In fact they were after Hero and Eldin, which was the one task in which they were doomed to failure before ever they began. In the end they came to the now riven door in the hillside, from which there sporadically issued great black clouds of smoke and deep bass rumblings, and beyond which they were unable to proceed. And even as they pondered at that door in their strange gaunt fashion, so the entire hill settled down upon itself and diminished a little in height, belching fire and a vile-smelling steam which signalled an end to whichever moonbeast wizardries it had contained. So that in the end, defeated in the one goal they had set themselves above all others, the gaunts had only sufficient strength to carry their own weary bodies to the deck of the very last ship of the fleet where it climbed into the sky.
Later, their heads hanging in more than mere exhaustion, they reported to Gytherik; and that was when the gaunt-master and Limnar Dass—ever hopeful against all hope, even to this last minute—knew that indeed their sorrow was upon them …
Some ninety minutes later, when Serannian and its escort fleets had already commenced to spiral up and across the sky on that ethereal Gulf Stream which washed between worlds, the moon gave a shudder and a lurch and began almost visibly to recede. Mnomquah had released his spell upon the satellite, which would now wander back to its previous orbit. Perhaps the moon-God had considered it unwise to remain in close proximity to a land whose dwellers could wreak so much havoc and doom his Great Plan to failure. This time they had been satisfied simply to replace the seal of the Elder Gods on his immemorial prison, but what if they should later decide that this was not punishment enough?
And so the moon gradually drew back, and Serannian and her victorious fleets sailed for home; and much later Limnar Dass and Gytherik Imniss were called to Kuranes’ great gothic manor-house to tell their tale and in return learn all that had transpired in the time since they left Ilek-Vad to set sail for Sarkomand. King Carter was there and Kuranes of course, and many other Lords and Admirals, Governors and Councillors and dignitaries; and when the pair had told their story, every one in the great hall rose as a man to applaud. By this time Ula and Una were revived if not consoled, and between bouts of uncontrollable sobbing Ham Gidduf’s twin daughters told their own tale of adventure and terrible loss on the surface of the moon and beneath the domed hill-temple of the moonbeast wizards.
When they were done there was a silence for a full three minutes before Kuranes and King Carter related their parts of the story; and while all of this proceeded chroniclers were perched everywhere with their quills and parchments, scribbling busily in the clean clear glyphs of dream.
Now Limnar and Gytherik learned of Kuranes’ decision to refit his and King Carter’s fleets with ray-projectors against whichever disasters loomed, and of how this work was completed with dispatch. And now it was explained how the inordinately bad weather which had covered the dreamlands, obscuring Mnomquah’s gold-oriented “view”, had not been accidental. The good priests of the Temple of the Elder Ones in Ulthar had uttered their droning prayers incessantly to the kinder gods of dream, asking and receiving their blessing and assistance in the matter of the unseasonal weather.
And still the moon had sailed closer, causing earthquakes, volcanoes and wildly exaggerated erratic tides, and eventually threatening to pull Serannian herself away from the dreamlands and into an orbit of her own. That was when Kuranes was smitten with his great idea, and in King Carter’s absence he had taken it upon himself to request Ilek-Vad’s fleet accompany his own upon a fantastic, unheard-of expedition: an attack directed against the very seat of the problem, the mad moon itself!
The sky-island was after all maneuverable to a degree (her horizontal vents were often used to move her from the path of great storms), and her mighty flotation engines were in concert more than capable of providing the required buoyancy and lift. Once in the Gulf Stream, the magnified pull of the moon itself would do the rest.
As to why Kuranes had brought his beloved aerial city to the moon: there were several reasons. The very sight of that great mass in any sky would be sufficient to panic the direst enemy, and of course her bays would resupply and provide safe harbor for the warships. But over and above all of this Serannian was to be a symbol to any who would seek to threaten the peace and security of the dreamlands, a sign that her peoples would stand as one against any such aggressor.
Thus his decision could not be utterly arbitrary, for too much and too many lives were at risk: the sky-island itself and every man, woman and child of its citizens. And yet when it had been put to the vote, no single voice was found raised in dissent. And so Serannian had come to the moon, bringing dreamland’s fleets with her, the results of which have been told.
And on the day prior to the commencement of that venture, then had Randolph Carter returned to the dreamlands from his Great Sleep and awakened in his palace in Ilek-Vad. He had sought for his friend Etienne-Laurent de Marigny in undreamed-of places, and had failed to find him. But he had found Elysia, the place of the Elder Gods themselves, and they had looked favorably upon his quest and had given him the great seal, those words of power which would return Mnomquah to the black lake at moon’s core. So the King had sailed his Royal Yacht to Serannian in time to join the expedition, and thus the thing was done and finished with—with one exception. At his earliest opportunity Randolph Carter must sail to Sarkomand and set the seal of the Elder Gods over Oorn in her pit, and then at last the dreamlands might rest easy.
While the meeting in the manor-house was in progress, outside in the courtyard Kuranes’ personal handpicked pikemen stood guard over Zura of Zura and Lathi of Thalarion. When all other business was attended to, then those fearsome females were brought in to hear Carter’s and Kuranes’ considered judgment on their crimes. Zura came first—alone, proud and haughty, dark and utterly alluring—and Lathi followed on behind, carried in her litter by eight hugely-muscled but otherwise vacant termen. There their sins were enumerated, and King Carter demanded to know their plea. Were they guilty or innocent of the charges brought against them?
“Guilt?” Lathi answered first. “My guilt is that of the hive-mother, who desires only that her children go forth and multiply and build their hives over all the land.”
As for Zura, her plea was this:
“I am Zura, Princess of Death, and I do what my fate decrees. Without life there would be no death, and without death who would strive in life? Just as you must do your duties, O King, be sure that I must do mine.”
“Such answers will not absolve you,” the King told them then, “for you took sides with our enemies to destroy all the lands of Earth’s dreams, above which no mortal sin could ever take precedence. You are abominations—!” And here he paused to seat himself once more beside Kuranes, for he had risen in momentary anger; and when finally he continued it was with a demeanour more fitting his high station.
“I have been informed, however, that in the end you repented and sided with the dreamlands, also that you fought bravely and without reckoning the cost. Very well, let us know pass sentence upon you. You are to be banished from the sane lands of dream forever, back to your own places of nightmare. And woe betide you if ever again you set foot outside those places, for then I shall see to it personally that you pay the ultimate penalty. There are places in the dreams of other worlds whose vileness even you could not imagine—to which I will gladly banish you if you break my ordinances! So be it …”
Later still, after the return of Serannian to her customary place amongst rose-tipped cloudbanks in that ethereal ocean formed of the west wind’s flowing into the sky, Limnar and Gytherik were on hand to say a final farewell to their old enemies. Lathi answered not at all, but merely sailed away with her termen in the tatty but still airworthy Chyrsalis. Zura, on the other hand, promised the two safe conduct if ever the winds of fate should once more blow them in the direction of the Charnel Gardens. And as she boarded that galley which would return her to Zura the land, so the pair saw in her eyes som
ething which they had never thought to see there. A flood of glistening tears!
“Why do you cry?” Gytherik asked in amazement.
“For Hero and Eldin,” she tearfully replied as the galley drew away from Serannian’s vertiginous wharves. “For that pair of fool questers, so horribly dead and lost forever on the moon.”
“You shed tears for them?” Limnar shook his head in disbelief. “Because they died?”
“Because they chose to do it on the moon, fool!” she answered with an angry toss of her head. “If they had done it here—then they would soon be with me in the Charnel Gardens !”
And leaving them speechless she sailed away.
CHAPTER X
Moontree
It had been a time of terror for Eeth in her half-sleep, a time of doubt and fear for her own future, that of her sisters and of the entire moonmoth race. For shortly after she had telepathically guided the questers arid their females to that deep cleft from which the girls had climbed on alone, there had been such rumblings and growlings from the heart of the domed hill that Eeth had believed the entire mound must soon cave in and bury her forever. Indeed, the tremors—particularly that great final tremor—had brought dust and stalactites and all down from the ceiling, so that Eeth had been sure that this was the end; after which had come the relief of a deep, deep peace and quiet.
And some time later, with the splitting of her cocoon sheath, Eeth had emerged from her metamorphosis a moonmoth maid of exceeding beauty. It was the time, too, for the hatching of her sisters, whose protective shells had remained miraculously preserved through all of the tremors and quakes, and five fine grubs they proved to be. When all of them had broken free of their shells, then Eeth led them in the time-honored tradition of the moonmoth first-born, through the mazy subterranean ways of the hill and up to the surface, and from there the mushroom forest where they feasted and grew fat.
It was as she flitted on veined translucent wings at the foot of that final shaft which led to the surface, urging the crawling brood on, that she saw the gray stone statues of Hero and Eldin and remembered them. They had been so full of life, these two, and now …
But of course there was nothing Eeth could do, it was not her problem. Indeed there was no problem, for they were lifeless now as the rock from which they seemed carved, and so there could be no hope of restitution. But later, when the caterpillar brood was done with feasting and went down again into the cave to fashion their cocoons, then Eeth alighted to approach the petrified questers more closely and press an elfin ear to the still chest of the once-handsome younger one. But now, there was nothing there, no sign of—
—A heartbeat?
And after long minutes—another!
And now in the stony minds of the pair Eeth discerned the feeblest mental stirring, thoughts that formed so slowly they never quite managed to convey any message. The magic of the moonbeasts had not been exerted to its full, so that not even now were the questers fully transformed. They yet lived—if such could be called life—but what could Eeth do about it?
Disturbed and unhappy, she left the hill and went in search of her life-mate, finding Aarl, a magnificent moonmoth youth not long out of his cocoon, just beyond the moon’s rim. And as they idled the time of their courtship away in flights of fancy across the canyons of the moon, often Eeth’s thoughts would turn to the questers where they lingered on in perpetual horror and gloom at the bottom of their pit; until the time came when Aarl read her thoughts and saw how they troubled her.
“Of course,” he said to her as they rested together in the shade of a lofty crag, “we could always take them to the moontree.”
“The moontree?” Eeth repeated him. “Do you think he could help?”
“He is a very old tree,” said Aarl, “and very wise. Also, he has great magic! Even the moonbeasts leave him in peace.”
“What king of magic?” she wanted to know.
Aarl gave the equivalent of a mental shrug. “My grandfather was a great friend of his. I can only tell you what he told me, that the moontree is a magic tree.”
“And you will help me take the dreamlings to him?”
Aarl was growing impatient with her. “Of course! In fact, we’ll do it now, if it will ease your mind. But I must protest that this is a strange sort of courtship, being bothered by matters such as these. Still, they did save your life, and so made mine worth living. This much we owe them.”
With that the two flew to the now silent domed hill beside the great lava lake, which still bubbled and vented steam in many places, entered into the half-hidden crevice in the hillside and fluttered down to the bottom of that shaft where the questers stood in stony silence, apparently lifeless. Not without a great deal of difficulty they lifted them, one at a time, out of their would-be tomb and over the moon’s rim to the place of the moontree.
This was a journey of several sleeps’ duration, of many halts and a great many hours of labored flight; but it was also Aarl’s chance to show off his splendid moonmoth physique and great strength to Eeth, and so he grumbled very little. And sharing the burden and growing close in their task, so eventually they delivered the questers to the moontree and propped them upright between his great roots, which stuck up like grotesque hands and feet from the powdery pumice ground.
Now the moontree was, as Aarl had stated, very old and very wise, and there was indeed a great magic in him. Not a magic such as moonbeast wizards might devise or employ, but one born of his very ancientness and wisdom—and of his lineage. For amongst his ancestors were some of the greatest and strangest trees ever known in this or any other universe. Gnarled he was and squat, and gray as the crumbly soil in which he grew; with thoughts languid and slow, as befits the very old, and a great taproot many times his own length which quietly and unceasingly drew upon the moon’s less loathsome juices. Gourds hung from his leafless branches, from which certain favored moonmoths might sip but which they must never steal, and his bark contained a poison fatal to all flesh except that of the gentle moonmoths.
He did not question the positioning of the petrified questers among his roots, nor even cause a twig to tremble in acknowledgment, but merely bade his visitors perch a while and talk of this and that and sip of his gourds; which offer, because they were tired and hungry, they gladly accepted. And so they chatted and kept company until all three dozed off. And because they knew he was a magic tree, Eeth and Aarl felt perfectly safe so to sleep amongst his gnarly branches …
Later, upon wakening, the moontree discovered his guests flown and remembered the stony figures between his roots. For a long time he simply pondered upon them and wondered who they had been. And, since the moonmoth pair had omitted to tell him, he wondered why he had been gifted such strange remnants in the first place. Tracing their contours with fibrous feeler roots, he asked them: “What are you called?” and translated their ponderously slow mental answers to read their names.
Now he pushed them down into soil at his feet and covered them with rootlets, trying his best to feel out something of their natures; and because he discovered them to be dreamlings and not of the moon, he sent a thought winging through the void to the heart of an enchanted wood in the Land of Earth’s dreams, to inquire of a relative there:
“Do you know anything of the dreamlings David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer?” And while he waited for an answer he asked the same question of a Great Tree in Thalarion’s hinterland, and of another which grew in the garden of one of dreamland’s mightiest and gentlest wizards; and between times he developed feeder rootlets with which to break down the stony stuff of the questers into manageable nutrients, which he then drank up into his gnarly trunk and branches until nothing at all was left of them. And in so doing he learned their innermost secrets, the very essence of their beings, and so fully discovered them.
Then the answers to his questions came winging back to his across the void, and in his slow methodical way he took note of the many legends engendered of these two. The Great Tree in
Thalarion’s hinterland had known them personally and loved them dearly; indeed, they had flown on his life-leaf to where it had taken root and was now a Great Tree in its own right in a certain wizard’s extensive gardens. And the moontree in the enchanted wood had inquired of the wood’s small brown zoogs, who knew tidbits of almost everything, and they too had had many favorable tales to tell of the questers.
And all in all it was just as the moon’s most ancient and wise tree had expected: the dreamlings had been good men whose loss could not be borne by any sane or ordered dreamland. The cosmos may be blind and impersonal, but in cases such as this it must be made to see that certain laws are flexible and certain alterations imperative.
And if a tree can nod and smile, then, as the moontree made his very wisest decision, it may safely be supposed that he smiled and nodded …
Epilogue
There are places on the banks of the Skai where it flows down from Ulthar to Dylath-Leen, which are oases in an otherwise veritable desert. Birdsong is sweet there, and the water runs deep, cool and quiet. When travelers rest in these places, they sleep deeply and dream wonderful dreams within dreams; so that all such places have acquired something of reputations and are sacred. No towns or villages are built there; no rude dwellings spoil Nature’s handiwork; only the songs of birds and crickets and the trickling of gentle waters break an ancient silence.