LordDunsanysPegana/TheRiver
LordDunsanysPegana/OfOod -LordDunsanysPegana/TheBirdofDoomandtheEnd
The River
There arises a river in Pegana that is neither a river of
water nor yet a river of fire, and it flows through the
skies and the Worlds to the Rim of the Worlds, -- a river of
silence. Through all the Worlds are sounds, the noises of
moving, and the echoes of voices and song; but upon the
River is no sound ever heard, for there all echoes die.
The River arises out of the drumming of Skarl, and flows
for ever between banks of thunder, until it comes to the
waste beyond the Worlds, behind the farthest star, down to
the Sea of Silence.
I lay in the desert beyond all cities and sounds, and
above me flowed the River of Silence through the sky; and on
the desert's edge night fought against the Sun, and suddenly
conquered.
Then on the River I saw the dream-built ship of the God
Yoharneth-Lahai, whose great prow lifted grey into the air
above the River of Silence.
Her timbers were olden dreams dreamed long ago, and
poets' fancies made her tall, straight masts, and her
rigging was wrought out of the people's hopes.
Upon her deck were rowers with dream-made oars, and the
rowers were the people of men's fancies, and princes of old
story and people who had died, and people who had never
been.
These swung forward and swung back to row Yoharneth-Lahai
through the Worlds with never a sound of rowing. For ever
on every wind float up to Pegana 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 every night in his dream-built ship Yoharneth-Lahai
setteth forth, with all his dreams on board, to take again
their old hopes back to the people and all forgotten
fancies.
But ere the day comes back to her own again, and all the
conquering armies of the dawn hurl their red lances in the
face of night, Yoharneth-Lahai leaves the sleeping Worlds,
and rows back up the River of Silence, that flows from
Pegana into the Sea of Silence that lies beyond the Worlds.
And the name of the River is Imrana, the River of
Silence. 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, 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. And, lying there upon the deck among their own
remembered fancies, and songs that were never sung, they
drift up Imrana ere the dawn, where the sound of the cities
comes not, nor the voice of the thunder is heard, nor the
midnight howl of Pain as he gnaws at the bodies of men, and
far away and forgotten bleat the small sorrows that trouble
all the Worlds.
But where the River flows through Pegana's gates, between
the great twin constellations Yum and Gothum, where Yum
stands sentinel upon the left and Gothum upon the right,
there sits Sirami, the lord of All Forgetting. And, when
the ship draws near, Sirami looketh with his sapphire eyes
into the faces and beyond them of those that were weary of
cities, and as he gazes, as one that looketh before him
remembering naught, he gently waves his hands. And amid the
waving of Sirami's hands there fall from all that behold him
all their memories, save certain things that may not be
forgot even beyond the Worlds.
It hath been said that when Skarl ceases to drum, and
MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI awakes, and the gods of Pegana know that it
is THE END, then the gods will enter galleons of gold, and
with dream-born rowers glide down Imrana (who knows whither
or why?) till they come where the River enters the Silent
Sea, and shall there be gods of nothing, where nothing is,
and never a sound shall come. And far away upon the River's
banks shall bay their old hound Time, that shall seek to
rend his masters; while MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall think some
other plan concerning gods and worlds.
