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The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft Written Autumn? 1926-22
Jan 1927 Published in Beyond the Wall of Sleep, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House,
1943, p. 76-134 Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvelous city,
and three times was he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace
above it. All golden and lovely it blazed in the sunset, with walls, temples,
colonnades and arched bridges of veined marble, silver-basined fountains of
prismatic spray in broad squares and perfumed gardens, and wide streets
marching between delicate trees and blossom-laden urns and ivory statues in
gleaming rows; while on steep northward slopes climbed tiers of red roofs and
old peaked gables harbouring little lanes of grassy cobbles. h was a fever of
the gods, a fanfare of supernal trumpets and a clash of immortal cymbals.
Mystery hung about it as clouds about a fabulous unvisited mountain; and as
Carter stood breathless and expectant on that balustraded parapet there swept
up to him the poignancy and suspense of almost-vanished memory, the pain of
lost things and the maddening need to place again what once had been an
awesome and momentous place. He knew that for him its meaning must once have
been supreme; though in what cycle or incarnation he had known it, or whether
in dream or in waking, he could not tell. Vaguely it called up glimpses of a
far forgotten first youth, when wonder and pleasure lay in all the mystery of
days, and dawn and dusk alike strode forth prophetic to the eager sound of
lutes and song, unclosing fiery gates toward further and surprising marvels.
But each night as he stood on that high marble terrace with the curious urns
and carven rail and looked off over that hushed sunset city of beauty and
unearthly immanence he felt the bondage of dream's tyrannous gods; for in no
wise could he leave that lofty spot, or descend the wide marmoreal fights
flung endlessly down to where those streets of elder witchery lay outspread
and beckoning. When for the third time he awakened with those flights still
undescended and those hushed sunset streets still untraversed, he prayed long
and earnestly to the hidden gods of dream that brood capricious above the
clouds on unknown Kadath, in the cold waste where no man treads. But the gods
made no answer and shewed no relenting, nor did they give any favouring sign
when he prayed to them in dream, and invoked them sacrificially through the
bearded priests of Nasht and Kaman-Thah, whose cavern-temple with its pillar
of flame lies not far from the gates of the waking world. It seemed, however,
that his prayers must have been adversely heard, for after even the first of
them he ceased wholly to behold the marvellous city; as if his three glimpses
from afar had been mere accidents or oversights, and against some hidden plan
or wish of the gods. At length, sick with longing for those glittering sunset
streets and cryptical hill lanes among ancient tiled roofs, nor able sleeping
or waking to drive them from his mind, Carter resolved to go with bold
entreaty whither no man had gone before, and dare the icy deserts through the
dark to where unknown Kadath, veiled in cloud and crowned with unimagined
stars, holds secret and nocturnal the onyx castle of the Great Ones. In light
slumber he descended the seventy steps to the cavern of flame and talked of
this design to the bearded priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah. And the priests shook
their pshent-bearing heads and vowed it would be the death of his soul. They
pointed out that the Great Ones had shown already their wish, and that it is
not agreeable to them to be harassed by insistent pleas. They reminded him,
too, that not only had no man ever been to Kadath, but no man had ever
suspected in what part of space it may lie; whether it be in the dreamlands
around our own world, or in those surrounding some unguessed companion of
Fomalhaut or Aldebaran. If in our dreamland, it might conceivably be reached,
but only three human souls since time began had ever crossed and recrossed the
black impious gulfs to other dreamlands, and of that three, two had come back
quite mad. There were, in such voyages, incalculable local dangers; as well as
that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered
universe, where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nethermost
confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity - the
boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who
gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the
muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of
accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly,
awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic Ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless,
tenebrous, mindless Other gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos
Nyarlathotep. Of these things was Carter warned by the priests Nasht and
Kaman-Thah in the cavern of flame, but still he resolved to find the gods on
unknown Kadath in the cold waste, wherever that might be, and to win from them
the sight and remembrance and shelter of the marvellous sunset city. He knew
that his journey would be strange and long, and that the Great Ones would be
against it; but being old in the land of dream he counted on many useful
memories and devices to aid him. So asking a formal blessing of the priests
and thinking shrewdly on his course, he boldly descended the seven hundred
steps to the Gate of Deeper Slumber and set out through the Enchanted
Wood. In the tunnels of that twisted wood, whose low prodigious oaks twine
groping boughs and shine dim with the phosphorescence of strange fungi, dwell
the furtive and secretive Zoogs; who know many obscure secrets of the dream
world and a few of the waking world, since the wood at two places touches the
lands of men, though it would be disastrous to say where. Certain unexplained
rumours, events, and vanishments occur among men where the Zoogs have access,
and it is well that they cannot travel far outside the world of dreams. But
over the nearer parts of the dream world they pass freely, flitting small and
brown and unseen and bearing back piquant tales to beguile the hours around
their hearths in the forest they love. Most of them live in burrows, but some
inhabit the trunks of the great trees; and although they live mostly on fungi
it is muttered that they have also a slight taste for meat, either physical or
spiritual, for certainly many dreamers have entered that wood who have not
come out. Carter, however, had no fear; for he was an old dreamer and had
learnt their fluttering language and made many a treaty with them; having
found through their help the splendid city of Celephais in Ooth-Nargai beyond
the Tanarian Hills, where reigns half the year the great King Kuranes, a man
he had known by another name in life. Kuranes was the one soul who had been to
the star-gulls and returned free from madness. Threading now the low
phosphorescent aisles between those gigantic trunks, Carter made fluttering
sounds in the manner of the Zoogs, and listened now and then for responses. He
remembered one particular village of the creatures was in the centre of the
wood, where a circle of great mossy stones in what was once a cleaning tells
of older and more terrible dwellers long forgotten, and toward this spot he
hastened. He traced his way by the grotesque fungi, which always seem better
nourished as one approaches the dread circle where elder beings danced and
sacrificed. Finally the great light of those thicker fungi revealed a sinister
green and grey vastness pushing up through the roof of the forest and out of
sight. This was the nearest of the great ring of stones, and Carter knew he
was close to the Zoog village. Renewing his fluttering sound, he waited
patiently; and was at last rewarded by an impression of many eyes watching
him. It was the Zoogs, for one sees their weird eyes long before one can
discern their small, slippery brown outlines. Out they swarmed, from hidden
burrow and honeycombed tree, till the whole dim-litten region was alive with
them. Some of the wilder ones brushed Carter unpleasantly, and one even nipped
loathsomely at his ear; but these lawless spirits were soon restrained by
their elders. The Council of Sages, recognizing the visitor, offered a gourd
of fermented sap from a haunted tree unlike the others, which had grown from a
seed dropt down by someone on the moon; and as Carter drank it ceremoniously a
very strange colloquy began. The Zoogs did not, unfortunately, know where the
peak of Kadath lies, nor could they even say whether the cold waste is in our
dream world or in another. Rumours of the Great Ones came equally from all
points; and one might only say that they were likelier to be seen on high
mountain peaks than in valleys, since on such peaks they dance reminiscently
when the moon is above and the clouds beneath. Then one very ancient Zoog
recalled a thing unheard-of by the others; and said that in Ulthar, beyond the
River Skai, there still lingered the last copy of those inconceivably old
Pnakotic Manuscripts made by waking men in forgotten boreal kingdoms and borne
into the land of dreams when the hairy cannibal Gnophkehs overcame
many-templed Olathoe and slew all the heroes of the land of Lomar. Those
manuscripts he said, told much of the gods, and besides, in Ulthar there were
men who had seen the signs of the gods, and even one old priest who had scaled
a great mountain to behold them dancing by moonlight. He had failed, though
his companion had succeeded and perished namelessly. So Randolph Carter
thanked the Zoogs, who fluttered amicably and gave him another gourd of
moon-tree wine to take with him, and set out through the phosphorescent wood
for the other side, where the rushing Skai flows down from the slopes of
Lerion, and Hatheg and Nir and Ulthar dot the plain. Behind him, furtive and
unseen, crept several of the curious Zoogs; for they wished to learn what
might befall him, and bear back the legend to their people. The vast oaks grew
thicker as he pushed on beyond the village, and he looked sharply for a
certain spot where they would thin somewhat, standing quite dead or dying
among the unnaturally dense fungi and the rotting mould and mushy logs of
their fallen brothers. There he would turn sharply aside, for at that spot a
mighty slab of stone rests on the forest floor; and those who have dared
approach it say that it bears an iron ring three feet wide. Remembering the
archaic circle of great mossy rocks, and what it was possibly set up for, the
Zoogs do not pause near that expansive slab with its huge ring; for they
realise that all which is forgotten need not necessarily be dead, and they
would not like to see the slab rise slowly and deliberately. Carter detoured
at the proper place, and heard behind him the frightened fluttering of some of
the more timid Zoogs. He had known they would follow him, so he was not
disturbed; for one grows accustomed to the anomalies of these prying
creatures. It was twilight when he came to the edge of the wood, and the
strengthening glow told him it was the twilight of morning. Over fertile
plains rolling down to the Skai he saw the smoke of cottage chimneys, and on
every hand were the hedges and ploughed fields and thatched roofs of a
peaceful land. Once he stopped at a farmhouse well for a cup of water, and all
the dogs barked affrightedly at the inconspicuous Zoogs that crept through the
grass behind. At another house, where people were stirring, he asked questions
about the gods, and whether they danced often upon Lerion; but the farmer and
his wile would only make the Elder Sign and tell him the way to Nir and
Ulthar. At noon he walked through the one broad high street of Nir, which he
had once visited and which marked his farthest former travels in this
direction; and soon afterward he came to the great stone bridge across the
Skai, into whose central piece the masons had sealed a living human sacrifice
when they built it thirteen-hundred years before. Once on the other side, the
frequent presence of cats (who all arched their backs at the trailing Zoogs)
revealed the near neighborhood of Ulthar; for in Ulthar, according to an
ancient and significant law, no man may kill a cat. Very pleasant were the
suburbs of Ulthar, with their little green cottages and neatly fenced farms;
and still pleasanter was the quaint town itself, with its old peaked roofs and
overhanging upper stories and numberless chimney-pots and narrow hill streets
where one can see old cobbles whenever the graceful cats afford space enough.
Carter, the cats being somewhat dispersed by the half-seen Zoogs, picked his
way directly to the modest Temple of the Elder Ones where the priests and old
records were said to be; and once within that venerable circular tower of
ivied stone - which crowns Ulthar's highest hill - he sought out the patriarch
Atal, who had been up the forbidden peak Hatheg-Kia in the stony desert and
had come down again alive. Atal, seated on an ivory dais in a festooned
shrine at the top of the temple, was fully three centuries old; but still very
keen of mind and memory. From him Carter learned many things about the gods,
but mainly that they are indeed only Earth's gods, ruling feebly our own
dreamland and having no power or habitation elsewhere. They might, Atal said,
heed a man's prayer if in good humour; but one must not think of climbing to
their onyx stronghold atop Kadath in the cold waste. It was lucky that no man
knew where Kadath towers, for the fruits of ascending it would be very grave.
Atal's companion Banni the Wise had been drawn screaming into the sky for
climbing merely the known peak of Hatheg-Kia. With unknown Kadath, if ever
found, matters would be much worse; for although Earth's gods may sometimes be
surpassed by a wise mortal, they are protected by the Other Gods from Outside,
whom it is better not to discuss. At least twice in the world's history the
Other Gods set their seal upon Earth's primal granite; once in antediluvian
times, as guessed from a drawing in those parts of the Pnakotic Manuscripts
too ancient to be read, and once on Hatheg-Kia when Barzai the Wise tried to
see Earth's gods dancing by moonlight. So, Atal said, it would be much better
to let all gods alone except in tactful prayers. Carter, though disappointed
by Atal's discouraging advice and by the meagre help to be found in the
Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, did not wholly
despair. First he questioned the old priest about that marvellous sunset city
seen from the railed terrace, thinking that perhaps he might find it without
the gods' aid; but Atal could tell him nothing. Probably, Atal said, the place
belonged to his especial dream world and not to the general land of vision
that many know; and conceivably it might be on another planet. In that case
Earth's gods could not guide him if they would. But this was not likely, since
the stopping of the dreams shewed pretty clearly that it was something the
Great Ones wished to hide from him. Then Carter did a wicked thing, offering
his guileless host so many draughts of the moon-wine which the Zoogs had given
him that the old man became irresponsibly talkative. Robbed of his reserve,
poor Atal babbled freely of forbidden things; telling of a great image
reported by travellers as carved on the solid rock of the mountain Ngranek, on
the isle of Oriab in the Southern Sea, and hinting that it may be a likeness
which Earth's gods once wrought of their own features in the days when they
danced by moonlight on that mountain. And he hiccoughed likewise that the
features of that image are very strange, so that one might easily recognize
them, and that they are sure signs of the authentic race of the gods. Now the
use of all this in finding the gods became at once apparent to Carter. It is
known that in disguise the younger among the Great Ones often espouse the
daughters of men, so that around the borders of the cold waste wherein stands
Kadath the peasants must all bear their blood. This being so, the way to find
that waste must be to see the stone face on Ngranek and mark the features;
then, having noted them with care, to search for such features among living
men. Where they are plainest and thickest, there must the gods dwell nearest;
and whatever stony waste lies back of the villages in that place must be that
wherein stands Kadath. Much of the Great Ones might be learnt in such
regions, and those with their blood might inherit little memories very useful
to a seeker. They might not know their parentage, for the gods so dislike to
be known among men that none can be found who has seen their faces wittingly;
a thing which Carter realized even as he sought to scale Kadath. But they
would have queer lofty thoughts misunderstood by their fellows, and would sing
of far places and gardens so unlike any known even in the dreamland that
common folk would call them fools; and from all this one could perhaps learn
old secrets of Kadath, or gain hints of the marvellous sunset city which the
gods held secret. And more, one might in certain cases seize some well-loved
child of a god as hostage; or even capture some young god himself, disguised
and dwelling amongst men with a comely peasant maiden as his bride. Atal,
however, did not know how to find Ngranek on its isle of Oriab; and
recommended that Carter follow the singing Skai under its bridges down to the
Southern Sea; where no burgess of Ulthar has ever been, but whence the
merchants come in boats or with long caravans of mules and two-wheeled carts.
There is a great city there, Dylath-Leen, but in Ulthar its reputation is bad
because of the black three-banked galleys that sail to it with rubies from no
clearly named shore. The traders that come from those galleys to deal with the
jewellers are human, or nearly so, but the rowers are never beheld; and it is
not thought wholesome in Ulthar that merchants should trade with black ships
from unknown places whose rowers cannot be exhibited. By the time he had
given this information Atal was very drowsy, and Carter laid him gently on a
couch of inlaid ebony and gathered his long beard decorously on his chest. As
he turned to go, he observed that no suppressed fluttering followed him, and
wondered why the Zoogs had become so lax in their curious pursuit. Then he
noticed all the sleek complacent cats of Ulthar licking their chops with
unusual gusto, and recalled the spitting and caterwauling he had faintly
heard, in lower parts of the temple while absorbed in the old priest's
conversation. He recalled, too, the evilly hungry way in which an especially
impudent young Zoog had regarded a small black kitten in the cobbled street
outside. And because he loved nothing on earth more than small black kittens,
he stooped and petted the sleek cats of Ulthar as they licked their chops, and
did not mourn because those inquisitive Zoogs would escort him no farther. It
was sunset now, so Carter stopped at an ancient inn on a steep little street
overlooking the lower town. And as he went out on the balcony of his room and
gazed down at the sea of red tiled roofs and cobbled ways and the pleasant
fields beyond, all mellow and magical in the slanted light, he swore that
Ulthar would be a very likely place to dwell in always, were not the memory of
a greater sunset city ever goading one onward toward unknown perils. Then
twilight fell, and the pink walls of the plastered gables turned violet and
mystic, and little yellow lights floated up one by one from old lattice
windows. And sweet bells pealed in. the temple tower above, and the first star
winked softly above the meadows across the Skai. With the night came song, and
Carter nodded as the lutanists praised ancient days from beyond the filigreed
balconies and tesselated courts of simple Ulthar. And there might have been
sweetness even in the voices of Ulthar's many cats, but that they were mostly
heavy and silent from strange feasting. Some of them stole off to those
cryptical realms which are known only to cats and which villagers say are on
the moon's dark side, whither the cats leap from tall housetops, but one small
black kitten crept upstairs and sprang in Carter's lap to purr and play, and
curled up near his feet when he lay down at last on the little couch whose
pillows were stuffed with fragrant, drowsy herbs. In the morning Carter
joined a caravan of merchants bound for Dylath-Leen with the spun wool of
Ulthar and the cabbages of Ulthar's busy farms. And for six days they rode
with tinkling bells on the smooth road beside the Skai; stopping some nights
at the inns of little quaint fishing towns, and on other nights camping under
the stars while snatches of boatmen's songs came from the placid river. The
country was very beautiful, with green hedges and groves and picturesque
peaked cottages and octagonal windmills. On the seventh day a blur of smoke
rose on the horizon ahead, and then the tall black towers of Dylath-Leen,
which is built mostly of basalt. Dylath-Leen with its thin angular towers
looks in the distance like a bit of the Giant's Causeway, and its streets are
dark and uninviting. There are many dismal sea-taverns near the myriad
wharves, and all the town is thronged with the strange seamen of every land on
earth and of a few which are said to be not on earth. Carter questioned the
oddly robed men of that city about the peak of Ngranek on the isle of Oriab,
and found that they knew of it well. Ships came from Baharna on that island,
one being due to return thither in only a month, and Ngranek is but two days'
zebra-ride from that port. But few had seen the stone face of the god, because
it is on a very difficult side of Ngranek, which overlooks only sheer crags
and a valley of sinister lava. Once the gods were angered with men on that
side, and spoke of the matter to the Other Gods. It was hard to get this
information from the traders and sailors in Dylath-Leen's sea taverns, because
they mostly preferred to whisper of the black galleys. One of them was due in
a week with rubies from its unknown shore, and the townsfolk dreaded to see it
dock. The mouths of the men who came from it to trade were too wide, and the
way their turbans were humped up in two points above their foreheads was in
especially bad taste. And their shoes were the shortest and queerest ever seen
in the Six Kingdoms. But worst of all was the matter of the unseen rowers.
Those three banks of oars moved too briskly and accurately and vigorously to
be comfortable, and it was not right for a ship to stay in port for weeks
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