not be.”

VI

When the caravans, saying farewell to Zandara, set out across the waste
northwards towards Einandhu, they follow the desert track for seven
days before they come to water where Shubah Onath rises black out of
the waste, with a well at its foot and herbage on its summit. On this
rock a prophet hath his Temple and is called the Prophet of Journeys,
and hath carven in a southern window smiling along the camel track all
gods that are benignant to caravans.

There a traveller may learn by prophecy whether he shall accomplish the
ten days’ journey thence across the desert and so come to the white
city of Einandhu, or whether his bones shall lie with the bones of old
along the desert track.

No name hath the Prophet of Journeys, for none is needed in that desert
where no man calls nor ever a man answers.

Thus spake the Prophet of Journeys standing before the King:

“The journey of the King shall be an old journey pushed on apace.

“Many a year before the making of the moon thou camest down with dream
camels from the City without a name that stands beyond all the stars.
And then began thy journey over the Waste of Nought, and thy dream
camel bore thee well when those of certain of thy fellow travellers
fell down in the Waste and were covered over by the silence and were
turned again to nought; and those travellers when their dream camels
fell, having nothing to carry them further over the Waste, were lost
beyond and never found the earth. These are those men that might have
been but were not. And all about thee fluttered the myriad hours
travelling in great swarms across the Waste of Nought.

“How many centuries passed across the cities while thou wast making thy
journey none may reckon, for there is no time in the Waste of Nought,
but only the hours fluttering earthwards from beyond to do the work of
Time. At last the dream-borne travellers saw far off a green place
gleaming and made haste towards it and so came to Earth. And there, O
King, ye rest for a little while, thou and those that came with thee,
making an encampment upon earth before journeying on. There the
swarming hours alight, settling on every blade of grass and tree, and
spreading over your tents and devouring all things, and at last bending
your very tent poles with their weight and wearying you.

“Behind the encampment in the shadow of the tents lurks a dark figure
with a nimble sword, having the name of Time. This is he that hath
called the hours from beyond and he it is that is their master, and it
is his work that the hours do as they devour all green things upon the
earth and tatter the tents and weary all the travellers. As each of the
hours does the work of Time, Time smites him with his nimble sword as
soon as his work is done, and the hour falls severed to the dust with
his bright wings scattered, as a locust cut asunder by the scimitar of
a skillful swordsman.

“One by one, O King, with a stir in the camp, and the folding up of the
tents one by one, the travellers shall push on again on the journey
begun so long before out of the City without a name to the place where
dream camels go, striding free through the Waste. So into the Waste, O
King, thou shalt set forth ere long, perhaps to renew friendships begun
during thy short encampment upon earth.

“Other green places thou shalt meet in the Waste and thereon shalt
encamp again until driven thence by the hours. What prophet shall
relate how many journeys thou shalt make or how many encampments? But
at last thou shalt come to the place of The Resting of Camels, and
there shall gleaming cliffs that are named The Ending of Journeys lift
up out of the Waste of Nought, Nought at their feet, Nought laying wide
before them, with only the glint of worlds far off to illumine the
Waste. One by one, on tired dream camels, the travellers shall come in,
and going up the pathway through the cliff in that land of The Resting
of Camels shall come on The City of Ceasing. There, the dream-wrought
pinnacles and the spires that are builded of men’s hopes shall rise up
real before thee, seen only hitherto as a mirage in the Waste.

“So far the swarming hours may not come, and far away among the tents
shall stand the dark figure with the nimble sword. But in the
scintillant streets, under the song-built abodes of the last of cities,
thy journey, O King, shall end.”

VII

In the valley beyond Sidono there lies a garden of poppies, and where
the poppies’ heads are all a-swing with summer breezes that go up the
valley there lies a path well strewn with ocean shells. Over Sidono’s
summit the birds come streaming to the lake that lies in the valley of
the garden, and behind them rises the sun sending Sidono’s shadow as
far as the edge of the lake. And down the path of many ocean shells
when they begin to gleam in the sun, every morning walks an aged man
clad in a silken robe with strange devices woven. A little temple where
the old man lives stands at the edge of the path. None worship there,
for Zornadhu, the old prophet, hath forsaken men to walk among his
poppies.

For Zornadhu hath failed to understand the purport of Kings and cities
and the moving up and down of many people to the tune of the clinking
of gold. Therefore hath Zornadhu gone far away from the sound of cities
and from those that are ensnared thereby, and beyond Sidono’s mountain
hath come to rest where there are neither kings nor armies nor
bartering for gold, but only the heads of the poppies that sway in the
wind together and the birds that fly from Sidono to the lake, and then
the sunrise over Sidono’s summit; and afterwards the flight of birds
out of the lake and over Sidono again, and sunset behind the valley,
and high over lake and garden the stars that know not cities. There
Zornadhu lives in his garden of poppies with Sidono standing between
him and the whole world of men; and when the wind blowing athwart the
valley sways the heads of the tall poppies against the Temple wall, the
old prophet says: “The flowers are all praying, and lo! they be nearer
to the gods than men.”

But the heralds of the King coming after many days of travel to Sidono
perceived the garden valley. By the lake they saw the poppy garden
gleaming round and small like a sunrise over water on a misty morning
seen by some shepherd from the hills. And descending the bare mountain
for three days they came to the gaunt pines, and ever between the tall
trunks came the glare of the poppies that shone from the garden valley.
For a whole day they travelled through the pines. That night a cold
wind came up the garden valley crying against the poppies. Low in his
Temple, with a song of exceeding grief, Zornadhu in the morning made a
dirge for the passing of poppies, because in the night time there had
fallen petals that might not return or ever come again into the garden
valley. Outside the Temple on the path of ocean shells the heralds
halted, and read the names and honours of the King; and from the Temple
came the voice of Zornadhu still singing his lament. But they took him
from his garden because of the King’s command, and down his gleaming
path of ocean shells and away up Sidono, and left the Temple empty with
none to lament when silken poppies died. And the will of the wind of
the autumn was wrought upon the poppies, and the heads of the poppies
that rose from the earth went down to the earth again, as the plume of
a warrior smitten in a heathen fight far away, where there are none to
lament him. Thus out of his land of flowers went Zornadhu and came
perforce into the lands of men, and saw cities, and in the city’s midst
stood up before the King.

And the King said:

“Zornadhu, what of the journey of the King and of the princes and the
people that shall meet me?”

Zornadhu answered:

“I know nought of Kings, but in the night time the poppy made his
journey a little before dawn. Thereafter the wildfowl came as is their
wont over Sidono’s summit, and the sun rising behind them gleamed upon
Sidono, and all the flowers of the lake awoke. And the bee passing up
and down the garden went droning to other poppies, and the flowers of
the lake, they that had known the poppy, knew him no more. And the
sun’s rays slanting from Sidono’s crest lit still a garden valley where
one poppy waved his petals to the dawn no more. And I, O King, that
down a path of gleaming ocean shells walk in the morning, found not,
nor have since found, that poppy again, that hath gone on the journey
whence there is not returning, out of my garden valley. And I, O King,
made a dirge to cry beyond that valley and the poppies bowed their
heads; but there is no cry nor no lament that may adjure the life to
return again to a flower that grew in a garden once and hereafter is
not.

“Unto what place the lives of poppies have gone no man shall truly say.
Sure it is that to that place are only outward tracks. Only it may be
that when a man dreams at evening in a garden where heavily the scent
of poppies hangs in the air, when the winds have sunk, and far away the
sound of a lute is heard on lonely hills, as he dreams of
silken-scarlet poppies that once were a-swing together in the gardens
of his youth, the lives of those old lost poppies shall return, living
again in his dream. *So there may dream the gods.* And through the
dreams of some divinity reclining in tinted fields above the morning we
may haply pass again, although our bodies have long swirled up and down
the world with other dust. In these strange dreams our lives may be
again, all in the centre of our hopes, rejoicings and laments, until
above the morning the gods wake to go about their work, haply to
remember still Their idle dreams, haply to dream them all again in the
stillness when shines the starlight of the gods.”

VIII

Then said the King: “I like not these strange journeys nor this faint
wandering through the dreams of gods like the shadow of a weary camel
that may not rest when the sun is low. The gods that have made me to
love the earth’s cool woods and dancing streams do ill to send me into
the starry spaces that I love not, with my soul still peering earthward
through the eternal years, as a beggar who once was noble staring from
the street at lighted halls. For wherever the gods may send me I shall
be as the gods have made me, a creature loving the green fields of
earth.

“Now if there stand one prophet here that hath the ear of those too
splendid gods that stride above the glories of the orient sky, tell
them that there is on earth one King in the land called Zarkandhu to
the south of the opal mountains, who would fain tarry among the many
gardens of earth, and would leave to other men the splendours that the
gods shall give the dead above the twilight that surrounds the stars.”

Then spake Yamen, prophet of the Temple of Obin that stands on the
shores of a great lake, facing east. Yamen said: “I pray oft to the
gods who sit above the twilight behind the east. When the clouds are
heavy and red at sunset, or when there is boding of thunder or eclipse,
then I pray not, lest my prayers be scattered and beaten earthward. But
when the sun sets in a tranquil sky, pale green or azure, and the light
of his farewells stays long upon lonely hills, then I send forth my
prayers to flutter upward to gods that are surely smiling, and the gods
hear my prayers. But, O King, boons sought out of due time from the
gods are never wholly to be desired, and, if They should grant to thee
to tarry on the earth, old age would trouble thee with burdens more and
more till thou wouldst become the driven slave of the hours in fetters
that none may break.”

The King said: “They that have devised this burden of age may surely
stay it, pray therefore on the calmest evening of the year to the gods
above the twilight that I may tarry always on the earth and always
young, while over my head the scourges of the gods pass and alight
not.”

Then answered Yamen: “The King hath commanded, yet among the blessings
of the gods there always cries a curse. The great princes that make
merry with the King, who tell of the great deeds that the King wrought
in the former time, shall one by one grow old. And thou, O King, seated
at the feast crying, ‘make merry’ and extolling the former time shall
find about thee white heads nodding in sleep, and men that are
forgetting the former time. Then one by one the names of those that
sported with thee once called by the gods, one by one the names of the
singers that sing the songs thou lovest called by the gods, lastly of
those that chased the grey boar by night and took him in Orghoom
river—only the King. Then a new people that have not known the old
deeds of the King nor fought and chased with him, who dare not make
merry with the King as did his long dead princes. And all the while
those princes that are dead growing dearer and greater in thy memory,
and all the while the men that served thee then growing more small to
thee. And all the old things fading and new things arising which are
not as the old things were, the world changing yearly before thine eyes
and the gardens of thy childhood overgrown. Because thy childhood was
in the olden years thou shalt love the olden years, but ever the new
years shall overthrow them and their customs, and not the will of a
King may stay the changes that the gods have planned for all the
customs of old. Ever thou shalt say ‘This was not so,’ and ever the new
custom shall prevail even against a King. When thou hast made merry a
thousand times thou shalt grow tired of making merry. At last thou
shalt become weary of the chase, and still old age shall not come near
to thee to stifle desires that have been too oft fulfilled; then, O
King, thou shalt be a hunter yearning for the chase but with nought to
pursue that hath not been oft overcome. Old age shall come not to bury
thine ambitions in a time when there is nought for thee to aspire to
any more. Experience of many centuries shall make thee wise but hard
and very sad, and thou shalt be a mind apart from thy fellows and curse
them all for fools, and they shall not perceive thy wisdom because thy
thoughts are not their thoughts and the gods that they have made are
not the gods of the olden time. No solace shall thy wisdom bring thee
but only an increasing knowledge that thou knowest nought, and thou
shalt feel as a wise man in a world of fools, or else as a fool in a
world of wise men, when all men feel so sure and ever thy doubts
increase. When all that spake with thee of thine old deeds are dead,
those that saw them not shall speak of them again to thee; till one
speaking to thee of thy deeds of valour add more than even a man should
when speaking to a King, and thou shalt suddenly doubt whether these
great deeds were; and there shall be none to tell thee, only the echoes
of the voices of the gods still singing in thine ears when long ago
They called the princes that were thy friends. And thou shalt hear the
knowledge of the olden time most wrongly told and afterwards forgotten.
Then many prophets shall arise claiming discovery of that old
knowledge. Then thou shalt find that seeking knowledge is vain, as the
chase is vain, as making merry is vain, as all things are vain. One day
thou shalt find that it is vain to be a King. Greatly then will the
acclamations of the people weary thee, till the time when people grow
aweary of Kings. Then thou shalt know that thou hast been uprooted from
thine olden time and set to live in uncongenial years, and jests all
new to royal ears shall smite thee on the head like hailstones, when
thou hast lost thy crown, when those to whose grandsires thou hadst
granted to bring them as children to kiss the feet of the King shall
mock at thee because thou hast not learnt to barter with gold.

“Not all the marvels of the future time shall atone to thee for those
old memories that glow warmer and brighter every year as they recede
into the ages that the gods have gathered. And always dreaming of thy
long dead princes and of the great Kings of other kingdoms in the olden
time thou shalt fail to see the grandeur to which a hurrying jesting
people shall attain in that kingless age. Lastly, O King, thou shalt
perceive men changing in a way that thou shalt not comprehend, knowing
what thou canst not know, till thou shalt discover that these are men
no more and a new race holds dominion over the earth whose forefathers
were men. These shall speak to thee no more as they hurry upon a quest
that thou shalt never understand, and thou shalt know that thou canst
no longer take thy part in shaping destinies, but in a world of cities
only pine for air and the waving grass again and the sound of a wind in
trees. Then even this shall end with the shapes of the gods in the
darkness gathering all lives but thine, when the hills shall fling up
earth’s long stored heat back to the heavens again, when earth shall be
old and cold, with nothing alive upon it but one King.”

Then said the King: “Pray to those hard gods still, for those that have
loved the earth with all its gardens and woods and singing streams will
love earth still when it is old and cold and with all its gardens gone
and all the purport of its being failed and nought but memories.”

IX

Then spake Paharn, a prophet of the land of Hurn.

And Paharn said:

“There was one man that knew, but he stands not here.”

And the King said:

“Is he further than my heralds might travel in the night if they went
upon fleet horses?”

And the prophet answered:

“He is no further than thy heralds may well travel in the night, but
further than they may return from in all the years. Out of this city
there goes a valley wandering through all the world and opens out at
last on the green land of Hurn. On the one side in the distance gleams
the sea, and on the other side a forest, black and ancient, darkens the
fields of Hurn; beyond the forest and the sea there is no more, saving
the twilight and beyond that the gods. In the mouth of the valley
sleeps the village of Rhistaun.

“Here I was born, and heard the murmur of the flocks and herds, and saw
the tall smoke standing between the sky and the still roofs of
Rhistaun, and learned that men might not go into the dark forest, and
that beyond the forest and the sea was nought saving the twilight, and
beyond that the gods. Often there came travellers from the world all
down the winding valley, and spake with strange speech in Rhistaun and
returned again up the valley going back to the world. Sometimes with
bells and camels and men running on foot, Kings came down the valley
from the world, but always the travellers returned by the valley again
and none went further than the land of Hurn.

“And Kithneb also was born in the land of Hurn and tended the flocks
with me, but Kithneb would not care to listen to the murmur of the
flocks and herds and see the tall smoke standing between the roofs and
the sky, but needed to know how far from Hurn it was that the world met
the twilight, and how far across the twilight sat the gods.

“And often Kithneb dreamed as he tended the flocks and herds, and when
others slept he would wander near to the edge of the forest wherein men
might not go. And the elders of the land of Hurn reproved Kithneb when
he dreamed; yet Kithneb was still as other men and mingled with his
fellows until the day of which I will tell thee, O King. For Kithneb
was aged about a score of years, and he and I were sitting near the
flocks, and he gazed long at the point where the dark forest met the
sea at the end of the land of Hurn. But when night drove the twilight
down under the forest we brought the flocks together to Rhistaun, and I
went up the street between the houses to see four princes that had come
down the valley from the world, and they were clad in blue and scarlet
and wore plumes upon their heads, and they gave us in exchange for our
sheep some gleaming stones which they told us were of great value on
the word of princes. And I sold them three sheep, and Darniag sold them
eight.

“But Kithneb came not with the others to the market place where the
four princes stood, but went alone across the fields to the edge of the
forest.

“And it was upon the next morning that the strange thing befell
Kithneb; for I saw him in the morning coming from the fields, and I
hailed him with the shepherd’s cry wherewith we shepherds call to one
another, and he answered not. Then I stopped and spake to him, and
Kithneb said not a word till I became angry and left him.

“Then we spake together concerning Kithneb, and others had hailed him,
and he had not answered them, but to one he had said that he had heard
the voices of the gods speaking beyond the forest and so would never
listen more to the voices of men.

“Then we said: ‘Kithneb is mad,’ and none hindered him.

“Another took his place among the flocks, and Kithneb sat in the
evenings by the edge of the forest on the plain, alone.

“So Kithneb spake to none for many days, but when any forced him to
speak he said that every evening he heard the gods when they came to
sit in the forest from over the twilight and sea, and that he would
speak no more with men.

“But as the months went by, men in Rhistaun came to look on Kithneb as
a prophet, and we were wont to point to him when strangers came down
the valley from the world, saying:

“‘Here in the land of Hurn we have a prophet such as you have not among
your cities, for he speaks at evening with the gods.’

“A year had passed over the silence of Kithneb when he came to me and
spake. And I bowed before him because we believed that he spake among
the gods. And Kithneb said:

“‘I will speak to thee before the end because I am most lonely. For how
may I speak again with men and women in the little streets of Rhistaun
among the houses, when I have heard the voices of the gods singing
above the twilight? But I am more lonely than ever Rhistaun wonts of,
for this I tell thee, _when I hear the gods I know not what They say_.
Well indeed I know the voice of each, for ever calling me away from
contentment; well I know Their voices as they call to my soul and
trouble it; I know by Their tone when They rejoice, and I know when
They are sad, for even the gods feel sadness. I know when over fallen
cities of the past, and the curved white bones of heroes They sing the
dirges of the gods’ lament. But alas! Their words I know not, and the
wonderful strains of the melody of Their speech beat on my soul and
pass away unknown.

“‘Therefore I travelled from the land of Hurn till I came to the house
of the prophet Arnin-Yo, and told him that I sought to find the meaning
of the gods; and Arnin-Yo told me to ask the shepherds concerning all
the gods, for what the shepherds knew it was meet for a man to know,
and, beyond that, knowledge turned into trouble.

“‘But I told Arnin-Yo that I had heard myself the voices of the gods
and knew that They were there beyond the twilight and so could never
more bow down to the gods that the shepherds made from the red clay
which they scooped with their hands out of the hillside.

“‘Then said Arnin-Yo to me:

“‘“Natheless forget that thou hast heard the gods and bow down again to
the gods of the red clay that the shepherds make, and find thereby the
ease that the shepherds find, and at last die, remembering devoutly the
gods of the red clay that the shepherds scooped with their hands out of
the hill. For the gifts of the gods that sit beyond the twilight and
smile at the gods of clay, are neither ease nor contentment.”

“‘And I said:

“‘“The god that my mother made out of the red clay that she had got
from the hill, fashioning it with many arms and eyes as she sang me
songs of its power, and told me stories of its mystic birth, this god
is lost and broken; and ever in my ears is ringing the melody of the
gods.”

“‘And Arnin-Yo said:

“‘“If thou wouldst still seek knowledge know that only those that come
behind the gods may clearly know their meaning. And this thou canst
only do by taking ship and putting out to sea from the land of Hurn and
sailing up the coast towards the forest. There the sea cliffs turn to
the left or southward, and full upon them beats the twilight from over
the sea, and there thou mayest come round behind the forest. Here where
the world’s edge mingles with the twilight the gods come in the
evening, and if thou canst come behind Them thou shalt hear Their
voices clear, beating full seaward and filling all the twilight with
sound of song, and thou shalt know the meaning of the gods. But where
the cliffs turn southward there sits behind the gods Brimdono, the
oldest whirlpool in the sea, roaring to guard his masters. Him the gods
have chained for ever to the floor of the twilit sea to guard the door
of the forest that lieth above the cliffs. Here, then, if thou canst
hear the voices of the gods as thou hast said, thou wilt know their
meaning clear, but this will profit thee little when Brimdono drags
thee down and all thy ship.’”

“Thus spake Kithneb to me.

“But I said:

“‘O Kithneb, forget those whirlpool-guarded gods beyond the forest, and
if thy small god be lost thou shalt worship with me the small god that
my mother made. Thousands of years ago he conquered cities but is not
any longer an angry god. Pray to him, Kithneb, and he shall bring thee
comfort and increase to thy flocks and a mild spring, and at the last a
quiet ending for thy days.’

“But Kithneb heeded not, and only bade me find a fisher ship and men to
row it. So on the next day we put forth from the land of Hurn in a boat
that the fisher folk use. And with us came four of the fisher folk who
rowed the boat while I held the rudder, but Kithneb sat and spake not
in the prow. And we rowed westward up the coast till we came at evening
where the cliffs turned southward and the twilight gleamed upon them
and the sea.

“There we turned southwards and saw at once Brimdono. And as a man
tears the purple cloak of a king slain in battle to divide it with
other warriors,—Brimdono tore the sea. And ever around and around him
with a gnarled hand Brimdono whirled the sail of some adventurous ship,
the trophy of some calamity wrought in his greed for shipwreck long ago
where he sat to guard his masters from all who fare on the sea. And
ever one far-reaching empty hand swung up and down so that we durst go
no nearer.

“Only Kithneb neither saw Brimdono nor heard his roar, and when we
would go no further bade us lower a small boat with oars out of the
ship. Into this boat Kithneb descended, not heeding words from us, and
onward rowed alone. A cry of triumph over ships and men Brimdono
uttered before him, but Kithneb’s eyes were turned toward the forest as
he came behind the gods. Upon his face the twilight beat full from the
haunts of evening to illumine the smiles that grew about his eyes as he
came behind the gods. Him that had found the gods above Their twilit
cliffs, him that had heard Their voices close at last and knew Their
meaning clear, him, from the cheerless world with its doubtings and
prophets that lie, from all hidden meanings, where truth rang clear at
last, Brimdono took.”

But when Paharn ceased to speak, in the King’s ears the roar of
Brimdono exulting over ancient triumphs and the whelming of ships
seemed still to ring.

X

Then Mohontis spake, the hermit prophet, who lived in the deep
untravelled woods that seclude Lake Ilana.

“I dreamed that to the west of all the seas I saw by vision the mouth
of Munra-O, guarded by golden gates, and through the bars of the gates
that guard the mysterious river of Munra-O I saw the flashes of golden
barques, wherein the gods went up and down, and to and fro through the
evening dusk. And I saw that Munra-O was a river of dreams such as came
through remembered gardens in the night, to charm our infancy as we
slept beneath the sloping gables of the houses of long ago. And Munra-O
rolled down her dreams from the unknown inner land and slid them under
the golden gates and out into the waste, unheeding sea, till they beat
far off upon low-lying shores and murmured songs of long ago to the
islands of the south, or shouted tumultuous paeans to the Northern
crags; or cried forlornly against rocks where no one came, dreams that
might not be dreamed.

“Many gods there be, that through the dusk of an evening in the summer
go up and down this river. There I saw, in a high barque all of gold,
gods the of the pomp of cities; there I saw gods of splendour, in boats
bejewelled to the keels; gods of magnificence and gods of power. I saw
the dark ships and the glint of steel of the gods whose trade was war,
and I heard the melody of the bells of silver arow in the rigging of
harpstrings as the gods of melody went sailing through the dusk on the
river of Munra—O. Wonderful river of Munra—O! I saw a grey ship with
sails of the spider’s web all lit with dewdrop lanterns, and on its
prow was a scarlet cock with its wings spread far and wide when the
gods of the dawn sailed also on Munra-O.

“Down this river it is the wont of the gods to carry the souls of men
eastward to where the world in the distance faces on Munra-O. Then I
knew that when the gods of the Pride of Power and gods of the Pomp of
Cities went down the river in their tall gold ships to take earthward
other souls, swiftly adown the river and between the ships had gone in
this boat of birch bark the god Tarn, the hunter, bearing my soul to
the world. And I know now that he came down the stream in the dusk
keeping well to the middle, and that he moved silently and swiftly
among the ships, wielding a twin-bladed oar. I remember, now, the
yellow gleaming of the great boats of the gods of the Pomp of Cities,
and the huge prow above me of the gods of the Pride of Power, when
Tarn, dipping his right blade into the river, lifted his left blade
high, and the drops gleamed and fell. Thus Tarn the hunter took me to
the world that faces across the sea of the west on the gate of Munra-O.
And so it was that there grew upon me the glamour of the hunt, though I
had forgotten Tarn, and took me into mossy places and into dark woods,
and I became the cousin of the wolf and looked into the lynx’s eyes and
knew the bear; and the birds called to me with half-remembered notes,
and there grew in me a deep love of great rivers and of all western
seas, and a distrust of cities, and all the while I had forgotten Tarn.

“I know not what high galleon shall come for thee, O King, nor what
rowers, clad with purple, shall row at the bidding of gods when thou
goest back with pomp to the river of Munra-O. But for me Tarn waits
where the Seas of the West break over the edge of the world, and, as
the years pass over me and the love of the chase sinks low, and as the
glamour of the dark woods and mossy places dies down in my soul, ever
louder and louder lap the ripples against the canoe of birch bark
where, holding his twin-bladed oar, Tarn waits.

“But when my soul hath no more knowledge of the woods nor kindred any
longer with the creatures of the dark, and when all that Tarn hath
given it shall be lost, then Tarn shall take me back over the western
seas, where all the remembered years lie floating idly aswing with the
ebb and flow, to bring me again to the river of Munra-O. Far up that
river we shall haply chase those creatures whose eyes are peering in
the night as they prowl around the world, for Tarn was ever a hunter.”

XI

Then Ulf spake, the prophet who in Sistrameides lives in a temple
anciently dedicated to the gods. Rumour hath guessed that there the
gods walked once some time towards evening. But Time whose hand is
against the temples of the gods hath dealt harshly with it and
overturned its pillars and set upon its ruins his sign and seal: now
Ulf dwells there alone. And Ulf said, “There sets, O King, a river
outward from earth which meets with a mighty sea whose waters roll
through space and fling their billows on the shores of every star.
These are the river and the sea of the Tears of Men.”

And the King said:

“Men have not written of this sea.”

And the prophet answered:

“Have not tears enough burst in the night time out of sleeping cities?
Have not the sorrows of 10,000 homes sent streams into this river when
twilight fell and it was still and there was none to hear? Have there
not been hopes, and were they all fulfilled? Have there not been
conquests and bitter defeats? And have not flowers when spring was over
died in the gardens of many children? Tears enough, O King, tears
enough have gone down out of earth to make such a sea; and deep it is
and wide and the gods know it and it flings its spray on the shores of
all the stars. Down this river and across this sea thou shalt fare in a
ship of sighs and all around thee over the sea shall fly the prayers of
men which rise on white wings higher than their sorrows. Sometimes
perched in the rigging, sometimes crying around thee, shall go the
prayers that availed not to stay thee in Zarkandhu. Far over the
waters, and on the wings of the prayers beats the light of an
inaccessible star. No hand hath touched it, none hath journeyed to it,
it hath no substance, it is only a light, it is the star of Hope, and
it shines far over the sea and brightens the world. It is nought but a
light, but the gods gave it.

“Led only by the light of this star the myriad prayers that thou shalt
see all around thee fly to the Hall of the gods.

“Sighs shall waft thy ship of sighs over the sea of Tears. Thou shalt
pass by islands of laughter and lands of song lying low in the sea, and
all of them drenched with tears flung over their rocks by the waves of
the sea all driven by the sighs.

“But at last thou shalt come with the prayers of men to the great Hall
of the gods where the chairs of the gods are carved of onyx grouped
round the golden throne of the eldest of the gods. And there, O King,
hope not to find the gods, but reclining upon the golden throne wearing
a cloak of his master’s thou shalt see the figure of Time with blood
upon his hands, and loosely dangling from his fingers a dripping sword,
and spattered with blood but empty shall stand the onyx chairs.

“There he sits on his master’s throne dangling idly his sword, or with
it flicking cruelly at the prayers of men that lie in a great heap
bleeding at his feet.

“For a while, O King, the gods had sought to solve the riddles of Time,
for a while They made him Their slave, and Time smiled and obeyed his
masters, for a while, O King, for a while. He that hath spared nothing
hath not spared the gods, nor yet shall he spare thee.”

Then the King spake dolefully in the Hall of Kings, and said:

“May I not find at last the gods, and must it be that I may not look in
Their faces at the last to see whether They be kindly? They that have
sent me on my earthward journey I would greet on my returning, if not
as a King coming again to his own city, yet as one who having been
ordered had obeyed, and obeying had merited something of those for whom
he toiled. I would look Them in Their faces, O prophet, and ask Them
concerning many things and would know the wherefore of much. I had
hoped, O prophet, that those gods that had smiled upon my childhood,
Whose voices stirred at evening in gardens when I was young, would hold
dominion still when at last I came to seek Them. O prophet, if this is
not to be, make you a great dirge for my childhood’s gods and fashion
silver bells and, setting them mostly a-swing amidst such trees as grew
in the garden of my childhood, sing you this dirge in the dusk: and
sing it when the low moth flies up and down and the bat first comes
peering from her home, sing it when white mists come rising from the
river, when smoke is pale and grey, while flowers are yet closing, ere
voices are yet hushed, sing it while all things yet lament the day, or
ever the great lights of heaven come blazing forth and night with her
splendours takes the place of day. For, if the old gods die, let us
lament Them or ever new knowledge comes, while all the world still
shudders at Their loss.

“For at the last, O prophet, what is left? Only the gods of my
childhood dead, and only Time striding large and lonely through the
spaces, chilling the moon and paling the light of stars and scattering
earthward out of both his hands the dust of forgetfulness over the
fields of heroes and smitten Temples of the older gods.”

But when the other prophets heard with what doleful words the King
spake in the Hall they all cried out:

“It is not as Ulf has said but as I have said—and I.”

Then the King pondered long, not speaking. But down in the city in a
street between the houses stood grouped together they that were wont to
dance before the King, and they that had borne his wine in jewelled
cups. Long they had tarried in the city hoping that the King might
relent, and once again regard them with kindly faces calling for wine
and song. The next morning they were all to set out in search of some
new Kingdom, and they were peering between the houses and up the long
grey street to see for the last time the palace of King Ebalon; and
Pattering Leaves, the dancer, cried:

“Not any more, not any more at all shall we drift up the carven hall to
dance before the King. He that now watches the magic of his prophets
will behold no more the wonder of the dance, and among ancient
parchments, strange and wise, he shall forget the swirl of drapery when
we swing together through the Dance of the Myriad Steps.”

And with her were Silvern Fountain and Summer Lightning and Dream of
the Sea, each lamenting that they should dance no more to please the
eyes of the King.

And Intahn who had carried at the banquet for fifty years the goblet of
the King set with its four sapphires each as large as an eye, said as
he spread his hands towards the palace making the sign of farewell:

“Not all the magic of prophecy nor yet foreseeing nor perceiving may
equal the power of wine. Through the small door in the King’s Hall one
goes by one hundred steps and many sloping corridors into the cool of
the earth where lies a cavern vaster than the Hall. Therein, curtained
by the spider, repose the casks of wine that are wont to gladden the
hearts of the Kings of Zarkandhu. In islands far to the eastward the
vine, from whose heart this wine was long since wrung, hath climbed
aloft with many a clutching finger and beheld the sea and ships of the
olden time and men since dead, and gone down into the earth again and
been covered over with weeds. And green with the damp of years there
lie three casks that a city gave not up until all her defenders were
slain and her houses fired; and ever to the soul of that wine is added
a more ardent fire as ever the years go by. Thither it was my pride to
go before a banquet in the olden years, and coming up to bear in the
sapphire goblet the fire of the elder Kings and to watch the King’s eye
flash and his face grow nobler and more like his sires as he drank the
gleaming wine.

“And now the King seeks wisdom from his prophets while all the glory of
the past and all the clattering splendour of today grows old, far down,
forgotten beneath his feet.”

And when he ceased the cupbearers and the women that danced looked long
in silence at the palace. Then one by one all made the farewell sign
before they turned to go, and as they did this a herald unseen in the
dark was speeding towards them.

After a long silence the King spake:

“Prophets of my Kingdom,” he said, “you have not prophesied alike, and
the words of each prophet condemn his fellows’ words so that wisdom may
not be discovered among prophets. But I command that none in my Kingdom
shall doubt that the earliest King of Zarkandhu stored wine beneath
this palace before the building of the city or ever the palace arose,
and I shall cause commands to be uttered for the making of a banquet at
once within this Hall, so that ye shall perceive that the power of my
wine is greater than all your spells, and dancing more wondrous than
prophecy.”

The dancers and the winebearers were summoned back, and as the night
wore on a banquet was spread and all the prophets bidden to be seated,
Samahn, Ynath, Monith, Ynar Thun, the prophet of Journeys, Zornadhu,
Yamen, Paharn, Ilana, Ulf, and one that had not spoken nor yet revealed
his name, and who wore his prophet’s cloak across his face.

And the prophets feasted as they were commanded and spake as other men
spake, save he whose face was hidden, who neither ate nor spake. Once
he put out his hand from under his cloak and touched a blossom among
the flowers upon the table and the blossom fell.

And Pattering Leaves came in and danced again, and the King smiled, and
Pattering Leaves was happy though she had not the wisdom of the
prophets. And in and out, in and out, in and out among the columns of
the Hall went Summer Lightning in the maze of the dance. And Silvern
Fountain bowed before the King and danced and danced and bowed again,
and old Intahn went to and fro from the cavern to the King gravely
through the midst of the dancers but with kindly eyes, and when the
King had often drunk of the old wine of the elder Kings he called for
Dream of the Sea and bade her sing. And Dream of the Sea came through
the arches and sang of an island builded by magic out of pearls, that
lay set in a ruby sea, and how it lay far off and under the south,
guarded by jagged reefs whereon the sorrows of the world were wrecked
and never came to the island. And how a low sunset always reddened the
sea and lit the magic isle and never turned to night, and how someone
sang always and endlessly to lure the soul of a King who might by
enchantment pass the guarding reefs to find rest on the pearl island
and not be troubled more, but only see sorrows on the outer reef
battered and broken. Then Soul of the South rose up and sang a song of
a fountain that ever sought to reach the sky and was ever doomed to
fall to the earth again until at last….


[Illustration: Pattering Leaves Danced]


Then whether it was the art of Pattering Leaves or the song of Dream of
the Sea, or whether it was the fire of the wine of the elder Kings,
Ebalon bade farewell kindly to the prophets when morning paled the
stars. Then along the torchlit corridors the King went to his chamber,
and having shut the door in the empty room, beheld suddenly a figure
wearing the cloak of a prophet; and the King perceived that it was he
whose face was hidden at the banquet, who had not revealed his name.

And the King said:

“Art thou, too, a prophet?”

And the figure answered:

“I am a prophet.”

And the King said: “Knowest _thou_ aught concerning the journey of the
King?” And the figure answered: “I know, but have never said.”

And the King said: “Who art thou that knowest so much and has not told
it?”

And he answered:

“I am _The End_.”

Then the cloaked figure strode away from the palace; and the King,
unseen by the guards, followed upon his journey.

THE END





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Time and the Gods" ***

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