THE EYE IN THE WASTE


There lie seven deserts beyond Bodrahan, which is the city of the
caravans' end. None goeth beyond. In the first desert lie the
tracks of mighty travellers outward from Bodrahan, and some
returning. And in the second lie only outward tracks, and none
return.

The third is a desert untrodden by the feet of men.

The fourth is the desert of sand, and the fifth is the desert of
dust, and the sixth is the desert of stones, and the seventh is
the Desert of Deserts.

In the midst of the last of the deserts that lie beyond Bodrahan,
in the centre of the Desert of Deserts, standeth the image that
hath been hewn of old out of the living hill whose name is
Ranorada--the eye in the waste.

About the base of Ranorada is carved in mystic letters that are
vaster than the beds of streams these words:

To the god who knows.

Now, beyond the second desert are no tracks, and there is no water
in all the seven deserts that lie beyond Bodrahan. Therefore came
no man thither to hew that statue from the living hills, and
Ranorada was wrought by the hands of gods. Men tell in Bodrahan,