“And there lies the granite-walled city of Hlanith, on the shores of the Cerenerian Sea. _Its_ wharves are of oak, its houses peaked and gabled. . . .
“There, the perfumed jungle of Kled,” she went on, “where lost, ivory palaces sleep undisturbed, once home to monarchs of a forgotten kingdom.
“. . . And up the Oukranos River from the Cerenerian Sea slope the jasper terraces of Kiran, where the king of Ilek-Vad comes once a year in a golden palanquin, to pray to the god of the river in the seven-towered temple whence music drifts whenever moonlight falls upon it.”
We moved steadily closer as she spoke, drifting now over vast regions, brown, yellow, green. . . .
“. . . Bahama is eleven days sailing from Dylath-Leen, most important port on the island of Oriab, the great lighthouses Thon and Thal at its harbor’s gate, quays all of porphyry. There is its canal to Lake Yath, of the ruined city. It flows through a tunnel with granite doors. The hill-people ride zebras. . . . Westward lies the Valley of Pnoth, amid the peaks of Throk. There the slimy _dholes_ burrow among the mountains of bones, cast refuse of ghouls from centuries of their feasting. . . . That peak to the south is Ngranek, two days’ ride on zebraback from Bahama, if one would brave the _night-gaunts_. Those who dare Ngranek’s slopes will come at last to a vast face carved there, with long-lobed ears and pointed nose and chin. It does not appear to be happy.
“. . . And back to the northern land, fine Ulthar lies near the River Shai, beyond a great stone bridge in whose arch a living man was sealed when it was built, thirteen hundred years ago. It is a city of neat cottages and cobbled streets where wander cats without number, for the enlightened legislators of long ago laid down laws for our protection. A good, kind village, where travelers take their ease and pet the cats, making much of them, which is as it should be.
“. . . And there is Urg of the low domes, a stop on the way to Inquanok, frequented by onyx miners. . . .
“. . . And Inquanok itself, terrible place near the waste of Leng, its houses like palaces with pointed domes and minarets, pyramids, gold walls black with scrolls and swirling with inlays of gold, fluted, arched, capped with gold. Its streets are of onyx, and when the great bell sounds it is answered by the music of horns and viols and chanting voices. High up its central hill lies the massive temple of the Elder Ones, surrounded by its seven-gated garden of pillars, fountains, pools wherein luminous fish sport themselves and reflections of tripods from the temple balcony shimmer and dance. The temple itself bears a great belfry atop its flattened dome, and when the bell sounds masked and hooded priests emerge, bearing steaming bowls to lodges beneath the ground. The Veiled King’s palace rises on a nearby hill. He rides forth through bronze gates in a yak-drawn chariot. Beware the father of Shantak-birds who dwells in the temple’s dome. Stare too long and he sends you nightmares. Avoid fair Inquanok. No cat may dwell there, for many of its shadows are poison to our kind.
“. . . And there is Sarkomand, beyond the Leng Plateau. One mounts salt-covered steps to its basalt walls and docks, temples and squares, column-lined streets, to the place where the sphinx-mounted gates open to its central plaza and two monumental winged lions guard the top of the stairwell leading to the Great Abyss.”
We drifted even lower now, and it was as if I could hear the winds that blow between the worlds as she continued her litany of Dreamworld geography.
“. . . On the way to Kadath we cross the terrible wasteland of Leng, where, in the great windowless monastery surrounded by monoliths, dwells the High Priest of Dreamworld, his face hidden by a yellow silk mask. His building is older than history, bearing frescoes of the story of Leng; barely human creatures dance amid gone cities, the war with the purple spiders, the landing of the black galleys from the moon. . . .