Suddenly, without a warning sound in the dark, Carter
felt his curved scimitar drawn stealthily out of his belt by some unseen
hand. Then he heard it clatter down over the rocks below. And between him
and the Milky Way he thought he saw a very terrible outline of something
noxiously thin and horned and tailed and bat-winged. Other things, too,
had begun to blot out patches of
stars west of him, as if a flock of vague entities were
flapping thickly and silently out of that inaccessible cave in the face
of the precipice. Then a sort of cold rubbery arm seized his neck and something
else seized his feet, and he was lifted inconsiderately up and swung about
in space. Another minute and the stars were gone, and Carter knew that
the night-gaunts had got him.
They bore him breathless into that cliffside cavern and
through monstrous labyrinths beyond. When he struggled, as at first he
did by instinct, they tickled him with deliberation. They made no sound
at all themselves, and even their membranous wings were silent. They were
frightfully cold and damp and slippery, and their paws kneaded one detestably.
Soon they were plunging
hideously downward through inconceivable abysses in a
whirling, giddying, sickening rush of dank, tomb-like air; and Carter felt
they were shooting into the ultimate vortex of shrieking and daemonic madness.
He screamed again and again, but whenever he did so the black paws tickled
him with greater subtlety. Then he saw a sort of grey phosphorescence about,
and guessed they were coming even to that inner world of subterrene horror
of which dim legends tell, and which is litten only by the pale death-fire
wherewith reeks the ghoulish air and the primal mists of the pits at earth's
core.
At last far below him he saw faint lines of grey and ominous
pinnacles which he knew must be the fabled Peaks of Throk. Awful and sinister
they stand in the haunted disc of sunless and eternal depths; higher than
man may reckon, and guarding terrible valleys where the Dholes crawl and
burrow nastily. But Carter preferred to look at them than at his captors,
which were indeed
shocking and uncouth black things with smooth, oily,
whale-like surfaces, unpleasant horns that curved inward toward each other,
bat wings whose beating made no sound, ugly prehensile paws, and barbed
tails that lashed needlessly and disquietingly. And worst of all, they
never spoke or laughed, and never smiled because they had no faces at all
to smile with, but only a
suggestive blankness where a face ought to be. All they
ever did was clutch and fly and tickle; that was the way of night-gaunts.
As the band flew lower the Peaks of Throk rose grey and
towering on all sides, and one saw clearly that nothing lived on that austere
and impressive granite of the endless twilight. At still lower levels the
death-fires in the air gave out, and one met only the primal blackness
of the void save aloft where the thin peaks stood out goblin-like. Soon
the peaks were very far away, and
nothing about but great rushing winds with the dankness
of nethermost grottoes in them. Then in the end the night-gaunts landed
on a floor of unseen things which felt like layers of bones, and left Carter
all alone in that black valley. To bring him thither was the duty of the
night-gaunts that guard Ngranek; and this done, they flapped away silently.
When Carter tried to trace their flight he found he could not, since even
the Peaks of Throk had faded out of sight. There was nothing anywhere but
blackness and horror and silence and bones.
Now Carter knew from a certain source that he was in the
vale of Pnoth, where crawl and burrow the enormous Dholes; but he did not
know what to expect, because no one has ever seen a Dhole or even guessed
what such a thing may be like. Dholes are known only by dim rumour, from
the rustling they make amongst mountains of bones and the slimy touch they
have when they wriggle past one. They cannot be seen because they creep
only in the dark. Carter did not wish to meet a Dhole, so listened intently
for any sound in the unknown depths of bones about him. Even in this fearsome
place he had a plan and an objective, for whispers of Pnoth were not unknown
to one with whom he had talked much in the old days. In brief, it seemed
fairly likely that this was the spot into which all the ghouls of the waking
world cast the refuse of their feastings; and that if he but had good luck
he might stumble upon that mighty crag taller even than Throk's peaks which
marks the edge of their domain. Showers of bones would tell him where to
look, and once found he could call to a ghoul to let down a ladder; for
strange to say, he had a very
singular link with these terrible creatures.
A man he had known in Boston - a painter of strange pictures
with a secret studio in an ancient and unhallowed alley near a graveyard
- had actually made friends with the ghouls and had taught him to understand
the simpler part of their disgusting meeping and glibbering. This man had
vanished at last, and Carter was not sure but that he might find him now,
and use for the first
time in dreamland that far-away English of his dim waking
life. In any case, he felt he could persuade a ghoul to guide him out of
Pnoth; and it would be better to meet a ghoul, which one can see, than
a Dhole, which one cannot see.
So Carter walked in the dark, and ran when he thought
he heard something among the bones underfoot. Once he bumped into a stony
slope, and knew it must be the base of one of Throk's peaks. Then at last
he heard a monstrous rattling and clatter which reached far up in the air,
and became sure he had come nigh the crag of the ghouls. He was not sure
he could be heard from
this valley miles below, but realised that the inner
world has strange laws. As he pondered he was struck by a flying bone so
heavy that it must have been a skull, and therefore realising his nearness
to the fateful crag he sent up as best he might that meeping cry which
is the call of the ghoul.
Sound travels slowly, so it was some time before he heard
an answering glibber. But it came at last, and before long he was told
that a rope ladder would be lowered. The wait for this was very tense,
since there was no telling what might not have been stirred up among those
bones by his shouting. Indeed, it was not long before he actually did hear
a vague rustling afar off. As this thoughtfully approached, he became more
and more uncomfortable; for he did not wish to move away from the spot
where the ladder would come. Finally the tension grew almost unbearable,
and he was about to flee in panic when the thud of something on the newly
heaped bones nearby drew his notice from the other sound. It was the ladder,
and after a minute of groping he had it taut in his hands. But the other
sound did not cease, and followed him even as he climbed. He had gone fully
five feet from the ground when the rattling beneath waxed emphatic, and
was a good ten feet up when something swayed the ladder from below. At
a height which must have been fifteen or twenty feet he felt his whole
side brushed by a great slippery length which grew alternately convex and
concave with wriggling; and hereafter he climbed desperately to escape
the unendurable nuzzling of that loathsome and overfed Dhole whose form
no man might see.
For hours he climbed with aching and blistered hands,
seeing again the grey death-fire and Throk's uncomfortable pinnacles. At
last he discerned above him the projecting edge of the great crag of the
ghouls, whose vertical side he could not glimpse; and hours later he saw
a curious face peering over it as a gargoyle peers over a parapet of Notre
Dame. This almost made him lose
his hold through faintness, but a moment later he was
himself again; for his vanished friend Richard Pickman had once introduced
him to a ghoul, and he knew well their canine faces and slumping forms
and unmentionable idiosyncrasies. So he had himself well under control
when that hideous thing pulled him out of the dizzy emptiness over the
edge of the crag, and did not scream at the partly consumed refuse heaped
at one side or at the squatting circles of ghouls who gnawed and watched
curiously.
He was now on a dim-litten plain whose sole topographical
features were great boulders and the entrances of burrows. The ghouls were
in general respectful, even if one did attempt to pinch him while several
others eyed his leanness speculatively. Through patient glibbering he made
inquiries regarding his vanished friend, and found he had become a ghoul
of some prominence in
abysses nearer the waking world. A greenish elderly ghoul
offered to conduct him to Pickman's present habitation, so despite a natural
loathing he followed the creature into a capacious burrow and crawled after
him for hours in the blackness of rank mould. They emerged on a dim plain
strewn with singular relics of earth - old gravestones, broken urns, and
grotesque fragments of
monuments - and Carter realised with some emotion that
he was probably nearer the waking world than at any other time since he
had gone down the seven hundred steps from the cavern of flame to the Gate
of Deeper Slumber.
There, on a tombstone of 1768 stolen from the Granary
Burying Ground in Boston, sat a ghoul which was once the artist Richard
Upton Pickman. It was naked and rubbery, and had acquired so much of the
ghoulish physiognomy that its human origin was already obscure. But it
still remembered a little English, and was able to converse with Carter
in grunts and monosyllables,
helped out now and then by the glibbering of ghouls.
When it learned that Carter wished to get to the enchanted wood and from
there to the city Celephais in Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills, it
seemed rather doubtful; for these ghouls of the waking world do no business
in the graveyards of upper dreamland (leaving that to the red-footed wamps
that are spawned in dead cities), and many things intervene betwixt their
gulf and the enchanted wood, including the terrible kingdom of the Gugs.
The Gugs, hairy and gigantic, once reared stone circles
in that wood and made strange sacrifices to the Other Gods and the crawling
chaos Nyarlathotep, until one night an abomination of theirs reached the
ears of earth's gods and they were banished to caverns below. Only a great
trap door of stone with an iron ring connects the abyss of the earth-ghouls
with the enchanted wood,
and this the Gugs are afraid to open because of a curse.
That a mortal dreamer could traverse their cavern realm and leave by that
door is inconceivable; for mortal dreamers were their former food, and
they have legends of the toothsomeness of such dreamers even though banishment
has restricted their diet to the ghasts, those repulsive beings which die
in the light, and which live in the vaults of Zin and leap on long hind
legs like kangaroos.
So the ghoul that was Pickman advised Carter either to
leave the abyss at Sarkomand, that deserted city in the valley below Leng
where black nitrous stairways guarded by winged diarote lions lead down
from dreamland to the lower gulfs, or to return through a churchyard to
the waking world and begin the quest anew down the seventy steps of light
slumber to the cavern of flame
and the seven hundred steps to the Gate of Deeper Slumber
and the enchanted wood. This, however, did not suit the seeker; for he
knew nothing of the way from Leng to Ooth-Nargai, and was likewise reluctant
to awake lest he forget all he had so far gained in this dream. It was
disastrous to his quest to forget the august and celestial faces of those
seamen from the north who traded onyx in Celephais, and who, being the
sons of gods, must point the way to the cold waste and Kadath where the
Great Ones dwell.
After much persuasion the ghoul consented to guide his
guest inside the great wall of the Gugs' kingdom. There was one chance
that Carter might be able to steal through that twilight realm of circular
stone towers at an hour when the giants would be all gorged and snoring
indoors, and reach the central tower with the sign of Koth upon it, which
has the stairs leading up to that
stone trap door in the enchanted wood. Pickman even consented
to lend three ghouls to help with a tombstone lever in raising the stone
door; for of ghouls the Gugs are somewhat afraid, and they often flee from
their own colossal graveyards when they see them feasting there.
He also advised Carter to disguise as a ghoul himself;
shaving the beard he had allowed to grow (for ghouls have none), wallowing
naked in the mould to get the correct surface, and loping in the usual
slumping way, with his clothing carried in a bundle as if it were a choice
morsel from a tomb. They would reach the city of Gugs - which is coterminous
with the whole kingdom -
through the proper burrows, emerging in a cemetery not
far from the stair-containing Tower of Koth. They must beware, however,
of a large cave near the cemetery; for this is the mouth of the vaults
of Zin, and the vindictive ghasts are always on watch there murderously
for those denizens of the upper abyss who hunt and prey on them. The ghasts
try to come out when the Gugs
sleep and they attack ghouls as readily as Gugs, for
they cannot discriminate. They are very primitive, and eat one another.
The Gugs have a sentry at a narrow in the vaults of Zin, but he is often
drowsy and is sometimes surprised by a party of ghasts. Though ghasts cannot
live in real light, they can endure the grey twilight of the abyss for
hours.
So at length Carter crawled through endless burrows with
three helpful ghouls bearing the slate gravestone of Col. Nepemiah Derby,
obit 1719, from the Charter Street Burying Ground in Salem. When they came
again into open twilight they were in a forest of vast lichened monoliths
reaching nearly as high as the eye could see and forming the modest gravestones
of the Gugs. On
the right of the hole out of which they wriggled, and
seen through aisles of monoliths, was a stupendous vista of cyclopean round
towers mounting up illimitable into the grey air of inner earth. This was
the great city of the Gugs, whose doorways are thirty feet high. Ghouls
come here often, for a buried Gug will feed a community for almost a year,
and even with the added peril it
is better to burrow for Gugs than to bother with the
graves of men. Carter now understood the occasional titan bones he had
felt beneath him in the vale of Pnoth.
Straight ahead, and just outside the cemetery, rose a
sheer perpendicular cliff at whose base an immense and forbidding cavern
yawned. This the ghouls told Carter to avoid as much as possible, since
it was the entrance to the unhallowed vaults of Zin where Gugs hunt ghasts
in the darkness. And truly, that warning was soon well justified; for the
moment a ghoul began to creep
toward the towers to see if the hour of the Gugs' resting
had been rightly timed, there glowed in the gloom of that great cavern's
mouth first one pair of yellowish-red eyes and then another, implying that
the Gugs were one sentry less, and that ghasts have indeed an excellent
sharpness of smell. So the ghoul returned to the burrow and motioned his
companions to be silent. It was
best to leave the ghasts to their own devices, and there
was a possibility that they might soon withdraw, since they must naturally
be rather tired after coping with a Gug sentry in the black vaults. After
a moment something about the size of a small horse hopped out into the
grey twilight, and Carter turned sick at the aspect of that scabrous and
unwholesome beast, whose face is so
curiously human despite the absence of a nose, a forehead,
and other important particulars.
Presently three other ghasts hopped out to join their
fellow, and a ghoul glibbered softly at Carter that their absence of battle-scars
was a bad sign. It proved that theY had not fought the Gug sentry at all,
but had merely slipped past him as he slept, so that their strength and
savagery were still unimpaired and would remain so till they had found
and disposed of a victim. It was very
unpleasant to see those filthy and disproportioned animals
which soon numbered about fifteen, grubbing about and making their kangaroo
leaps in the grey twilight where titan towers and monoliths arose, but
it was still more unpleasant when they spoke among themselves in the coughing
gutturals of ghasts. And yet, horrible as they were, they were not so horrible
as what presently came out of the cave after them with disconcerting suddenness.
It was a paw, fully two feet and a half across, and equipped
with formidable talons. Alter it came another paw, and after that a great
black-furred arm to which both of the paws were attached by short forearms.
Then two pink eyes shone, and the head of the awakened Gug sentry, large
as a barrel, wabbled into view. The eyes jutted two inches from each side,
shaded by bony
protuberances overgrown with coarse hairs. But the head
was chiefly terrible because of the mouth. That mouth had great yellow
fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of the head, opening vertically
instead of horizontally.
But before that unfortunate Gug could emerge from the
cave and rise to his full twenty feet, the vindictive ghasts were upon
him. Carter feared for a moment that he would give an alarm and arouse
all his kin, till a ghoul softly glibbered that Gugs have no voice but
talk by means of facial expression. The battle which then ensued was truly
a frightful one. From all sides the
venomous ghasts rushed feverishly at the creeping Gug,
nipping and tearing with their muzzles, and mauling murderously with their
hard pointed hooves. All the time they coughed excitedly, screaming when
the great vertical mouth of the Gug would occasionally bite into one of
their number, so that the noise of the combat would surely have aroused
the sleeping city had not the
weakening of the sentry begun to transfer the action
farther and farther within the cavern. As it was, the tumult soon receded
altogether from sight in the blackness, with only occasional evil echoes
to mark its continuance.
Then the most alert of the ghouls gave the signal for
all to advance, and Carter followed the loping three out of the forest
of monoliths and into the dark noisome streets of that awful city whose
rounded towers of cyclopean stone soared up beyond the sight. Silently
they shambled over that rough rock pavement, hearing with disgust the abominable
muffled snortings from great
black doorways which marked the slumber of the Gugs.
Apprehensive of the ending of the rest hour, the ghouls set a somewhat
rapid pace; but even so the journey was no brief one, for distances in
that town of giants are on a great scale. At last, however, they came to
a somewhat open space before a tower even vaster than the rest; above whose
colossal doorway was fixed a
monstrous symbol in bas-relief which made one shudder
without knowing its meaning. This was the central tower with the sign of
Koth, and those huge stone steps just visible through the dusk within were
the beginning of the great flight leading to upper dreamland and the enchanted
wood.
There now began a climb of interminable length in utter
blackness: made almost impossible by the monstrous size of the steps, which
were fashioned for Gugs, and were therefore nearly a yard high. Of their
number Carter could form no just estimate, for he soon became so worn out
that the tireless and elastic ghouls were forced to aid him. All through
the endless climb there
lurked the peril of detection and pursuit; for though
no Gug dares lift the stone door to the forest because of the Great One's
curse, there are no such restraints concerning the tower and the steps,
and escaped ghasts are often chased, even to the very top. So sharp are
the ears of Gugs, that the bare feet and hands of the climbers might readily
be heard when the city awoke; and it
would of course take but little time for the striding
giants, accustomed from their ghast-hunts in the vaults of Zin to seeing
without light, to overtake their smaller and slower quarry on those cyclopean
steps. It was very depressing to reflect that the silent pursuing Gugs
would not be heard at all, but would come very suddenly and shockingly
in the dark upon the climbers. Nor could
the traditional fear of Gugs for ghouls be depended upon
in that peculiar place where the advantages lay so heavily with the Gugs.
There was also some peril from the furtive and venomous ghasts, which frequently
hopped up onto the tower during the sleep hour of the Gugs. If the Gugs
slept long, and the ghasts returned soon from their deed in the cavern,
the scent of the climbers
might easily be picked up by those loathsome and ill-disposed
things; in which case it would almost be better to be eaten by a Gug.
Then, after aeons of climbing, there came a cough from
the darkness above; and matters assumed a very grave and unexpected turn.
It was clear that a ghast, or perhaps even more, had strayed
into that tower before the coming of Carter and his guides; and it was
equally clear that this peril was very close. Alter a breathless second
the leading ghoul pushed Carter to the wall and arranged his kinfolk in
the best possible way, with the old slate tombstone raised for a crushing
blow whenever the enemy might come
in sight. Ghouls can see in the dark, so the party was
not as badly off as Carter would have been alone. In another moment the
clatter of hooves revealed the downward hopping of at least one beast,
and the slab-bearing ghouls poised their weapon for a desperate blow. Presently
two yellowish-red eyes flashed into view, and the panting of the ghast
became audible above its
clattering. As it hopped down to the step above the ghouls,
they wielded the ancient gravestone with prodigious force, so that there
was only a wheeze and a choking before the victim collapsed in a noxious
heap. There seemed to be only this one animal, and after a moment of listening
the ghouls tapped Carter as a signal to proceed again. As before, they
were obliged to aid him;
and he was glad to leave that place of carnage where
the ghast's uncouth remains sprawled invisible in the blackness.
At last the ghouls brought their companion to a halt;
and feeling above him, Carter realised that the great stone trap door was
reached at last. To open so vast a thing completely was not to be thought
of, but the ghouls hoped to get it up just enough to slip the gravestone
under as a prop, and permit Carter to escape through the crack. They themselves
planned to descend again and
return through the city of the Gugs, since their elusiveness
was great, and they did not know the way overland to spectral Sarkomand
with its lion-guarded gate to the abyss.
Mighty was the straining of those three ghouls at the
stone of the door above them, and Carter helped push with as much strength
as he had. They judged the edge next the top of the staircase to be the
right one, and to this they bent all the force of their disreputably nourished
muscles. Alter a few moments a crack of light appeared; and Carter, to
whom that task had been
entrusted, slipped the end of the old gravestone in the
aperture. There now ensued a mighty heaving; but progress was very slow,
and they had of course to return to their first position every time they
failed to turn the slab and prop the portal open.
Suddenly their desperation was magnified a thousand fold
by a sound on the steps below them. It was only the thumping and rattling
of the slain ghast's hooved body as it rolled down to lower levels; but
of all the possible causes of that body's dislodgement and rolling, none
was in the least reassuring. Therefore, knowing the ways of Gugs, the ghouls
set to with something of a
frenzy; and in a surprisingly short time had the door
so high that they were able to hold it still whilst Carter turned the slab
and left a generous opening. They now helped Carter through, letting him
climb up to their rubbery shoulders and later guiding his feet as he clutched
at the blessed soil of the upper dreamland outside. Another second and
they were through themselves,
knocking away the gravestone and closing the great trap
door while a panting became audible beneath. Because of the Great One's
curse no Gug might ever emerge from that portal, so with a deep relief
and sense of repose Carter lay quietly on the thick grotesque fungi of
the enchanted wood while his guides squatted near in the manner that ghouls
rest.
Weird as was that enchanted wood through which he had
fared so long ago, it was verily a haven and a delight after those gulfs
he had now left behind. There was no living denizen about, for Zoogs shun
the mysterious door in fear and Carter at once consulted with his ghouls
about their future course. To return through the tower they no longer dared,
and the waking world did not
appeal to them when they learned that they must pass
the priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah in the cavern of flame. So at length they
decided to return through Sarkomand and its gate of the abyss, though of
how to get there they knew nothing. Carter recalled that it lies in the
valley below Leng, and recalled likewise that he had seen in Dylath-Leen
a sinister, slant-eyed old merchant
reputed to trade on Leng, therefore he advised the ghouls
to seek out Dylath-Leen, crossing the fields to Nir and the Skai and following
the river to its mouth. This they at once resolved to do, and lost no time
in loping off, since the thickening of the dusk promised a full night ahead
for travel. And Carter shook the paws of those repulsive beasts, thanking
them for their help and sending his gratitude to the beast which once was
Pickman; but could not help sighing with pleasure when they left. For a
ghoul is a ghoul, and at best an unpleasant companion for man. After that
Carter sought a forest pool and cleansed himself of the mud of nether earth,
thereupon reassuming the clothes he had so carefully carried.
It was now night in that redoubtable wood of monstrous
trees, but because of the phosphorescence one might travel as well as by
day; wherefore Carter set out upon the well-known route toward Celephais,
in Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills. And as he went he thought of
the zebra he had left tethered to an ash-tree on Ngranek in far-away Oriab
so many aeons ago, and wondered if any lava-gatherers had fed and released
it. And he wondered, too, if he would ever return to Baharna and pay for
the zebra that was slain by night in those ancient ruins by Yath's shore,
and if the old tavernkeeper would remember him. Such were the thoughts
that came to him in the air of the regained upper dreamland.
But presently his progress was halted by a sound from
a very large hollow tree. He had avoided the great circle of stones, since
he did not care to speak with Zoogs just now; but it appeared from the
singular fluttering in that huge tree that important councils were in session
elsewhere. Upon drawing nearer he made out the accents of a tense and heated
discussion; and before long
became conscious of matters which he viewed with the
greatest concern. For a war on the cats was under debate in that sovereign
assembly of Zoogs. It all came from the loss of the party which had sneaked
after Carter to Ulthar, and which the cats had justly punished for unsuitable
intentions. The matter had long rankled; and now, or at least within a
month, the marshalled Zoogs
were about to strike the whole feline tribe in a series
of surprise attacks, taking individual cats or groups of cats unawares,
and giving not even the myriad cats of Ulthar a proper chance to drill
and mobilise. This was the plan of the Zoogs, and Carter saw that he must
foil it before leaving upon his mighty quest.
Very quietly therefore did Randolph Carter steal to the
edge of the wood and send the cry of the cat over the starlit fields. And
a great grimalkin in a nearby cottage took up the burden and relayed it
across leagues of rolling meadow to warriors large and small, black, grey,
tiger, white, yellow, and mixed, and it echoed through Nir and beyond the
Skai even into Ulthar, and Ulthar's
numerous cats called in chorus and fell into a line of
march. It was fortunate that the moon was not up, so that all the cats
were on earth. Swiftly and silently leaping, they sprang from every hearth
and housetop and poured in a great furry sea across the plains to the edge
of the wood. Carter was there to greet them, and the sight of shapely,
wholesome cats was indeed good for his
eyes after the things he had seen and walked with in
the abyss. He was glad to see his venerable friend and one-time rescuer
at the head of Ulthar's detachment, a collar of rank around his sleek neck,
and whiskers bristling at a martial angle. Better still, as a sub-lieutenant
in that army was a brisk young fellow who proved to be none other than
the very little kitten at the inn to whom Carter had given a saucer of
rich cream on that long-vanished morning in Ulthar. He was a strapping
and promising cat now, and purred as he shook hands with his friend. His
grandfather said he was doing very well in the army, and that he might
well expect a captaincy after one more campaign.
Carter now outlined the peril of the cat tribe, and was
rewarded by deep-throated purrs of gratitude from all sides. Consulting
with the generals, he prepared a plan of instant action which involved
marching at once upon the Zoog council and other known strongholds of Zoogs;
forestalling their surprise attacks and forcing them to terms before the
mobilization of their army of
invasion. Thereupon without a moment's loss that great
ocean of cats flooded the enchanted wood and surged around the council
tree and the great stone circle. Flutterings rose to panic pitch as the
enemy saw the newcomers and there was very little resistance among the
furtive and curious brown Zoogs. They saw that they were beaten in advance,
and turned from thoughts of
vengeance to thoughts of present self-preservation.
Half the cats now seated themselves in a circular formation
with the captured Zoogs in the centre, leaving open a lane down which were
marched the additional captives rounded up by the other cats in other parts
of the wood. Terms were discussed at length, Carter acting as interpreter,
and it was decided that the Zoogs might remain a free tribe on condition
of rendering to the cats a large tribute of grouse, quail, and pheasants
from the less fabulous parts of the forest. Twelve young Zoogs of noble
families were taken as hostages to be kept in the Temple of Cats at Ulthar,
and the victors made it plain that any disappearances of cats on the borders
of the Zoog domain would be followed by consequences highly disastrous
to Zoogs. These matters disposed of, the assembled cats broke ranks and
permitted the Zoogs to slink off one by one to their respective homes,
which they hastened to do with many a sullen backward glance.
The old cat general now offered Carter an escort through
the forest to whatever border he wished to reach, deeming it likely that
the Zoogs would harbour dire resentment against him for the frustration
of their warlike enterprise. This offer he welcomed with gratitude; not
only for the safety it afforded, but because he liked the graceful companionship
of cats. So in the midst of a pleasant and playful regiment, relaxed after
the successful performance of its duty, Randolph Carter walked with dignity
through that enchanted and phosphorescent wood of titan trees, talking
of his quest with the old general and his grandson whilst others of the
band indulged in fantastic gambols or chased fallen leaves that the wind
drove among the fungi of that primeval floor. And the old cat said
that he had heard much of unknown Kadath in the cold waste, but did not
know where it was. As for the marvellous sunset city, he had not even heard
of that, but would gladly relay to Carter anything he might later learn.
He gave the seeker some passwords of great value among
the cats of dreamland, and commended him especially to the old chief of
the cats in Celephais, whither he was bound. That old cat, already slightly
known to Carter, was a dignified maltese; and would prove highly influential
in any transaction. It was dawn when they came to the proper edge of the
wood, and Carter bade his friends a reluctant farewell. The young sub-lieutenant
he had met as a small kitten would have followed him had not the old general
forbidden it, but that austere patriarch insisted that the path of duty
lay with the tribe and the army. So Carter set out alone over the golden
fields that stretched mysterious beside a willow-fringed river, and the
cats went back into the wood.
Well did the traveller know those garden lands that lie
betwixt the wood of the Cerenerian Sea, and blithely did he follow the
singing river Oukianos that marked his course. The sun rose higher over
gentle slopes of grove and lawn, and heightened the colours of the thousand
flowers that starred each knoll and dangle. A blessed haze lies upon all
this region, wherein is held a little
more of the sunlight than other places hold, and a little
more of the summer's humming music of birds and bees; so that men walk
through it as through a faery place, and feel greater joy and wonder than
they ever afterward remember.
By noon Carter reached the jasper terraces of Kiran which
slope down to the river's edge and bear that temple of loveliness wherein
the King of Ilek-Vad comes from his far realm on the twilight sea once
a year in a golden palanqnin to pray to the god of Oukianos, who sang to
him in youth when he dwelt in a cottage by its banks. All of jasper is
that temple, and covering an acre of
ground with its walls and courts, its seven pinnacled
towers, and its inner shrine where the river enters through hidden channels
and the god sings softly in the night. Many times the moon hears strange
music as it shines on those courts and terraces and pinnacles, but whether
that music be the song of the god or the chant of the cryptical priests,
none but the King of Ilek-Vad may
say; for only he had entered the temple or seen the priests.
Now, in the drowsiness of day, that carven and delicate fane was silent,
and Carter heard only the murmur of the great stream and the hum of the
birds and bees as he walked onward under the enchanted sun.
All that afternoon the pilgrim wandered on through perfumed
meadows and in the lee of gentle riverward hills bearing peaceful thatched
cottages and the shrines of amiable gods carven from jasper or chrysoberyl.
Sometimes he walked close to the bank of Oukianos and whistled to the sprightly
and iridescent fish of that crystal stream, and at other times he paused
amidst the
whispering rushes and gazed at the great dark wood on
the farther side, whose trees came down clear to the water's edge. In former
dreams he had seen quaint lumbering buopoths come shyly out of that wood
to drink, but now he could not glimpse any. Once in a while he paused to
watch a carnivorous fish catch a fishing bird, which it lured to the water
by showing its tempting
scales in the sun, and grasped by the beak with its enormous
mouth as the winged hunter sought to dart down upon it.
Toward evening he mounted a low grassy rise and saw before
him flaming in the sunset the thousand gilded spires of Thran. Lofty beyond
belief are the alabaster walls of that incredible city, sloping inward
toward the top and wrought in one solid piece by what means no man knows,
for they are more ancient than memory. Yet lofty as they are with their
hundred gates and two
hundred turrets, the clustered towers within, all white
beneath their golden spires, are loftier still; so that men on the plain
around see them soaring into the sky, sometimes shining clear, sometimes
caught at the top in tangles of cloud and mist, and sometimes clouded lower
down with their utmost pinnacles blazing free above the vapours. And where
Thran's gates open on the river are great wharves of marble, with ornate
galleons of fragrant cedar and calamander riding gently at anchor, and
strange bearded sailors sitting on casks and bales with the hieroglyphs
of far places. Landward beyond the walls lies the farm country, where small
white cottages dream between little hills, and narrow roads with many stone
bridges wind gracefully among streams and
gardens.
Down through this verdant land Carter walked at evening,
and saw twilight float up from the river to the marvellous golden spires
of Thran. And just at the hour of dusk he came to the southern gate, and
was stopped by a red-robed sentry till he had told three dreams beyond
belief, and proved himself a dreamer worthy to walk up Thran's steep mysterious
streets and linger in the bazaars where the wares of the ornate galleons
were sold. Then into that incredible city he walked; through a wall so
thick that the gate was a tunnel, and thereafter amidst curved and undulant
ways winding deep and narrow between the heavenward towers. Lights shone
through grated and balconied windows, and,the sound of lutes and pipes
stole timid from inner courts where marble fountains bubbled. Carter knew
his way, and edged down through darker streets to the river, where at an
old sea tavern he found the captains and seamen he had known in myriad
other dreams. There he bought his passage to Celephais on a great green
galleon, and there he stopped for the night after speaking gravely to the
venerable cat of that inn, who blinked dozing before an enormous hearth
and dreamed of old wars and forgotten gods.
In the morning Carter boarded the galleon bound for Celephais,
and sat in the prow as the ropes were cast off and the long sail down to
the Cerenerian Sea begun. For many leagues the banks were much as they
were above Thran, with now and then a curious temple rising on the farther
hills toward the right, and a drowsy village on the shore, with steep red
roofs and nets spread in
the sun. Mindful of his search, Carter questioned all
the mariners closely about those whom they had met in the taverns of Celephais,
asking the names and ways of the strange men with long, narrow eyes, long-lobed
ears, thin noses, and pointed chins who came in dark ships from the north
and traded onyx for the carved jade and spun gold and little red singing
birds of Celephais. Of these men the sailors knew not much, save
that they talked but seldom and spread a kind of awe about them.
Their land, very far away, was called Inquanok, and not
many people cared to go thither because it was a cold twilight land, and
said to be close to unpleasant Leng; although high impassable mountains
towered on the side where Leng was thought to lie, so that none might say
whether this evil plateau with its horrible stone villages and unmentionable
monastery were really there, or whether the rumour were only a fear that
timid people felt in the night when those formidable barrier peaks loomed
black against a rising moon. Certainly, men reached Leng from very different
oceans. Of other boundaries of Inquanok those sailors had no notion, nor
had they heard of the cold waste and unknown Kadath save from vague unplaced
report. And of the marvellous sunset city which Carter sought they knew
nothing at all. So the traveller asked no more of far things, but bided
his time till he might talk with those strange men from cold and twilight
Inquanok who are the seed of such gods as carved their features on Ngranek.
Late in the day the galleon reached those bends of the
river which traverse the perfumed jungles of Kied. Here Carter wished he
might disembark, for in those tropic tangles sleep wondrous palaces of
ivory, lone and unbroken, where once dwelt fabulous monarchs of a land
whose name is forgotten. Spells of the Elder Ones keep those places unharmed
and undecayed, for it is
written that there may one day be need of them again;
and elephant caravans have glimpsed them from afar by moonlight, though
none dares approach them closely because of the guardians to which their
wholeness is due. But the ship swept on, and dusk hushed the hum of the
day, and the first stars above blinked answers to the early fireflies on
the banks as that jungle fell far
behind, leaving only its fragrance as a memory that it
had been. And all through the night that galleon floated on past mysteries
unseen and unsuspected. Once a lookout reported fires on the hills to the
east, but the sleepy captain said they had better not be looked at too
much, since it was highly uncertain just who or what had lit them.
In the morning the river had broadened out greatly, and
Carter saw by the houses along the banks that they were close to the vast
trading city of Hlanith on the Cerenerian Sea. Here the walls are of rugged
granite, and the houses peakedly fantastic with beamed and plastered gables.
The men of Hlanith are more like those of the waking world than any others
in dreamland; so that
the city is not sought except for barter, but is prized
for the solid work of its artisans. The wharves of Hlanith are of oak,
and there the galleon made fast while the captain traded in the taverns.
Carter also went ashore, and looked curiously upon the rutted streets where
wooden ox carts lumbered and feverish merchants cried their wares vacuously
in the bazaars. The sea taverns
were all close to the wharves on cobbled lanes salted
with the spray of high tides, and seemed exceedingly ancient with their
low black-beamed ceilings and casements of greenish bull's-eye panes. Ancient
sailors in those taverns talked much of distant ports, and told many stories
of the curious men from twilight Inquanok, but had little to add to what
the seamen of the galleon had
told. Then at last, after much unloading and loading,
the ship set sail once more over the sunset sea, and the high walls and
gables of Hlanith grew less as the last golden light of day lent them a
wonder and beauty beyond any that men had given them.
Two nights and two days the galleon sailed over the Cerenerian
Sea, sighting no land and speaking but one other vessel. Then near sunset
of the second day there loomed up ahead the snowy peak of Aran with its
gingko-trees swaying on the lower slope, and Carter knew that they were
come to the land of Ooth-Nargai and the marvellous city of Celephais. Swiftly
there came into
sight the glittering minarets of that fabulous town,
and the untarnished marble walls with their bronze statues, and the great
stone bridge where Naraxa joins the sea. Then rose the gentle hills behind
the town, with their groves and gardens of asphodels and the small shrines
and cottages upon them; and far in the background the purple ridge of the
Tanarians, potent and mystical,
behind which lay forbidden ways into the waking world
and toward other regions of dream.
The harbour was full of painted galleys, some of which
were from the marble cloud-city of Serannian, that lies in ethereal space
beyond where the sea meets the sky, and some of which were from more substantial
parts of dreamland. Among these the steersman threaded his way up to the
spice-fragrant wharves, where the galleon made fast in the dusk as the
city's million lights
began to twinkle out over the water. Ever new seemed
this deathless city of vision, for here time has no power to tarnish or
destroy. As it has always been is still the turquoise of Nath-Horthath,
and the eighty orchid-wreathed priests are the same who builded it ten
thousand years ago. Shining still is the bronze of the great gates, nor
are the onyx pavements ever worn or broken.
And the great bronze statues on the walls look down on
merchants and camel drivers older than fable, yet without one grey hair
in their forked beards.
Carter did not once seek out the temple or the palace
or the citadel, but stayed by the seaward wall among traders and sailors.
And when it was too late for rumours and legends he sought out an ancient
tavern he knew well, and rested with dreams of the gods on unknown Kadath
whom he sought. The next day he searched all along the quays for some of
the strange mariners of
Inquanok, but was told that none were now in port, their
galley not being due from the north for full two weeks. He found, however,
one Thorabonian sailor who had been to Inquanok and had worked in the onyx
quarries of that twilight place; and this sailor said there was certainly
a descent to the north of the peopled region, which everybody seemed to
fear and shun. The
Thorabonian opined that this desert led around the utmost
rim of impassable peaks into Leng's horrible plateau, and that this was
why men feared it; though he admitted there were other vague tales of evil
presences and nameless sentinels. Whether or not this could be the fabled
waste wherein unknown Kadath stands he did not know; but it seemed unlikely
that those presences and sentinels, if indeed they existed, were stationed
for nought.
