The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath | Page 3

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;