THE BIRD OF DOOM AND THE END


For at the last shall the thunder, fleeing to escape from the doom
of the gods, roar horribly among the Worlds; and Time, the hound
of the gods, shall bay hungrily at his masters because he is lean
with age.

And from the innermost of Pegana's vales shall the bird of doom,
Mosahn, whose voice is like the trumpet, soar upward with
boisterous beatings of his wings above Pegana's mountains and the
gods, and there with his trumpet voice acclaim THE END.

Then in the tumult and amid the fury of their hound the gods shall
make for the last time in Pegana the sign of all the gods, and go
with dignity and quiet down to Their galleons of gold, and sail
away down the River of Silence, not ever to return.

Then shall the River overflow its banks, and a tide come setting
in from the Silent Sea, till all the Worlds and the Skies are
drowned in silence; while MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI in the Middle of All
sits deep in thought. And the hound Time, when all the Worlds and
cities are swept away whereon he used to raven, having no more to
devour, shall suddenly die.

But there are some that hold--and this is the heresy of the
Saigoths--that when the gods go down at the last into their