Into the granite
city of Teloth wandered the youth, vine-crowned, his yellow hair glistening
with myrrh and his purple robe torn with briers of the mountain Sidrak
that lies across the antique bridge of stone. The men of Teloth are
dark and stern, and dwell in square houses, and with frowns they asked
the stranger whence he had come and what were his name and fortune.
So the
youth answered: "I am Iranon,
and come from Aira, a far city that I recall only dimly but seek to find
again. I am a singer of songs that I learned in the far city, and
my calling is to make beauty with the things remembered of childhood.
My wealth is in little memories and dreams, and in hopes that I sing in
gardens when the moon is tender and the west wind stirs the
lotus-buds." When the men
of Teloth heard these things they whispered to one another; for though
in the granite city there is no laughter or song, the stern men sometimes
look to the Karthian hills in the spring and think of the lutes of distant
Oonai whereof travellers have told. And thinking thus, they bade
the stranger stay and sing in the square before the Tower of Mlin,
though they liked not the colour
of his tattered robe, nor the myrrh in his hair, nor his chaplet of vine-leaves,
nor the youth in his golden voice. At evening Iranon sang, and while
he sang an old man prayed and a blind man said he saw a nimbus over the
singer's head. But most of the men of Teloth yawned, and some laughed
and some went to sleep; for Iranon told nothing useful,
singing only his memories, his
dreams, and his hopes. "I remember the twilight, the moon,
and soft songs, and the window where I was rocked to sleep. And through
the window was the street where the golden lights came, and where the shadows
danced on houses of marble. I remember the square of moonlight on
the floor, that was not like any other light, and the visions
that danced on the moonbeams when
my mother sang to me. And too, I remember the sun of morning bright
above the many-coloured hills in summer, and the sweetness of flowers borne
on the south wind that made the trees sing.
"Oh Aira, city of marble and
beryl, how many are thy beauties! How I loved the warm and fragrant groves
across the hyline Nithra, and the falls of the tiny Kra that flowed though
the verdant valley! In those groves and in the vale the children wove wreathes
for one another, and at dusk I dreamed strange dreams under the yath-trees
on the mountain as I saw below me the
lights of the city, and the curving
Nithra reflecting a ribbon of stars. "And in the city were
the palaces of veined and tinted marble, with golden domes and painted
walls, and green gardens with cerulean pools and crystal fountains.
Often I played in the gardens and waded in the pools, and lay and dreamed
among the pale flowers under the trees. And sometimes at sunset i
would climb the long hilly street
to the citadel and the open place, and look down upon Aira, the magic city
of marble and beryl, splendid in a robe of golden flame. "Long
have I missed thee, Aira, for i was but young when we went into exile;
but my father was thy King and I shall come again to thee, for it is so
decreed of Fate. All through seven lands have I sought thee, and
some day shall I reign over thy
groves and gardens, thy streets and palaces, and sing to men who shall
know whereof I sing, and laugh not nor turn away. For I am Iranon,
who was a Prince in Aira."
That night the men of Teloth
lodged the stranger in a stable, and in the morning an archon came to him
and told him to go to the shop of Athok the cobbler, and be apprenticed
to him. "But I am Iranon, a singer of songs, " he said, "and
have no heart for the cobbler's trade."
"All in Teloth must toil,"
replied the archon, "for that is the law." Then said Iranon: "Wherefore
do ye toil; is it not that ye may live and be happy? And if ye toil only
that ye may toil more, when shall happiness find you? Ye toil to live,
but is not life made of beauty and song? And if ye suffer no singers among
you, where shall be the fruits of your toil? Toil without song is like
a weary journey without an end. Were not death more pleasing?" But
the archon was sullen and did not understand, and rebuked the stranger.
"Thou art a strange youth, and I like not thy face or thy voice.
The words thou speakest are blasphemy, for the gods of Teloth have said
that toil is good. Our gods have promised us a haven of light beyond
death, where shall be rest without end, and crystal coldness amidst which
none shall vex his mind with thought or his eyes with beauty. Go
thou then to Athok the cobbler or be gone out of the city by sunset.
All here must serve, and song is folly."
So Iranon went out of the
stable and walked over the narrow stone streets between the gloomy square
house of granite, seeking something green, for all was of stone.
On the faces of men were frowns, but by the stone embankment along the
sluggish river Zuro sat a young boy with sad eyes gazing into the waters
to spy green budding branches washed down from the hills by the freshets.
And the boy said to him: "Art thou not indeed he of whom the archons
tell, who seekest a far city in a fair land? I am Romnod, and borne of
the blood of Teloth, but am not olf in the ways of the granite city, and
yearn daily for the warm groves and the distant lands of beauty and song.
Beyond the Karthian hills lieth Oonai, the city of lutes and dancing, which
men whisper of and say is both lovely and terrible.Thither would I go were
I old enough to find the way, and thither shouldst thou go and thou wouldst
sing and have men listen to thee. Let us leave the city of Teloth
and fare together among the hills of spring. Thou shalt shew me the
ways of travel and I will attend thy songs at evening when the stars one
by one bring dreams to the minds of dreamers. And peradventure it
may be that Oonai the city of lutes and dancing is even the fair Aira thou
seekest, for it is told that thou hast not known Aira since the old days,
and a name often changeth. Let us go to Oonai, O Iranon of the golden
head, where men shall know our longings and welcome us as brothers, nor
even laugh or frown at what we say." And Iranon answered: "Be it
so, small one; if any in this stone place yearn for beauty he must seek
the mountains and beyond, and I would not leave thee to pine by the sluggish
Zuro. But think not that delight and understanding dwell just across
the Karthian hills, or in any spot thou canst find in a day's, or a year's,
or a lustrum's journey. Behold, when I was small like thee I dwelt
in the valley of Narthos by the frigid Xari, where none would listen to
my dreams; and I told myself that when older i would go to Sinara on the
southern slope, and sing to smiling dromedary-men in the marketplace.
But when I went to Sinara i found the dromedary-men all drunken and ribald,
and saw that their songs were not as mine, so I travelled in a barge down
the Xari to onyx-walled Jaren. And the soldiers at Jaren laughed
at me and drave me out, so that I wandered to many cities. I have
seen Stethelos that is below the great cataract, and have gazed on the
marsh where Sarnath once stood. I have been to thraa, Ilarnek, and
Kadatheron on the winding river Ai, and have dwelt long in Olathoe in the
land of Lomar. But though i have had listeners
sometimes, they have ever been
few. and I know that welcome shall wait me only in Aira, the city
of marble and beryl where my father once ruled as King. So for Aira
shall we seek, though it were well to visit distant and lute-blessed oonai
across the Karthianhills, which may indeed be Aira, though i think not.
Aira's beauty is past imagining, and none can tell of it without rapture,
whilist of Oonai the camel-drivers whisper leeringly." At the sunset
Iranon and small Romnod went forth from Teloth, and for long wandered amidst
the green hills and cool forests. The way was rough and obscure,
and never did they seem nearer to oonai the city of lutes and dancing;
but in the dusk as the stars came out Iranon would sing of Aira and its
beauties and Romnod would listen, so that they were both happy after a
fashion. They ate plentifully of fruit and red berries, and marked
not the passing of time, but many years must have slipped away. Small
Romnod was now not so small, and spoke deeply instead of shrilly, though
Iranon was always the same, and decked his golden hair with vines and fragrant
resins found in the woods. So it came to pass that Romnod seemed
older than Iranon, though he had been very small when Iranon had found
him watching for green budding branches in Teloth beside the sluggish stone-banked
Zuro.
Then one night when the moon
was full the travellers came to a mountain crest and looked down upon the
myriad light of Oonai. Peasants had told them they were near, and
Iranon knew that this was not his native city of Aira. The lights
of Oonai were not like those of Aira; for they were harsh and glaring,
while the lights of Aira shine as softly and magically as shone the
moonlight on the floor by the window
where Iranon's mother once rocked him to sleep with song. But Oonai
was a city of lutes and dancing, so Iranon and Romnod went down the steep
slope that they might find men to whom sings and dreams would bring pleasure.
And when they were come into the town they found rose-wreathed revellers
bound from house to house and leaning from windows and balconies, who listened
to the songs of Iranon and tossed him flowers and applauded when he was
done. Then for a moment did Iranon believe he had found those who
thought and felt even as he, though the town was not a hundredth as fair
as Aira.
When dawn came Iranon looked
about with dismay, for the domes of Oonai were not golden in the sun, but
grey and dismal. And the men of Oonai were pale with revelling, and
dull with wine, and unlike the radient men of Aira. But because the
people had thrown him blossoms and acclaimed his sings Iranon stayed on,
and with him Romnod, who liked the revelry of the
town and wore in his dark hair
roses and myrtle. Often at night Iranon sang to the revellers, but
he was always as before, crowned only in the vine of the mountains and
remembering the marble streets of Aira and the hyaline Nithra. In
the frescoed halls of the Monarch did he sing, upon a crystal dais raised
over a floor that was a mirror, and as he sang, he brought pictures to
his
hearers till the floor seemed to
reflect old, beautiful, and half-remembered things instead of the wine-reddened
feasters who pelted him with roses. And the King bade him put away
his tattered purple, and clothed him in satin and cloth-of-gold, with rings
of green jade and bracelets of tinted ivory, and lodged him in a gilded
and tapestried chamber on a bed of sweet carven wood
with canopies and coverlets of
flower-embroidered silk. Thus dwelt Iranon in Oonai, the city of
lutes and dancing. It is not known how long Iranon tarried
in Oonai, but one day the King brought to the palace some wild whirling
dancers from the Liranian desert, and dusky flute-players from Drinen in
the East, and after that the revellers threw their roses not so much at
Iranon as at the dancers and flute-players. And day by day that Romnod
who had been a small boy in granite Teloth grew coarser and redder with
wine, till he dreamed less and less, amd listened with less delight to
the songs of Iranon. But though Iranon was sad he ceased not to sing,
and at evening told again of his dreams of Aira, the city of marble and
beryl. Then one night the reddened and fattened Romnod snorted heavily
amidst the poppied silks of his banquet-couch and died writhing, whilst
Iranon, pale and slender, sang to himself in a far corner. And when
Iranon had wept over the grave of Romnod and strewn it with green branches,
such as Romnod used to love, he put aside his silks and gauds and went
forgotten out of Oonai the city of lutes and dancing clad only in the ragged
purple in which he had come, and garlanded with fresh vines from the mountains.
Into the sunset wandered Iranon, seeking still for his native land and
for men who would understand his songs and dreams. In all the cities
of Cydathria and in the lands beyond the Bnazie desert gay-faced children
laughed at his olden songs and tattered robe of purple; but Iranon stayed
ever young, and wore wreathes upon his golden head whilst he sang of Aira,
delight of the past and hope of the future. So came he one
night to the squallid cot of an antique shepherd, bent and dirty, who kept
flocks on a stony slope above a quicksand marsh. To this man Iranon
spoke, as to so many others:
"Canst thou tell me where
I may find Aira, the city of marble and beryl, where flows the hyaline
nithra and where the falls of the tiny Kra sing to the verdant valleys
and hills forested with yath trees?" and the shepherd, hearing, looked
long and strangely at Iranon, as if recalling something very far away in
time, and noted each line of the stranger's face, and his golden hair,
and his crown of vine-leaves.
But he was old, and shook his head as he replied: "O stranger, i
have indeed heard the name of Aira, and the other names thou hast spoken,
but they come to me from afar down the waste of long years.I heard them
in my youth from the lips of a playmate, a beggar's boy given to strange
dreams, who would weave long tales about the moon and the flowers and the
west wind. We used to laugh at him, for we knew him from his birth
though he thought himself a King's son. He was comely, even as thou,
but full of folly and strangeness; and he ranaway when small to find those
who would listen gladly to his songs and dreams. How often hath he
sung to me of lands that never were, and things that never can be! Of Aira
did he speak much; of Aira and the river Nithra, and the falls of the tiny
Kra. There would he ever say he once dwelt as a Prince, though here
we knew him from his birth.Nor was there ever a marble city of Aira, or
those who could delight in strange songs, save in the dreams of mine old
playmate Iranon who is gone."
And in the twilight, as the
stars came out one by one and the moon cast on the marsh a radiance like
that which a child sees quivering on the floor as he is rocked to sleep
at evening, there walked into the lethal quicksands a very old man in tattered
purple, crowned with whithered vine-leaves and gazing ahead as if upon
the golden domes of a fair city where dreams are
understood. That night something
of youth and beauty died in the elder world.
