H.P. Lovecraft. The Quest of Iranon
The Quest of Iranon
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written 28 Feb 1921
Published July-August 1935 in The Galleon, Vol. 1, No. 5, 12-20.
Into the granite city of Teloth wandered the youth, vine-crowned, his
yellow hair glistening with myrrh and his purple robe torn with briers of
the mountain Sidrak that lies across the antique bridge of stone. The men
of Teloth are dark and stern, and dwell in square houses, and with frowns
they asked the stranger whence he had come and what were his name and
fortune. So the youth answered:
"I am Iranon, and come from Aira, a far city that I recall only dimly but
seek to find again. I am a singer of songs that I learned in the far city,
and my calling is to make beauty with the things remembered of childhood.
My wealth is in little memories and dreams, and in hopes that I sing in
gardens when the moon is tender and the west wind stirs the lotus-buds."
When the men of Teloth heard these things they whispered to one another;
for though in the granite city there is no laughter or song, the stern men
sometimes look to the Karthian hills in the spring and think of the lutes
of distant Oonai whereof travellers have told. And thinking thus, they
bade the stranger stay and sing in the square before the Tower of Mlin,
though they liked not the colour of his tattered robe, nor the myrrh in
his hair, nor his chaplet of vine-leaves, nor the youth in his golden
voice. At evening Iranon sang, and while he sang an old man prayed and a
blind man said he saw a nimbus over the singer's head. But most of the men
of Teloth yawned, and some laughed and some went to sleep; for Iranon told
nothing useful, singing only his memories, his dreams, and his hopes.
"I remember the twilight, the moon, and soft songs, and the window where I
was rocked to sleep. And through the window was the street where the
golden lights came, and where the shadows danced on houses of marble. I
remember the square of moonlight on the floor, that was not like any other
light, and the visions that danced on the moonbeams when my mother sang to
me. And too, I remember the sun of morning bright above the many-coloured
hills in summer, and the sweetness of flowers borne on the south wind that
made the trees sing.
"Oh Aira, city of marble and beryl, how many are thy beauties! How I loved
the warm and fragrant groves across the hyline Nithra, and the falls of
the tiny Kra that flowed though the verdant valley! In those groves and in
the vale the children wove wreathes for one another, and at dusk I dreamed
strange dreams under the yath-trees on the mountain as I saw below me the
lights of the city, and the curving Nithra reflecting a ribbon of stars.
"And in the city were the palaces of veined and tinted marble, with golden
domes and painted walls, and green gardens with cerulean pools and crystal
fountains. Often I played in the gardens and waded in the pools, and lay
and dreamed among the pale flowers under the trees. And sometimes at
sunset i would climb the long hilly street to the citadel and the open
place, and look down upon Aira, the magic city of marble and beryl,
splendid in a robe of golden flame.
"Long have I missed thee, Aira, for i was but young when we went into
exile; but my father was thy King and I shall come again to thee, for it
is so decreed of Fate. All through seven lands have I sought thee, and
some day shall I reign over thy groves and gardens, thy streets and
palaces, and sing to men who shall know whereof I sing, and laugh not nor
turn away. For I am Iranon, who was a Prince in Aira."
That night the men of Teloth lodged the stranger in a stable, and in the
morning an archon came to him and told him to go to the shop of Athok the
cobbler, and be apprenticed to him.
"But I am Iranon, a singer of songs, " he said, "and have no heart for the
cobbler's trade."
"All in Teloth must toil," replied the archon, "for that is the law." Then
said Iranon:
"Wherefore do ye toil; is it not that ye may live and be happy? And if ye
toil only that ye may toil more, when shall happiness find you? Ye toil to
live, but is not life made of beauty and song? And if ye suffer no singers
among you, where shall be the fruits of your toil? Toil without song is
like a weary journey without an end. Were not death more pleasing?" But
the archon was sullen and did not understand, and rebuked the stranger.
"Thou art a strange youth, and I like not thy face or thy voice. The words
thou speakest are blasphemy, for the gods of Teloth have said that toil is
good. Our gods have promised us a haven of light beyond death, where shall
be rest without end, and crystal coldness amidst which none shall vex his
mind with thought or his eyes with beauty. Go thou then to Athok the
cobbler or be gone out of the city by sunset. All here must serve, and
song is folly."
So Iranon went out of the stable and walked over the narrow stone streets
between the gloomy square house of granite, seeking something green, for
all was of stone. On the faces of men were frowns, but by the stone
embankment along the sluggish river Zuro sat a young boy with sad eyes
gazing into the waters to spy green budding branches washed down from the
hills by the freshets. And the boy said to him:
"Art thou not indeed he of whom the archons tell, who seekest a far city
in a fair land? I am Romnod, and borne of the blood of Teloth, but am not
olf in the ways of the granite city, and yearn daily for the warm groves
and the distant lands of beauty and song. Beyond the Karthian hills lieth
Oonai, the city of lutes and dancing, which men whisper of and say is both
lovely and terrible.Thither would I go were I old enough to find the way,
and thither shouldst thou go and thou wouldst sing and have men listen to
thee. Let us leave the city of Teloth and fare together among the hills of
spring. Thou shalt shew me the ways of travel and I will attend thy songs
at evening when the stars one by one bring dreams to the minds of
dreamers. And peradventure it may be that Oonai the city of lutes and
dancing is even the fair Aira thou seekest, for it is told that thou hast
not known Aira since the old days, and a name often changeth. Let us go to
Oonai, O Iranon of the golden head, where men shall know our longings and
welcome us as brothers, nor even laugh or frown at what we say." And
Iranon answered:
"Be it so, small one; if any in this stone place yearn for beauty he must
seek the mountains and beyond, and I would not leave thee to pine by the
sluggish Zuro. But think not that delight and understanding dwell just
across the Karthian hills, or in any spot thou canst find in a day's, or a
year's, or a lustrum's journey. Behold, when I was small like thee I dwelt
in the valley of Narthos by the frigid Xari, where none would listen to my
dreams; and I told myself that when older i would go to Sinara on the
southern slope, and sing to smiling dromedary-men in the marketplace. But
when I went to Sinara i found the dromedary-men all drunken and ribald,
and saw that their songs were not as mine, so I travelled in a barge down
the Xari to onyx-walled Jaren. And the soldiers at Jaren laughed at me and
drave me out, so that I wandered to many cities. I have seen Stethelos
that is below the great cataract, and have gazed on the marsh where
Sarnath once stood. I have been to thraa, Ilarnek, and Kadatheron on the
winding river Ai, and have dwelt long in Olathoe in the land of Lomar. But
though i have had listeners sometimes, they have ever been few. and I know
that welcome shall wait me only in Aira, the city of marble and beryl
where my father once ruled as King. So for Aira shall we seek, though it
were well to visit distant and lute-blessed oonai across the
Karthianhills, which may indeed be Aira, though i think not. Aira's beauty
is past imagining, and none can tell of it without rapture, whilist of
Oonai the camel-drivers whisper leeringly."
At the sunset Iranon and small Romnod went forth from Teloth, and for long
wandered amidst the green hills and cool forests. The way was rough and
obscure, and never did they seem nearer to oonai the city of lutes and
dancing; but in the dusk as the stars came out Iranon would sing of Aira
and its beauties and Romnod would listen, so that they were both happy
after a fashion. They ate plentifully of fruit and red berries, and marked
not the passing of time, but many years must have slipped away. Small
Romnod was now not so small, and spoke deeply instead of shrilly, though
Iranon was always the same, and decked his golden hair with vines and
fragrant resins found in the woods. So it came to pass that Romnod seemed
older than Iranon, though he had been very small when Iranon had found him
watching for green budding branches in Teloth beside the sluggish
stone-banked Zuro.
Then one night when the moon was full the travellers came to a mountain
crest and looked down upon the myriad light of Oonai. Peasants had told
them they were near, and Iranon knew that this was not his native city of
Aira. The lights of Oonai were not like those of Aira; for they were harsh
and glaring, while the lights of Aira shine as softly and magically as
shone the moonlight on the floor by the window where Iranon's mother once
rocked him to sleep with song. But Oonai was a city of lutes and dancing,
so Iranon and Romnod went down the steep slope that they might find men to
whom sings and dreams would bring pleasure. And when they were come into
the town they found rose-wreathed revellers bound from house to house and
leaning from windows and balconies, who listened to the songs of Iranon
and tossed him flowers and applauded when he was done. Then for a moment
did Iranon believe he had found those who thought and felt even as he,
though the town was not a hundredth as fair as Aira.
When dawn came Iranon looked about with dismay, for the domes of Oonai
were not golden in the sun, but grey and dismal. And the men of Oonai were
pale with revelling, and dull with wine, and unlike the radient men of
Aira. But because the people had thrown him blossoms and acclaimed his
sings Iranon stayed on, and with him Romnod, who liked the revelry of the
town and wore in his dark hair roses and myrtle. Often at night Iranon
sang to the revellers, but he was always as before, crowned only in the
vine of the mountains and remembering the marble streets of Aira and the
hyaline Nithra. In the frescoed halls of the Monarch did he sing, upon a
crystal dais raised over a floor that was a mirror, and as he sang, he
brought pictures to his hearers till the floor seemed to reflect old,
beautiful, and half-remembered things instead of the wine-reddened
feasters who pelted him with roses. And the King bade him put away his
tattered purple, and clothed him in satin and cloth-of-gold, with rings of
green jade and bracelets of tinted ivory, and lodged him in a gilded and
tapestried chamber on a bed of sweet carven wood with canopies and
coverlets of flower-embroidered silk. Thus dwelt Iranon in Oonai, the city
of lutes and dancing.
It is not known how long Iranon tarried in Oonai, but one day the King
brought to the palace some wild whirling dancers from the Liranian desert,
and dusky flute-players from Drinen in the East, and after that the
revellers threw their roses not so much at Iranon as at the dancers and
flute-players. And day by day that Romnod who had been a small boy in
granite Teloth grew coarser and redder with wine, till he dreamed less and
less, amd listened with less delight to the songs of Iranon. But though
Iranon was sad he ceased not to sing, and at evening told again of his
dreams of Aira, the city of marble and beryl. Then one night the reddened
and fattened Romnod snorted heavily amidst the poppied silks of his
banquet-couch and died writhing, whilst Iranon, pale and slender, sang to
himself in a far corner. And when Iranon had wept over the grave of Romnod
and strewn it with green branches, such as Romnod used to love, he put
aside his silks and gauds and went forgotten out of Oonai the city of
lutes and dancing clad only in the ragged purple in which he had come, and
garlanded with fresh vines from the mountains.
Into the sunset wandered Iranon, seeking still for his native land and for
men who would understand his songs and dreams. In all the cities of
Cydathria and in the lands beyond the Bnazie desert gay-faced children
laughed at his olden songs and tattered robe of purple; but Iranon stayed
ever young, and wore wreathes upon his golden head whilst he sang of Aira,
delight of the past and hope of the future.
So came he one night to the squallid cot of an antique shepherd, bent and
dirty, who kept flocks on a stony slope above a quicksand marsh. To this
man Iranon spoke, as to so many others:
"Canst thou tell me where I may find Aira, the city of marble and beryl,
where flows the hyaline nithra and where the falls of the tiny Kra sing to
the verdant valleys and hills forested with yath trees?" and the shepherd,
hearing, looked long and strangely at Iranon, as if recalling something
very far away in time, and noted each line of the stranger's face, and his
golden hair, and his crown of vine-leaves. But he was old, and shook his
head as he replied:
"O stranger, i have indeed heard the name of Aira, and the other names
thou hast spoken, but they come to me from afar down the waste of long
years.I heard them in my youth from the lips of a playmate, a beggar's boy
given to strange dreams, who would weave long tales about the moon and the
flowers and the west wind. We used to laugh at him, for we knew him from
his birth though he thought himself a King's son. He was comely, even as
thou, but full of folly and strangeness; and he ranaway when small to find
those who would listen gladly to his songs and dreams. How often hath he
sung to me of lands that never were, and things that never can be! Of Aira
did he speak much; of Aira and the river Nithra, and the falls of the tiny
Kra. There would he ever say he once dwelt as a Prince, though here we
knew him from his birth.Nor was there ever a marble city of Aira, or those
who could delight in strange songs, save in the dreams of mine old
playmate Iranon who is gone."
And in the twilight, as the stars came out one by one and the moon cast on
the marsh a radiance like that which a child sees quivering on the floor
as he is rocked to sleep at evening, there walked into the lethal
quicksands a very old man in tattered purple, crowned with whithered
vine-leaves and gazing ahead as if upon the golden domes of a fair city
where dreams are understood. That night something of youth and beauty died
in the elder world.