The Book of Wonder | Page 2

centaurs'
race, the Athraminaurian mountains, I do not know. Yet in the blood of
man there is a tide, an old sea-current, rather, that is somehow akin to
the twilight, which brings him rumours of beauty from however far
away, as driftwood is found at sea from islands not yet discovered; and
this springtide of current that visits the blood of man comes from the
fabulous quarter of his lineage, from the legendary, of old; it takes him
out to the woodlands, out to the hills; he listens to ancient song. So it
may be that Shepperalk's fabulous blood stirred in those lonely
mountains away at the edge of the world to rumours that only the airy
twilight knew and only confided secretly to the bat, for Shepperalk was
more legendary even than man. Certain it was that he headed from the
first for the city Zretazoola, where Sombelenë in her temple dwelt;
though all the mundane plain, its rivers and mountains, lay between
Shepperalk's home and the city he sought.
When first the feet of the centaur touched the grass of that soft alluvial
earth he blew for joy upon the silver horn, he pranced and caracoled, he
gambolled over the leagues; pace came to him like a maiden with a
lamp, a new and beautiful wonder; the wind laughed as it passed him.
He put his head down low to the scent of the flower, he lifted it up to be
nearer the unseen stars, he revelled through kingdoms, took rivers in
his stride; how shall I tell you, ye that dwell in cities, how shall I tell
you what he felt as he galloped? He felt for strength like the towers of
Bel-Narana; for lightness like those gossamer palaces that the
fairy-spider builds 'twixt heaven and sea along the coasts of Zith; for
swiftness like some bird racing up from the morning to sing in some

city's spires before daylight comes. He was the sworn companion of the
wind. For joy he was as a song; the lightnings of his legendary sires,
the earlier gods, began to mix with his blood; his hooves thundered. He
came to the cities of men, and all men trembled, for they remembered
the ancient mythical wars, and now they dreaded new battles and feared
for the race of man. Not by Clio are these wars recorded; history does
not know them, but what of that? Not all of us have sat at historians'
feet, but all have learned fable and myth at their mothers' knees. And
there were none that did not fear strange wars when they saw
Shepperalk swerve and leap along the public ways. So he passed from
city to city.
By night he lay down unpanting in the reeds of some marsh or forest;
before dawn he rose triumphant, and hugely drank of some river in the
dark, and splashing out of it would trot to some high place to find the
sunrise, and to send echoing eastwards the exultant greetings of his
jubilant horn. And lo! the sunrise coming up from the echoes, and the
plains new-lit by the day, and the leagues spinning by like water flung
from a top, and that gay companion, the loudly laughing wind, and men
and the fears of men and their little cities; and, after that, great rivers
and waste spaces and huge new hills, and then new lands beyond them,
and more cities of men, and always the old companion, the glorious
wind. Kingdom by kingdom slipt by, and still his breath was even. "It is
a golden thing to gallop on good turf in one's youth," said the young
man-horse, the centaur. "Ha, ha," said the wind of the hills, and the
winds of the plain answered.
Bells pealed in frantic towers, wise men consulted parchments,
astrologers sought of the portent from the stars, the aged made subtle
prophecies. "Is he not swift?" said the young. "How glad he is," said the
children.
Night after night brought him sleep, and day after day lit his gallop, till
he came to the lands of the Athalonian men who live by the edges of
the mundane plain, and from them he came to the lands of legend again
such as those in which he was cradled on the other side of the world,
and which fringe the marge of the world and mix with the twilight. And

there a mighty thought came into his untired heart, for he knew that he
neared Zretazoola now, the city of Sombelenë.
It was late in the day when he neared it, and clouds coloured with
evening rolled low on the plain before him; he galloped on into their
golden mist, and when it hid from his eyes the sight of things, the
dreams in his