The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath | Page 5

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 while the merchants traded,