by Lord Dunsany
HOW THE GODS AVENGED MEOUL KI NING
Meoul Ki Ning was on his way with a lily from the lotus ponds of Eshto offer it to the Goddess of Abundance in her temple Aoul Keroon. Andon the road from the pond to the little hill and the temple AoulKeroon, Ap Ariph, his enemy, shot him with an arrow from a bow that hehad made out of bamboo, and took his pretty lily up the hill andoffered it to the Goddess of Abundance in her temple Aoul Keroon. Andthe Goddess was pleased with the gift, as all women are, and sentpleasant dreams to Ap Ariph for seven nights straight from the moon.
And on the seventh night the gods held conclave together, on thecloudy peaks they held it, above Narn, Ktoon, and Pti. So high theirpeak arises that no man heard their voices. They spake on that cloudymountain (not the highest hamlet heard them). "What doth the Goddessof Abundance," (but naming her Lling, as they name her), "what dothshe sending sweet dreams for seven nights to Ap Ariph?"
And the gods sent for their seer who is all eyes and feet, running toand fro on the Earth, observing the ways of men, seeing even theirlittlest doings, never deeming a doing too little, but knowing the webof the gods is woven of littlest things. He it is that sees the catin the garden of parakeets, the thief in the upper chamber, the sin ofthe child with the honey, the women talking indoors and the smallhut's innermost things. Standing before the gods he told them thecase of Ap Ariph and the wrongs of Meoul Ki Ning and the rape of thelotus lily; he told of the cutting and making of Ap Ariph's bamboobow, of the shooting of Meoul Ki Ning, and of how the arrow hit him,and the smile on the face of Lling when she came by the lotus bloom.
And the gods were wroth with Ap Ariph and swore to avenge Ki Ning.
And the ancient one of the gods, he that is older than Earth, calledup the thunder at once, and raised his arms and cried out on the gods'high windy mountain, and prophesied on those rocks with runes thatwere older than speech, and sang in his wrath old songs that he hadlearned in storm from the sea, when only that peak of the gods in thewhole of the earth was dry; and he swore that Ap Ariph should die thatnight, and the thunder raged about him, and the tears of Lling werevain.
The lightning stroke of the gods leaping earthward seeking Ap Ariphpassed near to his house but missed him. A certain vagabond was downfrom the hills, singing songs in the street near by the house of ApAriph, songs of a former folk that dwelt once, they say, in thosevalleys, and begging for rice and curds; it was him the lightning hit.
And the gods were satisfied, and their wrath abated, and their thunderrolled away and the great black clouds dissolved, and the ancient oneof the gods went back to his age-old sleep, and morning came, and thebirds and the light shone on the mountain, and the peak stood clear tosee, the serene home of the gods.