of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the
mighty city of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more.
It is told that in the immemorial years when the world was young, before ever
the men of Sarnath came to the land of Mnar, another city stood beside the lake;
the gray stone city of Ib, which was old as the lake itseli, and peopled with
beings not pleasing to behold. Very odd and ugly were these beings, as indeed
are most beings of a world yet inchoate and rudely fashioned. It is written on
the brick cylinders of Kadatheron that the beings of lb were in hue as green as
the lake and the mists that rise above it; that they had bulging eyes, pouting,
flabby lips, and curious ears, and were without voice. It is also written that
they descended one night from the moon in a mist; they and the vast still lake
and gray stone city lb. However this may be, it is certain that they worshipped
a sea-green stone idol chiseled in the likeness of Bokrug, the great
water-lizard; before which they danced horribly when the moon was gibbous. And
it is written in the papyrus of Ilarnek, that they one day discovered fire, and
thereafter kindled flames on many ceremonial occasions. But not much is written
of these beings, because they lived in very ancient times, and man is young, and
knows but little of the very ancient living things.
After many eons men came to the land of Mnar, dark shepherd folk with their
fleecy flocks, who built Thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron on the winding river Ai.
And certain tribes, more hardy than the rest, pushed on to the border of the
lake and built Sarnath at a spot where precious metals were found in the earth.
Not far from the gray city of lb did the wandering tribes lay the first stones
of Sarnath, and at the beings of lb they marveled greatly. But with their
marveling was mixed hate, for they thought it not meet that beings of such
aspect should walk about the world of men at dusk. Nor did they like the strange
sculptures upon the gray monoliths of Ib, for why those sculptures lingered so
late in the world, even until the coming men, none can tell; unless it was
because the land of Mnar is very still, and remote from most other lands, both
of waking and of dream.
As the men of Sarnath beheld more of the beings of lb their hate grew, and it
was not less because they found the beings weak, and soft as jelly to the touch
of stones and arrows. So one day the young warriors, the slingers and the
spearmen and the bowmen, marched against lb and slew all the inhabitants
thereof, pushing the queer bodies into the lake with long spears, because they
did not wish to touch them. And because they did not like the gray sculptured
monoliths of lb they cast these also into the lake; wondering from the greatness
of the labor how ever the stones were brought from afar, as they must have been,
since there is naught like them in the land of Mnar or in the lands adjacent.
Thus of the very ancient city of lb was nothing spared, save the sea-green stone
idol chiseled in the likeness of Bokrug, the water-lizard. This the young
warriors took back with them as a symbol of conquest over the old gods and
beings of Th, and as a sign of leadership in Mnar. But on the night after it was
set up in the temple, a terrible thing must have happened, for weird lights were
seen over the lake, and in the morning the people found the idol gone and the
high-priest Taran-Ish lying dead, as from some fear unspeakable. And before he
died, Taran-Ish had scrawled upon the altar of chrysolite with coarse shaky
strokes the sign of DOOM.
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