Time and the Gods

by Lord Dunsany

  MLIDEEN

  Upon an evening of the forgotten years the gods were seated upon MowrahNawut above Mlideen holding the avalanche in leash.

  All in the Middle City stood the Temples of the city's priests, andhither came all the people of Mlideen to bring them gifts, and there itwas the wont of the City's priests to carve them gods for Mlideen. Forin a room apart in the Temple of Eld in the midst of the temples thatstood in the Middle City of Mlideen there lay a book called the Book ofBeautiful Devices, writ in a language that no man may read and writlong ago, telling how a man may make for himself gods that shallneither rage nor seek revenge against a little people. And ever thepriests came forth from reading in the Book of Beautiful Devices andever they sought to make benignant gods, and all the gods that theymade were different from each other, only their eyes turned all uponMlideen.

  But upon Mowrah Nawut for all of the forgotten years the gods hadwaited and forborne until the people of Mlideen should have carven onehundred gods. Never came lightnings from Mowrah Nawut crashing uponMlideen, nor blight on harvests nor pestilence in the city, only uponMowrah Nawut the gods sat and smiled. The people of Mlideen had said:"Yoma is god." And the gods sat and smiled. And after the forgetting ofYoma and the passing of years the people had said: "Zungari is god."And the gods sat and smiled.

  Then on the altar of Zungari a priest had set a figure squat, carven inpurple agate, saying: "Yazun is god." Still the gods sat and smiled.

  About the feet of Yonu, Bazun, Nidish and Sundrao had gone the worshipof the people of Mlideen, and still the gods sat holding the avalanchein leash above the city.

  There set a great calm towards sunset over the heights, and MowrahNawut stood up still with gleaming snow, and into the hot city coolbreezes blew from his benignant slopes as Tarsi Zalo, high prophet ofMlideen, carved out of a great sapphire the city's hundredth god, andthen upon Mowrah Nawut the gods turned away saying: "One hundredinfamies have now been wrought." And they looked no longer upon Mlideenand held the avalanche no more in leash, and he leapt forward howling.

  Over the Middle City of Mlideen now lies a mass of rocks, and on therocks a new city is builded wherein people dwell who know not oldMlideen, and the gods are seated on Mowrah Nawut still. And in the newcity men worship carven gods, and the number of the gods that they havecarven is ninety and nine, and I, the prophet, have found a curiousstone and go to carve it into the likeness of a god for all Mlideen toworship.