[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

was its lonely and impressive place on that far hill that it may have been a
temple or a monastery. Some phosphorescent fish inside it gave the small round
windows an aspect of shining, and Carter did not blame the sailors much for
their fears. Then by the watery moonlight he noticed an odd high monolith in
the middle of that central court, and saw that something was tied to it. And
when after getting a telescope from the captain's cabin he saw that that bound
thing was a sailor in the silk robes of Oriab, head downward and without any
eyes, he was glad that a rising breeze soon took the ship ahead to more
healthy parts of the sea.
The next day they spoke with a ship with violet sails bound for Zar, in the
land of forgotten dreams, with bulbs of strange coloured lilies for cargo. And
on the evening of the eleventh day they came in sight of the isle of Oriab
Page 13
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
with Ngranek rising jagged and snow-crowned in the distance. Oriab is a very
great isle, and
file:///F|/rah/H.%20P.%20Lovecraft/The%20Drea...known%20Kadath%20by%20H_%20P_%
20Lovecraft.txt (11 of 54) [5/21/03 1:12:52 AM]
file:///F|/rah/H.%20P.%20Lovecraft/The%20Dream%20Quest%20of%20Unknown%20Kadath
%20by%20H_%20P_%20Lovecraft.txt its port of Bahama a mighty city. The wharves
of Bahama are of porphyry, and the city rises in great stone terraces behind
them, having streets of steps that are frequently arched over by buildings and
the bridges between buildings. There is a great canal which goes under the
whole city in a tunnel with granite gates and leads to the inland lake of
Yath, on whose farther shore are the vast clay-brick ruins of a primal city
whose name is not remembered. As the ship drew into the harbour at evening the
twin beacons Thon and Thal gleamed a welcome, and in all the million windows
of Bahama's terraces mellow lights peeped out quietly and gradually as the
stars peep out overhead in the dusk, till that steep and climbing seaport
became a glittering constellation hung between the stars of heaven and the
reflections of those stars in the still harbour.
The captain, after landing, made Carter a guest in his own small house on the
shores of Yath where the rear of the town slopes down to it; and his wife and
servants brought strange toothsome foods for the traveller's delight. And in
the days after that Carter asked for rumours and legends of Ngranek in all the
taverns and public places where lava-gatherers and image-makers meet, but
could find no one who had been up the higher slopes or seen the carven face.
Ngranek was a hard mountain with only an accursed valley behind it, and
besides, one could never depend on the certainty that night-gaunts are
altogether fabulous.
When the captain sailed hack to Dylath-Leen Carter took quarters in an ancient
tavern opening on an alley of steps in the original part of the town, which is
built of brick and resembles the ruins of Yath's farther shore. Here he laid
his plans for the ascent of Ngranek, and correlated all that he had learned
from the lava-gatherers about the roads thither. The keeper of the tavern was
a very old man, and had heard so many legends that he was a great help. He
even took Carter to an upper room in that ancient house and shewed him a crude
picture which a traveller had scratched on the clay wall in the old days when
men were bolder and less reluctant to visit Ngranek's higher slopes. The old
tavern-keeper's great-grandfather had heard from his great-grandfather that
the traveller who scratched that picture had climbed Ngranek and seen the
carven face, here drawing it for others to behold, but Carter had very great
doubts, since the large rough features on the wall were hasty and careless,
and wholly overshadowed by a crowd of little companion shapes in the worst
possible taste, with horns and wings and claws and curling tails.
At last, having gained all the information he was likely to gain in the
taverns and public places of Baharna, Carter hired a zebra and set out one
morning on the road by Yath's shore for those inland parts wherein towers
stony Ngranek. On his right were rolling hills and pleasant orchards and neat
little stone farmhouses, and he was much reminded of those fertile fields that
flank the
Skai. By evening he was near the nameless ancient ruins on Yath's farther
shore, and though old lava-gatherers had warned him not to camp there at
night, he tethered his zebra to a curious pillar before a crumbling wall and
laid his blanket in a sheltered corner beneath some carvings whose meaning
none could decipher. Around him he wrapped another blanket, for the nights are
cold in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]