The Other Gods

The Other Gods
H. P. Lovecraft
1933
Atop the tallest of earth's peaks dwell the gods of earth, and suffer not man to tell that he
hath looked upon them. Lesser peaks they once inhabited; but ever the men from the
plains would scale the slopes of rock and snow, driving the gods to higher and higher
mountains till now only the last remains. When they left their old peaks they took with
them all signs of themselves, save once, it is said, when they left a carven image on the
face of the mountain which they called Ngranek.
But now they have betaken themselves to unknown Kadath in the cold waste where no
man treads, and are grown stern, having no higher peak whereto to flee at the coming of
men. They are grown stern, and where once they suffered men to displace them, they now
forbid men to come; or coming, to depart. It is well for men that they know not of Kadath
in the cold waste; else they would seek injudiciously to scale it.
Sometimes when earth's gods are homesick they visit in the still of the night the peaks
where once they dwelt, and weep softly as they try to play in the olden way on
remembered slopes. Men have felt the tears of the gods on white-capped Thurai, though
they have thought it rain; and have heard the sighs of the gods in the plaintive
dawn-winds of Lerion. In cloud-ships the gods are wont to travel, and wise cotters have
legends that keep them from certain high peaks at night when it is cloudy, for the gods
are not lenient as of old.
In Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, once dwelt an old man avid to behold the
gods of earth; a man deeply learned in the seven cryptical books of earth, and familiar
with the Pnakotic Manuscripts of distant and frozen Lomar. His name was Barzai the
Wise, and the villagers tell of how he went up a mountain on the night of the strange
eclipse.
Barzai knew so much of the gods that he could tell of their comings and goings, and
guessed so many of their secrets that he was deemed half a god himself. It was he who
wisely advised the burgesses of Ulthar when they passed their remarkable law against the
slaying of cats, and who first told the young priest Atal where it is that black cats go at
midnight on St. John's Eve. Barzai was learned in the lore of the earth's gods, and had
gained a desire to look upon their faces. He believed that his great secret knowledge of
gods could shield him from their wrath, so resolved to go up to the summit of high and
rocky Hatheg-Kla on a night when he knew the gods would be there.
Hatheg-Kla is far in the stony desert beyond Hatheg, for which it is named, and rises like
a rock statue in a silent temple. Around its peak the mists play always mournfully, for
mists are the memories of the gods, and the gods loved Hatheg-Kla when they dwelt upon

it in the old days. Often the gods of earth visit Hatheg-Kla in their ships of clouds, casting
pale vapors over the slopes as they dance reminiscently on the summit under a clear
moon. The villagers of Hatheg say it is ill to climb the Hatheg-Kla at any time, and
deadly to climb it by night when pale vapors hide the summit and the moon; but Barzai
heeded them not when he came from neighboring Ulthar with the young priest Atal, who
was his disciple. Atal was only the son of an innkeeper, and was sometimes afraid; but
Barzai's father had been a landgrave who dwelt in an ancient castle, so he had no
common superstition in his blood, and only laughed at the fearful cotters.
Banzai and Atal went out of Hatheg into the stony desert despite the prayers of peasants,
and talked of earth's gods by their campfires at night. Many days they traveled, and from
afar saw lofty Hatheg-Kla with his aureole of mournful mist. On the thirteenth day they
reached the mountain's lonely base, and Atal spoke of his fears. But Barzai was old and
learned and had no fears, so led the way up the slope that no man had scaled since the
time of Sansu, who is written of with fright in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts.
The way was rocky, and made perilous by chasms, cliffs, and falling stones. Later it grew
cold and snowy; and Barzai and Atal often slipped and fell as they hewed and plodded
upward with staves and axes. Finally the air grew thin, and the sky changed color, and the
climbers found it hard