In the Land of Time by Alfred Dunsany Page A

themselves.”
    Then MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, as one who would have done with an irksome matter, will lightly wave his hand—the hand that wrought the gods—and there shall be gods no more.
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    When there shall be three moons towards the north above the Star of the Abiding, three moons that neither wax nor wane but regard towards the North.
    Or when the comet ceaseth from his seeking and stands still, not any longer moving among the Worlds but tarrying as one who rests after the end of search, then shall arise from resting, because it is THE END, the Greater One, who rested of old time, even MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI.
    Then shall the Times that were be Times no more; and it may be that the old, dead days shall return from beyond the Rim, and we who have wept for them shall see those days again, as one who, returning from long travel to his home, comes suddenly on dear, remembered things.
    For none shall know of MĀNA who hath rested for so long, whether he be a harsh or a merciful god. It may be that he shall have mercy, and that these things shall be.

THE EYE IN THE WASTE
    There lie seven deserts beyond Bodraháhn, which is the city of the caravans’ end. None goeth beyond. In the first desert lie the tracks of mighty travellers outward from Bodraháhn, and some returning. And in the second lie only outward tracks, and none return.
    The third is a desert untrodden by the feet of men.
    The fourth is the desert of sand, and the fifth is the desert of dust, and the sixth is the desert of stones, and the seventh is the Desert of Deserts.
    In the midst of the last of the deserts that lie beyond Bodraháhn, in the centre of the Desert of Deserts, standeth the image that hath been hewn of old out of the living hill whose name is Rānorāda—the eye in the waste.
    About the base of Rānorāda is carved in mystic letters that are vaster than the beds of streams these words:
    Â 
    To the god who knows.
    Â 
    Now, beyond the second desert are no tracks, and there is no water in all the seven deserts that lie beyond Bodraháhn. Therefore came no man thither to hew that statue from the living hills, and Rānorāda was wrought by the hands of gods. Men tell in Bodraháhn, where the caravans end and all the drivers of the camels rest, how once the gods hewed Rānorāda from the living hill, hammering all night long beyond the deserts. Moreover, they say that Rānorāda is carved in the likeness of the god Hoodrazai, who hath found the secret of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI, and knoweth the wherefore of the making of the gods.
    They say that Hoodrazai stands all alone in Pegāna and speaks to none because he knows what is hidden from the gods.
    Therefore the gods have made his image in a lonely land as one who thinks and is silent—the eye in the waste.
    They say that Hoodrazai had heard the murmurs of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHAI as he muttered to himself, and gleaned the meaning, and knew; and that he was the god of mirth and of abundant joy, but became from the moment of his knowing a mirthless god, even as his image, which regards the deserts beyond the track of man.
    But the camel drivers, as they sit and listen to the tales of the old men in the market-place of Bodraháhn, at evening, while the camels rest, say: “If Hoodrazai is so very wise and yet is sad, let us drink wine, and banish wisdom to the wastes that lie beyond Bodraháhn.” Therefore is there feasting and laughter all night long in the city where the caravans end.
    All this the camel drivers tell when the caravans come in from Bodraháhn; but who shall credit tales that camel drivers have heard from aged men in so remote a city?

OF THE THING THAT IS NEITHER GOD NOR BEAST
    Seeing that wisdom is not in cities nor happiness in wisdom, and because Yadin the prophet was doomed by the gods, ere he was born, to go in search of wisdom, he followed the caravans to Bodraháhn. There in the evening, when the camels rest, when the