Celephaïs

In a dream Kuranes
 saw the city in the valley, and the sea-coast beyond, and the snowy
peak overlooking the sea, and the gaily painted galleys that sail out of
 the harbour toward distant regions where the sea meets the sky. In a
dream it was also that he came by his name of Kuranes, for when awake he
 was called by another name. Perhaps it was natural for him to dream a
new name; for he was the last of his family, and alone among the
indifferent millions of London, so there were not many to speak to him
and to remind him who he had been. His money and lands were gone, and he
 did not care for the ways of the people about him, but preferred to
dream and write of his dreams. What he wrote was laughed at by those to
whom he shewed it, so that after a time he kept his writings to himself,
 and finally ceased to write. The more he withdrew from the world about
him, the more wonderful became his dreams; and it would have been quite
futile to try to describe them on paper. Kuranes was not modern, and did
 not think like others who wrote. Whilst they strove to strip from life
its embroidered robes of myth, and to shew in naked ugliness the foul
thing that is reality, Kuranes sought for beauty alone. When truth and
experience failed to reveal it, he sought it in fancy and illusion, and
found it on his very doorstep, amid the nebulous memories of childhood
tales and dreams.

There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to
them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we
listen and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we
try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life. But
some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills
and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs
overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping
cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride
 caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests; and then we
know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of
 wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy.

Kuranes came very suddenly upon his old world of childhood. He
had been dreaming of the house where he had been born; the great stone
house covered with ivy, where thirteen generations of his ancestors had
lived, and where he had hoped to die. It was moonlight, and he had
stolen out into the fragrant summer night, through the gardens, down the
 terraces, past the great oaks of the park, and along the long white
road to the village. The village seemed very old, eaten away at the edge
 like the moon which had commenced to wane, and Kuranes wondered whether
 the peaked roofs of the small houses hid sleep or death. In the streets
 were spears of long grass, and the window-panes on either side were
either broken or filmily staring. Kuranes had not lingered, but had
plodded on as though summoned toward some goal. He dared not disobey the
 summons for fear it might prove an illusion like the urges and
aspirations of waking life, which do not lead to any goal. Then he had
been drawn down a lane that led off from the village street toward the
channel cliffs, and had come to the end of things — to the precipice and
 the abyss where all the village and all the world fell abruptly into
the unechoing emptiness of infinity, and where even the sky ahead was
empty and unlit by the crumbling moon and the peering stars. Faith had
urged him on, over the precipice and into the gulf, where he had floated
 down, down, down; past dark, shapeless, undreamed dreams, faintly
glowing spheres that may have been partly dreamed dreams, and laughing
winged things that seemed to mock the dreamers of all the worlds. Then a
 rift seemed to open in the darkness before him, and he saw the city of
the valley, glistening radiantly far, far below, with a background of
sea and sky, and a snow-capped mountain near the shore.

Kuranes had awaked the very moment he beheld the city, yet he
knew from his brief glance that it was none other than **Celephaïs**, in the
 Valley of Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills, where his spirit had
dwelt all the eternity of an hour one summer afternoon very long ago,
when he had slipt away from his nurse and let the warm sea-breeze lull
him to sleep as he watched the clouds from the cliff near the village.
He had protested then, when they had found him, waked him, and carried
him home, for just as he was aroused he had been about to sail in a
golden galley for those alluring regions where the sea meets the sky.
And now he was equally resentful of awaking, for he had found his
fabulous city after forty weary years.

But three nights afterward Kuranes came again to Celephaïs. As
before, he dreamed first of the village that was asleep or dead, and of
the abyss down which one must float silently; then the rift appeared
again, and he beheld the glittering minarets of the city, and saw the
graceful galleys riding at anchor in the blue harbour, and watched the
gingko trees of Mount Aran swaying in the sea-breeze. But this time he
was not snatched away, and like a winged being settled gradually over a
grassy hillside til finally his feet rested gently on the turf. He had
indeed come back to the Valley of Ooth-Nargai and the splendid city of
Celephaïs.

Down the hill amid scented grasses and brilliant flowers walked
Kuranes, over the bubbling Naraxa on the small wooden bridge where he
had carved his name so many years ago, and through the whispering grove
to the great stone bridge by the city gate. All was as of old, nor were
the marble walls discoloured, nor the polished bronze statues upon them
tarnished. And Kuranes saw that he need not tremble lest the things he
knew be vanished; for even the sentries on the ramparts were the same,
and still as young as he remembered them. When he entered the city, past
 the bronze gates and over the onyx pavements, the merchants and
camel-drivers greeted him as if he had never been away; and it was the
same at the turquoise temple of Nath-Horthath, where the orchid-wreathed
 priests told him that there is no time in Ooth-Nargai, but only
perpetual youth. Then Kuranes walked through the Street of Pillars to
the seaward wall, where gathered the traders and sailors, and strange
men from the regions where the sea meets the sky. There he stayed long,
gazing out over the bright harbour where the ripples sparkled beneath an
 unknown sun, and where rode lightly the galleys from far places over
the water. And he gazed also upon Mount Aran rising regally from the
shore, its lower slopes green with swaying trees and its white summit
touching the sky.

More than ever Kuranes wished to sail in a galley to the far
places of which he had heard so many strange tales, and he sought again
the captain who had agreed to carry him so long ago. He found the man,
Athib, sitting on the same chest of spices he had sat upon before, and
Athib seemed not to realise that any time had passed. Then the two rowed
 to a galley in the harbour, and giving orders to the oarsmen, commenced
 to sail out into the billowy Cerenerian Sea
 that leads to the sky. For several days they glided undulatingly over
the water, till finally they came to the horizon, where the sea meets
the sky. Here the galley paused not at all, but floated easily in the
blue of the sky among fleecy clouds tinted with rose. And far beneath
the keel Kuranes could see strange lands and rivers and cities of
surpassing beauty, spread indolently in the sunshine which seemed never
to lessen or disappear. At length Athib told him that their journey was
near its end, and that they would soon enter the harbour of Serannian,
 the pink marble city of the clouds, which is built on that ethereal
coast where the west wind flows into the sky; but as the highest of the
city’s carven towers came into sight there was a sound somewhere in
space, and Kuranes awaked in his London garret.

For many months after that Kuranes sought the marvellous city of
Celephaïs and its sky-bound galleys in vain; and though his dreams
carried him to many gorgeous and unheard-of places, no one whom he met
could tell him how to find Ooth-Nargai, beyond the Tanarian Hills. One
night he went flying over dark mountains where there were faint, lone
campfires at great distances apart, and strange, shaggy herds with
tinkling bells on the leaders; and in the wildest part of this hilly
country, so remote that few men could ever have seen it, he found a
hideously ancient wall or causeway of stone zigzagging along the ridges
and valleys; too gigantic ever to have risen by human hands, and of such
 a length that neither end of it could be seen. Beyond that wall in the
grey dawn he came to a land of quaint gardens and cherry trees, and when
 the sun rose he beheld such beauty of red and white flowers, green
foliage and lawns, white paths, diamond brooks, blue lakelets, carven
bridges, and red-roofed pagodas, that he for a moment forgot Celephaïs
in sheer delight. But he remembered it again when he walked down a white
 path toward a red-roofed pagoda, and would have questioned the people
of that land about it, had he not found that there were no people there,
 but only birds and bees and butterflies. On another night Kuranes
walked up a damp stone spiral stairway endlessly, and came to a tower
window overlooking a mighty plain and river lit by the full moon; and in
 the silent city that spread away from the river-bank he thought he
beheld some feature or arrangement which he had known before. He would
have descended and asked the way to Ooth-Nargai had not a fearsome
aurora sputtered up from some remote place beyond the horizon, shewing
the ruin and antiquity of the city, and the stagnation of the reedy
river, and the death lying upon that land, as it had lain since King Kynaratholis came home from his conquests to find the vengeance of the
gods.

So Kuranes sought fruitlessly for the marvellous city of
Celephaïs and its galleys that sail to Serannian in the sky, meanwhile
seeing many wonders and once barely escaping from the high-priest not to
 be described, which wears a yellow silken mask over its face and dwells
 all alone in a prehistoric stone monastery on the cold desert plateau
of Leng.
 In time he grew so impatient of the bleak intervals of day that he
began buying drugs in order to increase his periods of sleep. Hasheesh
helped a great deal, and once sent him to a part of space where form
does not exist, but where glowing gases study the secrets of existence.
And a violet-coloured gas told him that this part of space was outside
what he had called infinity. The gas had not heard of planets and
organisms before, but identified Kuranes merely as one from the infinity
 where matter, energy, and gravitation exist. Kuranes was now very
anxious to return to minaret-studded Celephaïs, and increased his doses
of drugs; but eventually he had no more money left, and could buy no
drugs. Then one summer day he was turned out of his garret, and wandered
 aimlessly through the streets, drifting over a bridge to a place where
the houses grew thinner and thinner. And it was there that fulfillment
came, and he met the cortege of knights come from Celephaïs to bear him
thither forever.

Handsome knights they were, astride roan horses and clad in
shining armour with tabards of cloth-of-gold curiously emblazoned. So
numerous were they, that Kuranes almost mistook them for an army, but
their leader told him they were sent in his honour; since it was he who
had created Ooth-Nargai in his dreams, on which account he was now to be
 appointed its chief god for evermore. Then they gave Kuranes a horse
and placed him at the head of the cavalcade, and all rode majestically
through the downs of Surrey and onward toward the region where Kuranes
and his ancestors were born. It was very strange, but as the riders went
 on they seemed to gallop back through Time; for whenever they passed
through a village in the twilight they saw only such houses and
villagers as Chaucer or men before him might have seen, and sometimes
they saw knights on horseback with small companies of retainers. When it
 grew dark they travelled more swiftly, till soon they were flying
uncannily as if in the air. In the dim dawn they came upon the village
which Kuranes had seen alive in his childhood, and asleep or dead in his
 dreams. It was alive now, and early villagers curtsied as the horsemen
clattered down the street and turned off into the lane that ends in the
abyss of dreams. Kuranes had previously entered that abyss only at
night, and wondered what it would look like by day; so he watched
anxiously as the column approached its brink. Just as they galloped up
the rising ground to the precipice a golden glare came somewhere out of
the east and hid all the landscape in effulgent draperies. The abyss was
 a seething chaos of roseate and cerulean splendour, and invisible
voices sang exultantly as the knightly entourage plunged over the edge
and floated gracefully down past glittering clouds and silvery
coruscations. Endlessly down the horsemen floated, their chargers pawing
 the aether as if galloping over golden sands; and then the luminous
vapours spread apart to reveal a greater brightness, the brightness of
the city Celephaïs, and the sea-coast beyond, and the snowy peak
overlooking the sea, and the gaily painted galleys that sail out of the
harbour toward distant regions where the sea meets the sky.

And Kuranes reigned thereafter over Ooth-Nargai and all the neighbouring regions of dream,
 and held his court alternately in Celephaïs and in the cloud-fashioned
Serannian. He reigns there still, and will reign happily forever, though
 below the cliffs at Innsmouth
 the channel tides played mockingly with the body of a tramp who had
stumbled through the half-deserted village at dawn; played mockingly,
and cast it upon the rocks by ivy-covered Trevor Towers, where a notably
 fat and especially offensive millionaire brewer enjoys the purchased
atmosphere of extinct nobility.