make my armies mighty thou shalt stand between that morrow and the cave
of Kai, and haply some deed of mine and the battling of my armies shall
cling to thy golden harp and not go down dishonoured into the cave. For
my to-morrow, who with such resounding stride goes trampling through my
dreams, is far too kingly to herd with forgotten days in the dust of
things that were. But on some future day, when Kings are dead and all
their deeds forgotten, some harper of that time shall come and from those
golden strings awake those deeds that echo in my dreams, till my to-morrow
shall stride forth among the lesser days and tell the years that Khanazar
was a King."

And answered the harper:

"I will stand sentinel over thy great to-morrow, and when thou goest
forth to conquer Ziman-ho and make thine armies mighty I will stand
between thy morrow and the cave of Kai, till thy deeds and the battling
of thine armies shall cling to my golden harp and not go down
dishonoured into the cave. So that when Kings are dead and all their
deeds forgotten the harpers of the future time shall awake from these
golden chords those deeds of thine. This will I do."

Men of these days, that be skilled upon the harp, tell still of
Khanazar, how that he was King of Averon and of the mountains, and
claimed lordship of certain lands beyond, and how he went with armies
against Ziman-ho and fought great battles, and in the last gained
victory and was slain. But Kai, as he waited with his claws to gather
in the last days of Khanazar that they might loom enormous in his cave,
still found them not, and only gathered in some meaner deeds and the
days and hours of lesser men, and was vexed by the shadow of a harper
that stood between him and the world.