by Lord Dunsany
IN ZACCARATH
"Come," said the King in sacred Zaccarath, "and let our prophets prophesybefore us."
A far-seen jewel of light was the holy palace, a wonder to the nomads onthe plains.
There was the King with all his underlords, and the lesser kings that didhim vassalage, and there were all his queens with all their jewels uponthem.
Who shall tell of the splendour in which they sat; of the thousand lightsand the answering emeralds; of the dangerous beauty of that hoard ofqueens, or the flash of their laden necks?
There was a necklace there of rose-pink pearls beyond the art of thedreamer to imagine. Who shall tell of the amethyst chandeliers, wheretorches, soaked in rare Bhyrinian oils, burned and gave off a scent ofblethany?
(This herb marvellous, which, growing near the summit of Mount Zaumnos,scents all the Zaumnian range, and is smelt far out on the Kepuscranplains, and even, when the wind is from the mountains, in the streets ofthe city of Ognoth. At night it closes its petals and is heard to breathe,and its breath is a swift poison. This it does even by day if the snowsare disturbed about it. No plant of this has ever been captured alive by ahunter.)
Enough to say that when the dawn came up it appeared by contrast pallidand unlovely and stripped bare of all its glory, so that it hid itselfwith rolling clouds.
"Come," said the King, "let our prophets prophesy."
Then the heralds stepped through the ranks of the King's silk-cladwarriors who lay oiled and scented upon velvet cloaks, with a pleasantbreeze among them caused by the fans of slaves; even their casting-spearswere set with jewels; through their ranks the heralds went with mincingsteps, and came to the prophets, clad in brown and black, and one of themthey brought and set him before the King. And the King looked at him andsaid, "Prophesy unto us."
And the prophet lifted his head, so that his beard came clear from hisbrown cloak, and the fans of the slaves that fanned the warriors waftedthe tip of it a little awry. And he spake to the King, and spake thus:
"Woe unto thee, King, and woe unto Zaccarath. Woe unto thee, and woe untothy women, for your fall shall be sore and soon. Already in Heaven thegods shun thy god: they know his doom and what is written of him: he seesoblivion before him like a mist. Thou hast aroused the hate of themountaineers. They hate thee all along the crags of Droom. The evilness ofthy days shall bring down the Zeedians on thee as the suns of springtidebring the avalanche down. They shall do unto Zaccarath as the avalanchedoth unto the hamlets of the valley." When the queens chattered ortittered among themselves, he merely raised his voice and still spake on:"Woe to these walls and the carven things upon them. The hunter shall knowthe camping-places of the nomads by the marks of the camp-fires on theplain, but he shall not know the place of Zaccarath."
A few of the recumbent warriors turned their heads to glance at theprophet when he ceased. Far overhead the echoes of his voice hummed onawhile among the cedarn rafters.
"Is he not splendid?" said the King. And many of that assembly beat withtheir palms upon the polished floor in token of applause. Then the prophetwas conducted back to his place at the far end of that mighty hall, andfor a while musicians played on marvellous curved horns, while drumsthrobbed behind them hidden in a recess. The musicians were sittingcrosslegged on the floor, all blowing their huge horns in the brillianttorchlight, but as the drums throbbed louder in the dark they arose andmoved slowly nearer to the King. Louder and louder drummed the drums inthe dark, and nearer and nearer moved the men with the horns, so thattheir music should not be drowned by the drums before it reached the King.
A marvellous scene it was when the tempestuous horns were halted beforethe King, and the drums in the dark were like the thunder of God; and thequeens were nodding their heads in time to the music, with their diademsflashing like heavens of falling stars; and the warriors lifted theirheads and shook, as they lifted them, the plumes of those golden birdswhich hunters wait for by the Liddian lakes, in a whole lifetime killingscarcely six, to make the crests that the warriors wore when they feastedin Zaccarath. Then the King shouted and the warriors sang--almost theyremembered then old battle-chants. And, as they sang, the sound of thedrums dwindled, and the musicians walked away backwards, and the drummingbecame fainter and fainter as they walked, and altogether ceased, and theyblew no more on their fantastic horns. Then the assemblage beat on thefloor with their palms. And afterwards the queens besought the King tosend for another prophet. And the heralds brought a singer, and placed himbefore the King; and the singer was a young man with a harp. And he sweptthe strings of it, and when there was silence he sang of the iniquity ofthe King. And he foretold the onrush of the Zeedians, and the fall and theforgetting of Zaccarath, and the coming again of the desert to its own,and the playing about of little lion cubs where the courts of the palacehad stood.
"Of what is he singing?" said a queen to a queen.
"He is singing of everlasting Zaccarath."
As the singer ceased the assemblage beat listlessly on the floor, and theKing nodded to him, and he departed.
When all the prophets had prophesied to them and all the singers sung,that royal company arose and went to other chambers, leaving the hall offestival to the pale and lonely dawn. And alone were left the lion-headedgods that were carven out of the walls; silent they stood, and their rockyarms were folded. And shadows over their faces moved like curious thoughtsas the torches flickered and the dull dawn crossed the fields. And thecolours began to change in the chandeliers.
When the last lutanist fell asleep the birds began to sing.
Never was greater splendour or a more famous hall. When the queens wentaway through the curtained door with all their diadems, it was as thoughthe stars should arise in their stations and troop together to the West atsunrise.
And only the other day I found a stone that had undoubtedly been a part ofZaccarath, it was three inches long and an inch broad; I saw the edge ofit uncovered by the sand. I believe that only three other pieces have beenfound like it.