"He went one day into the desert and brought up life out of the waste
places, and made it cry bitterly and covered it with the desert again."

And another said:

"I too saw him once seated in the garden of a child tearing the
flowers, and afterwards he went away through many woodlands and stooped
down as he went, and picked the leaves one by one from the trees."

And another said:

"I saw him once by moonlight standing tall and black amidst the ruins
of a shrine in the old kingdom of Amarna, doing a deed by night. And he
wore a look on his face such as murderers wear as he busied himself to
cover over something with weeds and dust. Thereafter in Amarna the
people of that old Kingdom missed their god, in whose shrine I saw Time
crouching in the night, and they have not since beheld him."

And all the while from the distance at the city's edge rose a hum from
the three armies of the King clamouring to be led against Zeenar.
Thereat the King went down to his three armies and speaking to their
chiefs said:

"I will not go down clad with murder to be King over other lands. I
have seen the same morning arising on Istahn that also gladdened
Alatta, and have heard Peace lowing among the flowers. I will not
desolate homes to rule over an orphaned land and a land widowed. But I
will lead you against the pledged enemy of Alatta who shall crumble the
towers of Zoon and hath gone far to overthrow our gods. He is the foe