speed the progress of these creatures under water. At times the inhabitants open them to the rays of their suns, to enjoy the warmth.
The eyesight of these monsters is excellent, but because it permits seeing both before and behind, to which men are unaccustomed, it requires a period of acclimatization before it may be used to good effect. The immediate impression is that of one image laid on top of another, as though a painter had executed a second work of art directly on top of the first in such a way that both could be seen. After a short while this disorientation of the eyes passes, and they serve as admirable instruments with which to appreciate the beauty of the city.
Although the City of Heights has no proper name recognized by our race, it might well be called the city of colors, so resplendent is the light of this world. The largest sun is red, that of middle size yellow, and the smallest, which is scarcely bigger than Venus at her nearest approach, is a blazing bluish-white that cannot be looked upon without the eyes of the inhabitants becoming dazzled. These three colors interact without being blended, so that one moment the sky is pink, the next blue, the next a delicate shade of green, and so on, changing with rapidity from one hue to the next, and making all that is seen in the city below seem to dance and flicker with the reflected rays of finely cut jewels.
The bright towers are tall beyond the power of the mind to comprehend, for their tops are set within the clouds, yet from a distance they do not appear so high, for they are not slender spires such as we are accustomed to make when we wish to project a building into the heavens, but of massive thickness and square corners. So finely set are the stones, these soaring artificial mountains appear to be carved from single blocks. Their uncivil shapes defy the earth, for some are wider at the tops than at their bases, and have immense flat surfaces upon which the Elder Ones promenade and converse with one another in their shrill piping voices that sound much as do our flutes.
They excel in pictorial representation, but delight most in depicting their own forms, as though their very shape were to them a holy thing; or that by reproducing it in their paintings and carvings they could draw assurance from it as from something perfect in an imperfect universe. Everywhere it adorns their walls, their fountains, even the balustrades of their high balconies, for they love the heights and seldom venture into the shadows between the bases of their buildings, or into the dense jungle that lies at the borders of this vast city. It may be for this reason that it has acquired the title City of Heights among the deep dwellers of our world and the few men who converse with them.
Paintings in their numerous galleries show their coming to our world when both its dry surface and its seas were still devoid of life, so that not a blade of grass grew upon the lands and no fish swam in the waters. They are equally at home in water or air, and took their initial abode upon our world under the waves as a living place less hostile to their flesh than the harsh rays of our sun, which in that ancient time was hotter and more burning. It was this very harshness of the sun that prevented the growth of life on the rocks. Not that our sun is brighter than the three suns of their heavens, but as they say in conversation between themselves while gazing at images of our world, because our higher zone of air lacked a barrier to the rays that weakens their force.
To make the oceans more pleasant, the Elder Ones created many types of living things. When long aeons had passed, and our air became thicker, plants began to grow upon the rocks, and later still, insects crawled and flew among them. The Elder Ones emerged from the waves and built their new city, where Leng now resides beyond the mountains of the east. For a period of time much greater than the existence of our race, they lived
The eyesight of these monsters is excellent, but because it permits seeing both before and behind, to which men are unaccustomed, it requires a period of acclimatization before it may be used to good effect. The immediate impression is that of one image laid on top of another, as though a painter had executed a second work of art directly on top of the first in such a way that both could be seen. After a short while this disorientation of the eyes passes, and they serve as admirable instruments with which to appreciate the beauty of the city.
Although the City of Heights has no proper name recognized by our race, it might well be called the city of colors, so resplendent is the light of this world. The largest sun is red, that of middle size yellow, and the smallest, which is scarcely bigger than Venus at her nearest approach, is a blazing bluish-white that cannot be looked upon without the eyes of the inhabitants becoming dazzled. These three colors interact without being blended, so that one moment the sky is pink, the next blue, the next a delicate shade of green, and so on, changing with rapidity from one hue to the next, and making all that is seen in the city below seem to dance and flicker with the reflected rays of finely cut jewels.
The bright towers are tall beyond the power of the mind to comprehend, for their tops are set within the clouds, yet from a distance they do not appear so high, for they are not slender spires such as we are accustomed to make when we wish to project a building into the heavens, but of massive thickness and square corners. So finely set are the stones, these soaring artificial mountains appear to be carved from single blocks. Their uncivil shapes defy the earth, for some are wider at the tops than at their bases, and have immense flat surfaces upon which the Elder Ones promenade and converse with one another in their shrill piping voices that sound much as do our flutes.
They excel in pictorial representation, but delight most in depicting their own forms, as though their very shape were to them a holy thing; or that by reproducing it in their paintings and carvings they could draw assurance from it as from something perfect in an imperfect universe. Everywhere it adorns their walls, their fountains, even the balustrades of their high balconies, for they love the heights and seldom venture into the shadows between the bases of their buildings, or into the dense jungle that lies at the borders of this vast city. It may be for this reason that it has acquired the title City of Heights among the deep dwellers of our world and the few men who converse with them.
Paintings in their numerous galleries show their coming to our world when both its dry surface and its seas were still devoid of life, so that not a blade of grass grew upon the lands and no fish swam in the waters. They are equally at home in water or air, and took their initial abode upon our world under the waves as a living place less hostile to their flesh than the harsh rays of our sun, which in that ancient time was hotter and more burning. It was this very harshness of the sun that prevented the growth of life on the rocks. Not that our sun is brighter than the three suns of their heavens, but as they say in conversation between themselves while gazing at images of our world, because our higher zone of air lacked a barrier to the rays that weakens their force.
To make the oceans more pleasant, the Elder Ones created many types of living things. When long aeons had passed, and our air became thicker, plants began to grow upon the rocks, and later still, insects crawled and flew among them. The Elder Ones emerged from the waves and built their new city, where Leng now resides beyond the mountains of the east. For a period of time much greater than the existence of our race, they lived
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