by Edward Plunkett

“ The Bird of Doom and the End For at the last shall the thunder, fleeing to escape from the doom of the gods, roar horribly among the Worlds; and Time, the hound of the gods, shall bay hungrily at his masters because he is lean with age.
And from the innermost of Pegāna’s vales shall the bird of doom, Mosahn, whose voice is like the trumpet, soar upward with boisterous beatings of his wings above Pegāna’s mountains and the gods, and there with his trumpet voice acclaim the End. ”

“ Only the roses that in highest Pegāna have achieved their prime shall shed their petals in showers at thy feet, and only far away on the forgotten earth shall voices drift up to thee that cheered thee in thy childhood about the gardens of thy youth. And if thou sighest for any memory of earth because thou hearest unforgotten voices, then will the gods send messengers on wings to soothe thee in Pegāna, saying to them: “There one sigheth who hath remembered Earth.” ”

“ For ever on every wind float up to Pegāna the hopes and the fancies of the people which have no home in the Worlds, and there Yoharneth-Lahai weaves them into dreams, to take them to the people again. ”

“ And Roon said: “There are a thousand home gods, the little gods that sit before the hearth and mind the fire — there is one Roon.”
Roon saith in a whisper, in a whisper when none heareth, when the sun is low: “What doeth Māna-Yood-Sushāī?” Roon is no god that thou mayest worship by thy hearth, nor will he be benignant to thy home. ”

“ For a long while a man may hear the droning of little insects and yet not be aware that he hath heard them, so may the gods not hear our prayers at first until they have been very oft repeated. But when our praying has troubled the silence long it may be that some god as he strolls in Pegāna’s glades may come on one of our lost prayers, that flutters like a butterfly tossed in storm when all its wings are broken ”

“ The gods have set a brightness upon the farther side of the Things to Come that they may appear more felicitous to men than the Things that Are.
To the gods the Things to Come are but as the Things that Are, and nothing altereth in Pegāna.
The gods, although not merciful, are not ferocious gods. They are the destroyers of the Days that Were, but they set a glory about the Days to Be.
Man must endure the Days that Are, but the gods have left him his ignorance as a solace. ”

“ O High Prophet of All the gods save One, Priest of Kib, Priest of Sish, and Priest of Mung, Teller of the mysteries of Dorozhand, Receiver of the gifts of the People, and Lord of Prayer, for four long years hast thou prayed with the priests of all thine order, while we brought ye gifts and died. ”

“ There there is neither South nor East nor West, but only North and Beyond; there is only North of it where lie the Worlds, and Beyond it where lies the Silence, and the Rim is a mass of rocks that were never used by the gods when They made the Worlds, and on it sat Trogool. Trogool is the Thing that is neither god nor beast, who neither howls nor breathes, only It turns over the leaves of a great book, black and white, black and white for ever until the End. ”

“ Once did the prophet think that he discerned it in the distance beyond mountains, a garden exceeding fair with flowers; but Sish arose, and pointed with his hand, and set his hound to pursue him, who hath followed ever since.
Time is the hound of the gods; but it hath been said of old that he will one day turn upon his masters, and seek to slay the gods, excepting only Māna-Yood-Sushāī, whose dreams are the gods themselves — dreamed long ago. ”

“ It may accomplish where failed ten thousand thousand.
“Limpang-Tung is lesser than the gods, and doth not understand.”
And Limpang-Tung said: “Lest men grow weary down on the great Worlds through gazing always at a changeless sky I will paint my pictures in the sky. And I will paint them twice in every day for so long as days shall be. Once as the day ariseth out of the homes of dawn will I paint the Blue, that men may see and rejoice; and ere day falleth under into the night will I paint upon the Blue again, lest men be sad.” ”

“ Not any longer then shall the Tread of Mung darken the dreams of the People.
Not any longer shall the lives of the People be loosened because of Mung.
Bring ye gifts to the Priests, gifts to the Priests of Mung.
This is the chaunt of the Priests.
The chaunt of the Priests of Mung.
This is the chaunt of the Priests.
The Sayings of Limpang-Tung (The God of Mirth and of Melodious Minstrels) And Limpang-Tung said: “The ways of the gods are strange. The flower groweth up and the flower fadeth away. This may be very clever of the gods. Man groweth from his infancy, and in a while he dieth. ”

“ Men tell in Bodraháhn, where the caravans end and all the drivers of the camels rest, how once the gods hewed Rānorāda from the living hill, hammering all night long beyond the deserts. Moreover, they say that Rānorāda is carved in the likeness of the god Hoodrazai, who hath found the secret of Māna-Yood-Sushāī, and knoweth the wherefore of the making of the gods.
They say that Hoodrazai stands all alone in Pegāna and speaks to none because he knows what is hidden from the gods.
Therefore the gods have made his image in a lonely land as one who thinks and is silent — the eye in the waste. ”

“ And there shall music beyond thy dreaming come drifting through the scent of all the orchards in the Worlds, with somewhere someone singing an old song that shall be as a half-remembered thing. And there shall be gardens that have always sunlight, and streams that are lost in no sea beneath skies for ever blue. ”

“ Seek thou to find at night the utter edge of the darkness, or seek to find the birthplace of the rainbow where he leapeth upward from the hills, only seek not concerning the wherefore of the making of the gods. ”

“ But when there is light again upon the worlds, and dawn comes dancing down the highway from Pegāna, then does Triboogie retire into his corner, with his children all around him, as though they had never danced about the room. And the slaves of Habaniah and old Gribaun come and awake them from their sleep upon the hearth, and Pitsu strokes the cat, and Hobith calms the dog, and Kilooloogung stretches aloft his arms towards Pegāna, and Triboogie is very still, and his children asleep. ”

“ All they that be weary of the sound of cities and very tired of clamour creep down in the night-time to Yoharneth-Lahai’s ship, and going aboard it, among the dreams and the fancies of old time, lie down upon the deck, and pass from sleeping to the River, while Mung, behind them, makes the sign of Mung because they would have it so. ”

“ But old men tell, whose fathers heard it from the ancients, how once the lords of the three rivers of the plain rebelled against the law of the Worlds, and passed beyond their boundaries, and joined together and whelmed cities and slew men, saying: “We now play the game of the gods and slay men for our pleasure, and we be greater than the gods of Pegāna.” ”

“ Of the Thing That Is Neither God nor Beast Seeing that wisdom is not in cities nor happiness in wisdom, and because Yadin the prophet was doomed by the gods ere he was born to go in search of wisdom, he followed the caravans to Bodraháhn. There in the evening, where the camels rest, when the wind of the day ebbs out into the desert sighing amid the palms its last farewells and leaving the caravans still, he sent his prayer with the wind to drift into the desert calling to Hoodrazai.
And down the wind his prayer went calling: “Why do the gods endure, and play their game with men? ”

“ And Imbaun said: “The Sun ariseth and maketh a glory about all the things that he seeth, and drop by drop he turneth the common dew to every kind of gem. And he maketh a splendour in the hills.
“And also man is born. And there rests a glory about the gardens of his youth. Both travel afar to do what Dorozhand would have them do. ”

“ Or when the comet ceaseth from his seeking and stands still, not any longer moving among the Worlds but tarrying as one who rests after the end of search, then shall arise from resting, because it is the End, the Greater One, who rested of old time, even Māna-Yood-Sushāī. ”

“ There is also another way to the land of forgotten hills, which is a smooth road and a straight, that lies through the heart of the mountains. But for certain hidden reasons it were better for thee to go by the peaks and snow, even though thou shouldst perish by the way, than that thou shouldst seek to come to the home of Ood by the smooth, straight road. ”

“ Even I, Yonath, the olden prophet, burdened with the wisdom of great years, and worn with seeking, know only that man knoweth not.
Once I set out seeking to know all things. Now I know one thing only, and soon the Years will carry me away. ”

“ But through the mists towards morning, in the dark when the minstrels sleep and mirth and melody have sunk to rest, Limpang-Tung goeth back again to his mountain land.
Of Yoharneth-Lahai (The God of Little Dreams and Fancies) Yoharneth-Lahai is the god of little dreams and fancies.
All night he sendeth little dreams out of Pegāna to please the people of Earth.
He sendeth little dreams to the poor man and to The King.
He is so busy to send his dreams to all before the night be ended that oft he forgetteth which be the poor man and which be The King. ”

“ But in the fourth year of the pestilence and in the second year of the famine, and while still there was imminence of war, came all the people of Sidith to the door of the Temple of All the gods save One, where none may enter but the priests — but only leave gifts and go. ”