The Night Land

Now, let me tell here also, lest it be thought that I was unduly

favoured because of my friendship with the Master Monstruwacan, that

there was a sound justification for his choice, in that to me had been

given that strange gift of hearing, which we called Night-Hearing;

though this was but a fanciful name, and meant little. Yet the peculiar

gift was rare, and in all the millions of the Pyramid, there was none

with the gift to a great degree, saving only myself.

And I, because of this gift, could hear the "invisible vibrations" of

the aether; so that, without harking to the calling of our recording

instruments, I could take the messages which came continually through

the eternal darkness; aye, even better than they. And now, it may be the

better understood, how much was to be counted that I had grown to listen

for a voice that had not rung in mine ears for an eternity, and yet

which sang sweet and clear in my memory-dreams; so that it seemed to me

that Mirdath the Beautiful slept within my soul, and whispered to me out

of all the ages.

And then, one day, at the fifteenth hour, when began the Sleep-Time, I

had been pondering this love of mine that lived with me still; and

marvelling that my memory-dreams held the voice of a love that had

been in so remote an age. And pondering and dreaming thus, as a young

man may, I could fancy this aeon-lost One were whispering beauty into

my ears, in verity; so clear had my memory grown, and so much had I

pondered. And lo! as I stood there, harking and communing with my thoughts, I

thrilled suddenly, as if I had been smitten; for out of all the

everlasting night a whisper was thrilling and thrilling upon my more

subtile hearing.

Through four long years had I listened, since that awakening in the

embrasure, when but a youth of seventeen; and now out of the

world-darkness and all the eternal years of that lost life, which now I

live in this Present Age of ours, was the whisper come; for I knew it

upon that instant; and yet, because I was so taught to wisdom, I

answered by no name; but sent the Master-Word through the night--sending

it with my brain-elements, as I could, and as all may, much or little,

as may be, if they be not clods. And, moreover, I knew that she who

called quietly would have the power to hear without instruments, if

indeed it were she; and if it were but one of the false callings of the

Evil Forces, or more cunning monsters, or as was sometimes thought

concerning these callings, the House of Silence, meddling with our

souls, then would they have no power to say the Master-Word; for this

had been proven through all the Everlasting.