The thing that is neither god nor beast
Seeing that wisdom is not in cities nor happiness in wisdom, and because the prophet was doomed by the gods ere he was born to go in search of wisdom, he followed the caravans ... There in the evening, where the camels rest, when the wind of the day ebbs out into the desert sighing amid the palms its last farewells and leaving the caravans still, he sent his prayer with the wind to drift into the desert ...
And down the wind his prayer went calling: "Why do the gods endure, and play their game with men? Why doth not SKARL forsake his drumming, and HE-WHO-BEGINS cease to rest?" and the echo of seven deserts answered: "Who knows? Who knows?"
But out in the waste, beyond the seven deserts ... and from the rim of the waste whither had gone his prayer, came four ... and their voices said: ... at every stroke of their wings.
... the desert so blinding and hot that he stretched up his arms towards them. ... the four birds up in the sky, cool above the desert, and their voices cried before him: ... and the desert below him mumbled: "Who knows? Who knows?"
Sometimes ... them with peaks of mountains, sometimes it fell away in steep ravines, blue rivers sang to them as they passed above them, or very faintly came the song of breezes in lone orchards, and far away the sea sang mighty dirges of old forsaken isles ....
...
But when the prophet saw that they had passed above the edge of world, and that far away ... he perceived that he was following no mortal birds but some strange messengers ...
Still they went ... passing by all the Worlds and leaving them to ...
... and came to the Rim of the Worlds.
There there is neither South nor East nor West, but only chaos and Beyond; where lie the Worlds, and Beyond it where lies the Silence, and the Rim is a mass of rocks that were never used by the gods when They made the Worlds, and on it sat TRAGHOUL . TRAGHOUL is the Thing that is neither god nor beast, who neither howls nor breathes, only It turns over the leaves of a great book, black and white, black and white for ever until THE END.
And all that is to be is written in the book is also all that was.
When It turneth a black page it is night, and when It turneth a white page it is day.
Because it is written that there are gods - there are the gods.
Also there is writing about thee and me until the page where our names no more are written.
Then as the prophet watched It, TRAGHOUL turned a page—a black one, and night was over, and day shone on the Worlds.
TRAGHOUL is the Thing that men in many countries have called by many names, It is the Thing that sits behind the gods, whose book is the Scheme of Things.
But when the prophet saw that old remembered days were hidden away with the part that It had turned, and knew that upon one whose name is writ no more the last page had turned for ever a thousand pages back. Then did he utter his prayer in the fact of TRAGHOUL who only turns the pages and never answers prayer. He prayed in the face of TRAGHOUL: "Only turn back thy pages to the name of one which is writ no more, and far away upon my world shall rise the prayers of a people that acclaim the name of TRAGHOUL, for there is indeed far off a place ... where men shall pray to TRAGHOUL."
Then spake TRAGHOUL who turns the pages and never answers prayer, and his voice was like the murmurs of the waste at night when echoes have been lost: "Though the whirlwind of the cardinals that are the dragons should tug with their claws of eight and maw at a page that hath been turned yet shall he not be able to ever turn it back."
Then because of words in the book that said that it should be so, the prophet found himself lying in the desert where one gave him water, and afterwards ...
There some said that he had but dreamed when thirst seized him while he wandered among the rocks in the desert. But certain wise-men say that indeed there sitteth somewhere a Thing that is called TRAGHOUL, that is neither god nor beast, that turneth the leaves of a book, black and white, black and white, until he come to the words: Mal Doom Isahn, which means The End For Ever, and book and gods and worlds shall be no more.
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