Suddenly someone said:
“He has been here too.”
And then they knew that while they searched for Time,
Time had gone forth against their city and leaguered
it with the years, and had taken it while they were
far away and enslaved their women and children with
the yoke of age. So all that remained of the three
armies of Karnith Zo settled in the conquered city.
And presently the men of Zeenar crossed over the river
Eidis and easily conquering an army of aged men took
all Alatta for themselves, and their kings reigned
thereafter in the city of Zoon. And sometimes
the men of Zeenar listened to the strange tales that
the old Alattans told of the years when they made battle
against Time. Such of these tales as the men
of Zeenar remembered they afterwards set forth, and
this is all that may be told of those adventurous
armies that went to war with Time to save the world
and the gods, and were overwhelmed by the hours and
the years.
The lame boy Sarnidac tended sheep on a hill to the
southward of the city. Sarnidac was a dwarf and
greatly derided in the city. For the women said:
“It is very funny that Sarnidac is a dwarf,”
and they would point their fingers at him saying:—“This
is Sarnidac, he is a dwarf; also he is very lame.”
Once the doors of all the temples in the world swung
open to the morning, and Sarnidac with his sheep upon
the hill saw strange figures going down the white
road, always southwards. All the morning he saw
the dust rising above the strange figures and always
they went southwards right as far as the rim of the
Nydoon hills where the white road could be seen no
more. And the figures stooped and seemed to be
larger than men, but all men seemed very large to Sarnidac,
and he could not see clearly through the dust.
And Sarnidac shouted to them, as he hailed all people
that passed down the long white road, and none of
the figures looked to left or right and none of them
turned to answer Sarnidac. But then few people
ever answered him because he was lame, and a small
dwarf.
Still the figures went striding swiftly, stooping
forward through the dust, till at last Sarnidac came
running down his hill to watch them closer. As
he came to the white road the last of the figures passed
him, and Sarnidac ran limping behind him down the road.
For Sarnidac was weary of the city wherein all derided
him, and when he saw these figures all hurrying away
he thought that they went perhaps to some other city
beyond the hills over which the sun shone brighter,
or where there was more food, for he was poor, even
perhaps where people had not the custom of laughing
at Sarnidac. So this procession of figures that
stooped and seemed larger than men went southward down
the road and a lame dwarf hobbled behind them.
Khamazan, now called the City of the Last of Temples,
lies southward of the Nydoon hills. This is the
story of Pompeides, now chief prophet of the only
temple in the world, and greatest of all the prophets
that have been:
