LordDunsanysPegana/Pegana
LordDunsanysPegana/OfHowImbaunmetZodrak -LordDunsanysPegana/TheSayingsofImbaun
Pegana
The prophet of the gods cried out to the gods: "O! All the
gods save One" (for none may pray to MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI),
"where shall the life of a man abide when Mung hath made
against his body the sign of Mung? -- for the people with
whom ye play have sought to know."
But the gods answered, speaking through the mist:
"Though thou shouldst tell thy secrets to the beasts,
even that the beasts should understand, yet will not the
gods divulge the secret of the gods to thee, that gods and
beasts and men shall be all the same, all knowing the same
things."
That night Yoharneth-Lahai came to Aradec, and said unto
Imbaun: "Wherefore wouldst thou know the secret of the gods
that not the gods may tell thee?
"When the wind blows not, where, then, is the wind?
"Or when thou art not living, where art thou?
"What should the wind care for the hours of calm or thou
for death?
"Thy life is long, Eternity is short.
"So short that, should thou die and Eternity should pass,
and after the passing of Eternity thou shouldst live again,
thou wouldst say: `I closed mine eyes but for an instant.'
"There is an Eternity behind thee as well as one before.
Hadst thou bewailed the aeons that passed without thee, who
are so much afraid of the aeons that shall pass?"
Then said the prophet: "How shall I tell the people that
the gods have not spoken and their prophet doth not know?
For then should I be prophet no longer, and another would
take the people's gifts instead of me."
Then said Imbaun to the people: "The gods have spoken,
saying: `O Imbaun, Our prophet, it is as the people believe,
whose wisdom hath discovered the secret of the gods, and the
people when they die shall come to Pegana, and there live
with the gods, and there have pleasure without toil. And
Pegana is a place all white with the peaks of mountains, on
each of them a god, and the people shall lie upon the slopes
of the mountains each under the god that he hath worshipped
most when his lot was in the Worlds. 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. And there shall be no rain nor no regrets. Only the
roses that in highest Pegana 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 Pegana, saying to
them: "There one sigheth who hath remembered Earth." And
they shall make Pegana more seductive for thee still, and
they shall take thee by the hand and whisper in thine ear
till the old voices are forgot.
"`And besides the flowers of Pegana there shall have
climbed by then until it hath reached to Pegana the rose
that clambered about the house where thou wast born.
Thither shall also come the wandering echoes of all such
music as charmed thee long ago.
"`Moreover, as thou sittest on the orchard lawns that
clothe Pegana's mountains, and as thou hearkenest to melody
that sways the souls of the gods, there shall stretch away
far down beneath thee the great unhappy Earth, till gazing
from rapture upon sorrows thou shalt be glad that thou wert
dead.
"`And from the three great mountains that stand aloof and
over all the others -- Grimbol, Zeebol, and Trehagobol --
shall blow the wind of the morning and the wind of the
evening and the wind of all the day, borne upon the wings of
all the butterflies that have died upon the Worlds, to cool
the gods and Pegana.
"`Far through Pegana a silvery fountain, lured upwards by
the gods from the Central Sea, shall fling its waters aloft,
and over the highest of Pegana's peaks, above Trehagobol,
shall burst into gleaming mists, to cover Highest Pegana,
and make a curtain about the resting-place of
MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
"`Alone, still and remote below the base of one of the
inner mountains, lieth a great blue pool.
"`Whoever looketh down into its waters may behold all his
life that was upon the Worlds and all the deeds that he hath
done.
"`None walk by the pool and none regard its depths, for
all in Pegana have suffered and all have sinned some sin,
and it lieth in the pool.
"`And there is no darkness in Pegana, for when night hath
conquered the sun and stilled the Worlds and turned the
white peaks of Pegana into grey then shine the blue eyes of
the gods like sunlight on the sea, where each god sits upon
his mountain.
"`And at the Last, upon some afternoon, perhaps in
summer, shall the gods say, speaking to the gods: "What is
the likeness of MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI and what THE END?"
"`And then shall MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI draw back with his hand
the mists that cover his resting, saying: "*This is the Face
of MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI and this THE END.*"'"
Then said the people to the prophet: "Shall not black
hills draw round in some forsaken land, to make a vale-wide
cauldron wherein the molten rock shall seethe and roar, and
where the crags of mountains shall be hurled upward to the
surface and bubble and go down again, that there our enemies
may boil for ever?"
And the prophet answered: "It is writ large about the
bases of Pegana's mountains, upon which sit the gods: `Thine
Enemies Are Forgiven.'"
