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THE REVOLT OF THE HOME GODS
There be three broad rivers of the plain, born before memory or
fable, whose mothers are three grey peaks and whose father was the
storm. There names be Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion.
And Eimës is the joy of lowing herds; and Zänës hath bowed his
neck to the yoke of man, and carries the timber from the forest
far up below the mountain; and Segástrion sings old songs to
shepherd boys, singing of his childhood in a lone ravine and of
how he once sprang down the mountain sides and far away into the
plain to see the world, and of how one day at last he will find
the sea. These be the rivers of the plain, wherein the plain
rejoices. But old men tell, whose fathers heard it from the
ancients, how once the lords of the three rivers of the plain
rebelled against the law of the Worlds, and passed beyond their
boundaries, and joined together and whelmed cities and slew men,
saying: "We now play the game of the gods and slay men for our
pleasure, and we be greater than the gods of Pegana."
And all the plain was flooded to the hills.
And Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion sat upon the mountains, and
spread their hands over their rivers that rebelled by their
command.
But the prayer of men going upward found Pegana, and cried in the
ear of the gods: "There be three home gods who slay us for their
pleasure, and say that they be mightier than Pegana's gods, and
play Their game with men."
Then were all the gods of Pegana very wroth; but They could not
whelm the lords of the three rivers, because being home gods,
though small, they were immortal.
And still the home gods spread their hands across their rivers,
with their fingers wide apart, and the waters rose and rose, and
the voice of their torrent grew louder, crying: "Are we not Eimës,
Zänës, and Segástrion?"
Then Mung went down into a waste of Afrik, and came upon the
drought Umbool as he sat in the desert upon iron rocks, clawing
with miserly grasp at the bones of men and breathing hot.
And Mung stood before him as his dry sides heaved, and ever as
they sank his hot breath blasted dry sticks and bones.
- Then Mung said
- "Friend of Mung! Go, thou and grin before the
faces of Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion till they see whether it be
wise to rebel against the gods of Pegana."
And Umbool answered: "I am the beast of Mung."
And Umbool came and crouched upon a hill upon the other side of
the waters and grinned across them at the rebellious home gods.
And whenever Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion stretched out their
hands over their rivers they saw before their faces the grinning
of Umbool; and because the grinning was like death in a hot and
hideous land therefore they turned away and spread their hands no
more over their rivers, and the waters sank and sank.
But when Umbool had grinned for thirty days the waters fell back
into the river beds and the lords of the rivers slunk away back
again to their homes: still Umbool sat and grinned.
Then Eimës sought to hide himself in a great pool beneath a rock,
and Zänës crept into the middle of a wood, and Segástrion lay and
panted on the sand--still Umbool sat and grinned.
And Eimës grew lean, and was forgotten, so that the men of the
plain would say: "Here once was Eimës"; and Zänës scarce had
strength to lead his river to the sea; and as Segástrion lay and
panted a man stepped over his stream, and Segástrion said: "It is
the foot of a man that has passed across my neck, and I have sought
to be greater than the gods of Pegana."
Then said the gods of Pegana: "It is enough. We are the gods of
Pegana, and none are equal."
Then Mung sent Umbool back to his waste in Afrik to breathe again
upon the rocks, and parch the desert, and to sear the memory of
Afrik into the brains of all who ever bring their bones away.
And Eimës, Zänës, and Segástrion sang again, and walked once more
in their accustomed haunts, and played the game of Life and Death
with fishes and frogs, but never essayed to play it any more with
men, as do the gods of Pegana.
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