pray chaunting all together and calling upon MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI
that MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI would then awake, for surely he would hear
the prayers of his own prophet--then would there be Worlds no more.

There is also another way to the land of forgotten hills, which is
a smooth road and a straight, that lies through the heart of the
mountains. But for certain hidden reasons it were better for thee
to go by the peaks and snow, even though thou shouldst perish by
the way, that thou shouldst seek to come to the house of Ood by
the smooth, straight road.



THE RIVER


There arises a river in Pegana that is neither a river of water
nor yet a river of fire, and it flows through the skies and the
Worlds to the Rim of the Worlds, a river of silence. Through all
the Worlds are sounds, the noises of moving, and the echoes of
voices and song; but upon the River is no sound ever heard, for
there all echoes die.

The River arises out of the drumming of Skarl, and flows for ever
between banks of thunder, until it comes to the waste beyond the
Worlds, behind the farthest star, down to the Sea of Silence.

I lay in the desert beyond all cities and sounds, and above me
flowed the River of Silence through the sky; and on the desert's
edge night fought against the Sun, and suddenly conquered.