was true, for while she was of Earth stock Moreen hadbeen born and raised in a moon of Borea; she had neveronce. visited the human dreamlands of her birthright butonly the subconscious, haunted dreams of her native uminos. By no means an expert dreamer himself (and is despite the fact that h and Titus Crow had been honoured and feted there, until indeed they had become oe with the stuff of dreamland's legends itself ), stumblingly at first and then with more assurance, de Marigny had related yet again his earlier adventures in the strange dimension of Earth's dreams. He told of how he had gone there to rescue Crow and the girl-goddess Tiania, trapped in abysses of trauma; and how with the help of certain inhabitants of the dreamlands he had succeeded; and then how the three of them together had gone on to triumph over an insidious incursion of Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones into the subconscious worlds of mankind's innermost dreams. And when all of this was not enough for Moreen, then de Marigny went on to tell of places he knew there in that imagined yet real otherworld, and of places he'd only heard of and never (or at best only rarely) seen; places he had dreamed of long ago, which had faded now as all dreamstuff does in the cold morning light of the waking world.
He spoke of monstrous Kadath where it aches in the Cold Waste, forbidden to all men ever since the immemorial dreaming of certain hideous dreams there; and of the no less ominous icy desert Plateau of Leng, where horrible stone villages squatted about central balefires which flared continuously, while Leng's denizens danced grotesquely in flickering shadows to the rattle of strange bone instruments and the droning whine of cursed flutes. And seeing how Moreen shuddered at the tone his voice had taken and crept closer to him, he at once turned his attention to healthier regions of the dreamlands.
He spoke of the resplendent city of Celephais in the valley of Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills, whose myriad glittering minarets lie mirrored in the calm blue harbour; and of the galleys anchored there, with furled, multicoloured sails, beneath Mount Aran where the ginkgos sway in the breeze of the sea; and of the tinkling, bubbling Naraxa with its tiny wooden bridges, wandering its way oceanward; and of the city's onyx pavements and maze of curious streets and alleys behind mighty bronze gates. He made mention of sky-floating Serannian (which: had always reminded him of Crow's description of Elysia's sky-islands) high over the Cerenerian Sea, whose foaming billows ride up buoyant as clouds into the sky where Serannian floats on their ethereal essence.
He talked of Zak with its many-templed terraces, abode of forgotten dreams where many of his own youthful dreams and fancies lingered still, only gradually fading away; and Sona-Nyl, blessed land of fancy where men dream what they will, none of which might ever take on real material form; and the sea-spawned Basalt Pillars of the West where they rise from the furthest reaches of the Southern Sea, beyond which (so legend has it) lies a monstrous cataract where all the seas of the dreamlands pour abyssally away forever into awful inchoate voids. He mentioned Mount Ngranek's peak, and the great face graven in that mountain's gaunt side; and having spoken of Ngranek he could not help but mention the hideously thin and faceless, horned and barb-tailed bat-beings the night-gaunts — which ever guard that mysterious mountain's elder secrets.
Then, because he believed that despite Moreen's fears she should know the worst and not go into the dreamlands a total alien and unprepared, de Marigny hurriedly went onto tell of the Peaks of Throk, those needle-like pinnacles which are the subject of many of dream's most awful fables. For these peaks, higher than any man might ever guess or believe, are known to guard the terrible valleys of the )holes, whose shapes and outlines have often been suspected but never seen; and in one
He spoke of monstrous Kadath where it aches in the Cold Waste, forbidden to all men ever since the immemorial dreaming of certain hideous dreams there; and of the no less ominous icy desert Plateau of Leng, where horrible stone villages squatted about central balefires which flared continuously, while Leng's denizens danced grotesquely in flickering shadows to the rattle of strange bone instruments and the droning whine of cursed flutes. And seeing how Moreen shuddered at the tone his voice had taken and crept closer to him, he at once turned his attention to healthier regions of the dreamlands.
He spoke of the resplendent city of Celephais in the valley of Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills, whose myriad glittering minarets lie mirrored in the calm blue harbour; and of the galleys anchored there, with furled, multicoloured sails, beneath Mount Aran where the ginkgos sway in the breeze of the sea; and of the tinkling, bubbling Naraxa with its tiny wooden bridges, wandering its way oceanward; and of the city's onyx pavements and maze of curious streets and alleys behind mighty bronze gates. He made mention of sky-floating Serannian (which: had always reminded him of Crow's description of Elysia's sky-islands) high over the Cerenerian Sea, whose foaming billows ride up buoyant as clouds into the sky where Serannian floats on their ethereal essence.
He talked of Zak with its many-templed terraces, abode of forgotten dreams where many of his own youthful dreams and fancies lingered still, only gradually fading away; and Sona-Nyl, blessed land of fancy where men dream what they will, none of which might ever take on real material form; and the sea-spawned Basalt Pillars of the West where they rise from the furthest reaches of the Southern Sea, beyond which (so legend has it) lies a monstrous cataract where all the seas of the dreamlands pour abyssally away forever into awful inchoate voids. He mentioned Mount Ngranek's peak, and the great face graven in that mountain's gaunt side; and having spoken of Ngranek he could not help but mention the hideously thin and faceless, horned and barb-tailed bat-beings the night-gaunts — which ever guard that mysterious mountain's elder secrets.
Then, because he believed that despite Moreen's fears she should know the worst and not go into the dreamlands a total alien and unprepared, de Marigny hurriedly went onto tell of the Peaks of Throk, those needle-like pinnacles which are the subject of many of dream's most awful fables. For these peaks, higher than any man might ever guess or believe, are known to guard the terrible valleys of the )holes, whose shapes and outlines have often been suspected but never seen; and in one
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