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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.
Then on the River I saw the dream-built ship of the god Yoharneth-Lahai,
whose great prow lifted grey into the air above the River of Silence.
Her timbers were olden dreams dreamed long ago, and poets' fancies
made her tall, straight masts, and her rigging was wrought out of
the people's hopes.
Upon her deck were rowers with dream-made oars, and the rowers
were the people of men's fancies, and princes of old story and
people who had died, and people who had never been.
These swung forward and swung back to row Yoharneth-Lahai through
the Worlds with never a sound of rowing. For ever on every wind
float up to Pegana the hopes and the fancies of the people which
have no home in the Worlds, and there Yoharneth-Lahai weaves them
into dreams, to take them to the people again.
And every night in his dream-built ship Yoharneth-Lahai setteth
forth, with all his dreams on board, to take again their old hopes
back to the people and all forgotten fancies.
But ere the day comes back to her own again, and all the
conquering armies of the dawn hurl their red lances in the face of
the night, Yoharneth-Lahai leaves the sleeping Worlds, and rows
back up the River of Silence, that flows from Pegana into the Sea
of Silence that lies beyond the Worlds.
And the name of the River is Imrana the River of Silence. All they
that be weary of the sound of cities and very tired of clamour
creep down in the night-time to Yoharneth-Lahai's ship, and going
aboard it, among the dreams and the fancies of old times, lie down
upon the deck, and pass from sleeping to the River, while Mung,
behind them, makes the sign of Mung because they would have it so.
And, lying there upon the deck among their own remembered fancies,
and songs that were never sung, and they drift up Imrana ere the
dawn, where the sound of the cities comes not, nor the voice of
the thunder is heard, nor the midnight howl of Pain as he gnaws
at the bodies of men, and far away and forgotten bleat the small
sorrows that trouble all the Worlds.
But where the River flows through Pegana's gates, between the
great twin constellations Yum and Gothum, where Yum stands
sentinel upon the left and Gothum upon the right, there sits
Sirami, the lord of All Forgetting. And, when the ship draws near,
Sirami looketh with his sapphire eyes into the faces and beyond
them of those that were weary of cities, and as he gazes, as one
that looketh before him remembering naught, he gently waves his
hands. And amid the waving of Sirami's hands there fall from all
that behold him all their memories, save certain things that may
not be forgotten even beyond the Worlds.
It hath been said that when Skarl ceases to drum, and MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI
awakes, and the gods of Pegana know that it is THE END, that then the
gods will enter galleons of gold, and with dream-born rowers glide down
Imrana (who knows whither or why?) till they come where the River enters
the Silent Sea, and shall there be gods of nothing, where nothing is,
and never a sound shall come. And far away upon the River's banks shall
bay their old hound Time, that shall seek to rend his masters; while
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