H. P. Lovecraft - The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.pdf - H. P. Lovecraft - margozap

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The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath

by H. P. Lovecraft

Written Autumn? 1926-22 Jan 1927

Published in Beyond the Wall of Sleep, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1943, p.

76-134

Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvelous city, and three times was

he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it. All golden

and lovely it blazed in the sunset, with walls, temples, colonnades and arched

bridges of veined marble, silver-basined fountains of prismatic spray in broad

squares and perfumed gardens, and wide streets marching between delicate trees

and blossom-laden urns and ivory statues in gleaming rows; while on steep

northward slopes climbed tiers of red roofs and old peaked gables harbouring

little lanes of grassy cobbles. h was a fever of the gods, a fanfare of supernal

trumpets and a clash of immortal cymbals. Mystery hung about it as clouds about

a fabulous unvisited mountain; and as Carter stood breathless and expectant on

that balustraded parapet there swept up to him the poignancy and suspense of

almost-vanished memory, the pain of lost things and the maddening need to place

again what once had been an awesome and momentous place.

He knew that for him its meaning must once have been supreme; though in what

cycle or incarnation he had known it, or whether in dream or in waking, he could

not tell. Vaguely it called up glimpses of a far forgotten first youth, when

wonder and pleasure lay in all the mystery of days, and dawn and dusk alike

strode forth prophetic to the eager sound of lutes and song, unclosing fiery

gates toward further and surprising marvels. But each night as he stood on that

high marble terrace with the curious urns and carven rail and looked off over

that hushed sunset city of beauty and unearthly immanence he felt the bondage of

dream's tyrannous gods; for in no wise could he leave that lofty spot, or

descend the wide marmoreal fights flung endlessly down to where those streets of

elder witchery lay outspread and beckoning.

When for the third time he awakened with those flights still undescended and

those hushed sunset streets still untraversed, he prayed long and earnestly to

the hidden gods of dream that brood capricious above the clouds on unknown

Kadath, in the cold waste where no man treads. But the gods made no answer and

shewed no relenting, nor did they give any favouring sign when he prayed to them

in dream, and invoked them sacrificially through the bearded priests of Nasht

and Kaman-Thah, whose cavern-temple with its pillar of flame lies not far from

the gates of the waking world. It seemed, however, that his prayers must have

been adversely heard, for after even the first of them he ceased wholly to

behold the marvellous city; as if his three glimpses from afar had been mere

accidents or oversights, and against some hidden plan or wish of the gods.

At length, sick with longing for those glittering sunset streets and cryptical

hill lanes among ancient tiled roofs, nor able sleeping or waking to drive them

from his mind, Carter resolved to go with bold entreaty whither no man had gone

before, and dare the icy deserts through the dark to where unknown Kadath,

veiled in cloud and crowned with unimagined stars, holds secret and nocturnal

the onyx castle of the Great Ones.

In light slumber he descended the seventy steps to the cavern of flame and

talked of this design to the bearded priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah. And the

priests shook their pshent-bearing heads and vowed it would be the death of his

soul. They pointed out that the Great Ones had shown already their wish, and

that it is not agreeable to them to be harassed by insistent pleas. They

reminded him, too, that not only had no man ever been to Kadath, but no man had

ever suspected in what part of space it may lie; whether it be in the dreamlands

around our own world, or in those surrounding some unguessed companion of

Fomalhaut or Aldebaran. If in our dreamland, it might conceivably be reached,

but only three human souls since time began had ever crossed and recrossed the

black impious gulfs to other dreamlands, and of that three, two had come back

quite mad. There were, in such voyages, incalculable local dangers; as well as

that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered

universe, where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nethermost

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confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity - the

boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who

gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the

muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of

accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly,

awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic Ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless,

tenebrous, mindless Other gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos

Nyarlathotep.

Of these things was Carter warned by the priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah in the

cavern of flame, but still he resolved to find the gods on unknown Kadath in the

cold waste, wherever that might be, and to win from them the sight and

remembrance and shelter of the marvellous sunset city. He knew that his journey

would be strange and long, and that the Great Ones would be against it; but

being old in the land of dream he counted on many useful memories and devices to

aid him. So asking a formal blessing of the priests and thinking shrewdly on his

course, he boldly descended the seven hundred steps to the Gate of Deeper

Slumber and set out through the Enchanted Wood.

In the tunnels of that twisted wood, whose low prodigious oaks twine groping

boughs and shine dim with the phosphorescence of strange fungi, dwell the

furtive and secretive Zoogs; who know many obscure secrets of the dream world

and a few of the waking world, since the wood at two places touches the lands of

men, though it would be disastrous to say where. Certain unexplained rumours,

events, and vanishments occur among men where the Zoogs have access, and it is

well that they cannot travel far outside the world of dreams. But over the

nearer parts of the dream world they pass freely, flitting small and brown and

unseen and bearing back piquant tales to beguile the hours around their hearths

in the forest they love. Most of them live in burrows, but some inhabit the

trunks of the great trees; and although they live mostly on fungi it is muttered

that they have also a slight taste for meat, either physical or spiritual, for

certainly many dreamers have entered that wood who have not come out. Carter,

however, had no fear; for he was an old dreamer and had learnt their fluttering

language and made many a treaty with them; having found through their help the

splendid city of Celephais in Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills, where

reigns half the year the great King Kuranes, a man he had known by another name

in life. Kuranes was the one soul who had been to the star-gulls and returned

free from madness.

Threading now the low phosphorescent aisles between those gigantic trunks,

Carter made fluttering sounds in the manner of the Zoogs, and listened now and

then for responses. He remembered one particular village of the creatures was in

the centre of the wood, where a circle of great mossy stones in what was once a

cleaning tells of older and more terrible dwellers long forgotten, and toward

this spot he hastened. He traced his way by the grotesque fungi, which always

seem better nourished as one approaches the dread circle where elder beings

danced and sacrificed. Finally the great light of those thicker fungi revealed a

sinister green and grey vastness pushing up through the roof of the forest and

out of sight. This was the nearest of the great ring of stones, and Carter knew

he was close to the Zoog village. Renewing his fluttering sound, he waited

patiently; and was at last rewarded by an impression of many eyes watching him.

It was the Zoogs, for one sees their weird eyes long before one can discern

their small, slippery brown outlines.

Out they swarmed, from hidden burrow and honeycombed tree, till the whole

dim-litten region was alive with them. Some of the wilder ones brushed Carter

unpleasantly, and one even nipped loathsomely at his ear; but these lawless

spirits were soon restrained by their elders. The Council of Sages, recognizing

the visitor, offered a gourd of fermented sap from a haunted tree unlike the

others, which had grown from a seed dropt down by someone on the moon; and as

Carter drank it ceremoniously a very strange colloquy began. The Zoogs did not,

unfortunately, know where the peak of Kadath lies, nor could they even say

whether the cold waste is in our dream world or in another. Rumours of the Great

Ones came equally from all points; and one might only say that they were

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likelier to be seen on high mountain peaks than in valleys, since on such peaks

they dance reminiscently when the moon is above and the clouds beneath.

Then one very ancient Zoog recalled a thing unheard-of by the others; and said

that in Ulthar, beyond the River Skai, there still lingered the last copy of

those inconceivably old Pnakotic Manuscripts made by waking men in forgotten

boreal kingdoms and borne into the land of dreams when the hairy cannibal

Gnophkehs overcame many-templed Olathoe and slew all the heroes of the land of

Lomar. Those manuscripts 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

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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; for although Earth's

gods may sometimes be surpassed by a wise mortal, they are protected by the

Other Gods from Outside, whom it is better not to discuss. At least twice in the

world's history the Other Gods set their seal upon Earth's primal granite; once

in antediluvian times, as guessed from a drawing in those parts of the Pnakotic

Manuscripts too ancient to be read, and once on Hatheg-Kia when Barzai the Wise

tried to see Earth's gods dancing by moonlight. So, Atal said, it would be much

better to let all gods alone except in tactful prayers.

Carter, though disappointed by Atal's discouraging advice and by the meagre help

to be found in the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan,

did not wholly despair. First he questioned the old priest about that marvellous

sunset city seen from the railed terrace, thinking that perhaps he might find it

without the gods' aid; but Atal could tell him nothing. Probably, Atal said, the

place belonged to his especial dream world and not to the general land of vision

that many know; and conceivably it might be on another planet. In that case

Earth's gods could not guide him if they would. But this was not likely, since

the stopping of the dreams shewed pretty clearly that it was something the Great

Ones wished to hide from him.

Then Carter did a wicked thing, offering his guileless host so many draughts of

the moon-wine which the Zoogs had given him that the old man became

irresponsibly talkative. Robbed of his reserve, poor Atal babbled freely of

forbidden things; telling of a great image reported by travellers as carved on

the solid rock of the mountain Ngranek, on the isle of Oriab in the Southern

Sea, and hinting that it may be a likeness which Earth's gods once wrought of

their own features in the days when they danced by moonlight on that mountain.

And he hiccoughed likewise that the features of that image are very strange, so

that one might easily recognize them, and that they are sure signs of the

authentic race of the gods.

Now the use of all this in finding the gods became at once apparent to Carter.

It is known that in disguise the younger among the Great Ones often espouse the

daughters of men, so that around the borders of the cold waste wherein stands

Kadath the peasants must all bear their blood. This being so, the way to find

that waste must be to see the stone face on Ngranek and mark the features; then,

having noted them with care, to search for such features among living men. Where

they are plainest and thickest, there must the gods dwell nearest; and whatever

stony waste lies back of the villages in that place must be that wherein stands

Kadath.

Much of the Great Ones might be learnt in such regions, and those with their

blood might inherit little memories very useful to a seeker. They might not know

their parentage, for the gods so dislike to be known among men that none can be

found who has seen their faces wittingly; a thing which Carter realized even as

he sought to scale Kadath. But they would have queer lofty thoughts

misunderstood by their fellows, and would sing of far places and gardens so

unlike any known even in the dreamland that common folk would call them fools;

and from all this one could perhaps learn old secrets of Kadath, or gain hints

of the marvellous sunset city which the gods held secret. And more, one might in

certain cases seize some well-loved child of a god as hostage; or even capture

some young god himself, disguised and dwelling amongst men with a comely peasant

maiden as his bride.

Atal, however, did not know how to find Ngranek on its isle of Oriab; and

recommended that Carter follow the singing Skai under its bridges down to the

Southern Sea; where no burgess of Ulthar has ever been, but whence the merchants

come in boats or with long caravans of mules and two-wheeled carts. There is a

great city there, Dylath-Leen, but in Ulthar its reputation is bad because of

the black three-banked galleys that sail to it with rubies from no clearly named

shore. The traders that come from those galleys to deal with the jewellers are

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human, or nearly so, but the rowers are never beheld; and it is not thought

wholesome in Ulthar that merchants should trade with black ships from unknown

places whose rowers cannot be exhibited.

By the time he had given this information Atal was very drowsy, and Carter laid

him gently on a couch of inlaid ebony and gathered his long beard decorously on

his chest. As he turned 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

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