Current Shareware 1994 January/SHAR194.ISO/textfile/dunsany1.zip/THLUNR.TXT

Text File | 1993-02-16 | 4KB | 80 lines

                        How the Enemy
                      Came to Thlunrana

                       by Lord Dunsany


It had been prophesied of old and foreseen from the ancient
days that its enemy would come to Thlunrana.  And the date
of its doom was known and the gate by which it would enter,
yet none had prophesied of the enemy who he was save that he
was of the gods though he dwelt with men.  Meanwhile
Thlunrana, that secret lamaserai, that chief cathedral of
wizardry, was the terror of the valley in which it stood and
of all lands round about it.  So narrow and high were the
windows and so strange when lighted at night that they
seemed to regard men with the demoniac leer of something
that had a secret in the dark.  Who were the magicians and
the deputy-magicians and the great arch-wizard of that
furtive place nobody knew, for they went veiled in black and
hooded and cloaked completely in black.
   Though her doom was close upon her and the enemy of
prophecy should come that very night through the open,
southward door that was named the Gate of the Doom, yet that
rocky edifice Thlunrana remained mysterious still,
venerable, terrible, dark, and dreadfully crowned with her
doom.  It was not often that anyone dared wander near to
Thlunrana by night when the moan of the magicians invoking
we know not Whom rose faintly from inner chambers, scaring
the drifting bats: but on the last night of all the man from
the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees came,
because he would see Thlunrana once again before the enemy
that was divine, but dwelt with men, should come against it
and it should be no more.  Up the dark valley he went like a
bold man; but his fears were thick upon him; his bravery
bore their weight but stooped a little beneath them.  He
went in at the southward gate that is named the Gate of
Doom.  He came into a dark hall, and up a marble stairway
passed to see the last of Thlunrana.  At the top a curtain
of black velvet hung and he passed into a chamber heavily
hung with curtains, with a gloom in it that was blacker than
anything they could account for.  In a sombre chamber
beyond, seen through a vacant archway, magicians with
lighted tapers plied their wizardry and whispered
incantations.  All the rats in the place were passing away,
going whimpering down the stairway.  The man from the
black-thatched cottage passed through that second chamber:
the magicians did not look at him and did not cease to
whisper.  He passed from them through heavy curtains still
of black velvet and came into a chamber of black marble
where nothing stirred.  Only one taper burned in the third
chamber; there were no windows.  On the smooth floor and
underneath the smooth wall a silk pavilion stood with its
curtains drawn close together: this was the holy of holies
of that ominous place, its inner mystery.  One on each side
of it dark figures crouched, either of men or women or
cloaked stone, or of beasts trained to be silent.  When the
awful stillness of the mystery was more than he could bear
the man from the black-thatched cottage by the five
pine-trees went up to the silk pavilion, and with a bold and
nervous clutch of the hand drew one of the curtains aside,
and saw the inner mystery, and laughed.  And the prophecy
was fulfilled, and Thlunrana was never more a terror to the
valley, but the magicians passed away from their terrific
halls and fled through the open fields wailing and beating
their breasts, for laughter was the enemy that was doomed to
come against Thlunrana through her southward gate (that was
named the Gate of Doom), and it is of the gods but dwells
with man.